CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.
The mosque of Sultan Hassan, confessedly the most beautiful in Cairo, is
also perhaps the most beautiful in the Moslem world. It was built at
just that happy moment when Arabian art in Egypt, having ceased merely
to appropriate or imitate, had at length evolved an original
architectural style out of the heterogeneous elements of Roman and early
Christian edifices. The mosques of a few centuries earlier (as, for
instance, that of Tulûn, which marks the first departure from the old
Byzantine model) consisted of little more than a court-yard with
colonnades leading to a hall supported on a forest of pillars. A little
more than a century later, and the national style had already
experienced the beginnings of that prolonged eclipse which finally
resulted in the bastard Neo-Byzantine renaissance represented by the
mosque of Mehemet Ali. But the mosque of Sultan Hassan, built
ninety-seven years before the taking of Constantinople, may justly be
regarded as the highest point reached by Saracenic art in Egypt after it
had used up the Greek and Roman material of Memphis, and before its
new-born originality became modified by influences from beyond the
Bosporus. Its pre-eminence is due neither to the greatness of its
dimensions nor to the splendor of its materials. It is neither so large
as the great mosque at Damascus, nor so rich in costly marbles as Saint
Sophia in Constantinople; but in design, proportion, and a certain lofty
grace impossible to describe, it surpasses these, and every other
mosque, whether original or adapted, with which the writer is
acquainted.
The whole structure is purely national. Every line and curve in it, and
every inch of detail, is in the best style of the best period of the
Arabian school. And above all, it was designed expressly for its present
purpose. The two famous mosques of Damascus and Constantinople having,
on the contrary, been Christian churches, betray evidences of
adaptation. In Saint Sophia, the space once occupied by the figure of
the Redeemer may be distinctly traced in the mosaic work of the apsis,
filled in with gold tesseræ of later date; while the magnificent gates
of the great mosque at Damascus are decorated, among other Christian
emblems, with the sacramental chalice. But the mosque of Sultan Hassan,
built by En Nasîr Hassan in the high and palmy days of the Memlook rule,
is marred by no discrepancies. For a mosque it was designed, and a
mosque it remains. Too soon it will be only a beautiful ruin.
A number of small streets having lately been demolished in this quarter,
the approach to the mosque lies across a desolate open space littered
with débris, but destined to be laid out as a public square. With this
desirable end in view, some half-dozen workmen were lazily loading as
many camels with rubble, which is the Arab way of carting rubbish. If
they persevere, and the minister of public works continues to pay their
wages with due punctuality, the ground will perhaps get cleared in eight
or ten years’ time.
Driving up with some difficulty to the foot of the great steps, which
were crowded with idlers smoking and sleeping, we observed a long and
apparently fast-widening fissure reaching nearly from top to bottom of
the main wall of the building, close against the minaret. It looked like
just such a rent as might be caused by a shock of earthquake, and, being
still new to the east, we wondered the government had not set to work to
mend it. We had yet to learn that nothing is ever mended in Cairo. Here,
as in Constantinople, new buildings spring up apace, but the old, no
matter how venerable, are allowed to molder away, inch by inch, till
nothing remains but a heap of ruins.
Going up the steps and through a lofty hall, up some more steps and
along a gloomy corridor, we came to the great court, before entering
which, however, we had to take off our boots and put on slippers brought
for the purpose. The first sight of this court is an architectural
surprise. It is like nothing one has seen before, and its beauty equals
its novelty. Imagine an immense marble quadrangle, open to the sky and
inclosed within lofty walls, with, at each side, a vast recess framed in
by a single arch. The quadrangle is more than one hundred feet square,
and the walls are more than one hundred feet high. Each recess forms a
spacious hall for rest and prayer, and all are matted; but that at the
eastern end is wider and considerably deeper than the other three, and
the noble arch that incloses it like the proscenium of a splendid stage,
measures, according to Fergusson, sixty-nine feet five inches in the
span. It looks much larger. This principal hall, the floor of which is
raised one step at the upper end, measures ninety feet in depth and
ninety in height. The dais is covered with prayer-rugs, and contains the
holy niche and the pulpit of the preacher. We observed that those who
came up here came only to pray. Having prayed, they either went away or
turned aside into one of the other recesses to rest. There was a
charming fountain in the court with a dome roof as light and fragile
looking as a big bubble, at which each worshiper performed his ablutions
on coming in. This done, he left his slippers on the matting and trod
the carpeted dais barefoot.
This was the first time we had seen moslems at prayer, and we could not
but be impressed by their profound and unaffected devotion. Some lay
prostrate, their foreheads touching the ground; others were kneeling;
others bowing in the prescribed attitudes of prayer. So absorbed were
they, that not even our unhallowed presence seemed to disturb them. We
did not then know that the pious moslem is as devout out of the mosque
as in it; or that it is his habit to pray when the appointed hours come
round, no matter where he may be, or how occupied. We soon became so
familiar, however, with this obvious trait of Mohammedan life, that it
seemed quite a matter of course that the camel-driver should dismount
and lay his forehead in the dust by the roadside; or the merchant spread
his prayer-carpet on the narrow mastabah of his little shop in the
public bazaar; or the boatman prostrate himself with his face to the
east, as the sun went down behind the hills of the Libyan desert.
While we were admiring the spring of the roof and the intricate
arabesque decorations of the pulpit, a custode came up with a big key
and invited us to visit the tomb of the founder. So we followed him into
an enormous vaulted hall a hundred feet square, in the center of which
stood a plain, railed-off tomb, with an empty iron-bound coffer at the
foot. We afterward learned that for five hundred years--that is to say,
ever since the death and burial of Sultan Hassan--this coffer had
contained a fine copy of the Korân, traditionally said to have been
written by Sultan Hassan’s own hand; but that the khedive, who is
collecting choice and antique Arabic manuscripts, had only the other day
sent an order for its removal.
Nothing can be bolder or more elegant than the proportions of this noble
sepulchral hall, the walls of which are covered with tracery in low
relief incrusted with disks and tesseræ of turquoise-colored porcelain;
while high up, in order to lead off the vaulting of the roof, the
corners are rounded by means of recessed clusters of exquisite arabesque
woodwork, like pendent stalactites. But the tesseræ are fast falling
out, and most of their places are vacant; and the beautiful woodwork
hangs in fragments, tattered and cobwebbed, like time-worn banners,
which the first touch of a brush would bring down.
Going back again from the tomb to the court-yard, we everywhere observed
traces of the same dilapidation. The fountain, once a miracle of
Saracenic ornament, was fast going to destruction. The rich marbles of
its basement were cracked and discolored, its stuccoed cupola was
flaking off piecemeal, its enamels were dropping out, its lace-like wood
tracery shredding away by inches.
Presently a tiny brown and golden bird perched with pretty confidence on
the brink of the basin, and having splashed, and drunk, and preened its
feathers like a true believer at his ablutions, flew up to the top of
the cupola and sang deliciously. All else was profoundly still. Large
spaces of light and shadow divided the quadrangle. The sky showed
overhead as a square opening of burning solid blue; while here and
there, reclining, praying, or quietly occupied, a number of turbaned
figures were picturesquely scattered over the matted floors of the open
halls around. Yonder sat a tailor cross-legged, making a waistcoat; near
him, stretched on his face at full length, sprawled a basket-maker with
his half-woven basket and bundle of rushes beside him; and here, close
against the main entrance, lay a blind man and his dog; the master
asleep, the dog keeping watch. It was, as I have said, our first
mosque, and I well remember the surprise with which we saw that tailor
sewing on his buttons and the sleepers lying about in the shade. We did
not then know that a Mohammedan mosque is as much a place of rest and
refuge as of prayer; or that the houseless Arab may take shelter there
by night or day as freely as the birds may build their nests in the
cornice, or as the blind man’s dog may share the cool shade with his
sleeping master.
From the mosque of this Memlook sovereign it is but a few minutes’
uphill drive to the mosque of Mehemet Ali, by whose orders the last of
that royal race were massacred just sixty-four years ago.[4] This
mosque, built within the precincts of the citadel on a spur of the
Mokattam Hills overlooking the city, is the most conspicuous object in
Cairo. Its attenuated minarets and clustered domes show from every point
of view for miles around, and remain longer in sight, as one leaves, or
returns to, Cairo, than any other landmark. It is a spacious, costly,
gaudy, commonplace building, with nothing really beautiful about it,
except the great marble court-yard and fountain. The inside, which is
entirely built of oriental alabaster, is carpeted with magnificent
Turkey carpets and hung with innumerable cut-glass chandeliers, so that
it looks like a huge vulgar drawing-room from which the furniture has
been cleared out for dancing.
The view from the outer platform is, however, magnificent. We saw it on
a hazy day, and could not therefore distinguish the point of the delta,
which ought to have been visible on the north; but we could plainly see
as far southward as the pyramids of Sakkârah, and trace the windings of
the Nile for many miles across the plain. The pyramids of Ghizeh, on
their daïs of desert rock about twelve miles off, looked, as they always
do look from a distance, small and unimpressive; but the great alluvial
valley dotted over with mud villages and intersected by canals and
tracts of palm forest; the shining river specked with sails; and the
wonderful city, all flat roofs, cupolas, and minarets, spread out like
an intricate model at one’s feet, were full of interest and absorbed
our whole attention. Looking down upon it from this elevation, it is as
easy to believe that Cairo contains four hundred mosques, as it is to
stand on the brow of the Pincio and believe in the three hundred and
sixty-five churches of modern Rome.
As we came away, they showed us the place in which the Memlook nobles,
four hundred and seventy[5] in number, were shot down like mad-dogs in a
trap, that fatal first of March, A.D. 1811. We saw the upper gate which
was shut behind them as they came out from the presence of the pasha,
and the lower gate which was shut before them to prevent their egress.
The walls of the narrow roadway in which the slaughter was done are said
to be pitted with bullet marks; but we would not look for them.
I have already said that I do not very distinctly remember the order of
our sight-seeing in Cairo, for the reason that we saw some places before
we went up the river, some after we came back, and some (as for instance
the museum at Boulak) both before and after, and indeed as often as
possible. But I am at least quite certain that we witnessed a
performance of howling dervishes, and the departure of the caravan for
Mecca, before starting.
Of all the things that people do by way of pleasure, the pursuit of a
procession is surely one of the most wearisome. They generally go a long
way to see it; they wait a weary time; it is always late; and when at
length it does come, it is over in a few minutes. The present pageant
fulfilled all these conditions in a superlative degree. We breakfasted
uncomfortably early, started soon after half-past seven, and had taken
up our position outside the Báb en-Nasr, on the way to the desert, by
half-past eight. Here we sat for nearly three hours, exposed to clouds
of dust and a burning sun, with nothing to do but to watch the crowd and
wait patiently. All Shepheard’s Hotel were there, and every stranger in
Cairo; and we all had smart open carriages drawn by miserable screws and
driven by bare-legged Arabs. These Arabs, by the way, are excellent
whips, and the screws get along wonderfully; but it seems odd at first,
and not a little humiliating, to be whirled along behind a coachman
whose only livery consists of a rag of dirty white turban, a scant tunic
just reaching to his knees, and the top boots with which nature has
provided him.
Here, outside the walls, the crowd increased momentarily. The place was
like a fair with provision stalls, swings, story-tellers,
serpent-charmers, cake-sellers, sweetmeat-sellers, sellers of sherbet,
water, lemonade, sugared nuts, fresh dates, hard-boiled eggs, oranges
and sliced watermelon. Veiled women carrying little bronze Cupids of
children astride upon the right shoulder, swarthy Egyptians, coal-black
Abyssinians, Arabs and Nubians of every shade from golden-brown to
chocolate, fellahs, dervishes, donkey boys, street urchins and beggars
with every imaginable deformity, came and went; squeezed themselves in
and out among the carriages; lined the road on each side of the great
towered gateway; swarmed on the top of every wall; and filled the air
with laughter, a babel of dialects, and those of Araby that are
inseparable from an eastern crowd. A harmless, unsavory, good-humored,
inoffensive throng, one glance at which was enough to put to flight all
one’s preconceived notions about oriental gravity of demeanor! For the
truth is that gravity is by no means an oriental characteristic. Take a
Mohammedan at his devotions, and he is a model of religious abstraction;
bargain with him for a carpet, and he is as impenetrable as a judge; but
see him in his hours of relaxation, or on the occasion of a public
holiday, and he is as garrulous and full of laughter as a big child.
Like a child, too, he loves noise and movement for the mere sake of
noise and movement, and looks upon swings and fire-works as the height
of human felicity. Now swings and fire-works are Arabic for bread and
circuses, and our pleb’s passion for them is insatiable. He not only
indulges in them upon every occasion of public rejoicing, but calls in
their aid to celebrate the most solemn festivals of his religion. It so
happened that we afterward came in the way of several Mohammedan
festivals both in Egypt and Syria, and we invariably found the swings at
work all day and the fire-works going off every evening.
To-day the swings outside the Báb en-Nasr were never idle. Here were
creaking Russian swings hung with little painted chariots for the
children; and plain rope swings, some of them as high as Haman’s
gallows, for the men. For my own part, I know no sight more comic and
incongruous than the serene enjoyment with which a bearded, turbaned,
middle-aged Egyptian squats upon his heels on the tiny wooden seat of
one of these enormous swings, and, holding on to the side-ropes for dear
life, goes careering up forty feet high into the air at every turn.
At a little before midday, when the heat and glare were becoming
intolerable, the swings suddenly ceased going, the crowd surged in the
direction of the gate, and a distant drumming announced the approach of
the procession. First came a string of baggage-camels laden with tent
furniture; then some two hundred pilgrims on foot, chanting passages
from the Korân; then a regiment of Egyptian infantry, the men in a
coarse white linen uniform, consisting of coat, baggy trousers and
gaiters, with cross-belts and cartouche-boxes of plain black leather,
and the red fez, or tarboosh, on the head. Next after these came more
pilgrims, followed by a body of dervishes carrying green banners
embroidered with Arabic sentences in white and yellow; then a native
cavalry regiment headed by a general and four colonels in magnificent
gold embroidery and preceded by an excellent military band; then another
band and a second regiment of infantry; then more colonels, followed by
a regiment of lancers mounted on capital gray horses and carrying lances
topped with small red and green pennants. After these had gone by there
was a long stoppage, and then, with endless breaks and interruptions,
came a straggling, irregular crowd of pilgrims, chiefly of the fellah
class, beating small darabukkehs, or native drums. Those about us
estimated their number at two thousand. And now, their guttural chorus
audible long before they arrived in sight, came the howling dervishes--a
ragged, wild-looking, ruffianly set, rolling their heads from side to
side, and keeping up a hoarse, incessant cry of “Allàh! Allàh! Allàh!”
Of these there may have been a couple of hundred. The sheiks of the
principal order of dervishes came next in order, superbly dressed in
robes of brilliant colors embroidered with gold and mounted on
magnificent Arabs. Finest of all, in a green turban and scarlet mantle,
rode the Sheik of Hasaneyn, who is a descendant of the prophet; but the
most important, the Sheik el Bekree, who is a sort of Egyptian
Archbishop of Canterbury, and head of all the dervishes, came last,
riding a white Arab with gold-embroidered housings. He was a
placid-looking old man, and wore a violet robe and an enormous red and
green turban.
This very reverend personage was closely followed by the chief of the
carpet-makers’ guild--a handsome man, sitting sidewise on a camel.
Then happened another break in the procession--an eager pause--a
gathering murmur. And then, riding a gaunt dromedary at a rapid trot,
his fat sides shaking and his head rolling in a drunken way at every
step, appeared a bloated, half-naked Silenus, with long fuzzy black
locks and triple chin, and no other clothing than a pair of short white
drawers and red slippers. A shiver of delight ran through the crowd at
sight of this holy man--the famous Sheik of the Camel (Sheik el-Gemel),
the “great, good priest”--the idol of the people. We afterward learned
that this was his twentieth pilgrimage, and that he was supposed to
fast, roll his head and wear nothing but this pair of loose drawers all
the way to and from Mecca.
But the crowning excitement was yet to come and the rapture with which
the crowd had greeted the Sheik el-Gemel was as nothing compared with
their ecstasy when the mahmal, preceded by another group of mounted
officers and borne by a gigantic camel, was seen coming through the
gateway. The women held up their children; the men swarmed up the
scaffoldings of the swings and behind the carriages. They screamed, they
shouted, they waved handkerchiefs and turbans; they were beside
themselves with excitement. Meanwhile the camel, as if conscious of the
dignity of his position and the splendor of his trappings, came on
slowly and ponderously with his nose in the air, and passed close before
our horses’ heads. We could not possibly have had better view of the
mahmal; which is nothing but a sort of cage, or pagoda, of gilded
tracery very richly decorated. In the days of the Memlooks, the mahmal
represented the litter of the sultan, and went empty, like a royal
carriage at the public funeral;[6] but we were told that it now carried
the tribute-carpet sent annually by the carpet-makers of Cairo to the
tomb of the prophet.
This closed the procession. As the camel passed, the crowd surged in,
and everything like order was at an end. The carriages all made at once
for the gate, so meeting the full tide of the outpouring crowd and
causing unimaginable confusion. Some stuck in the sand half-way--our own
among the number; and all got into an inextricable block in the narrow
part just inside the gate. Hereupon the drivers abused each other and
the crowd got impatient, and some Europeans got pelted.
Coming back, we met two or three more regiments. The men, both horse and
foot, seemed fair average specimens, and creditably disciplined. They
rode better than they marched, which was to be expected. The uniform is
the same for cavalry and infantry throughout the service; the only
difference being that the former wear short black riding-boots, and the
latter, zouave gaiters of white linen. They are officered up to a
certain point by Egyptians; but the commanding officers and the staff
(among whom are enough colonels and generals to form an ordinary
regiment) are chiefly Europeans and Americans.
It had seemed, while the procession was passing, that the proportion of
pilgrims was absurdly small when compared with the display of military;
but this, which is called the departure of the caravan, is in truth only
the procession of the sacred carpet from Cairo to the camp outside the
walls; and the troops are present merely as part of the pageant. The
true departure takes place two days later. The pilgrims then muster in
great numbers; but the soldiery is reduced to a small escort. It was
said that seven thousand souls went out this year from Cairo and its
neighborhood.
The procession took place on Thursday, the 21st day of the Mohammedan
month of Showwál, which was our 11th of December. The next day, Friday,
being the Mohammedan Sabbath, we went to the convent of the Howling
Dervishes, which lies beyond the walls in a quiet nook between the river
side and the part known as old Cairo.
We arrived a little after two, and passing through a court-yard shaded
by a great sycamore were ushered into a large, square, whitewashed hall
with a dome roof and a neatly matted floor. The place in its
arrangements resembled none of the mosques that we had yet seen. There
was, indeed, nothing to arrange--no pulpit, no holy niche, no lamps, no
prayer-carpets; nothing but a row of cane-bottomed chairs at one end,
some of which were already occupied by certain of our fellow-guests at
Shepheard’s Hotel. A party of some forty or fifty wild-looking dervishes
were squatting in a circle at the opposite side of the hall, their outer
kuftâns and queer pyramidal hats lying in a heap close by.
Being accommodated with chairs among the other spectators, we waited for
whatever might happen. More deverishes and more English dropped in from
time to time. The new dervishes took off their caps and sat down among
the rest, laughing and talking together at their ease. The English sat
in a row, shy, uncomfortable, and silent; wondering whether they ought
to behave as if they were in church, and mortally ashamed of their feet.
For we had all been obliged to take off or cover our boots before going
in, and those who had forgotten to bring slippers had their feet tied up
in pocket handkerchiefs.
A long time went by thus. At last, when the number of dervishes had
increased to about seventy, and every one was tired of waiting, eight
musicians came in--two trumpets, two lutes, a cocoanut fiddle, a
tambourine, and two drums. Then the dervishes, some of whom were old and
white haired and some mere boys, formed themselves into a great circle,
shoulder to shoulder; the band struck up a plaintive, discordant air;
and a grave middle aged man, placing himself in the center of the ring
and inclining his head at each repetition, began to recite the name of
Allàh.
Softly at first, and one by one, the dervishes took up the chant:
“Allàh! Allàh! Allàh!” Their heads and their voices rose and fell in
unison. The dome above gave back a hollow echo. There was something
strange and solemn in the ceremony.
Presently, however, the trumpets brayed louder--the voices grew
hoarser--the heads bowed lower--the name of Allàh rang out faster and
faster, fiercer and fiercer. The leader, himself cool and collected,
began sensibly accelerating the time of the chorus; and it became
evident that the performers were possessed by a growing frenzy. Soon the
whole circle was madly rocking to and fro; the voices rose to a hoarse
scream; and only the trumpets were audible above the din. Now and then a
dervish would spring up convulsively some three or four feet above the
heads of the others; but for the most part they stood firmly rooted to
one spot--now bowing their heads almost to their feet--now flinging
themselves so violently back that we, standing behind, could see their
faces foreshortened upside down; and this with such incredible rapidity
that their long hair had scarcely time either to rise or fall, but
remained as if suspended in mid-air. Still the frenzy mounted; still the
pace quickened. Some shrieked--some groaned--some, unable to support
themselves any longer, were held up in their places by the by-standers.
All were mad for the time being. Our own heads seemed to be going round
at last; and more than one of the ladies present looked longingly toward
the door. It was, in truth, a horrible sight, and needed only darkness
and torchlight to be quite diabolical.
At length, just as the fury was at its height and the very building
seemed to be rocking to and fro above our heads, one poor wretch
staggered out of the circle and fell, writhing and shrieking, close
against our feet. At the same moment the leader clapped his hands; the
performers, panting and exhausted, dropped into a sitting posture; and
the first zikr, as it is called, came abruptly to an end. Some few,
however, could not stop immediately, but kept on swaying and muttering
to themselves; while the one in the fit having ceased to shriek, lay out
stiff and straight, apparently in a state of coma.
There was a murmur of relief and a simultaneous rising among the
spectators. It was announced that another zikr, with a re-enforcement of
fresh dervishes, would soon begin; but the Europeans had had enough of
it, and few remained for the second performance.
Going out we paused beside the poor fellow on the floor, and asked if
nothing could be done for him.
“He is struck by Mohammed,” said gravely an Egyptian official who was
standing by.
At that moment the leader came over, knelt down beside him, touched him
lightly on the head and breast, and whispered something in his ear. The
man was then quite rigid and white as death. We waited, however, and
after a few more minutes saw him struggle back into a dazed,
half-conscious state, when he was helped to his feet and led away by his
friends.
The court-yard as we came out was full of dervishes sitting on cane
benches in the shade and sipping coffee. The green leaves rustled
overhead with glimpses of intensely blue sky between; and brilliant
patches of sunshine flickered down upon groups of wild-looking,
half-savage figures in party-colored garments. It was one of those
ready-made subjects that the sketcher passes by with a sigh, but which
live in his memory forever.
From hence, being within a few minutes’ drive of old Cairo, we went on
as far as the Mosque of Amr--an uninteresting ruin stands alone among
the rubbish-mounds of the first Mohammedan capital of Egypt. It is
constructed on the plan of a single quadrangle two hundred and
twenty-five feet square, surrounded by a covered colonnade one range of
pillars in depth on the west (which is the side of the entrance); four
on the north; three on the south; and six on the east, which is the
place of prayer, and contains three holy niches and the pulpit. The
columns, two hundred and forty-five in number, have been brought from
earlier Roman and Byzantine buildings. They are of various marbles and
have all kinds of capitals. Some being originally too short, have been
stilted on disproportionately high bases; and in one instance the
necessary height has been obtained by adding a second capital on the top
of the first. We observed one column of that rare black and white
speckled marble of which there is a specimen in the pulpit of St. Mark’s
in Venice; and one of the holy niches contains some fragments of
Byzantine mosaics. But the whole building seems to have been put
together in a barbarous way, and would appear to owe its present state
of dilapidation more to bad workmanship than to time. Many of the
pillars, especially on the western side, are fallen and broken; the
octagonal fountain in the center is a roofless ruin; and the little
minaret at the southeast corner is no longer safe.
Apart, however, from its poverty of design and detail, the Mosque of Amr
is interesting as a point of departure in the history of Saracenic
architecture. It was built by Amr Ebn el-As, the Arab conqueror of
Egypt, in the twenty-first year of the hegira (A.D. 642), just ten years
after the death of Mohammed; and it is the earliest Saracenic edifice in
Egypt. We were glad, therefore, to have seen it for this reason, if for
no other. But it is a barren, dreary place; and the glare reflected from
all sides of the quadrangle was so intense that we were thankful to get
away into the narrow streets beside the river.
Here we presently fell in with a wedding procession consisting of a
crowd of men, a band, and some three or four hired carriages full of
veiled women, one of whom was pointed out as the bride. The bridegroom
walked in the midst of the men, who seemed to be teasing him, drumming
round him, and opposing his progress; while high above the laughter, the
shouting, the jingle of tambourines and the thrumming of darabukkehs,
was heard the shrill squeal of some instrument that sounded exactly like
a bagpipe.
It was a brilliant afternoon, and we ended our day’s work, I remember,
with a drive on the Shubra road and a glance at the gardens of the
khedive’s summer palace. The Shubra road is the Champs Elysées of Cairo,
and is thronged every day from four to half-past six. Here little sheds
of roadside cafés alternate with smart modern villas; ragged fellâheen
on jaded donkeys trot side by side with elegant attachés on
high-stepping Arabs; while tourists in hired carriages, Jew bankers in
unexceptionable phaetons, veiled hareems in London built broughams,
Italian shop-keepers in preposterously fashionable toilets, grave sheiks
on magnificent Cairo asses, officers in frogged and braided frocks, and
English girls in tall hats and close-fitting habits, followed by the
inevitable little solemn-looking English groom, pass and repass, precede
and follow each other, in one changing, restless, heterogeneous stream,
the like of which is to be seen in no other capital in the world. The
sons of the khedive drive here daily, always in separate carriages and
preceded by four saïses and four guards. They are of all ages and sizes,
from the hereditary prince, a pale, gentlemanly looking young man of
four or five and twenty, down to one tiny, imperious atom of about six,
who is dressed like a little man, and is constantly leaning out of the
carriage window and shrilly abusing his coachman.[7]
Apart however, from those who frequent it, the Shubra road is a really
fine drive, broad, level, raised some six or eight feet above the
cultivated plain, closely planted on both sides with acacias and
sycamore fig trees, and reaching straight away for four miles out of
Cairo, counting from the railway terminus to the summer palace. The
carriage-way is about as wide as the road across Hyde Park which
connects Bayswater with Kensington; and toward the Shubra end, it runs
close beside the Nile. Many of the sycamores are of great size and quite
patriarchal girth. Their branches meet overhead nearly all the way,
weaving a delicious shade and making a cool green tunnel of the long
perspective.
We did not stay long in the khedive’s gardens, for it was already
getting late when we reached the gates; but we went far enough to see
that they were tolerably well kept, not over formal and laid out with a
view to masses of foliage, shady paths and spaces of turf inlaid with
flower-beds, after the style of the famous Sarntheim and Moser gardens
at Botzen in the Tyrol. Here are sont trees (_Acacia Nilotica_) of
unusual size, powdered all over with little feathery tufts of yellow
blossom; orange and lemon trees in abundance; heaps of little green
limes; bananas bearing heavy pendent bunches of ripe fruit; winding
thickets of pomegranates, oleanders and salvias; and great beds and
banks and trellised walks of roses. Among these, however, I observed
none of the rarer varieties. As for the pointsettia, it grows in Egypt
to a height of twenty feet, and bears blossoms of such size and color as
we in England can form no idea of. We saw large trees of it both here
and at Alexandria that seemed as if bending beneath a mantle of crimson
stars, some of which cannot have measured less than twenty-two inches in
diameter.
A large Italian fountain, in a rococo style, is the great sight of the
place. We caught a glimpse of it through the trees, and surprised the
gardener who was showing us over by declining to inspect it more nearly.
He could not understand why we preferred to give our time to the shrubs
and flower-beds.
Driving back presently toward Cairo with a big handful of roses apiece,
we saw the sun going down in an aureole of fleecy pink and golden
clouds, the Nile flowing by like a stream of liquid light, and a little
fleet of sailing boats going up to Boulak before a puff of north wind
that had sprung up as the sun neared the horizon. That puff of north
wind, those gliding sails, had a keen interest for us now and touched us
nearly; because--I have delayed this momentous revelation till the last
moment--because we were to start to-morrow!
And this is why I have been able, in the midst of so much that was new
and bewildering, to remember quite circumstantially the dates and all
the events connected with these last two days. They were to be our last
two days in Cairo; and to-morrow morning, Saturday, the 13th of
December, we were to go on board a certain dahabeeyah now lying off the
iron bridge at Boulak, therein to begin that strange aquatic life to
which we had been looking forward with so many hopes and fears, and
toward which we had been steering through so many preliminary
difficulties.
But the difficulties were all over now and everything was settled;
though not in the way we had at first intended. For, in place of a small
boat, we had secured one of the largest on the river; and instead of
going alone we had decided to throw in our lot with that of three other
travelers. One of these three was already known to the writer. The other
two, friends of the first, were on their way out from Europe and were
not expected in Cairo for another week. We knew nothing of them but
their names.
Meanwhile L---- and the writer, assuming sole possession of the
dahabeeyah, were about to start ten days in advance; it being their
intention to push on as far as Rhoda (the ultimate point then reached by
the Nile railway), and there to await the arrival of the rest of the
party. Now Rhoda (more correctly Roda) is just one hundred and eighty
miles south of Cairo, and we calculated upon seeing the Sakkârah
pyramids, the Turra quarries, the tombs of Beni Hassan, and the famous
grotto of the Colossus on the Sledge, before our fellow-travelers should
be due.
“It depends on the wind, you know,” said our dragoman, with a lugubrious
smile.
We knew that it depended on the wind; but what then? In Egypt the wind
is supposed always to blow from the north at this time of the year, and
we had ten good days at our disposal. The observation was clearly
irrelevant.