Eastern Life. Harriet Martineau
to learn their numbers. Nobody knows; and if anyone knew, he would not tell. A census may be, and has been, ordered; but it cannot be executed. The popular dread of the Government renders it impossible. The fellahs (peasants) have such a terror of increased taxation and of the conscription, that they abscond on the mention of a census: and some who can afford it bribe the officials to suppress their names and those of their families. The last thing that can be learned of any Egyptian town or district is its population.
The walls of the streets are blank here; not a window, or break of any kind, but a low door here and there. The bazaars looked poor; and I believe the traffic is chiefly carried on elsewhere. We saw two slave-bazaars. One was an enclosure on the rising ground above our boat. The slaves here were only five or six, and all children, – all under sixteen years of age. They were intelligent and cheerful-looking; and I recognised, at the first glance, the likeness to the old Egyptian countenance and costume. The girls had their faces uncovered; and their hair in the Ethiopian fashion, precisely that which we see in the old sculptures and paintings. One little girl was preparing the pottage for their supper, very cleverly and earnestly. She was said to be fifteen; and £ 15 was the sum asked for her. – The other bazaar was on the outskirts of the town, and near our boat. It contained, when we saw it on our return, a dozen boys and about fifteen girls. Most of the girls were grinding millet between two stones, or kneading and baking cakes. They were freshly oiled, in good plight, and very intelligent-looking, for the most part. Some of them were really pretty in their way, in the old Egyptian way. They appeared cheerful, and at home in their business; and there can scarcely be a stronger contrast than between this slave-market and those I had seen in the United States. The contrast is as strong as between the serfdom of the Egyptian, and the freedom of the American inhabitants of the respective countries: and, of course, the first aspect of Slavery is infinitely less repulsive in Egypt than in America. What I learned, and may have to tell, of the life of the modern Egyptians proves, however, that the institution is no more defensible here than elsewhere.
I saw a little girl on the shore making cord, for tying round the waists of the men; and was extremely surprised to observe that the process is the same as that of bobbin-making with the lyre by English ladies. Instead of an ivory lyre, this child had two crossed sticks; and her cotton thread was very coarse. It was striking to see this little art existing in places so widely apart.
We walked, this afternoon, to the ruins of the old town, and overlooked its desolation from the top of the rock above the river. The translation of the name of this town is »the Opening«: and a great opening this once was, before the Nile had changed its character in Ethiopia, and when the more ancient races made this rock their watch-tower on the frontier between Egypt and the South.
That the Nile has changed its character, south of the First Cataract, has been made clear by some recent examination of the shores and monuments of Nubia. Dr. Lepsius has discovered watermarks so high on the rocks, and edifices so placed, as to compel the conviction that the bed of the Nile has sunk extraordinarily, by some great natural process, either of convulsion or wear.1 The apparent exaggerations of some old writers about the Cataracts at Syene may thus be in some measure accounted for. If there really was once a cataract here, instead of the rapids of the present day, there is some excuse for the reports given from hearsay, by Cicero and Seneca. Cicero says that »the river throws itself headlong from the loftiest mountains, so that those who live nearest are deprived of the sense of hearing, from the greatness of the noise.« Seneca's account is: – »When some people were, stationed there by the Persians, their ears were so stunned with the constant roar, that it was found necessary to remove them to a more quiet place.« – Supposing the Cataract formerly to have been of any height rendered necessary by the discoveries of Dr. Lepsius, it is clear that Syene must have been the station for the trans-shipment of merchandise passing north or south. The granite quarries, too, whence much of the building material of old Egypt was drawn, must have added to the business of the place. It is clear, accordingly, that this was, in all former times, a station of great importance. There were temples at Elephantine, to guard the interests of the neighbourhood, and to attract and gratify strangers. There was a Nilometer, to give tidings of the deposits of the great god Nilus. There was a garrison in the time of the Persians, and again in that of the Greeks: and Roman fortifications stand in ruin on the heights around. The Saracenic remains are obvious enough: and thus we have, on this frontier spot, and visible from the rock on which we stood, evidence of this place having been prized by successive races as the Opening which its present name declares it to be.
The ruins of the Saracenic town make their site desolate beyond description – more desolate to my eyes, if possible, than the five acres I saw laid waste by the great New York fire. Two women were sitting under the wall of a roofless house, with no neighbours but a few prowling dogs. They warned me away till they saw the rest of my party coming up the ascent. – The island of Elephantine, opposite, looked as if just laid waste by an earthquake, scarcely one stone being left upon another of all its once grand edifices. On its rocks were hieroglyphic inscriptions, many and deeply carved. – In a hollow of the desert behind us lay the great cemetery, where almost every grave has its little stone, with a Cufic inscription. The red granite was cropping up everywhere; and promontories and islets of black basalt began to show themselves in the river. Behind us, at the entrance of the desert, were the mountainous masses of granite where we were tomorrow to look for the celebrated quarries and their deserted obelisk. Before we came down from our point of survey, we saw the American party crossing, in a ferry-boat, to Elephantine. They had arrived after us, and were to set out on their return to Cairo the next day!
As we sat on deck under our awning this evening, the scene was striking; – the brilliant moonlight resting on the quiet groves, but contending on the shore with the yellow glow from the west, which gilded the objects there; and especially the boat-building near the water's edge; – the crews forming picturesque groups, with their singing, clapping, and dancing: while close beside them, and almost among them, were the Rais and two other men going through their prayers and prostrations. This boat-building was the last we saw up the river: and a rude affair it was: – the planks not planed, and wide apart, and irregular.
A kandjia was here which had brought a party of Turkish officers. We had the offer of it, to take us to the Second Cataract; our dahabieh being, of course, too large to ascend the Cataract here. Our gentlemen thought it would not do; – that Mrs. Y. and I could not put up with its accommodations, even for a fortnight. We thought we could; but we agreed that the first thing to be done was to go to the head of the Cataract, and see what boats could be had there.
The next morning, therefore, we had breakfast early, and set off on asses for Mahatta, – the village at the head of the Cataract. This, our first ride in the Desert, was full of wonder and delight. It was only about three miles: but it might have been thirty from the amount of novelty in it. Our thick umbrellas, covered with brown holland, were a necessary protection against the heat, which would have been almost intolerable, but for the cool north wind. – I believed before that I had imagined the Desert: but now I felt that nobody could. No one could conceive the confusion of piled and scattered rocks, which, even in a ride of three miles, deprives a stranger of all sense of direction, except by the heavens. These narrow passes among black rocks, all suffocation and glare, without shade or relief, are the very home of despair. The oppression of the sense of sight disturbs the brain, so that the will of the unhappy wanderer cannot keep his nerves in order. I thought of poor Hagar here, and seemed to feel her story for the first time. I thought of Scotch shepherds lost in the snow, and of their mild case in comparison with that of Arab goat-herds lost in the Desert. The difference is of death by lethargy and death by torture. We were afterwards in the depth of Arabia, and lived five weeks in tents in the Desert: but no Arabian scene impressed me more with the characteristics of the Desert than this ride of three miles from Aswán to Mahatta. The presence of dragon-flies in the Desert surprised me; – not only here, but in places afterwards – where there appeared to be no water within a great distance. To those who have been wont to watch the coming forth of the dragon-fly from its sheath on the rush on the margin of a pool, and flitting about the mountain watercourse, or the moist meadows at home, it is strange to see them by dozens glittering in the sunshine of the Desert, where there appears to be nothing for them to alight on; – nothing that would not shrivel them up, if they rested for a moment