* The Great Hall measures one hundred and seventy feet bythree hundred and twenty-nine; in this space stand onehundred and thirty-four columns; twelve of these, formingthe central avenue of one hundred and seventy feet, aresixty-two feet high, without plinth and abacus, and elevenfeet six inches in diameter; the other one hundred andtwenty-two columns are forty-two feet five inches in heightand about nine feet in diameter. The great columns standonly fifteen or sixteen feet apart.
Not far off is the obelisk which Amunoo-het erected to the memory of her father. I am not sure but it will stand long after The Hall of Sethi is a mass of ruins; for already is the water sapping the foundations of the latter, some of the columns lean like reeling drunken men, and one day, with crash after crash, these giants will totter, and the blocks of stone of which they are built will make another of those shapeless heaps to which sooner or later our solidest works come. The red granite shaft of the faithful daughter lifts itself ninety-two feet into the air, and is the most beautiful as it is the largest obelisk ever raised.
The sanctuary of red granite was once very rich and beautiful; the high polish of its walls and the remains of its exquisite carving, no less than the colors that still remain, attest that. The sanctuary is a heap of ruins, thanks to that ancient Shaker, Cambyses, but the sculptures in one of the chambers are the most beautiful we have seen; the colors, red, blue, and green are still brilliant, the ceiling is spangled with stars on a blue firmament. Considering the hardness of this beautiful syenite and the difficulty of working it, I think this is the most admirable piece of work in Thebes.
It may be said of some of the sculptures here, especially of the very spirited designs and intelligent execution of those of the Great Hall, that they are superior to those on the other side of the river. And yet there is endless theological reiteration here; there are dreary miles of the same gods in the same attitudes; and you cannot call all of them respectable gods. The longer the religion endured the more conventional and repetitious its representations became. The sculptors came to have a traditional habit of doing certain scenes and groups in a certain way; and the want of life and faith in them becomes very evident in the sculptures of the Ptolemaic period.
In this vast area you may spend days and not exhaust the objects worth examination. On one of our last visits we found near the sacred lake very striking colossal statues which we had never seen before.
When this city of temples and palaces, the favorite royal residence, was entire and connected with Luxor by the avenue of sphinxes, and the great edifices and statues on the west side of the river were standing, this broad basin of the Nile, enclosed by the circle of rose-colored limestone mountains, which were themselves perforated with vast tombs, must have been what its splendid fame reports, when it could send to war twenty thousand chariots. But, I wonder whether the city, aside from its conspicuous temples and attached palaces, was one of mud-hovels, like those of most peoples of antiquity, and of the modern Egyptians.
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WE resume our voyage on the sixth of January, but we leave a hostage at Luxor as we did at Asioot. This is a sailor who became drunk and turbulent last night on hasheesh, and was sent to the governor.
We found him this morning with a heavy chain round his neck and tied to a stake in one corner of the court-yard of the house where the governor has his office. I think he might have pulled up the stake and run away; but I believe it is not considered right here for a prisoner to escape. The common people are so subdued that they wilt, when authority puts its heavy hand on them. Near the sailor was a mud-kennel into which he could crawl if he liked. This is the jail of Luxor. Justice is summary here. This sailor is confined without judge or jury and will be kept till he refunds his advance wages, since he was discharged from the boat as a dangerous man.
The sailors dread the lock-up, for they may be forced into the army as the only way out of it; they would much prefer the stick. They are used to the stick; four thousand years of Egyptians have been accustomed to the stick. A beating they do not mind much, or at least are not humiliated by it as another race would be. But neither the prospect of the jail nor the stick will wean them from hasheesh, which is the curse of Egypt.
We spread our sails to a light breeze and depart in company with two other dahabeëhs, one English (thePhilæ) and one American (theDongela). Africa and weeks of leisure and sunny skies are before us. We loiter along in company, in friendly company one may say, now passing a boat and now falling behind, like three ducks coquetting in a swift current. We are none of us in a hurry, we are indifferent to progress, our minds are calm and our worst passions not excited. We do not appear to be going rapidly, I sometimes doubt if we are going forward at all, but it gradually becomes apparent that we are in the midst of a race!
Everything in this world is relative. I can imagine a fearfully exciting match of mud-turtles on a straight track. Think of the agony, prolonged, that the owner of the slow turtle would suffer! We are evidently in for it; and a race like this, that lasts all day, will tire out the hardiest sportsman.
TheRip Van Winkleis the largest boat and happens to have the lead; but thePhilo, a very graceful, gay boat, is crawling up to us; theDongolaalso seems to feel a breeze that we have not. We want a strong wind—theRip Van Winkledoes not wake up in a mild air. As we desire, it freshens a little, the big sail swells, and the ripples are louder at the bow. Unfortunately there is breeze enough for three, and the other vessels shake themselves out like ducks about to fly. It is a pretty sight just now; the spread of three great bird-wing sails, the long gaily-painted cabins and decks, the sweeping yards and the national colors and variegated streamers flying!
They are gaining on us; thePhilaegets inside, and taking our wind, for a moment, creeps ahead, and attempts to sheer across our bow to force us into the swifter current; theDongolasails in at the same time, and a jam and collision appear inevitable. A storm of language bursts out of each boat; men run to stern and bow, to ward off intruders or to disengage an entangled spar; all the crew, sailors, reises, and dragomans are in the most active vociferation. But thePhilae. sails out of the coil, theDongoladraws ahead at the risk of going into the bank, and our crew seize the punt-poles and have active work to prevent going fast on a sand-bar to leeward.
But the prosperity of the wicked is short. The wind falls flat. Instantly our men are tumbling into the water and carrying the rope ashore to track. The lines are all out, and the men are attempting to haul us round a deep bend. The steersmen keep the head of the vessels off shore, and the strain on the trackers is tremendous. The cables flop along the bank and scrape over the shadoofs, raking down a stake now and then, and bring out from their holes the half-naked, protesting proprietors, who get angry and gesticulate,—as if they had anything to do with our race!
The men cannot hold the cable any longer; one by one they are forced to let go, at the risk of being drawn down the crumbling bank, and the cable splashes into the water. The sailors run ahead and come down upon a sand-spit; there are puffs of wind in our sail, and we appear to have made a point, when the men wade on board and haul in the rope. TheDongolais close upon us; thePhilaehas lost by keeping too far out in the current. Oh, for a wind!
Instead of a wind, there is a bland smile in the quiet sky. Why, O children, do you hasten? Have not Nile sailors been doing this for four thousand years? The boats begin to yaw about. Poles are got out. We are all in danger of going aground; we are all striving to get the inside track at yonder point; we are in danger of collision; we are most of all in danger of being left behind. The crews are crazy with excitement; as they hurriedly walk the deck, rapidly shifting their poles in the shallow water, calling upon Yàlësah in quicker and quicker respirations, “Hâ Yâlësah,” “Hâ Yàlësah,” as they run to change the sail at the least indication of a stray breeze, as they see first one dahabeëh and then the other crawling ahead, the contest assumes a serious aspect, and their cries are stronger and more barbaric.
ThePhilægets inside again and takes the bank. We are all tracking, when we come to the point, beyond which is a deep bay. If we had wind we should sail straight across; the distance round the bay is much greater—but then we can track along the bank; there is deep water close under the bank and there is deep water in mid-river. ThePhilæstands away into the river, barely holding its own in the light zephyr. TheDongolatries to follow thePhilæ, but swings round, and her crew take to the poles. Our plan appears to be more brilliant. Our men take the cable out upon a sand-bank in the stream and attempt to tow us along the center channel. All goes well. We gain on the Philæ and pass it. We see the Dongola behind, struggling in the shallows. But the sand-bank is a failure. The men begin to go from it into deeper water; it is up to their knees, it reaches our “drawers,” which we bought for the crew; it comes to the waist, their shoulders are going under. It is useless; the cable is let go, and the men rush back to the sand-bar. There they are. Our cable is trailing down-stream; we have lost our crew, and the wind is just coming up. While we are sending the sandal to rescue our mariners, thePhilaesails away, and theDongolashows her stern.
The travelers on the three boats, during all this contest, are sitting on the warm, sunny decks, with a pretence of books, opera-glasses in hand; apparently regarding the scene with indifference, but no doubt, underneath this mask, longing to “lick” the other boats.
After all, we come to Erment (which is eight miles from Luxor) not far apart. The race is not to the swift. There is no swift on the Nile. But I do not know how there could be a more exciting race of eight miles a day!
At Erment is a large sugar-factory belonging to the Khedive; and a governor lives here in a big house and harem. The house has an extensive garden laid out by old Mohammed Ali, and a plantation of oranges, Yusef Effendis, apples, apricots, peaches, lemons, pomegranates, and limes. The plantation shows that fruit will grow on the Upper Nile, if one will take the trouble to set out and water the trees. But we see none. The high Nile here last September so completely washed out the garden that we can get neither flowers nor vegetables. And some people like the rapidly-grown watery vegetables that grow along the Nile.
Our dragoman wanted some of the good, unrefined loaf-sugar from the factory here, and I went with him to see how business is transacted. We had difficulty in finding any office or place of sale about the establishment.
But a good-natured dwarf, who seemed to spring out of the ground on our landing, led us through courts and amid dilapidated warehouses to a gate, in which sat an Arab in mixed costume. Within the gate hung a pair of steelyards, and on one side was a bench. The gate, the man, the steelyards and the bench constituted an office. Beyond was an avenue, having low enclosures on each side, that with broken pillars and walls of brick looked very much like Pompeii; in a shallow bin was a great heap of barley, thrashed, and safe and dry in the open air.
The indifferent man in the gate sent for a slow boy, who, in his own time, came, bearing a key, a stick an inch square and a foot long, with four short iron spikes stuck in one side near the end. He led us up a dirty brick stairway outside a building, and inserting the key in a wooden lock to match (both lock and key are unchanged since the Pharaohs) let us into a long, low room, like an old sail-loft full of dust, packages of sugar-paper and old account-books. When the shutters were opened we found at one end a few papers of sugar, which we bought, and our own sailor carried down to the steelyards. The indifferent man condescended to weigh the sugar, and took the pay: but he lazily handed the money to the boy, who sauntered off with it. Naturally, you wouldn't trust that boy; but there was an indescribable sense of the worthlessness of time and of money and of all trade, about this transaction, that precluded the possibility of the smartness of theft.
The next day the race is resumed, with little wind and a good deal of tracking; we pass theDongolaand are neck-and-neck with thePhilætill afternoon, when we bid her good-bye; and yet not with unmixed pleasure.
It is a pleasure to pass a boat and leave her toiling after; but the pleasure only lasts while she is in sight. If I had my way, we should constantly overhaul boats and pass them, and so go up the stream in continual triumph. It is only the cold consciousness of duty performed that sustains us, when we have no spectators of our progress.
We go on serenely. Hailing a crossing ferry-boat, loaded with squatting, turbaned tatterdemalion Arabs, the dragoman cries, “Salaam aleykoom.”
The reply is, “Salaam; peace be with you; may God meet you in the way; may God receive you to himself.” The Old Testament style.
While we were loitering along by Mutâneh—where there is a sugar-factory, and an irrigating steam-pump—trying to count the string of camels, hundreds of them moving along the bank against the sunset—camels that bring the cane to be ground—and our crew were eating supper, I am sorry to say that thePhilæpoled ahead of us, and went on to Esneh. But something happened at Esneh.
It was dark when we arrived at that prosperous town, and, of course, Abd-el-Atti, who would like to have us go blazing through Egypt like Cambyses, sent up a rocket. Its fiery serpent tore the black night above us, exploded in a hundred colored stars, and then dropped its stick into the water. Splendid rockets! The only decent rockets to be had in Egypt are those made by the government; and Abd-el-Atti was the only dragoman who had been thoughtful enough to make interest with the authorities and procure government rockets. Hence our proud position on the river. We had no firman, and the Khedive did not pay our expenses, but the Viceroy himself couldn't out-rocket us.
As soon as we had come to shore and tied up, an operation taking some time in the darkness, we had a visit from the governor, a friend of our dragoman; but this visit was urgent and scarcely friendly. An attempt had been made to set the town on fire! A rocket from an arriving boat had been thrown into the town, set fire to the straw on top of one of the houses and—
“Did it spread?”
“No, but it might. Allah be praised, it was put out. But the town might have been burned down. What a way is this, to go along the Nile firing the towns at night?”
“'Twasn't our rocket. Ours exploded in the air and fell into the river. Did the other boat, did thePhilæsend up a rocket when she arrived?”
“Yes. There was another rocket.”
“Dat's it, dat's it,” says Abd-el-Atti. “Why you no go on board thePhilæand not come here?” And then he added to us, as if struck by a new idea, “Where thePhilæget dat rocket? I think he have no rocket before. Not send any up Christmas in Asioot, not send any up in Luxor. I think these very strange. Not so?”
“What kind of rocket was it, that burnt the town?” we ask the governor.
“I have it.” The governor ran to the cabin door and called. A servant brought in the exploded missile. It was a large-sized rocket, like our own; twice as large as the rockets that are not made by the government, and which travelers usually carry.
“Seems like our stick,” cries Abd-el-Atti, getting excited. He examined the sheath with great care. We all gathered round the cabin lamp to look at the fatal barrel. It had a mark on it, something in Arabic. Abd-el-Atti turned it sideways and upside down, in an effort to get at the meaning of the writing.
“That is government; make 'em by the government; no doubt,” he says, standing off and becoming solemn. “Dat rocket been stole. Looks like our rocket.”
Abd-el-Atti flies out, and there is a commotion outside. “Who has been stealing rockets and sell 'em to that dragoman?” Boxes are opened. Rockets are brought in and compared. The exploded one has the same mark as ours, it is the same size.
A new anxiety dawns upon Abd-el-Atti. What if thePhilæhas government rockets? Our distinction is then gone. No It can't be. “I know what every dragoman do in Cairo.Hecan't get dese rocket. Nobody get 'em dis year 'cept us.” Abd-el-Atti is for probing the affair to the bottom. Perhaps the hasheesh-eating sailor we discharged at Luxor stole some of our rockets and sold them, and thus they came into possession of the dragoman of thePhilæ.
The young governor, however, has had enough of it. He begins to see a great deal of vexation to himself, and a row with an English and an American dahabeëh and with natives besides. Let it drop, he says. The governor sits on the divan smoking a cigar. He is accompanied by a Greek friend, a merchant of the place. When the governor's cigar goes out, in his distraction, the Greek takes it, and re-lights it, puffing it till it is well enflamed, and then handing it again to the governor. This is a custom of the East. The servant often “starts” the cigarette for his master.
“Oh, let it go,” says the governor, appealing to us: “It is finish now. It was no damage done.”
“But it might,” cries Abd-el-Atti, “it might burn the town,” taking now therôlewhich the governor had dropped.
“But you are not to blame. It is not you have done it.”
“Then why you come to me, why you come to us wid de rocket? Why you no go to thePhilo?Yes. You know that we, nobody else on the river got government rockets. This government rocket—look the mark,” seizing the exploded one and a new one, and bringing the ends of both so near the lamp that we all fear an explosion. “There is something underhands here.”
“But it's all right now.”
“How it's all right? Story go back to Cairo;Rip Van Winklebeen gone set fire to Esneh. Whose rockets? Government rockets. Nobody have government rockets 'cept Abd-el-Atti.”
A terrific confab goes on in the cabin for nearly an hour between the dragoman, the governor, and the Greek; a lively entertainment and exhibition of character which we have no desire to curtail. The governor is a young, bright, presentable fellow, in Frank dress, who for liveliness of talk and gesture would pass for an Italian.
When the governor has departed, our reïs comes in and presents us a high-toned “certificate” from the gentleman on board thePhilo.—he has learned from our reïs, steersman and some sailors (who are in a panic) that they are all to be hauled before the governor and punished on a charge of stealing rockets and selling them to his dragoman. He certifies that he bought his own rockets in the Mooskee; that his dragoman was with him when he bought them; and that our men are innocent. The certificate further certifies that our conduct toward our crew is unjustifiable and an unheard of cruelty!
Here was acasus belli!Foreign powers had intervened. The right of search and seizure was again asserted; the war of 1812 was about to be renewed. Our cruelty unheard of? We should think so. All the rest of it was unheard of also. We hadn't the slightest intention of punishing anybody or hauling anybody before the governor. When Abd-el-Atti hears the certificate, he shakes his head:—
“Buy 'em like this in the Mooskee? Not be. Not find government rockets in any shop in the Mooskee. Something underhands by that dragoman!”
Not wishing to light the flames of war in Africa, we immediately took servants and lanterns and called on the English Man-of-War. The Man-of-War had gone to bed. It was nine o'clock.
“What for he send a certificate and go to bed?” Abd-el-Atti wants to know. “I not like the looks of it.” He began to be suspicious of all the world.
In the morning the gentleman returned our call. He did not know or care whose rocket set fire to the town. Couldn't hurt these towns much to burn them; small loss if all were burned. The governor had called on him to say that no damage was done. Our dragoman had, however, no right to accuse his of buying stolen rockets. His were bought in Cairo, etc., etc. And the matter dropped amicably and without bloodshed. But Abd-el-Atti's suspicions widened as he thought it over:—
“What for de Governor come to me? What for he not go to dat boat what fire de rocket? What for de Governor come been call on me wid a rocket? The Governor never come been call on me wid a rocket before!”
It is customary for all boats which are going above the first cataract to stop at Esneh twenty-four hours to bake bread for the crew; frequently they are detained longer, for the wheat has to be bought, ground in one of the little ox-power mills, mixed and baked; and the crew hire a mill and oven for the time being and perform the labor. We had sent sailors ahead to bake the bread, and it was ready in the morning; but we stayed over., according to immemorial custom. The sailors are entitled to a holiday, and they like to take it where there are plenty of coffee-houses and a large colony of Ghawazee girls.
Esneh is not a bad specimen of an Egyptian town. There is a temple here, of which only the magnificent portico has been excavated; the remainder lies under the town. We descend some thirty feet to get to the floor of the portico,—to such a depth has it been covered. And it is a modern temple, after all, of the period of the Roman occupation. We find here the cartouches of the Cæsars. The columns are elegant and covered with very good sculpture; each of the twenty-five has a different capital, and some are developed into a hint of the Corinthian and the composite. The rigid constraints of the Egyptian art are beginning to give way.
The work in the period of the Romans differs much from the ancient; it is less simple, more ornamented and debased. The hieroglyphics are not so carefully and nicely cut. The figures are not so free in drawing, and not so good as the old, except that they show more anatomical knowledge, and begin to exhibit a little thought of perspective. The later artists attempt to work out more details in the figure, to show muscles and various members in more particularity. Some of the forms and faces have much beauty, but most of them declare a decline of art, or perhaps an attempt to reconcile the old style with new knowledge, and consequent failure.
We called on the governor. He was absent at the mosque, but his servant gave us coffee. The Oriental magnificence of the gubernatorial residence would impress the most faithless traveler. The entrance was through a yard that would be a fair hen-yard (for common fowl) at home, and the small apartment into which we were shown might serve for a stable; but it had a divan, some carpets and chairs, and three small windows. Its roof was flat, made of rough split palm-trees covered with palm-leaves. The governor's lady lives somewhere in the rear of this apartment of the ruler, in a low mud-house, of which we saw the outside only.
Passing near the government house, we stopped in to see the new levy of soldiers, which amounts to some four hundred from this province. Men are taken between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, and although less than three per cent, of those liable are seized, the draft makes a tremendous excitement all along the river. In some places the bazaars are closed and there is a general panic as if pestilence had broken out.
Outside the government house, and by the river bank, are women, squatting in the sand, black figures of woe and dirt, bewailing their relations taken away. In one mud-hovel there is so much howling and vocal grief that we think at first a funeral is in progress. We are permitted to look into the lock-up where the recruits are detained waiting transportation down the river. A hundred or two fellaheen, of the average as to nakedness and squalor of raiment, are crowded into a long room with a dirt floor, and among them are many with heavy chains on their ankles. These latter are murderers and thieves, awaiting trial or further punishment. It is in fact the jail, and the soldiers are forced into this companionship until their departure. One would say this is a bad nursery for patriots.
The court of justice is in the anteroom of this prison; and the two ought to be near together. The Kadi, or judge, sits cross-legged on the ground, and others squat around him, among them a scribe. When we enter, we are given seats on a mat near the judge, and offered coffee and pipes. This is something like a court of justice, sociable and friendly. It is impossible to tell who is prisoner, who are witnesses, and who are spectators. All are talking together, the prisoner (who is pointed out) louder than any other, the spectators all joining in with the witnesses. The prisoner is allowed to “talk back,” which must be a satisfaction to him. When the hubbub subsides, the judge pronounces sentence; and probably he does as well as an ordinary jury.
The remainder of this town is not sightly. In fact I do not suppose that six thousand people could live in one dirtier, dustier, of more wretched houses; rows of unclean, shriveled women, with unclean babies, their eyes plastered with flies, sitting along the lanes called streets; plenty of men and boys in no better case as to clothing; but the men are physically superior to the women. In fact we see no comely women except the Ghawazees. Upon the provisions, the grain, the sweet-cakes exposed for sale on the ground, flies settle so that all look black.
Not more palaces and sugar-mills, O! Khedive, will save this Egypt, but some plan that will lift these women out of dirt and ignorance!
Our next run is to Assouan. Let us sketch it rapidly, and indicate by a touch the panorama it unrolled for us.
We are under way at daylight, leaving our two companions of the race asleep. We go on with a good wind, and by lovely sloping banks of green; banks that have occasionally a New England-river aspect; but palm-trees are behind them, and beyond are uneven mountain ranges, the crumbling limestone of which is so rosy in the sun. The wind freshens, and we spin along five miles an hour. The other boats have started, but they have a stern chase, and we lose them round a bend.
The atmosphere is delicious, a little under a summer heat, so that it is pleasant to sit in the sun; we seem to fly, with our great wings of sails, by the lovely shores. An idle man could desire nothing more. The crew are cutting up the bread baked yesterday and spreading it on the deck to dry. They prefer this to bread made of bolted wheat; and it would be very good, if it were not heavy and sour, and dirty to look at, and somewhat gritty to the teeth.
In the afternoon we pass the new, the Roman, and the old town of El Kab, back of which are the famous grottoes of Eilethyas with their pictures of domestic and agricultural life. We go on famously, leaving Edfoo behind, to the tune of five miles an hour; and, later, we can distinguish the top of the sail of thePhilæat least ten miles behind. Before dark we are abreast of the sandstone quarries of Silsilis, the most wonderful in the world, and the river is swift, narrow and may be rocky. We have accomplished fifty-seven miles since morning, and wishing to make a day's run that shall astonish Egypt, we keep on in the dark. The wind increases, and in the midst of our career we go aground. We tug and push and splash, however, get off the sand, and scud along again. In a few moments something happens. There is a thump and a lurch, and bedlam breaks loose on deck.
We have gone hard on the sand. The wind is blowing almost a gale, and in the shadow of these hills the night is black. Our calm steersman lets the boat swing right about, facing down-stream, the sail jibes, and we are in great peril of upsetting, or carrying away yard, mast and all. The hubbub is something indescribable. The sailors are ordered aloft to take in the sail. They fear to do it. To venture out upon that long slender yard, which is foul and threatens to snap every moment, the wind whipping the loose sail, is no easy or safe task. The yelling that ensues would astonish the regular service. Reis and sailors are all screaming together, and above all can be heard the storming of the dragoman, who is most alive to the danger, his voice broken with excitement and passion. The crew are crouching about the mast, in terror, calling upon Mohammed. The reïs is muttering to the Prophet, in the midst of his entreaty. Abd-el-Atti is rapidly telling his beads, while he raves. At last Ahmed springs up the rigging, and the others, induced by shame and the butt-end of a hand-spike, follow him, and are driven out along the shaking yard. Amid intense anxiety and with extreme difficulty, the sail is furled and we lie there, aground, with an anchor out, the wind blowing hard and the waves pounding us, as if we were making head against a gale at sea. A dark and wildish night it is, and a lonesome place, the rocky shores dimly seen; but there is starlight. We should prefer to be tied to the bank, sheltered from the wind rather than lie swinging and pounding here. However, it shows us the Nile in a new aspect. And another good comes out of the adventure. Ahmed, who saved the boat, gets a new suit of clothes. Nobody in Egypt needed one more. A suit of clothes is a blue cotton gown.
The following morning (Sunday) is cold, but we are off early as if nothing had happened, and run rapidly against the current—or the current against us, which produces the impression of going fast. The river is narrower, the mountains come closer to the shores, and there is, on either side, only a scant strip of vegetation. Egypt, along here, is really only three or four rods wide. The desert sands drift down to the very shores, and the desert hills, broken, jagged, are savage walls of enclosure.
The Nile no doubt once rose annually and covered these now bleached wastes, and made them fruitful. But that was long ago. At Silsilis, below here, where the great quarries are, there was once a rocky barrier, probably a fall, which set the Nile back, raising its level from here to Assouan. In some convulsion this was carried away. When? There is some evidence on this point at hand. By ten o'clock we have rounded a long bend, and come to the temples of Kom Ombos, their great columns conspicuous on a hill close to the river. They are rather fine structures, for the Ptolemies. One of them stands upon foundations of an ancient edifice built by Thothmes I. (eighteenth dynasty); and these foundations rest upon alluvial deposit. Consequently the lowering of the Nile above Silsilis, probably by breaking through the rock-dam there, was before the time of Thothmes I. The Nile has never risen to the temple site since. These striking ruins are, however, destined to be swept away; opposite the bend where they stand a large sand-island is forming, and every hour the soil is washing from under them. Upon this sand-island this morning are flocks of birds, sunning themselves, and bevies of sand-grouse take wing at our approach. A crocodile also lifts his shoulders and lunges into the water, when we get near enough to see his ugly scales with the glass.
As we pass the desolate Kom Ombos, a solitary figure emerges from the ruins and comes down the slope of the sand-hill, with turban flowing, ragged cotton robe, and a long staff; he runs along the sandy shore and then turns away into the desert, like a fleeing Cain, probably with no idea that it is Sunday, and that the “first bell” is about to ring in Christian countries.
The morning air is a little too sharp for idle comfort, although we can sit in the sun on deck and read. This west wind coming from the mountains of the desert brings always cold weather, even in Nubia.
Above Kom Ombos we come to a little village in a palm-grove—a scene out of the depths of Africa,—such as you have often seen in pictures—which is the theatre of an extraordinary commotion. There is enacted before us in dumb-show something like a pantomime in a play-house; but this is even more remote and enigmatical than that, and has in it all the elements of a picture of savagery. In the interior of Africa are they not all children, and do they not spend their time in petty quarreling and fighting?
On the beach below the village is moored a trading vessel, loaded with ivory, cinnamon, and gum-arabic, and manned by Nubians, black as coals. People are climbing into this boat and jumping out of it, splashing in the water, in a state of great excitement; people are running along the shore, shouting and gesticulating wildly, flourishing long staves; parties are chasing each other, and whacking their sticks together; and a black fellow, in a black gown and white shoes, is chasing others with an uplifted drawn sword. It looks like war or revolution, picturesque war in the bright sun on the yellow sand, with all attention to disposition of raiment and color and striking attitudes. There are hurryings to and fro, incessant clamors of noise and shoutings and blows of cudgels; some are running away, and some are climbing into palm trees, but we notice that no one is hit by cane or sword. Neither is anybody taken into custody, though there is a great show of arresting somebody. It is a very animated encounter, and I am glad that we do not understand it.
Sakiyas increase in number along the bank, taking the place of the shadoof, and we are never out of hearing of their doleful songs. Labor here is not hurried. I saw five men digging a well in the bank—into which the Sakiya buckets dip; that is, there were four, stripped, coal-black slaves from Soudan superintended by an Arab. One man was picking up the dirt with a pick-axe hoe. Three others were scraping out the dirt with a contrivance that would make a lazy man laugh;—one fellow held the long handle of a small scraper, fastened on like a shovel; to this upright scraper two ropes were attached which the two others pulled, indolently, thus gradually scraping the dirt out of the hole a spoonful at a time. One man with a shovel would have thrown it out four times as fast. But why should it be thrown out in a hurry? Must we always intrude our haste into this land of eternal leisure?
By afternoon, the wind falls, and we loiter along. The desert apparently comes close to the river on each side. On one bank are a hundred camels, attended by a few men and boys, browsing on the coarse tufts of grass and the scraggy bushes; the hard surroundings suit the ungainly animals. It is such pictures of a life, differing in all respects from ours, that we come to see. A little boat with a tattered sail is towed along close to the bank by half a dozen ragged Nubians, who sing a not unmelodious refrain as they walk and pull,—better at any rate than the groan of the sakiyas.
There is everywhere a sort of Sabbath calm—a common thing here, no doubt, and of great antiquity; and yet, you would not say that the people are under any deep religious impression.
As we advance the scenery becomes more Nubian, the river narrower and apparently smaller, when it should seem larger. This phenomenon of a river having more and more water as we ascend, is one that we cannot get accustomed to. The Nile, having no affluents, loses, of course, continually by evaporation by canals, and the constant drain on it for irrigation. No wonder the Egyptians were moved by its mystery no less than by its beneficence to a sort of worship of it.
The rocks are changing their character; granite begins to appear amid the limestone and sandstone. Along here, seven or eight miles below Assouan, there is no vegetation in sight from the boat, except strips of thrifty palm-trees, but there must be soil beyond, for the sakiyas are always creaking. The character of the population is changed also; above Kom Ombos it is mostly Nubian—who are to the Fellaheen as granite is to sandstone. The Nubian hills lift up their pyramidal forms in the south, and we seem to be getting into real Africa.
0244
0245
AT LAST, twenty-four days from Cairo, the Nubian hills are in sight, lifting themselves up in the south, and we appear to be getting into the real Africa—Africa, which still keeps its barbarous secret, and dribbles down this commercial highway the Nile, as it has for thousands of years, its gums and spices and drugs, its tusks and skins of wild animals, its rude weapons and its cunning work in silver, its slave-boys and slave-girls. These native boats that we meet, piled with strange and fragrant merchandise, rowed by antic crews of Nubians whose ebony bodies shine in the sun as they walk backward and forward at the long sweeps, chanting a weird, barbarous refrain,—what tropical freights are these for the imagination!
At sunset we are in a lonesome place, the swift river flowing between narrow rocky shores, the height beyond Assouan grey in the distance, and vultures watching our passing boat from the high crumbling sandstone ledges. The night falls sweet and cool, the soft new moon is remote in the almost purple depths, the thickly strewn stars blaze like jewels, and we work slowly on at the rate of a mile an hour, with the slightest wind, amid the granite rocks of the channel. In this channel we are in the shadow of the old historical seat of empire, the island of Elephantine; and, turning into the narrow passage to the left, we announce by a rocket to the dalabeehs moored at Assouan the arrival of another inquisitive American. It is Sunday night. Our dragoman des patches a messenger to the chief reïs of the cataract, who lives at Philæ, five miles above. A second one is sent in the course of the night; and a third meets the old patriarch on his way to our boat at sunrise. It is necessary to impress the Oriental mind with the importance of the travelers who have arrived at the gate of Nubia.
The Nile voyager who moors his dahabeëh at the sandbank, with the fleet of merchant boats, above Assouan, seems to be at the end of his journey. Travelers from the days of Herodotus even to this century have followed each other in saying that the roar of the cataract deafened the people for miles around. Civilization has tamed the rapids. Now there is neither sight nor sound of them here at Assouan. To the southward, the granite walls which no doubt once dammed the river have been broken through by some pre-historic convulsion that strewed the fragments about in grotesque confusion. The island of Elephantine, originally a long heap of granite, is thrown into the middle of the Nile, dividing it into two narrow streams. The southern end rises from the water, a bold mass of granite. Its surface is covered with ruins, or rather with thedébrisof many civilizations; and into this mass and hills of brick, stone, pottery and ashes, Nubian women and children may be seen constantly poking, digging out coins, beads and images, to sell to the howadji. The north portion of the island is green with wheat; and it supports two or three mud-villages, which offer a good field for the tailor and the missionary.
The passage through the east channel, between Assouan and Elephantine, is through walls of granite rocks; and southward at the end of it the view is bounded by a field of broken granite gradually rising, and apparently forbidding egress in that direction. If the traveler comes for scenery, as some do, nothing could be wilder and at the same time more beautiful than these fantastically piled crags; but considered as a navigable highway the river here is a failure.
Early in the morning the head sheykh of the cataract comes on board, and the long confab which is preliminary to any undertaking, begins. There are always as many difficulties in the way of a trade or an arrangement as there are quills on a porcupine; and a great part of the Egyptian bargaining is the preliminary plucking out of these quills. The cataracts are the hereditary property of the Nubian sheykhs and their tribes who live near them—belonging to them more completely than the rapids of the St. Lawrence to the Indian pilots; almost their whole livelihood comes from helping boats up and down the rapids, and their harvest season is the winter when the dahabeëhs of the howadji require their assistance. They magnify the difficulties and dangers and make a mystery of their skill and knowledge. But, with true Orientalism, they appear to seek rather to lessen than to increase their business. They oppose intolerable delays to the traveler, keep him waiting at Assouan by a thousand excuses, and do all they can to drive him discouraged down the river. During this winter boats have been kept waiting two weeks on one frivolous excuse or another—the day was unlucky, or the wind was unfavorable, or some prince had the preference. Princes have been very much in the way this winter; the fact would seem to be that European princes are getting to run up the Nile in shoals, as plenty as shad in the Connecticut, more being hatched at home than Europe has employment for.
Several thousand people, dwelling along the banks from Assouan to three or four miles above Philæ, share in the profits of the passing boats; and although the sheykhs, and head reises (or captains) of the cataract get the elephant's share, every family receives something—it may be only a piastre or two—on each dahabeëh; and the sheykhs draw from the villages as many men as are required for each passage. It usually takes two days for a boat to go up the cataract and not seldom they are kept in it three or four days, and sometimes a week. The first day the boat gets as far as the island of Séhayl, where it ties up and waits for the cataract people to gather next morning. They may take it into their heads not to gather, in which case the traveler can sun himself all day on the rocks, or hunt up the inscriptions which the Pharaohs, on their raids into Africa for slaves and other luxuries, cut in the granite in their days of leisure three or four thousand years ago, before the world got its present impetus of hurry. Or they may come and pull the boat up a rapid or two, then declare they have not men enough for the final struggle, and leave it for another night in the roaring desolation. To put on force enough, and cables strong enough not to break, and promptly drag the boat through in one day would lessen the money-value of the achievement perhaps, in the mind of the owner of the boat. Nature has done a great deal to make the First Cataract an obstacle to navigation, but the wily Nubian could teach nature a lesson; at any rate he has never relinquished the key to the gates. He owns the cataracts as the Bedowees own the pyramids of Geezeh and the routes across the desert to Sinai and Petra.
The aged reïs comes on board; and the preliminary ceremonies, exchange of compliments, religious and social, between him and our astute dragoman begin. Coffee is made, the reïs's pipe is lighted, and the conversation is directed slowly to the ascent of the cataracts. The head reïs is accompanied by two or three others of inferior dignity and by attendants who squat on the deck in attitudes of patient indifference. The world was not made in a day. The reïs looks along the deck and says: “This boat is very large; it is too long to go up the cataract.” There is no denying it. The dahabeëh is larger than almost any other on the river; it is one hundred and twenty feet long. The dragoman says:
“But you took up General McClellan's boat, and that is large.”
“Very true, Effendi; but why the howadji no come when Genel Clemen come, ten days ago?”
“We chose to come now.”
“Such a long boat never went up. Why you no come two months ago when the river was high?” This sort of talk goes on for half an hour. Then the other sheykh speaks:—“What is the use of talking all this stuff to Mohammed Abd-el-Atti Effendi; he knows all about it.”
“That is true. We will go.”
“Well, it is 'finish',” says Abd-el-Atti.
When the long negotiation is concluded, the reïs is introduced into the cabin to pay his respects to the howadji; he seats himself with dignity and salutes the ladies with a watchful self-respect. The reïs is a sedate Nubian, with finely cut features but a good many shades darker than would be fellowshipped by the Sheltering Wings Association in America, small feet, and small hands with long tapering fingers that confess an aristocratic exemption from manual labor. He wears a black gown, and a white turban; a camel's hair scarf distinguishes him from the vulgar. This sheykh boasts I suppose as ancient blood as runs in any aristocratic veins, counting his ancestors back in unbroken succession to the days of the Prophet at least, and not improbably to Ishmael. That he wears neither stockings nor slippers does not detract from his simple dignity. Our conversation while he pays his visit is confined to the smoking of a cigar and some well-meant grins and smiles of mutual good feeling.
While the morning hours pass, we have time to gather all the knowledge of Assouan that one needs for the enjoyment of life in this world. It is an ordinary Egyptian town of sunbaked brick, brown, dusty and unclean, with shabby bazaars containing nothing, and full of importunate beggars and insatiable traders in curiosities of the upper country. Importunate venders beset the traveler as soon as he steps ashore, offering him all manner of trinkets which he is eager to purchase and doesn't know what to do with when he gets them. There are crooked, odd-shaped knives and daggers, in ornamental sheaths of crocodile skin, and savage spears with great round hippopotamus shields from Kartoom or Abyssinia; jagged iron spears and lances and ebony clubs from Darfoor; cunning Nubian silver-work, bracelets and great rings that have been worn by desert camel-drivers; moth-eaten ostrich feathers; bows and arrows tipped with flint from the Soudan, necklaces of glass and dirty leather charms (containing words from the Koran); broad bracelets and anklets cut out of big tusks of elephants and traced in black, rude swords that it needs two hands to swing; bracelets of twisted silver cord and solid silver as well; earrings so large that they need to be hitched to a strand of the hair for support; nose-rings of brass and silver and gold, as large as the earrings; and “Nubian costumes” for women—a string with leather fringe depending to tie about the loins—suggestions of a tropical life under the old dispensation.
The beach, crowded with trading vessels and piled up with merchandise, presents a lively picture. There are piles of Manchester cotton and boxes of English brandy—to warm outwardly and inwardly the natives of the Soudan—which are being loaded, for transport above the rapids, upon kneeling dromedaries which protest against the load in that most vulgar guttural of all animal sounds, more uncouth and less musical than the agonized bray of the donkey—a sort of grating menagerie-grumble which has neither the pathos of the sheep's bleat nor the dignity of the lion's growl; and bales of cinnamon and senna and ivory to go down the river. The wild Bisharee Arab attends his dromedaries; he has a clear-cut and rather delicate face, is bareheaded, wears his black hair in ringlets long upon his shoulders, and has for all dress a long strip of brown cotton cloth twisted about his body and his loins, leaving his legs and his right arm free. There are the fat, sleek Greek merchant, in sumptuous white Oriental costume, lounging amid his merchandise; the Syrian in gay apparel, with pistols in his shawl-belt, preparing for his journey to Kartoom; and the black Nubian sailors asleep on the sand. To add a little color to the picture, a Ghawazee, or dancing-girl, in striped flaming gown and red slippers, dark but comely, covered with gold or silver-gilt necklaces and bracelets, is walking about the shore, seeking whom she may devour.
At twelve o'clock we are ready to push off. The wind is strong from the north. The cataract men swarm on board, two or three Sheykhs and thirty or forty men. They take command and possession of the vessel, and our reïs and crew give way. We have carefully closed the windows and blinds of our boat, for the cataract men are reputed to have long arms and fingers that crook easily. The Nubians run about like cats; four are at the helm, some are on the bow, all are talking and giving orders; there is an indescribable bustle and whirl as our boat is shoved off from the sand, with the chorus of “Hâ! Yâlêsah. Hâ! Yâlêsah!” and takes the current. The great sail, shaped like a bird's wing, and a hundred feet long, is shaken out forward, and we pass swiftly on our way between the granite walls. The excited howadji are on deck feeling to their finger ends the thrill of expectancy.