IN PASSING the First Cataract of the Nile we pass an ancient boundary
line; we go from the Egypt of old to the Ethiopia of old; we go from
the Egypt proper of to-day, into Nubia. We find a different country, a
different river; the people are of another race; they have a different
language. We have left the mild, lazy, gentle fellaheen—a mixed lot, but
in general of Arabic blood—and come to Barâbra, whose district extends
from Philæ to the Second Cataract, a freer, manlier, sturdier people
altogether. There are two tribes of them, the Kendos and the Nooba; each
has its own language.
Philæ was always the real boundary line, though the Pharaohs pushed
their frontier now and again, down towards the Equator, and built
temples and set up their images, as at Aboo Simbel, as at Samneh, and
raked the south land for slaves and ivory, concubines and gold. But the
Ethiopians turned the tables now and again, and conquered Egypt, and
reigned in the palaces of the Pharaohs, taking that title even, and
making their names dreaded as far as Judea and Assyria.
The Ethiopians were cousins indeed of the old Egyptians, and of the
Canaanites, for they were descendants of Cush, as the Egyptians were of
Mizriam, and the Canaanites were of Canaan; three of the sons of Ham.
The Cushites, or Ethiops, although so much withdrawn from the theater
of history, have done their share of fighting—the main business of man
hitherto. Besides quarrels with their own brethren, they had often the
attentions of the two chief descendants of Shem,—the Jews and the Arabs;
and after Mohammed's coming, the Arabs descended into Nubia and forced
the inhabitants into their religion at the point of the sword. Even
the sons of Japhet must have their crack at these children of the
“Sun-burned.” It was a Roman prefect who, to avenge an attack on Svene
by a warlike woman, penetrated as far south as El Berkel (of the present
day), and overthrew Candace the Queen of the Ethiopians in Napata, her
capital; the large city, also called Meroë, of which Herodotus heard
such wonders.
Beyond Ethiopia lies the vast, black cloud of Negroland. These negroes,
with the crisp, woolly hair, did not descend from anybody, according to
the last reports; neither from Shem, Ham nor Japhet. They have no part
in the royal house of Noah. They are left out in the heat. They are
the puzzle of ethnologists, the mystery of mankind. They are the real
aristocracy of the world, their origin being lost in the twilight of
time; no one else can trace his descent so far back and come to nothing.
M. Lenormant says the black races have no tradition of the Deluge.
They appear to have been passed over altogether, then. Where were they
hidden? When we first know Central Africa they are there. Where did
they come from? The great effort of ethnologists is to get them dry-shod
round the Deluge, since derivation from Noah is denied them. History
has no information how they came into Africa. It seems to me that, in
history, whenever we hear of the occupation of a new land, there is
found in it a primitive race, to be driven out or subdued. The country
of the primitive negro is the only one that has never invited the
occupation of a more powerful race. But the negro blood, by means of
slavery, has been extensively distributed throughout the Eastern world.
These reflections did not occur to us the morning we left Philæ. It was
too early. In fact, the sun was just gilding “Pharaoh's bed,” as the
beautiful little Ptolemaic temple is called, when we spread sail and, in
the shadow of the broken crags and savage rocks, began to glide out of
the jaws of this wild pass. At early morning everything has the air of
adventure. It was as if we were discoverers, about to come into a new
African kingdom at each turn in the swift stream.
One must see, he carnot imagine, the havoc and destruction hereabout,
the grotesque and gigantic fragments of rock, the islands of rock, the
precipices of rock, made by the torrent when it broke through here. One
of these islands is Biggeh—all rocks, not enough soft spot on it to set
a hen. The rocks are piled up into the blue sky; from their summit we
get the best view of Philæ—the jewel set in this rim of stone.
Above Philæ we pass the tomb of a holy man, high on the hill, and
underneath it, clinging to the slope, the oldest mosque in Nubia, the
Mosque of Belal, falling now into ruin, but the minaret shows in color
no sign of great age. How should it in this climate, where you might
leave a pair of white gloves upon the rocks for a year, and expect to
find them unsoiled.
“How old do you suppose that mosque is Abd-el-Atti?”
“I tink about twelve hundred years old. Him been built by the Friends of
our prophet when they come up here to make the people believe.”
I like this euphuism. “But,” we ask, “suppose they didn't believe, what
then?”
“When thim believe, all right; when thim not believe, do away wid 'em.”
“But they might believe something else, if not what Mohammed believed.”
“Well, what our Prophet say? Mohammed, he say, find him anybody believe
in God, not to touch him; find him anybody believe in the Christ, not to
touch him; find him anybody believe in Moses, not to touch him; find him
believe in the prophets, not to touch him; find him believe in bit wood,
piece stone, do way wid him. Not so? Men worship something wood, stone,
I can't tell—I tink dis is nothing.”
Abd-el-Atti always says the “Friends” of Mohammed, never followers or
disciples. It is a pleasant word, and reminds us of our native land.
Mohammed had the good sense that our politicians have. When he wanted
anything, a city taken, a new strip of territory added, a “third term,”
or any trifle, he “put himself in the hands of his friends.”
The Friends were successful in this region. While the remote Abyssinians
retained Christianity, the Nubians all became Moslems, and so remain to
this day.
“You think, then, Abd-el-Atti, that the Nubians believed?”
“Thim 'bliged. But I tink these fellows, all of 'em, Musselmens as far
as the throat; it don't go lower down.”
The story is that this mosque was built by one of Mohammed's captains
after the great battle here with the Infidels—the Nubians. Those
who fell in the fight, it is also only tradition, were buried in the
cemetery near Assouan, and they are martyrs: to this day the Moslems who
pass that way take off their slippers and shoes.
After the battle, as the corpses of the slain lay in indistinguishable
heaps, it was impossible to tell who were martyrs and who were
unbelievers. Mohammed therefore ordered that they should bury as Moslems
all those who had large feet, and pleasant faces, with the mark
of prayer on the forehead. The bodies of the others were burned as
infidels.
As we sweep along, the mountains are still high on either side, and the
strips of verdure are very slight. On the east bank, great patches of
yellow sand, yellow as gold, and yet reddish in some lights, catch the
sun.
I think it is the finest morning I ever saw, for clearness and dryness.
The thermometer indicates only 60°, and yet it is not too cool. The air
is like wine. The sky is absolutely cloudless, and of wonderful clarity.
Here is a perfectly pure and sweet atmosphere. After a little, the wind
freshens, and it is somewhat cold on deck, but the sky is like sapphire;
let the wind blow for a month, it will raise no cloud, nor any film of
it.
Everything is wanting in Nubia that would contribute to the discomfort
of a winter residence:—
It never rains;
There is never any dew above Philæ;
There are no flies;
There are no fleas;
There are no bugs, nor any insects whatever.
The attempt to introduce fleas into Nubia by means of dahabeëhs has been
a failure.
In fact there is very little animal life; scarcely any birds are seen;
fowls of all sorts are rare. There are gazelles, however, and desert
hares, and chameleons. Our chameleons nearly starved for want of flies.
There are big crocodiles and large lizards.
In a bend a few miles above Philæ is a whirlpool called Shaymtel Wah,
from which is supposed to be a channel communicating under the mountain
to the Great Oasis one hundred miles distant. The popular belief in
these subterranean communications is very common throughout the East.
The holy well, Zem-Zem, at Mecca, has a connection with a spring at El
Gebel in Syria. I suppose that is perfectly well known. Abd-el-Atti has
tasted the waters of both; and they are exactly alike; besides, did he
not know of a pilgrim who lost his drinking-cup in Zem-Zem and recovered
it in El Gebel.
This Nubia is to be sure but a river with a colored border, but I
should like to make it seem real to you and not a mere country of
the imagination. People find room to live here; life goes on after a
fashion, and every mile there are evidences of a mighty civilization and
a great power which left its record in gigantic works. There was a time,
before the barriers broke away at Silsilis, when this land was inundated
by the annual rise; the Nile may have perpetually expanded above here
into a lake, as Herodotus reports.
We sail between low ridges of rocky hills, with narrow banks of
green and a few palms, but occasionally there is a village of square
mud-houses. At Gertassee, boldly standing out on a rocky platform, are
some beautiful columns, the remains of a temple built in the Roman time.
The wind is strong and rather colder with the turn of noon; the nearer
we come to the tropics the colder it becomes. The explanation is that
we get nothing but desert winds; and the desert is cool at this season;
that is, it breeds at night cool air, although one does not complain of
its frigidity who walks over it at midday.
After passing Tafa, a pretty-looking village in the palms, which boasts
ruins both pagan and Christian, we come to rapids and scenery almost as
wild and lovely as that at Philæ. The river narrows, there are granite
rocks and black boulders in the stream; we sail for a couple of miles
in swift and deep water, between high cliffs, and by lofty rocky
islands—not without leafage and some cultivation, and through a series
of rapids, not difficult but lively. And so we go cheerily on, through
savage nature and gaunt ruins of forgotten history; past Kalâbshe, where
are remains of the largest temple in Nubia; past Bayt el Wellee—“the
house of the saint”—where Rameses II. hewed a beautiful temple out of
the rock; past Gerf Hossdyn, where Rameses II. hewed a still larger
temple out of the rock and covered it with his achievements, pictures
in which he appears twelve feet high, and slaying small enemies as a
husbandman threshes wheat with a flail. I should like to see an ancient
stone wall in Egypt, where this Barnum of antiquity wasn't advertising
himself.
We leave him flailing the unfortunate; at eight in the evening we are
still going on, first by the light of the crescent moon, and then by
starlight, which is like a pale moonlight, so many and lustrous are the
stars; and last, about eleven o'clock we go aground, and stop a little
below Dakkeh, or seventy-one miles from Philæ, that being our modest run
for the day.
Dakkeh, by daylight, reveals itself as a small mud-village attached to a
large temple. You would not expect to find a temple here, but its great
pylon looms over the town and it is worth at least a visit. To see such
a structure in America we would travel a thousand miles; the traveler on
the Nile debates whether he will go ashore.
The bank is lined with the natives who have something to sell, eggs,
milk, butter in little greasy “pats,” and a sheep. The men are, as to
features and complexion, rather Arabic than Nubian. The women have
the high cheek-bones and broad faces of our Indian squaws, whom they
resemble in a general way. The little girls who wear the Nubian costume
(a belt with fringe) and strings of beads, are not so bad; some of
them well formed. The morning is cool and the women all wear some outer
garment, so that the Nubian costume is not seen in its simplicity,
except as it is worn by children. I doubt if it is at any season. So far
as we have observed the Nubian women they are as modest in their dress
as their Egyptian sisters. Perhaps ugliness and modesty are sisters in
their country. All the women and girls have their hair braided in a sort
of plait in front, and heavily soaked with grease, so that it looks as
if they had on a wig or a frontlet of leather; it hangs in small, hard,
greasy curls, like leathern thongs, down each side. The hair appears
never to be undone—only freshly greased every morning. Nose-rings and
earrings abound.
This handsome temple was began by Ergamenes, an Ethiopian king ruling at
Meroë, at the time of the second Ptolemy, during the Greek period; and
it was added to both by Ptolemies and Cæsars. This Nubia would seem to
have been in possession of Ethiopians and Egyptians turn and turn about,
and, both having the same religion, the temples prospered.
Ergamenes has gained a reputation by a change he made in his religion,
as it was practiced in Meroë. When the priests thought a king had
reigned long enough it was their custom to send him notice that the gods
had ordered him to die; and the king, who would rather die than commit
an impiety, used to die. But Ergamenes tried another method, which he
found worked just as well; he assembled all the priests, and slew them—a
very sensible thing on his part.
You would expect such a man to build a good temple. The sculptures
are very well executed, whether they are of his time, or owe their
inspiration to Berenice and Cleopatra; they show greater freedom and
variety than those of most temples; the figures of lion, monkeys, cows,
and other animals are excellent; and there is a picture of a man playing
on a musical instrument, a frame with strings stretched over it, played
like a harp but not harp shaped—the like of which is seen nowhere else.
The temple has the appearance of a fortification as well as a place of
worship. The towers of the propylon are ascended by interior flights
of stairs, and have, one above the other, four good-sized chambers. The
stairways and the rooms are lighted by slits in the wall about an inch
in diameter on the outside; but cut with a slant from the interior
through some five feet of solid stone. These windows are exactly like
those in European towers, and one might easily imagine himself in a
Middle Age fortification. The illusion is heightened by the remains of
Christian paintings on the walls, fresh in color, and in style very like
those of the earliest Christian art in Italian churches. In the temple
we are attended by a Nubian with a long and threatening spear, such
as the people like to carry here; the owner does not care for blood,
however; he only wants a little backsheesh.
Beyond Dakkeh the country opens finely; the mountains fall back, and we
look a long distance over the desert on each side, the banks having only
a few rods of green. Far off in the desert on either hand and in front,
are sharp pyramidal mountains, in ranges, in groups, the resemblance
to pyramids being very striking. The atmosphere as to purity is
extraordinary. Simply to inspire it is a delight for which one may well
travel thousands of miles.
We pass small patches of the castor-oil plant, and of a reddish-stemmed
bush, bearing the Indian bendigo, Arabic bahima, the fruit a sort of
bean in appearance and about as palatable. The castor-oil is much used
by the women as a hair-dressing, but they are not fastidious; they use
something else if oil is wanting. The demand for butter for this purpose
raised the price of it enormously this morning at Dakkeh.
In the afternoon, waiting for wind, we walk ashore and out upon the
naked desert—the desert which is broken only by an occasional oasis,
from the Atlantic to the Red Sea; it has a basis of limestone, strewn
with sand like gold-dust, and a detritus of stone as if it had been
scorched by fire and worn by water. There is a great pleasure in
strolling over this pure waste blown by the free air. We visit a Nubian
village, and buy some spurious scarabæi off the necks of the ladies of
the town—alas, for rural simplicity! But these women are not only sharp,
they respect themselves sufficiently to dress modestly and even draw
their shawls over their faces. The children take the world as they find
it, as to clothes.
The night here, there being no moisture in the air is as brilliant as
the day; I have never seen the moon and stars so clear elsewhere. These
are the evenings that invite to long pipes and long stories. Abd-el-Atti
opens his budget from time to time, as we sit on deck and while the time
with anecdotes and marvels out of old Arab chronicles, spiced with his
own ready wit and singular English. Most of them are too long for these
pages; but here is an anecdote which, whether true or not illustrates
the character of old Mohammed Ali:—
“Mohammed Ali sent one of his captains, name of Walee Kasheef, to Derr,
capital of Nubia (you see it by and by, very fashionable place, like
I see 'em in Hydee Park, what you call Rotten Row). Walee when he come
there, see the women, their hair all twisted up and stuck together with
grease and castor-oil, and their bodies covered with it. He called the
sheykhs together and made them present of soap, and told them to make
the women clean the hair and wash themselves, and make themselves fit
for prayer. It was in accordin' to the Moslem religion so to do.
“The Nubians they not like this part of our religion, they not like it
at all. They send the sheykhs down to have conversation with Mohammed
Ali, who been stop at Esneh. They complain of what Walee done. Mohammed
send for Walee, and say, 'What this you been done in Nubia?' 'Nothing,
your highness, 'cept trying to make the Nubians conform to the
religion.' 'Well,' says old Mohammed, 'I not send you up there as a
priest; I send you up to get a little money. Don't you trouble the
Nubians. We don't care if they go to Gennéh or Gehennem, if you get the
money.'.rdquo;
So the Nubians were left in sin and grease, and taxed accordingly. And
at this day the taxes are even heavier. Every date-palm and every sakiya
is taxed. A sakiya sometimes pays three pounds a year, when there is not
a piece of fertile land for it to water three rods square.
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