WHETHER we go north or south, or wait for some wandering, unemployed
wind to take us round the next bend, it is all the same to us. We have
ceased to care much for time, and I think we shall adopt the Assyrian
system of reckoning.
The period of the precession of the equinoxes was regarded as one day of
the life of the universe; and this day equals 43,200 of our years. This
day, of 43,200 years, the Assyrians divided into twelve cosmic hours or
“sars,” each one of 3,600 years; each of these hours into six “ners,”
of 600 years; and the “ner” into ten “sosses” or cosmic minutes, of 600
years. And thus, as we reckon sixty seconds to a minute, our ordinary
year was a second of the great chronological period. What then is the
value of a mere second of time? What if we do lie half a day at this
bank, in the sun, waiting for a lazy breeze? There certainly is time
enough, for we seem to have lived a cosmic hour since we landed in
Egypt.
One sees here what an exaggerated importance we are accustomed to attach
to the exact measurement of time. We constantly compare our watches, and
are anxious that they should not gain or lose a second. A person feels
his own importance somehow increased if he owns an accurate watch. There
is nothing that a man resents more than the disparagement of his watch.
(It occurs to me, by the way, that the superior attractiveness of women,
that quality of repose and rest which the world finds in them, springs
from the same amiable laisser aller that suffers their watches never
to be correct. When the day comes that women's watches keep time, there
will be no peace in this world). When two men meet, one of the most
frequent interchanges of courtesies is to compare watches; certainly, if
the question of time is raised, as it is sure to be shortly among a knot
of men with us, every one pulls out his watch, and comparison is made.
We are, in fact, the slaves of time and of fixed times. We think it a
great loss and misfortune to be without the correct time; and if we are
away from the town-clock and the noon-gun, in some country place, we
importune the city stranger, who appears to have a good watch, for the
time; or we lie in wait for the magnificent conductor of the railway
express, who always has the air of getting the promptest time from
headquarters.
Here in Egypt we see how unnatural and unnecessary this anxiety is. Why
should we care to know the exact time? It is 12 o'clock, Arab time,
at sunset, and that shifts every evening, in order to wean us from the
rigidity of iron habits. Time is flexible, it waits on our moods and
we are not slaves to its accuracy. Watches here never agree, and no one
cares whether they do or not. My own, which was formerly as punctual
as the stars in their courses, loses on the Nile a half hour or three
quarters of an hour a day (speaking in our arbitrary, artificial
manner); so that, if I were good at figures, I could cypher out the
length of time, which would suffice by the loss of time by my watch, to
set me back into the age of Thothmes III.—a very good age to be in. We
are living now by great cosmic periods, and have little care for minute
divisions of time.
This morning we are at Balias, no one knows how, for we anchored three
times in the night. At Balias are made the big earthen jars which the
women carry on their heads, and which are sent from here the length
of Egypt. Immense numbers of them are stacked upon the banks, and
boat-loads of them are waiting for the wind. Rafts of these jars are
made and floated down to the Delta; a frail structure, one would say, in
the swift and shallow Nile, but below this place there are neither rocks
in the stream nor stones on the shore.
The sunrise is magnificent, opening a cloudless day, a day of hot sun,
in which the wheat on the banks and under the palm-groves, now knee-high
and a vivid green, sparkles as if it had dew on it. At night there are
colors of salmon and rose in the sky, and on the water; and the end of
the mountain, where Thebes lies, takes a hue of greyish or pearly pink.
Thebes! And we are really coming to Thebes! It is fit that it should lie
in such a bath of color. Very near to-night seems that great limestone
ledge in which the Thebans entombed their dead; but it is by the winding
river thirty miles distant.
The last day of the year 1874 finds us lounging about in this pleasant
Africa, very much after the leisurely manner of an ancient maritime
expedition, the sailors of which spent most of their time in marauding
on shore, watching for auguries, and sailing a little when the deities
favored. The attempts, the failures, the mismanagements of the day add
not a little to your entertainment on the Nile.
In the morning a light breeze springs up and we are slowly crawling
forward, when the wind expires, and we come to anchor in mid-stream. The
Nile here is wide and glassy, but it is swift, and full of eddies that
make this part of the river exceedingly difficult of navigation. We are
too far from the shore for tracking, and another resource is tried. The
sandal is sent ahead with an anchor and a cable, the intention being
to drop the anchor and then by the cable pull up to it, and repeat the
process until we get beyond these eddies and treacherous sand-bars.
Of course the sailors in the sandal, who never think of two things
at the same time, miscalculate the distance, and after they drop the
anchor, have not rope enough to get back to the dahabeëh. There they
are, just above us, and just out of reach, in a most helpless condition,
but quite resigned to it. After various futile experiments they make a
line with their tracking-cords and float an oar to us, and we send them
rope to lengthen their cable. Nearly an hour is consumed in this. When
the cable is attached, the crew begin slowly to haul it in through the
pullies, walking the short deck in a round and singing a chorus of, “O
Mohammed” to some catch-word or phrase of the leader. They like this, it
is the kind of work that boys prefer, a sort of frolic:—
“Allah, Allah!”
And in response,
“O Mohammed!”
“God forgive us!”
“O Mohammed!”
“God is most great!”
“O Mohammed!”
“El Hoseyn!”
“O Mohammed!”
And so they go round as hilarious as if they played at leapfrog, with
no limit of noise and shouting. They cannot haul a rope or pull an oar
without this vocal expression. When the anchor is reached it is time for
the crew to eat dinner.
We make not more than a mile all day, with hard work, but we reach the
shore. We have been two days in this broad, beautiful bend of the river,
surrounded by luxuriant fields and palm-groves, the picture framed in
rosy mountains of limestone, which glow in the clear sunshine. It is a
becalmment in an enchanted place, out of which there seems to be no way,
and if there were we are losing the desire to go. At night, as we lie at
the bank, a row of ragged fellaheen line the high shore, like buzzards,
looking down on us. There is something admirable in their patience, the
only virtue they seem to practice.
Later, Abd-el-Atti is thrown into a great excitement upon learning
that this is the last day of the year. He had set his heart on being at
Luxor, and celebrating the New Year with a grand illumination and burst
of fire-works. If he had his way we should go blazing up the river in
a perpetual fizz of pyrotechnic glory. At Luxor especially, where many
boats are usually gathered, and which is for many the end of the voyage,
the dragomans like to outshine each other in display. This is the
fashionable season at Thebes, and the harvest-time of its merchants of
antiquities; entertainments are given on shore, boats are illuminated,
and there is a general rivalry in gaiety. Not to be in Thebes on New
Year's is a misfortune. Something must be done. The Sheykh of the
village of Tookh is sent for, in the hope that he can help us round
the bend. The Sheykh comes, and sits on the deck and smokes. Orion
also comes up the eastern sky, like a conqueror, blazing amid a blazing
heaven. But we don't stir.
Upon the bank sits the guard of men from the village, to protect us;
the sight of the ragamuffins grouped round their lanterns is very
picturesque. Whenever we tie up at night we are obliged to procure from
the Sheykh of the nearest village a guard to keep thieves from robbing
us, for the thieves are not only numerous but expert all along the Nile.
No wonder. They have to steal their own crops, in order to get a fair
share of the produce of the land they cultivate under the exactions of
the government. The Sheykh would not dare to refuse the guard asked for.
The office of Sheykh is still hereditary from father to eldest son, and
the Sheykh has authority over his own village, according to the ancient
custom, but he is subject to a Bey, set by the government to rule a
district.
New Year's morning is bright, sparkling, cloudless. When I look from
my window early, the same row of buzzards sit on the high bank, looking
down upon our deck and peering into our windows. Brown, ragged heaps of
humanity; I suppose they are human. One of the youngsters makes mouths
and faces at me; and, no doubt, despises us, as dogs and unbelievers.
Behold our critic:—he has on a single coarse brown garment, through
which his tawny skin shows in spots, and he squats in the sand.
What can come out of such a people? Their ignorance exceeds their
poverty; and they appear to own nothing save a single garment. They look
not ill-fed, but ill-conditioned. And the country is skinned; all the
cattle, the turkeys, the chickens are lean. The fatness of the land goes
elsewhere.
In what contrast are these people, in situation, in habits, in every
thought, to the farmers of America. This Nile valley is in effect cut
off from the world; nothing of what we call news enters it, no news,
or book, no information of other countries, nor of any thought, or
progress, or occurrences.
These people have not, in fact, the least conception of what the world
is; they know no more of geography than they do of history. They think
the world is flat, with an ocean of water round it. Mecca is the center.
It is a religious necessity that the world should be flat in order to
have Mecca its center. All Moslems believe that it is flat, as a matter
of faith, though a few intelligent men know better.
These people, as I say, do not know anything, as we estimate knowledge.
And yet these watchmen and the group on the bank talked all night
long; their tongues were racing incessantly, and it appeared to be
conversation and not monologue or narration. What could they have been
talking about? Is talk in the inverse ratio of knowledge, and do we lose
the power or love for mere talk, as we read and are informed?
These people, however, know the news of the river. There is a sort of
freemasonry of communication by which whatever occurs is flashed up and
down both banks. They know all about the boats and who are on them, and
the name of the dragomans, and hear of all the accidents and disasters.
There was an American this year on the river, by the name of Smith—not
that I class the coming of Smith as a disaster—who made the voyage on a
steamboat. He did not care much about temples or hieroglyphics, and
he sought to purchase no antiquities. He took his enjoyment in another
indulgence. Having changed some of his pounds sterling into copper
paras, he brought bags of this money with him. When the boat stopped at
a town, Smith did not go ashore. He stood on deck and flung his coppers
with a free hand at the group of idlers he was sure to find there. But
Smith combined amusement with his benevolence, by throwing his largesse
into the sand and into the edge of the river, where the recipients of
it would have to fight and scramble and dive for what they got. When he
cast a handful, there was always a tremendous scrimmage, a rolling of
body over body, a rending of garments, and a tumbling into the river.
This feat not only amused Smith, but it made him the most popular man
on the river. Fast as the steamer went, his fame ran before him, and
at every landing there was sure to be a waiting crowd, calling, “Smit,
Smit.” There has been no one in Egypt since Cambyses who has made so
much stir as Smit.
I should not like to convey the idea that the inhabitants here are
stupid; far from it; they are only ignorant, and oppressed by long
misgovernment. There is no inducement for any one to do more than make
a living. The people have sharp countenances, they are lively, keen at a
bargain, and, as we said, many of them expert thieves. They are full of
deceit and cunning, and their affability is unfailing. Both vices and
good qualities are products not of savagery, but of a civilization worn
old and threadbare. The Eastern civilization generally is only one of
manners, and I suspect that of the old Egyptian was no more.
These people may or may not have a drop of the ancient Egyptian blood in
them; they may be no more like the Egyptians of the time of the Pharaohs
than the present European Jews are like the Jews of Judea in Herod's
time; but it is evident that, in all the changes in the occupants of the
Nile valley, there has been a certain continuity of habits, of modes of
life, a holding to ancient traditions; the relation of men to the soil
is little changed. The Biblical patriarchs, fathers of nomadic tribes,
have their best representatives to-day, in mode of life and even in
poetical and highly figurative speech, not in Israelite bankers in
London nor in Israelite beggars in Jerusalem, but in the Bedaween of the
desert. And I think the patient and sharp-witted, but never educated,
Egyptians of old times are not badly represented by the present settlers
in the Nile valley.
There are ages of hereditary strength in the limbs of the Egyptian
women, who were here, carrying these big water-jars, before Menes turned
the course of the Nile at Memphis. I saw one to-day sit down on her
heels before a full jar that could not weigh less than a hundred pounds,
lift it to her head with her hands, and then rise straight up with it,
as if the muscles of her legs were steel. The jars may be heavier than
I said, for I find a full one not easy to lift, and I never saw an
Egyptian man touch one.
We go on towards Thebes slowly; though the river is not swifter here
than elsewhere, we have the feeling that we are pulling up-hill. We come
in the afternoon to Negâdeh, and into one of the prettiest scenes on the
Nile. The houses of the old town are all topped with pigeon-towers, and
thousands of these birds are circling about the palm-groves or swooping
in large flocks along the shore. The pigeons seem never to be slain
by the inhabitants, but are kept for the sake of the fertilizer they
furnish. It is the correct thing to build a second story to your house
for a deposit of this kind. The inhabitants here are nearly all Copts,
but we see a Roman Catholic church with its cross; and a large wooden
cross stands in the midst of the village—a singular sight in a Moslem
country.
A large barge lies here waiting for a steamboat to tow it to Keneh. It
is crowded, packed solidly, with young fellows who have been conscripted
for the army, so that it looks like a floating hulk covered by a
gigantic swarm of black bees. And they are all buzzing in a continuous
hum, as if the queen bee had not arrived. On the shore are circles of
women, seated in the sand, wailing and mourning as if for the dead—the
mothers and wives of the men who have just been seized for the service
of their country. We all respect grief, and female grief above all; but
these women enter into grief as if it were a pleasure, and appear to
enjoy it. If the son of one of the women in the village is conscripted,
all the women join in with her in mourning.
I presume there are many hard cases of separation, and that there is
real grief enough in the scene before us. The expression of it certainly
is not wanting; relays of women relieve those who have wailed long
enough; and I see a little clay hut into which the women go, I have no
doubt for refreshments, and from which issues a burst of sorrow every
time the door opens.
Yet I suppose that there is no doubt that the conscription (much as
I hate the trade of the soldier) is a good thing for the boys and men
drafted, and for Egypt. Shakirr Pasha told us that this is the first
conscription in fifteen years, and that it does not take more than two
per cent, of the men liable to military duty—one or two from a village.
These lumpish and ignorant louts are put for the first time in their
lives under discipline, are taught to obey; they learn to read and
write, and those who show aptness and brightness have an opportunity, in
the technical education organized by General Stone, to become something
more than common soldiers. When these men have served their time and
return to their villages, they will bring with them some ideas of the
world and some habits of discipline and subordination. It is probably
the speediest way, this conscription, by which the dull cloddishness
of Egypt can be broken up. I suppose that in time we shall discover
something better, but now the harsh discipline of the military service
is often the path by which a nation emerges into a useful career.
Leaving this scene of a woe over which it is easy to be
philosophical—the raw recruits, in good spirits, munching black bread
on the barge while the women howl on shore—we celebrate the night of the
New Year by sailing on, till presently the breeze fails us, when it is
dark; the sailors get out the small anchor forward, and the steersman
calmly lets the sail jibe, and there is a shock, a prospect of
shipwreck, and a great tumult, everybody commanding, and no one doing
anything to prevent the boat capsizing or stranding. It is exactly like
boys' play, but at length we get out of the tangle, and go on, Heaven
knows how, with much pushing and hauling, and calling upon “Allah” and
“Mohammed.”
No. We are not going on, but fast to the bottom, near the shore.
In the morning we are again tracking with an occasional puff of wind,
and not more than ten miles from Luxor. We can, however, outwalk the
boat; and we find the country very attractive and surprisingly rich;
the great fields of wheat, growing rank, testify to the fertility of
the soil, and when the fields are dotted with palm-trees the picture is
beautiful.
It is a scene of wide cultivation, teeming with an easy, ragged, and
abundant life. The doleful sakiyas are creaking in their ceaseless
labor; frequent mud-villages dot with brown the green expanse, villages
abounding in yellow dogs and coffee-colored babies; men are working in
the fields, directing the irrigating streams, digging holes for melons
and small vegetables, and plowing. The plow is simply the iron-pointed
stick that has been used so long, and it scratches the ground five or
six inches deep. The effort of the government to make the peasants use
a modern plow, in the Delta, failed. Besides the wheat, we find large
cotton-fields, the plant in yellow blossoms, and also ripening, and
sugar-cane. With anything like systematic, intelligent agriculture, what
harvests this land would yield.
“Good morning!”
The words were English, the speaker was one of two eager Arabs, who had
suddenly appeared at our side.
“Good morning. O, yes. Me guide Goorna.”
“What is Goorna?”
“Yes. Temp de Goorna. Come bime by.”
“What is Goorna?”
“Plenty. I go you. You want buy any antiques? Come bime by.”
“Do you live in Goorna?”
“All same. Memnonium, Goorna, I show all gentlemens. Me guide. Antiques!
O plenty. Come bime by.”
Come Bime By's comrade, an older man, loped along by his side, unable to
join in this intelligent conversation, but it turned out that he was the
real guide, and all the better in that he made no pretence of speaking
any English.
“Can you get us a mummy, a real one, in the original package, that
hasn't been opened?”
“You like. Come plenty mummy. Used be. Not now. You like, I get. Come
bime by, bookra.”
We are in fact on the threshold of great Thebes. These are two of the
prowlers among its sepulchres, who have spied our dahabeeh approaching
from the rocks above the plain, and have come to prey on us. They prey
equally upon the living and the dead, but only upon the dead for the
benefit of the living. They try to supply the demand which we tourists
create. They might themselves be content to dwell in the minor tombs,
in the plain, out of which the dead were long ago ejected; but
Egyptologists have set them the example and taught them the profit of
digging. If these honest fellows cannot always find the ancient scarabæi
and the vases we want, they manufacture very good imitations of them. So
that their industry is not altogether so ghastly as it may appear.
We are at the north end of the vast plain upon which Thebes stood; and
in the afternoon we land, and go to visit the northernmost ruin on
the west bank, the Temple of Koorneh (Goorneh), a comparatively modern
structure, begun by Sethi I., a great warrior and conqueror of the
nineteenth dynasty, before the birth of Moses.
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