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 Q.Mdi^tbard. 
 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
DT 54.B43""" """""•'•y Library 
 
 [/■ffllllSteSlJS Fella, 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028700155 
 
From Pharaoh to Fellah. 
 
From 
 
 Pharaoh to Fellah 
 
 C. F. MOBERLY BELL, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "EGYPTIAN FINANCE," "KHEDIVES AND PASHAS," ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGES MONTBARD 
 
 ENGRA VED BY CHARLES BARBANT 
 
 LONDON 
 
 WELLS GARDNER, DARTON, & CO. 
 
 2 Paternoster Buildings 
 ■-I 
 
DeDicateD 
 
 TO 
 
 HIS HIGHNESS 
 
 MOHAMED TEWFIK 
 
 KHEDIVE 
 
 Successor to the PHARAOHS and 
 Friend to the FELLAH 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prologue i 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Marseilles — Passengers — Corsica — Napoleon and Monte Christo — A political 
 
 discourse — A pathetic and poetic appeal ...... 5 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Alexandria — A well-meant effort at the poetical — An artistic discussion — Per- 
 spective and Ru-tew-shan — Odours of Araby — The bombardment — 
 Alexandria of the Ptolemies — Rhacotis — Heptastadium — Museum — 
 Library — The oldest street in the world — The Soma — The Paneum — 
 Theatre — Canopic Gate — Caesareum — Nineteenth-century Vandals — 
 Pompey's Pillar — Serapeum ........ 14 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Ramleh — Mahmoudieh Canal — Nicopolis — An Egyptian judge — The luxury of 
 the law — Consular protection or free-trade in crime — The temple of 
 Arsinoe — ^The hair of Berenice — An early Christian cemetery . -23 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Alexandria to Cairo — Egyptian railway administration — Harmless warfare — 
 Surrender of Kafr Dawar — Blunt patriots — Taking of Tantah — Taking 
 of Cairo ........... 30 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Shepheard Angel — Cairo streets — Shepheard's — Shepheard king Luigi — 
 The Shepheard smile — The Shepheard dinner — Shepheard chickens, 
 their pedigree and training — Cairo in twenty-four hours — Cook's tours — 
 Cook the national schoolmaster — A large order 37 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PACE 
 
 Cairo from Mokhattam — Seventy centuries — Cairo of "Arabian Nights'' — 
 Cairo according to Ariosto — Tlie Muski — Khan Khalili — Cairo of the 
 Khedives — Sequence of history — A vast plan . . . . -43 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Pyramids of Ghizeh — Webbe's description, 1580 a.d. — KnoUes, 1600 
 A.D. — Sphinx — Patronising Harriet and ingenious Verulam — Emerson 
 and Stoddard — Recent excavation — Legend of Tutmes IV. and Sphinx 
 — Tutmes and Wilson — Fellow pilferers — Chronological discussion 
 -^Archbishop Ussher — A compromise . . . . . ■ 5^ 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Boolak — Museum not inappropriately situated — Khafra — The wooden man — 
 Immutability of Egyptian type — Egyptian alternate slave and rebel 
 — Mummies — Sekenen Ra — Aahmes — Seti — Ramses II. and III. — 
 Pinotem — De mortuis . — Comparative chronology — Antiquity of 
 Egyptian art — Petrified prayers — Vulgar pyramids — Hymn to Amen 
 Ra — Tale of the Doomed Prince ....... 58 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 History^-The first man dissatisfied — Mena migrates to Memphis — Thinis the 
 religious centre — Memphis the capital — Origin of belief in duality of 
 existence — First 1000 years Egyptian history, prosperous — The next 
 900 years, power declines — Abraham — Rise of Thebes — Egypt abandons 
 non-intervention policy — Upper and Lower Egypt united — Prosperity 
 of 200 years — Darkness of 1200 years — Hyksos invasion — Joseph and 
 his brethren — Apathy of conquered — Civil war — Hyksos expelled — 
 Thebes the capital and Memphis commercial centre . . . .71 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Dovecot flies south — A luxurious offer — Rail to Asyoot — The Pasha and the 
 Nabob — Coinage and character — Secretary and interpreter — Crichton 
 and Sara — Capitulations — Pyramids — Zeitoun — St. George and Horus 76 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Asyoot — No kourbash, no taxes — Mosquito nets of Herodotus — Fanciful origin 
 of the Lycopolis — Asyoot en fUe — Sub-Mudir — Egyptian in authority 
 — Turk versus Egyptian — Can the Egyptian rule .' — Bazaars — Apathy of 
 sellers — Asyoot trade past and present — Asyoot worthies — American 
 Mission — Reform of Coptic Church from within and from without — 
 Sincerity of converts — Education of pupils and education of people — 
 Both ab initio — Asyoot Cemetery — View from Libyan range — Pasha and 
 Mudir — Information at Asyoot vid Cairo ...... 83 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Cleopatra — Capuan luxury — Aboutiz — Gow-el-Kebir — Circumstantial alle- 
 gory — Disgraceful hoax of a Pope — Saint or serpent — Sara's credulous 
 scepticism — Girgeh — Sara on the Turk — Sohag — Rivers all swindles — 
 The Nile at a gallop — Value of official information — Cost of government 
 , in Egypt — Priapus v. Sir Gardner — Abydos — Tomb of Osiris — Roman 
 affection for Memnon misleading — A Sunset — Keneh — Anxiety of 
 Mudir — Sara's greatness — Dancing-girls — Osiris at Abydos — Egyptolo- 
 gists and myths ... . . . . . . . -92 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Denderah — Temples not places of worship, but ceremonial — A religious cere- 
 mony — Royal road to study of Arabic — A river pedlar — Capitulations 
 again — Pro and con — Egyptian of twelfth century— -Saladin — Origin 
 of Capitulations — Coptos — Koos — Unexpected visit — Dignity going 
 begging — An unwilling Sheik el Beled — Results of cultivation in Egypt 
 — Alleged over-taxation of Fellaheen — Secret of poverty of Egyptian 
 landowners-^n instance — ^Ignorance as to own financial position — 
 Karnac in sight . . . . ■ . . . . .103 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 History — Thebes comparatively modern — Retrospect, sixth to seventeenth 
 dynasty — Eighteenth dynasty — Foreign wars necessary — Populous No 
 — Aahmes, Amenhoteb, and Tutmes — Expansion of Egypt — Queen 
 Hatasou — Colonial policy — Tutmes III. — Foreign conquests — The land 
 of Canaan in the hieroglyphs — Amenhoteb III. — The Colossi — The 
 first European reformer in Egypt — A religious reformation — Change 
 of dynasty , . . . . . . . . . -n? 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 History — The Ramesides — Ramses I. — Seti I. — Ramses II. — An heroic exploit 
 and mild rebuke — Seti II. — The first Judenhetze — Moses a general in 
 the Soudan — The Exodus in Scripture and papyrus — Ramses III. at 
 home — At war — A naval battle — Rise of the Priestly power — Priest- 
 kings of San — Egypt the bone of contention between Ethiopia and 
 Assyria — Assyrian conquest — Thebes pillaged — Dodecharchy — Saite 
 Dynasty — Prophetic warning against Suez Canal — Persian conquest — 
 Visits of Herodotus and Plato — Alexander the Great — The Trinity of 
 Thebes 122 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Post-haste — The Pasha's energy — Sara on archaeology and Ismail — Reform 
 and popularity — The eflfect on the governing classes — Effect on the 
 
 I governed — The date of English evacuation — Erment — Esneh — Reli- 
 
 gious toleration — Edfoo — Herodotus — "Contrariness" of Egyptians . 130 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Silsilis — Assouan — English officers and Egyptian troops — Juvenal at Syene — 
 An unkind prophecy — Will the Egyptian fight .' — Assouan railway 
 station — An unwelcome telegram — Elephantine — Philoe — Southward to 
 the Cataract — The Reis rebels — Value of a Pasha's life — Rock ahead 
 — The Reis in command — Agonising moments — Safety and baksheesh 138 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Southward to Luxor — Popular opinion in Egypt^Origin of Arabi movement — 
 Gladstone and Blunt — Penultimatums — The Arabi myth — Egypt for the 
 Egyptians — Our false start — Things done and undone — Shelley, Keats, 
 and Leigh Hunt on the Nile — The Nabob as a poet — A new passenger 146 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The new arrival — Sleep a luxury — The sleepless Joseph — Joseph the creator 
 of Egypt — A new theory — Fayoum and the Land of Goshen — The Bahr 
 Jussef the work of Patriarch Joseph — Tradition of Murtadi — The crea- 
 tion of the Fayoum — An original derivation — The field of Zoan and the 
 land of Ham — Israelite exodus — Did they cross the Nile ? — The bless- 
 ing of Jacob — Jacob's will and testament — A new reading of an old 
 text — Qualified approbation — Back to Shepheard's .... 157 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 History — Egypt under the Persians, Macedonians, Ptolemies, and Romans — 
 Bablun — Ezra and Elijah — The Mosque el Amr — A kourbashed pillar 
 — A strait gate — The Ommiades — The Abbasides — Tuloonides — 
 Mosque el Tuloon — Egypt the seat of the Khalifate — El Kahira — 
 Mosque el Azhar — Mosque el Hakim — Saladin — Ayubites — Mamluk 
 period — Mosque el Kalaun — Mosque Sultan Hassan — Legend of the 
 Bloody Mosque — Mosque Kait Bey — Mosque el Ghoriya — Egypt a 
 Turkish Pashalic — The generous Egyptians — Rise of Mohamed Ali — 
 Europe in Egypt — Ibrahim — Abbas — Said — Ismail — Tewfik — French 
 intrigues — Arabi revolt^ England in Egypt — Three policies . . 172 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Cairo again — Sakkara and the Tomb of Tih— An Egyptian Pepys — Mitra- 
 
 henny — Dervishes — Home again . . . . . . .184 
 
 Apologue ... if 
 
 Epilogue 
 Preface . 
 
 191 
 193 
 
From Pharaoh to Fellah. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 IT was in the early part of the year 188-, and in the bright courtyard of the 
 Grand Hotel de Noailles, that they met. The Scribbler, an unmistakable 
 Briton, was moodily inquiring of the waiter whether eggs in Marseilles were 
 invariably laid addled, and whether coal was the sole ingredient of black 
 •coffee, when his eye caught that of another stranger regarding him with some 
 •curiosity. The grumblings ceased, and with an exclamation of "Sketcher, 
 by Jove ! " the Scribbler sprang from his chair with enthusiasm. The terrified 
 look of the waiter at this unusual form of insanity in an Englishman recalled 
 the latter to a sense of his nationality, and falling back into his Anglo-Saxon 
 shell, he said quietly, " How are you, Sketcher ? " 
 
 The man addressed was evidently no Englishman. The light-blue eyes, 
 under straw-coloured eyebrows, betrayed the Gothic basis as unmistakably as 
 the light, lithe figure showed the admixture of the Latin — an unmistakable 
 Frenchman with Burgundy in all his veins. 
 
 " And what on earth brings you here ? " said the first. 
 
 " Sketching, of course, old fellow ! What else have I done since the days 
 at Clareton when you made me do your French exercises for you, and I in 
 revenge got you a hundred lines by sketching the loves of the Integral and 
 Differential Calculi in the fly-sheet of your 'Todhunter'? A sketcher with 
 nothing to sketch, in search of the picturesque, and with at least as much right 
 to be in my own country as you have. And you ? " 
 
 " A scribbler in search of material — material that must be solid and dull, 
 such as no man can read, so that I may obtain a reputation for untold wisdom 
 and inscrutable depth, be voted a bore without a trace of frivoKty, be elected 
 a member of a statistical society, and eventually, in my toothless old age, be 
 •considered worthy of a seat in the Cabinet, or the editorship of a comic paper.'' 
 
2 SCRIBBLER AND SKETCHER. 
 
 " And in search of it ? " 
 
 "I am going to Egypt. After mature consideration, I fancy that I shall 
 find there precisely the style of subject I require. In the first place, the British 
 public took some interest in the country last year, so naturally has none now ;, 
 then it has been so much written about, that there can be nothing new to say ;. 
 thirdly, we have vital interests in the country, so it is certain that a book on 
 the subject will not be read ; and, above all, the subject has been so frequently 
 discussed in Parliament, that one can rely on utter ignorance of essential 
 facts." 
 
 "What rubbish! You are going there, first, because you like it; second, 
 because you know that it has become a British possession & pen pres ; and, 
 thirdly — excuse the brutal frankness, — because it's the only subject on which 
 you know anything. Egypt ! the dream of my life ! I would give my head to 
 come too ! " 
 
 " You would like to come ! then why not join me ? " said the Scribbler, with 
 a second access of genuine enthusiasm. " You needn't," he added, relapsing 
 into his old tone, " give your head, though you would probably sacrifice your 
 lungs and your liver. You would get typhoid in Alexandria, of course, and 
 probably cholera in Cairo ; but, after all, the hospitals are the cleanest places 
 to live in in Egypt, and you might get over it. What do you say ? " 
 
 "Say!" said the Sketcher, laughing. "Why, that your invitation is so 
 cordial, your picture so lively, that I've half a mind to take you at your 
 word. To me, Egypt has always presented one inscrutable puzzle, one ever- 
 increasing mystery, and perhaps, if we went there together, you would help me 
 to solve it." 
 
 "And what is the mystery? The riddle of the Sphinx? the sources of 
 the Nile ? or the explanation of British policy in Egypt ? " 
 
 "Neither; but one more difficult than either — the connection between 
 Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Fellah ! " 
 
 " I hate all mysteries or riddles, and can't even understand the question of 
 yours. The connection between Pharaoh and the Fellah has generally been 
 one of stout hippopotamus hide, called a kourbash. I fear there's no difficulty 
 in understanding that ! " 
 
 " How dense you are, or pretend to be ! Listen, and I will explain myself 
 down to the level of your practical intelligence. The Egypt of the Pharaohs 
 is the Egypt of an art hardly absolutely inferior to that of Greece itself, and, 
 as its parent, relatively superior to it — the Egypt of a science which may be 
 similarly compared to our own — the Egypt with a literature, the remnants of 
 
PHARAOHS AND FELLAHS. 3 
 
 ■which, scant as they are, show traces of majesty worthy of Homer — the Egypt 
 ■of an empire embracing half the known world. Such is Egypt of the Pharaohs. 
 Now turn to Egypt of the Fellah — a people who for hundreds of years have 
 given us nothing above the literature of a Kaffir, without a trace of artistic 
 perception, incapable of all but the lowest manual . labour, unfit to govern, not 
 a nation only, but a village — a people fallen from the highest to the lowest. 
 Does not this contrast present a riddle worthy of solution ? " 
 
 "Certainly it would," said the Scribbler, "if any such contrast existed, but 
 it does not. You make the common error of assuming that the Egypt of the 
 Pharaohs and the Egypt of the Fellah are two distinct epochs, instead of two 
 ■distinct classes, always existing side by side. Egypt of the Pharaoh and of the 
 Fellah existed 7000 years ago, and the same Egypt exists to-day. In the 
 Fellah there has been no change ; in the Pharaoh there has been much. The 
 same men to-day till the fields, tend the same cattle, work the same shadoof, 
 make the same bricks, as in the hieroglyphs of thousands of years ago. One 
 foreign ruler has followed another, styled either Pharaoh or Ptolemy, Caliph or 
 Khedive, leaving behind them monuments either of their greatness or their 
 littleness ; but this is not a change in the people^ who are to-day what you have 
 described them, and what they have ever been within the record of seven 
 thousand years." 
 
 "Then you give the Egyptian no part whatever?" 
 
 " If you mean by the Egyptian the Fellah of Egypt Proper of to-day — the 
 Egyptian of Arabi — the Egyptian of Blunt, and of the ravers of " Egypt for the 
 Egyptians " — I give them one unbroken past, a servitude of 7000 years, during 
 which they have been hewers of wood and drawers of water to successive 
 ■conquerors." 
 
 " Even then they must have taken something from their conquerors. You 
 ■so-called English yourselves are but a melange of different conquering races, 
 and probably owe your best qualities to your conquerors." 
 
 " Precisely ; but there is this peculiarity about the Egyptian : always con- 
 quered, the prey first of one conqueror and then of the other, he is himself the 
 real conqueror in process of time. The conquering race passes over him, but 
 leaves no trace. Just as Indian wheat or American cotton-seed, planted in 
 Nile mud, becomes at the second crop Egyptian wheat and Egyptian cotton, 
 taking its nature from the soil, so the human seed — mixed though it has been 
 with Ethiopian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, the race Egyptian has 
 always re-asserted itself arid remained one and the same, physically and morally. 
 I believe, if you were to obliterate the race, and people the country with settlers 
 
4 EXPERIENCE AND PREJUDICE. 
 
 from Nova Scotia, you would in a few generations have the lying, licentious^ 
 and easily governed Egyptian of to-day." 
 
 " Then you believe in no regeneration of Egypt ? " 
 
 " How can there be regeneration if there has been no birth ? Egypt as a 
 nation has never existed ; that is, of course, as an independent nation under 
 its own rulers. ; Whether such an existence is possible to her in the future, wh& 
 can say ? None of her numerous conquerors has ever tried the experiment." 
 
 " Are you English trying it ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that is a question that requires a long answer ; but, if you are 
 serious, come with me and study for yourself both Pharaoh and Fellah." 
 
 " But are you serious ? Will you not feel like Sinbad, with a man of paints- 
 and pencils on your^' shoulders — a pure idealist — absolutely ignorant of all 
 relating to the country ? " 
 
 "On the contrary, my dear fellow, you will be invaluable to me. Experience, 
 after all, is frequently only another name for prejudice ; you shall correct me 
 with the impartiality due to utter ignorance, and instruct me in the beauties 
 of oriental dirt, which I have never been able to appreciate. You shall sketch 
 with the pencil, and I with the pen ; you shall depict the Fellah, and I pro- 
 pound the Pharaoh ; you sometimes travelling into my domain and I into yours,, 
 we shall together find the happy mean.'' 
 
 " And the result ? " 
 
 " That we shall amuse and instruct ourselves, if no one else, and add one 
 more book on Egypt." 
 
M*^ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Marseilles — Passengers — Corsica — Napoleon and Monte Christo — A political 
 discourse — A pathetic and poetic appeal. 
 
 A FEW days later, and the Messageries steamer Mxris, with 
 some hundreds of passengers, and its full comple- 
 ment of two stewards and a cabin-boy to attend to their 
 wants, was struggling out of Port la Joilette, in face of 
 a light head wind. 
 
 Verily, in sober truth, and not satirically, 
 the finest view in all la belle France is 
 seen as we leave its grand old Pho- 
 c»an port. " If Paris had its Canne- 
 bifere, it would be Marseilles," say 
 its shoppy citizens ; but Marseilles 
 could give Paris a hundred Canne- 
 bibres, and still, from the height of its 
 2400 years, afford to look down upon 
 its gaudy parvenu rival. Beautiful it 
 looks now, nestling at the feet of its 
 golden Virgin of Notre Dame de la 
 Garde, glittering like a sun lighthouse, 
 
OUR FELLOW-PASSENGERS. 
 
 guarded by its saints militant, Forts Saint Jean and Saint Nicholas. The 
 
 Chateau d'lf and the Isle Maire stand stern and forbidding, but beyond we 
 see the lovely coast of Provence, rich in all colour from 
 sun and sea and sky. 
 
 The shouting, which seems necessary to safe navigation 
 for the first few hours, was gradually toning down ; and the 
 sailors, settling themselves into little groups against the 
 bulwarks, and furtively smoking the vilest caporal from their 
 short pipes, were discussing their experiences of the few 
 days they had passed among the land-lubbers. The mono- 
 j ! 'Kg3»^ tonous throb of the engines, the flapping of the cordage, the 
 f ^ U^lBi premonitory groans of a few passengers, who were inviting 
 
 sea-sickness in their cabins, and the rattling of plates in 
 the pantry, were the only sounds which reached the 
 Sketcher and the Scribbler as they tramped the deck, 
 and discussed the age, station, calling, and relationship 
 of the few passengers who had not already gone below. 
 
 There was a portly Britisher, whose sense of dignity, 
 and a desire to prove that he individually represented a 
 nation that ruled the waves, was struggling hard with a 
 
 conviction that the waves should be ruled straighter, and 
 
 that at this particular juncture they were acquiring more 
 
 control than was becoming over the region covered by his 
 
 capacious white waistcoat. The mingled dignity and help- 
 lessness of his demeanour recalled irresistibly the Turtle 
 
 of Wonderland ; and the two fresh-looking daughters who 
 
 were with him fitted naturally to their sobriquets of Turtle- 
 
 Doves. A lanky American, of some six feet three, was 
 
 trying hard, with the aid of a telescope of about his own 
 
 length and breadth, to assume a nautical air. But Nature 
 
 reasserted itself; for piteously appealing to a typical English- 
 man, who, arrayed in an ulster, was dealing death to him 
 
 with every whiff of his cigar, he remarked, " We long-built 
 
 men feel the motion a deal more than them as has their 
 
 innards slung lower," and went below. A scion of England's 
 
 later aristocracy was maintaining his reputation as a man 
 
 about town by sucking the handle of his cane ; but these, 
 
 a German savant, an English clergyman, and a lady of 
 
CORSICA. 
 
 f^^ 
 
 uncompromising principles and bonnet, were the sole occupants of the 
 
 deck. 
 
 Early next morning the sea had got tired of what the American called its 
 waltz, and had settled down to the demeanour of a 
 stately chaperone. The sun shone as it only shines 
 in the Mediterranean, without the vulgar ostentation 
 of the tropics, and with none of that timid reserve to 
 which we are accustomed in England. It shone as 
 if it shone for its own pleasure, with a desire to make 
 things pleasant for the insignificant world below ; and 
 the sea was grateful, for it answered with its merriest 
 laugh, and gave itself up as a mirror to reflect His 
 Majesty's glories. And Corsica, lying in the distance, 
 looked grateful ; the mountain tops were still covered 
 with snow, but they blushed pink as the sun slanted 
 across them, and made the dark rugged cliffs, scattered 
 with sparse woodland, look their best. 
 
 It was one of the Turtle-Doves who began it, that 
 
 merry cry of " Corsica ! " and a group of muslin took it up, passed it on to a 
 
 group of youngsters on the way to their regiments in Egypt, and so it went 
 
 round the ship, sounding now like a feu-de-joie, now 
 
 like a volley, and at last dying away in minute-guns. 
 
 Corsica ! Corsica ! ! Corsica ! ! ! and the laziest rose from 
 
 his seat, to be able to say that he had seen it, while the 
 
 more conscientious consulted their guide-books, and a 
 
 Herr Doctor in spectacles took out a chart of prodigious 
 
 dimensions, to satisfy himself that Corsica stood where 
 
 it did. 
 
 The Turtle was a member of the British Legislature, 
 
 who felt that his mission in life was the imparting of 
 
 solid information, and who was not to be deterred from 
 
 the fulfilment of it. Ostensibly addressing the Doves, 
 
 but generously raising his voice for the benefit of the 
 
 company, he raised his right flapper, and pointing in 
 
 the direction of the island, said, " The birthplace of 
 
 Bonyparty, a very remarkable man." Perhaps the 
 
 Sketcher felt that it was a generous admission.; at all 
 
 events he said, " Yonder is Elba." The Turtle bowed, 
 
 'B 
 
 s£z2f- 
 
8 THE "TURTLE" FAMILY. 
 
 and again raising his flapper, said, " And there is where he died ; " but, with 
 sudden doubts as to his historical accuracy, he lifted the other fin, and pointed 
 it in a direction which might be supposed to vaguely indicate the direction of St. 
 Helena. He observed the Sketcher taking, at the moment, a hurried note, and, 
 relapsing from his semaphore attitude, remarked to the Doves that the young 
 man seemed intelligent and anxious to acquire information; "for a Frenchman, 
 remarkably so," he added, as he glowed with a conscious feeling of toleration 
 towards inferiors. 
 
 " Look at Monte Christo," cried the Sketcher, as a rocky outline appeared 
 on the horizon. " History and romance facing one another, and who shall say 
 which has the best of it ? You now, Scribbler mine, who try to prove the world 
 a thing of dry facts and figures, sewers and drains, practical man as you are, will 
 you deny that even the creation of the wildest imagination has not been beaten 
 by your own facts ? " 
 
 "Facts, my enthusiastic friend! What are facts? Do you mean Thiers's 
 facts, or Napoleon le Petit's facts ? Do you expect me to take history as proof of 
 facts, when you know the very man's existence is capable of logical disproof? 
 There was probably a substratum of truth in Monte Christo. Reduce the two 
 stories to their naked facts, and then we will judge." 
 
 The Turtle, who had never heard of Whately or Dumas, found himself out 
 of his depth; but she, who had been already christened the Fond Dove, 
 encouraged by the previous parental approval, smiled at the Sketcher, who lay 
 at her feet from that hour. And the Fair Dove asked the Scribbler if he were 
 going to Cairo ; and when he replied that he was afraid so, she quoted to him 
 pages of " Murray," and so the acquaintance began — an acquaintance pleasant 
 indeed, but which had its drawbacks, for the ever-conscientious Turtle saw an 
 occasion not to be missed. For years he had been struggling to catch the 
 Speaker's eye, to unbosom himself on Egypt ; and though, because he had 
 ■once been a Cabinet Minister, he had twice hooked that slippery optic, it had, 
 to his surprise, only resulted in a "count out." Now was his opportunity. 
 Drawing his heels together, protruding his waistcoat and chin, and apostrophising 
 the nearest mast as an imaginary Speaker, he began : " In the complicated 
 •series of blunders in whicli, so to speak, the mummy of the Egyptian question 
 is swathed " — when the luncheon-bell ringing, carried away his audience, and 
 left him speaking. 
 
 The next day brought the Mceris off Naples, and the glassy stillness of the 
 sea reflecting Vesuvius, Ischia, Nisida, and Procida as in a mirror, left the 
 anost inveterate of sea-sick sufferers no excuse to remain below. Even that 
 
 .^ 
 
BRITISH POLICY IN EGYPT. 
 
 never-absent female, who in any possible voyage is firmly convinced that she 
 will be drowned in the Bay of Biscay, appeared on deck, arrayed in a bonnet 
 which was apparently adapted to serve in case 
 of need as a life-buoy. Is it necessary to de- 
 scribe the Neapolitan shore, from Castella- 
 mare the stately to Posilipo the beautiful? 
 Are we not rather intent on more Eastern 
 scenes than these, sung of from Horace 
 to Lamartine? Need we linger over the 
 forgotten terrors of Scylla and Charybdis, 
 the gardens of Messina, the majesty of Etna, 
 and the cerulean Calabrian coast? The 
 Mceris has passed them all, and is in the 
 waste of sea that will not be broken till she 
 sights the Alexandria light. The party have 
 shaken down, as the stiffest of parties will 
 do on a sea-voyage. The Turtle is less 
 dogmatic ; the Sketcher is pretending to give 
 drawing lessons to the Fond Dove; while 
 the Fair One is relaxing the cynicism of the 
 
 Scribbler under a course of Browning. The Patrician has emerged from sea- 
 sickness with more sense of toleration towards his fellow-sufferers ; the American 
 has vainly endeavoured to start a business connection in hides, which he explains 
 is his specialty ; and Ulster, ever genial and content, has managed to keep the 
 whole party in good-humour with themselves and each other. 
 
 The last night had arrived ; the Maris was due early next morning at 
 Alexandria, and our little party were pouring forth their stores of information or 
 imagination regarding Egypt for mutual benefit. The young Patrician was 
 naturally a violent Radical ; and the Turtle, having made his money in soap, as 
 decided a Conservative. " We should never have touched the country, sir, but 
 for your fatal Conservative interference," said the first. " We should never 
 have made ourselves contemptible there, if we had been in power," replied the 
 other. 
 
 " Now that," said the Sketcher, " is the peculiarity of your English party 
 politics. I invariably find that the party in power, and the party in opposition, 
 are agreed on one point, and that is, that whatever has been done, has been done 
 badly and under pressure from the party out of office. ' Why did you go to 
 Egypt ? ' says one. ' Because you compelled us,' replies the other. The idea 
 
LORD PALMERSTON. 
 
 that any one party, ministry, or man should have a policy of their own, is absent 
 from English politics." 
 
 " Yes," said Ulster. " ' Please, sir, 'twasn't me, 'twas t'other boy,' would 
 summarise most of our debates on foreign politics. But perhaps it's as dignified 
 as sending in an ultimatum one week and going off to Jaffa the next, to the 
 tune of ' Partant pour la Syrie,' as your fleet did, my good friend." 
 
 " Leaving to the British fleet the sole glory of bombarding a helpless town,'' 
 said the Frenchman. 
 
 " The town was not helpless, and was not bombarded," replied the other. 
 " The forts were silenced one day, and only one shot was fired the next day, 
 while the 'helpless' soldiery were firing the town, massacring 
 Christians, and ill-treating even native women. On the whole, 
 throughout this Egyptian business we behaved with singular 
 clemency and good faith." 
 
 The discussion became general and was getting warm. The 
 Gallic blood of the Sketcher had been aroused against Ulster, and 
 the Turtle and the Patrician were gradually working their way 
 back into the Middle Ages, in an attempt to fix the origin of our 
 intervention in Egypt. 
 
 The Scribbler, who had gravely followed the discussion with 
 the silence becoming a person of authority, summed up the 
 debate with cynical impartiality. " As for the origin of the whole 
 matter, it would be about as useful to discuss the origin of the 
 siege of Troy. Put it down as the offspring bred by human 
 nature out of geographical position nursed by national imbecility. 
 Let us go back a little. Palmerston, so far as I know, never read 
 history, but knew it, so avoided logical will-o'-the wisps with a 
 true instinct. Perhaps you don't know that he refused the Protectorate of 
 Egypt when Abbas offered to throw over the Sultan, but it's a fact." 
 "You mean from the Czar Nicholas? " said the Turtle. 
 " No, I don't ; that was another offer refused ; but I refer to a distinct, specific 
 offer on the part of Abbas, then Viceroy of Egypt, to place himself under the 
 protection of England instead of that of the Sultan. Palmerston refused : he 
 said that we did not require Egypt ; but when Abbas's successor encouraged the 
 Suez Canal, Palmerston saw as clearly as Alexander that, if the project succeeded, 
 Egypt would become of vital importance to the mistress of India. Did he 
 believe all he said about the certain failure of Lesseps and his visionary schemes ? 
 I don't know ; but in any case, the wish was father to the thought, and there 
 
 A Fellah Woman. 
 
RIVAL ROUTES. ii 
 
 is no better proof of his foresight than the cautious answer he gave as an 
 explanation of his opposition to the scheme : ' Remote speculations with regard 
 to easier access to our Indian possessions, only requiring to be indistinctly 
 shadowed forth to be fully appreciated.' He recognised, and even predicted, 
 that if a practical waterway were created between the two seas, England would 
 be compelled, sooner or later, to annex Egypt, — that, in fact, we must either 
 hold Egypt or lose India." 
 
 The Turtle opined that the Canal could never be depended upon, and that 
 England would have to rely on quick transports by the Cape. 
 
 " Excuse me," said the Scribbler, " if I point out that that argument is the 
 result of a singular confusion of ideas. The ordinary British mind can only 
 take in one idea at a time, and that very slowly. It took it a long time to 
 realise that the Suez Canal had altered the situation as regarded Egypt itself. 
 Having at last grasped the importance of the Suez Canal, it dropped all idea 
 of Egypt, just as a monkey drops one nut when you offer it another, though 
 a smaller one. isi idea : Egypt is of no importance ; 2nd idea : Egypt is of 
 importance because of Suez Canal ; 2)^d idea : Therefore Suez Canal is of 
 importance ; ^fh idea : Therefore Egypt is of no importance. Now, because 
 we realise that the Suez Canal is of importance, surely there is no need to forget 
 the importance of Egypt's land route ; and if we cannot rely on the Suez Canal 
 (which is an open question), there is all the more reason to hold on to the 
 alternative. If we found our advantage in transporting troops across Egypt 
 during the Indian Mutiny, when there was no Canal, does that advantage 
 disappear because there is another doubtful route running parallel to it ? And 
 when you talk of quick steamers round the Cape, you forget that there is 
 nothing to prevent the same speed in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. 
 Quicken your transport either way, by all means ; but you cannot get over the 
 4300 miles difference between the two routes, and, even at thirty miles an 
 hour, that is six days. Six days in which you may lose or save your Empire ! 
 Besides, if Egypt is useless to you, — if the Mediterranean is a cul de sac, leading 
 to nowhither, through seas where you have to run the gauntlet of hostile 
 fleets, — of what use are Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus ? Be consistent ; and 
 when you give up Egypt, give up those also. A year later you will have no 
 trouble in getting rid of India too.'' 
 
 " Stop a bit," said the Patrician. " You said that we sent troops through 
 Egypt during the Mutiny. Well, we didn't garrison Egypt then ; why should 
 we not withdraw from the country now, and still be able to cross it if we 
 wished to ? " 
 
12 BURNING OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 " Because, my dear boy, 1857 is not 1887. The Crimean war was just over 
 then ; France was our ally ; Turkey our humble servant ; Russia temporarily 
 exhausted ; Germany and Italy non-existent. Is that the position to-day ? And, 
 lastly, if you want another reason, because we were not in possession then, 
 and we are in legal occupation now. To take is one thing, to give up is 
 another." 
 
 " For a somewhat reserved son of honest Britain, I think," said the Sketcher, 
 " that that is a very fair exposition of England's declared policy of retirement 
 from Egypt." 
 
 "I am not called upon," replied the Scribbler, "to expound or to subscribe 
 to the absurd engagements entered into by a Government which made two 
 contradictory and equally impossible promises. I might, if I chose, refer you 
 to Mackenzie Wallace's argument, and say that in such a case the less important 
 promise must give way to the other ; but not being politicians, let's do away 
 with casuistry, and the cant — pardon me, Ulster — of 'singular clemency and 
 good faith.' We showed just the same amount of the latter as you do when 
 you pay an overdue bill under pressure. As to clemency, it's true that we only 
 ^red at the forts ; but as our shells riddled that lighthouse, which by special 
 order the gunners were instructed to avoid, perhaps it's of more importance to 
 consider what we hit than what we fired at. We certainly didn't do much damage 
 to the inhabited quarters of the town directly, but /^directly, by failing to send 
 troops, or even to land four hundred marines, we are morally responsible for all 
 that happened and the burning of Alexandria must remain, what Wolseley called 
 it, ' a lasting disgrace to the British navy.' As to our not firing the next day, let's 
 be silent about it. There's not much merit in it when you happen to have 
 fired away the last shot from your locker; and seeing that there were repre- 
 sentatives of some half-dozen doubtfully friendly fleets within a few miles, it's 
 not pleasant to think that if one or two had turned on us, we should have had 
 to make a bolt for it." 
 
 " Is that true .? " asked Ulster. 
 
 The Scribbler rose. " You had better ask the Admiralty, who, to save a few 
 pounds in coal, sent the Heda with the ammunition from Malta under canvas, 
 so that she arrived twenty-four hours too late. Of course they'll deny it, as 
 they denied sending the marines without arms, and the Orontes without troops 
 on board, but it's true none the less." 
 
 " Scribbler," said the Sketcher solemnly, as they left the deck, " I have a 
 favour to beg. To-morrow we land at Alexandria, and yonder light on Pharos 
 is the morning star that heralds me to the glorious East. Let me entreat you to 
 
ROMANCE AND REALITY. 
 
 13 
 
 abstain from immoderate indulgence in Blue Books. Put your spirit in unison 
 with the surroundings with which we shall be environed. Remember that we 
 shall land amidst the ruins of Ptolemy ; that we shall breathe the air of Cleopatra, 
 and be pacing the groves of the Platonists. A few days more, and we shall 
 have plunged into the dreamland of Haroun el Raschid ; and yet a few weeks 
 will see us in the temples of Osiris, amidst the shades of Ramses. Remem- 
 ber that the difference between life and death is only accordance or want of 
 accordance with our environments ; and let me live ! " 
 
 The Scribbler was touched by the agonised tone of the appeal. " There 
 doesn't happen," he said, " to be any light on Pharos, but only ruins, not of 
 Ptolemy, but of Beauchamp Seymour. Your morning star is rising and setting 
 every two minutes in a rather ugly lighthouse of the nineteenth century. You 
 will find the air of Cleopatra very much like that of most other decomposed 
 matter; and the groves of the Platonists are converted into peculiarly ugly 
 buildings, mostly tenanted as cafi-chantants of a third-rate order. I might then 
 ask you to put yourself in accordance with these environments, and become a 
 practical travelling companion ; but I will not ask impossibilities. I will do my 
 best, and to-morrow shall see me a changed character." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Alexandria — A well-meant e^ort at the poetical — An artistic discussion — Perspective 
 and Ru-tew-shan — Odours of Araby — The bombardment — Alexandria of the 
 Ptolemies — Rhacotis — Heptastadium — Museum — Library — The oldest street in 
 the world — The Soma — The Paneum — Theatre — Canopic Gate — Ccesareum — 
 Nineteenth-century Vandals — Pompey's Pillar — Serapeujn. 
 
 THE next morning at daybreak, the Mkris was steaming over the rocky bar 
 into Alexandria harbour. To the Sketcher, with his strongly imaginative 
 temperament, all things alike, old and new, were objects of delight. The low 
 sandy shore to the west ; the little villas of Ramleh to the east ; the ungainly 
 windmills and hideous palace of Mex ; even the dilapidated stuccoed Ras el Tin 
 itself seemed bathed in Oriental splendour. . The pilot's " half-a-speed-astern " 
 impressed him. " It had," he said, " precisely that mellifluous guttural sound 
 which he had always associated with Arabic ; " and it required some argument 
 from Ulster to convince him that he was mistaken. As for the Scribbler, he had 
 a preoccupied air, as of one who had been wearied with midnight study. It was 
 abstractedly that he answered his companion's eager inquiries ; uncontradicted, 
 he allowed the Turtle to point to a factory chimney as Pompey's Pillar, and to 
 expatiate upon the unmistakable grace of what he called "the Monolith ;" and 
 even when, later, one of the Doves remarked that the Monolith was smoking, his 
 smile was unusually grave. He submitted with unwonted meekness to the 
 obstreperous appeals of the numerous Alis and Mahomets, as they divided his 
 portmanteau among them and struggled for his person. It was with a sigh of 
 relief that he escaped from the Custom-House, seized the Sketcher by the arm, 
 and, pointing to a Maltese engaged in a scuffle with a Greek, began as follows : 
 " Do you see Abn Hassan at the city gate ? and there is Haroun el Raschid 
 quietly coming up in that disguise of a city merchant. There is Sinbad the 
 porter, too, hurrying to Sinbad the sailor; these minarets make the city so 
 beautiful ; the heavy mound-like domes " — — 
 
 The Sketcher was disturbed ; in the dirty, semi-European faces around him 
 he could recognise none of the wonders described by his ordinarily practical 
 
THE SCRIBBLER'S ATTEMPT. 
 
 15 
 
 friend ; besides, the words sounded familiar to him. " There's something like 
 that in an American book," he said. 
 
 " Good heavens ! you've read it, then ! Why, I sat up all last night learning 
 pages on purpose to please you ; and there's lots more of it," he added patheti- 
 cally ; " but what's the use ? " 
 
 " None whatever, my friend. I too have been striving to change my skin 
 and become practical. That gj^ pounds make a piaster, 
 or 971^ piasters a pound, I am convinced, but I cannot 
 remember which. Let us give it up. Keep you to the 
 practical side of this trip, and leave to me the artistic ! Is 
 it a bargain ? " 
 
 "Agreed," said the other; "I will write fact, and you 
 shall paint pictures." 
 
 " Let us hope, at least," said the Fond One, " that the 
 facts will be as true as Art." 
 
 " As true as Art ! As if Art, or painting, at least, were 
 ever true. Your truest picture is a framed untruth ! " 
 
 " The Scribbler is only happy when indulging in para- 
 doxes," explained his friend. 
 
 " Paradox ! do you call that a paradox which is self- 
 evident. Take this sketch now," he continued, taking the 
 block from the Sketcher's hands ; " what is that but a 
 conventional representation of a street? That house is a 
 hundred yards away, this one is ten yards off, and you £5 
 represent them on a plane. You call it drawn in perspec- 
 tive ; but what is perspective but a term invented to get over the difficulty ? 
 Your educated eye, as you call it, recognises its rules ; but the Chinese eye is 
 just as educated, only with other rules ; so he ignores your perspective, draws 
 in accordance with rules of his own, called Rtt^tew-shan, and equally thinks he 
 has got over the difficulty." 
 
 " But I see no difficulty to get over," said the Sketcher. 
 
 " Of course you don't. Your eyes have been so educated, that to you there 
 is nothing absurd in a European picture drawn in accordance with the rules of 
 perspective, just as to the Chinaman there is nothing absurd in his pictures 
 drawn according to the rules of Ru-tew-shan. None the less the one and the 
 •other is equally untrue to nature, and equally false. If you want a proof, show 
 a child of artistically uneducated parents that porter, and ask what he is. He 
 will say, a man carrying a trunk tied on to his head, and a very shabby bag in 
 
 A Seller of Drinks. 
 
i6 
 
 LAWS OF PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 his hand. From such a description you may recognise that it is a porter carrying 
 my modest luggage. Now, show this sketch, which you all doubtless recognise, 
 to the same child, and ask him what it is. He will say it is a white sheet of 
 paper with black marks on it. Turn it right way up or upside 
 down, and he will say the same — a sheet of paper with black 
 marks on it, that's what he would say ; and he would be right, 
 for that's precisely what it is ; " and he returned it to the 
 disgusted artist. 
 
 " You seem, sir," said the Turtle, " to have given this sub- 
 ject considerable and lengthy study.'' 
 
 " I have," said the Scribbler ; " in fact," he added in an 
 undertone, " ever since that fellow began pulling about my 
 baggage ; and now that he's done, we may as well go." 
 
 The rest of the party expressed an intention of going in 
 carriages, but the Sketcher vowed that he could descend to 
 nothing so occidental, and ordered camels. Nothing more 
 resembling them than donkeys could, however, be found ; and 
 as the rest stoutly refused this mode of conveyance, a compro- 
 mise was effected. The least disreputable-looking Mahomet 
 was intrusted with the luggage, to take to the Hotel Abbat, 
 and the whole party agreed to walk. The resolution was 
 carried out not without persistent opposition from numerous donkey-boys, who 
 loudly vociferated the excellent qualities of their beasts. Two of them, respec- 
 tively named " Bradlaugh '' and the " Bishop of London,'' were finally loaded 
 with the luggage, and ambled ahead in genial fellowship, urged thereto with 
 language of a character which even the Sketcher could not conscientiously 
 mistake for Arabic. 
 
 The way from the harbour leads through narrow streets, filled with the 
 offscourings of all nations, and pervaded by an odour to which one becomes 
 rapidly accustomed in Egypt; its basis is unmistakable dirt — rich Nile mud, 
 but adulterated with saturation of garlic, peppermint, arachi, putrid fish, and 
 worse. In different parts of the country, one or other of these extra ingredients 
 predominates over the rest ; but they are always all present in a more or less 
 degree, and combine every odour which decomposed animal or vegetable 
 matter is capable of producing. The Scribbler was useful as a guide, and 
 comparatively cheerful ; for he explained that he had already gone through all 
 the diseases which were inevitable to first-comers, and so felt personally safe. 
 On the left side of the narrow street up which they passed, he was able to point 
 
 ^A Native Shayal. 
 
ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 17 
 
 out the house from which had been supplied the "nabouts" with which, on 
 the fatal nth June 1882, the Christians had been assaulted; and close to it 
 was the Zaptieh, or police-station, whither the unhappy victims fled, only to 
 be shot down by the guardians of order. Turning here to the right, the old 
 Heptastadium, now Frank Street, is entered, through which, amid flames and 
 in danger of falling ruins, the marines entered the town a month later, after the 
 forts had been silenced ; and suddenly, at a point where, in Napoleon's time, 
 ended the town, which then contained only six thousand inhabitants, opens out 
 the great square, "Place des Consuls," now "Place de Mehemet Ali." In the 
 centre of it stands the bronze statue of the great Roumeliote ; and Scribbler 
 told how, when he last entered it, the statue stood alone, red hot, the square 
 an almost complete rectangle of fire strewed with corpses, and moving among 
 them only two devoted priests, who had stood all the horrors of those nights. 
 Let their names be recorded once more — Pfere Guillaume, a Franciscan, and 
 Frere Mivielle, a Lazarist. 
 
 The ordinary traveller who comes to Egypt disdains Alexandria. He comes 
 to see the land of the Nile, associated somewhat vaguely in his mind with vast 
 antiquity, which he would perhaps describe as consisting of pyramids, Pharaohs, 
 and mummies, or, at the very least, the legendary genii 
 of the "Arabian Nights." Instead of this, he finds a 
 modern town, possessing little pretensions to beauty, 
 and small trace of antiquity : so he hurries on to 
 Cairo, and can see nothing in the commercial capital 
 of Egypt but the commonplace resort of Levantine 
 usurers. And yet, if he would linger a little, he 
 would gain all the clearer insight into the world which 
 he is about to enter without comprehension. If we 
 were as anxious to find indications of prescience in 
 the works of man as in those of nature, we might 
 prove that there was a secret and beneficent purpose 
 in making Alexandria the first stepping-stone into 
 the East. For not only the beauties, but the incon- 
 veniences of the Orient, are here broken to us gently. 
 The streets are paved and watered ; the shops rival 
 those of any but those of the first European cities ; 
 and the very odours are mitigated to suit the untried 
 occidental palate. On the other hand, the Eastern sky, though pleasant, is apt 
 to be murky ; the fierce sun is tempered by the cool breeze ; and the interesting 
 
 A Jewish Sayaffe. 
 
1 8 THE STEPPING-STONE TO THE EAST. 
 
 Oriental who salutes you in the Lingua Franca is probably a Jewish saraffe, and 
 possibly smells of spirits. And the position which Alexandria occupies towards 
 the rest of Egypt, as the point of transition from West to East, is similar, though 
 conversely, to that which she holds from an historical point of view. It is at 
 Alexandria that the histories of the East merge with those of the West ; that we 
 find in the period of the Ptolemies a stepping-stone between the Egypt of the 
 Pharaohs and the Egypt of the Arab. He who looks for many traces of antiquity 
 will indeed fail to find them ; but surely it is a dull mortal who requires the 
 tangible object before him to excite his imagination, and who is unable to 
 derive any pleasure from the dream of association alone. The town which 
 was founded by Alexander, defended by Csesar, and captured by Bonaparte 
 surely merits some consideration. 
 
 Is it nothing to you that at almost the spot where you landed, landed some 
 2 200 years ago the great Macedonian himself, at what was then the fishing- 
 village of Rhacotis ? Here, beneath the very streets through which you walk 
 to reach the square, was the Heptastadium, the narrow causeway originally 
 connecting " the rocky isle of Pharos " with the mainland, increased by accumu- 
 lated soil, assigned as dwelling-place to the Franks in Arab times, and now, 
 when the pushing Christians have extended the town to almost the limits of 
 the old city, become the Arab quarter. Here, in the great square, we are in a 
 modern quarter, formed by the soil which collected at the point where the 
 Heptastadium joined the mainland. At the top of the square, and just as 
 we enter Cherif Pasha Street, with the New Bourse on our right, we are really 
 crossing the old city walls, and entering the town just where stood the public 
 granaries, stretching down to the now unused harbour on our left. Walk up 
 Cherif Pasha Street, named after Egypt's late easy-going Premier, and beneath 
 these new-built houses and shops are the ruins of the old town; and when 
 you get to the top of the street you will find yourself — where ? If you consult 
 the legend in black and white before you, you will see that you are facing the 
 " British Main Guard ; " but if you let your imagination lead you a little, you 
 can think that you are facing the great Museum ; for something more than 
 legend makes us certain that it was here. Where that sentry is tramping, 
 paced Euclid, and Clemens, and later Origen. In the groves which stretched 
 behind, where now stand ugly buildings and the railway station, disputed 
 Athanasius and Arius, Cyril and Hypatia — the disciples of Christ, of Aristotle, 
 and of Serapis. Behind, again, lay the Library of 100,000 volumes, including 
 the Septuagint — the Library destroyed not by Amru, but by the flames of the 
 ships fired by the great Julius, which spread, and spared the Museum itself, but 
 
OLDEST STREET IN THE WORLD. 
 
 19 
 
 destroyed its never-to-be-restored treasures. It is to the labour of Alexandrians 
 on this spot that we owe not only the text of Homer, but that translation of 
 the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek which drew into the young Church of Christ 
 all that was best and noblest from all rival creeds. " The 
 Platonist saw in Christianity a fuller and clearer embodi- 
 ment of the noble ideas of his philosophy than could be 
 seen in Judaism; the Hebrew saw in it the extension of 
 the fate of Abraham and the promises to the whole race of 
 .man ; the Egyptian saw in it the great doctrines of the 
 divine unity , and man's future condition, which had only 
 just disappeared from his religion in the shock of its con- 
 tact with philosophy." 1 
 
 The very street we are standing in, now the fashionable 
 drive to Ramleh and the Canal, thronged with luxurious 
 carriages and needy beggars, is probably the very oldest in 
 the world that still maintains its purpose. Laid out some 
 2000 years ago, it stretched from the Necropolis Gate to 
 the west — where now you will find leviathan steamers load- 
 ing cotton and grain at the quay — to the Canopic Gate, 
 beyond the limits of the present town. That part which 
 lies to our right as we face the Museum extends now but a little way, and 
 then loses itself among foundries, Italian schools, and gardens, within which 
 latter lies the old English Cemetery, containing the graves of some of those 
 Englishmen who lost their lives in the Abercromby campaign of 1800. But to 
 the left, going eastward, we can still follow the exact road as traced by the 
 hands of Alexander. Here, next to the Museum, where you see lofty houses, 
 was the Soma, with the bodies of the kings, and that of the great Alexander 
 himself, in about the centre of his city ; for Ptolemy Lagus stole the body of 
 his great master from Perdiccas, who was carrying it from Babylon, and placed 
 it here in its golden coffin. Ptolemy Cocses stole the gold coffin, and replaced 
 it by a glass one ; but who shall find it now, whether of crystal or metal, beneath 
 these deposits of ages ? 
 
 Arab Beggars. 
 
 " Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, 
 Might stop a hole to keep the wind away." 
 
 Still a little farther on, and always on the right hand, you see the hill now 
 called Kom el Dikk (Hill of the Cock). Here stood the Paneum, an artificial 
 
 1 " Cities of Egypt." R. S. Poole. 
 
ANCIENT TOPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Rosetta Gate. 
 
 height, as it seems to this day, " of a conical form, with a spiral ascent," says 
 Strabo ; but of this there is no trace now, nor from its reduced summit can you 
 see any longer the whole city. On the other side of the road, opposite to the 
 
 Paneum, but at some distance, and near 
 to the sea, stood the Theatre; and passing 
 still on, we reach the modern walls and 
 Rosetta Gate, where stood the Gymnasium 
 with its furlong porticoes; and beyond 
 that, again, we reach the well-marked 
 ridge of the French lines, carried by 
 Abercromby in 1800, where stood the 
 Canopic Gate and the walls of ancient 
 Alexandria. And of all this, nothing 
 remains but the street itself, with here 
 and there a granite pillar or a mutilated 
 statue. 
 Retracing our steps to the point at which we have fixed the Soma, opposite 
 to where now stands the Theatre Zizinia, we shall find a second road intersect- 
 ing the first, and having the same claims to antiquity. This road, now called 
 after the Prophet Daniel, contains the tomb of a late Viceroy, Said Pasha, and 
 southward leads to the Moharrem Bey Gate, passing between the sites of the 
 Museum and the Soma. Following it, however, northward, we find ourselves 
 confronted at the end by the familiar " Lion and Unicorn " of the British 
 Consulate. The worthy representative of Britain exercises alike the justice of 
 the Consular court and the hospitality of his own house on the threshold of 
 the Csesareum. It overlooked the greater harbour, now singularly misnamed the 
 New Port ; beneath its waters you may trace the ruins, though little more than the 
 foundations. Here was besieged by the Alexandrians the great Julius, and here 
 Cleopatra lost an empire with Mark Antony. There, to the right, she could 
 see the Lochias Palace with its royal port, the castellated island of Antirhoodos, 
 the Timonium at her feet, which was to be the last refuge of her lover, and 
 stretching away to the left the Poseidium and the Pharos of her ancestors. 
 Here, too, in later days, under Theodosius, Cyril, real ruler of Eg)rpt, held his 
 priestly state, and issued his orders that revenged on the infidels the Christian 
 massacres of past centuries. Of its grandeur nothing remains ; the two obelisks, 
 which had survived the Roman and Arab conquests, were destined to fall into 
 the hands of those later barbarians, the Anglo-Saxons of the nineteenth century. 
 They stand on the Thames Embankment and in the Central Park of New York, 
 
A Street in the Arabian Quarter of Alexandria. 
 
POMPEY'S PILLAR. 
 
 as a testimony to the wealth, perseverance, engineering skill, and consummate 
 vulgarity of the people who removed them. 
 
 " And thou, Cleopatra's Needle, that hadst thrid 
 Great skirts of Time ere she and .'\ntony hid 
 Dead hope ! — hast thou too reached, surviving death, 
 A city of sweet speech scorned, on whose chill stone 
 Keats withered, Coleridge pined, and Chatterton, 
 Breadless, with poison froze the god-fired breath ? " 
 
 — D. G. ROSSETTI. 
 
 Away to the south-west, crossing again the square, and passing through one 
 of the gates of the town, we come upon a high eminence, crowned by the pillar 
 which we may call Pompey's or Diocletian's with almost equal inaccuracy. That 
 it had nothing to do with the great 
 Pompey may be admitted; for not only 
 did he never reach Alexandria, but he 
 only came to Egypt itself to be defeated 
 and killed near the modern Port Said ; 
 and certainly Alexandrians were the 
 least likely of people to raise a column 
 to a defeated hero. Nor has Diocletian 
 much more right to have his name 
 associated with, it. It is possible, or 
 indeed even probable, that, as it stands 
 to-day, with its ungainly base and vulgar 
 capital, it was erected in honour of the 
 persecuting Emperor, who at last staid 
 his hand. It may, too, have been still 
 further disfigured by the statue, either 
 of himself, or, as others relate, of his horse, whose stumbling was interpreted as 
 the omen which saved the city. But all this does not justify the title of Diocletian 
 to a column which formed part of a building erected five hundred years before 
 he was born. Similar nomenclature would justify the absurd title of Cleopatra's 
 Needle, or, for that matter, Wilson's Needle, to the obelisk of Thothmes III. 
 The column was a part of the Serapeum. On the highest point of Rhacotis, 
 Ptolemy Philadelphus placed the statue of Serapis, and around it grew the Acro- 
 polis of the Greek town. The cult of the god (Osiris-Apis — Serapis) died hard 
 in the city of Alexandria. Long after the religion of the Cross had driven the 
 idolaters from the rest of the town, those who still resisted it found their refuge 
 here. Here was their Library, with volumes greater in number at least than those 
 
 Distant View of Pompey s Pillar. 
 
2 2 THE SERAPEUM. 
 
 which had been already burnt. Here mixed the philosophies of Egypt and of 
 Greece, hurling their Parthian shafts at their victorious foe. And when "the 
 pious indignation of Theophilus " could no longer restrain itself at the furious 
 raging of the heathen, it was here that he pursued them; it was their temple which 
 they turned into a fortress, and where they found a horrible alternation to their 
 sufferings in torturing their Christian prisoners at the foot of the statue of their 
 god. Nothing else remains of the arched portico, the hundred steps which 
 led to it, the stately halls, or the marvellous statues. Through two thousand 
 years the column has looked down upon the struggles of rival creeds and rival 
 empires. Greek and Roman, Turk and Arab, Infidel and Christian, Jew and 
 Moslem, have each struggled at its feet; and in the city of Alexander, where 
 Csesar and Bonaparte triumphed, it remains the one memorial which survives 
 the British occupation. 
 
 A Copt o/ Alexaiuina. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Ramleh — Mahmoudieh Canal — Nicopolis — An Egyptian judge— The luxury of the 
 law — Consular protection or free-trade in crime — The temple of Arsinoe — The 
 hair of Berenice — An early Christian cemetery. 
 
 IT was at the particular request of the Sketcher that the party agreed to miss 
 the evening's express, and devote the afternoon to an excursion to 
 Ramleh. The Scribbler maintained that it was a waste of precious time ; that 
 the so-called Brighton of Alexandria was a Cockneyfied desert, with houses 
 scattered like tombs in a cemetery, wherein the pious Alexandrians secluded 
 themselves, to prepare for the next world by abusing their neighbours in this. 
 On this one point, however, the Sketcher was immovable ; and declining stead- 
 fastly to reveal the reason of his obduracy, he succeeded in exciting the 
 curiosity of the Doves, and, as a matter of course, from this moment carried 
 his point. Driving then from. Pompey's Pillar to the Canal, they passed along 
 the shady banks to the east, and were repaid by the beauties of a drive which 
 is perhaps unsurpassable in Cairo itself. The Scribbler indeed refused to be 
 charmed ; the Canal to him was nothing but the grave of the 20,000 lives which 
 had been sacrificed to digging it; in the beauties of light and shade he 
 detected rheumatism ; beneath the brightest foliage lurked malaria ; and in a 
 baker's shop, which the Sketcher styled picturesque, he found only a hot-bed 
 of cholera. 
 
 Leaving the Canal with its gardens, the road turned sharp to the north, and 
 passing between a couple of small lakes, reached the continuation of the old 
 Canopic road, already described. Again turning eastward, it led across the 
 Desert, past the hideous modern palace of Ramleh, built on the site and from 
 the very stones of Caesar's camp at Nicopolis — the scene of the victories of Octa- 
 vianus over Mark Antony, and of Abercromby over the French. Another mile 
 brought the party to the Beau Mer, an hotel apparently designed to attract from 
 without and to repel from within. The Sketcher, in pursuit of his mysterious 
 purpose, had desired to be introduced to the oldest inhabitant of Nicopolis; 
 and the Scribbler thought that he knew one man, who, from the patient 
 
AN EGYPTIAN JUDGE. 
 
 endurance of his disposition, might still have been able to support existence in 
 the hotel. " He is," he explained, " a judge ; but it is fair to state, in extenua- 
 tion, that being an Anglo-Egyptian judge, he is naturally debased by no 
 technical knowledge, and is as necessarily unpractical and unworldly wise. 
 Were it otherwise, he would not have been appointed to the position, nor 
 would he have accepted it. On the other hand, he is socially charming ; will 
 recite Tennyson and Swinburne by the hour, which will please you ; and is 
 
 utterly ignorant of the country, 
 which is an advantage for me.'' 
 The judge did not belie his re- 
 putation ; he had been editor of 
 a newspaper, secretary to a Duke 
 — everything except a judge, and 
 was therefore all that could be 
 desired for the Egyptian bench. 
 In gentle, uncomplaining tones, 
 he stated the one hardship of his 
 lot — that for three days in the 
 week, during nine months of the 
 year, he had to sit for four hours 
 m a court where the noisy argu- 
 ments of counsel disturbed all 
 the charm of conversation with 
 his colleagues — "some of whom, 
 I must admit," he added, " take 
 their duties much too seriously, 
 and, in fact, are as solemn as if 
 they were beneficed clergymen of 
 the Church of England." 
 
 " Are they all English?" asked 
 the Sketcher. 
 
 " No," said the judge ; "many 
 of them are of your country, and of other nationalities. It requires the united 
 intelligence of five nations to try every petty case. You see," he added 
 solemnly, "the balance of power in Europe might be disturbed if an Eng- 
 hshman or Frenchman alone were to decide a question of five pounds between 
 Ali Mahomet and Spiro Dimitri. So the other great Powers must be represented 
 too ; and Greece, because Spiro is a Greek, and Egypt, because Ali is an 
 
 A Bakery at Kantjoos. 
 
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION. 25 
 
 Egyptian ; and if Greece, why not Holland and Denmark ? And then con- 
 sider the important interests of the United States ! " 
 
 " And do you all have to listen to such a case ? " 
 
 " Listen ! well, we all sit, you see, and that is the main thing, next to our 
 pay, which, I am glad to say, is regular. For myself, I generally do my private 
 correspondence on the occasion." 
 
 "And the rest?" 
 
 " Well, you see there are some who have a difficulty in following the case, 
 as they don't understand the language; but there are generally one or two 
 who can understand if they listen, and they do sometimes." 
 
 " But," said the Turtle, " do you mean to say that this hollow mockery has 
 to be gone through with every trifling offender — that the man who is guilty, 
 say, of a common assault, is allowed thus to waste the time of this highly 
 expensive bench ? " 
 
 "Not at all, my dear sir, not at all. So expensive are we, that we are 
 reserved as a luxury for purely civil and commercial cases. Neither we, nor, 
 so far as I know, any other Power in Egypt, have criminal jurisdiction. An 
 Englishman, indeed, committing a crime, is subject to the authority of his 
 Consul. He may be transported for life or condemned to death ; ' that is the 
 peculiar privilege which he enjoys over- every other person in Egypt — a privilege 
 for which he pays five shillings annually. I believe," he added gently, " I am 
 stating the fact ; if not, my friend will correct me. A free-born Briton differs 
 from all other foreigners in Egypt in two particulars — the one, that he con- 
 tributes five shillings yearly to the revenue of his country ; and the other, that 
 he may be condemned to death by his country's representative." 
 
 " At all events," interposed the Sketcher, " you have had, in exchange for 
 your five shillings, the protection of a British fleet and some 30,000 British 
 soldiers. You cannot say that the charge is excessive ? " 
 
 " No ! perhaps not," said the other meditatively ; " provided they remain in 
 the country, I am not disposed to quarrel with the value which my Government 
 attaches to its protection ; in that case the five shillings is not excessive. But 
 if to-morrow the troops are to be removed, we shall certainly be in a distinctly 
 worse position than we were before they came ; and I think I shall then be 
 justified in reclaiming my accumulated five shillings with compound interest." 
 
 "But," asked the Turtle, "returning to this question of criminal jurisdiction, 
 I presume that other subjects are equally liable to their Consulates ; otherwise, 
 what is the meaning of Consular protection ? " 
 
 " Consular protection," explained the Scribbler, " is, in Egypt, synonymous 
 
26 CONSULAR PROTECTION. 
 
 with free-trade in crime. Except as regards Englishmen, there is no punish- 
 ment for crime in Egypt. Natives, whether innocent or guilty, are punished 
 or acquitted according to the price which it is convenient to pay for either 
 condemnation or acquittal. As for other Europeans, they are amenable to 
 their Consulates for misdemeanours; and for crimes, you may, if you like, 
 prosecute them in Moscow, Athens, Copenhagen, or wherever else their 
 supreme court lies.'' 
 
 " And these are the results of the capitulations?" 
 
 The Scribbler was preparing to reply, when the Sketcher interposed. 
 
 "Let me implore you to desist; the mere mention of the word involves 
 a history of Egypt for the past seven hundred years. Let me change the 
 subject, and ask you where is the temple of Arsinoe ? " 
 
 The judge appealed to was mute. 
 
 "Do you mean, sir, that you have lived here all these years, and cannot 
 direct us to the temple of Arsinoe, of Venus, of Berenice, of what you 
 will?" 
 
 "I have heard of all the ladies in question," said the judge, "but have 
 met no one of that description in Ramleh." 
 
 "And is this what you have brought us here for?" said the Scribbler; "is it 
 for the sake of three miserable sandstone pillars that you have dragged us into 
 the Desert ? Come, you shall see them ; " and he led the way to the sea. 
 
 The weary sand which gives its name to the little suburb was sprinkled with 
 ice-plants, poppies, anemones, and early spring flowers, together, it must be 
 admitted, with a goodly number of old sardine boxes, bottles, and other less 
 romantic objects. Here and there, tents of Bedouins mingled among the 
 houses ; but the Bedouin, in the neighbourhood of civilisation, loses his charm 
 and preserves his dirt. Clambering up a gently sloping hill, the party found 
 at their feet the blue Mediterranean in wide expanse to the east, and to the 
 west the outlines of Alexandria, stretching round the bay, and terminating 
 far into the sea with the graceful fort of Pharos. Behind them, the Canal, 
 with its gardens, formed a belt of green ; beyond, as far as the eye could reach 
 the Lake Mareotis ; and at their feet, half way down the cliff, the remains of 
 a small temple. 
 
 The few battered sandstone pillars, possessing, indeed, in themselves no 
 remains of beauty, were not without attraction, due to their position on the 
 rugged promontory, beneath which were still to be seen the remains of what 
 perhaps were catacombs, and a passage which may have led to some subter- 
 ranean refuge. 
 
ARSINOE. 
 
 27 
 
 " Have none of you a word of gratitude to me for bringing you here ? " said 
 the Sketcher, as he expatiated on the view. 
 
 "The sea," said the Scribbler, "we have seen somewhat more than enough 
 of lately ; the sand, except that this is dirtier, we shall see more than enough 
 of by-and-bye ; to that add two or three pieces of sandstone, and what have we 
 to thank you for ? " 
 
 " To thank me for ? man who pretends to be interested in historical associa- 
 tions ! You have to thank me for bringing you to a spot where the wisest men 
 of perhaps the wisest age, and the most 
 beautiful women of the most beautiful age, 
 racked their brains for the solution of a 
 mystery, and solved it by inventing a con- 
 stellation. Listen : when Ptolemy Euergetes 
 was away on his Assyrian war" (b.c. 238, in- 
 terposed the practical Scribbler), " Queen 
 Berenice came here to Zephyrium, and sac- 
 rificing a bull to the gods on this very spot, 
 vowed that, if they brought her husband 
 home, she would cut her beautiful tresses, 
 hang them up in this temple, and dedicate 
 them to the sea-born goddess who protected 
 sailors. When Euergetes returned a con- 
 queror, the vow was kept — the locks were 
 yielded to the knife, and hung up here. 
 Imagine them as they floated round this 
 pillar; and do you not see the pirate who, coming in round that point, is 
 attracted by the glitter of what he mistakes to be gold. He has carried them 
 off (for even pirates. Scribbler, had a love of the beautiful in those days), 
 and the whole coast is in a transport of excitement at the audacious robbery. 
 Here stood Ptolemy himself, the outraged Berenice, Callimachus summoned 
 from his library at Alexandria, and Theocritus, genial poet-laureate. The king 
 has said that it must be found, and search is made along all the coasts, from 
 Cyrene to Pelusium, and throughout the seaboard of the Empire. But Conon, 
 wise man, is courtier as well as astronomer, and he discovers it. He is busy at 
 the time making a chart of the heavens, and where so likely to be the golden 
 tresses of lovely Berenice ? There, sure enough, is a glittering group of stars 
 between the Bear, the Lion, the Virgin, and Bootes, and as it hangs over the 
 temple, he proclaims his discovery of a new constellation, "The Hair of Berenice ! " 
 
 Temple of Berenice. 
 
28 
 
 THE HAIR OF BERENICE. 
 
 Peep-Show. 
 
 Can the most exacting monarch inquire farther ? Can Berenice herself complain 
 that the glory of her womanhood has preceded her to Elysium ? " 
 " Did you invent that on the spot ? " said the Scribbler. 
 " No, I did not ; but, to be honest, I read it in a book." 
 " Then you are a pirate yourself! " 
 
 " Possibly ; but always one with an appreciation of the beautiful ! " 
 The Turtle remarked that the story didn't seem at all probable. The Fond 
 One looked appreciatively at the Sketcher, and hastily assured her- 
 self that her own hair had not gone the way of Berenice's. The 
 judge sighed, and passed his hands through his own scant locks. 
 " My Berenice was very beautiful," he said softly. " Was her name 
 Berenice, though ? No, it was Barbara I was thinking of; but she 
 was very beautiful too." 
 
 The road back led through the old Nicopolis, where, 1900 
 years ago, Augustus defeated Antony ; past a hideous palace, buiit 
 by Ismail out of the ruins of Caesar's camp ; and the little white- 
 domed mosque where Sir Ralph Abercromby was carried wounded 
 during the battle of Alexandria, to be taken on board to die a 
 few days later. 
 
 Reaching the high ridge known as the French lines, but marking also the 
 walls of the town of Ptolemy, the party came on the recently excavated remains 
 of a cemetery. Entering a doorway cut in the solid rock, they found themselves 
 in a crypt containing tiers of cells, each with the 
 remains of ten male skeletons ; and beyond these 
 more, some two hundred corpses in all. The rude 
 cross, marked on the rock with the I.H.S., showed 
 it to belong to the Christian era ; not improbably 
 it was the site of a monastery without the outer 
 walls of the Caesareum, and of about the sixth 
 century. 
 
 " It is right," said the Scribbler, " that we should 
 finish Alexandria with this latest discovery, and this 
 latest of ruins, of the old city ; for if, as seems pro- 
 bable, this is of the Justinian or Heraclian period, we 
 
 have to-day seen almost the first and the last of the ^'"'^ ^'"'*'"^- 
 
 city as one of the mistresses of the world. Perhaps some of these bones had 
 life when Amru entered Alexandria, and when the Crescent of Islam triumphed 
 over the Cross of Christ in the city of one of her four great Churches Fostat 
 
ANCIENT CEMETERY. 29 
 
 becomes the capital of the new Egypt of the Saracens, and for 1200 years 
 Alexandria disappears from history. 
 
 We are so prone to measure everything by the standard of our own little 
 lives, that we lose all count of time. We talk of Alexandria as an ancient city ; 
 connect it vaguely with Ptolemies, Caesar, and sectarian struggles, and speak of 
 an Alexandrian period as we speak of the Augustan or Victorian age. But the 
 history of Alexandria is half the intellectual history of the world for nearly nine 
 hundred years, and the two little ruins we have seen to-day are chronologically 
 as far apart from one another as the Norman Conquest from our own day. 
 
 A Washerwoman. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Alexandria to Cairo — Egyptian railway administration — Harmless warfare — 
 Surrender of Kafr Dawar — Blunt patriots — Taking of Tantah — Taking of 
 Cairo. 
 
 THE next day, our travellers, who had apparently been definitely accepted 
 as a recognised portion of the Turtle dovecot, had possessed themselves 
 of a first-class carriage, and were crawling at the steady pace of an Egyptian loco- 
 motive to Cairo. The Sketcher 
 had again expressed a desire to 
 attempt the journey on camels. 
 The journey by Egyptian railway 
 was, he argued, much less pic- 
 turesque, and apparently not 
 much more expeditious, than by 
 caravan. The enduring Ship of 
 the Desert, he maintained, would 
 not lie down oftener than the 
 engine broke down; the motion 
 of either was equally likely to 
 produce sea- sickness ; and in 
 both the time of arrival at one's 
 journey's end seemed to depend 
 upon the good-will of the drivers. 
 The Scribbler maintained that 
 the comparison savoured of ex- 
 aggeration. "The railway ad- 
 ministration," he said, "like most 
 others in Egypt, is managed by an International Board, and the working of the 
 lines is therefore, to some extent, dependent upon the political relations of 
 Europe, modified by the social relations existing between the directors' wives. 
 The system is certainly not one which can be recommended, either for its- 
 
 
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 Jnteriorofa Third Class Carriage. 
 
RAILWAYS AND POLITICS. 31 
 
 simplicity, economy, or practical results. That considerable, loss is occasioned 
 to the Egyptian Government, and the maximum of annoyance caused to all who 
 use the lines, cannot be denied ; but the former should remember that it enjoys 
 the protection of Her Majesty's Government, and must not grumble if it occa- 
 sionally pays for it in the form of a useless official or two ; while the latter 
 should learn to subordinate their own personal comfort to the political exigencies 
 of Europe." 
 
 "But I cannot see," said the Turtle, "how politics enter into the manage- 
 ment of the railway." 
 
 "The difficulty is not unnatural," replied the Scribbler, "but I will make 
 it clear. The railways having been made the guarantee for a portion of the 
 debt, it was necessary to see that the revenues reached the bondholders. It 
 is true there were four (now six) gentlemen paid ;^3ooo a year each for the 
 sole purpose of protecting the bondholders' interests ; but this was not sufficient ; 
 the railway must be put directly under European control. Considering the 
 length of line and amount of traffic,. it would not have been difficult to find a 
 man capable of managing it ; but there arose a question of nationality. First, 
 there must be an Egyptian, because it was an Egyptian railway; and as he 
 was useless, there must be a Frenchman to look after him ; and as, of course, 
 the balance of power in Europe would otherwise be disturbed, a couple of 
 Englishmen must be sent to look after the other two. A little later, the only 
 capable man of the four having died, it was thought unnecessary to replace him." 
 
 "The arrangement seems preposterous enough," said the Turtle; " but still, 
 after all,, each one, I presume, took a department, and so dispensed with the 
 charge of some subordinate officials, who would otherwise be necessary.'' 
 
 "But you cannot think,'' said the Scribbler, "that gentlemen occupying 
 these exalted positions would condescend to attend to such details. On the 
 contrary, there are chiefs of every department, who do the work and manage 
 the line — a chief of the permanent way, a chief of the rolling stock, a chief of 
 the traffic, an inspector of telegraphs, a controller of the Port — all these officials 
 conduct the business of the administration as well as they can.'' 
 
 " And what are the duties of the Board of Management?" 
 
 "Well, you see, they have always a good deal of personal abuse of each 
 other to get through. Irritating the chiefs of departments occupies a consider- 
 able portion of their time ; and such as remains is spent in Europe, in hospital, 
 or, on rare occasions, in prison." ^ 
 
 " And, under all these difficulties, does the railway pay ? " 
 
 ^1 The railway administration has quite recently been somewhat improved. 
 
32 RAILWAY ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 " Well, if you take the value of the line at ;^io,ooo,ooo, which I suppose is 
 a very large estimate', the dividend would be roughly five per cent. ; but then 
 you must not attach much importance to that. The railway in Egypt is a 
 monopoly, able to charge whatever rates it likes over two-thirds or more of the 
 country. ] Under these circumstances, it succeeds, at the cost of about forty per 
 cent, of its receipts, in keeping the line in its present ragged condition. The 
 Board is very proud of its success, and points to the forty per cent, as proof that 
 their management is, if nasty, at least cheap ; but if compelled by competition 
 to carry cargo at rates charged in India or England, their working expenses would 
 probably exceed their receipts,' and the line prove as expensive as it is ill-managed. 
 To give you an instance of mismanagement : Some years ago one of the chiefs 
 of department found necessary a certain piece of work, which would cost ;£t5. 
 There was no question as to the necessity of the work, but it took fourteen 
 months before the application had passed the necessary formalities before the 
 Board. But then all was not over ; the chief of department found that he would 
 also require the use of a truck for the work. All the negotiations had to begin 
 over again, and, for all I know, are going on still." 
 
 " But is it not a fact," asked the Turtle, " that the amount of working expen- 
 diture is limited by agreement to a figure which is insufficient ? " 
 
 " No ; that is a popular fallacy. The amount allowed may be insufficient, but 
 they do not spend it : they reduce the receipts by gross mismanagement ; they 
 allow the whole material to go from bad to worse ; and then they complain that 
 the administration is starved." 
 
 " Well," said the Sketcher, " I for one am grateful to them for the leisurely 
 pace, which offers a pleasant opportunity for surveying the scenery, and for the 
 long pauses at the stations, which enable one to study the manners and customs 
 of the natives ; " for the Sketcher saw beauty where the Turtle saw only squalor 
 and misery, and where the Scribbler saw neither. 
 
 " Your beauty," he said, " is nothing but your love for novelty. Prettier 
 effects of light and shade, more beautiful combinations of colour, you can find 
 in nearly every village of England or the South of Europe ; you pass them there 
 because you are accustomed to them, and fall into ecstasies over this because it 
 is new. That woman carrying a goulah, that boy on a buffalo, attract your 
 attention because of their novelty. An English farm-lad on a horse, a washer- 
 woman at the village pump, is every bit as picturesque, and considerably cleaner. 
 As to your squalor and misery, there is not a farmer in England, let alone Ireland, 
 who would not change places with the poorest of the Fellaheen, so far as the 
 results of farming are concerned. Had you passed through here twenty years 
 
KAFR DAWAR. 
 
 33 
 
 ago, you would have seen squalor and misery; but then that was in the so-called 
 golden days of Ismail." 
 
 The train leaving Alexandria passes over the swamp of Mareotis, stretching 
 on both sides of the line, and cuts through the remains of Arabi's earthworks in 
 1882. A useless reconnaissance on the sth August was here 
 the occasion of our first loss during the campaign. Among 
 the reeds to the right fell Howard Vyse and two privates, 
 killed by falling spent shot. After this, for some six weeks, 
 a cannonade with heavy guns from both sides was main- 
 tained daily, with the net loss of one buffalo and one horse. 
 The latter gave the name to the clump of trees on the left. 
 A picket of the 60th, on a dark night, found themselves, 
 as they thought, at close quarters with the enemy. Valiantly 
 they fired volley after volley, but their fire was not returned ; 
 and next morning they discovered the body of a stray horse 
 lying in what has since been known as the " Dead-horse 
 Picket." Kafr Dawar, the first station, must claim the 
 honour of being the scene of perhaps the most ignoble 
 surrender ever made by men bearing arms ; for here 10,000 
 followers of Arabi surrendered to a sergeant of the Shrop- 
 shire, armed with a stick. The surrender had, of course, 
 been previously agreed upon ; and there were perhaps 300 
 more of the regiment within call, but there was no need 
 for them. The patriotic Egyptians came in, anxious only 
 to get rid of their arms to any one who would take them. 
 A line of trucks was drawn up by the station ; and close 
 to the trucks, with just sufficient room to allow one man 
 to pass at a time, was a telegraph post. On one side of 
 this stood Sergeant Tommy Atkins of the Shropshire ; there 
 was no pomp and circumstance of war about him ; he had taken off his coat, 
 slipped his braces over his shoulders, and had his sleeves tucked up for 
 business. On crowded the 10,000; and as they came to the post, one by one, 
 they had to pass between it and the trucks,; throw their Remingtons, bayonets, 
 pistols, and trumpets into the latter, and pass on. Sergeant Tommy Atkins 
 was one, and they were many ; but he was not to be trifled with. Did any 
 try and pass the wrong side of the post or smuggle through a revolver, he got 
 a sharp rap on the knuckles, and a " Now, then, hand up," soon brought him 
 to order. "It would have done Wilfrid Blunt, and other believers in Arabi 
 
 JJAR'A//^ 
 
 A Woman cartying a Goulah. 
 
34 
 
 TEL-EL-KEBIR. 
 
 patriotism, good," said the Scribbler, " to have seen the cheerful way in which 
 these gallant and patriotic warriors accepted the situation. The 'valour of 
 the beaten host,' as Wilfrid calls it, was singularly like the playful excitement 
 of schoolboys who come bounding out of school. So anxious were they to 
 pass muster, that many of them handed their rifles to myself and others, to 
 get rid of them the quicker ; and we got into amicable converse with them. 
 Singularly good-tempered were these victims of tyranny to their betrayers ; 
 some of them shook me warmly by the hand, and said that, now all this 
 tomfoolery (shoogly mushard) was over, they were going 
 back to serious work ; others were delighted at the noise 
 their guns made, ' Even more than yours,' they said, but 
 hoped sincerely they had caused no one any incon- 
 venience. ' None at all,' I replied ; ' we didn't lose a 
 man ; but how many did you lose ? ' for great had been 
 the tales in camp of the slaughter we had effected. ' Oh, 
 no 1 ' was the reply ; ' you never came near us. You did 
 once,' he said, deprecatingly, ' kill a man's buffalo, but 
 then it had strayed in your way ; ' and he begged I would 
 not think of it. These were the patriots of Blunt," said 
 the Scribbler ; " poor, innocent Fellaheen, ready enough 
 to be put into a uniform, to be given a gun, fair food, 
 and nothing to do, at "so much a day. Why should they 
 not, poor wretches ? There was nothing else going on ; 
 the markets were closed. But fight or incur danger ! 
 No, not for Arabi, nor their country, nor for anything 
 else. So when they saw troops they bolted." 
 
 "And was all your campaign as glorious as this?" 
 asked the Sketcher sarcastically. 
 
 .-■ " Well, it was not very different ; but you may spare 
 your sneers. The lines of Tel-el-Kebir were carried gallantly, and if there was 
 little resistance, you must remember that the troops were unaware whether there 
 would be any or no ; and they stormed, without a moment's hesitation, entrench- 
 ments which it's easy to depreciate now, but which, if properly defended, would 
 have defied attack by twice the force. Still, I am willing to admit that the first 
 Egyptian campaign gave little opportunity for trying the mettle of our soldiers in 
 a hand-to-hand fight, but it established our reputation for other qualities not less 
 valuable, and chiefly for audace. Here, for instance," he continued, as the train 
 drew up at Tantah, " is the most fanatical town of Egypt, dedicated to the Sheikh 
 
 Sotne of our Captives. 
 
CAPTURE OF CAIRO. 35 
 
 Said el Bedawee. Into it, a few days after Tel-el-Kebir, rode gallant Sir Archie 
 Alison, with a single company of his Highlanders, and found, drawn up in the 
 square there, some 4000 Egyptian troops, armed, and apparently ready to fight. 
 What was he to do ? The numbers were forty to one ; any hesitation would 
 have been fatal ; and the plucky one-armed General showed none. ' Summon 
 all to lay down their arms,' was the order given through an interpreter to the 
 officer in command. Just a moment of anxiety, a glance at the perfectly com- 
 posed face of the General, and the order was obeyed." 
 
 " And suppose it had not been ? " asked the Sketcher. 
 
 " Precisely ! there was the danger ; but it was obeyed, and that is its 
 justification." 
 
 " Justification for the summons to surrender, perhaps, as the best way out of 
 the difficulty ; but hardly any justiiication for getting into it." 
 
 " Well, that you may discuss with the General ; but the presence of mind 
 remains to the good in any case. Take the surrender of Cairo as another 
 instance. After the wonderful ride from Tel-el-Kebir, the cavalry arrived dead- 
 beat at the Abbasiyeh heights, within sight of Cairo. They were 900 men, 
 and few of them capable of either moving a step in advance, or even of 
 retreating if they had been attacked. There lay the city below them, with 
 8000 troops, and the citadel commanding their position. What were 
 they to do ? At any moment, if discovered, they might be attacked ; and 
 it was impossible that they could escape observation. There was only one 
 way of gaining time — to show a bold front, summon the garrrison to surrender, 
 and to await the result. To their surprise, the garrison of 8000 at once 
 expressed their readiness to obey the summons. And now arose the question, 
 how to take advantage of it without showing their weakness. With some 
 difficulty, 150 men, able to get their horses on for another five or six miles, 
 were got together. In command of them went Major Watson of the Engineers. 
 Through the close streets of Cairo they threaded their way, till they drew up at 
 the massive gates of the Citadel. Into it quietly walked Major Watson, leaving 
 his tired men drawn up outside, faced by curious but respectful Egyptian 
 troops numbering two to one. ' Where is the commandant ? ' asked the Major. 
 'Asleep!' was the reply. 'Then wake him up, and tell him to surrender.' 
 The first order was obeyed, and the commandant came, sleepy but servile. 
 ' Will you kindly turn your men out, and hand me the keys ? ' said the English- 
 man. ' Certainly,' said the Egyptian ; and within the hour, but jwith profuse 
 apologies for delay, the 8000 patriot soldiers of Arabi filed out to make way 
 for the 150 tired men, who, unable to sit longer in their saddles, had thrown 
 
36 
 
 THE CITADEL OF CAIRO. 
 
 themselves on the ground for very weariness. The Major, who has a fine Irish 
 brogue, adds reproachfully, as he tells the story, ' An' they ca'all that foightin ! ' " 
 
 "And there is the Citadel in question," said the Sketcher, as some few 
 minutes later the line made a sudden curve, bringing in view Cairo, nestling 
 under the Mokhattam hills, with its green gardens, the pretty gaily-coloured 
 houses of Shubra, and the slender minarets of the Citadel mosque on the 
 heights above. 
 
 In a few minutes more the train drew up at the Cairo railway station. 
 
 Sayces. 
 

 > 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 V 
 
 J 
 
 E • 
 
 
 i:- 
 
 iiii 
 
 «^«* 
 
 
 
 < 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Shepheard Angel — Cairo streets — ■Shepheard's — Shepheard king Luigi — The 
 Shepheard smile — The Shepheard dinner — Shepheard chickens, their pedigree and 
 training — Cairo in twenty-four hours — CooHs tours — Cook the national school- 
 master — A large order. 
 
 RIGHTLY called Angelo is the porter of Shepheard's to the weary traveller 
 - who arrives in Cairo. Like a good Shepheard does he gather the flocks 
 of portmanteaus, and like a guiding Angel pilots his sheep through the crowd. 
 Disdaining the colossal hearse of the hotel, our travellers have hailed lithesome 
 arabeeyahs, and are being driven at a pace which would excite the horror and 
 indignation of any well-regulated policeman. The citizens of Cairo despise the 
 modern improvements of Alexandria. They recognise that the capital of Egypt 
 exists solely by virtue of its reputation acquired in the dark ages, and they 
 have determined that no vulgar innovation in the way of cleanliness or municipal 
 regulation shall cast a slur upon their character. The streets, therefore, are 
 neither paved nor levelled, and the carriage iiies from one rocky eminence to 
 another, so that one's first experience resembles a steeplechase on wheels. 
 Railways, indeed, have to be submitted to, also bridges ; but no fastidious 
 modern precautions are adopted for the one, and a hole or two is still left by way 
 of protest in the other. So the engine puffs across the crowded streets without so 
 much as a telegraph post to attract attention. If the carriage gets in the way, 
 it must share the fate of Stephenson's coo ; and if, in dodging an engine, you 
 
38 
 
 SHEPHEARD'S HOTEL. 
 
 should by chance land yourself in a hole of the bridge, — well, it is not big 
 enough to let you through into the canal, and there is generally a policeman 
 near enough to curse your driver. The bridge and the line safely cleared, you 
 urge your Mazeppa-like career to the right, and clinging with both hands to 
 your seat, you get into the comparatively speaking still waters of the road that 
 skirts the hospitable house of Nubar. As you come near a succession of cafi- 
 
 chantants, you suffer from what seems to be an 
 after-swell, and are liable to be thrown over the 
 back of the carriage, as you draw up suddenly at 
 the steps of Shepheard's Hotel. 
 
 It may be admitted as an axiom that the 
 man who has not stayed at Shepheard's has 
 never really visited Cairo. Other hostelries, in- 
 deed, there are, possessing many and various 
 well-advertised charms. This one is cheap, and 
 that one is in the centre of the bazaars ; another 
 has the electric light, and a fourth has the best 
 table-d'hote. Shepheard's disdains offering such 
 inducements. It is Shepheard's and nothing 
 else ; and it is enough. As the Nile to other 
 rivers, so is Shepheard's to other hotels. It is 
 not the biggest, nor the most handsome, nor 
 the oldest ; nor is it the dearest (not quite) in 
 which mortal might stay and live. What is the 
 charm, which no man can either deny or define ? 
 You may dwell where you will, in private house, in pension, or in unorthodox 
 hotel ; but as surely as the needle to the pole will you gravitate to Shepheard's. 
 One attraction, indeed, it has ; but that is one which we only reap, like that of 
 Paradise, at the close of our sojourn. Stately is the mien of the Shepheard 
 king Luigi when he receives us the first time; but unutterable bliss accompanies 
 the smile with which he bids us adieu. The man must be obdurate, indeed, 
 who, having once basked in that farewell smile, does not seek its sunshine again. 
 As for such a woman, be assured she does not exist. The attitude itself with 
 which it is rendered is a bouquet; the final bow which accompanies it is its 
 choicest rose, and the smile is its aroma. The feet, well drawn together, with 
 stern determination to support the inevitable ; the shoulders bent in agonised but 
 silent despair ; the hands clasped in mute entreaty ; the head slightly to one side 
 in pious resignation ; the reproachful eyes which look tears ; the melancholy smile 
 
 A Street in Cairo. 
 
EGYPTIAN CHICKENS. 39 
 
 which tells of joys buried in perennial gloom ; and then the final bow, which is 
 the last dignified submission to fate. " It affects even me," said the unsenti- 
 m.ental Scribbler, "and I have seen it for twenty winters.'' 
 
 " But he's quite young," said the Fair One, to whom the graceful proprietor 
 had been pointed out. 
 
 " But the smile is part of the hotel properties," said the other ; " it has been 
 handed down through a long succession of Shepheard kings, and the original is 
 in the Hyksos chamber at Boolak.'' 
 
 The great man received them with becoming dignity, and arranged the party 
 with all the promptitude of a skilful general. The Turtle was happy, for he 
 learnt that the sitting-room allotted to him had just been vacated by a crown- 
 prince. Damon and Pythias found quarters at a more remote part of the 
 building, a good quarter of a mile from the landing, through infinite corridors, 
 but commanding a view over the garden, and a tree which the Sketcher at 
 once pronounced to be evidently the one under which Kleber was stabbed. 
 "From this very window, perhaps,'' he said, "looked out the black woman 
 who spotted the murderer, and pointed him out hidden away among those 
 shrubs." The Scribbler remarked, drily, that this part of the building happened 
 to be only a few years old ; still — there, or somewhere near it, was the tree, and 
 here, or somewhere near it, there was such a window. 
 
 Great was the crowd at the table-d'hoie that evening in the big room with 
 its long rectangle of tables. Imposing was the row of waiters, steadfastly 
 waiting the word of command from Edgardo, general of brigade; and a 
 proud man looked Luigi, as at not rare intervals he came, like an able 
 commander-in-chief, to survey the field of battle, and count the bottles which 
 yield him his harvest of four hundred per cent. Lovingly he looked at the 
 chickens — those chickens the lineal descendants of those concerning which 
 wrote Adrian Augustus : " I wish them no other curse but that the Egyptians 
 may be fed with their own chickens, which are hatched in a way I am ashamed 
 to relate." 
 
 " And how was that ? " asked the Patrician, who, together with the merchant 
 in hides, had joined their late fellow-travellers at the table. 
 
 " I presume," said the Scribbler, " they were artificially hatched ; at least it's 
 a flourishing trade now, and probably was then, in Alexandria." 
 
 " Wa'al," said Hides, " there is something to me attractive in eating what is to 
 any extent the product of machinery. I reckon most things are better done 
 by machinery than nature. These animals, now," he said thoughtfully, "could 
 never have been brought to this state of sturdy endurance by the fondling 
 
40 CAIRO. 
 
 attentions of a parent fowl; they will, for that quality, probably never be 
 excelled until the laying itself is also the work of human ingenuity." 
 
 "They do reflect credit on the establishment," said the Scribbler ; "they are 
 a well-known speciality of the house, and their legs only reach this muscular state 
 by dint of continual exercise up and down the Pyramids upon which they gaze." 
 
 " But I can find nothing but legs," said the Fond Dove. 
 
 " The wings are invariably made into salmi of duck, and the rest of the bird 
 into game-pie; but, hush! the real excitement of the evening approaches." 
 
 It was Luigi, preceding, with ill-concealed pride, the waiters who were bear- 
 ing that chef-d'xuvre of Shepheard's, " the ice-pudding," reserved for Thursdays 
 and Sundays. 
 
 " You have dined well ? " he inquired, as his guests went out ; " you found the 
 ice-pudding good ? " And the whole table-d'hdte, with one accord, pronounced 
 themselves feasted as if by the gods. Who would dare grumble at Shepheard's ? 
 What angry thought, what pang of indigestion, would not disappear before 
 Luigi ? 
 
 Smoking their cigarettes on the balcony that evening, there was much re- 
 counting of experiences, comparison of plans, and consultation for the future 
 among the ex-Mmris party. 
 
 Hides and the Patrician had determined not to let the grass grow under 
 their feet ; they had caught the train for Cairo on the day of their arrival, and 
 seen Pompey's Pillar on their way to the station. Hides checked the accuracy 
 of his recollection by looking it up in his " Murray," and finding a mark against 
 it, was convinced. The railway journey he described as trying. " They played 
 bowls with me all along the line," he said. Arriving in Cairo, they had spent 
 half an hour at the Boolak Museum, driven to the Pyramids, walked round 
 the Sphinx, and got back in time to see the Citadel mosque. This last im- 
 pressed the American more than anything in Cairo; for he measured it care- 
 fully, and found that it would make a magnificent tannery. Both were now 
 prepared to take an affidavit that they had done Cairo. As for the Nile, the 
 American was led to believe that it consisted mainly of buildings, mostly in a 
 bad state of repair ; and the Patrician had been disappointed in the reported 
 shooting prospects. 
 
 The Turtle was anxious to see " the proper thing " in Cairo, and " to do " 
 the Nile with as much regard to his pocket as his dignity would allow. He 
 was opining towards Cook, but the Doves cooed rebelliously for a dahabeeyah, 
 and indulged in some not profoundly original sneers at Cook's tourists. 
 
 The Scribbler, on the contrary, avowed himself an enthusiastic Cook, as 
 
COOK THE NATIONAL SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 41 
 
 the only feasible means of combining the exigencies of time, money, and the 
 Nile. "Perhaps some of the people are not exactly those you would choose 
 as companions, and perhaps, for that very reason, they are precisely the people 
 whom it will do you good to travel with. You complain that Cook is too 
 gregarious. I tell you it is exactly the reverse. Cook makes you go out of 
 your own narrow set, and does for you what a public school does to the boy 
 from home. Of course, you don't like it, nor does the boy zX first ; but you 
 come away all the better — you have enlarged your ideas as to your fellow-man." 
 
 " Enlarged your ideas with a Cook's tourist ! " said the Patrician. 
 
 "Certainly, my dear boy. It may be, in some cases, that you have enlarged 
 your ideas as to their narrowness ; but how can one arrive 
 even at your own large and generous toleration of others, 
 unless you have some experience of them? ' Odi profanum 
 vulgus et arceo' say you ; but how can you hate what you 
 always avoid ? " 
 
 " But they are so very unpicturesque," murmured the 
 Sketcher. 
 
 " Now, that,'' said the Scribbler, "is all cant. Look at 
 ourselves, and tell me if we add anything to the beauty of 
 the scenery ? Where does Cook take them to ? To Paris, 
 where their worst bonnet-strings can compare not unfavour- 
 ably with the flashy Saint-Chapelle. To the Rhine, where 
 they look at least as graceful as the newly whitewashed 
 castles on that tedious river. To Switzerland, where the 
 scenery is already spoilt by the hideousness of the women. 
 And here, where they are at least a comparatively bright 
 spot of cleanliness. I tell you, sir," continued the Scribbler, 
 getting argumentative, and consequently hyperbolical, " that 
 against all the inconvenience which you, and a few like you, grumble at, is to be 
 set the education of the most ignorant part of the British nation — the eradication 
 of our greatest national vice, vulgarity. Mr. Cook is the educator of our middle 
 class — the class through whose education alone we have any hope of remaining 
 a nation. Do you think we should have had all this rubbish about non- 
 intervention if John Cook had educated our grandfathers as he is educating 
 us ? No, sir ! They were brought up in the belief that they lived in a nice 
 little, tight little island ; but their idea was to make that nice little island rule 
 the world, of which they knew nothing. Their sons, who had imbibed the first 
 part of the theory with their mother's milk, added a little knowledge of geography 
 
 A well-known Character in Cairo, 
 
42 
 
 A LARGE ORDER. 
 
 from an atlas ; thought England looked very small on a map ; got frightened at 
 the Alexander idea of conquest, and jumped to the other extreme. This tight 
 little island was enough for them — let all the rest of the world go as it would. 
 Cook has made their children again travel, and they are slowly awakening to 
 a consciousness of the fact that there are other races as intelligent as they are ; 
 that they have to fight to hold their own ; and that the veins and 
 arteries of this tight little island are in every village and in every 
 country of the globe." 
 
 " The admission of which general principle," said the Sketcher, 
 " does not seem to bring us much nearer to Assouan, or the means 
 of getting there. It seems to me that, however we go, we are 
 bound to be despised. If we go by the post-boat, we are despised 
 by those who go by Cook. If we go by Cook, we are despised by 
 those who go by dahabeeyah , and if we go by dahabeeyah, we are 
 condemned by the Scribbler. Similarly, if we go to Luxor, we are 
 despised by those who get as far as Assouan ; and these in their 
 turn are despised by the hardy travellers as far as Wady Haifa." 
 
 The notion of doing anything for which he could be possibly 
 despised was ungrateful to the Turtle; but comforted by the 
 reflection that the Archbishop of Canterbury and some royal 
 personages had travelled as Cook's tourists, he announced his 
 decision of starting by the steamer of that day week, and graciously 
 condescended to place himself and party in Cairo under the personal conduct 
 of the Scribbler for the intervening seven days. "You will understand," he 
 added gravely, "that we should like to see everything," — which, thought the 
 Scribbler, as Cairo is supposed to contain 400 mosques, 1170 cafes, 140 schools, 
 300 cisterns, 70 public baths, 40 Christian churches, 13 synagogues, and 1265 
 okellas, is a pretty considerable order; but he saw the eyes of the Fair One 
 fixed on him, and consented with eifusion. 
 
 A Water Seller. 
 
The Nile near Beni Hassan. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Cairo from Mokhattam — Seventy centuries — Cairo of '■'■Arabian Nights'' — Cairo 
 according to Ariosio — The Muski—Khan Khalili — Cairo of the Khedives — 
 Sequence of history — A vast plan. 
 
 TO understand Cairo aright, the first view should be taken from the 
 Mokhattam heights. The view which Murray ignores and Badeker dis- 
 misses in a paragraph is generally neglected for the far inferior but more easily 
 accessible one from the Citadel terrace. If he who has " not seen Cairo, has 
 nothing seen," then assuredly the same condemnation attaches to him who 
 neglects the Mokhattam, for there, below you, lies not only Cairo, but Egypt 
 itself. The forty, or let us say seventy centuries, look across to us from the 
 Pyramids ; the Sphinx, from even a remoter period, stands still waiting the 
 answer to its never-solved riddle ; and down from long ages, with huge lacunae 
 indeed, we trace the history of the world, marked by the ruined footprints of 
 time. There is Memphis, earliest of cities, built by the dissatisfied Prince of 
 This; there are the colossal tombs of the ancient empire, stretching from 
 Sakkarah to Ghizeh. To the right lies Heliopolis, with its sun-temple of the 
 Middle Monarchy ; and the Nile, hurrying by to Tanis of the Hyksos, to Sais 
 and Bubastis of the new empire, to Naukratis of the Greeks, and to Alexandria 
 
44 THE NILE. 
 
 of the Ptolemies. There is Babylon of the Romans, away to the left, Fostat of 
 the Arabs ; El Askar of the Abbasides ; El Katayeh of the Tooloonides ; and 
 ^Cairo itself of the Fatemites. At our feet lies the Citadel of the Great Salah ed 
 Deen — Saladin of our childhood, and founder of the Ayoubites. The minarets 
 of Kalaoun and Hassan, Kait Bey and El Ghoree, recall the Memlook dynasties ; 
 and there, by the Mosque el Mowayud, is the Bab el Zuweilah, where Turkish 
 Sultan Selim hanged Toman, last of his race, assumed the title of Caliph, and 
 secured Egypt to the hated rule of the Turk. Three hundred years pass, leaving 
 no trace on the map before us ; but the ever-standing Pyramids mark the site of 
 Bonaparte's victory over Murad ; the obelisk of Heliopolis, the triumph of his 
 successor over the Turk ; and the garden of Shepheard's recalls Kleber's assassi- 
 nation only three months later. There, along the river, marched the three 
 evacuating armies of England the victor, France the vanquished, and Turkey 
 who seized the spoil. In the Citadel at our feet, that grand old Roumeliote 
 brigand, Mohamed Ali, stood many a siege, pounding into submission the 
 miserable city below, until he had enclosed within those gates, massacring 
 within that courtyard, the last of the Memlooks, and waded " through slaughter 
 to a throne ; " while beyond again lie the green gardens of the Ismailieh of 
 his grandson, and the barracks of the Khasr el Nil, where floats the Union 
 Jack. 
 
 So great is the interest of historical association, that we are tempted to 
 neglect the view itself. Yet the words of the old Arab legend, handed down 
 by tradition, and published in Cairo about the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 come vividly to our memory : " He that has not seen Egypt has not seen the 
 greatest wonder in the world. All the land there is golden — I mean, it is so 
 fertile that it enriches its inhabitants. All the women of that country are 
 charming, either in their personal beauty or in their agreeable manners. If 
 you speak of the Nile, pray where is there a more magnificent river? AVhat 
 water was ever purer or more delicious ? The very mud that it carries along 
 in its inundations fattens the land a thousand times more than other countries 
 that are cultivated with the utmost care. Remember what a poet said to the 
 Egyptians when he was compelled to depart from the country, 'Your Nile 
 loads you with bounties every day ; it is for you only that it flows from such 
 a distance. Alas ! in going away from you, my tears are doomed to run as 
 abundantly as its water. You are to continue in the enjoyment of its sweetness, 
 while I am condemned to absent myself.' If you look at the island or delta 
 that is formed by the two great branches of the Nile, what variety of verdure 
 have you there ! what embroidery of all sorts of flowers ! what a number 
 
THE PYRAMIDS. 
 
 45 
 
 of cities, villages, streamlets, and a thousand other agreeable objects ! If you 
 cast your eyes in another direction towards Ethiopia, how many fresh causes 
 of admiration are there I Then, again, is not Grand Cairo the largest, the most 
 populous, and the richest city in the universe ? What a number of magnificent 
 edifices, public and private, does it contain ! If you behold the Pyramids, you 
 will be seized with astonishment. You will stand motionless at the sight of 
 those masses of stone which tower to the skies ; and you will be obliged to 
 confess that the Pharaohs, who lavished so much treasure and employed so 
 many men in building them, must have surpassed all the monarchs that have 
 appeared since, not only in Egypt, but throughout all the world, in liberality and 
 invention — monuments so ancient, that the most learned men cannot agree 
 as to the time of their erection ; and yet they have lasted to this day and will 
 last throughout whole ages." 
 
 As one gazes on the crowded beehive below, and listens to the hum of life 
 resounding through the clear atmosphere, one is almost tempted to believe 
 Ariosto, who describes Cairo as "threaded by 18,000 streets, each house with 
 three floors, one only containing 15,000 warriors, their families and their horses, 
 under the same roof," until a calculation shows us that the estimate of the 
 poet would account for the entire population of 
 the universe. But as the sun sets behind th( 
 Pyramids, and bathes the myriad minarets in ; 
 flood of ruddy golden light ; as that wonderful 
 afterglow, seen nowhere but in Egypt, rises ove 
 the horizon, and seems to shed its benediction 
 on all the valley beneath, to soothe the swiftly 
 flowing waters of the Nile, and to lull to sleep 
 the city to the sound of the Muezzin's call, one 
 seems to stand above it all in a dreamland, and 
 to deem no legend too strange to be true. 
 
 Coming down from the realms of dreamland 
 and imagination, from the Cairo of the Caliphs 
 and of the Memlooks, we find ourselves at once 
 in the everyday life of the capital of to-day, in 
 the new street, which is but a continuation of 
 the famous Muski. But what an everyday life 
 it is ! It is the everyday life of six centuries 
 ago still, varied only here and there by the unmistakable presence of a cheap 
 and nasty civilisation. Here is the carpet bazaar of Halil, with carpets, 
 
 Carpet Bazaar in the Khan Kkalili. 
 
46 
 
 WATER CARRIERS. 
 
 though some worn with age, still showing that velvet gloss and that indescrib- 
 able harmon}' of colours that we find equalled only in nature ; and there, 
 not far from it, is the flashy store of the Levantine, with 
 hideous Brussels and Kidderminster patterns of brilliant red 
 roses tied into bouquets with mauve ribbons on a yellow 
 ground, over which are poring in ecstatic admiration some 
 young housewives of Cairo, in search for the very latest 
 novelties from Paris. Here are the red and yellow babouche 
 slippers from Tunis and Morocco; there, hard by, are the 
 high-heeled monstrosities of to-day — the old world mixing 
 with the new, the East with the West; and, singularly 
 enough, the denizens of each generally seeking for the wares 
 of the other. Not always, however; for here is a trade 
 with which we have dispensed in Europe, and which yet 
 flourishes in Egypt, and happily still among the natives. 
 Sometimes in the court of an okella, sometimes in an open 
 side-street, is the well of the quarter ; a sturdy native raises, 
 in primitive fashion, alternate buckets of the muddy Nile 
 constant de- 
 
 Slioe Seller. 
 
 water, and finds 
 mand. Here is a Saga with his 
 goat-skin newly filled, which he 
 will distribute with careless gene- 
 rosity about the feet of the 
 passers-by in the dusty streets, 
 or perhaps carry to some private 
 customer, who will let it filter 
 itself imperfectly through a stone 
 zeir; others are waiting for their 
 supply in jars, graceful as is the 
 rudest pottery of the Nile Valley ; 
 while hard by a venerable vendor 
 of what he avers to be "Water 
 sweet as honey ! water from the 
 spring ! Drink, O faithful ! the 
 wind is hot and the way long ! 
 Water sweet as honey ! " is bend- 
 ing his back, and pouring from 
 the quaint jar over his shoulder 
 
 H 'atcr Carriers, 
 
THE KHAN KHALILI. 47 
 
 a sparkling stream into the little brass cup, religiously inscribed with verses from 
 the Koran. Perhaps the water does not answer to his description ; but then the 
 meanest Egyptian is a poet, and must be allowed poetic license. It is better 
 than the fire-water of the Greek baccal yonder, he will tell you, and is cheap at 
 least ; for if he will take a piaster from you, he will, on the strength of it, give 
 it gratis to the first poor beggar who asks, for it. "Bismillah ! in the name of 
 God ! " 
 
 With the taste of honey, or mud, in your mouth, turn to the right here, 
 where the crowd seems thickest ; follow the close-packed, narrowing street ; 
 salute copper-coloured Abdallah, the carpet-man, and pass on to your right 
 again, into the Khan Khalili, named after Caliph El Ashruf Khalil, son 
 of Kalaoun, and built in his day 600 years ago. Here was then the 
 business quarter of the town, as now it is of such as deal in car- 
 pets, jewels, silks, brass-work, and biblots of all kinds ; but, in the old 
 days, the life of a merchant was by no means so quiet as now. Mem- 
 looks would ride through the streets, pillaging the shops and houses, carrying 
 off women and children ; free fights took place in the roads ; missiles of all 
 kinds were discharged from the houses on to the enemy below ; and the 
 terrified merchants of the Khan Khalili would gather into its 
 narrow alleys, shut to the. heavy gates, and remain for days at a XT' 
 time trembling in a state of siege. No signs of such terror do 
 we see now. Like spiders in their webs sit the Persians, Spanish 
 Jews, and Turks, warily watching for the European fly who may ""' 
 be tempted to enter. Some are stately and Oriental; receive 
 you with a solemn bow, explain that all their goods are yours ; 
 scrutinise keenly your expression as they open before you their 
 wares ; and when they catch the glance that tells of approval, 
 vow that the article which has attracted it is the one jewel of 
 their collection. Others, again, affect an eager anxiety to finish ^ MercJtant. 
 
 the work they have in hand; hardly can they spare the time to look at you ; 
 never were there such industrious workmen, even though you may have seen 
 them only a moment before enjoying their kef and gossip. Such are the 
 workers in brass. Do you want such a thing ? That is the price, and there is no 
 more to be said — they have no time to waste ; only, when you turn to go, and 
 a hurried look shows that you mean it, does the chisel and hammer fall, and 
 the hard-pressed workman become the anxious bargainer. A third class there 
 is, who affect the superior ways which they fondly imagine to be in accordance 
 with English ideas. "Have cup coffee.'' Have cup tea? How's y'self? 
 
48 
 
 SILVER BAZAAR. 
 
 <At 
 
 
 I 
 
 '"1-% 
 
 How's y' family ? Sit down. Wantanything? All cheap ; low'st price." Of such 
 are Faraway Moses, so named by some facetious American — title duly registered 
 in a guide-book, and accepted by the worthy old Hebrew in a large board over 
 
 his stall; Coen, dealer in curios, and 
 dabbler in stocks, rich in embroideries, 
 and of more than average Khan Khalili 
 honesty ; and " Low'st Price," so named 
 on the lucus a non lucendo principle. 
 Many are the hours and many the guineas 
 that you may wile away, not altpgether 
 unprofitably. Nowhere better, perhaps, 
 can you find Cairo epitomised in miniature 
 — its crowded streets, its veiled beauties, 
 its Eastern treasures, its projecting roofs, 
 its fine dilapidated Saracenic architecture, 
 and — its beggars. 
 
 Leaving the Khan Khalili, we cross 
 the road into the silver bazaar ; but it re- 
 quires much enthusiasm for light filagree 
 work, or determination to unearth the 
 
 occasional specimens of good old Hedjaz silver manufacture, to tempt us to 
 
 linger in the fetid atmosphere of the Sug el Fuddah, and a turn to our left 
 
 brings us again into the Grand Muski. Here, until recently, was the most 
 
 prosperous quarter of Cairo, the site of banks and the 
 
 largest Levantine commercial houses; while the little "rond 
 
 point" in the middle of it, with its four trees, was the 
 
 fashionable lounge of Young Egypt mounted on donkeys. 
 
 Now, it is the meeting-place for auctioneers, offering well- 
 worn remains of cheap European furniture ; the shops on 
 
 either side of the street are more frequently European than 
 
 native, and slimy Levantine touts assail you to buy their 
 
 spurious wares. Still, if we take the Irishman's view, and 
 
 regard the street disassociated from its houses, we may 
 
 realise that we are in the East. Camels pass, laden with 
 
 wares from Mocca and Barbary, gingerly placing their feet 
 
 in the mud to the warning " Hit " of the driver ; donkeys 
 
 laden with balloon-like women, who sit cross-legged on the very summit of 
 
 the saddle, crowded with sail formed by their black fadlas, and held on by 
 
 Silver Bazaar. 
 
 A Jeweller, 
 
The Khan Khalili. 
 
THE COVENT GARDEN OF CAIRO. 
 
 49 
 
 sympathetic donkey-boys. The rattle of the water-sellers' cups, the jingle of 
 the donkeys' bells, mingle with the cry of the seller of pistacchios, of rahatlakum, 
 of Helowa, of all the luxuries for Egyptian sweet-teeth. And here comes the 
 cqfedjee, with coffee suitable for grave seigneurs — coffee wiiich, for a copper, 
 we drink, not in vulgar draughts, but sip as nectar, more precious than golden 
 chartreuse or precious curagoa ; and the seller of cheap iced sherbets or 
 liquorice-water, that the faithful may imbibe without intoxication, if with colic. 
 Turning through a wide door to the right as we leave the Muski, we find 
 ourselves in a quaint old okella where congregate the cooks to buy rich stores 
 of fruit and vegetables — the Covent Garden of Cairo — in one corner of 
 which we find Parvis Magnus, maker of much furniture in beautiful antique, 
 both Pharaonic and Saracenic Egyptian style, as tempts the 
 aesthetic spendthrift to speedy ruin. And so we pass on, past 
 the place where stood the statue of Ibrahim, victor of Konieh, 
 but where it stands no more, since the iconoclastic Arabi rele- 
 gated it, as an impious representation of nature, to the Boolak 
 Museum — on to the Esbekieh, formerly a lake round which stood 
 the gay kiosks of the Memlooks, and now an artificial garden, 
 with sham lakes, sham rock-work, sham grass, fit emblem of the 
 sham civilisation of its creator, Ismail. 
 
 For the Cairo of to-day — the Cairo in which the average 
 traveller spends nine-tenths of his time — is the creation of the 
 last twenty years. Old Mohamed Ali was fain to be content with 
 his Citadel for the first few years of his reign, for therein alone 
 lay safety. Later, when his power was more secure, he built his 
 palace at Shubra, to the north on the banks of the river, not 
 without taste of a barbaric oriental sort. Abbas, who deserved 
 a better character than most historians have given him, half Bedouin as he was, 
 loved the desert, and made his palaces in the Abbassieh and at Mex. Easy- 
 going, voluptuous Said loved Alexandria, the sea, and the Canal. Ismail, the 
 vaunted, over-praised civiliser of Egypt, had no higher ideal than that of making 
 Cairo a miniature Paris, a city of boulevards and ballets, casinos and caf'e-chaniants. 
 
 And so it is that the capital of Egypt has come to be the one city in the 
 world near which you may trace the life of 7000 years. 
 
 The Scribbler, who was a nervous man, felt somewhat appalled at the idea 
 of carrying the unsympathetic Turtle through a course of history at the rate of 
 a day per ten centuries ; but he had been rash enough to consent, and being 
 withal conscientious, he determined to do it as thoroughly as possible. 
 
 Cafedjee. 
 
5° 
 
 SEQUENCE OF HISTORY. 
 
 " It was the misfortune of my life," he confided to the Sketcher, " to acquire 
 at an early age a considerable amount of desultory historical information, with- 
 out any chronological sequence. By the time I was eighteen, I was deeply 
 learned in various periods of history ; my reading had ranged from Herodotus 
 to Macaulay, or I should speak more correctly if I said from 
 Macaulay to Herodotus, for I had the vaguest notion of what 
 I will call the sequence of history. The longer I have lived the 
 more convinced I am that half of even the educated world suffers 
 from the same defect. They are deep in periods, and yet are 
 ignorant of the most rudimentary knowledge of the connection 
 between them. I met once a man who had given much study to 
 the religions of the world ; he was well versed in the niceties of 
 the early Christian sects ; could discourse for hours on the Ego 
 and the Logos ; was equally informed as to the life of Mahomet 
 and the rival pretensions of AH and Othman ; but 
 it happened one day at a dinner-table that a ques- 
 tion arose as to the right of Mahomet to the title 
 of " Prophet of God, " and the learned one denied 
 his right to the title because he had not predicted 
 the Messiah. Of course, in the next moment he 
 saw his mistake, but the confusion was there for a 
 second. Well, I feel that the soft and succulent 
 brain of our friend the Turtle has been committed to my keeping 
 for a week ; that it is my duty in that time to make such impres- 
 sion as 1 can upon that yielding pulp ; and as in the period 
 I can hardly pretend to give a history of 7000 years, I will try at 
 least to make the chronological framework or skeleton.'' 
 
 " Have you the remotest idea that he will ever be able to fill 
 it in ? " 
 
 " Very little, I confess ; but besides the chance of interesting 
 the Doves, there is, I confess, the hope that I may interest you, 
 or at all events myself." 
 " And how do you propose to begin ? " 
 
 " With the Sphinx, of course, starting our little trip somewhere before the 
 date of the creation, according to Archbishop Ussher ; leading him, metaphori- 
 cally at all events, over the Pyramids to Boolak ; hurrying him through the 
 ancient empire and the Hyksos, and allowing him to linger over the 
 mummies. The Ptolemaic period I tried to instil into him at Alexandria; 
 
 A Pistacchio Seller. 
 
 A Seller of Liquorice Water. 
 
A VAST PLAN. 51 
 
 and, with a vault of some few thousands of years, we will carry him to Bablun, 
 and then through mosques, beginning with the Gamr Amr, and finishing with 
 the El Goriah. We will (metaphorically always) hang him at the Bab el Zuweilah 
 with the last Borgite ; massacre him at the Citadel with the Memlooks ; let him 
 realise Mohamed Ali at Shubra ; and finally leave him panting and struggling 
 on his back at one of Tewfik's receptions at Abdeen. Dost thou like the 
 picture ? " 
 
 " At first sight it seems, like ' Murray,' more instructive than amusing ; but, 
 I confess, it has its advantages — mainly that we shall be for 7000 years in the 
 company of the lovely Enid and Iris, as I discover they are called." 
 
 The Scribbler looked grave. "Remember, my Gothic and inflammatory 
 friend, that you have to do with the stern British plre defamille, capable de tout, 
 as Talleyrand said. The British paterfamilias is as stern a despot in his family 
 circle as the Turkish Pasha ; and if too attentive to the Doves, your headless 
 trunk may be fiung into the river with as little ceremony as that of Goroun, or, 
 at the best, you will be asked to state your intentions." 
 
 " Which," replied the other, " I should at once state as evanescent and 
 unmercenary." 
 
 •%M 
 
 i,\ O. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Pyramids of Ghizeh — Webbers description, 1580 a.d. — KnoUes, i6co a.d. — Sphinx — 
 Patronising Harriet and ingenious Verulain — Emerson and Stoddard — Recent 
 excavation — Legend of Tutmes IV. and Sphinx — Tutmes and Wilson — Fellow 
 pilferers — Chronological discussion — Archbishop Ussher — A comiromise. 
 
 IN accordance with the plan, our travellers started early the next morning for 
 the Pyramids, and duly experienced all the totally contradictory associa- 
 tions of all travellers, from Herodotus to the latest of American Howadjis. 
 These impressions may be studied with advantage from numerous guide-books, 
 and are probably not much more accurate, and certainly less interesting, than 
 the description given by that " simple man, void of learning," worthy Edward 
 Webbe, who, in the time of good Queen Bess, was carried as a slave to the 
 "Gran Caer,'' where he saw " Seauen Mountaines builded on the out side like 
 vnto ye point of a diamond, which Mountaines were builded in King Pharoes 
 time for to keepe Come in, and they are Mountaines of great strength. It is 
 also saide that they were builded about that time when loseph did lade home 
 his Brethren's Asses with Come, in the time of the great dearth mentioned in 
 the Scripture ; at which time all their Come lay in those mountaines ; " or that 
 other by Richard Knolles, author of " The Generall Historic of the Turkes," 
 who wrote some twenty years later, presumably from hearsay : — " About fives 
 miles distant from old Caire, on,. Affricke side, stand the Pyramides, monu- 
 ments of the barbarous ^Egyptian kings vanitie ; whose proud names and titles 
 Time hath worne out of those huge and wonderful buildings, of purpose made 
 for the vaine eternising of their fame and endlesse wealth, so that of them it may 
 now well be said, 
 
 Miramur perysse homines ? monumenta fatiscunt 
 Interitus saxis nominibusque venit. 
 
 What wonder we that men doe die? the stately tombes do weare ; 
 The verie stones consume to nought, with titles they bid beare. 
 
 Within them are the sepulchers of the old .^Egyptian kings, divided into 
 chappels, garnished with stone of great price curiously wrought. Yet are those 
 
THE PYRAMID 'DOCTOR." 53 
 
 places loathsome of smel, and for darknesse thereof, dreadfull to behold : for as 
 men go downe to come into them by a narrow way, almost swarved up with 
 rubbish, their lights are often times put out with the dampe of the earth and 
 swarmes 01 remise flying about their eares. Some having got to the tops of 
 them, report, that the watch tower of Alexandria, and the mouth of the river 
 Nilus where it falleth into the sea, is trom thence well to be seene : and that 
 for the great height of them, a man cannot shoot an arrow so high as the midst 
 of the lower tower wheron the spire standeth. Of these outragious buildings, 
 are written many strange and almost incredible things, as that an hundred 
 thousand men should be occupied continually by the space of twentie yeres, 
 in building one of them : during which time, the charges for roots, garlike, and 
 onions only, amounted to 1600 talents 0/ silver." 
 
 The young people determined to scale these "outrageous buildings,'' but 
 returned without having seen any of the wonders averred. Going inside, they 
 were more fortunate, and pronounced the description of the old author 
 painfully exact. The Turtle was not to be induced to try either experiment ; 
 he sat stolidly on a stone, disregarding the flattering assurances of the well- 
 known P\ramid "Doctor," who offered to carry him "up one side, down 
 t'other, twenty minutes, no bone broke, and you very happy, only two shillin.' 
 Perhaps he was much impressed — more probably he was bored — but he felt 
 it was his duty to see the Pyramids ; and he saw them, if not with reverence, 
 at least with compassion for the misdevoted energy which, properly applied, 
 as his had been, to soap, m]ght have proved largely remunerative. Still, he 
 paid his dime, bought a coin or two, and was repaid by being pronounced " a 
 very straight man forward " — a well-meaning compliment which his waistcoat 
 belied. 
 
 From the foot of the Great Cheops the " Doctor" led the way to the Sphinx, 
 which he described as " very old, and very soon naked quite " — an expression 
 which might have caused the Turtle to pause, had not the Scribbler explained 
 that it had reference only to the recent excavations,"and that it was a monster 
 safe, virginibus puerisque. 
 
 But a few steps farther brought them in presence of that monument, which 
 neither the least emotional nor the least flippant can face without reverence. 
 
 ' ' Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
 Her infinite variety." 
 
 Even in Egypt itself, the hardiest conception stands aghast at a figure which 
 
 has confronted time for 7000 years ; for Mariette, at all events, places its date 
 
 I 
 
54 EMERSON AND STODDARD. 
 
 before Menu, who lived 5000 years before Christ. The guide-books, which 
 mark it, like second-class brandy, with a double star, and speak of it as " next 
 to the Pyramids the most famous monument in this vast burial-ground," insult 
 its majesty, for it stands the monument of the world, one and unapproachable. 
 We may leave it to such critics to describe its length and breadth, and to suggest 
 to the traveller to " stand upon the upper part of the ear," to measure the nose 
 and the mouth! The Arabs appreciate it better, who call it "Abou Hoi," 
 Father of Terror. Even patronising Harriet Martineau is impressed at last, 
 though at first she took it, with her superior ignorance, "for a capriciously 
 formed rock, forgetting that I should not meet with limestone at Ghizeh," she 
 adds by way of showing us that her knowledge of geology might have saved 
 her from overlooking it. Even she, at last, had to own a feeling of awe. 
 Wonderful tribute to the Sphinx power that it drew admiration from Harriet ! 
 And ingenious Verulam, who, let it be said in extenuation, had never seen it, 
 found a parable therein. The whole, he says, is Science, regarded by the 
 ignorant (Harriet) as a monster. As the figure is heterogeneous, so the subjects 
 of Science " are very various ; " the female face " denotes volubility of speech." 
 {O Harriet !) Her wings show that " knowledge, like light, is rapidly diffused ; " 
 and so forth. Enough of such criticism ; rather let us watch her in reverence, 
 striving, if perchance may come to us the solution of that mystery which she 
 lias asked in vain, with her yearning, prayerful gaze, at every morning's rising sun 
 since time was. No CEdipus has solved that riddle — the mystery of immortal 
 life — the mystery " of going on and still to be." 
 
 " The Sphinx is drowsy ; 
 
 Her wings are furled, 
 Her ear is heavy ; 
 
 She broods on the world. 
 Who'll tell me my secret 
 
 The ages have kept ? 
 I awaited the Seer 
 
 While they slumbered and slept. " 1 
 
 And she has watched them, not slumbering and sleeping alone — 
 
 " Nations have fallen round her, but she stands ; 
 Dynasties came and went, but she went not. 
 She saw the Pharaohs and the Shepherd Kings, 
 Chariots and horsemen in their dread array, 
 Cambyses, Alexander, Anthony. 
 The hosts of standards and the eagle wings, 
 Whom, to her ruinous sorrow, Egypt drew. 
 She saw and she forgot." " 
 
 ' Emerson. 2 Stoddard. 
 
The Sphinx Uncovered. 
 
RECENT EXCAVATION. 55 
 
 But since Harriet and our sympathetic friends, the compilers of guide- 
 books, have been there, much has been done. Hitherto the head only stood 
 above the desert, encroaching around it. Seventy years ago, English enterprise, 
 for once not purely mercenary, enabled Caviglia to uncover the flight of steps 
 leading to it ; but the sand ruthlessly buried it again, until Maspero began the 
 work of excavation, continued by Grdbaut, his successor at Boolak. At present 
 they have bared the whole front of the body, the small sanctuary between its 
 paws, and the wide flight of steps. The work still goes on, and may eventually 
 confirm the surmise that it stood in the midst of a huge artificial amphitheatre 
 hewn out of solid rock. The paws are red brick, tawdry looking, and of far 
 later date than the head. We might even regret the excavation of them, were it 
 not that without it we could never get the most perfect view, which is obtainable 
 about half way down the steps, and that but for it we should not have been able 
 to read on the stela of Tutmes IV. how the great king lay down to rest one 
 midday in the shadow of the Sphinx (it was then more than 3000 years old), 
 and the sleeping king dreamed in a dream how the venerable image above him 
 conjured him to clear away the sand in which it was already nearly buried. Then 
 the prince awoke, and in the silence of the desert " made silence in his heart," 
 and vowed to perform the bidding of the god. 
 
 It is cruel to spoil such an idyll, the sleeping king and his dream ; but there 
 comes, in this iconoclastic age of ours, one Flinders Petrie, most flintstone- 
 hearted of antiquaries, who hints, nay, almost avers, that the pious Tutmes 
 actually pilfered, like a nineteenth-century antiquary, a red granite block from 
 the neighbouring temple of Khafra. Dreadful it is to think of, and of the 
 righteous indignation of Erasmus Wilson when he meets the royal pilferer in 
 Elysium ! 
 
 If you will, you may, after seeing the Sphinx, go to the temple of Chefren, 
 and the tomb, which Colonel Vyse, with true Anglo-Saxon taste, has rendered 
 ridiculous by associating with the name of a worthy British Consul-General, and 
 which (such is the value of tradition) the Pyramid Arabs point out as the grave 
 of Colonel Campbell. But the Doves were impressed, and unwilling to with- 
 draw from the sight of that face, and the imagination of that sleeping king, pirate 
 though he may have been. Nor did it enter into the plans of the Scribbler, who 
 was unwilling to overladen the non-receptive brain of his pupil. So as the sun 
 was setting behind that stupendous image they drove away, wondering, with 
 Dean Stanley, " what it must have been when on its head there was the royal 
 helmet of Egypt ; on its chin the royal beard ; when the stone pavement by 
 which men approached the Pyramids ran up between its paws ; when immedi- 
 
56 CHRONOLOGICAL DISCUSSION. 
 
 ately under its heart an altar stood from which- the smoke went up into the 
 gigantic nostrils of that nose now vanished from the face never to be conceived 
 again." 
 
 The long drive through the avenues of acaccia had lasted for a few minutes 
 before the Scribbler, anxious to ascertain the effect his first lesson had produced, 
 ventured to ask the Turtle his impressions. 
 
 As became an ex-minister, the reply was Socratic. 
 
 " How old did you say that — er — that object was ?" 
 
 " Roughly, 7000 years." 
 
 The Turtle paused and made a mental calculation. 
 
 "It cannot," he said, "be more than 5890 years old, for the world was 
 created on Sunday, 2Sth March, 4004 b.c." 
 
 " Mais nous avons changi tous cela," sang the Sketcher airily. 
 
 The Turtle looked shocked, and glanced uneasily at his daughters. 
 
 " I think, sir," said the Scribbler, anxious to allay a storm, " the date you 
 mention is wanting in confirmation. It is, if I may say so, not official," he 
 added, seeking words which might appeal to his feelings. 
 
 " I think," said the man of Blue Books, somewhat mollified, " I think you 
 will find that date attested in Scripture, and you will not, I hope " (glancing at the 
 Doves), " attempt to — er — to traverse that authority." 
 
 " I will not," replied the other ; " but you will, I am sure, excuse my point- 
 ing out that the date rests on no divine authority. Without even questioning 
 the verbal inspiration of Scripture — a point which, I believe, many undoubtedly 
 orthodox men have given up — nay, without even calling in question the still 
 more doubtful point as to the verbal inspiration of the Authorised Version, we 
 are still not compelled to accept the chronology, which rests on the assertion — 
 let us say the investigations — accurate so far as they then could be, of Archbishop 
 Ussher." 
 
 Now, the Turtle had never heard of Archbishop Ussher ; but it so happened 
 that he had once had a question with his rector in reference to tithes, and in 
 a friendly way had referred the question to an archbishop, in full confidence 
 that his claims of social superiority would be recognised. The archbishop, 
 however, had given the case against him ; and, though accepting the decision, 
 and abstaining even from his first idea of voting for the abolition of the Estab- 
 lishment, the Turtle had held a poor opinion of archbishops ever since. He 
 had already begun to realise, from casual conversation, that Egyptian chronology 
 would not fit in with his preconceived ideas; but he had held tightly to the 
 latter, under the conviction that the received chronology was one of the Thirty- 
 
A COMPROMISE. 
 
 57 
 
 Nine Articles of the Church of England. It was, therefore, a secret relief to 
 him to hear that it rested upon no more secure foundation than the opinion 
 ■of one of that order of the hierarchy, of whose want of judgment he had in his 
 own case had such a conspicuous example. 
 
 " I am quite willing to admit," he said, " that the archbishop you speak of 
 may have made a mistake of a few years in his calculation ; " and the Scribbler 
 felt that his point was gained. 
 
 " Accept, then," he continued, " that we have been contemplating a monu- 
 ment created 7000 years ago ; and, without further inquiry as to what period 
 it required to bring art to that pitch of perfection, let us assume that the Sphinx 
 is the beginning of creation, as it is the beginning of human creation, so far as 
 we have any existing complete vestige of it, and to-morrow we will skip a few 
 thousand years or so, .and continue the subject at Boolak, in presence of the 
 wooden man and the founders of the comparatively modern Pyramids." 
 
Tomb of Marictte — Entrance to the Boolak Mttseum. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Boolak — Museum not inappropriately situated — Khafra — The wooden man — Immuta- 
 bility of Egyptian type — Egyptian alternate slave and rebel — Mummies — Sekenen 
 lia — Aahmes — Seti — Ramses IT. and III. — Pinotem — De mortuis — Comparative 
 chronology — Antiquity of Egyptian art — Petrified prayers — Vulgar pyramids — 
 Hymn to Amen Ra — Tale of the Doomed Prince. 
 
 THE Boolak Museum is reached by a long drive through quarters where the 
 lowest European class has added some of its ugliness to, and borrowed 
 some of the extra filth from, the native. It is not here, assuredly, that you 
 would expect to find treasures which no capital in Europe can parallel, and the 
 loss of which no Rothschild could replace. And yet, perhaps, the resting-place 
 for these records of past Egypt has not been ill chosen ; for it lies on the banks 
 of the ever-mysterious river, keeping touch, as it were, with the life-stream of 
 the people whose history it records. The Pyramids look down on it from the 
 opposite bank ; and the nineteenth century, with its military casernes, its busy 
 cargo-boats, and its sugar- stores, crowd it in on every side. It would be easy 
 to find a more costly habitation. The palaces of Ghizeh or Ghezireh might 
 afford more ample room for the relics of 5000 years, now crowded into 
 a few square yards ; but as no building that modern art could devise or 
 imitate would ever look aught but shamefaced in comparison with the glorious 
 
THE STATUE OF KHAFRA. 
 
 59 
 
 contents themselves — as no style could ever be harmonious with the remains 
 
 of periods reaching from the prehistoric Second Dynasty to the Ptolemies — it 
 
 is perhaps better that there should be no attempt to render 
 
 I the casket worthy of the jewels, and that we should plunge, 
 
 as it were, straight from the hideousness of the lower life 
 
 I of to-day into the quiet garden washed by the Nile, where 
 
 the tomb of Mariette guards the portal to the mysteries of 
 
 a giant past. 
 
 "Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night, 
 Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear." 
 
 The Scribbler, in pursuance of his plan, would permit no 
 loitering, but led the way straight to the statue of Khafra. 
 The builder of the Second Pyramid of Ghizeh, whose char- 
 acter would seem to have been 
 handled with unnecessary severity 
 by Herodotus, has a face of benign 
 shrewdness, and, unless phrenology 
 is at fault, possessed a considerable 
 sense of humour. That it is a like- 
 ness, and not a mere conventional 
 representation, is evident. Seated 
 in solemn state among his descen- 
 dants, he looks every inch of his 
 colossal frame a king. Near him 
 stands the perhaps yet more lifelike 
 figure of the wooden man. 
 " Do you suppose," said the Turtle, reading from his 
 
 "Murray," "that there is any truth in this story, that the 
 
 villagers recognise a likeness between this image of some 
 
 thousand years old and their own municipal magistrate of 
 
 to-day?" 
 
 "Of course it's true," interrupted the enthusiastic 
 
 Sketcher. " Here you have the statue of a man hidden at 
 
 Sakkarah some 6000 years ago. His sons have buried him, 
 
 succeeded to his camels and his honours, and lived on the 
 
 same spot. There was a man, whom your soldiers came 
 
 across in the last war, who had lived his life of some sixty years within thirty miles 
 
 of the Nile, and had yet never seen it. So lived this man and his descendants — 
 
 statue of Khafra. 
 
6o IMMUTABILITY OF THE EGYPTIAN. 
 
 never moving, always living within the same square mile, marrying and intermarry- 
 ing, until, when this statue is discovered, it is found that the lineal descendant, 
 through some 200 generations, has preserved an exact resemblance to his 
 ancestor. Would it not be strange if it were otherwise? That goose, which 
 you see in that 3000 years old picture, is the goose which we saw outside; that 
 trefoil is the berseem growing to-day. The biped man has been as much localised 
 as the biped anser or the clover." 
 
 " I don't know,'' said the Scribbler, " that we need attach much importance 
 to the alleged likeness to the individual man. The Egyptian is not observant 
 in physiognomy. This man has two legs, two arms, and one head ; so has their 
 Sheik El Beled ; that would probably create in their minds sufficient resemblance 
 for them to cry, 'Wallahi zei el sheikh betana.' Whether it were so or not is 
 immaterial ; but the type of man represented here is the exact reproduction of 
 the type of the Fellah of to-day ; and it proves, not exactly the Sketcher's family- 
 feature theory, but the fact, established beyond a doubt in hundreds of ways, 
 that the successive conquerors of Egypt have always ended by being physically 
 conquered by the children of the soil. Was it an innate knowledge that they 
 would in this way ultimately subdue their conquerors which reconciled them 
 to perpetual conquest ? " 
 
 " But have they always been so easily governed ? " said the Sketcher. " The 
 history of Egypt seems to me nothing but a series of conquest and revolt." 
 
 " Precisely ; but hardly ever, if ever, of resistance to invasion in the first 
 instance, nor of revolt afterwards, except in favour of a new conqueror. The 
 Egyptian of all ages has grown up in the belief that it is his destiny to be the 
 slave of some one ; that some one, whoever he may be, he respects and hates, 
 but has no idea of resisting. Not unnaturally, however, he is like an Irishman, 
 ' agin the Government ; ' and when another some one comes to attack the 
 reigning some one, his sympathies are with the former, and he revolts in favour 
 of a new master. So each conquest is tolerably easily accomplished, and equally 
 easily overthrown. The Egyptian, always submitting, and always secretly hostile, 
 is ready to welcome a third conqueror, or perhaps the old one." 
 
 The most well-intentioned chronological plans were doomed to failure, 
 owing to the restless spirit of the Sketcher and the Fair One, following whom, 
 the party found themselves suddenly confronting the mummy cases. 
 
 " Here, for instance,'' continued the Scribbler, " you have an instance. This 
 is Sekenen Ra Taaken, conqueror of the Hyksos, leader of the so-called war 
 of Egyptian independence, which lasted 150 years some 3600 years ago. But 
 note that Sekenen himself is but one of the Theban despots fighting against the 
 
SEKENEN RA TAAKEN. 
 
 6i 
 
 Hyksos despots. The Egyptians who fought with him against the Hyksos had 
 probably aided the Hyksos against his ancestors. However, he fights for what 
 he assumes to be his rights ; gains them for his descendants, but loses his life. 
 Look at him closely, and read his history, told as graphically as if by Macaulay, 
 and perhaps more truthfully. That wound there, inflicted by a mace or hatchet, 
 which has cleft the left cheek, broken the lower jaw, and laid bare the side 
 teeth, was probably the first, and must have felled him to the ground. See 
 there, how his foes fell on him ! That downward hatchet blow split off an 
 
 Mujmny qfSekenen Ret Taaken. 
 
 enormous splinter of the skull, leaving a long rift through which some portion 
 of the brain has escaped ; you can see it in that large white blotch on the cheek. 
 That other blow, just above the right eye, must have been a lance wound, passing 
 through his temple, and probably finished him. Look at the agony in the face, 
 and the tongue bitten through in anguish. He gave his life dearly, did Sekenen 
 Ra ; and after the fight the body has been embalmed and had decent though 
 hurried sepulture. A tall, slender, but muscular man, small, long, barrel-shaped 
 head, covered with long black curly hair ; the eye large and deep set ; the nose 
 
62 
 
 SETI MENEPHTAH. 
 
 straight and broad at the bridge ; a massive lower face with projecting jaw and 
 cheek bones, probably a Barabra; and note one singular detail still visible after 
 thirty-six centuries — he must have been shaved on the very day of battle. 
 
 " Here, close by, is his descendant, Aahmes of the eighteenth dynasty, who 
 reaped the fruits of victory. He is bandaged ; but 
 see next to him his son, Amenhoteb, covered still 
 with garlands, which, when the sarcophagus was 
 first opened, had not lost their colour ; and hidden 
 among the flowers a wasp, who had slipped in as 
 the cofSn was being closed, and remains there 
 preserved after 3000 years, probably the only wasp 
 ever dignified with the rites of mummihood. In 
 his day must the family of Joseph have increased 
 and multiplied ; for I forgot td say that the Hyksos 
 adversary of Sekenen Ra was probably Joseph's 
 friend. And here is Seti Menephtah, son of the 
 first, and father of the second, Ramses. A beauti- 
 ful old man is Seti, with refined intellectual face, 
 and a sweet smile that fascinates after thirty-two 
 centuries. A hale old man, too, for his teeth are 
 white and well preserved, and only his fingers show 
 the signs of that even then aristocratic disease, 
 gout. 
 
 "Ramses II., the great Sesostris of tradition — 
 the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph — is a singularly 
 hard and powerful likeness of his father. Like him 
 vigorous and robust, for he reigned sixty-seven 
 years, and must have been over a hundred when 
 he died; the chest broad, the shoulders square, 
 and the arms crossed ; the head long, but small 
 compared to the body, with thick, smooth, straight 
 locks of hair about two inches long, probably white 
 at time of death, but rendered yellow from the 
 process of embalming. The forehead is low and 
 narrow, the eyes close together, with thick short 
 eyebrows ; a long, thin, and Bourbon hooked nose 
 slightly crushed at the tip; the cheek-bones prominent; the jawbone massive 
 and strong ; the chin prominent, with small but thick-lipped mouth ; the teeth 
 
 Mummy of Seti Mene^htaJi.' 
 
RAMSES II. 
 
 63 
 
 worn and brittle, the round ears pierced for earrings. The moustache and 
 beard are thin ; perhaps he shaved during life, and this is the growth of the 
 last illness. On the whole, the expression is not in- 
 tellectual, perhaps even animal, but withal shows 
 resolve, majesty, and pride. And here you have two 
 of a very different type — can you not recognise the 
 priest in both these faces ? — the priest Nibsoni of 
 the twentieth, and the priest-king Pinotem of the 
 twenty-first. They want only the berretta to be Don 
 Basilios." 
 
 " And here, again, Ramses III., last of the warrior- 
 kings of Egypt — a face not equal to that of old Seti, 
 but yet better than that of Ramses II., of which it is 
 
 a small imitation, though 
 more delicate and intelli- 
 gent in expression — 'of 
 pompous piety and inordi- 
 nate vanity,' however, if we 
 may trust Mr. Maspero." 
 
 " De mortuis,'' said the 
 Sketcher gently, at the 
 end of this somewhat long 
 oration ; " don't let's abuse 
 the man over his cofSn. 
 Even in a cemetery of 
 unknown dead, one can- 
 not help feeling a little 
 generous and grateful to 
 the hundreds who have 
 probably each done some one little act of kindness, 
 which has begot others, and these in turn more, multi- 
 plying like the grain of mustard seed, and so produc- 
 ing, generation after generation, a kindlier feeling to 
 each other — a feeling which we are now learning to 
 extend to the brutes, and in time shall bestow on the flowers. And these 
 men left us something besides their own mummies and the records of their 
 wars. If they were conquerors of savages, they conquered Art too, and Nature 
 itself Their blood may not run in our veins, but their brains have helped to 
 
 Mummy 0/ Pinotem. 
 
 Mummy of Ramses II. 
 
64 
 
 RAMSES III. 
 
 form ours. We are never tired of owning our debt to Athens and Rome, but 
 
 we forget that Athens herself was what she was only thanks to Egypt, and that 
 
 the intellectual ancestors of Phidias and Homer are around us." 
 "What, then, is the date of the mummies?" asked the Turtle. 
 "Of these, from 3000 to 3500 years; but a bald statement like that hardly 
 
 conveys anything. Remember that we are only 
 
 1000 years removed from Alfred; liitle more than 
 
 2000 years from the destruction of Carthage ; and 
 
 that Ramses III., the most modern of all these, 
 
 was probably ruling in Egypt when the well-gyved 
 
 Greeks were startmg on the mythical Trojan war." 
 " Then does real History begin here ?. " asked 
 
 Enid. 
 
 " Begin here ! Say rather that it ends here ; 
 for from henceforth the Egyptian 
 empire declines. The 3000 years 
 seem immense to us ; we find it 
 difficult to carry back the imagi- 
 nation so far, and to picture these 
 poor mummies as making history. 
 But remember that, if they could 
 
 rise and walk into the next room, they would see relics as far 
 removed from their age as they are from ours. Roughly, 3000 
 years separates you from Ramses, but 3000 more separated 
 Ramses from these two statues of Rahoteb and Nefert, looking 
 as if carved and plastered yesterday. And Rahoteb himself 
 may have pointed out to Nefert the Sphinx as an antique, the 
 mystery of whose creation was already buried in a thousand 
 years. As I said in Alexandria, we talk glibly of Egyptian 
 antiquities — walk through this museum, and carry away the 
 notion that we have seen something of an interesting period 
 of the world's history ; but how few realise that within these 
 four walls they are in presence of records extending over 
 some 5000 years ; that if you collected together specimens 
 of all Art and records of History between the dates of say 
 the siege of Troy and the battle of Alma, you would only 
 
 then in point of time be rivalling Boolak ! These half-dozen mummies we have 
 
 spoken about, which we regard to some extent rightly as an epoch, cover the 
 
 same period of time as from Magna Charta to the French Revolution." 
 
 Mummy ofRaijises III. 
 
 Statue of Rahoteb. 
 
EGYPTIAN ART. 
 
 65 
 
 " But," said Enid, " this is bewildering ! Let me repeat my question. Are 
 these statues, at all events, the beginning of History ? " 
 
 " Of History, perhaps, or of such Hitory as has left any trace (the mysterious 
 Sphinx always excepted), but certainly not of Art ; for you have here the same 
 difificulty which meets you in your researches into Nature. You 
 know that the tree comes from the seed ; you may be able, per- 
 haps, to give a scientific explanation of the process of transforma- 
 tion ; but go as low as you will, you are baffled at last when you 
 seek to explain the origin of life itself. So it is with Egyptian 
 Art. Here is your mummy, your hieroglyph, your statue, and, 
 finally, your Sphinx ; you trace back through the 7000 years, but 
 the mystery is always increasing ; for the more you recede, the 
 more perfect you find the work. You are working, in fact, up a 
 stream of decadence in Art, and when you reach the most remote 
 date, you reach also the most consummate Art. Now, perfect 
 work implies previous study and time for development. Art did 
 not spring into the world ready-made, like Athene from the brain 
 of Zeus. We know roughly the ages it took tor the rude Cyclopean 
 masonry to develop into Greek Art. In Egyptian Art we may or 
 may not have reached the summit. There may yet be lying hid 
 treasures more ancient and more perfect than the Sphinx ; but 
 what is certain is, that there must have been a long period through 
 which Egyptian Art struggled to the perfection at which we already 
 find it 7000 years ago.'' > 
 
 They had seated themselves on the little stone balcony that 
 overlooks the river. The Nile rolled past them with its swift 
 torrent, breaking with dangerous force again.st the very walls of the little Museum ; 
 below lay the little port of Boolak, with its busy lateen-sailed craft ; to the left, 
 the great Kasr el Nil bridge ; beyond, the island of Rhoda, with its Nilometer ; 
 and on the other side of the river, the ever-present Pyramids in the setting sun. 
 
 " Who was it," asked Enid, " who called them petrified prayers ? The ex- 
 pression is perfect." 
 
 " Some one with more talent for alliteration than observation, I suspect," 
 replied the Scribbler. " Call it poetical if you will, but not perfect, because 
 inappropriate. The Pyramids are not prayer, but the negation of it ; ' petrified 
 presumption ' would be as alliterative, and more appropriate." 
 
 "Surely," said Iris, "you are not going to rail against the Pyramids, after 
 the enthusiasm you have shown to-day ? " 
 
 " I confess the Pyramids inspire me less than any monument in Egypt," 
 
 Stuiue 0/ Princess. 
 
 \ 
 
66 VULGAR PYRAMIDS. 
 
 said the Scribbler. " Pure antiquity, as such, has no charms for me; and vulgar 
 piles of stones, erected at the cost of intense physical suffering to thousands, 
 and which have served no other purpose than that of exciting the ingenious 
 curiosity of a few mad theorists, are vulgar still, though old." 
 
 " Is the idea so vulgar after all," said Enid ? "It seems to me that the man 
 who took such pains over his tomb had some instinct of immortality in him ; 
 that he recognised death not so much the end as the beginning of life ; that he 
 built a more durable palace for his last home than he had thought it worth 
 while to build as his earthly one." 
 
 " But even admitting that," said the Scribbler, " and Chateaubriand himself 
 could not have put it more poetically, is not his idea of immortality a vulgar 
 one? Fancy an immortality which wants a stone house to live in ! " 
 
 " It's something," said the girl, " to have had an idea of immortality at all 
 6000 years ago." 
 
 " Besides," interrupted the Sketcher, " why should you persist in looking at 
 it simply as a tomb ? I am not going to ask you to accept it as a yard-measure 
 or an inverted bushel ; but unless you deny the value of all monuments, and of 
 all desire to leave a memento to history, surely one valuable quality in a monu- 
 ment is that it should last ; and if one has devoted one's life to such a monu- 
 ment, surely it is not mere vulgarity to wish to be associated with it, and to be 
 buried in it." 
 
 " A power of endurance," said the Scribbler, " may be one valuable quality 
 in a monument, but surely you will not argue that it is the only, or even the 
 most important one. What is the value of them, however ancient, if, as old 
 Fuller has it, ' They dote with age, forgetting the names of their own founders ' ? 
 Did they exhibit a single hieroglyph of value, or had they saved a papyrus, I 
 would forgive them. As it is, they make a good background for a picture, but 
 that is all you can say for them ; they have added little or nothing to our know- 
 ledge of man." 
 
 " And what have we gained from the hieroglyphs or the papyri ? " asked Iris. 
 
 " History, Poetry, and Romance. You will admit, at least, that the two last 
 are worth something, even though you despise the first." 
 
 " Do you mean Poetry that you can read and understand ? " 
 
 " That," said the Scribbler, " must depend on what you call Poetry, and what 
 you call understanding it ; but I saw the Sketcher last night struggling to get a 
 hieroglyph into verse, and the result is probably as intelligible as Browning." 
 
 "I am afraid," said the Sketcher, laughing, "my efforts over a hieroglyph 
 would result in poetry compared to which Sordello itself would be intelligible. 
 

HYMN TO AMEN RA. 67 
 
 The papyrus was a sheet of foolscap, and I made a rhyme out of some verses 
 of a translation of a hymn to Amen Ra. I will read it if you like, but please 
 remember I am only responsible for the doggerel ; the sentiments belong to the 
 Nineteenth Dynasty, and the words are almost identical with those of Goodwin's 
 literal translation : — 
 
 " Hail to Amen Ra the Bull ! 
 
 The chief of all great gods in An ; 
 
 The good god beloved, whose rule 
 
 Gives life both to cattle and man. 
 
 Hail, Lord of the thrones of the Earth ! 
 
 Amen Ra, the Sun-god of Thebes, 
 
 Who, with feet in the land of his birth, 
 
 Rules heathen in Araby's East ; 
 The ancient of Heaven, the oldest of Earth, 
 Sustainer of all things that owe thee their birth. 
 
 " One in thy works, and one in high Heaven, 
 
 Beautiful Bull of the Cycle Divine ; 
 
 Chief of all gods, and maker of all men. 
 
 Creator of beasts, and feeder of kine. 
 
 Lord of existences, herbs, and of trees ; 
 
 Sun-king, Truth-speaker, and chief of the Earth ; 
 
 Maker of all things, the light and the breeze, 
 
 The gods give thee honour, and own to thy worth. 
 Begotten of Ptah, youth fair and beloved, 
 That sailest in Heaven, peaceful, immoved. 
 
 " Thou deliverest the meek from the mighty ; 
 Thou judgest the poor and oppressed ; 
 Lord of wisdom, whose precepts shine brightly. 
 At whose pleasure the Nile gives its best. 
 Lord of Mercy, of Love, Light, and Life, 
 Great giver of rays to each star ; 
 Men live, and gods joy in thy sight. 
 When they see thee approach from afar." 
 
 " Do you mean," said Iris, " that all that was written 3000 years ago ? " 
 
 " All that, and some seventeen verses more ; but you must make allowance 
 for it as an adaptation." 
 
 " And what about Romance ? " asked Enid. 
 
 " Well, I can give you a romance of a slightly earlier period, if you will ; 
 but I warn you it has one great defect." 
 
 "Which is?" 
 
 " That will become apparent, if you allow me to read it. Listen ! this is the 
 tale of the Doomed Prince, word for word, from the Harris Papyrus : — 
 
 " There was once a king who had no sons ; he prayed for an heir, and the 
 gods hstened to his request. When his son was born, the Fates came to greet 
 
68 TALE OF THE DOOMED PRINCE. 
 
 him at his birth ; they said that he would die either by a crocodile, a serpent, 
 or a dog. When the people who were about the child heard it, they went and 
 told these things to his Majesty. His Majesty was exceedingly grieved at the 
 evil tidings. His Majesty gave orders to shut the child up in a house in the 
 country, provided with attendants, and all kinds of good things from the king's 
 palace, and that the child should not go out abroad. When the child grew big, 
 he ascended to the roof of the house, and he saw a dog, which was following 
 a person who Was going along the road. He said to the attendant who was 
 beside him, ' What is that which is in the road ? ' He said to him, ' That is 
 a dog.' The child said to him, ' Let one be brought to me like it.' The 
 attendant went and repeated these things to his Majesty. His Majesty said, 
 ' Let there be got for him a boar-hunting dog to run before him.' Then 
 they got for him a dog. Now it came to pass, some time after this, the child 
 became a man. He sent to his father, saying, 'Why is it that I still remain 
 shut up ? I am destined ! Let God do whatsoever pleases him ! ' He went, 
 and a servant, and all kinds of weapons. The man conducted him to the East. 
 He said to him, ' Go now withersoever thou wilt ; ' and he went, and the dog 
 with him. He went up to the country, according to his will ; he lived upon the 
 best of all the beasts of the field. He arrived at the country of the Prince 
 of Mesopotamia. Now there was no child of the Prince of Mesopotamia 
 excepting one daughter. He had built a house for her, of which the window 
 was distant many cubits from the ground. He had sent for all the sons of 
 all the princes of the land of Syria, and said to them, ' Whoever shall scale the 
 window of my daughter, she shall be his wife.' It came to pass, many days 
 after this, while they were engaged in their daily occupations, the youth rode up 
 to them. They received the youth into their house, washed him ; they gave 
 fodder for his iiorse ; they did all sorts of things for the youth. They lodged 
 him, they .shod his feet, they brought him to their lodging. They said to him, 
 ' Whence comest thou, thou good youth ? ' He said to them, ' I am the son 
 of one of the horsemen of the land of Egypt. My mother died, and my father 
 took another wife, a stepmother. Thereupon she hated me, and I fled from 
 before her.' He was silent. They kissed him. He said to the youths, ' What 
 shall I do?' They advised him to scale the window of the tower. Now 
 it came to pass, many days after this, he said to them, ' Do ye go out ; I will 
 invoke a deity ; I will go to climb among you.' They went to climb according 
 to their custom every day. The youth stood afar off, looking on. The maid- 
 servant of the daughter of the Prince of Mesopotamia was upon the tower. 
 Now it came to pass, some time after this, the youth went to climb with the 
 
TALE OF THE DOOMED PRINCE. 
 
 69 
 
 children of the princes ; he climbed, and he reached the window of the daughter 
 of the Prince of Mesopotamia. She kissed and embraced him. Some one went 
 to congratulate her father, and said to him, 'A man has scaled the window of thy 
 daughter.' The Prince inquired about him, saying, ' The 
 son of which of the princes is it ? ' They said to him, 
 ' It is the son of a horseman who lias run away from the 
 land of Egypt on account of a stepmother.' The Prince 
 of Mesopotamia was exceedingly angry. He said, ' How 
 can I give my daughter to a runaway from Egypt ? Let 
 him go back again.' They went and said, 'Go back to 
 the place from whence thou earnest.' But the girl clung 
 to him. She swore by God, saying, 'By the name of the 
 sun, Horus, if I am prevented from keeping him with 
 me, I will neither eat nor drink.' She was on the point 
 of dying. A messenger went to announce all she had 
 said to her father. The Prince sent men to slay the 
 youth. He was in his house. The girl said, ' By the 
 sun, if he is slain, I will die too ; I will not pass an hour 
 of lift without him.' One went to her father; the fear 
 of the youth came upon the Prince. He embraced him 
 and kissed him. He said to him, 'Behold, thou art 
 unto me as a son ! ' He replied to him, ' I am the son 
 of a horseman of the land of Egypt ; my mother died ; 
 my father took to himself another wife ; she hated me ; 
 I ran away from before her,' He gave him his daughter 
 to wife. Now it came to pass, some time after this, that 
 the youth said, unto his wife, ' I am predestined to one 
 of three deaths, either by a crocodile, a serpent, or a 
 dog.' She said to him, ' Let the dog be killed.' He 
 replied, ' I will not cause my dog to be killed. How 
 should he do it?' The woman urged her husband 
 greatly. He would not allow the dog to go out alone. 
 He went in the land of Egypt to catch birds. Be- 
 hold, a crocodile at the door of his own house in the Jn^<m»v ./a^ £gyj,eiun I'nnc,. 
 village. Behold, there was a giant by him. The giant did not suffer him 
 to go out ; he shut up the crocodile. The giant went out to walk. Now, 
 when the dawn appeared, the youth went out every day for the space of two 
 months. Now it came to pass, some time after this, that the youth was sitting 
 
70 TALE OF THE DOOMED PRINCE. 
 
 and making a feast in his house. Now it happened that, when night approached, 
 the youth lay down upon the mat, and sleep overcame his limbs. His wife 
 was bathing. There came a serpent from a hole to bite the youth. Behold, 
 his wife was sitting beside him. She was not reposing. Then she gave honey 
 to the serpent ; he drank of it to intoxication ; he lay down overcome. The 
 woman killed it, and threw it into her bath. She said to him, 'Behold, thy 
 God hath given one of thy dooms into thy hand.' He proceeded to make 
 offerings to God, to worship Him, and exalt His presence every day. Now it 
 came to pass, some time after this, the youth went out to walk at a distance 
 from his dwelling. Behold, his dog followed him. His dog seized the head 
 of some animal. He began to run after him ; he got near to the river. The 
 dog was standing near the crocodile ; he led him to where the giant was. The 
 crocodile said to the youth, ' I am thy doom ; I am come after thee.' " 
 
 "And now," said the Sketch er, "we come to the defect." 
 
 " Pray never mind," said the girls; "do go on to the end." 
 
 " Alas ! the defect is, that there is no end." 
 
 "La suite au prochain numero, I suppose, in some other papyrus." 
 
 " I am inclined," said the Scribbler wearily, " to consider the defect the chief 
 charm of the story. I feared that it might be endless in another sense. Suppose 
 we start back, and you can draw on your brilliant imagination for the rest." 
 
 " The end," said the Sketcher, disdaining the insinuation, " is as clear as if it 
 existed. The loving wife has saved him from the serpent ; the faithful dog saves 
 him from the crocodile ; but nothing can save him from fate, and in some way 
 he is unwittingly killed by his dog." 
 
 " And do you suppose it is only a story or an allegory ? " asked Enid. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake," said the Scribbler, " spare us any Max Miillerisation of 
 hieroglyphs, or we shall learn that the Shepherd kings were myths, and that 
 Aahmes was but the sun chasing away Rasekenen, the dawn." 
 
 The Turtle was awoke with difificulty ; he had at the beginning felt some 
 doubts as to the possible propriety of a story which, so far as he knew, had 
 not acquired the guarantee of respectability by circulation at Mudie's ; but the 
 blessed word Mesopotamia had reassured him, and he fell asleep, dreaming 
 uneasily that a crocodile was trying to scale the balcony from the river below. 
 But he thanked the Sketcher heartily, and still more cordially seconded the 
 proposal of the Scribbler to return to the hotel. 
 
 \The illustrations of mummies are reproduced from photographs, for which we are indebted to 
 H. E. Emile Bkugsch Bey.] 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 History — The first man dissatisfied — Mena migrates to Memphis — Thinis the religious 
 centre — Memphis the capital — Origin of belief in duality of existence— First 
 looo years Egyptian history, prosperous — The next (joo years, power declines — 
 Abraham — Rise of Thebes — Egypt abandons non-intervention policy — Upper and 
 Lower Egypt united — Prosperity of 200 years — Darkness of 1100 years — Hyksos 
 invasion — Joseph and his brethren — Apathy of conquered — Civil war — Hyksos 
 expelled — Thebes the capital and Memphis commercial centre. 
 
 THE attempt of the Scribbler to study the Boolak Museum in chronological 
 order having failed, is there any need to supply the deficiency ? 
 
 The serious student of Egyptian history will find abundant material for study 
 in the scholarly works of Birch, Brugsch, Mariette, and Maspero. The casual 
 traveller will find much useful information in the guide-books of Murray and 
 Badeker ; but it may yet be useful to attempt a very brief resume of the salient 
 points of Egyptian history, and to show in the course of our journey the chrono- 
 logical sequence of the relics of antiquity, and the relations which their records 
 bear to the history of the past. 
 
 It is a striking fact that the earliest authentic story of living man represents 
 him as dissatisfied with the circumstances in which he found himself, and impelled 
 with that restless desire for change which is popularly supposed to be the marked 
 characteristic of a later era. 
 
 Who was Mena, "first earthly king of Egypt"? We do not know, but he b. 
 was probably a member of the royal family that ruled -at This, near Abydos, 
 where was supposed to be the tomb of Osiris. We can imagine him an 
 
 5004. 
 
72 EGYPTIAN HISTORY. 
 
 Advanced Radical of the period, dissatisfied with the old town, where life was 
 dull and made up of traditions ; brimful with new ideas as to where and how a 
 city ought to be built ; admonished, it may be, by his elders, who felt that the 
 world was going ahead at a dangerous pace, and who looked back with fond 
 regret to good old times, before the Sphinx allured northward the giddy youth 
 of the day. Mena, however, was not to be dissuaded, and built his new city of 
 Memphis near the mighty mystery, at the point where the Nile spread into many 
 mouths, and continued its northward course, as mysterious to him as was its 
 inaccessible source. The exact spot chosen by Mena cannot now be ascertained ; 
 but later, at all events, it covered all the ground between the Balir Jussef and 
 the river, from Ghizeh in the- north to Schinbab in the south. The famous 
 temple of Phtah or Vulcan is now covered by the village of Mitrahenny ; and 
 the Pyramids of Ghizeh, Sakkarah, Abousia, and Dashoor, were its cemeteries. 
 
 Thenceforward Thinis was but the religious centre of Egypt, around which 
 gathered the legend of Isis and Osiris. Near it Abydos was reputed the 
 burial-place of the latter, and here the pious sought to be buried. "To go 
 to Abydos ! " was an expression equivalent to death. But as Thinis could not 
 hold the bones of all who sought the honour, it became a custom to bury the 
 mummy in the nearest cemetery, and to send to Abydos a votive stele. Perhaps 
 from this first arose, among the Egyptians, the idea of separate existences of 
 body and soul. Hitherto, they seem to have believed that the body itself would 
 revive ; but with the practice of sending to Abydos their votive stele, while the 
 visible remains were enclosed in the sarcophagus near at home, arose the belief 
 that an unseen portion of them had gone before the judge. 
 B.C. 5004-3951. At Memphis ruled the first four dynasties for some thousand years of appar- 
 
 ently profound peace. Prosperity in the Valley of the Nile was on the increase ; 
 the buildings improved ; the middle, if not the lower class, had considerable 
 leisure, and were able to indulge in hunting and fishing, while attention was 
 evidently paid to the cultivation of flowers. Something, too, even at this early 
 period, they seem to have known of medicine, anatomy, and astronomy. The 
 year of 365 days was introduced, consisting of twelve months of thirty days 
 each, and five supplementary days. To this period we owe the Pyramids — 
 that at Sakkarah, known as the Step Pyramid, is probably the oldest, and may 
 possibly be of the first dynasty ; the pyramid of Maydoom belongs to the third 
 dynasty ; the pyramids of Ghizeh to the fourth. The diorite statue of Khafra, 
 the wooden statue of the Sheikh el Beled, the torso of his wife, and the lifelike 
 statues of Rahoteb and Nefert bear witness to an artistic development which 
 no later period rivalled. 
 
ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH DYNASTIES. 
 
 73 
 
 The next goo years of Egyptian history comprise six dynasties. The b.c. 3951-3064. 
 fifth dynasty reigned obscurely, and allowed the aristocracy to encroach little 
 by little on the central power ; the reins of authority were slackened ; and in the 
 sixth dynasty we find two Pharaohs reigning, probably contemporaneously — 
 the one, Teta, at Memphis ; the other, Atis, at Elephantine, near Assouan. 
 Later, Pepi I. seems to have restored Egyptian unity, and to have repelled an 
 invasion of Negroes from the south. To this period belong the interesting tomb 
 of Tih at Sakkarah, the statues of Tih, Nefer Kha-ra, and Ra Nefer, as well as 
 the oldest known mummy, that of Sokar Em Saf. The 
 sculpture, though still fine, shows some falling off from 
 that of the earlier period. Of the other four dynasties 
 of this epoch, the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, we 
 know little or nothing : the two first reigned at Mem- 
 phis ; the two following at Heracleopolis, where gradually 
 the sacerdotal caste seems to have more and more 
 usurped authority. The tribes of Asia had begun to 
 pour in from the east, and perhaps among them was 
 Abraham ; but all is conjecture. 
 
 The Middle Empire commences with the eleventh b.c. 3064-2851. 
 dynasty, which established itself at Thebes, destined to 
 become the capital of a great empire, and seems first to 
 have commenced what may be termed an active foreign 
 policy. Hitherto Egypt had held itself aloof from the 
 outer world, but increasing civilisation created new wants, 
 and commercial relations were first opened with Arabia ; 
 an Egyptian colony was settled on the shores of the Red 
 Sea, which was connected with Coptos, north of Thebes, 
 by a canal to the river. With the twelfth dynasty we 
 find Upper and Lower Egypt united into one kingdom ; 
 and though its first Pharaohs had to repel an invasion 
 of the Negroes, the zoo years covered by this and the preceding dynasty were 
 years of peace, material prosperity, and agricultural activity. In the hiero- 
 glyphs we read how the most important chiefs of the Government occupied 
 themselves in superintending the cultivation of their lands ; we see the opera- 
 tions of shearing, of milking, of butter-making, and vine-culture ; we learn how 
 there were corporations of the different artisans ; we watch the making of rich 
 articles of furniture with gold and ivory from Ethiopia, the rich embroidery of 
 cloth, and the use of cosmetics to colour the eyebrows. Music and dancing 
 
 Statue of Tih 
 
74 THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH DYNASTIES. 
 
 to the flute and harp was common throughout Egypt. Games of chess and 
 draughts for the amusement of the elders; dolls, paper balls, and wooden animals 
 as toys for children. Sportsmen hunted the wild bull, the leopard, and the lion, 
 as well as the fox, the hare, and the antelope, the last with a lasso. Rich 
 houses adorned the banks of the Nile, from the balconies of which the pre- 
 decessors of Izaak Walton indulged in the melancholy vice of angling. And 
 with all these riches and luxury rose into importance the scribes, who later, in 
 union with the sacerdotal class, were destined to become the first and ever-exist- 
 ing spoilers of the Egyptians. Memorials of the twelfth dynasty are found as 
 far south as Semneh, beyond the cataract. To this period we may attribute the 
 restoration of the old temple of Heliopolis, the colonnade of Karnak, the tombs 
 of Beni Hassan, the Fayoum Pyramids, and the great irrigation works of that 
 province. 
 3.0.2851-1703. And now for nearly 1200 years the curtain descends, and the history of 
 Egypt becomes a mysterious and almost impenetrable blank. Of the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth dynasties there are but a few scant traces near Assouan. At this 
 period the whole of Western Asia was in a state of fermentation. Similar to the 
 barbarian invasion which later in Europe overwhelmed the Roman Empire, hordes 
 of Nomads issued from the overcrowded regions of the Euphrates. The fertile 
 valley of the Nile was an irresistible temptation, and they demanded pasturage 
 for their flocks. The haughty Pharaoh of civilised Egypt was not likely to 
 accede to a request which would place his rich lands at the mercy of barbarian 
 shepherds; but years of peace and Capuan luxury had enfeebled the state, and 
 the Egyptians were unable to resist the martial horsemen of the Hittites and 
 others of the Hyksos. Completely routed in the first fight, probably near the 
 present Suez, they were compelled to retreat into Upper Egypt, and here they 
 were possibly allowed to hold at Thebes some sort of dependent sovereignty. 
 The Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, ruled from Zoan, the Greek Tanis, as the 
 fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth dynasties, and built the stronghold of 
 Avaris to repel farther invasions similar to their own. Nor do they seem to 
 have exercised their authority cruelly ; the social and administrative organisa- 
 tion of the Egyptians was not only left untouched, but even adopted by the 
 conquerors. 
 
 This darkest period of Egyptian history must always possess peculiar 
 interest, because generally supposed to be that in which Joseph, and later his 
 brethren, came to Egypt to settle in the land of Goshen. Modern research 
 at Tanis may yet throw light on this period, but at present all is the barest 
 conjecture. 
 
EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY. 
 
 75 
 
 The people of Egypt seem to have supported the conquest with the same 
 indifference as they exhibited later under similar circumstances ; to them one 
 Pharaoh was very much the same as another. The scribes became functionaries 
 of the new lords, and were probably content at a change which gave them in- 
 experienced masters in place of more experienced ones. The sacerdotal element 
 alone maintained a sullen opposition, ready to take advantage of any favourable 
 moment, when they were certain to find the people as ready to rebel against 
 their new rulers as they had been to serve them. A demand made by the 
 Hyksos Pharaoh, Apepi, for the cession of a well held by Sekenen Ra, who ruled 
 
 probably as representative of the old 
 hne at Thebes, formed the pretext, and 
 civil war, or, as it has been called, a 
 
 War of Independence, lasted for eighty years. At a final battle the Egyptians 
 
 were at last triumphant ; their leader, Sekenen Ra, was indeed killed, and his b.c. 1703. 
 
 mummy lies, as we have seen, at Boolak ; but his son, Aahmes or Amosis, drove 
 
 the Hyksos into Syria, and starting the eighteenth dynasty, established his 
 
 authority over the whole of Egypt. 
 
 Under the eighteenth dynasty Thebes became definitely the capital of the 
 
 Egyptian empire, Memphis remaining the commercial capital ; and the history 
 
 of the subsequent period can be better studied in Thebes itself. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Dovecot flies south— ^A luxw?ious offer— Hail to Asyoot — The Pasha and the 
 Nabob — Coinage and character — Secretary and interpreter — Crichton and Sara 
 — Capitulations — Pyramids — Zeitoun — St. George and Horns. 
 
 ''T^HE Turtle and his party, exhausted with the study of 3300 years and 
 -L expeditions to Boolak and Sakkarah, had made a plaintive appeal to the 
 
 Scribbler to be allowed to postpone the rest of his historical course until his 
 
 return from the Nile, and the Scribbler having given a grateful assent, the entire 
 Dovecot started by an early Cook's steamer for Luxor, accom- 
 panied at the last moment by the Patrician and by the American, 
 who had consented to waive his objection to ruins, in the hope 
 that he might be enabled to paste an advertisement of a new 
 tanning process he had patented upon the tower of Syene or the 
 temple of Karnak. The Scribbler and the Sketcher remained 
 behind, the latter not without some sentimental regret, and the 
 former not without hope that he might be permitted in peace to 
 avoid the river altogether. Meanwhile they sauntered through 
 the never-ending bazaars, or mounted on those gondolas of Cairo, 
 the Egyptian donkeys, and, attended by Ali, sablest of gondoliers, 
 explored the recesses of the Mokhattam oases, braved the desert 
 of Sakkarah, or shot the wily snipe in the delta. 
 "Sketcher," said the Scribbler, one evening as he joined his friend on 
 
 the balcony, " we are saved ; the difificulty is solved. Dismiss all those hungry 
 
 An Egyptian Donkey Boy. 
 
A LUXURIOUS OFFER. 77 
 
 dragomans thirsting for your yellow ore ; abandon your hopeless efforts to make 
 three months at ;^6o a month less than _;^ioo; forget your fears of gregarious 
 crowds and of wild women. Your dream is coming true ; we shall see the Nile ; 
 we shall have the speed of a steamer, and none of the discomfort ; the luxury 
 of a dahabeeyah, with none of the delay, and a third of the expense. Con- 
 gratulate yourself on your friend, and your friend upon his omnipotence. Be 
 ready to leave on Monday ; in a month we shall be back again ; and during that 
 month you shall have seen Wady Haifa and the second cataract." 
 
 " In a month ! by post-boat then ? " 
 
 " Post-boat ! Man, I tell you that you shall repose on the downiest of divans, 
 the pampered companion of Pashas and Beys, lord with myself and one or 
 two others of the largest dahabeeyah on the river, and subject to neither wind 
 nor tide, for the fastest steamer on the river shall tow us. Listen ! a certain 
 - Pasha of my acquaintance is bent on a journey of inquiry to Wady Haifa. 
 The Government sends him ; stern duty compels him to go. A Government 
 dahabeeyah and a Government steamer are at his disposal. Pining for company 
 in his exile, he asks me to accompany him. ' I cannot ; I have a friend.' 
 'What sort of a friend?' quoth he. Then, Sketcher, I painted your character 
 with the pencil of love, flattery, and self-interest. To cut a long story short, 
 we are both asked, not exactly as guests, for we cannot any longer, even in" 
 Egypt, travel at the expense of the Fellah, but the dahabeeyah and steamer 
 have to go ; our weight will not necessitate extra fuel, and we pay our mess 
 bill. So, unless you object, we are off on Monday." 
 
 " Object ! " said the Sketcher joyfully. " But the Pasha ! does he — does he 
 travel with a very large harem ? " 
 
 " Don't be afraid," said the other,- laughing ; " wild women are excluded. 
 The party, in addition to ourselves, consists of the Pasha (an Englishman and 
 ex-Life-guardsman) ; his brother (a Nabob, I believe, from India) ; an English 
 secretary, who is an Admirable Crichton, possessed of superhuman knowledge; 
 an interpreter, who is at the same time a Bey ; with about two servants for each 
 member of the party. Have you any other objection? " 
 
 To have reached Wady Haifa, the Sketcher would have sacrificed his 
 dearest friend to Moloch ; and to such a project no objection could be 
 forthcoming. 
 
 Three days later, and the worst carriage on the worst railway line in the world 
 was hurrying the party of four southwards to Asyoot. The first sight of the 
 Pasha had calmed the still lingering fears of the Sketcher, who had been unable 
 
78 THE PASHA AND THE NABOB. 
 
 to shake off the conviction that he would meet an unspeakable Turk. Unmis- 
 takably English was the face, figure, and greeting of Apollo Belvedere Pasha, 
 who at five-and-twenty had held and resigned Her Majesty's commission, had 
 wrestled with the intricacies of Turkish finance, written a Greek grammar, and 
 was now engaged in the labyrinth of Egyptian budgets. The Nabob, his brother, 
 was apparently the senior; he had the wearied nil admirari look peculiar 
 to Anglo-Indians, who seem ever weighted with the responsibility of governing 
 250,000,000 souls, and unable to descend to the consideration of smaller 
 numbers. The Sketcher was apt to form rapid judgments, and to evolve start- 
 ling theories therefrom. Like the traveller who declared all women in Belgium 
 to be ugly and red-haired, adding, " At least the only one I ever saw was," he 
 was apt to argue from the particular to the general. 
 
 " That peculiar expression and frame of mind," he said, "is due solely to the 
 unit of coinage. You will find that every nationality corresponds to its monetary 
 unit. In Egypt it is a piaster ; and you will admit that they are eminently a 
 twopenny-halfpenny lot. In France it is the franc ; and I confess we are 
 trivial. In Germany, it is the mark ; not very much better. In England it is 
 the sovereign ; good, solid, but heavy. In India it is the lakh ; I don't know 
 what a lakh is," he added frankly " but I believe it's a very large coin, in which 
 the salaries of Anglo-Indian ofl5cials are paid, and it accounts for that supercilious 
 air of superiority.'' 
 
 But the Sketcher's judgment of character was not much more accurate than 
 his knowledge of the Indian currency, and when he got to know the Nabob 
 better, and had had the mysteries of the rupee explained to him, he squared his 
 altered opinion with his theory, and found that the Anglo-Indian was, like his 
 coin, inclined to undue self-depreciation. 
 
 In the next carriage was the Admirable Crichton, English, or, more strictly, 
 Welsh secretary, who wrote shorthand, and spoke numerous languages with a 
 Cymric accent ; and Sara Bey, prince of interpreters, the dreaded inspector of 
 finances for Upper Egypt. 
 
 As the train left the station of Boolak Dacrour, the Pasha pointed plaintively 
 to a wooden shanty on the very edge of the station, surmounted ostentatiously 
 by the blue and white flag of Greece. 
 
 " There," he said, '' you have an example of the Capitulations. That man, a 
 Greek, has squatted on that land for some years, built that shanty, and opened a 
 grocer's shop, paying possibly some rent to the Government year by year. The 
 station increases, and we want the land, which is Government land ; but not all 
 the king's horses and men can make him move. For six years have we been 
 
CONSULAR PROTECTION. 79 
 
 trying to evict him, but he defies us. If we build him up, he carries off our 
 palisade. If we try to eject him, he uses a revolver. There he reigns, paying 
 no taxes, subject to no law, no tribunal in the country, safe in the shadow of the 
 Capitulations." 
 
 ^"You don't mean to say," said the Nabob, "that even his own Consul 
 can't turn him out, or that he receives Consular protection ? " 
 
 "Whether he can or not, I don't know," said the Pasha ; " but I do know 
 that he won't, or at all events that he doesn't." 
 
 "But," interrupted the Scribbler, "don't run away with the idea that so 
 many have, and be led away by the words ' Q.omyx\z.x protection; a word which takes 
 
 Bellianah. 
 
 many astray. That Greek is not relying on Consular authority ; he is relying on 
 the absence of Consular authority. Probably his Consul is more in need of pro- 
 tection than he is, for his Consul has no control over him ; and Dimitri will have 
 as little compunction in putting a ball into his Consular Janissary as into the 
 Government policeman. It is the fashion, of course, to blame the Consuls, and 
 particularly the Greek Consul ; but he is powerless. If he gives his subjects too 
 much trouble, they have plenty of means of getting rid of him, even if they 
 hesitate (which they wouldn't do) to use the knife. Dimitri the grocer has prob- 
 
8o PYRAMIDS. 
 
 ably as much influence in Athens as the Consul, and the Government there have 
 not much more influence over their subjects abroad than their subjects have 
 over them." 
 
 "But this is not the case with all?" asked the Sketcher. 
 
 " No, not quite with all ; certainly not with the English, who can be tried by 
 their Consul ; but with others it is the case, though in a less aggravated form. 
 An Italian, perhaps, would not use his knife so readily, and is more under 
 moral control of his Consulate ; but there can be no real control where, except 
 for the pettiest offence, the venue of trial is Ancona, or Moscow, or Aix. And 
 as for the French colony, we may thank our stars that their particular form of 
 hostility to the Government does not take the form of homicide, for there is no 
 Consul-General more completely under the control of his colony." 
 
 The Upper Egypt line follows the left bank of the river through fields and 
 gardens as it leaves Cairo ; to the right lie thick palm-groves, with desert 
 beyond, and here and there are seen the Pyramids of Ghizeh and Sakkarah, the 
 Step Pyramid standing in strong relief against the horizon. On the other side, 
 beyond the river, lies Cairo, the graceful Citadel in the distance, the effective 
 background of the ruddy yellow Mokhattam, and nearer the hideous palaces 
 of Ismail. The cultivation gets more scanty, and seems confined to small 
 fields of tobacco. On the right, as we sight the Pyramids of Lisht, and later 
 the libelled lying Pyramid of Maydoom, oldest and perhaps grandest of all, as 
 it stands like a sentinel in the desert. And as we go farther south, we pass 
 through Zeitoun, land of olives from oldest time ; and near it see' the little 
 Coptic convent of Marazee ; and through Benisouef, still the flax-growing 
 portion of Egypt, and formerly famous for its linen fabrics, where we catch 
 
ST. GEORGE AND HORUS. 8i 
 
 sight of the Pyramid of Illahoun; and Bayad, from whence starts the track 
 leading to the Monasteries of St. Anthony and St. Paul, in the desert. There, 
 to our left, is the site of Heracleopolis, where dwelt the destroyers of the 
 great Labyrinth ; and Bibbeh, centre of the sugar-industry, with a Coptic 
 Convent and an apocryphal Moslem Saint, one Bibbawee, who is no other 
 than our good friend, George, Saint, butcher, bishop, and dragon-slayer, whose 
 picture has been made to do service as the representative of a Moslem, thus to 
 secure the Christian Church from sacrilege. Verily, we admit there is nothing 
 new under the sun, when Mons. Clermont Ganneau identifies St. George of 
 England with Horus. Feshne, Maghaga, and Aboo Girgeh are passed as' we 
 travel through sugar-lands ; and Gebelel Tayr appears in the distance, the 
 mountain that shares with another at Asyoot the legendary tale of the ever- 
 watching bird. Minieh, with its factory, and Manfalot, which the lover of 
 tradition loves to call the " abode of Lot,'' are passed, and then appears in the 
 ■distance the pretty town of Asyoot. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Asyoot— No kourbash, no taxes — Mosquito nets of Herodotus — Fanciful origin of the 
 Lycopolis — Asyoot en fUe — Sub-Mudir — Egyptian in authority — Turk versus 
 Egyptian — Can the Egyptian rule ? — Bazaars — Apathy of sellers — Asyoot trade 
 past and present — Asyoot worthies — American Mission — Reform of Coptic Church 
 from within and from without — Sincerity of converts — Education of pupils and 
 education of people — Both ab initio — Asyoot Cemetery — View from Libyan range 
 — Pasha and Mudir — Information at Asyoot vii Cairo. 
 
 THE train draws up at the station of Asyoot Great is the bustle, for the 
 Pasha is a man of note, and has come to inquire into matters con- 
 nected with taxation. Sleek and fat Copts try in vain to assume an air of 
 dejected misery, but the oil of good living running down their countenances 
 betrays them. Sara himself, a Copt, has evidently a very poor opinion of them, 
 and they as naturally have the very highest opinion of him. "They all rich as 
 pigs," he remarks, with some confusion of metaphor ; and his lips ■Water as he 
 thinks how remuneratively they might be bled if he were only allowed to employ 
 the methods of the "good old days" of Ismail. "No kourbash, no taxes," 
 is evidently still Sara's theory at heart, though he has to profess differently 
 when he comes down to Cairo with well-filled money bags, the proceeds of the 
 
"NO KOURBASH, NO TAXES." 83 
 
 month's taxes. The anxiety of the fellah to pay this charge is then, accord- 
 ing to Sara, something remarkable. "No difficulty whatever," he avers. 
 " Kourbash ! of course not, is it not abolished ? " He is hurt at being asked 
 the question, and appeals plaintively to the Mudir, asking whether he ever heard 
 of the practice. And the Mudir, with a suspicious protuberance in his cheek, 
 but with an air of innocence that would convince the most hardened inspector, 
 asserts that that sort of thing is all over. Still, the experience never seems to 
 shake Sara's theory, and in confidence over his cup of coffee he will reiterate, 
 "You believe me, sir, no kourbash, no taxes." 
 
 But the- Pasha, majestically walking through the crowd, profusely salaamed 
 and profoundly indifferent, has nothing to do with all this; he comes to see 
 results only, and is, moreover, weary with his journey. Addressing the Mudir 
 in fluent Turkish, he announces his august pleasure that he be not bored until 
 to-morrow, and that for the present he will take his ease at his inn. A row of 
 shantys at the end of the station is designated as the hotel, and thither the 
 pilgrims betake themselves. A frugal repast closes the labours of the day, 
 which give place to those of the night. 
 
 For Asyoot is par excellence the town of mosquitoes, and assuredly it was 
 here that Herodotus observed the fishermen originating the mosquito net. 
 "Every man," he says, "has a net, with which in the day he takes fish, and 
 at night uses it in the following manner ; in whatever bed he sleeps, he throws 
 the net around it, and then getting in, sleeps under." And, perhaps, the fishing 
 nets of those days were strong enough and close woven enough to exclude the 
 monsters of the night, but not so the modern muslin nets of to-day. In other 
 places mosquitoes buzz, but here they roar ; and the Nabob descends to breakfast 
 with a theory, that they are really the wolves which gave to the place its Greek 
 name of Lycopolis. The Scribbler has another more obvious and incorrect deri- 
 vation ; and the Sketcher is only able to indicate vaguely that he had seen 
 " birds the size of vultures flying away with bits of him in their mouths.'' 
 
 The breakfast accomplished, it becomes evident that Asyoot is en fete. The 
 depressed railway officials have an anxious time in keeping the platform clear 
 of the crowds who have assembled to see the great men, who are interrupted 
 in their coffee by the arrival of no less a personage than the Sub-Mudir himself. 
 He is dressed as becomes the ambassador of a great man to a great man on a 
 solemn occasion. A Stambouli surtout, which had belonged to a remote and 
 slender ancestor, was vainly struggling to maintain its hold round his well- 
 favoured body; two buttons had abandoned the attempt, and one was still 
 hanging by a thread at the post of duty. The ancestor for whom the garment 
 
84 TURK VERSUS EGYPTIAN. 
 
 had been built, or at all events some of its subsequent possessors, had evidently 
 not been men like Miss Austen's favourite heroes, "careful in their eating;" 
 for the remains of Lucullus-like feasts adorned the front. Per contra the check 
 trousers were clean; they had, in fact, been recently washed, and somewhat 
 hurriedly wrung out. The boots, however, made amends, for they were of 
 shiny patent leather, evidently bought for the occasion; and the tarboosh, 
 though posed over the eyes in an attitude of perpetual obeisance, was otherwise 
 irreproachable. Yacoub Bey was altogether unmistakably pleased with himself, 
 and felt that his toilet had risen to the occasion. As he blighted the hopes of 
 the last button by a rapid salaam before Apollo, the side of his face nearest to 
 that great man assumed an expression of abject humility ; but the side turned 
 towards the populace bore a look of unconcealed pride. 
 
 " His Excellency the Mudir was waiting for his Excellency the Pasha ; would 
 his Excellency deign to follow his servant to his Excellency?" Such was the 
 message delivered. Apollo lazily stretched out his hand for his hat, and with 
 an "Are you coming, you fellows?" passed through the door over the almost 
 prostrate form of the humble ambassador. Yacoub saw him through with 
 deference ; but no sooner was the great man's back towards him, than he felt it 
 necessary to reassert the dignity of his position, which he did by knocking 
 together the heads of the nearest onlookers, invoking, at the same time, a curse 
 on their female ancestors of the past three generations. Then he deftly recovered 
 ground by a shambling trot, and appeared again the fawning slave of the great 
 man from Cairo. 
 
 " That," said the Scribbler, " is the type of an Egyptian in authority. Your 
 Turk may be a brute, but he is not generally a contemptible one. He is 
 probably a thief, but it is on a liberal scale. The Egyptian, as a governed animal, 
 possesses many excellent qualities ; as a governing one, he is as a rule the 
 incarnation of brutality, ignorance, servility, and corruption.'' 
 
 " That proposition," replied the Sketcher, " is peculiarly your own — one of 
 good, general, uncompromising assertion ; but before you thus condemn the 
 whole race, is it not fair to remember that the Egyptian has been for thousands 
 of years a subject race, while the Turk has been for as many hundreds a 
 governing one; and that the vices you mention are only the natural conse- 
 quences of the position they have occupied, not a vice of character." 
 
 " But do you not see, my friend, that you are only proving inductively my 
 deductive assertion ? I am dealing with the Egyptian as he is, not as he ought 
 to be, as he might be, or as he would have been under different conditions. 
 In my opinion, in spite of all differences of race, the prehistoric Turk and the 
 
CAN THE EGYPTIAN RULE? 85 
 
 prehistoric Egyptian would have been very much of a muchness. There is little 
 difference now between the Egyptian fellah and the Turkish raiah; but it's not 
 much good discussing such a question. Assume them originally the same. The 
 Turk has been a governing race ; the art of governing, like all others, has to be 
 learnt ; and with experience he has learnt it. He does govern — well or ill, is 
 not the question — but he governs.'' 
 
 " Doesn't that rather depend upon your definition of government ? " said 
 the Nabob. 
 
 " I think not ; for government in its first and most naked sense is the 
 maintenance of authority, the power to preserve order." 
 
 " L'ordre regne h. Varsovie" murmured the Sketcher. 
 
 " Well, I will accept even that challenge. I do not assert that the keeping 
 of order is the highest duty of government, but that it is the one absolutely 
 necessary one. I do not maintain that any given body of men are justified in 
 taking any measures to restore order. It may even be their duty to refuse to do 
 so, but then they are refusing to govern. The keeping of order is a necessary 
 condition to the existence of a government; the people who cannot do it, 
 cannot govern ; the people who can do it, whatever the means, are able to 
 govern well or ill. The Turk, then, knows how to govern ; the Egyptian does 
 not. He has no experience of it; he has been prevented from gaining that 
 experience. He may have all the embryo virtues you please, but there is no 
 good leaving him to govern, for he cannot." 
 
 "But," said the Nabob, "may not the Turk's power of governing be worse 
 than the Egyptian's ignorance ? " 
 
 "Are you propounding a general problem, to be solved in the course of 
 seons, or are you asking a question in the practical politics of to-day ? Let me 
 for once argue by analogy. You want a man to play a tune on a fiddle. 
 Here is a man who has played it for years, and has always played it badly, 
 without an idea of music in his composition, but able to read it. Here is 
 another, whose soul is full of music, if you will, but who never saw a page of 
 music or a violin — which will you choose ? If you want to train up a musician 
 for the future, by all means take this latter ; but if you want the fiddle played 
 on the spot, you must take the former, and be content with bad playing." 
 
 " I think I'd do without my tune," said the Nabob. 
 
 " Ah ! or play it yourself — just so ; but that's not the point ; for I suppose 
 we admit that we are talking of Egypt in parables. Govern the country your- 
 self, if you will ; but failing that, you must, for the time at least, let some other 
 alien govern it badly for you." 
 
86 BAZAARS. 
 
 "All which," said the Sketcher, "is based on your assertion that the 
 Egyptian can't rule." 
 
 " Which assertion you proved yourself by induction to almost a certainty. 
 But do you want a proof? Let us go into this factory, or that shop, and if the 
 proprietor is a native, ask him who keeps his cash, a Syrian; who writes his 
 books, a Copt; who attends to his machine, an Englishman; who directs all 
 the work, an Armenian. When you can show me half-a-dozen natives managing 
 their simplest affairs without the intervention of the aliens, then I will be 
 prepared to argue with you as to whether they can govern the country." 
 
 " I rather thought that you had been doing that all along," said the Sketcher 
 drily. " However, judging from the sample, I think I'll forfeit the discussion, 
 give up the point, and enjoy this." 
 
 And the Sketcher was not wrong in preferring what he saw to the Scribbler's 
 prose ; for, in the conversation, they had gradually worked their way unwittingly 
 into the centre of the town, and were standing at the entrance of the principal 
 bazaar. The long narrow lane with its roof here arched, and here covered with 
 low hanging beams, lighted up with flashes of sunlight, which seemed to burst 
 through the rafters rather under the direction of some cunning artist, than at 
 that of chance, and to flood with its glory the most picturesque corners ; the 
 stately inhabitants, who barely turned to observe the group, much less to tempt 
 them with their modest wares ; the graceful forms of the black and red pottery ; 
 the colours of the scarfs which hung like banners from |^the walls ; the low 
 murmur of the few bargainers mixed with the jingle of the donkey's bells, all 
 contributed to awe the blase frequenters of the Khan Halili. Do you wish to 
 buy in Cairo? brokers and dragomans pursue you up the Mooskee; flashy rubbish 
 is displayed before you as you pass the shops ; and when at last you find the 
 object of your search, you must consent to long and weary bargaining. But 
 the stately merchants of Asyoot descend to no such solicitation or chaffering. 
 Are you a buyer ? they are there, and will so far unbend as to show you what 
 you ask to see ; but it is a favour they are doing you, or at most a pious duty, 
 which they are too hospitable to neglect. And if you think their price excessive, 
 there is no vulgar astonishment ; no noisy pretence that you have been offered 
 the goods at less than any one else ; no insolent suggestion that you do not 
 appreciate the value of their wares. The piece is rolled up again or put aside, 
 and the stately vendor continues to smoke his pipe in supreme indifference. 
 It may be admitted, perhaps, that there is little to sell, and that keen competition 
 to get rid of cheap articles which may be seen in every shop along the bazaar 
 would be out of place. Pottery, in fact, appears to be the staple trade ; you may 
 
ASYOOT WORTHIES. 87 
 
 have it in red or in black, and in pretty well every variety of shape that the potter 
 can mould the thick Nile mud. Vases which will hold flowers, but not water; ink- 
 pots which will not hold ink ; and scrubbers for the soles of the feet : beyond 
 this all variety ceases. Graceful and useless is the manufacture of Asyoot, but 
 harmless, and different to the hideous trade for which it was not long ago famous ; 
 for here formerly were mutilated the unfortunate slaves destined as guardians for 
 hareems. Of historical interest the old Lycopolis possesses little. Here was 
 the magic fountain " cujus potu signa virginitatis eripiuntur." Plotinus, founder 
 of the Neo Platonic school, who was born early in the third century, is per- 
 haps its most famous son, but he belongs rather to Alexandria and Rome than 
 to the city of the Wolves. Coluthus the poet, a feeble imitator of Homer, 
 flourished here in the fifth century; and here dwelt Holy John 50 years, 
 "without opening his door, without seeing the face of any woman, and without 
 tasting any food that had been prepared by fire, or any human art ; " on two 
 days of the week only did he grant audience to his suppliants, and to one of 
 them, the messenger from the great Theodosius, he promised for his Emperor 
 a bloody and infallible victory over Eugenius. Modern Asyoot, too, has its 
 holy men with ways of devotion different indeed, but perhaps more profitable, 
 than the fifty years' seclusion. 
 
 The Scribbler had been furnished with a letter of introduction to the 
 American Mission, and had received from the chief thereof a cordial greeting. 
 Very pleasant it was to meet the homely Scotch accent and an English home- 
 stead. Twelve hours only had separated them from Cairo, but the travellers 
 already felt that they had left the civilised world and were glad of a sight of it 
 again. And the Chief was a man whom one might be glad to meet even else- 
 where than at Asyoot. A Scotchman, and as he said simply, a collier boy, who 
 had spent only three months in America, but who had been attracted by the 
 practical and unselfish devotion of the American Mission, had given his life to 
 it, and spent some thirty years in Egypt, of which twenty in Asyoot. Full of 
 information he was, and spoke lovingly of his work, with zeal tempered by 
 common sense. The Mission, he explained, started with an endeavour to 
 reform the Coptic Church from within. They were anxious to give it the 
 chance of self-reformation, but the attempt failed, owing to the opposition of 
 the priests who themselves profited from the abuses. Then, recognising their 
 mistake, they began again, and practically started a separate Reformed Church. 
 
 " And with what success ? " asked the Nabob. 
 
 " He that knoweth the minds of men can alone determine the amount of 
 success, and He who searcheth the hearts may be able to make allowances 
 
88 THE COPTIC CHURCH. 
 
 which are difficult to us. We have to do with a people who have a past of 
 their own, traditions of their own, and, to some extent, a morality of their own, 
 which, if falling short 'of the True Ideal, may be as near it as our own 
 nineteenth-century morality. We Anglo-Saxons attach, for instance, a value to 
 Truth, which has grown up in us, and is not as pronounced in other, even 
 European, races. With us it is not only a point of religion, but perhaps more 
 often a point of honour. Do not think that I value it the less on that account ; 
 I only say that even the strictest of us have a double incentive. Is the Copt as 
 truthful ? Certainly not. For generations it has been his interest, and perhaps 
 his only safeguard from tyranny, to deceive. These inherited predilections are 
 not eradicated in a day, nor by the preaching of a doctrine, however pure. We 
 have to hold high our standard, but we cannot refuse all who fail to reach it. 
 On the other hand, persecution, which has made them untruthful, has 
 encouraged in them the virtues of adversity : they are loving, and tolerant, and 
 generous. These, too, are Christian qualities, which we, as a race, perhaps 
 neglect, and which we can cultivate in them. The men who are of our con- 
 gregation may be untruthful, and scheming in their business relations; but 
 they are sincere. We have some 1700 families, say eight to ten thousand souls. 
 By joining us they have gained neither worldly rank, social position, nor riches. 
 On the contrary, they are rather despised, and have to answer money calls 
 which they meet and might avoid. Why then do they join us ? I have no 
 explanation of it unless it is that they see dimly the truth, and strive as through 
 a glass darkly to realise it." 
 
 " Is it not," said the Scribbler, " rather that they recognise a social superiority 
 — a higher moral superiority if you will — in Europeans like yourself and com- 
 panions, that they attribute this to your religious dogmas, and think to attain 
 it by going through the routine of your Church ? " 
 
 " And even if it were so,'' said the other, " would this not be a recognition 
 of some value, that the purer religion gave a higher tone of morality? But it 
 is not a mere going through the routine of our Church ; the interest they display 
 in abstruse questions sometimes surprises me. They will ask questions that 
 show they have thought not superficially ; and when I preach a sermon, I must 
 expect to be catechised upon it." 
 
 " You preach in Arabic of course ? Have you no difficulty in explaining 
 yourself?" 
 
 " No ; I would choose Arabic rather than English to preach in, even if it 
 were not necessary. The language is richer, more full of synonyms and 
 poetic metaphors. But I am detaining you with an essay on myself," he added, 
 
EDUCATION. 89 
 
 with a smile, "and you have come to see Asyoot. Will you let me be 
 your guide ? " 
 
 The four passed through the schools, where clean, bright-faced little children 
 were receiving instruction from kindly-looking Americans, too much interested 
 in their work of love to do more than acknowledge the presence of strangers. 
 " You begin at the very beginning, I see," said the Scribbler, noticing a boy 
 rising four who was absorbed in a game of letters. 
 
 "Yes," replied the Chief; "as your Government should do in Egypt. 
 Eighteen days after the bombardment of Alexandria I was in London, and 
 was asked by Lord Aberdeen to meet Mr. Gladstone. I told him very much 
 what I have told you as to our failure, so long as we attempted to reform by 
 propping up a decayed and corrupt institution ; and I added, that England's 
 work in Egypt would be the same, that you could do nothing until you did 
 as we had to do, begin at the foundations." 
 
 "Do you mean that we should transplant our English institutions into 
 Egypt?" 
 
 "Excuse me, you are changing my metaphor. You do not transplant 
 foundations, you build them. The foundations are much the same whether 
 you build in one style or another. Make your foundations solid, and then 
 build in accordance with the requirements and possibilities of the country if 
 you will, but solidly always, and in accordance with principles invariable in 
 all solid buildings." 
 
 " Scribbler," said the Sketcher, who was following behind with the Nabob, 
 " I detect you talking politics out of keeping with the environments again.'' 
 
 The party were entering the Cemetery, which seemed to occupy more 
 ground than the town itself. Scrupulously clean, with bright white-washed 
 domes, shaded by Acacia Nilotica, it is not ill chosen as the promenade of 
 the town. Here loitered, not sadly yet not boisterously, alike Copt, Jew, and 
 Moslem. There were groups of women seated round a grave, not visibly, at 
 all events, depressed by the "Memento mori." Here, on a fallen column, rested 
 a venerable ulema ; and there was a group of children munching dates by a 
 fountain. 
 
 Passing across the Cemetery, one finds oneself at the very foot of the 
 Libyan chain, which Pliny wrongly called the boundary of the Thebaid. Here, 
 according to Abu Feyda, is the mountain to which the birds perform an annual 
 pilgrimage, one remaining ever as a sentry until relieved by another. The ascent 
 is steep, but worth the exertion, for it is from them alone you get a fair idea of 
 Asyoot, and what may be called the first view of Egypt. The panorama from 
 
90 
 
 CEMETERY OF ASYOOT. 
 
 the citadel in Cairo, unequalled as it is, either in Egypt or elsewhere, is hardly 
 one of the country itself. There the imagination is too strongly impressed 
 by the historical aspects of the scene to grasp the scene itself. Here, as you 
 ascend, the view, enlarging at every step, reveals, like a kaleidoscope, new 
 beauties at every turn. At last, creeping through a narrow tunnelled rock, 
 called the "Needle's Eye," you clamber the last few yards across tombs 
 excavated from the mountain side, the bones of antiquity are beneath your 
 feet, and you stand on a Pisgah height, with the Land of Promise beneath, the 
 plain which Amru described as "at once a green undulating meadow and a 
 garden ornamented with the most varied flowers." There, hurrying from far 
 south to north, you see the great river, in innumerable serpent-like curves. 
 
 Ceinetefy o/Asyoat. 
 
 scattering broad-cast to east and west its golden benefits. Asyoot lies like 
 a star at the foot, studded with domes and minarets, embowered in green 
 gardens ; still nearer is the Cemetery ; and closing round the living and the 
 dead, in one warm embrace, is the brilliant green of the young cornfields. 
 Here and there the mud villages lie " like the marks of a soiled foot on a rich 
 carpet," which the blue flax, the yellow cotton blossom, and the crimson poppy 
 enrich with colours that even Shiraz cannot copy. Rich, too, is the gold of 
 the border ; for the hungry desert stretches beyond, and bluest of Egypt's skies 
 is that which looks down on the Stabl Antar. 
 
 Even the Sketcher was awed. " This," he said, " is beyond your pencil or 
 mine. I understand now why the Sermon was preached on a Mount." 
 
PASHA AND MUDIR. 91 
 
 The Pasha, the Moses of the party, had meanwhile been compelled by the 
 stern call of duty to abstain from the view of the Promised Land, into which, 
 however, he was to be permitted to enter. Escorted by the slimy Yacoub, he 
 had proceeded through the town to the Mudirieh, followed by a motley crowd, 
 who evidently experienced some difficulty in deciding as to the rival merits of 
 the clothing of the pair. There is an air of official dignity attaching to the black 
 Stambouli, which, be it never so ancient, it retains to the last in Arab eyes. 
 Apollo in light tweed, swinging along at a good stride, bore, however, the marks 
 of dignity too. His six feet three impressed the beholders, but then he was 
 certainly less well fed than the Sub-Mudir, and breadth counts for more than 
 height in Oriental eyes. Still, the former was a novelty, and so enjoyed as much 
 respect as was compatible with, the fact that they had not felt his kourbash; and 
 the votes were already turning in his favour, when he was seen to enter the 
 Mudirieh, to filing himself unbidden on the divan, and casually order the Mudir 
 to be seated. This decided the matter ; he was evidently one in authority, an 
 Ingleez of the highest rank, possibly the English Sultan himself, or his son at 
 least — the fame thereof went up the river, and the rest of the party shone in that 
 reflected glory for many days. The Pasha was a conscientious man, and part of 
 the mission for which he had left Cairo was to ascertain on the spot the ruling 
 prices for produce. He asked the Mudir, and that official at once realised the 
 importance of the information required ; to be more exact, he would, he said, get 
 very careful information, and let him know in the morning. Then he sent off a 
 telegram to Cairo. " The English Pasha wants to know the prices of produce 
 in Asyoot ; what shall I tell him ? " The reply came back ; the information in 
 accordance with it was handed to Apollo, who remarked subsequently, that 
 there was "nothing like making sure of your facts at the place itself." 
 
 Let it be said at once, though, that all the information collected was not of this 
 origin. English Pashas are taken in at times, and detestable is the character of 
 him who is never deceived ; but sound common sense is well supported by 
 personal observation, and perhaps Egypt would be more intelligently administered 
 if more of its officials would take the pains to see something of the interior of the 
 country, as well as of the Club Khedivial. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Cleopatra— Capuan luxury — Aboittiz — Cow-el-Kebir — Circumstantial allegory 
 — Disgraceful hoax of a Pope— Saint or serpent — Sara's credulous scepticism — 
 Girgeh—Sara on the Turk — Sohag— Rivers all swindles — The Nile at a gallop 
 — Value of official information — Cost of government in Egypt — Priapus v. Sir 
 Gardner — Abydos — Tomb of Osiris — Roman affection for Memnon misleading — A 
 Sunset — Keneh — A nxiety of Mudir — Sara's greatness — Dancing-girls — Osiris at 
 Abydos — Egyptologists and myths. 
 
 THE next morning's sun had hardly gilded the Libyan hills before the 
 Cleopatra, most aesthetically furnished of dahabeeyahs, had taken on board 
 its living freight. Rightly was she named, for the vainqueur des vainqueurs du 
 monde herself had never travelled in more luxurious comfort. The whole of 
 Apollo's house, itself one of the sights of Cairo, had been ransacked to bedeck 
 the roomy craft. There were carpets from Khiva, silks from Damascus, and 
 embroideries from Broussa; luxurious chairs and pretty little inlaid tables 
 strewed the centre of the deck, surrounded with luxurious eider-down couches, 
 and covered with a gaily coloured awning. The Egyptian flag fluttered in the 
 breeze ; the steam-tug twenty yards ahead gave a shrill whistle, and, amid the 
 prostrate salaams of the Mudir and entire population of Asyoot on the banks, 
 the Cleopatra followed in her wake with the stately motion of a swan. The first 
 day on board a dahabeeyah is generally devoted to making a pint-bottle contain a 
 quart; to unpacking one's travelling treasures; to exploring the nooks and 
 crannies into which they may be hid with some possibility of rediscovery, and to 
 
ON BOARD THE "CLEOPATRA." 93 
 
 stowing away your wardrobe in a cabin seven feet by four, which must also con- 
 tain yourself, and possibly another. But no such necessity existed on board the 
 Cleopatra, and no degrading household cares were allowed to trouble the fortunate 
 travellers. The luggage had been got on board nobody quite knew how, and 
 had been stowed nobody knew where ; but everything that could possibly be 
 wanted was at hand. The East, from India to Albania, had been apparently 
 put under levy to supply obsequious servants, who obeyed a wish before it was 
 expressed, who produced one's heart's desire before the tongue could give it 
 utterance, whether it were a delicately-scented pocket-handkerchief, a volume of 
 Plato, or an appropriate quotation. The cook was a cordon bleu; fresh flowers 
 and ice appeared to be manufactured on board ; and stern janissaries with 
 swords stood at arms, ready to protect the Pasha with their lives, or to hand any 
 of the company a firearm ready loaded, cocked, and pointed in any promising 
 direction. 
 
 The first sight of the Nile from Asyoot is disappointing ; you seem to be 
 leaving a rich plain to enter a narrow gorge. On the east, sloping reaches of 
 mountain come close to the river, leaving at times a bare bridle-path ; while 
 to the west the Libyan range draws nearer and nearer. Village follows village 
 with painful monotony, bearing names which sometimes recall, but more 
 frequently disguise, more famous predecessors. Aboutiz, the old Abutes, 
 marked by a few curious rocks standing straight from the water's edge ; Gow-el- 
 Kebir, the famous Antseopolis, where tradition tells us Antaeus was killed by 
 Hercules, and where was fought the battle between Typhon and Isis after the 
 death of Osiris. Diodorus, however, assures us that it was fought on the 
 Arabian shore, and some other is certain that it was in the Delta. Seeing the 
 doctors differ, perhaps we had better agree with Wilkinson, who says naively, 
 " But as it was an allegory, it couldn't have happened at all." Signs of Ptolemies 
 and the Csesars are here, however ; but the Cleopatra wisely shuns them, and 
 passes to Tahta, on the opposite bank ; perhaps the site of old Hesopis, but 
 better known for the cruel practical joke perpetrated on Pope Pius VIII., who, 
 induced by a forged petition of the Egyptian clergy, and an equally forged letter 
 of Mohamed Ali, named a Catholic Copt Archbishop of Memphis, with the title 
 of Prince of Tahta. Directly opposite to the principality of this spurious 
 Patriarch stands a singular rock, a Gibraltar in miniature ; the sailors as they pass 
 throw in, attached to sticks, a few coins, by way of conciliating either the Sheik, 
 who, however, died a few years ago, or the miraculous serpent who preceded 
 him in the alleged possession of miraculous powers. Whichever it be, there is 
 no doubt that the sailors are anxious to appease him ; and so intense is the 
 
94 • SOHAG. 
 
 anxiety lest the offerings should not reach the shore, that one is tempted to 
 suppose that there must be much tradition proving the fatal effects of neglect- 
 ing to perform the rite. The Arab captain, however, is like Herodotus, and 
 declines to speak of the mystery ; while Sara, who mingles with the scepticism 
 of Abraham's wife much calculating superstition, sums it up thus : " All foolery, 
 of course, but can't do no harm ; and who knows ? perhaps he do good." So 
 he encourages the practice, though with vicarious piasters. But along the whole 
 banks one notes a singular absence of life ; the river is getting low, and a few 
 buffaloes and goats scramble down the banks for water, but little of humanity, 
 until, with much whistling, the steamer draws the Cleopatra to the bank at Sohag. 
 Then indeed there is excitement ; for the Mudir and his deputy come on board, 
 and the whole populace of the capital of Girgeh crowd to catch a sight of the 
 party. Solemnly the Mudir crosses the plank and greets the Pasha. He is a 
 
 Turk, and to his satisfaction, expressed with ^dignity, finds that Apollo can 
 speak to him without the intermediary of a dragoman. Thereat Sara is hurt, 
 and disposed to be contemptuous of information given in a language which 
 he does not understand ; so he stands behind the pair, indulges in numerous 
 deprecating nods and winks to the Scribbler, and keeps up a sotto voce com- 
 ment : " All he say lies ; great scoundrel ; you tell Pasha not believe word." 
 But true Copt, there is reverence on his face as he passes the coffee to the 
 dignitary whom he dare only secretly despise. 
 
 As it is already late, it is decided to halt the night at Sohag; the governor 
 providing innumerable Gaffirs along the banks, who light their fires, and keep up 
 a volleyed cry of " Wahad," while the party dine on deck and discuss the first 
 day on the Nile. 
 
THE NILE AT A GALLOP. 95 
 
 " It's my impression," said the Nabob, "that all rivers are swindles. The 
 Rhine is ; so is the Danube ; and it looks as if Father Nile was very little better. 
 Water and dreary banks of mud as a basis ; add to that sham castles to make 
 the Rhine ; a few trees, and you have the Danube ; or worn-out waterwheels, 
 and you have the Nile." 
 
 " Though I confess it's ungrateful, I'm inclined to agree with you," said the 
 Pasha, " and feel relieved ; for my orders are to be as quickly as possible in 
 Cairo, and I shall hurry you through. I told you at the commencement I 
 couldn't promise you much in the way of sight-seeing, and I'm afraid it will be 
 less than ever now. However, I'll run you up to Wady Haifa, and leave you, 
 if you like, to get down by Cook's." 
 
 The Sketcher alone looked somewhat disappointed ; but he looked round the 
 luxurious Cleopatra, and felt that he could never surrender Capua. 
 
 "You will let us stop at Karnac, at all events?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes ; my idea is to take a day at Karnac, and at each of the Cataracts, 
 perhaps a few hours at Edfou, but otherwise to push on, only stopping for infor- 
 mation at a few of the chief Mudiriehs." 
 
 "Do you suppose you get any information worth having at places like this?" 
 asked the Scribbler sceptically. 
 
 " Well, it's very doubtful. Ask Crichton here ; he will tell you that he has 
 picked up ;an immense mass of information; but I'm not certain that one 
 wouldn't have found it in Murray ; and whether one would or not, Sara Bey is 
 prepared to swear that it's all false ; but it's always worth while seeing men and 
 places that you have anything to do with." 
 
 "It's the only way to learn geography," said the Nabob sententiously. 
 
 " Not only that ; one forms some sort of idea of the men one has to deal 
 with, and it keeps them up to the mark if they feel they are liable to be dropped 
 upon." 
 
 " And is that all the control you have," asked the Nabob, " over your people 
 in the interior ? " 
 
 " No ; we have armies of control of sorts— Sara Bey there, and others ; but 
 then the difficulty is to control the controllers." 
 
 " Will you let me," said the Scribbler, "give you some startling figures as to 
 the cost of government in Egypt ? I suppose you can't tell me the number of 
 Egyptian Government employes of to-day, but in 1882 a Bliie Book gave them as 
 54,041, costing ;^i,953,599 per annum. Well, these figures were misleading, for 
 they included the army and police ; but deducting those, we get about 30,000 
 employes, costing about _;^i, 550,000. Now the population of Egypt is 6,800,000. 
 
96 COST OF GOVERNMENT IN EGYPT. 
 
 Assuming that one-fourth are able-bodied men, nearly two per cent, of the 
 whole able-bodied male population are Government servants. The whole civil 
 service of the United Kingdom, with its population of 35,000,000, requires only 
 29,000 civil servants, at an aggregate salary of _;^4,ooo,ooo." 
 
 " I admit the figures are startling," said the Pasha, " but the comparison is 
 not quite fair. In the 29,000 for the United Kingdom, railway employes are 
 certainly not included ; and I should like to see how the English four millions 
 are made up before I admit of any comparison at all." 
 
 "Well, I confess I can't meet you; and I asked rather for the sake of 
 obtaining than giving information. My authority for the English civil service, 
 29,000 persons, with an aggregate salary of _;^4,ooo,ooo, is Mulhall ; the 
 authority for the 30,000, costing _;^i, 550,000, 1 have given you; and making all 
 allowances for railway employes, &c., the difference seems enormous." 
 
 " The comparison is valueless," repeated the Pasha, " without details." 
 
 " And that, as I have said, I can't give you, and ask only for information. 
 The invaluable Whitaker gives 'Salaries and expenses of civil departments, 
 total ^^2,477,258,' and in that he includes Treasury, ;!^59,5o6. In the Blue 
 Book I have quoted, the salaries alone of the Ministry of Finance are put at over 
 ;^75,ooo, in addition to which there is financial services in the provinces 
 ;^i3i,9go, and your Budget for 1884 shows a total expenditure of ;^87,697 
 and ;£'263,ooo for collection of taxes.'' 
 
 " In India," said the Nabob, " the salaries and expenses of our civil de- 
 partments come to something between eleven and twelve millions — say about 
 eight times as much as yours in Egypt — and we have at least forty times the 
 population." 
 
 "At that rate," said Crichton, who had been making careful calculations 
 with a pencil, "the salary charge in India is is. id. per head; in England, 
 2s. 4d. ; and in Egypt, 4s. 6d. The difference is too great to admit of the com- 
 parison being accurate." 
 
 " Look here ! " said the Pasha, laughing. " If you fellows want statistical in- 
 formation, I wish you'd come to me at the Ministry, and Crichton and the rest 
 of them shall read you to death with Budgets; but I'm not going to stand 
 cross-examination here ; and the first man who mentions figures or is guilty 
 of the smallest interference with the multiplication table shall be pitched over- 
 board." 
 
 " Seconded and carried unanimously," said the Sketcher ; " but unless you 
 can give the Scribbler continual mental pabulum in the way of facts, he will 
 die of ennui." 
 
ABYDOS. 97 
 
 " According to Ampfere, ilfaut s'itre enmiy'e dans un pays pour le Men con- 
 naitrej' said the Paslia ; " if that's true, we shall be doing him a service." 
 
 " And if that's true,'' said the Nabob, yawning, " I know this beastly country 
 very thoroughly already, and may as well go to bed." 
 
 The next morning at sunrise the Cleopatra was already on her way, and 
 passing Akmeen, site of Chemmis or Panopolis, the city of the great god Pan. 
 Hither to this day come worthy wives who love their lords, and offer vows to 
 the great god Priapus ; in spite of which, says the gentle Sir Gardner, "the 
 population of the country is still on the decline.'' Cheramis, according to 
 Strabo, was also famous for woollen manufactures, and for an enlightened 
 toleration of Greeks, which their descendants have probably learnt to regret. 
 A few miles off it is conjectured lay the old city of Thomu, but, pace Murray, 
 neither "mounds nor crude bricks" are now to be found, except in the pages 
 of Wilkinson ; and beyond, again, are Mensheeh (Ptolemais Hermii) and 
 Girgeh, once capital of the province, but now washed away by the ever-changing 
 river, near which are the ruins of Abydos, and north of them a large circling wall 
 of crude brick, the cradle of the Egyptian monarchy — the capital which proved 
 too small for the vaulting ambition of young Menes, founder of "Memphis. At 
 Abydos stood the tomb of Osiris, the Holy Sepulchre of the people of Egypt. 
 Thither sped pious pilgrims from the most distant parts of the land, and there, 
 according to Plutarch, the wealthy were brought to be interred, in order that 
 they might repose close to the tomb of their god. At Abydos, too, are the two 
 temples of Ramses II. The one, indeed, is variously known as the temple 
 of Sethi, the temple of Osiris, or the Memnonium, but was more probably built 
 by Ramses himself in honour of Sethi his father (Osirida of the hieroglyphs). 
 As for the name Memnonium, used by Strabo, it originated from the practice 
 of the Romans, who, innocent of Egyptology, and knowing only the mythical 
 Memnon of Homer, the beautiful son of Tithonus and Eos, king of the blame- 
 less Ethiopians, attached the name of their one Egyptian hero to any temple, 
 tomb, or statue which took their particular fancy. In this temple were found 
 the cartouches of the seventy-six kings, headed by the name of Mena, venerable 
 founder of the Egyptian monarchy. The other temple, of which only the walls 
 remain, was undoubtedly begun and completed by Ramses II. Leaving This 
 of 7000 years ago, and starting again from Bellianeh, we pass the red convent 
 of Amba Mussars, Farshoot, with its sugar-factory of to-day, and How (Diospolis 
 Parva), and the tomb of one Dionysius, son of Ptolemy, and scribe of King 
 Ptolemy, and the Kasr-el-Syad, or Sportsman's Mansion, the ancient Cheno- 
 
98 
 
 SUNSET ON THE NILE. 
 
 boschion. All that remains is an inscription apparently of the time of Antoninus 
 Pius, telling us how some one did something or other " at his own expense." 
 May the reward have lasted as long as the record ! 
 
 The Cleopatra was now going due east. The setting sun was turning into 
 a rosy red the distant mountains and desert on either side, and, following them 
 with its last rays, turned the Nile into a rippling Danae stream of gold. The 
 moon was high overhead, struggling against the greater glory, and waiting till 
 its sinking rival would allow it to show its own pale beauty in the clear blue 
 sky. The narrow strips by the river's bank, green with uncut corn, the grace- 
 ful dom-palm mingling with its more stately sisters, the increasing number 
 of long lateen-sailed boats, the circling flocks of pigeons, and the faint hum 
 
 of distant voices, showed that a large town was near ; and ahead, half hidden 
 by a bend in the river, lay the minarets and white domes of Keneh. 
 
 The hideous whistle of the steamer suddenly broke a charm which had been 
 felt by the whole party ; and the Reis came hurrying forward asking for orders, 
 whether he was to lie under the east bank at Denderah or cross over to Keneh. 
 The Pasha explained that the former meant pleasure and the latter duty ; could 
 he hesitate ? The Sketcher urged that the former meant dancing-girls ; the 
 latter the face of Cleopatra and the temple of Athor. The Scribbler declared 
 that he saw little choice between the two ; but the Nabob, who by force of 
 apathy always got his own way, solved the difficulty. The Cleopatra was to lie 
 at Keneh; the receptions of the Mudir could be undertaken by his brother in 
 solitary state, wliile the rest of the party would patronise the Ghawazee ; the 
 next morning, while the Pasha was pursuing his arduous inquiries, the other 
 
SARA'S GREATNESS. 99 
 
 three could cross to Denderah in the steamer alone. Great, apparently, had 
 been the excitement at Keneh while this decision was being arrived at. The 
 anxious Mudir had noted that the steamer had stopped in mid-river, and began 
 to fear the worst. Had his enemies managed to traduce him at some place 
 en route ? Was there on board another Mudir to replace him ? Had the Pasha 
 come to carry him off? No idea is too ridiculous for an Egyptian mind, and 
 this seemed so probable ; but he was relieved when the steamer began puffing 
 towards Keneh ; effusive joy took the place of fear, and, without waiting for 
 the plank, he climbed on board in a most un-Mudirian manner, and clasped 
 with affection the knees of Sara Bey. Nor was Sara himself unmoved ; 
 perhaps he liked the tribute to his power ; perhaps he is at Keneh even a 
 greater man than in other parts of the river. Certain it is that he displayed 
 a distinctly increased sense of dignity from this point ; his demeanour was that 
 of a monarch returning to his faithful subjects ; he knew them all, he said ; 
 "d — d rascals," he muttered sotto voce, and they cringed before him. There 
 was a dare-dog air about his tarbouche, and an unusual swing in his gait as 
 he walked the deck ; and he was almost condescending to the Pasha himself 
 as he introduced the Mudir, as if abrogating his own dignity, but only for 
 a time. It seemed as if he felt a little like the old Eton Doctor, with his 
 " Pardon me, your Majesty, but I must take the precedence here;'' and the Pasha, 
 like Georgius Rex, entered into the joke, and maintained the spirit of discipline. 
 The usual questions had to be put and asked; the Mudir expressed 
 the most intense personal interest in every person of any influence in Cairo, 
 and placed himself and his administration metaphorically at the Pasha's feet. 
 Meanwhile it was late for business, and he had arranged an entertainment for 
 the party, similar to that, he explained, which was prepared for the Prince of 
 Wales and other royal personages. Sara gave a contemptuous sneer, but such 
 an invitation could not be refused. Sara and the great ones led the way, and the 
 rest followed humbly, surrounded by an admiring crowd. The way led through 
 the unlovely streets of the town, the site of Coenopolis, the new city, past shop 
 rows of earthen ghoolas, the chief staple manufacture of Keneh, to a large 
 booth. Two sides, facing each other, were already filled with potent, grave, 
 and reverend seigniors, who rose at the approach of the party, and whose age 
 must have averaged sixty. Along the third side sat some half-dozen women 
 of surpassing ugliness ; one might have been only twenty, the remainder were 
 certainly of an age at which English spinsters remain for a decade ; in front 
 of them a row of tambourine and rebek players. The fourth side, facing them, 
 was reserved for the Mudir and his guests. As they seated themselves, the 
 
loo DANCING GIRLS. 
 
 whole audience again rose, looked preternaturally solemn, and then re-seated 
 themselves. 
 
 A horrid thumping of the instruments, a low wail gradually rising into 
 a shrill shriek, and a single Ghawazee came forward ; the least offensive 
 of the six, perhaps, and yet very hideous. It requires a Frenchman of strong 
 imaginative powers to see " le portrait vivant de ces figures d'lsis ou de Clhpatre " 
 in the unwashed, coarse, sensual face that, covered with paint, and half hidden 
 by unkempt hair, loaded with tinsel, leers at you with a wolfish grin. Very 
 slowly, and with sliding, panther-like steps, she made the round of the floor, 
 changing into a heavy circular movement as she gradually approached nearer 
 the centre, where she assumed a position from which every element of grace 
 was excluded. Then, accompanied by tomtoms, rebeks, and a guttural falsetto 
 shriek, she began that series of physical contortions in which some have seen 
 grace and others sensuality. One by one the others rose and joined her, the 
 music played more fiercely, the venerable elders joined with their appreciative 
 long-drawn " Aa/t," and in the centre were six repulsive women, who appeared 
 without effort to distort their limbs, and to destroy every vestige of the human 
 form divine. 
 
 " Licentious they may mean it to be,'' said the Pasha, as they escaped again 
 on deck, " but to most men it would be a striking incentive to virtue. The 
 drunken Helot could not have answered his purpose as well as these modern 
 Paphians." 
 
 " The view down that reach of the river repaid everything though," said the 
 Sketcher. " Come, admit that even you retract your expressions of contempt for 
 the Nile." 
 
 "Well, I'm willing to admit extenuating circumstances at least ; but one-half 
 hour's sunset is not compensation enough for a two hours' discussion on Egyptian 
 finance and two hours of dancing-girls, and I reserve final judgment until 
 Karnac and Thebes." 
 
 " Meanwhile," said the Scribbler, " will any one tell me the authority for 
 placing either the tomb or temple of Osiris at Abydos ? " 
 
 " Abydus Memnonis regia et Osiridis templum indytum,'' said Crichton 
 promptly. 
 
 " Precisely ; but that's Pliny, and you've already pulverised him, Strabo, and 
 the Romans generally by your contempt for the expression Memnonium ; and 
 in any case, that only refers to the temple. What about the tomb ? Plutarch 
 names Abydos, Memphis, Busiris, Philoe, and Taposiris as all laying claim to his 
 burying-place, but gives the preference to the first two. In both of which, how- 
 
"fe. 
 
OSIRIS AT ABYDOS. loi 
 
 ever, he couldn't have been buried ; besides, we've decided that he's an allegory, 
 and you can't bury an allegory even on the banks of the Nile, though you might 
 build a temple to one." 
 
 " But the idea that it's a temple to Osiris is given up," said the Sketcher ; 
 " that was Pliny's first misnomer, but it's admitted now to be the temple of 
 Sethi." 
 
 " Precisely ; but now you come to the bottom of the fiction. First comes 
 Pliny, who imagines a temple to Osiris ; next follows Plutarch, who finding a lot 
 of graves, thinks it only natural that the temple should have been built near the 
 tomb, and so imagines the tomb of Osiris ; then come later Egyptologists, proving 
 that it's a temple to Sethi ; and yet they can't relinquish the tomb-theory, and so 
 we are told that this was the Holy Sepulchre of the Egyptians — a myth created on 
 an exploded myth.'' 
 
 " But surely you might leave us a few myths, at least in Egypt," said the 
 Sketcher. " If we sacrifice William Tell and Joan of Arc, is not that a sufficient 
 burnt-oflfering to the Moloch of modern research ?— leave us Isis and Osiris and 
 the gods of Olympus." 
 
 "There is no fear of our losing myths," said the Scribbler; "the tendency 
 is to create quite as much as to abolish them. All I say is, let us keep them in 
 their place. Leave the myth of Osiris, pretty as it is, but don't mix it up with 
 historical fact. I don't mean to say that Egyptologists maintain Osiris to have 
 been buried at Abydos, but they can't resist the temptation of making out that 
 it was regarded as his tomb, and so create the new myth of the ' Holy Sepulchre 
 of the Egyptians,' for which there is not as yet a shadow of foundation." 
 
 " Does it much matter after all ? " said the Pasha languidly. 
 
102 EGYPTOLOGISTS AND MYTHS. 
 
 " Perhaps not in this case ; but look at the confusion that was made by the 
 unfortunate romancing of the earliest French Egyptologists over the zodiac 
 found at Denderah. Desaix discovers it; he at least — good soldier, but no 
 scientist — was not to blame. Bought for a fabulous price by Louis XVIIL, the 
 Voltaireans saw in its alleged antiquity a triumph over the authority of Scrip- 
 ture. If the zodiac dated some 15,000 years back, then the monuments of 
 Denderah must also be ancient. Thereupon Jollois and Devilliers find ' qiHils 
 sont les plus parfaits sous le rapport de rexkution et quHls ont et'e construits d, 
 V'epoquela plus florissante de I'Egypte;' while the orthodox opposition, who are 
 anxious to prove it modern, declare that they are detestable." 
 
 " And who was right ? " 
 
 " As to the date, the latter, for it proved to be of the time of the Csesars ; 
 as to the value of the monuments, you can judge for yourself to-morrow." 
 
 " And to-morrow evening Karnac by moonlight ! " sighed the Sketcher, as 
 they turned in. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Denderah — Temples not places of worship, but ceremonial — A religious cerem.ony — 
 Royal road to study of Arabic — A river pedlar — Capitulations again — Pro and 
 con — Egyptian of twelfth century — Saladin — Origin of Capitulations — Coptos — 
 Koos — Unexpected visit — Dignity going begging — An unwilling Sheik el Beled — 
 Results of cultivation in Egypt — Alleged over-taxation of Fellaheen — Secret of 
 poverty of Egyptian landowners — An instance — Ignorance as to own financial 
 position — Karnac in sight. 
 
 DENDERAH is Tentyra Tei an Athor, the abode of Athor or Aphrodite, 
 according to etymology ; but according to Pliny and Strabo, the abode 
 of a people whose crocodilephobia gave pain to the pious crocodilephilians of 
 Ombos. The feuds between these cities partook, according to Juvenal, of all 
 the cruelties of most religious wars, terminating with a cannibal feast to the 
 advantage of the conquerors. 
 
 The temple was begun by Ptolemy Auletes. Our Lord was probably living 
 when this temple was completed, so that it has been finished barely 1900 
 years, and in Egypt hardly merits rank as an antiquity. Nor can it pretend to 
 compare architecturally with the buildings which it imitates ; its value rather 
 lies in the fact that it is an imitation, however defective, yet in a comparatively 
 perfect state of preservation, of a style which we can otherwise only study in a 
 state of complete ruin. Its columns are barbaric, but the portico, taken as a 
 whole, is grand, and enables us to realise what we have lost. It is what a 
 
 Q 
 
104 REIJGIOUS RITES, 
 
 photograph is to a painting; what a painting is to its original. As we pass 
 froni court to court, we gather a general idea of the Egyptian temple and the 
 uses to which it was put. Its purpose must not be confounded with that of our 
 modern churches ; it was not a place where the faithful or devout met to unite 
 in prayer; neither did it resemble our old colleges, nor the later Roman 
 temples. We find neither dwellings for priests, nor halls for initiation, for 
 divination, or for oracular utterance. So far as we can judge, the worship of the 
 gods in Egypt in their temples was reserved to the cultivated few, and none 
 but the king and the priests were permitted to enter. The temple was the 
 dwelling-place of the god, the sacred resting-place of his images, a place for the 
 consecration of king and of priests to his service. 
 
 From the hieroglyphs which cover the walls we learn much of the religious 
 rites of later days, imitated doubtless, like the temples themselves, from those of 
 an earlier age. There is the large portal, through which, clothed in his long 
 robe, with sandalled feet and leaning on his staff, the king alone could pass ; 
 but before even he could do so, and so penetrate into the temple itself, it was 
 necessary that the gods should recognise him as king of Upper and Lower 
 Egypt. Thoth and Horus must anoint him with the emblems of power; 
 Ouate and Suan must crown him with the double crown ; Mout of Thebes and 
 Toum of Heliopolis must conduct him into the sacred presence of the goddess 
 Hathor herself. Here within, sombre and silent, are the priests assembled, 
 passing in solemn procession, ascending the terraces and descending them 
 again, in order to encompass the encircling wall, according to prescribed rites, 
 with the four boats holding, carefully concealed, the sacred emblem. Here is 
 the court containing the offerings and the limbs of the victims of the sacrifice. 
 The king consecrates the offerings, and, followed by thirteen priests, carrying 
 on high poles the emblems of the divinities, ascends the northern staircase, 
 stops on the terrace of the twelve columns, and descends by the southern stair- 
 case. Below the temple, again, are the secret hiding-place of the treasures of 
 the gods, statues in gold, silver, and lapis lazuli^ only brought out on the rare 
 occasions of the most solemn ceremonies. 
 
 The principal divinity of the temple is Hathor — Aphrodite or Venus; 
 goddess of beauty ; pupil of the sun's eye ; goddess of the lovely face ; the 
 beautiful goddess ; the goddess of love. Such are her titles, but she is more 
 than all these. She is the divine mother, giving life, fecundity, and abundance to 
 mortals, animal and vegetable. She is the emblem of youthfulness, of expan- 
 sion, of resurrection, of truth. She is the type of that universal harmony 
 necessary to the well-being and life of the world. 
 
A LESSON IN ARABIC. 105 
 
 And in the temple of Hathor is the picture of one who, if not a follower of 
 the goddess in the highest attributes of her character, must ever be thought of 
 in connection with the queen of beauty. Thence, from the walls, smile on us 
 Cleopatra, vainqueur des vainqueurs du monde, mistress of all contemporary 
 masters of the world. " In a word, all Cleopatra, fierce, voluptuous, passionate, 
 tender, wicked." ^ 
 
 When the Nabob, the Sketcher, and the Scribbler got on board, they found 
 the Pasha, who had tired of Denderah, extended at full length on the deck, 
 swathed in a dressing-gown of dehcate hues suitable to his complexion, ap- 
 parently idle ; but by his side were Crichton and Sara, the former engaged in 
 receiving, and the latter in giving, an Arabic lesson, which the Pasha was atten- 
 tively following. We have said that he was a linguist, and he claimed the 
 merit of having discovered a royal and pasha-like road to knowledge. " It has 
 
 always," he said, " been my conviction that the only way to study any subject 
 is to teach it ; this is theoretically equally true in languages, but practically I 
 am met with the initial difficulty that you cannot dispense with a preliminary 
 knowledge of a few words ; and, moreover, I find that when I try to teach 
 Crichton, he gets so far ahead of my feeble intelligence, that it resolves itself 
 into the ordinary form of a lesson to me, which I deem fatal. But 1 have 
 solved the difficulty ; I make Sara teach Crichton ; I try and imagine I am 
 teaching him myself, and at all events, by listening to both teacher and teachee, 
 I get the advantage of both.'' So saying, he majestically dismissed both his 
 secretaries, and signified his intention of proceeding. 
 
 ' Hawthorn. 
 
io6 RIVER PEDLAR. 
 
 As the Cleopatra was setting off, she was hailed by a small boat, on which 
 could be seen a European standing obsequiously hat in hand. From the 
 evident determination of the stranger to board, the Pasha conjectured that it 
 was a messenger with'a recently arrived telegram, and gave orders to the steamer 
 to slow down, in order that he might be at once brought forward. An anxious 
 twenty minutes having been thus wasted, the gentleman in question at last 
 appeared, and breathlessly commenced a rapid sentence, which apparently com- 
 prised his known stock of English. " Very good beer — pale ale — stout — powder 
 — cartridges — shot duck — ginger ale — tea — sugar — what you want — buy — sell — 
 'bedient servant, sar." The Pasha with difficulty restrained his indignation, and 
 ordered the importunate bum-boatman to be flung into the river — an order to 
 which he had apparently become indifferent owing to frequent repetition without 
 serious result. As he went over the side, we heard a melancholy whisper, 
 gradually getting fainter, "Pale ale — stout — powder — shot duck," &c., &c. 
 
 "Another consequence of those infernal Capitulations," said the Pasha. 
 " That fellow now is dealing in Heaven knows what rubbish, paying no taxes, 
 subject to no law — and probably making a fortune.'' 
 
 " Why on earth should he pay taxes ? " said the Scribbler in a spirit of 
 contradiction. " What is he to pay them for ? " 
 
 " Pay them for ! " said the Pasha, still irate, " pay them for ! Why, to main- 
 tain the Government, of course. What are all taxes for ? You don't wish to 
 defend exemption from taxation, do you?" 
 
 " Not entirely ; but still there are always two sides to a question. Let me 
 take the other for a moment ; not in reference to this individual Greek, but 
 foreigners generally in Egypt. First of all, are not the Europeans taxed already 
 in import duties ?" 
 
 " Of course they are, but so are natives ; only the latter have to pay other 
 taxation in addition, from all which Europeans are exempt." 
 
 " Not from all, because at least they pay land-tax ; and as regards import 
 duties, the Europeans probably pay seven-eighths of the total, as the main con- 
 sumers of those imports." 
 
 "I don't quite see that argument," said the other. " If they choose to im- 
 port, they must pay. The native doesn't choose it ; he doesn't pay ; but you can't 
 argue that that entitles the man who chooses to use imported goods to escape 
 other taxation.'' 
 
 " Certainly not, as a principle ; but when you say that natives are taxed 
 when Europeans are not, you must also remember that, if there were no 
 Europeans, there would hardly be any imports ; that if so, there would be less 
 
PRO AND CON. 
 
 107 
 
 revenue from the customs ; that you would then have to cover that deficit by 
 farther taxation, which would necessarily fall on natives (as the Europeans are 
 assumed not to be here), so that the presence of Europeans, whom you call 
 untaxed, nevertheless lessens the taxation on natives." 
 
 " Isn't that somewhat far-fetched ? " 
 
 "Well, perhaps so; but now look at it in another way. What does an 
 ordinary citizen pay taxes for ? I suppose in exchange for protection against 
 attacks on person and property ; for maintenance of courts of justice for the 
 prevention of such attacks ; for the maintenance of roads ; for certain advantages 
 of public education ; sometimes for the maintenance of a State Church. Now 
 do you ask a resident Englishman to pay taxes on these grounds? If so, I 
 say the Egyptian Government grants them no protection against attacks on 
 
 person or property : the poUce were the leaders of the massacre of June 1882 ; 
 the soldiers were the incendiaries of July 1882. They owe little to your 
 tribunals, and until lately nothing ; for they could only prosecute and be pro- 
 secuted in Consular courts, costing nothing to the Egyptian Government. 
 Maintenance of the roads ! Why, any that are made they have made them- 
 selves, and the Government refuses to keep them in repair. Public education ! 
 There is none in the country worth a shilling ; certainly none of which any 
 European could take advantage. State Church ! They have each to maintain 
 their own. Or does taxation go with representation ? They have none." 
 
 " All that," said the Pasha, " is special pleading. You confuse what I will call 
 imperial taxation and municipal rates. Europeans even indirectly pay little 
 enough for the latter, nothing at all for the former ; and whatever might have 
 
io8 
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 been argued a few years ago, the payment of the indemnity claims to Europeans 
 and natives alike shows that the Government admits its duties to one as to the 
 other. But you can't mean to argue seriously that foreigners living in another 
 state should not be subject to that state's fiscal laws." 
 
 " Of course not. I only wanted to point out that there is something at least 
 to be said on the other side, and to point this moral, which the Egyptian Govern- 
 ment seems disposed to ignore. By the taxation of Europeans you have under- 
 taken certain duties towards them which they have a right to expect you to fulfil 
 — duties to which hitherto they had not the smallest claim, and which they 
 therefore performed among themselves. For instance, in no other country in 
 the world, so far as I know, is levied an octroi duty against a particular town, 
 the proceeds of which go to the national revenue. An octroi rate is a municipal 
 one, and if you levy it in Alexandria, Cairo, or any other town, the revenues of 
 
 ' 
 
 Old Sakich at Ed/on. 
 
 that octroi should go to that town : or if 
 WilW '" ^ ^'°^ '^^^'^ ^^^ '*■' y*^ ^""^ bound to give that 
 '^ 'tiffflliiliw '^f ^°^" sufficient for its ordinary municipal purposes.'' 
 4iw """ "I <io"'' admit," said the Pasha, "that a Euro- 
 
 pean, even when taxed, has any more right to interfere in 
 the disposal of the finances of the country than the equally taxed Fellah." 
 
 " Well, I daresay you're right in principle, but don't be led away by false 
 analogies. The European in Egypt is not, and never will be (until Egypt 
 becomes European), in the same position as a foreigner, say in France or England. 
 Numerically small, he is the life and backbone of the country. He is not help- 
 less ; he gains less from Egypt than Egypt does from him ; and he won't stand 
 all that the Fellah stands. You had better learn to look upon him as a factor, 
 and the principal factor, for good or evil in your population. You may theorise 
 as much as you like, but you will have to rule Egypt by European ideas, not by 
 Egyptian ones.'' 
 
 " I quite admit that," said the Pasha, " only I want the European i^eas of 
 the nineteenth century, not of the twelfth." 
 
SALADIN. 109 
 
 " Take the Egyptian ideas of the twelfth century," said the Scribbler, " and 
 you will have a sufficiently good model. Have you ever read the first extant 
 Capitulation of Saladin to the Pisan Republic in 1173? Listen to this, and 
 give it as instructions to Sara there, and his colleagues. ' And in return for all 
 these things (taxes), they (the tax-payers) must be treated with love, and they 
 must be made to pay the tax in a kind way and amicably ; and they must pay 
 nothing to any servant of the Government, be he great or small ; nor shall any 
 wrong be done them, nor shall their goods be undervalued in such a way that 
 they shall be sold below the price.'" 
 
 " When that ordered ? " asked Sara, who had drawn near to listen, with 
 suppressed feelings of contempt. 
 
 "1173," said the Scribbler, "by Saladin." 
 
 "Ah! Salah-ed-din ! I thought you said 1873. Ismail not write rubbish 
 like that ; " and he smole a relieved smile. 
 
 The Pasha laughed. " Poor Saladin ! despised by Sara ! Let's hear some 
 more." 
 
 " Here is a clause that shows a sentiment next to godliness in the European 
 of that day — ' So also they prayed us for a bath, and we granted it to them ; and 
 the custom-house was to pay all for them.' " 
 
 " False political economy," said the Nabob ; " but it has its advantages. 
 Go on ! " 
 
 " 'As to the church that belonged to them, and that we gave them, they shall 
 have it, as they had it before ; and when they shall go to the church, they shall 
 suffer no molestation whatever, neither on the way nor within the church ; and 
 inside of the church no noise may be made that hinders them from hearing the 
 Word of God, according to the precept of their law. But they may observe their 
 law, even as the precepts of God and their laws ordain.' " 
 
 " Bravo ! Anti-Crusader," exclaimed the Sketcher. " What are you reading 
 from ? " said the Pasha. 
 
 "Van Dyck's translation of Gatteschi; but the real point of it all is this. 
 The proviso that the Pisans should pay nothing but the right duty — no baksheesh, 
 that is — has been in successive Capitulations extended to mean that Europeans 
 shall pay no other tax than duty ; and another clause, ordering that the Bajuli 
 are not ' to occupy themselves with any litigation or matter between the merchants 
 without their consent,' designed to protect them from what I suppose we should 
 call to-day ' vexatious litigation,' has been similarly stretched until it has come to 
 abstracting all Europeans from the jurisdiction of the country. Such was the 
 return made for the generosity of Saladin to the suppliants at his stirrup." 
 
110 KOOS. 
 
 " I'm glad to see that, in spite of your lecture just now, you're sound after all," 
 said the Pasha. " Meanwhile I expect this is Koos, and I want to stop here to 
 examine one of the few manufactures of the country." 
 
 For the Cleopatra had passed Coptos — where Isis was supposed to have 
 heard of the death of Osiris; where Diocletian had wrought his fury against 
 the rebeUing. Christians ; the town which, some have it, has given its name to 
 the whole land of Egypt — and was now, in obedience to the sudden orders 
 of the Pasha, drawing to land at Koos, the site of Apollonopolis Parva, 
 declared by Abulfeeda to have been in his time second in importance only to 
 Fostat. An old monolith, now converted into a tank, and a few granite 
 columns, are, however, the only remains of antiquity. Nor are they the object 
 of the Pasha's visit. But the modern Koos is remarkable for one of the few 
 
 manufactures left in Egypt, long scarfs of many-coloured cottons, woven 
 together not without taste. And the Pasha, who had begun to realise that 
 his trip was partaking too much of the character of a royal progress, deter- 
 mined to stop at least in one place where he was not expected, and where the 
 answers should not be dictated from Cairo. Perhaps, after all, the experiment 
 was not a success ; the worthy Nazir, who represented the Government, was so 
 appalled or terrified at the honour of the visit, that such wits as prolonged 
 residence at Koos had left him were not at his command. Were the people 
 prosperous? Yes; and profoundly honoured at his excellency's visit. Were 
 the crops good? They would doubtless improve after his excellency's visit. 
 Were the people in debt ? No ; only to his excellency for his condescension in 
 visiting them. Were the taxes high ? No charge was too great in exchange for 
 
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. m 
 
 the pleasure of seeing his excellency ; and so forth, as he stood with bent head, 
 downcast eyes, and clasped hands. As there was little to be made of him, the 
 Pasha ordered in majestic tones, " Bring the Sheik el Beled ! " " Bring the 
 Sheik el Beled ! " echoed Sara. The Nazir looked round, and the small 
 crowd on the bank at once slouched off. Then there were whispered conferences 
 between the Nazir and his myrmidons, and an evident desire on the part of the 
 villagers to avoid having greatness thrust upon them. Who could tell what 
 the Sheik el Beled might be wanted for. It was not for nothing that Pashas 
 and Beys from Cairo came to the village of Koos. Perhaps they were come 
 for soldiers, and would seize the Sheik as a hostage. There was evident safety 
 in flight. Still the Sheik el Beled had been asked for by the not-to-be-despised 
 Sara, and he or a substitute must be found. 
 
 One venerable old man seemed preternaturally deaf to all shouts, threw his 
 leg over a donkey, and ambled away ; another loudly expostulated ; and a 
 third descended to abject entreaties. At last, one more servile or more 
 courageous than the rest was found, and he shambled on board with an air of 
 pious resignation to the will of fate ; while the crowd, feeling the god appeased, 
 gradually drew nearer to watch with selfish indifference the horrible fate of 
 their sacrificial lamb. 
 
 A respectable-looking old Fellah he was, enveloped in a long white Bedouin 
 blanket, perhaps the toga of his assumed office, leaning on a stick, and peering 
 with anxious eyes at his supposed tormentors. Examination of them seemed, 
 however, to reassure him. The Pasha smiled benignly ; the Scribbler offered him 
 a cigarette ; even the great Sara placed his awful hand of authority gently on 
 his shoulder as he said, " M'at avsh ! " (Be not afraid). So he took the 
 cigarette, and squatting himself on the deck with the ejaculation, "Allah 
 Akbar ! " (God is great), awaited his doom. At first the answers were some- 
 thing like those of the Nazir; but gradually, under the soothing influence of 
 coffee and tobacco, he came out of his shell. " Times were bad," he said ; 
 "very bad; always had been bad, and generally worse'; still he lived, thanks 
 to God and in spite of the Government ! " — terms which, in his mind, appeared 
 naturally to represent the spirits of good and evil. " His father was here before 
 him, and his father too, and, so far as he knew, his father's fathers ever since 
 the world began. He had forty acres, which he supposed had belonged to his 
 family for the same time ; he, at all events, had inherited them, had not bought 
 any." "Why?" "Well, because he had no money, and wouldn't have done 
 so if he had had. The money went from the land to the tax-collector, of 
 course ; where else should it go ? " " What is 'his land worth ? " " Well 
 
112 CULTIVATION OF LAND. 
 
 perhaps ;£6 a feddan, or ;£'2So altogether." "What does it give?" "Well, 
 nothing ! " 
 
 But here the accurate Crichton stops him, and in fluent Cymric Arabic 
 extracts details. 
 
 "What is his family?" "Well, twenty-seven, if you count women." "And 
 they all live on the land ? " " Of course they do ; " and the old patriarch ex- 
 patiates at length on the uselessness of women, from whom evidently he suffers 
 much ; " useless to keep, and expensive to get rid of," is his unchivalrous verdict 
 on the sex. " And what do they eat in a year ? " " Much," says the unwary 
 Sheik ; " great as God's goodness is a woman's appetite ! " 
 
 With much patient inquiry, Crichton extracts the following as the net 
 result of the farming of this forty acres. First, the farmer has no money and no 
 debts ; second, he has kept his family of twenty-seven from the produce ; third, 
 he spends about a further ;^36 per annum in clothes and tobacco ; fourth, he 
 pays the Government ^52 in taxes ; and all this paid, he had last year a balance 
 of about ^'j, or say three per cent, on the value of his land. This year, however, 
 prices are low; times are bad; and he will not do more than cover expenses. 
 Still, evidently, here is no over-taxed trodden-down Fellah. The old gentleman 
 has got quite genial while talking over his household circumstances, and has 
 abandoned the despondent tone which marked the beginning of his conversation. 
 " If he could only get rid of the daughters," he says, " all would go well ; " and 
 he looks wistfully round as if inviting offers. As he leaves, he holds the Pasha's 
 hand, and, with a benevolent and fraternal smile, assures him he is a very intelli- 
 gent man. Then he returns, the hero of the village, to recount his marvellous 
 experience ; and the Cleopatra glides still southward. 
 
 "It strikes me," says the Nabob, "that if that is a fair specimen, your 
 Fellaheen are not only more intelligent, but generally much better off than 
 our ryots." 
 
 "Better off, for that matter," said the Scribbler, "than most landowners 
 anywhere else.'' 
 
 " Yes," said the Pasha ; " there's been plenty of rubbish written about the 
 over-taxation of the Fellaheen. Of course it would be absurd to judge from 
 a single instance like that ; but still here we are in one of the poorest parts of 
 the country — in Upper Egypt, where they can only get one scant crop — in a 
 bad year, with prices exceptionally low, and you have the worst of it ; a man, 
 owning only forty acres of very poor land (he only values it at j[^(i), and evidently 
 disposed to make the worst of it, is still, when brought to the point, compelled 
 to own that he makes a living for twenty-seven persons out of it ; and that after 
 
TAXATION OF FELLAHEEN. 113 
 
 paying taxes at a rate about equal to the average tax of the whole of Egypt. 
 Yet Pashas with lands in the Delta, growing two or three crops in a year, try 
 to make us believe that they are unable to make it pay." 
 
 "That," said the Scribbler, "in nine cases out of ten is pure rubbish. 
 There are undoubted cases where the land is over-taxed ; there are at least as 
 many where it is under-taxed ; but the vast majority of land, properly cultivated, 
 will pay the existing taxation and leave a small return on capital." 
 
 "Then you mean," said the Nabob, "that there is a conspiracy among 
 the landowners to misrepresent their earnings, in order to get a reduction of 
 taxation ? " 
 
 " No, not quite that. In many cases the landowner is unable to pay his 
 way, but it is nearly always his own fault. The fact must be admitted that the 
 Egyptians, whom Mr. Blunt and others think capable of governing their own 
 country, are not only unable to run a factory or a shop, but are only very im- 
 perfectly capable of cultivating their own land — I should rather say of managing 
 it. Here is the evil. An Egyptian, in some way or other, becomes possessed 
 of say _;^iooo, and at the same time of a desire to become a landowner. Not 
 only does he wish to be a landowner, but he wants to get hold of as many acres 
 as he can. Instead, therefore, of paying say ;£'joo for land, and keeping the 
 £s°° 3-S a reserve capital for working it, he buys ;^isoo worth of land, and 
 borrows ;^5oo to pay for it, possibly at 10 or 12 per cent, interest. What 
 is the consequence ? He has no capital to spend on his land, which deteriorates 
 year by year; and he has to find not only the land-tax, but ^^50 or ;!£^6o a year 
 for interest. Naturally he has to borrow more money for daily expenses ; and 
 his security being already mortgaged, he has to pay 15 to 18 per cent. His 
 debts pile up, his interest charges get higher, and the revenue of his starved 
 land naturally gets lower ; in the end, his land has to be sold to pay taxes or 
 interest, and he is quoted as another proof that land cultivation in Egypt does 
 not pay, and that the Fellah is over-taxed." 
 
 "And. is the debt of the Fellaheen to the usurer so colossal?" 
 
 " No ; there has been exaggeration about that too. All sorts of ridiculous 
 estimates were current in 1883 ; and Dufferin, who very wisely took them under 
 very considerable discount, even then over-estimated them. It's impossible 
 to get at them accurately, but they probably then did not exceed eight millions, 
 and to-day are certainly under five. But all estimates are guess-work, for the 
 Fellah himself can seldom tell you what he owes." 
 
 " Do you mean," asked the Pasha, " that he owes more than he knows of?" 
 
 "Sometimes that, but sometimes the reverse. I will give you an actual 
 
114 
 
 A FELLAH'S HOUSE. 
 
 instance, which will show you what I mean, both as to their ignorance as to 
 their own indebtedness, and the reasons of their failure to make land pay. An 
 English friend of mine wanted to buy some 140 acres of land from a native. 
 The native was largely in debt, both to the Credit Foncier and to the Govern- 
 ment, for unpaid taxes. My friend went to see the land, found it in a deplorable 
 condition, and was told by the proprietor, who did not know he was a purchaser, 
 that the land was bad, and could never pay its heavy tax of 22s. ' How much 
 do you owe?' said my friend. 'About _;^i9oo,' announced the other, naming, 
 however, an exact sum. ' What interest do you pay ? ' ' Twelve or 13 per cent.' 
 
 Interior of a Fellalis^House, 
 
 Now the Credit Foncier is supposed to charge 8 or 9 per cent., and the rate 
 seemed 'excessive. However, my friend thought well of the land, and offered 
 £,1^ an acre for it. With a little bargaining, of course, the matter was con- 
 cluded. The exact sum to be paid was estimated, and this sum, according to 
 the estimate of the seller, would just suffice to pay off the Credit Foncier, and 
 leave him ;^2oo or so; so it was agreed that my friend should pay off the 
 Credit Foncier their ;^i9oo, get the title-deeds, which they held, transferred, and 
 then pay the seller the odd ;^2oo, which, he said, was all he would have in the 
 world. My friend goes to [the Credit Foncier, and finds that they ask only 
 ;^i4oo. Being an honest man, he does not pocket the difference, but gives the 
 
COST OF LAND. 115 
 
 astonished proprietor ;^7oo instead of ;£^2oo. Now, how had the mistake 
 arisen ? Simply thus. The Credit Foncier had been charging only 8 or 9 per 
 cent, interest, and the other 4 or 5 per cent, which the fellah had been 
 paying had gone towards the extinction of his capital debt. He therefore was 
 ignorant, not only of what he owed, but of the rate of interest and very terms 
 of the contract he was fulfilling ! He exaggerated, perfectly innocently, his 
 debt by 30 per cent, and the rate of interest by 3 or 4 per cent. ; and yet 
 men like Villiers Stuart accept the evidence of him, and other men who 
 exaggerated perhaps less honestly." 
 
 " Well, and how did your friend fare with the land ? " 
 
 "That is precisely what I am going to tell you. My friend had paid ;^2 100, 
 and the first thing he did was to spend ;£i5oo in bringing it back to cultivation, 
 from which it had lapsed solely because the former proprietor had only debts 
 instead of capital. The result to-day is that the land costs him about ^2^ 
 per acre; he lets it at ^^3, los., pays taxes ^i, 2s., and nets ^£2, 8s., or nearly 
 10 per cent. ; and this on land that the proprietor told him would never pay 
 its taxes." 
 
 " And has he no trouble in getting in his rents ? " asked the Pasha. 
 
 " Hardly any,'' replied the other. " There is an Arcadian simplicity about the 
 system. The proprietor provides seed ; purchases cattle for them as they want 
 it ; acts, in fact, as their benevolent banker during the season ; receives their 
 crop from them into a common store ; sells it ; repays himself from the proceeds 
 for rent and advances, and hands the balance to the tenant." 
 
 "And suppose the balance is the other way?" 
 
 " Well, that happens occasionally, but very rarely, and proves the tenant 
 to be a careless cultivator ; in which case he has to go, and a better cultivator 
 takes his place." 
 
 "I wish," said the Sketcher, "that, instead of discussing political economy, 
 you would explain to me why the sun is setting in the south." 
 
 The Cleopatra was running with her bow pointed full at the setting sun, 
 which was about to dip into the river ahead of them. 
 
 " We have made a curve to the west," said Crichton, examining the map, " and 
 are close on Luxor." 
 
 " And you have no idea what you've missed," said the Sketcher, who had 
 been busily sketching, and handed his attempts to the Scribbler. 
 
 "And are not likely to have from these," said the other surlily, as he 
 returned them ; for the Scribbler was a man who loved the sound of his own 
 voice, and did not tolerate interruption. 
 
ii6 KARNAC IN SIGHT. 
 
 The Sketcher was equally zealous for the honour of his sketches, and for 
 a moment the entente cordiale between Damon and Pythias was imperilled. But 
 the first sight of Karnac burst on their view at the critical instant. Within the 
 sight of those "temples, palaces, and piles stupendous," which even Horace 
 Smith's doggerel cannot make ridiculous, all wrangle was hushed. Impatiently 
 they listened to Crichton, who, conscientiously anxious that they should miss 
 nothing, was laboriously explaining that Medamot, which they were passing, 
 
 was Maximianopolis. Hardly a glance could they spare for the ruins ot 
 Ptolemy Euergetes, against a column of which a buffalo was lazily scratching 
 its back, nor for the fields blooming in all the glory of an Egyptian spring. Who 
 has eyes for anything else when Karnac is in sight ? or who can think of the 
 pigmy Ptolemies in the presence of Ramses ? And Karnac is the great Ramses 
 personified — an epic in stone. Description of it is almost an insult. We may 
 gaze on it with awe, and perhaps carry away some feeble impression of its 
 majesty, but the writer or artist who can reproduce it is yet unborn. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 History — Thebes comparatively modern — Retrospect, sixth to seventeenth dynasty — 
 Eighteenth dynasty — Foreign wars necessary — Populous No — Aahmes,Amenhoteb, 
 and Ttitmes — Expansionof Egypt — Queen Hatasou — Colonial policy — TutmesIII. 
 — Foreign conquests — The land of Canaan in the hieroglyphs — Amenhoteb III. — 
 The Colossi — The first European reformer in Egypt — A religious reformation — 
 Change of dynasty. 
 
 COMPARED with either Thinis or Memphis, Thebes is an upstart city, for 
 it is only in the eleventh dynasty that she makes her first appearance. 
 We have seen ^ how Egypt, during the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth dynasties, 
 fell into comparative obscurity, under kings reigning both at Memphis and 
 Elephantine. It is tolerably certain that at this time there existed internal 
 dissension, aggravated by foreign aggressioa We may perhaps assume that the 
 Pharaohs at Memphis were occupied in repelling the already commencing 
 invasion of the Shepherd tribes, and so, losing control over their southern pro- 
 vinces, allowed the Ethiopian invader to come down the river and establish 
 himself at Elephantine. The attacking Hyksos and the defending Memphite 
 monarch would both be weakened, and become eventually the easy conquest of 
 the Elephantine Pharaoh, who established the eleventh dynasty at Thebes. Suc^ 
 at least is a probable explanation of the otherwise singular fact, that we find the 
 eleventh dynasty established at Thebes, a powerful and prosperous state, imme- 
 diately after a period when the fortunes of Lower Egypt were at a low ebb. 
 During the eleventh dynasty, however, it is probable that Thebes extended little 
 beyond the temple of Karnac. At the Necropolis of Drah Abou '1 nezzah were 
 found the mummies, now in London, of the kings Entep of this dynasty, the 
 sarcophagus of Aah Hoteb, with its collection of jewels at Boolak ; but much of 
 the luxury of the period was expended on the mummies, and the tombs them- 
 selves show nothing of interest. We have seen, also, how the brief glory of the 
 eleventh dynasty was overthrown by the Hyksos, and how, after 1200 years, 
 Sekenen Ra had lost his life in expelling them. 
 
 1 Chapter ix. 
 
ii8 
 
 THEBES. 
 
 With this amount of necessary recapitulation, we resume the thread of 
 Egyptian history where we left it, at the establishment of the eighteenth dynasty 
 under Aahmes I., independent sovereign of all Egypt, ruling from Thebes. 
 
 With this dynasty begins the glorious period of Egyptian history, and Thebes 
 rises to its unrivalled grandeur, warranting the description of the Prophet, 
 
 Necropolis of Drah Abou 'inezza/u 
 
 " Populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round 
 about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea : Ethiopia 
 and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite " (Nahum iii. 8, 9). For the 
 long war of independence had turned the kingdom into a huge camp, and the 
 B.C. 1703-1653. first of the restored Pharaohs, Aahmes, Amenhoteb I., and Tutmes I., probably 
 regarded war not only as a source of profit, but as a necessary measure of policy ; 
 
A Portion of the Temple of Kamac. 
 
QUEEN HATASOU. 
 
 119 
 
 and thus the expansion of Egypt commenced. To their already famed infantry 
 the Egyptians had learnt from the Hyksos to add cavalry and chariots. Their 
 armies invaded Asia, overran Syria, Judsea, and Arabia, advancing as far as 
 Mesopotamia. 
 
 And commerce followed their flag : the emerald mines of Berenice and the 
 gold mines of Midian enriched the capital of the Pharaohs ; white and yellow 
 alabaster, red porphyry, and green diorite were brought from the hills beyond 
 Rohanou and from the Wady Hammamat The labour of establishing their 
 authority, and thus extending their empire, left little time to these three first 
 Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty to devote to the arts of peace ; but 
 Amenhoteb I. constructed a portion of the temple of Karnac, and Tutmes I. 
 built in front of its sanctuary those halls, pylons, and obelisks which adorn the 
 southern side. 
 
 The death of Tutmes I., followed in a very short .time by that of his son, 
 Tutmes II., placed Egypt under the rule of a female sovereign, who had already 
 acted as regent, the Queen Hatasou, whose reign 
 perhaps marks the period of Egypt's greatest 
 material prosperity, if not of military splendour. 
 Her efforts seem to have been mainly devoted to 
 the extension of commercial relations with neigh- 
 bouring states, and more particularly with the 
 coasts of the Red Sea. The temple of Deir el 
 Bahari was raised to commemorate her successful 
 expedition into Pount (Arabia Felix). On the 
 walls we see her sending her troops to collect such 
 treasures as could be found in the land of spices ; 
 we see them successful, the soldiers drawn up on 
 the coast of the Red Sea, the water of which is 
 apparently so transparent that the fishes are visible ; 
 the inhabitants of Pount leave their cupola-roofed 
 dwellings and bring the scented gum in heaps ; 
 the Egyptian fleet is receiving the valuable cargo, 
 consisting of bales of goods, earthen jars, and live 
 animals ; journeying with sail and oar, they reach Thebes, and the different 
 items are counted out at the feet of the Queen, in the presence of the god 
 Ammon, who congratulates her Majesty. 
 
 At this time the nation seems to have returned to the luxurious habits 
 which had been prevalent prior to the invasion of the Hyksos. Sumptuous feasts 
 
 B.C. 1630. 
 
 Mummy of Tutmes II. 
 
120 FOREIGN CONQUESTS. 
 
 were apparently the order of the day ; singers, musicians, and dancers con- 
 tributed to the entertainment, while slaves handed the guests the different 
 dishes crowned with flowers. Enormous sums were consumed in funeral 
 ceremonies; the funeral barge was hidden beneath the luxurious offerings; 
 professional mourners and slaves stood on the decks ; and the embalming art, 
 assisted by the spices and aromatic perfumes from Arabia and the Sommali 
 Coast, reached its perfection. 
 
 B.C. 1600 {c). The Queen Hatasou was worthily succeeded by her second brother, Tutmes 
 III., who is said to have undertaken thirteen campaigns in his reign of fifty-four 
 years. His conquering armies reached Cape Guardafui and the Indian Ocean ; 
 Babylon, Tyre, and the Lebanon paid him tribute; and large numbers of 
 prisoners were employed to till the fields in place of the children of the soil, 
 enrolled as soldiers. Nor did the glories of foreign conquest prevent him from 
 adding to the treasures of his capital ; he erected a temple on the left bank, 
 adorned several Egyptian towns with the obelisks which now disgrace the 
 principal cities of Europe ; and he enlarged Karnac, of which he sketched out 
 the general plan. Upon its walls we find a list of 1 15 cities subdued by Tutmes, 
 possessing peculiar interest because they furnish a table of the Promised Land, 
 made 270 years before the Exodus. Among the cities are Kadesh, Megiddo, 
 Damascus, Beyrout, Acre, Jaffa, Migdol, and Rehoboth. An authority who 
 cannot be suspected of sectarian prejudice, the late Mariette Bey, says : " No 
 doubt whatever can exist If these limits are not precisely the same as the 
 tenth chapter of Exodus assigns to the land of Canaan, at all events these 
 hundred and fifteen names carry us to the very centre and heart of that far- 
 famed country. The data are certainly very precise with regard both to 
 chronology and geography." 
 
 B.c. 1546 (c). At the death of the great Tutmes, the Syrians seem to have thought the 
 
 opportunity favourable for a revolt, which was suppressed with considerable 
 severity by his successor, Amenhoteb II. Of his successor, Tutmes IV., we 
 know little beyond the legend on the Sphinx, telling of his good intention to 
 restore that monument. He was probably a mighty hunter, like Amenhoteb 
 III., who succeeded him, and who is reported to have killed a hundred lions with 
 his own hands during his reign. But the third Amenhoteb was more than a 
 shekarri ; he carried his victorious arms far into the Soudan, and continued to 
 exact tribute from Mesopotamia. He built also the whole of the southern 
 portion of the temple of Luxor, the northern temple of Ammon, the temple 
 of Mout, the alley of Sphinxes leading to the temple of Khons, and the 
 imposing edifice which stood behind the two Colossi on the west bank, both of 
 
THE COLOSSI. 121 
 
 which represent himself seated in the hieratic posture. The upper part of the 
 more northerly of the two was destroyed by an earthquake twenty-seven years 
 before Christ, and the accident added a spurious celebrity to its deserved fame. 
 From the headless trunk came forth, with the first rays of the morning sun, a ring- 
 ing sound hke the human voice. Hard science may now explain it as due to the 
 cracking of the stone, wet by the morning dew and heated by the sun, but the 
 more imaginative Greeks and Romans heard in it the voice of their favourite 
 Memnon appealing to his divine mother, Eos, the Dawn. There came from all 
 parts of the known world pilgrims to behold the miracle, and to write their 
 testimony to its truth at the foot of the god. Among other autographs is 
 that of Sabina Augusta, consort to Cffisar Augustus, and of Vitalinus Epistra- 
 teges of the Thebaid, who brought his wife, Publia Sosis, and of two poetical 
 gentlemen, an Italian, Petroniamus Dillius, and one Gamella, who, as a good 
 plre defamille, brings also his "beloved spouse Rafilla and his children." Alas 1 
 the miracle only lasted two centuries ; for Septimius Severus thought, as others 
 have thought since with equal success, that he would work a great reform in 
 Egypt. He would improve on Memnon ; he would impart beauty and clearness 
 to the voice. What could be easier ? A few blocks of sandstone, and it was done. 
 The reform was effected, but the sound was effectually smothered, and the god 
 remained for ever silent. O Septimius Severus, first of occidental reformers ! 
 thy successors exist in the nineteenth century ! 
 
 Of Amenhoteb IV. we only find traces in a singular religious revolution at 
 the instance of his foreign mother, Aten. He seems to have returned to the 
 more primitive sun-worship of his forefathers, and changed his name from 
 Amenhoteb, Peace of Ammon, to Khuenaten (Reflection of the Sun), to have 
 effaced the name of Ammon, and substituted that of Aten on the monuments, 
 and to have transferred the capital some 150 miles north to a city he founded 
 and called Khosaten, now Tel-el-Amarna, where he and two or three successors 
 reigned. But Horus or Horemheb, last of the eighteenth dynasty, re-estab- 
 lished the cult of Ammon at the capital of Thebes, building the two southern 
 pylons and the avenue of Sphinxes, which connects the first pylon with the 
 temple of Mout. 
 
 Still the authority of the eighteenth dynasty seems to have suffered a shock, 
 and the people, tired of their rulers for nearly 250 years, appear to have made 
 an internal revolution, which resulted in the accession of the great family of 
 Ramses and the nineteenth dynasty. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 History — The Ramesides — Ramses I. — Seti I. — Ramses II. — An heroic exploit and mild 
 rebuke— Seti II. — The first Judenhetze — Moses a general in the Soudan — The 
 exodus in Scripture and papyrus — Ramses III. at home — At war — A naval battle 
 — Rise of the Priestly ■power — Priest-kings of San — Egypt the bone of contention 
 between Ethiopia and A ssyria — A ssyrian conquest — Thebes pillaged — Dodecharchy 
 — Saite Dynasty — Prophetic warning against Suez Canal — Persian conquest — 
 Visits of Herodotus and Plato — Alexander the Great — The Trinity of Thebes. 
 
 B.C. 1452 [c]- (^~\ F the Ramses who established the nineteenth dynasty, little is known beyond 
 V^ the fact that he was the father of Seti I., Merenptah (Beloved of Ptah), 
 and that he probably designed, though his son completed, the famous hypostyl 
 hall at Karnac. Upon its walls are recorded the campaigns of Seti against the 
 Armenians, the Arabs, the Assyrians, and the Hittites. The Armenians are 
 depicted felling timber for the conqueror, who drives in his chariot a horse 
 named "Strength of the Thebaid." Here he pursues and pierces with arrows 
 the flying Arabs, who take refuge in a fortress; and here, returning victorious 
 from his campaigns, he is receiving on the banks of the Nile the principal 
 functionaries of his kingdom, who have come to welcome him. Seti was the 
 first who appears to have conceived, and even probably carried out, the idea 
 of connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. He gave particular atten- 
 tion to the education of his son, the great Ramses, whom he caused to be 
 instructed with other young Egyptian nobles, and possibly with Moses ; for we 
 may assume that the princess who adopted the future lawgiver was a daughter 
 
 B.C. 1420 (c). of either the first Ramses or his son Seti. Ramses II., the Great, the legendary 
 Sesostris of the Greeks, succeeded his father, probably about 1420 B.C., and reigned 
 for sixty-seven years. If other periods were equally prosperous, this at least 
 must be considered as the reign during which Egypt reached her highest military 
 renown. Throughout Egypt, and beyond it, we meet the records of his victorious 
 arms. The empire stretched to Dongola in the south, to the Tigris in the east, 
 and to Asia Minor itself. Probably little of his long reign was spent in his 
 magnificent capital, but he completed the temple of Goornah, the hypostyl hall 
 of Karnac, built the surrounding wall of the temple, added something to Luxor, 
 and left in the Ramesium a monument not unworthy of the glorious son of Seti. 
 
RAMSES II. 
 
 123 
 
 The walls of Karnac and of the Ramesium are covered with the records of 
 his exploits. Here, in the Ramesium, we find him engaged in battle with the 
 Hittites on the borders of the river Orontes, near to Kaderu. The Egyptian 
 generals do not exactly appear to have distinguished themselves, unless, indeed, 
 they were conspiring to assure the renown of their sovereign. At all events, they 
 have left him alone, even deserted by his escort, and surrounded by his enemies. 
 Nothing daunted, he charges 
 alone the chariots ; the enemy 
 fly in terror; some are crushed 
 under the wheels of the chariot 
 and the feet of his horses ; others 
 are killed with arrows from the 
 king's own hand, among them 
 " the chief of the vile Hittites," 
 and the rest are drowned in the 
 river. On the opposite side of the 
 bank is the scene after the battle. 
 Ramses is seated on his throne, 
 none the worse for his single- 
 handed fight against a host. His 
 officers, showing some moral if 
 not physical courage, come to 
 tender him their congratulations, 
 and are received with a reproach 
 which we cannot deem too strong 
 for the circumstances. "Not 
 one among you," he says plain- 
 tively, " has behaved well in thus 
 deserting me, and leaving me 
 alone in the midst of the enemy. 
 The princes and captains did not 
 join hands with me in fight; by 
 myself have I done battle; I 
 have put to flight thousands of nations, and I was all alone." Ramses 
 appears to have been very proud of his exploit, as well he might be. To 
 put to flight a nation is something ; but to put to flight thousands of nations 
 is not, he fancies, an everyday exploit; so he reproduces it again upon the 
 second pylon,'and at Luxor, at Karnac, and at Ipsamboul. And that there 
 
 Bazaar in Luxor. 
 
124 
 
 SETI II. 
 
 B.C. I3S3 (4 
 
 may be no doubt as to the accuracy of the narrative, a poem on the subject by 
 the great Pen ta Our is inscribed in the hypostyl hall, and near it the treaty 
 of peace which followed with Khetu Sar, king of the Hittites, in the twenty- 
 first year of Ramses's reign. 
 
 Seti II., also called Merenptah, succeeded his great father, of whom he was 
 the thirteenth son. The monuments of Egypt give us few records of the reign, 
 which perhaps possesses for the modern historical student more interest than 
 any other period of Egyptian history. For while Ramses II. had been 
 gathering for himself and his nation glory and extended territory abroad, there 
 was growing up nearer home a difficult social problem, such as exists in some 
 
 parts of Europe at this day. The seventy Hebrews, 
 forming the family of Jacob, who had settled in the 
 land of Goshen during the reign of the Hyksos, 
 had rapidly increased and multiplied during the 
 400 years which had elapsed. We need not waste 
 time in statistical calculations as to whether the 
 seventy souls could increase in that space of time 
 to the 600,000 men, exclusive of women and chil- 
 dren, who, according to the Scriptures, left under 
 the guidance of Moses. It is at least highly prob- 
 able that other families from across the border 
 gradually amalgamated, by marriage or otherwise, 
 with the tribe of Jacob. What is certain is, that 
 the industrious, saving, and even then comparatively 
 intellectual Hebrew, had gradually acquired not 
 only the best of the land, but some of the most 
 lucrative appointments in the land, where they 
 still regarded themselves only as sojourners. His- 
 tory repeats itself; and we have only to realise the popular prejudice 
 regarding their descendants entertained to-day in Russia and Germany to 
 understand the similar position which they held more than 3000 years ago 
 in the Valley of the Nile. Nor was the order given by the great Ramses to 
 the Egyptian midwives more repugnant to humanity than the proceedings 
 of anti-Semitic court-chaplains of our own day. The order, at all events, 
 was not obeyed ; a future leader was saved for the chosen people by the 
 interposition of one of the royal house itself, Moses the scholar, at On, or 
 Heliopolis, near Memphis. Clemens of Alexandria and others tell us that 
 Moses rose high in the service of Ramses ; actually commanded an army 
 
 Mummy of Ramses II, 
 
RAMSES III. 125 
 
 sent to the Soudan, and founded on the Nile a city which he named Meroe, 
 after the daughter of Pharaoh, to whom he owed his life, and for whom he still 
 maintained a grateful affection. Whatever foundation of truth there may be 
 in the legend, it is certain that when the great Ramses died he left his successor 
 a difficult problem. The chosen race were still a great and prosperous people, 
 and now led by a chief of ability and experience. The well-known biblical 
 story of the Exodus it is needless to repeat ; the partial confirmation that exists 
 of it in the Egyptian records is less generally known. It is certain that Seti II. 
 (Merenptah) was engaged in war with the Libyans, and. was at the same time 
 exposed to considerable danger from Semite tribes in Asia. The request of 
 Moses to lead his people into the desert would very naturally alarm the 
 Pharaoh, an essential part of whose policy it would be to prevent the union of 
 the Israelites with other cognate tribes ; but the records give an account of the 
 expulsion of lepers, which is undoubtedly the Egyptian account of an event 
 which reflected no glory on their history. The defeat of Pharaoh and his host 
 probably combined with other causes to shake the power of the nineteenth 
 dynasty; its history becomes obscure until, in the year 1288, the twentieth e.g. 1288. 
 dynasty opens with the accession of Ramses III., who, if he could not surpass 
 the warlike fame of his great ancestor and namesake, was successful in several 
 campaigns, and endeavoured to excel him in the magnificence of his build- 
 ings and the decoration of his capital. He finished the temple of Khons, 
 excavated the tomb now ridiculously known by the name of Bruce, and built 
 Medinet Abou. On the walls of this last temple it is that we see so much of 
 the life of Egypt under this the last of her warrior-kings. In the private palace 
 we see the great monarch at home, surrounded by his family. One of his 
 daughters brings him flowers, with another he plays draughts, and a third, who 
 is offering fruits, he caresses by way of thanks. Little scenes like these are 
 perhaps as interesting as the more glorious exploits which are also recorded. 
 Here are portraits of his captives, apparently drawn from life, " the vile chief of 
 the Hittites," a people for whom the Ramses seem always to have reserved 
 their choicest epithets ; another " vile chief of the Amorites ; " the chief of the 
 Teucrians from Asia Minor, those of the "country of Sardinia, which is in the 
 sea ; " the chief of the Arabs from the frontier along the Isthmus to Suez, the 
 country of Tuscany, which is in the sea ; the chief of the vile race of Negroes ; 
 the chief of the Libyans, and others who are less easily identified. Here, too, 
 are representatives of various glorious expeditions against the Libyans, Pelasgians, 
 Siculi, Dannians, Oscans, and others ; and here he returns from battle, preceded 
 by his prisoners in chains, whom he offers to the gods of Thebes, On one 
 
126 
 
 DEFEAT. OF THE LIBYANS. 
 
 wall we may see, in a series of ten pictures, the whole history of a campaign 
 against the Libyans and Teucrians, in the ninth year of Ramses. Only the 
 necessities of space compel us to abbreviate . Mons. Mariette's description. 
 First goes: the king, with his troops in marchings order ; in a large battle, in 
 which he personally commits, fearful slaughter, the Libyans are vanquished 
 12,535 of the enemy are killed, and the prisoners brought before the king. The 
 king addresses the army under arms, who are again marching out to battle. 
 This time the Teucrians are overthrown, the women and children flying in 
 chariots drawn by oxen. The march is renewed through one of the fastnesses 
 
 of the Lebanon infested by lions, one of which the king kills. Then takes 
 place the one Egyptian naval battle of which we have record. The scene is at 
 the mouth of a river. Teucrians and Sardinians attack the Egyptians ; Ramses 
 stands on the shore, and his archers contribute to the Egyptian victory ; one of 
 the enemy's vessels is floating keel upwards. The army returns back to Egypt, 
 and stops at Migdol, where the dead are counted by the number of hands cut 
 off on the field of battle, and the prisoners pass before the king, who harangues 
 his sons and generals. Then triumphal return to Thebes and general speech- 
 making — " speeches from the gods, speeches from the king, speeches even from 
 the prisoners themselves, who entreat the king to spare their lives, that they may 
 long celebrate his courage and valour." 
 
 Of the long line of Ramses who composed the twentieth dynasty, none, 
 with the exception of the first of them, seem to have inherited any of the 
 glory which attached to the name, and after a hundred years we find that they 
 
PRIEST-KINGS. 
 
 127 
 
 have :given way ' Before the priestly twenty-first dynasty of San : the military 
 prowess of the.Ramesides has been replaced by the priestly craft of the Tanis 
 hierarchy. How did the change come about? Here, on the walls of the 
 temple of Kh'ons, we discover something of the history of the increasing usurpa- 
 tion of the priests of Ammon. In the hall of eight columns we see the high 
 priest Her Hor, not yet indeed arrogating to him- 
 self the regal titles, but' from the place reserved for 
 kings alone addressing the god in the joint name 
 of himself and the weak king by his side. And in 
 another hall we seethe next step : all disguise is 
 thrown aside, and Her Hor appears with the urseus, 
 or sacred asp, on his brow, his name enclosed in 
 the royal double cartouche. On the pylon we see 
 his priestly successor, Pinotem, soon also to be- 
 come king. From this point the sun of Thebes 
 began to decline. Unable to rule, the priest-kings 
 attempted to conciliate, and had to give way to 
 Sheshonk, the Shishak of Scripture, who founded 
 the twenty-second or Bubastite dynasty, who built 
 the outer court of Karnac, where we find the record 
 of a victory gained by Shishak. The gods bring 
 him the towns which he has conquered. The twenty-ninth cartouche was read 
 by ChampoUion as Joudah Melek (king of Judah), and until recently was recog- 
 nised as a portrait of Jeroboam, though Brugsch has since maintained that 
 there is nothing to justify this supposition. 
 
 During the twenty-third and twenty-fourth dynasties Egypt was hard pressed rc. 6fio-7rs. 
 by the Assyrians from the north and the Ethiopians from the south. Seven 
 hundred and fifteen years before Christ, the Ethiopians under Piankhi, who had 
 previously taken Memphis and returned south, effected the conquest of Egypt, 
 and established the twenty-fifth dynasty. 
 
 For only fifty years, however, were they able to hold their throne, and during e.g. 715-665. 
 that period the valley of the Nile was the bone of contention between Ethiopia 
 and Assyria, the former continually trying to effect a coalition of its neighbours 
 against the latter. Marching to the aid of Hezekiah, the Pharaoh Shubataka 
 was defeated by Sennacherib; a few years later, in Egypt itself, his successor, 
 Tirhakah, was defeated by Esarhaddon. An unsuccessful revolt was followed 
 by the complete annexation of Egypt to Assyria, and Thebes^ the glory of 
 Egypt, was pillaged. "Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her 
 
 Mittinny of Pinotem II. 
 
128 PERSIAN RULE. 
 
 young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets : and 
 they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in 
 chains" (Nahum iii. 9, 10). 
 
 But Egypt was not destined to remain to Assyria longer than to Ethiopia. 
 The conqueror had divided the county into twelve provinces. Psammetik, one 
 of the twelve governors, allied himself by marriage with the family of Shabako, 
 the legitimate heir of the Ethiopian dynasty, and, assisted by Ionian and Carian 
 mercenaries, assumed the crown of Egypt, and founded the twenty-sixth or 
 Saite dynasty. 
 
 B.C. 665-527- Under the Saite dynasty, the star of Egypt seemed for a moment to rise 
 again from obscurity. Greek mercenaries were established near Bubastis ; and 
 encouraged by the decline of Assyria, Psammetik attacked the wealthy seaports. 
 Necho, his successor, also attacked Assyria, defeated Josiah, king of Judah, the 
 ally of Assyria, at Megiddo, but was himself defeated by Nebuchadnezzar at 
 Karkemish. Necho is perhaps still better known by his attempt to join the 
 Red Sea, not with the Mediterranean, but the Nile. Warned by an oracle that 
 it would only benefit strangers, he desisted. Perhaps if his successors of some 
 2500 years later had also obeyed the oracle, it would have been better for 
 Egypt, if not for the world. Hophrah, of the same dynasty, felt strong enough 
 to attack the growing power of the Babylonians, tried to raise the siege of 
 Jerusalem for Zedekiah, and when his efforts failed, accorded hospitality to the 
 exiles. Defeated by the king of Cyrene, his mercenaries revolted and pro- 
 claimed as king Amasis, who further encouraged Greek colonisation, gave to 
 the adventurous colonists the port of Naukratis, and died, to be succeeded by 
 his son, whose defeat placed Egypt under the domination of Persia. 
 
 B.C. 527-406. The Persian rule of over a hundred years, under Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes, 
 and his successor, is known as the twenty-seventh dynasty — a history of con- 
 
 B.c. 406-340. tinual revolt, finally successful, followed by a rapid succession of various 
 conquerors and pretenders, who alternately displaced each other. This period 
 
 B.C. 340-332. is mainly remarkable for the visits of Herodotus and Plato. In B.C. 340 the 
 Persians again recovered their authority, and eight years later Egypt fell, 
 with the rest of the Persian Empire, under the authority of the great 
 Macedonian. 
 
 Although the temple of Deir el Medinah and the two grand portals of 
 Karnac mark the care of the Ptolemies for the old capital, the glory of Thebes, 
 " the princely No of the waters," had long departed. Thebes was, above all, 
 the city of Ammon and his triad — Ammon, the visible, tangible form of the. 
 creative force in nature, the symbol of that hidden force which presses all things 
 
AMMON. 
 
 129 
 
 forward towards life and light, aptly symbolised' by the sun; and with him were 
 associated, first, Mout, the eternal mother, the recipient in which is accom- 
 plished the mystery of creation ; and then, to complete the triad, Khons, who 
 is Ammon himself in another form — Ammon Khons, the son of Ammon the 
 father and Mout the mother, God of the rising life, representing the operation 
 of divine intelligence in the outer world — his own father, his own son, without 
 beginning or end, uncreate and eternaL 
 
 A t Prayer. 
 
 U 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Post-haste — The Pasha's energy — Sara on archaology and Ismail — Reform and 
 popularity — The effect on the governing classes — Effect on the governed^ The 
 date of English evacuation — Erment — Esneh — Religious toleration — Edfoo — 
 Herodotus — " Contrariness" of Egyptians. 
 
 THE party would willingly have spent at Thebes as many days as they were 
 allowed hours, but the Cleopatra was quickly under weigh, scudding past 
 the lively little port of Luxor, and waving a farewell to the genial old Mustapha 
 Agha. For the Pasha was inexorable ; the romantic associations of the past 
 must, he insisted, give way to the financial exigencies of the present, and, as a 
 conscientious servant of the Khedive, he could not afford the time to trifle with 
 the Pharaohs. And though the Pasha spoke lightly, the rest had had ample 
 experience that, if he took care that the journey should be one of pleasure to 
 them, it was one of hard work for himself. The others might study Ramses ; 
 Crichton himself was apt to groan at the restless energy of his chief, his in- 
 satiable appetite for the minutest details, the most intricate statistics extracted 
 by cross-examination of fellaheen ; while Sara was unable to settle in his own 
 mind whether the information of the one party or of the other was least valuable 
 or most inaccurate. 
 
 "Both tell lies," he argued meditatively; "Egyptians told them 15,000 
 years ago. You believe them monuments, and Pasha believes them Fellahs : I 
 don't believe nothing," he added solemnly. 
 
 " But," said the Sketcher, " you can't be continually seeing these ruins and 
 have no respect for them ; you must admire their size at least ? " 
 
ARCHEOLOGY AND ISMAIL. 131 
 
 " I 'sure you, sir, I never saw 'em before, 'cept passing by in boat. I don't 
 stop here ; ain't no taxes to be got out of ruins," said Sara contemptuously. 
 
 " Is it possible ? Well, but now you have seen them, you must have some 
 opinion about them. How were they built ? " 
 
 " I ain't got no opinion at all of ruins," persisted Sara ; " never found 'em 
 of any use. How were they built ? I tell you," he said confidentially, " with 
 the kourbash ; same way as Ismail get taxes. You think it not more difficult 
 get money out of Fellah than build up them stones ? " he added contemptuously. 
 
 " Ismail seems to have left some admirers, at all events,'' said the Nabob. 
 " I suppose the secret is that he had a strong hand, and all Orientals, like 
 children, would rather be bullied than spoilt." 
 
 " I don't know that there was much liking in it,'' said the Scribbler. " The 
 days of Ismail were the days of high interest, the days of licensed peculation, 
 of unjust privilege to those who could pay for it. That is sufficient to form an 
 Ismailite party among all those who, having either money or position, were 
 anxious to make the most of it. As for those who had neither one nor the other, 
 nobody cared for their opinion, even if they had any, and, as a matter of fact, 
 it always follows that of the others. One of the greatest blunders we can make 
 in Egypt is to suppose that any material improvement in the country will make 
 us popular. It is the exact reverse ; and if I wanted a proof that we were 
 doing some good, it would be the fact of our unpopularity." 
 
 " That's rather a disheartening prospect." 
 
 " Possibly, but it's perfectly natural, and it's well to face it. The poorer and 
 less educated classes, comprising at least six and three-quarter millions out of the 
 total population of six millions eight hundred thousand, are, if not absolutely 
 without an opinion of their own, utterly unable of giving expression to it, except 
 in accordance with the will of the remaining wealthier, and possibly better 
 educated, fifty thousand, or the majority of them. I believe that you may 
 accept that as an axiom ; and I believe there is no country in the world 
 where a very small minority hold, if they choose to use it, such an enormous 
 power over public opinion. And now for the composition of that minority. 
 A portion are wealthy proprietors, who were able formerly to avoid full taxation, 
 to use the corvSe for the cultivation of their fields, to get water at the cost 
 of smaller proprietors, who got none, and who were nearly all proprietors 
 of slaves ; another portion are officials in responsible situations at small 
 salaries, with very large illegal perquisites ; another portion, officials with rather 
 larger salaries, holding absolute sinecures ; another, contractors, who could 
 make contracts with the Government at exorbitant charges, and perhaps by 
 
132 REFORM AND POPULARITY. 
 
 falsification of their accounts, accompanied by baksheesh, get paid even more 
 than their originally exorbitant charge ; others were capitalists, who, owing to 
 the financial disorder, were able to get . exorbitant interest on their money,; and 
 thus either make large profits or Tive on the interest of a. very small capital; 
 and others were religious fanatics. Now, note how every single possible reform 
 must touch one of these classes. You insist on getting in taxes from the 
 wealthy proprietors ; you refuse the use of the corv'ee ; you distribute equally 
 the water ; you prohibit purchase of slaves and destroy their value ; you refuse 
 to wink at baksheesh, and practically reduce an official to beggary, for they are 
 unable to earn a penny ; you dismiss the sinecurists ; you make your contracts 
 by public tender at lowest price, and introduce competition from Europe. By 
 all this, you so improve the finance, that a man gets five per cent, where he 
 used to get twenty, and the small capitalist is no longer able to live. And then 
 you are surprised that you are not popular." 
 
 " But do you mean that all this has been done ? " asked the Nabob. 
 
 " No,'' said the Pasha ; " if it had been, we should have made the country 
 too hot to hold us. We can't, for instance, get rid of all the sinecurists, and if 
 we did, they would be at our charge for pensions ; but we have done a good 
 deal of it, and what the Scribbler says i? true. The nearer we approach to 
 perfection, the more certain we are to be disliked ; and the fact that we are- 
 disliked is a proof that we have done much good." 
 
 " But surely the poorer cultivator, the man who had previously to pay for 
 all mismanagerrient, corruption, &c., who didn't get his water, and who had to 
 pay baksheesh, must find the difference, and prefer the new state of things ?" 
 
 " Not in one case oiit often thousand," said the Scribbler. " Nor is it quite 
 so extraordinary as it seems. In the first place, the difference to him has not 
 been so apparent as you might suppose. In Ismail's time he had the high range 
 of cotton prices of the American war; it gradually came down long before his 
 deposition, of course ; but there were always the reserves of the enormous profits 
 made at that time, when, as it is popularly said, every dollar's worth of cotton 
 fetched a sovereign, and prices of grain were high, compared to now. Had 
 Ismail had to do with the prices of produce we have had to deal with, it is 
 impossible that he could have got on. In such a case, the Fellah would have 
 been absolutely destitute, irredeemably ruined. But all, this he does not see. 
 He recognises that he has only now to pay his regular taxes instead of taxes ^lus^ 
 exactions; but the price of his produce having gone down, the result to him is 
 not so miich .better. Th^ benefit he would have received from the reforms has 
 been to some extent neutralised by .other circumstances, and so h^ doesn't see it. 
 
DATE OF ENGLISH EVACUATION. 133 
 
 What he does see is, that the produce of his -land produces less cash sterling, 
 and, hke more intelligent farmers, he abuses the Government for low prices. 
 Another- thing is, that, with rare exceptions, a Fellah does not save,-dDes not look 
 ahead, and 'only regards his debt as an unfortunate circumstance involving a 
 yearly payment. If he has a good' result in his year's farming, he. spends it; if 
 he has not, he tries to borrow, and spends that. Under Ismail, at some rate or 
 another, he could always borrow, and so could always spend. Now he cannot 
 borrow so easilyj so he seems to have less money. He undoubtedly lives better, 
 is housed, clothed, and fed better than he was twenty years ago; but he dis- 
 regards this, and tells you that living- is dearer, instead of admitting that he lives 
 more extravagantly; Add to all this the fact that, as I say, he takes his opinions 
 from the fifty thousand who suffer by our -interference, and that his. fanatical 
 feelings are kept alive, and you will understand why the opinion of the majority 
 is not pronounced in our favour." 
 
 " But are the bulk of the people really so hostile to us ? " said the Pasha. " I 
 doubt it." 
 
 " Remember that my whole argument is that the bulk of the people have no 
 opinion of their own. Still, if you were to poll the people to-day, you would 
 certainly find nine against, for every one in favour of, our remaining. And yet 
 who can say ? for when it came to the critical moment, I expect you would see 
 singular hesitation. Those who have to gain by disorder, those who, as in 
 Arabi's time, hoped to get clear of their debts, would welcome it in the hope of 
 a disturbance ; and the prevalence of the feeling would so alarm the men who 
 have something to lose, some of the very classes who now want us to go, that 
 you might see a complete change. You must remember that the leading 
 characteristic of the Egyptian throughout all time has been to be 'agin the 
 Government.' So long as we are here, we are the Government, and are hated. 
 The moment we were gone, and perhaps before, our virtues would be sung in 
 every village to the detriment of our successors.'' 
 
 " And when will the English troops leave ? " asked the-Sketcher. 
 
 " Bah ! " said the Nabob ; " who would venture to fix the date ? " 
 
 " I will," said the Scribbler quietly ; " I will fix it with extreme precision. 
 Do you remember that man at Luxor who tried to sell us a coin with the date 
 legibly marked 1156 B.C., and who couldn't be got to see the absurdity '6f a date 
 which must have iitiplied a gift of prophecy ? Well, I will fix the date in the 
 same way. The English troops will leave Egypt in the year 2 b.A., that is, 
 ' Before Annexation 1 ' " - _ • 
 
 "You mean" •• ' - 
 
134 ERMENT. 
 
 ■' I mean that within six months of our departure there will be a riot, anarchy, 
 and financial collapse. The Powers who have guaranteed the last loan will 
 insist on the restoration of order. England, allowing no one else to interfere, 
 will have to return, and, giving her eighteen months to decide on a step which 
 will then be inevitable, will annex Egypt, or, what is the same thing, assume the 
 Protectorate." 
 
 "To look at that village, you might almost have annexed it already," said 
 the Sketcher, as they passed the pretty little town of Erment. " You only want 
 a spire instead of that minaret, and you have a Thames village. That house 
 there would do excellently for a parsonage. There's the manor-house, with its 
 garden running down to the river ; and absolutely that's the village pub, with its 
 signboard at the side of the main street." 
 
 The background of desert somewhat destroys the accuracy of the comparison, 
 but there is certainly an un-Egyptian :^ir in the neat little town near the site of 
 the old Hermanthes, and Cleopatra seems to have left some of her beauty in 
 the neighbourhood of the little temple, where she is represented adoring the 
 local Apis of Hermanthes. Opposite is the minaret of Tuot, showing the 
 site of the ancient Tuphium, and beyond the singular cliffs of Gebel Ayn ; pass- 
 ing under which, the Pasha gave the order to halt at Esneh. Satiated with 
 Karnac, the Nabob declined to accompany the Sketcher to the temple, .declar- 
 ing that he had not come to Egypt to examine a temple of the Caesars, with 
 sculpture pronounced by the best authority to be "of the very worst execution," 
 and defaced with vulgar puns and double entendres in hieroglyphs. Compelled 
 to rely on his own resources, the Sketcher wandered aimlessly through the 
 
An Arabian Singing Girl of Esneh. 
 
ESNEH. 
 
 135 
 
 modern town, and was rewarded by the sight of one of the prettiest bazaars in 
 
 Upper Egypt. At first sight, it seemed as if the white houses and streets of 
 
 Esneh were mainly inhabited by pigeons ; rows of narrow streets afforded a 
 
 shaded desert, with singular absence of life ; but 
 
 suddenly he found himself at what he first mis- 
 took for the entrance to a private house. A 
 
 respectable old Sheik, however, invited him to 
 
 enter, and the narrow covered gateway, lit by 
 
 sunbeams that broke through the imperfect roof, 
 
 gradually widened out into a bazaar, where 
 
 seemed congregated all the life of the province. 
 
 Through it rode leisurely swarthy negroes on 
 
 camels, bringing in produce of all kinds from 
 
 the adjacent villages, as well as more rarely a 
 
 few bales of merchandise from the Soudan. 
 
 Here was the shop with the invariable Man- 
 chester goods, 
 and a stately 
 Ghawazee wan- 
 dered listlessly 
 among the 
 crowd, shaking 
 her tambourine 
 
 in hideous coquettish fashion at the most re- 
 spectable elders of the city. Moslem, Copt, 
 and Jew mixed in friendly gossip; and the 
 Sketcher, who, as we have said, was apt to 
 generalise, returned with elaborate theories on 
 the manners and customs of the inhabitants. 
 In particular, he desired it to be recorded, for 
 the benefit of the future historian, that the 
 
 principle of religious toleration was carried to the extreme ; for he averred that 
 
 the chief Rabbi, to whom he had been introduced, wore a costume which 
 
 combined the Islamic slippers with an Evangelical Geneva gown, and a turban 
 
 folded in palpable imitation of the Papal tiara. 
 
 The Pasha's business finished in a few minutes, the Cleopatra was off again 
 
 with all speed to reach Edfoo, and soon left behind the dilapidated pyramid of 
 
 El Koola, the red mound of Hieraconpolis, the not tempting-looking ruins of 
 
 Bazaar of Esneh, 
 
 Bazaar of Esneh. 
 
136 
 
 TEMPLE OF EDFOO. 
 
 ^AKtMlj. 
 
 El Kab, coming at sunset in view of the portico of the Ptolemaic temple with 
 its porpylon towers. Begun under Philopater, it took ninety-five years to build, 
 and nearly as many more to decorate. Constructed on the same plan as 
 Denderah, it was evidently adapted for the same purposes. Four masts, nearly 
 150 feet high, and decorated with long pennants, rose from the pylon, which 
 apparently served no other purpose than to signal from afar the edifice. We 
 may dismiss it with the words of Mariette : " The temple of Edfoo is one of those 
 monuments which speak for themselves, and to which no de- 
 scription can do justice." 
 
 "That," said the Sketcher, when they got on board, "is a 
 sentence worthy of Herodotus. Nothing is so delightful in the 
 Father of History as the way in which he conceals his igno- 
 rance ; he would have been the ieau ideal of a newspaper 
 correspondent. The Egyptians," he says, "represent Pan 
 with the face and legs of a goat, as the Greeks do, 'but 
 why they represent him in this way I had rather not 
 mention.' He knows all about the most expensive 
 manner of embalming, ' the name of which I do not 
 think it right to mention.' He knows, omniscient 
 man, why they sacrifice swine to Bacchus and abhor 
 them at all other festivals, ' but it is more becoming 
 of me not to mention it.' " 
 
 "Perhaps,'' said the Scribbler, "the old Egyptian 
 found some connection between swine and 
 the worship of Bacchus. But say what 
 you will, the more I know of Egypt, the 
 more convinced am I of the value of Hero- 
 dotus. There's a singular passage in which 
 he tells how the Nasamonians followed up 
 the river, and bending to the west, came 
 upon a diminutive race, 'less than men of middle stature,' describing accurately 
 the Niam-Niams, who exist to this day. He gets horribly mixed up with the 
 Ister later ; but .then he admits this to be only the conjecture of Etearchus. 
 The actual report, though only at second-hand, is proved correct. About the 
 rise of the Nile, again, he has got the right explanation, though it's true he 
 scoffs at it. But where he shines as an observer of mankind is in his recog- 
 nition of what I will call the contrariness of the Egyptian. ' Other nations 
 in weaving throw the wool upward, the Egyptian downward; women attend 
 
 Chief Rabbi of Esneh, 
 
"CONTRARINESS" OF EGYPTIANS. 
 
 137 
 
 markets and traffic, but the men stay at home and weave ; others feed on wheat 
 and barley, but it is a very great disgrace for an Egyptian to make food of these. 
 They knead the dough with their feet, but mix clay and take up dung with 
 their hands ; other men fasten the rings and sheets of their sails outside, but 
 the Egyptian inside ; others write from left to right, the Egyptian from right to 
 left.' In this last he was not quite correct, for they wrote both ways, but it is 
 singular that the introduction of Arabic has justified his prophetic assertion. To 
 this day, if a man is badly off, he is spoken of as eating wheat. The observer- 
 of to-day may mark that the men walk in the road and the donkeys on the foot- 
 paths ; while in parts of the country you may see them sowing first and plough- 
 ing afterwards. Ask an Egyptian where his ear is ; he will take up his right hand, 
 pass it all round his head, and hang on to his left ear. The Egyptian people 
 were created upside down." 
 
 A rob Scribes. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Silsilis — Assouan — English officers and Egyptian troops — yuvenal at Syene — An 
 unkind prophecy — Will the Egyptian fight 1 — Assouan railway station — An 
 unwelcome telegram — Elephantine — Philas — Southward to the Cataract — The 
 Reis rebels — Value of a Pashds life— Rock ahead — The Reis in command — 
 Agonising moments — Safety and baksheesh. 
 
 THE Cleopatra sped onwards next morning, and passed through the narrow 
 cleft of Silsilis. The low mountains here on either side seem to have 
 been willing to combine in an effort to close the magnificent stream, which dis- 
 dains their efforts and rushes noisily by. Here is a monument, one of the few 
 of Horus, last king of the eighteenth dynasty, with a picture of Horus nourished 
 by the goddess, and then too the well-known picture, the triumph of Horus — the 
 king borne by twelve officers of his army, two other officers bearing the flabellum 
 over his head, returning after his triumphant expedition against the Kouch, &c., 
 led as trembling captives behind him. 
 
 On sped the Cleopatra ; passed Ombos with its Ptolemaic temple, destined to 
 become the prey of the river, rushing from the Cataracts, now so near ; for soon 
 appears Assouan itself, a fertile oasis in a desert, with the island of Elephantine 
 beyond, "a mosaic of vivid green, golden sand, and black syenite." The view 
 of Assouan is singularly effective as one approaches from the north ; the town 
 lies below, bending down to the river from a rich slope of green, and beyond and 
 all around the bleak desert, and overtopping all the desert crags, surmounted 
 by the town of Syene. Those who have passed through the fertile valley of the 
 
s 
 
ASSOUAN. 139 
 
 Nile, who have seen the desert with its fearful waste hungrily bordering on the 
 verdure and standing thirsting before them, can realise the terror of the pro- 
 phecy, " I am against thee, and against thy rivers ; and I will make the land of 
 Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border 
 of Ethiopia" (Ezek. xxix. 10). 
 
 There are Egyptian troops still here, and the English Colonel comes down 
 to welcome the glad sight of Anglo-Saxon faces. Truly the British officer is a 
 wonderful man, and a martyr to his uniform. The heat of an Assouan sun 
 cannot make him dispense with the regulation tight-fitting jacket, and the gallant 
 officer comes on board as if dressed for parade. Alone with one other com- 
 patriot English officer, he takes his daily meals off tinned meats, bully-beef, 
 and dry bread, in a miserable hut, with the same stately solemnity as if at his 
 own regimental mess-table. Every night the glass of vin ordinaire is solemnly 
 raised, and the health of the Queen drank in silence, followed by that of the 
 Khedive. But let it not be thought that only in this observance of form does 
 
 Colonel maintain his English habits in the far desert. His men, Egyptians 
 
 though they be, are as smart as if liable at any moment to be called out for 
 inspection ; and at any and every moment they are liable to be called to man 
 the forts, and to prepare to receive an imaginary enemy. For the benefit of 
 the party the alarm-gun is sounded, and in a moment every man is at his place, 
 every gun loaded and run out, waiting the command to fire. But from the 
 bleak hills away to the south there is nothing but silent desert, the Nile rushing 
 beneath, and a sight of the lovely island of Philce. Riding round the fortifica- 
 tions, the gallant Colonel, whose face is so well known in the neighbourhood of 
 Piccadilly and Pall Mall, has yet an eye for every weak point, every defect in 
 detail, and a kind word of approval for the young subalterns, who have none 
 of that sullen, discontented appearance which was so striking in the days when 
 they were under Egyptian or Turkish officers. Not a word of regret has the 
 Colonel for the time which some men might think he is wasting here. Perhaps, 
 it is true, he has a shrewd idea that his service in Egypt may help him with the 
 constituency whose votes he hopes to win at the next general election ; but 
 none the less is his heart and soul in his work. Juvenal, he thinks, made much 
 too much fuss about his exile to Syene ; his liver must have been out of order 
 when he indited, those terrible Satires. Assouan is charming; he finds the 
 Egyptian climate and Egyptian troops equally perfect. One grievance only has 
 the gallant Colonel, and that is against the well-meaning old ladies who write to 
 remind him that " they also that uphold Egypt shall fall ; from the tower of 
 Syene shall they fall in it by the sword." That quotation, as the tower of Syene 
 
140 ENGLISH OFFICERS AND EGYPTIAN TROOPS. 
 
 is his messroom, he thinks in bad taste ; but he lets out an extra length to his 
 waistbelt, pats himself comfortably thereon, and says cheerfully, " But I never 
 felt less like falling in my life." 
 
 " But will your men fight, Colonel, as well as they look ? " asked the Nabob. 
 
 " That's the question that every one asks, and every one answers differently," 
 replied the Colonel, " forgetting that ' fight ' is a relative term. They'll cer- 
 tainly not bolt, as ihey did at Tel-el- Kebir ; nor will they perhaps ever carry 
 entrenchments as we carry them. But remember that the Egyptian soldier is a 
 perfectly new experiment ; you can't expect a people who have been treated as curs 
 for several thousand years to suddenly develop the qualities of lions. You can't 
 expect men dragged unwillingly from their homes, ill-fed, Ul-clothed, and unpaid, 
 to develop any of the esprit de corps which is the first quality of a soldier. But 
 treat them well, pay them regularly, and above all, feed them well, and I am 
 much mistaken if in time you don't make good soldiers of them, so long as you 
 have good officers to lead them. Without that, your Indians are useless, and 
 so will these men be." 
 
 " But in five years or so the army is going to be handed over to the Turks," 
 said the Sketcher. 
 
 " Then in six years or so," said the Colonel, " the army will certainly be 
 worthless, and probably a danger. Whether you might have made a native army 
 with Turkish officers five years ago, is a question ; but, without suppressing another 
 rebellion, you certainly will not do it now. However, here we are at the station, 
 and there's your train." 
 
 The station was indicated by a pile of luggage and merchandise, on which 
 was lying the Pasha, surrounded by a crowd perhaps the most varied and 
 picturesque that could be gathered even in Egypt. The Fellah, the Barabras, 
 and the Nubian, to which one has become accustomed in the journey up 
 the river, here mix with tribes from the interior and from the far Soudan; 
 Bishareens who have come from Berber, Ababdchis, and even a few Hadendowa, 
 mingled with Abyssinians, Turks, and Greeks ; and here and there the Nabob 
 found a few Indians, to whom he graciously condescended to speak in an 
 apparently unknown tongue. 
 
 Loaded camels were seated lazily munching from their burdens of fodder 
 with grumbling content ; a few packets of gum, ostrich feathers, and ivory lay on 
 the ground ; anxious traders squatted around, eagerly scanning the countenance 
 of the Pasha, and trying to gather from it some faint hope that commerce would 
 re-open and the river be available for traffic ; in little groups some new-comer 
 from the south was relating his unhappy experiences to eager listeners ; and the 
 
AN UNWELCOME TELEGRAM. 
 
 141 
 
 whole appearance of Assouan was one of depression. Drawn up against a 
 tumbledown building dignified with the name of station was a train of a few 
 trucks, a dilapidated carriage, and a worn-out engine, looking as if they had been 
 dropped there some years before, and were utterly incapable of motion. 
 
 " We've not," said the Sketcher, " to travel in that thing, have we ? You're 
 not going to blight my last hopes, and 
 send me across the desert in a locomo- 
 tive, are you ? " 
 
 ".I'm afraid I'm going to blight 
 your hopes even more effectually than 
 that," said the Pasha. " Here's a tele- 
 gram calling me back to Cairo. I've 
 tried hard — assisted, I must admit, by 
 a telegraph clerk — to misunderstand 
 it, but I couldn't manage it. It's too 
 fatally clear even for an Egyptian to 
 . muddle, and back I must go." 
 
 " What ! at once ? " 
 
 "Well, luckily for you all, the 
 steamer has got to take in supplies, 
 and won't be ready to leave till to- 
 morrow ; that just gives us time to get 
 up to Philoe, and shoot the cataract on 
 our way back. Sara here has arranged 
 everything." 
 
 " And we miss Korosko and Wady 
 Haifa ? " said the Nabob. 
 
 " And Abu Simbel ? " wailed the Sketcher. 
 
 " Well, as far as I'm concerned, yes ; but of course you are not bound to 
 return with me. You may take your chance of Cook's boat in a week, or any 
 postal-boat, for that matter." 
 
 " I have travelled with a Pasha," said the Sketcher, " and will descend to 
 nothing meaner ; but do you mean to say this wreck and skeleton is capable 
 of taking us to Philoe ? " 
 
 " We must give it a trial, at all events," said the Pasha, " for it's our only 
 chance. The Mudir has the greatest respect for it, however, and assures me 
 it will go as fast as a camel, and do the eight miles in less than an hour." 
 
 Into it the party got, and with much coaxing, groaning, and shrieking, the 
 
 News from the South. 
 
142 ELEPHANTINE. 
 
 I 
 
 engine was got under weigh. Every single turn of the wheels was made as if 
 
 with an effort,- and with frequent pauses, as if to take breath. Its path seemed 
 
 to be the trackless desert ; but Sara said there was a man on the engine who 
 
 knew the way, and so it proved; for finally stopping, as if from sheer exhaustion, 
 
 there lay below the river, hurrying on to the rapids, and the beautiful isle of 
 
 Philce in its silver lake. 
 
 For the river, landlocked by sombre red mountains, looked, but for an 
 occasional palm tree, more like a Scotch lake than an Egyptian river. Behind 
 lay Elephantine," with its gentle slope covered with tumbledown huts, and 
 all around the sharply defined mountain ranges closed in the view; while 
 Philce, like an enchanted isle, seemed floating in the midst. In spite of the 
 weighty authority of the Tourist's Bible, it must be doubted whether anything 
 to be seen in or from the island itself can compare with the view of it from 
 the river. Other views in Egypt are remarkable for the magnificence of the 
 panorama which they afford or the historical associations which they evoke ; 
 but the view of Philce is nothing but one of pure beauty. Perhaps even one loses 
 by going on shore ; for Philce excites no feelings of grandeur to swamp those 
 of irritation to which the vulgar records of tourists give rise. The temple of 
 Karnac is the embodiment of the majesty of Egyptian art ; Philce is the point 
 at which we see that majesty blending with the pure beauty of Greece. The 
 scene of ruin almost heightens the effect of Karnac ; it jars with the beauty of 
 Philce. We look away from the black rocks ; we hear the distant roar of the 
 Cataracts, speaking of rage and strife ; and we recognise in the lovely island the 
 abode of Peace. We care not to see the records of triumphant monarchs, still 
 less of such as Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius ; nor the vandalic record of 
 Desaix ; let us rather regard it, correctly or not, as the abode of Hathor and Isis. 
 
 The boat is waiting ; the Pasha is stern, and will admit of no more delay. 
 The Sketcher gives one last look southward, and to the cry of " Allah Illah 
 Allah, Rasoul Allah," the boatmen send the little craft into the middle of the 
 stream. The pace quickens, but by no effort of the oars ; and Sara is seen 
 in confidential talk with the Reis. Suddenly the boat pulls to shore. 
 
 " What on earth is the fellow at ? " asks the Pasha. 
 
 " Stop ! stop ! never mind ! " says the Reis ; " very good donkey." 
 
 And then on the bank is visible a group of screaming donkey-boys urging 
 their animals to the shore. 
 
 " What, in the name of Osiris, is the meaning of this ? " says the Pasha ; 
 " put out into the stream at once." 
 
 But the Reis has jumped on shore, and Sara has followed him. "He 
 
THE REIS REBELS. 
 
 143 
 
 say, your excellency," replied the latter, " that it's very dangerous ; that no boat 
 could do it at this time of year." 
 
 "Tell him to go on at once." 
 
 Then the Reis and the Mamoor fell on their knees ; they begged and 
 beseeched the Pasha to abandon the wild attempt. They were poor men ; they 
 were the slaves of his excellency; they would die for him, do anything for 
 him, but not go down the Cataract with him. 
 
 The Pasha got exasperated. " This is all rubbish," he said, appealing to the 
 others; "hundreds do it every year, and we must do it." 
 
 " Let's do it without him," said the Sketcher, airily seizing an oar. 
 
 " Thanks ! no," said the Scribbler. " All this is merely a part of the usual 
 business, to increase the merit of obedience. We've only to sit still and 
 
 it'll be all right; there's no danger whatever so long as the Reis is here; 
 but if the Sketcher wants to take charge, I prefer the inglorious ease of 
 mine ass." 
 
 " Look here, Sara," said the Pasha ; " tell him I've no time to lose, and let 
 him get into the boat at once." 
 
 Meanwhile Sara had been having an earnest conversation with the Reis, 
 and having himself got on terra firma, which he had no intention of exchanging 
 for the boat, seemed much more willing to support the views of those who were 
 foolish enough to show less prudence. 
 
 " He say, your excellency, he very willing take all these other gentlemen, 
 but dare not take you.'' 
 
 " And why on earth am I to be excluded ? " 
 
144 ROCK AHEAD! 
 
 " Well, your excellency, he say not mind kill other gentlemen, if they give 
 Mm certificate they don't mind ; but he say that if he kill your excellency he 
 be hanged 1 " 
 
 Sara gave the explanation with the air of one who felt that there was much 
 in the argument. 
 
 " Tell him we have decided all to die together," said the Sketcher. 
 
 " Tell him he shall have four napoleons," said the Scribbler. 
 
 The eyes of the Reis twinkled. " Make it five," he said. 
 
 " You go at once, or you shall be hanged, whether I'm drowned or not," 
 said the Pasha. 
 
 The Reis is convinced that his excellency means business. "It is the 
 will of Allah," he says ; but there are too many in the boat, and one Inglez 
 must go with Sara to testify that the Pasha went to death of his own will 
 Crichton is made the Jonah, and the boat starts again. But before starting, 
 every sailor strips, and displays a physique that would put to shame the weak- 
 kneed Fellaheen of the Delta. At the last moment slips on board a coal- 
 black little nigger, who takes the party under his protection. "You not be 
 'fraid," he says ; " me. Homer, here — all right." 
 
 "Allah Illah Allah, Mahmoud Rasool Allah!" cries the Reis; "Issa el 
 Nebbi ! " shout the sailors. 
 
 Up the stream goes the boat, cautiously approaching the mid-current, a 
 few inches at each stroke. 
 
 " Hold tight ! " says Homer, and suddenly, with a swing, the boat's bow 
 wheels round twice, and we are in full stream. 
 
 Very gently move the oars now, for they are not needed, and only kept near 
 the water to steady her; quick flies the boat, and the whirl of water lashes 
 angrily against the black boulders on either side. 
 
 " Bab ya Abu Bab ! Bab ya Abu Bab ! " cry the sailors in monotonous 
 chant ; and the old Reis sits grim and black in the stern, with watchful eye on 
 his men and grim eyes ahead. 
 
 "Now he come ! " said Homer, with a merry twinkle that was reassuring. 
 
 " Great Ammon ! look at that rock ahead," whispered the Pasha. 
 
 The Sketcher made a movement as if to rise, but a hand was on his throat. 
 " Sit quiet ! " said the Reis, with a look that was positively demoniacal. 
 
 The big rock got nearer, and the Reis, apparently frantic with anxiety, 
 screamed his directions at the top of his voice. Back screamed the sailors angrily, 
 as if in mutiny. " Allah help us ! great Bab help us ! " rises in agonising cries. 
 
 " By Jove ! we're into it," said the Pasha. 
 
AGONISING MOMENTS. 
 
 145 
 
 " Don't waste your strength fighting with the stream," said the Nabob 
 quietly as he slipped his arm out of his coat. 
 
 A big wave seemed to lift the boat into the air and to be about to dash it 
 on the big black rock. A look of horror came over the Reis' face with one 
 despairing shriek, as, skimming on the very crest of the breaker, the boat gave 
 a turn at right angles, passed the rock to starboard at a yard's distance, gave 
 two rapid turns completely round, and was riding placidly in swift open current. 
 Homer gives a wink and says, " All finish ! " 
 
 The Reis looks solemn, and says, " Very clever ; plenty baksheesh ! " 
 
 " Confound the fellow ! I was taken in," said the Nabob. 
 
 "Well, you kept your head wonderfully cool anyhow," said the Pasha. 
 
 " Never tell me the Egyptians are incapable of governing again," said the 
 Sketcher ; " I feel that fellow's hand round my throat now, and the raven-like 
 look in his eyes, as he bade me sit quiet, makes me still shiver to think of." 
 
 The Scribbler for a while was silent, then he said solemnly, " I was in a 
 towering funk, and the worst is that's the third time I've been taken in in the 
 same way ! " 
 
 A- long row, which the previous excitement rendered doubly monoto- 
 nous, brought the party to Assouan, exhausted, cross, and hungry. Only Sara 
 was up to the mark, and he th improved the occasion. " Never no 
 need be afraid at all when M with Arab,'' he said. "Arab nearly 
 big coward as thief; he H never go where there danger. I 
 
 done them cataract often ilH^^^ ^"d I never afraid." And Sara 
 
 strutted the deck as a hero IImW^k of a hundred cataracts. 
 
 Fellaheen. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Southward to Luxor — Popular opinion in Egypt — Origin of Arabi niove7nent — 
 Gladstone and Blunt — Penultimatums — The Arabi 'myth — Egypt for the 
 Egyptians — Our false start — Things done and undone — Shelley, Keats, and Leigh 
 Hunt on the Nile — The Nabob as a poet — A new passenger. 
 
 THE next morning, before daylight, the Cleopatra, under orders that every- 
 thing was to give way to speed, was rapidly going down river with the 
 stream. One stoppage at Luxor only was to be allowed, and another day was 
 to bring them to Assiout. The weariness and excitement of the previous day 
 had been calmed by a peaceful slumber of the whole party on the broad deck. 
 
 Sara had dreamt away his feeling of superiority, 
 and had again become the most submissive of 
 interpreters; the Pasha was hard at work dis- 
 secting figures with Crichton ; the Sketcher was 
 filling his book with sketches from river and 
 shore ; while the Nabob and Scribbler were 
 pacing the deck. 
 
 The conversation had begun on their experi- 
 ence of the day before, but had drifted into a 
 discussion as to the character of the Egyptian 
 of to-day. 
 
 "When," said the former, "you deny the 
 existence of any popular opinion in the country, 
 surely you ignore the Arabi movement." 
 
 " Please understand," said the other, " that 
 I do not ignore the existence of a popular 
 opinion. On the contrary, I not only admit it, 
 but define it. There is one, and one only ; it is that of being ' agin the Govern- 
 ment ; ' and I am not urging it as a reproach ; it is perhaps the strongest charac- 
 teristic of every race, except the Anglo-Saxon, and it is growing there. If I were 
 a Fellah, I should hold it myself; just as, if I were a Russian, I should be a Nihilist. 
 With the experience nn Egyptian has had, it is unreasonable to expect him to be 
 
 Heoii ofSayce. 
 
ORIGIN OF ARABI MOVEMENT. 147 
 
 anything else but what he is, ' agin the Government ; ' or to expect that by five 
 years good legislation you can subvert the rooted and inherited idea of centuries. 
 With that idea the Fellah has other personal ones ; he is sensual and covetous 
 of land. Arabi had that idea, but had nothing else. The history of all fads 
 teaches us, that when a man is possessed of one sole idea, he can easily find 
 converts, even among the indifferent ; how much more so when that idea, in 
 an indistinct form, permeates the whole community. The first people with 
 whom Arabi came in contact were the soldiers. Naturally, then, the first to give 
 expression to it was the army. They declared ' agin the Government ; ' so far 
 it was a purely military revolt, furthered by individual dislike and jealousy of 
 certain Turks. The authorities temporised with the officers, and the result was 
 the soldiers got all they asked. Is it wonderful that the people, seeing this, 
 went with them ? They too had grievances ; they had debts ! ' Abolish all 
 debts,' said Arabi, and the people cried 'A Daniel come to judgment!' If 
 that is a popular movement, I give it you ; only, is there any man who could not 
 lead on such terms ? Is there any people who would not be templed? What 
 about ' the three acres and a cow ' in England ? Well, Arabi's offer was all the 
 acres and all the cows, and the people were, if possible, still more ignorant." 
 
 " You believe, then, there was no feeling but that of self-interest through 
 the whole of it ? " 
 
 " Stop a bit ! there is no need to go so far as that. We have got to this 
 point — a strong selfish feeling in favour of Arabi, the man of one idea. Now 
 enter political intrigues of Europe. England shows a disposition to support the 
 authority of the Khedive ; that is sufficient to induce, I will not say the French 
 Government, but the French colony in Cairo, to take the other side. The first 
 people to give the movement any importance were Franco-Egyptian officials. 
 If they could only get Arabi to act with them against the English, what 
 annoyance they might cause ! what a triumph for la grande nation ! They held 
 meetings of the colonels in their houses, they talked to them about the national 
 sympathies of a republic, and so forth. Arabi began to feel himself a power, 
 and enter a second idea — ambition ; not, too, altogether an unworthy one, let it 
 be said ; only the ill-directed ambition of an ill-educated, not vicious man, led 
 by others less ill-educated and more vicious. Why should he not do as Ismail 
 had done, and play France against England. Still, I believe the Government 
 of the Republic acted fairly, and straightforward common sense would have 
 triumphed. Arabi was on the point of giving in ; his movement had gone far 
 enough to have compelled the two Powers to pay more attention than they had 
 done to the internal affairs of the country — to the legitimate grievances of the 
 
148 GLADSTONE AND BLUNT. 
 
 country, which Arabi had never pointed out, but to which public opinion had 
 been drawn by his movement. But, unfortunately for Egypt, there came on the 
 scene Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, a man to whom every subsequent wrong committed in 
 Egypt, either by one side or the other, must be attributed — upon whose head 
 must lie the full weight of all the blood and treasure 
 which has been poured out in the country since 1882. 
 And of course — is it necessary to say it? — is not the 
 worst evil done by well-intentioned men ? — no man ever 
 came to Egypt or acted throughout with purer motives. 
 Consumed with an exaggerated idea of his self-import- 
 ance, not because of his talents, which were great, but 
 because he had some remote connection with Lord 
 Byron, the unfortunate man thought it his mission to 
 regenerate a fallen race. He looked for Greeks, and 
 found Egyptians, for Missolonghi, and he found Crabbet 
 Park and the constituency of Camberwell. His genuine 
 e erof tic s. enthusiasm, ridiculous though it was, had its effect on 
 
 Arabi, and at first a good one. Even at this moment, I would not say that 
 he may not have aroused in the poor, ignorant, noisy Fellah colonel a glimmer 
 of some real patriotism. He recognised in Blunt all the real qualities he pos- 
 sessed — honesty, conviction, real singleness of purpose. He saw such a man as 
 an Egyptian has never conceived of— a man who was really not working for his 
 own pocket. He saw it and believed. But if Arabi saw and understood it, his 
 less scrupulous allies did not ; to them this man, who came to them with 
 sympathy and money, was evidently a powerful Pasha in his own country. As he 
 could not have come for nothing, and as they could not see how he was to gain 
 anything in cash, it was evident to them that he was an emissary of his Govern- 
 ment. Sir Gladstone was evidently jealous of Sir Malet, and was trying to 
 thwart him ; such things daily happened among their own people, why should it 
 not be so with Englishmen. The obvious conclusion was, that England was not 
 in earnest, that she was afraid ; and all this, poured into the ears of the simple 
 Arabi, smothered the better feeling that was perhaps rising in his nature, and 
 spurred him to further resistance. And as if to confirm the idea, the British 
 Government acted precisely as an Egyptian acts when he is afraid. First they 
 bullied, then they cringed ; first they threatened, then they apologised. Fleets 
 were sent, but they were apologetically small ; ultimatums got to be called pen- 
 ultimatums, so frequent were they ; and all the time France was whispering, " We 
 will never permit it," and Blunt whispering, " England does not mean what she 
 
PENULTIMATUMS. 
 
 149 
 
 says," till Arabi really became a power and the ruler of Egypt. Then he lost his 
 head, became deaf to all control, and tlie brutal instincts of the Egyptian in power 
 asserted themselves. Then began the persecution not of Christian and European 
 alone, but of Copt, Jew, Berber, and of every race that was not plain senseless 
 Fellah. No Turk, not Ibrahim himself, ever displayed the same unscrupulous, 
 cold-blooded cruelty. The chiefs of the Inquisition were actuated by the 
 highest motives ; so probably was he when he introduced tortures which would 
 have done credit to their ferocious ingenuity. Then at last came the bom- 
 bardment ; of which we may say it was a folly rendered necessary by previous 
 folly, but too foolish in its method of execution 
 for any folly to justify. There were fifty ways 1 1 
 which at one time we might have avoided it ; wh( n 
 it became inevitable, there were fifty pretexts n 
 might have chosen, all more or less good, and fiit\ 
 precautions we might have taken, all more or le 
 efficacious. I defy any one," said the Scribbl( r 
 " to find a greater proof of imaginative genius thiiii 
 was shown by the British Government in avoidin-, 
 every one of those different courses, pretexts, and 
 precautions — in discovering a policy which ren 
 dered the bombardment inevitable, a pretex 
 which rendered it ridiculous, and an absence ot 
 precaution which ensured it being fatal. I stanu 
 aghast even now when I think of the superhuman 
 ingenuity which was displayed in committing 
 every possible blunder. Let no man ever contest 
 Mr. Gladstone's genius. His intellectual reputation may rest on his achieve- 
 ments in Egypt. We may deprecate the policy, we may deplore the results ; 
 but as a mere intellectual effort, the discovery of a policy which should commit 
 every possible blunder and avoid every possible advantage, it was unparalleled." 
 
 "But, 'returning to our sheep,'" said the Nabob, "you must admit that even 
 after the bombardment, when England had shown she was in earnest, Arabi was 
 still able to raise the country, and put some 60,000 men under arms." 
 
 " Your quotation is more appropriate than flattering. ' Poor sheep ! they 
 scattered you,' says the admiring Blunt, adding, from the vantage-ground of the 
 Oriental Club, ' I care not if you fled.' You say Arabi raised 60,000 men, but 
 you omit to say what he raised them for. Ismail, you, or any other man in 
 power could raise five times that number of Egyptians to work day and night. 
 
 Coptic Native of Egypt. 
 
15° 
 
 THE ARABI MYTH. 
 
 without tools, pay, or clothing, almost without food, at cleaning the canals. 
 What Arabi did was to get 60,000 men or more, who, in exchange for food, 
 clothing, and pay, undertook to do — what ? To stand behind an earthwork with 
 a gun. Why, it was holiday for them on full pay ; they had never had such 
 a good time before, and they were even willing now and then to help to make 
 an earthwork or to fire a gun ; but when it came to fighting — no, that was not 
 in their contract, and they bolted. No greater rubbish has been talked than that 
 about Arabi's powers of organisation. As for his powers of 
 administration, take the three acts associated with his short 
 term of power — first, the lowering of the rate of interest by 
 decree ; second, a pension law which gave full pay to two 
 generations ; and third, a suggestion that the sentences of 
 the judicial tribunals should be submitted to the Minister 
 of War — that is, himself — for approval before becoming 
 executory. Myths always die hard, but the Arabi myth 
 seems destined to survive every shock. Lady Gregory did 
 much towards its creation. In a charming little paper she 
 represented the stern patriot in the bosom of his family, 
 with an adoring wife and mother, who hung on his lips, and 
 regretted that his high dignities absorbed his attention. 
 s/web/acks About three months later Arabi has to go into exile in 
 
 Ceylon. The adoring wife and mother refuse to accom- 
 pany him, and find other consolers, as does Arabi himself. Blunt paints 
 him as the pure-minded patriot, aghast at the cruelties of the age. He gets 
 into power; becomes, outwardly, a fiend in human shape — inwardly, a 
 spiritual mystic ; sees dreams, and tortures his enemies by the direct com- 
 mand of Heaven; is at once the tool and figurehead of all the scoundrels 
 in the country ; preaches resistance to death, and bolts before the first shot. 
 Comes crawling back to Cairo demoralised and abject ; delivers himself up 
 through sheer want of courage to resist ; cringes for his life, and will sell that 
 of all his companions to gain it — and yet the myth lives 1 ' Ahmet Arabi, the 
 Egyptian ! ' he claims the title ; give it him ; it describes him better than pages 
 of rhetoric ; for when has the Egyptian ever been anything but the cringing, 
 lying, cowardly slave, or the cruel, rapacious, cowardly master ? " 
 
 " Then it's needless to say you don't believe in Egyptian self-government, 
 or Egypt for the Egyptians ? " 
 
 " Egypt for the Egyptians certainly ; but Egypt by the Egyptians, no ; for 
 your only way to keep Egypt for the Egyptians is to give them a government 
 
EGYPT FOR THE EGYPTIANS. 
 
 151 
 
 which governs for the Egyptians. If you could really leave the Egyptians to 
 goverp themselves, the result in the future would be the same as in the past 
 — they would succumb to the Ethiopians, to the Soudanese; the weaker would 
 be sure to go down before the stronger rule. In no period of history has there 
 been an independent Egypt except under foreign rulers. Our mission in Egypt 
 is to see whether we can educate the people to self-government. We are more 
 
 An Egyplinti Village. 
 
 likely to be able to succeed than any other foreign ruler j and those who, like 
 Blunt, believe in and hope for such a consummation, should be glad to see us 
 there. Once we go, the only question is whether the next conqueror shall come 
 from the north or the south — from Europe or the Soudan." 
 
 " But are we doing anything towards educating them for self-government ? " 
 " Nothing, or next to nothing ; and that is the real vice of our occupation. 
 We started with two false ideas, two totally incompatible promises, — the one 
 
152 
 
 THINGS DONE AND UNDONE. 
 
 that we would reform the country ; the other, that we would evacuate shortly. 
 Either was possible without the other ; the two together were impossible. To 
 reform the country, we should ourselves have assumed the whole direction of the 
 government ; we should have devoted much attention to 
 education ; we should have had responsible heads of each 
 separate department, and have gradually trained up our 
 successors. Little by little we should have been able to 
 surrender to them the management under a general 
 control, and at the end of one or two generations we 
 might have made a self-governing Egypt. But we had 
 promised to evacuate ; time hung over us like a 
 Damocles' sword ; we would not touch this, we would 
 not attempt that, because it would require too much 
 time. We would employ Armenians, .Syrians, or such 
 ability as we could find in the country, because it was 
 useless upsetting the old system for so short a time ; and 
 thus we have left untouched the greatest abuses, just 
 because they were the greatest, and required the time 
 we were unable to give. We talk of reforming the 
 country, and we ignore the internal government, the 
 administration of justice and education." 
 
 " Then you mean that we have done nothing ? " 
 "By no means; we have done much; we have to 
 some extent restored the finances, and we have im- 
 proved the irrigation ; we have controlled many arbi- 
 trary practices; we have lessened corruption and cruelty; we have organised 
 a fairly disciplined and contented army. All this is much, and undoubtedly 
 the lot of the Fellah is considerably ameliorated ; but it is all temporary and 
 evanescent If we go to-morrow, it falls within six months. It is an excellent 
 building, good, solid, and adapted to all existing needs ; but it is a temporary 
 one, without any foundation ; and when we go, we carry it off on our back.'' 
 
 " What's that you are proposing to carry off on your back ? " said the Pasha, 
 sauntering up to the pair ; " Philoe or Karnac ? " 
 
 " Neither ; but something between the one and the other," said the Scribbler ; 
 "a pretty edifice based on ruins." 
 
 "I'm weary with reading Arabic parables," said the Pasha, "so condescend 
 to be less figurative." 
 
 " I was saying that when you go, you will carry your whole financial adminis- 
 
 Bedoum Sellers of Horn, 
 
SHELLEY ON THE NILE. 153 
 
 tration with you, that being the temple of Philoe, and that you will leave 
 behind you the financial ruins of Karnac." 
 
 " Heaven forbid that I should carry off Sara," said the Pasha, laughing ; 
 " I've left him trying to turn into Arabic Shelley's ' Ode to the Nile.'" 
 
 " I suppose it betrays consummate ignorance," said the Nabob, " but I never 
 knew that Shelley ever wrote an ode on the Nile." 
 
 "Very few people do; and though it sounds blasphemous, I don't know 
 that one loses much by not knowing it ; but here it is : — 
 
 " Month after month the gathered rains descend, 
 Drenching yon secret Ethiopian dells, 
 And from the desert's ice-girt pinnacles. 
 Where frost and heat in strange embraces blend 
 On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend ; 
 Girt there with blasts and meteors, Tempest dwells 
 By Nile's aerial urn, with rapid spells 
 Urging those waters to their mighty end. 
 O'er Egypt's land of memory floods are level. 
 And they are thine, O Nile, and well thou knowest 
 That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil. 
 And fruits and poisons, spring where'er thou flowest. 
 Beware, O man, for knowledge must to thee 
 Like the great flood to Egypt ever be." 
 
 "I'm going to be still more wicked than you," said the Scribbler, "for, 
 Shelley's though the lines be, they seem to have every vice of poetry, with none 
 of its redeeming features. The metaphor is involved ; floods are level in most 
 places ; the atmosphere of Egypt is body-prostrating rather than soul-sustaining ; 
 the floods do not bring poisons ; and the last two lines are rubbish. But listen to 
 this, also Shelley's, on Ozmandyas : — 
 
 "I met a traveller from an antique land 
 Who said : ' Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
 Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 
 Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown. 
 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command. 
 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read. 
 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things. 
 The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed ; 
 And on the pedestal these words appear : 
 " My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : 
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair ! " 
 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare. 
 The lone and level sands stretch far away.' " 
 
154 KEATS ON THE NILE. 
 
 Or this of Keats, written in competition with Leigh Hunt and Shelley : — • 
 
 " Son of the old moon-mountains African ! 
 
 Stream of the Pyramid and Crocodile ! 
 
 We call thee fruitful, and that very while 
 A desert fills our seeing's inward span : 
 Nurse of swart nations since the world began 
 
 Art thou so fruitful ? or dost thou beguile 
 
 Those men to honour thee, who, worn with toil. 
 Rest them a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan ? 
 O may dark fancies err ! They surely do ; 
 
 'Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste 
 ■ Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew 
 
 Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste 
 The pleasant sun-rise. Green isles hast thou too. 
 
 And to the sea as happily dost haste." 
 
 " Now, as we've nothing to do all this afternoon but watch the Eternal Nile, I 
 propose that we should try and evolve something better than Shelley or Keats. 
 The Scribbler, of course, will do it easily, as he criticises so freely." 
 
 " Excuse me, but that's illogical," said the Scribbler. " Because I criticise the 
 cut of your tailor, it doesn't follow that I'm bound to prove my right to criticise 
 by making a better pair of breeches ; but I'm quite willing to undertake finding 
 you something better than those lines you've just read." 
 
 "Agreed !" said the Pasha; "and I elect myself judge — competition verses 
 to be read during dinner." 
 
 It is in descending the river that "you see it at its best. The Gebel Silsileh 
 stand out with a bolder front approaching them from the north than from the 
 south. Edfoo breaks upon you at a sudden bend of the river, from which you 
 see the long reach to El Kab, and then come sweeping down on Esneh, with its 
 rows of palms. The north wind blowing fresh in one's face mitigates the 
 oppressive heat of the sun, and curls up the river in dancing waves. At sunset 
 the Cleopatra was approaching Luxor ; the sun setting behind her threw the long 
 shadows of her mast on the water ; and ahead the spires of Karnac seemed to 
 be apparent through a broad faint rainbow, which on the horizon spanned from 
 desert to desert. 
 
 " That, if anything, ought to inspire poetry even in the Scribbler," said the 
 Pasha. " Now, then, competitor of Shelley, strike the lyre ! " 
 
 " My lyre has no pretence to originality," said the Scribbler. " I've heard the 
 Nabob trying for the last half-hour to get an appropriate rhyme to ' face.' Let 
 him begin." 
 
LEIGH HUNT ON THE NILE. 155 
 
 " All true poets," said the Nabob, " require time to polish the efforts of their 
 genius ; but as I believe I'm the only one who has the moral courage to brave 
 your sneers, I accept the challenge, and await annihilation. Read ! " and he 
 passed a paper to the Pasha. 
 
 " ' Father of waters ! ' I knew every one would begin with that : — 
 
 ' Father of waters ! thou whose stream hath borne 
 Earth's sons for ages past thy banks serene, 
 So bear thou us ; nor visit with just scorn 
 This band of noisy revellers, who, between 
 Sun rise and set, with jest and laughter keen, 
 Deride the beauties of thy classic face. 
 Forgive our mirth ; nor yet for what hath been 
 Invoke revenge, since now, with soberer face, 
 In fear we move, and humbly ask for grace.' " 
 
 There was a pause, till, with an effort at appearing unconscious, the Nabob 
 said, " What a splendid propylon ! " 
 
 " I'm wondering why the banks are ' serene,' " said the Scribbler. 
 
 " If you were not possessed with a mean spirit of envy," said the Nabob, 
 "you would recognise that it was the only available rhyme. But now, your 
 own ! " 
 
 " I've none of the divine afflatus, my dear fellow, and wouldn't dare to go 
 into competition with you. It is merely over Shelley that I claim a 
 superiority for Leigh Hunt. I knew these lines before I knew the Nile, and 
 don't think that the river itself hasmade me know them better : — 
 
 ' It flows through old hushed E^ypt and its sands, 
 Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream ; 
 And times and things, as in that vision, seem 
 Keeping along it their eternal stands, — 
 Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands 
 That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme 
 Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam. 
 The laughing queen, that caught the world's great hands. 
 Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong. 
 As of a world left empty of its throng. 
 And the void weighs on us ; and then we wake, 
 And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along 
 'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take 
 Our own calm journey on for human sake.' " 
 
 "Yes, after that we may all be silent," said the Pasha; "it's a fitting 
 preparation for Karnac by moonlight, and here we are at Luxor. I must go on 
 shore here for at least half-an-hour, but you may as well drop down to the 
 temple, and I'll join you there later.'' 
 
 An hour later the Pasha joined them in the hypostyl hall. 
 
iS6 
 
 A NEW PASSENGER. 
 
 " Conceal your joy," he said ; " I've found you a fellow-passenger. I came 
 to the conclusion we were all getting tired of one another; the Scribbler has 
 exhausted his politics, the Sketcher his block notes, and the Nabob his 
 poetical genius." 
 
 " We're doing very well as we are," said the last-named. " Who on earth 
 have you got ? " 
 
 " A man of one idea, who is dying for converts. We've only got to stand 
 him for a day ; and he's original, if nothing else. He's generally known as the 
 Professor, though he resents the title as derogatory, for he tells you that he has 
 passed beyond the professing stage, and considers his theories so absolutely 
 proved that they require no demonstration.'' 
 
 " But what is his particular theory ? " 
 
 "I wouldn't tell you for worlds — first, because it would anticipate the 
 intellectual repast you are going to have to-morrow ; and secondly, because I've 
 never been able to get to the bottom of it. He joins to-morrow morning before 
 we start, and you'll have had more than enough of it before you get to Asyoot. 
 So come on board, turn in, and prepare for a tedious day. 
 
 Types of Bedouins. 
 

 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 r.^^ w^zc arrival— Sleep a luxury— The sleepless Joseph— Joseph the creator of Egypt 
 — A new theory — Fayoum and the Land of Goshen — The Bahr Jiissefthe work 
 of Patriarch Joseph — Tradition of Mtirtadi^The creation of the Fayoum— An 
 original derivation — The field of Zoan and the land of Ham — Israelite exodus — 
 Did they cross the Nile ?—The blessing of Jacob— Jacob's will and testament— A 
 new reading of an old text— Qualified approbation— Back to Shepheard's. 
 
 THE next morning the Nabob was awakened by a shrill voice. — " Yes, that 
 will do — that will do. Thank you — certainly — of course^of course. 
 Throw it on board ; don't make a noise, and on no account wake anybody ; " 
 and a bulky carpet-bag came against the Nabob's head, and nearly rolled over 
 the side. 
 
 " Are there many more coming ? " said the Nabob rising, and holding the 
 first projectile as a buffer to ward off any further attack, " or may I fling this 
 overboard ? " 
 
 "I beg your pardon a thousand times," said the other; "I'm afraid I dis- 
 turbed you ; but I cannot help looking upon your presence there as providential. 
 But for your head, now, that might have rolled overboard," he said with a look 
 which combined gratitude and an appeal for sympathy. 
 
 " I confess," said the Nabob, feeling his head, " I regard it in another light. 
 The ways of Providence, at all events, seem to be one-sided in this case." 
 
158 THE SLEEPLESS JOSEPH. 
 
 " Ah ! yes ; I'm afraid it may have hurt you ; but if it had gone overboard 
 the loss would have been irreparable — utterly irreparable ; not to me — not so 
 much to me — but to the world at large. The future of more than Egypt itself 
 depends upon that bag," he said, taking his seat upon it. 
 
 " I'm glad it's safe then," said the Nabob ; " but being so, perhaps, as it's 
 early, you won't mind my going to sleep, again with a consciousness that for 
 once my head has saved the world ? " and he turned round in his rug. 
 
 " Certainly, certainly — of course, of course. I never sleep myself — never 
 require it — never have done for years. Did you ever try to do with- 
 out it?" 
 
 " I can't say I have," said the other. 
 
 " Oh, you should — you should ; simplest thing in the world ; purely matter 
 of habit." 
 
 " But I can't say I've any intention of trying to contract the habit just yet ; 
 so I'll get a sleep first, and discuss it afterwards." 
 
 " Quite right — quite right ; at least, no — quite wrong, quite wrong. Do you 
 know now," said the new-comer, argumentatively, " that there's no evidence in 
 the Pentateuch to prove that either Moses or Joseph ever slept ; in fact, as 
 regards the latter, it's conclusive that he didn't ? " 
 
 The high tone of the speaker had now succeeded in awaking all the occu- 
 pants of the deck. The Nabob gave it up as a bad job. 
 
 " And how on earth do you prove that ? " asked the Scribbler. 
 
 " Because he could never have accomplished the work in Egypt that he did 
 if he did so." 
 
 " I thought Joseph dreamed dreams," said the Sketcher. 
 
 " Precisely," said the other ; " and that proves my proposition, for his brain 
 never slept. So the evidence is conclusive on that point, even if we could 
 assume it possible that he had time to sleep and yet achieve his work in 
 Egypt." 
 
 " And what was that ? " asked the Scribbler. 
 
 "What was that?" asked the Professor aghast j "what was that? Why, 
 the making of Egypt The evidence is conclusive that Egypt was the creation 
 of Joseph, as I will prove to you.'' 
 
 " Well, before beginning, we'd better dress and have some coffee,'' said the 
 Pasha. 
 
 The Professor was left pacing the deck and gesticulating to himself; he 
 was evidently arranging an oft-repeated lecture ; and hardly were they seated 
 at table before he began. 
 
A NEW THEORY. 159 
 
 " If you look at the first mention of Egypt in the Bible, you will find 
 nothing to indicate that Egypt was a land of any more importance than Canaan, 
 Sichem, Moab, and the other lands through which Abram journeyed. The 
 dates are, of course, very obscure, but it is obvious that Egypt was then little 
 more than a desert, blessed with a capricious river, which no one knew how to 
 utilise. Even later, when Joseph is a servant in Potiphar's house, there is 
 nothing to show that Egypt was a kingdom of any importance." 
 
 " But are you going to ignore all but the Bible records ? " asked the Scribbler 
 impatiently. " What about the records of stone ? " 
 
 " Does your name happen to be Markham ? " said the Professor ; " because 
 there's an interesting historical work by a person of that name, in which infor- 
 mation is conveyed in the form of question and answer ; and it occurred to me 
 that you might be the lineal descendant of the sagacious Richard, the bold 
 George, or even of the precocious Mary. You will have observed, however, 
 that even in that work the conversations are deferred until the end of the 
 chapter." 
 
 The Scribbler took his rebuke humbly, and the Professor continued — 
 
 "I have already said that the chronology is obscure. I know just sufficient 
 of Egyptology to know that Egyptologists know nothing ; and even if all their 
 chronological theories were accurate, there is nothing to show that Joseph did 
 not enter Egypt before the oldest existing relic of his greatness. Seeing that 
 men like Bunsen and Lepsius differ to the extent of 1000 years in the date of 
 arrival of Jacob's family, I may be permitted to go farther back than either. 
 Or even, if I admit the pyramids as existing prior to Joseph's time, I am still 
 correct in saying that Joseph formed Egypt, if I accept Bunsen's chronology, 
 and date Joseph from the rise of the twelfth dynasty, when Egypt began to 
 recover from the dark ages of the previous 400 years. The rise of Egypt began 
 with the great famine mentioned in Scripture ; that placed in the hands of the 
 ruling Pharaoh the whole land of the country ; he again placed the entire 
 administration in the hands of the greatest administrative genius whom the 
 world has ever seen. And Joseph introduced his own people ; with their aid 
 he raised the country to a position which it has never experienced before or since ; 
 and when the infatuated Pharaoh who knew not Joseph drove them out, he 
 sealed the ruin of Egypt, which from that date began to fall. The early history 
 of the Jews is the history of Egypt which they made.'' 
 
 " If the time for asking questions has arrived," said the Scribbler, taking 
 advantage of a pause, " I should like to ask whether you have any proof of that 
 beyond the imperfect one of assertion ? " 
 
i6o 
 
 FAYOTJM AND THE LAND OF GOSHEN. 
 
 The Professor loftily ignored the sneer. "The proof of it," he said, "is 
 written in the land of Goshen." 
 
 "And where is that?" said the Pasha quietly. 
 
 The Professor drew himself together, as a man who feels that the moment 
 of struggle has arrived. 
 
 "The land of Goshen," he said, "is the Fayoum ; and what is the 
 Fayoum ? — the creation of Joseph — the Bahr Jussef." 
 
 " But, my good sir, there is not the smallest connection between the 
 Patriarch Joseph and the canal of Jussef Salah el Din," cried the Scribbler. 
 
 The Professor smiled with lofty contempt. " The Bahr Jussef, you say, was 
 named after our old friend, Saladin. Has it never occurred to you as somewhat 
 
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 singular that this canal, which certainly existed 2000 years before the Crusades, 
 should have been named after the hero of them ? Are you prepared to say that 
 it is probable that Saladin deliberately gave his name to a work which must 
 then have been for 2000 vears known under some other name which has com- 
 pletely disappeared? Such an act would only be paralleled by the ruins of 
 Stonehenge being called the Victoria Temple in honour of the Jubilee." 
 
 " I admit there's something in that," said the Scribbler ; " but the negation 
 of one derivation isn't the proof of the other." 
 
 "Of course not," said the Professor, sUghtly mollified by the concession. 
 " But now, why should you ignore early tradition, with considerable elements of 
 probability in it, for a later tradition with no such elements in it ? Whatever be 
 Joseph's era, it is certain that he was nearer to the period of the Bahr el Jussef 
 
TRADITION OF MURTADI. i6i 
 
 than J.ussef Saladin. We know of no other Jussef, and tradition tells us not 
 only that he made this canal, but the whole story of it, and adds, that prior to 
 the removal of his bones by Joseph, he was buried by the side of it.'' 
 
 " And where is that tradition ? " 
 
 "Here — everywhere — in the mouth of every dweller on the Bahr Jussef. 
 Leo Africanus, writing, about 1500, tells us that Medinet el Fayoum was built by 
 one of the Pharaohs, 'on an elevated spot, near a small canalfrom the Nile, at 
 the time of the exodus of the Jews ; ' and he adds, ' here, it is related, was buried 
 the body of Joseph,, the son of Israel.' So says also Masudi, writing about 
 930 ; and Murtadi, another Arabic writer, whose date I don't know, but whose 
 work was translated in 1666, gives a circumstantial account of it all. The life 
 
 of Joseph Ibn Isaac fills volumesof Arabic literature ; in nearly all, this work is 
 directly attributed to him. On what ground is the tradition upset ? " 
 
 " What are the details of Murtadi ? " 
 
 " Unfortunately I have not the translation here, or I would read it you ; but 
 briefly it is this. When Joseph was well stricken in years, an intrigue was set on 
 foot against him. The advisers of Pharaoh were jealous, and said, practically, 
 ' He has doubtless been a very grand old man, but his day is past, and he is no 
 longer what he was.' Pharaoh supported the man to whom he owed so much, 
 and at last said, ' Well, name the thing which he cannot do, and if he fails to 
 do it, I will dismiss him.' Then the courtiers took counsel together, and they 
 went to Pharaoh and said, ' Bid him drain the swamp of the Reian and make 
 it cultivable.' Then Pharaoh was sad, for he felt it impossible ; but he went to 
 Joseph and said, ' Thou knowest that I must marry my daughter, and I have no 
 
l62 
 
 CREATION OF THE FAYOUM. 
 
 portion to give her except the Reian, and it is a marsh.' Then Joseph said, ' I 
 will drain it and make it cultivable.' ' When ? ' said Pharaoh. ' Now,' replied 
 Joseph. Then he set to work ; and here follows a long description of the existing 
 canals. And after some time he called Pharaoh, and Pharaoh went with his 
 courtiers, and the place was like a garden, so that they marvelled. And Pharaoh 
 said to Joseph, ' How long have you taken to do this ? ' And Joseph said, 
 ' Ninety days ! ' 'No other man,' said Pharaoh, ' could do it in a thousand days ' 
 (Alph Yom) ; and so the place was called El Fayoum." 
 The conclusion of the legend was greeted with laughter. 
 " Then Pharaoh spoke Arabic some 3000 years before Mahomet ? " 
 "I don't," said the Professor, "ask you to accept the legend as true in 
 
 details ; the derivation is of course fanciful and ridiculous, but so the legend has 
 existed from time immemorial." 
 
 "But I don't see," said the Pasha, "how it helps your theory. If the 
 Fayoum was only created when Joseph was an old man, it's evident that it 
 couldn't be the land of Goshen, where his brothers settled when he was still in 
 his prime." 
 
 " I repeat that the legend is only of value as showing the connection with 
 Joseph. Another point is worth noting — that Pharaoh had no dowry for his 
 daughter; that shows that Egypt was a country of no great riches at the time 
 when Joseph made the canal, which was doubtless before the famine." 
 
 "You treat your legend rather freely,'' said the Nabob; "you take an 
 isolated line, throw over all the rest, and then use the whole as a proof that 
 the land of Goshen was in the Fayoum." 
 
AN ORIGINAL DERIVATION. 163 
 
 " My point requires no proof," said the Professor ; " it is self-evident. What 
 does all our knowledge of the settlement of the Jews amount to ? Take the 
 Scripture narrative. Instructed by Joseph, they tell Pharaoh, ' Thy servants are 
 
 shepherds, both we, and also our fathers For to sojourn in the land 
 
 are we come ; for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks ; for the famine 
 is sore in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, we pray thee,. let thy servants 
 dwell in the land of Goshen. And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, 
 Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee ; the land of Egypt is before 
 thee ; in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell ; in the land 
 
 of Goshen let them dwell And Joseph placed his father and his 
 
 brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the 
 land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.' All, then, that 
 we know of the land of Goshen is, that it was (i) the land of Rameses ; (2) the 
 best of the land of Egypt ; (3) a place for pasture. In view of the fact that we 
 are afterwards told that the Israelites in the days of their affliction built the 
 treasure city of Rameses, and that no place could have had such a name at 
 the time, we must assume that the writer of the Pentateuch was using a name 
 only given later to the place. Where was the pasture land, ' the best of the land 
 of Egypt ? ' Certainly it was not in the barren desert around the so-called 
 Tanis, as Rawlinson says ; nor in the narrow Wady Tumeylat of Poole ; nor 
 near the sea-coast, as says Michaelis; nor at the mouth of the river, as say Payne 
 Smith and Wiedemann. The best of the land of Egypt given to Joseph's 
 brethren, must have been that which was watered and drained by Joseph him- 
 self, the borders of the Bahr Jussef, that which is to this day called the garden 
 of Egypt, recognised as Goshen by St. Jerome, by Jablonski, by myself, and 
 by all tradition. And if farther proof were wanted, study the history of the 
 exodus. We have got on safe chronological ground now, for it is the nineteenth 
 dynasty, and where is the seat of government ? At Tanis, say modern archaeo- 
 logists. What ! Seti, and Ramses the Great, and Seti Menephtah ruling from 
 Tanis ! The very idea is preposterous. And on what is it based ? On the poetical 
 expression of the Psalmist : ' Marvellous things did He in the sight of their 
 fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan . . . How He had wrought 
 His signs in Egypt, and His wonders in the field of Zoan.' Therefore the 
 miracles of Moses and Aaron were in Zoan, and Zoan, say the wiseacres, is 
 San or Tanis. Now, assuming even the latter, which I am not quite prepared 
 to admit, does the use of the word Zoan in such a connection have any 
 geographical significance? A few Psalms farther on we read, 'They showed 
 his signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham ; ' and in the next 
 
164 
 
 ISRAELITE EXODUS. 
 
 Psalm, ' Wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red 
 Sea.' So if geographical value is to be attached to such phrases, I might say 
 that the miracles of Moses and Aaron were wrought in the land of Ham, that 
 is, the land of Khemi, that is, the.Fayoum. But I make no such argument; 
 the land of Zoan and the land of Ham are equally poetical expressions for the 
 land of the Nile. But there is another reason why our sages of modern research 
 will have it that Seti Menephtah abode at Tanis, because otherwise their land 
 of Goshen will not bear criticism. Why, even if he were at Tanis, instead of 
 at Memphis, where we know he was, what need had the Israelites to ask for 
 three days' journey into the wilderness ? In .nynibers they were stronger than 
 the Egyptians ; and, if they were in the Wady Tumeylat, they were already in 
 
 the desert ; at all events, it barely required three hours to get there ! Ah ! but if 
 they were in the land of the Fayoum, then indeed they were shut in, and could 
 not pass to the desert but with Pharaoh's permission. Look at the map again, 
 and you will see how the monarch who held the river had them in his grip. 
 ' Memphis,' says Marietta, ' seems to have been shut in between the Bahr Jussef 
 on one side, and the Nile on the other.' Look at yanr map again, and study 
 the plague of locusts ; an east wind brought them, and a west wind swept them 
 into the Red Sea. Why, at Tanis a west wind would have swept them into 
 the Mediterranean or into Syria. Note, too, a singular fact, the pyramids of 
 the Fayoum, lUahoon, and Dashour are brick pyramids ; and even Murray will 
 tell you how some of the bricks are made with straw, and some without." 
 
 The Professor closed as one who had silenced all discussion. 
 
 " But surely," said the Scribbler, "you've shirked one great difficulty. From 
 
"s;> 
 
DID THEY CROSS THE NILE? 165 
 
 the Fayoum they must have crossed the Nile; and would have wanted a special 
 miracle to accomplish it." 
 
 " That's a fair objection," said the Pi:ofessor, " but by no means insurmount- 
 able. It's more than probable that there yvas then, as now, lower down, a bridge 
 forming part of Joseph's irrigation works. If so, there was a good road, a golden 
 bridge ready for them. Artabanus, an Alexandrian Jew (and Jews have always 
 been tenacious of their own history), writing 100 years before Christ, says, 'The 
 Jews borrowed of the Egyptians many vessels, and no small quantity of raiment, 
 and every variety of treasure, and passed over the branches of the river towards 
 Arabia.' " 
 
 " That," said the Scribbler, "tells rather against you than in your favour, for 
 
 SlPfesiSiy;.. 
 
 from the Fayoum they would only have had to cross the main stream. From 
 Tanis Zoan, on the other hand, they would have had to cross the branches." 
 
 "Then, if so," said the Professor, "you need make no difficulty about the 
 absence of any mention of crossing the Nile. If they were where I assert, they 
 had one main stream to cross ; if they were where others pretend, they must 
 have had at least one, and probably more branches to cross. ' Of neither is there 
 any mention in Scripture. The fact is, we must not look to Scripture for detail ; 
 we find there the statement of a few bare facts ; the Israelites settled in the best 
 of the land of Egypt ; they increased and multiplied to an extent which alarmed 
 the rulers ; they were intellectually superior to the race which Pharaoh governed, 
 probably to Pharaoh himself; they became the intelligence of the nation ; with 
 their superior intelligence they were a standing danger to a despotism which 
 can only exist with ignorance; then began the first recorded Judenhetze, con- 
 
i66 
 
 THE BLESSING OF JACOB. 
 
 tinuing to this day in Russia and Germany, and wherever there is a despotic 
 Government. Now, where did this people of 600,000 able-bodied men, prob- 
 ably nearly two and a half million souls, live ? Do you want to make me believe 
 that they existed in the little Wady, which is popularly identified with the land 
 of Goshen?" 
 
 " But surely," said the Pasha, " there's nearly the same difficulty with regard 
 to the Fayoum, the population of which to-day is barely 170,000?" 
 
 " The Fayoum to-day ! " said the Professor impatiently ; " but what is the 
 Fayoum of to-day ? Possibly soosquare miles ; but the Fayoum of Joseph's day 
 extended beyond the Birket el Korn, was cultivable where now it is a morass, 
 andhiust have covered 1500 square miles of the richest land in Egypt. It was 
 the only place where the olive and the vine flourished ; even now it is the garden 
 
 of Egypt ; and then it had 366 towns. But of course, I do not mean to say that 
 the Israelites confined themselves to the Bahr el Jussef. The blessing of Jacob 
 shows that they extended down both sides of the river." 
 
 "The blessing of Jacob?" asked the Scribbler. 1 
 
 " Ah ! you probably associate the blessing of Jacob with a map of Palestine 
 nicely divided into tribes, with imaginary boundaries which never existed. We 
 are so apt to adopt the first mystical explanation given us of anything that we 
 don't understand, that we neglect to try and find a reasonable explanation for 
 ourselves. Remember that Jacob died in Egypt ; that he had certainly never 
 explored the whole of Palestine; and if you accept the theory that he was 
 
 > To avoid any charge of " literary coincidence " or of exaggeration, let me at once admit that 
 neither the theory of the Professor nor even the words in which it is given are original. They are to 
 be found in a very learned paper read by a very learned man to a very learned society. I have to 
 apologise for placing them in the mouth of the Professor. (The Scribbler's Note.) 
 
JACOB'S WILL AND TESTAMENT. 
 
 167 
 
 speaking solely with the spirit of prophecy, can you give that prophecy any 
 rational geographical fulfilment ? I dopbt it ; and seeing that there is nothing 
 in Scripture to show us that it was intended for a prophecy, surely we may try 
 and find a simpler explanation of it. The Patriarch was dying in Egypt; he 
 had seen his descendants spreading throughout the land, increasing in their 
 possessions ; and what can be more natural than that he should wish to guard 
 against any quarrels among them by apportioning to each their territory, in the 
 distribution of which he, under the Hebrew patriarchal system, would have full 
 power. True, their position was due to the all-powerful Joseph ; but no 
 authority was allowed among the 
 Jews to supersede that of the head 
 of the clan, and we need have no 
 difficulty in assuming that, with 
 Joseph's consent, the old Patriarch 
 
 made, as it were, his last will and 
 testament. Now, with this in your 
 mind, read the blessing of Jacob 
 again : — 
 
 ' Reuben, thou art my first-born. 
 My might, and the beginning of my 
 
 strength, 
 The excellency of dignity, and the 
 
 excellency of power.' 
 
 "The Beni Reuben, or tribe of 
 Reuben, were situated in that part 
 farthest north which lay nearest to 
 the seat of government; but the 
 river here divided into streams. 
 
 ' Unstable as water, thou shalt not 
 excel.' 
 
 Jewish Native 0/ Egypt. 
 
 " The Beni Reuben followed theVaters of the Nile, and intermarrying with the 
 natives, tainted the ancestral blood. So far as his descendants by Reuben were 
 concerned, the efforts and sacrifices of Jacob to preserve the purity of the race 
 of Abraham were nullified. 
 
 ' Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise ; 
 Thy hand shall be on the neck of thy enemies ; 
 
 2 c 
 
i68 
 
 A NEW READING OF AN OLD TEXT. 
 
 Thy father's sons shall bow down before thee. 
 Judah is a lion's whelp : 
 From the prey, my son, art thou gone up : 
 He stooped down, he couched as a lion, 
 And as a lioness ; who shall rouse him up ? ' 
 
 " Judah Jehudah — the Andro Lion — the Sphinx, or Strangler — Abu Haul, the 
 Father of Terrors, stooped down and crouched as a lion, with his paw on the 
 neck of the Nile, and on the Fellaheen of the Delta. 
 
 ' The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, 
 Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet. 
 Until Shiloh come ; 
 And unto him shall the obedience of the people be. ' 
 
 '^■>-»"'''^-'-°-— 
 
 <M(. 
 
 " The temple between the feet of the Sphinx, and the broad terrace paved with 
 basalt in front of the pyramids, survive to mark the judgment-seat of all the 
 tribes to the north of Beni Sonef; or, in other words, until one came to 
 Shiloh ; for here Moses was born. 
 
 ' Zabulon shall dwell at the haven of the sea ; 
 And he shall be for a haven of ships ; 
 And his borders shall be upon Zidon.' 
 
 " Zayat el Aryan marks the abode of Zabulon ; Saida or Zidon, below 
 Memphis, was the haven of ships. 
 
 ' Issachar is a strong ass 
 Couching down between the sheepfolds : 
 
THE BLESSING OF JOSEPH. 169 
 
 And he saw a resting-place that it was good, 
 And the land it was pleasant ; 
 And he bowed his shoulders to bear, 
 And became a servant unto taskwork.' 
 
 " Issachar — Sachar — Saqqarah, near Memphis ; Men-nefer, ' the resting- 
 place.' Within the white-walled fortress the tribe of Issachar found employ- 
 ment, and ate the bread of industry from the lords of Memphis. Some 
 others,'' continued the Professor, " are more doubtful ; but Ashur we find in the 
 pyramids of Dashur ; and Benjamin, the wolf that ravineth, we identify with 
 Lycopolis, the city of wolves, Assyoot. Of course, however, the conclusive 
 proof of the whole we must expect to find in the blessing of Joseph, whose 
 two sons, Manasseh and Ephraira, let me remark in passing, have given their 
 names to Minieh and Beni Suef (son of Joseph)— 
 
 ' Joseph is a fruitful bough (the Bahr Jussef, a branch of the Nile) ; 
 A fruitful bough of a fountain (the reservoir of Middle Egypt, Lake Moeris) ; 
 
 His branches (waters) run over the walls (of the valley): 
 The Archers (of the Sun) have sorely grieved him. 
 And shot at him, and persecuted him.' 
 
 "(The conflict between the Heracleopolitans and the inhabitants of the 
 Arsinorte nome or Fayoum inflicted, as we know, irreparable damages upon the 
 Labyrinth.) 
 
 ' But his bow (the lakes of the Horns) abode in Strength, 
 And the arrows of his hands (the canals) were made strong 
 By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob 
 (By the Hyksos, the allies of Jacob) ; 
 From thence is the Shepherd (race), the stone of Israel. 
 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee ; 
 And by the Almighty, who shall bless thee 
 With blessings (i.e., pools) of (rain from) heaven above. 
 Blessings of the deep (Moeris) that coucheth beneath. 
 
 Blessings of the breasts (the bosoms of the Nile), 
 And of the womb (the broad^fidds of Beni Suef) : 
 
 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my 
 
 progenitors 
 Unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills (Libyan range) : 
 They shall be on the head of Joseph, 
 And on the crown of him that was separate from his brethren.' " 
 
170 QUALIFIED APPROBATION. 
 
 The Professor paused. "I ask you," he said, impressively, "whether that 
 is not conclusive? You hesitate to reply. I can well believe that you are 
 astounded ; but I have not given you half my proofs yet." 
 
 " I assure you we're all satisfied with those you have given us," said the 
 Pasha hastily ; " the evidence is — well — abundant," he added, after some 
 hesitation. 
 
 " But I have more, much more," said the Professor eagerly, foreseeing easy 
 converts. " Are there any of you who are unconvinced ? " 
 
 There was an ominous silence as the Pasha gazed inquiringly at each one. 
 They were truthful men, but also considerate of the Professor's feelings, and 
 doubtful of their own powers of endurance. At last, the Nabob, seeing that 
 the Professor was hurriedly preparing fresh proof, said solemnly, "Professor, 
 I feel convinced that, if what you have said has not convinced, nothing 
 will." 
 
 " Sir," said the Professor, grasping his hand warmly, " I thank you for your 
 encouragement; you shall not go unrewarded. I have this bag /«// of further 
 proofs. I have given you only the most obvious — those, in fact, which hardly 
 require explanation ; but you shall have all the rest, which require a little more 
 elucidation, before we get to Cairo." 
 
 " What do you all think of my guest ? " said the Pasha, laughing, as the 
 Professor walked to the fore part of the Cleopatra in search of further possible 
 converts. 
 
 " His ideas are not more ridiculous than the Lost Tribe theory," said the 
 Nabob. " I have met many such ; only, as I saved you by my last speech, I 
 rely on your sense of honour to save me from the farther proofs which he has 
 threatened." 
 
 "Men with such theories are to be esteemed and avoided," said the 
 Scribbler oracularly. 
 
 " And you, Sketcher ? " asked the Pasha. 
 
 " I could not follow him entirely," he replied ; " there were some very long 
 quotations ; but I think he said something about there being an ass at Sakkarah, 
 bowing his shoulders to bear, and becoming a servant unto taskwork. Did 
 he not ? " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 "Ah! well, I saw that ass; he was carrying the Scribbler to the tomb of 
 Ti ; that was a true description, but I couldn't understand the rest." 
 
 The Scribbler would have resented the reference to his sixteen stone, but 
 the sight of the Professor coming aft caused every one to show an intense 
 
BACK TO SHEPHEARD'S. 
 
 171 
 
 interest in the scenery, and to examine with absorbing curiosity the Sketcher's 
 portfolio. 
 
 Late in the evening the Cleopatra arrived at Asyoot; a special train was 
 waiting to carry the Pasha to Cairo ; and in a few hours our two travellers were 
 again at Shepheard's. 
 
 From Sakkara. 
 
[CHAPTER XX. 
 
 History — Egy ft under the Persians, Macedonians, Ptolemies, and Romans — Bablun — 
 Ezra and Elijah — The Mosque el Amr — A kourbashed pillar — A strait gate — 
 The Ommiades — The Abbasides — Tuloonides — Mosque el Tuloon — Egypt the 
 seat of the Khali/ate — El Kahira — Mosque el Azhar — Mosque el Hakim — Saladin 
 — Ayubites — Mamluk period — Mosque el Kalaun — Mosque Sultan Hassan — 
 Legend of the Bloody Mosque — Mosque Kait Bey — Mosque el Ghoriya — Egypt a 
 Turkish Pashalic — The generous Egyptians — Rise of Mohamed AH — Europe in 
 Egypt — Ibrahim — Abbas — Said — Ismail — Tewfik — French intrigues — Arabi 
 revolt — England in Egypt — Three policies. 
 
 WHEN Egypt, with the rest of the Persian empire, had fallen under the 
 dominion of Alexander, the days of the great conqueror were already 
 numbered. The Ptolemaic Greek dynasty which succeeded to this portion of his 
 empire is known as the thirty-third dynasty. Lasting nearly three hundred years, it 
 established Alexandria as the capital of Egypt, and for a time of half the known 
 civilised world. What we owe intellectually to this period has already been noted 
 — the museum and library of Alexandria, the revival of learning, the Pharos, the 
 cities of Berenice and Arsinoe, the Septuagint, the History of Manetho, the collec- 
 tion of Homer. From an antiquarian point of view, we have the Rosetta Stone 
 (173 B.C.), the key by which was unlocked all our knowledge of past Egypt; 
 the decree of Canopus (247 B.C.), the temple of Edfoo (217 B.C.), the Pharaoh's 
 bed at Philse (b.c. 132), the temples of Kom Ombos, Esneh, and Denderah. 
 The battles of Philippi and Actium threw Egypt from one foreign ruler to another, 
 and she became a province of the Roman empire (b.c. 30). Her history for the 
 650 years of Roman and Byzantine domination is absorbed in that of Rome 
 and of the early Christian Church. Even a sketch of it here would be out of 
 place. All the signs that remain of it near the not then founded city of Cairo 
 is the fortress of Bablun at Fostat. Here was stationed one of three Roman 
 legions, with another on the opposite bank at Ghizeh, connected by a bridge. 
 The long dusty drive to the Roman fortress is perhaps scantily repaid by the 
 remains visible, but those who are disposed to believe in tradition may think it 
 worth while to visit the crypt of the Coptic church of St. Mary, where within 
 
MOSQUE EL AMR. 173 
 
 its walls, the priests will tell you, rested the infant Messiah and his mother ; or 
 other churches and synagogues, where you may see an alleged scroll of the 
 Thorah written by the hand of Ezra the scribe ; the spot where Elijah appeared, 
 and where Moses is said to have prayed for the cessation of the plague of 
 thunder and hail (Exod. ix. 29). But unless it be for some carvings in wood 
 and ivory, there is nothing of either historic or artistic value. 
 
 Within half a mile, however, we may rightly commence our survey of 
 Saracenic Egypt with the Mosque el Amr. The quarrels of the different sects 
 of Christian Egyptians had, as usual, facilitated the invasion of the Persians 
 under Chosroes (610 a.d.), and similar quarrels facilitated that of the Arabs; 
 for the Egyptians, whether followers of Ammon or Serapis, of Christ or 
 Mohammed, were always willing to betray the existing ruler to a new conqueror. 
 Amrou, the general of Omar, entered Egypt by Pelusium (Isthmus of Suez), 
 went up the country to Memphis, took Bablun, and then Alexandria after a 
 siege of fourteen months. So terminated, on the 10th December 641, and the 
 first day of the year 21 of the Hejira, the Roman dominion in Egypt; and 
 building Fostat, the victorious general built this, " the crown of the mosques," 
 now called, after him, the Mosque el Amr. The greatest authority on Saracenic 
 art^ tells us that the mosque "has been so repeatedly restored that it is not 
 safe to draw conclusions from its details, but it is certainly as old as the tenth 
 century in its main outline." One cannot but bow to such an authority, and 
 yet one is tempted to ask whether "the main outline" implies more than the 
 foundations ? For the Bill which was so altered that nothing was left of it but 
 the word " whereas " involuntarily comes to our recollection when we try to accept 
 the statement. Certainly a good two-thirds of the numerous columns would 
 seem to be of very much later date, nor have they any appearance of being 
 designed either for this or any one building. The destruction of a large part of 
 Cairo in 1302, and the pious munificence of a Cairene merchant, who collected 
 the debris and formed one mosque out of many, is perhaps the origin of the 
 present Mosque el Amr. One column there is to which we may accord antiquity, 
 and something more, according to the serious asseverations of the guardians. 
 When Amr was building this mosque, he asked his master, the Khalif Omar, 
 for a column from Mecca. The Khalif thereupon addressed himself to one of 
 the columns there, and commanded it to migrate to the Nile ; but the column 
 would not stir. He repeated his command more urgently, but still the column 
 remained immovable. A third time he repeated his command angrily, striking 
 the column with his kourbash, but still without effect. At length he shouted, 
 1 Stanley Lane Poole, " Art of the Saracens in Egypt." 
 
1,74 A STRAIT GATE. 
 
 " I command thee, in the name of God, O column ! arise and betake thyself to 
 Cairo." Upon which the column went, and a vein of the marble is shown as 
 the still visible mark of the whip. Two other columns are there of some 
 interest. Placed near together, salvation is promised to the man who can pass 
 between them. Ismail, it is said, came to visit the mosque. A glance convinced 
 him that his portly form could not stand the test, so, determined that the salva- 
 tion denied to a Khedive should not be granted to his subjects, he ordered the 
 space to be closed. 
 
 After the assassination of the Khalif Ali (a.d. 66 i), Moawiyeh established the 
 Ommiade dynasty, which lasted eighty years. To its credit we may place the 
 first Nilometer at the island of Roda and the first Arab coinage, inspired by 
 the horror of Abdelmalek ibn Merwan, who finding on the Greek Byzantine 
 coins then in use the words "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," substituted his own, 
 with. the inscription, "There is no God but God." The Abbasides succeeded, 
 reigning mostly from Bagdad. They built a new quarter of Cairo, called El 
 Askar, a Government-house, and a mosque, of which no traces remain ; and per- 
 haps the fact that Haroun el Raschid of the "Arabian Nights" was of this 
 dynasty forms their sole claim to our gratitude. 
 
 In 869 A.D., Ahmad Ibn Tuloon, a governor of the Abbasy Khalifs, asserted 
 his independence while still rendering homage to the Khalif at Bagdad as his 
 spiritual lord, retaining his name on the coinage and in the public prayers. 
 He added to Fostat and El Askar the suburb of El Katai ; and the glory of his 
 suburb was the mosque Ibn Tuloon. Let it be noted that the artist was a 
 Christian, and professed to design it as an imitation of the Kaaba at Mecca. 
 Makrisi tells us that the original idea of Tuloon was to build a mosque of 800 
 columns, which would have had to be taken from Greek or Roman buildings ; 
 but with a toleration in advance of his age, he abstained from the vandalism, 
 renounced his designs, and determined to build a mosque without columns, save 
 two at the Mihreb or recess which points to Mecca. The work is said by the 
 same authority to have cost _;£'6o,ooo, and to have occupied two years in build- 
 ing. The arches repose on brick piers instead of stone columns, and was the 
 first experiment of the kind. "The bold and massive style," says Mr. Stanley 
 Lane Poole, "recalls our own Norman architecture. . . . Three sides have two 
 rows of arches, the fourth, that which lies on the side towards Mecca, has five. 
 All the rows of arches run parallel to the sides of the court, so. that, standing 
 in the latter, you look through the arches. The arches are all pointed, and 
 constitute the first example of the universal employment of pointed arches 
 throughout a building three hundred years before the adoption of the pointed 
 
^ MOSQUE EL TULOON. 
 
 175 
 
 style in England. They have a very slight tendency to a return at thej spring 
 of the arch, but cannot be said to approach the true horseshoe form." The 
 effect of the long colonnades with the delicate friezed arches is unapproachable 
 in any other building, and only partly destroyed by the senseless closing of 
 some with masonry to form stores and receptacles for rubbish. Not long ago 
 the magnificent courtyard was a sort of asylum for the lame, diseased, and 
 half-witted beggars of Cairo; but happily they have been removed; and if 
 nothing has been done to restore its splendour, we are at least allowed to 
 contemplate it in befitting silence. Ludicrous traditions must, of course, attach 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 Mosque el Tuloon. 
 
 to every spot in Egypt. Here, say some, Moses conversed with the Almighty ; 
 Abraham sacrificed the ram ; and Noah descended from the Ark. Of the other 
 wonders of the Tuloonide dynasty nothing remains, and the reports of some of 
 them, including the leather bed floating on the lake of quicksilver, we may 
 relegate to the domains of fiction. Tuloon's successors were unable to maintain 
 their power, and after forty years the Abbasy Khalifs recovered their authority, 
 to lose it again in thirty years to Mohammed el Ikshid, who, thirty years later, 
 was unable to resist the Fatimy Khalif el Mdizz from Tunis. Hitherto Egypt, 
 
176 
 
 MOSQUE EL AZHAR. 
 
 though to some extent independent, had yet nominally recognised the authority 
 of the Khalifs of Damascus or of Bagdad, towards whom their position was 
 much that of the Egypt of to-day to the Sultan, but now (969 a.d.) for the first 
 time Egypt became the seat of the Khalifate. Gauhar, general of El Muizz, 
 built a palace for his master, which he styled El Kahira (the Victorious), and 
 from this, after the burning of Fostat, developed the city of Cairo. To Gauhar 
 
 also we owe the Mosque el 
 Azhar (the Most Splendid), 
 but of the original building 
 little is left ; for, injured by 
 the earthquake of 1302, it 
 has been three times restored, 
 nor has the result left any 
 architectural beauty. But El 
 Azhar is to-day worth a visit 
 as the university of Islam. 
 Here, seated in little groups, 
 may be seen hundreds of 
 students imbibing as much 
 useless information as is con- 
 sistent with systematic idle- 
 ness. If the learning by rote 
 of passages of the Koran and 
 of the traditions, if the com- 
 mitting to memory of abstruse 
 platitudes, and the repeating 
 of sounds conveying no idea 
 to either speaker or listener, 
 be education, then the 
 Mosque el Azhar is doing 
 Mosqw el Azhar. a great work. 
 
 The third of the Fatimy Khalifs in Egypt was El Hakim, an illumind who 
 founded the sect of the Druses, and whose followers still believe that he will 
 reappear as the Mahdi or last prophet. He has left behind him the mosque 
 called after his name, built, but much less carefully and artistically, in imitation 
 of the Mosque el Tuloon. Little remains but the walls and two picturesque 
 mabkharehs which dominate Cairo, and one of which was fortified by the 
 French during their occupation of Egypt. In a corner of the large court is now 
 
Sirezt in Cairo. 
 
SALADIN. 177 
 
 the Arab museum, full of lovely lamps, wooden mushrebeeyah work, and other 
 remains of Saracenic art, mainly of the Mamluk period. 
 
 The Fatemites held their own for two hundred years, until 1171, but the 
 rivalry of jealous Viziers, and the ever readiness of the Egyptians to call in 
 a new conqueror against the^ old, proved fatal to them. Then came the great 
 Salah ed din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (better known to us as Saladin), as general to 
 the Sultan of Damascus, to restore order. The brilliant and talented adventurer 
 soon succeeded in getting rid of the last of the Fatimy Khalifs and establish- 
 ing the Ayoubite dynasty, recognising once more the authority of the Khalifs 
 of Bagdad. 
 
 The eighty years which elapsed before the authority of his descendants fell 
 before the power of the Mamluks are celebrated not only in the history of 
 Egypt, but in that of the world. If the Fatemites " had changed Egypt from 
 a province to a kingdom, Saladin transformed the kingdom into an empire. 
 The long struggles with the Crusaders, the victory of Tiberias, the conquest of 
 Jerusalem, the well-known treaty with Coeur de Lion, though most familiar to us, 
 form but a part of Saladin's exploits. He made his power felt far beyond the 
 borders of Palestine ; his arms triumphed over hosts of valiant princes to the 
 banks of the Tigris; and when he died in 1193 at the early age of fifty-seven, 
 he left to his sons and kinsmen not only the example of the most chivalrous, 
 honourable, and magnanimous of kings, but substantial legacies of rich provinces, 
 extending from Aleppo and Mesopotamia to Arabia and the country of the Blacks." 
 
 Little remains in Egypt to recall the great empire of the Ayubis besides the 
 Citadel and the third wall of Cairo ; of the mosque and palaces in the former 
 no trace remains but the walls and part of the interior, as well as probably the 
 deep well with its massive masonry, are Saladin's work — as also the interior of 
 the tomb-raosque of Esh Shafiy. One other memorial of a different sort remains. 
 The " most chivalrous, honourable, and magnanimous of kings '' was touched 
 by the petition of the Pisans trading to Alexandria, who complained that they 
 were unable to leave the port without suffering grievous exactions at the hands 
 of his officials, and Saladin granted in pity to the " suppliants at his stirrup " 
 their request, that they should be made to pay nothing but their exact dues, 
 and should decide among themselves without interference their own quarrels. 
 From this first act of generosity, as it was then, of tolerant justice, as we should 
 call it now, has arisen the intolerable injustice which, under the name of Capitu- 
 lations, forbids the Moslem successors of Saladin to tax or to have jurisdiction 
 over the Christian descendants of " the suppliants at his stirrup." 
 
 The Mamluks (Mamluk = owned) were white slaves, imported first by the 
 
1 78 MOSQUE OF SULTAN HASSAN. 
 
 Ayubi Es Salik for his protection. Reinforced by continual importations, they 
 formed a valuable mercenary militia. Under Beybass they routed the French, 
 and brought about the capture of St. Louis himself; but the son of Es Salik was 
 a helpless drunkard, and the Mamluks seized the power, which they held for 
 nearly three hundred years, till the conquest by the Turks in 1517. 
 
 This is the flowering time of Saracenic art. " We are still," says our chief 
 authority on the subject, " far from an explanation how the Tartars chanced to 
 be the noblest promoters of art, of literature, and of public works that Egypt 
 had known since the days of Alexander the Great " (? Ptolemy). Chief among 
 the mosques remaining of this period are that of El Kalaun (1284), of Sultan 
 Hassan (1356), of Kait Bey (1468), and of Ghoriya (1504). 
 
 The Mosque (mausoleum) el Kalaun is one of the most perfect in Cairo ; 
 the tomb stands in the centre, surrounded by a mushrebeeyah screen, and over 
 it a stone octagonal baldachin with pointed arches, supported by four granite 
 pillars and four piers. The deUcate tracery and mosaic work of the tomb and 
 walls have suffered little from the five hundred years. The columns of the 
 Mihrab, a red stone, and an alleged turban and sash of the Great Kalaun, are 
 said to work marvellous cures. 
 
 The Mosque of Sultan Hassan stands at the foot of the Citadel hill, and its 
 exterior effect is undoubtedly the finest in Cairo. It looks, in fact, more like a 
 huge fortress than a place of worship, and it was indeed frequently so used. The 
 dome is weak and unworthy of the rest, but the minaret towers with a majestic 
 grandeur over all the city. The splendid portal, approached by seventeen steps, 
 consists of a square arched niche or recess with delicate stalactite ; the interior 
 is cruciform, and each of the four transepts consists of a single deep arch. That 
 to the east is particularly remarkable, both for its height and proportions. In 
 the centre of the east wall is the Mihrab, with two marble columns and a pointed 
 arch vaulted like a shell, while beyond are three tiers of arches differing in style, 
 the first pointed, the second round, and the third trefoil, set in a background of 
 red and green marble. Behind the Mihrab, passing through a magnificent bronze 
 plated door, we reach the singularly simple mausoleum of the founder, the great 
 Sultan Hassan, who survived perpetual war, plague, and deposition only to be 
 assassinated at last. 
 
 The legend of the erection of this mosque is worth reproducing : — " Sultan 
 Hassan, wishing to see the world and lay aside for a time the anxieties and 
 cares of royalty, committed the charge of his kingdom to his favourite minister, 
 and taking with him a large amount of treasure in money and jewels, visited 
 several foreign countries in the character of a wealthy merchant. Pleased 
 
LEGEND OF THE BLOODY MOSQUE. 
 
 179 
 
 with his tour, and becoming interested in the occupation he had assumed 
 as a disguise, he was absent much longer than he originally intended, and in 
 the course of a few years greatly increased his already large stock of wealth. 
 His protracted absence, however, 
 proved a temptation too strong 
 for the virtue of the Viceroy, who 
 gradually forming for himself a 
 party among the leading men of 
 the country, at length communi- 
 cated to the common people the 
 intelligence that the Sultan Hassan 
 was no more, and quietly seated 
 himself on the vacant throne. 
 
 "Sultan Hassan returned shortly 
 afterwards from his pilgrimage, and, 
 fortunately for himself, still in dis- 
 guise, learned as he approached his 
 capital the news of his own death 
 and the usurpation of his minister. 
 Finding, on further inquiry, the 
 party of the usurper to be too 
 strong to render an immediate dis- 
 closure prudent, he preserved his 
 incognito, and soon became known 
 in Cairo as the wealthiest of her 
 merchants ; nor did it excite any 
 surprise when he announced his 
 pious intention of devoting a portion of his gains to the erection of a spacious 
 mosque. The work proceeded rapidly under the spur of the great merchant's 
 gold, and on its completion he solicited the honour of the Sultan's presence 
 at the ceremony of naming it. Anticipating the gratification of hearing his own 
 name bestowed upon it, the usurper accepted the invitation, and at the appointed 
 hour the building was filled by him and his most attached adherents. The 
 ceremonies had duly proceeded to the time when it became necessary to give 
 the name. The chief Mollah, turning to the supposed merchant, inquired 
 what should be its name. 'Call it,' he replied, 'the mosque of Sultan Hassan.' 
 All started at the mention of this name, and the questioner, as though not 
 believing he could have heard aright, or to afford an opportunity of correcting 
 
 Mosqite of Sultan Hassan. 
 
i8o MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY. 
 
 what might be a mistake, repeated his demand. ' Call it,' again cried he, ' the 
 mosque of me, Sultan Hassan ! ' and throwing off his disguise, the legitimate 
 Sultan stood revealed before his traitorous servant. He had no time for reflec- 
 tion ; simultaneously with the discovery numerous trap-doors leading to extensive 
 vaults, which had been prepared for the purpose, were flung open, and a multi- 
 tude of armed men issuing from them, terminated at once the reign and life of 
 the usurper. His followers were mingled in the slaughter, and Sultan Hassan 
 was once more in possession of the throne of his fathers." 
 
 Loveliest among the tombs of the Khalifs is the mosque-tomb of Kait Bey, 
 with its slender minaret and its perfect dome. The portal resembles that of 
 Sultan Hassan on a smaller scale. The interior doors are surmounted by carved 
 architraves, and above them small stalactited windows between pillars. Tradi- 
 tion relates that two stones, one of red and the other of black granite, were 
 brought from Mecca, and the pious yet see thereon the impression of the 
 Prophet's feet — a sight denied to the unbeliever. The Mosque el Ghoriya may 
 be regarded as the last legacy of the Mamluk dynasties to Egypt, and was not 
 unworthy of their earlier fame. Hardly had it been completed when the old 
 Sultan seems to have recognised that he must engage in a death-struggle 
 against the Osmanli. Fighting in the plain of Dabik against the army of Sultan 
 Selim, he is said to have been seized with a fit of apoplexy, and died or was killed. 
 His head was carried as a trophy to the conqueror. Within the year Selim had 
 entered Cairo, had hanged Tonan, last of the Mamluks, at the Bab el Zuweillah, 
 hard by old Ghoriya's mosque, and converted Egypt into a Turkish Pashalic. 
 
 j.True to their one never-failing characteristic, the native Egyptians assisted the 
 conqueror; and lest we should think that at any one time within their history 
 of seven thousand years they may have shown -a generous courage or sense of 
 independence, let us quote what Richard Knolles, writing some hundred years 
 later, tells us of the taking of Cairo : — " But most part of the Egyptians, 
 diligently observing the fortune both of the one. and of the other (accounting 
 them both enemies), with divers affection assailed sometimes the Turks and 
 sometimes the Mamluks, seeming still notably to help that party whom they 
 saw for the time to have the better." 
 
 Then, as through all time, the Egyptians sided with the for the time strongest 
 of their conquerors, becoming obedient slaves to whoever held the rod, and 
 having no other idea of independence than that of rebelling against one master 
 in favour of another. From the day when the Turk assumed sway in Egypt until 
 the day that he lost it, history and art alike cease. The triumph of the Turk is 
 marked by ruins and by the moral, political, and social degradation of all with 
 
RISE OF MOHAMED ALL i8i 
 
 whom he comes in contact. Other Pharaohs oppressed the Egyptians, but gave 
 to their Egypt at least a name of glory ; these alone were the curse of Egypt and 
 destroyed her place in history. Whatever may have been the motive, whatever 
 may have been the ultimate cost, Egypt owes to Bonaparte a debt of gratitude 
 for having even for a moment lessened the influence of the Porte, and to Eng- 
 land must remain the disgrace of having in 1801 replaced her under that yoke. 
 Egypt, the cause of contention of the two greatest empires of the world, was 
 handed over to the Turk without one single stipulation for her future welfare. 
 Never had she sunk lower, never had her condition seemed more desperate, 
 than when, exhausted by two invasions, she again became a satrapy of the Porte. 
 But the hour produced the man. There arose in Egypt the greatest genius 
 whom the East has produced within the last four hundred years. Mohamed 
 Ali was not, of course, an Egyptian ; the creator of modern Egypt was a 
 native of Cavalla, a small village of Roumelia. A simple volunteer in the army 
 sent by Turkey, he became bimbashi or colonel of an Albanian corps of a 
 thousand men. In four years (1805) he had succeeded in removing or crushing 
 all his possible competitors ; two years later he successfully defeated an English 
 army which invaded Egypt under General Eraser. The massacre of the 
 remaining Mamluks in 181 1, treacherous and cruel as it may appear to 
 European ideas, was necessary to the accomplishment of the great work to 
 which he had devoted himself. Justice has never yet been done to that work 
 which he accomplished in the next forty years. That work of a single generation 
 was the creation out of chaos of a government which, at the period, compared 
 favourably with that of many European Powers whose civilisation had been the 
 work of centuries. History records no similar feat, and it bears witness not 
 only to the genius of the Roumeliote, but to the adaptability to government of 
 the Egyptian people. His successors, Ibrahim, Abbas, and Said (1849-63), 
 did little to continue his work, but time developed it. Ismail (1863-79), ^ ^^^ 
 of vast ambition and considerable ability, would probably have made an efficient 
 ruler had his head not been turned by the extraordinary prosperity which the 
 American Civil War produced in Egypt. The rise in the value of Egyptian 
 produce seemed to open to him inexhaustible wealth, and he treated as ordinary, 
 circumstances which were entirely exceptional. 
 
 The financial collapse followed ; the joint political intervention of England 
 and France resulted in the deposition of Ismail in favour of Tewfik (1879), ^^^ i^i 
 Government under the dual control of those two Powers, which secured to the 
 unhappy Egyptians three years of perhaps the most complete prosperity they have 
 ever enjoyed (1879-82). But the system was one which could only last so long 
 
EUROPE IN EGYPT. 
 
 as the two Powers and their representatives acted cordially and loyally together. 
 That condition of things existed, so far as the Governments were concerned, until 
 May 1882, when they joined in an identical note to the Egyptian Government, and 
 it failed when, two months later, France refused to fulfil her share of the engage- 
 ments, and left the English fleet in the lurch at Alexandria. The causes of that 
 action on the part of the French Government have only been very imperfectly 
 understood. Briefly stated, it amounts to this. The rebellion against the 
 Egyptian Government under Anglo-French control was secretly fomented by 
 Franco-Egyptian officials, and at one time supported by a French representative, 
 
 while the two Governments were nominally 
 acting in accord. It was this fact which 
 rendered the French Government unwilling 
 to join in the suppression of a revolt for 
 which they were mainly responsible; and 
 when they evaded their engagements, they 
 were secretly allies of the Egyptian rebels, 
 whose success they anticipated. 
 
 The victory of Tel-el- Kebir and the easy 
 suppression of the rebellion showed them 
 that they had miscalculated, and even the 
 exaggerated respect of the EngUsh Govern- 
 ment to French susceptibility has never 
 succeeded in calming the feeling of dis- 
 appointed resentment 
 
 England, in undertaking alone the execu- 
 tion of joint obligations, unfortunately com- 
 mitted the blunder of making two totally 
 incompatible promises — to secure Egypt a 
 just and stable Government, and to evacuate 
 within what was understood to be a short 
 period. Either was possible, but each was inconsistent with the other. 
 Repeated threats of evacuation have retarded our work, but the five years of 
 English occupation (1882-87) have undoubtedly been of enormous benefit 
 to Egypt. At no time has the Fellah been treated with more uniform justice 
 and consideration, and, making allowance for unfavourable economic condi- 
 tions, at no period has his material position been better. But the fabric of 
 British reform rests on no solid foundation. It will collapse the day we 
 leave the country, and who shall say what shall take its place? The only 
 
 Woman Grinding Corn. 
 
THREE POLICIES. 
 
 183 
 
 possible courses are three : — First, to abandon it to the Turk, and to repeat 
 the disgraceful policy of 1801. Second, to allow another European Power to 
 assume the position we now hold ourselves. Third, to accept permanently the 
 responsibilities of the existing situation. A fourth course may be suggested, that 
 of leaving Egypt to the Egyptians ; but the phrase is one without meaning, and 
 should be rather, abandoning Egypt to the Soudanese. 
 
 Cairo Street. 
 
 2 F 
 
Worker in Mushreheeyah. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Cairo again — Sakkara and the Tomb of Tih — An Egyptian Pepys — Mitrahenny — 
 
 Dervishes — Home again. 
 
 THE whole party of travellers were again in Cairo, and with conscientious 
 minuteness the Scribbler led them through the ever-old yet ever-new city, 
 trying to make the worn and neglected monuments awaken the historical associa- 
 tions which we have endeavoured very briefly to recall in the last chapter. 
 
 The Pyramids of Sakkara indeed carried them back again to a more remote 
 period. On the walls of the Tomb of Tih they read the journal of that worthy 
 Privy Councillor of the fifth dynasty. The daily life of Pepys himself is hardly 
 more graphically told than that of this Egyptian of nearly 6000 years ago, who, 
 of humble birth, rose to the highest ofEces in the state, married a wife of royal 
 blood, whom he chivalrously describes as the "palm of amiability to her husband." 
 We see how his cattle were killed, how his meat was cooked, and his geese 
 fattened; nay, the exact list of his cattle and poultry. How his fields were 
 ploughed, his corn grown, reaped, threshed, and gleaned ; how his ships were 
 built; how he fished and hunted, and how he fulfilled his sterner duties as 
 
MITRAHENNY. 
 
 185 
 
 judge. And lastly, there is his own portrait, with the matter-of-fact remark 
 (perhaps his own, for the tomb would be decorated for him before his death), 
 "a good likeness;" and we may believe it, for it corresponds at least very 
 minutely with the statue of him at Boolak. 
 
 The mausoleum of the Apis bulls, with the wondrous sarcophagi fitted 
 exactly into their places, apparently without turning-room for their manipulation, 
 caused our tourists to utter the same ejaculation as did " the fly in amber." There 
 was the chamber closed for 3700 years, in which were still traceable, when opened, 
 
 the finger-marks of the man who had inserted the last stone, the imprints of the 
 naked feet which last trod the sand. So too, in the temple of King Ounas, exca- 
 vated at the sole expense of the ever-enterprising Cook, were found the tools 
 and burglarious implements of the last robbers who had penetrated it. 
 
 At Mitrahenny on their way they saw the colossal statue of Ramses II., the 
 gift of Mohamed Ali to England, long neglected, and now being raised by 
 private enterprise from the ditch where it long lay hid,— never, let us hope, to 
 disgrace the " city of sweet speech scprned." 
 
 But with the exception of this excursion, the remainder of their stay in Cairo 
 
i86 
 
 DERVISHES. 
 
 was devoted to the city of the Saracens itself- 
 the Victorious.^ 
 
 Masr el Kahira, the city of Mars 
 The wonders of Arab art, however, seemed to weigh but little 
 in the estimation of most of the party. The Sketcher, in- 
 deed, was never tired of the beauties of the Arab Museum, 
 its never-to-be-forgotten lamps, its brasswork, its traceries, and 
 its panellings; but the others were little moved. Hides 
 remarked that old brass was a glut in the market, and 
 doubted if the whole lot would fetch fifty dollars. The 
 Patrician, with superior refinement, said that they had better 
 work than that in Regent Street; while the Turtle looked 
 disconsolate, seeing no means of evolving therefrom any 
 question likely to be embarrassing to the Government. 
 
 So with a sigh the Scribbler 
 turned to the more modern as- 
 pect of Cairo of to-day, and 
 piloted them through the nume- 
 rous lanes and back alleys 
 thronged with sayces, cutters of 
 tobacco, barbers, workers in 
 mushrebeeyah woodwork, dealers 
 in scents and articles from Bro- 
 
 ussa and Birmingham, Damascus and Manchester. 
 
 The graceful dance of the Mevlewi Dervishes 
 
 excited some admiration from the female members 
 
 of the party, and envy from the Patrician, who was 
 
 subsequently discovered practising the step in his 
 
 own room ; but the Turtle deemed it frivolous, 
 
 and Hides averred that it was nothing to any one 
 
 who, like himself, had danced with Mrs. Abraham 
 
 Tucker of Washington. The hideous spectacle 
 
 of the howling Dervishes seemed vaguely to remind the legislator of recent 
 
 scenes in the first legislative assembly of the world, for he was heard to mutter 
 
 the word " Tanner," and absently declined to give the expected baksheesh, on 
 
 the ground that he was a " member." 
 
 A C iro Lane. 
 
 Sayce. 
 
 ^ An ingenious Frenchman having discovered that the native term of " Masr" was derived from 
 Mars, I may perhaps be excused for saying that " Masr " is the old Semitic term for all Egypt. The 
 planet Mars (Arab, Kahir the Victorious) happened to cross the meridian of the new city as its founda- 
 tions were laid, and Gohar adopted the name of the planet, calling it El Kahira. 
 
3\K?kjfj. 
 
 O ■ MONT»A-I\Jj, 
 
 Howling Dervish. 
 
HOME AGAIN. 
 
 187 
 
 Nor did the party neglect the procession of the Mahmal, the orgies of the 
 Mulid el Hossenayn, and that melancholy festival the 
 Mulid el Nebbi. Are not they written in the book 
 of Murray ? 
 
 And at last they felt that they had religiously per- 
 formed their pilgrimage and "done'' Egypt. The 
 Scribbler was pining to shake from his feet the classic 
 but unwholesome dust of the East. The Sketcher 
 was mournfully regretting that he was not for ever 
 able to bask in its sunshine. Hides had induced 
 the Patrician to accompany him to the States, and 
 was happy in the temporary sole possession of a Lord. 
 The Doves bemoaned their approaching departure 
 with ostentation, but were secretly longing for the 
 delights of a London season, while the Turtle felt 
 that he had exhausted the Eastern Qaestion, and 
 for the future would be able to pose with increased authority as one who had 
 studied Egypt upon the spot. 
 
 Tobacco Cutter. 
 
 Street Barber. 
 
APOLOGUE. 
 
 Two men were discussing the orthography of the word camel. " Sir,'' said 
 one, who insisted on spelling it " cammle,'' " I've seen the hanimal, so I ought 
 to know." 
 
EPILOGUE. 
 
 Three months after the date of our Prologue, the Sketcher and Scribbler were 
 again at the Grand Hotel de Nouailles, the former wearily glancing over proofs, 
 
 " And do you really mean to publish this ? " he asked contemptuously. 
 
 " Why not ? " said the other in desperation. 
 
 " But it's so horribly dull," said the Sketcher. 
 
 The Scribbler's face brightened. 
 
 " Do you really think so ? I was afraid your sketches would give it interest.'' 
 
 " There are, of course, some facts in it," said the other, somewhat mollified. 
 
 " Yes," said the Scribbler pathetically, " but I couldn't help it. I am cursed 
 with the misfortune of knowing a little of the country, and I fear it will be fatal." 
 
 " Ah ! well, I expect most people will skip them," said the other encouragingly. 
 
 " Of course," said the Scribbler, relieved, " and they'll forget them in any case 
 — so I've some chance." 
 
 " There's an absence of local colouring too,'' said the friendly critic. 
 
 " I thought,'' said the Scribbler despondingly, " to correct that by putting a 
 preface at the end — that would be so excessively Egyptian, you know." 
 
 " Precisely ! and being at the end, it might be read ; but do you think the 
 book will have any other attraction ? " 
 
 " Well, there's always the cover," said the other, rising ; " I look to you for 
 that, and that's the material part of most 'gentleman's library.'" 
 
 And so the book was published. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Herodotus, it will be remembered, said that everything in Egypt went 
 by contraries. The British Government, in its policy and action in 
 Egypt, has proved that the truism of the fourth century b.c. holds good 
 in the nineteenth a.d. Further excuse is not needed for a final preface 
 to a book on Egypt. But if any were wanting to prove its inconsistency, 
 it would be sufficient to say that the preface has no other object — a 
 sentence the moral of which lies, as Captain Cuttle would say, in its 
 application. 
 
A SELECTION OF BOOKS 
 
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 THE RELIGIONS OF THE AFRICANS. 
 
 By the Rev. HENRY ROWLEY. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 3s. 6d. With Map. 
 
 TWENTY YEARS IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 The Story of the Universities' Mission, from its Commencement under Bishop 
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 By the Rev. HENRY FOWLER. 
 
 ".The volume abounds in thrilling incidents." — American Churchman. 
 
 Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. Second Edition. 
 With Portrait. 
 
 SISTER LOUISE. 
 
 THE STORY OF HER LIFE-WORK. 
 The "Sister Dora" of America. 
 
 " The Memoir of ' Sister Louise ' shows what a self-denying woman can do in the way of helping 
 those who are incapable of helping themselves. . . . She would not be happy unless she was engaged 
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 . . . The story is full of practical suggestions." — The Rock. 
 
 Demy 8vo, half cloth, 2s. 6d. Illustrated. 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF BRITISH 
 
 BURMA. 
 
 By the late Right Rev. J. H. Titcomb, D.D., 
 
 First Bishop of Rangoon. 
 
Crown 8vo, paper boards, 7 s. 6d. Illustrated. 
 
 A THOUSAND YEARS OF THE CHURCH IN 
 CHESTER-LE-STREET. 
 
 By the Rev. William O. Blunt, M.A., 
 
 Rector ; Hon. Canon Durham. 
 " A model of parish history." — Church Bells. 
 
 4to, cloth boards, 8s. 6d. Monthly, price 6d. ; post free for a year, 7s. 
 The yearly Volumes form a complete history of the Art World. 
 
 THE ARTIST: 
 
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 Small 4to, cloth, bevelled boards, 2s. 6d. Illustrated. 
 
 THE WRATH OF THE FAY. 
 
 By F. Wyville Home, 
 
 Author of " Songs of a Wayfarer, " " Lay Canticles," &c. 
 
 Crown 8vo, paper covers, up to " Six Bells," is. Complete Edition, 
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 CHANGE-RINGING. 
 
 An Introduction to the Early Stages of the Art of Church or 
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 By Charles A. W. Troyte, of Huntsham Court, Devonshire, 
 
 Member of the Ancient Society of College Youths, London. 
 
 Crown 8vo, is. 6d. 
 
 THE CHANGE-RINGERS' GUIDE TO THE STEEPLES OF 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 With an Appendix, containing information on many subjects interesting to the 
 
 Exercise. 
 
 Compiled by Rev. R. Acland-Troyte and J. E. Acland-Troyte, 
 
 Members of the Ancient Society of College Youths, the Oxford University Society, &c. 
 
Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 5s. Third Edition. With Map of Newfoundland. 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE LIFE AND EPISCOPATE OF 
 EDWARD FEILD, D.D., 
 
 Bishop of Newfoundland, 1844-1876. 
 
 By the Rev. H. W. Tucker, M.A. 
 
 With Prefatory Note to the Author by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 
 
 " A record of a devoted life." — Pall Mall Gazelle. 
 
 Two vols. 8vo, 800 pages, cloth boards, 24s. 
 With Two Portraits, Map, Facsimile Letters, and Engraving of the Lady Chapel 
 
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 MEMOIR OF THE LIFE AND EPISCOPATE OF 
 GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN, D.D., 
 
 Bishop of New Zealand, 1841-1869; Bishop of Lichfield, 1867-1878. 
 
 By the Rev. H. W. Tucker, M.A. 
 
 Popular Edition, 2 vols, crown 8vo, cloth boards, 12s. 
 
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 Numerous Illustrations. 
 
 HELP AT HAND; 
 
 Or, WH.\T shall WE DO IN ACCIDENTS OR ILLNESS? 
 By Countess Cowper. 
 
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 "Thoroughly sensible and practical in tone."— TA^ Scotsman. 
 
 Fcap. 4to, bound in white, 7s. 6d. 
 
 IN A GOOD CAUSE. 
 
 A COLLECTION OF STORIES, POEMS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 Edited by Mrs. Tyssen Amherst. 
 
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 Saturday Review. 
 
 " One of the prettiest books of the season. Seldom has an editor been so successful in enlisting 
 the aid of distinguished authors." — Edinburgh Daily Review, 
 
 2 H 
 
Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 5s. Illustrated. 
 
 TEN YEARS IN MELANESIA. 
 
 By the Rev. Alfred Penny. 
 
 " A most interesting and cliarmingly written description of Melanesian life." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " A distinct contribution to our knowledge of Melanesia."— ^a/az-rfoy Review. 
 
 " Singularly free from exaggeration . . . bears the marks of careful observation." — Athenisum. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, bevelled boards, 3s. 6d. School Edition, is. 6d. 
 With numerous Illustrations. 
 
 A BOOK ABOUT BEES. 
 
 Their History, Habits, and Instincts; also the First Principles of 
 Modern Bee-Keeping, for Young Readers. 
 
 By the Rev. F. G. Jenyns, M.A., Rector of Knebworth. 
 
 " As a reading-book we may call it excellent. It is written in the most interesting style, full of 
 information, and well graded. It should be in all our country schools especially, for the knowledge 
 obtained can be turned to practical account there. Mr. Jenyns has done service, both to the School 
 and the State, in bringing out tliis book, and we wish it a very wide circulation, not only for its 
 intrinsic value as a reading-book, but for the benefit it is capable of conferring upon our agricultural 
 labourers. ' ' — Scfioolmaster. 
 
 "The style is simple and clear, and Mr. Jenyns' pages have that indescribable charm sometimes 
 met with in books on natural history, which is the outcome of a deep and real sympathy on the part 
 of the writer with his subject. The book is abundantly supplied with good engravings. It is educa- 
 tional in the best sense of the term, and will be found no less interesting to the general reader than to 
 those for whom it is particularly intended. A capital reward-book for Day and Sunday-school 
 Scholars, and we trust that it will find a place on the shelves of many a parish Ubrary." — School 
 Guardian. 
 
 8vo, cloth extra, bevelled boards, gilt edges, 6s. 
 
 SONGS AND LYRICS FOR LITTLE LIPS. 
 
 With Musical Contributions by W. H. Cummings and Others. Illustrated by 
 G. L. Seymour and Others. 
 
 " A collection of some of the choicest little poems for children that we possess— some old, some 
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 Crown 4to, cloth boards, 3s. 6d. 
 MERRIE GAMES IN RHYME FROM YE OLDEN TIME. 
 
 Illustrated and Collected by the Hon. Emmeline M. Plunket. 
 Printed in red and black. 
 
 Each Rhyme is accompanied by a rubric indicating how the game is played, and a 
 musical score of the traditional tune to which it is chanted. 
 ' ' A collection of value, and a work of art as well. Many of the rhymes are very ancient, as are 
 not a few of the melodies to which they are set ; and the quaint and graceful illustrations chime in 
 harmoniously with the venerable music." — The Times. 
 
 " It will supply amusement to children for many an evening. This book would be a treasure 
 indeed at a party for little childreD."— Standard. 
 
 " Miss Plunket will be welcomed, and her book be voted prime — 
 There's a fund of rare amusement in her ' Merrie Games in Rhyme,' " — Punch. 
 
 London : Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., Paternoster Buildings, E.C.