CHAPTER XLIII--LIFE ON THE BANKS OF THE NILE.--COPTS, JUGGLERS, AND THIEVES.--AMUSING EXPERIENCES.

_Through an Arab village--Creating a Sensation--The “Doubter” alarmed--The li Professor perpetrates a hoax--The Egyptian Saratoga--An Oriental Post-Office--A queer Town--Specimens of Ancient Art--A wooden statue three thousand years old--A Coptic Convent--“Backsheesh, Howadji!”--Carrying money in their I mouths--Sturdy Beggars--An expert Swimmer--The Copts, who are they?--Skilful swindlers--Sugar Mills on the banks of the Nile--Egyptian Jugglers--A Snake-Charmer--Adroit Thieves--A Melancholy Experience in Donkey-riding._

I WAS up early on the first morning out from Cairo, and found the sun rising through a thin mist, which cleared away very speedily. Our dragoman went ashore to get a supply of milk for the breakfast table, from the village opposite, and Gustave and I followed him, and were soon in a tangle of narrow lanes, that were very crooked and would greatly puzzle a stranger to find his way among them.

Three or four times we brought up into _culs-de-sac_, or blind alleys, and had to force our way back and try again. Dogs barked and children gathered around us, and some buffalo cows took fright at the apparition of a couple of Europeans and fled into one of the houses. Chickens on a house top flew away, as if we had come to eat them, and some of the Arabs came out with expressions on their faces the reverse of pleasant, Evidently we had created a sensation, but not a very agreeable one.

The milk was soon obtained, and we obeyed the warning whistle and went on board. The voyage through the day was {543}not specially interesting, as there are no ruins of interest on this part of the river, and the banks are rather monotonous. One hour was much like another, and the sights were nearly the same--crumbling banks, shadoofs, donkeys, camels and Arabs, sand-bars and islands, palm trees fringing the horizon or standing out in front of the grey hills of the desert, the sandy waste in the distance, and the river, covered more or less thickly with Arab boats.

These boats, when laden, were sunk rather deeply, and boards were placed along the sides to prevent the water breaking over. The “Doubter” was puzzled to know why they always put these boards at the sides of the boats. The Professor (this was the name we sometimes gave to Gustave) came to his relief with the following explanation:

“The Nile rises every year, and they put these boards up while the river is high to prevent the water coming into the boats, just as they build up the banks to keep the fields from being drowned out.”

The “Doubter” was satisfied for a moment, but only for a moment.

“But will the boats float on the water, whether the river is high or low,” he asked, “and if they do, what is the use of the side-boards at one time more than another?”

The Professor was equal to the emergency, and explained that the rise of the river was so rapid, and the boats were so slow in their motion, that the flood frequently overtook and swamped them. There was no further conversation on this topic.

One of the points passed early in the morning was Helwan, which contains some remarkable springs of sulphur. They were known to the early Egyptians, and it is recorded that one of the kings used to send leprous persons there, in the hope of curing them, or, at all events, of separating them from the rest of the people. They have been quite neglected in later times, until a few years ago, when their virtues were discovered and a bathhouse and hotel were erected there. They are much visited by Europeans and Turks, and some persons have been benefited by them. An omnibus runs there twice a week from Cairo, and much of the time the hotel is full. The place is in the desert, {544}a little distance from the river, and the absence of shade trees, grass, or anything of the sort, makes the spot rather dreary for a lengthened stay. But the place is gradually growing fashionable, and when it becomes the _mode_ to go there I fancy they will have more hotels and society enough to make the time pass without too much stupidity.

In the afternoon we reached Beni-Soef, and took a stroll through the town, which has a population of about five thousand, and can boast of a fairly-stocked bazaar. We saw nothing of importance in our walk that we had not already seen at Cairo. I strayed from the party and hired a boy to direct me to the post-office, where I posted a letter for America. The place was closed, but luckily I had the proper stamps on the letter, so that there was nothing to do beyond dropping the missive into the box.

The Egyptian postal department is quite well managed; the postmaster general is an Italian, and the most of his employés are of his nationality. The office at Cairo is in a large building, specially erected for it, and you have no trouble in finding the delivery windows and in obtaining the proper stamps, when you want them. They pay great attention to the delivery of letters to foreigners, and a placard in all the hotels informs persons about to ascend the Nile, that by leaving their addresses at the office, they can have their mail matter forwarded to any point on, the river they may designate. The steamboats carry letters to parties on dahabeeahs, and several times the boat was stopped to deliver such parcels.

The pyramid of Meidoon in this vicinity is supposed to be older than any of the pyramids of Gizeh, as it was probably erected by the predecessor of Cheops. All around it are tombs, and some of them have been explored with the most gratifying results. In one of them two stone statues, in perfect preservation, were found in 1872, and are now in the Museum at Cairo.

They belong to the Hid Dynasty, and are consequently more than six thousand years old. The work on them is admirable, and they are evidently likenesses, and excellent ones too. The eyes are made of crystal, with a piece of black porphyry for the pupils, and this combination gives them a remarkably life-like

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{547}appearance. I have several times lingered in front of them in admiration of their excellence, and one day, while I was standing there, the director of the museum said:

“You should see them late in the afternoon, when the slanting rays of light fall upon them; they sometimes look as if ready to step out and speak, and seem much more human than inanimate.”

The art of sculpture has not advanced as much as many persons imagine.

There is in the museum another statue of about the same age, but it is made of wood; it represents a man standing erect, and is about half the natural size, and as life-like as any piece of work that ever issued from a Greek or Roman studio. Its eyes are inserted within a closing covering of bronze, which serves for the lids; the eye itself consists of opaque, white quartz, with a piece of rock crystal in the centre, as a pupil; there is a glittering point beneath this crystal, so that the resemblance to life is almost perfect. The head and body are remarkably well executed, and evidently the figure is a good likeness of the person represented, who was not a king, or a divinity, but simply a _sheik-el-beled_, or village chief. The statue was complete when found, with the exception of the feet, which have been supplied, to enable the figure to be placed on a pedestal. Originally, the statue was covered with a slight coating of stucco, painted red and white, but this is nearly gone now.

On a bluff, on the east bank of the river, there is a Coptic convent, many of whose inmates are accustomed to visit passing boats, and beg for “backsheesh.” We had a visit from them; the first that was known of their coming was by a rush of two or three passengers to the after part of the steamer. They were followed by all the others then on deck, and the cause of the movement was seen in the small boats, which we towed astern.

A tall, muscular fellow, perfectly nude, was standing there and gesticulating to the passengers with the explanation, “backsheesh, howadji; ana Chritiané” (“a present, gentlemen, I am a Christian.”)

His dress, or the absence of it, caused the ladies to make a precipitate retreat, and to fall again to their reading, with {548}an appearance of deep absorption. Soon another beggar joined the fellow, and we tossed a few coppers into the boat. They took the money in their mouths, as they had no other way of carrying it, and one of them got so much copper that it nearly strangled him. About a dozen made the attempt to board the steamer, and more than half of them succeeded. Remember that the steamer was going at full speed against the stream and you will wonder how they got on board. I watched one fellow, and here is his mode of operations.

These men swim, not after the Occidental manner, but with a hand-over-hand motion, analagous to the swimming of a dog. When a man wanted to board the steamer, he took a position near her supposed track, so that when she passed him the wheels were not more than a yard from his head. The instant the wheel had gone by, he struck out most vigorously towards the stern of the steamer, and by great effort was able to climb into the small boat, towing behind us. Formerly they came on the steamer itself, and rendered it necessary for the ladies to retreat to the cabins, but at present they can come no further than the small boats.

The Copts are supposed to be the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, but they have become so mixed with the Arabs and others, that it is hard to say what they are. They form about one-sixteenth of the population, and the most of them are Christians; the name is generally applied only to the Christian natives, but there are many Copts who are Mohammedans.

Their ancient language is almost lost; it is used in the churches for reading the prayers, in the same way that the Catholics use Latin, and the Russians the Slavonic. Their language in daily life is the Egyptian Arabic of the rest of the country; as a rule, they are better educated than the rest of the people, and are extensively employed as clerks and bookkeepers, not only in shops, but in various government offices. They have a cleaner and better kept appearance on the whole than the Moslem Arabs, and some of them are such great rascals, and show so much skill in swindling, as to indicate considerable familiarity with the principles of civilization.

The Copts were among the earliest converts to Christianity, {549}but they embraced heretical doctrines, which received the denunciation of the Church in the sixth century. Several of their churches may be seen in the Fostal quarter of Cairo.

We passed in this part of the river a great many sugar-mills, most of them in full operation, as it was then the proper season of the cane-harvest. The boat stopped at Minieh long enough to allow us to visit one of these mills.

The mill is on a grand scale, the machinery for crushing the cane and reducing the piece to sugar is all of French manufacture, and is of the most perfect character. I was unable to ascertain what amount of sugar is made there, or at the other points, but the product ought to be very large, to judge by the size of the mills and their number. The mill at Minieh covers a large area, and is so arranged that from the time the cane enters {550}the crushers until the dry sugar is ready, there is no occasion for lifting or handling the material, except in a few instances. The sugar culture ought to pay a handsome profit, but I was told that it is really a loss, and that the Khedive would gladly sell it out to private parties. The cause of this unprofitableness is due, I was told, to the frauds of the managers of the mills. Such a state of affairs is not confined to Egypt alone; there are many countries where government factories have been run at a loss, but when turned into private hands, have yielded a handsome profit.

One of the great wants of Egypt is the discovery of coal. At present fuel is costly, and all the coal used in the mills and on railways and steamers, must be imported, and, of course, at heavy expense. Explorations have been made on the upper Nile, and elsewhere, in the hope of finding coal, but they have not yet been successful. Small deposits have been found in isolated localities, but none that could be profitably worked. Lower Egypt does not offer much hope to the coal-searcher, but there are parts of the Soudan where the prospect is better. A wide coal-bed, accessible from the river, so as to ensure a low cost, would be a great boon to the country. There is very little wood for fuel, and among the peasants, dry camel-dung is extensively used.

After looking at the sugar mill, we strolled through the town of Minieh, and at the farther side, found a large crowd of people. They were looking at a juggler, who was performing a variety of tricks, none of them specially interesting, and compelling a couple of small boys to go through a comic dialogue, that evidently pleased the people very much, to judge by their immoderate laughter. The fellow had a large snake, which he wound around his neck, and had taught to dance, but his snake-charming was evidently the least of his performances.

Occasionally he allowed the snake to run on the ground, and when thus free, the reptile went around the circle with his head raised, and created a great deal of disturbance among the boys in the front row.

The snake-charmers are a peculiar class in Egypt; they will go to houses, and for a stipulated sum, will charm snakes from the walls or other localities, and they perform their work so well {551}that nobody has ever succeeded in detecting them in a fraud I do not mean to say that they can find snakes where none exist; their art consists in enticing snakes that may be in a house to come out from their concealment, and allow themselves to be put in a bag and carried away. They do this by burning a sort of incense, and playing a doleful tune on a reed flute.

Our introduction to sight-seeing, at Beni-Hassan, in upper Egypt, was not prepossessing. There were donkeys on the bank, without saddles or bridles, and the worst donkeys that I ever saw offered for anybody to ride. The people were as bad as the donkeys, and presented a forlorn appearance; the inhabitants of this locality were formerly famous for their thieving propensities, and so bad were they in this respect that Ibrahim Pasha sent a military force to destroy their village and scatter its occupants. It would not be safe for a small-boat to lie there now over night, except with a very watchful guard. They beset us when we went on shore, and there was a crowd around me, with a dozen donkeys offering at once. I found a donkey that was fairly decent, but, while my back was turned, somebody else mounted him, and I was forced to take another and a poorer beast.

The donkey that I obtained must have been one of those possessed by the Beni-Hassanites when their village was destroyed by the Pasha’s order, forty years ago, and I am not sure but that he dated from one of the dynasties of ancient Egypt. He had much less hair than mud on his back, and I suspected that he passed his time in a mud-hole when not otherwise engaged. The saddle fitted him in a manner fearful and wonderful to behold, and there was some doubt as to whether it touched him anywhere. When I mounted him, he sat down in a manner perfectly natural for a dog, but not altogether so for a donkey. The result of this performance was to send me over backwards and leave me with my shoulders on the ground and my feet in the air. I found this position inconvenient, and also provocative of mirth in others, and therefore did not long maintain it. Even the donkey boy laughed, a proceeding which showed how little he knew of polite society.

The next time I mounted I sat on the beast’s shoulders and prevented his sitting down. But I could not prevent his kneel{552}ing, and I leave you to imagine the result. A regard for my personal feelings prevents my giving a detailed description of this harrowing tale.

It was nothing else, and I think I must have harrowed, with my hands, feet, and nose, not less than a square rod of land in the vicinity of that donkey, and I also harrowed him and the donkey boy, and would have served the bystanders likewise, if they had not been more numerous than I was. I didn’t feel a bit amiable.

At last we were off. I rode my donkey on foot most of the time, and we went along very well in this way, he walking about two yards behind me, and very amiable and patient, while I was as cross as a man whose shirts haven’t come home from the wash-woman.

We did about six miles altogether that day, and I think I walked altogether about seven miles. To sit on him was a toil worse than walking, and his best gait was when he was standing still. He was splendid on that part of the business, and I don’t think there was ever a donkey that could stand stiller than he.

He was about the size of a Newfoundland dog, so that when I mounted him, my feet touched the ground on both sides. And yet he was one of the best, or rather one of the least bad, of the lot. There were only two or three that surpassed him in personal appearance and strength.

Not one of our party will ever forget that donkey-ride to see the “Antiquities of Egypt;” and when at last the hardships of the journey were over, and we arrived at the Ancient Tombs--the handiwork of man centuries ago--we forgot our sore spots {553}and lame bones, and our ill-nature gave way to curiosity and wonder at the scene around us.

These tombs, or grottos, are hewn in the solid rock, part of them on the bluff, fronting the river, and the rest in a ravine, or valley, that runs inland from the alluvial land of the Nile. The rock is a soft limestone, not difficult to quarry, and quite possibly when these grottos were made, the stone may have been softer than now. The excavations belong mostly to the eleventh and twelfth dynasties, and therefore are not as old as the pyramids of Gizeh and Sakkarah, but older than the temples and monuments at Thebes. They are old enough for all practical purposes, and are very much out of repair.

The walls are covered with paintings and inscriptions, that throw much light on the manners and customs of the time, and it would take more space than I can spare to describe them. Among the most interesting is a series of paintings representing the arrival of some strangers in Egypt; they were at first supposed to be Joseph and his brethren, but this can hardly be, as the tomb was made several hundred years before Joseph’s arrival. In one of the tombs there are representations of various tradesmen at work, and among them are barbers, shoemakers, painters tailors, glass-blowers, and goldsmiths. There are also people playing ball, wrestling, and throwing heavy stones, and in one place a couple of patrons of the prize ring are indulging in the noble art of manly disfiguration.

The tombs, or grottos, are square or oblong chambers, cut in the rock, and the most of them are so well lighted through their door-ways, that candles are not needed. In some instances several chambers are connected, and some of them have wells leading to pits, below where was the real tomb. They are well above the valley, out of the reach of the highest inundations, and from their front there is quite a pretty view. In front of some of them the rock is hewn into pillars and columns, that look at first glance as though brought from elsewhere.

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