Eastern Life. Harriet Martineau
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