CHAPTER VII.
The Temple of Dendera.-Practice against Theory.-Regulating the Sum -The French at Thebes.-The Curse of Pharaoh.-An Egyptian Tournament.-Preparations for Dinner.-An English travelling Lady.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 18. At eight o'clock in the morning we arrived at Ghenneh, where, leaving my boat and crew to make a few additions to our stock, Paul and I crossed over in a sort of ferryboat to Dendera.
The temple of Dendera is one of the finest specimens of the arts in Egypt, and the best preserved of any on the Nile. It stands about a mile from the river, on the edge of the desert, and, coming up, may be seen at a great distance. The temples of the Egyptians, like the chapels in Catholic countries, in many instances stand in such positions as to arrest the attention of the passer-by; and the Egyptian boatman, long before he reached it, might see the open doors of the temple of Dendera, reminding him of his duty to the gods of his country. I shall not attempt any description of this beautiful temple; its great dimensions, its magnificent propylon or gateway, portico, and columns; the sculptured figures on the walls; the spirit of the devices, and their admirable execution; the winged globe and the sacred vulture, the hawk and the ibis, Isis, Osiris, and Horus, gods, goddesses, priests, and women; harps, altars, and people clapping their hands, and the whole interior covered with hieroglyphics and paintings, in some places, after a lapse of more than two thousand years, in colours fresh as if but the work of yesterday.
It was the first temple I had seen in Egypt; and, although I ought not perhaps to say so, I was disappointed. I found
On the twentieth the wind was light but favourable, and part of the time the men were on shore towing with the cords. We were now approaching the most interesting spot on the Nile, perhaps in the world. Thebes, immortal Thebes, was before us, and a few hours more would place us among her ruins. Towards noon the wind died away, and left us again to the slow movement of the tow-line. This was too slow for my then excited humour. I could not bear that the sun should again set before I stood among the ruins of the mighty city; and, landing on the right side of the river, I set out to walk. About an hour before dark the lofty columns of the great temple at Luxor, and the still greater of Carnae, were visible. The glowing descriptions of travellers had to a certain extent inflamed my imagination. Derion, in his account of the expedition to Egypt, says, that when the French soldiers first came in sight of Thebes, the whole army involuntarily threw down their arms and stood in silent admiration; a sublime idea, whether true or not; but I am inclined to think that the French soldiers would have thrown down their arms, and clapped their hands with much greater satisfaction, if they had seen a living city and prospect of good quarters. For my own part, without at this moment referring to particulars, I was disappointed in the first view of the ruins of Thebes. We walked on the right side of the river, the valley, as usual, running back to the desert.
It was nearly dark when we arrived at the ruined village, which now occupies part of the site of the once magnificent City. The plough has been driven over the ruins of the temples, and grass was growing where palaces had stood. A single boat was lying along the bank; a single flag, the red cross of England, was drooping lazily against the mast; and though it be death to my reputation as a sentimental traveller, at that moment I hailed the sight of that flag with more interest than the ruined city. Since I left Cairo I had seen nothing but Arabs; for three weeks I had not opened my lips except to Paul; and, let me tell the reader, that though a man may take a certain degree of pleasure in travelling in strange and out-of-the-way places, he cannot forget the world he has left behind him. In a land of comparative savages, he hails the citizen of any civilized country as his brother; and when on the bank of the river I was accosted in my native tongue by a strapping fellow in a Turkish dress, though in the broken accents of a Sicilian servant, I thought it the purest English I had ever heard. I went on board the boat, and found two gentlemen, of whom I had heard at Cairo, who had been to Mount Sinai, from thence to Hor, by the Red Sea to Cosseir, and thence across the desert to Thebes, where they had only arrived that day. I sat with them till a late hour. I cannot flatter myself that the evening passed as agreeably to them as to me, for they had been a party of six, and I alone; but I saw them afterward, and our acquaintance ripened into intimacy; and though our lots are cast in different places, and we shall probably never meet again, if I do not deceive myself, neither will ever forget the acquaintance formed that night on the banks of the Nile.
Our conversation during the evening was desultory and various. We mounted the pyramids, sat down among the ruins of temples, groped among tombs, and, mixed up with these higher matters, touched incidentally upon rats, fleas, and all kinds of vermin. I say we touched incidentally upon these things; but, to tell the truth, we talked so much about them, that when I went to my boat I fairly crawled. I have omitted to mention that the curse provoked by Pharaoh still rests upon the land, and that rats, fleas, and all those detestable animals into which Aaron converted the sands, are still the portion of the traveller and sojourner in Egypt. I had suffered considerably during the last four days, but, not willing to lose a favourable wind. had put off resorting to the usual means of relief. Tonight, however, there was no enduring it any longer; the rats ran, shrieked, and shouted, as if celebrating a jubilee on account of some great mortality among the cats, and the lesser animals came upon me as if the rod of Aaron had been lifted for my special affliction. I got up during the night, and told Paul that we would remain here a day, and early in the morning they must sink the boat. Before I woke we were half across the river, being obliged to cross in order to find a convenient place for sinking. I was vexed at having left so abruptly my new companions; but it was too late to return. We pitched our tent on the bank, and immediately commenced unlading the boat.
On a point a little above, in front of a large house built by the French, at the south end of the temple of Luxor, and one of the most beautiful positions on the Nile, were two tents. I knew that they belonged to the companions of the two gentlemen on the opposite side, and that there was a lady with them. I rather put myself out of the way for it, and the first time I met the three gentlemen on the bank, I was not particularly pleased with them. I may have deceived myself, but I thought they did not greet me as cordially as I was disposed to greet every traveller I met in that remote country. True, I was not a very inviting-looking object; but, as I said to myself, "Take the beam out of your own eye, and then----" true, too, their beards were longer, and one of them was redder than mine, but I did not think that gave them any right to put on airs. In short, I left them with a sort of go-to-the-devil feeling, and did not expect to have any more to do with them. I therefore strolled away, and spent the day rambling among the ruins of the temples of Luxor and Carnac. I shall not now attempt any description of these temples, nor of the ruins of Thebes generally (no easy task), but reserve the whole until my return from the Cataracts. At about three o'clock I returned to my tent. It was the first day of the feast of Bairam, the thirty days of fasting (Ramadan) being just ended. It was a great day at Luxor; the bazars were supplied with country products, the little cafterias were filled with smokers, indemnifying themselves for their long abstinence, and the fellahs were coming in from the country. On my return from Carnac I for the first time saw dromedaries, richly caparisoned, mounted by well-armed Arabs, and dashing over the ground at full gallop. I had never seen dromedaries before except in caravans, accommodating themselves to the slow pace of the camel, and I did not think the clumsy, lumbering animal could carry himself so proudly and move so rapidly. Their movement, however, was very far from realizing the extravagant expression of "swift as the wind," applied to it in the East. I was somewhat fatigued on my return, and Paul met me on the bank with a smiling face, and information that the English party had sent their Janizary to ask me to dine with them at six o'clock. Few things tend to give you a better opinion of a man, of his intelligence, his piety, and morals, than receiving from him an invitation to dinner. I am what is called a sure man in such cases, and the reader may suppose that I was not wanting upon this occasion.
It was an excessively hot day. You who were hovering, over your coal fires, or moving about wrapped in cloaks or greatcoats, can hardly believe that on the twentieth of January the Arabs were refreshing their heated bodies by a bath in the Nile, and that I was lying under my tent actually panting for breath. I had plenty to occupy me, but the heat was too intense; the sun seemed to scorch the brain, while the sands blistered the feet. I think it was the hottest day I experienced on the Nile.
While leaning on my elbow, looking out of the door of my tent towards the temple of Luxor, I saw a large body of Arabs, on foot, on dromedaries, and on horseback, coming down towards the river. They came about half way across the sandy plain between the temple and the river, and stopped nearly opposite to my tent, so as to give me a full view of all their movements. The slaves and pipe-bearers immediately spread mats on the sand, on which the principal persons seated themselves, and, while they were taking coffee and pipes, others were making preparations for equestrian exercises. The forms and ceremonies presented to my mind a lively picture of preparing the lists for a tournament; and the intense beat and scorching sands reminded me of the great passage of arms in Scott's Crusaders, near the Diamond of the Desert, on the shores of the Dead Sea.
The parties were on horseback, holding in their right hands long wooden spears, the lower ends resting on the sand, close together, and forming a pivot around which their movements were made. They rode round in a circle, with their spears in the sand and their eyes keenly fixed on each other, watching an opportunity to strike; chased, turned, and doubled, but never leaving the pivot; occasionally the spears were raised, crossed, and struck together, and a murmuring ran through the crowd like the cry in the fencing scene in Hamlet, "a hit, a fair hit," and the parties separated, or again dropped their poles in the centre for another round. The play for some time seemed confined to slaves and dependants, and among them, and decidedly the most skilful, was a young Nubian. His master, a Turk, who was sitting on the mat. seemed particularly pleased with his success.
The whole of this seemed merely a preliminary, designed to stir up the dormant spirit of the masters. For a long time they sat quietly puffing their pipes, and probably longing for the stimulus of a battle-cry to rouse them from their torpor. At length one of them, the master of the Nubian, slowly rose from the mat and challenged an antagonist. Slowly he laid down his pipe, and took and raised the pole in his hand; but still he was not more than half roused. A fresh horse was brought him, and, without taking off his heavy cloth mantle, he drowsily placed his left foot in the broad shovel stirrup, his right on the rump of the horse, behind the saddle, and swung himself into the seat. The first touch of the saddle seemed to rouse him; he took the pole from the hand of his attendant, gave his horse a severe check, and, driving the heavy corners of the stirrups into his sides, dashed through the sand on a full run. At the other end of the course he stopped, rested a moment or two, his irons into his horse, dashed back at then again driving full speed; and when it seemed as if his next step would carry him headlong among the Turks on the mat, with one jerk he threw his horse back on his haunches, and brought him up from a full run to a dead stop. This seemed to warm him a little; his attendant came up and took off his cloak, under which he had a red silk jacket and white trousers, and again he dashed through the sand and back as before. This time he brought up his horse with furious vehemence; his turban became unrolled, he flew into a violent passion, tore it off and threw it on the sand, and, leaving fiercely struck the spear of his adversary, and the battle at once commenced. The Turk, who had seemed too indolent to move, now showed a fire and energy, and an endurance of fatigue, that would have been terrible, in battle. Both horse and rider scorned the blazing sun and burning sands, and round and round they ran, chasing, turning, and doubling within an incredible small circle, till an approving, murmur was heard among the crowd. The trial was now over, and the excited Turk again seated himself upon the mat, and relapsed into a state of calm indifference.
The exercise finished just in time to enable me to make my toilet for dinner. As there was a lady in the case, I had some doubt whether I ought not to shave, not having performed that operation since I left Cairo; but, as I had already seen the gentlemen of the party, and had fallen, moreover, into the fashion of the country, of shaving the head and wearing the tarbouch (one of the greatest luxuries in Egypt, by-the-way), and could not in any event sit with my head uncovered, I determined to stick to the beard; and disguising myself in a clean shirt, and giving directions to my boatmen to be ready to start at ten o'clock, I walked along the bank to the tent of my new friends. I do not know whether my notion in the morning was right, or whether I had misapprehended things; but, at any rate, I had no reason to complain of my reception now - I think
myself that there was a difference, which I accounted for in my own way, by ascribing to their discovery that I was an American. I have observed that English meeting abroad, though they would probably stand by each other to the death in a quarrel, are ridiculously shy of each other as acquaintances, on account of the great difference of caste at home. As regards Americans, the case is different, and to them the English display none of that feeling. After I had started on my ramble, Paul had planted my flag at the door of the tent, and, among the other advantages which that flag brought me, I included my invitation to dinner, agreeable acquaintances, and one of the most pleasant evenings I spent on the Nile. Indeed, I hope I may be pardoned a burst of national feeling, and be allowed to say, without meaning any disrespect to any other country, that I would rather travel under the name of an American than under any other known in Europe. Every American abroad meets a general prepossession in favour of his country, and it is an agreeable truth that the impression made by our countrymen abroad generally sustains the prepossession. I have met with some, however, who destroyed this good effect, and made themselves disagreeable and gave offence by a habit of intruding their country and its institutions, and of drawing invidious comparisons, with a pertinacity and self-complacency I never saw in any other people.
But to return to the dinner; a man may make a long digression before a dinner on paper, who would scorn such a thing before a dinner defacto. The party consisted of four, a gentleman and his lady, he an honourable and heir to an old and respectable title, a brother of the lady, an ex-captain in the guards, who changed his name and resigned his commission on receiving a fortune from an uncle, and another gentleman, I do not know whether of that family, but bearing one of the proudest names in England. They were all young, the oldest not more than thirty-five, and, not excepting the lady, full of thirst for adventure and travel. I say not excepting the lady; I should rather say that the lady was the life and soul of the party. She was young and beautiful, in the most attractive style of English beauty; she was married, and therefore dead in law; and as we may say what we will of the dead, I venture to say that she had shone as a beauty and a belle in the proudest circles of England, and was now enjoying more pleasure than Almack's or drawing-rooms could give, rambling among ruins and sleeping under a tent on the banks of the Nile. They had travelled in Spain, had just come from Mount Sinai and the Red Sea, and they talked of Bagdad. I had often met on the Continent with Englishmen who "were out," as they called it, for a certain time, one year or two years, but this party had no fixed time; they " were out" for as long as suited their humour. To them I am indebted for the most interesting part of my journey in the East, for they first suggested to me the route by Petra and Arabia Petraea. We made a calculation by which we hoped, in reference to what each had to (lo, to meet at Cairo and make the attempt together. It was a great exertion of resolution that I did not abandon my own plans, and keep in company with them, but they had too much time for me; a month or two was no object to them, but to me a very great one.
All this and much more, including the expression of a determination, -when they had finished their travels in the Old World, to visit us in the New, took place while we were dining under the tent of the captain and his friend. The table stood in the middle on canteens, about eight inches from the ground, with a mattress on each side for seats. It was rather awkward sitting, particularly for me, who was next the lady, and in that position felt some of the trammels of conventional life; there was no room to put my legs under the table, and, not anticipating the precise state of things, I had not arranged straps and suspenders, and my feet seemed to be bigger than ever. I doubled them under me; they got asleep, not the quiet and tranquil sleep which makes you forget existence, but the slumber of a troubled conscience, pricking and burning, till human nature could endure it no longer, and I kicked out the offending members with very little regard to elegance of attitude. The ice once broken, I felt at my ease, and the evening wore away too soon. An embargo had been laid upon my tongue so long, that my ears fairly tingled with pleasure at hearing myself talk. It was, in fact, a glorious evening; a bright spot that I love to look back upon, more than indemnifying me for weeks of loneliness. I sat with them till a late hour; and, when I parted, I did not feel as if it was the first time I had seen them, or think it would be the last, expecting to meet them a few days afterward at the Cataracts. But I never saw them again; we passed each other on the river during the night. I received several messages from them; and at Beyroot, after I had finished my tour in Arabia Petraea and the Holy Land, I received a letter from them, still on the Nile. I should be extremely sorry to think that we are never to meet again, and hope that, when wearied with rambling among the ruins of the Old World, they will execute their purpose of visiting America, and that here we may talk over our meeting on the banks of the Nile. I went back to my boat to greater loneliness than before, but there was a fine wind, and in a few minutes we were again under way. I sat on deck till a late hour, smoked two or three pipes, and retired to my little cabin.
CHAPTER VIII.
The, Rock of the Chain.-Ravages of the Plague.-Deserted Quarries.-A youthful Navigator.-A recollection of Sam Patch.-Ancient Inscriptions.-A perplexed Major-domo.-A Dinner without parallel.-An awkward Discovery.
The next day and the next still brought us favourable winds and strong, and we were obliged to take down one of our tall latteens, but made great progress with the other, even against the rapid current of the river. The Nile was very wide, the water turbulent, and the waves rolling with such violence that Paul became seasick; and, if it had not been for the distant banks, we could hardly have believed ourselves on the bosom of a river a thousand miles from the ocean.
In the evening we were approaching Hadjar Silsily, the Rock of the Chain, the narrowest part of the river, where the mountains of Africa and Arabia seem marching to meet each other, and stopping merely to leave a narrow passage for the river. Tradition says that in ancient days an iron chain was drawn across the narrow strait, which checked the current; and the Arab boatman believes he can still see, in the sides of the mountains, the marks of the rings and bolts to which the miraculous chain was fastened.
We hauled up alongside of the bank for part of the night, and the next morning, with a strong and favourable wind, were approaching Assouan, the last town in Egypt, standing on the borders of Ethiopia and at the foot of the Cataracts of the Nile. For some time before reaching Assouan the river becomes broader and the mountains again retire, leaving space for the islands and a broad surface for the body of the river. About three miles this side, on the Arabian bank, is the new palace of Ibrahim, where he retired and shut himself up during the terrible plague of last year. On the right, the top of the Libyan mountain is crowned with the tomb of a Marabout sheik, and about half way down are the ruins of a convent, picturesque and interesting, as telling that, before the crescent came and trampled it under foot, the cross, the symbol of the Christian faith, once reared its sacred form in the interior of Africa. In front is the beautiful island of Elephantina, with a green bank sloping down to the river. On the left are rugged mountains; and projecting in rude and giant masses into the river are the rocks of dark gray granite, from which came the mighty obelisks and monuments that adorned the ancient temples of Egypt. The little town of Assouan stands on the bank of the river, almost hid among palm-trees; and back at a distance on the height are the ruins of the old city.
From the deck of my boat the approach to the Cataracts presented by far the finest scene on 'the Nile, possessing a variety and wildness equally striking and beautiful after the monotonous scenery along the whole ascent of the river. With streamers gallantly flying I entered the little harbour, and, with a feeling of satisfaction that amply repaid me for all its vexations, I looked upon the end of my journey. I would have gone to the second cataract if time had been no object to me, or if I had had at that time any idea of writing a book, as the second cataract is the usual terminus for travellers on the Nile; and a man who returns to Cairo without having been there is not considered entitled to talk much about his voyage up the river.
I am, perhaps, publishing my own want of taste when I say that the notion of going to the great Oasis had taken such a hold of me, that it was mainly for this object that I sacrificed the voyage to the second cataract. With the feeling, therefore, that here was the end of my journey in this direction, I jumped upon the bank; and, having been pent up on board for two days, I put myself in rapid action, and, in one of the cant phrases of continental tourists, began to "knock down the lions."
My first move was to the little town of Assouan; but here I found little to detain me. It was better built than most of the towns on the Nile, and has its street of bazars; the slave-bazars being by far the best supplied of any. In one of the little cafterias opposite the slave-market, a Turk meanly dressed, though with arms, and a mouthpiece to his pipe that marked him as a man of rank, attracted my particular attention. He was almost the last of the Mamelukes, but yesterday the lords of Egypt; one of the few who escaped the general massacre of his race, and one of the very few permitted to drag out the remnant of their days in the pacha's dominions.
The ruins of the old town are in a singularly high, bold, and commanding situation, overlooking the river, the Cataracts, the island of Elephantina, and the Arabian desert. More than a thousand years ago, this city contained a large and flourishing population; and some idea may be formed of its former greatness, from the fact that more than twenty thousand of its inhabitants died in one year of the plague. In consequence of the terrible ravages of this scourge, the inhabitants abandoned it; but, still clinging to their ancient homes, commenced building a new town, beginning at the northern wall of the old. The valley here is very narrow; and the desert of Arabia, with its front of dark granite mountains, advances to its bank.
The southern gate of the modern town opens to the sands of the desert, and immediately outside the walls is a large Mohammedan burying-ground, by its extent and the number of its tombstones exciting the wonder of the stranger how so small a town could pay such a tribute to the king of terrors. In many places the bodies were not more than half buried, the loose sand which had been sprinkled over them having been blown away. Sculls, legs, and arms were scattered about in every direction; and in one place-, we saw a pile of sculls and bones, which seemed to have been collected by some pious hand, to save them from the foot of the passing traveller. In another, the rest of the body still buried, the feet were sticking out, and the naked scull, staring at us from its sightless sockets, seemed struggling to free itself from the bondage of the grave, and claiming the promise of a resurrection from the dead. We buried again these relies of mortality, and hoping it might not be our lot to lay our bones where the grave was so little reverenced, continued our way to the ancient granite-quarries of Syene. These quarries stand about half an hour's walk from the river, in the bosom of a long range of granite mountains, stretching off into the desert of Arabia. Time and exposure have not touched the freshness of the stone, and the whole of the immense quarry looks as it if was but yesterday that the Egyptian left it. You could imagine that the workman had just gone to his noonday meal; and as you look at the mighty obelisk lying rude and unfinished at your feet, you feel disposed to linger till the Egyptian shall come to resume his work, to carve his mysterious characters upon it, and make it a fit portal for some mighty temple. But the hammer and chisel will never be heard there more. The Egyptian work-men have passed away, and these immense quarries are now and for ever silent and deserted.
Aside from the great interest of these ancient quarries, it is curious to notice how, long before the force of gunpowder and the art of blasting rocks were known, immense stones were separated from the sides of the mountains, and divided as the artist wished, by the slow process of boring small holes, and splitting them apart with wedges.
I returned by the old city, crossing its burying-ground, which, like that of the new town, told, in language that could not be misunderstood, that, before the city was destroyed, it too had paid a large tribute to the grave. This burying-ground has an interest not possessed by any other in Egypt, as it contains, scattered over its extended surface, many tombstones with Coptic inscriptions, the only existing remains of the language of a people who style themselves and are styled the descendants of the ancient Egyptians.
It was late in the afternoon as I stood on the height by the ruins of the ancient city, with a momentary feeling of returning loneliness, and gazed upon the sun retiring with glorious splendour towards my far-distant home. I turned my eyes to my boat, and beyond it, at a distance down the river, I saw a boat coming up under full sail bearing what my now practised eye told me was the English flag. I hurried down, and arrived on the bank in time to welcome to the Cataracts of the Nile the two gentlemen 1 had first met at Thebes.
We spent the evening together, and I abandoned my original intention of taking my own boat up the Cataracts, and agreed to go up with them.
In the morning, after an early breakfast, we started for the Island of Philoe, about eight miles from Assouan, and above all the Cataracts; an island singularly beautiful in situation, and containing the ruins of a magnificent temple.
The road lay nearly all the way along the river, commanding a full view of the Cataracts, or rather, if a citizen of a now world may lay his innovating hand upon things consecrated by the universal consent of ages, what we who have heard the roar of Niagara would call simply the "rapids." We set off on shaggy donkeys, without saddle, bridle, or halter. A short distance from Assouan, unmarked by any monument, amid and sands, we crossed the line which, since the days of Pharaoh, has existed as the boundary between Egypt and Ethiopia. We passed through several villages, standing alone at the foot of the granite mountains, without green or verdure around them, even to the extent of a blade of grass, and irresistibly suggesting the question, "How do the miserable inhabitants live?" It was not the first time I had had occasion to remark the effect of blood on physical character, and the strong and marked difference of races among people living under the same sun, and almost on a common soil. In the first village in Nubia, though not half an hour from Assouan, there is a difference obvious to the most superficial observer, and here, on the very confines of Egypt, it would be impossible to mistake a border Nubian for an Arab of Assouan.
Before arriving at Philoe the river is filled with rocks and islands, and the view becomes singularly bold and striking. At the foot of one of the islands is a sort of ferry, with a very big boat and a very little boy to manage it; we got on board, and were astonished to see with what courage and address the little fellow conducted us among the islands washed by the Cataracts. And it was not a straight ahead navigation either; he was obliged to take advantage of an eddy to get to one point, jump ashore, tow the boat to another, again drop to another, tow her again, and so on, and all this time the little fellow was at the helm, at the oar, at the rope, leading the chorus of a Nubian song, and ordering his crew, which consisted of three boys and one little girl. In this way we worked to an island inhabited by a few miserable Nubians, and, crossing it, came to the point of the principal cataract (I continue to call it cataract by courtesy), being a fall of about two feet.
And these were the great Cataracts of the Nile, whose roar in ancient days affrighted the Egyptian boatmen, and which history and poetry have invested with extraordinary and ideal terrors! The traveller who has come from a country as far distant as mine, bringing all that freshness of feeling with which a citizen of the New World turns to the storied wonders of the Old, and has roamed over the mountains and drunk of the rivers of Greece, will have found himself so often cheated by the exaggerated accounts of the ancients, the vivid descriptions of poets, and his own imagination, that he will hardly feel disappointed when he stands by this apology for a cataract.
Here the Nubian boys had a great feat to show, viz., jump into the cataract and float down to the point of the island. The inhabitants of the countries bordering on the Nile are great swimmers, and the Nubians are perhaps the best of all; but this was no great feat. The great and ever-to-be-lamented Sam Patch would have made the Nubians stare, and shown them, in his own pithy phrase, "that some folks could do things as well as other folks;" and I question if there is a cataract on the Nile at which that daring diver would not have turned up his nose in scorn.
We returned by the same way we had come, and under the same guidance, augmented, however, by a motley collection of men and boys, who had joined us as our escort. In paying for the boat we showed a preference for our little boy, which brought down upon him all the rest, and he had to run to us for protection. We saved him for the present, but left him exposed to one of the evils attendant upon the acquisition of money all the world over, the difficulty of keeping it, which difficulty, in his case, was so great physically, that I have no doubt he was stripped of more than half before we were out of sight.
Getting rid of them, or as many of them as we could, we again mounted our shaggy donkeys, and rode to the Island of Philoe. This island makes one of the most beautiful pictures I ever saw. Perhaps the general monotony of the scenery of the Nile gives it a peculiar beauty; but I think it would be called beautiful anywhere, even among the finest scenes in Italy. It brought forcibly to my mind, but seemed to me far more lovely than, the lake Maggiore, with the beautiful Isola Bella and Isola Madre. It is entirely unique, a beautiful lusus nature, a little island about a thousand feet long and fourn hundred broad, rising in the centre of a circular bay, which appears to be cut off from the river, and forms a lake surrounded by dark sandstone rocks; carpeted with green to the water's edge, and covered with columns, propylons, and towers, the ruins of a majestic temple. A sunken wall encircles it on all sides, on which, in a few moments, we landed.
I have avoided description of ruins when I could. The fact is, I know nothing of architecture, and never measured anything in my life; before I came to Egypt I could not tell the difference between a dromos and a propylon, and my whole knowledge of Egyptian antiquities was little more than enough to enable my to distinguish between a mummy and a pyramid. I picked up about enough on the spot to answer my purpose; but I have too much charity for my reader to impose my smattering on him. In fact, I have already forgotten more than half of the little that I then learned, and I should show but a poor return for his kindness if I were to puzzle him with the use or misuse of technical phases. Still I must do something; the temples of Egypt must have a place here; for I might as well leave out Jerusalem in the story of a tour through the Holy Land.
The temple of Philoe is a magnificent ruin, four hundred and thirty-five feet in length and one hundred and five in width. It sands at the southwest corner of the island, close upon the bank of the river, and the approach to it is by a grand colonnade, extending two hundred and forty feet along the edge of the river to the grand propylon. The propylon is nearly a hundred feet long, and rises on each side the gateway in two lofty towers, in the form of a truncated pyramid. The front is decorated with sculpture and hieroglyphics; on each side a figure of Isis, twenty feet high, with the moon over her head, and near the front formerly stood two obelisks and two sphinxes, the pedestals and ruins of which still remain. The body of the temple contains eleven chambers, covered with sculpture and hieroglyphics, the figures tinted in the most lively colours, and the ceiling painted azure and studded with stars.
But there are other things which touch the beholder more nearly than the majestic ruins of the temple; things which carry him from the works of man to a grander and higher subject, that of man himself. On the lofty towers in front of the temple, among the mysterious and unknown writings of the Egyptians, were inscriptions in Greek and Latin, telling that they whose names were there written had come to worship the great goddess Isis; that men had lived and looked upon the sun, moon, and stars, the mountains and the rolling river, and worshipped a mute idol. And again, on the front wall was the sacred cross, the emblem of the Christian faith, and the figures of the Egyptian deities were defaced and plastered over, showing that another race had been there to worship, who scorned and trampled on the gods of the heathen. And again there was an inscription of later days, that in the ruins of the temple carried with it a wild and fearful interest; telling that the thunder of modern war had been heard above the roar of the cataract, and that the arm of the soldier, which had struck terror in the frozen regions of the north, had swept the burning sands of Africa. In the grand propylon, among the names of tourists and travellers, in a small plain hand, is written-"L'an 6 de la republique, le 13 Mercidor, une armee Francaise, commandee par Buonaparte, est descendue a Alexandrie; 1'armee ayant mis, vingt jours apres, les Mamelukes en fuite aux pyramides, Dessaix, commandant la premiere division, les a poursuivi, au de-la des cataractes, ou il est arrive le 13 Ventose, de l'an 7." Near this was an inscription that to me was far more interesting than all the rest; the name of an early friend, "C- B-, U. S. of America," written with his own hand. I did not know that he had been here, although I knew he had been many years from home, and I had read in a newspaper that he had died in Palestine. A thousand recollections crowded upon me, of joys departed, never to return, and made me sad. I wrote my name under his and left the temple.
I was glad to get back to my rascally donkey. If a man were oppressed and borne down with mental anxiety, if he were mourning and melancholy, either from the loss of a friend or an undigested dinner, I would engage to cure him. I would put him on a donkey without saddle or halter, and if he did not find himself by degrees drawn from the sense of his misery, and worked up into a towering passion, getting off and belabouring his brute with his stick, and forgetting everything in this world but the obstinacy of the ass, and his own folly in attempting to ride one, man is a more quiet animal than I take him to be.
As I intended going the next day up the Cataracts with my companions, and expected to spend the day on board their boat, I had asked them to dine with me in the evening. After giving the invitation, I held a council with Paul, who told me that the thing was impossible, and, with a prudence worthy of Caleb Balderstone, expressed his wonder that I had not worked an invitation out of them. I told him, however, that the thing was settled, and dine with me they must. My housekeeping had never been very extravagant, and macaroni, rice, and fowl had been my standing dishes. Paul was pertinacious in raising objections, but I told him peremptorily there was no escape; that he must buy a cow or a camel, if necessary, and left him scratching his head and pondering over the task before him.
In the hurried business of the day, I had entirely forgotten Paul and his perplexities. Once only, I remember, with a commendable prudence, I tried to get my companions to expend some of their force upon dried dates and Nubian bread, which they as maliciously declined, that they might do justice to me. Returning now, at the end of nine hours' hard work, crossing rivers and rambling among ruins, the sharp exercise, and the grating of my teeth at the stubborn movements of my donkey, gave me an extraordinary voracity, and dinner, the all-important, never-to-be-forgotten business of the day, the delight alike of the ploughman and philosopher, dinner, with its uncertain goodness, began to press upon the most tender sensibilities of my nature. My companions felt the vibrations of the same chord, and, with an unnecessary degree of circumstance, talked of the effect of air and exercise in sharpening the appetite, and the glorious satisfaction, after a day's work, of sitting down to a good dinner. I had perfect confidence in Paul's zeal and ability, but I began to have some misgivings. I felt a hungry devil within me, that roared as if be would never be satisfied. I looked at my companions, and heard them talk; and, as I followed their humour with an hysteric laugh, I thought, the genius of famine was at my heels in the shape of two hungry Englishmen. I trembled for Paul, but the first glimpse I caught of him reassured me. He sat on the deck of the boat, with his arms folded, coolly, though with an air of conscious importance, looking out for us. Slowly and with dignity he came to assist us from our accursed donkeys; neither a smile nor frown was on his face, but there reigned an expression that you could not mistake. Reader, you have seen the countenance of a good man lighted up with the consciousness of having done a good action; even so was Paul's. I could read in his face a consciousness of having acted well his part. One might almost have dined on it. It said, as plainly as face could speak, one, two, three, four, five courses and a dessert, or, as they say at the two-franc restaurants in Paris, Quatre plats, une demi bouteille de vin, et pain a discretion.
In fact, the worthy butler of Ravenswood could not have stood in the hall of his master in the days of its glory, before thunder broke china and soured buttermilk, with more sober and conscious dignity than did Paul stand on the deck of my boat to receive us. A load was removed from my heart. I knew that my credit was saved, and I led the way with a proud step to my little cabin. Still I asked no questions and made no apologies. I simply told my companions we were in Paul's hands, and he would do with us as seemed to him good. Another board had been added to my table, and my towel had been washed and dried during the day, and now lay clean and of a rather reddish white, doing the duty of a table-cloth. I noticed, too, tumblers, knives and forks, and plates, which were strangers to me, but I said nothing; we seated ourselves and waited, nor did we wait long; soon we saw Paul coming towards us, staggering under the weight of his burden, the savoury odour of which preceded him. He entered and laid before us an Irish stew. Reader, did you ever eat an Irish stew? Gracious Heaven! I shall never forget that paragon of dishes; bow often in the desert, among the mountains of Sinai, in the Holy Land, rambling along the valley of Jehoshaphat, or on the shores of the Dead Sea, how often has that Irish stew risen before me to tease and tantalize me, and haunt me with the memory of departed joys! The potato is a vegetable that does not grow in Egypt. I had not tasted one for more than a month, and was almost startled out of my propriety at seeing them; but I held my peace, and was as solemn and dignified as Paul himself. Without much ceremony we threw ourselves with one accord upon the stew. I think I only do our party justice when I say that few of those famished gentlemen, from whose emerald isle it takes its name, could have shown more affection for the national dish. For my own part, as I did not know what was coming next, if anything, I felt loath to part with it. My companions were knowing ones, and seemed to be of the same way of thinking, and, without any consultation, all appeared to be approaching the same end, to wit, the end of the stew. With the empty dish before him, demonstrative to Paul that so far we were perfectly satisfied with what he had done, that worthy purveyor came forward with an increase of dignity to change our plates. I now saw that something more was coming. I had suspected from the beginning that Paul was in the mutton line, and involuntarily murmured, "this day a sheep has died;" and presently on came another cut of the murdered innocent, in cutlets, accompanied by fried potatoes. Then came boiled mutton and boiled potatoes, and then roast mutton and roast potatoes, and then came a macaroni pate. I thought this was going to damn the whole; until this I had considered the dinner as something extraordinary and recherche. But the macaroni, the thing of at least six days in the week, utterly disconcerted me. I tried to give Paul a wink to keep it back, but on he came; if he had followed with a chicken, I verily believe I should have thrown it at his head. But my friends were unflinching and uncompromising. They were determined to stand by Paul to the last, and we laid in the macaroni pate with a much vigour as if we had not already eaten a sheep. Paul wound us up and packed us down with pancakes. I never knew a man that did not like pancakes, or who could not eat them even at the end of a mighty dinner. And now, feeling that happy sensation of fulness which puts a man above kings, princes, or pachas, we lighted our long pipes and smoked. Our stomachs were full and our hearts were open. Talk of mutual sympathy, of congenial spirits, of similarity of tastes, and all that; 'tis the dinner which unlocks the heart; you feel yourself warming towards the man that has dined with you. It was in this happy spirit that we lay like warriors, resting our arms, and talked over the particulars of our battle.
And now, all dignity put aside and all restraint removed, and thinking my friends might have recognised acquaintances among the things at the table which were strangers to me, and thinking, too, that I stood on a pinnacle, and, come what might, I could not fall, I led the way in speculating upon the manner in which Paul had served us. The ice once broken, my friends solved many of the mysteries by claiming this, that, and the other as part of their furniture and stores. In fact, they were going on most unscrupulously, making it somewhat doubtful whether I had furnished anything for my own dinner, and I called in Paul. But that functionary had no desire to be questioned; he hemmed, and hawed, and dodged about; but I told him to make a clean heart of it, and then it came out, but it was like drawing teeth, that he had been on a regular foraging expedition among their stores. The potatoes with which he had made such a flourish were part of a very small stock furnished them by a friend, as a luxury not to be had on the Nile; and, instead of the acknowledgments which I expected to receive on account of my dinner, my friends congratulated me rather ironically upon possessing such a treasure of a steward. We sat together till a late hour; were grave, gay, laughing, and lachrymose by turns; and when we began to doze over our pipes, betook ourselves to slumber.
CHAPTER IX.
Ascent of the Cataracts- A nautical Patriarch.-Political Improvement -A Nubian Damsel's Wardrobe.-A test of Friendship.-East and West. -Moonlight on the Nile.-Uses of a Temple.
IN the morning we were up betimes, expecting another stirring day in mounting the Cataracts. Carrying boats up and down the rapids is the great business of the Nubians who live on the borders of Egypt. It is a business that requires great knowledge and address; and the rais who commands the large squad of men necessary to mount a boat is an important person among them. He was already there with part of his men, the others being stationed among the islands of the Cataracts, at the places where their services would be needed. This rais was one of the most noble-looking men I ever saw. He was more than eighty, a native of Barbary, who had in early life wandered with a caravan across the Libyan Desert, and been left, he knew not why, on a little island among the Cataracts of the Nile. As the Nubian does now, firmly seated on a log and paddling with his hands, he had floated in every eddy, and marked every stone that the falling river lays bare to the eye; and now, with the experience of years, he stood among the Nubians confessedly one of their most skilful pilots through a difficult and sometimes dangerous navigation. He was tall and thin, with a beard of uncommon length and whiteness, a face dried, scarred, and wrinkled, and dark as it could be without having the blackness of a negro. His costume was a clean white turban, red jacket, and red sash, with white trousers, red slippers, and a heavy club fastened by a string around his wrist. I am particular in describing the appearance of the hardy old man, for we were exceedingly struck with it. Nothing could be finer than his look, his walk, his every movement; and the picturesque effect was admirably heightened by contrast with his swarthy assistants, most of whom were desperately ragged, and many of them as naked as they were born. The old man came on board with a dignity that savoured more of a youth passed amid the polish of a European court, than on the sands of Barbary, or the rude islands of the Nile. We received him as if he had been the great pacha himself, gave him coffee and pipes, and left him to the greatest luxury of the East, perfect rest, until his services should be required.
In the mean time, with a strong and favourable wind, we started from the little harbour of Assouan, while a throng of idlers, gathered together on the beach, watched our departure with as much interest as though it were not an event of almost daily occurrence. Almost imnmediately above Assouan the view extends over a broad surface, and the rocks and islands begin to multiply. The strong wind enabled us to ascend some distance with the sails; but our progress gradually diminished, and at length, while our sails were yet filled almost to bursting, we came to a dead stand, struggled vainly for a while against the increasing current, and then fell astern. The old rais, who had sat quietly watching the movements of the boat, now roused himself; and, at his command, a naked Nubian, with a rope over his shoulders, plunged into the river and swam for the shore. At first he swam boldly and vigorously; but soon his strength began to fail, and the weight of the slackened rope effectually stopped his progress; when, resting for a little space, he dived like a duck, kicking his heels in the air, came up clear of the rope, and soon gained the bank. A dozen Nubians now threw themselves into the water, caught the sinking rope, carried it ashore, and wound it round a rock. Again the rais spoke, and fifty swarthy bodies were splashing in the water, and in a moment more they were on the rocky bank, hauling upon the rope; others joined them, but where they came from nobody could see; and by the strength of a hundred men, all pulling and shouting together, and both sails full, we passed the first Cataract.
Above this the passage became more difficult, and the old rais seemed to rise in spirit and energy with the emergency. As we approached the second Cataract half a dozen ropes were thrown out, and the men seemed to multiply as if 'by magic, springing up among the rocks like a parcel of black river-gods. More than two hundred of them were hauling on the ropes at once, climbing over the rocks, descending into the river, and again mounting, with their naked bodies shining in the sun, all talking, tugging, ordering, and shouting together; and among them, high above the rest, was heard the clear voice of the rais; his noble figure, too, was seen, now scrambling along the base of a rock, now standing on its summit, his long arms thrown above his head, his white heard and ample dress streaming in the wind, until the inert mass had triumphed over the rushing river; when he again took his seat upon the deck, and in the luxury of his pipe forgot the animating scene that for a moment had cheated him back to youth.
At this season there was in no place a fall of more than two feet; though the river, breaking among the almost innumerable rocks and islands, hurried along with great violence and rapidity. In the midst of the most furious rushing Of the waters, adding much to the striking wildness of the scene, were two figures, with their clothes tied above their heads, sitting upon the surface of the water apparently, and floating as if by a miracle. They were a man and his wife, crossing from one of the islands; their bark a log, with a bundle of cornstalks on each side too frail to support their weight, yet strong enough to keep them from sinking. And now all was over; we had passed the Cataracts catching our dinner at intervals as we came up. We had wound round the beautiful Island of Philoe, and the boat had hauled up alongside the bank to let me go ashore. The moment of parting and returning to my former loneliness had come, and I felt my courage failing. I verily believe that if my own boat had been above the Cataracts, I should have given up my own project and accompanied my English friends. Paul was even more reluctant to part than his master. He had never travelled except with a party, where the other servants and dragomen were company for him, and after these chance encounters he was for a while, completely prostrated. The moment of parting came and passed; warm adieus were exchanged, and, with Paul and my own rais for company, I set out on foot for Assouan.
Directly opposite the Island of Philoe is a stopping-place for boats, where dates, the great produce of Upper Egypt, are brought in large quantities, and deposited preparatory to being sent down to Cairo. All along the upper part of the Nile the palm-tree had become more plentiful, and here it was the principal and almost only product of the country. Its value is inestimable to the Nubians, as well as to the Arabs of Upper Egypt; and so well is this value known, and so general is the progress of the country in European improvements, that every tree pays an annual tax to the great reformer.
The Nubian is interesting in his appearance and character; his figure is tall, thin, sinewy, and graceful, possessing what would be called in civilized life an uncommon degree of gentility; his face is rather dark, though far removed from African blackness; his features are long and aquiline, decidedly resembling the Roman; the expression of his face mild, amiable, and approaching to melancholy. I remember to have thought, when reading Sir Walter Scott's Crusaders, that the metamorphosis of Kenneth into a Nubian was strained and improbable, as I did not then understand the shades of difference in the features and complexion of the inhabitants of Africa; but observation has shown me that it was my own ignorance that deceived me; arid in this, as in other descriptions of Eastern scenes, I have been forced to admire the great and intimate knowledge of details possessed by the unequalled novelist, and his truth and liveliness of description.
The inhabitants of Nubia, like all who come under the rod of the pacha, suffer the accumulated ills of poverty. Happily, they live in a country where their wants are few. the sun warms them, and the palm-tree feeds and clothes them. The use of firearms is almost unknown, and their weapons are still the spear and shield, as in ages long past. In the upper part of Nubia the men and women go entirely naked, except a piece of leather about six inches wide, cut in strings, and tied about their loins; and even here, on the confines of Egypt, at least one half of the Nubians appear in the same costume.
I do not know what has made me introduce these remarks upon the character and manners of the Nubians here, except it be to pave the way for the incidents of my walk down to Assouan. Wishing to get rid of my unpleasant feelings at parting with my companions, I began to bargain for one of the large heavy clubs, made of the palm-tree, which every Nubian carries, and bought what a Kentuckian would call a screamer, or an Irishman a toothpick; a large round club, about two inches in diameter, which seldom left my hand till I lost it in the Holy Land. Then seeing a Nubian riding backward and forward on a dromedary, showing his paces like a jockey at a horse-market, I began to bargain for him. I mounted him (the first time I had mounted a dromedary), and as I expected to have considerable use for him, and liked his paces, I was on the point of buying him, but was prevented by the sudden reflection that I had no means of getting him down to Cairo.
My next essay was upon more delicate ground. I began to bargain for the costume of a Nubian lady, and, to use an expressive phrase, though in this case not literally true, I bought it off her back. One of my friends in Italy had been very particular in making a collection of ladies' costumes, and, to a man curious in those things, it struck me that nothing could be more curious than this. One of the elements of beauty is said to be simplicity; and if this be not a mere poetical fiction, and beauty when unadorned is really adorned the most, then was the young Nubian girl whose dress I bought adorned in every perfection. In fact, it was impossible to be more simple, without going back to the origin of all dress, the simple fig-leaf. She was not more than sixteen, with a sweet mild face, and a figure that the finest lady might be proud to exhibit in its native beauty every limb charmingly rounded, and every muscle finely developed. It would have been a burning shame to put such a figure into frock, petticoat, and the other et ceteras of a lady's dress. I now look back upon this, and many other scenes as strange, of which I thought nothing at the time, when all around was in conformity. I remember, however, though I thought nothing of seeing women all but naked, that at first I did feel somewhat delicate in attempting to buy the few inches that constituted the young girl's wardrobe. Paul had no such scruples, and I found, too, that, as in the road to vice, "ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute." In short, I bought it, and have it with me, and to the curious in such matters I have no hesitation in saying, that the costume of a Nubian lady is far more curious than anything to be found in Italy, and would make a decided sensation at a masquerade or fancy ball.
It was nearlv dark, when, from the ruined height of the old city of Assouan, I saw my little boat with the flag of my country, and near it, hardly less welcome to my eyes, the red-cross banner of England, The sight of these objects, assisted by my multifarious bargainings, relieved me from the loneliness I had felt in parting from my friends and I went on board the English boat, hoping to find a party with which I had partially arranged to set out from Cairo, and which I was every day expecting. I was disappointed, however; but found a gentleman to whom I was then a stranger, the English consul at Alexandria. he had been eighteen years in the country, closely devoted to his public and private duties, without ever having been in Upper Egypt. On the point of returning home, to enjoy in his own country and among his own people the fruits of his honourable labours, he had now for the first time ascended the Nile. He was accompanied by his daughter, who had reigned as a bell and beauty in the ancient city of Cleopatra, and her newly married husband. Coming from home, their boat was furnished and fitted up with all kinds of luxuries. Their tea-table, in particular, made such a strong impression on me, that when I met them again at Thebes, I happened to find myself on board their boat regularly about the time for the evening meal. I was exceedingly pleased with Mr. T - --; so much so, that at Thebes I gave him the strongest mark of it a man could give, I borrowed money of him and I have reason to remember his kindness in relieving me from a situation which might have embarrassed me.
Early the next morning the sails were already loosed and the stake pulled up, when Paul, from the bank, cried out," A sail!" and, looking down the river, I saw a boat coming up, and again the English flag. I furled my sails, fastened the stake, and waited till she came up, and found the party I hall expected. I went on board and breakfasted with them. They had started from Cairo on the same day with me, but with their large boats could not keep up with me against the wind. They had heard of me along the river; and, among other things, had heard of my having shot a crocodile. Waiting to see them off for the Island of Philoe, and bidding them good-by until we should meet at Thebes, I returned to my boat, and, letting fall the sails, before they were out of sight was descending the Nile.
My face was now turned towards home. Thousands of miles, it is true, were between us; but I was on the bosom of a mighty river, which was carrying me to the mightier ocean, and the waves that were rolling by my side were rapidly hurrying on, and might one day wash the shores of my native land. It was a beautiful prospect I had before me now. I could lie on the deck of my boat, and float hundreds of miles, shooting at crocodiles, or I could go ashore and ramble, among modern villages, and the ruins of ancient cities, and all the time, I thought, I would be advancing on my journey. Before night, however, the wind was blowing dead ahead, and we were obliged to furl our sails and take to our oars. But it was all of no use; our boat was blown along like a feather; carried around, backward and forward, across the river, zigzag, and at last fairly driven up the stream. With great difficulty we worked down to Ombos; and here, under the ruins of an ancient temple, part of which had already fallen into the river, we hauled up to the bank, and, in company with half a dozen Arab boats, lay by till morning.
Man is a gregarious animal. My boatmen always liked to stop where they saw other boats. I remember it was the same on the Ohio and Mississippi. Several years since, when the water was low, I started from Pittsburgh, in a flat-bottomed boat, to float down to New-Orleans. There too we were in the habit of stopping along the bank at night, or in windy or foggy weather, and the scenes and circumstances were so different that the contrast was most interesting and impressive. Here we moored under the ruins of an ancient temple, there we made fast to the wild trees of an untrodden forest; here we joined half a dozen boats with eight or ten men in each, and they all gathered round a fire, sipped coffee, smoked, and lay down quietly to sleep; there we met the dashing, roaring boys of the West, ripe for fun, frolic, or fight. The race of men "half horse, half alligator, and t'other half steamboat," had not yet passed away, and, whenever two boats met, these restless rovers must "do something;" play cards, pitch pennies, fight cocks, set fire to a house, or have, a row of some description. Indeed, it always involved a long train of interesting reflections, to compare the stillness and quiet of a journey on this oldest of rivers with the moving castles and the splashing of paddle-wheels on the great rivers of the New World.
At daylight I had mounted the bank, and was groping among the ruins of the temple. The portico fronting the river is a noble ruin, nearly a hundred feet in length, with three rows of columns, five in each row, thirty feet high, and ten feet in diameter at the base. The principal figure on the walls is Osiris, with a crocodile head, and the sacred tau in his hand. The Ombites were distinguished for their worship of the crocodile, and this noble temple was dedicated to that bestial god - among the ruins are still to be seen the wall on which the sacred animal was led in religious procession, and the tank in which he was bathed.
Towards noon we were approaching Hadjar Silsily, or the Rock of the Chain, the narrowest part of the river, bounded on each side by ranges of sandstone mountains. On the eastern side are ancient quarries of great extent, with the same appearance of freshness as at Assouan. Nothing is known of the history of these quarries; but they seem to have furnished material enough for all the cities on the Nile, as well as the temples and monuments that adorned them. Whole mountains have been cut away; and while the solitary traveller walks among these deserted workshops, and looks at the smooth sides of the mountains, and the fragments of unfinished work around him, he feels a respect for the people who have passed away greater than when standing among the ruins of their mighty temples; for here he has only the evidences of their gigantic industry, without being reminded of the gross and disgusting purposes to which that industry was prostituted. The roads worn in the stone by the ancient carriage-wheels are still to be seen, and somewhere among these extensive quarries travellers have found an unfinished sphinx. I remember one place where there was an irregular range of unfinished doors, which might well have been taken for the work of beginners, practising under the eyes of their masters. Paul took a philosophic and familiar view of them, and said that it seemed as if, while the men were at work, the boys playing around had taken up the tools, and amused themselves by cutting these doors.
On the opposite side, too, are quarries, and several ranges of tombs, looking out on the river, excavated in the solid rock, with pillars in front, and images of deities in the recesses for the altars. I remember a beautiful chamber overhanging the river like a balcony. It had been part of a temple, or perhaps a tomb. We thought of stopping there to dine, but our boat had gone ahead, and our want of provisions was somewhat of an impediment.
At about four o'clock we saw at a distance the minaret of Edfou. There was no wind, the men were gently pulling at the oars, and I took one myself, much to the uneasiness of the rais, who thought I was dissatisfied. Sloth forms so prominent a feature in the composition of the Orientals, and quiet is so material an item in their ideas of enjoyment, that they cannot conceive why a man should walk when he can stand, why he should stand when he can sit, or, in short, why he should do anything when he can sit still and do nothing.
It was dark before we arrived at Edfou. I mean it was that period of time when, by Nature's laws, it should be dark; that is, the day had ended, the sun had set with that rich and burning lustre which attends his departing glories nowhere but in Egypt, and the moon was shedding her pale light over the valley of the Nile. But it was a moon that lighted up all nature with a paler, purer, and more lovely light; a moon that would have told secrets; a moon-in short-, a moon whose light enabled one to walk over fields without stumbling, and this was, at the moment, the principal consideration with me.
Edfou lies about a mile from the bank of the river, and, taking Paul and one of the Arabs with me, I set off to view the temple by moonlight. The town, as usual, contained mud houses, many of them in ruins, a mosque, a bath, bazars, the usual apology for a palace, and more than the usual quantity of ferocious dogs; and at one corner of this miserable place stands one of the magnificent temples of the Nile. The propylon, its lofty proportions enlarged by the light of the moon, was the most grand and imposing portal I saw in Egypt. From a base of nearly one hundred feet in length and thirty in breadth, it rises on each side the gate, in the form of a truncated pyramid, to the height of a hundred feet, gradually narrowing, till at the top it measures seventy-five feet in length and eighteen in breadth. Judge, then, what was the temple to which this formed merely the entrance; and this was far from being one of the large temples of Egypt. It measured, however, four hundred and forty feet in length and two hundred and twenty in breadth, about equal to the whole space occupied by St. Paul's churchyard. Its dromos, pronaos, columns, and capitals all correspond, and enclosing it is a high wall still in a state of perfect preservation. I walked round it twice, and, by means of the wall erected to exclude the unhallowed gaze of the stranger, I looked down upon the interior of the temple. Built by the Egyptians for the highest uses to which a building could be dedicated, for the worship of their gods, it is now used by the pacha as a granary and storehouse. The portico and courtyard, and probably the interior chambers, were filled with grain. A guard was stationed to secure it against the pilfering Arabs; and, to secure the fidelity of the guard himself, he was locked in at sunset, and the key left with the governor. The lofty entrance was closed by a wooden door; the vigilant guard was already asleep, and we were obliged to knock some time before we could wake him.
It was a novel and extraordinary scene, our parley with the guard at the door of the temple. We were standing under the great propylon, mere insects at the base of the lofty towers; behind us at a little distance sat a group of the miserable villagers, and leaning against a column in the porch of the temple was the indistinct figure of the guard, motionless, and answering in a low deep tone, like an ancient priest delivering the answers of the oracles. By the mellow light of the moon everything seemed magnified; the majestic proportions of the temple appeared more majestic, and the miserable huts around it still more miserable, and the past glory and the present ruin of this once most favoured land rushed upon me with a force I had not felt even at the foot of the pyramids. If the temple of that little unknown city now stood in Hyde Park or the garden of the Tuileries, France, England, all Europe would gaze upon it with wonder and admiration; and when thousands of years shall have rolled away, and they too shall have fallen, there will be no monument in those proudest of modern cities, like this in the little town of Edfou, to raise its majestic head and tell the passing traveller the story of their former greatness.
Some of the Arabs proposed to conduct me to the interior, through a passage opening from the ruined huts on the top; but, after searching a while, the miserable village could not produce a candle, torch, or taper to light the way. But I did not care much about it. I did not care to disturb the strong impressions and general effect of that moonlight scene; and though in this as in other things, I subject myself to the imputation of having been but a superficial observer, I would not exchange the lively recollection of that night for the most accurate knowledge of every particular stone in the whole temple.
I returned to my boat, and to the surprise of my rais, ordered him to pull up stake and drop down the river. I intended to drop down about two hours to Elythias, or, in Arabic, Elkob. No one on board knew where it was, and, tempted by the mildness and beauty of the night, I stayed on deck till a late hour. Several times we saw fires on the banks, where Arab boatmen were passing the night, and hailed them, but no one knew the place; and though seeking and inquiring of those who had spent all their lives on the banks of the river, we passed, without knowing it, a city which once carried on an extensive commerce with the Red Sea, where the traces of a road to the emerald mines and the fallen city of Berenice are still to be seen, and the ruins of whose temples, with the beautiful paintings in its tombs, excite the admiration of every traveller.
We continued descending with the current all night, and in the morning I betook myself to my old sport of shooting at crocodiles and pelicans. At about eleven o'clock we arrived at Esneh, the ancient Latopolis, so called from the worship of a fish, now containing fifteen hundred or two thousand inhabitants. Here, too, the miserable subjects of the pacha may turn from the contemplation of the degraded state to the greatness of those who have gone before them. In the centre of the village, almost buried by the accumulation of sand from the desert and the ruins of Arab huts, is another magnificent temple. The street is upon a level with the roof, and a hole has been dug between two columns, so as to give entrance to the interior. The traveller has by this time lost the wonder and indignation at the barbarity of converting the wonderful remains of Egyptian skill and labour to the meanest uses; and, descending between the excavated columns, finds himself, without any feeling of surprise, in a large cleared space, filled with grain, earthen jars, and Arabs. The gigantic columns, with their lotus-leaved capitals, are familiar things; but, among the devices on the ceiling, his wandering eye is fixed by certain mysterious characters, which have been called the signs of the zodiac, and from which speculators in science have calculated that the temple was built more than six thousand years ago, before the time assigned by the Mosaic account as the beginning of the world.
But this little town contains objects of more interest than the ruin of a heathen temple; for here, among the bigoted followers of Mohammed, dwell fifty or sixty Christian families; being the last in Egypt, and standing on the very outposts of the Christian world. They exhibited, however, a melancholy picture of the religion they profess. The priest was a swarthy, scowling Arab, and, as Paul said, looked more like a robber than a pastor. He followed us for bucksheesh, and, attended by a crowd of boys, we went to the house of the bishop. This bishop, as he is styled by courtesy, is a miserable-looking old man; he told us he had charge of the two churches it Esneh, and of all the Christians in the world beyond it to the south. His flock consists of about two hundred, poor wanderers from the true principles of Christianity, and knowing it only as teaching them to make the sign of the cross, and to call up the Son, and Virgin, and a long calendar of saints. Outside the door of the church was a school; a parcel of dirty boys sitting on the ground, under the shade of some palm-trees, with a more dirty blind man for their master, who seemed to be at the work of teaching because he was not fit for anything else. I turned away with a feeling of melancholy and almost blushed in the presence of the haughty Mussulmans, to recognise the ignorant and degraded objects around me as my Christian brethren.