ASSUAN AND ELEPHANTINE.
The green Island of Elephantine, which is about a mile in length, lies
opposite Assûan and divides the Nile in two channels. The Libyan and
Arabian deserts--smooth amber sand-slopes on the one hand; rugged
granite cliffs on the other--come down to the brink on either side. On
the Libyan shore a sheik’s tomb, on the Arabian shore a bold fragment of
Moorish architecture with ruined arches open to the sky, crown two
opposing heights, and keep watch over the gate of the cataract. Just
under the Moorish ruin, and separated from the river by a slip of sandy
beach, lies Assûan.
A few scattered houses, a line of blank wall, the top of a minaret, the
dark mouths of one or two gloomy alleys, are all that one sees of the
town from the mooring-place below. The black bowlders close against the
shore, some of which are superbly hieroglyphed, glisten in the sun like
polished jet.[46] The beach is crowded with bales of goods; with camels
laden and unladen; with turbaned figures coming and going; with damaged
cargo-boats lying up high and dry, and half heeled over, in the sun.
Others, moored close together, are taking in or discharging cargo. A
little apart from these lie some three or four dahabeeyahs flying
English, American, and Belgian flags. Another has cast anchor over the
way at Elephantine. Small rowboats cross and recross, meanwhile, from
shore to shore; dogs bark; camels snort and snarl; donkeys bray; and
clamorous curiosity dealers scream, chatter, hold their goods at arm’s
length, battle and implore to come on board, and are only kept off the
landing-plank by means of two big sticks in the hands of two stalwart
sailors.
The things offered for sale at Assûan are altogether new and strange.
Here are no scarabæi, no funerary statuettes, no bronze or porcelain
gods, no relics of a past civilization; but, on the contrary, such
objects as speak only of a rude and barbarous present--ostrich eggs and
feathers, silver trinkets of rough Nubian workmanship, spears, bows,
arrows, bucklers of rhinoceros hide, ivory bracelets, cut solid from the
tusk, porcupine quills, baskets of stained and plaited reeds, gold nose
rings and the like. One old woman has a Nubian lady’s dressing-case for
sale--an uncouth, fetich-like object with a cushion for its body, and a
top-knot of black feathers. The cushion contains two kohl-bottles, a
bodkin and a bone comb.
But the noisest dealer of the lot is an impish boy blessed with the
blackest skin and the shrillest voice ever brought together in one human
being. His simple costume consists of a tattered shirt and a white
cotton skull-cap; his stock in trade of a greasy leather fringe tied to
the end of a stick. Flying from window to window of the saloon on the
side next the shore, scrambling up the bows of a neighboring cargo-boat
so as to attack us in the rear, thrusting his stick and fringe in our
faces whichever way we turn, and pursuing us with eager cries of “Madame
Nubia! Madame Nubia!” he skips and screams and grins like an ubiquitous
goblin, and throws every competitor into the shade.
Having seen a similar fringe in the collection of a friend at home, I at
once recognized in “Madame Nubia” one of those curious girdles, which,
with the addition of a necklace and a few bracelets, form the entire
wardrobe of little girls south of the cataract. They vary in size
according to the age of the wearer; the largest being about twelve
inches in depth and twenty-five in length. A few are ornamented with
beads and small shells; but these are _parures de luxe_. The ordinary
article is cheaply and unpretentiously trimmed with castor-oil. That is
to say, the girdle when new is well soaked in the oil, which softens and
darkens the leather, besides adding a perfume dear to native nostrils.
For to the Nubian, who grows his own plants and bruises his own berries,
this odor is delicious. He reckons castor-oil among his greatest
luxuries. He eats it as we eat butter. His wives saturate their plaited
locks in it. His little girls perfume their fringes with it. His boys
anoint their bodies with it. His home, his breath, his garments, his
food are redolent of it. It pervades the very air in which he lives and
has his being. Happy the European traveler who, while his lines are cast
in Nubia, can train his degenerate nose to delight in the aroma of
castor-oil!
The march of civilization is driving these fringes out of fashion on the
frontier. At Assûan they are chiefly in demand among English and
American visitors. Most people purchase a “Madame Nubia” for the
entertainment of friends at home. L----, who is given to vanities in the
way of dress, bought one so steeped in fragrance that it scented the
Philæ for the rest of the voyage and retains its odor to this day.
Almost before the mooring-rope was made fast our painter, arrayed in a
gorgeous keffiyeh[47] and armed with the indispensible visiting-cane,
had sprung ashore and hastened to call upon the governor. A couple of
hours later the governor (having promised to send at once for the sheik
of the cataract and to forward our going by all means in his power)
returned the visit. He brought with him the mudîr[48] and kadi[49] of
Assûan, each attended by his pipe-bearer.
We received our guests with due ceremony in the saloon. The great men
placed themselves on one of the side-divans, and the painter opened the
conversation by offering them champagne, claret, port, sherry, curaçoa,
brandy, whisky and Angostura bitters. Talhamy interpreted.
The governor laughed. He was a tall young man, graceful, lively,
good-looking and black as a crow. The kadi and mudîr both elderly Arabs,
yellow, wrinkled and precise, looked shocked at the mere mention of
these unholy liquors. Somebody then proposed lemonade.
The governor turned briskly toward the speaker.
“Gazzoso?” he said, interrogatively.
To which Talhamy replied: “Aïwah [yes,] Gazzoso.”
Aerated lemonade and cigars were then brought. The governor watched the
process of uncorking with a face of profound interest and drank with the
undisguised greediness of a school-boy. Even the kadi and mudîr relaxed
somewhat of the gravity of their demeanor. To men whose habitual drink
consists of lime-water and sugar, bottled lemonade represents champagne
mousseux of the choicest brand.
Then began the usual attempts at conversation; and only those who have
tried small talk by proxy know how hard it is to supply topics, suppress
yawns and keep up an animated expression of countenance, while the
civilities on both sides are being interpreted by a dragoman.
We began, of course, with the temperature; for in Egypt, where it never
rains and the sun is always shining, the thermometer takes the place of
the weather as a useful platitude. Knowing that Assûan enjoys the
hottest reputation of any town on the surface of the globe, we were
agreeably surprised to find it no warmer than England in September. The
governor accounted for this by saying that he had never known so cold a
winter. We then asked the usual questions about the crops, the height of
the river, and so forth; to all of which he replied with the ease and
_bonhomie_ of a man of the world. Nubia, he said, was healthy--the
date-harvest had been abundant--the corn promised well--the Soudan was
quiet and prosperous. Referring to the new postal arrangements, he
congratulated us on being able to receive and post letters at the second
cataract. He also remarked that the telegraphic wires were now in
working order as far as Khartûm. We then asked how soon he expected the
railway to reach Assûan; to which he replied: “In two years, at latest.”
At length our little stock of topics came to an end and the
entertainment flagged.
“What shall I say next?” asked the dragoman.
“Tell him we particularly wish to see the slave market.”
The smile vanished from the governor’s face. The mudîr set down a glass
of fizzing lemonade, untasted. The kadi all but dropped his cigar. If a
shell had burst in the saloon their consternation could scarcely have
been greater.
The governor, looking very grave, was the first to speak.
“He says there is no slave trade in Egypt and no slave market in
Assûan,” interrupted Talhamy.
Now, we had been told in Cairo, on excellent authority, that slaves were
still bought and sold here, though less publicly than of old; and that
of all the sights a traveler might see in Egypt, this was the most
curious and pathetic.
“No slave market!” we repeated, incredulously.
The governor, the kadi and the mudîr shook their heads, and lifted up
their voices, and said all together, like a trio of mandarins in a comic
opera:
“Là, là, là! Mafeesh bazaar--mafeesh bazaar!” (“No, no, no! No
bazaar--no bazaar!”)
We endeavored to explain that in making this inquiry we desired neither
the gratification of an idle curiosity, nor the furtherance of any
political views. Our only object was sketching. Understanding,
therefore, that a private bazaar still existed in Assûan----
This was too much for the judicial susceptibilities of the kadi. He
would not let Talhamy finish.
“There is nothing of the kind,” he interrupted, puckering his face into
an expression of such virtuous horror as might become a reformed New
Zealander on the subject of cannibalism. “It is unlawful--unlawful.”
An awkward silence followed. We felt we had committed an enormous
blunder, and were disconcerted accordingly.
The governor saw, and with the best grace in the world took pity upon,
our embarrassment. He rose, opened the piano, and asked for some music;
whereupon the little lady played the liveliest thing she could remember;
which happened to be a waltz by Verdi.
The governor, meanwhile, sat beside the piano, smiling and attentive.
With all his politeness, however, he seemed to be looking for
something--to be not altogether satisfied. There was even a shade of
disappointment in the tone of his “Ketther-khayrik ketîr,” when the
waltz finally exploded in a shower of arpeggios. What could it be? Was
it that he wished for a song? Or would a pathetic air have pleased him
better?
Not a bit of it. He was looking for what his quick eye presently
detected--namely, some printed music, which he seized triumphantly and
placed before the player. What he wanted was “music played from a book.”
Being asked whether he preferred a lively or a plaintive melody, he
replied that “he did not care, so long as it was _difficult_.”
Now it chanced that he had pitched upon a volume of Wagner; so the
little lady took him at his word and gave him a dose of “Tannhaüser.”
Strange to say, he was delighted. He showed his teeth; he rolled his
eyes; he uttered the long-drawn “Ah!” which in Egypt signifies applause.
The more crabbed, the more far-fetched, the more unintelligible the
movement, the better, apparently, he liked it.
I never think of Assûan but I remember that curious scene--our little
lady at the piano; the black governor grinning in ecstasies close by;
the kadi in his magnificent shawl-turban; the mudîr half asleep; the air
thick with tobacco-smoke; and above all--dominant, tyrannous,
overpowering--the crash and clang, the involved harmonies, and the
multitudinous combinations of Tannhaüser.
The linked sweetness of an oriental visit is generally drawn out to a
length that sorely tries the patience and politeness of European hosts.
A native gentleman, if he has any business to attend to, gets through
his work before noon, and has nothing to do but smoke, chat, and doze
away the remainder of the day. For time, which hangs heavily on his
hands, he has absolutely no value. His main object in life is to consume
it, if possible, less tediously. He pays a visit, therefore, with the
deliberate intention of staying as long as possible. Our guests on the
present occasion remained the best part of two hours; and the governor,
who talked of going to England shortly, asked for all our names and
addresses, that he might come and see us at home.
Leaving the cabin, he paused to look at our roses, which stood near the
door. We told him they had been given to us by the Bey of Erment.
“Do they grow at Erment?” he asked, examining them with great curiosity.
“How beautiful! Why will they not grow in Nubia?”
We suggested that the climate was probably too hot for them.
He stooped, inhaling their perfume. He looked puzzled.
“They are very sweet,” he said. “Are they roses?”
The question gave us a kind of shock. We could hardly believe we had
reached a land where roses were unknown. Yet the governor, who had
smoked a rose-water narghilé and drunk rose-sherbet and eaten conserve
of roses all his days, recognized them by their perfume only. He had
never been out of Assûan in his life; not even as far as Erment. And he
had never seen a rose in bloom.
We had hoped to begin the passage of the cataract on the morning of the
day following our arrival at the frontier; but some other dahabeeyah, it
seemed, was in the act of fighting its way up to Philæ; and till that
boat was through, neither the sheik nor his men would be ready for us.
At eight o’clock in the morning of the next day but one, however, they
promised to take us in hand. We were to pay £12 English for the double
journey; that is to say, £9 down; and the remaining £3 on our return to
Assûan.
Such was the treaty concluded between ourselves and the sheik of the
cataract at a solemn conclave over which the governor, assisted by the
kadi and mudîr, presided.
Having a clear day to spend at Assûan, we of course gave part thereof to
Elephantine, which in the inscriptions is called Abu, or the Ivory
Island. There may perhaps have been a depôt, or “treasure-city,” here
for the precious things of the Upper Nile country; the gold of Nubia and
the elephant-tusks of Kush.
It is a very beautiful island--rugged and lofty to the south; low and
fertile to the north; with an exquisitely varied coast-line full of
wooded creeks and miniature beaches in which one might expect at any
moment to meet Robinson Crusoe with his goat-skin umbrella, or man
Friday bending under a load of faggots. They are all Fridays here,
however; for Elephantine, being the first Nubian outpost, is peopled by
Nubians only. It contains two Nubian villages, and the mounds of a very
ancient city which was the capital of all Egypt under the Pharaohs of
the sixth dynasty, between three and four thousand years before Christ.
Two temples, one of which dated from the reign of Amenhotep III, were
yet standing here some seventy years ago. They were seen by Belzoni in
1815, and had just been destroyed to build a palace and barracks when
Champollion went up in 1829. A ruined gateway of the Ptolemaic period
and a forlorn-looking sitting statue of Menephtah, the supposed Pharaoh
of the exodus, alone remain to identify the sites on which they stood.
Thick palm-groves and carefully tilled patches of castor-oil and cotton
plants, lentils, and durra, make green the heart of the island. The
western shore is wooded to the water’s edge. One may walk here in the
shade at hottest noon, listening to the murmur of the cataract and
seeking for wild flowers--which, however, would seem to blossom nowhere
save in the sweet Arabic name of Gezîret-el-Zahr, the island of flowers.
Upon the high ground at the southern extremity of the island, among
rubbish heaps, and bleached bones, and human skulls, and the sloughed
skins of snakes, and piles of party-colored potsherds, we picked up
several bits of inscribed terra-cotta--evidently fragments of broken
vases. The writing was very faint, and in part obliterated. We could see
that the characters were Greek; but not even our idle man was equal to
making out a word of the sense. Believing them to be mere disconnected
scraps to which it would be impossible to find the corresponding
pieces--taking it for granted, also, that they were of comparatively
modern date--we brought away some three or four as souvenirs of the
place, and thought no more about them.
We little dreamed that Dr. Birch, in his cheerless official room at the
British Museum so many thousand miles away, was at this very time
occupied in deciphering a collection of similar fragments, nearly all of
which had been brought from this same spot.[50] Of the curious interest
attaching to these illegible scrawls, of the importance they were
shortly to acquire in the eyes of the learned, of the possible value of
any chance additions to their number we knew, and could know, nothing.
Six months later we lamented our ignorance and our lost opportunities.
For the Egyptians, it seems, used potsherds instead of papyrus for short
memoranda; and each of these fragments which we had picked up contained
a record complete in itself. I fear we should have laughed if any one
had suggested that they might be tax-gatherers’ receipts. Yet that is
just what they were--receipts for government dues collected on the
frontier during the period of Roman rule in Egypt. They were written in
Greek, because the Romans deputed Greek scribes to perform the duties of
this unpopular office; but the Greek is so corrupt and the penmanship so
clownish that only a few eminent scholars can read them.
Not all the inscribed fragments found at Elephantine, however, are
tax-receipts, or written in bad Greek. The British Museum contains
several in the demotic, or current, script of the people, and a few in
the more learned hieratic, or priestly, hand. The former have not yet
been translated. They are probably business memoranda and short private
letters of Egyptians of the same period.
But how came these fragile documents to be preserved, when the city in
which their writers lived, and the temples in which they worshiped, have
disappeared and left scarce a trace behind? Who cast them down among
the potsherds on this barren hillside? Are we to suppose that some kind
of public record office once occupied the site, and that the receipts
here stored were duplicates of those given to the payers? Or is it not
even more probable that this place was the Monte Testaccio of the
ancient city, to which all broken pottery, written as well as unwritten,
found its way sooner or later?
With the exception of a fine fragment of Roman quay nearly opposite
Assûan, the ruined gateway of Alexander and the battered statue of
Menephtah are the only objects of archæological interest in the island.
But the charm of Elephantine is the everlasting charm of natural
beauty--of rocks, of palm-woods, of quiet waters.
The streets of Assûan are just like the streets of every other mud town
on the Nile. The bazaars reproduce the bazaars of Minieh and Siût. The
environs are noisy with cafés and dancing-girls, like the environs of
Esneh and Luxor. Into the mosque, where some kind of service was going
on, we peeped without entering. It looked cool, and clean, and spacious;
the floor being covered with fine matting, and some scores of
ostrich-eggs depending from the ceiling. In the bazaars we bought
baskets and mats of Nubian manufacture, woven with the same reeds, dyed
with the same colors, shaped after the same models, as those found in
the tombs at Thebes. A certain oval basket with a vaulted cover, of
which specimens are preserved in the British Museum, seems still to be
the pattern most in demand at Assûan. The basket-makers have neither
changed their fashion nor the buyers their taste since the days of
Rameses the Great.
Here also, at a little cupboard of a shop near the shoe bazaar, we were
tempted to spend a few pounds in ostrich feathers, which are conveyed to
Assûan by traders from the Soudan. The merchant brought out a feather at
a time, and seemed in no haste to sell. We also affected indifference.
The haggling on both sides was tremendous. The by-standers, as usual,
were profoundly interested, and commented on every word that passed. At
last we carried away an armful of splendid plumes, most of which
measured from two and a half to three feet in length. Some were pure
white, others white tipped with brown. They had been neither cleaned nor
curled, but were just as they came from the hands of the
ostrich-hunters.
By far the most amusing sight in Assûan was the traders’ camp down near
the landing-place. Here were Abyssinians like slender-legged baboons;
wild-looking Bisharîyah and Ababdeh Arabs with flashing eyes and flowing
hair; sturdy Nubians the color of a Barbedienne bronze; and natives of
all tribes and shades, from Kordofân and Sennâr, the deserts of the
Bahuda and the banks of the Blue and White Niles. Some were running from
Cairo; others were on their way thither. Some, having disembarked their
merchandise at Mahatta (a village on the other side of the cataract),
had come across the desert to re-embark it at Assûan. Others had just
disembarked theirs at Assûan, in order to re-embark it at Mahatta.
Meanwhile, they were living _sub jove_; each intrenched in his own
little redoubt of piled-up bales and packing-cases, like a spider in the
center of his web; each provided with a kettle and coffee-pot, and an
old rug to sleep and pray upon. One sulky old Turk had fixed up a roof
of matting, and furnished his den with a _kafas_, or palm-wood couch;
but he was a self-indulgent exception to the rule.
Some smiled, some scowled, when we passed through the camp. One offered
us coffee. Another, more obliging than the rest, displayed the contents
of his packages. Great bundles of lion and leopard skins, bales of
cotton, sacks of henna-leaves, elephant-tusks swathed in canvas and
matting, strewed the sandy bank. Of gum-arabic alone there must have
been several hundred bales; each bale sewed up in a raw hide and tied
with thongs of hippopotamus leather. Toward dusk, when the camp-fires
were alight and the evening meal was in course of preparation, the scene
became wonderfully picturesque. Lights gleamed; shadows deepened;
strange figures stalked to and fro, or squatted in groups amid their
merchandise. Some were baking flat cakes; others stirring soup, or
roasting coffee. A hole scooped in the sand, a couple of stones to
support the kettle, and a handful of dry sticks, served for kitchen
range and fuel. Meanwhile all the dogs in Assûan prowled round the camp,
and a jargon of barbaric tongues came and went with the breeze that
followed the sunset.
I must not forget to add that among this motley crowd we saw two
brothers, natives of Khartûm. We met them first in the town, and
afterward in the camp. They wore voluminous white turbans and flowing
robes of some kind of creamy cashmere cloth. Their small proud heads
and delicate aristocratic features were modeled on the purest Florentine
type; their eyes were long and liquid; their complexions, free from any
taint of Abyssinian blue or Nubian bronze, were intensely, lustrously,
magnificently black. We agreed that we had never seen two such handsome
men. They were like young and beautiful Dantes carved in ebony; Dantes
unembittered by the world, unsicklied by the pale cast of thought, and
glowing with the life of the warm south.
Having explored Elephantine and ransacked the bazaars, our party
dispersed in various directions. Some gave the remainder of the day to
letter-writing. The painter, bent on sketching, started off in search of
a jackal-haunted ruin up a wild ravine on the Libyan side of the river.
The writer and the idle man boldly mounted camels and rode out into the
Arabian desert.
Now the camel-riding that is done at Assûan is of the most commonplace
description, and bears to genuine desert traveling about the same
relation that half an hour on the Mer de Glace bears to the passage of
the Mortaretsch glacier or the ascent of Monte Rosa. The short cut from
Assûan to Philæ, or at least the ride to the granite quarries, forms
part of every dragoman’s programme, and figures as the crowning
achievement of every Cook’s tourist. The Arabs themselves perform these
little journeys much more pleasantly and expeditiously on donkeys. They
take good care, in fact, never to scale the summit of a camel if they
can help it. But for the impressionable traveler, the Assûan camel is
_de rigueur_. In his interests are those snarling quadrupeds, betasseled
and berugged, taken from their regular work, and paraded up and down the
landing-place. To transport cargoes disembarked above and below the
cataract is their vocation. Taken from this honest calling to perform in
an absurd little drama got up especially for the entertainment of
tourists, it is no wonder if the beasts are more than commonly
ill-tempered. They know the whole proceeding to be essentially cockney,
and they resent it accordingly.
The ride, nevertheless, has its advantages; not the least being that it
enables one to realize the kind of work involved in any of the regular
desert expeditions. At all events, it entitles one to claim acquaintance
with the ship of the desert, and (bearing in mind the probable
inferiority of the specimen) to form an _ex pede_ judgment of his
qualification.
The camel has his virtues--so much at least must be admitted; but they
do not lie upon the surface. My Buffon tells me, for instance, that he
carries a fresh-water cistern in his stomach; which is meritorious. But
the cistern ameliorates neither his gait nor his temper--which are
abominable. Irreproachable as a beast of burden, he is open to many
objections as a steed. It is unpleasant, in the first place, to ride an
animal which not only objects to being ridden, but cherishes a strong
personal antipathy to his rider. Such, however, is his amiable
peculiarity. You know that he hates you, from the moment you first walk
round him, wondering where and how to begin the ascent of his hump. He
does not, in fact, hesitate to tell you so in the roundest terms. He
swears freely while you are taking your seat; snarls if you but move in
the saddle; and stares you angrily in the face if you attempt to turn
his head in any direction save that which he himself prefers. Should you
persevere, he tries to bite your feet. If biting your feet does not
answer, he lies down.
Now the lying down and getting up of a camel are performances designed
for the express purpose of inflicting grievous bodily harm upon his
rider. Thrown twice forward and twice backward, punched in his “wind”
and damaged in his spine, the luckless novice receives four distinct
shocks, each more violent and unexpected than the last. For this
“execrable hunchback” is fearfully and wonderfully made. He has a
superfluous joint somewhere in his legs and uses it to revenge himself
upon mankind.
His paces, however, are more complicated than his joints and more trying
than his temper. He has four: a short walk, like the rolling of a small
boat in a chopping sea; a long walk, which dislocates every bone in your
body; a trot that reduces you to imbecility; and a gallop that is sudden
death. One tries in vain to imagine a crime for which the _peine forte
et dure_ of sixteen hours on camelback would not be a full and
sufficient expiation. It is a punishment to which one would not
willingly be the means of condemning any human being--not even a
reviewer.
They had been down on the bank for hire all day long--brown camels and
white camels, shaggy camels and smooth camels; all with gay worsted
tassels on their heads and rugs flung over their high wooden saddles, by
way of housings. The gentlemen of the Fostât had ridden away hours ago,
cross-legged and serene; and we had witnessed their demeanor with
mingled admiration and envy. Now, modestly conscious of our own daring,
we prepared to do likewise. It was a solemn moment when, having chosen
our beasts, we prepared to encounter the unknown perils of the desert.
What wonder if the happy couple exchanged an affecting farewell at
parting?
We mounted and rode away; two imps of darkness following at the heels of
our camels and Salame performing the part of body-guard. Thus attended,
we found ourselves pitched, swung and rolled along at a pace that
carried us rapidly up the slope, past a suburb full of cafés and
grinning dancing-girls and out into the desert. Our way for the first
half-mile or so lay among tombs. A great Mohammedan necropolis, part
ancient, part modern, lies behind Assûan and covers more ground than the
town itself. Some scores of tiny mosques, each topped by its little
cupola and all more or less dilapidated, stand here amid a wilderness of
scattered tombstones. Some are isolated; some grouped picturesquely
together. Each covers, or is supposed to cover, the grave of a Moslem
santon; but some are mere commemorative chapels dedicated to saints and
martyrs elsewhere buried. Of simple headstones defaced, shattered,
overturned, propped back to back on cairns of loose stones, or piled in
broken and dishonored heaps, there must be many hundreds. They are for
the most part rounded at the top like ancient Egyptian stelæ and bear
elaborately carved inscriptions, some of which are in the Cufic
character and more than a thousand years old. Seen when the sun is
bending westward and the shadows are lengthening, there is something
curiously melancholy and picturesque about this city of the dead in the
dead desert.
Leaving the tombs, we now strike off toward the left, bound for the
obelisk in the quarry, which is the stock sight of the place. The
horizon beyond Assûan is bounded on all sides by rocky heights, bold and
picturesque in form, yet scarcely lofty enough to deserve the name of
mountains. The sandy bottom under our camel’s feet is strewn with small
pebbles and tolerably firm. Clustered rocks of black and red granite
profusely inscribed with hieroglyphed records crop up here and there and
serve as landmarks just where landmarks are needed. For nothing would be
easier than to miss one’s way among these tawny slopes and to go
wandering off, like lost Israelites, into the desert.
Winding in and out among undulating hillocks and tracts of rolled
bowlders, we come at last to a little group of cliffs, at the foot of
which our camels halt unbidden. Here we dismount, climb a short slope
and find the huge monolith at our feet.
Being cut horizontally, it lies half-buried in drifted sand, with
nothing to show that it is not wholly disengaged and ready for
transport. Our books tell us, however, that the under-cutting has never
been done and that it is yet one with the granite bottom on which it
seems to lie. Both ends are hidden; but one can pace some sixty feet of
its yet visible surface. That surface bears the tool-marks of the
workmen. A slanting groove pitted with wedge-holes indicates where it
was intended to taper toward the top. Another shows where it was to be
reduced at the sides. Had it been finished, this would have been the
largest obelisk in the world. The great obelisk of Queen Hatshepsu at
Karnak, which, as its inscriptions record, came also from Assûan, stands
ninety-two feet high and measures eight feet square at the base;[51] but
this which lies sleeping in the desert would have stood ninety-five feet
in the shaft, and have measured over eleven feet square at the base. We
can never know now why it was left here, nor guess with what royal name
it should have been inscribed. Had the king said in his heart that he
would set up a mightier obelisk than was ever yet seen by eyes of men,
and did he die before the block could be extracted from the quarry? Or
were the quarrymen driven from the desert, and the Pharaoh from his
throne, by the hungry hordes of Ethiopia, or Syria, or the islands
beyond the sea? The great stone may be older than Rameses the Great, or
as modern as the last of the Romans; but to give it a date, or to divine
its history, is impossible. Egyptology, which has solved the enigma of
the sphinx, is powerless here. The obelisk of the quarry holds its
secret safe, and holds it forever.
Ancient Egyptian quarrying is seen under its most striking aspect among
extensive limestone or sandstone ranges, as at Turra and Silsilis; but
the process by which the stone was extracted can nowhere be more
distinctly traced than at Assûan. In some respects, indeed, the quarries
here, though on a smaller scale than those lower down the river, are
even more interesting. Nothing surprises one at Silsilis, for instance,
more than economy with which the sandstone has been cut from the heart
of the mountain; but at Assûan, as the material was more precious, so
does the economy seem to have been still greater. At Silsilis, the
yellow cliffs have been sliced as neatly as the cheese in a
cheese-monger’s window. Smooth, upright walls alone mark the place where
the work has been done; and the amount of débris is altogether
insignificant. But at Assûan, when, extracting granite for sculptural
purposes, they attacked the form of the object required and cut it out
roughly to shape. The great obelisk is but one of the many cases in
point. In the same group of rocks, or one very closely adjoining, we saw
a rough-hewn column, erect and three parts detached, as well as the
semi-cylindrical hollow from which its fellow had been taken. One
curious recess from which a quadrant-shaped mass had been cut away
puzzled us immensely. In other places the blocks appeared to have been
coffer shaped. We sought in vain, however, for the broken sarcophagus
mentioned in Murray.
But the drifted sands, we may be sure, hide more precious things than
these. Inscriptions are probably as abundant here as in the breccia of
Hamamat. The great obelisk must have had a fellow, if we only knew where
to look for it. The obelisks of Queen Hatshepsu, and the sarcophagi of
famous kings, might possibly be traced to their beds in these quarries.
So might the casing-stones of the Pyramid of Menkara, the massive slabs
of the Temple of the Sphinx, and the walls of the sanctuary of Philip
Aridæus at Karnak. Above all, the syenite Colossus of the Ramesseum and
the Colossus of Tanis,[52] which was the largest detached statue in the
world, must each have left its mighty matrix among the rocks close by.
But these, like the song of the sirens or the alias of Achilles, though
“not beyond all conjecture,” are among the things that will never now be
discovered.
As regards the process of quarrying at Assûan, it seems that rectangular
granite blocks were split off here, as the softer limestone and
sandstone elsewhere, by means of wooden wedges. These were fitted to
holes already cut for their reception; and, being saturated with water,
split the hard rock by mere force of expansion. Every quarried mass
hereabouts is marked with rows of these wedge-holes.
Passing by the way a tiny oasis where there were camels and a well, and
an idle water-wheel, and a patch of emerald-green barley, we next rode
back nearly to the outskirts of Assûan, where, in a dismal hollow on the
verge of the desert, may be seen a small, half-buried temple of
Ptolemaic times. Traces of color are still visible on the winged globe
under the cornice, and on some mutilated bas-reliefs at either side of
the principal entrance. Seeing that the interior was choked with
rubbish, we made no attempt to go inside; but rode away again without
dismounting.
And now, there being still an hour of daylight, we signified our
intention of making for the top of the nearest hill, in order to see the
sun set. This, clearly, was an unheard of innovation. The camel boys
stared, shook their heads, protested there was “mafeesh sikkeh” (no
road), and evidently regarded us as lunatics. The camels planted their
splay feet obstinately in the sand, tried to turn back, and, when
obliged to yield to the force of circumstances, abused us all the way.
Arrived at the top, we found ourselves looking down upon the Island of
Elephantine, with the Nile, the town, and the dahabeeyahs at our feet. A
prolongation of the ridge on which we were standing led, however, to
another height crowned by a ruined tomb; and seemed to promise a view of
the cataract. Seeing us prepare to go on, the camel boys broke into a
_furor_ of remonstrance, which, but for Salame’s big stick, would have
ended in downright mutiny. Still we pushed forward, and, still
dissatisfied, insisted on attacking a third summit. The boys now trudged
on in sullen despair. The sun was sinking; the way was steep and
difficult; the night would soon come on. If the howadji chose to break
their necks, it concerned nobody but themselves; but if the camels broke
theirs, who was to pay for them?
Such--expressed half in broken Arabic, half in gestures--were the
sentiments of our youthful Nubians. Nor were the camels themselves less
emphatic. They grinned; they sniffed; they snorted; they snarled; they
disputed every foot of the way. As for mine (a gawky, supercilious beast
with a bloodshot eye and a battered Roman nose), I never heard any dumb
animal make use of so much bad language in my life.
The last hill was very steep and stony; but the view from the top was
magnificent. We had now gained the highest point of the ridge which
divides the valley of the Nile from the Arabian desert. The cataract,
widening away reach after reach and studded with innumerable rocky
islets, looked more like a lake than a river. Of the Libyan desert we
could see nothing beyond the opposite sand-slopes, gold-rimmed against
the sunset. The Arabian desert, a boundless waste edged by a serrated
line of purple peaks, extended eastward to the remotest horizon. We
looked down upon it as on a raised map. The Moslem tombs, some five
hundred feet below, showed like toys. To the right, in a wide valley
opening away southward, we recognized that ancient bed of the Nile which
serves for the great highway between Egypt and Nubia. At the end of the
vista, some very distant palms against a rocky background pointed the
way to Philæ.
Meanwhile the sun was fast sinking--the lights were crimsoning--the
shadows were lengthening. All was silent; all was solitary. We listened,
but could scarcely hear the murmur of the rapids. We looked in vain for
the quarry of the obelisk. It was but one group of rocks among scores of
others, and to distinguish it at this distance was impossible.
Presently, a group of three or four black figures, mounted on little
gray asses, came winding in and out among the tombs, and took the road
to Philæ. To us they were moving specks; but our lynx-eyed camel boys at
once recognized the “Sheik el Shellàl” (sheik of the cataract) and his
retinue. More dahabeeyahs had come in; and the worthy man, having spent
the day in Assûan visiting, palavering, bargaining, was now going home
to Mahatta for the night. We watched the retreating riders for some
minutes, till twilight stole up the ancient channel like a flood and
drowned them in warm shadows.
The after-glow had faded off the heights when we at length crossed the
last ridge, descended the last hillside, and regained the level from
which we had started. Here once more we met the Fostât party. They had
ridden to Philæ and back by the desert and were apparently all the worse
for wear. Seeing us they urged their camels to a trot and tried to look
as if they liked it. The idle man and the writer wreathed their
countenances in ghastly smiles and did likewise. Not for worlds would
they have admitted that they found the pace difficult. Such is the moral
influence of the camel. He acts as a tonic; he promotes the Spartan
virtues; and if not himself heroic, is, at least, the cause of heroism
in others.
It was nearly dark when we reached Assûan. The cafés were all alight and
astir. There was smoking and coffee-drinking going on outside; there
were sounds of music and laughter within. A large private house on the
opposite side of the road was being decorated as if for some festive
occasion. Flags were flying from the roof, and two men were busy putting
up a gayly-painted inscription over the doorway. Asking, as was natural,
if there was a marriage or a fantasia afoot, it was not a little
startling to be told that these were signs of mourning, and that the
master of the house had died during the interval that elapsed between
our riding out and riding back again.
In Egypt, where the worship of ancestry and the preservation of the body
were once among the most sacred duties of the living, they now make
short work with their dead. He was to be buried, they said, to-morrow
morning, three hours after sunrise.