GIRGEH AND KENEH.--THE TEMPLES OF ABYDUS AND DENDERAH.--AN EGYPTIAN
DANCE.
[Illustration: GIRGEH.]
The first halting-place above Sioot was Girgeh, which may be considered
the Arabic for George, as the place was named in honor of the saint
whose history is intimately connected with the dragon. St. George is the
patron saint of the Christians of Egypt, and there was a Coptic convent
at Girgeh, four or five centuries ago, that was named after him. It
supported two hundred monks and had a large revenue; but its inhabitants
died during a visitation of the plague, and for some time the buildings
were without tenants. At present there is a small convent or monastery
at Girgeh, and it is said to be the oldest establishment of the kind in
Egypt. The superior is a European, but the rest of the members are
native Egyptians. Formerly the town was some distance back from the
river, but the Nile has so changed its course that Girgeh is now on the
very brink of the stream, and some of its houses have been washed away.
It was announced that the party would land at Girgeh to visit the ruins
of the ancient Abydus, or Thinis, twelve miles away; during their
absence the boat would proceed to Bellianeh, where they would find it at
the end of their excursion. The start was made immediately after
breakfast, not without considerable opposition on the part of the
donkeys, and a wrangle with the natives over the question of backsheesh.
[Illustration: SCENE DURING THE INUNDATION.]
The road lay through fields of sugar-cane, pease, beans, and other
products of the Egyptian soil; many of them were in blossom, and the
boys thought the scene was the richest they had yet encountered during
their visit to the country. Frank remarked the great contrast between
the luxuriant fields and the miserable villages of the natives. The
villages here, as elsewhere in the valley, are generally built on
mounds, so as to keep them out of the reach of the water when the river
overflows its banks. During the season of the inundation the whole
country is overflowed, and the natives cannot go from their villages
except in boats, or unless they choose to swim. Cattle seek the mounds
for safety; and sometimes, when the banks give way, and the river rises
suddenly, many of them are drowned. The people go out with boats to
secure their goats, cows, and oxen, and the scene is a very active one.
Until the water subsides the villages are indiscriminately filled with
live stock and their owners, and sometimes there is an animated contest
between them for the right of occupation.
At every village the children came out and begged for backsheesh, and
their appearance was quite in keeping with the squalid aspect of the mud
huts where they lived. Frank wondered that they managed to reach the
age of ten years in such habitations, and the Doctor replied that it was
a proof that the human race is capable of living anywhere, if it will
only try.
[Illustration: A CAMEL ON HIS WAY TO PASTURE.]
There was the usual excitement among the cows and chickens at the
presence of the strangers; in two or three cases the cows broke the
ropes by which they were tethered, and scampered into the villages as
though they feared immediate conversion into beef. The boys observed
that the cows were required to cut their own fodder; they were tethered
in the rich grass, and required to eat the spot entirely clean before
their locations were changed. Evidently it was not the custom to allow
them to run loose and help themselves. Now and then the tall form of a
camel was visible, either carrying a burden of some sort or tethered
out, like the cows and oxen.
A ride of three hours brought the party to the object of their
excursion, the Temple of Abydus. Frank and Fred will tell us about it.
"The Temple of Abydus is one of the most interesting in Egypt, as it is
quite extensive, and its architectural character is excellent. We
admired its vast proportions, the massive pillars covered with
sculptures, and the walls that were everywhere blazing with
hieroglyphics representing scenes of the country's glory. And while we
were studying all these things we looked around for the Doctor, and
could not find him.
"Pretty soon he re-appeared, and said the historical interest of the
place was in a narrow passage-way leading from the second hall to a
small inner chamber.
"We went there with him, and he pointed to the eastern wall of the
passage. There were some hieroglyphics we could not understand, and we
asked what they were.
[Illustration: HEADS OF CAPTIVES OF RAMESES II.]
"'They are the names of seventy-six kings,' said the Doctor, 'to whom
Sethi I., the founder and builder of the temple, and father of Rameses
II., is offering homage. The list begins with Menes, the founder of the
first dynasty, and ends with the name of Sethi. Rameses II. is offering
homage with his father, and for this reason it has been supposed that
the list was made by Rameses after Sethi's death. The list is called
"The Tablet of Abydus," and is of great value to the writers on Egyptian
history; a similar list, but badly mutilated, was found in a temple near
here, and carried to the British Museum. There is some dispute as to
whether it is a full or only partial list of the kings of Egypt, but in
either case it is of great historical interest.'
"Abydus was second only to Thebes in importance, and was for a long time
the capital of Egypt. Several temples, or rather their ruins, have been
discovered here, and it is thought that others are still buried in the
sand. A great many tombs have been opened, and where their contents were
of any consequence they were carried to the museum at Cairo, or sent to
the large collections in Europe.
"One of the temples that we visited was in a very ruined state; it must
have been a magnificent structure in the days of its perfection, as the
walls were lined with alabaster and covered with beautiful sculptures,
all painted in colors that still remain. Some of the smaller rooms in
the great temple were roofed with large stones placed on their edges, an
arch was made in the stones, and then the whole of the cut surface was
covered with hieroglyphics, which are as perfect as the day they were
made. The sand that buried these temples for so many centuries was in
one way their preserver.
[Illustration: A LUNCH-PARTY OF OTHER DAYS.]
"We took our lunch in the great hall of the temple, and it was an odd
sight to see a group of Americans, English, and other modern people
seated among the columns of this ancient edifice, engaged in picking the
flesh from the bones of chickens, or devouring sandwiches, or slices of
cold beef. Doctor Bronson leaned against one of the columns, and his
hunger made him quite forget that his shoulders pressed upon the feet of
a sculptured king, who had been patient and chickenless for many hundred
years, and was totally unmoved by the incidents of modern days. Wonder
if they had sandwiches and kindred things in the time of Sethi I., and
is it possible that they used silver-plated knives and forks, or drank
cold tea from glass tumblers?
"Of the great city that once stood here nothing remains but heaps of
rubbish, ruined temples and tombs, and a miserable village with a few
dozen inhabitants, who live by what they can extort from visitors.
"We returned to the steamer at Bellianeh by a road only half as long as
that from Girgeh. The route was pretty much the same, as it lay through
richly-tilled fields, and passed near several small villages of mud huts
and muddy inhabitants. At Bellianeh there was the usual crowd of
beggars, and we varied the monotony by throwing copper coins into heaps
of dust, where the children scrambled for them.
"Just by the stern of the boat there was a dust-heap about forty feet
high, and very steep on the sides; one of the passengers threw a coin so
that it struck about midway from top to bottom of the heap, and what a
scramble there was for it! Those at the top rolled down, and those below
climbed up. During the struggle they raised a perfect cloud, and several
of them tumbled into the river.
"Somebody got the money, and then they made signs for trying it again.
Another copper was thrown, and then another, and the children evidently
enjoyed the fun, and wanted it kept up as long as the boat remained.
"While they were in the midst of the sport two or three men, who
appeared to be elders of the village, came with whips and ordered the
boys away. The passengers sent the conductor to argue with them to let
the sport go on; his argument was very short, and consisted in giving
each man a franc to go away. They accepted the money and walked off. The
instant they were out of sight the performance was renewed, and it
continued till the boat swung out and moved up the river. We had several
swimming matches, like those we had farther down the Nile. Some of the
boys were very expert swimmers, and seemed as much adapted for the water
as for the land."
From Bellianeh the steamer proceeded to Keneh, an important town on the
east bank of the Nile, and the terminus of a caravan road from Kosseir,
on the Red Sea. Formerly it had a considerable trade with the Red Sea,
but since the opening of the Suez Canal, and the facilities it affords
for steam communication with Alexandria, the business has declined very
greatly. At one time it supplied a large part of the Arabian coast with
corn, which was carried on camels to Kosseir, and then shipped to the
points where it was wanted.
The town stands a couple of miles back from the river, and is on the
site of an ancient city, though it contains no ruins of any consequence.
At the landing-place Frank saw a large pile of jars or water-bottles
made of porous clay, and, on asking about them, he learned that a
considerable trade in these articles was carried on from Keneh, which
had the reputation of making them better than any other place on the
Nile.
Of course this assertion excited his curiosity, and led him to wonder
why the potters of Keneh should be more expert than other men in the
same occupation.
"It is not the potters, but the material they work with," replied the
Doctor, "that makes the superiority of the water-bottles of Keneh."
"How is that?"
"Close to the town there is a bed of clay," was the response, "which is
said to be peculiarly adapted to the manufacture of these bottles. It is
mixed with the ashes of halfa grass in certain proportions, and must be
well mixed while both substances are in a dry state. Then the mixture is
moistened, and is ready for the potter. We will see one of the
establishments where the work is performed."
On their way to the town our friends visited a shed where several
potters were engaged at their trade. The soft clay was placed on a
horizontal wheel, which was turned rapidly either by the hand or the
foot of the workman; while it revolved with its plastic burden the
fingers of the potter gave the bottle its shape, and the whole operation
was very quickly accomplished. Then the bottle was carefully removed,
and placed where it could dry in the open air, and the wheel was ready
for fashioning another.
[Illustration: ANCIENT POTTERS AT WORK.]
The Doctor explained that the modes of making these bottles had changed
very little in five thousand years, as they could see by the pictures on
the walls of the tombs. The ancient Egyptians were familiar with the
wheel and its uses; the potter of the time of Rameses II. manipulated
the clay in the same manner as his descendant of to-day, and he
doubtless knew the necessary proportions of clay and sifted ashes for
making his composition.
[Illustration: ANCIENT VASES, CUPS, AND WATER-JARS.]
The boys had already observed the porous character of the Egyptian
water-bottle. It allows the water to pass through so freely that the
outside is constantly wet; in the dry air of Egypt this outside water
evaporates rapidly, and every student of natural philosophy knows that
evaporation produces coolness. Especially is this the case if the bottle
is placed where there is a current of air, as the evaporation is greatly
increased by the action of the wind. One day the boys made an experiment
with one of these bottles with the following result:
The temperature of the air was 81° Fahrenheit, and so was that of the
water with which the bottle was filled. It was hung in a shady place,
where there was a good draught, and in half an hour a thermometer
lowered into the bottle showed that the water had fallen to 63°, or
eighteen less than the surrounding temperature.
This process, or a similar one, is in use in all hot countries. Doctor
Bronson told the youths that he had seen bottles very like the Egyptian
ones in Mexico and South America. In some cases, where the material was
not porous, the coolness was produced by wrapping a piece of cloth
around a bottle, and keeping it constantly wet while hanging in a
current of air.
[Illustration: DATE-PALMS, NEAR KENEH.]
Another feature of Keneh that attracted attention was the remarkably
fine dates that were offered for sale. The dates of Keneh have an
excellent reputation in the markets of Cairo and Alexandria, and
generally bring a high price. They are not pressed into a solid mass,
like most of the dates sold in America, but each one is separate from
the others, and only the best are selected for packing. Our friends
bought several boxes of these dates, and kept them in their rooms on the
steamboat with the intention of taking them to Cairo; but, like many
other good intentions, their scheme fell through, as the sweetness and
delicate flavor of the contents of the boxes were temptations that could
not be resisted. Continual dropping is said to wear away stone, and Fred
remarked that continual nibbling would wear away the best box of dates
ever known.
The boat was to remain at the landing during the night and until the
greater part of the following day, and so our friends had the evening
for seeing Keneh. An invitation came for some of the passengers to visit
the German Consulate, and witness a characteristic dance of the country.
The invitation included Doctor Bronson, and Frank, and Fred, and at the
appointed hour the party set out. On reaching the Consulate, they were
ushered into a large hall that seemed to have been fitted up for the
special entertainment of Europeans, as it was furnished with chairs
instead of divans, and the consul, though a native, was in European
dress.
[Illustration: ANCIENT DANCERS AND MUSICIANS.]
After a little delay the dance was announced, and the dancers made their
appearance. There were four of them, and they were accompanied by two
musicians, one playing the nay, and the other the darabookah, both of
which have been already described. The musicians settled on the floor in
one corner of the apartment, and the dancers stepped to the middle of
the room. At a signal from the master of the house the dance began.
[Illustration: A MODERN MUSICIAN.]
The dancers were young women, who were rather fantastically dressed.
They wore "rings on their fingers and bells on their toes," as the old
nursery rhyme has it, and their heads and necks were covered with a
profusion of jewellery, consisting principally of gold and silver coins
strung closely together, and so arranged that they jingled every time
the wearers moved. A richly embroidered jacket, and a long skirt which
nearly touched the floor, were the outer garments worn by the dancers.
The dresses of the four were precisely alike, and the Doctor said the
costume was pretty much the same all through Egypt, where fashions
rarely change from one year to another.
The boys had read of the wonderful beauty of the Egyptian dancers, and
the great novelty of the scene they were about to witness. The Doctor
said nothing, but there was a smile on his features when the dance
began. He knew that the youths were doomed to be disappointed, and in
the first pause of the dance he asked them what they thought of it.
"If that is what they call dancing," said Frank, "I'm glad to know it.
It seems more like the efforts of people learning to skate."
"About as lively as the performance of the figures on a hand-organ,"
Fred remarked. "I wonder why travellers have written so much nonsense
about it."
"Some travellers have described the Egyptian dance in the most
enthusiastic language," answered the Doctor, "and others thought they
must do the same. It requires considerable courage to fly in the face of
opinions that have been given over and over again by others, and
consequently the fashion that was set long and long ago has been kept
up.
"I have seen a good many dances in Egypt," he continued, "and never yet
knew one that approached the most of the descriptions I have read.
Sometimes the girls are fairly pretty, but the great majority are of an
ordinary type, and the dancing consists of that gliding and sliding from
side to side which you have just witnessed. It is more suggestive of
skating than of what is called dancing in Western countries."
The dance was resumed after a brief rest, and it continued with several
intermissions for something over an hour. Coffee was served two or three
times in the course of the evening, and when the entertainment was ended
our friends returned to the steamer. Before they retired the conductor
collected five francs from each passenger who had attended the dance, in
order to remunerate the consul for his outlay. He said the consul went
through the form of inviting strangers to an entertainment, but expected
them to pay for it in a roundabout way.
"Not at all unusual in the East," the Doctor remarked, "and certainly no
one could expect a consul to spend his money in the entertainment of
every party of strangers that comes along. We can imagine we were his
guests, and forget that we have paid for what we saw. The illusion is
very thin, but it does no harm to any one."
[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN KING ON HIS THRONE.]
The next day was devoted to an excursion to the Temple of Denderah,
which is on the opposite side of the Nile from Keneh, and a ride of
about an hour from the landing. The party was ferried over in the
ordinary boats of the natives, and found donkeys waiting on the bank
with the usual crowd of importunate natives.
The Temple of Denderah is the most modern in all Egypt, as it was built
less than two thousand years ago. After one is accustomed to the
pyramids, and similar structures of forty or fifty centuries, and comes
to the Temple of Denderah, he hesitates to rub against it for fear the
paint is not sufficiently dried.
But however much he may dislike the newness of the building, he can
hardly fail to admire its solidity, and the magnificence of its halls
and porticos. It is the best preserved of all the temples, as its walls
and columns are practically uninjured, and the roof is almost entire. A
mound of rubbish extends quite around it, and from a little distance the
entrance of the temple is quite invisible.
[Illustration: FRONT OF THE TEMPLE AT DENDERAH.]
The entrance is through a fine portico of twenty-four columns. On the
ceiling of this portico is a zodiac, which has been the subject of a
great deal of discussion, as it was supposed to show that the signs of
the zodiac were used by the ancient Egyptians. Recent discoveries show
that it is of Roman origin, and less ancient than was at first believed.
Every student of Egyptology has had something to say about it, and we
may safely remark that there are more opinions on the subject than there
are signs in the zodiac itself.
Considerable time was spent in the inspection of the temple, and in
admiring the sculptures on the walls. Among them is a portrait of
Cleopatra, which is supposed to have been made in the lifetime of that
historic lady, and may therefore be regarded as a fair likeness of her.
It does not represent her as a pretty woman, and therefore we may doubt
whether she was as handsome as the artists of modern times have tried to
make her. Some of those who wish to believe she was very pretty say the
portrait at Denderah was made by an artist who never saw her, and did
his work from an inaccurate likeness.
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN PRINCE CARRIED IN A PALANQUIN.]