THERE are two ways of going to see the Second Cataract and the cliff
of Aboosir, which is about six miles above Wady Haifa; one is by small
boat, the other by dromedary over the desert. We chose the latter, and
the American officers gave us a mount and their company also. Their camp
presented a lively scene when we crossed over to it in the morning.
They had by requisition pressed into their service three or four hundred
camels, and were trying to select out of the lot half a dozen fit to
ride. The camels were, in fact, mostly burden camels and not trained to
the riding-saddle; besides, half of them were poor, miserable rucks of
bones, half-starved to death; for the Arabs, whose business it had been
to feed them, had stolen the government supplies. An expedition which
started south two weeks ago lost more than a hundred camels, from
starvation, before it reached Semneh, thirty-five miles up the river.
They had become so weak, that they wilted and died on the first hard
march. For his size and knotty appearance, the camel is the most
disappointing of beasts. He is a sheep as to endurance. As to temper, he
is vindictive.
Authorities differ in regard to the distinction between the camel and
the dromedary. Some say that there are no camels in Egypt, that they
are all dromedaries, having one hump; and that the true camel is the
Bactrian, which has two humps. It is customary here, however, to call
those camels which are beasts of burden, and those dromedaries which are
trained to ride; the distinction being that between the cart-horse and
the saddle-horse.
The camel-drivers, who are as wild Arabs as you will meet anywhere,
select a promising beast and drag him to the tent. He is reluctant to
come; he rebels against the saddle; he roars all the time it is being
secured on him, and when he is forced to kneel, not seldom he breaks
away from his keepers and shambles off into the desert. The camel does
this always; and every morning on a inarch he receives his load only
after a struggle. The noise of the drivers is little less than the roar
of the beasts, and with their long hair, shaggy breasts, and bare legs
they are not less barbarous in appearance.
Mounting the camel is not difficult, but it has some sweet surprises
for the novice. The camel lies upon the ground with all his legs shut up
under him like a jackknife. You seat yourself in the broad saddle, and
cross your legs in front of the pommel. Before you are ready, something
like a private earthquake begins under you. The camel raises his
hindquarters suddenly, and throws you over upon his neck; and, before
you recover from that he straightens up his knees and gives you a jerk
over his tail; and, while you are not at all certain what has happened,
he begins to move off with that dislocated walk which sets you into a
see-saw motion, a waving backwards and forwards in the capacious saddle.
Not having a hinged back fit for this movement, you lash the beast with
your koorbâsh to make him change his gait. He is nothing loth to do it,
and at once starts into a high trot which sends you a foot into the air
at every step, bobs you from side to side, drives your backbone into
your brain, and makes castanets of your teeth. Capital exercise. When
you have enough of it, you pull up, and humbly enquire what is the
heathen method of riding a dromedary.
It is simple enough. Shake the loose halter-rope (he has neither bridle
nor bit) against his neck as you swing the whip, and the animal at once
swings into an easy pace; that is, a pretty easy pace, like that of
a rocking-horse. But everything depends upon the camel. I happened to
mount one that it was a pleasure to ride, after I brought him to the
proper gait We sailed along over the smooth sand, with level keel, and
(though the expression is not nautical) on cushioned feet. But it is
hard work for the camel, this constant planting of his spongy feet in
the yielding sand.
Our way lay over the waste and rolling desert (the track of the southern
caravans,) at some little distance from the river; and I suppose six
miles of this travel are as good as a hundred. The sun was blazing hot,
the yellow sand glowed in it, and the far distance of like sand and
bristling ledges of black rock shimmered in waves of heat. No tree, no
blade of grass, nothing but blue sky bending over a sterile land. Yet,
how sweet was the air, how pure the breath of the desert, how charged
with electric life the rays of the sun!
The rock Aboosir, the ultima Thule of pleasure-travel on the Nile, is a
sheer precipice of perhaps two to three hundred feet above the Nile;
but this is high enough to make it one of the most extensive lookouts in
Egypt. More desert can be seen here than from almost anywhere else. The
Second Cataract is spread out beneath us. It is less a “fall” even than
the First. The river is from a half mile to a mile in breadth and for
a distance of some five miles is strewn with trap-rock, boulders and
shattered fragments, through which the Nile swiftly forces itself in a
hundred channels. There are no falls of any noticeable height. Here, on
the flat rock, where we eat our luncheon, a cool breeze blows from the
north. Here on this eagle's perch, commanding a horizon of desert and
river for a hundred miles, fond visitors have carved their immortal
names, following an instinct of ambition that is well-nigh universal,
in the belief no doubt that the name will have for us who come after all
the significance it has in the eyes of him who carved it. But I cannot
recall a single name I read there; I am sorry that I cannot, for it
seems a pitiful and cruel thing to leave them there in their remote
obscurity.
From this rock we look with longing to the southward, into vast Africa,
over a land we may not further travel, which we shall probably never
see again; or the far horizon the blue peaks of Dongola are visible,
and beyond these we know are the ruins of Meroë, that ancient city, the
capital of that Ethiopian Queen, Candace, whose dark face is lighted up
by a momentary gleam from the Scriptures.
On the beach at Wady Haifa are half a dozen trading-vessels, loaded with
African merchandise for Cairo, and in the early morning there is a great
hubbub among the merchants and the caravan owners. A sudden dispute
arises among a large group around the ferry-boat, and there ensues that
excited war, or movement, which always threatens to come to violence in
the East but never does; Niagaras of talk are poured out; the ebb and
flow of the parti-colored crowd, and the violent and not ungraceful
gestures make a singular picture.
Bales of merchandise are piled on shore, cases of brandy and cottons
from England, to keep the natives of Soudan warm inside and out; Greek
merchants splendid in silk attire, are lounging amid their goods, slowly
bargaining for their transportation. Groups of camels are kneeling on
the sand with their Bedaween drivers. These latter are of the Bisharee
Arabs, and free sons of the desert. They wear no turban, and their only
garment is a long strip of brown cotton thrown over the shoulder so as
to leave the right arm free, and then wound about the waist and loins.
The black hair is worn long, braided in strands which shine with oil,
and put behind the ears. This sign of effeminacy is contradicted by
their fine, athletic figures; by a bold, strong eye, and a straight,
resolute nose.
Wady Haifa (wady is valley, and Haifa is a sort of coarse grass) has a
post-office and a mosque, but no bazaar, nor any center of attraction.
Its mud-houses are stretched along the shore for a mile and a half, and
run back into the valley, under the lovely palm-grove; but there are no
streets and no roads through the deep sand. There is occasionally a
sign of wealth in an extensive house, that is, one consisting of several
enclosed courts and apartments within one large mud-wall; and in one we
saw a garden, watered by a sakiya, and two latticed windows in a second
story looking on it, as if some one had a harem here which was handsome
enough to seclude..
We called on the Kadi, the judicial officer of this district, whose
house is a specimen of the best, and as good as is needed in this land
of the sun. On one side of an open enclosure is his harem; in the other
is the reception-room where he holds court. This is a mud-hut, with
nothing whatever in it except some straw mats. The Kadi sent for rugs,
and we sat on the mud-bench outside, while attendants brought us dates,
popped-corn, and even coffee; and then they squatted in a row in front
of us and stared at us, as we did at them. The ladies went into the
harem, and made the acquaintance of the judge's one wife and his dirty
children. Not without cordiality and courtesy of manner these people;
but how simple are the terms of life here; and what a thoroughly African
picture this is, the mud-huts, the sand, the palms, the black-skinned
groups.
The women here are modestly clad, but most of them frightfully ugly and
castor-oily; yet we chanced upon two handsome girls, or rather married
women, of fifteen or sixteen. One of them had regular features and a
very pretty expression, and evidently knew she was a beauty, for she sat
apart on the ground, keeping her head covered most of the time, and
did not join the women who thronged about us to look with wonder at the
costume of our ladies and to beg for backsheesh. She was loaded with
necklaces, bracelets of horn and ivory, and had a ring on every finger.
There was in her manner something of scorn and resentment at our
intrusion; she no doubt had her circle of admirers and was queen in it.
Who are these pale creatures who come to stare at my charms? Have they
no dark pretty women in their own land? And she might well have asked,
what would she do—a beauty of New York city, let us say—when she sat
combing her hair on the marble doorsteps of her father's palace in
Madison Square, if a lot of savage, impolite Nubians, should come and
stand in a row in front of her and stare?
The only shops here are the temporary booths of traders, birds of
passage to or from the equatorial region. Many of them have pitched
their gay tents under the trees, making the scene still more like a fair
or an encampment for the night. In some are displayed European finery
and trumpery, manufactured for Africa, calico in striking colors, glass
beads and cotton cloth; others are coffee-shops, where men are playing
at a sort of draughts—the checker-board being holes made in the sand and
the men pebbles. At the door of a pretty tent stood a young and handsome
Syrian merchant, who cordially invited us in, and pressed upon us the
hospitality of his house. He was on his way to Darfoor, and might remain
there two or three years, trading with the natives. We learned this
by the interpretation of his girl-wife, who spoke a little barbarous
French. He had married her only recently, and this was their bridal
tour, we inferred. Into what risks and perils was this pretty woman
going? She was Greek, from one of the islands, and had the naïvete and
freshness of both youth and ignorance. Her fair complexion was touched
by the sun and ruddy with health. Her blue eyes danced with the pleasure
of living. She wore her hair natural, with neither oil nor ornament, but
cut short and pushed behind the ears. For dress she had a simple calico
gown of pale yellow, cut high in the waist, à la Grecque, the prettiest
costume women ever assumed. After our long regimen of the hideous women
of the Nile, plastered with dirt, soaked in oil, and hung with tawdry
ornaments, it may be imagined how welcome was this vision of a woman,
handsome, natural and clean, with neither the shyness of an animal nor
the brazenness of a Ghawazee.
Our hospitable entertainers hastened to set before us what they had;
a bottle of Maraschino was opened, very good European cigars were
produced, and a plate of pistachio nuts, to eat with the cordial. The
artless Greek beauty cracked the nuts for us with her shining teeth,
laughing all the while; urging us to eat, and opening her eyes in wonder
that we would not eat more, and would not carry away more. It must
be confessed that we had not much conversation, but we made it up in
constant smiling, and ate our pistachios and sipped our cordial in great
glee. What indeed could we have done more with words, or how have
passed a happier hour? We perfectly understood each other; we drank each
other's healths; we were civilized beings, met by chance in a barbarous
place; we were glad to meet, and we parted in the highest opinion of
each other, with gay salaams, and not in tears. What fate I wonder had
these handsome and adventurous merchants among the savages of Darfoor
and Kordofan?
The face of our black boy, Gohah, was shining with pleasure when we
walked away, and he said with enthusiasm, pointing to the tent, “Sitt
tyeb, quéi-is.” Accustomed as he was to the African beauties of
Soudan, I do not wonder that Gohah thought this “lady” both “good” and
“beautiful.”
We have seen Wady Haifa. The expedition to Darfoor is packing up to
begin its desert march in the morning. Our dahabeëh has been transformed
and shorn of a great part of its beauty. We are to see no more the great
bird-wing sail. The long yard has been taken down and is slung above us
the whole length of the deck. The twelve big sweeps are put in place;
the boards of the forward deck are taken up, so that the Lowers will
have place for their feet as they sit on the beams. They sit fronting
the cabin, and rise up and take a step forward at each stroke, settling
slowly back to their seats. On the mast is rigged the short stern-yard
and sail, to be rarely spread. Hereafter we are to float, and drift, and
whirl, and try going with the current and against the wind.
At ten o'clock of a moonlight night, a night of summer heat, we swing
off, the rowers splashing their clumsy oars and setting up a shout and
chorus in minor, that sound very much like a wail, and would be quite
appropriate if they were ferrymen of the Styx. We float a few miles, and
then go aground and go to bed.
The next day we have the same unchanging sky, the same groaning and
creaking of the sakiyas, and in addition the irregular splashing of
the great sweeps as we slide down the river. Two crocodiles have the
carelessness to show themselves on a sand-island, one a monstrous beast,
whose size is magnified every time we think how his great back sunk into
the water when our sandal was yet beyond rifle-shot. Of course he did
not know that we carried only a shot-gun and intended only to amuse him,
or he would not have been in such haste.
The wind is adverse, we gain little either by oars or by the current,
and at length take to the shore, where something novel always rewards
us. This time we explore some Roman ruins, with round arches of unburned
bricks, and find in them also the unmistakable sign of Roman occupation,
the burnt bricks—those thin slabs, eleven inches long, five wide, and
two thick, which, were a favorite form with them, bricks burnt for
eternity, and scattered all over the East wherever the Roman legions
went.
Beyond these is a village, not a deserted village, but probably the
laziest in the world. Men, and women for the most part too, were
lounging about and in the houses, squatting in the dust, in absolute
indolence, except that the women, all of them, were suckling their
babies, and occasionally one of them was spinning a little cotton-thread
on a spindle whirled in the hand. The men are more cleanly than the
women, in every respect in better condition, some of them bright,
fine-looking fellows. One of them showed us through his house, which was
one of the finest in the place, and he was not a little proud of it. It
was a large mud-wall enclosure. Entering by a rude door we came into
an open space, from which opened several doors, irregular breaks in
the wall, closed by shackling doors of wood. Stepping over the sill and
stooping, we entered the living-rooms. First, is the kitchen; the roof
of this is the sky—you are always liable to find yourself outdoors in
these houses—and the fire for cooking is built in one corner. Passing
through another hole in the wall we come to a sleeping-room, where were
some jars of dates and doora, and a mat spread in one corner to lie on.
Nothing but an earth-floor, and dust and grime everywhere. A crowd of
tittering girls were flitting about, peeping at us from doorways, and
diving into them with shrill screams, like frightened rabbits, if we
approached.
Abd-el-Atti raises a great laugh by twisting a piastre into the front
lock of hair of the ugliest hag there, calling her his wife, and drawing
her arm under his to take her to the boat. It is an immense joke. The
old lady is a widow and successfully conceals her reluctance. The tying
the piece of silver in the hair is a sign of marriage. All the married
women wear a piastre or some scale of silver on the forehead; the widows
leave off this ornament from the twist; the young girls show, by the
hair plain, except always the clay dabs, that they are in the market.
The simplicity of these people is noticeable. I saw a woman seated on
the ground, in dust three inches thick, leaning against the mud-bank
in front of the house, having in her lap a naked baby; on the bank sat
another woman, braiding the hair of the first, wetting it with muddy
water, and working into it sand, clay, and tufts of dead hair. What a
way to spend Sunday!
This is, on the whole, a model village. The people appear to have
nothing, and perhaps they want nothing. They do nothing, and I suppose
they would thank no one for coming to increase their wants and set them
to work. Nature is their friend.
I wonder what the staple of conversation of these people is, since the
weather offers nothing, being always the same, and always fine.
A day and a night and a day we fight adverse winds, and make no headway.
One day we lie at Farras, a place of no consequence, but having, almost
as a matter of course, ruins of the time of the Romans and the name
Rameses II. cut on a rock. In a Roman wall we find a drain-tile exactly
like those we use now. In the evening, after moon-rise, we drop down to
Aboo Simbel.
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