WE ARE at home again. Our little world, which has been somewhat
disturbed by the gaiety of Thebes, and is already as weary of tombs as
of temples and of the whole incubus of Egyptian civilization, readjusts
itself and settles into its usual placid enjoyment.
We have now two gazelles on board, and a most disagreeable lizard,
nearly three feet long; I dislike the way his legs are set on his sides;
I dislike his tail, which is a fat continuation of his body; and the
“feel” of his cold, creeping flesh is worse than his appearance; he is
exceedingly active, darting rapidly about in every direction to the end
of his rope. The gazelles chase each other about the deck, frolicking in
the sun, and their eyes express as much tenderness and affection as any
eyes can, set like theirs. If they were mounted in a woman's head, and
properly shaded with long lashes, she would be the most dangerous being
in existence.
Somehow there is a little change in the atmosphere of the dahabeëh. The
jester of the crew, who kept them alternately laughing and grumbling,
singing and quarreling, turbulent with hasheesh or sulky for want of it,
was left in jail at Assouan. The reïs has never recovered the injury to
his dignity inflicted by his brief incarceration, and gives us no more
a cheerful good-morning. The steersman smiles still, with the fixed look
of enjoyment that his face assumed when it first came into the world,
but he is listless; I think he has struck a section of the river in
which there is a dearth of his wives; he has complained that his feet
were cold in the fresh mornings, but the stockings we gave him he does
not wear, and probably is reserving for a dress occasion. Abd-el-Atti
meditates seriously upon a misunderstanding with one of his old friends
at Luxor; he likes to tell us about the diplomatic and sarcastic letter
he addressed him on leaving; “I wrote it,” he says, “very grammatick,
the meaning of him very deep; I think he feel it.” There is no language
like the Arabic for the delivery of courtly sarcasm, in soft words, at
which no offence can be taken,—for administering a smart slap in the
face, so to say, with a feather.
It is a ravishing sort of day, a slight haze, warm but life-giving air,
and we row a little and sail a little down the broadening river, by the
palms, and the wheat-fields growing yellow, and the soft chain of Libyan
hills,—the very dolce far niente of life. Other dahabeëhs accompany us,
and we hear the choruses of their crews responding to ours. From the
shore comes the hum of labor and of idleness, men at the shadoofs, women
at the shore for water; there are flocks of white herons and spoonbills
on the sandbars; we glide past villages with picturesque pigeon-houses;
a ferry-boat ever and anon puts across, a low black scow, its sides
banked up with clay, a sail all patches and tatters, and crowded in it
three or four donkeys and a group of shawled women and turbaned men,
silent and sombre. The country through which we walk, towards night,
is a vast plain of wheat, irrigated by canals, with villages in all
directions; the peasants are shabbily dressed, as if taxes ate up all
their labor, but they do not beg.
The city of Keneh, to which we come next morning, is the nearest point
of the Nile to the Red Sea, the desert route to Kosseir being only one
hundred and twenty miles; it is the Neapolis of which Herodotus speaks,
near which was the great city of Chemmis, that had a temple dedicated to
Perseus. The Chemmitæ declared that this demi-god often appeared to them
on earth, and that he was descended from citizens of their country who
had sailed into Greece; there if no doubt that Perseus came here when he
made the expedition into Libya to bring the Gorgon's head.
Keneh is now a thriving city, full of evidences of wealth, and of
well-dressed people, and there are handsome houses and bazaars like
those of Cairo. From time immemorial it has been famous for its
koollehs, which are made of a fine clay found only in this vicinity,
of which ware is manufactured almost as thin as paper. The process of
making them has not changed since the potters of the Pharaohs' time.
The potters of to-day are very skillful at the wheel. A small mass of
moistened clay, mixed with sifted ashes of halfeh-grass and kneaded like
bread, is placed upon a round plate of wood which whirls by a treadle.
As it revolves the workman with his hands fashions the clay into vessels
of all shapes, graceful and delicate, with a sleight of hand that is
wonderful. He makes a koolleh, or a drinking-cup, or a vase with a
slender neck, in a few seconds, fashioning it as truly as if it were
cast in a mould. It was like magic to see the fragile forms grow in
his hands. We sat for a long time in one of the cool rooms where two or
three potters were at work, shaded from the sun by palm-branches,
which let the light flicker upon the earth-floor, upon the freshly made
vessels and the spinning wheels of the turbaned workmen, whose deft
fingers wrought out unceasingly these beautiful shapes from the
revolving clay.
At the house of the English consul we have coffee; he afterwards lunches
with us and insists, but in vain, that we stay and be entertained by a
Ghawazee dance in the evening. It is a kind of amusement of which a very
little satisfies one. At his house, Prince Arthur and his suite were
also calling; a slender, pleasant appearing young gentleman, not
noticeable anywhere and with a face of no special force, but bearing
the family likeness. As we have had occasion to remark more than once,
Princes are so plenty on the Nile this year as to be a burden to the
officials,—especially German princes, who, however, do not count any
more. The private, unostentatious traveler, who asks no favor of the
Khedive, is becoming almost a rarity. I hear the natives complain that
almost all the Englishmen of rank who come to Egypt, beg, or shall we
say accept? substantial favors of the Khedive. The nobility appear to
have a new rendering of noblesse oblige. This is rather humiliating to
us Americans, who are, after all, almost blood-relations of the English;
and besides, we are often taken for Inglese, in villages where
few strangers go. It cannot be said that all Americans are modest,
unassuming travelers; but we are glad to record a point or two in their
favor:—they pay their way, and they do not appear to cut and paint their
names upon the ruins in such numbers as travelers from other countries;
the French are the greatest offenders in this respect, and the Germans
next.
We cross the river in the afternoon and ride to the temple of Athor
or Venus at Denderah. This temple, although of late construction, is
considered one of the most important in Egypt. But it is incomplete,
smaller, and less satisfactory than that at Edfoo. The architecture of
the portico and succeeding hall is on the whole noble, but the columns
are thick and ungraceful, and the sculptures are clumsy and unartistic.
The myth of the Egyptian Avenues is worked out everywhere with the
elaboration of a later Greek temple. On the ceiling of several rooms her
gigantic figure is bent round three sides, and from a globe in her lap
rays proceed in the vivifying influence of which trees are made to grow.
Everywhere in the temple are subterranean and intramural passages,
entrance to which is only had by a narrow aperture, once closed by a
stone. For what were these perfectly dark alleys intended? Processions
could not move in them, and if they were merely used for concealing
valuables, why should their inner sides have been covered with such
elaborate sculptures?
The most interesting thing at Denderah is the small temple of Osiris,
which is called the “lying-in temple,” the subjects of sculptures being
the mystical conception, birth, and babyhood of Osiris. You might think
from the pictures on the walls, of babes at nurse and babes in arms,
that you had obtruded into one of the institutions of charity called a
Day Nursery. We are glad to find here, carved in large, the image of the
four-headed ugly little creature we have been calling Typhon, the spirit
of evil; and to learn that it is not Typhon but is the god Bes, a jolly
promoter of merriment and dancing. His appearance is very much against
him.
Mariette Bey makes the great mystery of the adytum of the large temple,
which the king alone could enter, the golden sistrum which was kept
there. The sistrum was the mysterious emblem of Venus; it is sculptured
everywhere in this building—although it is one of the sacred symbols
found in all temples. This sacred instrument par excellence of the
Egyptians played as important a part in their worship, says Mr.
Wilkinson, as the tinkling bell in Roman Catholic services. The great
privilege of holding it was accorded to queens, and ladies of rank who
were devoted to the service of the deity. The sistrum is a strip of
gold, or bronze, bent in a long loop, and the ends, coming together,
are fastened in an ornamented handle. Through the loop bars are run upon
which are rings, and when the instrument is shaken the rings move to
and fro. Upon the sides of the handle were sometimes carved the faces of
Isis and of Nephthys, the sister goddesses, representing the beginning
and the end.
It is a little startling to find, when we get at the inner secret of the
Egyptian religion, that it is a rattle! But it is the symbol of eternal
agitation, without which there is no life. And the Egyptians profoundly
knew this great secret of the universe.
We pass next day, quietly, to the exhibition of a religious devotion
which is trying to get on without any sistrum or any agitation whatever.
Towards sunset, below How, we come to a place where a holy man, called
Sheykh Saleem, roosts forever on a sloping bank, with a rich country
behind him; beyond, on the plain, hundreds of men and boys are at work
throwing up an embankment against the next inundation; but he does not
heed them. The holy man is stark naked and sits upon his haunches, his
head, a shock of yellow hair, upon his knees. He is of that sickly,
whitey-black color which such holy skin as his gets by long exposure.
Before him on the bank is a row of large water-jars; behind him is a
little kennel of mud, into which he can crawl if it ever occurs to him
to go to bed.
About him, seated on the ground, is a group of his admirers. Boys run
after us along the bank begging backsheesh for Sheykh Saleem. A crowd
of hangers-on, we are told, always surround him, and live on the charity
that his piety evokes from the faithful. His own wants are few. He spend
his life in this attitude principally, contemplating the sand between
his knees. He has sat here for forty years.
People pass and repass, camels swing by him, the sun shines, a breeze as
of summer moves the wheat behind him and our great barque, with its gay
flags and a dozen rowers rowing in time, sweeps before him, but he
does not raise his head. Perhaps he has found the secret of perfect
happiness. But his example cannot be widely imitated. There are not many
climates in the world in which a man can enjoy such a religion out of
doors at all seasons of the year.
We row on and by sundown are opposite Farshoot and its sugar-factories;
the river broadens into a lake, shut in to the north by limestone hills
rosy in this light, and it is perfectly still at this hour. But for the
palms against the sky, and the cries of men at the shadoofs, and the
clumsy native boats with their freight of immobile figures, this might
be a glassy lake in the remote Adirondack forest, especially when the
light has so much diminished that the mountains no longer appear naked.
The next morning as we were loitering along, wishing for a breeze to
take us quickly to Bellianeh, that we might spend the day in visiting
old Abydus, a beautiful wind suddenly arose according to our desire.
“You always have good fortune,” says the dragoman.
“I thought you didn't believe in luck?”
“Not to call him luck. You think the wind to blow 'thout the Lord know
it?”
We approach Bellianeh under such fine headway that we fall almost into
the opposite murmuring, that this helpful breeze should come just when
we were obliged to stop and lose the benefit. We half incline to go on,
and leave Abydus in its ashes, but the absurdity of making a journey of
seven thousand miles and then passing near to, but unseen, the spot most
sacred to the old Egyptians, flashes upon us, and we meekly land. But
our inclination to go on was not so absurd as it seems; the mind is so
constituted that it can contain only a certain amount of old ruins, and
we were getting a mental indigestion of them. Loathing is perhaps too
strong a word to use in regard to a piece of sculpture, but I think that
a sight at this time, of Rameses II. in his favorite attitude of slicing
off the heads of a lot of small captives, would have made us sick.
By eleven o'clock we were mounted for the ride of eight miles, and it
may give some idea of the speed of the donkey under compulsion, to say
that we made the distance in an hour and forty minutes. The sun was hot,
the wind fresh, the dust considerable,—a fine sandy powder that, before
night, penetrated clothes and skin. Nevertheless, the ride was charming.
The way lay through a plain extending for many miles in every direction,
every foot of it green with barley (of which here and there a spot was
ripening), with clover, with the rank, dark Egyptian bean. The air was
sweet, and filled with songs of the birds that glanced over the fields
or poised in air on even wing like the lark. Through the vast, unfenced
fields were narrow well-beaten roads in all directions, upon which
men women, and children, usually poorly and scantily clad, donkeys and
camels, were coming and going. There was the hum of voices everywhere,
the occasional agonized blast of the donkey and the caravan bleat of the
camel. It often seems to us that the more rich and broad the fields and
the more abundant the life, the more squalor among the people.
We had noticed, at little distances apart in the plain, mounds of dirt
five or six feet high. Upon each of these stood a solitary figure,
usually a naked boy—a bronze image set up above the green.
“What are these?” we ask.
“What you call scarecrows, to frighten the birds; see that chile throw
dirt at 'em!”
“They look like sentries; do the people here steal?”
“Everybody help himself, if nobody watch him.”
At length we reach the dust-swept village of Arâbat, on the edge of the
desert, near the ruins of the ancient Thinis (or Abvdus), the so-called
cradle of the Egyptian monarchy. They have recently been excavated. I
cannot think that this ancient and most important city was originally so
far from the Nile; in the day of its glory the river must have run near
it. Here was the seat of the first Egyptian dynasty, five thousand and
four years before Christ, according to the chronology of Mariette Bey. I
find no difficulty in accepting the five thousand but I am puzzled about
the four years. It makes Menes four years older than he is generally
supposed to have been. It is the accuracy of the date that sets one
pondering. Menes, the first-known Egyptian king, and the founder of
Memphis, was born here. If he established his dynasty here six thousand
eight hundred and seventy-nine years ago, he must have been born some
time before that date; and to be a ruler he must have been of noble
parents, and no doubt received a good education. I should like to know
what sort of a place, as to art, say, and literature, and architecture,
Thinis was seven thousand and four years ago. It is chiefly sand-heaps
now.
Not only was Menes born here, in the grey dawn of history, but Osiris,
the manifestation of Light on earth, was buried here in the greyer dawn
of a mythic period. His tomb was venerated by the Pharaonic worshippers
as the Holy Sepulchre is by Christians, and for many ages. It was the
last desire of the rich and noble Egyptians to be buried at Thinis, in
order that they might lie in the same grave with Osiris; and bodies were
brought here from all parts of Egypt to rest in the sacred earth. Their
tombs were heaped up one above another, about the grave of the god.
There are thousands of mounds here, clustering thickly about a larger
mound; and, by digging, M. Mariette hopes to find the reputed tomb of
Osiris. An enclosure of crude brick marks the supposed site of this
supposed most ancient city of Egypt.
From these prehistoric ashes, it is like going from Rome to Peoria,
to pass to a temple built so late as the time of Sethi I., only about
thirty-three hundred years ago. It has been nearly all excavated and it
is worth a long ride to see it. Its plan differs from that of all other
temples, and its varied sculpture ranks with the best of temple carving;
nowhere else have we found more life and grace of action in the figures
and more expressive features; in number of singular emblems and devices,
and in their careful and beautiful cutting, and brilliant coloring, the
temple is unsurpassed. The non-stereotyped plan of the temple beguiled
us into a hearty enjoyment of it. Its numerous columns are pure Egyptian
of the best style—lotus capitals; and it contains some excellent
specimens of the Doric column, or of its original, rather. The famous
original tablet of kings, seventy-six, from Menes to Sethi, a partial
copy of which is in the British Museum, has been re-covered with sand
for its preservation. This must have been one of the finest of the old
temples. We find here the novelty of vaulted roofs, formed by a singular
method. The roof stones are not laid flat, as elsewhere, but on edge,
and the roof, thus having sufficient thickness, is hollowed out on the
under side, and the arch is decorated with stars and other devices. Of
course, there is a temple of Rameses II., next door to this one, but it
exists now only in its magnificent foundations.
We rode back through the village of Arâbat in a whirlwind of dust, amid
cries of “backsheesh,” hailed from every door and pursued by yelling
children. One boy, clad in the loose gown that passes for a wardrobe in
these parts, in order to earn his money, threw a summersault before us,
and, in a flash, turned completely out of his clothes, like a new-made
Adam! Nothing was ever more neatly done; except it may have been a feat
of my donkey a moment afterwards, executed perhaps in rivalry of the
boy. Pretending to stumble, he went on his head, and threw a summersault
also. When I went back to look for him, his head was doubled under his
body so that he had to be helped up.
When we returned we found six other dahabeëhs moored near ours. Out of
the seven, six carried the American flag—one of them in union with the
German—and the seventh was English. The American flags largely outnumber
all others on the Nile this year; in fact Americans and various kinds
of Princes appear to be monopolizing this stream. A German, who shares a
boat with Americans, drops in for a talk. It is wonderful how much more
space in the world every German needs, now that there is a Germany. Our
visitor expresses the belief that the Germans and the Americans are to
share the dominion of the world between them. I suppose that this means
that we are to be permitted to dwell on our present possessions in
peace, if we don't make faces; but one cannot contemplate the extinction
of all the other powers without regret.
Of course we have outstayed the south wind; the next morning we are
slowly drifting against the north wind. As I look from the window before
breakfast, a Nubian trader floats past, and on the bow deck is crouched
a handsome young lion, honest of face and free of glance, little
dreaming of the miserable menagerie life before him. There are two lions
and a leopard, and a cargo of cinnamon, senna, elephants' tusks, and
ostrich-feathers, on board; all Central Africa seems to float beside us,
and the coal-black crew do not lessen the barbaric impression.
It is after dark when we reach Girgeh, and are guided to our moorage by
the lights of other dahabeëhs. All that we see of this decayed but once
capital town, are four minarets, two of them surrounding picturesque
ruins and some slender columns of a mosque, the remainder of the
building having been washed into the river. As we land, a muezzin sings
the evening call to prayer in a sweet, high tenor voice; and it sounds
like a welcome.
Decayed, did we say of Girgeh? What is not decayed, or decaying, or
shifting, on this aggressive river? How age laps back on age and one
religion shuffles another out of sight. In the hazy morning we are
passing Menshéëh, the site of an old town that once was not inferior to
Memphis; and then we come to Ekhmeem—ancient Panopolis. You never heard
of it? A Roman visitor called it the oldest city of all Egypt; it was in
fact founded by Ekhmeem, the son of Misraim, the offspring of Cush,
the son of Ham. There you are, almost personally present at the Deluge.
Below here are two Coptic convents, probably later than the time of the
Empress Helena. On the shore are walking some Coptic Christians, but
they are in no way superior in appearance to other natives; a woman,
whom we hail, makes the sign of the cross, and then demands backsheesh.
We had some curiosity to visit a town of such honorable foundation.
We found in it fine mosques and elegant minarets, of a good Saracenic
epoch. Upon the lofty stone top of one sat an eagle, who looked down
upon us unscared; the mosque was ruinous and the door closed, but
through the windows we could see the gaily decorated ceiling; the whole
was in the sort of decay that the traveler learns to think Moslemism
itself.
We made a pretence of searching for the remains of a temple of
Pan,—though we probably care less for Pan than we do for Rameses. Making
known our wants, several polite gentlemen in turbans, offered to show
us the way—the gentlemen in these towns seem to have no other occupation
than to sit on the ground and smoke the chibook—and we were attended by
a procession, beyond the walls, to the cemetery. There, in a hollow, we
saw a few large stones, some of them showing marks of cutting. This
was the temple spoken of in the hand-book. Our hosts then insisted upon
dragging us half a mile further through the dust of the cemetery mounds,
in the glare of the sun, and showed us a stone half buried, with a few
hieroglyphics on one end. Never were people so polite. A grave man here
joined us, and proposed to show us some quei-is antéeka (“beautiful
antiquities”); and we followed this obliging person half over town; and
finally, in the court of a private house, he pointed to the torso of
a blue granite statue. All this was done out of pure hospitality; the
people could not have been more attentive if they had had something
really worth seeing. The town has handsome, spacious coffee-houses and
shops, and an appearance of Oriental luxury.
One novelty the place offered, and that was in a drinking-fountain.
Under a canopy, in a wall-panel, in the street, was inserted a copper
nipple, which was worn, by constant use, as smooth as the toe of St.
Peter at Rome. When one wishes to drink, he applies his mouth to this
nipple and draws; it requires some power of suction to raise the water,
but it is good and cool when it comes. As Herodotus would remark, now I
have done speaking about this nipple.
We walked on interminably and at length obtained a native boat, with a
fine assortment of fellahs and donkeys for passengers, to set us over
to Soohag, the capital of the province, a busy and insupportably dirty
town, with hordes of free-and-easy natives loafing about, and groups
of them, squatting by little dabs of tobacco, or candy, or doora, or
sugar-cane, making what they are pleased to call a market.
It seemed to be a day for hauling us about. Two bright boys seized us,
and urged us to go with them and see something marvelously beautiful.
One of them was an erect, handsome lad, with courtly and even elegant
dignity, a high and yet simple bearing, which I venture to say not a
king's son in Europe is possessed of. They led us a chase, through half
the sprawling town, by lanes and filthy streets, under bazaars, into
the recesses of domestic poverty, among unknown and inquisitive natives,
until we began to think that we should never see our native dahabeëh
again. At last we were landed in a court where sat two men, adding
up columns of figures. It was an Oriental picture, but scarcely worth
coming so far to see.
The men looked at us in wondering query, as if demanding what we wanted.
We stood looking at them, but couldn't tell them what we wanted, since
we did not know. And if we had known, we could not have told them. We
only pointed to the boys who had brought us. The boys pointed to the
ornamental portals of a closed door.
After a long delay, and the most earnest posturing and professions of
our young guides, and evident suspicion of us, a key was brought, and
we were admitted, into a cool and clean Coptic church, which had fresh
matting and an odor of incense. Ostrich-eggs hung before the holy
places, as in mosques; an old clock, with a long and richly inlaid
dial-case, stood at one end; and there were paintings in the Byzantine
style of “old masters.” One of them represented the patron saint of the
Copts, St. George, slaying the dragon; the conception does equal honor
to the saint and the artist; the wooden horse, upon which St. George is
mounted, and its rider, fill nearly all the space of the canvas, leaving
very little room for the landscape with its trees, for the dragon, for
the maiden, and for her parents looking down upon her from the castle
window. And this picture perfectly represents the present condition of
art in the whole Orient.
At Soohag a steamboat passed down towing four barges, packed with motley
loads of boys and men, impressed to work in the Khedive's sugar-factory
at Rhodes. They are seized, so many from a village, like the recruits
for the army. They receive from two to two and a half piastres (ten to
twelve and a half cents) a day wages, and a couple of pounds of bread
each.
I suspect the reason the Khedive's agricultural operations and his
sugar-factories are unprofitable, is to be sought in the dishonest
agents and middle-men—a kind of dishonesty that seems to be ingrained in
the Eastern economy. The Khedive loses both ways:—that which he attempts
to expend on a certain improvement is greatly diminished before it
reaches its object; and the returns from the investment, on their way
back to his highness, are rubbed away, passing through so many hands, to
the vanishing point. It is the same with the taxes; the fellah pays four
times as much as he ought, and the Khedive receives not the government
due. The abuse is worse than it was in France with the farmers-general
in the time of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. The tax apportioned to a
province is required of its governor. He adds a lumping per cent, to
the total, and divides the increased amount among his sub-governors
for collection; they add a third to their levy and divide it among the
tax-gatherers of sections of the district; these again swell their quota
before apportioning it among the sheykhs or actual collectors, and the
latter take the very life-blood out of the fellah.
As we sail down the river in this approaching harvest-season we are
in continual wonder at the fertility of the land; a fertility on
the slightest cultivation, the shallowest plowing, and without
fertilization. It is customary to say that the soil is inexhaustible,
that crop after crop of the same kind can be depended on, and the mud
(limon) of the overflowing Nile will repair all wastes.
And yet, I somehow get an impression of degeneracy, of exhaustion, both
in Upper and Lower Egypt, in the soil; and it extends to men and
to animals; horses, cattle, donkeys, camels, domestic fowls look
impoverished—we have had occasion to say before that the hens lay
ridiculously small eggs—they put the contents of one egg into three
shells. (They might not take this trouble if eggs were sold by weight,
as they should be.) The food of the country does not sufficiently
nourish man or beast. Its quality is deficient. The Egyptian wheat does
not make wholesome bread; most of it has an unpleasant odor—it tends to
speedy corruption, it lacks certain elements, phosphorus probably.
The bread that we eat on the dahabeëh is made from foreign wheat. The
Egyptian wheat is at a large discount in European markets. One reason of
this inferiority is supposed to be the succession of a wheat crop year
after year upon the same field; another is the absolute want of any
fertilizer except the Nile mud; and another the use of the same seed
forever. Its virtue has departed from it, and the most hopeless thing in
the situation is the unwillingness of the fellah to try anything new, in
his contented ignorance. The Khedive has made extraordinary efforts to
introduce improved machinery and processes, and he has set the example
on his own plantations It has no effect on the fellah. He will have none
of the new inventions or new ways. It seems as hopeless to attempt to
change him as it would be to convert a pyramid into a Congregational
meeting-house.
For the political economist and the humanitarian, Egypt is the most
interesting and the saddest study of this age; its agriculture and its
people are alike unique. For the ordinary traveler the country has not
less interest, and I suppose he may be pardoned if he sometimes loses
sight of the misery in the strangeness, the antique barbarity, the
romance by which he is surrounded.
As we lay, windbound, a few miles below Soohag, the Nubian trading-boat
I had seen the day before was moored near; and we improved this
opportunity for an easy journey to Central Africa, by going on board.
The forward-deck was piled with African hides so high that the oars were
obliged to be hung on outriggers; the cabin deck was loaded with bags of
gums, spices, medicines; and the cabin itself was stored so full, that
when we crawled down into it, there was scarcely room to sit upright
on the bags. Into this penetralia of barbaric merchandise, the ladies
preceded us, upon the promise of the sedate and shrewd-eyed traveler to
exhibit his ostrich-feathers. I suppose nothing in the world of ornament
is so fascinating to a woman as an ostrich-feather; and to delve into
a mine of them, to be able to toss about handfuls, sheafs of them, to
choose any size and shape and any color, glossy black, white, grey, and
white with black tips,—it makes one a little delirious to think of it!
There is even a mild enjoyment in seeing a lady take up a long, drooping
plume, hold it up before her dancing, critical eyes, turning the head
a little one side, shaking the feathered curve into its most graceful
fall—“Isn't it a beauty?” Is she thinking how it will look upon a hat of
the mode? Not in the least. The ostrich-feather is the symbol of truth
and justice; things that are equal to the same thing are equal to
each other—it is also the symbol of woman. In the last Judgment before
Osiris, the ostrich-feather is weighed in the balance against all the
good deeds of a man's life. You have seen many a man put all his life
against the pursuit of an ostrich-feather in a woman's hat—the plume of
truth in beauty's bonnet.
While the ostrich-trade is dragging along its graceful length, other
curiosities are produced; the short, dangerous tusks of the wild boar;
the long tusks of the elephant—a beast whose enormous strength is only
made a snow of, like that of Samson; and pretty silver-work from Soudan.
“What is this beautiful tawny skin, upon which I am sitting?”
“Lion's; she was the mother of one of the young lions out yonder. And
this,” continued the trader, drawing something from the corner, “is her
skull.” It gave a tender interest to the orphan outside, to see these
remains of his mother. But sadness is misplaced on her account; it is
better that she died, than to live to see her child in a menagerie.
“What's that thick stuff in a bottle there behind you?”
“That's lion's oil, some of her oil.” Unhappy family, the mother skinned
and boiled, the offspring dragged into slavery.
I took the bottle. To think that I held in my hand the oil of a lion!
Bear's oil is vulgar. But this is different; one might anoint himself
for any heroic deed with this royal ointment.
“And is that another bottle of it?”
“Mais, no; you don't get a lion every day for oil; that is ostrich-oil.
This is good for rheumatism.”
It ought to be. There is nothing rheumatic about the ostrich. When I
have tasted sufficiently the barbaric joys of the cabin I climb out upon
the deck to see more of this strange craft.
Upon the narrow and dirty bow, over a slow fire, on a shallow copper
dish, a dark and slender boy is cooking flap-jacks as big as the flap of
a leathern apron. He takes the flap-jack up by the edge in his fingers
and turns it over, when one side is cooked, as easily as if it were a
sheepskin. There is a pile of them beside him, enough to make a whole
suit of clothes, burnous and all, and very durable it would prove. Near
him is tied, by a cotton cord, a half-grown leopard, elegantly spotted,
who has a habit of running out his tongue, giving a side-lick of his
chops, and looking at you in the most friendly manner. If I were the boy
I wouldn't stand with my naked back to a leopard which is tied with a
slight string.
On shore, on the sand and in the edge of the wheat, are playing in the
sun a couple of handsome young lions, gentle as kittens. After watching
their antics for some time, and calculating the weight of their paws as
they cuff each other, I satisfy a long ungratified Van Amburg ambition,
by patting the youngest on the head and putting my hand (for an
exceedingly brief instant) into his mouth, experiencing a certain
fearful pleasure, remembering that although young he is a lion!
The two play together very prettily, and when I leave them they have
lain down to sleep, face to face, with their arms round each other's
necks, like the babes in the wood. The lovely leopard occasionally rises
to his feet and looks at them, and then lies down again, giving a soft
sweep to his long and rather vicious tail. His countenance is devoid
of the nobility of the lion's. The lion's face inspires you with
confidence; but I can see little to trust in the yellow depths of
his eyes. The lion's eyes, like those of all untamed beasts, have the
repulsive trait of looking at you without any recognition in them—the
dull glare of animality.
The next morning, when the wind falls, we slip out from our cover, like
the baffled mariners of Jason, and row past the bold, purplish-grey
cliff of Gebel Sheykh Herëedee, in which are grottoes and a tomb of the
sixth dynasty, and on to Tahta, a large town, almost as picturesque,
in the distance, with its tall minarets and one great, red-colored
building, as Venice from the Lido. Then the wind rises, and we are again
tantalized with no progress. One likes to dally and eat the lotus by his
own will; but when the elements baffle him, and the wind blows contrary
to his desires, the old impatience, the free will of ancient Adam,
arises, and man falls out of his paradise. We are tempted to wish to
be hitched (just for a day, or to get round a bend,) to one of these
miserable steamboats that go swashing by, frightening all the gamebirds,
and fouling the sweet air of Egypt with the black smoke of their
chimneys.
In default of going on, we climb a high spur of the Mokat-tam, which has
a vast desert plain on each side, and in front, and up and down the very
crooked river (the wind would need to change every five minutes to get
us round these bends), an enormous stretch of green fields, dotted
with villages, flocks of sheep and cattle, and strips of palm-groves.
Whenever we get in Egypt this extensive view over mountains, desert,
arable land, and river it is always both lovely and grand. There was
this afternoon on the bare limestone precipices a bloom as of incipient
spring verdure. There is always some surprise of color for the traveler
who goes ashore, or looks from his window, on the Nile,—either in the
sky, or in the ground which has been steeped in color for so many ages
that even the brown earth is rich.
The people hereabouts have a bad reputation, perhaps given them by the
government, against which they rebelled on account of excessive taxes;
the insurrection was reduced by knocking a village or two into the
original dust with cannon balls. We, however, found the inhabitants
very civil. In the village was one of the houses of entertainment for
wanderers—a half-open cow-shed it would be called in less favored lands.
The interior was decorated with the rudest designs in bright colors, and
sentences from the Koran; we were told that any stranger could lodge in
it and have something to eat and drink; but I should advise the coming
traveler to bring his bed, and board also. We were offered the fruit of
the nabbek tree (something like a sycamore), a small apple, a sort of
cross between the thorn and the crab, with the disagreeable qualities of
both. Most of the vegetables and fruits of the valley we find insipid;
but the Fellaheen seem to like neutral flavors as they do neutral
colors. The almost universal brown of the gowns in this region
harmonizes with the soil, and the color does not show dirt; a great
point for people who sit always on the ground.
The next day we still have need of patience; we start, meet an
increasing wind, which whirls us about and blows us up stream. We creep
under a bank and lie all day, a cold March day, and the air dark with
dust.
After this Sunday of rest, we walk all the following morning
through fields of wheat and lentils, along the shore. The people are
uninteresting, men gruff; women ugly; clothes scarce; fruit, the nabbek,
which a young lady climbs a tree to shake down for us. But I encountered
here a little boy who filled my day with sunshine.
He was a sort of shepherd boy, and I found him alone in a field, the
guardian of a donkey which was nibbling coarse grass. But his mind was
not on his charge, and he was so much absorbed in his occupation that
he did not notice my approach. He was playing, for his own delight and
evidently with intense enjoyment, upon a reed pipe—an instrument of two
short reeds, each with four holes, bound together, and played like a
clarionet.
Its compass was small, and the tune ran round and round in it,
accompanied by one of the most doleful drones imaginable. Nothing could
be more harrowing to the nerves. I got the boy to play it a good deal.
I saw that it was an antique instrument (it was in fact Pan's pipe
unchanged in five thousand years), and that the boy was a musical
enthusiast—a gentle Mozart who lived in an ideal world which he created
for himself in the midst of the most forlorn conditions. The little
fellow had the knack of inhaling and blowing at the same time, expanding
his cheeks, and using his stomach like the bellows of the Scotch
bagpipe, and producing the same droning sound as that delightful
instrument. But I would rather hear this boy half a day than the bagpipe
a week.
I talked about buying the pipe, but the boy made it himself, and prized
it so highly that I could not pay him what he thought it was worth, and
I had not the heart to offer its real value. Therefore I left him in
possession of his darling, and gave him half a silver piastre. He kissed
it and thanked me warmly, holding the unexpected remuneration for his
genius in his hand, and looking at it with shining eyes. I feel an
instant pang, and I am sorry that I gave it to him. I have destroyed
the pure and ideal world in which he played to himself, and tainted
the divine love of sweet sounds with the idea of gain and the scent of
money. The serenity of his soul is broken up, and he will never again
be the same boy, exercising his talent merely for the pleasure of it.
He will inevitably think of profit, and will feverishly expect something
from every traveler. He may even fall so far as to repair to landings
where boats stop, and play in the hope of backsheesh.
At night we came to Assiout, greeted from afar by the sight of its
slender and tall minarets and trees, on the rosy background of sunset.
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