Spahi

“ The Turkish Spahis, the proudest class of soldiers, took this treatment very ill, plotted together, and demanded her head. The630 deputy grand vizir Chalil wished to save her and her sons, and allowed them to take refuge in his palace. But on the very steps Esther Kiera and her three sons were seized by the Spahis, torn to pieces, and their limbs hung upon the doors of the favored magnates who had received their posts through her influence. ”

“ They turned tail, however, in double-quick time, having no great love of the csákánys, and never stopped till they reached the gate of the fortress, within the walls of which they yelled to their heart's content, that Kökényesdi's robbers were at hand, had leaped the cattle trench at a single bound, seized a good part of the herds and were driving the beasts before them; whereupon, some hundreds of Spahis set off in pursuit of the audacious adventurers. ”

“ No European would venture for love or money into this negro village, and several French Spahis told me that they would not guarantee the life of the white man who dared to enter it even in broad daylight. The Arabs held the same opinion, and no honest man among them would visit the place on any account. ”

“ The Sheikhs are almost as splendid, and the Spahis in their white and blue both ride and look well. Each Caïd is surrounded by his chiefs and Spahis bearing the 84 banners of the tribe, and after these magnificent figures follows a motley crew, men and horses alike gaunt and poor-looking. They do their best to look imposing, with guns and swords and fierce looks, and the horses are decorated with long, trailing saddle-cloths of gorgeous, faded silks, which almost sweep the ground, as they move along. As they pass the centuries fade away. ”

“ I hear that my sons are living in great poverty at Adrianople. As to their poverty, I say nothing; but, worse still, they are living in great humiliation also. Nobody will have anything to do with them. The wretched Spahis, who once on a time mentioned their names with chattering teeth, now mock at them when they meet them in the street, and when they go on foot to the bazaar to buy their bread, the women cry with a loud voice, 'Are these, then, the heroes at whom Stambul used to tremble?' Verily it is shameful, and Ali Pasha blushes thereat. ”

“ Raphia, or Ropeh, is on the borders of the desert. Asia beat Africa in every encounter—at Raphia, at Altaqu, at Carchemish. The impression of the seal of Shabak, attached to his capitulations with Sargon, was found at Nineveh by Sir A. H. Layard, and is now in the British Museum. Shabak died in 712. His son Shabatoh succeeded him in Egypt, and his nephew (?) Tirhakah in Ethiopia. Sabaco's name assumes many forms (LXX., Σηγώρ; Herod., ii. 137; Σαβακώς; Vulg., Sua) . ”

“ Before me I have the beginning of this enigma and the spectacle is strange beneath this clear noonday sun. Here is where I should like to see the Egyptian Sphinx.
THE DESERT OF SAHARA.
It is vain to gaze around, far or near; no moving thing can be distinguished. Sometimes by chance, a little convoy [Pg 61] of laden camels appears, like a row of blackish points, slowly mounting the sandy slopes; we only perceive them when they reach the foot of the hills. They are travellers; who are they? whence come they? Without our perceiving them, they have crossed the whole horizon beneath our eyes. ”

“ Sparke saw for the first time in his life negroes, Caribs, Indians, alligators, flying-fish, flamingoes, pelicans, and many other strange sights. Having been told that Florida was full of unicorns he at once concluded that it must also be full of lions; for how could the one kind exist without the other kind to balance it? Sparke was a soldier who never found his sea legs. But his diary, besides its other merits, is particularly interesting as being the first account of America ever written by an English eyewitness. ”

“ By which he meant that the Spawer was at liberty to occupy any pew that caught his fancy, without fear of trespassing upon rights or being disturbed. Not a soul, so far, was in church. The Spawer picked his favorite pew, with its faded green cushion and family of hassocks—the grand patriarch standing a foot and a half high, and sloped for the knees to rest on without unnecessary bending; with others of various shapes and sizes, down to the baby sawdust-stuffed buffet, no bigger than a bath bun. ”

“ That figure with the head and bust of a woman upon the body of a lion, carved out of the ages-old rock which stood here upon the desert, has been noted among the peoples of the world as far back as history extends, and those stony eyes have seen civilization after civilization rise and fall.
It would take a good-sized city lot to hold the Sphinx. The body is one hundred and forty feet long, and the paws each measure fifty feet. Her head alone is so big that a vault fourteen feet square and the height of a three-story house would be just large enough to contain it. ”

“ Spagano looked at the sleepers, and glanced from them to the flask hanging at his waist. The glance was fraught with triumph, and breathed of the red-man’s proverbial treachery to the white.
He watched the guards for several minutes and then approached. The scrutiny pleased him, and he crawled from the camp and disappeared in the forest. He moved down the trail which the Night-Hawks had lately traversed, and thirty yards from the camp paused and put his ear to the ground. ”

“ From time to time others have removed the sand, but always the sand comes back and quickly steals over the body and covers it, leaving the head emerging like some monster of the desert.
In the past the Sphinx has been badly treated by the ignorant Arabs, who have smashed its face about and given it that strange expression which is a half-wry smile. Probably thousands of years hence, when our present civilization has disappeared and been forgotten, the Sphinx will still be regarding the Nile and the world with the same half-sad, half-mocking expression. ”

“ So, Shabaka, you will wed Amada whom I desired because I could not take her, and doubtless you will rule in Egypt, for Pharaoh, I think, is as I am to-day. O Shabaka, you are strong and a great warrior, but there is something stronger than you in the world—that which men call Fate. Such success as yours offends the gods. Look on me, Shabaka, look on the King of kings, the Ruler of the earth, lying shamed in the dust before you, and, accursed Shabaka! do not call yourself happy until you see death as near as I do now. ”

“ Early in the morning after the girl's visit the sun peeped over the Spawer's sill according to custom, and the Spawer jumped out of bed to let him in. Already Nature's symphony was in full swing—a mighty, crescive, spinning movement of industry, borne up to him on a whirr of indefatigable wings. The sun had cleared the cliff railings and was traveling merrily upward on an unimpeded course, though still the grassland lay grey in the shadow beneath its glistening quilt of dew, and every spider's web hung silver-weighted like a net new-drawn with treasure from the sea. ”

“ That the discovery did not tend to add much zest to his midnight ramble—even had there been any before—the Spawer would have been the last to deny. It is an unpleasant thing, at any time, to have one's back turned towards a stealthy follower of undeclared intentions, but moonlight and a lonely coast add still further unpleasantness to the situation. However, the fact remained, and it was no use getting into an unnecessary fuss about it. To turn back openly would not remedy matters much, or give the Spawer any particular advantage over his unknown pursuer. ”

“ All the associations of the Sphinx are with the loneliness of the inhuman desert, with the leagues of barren wind-blown sand, in the midst of which it rests half buried, and which in the course of ages has again and again submerged it. ”

“ She disembarked on the 14th of Khoiak, amid the acclamations of the people: “She comes, the daughter of the King of the South, Nitauqrît, to the dwelling of Amon, that he may possess her and unite her to himself; she comes, the daughter of the King of the North, Shapenuapît, to the temple of Karnak, that the gods may there chant her praises.” As soon as the aged Shapenuapît had seen her coadjutor, “she loved her more than all things,” and assigned her a dowry, the same as that which she had received from her own parents, and which she had granted to her first adopted daughter Amenertas. ”

“ For Egypt of course, and when, reflected in the alabaster, I saw you enter that shrine, where you remember I was praying for your success—and safety, I nearly died of joy. For you know I had been, well, attached to you—to Shabaka, I mean—all the time—that’s my part of the story which I daresay you did not see. Although I seemed so cold and wayward I could love, yes, in that life I knew how to love. And Shabaka looked, oh! a hero with his rent mail and the glory of triumph in his eyes. ”

“ All that had been silence before was swallowed up at a gulp in the sudden deeps of discovery. The Spawer, with legs planted forcefully apart, chin thrown forward, and sidelong listening ear, tugged at the tawny end of his moustache. It is not altogether a child's task, whatever may be thought to the contrary, to address discreetly a panting feminine figure in the darkness at five paces, that has drawn the undesirable fire of our attention nearing midnight, and may be either a common garden thief or a despicable henroost robber; or a farm wench, deflected by the piano on her way home ”

“ Peroa rules as Pharaoh, I see him on his throne. Shabaka is driven away in his turn, I see him travelling south with the dwarf and with myself, looking very sad. Time passes. I see the moons float by; I see messengers reach Shabaka, sent by Peroa and you O holy Tanofir; they tell of trouble in Egypt. I see Shabaka and the dwarf coming north at the head of a great army of black men armed with bows. With them I come rejoicing, for my heart seems to shine. He reaches a temple on the Nile about which is camped another great army, a countless army of Easterns under the command of the King of kings. ”

“ The promise of the resurrection of the soul was symbolized, by the Great Sphinx of Gizeh, old at the beginning of the Ancient Empire; by the Phœnix, and by the Scarab, the antiquity of the symbolism of which no Egyptologist has yet fathomed. We have it set forth in writing on the inscriptions of the earliest Dynasties. [70]
[83] On a stele found between the paws of the Great Sphinx of Gizeh is: "The majesty of this beautiful god speaks by its own mouth, as a father speaks to his child, saying: Look to me, let thine eye rest on me, my son Thutmes! ”

“ The sphinx constantly appears on the Scarabæi of Thothmes III., and it is probably to this monarch that the one here described belongs. (On many Scarabæi in the British Museum, and on those figured by Klaproth from the Palin Collection, in Leeman’s Monuments, and in the “Description de l’Egypt,” Thothmes is represented as a sphinx treading foreign prisoners under him.—Layard.) After the Sphinx on this Scarab are the titles of the king, “The sun-placer of creation,” of Thothmes III.
Small Scarabæus of white steaschist, with a brownish hue ”

“ Spaitla is a corruption of Suffetula26, which was probably its ancient name before it became a Roman colony; so called from Suffetes, a magistrature in all the countries dependent upon Carthage. Spaitla has many inscriptions, and very extensive and elegant remains. There are three temples, two of them Corinthian, and one of xxxi the Composite order; a great part of them is entire. A beautiful and perfect capital of the Composite order, the only perfect one that now exists, is designed, in all its parts, in a very large size ”

“ Part X, 1914, of the Egypt Exploration Funds publication, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri contains the latest important Sapphic discovery, apparently an almost complete poem of twenty-four lines which are nearly perfect. The poem has been cleverly emended by Mr. J. M. Edmonds of Cambridge, and it was published with a literal translation in the “Times,” 4 May 1914. Such discoveries keep alive in us the hope that the future may be still kinder to us and that some day the Egyptian sands will give up a considerable proportion of the nine books of lyrics. ”

“ Not only are relics upon a pocket scale conveyed by pilgrims, and reverenced by the Arabs, but the body of any Faky, who in lifetime was considered extra holy, is brought from a great distance to be interred in some particular spot. In countries where a tree is a rarity, a plank for a coffin is unknown; thus the reverend Faky, who may have died of typhus, is wrapped in cloths and packed in a mat. In this form he is transported, perhaps, some hundred miles, slung upon a camel, with the thermometer above 130 degrees Fahr. ”

“ These saphies are prayers, or rather sentences, from the Koran, which the Mohammedan priests write on scraps of paper, and sell to the simple natives, who consider them to possess very extraordinary virtues. Some of the negroes wear them to guard themselves against the bite of snakes or alligators; and on this occasion the saphie is commonly enclosed in a snake’s or alligator’s skin, and tied round the ankle. Others have recourse to them in time of war, to protect their persons against hostile weapons ”