CHAPTER XLVII--A VISIT TO A HAREM IN UPPER EGYPT.--LIFE AMONG THE NUBIANS.

_A Visit to a Harem--Among the Daughters of the Nile--How they Looked and What was Done--Painted Eyelids--The Use of Henna--A Minute Inspection of Garments--Mustapha Agar “At Home”--Arab Astonishment--A Dinner a l’Arabe--Fingers vs. Forks--An Array of Queer Dishes--Novel Refreshment--Dancing Girls--Truck and Decker at Luxor--More “Ghawazee,” Pipes and Coffee--“A Love of a Donkey”--Song of Arabs--Arab Cruelty--A Nation of Stoics--Endurance of Pain--Among the Nubians--Ostriches, Arrows and Battle Axes--A Nubian Dress--A Very Small Dressmaker’s Bill--A Scanty Wardrobe._

THE ladies of the party did not accompany us to the Tombs of the Kings, as the day was hot and the ride a long one. Besides, they had what was more attractive to them, an invitation to visit the harem of the English Consul.

I volunteered to accompany them, but my escort was declined, for the reason that gentlemen were not admitted any more than they were to the studios of some of the fortune-tellers of New York. When we returned to the boat, they were in great glee, and it was not long before we had all the details, or at any rate, all that they chose to give us. We hardly recognized them, as their eyelids had been stained with henna, after the Arabic manner, giving a great prominence and lustre to the eye. The result is the same as that obtained by actresses and others, who apply red paint around the eyes and not upon the lids.

I will try to give the story as nearly as possible, in the words {601}

The long-accumulated rubbish had helped to preserve it so, that when it was cleared out the sculptures were found in better condition than in most other temples.

The temple greatly resembles that of Denderah and has numerous small chambers that were used for the storage of valuable articles used in the sacred ceremonies.

The sanctuary contains a _sanctum sanctorum_, a large cage cut from a single block of granite, and once enclosing the hawk I which was the emblem of the divinity to whose worship the temple was dedicated.

That night while we lay at the landing, one of the ladies came to induce us to perform a work of charity. She had discovered that the cooks in preparing chickens for the table did not kill the birds until after plucking the feathers, and sometimes a featherless chicken would get loose and run around the bank. We went out to the place on shore where the picking was in progress and found that her story was correct. We called the dragoman and had him explain to the Arabs that such a custom was not pleasing and that hereafter they must kill the chickens before picking them. They were astonished at the suggestion, but promised compliance. {608}The Orientals are thoughtlessly cruel, and this arises partly from a lack of nerves in their own organization. A Chinese will, sit in a chair or ride in a cart that would be torture to a European, and a Turk or an Arab will sleep on a hard bed when he could have an easier one if he chose. A native of any part of the Orient is less sensitive than an Occidental to a cudgeling, and he is quite indifferent to the sufferings of animals. No dog in London or New York would be regarded as indifferently by the inhabitants of those cities as are the dogs of Constantinople and Cairo by the Mohammedans. They beat their donkeys and, buffaloes with great cruelty; one of the unpleasant features of riding on a donkey is the pounding that the brute receives from his driver, and when he is doing his best he will frequently get a blow that would floor a man. Many of the donkeys have large sores where their hips have been punched with sharp sticks, and these sores are kept open by a continuance of the punching. I don’t think the Arabs are intentionally cruel; it is difficult to make them understand the sufferings of animals when they themselves are quite indifferent to pain and discomfort.

As we approached Assouan the sandstone formation disappeared and granite came into view. Along this part of the river there were numerous boulders in the stream; they change their places through the action of the current and make navigation somewhat dangerous. A steamer that left Cairo after we did struck one of these boulders while going at full speed and was of no use as a steamboat after that. Passengers, crew, and baggage were saved, but the boat went to what Mr. Mantalini would call the “demnition bow-wows.”

We made several windings with alternate views of fertile ground and sandy desert, rocky hills and huge boulders, and a last on a rounded summit there appeared a dome that overlookes Assouan. We made a sharp bend to the left passing more boulders and with the island of Elephantine on our right swung in towards the town and made fast to the bank.

The river seemed to end here; we were enclosed in an amphitheatre variously composed of sand, granite, town, and verdure from which there appeared to be no egress save by the route through which we had advanced. Steam was blown off and the upward journey of our boat was ended. {609}As we went on shore we met a crowd of Arabs and Nubians with ostrich feathers, Nubian dresses, old coins, arrows, silver ornaments, battle axes and the like for sale.

The Arabs were like those we had seen down the river, but the Nubians were another lot.

Their black skins were covered with scanty clothing, and their woolly hair was done into small ringlets about the size of lead pencils and plentifully saturated with grease. To trade with them required as much bargaining as with the Arabs, and sometimes a little more.

They had high prices for their ostrich feathers, but we gradually brought them down. One article dealt in here was the {610}whip of hippopotamus hide which goes by the name of _courbash_. Some of the passengers bought each a dozen or more; I contented myself with one whip and a cane as I did not wish to affect the market.

It was late when we arrived so that there was only time to take a stroll through the bazaars which contained nothing of special importance.

Assouan is a town of about four thousand inhabitants, and occupies the site of the ancient Sy-ene. At certain seasons it presents many curious features as the trade from Nubia centres there and the product of the Soudan and Central Africa which has been sent by camels around the cataract is reloaded here. Ostrich feathers, ivory, gum arabic, lion and leopard skins and the like are the chief articles from those countries, and may sometimes be seen at Assouan in considerable quantities.

In front of Assouan and in the middle of the river is Elephantine’ Island, so named probably, because no elephant was ever seen there. We went there in a small boat rather rickety and leaky in its character, and which stuck in the mud at twenty feet or more from the land. The island has been famous through many hundred years, and once contained a city of considerable importance. We visited the ruins of this city and also of a temple which was destroyed about fifty years ago to furnish stone for the construction of some modern buildings in Assouan.

The island has a fertile appearance and is kept in a luxuriant condition by several _sakkiehs_ which are worked not by men as on the lower Nile but by oxen. A pair of oxen turn a wheel by which a quantity of buckets are made to lift water from the

{611}river. We visited one of these sakkiehs, but the driver did not greet us kindly as his team took fright at our coming and nearly wrecked the machine before he could stop and pacify them.

The inhabitants of the island are all Nubians, and as we landed they flocked down to meet us. They offered for sale old coins, agates, spears, arrows, and Nubian dresses, but they did not drive a lively trade. The Nubian dress is not an extensive affair; one of the passengers bought one and put it in his coat pocket, and several were offered to me that weighed only a few ounces each. They were the costumes of ladies, not of men, and consisted of a fringe of strips of leather like shoe strings attached to a strap. This strap was fastened around the loins, and the strings hanging down constituted the dress.

This custom is quite unfit for the climate of America; it is better for Nubia where the thermometer ranges high during the entire year and rain never falls. I saw several young ladies dressed in these airy garments and they did not appear at all uncomfortable.

If a lady wants to get herself up gorgeously, she adds a string of beads to the above apparel and her toilet is complete. One dusky maiden of about sixteen summers took off her string of beads and proffered them for sale. I gave her a franc for the lot and she then removed the rest of her apparel and proposed selling it for two francs.

What a country,--where a feminine wardrobe in the height of fashion can be bought for three francs!

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