Visited a private tomb near Medinet Haboo, which is full of the most curious paintings, many of them in excellent preservation, and representing every sort of domestic and professional occupation. They are very superior in execution and character to those of El Kab. In the evening had a dinner on board: Mr. Hale and friend, Mustafa Aga and the Syoot Consuls (one of whom does not speak a word of anything but Arabic). I had also invited Mustafa's younger son, but find that he may not sit down with his father. (He accompanied me this morning, and insisted on lunching with the servants; on the other hand, my servant is addressed as HosseynEffendi, if you please! and conversed with as a gentleman. Service appears to be looked upon in an entirely patriarchal light.) The entertainment went off successfully, and Ottilio, the Italian waiter, covered himself with glory by his excellent waiting. After dinner Mr. Hale received a telegram to the effect that General Grant had been elected President of the United States, with Mr. Colfax as Vice. He was in great excitement and delight; we had a recrudescence of champagne, and gave the new President three cheers in British fashion. The news had come inthree daysfrom Washington to Thebes! it is marvellous.Saturday, 7th.—Went to Karnak. Wilkinson advises the traveller to see this group of temples last; and wisely, for it is indeed the crowning glory of all, and must satisfy, if it does not surpass, the most sanguine expectations. The vast unfinished propylæa of the large temple prepare one by their colossal dimensions for the gigantic grandeur of the great central hall, in which one is at a loss what most to admire—the originality of the general design, combining, as it does in a surprising degree, freedom and variety with the gravest simplicity—the massive and reposeful breadth of the forms or the exquisite subtlety of the colour. The latterhas of course gained very much from the blending hand of time, and is now of a most delightful mellowness, but, judging from the better preserved portions, it must have been at all times of singular beauty. It seems strange at first that a decoration consisting entirely of small blots of vivid colour on a white ground, like butterflies on a wall, can have alargearchitectural effect; but, in fact, therepetitionover large surfaces of wall and column restores, through its monotony, the balance of breadth. The design of this hall is very curious: the great central nave, flanked on each side by two aisles of the same height as itself, but of less breadth (diminishing, roughly, in a proportion of 10, 7, 5), runs, as in a Gothic cathedral, perpendicular to the main entrance; beyond the second aisle, however, on either side, the lintels or architraves which connect the columns run atright anglesto the nave; the effect of this arrangement must have been peculiar and striking. (Too little remains now, except the columns, to enable one to form a distinct idea.) The central nave, with the aisles immediately adjoining, rises in a clerestory thirty or forty feet above the rest of the building, and was lighted by massive square windows filled with slabs of stone (sketch), perforated vertically, and of a severe and very fine (sketch) effect. These windows fill the space between the entablature of the lateral columns and of the roof of the clerestory, and must be some twenty to twenty-five feet high. I find it difficult to reconcile my eye to the far-fetched "asymetria" in the arrangement of the columns, the lesser ones standing in no definite relationship, on the plan, to the two central rows, neither immediately behind them nor half-way between them. How differently the Greeks managed these things! The inner row of columns at the east and west ends of the Parthenon differs also in size, height, and level from the outer row, and also stands back; but it is onlyone rowat each end; so that variety and play of form are obtained without a repeated jar on the eye; and an otherwise uniform rectangular plan is not gratuitously distorted. In a very ancient temple beyond and behind that of the great hall are some curious polygonal columns that have a very Doric look about them, though they are very rude and undeveloped.The walls of Karnak are of course defaced and disfigured by the usual amount of inscriptions; one commemorative tablet,however, like a similar one at Phylæ, inspires a different feeling. Both are memorials of the French Campaign in Egypt; the one at Phylæ, dated "an VIII. de la République Française," alludes with simple dignity to the victorious march of the French army to the first cataract, giving the names of the generals who were fighting "sous les ordres de Bonaparte"; the other, under the same date, is a simple scientific memorandum giving the latitude and longitude of the chief towns on the Nile. It is impossible to read the first of these inscriptions without emotion: how remote from us, already, seems that stern, invincible French Republic, tracing its proud name with an undoubting finger here in the grave-dust of an empire that stood more centuries than this young giant completed years! How thickly, already, does the dust lie now on the grave of this thing of yesterday!In writing about Phylæ, I forgot to notice the henna tree, which grows in great quantities round the skirts of the temple, and has a delicious scent. In this wilderness of granite and most unsavoury haunt of bats, its perfume wafted unexpectedly on the air is infinitely delightful.Sunday, 8th.—Sketched.Monday, 9th.—Ditto. In the evening went out to shoot, but could not get near the pelicans and crows—they see you half a mile off. Returning, against stream, Hosseyn, anxious to be useful, took apunting poleandrowedaway with an air of conviction which was worthy of the fly on the coach-wheel in the fable.The heat, though still considerable (greater than with us at midsummer), has diminished within the last few days, and does not inconvenience me as much as it did in sketching. Towards evening, soft autumnal veils of mist rise from the smooth, swift river, and shroud everything in their mysterious folds; to-night the effect was especially striking; a pale golden sun hung in a pale golden mist, tempered so that one could look at it undazzled, and so shorn of its fires that the eastern bank, instead of burning orange, showed only a faint violet flush over its dark-brown ridges. On a dahabieh alongside me an Arab is singing endless strophes of some poem of love and war, accompanied by the thud and jingle of a tambourine; the melody, a wandering, nasal strain, full of turns and runs and triplets, appears to be entirely improvised,and is full of character and melancholy. At the end of each strophe I hear a prolonged, deep groan of approval uttered in a chorus by the audience, rising in pitch after a particularly happy effort of the rhapsodist, whose song begins again and again in mournful gusts like the song of the wind. It is dark; I only hear—don't see—the singer and his listeners.Tuesday, 10th.—Sketched. A frequent companion in my work is my friend, little Fatma, a sweet, small child of about five, with a bright face and two rows of the whitest teeth ever seen. She squats down snugly by my side, sometimes looking at the picture, sometimes at the painter, most often at the paint-box, at which she twiddles silently; sometimes she pensively draws a pattern with a little brown finger on my dusty boots. I remember at Rhodes, last year, a knot of little girls used to watch me sketching in the Street of the Knights; but the little Turks were not so nice as Fatma, the little Arab; some used to giggle, and some used to frown at the Djiaour; but one very chatty young lady of about six with the manners and graces of sixteen would exclaim in a little fluty voice, "Mash Allah! Mash Allah! beautiful indeed! nobody here can write like you!" (Turk., if my memory helps me:Guzel! guzel! Bir khimse burda senci zhibi yazamas!) I had a visit on board the other day from Mustafa Aga's youngest son, bonny and rosy as an apple. He wore a flowing robe of linen,à ramages, buttoned summarily and once for all at the neck, but entirely open from the neck downwards; over this an enormous embroidered jacket with anticipatory sleeves turned up at the wrists, and on, or rather about, his feet, a pair of his papa's shoes; he was irresistibly funny and pretty; anamorino, dressed up as the Dog Toby. He was very chatty; not so his playfellow, "Genani," the son of Abdallah, the servant of Mustafa, a putto by Raphael modelled in chocolate; a wild, black-eyed, trembling, romping, dusty, stark-naked little imp (I used to call him Afreet), and the finest child I ever saw. The nearest approach to social intercourse I could get out of him was a sudden plunge at a proffered cake; after which he would dart off with affected dismay, and frown at me through an ill-suppressed grin from behind the nearest place of safety.Wednesday, 11th.—Got on with my sketches. Have beguntwo or three rough small studies of heads. Hate sketching heads rapidly; it is unavoidably and odiously free and easy, and nearly all that is worth escapes. But I have no time for more, and, I suppose, the sketches will be useful. One man, with a face like a camel, whom I drew in profile, was annoyed (though in a general way complimentary) at seeing only one eye in the picture. This struck me as quaint; for he wasblindof the other; he had not been defrauded of much. My delight, in the evening, is to watch the processions of women and girls coming down to the Nile to fetch water. The brown figures, clad in brown, coming, in long rows, along the brown bank in all the glow and glory of sunset, look very grand; very grand, too, returning up the steep bank, along the violet sky, with their long, flowing folds and the full pitchers now erect on their heads (when empty they carry them horizontally). They are neither handsome individually nor particularly well made, but their movements are good, and the repetition of the same "motive" many times in succession makes the whole scene impressive and stately. There is no more fruitful source of effect in Nature or Art than iteration.The suppleness of the limbs of the children here is extraordinary. I have seen little girls squatting like grasshoppers in the Nile drinking,à même, the water in which they were standing little more than ankle deep.An hour after nightfall the dahabieh, my neighbour, slipped her cables and began to drift down the river; but not till the rhapsodist had chanted his ditty to the approving murmurs of his little circle as on the preceding night. His singing has a great charm for me; I shall miss it. It reminds me much of Andalusian singing and moonlight nights in the Bay of Cadiz—there is about it a strangeness and a wayward melancholy that attach and charm me. It was a love song (I am told, for I could not hear the words, and should have understood very few if I had)."Ya leyl! ya leyl! ya leyl!"—the eternal refrain of Arab songs. "Oh night! oh night! oh night! you have left a fire in my heart, oh my beloved! Oh my beloved, do not forget me!" &c. &c. &c.A day or two ago I heard a youth calling the faithful to noonday prayer, from the gallery of a minaret, with one of thefinest voices I have ever heard; he was tearing his notes from the inmost depths of his chest with that eagerness of yet unconscious passion that I have often noticed in southern children, and which to me is singularly pathetic; he retained his last notes as long as his breath allowed it, and they vibrated in distinct waves like a sonorous metal set in motion: from a little distance the effect wassaisissant. I could not see him, and the air seemed to throb with sound as well as with heat in the sultry noon.The departure of the dahabieh was celebrated with the usual Arab waste of powder, and all the echoes of the valley of the tombs across the river were aroused by the popping of many guns. All the consuls fired officially, everybody else fired unofficially. Hosseyn fired officiously—chuckling and nearly tumbling over; and the dahabieh itself, having opened the ball, fired again at intervals from a long distance as if it had forgotten somebody—they are too funny.Thursday, 12th.—More sketching. The weather, which is a little too canicular at noon, is deliciously fresh and cool for an hour after sunrise; the Arabs, however, look much aggrieved at the severity of the cold; they sit huddled in muffled groups with a pinched look that would become a British December day.I observe that half the men in middle life have no forefinger to their right hand. They all of them mutilated themselves to avoid conscription under Said Pasha, who, however, having found them out, enlisted them all the same. A curious equality prevails here: whilst sketching two of Mustafa Aga's servants this morning, I learnt from his son that they were both his relations. One of them appears to be a particularly nice fellow, and is a perfect gentleman in his manners.Friday, 13th.—My last day in Thebes. When I arrived here and found neither friends nor letters, I thought, caring little for the place apart from the ruins, that I should stay four or five days; to-morrow when I leave I shall have been herenine, and shall go with regret. Work has exercised its usual attaching influence.I have drawn in pencil a few heads that will be of use and interest to me. The subject of one of my studies (Mustafa's gardener) on receiving from Hosseyn two shillings for one hour's sitting, accused him, to his infinite disgust and anger, of havingsuppressed theremainingeighteen shillings out of a putative pound which he conceived to be destined for him.Excusez!Saturday, 14th.—Got up early to finish a couple of sketches, and started at half-past eleven amidst salutes and salaams. To my great relief, the letters which I very rashly sent for from Cairo three weeks ago have just turned up at the last moment—fewer than I had expected, but a great delight: the first and only news I have received since leaving home—such are Egyptian posts!Weather divine: the Nile like an opal mirror, reflecting without a break the faint, sleeping, sultry hills on the horizon: a lovely, drowsy scene. Arrived shortly after three at the village at which one lands for Keneh; a very cheery town about a mile inland. It is generally separated from the landing place on the river during the floods by a vast sheet of water; this year, however, owing to the calamitous lowness of the Nile, a narrow, shallow strip of water, only, intercepts the road, and a large tract of country remains untilled and unfruitful from the want of the quickening flood. Keneh is a very pretty sample of an Egyptian town; it is animated and full of colour, has some pretty minarets, some charming gardens, and more than the usual allowance of ornamental doorways: the effect of the mosaic of black and white bricks is most satisfactory, and has the charm which always accompanies a considerable result produced by very sober and simple means. Great relief is frequently obtained by a band or frieze of carved wood, running across the decorated surface at the springing of the arch; this band is generally carved in circles enclosing patterns and picked out with green and red. In the jambs of the door of one of the mosques, a very beautiful effect was produced by alternate bands of brickwork and minutely carved wood,notcoloured (three courses of brick to one band of wood).Visited a pottery, and for the first time in my life saw a pattern-wheel and the artist at work—a most fascinating sight: the bottles and jugs flow into the most graceful forms as if by magic, and look incomparably prettier than when they are baked. I could hardly get away. A little boy scratches a pattern on them as they leave the wheel.The Consul's white donkey, on which I ride about here, isas fleet as the wind and as oily in his movements as a two-oared gondola.À proposof consuls, Mustafa at Thebes showed me his travellers' book—in it I saw an entry of the names of Speke and Grant, with the numbers of their regiments, and the dates of their departure from Zanzibar and their arrival at Khartoum and Thebes. A simple conventional travellers' entry, as if they had returned from an ordinary journey—nothing to hint at the great achievement which brought them such honour and lasting fame.Sunday, 15th.—Made a sketch, a little after sunrise, of the chain of hills on the west bank of the Nile, then crossed the river to see the ruins of Denderah. Horses were waiting on the other side, and would have been most enjoyable if the weather had been cool; but, under a fierce sun, absolutely incessant prancing and waltzing ("he make 'fantasia,'" quoth Hosseyn) was fatiguing after a bit. Was so much struck with the beauties of the mountains, as seen from the left bank, that I resolved to stay a couple of days to paint them. The temple is extremely fine, and in parts unusually well preserved—the sculpture, that is, for the colour is almost entirely lost. These sculptures, being of a late period (Roman), are clumsy enough; on the other hand the general scheme of decoration is more artistic, more varied in distribution and rhythm than in most of the temples. On the external wall I remarked here, as at Edfou and at Medinet Haboo, massive and very handsome gargoyles—half a lion, couchant, on a large bracket, the water flowing from a spout between the paws—a more important feature in the architectural aspect of the wall than in northern countries, and calculated for five months' rain rather than for five minutes', which is the average annual fall here, I believe. This temple boasts a portrait of Cleopatra on a large scale, but, like those of Armout and Karnak, it is absolutely conventional, and any pretence of detecting an individuality is mere humbug. One fancies at first one has discovered some peculiarity in the features, but on a candid examination one must own that the same peculiarities occur in other faces on the same wall, or that they are owing to the mutilation to which two-thirds of the figures in all Egyptian temples hasbeen assiduously subjected. In a lateral chamber of the temple, on the ceiling, is a most striking mystical design, representing the firmament and the sun fecundating the land of Egypt. It is fantastic and poetic in the extreme; it would delight Rossetti. In the evening made another sketch, and then rode to Keneh to dine with the Consul—a most interesting glimpse into a real old-fashioned Muslim interior. Si Syed Achmet (forty-five years British Agent in this town and at Khossayr) is a very wealthy old gentleman with large property in this part of the world. He is of the blood of the Prophet, a good and pious Muslim, tolerant and full of kindliness. A son, three nephews and a daughter form his immediate family circle, living with him in the house to which I was bidden—a bald, uninteresting place enough. It is entered from a narrow, irregular triangular court, ornamented on one side with some good brick and wood work, but ugly and plain on the others, and disfigured by something between a ladder and a staircase which leads to the clean but singularly naked room in which we were to spend the evening. This room was whitewashed, but so roughly bedaubed that the plain deal cupboards, the doors of which formed the only embellishment (?) of the walls, were all besmeared with ragged edges of white. Three windows, innocent of glass, and protected by a close, plain trellis-work of ordinary white wood, lighted the room, which boasted in the way of furniture the usual ugly divans, three red muslin curtains, a small deal table, two lanterns and two candles in candlesticks. Shortly after my arrival and most kindly reception by the old gentleman, who had come up from the country expresslyad hoc, dinner was served. The son, as the eldest, sat at table; the nephews waited on us; we squatted, I on a cushion, they on the floor, round a very low table on which was a large, round, brass tray, containing four plates, some wooden spoons, and a great many small loaves of bread arranged round it in a circle; a soup tureen, into which, after washing of hands, everybody plunged his spoon, was the central feature. After the soup, came in rapid succession several dishes containing savoury messes which were really very good, though perhaps too rich, but which I was entirely unable to enjoy in the sight of a number of hands, shining with gravy, mopping in successionat the dishes with crusts of bread, or fetching out a coveted morsel with fingers too recently licked. It is a delicate and hospitable attention to put a bit with your own hand on to your guest's plate—an attention of which I was the frequent but unworthy recipient. After the made dishes had been done justice to, half a sheep—head and all—was put on the table andclawedasunder by Hosseyn. The roast being disposed of, the sweets appeared, and were eaten out of the common dish with spoons, like the soup: I was not sorry when it was over, for I had gone through all the sensations of a sea voyage. I observe that Arabs make a point of eating with as much noise and smacking of lips as possible; it is as if they were endeavouring to convey a sort of oblique expression of thanks to Providence by manifesting their relish of the blessings vouchsafed. When dinner was over, and a by no means superfluous washing of hands had been gone through, we had pipes and coffee. Hosseyn having gone to dine, I was now thrown on my own extremely limited stock of Arabic for conversation; and as I had about exhausted that during my ride to Keneh with one of the nephews, I was hard put to it. However, I just managed to get through a few broken sentences, to the great satisfaction of Achmet, who informed me that he had been for forty years the servant of the English, of whom he thought very highly, chiefly because, as he expressed it, they have "one word"—a satisfactory character to leave behind. In the evening the governor (Mudir) came to see me with a tail of employés and, if you please, a pocket-handkerchief, of which he was not a little conscious, holding it in his hand rolled into a neat tube, which he occasionally drew with dignity across the basis of the official nose. The Consul for France and Prussia also came and made his salaam. My borrowed and temporary plumes have been of real use to somebody here, for the Mudir, hearing that an Englishman (whom he erroneously supposed to be somebody) was on board a viceroy's steamer, immediately gave the crew two months' pay—an alacrity not sufficiently often displayed in this country, if I am not much misinformed. The dancing-girls who came to entertain us in the evening were no doubt better than those of Lougsor, though, with one exception, at least as ugly; but some of them were gorgeously attired(from the dancing-dog point of view), and all were a mass of gold necklaces and coins and glittering headgear, which produced at a certain distance and in the doubtful light a prodigiously fine effect of colour. The dancing was a little more varied than that of the Lougsor women, chiefly, no doubt, because they got more to drink; but,en somme, I am confirmed in my first impression that it is an eminently ugly performance, though a very remarkable gymnastic feat. Of course a graceful and good-looking girl may do a good deal to redeem it by personal charm, and this was in some degree the case with Zehneb, who is a noted dancer and thefine fleurof the profession. She is pretty though coarse in feature, and not without grace; but has a semi-European smack about her dress and ways that spoils her in my eyes—hers, by-the-bye, are splendid. Just as the "fantasia" was at its height, a ragged, dust-soiled, old beggar came, chattering and grinning, into the room, and at once installed himself, uninvited but unhindered, on the divan, from which comfortable post he proceeded to witness the performance and apparently thoroughly to enjoy his evening. The contrast between his beggar's garb and the scrupulously cleanly attire of his neighbours was very curious. He is a fakeer, as I am told; everybody feeds him, no doors are closed to him; he is not, I believe, exactly an idiot, but is certainly in his second childhood—"rimbambito," as the Italians say. On one side of him squatted a sweet little brown girl, Achmet's daughter, of about five or six, in a pink cotton shift and with anklets hanging about her little naked feet. On the other side, a little further off, was an umber-coloured dancing-girl, with bright bold eyes painted round with black, covered with a mass of gold coins on her head, in her hair, on her ears, and round her neck, and wearing a blue silk dress all bespangled with gold. He looked like a dust-heap between them. It was a queer picture, taken out of the "Thousand and One Nights"; from which work also, I presume, the numerous one-eyed people that I see everywhere in Egypt, are copied. (I prefer this view to that of unimaginative pedants who, attaching undue importance to facts, inform me that this blindness is self-inflicted, to avoid conscription.) My ride home was a fitting close to such an evening; a fantastic procession we made, headed by a handfulof torch and lantern bearers, brandishing enormous staves; after which "Meine Wenigkeit" on a sumptuously caparisoned steed, the consul's nephew, the captain, Hosseyn, a cawass, all of them on horses, others on donkeys, and odd men bustling about amongst us and dispersing the few stragglers that were to be found at that late hour in the streets. The fitful flare of the torches, dressing in fugitive, fantastic lights the gateways and dim walls of the slumbering town, had a very fine effect. More curious still was our ridethrougha quarter of a mile ofdourahthat stood at least ten or twelve feet high all round us; the train of light and shower of sparks in the tall graceful corn was of a surprising aspect. Except that nothing took fire, it was as if Samson's foxes had been let loose in front of us.Monday, 16th.—Sketched. In the evening, yielding, I own, with some reluctance, to a pressing invitation, returned to Keneh to dine with Si Achmet. Had, except the roast, exactly the same dinner as on the previous day, which leads me to conjecture that therépertoireof Arab cookery is limited. After dinner we rode out to see the moolid, which is just beginning here. It isthegreat moolid of Central Egypt, and to it, but only towards the end, flock people from all parts of the country till the concourse is enormous. It must be an interesting sight when in full swing, but as yet there is little or nothing worth seeing except the tomb of the sheykh in whose honour the moolid is held (Sheykh Abd-er-Rahim, the "Genani") to which I was taken by my host. The building was like most others of the same class in Egypt: a square chamber with a dome, and windows through which the coffin, placed conspicuously in the centre, can be seen by the pious crowds outside. On entering, I was conducted, after taking off my boots, to a post of honour, on the ground of course, in the midst of a grave circle of worthies who were squatting in theruellebetween one side of the coffin and the wall. On my right was one of the civic functionaries, on my left the priest attached to the tomb. The spectacle before me was wonderful both in colour and form, though composed in great part of the simplest elements. It was like the finest Delacroix in aspect and tone, but with a gravity and stateliness of form very foreign to that brilliant but epileptic genius. To theleft of me, covered with a showy embroidered cloth, stood behind a railing the sarcophagus of the saint, illuminated from above by various lanterns hung from the ceiling (the central one, and the handsomest, the gift of Lady Duff Gordon) and from the corners by gigantic candles, standing in candlesticks of proportionate dimensions; at the same corners stood great banners of sober but rich tone, which added much to the general colour. On each side of the carpet at the head of which I squatted, squatted, in far more picturesque attire, some of the notables of Keneh, half hidden in the shadow, their large turbans cast on the rich carpet they sat on. At the further end stood and stared, with the solemnity of a chorus in an opera, a motley, dazzling group of lesser folk; magnificent, too, in the flow of their draperies, the grace of the half untwisted turbans wreathed round their necks or hanging from their shoulders, the stateliness of their forms, and the fiery glow of colour in which they burnt under the clustered lanterns. Unfortunately, I could not gaze with attention as undivided as I could have wished, because the gentleman on my right insisted on making conversation, the very meagrest form of which exercise absorbed for the time my powers of attention. Hosseyn, who is very pious, bled me of an enormous baksheesh for the shrine of the saint.Tuesday, 17th.—Completed my sketches in the morning. In the evening, Si Achmet, his son, and three nephews, one of whom I neither knew nor had invited (this is entirely Arabic—I might, also, have taken any one with me to dine with them) came to dine on board. It was a very droll ceremony—the Arabs had, with one exception, probably never sat at a table on a chair before, but they were so entirely simple as not to be (also, by-the-bye, with one exception) at all ridiculous. Ottilio had, perhaps with a little malice, arranged the napkins in a most artistic and intricate fashion; these edifices so impressed my friends that they did not sit down opposite to their plates but on one side of them. I set them at once comparatively at their ease by requesting them, through Hosseyn, to consider themselves at home and eat with their fingers, forgiving me if I followed the custom of my country; the proposal was received with great satisfaction by the old gentleman and his son, who fell to intheir own way, the father muttering his appreciation of the dishes in low, sonorous ejaculations: "Allah!"—"Mash Allah!"—"Ou Allah!"—"Ameer! Ameer!" &c. &c. &c. The son, a man of about forty, with a broken nose and a very strong squint, and whose movements carried a general impression of contemplative dreaminess, always verging on surprise, ate with his usual deliberation and spent his odd moments in contemplating a shining bunch of fingers, which he periodically and slowly licked with the utmost impartiality; he did not mix in the conversation. Of the three cousins on my left, two made a very fair attempt at using the knife and fork, though it must have been a virgin effort; the third, who had been a great deal with English people when he was consul at Khossayr, ate his dinner and put down his wine like the best European; I suspect, in fact, that he was brought as a show man. Achmet, in a climax of gratification, exclaimed towards the end of dinner, "By Allah! if the Ameer comes to my house another year, he shall be served after the Frankish custom." Arabs appear to be much devoted tolimonade gazeuse—without being the forbidden fruit of wine itself, it dwells in bottles, and has a sort of air of crime about it which no doubt pleases them; my left-hand neighbour took off at least two bottles during dinner.Hosseyn, whose father was a great friend of Si Achmet, proved invaluable; he hopped about like a delighted child, filling the glasses, cutting the meat of the two digitarians, and generally making conversation—a great relief to me. In the evening one of the nephews asked for some tea to take home, which I gave him; another pocketed all the tobacco that was brought them to make cigarettes. Arabs are hospitable and generous, and I like them much, but they are indiscreet in the extreme. "Arabs," says Hosseyn, "have no face; they never take shame." I have seen instances of this which I won't put down; one only, for it is very droll: my squinting friend with the pensive look asked Lady Ely last year if she would just procure for him from the Queen a title, or an order, as a mark of her regard. I am the bearer of a letter to her from him now, which I have no doubt is a reminder. Slew a sheep again.Wednesday, 18th.—Left Keneh early, and with regret; the place,the people and the scenery have left many pleasing pictures in my memory. I little expected at starting the annoyance that awaited me! As we approached the spot where Sheykh Selim receives his devout visitors, I sent word to the captain that I did not wish to lose any time in landing, but that the bag of money which had been collected for the saint was to be delivered, and we were to go on. I had scarcely uttered this almost sacrilegious order, when the steamer, which had been judiciously steered within ten yards of a flat, shelving bank, ran hard and fast into the mud, with the apparent intention of sticking there permanently, the engine being utterly powerless to get her out. Nobody on board doubted for an instant but that Sheykh Selim had stopped us in his resentment; the captain instantly dispatched sailors with money to propitiate him, and after a few futile attempts on the part of five or six of the crew (to loud cries of "Help us, O Prophet! help us, O Sheykh Selim!") to heave out a vessel that was four or five feet in the mud, jumped himself into a boat, and hurried, of course accompanied by Hosseyn, and leaving his vessel to take care of herself, to beseech the sheykh to get us off. Their conversation was afterwards reported to me by one who was present. "What is this, O Sheykh, that thou hast done to us? in what have we been wanting towards thee? did I not give thee a shirt when we last came by? and the tobacco, was it not good? was the roast meat not sufficient? why are we thus punished?"—to whom the sheykh: "Don't be a fool! why do you come to me about your boat? am I a sailor? how do you expect me to get her off—or on? Allah got her on the sand, not I, who am a man like yourselves." The captain: "Allah is indeed great, but if he ran us aground it was on thy instigation—thou knowest it, O Sheykh!" &c. &c. In this strain the conversation lasted at least twenty minutes, during which time and for the rest of the day I was literally sick with disgust and anger at the lot of them. Everything that ought not to be done under the circumstances, including losing the anchor (which is still at the bottom of the river), was done before evening; everything that should have been done was left undone.Next morning (Thursday, 19th) we obtained (by force, afterthe fashion of this country) through the governor of the neighbouring town a gang of two hundred Arabs, magnificent fellows some of them, who, at last, by heaving and tugging, contrived to get her off—not without the most unearthlycharivariI ever heard. In the morning I made a sketch; reached Bellianeh in the evening, appeased, at last, and rather amused at the abject condition of the captain, to whom I had conveyed my mind (he had never seen me angry before), and who swore that in future one hundred sheykhs should not take him out of his course. My misadventure will benefit my successors in the good shipSheberkheyt—à quelque chose malheur est bon.Friday, 20th.—Started at seven on horseback to see Abydos, and had a delightful morning. The weather was fresh and clear, and the canter of six or seven miles across a fine open plain to the foot of the mountains where the ruins lie was most enjoyable. The temples, very strikingly situated on a slope which sweeps down from a grand amphitheatre of bastion-like rocks, have a great advantage over all those that I have yet seen, viz. that their sculptures have almost entirely escaped mutilation, and are in admirable preservation. This is the more fortunate, that they are of a very fine period, and most delicate in workmanship; the type of the faces has considerable beauty and refinement. The colours, notably in the more recently excavated temple of Osiris, are often extremely well preserved, and I am confirmed in my conjecture, that they must have been much less beautiful in their freshness than now that time has toned and tuned them. In the larger temple are some very beautiful wagon-head vaultscut in the thickness of two layers of stone, the upper ones laid on end to get more thickness of material. They are charmingly decorated with cartouches and stars on a blue ground, and divided by a band of hieroglyphs running like a ridge-rib along the head of the vault. The stars on Egyptian ceilings are always pentagonal, and placed very near together. At the temple I was joined by the obligato governor, a puffy Turk with a tight, shiny face that had a look of having been stung all over by a wasp; he was heavy and stupid, and I left him in the hands of Hosseyn, galloping ahead myself with the mounted cawass, a very picturesque Arnout on a very goodhorse.N.B.—Never come to the East again without an English saddle; the back-board of a Turkish saddle is in the long run an intolerable nuisance, as are also, though in a less degree, the shovel-stirrups in which one's feet are imprisoned. In the afternoon reached Sohag, a sail, or rather a steam, of three or four hours, in time for a most pleasant evening's walk.Saturday, 21st.—Got to Syoot in the afternoon, and was very glad to catch Lady Duff Gordon on her way up the river. Was received with great hospitality by the American and Spanish consuls, wealthy Copts of this town who kindly put their carriages at my disposal and, better still, their donkeys—splendid Arabian donkeys, looking, in their trappings, like cardinals' mules. Nothing is more pleasant than the swift amble of a good donkey from the Hejaz. Dined in the evening with Mr. Wonista, the consul for Spain, quite "à la Franca" with knives and forks and the whole thing. A curious house, and the rooms small but of enormous height, so that they looked as if they had been seton endby mistake. The walls were bare whitewash, but the furniture was of the most gorgeous brocade, as were also the curtains; there was a European carpet all over the floor and as many candles on the walls (in glass bells) as in acafé chantant. I met there a Scotch clergyman belonging to the American Mission (Episcopalian) which is very active in Egypt. After dinner the singer from Lady Duff Gordon's boat was sent for, and in a short time arrived with some of the crew who acted as chorus; it is this chorus, I find, that gives the approving murmur after each strophe. He sang well, but his performance of course lost three-fourths of its charm by not being heard in its proper place and surroundings. I remember once in the Sabine hills hearing unexpectedly at a distance, in the silent dimness of night, the droning song of apiffera; nothing could be more strangely pathetic than this voice rising in the utter silence from out of the heart of the valley below—yet those same sounds heard close in the broad daylight would have seemed uncouth and strident. Arab singing has a similar quality, and is equally dependent on time and place for its full effect. Whilst the performance was at its height, and the minstrel was tuning his note to the most ambitiousfioriture, I heard inthe room overhead some European part-singing of a melancholy order, and was informed that the Scotch minister had been invited by a few proselytes to retire upstairs "to worship and explain an obscure passage in the Gospel." On the invitation of the master of the house, I went up and joined the congregation, who thought it right to favour me with another psalm. The clergyman then read in Arabic, and expounded in the same language a chapter from the Bible, and I must say did it (I speak of his manner only, for Koran and Bible Arabic is so different from the current idiom, here at all events, that I did not understand four words in the whole sermon) in a very simple and impressive way. He had, too, an admirable accent. He tells me that in spite of vehement opposition from the Coptic prelates he finds a good deal of sympathy amongst the people.Sunday, 22nd.—Lovely day. Strolled about with a gun. This place is full of "sparrows of paradise," a little bird of an exquisite golden green. Since I was here last, the aspect of the country has changed very much and for the better. Where I saw, a few weeks back, nothing but pools and mud, is now a vast expanse of clover and grass of an intense green, sunny and brilliant to a wonderful degree. The plain looks like one immense jewel, and contrasts deliciously with the tawny sand-rock which walls it in on the west, behind the gleaming white domes of the cemetery. Dined with the other consul in the evening. Same sort of house, but much larger. No Scotch clergyman this time, but an Anglo-Arab who teaches in the Coptic school, and, embracing Coptic views, inveighs bitterly against the converts to Protestantism. At sunset, to my agreeable surprise, the Sterlings turned up,musique en tête, the singer in the bows quavering a jubilant strain, and the vessel magnificent with fresh paint.Monday, 23rd.—Killed a sheep. Sketched. Had the consuls and the Scotch missionary to dine with me. The latter brought me some newspapers, which I read greedily.Tuesday, 24th.—Sketched. At last an evening to myself!—these festive gatherings are an ineffable bore, if the truth were told.Wednesday, 25th.—Completed my sketches with oneexception—a study of my beautiful grey (hechtgrau) donkey. Unless I make a study at Sakkara, which is just possible, this will be the end of my work on the Nile. In twenty-two skies which I have painted there is not a vestige of a cloud, such has been the divinely serene weather I have had all along. This evening, indeed, faint, shining flakes of vapour were drawn across the sky, breaking and tempering the last rays of the sun; but by a curious piece of luck they did not appear till I was just giving the last touches to my day's work. Saw a beautiful and original effect at sunset. Just as the sun was about to sink behind the hills, a dahabieh drifted past with its sails spread, and reaching up into the region where the light was still golden, whilst the face of the water was darkened, and the long, low banks were already shadowy and grey, the burning sail was reflected in the night of the river, and looked astonishingly beautiful. It was like the mellow splendour of the rising moon.I delight in seeing the sailors climbing the tall, oblique yards of the Nile boats. Sometimes five or six of them perch on one yard at the same time, looking at a distance like great birds.Thursday, 26th.—Finished my donkey and started; as I get further north, the weather is much cooler—the mornings and evenings are quite fresh, though not so cold but that I can sketch in the shade an hour after sunrise in summer clothes. The natives, however, seem to take a severe view of the temperature, and leave nothing unmuffled but their mouths, with which they occasionally blow their fingers in the most approved winter fashion. Was more struck than before with Gebel Aboofada—the infinite and strongly marked strata of which it is made up writhe and heave in a very grand and fantastic manner. Some of the Egyptian mountains are ruled like a copy book from head to foot, and are very monotonous.At the foot of Aboofada, I saw, for an instant, my first and last crocodile; a small one. They are very seldom seen from a steamer below the cataracts, as the noise frightens away the few there are. I had looked forward to getting a shot at one, and was a good deal disappointed at finding none up the river. It is curious how rapidly time lends its perspective to the past. Every now and then a boat from the cataracts laden with datescomes floating down the river, and the melancholy chant of the Nubian sailors, as they strain at the oars, already falls on my ear as a sudden memory of an almost distant past—not a month old.Arrived at Roda this evening. I have been reading, amongst other things, a book everybody else read thirty years ago, "Les Natchez," and am greatly disappointed with it. I am especially struck with the extraordinary contrast between the masterful sobriety and simplicity of the style, and the far-fetched affectation of the ideas which are, more often than not, distorted, tawdry and inflated, sometimes disgusting and not seldom maudlin in the extreme. This singular discrepancy between form and matter is especially French, and may frequently be traced in the works of their painters and sculptors. No living people has so sensitive a perception of form or so artistic an epiderm, but an ineradicable self-consciousness develops in them a theatrical attitude of mind which too often betrays itself in their artistic and literary conceptions. It is the absolute consent between conception and execution which constitutes one of the chief sources of delight in the art of the Greeks, to whom they are fond, too rashly, of comparing themselves.[41]I notice in the Natchez a peculiar use of comparisons. That mode of adding light and colour to an idea which consists in suggesting analogies, has always been the delight of poets; but Chateaubriand (whose analogies, by the way, are often singularly far fetched and unfortunate) occasionally, in a morbid endeavour to be original, seeks his effects in a suggestion of dissimilarities; I remember an instance: he has been describing with minute and gratuitously sickening detail a mangled heap of dead and dying warriors after a ferocious encounter. "How different," he exclaims, but in more flowery terms, "is a haycock in a field with girls rolling down it!" Few will be disposed to contradict him. His exorbitant personal vanity which continues to peep through everywhere, and makes even his unbounded praise of his country seem an oblique tribute to himself, is droll and nauseating at the same time.Took a stroll in the evening, and met an English baby! pinkand delicate like a flower; with cape and cockade complete—a pretty sight.Thick folds of rose and violet-coloured cloud hung along the horizon at sunset, and looked autumnal. I have left eternal summer behind me.Friday, 27th.—Such a morning as the evening of yesterday foreboded; rather chilly and misty, and as near an approach to winter as Upper Egypt may be expected to afford. The sky was veiled on all sides with soft grey clouds, wrinkled and fretted like the grey sands when the sea has left them. It was a fitting background to the desolate tombs of Beni Hassan, which I visited an hour or two after sunrise. The range of hills on the face of which these tombs are excavated is not unlike Gebel Aboofada in its configuration, except that the strata with which it is scored are more level and regular. This monotony is, however, relieved by the sky-line, which is extremely fine. Along the foot of these hills runs a level strip of barren land, broken abruptly in its whole length by a steep bank which rises like a ruined wall from the plain below, and which is, when the Nile is exceptionally high, the bank of the river itself. Standing, as it now does, nearly a mile inland, and crested with two deserted villages, it has a grand but uncanny aspect. I had long been eager to see the tombs, which show what is considered by many to be the first rudiment of the Doric order. The similarity, more striking even than I expected, is so great that, taken with our knowledge of the early and frequent intercourse of the Greeks with Egypt and of the assimilating power of their genius, it certainly offers a strongprima faciepresumption in favour of this view. It may be objected that the echinus, the conical form of the shaft and its entasis, all three inseparable features and especial beauties of the Greek order, are wanting here, though they are present in the earliest specimen of the style preserved in Greece, the temple of Corinth. This argument would deserve more consideration if it could be conceived that the order as seen at Corinth was a spontaneous conception, and not a development of some more elementary form which, whether native or imported at a remote period, has not been handed down to us. In point of fact, the chamfering of a simple stone pier into an octagon and thenfurther to a polygon of sixteen, or more, sides (specimens of the two forms are seen side by side in two of the tombs of Beni Hassan) is so elementary an effort of architecture and one so obvious, that its independent and spontaneous adoption by two different nations would be matter for no surprise. On the other hand, it is to be remarked that these tombs and the early temple at Karnak already mentioned are the only instances of this style known in Africa—that not only are they isolated in themselves, but they form a step to no further developments—a link in no chain; that in character and conception they have nothing in common with any of the great monuments of Egypt, to which indeed they are antagonistic in feeling; that they stand side by side with other monuments of thesamedate (about 2000B.C.?) of a developed and absolutely different type—a type certainly indigenous and based on the imitation of natural forms which is especially characteristic of Egyptian architecture; and lastly, that the tombs of Beni Hassan show certain dissonances, such as one might expect to find in the case of an unintelligent and unperceptive manipulation of a foreign style. In the face of these considerations, I find it difficult to resist a suspicion that the view generally received exactly reverses the truth of the case, and that these tombs are not indeed the prototypes of the Doric temple, but rather the results, themselves, of contact at some remote period between the Egyptians and that branch of the great Aryan family which, at long intervals, and in successive waves, covered the shores of the Egean Sea, and one of the latest offshoots of which poured down into Greece from the heights of Thessaly under the name of Dorians. I believe the earliest Egyptianrecordof the pressure of Greeks in this country goes no further back than 1500B.C.; but a peaceful intercourse between the two races may have existed over a long period, without necessarily finding a place in public records.The (quasi) Doric tombs are divided into a nave and aisles by two rows of piers, carrying an architrave and disposed at right angles to the portico, agreeably carrying out the likeness of a Greek temple. The circles which intersect the extremity of the other group of tombs areparallelto the portico, and have a deplorable effect, much heightened by the shape of the ceiling,which is that of a very flat pediment. The architrave follows the line of the roof, but at a still more open angle. It would be difficult to conceive anything more hideous. Nearly all the tombs are decorated with frescoes of a rude kind, but displaying frequently an amount of freedom unusual in Egyptian art.Our guide was a splendid fellow, looking, in his flowing robes, like a figure from the "School of Athens" on the "Disputa." The longer I live, the more I am struck by the identity of Raphael's frescoes with the noblest aspects of Nature.To Benisoëf in the evening. Passed some travellers; nothing looks so gay and pretty as a dahabieh with its colours flying and its sails spread.Saturday, 28th.—Lovely morning once again. Reached Sakkara early, but found that the road to the Pyramids was obstructed by water, so moved on at once to Ghizeh, opposite to Old Cairo, where I shall remain till to-morrow morning; meanwhile I have sent on Hosseyn to secure a room at the inn, and to fetch the means of leaving a pleasant memory of me on board theSheberkheyt.I have stripped the walls of my cabin of the paintings I had hung round them, and they look desolate and like the coffin of my now past journey. A most enjoyable journey it has been, full of pleasant things to remember; full, too, I hope, of artistic profit and teaching. I have been indeed fortunate, for, as I now see more clearly than ever, in a dahabieh I could not have achieved a third of the journey, and in a passenger steamer I could not have done a stroke of work. Every study I take home I owe entirely to the viceroy's munificent kindness.Sunday, 29th.—Left for Boulay, my destination—gave a parting sheep to the crew, distributedlargesse, shook hands all round, and drove off to the hotel.
Visited a private tomb near Medinet Haboo, which is full of the most curious paintings, many of them in excellent preservation, and representing every sort of domestic and professional occupation. They are very superior in execution and character to those of El Kab. In the evening had a dinner on board: Mr. Hale and friend, Mustafa Aga and the Syoot Consuls (one of whom does not speak a word of anything but Arabic). I had also invited Mustafa's younger son, but find that he may not sit down with his father. (He accompanied me this morning, and insisted on lunching with the servants; on the other hand, my servant is addressed as HosseynEffendi, if you please! and conversed with as a gentleman. Service appears to be looked upon in an entirely patriarchal light.) The entertainment went off successfully, and Ottilio, the Italian waiter, covered himself with glory by his excellent waiting. After dinner Mr. Hale received a telegram to the effect that General Grant had been elected President of the United States, with Mr. Colfax as Vice. He was in great excitement and delight; we had a recrudescence of champagne, and gave the new President three cheers in British fashion. The news had come inthree daysfrom Washington to Thebes! it is marvellous.
Saturday, 7th.—Went to Karnak. Wilkinson advises the traveller to see this group of temples last; and wisely, for it is indeed the crowning glory of all, and must satisfy, if it does not surpass, the most sanguine expectations. The vast unfinished propylæa of the large temple prepare one by their colossal dimensions for the gigantic grandeur of the great central hall, in which one is at a loss what most to admire—the originality of the general design, combining, as it does in a surprising degree, freedom and variety with the gravest simplicity—the massive and reposeful breadth of the forms or the exquisite subtlety of the colour. The latterhas of course gained very much from the blending hand of time, and is now of a most delightful mellowness, but, judging from the better preserved portions, it must have been at all times of singular beauty. It seems strange at first that a decoration consisting entirely of small blots of vivid colour on a white ground, like butterflies on a wall, can have alargearchitectural effect; but, in fact, therepetitionover large surfaces of wall and column restores, through its monotony, the balance of breadth. The design of this hall is very curious: the great central nave, flanked on each side by two aisles of the same height as itself, but of less breadth (diminishing, roughly, in a proportion of 10, 7, 5), runs, as in a Gothic cathedral, perpendicular to the main entrance; beyond the second aisle, however, on either side, the lintels or architraves which connect the columns run atright anglesto the nave; the effect of this arrangement must have been peculiar and striking. (Too little remains now, except the columns, to enable one to form a distinct idea.) The central nave, with the aisles immediately adjoining, rises in a clerestory thirty or forty feet above the rest of the building, and was lighted by massive square windows filled with slabs of stone (sketch), perforated vertically, and of a severe and very fine (sketch) effect. These windows fill the space between the entablature of the lateral columns and of the roof of the clerestory, and must be some twenty to twenty-five feet high. I find it difficult to reconcile my eye to the far-fetched "asymetria" in the arrangement of the columns, the lesser ones standing in no definite relationship, on the plan, to the two central rows, neither immediately behind them nor half-way between them. How differently the Greeks managed these things! The inner row of columns at the east and west ends of the Parthenon differs also in size, height, and level from the outer row, and also stands back; but it is onlyone rowat each end; so that variety and play of form are obtained without a repeated jar on the eye; and an otherwise uniform rectangular plan is not gratuitously distorted. In a very ancient temple beyond and behind that of the great hall are some curious polygonal columns that have a very Doric look about them, though they are very rude and undeveloped.
The walls of Karnak are of course defaced and disfigured by the usual amount of inscriptions; one commemorative tablet,however, like a similar one at Phylæ, inspires a different feeling. Both are memorials of the French Campaign in Egypt; the one at Phylæ, dated "an VIII. de la République Française," alludes with simple dignity to the victorious march of the French army to the first cataract, giving the names of the generals who were fighting "sous les ordres de Bonaparte"; the other, under the same date, is a simple scientific memorandum giving the latitude and longitude of the chief towns on the Nile. It is impossible to read the first of these inscriptions without emotion: how remote from us, already, seems that stern, invincible French Republic, tracing its proud name with an undoubting finger here in the grave-dust of an empire that stood more centuries than this young giant completed years! How thickly, already, does the dust lie now on the grave of this thing of yesterday!
In writing about Phylæ, I forgot to notice the henna tree, which grows in great quantities round the skirts of the temple, and has a delicious scent. In this wilderness of granite and most unsavoury haunt of bats, its perfume wafted unexpectedly on the air is infinitely delightful.
Sunday, 8th.—Sketched.
Monday, 9th.—Ditto. In the evening went out to shoot, but could not get near the pelicans and crows—they see you half a mile off. Returning, against stream, Hosseyn, anxious to be useful, took apunting poleandrowedaway with an air of conviction which was worthy of the fly on the coach-wheel in the fable.
The heat, though still considerable (greater than with us at midsummer), has diminished within the last few days, and does not inconvenience me as much as it did in sketching. Towards evening, soft autumnal veils of mist rise from the smooth, swift river, and shroud everything in their mysterious folds; to-night the effect was especially striking; a pale golden sun hung in a pale golden mist, tempered so that one could look at it undazzled, and so shorn of its fires that the eastern bank, instead of burning orange, showed only a faint violet flush over its dark-brown ridges. On a dahabieh alongside me an Arab is singing endless strophes of some poem of love and war, accompanied by the thud and jingle of a tambourine; the melody, a wandering, nasal strain, full of turns and runs and triplets, appears to be entirely improvised,and is full of character and melancholy. At the end of each strophe I hear a prolonged, deep groan of approval uttered in a chorus by the audience, rising in pitch after a particularly happy effort of the rhapsodist, whose song begins again and again in mournful gusts like the song of the wind. It is dark; I only hear—don't see—the singer and his listeners.
Tuesday, 10th.—Sketched. A frequent companion in my work is my friend, little Fatma, a sweet, small child of about five, with a bright face and two rows of the whitest teeth ever seen. She squats down snugly by my side, sometimes looking at the picture, sometimes at the painter, most often at the paint-box, at which she twiddles silently; sometimes she pensively draws a pattern with a little brown finger on my dusty boots. I remember at Rhodes, last year, a knot of little girls used to watch me sketching in the Street of the Knights; but the little Turks were not so nice as Fatma, the little Arab; some used to giggle, and some used to frown at the Djiaour; but one very chatty young lady of about six with the manners and graces of sixteen would exclaim in a little fluty voice, "Mash Allah! Mash Allah! beautiful indeed! nobody here can write like you!" (Turk., if my memory helps me:Guzel! guzel! Bir khimse burda senci zhibi yazamas!) I had a visit on board the other day from Mustafa Aga's youngest son, bonny and rosy as an apple. He wore a flowing robe of linen,à ramages, buttoned summarily and once for all at the neck, but entirely open from the neck downwards; over this an enormous embroidered jacket with anticipatory sleeves turned up at the wrists, and on, or rather about, his feet, a pair of his papa's shoes; he was irresistibly funny and pretty; anamorino, dressed up as the Dog Toby. He was very chatty; not so his playfellow, "Genani," the son of Abdallah, the servant of Mustafa, a putto by Raphael modelled in chocolate; a wild, black-eyed, trembling, romping, dusty, stark-naked little imp (I used to call him Afreet), and the finest child I ever saw. The nearest approach to social intercourse I could get out of him was a sudden plunge at a proffered cake; after which he would dart off with affected dismay, and frown at me through an ill-suppressed grin from behind the nearest place of safety.
Wednesday, 11th.—Got on with my sketches. Have beguntwo or three rough small studies of heads. Hate sketching heads rapidly; it is unavoidably and odiously free and easy, and nearly all that is worth escapes. But I have no time for more, and, I suppose, the sketches will be useful. One man, with a face like a camel, whom I drew in profile, was annoyed (though in a general way complimentary) at seeing only one eye in the picture. This struck me as quaint; for he wasblindof the other; he had not been defrauded of much. My delight, in the evening, is to watch the processions of women and girls coming down to the Nile to fetch water. The brown figures, clad in brown, coming, in long rows, along the brown bank in all the glow and glory of sunset, look very grand; very grand, too, returning up the steep bank, along the violet sky, with their long, flowing folds and the full pitchers now erect on their heads (when empty they carry them horizontally). They are neither handsome individually nor particularly well made, but their movements are good, and the repetition of the same "motive" many times in succession makes the whole scene impressive and stately. There is no more fruitful source of effect in Nature or Art than iteration.
The suppleness of the limbs of the children here is extraordinary. I have seen little girls squatting like grasshoppers in the Nile drinking,à même, the water in which they were standing little more than ankle deep.
An hour after nightfall the dahabieh, my neighbour, slipped her cables and began to drift down the river; but not till the rhapsodist had chanted his ditty to the approving murmurs of his little circle as on the preceding night. His singing has a great charm for me; I shall miss it. It reminds me much of Andalusian singing and moonlight nights in the Bay of Cadiz—there is about it a strangeness and a wayward melancholy that attach and charm me. It was a love song (I am told, for I could not hear the words, and should have understood very few if I had).
"Ya leyl! ya leyl! ya leyl!"—the eternal refrain of Arab songs. "Oh night! oh night! oh night! you have left a fire in my heart, oh my beloved! Oh my beloved, do not forget me!" &c. &c. &c.
A day or two ago I heard a youth calling the faithful to noonday prayer, from the gallery of a minaret, with one of thefinest voices I have ever heard; he was tearing his notes from the inmost depths of his chest with that eagerness of yet unconscious passion that I have often noticed in southern children, and which to me is singularly pathetic; he retained his last notes as long as his breath allowed it, and they vibrated in distinct waves like a sonorous metal set in motion: from a little distance the effect wassaisissant. I could not see him, and the air seemed to throb with sound as well as with heat in the sultry noon.
The departure of the dahabieh was celebrated with the usual Arab waste of powder, and all the echoes of the valley of the tombs across the river were aroused by the popping of many guns. All the consuls fired officially, everybody else fired unofficially. Hosseyn fired officiously—chuckling and nearly tumbling over; and the dahabieh itself, having opened the ball, fired again at intervals from a long distance as if it had forgotten somebody—they are too funny.
Thursday, 12th.—More sketching. The weather, which is a little too canicular at noon, is deliciously fresh and cool for an hour after sunrise; the Arabs, however, look much aggrieved at the severity of the cold; they sit huddled in muffled groups with a pinched look that would become a British December day.
I observe that half the men in middle life have no forefinger to their right hand. They all of them mutilated themselves to avoid conscription under Said Pasha, who, however, having found them out, enlisted them all the same. A curious equality prevails here: whilst sketching two of Mustafa Aga's servants this morning, I learnt from his son that they were both his relations. One of them appears to be a particularly nice fellow, and is a perfect gentleman in his manners.
Friday, 13th.—My last day in Thebes. When I arrived here and found neither friends nor letters, I thought, caring little for the place apart from the ruins, that I should stay four or five days; to-morrow when I leave I shall have been herenine, and shall go with regret. Work has exercised its usual attaching influence.
I have drawn in pencil a few heads that will be of use and interest to me. The subject of one of my studies (Mustafa's gardener) on receiving from Hosseyn two shillings for one hour's sitting, accused him, to his infinite disgust and anger, of havingsuppressed theremainingeighteen shillings out of a putative pound which he conceived to be destined for him.Excusez!
Saturday, 14th.—Got up early to finish a couple of sketches, and started at half-past eleven amidst salutes and salaams. To my great relief, the letters which I very rashly sent for from Cairo three weeks ago have just turned up at the last moment—fewer than I had expected, but a great delight: the first and only news I have received since leaving home—such are Egyptian posts!
Weather divine: the Nile like an opal mirror, reflecting without a break the faint, sleeping, sultry hills on the horizon: a lovely, drowsy scene. Arrived shortly after three at the village at which one lands for Keneh; a very cheery town about a mile inland. It is generally separated from the landing place on the river during the floods by a vast sheet of water; this year, however, owing to the calamitous lowness of the Nile, a narrow, shallow strip of water, only, intercepts the road, and a large tract of country remains untilled and unfruitful from the want of the quickening flood. Keneh is a very pretty sample of an Egyptian town; it is animated and full of colour, has some pretty minarets, some charming gardens, and more than the usual allowance of ornamental doorways: the effect of the mosaic of black and white bricks is most satisfactory, and has the charm which always accompanies a considerable result produced by very sober and simple means. Great relief is frequently obtained by a band or frieze of carved wood, running across the decorated surface at the springing of the arch; this band is generally carved in circles enclosing patterns and picked out with green and red. In the jambs of the door of one of the mosques, a very beautiful effect was produced by alternate bands of brickwork and minutely carved wood,notcoloured (three courses of brick to one band of wood).
Visited a pottery, and for the first time in my life saw a pattern-wheel and the artist at work—a most fascinating sight: the bottles and jugs flow into the most graceful forms as if by magic, and look incomparably prettier than when they are baked. I could hardly get away. A little boy scratches a pattern on them as they leave the wheel.
The Consul's white donkey, on which I ride about here, isas fleet as the wind and as oily in his movements as a two-oared gondola.
À proposof consuls, Mustafa at Thebes showed me his travellers' book—in it I saw an entry of the names of Speke and Grant, with the numbers of their regiments, and the dates of their departure from Zanzibar and their arrival at Khartoum and Thebes. A simple conventional travellers' entry, as if they had returned from an ordinary journey—nothing to hint at the great achievement which brought them such honour and lasting fame.
Sunday, 15th.—Made a sketch, a little after sunrise, of the chain of hills on the west bank of the Nile, then crossed the river to see the ruins of Denderah. Horses were waiting on the other side, and would have been most enjoyable if the weather had been cool; but, under a fierce sun, absolutely incessant prancing and waltzing ("he make 'fantasia,'" quoth Hosseyn) was fatiguing after a bit. Was so much struck with the beauties of the mountains, as seen from the left bank, that I resolved to stay a couple of days to paint them. The temple is extremely fine, and in parts unusually well preserved—the sculpture, that is, for the colour is almost entirely lost. These sculptures, being of a late period (Roman), are clumsy enough; on the other hand the general scheme of decoration is more artistic, more varied in distribution and rhythm than in most of the temples. On the external wall I remarked here, as at Edfou and at Medinet Haboo, massive and very handsome gargoyles—half a lion, couchant, on a large bracket, the water flowing from a spout between the paws—a more important feature in the architectural aspect of the wall than in northern countries, and calculated for five months' rain rather than for five minutes', which is the average annual fall here, I believe. This temple boasts a portrait of Cleopatra on a large scale, but, like those of Armout and Karnak, it is absolutely conventional, and any pretence of detecting an individuality is mere humbug. One fancies at first one has discovered some peculiarity in the features, but on a candid examination one must own that the same peculiarities occur in other faces on the same wall, or that they are owing to the mutilation to which two-thirds of the figures in all Egyptian temples hasbeen assiduously subjected. In a lateral chamber of the temple, on the ceiling, is a most striking mystical design, representing the firmament and the sun fecundating the land of Egypt. It is fantastic and poetic in the extreme; it would delight Rossetti. In the evening made another sketch, and then rode to Keneh to dine with the Consul—a most interesting glimpse into a real old-fashioned Muslim interior. Si Syed Achmet (forty-five years British Agent in this town and at Khossayr) is a very wealthy old gentleman with large property in this part of the world. He is of the blood of the Prophet, a good and pious Muslim, tolerant and full of kindliness. A son, three nephews and a daughter form his immediate family circle, living with him in the house to which I was bidden—a bald, uninteresting place enough. It is entered from a narrow, irregular triangular court, ornamented on one side with some good brick and wood work, but ugly and plain on the others, and disfigured by something between a ladder and a staircase which leads to the clean but singularly naked room in which we were to spend the evening. This room was whitewashed, but so roughly bedaubed that the plain deal cupboards, the doors of which formed the only embellishment (?) of the walls, were all besmeared with ragged edges of white. Three windows, innocent of glass, and protected by a close, plain trellis-work of ordinary white wood, lighted the room, which boasted in the way of furniture the usual ugly divans, three red muslin curtains, a small deal table, two lanterns and two candles in candlesticks. Shortly after my arrival and most kindly reception by the old gentleman, who had come up from the country expresslyad hoc, dinner was served. The son, as the eldest, sat at table; the nephews waited on us; we squatted, I on a cushion, they on the floor, round a very low table on which was a large, round, brass tray, containing four plates, some wooden spoons, and a great many small loaves of bread arranged round it in a circle; a soup tureen, into which, after washing of hands, everybody plunged his spoon, was the central feature. After the soup, came in rapid succession several dishes containing savoury messes which were really very good, though perhaps too rich, but which I was entirely unable to enjoy in the sight of a number of hands, shining with gravy, mopping in successionat the dishes with crusts of bread, or fetching out a coveted morsel with fingers too recently licked. It is a delicate and hospitable attention to put a bit with your own hand on to your guest's plate—an attention of which I was the frequent but unworthy recipient. After the made dishes had been done justice to, half a sheep—head and all—was put on the table andclawedasunder by Hosseyn. The roast being disposed of, the sweets appeared, and were eaten out of the common dish with spoons, like the soup: I was not sorry when it was over, for I had gone through all the sensations of a sea voyage. I observe that Arabs make a point of eating with as much noise and smacking of lips as possible; it is as if they were endeavouring to convey a sort of oblique expression of thanks to Providence by manifesting their relish of the blessings vouchsafed. When dinner was over, and a by no means superfluous washing of hands had been gone through, we had pipes and coffee. Hosseyn having gone to dine, I was now thrown on my own extremely limited stock of Arabic for conversation; and as I had about exhausted that during my ride to Keneh with one of the nephews, I was hard put to it. However, I just managed to get through a few broken sentences, to the great satisfaction of Achmet, who informed me that he had been for forty years the servant of the English, of whom he thought very highly, chiefly because, as he expressed it, they have "one word"—a satisfactory character to leave behind. In the evening the governor (Mudir) came to see me with a tail of employés and, if you please, a pocket-handkerchief, of which he was not a little conscious, holding it in his hand rolled into a neat tube, which he occasionally drew with dignity across the basis of the official nose. The Consul for France and Prussia also came and made his salaam. My borrowed and temporary plumes have been of real use to somebody here, for the Mudir, hearing that an Englishman (whom he erroneously supposed to be somebody) was on board a viceroy's steamer, immediately gave the crew two months' pay—an alacrity not sufficiently often displayed in this country, if I am not much misinformed. The dancing-girls who came to entertain us in the evening were no doubt better than those of Lougsor, though, with one exception, at least as ugly; but some of them were gorgeously attired(from the dancing-dog point of view), and all were a mass of gold necklaces and coins and glittering headgear, which produced at a certain distance and in the doubtful light a prodigiously fine effect of colour. The dancing was a little more varied than that of the Lougsor women, chiefly, no doubt, because they got more to drink; but,en somme, I am confirmed in my first impression that it is an eminently ugly performance, though a very remarkable gymnastic feat. Of course a graceful and good-looking girl may do a good deal to redeem it by personal charm, and this was in some degree the case with Zehneb, who is a noted dancer and thefine fleurof the profession. She is pretty though coarse in feature, and not without grace; but has a semi-European smack about her dress and ways that spoils her in my eyes—hers, by-the-bye, are splendid. Just as the "fantasia" was at its height, a ragged, dust-soiled, old beggar came, chattering and grinning, into the room, and at once installed himself, uninvited but unhindered, on the divan, from which comfortable post he proceeded to witness the performance and apparently thoroughly to enjoy his evening. The contrast between his beggar's garb and the scrupulously cleanly attire of his neighbours was very curious. He is a fakeer, as I am told; everybody feeds him, no doors are closed to him; he is not, I believe, exactly an idiot, but is certainly in his second childhood—"rimbambito," as the Italians say. On one side of him squatted a sweet little brown girl, Achmet's daughter, of about five or six, in a pink cotton shift and with anklets hanging about her little naked feet. On the other side, a little further off, was an umber-coloured dancing-girl, with bright bold eyes painted round with black, covered with a mass of gold coins on her head, in her hair, on her ears, and round her neck, and wearing a blue silk dress all bespangled with gold. He looked like a dust-heap between them. It was a queer picture, taken out of the "Thousand and One Nights"; from which work also, I presume, the numerous one-eyed people that I see everywhere in Egypt, are copied. (I prefer this view to that of unimaginative pedants who, attaching undue importance to facts, inform me that this blindness is self-inflicted, to avoid conscription.) My ride home was a fitting close to such an evening; a fantastic procession we made, headed by a handfulof torch and lantern bearers, brandishing enormous staves; after which "Meine Wenigkeit" on a sumptuously caparisoned steed, the consul's nephew, the captain, Hosseyn, a cawass, all of them on horses, others on donkeys, and odd men bustling about amongst us and dispersing the few stragglers that were to be found at that late hour in the streets. The fitful flare of the torches, dressing in fugitive, fantastic lights the gateways and dim walls of the slumbering town, had a very fine effect. More curious still was our ridethrougha quarter of a mile ofdourahthat stood at least ten or twelve feet high all round us; the train of light and shower of sparks in the tall graceful corn was of a surprising aspect. Except that nothing took fire, it was as if Samson's foxes had been let loose in front of us.
Monday, 16th.—Sketched. In the evening, yielding, I own, with some reluctance, to a pressing invitation, returned to Keneh to dine with Si Achmet. Had, except the roast, exactly the same dinner as on the previous day, which leads me to conjecture that therépertoireof Arab cookery is limited. After dinner we rode out to see the moolid, which is just beginning here. It isthegreat moolid of Central Egypt, and to it, but only towards the end, flock people from all parts of the country till the concourse is enormous. It must be an interesting sight when in full swing, but as yet there is little or nothing worth seeing except the tomb of the sheykh in whose honour the moolid is held (Sheykh Abd-er-Rahim, the "Genani") to which I was taken by my host. The building was like most others of the same class in Egypt: a square chamber with a dome, and windows through which the coffin, placed conspicuously in the centre, can be seen by the pious crowds outside. On entering, I was conducted, after taking off my boots, to a post of honour, on the ground of course, in the midst of a grave circle of worthies who were squatting in theruellebetween one side of the coffin and the wall. On my right was one of the civic functionaries, on my left the priest attached to the tomb. The spectacle before me was wonderful both in colour and form, though composed in great part of the simplest elements. It was like the finest Delacroix in aspect and tone, but with a gravity and stateliness of form very foreign to that brilliant but epileptic genius. To theleft of me, covered with a showy embroidered cloth, stood behind a railing the sarcophagus of the saint, illuminated from above by various lanterns hung from the ceiling (the central one, and the handsomest, the gift of Lady Duff Gordon) and from the corners by gigantic candles, standing in candlesticks of proportionate dimensions; at the same corners stood great banners of sober but rich tone, which added much to the general colour. On each side of the carpet at the head of which I squatted, squatted, in far more picturesque attire, some of the notables of Keneh, half hidden in the shadow, their large turbans cast on the rich carpet they sat on. At the further end stood and stared, with the solemnity of a chorus in an opera, a motley, dazzling group of lesser folk; magnificent, too, in the flow of their draperies, the grace of the half untwisted turbans wreathed round their necks or hanging from their shoulders, the stateliness of their forms, and the fiery glow of colour in which they burnt under the clustered lanterns. Unfortunately, I could not gaze with attention as undivided as I could have wished, because the gentleman on my right insisted on making conversation, the very meagrest form of which exercise absorbed for the time my powers of attention. Hosseyn, who is very pious, bled me of an enormous baksheesh for the shrine of the saint.
Tuesday, 17th.—Completed my sketches in the morning. In the evening, Si Achmet, his son, and three nephews, one of whom I neither knew nor had invited (this is entirely Arabic—I might, also, have taken any one with me to dine with them) came to dine on board. It was a very droll ceremony—the Arabs had, with one exception, probably never sat at a table on a chair before, but they were so entirely simple as not to be (also, by-the-bye, with one exception) at all ridiculous. Ottilio had, perhaps with a little malice, arranged the napkins in a most artistic and intricate fashion; these edifices so impressed my friends that they did not sit down opposite to their plates but on one side of them. I set them at once comparatively at their ease by requesting them, through Hosseyn, to consider themselves at home and eat with their fingers, forgiving me if I followed the custom of my country; the proposal was received with great satisfaction by the old gentleman and his son, who fell to intheir own way, the father muttering his appreciation of the dishes in low, sonorous ejaculations: "Allah!"—"Mash Allah!"—"Ou Allah!"—"Ameer! Ameer!" &c. &c. &c. The son, a man of about forty, with a broken nose and a very strong squint, and whose movements carried a general impression of contemplative dreaminess, always verging on surprise, ate with his usual deliberation and spent his odd moments in contemplating a shining bunch of fingers, which he periodically and slowly licked with the utmost impartiality; he did not mix in the conversation. Of the three cousins on my left, two made a very fair attempt at using the knife and fork, though it must have been a virgin effort; the third, who had been a great deal with English people when he was consul at Khossayr, ate his dinner and put down his wine like the best European; I suspect, in fact, that he was brought as a show man. Achmet, in a climax of gratification, exclaimed towards the end of dinner, "By Allah! if the Ameer comes to my house another year, he shall be served after the Frankish custom." Arabs appear to be much devoted tolimonade gazeuse—without being the forbidden fruit of wine itself, it dwells in bottles, and has a sort of air of crime about it which no doubt pleases them; my left-hand neighbour took off at least two bottles during dinner.
Hosseyn, whose father was a great friend of Si Achmet, proved invaluable; he hopped about like a delighted child, filling the glasses, cutting the meat of the two digitarians, and generally making conversation—a great relief to me. In the evening one of the nephews asked for some tea to take home, which I gave him; another pocketed all the tobacco that was brought them to make cigarettes. Arabs are hospitable and generous, and I like them much, but they are indiscreet in the extreme. "Arabs," says Hosseyn, "have no face; they never take shame." I have seen instances of this which I won't put down; one only, for it is very droll: my squinting friend with the pensive look asked Lady Ely last year if she would just procure for him from the Queen a title, or an order, as a mark of her regard. I am the bearer of a letter to her from him now, which I have no doubt is a reminder. Slew a sheep again.
Wednesday, 18th.—Left Keneh early, and with regret; the place,the people and the scenery have left many pleasing pictures in my memory. I little expected at starting the annoyance that awaited me! As we approached the spot where Sheykh Selim receives his devout visitors, I sent word to the captain that I did not wish to lose any time in landing, but that the bag of money which had been collected for the saint was to be delivered, and we were to go on. I had scarcely uttered this almost sacrilegious order, when the steamer, which had been judiciously steered within ten yards of a flat, shelving bank, ran hard and fast into the mud, with the apparent intention of sticking there permanently, the engine being utterly powerless to get her out. Nobody on board doubted for an instant but that Sheykh Selim had stopped us in his resentment; the captain instantly dispatched sailors with money to propitiate him, and after a few futile attempts on the part of five or six of the crew (to loud cries of "Help us, O Prophet! help us, O Sheykh Selim!") to heave out a vessel that was four or five feet in the mud, jumped himself into a boat, and hurried, of course accompanied by Hosseyn, and leaving his vessel to take care of herself, to beseech the sheykh to get us off. Their conversation was afterwards reported to me by one who was present. "What is this, O Sheykh, that thou hast done to us? in what have we been wanting towards thee? did I not give thee a shirt when we last came by? and the tobacco, was it not good? was the roast meat not sufficient? why are we thus punished?"—to whom the sheykh: "Don't be a fool! why do you come to me about your boat? am I a sailor? how do you expect me to get her off—or on? Allah got her on the sand, not I, who am a man like yourselves." The captain: "Allah is indeed great, but if he ran us aground it was on thy instigation—thou knowest it, O Sheykh!" &c. &c. In this strain the conversation lasted at least twenty minutes, during which time and for the rest of the day I was literally sick with disgust and anger at the lot of them. Everything that ought not to be done under the circumstances, including losing the anchor (which is still at the bottom of the river), was done before evening; everything that should have been done was left undone.
Next morning (Thursday, 19th) we obtained (by force, afterthe fashion of this country) through the governor of the neighbouring town a gang of two hundred Arabs, magnificent fellows some of them, who, at last, by heaving and tugging, contrived to get her off—not without the most unearthlycharivariI ever heard. In the morning I made a sketch; reached Bellianeh in the evening, appeased, at last, and rather amused at the abject condition of the captain, to whom I had conveyed my mind (he had never seen me angry before), and who swore that in future one hundred sheykhs should not take him out of his course. My misadventure will benefit my successors in the good shipSheberkheyt—à quelque chose malheur est bon.
Friday, 20th.—Started at seven on horseback to see Abydos, and had a delightful morning. The weather was fresh and clear, and the canter of six or seven miles across a fine open plain to the foot of the mountains where the ruins lie was most enjoyable. The temples, very strikingly situated on a slope which sweeps down from a grand amphitheatre of bastion-like rocks, have a great advantage over all those that I have yet seen, viz. that their sculptures have almost entirely escaped mutilation, and are in admirable preservation. This is the more fortunate, that they are of a very fine period, and most delicate in workmanship; the type of the faces has considerable beauty and refinement. The colours, notably in the more recently excavated temple of Osiris, are often extremely well preserved, and I am confirmed in my conjecture, that they must have been much less beautiful in their freshness than now that time has toned and tuned them. In the larger temple are some very beautiful wagon-head vaultscut in the thickness of two layers of stone, the upper ones laid on end to get more thickness of material. They are charmingly decorated with cartouches and stars on a blue ground, and divided by a band of hieroglyphs running like a ridge-rib along the head of the vault. The stars on Egyptian ceilings are always pentagonal, and placed very near together. At the temple I was joined by the obligato governor, a puffy Turk with a tight, shiny face that had a look of having been stung all over by a wasp; he was heavy and stupid, and I left him in the hands of Hosseyn, galloping ahead myself with the mounted cawass, a very picturesque Arnout on a very goodhorse.N.B.—Never come to the East again without an English saddle; the back-board of a Turkish saddle is in the long run an intolerable nuisance, as are also, though in a less degree, the shovel-stirrups in which one's feet are imprisoned. In the afternoon reached Sohag, a sail, or rather a steam, of three or four hours, in time for a most pleasant evening's walk.
Saturday, 21st.—Got to Syoot in the afternoon, and was very glad to catch Lady Duff Gordon on her way up the river. Was received with great hospitality by the American and Spanish consuls, wealthy Copts of this town who kindly put their carriages at my disposal and, better still, their donkeys—splendid Arabian donkeys, looking, in their trappings, like cardinals' mules. Nothing is more pleasant than the swift amble of a good donkey from the Hejaz. Dined in the evening with Mr. Wonista, the consul for Spain, quite "à la Franca" with knives and forks and the whole thing. A curious house, and the rooms small but of enormous height, so that they looked as if they had been seton endby mistake. The walls were bare whitewash, but the furniture was of the most gorgeous brocade, as were also the curtains; there was a European carpet all over the floor and as many candles on the walls (in glass bells) as in acafé chantant. I met there a Scotch clergyman belonging to the American Mission (Episcopalian) which is very active in Egypt. After dinner the singer from Lady Duff Gordon's boat was sent for, and in a short time arrived with some of the crew who acted as chorus; it is this chorus, I find, that gives the approving murmur after each strophe. He sang well, but his performance of course lost three-fourths of its charm by not being heard in its proper place and surroundings. I remember once in the Sabine hills hearing unexpectedly at a distance, in the silent dimness of night, the droning song of apiffera; nothing could be more strangely pathetic than this voice rising in the utter silence from out of the heart of the valley below—yet those same sounds heard close in the broad daylight would have seemed uncouth and strident. Arab singing has a similar quality, and is equally dependent on time and place for its full effect. Whilst the performance was at its height, and the minstrel was tuning his note to the most ambitiousfioriture, I heard inthe room overhead some European part-singing of a melancholy order, and was informed that the Scotch minister had been invited by a few proselytes to retire upstairs "to worship and explain an obscure passage in the Gospel." On the invitation of the master of the house, I went up and joined the congregation, who thought it right to favour me with another psalm. The clergyman then read in Arabic, and expounded in the same language a chapter from the Bible, and I must say did it (I speak of his manner only, for Koran and Bible Arabic is so different from the current idiom, here at all events, that I did not understand four words in the whole sermon) in a very simple and impressive way. He had, too, an admirable accent. He tells me that in spite of vehement opposition from the Coptic prelates he finds a good deal of sympathy amongst the people.
Sunday, 22nd.—Lovely day. Strolled about with a gun. This place is full of "sparrows of paradise," a little bird of an exquisite golden green. Since I was here last, the aspect of the country has changed very much and for the better. Where I saw, a few weeks back, nothing but pools and mud, is now a vast expanse of clover and grass of an intense green, sunny and brilliant to a wonderful degree. The plain looks like one immense jewel, and contrasts deliciously with the tawny sand-rock which walls it in on the west, behind the gleaming white domes of the cemetery. Dined with the other consul in the evening. Same sort of house, but much larger. No Scotch clergyman this time, but an Anglo-Arab who teaches in the Coptic school, and, embracing Coptic views, inveighs bitterly against the converts to Protestantism. At sunset, to my agreeable surprise, the Sterlings turned up,musique en tête, the singer in the bows quavering a jubilant strain, and the vessel magnificent with fresh paint.
Monday, 23rd.—Killed a sheep. Sketched. Had the consuls and the Scotch missionary to dine with me. The latter brought me some newspapers, which I read greedily.
Tuesday, 24th.—Sketched. At last an evening to myself!—these festive gatherings are an ineffable bore, if the truth were told.
Wednesday, 25th.—Completed my sketches with oneexception—a study of my beautiful grey (hechtgrau) donkey. Unless I make a study at Sakkara, which is just possible, this will be the end of my work on the Nile. In twenty-two skies which I have painted there is not a vestige of a cloud, such has been the divinely serene weather I have had all along. This evening, indeed, faint, shining flakes of vapour were drawn across the sky, breaking and tempering the last rays of the sun; but by a curious piece of luck they did not appear till I was just giving the last touches to my day's work. Saw a beautiful and original effect at sunset. Just as the sun was about to sink behind the hills, a dahabieh drifted past with its sails spread, and reaching up into the region where the light was still golden, whilst the face of the water was darkened, and the long, low banks were already shadowy and grey, the burning sail was reflected in the night of the river, and looked astonishingly beautiful. It was like the mellow splendour of the rising moon.
I delight in seeing the sailors climbing the tall, oblique yards of the Nile boats. Sometimes five or six of them perch on one yard at the same time, looking at a distance like great birds.
Thursday, 26th.—Finished my donkey and started; as I get further north, the weather is much cooler—the mornings and evenings are quite fresh, though not so cold but that I can sketch in the shade an hour after sunrise in summer clothes. The natives, however, seem to take a severe view of the temperature, and leave nothing unmuffled but their mouths, with which they occasionally blow their fingers in the most approved winter fashion. Was more struck than before with Gebel Aboofada—the infinite and strongly marked strata of which it is made up writhe and heave in a very grand and fantastic manner. Some of the Egyptian mountains are ruled like a copy book from head to foot, and are very monotonous.
At the foot of Aboofada, I saw, for an instant, my first and last crocodile; a small one. They are very seldom seen from a steamer below the cataracts, as the noise frightens away the few there are. I had looked forward to getting a shot at one, and was a good deal disappointed at finding none up the river. It is curious how rapidly time lends its perspective to the past. Every now and then a boat from the cataracts laden with datescomes floating down the river, and the melancholy chant of the Nubian sailors, as they strain at the oars, already falls on my ear as a sudden memory of an almost distant past—not a month old.
Arrived at Roda this evening. I have been reading, amongst other things, a book everybody else read thirty years ago, "Les Natchez," and am greatly disappointed with it. I am especially struck with the extraordinary contrast between the masterful sobriety and simplicity of the style, and the far-fetched affectation of the ideas which are, more often than not, distorted, tawdry and inflated, sometimes disgusting and not seldom maudlin in the extreme. This singular discrepancy between form and matter is especially French, and may frequently be traced in the works of their painters and sculptors. No living people has so sensitive a perception of form or so artistic an epiderm, but an ineradicable self-consciousness develops in them a theatrical attitude of mind which too often betrays itself in their artistic and literary conceptions. It is the absolute consent between conception and execution which constitutes one of the chief sources of delight in the art of the Greeks, to whom they are fond, too rashly, of comparing themselves.[41]
I notice in the Natchez a peculiar use of comparisons. That mode of adding light and colour to an idea which consists in suggesting analogies, has always been the delight of poets; but Chateaubriand (whose analogies, by the way, are often singularly far fetched and unfortunate) occasionally, in a morbid endeavour to be original, seeks his effects in a suggestion of dissimilarities; I remember an instance: he has been describing with minute and gratuitously sickening detail a mangled heap of dead and dying warriors after a ferocious encounter. "How different," he exclaims, but in more flowery terms, "is a haycock in a field with girls rolling down it!" Few will be disposed to contradict him. His exorbitant personal vanity which continues to peep through everywhere, and makes even his unbounded praise of his country seem an oblique tribute to himself, is droll and nauseating at the same time.
Took a stroll in the evening, and met an English baby! pinkand delicate like a flower; with cape and cockade complete—a pretty sight.
Thick folds of rose and violet-coloured cloud hung along the horizon at sunset, and looked autumnal. I have left eternal summer behind me.
Friday, 27th.—Such a morning as the evening of yesterday foreboded; rather chilly and misty, and as near an approach to winter as Upper Egypt may be expected to afford. The sky was veiled on all sides with soft grey clouds, wrinkled and fretted like the grey sands when the sea has left them. It was a fitting background to the desolate tombs of Beni Hassan, which I visited an hour or two after sunrise. The range of hills on the face of which these tombs are excavated is not unlike Gebel Aboofada in its configuration, except that the strata with which it is scored are more level and regular. This monotony is, however, relieved by the sky-line, which is extremely fine. Along the foot of these hills runs a level strip of barren land, broken abruptly in its whole length by a steep bank which rises like a ruined wall from the plain below, and which is, when the Nile is exceptionally high, the bank of the river itself. Standing, as it now does, nearly a mile inland, and crested with two deserted villages, it has a grand but uncanny aspect. I had long been eager to see the tombs, which show what is considered by many to be the first rudiment of the Doric order. The similarity, more striking even than I expected, is so great that, taken with our knowledge of the early and frequent intercourse of the Greeks with Egypt and of the assimilating power of their genius, it certainly offers a strongprima faciepresumption in favour of this view. It may be objected that the echinus, the conical form of the shaft and its entasis, all three inseparable features and especial beauties of the Greek order, are wanting here, though they are present in the earliest specimen of the style preserved in Greece, the temple of Corinth. This argument would deserve more consideration if it could be conceived that the order as seen at Corinth was a spontaneous conception, and not a development of some more elementary form which, whether native or imported at a remote period, has not been handed down to us. In point of fact, the chamfering of a simple stone pier into an octagon and thenfurther to a polygon of sixteen, or more, sides (specimens of the two forms are seen side by side in two of the tombs of Beni Hassan) is so elementary an effort of architecture and one so obvious, that its independent and spontaneous adoption by two different nations would be matter for no surprise. On the other hand, it is to be remarked that these tombs and the early temple at Karnak already mentioned are the only instances of this style known in Africa—that not only are they isolated in themselves, but they form a step to no further developments—a link in no chain; that in character and conception they have nothing in common with any of the great monuments of Egypt, to which indeed they are antagonistic in feeling; that they stand side by side with other monuments of thesamedate (about 2000B.C.?) of a developed and absolutely different type—a type certainly indigenous and based on the imitation of natural forms which is especially characteristic of Egyptian architecture; and lastly, that the tombs of Beni Hassan show certain dissonances, such as one might expect to find in the case of an unintelligent and unperceptive manipulation of a foreign style. In the face of these considerations, I find it difficult to resist a suspicion that the view generally received exactly reverses the truth of the case, and that these tombs are not indeed the prototypes of the Doric temple, but rather the results, themselves, of contact at some remote period between the Egyptians and that branch of the great Aryan family which, at long intervals, and in successive waves, covered the shores of the Egean Sea, and one of the latest offshoots of which poured down into Greece from the heights of Thessaly under the name of Dorians. I believe the earliest Egyptianrecordof the pressure of Greeks in this country goes no further back than 1500B.C.; but a peaceful intercourse between the two races may have existed over a long period, without necessarily finding a place in public records.
The (quasi) Doric tombs are divided into a nave and aisles by two rows of piers, carrying an architrave and disposed at right angles to the portico, agreeably carrying out the likeness of a Greek temple. The circles which intersect the extremity of the other group of tombs areparallelto the portico, and have a deplorable effect, much heightened by the shape of the ceiling,which is that of a very flat pediment. The architrave follows the line of the roof, but at a still more open angle. It would be difficult to conceive anything more hideous. Nearly all the tombs are decorated with frescoes of a rude kind, but displaying frequently an amount of freedom unusual in Egyptian art.
Our guide was a splendid fellow, looking, in his flowing robes, like a figure from the "School of Athens" on the "Disputa." The longer I live, the more I am struck by the identity of Raphael's frescoes with the noblest aspects of Nature.
To Benisoëf in the evening. Passed some travellers; nothing looks so gay and pretty as a dahabieh with its colours flying and its sails spread.
Saturday, 28th.—Lovely morning once again. Reached Sakkara early, but found that the road to the Pyramids was obstructed by water, so moved on at once to Ghizeh, opposite to Old Cairo, where I shall remain till to-morrow morning; meanwhile I have sent on Hosseyn to secure a room at the inn, and to fetch the means of leaving a pleasant memory of me on board theSheberkheyt.
I have stripped the walls of my cabin of the paintings I had hung round them, and they look desolate and like the coffin of my now past journey. A most enjoyable journey it has been, full of pleasant things to remember; full, too, I hope, of artistic profit and teaching. I have been indeed fortunate, for, as I now see more clearly than ever, in a dahabieh I could not have achieved a third of the journey, and in a passenger steamer I could not have done a stroke of work. Every study I take home I owe entirely to the viceroy's munificent kindness.
Sunday, 29th.—Left for Boulay, my destination—gave a parting sheep to the crew, distributedlargesse, shook hands all round, and drove off to the hotel.