Eastern Life. Harriet Martineau

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ