The temple here—begun by an Ethiopian king named Arkaman (Ergamenes) about whom Diodorus has a long story to tell, and carried on by the Ptolemies and Cæsars—stands in a desolate open space to the north of the village, and is approached by an avenue, the walls of which are constructed with blocks from some earlier building. The whole of this avenue and all the waste ground for three or four hundred yards round about the temple is not merely strewn, but piled, with fragments of pottery, pebbles and large, smooth stones of porphery, alabaster, basalt, and a kind of marble like verde antico. These stones are puzzling. They look as if they might be fragments of statues that had been rolled and polished by ages of friction in the bed of a torrent. Among the potsherds we find some inscribed fragments like those of Elephantine.[161]Of the temple I will only say that, as masonry, it is better put together than any work of the eighteenth or nineteenth dynasties with which I am acquainted. The sculptures, however, are atrocious. Such misshapen hieroglyphs; such dumpy, smirking goddesses; such clownish kings in such preposterous head-dresses, we have never seen till now. The whole thing, in short, as regards sculpturesque style, is the Ptolemaic out-Ptolemied.
Rowing round presently to Kobban—the river running wide with the sand island between—we land under the walls of a huge crude brick structure, black with age, which at first sight looks quite shapeless; but which proves to be an ancient Egyptian fortress, buttressed, towered, loop-holed, finished at the angles with the invariable molded torus, and surrounded by a deep dry moat, which is probably yet filled each summer by the inundation.
Now, of all rare things in the valley of the Nile, a purely secular ruin is the rarest; and this, with the exception of some foundations of dwellings here and there, is the firstwe have seen. It is probably very, very old; as old as the days of Thothmes III, whose name is found on some scattered blocks about a quarter of a mile away, and who built two similar fortresses at Semneh, thirty-five miles above Wady Halfeh. It may be even a thousand years older still, and date from the time of Amenemhat III, whose name is also found on a stela near Kobban.[162]For here was once an ancient city, when Pselcis (now Dakkeh) was but a new suburb on the opposite bank. The name of this ancient city is lost, but it is by some supposed to be identical with the Metachompso of Ptolemy.[163]As the suburb grew the mother town declined,and in time the suburb became the city and the city became the suburb. The scattered blocks aforesaid, together with the remains of a small temple, yet mark the position of the elder city.
The walls of this most curious and interesting fortress have probably lost much of their original height. They are in some parts thirty feet thick, and nowhere less than twenty. Vertical on the inside, they are built at a buttress-slope outside, with additional shallow buttresses at regular distances. These last, as they can scarcely add to the enormous strength of the original wall, were probably designed for effect. There are two entrances to the fortress; one in the center of the north wall, and one in the south. We enter the inclosure by the last named, and find ourselves in the midst of an immense parallelogram measuring about four hundred and fifty feet from east to west, and perhaps three hundred feet from north to south.
All within these bounds is a wilderness of ruin. The space looks large enough for a city, and contains what might be the débris of a dozen cities. We climb huge mounds of rubbish; skirt cataracts of broken pottery; and stand on the brink of excavated pits honeycombed forty feet below, with brick foundations. Over these mounds and at the bottom of these pits swarm men, women, and children, filling and carrying away basket-loads of rubble. The dust rises in clouds. The noise, the heat, the confusion, are indescribable. One pauses, bewildered, seeking in vain to discover in this mighty maze any indication of a plan. It is only by an effort that one gradually realizes how the place is but a vast shell, and how all these mounds and pits mark the site of what was once a huge edifice rising tower above tower to a central keep, such as we see represented in the battle-subjects of Abou Simbel and Thebes.
That towered edifice and central keep—quarried, broken up, carried away piecemeal, reduced to powder, and spread over the land as manure—has now disappeared almost to its foundations. Only the well in the middle of the inclosure, and the great wall of circuit remain. That wall is doomed, and will by and by share the fate of the rest. The well, which must have been very deep, is choked with rubbish to the brim. Meanwhile, in order to realize what the place in its present condition is like, one need but imagine how the Tower of London would look if the whole of the inner buildings—white tower, chapel, armory, governor’s quarters, and all—were leveled in shapeless ruin, and only the outer walls and moat were left.
Built up against the inner side of the wall of circuit are the remains of a series of massive towers, the tops of which, as they are, strangely enough, shorter than the external structure, can never have communicated with the battlements, unless by ladders. The finest of these towers, together with a magnificent fragment of wall, faces the eastern desert.
Going out by the north entrance, we find the sides of the gateway, and even the steps leading down into the moat, in perfect preservation; while at the base of the great wall, on the outer side facing the river, there yet remains a channel or conduit about two feet square, built and roofed with stone, which in Murray is described as a water-gate.
The sun is high, the heat is overwhelming, the felucca waits; and we turn reluctantly away, knowing that between here and Cairo we shall see no more curious relics of the far-off past than this dismantled stronghold. It is a mere mountain of unburned brick; altogether unlovely: admirable only for the gigantic strength of its proportions; pathetic only in the abjectness of its ruin. Yet it brings the lost ages home to one’s imagination in a way that no temple could ever bring them. It dispels for a moment the historic glamor of the sculptures, and compels us to remember those nameless and forgotten millions, of whom their rulers fashioned soldiers in time of war and builders in time of peace.
Our adventures by the way are few and far between; and we now rarely meet a dahabeeyah. Birds are more plentiful than when we were in this part of the river a few weeksago. We see immense flights of black and white cranes congregated at night on the sand-banks; and any number of quail may be had for the shooting. It is matter for rejoicing when the idle man goes out with his gun and brings home a full bag; for our last sheep was killed before we started for Wady Halfeh, and our last poultry ceased cackling at Abou Simbel.
One morning early, we see a bride taken across the river in a big boat full of women and girls, who are clapping their hands and shrilling the tremulous zagharett. The bride—a chocolate beauty with magnificent eyes—wears a gold brow-pendant and nose-ring, and has her hair newly plaited in hundreds of tails, finished off at the ends with mud pellets daubed with yellow ocher. She stands surrounded by her companions, proud of her finery, and pleased to be stared at by the Ingleezeh.
About this time, also, we see one night a wild sort of festival going on for some miles along both sides of the river. Watch-fires break out toward twilight, first on this bank, then on that; becoming brighter and more numerous as the darkness deepens. By and by, when we are going to bed, we hear sounds of drumming on the eastern bank, and see from afar a torchlight procession and dance. The effect of this dance of torches—for it is only the torches that are visible—is quite diabolic. The lights flit and leap as if they were alive; circling, clustering, dispersing, bobbing, poussetting, pursuing each other at a gallop, and whirling every now and then through the air, like rockets. Late as it is, we would fain put ashore and see this orgy more nearly; but Reïs Hassan shakes his head. The natives hereabout are said to be quarrelsome; and if, as it is probable, they are celebrating the festival of some local saint, we might be treated as intruders.
Coming at early morning to Gerf Hossayn, we make our way up to the temple, which is excavated in the face of a limestone cliff, a couple of hundred feet, perhaps, above the river. A steep path, glaring hot in the sun, leads to a terrace in the rock; the temple being approached through the ruins of a built-out portico and an avenue of battered colossi. It is a gloomy place within—an inferior edition, so to say, of the Great Temple of Abou Simbel; and of the same date. It consists of a first hall supported by osiride pillars, a second and smaller hall with square columns, asmoke-blackened sanctuary, and two side-chambers. The osiride colossi, which stand twenty feet high without the entablature over their heads or the pedestal under their feet, are thick-set, bow-legged, and misshapen. Their faces would seem to have been painted black originally; while those of the avenue outside have distinctly Ethiopian features. One seems to detect here, as at Derr and Wady Sabooah, the work of provincial sculptors; just as at Abou Simbel one recognizes the master-style of the artists of the Theban Ramesseum.
The side-chambers at Gerf Hossayn are infested with bats. These bats are the great sight of the place and have their appointed showman. We find him waiting for us with an end of tarred rope, which he flings, blazing, into the pitch-dark doorway. For a moment we see the whole ceiling hung, as it were, with a close fringe of white, filmy-looking pendants. But it is only for a moment. The next instant the creatures are all in motion, dashing out madly in our faces like driven snowflakes. We picked up a dead one afterward, when the rush was over, and examined it by the outer daylight—a lovely little creature, white and downy, with fine transparent wings and little pink feet and the prettiest mousey mouth imaginable.
Bordered with dwarf palms, acacias and henna-bushes, the cliffs between Gerf Hossayn and Dendoor stand out in detached masses so like ruins that sometimes we can hardly believe they are rocks. At Dendoor, when the sun is setting and a delicious gloom is stealing up the valley, we visit a tiny temple on the western bank. It stands out above the river surrounded by a wall of inclosure and consists of a single pylon, a portico, two little chambers and a sanctuary. The whole thing is like an exquisite toy, so covered with sculptures, so smooth, so new-looking, so admirably built. Seeing them half by sunset, half by dusk, it matters not that these delicately wrought bas-reliefs are of the decadence school.[164]The rosy half-light of an Egyptian after-glow covers a multitude of sins, and steeps the whole in an atmosphere of romance.
Wondering what has happened to the climate, we wake shivering next morning an hour or so before break of day, and, for the first time in several weeks, taste the old, early chill upon the air. When the sun rises, we find ourselves at Kalabsheh, having passed the limit of the tropic during the night. Henceforth, no matter how great the heat may be by day, this chill invariably comes with the dark hour before dawn.
The usual yelling crowd, with the usual beads, baskets, eggs, and pigeons, for sale, greets us on the shore at Kalabsheh. One of the men has a fine old two-handed sword in a shabby blue velvet sheath, for which he asks five napoleons. It looks as if it might have belonged to a crusader. Some of the women bring buffalo-cream in filthy-looking black skins slung round their waists like girdles. The cream is excellent; but the skins temper one’s enjoyment of the unaccustomed dainty.
There is a magnificent temple here, and close by, excavated in the cliff, a rock-cut speos, the local name of which is Bay-tel-Well. The sculptures of this famous speos have been more frequently described and engraved than almost any sculptures in Egypt. The procession of Ethiopian tribute-bearers, the assault of the Amorite city, the triumph of Rameses, are familiar not only to every reader of Wilkinson, but to every visitor passing through the Egyptian rooms of the British Museum. Notwithstanding the casts that have been taken from them, and the ill-treatment to which they have been subjected by natives and visitors, they are still beautiful. The colour of those in the roofless court-yard, though so perfect when Bonomi executed his admirable fac-similes, has now almost entirely peeled off; but in the portico and inner chambers it is yet brilliant. An emerald-green Osiris, a crimson Anubis, and an Isis of the brightest chrome yellow, are astonishingly pure and forcibly in quality. As for the flesh-tones of the Anubis, this was, I believe, the only instance I observed of a true crimson in Egypt pigments.
Between the speos of Bayt-el-Welly and the neighboring temple of Kalabsheh there lies about half a mile of hilly pathway and a gulf of fourteen hundred years. Rameses ushers us into the presence of Augustus, and we pass, as it were, from an oratory in the great house of Pharaoh to the presence-chambers of the Cæsars.
But if the decorative work in the presence-chamber of the Cæsars was anything like the decorative work in the temple of Kalabsheh, then the taste thereof was of the vilest. Such a masquerade of deities; such striped and spotted and cross-barred robes; such outrageous head-dresses; such crude and violent coloring,[165]we have never seen the like of. As for the goddesses, they are gaudier than the dancing damsels of Luxur; while the kings balance on their heads diadems compounded of horns, moons, birds, balls, beetles, lotus-blossoms, asps, vases, and feathers. The temple, however, is conceived on a grand scale. It is the Karnak of Nubia. But it is a Karnak that has evidently been visited by a shock of earthquake far more severe than that which shook the mighty pillars of the hypostyle hall and flung down the obelisk of Hatasu. From the river it looks like a huge fortress; but, seen from the threshold of the main gateway, it is a wilderness of ruin. Fallen blocks, pillars, capitals, entablatures, lie so extravagantly piled that there is not one spot in all those halls and courtyards upon which it is possible to set one’s foot on the level of the original pavement. Here, again, the earthquake seems to have come before the work was completed. There are figures outlined on the walls, but never sculptured. Others have been begun, but never finished. You can see where the chisel stopped—you can even detect which was the last mark it made on the surface. One traces here, in fact, the four processes of wall decoration. In some places the space is squared off and ruled by the mechanic; in others, the subject is ready drawn within those spaces by the artist. Here the sculptor has carried it a stage farther; yonder the painter has begun to color it.
More interesting, however, than aught else at Kalabsheh is the Greek inscription of Silco of Ethiopia.[166]This inscription—made famous by the commentaries of Niebuhr and Letronne—was discovered by M. Gau inA.D.1818. It consists of twenty-one lines very neatly written in red ink, and it dates from the sixth century of the Christian era. It commences thus:
I, Silco, puissant king of the Nubians and all the Ethiopians,I came twice as far as Talmis[167]and Taphis.[168]I fought against the Blemyes,[169]and God granted me the victory.I vanquished them a second time; and the first timeI established myself completely with my troops.I vanquished them, and they supplicated me.I made peace with them; and they swore to me by their idols.I trusted them; because they are a people of good faith.Then I returned to my dominions in the Upper Country.For I am a king.Not only am I no follower in the train of other kings,But I go before them.As for those who seek strife against me,I give them no peace in their homes till they entreat my pardon.For I am a lion on the plains, and a goat upon the mountains.Etc.
I, Silco, puissant king of the Nubians and all the Ethiopians,I came twice as far as Talmis[167]and Taphis.[168]I fought against the Blemyes,[169]and God granted me the victory.I vanquished them a second time; and the first timeI established myself completely with my troops.I vanquished them, and they supplicated me.I made peace with them; and they swore to me by their idols.I trusted them; because they are a people of good faith.Then I returned to my dominions in the Upper Country.For I am a king.Not only am I no follower in the train of other kings,But I go before them.As for those who seek strife against me,I give them no peace in their homes till they entreat my pardon.For I am a lion on the plains, and a goat upon the mountains.Etc.
The historical value of this inscription is very great. It shows that in the sixth century, while the native inhabitants of this part of the valley of the Nile yet adhered to the ancient Egyptian faith, the Ethiopians of the south were professedly Christian.
The descendants of the Blemmys are a fine race; tall, strong, and of a rich chocolate complexion. Strolling through the village at sunset, we see the entire population—old men sitting at their doors; young men lounging and smoking; children at play. The women, with glittering white teeth and liquid eyes, and a profusion of gold and silver ornaments on neck and brow, come out with their little brown babies astride on hip or shoulder, to stare as we go by. One sick old woman, lying outside her hut on a palm-wood couch, raises herself for a moment on her elbow—then sinks back with a weary sigh and turns her face to the wall. The mud dwellings here are built in and out of a maze of massive stone foundations, the remains of buildings once magnificent. Some of these walls are built in concave courses; each course of stones, that is to say, being depressed in the center and raised at the angles;which mode of construction was adopted in order to offer less resistance when shaken by earthquake.[170]
We observe more foundations built thus at Tafah, where we arrive next morning. As the mason’s work at Tafah is of late Roman date, it follows that earthquakes were yet frequent in Nubia at a period long subsequent to the great shock ofB.C.27, mentioned by Eusebius. Travelers are too ready to ascribe everything in the way of ruin to the fury of Cambyses and the pious rage of the early Christians. Nothing, however, is easier than to distinguish between the damage done to the monuments by the hand of man and the damage caused by subterraneous upheaval. Mutilation is the rule in the one case; displacement in the other. At Denderah, for example, the injury done is wholly willful; at Abou Simbel it is wholly accidental; at Karnak it is both willful and accidental. As for Kalabsheh, it is clear that no such tremendous havoc could have been effected by human means without the aid of powerful rams, fire, or gunpowder; any of which must have left unmistakable traces.
At Tafah there are two little temples; one in picturesque ruin, one quite perfect, and now used as a stable. There are also a number of stone foundations, separate, quadrangular, subdivided into numerous small chambers, and inclosed in boundary walls, some of which are built in the concave courses just named. These sub-structions, of which the painter counted eighteen, have long been the puzzle of travelers.[171]
Tafah is charmingly placed; and the seven miles which divide it from Kalabsheh—once, no doubt, the scene of a cataract—are perhaps the most picturesque on this side ofWady Halfeh. Rocky islets in the river; palm groves, acacias, carobs, henna and castor-berry bushes and all kinds of flowering shrubs, along the edges of the banks; fantastic precipices riven and pinnacled, here rising abruptly from the water’s edge and there from the sandy plain, make lovely sketches whichever way one turns. There are gazelles, it is said, in the ravines behind Tafah; and one of the natives—a truculent fellow in ragged shirt and dirty white turban—tells how, at a distance of three hours up a certain glen, there is another birbeh, larger than either of these, in the plain and a great standing statue taller than three men. Here, then, if the tale be true, is another ready-made discovery for whoever may care to undertake it.
This same native, having sold a necklace to the idle man and gone away content with his bargain, comes back by and by with half the village at his heels, requiring double price. This modest demand being refused, he rages up and down like a maniac; tears off his turban; goes through a wild manual exercise with his spear; then sits down in stately silence, with his friends and neighbors drawn up in a semicircle behind him.
This, it seems, is Nubian for a challenge. He has thrown down his gantlet in form and demands trial by combat. The noisy crowd, meanwhile, increases every moment. Reïs Hassan looks grave, fearing a possible fracas; and the idle man, who is reading the morning service down below (for it is on a Sunday morning) can scarcely be heard for the clamor outside. In this emergency it occurs to the writer to send a message ashore informing these gentlemen that the howadjis are holding mosque in the dahabeeyah and entreating them to be quiet till the hour of prayer is past. The effect of the message, strange to say, is instantaneous. The angry voices are at once hushed. The challenger puts on his turban. The assembled spectators squat in respectful silence on the bank. A whole hour goes by thus, so giving the storm time to blow over; and when the idle man reappears on deck his would-be adversary comes forward quite pleasantly to discuss the purchase afresh.
It matters little how the affair ended; but I believe he was offered his necklace back in exchange for the money paid and preferred to abide by his bargain. It is asevidence of the sincerity of the religions sentiment in the minds of a semi-savage people,[172]that I have thought the incident worth telling.
We are now less than forty miles from Philæ; but the head wind is always against us and the men’s bread is exhausted and there is no flour to be bought in these Nubian villages. The poor fellows swept out the last crumbs from the bottom of their bread-chest three or four days ago and are now living on quarter-rations of lentil soup and a few dried dates bought at Wady Halfeh. Patient and depressed, they crouch silently beside their oars, or forget their hunger in sleep. For ourselves, it is painful to witness their need and still more painful to be unable to help them. Talhamy, whose own stores are at a low ebb, vows he can do nothing. It would take his few remaining tins of preserved meat to feed fifteen men for two days, and of flour he has barely enough for the howadjis. Hungry? well, yes—no doubt they are hungry. But what of that? They are Arabs; and Arabs bear hunger as camels bear thirst. It is nothing new to them. They have often been hungry before—they will often be hungry again. Enough! It is not for the ladies to trouble themselves about such fellows as these!
Excellent advice, no doubt; but hard to follow. Not to be troubled and not to do what little we can for the poor lads, is impossible. When that little means laying violent hands upon Talhamy’s reserve of eggs and biscuits and getting up lotteries for prizes of chocolate and tobacco, that worthy evidently considers that we have taken leave of our wits.
Under a burning sky we touch for an hour or two at Gertássee and then push on for Dabôd. The limestone quarries at Gertássee are full of votive sculptures and inscriptions; and the little ruin—a mere cluster of graceful columns supporting a fragment of cornice—stands high on the brink of a cliff overhanging the river. Take it as youwill, from above or below, looking north or looking south, it makes a charming sketch.
If transported to Dabôd on that magic carpet of the fairy tale, one would take it for a ruin on the “beached margent” of some placid lake in dreamland. It lies between two bends of the river, which here flows wide, showing no outlet and seeming to be girdled by mountains and palm-groves. The temple is small and uninteresting; begun, like Dakkeh, by an Ethiopian king and finished by Ptolemies and Cæsars. The one curious thing about it is a secret cell, most cunningly devised. Adjoining the sanctuary is a dark side-chamber; in the floor of the side-chamber is a pit, once paved over; in one corner of the pit is a man-hole opening into a narrow passage; and in the narrow passage are steps leading up to a secret chamber constructed in the thickness of the wall. We saw other secret chambers in other temples,[173]but not one in which the old approaches were so perfectly preserved.
From Dabôd to Philæ is but ten miles; and we are bound for Torrigûr, which is two miles nearer. Now Torrigûr is that same village at the foot of the beautiful sand-drift, near which we moored on our way up the river; and here we are to stay two days, followed by at least a week at Philæ. No sooner, therefore, have we reached Torrigûr than Reïs Hassan and three sailors start for Assûan to buy flour. Old Ali, Riskalli and Mûsa, whose homes lie in the villages round about, get leave of absence for a week; and we find ourselves reduced all at once to a crew of five, with only Khaleefeh in command. Five, however, are as good as fifty when the dahabeeyah lies moored and there is nothing to do; and our five, having succeeded in buying some flabby Nubian cakes and green lentils, are now quitehappy. So the painter pitches his tent on the top of the sand-drift; and the writer sketches the ruined convent opposite; and L—— and the little lady write no end of letters; and the idle man, with Mehemet Ali for a retriever, shoots quail, and everybody is satisfied.
Hapless idle man! hapless but homicidal. If he had been content to shoot only quail, and had not taken to shooting babies! What possessed him to do it? Not—not let us hope—an ill-directed ambition foiled of crocodiles! He went serene and smiling, with his gun under his arm, and Mehemet Ali in his wake. Who so light of heart as that idle man? Who so light of heel as that turbaned retriever? We heard our sportsman popping away presently in the barley. It was a pleasant sound, for we knew his aim was true. “Every shot,” said we, “means a bird.” We little dreamed that one of those shots meant a baby.
All at once a woman screamed. It was a sharp, sudden scream, following a shot—a scream with a ring of horror in it. Instantly it was caught up from point to point, growing in volume and seeming to be echoed from every direction at once. At the same moment the bank became alive with human beings. They seemed to spring from the soil—women shrieking and waving their arms; men running; all making for the same goal. The writer heard the scream, saw the rush, and knew at once that a gun accident had happened.
A few minutes of painful suspense followed. Then Mehemet Ali appeared, tearing back at the top of his speed; and presently—perhaps five minutes later, though it seemed like twenty—came the idle man; walking very slowly and defiantly, with his head up, his arms folded, his gun gone, and an immense rabble at his heels.
Our scanty crew, armed with sticks, flew at once to the rescue, and brought him off in safety. We then learned what had happened.
A flight of quail had risen; and as quail fly low, skimming the surface of the grain and diving down again almost immediately, he had taken a level aim. At the instant that he fired, and in the very path of the quail, a woman and child who had been squatting in the barley, sprang up screaming. He at once saw the coming danger; and, with admirable presence of mind, drew the charge ofhis second barrel. He then hid his cartridge-box and hugged his gun, determined to hold it as long as possible. The next moment he was surrounded, overpowered, had the gun wrenched from his grasp, and received a blow on the back with a stone. Having captured the gun, one or two of the men let go. It was then that he shook off the rest and came back to the boat. Mehemet Ali at the same time flew to call a rescue. He, too, came in for some hard knocks, besides having his shirt rent and his turban torn off his head.
Here were we, meanwhile, with less than half our crew, a private war on our hands, no captain, and one of our three guns in the hands of the enemy. What a scene it was! A whole village, apparently a very considerable village, swarming on the bank; all hurrying to and fro; all raving, shouting, gesticulating. If we had been on the verge of a fracas at Tafah, here we were threatened with a siege.
Drawing in the plank between the boat and the shore, we held a hasty council of war.
The woman being unhurt, and the child, if hurt at all, hurt very slightly, we felt justified in assuming an injured tone, calling the village to account for a case of cowardly assault, and demanding instant restitution of the gun. We accordingly sent Talhamy to parley with the head man of the place and peremptorily demand the gun. We also bade him add—and this we regarded as a master-stroke of policy—that if due submission was immediately made, the howadji, one of whom was a Hakeem, would permit the father to bring his child on board to have its hurts attended to.
Outwardly indifferent, inwardly not a little anxious, we waited the event. Talhamy’s back being toward the river, we had the whole semicircle of swarthy faces full in view—bent brows, flashing eyes, glittering teeth; all anger, all scorn, all defiance. Suddenly the expression of the faces changed—the change beginning with those nearest the speaker, and spreading gradually outward. It was as if a wave had passed over them. We knew then that ourcoupwas made. Talhamy returned. The villagers crowded round their leaders, deliberating. Numbers now began to sit down; and when a Nubian sits down, you may be sure that he is no longer dangerous.
Presently—after perhaps a quarter of an hour—the gun was brought back uninjured, and an elderly man carrying a blue bundle appeared on the bank. The plank was now put across; the crowd was kept off; and the man with the bundle, and three or four others, were allowed to pass.
The bundle being undone, a little brown imp of about four years of age, with shaven head and shaggy scalp-lock, was produced. He whimpered at first, seeing the strange white faces; but when offered a fig, forgot his terrors, and sat munching it like a monkey. As for his wounds, they were literally skin-deep, the shot having but slightly grazed his shoulders in four or five places. The idle man, however, solemnly sponged the scratches with warm water, and L—— covered them with patches of sticking-plaster. Finally, the father was presented with a napoleon; the patient was wrapped in one of his murderer’s shirts; and the first act of the tragedy ended. The second and third acts were to come.
When the painter and the idle man talked the affair over, they agreed that it was expedient, for the protection of future travelers, to lodge a complaint against the village; and this mainly on account of the treacherous blow dealt from behind, at a time when the idle man (who had not once attempted to defend himself) was powerless in the hands of a mob. They therefore went next day to Assûan; and the governor, charming as ever, promised that justice should be done. Meanwhile we moved the dahabeeyah to Philæ, and there settled down for a week’s sketching.
Next evening came a woful deputation from Torrigûr, entreating forgiveness and stating that fifteen villagers had been swept off to prison.
The idle man explained that he no longer had anything to do with it; that the matter, in short, was in the hands of justice, and would be dealt with according to law. Hereupon the spokesman gathered up a handful of imaginary dust and made believe to scatter it on his head.
“O dragoman!” he said, “tell the howadji that there is no law but his pleasure and no justice but the will of the governor!”
Summoned next morning to give evidence, the idle man went betimes to Assûan, where he was received in private by the governor and mudîr. Pipes and coffee were handed and the usual civilities exchanged. The governor theninformed his guest that fifteen men of Torrigûr had been arrested; and that fourteen of them unanimously identified the fifteenth as the one who struck the blow.
“And now,” said the governor, “before we send for the prisoners it will be as well to decide on the sentence. What does his excellency wish done to them?”
The idle man was puzzled. How could he offer an opinion, being ignorant of the Egyptian civil code? and how could the sentence be decided upon before the trial?
The governor smiled serenely.
“But,” he said, “this is the trial.”
Being an Englishman, it necessarily cost the idle man an effort to realize the full force of this explanation—an explanation which, in its sublime simplicity, epitomized the whole system of the judicial administration of Egyptian law. He hastened, however, to explain that he cherished no resentment against the culprit or the villagers, and that his only wish was to frighten them into a due respect for travelers in general.
The governor hereupon invited the mudîr to suggest a sentence; and the mudîr—taking into consideration, as he said, his excellency’s lenient disposition—proposed to award to the fourteen innocent men one month’s imprisonment each; and to the real offender two month’s imprisonment, with a hundred and fifty blows of the bastinado.
Shocked at the mere idea of such a sentence, the idle man declared that he must have the innocent set at liberty; but consented that the culprit, for the sake of example, should be sentenced to the one hundred and fifty blows—the punishment to be remitted after the first few strokes had been dealt. Word was now given for the prisoners to be brought in.
The jailer marched first, followed by two soldiers. Then came the fifteen prisoners—I am ashamed to write it!—chained neck to neck, in single file.
One can imagine how the idle man felt at this moment.
Sentence being pronounced, the fourteen looked as if they could hardly believe their ears; while the fifteenth, though condemned to his one hundred and fifty strokes (“seventy-five to each foot,” specified the governor), was overjoyed to be let off so easily.
He was then flung down; his feet were fastened solesuppermost; and two soldiers proceeded to execute the sentence. As each blow fell, he cried: “God save the governor! God save the mudîr! God save the howadji!”
When the sixth stroke had been dealt the idle man turned to the governor and formally interceded for the remission of the rest of the sentence. The governor as formally granted the request, and the prisoners, weeping with joy, were set at liberty.
The governor, the mudîr, and the idle man then parted with a profusion of compliments; the governor protesting that his only wish was to be agreeable to the English, and that the whole village should have been bastinadoed had his excellency desired it.
We spent eight enchanted days at Philæ, and it so happened, when the afternoon of the eighth came round, that for the last few hours the writer was alone on the island. Alone, that is to say, with only a sailor in attendance, which was virtually solitude; and Philæ is a place to which solitude adds an inexpressible touch of pathos and remoteness.
It has been a hot day, and there is dead calm on the river. My last sketch finished, I wander slowly round from spot to spot, saying farewell to Pharaoh’s bed—to the painted columns—to the terrace, and palm, and shrine, and familiar point of view. I peep once again into the mystic chamber of Osiris. I see the sun set for the last time from the roof of the Temple of Isis. Then, when all that wondrous flush of rose and gold has died away, comes the warm after-glow. No words can paint the melancholy beauty of Philæ at this hour. The surrounding mountains stand out jagged and purple against a pale amber sky. The Nile is glassy. Not a breath, not a bubble, troubles the inverted landscape. Every palm is twofold; every stone is doubled. The big bowlders in mid-stream are reflected so perfectly that it is impossible to tell where the rock ends and the water begins. The temples, meanwhile, have turned to a subdued golden bronze; and the pylons are peopled with shapes that glow with fantastic life, and look ready to step down from their places.
The solitude is perfect, and there is a magical stillness in the air. I hear a mother crooning to her baby on the neighboring island—a sparrow twittering in its little nestin the capital of a column below my feet—a vulture screaming plaintively among the rocks in the far distance.
I look; I listen; I promise myself that I will remember it all in years to come—all the solemn hills, these silent colonnades, these deep, quiet spaces of shadow, these sleeping palms. Lingering till it is all but dark, I at last bid them farewell, fearing lest I may behold them no more.
Going, it cost us four days to struggle up from Assûan to Mahatta; returning, we slid down—thanks to our old friend the sheik of the cataract—in one short, sensational half-hour. He came—flat-faced, fishy-eyed, fatuous as ever—with his head tied up in the same old yellow handkerchief, and with the same chibouque in his mouth. He brought with him a following of fifty stalwart shellalees; and under his arm he carried a tattered red flag. This flag, on which were embroidered the crescent and star, he hoisted with much solemnity at the prow.
Consigned thus to the protection of the prophet; windows and tambooshy[174]shuttered up; doors closed; breakables removed to a place of safety, and everything made snug, as if for a storm at sea, we put off from Mahatta at sevenA.M.on a lovely morning in the middle of March. The Philæ, instead of threading her way back through the old channels, strikes across to the Libyan side, making straight for the Big Bab—that formidable rapid which as yet we have not seen. All last night we heard its voice in the distance; now, at every stroke of the oars, that rushing sound draws nearer.
The sheik of the cataract is our captain, and his men are our sailors to-day; Reïs Hassan and the crew having only to sit still and look on. The shellalees, meanwhile, row swiftly and steadily. Already the river seems to be running faster than usual; already the current feels stronger under our keel. And now, suddenly, there is sparkle and foam on the surface yonder—there are rocks ahead; rocks to right and left; eddies everywhere. The sheik lays down his pipe, kicks off his shoes, and goes himself to the prow. His second in command is stationed atthe top of the stairs leading to the upper deck. Six men take the tiller. The rowers are re-enforced, and sit two to each oar.
In the midst of these preparations, when everybody looks grave and even the Arabs are silent, we all at once find ourselves at the mouth of a long and narrow strait—a kind of ravine between two walls of rock—through which, at a steep incline, there rushes a roaring mass of waters. The whole Nile, in fact, seems to be thundering in wild waves down that terrible channel.
It seems, at first sight, impossible that any dahabeeyah should venture that way and not be dashed to pieces. Neither does there seem room for boats and oars to pass. The sheik, however, gives the word—his second echoes it—the men at the helm obey. They put the dahabeeyah straight at that monster mill-race. For one breathless second we seem to tremble on the edge of the fall. Then the Philæ plunges in headlong!
We see the whole boat slope down bodily under our feet. We feel the leap—the dead fall—the staggering rush forward. Instantly the waves are foaming and boiling up on all sides, flooding the lower deck and covering the upper deck with spray. The men ship their oars, leaving all to helm and current; and, despite the hoarse tumult, we distinctly hear those oars scrape the rocks on either side.
Now the sheik, looking for the moment quite majestic, stands motionless with uplifted arm; for at the end of the pass there is a sharp turn to the right—as sharp as a street corner in a narrow London thoroughfare. Can the Philæ, measuring one hundred feet from stem to stern, ever round that angle in safety? Suddenly, the uplifted arm is waved—the sheik thunders “Daffet!” (“helm”)—the men, steady and prompt, put the helm about—the boat, answering splendidly to the word of command, begins to turn before we are out of the rocks; then, shooting round the corner at exactly the right moment, comes out safe and sound, with only an oar broken!
Great is the rejoicing. Reïs Hassan, in the joy of his heart, runs to shake hands all round; the Arabs burst into a chorus of “Taibs” and “Salames;” and Talhamy, coming up all smiles, is set upon by half a dozen playful shellalees, who snatch his keffîyeh from his head and carry it off as a trophy. The only one unmoved is the sheik of thecataract. His momentary flash of energy over, he slouches back with the old stolid face; slips on his shoes; drops on his heels; lights his pipe; and looks more like an owl than ever.
We had fancied till now that the cataract Arabs for their own profit and travelers for their own glory had grossly exaggerated the dangers of the Big Bab. But such is not the case. The Big Bab is in truth a serious undertaking; so serious that I doubt whether any English boatman would venture to take such a boat down such a rapid and between such rocks as the shellalee Arabs took the Philæ that day.
All dahabeeyahs, however, are not so lucky. Of thirty-four that shot the fall this season, several had been slightly damaged and one was so disabled that she had to lie up at Assûan for a fortnight to be mended. Of actual shipwreck, or injury to life and limb, I do not suppose there is any real danger. The shellalees are wonderfully cool and skillful and have abundant practice. Our painter, it is true, preferred rolling up his canvases and carrying them round on dry land by way of the desert; but this was a precaution that neither he nor any of us would have dreamed of taking on account of our own personal safety. There is, in fact, little, if anything, to fear; and the traveler who foregoes the descent of the cataract foregoes a very curious sight and a very exciting adventure.
At Assûan we bade farewell to Nubia and the blameless Ethiopians and found ourselves once more traversing the Nile of Egypt. If instead of five miles of cataract we had crossed five hundred miles of sea or desert, the change could not have been more complete. We left behind us a dreamy river, a silent shore, an ever-present desert. Returning, we plunged back at once into the midst of a fertile and populous region. All day long, now, we see boats on the river; villages on the banks; birds on the wing; husbandmen on the land; men and women, horses, camels and asses, passing perpetually to and fro on the towing-path. There is always something moving, something doing. The Nile is running low and the shâdûfs—three deep, now—are in full swing from morning till night. Again the smoke goes up from clusters of unseen huts at close of day. Again we hear the dogs barking from hamlet to hamlet in the still hours of the night. Again, toward sunset, we see troopsof girls coming clown to the river side with their water-jars on their heads. Those Arab maidens, when they stand with garments tightly tucked up and just their feet in the water, dipping the goolah at arm’s length in the fresher gush of the current, almost tempt one’s pencil into the forbidden paths of caricature.
Kom Ombo is a magnificent torso. It was as large once as Denderah—perhaps larger; for, being on the same grand scale, it was a double temple and dedicated to two gods, Horus and Sebek;[175]the hawk and the crocodile. Now there remain only a few giant columns, buried to within eight or ten feet of their gorgeous capitals; a superb fragment of architrave; one broken wave of sculptured cornice and some fallen blocks graven with the names of Ptolemies and Cleopatras.
A great double doorway, a hall of columns and a double sanctuary are said to be yet perfect, though no longer accessible. The roofing-blocks of three halls, one behind the other, and a few capitals are yet visible behind the portico.
What more may lie buried below the surface none can tell. We only know that an ancient city and a mediæval hamlet have been slowly engulfed; and that an early temple, contemporary with the Temple of Amada, once stood within the sacred inclosure. The sand here has been accumulating for two thousand years. It lies forty feet deep, and has never been excavated. It will never be excavated now, for the Nile is gradually sapping the bank and carrying away piecemeal from below what the desert has buried from above. Half of one noble pylon—a cataract of sculptured blocks—strews the steep slope from top to bottom. The other half hangs suspended on the brink of the precipice. It cannot hang so much longer. A day must soon come when it will collapse with a crash and thunder down like its fellow.
Between Kom Ombo and Silsilis, we lost our painter. Not that he either strayed or was stolen; but that, having accomplished the main object of his journey, he was glad to seize the first opportunity of getting back quickly toCairo. That opportunity—represented by a noble duke honeymooning with a steam-tug—happened half-way between Kom Ombo and Silsilis. Painter and duke being acquaintances of old, the matter was soon settled. In less than a quarter of an hour, the big picture and all the paraphernalia of the studio were transported from the stern-cabin of the Philæ to the stern-cabin of the steam-tug; and our painter—fitted out with an extempore canteen, a cook-boy, a waiter, and his fair share of the necessaries of life—was soon disappearing gayly in the distance at the rate of twenty miles an hour. If the happy couple, so weary of head-winds, so satiated with temples, followed that vanishing steam-tug with eyes of melancholy longing, the writer at least asked nothing better than to drift on with the Philæ.
Still, the Nile is long, and life is short; and the tale told by our log-book was certainly not encouraging. When we reached Silsilis on the morning of the 17th of March the north wind had been blowing with only one day’s intermission since the 1st of February.
At Silsilis, one looks in vain for traces of that great barrier which once blocked the Nile at this point. The stream is narrow here, and the sand-stone cliffs come down on both sides to the water’s edge. In some places there is space for a footpath; in others, none. There are also some sunken rocks in the bed of the river—upon one of which, by the way, a Cook’s steamer had struck two days before. But of such a mass as could have dammed the Nile, and, by its disruption, not only have caused the river to desert its bed at Philæ,[176]but have changed the whole physical and climatic conditions of Lower Nubia, there is no sign whatever.
The Arabs here show a rock fantastically quarried in the shape of a gigantic umbrella, to which they pretend some king of old attached one end of a chain with which he barred the Nile. It may be that in this apocryphal legend there survives some memory of the ancient barrier.
The cliffs of the western bank are rich in memorial niches, votive shrines, tombs, historical stela, and inscriptions. These last date from the sixth to the twenty-second dynasties. Some of the tombs and alcoves are very curious.Ranged side by side in a long row close above the river, and revealing glimpses of seated figures and gaudy decorations within, they look like private boxes with their occupants. In most of these we found mutilated triads of gods,[177]sculptured and painted; and in one larger than the rest were three niches, each containing three deities.
The great speos of Horemheb, the last Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, lies farthest north, and the memorial shrines of the Rameses family lie farthest south of the series. The first is a long gallery, like a cloister supported on four square columns; and is excavated parallel with the river. The walls inside and out are covered with delicately executed sculptures in low relief, some of which yet retain traces of color. The triumph of Horemheb returning from conquest in the land of Kush, and the famous subject on the south wall described by Mariette[178]as one of the few really lovely things in Egyptian art have been too often engraved to need description. The votive shrines of the Rameses family are grouped altogether in a picturesque nook green with bushes to the water’s edge. There are three, the work of Seti I, Rameses II, and Menepthah—lofty alcoves, each like a little proscenium, with painted cornices and side pillars, and groups of kings and gods still bright with color. In most of the votive sculptures of Silsilis there figure two deities but rarely seen elsewhere; namely Sebek, the crocodile god, and Hapi-Mu, the lotus-crowned god of the Nile. This last was the tutelary deity of the spot, and was worshiped at Silsilis with special rites. Hymns, in his honor are found carved here and there upon the rocks.[179]Most curious of all, however, is agoddess named Ta-ur-t,[180]represented in one of the side subjects of the shrine of Rameses II. This charming person, who has the body of a hippopotamus and the face of a woman, wears a tie-wig and a robe of state with five capes, and looks like a cross between a lord chancellor and a coachman. Behind her stand Thoth and Nut; all three receiving the homage of Queen Nefertari, who advances with an offering of two sistrums. As a hippopotamus crowned with the disk and plumes, we had met with this goddess before. She is not uncommon as an amulet; and the writer had already sketched her at Philæ, where she occupies a prominent place in the façade of the Mammisi. But the grotesque elegance of her attire at Silsilis is, I imagine, quite unique.