Chapter VIII: An Arrival (12)

The wind blew from the north, and we started. Now, it is a peculiarity of the Nile trip that the wind always blows from the north before the dahabeeáhs start, although it generally takes four or five pages to tell it, after “everything is on board and all impatient for the start,” and the reader is left in some doubt as to whether the boat is going at all. But as the course is to the south, and these boats cannot tack, the reader may now understand why he is kept so long waiting until “the breeze blows fresh from the north, the great sail drops down like the graceful plumage of some giant bird, and the shores glide past like the land of the poet’s dream.” We commenced the voyage by running aground, and we continued it somewhat in the same way. We did not travel on land; for I said something above about the direction of the wind and its connection with our starting, so that one might infer we were on a boat. But scarce a day passed that we did not run aground at least once, and often three or four times. Finally we became so used to it that, seated in the cabin, we could tell by the shouting what means were being employed to shove the boat off. The invocations were always the same. Would a good Moslem, think you, call upon any but the two sacred names, Allah, Mohammed――the God and the Prophet? But the intonations of the voice told the story. Grunting out these sacred names, starting from the extremity of the toes, struggling and fighting with each nerve and muscle as they came up, told us unmistakably that they were pushing with long poles. Now a fearful colic seizes the crew; they groan and cry, and in the deepest misery implore God and the Prophet to free them from their sufferings; and we are well aware that they are in the water, making pretended strenuous efforts to raise the boat with their backs. A bright, lively chorus tells us that they are setting sail. A dead silence informs us to a moral certainty that they are eating their meals. Let me tell you something about the dahabeeáh; for it is to be our home for many weeks. The _Sitta Mariam_, as we called it, was ninety-seven feet long, sixteen in width, and drew three feet of water. The forward part was reserved for the use of the crew. In the hold they kept food and clothes. On the deck they slept――the more fastidious ones on sheepskins, the others upon the bare boards. In the Orient everything is just the reverse of the Occident. We cover our feet and expose the head while sleeping. They wrap up the head with care, and expose the feet to the sometimes chilly air of the night. A box placed near the bow, six feet high, the same width, and two feet deep, served for a kitchen. Aft of the forecastle were nine state-rooms, and a dining-saloon fifteen feet square. A flight of steps led to the upper deck, which extended to the stern of the boat. Handsome Turkey rugs, divans, and easy-chairs made this a most comfortable lounging place for the howadjii; and, in sooth, when not eating or sleeping, we spent all our time here. Near the stern we had a poultry-yard, several coops filled with turkeys, chickens, and squabs. We always had one or two live sheep with us, carried in the rowboat――called felluka――which floated astern. The foremast was placed near the bow, and from its summit, forty-two feet from the deck, swung the large yard or trinkeet, one hundred and fifteen feet long. From this was suspended the triangular sail called “lateen.” When furled, the rope was so bound around it that, although securely held, yet, by a strong pull directly downwards, it was immediately let loose. In the rear, aft the rudder, we carried a smaller sail of the same description, called a “balakoom.” The boat was of three hundred and eighty ardebs――about forty tons――burden. I have said that we called it the _Sitta Mariam_, or “Lady Mary.” Originally it was named _The Swallow_, and the year before a native artist had been engaged to paint this name upon it. Thinking the word should be written as an Arabic one, he commenced at the wrong end. To add to this, by some mischance he omitted a letter; the result was the name on the side of the boat in large, bold letters, “Wallow.”

A few words concerning the ship’s company. The howadjii were four Americans. The next most important personage is Ahmud Abdallah――_i.e._, servant of God――our dragoman, he of the olive-green suit and red fez. Has any one ever determined the precise etymology of the word dragoman? Often I am constrained to think that it is an abbreviation of the words “dragger-of-man.” On one point I am clear: this will give a more accurate idea of the position of the individual than any other yet suggested. From the time you come in contact with one of this species until you run away from him――for he will never leave you, unless your money should become exhausted――he is continually dragging you around. Do not think the howadji is bullied by his dragoman. On the contrary, the meekness, suavity, and urbanity of that individual are beyond description. He receives his master’s orders in silence and with bowed head, but a keen observer might often detect a sneering smile, showing how little he thinks of obeying them. Ahmud was a handsome Arab, thirty-six years of age and an Oriental Brummel. What a wardrobe of bright-colored trousers and richly-embroidered vests he had! Each afternoon he would squat cross-legged upon his bed, and ponder for an hour or more over the sacred mysteries of the Koran. An hour scarce sufficed to dress, and then he would appear on deck in his suit of bright Algerine cloth, the little jacket relieved by a white vest set off with red or blue, his feet encased in red slippers beautifully contrasting with his stockings of immaculate whiteness, on his head the jaunty fez. When the sweet breezes were wafting us softly up the stream, and a stillness and repose unknown in other lands seemed to pervade all nature, Ahmud, in his gorgeous attire, would appear on the quarter-deck, seat himself in the most complacent manner, light his cigarette, and appear the ideal of self-satisfaction and contentment. We had contracted to pay him a certain sum _per diem_; in return he was to supply boat, sailors, food, and everything requisite for the voyage――as he expressed it: “You pay me so much every day; no put hand in pocket at all.” When reproved, he would become sulky like a spoilt child, and remain in that state for several days, replying as concisely to our questions as politeness would permit, and otherwise having nothing whatsoever to say to us. Ali Abdakadra, his brother-in-law, was a fine-looking young Arab of twenty-three. He was supposed to be the assistant dragoman. My private opinion――of course not communicated to him――is that he was solely interested in supplying those materials with which the highways of another and still warmer clime are thought to be paved. This is not a very lucrative occupation, nor one conducive to man’s advancement in this world; but, notwithstanding our advice, he persisted in it. I do not think there ever issued from the lips of any man so many resolutions of doing so much, so many good intentions; and I am morally certain that so many resolutions and intentions never before were so utterly fruitless. Shortly after we started he came to me full of excitement, and informed me that he was going to write a guide-book for the Nile. “Now,” said he, “there is Ibrahim, our waiter; he has made this trip several times, and yet knows nothing about the temples or tombs――I doubt whether he has even seen them. This is my first trip. I will take notes and write a book. Will you lend me your Murray to assist me?” I consented. The book remained unopen in his room for two months. I then called the loan. He took not a note, but left many, on temples, obelisks, and tombs. When visiting temples, Ali was the first to arrive, and when we came up we were informed by enormous letters, written with a burnt stick, that Ali Abdakadra had visited that temple on the current day. When sent upon an errand he did not wish to perform, he would proceed at a pace which could be easily excelled by a not overfed crab. One of our party, at Ali’s earnest request, spent some time instructing him in taxidermy. He would take back to Cairo any number of birds and sell them; had even counted his profits, and told us how he would expend them. Result: He half-skinned a hawk in the most bungling manner, and then left it hanging up until the offensive odor caused us to order it to be cast overboard. Ibrahim Saleem is our waiter――not a talker, but a worker, a model of neatness and propriety, performing his duties with perfect regularity and order. Reis Mohammed Suleyman, a short, well-built man, is the most laborious of them all. The responsibility of the boat is upon him, and he is fully equal to it. He is a very quiet man, except when angered, and then through his set teeth swears by Allah and the Prophet to wreak the direst vengeance upon the offender. He is pious, however, and prays frequently. When a sheep is to be killed, he is the butcher; and never was sheep more skilfully killed and prepared for the table. Any sewing of sails, clothes, or of anything else that is to be done is brought to him and, squatted cross-legged on the deck, he is transformed into a tailor. In the evenings, when the rest of the sailors amuse themselves with song and dance, Reis Mohammed will sit for hours in perfect silence, holding the line in his hand, and, after thus patiently waiting, will draw up a catfish weighing from twenty to thirty pounds. He is devotedly attached to his merkeb (boat), and woe betide the unfortunate sailor who injures it in the slightest manner! It is customary, when we reach the towns wherein any of the sailors reside, for them to leave the boat for a few hours――or for the night, if we remain so long――and visit their homes. Reis Mohammed lived at Minieh; when we reached it he would not leave, preferring to stay with his boat to the pleasure of seeing his wife or wives. I can see Reis Ahmud, the second captain, before me now, leaning like a statue upon the broad handle of the rudder, the only evidence of life being the thin clouds of smoke issuing from his lips. Hour after hour he would maintain that position, moving only when it was necessary to shift the helm, and then not using his hands, but moving it by the weight of his body resting against it. His eyes were most singular in appearance, and for a long while I was puzzled to account for their strange effect. Coming on the quarter very early one morning, I found him kneeling before a small glass and staining around his eyes with a black substance called kohl. He is the drummer of the crew, and in the evenings, seated with the sailors, he plays the darbooka, or native drum. This instrument is of the same shape and material as those used at the festive gatherings of the Egyptians ere Moses was――nay, even before the wrath of God had showered the deluge of waters upon the iniquitous world. It is made of earthenware in the shape of a hollow cylinder surmounted by a truncated cone; this is covered with sheepskin. It is played with the fingers. Ali Aboo Abdallah, our cook, is to be noticed principally on account of his name, which illustrates the system of nomenclature in vogue among certain Mohammedans. Before he was married his name was Ali something or other. His first boy was named Abdallah, and the father then became Ali Aboo――_i.e._, the father of Abdallah――the son giving the name to the father, to show the world that the latter was the proud possessor of an heir. A seeming bundle of old clothes lying on the deck, but showing, by faint signs of animation at meal-time, that animal life existed within it, represented Ali el Delhamawi, Reis Mohammed’s uncle, the oldest man of the crew. The duty of this animated rag-bag was to hold the tail of the sail during the upward voyage, and to go through the movements of rowing on the home-trip. Next in order come Haleel en Negaddeh, a surly, well-built Arab, appointed by the owner to look after the welfare of the boat; Mahsood el Genawi, a slim, cross-eyed fellow; Ahmud Said el Genawi, a fine specimen of a man, the most powerful and the hardest worker among them all; Hassein Sethawi, a tough, wiry little fellow, the barber of the crew; Ashmawi Ashman, the baby of the party, the best-dressed man, petted by the others, and, as a natural consequence, doing but little work; Gad Abdallah, another servant of the Deity; Ahmud es Soeffle and Hassein es Soeffle, known to us by their most striking non-Arabic peculiarity――silence――and Haleel el Deny, the queer-looking old man who cooks for the crew. Last, but not least, comes Mohammed el Abiad, or Mohammed the White, the blackest man of all. He was the funny man, the court-jester. He was always saying funny things, so we were told, and whenever he opened his lips the others burst out laughing, including sober old Reis Mohammed. He was useful to us by keeping the crew in good-humor. All his physical strength was exhausted in expelling the sallies of wit from his mouth. He had his own ideas concerning manual labor, which, summed up into a maxim, were about as follows: Make it appear to others that you do more work than any one else; do as little as you possibly can. For squatting and doing nothing he was unsurpassed. In grunting, singing, and contorting every lineament of his visage when at work he excelled all the others taken together. Here is a specimen of his funny sayings: On asking him, through Ahmud, why he was called “the white” when he was so black, he said it was because his father was called Mohammed the Green, and he was the blacker of the two. At this the crew laughed immoderately. Oriental wit or humor is doubtless unappreciable by the dull minds of the Western Christian dogs.

Now that you know us all――boat, crew, and howadjii――come, sail with us, see the strange scenes, watch the moving panorama, and witness the daily comedies enacted around us.

We are about to stop under the cliffs of Gebel Aboo Layda, the Arabian chain, which here borders immediately on the river――not a very safe place, either; for Ali requests me to fire some pistol-shots to frighten away the thieves. There is no village near, and we have no guard. When we stop near a village, two or three miserable-looking creatures crouch around a fire on the bank. They are our guard. I feel morally certain that as soon as we leave the quarter-deck the guard goes to sleep. I have come to this determination from a study of these Arabs. Their idea of worldly happiness is eating, smoking, and sleeping; of heavenly bliss, the same, with the beautiful houri added. The next day we reach Manfaloot. It is market-day, and the sailors are going ashore to buy provisions. The strange sights and scenes so confused me that I was not quite sure of being awake. Sometimes it seemed like a play; I was nervous, and hurried for fear the curtain should fall before everything could be seen. How I wished my ears changed into eyes, and a pair set in the back of my head! Now I begin to comprehend the scenes about me. Perhaps this is real life after all. That tall, handsome woman carrying herself so erect, with the jar balanced on her head, is perhaps not doing this for our amusement merely. I can sleep now without laughing. I am becoming part of this strange world. Let us look around Manfaloot while the sailors are laying in our stock of provisions. Here is the shopping street. Nature has kindly spared these people the need of a committee on highways. Each individual has resolved himself into a pavier. No taxes for these streets――two rows of houses built of sun-dried bricks, running parallel, with a space of seventy feet between. Sidewalks and gutters are trodden hard by the passers-by――a cheap, primitive mode of paving; a little dusty at times, ’tis true, but then Allah sends the dust: it can do no great harm, and there is no need of repairs. Look at this house. The owner has visited Mecca. How do we know it? See that railway train painted over the door, with a bright blue engine; two engineers, each three times as tall as the engine, smoke-stack and all; the cars red, green, yellow, running up and down hill at the same time. Six of them are filled with giants painted green――apt color, too, for men who would travel on such a train. It looks like the slate-drawing of a school-boy. Yes; but these are modern Egyptian hieroglyphics. The train tells us that the owner has travelled; and where should a good Moslem go but to Mecca? So the owner is a hadji and wears a green turban. All the children suffer with ophthalmia. This ophthalmia must be something like lumps of sugar; the flies seem to think so, at least. What a crowd is following us! But they are respectful; seem amused at the pale faces and curious garments of the howadjii. How their eyes dilate at the sight of Madam’s gloves! “The Sitta has a white face and black hands. Allah preserve us! she is actually taking off her hands. No, it is the outer skin; and now they are pale like her face. By the Prophet! this is strange.” They crowd around her, touch her hands, then her gloves, timidly and respectfully; no, they cannot understand it. Abiad is going to ask for a sheep; the crew have selected him, for they feel confident we cannot refuse him when he asks in his humorous way. Followed by the grinning crew, he appears before us, and, putting up his hands to the sides of his head to represent long ears, ejaculates, “Ba-a! ba-a!” We were not convulsed with laughter, but the good-hearted “Sitta” promised them a sheep for Christmas-time, which was near at hand.

This fertile country contains about five millions of inhabitants. Above Cairo the valley of the Nile and Egypt are synonymous. For, where neither artificial irrigation nor the magic waters of the Nile give life to the parched soil, the sand of the desert renders the country as utterly unproductive as the bitter waters of the Dead Sea. The river varies in width from three hundred and sixty-five yards at Hagar Silseleh to a mile or more in other parts. The narrow strip of productive soil is in no part more than ten miles in width, save where the quasi-oasis of the Fyoom joins the west bank near Benisoeef. In many places the banks of the river mark the boundaries of the available soil. The cultivation of the land follows the receding waters. The rising of the Nile commences in July, and the greatest height is reached about the end of September, from which time the waters gradually recede. In December we grounded upon a certain sandbank covered with two feet of water. I noted the spot, and when we passed it on our return voyage, about the 6th of March following, the natives were planting melons upon it in a layer of the richest and most productive soil, left there by the receding waters, borne upon their bosom from the far-distant sources of the Blue Nile. From its far-off Abyssinian home the fertilizing Blue Nile flows on to Khartoom, where it meets the White Nile coming from still more distant parts, and from there the single river rushes on in its long, uninterrupted voyage to the sea. Until quite recently the cause of the annual overflow of the Nile was unknown. The priests, the most learned men of ancient Egypt, were unable to give Herodotus any reason for it. Some of the Greeks, wishing, says he, to be distinguished for their wisdom, attempted to account for these inundations in three different ways. But the careful historian, placing no confidence in them, repeats them, as he says, merely to show what they are: The Etesian winds, preventing the Nile from discharging itself into the sea, cause the river to swell. The ocean flowing all around the world, and the Nile flowing from it, produce this effect――an opinion, he observes, showing more ignorance than the former, but more marvellous. The third way of resolving this difficulty is by far the most specious, but most untrue: the Nile flowing from melted snow. For how, he asks in his quaint way, since it runs from a very hot, from Libya through the middle of Ethiopia to a colder region――Egypt――can it flow from snow? And he then goes on, with seeming modesty, to venture his own opinion: “During the winter season the sun being driven from his former course by storms, retires to the upper part of Libya. This, in a few words, comprehends the whole matter; for it is natural that the country which the god is nearest to, and over which he is, should be most in want of water, and that the native river streams (_i.e._, the sources of the Nile) should be dried up. He attracts the water to himself, and, having so attracted it, throws it back upon the higher regions. I do not think, however, that the sun on each occasion discharges the annual supply of water from the Nile, but that some remains about him. When the winter grows mild, the sun returns again to the middle of the heavens, and from that time attracts water equally from all rivers. Up to this time those other rivers, having much rain-water mixed with them, flow with full streams; but when the showers fail them, and they are attracted in summer by the sun, they become weak, and the Nile alone, being destitute of rain, is hard pressed by the sun’s attraction in winter. In summer it is equally attracted with all other waters, but in winter it alone is attracted. Thus I consider the sun is the cause of these things” (Herodotus, _Euterpe_). From that time many able minds have given to the world vain conjectures upon this most interesting subject. The extensive discoveries of modern African explorers have furnished a much clearer idea of the cause of this beneficent overflow than the ingenious theory of Herodotus or the opinions of his wise Grecian friends. During the first few days of the inundation the water has a green tint, which is supposed to be caused by the first rush of the descending torrents, carrying off the stagnant waters from the interior of Darfour. This is thought to be unwholesome, and the natives store up beforehand what water they may need for these few days. A red tint follows this, caused by the surface-washing of red-soiled districts. When the inundation subsides, the water is of a muddy color, pleasant to drink, and quite innocuous. The paintings of the old Egyptians represent these three conditions of the river by waters colored green, red, and blue.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.