Читать книгу Eastern Life - Harriet Martineau - Страница 11

As soon as our plank was down, a sort of mob-market was formed on shore. There was a display of a stuffed crocodile, spears, ebony clubs, straw-baskets, coins, walking-sticks, an ostrich's egg, a conjurer, etc. It was at this place that a girl offered me for sale an English half-penny; and another the glass stopper of a little bottle. Here, as everywhere, my ear-trumpet was handled and examined with quick curiosity: and in almost every case, from Nubia to the Lebanon, the immediate conclusion was the same. The inquirers put the small end to their lips, and gave a satisfied nod. It was clearly a pipe, with an enormous bowl! At Aswan, however, we stayed long enough for the people to discover what the trumpet was for; and from the moment of the discovery, they did their best to enable me to do without it. As we passed through the lane they made for us, they pressed forwards to shout into my ears »baksheesh! baksheesh«, till Alee pushed and flogged them away. I wonder at their perseverance in thus incessantly begging of strangers; for we could not learn that they ever got anything by it. If, as it appeared to me, travellers give only in return for service, Or in consideration of some infirmity, the perseverance in begging seems wonderful. I saw at this place parents teaching a little one to speak; and the word they tried him with was »baksheesh«. I saw a little fellow just able to carry his father's slippers, – which were almost as big as himself: his father gave him a careful training in hugging the slippers with one arm, while he held out the other hand to me for baksheesh. – The people here were very good-looking. They cannot grow provisions enough for their numbers, the desert encroaching too much to permit the cultivation of more land than the mere river banks: but they import enough for their wants. Their renowned dates are their principal article of exchange; and traffic goes on here in henneh, baskets, senna, charcoal, and Slaves from Upper Ethiopia and Abyssinia. It was impossible to learn their numbers. Nobody knows; and if anyone knew, he would not tell. A census may be, and has been, ordered; but it cannot be executed. The popular dread of the Government renders it impossible. The fellahs (peasants) have such a terror of increased taxation and of the conscription, that they abscond on the mention of a census: and some who can afford it bribe the officials to suppress their names and those of their families. The last thing that can be learned of any Egyptian town or district is its population.

The walls of the streets are blank here; not a window, or break of any kind, but a low door here and there. The bazaars looked poor; and I believe the traffic is chiefly carried on elsewhere. We saw two slave-bazaars. One was an enclosure on the rising ground above our boat. The slaves here were only five or six, and all children, – all under sixteen years of age. They were intelligent and cheerful-looking; and I recognised, at the first glance, the likeness to the old Egyptian countenance and costume. The girls had their faces uncovered; and their hair in the Ethiopian fashion, precisely that which we see in the old sculptures and paintings. One little girl was preparing the pottage for their supper, very cleverly and earnestly. She was said to be fifteen; and £ 15 was the sum asked for her. – The other bazaar was on the outskirts of the town, and near our boat. It contained, when we saw it on our return, a dozen boys and about fifteen girls. Most of the girls were grinding millet between two stones, or kneading and baking cakes. They were freshly oiled, in good plight, and very intelligent-looking, for the most part. Some of them were really pretty in their way, in the old Egyptian way. They appeared cheerful, and at home in their business; and there can scarcely be a stronger contrast than between this slave-market and those I had seen in the United States. The contrast is as strong as between the serfdom of the Egyptian, and the freedom of the American inhabitants of the respective countries: and, of course, the first aspect of Slavery is infinitely less repulsive in Egypt than in America. What I learned, and may have to tell, of the life of the modern Egyptians proves, however, that the institution is no more defensible here than elsewhere.

I saw a little girl on the shore making cord, for tying round the waists of the men; and was extremely surprised to observe that the process is the same as that of bobbin-making with the lyre by English ladies. Instead of an ivory lyre, this child had two crossed sticks; and her cotton thread was very coarse. It was striking to see this little art existing in places so widely apart.

We walked, this afternoon, to the ruins of the old town, and overlooked its desolation from the top of the rock above the river. The translation of the name of this town is »the Opening«: and a great opening this once was, before the Nile had changed its character in Ethiopia, and when the more ancient races made this rock their watch-tower on the frontier between Egypt and the South.

That the Nile has changed its character, south of the First Cataract, has been made clear by some recent examination of the shores and monuments of Nubia. Dr. Lepsius has discovered watermarks so high on the rocks, and edifices so placed, as to compel the conviction that the bed of the Nile has sunk extraordinarily, by some great natural process, either of convulsion or wear.¹ The apparent exaggerations of some old writers about the Cataracts at Syene may thus be in some measure accounted for. If there really was once a cataract here, instead of the rapids of the present day, there is some excuse for the reports given from hearsay, by Cicero and Seneca. Cicero says that »the river throws itself headlong from the loftiest mountains, so that those who live nearest are deprived of the sense of hearing, from the greatness of the noise.« Seneca's account is: – »When some people were, stationed there by the Persians, their ears were so stunned with the constant roar, that it was found necessary to remove them to a more quiet place.« – Supposing the Cataract formerly to have been of any height rendered necessary by the discoveries of Dr. Lepsius, it is clear that Syene must have been the station for the trans-shipment of merchandise passing north or south. The granite quarries, too, whence much of the building material of old Egypt was drawn, must have added to the business of the place. It is clear, accordingly, that this was, in all former times, a station of great importance. There were temples at Elephantine, to guard the interests of the neighbourhood, and to attract and gratify strangers. There was a Nilometer, to give tidings of the deposits of the great god Nilus. There was a garrison in the time of the Persians, and again in that of the Greeks: and Roman fortifications stand in ruin on the heights around. The Saracenic remains are obvious enough: and thus we have, on this frontier spot, and visible from the rock on which we stood, evidence of this place having been prized by successive races as the Opening which its present name declares it to be.

The ruins of the Saracenic town make their site desolate beyond description – more desolate to my eyes, if possible, than the five acres I saw laid waste by the great New York fire. Two women were sitting under the wall of a roofless house, with no neighbours but a few prowling dogs. They warned me away till they saw the rest of my party coming up the ascent. – The island of Elephantine, opposite, looked as if just laid waste by an earthquake, scarcely one stone being left upon another of all its once grand edifices. On its rocks were hieroglyphic inscriptions, many and deeply carved. – In a hollow of the desert behind us lay the great cemetery, where almost every grave has its little stone, with a Cufic inscription. The red granite was cropping up everywhere; and promontories and islets of black basalt began to show themselves in the river. Behind us, at the entrance of the desert, were the mountainous masses of granite where we were tomorrow to look for the celebrated quarries and their deserted obelisk. Before we came down from our point of survey, we saw the American party crossing, in a ferry-boat, to Elephantine. They had arrived after us, and were to set out on their return to Cairo the next day!

As we sat on deck under our awning this evening, the scene was striking; – the brilliant moonlight resting on the quiet groves, but contending on the shore with the yellow glow from the west, which gilded the objects there; and especially the boat-building near the water's edge; – the crews forming picturesque groups, with their singing, clapping, and dancing: while close beside them, and almost among them, were the Rais and two other men going through their prayers and prostrations. This boat-building was the last we saw up the river: and a rude affair it was: – the planks not planed, and wide apart, and irregular.

A kandjia was here which had brought a party of Turkish officers. We had the offer of it, to take us to the Second Cataract; our dahabieh being, of course, too large to ascend the Cataract here. Our gentlemen thought it would not do; – that Mrs. Y. and I could not put up with its accommodations, even for a fortnight. We thought we could; but we agreed that the first thing to be done was to go to the head of the Cataract, and see what boats could be had there.

The next morning, therefore, we had breakfast early, and set off on asses for Mahatta, – the village at the head of the Cataract. This, our first ride in the Desert, was full of wonder and delight. It was only about three miles: but it might have been thirty from the amount of novelty in it. Our thick umbrellas, covered with brown holland, were a necessary protection against the heat, which would have been almost intolerable, but for the cool north wind. – I believed before that I had imagined the Desert: but now I felt that nobody could. No one could conceive the confusion of piled and scattered rocks, which, even in a ride of three miles, deprives a stranger of all sense of direction, except by the heavens. These narrow passes among black rocks, all suffocation and glare, without shade or relief, are the very home of despair. The oppression of the sense of sight disturbs the brain, so that the will of the unhappy wanderer cannot keep his nerves in order. I thought of poor Hagar here, and seemed to feel her story for the first time. I thought of Scotch shepherds lost in the snow, and of their mild case in comparison with that of Arab goat-herds lost in the Desert. The difference is of death by lethargy and death by torture. We were afterwards in the depth of Arabia, and lived five weeks in tents in the Desert: but no Arabian scene impressed me more with the characteristics of the Desert than this ride of three miles from Aswán to Mahatta. The presence of dragon-flies in the Desert surprised me; – not only here, but in places afterwards – where there appeared to be no water within a great distance. To those who have been wont to watch the coming forth of the dragon-fly from its sheath on the rush on the margin of a pool, and flitting about the mountain watercourse, or the moist meadows at home, it is strange to see them by dozens glittering in the sunshine of the Desert, where there appears to be nothing for them to alight on; – nothing that would not shrivel them up, if they rested for a moment from the wing. The hard, dry locust seemed more in its place, and the innumerable beetles, which everywhere left a network of delicate tracks on the light sand. Distant figures are striking in the Desert, in the extreme clearness of light and shade. Shadows strike upon the sense here as bright lights do elsewhere. It seems to me that I remember every figure I ever saw in the Desert; – every veiled woman tending her goats, or carrying her water-jar on her head; – every man in blue skirting the hillocks; every man in brown guiding his ass or his camel through the sandy defiles of the black rocks, or on a slope by moonlight, when he casts a long shadow. Every moving thing has a new value to the eye in such a region.

When we came out upon Mahatta, we were in Nubia, and found ourselves at once in the midst of the wildness of which we had read so much in relation to the First Cataract. The Mississippi is wild: and the Indian grounds of Wisconsin, with their wigwam camps, are wild: but their wildness is only that of primitive Nature. This is fantastic – impish. It is the wildness of Prospero's island. Prospero's island and his company of servitors were never out of my head between Aswan and the next placid reach of the river above Philae. – The rocks are not sublime: they are too like Titanic heaps of black paving-stones to be imposing, otherwise than by their oddity; and they are strewn about the land and river to an excess and with a caprice which takes one's imagination quite out of the ordinary world. Their appearance is made the more strange by the cartouches and other hieroglyphic inscriptions which abound among them; – sometimes on a face above the river; sometimes on a mere ordinary block near the path; sometimes on an unapproachable fragment in the middle of the stream. When we emerged from the Desert upon Mahatta, the scene was somewhat softened by the cultivation behind the village, and the shade of the spreading sycamores and clustered palms. Heaps of dates, like the wheat in our granaries for quantity, lay piled on the shore; and mounds of packages (chiefly dates) ready for export. The river was all divided into streamlets and ponds by the black islets. Where it was overshadowed, it was dark grey or deep blue; but where the light caught it, rushing between a wooded island and the shore, it was of the clearest green. – The people were wild, especially the boys, who were naked and excessively noisy: but I did not dislike their behaviour, which was very harmless, though they had to be flogged out of the path like a herd of pigs. – We saw two boats, and immediately became eager to secure the one below. I was delighted at this, as we were thus not deprived of the adventure of ascending the Cataract.

On our return, we sent Alee forward to secure the kandjia; and we diverged to the quarries, passing through the great cemetery, with its curious grave-stones, inscribed in the Cufic character. The marks of the workmen's tools are as distinct as ever on the granite of the quarries. There are the rows of holes for the wooden pegs or wedges which, being wet, expanded and split the stone. There are the grooves and the notches made, by men who died several thousands of years ago, in preparation for works which were never done. There are the playful or idle scratches made by men of old in a holiday mood. And there, too, is the celebrated obelisk, about which, I must take leave to say, some mistakes are current at this day.

It may look like trifling to spend any words on the actual condition of an obelisk in the quarry: but, if we really wish to know how the ancients set about works which modern men are only again becoming able to achieve, we must collect all the facts we can about such works, leaving it for time to show which are important and which are not. We spend many words in wondering what could be the mechanical powers known to the old Egyptians, by which they could detach, lift, carry, and dress such masses of stone as we find before our eyes. When we chance to meet with one such mass in a half-finished state, it is surely worth while to examine and report upon its marks and peculiarities, however unaccountable, as one step towards learning hereafter how they came there.

This obelisk was declared, by a traveller who judged naturally by the eye, to be lying there unfinished because it was broken before it was completely detached from the rock. Other travellers have repeated the tale, – one measuring the mass, and taking for granted that an irregular groove along the upper surface was the »crack« – the »fissure«; and another, comfortably seated on an ass_v not even getting down to touch it at all. Our friend Mr. E. was not satisfied without looking into things with his own eyes and his own mind: and he not only measured and poked in the sand, but cleared out the sand from the grooves till he had satisfied himself that there is no breakage or crack about the obelisk at all.

The upper surface is (near the centre of its length) about twelve feet broad: and there is every appearance of the other three sides having the same measurement, – as the guide says they have, – allowing for the inequalities of the undressed stone. There is no evidence that it is not wholly detached from the rock. Of course, the existing inhabitants cannot move it; but the guide declares that, when cleared of sand, a stick may be passed under in every part. And it seems improbable that the apex of the obelisk should be reduced to form before the main body is severed from the rock. – As for the supposed »fissure«, it is certainly a carefully-wrought groove, and no crack. Its sides are as smooth as any tablet; and its breadth appears to be uniform – about an inch wide at the top. Its depth is about three inches; and it is smooth and sound all along the bottom. Near it is a slight fault in the stone – a skin-deep crack, little more than a roughness of the surface. Across the upper face were some remarkable holes. Besides those which are usually prepared for wedges or pegs, there were two deep grooves, slanting and not parallel. If they had been straight and parallel, we should have immediately supposed them intended to hold the chains or ropes by which the mass was to be raised: and it is still possible that they were so. But we do not know what to make of the groove which is commonly called the fissure. It is deep; it is longitudinal; and it is devious; not intended, evidently, to bear any relation to the centre of the face, nor to be parallel with either side, nor to be straight in its direction. The only conjecture we could form was, that it was in preparation for the dressing of the stone, after the erection of the obelisk: but then its depth appears too great for such a purpose. We observed a considerable bulge on the upper face of this obelisk. We know that this is necessary, to obviate that optical deception which gives an appearance of concavity to a perfectly correct pyramidal line: and we know that the old Egyptians so well understood this architectural secret, that they might be the teachers of it to all the world. But the knowledge of this does not lessen the surprise, when the proof of it, in so gigantic a form, is under one's hand. – The block was ninety feet long above the sand, when we were there; and the guide said that the sand covered thirty more. Judging of the proportions of the apex from what we saw, it must either require much cutting away in the dressing, or be a little spire. It would doubtless be much reduced by cutting, – We left the quarries, full of speculation about what manner of men they were who cut and carved their granite mountains in this noble style, and by what inconceivable means they carried away their spoils. It would hardly surprise me more to see a company of ants carrying a life-size statue, than it did to measure the building stones and colossi of the East.

In our walk this evening we saw a pretty encampment of Albanian soldiers among the palms. One had to rub one's eyes to be sure that one was not in a theatre. The open tent, with the blue smoke rising, the group of soldiers, in their Greek dress, on the ground and seen between the palm stems; the arms piled against a tree, and glittering in the last rays of the sun; – all this was like a sublimated opera scene. And there was another, the next morning, when they took their departure southwards, their file of loaded camels winding away from under the shade into the hot light.

We went early to Elephantine, this morning (the 27th), after seeing the Scotch boat arrive. The remains of Elephantine are not now very interesting – at least, we did not find them so: and we do not enter into the ordinary romance about this »Island of Flowers.« Not only we saw no flowers, but we could perceive no traces of any: and our guide could not be made to understand what flowers were. Conversation was carried on in Italian, of which the man appeared to have no lack. First he said there were many flowers there: then that there were none: and he ended by asking what »fiori« were. He shook his head in despair when we showed him. The northern end of the island is green and fertile, but the southern end is one dreary heap of old stones and broken pottery. The quantity of broken pottery in these places is unaccountable – incredible.

The quays are gone, and the great flight of steps to the river. The little ancient temple of Kneph is gone; and another, and the upper portion of the Nilometer, were pulled down, some years since, to supply building stone for an official's palace at Aswan. We saw, at the Nilometer, sculptured stones built in among rough ones – some being upside down, some set on end. And this is all we could make out of this edifice. There is a granite gateway of the time of Alexander: and this is the only erect work of any interest. – There is a statue of red granite, with the Osiride emblems – a mean and uncouth image, in comparison with most that we saw. Some slender and broken granite pillars lie about, a little to the north of the gateway; and one of them bears a sculptured cross, which shows that they were part of a Christian temple.

The people on the island are Nubians. Many of their faces, as well as their forms, are fine: and they have the same well-fed and healthy appearance as we observe among the people generally, all along the great valley, and especially in the Nubian part of it. Some of the children were naked; some had ragged clothing; and many were dressed in substantial garments, though of the dusty or brown colours, which convey an impression of dirt to an English eye. The children's hair was shining, even dripping, with the castor-oil which was to meet our senses everywhere in Nubia.

Our Scotch friends called while we were at breakfast, and offered us their small boat for an expedition to Philae. Much as I longed to see Philae, I was startled at the idea of going by water in a small boat, as a mere morning trip: and I was sorry to see our saddles put away, as it appeared to me more practicable to go by the shorter way of the desert, taking a boat from Mahatta. If we had known what we soon learned about the water passage, we should not have dreamed of such an adventure. My next uneasiness was at finding that we were going with only Arab rowers, without an interpreter. It certainly was foolish: but the local Rais had arranged the affair; and it was not for us to dispute the wisdom of the man who must know best. I am glad we went; for we obtained admirable views of this extraordinary part of the river, at more leisure and with more freedom than when ascending the Cataract in our kandjia, amidst the hubbub of a hundred natives.

The wear of the rocks by thousands of annual inundations exhibits singular effects, in holes, unaccountable fissures, grotesque outlines, and gigantic piling up of blocks. The last deposit of soil on the slopes of smooth stones, and in every recess and crevice, reminded me of the old tillage one sees in Switzerland, where a miniature field is made on the top of a boulder, by confining the deposited earth with a row of, stones. And when we were driven to land, in the course of the morning, it was striking to see in what small and parched recesses a few feet of millet and vetches were grown, where the soil would yield anything. The deposit was always graduated, always in layers, however little there might be of it. In some stones in the middle of the current there were wrought grooves and holes for wedges: for what purpose, and whether these stones were always in the middle of the current, let those say who can. They looked like a preparation for the erection of colossal statues, which would have a finer effect amidst this frontier cataract than any Madonna del Mare has amidst the lagoons of Venice. The water here was less turbid than we had yet seen it. Its gushings round the rocks were glorious to see, and, in my opinion, to feel, as we made directly towards them, in order to be swirled away by them to some opposite point which we could not otherwise reach. The only time I was really startled was when we bumped tremendously upon a sunken rock. I saw, however, that the rowers were confident and merry; and when this is the case with local residents, in any critical passage of foreign travel, one may always feel secure. Remembering this, I found our hard-won passages through sharp little rapids, and the eagerness and hubbub of the rowers, delightful. But all did not find it so: and truly there was a harum-scarum appearance about the adventure which justified a pause and reconsideration what we should do.

It was impossible to obtain any information from the Arabs. Pantomime may go a good way with any people in Europe, from a general affinity of ideas, and of their signs, which prevails over a continent where there is a nearly uniform civilisation: but it avails nothing, and is even misleading, between Europeans and the natives of Oriental countries. Our gentlemen were much given to pantomime, in the absence of an interpreter; and it was amusing to me to see, with the practised eye of a deaf person, how invariably they were misunderstood; and often when they had no suspicion of this themselves. They naturally employed many conventional signs; and, of course, so did the Arabs; and such confusion arose out of this, that I begged my friends never to put down in their journals any information which they believed they had obtained by means of pantomime. It might be that while they were inquiring about a pyramid, the Arabs might be replying about the sun: while they were asking questions about distance, the Arabs might be answering about ploughing: and so on. To-day we could make out nothing: so we offered very intelligible signs that we wished to land. We landed in a cove of a desert region on the eastern shore: and while Mr. E. was drawing maps on the sand, and the rowers were clamouring and gesticulating about him, I made for a lofty pile of rocks, a little way inland, to seek for a panoramic view. It was dreadfully hot: but I obtained a magnificent view of the river, as well as the surrounding country – by far the finest view of the Cataract that offered. – I could see nothing of Philae, which was, in fact, hidden behind the eastern promontories: but from the great sweep the river made above us, and the indescribable intricacy of its channels among its thousand scattered rocks, it seemed plain to me that it would take some hours to reach the Sacred Island. I reported accordingly; and Mr. E. thought he had ascertained from the crew that it would take three hours to get to Philae. As it was by this time one o'clock, we decided to return. It afterwards appeared that the three hours the men spoke of were from our dahabieh to Philae: but I am sure it would have taken much more.

From my point of observation, I had seen that several weirs were constructed among the rapids, where a few blackies were busy – some leaning over from the rocks, and others up to their shoulders in the stream. Their dusky figures contrasted finely with the glittering waters; and it was a truly savage African scene. One man came swimming to us, with a log under his breast, bringing a fish half as big as himself. It was like a gigantic perch; we bought it for 7½ d., and found it better than Nile fish usually are. – I have often read of the great resource the Egyptians have in the fish of their river. They do not seem to prize it much; and I do not wonder. We thought the Nile fish very poor in quality, and commended the natives for eating in preference the grain and pulse which their valley yields in abundance.

Several people had collected – there is no saying from whence – in our cove to see us depart: and I was glad they did, for their figures on the rocks were beautiful. One little naked boy placed himself on the top of a great boulder in an attitude of such perfect grace – partly sitting, partly kneeling, with his hands resting on one foot – that I longed to petrify him, and take him home, an ebony statue, for the instruction of sculptors. There is no training any English child to imitate him. An attitude of such perfect grace must be natural: but not, I suppose, in our climate, or to anyone who has sat on chairs.

Our return with the current was smooth, pleasant, and speedy. We found that the kandjia had been cleaned, sunk (three drowned rats being the visible result of the process), raised, and dried; and the stores were now being laid in: and to-morrow we were to go up to the Rapids, to leave the next day clear for the ascent of the Cataract. This evening was so warm that Mrs. Y. and I walked on the shore for some time without bonnet or shawl; the first and last occasion, no doubt, of our doing so by moonlight on the 27th of December.

The next morning I rose early, to damp and fold linen; and I was ironing till dinner-time, that we might carry our sheets and towels in the best condition to the kandjia. No one would laugh at or despise this who knew the importance, in hot countries, of the condition of linen; and none who have not tried can judge of the difference in comfort of ironed linen and that which is rough-dried. By sparing a few hours per week, Mrs. Y. and I made neat and comfortable the things washed by the crew; and when we saw the plight of other travellers – gentlemen in rough-dried collars, and ladies in gowns which looked as if they had been merely wrung out of the wash-tub, we thought the little trouble our ironing cost us well bestowed. Everybody knows now that to take English servants ruins everything – destroys all the ease and comfort of the journey; and the Arabs cannot iron. They cannot comprehend what it is for. One boat's crew last year decided, after a long consultation, that it was the English way of killing lice. This was not our crew: but I do not think ours understood to the last the meaning of the weekly ceremony of the flat-iron. The dragoman of another party, being sounded about ironing his employer's white trowsers, positively declined the attempt; saying that he had once tried, and at the first touch had burnt off the right leg. If any lady going up the Nile should be so happy as to be able to iron, I should strongly advise her putting up a pair of flat-irons among her baggage. If she can also starch, it will add much to her comfort and that of her party, at little cost of time and trouble.

We went on board our kandjia to dinner, at two o'clock, and were off for the entrance of the Cataract. The smallness of our boat, after our grand dahabieh, was the cause of much amusement, both to-day and during the fortnight of our Nubian expedition. In the inner cabin there was only just room for Mrs. Y. and me by laying our beds close together; and our dressing-room was exactly a yard square. The gentlemen's cabin was somewhat larger; but not roomy enough to admit of our having our meals there – unless a strong cold wind drove us in to tea; which I think happened twice. Our sitting-room was a pretty little vestibule, between the cabins and the deck. This exactly held our table and two chairs; the other seats being two lockers, on which were spread gay carpets. When we set down to our morning employments, we were careful to bring at once all the books, etc., that we were likely to want, as we could not pass in and out without compelling our neighbours to rise to make way. For all this, and though we felt, on our return to our dahabieh, as if we had got from a coaster into a man-of-war, we were never happier than in our little kandjia. There was some amusement in roughing it for a fortnight; and the Nubian part of our voyage was full as interesting as any other.

The Rais of the Cataract was to meet us, the next morning, with his posse, at a point fixed on, above the first rapid, which we were to surmount ourselves. We appeared to be surmounting it, just at dusk. Half our crew were hauling at our best rope on the rocks, and the other half poling on board; and we were slowly – almost imperceptibly – making way against the rushing current, and had our bows fairly through the last mass of foam, when the rope snapped. We swirled down and away – none of us knew whither, unless it were to the bottom of the river. This was almost the most anxious moment of our whole journey: but it was little more than a moment. The boat, in swinging round at the bottom of the rapid, caught by her stern on a sand bank: and our new Rais quickly brought her round, and moored her, in still water, to the bank.

Here we were for the night: and we thought it a pity not to take advantage of the leisure and the moonlight to visit Philae. So the gentlemen and I crossed the rapids to the main in a punt, mounted capital asses, and struck across the desert for Mahatta, where we could get a boat for Philae.

The sun had just set when we left the kandjia; and the Desert looked superb in the afterglow. It had the last depth of colouring I have ever seen in pictures, or heard described. The clear forms and ravishing hues make one feel as if gifted with new eyes.

The boat which took us from Mahatta to Philae was too heavy for her hands, and could hardly stem some of the currents: but at last, about seven o'clock, we set our feet on the Holy Island, and felt one great object of our journey accomplished. What a moment it was, just before, when we first saw Philae, as we came round the point, – saw the crowd of temples looming in the mellow twilight! And what a moment it was now, when we trod the soil, as sacred to wise old races of man as Mecca now to the Mohammedan, or Jerusalem to the Christian; the huge propyla, the sculptured walls, the colonnades, the hypaethral² temple all standing, in full majesty, under a flood of moonlight! The most sacred of ancient oaths was in my mind all the while, as if breathed into me from without: the awful oath, »By Him who sleeps in Philae.« Here, surrounded by the imperishable Nile, sleeping to the everlasting music of its distant Cataract, and watched over by his Isis, whose temple seems made to stand for ever, was the beneficent Osiris believed to lie. There are many Holy Islands scattered about the seas of the world: the very name is sweet to all ears: but no one has been so long and so deeply sacred as this. The waters all round were, this night, very still; and the more suggestive were they of the olden age when they afforded a path for the processions of grateful worshippers, who came from various points of the mainland, with their lamps, and their harps, and their gifts, to return thanks for the harvests which had sprung and ripened at the bidding of the god. One could see them coming in their boats, there where the last western light gleamed on the river: one could see them land at the steps at the end of the colonnade: and one could imagine this great group of temples lighted up till the prominent sculpture of the walls looked almost as bright and real as the moving forms of the actual offerers. – But the silence and desertion of the place soon made themselves felt. Our footsteps on the loose stones, and our voices in an occasional question, and the flapping wings of the birds whom we disturbed, were the only sounds: and the lantern which was carried before us in the shadowy recesses was a dismal light for such a place. – I could not, under the circumstances, make out anything of the disposition of the buildings: and I think that a visit to Philae by moonlight had better be preceded by a visit to Philae by daylight: but I am glad to have seen the solemn sight, now that I can look back upon it with the fresh eyes of clear knowledge of the site and its temples.

A kandjia lay under the bank when we arrived. It had brought our Scotch friends from Mahatta; and we found them in the court of the hypaethral temple, sitting on the terrace wall in the moonlight, – the gentlemen with their chibouques, the ladies with their bonnets in their hands. Their first and last view of Philae was on this lovely night: and this was our last sight of them. They were to set off down the river the next morning, at the same hour that we were to begin the ascent of the Cataract. Our greetings, our jokes, our little rivalries were all over; and the probability was that we should never meet again. – How sorry we were for them that they were turning back! We not only had Nubia, with its very old temples, – and above all, Aboo-Simbil,³ – full in prospect, but a return to this island, to obtain a clear knowledge of it. My heart would have been very heavy to-night if this had been my only view of Philae; – a view so obscure, so tantalizing, and so oppressive: and I was sorry accordingly for those who were to see it but once, and thus.

Our desert ride in the moonlight was very fine, among such lights and shadows as I never saw by night before. We encountered no hyaenas, though our guide carried a musket, in expectation that we should. We crossed the rapids in safety, and reached our boat excessively tired, and the more eager for rest because the next was to be the greatest day of our journey, – unless, perhaps, that of our passing Thebes.