Part 6

They were busy days, for our wise parents insisted upon regularity of a certain kind, and my older sister, only just eighteen, gave us lessons in both French and English in the early morning before we went on the wonderful excursions to the great temples, or before “Teedie” was allowed to escape for his shooting expeditions. I do not think the three months’ absence from school was any detriment, and I am very grateful for the stimulating interest which that trip on the Nile gave to my brothers and me. I can still see in retrospect, as if it were yesterday, the great temple of Karnak as we visited it by moon-light; the majestic colossi at Medinet Haboo; and the more beautiful and delicate ruins of Philæ. Often my father would read Egyptian history to us or explain the kind of architecture which we were seeing; but always interspersed with more serious instruction were merry walks and games and wonderful picnic excursions, so that the winter on the Nile comes back to me as one of romantic interest mixed with the usual fun and cheerful intercourse of our ordinary family life. The four young men who had chartered the dahabeah _Rachel_ were Messrs. Nathaniel Thayer and Frank Merriam of Boston, Augustus Jay of New York, and Harry Godey of Philadelphia, and these four friends, with the addition of other acquaintances whom we frequently met, made for my sister and my parents a delightful circle, into which we little ones were welcomed in a most gracious way.

In spite of the fact of the charms of the Nile and the fun we frequently had, I write on February 1, from Thebes, to my little playmate “Edie,” with rather melancholy reminiscence of a more congenial past: “My own darling Edie,” I say, “don’t you remember what fun we _used_ to have out in the country, and don’t you remember the day we got Pony Grant up in the Chauncey’s summer house and couldn’t get him down again, and how we always were losing Teedie’s india rubber shoes? I remember it so perfectly, and what fun it was!” I evidently feel that such adventures were preferable to those in which we were indulging in far-away Egypt, although I conscientiously describe the ear on one of the colossi at Medinet Haboo as being four feet high, and the temple, I state, with great accuracy, has twelve columns at the north and ten on either side! I seem, however, to be glad to come back from that expedition to Medinet Haboo, for I state that I wish she could see our dahabeah, which is a regular little home. I don’t approve--in this same letter--of the dancing-girls, which my parents allowed me to see one evening. With early Victorian criticism I state that “there is not a particle of grace in their motions, for they only wriggle their bodies like a snake,” and that I really felt they were “very unattractive”--thus proving that the little girl of eleven in 1873 was more or less prim in her tastes. I delight, however, in a poem which I copy for “Edie,” the first phrase of which has rung in my ears for many a long day.

“Alas! must I say it, fare-farewell to thee, Mysterious Egypt, great land of the flea, And thy Thebaic temples, Luxor and Karnac, Where the natives change slowly from yellow to black. Shall I ne’er see thy plain, so fraught with renown, Where the shadoofs go up and the shadoofs go down, Which two stalwart natives bend over and sing, While their loins are concealed by a simple shoe string.”

This verse, in spite of the reference to the lack of clothes of the stalwart natives, evidently did not shock my sensibilities as much as the motions of the dancing-girls. Farther on in the letter I describe the New Year’s Eve party, and how Mr. Merriam sang a song which I (Conie) liked very much, and which was called “She’s Naughty But So Nice.” “Teedie,” however, did not care for that song, but preferred one called “Aunt Dinah,” because one verse ran: “My love she am a giraffe, a two-humped camamile.” [Music had apparently only charms to soothe him when suggestive of his beloved animal studies.] From Thebes also my brother writes to his aunt one of the most interesting letters of his boyhood:

Near Kom Obos, Jan. 26th, 1873.

DEAR AUNT ANNIE:

My right hand having recovered from the imaginary attack from which it did _not_ suffer, I proceed to thank you for your kind present, which very much delighted me. We are now on the Nile and have been on that great and mysterious river for over a month. I think I have never enjoyed myself so much as in this month. There has always been something to do, for we could always fall back upon shooting when everything else failed us. And then we had those splendid and grand old ruins to see, and one of them will stock you with thoughts for a month. The temple that I enjoyed most was Karnak. We saw it by moonlight. I never was impressed by anything so much. To wander among those great columns under the same moon that had looked down on them for thousands of years was awe-inspiring; it gave rise to thoughts of the ineffable, the unutterable; thoughts which you cannot express, which cannot be uttered, which cannot be answered until after The Great Sleep.

[Here the little philosopher breaks off and continues in less serious mood on February 9.]

I have had great enjoyment from the shooting here, as I have procured between one and two hundred skins. I expect to procure some more in Syria. Inform Emlen of this. As you are probably aware, Father presented me on Christmas with a double-barrelled breech loading shot gun, which I never move on shore without, excepting on Sundays. The largest bird I have yet killed is a Crane which I shot as it rose from a lagoon near Thebes.

The sporting is injurious to my trousers....

Now that I am on the subject of dress I may as well mention that the dress of the inhabitants up to ten years of age is nothing. After that they put on a shirt descended from some remote ancestor, and never take it off till the day of their death.

Mother is recovering from an attack of indigestion, but the rest are all well and send love to you and our friends, in which I join sincerely, and remain,

Your Most Affectionate Nephew, T. ROOSEVELT, JR.

The adoration of his little sister for the erudite “Teedie” is shown in every letter, especially in the letters to their mutual little friend “Edie.” On January 25 this admiration is summed up in a postscript which says: “Teedie is out shooting now. He is quite professionist [no higher praise could apparently be given than this remarkable word] in shooting, skinning and stuffing, and he is so satisfied.” This expression seems to sum up the absolute sense of well-being during that wonderful winter of the delicate boy, who, in spite of his delicacy, always achieved his heart’s desire.

In the efforts of his little sister to be a worthy companion, I find in my diary, written that same winter of the Nile, one abortive struggle on my own part to become a naturalist. On the page at the end of my journal I write in large letters:

NATURAL HISTORY

“QUAIL

“Ad. near Alexandria, Egypt, November 27th, 1872. Length 5--Expanse 13.0 Wings 5 Tail 1.3--Bill 5. Tarsus 1.2 Middle Toe 1.1 Hind Toe .3.”

Under these mystic signs is a more elaborate and painstaking description of the above bird. I can see my brother now giving me a serious lecture on the subject, and trying to inspire a mind at that time securely closed to all such interests--to open at least a crack of its reluctant door, for “Teedie” felt that to walk with blind eyes in a world of such fluttering excitement as was made for him by the birds of the air showed an innate depravity which he wished with all his soul to cure in his beloved little sister. At the end of my description of the quail I fall by the wayside, and only once again make an excursion into the natural history of the great land of Egypt; only once more do I struggle with the description of a bird called this time by the curious name of “Ziczac.” (Could this be “Zigzag,” or was it simply my childish mind that zigzagged in its painful efforts to follow the impossible trail of my elder brother?) In my account of this, to say the least, unusual bird I remark: “Tarsus not finished.” Whether _I_ have not finished the tarsus, or whether the bird itself had an arrested development of some kind, I do not explain; and on the blank page opposite this final effort in scientific adventure I finish, as I began, by the words “_Natural History_,” and underneath them, to explain my own unsuccessful efforts, I write: “My Brother, Theodore Roosevelt, Esq.” Whether I had decided that all natural history was summed up in that magic name, or whether from that time on I was determined to leave all natural history to my brother, Theodore Roosevelt, Esq., I do not know; but the fact remains that from that day to this far distant one I have never again dipped into the mystery of mandibles and tarsi.

* * * * *

And so the sunny, happy days on the great river passed away. A merry eighteenth-birthday party in January for my sister Anna took the form of a moonlight ride to the great temple of Karnak, and, although we younger ones, naturally tired frequently of the effort to understand history and hieroglyphics, and turned with joy even in the shadow of the grand columns of Abydos to the game of “Buzz,” still I can say with truth that the easily moulded and receptive minds of the three little children responded to the atmosphere of the great river with its mighty past, and all through the after-years the interest aroused in those early days stimulated their craving for knowledge about the land of the Pharaohs.

On our way down the river an incident occurred which, in a sense, was also memorable. At Rhoda on our return from the tombs of Beni Hasan we found that a dahabeah had drawn up near ours, on which were the old sage Ralph Waldo Emerson and his daughter. My father, who never lost a chance of bringing into the lives of his children some worth-while memory, took us all to see the old poet, and I often think with pleasure of the lovely smile, somewhat vacant, it is true, but very gentle, with which he received the little children of his fellow countryman.

It was at this time that the story was told in connection with Mr. Emerson that some sentimental person said: “How wonderful to think of Emerson looking at the Sphinx! What a message the Sphinx must have had for Emerson.” Whereupon an irreverent wit replied: “The only message the Sphinx could possibly have had for Emerson must have been ‘You’re another.’” I can quite understand now, remembering the mystic, dreamy face of the old philosopher, how this witticism came about.

* * * * *

And now the Nile trip was over and we were back again in Cairo, and planning for the further interest of a trip through the Holy Land. Mr. Thayer and Mr. Jay, two of the young friends who had accompanied us on the Nile, decided to join our party, and after a short stay in Cairo we again left for Alexandria and thence sailed for Jaffa. In my diary I write at the Convent of Ramleh between Jaffa and Jerusalem, where we spent our first night: “In Jaffa we chose our horses, which was very exciting, and started on our long ride. After three hours of delightful riding through a great many green fields, we reached this convent and found they had no room for ladies, because they were not allowed to go into one part of the building as it was against the rules, but at last Father got the old monks to allow us to come into another part of the convent for just one night.”

“Father,” like his namesake, almost always got what he wanted.

From that time on one adventure after another followed. I write of many nice gallops, and of my horse lying down in the middle of streams; and, incidentally with less interest, of the Mount of Olives and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre! Antonio Sapienza proved to be an admirable dragoman, and always the practical part of the tenting cavalcade started early in the morning, and therefore as the rest of us rode over the hills in the later afternoon we would see arranged cosily in some beautiful valley the white tents, with the curling smoke from the kitchen-tent already rising with the promise of a delightful dinner.

Over Jordan we went, and what a very great disappointment Jordan was to our childish minds, which had always pictured a broad river and great waves parting for the Ark of the Covenant to pass. This Jordan was a little stream hardly more impressive than the brook at our old home at Madison, and we could not quite accustom ourselves to the disappointment. But Jerusalem with its narrow streets and gates, its old churches, the high Mount of Olives, and the little town of Bethlehem not far away, and, even more interesting from the standpoint of beauty, the vision of the Convent of Mar Saba on the high hill not far from Hebron, and beyond all else the blue sparkling waters of the Dead Sea, all remain in my memory as a wonderful panorama of romance and delight.

Arab sheiks visited us frequently in the evening and brought their followers to dance for us, and wherever my father went he accumulated friends of all kinds and colors, and we, his children, shared in the marvellous atmosphere he created. I remember, in connection with the Dead Sea, that “Teedie” and Mr. Jay decided that they could sink in it, although the guides had warned them that the salt was so buoyant that it was impossible for any living thing to sink in the waters (the Dead Sea was about the most alive sea that I personally have ever seen), and so the two adventurous ones undertook to dive, and tried to remain under water. “Teedie” fortunately relinquished the effort almost immediately, but Mr. Jay, who in a spirit of bravado struggled to remain at the bottom, suffered the ill effects from crusted salt in eyes and ears for many hours after leaving the water.

For about three weeks we rode through the Holy Land, and my memory of many flowers remains as one of the charms of that trip. Later, led in the paths of botany by a beloved friend, I often longed to go back to that land of flowers; but then to my childish eyes they meant nothing but beauty and delight.

After returning to Jerusalem and Jaffa we took ship again and landed this time at Beyrout, and started on another camping-trip to Damascus, through perhaps the most beautiful scenery which we had yet enjoyed. During that trip also we had various adventures. I describe in my diary how my father, at one of our stopping-places, brought to our tents some beautiful young Arab girls, how they gave us oranges and nuts, and how cordially they begged us, when a great storm came up and our tents were blown away, to come for shelter to their quaint little houses.

Even to the minds of the children of eleven and fourteen years of age, the great Temple of Baalbek proved a lure of beauty, and the diary sagely remarks that “It is quite as beautiful as Karnak, although in an entirely different way, as Baalbek has delicate columns, and Karnak great, massive columns.” The beauty, however, is not a matter of such interest as the mysterious little subterranean passages, and I tell how “Teedie” helped me to climb the walls and little tower, and to crawl through these same unexplored dark places.

The ride into Damascus itself remains still an expedition of glamour, for we reached the vicinity of the city by a high cliff, and the city burst upon us with great suddenness, its minarets stretching their delicate, arrow-like spires to the sky in so Oriental a fashion that even the practical hearts of the little American children responded with a thrill of excitement. Again, after an interesting stay in Damascus, we made our way back to Beyrout. While waiting for the steamer there my brother Elliott was taken ill, and writes in a homesick fashion to the beloved aunt to whom we confided all our joys and woes. Poor little boy! He says pathetically: “Oh, Auntie, you don’t know how I long for a finishing-up of this ever-lasting traveling, when we can once more sit down to breakfast, dinner and lunch in our own house. Since I have been sick and only allowed rice and chicken,--and very little of them--I have longed for one of our rice puddings, and a pot of that strawberry jam, and one of Mary’s sponge cakes, and I have thought of when I would go to your rooms for dinner and what jolly chops and potatoes and dessert I would get there, and when I would come to breakfast we would have _buckwheat cakes_. Perhaps I am a little homesick.” I am not so sure but what many an intelligent traveller, could his or her heart be closely examined, would find written upon it “lovely potatoes, chops and hot buckwheat cakes.”

But all the same, in spite of “Ellie’s” rhapsody, off we started on another steamer, and my father writes on March 28, 1873:

Steamer off Rhodes.

Teedie is in great spirits, as the sailors have caught for him numerous specimens, which he stuffs on deck, to the edification of a large audience.

I write during the same transit, after stopping at Athens, that “It is a very lovely town, and that I should have liked to stay there longer, but that was not to be.” I also decided that although the ruins were beautiful, I did not like them as much as either Karnak or Baalbek. Having dutifully made these architectural criticisms, I turn with gusto to the fact that Tom and Fannie Lawrence, “Teedie,” “Ellie,” and I have such splendid games of tag on the different steamers, and that I know my aunt would have enjoyed seeing us. The tag was “con amore,” while the interest in the temples was, I fear, somewhat induced. Our comprehending mother and father, however, always allowed us joyous moments between educational efforts. In a letter from Constantinople written by “Ellie” on April 7, he says: “We have had Tom and Frank Lawrence here to dinner, and we had a splendid game of ‘muggins’ and tried to play eucre (I don’t know that this is rightly spelled) with five, but did not suceede, Teedie did make such mistakes. [Not such an expert in cards, you see, as in tarsi and mandibles!] But we were in such spirits that it made no difference, and we did nothing but shout at the top of our voices the battle cry of freedom; and the playing of a game of slapjack helped us get off our steam with hard slaps, but even then there was enough (steam) left in Teedie and Tom to have a candle fight and grease their clothes, and poor Frank’s and mine, who were doing nothing at all!” As one can see by this description, the learned and rather delicate “Teedie” was only a normal, merry boy after all. “Ellie” describes also the wonderful rides in Constantinople, and many other joys planned by our indulgent parents. From that same city, called because of its many steeples The City of Minarets, “Teedie” writes to his little friend Edith:

I think I have enjoyed myself more this winter than I ever did before. Much to add to my enjoyment Father gave me a gun at Christmas, which rendered me happy and the rest of the family miserable.

I killed several hundred birds with it, and then went and lost it! I think I enjoyed the time in Egypt most, and after that I had the most fun while camping out in Syria.

While camping out we were on horseback for several hours of each day, and as I like riding ever so much, and as the Syrian horses are very good, we had a splendid time. While riding I bothered the family somewhat by carrying the gun over my shoulder, and on the journey to the Jordan, when I was on the most spirited horse I ever rode, I bothered the horse too, as was evidenced by his running away several times when the gun struck him too hard. Our tent life had a good many adventures in it. Once it rained very hard and the rain went into our open trunks. Another time our tents were almost blown away in a rough wind, and once I hunted a couple of jackals for two or three miles as fast as the horse could go.

Yours truly, T. ROOSEVELT, JR.

This little missive sums up the joy of “Teedie’s” winter in Egypt and Syria, and so it seems a fitting moment to turn to other interests and occupations, leaving the mysterious land of the pyramids and that sacred land of mountains and flowers behind us in a glow of child memories, which as year followed year became brighter rather than dimmer.

III

THE DRESDEN LITERARY AMERICAN CLUB

MOTTO “W. A. N. A.”

It was a sad change to the three young American children to settle in Dresden in two German families, after the care-free and stimulating experiences of Egypt and the Holy Land. Our wise parents, however, realized that a whole year of irregularity was a serious mistake in that formative period of our lives, and they also wished to leave no stone unturned to give us every educational advantage during our twelve months’ absence from home and country. It was decided, therefore, that the two boys should be placed in the family of Doctor and Mrs. Minckwitz, while I, a very lone and homesick small girl, was put with some kind but far too elderly people, Professor and Mrs. Wackernagel. This last arrangement was supposed to be advantageous, so that the brothers and sister should not speak too much English together. The kind old professor and his wife and the daughters, who seemed to the little girl of eleven years on the verge of the grave (although only about forty years of age), did all that was in their power to lighten the agonized longing in the child’s heart for her mother and sister, but to no avail, for I write to my mother, who had gone to Carlsbad for a cure: “I was perfectly miserable and very much unstrung when Aunt Lucy wrote to you that no one could mention your name or I would instantly begin to cry. Oh! Mother darling, sometimes I feel that I cannot stand it any longer but I am going to try to follow a motto which Father wrote to me, ‘Try to have the best time you can.’ I should be very sorry to disappoint Father but sometimes I feel as if I could not stand it any longer. We will talk it over when you come. Your own little Conie.”

Poor little girl! I was trying to be noble; for my father, who had been obliged to return to America for business reasons, had impressed me with the fact that to spend part of the summer in a German family and thus learn the language was an unusual opportunity, and one that must be seized upon. My spirit was willing, but my flesh was very, very weak, and the age of the kind people with whom I had been placed, the strange, dreadful, black bread, the meat that was given only as a great treat after it had been boiled for soup--everything, in fact, conduced to a feeling of great distance from the lovely land of buckwheat cakes and rare steak, not to mention the separation from the beloved brothers whom I was allowed to see only at rare intervals during the week. The consequence was that very soon my mother came back to Dresden in answer to the pathos of my letters, for I found it impossible to follow that motto, so characteristic of my father, “Try to have the best time you can.” I began to sicken very much as the Swiss mountaineers are said to lose their spirits and appetites when separated from their beloved mountains; so my mother persuaded the kind Minckwitz family to take me under their roof, as well as my brothers, and from that time forth there was no more melancholy, no bursting into poetic dirges constantly celebrating the misery of a young American in a German family.