Kitabı oku: «Eastern Life», sayfa 7

We went early to Elephantine, this morning (the 27th), after seeing the Scotch boat arrive. The remains of Elephantine are not now very interesting – at least, we did not find them so: and we do not enter into the ordinary romance about this »Island of Flowers.« Not only we saw no flowers, but we could perceive no traces of any: and our guide could not be made to understand what flowers were. Conversation was carried on in Italian, of which the man appeared to have no lack. First he said there were many flowers there: then that there were none: and he ended by asking what »fiori« were. He shook his head in despair when we showed him. The northern end of the island is green and fertile, but the southern end is one dreary heap of old stones and broken pottery. The quantity of broken pottery in these places is unaccountable – incredible.

The quays are gone, and the great flight of steps to the river. The little ancient temple of Kneph is gone; and another, and the upper portion of the Nilometer, were pulled down, some years since, to supply building stone for an official's palace at Aswan. We saw, at the Nilometer, sculptured stones built in among rough ones – some being upside down, some set on end. And this is all we could make out of this edifice. There is a granite gateway of the time of Alexander: and this is the only erect work of any interest. – There is a statue of red granite, with the Osiride emblems – a mean and uncouth image, in comparison with most that we saw. Some slender and broken granite pillars lie about, a little to the north of the gateway; and one of them bears a sculptured cross, which shows that they were part of a Christian temple.

The people on the island are Nubians. Many of their faces, as well as their forms, are fine: and they have the same well-fed and healthy appearance as we observe among the people generally, all along the great valley, and especially in the Nubian part of it. Some of the children were naked; some had ragged clothing; and many were dressed in substantial garments, though of the dusty or brown colours, which convey an impression of dirt to an English eye. The children's hair was shining, even dripping, with the castor-oil which was to meet our senses everywhere in Nubia.

Our Scotch friends called while we were at breakfast, and offered us their small boat for an expedition to Philae. Much as I longed to see Philae, I was startled at the idea of going by water in a small boat, as a mere morning trip: and I was sorry to see our saddles put away, as it appeared to me more practicable to go by the shorter way of the desert, taking a boat from Mahatta. If we had known what we soon learned about the water passage, we should not have dreamed of such an adventure. My next uneasiness was at finding that we were going with only Arab rowers, without an interpreter. It certainly was foolish: but the local Rais had arranged the affair; and it was not for us to dispute the wisdom of the man who must know best. I am glad we went; for we obtained admirable views of this extraordinary part of the river, at more leisure and with more freedom than when ascending the Cataract in our kandjia, amidst the hubbub of a hundred natives.

The wear of the rocks by thousands of annual inundations exhibits singular effects, in holes, unaccountable fissures, grotesque outlines, and gigantic piling up of blocks. The last deposit of soil on the slopes of smooth stones, and in every recess and crevice, reminded me of the old tillage one sees in Switzerland, where a miniature field is made on the top of a boulder, by confining the deposited earth with a row of, stones. And when we were driven to land, in the course of the morning, it was striking to see in what small and parched recesses a few feet of millet and vetches were grown, where the soil would yield anything. The deposit was always graduated, always in layers, however little there might be of it. In some stones in the middle of the current there were wrought grooves and holes for wedges: for what purpose, and whether these stones were always in the middle of the current, let those say who can. They looked like a preparation for the erection of colossal statues, which would have a finer effect amidst this frontier cataract than any Madonna del Mare has amidst the lagoons of Venice. The water here was less turbid than we had yet seen it. Its gushings round the rocks were glorious to see, and, in my opinion, to feel, as we made directly towards them, in order to be swirled away by them to some opposite point which we could not otherwise reach. The only time I was really startled was when we bumped tremendously upon a sunken rock. I saw, however, that the rowers were confident and merry; and when this is the case with local residents, in any critical passage of foreign travel, one may always feel secure. Remembering this, I found our hard-won passages through sharp little rapids, and the eagerness and hubbub of the rowers, delightful. But all did not find it so: and truly there was a harum-scarum appearance about the adventure which justified a pause and reconsideration what we should do.

It was impossible to obtain any information from the Arabs. Pantomime may go a good way with any people in Europe, from a general affinity of ideas, and of their signs, which prevails over a continent where there is a nearly uniform civilisation: but it avails nothing, and is even misleading, between Europeans and the natives of Oriental countries. Our gentlemen were much given to pantomime, in the absence of an interpreter; and it was amusing to me to see, with the practised eye of a deaf person, how invariably they were misunderstood; and often when they had no suspicion of this themselves. They naturally employed many conventional signs; and, of course, so did the Arabs; and such confusion arose out of this, that I begged my friends never to put down in their journals any information which they believed they had obtained by means of pantomime. It might be that while they were inquiring about a pyramid, the Arabs might be replying about the sun: while they were asking questions about distance, the Arabs might be answering about ploughing: and so on. To-day we could make out nothing: so we offered very intelligible signs that we wished to land. We landed in a cove of a desert region on the eastern shore: and while Mr. E. was drawing maps on the sand, and the rowers were clamouring and gesticulating about him, I made for a lofty pile of rocks, a little way inland, to seek for a panoramic view. It was dreadfully hot: but I obtained a magnificent view of the river, as well as the surrounding country – by far the finest view of the Cataract that offered. – I could see nothing of Philae, which was, in fact, hidden behind the eastern promontories: but from the great sweep the river made above us, and the indescribable intricacy of its channels among its thousand scattered rocks, it seemed plain to me that it would take some hours to reach the Sacred Island. I reported accordingly; and Mr. E. thought he had ascertained from the crew that it would take three hours to get to Philae. As it was by this time one o'clock, we decided to return. It afterwards appeared that the three hours the men spoke of were from our dahabieh to Philae: but I am sure it would have taken much more.

From my point of observation, I had seen that several weirs were constructed among the rapids, where a few blackies were busy – some leaning over from the rocks, and others up to their shoulders in the stream. Their dusky figures contrasted finely with the glittering waters; and it was a truly savage African scene. One man came swimming to us, with a log under his breast, bringing a fish half as big as himself. It was like a gigantic perch; we bought it for 7½ d., and found it better than Nile fish usually are. – I have often read of the great resource the Egyptians have in the fish of their river. They do not seem to prize it much; and I do not wonder. We thought the Nile fish very poor in quality, and commended the natives for eating in preference the grain and pulse which their valley yields in abundance.

Several people had collected – there is no saying from whence – in our cove to see us depart: and I was glad they did, for their figures on the rocks were beautiful. One little naked boy placed himself on the top of a great boulder in an attitude of such perfect grace – partly sitting, partly kneeling, with his hands resting on one foot – that I longed to petrify him, and take him home, an ebony statue, for the instruction of sculptors. There is no training any English child to imitate him. An attitude of such perfect grace must be natural: but not, I suppose, in our climate, or to anyone who has sat on chairs.

Our return with the current was smooth, pleasant, and speedy. We found that the kandjia had been cleaned, sunk (three drowned rats being the visible result of the process), raised, and dried; and the stores were now being laid in: and to-morrow we were to go up to the Rapids, to leave the next day clear for the ascent of the Cataract. This evening was so warm that Mrs. Y. and I walked on the shore for some time without bonnet or shawl; the first and last occasion, no doubt, of our doing so by moonlight on the 27th of December.

The next morning I rose early, to damp and fold linen; and I was ironing till dinner-time, that we might carry our sheets and towels in the best condition to the kandjia. No one would laugh at or despise this who knew the importance, in hot countries, of the condition of linen; and none who have not tried can judge of the difference in comfort of ironed linen and that which is rough-dried. By sparing a few hours per week, Mrs. Y. and I made neat and comfortable the things washed by the crew; and when we saw the plight of other travellers – gentlemen in rough-dried collars, and ladies in gowns which looked as if they had been merely wrung out of the wash-tub, we thought the little trouble our ironing cost us well bestowed. Everybody knows now that to take English servants ruins everything – destroys all the ease and comfort of the journey; and the Arabs cannot iron. They cannot comprehend what it is for. One boat's crew last year decided, after a long consultation, that it was the English way of killing lice. This was not our crew: but I do not think ours understood to the last the meaning of the weekly ceremony of the flat-iron. The dragoman of another party, being sounded about ironing his employer's white trowsers, positively declined the attempt; saying that he had once tried, and at the first touch had burnt off the right leg. If any lady going up the Nile should be so happy as to be able to iron, I should strongly advise her putting up a pair of flat-irons among her baggage. If she can also starch, it will add much to her comfort and that of her party, at little cost of time and trouble.

We went on board our kandjia to dinner, at two o'clock, and were off for the entrance of the Cataract. The smallness of our boat, after our grand dahabieh, was the cause of much amusement, both to-day and during the fortnight of our Nubian expedition. In the inner cabin there was only just room for Mrs. Y. and me by laying our beds close together; and our dressing-room was exactly a yard square. The gentlemen's cabin was somewhat larger; but not roomy enough to admit of our having our meals there – unless a strong cold wind drove us in to tea; which I think happened twice. Our sitting-room was a pretty little vestibule, between the cabins and the deck. This exactly held our table and two chairs; the other seats being two lockers, on which were spread gay carpets. When we set down to our morning employments, we were careful to bring at once all the books, etc., that we were likely to want, as we could not pass in and out without compelling our neighbours to rise to make way. For all this, and though we felt, on our return to our dahabieh, as if we had got from a coaster into a man-of-war, we were never happier than in our little kandjia. There was some amusement in roughing it for a fortnight; and the Nubian part of our voyage was full as interesting as any other.

The Rais of the Cataract was to meet us, the next morning, with his posse, at a point fixed on, above the first rapid, which we were to surmount ourselves. We appeared to be surmounting it, just at dusk. Half our crew were hauling at our best rope on the rocks, and the other half poling on board; and we were slowly – almost imperceptibly – making way against the rushing current, and had our bows fairly through the last mass of foam, when the rope snapped. We swirled down and away – none of us knew whither, unless it were to the bottom of the river. This was almost the most anxious moment of our whole journey: but it was little more than a moment. The boat, in swinging round at the bottom of the rapid, caught by her stern on a sand bank: and our new Rais quickly brought her round, and moored her, in still water, to the bank.

Here we were for the night: and we thought it a pity not to take advantage of the leisure and the moonlight to visit Philae. So the gentlemen and I crossed the rapids to the main in a punt, mounted capital asses, and struck across the desert for Mahatta, where we could get a boat for Philae.

The sun had just set when we left the kandjia; and the Desert looked superb in the afterglow. It had the last depth of colouring I have ever seen in pictures, or heard described. The clear forms and ravishing hues make one feel as if gifted with new eyes.

The boat which took us from Mahatta to Philae was too heavy for her hands, and could hardly stem some of the currents: but at last, about seven o'clock, we set our feet on the Holy Island, and felt one great object of our journey accomplished. What a moment it was, just before, when we first saw Philae, as we came round the point, – saw the crowd of temples looming in the mellow twilight! And what a moment it was now, when we trod the soil, as sacred to wise old races of man as Mecca now to the Mohammedan, or Jerusalem to the Christian; the huge propyla, the sculptured walls, the colonnades, the hypaethral² temple all standing, in full majesty, under a flood of moonlight! The most sacred of ancient oaths was in my mind all the while, as if breathed into me from without: the awful oath, »By Him who sleeps in Philae.« Here, surrounded by the imperishable Nile, sleeping to the everlasting music of its distant Cataract, and watched over by his Isis, whose temple seems made to stand for ever, was the beneficent Osiris believed to lie. There are many Holy Islands scattered about the seas of the world: the very name is sweet to all ears: but no one has been so long and so deeply sacred as this. The waters all round were, this night, very still; and the more suggestive were they of the olden age when they afforded a path for the processions of grateful worshippers, who came from various points of the mainland, with their lamps, and their harps, and their gifts, to return thanks for the harvests which had sprung and ripened at the bidding of the god. One could see them coming in their boats, there where the last western light gleamed on the river: one could see them land at the steps at the end of the colonnade: and one could imagine this great group of temples lighted up till the prominent sculpture of the walls looked almost as bright and real as the moving forms of the actual offerers. – But the silence and desertion of the place soon made themselves felt. Our footsteps on the loose stones, and our voices in an occasional question, and the flapping wings of the birds whom we disturbed, were the only sounds: and the lantern which was carried before us in the shadowy recesses was a dismal light for such a place. – I could not, under the circumstances, make out anything of the disposition of the buildings: and I think that a visit to Philae by moonlight had better be preceded by a visit to Philae by daylight: but I am glad to have seen the solemn sight, now that I can look back upon it with the fresh eyes of clear knowledge of the site and its temples.

A kandjia lay under the bank when we arrived. It had brought our Scotch friends from Mahatta; and we found them in the court of the hypaethral temple, sitting on the terrace wall in the moonlight, – the gentlemen with their chibouques, the ladies with their bonnets in their hands. Their first and last view of Philae was on this lovely night: and this was our last sight of them. They were to set off down the river the next morning, at the same hour that we were to begin the ascent of the Cataract. Our greetings, our jokes, our little rivalries were all over; and the probability was that we should never meet again. – How sorry we were for them that they were turning back! We not only had Nubia, with its very old temples, – and above all, Aboo-Simbil,³ – full in prospect, but a return to this island, to obtain a clear knowledge of it. My heart would have been very heavy to-night if this had been my only view of Philae; – a view so obscure, so tantalizing, and so oppressive: and I was sorry accordingly for those who were to see it but once, and thus.

Our desert ride in the moonlight was very fine, among such lights and shadows as I never saw by night before. We encountered no hyaenas, though our guide carried a musket, in expectation that we should. We crossed the rapids in safety, and reached our boat excessively tired, and the more eager for rest because the next was to be the greatest day of our journey, – unless, perhaps, that of our passing Thebes.

VII. Ascent of the Cataract

Such an event as the ascent of the Cataract can happen but once in one's life; and we would not hear of going ashore on any such plea as that the feat could be better seen from thence. What I wanted was to feel it. I would have gone far to see a stranger's boat pulled up; but I would not refuse the fortune of being on board when I could. We began, however, with going ashore at the Rapid where we failed the evening before. The rope had been proved untrustworthy; and there was no other till we joined the Rais of the Cataract, with his cable and his posse. Our Rais put together three weak ropes, which were by no means equivalent to one strong one; but the attempt succeeded.

It was a curious scene, – the appearing of the dusky natives on all the rocks around; the eager zeal of those who made themselves our guards, holding us by the arms, as if we were going to jail, and scarcely permitting us to set our feet to the ground, lest we should fall; and the daring plunges and divings of man or boy, to obtain our admiration or our baksheesh. A boy would come riding down a slope of roaring water as confidently as I would ride down a sand-hill on my ass. Their arms, in their fighting method of swimming, go round like the spokes of a wheel. Grinning boys poppled in the currents; and little seven-year-old savages must haul at the ropes, or ply their little poles when the kandjia approached a spike of rock, or dive to thrust their shoulders between its keel and any sunken obstacle: and after every such feat, they would pop up their dripping heads, and cry »baksheesh.« I felt the great peculiarity of this day to be my seeing, for the first, and probably the only time of my life, the perfection of savage faculty: and truly it is an imposing sight. The quickness of movement and apprehension, the strength and suppleness of frame, and the power of experience in all concerned this day contrasted strangely with images of the bookworm and the professional man at home, who can scarcely use their own limbs and senses, or conceive of any control over external realities. I always thought in America, and I always shall think, that the finest specimens of human development I have seen are in the United States, where every man, however learned and meditative, can ride, drive, keep his own horse, and roof his own dwelling: and every woman, however intellectual, can do, if necessary, all the work of her own house. At home, I had seen one extreme of power, in the meagre, helpless beings whose prerogative lies wholly in the world of ideas: here I saw the other, where the dominion was wholly over the power of outward nature: and I must say I as heartily wished for the introduction of some good bodily education at home as for intellectual enlightenment here. I have as little hope of the one as of the other; for there is at present no natural necessity for either: and nothing short of natural compulsion will avail. Gymnastic exercises and field sports are matters only of institution and luxury, – good as far as they go, but mere conventional trifles in the training of a man or a nation: and, with all our proneness to toil, I see no prospect of any stimulus to wholesome general activity arising out of our civilisation. I wish that, in return for our missions to the heathen, the heathens would send missionaries to us, to train us to a grateful use of our noble natural endowments, – of our powers of sense and limb, and the functions which are involved in their activity. I am confident that our morals and our intellect would gain inestimably by it. There is no saying how much vicious propensity would be checked, and intellectual activity equalised in us, by such a reciprocity with those whose gifts are at the other extreme from our own.

Throughout the four hours of our ascent, I saw incessantly that though much is done by sheer force, – by men enough pulling at a rope strong enough, – some other requisites were quite as essential: – great forecast, great sagacity; much nice management among currents and hidden and threatening rocks; and much knowledge of the forces and subtilties of wind and water. The men were sometimes plunging, to heave off the boat from a spike or ledge; sometimes swimming to a distant rock, with a rope between their teeth, which they carried round the boulders; – then squatting upon it, and holding the end of the rope with their feet, to leave their hands at liberty for hauling. Sometimes a man dived to free the cable from a catch under water; then he would spring on board, to pole at any critical pass; and then ashore, to join the long file who were pulling at the cable. Then there was their patience and diligence – very remarkable when we went round and round an eddy many times, after all but succeeding, and failing again and again from the malice of the wind. Once this happened for so long, and in such a boisterous eddy, that we began to wonder what was to be the end of it. Complicated as were the currents in this spot we were four times saved from even grazing the rocks, when, after having nearly got through, we were borne back, and swung round to try again. The fifth time, there came a faint breath of wind, which shook our sail for a moment, and carried us over the ridge of foam. What a shout there was when we turned into still water! The last ascent but one appeared the most wonderful, – the passage was, twice over, so narrow, barely admitting the kandjia, the promontory of rock so sharp, and the gush of water so strong: but the big rope, and the mob of haulers on the shore and the islets heaved us up steadily, and as one might say, naturally, as if the boat took her course advisedly.

Though this passage appeared to us the most dangerous, it was at the last that the Rais of the Cataract interfered to request us to step ashore. We were very unwilling; but we could not undertake the responsibility of opposing the local pilot. He said it was mere force that was wanted here, the difficulty being only from the rush of the waters, and not from any complication of currents. But no man would undertake to say that the rope would hold; and if it did not, destruction was inevitable. The rope held; we saw the boat drawn up steadily and beautifully; and the work was done. Mr. E., who has great experience in nautical affairs, said that nothing could be cleverer than the management of the whole business. He believed that the feat could be achieved nowhere else, as there are no such swimmers elsewhere.

The mob who took charge of us on the rocks were horribly noisy: the granite we trod on was burning hot, shining, and slippery: the light, at an hour after noon, was oppressive: and the wildness of the scenery and of the thronging people was bewildering. The clamour was the worst; and for four hours there was no pause. This is, I think, the only thing in the whole affair really trying to a person of good nerves. The cries are like those of rage and fear; and one has to remind one's self incessantly that this is only the people's way, and then the clamour goes for nothing. When they do speak gently, as to us on matters of business, their voices are agreeable enough, and some very sweet. – Most of the throng to-day were quite black: some tawny. One man looked very odd. His complexion was chocolate colour, and his beard and top/knot red.

We returned to the boat heated and thirsty, and quite disposed for wine and water. The critical passage of four hours was over; but the Rais of the Cataract did not leave us till we were off Mahatta, there being still much skill and labour required to pass us through the yet troubled waters. Our boat rolled a good deal, having but little ballast as yet; and when we were about to go to dinner, a lurch caused the breakage of some soup-plates and other ware: so we put off dinner till we should be at Philae, where we were to complete our ballast. Meantime, we had the poor amusement of seeing a fight on shore, – the Rais and his men quarrelling about the baksheesh. The pay of the Rais and his men was included in the contract for the kandjia: but of course the Rais asked for baksheesh. He was offered ten piastres, and refused them; then a bottle of wine, which he put under his arm, demanding the ten piastres too. Then he refused both, and went off; but returned for the money; and ended by fighting about the division of it. The amount is small to contend about; but travellers should remember those who come after them, and the real good of the natives; and not give way to encroachment to save a little trouble.

It was four o'clock when we moored at Philae under what once was the great landing place of the island, on the east side. The hypaethral temple, vulgarly called Pharaoh's Bed, stood conspicuous on the height above us: and we ran up to it after sunset, while the last of our ballast was stowing, – glad of every opportunity of familiarising our minds with the aspect of the island, before returning to explore the remains in due order. – We had seen nothing more beautiful anywhere than what was before us this evening on our departure by moonlight. The pillars of the open temple first, and then the massive propyla of the great temple, stood up against the soft, clear sky, and palms fringed every bank and crowned every eminence. The wildness of the rocky boundary was lost, by this light. We felt that we had, for the present, done with rapids and islands: we were fairly in Nubia, and were now passing into the broad stream of the Nile, here calmer than ever, from being so near the dam of the islands. The Lybian range shone distinctly yellow by moonlight. I thought that I had never heard of colour by moonlight before; and I was sure I had never seen it. Now my eyes feasted on it night by night. The effect of palm clumps standing up before these yellow backgrounds, which are themselves bounded by a line of purple hills, with silver stars hanging above them, and mysterious heavenly lights gushing up from behind all, exceeds in rich softness any colouring that sunshine can show.