WE resume our voyage on the sixth of January, but we leave a hostage
at Luxor as we did at Asioot. This is a sailor who became drunk and
turbulent last night on hasheesh, and was sent to the governor.
We found him this morning with a heavy chain round his neck and tied to
a stake in one corner of the court-yard of the house where the governor
has his office. I think he might have pulled up the stake and run away;
but I believe it is not considered right here for a prisoner to escape.
The common people are so subdued that they wilt, when authority puts its
heavy hand on them. Near the sailor was a mud-kennel into which he could
crawl if he liked. This is the jail of Luxor. Justice is summary here.
This sailor is confined without judge or jury and will be kept till he
refunds his advance wages, since he was discharged from the boat as a
dangerous man.
The sailors dread the lock-up, for they may be forced into the army as
the only way out of it; they would much prefer the stick. They are used
to the stick; four thousand years of Egyptians have been accustomed
to the stick. A beating they do not mind much, or at least are not
humiliated by it as another race would be. But neither the prospect of
the jail nor the stick will wean them from hasheesh, which is the curse
of Egypt.
We spread our sails to a light breeze and depart in company with two
other dahabeëhs, one English (the Philæ) and one American (the Dongela).
Africa and weeks of leisure and sunny skies are before us. We loiter
along in company, in friendly company one may say, now passing a boat
and now falling behind, like three ducks coquetting in a swift current.
We are none of us in a hurry, we are indifferent to progress, our minds
are calm and our worst passions not excited. We do not appear to be
going rapidly, I sometimes doubt if we are going forward at all, but it
gradually becomes apparent that we are in the midst of a race!
Everything in this world is relative. I can imagine a fearfully exciting
match of mud-turtles on a straight track. Think of the agony, prolonged,
that the owner of the slow turtle would suffer! We are evidently in for
it; and a race like this, that lasts all day, will tire out the hardiest
sportsman.
The Rip Van Winkle is the largest boat and happens to have the lead; but
the Philo, a very graceful, gay boat, is crawling up to us; the Dongola
also seems to feel a breeze that we have not. We want a strong wind—the
Rip Van Winkle does not wake up in a mild air. As we desire, it freshens
a little, the big sail swells, and the ripples are louder at the bow.
Unfortunately there is breeze enough for three, and the other vessels
shake themselves out like ducks about to fly. It is a pretty sight just
now; the spread of three great bird-wing sails, the long gaily-painted
cabins and decks, the sweeping yards and the national colors and
variegated streamers flying!
They are gaining on us; the Philae gets inside, and taking our wind, for
a moment, creeps ahead, and attempts to sheer across our bow to force us
into the swifter current; the Dongola sails in at the same time, and a
jam and collision appear inevitable. A storm of language bursts out
of each boat; men run to stern and bow, to ward off intruders or
to disengage an entangled spar; all the crew, sailors, reises, and
dragomans are in the most active vociferation. But the Philae. sails out
of the coil, the Dongola draws ahead at the risk of going into the bank,
and our crew seize the punt-poles and have active work to prevent going
fast on a sand-bar to leeward.
But the prosperity of the wicked is short. The wind falls flat.
Instantly our men are tumbling into the water and carrying the rope
ashore to track. The lines are all out, and the men are attempting to
haul us round a deep bend. The steersmen keep the head of the vessels
off shore, and the strain on the trackers is tremendous. The cables flop
along the bank and scrape over the shadoofs, raking down a stake now
and then, and bring out from their holes the half-naked, protesting
proprietors, who get angry and gesticulate,—as if they had anything to
do with our race!
The men cannot hold the cable any longer; one by one they are forced
to let go, at the risk of being drawn down the crumbling bank, and the
cable splashes into the water. The sailors run ahead and come down upon
a sand-spit; there are puffs of wind in our sail, and we appear to
have made a point, when the men wade on board and haul in the rope. The
Dongola is close upon us; the Philae has lost by keeping too far out in
the current. Oh, for a wind!
Instead of a wind, there is a bland smile in the quiet sky. Why, O
children, do you hasten? Have not Nile sailors been doing this for four
thousand years? The boats begin to yaw about. Poles are got out. We are
all in danger of going aground; we are all striving to get the inside
track at yonder point; we are in danger of collision; we are most of all
in danger of being left behind. The crews are crazy with excitement;
as they hurriedly walk the deck, rapidly shifting their poles in the
shallow water, calling upon Yàlësah in quicker and quicker respirations,
“Hâ Yâlësah,” “Hâ Yàlësah,” as they run to change the sail at the least
indication of a stray breeze, as they see first one dahabeëh and then
the other crawling ahead, the contest assumes a serious aspect, and
their cries are stronger and more barbaric.
The Philæ gets inside again and takes the bank. We are all tracking,
when we come to the point, beyond which is a deep bay. If we had wind
we should sail straight across; the distance round the bay is much
greater—but then we can track along the bank; there is deep water close
under the bank and there is deep water in mid-river. The Philæ stands
away into the river, barely holding its own in the light zephyr. The
Dongola tries to follow the Philæ, but swings round, and her crew take
to the poles. Our plan appears to be more brilliant. Our men take the
cable out upon a sand-bank in the stream and attempt to tow us along the
center channel. All goes well. We gain on the Philæ and pass it. We see
the Dongola behind, struggling in the shallows. But the sand-bank is
a failure. The men begin to go from it into deeper water; it is up to
their knees, it reaches our “drawers,” which we bought for the crew; it
comes to the waist, their shoulders are going under. It is useless; the
cable is let go, and the men rush back to the sand-bar. There they are.
Our cable is trailing down-stream; we have lost our crew, and the
wind is just coming up. While we are sending the sandal to rescue our
mariners, the Philae sails away, and the Dongola shows her stern.
The travelers on the three boats, during all this contest, are sitting
on the warm, sunny decks, with a pretence of books, opera-glasses in
hand; apparently regarding the scene with indifference, but no doubt,
underneath this mask, longing to “lick” the other boats.
After all, we come to Erment (which is eight miles from Luxor) not far
apart. The race is not to the swift. There is no swift on the Nile. But
I do not know how there could be a more exciting race of eight miles a
day!
At Erment is a large sugar-factory belonging to the Khedive; and a
governor lives here in a big house and harem. The house has an extensive
garden laid out by old Mohammed Ali, and a plantation of oranges, Yusef
Effendis, apples, apricots, peaches, lemons, pomegranates, and limes.
The plantation shows that fruit will grow on the Upper Nile, if one will
take the trouble to set out and water the trees. But we see none. The
high Nile here last September so completely washed out the garden that
we can get neither flowers nor vegetables. And some people like the
rapidly-grown watery vegetables that grow along the Nile.
Our dragoman wanted some of the good, unrefined loaf-sugar from the
factory here, and I went with him to see how business is transacted.
We had difficulty in finding any office or place of sale about the
establishment.
But a good-natured dwarf, who seemed to spring out of the ground on
our landing, led us through courts and amid dilapidated warehouses to a
gate, in which sat an Arab in mixed costume. Within the gate hung a
pair of steelyards, and on one side was a bench. The gate, the man, the
steelyards and the bench constituted an office. Beyond was an avenue,
having low enclosures on each side, that with broken pillars and walls
of brick looked very much like Pompeii; in a shallow bin was a great
heap of barley, thrashed, and safe and dry in the open air.
The indifferent man in the gate sent for a slow boy, who, in his own
time, came, bearing a key, a stick an inch square and a foot long, with
four short iron spikes stuck in one side near the end. He led us up
a dirty brick stairway outside a building, and inserting the key in
a wooden lock to match (both lock and key are unchanged since the
Pharaohs) let us into a long, low room, like an old sail-loft full of
dust, packages of sugar-paper and old account-books. When the shutters
were opened we found at one end a few papers of sugar, which we bought,
and our own sailor carried down to the steelyards. The indifferent man
condescended to weigh the sugar, and took the pay: but he lazily handed
the money to the boy, who sauntered off with it. Naturally, you
wouldn't trust that boy; but there was an indescribable sense of
the worthlessness of time and of money and of all trade, about this
transaction, that precluded the possibility of the smartness of theft.
The next day the race is resumed, with little wind and a good deal of
tracking; we pass the Dongola and are neck-and-neck with the Philæ till
afternoon, when we bid her good-bye; and yet not with unmixed pleasure.
It is a pleasure to pass a boat and leave her toiling after; but the
pleasure only lasts while she is in sight. If I had my way, we should
constantly overhaul boats and pass them, and so go up the stream in
continual triumph. It is only the cold consciousness of duty performed
that sustains us, when we have no spectators of our progress.
We go on serenely. Hailing a crossing ferry-boat, loaded with squatting,
turbaned tatterdemalion Arabs, the dragoman cries, “Salaam aleykoom.”
The reply is, “Salaam; peace be with you; may God meet you in the way;
may God receive you to himself.” The Old Testament style.
While we were loitering along by Mutâneh—where there is a sugar-factory,
and an irrigating steam-pump—trying to count the string of camels,
hundreds of them moving along the bank against the sunset—camels that
bring the cane to be ground—and our crew were eating supper, I am sorry
to say that the Philæ poled ahead of us, and went on to Esneh. But
something happened at Esneh.
It was dark when we arrived at that prosperous town, and, of course,
Abd-el-Atti, who would like to have us go blazing through Egypt like
Cambyses, sent up a rocket. Its fiery serpent tore the black night above
us, exploded in a hundred colored stars, and then dropped its stick into
the water. Splendid rockets! The only decent rockets to be had in Egypt
are those made by the government; and Abd-el-Atti was the only dragoman
who had been thoughtful enough to make interest with the authorities and
procure government rockets. Hence our proud position on the river. We
had no firman, and the Khedive did not pay our expenses, but the Viceroy
himself couldn't out-rocket us.
As soon as we had come to shore and tied up, an operation taking some
time in the darkness, we had a visit from the governor, a friend of our
dragoman; but this visit was urgent and scarcely friendly. An attempt
had been made to set the town on fire! A rocket from an arriving boat
had been thrown into the town, set fire to the straw on top of one of
the houses and—
“Did it spread?”
“No, but it might. Allah be praised, it was put out. But the town might
have been burned down. What a way is this, to go along the Nile firing
the towns at night?”
“'Twasn't our rocket. Ours exploded in the air and fell into the river.
Did the other boat, did the Philæ send up a rocket when she arrived?”
“Yes. There was another rocket.”
“Dat's it, dat's it,” says Abd-el-Atti. “Why you no go on board the
Philæ and not come here?” And then he added to us, as if struck by a new
idea, “Where the Philæ get dat rocket? I think he have no rocket before.
Not send any up Christmas in Asioot, not send any up in Luxor. I think
these very strange. Not so?”
“What kind of rocket was it, that burnt the town?” we ask the governor.
“I have it.” The governor ran to the cabin door and called. A servant
brought in the exploded missile. It was a large-sized rocket, like our
own; twice as large as the rockets that are not made by the government,
and which travelers usually carry.
“Seems like our stick,” cries Abd-el-Atti, getting excited. He examined
the sheath with great care. We all gathered round the cabin lamp to
look at the fatal barrel. It had a mark on it, something in Arabic.
Abd-el-Atti turned it sideways and upside down, in an effort to get at
the meaning of the writing.
“That is government; make 'em by the government; no doubt,” he says,
standing off and becoming solemn. “Dat rocket been stole. Looks like our
rocket.”
Abd-el-Atti flies out, and there is a commotion outside. “Who has been
stealing rockets and sell 'em to that dragoman?” Boxes are opened.
Rockets are brought in and compared. The exploded one has the same mark
as ours, it is the same size.
A new anxiety dawns upon Abd-el-Atti. What if the Philæ has government
rockets? Our distinction is then gone. No It can't be. “I know what
every dragoman do in Cairo. He can't get dese rocket. Nobody get 'em
dis year 'cept us.” Abd-el-Atti is for probing the affair to the bottom.
Perhaps the hasheesh-eating sailor we discharged at Luxor stole some
of our rockets and sold them, and thus they came into possession of the
dragoman of the Philæ.
The young governor, however, has had enough of it. He begins to see
a great deal of vexation to himself, and a row with an English and an
American dahabeëh and with natives besides. Let it drop, he says. The
governor sits on the divan smoking a cigar. He is accompanied by a Greek
friend, a merchant of the place. When the governor's cigar goes out, in
his distraction, the Greek takes it, and re-lights it, puffing it till
it is well enflamed, and then handing it again to the governor. This is
a custom of the East. The servant often “starts” the cigarette for his
master.
“Oh, let it go,” says the governor, appealing to us: “It is finish now.
It was no damage done.”
“But it might,” cries Abd-el-Atti, “it might burn the town,” taking now
the rôle which the governor had dropped.
“But you are not to blame. It is not you have done it.”
“Then why you come to me, why you come to us wid de rocket? Why you no
go to the Philo? Yes. You know that we, nobody else on the river got
government rockets. This government rocket—look the mark,” seizing the
exploded one and a new one, and bringing the ends of both so near the
lamp that we all fear an explosion. “There is something underhands
here.”
“But it's all right now.”
“How it's all right? Story go back to Cairo; Rip Van Winkle been gone
set fire to Esneh. Whose rockets? Government rockets. Nobody have
government rockets 'cept Abd-el-Atti.”
A terrific confab goes on in the cabin for nearly an hour between
the dragoman, the governor, and the Greek; a lively entertainment and
exhibition of character which we have no desire to curtail. The
governor is a young, bright, presentable fellow, in Frank dress, who for
liveliness of talk and gesture would pass for an Italian.
When the governor has departed, our reïs comes in and presents us a
high-toned “certificate” from the gentleman on board the Philo.—he has
learned from our reïs, steersman and some sailors (who are in a panic)
that they are all to be hauled before the governor and punished on
a charge of stealing rockets and selling them to his dragoman. He
certifies that he bought his own rockets in the Mooskee; that his
dragoman was with him when he bought them; and that our men are
innocent. The certificate further certifies that our conduct toward our
crew is unjustifiable and an unheard of cruelty!
Here was a casus belli! Foreign powers had intervened. The right of
search and seizure was again asserted; the war of 1812 was about to be
renewed. Our cruelty unheard of? We should think so. All the rest of
it was unheard of also. We hadn't the slightest intention of punishing
anybody or hauling anybody before the governor. When Abd-el-Atti hears
the certificate, he shakes his head:—
“Buy 'em like this in the Mooskee? Not be. Not find government rockets
in any shop in the Mooskee. Something underhands by that dragoman!”
Not wishing to light the flames of war in Africa, we immediately
took servants and lanterns and called on the English Man-of-War. The
Man-of-War had gone to bed. It was nine o'clock.
“What for he send a certificate and go to bed?” Abd-el-Atti wants to
know. “I not like the looks of it.” He began to be suspicious of all the
world.
In the morning the gentleman returned our call. He did not know or care
whose rocket set fire to the town. Couldn't hurt these towns much to
burn them; small loss if all were burned. The governor had called on him
to say that no damage was done. Our dragoman had, however, no right to
accuse his of buying stolen rockets. His were bought in Cairo, etc.,
etc. And the matter dropped amicably and without bloodshed. But
Abd-el-Atti's suspicions widened as he thought it over:—
“What for de Governor come to me? What for he not go to dat boat what
fire de rocket? What for de Governor come been call on me wid a rocket?
The Governor never come been call on me wid a rocket before!”
It is customary for all boats which are going above the first cataract
to stop at Esneh twenty-four hours to bake bread for the crew;
frequently they are detained longer, for the wheat has to be bought,
ground in one of the little ox-power mills, mixed and baked; and the
crew hire a mill and oven for the time being and perform the labor.
We had sent sailors ahead to bake the bread, and it was ready in the
morning; but we stayed over., according to immemorial custom. The
sailors are entitled to a holiday, and they like to take it where there
are plenty of coffee-houses and a large colony of Ghawazee girls.
Esneh is not a bad specimen of an Egyptian town. There is a temple here,
of which only the magnificent portico has been excavated; the remainder
lies under the town. We descend some thirty feet to get to the floor
of the portico,—to such a depth has it been covered. And it is a modern
temple, after all, of the period of the Roman occupation. We find here
the cartouches of the Cæsars. The columns are elegant and covered with
very good sculpture; each of the twenty-five has a different capital,
and some are developed into a hint of the Corinthian and the composite.
The rigid constraints of the Egyptian art are beginning to give way.
The work in the period of the Romans differs much from the ancient; it
is less simple, more ornamented and debased. The hieroglyphics are not
so carefully and nicely cut. The figures are not so free in drawing, and
not so good as the old, except that they show more anatomical knowledge,
and begin to exhibit a little thought of perspective. The later artists
attempt to work out more details in the figure, to show muscles and
various members in more particularity. Some of the forms and faces have
much beauty, but most of them declare a decline of art, or perhaps an
attempt to reconcile the old style with new knowledge, and consequent
failure.
We called on the governor. He was absent at the mosque, but his servant
gave us coffee. The Oriental magnificence of the gubernatorial residence
would impress the most faithless traveler. The entrance was through a
yard that would be a fair hen-yard (for common fowl) at home, and the
small apartment into which we were shown might serve for a stable; but
it had a divan, some carpets and chairs, and three small windows. Its
roof was flat, made of rough split palm-trees covered with palm-leaves.
The governor's lady lives somewhere in the rear of this apartment of the
ruler, in a low mud-house, of which we saw the outside only.
Passing near the government house, we stopped in to see the new levy of
soldiers, which amounts to some four hundred from this province. Men are
taken between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, and although less
than three per cent, of those liable are seized, the draft makes a
tremendous excitement all along the river. In some places the bazaars
are closed and there is a general panic as if pestilence had broken out.
Outside the government house, and by the river bank, are women,
squatting in the sand, black figures of woe and dirt, bewailing their
relations taken away. In one mud-hovel there is so much howling and
vocal grief that we think at first a funeral is in progress. We are
permitted to look into the lock-up where the recruits are detained
waiting transportation down the river. A hundred or two fellaheen, of
the average as to nakedness and squalor of raiment, are crowded into a
long room with a dirt floor, and among them are many with heavy chains
on their ankles. These latter are murderers and thieves, awaiting trial
or further punishment. It is in fact the jail, and the soldiers are
forced into this companionship until their departure. One would say this
is a bad nursery for patriots.
The court of justice is in the anteroom of this prison; and the two
ought to be near together. The Kadi, or judge, sits cross-legged on the
ground, and others squat around him, among them a scribe. When we enter,
we are given seats on a mat near the judge, and offered coffee and
pipes. This is something like a court of justice, sociable and friendly.
It is impossible to tell who is prisoner, who are witnesses, and who are
spectators. All are talking together, the prisoner (who is pointed out)
louder than any other, the spectators all joining in with the witnesses.
The prisoner is allowed to “talk back,” which must be a satisfaction
to him. When the hubbub subsides, the judge pronounces sentence; and
probably he does as well as an ordinary jury.
The remainder of this town is not sightly. In fact I do not suppose that
six thousand people could live in one dirtier, dustier, of more wretched
houses; rows of unclean, shriveled women, with unclean babies, their
eyes plastered with flies, sitting along the lanes called streets;
plenty of men and boys in no better case as to clothing; but the men are
physically superior to the women. In fact we see no comely women except
the Ghawazees. Upon the provisions, the grain, the sweet-cakes exposed
for sale on the ground, flies settle so that all look black.
Not more palaces and sugar-mills, O! Khedive, will save this Egypt, but
some plan that will lift these women out of dirt and ignorance!
Our next run is to Assouan. Let us sketch it rapidly, and indicate by a
touch the panorama it unrolled for us.
We are under way at daylight, leaving our two companions of the race
asleep. We go on with a good wind, and by lovely sloping banks of green;
banks that have occasionally a New England-river aspect; but palm-trees
are behind them, and beyond are uneven mountain ranges, the crumbling
limestone of which is so rosy in the sun. The wind freshens, and we spin
along five miles an hour. The other boats have started, but they have a
stern chase, and we lose them round a bend.
The atmosphere is delicious, a little under a summer heat, so that it
is pleasant to sit in the sun; we seem to fly, with our great wings of
sails, by the lovely shores. An idle man could desire nothing more. The
crew are cutting up the bread baked yesterday and spreading it on the
deck to dry. They prefer this to bread made of bolted wheat; and it
would be very good, if it were not heavy and sour, and dirty to look at,
and somewhat gritty to the teeth.
In the afternoon we pass the new, the Roman, and the old town of El Kab,
back of which are the famous grottoes of Eilethyas with their pictures
of domestic and agricultural life. We go on famously, leaving
Edfoo behind, to the tune of five miles an hour; and, later, we can
distinguish the top of the sail of the Philæ at least ten miles behind.
Before dark we are abreast of the sandstone quarries of Silsilis, the
most wonderful in the world, and the river is swift, narrow and may be
rocky. We have accomplished fifty-seven miles since morning, and wishing
to make a day's run that shall astonish Egypt, we keep on in the dark.
The wind increases, and in the midst of our career we go aground. We tug
and push and splash, however, get off the sand, and scud along again.
In a few moments something happens. There is a thump and a lurch, and
bedlam breaks loose on deck.
We have gone hard on the sand. The wind is blowing almost a gale, and
in the shadow of these hills the night is black. Our calm steersman lets
the boat swing right about, facing down-stream, the sail jibes, and we
are in great peril of upsetting, or carrying away yard, mast and all.
The hubbub is something indescribable. The sailors are ordered aloft
to take in the sail. They fear to do it. To venture out upon that long
slender yard, which is foul and threatens to snap every moment, the
wind whipping the loose sail, is no easy or safe task. The yelling that
ensues would astonish the regular service. Reis and sailors are all
screaming together, and above all can be heard the storming of the
dragoman, who is most alive to the danger, his voice broken with
excitement and passion. The crew are crouching about the mast, in
terror, calling upon Mohammed. The reïs is muttering to the Prophet,
in the midst of his entreaty. Abd-el-Atti is rapidly telling his beads,
while he raves. At last Ahmed springs up the rigging, and the others,
induced by shame and the butt-end of a hand-spike, follow him, and are
driven out along the shaking yard. Amid intense anxiety and with extreme
difficulty, the sail is furled and we lie there, aground, with an anchor
out, the wind blowing hard and the waves pounding us, as if we were
making head against a gale at sea. A dark and wildish night it is, and a
lonesome place, the rocky shores dimly seen; but there is starlight.
We should prefer to be tied to the bank, sheltered from the wind rather
than lie swinging and pounding here. However, it shows us the Nile in
a new aspect. And another good comes out of the adventure. Ahmed, who
saved the boat, gets a new suit of clothes. Nobody in Egypt needed one
more. A suit of clothes is a blue cotton gown.
The following morning (Sunday) is cold, but we are off early as if
nothing had happened, and run rapidly against the current—or the current
against us, which produces the impression of going fast. The river is
narrower, the mountains come closer to the shores, and there is, on
either side, only a scant strip of vegetation. Egypt, along here, is
really only three or four rods wide. The desert sands drift down to the
very shores, and the desert hills, broken, jagged, are savage walls of
enclosure.
The Nile no doubt once rose annually and covered these now bleached
wastes, and made them fruitful. But that was long ago. At Silsilis,
below here, where the great quarries are, there was once a rocky
barrier, probably a fall, which set the Nile back, raising its level
from here to Assouan. In some convulsion this was carried away. When?
There is some evidence on this point at hand. By ten o'clock we have
rounded a long bend, and come to the temples of Kom Ombos, their great
columns conspicuous on a hill close to the river. They are rather fine
structures, for the Ptolemies. One of them stands upon foundations of
an ancient edifice built by Thothmes I. (eighteenth dynasty); and these
foundations rest upon alluvial deposit. Consequently the lowering of the
Nile above Silsilis, probably by breaking through the rock-dam there,
was before the time of Thothmes I. The Nile has never risen to the
temple site since. These striking ruins are, however, destined to be
swept away; opposite the bend where they stand a large sand-island is
forming, and every hour the soil is washing from under them. Upon this
sand-island this morning are flocks of birds, sunning themselves, and
bevies of sand-grouse take wing at our approach. A crocodile also lifts
his shoulders and lunges into the water, when we get near enough to see
his ugly scales with the glass.
As we pass the desolate Kom Ombos, a solitary figure emerges from the
ruins and comes down the slope of the sand-hill, with turban flowing,
ragged cotton robe, and a long staff; he runs along the sandy shore and
then turns away into the desert, like a fleeing Cain, probably with no
idea that it is Sunday, and that the “first bell” is about to ring in
Christian countries.
The morning air is a little too sharp for idle comfort, although we
can sit in the sun on deck and read. This west wind coming from the
mountains of the desert brings always cold weather, even in Nubia.
Above Kom Ombos we come to a little village in a palm-grove—a scene out
of the depths of Africa,—such as you have often seen in pictures—which
is the theatre of an extraordinary commotion. There is enacted before
us in dumb-show something like a pantomime in a play-house; but this
is even more remote and enigmatical than that, and has in it all the
elements of a picture of savagery. In the interior of Africa are they
not all children, and do they not spend their time in petty quarreling
and fighting?
On the beach below the village is moored a trading vessel, loaded with
ivory, cinnamon, and gum-arabic, and manned by Nubians, black as coals.
People are climbing into this boat and jumping out of it, splashing in
the water, in a state of great excitement; people are running along
the shore, shouting and gesticulating wildly, flourishing long staves;
parties are chasing each other, and whacking their sticks together; and
a black fellow, in a black gown and white shoes, is chasing others with
an uplifted drawn sword. It looks like war or revolution, picturesque
war in the bright sun on the yellow sand, with all attention to
disposition of raiment and color and striking attitudes. There are
hurryings to and fro, incessant clamors of noise and shoutings and
blows of cudgels; some are running away, and some are climbing into palm
trees, but we notice that no one is hit by cane or sword. Neither is
anybody taken into custody, though there is a great show of arresting
somebody. It is a very animated encounter, and I am glad that we do not
understand it.
Sakiyas increase in number along the bank, taking the place of the
shadoof, and we are never out of hearing of their doleful songs. Labor
here is not hurried. I saw five men digging a well in the bank—into
which the Sakiya buckets dip; that is, there were four, stripped,
coal-black slaves from Soudan superintended by an Arab. One man was
picking up the dirt with a pick-axe hoe. Three others were scraping out
the dirt with a contrivance that would make a lazy man laugh;—one fellow
held the long handle of a small scraper, fastened on like a shovel;
to this upright scraper two ropes were attached which the two others
pulled, indolently, thus gradually scraping the dirt out of the hole a
spoonful at a time. One man with a shovel would have thrown it out
four times as fast. But why should it be thrown out in a hurry? Must we
always intrude our haste into this land of eternal leisure?
By afternoon, the wind falls, and we loiter along. The desert apparently
comes close to the river on each side. On one bank are a hundred camels,
attended by a few men and boys, browsing on the coarse tufts of grass
and the scraggy bushes; the hard surroundings suit the ungainly animals.
It is such pictures of a life, differing in all respects from ours, that
we come to see. A little boat with a tattered sail is towed along close
to the bank by half a dozen ragged Nubians, who sing a not unmelodious
refrain as they walk and pull,—better at any rate than the groan of the
sakiyas.
There is everywhere a sort of Sabbath calm—a common thing here, no
doubt, and of great antiquity; and yet, you would not say that the
people are under any deep religious impression.
As we advance the scenery becomes more Nubian, the river narrower and
apparently smaller, when it should seem larger. This phenomenon of a
river having more and more water as we ascend, is one that we cannot
get accustomed to. The Nile, having no affluents, loses, of course,
continually by evaporation by canals, and the constant drain on it for
irrigation. No wonder the Egyptians were moved by its mystery no less
than by its beneficence to a sort of worship of it.
The rocks are changing their character; granite begins to appear amid
the limestone and sandstone. Along here, seven or eight miles below
Assouan, there is no vegetation in sight from the boat, except strips of
thrifty palm-trees, but there must be soil beyond, for the sakiyas are
always creaking. The character of the population is changed also; above
Kom Ombos it is mostly Nubian—who are to the Fellaheen as granite is to
sandstone. The Nubian hills lift up their pyramidal forms in the south,
and we seem to be getting into real Africa.
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