Eastern Life. Harriet Martineau

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СКАЧАТЬ This return must now be soon: we sighed to think how soon, when we met, on the morning of January 3rd, the two boats of a party who told us that if we wished to send letters to England, we must prepare them, as some gentlemen were at Aboo-Simbil, and would presently be passing us. The great temple of Aboo-Simbil, the chief object of our Nubian voyage, and almost at the extremity of it, so near us! It damped our spirits; but we wrote our letters; and before we had done, the expected boat came up. We little thought that morning, any of us, that our three parties would join in the Desert, and that we should live together in Arabia for five weeks. Yet so it turned out.

      I had been watching the winds and the hours in the fear that we should pass Aboo-Simbil in the dark. But when I came on deck, on the morning of the 4th, I found, to my great joy, that we were only a few miles from it, while a fresh breeze was carrying us well on our course. We passed it before breakfast.

      The façade is visible from a considerable distance: and as soon as it becomes visible, it fixes the eye by the singularity of such an object as this smoothed recess of the rugged rock. I found it unlike what I expected, and unlike, I thought, all the representations of it that I had seen. The portal looked low in proportion to the colossi: the façade was smaller, or at least narrower, than I had supposed; and the colossi much nearer together. The whitewash which Champollion (it is said) left on the face of the northernmost colossus has the curious effect of bringing out the expression of countenance, so as to be seen far off. Nothing can be more strange than so extremely distinct a revelation of a face, in every feature, perhaps a mile off. It is stranger than the first apparition of the goodly profile of the bronze Borromeo, near Lago Maggiore: because not only the outline of the features stands out clear, but every prominence and shadow of the face. The expression of this colossus is very agreeable; – it is so tranquil and cheerful. We had not yet experienced the still stranger sensation of seeing a row of statues precisely alike in all respects. We did not feel it now: for one of the faces being white, and another being broken, and many details lost by distance, the resemblance was not complete enough to cause in us that singular emotion.

      The smaller temple of »the Lady of Aboshek«, – Athor, – beside the large one, is very striking, as seen from the river. The six statues on the façade stand out boldly between buttresses; and their reclining backwards against the rock has a curious effect. All about both temples are inscribed tablets, which look like doors opening into the rock. We had now seen, for the first time, a rock temple: and we were glad that it was the noblest that we saw first. In estimating it, we must remember what Ethiopia was to the Egyptians of its time. The inscription »foreign land« is appended to the titles of Athor in the smaller temple: and the establishment of these edifices here is what it would have been to the Romans who, conquering Great Britain, should have carried their most solemn worship to the Orkneys, and enthroned it there in the noblest edifice they could erect. But we could not fully estimate this till we had examined the temple on our return: nor can my readers do so till the time comes for a fuller account of these great works.

      The wind was favourable all day, and at night, as we approached Wadee Halfa, very strong. It is to be wished that we had some full meteorological reports of these regions, both for the sake of science and the guidance of travellers. Every voyager, I believe, speaks of strong wind, and, in the travelling season, north wind, near. Wadee Halfa. Has anyone heard of calm weather there? On inquiry, on the spot, we were told that there is almost always a strong wind and frequent gales: sometimes from the south, but usually from the north. This night we had experience of a Nile gale.

      Our sail was rarely tied, any part of the way; and our Nubian Rais had it always held. To-night it was held by a careful personage, who minded his business. First, our foresail was taken in, as the wind rose. Then we went sounding on, the poles on each side being kept constantly going. Nevertheless, we struck on a sand-bank with a great shock, and the main-sail was let fly. Half a dozen poor fellows, already shivering with cold, went over the side, and heaved us off. The wind continued to rise; the night was growing dark; and presently we grounded again. The sail was let go; but it would not fly. The wind strengthened; the sail was obstinate, and the men who had sprung aloft to furl it could not get it in. We seemed to be slowly but surely going over: and for several minutes (a long time in such circumstances) it seemed to me that our only chance was in the mud-bank on which we had struck being within our depth. But it was a poor chance; for there was deep water and a strong current between us and the shore: and it was in an uninhabited part of the country. Of our own party, no one spoke. Mr. E. was the only one of us who understood these matters; and as he stood on the watch, we would not interrupt him by questions. Indeed, the case was plain enough; and I saw under his calmness that he felt this to be, as he afterwards told me, the most anxious moment of our adventures. Alee flew about giving orders amidst the rush of the wind; and the cook worked at the poling with all his strength. Even at such a moment I could not but be struck with the lights from the kitchen and the cabin shining on the struggling men and restless sail which were descending together to the water, and on the figures of the Rais, Alee, and another, as they stood on the gunwale, hauling at a rope which was fastened to the top of the mast. Amidst the many risks of the moment, the chief was that our tackle would not hold: and a crack was heard now and then among other awful noises. By this time, the inclination of the deck was such that it was impossible to stand, and I had to cling with all my strength to the window of the vestibule. For some time, the Rais feared to quit his hold of the rope on the gunwale; but at last he flung it away, threw off his clothes in a single instant, and sprang up the mast like a cat. His strong arms were what was wanted aloft. The sail was got in, and we righted. The standing straight on one's feet was like a strange new sensation after such a peril.

      It was still some time before we were afloat again; and our crew were busy in the water till we were quite sorry for them. When we drifted off at last, our sail was spread again, and we went seething on through the opposing currents to find our proper anchorage at Wadee Halfa. And there again we had almost as much difficulty as before in getting in our sail. This is the worst of the lateen sails, which look so pretty, and waft one on so well. We were wrenched about, and carried down some way before we could moor.

      The next morning was almost as cold as the night: but we preferred this to heat, – as our Business to-day was to ride through the western desert to the rock of Abooseer – the furthest point of our African travel. Before breakfast, the gentlemen took a walk on shore, being carried over the intervening mud. They saw a small village, and a school of six scholars. The boys wrote, to the master's dictation, with reed pens, on tablets of wood, smoothed over with some white substance. They wrote readily, and apparently well. The lesson was from the Kurán; and the master delivered it in a chaunting tone.

      Two extremely small asses were brought down, to cross with us to the western bank. We crossed in a ferry-boat whose sail did not correspond very well with the climate. It was like a lace veil mended with ticking. Our first visit was to the scanty remains of an interesting old temple near the landing-place. On our way to it, we passed some handsome children, and a charming group of women under a large sycamore. We thought the people we saw here – the most southerly we should ever see – open-faced and good-looking. There are large cattle-yards and sheds in this scarcely-inhabited spot, which the Pasha has made a halting-place for his droves of cattle from Dongola. He continues to import largely from thence, to make up his losses from the murrain of 1843. We saw two large droves of as noble beasts as can be seen.

      Near the remains of two other unmarked and less interesting buildings stand the columns of the temple begun, if not wholly erected, by two of the Theban kings, soon after the expulsion of the Shepherd race. The dates exist in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the pillars. This temple was built when the great edifices of Thebes were, for the most part, unthought of. El-Karnac was begun – its more humble halls – and El-Uksur might be surveyed, by that time, as a fitting site for a temple to answer to El-Karnac, but the El-Kurneh temple and the Ramaséum were not conceived of; for the sovereigns who built them were not born. The Memnon statues were yet in the quarry. The Pyramids were, it is now thought, about two thousand years old: and about this time Moses was watching the erection of the great obelisk (which we call Cleopatra's Needle) at Heliopolis, where he studied. СКАЧАТЬ