Читать книгу Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Various - Страница 2

The neighbourhood of Gebel Silsilis, or the Mountain of the Chain, is very interesting in many respects. After flowing for some distance through the usual strip of alluvial plain, bordered by not very lofty undulating ground, the Nile suddenly sweeps into a gap between two imposing masses of rock that overhang the stream for above a mile on either hand. The appearance of the precipices thus hemming in and narrowing so puissant a volume of water, covered with eddies and whirlpools, would be picturesque enough in itself; but we have here, in addition, an immense number of caves, grottos, quarries, and rock-temples, dotting the surface of the rock, and suggesting at first sight the idea of a city just half ground down and solidified into a mountain. On the western bank, numerous handsome façades and porticos have indeed been hewn out; and mightily interesting they were to wander through, with their elaborate tablets and cursory inscriptions, their hieroglyphical scrolls, their sculptured gods and symbols, and all the luxury of their architectural ornaments. But the grandest impressions are to be sought for on the other side, whence the materials of whole capital cities must have been removed. There is, in fact, a wilderness of quarries there, approached by deep perpendicular cuts, like streets leading from the river's bank, which must have furnished a wonderful amount of sandstone to those strange old architects who, whilst they sometimes chose to convert a mountain into a temple, generally preferred to build up a temple into a mountain. It takes hours merely to have a glimpse at these mighty excavations, some of which are cavernous, with roofs supported by huge square pillars, but most of which form great squares worked down to an enormous depth.

The rock's on the western bank are not isolated, but seem to be the termination of a range projecting from the interior of the desert; and a minor range, branching off, hugs the river to the northward pretty closely for a great distance; but those on the other side are separated by what may almost be called a plain from the Arabian chain of hills, and might be supposed by the fanciful to have been formerly surrounded by the rapid waters of the Nile. They are admirably placed for the purpose to which they were applied; and although I have not the presumption to fix dates, and say under what dynasty the quarries first began to be worked, there is no rashness in presuming that it must have been at a very early period indeed. The sandstone is excellent for building purposes—far superior to the friable limestone found lower down—and has been removed not only from this one block, but from both sides, here and there, for a considerable distance to the north. Many quarries likewise no doubt remain still undiscovered and unexplored in this neighbourhood. We found the mountains worked more or less down as far as Ramadeh; and inscriptions and sculptures, evidently dating from very ancient times, are met with in many.

The people who inhabit the villages and hamlets of this district are not all fellahs; indeed, I question whether, properly speaking, any members of that humble race are to be found here. Their place is supplied by Bedawín Arabs of the Ababde tribe, who have, to a certain extent, abjured their wandering habits, and settled down on the borders of a narrow piece of land given to them by the Nile. The villages of Rasras and Fares, above the pass on the western bank, and of El-Hamam below, as well as the more extensive and better-favoured establishment of Silwa, with its little plain, are all peopled by men of the same race. With the exception of El-Hamam, which has a territory only a few feet wide, the cultivable land belonging to each village seems adequate to its support. They have a few small groves of palms; had just harvested some fair-sized dhourra-fields when we were last there; and had some fields of the castor-oil plant. Perhaps cultivation might be extended; a good deal of ground that seemed fitted for spade or plough was overrun with a useless but beautiful shrub called the silk-tree. Its pod, which, when just ripe, has a blush that might rival that on the cheek of a maiden, was beginning to wither and shrivel in the sun, and opening to scatter flakes of a silky substance finer than the thistle's beard, leaving bare the myriad seeds arranged something like a pine-cone.

I have called the plant useless, because vain have been the attempts made to apply its produce to manufacturing purposes; but Arab mothers procure from the stem a poisonous milky substance, with which they sometimes blind their infants, to save them in after-life from the conscription. How strangely love is corrupted in its manifestations by the influence of tyranny! I have seen youths who have exhibited a foot or a hand totally disabled and shrivelled up, and who boasted that their mothers, in passionate tenderness and solicitude for them, had thrust their young limbs into the fire, that they might retain their presence through war, though maimed and rendered almost incapable of work.

Few plants or trees of any value grow here spontaneously. The pretty shrub called el-egl droops beneath the rocks of Silsilis over the water, accompanied sometimes by a dwarf willow; and the sandy earth, washed down the gullies on the western bank in winter, produces a plentiful crop of the sakarân—a plant bearing a seed which has intoxicating qualities, as the name imports, and which is said to be used by robbers to poison or stupify persons whom they wish to rifle at their leisure. Some colocynth is gathered here and there, and dried in the hollows of the rocks.

It is not legal, or rather not allowed in Egypt, to be in possession of arms without a permit; but throughout the whole of the upper country, it is found difficult to enforce such a regulation. Men with spears are often to be met. I saw some parties coming from Silwa armed with long straight swords, with a cross hilt. Most men are provided with a dagger fastened round their arm above the elbow with a thong; others have clubs heavily loaded, or covered at one end with crocodile scales; and guns are not unfrequent, though powder and shot are exceedingly scarce. Our two guides, Ismaeen and Abd-el-Mahjid, had each a single-barrelled fowling-piece—value from twenty-five to thirty shillings. They were both expert shots, as we had occasion to witness when we went hare-shooting with them. In fact, with their assistance, we had hare every day for dinner during our stay. They were very chary of their powder, and only fired when pretty sure of success. For catching doves, and other small game, they had ingenious little traps.

During my wanderings one day among the rocks with Ismaeen, who had constituted himself my especial guide, I felt somewhat fatigued at a distance from the boats, and sat down to rest under the shade of a projecting rock. On all sides yawned the openings of quarries, cut sheer down into the heart of the mountain to a depth which I could not fathom from my vantage-ground. I seemed surrounded by abysses. In front, I could see the Nile whirling its rapid current between the overhanging rocks which closed up to the north; in the other direction, spread a desert plain intersected by a ribbon of bright water between two strips of brighter vegetation. Far away to the north-west, a solitary heap of mountains marked the spot where the unvisited ruins of Bergeh are said to lie.

[Transcriber's Note: A dieresis (umlaut) diacritical mark appears above the letter 'g' in the word Bergeh in the above sentence in the original.]

Ismaeen sat before me, answering the various questions which the scene suggested. He was a fine open-faced young man, without any of the clownishness of the fellah, and spoke in a free and easy but gentle manner. He told me that he and Abd-el-Mahjid had been sworn friends from infancy; that they scarcely ever separated; that where one went, the other went; and that what one willed, the other willed. They were connected by blood and marriage—the sister of Ismaeen having become the wife of Abd-el-Mahjid. Both had seen what to them was a good deal of the world. They had driven horses, camels, sheep, goats, donkeys, as far as Keneh, even as far as Siout, for sale; and the desert was familiar to them. The salt sea had rolled its blue waves beneath their eyes; and they had been as far as the Gebel-el-Elbi, that mysterious stronghold of the Bisharee, far to the south, in the wildest region of the desert. Ismaeen, it is true, did not seem to think much of these wild and romantic journeyings. He laid more stress on having seen the beautiful city of Siout, where I have no doubt he felt the mingled contempt and admiration ascribed to the Yorkshireman when he first visits London.

Having exhausted present topics, our conversation naturally turned to the past; and I began to be inquisitive about the legends of the place. I knew there was a local tradition as to the origin of the name Gebel Silsilis—the Mountain of the Chain—passed over usually with supercilious contempt in guide-books; and I desired much to hear the details. Ismaeen at first did not seem to attach any importance to the subject, gave me but a cursory answer, and proceeded to relate how he had sold donkeys for sixty piastres at Siout which were only worth thirty at most at Fares; but I returned to the charge, and after looking at me somewhat slyly perhaps, to ascertain if I was not making game of him by affecting an interest in these things, the young Ababde, with the sublime inattention to positive geography and record history characteristic of Eastern narrative, spoke nearly as follows:—

In ancient times, there was a king named Mansoor, who reigned over Upper Egypt and over the Arabs in both deserts. His capital city was at this place (Silsilis), which he fortified; and his name was known and respected as far as the North Sea (the Mediterranean), and in all the countries of the blacks to the south. Kings, and princes, and emperors sent messages and presents to him, so that his pride was exalted, and his satisfaction complete. He reigned a period of fifty years, at the end of which the vigour of his frame was impaired, and his beard flowed white as snow upon his breast; and during all that time, he was different from every other man, in that he had not cared to have children, and had not repined when Heaven forbore to bestow that blessing upon him. One day, however, when he was well-stricken in years, he happened to feel weary in his mind; he yawned, and complained that he knew not what to do for occupation or employment. So his wezeer said to him: 'Let us clothe ourselves in the garments of the common people, and go forth into the city and the country, and hear what is said, and see what is done, and perhaps we may find matter of diversion.' The idea was pleasing to the king; and so they dressed in a humble fashion, and going out by the gate of the garden, entered at once into the streets and the bazaars. On other occasions, the bustle, and the noise, and the jokes they heard, and the accidents that used to happen, were agreeable to King Mansoor; but now he found all things unpleasant, and even became angry when hustled by the porters. He thought all the people he met insolent and ill-bred, and took note of a barber, who splashed him with the contents of his basin as he emptied it into the street, vowing that he would certainly cause him to be hanged next day. So the wezeer, afraid that he might be irritated into discovering himself, advised him to go forth into the country; and they went forth into a woody district, the king moving moodily on, neither looking to the right hand nor to the left. Suddenly, he heard a woman's voice speaking amidst the trees, and thought he distinguished the sound of his own name; so he stepped aside, and, cautiously advancing, beheld a young mother sitting by a fountain of water, dancing an infant on her knees, and singing: 'I have my Ali, I have my child; I am happier than King Mansoor, who has no Ali, no child.' The king frowned as black as thunder, and he understood wherefore he was unhappy: he had no child to play on his knee when care oppressed his heart. As he thought of this, rage increased within him, and drawing a concealed sword, before the wezeer could interpose with his wisdom, he smote the infant, crying: 'Woman, be as miserable as King Mansoor.' Then he dropped the sword, and alarmed by the shrieks of the poor mother, thought that if he was found in that costume, the people might do vengeance on him; so he fled by bypaths, and returned to his palace.

Having been accustomed to deal death around, the murder of the infant did not prey upon his mind; but the words of the mother he never forgot. 'I am miserable, because I am childless,' he repeated every day; and he ordered all the women of his harem to be well beaten. But he was compelled to admit, that there was now little chance of his wishes being fulfilled. However, as a last resort, he consulted a magician, a man of Persian origin, who had recently arrived with merchandise in that country. This magician, after many very intricate calculations, told him that he was destined to have a son by the daughter of an Abyssinian prince, now betrothed to the son of the sultan of Damascus; but that her friends would endeavour to take her secretly down the river in a boat before the year was out, lest he might behold and covet her. The magician also asked him wherefore he had thrown away the 'sword of good-luck;' and explained by saying, that the ancestors of King Mansoor had always been in possession of a sword which brought them prosperity, and that the dynasty was to come to an end if it were lost.

Upon this, the king gave, in the first place, orders to his servants and his guards to search for the sword he had lost; but the woman, who had concealed it, thinking it might afford some clue to the assassin of her child, instantly understood, on hearing these inquiries, that Mansoor was the man. So she vowed vengeance; and being a daughter of the Arabs of the desert, retired to a distant branch of her tribe with the sword, and effectually escaped all pursuit. Her name was Lulu; from that time forth she abjured all feminine pursuits, and became a man in action, riding a fierce horse, and wielding sword and spear; 'For I,' said she, 'when the period is fulfilled, will smite down this king who has slain my child.'

Meanwhile, Mansoor had also given orders to stretch an enormous chain across the river between the two parts of his city, so as to prevent all boats from passing until searched for the daughter of the Abyssinian prince; and this is the origin of the name of these mountains. For a long time, no such person could be discovered; but at length, when the year was nearly out, a maiden of surpassing loveliness was found concealed in a mean kanjia, and being brought before the king, and interrogated, confessed that she was the daughter of Sala-Solo, Prince of Gondar. Mansoor upon this explained the decrees of Heaven; and although she wept, and said that she was betrothed to the son of the sultan of Damascus, he paid no heed to her, but took her to wife, and in due course of time had a son by her, whom he named Ali; and he would thereafter smile grimly to, himself, and say: 'I now have an Ali, I now have a child.'

The magician, who returned about this time, being consulted, said that if the boy passed the critical period of fifteen years, he would live, like his father, to a good old age. So Mansoor caused a subterranean palace to be hewn out of the mountain, in the deeper chambers of which, fitted up with all magnificence, he caused Ali to be kept by a faithful nurse; whilst he himself dwelt in the front chambers that overlooked the river, and gave audience to all who came and floated in boats beneath his balconies; but no one was allowed to ascend, except the wezeer and a few proved friends: [There, said Ismaeen, pointing to one of the largest excavations on the opposite side, there is the palace of King Mansoor.]