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[Illustration: AMELIA BLANFORD EDWARDS.]
_Burt’s Library of the World’s Best Books._
A THOUSAND MILES
UP THE NILE.
BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS.
Author of “Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys,” “Lord Brackenbury,”
“Barbara’s History,” etc.
“It flows through old hush’d Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave, mighty thought, threading a dream.”
--_Leigh Hunt._
ILLUSTRATED.
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK: A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER.
PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION.
“Un voyage en Égypte, c’est une partie d’ânes et une promenade en
bateau entremêlées de ruines.”--_Ampère._
AMPERE has put Egypt in an epigram. “A donkey ride and a boating trip
interspersed with ruins” does, in fact, sum up in a single line the
whole experience of the Nile traveler. Apropos of these three
things--the donkeys, the boat, and the ruins--it may be said that a good
English saddle and a comfortable dahabeeyah add very considerably to the
pleasure of the journey; and that the more one knows about the past
history of the country, the more one enjoys the ruins.
Of the comparative merits of wooden boats, iron boats, and steamers, I
am not qualified to speak. We, however, saw one iron dahabeeyah aground
upon a sand-bank, where, as we afterward learned, it remained for three
weeks. We also saw the wrecks of three steamers between Cairo and the
first cataract. It certainly seemed to us that the old-fashioned wooden
dahabeeyah--flat-bottomed, drawing little water, light in hand, and
easily poled off when stuck--was the one vessel best constructed for the
navigation of the Nile. Other considerations, as time and cost, are, of
course, involved in this question. The choice between dahabeeyah and
steamer is like the choice between traveling with post-horses and
traveling by rail. The one is expensive, leisurely, delightful; the
other is cheap, swift, and comparatively comfortless. Those who are
content to snatch but a glimpse of the Nile will doubtless prefer the
steamer. I may add that the whole cost of the Philæ--food, dragoman’s
wages, boat-hire, cataract, everything included, except wine--was about
£10 per day.
With regard to temperature, we found it cool--even cold, sometimes--in
December and January; mild in February; very warm in March and April.
The climate of Nubia is simply perfect. It never rains; and once past
the limit of the tropic there is no morning or evening chill upon the
air. Yet even in Nubia, and especially along the forty miles which
divide Abou Simbel from Wady Halfeh, it is cold when the wind blows
strongly from the north.[1]
Touching the title of this book, it may be objected that the distance
from the port of Alexandria to the second cataract falls short of a
thousand miles. It is, in fact, calculated at nine hundred and sixty
four and a half miles. But from the Rock of Abusîr, five miles above
Wady Halfeh, the traveler looks over an extent of country far exceeding
the thirty or thirty-five miles necessary to make up the full tale of a
thousand. We distinctly saw from this point the summits of mountains
which lie about one hundred and forty-five miles to the southward of
Wady Halfeh, and which look down upon the third cataract.
Perhaps I ought to say something in answer to the repeated inquiries of
those who looked for the publication of this volume a year ago. I can,
however, only reply that the writer, instead of giving one year, has
given two years to the work. To write rapidly about Egypt is impossible.
The subject grows with the book, and with the knowledge one acquires by
the way. It is, moreover, a subject beset with such obstacles as must
impede even the swiftest pen; and to that swiftest pen I lay no claim.
Moreover, the writer who seeks to be accurate, has frequently to go for
his facts, if not actually to original sources (which would be the texts
themselves), at all events to translations and commentaries locked up in
costly folios, or dispersed far and wide among the pages of scientific
journals and the transactions of learned societies. A date, a name, a
passing reference, may cost hours of seeking.
More pleasant is it to remember labor lightened than to consider time
spent; and I have yet to thank the friends who have spared no pains to
help this book on its way. To S. Birch, Esq., LL.D., etc., so justly
styled “the parent in this country of a sound school of Egyptian
philology,” who, besides translating the hieratic and hieroglyphic
inscriptions contained in chapter eighteen, has also, with infinite
kindness, seen the whole of that chapter through the press; to Reginald
Stuart Poole, Esq.; to Professor R. Owen, C. B., etc.; to Sir G. W. Cox,
I desire to offer my hearty and grateful acknowledgments. It is surely
not least among the glories of learning that those who adorn it most and
work hardest should ever be readiest to share the stores of their
knowledge.
Of the fascination of Egyptian travel, of the charm of the Nile, of the
unexpected and surpassing beauty of the desert, of the ruins which are
the wonder of the world, I have said enough elsewhere. I must, however,
add that I brought home with me an impression that things and people are
much less changed in Egypt than we of the present day are wont to
suppose. I believe that the physique and life of the modern fellâh is
almost identical with the physique and life of that ancient Egyptian
laborer whom we know so well in the wall paintings of the tombs. Square
in the shoulders, slight but strong in the limbs, full-lipped,
brown-skinned, we see him wearing the same loin-cloth, plying the same
shâdûf, plowing with the same plow, preparing the same food in the same
way, and eating it with his fingers from the same bowl, as did his
forefathers of six thousand years ago.
The household life and social ways of even the provincial gentry are
little changed. Water is poured on one’s hands before going to dinner
from just such a ewer and into just such a basin as we see pictured in
the festival scenes at Thebes. Though the lotus-blossom is missing, a
bouquet is still given to each guest when he takes his place at table.
The head of the sheep killed for the banquet is still given to the poor.
Those who are helped to meat or drink touch the head and breast in
acknowledgment, as of old. The musicians still sit at the lower end of
the hall, the singers yet clap their hands in time to their own voices;
the dancing-girls still dance and the buffoon in his high cap still
performs his uncouth antics, for the entertainment of the guests. Water
is brought to table in jars of the same shape manufactured at the same
town, as in the days of Cheops and Chephren; and the mouths of the
bottles are filled in precisely the same way with fresh leaves and
flowers. The cucumber stuffed with minced-meat was a favorite dish in
those times of old; and I can testify to its excellence in 1874. Little
boys in Nubia yet wear the side-lock that graced the head of Rameses in
his youth; and little girls may be seen in a garment closely resembling
the girdle worn by young princesses of the time of Thothmes I. A sheik
still walks with a long staff; a Nubian belle still plaits her tresses
in scores of little tails; and the pleasure-boat of the modern governor
or mudîr, as well as the dahabeeyah hired by the European traveler,
reproduces in all essential features the painted galleys represented in
the tombs of the kings.
In these and in a hundred other instances, all of which came under my
personal observation and have their place in the following pages, it
seemed to me that any obscurity which yet hangs over the problem of life
and thought in ancient Egypt originates most probably with ourselves.
Our own habits of life and thought are so complex that they shut us off
from the simplicity of that early world. So it was with the problem of
hieroglyphic writing. The thing was so obvious that no one could find it
out. As long as the world persisted in believing that every hieroglyph
was an abstruse symbol, and every hieroglyphic inscription a profound
philosophical rebus, the mystery of Egyptian literature remained
insoluble. Then at last came Champollion’s famous letter to Dacier,
showing that the hieroglyphic signs were mainly alphabetic and syllabic,
and that the language they spelled was only Coptic, after all.
If there were not thousands who still conceive that the sun and moon
were created and are kept going for no other purpose than to lighten the
darkness of our little planet; if only the other day a grave gentleman
had not written a perfectly serious essay to show that the world is a
flat plain, one would scarcely believe that there could still be people
who doubt that ancient Egyptian is now read and translated as fluently
as ancient Greek. Yet an Englishman whom I met in Egypt--an Englishman
who had long been resident in Cairo, and who was well acquainted with
the great Egyptologists who are attached to the service of the
khedive--assured me of his profound disbelief in the discovery of
Champollion. “In my opinion,” said he, “not one of these gentlemen can
read a line of hieroglyphics.”
As I then knew nothing of the Egyptian I could say nothing to controvert
this speech. Since that time, however, and while writing this book, I
have been led on step by step to the study of hieroglyphic writing; and
I now know that Egyptian can be read, for the simple reason that I find
myself able to read an Egyptian sentence.
My testimony may not be of much value; but I give it for the little that
it is worth.
The study of Egyptian literature has advanced of late years with rapid
strides. Papyri are found less frequently than they were some thirty or
forty years ago; but the translation of those contained in the museums
of Europe goes on now more diligently than at any former time.
Religious books, variants of the ritual, moral essays, maxims, private
letters, hymns, epic poems, historical chronicles, accounts, deeds of
sale, medical, magical and astronomical treatises, geographical records,
travels and even romances and tales, are brought to light, photographed,
fac-similed in chromo-lithography, printed in hieroglyphic type and
translated in forms suited both to the learned and to the general
reader.
Not all this literature is written, however, on papyrus. The greater
proportion of it is carved in stone. Some is painted on wood, written on
linen, leather, potsherds and other substances. So the old mystery of
Egypt, which was her literature, has vanished. The key to the
hieroglyphs is the master-key that opens every door. Each year that now
passes over our heads sees some old problem solved. Each day brings some
long-buried truth to light.
Some thirteen years ago,[2] a distinguished American artist painted a
very beautiful picture called “The Secret of the Sphinx.” In its widest
sense the secret of the sphinx would mean, I suppose, the whole
uninterpreted and undiscovered past of Egypt. In its narrower sense,
the secret of the sphinx was, till quite lately, the hidden significance
of the human-headed lion which is one of the typical subjects of
Egyptian art.
Thirteen years is a short time to look back upon; yet great things have
been done in Egypt and in Egyptology, since then. Edfu, with its
extraordinary wealth of inscriptions, has been laid bare. The whole
contents of the Boulak Museum have been recovered from the darkness of
the tombs. The very mystery of the sphinx has been disclosed; and even
within the last eighteen months, M. Chabas announces that he has
discovered the date of the pyramid of Mycerinus; so for the first time
establishing the chronology of ancient Egypt upon an ascertained
foundation. Thus the work goes on; students in their libraries,
excavators under Egyptian skies, toiling along different paths toward a
common goal. The picture means more to-day than it meant thirteen years
ago--means more, even, than the artist intended. The sphinx has no
secret now, save for the ignorant.
In the picture we see a brown, half-naked, toil-worn fellâh laying his
ear to the stone lips of a colossal sphinx, buried to the neck in sand.
Some instinct of the old Egyptian blood tells him that the creature is
godlike. He is conscious of a great mystery lying far back in the past.
He has, perhaps, a dim, confused notion that the Big Head knows it all,
whatever it may be. He has never heard of the morning-song of Memnon;
but he fancies, somehow, that those closed lips might speak if
questioned. Fellâh and sphinx are alone together in the desert. It is
night and the stars are shining. Has he chosen the right hour? What does
he seek to know? What does he hope to hear?
Mr. Vedder has permitted me to enrich this book with an engraving from
his picture. It tells its own tale; or rather it tells as much of its
own tale as the artist chooses.
[Illustration:
Each must interpret for himself
The secret of the sphinx.
]
AMELIA B. EDWARDS.
WESTBURY-ON-TRYM, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, December, 1877.
PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.
First published in 1877, this book has been out of print for several
years. I have, therefore, very gladly revised it for a new and cheaper
edition. In so revising it, I have corrected some of the historical
notes by the light of later discoveries; but I have left the narrative
untouched. Of the political changes which have come over the land of
Egypt since that narrative was written, I have taken no note; and
because I in no sense offer myself as a guide to others, I say nothing
of the altered conditions under which most Nile travelers now perform
the trip. All these things will be more satisfactorily, and more
practically, learned from the pages of Baedeker and Murray.
AMELIA B. EDWARDS.
WESTBURY-ON-TRYM, October, 1888.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.
PAGE.
Arrival at Cairo--Shepheard’s Hotel--The Moskee--The Khan Khaleel--The
Bazaars--Dahabeeyahs--Ghîzeh--The Pyramids 1
CHAPTER II.
CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.
The Mosque of Sultan Hassan--Moslems at Prayer--Mosque of Mehemet
Ali--View from the Platform--Departure of the Caravan for Mecca--The
Báb en-Nasr--The Procession--The Mahmal--Howling Dervishes--The Mosque
of Amr--The Shubra Road 15
CHAPTER III.
CAIRO TO BEDRESHAYN.
Departure for the Nile Voyage--Farewell to Cairo--Turra--The
Philæ and crew--The Dahabeeyah and the Nile Sailor--Native
Music--Bedreshayn 32
CHAPTER IV.
SAKKARAH AND MEMPHIS.
The Palms of Memphis--Three Groups of Pyramids--The M. B.’s and Their
Groom--Relic-hunting--The Pyramid of Ouenephes--The Serapeum--A Royal
Raid--The Tomb of Ti--The Fallen Colossus--Memphis 43
CHAPTER V.
BEDRESHAYN TO MINIEH.
The Rule of the Nile--The Shâdûf--Beni Suêf--Thieves by
Night--The Chief of the Guards--A Sand-storm--“Holy Sheik
Cotton”--The Convent of the Pulley--A Copt--The Shadow of the
World--Minieh--A Native Market--Prices of Provisions--The Dôm
Palm--Fortune-telling--Ophthalmia 65
CHAPTER VI.
MINIEH TO SIUT.
Christmas Day--The Party Completed--Christmas Dinner on the Nile--A
Fantasia--Noah’s Ark--Birds of Egypt--Gebel Abufayda--Unknown
Stelæ--Imprisoned--The Scarab-beetle--Manfalût--Siût--Red and Black
Pottery--Ancient Tombs--View Over the Plain--Biblical Legend 83
CHAPTER VII.
SIUT TO DENDERAH.
An “Experienced Surgeon”--Passing Scenery--Girgeh--Sheik Selîm--Kasr es
Syad--Forced Labor--Temple of Denderah--Cleopatra--Benighted 99
CHAPTER VIII.
THEBES AND KARNAK.
Luxor--Donkey-boys--Topography of Ancient Thebes--Pylons of Luxor--Poem
of Pentaur--The Solitary Obelisk--Interior of the Temple of
Luxor--Polite Postmaster--Ride to Karnak--Great Temple of Karnak--The
Hypostyle Hall--A World of Ruins 121
CHAPTER IX.
THEBES TO ASSUAN.
A Storm on the Nile--Erment--A Gentlemanly Bey--Esneh--A Buried
Temple--A Long Day’s Sketching--Salame the Chivalrous--Remarkable
Coin--Antichi--The Fellâh--The Pylons of Edfu--An Exciting Race--The
Philæ Wins by a Length 140
CHAPTER X.
ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE.
Assûan--Strange Wares for Sale--Madame Nubia--Castor
Oil--The Black Governor--An Enormous Blunder--Tannhäuser in
Egypt--Elephantine--Inscribed Potsherds--Bazaar of Assûan--The
Camel--A Ride in the Desert--The Obelisk of the Quarry--A Death in the
Town 157
CHAPTER XI.
THE CATARACT AND THE DESERT.
Scenery of the Cataract--The Sheik of the Cataract--Vexatious
Delays--The Painter’s Vocabulary--Mahatta--Ancient Bed of the
Nile--Abyssinian Caravan 176
CHAPTER XII.
PHILÆ.
Pharaoh’s Bed--The Temples--Champollion’s Discovery--The Painted
Columns--Coptic Philæ--Philæ and Desaix--Chamber of Osiris--Inscribed
Rock--View from the Roof of the Temple 188
CHAPTER XIII.
PHILÆ TO KOROSKO.
Nubian Scenery--A Sand-slope--Missing Yûsef--Trading by the
Way--Panoramic Views--Volcanic Cones--Dakkeh--Korosko--Letters from
Home 211
CHAPTER XIV.
KOROSKO TO ABOU SIMBEL.
El-Id el-Kebîr--Stalking Wild Ducks--Temple of Amada--Fine Art of
the Thothmes--Derr--A Native Funeral--Temple of Derr--The “Fair”
Families--The Sakkieh--Arrival at Abou Simbel by Moonlight 220
CHAPTER XV.
RAMESES THE GREAT.
Youth of Rameses the Great--Treaty with the Kheta--His Wives--His Great
Works--The Captivity--Pithom and Rameses--Kauiser and Keniamon--The
Birth of Moses--Tomb of Osymandias--Character of Rameses the
Great 236
CHAPTER XVI.
ABOU SIMBEL.
The Colossi--Portraits of Rameses the Great--The Great Sand-drift--The
Smaller Temples--“Rameses and Nefertari”--The Great Temple--A Monster
Tableau--Alone in the Great Temple--Trail of a Crocodile--Cleaning the
Colossus--The Sufferings of the Sketcher 258
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SECOND CATARACT.
Volcanic Mountains--Kalat Adda--Gebel est-Shems--The First
Crocodile--Dull Scenery--Wady Halfeh--The Rock of Abusîr--The
Second Cataract--The Great View--Crocodile-slaying--Excavating a
Tumulus--Comforts of Home on the Nile 283
CHAPTER XVIII.
DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIMBEL.
Society at Abou Simbel--The Painter Discovers a Rock-cut
Chamber--Sunday Employment--Re-enforcement of Natives--Excavation--The
Sheik--Discovery of Human Remains--Discovery of Pylon and
Staircase--Decorations of Painted Chamber--Inscriptions 295
CHAPTER XIX.
BACK THROUGH NUBIA.
Temples _ad infinitum_--Tosko--Crocodiles--Derr and Amada
Again--Wady Sabooah--Haughty Beauty--A Nameless City--A River of
Sand--Undiscovered Temple--Maharrakeh--Dakkeh--Fortress of Kobban--Gerf
Hossayn--Dendoor--Bayt-et-Welly--The Karnak of Nubia--Silco of the
Ethiopians--Tafah--Dabôd--Baby-shooting--A Dilemma--Justice in
Egypt--The Last of Philæ 324
CHAPTER XX.
SILSILIS AND EDFU.
Shooting the Cataract--Kom Ombo--Quarries of Silsilis--Edfu the Most
Perfect of Egyptian Temples--View from the Pylons--Sand Columns 353
CHAPTER XXI.
THEBES.
Luxor Again--Imitation “Anteekahs”--Digging for Mummies--Tombs of
Thebes--The Ramesseum--The Granite Colossus--Medinet Habu--The Pavilion
of Rameses III--The Great Chronicle--An Arab Story-teller--Gournah--Bab
el Molûk--The Shadowless Valley of Death--The Tombs of the
Kings--Stolen Goods--The French House--An Arab Dinner and Fantasia--The
Coptic Church at Luxor--A Coptic Service--A Coptic Bishop 370
CHAPTER XXII.
ABYDUS AND CAIRO.
Last Weeks on the Nile--Spring in Egypt--Ninety-nine in the
Shade--Samata--Unbroken Donkeys--The Plain of Abydus--Harvest-time--A
Biblical Idyll--Arabat the Buried--Mena--Origin of the Egyptian
People--Temple of Seti--New Tablet of Abydus--Abydus and
Teni--Kom-es-Sultan--Visit to a Native Aga--The Hareem--Condition
of Women in Egypt--Back at Cairo--“In the Name of the Prophet,
Cakes!”--The Môlid-en-Nebee--A Human Causeway--The Boulak
Museum--Prince Ra-hotep and Princess Nefer-t--Early Drive to
Ghîzeh--Ascent of the Great Pyramid--The Sphinx--The View from the
Top--The End 421
APPENDIX.
I. A. McCallum, Esq., to the Editor of _The Times_ 447
II. The Egyptian Pantheon 447
III. The Religious Belief of the Egyptians 450
IV. Egyptian Chronology 452
V. Contemporary Chronology of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Babylon 454
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
The Secret of the Sphinx. After a Painting by Elihu Vedder, Esq. x
Head of Ti 57
The Shâdûf 69
Cleopatra 111
Shrines of Osiris, 1, 2 and 3 205-206
Resurrection of Osiris 207
Cartouches of Rameses the Great 237
Rameses the Great (Bayt-el-Welly) 260
Rameses the Great (Abydus) 260
Rameses the Great (Abou Simbel) 260
Profile of Rameses II (from the Southernmost Colossus; Abou
Simbel) 261
Ground-plan 307
Pattern of Cornice 308
Standard of Horus Aroëris 309
Rameses II of Speos 311
Temple of Amada (Wall Inscription) 313
Heraldic Inscription (North Wall of Speos) 317
Goddess Ta-ur-t (Silsilis) 359
Goddess Ta-ur-t (Philæ) 359
Vases and Goblets (Medinet Habu) 385
Prince Ra-Hotep and Princess Nefer-t 439
A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE.
CHAPTER I.
CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.
It is the traveler’s lot to dine at many table-d’hôtes in the course of
many wanderings; but it seldom befalls him to make one of a more
miscellaneous gathering than that which overfills the great dining-room
at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo during the beginning and height of the
regular Egyptian season. Here assemble daily some two to three hundred
persons of all ranks, nationalities, and pursuits; half of whom are
Anglo-Indians homeward or outward bound, European residents, or visitors
established in Cairo for the winter. The other half, it may be taken for
granted, are going up the Nile. So composite and incongruous is this
body of Nile-goers, young and old, well-dressed and ill-dressed, learned
and unlearned, that the new-comer’s first impulse is to inquire from
what motives so many persons of dissimilar tastes and training can be
led to embark upon an expedition which is, to say the least of it, very
tedious, very costly, and of an altogether exceptional interest.
His curiosity, however, is soon gratified. Before two days are over, he
knows everybody’s name and everybody’s business; distinguishes at first
sight between a Cook’s tourist and an independent traveler; and has
discovered that nine-tenths of those whom he is likely to meet up the
river are English or American. The rest will be mostly German, with a
sprinkling of Belgian and French. So far _en bloc_; but the details are
more heterogeneous still. Here are invalids in search of health; artists
in search of subjects; sportsmen keen upon crocodiles; statesmen out for
a holiday; special correspondents alert for gossip; collectors on the
scent of papyri and mummies; men of science with only scientific ends
in view; and the usual surplus of idlers who travel for the mere love of
travel or the satisfaction of a purposeless curiosity.
Now in a place like Shepheard’s, where every fresh arrival has the honor
of contributing, for at least a few minutes, to the general
entertainment, the first appearance of L---- and the writer, tired,
dusty, and considerably sunburned, may well have given rise to some of
the comments in usual circulation at those crowded tables. People asked
each other, most likely, where these two wandering Englishwomen had come
from; why they had not dressed for dinner; what brought them to Egypt;
and if they also were going up the Nile--to which questions it would
have been easy to give satisfactory answers.
We came from Alexandria, having had a rough passage from Brindisi,
followed by forty-eight hours of quarantine. We had not dressed for
dinner because, having driven on from the station in advance of dragoman
and luggage, we were but just in time to take seats with the rest. We
intended, of course, to go up the Nile; and had any one ventured to
inquire in so many words what brought us to Egypt, we should have
replied: “Stress of weather.”
For in simple truth we had drifted hither by accident, with no excuse of
health, or business, or any serious object whatever; and had just taken
refuge in Egypt as one might turn aside into the Burlington Arcade or
the Passage des Panoramas--to get out of the rain.
And with good reason. Having left home early in September for a few
weeks’ sketching in central France, we had been pursued by the wettest
of wet weather. Washed out of the hill country, we fared no better in
the plains. At Nismes it poured for a month without stopping. Debating
at last whether it were better to take our wet umbrellas back at once to
England, or push on farther still in search of sunshine, the talk fell
upon Algiers--Malta--Cairo; and Cairo carried it. Never was distant
expedition entered upon with less premeditation! The thing was no sooner
decided than we were gone. Nice, Genoa, Bologna, Ancona flitted by, as
in a dream; and Bedreddin Hassan when he awoke at the gates of Damascus
was scarcely more surprised than the writer of these pages when she
found herself on board of the Simla and steaming out of the port of
Brindisi.
Here, then, without definite plans, outfit, or any kind of oriental
experience, behold us arrived in Cairo on the 29th of November, 1873,
literally, and most prosaically, in search of fine weather.
But what had memory to do with rains on land, or storms at sea, or the
impatient hours of quarantine, or anything dismal or disagreeable, when
one awoke at sunrise to see those gray-green palms outside the window
solemnly bowing their plumed heads toward each other, against a
rose-colored dawn? It was dark last night, and I had no idea that my
room overlooked an enchanted garden, far-reaching and solitary, peopled
with stately giants beneath whose tufted crowns hung rich clusters of
maroon and amber dates. It was a still, warm morning. Grave gray and
black crows flew heavily from tree to tree, or perched, cawing
meditatively, upon the topmost branches. Yonder, between the pillared
stems, rose the minaret of a very distant mosque; and here, where the
garden was bounded by a high wall and a windowless house, I saw a veiled
lady walking on the terraced roof in the midst of a cloud of pigeons.
Nothing could be more simple than the scene and its accessories;
nothing, at the same time, more eastern, strange, and unreal.
But in order thoroughly to enjoy an overwhelming, ineffaceable first
impression of oriental out-of-door life one should begin in Cairo with a
day in the native bazaars; neither buying, nor sketching, nor seeking
information, but just taking in scene after scene, with its manifold
combinations of light and shade, color, costume, and architectural
detail. Every shop front, every street corner, every turbaned group is a
ready-made picture. The old Turk who sets up his cake stall in the
recess of a sculptured doorway; the donkey boy, with his gayly
caparisoned ass, waiting for customers; the beggar asleep on the steps
of the mosque; the veiled woman filling her water jar at the public
fountain--they all look as if they had been put there expressly to be
painted.
Nor is the background less picturesque than the figures. The houses are
high and narrow. The upper stories project; and from these again jut
windows of delicate turned lattice work in old brown wood, like big
bird-cages. The street is roofed in overhead with long rafters and
pieces of matting, through which a dusty sunbeam straggles here and
there, casting patches of light upon the moving crowd. The unpaved
thoroughfare--a mere narrow lane, full of ruts and watered profusely
twice or thrice a day--is lined with little wooden shop fronts, like
open cabinets full of shelves, where the merchants sit cross-legged in
the midst of their goods, looking out at the passers-by and smoking in
silence. Meanwhile, the crowd ebbs and flows unceasingly--a noisy,
changing, restless, party-colored tide, half European, half oriental, on
foot, on horseback, and in carriages. Here are Syrian dragomans in baggy
trousers and braided jackets; barefooted Egyptian fellaheen in ragged
blue shirts and felt skull-caps; Greeks in absurdly stiff white tunics,
like walking pen-wipers; Persians with high miter-like caps of dark
woven stuff; swarthy Bedouins in flowing garments, creamy-white, with
chocolate stripes a foot wide, and head-shawl of the same bound about
the brow with a fillet of twisted camel’s hair; Englishmen in palm-leaf
hats and knickerbockers, dangling their long legs across almost
invisible donkeys; native women of the poorer class, in black veils that
leave only the eyes uncovered, and long trailing garments of dark blue
and black striped cotton; dervishes in patchwork coats, their matted
hair streaming from under fantastic head-dresses; blue-black Abyssinians
with incredibly slender, bowed legs, like attenuated ebony balustrades;
Armenian priests, looking exactly like Portia as the doctor, in long
black gowns and high square caps; majestic ghosts of Algerine Arabs, all
in white; mounted Janissaries with jingling sabers and gold-embroidered
jackets; merchants, beggars, soldiers, boatmen, laborers, workmen, in
every variety of costume, and of every shade of complexion from fair to
dark, from tawny to copper-color, from deepest bronze to bluest black.
Now a water-carrier goes by, bending under the weight of his newly
replenished goatskin, the legs of which being tied up, the neck fitted
with a brass cock, and the hair left on, looks horribly bloated and
life-like. Now comes a sweetmeat-vender with a tray of that gummy
compound known to English children as “lumps of delight”; and now an
Egyptian lady on a large gray donkey led by a servant with a showy saber
at his side. The lady wears a rose-colored silk dress and white veil,
besides a black silk outer garment, which, being cloak, hood, and veil
all in one, fills out with the wind as she rides, like a balloon. She
sits astride; her naked feet, in their violet velvet slippers, just
resting on the stirrups. She takes care to display a plump brown arm
laden with massive gold bracelets, and, to judge by the way in which she
uses a pair of liquid black eyes, would not be sorry to let her face be
seen also. Nor is the steed less well dressed than his mistress. His
close-shaven legs and hindquarters are painted in blue and white zigzags
picked out with bands of pale yellow; his high-pommeled saddle is
resplendent with velvet and embroidery; and his head-gear is all tags,
tassels, and fringes. Such a donkey as this is worth from sixty to a
hundred pounds sterling. Next passes an open barouche full of laughing
Englishwomen; or a grave provincial sheik all in black, riding a
handsome bay Arab, _demi-sang_; or an Egyptian gentleman in European
dress and Turkish fez, driven by an English groom in an English phaeton.
Before him, wand in hand, bare-legged, eager-eyed, in Greek skull-cap
and gorgeous gold-embroidered waistcoat and fluttering white tunic,
flies a native saïs, or running footman. No person of position drives in
Cairo without one or two of these attendants. The saïs (strong, light
and beautiful, like John of Bologna’s Mercury) are said to die young.
The pace kills them. Next passes a lemonade-seller, with his tin jar in
one hand and his decanter and brass cups in the other; or an itinerant
slipper-vender with a bunch of red and yellow morocco shoes dangling at
the end of a long pole; or a London-built miniature brougham containing
two ladies in transparent Turkish veils, preceded by a Nubian outrider
in semi-military livery; or, perhaps, a train of camels, ill-tempered
and supercilious, craning their scrannel necks above the crowd, and
laden with canvas bales scrawled over with Arabic addresses.
But the Egyptian, Arab and Turkish merchants, whether mingling in the
general tide or sitting on their counters, are the most picturesque
personages in all this busy scene. They wear ample turbans, for the most
part white; long vests of striped Syrian silk reaching to the feet; and
an outer robe of braided cloth or cashmere. The vest is confined round
the waist by a rich sash; and the outer robe, or _gibbeh_, is generally
of some beautiful degraded color, such as maize, mulberry, olive, peach,
sea-green, salmon-pink, sienna-brown, and the like. That these stately
beings should vulgarly buy and sell, instead of reposing all their lives
on luxurious divans and being waited upon by beautiful Circassians,
seems altogether contrary to the eternal fitness of things. Here, for
instance, is a grand vizier in a gorgeous white and amber satin vest,
who condescends to retail pipe-bowls--dull red clay pipe-bowls of all
sizes and prices. He sells nothing else, and has not only a pile of them
on the counter, but a binful at the back of his shop. They are made at
Siout, in Upper Egypt, and may be bought at the Algerine shops in London
almost as cheaply as in Cairo. Another majestic pasha deals in brass and
copper vessels, drinking-cups, basins, ewers, trays, incense-burners,
chafing-dishes, and the like; some of which are exquisitely engraved
with arabesque patterns or sentences from the poets. A third sells silks
from the looms of Lebanon and gold and silver tissues from Damascus.
Others, again, sell old arms, old porcelian, old embroideries,
second-hand prayer-carpets, and quaint little stools and cabinets of
ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Here, too, the tobacco merchant sits
behind a huge cake of latakia as big as his own body; and the sponge
merchant smokes his long chibouk in a bower of sponges.
Most amusing of all, however, are those bazaars in which each trade
occupies its separate quarter. You pass through an old stone gateway or
down a narrow turning, and find yourself amid a colony of saddlers,
stitching, hammering, punching, riveting. You walk up one alley and down
another, between shop fronts hung round with tasseled head-gear and
hump-backed saddles of all qualities and colors. Here are ladies’
saddles, military saddles, donkey saddles, and saddles for great
officers of state; saddles covered with red leather, with crimson and
violet velvet, with maroon, and gray, and purple cloth; saddles
embroidered with gold and silver, studded with brass-headed nails, or
trimmed with braid.
Another turn or two, and you are in the slipper bazaar, walking down
avenues of red and yellow morocco slippers; the former of home
manufacture, the latter from Tunis. Here are slippers with pointed toes,
turned-up toes, and toes as round and flat as horseshoes; walking
slippers with thick soles, and soft yellow slippers to be worn as inside
socks, which have no soles at all. These absurd little scarlet bluchers
with tassels are for little boys; the brown morocco shoes are for
grooms; the velvet slippers embroidered with gold and beads and seed
pearls are for wealthy hareens, and are sold at prices varying from five
shillings to five pounds the pair.
The carpet bazaar is of considerable extent, and consists of a network
of alleys and counter-alleys opening off to the right of the Muski,
which is the Regent street of Cairo. The houses in most of these alleys
are rich in antique lattice windows and Saracenic doorways. One little
square is tapestried all round with Persian and Syrian rugs, Damascus
saddle-bags, and Turkish prayer-carpets. The merchants sit and smoke in
the midst of their goods; and up in one corner an old “kahwagee,” or
coffee-seller, plies his humble trade. He has set up his little stove
and hanging-shelf beside the doorway of a dilapidated khan, the walls of
which are faced with arabesque panelings in old carved stone. It is one
of the most picturesque “bits” in Cairo. The striped carpets of Tunis;
the dim gray and blue, or gray and red fabrics of Algiers; the shaggy
rugs of Laodicea and Smyrna; the rich blues and greens and subdued reds
of Turkey; and the wonderfully varied, harmonious patterns of Persia,
have each their local habitation in the neighboring alleys. One is never
tired of traversing these half-lighted avenues all aglow with gorgeous
color and peopled with figures that come and go like the actors in some
Christmas piece of oriental pageantry.
In the Khan Khaleel, the place of the gold and silver smiths’ bazaar,
there is found, on the contrary, scarcely any display of goods for sale.
The alleys are so narrow in this part that two persons can with
difficulty walk in them abreast; and the shops, tinier than ever, are
mere cupboards with about three feet of frontage. The back of each
cupboard is fitted with tiers of little drawers and pigeon-holes, and in
front is a kind of matted stone step, called a mastabah, which serves
for seat and counter. The customer sits on the edge of the mastabah; the
merchant squats, cross-legged, inside. In this position he can, without
rising, take out drawer after drawer; and thus the space between the two
becomes piled with gold and silver ornaments. These differ from each
other only in the metal, the patterns being identical; and they are sold
by weight, with a due margin for profit. In dealing with strangers who
do not understand the Egyptian system of weights, silver articles are
commonly weighed against rupees or five-franc pieces, and gold articles
against napoleons or sovereigns. The ornaments made in Cairo consist
chiefly of chains and earrings, anklets, bangles, necklaces strung with
coins or tusk-shaped pendants, amulet-cases of filigree or repoussé
work, and penannular bracelets of rude execution, but rich and ancient
designs. As for the merchants their civility and patience are
inexhaustible. One may turn over their whole stock, try on all their
bracelets, go away again and again without buying, and yet be always
welcomed and dismissed with smiles. L---- and the writer spent many an
hour practicing Arabic in the Khan Khaleel, without, it is to be feared,
a corresponding degree of benefit to the merchants.
There are many other special bazaars in Cairo, as the sweetmeat bazaar;
the hardware bazaar; the tobacco bazaar; the sword-mounters’ and
coppersmiths’ bazaars; the Moorish bazaar, where fez caps, burnouses and
Barbary goods are sold; and some extensive bazaars for the sale of
English and French muslins and Manchester cotton goods; but these last
are for the most part of inferior interest. Among certain fabrics
manufactured in England expressly for the eastern market, we observed a
most hideous printed muslin representing small black devils capering
over a yellow ground, and we learned that it was much in favor for
children’s dresses.
But the bazaars, however picturesque, are far from being the only sights
of Cairo. There are mosques in plenty; grand old Saracenic gates;
ancient coptic churches; the museum of Egyptian antiquities; and, within
driving distance, the tombs of the Caliphs, Heliopolis, the Pyramids and
the Sphinx. To remember in what order the present travelers saw these
things would now be impossible; for they lived in a dream and were at
first too bewildered to catalogue their impressions very methodically.
Some places they were for the present obliged to dismiss with only a
passing glance; others had to be wholly deferred till their return to
Cairo.
In the meanwhile, our first business was to look at dahabeeyahs; and the
looking at dahabeeyahs compelled us constantly to turn our steps and
our thoughts in the direction of Boulak--a desolate place by the river,
where some two or three hundred Nile boats lay moored for hire. Now,
most persons know something of the miseries of house-hunting, but only
those who have experienced them know how much keener are the miseries of
dahabeeyah-hunting. It is more bewildering and more fatiguing, and is
beset by its own special and peculiar difficulties. The boats, in the
first place, are all built on the same plan, which is not the case with
houses; and, except as they run bigger or smaller, cleaner or dirtier,
are as like each other as twin oysters. The same may be said of their
captains, with the same differences; for, to a person who has been only
a few days in Egypt, one black or copper-colored man is exactly like
every other black or copper-colored man. Then each reïs, or captain,
displays the certificates given him by former travelers; and these
certificates, being apparently in active circulation, have a mysterious
way of turning up again and again on board different boats and in the
hands of different claimants. Nor is this all. Dahabeeyahs are given to
changing their places, which houses do not do; so that the boats which
lay yesterday alongside the eastern bank may be over at the western bank
to-day, or hidden in the midst of a dozen others half a mile lower down
the river. All this is very perplexing; yet it is as nothing compared
with the state of confusion one gets into when attempting to weigh the
advantages or disadvantages of boats with six cabins and boats with
eight; boats provided with canteen, and boats without; boats that can
pass the cataract, and boats that can’t; boats that are only twice as
dear as they ought to be, and boats with that defect five or six times
multiplied. Their names, again--ghazal, sarawa, fostat, dongola--unlike
any names one has ever heard before, afford as yet no kind of help to
the memory. Neither do the names of their captains; for they are all
Mohammeds or Hassans. Neither do their prices; for they vary from day to
day, according to the state of the market as shown by the returns of
arrivals at the principal hotels.
Add to all this the fact that no reïs speaks anything but Arabic, and
that every word of inquiry or negotiation has to be filtered, more or
less inaccurately, through a dragoman, and then perhaps those who have
not yet tried this variety of the pleasures of the chase may be able to
form some notion of the weary, hopeless, puzzling work which lies before
the dahabeeyah-hunter in Cairo.
Thus it came to pass that, for the first ten days or so, some three or
four hours had to be devoted every morning to the business of the boats;
at the end of which time we were no nearer a conclusion than at first.
The small boats were too small for either comfort or safety, especially
in what Nile travelers call “a big wind.” The medium-sized boats (which
lie under the suspicion of being used in summer for the transport of
cargo) were for the most part of doubtful cleanliness. The largest
boats, which alone seemed unexceptionable, contained from eight to ten
cabins, besides two saloons, and were obviously too large for a party
consisting of only L----, the writer and a maid. And all were
exorbitantly dear. Encompassed by these manifold difficulties; listening
now to this and now to that person’s opinion; deliberating, haggling,
comparing, hesitating, we vibrated daily between Boulak and Cairo and
led a miserable life. Meanwhile, however, we met some former
acquaintances; made some new ones; and when not too tired or
downhearted, saw what we could of the sights of Cairo--which helped a
little to soften the asperities of our lot.
One of our first excursions was, of course, to the pyramids, which lie
within an hour and a half’s easy drive from the hotel door. We started
immediately after an early luncheon, followed an excellent road all the
way and were back in time for dinner at half-past six. But it must be
understood that we did not go to _see_ the pyramids. We went only to
look at them. Later on (having meanwhile been up the Nile and back and
gone through months of training), we came again, not only with due
leisure, but also with some practical understanding of the manifold
phases through which the arts and architecture of Egypt had passed since
those far-off days of Cheops and Chephren. Then, only, we can be said to
have seen the pyramids; and till we arrive at that stage of our
pilgrimage it will be well to defer everything like a detailed account
of them or their surroundings. Of this first brief visit, enough,
therefore, a brief record.
The first glimpse that most travelers now get of the pyramids is from
the window of the railway carriage as they come from Alexandria; and it
is not impressive. It does not take one’s breath away, for instance,
like a first sight of the Alps from the high level of the Neufchâtel
line, or the outline of the Acropolis at Athens as one first recognizes
it from the sea. The well-known triangular forms look small and shadowy,
and are too familiar to be in any way startling. And the same, I think,
is true of every distant view of them--that is, of every view which is
too distant to afford the means of scaling them against other objects.
It is only in approaching them, and observing how they grow with every
foot of the road, that one begins to feel they are not so familiar after
all.
But when at last the edge of the desert is reached, and the long
sand-slope climbed, and the rocky platform gained, and the great pyramid
in all its unexpected bulk and majesty towers close above one’s head,
the effect is as sudden as it is overwhelming. It shuts out the sky and
the horizon. It shuts out all the other pyramids. It shuts out
everything but the sense of awe and wonder.
Now, too, one discovers that it was with the forms of the pyramids, and
only their forms, that one had been acquainted all these years past. Of
their surface, their color, their relative position, their number (to
say nothing of their size), one had hitherto entertained no kind of
definite idea. The most careful study of plans and measurements, the
clearest photographs, the most elaborate descriptions, had done little
or nothing, after all, to make one know the place beforehand. This
undulating table-land of sand and rock, pitted with open graves and
cumbered with mounds of shapeless masonry, is wholly unlike the desert
of our dreams. The pyramids of Cheops and Chephren are bigger than we
had expected; the pyramid of Mycerinus is smaller. Here, too, are nine
pyramids, instead of three. They are all entered in the plans and
mentioned in the guide-books; but, somehow, one is unprepared to find
them there, and cannot help looking upon them as intruders. These six
extra pyramids are small and greatly dilapidated. One, indeed, is little
more than a big cairn.
Even the great pyramid puzzles us with an unexpected sense of
unlikeness. We all know and have known from childhood, that it was
stripped of its outer blocks some five hundred years ago to build Arab
mosques and palaces; but the rugged, rock-like aspect of that giant
staircase takes us by surprise, nevertheless. Nor does it look like a
partial ruin either. It looks as if it had been left unfinished, and as
if the workmen might be coming back to-morrow morning.
The color again is a surprise. Few persons can be aware beforehand of
the rich tawny hue that Egyptian limestone assumes after ages of
exposure to the blaze of an Egyptian sky. Seen in certain lights, the
pyramids look like piles of massy gold.
Having but one hour and forty minutes to spend on the spot, we
resolutely refused on this first occasion to be shown anything, or told
anything, or to be taken anywhere--except, indeed, for a few minutes to
the brink of the sand hollow in which the Sphinx lies couchant. We
wished to give our whole attention, and all the short time at our
disposal, to the great pyramid only. To gain some impression of the
outer aspect and size of this enormous structure--to steady our minds to
something like an understanding of its age--was enough, and more than
enough, for so brief a visit.
For it is no easy task to realize, however imperfectly, the duration of
six or seven thousand years; and the great pyramid, which is supposed to
have been some four thousand two hundred and odd years old at the time
of the birth of Christ, is now in its seventh millenary. Standing there
close against the base of it; touching it; measuring her own height
against one of its lowest blocks; looking up all the stages of that
vast, receding, rugged wall, which leads upward like an Alpine buttress
and seems almost to touch the sky, the writer suddenly became aware that
these remote dates had never presented themselves to her mind until this
moment as anything but abstract numerals. Now, for the first time, they
resolved themselves into something concrete, definite, real. They were
no longer figures, but years with their changes of season, their high
and low Niles, their seed-times and harvests. The consciousness of that
moment will never, perhaps, quite wear away. It was as if one had been
snatched up for an instant to some vast height overlooking the plains of
time, and had seen the centuries mapped out beneath one’s feet.
To appreciate the size of the great pyramid is less difficult than to
apprehend its age. No one who has walked the length of one side,
climbed to the top, and learned the dimensions from Murray, can fail to
form a tolerably clear idea of its mere bulk. The measurements given by
Sir Gardner Wilkinson are as follows: Length of each side, 732 feet;
perpendicular height, 480 feet 9 inches; area, 535,824 square feet.[3]
That is to say it stands 115 feet 9 inches higher than the cross on the
top of St. Paul’s and about 20 feet lower than Box Hill in Surrey; and
if transported bodily to London, it would a little more than cover the
whole area of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. These are sufficiently
matter-of-fact statements and sufficiently intelligible; but, like most
calculations of the kind, they diminish rather than do justice to the
dignity of the subject.
More impressive by far than the weightiest array of figures or the most
striking comparisons, was the shadow cast by the great pyramid as the
sun went down. That mighty shadow, sharp and distinct, stretched across
the stony platform of the desert and over full three quarters of a mile
of the green plain below. It divided the sunlight where it fell, just as
its great original divided the sunlight in the upper air; and it
darkened the space it covered, like an eclipse. It was not without a
thrill of something approaching to awe that one remembered how this
self-same shadow had gone on registering not only the height of the most
stupendous gnomon ever set up by human hands, but the slow passage day
by day of more than sixty centuries of the world’s history.
It was still lengthening over the landscape as we went down the long
sand-slope and regained the carriage. Some six or eight Arabs in
fluttering white garments ran on ahead to bid us a last good-by. That we
should have driven over from Cairo only to sit quietly down and look at
the great pyramid had filled them with unfeigned astonishment. With such
energy and dispatch as the modern traveler uses, we might have been to
the top and seen the temple of the Sphinx and done two or three of the
principal tombs in the time.
“You come again!” said they. “Good Arab show you everything. You see
nothing this time!”
So, promising to return ere long, we drove away; well content,
nevertheless, with the way in which our time had been spent.
The pyramid Bedouins have been plentifully abused by travelers and
guide-books, but we found no reason to complain of them now or
afterward. They neither crowded round us, nor followed us, nor
importuned us in any way. They are naturally vivacious and very
talkative; yet the gentle fellows were dumb as mutes when they found we
wished for silence. And they were satisfied with a very moderate
bakhshîsh at parting.
As a fitting sequel to this excursion, we went, I think next day, to see
the mosque of Sultan Hassan, which is one of those mediæval structures
said to have been built with the casing-stones of the great pyramid.