CHAPTER XVIII.

Grief and Despair.—Describes his Feelings.—Failing Health.—Severe Mental Labor.—Decides to go to Africa.—Visits Vienna.—Arrival at Alexandria.—Sails up the Nile.—Scenes in Cairo.—The Pyramids.—The Lovely Nile.—An Important and Pleasant Acquaintance.—A Lasting Friendship.—Learning the Language.—Assuming the Costume.—Sights by the Way.

The great grief which Mr. Taylor felt when his wife died, was so deep and keen that he was for many months unreconciled, and in a mental state somewhat akin to despair. His appearance among his friends, whether at Kennett or in the office of the “Tribune” at New York, did not, however, betray his feelings so much as his private correspondence and occasional poems. He was the sincerest of mourners; and his natural susceptibility to every shade of emotion made this severe bereavement an occasion of untold suffering. In his endeavors to banish the gloomy spectre, he resorted to hard work. Hence, the first half of the year 1851 was one of the busiest seasons of his life. He wrote early and late. He composed poems and essays, wrote editorials, and edited correspondence, some of it being the labor attached to his profession, but a great share of it written to occupy his mind and shut out his affliction.

His “Rhymes of Travel,” which had been published after his return from California, called the attention of the reading public to him as a poet, and there was a strong demand for another volume. His friends urged him to write, his uneasy heart pushed him into work, and the newspapers kept questioning him about the advent of a second volume, until he decided to bring out his book of “Romances, Lyrics, and Songs.” There was one poem in that volume which was very sweet when wholly disconnected with history, but which becomes fascinating and sad as Milton’s lament for his eyesight, when we once know the circumstances and the mental condition in which it was written. Two verses of that poem were printed, as follows:—

“Give me music, sad and strong,Drawn from deeper founts than song;More impassioned, full, and free,Than the poet’s numbers be:Music which can master thee,Stern enchantress, Memory!Piercing through the gloomy stressOf thy gathered bitterness,As the summer lightnings playThrough a cloud’s edge far away.Give me music; I am dumb;Choked with tears that never come;Give me music; sigh or wordSuch a sorrow never stirred,—Sorrow that with blinding painLies like fire on heart and brain.Earth and heaven bring no relief,I am dumb; this weight of griefLocks my lips; I cannot cry:Give me music, or I die.”

“Give me music, sad and strong,

Drawn from deeper founts than song;

More impassioned, full, and free,

Than the poet’s numbers be:

Music which can master thee,

Stern enchantress, Memory!

Piercing through the gloomy stress

Of thy gathered bitterness,

As the summer lightnings play

Through a cloud’s edge far away.

Give me music; I am dumb;Choked with tears that never come;Give me music; sigh or wordSuch a sorrow never stirred,—Sorrow that with blinding painLies like fire on heart and brain.Earth and heaven bring no relief,I am dumb; this weight of griefLocks my lips; I cannot cry:Give me music, or I die.”

Give me music; I am dumb;

Choked with tears that never come;

Give me music; sigh or word

Such a sorrow never stirred,—

Sorrow that with blinding pain

Lies like fire on heart and brain.

Earth and heaven bring no relief,

I am dumb; this weight of grief

Locks my lips; I cannot cry:

Give me music, or I die.”

It was then that he wrote those pathetic lines, so full of his sadness and so descriptive of his bereavement, that he was never satisfied with a name for them and finally left them without a title, the first couplet of which sufficiently indicates the tenor,—

“Moan, ye wild winds! around the pane,And fall, thou drear December rain!”

“Moan, ye wild winds! around the pane,

And fall, thou drear December rain!”

Such a sorrowful heart and such an overworked brain were too great a load for one human body to carry. His physical strength had never been remarkable, and there had been seasons before his visit to Europe when his health seemed permanently impaired. So when this great strain was made upon his system it began to weaken. To continue the effort was suicidal, and stoutly condemned by his relatives and friends. He then recalled his exhilarating walks among the Alps and on the plains of Europe. He kindled anew his zeal for adventure. He studied the map of the world to decide where was presented the most favorable field for discovery. He wished for rest from sorrow, and rest from close application to literary work. Such a relief could only be found in a climate and among a people wholly different from his own. In this choice he was guided somewhat by a fortunate opportunity to cross the Atlantic as a guest and friend, and by the accounts which a literary companion in the office of the “Tribune” gave of the interesting people and scenery along the coast of Palestine and Greece.

The winter had passed and the soothing winds of summer seemed so grateful and necessary, that he decided to pass the next winter on the Mediterranean, should his health admit of the necessary outlay of strength. In writing about that undertaking afterwards, he said a trip into Africa would furnish good material for a travelling correspondent and hence that continent was selected. “But,” he said, “there were other influences acting upon me which I did not fully comprehend at the time, and cannot now describe without going too deeply into matters of private history.” But while in Central Africa, enjoying the invigorating breezes along the Nile, he reveals a part of that private history by an incidental exclamation published in a letter to the “Tribune.” “Oh! what a rest is this from the tantalizing and sorrowful suggestions of civilization.” He fled from sorrow—driven into the desert.

Having reached Smyrna, on the coast of Asia Minor, by the overland route to ConstantinopleviaVienna, he re-embarked at that port for Alexandria in Egypt, arriving at the latter place Nov. 1, 1851. We shall not attempt here to give in any satisfactory detail the record of his wanderings in Africa, as they are so charmingly and instructively told in the book which he wrote concerning them, and as no book of travel in Egypt, except a scientific work, can supplant or equal the many which already honor our shelves. The writer having been over a large portion of Mr.Taylor’s routes, and feeling much indebted to him for his works, which were often used as guides, has perhaps a greater interest in recording his travels, than the reader would have in going through the story a second time. Hence, for the purposes of this outline sketch of Mr. Taylor’s life, we shall introduce only such incidents and facts connected with his wanderings as appear to have some direct or unusual bearing upon his character, or which display some peculiarity of his genius or taste.

He said, in a letter to a friend in New York, that he “owed a debt of gratitude” to the Providence which led him, to the country which attracted him, and to the vessel which carried him from Smyrna to Alexandria. That sentiment was awakened in his heart by the way in which some of the important events in his after life pointed back to that trip and to the valuable friend he met there. Mr. Taylor was of a genial, approachable nature, and easily made the acquaintance of any person whom he met. But having German blood in his veins, loving the German language, and entertaining a sincere respect for German literature, he naturally sought the company of the German people. On the very threshold of this trip into Africa he made the acquaintance of a German gentleman, whose culture and geniality made him a great acquisition in a strange land. They seem to have taken a deep interest in each other from the first time they met. It may be because their condition in life, socially and circumstantially, was so similar;but the more reasonable explanation is found in their similar tastes and equal regard for the works of genius and the beauties of nature. It will be like a romance, when told in all its detail, as it might be now, and will be when the present generation passes away. How little could his human understanding comprehend the great results turning upon the simple, common-place self-introduction to a German travelling companion! This friend, whom he met, and with whom he made the journey up to the cataracts of the Nile, was perhaps as remarkable a man as Taylor, and belonged to a family of scholars and long respected agricultural citizens of the German principality of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

The chief merit of Mr. Taylor’s descriptions lay in their apparent frankness and their charming details. He appeared to think that every reader was acquainted with the works of those great archæologists, Lepsius and Champollion, and did not attempt to supply to his readers the information they had already given. He seems to have imagined that all the reading public wished to follow him, and he gave such information as the tourist would need. He told about the clothes he purchased in Alexandria, about the fit of his Arab attire, about the cost of a dinner, the conversation between dragomen and boatmen, the personal appearance of his companions, the faithlessness of his guide, the dirty appearance of his boat, and the gorgeous sunset. He described his own sensations and actions with the boldness of one unconscious of any motive to concealor deceive. He reveals the sorrow of his heart by occasional remarks such as these: “For many months past I had known no mood of mind so peaceful and grateful.”—“I am away from reminders of sorrow.”—“It is not the beauty of the desert that gratifies me so much, in these days, after all, as the absence of civilization.”

The party, which consisted of Mr. Taylor, the German companion, and an Italian, engaged one of the Nile boats, at Alexandria, for the trip up the Nile, and after testing the comforts, or misery, of the Egyptian hotels, seeing Cleopatra’s Needle (now in London) and Pompey’s Pillar, which were then as in later years about all that there was to be seen of interest in Alexandria, they started on their lazy voyage up the wonderful Nile. He wrote with great enthusiasm of the sweet rest he found in a pipe of tobacco, after the manner of all habitual smokers. He seems to have had plenty of time to muse and smoke as he slowly ascended the stream. It has often been a subject of wonder that he could afterwards remember so many incidents and the impressions they had made on him, when perhaps weeks of time and some more exciting transactions had intervened. But Mr. Taylor did not wait long before recording his ideas and comments, and was in the habit of keeping a memoranda-book always at hand, and while travelling, noted with a pencil any peculiar thought or incident which awakened attention.

At Atfeh, which has been for hundreds of years anintermediate stopping-place on the highway and river between Alexandria and Cairo, he clambered up into the town and witnessed a marriage procession. He appears to have been inclined to get a near view of the bride; but the relatives hurried her off, and with cries and threatening gestures drove him back to cover. But he decided that if he could not see the bride, he would do the next best thing, and accordingly visited her father. The disconsolate parent was being comforted by a hoarse chant and appeared to be as cheerful as could be expected considering the din.

At the town of Nadir he went into a low mud hut, which pretended to be a cafe, and there saw the Egyptian fandango danced by the inmates. He records the shape and sound of the musical instruments and with polished and concise language pictured the scene to the reader’s eye. This, with the accounts of the improvements, rates of toll, and the manner of passing the boats by locks, and government officials, with many minor details is told in a manner which, notwithstanding the dryness of the subject, makes most fascinating reading.

But he counted his entrance into Cairo, the capital of Egypt, as the actual beginning of his tour into Africa. For at Alexandria and along the Nile as far as Bourak the people exhibited some traits which connect them with the civilized West. But Cairo is wholly Egyptian. The centuries have made no apparent changes in the people. The donkeys, the veiledwomen, the fierce Arabs, the water-skins, the fountains, the slaves, the palms, the white domes, and the low shops revive the historical associations and personify the Past. Like an oasis in the adjacent desert was the Hotel d’Europe. But it served to impress the reality of these surroundings more forcibly upon the travellers. With a readiness and enjoyment which his companions did not share, he accustomed himself to the manners and appearance of the people, and it was scarcely a day before Mr. Taylor would smoke his perfumed chibouk, sit cross-legged, and eat with his fingers like a native Arab. He rode the little donkeys as well as any citizen of Cairo, and was even more reckless than they, if that were possible, as he rode through the market-places at a furious speed. The Egyptians, like the Germans, Italians, French, Hungarians, and Syrians, felt a kind of fellowship for Mr. Taylor, and admired his good-sense in appreciating and adopting so many of their customs. He was the acquaintance and confidential friend of a dozen old Arabs before he had been two days in Cairo. He was a lover of mankind. He sympathized with them all. As the Shereef of Mecca rides by, Mr. Taylor admires his dignity and his imposing retinue. As a marriage procession files through the streets, he comments on the playing of the flutes, the crimson robes of the bride, and the diadem, with the simplicity of a country maiden in America. He enjoys the athletic tricks of the showmen, the skill of the swordsmen, the voices of the singers, the zeal ofthe beggars, and the endurance of the laborers. He is one of the same human family. They know it, and feel it, and he is welcome.

The German acquaintance, who had not intended to go farther than Cairo, was so delighted with Mr. Taylor’s companionship and Mr. Taylor was so interested in him, that he decided to go up the Nile as far as Assouan, which was on the border of the Central African countries. Mr. Taylor speaks with sentiments of enthusiastic thankfulness of his good fortune in thus securing a travelling companion, whose tastes and sentiments were so akin to his own. He little thought then, that while trying to shut out his sorrow by voluntary exile, he was opening the door to a second love. Mr. Taylor’s singular admiration and love for his companion is almost unaccountable, unless we adopt some theory of foreordination or providential design.

A most interesting, amusing, and friendly trip they had up the stream, for thousands of years so historic, in a boat manned by ten boatmen, and of which they were the commanders. Neither of them had ever been in Egypt before, but their maps and guide-books, coupled with their early historical training, made the localities along their route seem more familiar to them than to the dragomen, who made it a business to guide travellers. They named their boat the “Cleopatra,” ran up the Stars and Stripes to the peak, and, with contented minds but active brains, enjoyed to the full the strange scenes and historic ruins which showedthemselves on every hand. They first visited the Pyramids, where Mr. Taylor gratified his taste for climbing heights, and nearly killed himself by rushing down. With characteristic regard for those who were to come after him, Mr. Taylor rebuked the importunities of the backsheesh-loving Arabs about the Pyramids, and obtaining no satisfaction from them, he reported them to the chief, who compelled the greedy desperadoes to submit to a severe whipping.

They visited ancient Memphis, which the French explorer, Mariette, was then exhuming, and trod the pavements over which had passed the feet of Menes, Amasis, Pharaoh, Strabo, and Cambyses. They were hospitably entertained by the great antiquarian, and felt that such a visit was ample reward for all their outlay. From Memphis they proceeded to Siout, and on the way talked, composed, and sung the praises of Father Nile. It may be that Mr. Taylor’s mood, which he so often mentions, had an influence upon his taste, or it may be that the season was one peculiarly adapted to the exhibition of beauty in the Nile, but the writer, in a later year, was not so charmed by the scenery and river as Mr. Taylor appears to have been. No other traveller has written such glowing encomiums upon the Nile as Mr. Taylor recorded in his letters, and either he appreciated nature more than other travellers, or there was something in his circumstances which placed a halo of beauty about the palms and meadows. In the “Nilotic Drinking-Song” Mr. Taylor said:—

“Cloud never gave birth, nor cradle the Earth,To river so grand and fair as this is:Not the waves that roll us the gold of Pactolus,Nor cool Cephissus, nor classic Ilissus.The lily may dipHer ivory lip,To kiss the ripples of clear Eurotas;But the Nile brings balmFrom the myrr and palm,And the ripe, voluptuous lips of the lotus.The waves that ride on his mighty tideWere poured from the urns of unvisited mountains;And their sweets of the South mingle cool in the mouth,With the freshness and sparkle of Northern fountains.Again and againThe goblet we drain—Diviner a stream never Nereid swam on:For Isis and OrusHave quaffed before us,And Ganymede dipped it for Jupiter Ammon.”

“Cloud never gave birth, nor cradle the Earth,

To river so grand and fair as this is:

Not the waves that roll us the gold of Pactolus,

Nor cool Cephissus, nor classic Ilissus.

The lily may dip

Her ivory lip,

To kiss the ripples of clear Eurotas;

But the Nile brings balm

From the myrr and palm,

And the ripe, voluptuous lips of the lotus.

The waves that ride on his mighty tideWere poured from the urns of unvisited mountains;And their sweets of the South mingle cool in the mouth,With the freshness and sparkle of Northern fountains.Again and againThe goblet we drain—Diviner a stream never Nereid swam on:For Isis and OrusHave quaffed before us,And Ganymede dipped it for Jupiter Ammon.”

The waves that ride on his mighty tide

Were poured from the urns of unvisited mountains;

And their sweets of the South mingle cool in the mouth,

With the freshness and sparkle of Northern fountains.

Again and again

The goblet we drain—

Diviner a stream never Nereid swam on:

For Isis and Orus

Have quaffed before us,

And Ganymede dipped it for Jupiter Ammon.”

His admiration was not spasmodic, for he always mentioned the Nile as the most majestic of rivers. To the majority of travellers, however, the hoary ruins of mighty cities, the tombs of priests, and the pyramids of kings are so much more exciting and mysterious, that the Nile is itself of secondary importance.

Yet, Mr. Taylor, with all his interest in the river, did not have less in the celebrated localities and ancient remains. He ascended many honeycombed mountains, to creep among the bones of men who lived thirty-five hundred years ago. He gazed with a yearning interest upon the broken columns of unknown temples, anddreamed of their former grandeur, while apathetically overseeing the affairs of his little monarchy over which he kept floating the Stars and Stripes. He became so absorbed in the climate, the people, and the history of the land, that he soon adopted the full costume of the country and became henceforth an Arab with the others. He was marvellously quick in picking up the words and phrases of any language, and soon, with the aid of a small phrase-book, he could readily converse with the natives along the shore. These characteristics made it safe and pleasant for him to travel where many others would have found only misery and death.

Moslem Worship.—Scenery of the Nile.—Fellowship with the People.—The Temple of Dendera.—Mr. Taylor’s Enthusiasm.—Luxor.—Karnak.—The Extent of Ancient Thebes.—The Tombs and Statues.—The Natives.—Arrives at Assouan.—The Island of Philæ,—Separation of the Friends.—Starts for the White Nile.—Trip through the Desert.—Again on the Nile.—Reception by the People and Officials.—Visits Ancient Meroe.

Mr. Taylor’s sympathy with all mankind led him to regard with sincere respect the daily religious ceremonies which his Moslem boatmen performed, with their faces toward Mecca. He often mentioned their punctuality and apparent sincerity, and contrasted it with some of the formal, half-hearted proceedings in some Christian churches. His regard for conscientious worship, which appeared to characterize the ignorant Arabs, appears more striking to persons who have travelled the same route over which Mr. Taylor went, for it is so common a sight to see bigoted, conceited Europeans ridiculing the prostrations, prayers, and gestures of the worshippers. The writer most keenly regrets having been compelled to witness the caricaturing of a Moslem at prayer, by a coarse, hard-hearted, brutal Christian countryman, while the sad and shockedbelievers in Mahomet stood by, scarce able to resist the temptation to throw the Frank into the Nile. In the lovable, noble character of Mr. Taylor, there was no inclination to ridicule the conscientious belief of any man, and instinctively he kept silent and patiently endured the delay when the call to prayer took his employees from their labor. In return for his sincere regard for them, he received the love and most faithful service of the natives. They stole nothing from him. They shielded him from enemies and affectionately cared for his health.

Thus, with friends for boatmen, an admirer for a guide, and a most agreeable comrade for a travelling companion, he floated along, inhaling from every breeze the essence of health and comfort. The banks were covered with the richest and rarest verdure, for it was the Egyptian spring. There were luxuriant grasses, palms and sugar-cane; there flourished wheat, cotton, maize, hemp, indigo, tobacco, oranges, olives, and dates, springing from the richest soil which civilized man has yet seen. Harvests came and went in confused succession; the ripe fruit with blossom; threshing-floors piled with ripe dourra, while around, the new wheat seeking the sunlight, betokened a bounty munificent and inexhaustible. So prolific and speedy was the growth of the crops that the people could not, with their rude implements, avail themselves of the full benefits of one harvest before its rank successors forced them to turn their labor into otherchannels. Then, as now, the fields, for miles inland from the river, were checkered with canals, and the rude water-wheel and awkward “well-sweep” were kept in constant motion to supply the vast amount of water necessary to the irrigation of hundreds of square miles. There were goats, mules, horses, and a variety of fowl, and in the wild nooks a grand collection of birds of the gayest songs and plumage. The sky was clear, the air balmy, the breezes cool and light, the cabin of their boat was spacious, and their beds comfortable. It was “a soothing experience for an aching heart.”

In the first week of December they arrived at Dendera, where stands in majestic completeness one of the most ancient temples of Egypt. It has for thousands of years been half buried in the earth, and at one time must have been nearly hid by the shifting sands of the desert which once surrounded the pile. The impression which the gigantic columns, sixty feet high, and the enormous blocks of stone, eight feet thick, gave to them, is doubtless shared in some degree by all travellers. As he walked through the shadowy recesses, each aperture seeming like a deep cave in a rocky mountain, he was filled with a solemn sense of awe and sadness, which so overwhelmed him that he peered about the avenues in silence, and involuntarily stood on tip-toe. The sombre grandeur of the massive masonry, the sacred associations connected with the ancient worship of Osiris and Isis, the wonderfultales of wars, tyrannies, famines, plagues, Rameses, Moses, Pharaoh, Alexander, Ptolemy, Cambyses, and Napoleon, which those lofty statues could tell if their symmetrical lips could speak, awaken indescribable emotions, deep, thrilling, and permanent. Mr. Taylor saw a grace and an artistic merit in the stone figures, and in the hieroglyphics that adorned the temple, which few travellers detect or admit. To many travellers the figures on those old porches and halls seem rude and often out of proportion, and the writer confesses to having been one of the latter class. But Mr. Taylor’s appreciating scrutiny may be accounted for on the basis that with his poetical instincts and thorough culture in art, there were beauties in those works of ancient sculptors, latent to others, but apparent and striking to him. But there is no disagreement as to the unspeakable solemnity of the place and the gloom of its lonely halls.

The next night they reached Luxor, and caught the first glimpse of those interesting ruins by moonlight. There, silent and stately, arose the great Colonnade. There, quietly recalling the ancients, stood the twin Obelisk to the one at which Mr. Taylor had often looked in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, when as a boy he dreamed of distant Egypt. For seven miles around the Temple of Luxor are the ruins of ancient Thebes, within which were once the temples of Karnak, Luxor, Goorneh, Memnonium, and hundreds more, which now cumber the otherwise fertile plains.Thebes, with its hundred gates, with its countless armies, with its wise men, its Colossus that sang in the morning sunlight, its avenues of sphinxes and gods in stone, lay broken, spurned, and dead before them. The same moon looked down on them that gazed on the priests of Isis and the palace of its Cæsars. No one can imagine anything so solemn and grand as to stand in the moonlight on the haunted plains of ancient Thebes! One may have thought the Coliseum at Rome impressive beyond description when seen in the favorable light of an autumn moon, but when compared with Thebes it is tame and insignificant. Ages and ages before the rape of the Sabines, these temples had been constructed. They saw the morning of civilization; but now they are ruined and useless, the night seems best fitted for an appreciative view of them. Among the mighty colonnades whose columns are broken and falling, and around gigantic remains of ancient statues carved from a mountain of stone, Mr. Taylor wandered for two whole days. He scrutinized closely the long rows of ancient tombs, and stood in the rocky grave of Rameses I. The pictures on the walls of the tombs, the kind of rock, the original shape of the temples, the employments of the ancient races, the blue sky overhead, the clear atmosphere around, together with sketches of history and poetical allusions, shared in the interesting letters which Mr. Taylor wrote from Thebes. Such scenes contain an inspiration and an education which make scholars and statesmen of suchas love history and appreciate the lessons those ruins teach. To one of Mr. Taylor’s disposition, a visit to such a place was a privilege not to be lightly thrown away. He investigated everything, and in a manner bordering on recklessness he descended through small holes into dark subterranean tombs, and with equal hardihood walked the crumbling roofs and cornices of the lofty ruins. He looked with disgust on the evidences of spoliations which were to be seen in splintered columns and fragments of ancient frescoes, and which were the work of scientific explorers. He regarded with a jealous anxiety the evidences of vandalism and decay, and wished sincerely that time and man would allow those precious relics of the old régime to remain forever intact. He appears to have regarded those massive wrecks as half-human, and sympathized with their forsaken and friendless condition.

But in all this antiquarian excitement, which usually occupies the undivided attention of less enthusiastic travellers, Mr. Taylor neglected not the living. He witnessed with interest the graces of the Arabian dancing-girls, noticed the features of the beggar-boys, the methods of teaching children the Koran, and the worn appearance of the water-carriers.

Leaving Luxor, they spent three or four days ascending the river to Assouan, and in visiting the villages, old temples, half-buried cities, and gorgeously decorated tombs in the mountain-sides, which are almost numberless in the valley of Upper Egypt. AtAssouan, he was most cordially received by the Governor and was given a friendly greeting by all the officials he met. From that town he made several excursions with his German friend, the most interesting of which was that to the cataract of the Nile and the island of Philæ. There he saw the celebrated temple of the time of the Ptolemies, which he looked upon as modern, because it was not over twenty-two hundred years old. But he felt sufficient interest in the ruins of the old city to describe that marvellous colonnade which has astonished so many visitors to the island of Philæ. The reader of his letters can detect, however, in Mr. Taylor’s description of columns, aisles, roofs, walls, capitals, sculptures, monoliths, and colossi, a vein of sadness which may have colored his views. At all events the ruins of Philæ did not impress him as they seem to have affected other visitors. The fact that he was so soon to part with a companion for whom he felt a love like that of Jonathan for David, may have had more or less influence upon his capacity to enjoy scenery or the remains of antiquity: for the writer looked upon Philæ as one of the most interesting localities of the lower Nile, and cannot but regard the ruined temple as one of the grandest in Egypt. They visited the fields, villages, the tombs, the ancient quarry, wherein half-sculptured statues and columns still remain unmoved, and after a day of antiquarian research they rode back to their boat, as he said “with heavy hearts.” The next daycame the hour of parting; and these two men, one a young man, the other an elderly gentleman, who had been utter strangers forty days before, now clung to each other with the sincerest brotherly love and parted in tears. How little did Mr. Taylor think, as he saw the boat sailing away for Cairo with the Saxe-Coburg colors at the peak, where he had so long kept the Stars and Stripes, that they would meet again in the sunny southern lands of Europe, and that another person would join their company for life and make up what he termed “a sacred triad.” He thought then that the parting might be for all time. He was going into an unknown wilderness, while his friend sought again the lands of civilization: it was a long time before either could dispel the gloom which their separation left about them.

PHILÆ COLONNADE.

Mr. Taylor took another boat at Assouan and proceeded to Korosko, where, with the assistance of the Governor and a wild Arab chieftain, whose friendship was purchased by presents and sociability, he secured the necessary camels and outfit for a trip across the desert. It was a hazardous undertaking for a stranger, alone, unknown, to traverse the desert. If he was murdered, none of the authorities would care, nor would his death become known. He might contract the terrible fever. He was liable to be eaten by wild beasts, and he ran great risk of dying of thirst or hunger on the hot sands of a trackless desert. The way had been travelled many times before, but was all themore dangerous because of the opportunity it gave robbers to lie in wait for tourists. But he unhesitatingly entered upon the journey, trusting in the friendship of his Nubian and Arabian servants, and in his own ability to withstand the heat of the sands and the attacks of African fever. Camping in the desert sands, riding a dromedary in the scorching sun, living upon rudely prepared food, drinking lukewarm water, with the sight of bones and carcasses by the way to warn him, and the occasional appearance of sickly returning caravans to dishearten him, he passed that arm of the desert between the first cataract of the Nile and Abou-Hammed. Thence his little caravan of six camels followed the winding river to a small town, El Mekheyref, where he dismissed his friendly companions, excepting one, who had accompanied him from Cairo, and set sail again on the Nile. Everywhere he was received with kindness and hospitality by the natives and by the Governors. His servants were so much interested in his welfare that they told the natives that he was a high official in the country from which he came, and he was treated with the respect the Eastern people think is due to persons of high rank. All disclaimers from him were considered to be actuated by feelings of modesty and elevated him in the estimation of his entertainers.

His visit to Meroe was an interesting episode in his long pilgrimage, although he did not make such diligent search as an antiquarian among its crumblingwalls as he had done in some of the other ancient cities. Yet his descriptions of that place are most vivid pictures and convey an idea of the topography of the capital of that ancient kingdom in a manner most readable to the stranger and very important to students of history.

From Meroe to Khartoum.—Twenty-seventh Birth-day.—Desire to Explore Central Africa.—Ascent of the White Nile.—Adventure with the Savage Shillooks.—Visits the Natives.—Return to Khartoum.—Crossing the Desert.—Parting with Friends.—Descent of the Nile.—Arrival at Cairo.

The journey from Meroe to Khartoum on the Ethiopian Nile, Mr. Taylor enjoyed very much, having little to do but amuse the sailors and be in turn amused with stories of Mohammed, of Haroun-al-Raschid, and the oriental wonders contained in songs and traditions. The climate gave him health, his genial good-nature brought him friends, and his experience would supply the necessities of life in after years. There were narrow escapes from animals, men, and treacherous rapids; but he had become accustomed to such things, and assumed enough of the Arab character to exclaim with them, at each escape, “It is the will of Allah.” The day before he arrived at Khartoum was Mr. Taylor’s twenty-seventh birthday.

Having letters to many of the officials of Khartoum, which was a military and trading station at the junction of the Blue and the White Nile, he received a cordial welcome, which made him feel at once that he was among friends. He was then at the extreme outskirtsof civilization. All beyond was dark and unknown. Trading caravans consisting of Arabs and natives often visited the interior, and small boats frequently went farther up the Nile for purposes of traffic. But there was little known about the people, the topography of the country, or of the course of the Nile. There was a Catholic mission at Khartoum, where the missionaries treated Mr. Taylor with great consideration and kindness. Some of them had made exploring excursions into the wilds of Central Africa, and it was his hope that he could get into some expedition with them during that season. But in that he was disappointed. None of the missionaries were intending to visit the tribes to the south that season, and no other suitable opportunity presented itself. He did not give up the hope of seeing the unexplored regions of the interior, until he had exhausted every means in his power for procuring a fit escort. The unfortunate combination of circumstances, which prevented him from searching for the sources of the Nile, postponed the revelations which he would have made, until they were unfolded by another newspaper correspondent, H. M. Stanley.

So persistent was Mr. Taylor in his purpose to travel beyond the boundaries of the known, that he resolved to go up the White Nile alone, except a few servants. He had met Captain Peele, whose accounts of the curiosities to be found farther inland made him the more anxious to get a glimpse beyond. So he hired a boat,and amid the doubts of his servants and the misgivings of his new-found friends, he set sail up the White Nile. He could not hire the boatmen for a long voyage, as they feared the fierce cannibals of the interior, and as they were going beyond the protection of any military force. Trusting to his persuasive powers, he started with them, deciding to go just as far as he could get them to accompany him.

On a lone river, where no other sail was to be seen; in a wilderness, where even the human beings were as the lions and hyenas; with no friend of his own race near him, he sailed on, in confidence, never seeming to think that he might die there alone and never be heard of by his relatives again. Crocodiles, hippopotami, and giraffes flourished there, and man was the plaything of both elements and beasts. Through the wildest scenery, among the strangest birds and animals, he pursued his course, trembling night and day lest his crew should at any moment refuse to go farther.

At last they came to the country of the Shillooks. That wild tribe of negroes was known to the boatmen through nursery tales and traditional stories, wherein the savages were given very bad names; and when Mr. Taylor informed them that he purposed to visit the village of those horrid man-eaters, they regarded him with looks of the most profound astonishment. But with a hardihood that by its boldness secured acquiescence, he commanded them to row him to the banks of the Nile, where the long rows of primitivehuts were to be seen. Through captives and merchants the kingdom of the Shillooks had become partially known, and a kind of jargon, like the pigeon-English of the Chinese, served the purposes of communication. One of Mr. Taylor’s company could talk with them slightly, and with him as an interpreter, and another servant for a protector, he walked boldly into the village of the savages, taking no weapons, lest he should create suspicion. But they received him coldly and with much show of suspicion and treachery. It was a most dangerous experiment, and it is a matter of wonder that he was allowed to depart. There were large numbers of armed men around him, brandishing spears and clubs, and demanding of him all sorts of impossible presents. But with a calmness and seeming confidence, Mr. Taylor smoked with the chief, and exchanged presents with the subordinate officials, until they became friendly and docile, laying down their weapons and conversing cheerfully through the interpreter. Yet they laid a plan for plundering the party, and would at the last perhaps have murdered the whole crew, had not Mr. Taylor most adroitly and coolly foiled them in their designs.

All attempts to persuade his men to go farther were useless. No urging, no promise of gifts, no threats would induce them to sail farther south, as they believed that it was but a little way to “the end of the world.” How eagerly he yearned for some chance to explore the country beyond, he often mentioned inafter life. He was at the centre of a mighty continent. Locked and bolted it had been for all the ages, and it appeared as if the door was now open and he had only to walk in to discover its treasures. But alas! he could not go on alone. He could not swim the length of the river, nor find his way among the elephants and lions of the jungle. The boat turned back toward Khartoum, and he had no choice but to return with it.

However, he made the most of the trip, and frequently visited the shore and had some very pleasant and instructive interviews with the tribes who live in that region. At one place he visited a village of the Hassaniyehs, and contrary to the experience of many other travellers, he was cordially invited to their circle and treated with sincere hospitality. He mentioned in his book the dance of welcome which the young women of the village performed before him, and described with interesting detail their motions, features, forms, voices, and habits. Thus, with visits to savages, interviews with wild beasts, and exquisite views of the wildest scenery ever beheld by man, he floated back to the friends and dwellings of Khartoum.

His stay in Khartoum, on his return, was brief, because of the approaching sickly season; but every hour of his time, when awake, was occupied in visiting and being visited. Native chiefs, Arab merchants, holy men of the Moslem faith, Catholic priests, princesses, soldiers, consuls, boatmen, and tame lions,seemed equally at home in his presence; and his stay was a most delightful one for all concerned. His parting with his friends at Khartoum was akin to the separation of life-long friends, or the breaking of a family circle. To him the whole world was kin.

SCENE IN NORTH AFRICA.

From Khartoum he travelled in a caravan of camels, chartered by him for an escort, leaving the Nile and striking into the desert. With camel-drivers hard to control, with a burning sun overhead, and sands nearly as hot beneath, he traversed the desert unharmed. Once he slept with a deadly snake under his blanket, unconscious of his fearful danger until he rolled up his blanket in the morning. The open air, the free sun, sleeping on the sand, and eating the coarse food of the natives, gave him a vigor and healthy delight which inconveniences and dangers could not overcome. Sometimes the heat was so intense that the skin of his face peeled off, and once or twice he felt the effects of “the desert intoxication,” resulting from the monotonous scene and terrible heat. It was a dizzy sensation, and is often thought to be a symptom of dangerous disease. Changing camels at intermediate stations, and visiting the ruins of ancient cities and fortresses, where he found them cropping out of the sand or adorning some rugged mountain, he travelled on to Abdom, Dongola and Wady-Halfa, where he embarked in a boat for Assouan. His parting with his old dromedary, and with his guides, at Wady-Halfa, is mentioned by him withthe same regret that he experienced in leaving his other friends. But his farewell, in Cairo, to his trusted servant Achmet, who had been his faithful companion from Cairo up the Nile and back, drew tears from the eyes of both.

His voyage from Wady-Halfa to Cairo was so nearly like his trip up the Nile, that for the purposes of this work it is necessary only to say that he visited many scenes and many ruins which were omitted on his way up the river, and refreshed his memory by a second visit to the most celebrated localities. He met many travellers, and heard from civilization again, arriving in the capital of Egypt on the first day of April, 1852, in excellent spirits and in good health, save a troublesome soreness of the eyes, caused by the reflection of the sun on the water. The thin and frail body had assumed a fullness and strength surprising to note, and the broken heart had so accustomed itself to its load of grief that the weight seemed lighter than at first.

On the Nile he wrote a poem containing among others, these expressive lines:—

“Mysterious Flood,—that through the silent sandsHast wandered, century on century,Watering the length of green Egyptian lands,Which were not, but for thee,—”“Thou guardest temple and vast pyramid,Where the gray Past records its ancient speech;But in thine unrevealing breast lies hidWhat they refuse to teach.”“What were to thee the Osirian festivals?Or Memnon’s music on the Theban plain?The carnage, when Cambyses made thy hallsRuddy with royal slain?”“In thy solemnity, thine awful calm,Thy grand indifference of Destiny,My soul forgets its pain, and drinks the balmWhich thou dost proffer me.”—Taylor.

“Mysterious Flood,—that through the silent sandsHast wandered, century on century,Watering the length of green Egyptian lands,Which were not, but for thee,—”

“Mysterious Flood,—that through the silent sands

Hast wandered, century on century,

Watering the length of green Egyptian lands,

Which were not, but for thee,—”

“Thou guardest temple and vast pyramid,Where the gray Past records its ancient speech;But in thine unrevealing breast lies hidWhat they refuse to teach.”

“Thou guardest temple and vast pyramid,

Where the gray Past records its ancient speech;

But in thine unrevealing breast lies hid

What they refuse to teach.”

“What were to thee the Osirian festivals?Or Memnon’s music on the Theban plain?The carnage, when Cambyses made thy hallsRuddy with royal slain?”

“What were to thee the Osirian festivals?

Or Memnon’s music on the Theban plain?

The carnage, when Cambyses made thy halls

Ruddy with royal slain?”

“In thy solemnity, thine awful calm,Thy grand indifference of Destiny,My soul forgets its pain, and drinks the balmWhich thou dost proffer me.”

“In thy solemnity, thine awful calm,

Thy grand indifference of Destiny,

My soul forgets its pain, and drinks the balm

Which thou dost proffer me.”

—Taylor.

Departure from Egypt.—A Poet in Palestine.—Difference in Travellers.—Mr. Taylor’s Appreciation.—First View of Tyre.—Route to Jerusalem.—The Holy City.—Bath in the Dead Sea.—Appearance of Jerusalem.—Samaria.—Looking down upon Damascus.—Life in the eldest City.—The Bath.—Dose of Hashish.—Being a Turk among Turks.

“The Poet came to the Land of the East,When Spring was in the air:The earth was dressed for a wedding feast,So young she seemed, and fair;And the poet knew the Land of the East—His soul was native there.All things to him were the visible formsOf early and precious dreams,—Familiar visions that mocked his questBeside the Western streams,Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds, unrolledIn the sunset’s dying beams.”—Taylor, 1852.

“The Poet came to the Land of the East,

When Spring was in the air:

The earth was dressed for a wedding feast,

So young she seemed, and fair;

And the poet knew the Land of the East—

His soul was native there.

All things to him were the visible formsOf early and precious dreams,—Familiar visions that mocked his questBeside the Western streams,Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds, unrolledIn the sunset’s dying beams.”

All things to him were the visible forms

Of early and precious dreams,—

Familiar visions that mocked his quest

Beside the Western streams,

Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds, unrolled

In the sunset’s dying beams.”

—Taylor, 1852.

If there is any land where every grain of sand and every blade of grass is pervaded by thrilling associations, that land is Palestine. Especially and peculiarly animated are its hills and vales to a poet such as Taylor proved to be. It may be that some superficial and matter-of-fact people who have visited the Holy Land in the hot season, have not felt the charm ofits sacredness, owing to heat, barrenness, vermin, and beggars. There may be a small class of iconoclastic jokers, who, caring not how holy or tender the theme, never fail to use it for ridicule, if it suits their humoristic purpose. But the large class of travellers who visit Jerusalem and the country round about, feel the inspiring presence of the Past, and enjoy in an indescribable fullness the associations connected with it. In a higher and nobler degree, the mind imbued with poetic images, a ready imagination, and a keen discernment of beauty in landscape or history, will avail itself of the great opportunities for pleasure and profit which such a land supplies. In this sense Mr. Taylor enjoyed a great advantage. He made his physical being so subordinate to his mental, that no fatigue, no hunger, no thirst, no annoyance from beggars, nor fears of robbers, could interfere with the appreciation of the beautiful. How greatly he enjoyed his visit to Palestine, none but intimate friends ever knew. In his letters, he often gave way to enthusiastic expressions, and in his book, often gave very vivid descriptions of what had been, as well as that which then existed. But a fear of exaggeration through praise, and a modest misgiving lest his poetical fancy should not suit his readers, led him to write in a more prosy vein than he talked. In conversation with friends in Germany and America, and often in his lectures, after he had finished his tours, he graphically pictured the impressive events of the past connectedwith Palestine, which seemed to pass like a panorama before him. To him, such a land would be full of interest, whether he trod its fields at a time of the year when it was luxuriant, or at a season when the sun and simoon have made it a desert. To lie upon its burning sands and dream of the sweltering hosts that fought around the spot; to bask in the cool shades of its olives and cedars, and think of Gethsemane and the sweets of Sharon; to stand on the summit of the Mount of Olives, Carmel, or Hermon, and realize the almost overwhelming fact that before him were the plains, hills, valleys, conquered and reconquered since man was made, and which were peopled by the great, the good, the wild, and the bloodthirsty of every age; to recognize the localities where dwelt or fought the heroes of Holy Writ; to feel the presence of the King of kings as “on mysterious wings” he swept the plain and shielded his people; to walk on the very path whereon the Son of God had often placed his feet; to dream in the starlight of Apostles, priests, Romans, Crusaders, and Saracens, was an experience especially gratifying to him, and interesting to a greater or less degree to all travellers. The writer recalls, perhaps in an imperfect form, a verse which Mr. Taylor wrote during his stay in Palestine, and which came to the writer with singular force while carelessly wandering along the valley between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.

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