Kitabı oku: «Eastern Life», sayfa 6
As I was walking the deck before tea, I saw two lights moving up under the opposite bank; and supposed them to be from Selim Pasha's boats. They crossed the stream, however; and the boats they belonged to drove into the bank so immediately behind us as to lift our rigging. It was our Scotch friends, and the American party. The gentlemen immediately exchanged visits; and our own party brought us some amusement when they returned. Mr. E.'s first exclamation, as he threw down his hat, was, »What a lucky fellow that is! He has shot a crocodile.« »And why not, if he carries ball?« »Ah! I should have brought ball. He has done it very cleverly, though.« And when the Scotchman returned the call after tea, we found that he had indeed done a difficult and hazardous feat very well: and he was in possession of the stuffed hide as a trophy.
The next morning, we had an amusement which seemed ridiculous enough in the Thebaid, but certainly rather exciting – a boat-race. When I came on deck, the Scotch gentlemen were just mounting the bank, with their fowling-pieces; and their crew and ours were preparing to track. I was about to go ashore also for a walk, when I observed that our Rais was getting out the sail, though there was not a breath of wind. It was clear that he expected to fall in with a wind at the next reach of the river: so I remained on board. Our sail caught the eye of our Scotch friends. I saw the halt of their red tarbooshes over the bushes that fringed the bank. They scampered back, and leaped on board their boat; and in another moment, up went their sail. In another, up went the American's! Three sails, no wind, and three crews tracking, at a pace scarcely less funereal than usual! – At the expected point, the sails filled, all at the same instant, and off we went. For an hour or more, I could not believe that we were gaining ground, though Mr. E. declared we were. When it was becoming clear that we were, he told that, provoking as it was, we must take in sail and yield the race, as we had to take up, in yonder bay, our milk messenger. There he was, accordingly; and quick was the manoeuvre of putting in, and snatching up the poor fellow. Half a dozen hands hauled him in, and helped to spill the milk. Then what a shout of laughter there was when the Scotchman shortened sail, and took up his milkman too: and after him the Americans! We could relish the milk now, which we had thought so much in our way before. The race was fairly decided before ten o'clock. We beat, as we ought, from the superiority of our boat: and before noon our Scotch friends put into Isna (Esneh), where their crew were to bake their bread. This was the last place north of the Cataract where they could do so.
Isna looks well from the river; but we could see nothing of the temple, which is lost to view in the town. We left it for our return: and we meant to do the same with that of Adfoo (Edfou). But it came in sight while we were at dinner the next day, just when there was no wind. We decided that no time would be lost by a run up to the temple: so we sprang ashore, among cotton and castor-oil plants, and walked a mile in dust, through fields and under rows of palms, and among Arab dwellings, to the front of the mighty edifice. No one of the temples of Egypt struck me more with the conviction that these buildings were constructed as fortifications, as much as for purposes of religious celebration. I will not here give any detailed account of this temple; partly because I understood these matters better when I afterwards saw it again: and yet more, because it was now almost buried in dust, much of which was in course of removal on our return, for manuring the land. – It was here, and now, that I was first taken by surprise with the beauty; – the beauty of everything; – the sculptured columns, with their capitals, all of the same proportion and outline, though exhibiting in the same group the lotus, the date palm, and the doum palm; the decorations, – each one with its fulness of meaning, – a delicately sculptured message to all generations, through all time: and, above all, the faces. I had fancied the faces, even the portraits, grotesque: but the type of the old Egyptian face has great beauty, though a beauty little resembling that which later ages have chosen for their type. It resembles, however, some actual modern faces. In the sweet girlish countenances of Isis and Athor, I often observed a likeness to persons – and especially one very pretty one – at home.
The other thing that surprised me most was the profusion of the sculptured inscriptions. I had often read of the whole of the surfaces of these temples being covered with inscriptions: but the fact was never fairly in my mind till now: and the spectacle was as amazing as if I had never heard of it. The amount of labour invested here seems to shame all other human industry. It reminds one more of the labours of the coral insect than of those of men.
After taking a look at the scanty means of the smaller temple, we returned to the boat, to set foot on land no more, we hoped, till we reached the boundary of Egypt, at the old Syene. My friends at home had promised to drink our healths at the First Cataract on Christmas-day: and, when the wind sprang up, on our leaving Adfoo, and we found, on the morning of the 24th, that it had carried us twenty-five miles in the night, we began to believe we should really keep our appointment.
The quarries of Silsilis have a curious aspect from the river; halfway between rocks and buildings; for the stones were quarried out so regularly as to leave buttresses which resemble pillars or colossal statues. Here, where men once swarmed, working that machinery whose secret is lost, and moving those masses of stone which modern men can only gaze at, in this once busy place, there is now only the hyaena and its prey. In the bright daylight, when the wild beast is hidden in its lair, all is as still as when we passed.
We saw this morning a man crossing the river, here very wide, on a bundle of millet stalks. His clothes were on his head, like a huge turban, and he paddled himself over with the branch of a tree.
At sunset, the contrasting colours of the limestone and sandstone ranges were striking. The limestone was of a bright pale yellow: the Sandstone purplish. By moonlight, we saw the ruins of Kóm Umboo (Kom Ombos), which looked fine on the summit of their rock on the eastern bank.
Christmas morning was like a July morning in England. We had made good progress during the night, and were now only eleven miles from Aswán (Essouan), the old Syene, the frontier between Egypt and Nubia. When we came within two miles, we left our letter-writing. The excitement was too strong to allow of any employment. At present, we saw nothing of the wildness of the scenery, of which we had read so much. We found that higher up. The river became more and more lake-like; and there was a new feature in the jutting black rocks. The shores were green and tranquil; and palms abounded more than in any place we had passed. Behind these rich woods, however, the Lybian desert rose, yellow with sand drifts. – Our crew became merry in the near prospect of rest. One of them dressed himself very fine, swathing himself with turbans, and began to dance, to the music and clapping of the rest. He danced up to us, with insinuating cries of »baa« and »baksheesh«, as a hint for a present of a sheep. In the midst of this, we ran aground, and the brisk fellows threw down their drum, pipe, and finery, and went to work as usual. We were now making for the shore, in order to land a man who had begged a passage from Cairo. He was a Rais; and had served at Constantinople and elsewhere for twenty-five years, during which time he had never been home. For many years he had had no tidings of wife or children; and now, when within a mile or two of his home, he showed no signs of perturbation. He made his acknowledgments to us with an easy, cheerful grace, put off his bright red slippers, and descended into the mud, and then thrust his muddy feet into his new slippers with an air of entire tranquillity. We watched him as long as we could see him among the palms, and should have been glad to know how he found all at home. – The scene around looked far indeed out of the bounds of Christendom, this Christmas-day, till I saw, on a steep, the ruins of the Coptic convent of St. George. Aswán was now peeping over the palms on the eastern shore; and opposite to it was the island of Elephantine, half rubbish, half verdure. We moored to the shore below Aswán just at two o'clock; and thus we kept our appointment, to dine at the First Cataract on Christmas-day. Our dinner included turkey and plum-pudding. Our Arab cook succeeded well with the last-mentioned novelty. We sent a huge cantle of it to the Rais, who ate it all in a trice, and gave it his emphatic approbation.
1 Waterwheel.
2 Abdallatif. Relation de l'Egypte. Livre I. ch. 4.
3 Appendix A.
4 Since this was first printed, the Pasha and his next heir, Ibraheem Pasha, have died, and the Government of Egypt has descended to a grandson of Mohammed Alee.
5 These Sheikhs' tombs are very like village ovens: square huts, with each a white cupola rising from the walls.
6 Pole and bucket, for raising water.
7 Five paras are a farthing and one-fifth.
8 About 7 d.
9 Quite a different personage from the Greek Hercules.
10 Abdallatif. Relation de l'Egypte. Livre II. ch. 2,
11 Even the Gothic spire is believed by those who know best to be an attenuated obelisk; as the obelisk is an attenuated pyramid. Our Gothic aisles are sometimes conjectured to be a symmetrical stone copy of the glades of a forest; but there are pillared aisles at El Karnac and Medeenet Haboo, which were constructed in a country which had no woods, and before the forests of northern Europe are discernible in the dim picture of ancient history.
12 Wilkinson's Modern Egypt and Thebes, II. 45.
13 Appendix B.
14 Relation de l'Egypte. Livre I. ch. 4.
15 Herod. II. 35.
VI. Aswan – Slaves – First Ride in the Desert – Quarries – Elephantine – River Scenery – Preparations for Nubia – First Sight of Philae
As soon as our plank was down, a sort of mob-market was formed on shore. There was a display of a stuffed crocodile, spears, ebony clubs, straw-baskets, coins, walking-sticks, an ostrich's egg, a conjurer, etc. It was at this place that a girl offered me for sale an English half-penny; and another the glass stopper of a little bottle. Here, as everywhere, my ear-trumpet was handled and examined with quick curiosity: and in almost every case, from Nubia to the Lebanon, the immediate conclusion was the same. The inquirers put the small end to their lips, and gave a satisfied nod. It was clearly a pipe, with an enormous bowl! At Aswan, however, we stayed long enough for the people to discover what the trumpet was for; and from the moment of the discovery, they did their best to enable me to do without it. As we passed through the lane they made for us, they pressed forwards to shout into my ears »baksheesh! baksheesh«, till Alee pushed and flogged them away. I wonder at their perseverance in thus incessantly begging of strangers; for we could not learn that they ever got anything by it. If, as it appeared to me, travellers give only in return for service, Or in consideration of some infirmity, the perseverance in begging seems wonderful. I saw at this place parents teaching a little one to speak; and the word they tried him with was »baksheesh«. I saw a little fellow just able to carry his father's slippers, – which were almost as big as himself: his father gave him a careful training in hugging the slippers with one arm, while he held out the other hand to me for baksheesh. – The people here were very good-looking. They cannot grow provisions enough for their numbers, the desert encroaching too much to permit the cultivation of more land than the mere river banks: but they import enough for their wants. Their renowned dates are their principal article of exchange; and traffic goes on here in henneh, baskets, senna, charcoal, and Slaves from Upper Ethiopia and Abyssinia. It was impossible to learn their numbers. Nobody knows; and if anyone knew, he would not tell. A census may be, and has been, ordered; but it cannot be executed. The popular dread of the Government renders it impossible. The fellahs (peasants) have such a terror of increased taxation and of the conscription, that they abscond on the mention of a census: and some who can afford it bribe the officials to suppress their names and those of their families. The last thing that can be learned of any Egyptian town or district is its population.
The walls of the streets are blank here; not a window, or break of any kind, but a low door here and there. The bazaars looked poor; and I believe the traffic is chiefly carried on elsewhere. We saw two slave-bazaars. One was an enclosure on the rising ground above our boat. The slaves here were only five or six, and all children, – all under sixteen years of age. They were intelligent and cheerful-looking; and I recognised, at the first glance, the likeness to the old Egyptian countenance and costume. The girls had their faces uncovered; and their hair in the Ethiopian fashion, precisely that which we see in the old sculptures and paintings. One little girl was preparing the pottage for their supper, very cleverly and earnestly. She was said to be fifteen; and £ 15 was the sum asked for her. – The other bazaar was on the outskirts of the town, and near our boat. It contained, when we saw it on our return, a dozen boys and about fifteen girls. Most of the girls were grinding millet between two stones, or kneading and baking cakes. They were freshly oiled, in good plight, and very intelligent-looking, for the most part. Some of them were really pretty in their way, in the old Egyptian way. They appeared cheerful, and at home in their business; and there can scarcely be a stronger contrast than between this slave-market and those I had seen in the United States. The contrast is as strong as between the serfdom of the Egyptian, and the freedom of the American inhabitants of the respective countries: and, of course, the first aspect of Slavery is infinitely less repulsive in Egypt than in America. What I learned, and may have to tell, of the life of the modern Egyptians proves, however, that the institution is no more defensible here than elsewhere.
I saw a little girl on the shore making cord, for tying round the waists of the men; and was extremely surprised to observe that the process is the same as that of bobbin-making with the lyre by English ladies. Instead of an ivory lyre, this child had two crossed sticks; and her cotton thread was very coarse. It was striking to see this little art existing in places so widely apart.
We walked, this afternoon, to the ruins of the old town, and overlooked its desolation from the top of the rock above the river. The translation of the name of this town is »the Opening«: and a great opening this once was, before the Nile had changed its character in Ethiopia, and when the more ancient races made this rock their watch-tower on the frontier between Egypt and the South.
That the Nile has changed its character, south of the First Cataract, has been made clear by some recent examination of the shores and monuments of Nubia. Dr. Lepsius has discovered watermarks so high on the rocks, and edifices so placed, as to compel the conviction that the bed of the Nile has sunk extraordinarily, by some great natural process, either of convulsion or wear.1 The apparent exaggerations of some old writers about the Cataracts at Syene may thus be in some measure accounted for. If there really was once a cataract here, instead of the rapids of the present day, there is some excuse for the reports given from hearsay, by Cicero and Seneca. Cicero says that »the river throws itself headlong from the loftiest mountains, so that those who live nearest are deprived of the sense of hearing, from the greatness of the noise.« Seneca's account is: – »When some people were, stationed there by the Persians, their ears were so stunned with the constant roar, that it was found necessary to remove them to a more quiet place.« – Supposing the Cataract formerly to have been of any height rendered necessary by the discoveries of Dr. Lepsius, it is clear that Syene must have been the station for the trans-shipment of merchandise passing north or south. The granite quarries, too, whence much of the building material of old Egypt was drawn, must have added to the business of the place. It is clear, accordingly, that this was, in all former times, a station of great importance. There were temples at Elephantine, to guard the interests of the neighbourhood, and to attract and gratify strangers. There was a Nilometer, to give tidings of the deposits of the great god Nilus. There was a garrison in the time of the Persians, and again in that of the Greeks: and Roman fortifications stand in ruin on the heights around. The Saracenic remains are obvious enough: and thus we have, on this frontier spot, and visible from the rock on which we stood, evidence of this place having been prized by successive races as the Opening which its present name declares it to be.
The ruins of the Saracenic town make their site desolate beyond description – more desolate to my eyes, if possible, than the five acres I saw laid waste by the great New York fire. Two women were sitting under the wall of a roofless house, with no neighbours but a few prowling dogs. They warned me away till they saw the rest of my party coming up the ascent. – The island of Elephantine, opposite, looked as if just laid waste by an earthquake, scarcely one stone being left upon another of all its once grand edifices. On its rocks were hieroglyphic inscriptions, many and deeply carved. – In a hollow of the desert behind us lay the great cemetery, where almost every grave has its little stone, with a Cufic inscription. The red granite was cropping up everywhere; and promontories and islets of black basalt began to show themselves in the river. Behind us, at the entrance of the desert, were the mountainous masses of granite where we were tomorrow to look for the celebrated quarries and their deserted obelisk. Before we came down from our point of survey, we saw the American party crossing, in a ferry-boat, to Elephantine. They had arrived after us, and were to set out on their return to Cairo the next day!
As we sat on deck under our awning this evening, the scene was striking; – the brilliant moonlight resting on the quiet groves, but contending on the shore with the yellow glow from the west, which gilded the objects there; and especially the boat-building near the water's edge; – the crews forming picturesque groups, with their singing, clapping, and dancing: while close beside them, and almost among them, were the Rais and two other men going through their prayers and prostrations. This boat-building was the last we saw up the river: and a rude affair it was: – the planks not planed, and wide apart, and irregular.
A kandjia was here which had brought a party of Turkish officers. We had the offer of it, to take us to the Second Cataract; our dahabieh being, of course, too large to ascend the Cataract here. Our gentlemen thought it would not do; – that Mrs. Y. and I could not put up with its accommodations, even for a fortnight. We thought we could; but we agreed that the first thing to be done was to go to the head of the Cataract, and see what boats could be had there.
The next morning, therefore, we had breakfast early, and set off on asses for Mahatta, – the village at the head of the Cataract. This, our first ride in the Desert, was full of wonder and delight. It was only about three miles: but it might have been thirty from the amount of novelty in it. Our thick umbrellas, covered with brown holland, were a necessary protection against the heat, which would have been almost intolerable, but for the cool north wind. – I believed before that I had imagined the Desert: but now I felt that nobody could. No one could conceive the confusion of piled and scattered rocks, which, even in a ride of three miles, deprives a stranger of all sense of direction, except by the heavens. These narrow passes among black rocks, all suffocation and glare, without shade or relief, are the very home of despair. The oppression of the sense of sight disturbs the brain, so that the will of the unhappy wanderer cannot keep his nerves in order. I thought of poor Hagar here, and seemed to feel her story for the first time. I thought of Scotch shepherds lost in the snow, and of their mild case in comparison with that of Arab goat-herds lost in the Desert. The difference is of death by lethargy and death by torture. We were afterwards in the depth of Arabia, and lived five weeks in tents in the Desert: but no Arabian scene impressed me more with the characteristics of the Desert than this ride of three miles from Aswán to Mahatta. The presence of dragon-flies in the Desert surprised me; – not only here, but in places afterwards – where there appeared to be no water within a great distance. To those who have been wont to watch the coming forth of the dragon-fly from its sheath on the rush on the margin of a pool, and flitting about the mountain watercourse, or the moist meadows at home, it is strange to see them by dozens glittering in the sunshine of the Desert, where there appears to be nothing for them to alight on; – nothing that would not shrivel them up, if they rested for a moment from the wing. The hard, dry locust seemed more in its place, and the innumerable beetles, which everywhere left a network of delicate tracks on the light sand. Distant figures are striking in the Desert, in the extreme clearness of light and shade. Shadows strike upon the sense here as bright lights do elsewhere. It seems to me that I remember every figure I ever saw in the Desert; – every veiled woman tending her goats, or carrying her water-jar on her head; – every man in blue skirting the hillocks; every man in brown guiding his ass or his camel through the sandy defiles of the black rocks, or on a slope by moonlight, when he casts a long shadow. Every moving thing has a new value to the eye in such a region.
When we came out upon Mahatta, we were in Nubia, and found ourselves at once in the midst of the wildness of which we had read so much in relation to the First Cataract. The Mississippi is wild: and the Indian grounds of Wisconsin, with their wigwam camps, are wild: but their wildness is only that of primitive Nature. This is fantastic – impish. It is the wildness of Prospero's island. Prospero's island and his company of servitors were never out of my head between Aswan and the next placid reach of the river above Philae. – The rocks are not sublime: they are too like Titanic heaps of black paving-stones to be imposing, otherwise than by their oddity; and they are strewn about the land and river to an excess and with a caprice which takes one's imagination quite out of the ordinary world. Their appearance is made the more strange by the cartouches and other hieroglyphic inscriptions which abound among them; – sometimes on a face above the river; sometimes on a mere ordinary block near the path; sometimes on an unapproachable fragment in the middle of the stream. When we emerged from the Desert upon Mahatta, the scene was somewhat softened by the cultivation behind the village, and the shade of the spreading sycamores and clustered palms. Heaps of dates, like the wheat in our granaries for quantity, lay piled on the shore; and mounds of packages (chiefly dates) ready for export. The river was all divided into streamlets and ponds by the black islets. Where it was overshadowed, it was dark grey or deep blue; but where the light caught it, rushing between a wooded island and the shore, it was of the clearest green. – The people were wild, especially the boys, who were naked and excessively noisy: but I did not dislike their behaviour, which was very harmless, though they had to be flogged out of the path like a herd of pigs. – We saw two boats, and immediately became eager to secure the one below. I was delighted at this, as we were thus not deprived of the adventure of ascending the Cataract.
On our return, we sent Alee forward to secure the kandjia; and we diverged to the quarries, passing through the great cemetery, with its curious grave-stones, inscribed in the Cufic character. The marks of the workmen's tools are as distinct as ever on the granite of the quarries. There are the rows of holes for the wooden pegs or wedges which, being wet, expanded and split the stone. There are the grooves and the notches made, by men who died several thousands of years ago, in preparation for works which were never done. There are the playful or idle scratches made by men of old in a holiday mood. And there, too, is the celebrated obelisk, about which, I must take leave to say, some mistakes are current at this day.
It may look like trifling to spend any words on the actual condition of an obelisk in the quarry: but, if we really wish to know how the ancients set about works which modern men are only again becoming able to achieve, we must collect all the facts we can about such works, leaving it for time to show which are important and which are not. We spend many words in wondering what could be the mechanical powers known to the old Egyptians, by which they could detach, lift, carry, and dress such masses of stone as we find before our eyes. When we chance to meet with one such mass in a half-finished state, it is surely worth while to examine and report upon its marks and peculiarities, however unaccountable, as one step towards learning hereafter how they came there.
This obelisk was declared, by a traveller who judged naturally by the eye, to be lying there unfinished because it was broken before it was completely detached from the rock. Other travellers have repeated the tale, – one measuring the mass, and taking for granted that an irregular groove along the upper surface was the »crack« – the »fissure«; and another, comfortably seated on an assv not even getting down to touch it at all. Our friend Mr. E. was not satisfied without looking into things with his own eyes and his own mind: and he not only measured and poked in the sand, but cleared out the sand from the grooves till he had satisfied himself that there is no breakage or crack about the obelisk at all.
The upper surface is (near the centre of its length) about twelve feet broad: and there is every appearance of the other three sides having the same measurement, – as the guide says they have, – allowing for the inequalities of the undressed stone. There is no evidence that it is not wholly detached from the rock. Of course, the existing inhabitants cannot move it; but the guide declares that, when cleared of sand, a stick may be passed under in every part. And it seems improbable that the apex of the obelisk should be reduced to form before the main body is severed from the rock. – As for the supposed »fissure«, it is certainly a carefully-wrought groove, and no crack. Its sides are as smooth as any tablet; and its breadth appears to be uniform – about an inch wide at the top. Its depth is about three inches; and it is smooth and sound all along the bottom. Near it is a slight fault in the stone – a skin-deep crack, little more than a roughness of the surface. Across the upper face were some remarkable holes. Besides those which are usually prepared for wedges or pegs, there were two deep grooves, slanting and not parallel. If they had been straight and parallel, we should have immediately supposed them intended to hold the chains or ropes by which the mass was to be raised: and it is still possible that they were so. But we do not know what to make of the groove which is commonly called the fissure. It is deep; it is longitudinal; and it is devious; not intended, evidently, to bear any relation to the centre of the face, nor to be parallel with either side, nor to be straight in its direction. The only conjecture we could form was, that it was in preparation for the dressing of the stone, after the erection of the obelisk: but then its depth appears too great for such a purpose. We observed a considerable bulge on the upper face of this obelisk. We know that this is necessary, to obviate that optical deception which gives an appearance of concavity to a perfectly correct pyramidal line: and we know that the old Egyptians so well understood this architectural secret, that they might be the teachers of it to all the world. But the knowledge of this does not lessen the surprise, when the proof of it, in so gigantic a form, is under one's hand. – The block was ninety feet long above the sand, when we were there; and the guide said that the sand covered thirty more. Judging of the proportions of the apex from what we saw, it must either require much cutting away in the dressing, or be a little spire. It would doubtless be much reduced by cutting, – We left the quarries, full of speculation about what manner of men they were who cut and carved their granite mountains in this noble style, and by what inconceivable means they carried away their spoils. It would hardly surprise me more to see a company of ants carrying a life-size statue, than it did to measure the building stones and colossi of the East.
In our walk this evening we saw a pretty encampment of Albanian soldiers among the palms. One had to rub one's eyes to be sure that one was not in a theatre. The open tent, with the blue smoke rising, the group of soldiers, in their Greek dress, on the ground and seen between the palm stems; the arms piled against a tree, and glittering in the last rays of the sun; – all this was like a sublimated opera scene. And there was another, the next morning, when they took their departure southwards, their file of loaded camels winding away from under the shade into the hot light.
