My Winter on the Nile

CHAPTER XI.—PEOPLE ON THE RIVER BANKS

THE morning puts a new face on our affairs. It is Sunday, and the most devout could not desire a quieter day. There is a thick fog on the river, and not breeze enough stirring to show the stripes on our flag; the boat holds its own against the current by a sort of accumulated impulse. During the night we may have made five miles altogether, and now we barely crawl. We have run our race; if we have not come into a haven, we are at a stand-still, and it does not seem now as if we ever should wake up and go on again. However, it is just as well. Why should we be tearing through this sleepy land at the rate of four miles an hour?

The steersman half dozes at the helm; the reïs squats near him watching the flapping sails; the crew are nearly all asleep on the forward deck, with their burnouses drawn over their head and the feet bare, for it is chilly as late as nine o’clock, and the thermometer has dropped to 540. Abd-el-Atti slips his beads uneasily along between his fingers, and remembers that when he said that we would reach Asioot in another day, he forgot to ejaculate; “God willing.” Yet he rises and greets our coming from the cabin with a willing smile, and a—

“Morning sir, morning marm. I hope you enjoyin’ you sleep, marm.”

“Where are we now, Abd-el-Atti?”

“Not much, marm; this is a place call him Hadji Kandeel. But we do very well; I not to complain.”

“Do you think we shall have any wind to-day?”

“I d’know, be sure. The wind come from Lord. Not so?”

Hadji Kandeel is in truth only a scattered line of huts, but one lands here to visit the grottoes or rock-tombs of Tel el Amarna. All this country is gaping with tombs apparently; all the cliffs are cut into receptacles for the dead, all along the margin of the desert on each side are old necropolises and moslem cemeteries, in which generation after generation, for almost fabulous periods of time, has been deposited. Here behind Hadji Kandeel are remains of a once vast city built let us say sixteen hundred years before our era, by Amunoph IV., a wayward king of the eighteenth dynasty, and made the capital of Egypt. In the grottoes of Tel el Amârna were deposited this king and his court and favorites, and his immediate successors—all the splendor of them sealed up there and forgotten. This king forsook the worship of the gods of Thebes, and set up that of a Semitic deity, Aten, a radiating disk, a sun with rays terminating in human hands. It was his mother who led him into this, and she was not an Egyptian; neither are the features of the persons sculptured in the grottoes Egyptian.

Thus all along the stream of Egyptian history cross currents are coming in, alien sovereigns and foreign task-masters; and great breaks appear, as if one full civilization had run its course of centuries, and decay had come, and then ruin, and then a new start and a fresh career.

Early this morning, when we were close in to the west bank, I heard measured chanting, and saw a procession of men and women coming across the field. The men bore on a rude bier the body of a child. They came straight on to the bank, and then turned by the flank with military precision and marched upstream to the place where a clumsy country ferry-boat had just landed. The chant of the men, as they walked, was deep-voiced and solemn, and I could hear in it frequently repeated the name of Mohammed. The women in straggling file followed, like a sort of ill-omened birds in black, and the noise they made, a kind of wail, was exactly like the cackle of wild geese. Indeed before I saw the procession I thought that some geese were flying overhead.

The body was laid on the ground and four men kneeled upon the bank as if in prayer. The boat meantime was unloading, men, women and children scrambling over the sides into the shallow water, and the donkeys, urged with blows, jumping after them. When they were all out the funeral took possession of the boat, and was slowly wafted across, as dismal a going to a funeral as if this were the real river of death. When the mourners had landed we saw them walking under the palm-trees, to the distant burial-place in the desert, with a certain solemn dignity, and the chanting and wailing were borne to us very distinctly.

It is nearly a dead calm all day, and our progress might be imperceptible to an eye naked, and certainly it must be so to the eyes of these natives which are full of flies. It grows warm, however, and is a summer temperature when we go ashore in the afternoon on a tour of exploration. We have for attendant, Ahmed, who carries a big stick as a defence against dogs. Ahmed does not differ much in appearance from a wild barbarian, his lack of a complete set of front teeth alone preventing him from looking fierce. A towel is twisted about his head, feet and legs are bare, and he wears a blue cotton robe with full sleeves longer than his arms, gathered at the waist by a piece of rope, and falling only to the knees. A nice person to go walking with on the Holy Sabbath.

The whole land is green with young wheat, but the soil is baked and cracked three or four inches deep, even close to the shore where the water has only receded two or three days ago. The land stretches for several miles, perfectly level and every foot green and smiling, back to the desert hills. Sprinkled over this expanse, which is only interrupted by ditches and slight dykes upon which the people walk from village to village, are frequent small groves of palms. Each grove is the nucleus of a little settlement, a half dozen sun-baked habitations, where people, donkeys, pigeons, and smaller sorts of animated nature live together in dirty amity. The general plan of building is to erect a circular wall of clay six or seven feet high, which dries, hardens, and cracks in the sun. This is the Oriental court. In side this and built against the wall is a low mud-hut with a wooden door, and perhaps here and there are two similar huts, or half a dozen, according to the size of the family. In these hovels the floor is of smooth earth, there is a low bedstead or some matting laid in one corner, but scarcely any other furniture, except some earthen jars holding doora or dried fruit, and a few cooking utensils. A people who never sit, except on their heels, do not need chairs, and those who wear at once all the clothes they possess need no closets or wardrobes. I looked at first for a place where they could keep their “Sunday clothes” and “nice things,” but this philosophical people do not have anything that is too good for daily use. It is nevertheless true that there is no hope of a people who do not have “Sunday clothes.”

The inhabitants did not, however, appear conscious of any such want. They were lounging about or squatting in the dust in picturesque idleness; the children under twelve years often without clothes and not ashamed, and the women wearing no veils. The women are coming and going with the heavy water-jars, or sitting on the ground, sorting doora and preparing it for cooking; not prepossessing certainly, in their black or dingy brown gowns and shawls of cotton. Children abound. In all the fields men are at work, picking up the ground with a rude hoe shaped like an adze. Tobacco plants have just been set out, and water-melons carefully shaded from the sun by little tents of rushes. These men are all Fellaheen, coarsely and scantily clad in brown cotton gowns, open at the breast. They are not bad figures, better than the women, but there is a hopeless acceptance of the portion of slaves in their bearing.

We encountered a very different race further from the river, where we came upon an encampment of Bedaween, or desert Arabs, who hold themselves as much above the Fellaheen as the poor white trash used to consider itself above the negroes in our Southern States. They pretend to keep their blood pure by intermarrying only in desert tribes, and perhaps it is pure; so, I suppose, the Gipsies are pure blood enough, but one would not like them for neighbors. These Bedaween, according to their wandering and predatory habit, have dropped down here from the desert to feed their little flock of black sheep and give their lean donkeys a bite of grass. Their tents are merely strips of coarse brown cloth, probably camel’s hair, like sacking, stretched horizontally over sticks driven into the sand, so as to form a cover from the sun and a protection from the north wind. Underneath them are heaps of rags, matting, old clothes, blankets, mingled with cooking-utensils and the nameless broken assortment that beggars usually lug about with them. Hens and lambs are at home there, and dogs, a small, tawny wolfish breed, abound. The Arabs are worthy of their dwellings, a dirty, thievish lot to look at, but, as I said, no doubt of pure blood, and having all the virtues for which these nomads have been celebrated since the time when Jacob judiciously increased his flock at the expense of Laban.

A half-naked boy of twelve years escorts us to the bank of the canal near which the tents are pitched, and we are met by the sheykh of the tribe, a more venerable and courtly person than the rest of these pure-blood masqueraders in rags, but not a whit less dirty. The fellaheen had paid no attention to us; this sheykh looked upon himself as one of the proprietors of this world, and bound to extend the hospitalities of this portion of it to strangers. He received us with a certain formality. When two Moslems meet there is no end to their formal salutation and complimentary speeches, which may continue as long as their stock of religious expressions holds out. The usual first greeting is Es-salaam, aleykoom, “peace be on you,” to which the reply is Aleykoom es-saalam, “on you be peace.” It is said that persons of another religion, however, should never make use of this salutation to a Moslem, and that the latter should not and will not return it. But we were overflowing with charity and had no bigotry, and went through Egypt salaaming right and left, sometimes getting no reply and sometimes a return, to our “peace be on you,” of Wa-aleykoom, “and on you.”

The salutations by gesture are as varied as those by speech When Abd-el-Atti walked in Cairo with us, he constantly varied his gestures according to the rank of the people we met. To an inferior he tossed a free salaam; an equal he saluted by touching with his right hand in one rapid motion his breast, lips, and head; to a superior he made the same motion except that his hand first made a dip down to his knees; and when he met a person of high rank the hand scooped down to the ground before it passed up to the head.

I flung a cheerful salaam at the sheykh and gave him the Oriental salute, which he returned. We then shook hands, and the sheykh kissed his after touching mine, a token of friendship which I didn’t know enough to imitate, not having been brought up to kiss my own hand.

“Anglais or Français?” asked the sheykh.

“No,” I said, “Americans.”

“Ah,” he ejaculated, throwing back his head with an aspiration of relief, “Melicans; tyeb (good).”

A ring of inquisitive Arabs gathered about us and were specially interested in studying the features and costume of one of our party; the women standing further off and remaining closely veiled kept their eyes fixed on her. The sheykh invited us to sit and have coffee, but the surroundings were not tempting to the appetite and we parted with profuse salutations. I had it in mind to invite him to our American centennial; I should like to set him off against some of our dirty red brethren of the prairies. I thought that if I could transport these Bedaween, tents, children, lank, veiled women, donkeys, and all to the centennial grounds they would add a most interesting (if unpleasant) feature. But, then, I reflected, what is a centennial to this Bedawee whose ancestors were as highly civilized as he is when ours were wading about the fens with the Angles or burrowing in German forests. Besides, the Bedawee would be at a disadvantage when away from the desert, or the bank of this Nile whose unceasing flow symbolizes his tribal longevity.

As we walk along through the lush-fields which the despised Fellaheen are irritating into a fair yield of food, we are perplexed with the query, what is the use of the Bedaween in this world? They produce nothing. To be sure they occupy a portion of the earth that no one else would inhabit; they dwell on the desert. But there is no need of any one dwelling on the desert, especially as they have to come from it to levy contributions on industrious folds in order to live. At this stage of the inquiry, the philosopher asks, what is the use of any one living?

As no one could answer this, we waded the water where it was shallow and crossed to a long island, such as the Nile frequently leaves in its sprawling course. This island was green from end to end, and inhabited more thickly than the main-land. We attracted a good deal of attention from the mud-villages, and much anxiety was shown lest we should walk across the wheat-fields. We expected that the dahabeëh would come on and take us off, but its streamer did not advance, and we were obliged to rewade the shallow channel and walk back to the starting-place. There was a Sunday calm in the scene. At the rosy sunset the broad river shone like a mirror and the air was soft as June. How strong is habit. Work was going on as usual, and there could have been no consent of sky, earth, and people, to keep Sunday, yet there seemed to be the Sunday spell upon the landscape. I suspect that people here have got into the way of keeping all the days. The most striking way in which an American can keep Sunday on the Nile is by not going gunning, not even taking a “flyer” at a hawk from the deck of the dahabeëh. There is a chance for a tract on this subject.

Let no one get the impression that we are idling away our time, because we are on Monday morning exactly where we were on Sunday morning. We have concluded to “keep” another day. There is not a breath of wind to scatter the haze, thermometer has gone down, and the sun’s rays are feeble. This is not our fault, and I will not conceal the adverse circumstances in order to give you a false impression of the Nile.

We are moored against the bank. The dragoman has gone on shore to shoot pigeons and buy vegetables. Our turkeys, which live in cages on the stern-deck, have gone ashore and are strutting up and down the sand; their gobble is a home sound and recalls New England. Women, as usual, singly and in groups, come to the river to fill their heavy water-jars. There is a row of men and boys on the edge of the bank. Behind are two camels yoked wide apart drawing a plow. Our crew chaff the shore people. The cook says to a girl, “You would make me a good wife; we will take you along.” Men, squatting on the bank say, “Take her along, she is of no use.”

Girl retorts, “You are not of more use than animals, you sit idle all day, while I bring water and grind the corn.”

One is glad to see this assertion of the rights of women in this region where nobody has any rights; and if we had a tract we would leave it with her. Some good might be done by travelers if they would distribute biscuit along the Nile, stamped in Arabic with the words, “Man ought to do half the work,” or, “Sisters rise!”

In the afternoon we explore a large extent of country, my companion carrying a shot-gun for doves. These doves are in fact wild pigeons, a small and beautiful pearly-grey bird. They live on the tops of the houses in nests formed for them by the insertion of tiles or earthen pots in the mud-walls. Many houses have an upper story of this sort on purpose for the doves; and a collection of mere mud-cabins so ornamented is a picturesque sight, under a palm-grove. Great flocks of these birds are flying about, and the shooting is permitted, away from the houses.

We make efforts to get near the wild geese and the cranes, great numbers of which are sunning themselves on the sandbanks, but these birds know exactly the range of a gun, and fly at the right moment. A row of cranes will sometimes trifle with our feelings. The one nearest will let us approach almost within range before he lifts his huge wings and sails over the river, the next one will wait for us to come a few steps further before he flies, and so on until the sand-spit is deserted of these long-legged useless birds. Hawks are flying about the shore and great greyish crows, or ravens, come over the fields and light on the margin of sand—a most gentlemanly looking bird, who is under a queer necessity of giving one hop before he can raise himself in flight. Small birds, like sand-pipers, are flitting about the bank. The most beautiful creature, however, is a brown bird, his wing marked with white, long bill, head erect and adorned with a high tuft, as elegant as the blue-jay; the natives call it the crocodile’s guide.

We cross vast fields of wheat and of beans, the Arab “fool,” which are sown broadcast, interspersed now and then with a melon-patch. Villages, such as they are, are frequent; one of them has a mosque, the only one we have seen recently. The water for ablution is outside, in a brick tank sunk in the ground. A row of men are sitting on their heels in front of the mosque, smoking; some of them in white gowns, and fine-looking men. I hope there is some saving merit in this universal act of sitting on the heels, the soles of the feet flat on the ground; it is not an easy thing for a Christian to do, as he will find out by trying.

Toward night a steamboat flying the star and crescent of Egypt, with passengers on board, some of “Cook’s personally conducted,” goes thundering down stream, filling the air with smoke and frightening the geese, who fly before it in vast clouds. I didn’t suppose there were so many geese in the world.

Truth requires it to be said that on Tuesday morning the dahabeëh holds about the position it reached on Sunday morning; we begin to think we are doing well not to lose anything in this rapid current. The day is warm and cloudy, the wind is from the east and then from the south-east, exactly the direction we must go. It is in fact a sirocco, and fills one with languor, which is better than being frost-bitten at home. The evening, with the cabin windows all open, is like one of those soft nights which come at the close of sultry northern days, in which there is a dewy freshness. This is the sort of winter that we ought to cultivate.

During the day we attempt tracking two or three times, but with little success; the wind is so strong that the boat is continually blown ashore. Tracking is not very hard for the passengers and gives them an opportunity to study the bank and the people on it close at hand. A long cable fastened on the forward deck is carried ashore, and to the far end ten or twelve sailors attach themselves at intervals by short ropes which press across the breast. Leaning in a slant line away from the river, they walk at a snail’s pace, a file of parti-colored raiment and glistening legs; occasionally bursting into a snatch of a song, they slowly pull the bark along. But obstructions to progress are many. A spit of sand will project itself, followed by deepwater, through which the men will have to wade in order to bring the boat round; occasionally the rope must be passed round trees which overhang the caving bank; and often freight-boats, tied to the shore, must be passed. The leisure with which the line is carried outside another boat is amusing even in this land of deliberation. The groups on these boats sit impassive and look at us with a kind of curiosity that has none of our eagerness in it. The well-bred indifferent “stare” of these people, which is not exactly brazen and yet has no element of emotion in it, would make the fortune of a young fellow in a London season. The Nubian boatmen who are tracking the freight-dahabeëh appear to have left their clothes in Cairo; they flop in and out of the water, they haul the rope along the bank, without consciousness apparently that any spectators are within miles; and the shore-life goes on all the same, men sit on the banks, women come constantly to fill their jars, these crews stripped to their toil excite no more attention than the occasional fish jumping out of the Nile. The habit seems to be general of minding one’s own business.

At early morning another funeral crossed the river to a desolate burial-place in the sand, the women wailing the whole distance of the march; and the noise was more than before like the clang of wild geese. These women have inherited the Oriental art of “lifting up the voice,” and it adds not a little to the weirdness of this ululation and screeching to think that for thousands of years the dead have been buried along this valley with exactly the same feminine tenderness.

These women wear black; all the countrywomen we have seen are dressed in sombre gowns and shawls of black or deep blue-black; none of them have a speck of color in their raiment, not a bit of ribbon nor a bright kerchief, nor any relief to the dullness of their apparel. And yet they need not fear to make themselves too attractive. The men have all the colors that are worn; though the Fellaheen as a rule wear brownish garments, blue and white are not uncommon, and a white turban or a red fez, or a silk belt about the waist gives variety and agreeable relief to the costumes. In this these people imitate that nature which we affect to admire, but outrage constantly. They imitate the birds. The male birds have all the gay plumage; the feathers of the females are sober and quiet, as befits their domestic position. And it must be admitted that men need the aid of gay dress more than women.

The next morning when the sun shows over the eastern desert, the sailors are tracking, hauling the boat slowly along an ox-bow in the river, until at length the sail can catch the light west wind which sprang up with the dawn. When we feel that, the men scramble aboard, and the dahabeëh, like a duck that has been loitering in an eddy for days, becomes instinct with life and flies away to the cliffs opposite, the bluffs called Gebel Aboofayda, part of the Mokattam range that here rises precipitously from the river and overhangs it for ten or twelve miles. I think these limestone ledges are two or three hundred feet high. The face is scarred by the slow wearing of ages, and worn into holes and caves innumerable. Immense numbers of cranes are perched on the narrow ledges of the cliff, and flocks of them are circling in front of it, apparently having nests there. As numerous also as swallows in a sand-bank is a species of duck called the diver; they float in troops on the stream, or wheel about the roosting cranes.

This is a spot famed for its sudden gusts of wind which sometimes flop over the brink and overturn boats. It also is the resort of the crocodile, which seldom if ever comes lower down the Nile now. But the crocodile is evidently shy of exhibiting himself, and we scan the patches of sand at the foot of the rocks with our glasses for a long time in vain. The animal dislikes the puffing, swashing steamboats, and the rifle-balls that passing travelers pester him with. At last we see a scaly log six or eight feet long close to the water under the rock. By the aid of the glass it turns out to be a crocodile. He is asleep, and too far off to notice at all the volley of shot with which we salute him. It is a great thing to say you saw a crocodile. It isn’t much to see one.

And yet the scaly beast is an interesting and appropriate feature in such a landscape,# and the expectation of seeing a crocodile adds to your enjoyment. On our left are these impressive cliffs; on the right is a level island. Half-naked boys and girls are tending small flocks of black sheep on it. Abd-el-Atti raises his gun as if he would shoot the children and cries out to them, “lift up your arm,” words that the crocodile hunter uses when he is near enough to fire, and wants to attract the attention of the beast so that it will raise its fore-paw to move off, and give the sportsman a chance at the vulnerable spot. The children understand the allusion and run laughing away.

Groups of people are squatting on the ground, doing nothing, waiting for nothing, expecting nothing; buffaloes and cattle are feeding on the thin grass, and camels are kneeling near in stately indifference; women in blue-black robes come—the everlasting sight—to draw water. The whole passes in a dumb show. The hot sun bathes all.