CHAPTER XIV
DASHING UP THE NILE IN COMPANY WITH MR. PEASLEY AND OTHERS
The dream of many years has come true. We are moving (southward) upthe Nile. Like busy sand flies we are flitting, almost daily, acrosswhite patches of desert to burrow into second-hand tombs and crick ournecks looking up at mutilated temples.
Ten years ago not one of us had ever heard of Koti or Khnemhotep. Nowwe refer to them in the most casual way, as if we had roomed with themfor a while. It is certainly a gay life we are leading over thecemetery circuit. Just think what rollicking fun it must be to revelday after day in sarcophagi and sepulchres, stumbling throughsubterranean passages and kicking up the dust of departed kings,peering down into mummy pits, also trying to stretch the imaginationlike a rubber band so that we may get the full significance of what ismeant by 1500 B.C. People come to Egypt to cure nervous depression andthen spend nine-tenths of their time hanging around tombs. Why comeall the way to Egypt? Why not go out to Woodlawn and run foot racesfrom one family vault to another?
_It is certainly a gay life_]
Mr. Peasley has no use for the tombs we have seen up to date. AtBeni-Hassan we rode on donkeys and climbed hills for half an hour toinspect several large cubes of dim atmosphere surrounded by limestone.At Assiut we put in the best part of the afternoon toiling up toanother gloomy cavern. While we stood in the main chamber of the tombof Hapzefai (whoever he was), trying to pump up some enthusiasm, Mr.Peasley mopped his brow and declared himself.
"I'll tell you what I can do," he said. "I can take a hundred poundsof dynamite and a gang of dagoes and go anywhere along the Hudson andblow out a tomb in a week's time that will beat anything we've seen inEgypt. Then I'll hire a boy with a markin' brush to draw someone-legged men and some tall women with their heads turned the wrongway, and I'll charge six dollars to go in, and make my fortune."
The significance of the "six dollars" is that every traveller whowishes to visit the antiquities must pay a government tax of 120piastres. He receives a "monument ticket," which he must show to theguard before entering any tomb or temple. I regret to say that thetickets are often passed along by departing travellers to those newlyarrived, and as the guards do not read English, anything that lookslike a monument ticket will satisfy the man at the door. AtBeni-Hassan Mr. Peasley discovered, when he arrived at the tombs, thathe had left his ticket at the boat. Fortunately, a fellow travellerhad an extra ticket with him and Mr. Peasley had no difficulty ingaining admission to all the tombs under the name of "Miss EllaMcPherson."
_Why come all the way to Egypt?_]
Before plunging into the details of our voyage, it is only fair thatthe indulgent reader should know how and why we came boating up theNile. And first of all he should know something about this wonderfulriver. The Nile has been described one million times, at a roughguess, and yet at the risk of dealing out superfluous information I amgoing to insert some geography.
Total length, nearly four thousand miles. For thousands and thousandsof years it has supported a swarming population along its banks, andyet until fifty years ago no one knew from whence it came. Theinhabitants suspected that it came from somewhere, but they were toobusy paying taxes and building pyramids to worry about scientificdiscoveries. For 1200 miles up stream from the delta outlet the Niledoes not receive any tributary. It winds over a limestone base andthrough a rainless desert between high and barren tablelands.Occasionally, where there is a granite formation, the stream isnarrowed and forces its way through rushing rapids, and these are knownas the "cataracts." The first of these is at Assouan, about sixhundred miles up stream.
Assouan has for many centuries marked the border line of Egypt proper.To the south is the land of the warlike blacks, who have beentrouble-makers from the beginning of time. This First Cataract is theusual terminus of tourist travel, but those who wish to see Nubia andthe Soudan board a small steamer, pass through the locks of the newdam, and go by river 210 miles to Wadi Halfa, thence by rail 576 milesto Khartoum. It is here, about thirteen hundred and fifty miles upstream, that the White and Blue Niles converge and bring down from therainy equatorial regions the floods of muddy water which are the annualsalvation of Egypt.
Ten years ago Khartoum seemed as inaccessible as the North Pole. Itwas headquarters for the most desperate swarm of frenzied fanatics thatever swept a region with fire and sword. They had wiped out Britisharmies and put Gordon's head on a pole. They were in a drunken ecstasyof Mohammedan zeal, eager to fight and ready to die, and they got allthat they were looking for.
It is less than eight years since Kitchener went down to call on them.Of all the cold-blooded and frozen-featured military tacticians of theinexorable school, Kitchener stands pre-eminent. General Grant in hisgrimmest moment was absolutely emotional and acrobatic as compared withKitchener. He carried ice water in his veins, and his mental machineryticked with Birmingham regularity. He did not get excited and dashinto the open trap, as all the others had done. He moved slowly butrelentlessly into the dread country and built a railroad as he wentalong. He carried everything that a British army needs--marmalade,polo ponies, Belfast ginger ale, tinned meats, pipe clay, etc.
"We cannot stampede them, because stampeding is their specialty," saidKitchener, "but I will lick them by algebra."
He did not say this, because he never said anything, but this is whathe indicated by his calm preparations. He knew that the dervishes werefrothing at the mouth and praying Allah to give them another chance toswim in gore, so he simply edged up to within striking distance of themand picked out his ground and waited. A kinetoscope hero would havegalloped up and down the line shouting, "Up, men, and at them!" ButKitchener was not a hero. He was business manager of an abattoir. Hisobject was not to win a great battle, but to exterminate a species.And he probably did one of the neatest jobs of house cleaning on record.
The bloodthirsty mob, led by the Khalifa, as principal maniac, chargedacross an open plain. Each determined dervish carried in his righthand a six foot spear, with which he hoped to do considerable damage.When he still lacked about a mile of being within poking distance ofthe hated infidel, the machine guns opened up and began to sweep theplain back and forth in long regular swaths, just as the sickle sweepsthrough the yellow grain. It was quite a handicap for the invinciblechildren of Allah. They could not use their six foot spears on anyonea mile away, and before they could recover from the chagrin occasionedby this unexpected move on the part of the enemy, about eleven thousandof them had winged their way to eternal happiness and the others wereradiating in all directions, pursued by those who wished to civilisethem and bring them under British control. Those of the dervishes whoescaped are supposed to be still running. At least they never cameback to start another Messiah movement.
Ten years ago the Soudan was sealed to the whole world and death waitedfor the unbeliever who crossed the border. To-day the _table d'hote_roams unafraid, and the illustrated post card blooms even as the rose.
The Nile of which you have read and along which are scattered the simonpure monuments of antiquity is the six hundred miles of winding riverbetween Assouan, or First Cataract, and the sea. For the entiredistance, until it spreads into a fan-shaped delta and filters into theMediterranean, the stream is walled in by flat-topped hills of barrenaspect. They are capped with limestone and carpeted about withshifting sands, and they look for all the world like the mesas of NewMexico and Arizona, for they lie baking in the same kind of clarifiedsunshine. This meandering hollow between the rugged hill ranges is theValley of the Nile. Here and there the hills close in until the riverbanks are high and chalky cliffs. At one point the valley spreads to awidth of thirty-three miles.
East and west of the hills are vast areas of desert without even aspear of vegetation except where there is a miraculous rise of water tothe surface. These spots are grateful landmarks of clustered palms andare known as oases.
The Valley of the Nile would be just as bare and mono
tonous as anasphalt pavement were it not for the fact that once a year the Nileoverflows. It has been overflowing every year for thousands of years,bringing down from the mountains of Abyssinia and the far-away regionsof tropical rains a spreading volume of muddy water. Every winter,when the dwindling stream gets back into the customary bed, it has lefta layer of black sediment over the inundated district. So many layersof sediment have been deposited that now the rich black soil is thirtyto fifty feet deep along the river, thinning out as it meets the slopeof the desert. Unlike our prairie soil of the Middle West, the Nilefarms are not underlaid with clay. The Nile soil is black all the waydown to limestone--a floury mineral powder of even composition. Theonly parts of Egypt which can be cultivated are those touched by theannual overflow. Egypt is really a ribbon of alluvial soil followingthe stream on either side. The tourist standing on the top deck of aNile steamer can see both east and west the raw and broken edges of thedesert.
The entire population lives on the river, literally and figuratively.Dark-robed women come down to the stream in endless processions to filltheir water jars, and it seems that about every forty feet or so allthe way up from Cairo the industrious fellah is lifting water up thebank and irrigating his little field with the same old-fashioned sweepand bucket arrangement that was in use when Joseph came over to Egyptand attracted the attention of Potiphar's wife. The Egyptian farmer iscalled a fellah. The clothing that he wears would wad a gun--that is,a rifle, not a shotgun. He puts in at least fourteen hours a day andhis pay is from ten to fifteen cents. Mr. Peasley told a tourist theother day that the song "He's a jolly good fellah" originated in Egyptduring the time of the Ptolemies. This is a sample of the kind ofidiotic observation that is supposed to enliven a so-called pleasuretrip.
But let us get back to the river, for in Egypt one must get back to theriver at least once every twenty minutes. The Nile is Egypt and Egyptis the Nile. All this description may sound like a few pages from thetrusty red guide book, and yet the word "Egypt" will have no meaning tothe reader who does not get a clear panoramic vision of thiswonderfully slim-waisted country. Nearly six hundred miles long andyet containing only twelve thousand five hundred square miles--aboutthe size of Maryland.
The strip of black land which yields the plentiful crops is nowheremore than ten miles wide, a mere fringe of fertility weaving alongthrough dryness and desolation. Anywhere along the river if you willclimb to the rocky plateau, you will see the slow moving river,probably a half-mile wide, as a glassy thread on which are strungfields of living green, bordered by the dreary uplifts of desert. Thetraveller who goes by boat from Cairo to Assouan sees all of Egypt.The cities and temples and tombs of olden times were perched on thehigh spots or planted in the bare hills, so as to be safe from theannual rise of waters. Anything worth seeing in the whole country iswithin an easy donkey ride of the river bank. The river is the onlyartery of travel. There is a railway, but it follows the river all theway up to Assouan.
It would seem that the country was especially laid out and punctuatedwith "sights" for the convenience of the modern traveller, for thevisitor who goes up the Nile and stops off at the right spots can do aclean job of sight seeing without doubling on his tracks.
Until a few years age the tourist going up the Nile had to take adahabeah. This sounds like the name of a disease, but it is really abig, roomy, flat-bottomed sailboat. The dahabeah moves only when thewind is in the right direction, and to go from Cairo to Assouanrequires the greater part of a lifetime. Those travellers who havemoney to burn and who are content to settle down to many weeks of restand indolence charter the private dahabeahs. When a traveller goesaboard a dahabeah he tears up the calendar and lets his watch run down.Those who have more money and are in a hurry use the private steamdahabeahs.
A majority of travellers go by passenger boats. The tourist steamersdevote three weeks to a loafing voyage up to Assouan and back, withdaily excursions to the graveyards and ruins. The express steamers,carrying freight and native passengers, take less time for the roundtrip, as they skip some of the less interesting antiquities. We tookan express steamer, thereby missing many of the tombs and temples, butstill getting enough of them to last us for the next hundred years orso.
Our steamer is a frail affair, double decked and of no draught worthmentioning. It resembles the old style of Missouri River boat, builtto run on a heavy dew. There are thirty passengers, who devote most oftheir time to lolling on deck waiting for the next meal. Mud banks,natives hoisting water, green fields stretching away to the bald rangeof hills, 'dobe huts, spindly palms, now and then a solemn row ofcamels, always several donkeys and goats in evidence, every few milesthe tall stack of a sugar mill, perpetual sunshine--it is monotonoustravel, and yet there is continually something doing along the banks,and the traveller cannot get away from that feeling of satisfactionwhich results from lying back to watch other people work.
_Lying back to watch others work_]
And the sunsets! You cannot estimate the real dignity and artisticvalue of a camel until you see him or her silhouetted against a sky ofmolten gold just at twilight. I have made two or three attempts todescribe the glory of a sunset in the desert, but I find myself ashelpless as Mr. Peasley, who, after gazing for five minutes at theflaming horizon can only murmur a low but reverent "Gosh!"
It may interest the reader to hear what Baedeker has to say on thesubject. Baedeker says (p. 216) "The sunsets are very fine." That'swhat I like about Baedeker. He doesn't fuss over a lot of words andtack on superfluous adjectives. As soon as he has imparted thenecessary information in a trim and concise manner he moves on to thenext subject.
I am sending herewith two sketches which show the beauty and variety oflandscape to which we are treated every day. View No. 1 is mostcharacteristic. We see before us the rippling Nile and beyond it thesheer river bank of black dirt. Then the field of waving grain, in thedistance the range of hills, and over all a dazzling sunshine.
_View of the Nile--No. 1_]
No. 2 is more varied. Again we have the river, the mud bank, and thegrowing crops, together with the distant hills, behind which the sun issilently sinking. In the foreground at the left is a majestic palm.The structure at the right is a native house and will indicatesomething of the simple life of the agriculturist. The complicateddevice on the river bank at stage centre is the shadouf, used forlifting water from the stream. The cavernous opening in the distanthill (marked X in the drawing) is the entrance to a rock tomb. Bystudying this picture the reader may get a very fair understanding ofthe architectural splendour of these ancient sepulchres.
_View of the Nile--No. 2_]
Travelling on the Nile has two reliable features to commend it. Theweather is always fair and the native population constantly enlivensthe picture, for the lower river is crowded with sails and every inchalong the banks is under cultivation. Also, the Nile has somesurprises in store. Two definite delusions are soon shattered.
Delusion No. 1.--HEAT. It is not always warm in Egypt. In the middleof the day, out of the wind and on the desert, it may work up to a goodsummery temperature at this season, but in the shade it is cool, and assoon as the sun has set, a bracing autumnal chill comes into the airand the heavy overcoat is needed. The north wind can be very chisellyat times. If coming to Egypt, bring your flannels along.
Delusion No. 2.--CROCODILES. There are no crocodiles in the Nile. Wehave always supposed that the bank of the river was polka-dotted withthese monsters, lying in wait for small, dark children. It is saidthat two thousand years ago the Nile was bordered with papyrus reeds orbullrushes, within the tangles of which lurked hippopotami, crocodiles,dragomans, and other reptiles, but the animals have disappeared, and sohas the river vegetation. The other day we visited the island on whichPharaoh's daughter discovered little Moses. The island is still there,but there isn't a bullrush within a mile of it.
One of the penalties of travel is to have old and settled beliefsuprooted. Fo
r instance, there are no Maltese cats in Malta, noVenetian blinds in Venice, no Roman punch in Rome. If you wantNeapolitan ice cream in Naples you must send out for it. You may walkabout all day in Bologna without seeing a pound of Bologna sausage.Egyptian cigarettes are known throughout the world, and yet no tobaccois grown in Egypt. Go to Manhattan Beach and everybody is drinkingMartinis. Truly, the stereotyped labels are deceptive.