Eastern Life. Harriet Martineau

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СКАЧАТЬ next May, and did his duty by us admirably. He is a native Egyptian, young and strong, able and experienced in his work, and faithful and correct in his money transactions. We met with other travelling parties as content with their dragomen as we were with ours: and I at present remember only one which was cursed with a bad attendant. When we consider what qualifications are requisite in the office, we must see that the dragomen must be a superior class of people. It was one of my amusements to study all whom I met; and when I saw what their knowledge of languages was, – what their efficiency in daily business, their zeal in travelling, their familiarity with the objects en route wherever we went, their temper in times of hurry and disaster, their power of command co-existing with their diligence and kindliness in service, – I felt that some of us might look very small in our vocations in comparison with our dragomen.

      We proceeded in an omnibus to the Mahmoudieh Canal, where we went on board the boat which was to carry us to Atfeh, at the junction of the canal with the Nile. The boat was taken in tow by a smaller steamer, named by a wag »the little Asthmatic.« We heard a good deal of her ailments, – the cracks in her boiler, and so forth; so that we hardly expected to reach Atfeh in due course. The villas in the neighbourhood of Alexandria are pleasantly surrounded with gardens, and fenced by hedges or palings hung with the most luxuriant creepers; but the houses are of glaring white, and look dreadfully hot. The villages on the banks are wretched-looking beyond description: the mud huts square, or in bee-hive form; so low and clustered and earthy, that they suggest the idea of settlements of ants or beavers, rather than of human beings. Yet we were every few minutes meeting boats coming down from the country with produce, – various kinds of grain and roots, in heavy cargoes. Some of these boats were plastered with mud, like the houses; and so thickly that grass grew abundantly on their sides. On the heaps of grain were squatted muffled women and naked children: naked men towed the boats, – now on the bank, and now wading in the mud; and muffled women came out of the villages to stare. To-day there seemed to be no medium between wrapping up and nakedness; but it became common, up the country, to see women and girls covering their faces with great anxiety, while they had scarcely any clothing elsewhere.

      We saw the other extreme of dress in a passenger on board our boat, – the chief eunuch of the royal hareem at Cairo. Neither his beautiful dress, – of the finest cloth, amply embroidered, – nor his attendants and appliances, could impress me with the slightest sense of dignity in the case of this extraordinary-looking being. He was quiet in his manners, conversed with apparent ease, said his prayers and made his prostrations duly on the top of the kitchen, telling his beads with his long and skinny fingers; but his emaciation and ugliness baffled all the usual associations with the outward signs of rank. I could not think of him as an official of high station.

      This is the canal which, as everybody knows, cost the lives of above twenty thousand people, from the Pasha's hurry to have it finished, and the want of due preparation for such a work in such a country. Without tools and sufficient food, the poor creatures brought here by compulsion to work died off rapidly under fatigue and famine. Before the improvements of the Pasha are vaunted in European periodicals as putting European enterprises to shame, it might be as well to ascertain their cost, – in other things as well as money; – the taxes of pain and death, as well as of piastres, which are levied to pay for the Pasha's public works. There must be some ground for the horror which impels a whole population to such practices as are every day seen in Egypt to keep out of the reach and the ken of government: – practices such as putting out an eye, pulling out the teeth necessary for biting cartridges, and cutting off a forefinger, to incapacitate men for army service. The fear of every other sort of conscription, besides that for the supply of the army, is no less urgent; and it is a common practice for parents to incapacitate their children for reading and writing by putting out an eye, and cutting off the forefinger of the right hand. Any misfortune is to be encountered rather than that of entering the Pasha's army, the Pasha's manufactories, the Pasha's schools. This can hardly be all baseless folly on the part of the people. If questioned, they could at least point to the twenty-three thousand deaths which took place in six months in the making of the Mahmoudieh Canal.

      The Pasha is proud of this canal, as men usually are of achievements for which they have paid extravagantly. And he still brings his despotic will to bear upon it, in defiance of nature and circumstance. I was told to-day of his transmission of Lord Hardinge by it, when Lord Hardinge and everybody else believed the canal to be impassable from want of water. This want of water was duly represented to the Pasha: but as he still declared that Lord Hardinge should go by that way and no meaner one, Lord Hardinge had only to wait and see how it would be managed. He went on board the steamer at Alexandria, and proceeded some way, when a bar of dry ground appeared extending across the canal. But this little inconvenience was to be no impediment. A thousand soldiers appeared on the banks, who waded to the steamer, and fairly shouldered it, with all its passengers, and carried it over the bar. The same thing happened at the next dry place, and the next; and thus the Pasha is able to say that he forwarded Lord Hardinge by his own steamer on his own great canal.

      Nothing can be more dreary than the scenery till within a short distance of Atfeh. The field of Aboukeer was nothing but hillocky desert, with pools in the hollows: and, after that, we saw little but brown mud banks, till we came to the acacias near Atfeh. It is a pity that other parts of the canal banks are not planted in the same way. Besides the beauty of the trees, – to-day very pretty, with the light pods contrasting with the dark foliage, – the shade for man and beast, and the binding of the soil by vegetation, would be valuable.

      It was dusk before we reached Atfeh. Some moonlight mingled with the twilight, and with the yellow gleams which came from sordid windows, seen through the rigging of a crowd of small vessels. There was prodigious bustle and vociferation while we were passing through the lock, and getting on board the steamer which was to carry us to Cairo. But by seven o'clock we were fairly off on the broad and placid Nile. The moonlight was glorious; and the whole company of passengers sat or lay on deck, not minding the crowding, in their enjoyment of the scene, till the dews became so heavy as to send down all who could find room in the cabins. I have a vivid recollection of that first evening on the Nile, – an evening full of enjoyment, though perhaps every other evening I spent on it showed me more. I saw little but the wide quiet river, – the broadest, I believe, that I had ever been on; and a fringe of palms on the banks, with here and there a Sheikh's tomb⁵ hiding among them, or a tall white minaret springing above them.

      Two ladies kindly offered me a place in their inner cabin, where I could lie down and have the benefit of an open window; but the place was too unclean for rest. At 3 A.M. we went aground on a mud bank. I saw the quivering poles of the Arab crew from my window, and was confounded by the noise overhead, – the luggage being shifted with all possible outcry. We just floated for a minute and then stuck fast again. By the cessation of the noise, I presently found that the matter was given up till daylight; and I slept for above an hour, – a very desirable thing, as these groundings made it appear uncertain whether we should reach Cairo before another night.

      When I went on deck, before seven, I found we were opposite Sais. But there was nothing to be done. No one could go ashore; and the best consolation is, that there is nothing to be seen there by those who can only mourn over the mounds, and not penetrate them. A mob of Arabs was brought down to our aid; and a curious scene was that of our release. On deck our luggage was piled without any order; and blankets were stuffed in among trunks and bags. From these blankets emerged one fellow-passenger after another, till the set of unshaven and unwashed gentry was complete. In the river was a long line of naked Arabs, tugging and toiling and screaming till the vessel floated. When we were once more steaming towards Cairo, and the deck was cleared, and the wondrous atmosphere assumed all its glory, and the cool wind breathed upon our faces, we presently forgot the discomforts of the night, and were ready for a day of novelty and charm.

      Breakfast was served on deck, under an awning; and greatly was it enjoyed by one of the passengers, – a Catholic lady of rank, who was travelling absolutely alone, and shifting for herself very successfully. She helped herself to an entire chicken, every bone of which she picked. While doing so, СКАЧАТЬ