Charles Dana Gibson

“ EGYPT has sat for her likeness longer than any other country. Nothing disturbs her composure. Financial ruin may stare her in the face, armies may come and go, but each year the Nile rises and spreads out over her, and all traces of disturbances are gone. ”

“ All too soon you must go hack to Cairo, where the Bedouin ceases to be the proud son of the desert and becomes a peddler, where sheep become mutton and clover is only fodder. But Cairo is about what the tourist expects of it and what the hotel proprietor thinks you want. He fills the halls of his hotel with gaily painted columns, and on each side of the staircase are gaudy figures; and for those tourists who take their Egypt between the slipper bazaar and the fish-market it may do.{19} ”

“ More advice is to look out of the right-hand window of the car for a first glimpse of the pyramids, the first sure proof that you are in Napoleon’s Egypt. After they are once found, it is easy for your eye to follow them through palm-trees and over mud villages until darkness interferes. Then you come to the station in Cairo, a hotbed of porters and dragomans,{10} and through the confusion you finally reach Shepheard’s, on the street like a great show-window—all but the plate glass—full of odds and ends from all the world. ”

“ At Shepheard’s people put aside their guide-books for a while. It is a play that requires no libretto. On the crowded piazza overlooking the street, London shopkeepers and foreign noblemen elbow each other, and all celebrities look very much alike.
Cairo is the foyer of Egypt. To go to Egypt and not go up the Nile is very much like standing outside of a theater and watching the audience go in, and then waiting until they come out, to glean from their conversation some idea of the play. ”

“ The dragoman who first lays hands on you claims you for his own. You will find him waiting for you in the morning. He will sell you antiques, will take you snipe-shooting. He knows when the dervishes will howl or whirl, or where there is a native wedding, to which he will take you. It may be the fame of Shepheard’s, or the magic name of Egypt, but it all has a wonderful charm.{12}{11} ”

“ If the guide-books fail to persuade you, there is pretty sure to be a fellow-passenger who will. The man who has once seen Upper Egypt does his best to make you dissatisfied with Lower Egypt. He can easily show you that your journey’s end is not Cairo, but, at the very least, the first cataract. ”

“ The same land that offers death and reputation to the strong gives life to the weak, and the tired rich man on his dahabiyeh and the soldier on the transport go up the Nile side by side, and in most cases they both find what they are in search of.
Shepheard’s, in all probability, will forever remain a composite portrait of Europe and Asia, with Cairo as its frame. ”

“ By noon on the 9th we reached the fatal bend in the river and saw that we were once more in the land of pyramids, and we were soon tied to the bank beneath which once stood the city of Memphis. We rode to Marietta’s House, past the pyramids and the colossal Rameses lying on his back among tall palms, surrounded, for some reason, by a mud house, as if the great granite figure had not already proved that it could continue its battle with time unassisted by a few mud bricks and some tin roofing that is very much in the way. ”

“ The bazaars are dirty, and so many pasty-faced Turks squatting about in the filth grow tiresome. At first they are described in letters home as fascinating and picturesque, and whole days are spent with them, buying hundreds of things that are destined to be left in hotel bureau drawers and gradually lost. ”

“ But Egypt is full of real things, and probably the most genuine thing of them all is the English occupation. Egypt herself is the best proof of how necessary to her well-being this is. It is hard to tell just how unhappy the fellaheen were before the English{112} came. The Egyptian is not the sort of man that complains. After centuries of oppression, he now accepts whatever form of government is offered in a browbeaten way, and shuffles along after his donkey, and pays his tax for bringing a few bundles of clover across the bridge into Cairo without a murmur ”

“ The half-breed Jew and Turk in the “Mooskee” is too busy; and all the rest of Egypt don’t know why they are better off, or who to thank for law and order or the improved irrigation that gives them a{28} fair chance with the rest of civilized mankind. But whether the donkey knows it or not, he is much hotter off, for an Englishman never rides him when he is old and weak, and that is more than he can expect from his Egyptian friends, who often get on him two at a time. ”

“ There is no fear of Egypt becoming dull and commonplace, for if the East and the West should ever fight, it must be for the possession of her canal; and many an unborn soldier’s reputation will be made before the railroad that has started up the Nile’s valley reaches Cape Town. ”

“ To-day he is not the fashion in Cairo. He is only ridden by tourists after dark, through streets that are too narrow and crooked for a carriage. But up the river it is very different. There you learn to like him. From his back you first see Karnak, and the statues of Memnon, and he is forever associated in your memory with the tombs of the kings. Tourists quarrel over him, and in most cases his name is “Rameses, the Great.” His chief complaint must be that an Englishman weighs more than an Egyptian; but he should consider{27}
A Daughter of the Nile. ”

“ Komombos and Philæ are the only temples we climbed up to, and it seems to me that they, above all others, lend themselves more readily to the sentimental tourist. It is easier for the imagination to people them; they are more like dwellings.{71}
Home Visitors.
{73}{72}
After tea had been brought from the Nitocris and served in its portals, we all decided that Komombos would be the temple to own. That evening the crew hung lanterns around the deck among the sugar-canes and palms, and after dinner they gave an exhibition, which started well enough with a dance by the first mate. ”

“ In Egypt the English hold the reins, and one of these days the Egyptian donkey may turn to the left when you meet him, as his distant relative in Whitechapel does. At present he keeps to the right, and staggers along under a load that is much too big for him. ”

“ We began the 27th with a visit to the tombs on Grenfell Hill, high on the river’s bank, below Elephantine. There was a strong wind, full of sand, from the south, and the light natives had trouble in getting the heavy boat to the foot of the hill. The wind helped us back to the Nitocris, and after lunch we crossed the river to Assuan, where the inhabitants seemed especially prepared for tourists. The natives were more theatrical in Assuan, and the bazaars were filled with musical instruments, made as primitive as possible to please the traveler. ”

“ In the lightest clothes, we sat about the deck and watched the villages go by. It was good to see our old friends the water-wheels and cheerful sakiehs again. They looked better to us after our somber stay at Karnak. Early in the afternoon we came to Komombos, the temple we were looking for, and tied to the river’s bank just below it; and if you must be traveling on Christmas, there can be no better place to stop.
At Komombos the never-resting Nile has worked its way to the foot of the little hill on which the temple is making its last stand{67}
Thebes, January 2, 1898. ”

“ You will see as much of the Canal as you want to, and you will not run the chance of being delayed a day, as the Königin Luise was last year by a little tramp steamer that had run foul of a coal-barge. ”

“ A crew that mutinies is tame compared with an Egyptian crew that acts. We stopped them as soon as we could without hurting their feelings, and they subsided and formed a circle back of the smoke-stack. ”

“ This is the shortest distance he will listen to. And after he has your promise to go that far, he tells you of the wonders that can only be seen by going on to the second cataract.
My fellow-passenger was an old traveler. Others besides myself fell under the spell of his eloquence; so, before we had been at Shepheard’s a week, we were a party of six, with the steam-dahabiyeh Nitocris chartered for a month, beginning December 12. There were growing plants, rugs, and a piano on her deck, and six state-rooms below. Salem Ghesiri was our dragoman. He spoke{37}
Karnak, January 2, 1898. ”

“ And you drink their tea, and feel, as you leave the shops, after having only looked at their things, that they will never ask affectionately after you. The man who has been{108} there before generally walks in front of you, as if he were not as anxious to have you see the place as he is to have you see that he knows his way about ”