love doctors; they are always sending you off at a moment's notice to
delightful places you never dreamt of. Elsie was better, but still far
from strong. I took it upon me to consult our medical attendant; and
his verdict was decisive. He did just what a doctor ought to do. 'She is
getting on very well in Florence,' he said; 'but if you want to restore
her health completely, I should advise you to take her for a winter to
Egypt. After six months of the dry, warm desert air, I don't doubt she
might return to her work in London.'
That last point I used as a lever with Elsie. She positively revels in
teaching mathematics. At first, to be sure, she objected that we had
only just money enough to pay our way to Cairo, and that when we got
there we might starve--her favourite programme. I have not this
extraordinary taste for starving; _my_ idea is, to go where you like,
and find something decent to eat when you get there. However, to humour
her, I began to cast about me for a source of income. There is no
absolute harm in seeing your way clear before you for a twelvemonth,
though of course it deprives you of the plot-interest of poverty.
'Elsie,' I said, in my best didactic style--I excel in didactics--'you
do not learn from the lessons that life sets before you. Look at the
stage, for example; the stage is universally acknowledged at the present
day to be a great teacher of morals. Does not Irving say so?--and he
ought to know. There is that splendid model for imitation, for instance,
the Clown in the pantomime. How does Clown regulate his life? Does he
take heed for the morrow? Not a bit of it! "I wish I had a goose," he
says, at some critical juncture; and just as he says it--pat--a super
strolls upon the stage with a property goose on a wooden tray; and Clown
cries, "Oh, look here, Joey; _here's_ a goose!" and proceeds to
appropriate it. Then he puts his fingers in his mouth and observes, "I
wish I had a few apples to make the sauce with"; and as the words escape
him--pat again--a small boy with a very squeaky voice runs on, carrying
a basket of apples. Clown trips him up, and bolts with the basket.
_There's_ a model for imitation! The stage sets these great moral
lessons before you regularly every Christmas; yet you fail to profit by
them. Govern your life on the principles exemplified by Clown; expect to
find that whatever you want will turn up with punctuality and dispatch
at the proper moment. Be adventurous and you will be happy. Take that as
a new maxim to put in your copy-book!'
'I wish I could think so, dear,' Elsie answered. 'But your confidence
staggers me.'
That evening at our _table-d'hote_, however, it was amply justified. A
smooth-faced young man of ample girth and most prosperous exterior
happened to sit next us. He had his wife with him, so I judged it safe
to launch on conversation. We soon found out he was the millionaire
editor-proprietor of a great London daily, with many more strings to his
journalistic bow; his honoured name was Elworthy. I mentioned casually
that we thought of going for the winter to Egypt. He pricked his ears
up. But at the time he said nothing. After dinner, we adjourned to the
cosy _salon_. I talked to him and his wife; and somehow, that evening,
the devil entered into me. I am subject to devils. I hasten to add, they
are mild ones. I had one of my reckless moods just then, however, and I
reeled off rattling stories of our various adventures. Mr. Elworthy
believed in youth and audacity; I could see I interested him. The more
he was amused, the more reckless I became. 'That's bright,' he said at
last, when I told him the tale of our amateur exploits in the sale of
Manitous. 'That would make a good article!'
'Yes,' I answered, with bravado, determined to strike while the iron
was hot. 'What the _Daily Telephone_ lacks is just one enlivening touch
of feminine brightness.'
He smiled. 'What is your forte?' he inquired.
'My forte,' I answered, 'is--to go where I choose, and write what I like
about it.'
He smiled again. 'And a very good new departure in journalism, too! A
roving commission! Have you ever tried your hand at writing?'
Had I ever tried! It was the ambition of my life to see myself in print;
though, hitherto, it had been ineffectual. 'I have written a few
sketches,' I answered, with becoming modesty. As a matter of fact, our
office bulged with my unpublished manuscripts.
'Could you let me see them?' he asked.
I assented, with inner joy, but outer reluctance. 'If you wish it,' I
murmured; 'but--you must be _very_ lenient!'
[Illustration: HE READ THEM, CRUEL MAN, BEFORE MY VERY EYES.]
Though I had not told Elsie, the truth of the matter was, I had just
then conceived an idea for a novel--my _magnum opus_--the setting of
which compelled Egyptian local colour; and I was therefore dying to get
to Egypt, if chance so willed it. I submitted a few of my picked
manuscripts accordingly to Mr. Elworthy, in fear and trembling. He read
them, cruel man, before my very eyes; I sat and waited, twiddling my
thumbs, demure but apprehensive.
When he had finished, he laid them down.
'Racy!' he said. 'Racy! You're quite right, Miss Cayley. That's just
what we want on the _Daily Telephone_. I should like to print these
three,' selecting them out, 'at our usual rate of pay per thousand.'
'You are very kind.' But the room reeled with me.
'Not at all. I am a man of business. And these are good copy. Now, about
this Egypt. I will put the matter in the shape of a business
proposition. Will you undertake, if I pay your passage, and your
friend's, with all travelling expenses, to let me have three descriptive
articles a week, on Cairo, the Nile, Syria, and India, running to about
two thousand words apiece, at three guineas a thousand?'
My breath came and went. It was positive opulence. The super with the
goose couldn't approach it for patness. My editor had brought me the
apple sauce as well, without even giving me the trouble of cooking it.
The very next day everything was arranged. Elsie tried to protest, on
the foolish ground that she had no money: but the faculty had ordered
the apex of her right lung to go to Egypt, and I couldn't let her fly in
the face of the faculty. We secured our berths in a P. and O. steamer
from Brindisi; and within a week we were tossing upon the bosom of the
blue Mediterranean.
People who haven't crossed the blue Mediterranean cherish an absurd idea
that it is always calm and warm and sunny. I am sorry to take away any
sea's character; but I speak of it as I find it (to borrow a phrase from
my old gyp at Girton); and I am bound to admit that the Mediterranean
did not treat me as a lady expects to be treated. It behaved
disgracefully. People may rhapsodize as long as they choose about a life
on the ocean wave; for my own part, I wouldn't give a pin for
sea-sickness. We glided down the Adriatic from Brindisi to Corfu with a
reckless profusion of lateral motion which suggested the idea that the
ship must have been drinking.
I tried to rouse Elsie when we came abreast of the Ionian Islands, and
to remind her that 'Here was the home of Nausicaa in the Odyssey.' Elsie
failed to respond; she was otherwise occupied. At last, I succumbed and
gave it up. I remember nothing further till a day and a half later, when
we got under lee of Crete, and the ship showed a tendency to resume the
perpendicular. Then I began once more to take a languid interest in the
dinner question.
I may add parenthetically that the Mediterranean is a mere bit of a sea,
when you look at it on the map--a pocket sea, to be regarded with
mingled contempt and affection; but you learn to respect it when you
find that it takes four clear days and nights of abject misery merely to
run across its eastern basin from Brindisi to Alexandria. I respected
the Mediterranean immensely while we lay off the Peloponnesus in the
trough of the waves with a north wind blowing; I only began to temper my
respect with a distant liking when we passed under the welcome shelter
of Crete on a calm, star-lit evening.
It was deadly cold. We had not counted upon such weather in the sunny
south. I recollected now that the Greeks were wont to represent Boreas
as a chilly deity, and spoke of the Thracian breeze with the same
deferentially deprecating adjectives which we ourselves apply to the
east wind of our fatherland; but that apt classical memory somehow
failed to console or warm me. A good-natured male passenger, however,
volunteered to ask us, 'Will I get ye a rug, ladies?' The form of his
courteous question suggested the probability of his Irish origin.
'You are very kind,' I answered. 'If you don't want it for yourself, I'm
sure my friend would be glad to have the use of it.'
'Is it meself? Sure I've got me big ulsther, and I'm as warrum as a
toast in it. But ye're not provided for this weather. Ye've thrusted too
much to those rascals the po-uts. 'Where breaks the blue Sicilian say,'
the rogues write. _I'd_ like to set them down in it, wid a nor'-easter
blowing!'
He fetched up his rug. It was ample and soft, a smooth brown camel-hair.
He wrapped us both up in it. We sat late on deck that night, as warm as
a toast ourselves, thanks to our genial Irishman.
[Illustration: 'TIS DOCTOR MACLOGHLEN, HE ANSWERED.]
We asked his name. ''Tis Dr. Macloghlen,' he answered. 'I'm from County
Clare, ye see; and I'm on me way to Egypt for thravel and exploration.
Me fader whisht me to see the worruld a bit before I'd settle down to
practise me profession at Liscannor. Have ye ever been in County Clare?
Sure, 'tis the pick of Oireland.'
'We have that pleasure still in store,' I answered, smiling. 'It spreads
gold-leaf over the future, as George Meredith puts it.'
'Is it Meredith? Ah, there's the foine writer! 'Tis jaynius the man has:
I can't undtherstand a word of him. But he's half Oirish, ye know. What
proof have I got of it? An' would he write like that if there wasn't a
dhrop of the blood of the Celt in him?'
Next day and next night, Mr. Macloghlen was our devoted slave. I had won
his heart by admitting frankly that his countrywomen had the finest and
liveliest eyes in Europe--eyes with a deep twinkle, half fun, half
passion. He took to us at once, and talked to us incessantly. He was a
red-haired, raw-boned Munster-man, but a real good fellow. We forgot the
aggressive inequalities of the Mediterranean while he talked to us of
'the pizzantry.' Late the second evening he propounded a confidence. It
was a lovely night; Orion overhead, and the plashing phosphorescence on
the water below conspired with the hour to make him specially
confidential. 'Now, Miss Cayley,' he said, leaning forward on his deck
chair, and gazing earnestly into my eyes, 'there's wan question I'd like
to ask ye. The ambition of me life is to get into Parlimint. And I want
to know from ye, as a frind--if I accomplish me heart's wish--is there
annything, in me apparence, ar in me voice, ar in me accent, ar in me
manner, that would lade annybody to suppose I was an Oirishman?'
I succeeded, by good luck, in avoiding Elsie's eye. What on earth could
I answer? Then a happy thought struck me. 'Dr. Macloghlen,' I said, 'it
would not be the slightest use your trying to conceal it; for even if
nobody ever detected a faint Irish intonation in your words or
phrases--how could your eloquence fail to betray you for a countryman of
Sheridan and Burke and Grattan?'
He seized my hand with such warmth that I thought it best to hurry down
to my state-room at once, under cover of my compliment.
At Alexandria and Cairo we found him invaluable. He looked after our
luggage, which he gallantly rescued from the lean hands of fifteen Arab
porters, all eagerly struggling to gain possession of our effects; he
saw us safe into the train; and he never quitted us till he had safely
ensconced us in our rooms at Shepheard's. For himself, he said, with
subdued melancholy, 'twas to some cheaper hotel he must go; Shepheard's
wasn't for the likes of him; though if land in County Clare was wort'
what it ought to be, there wasn't a finer estate in all Oireland than
his fader's.
Our Mr. Elworthy was a modern proprietor, who knew how to do things on
the lordly scale. Having commissioned me to write this series of
articles, he intended them to be written in the first style of art, and
he had instructed me accordingly to hire one of Cook's little steam
dahabeeahs, where I could work at leisure. Dr. Macloghlen was in his
element arranging for the trip. 'Sure the only thing I mind,' he said,
'is--that I'll not be going wid ye.' I think he was half inclined to
invite himself; but there again I drew a line. I will not sell salt
fish; and I will not go up the Nile, unchaperoned, with a casual man
acquaintance.
He did the next best thing, however: he took a place in a sailing
dahabeeah; and as we steamed up slowly, stopping often on the way, to
give me time to write my articles, he managed to arrive almost always at
every town or ruin exactly when we did.
I will not describe the voyage. The Nile is the Nile. Just at first,
before we got used to it, we conscientiously looked up the name of every
village we passed on the bank in our Murray and our Baedeker. After a
couple of days' Niling, however, we found that formality quite
unnecessary. They were all the same village, under a number of aliases.
They did not even take the trouble to disguise themselves anew, like Dr.
Fortescue-Langley, on each fresh appearance. They had every one of them
a small whitewashed mosque, with a couple of tall minarets; and around
it spread a number of mud-built cottages, looking more like bee-hives
than human habitations. They had also every one of them a group of
date-palms, overhanging a cluster of mean bare houses; and they all
alike had a picturesque and even imposing air from a distance, but faded
away into indescribable squalor as one got abreast of them. Our progress
was monotonous. At twelve, noon, we would pass Aboo-Teeg, with its
mosque, its palms, its mud-huts, and its camels; then for a couple of
hours we would go on through the midst of a green field on either side,
studded by more mud-huts, and backed up by a range of gray desert
mountains; only to come at 2 P.M., twenty miles higher up, upon
Aboo-Teeg once more, with the same mosque, the same mud-huts, and the
same haughty camels, placidly chewing the same aristocratic cud, but
under the alias of Koos-kam. After a wild hubbub at the quay, we would
leave Koos-kam behind, with its camels still serenely munching
day-before-yesterday's dinner; and twenty miles further on, again,
having passed through the same green plain, backed by the same gray
mountains, we would stop once more at the identical Koos-kam, which this
time absurdly described itself as Tahtah. But whether it was Aboo-Teeg
or Koos-kam or Tahtah or anything else, only the name differed: it was
always the same town, and had always the same camels at precisely the
same stage of the digestive process. It seemed to us immaterial whether
you saw all the Nile or only five miles of it. It was just like
wall-paper. A sample sufficed; the whole was the sample infinitely
repeated.
However, I had my letters to write, and I wrote them valiantly. I
described the various episodes of the complicated digestive process in
the camel in the minutest detail. I gloated over the date-palms, which I
knew in three days as if I had been brought up upon dates. I gave
word-pictures of every individual child, veiled woman, Arab sheikh, and
Coptic priest whom we encountered on the voyage. And I am open to
reprint those conscientious studies of mud-huts and minarets with any
enterprising publisher who will make me an offer.
[Illustration: TOO MUCH NILE.]
Another disillusion weighed upon my soul. Before I went up the Nile, I
had a fancy of my own that the bank was studded with endless ruined
temples, whose vast red colonnades were reflected in the water at every
turn. I think Macaulay's Lays were primarily answerable for that
particular misapprehension. As a matter of fact, it surprised me to find
that we often went for two whole days' hard steaming without ever a
temple breaking the monotony of those eternal date-palms, those calm and
superciliously irresponsive camels. In my humble opinion, Egypt is a
fraud; there is too much Nile--very dirty Nile at that--and not nearly
enough temple. Besides, the temples, when you _do_ come up with them,
are just like the villages; they are the same temple over again, under a
different name each time, and they have the same gods, the same kings,
the same wearisome bas-reliefs, except that the gentleman in a chariot,
ten feet high, who is mowing down enemies a quarter his own size, with
unsportsmanslike recklessness, is called Rameses in this place, and
Sethi in that, and Amen-hotep in the other. With this trifling
variation, when you have seen one temple, one obelisk, one hieroglyphic
table, you have seen the whole of Ancient Egypt.
At last, after many days' voyage through the same scenery daily--rising
in the morning off a village with a mosque, ten palms, and two minarets,
and retiring late at night off the same village once more, with mosque,
palms, and minarets, as before, _da capo_--we arrived one evening at a
place called Geergeh. In itself, I believe, Geergeh did not differ
materially from all the other places we had passed on our voyage: it had
its mosque, its ten palms, and its two minarets as usual. But I remember
its name, because something mysterious went wrong there with our
machinery; and the engineer informed us we must wait at least three days
to mend it. Dr. Macloghlen's dahabeeah happened opportunely to arrive
at the same spot on the same day; and he declared with fervour he would
'see us through our throubles.' But what on earth were we to do with
ourselves through three long days and nights at Geergeh? There were the
ruins of Abydus close at hand, to be sure; though I defy anybody not a
professed Egyptologist to give more than one day to the ruins of Abydus.
In this emergency, Dr. Macloghlen came gallantly to our aid. He
discovered by inquiring from an English-speaking guide that there was an
unobtrusive oasis, never visited by Europeans, one long day's journey
off, across the desert. As a rule, it takes at least three days to get
camels and guides together for such an expedition: for Egypt is not a
land to hurry in. But the indefatigable Doctor further unearthed the
fact that a sheikh had just come in, who (for a consideration) would
lend us camels for a two days' trip; and we seized the chance to do our
duty by Mr. Elworthy and the world-wide circulation. An unvisited
oasis--and two Christian ladies to be the first to explore it: there's
journalistic enterprise for you! If we happened to be killed, so much
the better for the _Daily Telephone_. I pictured the excitement at
Piccadilly Circus. 'Extra Special, Our Own Correspondent brutally
murdered!' I rejoiced at the opportunity.
I cannot honestly say that Elsie rejoiced with me. She cherished a
prejudice against camels, massacres, and the new journalism. She didn't
like being murdered: though this was premature, for she had never tried
it. She objected that the fanatical Mohammedans of the Senoosi sect, who
were said to inhabit the oasis in question, might cut our throats for
dogs of infidels. I pointed out to her at some length that it was just
that chance which added zest to our expedition as a journalistic
venture: fancy the glory of being the first lady journalists martyred in
the cause! But she failed to grasp this aspect of the question.
However, if I went, she would go too, she said, like a dear girl that
she is: she would not desert me when I was getting my throat cut.
[Illustration: EMPHASIS.]
Dr. Macloghlen made the bargain for us, and insisted on accompanying us
across the desert. He told us his method of negotiation with the Arabs
with extreme gusto. '"Is it pay in advance ye want?" says I to the dirty
beggars: "divvil a penny will ye get till ye bring these ladies safe
back to Geergeh. And remimber, Mr. Sheikh," says I, fingering me pistol,
so, by way of emphasis, "we take no money wid us; so if yer friends at
Wadi Bou choose to cut our throats, 'tis for the pleasure of it they'll
be cutting them, not for anything they'll gain by it." "Provisions,
effendi?" says he, salaaming. "Provisions, is it?" says I. "Take
everything ye'll want wid you; I suppose ye can buy food fit for a
Crischun in the bazaar in Geergeh; and never wan penny do ye touch for
it all till ye've landed us on the bank again, as safe as ye took us. So
if the religious sintiments of the faithful at Wadi Bou should lade them
to hack us to pieces," says I, just waving me revolver, "thin 'tis
yerself that will be out of pocket by it." And the ould divvil cringed
as if he took me for the Prince of Wales. Faix, 'tis the purse that's
the best argumint to catch these haythen Arabs upon.'
When we set out for the desert in the early dawn next day, it looked as
if we were starting for a few months' voyage. We had a company of camels
that might have befitted a caravan. We had two large tents, one for
ourselves, and one for Dr. Macloghlen, with a third to dine in. We had
bedding, and cushions, and drinking water tied up in swollen pig-skins,
which were really goat-skins, looking far from tempting. We had bread
and meat, and a supply of presents to soften the hearts and weaken the
religious scruples of the sheikhs at Wadi Bou. 'We thravel _en prince_,'
said the Doctor. When all was ready we got under way solemnly, our
camels rising and sniffing the breeze with a superior air, as who should
say, 'I happen to be going where you happen to be going; but don't for a
moment suppose I do it to please you. It is mere coincidence. You are
bound for Wadi Bou: I have business of my own which chances to take me
there.'
[Illustration: RIDING A CAMEL DOES NOT GREATLY DIFFER PROM
SEA-SICKNESS.]
Over the incidents of the journey I draw a veil. Riding a camel, I find,
does not greatly differ from sea-sickness. They are the same phenomenon
under altered circumstances. We had been assured beforehand on
excellent authority that 'much of the comfort on a desert journey
depends upon having a good camel.' On this matter, I am no authority. I
do not set up as a judge of camel-flesh. But I did not notice _any_ of
the comfort; so I venture to believe my camel must have been an
exceptionally bad one.
We expected trouble from the fanatical natives; I am bound to admit, we
had most trouble with Elsie. She was not insubordinate, but she did not
care for camel-riding. And her beast took advantage of her youth and
innocence. A well-behaved camel should go almost as fast as a child can
walk, and should not sit down plump on the burning sand without due
reason. Elsie's brute crawled, and called halts for prayer at frequent
intervals; it tried to kneel like a good Mussulman many times a day; and
it showed an intolerant disposition to crush the infidel by rolling over
on top of Elsie. Dr. Macloghlen admonished it with Irish eloquence, not
always in language intended for publication; but it only turned up its
supercilious lip and inquired in its own unspoken tongue what _he_ knew
about the desert.
'I feel like a wurrum before the baste,' the Doctor said, nonplussed.
If the Nile was monotonous, the road to Wadi Bou was nothing short of
dreary. We crossed a great ridge of bare, gray rock, and followed a
rolling valley of sand, scored by dry ravines, and baking in the sun. It
was ghastly to look upon. All day long, save at the midday rest by some
brackish wells, we rode on and on, the brutes stepping forward with
slow, outstretched legs; though sometimes we walked by the camels' sides
to vary the monotony; but ever through that dreary upland plain, sand in
the centre, rocky mountain at the edge, and not a thing to look at. We
were relieved towards evening to stumble against stunted tamarisks,
half buried in sand, and to feel we were approaching the edge of the
oasis.
When at last our arrogant beasts condescended to stop, in their
patronising way, we saw by the dim light of the moon a sort of uneven
basin or hollow, studded with date-palms, and in the midst of the
depression a crumbling walled town, with a whitewashed mosque, two
minarets by its side, and a crowd of mud-houses. It was strangely
familiar. We had come all this way just to see Aboo-Teeg or Koos-kam
over again!
We camped outside the fortified town that night. Next morning we essayed
to make our entry.