From Egypt to Japan
by Henry M. Field · English · Gutenberg #39474 · 832,947 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of From Egypt to Japan
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: From Egypt to Japan
Author: Henry M. Field
Release date: April 18, 2012 [eBook #39474]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39474
Credits: Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM EGYPT TO JAPAN ***
Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
FROM THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY
TO THE GOLDEN HORN.
THE FIRST VOLUME OF
DR. FIELD'S TRAVELS AROUND THE WORLD.
1 vol. 12mo, cloth, uniform with this volume, $2.00.
_Sent postpaid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers_,
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
FROM EGYPT TO JAPAN.
BY HENRY M. FIELD, D.D.
NEW YORK:
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.
1877.
COPYRIGHT BY
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.
1877.
TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO.,
_205-213 East 12th St._,
NEW YORK.
To My Brothers,
DAVID DUDLEY, STEPHEN J., AND CYRUS W. FIELD,
ALL THAT ARE LEFT OF A LARGE FAMILY,
This Volume is Dedicated,
IN TOKEN OF THE LOVE OF A LIFETIME, WHICH
WILL GROW STRONGER TO THE END.
CONTENTS.
I. CROSSING THE MEDITERRANEAN--ALEXANDRIA--CAIRO--THE
PYRAMIDS, 1
II. ON THE NILE, 15
III. THE TEMPLES OF EGYPT--DID MOSES GET HIS LAW FROM
THE EGYPTIANS? 28
IV. THE EGYPTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE, 37
V. THE RELIGION OF THE PROPHET, 45
VI. MODERN EGYPT AND THE KHEDIVE, 62
VII. MIDNIGHT IN THE HEART OF THE GREAT PYRAMID, 80
VIII. LEAVING EGYPT--THE DESERT, 96
IX. ON THE RED SEA AND THE INDIAN OCEAN, 106
X. BOMBAY--FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF INDIA, 115
XI. TRAVELLING IN INDIA--ALLAHABAD--THE MELA, 131
XII. AGRA--VISIT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES--PALACE OF THE
GREAT MOGUL--THE TAJ, 148
XIII. DELHI--A MOHAMMEDAN FESTIVAL--SCENES IN THE
MUTINY, 162
XIV. FROM DELHI TO LAHORE, 172
XV. A WEEK IN THE HIMALAYAS, 182
XVI. THE TRAGEDY OF CAWNPORE, 210
XVII. THE STORY OF LUCKNOW, 222
XVIII. THE ENGLISH RULE IN INDIA, 236
XIX. MISSIONS IN INDIA--DO MISSIONARIES DO ANY GOOD? 249
XX. BENARES, THE HOLY CITY OF THE HINDOOS, 265
XXI. CALCUTTA--FAREWELL TO INDIA, 280
XXII. BURMAH--THE MALAYAN PENINSULA--SINGAPORE, 292
XXIII. THE ISLAND OF JAVA, 326
XXIV. UP THE CHINA SEAS--HONG KONG AND CANTON, 365
XXV. THREE WEEKS IN JAPAN, 397
_This volume is complete in itself, though it is the Second Part of a
Journey Round the World, of which the First Part was published a year
ago, with the title "From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn."
The volumes are uniform in style and naturally go together, though
either is complete without the other._
FROM EGYPT TO JAPAN.
CHAPTER I.
CROSSING THE MEDITERRANEAN--ALEXANDRIA--CAIRO--THE PYRAMIDS.
On the Bosphorus there are birds which the Turks call "lost souls," as
they are never at rest. They are always on the wing, like stormy
petrels, flying swift and low, just skimming the waters, yet darting
like arrows, as if seeking for something which they could not find on
land or sea. This spirit of unrest sometimes enters into other
wanderers than those of the air. One feels it strongly as he comes to
the end of one continent, and "casts off" for another; as he leaves
the firm, familiar ground, and sails away to the distant and the
unknown.
So felt a couple of travellers who had left America to go around the
world, and after six months in Europe, were now to push on to the
farthest East. It was an autumn afternoon near the close of the year
1875, that they left Constantinople, and sailed down the Marmora, and
through the Dardanelles, between the Castles of Europe and Asia, whose
very names suggested the continents that they were leaving behind, and
set their faces towards Africa.
They could not go to Palestine. An alarm of cholera in Damascus had
caused a _cordon sanitaire_ to be drawn along the Syrian coast; and
though they might get in, they could not so easily get away; or would
be detained ten days in a Lazaretto before they could pass into
Egypt; and so they were obliged at the last moment to turn from the
Holy Land, and sail direct for Alexandria; touching, however, at
Mitylene and Scio; and passing a day at Smyrna and at Syra. With these
detentions the voyage took nearly a week, almost as long as to cross
the Atlantic.
But it was not without its compensations. There was a motley company
in the cabin, made up of all nations and all religions: English and
Americans, French and Germans and Russians, Greeks and Turks,
Christians and Mohammedans. There was a grand old Turk, who was going
out to be a judge in Mecca, and was travelling with his harem, eight
women, who were carefully screened from the observation of profane
eyes. And there were other Mussulmans of rank, gentlemen in manners
and education, who would be addressed as Effendis or Beys, or perhaps
as Pashas, who did not hesitate to spread their small Persian carpets
in the cabin or on the deck at any hour, and kneel and prostrate
themselves, and say their prayers.
Besides these, the whole forward part of the ship was packed with
pilgrims (there were four hundred of them) going to Mecca: Turks in
white turbans and baggy trousers; and Circassians in long overcoats,
made of undressed sheepskins, with tall, shaggy hats, like the
bear-skin shakos of Scotch grenadiers. Some of them had their belts
stuck thick with knives and pistols, as if they expected to have to
fight their way to the tomb of the Prophet. Altogether they were not
an attractive set, and yet one could not view, without a certain
respect, a body of men animated by a strong religious feeling which
impelled them to undertake this long pilgrimage; it requires three
months to go and return. Nor could one listen quite unmoved as at
different hours of the day, at sunrise, or midday, or sunset, the
muezzin climbed to the upper deck, and in a wailing voice called the
hour of prayer, and the true believers, standing up, rank on rank,
turned their faces towards Mecca, and reverently bowed themselves and
worshipped.
On the afternoon of the sixth day we came in sight of a low-lying
coast, with not a hill or elevation of any kind rising above the
dreary waste, the sea of waters breaking on a sea of sand. The sun
sinking in the west showed the lighthouse at Alexandria, but as the
channel is narrow and intricate, ships are not allowed to enter after
sunset; and so we lay outside all night, but as soon as the morning
broke, steamed up and entered the harbor. Here was the same scene as
at Constantinople--a crowd of boats around the ship, and boatmen
shouting and yelling, jumping over one another in their eagerness to
be first, climbing on board, and rushing on every unfortunate
traveller as if they would tear him to pieces. But they are not so
terrible as they appear, and so it always comes to pass, that whether
"on boards or broken pieces of the ship," all come safe to land.
In spite of this wild uproar, it was not without a strange feeling of
interest that we first set foot in Africa. A few days before we had
touched the soil of Asia, on the other side of the Bosphorus--the
oldest of the continents, the cradle of the human race. And now we
were in Africa--in Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs, out of which Moses
led the Israelites; the land of the Pyramids, the greatest monuments
of ancient civilization.
As soon as one comes on shore, he perceives that he is in a different
country. The climate is different, the aspects of nature are
different, the people are different, the very animals are different.
Caravans of camels are moving slowly through the streets, and outside
of the city, coming up to its very walls, as if threatening to
overwhelm it, is the "great and terrible" desert, a vast and billowy
plain, whose ever-drifting sands would speedily bury all the works of
man, if they were not kept back from destruction by the waters of the
Nile, which is at once the creator and preserver of Egypt.
Alexandria, although founded by Alexander the Great, whose name it
bears, and therefore more than two thousand years old--and although in
its monuments, Cleopatra's Needle and Pompey's Pillar, it carries back
the mind to the last of the Ptolemies, the proud daughter of kings,
and to her Roman lovers and conquerors--has yet in many parts quite a
modern aspect, and is almost a new city. It has felt, more than most
places in the East, the influence of European civilization. Commerce
is returning to its ancient seats along the Mediterranean, and the
harbor of Alexandria is filled with a forest of ships, that reminds
one of New York or Liverpool.
But as it becomes more European, it is less Oriental; and though more
prosperous, is less picturesque than other parts of Egypt; and so,
after a couple of days, we left for Cairo, and now for the first time
struck the Nile, which reminds an American traveller of the Missouri,
or the lower Mississippi. It is the same broad stream of turbid,
yellow waters, flowing between low banks. This is the Great River
which takes its rise in the heart of Africa, beyond the equator, at a
point so remote that, though the Valley of the Nile was four thousand
years ago the seat of the greatest empire of antiquity, yet to this
day the source of the river is the problem of geographers. Formerly it
was a three days' journey from Alexandria to Cairo, but the railroad
shortens it to a ride of four hours, in which we crossed both branches
of the Nile. Just at noon we came in sight of the Pyramids, and in
half an hour were driving through the streets of the capital of Egypt.
We like Cairo, after two or three weeks, much better than
Constantinople. It has another climate and atmosphere; and is
altogether a gayer and brighter city. The new quarter occupied by
foreigners is as handsomely built as any European city. The streets
are wide and well paved, like the new streets and boulevards of Paris.
We are at the "Grand New Hotel," fronting on the Ezbekieh gardens, a
large square, filled with trees, with kiosks for music, and other
entertainments. Our windows open on a broad balcony, from which we can
hear the band playing every afternoon, while around us is the city,
with its domes and minarets and palm trees.
The great charm of Egypt is the climate. It is truly the Land of the
Sun. We landed on the first day of December, but we cannot realize
that this is winter. The papers tell us that it is very cold in New
York, and that the Hudson river is frozen over; but here every thing
is in bloom, as in mid-summer, and I wear a straw hat to protect me
from the heat of the sun. But it is not merely the warmth, but the
exquisite purity of the atmosphere, that makes it so delicious. The
great deserts on both sides drink up every drop of moisture, and every
particle of miasm that is exhaled from the decaying vegetation of the
Valley of the Nile, and send back into these streets the very air of
Paradise.
Having thus the skies of Italy, and a much more balmy air, it is not
strange that Egypt attracts travellers from France, and England, and
America. It is becoming more and more a resort not only for invalids,
but for that wealthy class who float about the world to find the place
where they can pass existence with the most of languid ease. Many come
here to escape the European winters, and to enjoy the delicious
climate, and they are from so many countries, that Cairo has become a
cosmopolitan city. As it is on the road to India, it is continually
visited by English officers and civilians, going or returning. Of late
years it has become a resort also for Americans. A number of our army
officers have taken service under the Khedive, who rendezvous chiefly
at this New Hotel, so that with the travellers of the same country, we
can talk across the table of American affairs, as if we were at
Newport or Saratoga. Owing to the influx of so many foreigners, this
Hotel and "Shepheard's" seem like small colonies of Europeans.
Hearing only English, or French, or German, one might believe himself
at one of the great hotels in Switzerland, or on the Rhine. A stranger
who wishes to pass a winter in Cairo, need not die of ennui for want
of the society of his countrymen.
Besides these officers in the army, the only Americans here in
official positions, are the Consul General Beardsley, and Judge
Batcheller, who was appointed by our Government to represent the
United States in the Mixed Court lately established in Egypt. Both
these gentlemen are very courteous to their countrymen, while giving
full attention to their duties. As we have sometimes had abroad
consuls and ministers of whom we could not be proud, it is something
to be able to say, that those here now in official position are men of
whom we need not be ashamed as representatives of our country.
Another household which should not be overlooked, since it gives an
American a home feeling in Cairo, is that of the American Mission.
This has been here some years, and so won the favor of the government,
that the former Viceroy gave it a site for its schools, which proved
so valuable that the present Khedive has recently bought it back, by
giving a new site and L7000 into the bargain. The new location is one
of the best in Cairo, near the Ezbekieh square, and here with the
proceeds of the sale, and other funds contributed for the object, the
Mission is erecting one of the finest buildings for such purposes in
the East, where their chapel and schools, in which there are now some
five hundred children, will be under one roof.
This Mission School some years ago was the scene of a romantic
incident. An Indian prince, then living in England, was on his way to
India, with the body of his mother, who had died far from her country,
but with the prejudices of a Hindoo strong in death, wished her body
to be taken back to the land of her birth. While passing through
Cairo, he paid a visit to the American Mission, and was struck with
the face of a young pupil in the girls' school, and after due inquiry
proposed to the missionaries to take her as his wife. They gave their
consent, and on his return they were married, and he took her with him
to England. This was the Maharajah Dhuleep Sing, a son of old Runjeet
Sing, the Lion of Lahore, who raised up a race of warriors, that after
his death fought England, and whose country, the Punjaub, the English
annexed to their Indian dominions; and here, as in other cases,
removed a pretender out of the way by settling a large pension on the
heir to the throne. Thus the Maharajah came into the possession of a
large revenue from the British government, amounting, I am told, to
some L30,000 a year. Having been from his childhood under English
pupilage, he has been brought up as a Christian, and finds it to his
taste to reside in England, where he is able to live in splendor, and
is a great favorite at court. His choice of a wife proved a most happy
one, as the modest young pupil of Cairo introduced into his English
home, with the natural grace of her race, for she is partly of Arab
descent, the culture and refinement learned in a Mission school. Nor
does he forget what he owes to the care of those who watched over her
in her childhood, but sends a thousand pounds every year to the school
in grateful acknowledgment of the best possible gift it could make to
him, that of a noble Christian wife.
Besides this foreign society, there is also a resident society which,
to those who can be introduced to it, is very attractive. The
government of the Khedive has brought into his service some men who
would be distinguished in any European court or capital. The most
remarkable of these is Nubar Pasha, long the Minister of Foreign
Affairs.
Judge Batcheller kindly took me to the house of the old statesman, who
received us cordially. On hearing that I was on my way around the
world, he exclaimed, "Ah, you Americans! You are true Bedouins!" I
asked him what was the best guide-book to Egypt? He answered
instantly, "The Bible." It was delightful to see his enthusiasm for
Egypt, although he is not an Egyptian. He is not an Arab, nor a Turk,
nor even a Mussulman; but an Armenian by birth and by religion. His
uncle, Nubar Pasha, came over with Mehemet Ali, whose prime minister
he was for forty years; and his nephew, who inherits his name,
inherits also the traditions of that great reign. Though born on the
other side of the Mediterranean, he is in heart an Egyptian. He loves
the country of his adoption, and all his thoughts and his political
ambition are for its greatness and prosperity. He has lived here so
long that he sometimes speaks of himself playfully as "one of the
antiquities of Egypt." "Of the first dynasty?" we ask. "Yes, of the
time of Menes." I do not believe he could exist anywhere else. He
loves not only the climate, but even the scenery of Egypt, which is
more charming to his eyes than the hills and vales of Scotland or the
mountains of Switzerland. "But you must admit," I said, "that it has a
great monotony." "No," he replied, "in Lombardy there is monotony; but
Egypt is immensity, infinity, eternity. The features of the landscape
may be the same, but the eye never wearies." Surely _his_ eye never
does, for it is touched with a poetic vision; he sees more than meets
the common eye; every passing cloud changes the lights and shadows;
and to him there is more of beauty in the sunset flashing through the
palm groves, as the leaves are gently stirred by the evening wind,
than in all the luxuriance of tropical forests. Even if we did not
quite share his enthusiasm, we could not but be charmed by the
pictures which were floating before his mind's eye, and by the
eloquence of his description. As he loves the country, so he loves the
people of Egypt. Poor and helpless as they are, they have won upon his
affection; he says "they are but children;" but if they have the
weakness of children, they have also their simplicity and
trustfulness; and I could see that his great ambition was to break up
that system of forced labor which crushes them to the earth, and to
secure to them at least some degree of liberty and of justice.
With all its newness and freshness this city retains its Oriental
character. Indeed Grand Cairo is said to be the most Oriental of
cities except Damascus. It has four hundred thousand inhabitants, and
in its ancient portions has all the peculiar features of the East. Not
only is the city different from Constantinople, but the people are
different; they are another race, and speak another language. Turks
and Arabs are as different as Englishmen and Frenchmen.
We are entertained every time that we go out of doors, with the
animated and picturesque life of the streets. There are all races and
all costumes, and all modes of locomotion. There are fine horses and
carriages. I feel like Joseph riding in Pharaoh's chariot, when we
take a carriage to ride out to Shoobra, one of the palaces of the
Khedive, with syces dressed in white running before to herald our
royal progress, and shout to the people to get out of our way. But one
who prefers a more Oriental mode of riding, can mount a camel, or
stoop to a donkey, for the latter are the smallest creatures that ever
walked under the legs of a man, and if the rider be very tall, he will
need to hold up his feet to keep them from dangling on the ground. Yet
they are hardy little creatures, and have a peculiar amble which they
keep up all day. They are very useful for riding, especially in some
parts of the city where the streets are too narrow to allow a carriage
to pass.
The donkey-men are very sharp, like their tribe in all parts of the
world. The Arabs have a great deal of natural wit, which might almost
entitle them to be called the Irish of the East. They have picked up a
few words of English, and it is amusing to hear them say, with a most
peculiar accent, "All right," "Very good," "Go ahead." They seem to
know everybody, and soon find out who are their best customers. I
cannot go down the steps without a dozen rushing toward me, calling
out "Doctor, want a donkey?" One of them took me on my weak side the
first day by saying that the name of his animal was "Yankee Doodle,"
and so I have patronized that donkey ever since, and a tough little
beast he is, scudding away with me on his back at a great rate. His
owner, a fine looking Arab, dressed in a loose blue gown and snowy
turban, runs barefooted behind him, to prick him up, if he lags in his
speed, or if perchance he goes too fast, to seize him by the tail, and
check his impetuosity. We present a ludicrous spectacle when thus
mounted, setting out for the bazaars, where our experience of
Constantinople is repeated.
Of course the greatest sight around Cairo is the Pyramids. It is an
event in one's life to see these grandest monuments of antiquity. The
excursion is now very easy. They are eight miles from Cairo, and it
was formerly a hard day's journey to go there and back, as one could
only ride on a donkey or a camel, and had to cross the river in boats;
and the country was often inundated, so that one had to go miles
around. But the Khedive, who does everything here, has changed all
that. He has built an iron bridge over the Nile, and a broad road,
raised above the height of the annual inundations, so as never to be
overflowed, and lined with trees, the rapid-growing acacia, so that
one may drive through a shaded avenue the whole way. A shower which
had fallen the night before we went (a very rare thing in Egypt at
this season) had laid the dust and cooled the air, so that the day was
perfect, and we drove in a carriage in an hour and a half from our
hotel to the foot of the Pyramids. The two largest of these are in
sight as soon as one crosses the Nile, but though six miles distant
they seem quite near. Yet at first, and even when close to them, they
hardly impress the beholder with their real greatness. This is owing
to their pyramidal form, which, rising before the eye like the slope
of a hill, does not strike the senses or the imagination as much as
smaller masses which rise perpendicularly. One can hardly realize that
the Pyramid of Cheops is the largest structure in the world--the
largest probably ever reared by human hands. But as it slopes to the
top, it does not present its full proportions to the eye, nor impress
one so much as some of the Greek temples with their perpendicular
columns, or the Gothic churches with their lofty arches, and still
loftier towers, soaring to heaven. Yet the Great Pyramid is higher
than them all, higher even than the spire of the Cathedral at
Strasburg; while in the surface of ground covered, the most spacious
of them, even St. Peter's at Rome, seems small in comparison. It
covers eleven acres, a space nearly as large as the Washington Parade
Ground in New York; and is said by Herodotus to have taken a hundred
thousand men twenty years to build it. Pliny agrees in the length of
time, but says the number of workmen employed was over three hundred
thousand!
But mere figures do not give the best impression of height; the only
way to judge of the Great Pyramid is to see it and to ascend it. One
can go to the top by steps, but as these steps are blocks of stone,
many of which are four feet high, it is not quite like walking up
stairs. One could hardly get up at all but with the help of the Arabs,
who swarm on the ground, and make a living by selling their services.
Four of them set upon me, seizing me by the hands, and dragging me
forward, and with pulling and pushing and "boosting," urged on by my
own impatience--for I would not let them rest a moment--in ten minutes
we were at the top, which they thought a great achievement, and rubbed
down my legs, as a groom rubs down a horse after a race, and clapped
me on the back, and shouted "All right," "Very good." I felt a little
pride in being the first of our party on the top, and the last to
leave it.
These Arab guides are at once very troublesome and very necessary. One
cannot get along without them, and yet they are so importunate in
their demands for backsheesh that they become a nuisance. They are
nominally under the orders of a Sheik, who charges two English
shillings for every traveller who is assisted to the top, but that
does not relieve one from constant appeals going up and down. I found
it the easiest way to get rid of them to give somewhat freely, and
thus paid three or four times the prescribed charge before I got to
the bottom. No doubt I gave far too much, for they immediately quoted
me to the rest of the party, and held me up as a shining example. I am
afraid I demoralized the whole tribe, for some friends who went the
next day were told of an American who had been there the day before,
who had given "beautiful backsheesh." The cunning fellows, finding I
was an easy subject, followed me from one place to another, and gave
me no peace even when wandering among the tombs, or when taking our
lunch in the Temple of the Sphinx, but at every step clamored for
more; and when I had given them a dozen times, an impudent rascal came
up even to the carriage, as we were ready to drive away, and said that
two or three shillings more would "make all serene!"--a phrase which
he had caught from some strolling American, and which he turns to good
account.
But one would gladly give any sum to get rid of petty annoyances, and
to be able to look around him undisturbed. Here we are at last on the
very summit of the Great Pyramid, and begin to realize its immensity.
Below us men look like mice creeping about, and the tops of trees in
the long avenue show no larger than hot-house plants. The eye ranges
over the valley of the Nile for many miles--a carpet of the richest
green, amid which groups of palms rise like islands in a sea. To the
east beyond the Nile is Cairo, its domes and minarets standing out
against the background of the Mokattam hills, while to the west
stretches far away the Libyan desert.
Overlooking this broad landscape, one can trace distinctly the line of
the overflow of the Nile. Wherever the waters come, there is greenness
and fertility; at the point where they cease, there is barrenness and
desolation. It is a perpetual struggle between the waters and the
sands, like that which is always going on in human history between
barbarism and civilization.
In the Pyramids the two things which impress us most are their vast
size and their age. As we stand on the top, and look down the long
flight of steps which leads to the valley below, we find that we are
on the crest of a mountain of stone. Some idea of the enormous mass
imbedded in the Great Pyramid may be gathered from the fact,
ascertained by a careful computation (estimating its weight at seven
millions of tons, and considering it a solid mass, its chambers and
passages being as far as discovered but 1/2000th of the whole), that
these blocks of stone, placed end to end, would make a wall a foot and
a half broad, and ten feet high around England, a distance of 883
miles--a wall that would shut in the island up to the Scottish border.
And the Pyramids are not only the greatest, but the oldest monuments
of the human race, the most venerable structures ever reared by the
hand of man. They are far older than any of the monuments of Roman or
Grecian antiquity. They were a marvel and a mystery then as much as
they are to-day. How _much_ older cannot be said with certainty.
Authorities are not fully agreed, but the general belief among the
later chronologists is that the Great Pyramid was built about two
thousand one hundred and seventy years before the time of Christ, and
the next in size a century later. Thus both have been standing about
four thousand years. Napoleon was right therefore when he said to his
soldiers before the battle fought with the Mamelukes under the shadow
of the Pyramids, "From those heights forty centuries behold you." This
disposes of the idea which some have entertained, that they were built
by the children of Israel when they were in Egypt; for according to
this they were erected two hundred years before even the time of
Abraham. Jacob saw them when he came down into Egypt to buy corn; and
Joseph showed them to his brethren. The subject Hebrews looked up to
them in the days of their bondage. Moses saw them when he was brought
up in the court of Pharaoh, and they disappeared from the view of the
Israelites only when they fled to the Red Sea. They had been standing
a thousand years when Homer sang of the siege of Troy; and here came
Herodotus the father of history, four hundred years before Christ, and
gazed with wonder, and wrote about them as the most venerable
monuments of antiquity, with the same curious interest as Rawlinson
does to-day. So they have been standing century after century, while
the generations of men have been flowing past, like the waters of the
Nile.
We visited the Great Pyramid again on our return from Upper Egypt, and
explored the interior, but reserve the description to another chapter.
CHAPTER II.
ON THE NILE.
At last we are on the Nile, floating as in a dream, in the finest
climate in the world, amid the monuments and memories of thousands of
years. Anything more delightful than this climate for winter cannot be
imagined. The weather is always the same. The sky is always blue, and
we are bathed in a soft, delicious atmosphere. In short, we seem to
have come, like the Lotus-eaters, to "a land where it is always
afternoon." In such an air and such a mood, we left Cairo to make the
voyage to which we had been looking forward as an event in our lives.
To travellers who desire to visit Egypt, and to see its principal
monuments, without taking more time than they have at command, it is a
great advantage that there is now a line of steamers on the Nile. The
boats belong to the Khedive, but are managed by Cook & Son, of London,
the well-known conductors of excursions in Europe and the East. They
leave Cairo every fortnight, and make the trip to the First Cataract
and back in twenty days, thus comprising the chief objects of interest
within a limited time. Formerly there was no way to go up the Nile
except by chartering a boat, with a captain and crew for the voyage.
This mode of travel had many charms. The kind of boat--called a
_dahabeeah_--was well fitted for the purpose, with a cabin large
enough for a single family, or a very small party, and an upper deck
covered with awnings; and as it spread its three-cornered lateen sail
to the wind, it presented a pretty and picturesque object, and the
traveller floated along at his own sweet will. This had only the
drawback of taking a whole winter. But to leisurely tourists, who like
to do everything thoroughly, and so take but one country in a year; or
learned Egyptologists, who wish, in the intervals of seeing monuments,
to make a special study of the history of Egypt; or invalids, who
desire only to escape the damps and fogs of Britain, or the bitter
cold of the Northern States of America--nothing can be imagined more
delightful. There is a class of overworked men for whom no medicine
could be prescribed more effectual than a winter idled away in this
soothing, blissful rest. Nowhere in the world can one obtain more of
the _dolce far niente_, than thus floating slowly and dreamily on the
Nile. But for those of us who are wandering over all the earth,
crossing all the lands and seas in the round world, this slow voyaging
will not answer.
Nor is it necessary. One can see Egypt--not of course minutely, but
sufficiently to get a general impression of the country--in a much
less time. It must be remembered that this is not like other countries
which lie four-square, presenting an almost equal length and breadth,
but in shape is a mere line upon the map, being a hundred times as
long as it is broad. To be exact, Egypt from the apex of the
Delta--that is from Cairo--to the First Cataract, nearly six hundred
miles, is all enclosed in a valley, which, on an average, is only six
miles wide, the whole of which may be seen from the deck of a steamer,
while excursions are made from day to day to the temples and ruins. It
is a mistake to suppose that one sees more of these ruins on a boat
because he is so much longer about it, when the extra time consumed is
not spent at Denderah or Thebes, but floating lazily along with a
light wind, or if the wind be adverse, tied up to a bank to await a
change. In a steamer the whole excursion is well divided, ample time
being allowed to visit every point of interest, as at Thebes, where
the boat stops three days. As soon as one point is done, it moves on
to another. In this way no time is lost, and one can see as much in
three weeks as in a dahabeeah in three months.
Our boat carried twenty-seven passengers, of whom more than half were
Americans, forming a most agreeable company. All on deck, we watched
with interest the receding shores, as we sailed past the island of
Rhoda, where, according to tradition, the infant Moses was found in
the bulrushes; and where the Nilometer, a pillar planted in the water
ages ago, still marks the annual risings and fallings of the great
river of Egypt. The Pyramids stood out clear against the western sky.
That evening we enjoyed the first of a series of glorious sunsets on
the Nile. Our first sail was very short--only to Sakkara, a few miles
above Cairo, where we lay to for the night, the boat being tied up to
the bank, in the style of a steamer on the Mississippi.
Early the next morning our whole company hastened ashore, where a
large array of donkeys was waiting to receive us. These had been sent
up from Cairo the night before. My faithful attendant was there with
"Yankee Doodle," and claimed me as his special charge. We were soon
mounted and pricking over what we should call "bottom lands" in the
valleys of our Western rivers, the wide plain being relieved only by
the palm groves, and rode through an Arab village, where we were
pursued by a rabble rout of ragged children. The dogs barked, the
donkeys brayed, and the children ran. Followed by such a retinue, we
approached the Pyramids of Sakkara, which stand on the same plateau as
those of Ghizeh, and are supposed to be even older in date. Though
none of them are equal to the Great Pyramid, they belong to the same
order of Cyclopean architecture, and are the mighty monuments of an
age when there were giants in the earth.
There is a greater wonder still in the Tombs of the Sacred Bulls,
which were long buried beneath the sands of the desert, but have been
brought to light by a modern explorer, but which I will not describe
here, as I shall speak of them again in illustration of the religious
ideas of the Egyptians.
Near the Pyramids of Sakkara is the site of Memphis, the capital of
ancient Egypt, of whose magnificence we have the most authentic
historic accounts, but of which hardly a trace remains. We galloped
our donkeys a long distance that we might pass over the spot where it
stood, but found only great mounds of earth, with here and there a few
scattered blocks of granite, turned up from the soil, to tell of the
massive structures that are buried beneath. The chief relic of its
former glory is a statue of Rameses the Great, one of the most famous
of the long line of the Pharaohs--a statue which was grand enough to
be worthy of a god--being some fifty feet high, but which now lies
stretched upon the earth, with its face downward, all its fine
proportions completely buried in a little pond--or rather puddle--of
dirty water! At certain seasons of the year, when the Nile subsides,
the features are exposed, and one may look upon a countenance "whose
bend once did awe the world;" but at present, seeing only the back,
and that broken, it has no appearance or shape of anything, and might
be a king, or queen, or crocodile. What a bitter satire is it on all
human pride, that this mighty king and conqueror, the Napoleon of his
day--who made nations tremble--now lies prone on the earth, his
imperial front buried in the slime and ooze of the Nile! That solitary
stone is all that is left of a city of temples and palaces, which are
here entombed, and where now groves of palms wave their tasselled
plumes, like weeping willows over the sepulchre of departed greatness.
Our next excursion was to the remains of a very remote antiquity on
the other side of the Nile--the Rock-Tombs of Beni-Hassan--immense
caverns cut in the side of a mountain, in which were buried the great
ones of Egypt four thousand years ago. Many of them are inscribed with
hieroglyphics, and decorated with frescoes and bas-reliefs, in which
we recognize not only the appearance of the ancient Egyptians, but
even of the animals which were familiar in that day, such as the lion,
the jackal, and the gazelle, and more frequently the beasts of
burden--bulls and donkeys; but in none do we discover the horse, nor,
what is perhaps even more remarkable in a country surrounded by
deserts--the camel.
In the King's tomb, or sepulchral chamber, a room some forty feet
square, hollowed out of the solid rock, the vaulted roof is supported
by Doric pillars, which shows that the Greeks obtained many of their
ideas of architecture in Egypt, as well as of philosophy and religion.
As we continue our course up the river, we observe more closely the
features of the valley of the Nile. It is very narrow and is abruptly
bounded by barren and ragged mountains. Between these barriers the
river winds like a serpent from side to side, now to the east, and now
to the west, but inclining more to the range of Eastern or Arabian
hills, leaving the greater breadth of fertility on the western bank.
Here is the larger number of villages; here is the railroad which the
Khedive has built along the valley, beside which runs the long line of
telegraph poles, that sign of civilization, keeping pace with the iron
track, and passing beyond it, carrying the electric cord to the upper
Nile, to Nubia and Soudan. The Khedive, with that enterprise which
marks his administration, has endeavored to turn the marvellous
fertility of this valley to the most profitable uses. He has
encouraged the culture of cotton, which became very extensive during
our civil war, and is still perhaps the chief industry of the country.
Next to this is the growth of the sugar-cane: he has expended millions
in the erection of great manufactories of sugar, whose large white
walls and tall chimneys are the most conspicuous objects at many
points along the Nile.
Now, as thousands of years ago, the great business of the people is
_irrigation_. The river does everything. It fertilizes the land; it
yields the crops. The only thing is to bring the water to the land at
the seasons when the river does not overflow. This is done by a very
simple and rude apparatus, somewhat like an old-fashioned well-sweep,
by which a bucket is lowered into the river, and as it is swung up the
water is turned into a trench which conducts it over the land. This is
the _shadoof_, the same which was used in the time of Moses. There is
another method by which a wheel is turned by an ox, lifting up a
series of buckets attached to a chain, but this is too elaborate and
expensive for the greater part of the poor people who are the tillers
of the soil.
We pass a great number of villages, but, larger and smaller, all
present the same general features. At a distance they have rather a
pretty effect, as they are generally embowered in palm trees, out of
which sometimes peers the white minaret of a mosque. But a nearer
approach destroys all the picturesqueness. The houses are built of
unburnt brick, dried in the sun. They are mere huts of mud--as
wretched habitations as an Irish hovel or an Indian wigwam. The floor
is the earth, where all sexes and ages sit on the ground, while in an
enclosure scarcely separate from the family, sheep and goats, and dogs
and asses and camels, lie down together.
The only pretty feature of an Arab village is the _doves_. Where these
Africans got their fondness for birds, I know not, but their mud
houses are surmounted--and one might almost say _castellated_--with
dove-cotes, which of course are literally "pigeon-holed," and stuck
round with branches, to seem like trees, and these rude aviaries are
alive with wings all day long. It was a pretty and indeed a touching
sight to see these beautiful creatures, cooing and fluttering above,
presenting such a contrast, in their airy flights and bright plumage,
to the dark and sad human creatures below.
But if the houses of the people are so mean and poor, their clothing
is still worse, consisting generally of but one garment, a kind of
sack of coarse stuff. The men working at the _shadoof_ on the river
brink have only a strip of cloth around their loins. The women have a
little more _dress_ than the men, though generally barefoot and
bareheaded--while carrying heavy jars of water on their heads. The
children have the merest shred of a garment, a clout of rags, in such
tatters that you wonder how it can hold together, while many are
absolutely naked.
This utter destitution would entail immense suffering, and perhaps
cause the whole race to die out, but for the climate, which is so mild
that it takes away in a great degree the need of shelter and raiment,
which in other countries are necessary to human existence.
This extreme poverty is aggravated by one disease, which is almost
universal. The bright sun, glaring on the white sands, produces an
inflammation of the eyes, which being neglected, often ends in
blindness. I have seen more men in Egypt with one eye, or with none,
than in all Europe.
It might be supposed that a people, thus reduced by poverty and
smitten by disease, would be crushed out of all semblance of humanity.
And yet this Arab race is one which has a strong tenacity of life.
Most travellers judge them harshly, because they are disgusted by the
unceasing cry for _backsheesh_, which is the first word that a
stranger hears as he lands in Egypt, and the last as he leaves it. But
even this (although it is certainly a nuisance and a pest) might be
regarded with more merciful judgment, if it were considered that it is
only the outward sign of an internal disease; that general beggary
means general poverty and general misery.
Leaving this noisy crowd, which gathers about us in every village that
we enter, it is easy to find different specimens of Arab character,
which engage our interest and compel our respect. One cannot look at
these men without admiring their physique. They remind me much of our
American Indians. Like them, they are indolent, unless goaded to work
by necessity, and find nothing so pleasant as to sit idly in the sun.
But when they stand up they have an attitude as erect as any Indian
chief, and a natural dignity, which is the badge of their race. Many a
man who has but a single garment to cover him, will wrap it about him
as proudly as any Spanish cavalier would toss his cloak over his
shoulders, and stalk away with a bold, free stride, as if, in spite of
centuries of humiliation, he were still the untamed lord of the
desert. Their old men are most venerable in appearance. With their
long beards, white turbans, and flowing garments, they might stand for
the picture of Old Testament patriarchs. The women too (who do not
cover their faces as much as those in lower Egypt), though coarsely
and meanly dressed, yet as they walk with their water-jars on their
heads, stand more erect than the fashionable ladies of our cities. I
see them every day coming to fill their "pitchers" precisely as
Rebecca and Rachel came three thousand years ago, and if I should
approach one, saying, Give me to drink, (which I might well do, for
the water of the Nile--though containing so much sediment, that it
needs to be filtered--is as soft and sweet as that of our own Croton),
she would let down her jar from her head just as Rebecca let down her
jar for the servant of Abraham, when he came to ask her in marriage
for his master's son Isaac.
The children too, though often naked, and if clothed at all, always in
rags, yet have fine olive complexions, and dazzling teeth, and those
bright eyes which are the sign of a degree of native intelligence.
Nor can I refuse to say a word for the poor donkey-boy. Many years ago
a Scotchman in the Cape Colony, South Africa, who was accustomed to
make long journeys in the bush, wrote a little poem, depicting the
joys of that solitary life, which began,
"Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent bush-boy by my side."
The donkey-boy is never silent, he is always singing or calling to his
donkey, urging him forward with stick and voice; yet who could wish a
more patient or faithful attendant, who, though on foot, trots by your
side from morning to night, the slave of your caprice, taking meekly
all your rebukes, perhaps undeserved, and content at last with a
pittance for his service?
So have I had a little girl as a water-carrier, running close to my
saddle all day long, keeping up with the donkey's pace, and carrying a
small jar of water on her head, to wash my hands and face, or assuage
my thirst, thankful at last for a few piastres as her reward.
We reached Assiout, the capital of Upper Egypt, early Sunday morning,
and laid up for the day. While our boat's company were preparing to go
on shore to see the town, I mounted a donkey and started off to find
the American Mission, which is at work among the Copts, who claim to
be the descendants of the ancient Egyptians. I arrived at the chapel
in time to hear a sermon and an address to the Sunday-school. As the
services were in Arabic, I could not understand what was said, but I
could perceive at once the earnestness of the speakers, and the close
attention of the hearers. After the sermon there was a baptism. The
congregation was a very respectable one both in numbers and
appearance. There were perhaps two hundred present, all decently,
although some were very poorly clad, and presented a striking contrast
to the ragged and dirty people around them. In the quiet and orderly
worship, and the songs that were sung, which were Arabic words to
American tunes, there was much to make one think of home. There was
nothing to distinguish the congregation except the Oriental turbans
and dress, and the fact that the women sat apart from the men,
separated by a screen, which shows that the seclusion of women is not
confined to the Mohammedans. It is an Oriental custom, and is observed
by the Copts as well as the Moslems. I am told that even among
Christian families here, it is not considered quite "the thing" for
women to go abroad and show impertinent curiosity, and that ladies of
good position, who are as intelligent as most Orientals, have never
seen the Nile, but two miles distant! Such is the power of fashion
even in Africa. In the church are several men of wealth, who give
freely of their means, as well as use their influence, for its
support. The Copts are nominal Christians, although, like most of the
Christian sects of the East, they are very ignorant and very
superstitious. But they have not the fanatical hatred to Christianity
of the Mussulmans. They acknowledge the authority of the Bible, and
are thus more open to argument and persuasion. Besides this
congregation, the mission has some dozen schools in the surrounding
country. In the town itself, besides the schools for the poorest
children, it has a boarding-school for those of a better class, an
academy which is the beginning of a college, and half a dozen young
men are preparing for the ministry. The field is a very hopeful one,
and I was assured that the success of the mission was limited only by
the means at its disposal.
After visiting the schools, Rev. Mr. Strang accompanied me through the
town. It has over twenty-five thousand inhabitants, and is the point
of departure for the caravans which cross the Great Desert to Darfour
and the far interior of Africa, returning laden with ivory and ostrich
feathers, as in the days of King Solomon. We saw in an open square, or
market-place, some hundred camels, that, as they lay wearily on the
earth, looked as if they might have made the long journey over the
trackless sands. Laborers were at work, with no respect for the day,
for Friday is the Mohammedan Sabbath; and my friend pointed out, where
a number of workmen were building a house, the "taskmaster" sitting on
the top of the wall to overlook them, as in the days of the Bible. As
we returned by an old portal in the city walls, we found a number of
long-bearded and venerable men, who were "sitting in the gate" as
"elders" to administer justice. The city gate is the place of honor
and of justice now, as it was thousands of years ago.
In the mountain behind the town are a great number of tombs, like
those of Beni-Hassan, vast chambers hewn out of the rock ages ago for
burial places. We walked along by these silent memorials of the mighty
dead, to the summit, from which is one of the most beautiful views of
the valley of the Nile. Below the plain is spread out for many miles,
well watered like the garden of the Lord, the emerald green coming up
to the very foot of the barren hills. But there it ceases instantly,
giving place to the desert.
These contrasts suggest some comparisons between the scenery and the
climate of Egypt, and our own country. Whoever breathes this balmy
air, and looks up to this cloudless sky, must feel that the Lord of
all the earth has been bountiful to Egypt. As we read of the winter
storms now raging over half of Europe, we bless the more kindly skies
that are over us now. But after a few weeks of this dreamy, languid
life, one begins to feel the want of something else to stir his blood.
He finds that nature in Egypt, like the works of man, like the temples
and the pyramids, is a sublime monotony. The landscapes are all the
same. There are four or five grand features, the river, the valley,
the hills that enclose it, and beyond the boundless desert, and over
all the burning sun and sky. These are the elements that enter into
every landscape. There is no change, no variety. Look where you will,
there is no vision in the distance of lofty peaks dark with pines, or
white with snow, no torrents leaping down the mountain side (the
_silence_ of Egypt is one of the things that most oppress me), no
brooks that run among the hills, no winding paths along their banks
that invite the stranger to lose himself in their shade. I see indeed
hills on either horizon, but they are barren and desolate. On all
this double range, for six hundred miles, there is not a single green
thing--not a tree, not a shrub, not a blade of grass, not even a rock
covered with moss, only a waste of sand and stone. If you climbed
those hills yonder across the valley you would look off upon a
boundless plain of sand that stretches to the Red Sea; while behind
where we stand is the Libyan Desert, which is only an arm of the Great
Sahara, that crosses almost the whole of the continent. In all this
waste the valley of the Nile is the one narrow strip of fertility. And
even this is parched and burnt up to the very water's edge. Hence the
monotony of vegetation. There is not a forest in all Egypt, only the
palm groves, which are planted like garden flowers, but no tangled
wild wood, no lofty elms, no broad-spreading oaks that cast their
grateful shadow on the burning plains. All that variety of nature,
with which in other lands she beguiles the weary heart of man, is
wanting here. It is indeed the land of the sun, and in that is at once
its attraction and its terror, as the fiery orb beats down upon it,
withering man and beast, and turning the earth into a desert.
Seeing this monotony of nature, and feeling this monotony of life, one
begins to pine after awhile, for a return to the scenes more varied,
though more wild and rugged, of his own more northern clime. We hear
much of the beauty of a "cloudless sky." It is indeed a relief for a
few weeks to those who escape from wintry storms, from bitter winds
and blinding snow. But who would have sunshine _forever_? The light
and warmth are better when softened and subdued by clouds that
intercept the overpowering rays. But here the clouds are few, and they
do not "return after the rain," for there _is_ no rain. In Lower Egypt
there is what may be called a rainy season. In the Delta, as the
clouds roll up from the Mediterranean, there is sometimes a sound of
abundance of rain. But in Upper Egypt it may be said that it never
rains. In Assiout it has rained but three times in ten years! Of
course the heat is sometimes fearful. Now it is mid-winter, and the
air is comparatively cool and bracing, but in midsummer it reaches 110
and 112 degrees in the shade! For days and nights together the heat is
so intense that not a leaf stirs in the palm groves. Not only is there
not a drop of rain--there is not a breath of air. This it is to have a
"cloudless sky"! Gladly then would our friend exchange for half the
year the climate of Egypt for that of America. How refreshing it would
be to him to see, just for once, great masses of black clouds
gathering over the Arabian Hills, to see the lightnings flash as he
has seen them in his native Ohio, and to hear the thunder-peals
rolling across the valley from mountain to mountain, and at last dying
away on the Libyan desert.
Think of this, ye who shiver in your winter storms at home, and sigh
for Egypt. Take it all in all, would you make the exchange?
CHAPTER III.
THE TEMPLES OF EGYPT--DID MOSES GET HIS LAW FROM THE EGYPTIANS?
In the distribution of the monuments of Egypt, it is a curious fact
that the Pyramids are found almost wholly in Lower Egypt, and the
great Temples in Upper Egypt. It was not till we had been a week on
the Nile, that we had our first sight of the latter at Denderah. We
have since spent three days at Thebes, the great centre of historical
interest, and have made a regular campaign of sight-seeing, starting
on excursions every morning, and thus have explored the ruins on both
sides of the river--for Thebes, like many other great cities--like
London and Paris--was built on two sides of a river, but one much
greater than the Thames or the Seine, yet not so great but that it was
spanned by a bridge (at least this is inferred from some ancient
sculptures and inscriptions), over which poured a population such as
pours over London Bridge to-day. The site seems made for a great
capital, for here the mountains retire from the river, sweeping round
in a circuit of some fifty miles, leaving a broad plain to be filled
with human habitations. Here four thousand years ago was built a city
greater than that on the banks of the Tigris or the Euphrates, than
Nineveh or Babylon. Here was the centre of power and dominion for two
continents--not only for Africa, but for Asia--to which flocked the
multitudinous nations of Assyria and Arabia and Persia and the
farthest East, as well as the tribes of Ethiopia--as two thousand
years later all the peoples of the earth flocked to Rome. It is easy,
from historical records and monumental inscriptions, to form some
idea of the glory of this capital of the ancient world. We can imagine
the tumult and the roar of this more ancient Rome, when the chariots
of mighty kings, and the tread of armies returning victorious from
distant wars, thundered through her hundred gates.
Then did the kings of Egypt rear temples and palaces and statues and
obelisks worthy of all that greatness. Then were built the most
gigantic temples ever raised by the hand of man--as much surpassing in
vastness and grandeur those reared centuries afterward by the Greeks,
as the latter surpass anything by the moderns. The temples of
Thebes--including Luxor and Karnac, which are parts of one city--are
as much grander than the Parthenon, as the Parthenon is grander than
the Madeleine at Paris, which is a feeble attempt to copy it.
We have now been a week--beginning with Denderah--studying these
ruins, and may give certain general impressions. We do not attempt any
detailed description, which must necessarily be inadequate, since
neither words nor figures convey an idea of them, any more than they
do of the Alps. What would be thought of an avenue nearly two miles
long, lined with over twelve hundred colossal sphinxes? Yet such was
the avenue from Luxor to Karnac--an approach worthy to lead to the
temple of the gods. What can we say of a forest of columns, each
twelve feet in diameter, stretching out in long colonnades; of the
massive walls covered with bas-reliefs; and obelisks in single shafts
of granite, of such height and weight that it is the wonder of modern
engineering how they could be cut from the side of the hills, and be
brought a hundred and forty miles, and erected on their firm bases.
But this temple--or rather cluster of temples and palaces--was not,
like the temple of Solomon, finished in a single reign. Karnac was not
the work of one man, or of one generation. It was twenty-five hundred
years in building, successive kings and dynasties adding to the mighty
whole, which was to represent all the glory of Egypt.
The general impression of these temples--and the same is true of the
Egyptian statues and sculptures--is one of grandeur rather than
beauty. They seek to overpower the senses by mere size. Sometimes they
overdo the matter. Thus in the temples at Karnac the columns seem to
me too large and too much crowded for the best effect. Ordinary trees
may be planted in a dense grove, but great, broad-spreading oaks or
elms require space around them; and if these columns were a little
more _spaced_--to use a printer's word--the architectural effect would
be still grander. So in the Egyptian sculpture, everything is
colossal. In the granite lions and sphinxes there is always an aspect
of power in repose which is very impressive, and strikes one with awe.
But in any lighter work, such as frescoes and bas-reliefs, there is a
total absence of delicacy and grace. Nothing can be more stiff. They
sometimes have a rude force of drawing, but beauty they have none.
That was born in Greece. All the sculptures on all the temples of
Egypt are not worth--except as historical monuments--the friezes of
the Parthenon.
One thing else has struck me much as to the plan of these temples,
viz.: that we see in them the types and models of much that has been
reproduced in various forms of ecclesiastical architecture. One has
but to observe with some care the construction of these vast
basilicas, to see how many features of Jewish, and even of Christian
and Moslem architecture, have been adopted from still older temples
and an earlier religion. Thus in the temple at Edfoo there is first
the vast enclosure surrounding the whole, and then within the walls an
outer court open to the sky, corresponding to the Court of the
Gentiles in the Temple at Jerusalem, to the Court of the Fountains
leading to the Mosques, and the cloister surrounding the approaches to
old abbeys and cathedrals. One might find a still closer resemblance
in forms of worship, in the vestments of priests, in the altars, and
in the burning of incense, etc., a parallel which scholars have often
traced.
And now of all this magnificence and glory of the ancient capital of
Egypt, what remains? Only these vast ruins of temples and palaces. The
"plain of Thebes" is still here, but deserted and silent. A few
columns and statues rise above the plain to mark where the city stood,
but the city itself is gone as much as the people who inhabited it
four thousand years ago. A few miserable mud huts are built against
the walls of mighty temples, and the ploughman drives his team over
the dust of the city of a hundred gates. I saw a fellah ploughing with
a cow and a camel yoked together, and a couple of half-naked Arabs
raising water with their _shadoof_ between the Memnon (the statue
which was said to sing when its stony lips were touched by the rising
of the sun) and its brother statue--the two great Colossi, between
which ran the Royal street to Luxor. Was there ever a more complete
and utter desolation? In the temple called the Rameseum once stood the
largest statue that ever was known--that of Rameses the Great (the
same who had a statue at Memphis, for he erected monuments to himself
everywhere), cut out of a single block of granite brought from the
First Cataract, and weighing nearly nine hundred tons! On this was
inscribed, as Herodotus writes, who saw it twenty-three hundred years
ago: "I am the king of kings: if any man wish to know how great I am,
and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works!" What a comment on
the emptiness of human ambition, that this colossal statue, which was
to last to the end of the world, was long ago pulled down by a later
conqueror, Cambyses, the Persian, and now lies on its back, with its
nose knocked off, and eyes put out, and all its glory in the dust!
In studying the figures and the inscriptions on the walls of temples,
there are many things which throw light on the manners and customs of
the ancient Egyptians. Here is a scene of hunting, or of fishing, or
of feasting. Here are the different trades, which show the skill of
the people in the mechanic arts, and many scenes which give us an
insight into their domestic life. These have been the subjects of two
learned and most interesting works by Wilkinson, which open the very
interior of ancient Egypt to our modern eyes. They show a very high
degree of civilization--of skill in all the useful arts, a skill fully
equal in many things, and in some greatly superior, to that of our own
day. Wendell Phillips, in his famous lecture on "The Lost Arts," finds
many of his illustrations in ancient Egypt. I could not but think that
this furnished a very effective answer to those advocates of
evolution, who hold that mankind sprung from animals, and have
gradually developed to their present state. How much progress have the
Egyptians made in four thousand years? Here the race has gone
backward, so that there is certainly no inherent tendency in our
nature to advance.
But I was less interested in studying the domestic life of the ancient
Egyptians, than their religious ideas. Herodotus says that the
Egyptians were a very religious people, excelling all others in the
honors paid to their gods; and this we can well believe, seeing the
temples that they reared for their worship. But what were the gods
they adored, and what sort of worship did they render, and how did all
this act on the life and character of the people? Here we obtain a
less exalted estimate of the ancient Egyptians. The remains which they
have left, while they illustrate the greatness of the empire, which
four thousand years ago had its seat in the valley of the Nile, do not
give a high idea of its Religion. The land was wholly given to
idolatry. The Egyptians had as many gods as the Greeks and Romans,
only baser and lower, indicating baser and lower ideas. They made
gods, not only of the sun, moon, and stars, but of beasts and birds
and reptiles--of the apis and the ibis--of the serpent and the
crocodile.
At Sakkara we visited one of the most stupendous mausoleums that we
have seen in Egypt--one which Herodotus described, but which for
centuries was so buried by the sands of the desert that its very site
was not known until brought to light by the researches of Mariette
Bey, who has done so much to restore the monuments of ancient Egypt.
The approach to it was by an avenue of sphinxes, which led to a vast
subterranean gallery--twenty feet wide and high--and leading two
thousand feet, more than a third of a mile, under the earth. This
long, vaulted passage is hewn in the solid rock--out of which open on
either side a series of chambers or recesses, like side chapels--each
containing a sarcophagus, 15 x 8 feet. These tombs, hollowed out of
the solid granite, are so huge and massive that we wonder how they
ever could have been got there. Yet these great sarcophagi--fit for
the burial places of a long line of kings--were not for the Pharaohs
or the Ptolemies, but for the Sacred Bulls! Thirty of these sarcophagi
have been found, and on the walls are tablets which record the birth,
and death, and burial of each one of these sacred beasts. These were
the gods of Egypt, mother of the arts, and civilizer of the earth!
This great repository of dead divinities is a colossal monument, at
once of the architectural skill of the ancient Egyptians, and of their
degrading superstition.
This single fact is enough to answer those who would imply, if they do
not quite dare to assert, that the inspiration of the Books of Moses
was derived from the Egyptians. It is a favorite theory of certain
writers that Moses, being brought up in Egypt, here obtained both the
Law and the Religion which he gave to the Israelites. No doubt he did
learn much from a country that was at that time the most civilized in
the world. He was brought up in a court, and enjoyed every advantage
of a royal education. He was "learned in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians." And it detracts not at all from his inspiration, to
suppose that he may have been instructed to embody in his new and
better code whatever was excellent in the older system, and had been
approved by the experience of centuries. The ceremonial laws--such as
those of purification--may have been adopted from the Egyptians. But
these are the mere fringes of the garment of the great Lawgiver. As
soon as we open the Hebrew Scriptures, we find traces of a wisdom such
as the Egyptians never knew. The very first sentence--"In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth"--scatters the fables
of Isis and Osiris, and substitutes for the troop of heathen deities
the worship of One Living and True God. This single declaration marks
a stupendous advance in the religious faith and worship of mankind.
The same first principle appears as the corner-stone of the law given
on Mount Sinai: "I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other
gods before me."
The second law of the first table breaks in pieces the images of the
gods of the Egyptians: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image, nor any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, nor in
the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth." This was spoken
to a people that had just come out of a country where they worshipped
beasts and birds and reptiles, and where the walls of the temples were
covered with the images of all kinds of foul and creeping things.
In this age of the world, and among civilized nations, we cannot
understand the passion for idolatry. Yet it is one of the most
universal and ineradicable instincts of a half barbarous people. They
see tokens of an unseen power in the forces of nature, in clouds and
winds, in lightning and tempest, and they torment themselves with all
imaginable terrors, from which they seek relief and protection in
bowing down to gods of wood and stone.
The Israelites coming out of Egypt, were out of the house of bondage
in one sense, but they were in it in another. They were continually
relapsing into idolatry. The golden calf of Aaron was but an imitation
of the sacred bulls of Egypt. Often they pined for the products of the
fertile valley of the Nile. With nothing but the burning sands beneath
their feet, they might well long for the shade of the palm tree and
for its delicious fruit, and they said, Why hath this man Moses
brought us up to die in this wilderness? It required forty years of
wandering, and that a whole generation should leave their bones to
whiten the sands of the desert, before their children could be wholly
alienated from the worship of false gods. So not only with the
Israelites, but with all nations of men, ages of fiery discipline have
been necessary to bring back the race to this first article of our
faith: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and
earth."
We might follow the comparison through all the tables of the law, to
show how absurd is the pretence that what Moses taught to the
Israelites he first learned from the Egyptians. Tell us, ye learned
antiquaries, where on all these temples, and in all the records which
they have left us, is there any trace of the Ten Commandments?
And yet Egypt is connected very intimately, in history at least, with
the birth of our religion. No other country, except Palestine, figures
so largely in the Bible. Abraham went down into Egypt. Here came the
sons of Jacob to buy corn, and found Joseph ruling in the house of
Pharaoh. And hither centuries later fled the virgin mother with her
child from the wrath of Herod, fulfilling the prediction, "Out of
Egypt have I called my son."
But Religion--the Divine wisdom which at once instructs and saves
mankind--came not from the valley of the Nile. Abraham and Jacob and
Moses saw the Pyramids standing just as we see them now, but they did
not point them to the true God. That knowledge came from a higher
source. "History," says Bunsen, "was born on that night when Moses,
with the law of God in his heart, led the people of Israel out of
Egypt." And not History only, but Religion then came to a new birth,
that was to be the herald of new and better hopes, and of a higher
civilization than was known to the ancient world.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EGYPTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.
The valley of the Nile is one vast sepulchre. Tombs and temples!
Temples and tombs! This is the sum of the monuments which ancient
Egypt has left us. Probably no equal portion of the earth's surface
was ever so populous, at once with the living and the dead. It is but
a narrow strip of territory--a line of green between two deserts; and
yet on this mere _ribbon_ of Africa lived the millions that made one
of the most populous and powerful of ancient empires. They were fed by
the marvellous fertility of the Nile valley, till they stood upon it
almost as thick as the ranks of corn that waved around them: and here,
when life was ended, they found a resting-place in the bosom of the
earth that nourished them, on which they slept as children on a
mother's breast. This strip of earth, long and narrow like a grave,
has been the sepulchre of nations. Here the myriads of Egypt's ancient
reigns--from the time of Menes--through the long line of the Pharaohs
and Ptolemies--the generations that built the Pyramids and those that
came after--laid themselves down to sleep in the great valley. Thus
the very dust of Egypt was made up of the dust of ancient Egyptians.
But this was only the lot of the common people, to mingle their dust
with common clay--their tomb the common earth, their end to be exhaled
into the common air, or to reappear in other natural forms, living in
plants, blooming in flowers, or in broad-leaved palms, casting a
shadow on the earth from which they sprung. But for her great ones,
more enduring monuments were reared to guard their dust and perpetuate
their names. No people, ancient or modern, ever lavished so much on
these sacred and pious memorials. They expended more on the tombs of
the dead than on the houses of the living, for they reasoned that the
latter were but temporary dwellings, while the former were everlasting
habitations. The kings of Egypt cared more for great tombs than great
palaces, and they reared such mausoleums as the earth never saw
before. The Pyramids were their tombs, and the mountains were hollowed
into royal sepulchres. The rock tombs of Beni-Hassan are cut in the
side of the hills. The barren mountain that looks off upon the great
Libyan desert, is honeycombed with vast and silent halls of the dead.
At Thebes the traveller, ascending from the Nile, winds his way among
hills of sand into a valley of desolation. The summits around are not
covered with pines like our own darkly wooded hills, nor do even the
rocks gather moss--but all is bare and desolate. The desert has
overflowed the earth like a sea, and not a shrub nor a blade of grass
has survived the universal deluge. Yet here where not a living thing
can be found, has been discovered underground the most remarkable
series of tombs which exists. A whole mountain is pierced with deep
excavations. Passages open into its rocky sides, running many hundred
feet into the bowels of the earth, and branching off into recesses
like side chapels. These Halls of Death are like kings' palaces, with
stately chambers broad and high, whose sides and ceilings are covered
with hieroglyphics and illustrative symbols.
A fact so remarkable as this, that the architecture of a great empire
which has built the most colossal structures in the world, has this
tomblike character, must have a meaning. The Egyptians were a very
religious people. They were not a gay and thoughtless race, like some
of their Asiatic and European neighbors. There is something grave even
in their faces, as seen in ancient statues and monuments. Their very
architecture had this heavy and solemn character. These colossal
temples, these silent sphinxes, seem oppressed with some great mystery
which they cannot reveal. These tombs show that the Egyptian mind was
full of the idea of death, and of another life. The Egyptians were not
Atheists, nor Sadducees. They believed devoutly in God, and in a life
to come.
How strongly the idea of another life had taken hold of the Egyptian
mind is evident from the symbols in their religion. The symbol most
frequently employed is that of the _scarabaeus_--or beetle--the image
of which appears everywhere, which by analogy teaches that life, in
passing through death, may be born to a new life. The beetle lays its
eggs in the slime of the Nile; it buries them in mud, which it works
into a ball, and rolls over and over, back to the edge of the desert,
and buries in sand. There its work is ended: nature does the rest. Out
of this grave comes in time a resurrection, and life is born of death.
The ostrich eggs hung up in mosques, have the same symbolical meaning.
The ostrich buries its eggs in the sand, and nature, that kind mother
which watches over all life, gives them being. Thus is conveyed the
same idea as in the analogy of the chrysalis and the butterfly.
Studying the religious faith of the Egyptians a little more closely,
we see that they believed not only in the immortality of the soul, but
in the resurrection of the body. The doctrine taught by Paul, was long
before taught by the priests of Egypt. Their tombs were not merely
memorials of those who had ceased to live, but resting-places for the
bodies of those whose spirits were absent but would some day return.
For this, bodies were embalmed with religious care; they were buried
in tombs hewn out of the solid rock, laid away in Pyramids, or in
caverns hollowed out of the heart of the mountains. There, embedded in
the eternal rocks, locked up with the bars of the everlasting hills,
it seemed that their remains would rest secure till the morning of
the resurrection day.
Further, they believed not only in immortality and in resurrection,
but also in retribution. The soul that was to pass into another life,
was to go into it to be judged. There it was to be called to account
for the deeds done in the body. Even the funeral rites indicated how
strong was the belief of a judgment to come for all who departed this
life. After the bodies were embalmed, they were borne in solemn
procession to the Nile (most of the tombs being on the western bank),
or to a sacred lake, across which they were to be ferried. (Did not
this suggest to later Roman mythologists the river Styx, and the
boatman Charon who conveyed departed souls to the gloomy shades of
Pluto?) As the funeral procession arrived at the borders of the lake,
it paused till certain questions were answered, on which it depended
whether the dead might receive burial: or should be condemned to
wander in darkness three thousand years. If it passed this ordeal, it
moved forward, not to its everlasting repose, but to the Hall of
Judgment, where Osiris sits upon his throne as the judge of all
mankind. This scene is constantly represented in sculptures, in
bas-reliefs, and in frescoes on the walls of tombs. In one of them a
condemned wretch is driven away in the shape of a pig! (Was it here
that Pythagoras, who studied in Egypt, obtained his doctrine of the
transmigration of souls?) Before Osiris is the scribe, the recording
angel, who keeps a faithful record of the deeds done in the body. A
long line of judges--forty-two in number--sit arrayed as the final
arbiters of his fate--each with his question, on the answer to which
may depend the destiny of the departed soul.
The "Book of the Dead" (copies of which are still found wrapped up
with mummies: several are in the British Museum) gives the answers to
be made to these searching questions, and also the prayers to be
offered, and the hymns that are to be sung, as the soul enters the
gloomy shades of the under-world.
In this Egyptian doctrine of a future life there are Christian ideas.
Some indeed will say that Egypt gave rather than received; that she
was the mother of all learning and all wisdom in the ancient world;
that the Greeks obtained their philosophy from her (for Plato as well
as Pythagoras studied in Egypt); that the Eleusinian mysteries came
from Africa; that Moses here found what he taught the Hebrews; and
that even the Christian mysteries and the Christian faith came from
the banks of the Nile.
There is certainly much food for reflection in this reappearance of
certain religious ideas in different countries and under different
forms. But there is a contrast as well as a resemblance. While the
Hebrews learned so much from the Egyptians, it is very remarkable that
they did _not_ imbibe that strong faith in the reality of the
invisible world, which lies at the foundation of religion. One would
suppose that the Israelites, coming out of Egypt, would be full of
these thoughts, and of the hopes and fears of a life to come. Yet in
all the books of Moses, rarely, if ever, are these motives addressed
to the Hebrews. The German critics argue from this that the Hebrews
did not believe in another life. The late Dr. Edward Robinson, the
distinguished Hebrew scholar, said that he could not find that
doctrine in the Old Testament. Without admitting such an extreme view,
it is certainly remarkable that that idea is much less prominent in
the Old Testament than in the New. It is not Moses, but Christ who has
brought life and immortality to light.
But the Egyptian doctrine of a future life, while very curious and
interesting as a study of ancient belief, is utterly unsatisfying. The
ideas are detached and fragmentary, and wholly without evidence or
authority; they are merely the crude fancies of mythology, and not the
precise teachings of Revelation. And so in all the tombs and temples
of Egypt there is nothing which can relieve the doubts of a troubled
mind, or the sorrows of a heavy heart.
I have had some sober thoughts while floating on the bosom of the
Nile. We cannot but see the world through our own eyes and through our
moods of mind. To those who have left their dead beyond the sea,
foreign travel has many sad and lonely hours. The world seems cold and
empty, and even the most religious mind is apt to be haunted with
gloomy thoughts. This is not a mood of mind peculiar to atheists and
unbelievers. Many devout men, in seasons of mental depression, are
tortured with doubts whether, after all, their religious faith is not
a delusion and a dream.
And so many dark and bitter questionings come to me here in this land
of sepulchres. I have come to Egypt to learn something of the wisdom
of the Egyptians. Tell me then, ye tombs and temples and pyramids,
about God; tell me about the life to come! But the Pyramids speak not;
and the Sphinx still looks towards the East, to watch for the rising
sun, but is voiceless and mute. This valley of the Nile speaks of
nothing but death. From end to end its rock-ribbed hills are filled
with tombs. Yet what do they all teach the anxious and troubled heart
of man? Nothing! All these hills are silent. Not a sound, or even an
echo, comes from these dark sepulchres. No voice of hope issues out of
the caverns hollowed in the bosom of the hills. The hard granite of
the tombs itself is not more deaf to the cry of human anguish, or the
voice of supplication.
I turn from the monuments of man to nature. I stand on the bank of the
Great River, and ask if it brings not some secret out of the heart of
Africa? Tell me, ye night winds, blowing from African deserts; tell
me, ye stars shining in the African heaven (this sky of Egypt is so
pure and clear that the stars seem higher and more distant from this
lower world), what light can ye throw on this great mystery of death?
And the stars twinkle, but speak not, and the palm trees quiver in
the night wind, but give no answer; and the great Nile flows on
silently to the sea, as life flows on to eternity. Nature is dumb; the
great secret is not revealed.
For the revelation of that secret we turn not to Egypt, but to
Jerusalem. While the Egyptians groped darkly after the truth, how do
these dim shadows, these poor emblems and analogies, set forth by
contrast the clearer and better truth of revelation! All that is
written on the tombs of Egypt; all that is carved in stone, or written
in hieroglyphics on ancient sarcophagi; all that is built in temples
and pyramids; is not worth that one saying of our Lord, "I am the
Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live."
We spent Christmas day at Thebes, where a number of English boats had
drawn up to the landing to keep the day, so dear to the hearts of
Englishmen throughout the world. On Christmas eve they were decorated
with palm branches, and at night were lighted up with Chinese
lanterns, while row-boats were floating about, the Arab boatmen
singing their wild, plaintive melodies.
Christmas brought a scene, if not so picturesque, yet far more sweet
and tender. It had been our good fortune to meet there Rev. Dr. Potter
of New York, the rector of Grace Church. He was going up the Nile with
Miss Wolfe, of Madison square. They were on two dahabeeahs, but kept
company, and anchored every night together. On Christmas day there was
a service on board Miss Wolfe's boat, which was attended by all the
English parties. It was held on the upper deck, which was spread with
carpets and covered with an awning on the top and sides to protect us
from the sun. Whether it was the strange scene, occurring in a distant
part of the world, or sad memories which were recalled by these
anniversary days, seldom has a service touched me more. It was very
sweet to hear the old, old prayers--some of them almost as old as
Christianity itself--to which we had so often listened in other
lands, and to join with the little company in the Christmas hymn:
"Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the new-born King;
Peace on earth and mercy mild;
God and man are reconciled."
Dr. Potter read the service in his clear, rich voice, following it
with a sermon which was quite extempore and brief, but so simple and
so appropriate to the day that it went to every heart. And when at the
close was celebrated the communion, we all felt how pleasant it was in
such a place, so far from home, in a country surrounded by the ruins
of the temples of old idolatries, to join in the worship of Him who on
this day was born to be the Light and the Hope of the world. Better is
this than all that Egypt can teach us about a life to come.
And so we turn from these great temples and tombs, which only mock our
hopes, to Him who has passed through the grave, and lighted the way
for us to follow Him. Let scholars dispute the first intent of the
words, yet nothing in the Old Testament or the New, more distinctly
expresses what I rest upon than this: "I know that my Redeemer liveth
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God!"
CHAPTER V.
THE RELIGION OF THE PROPHET.
In a review of the faiths of Egypt, one cannot overlook that which has
ruled in the land for more than a thousand years, and still rules, not
only in Egypt, but over a large part of Asia and Africa. We arrived in
Cairo a few days too late to witness the departure of the pilgrims for
Mecca. Once in the year there is a gathering of the faithful for a
journey which is the event of their lives. The spectacle is one of the
most picturesque in the East, as a long procession, mounted on camels,
many of which are richly caparisoned, files through the streets of the
city, amid the admiring gaze of the whole population, and takes the
way of the desert. Slowly it moves Eastward to the Red Sea, and
passing around it, turns South to the heart of the Arabian Peninsula.
A caravan of pilgrims crossing the desert to visit the birthplace of
the prophet, is a proof that religious enthusiasm still lives even in
this unbelieving age. Perhaps the Moslem spirit is not so bigoted here
as at Constantinople. The Turk, with his heavy stolid nature, is a
more obstinate religionist than the Arab. And yet Mohammed was not a
Turk; he was an Arab, and the faith which he taught still fires the
heart of his race.
In one view Cairo may be considered the capital of Islam, as it is the
seat of the great University, from which its priests go forth to all
parts of the Mohammedan world. This University is nine hundred years
old--older than Oxford, and still flourishes with as much vigor as in
the palmy days of the Arabian conquest. A visit to it is the most
interesting sight in Cairo. There I saw collected together--not one
hundred or two hundred students, such as are found in our Theological
Seminaries in America--but ten thousand! As one expressed it, "there
were two acres of turbans," assembled in a vast inclosure, with no
floor but a pavement, and with a roof over it, supported by four
hundred columns, and at the foot of every column a teacher, surrounded
by pupils, who sat at his feet precisely as Paul sat at the feet of
Gamaliel. As we entered there rose a hum of thousands of voices,
reciting the Koran. These students are not only from Egypt, but from
all parts of Africa, from Morocco to Zanzibar. They come from far up
the Nile, from Nubia and Soudan; and from Darfour beyond the Great
Desert, and from the western coast of Africa. Asia too is largely
represented in students both from Western Asia, from Turkey, Arabia,
and Persia; and from Central Asia, from Khiva and Bokhara, and
Turkistan and Afghanistan, and the borders of China. They come without
staff or scrip. There is no endowment to support them; no Students'
Fund or Education Board. They live on the charities of the faithful,
and when their studies are ended, those who are to be missionaries on
this continent mount their camels, and joining a caravan, cross the
Desert, and are lost in the far interior of Africa.
This strange sight has set me a-thinking, and the more I think, the
more the wonder grows. A religion that supports great universities
from generation to generation; and that sends forth caravans, that are
like armies, on long pilgrimages, is not dead; it is full of life, and
can bring into the field tremendous forces to uphold its empire in the
East. What is the secret of its power, by which it lives on from
century to century, and seems as if it could not but by annihilating
die? There is no question of more interest to the historical student;
and no one which it is more necessary to understand in order to form
some just idea of the great Eastern War which is already looming above
the horizon. A full recognition of that which is good in Islam, and of
that which gives it power, would prevent many mistakes in forecasting
the future, although it might abate the sanguine confidence of our
missionary friends in the speedy triumph of Christianity over its
hereditary foe.
First of all, we must recognize the fact of its existence as one of
the great religions of the world. The number of its adherents is
variously estimated at from a hundred and fifty to a hundred and
eighty millions. It holds but a corner of Europe, but extends its
empire over a large part of Asia and Africa. The whole of Africa which
is not Pagan, is Moslem. In Asia Islam disputes the sway of Hindooism
in India, where the Queen has more Moslem subjects than the Sultan
himself, and of Buddhism in the islands of the Malayan Archipelago.
Over so large a part of the earth's surface is extended the wide
dominion of the Prophet. His followers number one-tenth, perhaps
one-eighth, or even one-sixth part of the human race.
Nor is this dominion a merely nominal thing. On the contrary, the true
believers are strong believers. It may well be doubted, whether among
the nations nominally Christian the mass of the people really believe
with half the firmness and the fervor of Mussulmans. The Moslems are
as sincere, and in their way as devout, as the adherents of any
religion on the face of the globe. No one can enter the mosque of St.
Sophia, and see the worshippers turning their faces towards Mecca, not
only kneeling but prostrating themselves, touching the pavement with
their foreheads, and repeating, in a low, mournful tone, passages from
the Koran, without feeling that these men really believe. Those
prostrate forms, those wailing voices, are not the signs of hypocrisy,
but of a faith that, however mistaken, is at least sincere. In their
own minds they are in the presence of the Highest, and offer worship
to the unseen God. Indeed they are more than believers, they are
zealots, carrying their faith to fanaticism. A body so vast in number,
composed of such fierce religionists, is certainly a great power in
the political and military, as well as religious, forces, that are yet
to contend for the mastery of the Eastern world.
Nor is this power inactive in spreading its faith; it is full of
missionary zeal. Max Mueller divides all the religions of the world
into proselytizing and non-proselytizing. Mohammedanism belongs to the
former class as much as Christianity. The days are past when the
followers of the Prophet swept over large parts of Asia and Africa,
converting tribes and nations by the sword. And yet even at the
present day it keeps up a Propaganda as vigorous as that of the
Catholics at Rome. Its university here is training ten thousand young
apostles. Moslem missionaries preach the Koran, and make proselytes,
in all parts of India. But the chief field of their labors is in
Africa, where they have penetrated far into the interior, and
converted numerous tribes to the faith. It is difficult to obtain
accurate statistics in regard to the spread of Islam in Africa.
Livingstone thought the reports greatly exaggerated. That is quite
possible, and yet, making every allowance, there can be no doubt that
it has obtained a success much greater than that of Christian
missions.
A religion which has such a foundation on the solid earth, holding
nations and empires in its wide dominion; and which has such a
history, stretching over twelve centuries; is a subject worthy the
closest attention of scholars. Its history is not unlike that of
Christianity itself, in the feebleness of its beginning and the
greatness of its results. It started in an obscure corner of the
world--in the deserts of Arabia--and rapidly conquered the East,
overrunning all the adjacent parts of Asia and Africa, and extending
along the Mediterranean to the Straits of Gibraltar, and thence
crossed into Spain, where it maintained itself for eight hundred
years against all the power of Europe to expel it. Such conquests
show a prodigious vitality--a vitality not yet exhausted, as it still
holds the half of Asia and Africa. A faith which commands the
allegiance of so large a part of mankind must have some elements of
truth to give it such tremendous power. Perhaps we can find the key in
the character of its Founder, and in the faith which he taught.
A great deal has been written about the life of Mohammed, but even yet
his character is imperfectly understood. Perhaps we cannot fully
understand it, for there are in it contradictions which perplex the
most patient and candid student. By many he is dismissed at once as a
vulgar impostor, a sort of Joe Smith, who invented monstrous lies, and
by stoutly sticking to them got others to believe in them, and as soon
as he rallied a few followers about him, compelled neighboring tribes
to accept his faith by the unsparing use of the sword.
This is an easy way to get rid of a difficult historical question, but
unfortunately it does not explain the facts. It is by that sort of
cheap reasoning that Gibbon undertakes to explain the rapid spread of
Christianity. But if Mohammed had been a cunning impostor, his first
claim would have been to work miracles, which on the contrary he never
claimed at all, but distinctly repudiated. Nor was he a greedy
mercenary; he was a poor man; his followers relate with pride how he
mended his own clothes, and even pegged his own shoes. But he combined
every element of the visionary and the enthusiast. He had that vivid
imagination that conceives strongly of things invisible to the natural
sense, to which "things that are not become as things that are," and
that ardent temperament that kindles at the sight of these unseen
realities. Perhaps this temperament was connected with his bodily
constitution; from his youth he was subject to epileptic fits, and his
revelations were accompanied with convulsions. Such things are found
in other religions. They are quite common in the history of devout
and passionate Romanists. Nor are they unknown even among Protestants,
who profess to be more sober and rational. Among the Methodists, at
camp-meetings, a very frequent effect of religious emotion has been
that strong men were so prostrated that they fell to the ground and
became as dead, and when they recovered, retained impressions never to
be effaced, as if they had seen things which it was not lawful to
utter. The revelations of Mohammed were all accompanied by these
"physical manifestations." Sometimes the angel spoke to him as one man
to another; at other times something within his bosom sounded like a
bell, which he said "rent him in pieces." At such times he fell to the
ground and foamed at the mouth, or his eyes turned red, and he
streamed with perspiration, and roared like a camel, in his struggle
to give utterance to the revelation of God. This does not look like
imposture, but like insanity. The constitution of such a man is a
psychological study.
This natural ardor was inflamed by long seclusion. From his youth he
loved solitude. Like the old prophets, he withdrew from the world to
be alone with God. Like Elijah, he hid himself in a cave. Every year,
during the month of Ramadan, he retired to a cave in Mount Hera, three
miles from Mecca, to give himself up to religious contemplation; and
there, it is said, amid spasmodic convulsions, he had his first
vision, in which the angel Gabriel appeared to him.
This explanation of a mind half disordered, subject to dreams and
visions and fanatical illusions, is much more rational than that of
supposing in him an artful design to impose a new religion on his
countrymen. Like other enthusiasts, he became the victim of his own
illusions. His imagination so wrought upon him that he came to accept
his visions as Divine revelations. In this he was not playing a part;
he was not the conscious hypocrite. No doubt he believed himself what
he wished others to believe. Indeed he made them believe, by the very
sincerity and intensity of his own convictions.
Mohammedanism may be considered as a system of theology, and as a
system of morality. The former seems to have been derived largely from
Judaism. Mohammed belonged to the tribe of the Koreishites, who
claimed to be descended from Abraham through Ishmael. His family were
the keepers of the Caaba, or holy place of Mecca, where is the black
stone which was brought from heaven, and the spring Zemzem, which
sprang up in the desert to save the life of Hagar and her child. Thus
he was familiar from his earliest years with the traditions of the
patriarchs.
When a boy of fourteen he made a journey with his uncle into Syria,
where he may have learned more of the ancient faith. Much is said of
his becoming acquainted with a Nestorian bishop or monk, from whom he
is supposed to have learned something of Christianity. But he could
not have learned _much_, for his views of it were always extremely
vague. It is doubtful whether he ever saw the New Testament, or had
any knowledge of it other than that derived from some apocryphal
books. There is no trace in the Koran of the sublime doctrines of the
Gospel, or even of its moral precepts. Although Mohammed professed
great reverence for Jesus, whom with Moses he considers the greatest
of prophets next to himself, yet his ideas of the Religion which He
taught were of the most indefinite kind.
But one thing he did learn, which was common to Judaism and
Christianity--that there is but one God. The Monotheism of the Hebrews
took the stronger hold of him, from its contrast to the worship around
him, which had degenerated into gross idolatry. The tribes of Arabia
had become as base idolaters as the Canaanites. Even the holy Caaba
was filled with idols, and the mission of the prophet--as he regarded
it--was to restore the worship of the One Living and True God. His
first burst of prophetic fire and prophetic wrath was a fierce
explosion against idolatry, and it was a moment of triumph when he was
able to walk through the Caaba, and see the idols dashed in pieces.
Here then is the first and last truth of Islam, the existence of one
God. The whole is comprehended in this one saying, "God is God, and
Mohammed is his prophet."
With the homage due to God, is the respect due to His revealed will.
Moslems claim for the Koran what many Christians do not claim for the
Bible--a literal and verbal inspiration. Every word is Divine.
And not only is the unity of God the cardinal truth, but it is vital
to salvation. In this respect Islam is a Religion. It is not a mere
philosophy, the acceptance or rejection of which is a matter of
indifference. It is not merely a system of good morals--it is a Divine
code for the government of mankind, whose acceptance is a matter of
life and death--of salvation or damnation.
The doctrine of _retribution_ is held by the Moslems in its most rigid
form--more rigid indeed than in the Christian system: for there is no
atonement for sin. The judgment is inexorable; it is absolute and
eternal. Before their eyes ever stands the Day of Judgment--the Dies
Irae--when all men shall appear before God to receive their doom.
But in that last day, when unbelievers shall be destroyed, the
followers of the prophet shall be saved. They can go to the tribunal
of their Maker without trembling. One day riding outside the walls of
Constantinople, we approached a cemetery just as a funeral procession
drew near, bearing the form of the dead. We stopped to witness the
scene. The mourners gathered around the place where the body was laid,
and then the ulema approached the grave, and began _an address to the
dead_, telling her (it was a woman) not to be afraid when the angel
came to call her to judgment, but to appear before the bar of the
Almighty, and answer without fear, for that no follower of the prophet
should perish.
The religious observances of the Moslems are very strict. As God is
the sole object of worship, so the great act of Religion is communion
with Him. Five times a day the voice of the muezzin calls them to
prayer. The frequent ablutions were perhaps derived from the Jewish
law. Fasting is imposed with a severity almost unknown in the
Christian world. The most rigid Catholics hardly observe the forty
days of Lent as the Moslems do the month of Ramadan. Almsgiving is not
only recommended, but required. Every true believer is commanded to
give one-tenth of his income to charity.
As to the moral results of Mohammedanism, it produces some excellent
effects. It inculcates the strictest temperance. The Koran prohibits
the use of wine, even though wine is one of the chief products of the
East. In this virtue of total abstinence the Moslems are an example to
Christians.
So in point of integrity; the honesty of the Turk is a proverb in the
East, compared with the lying of Christians. Perhaps this comes in
part not only from his religion, but from the fact that he belongs to
the conquering race. Tyrants and masters do not need to deceive, while
falsehood and deceit are the protection of slaves. Subject races,
which have no defence before the law, or from cruel masters, seek it
in subterfuge and deception. But this claim of integrity may be pushed
too far. However it may be in Asia Minor, among simple-minded Turks,
who have not been "spoiled by coming in contact with Christians,"
those who have to do with Turks in the bazaars of Constantinople, are
compelled to confess, that if they do not tell lies, they tell very
big truths. However, as between the Turk and the Greek, in point of
honesty, it is quite possible that those who know them both would give
the preeminence to the former.
Whatever the weakness of Mohammedanism, it does not show itself in
_that sort_ of vices. His very pride makes the Mussulman scorn these
meaner sins. His religion, as it lifts him up with self-esteem,
produces an effect on his outward bearing. He has an air of
independence which is unmistakable. I think I never saw a Mussulman
that was afraid to look me in the face. He has none of the sneaking
servility that we see in some races. This is a natural consequence of
his creed, according to which God is so great that no man is great in
his sight. Islam is at once a theocracy and a democracy. God is sole
Lawgiver and King, before whom all men stand on the same level. Hence
men of all nations and races fraternize together. In Constantinople
blacks and whites, the men of Circassia and the men of Ethiopia, walk
arm in arm, and stand on the level of absolute equality.
This democratic spirit is carried everywhere. There is no caste in
Islam, not even in India, where it is at perpetual war with the castes
of Hindooism. So as it spreads in the interior of Africa, it raises
the native tribes to a degree of manliness and self-respect which they
had not known before. It "levels up" the African race. Our
missionaries in Liberia, who come in contact with certain Moslem
tribes from the interior, such as the Mandingoes, will testify that
they are greatly superior to those farther South, on the Gold Coast,
the Ashantees and the people of Dahomey, who have filled the world
with horror by their human sacrifices. All this disappears before the
advance of Islam. It breaks in pieces the idols; it destroys devil
worship and fetichism and witchcraft, and puts an end to human
sacrifices. Thus it renders a service to humanity and civilization.
So far Islam is a pretty good religion--not so good indeed as
Christianity, but better than any form of Paganism. It has many
elements of truth, derived chiefly from Judaism. So far as Mohammed
followed Moses--so far as the Koran followed the Old Testament--they
uttered only the truth, and truth which was fundamental. The unity of
God is the foundation of religion. It is not only a truth, but the
greatest of truths, the first condition of any right religious
worship. In declaring this, Mohammed only proclaimed to the Arabs what
Moses had proclaimed to the Hebrews: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God
is one Lord." But he repeated it with great vehemence and effect,
wielding it as a battle-axe to break in pieces the idols of the
heathen. And so far--as against idolatry--Islam has served a great
purpose in history. But there its utility ends. It teaches indeed that
there is but one God. But what a God is that which it presents to our
worship! "This God is not our God." The Mohammedan idea of God is very
different from the Christian idea of a Father in heaven. It is the
idea of the Awful, the Invisible--grand indeed, yet cold and distant
and far away, like the stars on the desert, or in the Arctic night,
"wildly, spiritually bright," shining with a glittering splendor, but
lofty and inaccessible, beyond the cries of human agony or despair.
This view of God is so limited and partial as to produce the effect of
positive error. In a just religious system there must be included the
two ideas of God and man; and these in their proper relation to each
other. Exclusive contemplation of either leads astray. When man
fastens on the idea of one God, he plants himself on a rock. But he
must not bow himself upon the rock, and clasp it so as to forget his
own separate individuality, lest the mighty stone roll over upon him
and crush him. This the Mussulman does. He dwells so on the idea of
God, that his own existence is not only lost sight of, but
annihilated. The mind, subdued in awe, is at length overpowered by
what it beholds. Man is nothing in that awful presence, as his life is
but a point in the Divine eternity.
It cannot be denied that the idea of God, and God alone, may produce
some grand effects on human character. It inspires courage. If God be
for us, who can be against us? That God _is_ for him, the Mussulman
never doubts; and this confidence inspires him in danger, and on the
field of battle, so that he fights with desperation. But if the
fortune of war be against him, who so well as the devout Mussulman
knows how to suffer and to die? He murmurs not; but bows his head,
saying "God is great," and submits to his fate. Thus his creed carried
out to its logical consequence ends in fatalism. He believes so
absolutely in God, that the decrees of the Almighty become a fixed
fate, which the will of man is impotent to resist. All this comes from
an imperfect idea of God. Here Islam is defective, just where
Christianity is complete.
There is nothing in Mohammedanism that brings God down to earth,
within the range of human sympathy or even of human conception. There
is no incarnation, no Son of God coming to dwell among men, hungry and
weary, bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, suffering in the
garden, and dying on the cross.
The Mussulman does not feel his need of such help. In his prayers
there is no acknowledgment of sin, no feeling of penitence, no
confession of unworthiness. He knows not how poor and weak he is, with
a religion in which there is no Saviour and Redeemer, no Lamb of God
that taketh away the sin of the world, no Holy Spirit to help our
infirmities, to strengthen our weaknesses.
So with Moslem morality; if we scan it closely, we find it wanting in
many virtues. Some writers give the most elevated ideas of it. Says
Chambers' Cyclopaedia: "Aside from the domestic relations, the ethics
of the Mohammedan religion are of the highest order. Pride, calumny,
revenge, avarice, prodigality, and debauchery, are condemned
throughout the Koran; while trust in God, submission to His will,
patience, modesty, forbearance, love of peace, sincerity, frugality,
benevolence, liberality, are everywhere insisted upon."
This is very high praise. But mark the exception: "Aside from the
domestic relations." That exception takes out of the system a whole
class of virtues, and puts a class of vices in their place. Here is
the great crime of Islam against humanity--its treatment of woman. We
will not charge against it more than belongs to it. The seclusion of
woman is not a Mohammedan custom so much as an Oriental one, and one
of a very ancient date. When Abraham sent a servant to find a wife for
Isaac, and he returned bringing Rebekah, as the caravan drew near
home, and Isaac went out to meditate at eventide, as soon as Rebekah
saw him in the distance, she lighted off from her camel and "veiled
herself." Polygamy too existed before Mohammed: it existed among the
patriarchs. It is claimed that Mohammed repressed it, limiting a man
to four wives, although he far exceeded the number himself. Gibbon,
who never misses an opportunity of making a point against the Bible,
says: "If we remember the seven hundred wives and three hundred
concubines of the wise Solomon, we shall applaud the modesty of the
Arabian who espoused no more than seventeen or fifteen wives." But
this pretence of self-restraint is a mockery. It is notorious that
Mohammed was a man of the grossest licentiousness; and the horrible
and disgusting thing about it is that he grew more wicked as he grew
older; and while trying to put restraint upon others put none upon
himself. He punished licentiousness with a hundred stripes, and
adultery with death, and yet he was a man of unbounded profligacy, and
to make it worse, pleaded a Divine revelation to justify it!
This example of the prophet has had its influence on all the
generations of his followers. It has trailed the slime of the serpent
over them all. Any one who has been in a Mohammedan country must have
felt that the position of woman is a degradation. One cannot see them
gliding through the streets of Cairo or Constantinople, with their
faces veiled as if it were a shame to look on them, and passing
swiftly as if indeed it were a sin for them to be seen abroad,
without a feeling of pity and indignation.
And in what a position are such women at home, if it can be called a
home, where there is no family, no true domestic life! The wife of a
Mohammedan--the mother of his children--is little better than a slave.
She is never presented to his friends--indeed you could not offer a
greater insult to a Turk than to ask after his wife! Of course there
is no such thing as society where women are not allowed to appear.
Such a society as that of London or Paris, composed of men eminent in
government, in science and literature--a society refined and elevated
by the presence of women of such education and manners and knowledge
of the world as to be the fit companions of such men--could not
possibly exist in Constantinople.
But the degradation of woman is not the only crime to be charged to
Islam. In fit companionship with it is cruelty. Mohammed had many
virtues, but he had no mercy. He was implacable toward his enemies. He
massacred his prisoners, not from hard necessity, but with a fierce
delight. Fanaticism extinguished natural compassion, and he put his
enemies to death with savage joy. In this his followers have "bettered
his instructions." The Turks are cruel, perhaps partly by nature, but
partly also because any tender sympathies of nature are kept down by a
fiery zeal. Their religion does not make them merciful. When a people
have become possessed with the idea that they are the people of God,
and that others are outcasts, they become insensible to the sufferings
of those outside of the consecrated pale.
In the Greek Revolution the people of Scio joined in the rebellion. A
Turkish army landed on the island, and in two months put 23,000 of the
inhabitants to the sword, without distinction of age or sex; 47,000
were sold into slavery, and 5,000 escaped to Greece. In four months
the Christian population was reduced from 104,000 to 2,000.
What the Turks are in Europe and Asia, the Arabs are in Africa. The
spread of Mohammedanism is a partial civilization of some heathen
tribes. But, alas, the poor natives come in contact with
"civilization" and "religion" in another way--in the Arab
slave-hunters, who, though they are Mohammedans, and devoutly pray
toward Mecca, are the most merciless of human beings. One cannot read
the pages of Livingstone without a shudder at the barbarities
practised on defenceless natives, which have spread terror and
desolation over a large part of the interior of Africa.
These cruel memories rise up to spoil the poetry and romance which
some modern writers have thrown about the religion of the prophet.
They disturb my musings, when awed or touched by some features of
Moslem faith; when I listen to the worship in St. Sophia, or witness
the departure of pilgrims for Mecca. Whatever Oriental pomp or
splendor may still survive in its ancient worship, at its heart the
system is cold, and hard, and cruel; it does not acknowledge the
brotherhood of man, but exalts the followers of the prophet into a
caste, who can look down on the rest of mankind with ineffable scorn.
Outside of that pale, man is not a brother, but an enemy--an enemy not
to be won by love, but to be conquered and subdued, to be made a
convert or a slave. Not only does the Koran not bid mercy to be shown
to unbelievers, but it offers them, as the only alternatives,
conversion, or slavery, or death.
Needs it any argument to show how impossible is good government under
a creed in which there is no recognition of justice and equality? I
think it is Macaulay who says that the worst Christian government is
better than the best Mohammedan government. Wherever that religion
exists, there follow inevitably despotism and slavery, by which it
crushes man, as by its polygamy and organized licentiousness, it
degrades and crushes woman. Polygamy, despotism, and slavery form the
trinity of woes which Mohammedanism has caused to weigh for ages,
like a nightmare, on the whole Eastern world. Such a system is as
incompatible with civilization as with Christianity, and sooner or
later must pass away, unless the human race is to come to a
standstill, or to go backward.
But when and how? I am not sanguine of any speedy change. Such changes
come slowly. We expect too much and too soon. In an age of progress we
think that all forms of ignorance and superstition must disappear
before the advance of civilization. But the _vis inertiae_ opposes a
steady resistance. It has been well said, "We are told that knowledge
is power, but who has considered the power of ignorance?" How long it
lives and how hard it dies! We hear much of the "waning crescent," but
it wanes very slowly, and it sometimes seems as if the earth itself
would grow old and perish before that waning orb would disappear from
the heavens. Christian Missions make no more impression upon Islam
than the winds of the desert upon the cliffs of Mount Sinai.
I do not look for any great change in the Mohammedan world, except in
the train of political changes. That religion is so bound up with
political power, that until that is destroyed, or terribly shaken,
there is little hope of a general turning to a better faith. War and
Revolution are the fiery chariots that must go before the Gospel, to
herald its coming and prepare its way. Material forces may open the
door to moral influences; the doctrines of human freedom and of human
brotherhood may be preached on battle plains as well as in Christian
temples. When the hard iron crust of Islam is broken up, and the
elements begin to melt with fervent heat, the Eastern world may be
moulded into new forms. Then will the Oriental mind be brought into an
impressible state, in which argument and persuasion can act upon it;
and it may yield to the combined influence of civilization and
Christianity. The change will be slow. It will take years; it may
take centuries. But sooner or later the fountains of the great deep
will be broken up. That cold, relentless system must pass away before
the light and warmth of that milder faith which recognizes at once the
brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.
In that coming age there may be other pilgrimages and processions
going up out of Egypt. "The dromedaries shall come from far." But
then, if a caravan of pilgrims issues from Cairo, to cross the desert,
to seek the birthplace of the founder of its religion, it will not
turn South to Mecca, but North to Bethlehem, asking with the Magi of
old, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his
star in the East, and are come to worship him."
CHAPTER VI.
MODERN EGYPT AND THE KHEDIVE.
Egypt is a country with a long past, as we found in going up the Nile;
may we not hope, also, with a not inglorious future? For ages it was
sunk so low that it seemed to be lost from the view of the world. No
contrast in history could be greater than that between its ancient
glory and its modern degradation. Its revival dates from about the
beginning of the present century, and, strange to say, from the
invasion of Egypt by Napoleon, which incidentally brought to the
surface a man whose rise from obscurity, and whose subsequent career,
were only less remarkable than his own. When Napoleon landed in Egypt
at the head of a French army of invasion, among the forces gathered to
oppose him was a young Albanian, who had crossed over from Greece at
the head of three hundred men. This was Mehemet Ali, who soon
attracted such attention by his daring and ability, that a few years
after the French had been driven out, as the country was still in a
distracted state, which required a man of vigor and capacity, he was
made Pasha of Egypt--a position which he retained from that time
(1806) until his death in 1850. Here he had new dangers, which he
faced with the same intrepidity. That which first made his name known
to the world as a synonym of resolute courage and implacable revenge,
was the massacre of the Mamelukes. These had long been the real
masters of Egypt--a terror to every successive government, as were the
Janissaries to the Sultan in Constantinople. Mehemet Ali had been but
five years in power, when, finding that he was becoming too strong
for them, they plotted to destroy him. He learned of the conspiracy
just in time, and at once determined to "fight fire with fire;" and,
inviting them to the Citadel of Cairo for some public occasion,
suddenly shut the gates, and manning the walls with his troops, shot
them down in cold blood. Only one man escaped by leaping his horse
from the wall. This savage butchery raised a cry of horror throughout
Europe, and Mehemet Ali was regarded as a monster of treachery and of
cruelty. It is impossible to justify such a deed by any rules of
civilized warfare. But this, it is said, was not civilized warfare; it
was simply a plot of assassination on one side, forestalled by
assassination on the other. I do not justify such reasoning. And yet I
could not but listen with interest to Nubar Pasha (the most eloquent
talker, as well as the most enlightened statesman, of Egypt), as he
defended the conduct of his hero. He, indeed, has a hereditary
allegiance to Mehemet Ali, which he derived from his uncle, the prime
minister. Said he: "The rule of the Mamelukes was anarchy of the worst
kind; it was death to Egypt, and IT IS RIGHT TO KILL DEATH." The
reasoning is not very different from that by which Mr. Froude
justifies Cromwell's putting the garrison of Drogheda to the sword.
Certainly in both cases, in Egypt as in Ireland, the end was peace.
From that moment the terror of Mehemet Ali's name held the whole land
in awe; and from one end of the valley of the Nile to the other, there
was perfect security. "Every tree planted in Egypt," said Nubar Pasha,
"is due to him; for till then the people in the country did not dare
to plant a tree, for the Mamelukes or the wandering Bedouins came and
pitched their tents under its shade, and then robbed the village." But
now every wandering tribe that hovered on the borders of the desert,
was struck with fear and dread, and did not dare to provoke a power
which knew no mercy. Hence the plantations of palms which have sprung
up around the Arab villages, and the beautiful avenues of trees which
have been planted along the roads.
It is not strange that such a man soon became too powerful, not only
for the Mamelukes, but for Turkey. The Sultan did not like it that one
of his subjects had "grown so great," and tried more than once to
remove him. But the servant had become stronger than his master, and
would not be removed. He raised a large army, to which he gave the
benefit of European discipline, and in the latter part of his life
invaded Syria, and swept northward to Damascus and Aleppo, and was
only prevented from marching to Constantinople by the intervention of
foreign powers. It seems a pity now that France and England
interfered. The Eastern question might have been nearer a solution
to-day, if the last blow to the Grand Turk had been given by a Moslem
power. But at least this was secured, that the rule of Egypt was
confirmed in the family of Mehemet Ali, and the Viceroy of Egypt
became as fixed and irremovable as the Sultan himself.
Mehemet Ali died in 1850, and was succeeded by his son Ibrahim Pasha,
who inherited much of his father's vigor. Ismail Pasha, the present
Khedive, is the son of Ibrahim Pasha, and grandson of Mehemet Ali.
Thus he has the blood of warriors in his veins, with which he has
inherited much of their proud spirit and indomitable will.
No ruler in the East at the present moment attracts more of the
attention of Europe. I am sorry to go away from Cairo without seeing
him. I have had two opportunities of being presented, though not by
any seeking or suggestion of my own. But friends who were in official
positions had arranged it, and the time was fixed twice, but in both
cases I had to leave on the day appointed, once to go up the Nile, and
the other to embark at Suez. I cannot give therefore a personal
description of the man, but can speak of him only from the reports of
others, among whom are some who see him often and know him well. The
Khedive has many American officers in his service, some of them in
high commands (General Stone is at the head of the army), and these
are necessarily brought into intimate relations with him. These
officers I find without exception very enthusiastic in their
admiration. This is quite natural. They are brought into relations
with him of the most pleasant kind. He wants an army, and they
organize it for him. They discipline his troops; if need be, they
fight his battles. As they minister to his desire for power, and for
military display, he gives them a generous support. And so both
parties are equally pleased with each other.
But making full allowance for all these prepossessions in his favor,
there are certain things in which not only they, but all who know the
present ruler of Egypt, agree, and which therefore may be accepted
without question, which show that he has a natural force of mind and
character which would be remarkable in any man, and in one of his
position are still more extraordinary. Though living in a palace, and
surrounded by luxury, he does not pass his time in idleness, but gives
himself no rest, hardly taking time for food and sleep. I am told that
he is "the hardest-worked man in Egypt." He rises very early, and sees
his Ministers before breakfast, and supervises personally every
department of the Government to such extent indeed as to leave little
for others to do, so that his Ministers are merely his secretaries. He
is the government. Louis XIV. could not more truly say, "I am the
State," than can the Khedive of Egypt, so completely does he absorb
all its powers.
Such activity seems almost incredible in an Oriental. It would be in a
Turk. But Ismail Pasha boasts that "he has not a drop of Turkish blood
in his veins." It is easy to see in his restless and active mind the
spirit of that fierce old soldier, Mehemet Ali, though softened and
disciplined by an European education.
This may be a proof of great mental energy, but it is not necessarily
of the highest wisdom. The men who accomplish most in the world, are
those who use their brains chiefly to plan, and who know how to choose
fit instruments to carry out their plans, and do not spend their
strength on petty details which might be done quite as well, or even
better, by others.
The admirers of the Khedive point justly to what he has done for
Egypt. Since he came into power, the Suez Canal has been completed,
and is now the highway for the commerce of Europe with India; great
harbors have been made or improved at Alexandria, at Port Said, and at
Suez; canals for irrigation have been dug here and there, to carry
over the country the fertilizing waters of the Nile; and railroads
have been cut across the Delta in every direction, and one is already
advanced more than two hundred miles up the Nile. These are certainly
great public works, which justly entitle the Khedive to be regarded as
one of the most enlightened of modern rulers.
But while recognizing all this, there are other things which I see
here in Egypt which qualify my admiration. I cannot praise without
reserve and many abatements. The Khedive has attempted too much, and
in his restless activity has undertaken such vast enterprises that he
has brought his country to the verge of bankruptcy. Egypt, like
Turkey, is in a very bad way. She has not indeed yet gone to the
length of repudiation. From this she has been saved for the moment by
the sale of shares of the Suez Canal to England for four millions
sterling. But this is only a temporary relief, it is not a permanent
cure for what is a deep-seated disease. The financial troubles of
Egypt are caused by the restless ambition of the Khedive to accomplish
in a few years the work of a century; and to carry out in an
impoverished country vast public works, which would task the resources
of the richest country in Europe. The Khedive has the reputation
abroad of being a great ruler, and he certainly shows an energy that
is extraordinary. But it is not always a well regulated energy. He
does too much. He is a man of magnificent designs, and projects public
works with the grandeur of a Napoleon. This would be very well if his
means were at all equal to his ambition. But his designs are so vast
that they would require the capital of France or Great Britain, while
Egypt is a very poor country. It has always of course the natural
productiveness of the valley of the Nile, but beyond that it has
nothing; it has no accumulated wealth, no great capitalists, no large
private fortunes, no rich middle class, from which to draw an imperial
revenue. With all that can be wrung from the miserable fellahs, taxed
to the utmost limit of endurance, still the expenses outrun enormously
the income.
It is true that Egypt has much more to show for her money than Turkey.
If she has gone deeply in debt, and contracted heavy foreign loans,
she can at least point to great public works for the permanent good of
Egypt; although in the construction of some of these she has
anticipated, if not the wants of the country, at least its resources
for many years to come.
For example, at the First Cataract, I found men at work upon a
railroad that is designed to extend to Khartoum, the capital of
Soudan, and the point of junction of the Blue and the White Nile! In
the latter part of its course to this point, it is to cross the
desert; as it must still farther, if carried eastward, as projected,
to Massowah on the Red Sea! These are gigantic projects, but about as
necessary to the present commerce of Egypt as would be a railway to
the very heart of Africa.
But all the money has not gone in this way. The Khedive has had the
ambition to make of Egypt a great African Empire, by adding to it vast
regions in the interior. For this he has sent repeated expeditions up
the Nile, and is in a continual conflict with his barbarous
neighbors, and has at last got into a serious war with Abyssinia.
But even this is not all. Not satisfied with managing the affairs of
government, the Khedive, with that restless spirit which characterizes
him, is deeply involved in all sorts of private enterprises. He is a
speculator on a gigantic scale, going into every sort of mercantile
adventure. He is a great real estate operator. He owns whole squares
in the new parts of Cairo and Alexandria, on which he is constantly
building houses, besides buying houses built by others. He builds
hotels and opera houses, and runs steamboats and railroads, like a
royal Jim Fisk. The steamer on which we crossed the Mediterranean from
Constantinople to Alexandria, belonged to the Khedive, and the
railroad that brought us to Cairo, and the hotel in which we were
lodged, and the steamer in which we went up the Nile.
Nor is he limited in his enterprises to steamers and railroads. He is
a great cotton and sugar planter. He owns a large part of the land in
Egypt, on which he has any number of plantations. His immense sugar
factories, on which he has expended millions of pounds, may be seen
all along the valley of the Nile; and he exports cotton by the
shipload from the port of Alexandria.
A man who is thus "up to his eyes" in speculation, who tries to do
everything himself, must do many things badly, or at least
imperfectly. He cannot possibly supervise every detail of
administration, and his agents have not the stimulus of a personal
interest to make the most of their opportunity. I asked very often,
when up the Nile, if these great sugar factories which I saw _paid_,
and was uniformly answered "No;" but that they _would_ pay in private
hands, if managed by those who had a personal stake in saving every
needless expense, and increasing every possible source of income. But
the Khedive is cheated on every side, and in a hundred ways. And even
if there were not actual fraud, the system is one which necessarily
involves immense waste and loss. Here in Cairo I find it the universal
opinion that almost all the Khedive's speculations have been gigantic
failures, and that they are at the bottom of the trouble which now
threatens the country.
Such is the present financial condition of the Khedive and of Egypt. I
couple the two together; although an attempt is made to distinguish
them, and we hear that although Egypt is nearly bankrupt, yet that the
Khedive is personally "the richest man in the world!" But the accounts
are so mixed that it is very difficult to separate them. There is no
doubt that the Khedive has immense possessions in his hands; but he
is, at the same time, to use a commercial phrase, enormously
"extended;" he is loaded with debt, and has to borrow money at ruinous
rates; and if his estate were suddenly wound up, and a "receiver"
appointed to administer upon it, it is extremely doubtful what would
be the "assets" left.
Such an administrator has appeared. Mr. Cave has just come out from
England, to try and straighten out the Khedive's affairs. But he has a
great task before him. Wise heads here doubt whether his mission will
come to anything, whether indeed he will be allowed to get at the
"bottom facts," or to make anything more than a superficial
examination, as the basis of a "whitewashing report" which may bolster
up Egyptian credit in Paris and London.
But if he does come to know "the truth and the whole truth," then I
predict that he will either abandon the case in despair, or he will
have to recommend to the Khedive, as the only salvation for him, a
more sweeping and radical reform than the latter has yet dreamed of.
It requires some degree of moral courage to talk to a sovereign as to
a private individual; to speak to him as if he were a prodigal son who
had wasted his substance in riotous living; to tell him to moderate
his desires, and restrain his ambition, and to live a quiet and sober
life; and to "live within his means." But this he must do, or it is
easy to see where this brilliant financiering will end.
If Mr. Cave can persuade the Khedive to restrain his extravagance; to
stop building palaces (he has now more than he can possibly use); and
to give up, once for all, as the follies of his youth, his grand
schemes of annexing the whole interior of Africa, as he has already
annexed Nubia and Soudan; and to "back out" as gracefully as he can
(although it is a very awkward business), of his war with Abyssinia;
and then to follow up the good course he has begun with his Suez Canal
shares, by selling all his stock in every commercial company (for one
man must not try to absorb all the industry of a kingdom); if he can
persuade him to sell all the railways in Egypt; and to sell every
steamship on the Mediterranean, except such as may be needed for the
use of the government; and every boat on the Nile except a yacht or
two for his private pleasure; to sell all his hotels and theatres; his
sugar factories and cotton plantations; and abandoning all his private
speculations, to be content with being simply the ruler of Egypt, and
attending to the affairs of government, which are quite enough to
occupy the thoughts of "a mind capacious of such things;" then he may
succeed in righting up the ship. Otherwise I fear the Khedive will
follow the fate of his master the Sultan.
But impending bankruptcy is not the worst feature in Egypt. There is
something more rotten in the State than bad financial management. It
is the want of justice established by law, which shall protect the
rights of the people. At present, liberty there is none; the
government is an absolute despotism, as much as it was three thousand
years ago. The system under which the Israelites groaned, and for
which God brought the plagues upon Egypt, is in full force to-day. The
Khedive has obtained great credit abroad by the expeditions of Sir
Samuel Baker and others up the Nile, which were said to be designed to
break up the slave trade. But what signifies destroying slavery in
the interior of Africa, when a system still more intolerable exists in
Egypt itself? It is not called slavery; it is simply _forced labor_,
which, being interpreted, means that when the Khedive wants ten
thousand men to dig a canal or build a railroad, he sends into the
requisite number of villages, and "conscripts" them _en masse_, just
as he conscripts his soldiers (taking them away from their little
farms, perhaps, at the very moment when their labor is most needed),
and sets them to work for himself, under taskmasters, driving them to
work under the goad of the lash, or, if need be, at the point of the
bayonet. For this labor, thus cruelly exacted, they receive absolutely
nothing--neither pay _nor food_. A man who has constructed some of the
greatest works of Modern Egypt, said to me, as we were riding over the
Delta, "I built this railroad. I had under me twenty thousand men--all
forced labor. In return for their labor, I gave them--_water_!" "But
surely you paid them wages?" "No." "But at least you gave them food?"
"No." "But how did they live?" "The women worked on the land, and
brought them bread and rice." "But suppose they failed to bring food,
what became of the workmen?" "They starved." And not only were they
forced to work without pay and without food, but were often required
to furnish their own tools. Surely this is making bricks without
straw, as much as the Israelites did. Such a system of labor, however
grand the public works it may construct, can hardly excite the
admiration of a lover of free institutions.
On all who escape this forced labor, the _taxation_ is fearful. The
hand of the government is as heavy upon them as in the ancient days.
To one who was telling me of this--and no man knows Egypt better--I
said, "Why, the government takes half of all that the country yields."
"Half?" he answered, "_It takes all._" To the miserable fellahs who
till the soil it leaves only their mud hovels, the rags that scarcely
hide their nakedness, and the few herbs and fruits that but just keep
soul and body together. Every acre of ground in Egypt is taxed, and
every palm tree in the valley of the Nile. What would our American
farmers say to a tax of twelve dollars an acre on their land, and of
from twenty-five to fifty cents on every apple tree in their orchards?
Yet this enormous burden falls, not on the rich farmers of New
England, or New York, or Ohio, but on the miserable fellahs of Egypt,
who are far more destitute than the negroes of the South. Yet in the
midst of all this poverty and wretchedness, in these miserable Arab
villages the tax gatherer appears regularly, and the tax, though it be
the price of blood, is remorselessly exacted. If anybody refuses, or
is unable to pay, no words are wasted on him, he is immediately
bastinadoed till his cries avail--not with the officers of the law,
who know no mercy, but with his neighbors, who yielding up their last
penny, compel the executioner to let go his hold.
Such is the Egyptian Government as it presses on the people. While its
hand is so heavy in ruinous taxations, the administration of justice
is pretty much as it was in the time of the Pharaohs. It has been in
the hands of a set of native officials, who sometimes executed a rude
kind of justice on the old principle of strict retaliation, "an eye
for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," but commonly paid no regard to
the merits of a case, but decided it entirely by other considerations.
In matters where the Government was concerned, no private individual
had any chance whatever. The Khedive was the source of all authority
and power, a central divinity, of whom every official in the country
was an emanation, before whom no law or justice could stand. In other
matters judges decided according to their own pleasure--their like or
dislike of one or the other of the parties--or more often according to
their interest, for they were notoriously open to bribes. Thus in the
whole land of Egypt justice there was none. In every Arab village the
sheik was a petty tyrant, who could bastinado the miserable fellahs at
his will.
This rough kind of government answered its purpose--or at least there
was no one who dared to question it--so long as they had only their
own people to rule over. But when foreigners came to settle in Egypt,
they were not willing to be subjected to this Oriental justice. Hence
arose a system of Consular Courts, by which every question which
concerned a foreigner was argued and decided before a mixed tribunal,
composed of the Consul of the country and a native judge. This seemed
very fair, but in fact it only made confusion worse confounded. For
naturally the Consul sided with his own countryman (if he did not, he
would be considered almost a traitor), his foreign prejudices came
into play; and so what was purely a question of law, became a
political question. It was not merely a litigation about property
between A and B, but a matter of diplomatic skill between France (or
any other foreign power) and Egypt; and as France was the stronger,
she was the more likely to succeed. Hence the foreigner had great
advantages over the native in these Consular Courts, and if in
addition the native judge was open to a bribe, and the foreigner was
willing to give it, the native suitor, however wronged, was completely
at his mercy.
Such was the state of things until quite recently. But here at least
there has been a reform in the introduction of a new judicial system,
which is the greatest step forward that has been taken within half a
century.
The man who was the first to see what was the radical vice of the
country, the effectual hindrance to its prosperity, was Nubar Pasha.
He had the sagacity to see that the first want of Egypt was not more
railroads and steamboats, but simple justice--the protection of law.
How clearly he saw the evil, was indicated by a remark which I once
heard him make. He said: "The idea of justice does not exist in the
Oriental mind. We have governors and judges, who sit to hear causes,
and who decide them after the Oriental fashion--that is, they will
decide in favor of a friend against an enemy, or more commonly in
favor of the man who can pay the largest bribe; but to sit patiently
and listen to evidence, and then decide according to abstract justice,
is something not only foreign to their customs, but of which they have
absolutely no idea--they cannot conceive of it." He saw that a feeling
of insecurity was at the bottom of the want of confidence at home and
abroad; and that to "establish justice" was the first thing both to
encourage native industry, and to invite the capital of France and
England to expend itself in the valley of the Nile. To accomplish this
has been his single aim for many years. He has set himself to do away
with the old Oriental system complicated by the Consular Courts, and
to introduce the simple administration of justice, by which there
should be one law for natives and foreigners, for the rich and the
poor, for the powerful and the weak.
To inaugurate such a policy, which was a virtual revolution, the
initiative must be taken by Egypt. But how could the Khedive propose a
change which was a virtual surrender of his own absolute power? He
could no longer be absolute _within the courts_: and to give up this
no Oriental despot would consent, for it was parting with the dearest
token of his power over the lives and fortunes of his subjects. But
the Khedive was made to see, that, if he surrendered something, he
gained much more; that it was an immense advantage to himself and his
country to be brought within the pale of European civilization; and
that this could not be until it was placed under the protection of
European law.
But Egypt was not the only power to be consulted. The change could
only be made by treaty with other countries, and Egypt was not an
independent State, and had no right to enter into negotiations with
foreign powers without the consent of the Porte. To obtain this
involved long and tedious delays at Constantinople. And last of all,
the foreign States themselves had to be persuaded into it, for of
course the change involved the surrender of their consular
jurisdiction; and all were jealous lest it should be giving up the
rights of their citizens. To persuade them to the contrary was a slow
business. Each government considered how it would affect its own
subjects. France especially, which had had great advantages under the
old Consular Courts, was the last to give its consent to the new
system. It was only a few days before the New Year, at which it was to
be inaugurated, that the National Assembly, after a debate lasting
nearly a week, finally adopted the measure by a majority of three to
one, and thus the great judicial reform, on which the wisest statesman
of Egypt had so long fixed his heart, was consummated.
The change, in a word, is this. The old Consular Courts are abolished,
and in their place are constituted three courts--one at Cairo, one at
Alexandria, and one at Ismailia--each composed of seven judges, of
whom a majority are nominated by the foreign powers which have most to
do with Egypt: France, England, Germany, Austria, Russia, and the
United States. In the selection of judges, as there are three benches
to be filled, several are taken from the smaller states of Europe.
There is also a higher Court of Appeal constituted in the same way.
The judges to fill these important positions have already been named
by the different governments, and so far as the _personnel_ of the new
courts is concerned, leave nothing to be desired. They are all men of
reputation in their own countries, as having the requisite legal
knowledge and ability, and as men of character, who will administer
the law in the interest of justice, and that alone. The United States
is represented by Judge Barringer at Alexandria, and Judge Batcheller
at Cairo--both of whom will render excellent service to Egypt, and do
honor to their own country.
The law which these courts are to administer, is not Moslem law (until
now the supreme law of Egypt was the Koran, as it still is in Turkey),
nor any kind of Oriental law--but European law. Guided by the same
intelligence which framed the new judicial system, Egypt has adopted
the Code Napoleon. The French language will be used in the courts for
the European judges, and the Arabic for the native.
In administering this law, these courts are supreme; they cannot be
touched by the Government, or their decisions annulled; for _they are
constituted by treaty_, and any attempt to interfere with them would
at once be resented by all the foreign powers as a violation of a
solemn compact, and bring down upon Egypt the protest and indignation
of the whole civilized world.
The change involved in the introduction of such a system can hardly be
realized by Europeans or Americans. It is the first attempt to
inaugurate a reign of law in Egypt, or perhaps in any Oriental
country. It is a breakwater equally against the despotism of the
central power, and the meddlesomeness of foreign governments, acting
through the Consular Courts. For the first time the Khedive is himself
put under law, and has some check to his power over the lives and
property of his subjects. Indeed we may say that it is the first time
in the history of Egypt that there has been one law for ruler and
people--for the Khedive and the fellah, for the native-born and for
the stranger within their gates.
The completion of such a system, after so much labor, has naturally
been regarded with great satisfaction by those who have been working
for it, and its inauguration on the first of the year was an occasion
of congratulation. On that day the new judges were inducted into
office, and after taking their official oaths they were all
entertained at the house of Judge Batcheller, where was present also
Mr. Washburne, our Minister at Paris, and where speeches were made in
English, French, German, and Arabic, and the warmest wishes expressed
both by the foreign and native judges, that a system devised with so
much care for the good of Egypt, might be completely successful. Of
course it will take time for the people to get accustomed to the new
state of things. They are so unused to any form of justice that at
first they hardly know what it means, and will be suspicious of it, as
if it were some new device of oppression. They have to be educated to
justice, as to everything else. By and bye they will get some new
ideas into their heads, and we may see a real administration of
justice in the valley of the Nile. That it may realize the hopes of
the great man by whom it has been devised, and "establish justice" in
a country in which justice has been hitherto unknown, will be the wish
of every American.
This new judicial system is the one bright spot in the state of Egypt,
where there is so much that is dark. It is the one step of real
progress to be set over against all the waste and extravagance, the
oppression and tyranny. Aside from that I cannot indulge in any
rose-colored views. I cannot go into ecstasies of admiration over a
government which has had absolute control of the country for so many
years, and has brought it to the verge of ruin.
And yet these failures and disasters, great as they are, do not abate
my interest in Egypt, nor in that remarkable man who has at present
its destinies in his hands. I would not ask too much, nor set up an
unreasonable standard. I am not so foolish as to suppose that Egypt
can be a constitutional monarchy like England; or a republic like
America. This would be carrying republicanism to absurdity. I am not
such an enthusiast for republican institutions, as to believe that
they are the best for all peoples, whatever their degree of
intelligence. They would be unsuited to Egypt. The people are not fit
for them. They are not only very poor, but very ignorant. There is no
middle class in Egypt in which to find the materials of free
institutions. Republican as I am, I believe that _the best possible
government for Egypt is an enlightened despotism_; and my complaint
against the government of the Khedive is, not that he concentrates all
power in himself, but that he does not use it wisely--that his
government unites, with many features of a civilized state, some of
the very worst features of Oriental tyranny.
But with all that is dark in the present state of this country, and
sad in the condition of its people, I believe that Egypt has a great
future before it; that it is to rise to a new life, and become a
prosperous State of the modern world. The Nile valley has a great part
yet to play in the future civilization of Africa, as an avenue of
access to the interior--to those central highlands where are the Great
Lakes, which are the long-sought sources of the Nile; and from which
travellers and explorers, merchants and missionaries, may descend on
the one hand to the Niger, and to the Western Coast; or, on the other,
to those vast regions which own the rule of the Sultan of Zanzibar. I
watch with interest every Expedition up the Nile, if so be it is an
advance, not of conquest, but of peaceful commerce and civilization.
Perhaps the Khedive will rise to the height of the emergency, and
bring his country out of all its difficulties, and set it on a new
career of prosperity. He has great qualities, great capacity and
marvellous energy. Has he also the gift of political wisdom?
Never had a ruler such an opportunity. He has a part to act--if he
knows how to act it well--which will give him a name in history
greater than any of the old kings of Egypt, since to him it is given
to reconstruct a kingdom, and to lead the way for the regeneration of
a continent. If only he can see that his true interest lies, not in
war, but in peace, not in conquering all the tribes of Africa, and
annexing their territory, but in developing the resources of his own
country, and in peaceful commerce with his less civilized neighbors,
he will place himself at the head of a continent, and by the powerful
influence of his example, and of his own prosperous State, become not
only the Restorer of Egypt, but the Civilizer of Africa.
CHAPTER VII.
MIDNIGHT IN THE HEART OF THE GREAT PYRAMID.
Our last night in Cairo we spent in riding out to Ghizeh by moonlight,
and exploring the interior of the Great Pyramid. We had already been
there by day, and climbed to the top, but did not then go inside.
There is no access but by a single narrow passage, four feet wide and
high, which slopes at a descending angle, so that one must stoop very
low while he slides down an inclined plane, as if he were descending
into a mine by a very small shaft. There is not much pleasure in
crouching and creeping along such a passage, with a crowd of Arab
guides before and behind, lighting the darkness with their torches,
and making the rocky cavern hideous with their yells. These creatures
fasten on the traveller, pulling and pushing, smoking in his face, and
raising such a dust that he cannot see, and is almost choked, and
keeping up such a noise that he cannot hear, and can hardly think. One
likes a little quiet and silence, a little chance for meditation, when
he penetrates the sepulchre of kings, where a Pharaoh was laid down to
rest four thousand years ago. So I left these interior researches, on
our first visit to the Pyramid, to the younger members of our party,
and contented myself with clambering up its sides, and looking off
upon the desert and the valley of the Nile, with Cairo in the
distance.
But on our trip up the Nile, I read the work of Piazzi Smyth, the
Astronomer Royal of Scotland, "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid,"
and had my curiosity excited to see again a structure which was not
only the oldest and greatest in the world, but in which he thought to
have discovered the proofs of a divine revelation. Dr. Grant of Cairo,
who had made a study of the subject, and had spent many nights in the
heart of the Pyramid, taking accurate measurements, kindly offered to
accompany us; and so we made up a party of those who had come down the
Nile--an Episcopal clergyman from New England, a Colonel from the
United States Army, a lady from Cambridge, Mass., and a German lady
and her daughter who had been with us for more than two months, and my
niece and myself. It was to be our last excursion together, as we were
to part on the morrow, and should probably never all meet again.
At half-past eight o'clock we drove away from the Ezbekieh square in
Cairo. It was one of those lovely nights found only in Egypt. The
moon, approaching the full, cast a soft light on everything--on the
Nile, as we crossed the long iron bridge, and on the palms, waving
gently in the night wind. We rode along under the avenue of trees
planted by old Mehemet Ali, keeping up an animated conversation, and
getting a great deal of information about Egypt. It was two hours
before we reached the Pyramid. Of course the Arabs, who had seen the
carriages approaching along the road, and who like vultures, discern
their prey from a great distance, were soon around us, offering their
services. But Dr. Grant, whose experience had taught him whom to seek,
sent for the head man, whom he knew, who had accompanied him in his
explorations, and bade him seek out a sufficient number of trusty
guides for our party, and keep off the rest.
While the sheik was seeking for his retainers, we strolled away to the
Sphinx, which looked more strange and weird than ever in the
moonlight. How many centuries has he sat there, crouching on the
desert, and looking towards the rising sun. The body is that of a
recumbent lion. The back only is seen, as the giant limbs, which are
stretched out sixty feet in front, are wholly covered by the sand.
But the mighty head still lifts its unchanged brow above the waste,
looking towards the East, to see the sun rise, as it has every morning
for four thousand years.
On our return to the Pyramid, Dr. Grant pointed out the "corner
sockets" of the original structure, showing how much larger it was
when first built, and as it stood in the time of the Pharaohs. It is
well known that it has been mutilated by the successive rulers of
Egypt, who have stripped off its outer layers of granite to build
palaces and mosques in Cairo. This process of spoliation, continued
for centuries, has reduced the size of the Pyramid _two acres_, so
that now it covers but eleven acres of ground, whereas originally it
covered thirteen. Outside of all this was a pavement of granite,
extending forty feet from the base, which surrounded the whole.
By the time we had returned, the sheik was on hand with his swarthy
guides around him, and we prepared to enter the Pyramid. It was not
_intended_ to be entered. If it had been so designed--as it is the
largest building in the world--it would have had a lofty gateway in
keeping with its enormous proportions, like the temples of Upper
Egypt. But it is not a temple, nor a place for assembly or for
worship, nor even a lofty, vaulted place of burial, like the tombs of
the Medici in Florence, or other royal mausoleums. Except the King's
and Queen's chambers (which are called chambers by courtesy, not being
large enough for ordinary bedrooms in a royal palace, but more like a
hermit's rocky cell), the whole Pyramid is one mass of stone, as solid
as the cliff of El Capitan in the Yo Semite valley. The only entrance
is by the narrow passage already described; and even this was walled
up so as to be concealed. If it were intended for a tomb, whoever
built it sealed it up, that its secret might remain forever inviolate;
and that the dead might slumber undisturbed until the Judgment day. It
was only by accident that an entrance was discovered. About a
thousand years ago a Mohammedan ruler, conceiving the idea that the
Pyramid had been built as a storehouse for the treasures of the kings
of Egypt, undertook to break into it, and worked for months to pierce
the granite sides, but was about to give it up in despair, when the
accidental falling of a stone led to the discovery of the passage by
which one now gains access to the interior.
In getting into the Pyramid one must stoop to conquer. But this
stooping is nothing to the bodily prostrations he has to undergo to
get into some passages of the temples and underground tombs. Often one
has not only to crouch, but to crawl. Near the Pyramid are some tombs,
the mouths of which are so choked up with sand that one has actually
to forego all use of hands and knees. I threw myself in despair on the
ground, and told the guides to drag me in by the heels. As one lies
prone on the earth, he cannot help feeling that this horizontal
posture is rather ridiculous for one who is in the pursuit of
knowledge. I could not but think to what a low estate I had fallen.
Sometimes one feels indeed, as he is thus compelled to "lick the
dust," as if the curse of the serpent were pronounced upon him, "On
thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy
life."
We had trusted to the man in authority to protect us from the horde of
Arabs; but nothing could keep back the irrepressible camp-followers,
who flocked after us, and when we got into the King's chamber, we
found we had twenty-four! With such a bodyguard, each carrying a
lighted candle, we took up our forward march, or rather our forward
_stoop_, for no man can stand upright in this low passage. Thus
bending one after another, like a flock of sheep, we vanished from the
moonlight. Dr. Grant led the way, and, full of the wonders of the
construction of the Pyramid, he called to me, as he disappeared down
its throat, to look back and see how that long tube--longer and larger
than any telescope that ever was made--pointed towards the North
Star. But stars and moon were soon eclipsed, and we were lost in the
darkness of this labyrinth. The descent is easy, indeed it is too
easy, for the sides of the passage are of polished limestone, smooth
as glass, and the floor affords but a slight hold for the feet, so
that as we bent forward, we found it difficult to keep our balance,
and might have fallen from top to bottom if we had not had the strong
arms of our guides to hold us up. With such a pair of crutches to lean
upon, we slid down the smooth worn pavement till we came to a huge
boulder, a granite portcullis, which blocked our way, around which a
passage had been cut. Creeping around this, pulled and hauled by the
Arabs, who lifted us over the dangerous places, we were shouldered on
to another point of rock, and now began our ascent along a passage as
slippery as that before. Here again we should have made poor progress
alone, with our boots which slipped at every moment on the smooth
stones, but for the Arabs, whose bare feet gave them a better hold,
and who held us fast.
And now we are on a level and move along a very low passage, crouching
almost on our hands and knees, till we raise our heads and stand in
the Queen's Chamber--so called for no reason that we know but that it
is smaller than the King's.
Returning from this, we find ourselves at the foot of the Grand
Gallery, or, as it might be called, Grand Staircase (as in its lofty
proportions it is not unlike one of the great staircases in the old
palaces of Genoa and Venice), which ascends into the heart of the
Pyramid. This is a magnificent hall, 157 feet long, 28 feet high, and
7 feet wide. But the ascent as before is over smooth and polished
limestone, to climb which is like climbing a cone of ice. We could not
have got on at all but for the nimble Arabs, whose bare feet enabled
them to cling to the slippery stone like cats, and who, grasping us in
their naked arms, dragged us forward by main force. The ladies shrank
from this kind of assistance, as they were sometimes almost embraced
by these swarthy creatures. But there was no help for it. This kind of
bodily exercise, passive and active, soon brought on an excessive
heat. We were almost stifled. Our faces grew red; I tore off my cravat
to keep from choking. Still, like a true American, I was willing to
endure anything if only I got ahead, and felt rewarded when we reached
the top of the Grand Gallery, and instead of looking _up_, looked
_down_.
From this height we creep along another passage till we reach the
object of our climbing, in the lofty apartment called the King's
Chamber. This is the heart of the Great Pyramid--the central point for
which apparently it was built, and where, if anywhere, its secret is
to be found. At one end lies the sarcophagus (if such it was; if the
Pyramid was designed to be a tomb) in which the great Cheops was
buried. It is now tenantless, except by such fancies as travellers
choose to fill it withal. I know not what sudden freak of fancy took
me just then, perhaps I thought, How would it seem to be a king even
in his tomb? and instantly I threw myself down at full length within
the sarcophagus, and lay extended, head thrown back, and hands folded
on my breast, lying still, as great Cheops may have lain, when they
laid him in his royal house of death. It was a soft bed of dust,
which, as I sank in it, left upon my whole outward man a _marked_
impression. It seemed very like ordinary dust, settled from the clouds
raised by the Arabs in their daily entrances to show the chamber to
visitors. But it was much more poetical to suppose that it was the
mouldering dust of Cheops himself, in which case even the mass that
clung to my hair might be considered as an anointing from the historic
past. From this I was able to relieve myself, after I reached home
that night, by a plentiful application of soap and water; but alas, my
gray travelling suit bore the scars of battle, the "dust of conflict,"
much longer, and it was not till we left Suez that a waiter of the
ship took the garment in hand, and by a vigorous beating exorcised the
stains of Egypt, so that Pharaoh and his host--or his dust--were
literally cast into the Red Sea.
And now we were all in the King's Chamber, our party of eight, with
three times the number of Arabs. The latter were at first quite noisy,
after their usual fashion, but Dr. Grant, who speaks Arabic, hushed
them with a peremptory command, and they instantly subsided, and
crouched down by the wall, and sat silent, watching our movements. One
of the party had brought with him some magnesium wire, which he now
lighted, and which threw a strong glare on the sides and on the
ceiling of the room, which, whether or not intended for the sepulchre
of kings, is of massive solidity--faced round with red granite, and
crossed above with enormous blocks of the same rich dark stone. With
his subject thus illuminated, Dr. Grant pointed out with great
clearness those features of the King's Chamber which have given it a
scientific interest. The sarcophagus, which is an oblong chest of red
granite, in his opinion, as in that of Piazzi Smyth, is not a
sarcophagus at all; indeed it looks quite as much like a huge bath-tub
as a place of burial for one of the Pharaohs. He called my attention
to the fact that it could not have been introduced into the Pyramid by
any of the known passages. It must, therefore, have been built in it.
It is also a singular fact that it has no cover, as a sarcophagus
always has. No mummy was ever found in it so far as we have any
historic record. Piazzi Smyth, in his book, which is full of curious
scientific lore, argues that it was not intended for a tomb, but for a
fixed standard of measures, such as was given to Moses by Divine
command. It is certainly a remarkable coincidence, if nothing more,
that it is of the exact size of the Ark of the Covenant. But without
giving too much importance to real or supposed analogies and
correspondences, we must acknowledge that there are many points in
the King's Chamber which make it a subject of curious study and of
scientific interest; and which seem to show that it was constructed
with reference to certain mathematical proportions, and had a design
beyond that of being a mere place of burial.
After we had had this scientific discussion, we prepared for a
discussion of a different kind--that of the lunch which we had brought
with us. A night's ride sharpens the appetite. As the only place where
we could sit was the sarcophagus itself, we took our places in it,
sitting upon its granite sides. An Arab who knew what we should want,
had brought a pitcher of water, which, as the heat was oppressive, was
most grateful to our lips, and not less acceptable to remove the dust
from our eyes and hands. Thus refreshed, we relished our oranges and
cakes, and the tiny cups of Turkish coffee.
To add to the weirdness of the scene, the Arabs asked if we would like
to see them perform one of their native dances? Having our assent,
they formed in a circle, and began moving their bodies back and forth,
keeping time with a strange chant, which was not very musical in
sound, as the dance was not graceful in motion. It was quickly over,
when, of course, the hat was passed instantly for a contribution.
The Colonel proposed the health of Cheops! Poor old Cheops! What would
he have said to see such a party disturbing the place of his rest at
such an hour as this? I looked at my watch; it was midnight--an hour
when the dead are thought to stir uneasily in their graves. Might he
not have risen in wrath out of his sarcophagus to see these frivolous
moderns thus making merry in the place of his sepulture? But this
midnight feast was not altogether gay, for some of us thought how we
should be "far away on the morrow." For weeks and months we had been
travelling together, but this excursion was to be our last. We were
taking our parting feast--a fact which gave it a touch of sadness, as
the place and the hour gave it a peculiar interest.
And now we prepared to descend. I lingered in the chamber to the last,
waiting till all had gone--till even the last attendant had crawled
out and was heard shouting afar off--that I might for a moment, at
least, be alone in the silence and the darkness in the heart of the
Pyramid; and then, crouching as before, followed slowly the lights
that were becoming dimmer and dimmer along the low and narrow passage.
Arrived at the top of the Grand Gallery, I waited with a couple of
Arabs till all our party descended, and then lighting a magnesium
wire, threw a sudden and brilliant light over the lofty walls.
It was one o'clock when we emerged from our tomb to the air and the
moonlight, and found our carriages waiting for us. The moon was
setting in the West as we rode back under the long avenue of trees,
and across the sacred Nile. It was three o'clock when we reached our
hotel, and bade each other good-night and good-bye. Early in the
morning two of us were to leave for India on our way around the world,
and others were to turn their faces towards the Holy Land and Italy.
But however scattered over Europe and America, none of us will ever
forget our Midnight in the Heart of the Great Pyramid.
In recalling this memory of Egypt, my object is not merely to furnish
a poetical and romantic description, but to invite the attention of
the most sober readers to what may well be a study and an instruction.
This Pyramid was the greatest of the Seven Wonders of the World in the
time of the Greeks, and it is the only one now standing on the earth.
May it not be that it contains some wisdom of the ancients that is
worthy the attention of the boastful moderns; some secret and sacred
lore which the science of the present day may well study to reveal? It
may be (as Piazzi Smyth argues in his learned book) that we who are
now upon the earth have "an inheritance in the Great Pyramid;" that
it was built not merely to swell the pride of the Pharaohs, and to be
the wonder of the Egyptians; but for our instruction, on whom the ends
of the world are come. Without giving our adhesion in advance to any
theory, there are certain facts, clearly apparent, which give to this
structure more than a monumental interest. For thousands of years it
had been supposed to have been built for a royal tomb--for that and
that only. So perhaps it was--and perhaps not. At any rate a very
slight observation will show that it was built also for other
purposes. For example:
Observe its geographical position. It stands at the apex of the Delta
of the Nile, and Piazzi Smyth claims, in the centre of the habitable
globe! He has a map in which its point is fixed _in_ Africa, yet
between Europe and Asia, and which shows that it stands in the exact
centre of the land surface of the whole world. This, if it be an
accident, is certainly a singular one.
Then it is exactly on the thirtieth parallel of latitude, and it
stands four-square, its four sides facing exactly the four points of
compass--North, South, East, and West. Now the chances are a million
to one that this could not occur by accident. There is no need to
argue such a matter. It was certainly done by design, and shows that
the old Egyptians knew how to draw a meridian line, and to take the
points of compass, as accurately as the astronomers of the present
day.
Equally evident is it that they were able to measure the solar year as
exactly as modern astronomers. Taking the sacred cubit as the unit of
measure there are in each side of the Pyramid just 3651/4 cubits, which
gives not only the number of days in the year, but the six hours over!
That it was built for astronomical purposes, seems probable from its
very structure. Professor Proctor argues that it was erected for
purposes of astrology! Never was there such an observatory in the
world. Its pinnacle is the loftiest ever placed in the air by human
hands. It seems as if the Pyramid were built like the tower of Babel,
that its top might "touch heaven." From that great height one has
almost a perfect horizon, looking off upon the level valley of the
Nile. It is said that it could not have been ascended because its
sides were covered with polished stone. But may there not have been a
secret passage to the top? It is hard to believe that such an
elevation was not made use of by a people so much given to the study
of the stars as were the ancient Egyptians. In some way we would
believe that the priests and astrologers of Egypt were able to climb
to that point, where they might sit all night long looking at the
constellations through that clear and cloudless sky; watching Orion
and the Pleiades, as they rose over the Mokattam hills on the other
side of the Nile, and set behind the hills of the Libyan desert.
There is another very curious fact in the Pyramid, that the passage by
which it is entered points directly to the North Star, and yet not to
the North Star that now is, but to Alpha Draconis, which was the North
Star four thousand years ago. This is one way in which the age of the
Pyramid is determined, for it is found by the most exact calculations
that 2170 years before Christ, a man placed at the bottom of that
passage, as at the bottom of a well, and looking upward through that
shaft, as if he were looking through the great telescope of Lord
Rosse, would fix his eye exactly on the North Star--the pole around
which was revolving the whole celestial sphere. As is well known, this
central point of the heavens changes in the lapse of ages, but that
star will come around to the same point in 25,800 years more, when, if
the Pyramid be still standing, the observers of that remote period can
again look upward and see Alpha Draconis on his throne, and mark how
the stars "return again" to their places in the everlasting
revolutions of the heavens.
As to the measurement of _time_, all who have visited astronomical
observatories know the extreme and almost infinite pains taken to
obtain an even temperature for clocks. The slightest increase of
temperature may elongate the pendulum, and so affect the duration of a
second, and this, though it be in a degree so infinitesimal as to be
almost inappreciable, yet becomes important to the accuracy of
computations, when a unit has to be multiplied by hundreds of
millions, as it is in calculating the distances of the heavenly
bodies. To obviate this difficulty, astronomical clocks are sometimes
placed in apartments under ground, closed in with thick walls (where
even the door is rarely opened, but the observations are made through
a glass window), so that it cannot be affected by the variations of
temperature of the outer world. But here, in the heart of this
mountain of stone, the temperature is preserved at an absolute
equilibrium, so that there is no expansion by heat and no contraction
by cold. What are all the observatories of Greenwich, and Paris and
Pulkowa, to such a rock-built citadel as the Great Pyramid?
But not only was the Pyramid designed to stand right in its position
towards the earth and the heavenly bodies; but also, and perhaps
chiefly (so argues Prof. Smyth) was it designed for metrological (not
met_eo_rological) purposes--to furnish an exact standard of weights
and measures. The unit of lineal measure used in the Pyramid he finds
to correspond not to the English _foot_, nor to the French _metre_,
but to the Hebrew _sacred cubit_. This is certainly a curious
coincidence, but may it not prove simply that the latter was derived
from the former? Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,
and may have brought from the Valley of the Nile weights and measures,
as well as customs and laws.
But this cubit itself, wherever it came from, has some very remarkable
correspondences. French and English mathematicians and astronomers
have had great difficulty to fix upon an exact standard of lineal
measure. Their method has been to take some length which had an exact
relation to one of the unchangeable spaces or distances of the globe
itself. Thus the English inch is one five hundred millionth part of
the axis of the earth. But Prof. Smyth finds in the Great Pyramid a
still better standard of measure. The cubit contains twenty-five of
what he calls "Pyramid inches," and fifty of these are just equal to
one ten-millionth part of the earth's axis of rotation! He finds in
the Pyramid a greater wonder still in a measure for determining the
distance of the earth from the sun, which is the unit for calculating
the distances of the heavenly bodies! That which scientific
expeditions have been sent into all parts of the earth within the last
two years to determine by more accurate observations of the transit of
Venus, is more exactly told in the Great Pyramid erected four thousand
years ago!
It is a very fascinating study to follow this learned professor in his
elaborate calculations. He seems to think the whole of the exact
sciences contained in the Great Pyramid. The vacant chest of red
granite in the King's Chamber, over which Egyptologists have puzzled
so much, is to him as the very ark of the Lord. That which has been
supposed to be a sarcophagus, with no other interest than as having
once held a royal mummy, he holds not to be the tomb of Cheops, or of
any of the kings of Egypt, but a sacred coffer intended to serve as a
standard of weights and measures for all time to come. He thinks it
accomplishes perfectly the arithmetical feat of squaring the
circle!--the height being to the circumference of the base, as the
radius is to the circumference of a circle.
But the Great Pyramid has, to Professor Smyth, more than a
scientific--it has a religious interest. He is a Scotchman, and not
only a man of science, but one who believes, with all the energy of
his Scotch nature, in a Divine revelation; and as might be supposed,
he connects this monument of scientific learning with One who is the
source of all wisdom and knowledge. However great may have been the
wisdom of the Egyptians, he does not believe that they had a knowledge
of geodesy and astronomy greater than the most learned scientific men
of our day. He has another explanation, that the Great Pyramid was
built by the guidance of Him who led the Israelites out of Egypt, and
who, as he shone upon their path in the desert, now shines by this
lighthouse and signal tower upon the blindness and ignorance of the
world. He believes that the Pyramid was constructed by Divine
inspiration just as much as the Jewish Tabernacle; that as Moses was
commanded to fashion everything according to the pattern showed to him
in the Mount, so some ancient King of Egypt, working under Divine
inspiration, builded better than he knew, and wrought into enduring
stone, truths which he did not perhaps himself understand, but which
were to be revealed in the last time, and to testify to a later
generation the manifold wisdom of God. As to its age he places it
somewhere between the time of Noah and the calling of Abraham. Dr.
Grant even thinks it was built before the death of Noah! But mankind
could hardly have multiplied in the earth in the lifetime of even the
oldest of the patriarchs, so as to be capable of building such
monuments. The theory is that it was not built by an Egyptian
architect. There is a tradition mentioned in Herodotus of a shepherd
who came from a distant country, from the East, who had much to do
with the building of the Pyramid, and was regarded as a heavenly
visitant and director. Prof. Smyth thinks it probable, that this
visitor was Melchisedek! He even gives the Pyramid a prophetic
character, and thinks that the different passages and chambers are
designed to be symbolical of the different economies through which God
educates the race. The entrance at first _descends_. That may
represent the gradual decadence of mankind to the time of the Flood,
or to the exodus of the Israelites. Then the passage begins to
_ascend_, but slowly and painfully, which represents the Jewish
Dispensation, when men were struggling towards the light. After a
hundred and twenty-seven feet of this stooping and creeping upward,
there is a sudden enlargement, and the low passage rises up into the
Grand Gallery, just as the Mosaic economy, after groping through many
centuries, at last bursts into the full glory of the Christian
Dispensation.
Believing in its inspired character, he finds in every part of this
wonderful structure signs and symbols. Taking it as an emblem of
Christian truth, where is the chief corner-stone? Not at the base, but
at the top--the apex! At the bottom, there are four stones which are
equal--no one of which is above another--the _chief_ corner-stone
therefore must be the capstone!
It will be perceived that this is a very original and very sweeping
theory; that it overturns all our ideas of the Great Pyramid; that it
not only turns Cheops out of it, but turns Science and Revelation
together into it. We may well hesitate before accepting it in its full
extent, and yet we must acknowledge our indebtedness to Prof. Smyth.
He has certainly given a new interest to this hoary monument of the
past. Scientific men who reject his theory are still deeply interested
in the facts which he brings to light, which they recognize as very
extraordinary, and which show a degree of scientific knowledge which
not only they did not believe to exist among the Egyptians, but which
hardly exists in our day.
So much as this we may freely concede, that the Pyramid has a
scientific value, if not a sacred character; that it is full of the
wisdom of the Egyptians, if not of the inspiration of the Almighty;
and that it is a storehouse of ancient knowledge, even if it be not
the very Ark of the Covenant, in which the holiest mysteries are
enshrined!
Leaving out what may be considered fanciful in the speculations of
the Scotch astronomer, there is yet much in the facts he presents
worthy the consideration of the man of science, as well as the devout
attention of the student of the Bible, and which, if duly weighed,
will at once enlarge our knowledge and strengthen our faith.
Such are the lessons that we derive from even our slight acquaintance
with the Great Pyramid; and so, as we looked back that night, and saw
it standing there in the moonlight, its cold gray summit, its "chief
corner-stone," pointing upwards to the clear unclouded firmament, it
seemed to point to something above the firmament--to turn our eyes and
thoughts to Heaven and to God.
CHAPTER VIII.
LEAVING EGYPT--THE DESERT.
We left Cairo the next morning. Our departure from Egypt was not
exactly like that of the Israelites, though we came through the land
of Goshen, and by the way of the Red Sea. We did not flee away at
night, nor hear the rush of horses and chariots behind us. Indeed we
were very reluctant to flee at all; we did not like to go away, for in
those five or six weeks we had grown very fond of the country, to
which the society of agreeable travelling companions lent an
additional charm.
But the world was all before us, and necessity bade us depart. It was
the 6th of January, the beginning of the feast of Bairam, the
Mohammedan Passover. The guns of the Citadel ushered in the day,
observed by all devout Mussulmans, which commemorates the sacrifice by
Abraham--not of Isaac, but of _Ishmael_, for the Arabs, who are
descendants of Ishmael, have no idea of his being set aside by the
other son of the Father of the Faithful. On this day every family
sacrifices the paschal lamb (which explains the flocks of sheep which
we had seen for several days in the streets of the city), and
sprinkles its blood upon the lintels and doorposts of their houses,
that the angel of death may pass them by. The day is one of general
rejoicing and festivity. The Khedive gives a grand reception to all
the foreign representatives at his palace of Gezireh, at which I had
been invited to be present. But from this promised pleasure I had to
tear myself away, to reach the steamer at Suez on which we were to
embark the next day for India. But if we missed the Khedive, we had at
least a compensation, for as we were at the station, who should appear
but Nubar Pasha! He had just resigned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
which took a load off his shoulders, and felt like a boy out of
school, and was now going off to a farm which he has a few miles from
Cairo, to have a holiday. He immediately came to us and took a seat in
the same carriage, and we sat together for an hour, listening to his
delightful conversation, as he talked of Egypt with a patriot's love
and a poet's enthusiasm. There is no man who more earnestly wishes its
prosperity, and it would be well for the Khedive if he were always
guided by such advisers. At the station his servants met him with one
of those beautiful white donkeys, so much prized in the East, and as
he rode away waving his hand to us, we felt that we were parting from
one of the wisest and wittiest men whom it had been our good fortune
to meet in all our travels.
At Zagazig, the railroad from Cairo unites with that from Alexandria.
Here we stopped to dine, and while waiting, a special train arrived
with Mr. Cave, who has come out from London to try and put some order
into the financial affairs of Egypt. If he succeeds, he will deserve
to be ranked very high as a financier. He was going on to Ismailia to
meet M. de Lesseps, that they might go through the Suez Canal
together.
And now we leave behind us the rich land of Goshen, where Joseph
placed his father Jacob and his brethren, with their flocks and herds;
we leave the fertile meadows and the palm groves. We are on the track
of the Israelites; we have passed Rameses, the first station in their
march, and entered the desert, that "great and terrible wilderness" in
which they wandered forty years. We enter it, not on camels or horses,
but drawn by a steed of fire. A railway in the desert! This is
progress indeed. There is something very imposing to the imagination
in the idea of an iron track laid in the pathless sands, over which
long trains move swifter than "the swift dromedaries," and carrying
burdens greater than the longest caravans. These are the highways of
civilization, which may yet carry it into the heart of Africa. Here,
too, are the great ships, passing through the Suez Canal, whose tall
masts are outlined against the horizon, as they move slowly from sea
to sea.
And now we are approaching the border line between Asia and Africa. It
is an invisible line; no snow-capped mountains divide the mighty
continents which were the seats of the most ancient civilization; no
sea flows between them: the Red Sea terminates over seventy miles from
the Mediterranean; even the Suez Canal does not divide Asia and
Africa, for it is wholly in Egypt. Nothing marks where Africa ends and
Asia begins, but a line in the desert, covered by drifting sands. And
yet there is something which strangely touches the imagination, as we
move forward in the twilight, with the sun behind us, setting over
Africa, and before us the black night coming on over the whole
continent of Asia.
So would I take leave of Africa--in the Night and in the Desert. Byron
closes his Childe Harold with an apostrophe to the Ocean, his Pilgrim
ending his wanderings on the shore. The Desert is like the Sea: it
fills the horizon, and shuts out the sight of "busy cities far away,"
leaving one on the boundless plain, as on the Ocean--alone with the
Night. Perhaps I may be indulged in some quiet musings here, before we
embark on the Red Sea, and seek a new world in India.
But what can one say of the desert? The subject seems as barren as its
own sands. _Life_ in the desert? There is _no_ life; it is the very
realm of death, where not a blade of grass grows, nor even an insect's
wing flutters over the mighty desolation; the only objects in motion,
the clouds that flit across the sky, and cast their shadows on the
barren waste below; and the only sign that man has ever passed over
it, the bleaching bones that mark the track of caravans.
But as we look, behold "a wind cometh out of the North," and stirring
the loose sand, whirls it into a column, which moves swiftly towards
us like a ghost, as if it said: "I am the spirit of the desert; man,
wherefore comest thou here? Pass on. If thou invadest long my realm of
solitude and silence, I will make thy grave." We shall not linger, but
only "tarry for a night," to question a little the mystery that lies
hidden beneath these drifting sands.
We look again, and we see shadowy forms coming out of the
whirlwind--great actors in history, as well as figures of the
imagination. The horizon is filled with moving caravans and marching
armies. Ancient conquerors pass this way for centuries from Asia into
Africa, and back again, the wave of conquest flowing and reflowing
from the valley of the Tigris to the valley of the Nile. As we leave
the Land of Goshen, we hear behind us the tramp of the Israelites
beginning their march; and as the night closes in, we see in another
quarter of the horizon the wise men of the East coming from Arabia,
following their guiding star, which leads them to Bethlehem, where
Christ was born.
And so the desert which was "dead" becomes "alive;" a whole living
world starts up from the sands, and glides into view, appearing
suddenly like Arab horsemen, and then vanishing as if it had not been,
and leaving no trace in the sands any more than is left by a wreck
that sinks in the ocean. But like the sea, it has its passing life,
which has a deep human interest. And not only is there a life of the
desert, but a literature which is the expression of that life--a
history and a poetry, which take their color from these peculiar forms
of nature--and even a music of the desert, sung by the camel-drivers,
to the slow movement of the caravan, its plaintive cadence keeping
time to the tinkling of the bells.
It has been one of the problems of physical geographers: What was the
_use_ of deserts in the economy of nature? A large part of Africa is
covered by deserts. The Libyan Desert reaches to the Sahara, which
stretches across the continent. All this seems an utterly waste
portion of the earth's surface. The same question has been raised in
regard to the sea: Why is it that three-fourths of the globe are
covered by water? Perhaps the same answer may be given in both cases.
These vast spaces may be the generators and purifiers of the air we
breathe--the renovators of our globe's atmosphere.
And the desert has its beauty as well as its utility. It is not all a
dead level, a boundless monotony, but is billowy like the sea, with
great waves of sand cast up by the wandering winds. The color, of
course, is always the same, for there is no green thing to relieve the
yellow sand. But nature sometimes produces great effects with few
materials. This monotony of color is touched with beauty by the glow
of sunset, as the light of day fades over the wide expanse. Sunrise
and sunset on the desert have all the simple but grand effects of
sunrise and sunset on the ocean. What painter that has visited Egypt
has not tried to put on canvas that after-glow on the Nile, which is
alike his wonder and his despair? Egypt is one of the favorite
countries sought by European artists, who seek to catch that
marvellous color which is the effect of its atmosphere. They find many
a subject in the desert. With the accessories of life, few as they
are, it presents many a scene to attract a painter's eye, and
furnishes full scope to his genius. A great artist finds ample
material in its bare and naked outlines, relieved by a few solitary
figures--the Arab and his tent, or the camel and his rider. Perhaps
the scene is simply a few palm trees beside a spring, under whose
shade a traveller has laid him down to rest from the noon-tide heat,
and beside him are camels feeding! But here is already a picture. With
what effect does Gerome give the Prayer in the Desert, with the camel
kneeling on the sands, and his rider kneeling beside him, with his
face turned towards Mecca; or Death in the Desert, where the poor
beast, weary and broken, is abandoned to die, yet murmurs not, but has
a look of patience and resignation that is most pathetic, as the
vultures are seen hovering in the air, ready to descend on their prey!
A _habitat_ so peculiar as the desert must produce a life as peculiar.
It is of necessity a lonely life. The dweller in tents is a solitary
man, without any fixed ties, or local habitation. Whoever lives on the
desert must live alone, or with few companions, for there is nothing
to support existence. It must be also a nomadic life. If the Arab
camps, with his flocks and herds, in some green spot beside a spring,
yet it is only for a few days, for in that time his sheep and cattle
have consumed the scanty herbage, and he must move on to some new
resting-place. Thus the life of the desert is a life always in motion.
The desert has no settled population, no towns or villages, where men
are born, and grow up, and live and die. Its only "inhabitants" are
"strangers and pilgrims," that come alone or in caravans, and pitch
their tents, and tarry for a night, and are gone.
Such a life induces peculiar habits, and breeds a peculiar class of
virtues and vices. Nomadic tribes are almost always robbers, for they
have to fight for existence, and it is a desperate struggle. But, on
the other hand, their solitary life as well as the command of the
prophet, has taught them the virtue of hospitality. Living alone, they
feel at times the sore need of the presence of their kind, and welcome
the companionship even of strangers. An Arab sheik may live by preying
on travellers, but if a wanderer on the desert approaches his tent and
asks shelter and protection, he gives it freely. Even though the old
chief be a robber, the stranger sleeps in peace and safety, and his
entertainer is rewarded by the comfort of seeing a human face and
hearing a human voice.
To traverse spaces so vast and so desolate would not be possible were
it not for that faithful beast of burden which nature has provided.
Horses may be used by the Bedouins on their marauding expeditions, but
they keep near the borders of the desert, where they can make a dash
and fly; but on the long journey across the Great Sahara, by which the
outer world communicates with the interior of Africa, no beast could
live but the camel, which is truly the ship of the desert. Paley might
find an argument for design in the peculiar structure of the camel for
its purpose; in its stomach, that can carry water for days, and its
foot, which is not small like that of the horse, but broad, to keep
the huge animal from sinking in the sands. It serves as a snow-shoe,
and bears up both the beast and his rider. Then it is not hard like a
horse's hoof, that rings so sharp on the pavement, but soft almost
like a lion's paw. And tall as the creature is, he moves with a
swinging gait, that is not unpleasant to one accustomed to it, and as
he comes down on his soft foot, the Arab mother sits at ease, and her
child is lulled to rest almost as if rocked in a cradle.
Thus moving on in these slow and endless marches, what so natural as
that the camel-riders should beguile their solitude with song? The
lonely heart relieves itself by pouring its loves and its sorrows into
the air; and hence come those Arabian melodies, so wild and plaintive
and tender, which constitute the music of the desert. Some years since
a symphony was produced in Paris, called "The Desert," which created a
great sensation, deriving its peculiar charm from its unlikeness to
European music. It awakened, as it were, a new sense in those who had
been listening all their lives to French and German operas. It seemed
to tell--as music only tells--the story of the life of the desert. In
listening one could almost see the boundless plain, broken only by the
caravan, moving slowly across the waste. He could almost "feel the
silence" of that vast solitude, and then faintly in the distance was
heard the tinkling of the camel-bells, and the song of the desert rose
upon the evening air, as softly as if cloistered nuns were singing
their vesper hymns. The novel conception took the fancy of the
pleasure seekers of Paris, always eager for a new sensation. The
symphony made the fame of the composer, Felicien David, who was
thought to have shown a very original genius in the composition of
melodies, such as Europe had not heard before. The secret was not
discovered until some French travellers in the East, crossing the
desert, heard the camel-drivers singing and at once recognized the
airs that had so taken the enthusiasm of Paris. They were the songs of
the Arabs. The music was born on the desert, and produced such an
effect precisely because it was the outburst of a passionate nature
brooding in solitude.
Music and poetry go together: the life that produces the one produces
the other also. And as there is a music of the desert, so there is a
poetry of the desert. Indeed the desert may be almost said to have
been the birthplace of poetry. The Book of Job, the oldest poem in the
world, older than Homer, and grander than any uninspired composition,
was probably written in Arabia, and is full of the imagery of the
desert.
But while the mind carols lightly in poetry and music, its deeper
musings take the form of Religion. It is easy to see how the life of
the desert must act upon a thoughtful and "naturally religious" mind.
The absence of outward objects throws it back upon itself; and it
broods over the great mystery of existence. Coleridge's Ancient
Mariner, when he was
"Alone on the wide, wide sea,"
found that
"So lonely 'twas that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be."
But in the desert one may say there is nothing but God. If there is
little of earth, there is much of heaven. The glory of the desert is
at night, when the full moon rises out of the level plain, as out of
the sea, and walks the unclouded firmament. And when she retires, then
all the heavenly host come forth. The atmosphere is of such exquisite
purity, that the stars shine with all their splendor. No vapor rises
from the earth, no exhalation obscures the firmament, which seems all
aglow with the celestial fires. It was such a sight that kindled the
mind of Job, as he looked up from the Arabian deserts three thousand
years ago, and saw Orion and the Pleiades keeping their endless march;
and as led him to sing of the time "when the morning stars sang
together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."
Is it strange that God should choose such a vast and silent temple as
this for the education of those whom He would set apart for his own
service? Here the Israelites were led apart to receive the law from
the immediate presence of God. The desert was their school, the place
of their national education. It separated them from their own history.
It drew a long track between them and the bitter past. It was a fit
introduction to their new life and their new religion, as to their new
country.
In such solitudes God has had the most direct communion with the
individual soul. It was in the desert that Moses hid himself in a
cleft of the rock while the Lord passed by; that the Lord answered Job
out of the whirlwind; and from it that John the Baptist came forth, as
the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
So in later ages holy men who wished to shun the temptations of
cities, that they might lead lives of meditation and prayer, fled to
the desert, that they might forget the world and live for God alone.
This was one of the favorite retreats of Monasticism in the early
Christian centuries. The tombs of the Thebaid were filled with monks.
Convents were built on the cliffs of Mount Sinai that remain to this
day.
We do not feel the need of such seclusion and separation from the
world, but this passing over the desert sets the mind at work and
supplies a theme for religious meditation. Is not life a desert,
where, as on the sea, all paths are lost, and the traveller can only
keep his course by observations on the stars? And are we not all
pilgrims? Do we not all belong to that slow moving caravan, that
marches steadily across the waste and disappears in the horizon? Can
we not help some poor wanderer who may be lonely and friendless, or
who may have faltered by the way; or guide another, if it be only to
go before him, and leave our footprints in the sands, that
"A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing may take heart again?"
CHAPTER IX.
ON THE RED SEA AND THE INDIAN OCEAN.
Suez lies between the desert and the sea, and is the point of
departure both for ships and car
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/39474