Chapter 5

During his stay in Cairo, the doctor visited the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, the short journey being performed early in the morning, and with a guide. The toils and pleasures of the excursion are fairly described. 'I had read so much of the bulk of the Pyramids, and they now appeared so positively insignificant in their dimensions, that I, felt mortified; but I remembered that I had the same impression many years ago when first approaching the Alps; and I began to consider, that as the extreme clearness of the atmosphere gave them the appearance of proximity in the far distance, so it would also partly account for the diminutive aspect they persisted in presenting. I dismounted, and scrambled up the bold ledge of rock, and found myself already a hundred feet above the level of the Nile. Here my Arab guide produced cold fowl, bread, wine, and Nile water in plenty at the foot of this mountain of stone, which now began to indicate its colossal magnitude. Standing beside the pyramid, and looking from the base to the top, and especially examining the vast dimensions of each separate stone, I thus obtained an adequate impression of the magnitude of its dimensions, which produced a calm and speechless but elevated feeling of awe. The Arabs, men, women, and children, came crowding around me; but they seemed kind and inoffensive. I was advised to mount up to the top before the sun gained strength; and, skipping like chamois on a mountain, two Arabs took hold of me by each wrist, and a third lifted me up from behind, and thus I began, with resolution and courage, to ascend the countless layers of huge stones which tower and taper to the top. Every step was three feet up at a bound; and, really, a perpendicular hop-step-and-leap of this sort was no joke, move after move continuing as if for ever. I found that the Arabs did not work so smoothly as I expected, and that one seemed at a time to be holding back, while another was dragging me up; and this soon became very tiresome. Perceiving this, they changed their method, and I was directed to put my foot on the knee of one Arab, and another pulled me up by both hands, while a third pushed me behind; and thus I bounded on in my tread-mill of tedious and very tiresome exertion. I paused half-way to the top, and rested at the cave. I looked up and down with a feeling of awe, and now I felt the force of Warburton's remark, when he calls it the greatest wonder in the world. But in the midst of these common-place reflections, a fit of sickness came over me. Everything turned dark before me; and now for a moment my courage failed me; and when looking at my three savage companions--for my guide and his friend were sitting below finishing the fragments of my breakfast, and the donkeys were munching beans--I felt myself alike destitute of comfort and protection; and when they put forth their hands to lift my body, I verily thought myself a murdered man. When I came out of my faint, I found that they had gently turned me on my belly, with my head flat upon the rock, and that they had been sprinkling my face and breast with water. A profuse perspiration broke out, and I felt myself relieved. I rested ten or fifteen minutes, and hesitated for a moment whether to go up or down; but I had determined that I should reach the top, if I should perish in the attempt. I resumed, therefore, the ascent, but with more time and caution than before; and fearing to look either up or down, or to any portion of the frightful aspect around, I fixed my eye entirely on each individual step before me, as if there had been no other object in the world besides. To encourage me by diverting my attention, the Arabs chanted their monotonous songs, mainly in their own language, interspersed with expressions about buckshish, "Englese good to Arabs," and making signs to me every now and then how near we were getting to the top. After a second _dwam_, a rest and a draught of water prepared me for another effort at ascending; and now, as I advanced, my ideas began to expand to something commensurate with the grandeur and novelty of the scene. When I reached the top, I found myself on a broad area of about ten yards in every way of massive stone-blocks broken and displaced. Exhausted and overheated, I laid me down, panting like a greyhound after a severe chase. I bathed my temples, and drank a deep, cool draught of Nile water. After inhaling for a few minutes the fresh, elastic breeze blowing up the river, I felt that I was myself again. I rose, and gazed with avidity in fixed silence, north and south, east and west. And now I felt it very exhilarating to the spirit, when thus standing on a small, unprotected pavement so many hundred feet above the earth, and so many thousand miles from home, to be alone, surrounded only by three wild and ferocious-like savages. The Arabs knew as well as I did that my life and property were in their power; but they were kind, and proud of the confidence I had in them. They tapped me gently on the back, patted my head, kissed my hand, and then with a low, laughing, sinister growl, they asked me for buckshish, which I firmly refused; then they laughed, and sang and chatted as before. In calmly looking around me, one idea filled and fixed my mind, which I expressed at the time in one word--magnificence!... I remained long at the top of the pyramid, and naturally felt elevated by the sublimity of the scenery around, and also by the thought, that I had conquered every difficulty, and accomplished my every purpose. The breeze was still cool, although the sun was now high in the sky. I laughed and talked with the Arabs; and advanced with them holding my two hands, to the very edge, and looked down the awful precipice. Here again, with a push, or a kick, or probably by withdrawing their hands, my days would have been finished; and I would have been buried in the Desert among the ancient kings, or more likely worried up by hungry hyænas. I looked around at my leisure, and began carefully to read the names cut out on the stones, anxious to catch one from my own country, or of my acquaintance, but in this I did not succeed. Seeing me thus occupied, one of the Arabs drew from his pocket a large murderous-looking _gully_, and when he advanced towards me with it in his hand, had I believed the tenth part of what I had heard or read, I might have been afraid of my life. But with a laughing squeal, he pointed to a stone, as if to intimate that I should cut out my name upon it. Then very modestly he held out his hand for buckshish, and I thought him entitled to two or three piasters.... In coming down, I felt timid and giddy for awhile, and was afraid that I might meet the fate of the poor officer from India, who, on a similar occasion, happened to miss his foot, and went bouncing from one ledge of stone to another, towards the bottom, like a ball, and that long after life was beaten out of him. Seeing this, the Arabs renewed their demand for buckshish, and with more perseverance than ever; but I was equally firm in my determination that more money they should not have till I reached the bottom. At last they took me by both hands as before, and conducted me carefully from step to step. By and by I jumped down from one ledge to another without their assistance, till I reached the mouth of the entrance to the interior. I descended this inlet somewhat after the manner of a sweep going down a chimney, but not quite so comfortable, I believe. In this narrow inclined plane, I not only had to encounter sand-flies, and every variety of vermin in Egypt, but I was afraid of serpents. The confined pass was filled, too, with warm dust, and the heat and smoke of the lights we carried increased the stifling sensation. In these circumstances, I felt anxious only to go as far as would enable me to fire a pistol with effect in one of the vaults. This is well worth while, inasmuch as the sound of the explosion was louder than the roar of a cannon. In fact, it almost rent the drum of my ears, and rolled on like thunder through the interior of the pyramid, multiplied and magnified as it was by a thousand echoes. The sound seemed to sink, and mount from cavity to cavity--to rebound and to divide--and at length to die in a good old age. The flash and the smoke produced, too, a momentary feeling of terror. Having performed this marvellous feat, I was nowise ambitious to qualify myself further for giving a description of the interior.'

After visiting Suez, the author returned to Cairo, descended to the coast of the Levant, and took shipping for Jaffa, on the route to Jerusalem. Every point of interest in the holy city is described as minutely as could be desired. Next, there was a visit to the Dead Sea, regarding which there occur some sagacious remarks. The doctor repudiates the ordinary belief, that the waters of this famed lake are carried off by exhalation. Six million tons of water are discharged every day by the Jordan into the Dead Sea; and to suppose that this vast increase is wholly exhaled, seems to him absurd. He deems it more likely that the lake issues by subterranean passages into the Red Sea. The only remark that occurs to us on this point is, that the saltness of the lake must be held as a proof that there is at least a large exhalation from the surface.

Dr Aiton also visited Bethlehem, where he saw much to interest him; and had the satisfaction of being hospitably entertained by the fathers of the Greek convent. 'I left the convent,' he says, 'soothed and satisfied much with all that I had seen, and went round to take a parting and more particular view of the plain where the shepherds heard the angels proclaim: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men!" The plain is still mainly under pasture, fertile and well watered, and there I saw shepherds still tending their flocks. These shepherds have great influence over their sheep. Many of them have no dogs. Their flocks are docile and domestic, and not as the black-faced breed of sheep in Scotland, scouring the hills like cavalry. The shepherd's word spoken at any time is sufficient to make them understand and obey him. He sleeps among them at night, and in the morning he leadeth them forth to drink by the still waters, and feedeth them by the green pastures. He walks before them slow and stately; and so accustomed are the sheep to be guided by him, that every few bites they take they look up with earnestness to see that he is there. When he rests during the heat of the day in a shady place, they lie around him chewing the cud. He has generally two or three favourite lambs which don't mix with the flock, but frisk and fondle at his heel. There is a tender intimacy between the Ishmaelite and his flock. They know his voice, and follow him, and he careth for the sheep. He gathereth his lambs, and seeketh out his flock among the sheep, and gently leadeth them that are with young, and carrieth the lambs in his bosom. In returning back to Jerusalem, I halted on a rugged height to survey more particularly, and enjoy the scene where Ruth went to glean the ears of corn in the field of her kinsman Boaz. Hither she came for the beginning of barley harvest, because she would not leave Naomi in her sorrow. "Entreat me not to leave thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." How simple and tender! Here, when looking around me, honoured I felt for ever be her memory, not only for these touching sentiments, worthy of our race even before the fall, and when the image of God was not yet effaced; but also in respect that she who uttered these words was the great-grandmother of David, and as of the generation of Jesus. Here also I looked back to the city of Bethlehem with lingering regret, uttering a common-place farewell to the scene, but never to its hallowed recollections.'

We may conclude our extracts with a passage descriptive of the doctor's departure from the Holy Land, from which it will be seen that he was not indisposed to keep his part when necessity demanded. 'The steamer _Levant_ was ordered to sail at midnight on the day it arrived at Jaffa, and there was a vast crowd and great confusion at the embarkation. All the villainy of the Arab watermen was in active operation. With the assistance of Dr Kiat's Italian servant, an arrangement had been made that I and my friend were to be taken out to the steamer for a stipulated sum; but while all the boats of the natives were going off; ours was still detained at the pier under a variety of flimsy pretences. Then a proposal was made to carry the luggage back to the shore, and to take away the boat somewhere else, a promise being given by the Arabs that they would return with it in plenty of time to take us on board before midnight. By this time, I was too old a traveller amid ruffians of this sort to permit so simple a fraud to be perpetrated. The crew insisted on taking hold of the oars, and my friend and I persisted in preventing them. We soon saw that nothing but determined courage would carry the day. I therefore did not hesitate to grasp the skipper firmly by the throat till I almost choked him, threatening to toss him headlong into the sea. We also threatened loudly to go back to the English consul, and to have them punished for their conduct. Awed a little, and seeing that we were not to be so easily done as they expected, notwithstanding that we had been so simple as to pay our fare before we started, they did at last push off the boat; but it was only after a fashion of their own. Every forty yards their oars struck work, and they demanded more money. The sea was rough even beyond the breakers, and the gravestone which I had seen in the garden at Jaffa was enough to convince me, that the guiding of a boat by savages in the dark, through the neck of such a harbour, with whirling currents and terrifying waves, was a matter of considerable danger. There was no remedy for it, but continuing to set the crew at defiance, knowing that they could not upset the boat without endangering their own lives as well as ours. They wetted us, however, purposely, with the spray, and did their best to frighten us, by rocking the boat like a cradle. First one piaster (about twopence-halfpenny) was given to the skipper, then the boat was advanced about a hundred yards, when the oars were laid down once more. Another row was the consequence, at the end of which another piaster was doled out to him, and forward we moved till we were fairly within cry of the ship, when I called out for assistance, and they pushed us directly alongside, behind the paddle-box. Here again they detained the luggage, and demanded more buckshish; but I laid hold of the rope hanging down from the rails of the steamer, and crying to my companion to sit still and watch our property, I ran up the side of the ship and called for the master, knowing that the captain was on shore. Looking down upon them, he threatened to sink them in the ocean if they did not bring everything on deck in a minute. When I saw the portmanteaus brought up, and my friend and I safely on board, I thought that all was well enough, although we had got a ducking in the surf; but in a little, my friend found that he had been robbed of his purse, containing two sovereigns and some small money; but nobody could tell whether this had been done in the crowd on the pier, or when he was in the boat, or when helped up the side of the ship. The anchor was weighed about midnight, and we steamed along the coast of Samaria, towards the once famous city and seaport of Herod.'

Having taken the liberty to be jocular on the doctor's oddities of expression, we beg to say, that notwithstanding these and other eccentricities, the work he has produced is well worthy of perusal, and of finding a place in all respectable libraries.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] _The Lands of the Messiah, Mahomet, and the Pope, as Visited in 1851_. By John Aiton, D.D., Minister of Dolphinton. Fullarton & Co. 1852.

GLEANING IN SCOTLAND.

BY A PRACTITIONER.

Like most other ubiquitous customs, corn-gleaning has been frequently described by the painter and the poet, yet I much question whether in any case the picture is true to nature. A certain amount of idealism is infused into all the sketches--indeed, in the experience of numbers of readers, this is the sole feature in most of them. Such a defect is easily accounted for. Those who have depicted the custom were practically unacquainted with its details, and invariably made the sacred story the model of their picture, without taking into consideration the changes induced by time or local peculiarity. Even the beautiful and glowing description of English corn-gleaning given by Thomson, is felt by practical observers to be greatly too much of the Oriental hue, too redolent of the fragrance of a fanciful Arcadia. It is a pity that this interesting custom is not more faithfully transcribed into our national poetry; and it is with the hope that a future Burns may make the attempt, that the writer of this article ventures to give a short history of his gleaning-days, believing the subject to be interesting enough to engage the attention of the general reader.

Though born amid the grandeur and sublimity of Highland scenery, I was, at a very early age, brought to reside in a small village on the east coast--small now, but once the most famous and important town in that part of Scotland. Among the scenes of these times, none stand out more vividly than the 'gathering-days'--the harvest of the year's enjoyment--the time when a whole twelvemonth's happiness was concentrated in the six weeks' vacation of the village-school. I do not recollect the time when I began to glean--or _gather_, as it is locally termed--probably I would, when very young, follow the others to the near farms, and gradually become, as I grew older, a regular gleaner. At that time the gleaners in our district were divided into two gangs or parties. One of these was headed by four old women, whose shearing-days were past; and as they were very peaceable, decent bodies, it was considered an honour to get attached to their band. The other was composed of the wilder spirits of the place, who thought nothing of jumping dikes, breaking hedges, stealing turnips, and committing other depredations on the farms which they visited. Fortunately, my quiet disposition, and supposed good character, procured my admittance into the more respectable gang; and I had the honour of sharing its fortunes during the five or six years I continued a gleaner. I was surprised to see one of these old ladies toddling about the village only a few weeks ago, though her gathering-days are long since past. She is the last survivor of the quorum, and is now fast fading into dotage.

Although the two gleaning-parties never assumed a positive antagonism, they took care to conceal their movements from each other as well as possible. When one of our party received information of a field being 'ready,' the fact was secretly conveyed to all the members, with an injunction to be 'in such a place at such an hour' on the following morning; and the result generally was, that we had a considerable portion of the field gleaned before the other gang arrived. But we did not always act on previous information. Many a morning we departed on the search, and frequently wandered all day without 'lifting a head.' These were the best times for us young ones, whose hearts were too light to care for more than the fun of the thing, as we then had a glorious opportunity of getting a feast of bramble-berries and wild raspberries in the woods and moors; but to the older members of our party the disappointment was anything but pleasant.

I have spoken of a field being _ready_. Now, to some readers, this may convey a very erroneous idea. We learn that in early times not only were the gleaners admitted among the sheaves, or allowed to 'follow the shearers,' as the privilege is now termed, but, in a certain instance, the reapers were commanded to leave a handful now and then for the gleaner. Now, that custom is entirely changed: the sheaves are all taken away from the field; and instead of the reapers leaving handfuls expressly for the gleaners, the farmer endeavours by raking to secure as much as possible of what they accidentally leave on the stubble. I am not inclined to quarrel with the condition that requires the stocks to be removed ere the gleaners gain admittance; because many would be tempted to pilfer, and besides, the ground on which they stand could not be reached. But there is no doubt that the custom of gleaning was originally a public enactment; while the fact that it has spread over the whole earth, and descended to the present time, shews that it still exists on the statute-book of justice, in all the length and breadth of its original signification; and it amounts almost to a virtual abrogation of the privilege when the stubble is thus gleaned. At all events, if these sentiments are not in consonance with the new lights of the day, let them be pardoned in a _ci-devant_ gleaner.

Upon arriving at a field, our first object was to choose a locality. If we were first on the ground, we took a careful survey of its geographical position, and acted accordingly. When the field was level, and equally exposed, it mattered little to what part we went; but in the event of its being hilly, or situated near a wood, we had to consider where the best soil lay, and where the sun had shone most. It was in the discovery of these important points that the sagacity and experience of our aged leaders were most brilliantly displayed, and gave to our party an immense superiority over the other, whose science was much more scanty; it therefore happened that we had generally the largest quantity and best quality of grain. These preliminaries being settled--and they generally took less time than I have done to write--we began work, commencing, of course, at the end of the field by which we entered, and travelling up or down the rigs.

The process of gleaning may be generally considered a very simple one; but in this, as in everything else, some knowledge is necessary, and no better proof of this could be had, than in the quantities gathered by different persons in the same space of time. A careless or inexperienced gatherer could easily be detected by the size and _shape_ of his single. The usual method practised by a good gleaner was as follows:--Placing the left hand upon the knee, or behind the back, the right was used to lift the ears, care being taken to grasp them close by the 'neck.' When the right hand had gathered perhaps twenty or thirty ears, these were changed into the left hand; the right was again replenished from the ground; and this process was continued till the left was full, or rather till the gleaner heard one of his or her party exclaim: 'Tie!' when the single was obliged to be completed. Thus it is clear that a good eye and a quick hand are essential to a good gleaner.