 A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE, SECTION 24 I seem to remember the rest as if it had all happened in a dream. During the small temple we turned towards the river, skirted the mud-walls of the native village, and approached the great temple by way of its main entrance. Here we entered upon what had once been another great avenue of sphinxes, ram-headed, cushioned on plinths, deep-cut with hieroglyphic legends, leading up from some grand landing-place beside the Nile. And now the towers that we had first seen as we sailed by in the morning rose straight before us, magnificent in ruin, glittering to the sun, and relieved in creamy light against the blue depths of sky. One was nearly perfect, the other shattered as if by the shock of an earthquake, was still so lofty that an Arab clamoring from block to block midway of its vast height looked no bigger than a squirrel. On the threshold of this tremendous portal we again dismounted, shapeless, crude brick mounds marking the limits of the ancient wall of circuit, reached far away on either side. An immense perspective of pillars and pylons leading up to a very distant obelisk opened out before us. We went in, the great walls towering up like cliffs above our heads, and entered the first court. Here in the midst of a large quadrangle open to the sky stands a solitary column, the last of a central avenue of twelve, some of which disjointed by the shock, lied just as they fell like skeletons of vertebrate monsters left stranded by the flood. Crossing this court in the glowing sunlight we came to a mighty doorway between two more propylons, the doorway splendid with colored bob reliefs, their propylons mere cataracts of fallen blocks piled up to right and left in grand confusion. The cornice of the doorway is gone, only a jutting fragment of the lintel stone remains. That stone, when perfect, measured forty feet and ten inches across. The doorway must have been full a hundred feet in height. We went on, leaving to the right a mutilated colossus engraven on arm and breast with the cartouche of Ramesses II. We crossed the shade upon the threshold, and passed into the famous hippo-style hall of Seti I. It is a place that has been much written about and often painted, but of which no writing and no art can convey more than a dwarved and pallid impression. To describe it in the sense of building up a recognizable image by means of words is impossible. The scale is too vast, the effect too tremendous, the sense of one's own dumbness and littleness and incapacity too complete and crushing. It is a place that strikes you into silence, that empties you, as it were, not only of words but of ideas. Nor is this a first effect only. Later in the year, when we came back down the river and moored close by and spent long days among the ruins, I found that I never had a word to say in the great hall. Others might measure the girth of those tremendous columns. Others might climb hither and thither and find out points of view and test the accuracy of Wilkinson and Mariette. But I could only look and be silent. Yet to look is something if one can but succeed in remembering, and the great hall of Karnak is photographed in some dark corner of my brain for as long as I have memory. I shut my eyes and see it as if I were there, not all at once as in a picture, but bit by bit, as the eye takes note of large objects and travels over an extended field of vision. I stand once more among those mighty columns, which radiate into avenues from whatever point one takes them. I see them swathed in coiled shadows and broad bands of light. I see them sculptured and painted with shapes of gods and kings, with blazonings of royal names, with sacrificial altars, and forms of sacred beasts and emblems of wisdom and truth. The shafts of these columns are enormous. I stand at the foot of one, or of what seems to be the foot, for the original pavement lies buried seven feet below. Six men standing with extended arms, fingertip to fingertip, could barely span it round. It casts a shadow twelve feet in breadth, such a shadow as might be cast by a tower. The capital that juts out so high above my head looks as if it might have been placed there to support the heavens. It is carved in the semblance of a full-blown lotus and glows with undying colors, colors that are still fresh, though laid on by hands that have been dust these three thousand years and more. It would take not six men but a dozen to measure round the curved lip of that stupendous lily. Such are the twelve central columns. The rest, one hundred and twenty-two in number, are gigantic, too, but smaller. Of the roof they once supported, only the beams remain. Those beams are stones, huge monoliths carved and painted, bridging the space from pillar to pillar, and patterning the trodden soil with bands of shadow. Coming up and down the central avenue, we see at the one end a flame-like obelisk, at the other a solitary palm against a background of glowing mountain. To right to left, showing transversely through long files of columns, we catch glimpses of colossal bow-reliefs lining the roofless walls in every direction. The king, as usual, figures in every group, and performs the customary acts of worship. The gods receive and approve him. Half in light, half in shadow, these slender, fantastic forms stand out sharp, and clear, and colorless. Each figure some eighteen or twenty feet in height. They could scarcely have looked more weird when the great roof was in its place and perpetual twilight rained. But it is difficult to imagine the roof on and the sky shut out. It all looks right as it is, and one feels, somehow, that such columns should have nothing between them and the infinite blue depths of heaven. The great central avenue was, however, sufficiently lighted by means of a double row of clarest story windows, some of which are yet standing. Certain writers have suggested that they may have been glazed, but this seems improbable for two reasons. Firstly, because one or two of these huge window frames yet contain the solid stone gratings, which in the present instance seem to have done duty for a translucent material, and secondly because we have no evidence to show that the early Egyptians, though familiar since the days of chaos with the use of the blowpipe, ever made glass and sheets, or introduced it in this way into their buildings. How often it has been written, and how often must it be repeated, that the great Hall at Carnac is the noblest architectural work ever designed and executed by human hands. One writer tells us that it covers four times the area occupied by the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. Another measures it against St. Peter's. All admit their inability to describe it, yet all attempt the description. To convey a concrete image of the place to one who has not seen it is, however, as I have already said, impossible. If it could be likened to this place or that, the task would not be so difficult, but there is in truth no building in the wide world to compare with it. The pyramids are more stupendous. The Colosseum covers more ground. The Parthenon is more beautiful. Yet in nobility of conception, in vastness of detail, in majesty of the highest order, the Hall of Pillars exceeds them every one. This doorway, these columns, are the wonder of the world. How was that lintelstone raised? How were these capitals lifted? Entering among those mighty pillars, says a recent observer, you feel that you have shrunk to the dimensions and feebleness of a fly. But I think you feel more than that. You are stupefied by the thought of the mighty men who made them. You say to yourself, there were indeed giants in those days. It may be that the traveler, who finds himself for the first time in the midst of a grove of Wellington gigantea, feels something of the same overwhelming sense of awe and wonder. But the great trees, though they have taken three thousand years to grow, lack the pathos and the mystery that comes of human labor. They do not strike their roots through six thousand years of history. They have not been watered with the blood and tears of millions. Their leaves know no sounds less musical than the singing of birds, or the moaning of the night wind as it sweeps over the highlands of Calaveros. But every breath that wanders down the painted aisles of Carnac seems to echo back the size of those who perished in the quarry, at the oar, and under the chariot-wheels of the conqueror. The hippostyle hall, though built by Seti, the father of Ramesses II, is supposed by some Egyptologists to have been planned, if not begun, by that same Amenhotep III, who founded the temple of Luxor, and set up the famous Colossae of the plain. Through this may be the cartouches so lavishly sculptured on pillar and architrave contain no names but those of Seti, who undoubtedly executed the work on block, and of Ramesses who completed it. And now would it not be strange, if we knew the name and history of the architect who superintended the building of this wondrous hall, and planned the huge doorway by which it was entered, and the mighty pylons which lie shattered on either side? Would it not be interesting to look upon his portrait and see what manner of man he was? Well, the Egyptian room in the Glyptotech Museum at Munich contains a statue found some seventy years ago at Thebes, which almost certainly represents that man, and is inscribed with his history. His name was Bakhen Kansu, servant of Kansu. He sits upon the ground, bearded and robed, in an attitude of meditation. That he was a man of unusual ability is shown by the inscriptions engraved upon the back of the statue. These inscriptions record his promotions step by step to the highest grade of the hierarchy. Having attained the dignity of high priest and first prophet of Amon during the reign of Seti I, he became the chief architect of the Thebed under Ramesses II, and received a royal commission to superintend the embellishment of the temples. When Ramesses II erected a monument to his divine father Amon Ra, the building thereof was executed under the direction of Bakhen Kansu. Here the inscription, as translated by Monsieur de Vera, goes on to say that he made the sacred edifice in the upper gate of the abode of Amon. He erected obelisks of granite. He made golden flagstaffs. He added very, very great colonnades. Monsieur de Vera suggests that the temple of Guernet may here be indicated, but to this it might be objected that Guernet is situated in the lower and not the upper part of thieves. That at Guernet there are no great colonnades and no obelisks. And that, moreover, for some reason at present unknown to us, the erection of obelisks seems to have been almost wholly confined to the eastern bank of the Nile. It is, however, possible that the works here enumerated may not all have been executed for one in the same temple. The sacred edifice in the upper gate of the abode of Amon might be the temple of Luxor, which Ramesses did in fact adorn with the only obelisks we know to be his in thieves. The monument erected by him to his divine father Amon, evidently a new structure, would scarcely be any other than the Ramessium, while the very, very great colonnades, which are expressly specified as additions, would seem as if they could only belong to the hippostyle hall of Carnac. The question is at all events interesting, and it is pleasant to believe that in the munit statue we have not only a portrait of one who, at Carnac, played the part of Michelangelo to some foregone and forgotten Bramante, but who was also the ictinus of the Ramessium. For the Ramessium is the Parthenon of thieves. The sun was sinking and the shadows were lengthening when, having made the round of the principal ruins, we at length mounted our donkeys and turned toward Luxor. To describe all that we saw after leaving the great hall would fill a chapter. Huge obelisks of shining granite, some yet erect, some shattered and prostrate, vast lengths of sculptured walls covered with wondrous battle subjects, sacerdotal processions and elaborate chronicles of the deeds of kings, ruined courtyards surrounded by files of headless statues, a sanctuary built all of polished granite and engraven like a gem, a second hall of pillars dating back to the early days of Tutmost III, labyrinths of ruthless chambers, mutilated colossi, shattered pylons, fallen columns, unintelligible foundations and hieroglyphic inscriptions without end, were glanced at, passed by, and succeeded by fresh wonders. I dare not say how many small outlying temples we saw in the course of that rapid survey. In one place we came upon an undulating tract of coarse alfagrass, in the midst of which battered, defaced, forlorn, sat a weird company of green granite sphinxes and lioness-headed basts. In another we saw a magnificent colossal hawk upright on his pedestal in the midst of a burgfall of ruins. More avenues of sphinxes, more pylons, more colossi, were passed before the road we took in returning, brought us round to that by which we had come. By the time we reached the shake's tomb it was nearly dusk. We rode back across the plain, silent and bewildered. Have I not said that it was like a dream? End of Section XXIV A Thousand Miles Up the Nile Section XXV This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Thousand Miles Up the Nile by Amelia B. Edwards. Chapter IX. Thebes to Aswan, Part I Hurrying close upon the serenest of Egyptian sunsets came a night of storms. The wind got up about ten. By midnight the river was racing in great waves, and Ardaha Bia rolling at her moorings like a ship at sea. The sand, driving in furious gusts from the Libyan desert, dashed like hail against our cabin windows. Every moment we were either bumping against the bank or being rammed by our own falooka. At length a little before dawn a huge slice of the bank gave way, thundering like an avalanche upon our decks, whereupon Rais Hassan, being alarmed for the safety of the boat, hauled us up to a little sheltered nook a few hundred yards higher. Taking it all together we had not had such a lively night since leaving Benesuith. The lookout next morning was dismal, the river running high in yeasty waves, the boats all huddled together under the shore, the western bank hidden in clouds of sand. To get under way was impossible, for the wind was dead against us, and to go anywhere by land was equally out of the question. Karnak in a sandstorm would have been grand to sea, but one would have needed a diving helmet to preserve eyes and ears from destruction. Towards afternoon the fury of the wind so far subsided that we were able to cross the river and ride to Medinit Habu and the Remesiam. As we achieved only a passing glimpse of these wonderful ruins, I will for the presence say nothing about them. We came to know them so well hereafter that no mere first impression would be worth record. A light but fitful breeze helped us on next day as far as airmenet. The Ptolemaic Armenthus once the site of a goodly temple, now of an important sugar factory. Here we moored for the night, and after dinner received a visit of ceremony from the bay. A tall, slender, sharp-featured, bright-eyed man in European dress, remarkably dignified and well-bred, who came attended by his secretary, Kawas and pipe-bearer. Now the bay of Armenth is a great personage in these parts. He is governor of the town as well as superintendent of the sugar factory, holds a military command, has his palace and gardens close by, and his private steamer on the river, and is, like most high officials in Egypt, a Turk of distinction. The secretary, who was the bay's younger brother, wore a brown Inverness cape over a long white petticoat, and left his slippers at the saloon door. He sat all the time with his toes curiously doubled under, so that his feet looked like clenched fists in stockings. Both gentlemen wore tabooshes and carried visiting canes. The visiting cane, by the way, plays a conspicuous part in modern Egyptian life. It measures about two-and-a-half feet in length, is tipped at both ends with gold or silver, and is supposed to add a last touch of elegance to the bearer. We entertained our guests with coffee and lemonade, and as well as we could with conversation. The bay, who spoke only Turkish and Arabic, gave a flourishing account of the sugarworks and dispatched his pipe-bearer for a bundle of fresh canes, and some specimens of raw and candied sugars. He said he had an English foreman and several English workmen, and that for the English as a nation he had the highest admiration and regard, but that the Arabs had no heads. To our inquiries about the ruins his replies were sufficiently discouraging. Of the large temple every vestige had long since disappeared, while of the smaller one only a few columns and part of the walls were yet standing. They lay out beyond the town and a long way from the river. There was very little to see. It was all snug here, small, moosh-type, bad, not worth the trouble of the walk. As for antikas, they were rarely found here, and when found were of slight value. A scarab which he wore in a ring was then passed round and admired. It fell to our little lady's turn to examine it last and restore it to the owner. But the owner, with a bow and deprecating gesture, would have none of it. The ring was a toy, a nothing, the lady's, his no longer. She was obliged to accept it, however unwillingly. To decline would have been to offend. But it was the way in which the thing was done that made the charm of this little incident. The grace, the readiness, the courtesy, the lofty indifference of it were alike admirable. MacGready and his best days could have done it with his princely in air, but even he would probably have missed something of the oriental reticence of the Bay of Erement. He then invited us to go over the sugar factory, which we declined on account of the lateness of the hour, and presently took his leave. About ten minutes after came a whole posse of presents, three large bouquets of roses for the sitat, ladies, two scarab bay, a small funerial statuette in the rare green porcelain, and a live turkey. We in return sent a complicated English knife with all sorts of blades and some pots of English jam. The wind rose next morning with the sun, and by breakfast time we had left Erement far behind. All that day the Good Breeze served us well. The river was alive with cargo boats. The filet put on her best speed, the little bagstones kept up gallantly, and the Faustet, a large iron dahabia full of English gentlemen, kept us close company all the afternoon. We were all alike bound for Ezna, which is a large trading town, and lies twenty-six miles south of Erement. Now at Ezna the men were to bake again. Great therefore was Rais Hassan's anxiety to get in first, secure the oven, and buy the flour before dusk. The Rais of the Faustet and he of the bagstones were equally anxious and for the same reasons. Our men, meanwhile, were wild with excitement, watching every manoeuvre of the other boats, hanging on to the shog- hule like a swarm of bees and obeying the word of command with unwanted alacrity. As we neared the goal the race grew hotter. The honor of the boats was at stake, and the bread question was for the moment forgotten. Finally, all three dahabias ran in abreast and moored side by side in front of a row of little open cafes just outside the town. Ezna, of which the old Egyptian name was Sni, and the Roman name Latopolis, stands high upon the mounds of the ancient city. It is a large place, as large apparently as Minea, and like Minea it is the capital of a province. Here Drago-mans lay in provisions of limes, charcoal, flour, and livestock for the Nubian journey, and crews bake for the last time before their return to Egypt. For in Nubia food is scarce and prices are high and there are no public ovens. It was about five o'clock on a market day when we reached Ezna, and the market was not yet over. Going up through the usual labyrinth of windowless mud alleys where the old men crouched, smoking under every bit of sunny wall, and the children swarmed like flies, and the cry for Bakshish, buzzed incessantly about our ears, we came to an open space in the upper part of the town, and found ourselves all at once in the midst of the market. Here were peasant folks selling farm produce, stallkeepers displaying combs, looking glasses, gaudy printed handkerchiefs, and cheap bracelets of bone and colored glass, camels lying at ease and snarling at every passer-by, patient donkeys, ownerless dogs, veiled women, blue and black-robed men, and all the common sights and sounds of a native market. Here too we found Rais Hassan bargaining for flour, Ptolemy haggling with a charcoal dealer, and the M.B.s buying turkeys and geese for themselves in a huge store of tobacco for their crew. Most welcome-side of all, however, was a dingy chemist's shop about the size of a sentry-box over the door of which was suspended an Arabic inscription, while inside robed, all in black, sat a lean and grizzled Arab, from whom we bought a big bottle of rose water to make eye-lotion for El's ophthalmolic patients. Meanwhile there was a temple to be seen at Ezna, and this temple, as we had been told, was to be found close against the marketplace. We looked round in vain, however, for any sign of Pylon or Portico. The chemist said it was Kyriib, which means nearby. A camel-driver pointed to a dilapidated wooden gateway in a recess between two neighboring houses. A small boy volunteered to lead the way. We were greatly puzzled. We had expected to see the temple towering above the surrounding houses, as at Luxor, and could by no means understand how any large building to which that gateway might give access should not be visible from without. The boy, however, ran and thumped upon the gate, and shouted, Abbas, Abbas! Mehmet Ali, who was doing export, added some thundering blows with his staff, and a little crowd gathered, but no Abbas came. The bystanders, as usual, were liberal with their advice, recommending the boy to climb over and the sailor to knock louder and suggesting that Abbas the absent might possibly be found in a certain neighboring cafe. At length I somewhat impatiently expressed my opinion that there was my fiche berbe, no temple at all, whereupon a dozen voices were raised to assure me that the berbe was no myth, that it was kebir, big, that it was quies, beautiful, and that all the inglies came to see it. In the midst of the clamor, however, and just as we are about to turn away and despair, the gate creaks open, the gentleman of the frosted troop out in pug ears and knickerbockers, and we are at last admitted. This is what we see. A little yard surrounded by mud walls, at the farther end of the yard, a dilapidated doorway. Beyond the doorway, a strange-looking, stupendous mass of yellow limestone masonry, long and low and level, and enormously massive. A few steps farther, and this proves to be the curved cornice of a mighty temple—a temple neither ruined nor defaced, but buried to the chin in the accumulated rubbish of a score of centuries. This part is evidently the portico. We stand close under a row of huge capitals, the columns that support them are buried beneath our feet. The ponderous cornice jets out above our heads. From the level on which we stand to the top of that cornice may measure about twenty-five feet. A high mud wall runs parallel to the whole width of the façade, leaving a passage of about twelve feet in breadth between the two. A low mud parapet and a handrail reach from capital to capital. All beyond is vague cavernous mysterious, a great shadowy gulf in the midst of which dim ghosts of many columns are darkly visible. From an opening between two of the capitals, a flight of brick steps leads down into a vast hall so far below the surface of the outer world, so gloomy, so awful that it might be the portico of Hades. Going down these steps we come to the original level of the temple. We tread the ancient pavement. We look up to the mass of ceiling, recessed and sculptured and painted, like the ceiling at Dendera. We could almost believe indeed that we are again standing in the portico of Dendera. The number of columns is the same. The arrangement of the inter-column or screen is the same. The general effect and the main features of the plan are the same. In some respects, however, Esna is even more striking. The columns, though less massive than those of Dendera, are more elegant and look loftier. Their shafts are covered with figures of gods and emblems and lines of hieroglyph inscription, all cut in low relief. Their capitals, in place of the huge, draped Hathor heads of Dendera, are studied from natural forms, from the lotus lily, the papyrus blossom, the plummy date-palm. The wall sculpture, however, is inferior to that at Dendera and immeasurably inferior to the wall sculpture at Karnak. The figures are of the meanest, Ptolemaic type and all of one size. The inscriptions, instead of being grouped wherever there happen to be space and so producing the richest form of wall decoration ever devised by man, are disposed of in symmetrical columns. The effect of which, when compared with the florid style of Karnak, is as the methodical neatness of an engrossed deed to the splendid freedom of an illuminated manuscript. The steps occupy the place of the great doorway. The jams and part of the cornice, the intercolumnar screen, the shafts of the columns under whose capitals we came in, are all there, half projecting from and half embedded in the solid mound beyond. The light, however, comes in from so high up and through so narrow a space that one's eyes need to become accustomed to the darkness before any of these details can be distinguished. Then by degrees forms of deities, familiar and unfamiliar, emerge from the gloom. CHAPTER IX THIEVES TO ASUAN PART II THE TEMPLE IS DEDICATED TO KNUM OR KNEF, THE SOUL OF THE WORLD, WHEN WE NOW SEE FOR THE FIRST TIME. HE IS RAM-HEDDED AND HOLDS IN HIS HAND THE ANCA, OR EMBLUM OF LIFE. ANOTHER NEW ACCOINTANCE IS BEST, THE GROTESC GOD OF MERTH AND JOLITY. TWO SINGULAR LITTLE ERECTIONS BUILT BETWEEN THE COLUMNS TO THE RIGHT AND LEFT OF THE STEPS, NEXT ATTRACT OUR ATTENTION. THEY ARE LIKE STONE CENTRY BOXES. EACH IS IN ITSELF COMPLETE, WITH ROOF, Sculptured Cornice, Doorway, and, if I remember rightly, a small square window in the side. The inscriptions upon two similar structures in the portico at Edfu show that the right hand closet contained the sacred books belonging to the temple, while in the closet to the left of the main entrance the king underwent the ceremony of purification. It may, therefore, be taken for granted that these, at Esna, were erected for the same purpose. And now we look around for the next hall and look in vain. The doorway, which should lead to it, is walled up. The portico was excavated by Mohammed Ali in 1842, not in any spirit of antiquarian zeal, but in order to provide a safe underground magazine for gunpowder. Up to that time, as may be seen by one of the illustrations to Wilkinson's Thebes and General View of Egypt, the interior was choked to within a few feet of the capitals of the columns and used as a cotton store. Of the rest of the building, nothing is known, nothing is visible. It is as large, probably, as Dendera or Edfu, and in as perfect preservation. So, at least, says local tradition, but not even local tradition can point to what extent it lies under the foundations of the modern houses that swarm about its roof. An inscription first observed by Champollion states that the sanctuary was built by Tutmos III. Is that antique sanctuary still there? Has the temple grown, step by step, under the hands of successive kings, as it looks or? Or has it been reedified, ab ovo, as at Dendera? These are puzzling questions, only to be resolved by the demolition of a quarter of the town. Meanwhile, what treasures of sculptured history, what pictured chambers, what buried bronzes and statues may here wait the pick of the excavator? All next day, while the men were baking, the writer sat in a corner of the outer passage and sketched the portico of the temple. The sun rose upon the one horizon and set upon the other before that drawing was finished. Yet, for scarcely more than an hour, did it light up the front of the temple? At about half past nine a.m. it first caught the stone fillet at the angle. Then one by one each massy capital became outlined with a thin streak of gold. As this streak widened, the cornice took fire, and presently the hole stood out in light against the sky. Slowly then, but quite perceptibly, the sun traveled across the narrow space overhead. The shadows became vertical, the light changed sides, and by ten o'clock there was shade for the remainder of the day. Towards noon, however, the sun being then at its highest and the air transfused with light, the inner columns, swallowed up till now in darkness, became illuminated with a wonderful reflected light, and glowed out from the gloom like pillars of fire. Never go on shore without an escort is one of the rules of Nile life, and Salome has by this time become my exclusive property. He is a native of Aswan, young, active, intelligent, full of fun, hot-tempered with all, and as thorough a gentleman as I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. For a sample of his good breeding take this day at Esna, a day which he might have idled away in the bazaars and cafes, and which it must have been dull work to spend cooped up between a mud-wall and an outlandish berba, built by the gins who reigned before Adam. But Salome betrays no discontent. Curled up in a shady corner, he watches me like a dog, is ready with an umbrella as soon as the sun comes round, and replenishes a water bottle or holds a color box, as deftly as though he had been to the manor born. At one o'clock arrives my luncheon, enshrined in a pagoda of plates. Being too busy to leave off work, however, I put the pagoda aside and dispatch Salome to the market to buy himself some dinner, for which purpose, wishing to do the thing handsomely, I present him with the magnificent sum of two silver piastras, or about five pence English. With this he contrives to purchase three or four cakes of flabby native bread, a black-looking wristle of chopped meat and vegetables, and about a pint of dried dates. Knowing this to be a better dinner than my friend gets every day, knowing also that our sailors habitually eat at noon, I am surprised to see him leave these dainties untasted. In vain I say Bismillah, in the name of God, pressing him to eat in vocabulary phrases eked out with expressive pantomime. He laughs, shakes his head, and, asking permission to smoke a cigarette, pretes he is not hungry. Thus three more hours go by. A custom to long-fasting and absorbed in my sketch, I forget all about the pagoda, and it is past four o'clock, when I at length set to work to repair tissue at the briefest possible cost of time and daylight. And now the faithful salame falls, too, with an energy that causes the cakes, the wristle, the dates, to vanish as if by magic. Of what remains from my luncheon he also disposes in a trice. Never unless in a pantomime have I seen mortal man display so prodigious an appetite. I maim Ptolemy's scold him by and by for this piece of voluntary starvation. By my prophet, said he, am I a pig or a dog that I should eat when the sit was fasting? It was at Ezna, by the way, that hitherto undiscovered curiosity and ancient Egyptian coin was offered to me for sale. The finder was digging for neater and turned it up at an immense depth below the mounds on the outskirts of the town. He volunteered to show the precise spot, and told his artless tale with childlike simplicity. Fortunately, however, for the authenticity of this remarkable relic, it bore, together with the familiar profile of George IV, a superscription of its modest value, which was precisely one farthing. On another occasion, when we were making our long stay at Luxor, a colored glass button of honest birming amake was brought to the boat by a fella who swore that he himself founded upon a mummy in the tombs of the Queens at Carnot Marais. The same man came to my tent one day while I was sketching, bringing with him a string of more than doubtful scarabs, all veritable anticas, of course, and backed up with undeniable pedigrees. La, la, no, no. Bring me no more anticas, I said, gravely. They are old and worn out and cost much money. Have you no imitation scarabs new and serviceable that one might wear without the fear of breaking them? These are imitations, O sit, was the ready answer. But you told me a moment ago they were genuine anticas. That was because I thought the sit wanted to buy anticas, he said, quite shamelessly. See now, I said, if you are capable of selling me new things for old, how can I be sure you would not sell me old things for new? To this he replied by declaring that he had made the scarabs himself. Then, fearing I should not believe him, he pulled a scrap of coarse paper from his bosom, borrowed one of my pencils, and drew an asp and ibis, and some other common hieroglyphic forms with tolerable dexterity. Now you believe, he asked triumphantly. I see that you can make birds and snakes, I replied, but that neither proves you can cut scarabs, nor that these scarabs are new. Na sit, I made them with these hands. I made them but the other day. By Allah, they cannot be newer. Here Ptolemy interposed. In that case, he said, they are too new and will crack before a month is over. The sit would do better to buy some that are well seasoned. Our honest fella touched his brow and breast. Now in strict truth, O Drago-man, he said, with an air of the most engaging candor, these scarabs were made at the time of the inundation. They are new but not too new. They are thoroughly seasoned. If they crack, you shall denounce me to the governor, and I will eat stick for them. Now it has always seemed to me that the most curious feature in this little scene was the extraordinary simplicity of the Arab. With all his cunning, with all his disposition to cheat, he suffered himself to be turned inside out as unsuspiciously as a baby. It never occurred to him that his untruthfulness was being put to the test, or that he was committing himself more and more deeply with every word he uttered. The fact is, however, that the fella is half a savage. Notwithstanding his mendicity, and it must be owned, that he is the most brilliant liar under heaven, he remains a singularly transparent piece of humanity, easily amused, easily deceived, easily angered, easily pacified. He steals a little, cheats a little, lies a great deal, but on the other hand he is patient, hospitable, affectionate, trustful. He suspects no malice, and bears none. He commits no great crimes. He is incapable of revenge. In short, his good points outnumber his bad ones, and what man or nation need hope for a much better character. To generalize in this way may seem like presumption on the part of a passing stranger, yet it is more excusable as regards Egypt than it would be of any other equally accessible country. In Europe, and indeed in most parts of the East, one sees too little of the people to be able to form an opinion about them. But it is not so on the Nile. Cut off from hotels, from railways, from Europeanized cities, you are brought into continual intercourse with natives. The sick who come to you for medicines, the country gentlemen and government officials who visit you on board your boat, and entertain you on shore, your guides, your donkey boys, the very dealers who live by cheating you, furnish endless studies of character, and teach you more of Egyptian life than all the books of Nile travel that were ever written. Then your crew, part Arab, part Nubian, are a little world in themselves. One man was born a slave, and will carry the dealer's brand marks to his grave. Another has two children in Ms. Watley's school at Cairo. A third is just married, and has left his young wife sick at home. She may be dead by the time he gets back, and he will hear no news of her meanwhile. So with them all. Each has his simple story, a story in which the local oppressor, the dreaded conscription, and the still more dreaded corvée form the leading incidence. The poor fellows are ready enough to pour out their hopes, their wrongs, their sorrows. Through sympathy with these one comes to know the men, and through the men the nation. For the life of the Beled repeals itself with little variation wherever the Nile flows and the Kedive rules. The characters are the same, the incidents are the same. It is only the mise en scene which varies. End of section 26. A thousand miles up the Nile. Section 27. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A thousand miles up the Nile by Amelia B. Edwards. Chapter 9. Thebes to Aswan, Part 3. And thus it comes to pass that the mere traveler who spends but half a year on the Nile may, if he takes an interest in Egypt and the Egyptians, learn more of both in that short time than would be possible in a country less singularly narrowed in all ways, politically, socially, geographically. And this reminds me that the traveler on the Nile really sees the whole land of Egypt. Going from point to point in other countries, one follows a thin line of road, railway, or river, leaving wide tracks unexplored on either side. But there are few places in middle or upper Egypt and none at all in Nubia where one may not, from any moderate height, survey the entire face of the country from desert to desert. It is well to do this frequently. It helps one, as nothing else can help one, to an understanding of the wonderful mountain waste through which the Nile has been scooping its way for uncounted cycles. And it enables one to realize what a mere slip of alluvial deposit is this famous land which is the gift of the river. A dull gray morning, a faint unfitful breeze carried us slowly on our way from Ezna to Edfu. The new bread, a heavy boatload when brought on board, lay in a huge heap at the end of the upper deck. It took four men one whole day to cut it up. Their incessant gabble drove us nearly distracted. Uskut, Khalifa, uskut, Ali. Silence, Khalifa, silence, Ali, Ptolemy would say, from time to time. You are not on your own deck. The Hawaji can neither read nor write for the clatter of your tongues. And then for about a minute and a half they would be quiet. But you could as easily keep a monkey from chattering as an Arab. Our men talked incessantly, and their talk was always about money. Listen to them when we might, such words as Kamsa, Gourish, Five Piestras, Nusrael, half a dollar, Ethneen Shilling, two shillings, were perpetually coming to the surface. We could never understand how it was that money, which played so small a part in their lives, could play so large a part in their conversation. It was about midday when we passed El Kab. The ancient Iolithias. A rocky valo narrowing inland, a shakes tomb on the mountain ridge above, a few clumps of date palms, some remains of what looked like a long crude brick wall running at right angles to the river, and an isolated mass of hollowed limestone rock, left standing apparently in the midst of an exhausted quarry, were all that we saw of El Kab as the Dahabia glided by. And now, as the languid afternoon wears on, the propylons of Edfu loom out of the misty distance. We have been looking for them long enough before they come in sight, calculating every mile of the way, every minute of the daylight. The breeze, such as it was, has dropped now. The river stretches away before us, smooth and oily as a pond. Nine of the men are tracking. Will they pull us to Edfu in time to see the temple before nightfall? Rais Hassan looks doubtful, but takes refuge, as usual, in inshallah, God willing. Ptolemy talks of landing a sailor to run forward and order donkeys. Meanwhile the filet creeps lazily on, the sun declines unseen behind a filmy veil, and those two shadowy towers rising higher and ever higher on the horizon look gray and ghostly and far distant still. Suddenly the trackers stop, look back, shout to those on board and begin drawing the boat to shore. Rais Hassan points joyously to a white streak breaking across the smooth surface of the river about half a mile behind. The Faustat sailors are already swarming aloft. The bagstones trackers are making for home. Our own men are preparing to fling in the rope and jump on board as the filet nears the bank. For the capricious wind that always springs up when we don't want it is coming. And now the Faustat, being hindmost, flings out her big sail and catches the first puff. The bagstone's turn comes next. The filet shakes her wings free and shoots ahead, and in fewer minutes than it takes to tell, we are all three scutting along before a glorious breeze. The great towers that showed so far away half an hour ago are now close at hand. There are palm woods about their feet, and clustered huts from the midst of which they tower up against the murky sky magnificently. Soon they are past and left behind, and the gray twilight takes them and we see no more. Then night comes on, cold and starless, yet not too dark for going as fast as wind and canvas will carry us. And now, with that irrepressible instinctive rivalry that especially flesh on the Nile is heir to, we quickly turn our good going into a trial of speed. It is no longer a mere business-like devotion to the matter at hand. It is a contest for glory. It is the filet against the Faustat and the bagstones against both. In plain English it is a race. The two leading Dahabias are pretty equally matched. The filet is larger than the Faustat, but the Faustat has a bigger mainsail. On the other hand the Faustat is an iron boat, whereas the filet, being wooden-built, is easier to pull off a sandbank and lighter in hand. The bagstones carry a capital mainsail and can go as fast as either upon occasion. Meanwhile, the race is one of perpetually varying fortunes. Now the Faustat shoots ahead, now the filet. We pass and repass, take the wind out of one another's sails, economize every curve, hoist every stitch of canvas, and, having identified ourselves with our boats, are as eager to win as if a great prize depended on it. Under these circumstances to dine is difficult, to go to beds superfluous, to sleep impossible. As for mooring for the night, it is not to be thought of for a moment. Having begun the contest, we can no more help going than the wind can help blowing, and our crew are as keen about winning as ourselves. As night advances, the wind continues to rise and our excitement with it. Still the boats chase each other along the dark river, scattering spray from their bowels and flinging out broad foam tracks behind them. Their cabin windows, all alight within, cast flickering flames upon the waves below. The colored lanterns at their mastheads, orange, purple and crimson, burn through the dusk like jewels. Presently the mist blows off, the sky clears, the stars come out, the wind howls, the casements rattle, the sailor scroops, the sailors shout and race and bang the ropes about overhead, while we, sitting up in our narrow berths, spend half the night watching from our respective windows. In this way some hours go by. Then about three in the morning, with a shock, a recoil, a yell and a scuffle, we all three rush headlong upon a sandbank. The men fly to the rigging and furl the flapping sail. Some seize punting-polls. The sailors, looking like full-grown imps of darkness, leave overboard and set their shoulders to the work. A strough and anti-strough of grunts are kept up between those on deck and those in the water. Finally after some ten minutes frantic struggle the filet slips off, leaving the other two aground in the middle of the river. Towards morning, the noisy night, having worn itself away, we all fall asleep, only to be roused again by Ptolemy's voice at seven, proclaiming aloud that the bagstones and Faustet are once more close upon our heels, that Silcilis and Comambu are past and left behind, that we have already put forty-six miles between ourselves and Edfu, and that the good wind is still blowing. We are now within fifteen miles of Aswan. The Nile is narrow here and the character of the scenery has quite changed. Our view is bounded on the Arabian side by a near range of black granitic mountains, while on the Libyan side lies a chain of lofty sand-hills, each curiously capped by a crown of dark boulders. On both banks the river is thickly fringed with palms. Meanwhile, the race goes on. Last night it was sport, today it is earnest. Last night we raced for glory, today we raced for a steak. Againy for Reis Hassan, if we get first to Aswan, Reis Hassan's eyes glisten. No need to call up the Drago-man to interpret between us. The look, the tone, are as intelligible to him as the choicest Arabic, and the magical word guine stands for a sovereign now as it stood for one pound in the days of Nelson and Abercrombie. He touches his head and breast, casts a backward glance at the pursuing de Habias, a forward glance in the direction of Aswan, kicks off his shoes, ties a handkerchief about his waist, and stations himself at the top of the steps leading to the upper deck. By the light in his eye and the set look about his mouth, Reis Hassan means winning. Now to be first to Aswan means to be first on the governor's list, and first up the cataract. And as the passage of the cataract is some two or three days work, this little question of priority is by no means unimportant. Not for five times the promised guine would we have let the Faustus slip in first, and so be kept waiting our turn on the wrong side of the frontier. And now as the sun rises higher, so the race waxes hotter. At breakfast time we were fifteen miles from Aswan. Now the fifteen miles have gone down to ten, and when we reach Yonder-Headland they will have dwindled to seven. It is plain to see, however, that as the distance decreases between ourselves and Aswan, so also it decreases between ourselves and the Faustus. Reis Hassan knows it. I see him measuring this space by his eye. I see the frown settling on his brow. He is calculating how much the Faustic gains in every quarter of an hour and how many quarters we are yet distant from the goal. For no Arab sailor counts by miles, he counts by time, and by the reaches in the river, and these may be taken at a rough average of three miles each. When therefore our captain, in reply to an oft-repeated question, says we have yet two bends to make, we know that we are about six miles from our destination. Six miles, and the Faustic creeping closer every minute. Just now we were all talking eagerly, but as the end draws near even the sailors are silent. Reis Hassan stands motionless at his post on the lookout for shallows. The words Shamal, Yemen, left, right, delivered in a short, sharp tone, are the only sounds he utters. The steersman, all eye and ear, obeys him like his hand. The sailors squat in their places, quiet and alert as cats. And now it is no longer six miles but five, no longer five but four. The Faustic, thanks to her bigger sail, has well nigh overtaken us, and the bagstones is not more than a hundred yards behind the Faustic. On we go, however, past palm woods of nobler growth than any we have yet seen, past forlorn, homeward-bound Dahabiyas lying too against the wind, past native boats and riverside huts and clouds of driving sand, till the corner is turned and the last reach gained and the minarets of Aswan are seen as through a shifting fog in the distance. The ruined tower crowning yonder promontory stands over against the town, and those black specks midway in the bed of the river are the first outlying rocks of the cataract. The channel there is hem dim between reefs and sandbanks, and a steer it is difficult even in the calmest weather. Still our canvas strains to the wind and the filet rushes on full tilt like a racer at the hurdles. Every eye is now turned upon Rais Hassan, and Rais Hassan stands rigid like a man of stone. The rocks are close ahead, so close that we can see the breakers pouring over them and the swirling eddies between. Our way lies through an opening between the boulders. Beyond that opening the channel turns off sharply to the left. It is a point at which everything will depend on the shifting of the sail. If done too soon we miss the mark, if too late we strike upon the rocks. Suddenly our captain flings up his hand, takes the stairs at a bound and flies to the prow. The sailors spring to their feet, gathering some around the shag-cool and some around the end of the yard. The faucet is up beside us. The moment for winning or losing is come. And now, for a couple of breathless seconds, the two Dahabias plunge onward side by side, making for that narrow passage which is only wide enough for one. Then the iron boat, shaving the sandbank to get a wider berth, shifts her sail first and shifted clumsily, breaking or letting go her shag-cool. We see the sail flap and the rope fly and all hands rushing to retrieve it. In that moment Rais Hassan gives the word. The filet bounds forward, takes the channel from under the very boughs of the faucet, changes her sail without a hitch and dips right away down the deep water, leaving her rival hard and fast among the shallows. The rest of the way is short and open. In less than five minutes we have taken in our sail, paid Rais Hassan his well-earned guinea and found a snug corner to moor in, and so ends our memorable race of nearly sixty-eight miles from Ed Food to Aswan. CHAPTER X ASWAN AND ELEPHANTEEN PART I The Green Island of Elephantine, which is about a mile in length, lies opposite Aswan and divides the Nile in two channels. The Libyan and Arabian deserts, smooth amber sand slopes on the one hand, rugged granite cliffs on the other, come down to the brink on either side. On the Libyan shore a shakes tomb, on the Arabian shore a bold fragment of Moorish architecture, with ruined arches open to the sky, crown two opposing heights, and keep watch over the gate of the cataract. Just under the Moorish ruin, and separated from the river by a slip of sandy beach, lies Aswan. A few scattered houses, a line of blank wall, the top of a minaret, the dark mouths of one or two gloomy alleys, are all that one sees of the town from the mooring place below. The black boulders close against the shore, some of which are superbly hieroglyphed, glisten in the sun like polished jet. The beach is crowded with bales of goods, with camels laden and unladen, with turban figures coming and going, with damaged cargo boats lying up high and dry, and half healed over in the sun. Others moored close together are taking in or discharging cargo. A little apart from these lies some three or four dahabias flying English, American, and Belgian flags. Another has cast anchor over the way at Elephant Team. Small rowboats cross and re-cross, meanwhile, from shore to shore. Dogs bark, camels snort and snarl, donkey spray, and clamorous curiosity-dealers scream, chatter, hold their goods at arm's length, battle and implore to come on board, and are only kept off the landing-plank by means of two big sticks in the hands of two stalwart sailors. Things offered for sale at Aswan are altogether new and strange. Here are no scarabee, no funerary statuettes, no bronze or porcelain guides, no relics of a past civilization, but on the contrary such objects as speak only of a rude and barbarous present. Ostrich eggs and feathers, silver trinkets of rough newbie and workmanship, spears, bows, arrows, bucklers of rhinoceros hide, ivory bracelets cut solid from the tusk, porcupine quills, baskets of stained and plated wreaths, gold nose rings, and the like. One old woman has a newbie and lady's dressing case for sale, an uncouth, fetish-like object with a cushion for its body, and a top knot of black feathers. The cushion contains two coal bottles, a bodkin, and a bone comb. But the noisiest dealer of the lot is an impish boy blessed with the blackest skin and the shrillest voice ever brought together in one human being. His simple costume consists of a tattered shirt and a white cotton skull cap, his stock in trade of a greasy leather fringe tied to the end of a stick. Flying from window to window of the saloon on the side next to the shore, scrambling up the boughs of a neighboring cargo boat so as to attack us in the rear, thrusting his stick and fringe in our faces, whichever way we turn, and pursuing us with eager cries of Madame Nubia, Madame Nubia, he skips and screams and grins like an ubiquitous goblin and throws every competitor into the shade. Having seen a similar fringe in the collection of a friend at home, I at once recognized in Madame Nubia one of those curious girdle switch, with the addition of a necklace and a few bracelets, form the entire wardrobe of little girls south of the cataract. They vary in size according to the age of the wearer, the largest being about twelve inches in depth and twenty-five in length. A few are ornamented with beads and small shells, but these are parrous deluxe. The ordinary article is cheaply and unpretentiously trimmed with castor oil. That is to say, the girdle when new is well soaked in the oil, which softens and darkens the leather, besides adding a perfume dear to native nostrils. For the Nubian who grows his own plants and bruises his own berries, this odor is delicious. He reckons castor oil among his greatest luxuries. He eats it as we eat butter. His wives saturate their plated locks in it. His little girls perfume their fingers with it. His boys anoint their bodies with it. His home, his breath, his garments, his food, are redolent of it. It pervades the very air in which he lives and has his being. Maybe the European traveler who, while his lines are cast in Nubia, can train his degenerate nose to delight in the aroma of castor oil. The march of civilization is driving these fringes out of fashion on the frontier. At Aswan they are chiefly in demand among English and American visitors. Most people purchase a Madame Nubia for the entertainment of friends at home. El, who is given to vanities in the way of dress, bought one so steeped in fragrance that it scented the filet for the rest of the voyage, and retains its odor to this day. Almost before the mooring rope was made fast our painter, a raid in a gorgeous café, and armed with the indispensable visiting cane, had sprung ashore and hastened to call upon the governor. A couple of hours later the governor, having promised to send at once for the shake of the cataract and a forward arguing by all means in his power, returned the visit. He brought with him the mutter and cutty of Aswan, each attended by his pipe-bearer. We received our guests with due ceremony in the saloon. The great men placed themselves on one of the side-devans, and the painter opened the conversation by offering them champagne, claret, port, sherry, curacao, brandy, whiskey, and angostura bitters. Ptolemy interpreted. The governor laughed. He was a tall young man, graceful, lively, good-looking, and black as a crow. The coddy and mutter, both elderly Arabs, yellow-wrinkled and precise, looked shocked at the mere mention of these unholy lickers. Somebody then produced lemonade. The governor turned briskly towards the speaker. —Gazosso?—he said interrogatively. To which Ptolemy replied, Iwa, yes, gazosso. Aireated lemonade and cigars were then brought. The governor watched the process of uncorking with a face of profound interest and drank with the undisguised greediness of a schoolboy. Even the coddy and mutter relaxed somewhat of the gravity of their demeanor. To men whose habitual drink consists of lime water and sugar, bottled lemonade represents champagne mousseau of the choicest brand. Then began the usual attempts at conversation, and only those who have tried small talk by proxy know how hard it is to supply topics, suppress yons, and keep up an animated expression of countenance while the civilities on both sides are being interpreted by a Drago man. We began, of course, with the temperature, for in Egypt, where it never rains and the sun is always shining, the thermometer takes the place of the weather as a useful platitude. Knowing that Aswan enjoys the hottest reputation of any town on the surface of the globe, we were agreeably surprised to find it no warmer than England in September. The governor accounted for this by saying he had never known so cold a winter. We then asked the usual questions about the crops, the height of the river, and so forth, to all of which he replied with the ease and bon amie of a man of the world. Nubia, he said, was healthy. The date harvest had been abundant, the corn promised well, the Sudan was quiet and prosperous. Referring to the new postal arrangements, he congratulated us on being able to receive and post letters at the second cataract. He also remarked that the telegraph wires were now in working order as far as cartoom. We then asked how soon he expected the railway to reach Aswan, to which he replied in two years at latest. At length our little stock of topics came to an end and the entertainment flagged. What shall I say next? asked the dregoman. Tell him we particularly wish to see the slave market. The smile vanished from the governor's face. The mutter set down a glass of fizzing lemonade untasted. The coddy all but dropped his cigar. If a shell had burst in the saloon, their consternation could scarcely have been greater. The governor, looking grave, was the first to speak. He says there is no slave trade in Egypt and no slave market in Aswan, interpreted Ptolemy. Now we had been told in Cairo on excellent authority that slaves were still bought and sold here, though less publicly than of old, and that of all the sites a traveler might see in Egypt, this was the most curious and pathetic. No slave market, we repeated incredulously. The governor, the coddy, and the mutter shook their heads and lifted up their voices and said altogether like a trio of mandarins in a comic opera. La, la, la, ma fish bazaar, ma fish bazaar. No, no, no, no bazaar, no bazaar. We endeavored to explain that in making this inquiry we desired neither the gratification of an idle curiosity, nor the furtherance of any political views. Our only object was sketching, understanding, therefore, that a private bazaar still existed in Aswan. This was too much for the judicial susceptibilities of the coddy. He would not let Ptolemy finish. There is nothing of the kind, he interrupted, puckering his face into an expression of such virtuous horror as might become a reformed New Zealander on the subject of cannibalism. It is unlawful, unlawful. An awkward silence followed. We felt we had committed an enormous blunder, and were disconcerted accordingly. The Governor saw, and with the best grace in the world, took pity upon our embarrassment. He rose, opened the piano, and asked for some music, whereupon the little lady played the liveliest things she could remember, which happened to be a waltz by Verdi. The Governor, meanwhile, sat beside the piano, smiling and attentive. With all his politeness, however, he seemed to be looking for something to be not altogether satisfied. There was even a shade of disappointment in the tone of his kethere, kirek kethere, when the waltz finally exploded in a shower of arpeggios. What could it be? Was it that he wished for a song, or would a pathetic air have pleased him better? Not a bit of it. He was looking for what his quick eye presently detected, namely some printed music which he sees triumphantly in place before the player. What he wanted was music played from a book. Being asked whether he preferred a lively or plaintive melody, he replied that he did not care so long as it was difficult. Now it chanced that he had pitched upon a volume of Wagner, so the little lady took him at his word and gave him a dose of town-houser. Strange to say he was delighted. He showed his teeth. He rolled his eyes. He uttered the long-drawn ah, which in Egypt signifies applause. The more crabbed, the more far-fetched, the more unintelligible the movement, the better, apparently, he liked it. I never think of Aswan, but I remember that curious scene. Our little lady at the piano, the black governor grinning in ecstasies close by, the coddy in his magnificent shawl turban, the mutter half asleep. The air thick with tobacco-smoke, and above all, dominant, tyronous, overpowering, the clash and clang, the involved harmonies, and the multitudinous combinations of town-houser. The linked sweetness of an oriental visit is generally drawn out to a link that sorely tries the patience and politeness of European hosts. A native gentleman, if he has any business to attend to, gets through his work before noon, and has nothing to do but smoke, chat, and doze away the remainder of the day. For time which hangs heavily on his hands he has absolutely no value. His main object in life is to consume it if possible less tediously. He pays a visit, therefore, with the deliberate intention of staying as long as possible. Our guests on the present occasion remained the best part of two hours, and the governor, who talked of going to England shortly, asked for all our names and addresses that he might come and see us at home. Leaving the cabin he paused to look at our roses, which stood near the door. We told him that they had been given to us by the Bay of Erement. Do they grow at Erement? He asked, examining them with great curiosity. How beautiful! Why will they not grow in Nubia? We suggested that the climate was probably too hot for them. He stopped, inhaling their perfume. He looked puzzled. They are very sweet, he said. Are they roses? The question gave us kind of a shock. We could hardly believe we had reached a land where roses were unknown. Yet the governor, who had smoked a rose-water narguile, and drunk rose sherbet, and eaten conserve of roses all his days, recognized them by their perfume only. He had never been out of Aswan in his life, not even as far as Erement, and he had never seen a rose in bloom. We had hoped to begin the passage of the cataract on the morning of the day following our arrival at the frontier, but some other Dahabia, it seemed, was in the act of fighting its way up to File, until that boat was through neither the shake nor his men would be ready for us. At eight o'clock in the morning of the next day but one, however, they promised to take us in hand. We were to pay twelve pounds English for the double journey, that is to say, nine down and the remaining three on our return to Aswan. This was the treaty conducted between ourselves and the shake of the cataract at a solemn conclave over which the governor, assisted by the Qadi and Mudar, presided. Having a clear day to spend at Aswan, we, of course, gave part thereof to Elephantine, which in the inscriptions is called Abu or the Ivory Island. There may perhaps have been a depot or treasure-city here for the precious things of the upper Nile country, the gold of Nubia, and the elephant tusks of Kush. It is a very beautiful island, rugged and lofty to the south, low and fertile to the north, with an exquisitely varied coastline full of wooded creeks and miniature beaches, in which one might expect at any moment to meet Robinson Caruso with his goat-skin umbrella or man Friday bending under a load of faggots. They are all Fridays here, however, for Elephantine, being the first Nubian outpost is peopled by Nubians only. It contains two Nubian villages and the mounds of a very ancient city, which was the capital of all Egypt under the pharaohs of the Sixth Dynasty, being three and four thousand years before Christ. Two temples, one of which dated from the reign of Amenhotep III, were yet standing here some seventy years ago. They were seen by Belzoni in 1815, and had just been destroyed to build a palace in barracks when Shampoleon went up in 1829. A ruined gateway of the Ptolemaic period and a forlorn-looking sitting statue of Minefta, the supposed pharaoh of the Exodus, alone remained to identify the sites on which they stood. Thick palm groves and carefully tilled patches of castor oil and cotton plants, lentils and dura make green the heart of the island. The western shore is wooded to the water's edge. One may walk here in the shade at hottest noon, listening to the murmur of the cataract and seeking for wildflowers, which, however, would seem to blossom nowhere save in the sweet Arabic name of Jezeret el-Zar, the island of flowers. Upon the high ground at the southern extremity of the island, among rubbish heaps and bleached bones and human skulls, and the sloughed skins of snakes and piles of party-colored part-shirts, we picked up several bits of inscribed terracotta. Many fragments of broken vases. The writing was very faint and, in part, obliterated. We could see that the characters were Greek, but not even our idle man was equal to making out a word of the sense. Believing them to be mere disconnected scraps to which it would be impossible to find the corresponding pieces, taking it for granted also that they were of comparatively modern date, we brought away some three or four souvenirs of the place and thought no more about them. We little dreamed that Dr. Birch, in his cheerless official room at the British Museum so many thousand miles away, was at this very time occupied in deciphering a collection of similar fragments, nearly all of which had been brought from this same spot. Of the curious interest attaching to these illegible scrawls, of the importance they were shortly to acquire in the eyes of the learned, of the possible value of any chance additions to their number we knew and could know nothing. Six months later we lamented our ignorance and our lost opportunities. For the Egyptians, it seems, used pot-shirts instead of papyrus for short memoranda, and each of these fragments that we had picked up contained a record complete in itself. I fear we should have laughed if anyone had suggested that they might be tax-gatherers' receipts. Yet that is just what they were—receipts for government dues collected on the frontier during the period of Roman rule in Egypt. They were written in Greek because the Romans deputed Greek scribes to perform the duties of this unpopular office. But the Greek is so corrupt in penmanship so clownly that only a few eminent scholars can read them. Not all the inscribed fragments found at Elephantine, however, were tax receipts or written in bad Greek. The British Museum contained several in the Demotic, or current script of the people, and a few more in the learned, heretic, or priestly hand. The former have not yet been translated. They are probably business memoranda and short private letters of Egyptians of the same period. But how came these fragile documents to be preserved when the city in which their writers lived and the temples in which they worshipped have disappeared and left scarce a trace behind? Who cast them down among the pot-shirts on this barren hillside? Are we to suppose that some kind of public record office once occupied the site, and that the receipts here stored were duplicates of those given to the payers? Or is it not even more probable that this place was the monta testatio of the ancient city, to which all broken pottery written, as well as unwritten, found its way sooner or later? With the exception of a fine fragment of Roman quay near opposite Aswan, the ruined gateway of Alexander and the battered statue of Manepta are the only objects of archaeological interest on the island. But the charm of Elephantine is the everlasting charm of natural beauty, of rocks, of palm woods, of quiet waters. The streets of Aswan are just like the streets of every other mud town on the Nile. The bazaars reproduce the bazaars of Mania and Siut. The environs are noisy with cafes and dancing girls, like the environs of Ezna and Luxor. Into the mosque, where some kind of service was going on, we peaked without entering. It looked cool and clean and spacious, the floor being covered with fine matting, and some scores of ostrich eggs depending from the ceiling. In the bazaars we bought baskets and mats of Nubian manufacture woven with the same reeds, dyed with the same colors, shaped after the same models as those found in the tombs at Thebes. A certain oval basket with a vaulted cover, of which specimens are preserved in the British Museum, seemed still to be the pattern most in demand at Aswan. The basket makers have neither changed their fashion, nor the buyers their taste since the days of Ramesses the Great. Here also, at a little cupboard of a shop near the shoe bazaar, we were tempted to spend a few pounds in ostrich feathers, which are conveyed to Aswan by traders from the Sudan. The merchant brought out a feather at a time and seemed in no haste to sell. We also affected indifference. The haggling on both sides was tremendous. The bystanders, as usual, were profoundly interested and commented on every word that passed. At last we carried away an armful of splendid plumes, most of which measured from two and a half to three feet in length. Some were pure white, others white tipped with brown. They had been neither cleaned nor curled, but were just as they came from the hands of the ostrich hunters. By far the most amusing side in Aswan was the traders' camp down near the landing-place. Here were Abyssinians like slender-legged baboons, wild-looking Bisharia and Ababda Arabs with flashing eyes and flowing hair, sturdy Nubians the color of a Barbadian bronze, and natives of all tribes and shades, from Kordafon and Senar, the deserts of Bahuda and the banks of the blue and white Niles. Some were returning from Cairo, others were on their way thither. Some having disembarked their merchandise at Mahata, a village on the other side of the cataract, had come across the desert to re-embark it at Aswan. Others had just disembarked theirs at Aswan in order to re-embark it at Mahata. Meanwhile they were living sub-jove, each entrenched in his own little redoubt of piled-up bales and packing-cases, like a spider in the center of his web, each provided with his kettle and coffee-pot, and an old rug to sleep and pray upon. One soky old Turk had fixed up a roof of matting and furnished his den with a kafas, or palm-wood couch, but he was a self-indulgent exception to the rule. Some smiled, some scowled, when we passed through the camp. One offered us coffee. Another, more obliging than the rest, displayed the contents of his packages. Great bundles of lion and leopard skin, bales of cotton, sacks of henna-leaves, elephant tusks swathed in canvas and matting, strewed the sandy bank. Of gum Arabic alone there must have been several hundred bales. Each bale sewn up in a raw hide and tied with thongs of hippopotamus leather. Towards dusk, when the campfires were alight and the evening meal was in course of preparation, the scene became wonderfully picturesque. Lights gleamed, shadows deepened, strange figures stalked to and fro or squatted in groups amid their merchandise. Some were baking flat cakes, others stirring soup or roasting coffee. A hole scooped in the sand a couple of stones to support the kettle, and a handful of dry sticks served for kitchen range and fuel. Meanwhile all the dogs and as one prowled round the camp and a jargon of barbaric tongues came and went with the breeze that followed the sunset. I must not forget to add that among this motley crew we saw two brothers, natives of cartoon. We met them first in the town and afterwards in the camp. They wore volumnius white turbans and flowing robes of some kind of creamy cashmere cloth. Their small proud heads and delicate aristocratic features were modelled on the purest Florentine type. Their eyes were long and liquid. Their complexions, free from any taint of Abyssinian blue or Nubian bronze, were intense, lustrously, magnificently black. We agreed that we had never seen two such handsome men. They were like young and beautiful dantes carved in ebony—dantes unembittered by the world, unsickled by the pale cast of thought and glowing with the life of the warm south. Having explored Elephantine and ransacked the bazaars, our party dispersed in various directions. Some gave the remainder of the day to letter-writing. The painter, bent on sketching, started off in search of a jackal- hunted ruin up a wild ravine on the Libyan side of the river. The writer and the idle man boldly mounted camels and rode out into the Arabian desert. Now the camel-riding that is done in Aswan is of the most commonplace description, and bears to genuine desert traveling about the same relation that half an hour on the Mair de Glace bears to the passage of the Morderech Glacier on the Ascent of Monterosa. The shortcut from Aswan to File, or at least the ride to the granite quarries, forms part of every dregoman's program and figures as the crowning achievement of every cook's tourist. The Arabs themselves performed these little journeys much more pleasantly and expeditiously on donkeys. They take good care, in fact, never to scale the summit of a camel if they can help it. But for the impressionable traveler, the Aswan camel is de regueur. In his interests are those snarling quadrupeds, be tasseled and be rugged, taken from their regular work and paraded up and down the landing-place. To transport cargoes disembarked above and below the cataract is their vocation. Even from this honest calling to perform in an absurd little drama got up especially for the entertainment of tourists, it is no wonder if the beasts are more than commonly ill-tempered. They know the whole proceeding to be essentially cockney, and they resent it all accordingly. The ride, nevertheless, has its advantages, not the least being that it enables one to realize the kind of work involved in any of the regular desert expeditions. At all events it entitles one to claim an acquaintance with the ship of the desert, and bearing in mind the probable inferiority of the specimen to form an expeed judgment of his qualifications. The camel has its virtues, so much at least must be admitted, but they do not lie upon the surface. My buffon tells me, for instance, that he carries a freshwater cistern in his stomach, which is meritorious. But the cistern ameliorates neither his gait nor his temper, which are abominable. Unapproachable as a beast of burden, he is open to many objections as a steed. It is unpleasant in the first place to ride an animal that not only objects to being ridden, but cherishes a strong personal antipathy to his rider. Such, however, is his amiable peculiarity. You know that he hates you from the moment you first walk round him, wondering where and how to begin the assent of his hump. He does not, in fact, hesitate to tell you so in the roundest terms. He swears freely while you are taking your seat, snarls if you but move in the saddle, and stares you angrily in the face, if you attempt to turn his head in any direction, save that which he himself prefers. Should you persevere, he tries to bite your feet. If biting your feet does not answer, he lies down. Now, the lying down and getting up of a camel are performances designed for the express purpose of inflicting grievous bodily harm upon his rider. From twice forward and twice backward, punched in his wind and damaged in his spine, the luckless novice receives four distinct shocks, each more violent and unexpected than the last. For this excribable hunchback is fearfully and wonderfully made. He has a superfluous joint somewhere in his legs and uses it to revenge himself upon mankind. His paces, however, are more complicated than his joints and more trying than his temper. He has four, a short walk like the rolling of a small boat in a chopping sea, a long watt which dislocates every bone in your body, a trot that reduces you to imbecility, and a gallop that is sudden death. One tries in vain to imagine a crime for which the pen for the door of sixteen hours on camelback would not be a full and sufficient expiation. It is a punishment to which one would not willingly be the means of condemning any human being, not even a reviewer. CHAPTER X ASWAN AND ELIFANTEEN PART III They had been down on the bank for hire all day long, brown camels and white camels, shaggy camels and smooth camels, all with gay worsted tassels on their heads, and rugs flung over their high wooden saddles by way of housings. The gentlemen of the Faustet had ridden away hours ago, cross-legged and serene, and we had witnessed their demeanor with mingled admiration and envy. Now modestly conscious of our own daring we prepared to do likewise. It was a solemn moment when, having chosen our beasts, we prepared to encounter the unknown perils of the desert. What wonder if the happy couple exchanged in affecting farewell at parting? We mounted and rode away, two imps of darkness following at the heels of our camels, and Salome performing the part of body guard. Thus attended we found ourselves pitched, swung, and rolled along at a pace that carried us rapidly up the slope, past a suburb full of cafes and grinning dancing girls, and out into the desert. Our way for the first half mile or so lay among tombs. A great Mohammedan necropolis, part ancient, part modern, lies behind Aswan, and covers more ground than the town itself. Some scores of tiny mosques, each topped by its little cupola, and all more or less dilapidated, stand here amid a wilderness of scattered tombstones. Some are isolated, some grouped picturesquely together. Each covers, or is supposed to cover, the grave of a Muslim Santan, but some are mere commemorative chapels dedicated to saints and martyrs elsewhere buried. Of simple headstones defaced, shattered, overturned, propped back to back on carns of loose stones, or piled in broken and dishonored heaps, there must be many hundreds. They are, for the most part, rounded at the top like ancient Egyptian stela and bare elaborately carved inscriptions, some of which are in the Khufit character and more than a thousand years old. Seen when the sun is bending westward and the shadows are lengthening, there is something curiously melancholy and picturesque about the city of the dead in the dead desert. Leaving the tombs, we now strike off towards the left, bound for the obelisk in the quarry, which is the stockside of the place. The horizon beyond Aswan is bounded on all sides by rocky heights, bold and picturesque in form, yet scarcely lofty enough to deserve the name of mountains. The sandy bottom under our camel's feet is strewn with small pebbles, and tolerably firm. Clustered rocks of black and red granite profusely inscribed with hieroglyphed records crop up here and there, and serve as landmarks just where landmarks are needed. For nothing would be easier than to miss one's way among these tawny slopes and to go wandering off like lost Israelites into the desert, winding in and out among undulating hillocks and tracks of rolled boulders, we come at last to a little group of cliffs at the foot of which our camel's halt unbidden. Here we dismount, climb a short slope and find the huge monolith at our feet. Being cut horizontally, it lies half-buried in drifted sand, with nothing to show that it is not wholly disengaged and ready for transport. Our books tell us, however, that the undercutting has never been done, and that it is yet one with the granite bottom on which it seems to lie. Both ends are hidden, but one can pay some sixty feet of its yet visible surface. That surface bears the tool marks of the workman. A slanting groove pitted with wedge holes indicates where it was intended to taper towards the top. Here shows where it was to be reduced at the side. Had it been finished, this would have been the largest obelisk in the world. The great obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut at Karnak, which, as its inscriptions record, came also from Aswan, stands ninety-two feet high and measures eight feet square at the base. But this which lies sleeping in the desert would have stood ninety-five feet in the shaft and have measured over eleven feet square at the base. We can never know why it was left here, nor guess with what royal name it should have been inscribed. Had the king said in his heart that he would set up a mightier obelisk than was ever yet seen by eyes of men, and did he die before the block could be extracted from the quarry? Or were the quarrymen driven from the desert and the favoro from his throne by the hungry hordes of Ethiopia or Syria or the islands beyond the sea? The great stone may be older than Ramesses the Great, or as modern as the last of the Romans, but to give it a date or to divine its history is impossible. Egyptology, which has solved the enigma of the Sphinx, is powerless here. The obelisk of the quarry holds its secret safe and holds it forever. Ancient Egyptian quarrying is seen under its most striking aspect among extensive limestone or sandstone ranges, as at Tura and Cicillus, but the process by which the stone was extracted can nowhere be more distinctly traced than at Aswan. In some respects, indeed, the quarries here, though on a smaller scale than those lower down the river, are even more interesting. Nothing surprises one at Cicillus, for instance, more than the economy with which the sandstone has been cut from the heart of the mountain. But at Aswan, as the material was more precious, so does the economy seem to have been still greater. At Cicillus the yellow cliffs have been sliced as neatly as the cheeses in a cheese-monger's window. Smooth, upright walls alone mark the place where the work has been done, and the amount of debris is altogether insignificant. But at Aswan, when extracting granite for sculptural purposes, they attacked the form of the object required, and cut it out roughly to shape. The great obelisk is but one of the many cases in point. In the same group of rocks, or one very closely adjoining, we saw a rough-hewn column erect and three parts detached, as well as the semi-cylindrical hollow from which its fellow had been taken. One curious recess from which a quadrant-shaped mass had been cut away puzzled us immensely. In other places the blocks appeared to have been coffer-shaped. We saw it in vain, however, for the broken sarcophagus mentioned in Murray. But the drifted sands, we may be sure, hide more precious things than these. The inscriptions are probably as abundant here as in the Bracia of Hememund. The great obelisk must have had a fellow if we only knew where to look for it. The obelisks of Queen Hatshepsut and the sarcophagi of many famous kings might possibly be traced to their beds in these quarries. So might the casing-stones of the Pyramid of Mankara, the massive slabs of the Temple of the Sphinx, and the walls of the Sanctuary of Philip Eradius at Carnac. Above all, the cyanite colossus of the Ramaceum and the monster colossus of Tannus, which was the largest detached statue in the world, must each have left its mighty matrix among the rocks close by. But these, like the Song of the Sirens or the Alias of Achilles, though not beyond all conjecture, are among the things that will never now be discovered. As regards the process of quarrying at Aswan, it seems that rectangular granite blocks were split off here as the softer limestone and sandstone elsewhere by means of wooden wedges. These were fitted to holes already cut for their reception, and being saturated with water split the hard rock by mere force of expansion. Every quarried mass hereabouts is marked with rows of these wedge holes. Looking by a tiny oasis where there were camels, and a well, and an idle waterwheel, and a patch of emerald green barley, we next rode back nearly to the outskirts of Aswan, where, in a dismal hollow on the verge of the desert may be seen a small, half-buried temple of Ptolemaic tines. Traces of color are still visible on the winged globe under the cornice, and on some mutilated baw reliefs at either side of the principal entrance. Seeing that the interior was choked with rubbish, we made no attempt to go inside, but rode away again without dismounting. And now there being still an hour of daylight, we signaled our intention of making for the top of the nearest hill, in order to see the sunset. This clearly was an unheard of innovation. The camel-boys stared, shook their heads, protested there was Mafeesika, no road, and evidently regarded us as lunatics. The camels planted their splay-feet obstinately in the sand, tried to turn back, and when obliged to yield to the force of circumstances, abused us all the way. Arrived at the top, we found ourselves looking down upon the island of Elephantine, with the Nile, the town, and the Dahabias at our feet. A prolongation of the ridge on which we were now standing led, however, to another height crowned by a ruined tomb, and seemed a promise of view of the cataract. Having us prepared to go on, the camel-boys broke into a furor of remonstrance, which, but for Salame's big stick, would have ended in downright mutiny. Still we pushed forward, and still dissatisfied, insisted on attacking a third summit. The boys now trudged on in sullen despair. The sun was sinking, the way was steep and difficult, and the night would soon come on. If the Hawaji chose to break their necks it concerned nobody but themselves. But if the camels broke theirs, who was to pay for them? Such, expressed in half-broken Arabic, half-ingesters, were the sentiments of our youthful Nubians. Nor were the camels themselves less emphatic. They grinned, they sniffed, they snorted, they snarled, they disputed every foot of the way. As for mine, a gawky, supercilious beast with a bloodshot eye and a battered Roman nose. I never heard any dumb animal make use of such bad language in my life. The last hill was very steep and stony, but the view from the top was magnificent. We had now gained the highest point of the ridge which divides the valley of the Nile from the Arabian desert. The cataract, widening away reach after reach and studded with innumerable rocky islets, looked more like a lake than a river. Of the Libyan desert we could see nothing beyond the opposite sand slopes, gold-rimmed against the sunset. The Arabian desert, a boundless waist edged by a serrated line of purple peaks, extended eastward to the remotest horizon. We looked down upon it as on a raised map. The Muslim tombs, some five hundred feet below, showed like toys. To the right, in a wide valley opening away southwards, we recognized that ancient bed of the Nile which serves for the great highway between Egypt and Nubia. At the end of the Vista some very distant palms against a rocky background pointed the way to Phile. Meanwhile, the sun was fast sinking, the lights were crimsoning, the shadows were lengthening, all was silent, all was solitary. We listened but could scarcely hear the murmur of the rapids. We looked in vain for the quarry of the obelisk. It was but one group of rocks among scores of others, and to distinguish it at this distance was impossible. Presently a group of three or four black figures mounted on little gray asses came winding in and out among the tombs, and took the road to Phile. To us they were moving specks, but our link-side camel-boys at once recognized the sheikh el-shella, sheikh of the cataract, and his retinue. More dahabiyas had come in, and the worthy man, having spent all day in Aswan, visiting, palavering, bargaining, was now going home to Mahata for the night. We watched the retreating riders for some minutes till twilight stole up the ancient channel like a flood, and drowned them in warm shadows. The afterglow had faded off the heights when we at length crossed the last ridge, descended the last hillside, and regained the level from which we had started. Here once more we met the Faustet Party. They had ridden to Phile and back by the desert, and were apparently all the worse for wear. Seeing us they urged their camels to a trot, and tried to look as if they liked it. The idle man and the rider reathed their countenances in ghastly smiles, and did likewise. Not for worlds would they have admitted that they found the pace difficult. Such is the moral influence of the camel. He acts as a tonic, he promotes the Spartan virtues, and if not himself heroic, is at least the cause of heroism in others. It was nearly dark when we reached Aswan. The cafes were all a light and a stir. There were smoking and coffee-drinking going on outside. There were sounds of music and laughter within. A large, private house on the opposite side of the road was being decorated, as if for some festive occasion. Flags were flying from the roof, and two men were busy putting up a gaily-painted inscription over the doorway. Asking as was natural if there was a marriage or a fantasia afoot, it was not a little startling to be told that these were signs of mourning, and that the master of the house had died during the interval that elapsed between now riding out and riding back again. In Egypt, where the worship of ancestry and the preservation of the body were once among the most sacred duties of the living, they now make short work with their dead. He was to be buried, they said, to-morrow morning, three hours after sunrise. CHAPTER X The Cataract and the Desert, Part I That as one, one bids goodbye to Egypt and enters Nubia through the gates of the cataract, which is in truth no cataract but a succession of rapids extending over two-thirds of the distance between elephantine and filet. The Nile diverted from its original course by some unrecorded catastrophe, the nature of which has given rise to much scientific conjecture. Here spreads itself over a rocky basin bounded by sand slopes on the one side and by granite cliffs on the other. Stutted with numberless islets divided into numberless channels, foaming over sunken rocks, eddying among water-worn boulders, now shallow, now deep, now loitering, now hurrying, here sloping in the ribbed hollow of a tiny sand-drift, there circling above the vortex of a hidden whirlpool, the river, whether looked upon from the deck of the Dahabia or the heights along shore, is seen everywhere to be fighting its way through a labyrinth, the paths of which have never been mapped or sounded. These paths are everywhere difficult and everywhere dangerous, and to that labyrinth the Shelledee, or cataract Arab, alone possesses the key. At the time of the inundation, when all but the highest rocks are under water, and navigation is as easy here as elsewhere, the Shelledee's occupation is gone, but as the floods subside and travelers begin to reappear, his work commences. To haul Dahabias up those treacherous rapids by sheer stress of rope and muscle, to steer skillfully down again through channels bristling with rocks and boiling with foam, becomes now, for some five months of the year, his principal industry. It is hard work, but he gets well paid for it, and his profits are always on the increase. From forty to fifty Dahabias are annually taken up between November and March, and every year brings a greater influx of travelers. Meanwhile accidents rarely happen. Prices tend continually upwards, and the cataract Arabs make a little fortune by their singular monopoly. The scenery of the first cataract is like nothing else in the world except the scenery of the second. It is altogether new, and strange, and beautiful. It is incomprehensible that travelers should have written of it in general with so little admiration. They seem to have been impressed by the wildness of the waters, by the quaint forms of the rocks, by the desolation and grandeur of the landscape as a whole, but scarcely at all by its beauty, which is paramount. The Nile here widens to a lake. Of the islands, which it would be hardly an exaggeration to describe as some hundreds in number, no two are alike. Some are piled up like the rocks at the land's end in Cornwall, block upon block, column upon column, tower upon tower as if reared by the hand of man. Some are green with grass, some golden with slopes of drifted sand, some planted with rows of blossoping lupins purple and white. Others again are mere carns of loose blocks, with here and there a perilously balanced top boulder. On one, a singular, upright monolith like a men here, stands conspicuous as if placed there to commemorate a date or to point the way to Filet. Another mass rises out of the water, squared and buttressed, in the likeness of a fort. A third, humped and shining like the wet body of some amphibious beast, lifts what seems to be a horned head above the surface of the rapids. All these blocks and boulders and fantastic rocks are granite, some red, some purple, some black. Their forms are rounded by the friction of ages. Those nearest the brink reflect the sky like mirrors of burnished steel. Royal ovals and hieroglyphed inscriptions, fresh as of yesterday's cutting, start out here and there from those glittering surfaces with startling distinctness. A few of the larger islands are crowned with clumps of palms, and one the loveliest of any is completely embowered in gum trees and acacias, dome and date palms, and feathery tamarists all festooned together under a hanging canopy of yellow-blossomed creepers. On a brilliant Sunday morning with a favorable wind we entered on this fairy archipelago. Sailing steadily against the current, we glided away from Aswan, left Elephantine behind, and found ourselves at once in the midst of the islands. From this moment every turn of the tiller disclosed a fresh point of view, and we sat on deck spectators of a moving panorama. The diversity of subjects was endless. The combinations of foam and color, of light and shadow, of foreground and distance were continually changing. A boat or a few figures alone were wanting to complete the picturesqueness of the scene, but in all those channels and among all those islands we saw no sign of any living creature. Meanwhile the shake of the cataract, a flat-faced fishy-eyed old Nubian, with his head tied up in a dingy yellow silk handkerchief, sat apart in solitary grandeur at the stern, smoking a long chabook. Behind him squatted some five or six dusky strangers and a new steersman, black as a negro, had charge of the helm. This new steersman was our pilot for Nubia. From Aswan to Wadi Halfa, and back again to Aswan, he alone was now held responsible for the safety of the Dahabia and all on board. At length the general stir among the crew warned us of the near neighborhood of the first rapid. Straight ahead, as if ranged along the dike of a weir, a chain of small islets barred the way, while the current, divided into three or four headlong torrents, came rushing down the slope and reunited at the bottom in one tumultuous race. That we should ever get the filet up that hill of moving water seemed at first sight impossible. Still our steersman held on his course, making for the widest channel. Still the shake smoked imperturbably. Presently without removing the pipe from his mouth he delivered the one word. Roar! Forward. Instantly, evoked by his nod, the rocks swarmed with natives. Hidden till now in all sorts of unseen corners they sprang out, shouting, gesticulating, laden with coils of rope, leaping into the thick of the rapids, splashing like water-dogs, bobbing like corks, and making as much show of energy as if they were going to haul us up Niagara. The thing was evidently a coup de théâtre, like the apparition of Clan Alpine's warriors in the Dona de Lago, with Bachchich in the background. The scene that followed was curious enough. Two ropes were carried from the Dahabia to the nearest island, and there made fast to the rocks. Two ropes from the island were also brought on board the Dahabia. A double file of men on deck and another double file on shore then ranged themselves along the ropes. The shake gave the signal, and, to a wild chanting accompaniment and a movement like a barbaric Sir Roger de Coverley dance, a system of double hauling began, by means of which the huge boat slowly and steadily ascended. We may have been a quarter of an hour going up the incline, though it seemed much longer. Meanwhile, as they warmed to their work, the men chanted louder and pulled harder, till the boat went in at last with a rush and swung over into a pool of comparatively smooth water. Having moored here for an hour's rest, we next repeated the performance against a still stronger current a little higher up. This time, however, a rope broke. Down went the haulers like a row of cards suddenly tipped over. Round swung the filet, receiving the whole rush of the current on her beam. Only for us the other rope held fast against the strain. Had it also broken, we must have been wrecked then and there ignomiously. CHAPTER X. Our Nubian auxiliary struck work after this. Fate, they said, was adverse, so they went home, leaving us moored for the night in the pool at the top of the first rapid. The shake promised, however, that his people should begin work next morning at dawn, and get us through before sunset. Next morning came, however, and not a man appeared upon the scene. At about midday they began dropping in a few at a time, hung about in a languid, lazy way for a couple of hours or so, moved us into a better position for attacking the next rapid, and then melted away mysteriously by twos and threes among the rocks, and were no more seen. We now felt that our time and money were being recklessly squandered, and we resolved to bear it no longer. Our painter therefore undertook to remonstrate with the shake and to convince him of the error of his ways. The shake listened, smoked, shook his head, replied that in the cataract, as elsewhere, there were lucky and unlucky days, days when men felt inclined to work, and days when they felt disinclined. Today as it happened they felt disinclined. Being reminded that it was unreasonable to keep us three days going up five miles of river, and that there was a governor at Aswan to whom we should appeal tomorrow unless the work went on in earnest, he smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered something about destiny. Now the painter, being of practical turn, had compiled for himself a little vocabulary of choice Arabic maledictions, which he carried in his notebook for reference when needed. Having no faith in its possible usefulness, we were amused by the industry with which he was constantly adding to this collection. We looked upon it, in fact, as a harmless pleasantry, just as we looked upon his pocket-revolver, which was never loaded, or his brand-new fowling-piece, which he was never known to fire. But the shake of the cataract had gone too far. The fatuity of that smile would have exasperated the meekest of men, and our painter was not the meekest of men. So he whipped out his pocket-book, ran his finger down the line, and delivered an appropriate quotation. His accent may not have been faultless, but there could be no mistake as to the energy of his style or the vigor of his language. The effect of both was instantaneous. The shake sprang to his feet as if he had been shot, turned pale with rage under his black skin, vowed the filet might stay where she was till doomsday, for ought that he or his men would do to help her a foot farther, bounded into his own rickety sandal and rode away, leaving us to our fate. We stood aghast. It was all over with us. We should never see Abu Simbel now, never write our names on the book of the Abu Seer, nor slake our thirst with the waters of the second cataract. What was to be done? Must the shake be defied or propitiated? Should we appeal to the Governor, or should we emulate the Painter? The majority were for emulating the Painter. We went to bed that night, despairing, but low next morning at sunrise appeared the shake of the cataract, all smiles, all activity, with no end of ropes and a force of two hundred men. We were his dearest friends now. The Painter was his brother. He had called out the ban, an area ban, of the cataract in our service. There was nothing in short that he would not do to oblige us. The Drago-man vowed that he had never seen Nubians work as those Nubians worked that day. They fell, too, like giants, tugging away from mourn till dewey eve, and never giving over till they brought us round the last corner and up the last rapid. The sun had set, the afterglow had faded, the twilight was closing in, when our Dahabiya slipped at last into level water, and the two hundred with a parting shout dispersed to their several villages. We were never known to make light of the Painter's repertory of select abuse after this. If that notebook of his had been the drowned Book of Prospero, or the magical papyrus of Thoth fished up anew from the bottom of the Nile, we could not have regarded it with a respect more nearly bordering upon all. Though there exists no boundary line to mark where Egypt ends and Nubia begins, the nationality of the races dwelling on either side of that invisible barrier is as sharply defined as though an ocean divided them. Among the Sheleli, or cataract villagers, one comes suddenly into the midst of a people that have apparently nothing in common with the population of Egypt. They belong to a lower ethnological type, and they speak a language derived from purely African sources. Contrasting with our Arab sailors the sulky-looking, half-naked muscular savages who thronged about the filet during her passage up the cataract, one could not but perceive that they are to this day as distinct and inferior a people as when their Egyptian conquerors, massing together in one contemptuous epithet all nations south of the frontier, were want to speak of them as the vile race of Kush. Time has done little to change them since those early days. Some Arabic words have crept into their vocabulary. Some modern luxuries, as tobacco, coffee, soap, and gunpowder, have come to be included in the brief catalog of their daily wants. But in most other respects they are living to this day as they lived in the time of the pharaohs. Cultivating lentils and dura, brewing barley-beer, plating mats and baskets of stained reeds, tracing rude patterns upon bowls of gourd rind, flinging the javelin, hurling the boomerang, fashioning bucklers of crocodile skin and bracelets of ivory, and supplying Egypt with henna. The dexterity of which, sitting as if in a wager-boat, they balance themselves on a palm log, and paddle to and fro about the river is really surprising. This barbaric substitute for a boat is probably more ancient than the pyramids. Having witnessed the passage of the first few rapids, we were glad to escape from the Dahabia and spend our time sketching here and there on the borders of the desert and among the villages and islands round about. In all Egypt and Nubia there is no scenery richer in picturesque bits than the scenery of the cataract. An artist might pass a winter there and not exhaust the pictorial wealth of those five miles which divide Aswan from Filet. Of tortuous creeks shut in by rocks fantastically piled, of sand slopes golden to the water's edge, of placid pools low-lying in the midst of lupin fields and tracks of tender barley, of creaking saquillas half hidden among palms and dropping water as they turned, of mud dwellings here clustered together in hollows, there perched separately on heights among the rocks and perpetuating to this day the form and slope of Egyptian pylons. Of rude boats drawn up in sheltered coves are going to pieces high and dry upon the sands. Of water-washed boulders of crimson and black and purple granite, on which the wild fowl cluster at midday and the fisher spreads his nets to dry at sunset. Of camels and caravans and camps on shore. Of cargo boats and cangas on the river. Of wild figures of half-naked athletes. Of dusky women decked with barbaric ornaments. Unveiled swift gliding trailing long robes of deepest gentian blue. Of ancient crones and little-naked children like live bronzes. Of these and a hundred other subjects, in infinite variety and combination there is literally no end. It is also picturesque indeed so biblical, so poetical that one is almost in danger of forgetting that the places are something more than beautiful backgrounds and that the people are not merely appropriate figures placed there for the delight of sketchers, but are made of living flesh and blood, and moved by hopes and fears and sorrows like our own. End of Section 32