Constance Frederica Gordon Cumming

“ In no other country have I seen a population that impressed me as being so abjectly poor and miserable as these Egyptian fellahs. They are said to be an utterly degraded race, but who can wonder if they are?
Poor wretches, they have hard enough lives, to make them as bad as they are called; no sunshine of happiness seems ever to gild their sad days. Nothing but work and oppression from their birth to their grave; forced to labour at wages that will barely sustain life even in Egypt, and urged to their work by the sharp whips of Arab taskmasters. ”

“ Now the beautiful isle lies far behind us, fading into the blue distance, and we are fairly started on our far journey.
Small as is our ship, she is in every respect satisfactory, and as clean and cosy as a gentleman's yacht. I never saw so small a vessel carry so much sail,—truly our Paloma deserves her name, for she is now flying before the breeze like a swift white-winged carrier-pigeon, bearing many a letter. ”

“ Here, too (where all things worn and worthless find their last haven) , among broken crockery and cast-away raiment, are laid the poor worn-out human machines that have finished their hard life-work. Thousands of humblest tombs lie here, half hidden by the shifting sand, and countless thousands of those too poor to raise the simplest monument have here buried their dead in the shallow sand—out of their sight indeed, but by no means beyond reach of the prowling pariahs, always on the scent for hid treasure, seeking what they may devour. ”

“ It is impossible to stand on the banks of the Mahmoudiah Canal, and look on its glassy waters, without a shuddering memory of the twenty-three thousand men, women, and little children (some say far more) who only sixty years ago perished in making it, welcoming the death that freed them from torture, and laying down their poor exhausted bodies, to find rest at last in those great mudbanks at which, in hunger and burning heat, they had toiled so wearily. ”

“ Could we ascend in a balloon, we should look down on a lagoon of shallow, very bright-green water, encircled by five palm-clad isles, connected by bands of rainbow-tinted reef,—say a garland of green roses and tri-colour ribbon. Could our balloon float above the Paumotu group, eighty such garlands would be seen scattered on the deep-blue ocean, each encircled by an outer belt of submarine prismatic colour, edged with white breakers, marking where lies the barrier-reef. ”

“ This was the city especially sacred to the worship of the golden bull Apis, whose temple faced the rising sun; for although born of a cow-mother in the likeness of a jet-black bull, he bore on his forehead a white star, indicating Deity, and proving to the faithful that the young bull was indeed an incarnate ray of heavenly light. To him multitudes of pure white bulls were sacrificed, and, in later days, red bullocks also—red being the colour of Typho, the Power of Evil. ”

“ An hour later we were looking back regretfully, to catch one last glimpse of the beautiful mosque whose white dome and minarets gleamed in the morning light—in truth, a stately temple. Much we marvelled to think that so fair an object should have been bequeathed to Cairo by so cruel a despot as Mahomet Ali—whose treacherous massacre of the Mamelukes, on the very spot where he subsequently reared the mosque, was but one of his many deeds of blood. ”

“ As you enter the cool shady market you see hundreds of those golden clusters hanging from ropes stretched across the building, and great bunches of mangoes and oranges. These last lie heaped in baskets, among cool green leaves. Sometimes a whole laden bough has been recklessly cut off. Pine-apples, bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, all are there, and baskets of scarlet tomatoes, suggestive of cool salads.
But tempting above all are the luscious mangoes, whose thin skins are ready to burst at a touch, and yield their treasure of delight to thirsting lips. ”

“ One strong back-hander, dealt without the slightest apparent effort, and he is submerged. In a moment he rises to the surface, and is restored to dry land by amused spectators; when he stands quivering with impotent rage, his splendid Eastern eyes flashing fire, and with hands and arms gesticulating, and action all over, he pours forth a stream of imprecations on the laughing young Englishmen, whose boat meanwhile has pushed off, and placed them beyond reach of his wrath and his knife. ”

“ Year by year, however, the successive inundations of the Nile have filled up the hollows, and covered with fresh layers of soft, rich soil whatever traces of olden times might still remain.
One relic of later days is pointed out—namely, the cave where the Holy Family halted during the noon-day heat when seeking safety in Egypt. Close by is a well, whose waters were once brackish, but since that day they have been pure as the Nile itself. A tree overhangs the well, and devout believers cherish its leaves and the very dust which clings to them! ”

“ We found Marau and the ladies of the village stringing wreaths of sweet white blossoms, with which they crowned themselves and us; and then we all adjourned to breakfast in a bamboo house, decorated in the usual style with twisted and plaited leaves, and deep fringes of dyed fibre. Himènes, of course,—and then, while the band entertained the people, we, the unquiet spirits, wandered down to explore the shore, which is overshadowed by large trees, beneath which we found various kinds of large shells. ”

“ Wishing to have a nearer inspection of the ruined mosques, I walked back with the old dragoman. The ruins seemed literally without number, all bearing a certain family likeness to one another—square buildings with slender windows, and domes of varied form covered with arabesque tracery. They have no kindly moss or lichen, no veiling green of creepers or of grass; but they rise from the arid sand or rock, sharp and clean-chiselled, as if they belonged to the world of yesterday.
The old city is now "a couching place for camels." ”

“ Rapidly they bend the knee a thousand times, still shouting the Holy Name; then resume the grunting; and still the white twirlers go on calmly rotating like some sleepy humming-top in a fairy dream. After an hour of this wild work the howlers have wrought themselves into a state of frenzied insanity, amounting to positive madness, and as they are by this time quite irresponsible, and the smallest excuse might rouse their fanatical rage, it was judged unsafe for us infidels to remain longer in the mosque. The evening's excitement sometimes ends by producing cataleptic fits. ”

“ No painter's brush could produce such infinite shades of green as are here multiplied,—from the delicate tender hues of the silky young banana-leaves, ranging through every description of dark-green and bright-green, blue-green and sunlit yellow, till the eye is fain to rest on the sombre hair-like foliage of the iron-wood trees, which grow on the very brink of the sea, their long tresses literally drooping to the water. ”

“ In later years he returned to Alexandria, to confound the teaching of the Arians. Even the pagans flocked to hear a man so holy, so learned, and withal so meek and humble. They found him sociable and courteous; and he altogether won their hearts by his gentleness and simple charity to all men. They marvelled how one so wise could choose to live alone in the desert, apart from men and books; but he taught them that he never was alone, and that, as for books, Nature was the great volume which to him supplied the place of all others. ”

“ It is an atmosphere of genial cordiality, in which each guest is at once made to feel as welcome, and as thoroughly at home, as any member of the large family. It is a kindness as unconscious, but as real and as delightful, as the balmy air we breathe, and is as purely Tahitian. What would these warm-hearted open-handed people think of the measured cold reception of strangers in our grey British isles? ”

“ Here and there we come on patches of soft green turf, delightfully suggestive of rest, beneath the broad shadow of some great tree with buttressed roots; but more often the broken rays of sunlight gleam in ten thousand reflected lights, dancing and glancing as they shimmer on glossy leaves of every form and shade—-from the huge silky leaves of the wild plantain or the giant arum, to the waving palm-fronds, which are so rarely at rest, but flash and gleam like polished swords as they bend and twist with every breath of air. ”

“ Some of the water-snakes are very beautifully marked with blue, gold, or green bars on a velvety black ground; they glide and coil themselves in and out of the coral branches. I was much struck by the immense size of some sea-anemones, as large as a wash-hand basin: these also, are of all sorts of colours. These are the chosen play-fellows of most exquisite tiny fish, like morsels of black velvet, with a pattern exactly like a fairy peacock's feather on either gill. ”

“ Huge masses of black rock or liquid fire are tossed in the air, to a height of 200 or 300 feet, often falling back within the crater, or else hurled to the valley below. Clouds of white steam mingle with denser clouds of the finest dark-grey dust, which is carried by the wind to all parts of the island, coating every green leaf with a powder like fine steel-filings, which fills the eyes and nostrils of all breathing creatures in a most unpleasant manner. When rain falls, it absorbs this dust, and becomes literally a mud-shower. ”

“ Not a trace of tattooing is now to be seen, though in olden days it was practised by almost all Tahitians, both men and women, simply as a personal adornment. Happily they seldom disfigured their faces, but the women tattooed their feet, up to the ankles, and marked bracelets on their arms and wrists. The men sometimes covered the whole body with intricate patterns, often gracefully drawn, as when a cocoa-nut palm was designed on the leg, or a bread-fruit tree, with twining vines, on the chest. ”

“ With strong wind and tide against us as we crossed from Moorea to Tahiti, you can fancy what a relief it was when, passing by a narrow opening through the barrier-reef, we left the great tossing waves outside, and found ourselves in this calm harbour, which to-day is sullen and grey as a mountain-tarn. ”

“ Through a frame of tall palms, with ever-waving fronds, we look to the blue harbour, where the friendly big ship lies mirrored—a ship which, to these good Sisters, is a link to that dear home-land, la belle France, which they do so love, but to which they have bidden a long farewell, in devotion to their mission-work in these far isles. The schoolroom is under the same roof, and full of bright intelligent girls. ”