Chapter 21

I have referred to the discontent which had shown itself in the army during our stay in Cairo. How rapidly events have travelled since then! The rise of a popular leader, Arabi, who possessed the confidence, or at least, who was accepted by the people as their only instrument of reform,--effectually put down by the English Government, which surely was misled by its agents in Egypt.

Now that England has been so foolish as to interfere, but two courses are open. She must either rule Egypt as she does India, or, what would be infinitely better both for Egypt and for England, retire, and allow the people of Egypt to undertake the management of their own affairs. This would be unfortunate for the bondholders, no doubt, but it would sooner or later secure for Egypt those institutions for which she is suited. I am convinced that England is to see the day, and that ere long, when she will bitterly repent ever having thrown her power in the scale against men who revolted at a state of affairs against which revolt was meritorious, and gave to the world the best proof that sufficient sound timber existed in Egypt to form the nucleus of firm national institutions. England's position in Egypt is all wrong. She of all nations should know that there are stages in the life of nations where oppression can be overthrown only by violent means. Ah! John Bright proved himself here once more the true statesman. Had his advice been followed, how different might have been the result! But ere the Egyptian question is settled we may see stranger events still than those which have surprised us.

The cry from the moment you set foot in Egypt until the steamer sails is "Backsheesh! Backsheesh!" Give! give! give! Crowds surround you at every place, and from child to withered eld it is an incessant chorus. If one is weak enough to give a piastre he is done for; the crowd increases, and the roars of the beggars with it. There is no place in Egypt which can be enjoyed, owing to this nuisance; even on the top of the Pyramid the evil is unabated. Travellers must be to blame for such an annoyance. For our part we resolved never to give anything to a beggar, and adhered strictly to the rule, which preserved us from many a fierce attack; but the objects begging were sometimes piteous-looking enough to haunt one.

The surest means of obtaining a livelihood as a beggar in Egypt is to feign idiocy, which, I am told, is frequently done. Idiots are regarded as saints, and are never restricted in their movements, maniacs alone being confined, and they are often met with in the streets. My Swedenborgian friends might account for the absence of sense being held proof positive of the saintly character by urging that idiots were certainly free from one of the worst evils of this generation denounced by the Swedish Seer as "self-derived intelligence."

The never ending work of creation is finely illustrated in the remarkable depression of the northern shore of Egypt, which is continually going on, notwithstanding the vast deposits from the many mouths of the Nile annually discharged upon it, while on the southern shore, near Suez, a contrary phenomenon is observable. The consequence of this movement is seen in the ruins of places on the Mediterranean shore, and the drying up of large portions of the Gulf of Suez. Indeed the bed of the Red Sea may be traced for miles north of the town of Suez, which is now at the head of the gulf, and places far north of the town were on the coast in historic times. An equally remarkable change is observable in the level of the Nile. Two thousand years B.C. it is found that at Semneh the mean height of the famous river was twenty-three feet greater than it is to-day. Imagine what results would flow from a change of the level of the Mississippi twenty-three feet higher or lower than now! It would change the continent. While such startling changes are found right under our own eyes, surely we do not require the "doctrine of catastrophes" to explain the creation of this little ball--the earth! The silent, irresistible, unchanging laws of Nature suffice.

We arrived too late to get a run up the Nile, as the boats had ceased to ply for the season. There remained but Cairo and Alexandria to visit, and a few days spent at each place exhausts the sights; but we concluded that nothing could be more enjoyable than a three-months' sail upon the Nile, in one's own boat, breathing the remarkably pure and dry air as it comes from the desert, moving day by day from one to another scene of the far past, and at night enjoying the unequalled sunsets, when it seems, as some one has beautifully said, that "the day was slowly dying of its own glory." This is the trip of trips for an invalid, or for one overtaxed by work or oppressed with sorrow; and for a bridal tour--to give the lovers plenty of time and opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted with each other--it can be highly recommended.

The rapid rise of our western rivers is very different from the gradual swelling of the Nile, which begins at Khartoum, at the junction of the White and Blue Niles, as early as April each year, but which is not felt at Cairo until after the summer solstice, while the greatest height is not reached till autumn. A good flood gives a rise of forty feet at the first cataract, and about twenty-five at Cairo; a scanty rise is when only between eighteen or twenty feet occurs at Cairo. The inundation is good if it is between twenty-four and twenty-seven feet; if beyond the latter it becomes a destructive flood. Upon such a narrow margin--the rise of a few feet more or less in the Nile--depends the entire crop of Egypt! Once for a period of seven years (A.D. 457-464), the rise failed and seven years of famine ensued. A great engineering work, designed to regulate the inundation by means of a _barrage_ across both branches of the river below Cairo, was begun some years ago, but, I believe, has been abandoned. When Egypt reaches good government from within herself, not through foreigners, one of its first works should be to complete the barrage. Surplus water will then be allowed free escape, and inundations prevented. When the flow is scanty, egress at the river mouths will be retarded, and thus Egypt will be secured regular harvests. We watch men at work everywhere raising water from narrow ditches to higher levels, that all parts may be irrigated from the fruitful Nile. We could get no estimate of the amount of water which one man can raise in a day; but when human labor is so cheap, we guessed that it was, upon the whole, an economical mode. At all events a complete revolution in the management of land, and probably of its tenure, must precede the general use of machinery for this purpose. The "shadoof" of today is the same in form as that used by the ancient Egyptians. Two columns of mud, or brick, erected at the side of the ditch, support a beam of wood, across which is a pole with a weight at one end, and a rude wooden bowl- shaped bucket, suspended by a stick, at the other. A man stands under the bucket and pulls it down into the water. The weight helps him to push it up to the ditch above, where it is emptied. The operation is very quickly performed, and the bucket kept constantly going. It would be hard to beat these ancient Egyptian shadoofs by any device requiring human labor where the amount of water required is small. Water-wheels, driven by bullocks or cows, and sometimes by one animal only, are sometimes used. There is also a double shadoof worked by two men, and even steam pumps are used in extreme cases where the volume of water desired is unusually large. Steam, no doubt, is ultimately to drive out the shadoof, ancient as it is. We had a strange meeting at Cairo upon entering the breakfast-room the morning after our arrival. Whom should we be placed opposite to but my friend the Rev. Mr. D., of Dunfermline, my aunty's minister, nae less! He was _en route_ to the Holy Land with his father-in-law; but we had several days together at Cairo, and talked upon many subjects, from theology to town affairs. I had received a telegram the day of his departure which told me my mother was to sail from New York that very day to join me in Scotland, as had been arranged, and we drank her health and wished her _bon voyage_ in good style.

Before bidding farewell to the East, I wish to indulge in just a few general reflections. Life there lacks two of its most important elements--the want of intelligent and refined women as the companion of man, and a Sunday. It has been a strange experience to me to be for several months without the society of some of this class of women--sometimes many weeks without even speaking to one, and often a whole week without even seeing the face of an educated woman. And, bachelor as I am, let me confess what a miserable, dark, dreary, and insipid life this would be without their constant companionship! This brings everything that is good in its train, everything that is bright and elevating. I cannot satisfy myself as to what the man of the East has to struggle for, since he has dethroned woman and practically left her out of his life. To see a wealthy Chinaman driving along in his carriage alone was pitiable. His efforts had been successful, but for what? There was no joy in his world. The very soul of European civilization, its crown and special glory, lies in the elevation of woman to her present position (she will rise even higher yet with the coming years), and this favor she has repaid a thousand-fold by making herself the fountain of all that is best in man. In life, without her there is nothing. Much as the lot of woman in the East is to be deplored, that of man is still more deplorable. The revenge she takes is terrible, for she drags down with her, in her debasement, the higher life of man. I had noted the absence of music as one great want. Not an opera nor a concert--not even a hand-organ. Scarcely a sweet sound in all our journey. When we found an English church or a regimental band, we rejoiced. I went to hear the organ upon every occasion, and was seldom absent when the band played; but were women there as with us, wouldn't music spring forth also! so that even this want I am disposed to attribute to the first cause.

The absence of a regularly recurring day of rest ranks next in importance, I believe, in the list of causes which keep the East down in the scale of nations. With few exceptions, the race is doomed to a life of unremitting toil--from morning till night, and every day without respite; for festival and fête days recurring at long, irregular intervals are no substitute for the one regular day to which labor looks forward with us. The prospect of one day of rest frequently intervening gives a toiler something bright to look forward to, without which his life must stretch before him as one unceasing, unvarying drag. In this one blessed day his slavery ceases, the shackles fall. He is no longer a brute--fed and clothed solely because of his physical powers, his capacity to bear burdens--but a higher being, with tastes, pleasures, friends. Life becomes worth living. The man puts on his best clothes--and there is much in this--the woman gives her cottage an extra brushing up. Something extra is prepared for dinner--there is a great deal in this, too--and, in short, the day is marked by a hundred little differences from those of labor--a stroll in the fields, a visit to relatives, or a meeting with neighbors at church, all in their best; and then the swelling organ and the choir--these things lie closely at the root of all improvements; and if ever the race is to be lifted to a higher platform--and who shall dare doubt it?--the weekly day of rest will prove itself an agency in the good work only second to the elevation of woman.

The best mode of improving its most precious hours for the toiling masses is therefore a question of infinite moment, apart altogether from the question of its divine character, and viewed only as a human enactment of the highest wisdom. It would seem clear that to make this only respite from manual labor a day exclusively set apart for the mournful duty of bemoaning our manifold shortcomings--which must at best give rise to gloomy thoughts--would defeat the purposes I have indicated. I want a compromise--church service in the morning, with a sermon "leaning to the side of mercy," as Sidney Smith suggested, which meant that it should not exceed twenty minutes, for, as one wit says, "a minister who can't strike ile in twenty minutes should quit _boring_"--and then the fields and streams for the toilers who are cooped up in factories and workshops all the week long, or a visit to picture galleries, museums, or to musical concerts of a high order in huge centres--for in London and a village it is not the same question at all--to anything that would tend to brighten their existence. I am now convinced that there is an important change to be made in the mode of keeping our Sundays--the cessation of labor, as far as it is possible, to remain a cardinal point, but better facilities to be provided for cultivating the higher tastes of our poor workers, that the day may be to them indeed "the golden jewel which clasps the circle of the week."

One more observation upon the East and I am done: the work that England is doing there. You know that she has in one way or another obtained the keys to the East. Some islands she owns; some small strips of the mainland she also has acquired and governs; at Shanghai, Hong Kong, and other points in China; at Singapore, Penang, Ceylon, Aden, Malta, and indeed all through our journey, we stand now and then on British soil. And wherever the meteor flag floats, there you find order, freedom, schools, churches, dispensaries, clean streets, hospitals, newspapers, justice; and under that flag you will find thousands of Chinamen and Malays, Indians, Cingalese, Arabs--indeed men of all races--settled and enjoying the blessings of good government. No revolution there, no slavery, no arbitrary arrest, nor forced levy. As a native lawyer in India said to me--he talked freely because of our American look--"There is between natives under English rule perfect justice; but," he added, "every one must behave himself. There is no war nor plundering when one settles under them, for these English _won't stand any nonsense, and they will have peace_."

England, therefore, has planted throughout the East small models of perfectly governed little States, enjoying all the blessings of the highest civilization. Daily and hourly these teach their lesson to the native races, and when they do acquire this lesson--and who that believes in the progress of mankind can doubt but the day must come?--they will look westward with grateful hearts and say, "All this we owe to thee, noble England!"

But while this is true, there is another phase of England's work to which I have referred in my remarks upon India. The source of England's good work springs from example. It is where the native races are drawn to her standard, as at the many points named, where their freedom is not destroyed, that great results can alone be looked for. This is the very reverse of England's position in India. She stands there as the destroyer of native institutions, and forces her views upon an unwilling people wholly unprepared to receive them, instead of resting, as at Hong Kong, Singapore, Aden, and such places, saying to the natives, "Come, try our system, and, if you like it, remain and share its benefits." Nothing but good can result from the latter, and nothing really good can flow from the former; the injury done must more than absorb any temporary gains. Force is no remedy; and some of these years, unless the ablest natives are induced to participate in the government of India, and soon allowed the chief control, England will rise to a rude awakening.

* * * * *

ALEXANDRIA, Friday, March 14.

Off at nine this morning for Naples, taking Sicily _en route_. The voyage was a smooth one, and we landed at Catania upon the morning of the fourth day. As we stepped ashore we felt in a moment that we were once more within the bounds of civilization. What a difference between this and the East! And there frowned Mount Etna, ten thousand feet above the sea level, thirty miles distant, and yet seemingly so near we thought that we could almost walk over to its base after breakfast. We ascended a small hill in the centre of the city--which, by the way, has a population of a hundred thousand--and there lay Sicily spread out before us in all its wondrous beauty. Lemon and orange groves in full bearing, and fields of vines just budding; and in the town clean paved streets and pavements, which are unknown in the East; people with shoes and stockings on; statues and fountains, and a good old cathedral; harps and violins, and the chime of church going bells. Ah! Western civilization is not a mistake, nor a myth, nor a thing of doubtful value, as we can testify. At least so thought two happy travellers in Sicily that bright balmy morning, as they felt how blessed a thing it was to be once more in a civilized country.

The pretty island of Sicily (Sechelia, as the Italians pronounce it) contains nearly three millions of people--nearly as many as Scotland--and supports them almost entirely by the produce of the land, for manufactures are little known. The olive and the vine are everywhere, and the crops of oranges and lemons go to most parts of the world. An English gentleman told us he had bought oranges in the season for one cent per dozen. There is one item of export of rather peculiar character--sulphur--which is obtained from the volcano. We saw it drawn through the streets in large blocks.

Only two hundred years ago an eruption of Mount Etna took place, and 27,000 people were buried by the lava. We saw where the stream had rushed down from the crater through part of the town, and far into the sea--almost a mile in width, and thirty miles from its source, bearing destruction to everything in its course, and yet to-day fine new houses stand upon the cold lava, and away up and along the sides of the volcano for miles are to be seen cottages clustering thickly together, the inmates busily engaged in cultivating their vineyards. It was only a few days ago--the monster gave a warning and shook these houses; but they still "sit under their vine and sing the merry songs of peace to all their neighbors"--these merry, light-hearted Sicilians!--as if they had Mount Etna under perfect control.

The railway skirts the shores of the island for its entire length--some fifty miles--and a more beautiful ride is not to be seen in all the world. It is a succession of fine old castles, in perfect ruin, upon every petty promontory, and we go through nothing but orange and lemon groves and vineyards. We pass at the base of Mount Etna; but although all was smiling in the valleys below, its top was enveloped in dark clouds and busy with the thunder and the storm.

Messina is a very quaint Italian city. The funeral services of a distinguished lady were in progress when we stepped into the cathedral, which was illuminated with hundreds of candles--I think I might say almost a thousand--the interior being one mass of light, which shone with strange effect upon the rich black velvet with which the walls were draped. A lady in our party counted the carriages as they passed, and told us there were fifty-three, most of which would compare favorably with those of New York or London. This will give you some idea of the richness of Messina, which we had thought to be an unimportant town.

The Sicilians are strict Roman Catholics and completely under the dominion of that faith. There is scarcely a trace of dissent to be found. When we were about to sail from Messina for Naples a priest walked upon the deck and collected contributions from the devout passengers, for which in return he was expected to give to our good ship the august protection of Holy Mother Church. We noticed that all the passengers contributed and received his blessing with much solemnity. Faith is still there. They were going to sea--probably a first experience to most if not all of them, and were naturally apprehensive. Should we have a stormy night, no doubt, notwithstanding their bargain with the priest, some will resolve with good Dame Partington that under like circumstances if ever she set her foot on dry land she would never again trust herself "so far out of the reach of Providence." But my mother remembers well that when a member of the congregation was about to start from Dunfermline to London, a rare event in those days, though not so very long ago, that his safety was always prayed for in church. I mentioned this to Vandy when he was deploring the ignorance and, as he thought, the impiety of the Sicilians. We are not entirely free from superstition ourselves, and were in the last generation where the Sicilians are in this.

The scene in "The Tempest," the enchanted isle, must have been in the neighborhood of Sechelia, and surely no fitter region in all the world could be found; indeed I found sweet Sechelia so enchanting that I voted it the very spot, and selected my Prospero's Cave on the glittering shore within sight of Mount Etna.

* * * * *

BAY OF NAPLES, Thursday, March 20.

Early morning! Yes, my dear friends, it is round. Here stands Mount Vesuvius in full view this morning, making for itself pure white clouds of steam, which float in the otherwise clear, cloudless sky of Italy. No entering the crater now as we did before, for the volcano is no longer at rest. Vandy and I shake hands and recall our pledge made in the crater years ago, and say, "Well, that is now fulfilled, and may life only have for us in its unknown future another such five months of unalloyed happiness (save where the dark shades of death among friends at home have saddened the hours) as those we have been so privileged to enjoy."

It is well never to be without something to look forward to, and speculate upon; and by a happy chance Vandy and I have hit upon our next excursion, when we shall have earned another vacation by useful work. The very thought of it already brings us pleasure. And so, all hail, sunny Italia! What a picture this Bay of Naples is! We sail past our former haunts, Capri and Sorrento, and are soon in our hotel at Naples, where we are delighted to rejoin our friends.

From this time forth it is impossible but that a change must occur in the character of these notes. There is a first time to everything, and it is first impressions which I have endeavored honestly to convey; but my first impressions of Europe were obtained years ago. The gloss and enthusiasm of novelty are wanting. The sober second thought is proverbial; but there is a sober second sight as well, and it is this I am about to take. Besides this, Europe is more familiar to everybody than the East. Many know it through personal experience, and I shall therefore content myself with giving the salient features of our homeward progress from this point.