Practically, I think, Childe Harold would have found it a dreadful bore to make “the Desert his dwelling-place,” for at all events, if he adopted the life of the Arabs he would have tasted no solitude. The tents are partitioned, not so as to divide the Childe and the “fair spirit” who is his “minister” from the rest of the world, but so as to separate the twenty or thirty brown men that sit screaming in the one compartment from the fifty or sixty brown women and children that scream and squeak in the other. If you adopt the Arab life for the sake of seclusion you will be horribly disappointed, for you will find yourself in perpetual contact with a mass of hot fellow-creatures. It is true that all who are inmates of the same tent are related to each other,but I am not quite sure that that circumstance adds much to the charm of such a life. At all events, before you finally determine to become an Arab try a gentle experiment. Take one of those small, shabby houses in Mayfair, and shut yourself up in it with forty or fifty shrill cousins for a couple of weeks in July.
In passing the Desert you will find your Arabs wanting to start and to rest at all sorts of odd times. They like, for instance, to be off at one in the morning, and to rest during the whole of the afternoon. You must not give way to their wishes in this respect. I tried their plan once, and found it very harassing and unwholesome. An ordinary tent can give you very little protection against heat, for the fire strikes fiercely through single canvas, and you soon find that whilst you lie crouching and striving to hide yourself from the blazing face of the sun, his power is harder to bear than it is where you boldly defy him from the airy heights of your camel.
It had been arranged with my Arabs that they were to bring with them all the food which they would want for themselves during the passage of the Desert, but as we rested at the end of the first day’s journey by the side of an Arab encampment, my camel men found all that they required for that night in the tents of their own brethren. On the evening of the second day, however, just before we encamped for the night, my four Arabs came to Dthemetri, and formally announced that they had not brought with them one atom of food, and that they looked entirely to my supplies for their daily bread. This was awkward intelligence. We were now just two days deep in the Desert, and I had brought with me no more bread than might be reasonably required formyself and my European attendants. I believed at the moment (for it seemed likely enough) that the men had really mistaken the terms of the arrangement, and feeling that the bore of being put upon half rations would be a less evil (and even to myself a less inconvenience) than the starvation of my Arabs, I at once told Dthemetri to assure them that my bread should be equally shared with all. Dthemetri, however, did not approve of this concession; he assured me quite positively that the Arabs thoroughly understood the agreement, and that if they were now without food they had wilfully brought themselves into this strait for the wretched purpose of bettering their bargain by the value of a few paras’ worth of bread. This suggestion made me look at the affair in a new light. I should have been glad enough to put up with the slight privation to which my concession would subject me, and could have borne to witness the semi-starvation of poor Dthemetri with a fine, philosophical calm, but it seemed to me that the scheme, if scheme it were, had something of audacity in it, and was well enough calculated to try the extent of my softness. I well knew the danger of allowing such a trial to result in a conclusion that I was one who might be easily managed; and therefore, after thoroughly satisfying myself from Dthemetri’s clear and repeated assertions that the Arabs had really understood the arrangement, I determined that they should not now violate it by taking advantage of my position in the midst of their big Desert, so I desired Dthemetri to tell them that they should touch no bread of mine. We stopped, and the tent was pitched. The Arabs came to me, and prayed loudly for bread. I refused them.
“Then we die!”
“God’s will be done!”
I gave the Arabs to understand that I regretted their perishing by hunger, but that I should bear this calmly, like any other misfortune not my own, that, in short, I was happily resigned totheirfate. The men would have talked a great deal, but they were under the disadvantage of addressing me through a hostile interpreter; they looked hard upon my face, but they found no hope there; so at last they retired as they pretended, to lay them down and die.
In about ten minutes from this time I found that the Arabs were busily cooking their bread! Their pretence of having brought no food was false, and was only invented for the purpose of saving it. They had a good bag of meal, which they had contrived to stow away under the baggage upon one of the camels in such a way as to escape notice. In Europe the detection of a scheme like this would have occasioned a disagreeable feeling between the master and the delinquent, but you would no more recoil from an Oriental on account of a matter of this sort, than in England you would reject a horse that had tried, and failed, to throw you. Indeed, I felt quite good-humouredly towards my Arabs, because they had so woefully failed in their wretched attempt, and because, as it turned out, I had done what was right. They too, poor fellows, evidently began to like me immensely, on account of the hard-heartedness which had enabled me to baffle their scheme.
The Arabs adhere to those ancestral principles of bread-baking which have been sanctioned by the experience of ages. The very first baker of bread that ever lived must have done his work exactly as the Arab does at this day. He takes some meal and holds it out in the hollow of his hands, whilst hiscomrade pours over it a few drops of water; he then mashes up the moistened flour into a paste, which he pulls into small pieces, and thrusts into the embers. His way of baking exactly resembles the craft or mystery of roasting chestnuts as practised by children; there is the same prudence and circumspection in choosing a good berth for the morsel, the same enterprise and self-sacrificing valour in pulling it out with the fingers.
The manner of my daily march was this. At about an hour before dawn I rose and made the most of about a pint of water, which I allowed myself for washing. Then I breakfasted upon tea and bread. As soon as the beasts were loaded I mounted my camel and pressed forward. My poor Arabs, being on foot, would sometimes moan with fatigue and pray for rest; but I was anxious to enable them to perform their contract for bringing me to Cairo within the stipulated time, and I did not therefore allow a halt until the evening came. About midday, or soon after, Mysseri used to bring up his camel alongside of mine, and supply me with a piece of bread softened in water (for it was dried hard like board), and also (as long as it lasted) with a piece of the tongue; after this there came into my hand (how well I remember it) the little tin cup half-filled with wine and water.
As long as you are journeying in the interior of the Desert you have no particular point to make for as your resting-place. The endless sands yield nothing but small stunted shrubs; even these fail after the first two or three days, and from that time you pass over broad plains, you pass over newly reared hills, you pass through valleys that the storm of the last week has dug, and the hills and the valleys aresand, sand, sand, still sand, and only sand, and sand and sand again. The earth is so samely that your eyes turn towards heaven—towards heaven, I mean, in the sense of sky. You look to the sun, for he is your taskmaster, and by him you know the measure of the work that you have done, and the measure of the work that remains for you to do. He comes when you strike your tent in the early morning, and then, for the first hour of the day as you move forward on your camel, he stands at your near side and makes you know that the whole day’s toil is before you; then for a while, and a long while, you see him no more, for you are veiled and shrouded, and dare not look upon the greatness of his glory, but you know where he strides overhead by the touch of his flaming sword. No words are spoken, but your Arabs moan, your camels sigh, your skin glows, your shoulders ache, and for sights you see the pattern and the web of the silk that veils your eyes and the glare of the outer light. Time labours on; your skin glows and your shoulders ache, your Arabs moan, your camels sigh, and you see the same pattern in the silk, and the same glare of light beyond, but conquering Time marches on, and by and by the descending sun has compassed the heaven, and now softly touches your right arm, and throws your lank shadow over the sand right along on the way to Persia. Then again you look upon his face, for his power is all veiled in his beauty, and the redness of flames has become the redness of roses; the fair, wavy cloud that fled in the morning now comes to his sight once more, comes blushing, yet still comes on, comes burning with blushes, yet hastens and clings to his side.
Then arrives your time for resting. The worldabout you is all your own, and there, where you will, you pitch your solitary tent; there is no living thing to dispute your choice. When at last the spot had been fixed upon and we came to a halt, one of the Arabs would touch the chest of my camel and utter at the same time a peculiar gurgling sound. The beast instantly understood and obeyed the sign, and slowly sunk under me till she brought her body to a level with the ground, then gladly enough I alighted. The rest of the camels were unloaded and turned loose to browse upon the shrubs of the desert, where shrubs there were, or where these failed, to wait for the small quantity of food that was allowed them out of our stores.
My servants, helped by the Arabs, busied themselves in pitching the tent and kindling the fire. Whilst this was doing I used to walk away towards the east, confiding in the print of my foot as a guide for my return. Apart from the cheering voices of my attendants I could better know and feel the loneliness of the Desert. The influence of such scenes, however, was not of a softening kind, but filled me rather with a sort of childish exultation in the self-sufficiency which enabled me to stand thus alone in the wideness of Asia—a shortlived pride, for wherever man wanders he still remains tethered by the chain that links him to his kind; and so when the night closed around me I began to return, to return, as it were, to my own gate. Reaching at last some high ground I could see, and see with delight, the fire of our small encampment, and when at last I regained the spot it seemed to me a very home that had sprung up for me in the midst of these solitudes. My Arabs were busy with their bread; Mysseri rattling teacups; the little kettle, with herodd old-maidish looks, sat humming away old songs about England; and two or three yards from the fire my tent stood prim and tight, with open portal, and with welcoming look, like “the old arm-chair” of our lyrist’s “sweet Lady Anne.”
At the beginning of my journey the night breeze blew coldly; when that happened, the dry sand was heaped up outside round the skirts of the tent, and so the wind, that everywhere else could sweep as he listed along those dreary plains, was forced to turn aside in his course and make way, as he ought, for the Englishman. Then within my tent there were heaps of luxuries—dining-rooms, dressing-rooms, libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms, oratories, all crowded into the space of a hearthrug. The first night, I remember, with my books and maps about me, I wanted light; they brought me a taper, and immediately from out of the silent Desert there rushed in a flood of life unseen before. Monsters of moths, of all shapes and hues, that never before perhaps had looked upon the shining of a flame, now madly thronged into my tent, and dashed through the fire of the candle till they fairly extinguished it with their burning limbs. Those who had failed in attaining this martyrdom suddenly became serious, and clung despondingly to the canvas.
By and by there was brought to me the fragrant tea and big masses of scorched and scorching toast, and the butter that had come all the way to me in this Desert of Asia from out of that poor, dear, starving Ireland. I feasted like a king, like four kings, like a boy in the fourth form.
When the cold, sullen morning dawned, and my people began to load the camels, I always felt loath to give back to the waste this little spot of ground thathad glowed for a while with the cheerfulness of a human dwelling. One by one the cloaks, the saddles, the baggage, the hundred things that strewed the ground and made it look so familiar—all these were taken away and laid upon the camels. A speck in the broad tracts of Asia remained still impressed with the mark of patent portmanteaus and the heels of London boots; the embers of the fire lay black and cold upon the sand, and these were the signs we left.
My tent was spared to the last, but when all else was ready for the start then came its fall; the pegs were drawn, the canvas shivered, and in less than a minute there was nothing that remained of my genial home but only a pole and a bundle. The encroaching Englishman was off, and instant upon the fall of the canvas, like an owner who had waited and watched, the genius of the Desert stalked in.
To servants, as I suppose of any other Europeans not much accustomed to amuse themselves by fancy or memory, it often happens that after a few days journeying the loneliness of the Desert will become frightfully oppressive. Upon my poor fellows the access of melancholy came heavy, and all at once, as a blow from above; they bent their necks, and bore it as best they could, but their joy was great on the fifth day when we came to an oasis called Gatieh, for here we found encamped a caravan (that is, an assemblage of travellers) from Cairo. The Orientals living in cities never pass the Desert except in this way; many will wait for weeks, and even for months, until a sufficient number of persons can be found ready to undertake the journey at the same time—until the flock of sheep is big enough to fancy itself a match for wolves. They could not, I think,really secure themselves against any serious danger by this contrivance, for though they have arms, they are so little accustomed to use them, and so utterly unorganised, that they never could make good their resistance to robbers of the slightest respectability. It is not of the Bedouins that such travellers are afraid, for the safe conduct granted by the chief of the ruling tribe is never, I believe, violated, but it is said that there are deserters and scamps of various sorts who hover about the skirts of the Desert, particularly on the Cairo side, and are anxious to succeed to the property of any poor devils whom they may find more weak and defenceless than themselves.
These people from Cairo professed to be amazed at the ludicrous disproportion between their numerical forces and mine. They could not understand, and they wanted to know, by what strange privilege it is that an Englishman with a brace of pistols and a couple of servants rides safely across the Desert, whilst they, the natives of the neighbouring cities, are forced to travel in troops, or rather in herds. One of them got a few minutes of private conversation with Dthemetri, and ventured to ask him anxiously whether the English did not travel under the protection of evil demons. I had previously known (from Methley, I think, who had travelled in Persia) that this notion, so conducive to the safety of our countrymen, is generally prevalent amongst Orientals. It owes its origin, partly to the strong wilfulness of the English gentleman (which not being backed by any visible authority, either civil or military, seems perfectly superhuman to the soft Asiatic), but partly too to the magic of the banking system, by force of which the wealthy traveller willmake all his journeys without carrying a handful of coin, and yet when he arrives at a city will rain down showers of gold. The theory is, that the English traveller has committed some sin against God and his conscience, and that for this the evil spirit has hold of him, and drives him from his home like a victim of the old Grecian furies, and forces him to travel over countries far and strange, and most chiefly over deserts and desolate places, and to stand upon the sites of cities that once were and are now no more, and to grope among the tombs of dead men. Often enough there is something of truth in this notion; often enough the wandering Englishman is guilty (if guilt it be) of some pride or ambition, big or small, imperial or parochial, which being offended has made the lone place more tolerable than ballrooms to him, a sinner.
I can understand the sort of amazement of the Orientals at the scantiness of the retinue with which an Englishman passes the Desert, for I was somewhat struck myself when I saw one of my countrymen making his way across the wilderness in this simple style. At first there was a mere moving speck on the horizon. My party of course became all alive with excitement, and there were many surmises. Soon it appeared that three laden camels were approaching, and that two of them carried riders. In a little while we saw that one of the riders wore European dress, and at last the travellers were pronounced to be an English gentleman and his servant. By their side there were a couple, I think, of Arabs on foot, and this was the whole party.
You, you love sailing; in returning from a cruise to the English coast you see often enough a fisherman’s humble boat far away from all shores, with anugly black sky above and an angry sea beneath. You watch the grizzly old man at the helm carrying his craft with strange skill through the turmoil of waters, and the boy, supple-limbed, yet weather-worn already, and with steady eyes that look through the blast, you see him understanding commandments from the jerk of his father’s white eyebrow, now belaying and now letting go, now scrunching himself down into mere ballast, or baling out death with a pipkin. Stale enough is the sight, and yet when I see it I always stare anew, and with a kind of Titanic exultation, because that a poor boat with the brain of a man and the hands of a boy on board can match herself so bravely against black heaven and ocean. Well, so when you have travelled for days and days over an Eastern desert without meeting the likeness of a human being, and then at last see an English shooting-jacket and his servant come listlessly slouching along from out of the forward horizon, you stare at the wide unproportion between this slender company and the boundless plains of sand through which they are keeping their way.
This Englishman, as I afterwards found, was a military man returning to his country from India, and crossing the Desert at this part in order to go through Palestine. As for me, I had come pretty straight from England, and so here we met in the wilderness at about half-way from our respective starting-points. As we approached each other it became with me a question whether we should speak. I thought it likely that the stranger would accost me, and in the event of his doing so I was quite ready to be as sociable and chatty as I could be according to my nature; but still I could not think of anything particular that I had to say to him. Of course, among civilisedpeople the not having anything to say is no excuse at all for not speaking, but I was shy and indolent, and I felt no great wish to stop and talk like a morning visitor in the midst of those broad solitudes. The traveller perhaps felt as I did, for except that we lifted our hands to our caps and waved our arms in courtesy, we passed each other as if we had passed in Bond Street. Our attendants, however, were not to be cheated of the delight that they felt in speaking to new listeners and hearing fresh voices once more. The masters, therefore, had no sooner passed each other than their respective servants quietly stopped and entered into conversation. As soon as my camel found that her companions were not following her she caught the social feeling and refused to go on. I felt the absurdity of the situation, and determined to accost the stranger if only to avoid the awkwardness of remaining stuck fast in the Desert whilst our servants were amusing themselves. When with this intent I turned round my camel I found that the gallant officer who had passed me by about thirty or forty yards was exactly in the same predicament as myself. I put my now willing camel in motion and rode up towards the stranger, who seeing this followed my example and came forward to meet me. He was the first to speak. He was much too courteous to address me as if he admitted the possibility of my wishing to accost him from any feeling of mere sociability or civilian-like love of vain talk. On the contrary, he at once attributed my advances to a laudable wish of acquiring statistical information, and accordingly, when we got within speaking distance, he said, “I daresay you wish to know how the plague is going on at Cairo?” And then he went on to say, he regretted that his information didnot enable him to give me in numbers a perfectly accurate statement of the daily deaths. He afterwards talked pleasantly enough upon other and less ghastly subjects. I thought him manly and intelligent, a worthy one of the few thousand strong Englishmen to whom the empire of India is committed.
The night after the meeting with the people of the caravan, Dthemetri, alarmed by their warnings, took upon himself to keep watch all night in the tent. No robbers came except a jackal, that poked his nose into my tent from some motive of rational curiosity. Dthemetri did not shoot him for fear of waking me. These brutes swarm in every part of Syria, and there were many of them even in the midst of the void sands that would seem to give such poor promise of food. I can hardly tell what prey they could be hoping for, unless it were that they might find now and then the carcass of some camel that had died on the journey. They do not marshal themselves into great packs like the wild dogs of Eastern cities, but follow their prey in families, like the place-hunters of Europe. Their voices are frightfully like to the shouts and cries of human beings. If you lie awake in your tent at night you are almost continually hearing some hungry family as it sweeps along in full cry. You hear the exulting scream with which the sagacious dam first winds the carrion, and the shrill response of the unanimous cubs as they sniff the tainted air, “Wha! wha! wha! wha! wha! wha! Whose gift is it in, mamma?”
Once during this passage my Arabs lost their way among the hills of loose sand that surrounded us, but after a while we were lucky enough to recover our right line of march. The same day we fell in witha Sheik, the head of a family, that actually dwells at no great distance from this part of the Desert during nine months of the year. The man carried a matchlock, of which he was very proud. We stopped and sat down and rested a while for the sake of a little talk. There was much that I should have liked to ask this man, but he could not understand Dthemetri’s language, and the process of getting at his knowledge by double interpretation through my Arabs was unsatisfactory. I discovered, however (and my Arabs knew of that fact), that this man and his family lived habitually for nine months of the year without touching or seeing either bread or water. The stunted shrub growing at intervals through the sand in this part of the Desert enables the camel mares to yield a little milk, which furnishes the sole food and drink of their owner and his people. During the other three months (the hottest of the months, I suppose) even this resource fails, and then the Sheik and his people are forced to pass into another district. You would ask me why the man should not remain always in that district which supplies him with water during three months of the year, but I don’t know enough of Arab politics to answer the question. The Sheik was not a good specimen of the effect produced by the diet to which he is subjected. He was very small, very spare, and sadly shrivelled, a poor, over-roasted snipe, a mere cinder of a man. I made him sit down by my side, and gave him a piece of bread and a cup of water from out of my goatskins. This was not very tempting drink to look at, for it had become turbid, and was deeply reddened by some colouring matter contained in the skins, but it kept its sweetness, and tasted like a strong decoction of Russia leather. The Sheik sipped this, drop by drop,with ineffable relish, and rolled his eyes solemnly round between every draught, as though the drink were the drink of the Prophet, and had come from the seventh heaven.
An inquiry about distances led to the discovery that this Sheik had never heard of the division of time into hours; my Arabs themselves, I think, were rather surprised at this.
About this part of my journey I saw the likeness of a fresh-water lake. I saw, as it seemed, a broad sheet of calm water, that stretched far and fair towards the south, stretching deep into winding creeks, and hemmed in by jutting promontories, and shelving smooth off towards the shallow side. On its bosom the reflected fire of the sun lay playing, and seeming to float upon waters deep and still.
Though I knew of the cheat, it was not till the spongy foot of my camel had almost trodden in the seeming waters that I could undeceive my eyes, for the shore-line was quite true and natural. I soon saw the cause of the phantasm. A sheet of water heavily impregnated with salts had filled this great hollow, and when dried up by evaporation had left a white saline deposit, that exactly marked the space which the waters had covered, and thus sketched a good shore-line. The minute crystals of the salt sparkled in the sun, and so looked like the face of a lake that is calm and smooth.
The pace of the camel is irksome, and makes your shoulders and loins ache from the peculiar way in which you are obliged to suit yourself to the movements of the beast, but you soon, of course, become inured to this, and after the first two days this way of travelling became so familiar to me, that (poor sleeper as I am) I now and then slumbered for somemoments together on the back of my camel. On the fifth day of my journey the air above lay dead, and all the whole earth that I could reach with my utmost sight and keenest listening was still and lifeless as some dispeopled and forgotten world that rolls round and round in the heavens through wasted floods of light. The sun, growing fiercer and fiercer, shone down more mightily now than ever on me he shone before, and as I dropped my head under his fire, and closed my eyes against the glare that surrounded me, I slowly fell asleep, for how many minutes or moments I cannot tell, but after a while I was gently awakened by a peal of church bells, my native bells, the innocent bells of Marlen, that never before sent forth their music beyond the Blaygon hills! My first idea naturally was that I still remained fast under the power of a dream. I roused myself and drew aside the silk that covered my eyes, and plunged my bare face into the light. Then at least I was well enough wakened, but still those old Marlen bells rung on, not ringing for joy, but properly, prosily, steadily, merrily ringing “for church.” After a while the sound died away slowly. It happened that neither I nor any of my party had a watch by which to measure the exact time of its lasting, but it seemed to me that about ten minutes had passed before the bells ceased. I attributed the effect to the great heat of the sun, the perfect dryness of the clear air through which I moved, and the deep stillness of all around me. It seemed to me that these causes, by occasioning a great tension, and consequent susceptibility, of the hearing organs, had rendered them liable to tingle under the passing touch of some mere memory that must have swept across my brain in a moment of sleep. Since my return toEngland it has been told me that like sounds have been heard at sea, and that the sailor becalmed under a vertical sun in the midst of the wide ocean has listened in trembling wonder to the chime of his own village bells.
At this time I kept a poor shabby pretence of a journal, which just enabled me to know the day of the month and the week according to the European calendar, and when in my tent at night I got out my pocket-book I found that the day was Sunday, and roughly allowing for the difference of time in this longitude, I concluded that at the moment of my hearing that strange peal the church-going bells of Marlen must have been actually calling the prim congregation of the parish to morning prayer. The coincidence amused me faintly, but I could not pluck up the least hope that the effect which I had experienced was anything other than an illusion, an illusion liable to be explained (as every illusion is in these days) by some of the philosophers who guess at Nature’s riddles. It would have been sweeter to believe that my kneeling mother by some pious enchantment had asked, and found, this spell to rouse me from my scandalous forgetfulness of God’s holy day, but my fancy was too weak to carry a faith like that. Indeed, the vale through which the bells of Marlen send their song is a highly respectable vale, and its people (save one, two, or three) are wholly unaddicted to the practice of magical arts.
After the fifth day of my journey I no longer travelled over shifting hills, but came upon a dead level, a dead level bed of sand, quite hard, and studded with small shining pebbles.
The heat grew fierce; there was no valley nor hollow, no hill, no mound, no shadow of hill nor ofmound, by which I could mark the way I was making. Hour by hour I advanced, and saw no change—I was still the very centre of a round horizon; hour by hour I advanced, and still there was the same, and the same, and the same—the same circle of flaming sky—the same circle of sand still glaring with light and fire. Over all the heaven above, over all the earth beneath, there was no visible power that could balk the fierce will of the sun: “he rejoiced as a strong man to run a race; his going forth was from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there was nothing hid from the heat thereof.” From pole to pole, and from the east to the west, he brandished his fiery sceptre as though he had usurped all heaven and earth. As he bid the soft Persian in ancient times, so now, and fiercely too, he bid me bow down and worship him; so now in his pride he seemed to command me, and say, “Thou shalt have none other gods but me.” I was all alone before him. There were these two pitted together, and face to face—the mighty sun for one, and for the other this poor, pale, solitary self of mine, that I always carry about with me.
But on the eighth day, and before I had yet turned away from Jehovah for the glittering god of the Persians, there appeared a dark line upon the edge of the forward horizon, and soon the line deepened into a delicate fringe, that sparkled here and there as though it were sewn with diamonds. There, then, before me were the gardens and the minarets of Egypt and the mighty works of the Nile, and I (the eternal Ego that I am!)—I had lived to see, and I saw them.
When evening came I was still within the confines of the Desert, and my tent was pitched as usual; butone of my Arabs stalked away rapidly towards the west, without telling me of the errand on which he was bent. After a while he returned; he had toiled on a graceful service; he had travelled all the way on to the border of the living world, and brought me back for token an ear of rice, full, fresh, and green. The next day I entered upon Egypt, and floated along (for the delight was as the delight of bathing) through green wavy fields of rice, and pastures fresh and plentiful, and dived into the cold verdure of groves and gardens, and quenched my hot eyes in shade, as though in deep, rushing waters.
Cairoand plague! During the whole time of my stay the plague was so master of the city, and showed itself so staringly in every street and every alley, that I can’t now affect to dissociate the two ideas.
When coming from the Desert I rode through a village which lies near to the city on the eastern side, there approached me with busy face and earnest gestures a personage in the Turkish dress. His long flowing beard gave him rather a majestic look, but his briskness of manner, and his visible anxiety to accost me, seemed strange in an Oriental. The man in fact was French, or of French origin, and his object was to warn me of the plague, and prevent me from entering the city.
“Arrêtez-vous, monsieur, je vous en prie—arrêtez-vous; il ne faut pas entrer dans la ville; la peste y règne partout.”
“Oui, je sais,[203a]mais—”
“Mais monsieur, je dis la peste—la peste; c’est deLA PESTEqu’il est question.”
“Oui, je sais, mais—”
“Mais monsieur, je dis encoreLA PESTE—LA PESTE. Je vous conjure de ne pas entrer dans la ville—vous seriaz dans une ville empestée.”
“Oui, je sais, mais—”
“Mais monsieur, je dois donc vous avertir tout bonnement que si vous entrez dans la ville, vous serez—enfin vous serezCOMPROMIS!”[203b]
“Oui, je sais, mais—”
The Frenchman was at last convinced that it was vain to reason with a mere Englishman, who could not understand what it was to be “compromised.” I thanked him most sincerely for his kindly meant warning; in hot countries it is very unusual indeed for a man to go out in the glare of the sun and give free advice to a stranger.
When I arrived at Cairo I summoned Osman Effendi, who was, as I knew, the owner of several houses, and would be able to provide me with apartments. He had no difficulty in doing this, for there was not one European traveller in Cairo besides myself. Poor Osman! he met me with a sorrowful countenance, for the fear of the plague sat heavily on his soul. He seemed as if he felt that he was doing wrong in lending me a resting-place, and he betrayed such a listlessness about temporal matters, as one might look for in a man who believed that his days were numbered. He caught me too soon after my arrival coming out from the public baths,[204]and from that time forward he was sadly afraid of me, for he shared the opinions of Europeans with respect to the effect of contagion.
Osman’s history is a curious one. He was a Scotchman born, and when very young, being then a drummer-boy, he landed in Egypt with Fraser’s force. He was taken prisoner, and according to Mahometan custom, the alternative of death or the Koran was offered to him; he did not choose death,and therefore went through the ceremonies which were necessary for turning him into a good Mahometan. But what amused me most in his history was this, that very soon after having embraced Islam he was obliged in practice to become curious and discriminating in his new faith, to make war upon Mahometan dissenters, and follow the orthodox standard of the Prophet in fierce campaigns against the Wahabees,[205]who are the Unitarians of the Mussulman world. The Wahabees were crushed, and Osman returning home in triumph from his holy wars, began to flourish in the world. He acquired property, and becameeffendi, or gentleman. At the time of my visit to Cairo he seemed to be much respected by his brother Mahometans, and gave pledge of his sincere alienation from Christianity by keeping a couple of wives. He affected the same sort of reserve in mentioning them as is generally shown by Orientals. He invited me, indeed, to see his harem, but he made both his wives bundle out before I was admitted. He felt, as it seemed to me, that neither of them would bear criticism, and I think that this idea, rather than any motive of sincere jealousy, induced him to keep them out of sight. The rooms of the harem reminded me of an English nursery rather than of a Mahometan paradise. One is apt to judge of a woman before one sees her by the air of elegance or coarseness with which she surrounds her home; I judged Osman’s wives by this test, and condemned them both. But the strangest feature in Osman’s character was his inextinguishable nationality. In vain they had brought him over the seas in early boyhood; in vain had he suffered captivity, conversion, circumcision; in vain they had passed him through fire in theirArabian campaigns, they could not cut away or burn out poor Osman’s inborn love of all that was Scotch; in vain men called him Effendi; in vain he swept along in Eastern robes; in vain the rival wives adorned his harem: the joy of his heart still plainly lay in this, that he had three shelves of books, and that the books were thoroughbred Scotch—the Edinburgh this, the Edinburgh that, and above all, I recollect, he prided himself upon the “Edinburgh Cabinet Library.”
The fear of the plague is its forerunner. It is likely enough that at the time of my seeing poor Osman the deadly taint was beginning to creep through his veins, but it was not till after I had left Cairo that he was visibly stricken. He died.
As soon as I had seen all that I wanted to see in Cairo and in the neighbourhood I wished to make my escape from a city that lay under the terrible curse of the plague, but Mysseri fell ill, in consequence, I believe, of the hardships which he had been suffering in my service. After a while he recovered sufficiently to undertake a journey, but then there was some difficulty in procuring beasts of burthen, and it was not till the nineteenth day of my sojourn that I quitted the city.
During all this time the power of the plague was rapidly increasing. When I first arrived, it was said that the daily number of “accidents” by plague, out of a population of about two hundred thousand, did not exceed four or five hundred, but before I went away the deaths were reckoned at twelve hundred a day. I had no means of knowing whether the numbers (given out, as I believe they were, by officials) were at all correct, but I could not help knowing that from day to day the number of thedead was increasing. My quarters were in a street which was one of the chief thoroughfares of the city. The funerals in Cairo take place between daybreak and noon, and as I was generally in my rooms during this part of the day, I could form some opinion as to the briskness of the plague. I don’t mean this for a sly insinuation that I got up every morning with the sun. It was not so; but the funerals of most people in decent circumstances at Cairo are attended by singers and howlers, and the performances of these people woke me in the early morning, and prevented me from remaining in ignorance of what was going on in the street below.
These funerals were very simply conducted. The bier was a shallow wooden tray, carried upon a light and weak wooden frame. The tray had, in general, no lid, but the body was more or less hidden from view by a shawl or scarf. The whole was borne upon the shoulders of men, who contrived to cut along with their burthen at a great pace. Two or three singers generally preceded the bier; the howlers (who are paid for their vocal labours) followed after, and last of all came such of the dead man’s friends and relations as could keep up with such a rapid procession; these, especially the women, would get terribly blown, and would straggle back into the rear; many were fairly “beaten off.” I never observed any appearance of mourning in the mourners: the pace was too severe for any solemn affectation of grief.[207]
When first I arrived at Cairo the funerals that daily passed under my windows were many, but still there were frequent and long intervals without a single howl. Every day, however (except one, when I fancied that I observed a diminution of funerals), these intervals became less frequent and shorter, and at last, the passing of the howlers from morn till noon was almost incessant. I believe that about one-half of the whole people was carried off by this visitation. The Orientals, however, have more quiet fortitude than Europeans under afflictions of this sort, and they never allow the plague to interfere with their religious usages. I rode one day round the great burial-ground. The tombs are strewed over a great expanse, among the vast mountains of rubbish (the accumulations of many centuries) which surround the city. The ground, unlike the Turkish “cities of the dead,” which are made so beautiful by their dark cypresses, has nothing to sweeten melancholy, nothing to mitigate the odiousness of death. Carnivorous beasts and birds possess the place by night, and now in the fair morning it was all alive with fresh comers—alive with dead. Yet at this very time, when the plague was raging so furiously, and on this very ground, which resounded so mournfully with the howls of arriving funerals, preparations were going on for the religious festival called the Kourban Bairam. Tents were pitched, andswings hung for the amusement of children—aghastly holiday; but the Mahometans take a pride, and a just pride, in following their ancient customs undisturbed by the shadow of death.
I did not hear, whilst I was at Cairo, that any prayer for a remission of the plague had been offered up in the mosques. I believe that however frightful the ravages of the disease may be, the Mahometans refrain from approaching Heaven with their complaints until the plague has endured for a long space, and then at last they pray God, not that the plague may cease, but that it may go to another city!
A good Mussulman seems to take pride in repudiating the European notion that the will of God can be eluded by eluding the touch of a sleeve. When I went to see the pyramids of Sakkara I was the guest of a noble old fellow, an Osmanlee, whose soft rolling language it was a luxury to hear after suffering, as I had suffered of late, from the shrieking tongue of the Arabs. This man was aware of the European ideas about contagion, and his first care therefore was to assure me that not a single instance of plague had occurred in his village. He then inquired as to the progress of the plague at Cairo. I had but a bad account to give. Up to this time my host had carefully refrained from touching me out of respect to the European theory of contagion, but as soon as it was made plain that he, and not I, would be the person endangered by contact, he gently laid his hand upon my arm, in order to make me feel sure that the circumstance of my coming from an infected city did not occasion him the least uneasiness. In that touch there was true hospitality.
Very different is the faith and the practice of the Europeans, or rather, I mean of the Europeans settled in the East, and commonly called Levantines.When I came to the end of my journey over the Desert I had been so long alone, that the prospect of speaking to somebody at Cairo seemed almost a new excitement. I felt a sort of consciousness that I had a little of the wild beast about me, but I was quite in the humour to be charmingly tame, and to be quite engaging in my manners, if I should have an opportunity of holding communion with any of the human race whilst at Cairo. I knew no one in the place, and had no letters of introduction, but I carried letters of credit, and it often happens in places remote from England that those “advices” operate as a sort of introduction, and obtain for the bearer (if disposed to receive them) such ordinary civilities as it may be in the power of the banker to offer.
Very soon after my arrival I went to the house of the Levantine to whom my credentials were addressed. At his door several persons (all Arabs) were hanging about and keeping guard. It was not till after some delay, and the passing of some communications with those in the interior of the citadel, that I was admitted. At length, however, I was conducted through the court, and up a flight of stairs, and finally into the apartment where business was transacted. The room was divided by an excellent, substantial fence of iron bars, and behind this grille the banker had his station. The truth was, that from fear of the plague he had adopted the course usually taken by European residents, and had shut himself up “in strict quarantine”—that is to say, that he had, as he hoped, cut himself off from all communication with infecting substances. The Europeans long resident in the East, without any, or with scarcely any, exception, are firmly convinced that the plague is propagated by contact, and bycontact only; that if they can but avoid the touch of an infecting substance they are safe, and that if they cannot, they die. This belief induces them to adopt the contrivance of putting themselves in that state of siege which they call “quarantine.” It is a part of their faith that metals, and hempen rope, and also, I fancy, one or two other substances, will not carry the infection; and they likewise believe that the germ of pestilence, which lies in an infected substance, may be destroyed by submersion in water, or by the action of smoke. They therefore guard the doors of their houses with the utmost care against intrusion, and condemn themselves, with all the members of their family, including any European servants, to a strict imprisonment within the walls of their dwelling. Their native attendants are not allowed to enter at all, but they make the necessary purchases of provisions, which are hauled up through one of the windows by means of a rope, and are then soaked in water.
I knew nothing of these mysteries, and was not therefore prepared for the sort of reception which I met with. I advanced to the iron fence, and putting my letter between the bars, politely proffered it to Mr. Banker. Mr. Banker received me with a sad and dejected look, and not “with open arms,” or with any arms at all, but with—a pair of tongs! I placed my letter between the iron fingers, which picked it up as if it were a viper, and conveyed it away to be scorched and purified by fire and smoke. I was disgusted at this reception, and at the idea that anything of mine could carry infection to the poor wretch who stood on the other side of the grille, pale and trembling, and already meet for death. I looked with something of the Mahometan’sfeeling upon these little contrivances for eluding fate; and in this instance, at least, they were vain. A few more days, and the poor money-changer, who had striven to guard the days of his life (as though they were coins) with bolts and bars of iron—he was seized by the plague, and he died.
To people entertaining such opinions as these respecting the fatal effect of contact, the narrow and crowded streets of Cairo were terrible as the easy slope that leads to Avernus. The roaring ocean and the beetling crags owe something of their sublimity to this—that if they be tempted, they can take the warm life of a man. To the contagionist, filled as he is with the dread of final causes, having no faith in destiny nor in the fixed will of God, and with none of the devil-may-care indifference which might stand him instead of creeds—to such one, every rag that shivers in the breeze of a plague-stricken city has this sort of sublimity. If by any terrible ordinance he be forced to venture forth, he sees death dangling from every sleeve, and as he creeps forward, he poises his shuddering limbs between the imminent jacket that is stabbing at his right elbow and the murderous pelisse that threatens to mow him clean down as it sweeps along on his left. But most of all, he dreads that which most of all he should love—the touch of a woman’s dress; for mothers and wives, hurrying forth on kindly errands from the bedsides of the dying, go slouching along through the streets more wilfully and less courteously than the men. For a while it may be that the caution of the poor Levantine may enable him to avoid contact, but sooner or later perhaps the dreaded chance arrives; that bundle of linen, with the dark tearful eyes at the top of it, that labours along with the voluptuous clumsiness ofGrisi—she has touched the poor Levantine with the hem of her sleeve! From that dread moment his peace is gone; his mind, for ever hanging upon the fatal touch, invites the blow which he fears. He watches for the symptoms of plague so carefully, that sooner or later they come in truth. The parched mouth is a sign—his mouthisparched; the throbbing brain—his braindoesthrob; the rapid pulse—he touches his own wrist (for he dares not ask counsel of any man lest he be deserted), he touches his wrist, and feels how his frighted blood goes galloping out of his heart; there is nothing but the fatal swelling that is wanting to make his sad conviction complete; immediately he has an odd feel under the arm—no pain, but a little straining of the skin; he would to God it were his fancy that were strong enough to give him that sensation. This is the worst of all; it now seems to him that he could be happy and contented with his parched mouth and his throbbing brain and his rapid pulse, if only he could know that there were no swelling under the left arm; but dare he try?—In a moment of calmness and deliberation he dares not, but when for a while he has writhed under the torture of suspense, a sudden strength of will drives him to seek and know his fate. He touches the gland, and finds the skin sane and sound, but under the cuticle there lies a small lump like a pistol-bullet, that moves as he pushes it. Oh! but is this for all certainty, is this the sentence of death? Feel the gland of the other arm; there is not the same lump exactly, yet something a little like it: have not some people glands naturally enlarged?—would to Heaven he were one! So he does for himself the work of the plague, and when the Angel of Death, thus courted, does indeed and in truthcome, he has only to finish that which has been so well begun; he passes his fiery hand over the brain of the victim, and lets him rave for a season, but all chance-wise, of people and things once dear, or of people and things indifferent. Once more the poor fellow is back at his home in fair Provence, and sees the sun-dial that stood in his childhood’s garden; sees part of his mother, and the long-since-forgotten face of that little dead sister (he sees her, he says, on a Sunday morning, for all the church bells are ringing); he looks up and down through the universe, and owns it well piled with bales upon bales of cotton, and cotton eternal—so much so that he feels, he knows, he swears he could make that winning hazard, if the billiard table would not slant upwards, and if the cue were a cue worth playing with; but it is not—it’s a cue that won’t move—his own arm won’t move—in short, there’s the devil to pay in the brain of the poor Levantine, and perhaps the next night but one he becomes the “life and the soul” of some squalling jackal family who fish him out by the foot from his shallow and sandy grave.
Better fate was mine. By some happy perverseness (occasioned perhaps by my disgust at the notion of being received with a pair of tongs) I took it into my pleasant head that all the European notions about contagion were thoroughly unfounded; that the plague might be providential or “epidemic” (as they phrase it), but was not contagious; and that I could not be killed by the touch of a woman’s sleeve, nor yet by her blessed breath. I therefore determined that the plague should not alter my habits and amusements in any one respect. Though I came to this resolve from impulse, I think that I took the course which was in effect the most prudent, for thecheerfulness of spirits which I was thus enabled to retain discouraged the yellow-winged angel, and prevented him from taking a shot at me. I, however, so far respected the opinion of the Europeans, that I avoided touching when I could do so without privation or inconvenience. This endeavour furnished me with a sort of amusement as I passed through the streets. The usual mode of moving from place to place in the city of Cairo is upon donkeys, of which great numbers are always in readiness, with donkey-boys attached. I had two who constantly (until one of them died of the plague) waited at my door upon the chance of being wanted. I found this way of moving about exceedingly pleasant, and never attempted any other. I had only to mount my beast, and tell my donkey-boy the point for which I was bound, and instantly I began to glide on at a capital pace. The streets of Cairo are not paved in any way, but strewed with a dry sandy soil, so deadening to sound, that the footfall of my donkey could scarcely be heard. There is notrottoir, and as you ride through the streets you mingle with the people on foot. Those who are in your way, upon being warned by the shouts of the donkey-boy, move very slightly aside, so as to leave you a narrow lane, through which you pass at a gallop. In this way you glide on delightfully in the very midst of crowds, without being inconvenienced or stopped for a moment. It seems to you that it is not the donkey but the donkey-boy who wafts you on with his shouts through pleasant groups, and air that feels thick with the fragrance of burial spice. “Eh! Sheik, Eh! Bint,—reggalek,—shumalek,” etc. etc.—“O old man, O virgin, get out of the way on the right—O virgin, O old man, get out of way on theleft—this Englishman comes, he comes, he comes!” The narrow alley which these shouts cleared for my passage made it possible, though difficult, to go on for a long way without touching a single person, and my endeavours to avoid such contact were a sort of game for me in my loneliness, which was not without interest. If I got through a street without being touched, I won; if I was touched, I lost—lost a deuce of stake, according to the theory of the Europeans; but that I deemed to be all nonsense—I only lost that game, and would certainly win the next.
There is not much in the way of public buildings to admire at Cairo, but I saw one handsome mosque, to which an instructive history is attached. A Hindustanee merchant having amassed an immense fortune settled in Cairo, and soon found that his riches in the then state of the political world gave him vast power in the city—power, however, the exercise of which was much restrained by the counteracting influence of other wealthy men. With a view to extinguish every attempt at rivalry the Hindustanee merchant built this magnificent mosque at his own expense. When the work was complete, he invited all the leading men of the city to join him in prayer within the walls of the newly built temple, and he then caused to be massacred all those who were sufficiently influential to cause him any jealousy or uneasiness—in short, all “the respectable men” of the place; after this he possessed undisputed power in the city and was greatly revered—he is revered to this day. It seemed to me that there was a touching simplicity in the mode which this man so successfully adopted for gaining the confidence and goodwill of his fellow-citizens. There seems to be someimprobability in the story (though not nearly so gross as it might appear to an European ignorant of the East, for witness Mehemet Ali’s destruction of the Mamelukes, a closely similar act, and attended with the like brilliant success),[217]but even if the story be false as a mere fact, it is perfectly true as an illustration—it is a true exposition of the means by which the respect and affection of Orientals may be conciliated.
I ascended one day to the citadel, which commands a superb view of the town. The fanciful and elaborate gilt-work of the many minarets gives a light and florid grace to the city as seen from this height, but before you can look for many seconds at such things your eyes are drawn westward—drawn westward and over the Nile, till they rest upon the massive enormities of the Ghizeh Pyramids.
I saw within the fortress many yoke of men all haggard and woebegone, and a kennel of very fine lions well fed and flourishing: I sayyokeof men, for the poor fellows were working together in bonds; I say akennelof lions, for the beasts were not enclosed in cages, but simply chained up like dogs.
I went round the bazaars: it seemed to me that pipes and arms were cheaper here than at Constantinople, and I should advise you therefore if you go to both places to prefer the market of Cairo. I had previously bought several of such things at Constantinople, and did not choose to encumber myself, or to speak more honestly, I did not choose to disencumber my purse by making any more purchases. In the open slave-market I saw aboutfifty girls exposed for sale, but all of them black, or “invisible” brown. A slave agent took me to some rooms in the upper storey of the building, and also into several obscure houses in the neighbourhood, with a view to show me some white women. The owners raised various objections to the display of their ware, and well they might, for I had not the least notion of purchasing; some refused on account of the illegality of the proceeding,[218]and others declared that all transactions of this sort were completely out of the question as long as the plague was raging. I only succeeded in seeing one white slave who was for sale, but on this one the owner affected to set an immense value, and raised my expectations to a high pitch by saying that the girl was Circassian, and was “fair as the full moon.” After a good deal of delay I was at last led into a room, at the farther end of which was that mass of white linen which indicates an Eastern woman. She was bid to uncover her face, and I presently saw that, though very far from being good-looking, according to my notion of beauty, she had not been inaptly described by the man who compared her to the full moon, for her large face was perfectly round and perfectly white. Though very young, she was nevertheless extremely fat. She gave me the idea of having been got up for sale, of having been fattened and whitened by medicines or by some peculiar diet. I was firmly determined not to see any more of her than the face. She was perhaps disgusted at this my virtuous resolve, as well as with my personal appearance; perhaps she saw my distaste and disappointment; perhaps she wished to gain favour with her owner by showing her attachmentto his faith: at all events, she holloaed out very lustily and very decidedly that “she would not be bought by the infidel.”
Whilst I remained at Cairo I thought it worth while to see something of the magicians, because I considered that these men were in some sort the descendants of those who contended so stoutly against the superior power of Aaron. I therefore sent for an old man who was held to be the chief of the magicians, and desired him to show me the wonders of his art. The old man looked and dressed his character exceedingly well; the vast turban, the flowing beard, and the ample robes were all that one could wish in the way of appearance. The first experiment (a very stale one) which he attempted to perform for me was that of showing the forms and faces of my absent friends, not to me, but to a boy brought in from the streets for the purpose, and said to be chosen at random. Amangale(pan of burning charcoal) was brought into my room, and the magician bending over it, sprinkled upon the fire some substances which must have consisted partly of spices or sweetly burning woods, for immediately a fragrant smoke arose that curled around the bending form of the wizard, the while that he pronounced his first incantations. When these were over the boy was made to sit down, and a common green shade was bound over his brow; then the wizard took ink, and still continuing his incantations, wrote certain mysterious figures upon the boy’s palm, and directed him to rivet his attention to these marks without looking aside for an instant. Again the incantations proceeded, and after a while the boy, being seemingly a little agitated, was asked whether he saw anything on the palm of his hand. He declared that he sawa kind of military procession, with flags and banners, which he described rather minutely. I was then called upon to name the absent person whose form was to be made visible. I named Keate. You were not at Eton, and I must tell you, therefore, what manner of man it was that I named, though I think you must have some idea of him already, for wherever from utmost Canada to Bundelcund—wherever there was the whitewashed wall of an officer’s room, or of any other apartment in which English gentlemen are forced to kick their heels, there likely enough (in the days of his reign) the head of Keate would be seen scratched or drawn with those various degrees of skill which one observes in the representations of saints. Anybody without the least notion of drawing could still draw a speaking, nay scolding, likeness of Keate. If you had no pencil, you could draw him well enough with a poker, or the leg of a chair, or the smoke of a candle. He was little more (if more at all) than five feet in height, and was not very great in girth, but in this space was concentrated the pluck of ten battalions. He had a really noble voice, which he could modulate with great skill, but he had also the power of quacking like an angry duck, and he almost always adopted this mode of communication in order to inspire respect. He was a capital scholar, but his ingenuous learning hadnot“softened his manners” andhad“permitted them to be fierce”—tremendously fierce; he had the most complete command over his temper—I mean over hisgoodtemper, which he scarcely ever allowed to appear: you could not put him out of humour—that is, out of theill-humour which he thought to be fitting for a headmaster. His red shaggyeyebrows were so prominent, that he habitually used them as arms and hands for the purpose of pointing out any object towards which he wished to direct attention; the rest of his features were equally striking in their way, and were all and all his own; he wore a fancy-dress partly resembling the costume of Napoleon, and partly that of a widow-woman. I could not by any possibility have named anybody more decidedly differing in appearance from the rest of the human race.
“Whom do you name?”—“I name John Keate.”—“Now, what do you see?” said the wizard to the boy.—“I see,” answered the boy, “I see a fair girl with golden hair, blue eyes, pallid face, rosy lips.”Therewas a shot! I shouted out my laughter to the horror of the wizard, who perceiving the grossness of his failure, declared that the boy must have known sin (for none but the innocent can see truth), and accordingly kicked him downstairs.
One or two other boys were tried, but none could “see truth”; they all made sadly “bad shots.”
Notwithstanding the failure of these experiments, I wished to see what sort of mummery my magician would practise if I called upon him to show me some performances of a higher order than those which had been attempted. I therefore entered into a treaty with him, in virtue of which he was to descend with me into the tombs near the Pyramids, and there evoke the devil. The negotiation lasted some time, for Dthemetri, as in duty bound, tried to beat down the wizard as much as he could, and the wizard, on his part, manfully stuck up for his price, declaring that to raise the devil was really no joke, and insinuating that to do so was an awesome crime. I letDthemetri have his way in the negotiation, but I felt in reality very indifferent about the sum to be paid, and for this reason, namely, that the payment (except a very small present which I might make or not, as I chose) was to becontingent on success. At length the bargain was made, and it was arranged that after a few days, to be allowed for preparation, the wizard should raise the devil for two pounds ten, play or pay—no devil, no piastres.
The wizard failed to keep his appointment. I sent to know why the deuce he had not come to raise the devil. The truth was, that my Mahomet had gone to the mountain. The plague had seized him, and he died.
Although the plague had now spread terrible havoc around me, I did not see very plainly any corresponding change in the looks of the streets until the seventh day after my arrival. I then first observed that the city wassilenced. There were no outward signs of despair nor of violent terror, but many of the voices that had swelled the busy hum of men were already hushed in death, and the survivors, so used to scream and screech in their earnestness whenever they bought or sold, now showed an unwonted indifference about the affairs of this world: it was less worth while for men to haggle and haggle, and crack the sky with noisy bargains, when the great commander was there, who could “pay all their debts with the roll of his drum.”
At this time I was informed that of twenty-five thousand people at Alexandria, twelve thousand had died already; the destroyer had come rather later to Cairo, but there was nothing of weariness in his strides. The deaths came faster than ever they befell in the plague of London; but the calmness ofOrientals under such visitations, and the habit of using biers for interment, instead of burying coffins along with the bodies, rendered it practicable to dispose of the dead in the usual way, without shocking the people by any unaccustomed spectacle of horror. There was no tumbling of bodies into carts, as in the plague of Florence and the plague of London. Every man, according to his station, was properly buried, and that in the usual way, except that he went to his grave in a more hurried pace than might have been adopted under ordinary circumstances.
The funerals which poured through the streets were not the only public evidence of deaths. In Cairo this custom prevails: At the instant of a man’s death (if his property is sufficient to justify the expense) professional howlers are employed. I believe that these persons are brought near to the dying man when his end appears to be approaching, and the moment that life is gone they lift up their voices and send forth a loud wail from the chamber of death. Thus I knew when my near neighbours died; sometimes the howls were near, sometimes more distant. Once I was awakened in the night by the wail of death in the next house, and another time by a like howl from the house opposite; and there were two or three minutes, I recollect, during which the howl seemed to be actuallyrunningalong the street.
I happened to be rather teased at this time by a sore throat, and I thought it would be well to get it cured if I could before I again started on my travels. I therefore inquired for a Frank doctor, and was informed that the only one then at Cairo was a young Bolognese refugee, who was so poor that he had notbeen able to take flight, as the other medical men had done. At such a time as this it was out of the question tosendfor a European physician; a person thus summoned would be sure to suppose that the patient was ill of the plague, and would decline to come. I therefore rode to the young doctor’s residence. After experiencing some little difficulty in finding where to look for him, I ascended a flight or two of stairs and knocked at his door. No one came immediately, but after some little delay the medico himself opened the door, and admitted me. I of course made him understand that I had come to consult him, but before entering upon my throat grievance I accepted a chair, and exchanged a sentence or two of commonplace conversation. Now the natural commonplace of the city at this season was of a gloomy sort, “Come va la peste?” (how goes the plague?) and this was precisely the question I put. A deep sigh, and the words, “Sette cento per giorno, signor” (seven hundred a day), pronounced in a tone of the deepest sadness and dejection, were the answer I received. The day was not oppressively hot, yet I saw that the doctor was perspiring profusely, and even the outside surface of the thick shawl dressing-gown, in which he had wrapped himself, appeared to be moist. He was a handsome, pleasant-looking young fellow, but the deep melancholy of his tone did not tempt me to prolong the conversation, and without further delay I requested that my throat might be looked at. The medico held my chin in the usual way, and examined my throat. He then wrote me a prescription, and almost immediately afterwards I bade him farewell, but as he conducted me towards the door I observed an expression of strange and unhappy watchfulness inhis rolling eyes. It was not the next day, but the next day but one, if I rightly remember, that I sent to request another interview with my doctor. In due time Dthemetri, who was my messenger, returned, looking sadly aghast—he had “metthe medico,” for so he phrased it, “coming out from his house—in a bier!”
It was of course plain that when the poor Bolognese was looking at my throat, and almost mingling his breath with mine, he was stricken of the plague. I suppose that the violent sweat in which I found him had been produced by some medicine, which he must have taken in the hope of curing himself. The peculiar rolling of the eyes which I had remarked is, I believe, to experienced observers, a pretty sure test of the plague. A Russian acquaintance of mine, speaking from the information of men who had made the Turkish campaigns of 1828 and 1829, told me that by this sign the officers of Sabalkansky’s force were able to make out the plague-stricken soldiers with a good deal of certainty.
It so happened that most of the people with whom I had anything to do during my stay at Cairo were seized with plague, and all these died. Since I had been for a long timeen routebefore I reached Egypt, and was about to start again for another long journey over the Desert, there were of course many little matters touching my wardrobe and my travelling equipments which required to be attended to whilst I remained in the city. It happened so many times that Dthemetri’s orders in respect to these matters were frustrated by the deaths of the tradespeople and others whom he employed, that at last I became quite accustomed to the peculiar manner which he assumed when he prepared to announce a new deathto me. The poor fellow naturally supposed that I should feel some uneasiness at hearing of the “accidents” which happened to persons employed by me, and he therefore communicated their deaths as though they were the deaths of friends. He would cast down his eyes and look like a man abashed, and then gently, and with a mournful gesture, allow the words, “Morto, signor,” to come through his lips. I don’t know how many of such instances occurred, but they were several, and besides these (as I told you before), my banker, my doctor, my landlord, and my magician all died of the plague. A lad who acted as a helper in the house which I occupied lost a brother and a sister within a few hours. Out of my two established donkey-boys, one died. I did not hear of any instance in which a plague-stricken patient had recovered.
Going out one morning I met unexpectedly the scorching breath of the kamsin wind, and fearing that I should faint under the horrible sensations which it caused, I returned to my rooms. Reflecting, however, that I might have to encounter this wind in the Desert, where there would be no possibility of avoiding it, I thought it would be better to brave it once more in the city, and to try whether I could really bear it or not. I therefore mounted my ass and rode to old Cairo, and along the gardens by the banks of the Nile. The wind was hot to the touch, as though it came from a furnace. It blew strongly, but yet with such perfect steadiness, that the trees bending under its force remained fixed in the same curves without perceptibly waving. The whole sky was obscured by a veil of yellowish grey, that shut out the face of the sun. The streets were utterly silent, being indeed almost entirely deserted; andnot without cause, for the scorching blast, whilst it fevers the blood, closes up the pores of the skin, and is terribly distressing, therefore, to every animal that encounters it. I returned to my rooms dreadfully ill. My head ached with a burning pain, and my pulse bounded quick and fitfully, but perhaps (as in the instance of the poor Levantine, whose death I was mentioning) the fear and excitement which I felt in trying my own wrist may have made my blood flutter the faster.