Chapter XXI: Through Egypt--Homewards (1)

Life on board the well-known decks of the P. and O. is too familiar to require much record.

"A swell from the coast," on the first day, is the usual experience, and ours proved no exception. Few were ill, but all, including ourselves, felt more or less uncomfortable.

Fortunately we are too early for the swarm of Indian mothers who, with their tribes of spoilt and sickly children, will be setting homewards next month, before the heat begins; for seventy children is no uncommon number at that season of the year.

Five days slipped by thus pleasantly, and on Thursday morning, the 19th, at 5.30, we were lying off Aden.

I looked out of my port-hole and saw the jagged, smoke-coloured peaks of Little Aden, dull against the rosy-flushed clouds. Presently, when I could get dressed, and escape through the clouds of coal-dust, outside my deck-cabin door, I saw the yet grander and picturesque peaks of the rock mountains of Aden proper. The decks were seatless, and smeared with sand, and everything in a pitiable condition from the coaling operations. On a very dull, cloudy morning, Aden looked more than usually dreary.

C. had gone ashore to find out the latest news on the reopening of Parliament, as upon that depended whether we should continue homewards in the _Peshawur_, or disembark and await the Messageries' boat for the Cape, _viâ_ Mauritius, at Aden. He returned reassured, and we gladly accepted the kind hospitality tendered to us by General Blair, the Resident.

To the passing traveller, from the deck of the P. and O., Aden presents the appearance of a small station, with some white, low-roofed buildings and military lines--utter sterility, utter desolation, exposed to the baking heat of tropical sun, reflected in tenfold intensity from the rocks around.

Yet the magnificent rough-hewn boulders of rocks piled up into mountains behind Aden have a certain stern beauty and wild grandeur of their own. It is like what one imagines Mount Sinai to be on a near approach, only darker, and more awe-inspiring--less humanly attainable.

Among the deep clefts and along the bold crags of the sky-line, you can trace strange profiles of unknown faces or the outline of an animal, and the longer you look the more distinct and life-like they become. On the sombre purple-blue colours of these mountains are reflected the glowing colours of the sunset, changing them to warm madder, brown, and pink.

There is no sign of vegetation. No green thing will grow, withered by the hot winds that blow across the sandy wastes of Arabia; but what Aden loses by living Nature, she gains from her in artificial means. The glory of the sunset and the sunrise over the Indian Ocean is unparalleled.

Again I say Aden has beauties of her own, which, like others, we had imagined very much absent. The formation of the peninsula is a very puzzling bit of geography, but the cliffs and capes formed of those loosely-bound masses of boulder, jut out strikingly and unexpectedly into the sea. Their blue-grey tints dip into the turquoise-coloured ocean, and with a strip of yellow sand, form the only three colours that can be found at Aden.

It would hardly be believed what natural signal-stations are ready to hand. The mounds, not of earth, but of rocks, seem naturally to taper into the crowning flagstaff. A grand command of the Gates of the Red Sea, the Coast of Arabia, and the Indian Ocean, has the signal-station on the summit of the highest point, 1300 feet sheer up.

In the afternoon Mrs. Blair took us for a drive--the one drive it must be confessed--along the Bunder, or seashore, to the military depôt at the Isthmus.

Descending into the hollow, we saw the sapper and miners' lines, the barracks and the hospital, the church, and the bungalows of the P. and O. and Messageries' agents, who form the civilian community of Aden; then driving along the seashore, the "town," with its hotels and shops, contained in the one sweep of the Prince of Wales' Crescent.

Camels striding over the sandy desert by the roadside, and a strange mingling of desert tribes, seemed the natural accompaniments to this sand of Arabia.

We saw sturdy Arabs with their thick legs and short-set frame, Persians, Indians, Somales, Soudanese, and Nubians--the two latter tribes as black as soot--Jews, whom we knew by their funny little corkscrew curls, bobbing on either side of the face, and who are still here the down-trodden race of the 12th century, degraded and trampled upon by the Arab. Then there are a tribe of fishermen called the Eastern Pirates, and most romantic-looking with their wild, dare-devil faces, and long, smoked-yellow robe, the colour of one of their own weather-worn sails.

The Arabs have their heads plastered with white clay, found along the coast, which turns the colour of the hair to a bright yellow, making it at the same time stiff and frizzy. The Arab women have their faces covered with a thin spotted handkerchief, but even without this you would single them out by their easy swinging walk. Women of other tribes wear their hair _en chignon_, covered with black muslin, and red or orange saris crossed over the chest, to leave their black arms free.

We drove along the rocky rampart, which reminds me much of a smaller, a very much smaller range of Rocky Mountains. You soon grow accustomed to expect nothing but rocky surfaces and sand at Aden, and are quite surprised at the suspicion of green under the lee of the range; a little wild mignonette, snapdragon, or lupin--a pretty flower with a terrible odour--which are trying to exist there.

We pass several unenclosed and disused Mohammedan cemeteries by the roadside, and at last see the end of the three straight miles of Bunder in the rock fortress, ironically named "The last Refuge." Three hundred and seventy-five steps lead up the face of the rock to its isolated summit, where provisionless, though impregnable, the fortress would quickly surrender. By the side of this fortress we pass under a gateway, and are in "The Camp of the Isthmus." The regiment of British infantry and the native troops quartered at Aden are divided into three camps, that at the Isthmus, the camp in the Crater, and the camp at Aden itself. This foolish separation gives rise to much inconvenience and consequent grumbling amongst the officers; where the community is so small, it seems a pity they should be so unsociably distant. We watched the cricket match that was being played by the sons of the military against the sons of civilians. The ground was curiously white and glistening, from the salt which exudes after rain from the earth, and which makes it very slippery.

The stillness when driving home again was quite extraordinary, not a breath to stir a ripple on the water.

_Friday, February 20th._--Every afternoon at three o'clock the danger flag is hoisted opposite the Presidency, and a great bombardment commences. The fortifications, so long needed, are in progress, and every day the entrenchments are blasted away by gunpowder. From the one nearest, the first explosion is heard, sending up clouds of smoke and a shower of stones into the air, which rattle and roll down a rocky ravine on to the beach. One report after another follows quickly, and then when these begin to decrease and die away, those from the opposite fort take up the roll of artillery, the smoke, the rattle of hailstone-shot.

We drove that afternoon to the crater--to the camp inside the crater, a unique position in the world for one, I should say. From the inevitable drive along the Bunder we turned off, and made our way up a zig-zagging hill of great steepness, towards an archway very far above us, built into the rocks. The road ended in a wall of rock, and the entrance under the gateway was not seen till you reached it, because it was immediately on the right-hand, at a sharp angle. Here then we found ourselves in "The Pass," a very grand and striking one, from the vertical height of the crags and the depth we were sunk in below them. The arch we passed under was formed to bridge over the gulf and connect the two lines of fortifications running up on either mountain-side. This pass was pickaxed out of the mountain rock, and very beautiful is the blood-red granite and the green serpentine colours it has exposed to view. Here and there we see a vertical strata of lava embedded in the rock.

We are inside the crater now; a wonderful scene it is. Black rocks of lava and scoria, irregular and jagged at the top like the mouth of a crater, rise up all around; and down in the hollow, in their midst, lies the camp and village, a collection of white buildings. The dull red colour of the scoria gives one the impression that the flames have been of very recent date. There are the caverns, the caves, the cones of lava left by the eruption, the formation of a volcano but active the other day. The heights are bristling with cannon pointed seawards. A tunnel connects with the camp at the Isthmus, which really is only on the other side.

We pass through the native quarter and the camel market. Here we see the Aden white sheep with black heads, and the lumps of fat protruding from each haunch.

Far up in the side of the crater lie the wonderful tanks, the one object of interest in Aden. Supposed to have been made somewhere about 400 B.C., their existence was never suspected till 1851, some twenty years after our occupation. A freshet of water after the rains coming down the side of the rock, led to their discovery.

The tanks are on a platform, and there are six of them, mounting higher and higher into the gulley in the crater. They are all enormously deep, and communicate by channels, and all have been cut out in the rock. They are capable of holding 4,000,000 gallons of water when filled during the rainy season.

The water is then gathered up behind a sluice, and a native climbing up by the rail and ropes we saw, opens it and lets the water down with a rush, which generally fills the first three or four tanks. At this season of the year they are dry, and we saw the yellow chunar-mortar that the tanks are whitewashed with, and the natural formation of rocks, rounded and worn by the action of the water.

Not the least charming part about these tanks is the green peepul-tree, looking, oh! _so_ fresh and green, growing in its crevasse by the tanks, and shading a well. It is the one green spot in the midst of scoria, dust, and ashes.

I remarked how healthy the children in the camp looked, having lately come from India, but was told that it is a fact that troops coming from there are always known to improve and pick up at Aden. It seems strange to say so of such a climate, for we ourselves found the heat and breathless stillness at night very trying. I believe the good health of the station is attributable to the water which is all condensed, and therefore very pure, and very precious also, being doled out in an allowance of three gallons per person daily.

The storm-clouds gathering round the crater at sunset produced a wonderfully grand and gloomy effect, and then the drive home by moonlight, with a last glimpse back at the "Camp in the Crater" from the Pass, the swift gallop along the Bunder behind the pretty Arab horses, brought us quickly home.

At last! After being for four days in that most uncomfortable of all conditions, viz. unable to make up one's mind, our plans have been decided for us by the arrival of the Messageries' boat this afternoon.

The question appeared simple enough--should we go one day south to the Cape, in the Messageries' boat, or the next day north, through the Red Sea homewards, in a P. and O.? In reality it was very complex. We longed to complete our tour round the British Empire, to see the last of our great ruled dominions, the Cape; but then, on the other hand, the political horizon was cloudy, and a vote of censure on the Gladstone Administration pending.

We should have, we found, to wait twenty-five days at the Mauritius, to which there is no cable, before getting a steamer to take us to Natal and Cape Town. This would sever us from telegraphic news, and effectually prevent any immediate and sudden return home in case of a dissolution. We decided therefore against the Cape project, and great as was the disappointment at the time, events have so far justified our decision that we cannot wholly regret it.

At 5 p.m. the next afternoon the P. and O. _Brindisi_ was signalled, and soon afterwards we saw her from the Residency windows, anchoring in the bay. It was not long before we rowed out to her and were on board. Coaling operations, added to the disorganization always attendant on a ship in port, gave us rather an uncomfortable evening.

At nine o'clock we saw an Italian man-of-war, bound for Massowah, stealing out to sea, so noiselessly she moved, as the huge ship loomed black in the dusk to our starboard. The heat was very great downstairs in the cabins, and we got no rest till eleven o'clock, when we cleared away from Aden.

_Wednesday, 25th._--"The captain's compliments, and we are passing Perim," shouted at my cabin door at 7 a.m. the next morning, summoned me hastily on deck to see that rocky island at the mouth of the Red Sea.

The morning sun shone brightly and brought out in full relief its excessive barrenness. We ran up our flag in response to the salute from the stone fort which looks appropriately cold and ugly. The two ships wrecked on the rocks around Perim tell how inhospitable are her shores. The Italian war-ship of the night before was just disappearing round the corner of the island to take the broader channel. I prudently refrain from mentioning the two well-known little stories of the capture of Perim and of one of the officers who subsequently occupied, or rather was non-resident there. Notwithstanding all its natural disadvantages, Perim is destined very soon now to rise into importance as a port of call.

From the reap in early childhood we are taught to seek the Red Sea as a narrow strip of blue against the yellow outline of Egypt and Arabia. It is difficult then to realize you are in such a well-known spot when on neither hand is there any coast-line. We only know we are on the great highway, and that its limits are confined, from the numerous ships we are constantly passing. One day four P. and O.'s were actually in sight of one another, an almost unprecedented event, I believe.

We have a good sea running, but the ship is splendidly steady, and there is a following wind, the one most dreaded in the Red Sea, but it is too early in the year to be very hot.

We passed the "Three Brothers" in the afternoon, and the "Twelve Apostles" in the evening. All these islands are covered with white sand, which glistens in the sunlight by day and the moonlight by night.

_Thursday, 26th._--Passed Suakim (unseen), whither transports without number are hurrying at this moment.

At five o'clock this morning was sighted Mount Sinai, but to my intense disappointment I had forgotten to ask overnight the time, and when I came up on deck at eight o'clock, I could only see the range. It is forty-five miles away, and rarely seen clearly, but had been to-day.

On this quiet Sunday morning the service on deck seemed peculiarly appropriate, when almost within view of the Holy Mount and those sandy shores of Arabia, that are fraught with such holy memories.

The sea is narrowing; we have a coast-line now on either hand: the pale yellow sand of Arabia against the faint blue of the sky, gives a look of such atmospheric heat, so like what we have always pictured to ourselves the Holy Land. On the other are the more rugged mountains, bare and rocky, of the coast of Egypt--mountains that have a very purple hue--that are grand and solemn in their outline, which occasionally open out to show a glimpse of the desert beyond.

Narrower and narrower grows our channel, the land is closing in as towards 5 p.m. we approach Suez, and see in the distance the few buildings, with the large storehouse, which marks the entrance to the canal. We anchor opposite a Messagerie vessel, and, soon after we have taken up our position, are followed by another P. and O., the _Ballarat_ from Australia.

Who could conceive the loveliness of the sunset tints that evening? I for one have never seen, nor could imagine that such heavenly shades in such inextricable harmony could have existed in nature.

On the "fair coast of Arabia" there was seen the most delicate electric blue, with just such a suspicion of mauve that you knew not whether it was there or not, with a distinct dash of pink,--distinct because it clashed with the streak of yellow sand. It was sublime.

The usual indecision followed as to whether to land at once or not, but being hastily decided in the negative we spent a moonlight evening on board. Sleep came with difficulty that night, for, strange as it seems, we missed the lullaby of the throb of the engines and the noisy revolution of the screw.

It was at five the next morning that we got up, in the middle of the night, as it appeared, and dressed hastily for the steam-launch which was to come at 5.30. The captain was weighing anchor and preparing to go into the canal. At daybreak we collected our goods and stumbled, cold and sleepy, into the launch.

As we crossed the harbour we saw sunrise over the Egyptian hills, and watched it gradually eclipsing the moonlight.

At Suez there were sixty ships hired as transports by the Government--ships of all sorts, rusty, paintless, and out of date, but pressed into service for this emergency. Two thousand camels, whose humpy backs in the dawn at first gave the appearance of a line of sandhills, were waiting on the Isthmus for transportation to Suakim; and the wharf, covered with tents and military stores, showed the bustle and activity of war.

At this wharf we waited for two weary hours and a half, cold and breakfastless, till a train, dirtier than any we have ever previously seen, arrived to take us to Suez.

"Old, familiar Suez," say some of the passengers; "just the same as ever," with her awful wastes, her salt marshes, strewn with rusty bolts and ends of iron, her mud huts and pariah dogs,--the dreary desert scene.

At Suez we looked forward to breakfast. Rejecting the offer of the donkey-boy, pointing to his donkey with a persuasive "Quite a masher," we walked through the road, ankle-deep in sand, when "Bond Street" led us to the "Hotel de Suez," on the quay. Small chance was there among the collective passengers of three ships just arrived of getting anything like a comfortable breakfast, and the scramble for food that ensued was a painful sight. We felt glad we had not left the ship to sleep at the hotel last night when we heard that a few nights ago three generals had been "doubled up" (as it was expressively told us by a soldier) in one room, and three colonels in the next. The place was swarming with soldiers, military chests, tin cases, bundles of bedding, &c., just landed and awaiting orders to proceed to Suakim.

At length we started in the train over the line which gives us our first impression of the desert. The vast expanse of waterless, wasteless sand, parched and glaring, weary even unto death, where life can have no attraction left for man or beast, where all is desolate and dead to life. How intense then must be the longing for the "shadow of the Great Rock in the weary land!"

Yet under the influence of the late Sir Herbert Stewart's brilliant march through the desert, yet under the excitement of our hard-won victory at Abu Klea, and later, that at Metammeh, we think with a realizing anguish of the horrors of the prolonged marches, the deadly thirst our men must have endured.

Here our eyes find some relief in patches of bulrushes and the blue strip of water of the canal, where we see the line of steamers slowly passing along in single file, each appearing to chafe at the slow progress of the foremost one. The _Messagerie_ leads the way, followed by our _Brindisi_, in its turn followed by the _Ballarat_--in the order in which they entered the canal this morning. At its widest part the canal opens out into an inland lake.

Again our hearts are stirred as we approach the scene of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir--as we see the roughly thrown-up entrenchments behind which the Arabs lay hidden as our troops came ever onwards, cautiously and noiselessly, for it was the night of the now famous "Silent March." We could hear the British cheer, the maddening rush, the wild swoop which carried all before it. We saw the bridge over which the frantic retreat was made; we saw, too, the green cemetery by the line, where a few white stones mark the graves of those who were left still and cold on that battle-field.

There are no remains to be seen from the railway line, no carcases or bleached bones, no skeletons of camels or broken weapons, but only the long, long rows of low entrenchments, like a sandbank, extending for two or three miles.

At Zagazig we had luncheon, and a very dirty journey brought us to within sight of Cairo, whose first and distant view is disenchanting. It looks little more than a large native village, with a citadel and a few minaret towers. My husband's brother--the Financial Adviser to the Egyptian Government, met us at the station and we drove to his house--made beautiful by his splendid collection of embroideries that have been drawn from the wealth of such stores in the bazaars of Constantinople, Broussa, Egypt, and Arabia.

We feel in the world once more; we have returned to civilization.

The sound of the war-tramp echoes through Cairo.

The streets are full of officers, transport-waggons, and stores.

The almost historical balcony of "Shepheards" is peopled with a military throng--with officers eager to go to "the front," with others awaiting "further orders." All connected with "the service" have additional importance in their own and every one's eyes just now. Wives and relations are in Cairo, as nearer the seat of war, and within earlier reach of news, though, as a matter of fact, the news of the fall of Khartoum the other day was known a day earlier in London.

Rumours and panics of defeat--repulse--surprise--are rife, and all is excitement and anxious flurry.

Colonel Swaine, C.B., Military Secretary to Lord Wolseley, came here early this morning on his way home on sick leave; he will be the first to arrive from the camp at Korti in London. He gave us some interesting particulars about the battle of Abu Klea.

Cairo strikes me as being so French in tone, with the parquet floors and the French windows, with its French population, with Parisian fashions. But after all one must disillusion oneself from the natural idea that Cairo is now English. Cairo is above all things an international metropolis.

During our week's stay there we saw most of the principal sights, but I have not the smallest intention of boring my readers with attempting any minute description (save of the Pyramids and the Dancing Dervishes) of what has been told in glowing, life-like pictures by other writers of name and fame.

I will not write of the streets, with their motley crowd of Arabs, Copts, Syrians, Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Nubians, Cairenes proper, with their thousands of donkeys and accompanying hâmmars, handsome animals cruelly bitted and curbed, ridden alike by grave official in Turkish bags, embroidered jacket, and fez, or by Arab ladies with balloon of silk, and feet tucked up in front. Nor of the pretty street-cries, "God will make them light O! lemons," "Odours of Paradise O! flowers of Henna." Nor yet even of the bazaar, where are spread out the treasures of gold and silver of Arabia, Persia, and Syria, of Damascus and Bagdad--the Cairo Bazaar unique in the world. It is terrible to see the number of those afflicted with eye-diseases in Cairo, and the many blind men led about the streets, crying, "O! Awakener of Pity, O! Master," or "I am the guest of God and the Prophet;" and then the answer comes, "God will succour, or give thee succour." It makes one's heart ache, too, to see the babies with the flies--the proverbially persistent fly of Egypt--settled black on the child's eye, and with no attempt being made to brush them away, causing the eye to close by a process too frightful to describe. The children are always sucking sugar-cane, and it is the sticky sweetness which causes the flies to settle so thickly on their cheeks.

We were much struck with the fineness of the mosques in Cairo after seeing those of India.

As Mohammedanism was only a later introduction into India--a faith struggling in a new land--so are its mosques but a feeble reproduction of those in the land of the Prophet--the home of Mahomet.

The mosque of Sultan Hassan is a grand spot for worship. It is not beautiful, nor curious, nor interesting, but it is simply majestically imposing, from the height of its walls. They present an immeasurable surface, pierced only by lancet recesses, which, by their narrow length, add only to the grandeur of the wall. It is from the ancient to the modern we proceed as we go to the alabaster mosque of Mahomet Ali at the citadel, where all is gaudy and modern: Turkey carpets, coloured-glass windows, and rows of glass globes.

We look lastly at the celebrated "view from the citadel," which is certainly most beautiful.

_Thursday, March 5th._--At six in the morning we started on our expedition to the Pyramids. Passing the enormous square of the Kasr-er-Nil barracks, and crossing the lion-guarded bridge of the same name, we soon distanced the town.

Coming in from the surrounding country, all along the roads, we met trains of camels and troops of donkeys laden with the day's forage for Cairo. The green grass looked rich and succulent, swaying in mountainous stacks on either side the camel, and balancing across the donkeys in loads that hid all except their four legs walking underneath.

Sandy and barren as is the desert of Egypt, where irrigation is brought into use, the crops are extraordinarily rich and luxuriant--added to which, they cut with impunity crop after crop of clover and green food, without dreaming of allowing the ground to lie fallow during any part of the year. Thus it is that around Cairo, though really only the desert, it looks a green and cultivated plain. The canals are cracked and dry, but will fill with the rising of the Nile which, irrigating the land and overflowing with its muddy waters, leaves that rich alluvial deposit of fertility.

The last four miles' approach to the Pyramids is over a road shaded by an avenue of tamarinds, so straight that you can see a man--a speck--at the end.

We read, we imbibe unconsciously, we listen eagerly to the account of impressions of some world-wonder, some object of exceptional beauty or interest.

We cannot help longing to see "that" object, we cannot help feeling some excitement when we are nearing "that" wonder which we have been picturing to ourselves for so long--when we are nearing the realization of an oft-expressed wish since childhood.

Thus it is. And thus it is that we often realize _some_ disenchantment. I had often done so, but nothing will ever come up to the keen intensity of my disappointment, or the bitter revulsion of feeling as we approached the Pyramids and obtained a good view of them.

"They may grow grander as we come nearer," I said. But no; I think they really diminished rather than increased on a nearer approach. The Pyramids stand on a natural platform of rock. The three are in a line: the second, or Pyramid of Chephren, touches the angle of the first, or that of Cheops; and that of the third, the Pyramid of Mycerinus, that of Chephren.

Thus, as you draw near, it becomes a line of perspective, in which each pyramid recedes and recedes behind the greater one, till only Cheops is left in solitary glory.

But even thus he does not seem stupendous; he does not seem to crush you with his size, to be ungraspable from height, to be immeasurable for width. He does not impress you with a feeling of your own insignificance. He is _very_ large--that is all.

Even when we had driven up the last steep ascent and stood under his very shadow, I felt scarcely more impressed. There was a peculiar effect of following with the eye some way up, and then suddenly feeling that the pyramid was receding from your sight--when you saw that you were looking at its cone.

You must gaze upon the Pyramids, bearing in your mind's eye all the time the grand idea that called them into existence; the despotic monarch who thought to build for himself an everlasting monument, who thought, by the stupendousness of the work, to preserve his body when all others should have perished, to perpetuate the memory of his reign to worlds of generation.

The vanity of all human aims and desires! The tomb was opened, sacked for the treasures of gold and silver that so great a builder would surely have interred with his remains. And the bones of Cheops--where are they now? Consigned to the sand of the desert, to the dust whence he came.

It is wonderful to think that this outer pyramid is only the covering for a number of similar ones inside; how many, is only conjectured by the size of the outer one. When the building of a pyramid was commenced, a piece of rock, it is said, was taken as the centre to form the support of the apex of the first tiny pyramid, and then a space was hollowed out in the rock wherein the sarcophagus would rest some day. The pyramid grew with the length of the reign of the royal builder. Year by year its growth increased, and at his death it was finished off at the point it had then reached.

Various theories have been advanced as to the use of the Pyramids. Some have thought they were for astronomical purposes. One, that it was simply a meterological monument, large enough to serve for all kinds of measurements; but Egyptologists are now agreed in thinking they are tombs "hermetically sealed everywhere, the for ever impenetrable casing of a mummy."

There are many who will share in Lord Lindsay's beautiful but mystic idea of their origin, but I for one do not.

"Temples or tombs, monuments of tyranny or of priestly wisdom, no theory as to the 'meaning' of the Pyramids, those glorious works of fine intelligence" has been broached so beautiful to my mind as old Sandy's, who, like Milton and the ancients, believing them modelled in imitation of "that formless, form-taking substance, fire," conceives them to express the "original things." "For as the pyramid, beginning at a point, little by little dilateth into all parts, so nature, proceeding from an individual fountain, even God, the Sovereign Essence, receiveth diversity of form, effused into several kinds and multitudes of figures uniting all in the supreme head from whence all excellences issue."

We are soon surrounded, and the prey of the body of Bedouins who squat in a group at the corner of the Great Pyramid; but at the bidding of the all-powerful sheik, six men are singled out for the ascent.

The steps, if such they can be called, are blocks from two to four feet high, and come nearly up to the waist, of such a small person as myself. Therefore you stand and look doubtful as to how to ascend the first one; but there is no time for much thought before the guides have seized you with a grasp that leaves its mark, and by main force you are lifted and dragged up, while at some of those still higher, the guide behind gives a heaving help and push. The exercise is violent; the sockets of your arms feel elongated; the muscles of the legs, particularly at the back, are aching; you feel that the disposal of your petticoats is getting higher than you like; but there is no time to stay, you scramble on somehow, hardly knowing how you are going to reach the next step, before you _are_ there.

The Bedouins take you up at a tremendous pace, and hardly give you time to breathe in occasional halts; but it is a good plan, in that you have no time to hesitate whether you will turn back, daunted. It is very dizzy work looking down on such layers and layers, such rows upon rows of yellow steps below--added to which, the sudden change of temperature 500 feet higher makes respiration more difficult. When you arrive at the summit, on the platform, you are too breathless and exhausted to enjoy the view much.

The fertile valley of the Nile is on one side, but on the other there is that huge, vast, arid desert, the Great Sahara. It is that which determined me to ascend the Pyramids. I wanted to gain the idea of what a desert can be when that and that alone is seen. _It is very terrible._

The Bedouins clamoured around me, including the Sakka, or water-carrier, who always accompanies the ascent, for backsheesh and the sale of coins; and as C., having been up before, had stopped halfway, I was alone at the top, and was fain to descend to be rid of them.

The descent is far worse than the ascent. The jar to the system of jumping from step to step is very trying, and it is really best to sit down on the step and slide over, however inelegant.

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The entrance to the pyramid is a little way up in the centre of one side. The steps here are sunk in sideways, so as to form a slanting platform to a small aperture. Over this there are two enormous blocks of marble laid pent-ways, to form an arch in the pyramid, and to support its weight on the roof of the passage. You slip and slide down the steep passage, feeling you are going down into the bowels of the earth, "the entrails of the Great Pyramid," and a last long slide brings you into the chamber. Here you see the material of which the Pyramids are constructed, a rock called nummulite limestone, often containing fossil remains. In one place it is rough and glistening, in another smooth and polished, as if worn away--by what means is not known. In the roof there is a recess, where the sarcophagus is supposed to have stood, but none was found when it was opened for the first time, as was supposed. In reality the tomb had been opened and sacked, probably not such an untold number of years after the death of Cheops.

Then we walked ankle-deep in sand a quarter of a mile away to the south-east of the Great Pyramid, to where the Sphinx stands. Her whereabouts is only decided by a mass of rock that looks at first sight (please excuse the familiar simile) like the Toadstool Rock at Tunbridge Wells, for it is only a mass of rock supported on a column. As we approach, however, and finally stand under the Sphinx, we begin to understand the fascination she exercises.

We see the Egyptian helmet with the long flaps, under which are the protruding ears, so very distinct. Then we notice the eyes, the forehead, the broken, flattened nose, and the thick lips. It is in the lips lies the expression of the Sphinx, the disdainful, haughty look, or anon the smile that parts them. The remainder of the face follows the mood expressed on the lips. But at all times the Sphinx is unsympathetic, cold as the stone she is carved in. With face turned towards the rising waters of the Nile, she changes not with the ruddy glow of sunset, nor the blush of morning, reflected from its waters. She is human, but relentless. The animal body of the Sphinx is _again_ buried in the sand--for once, a century ago, excavation revealed it. Between the front paws it was then found there was an altar, where sacrifices must have been offered under the very head of the Sphinx herself, and a sanctuary with some tablets was discovered under the breast.

Stanley said, "Its situation and significance are worthy of the Sphinx; if it was the giant representative of royalty, then it fitly guards the greatest of royal sepulchres, and with its half-human and half-animal form is the best welcome and the best farewell to the history and religion of Egypt."

Connected as it was supposed to be with her worship, the Temple of the Sphinx is peculiarly appropriate to her in its massidity. The enormous blocks of granite and alabaster, laid lengthways across other blocks, on which we look down, gives to it the appearance of the crypt of a cathedral.

The two remaining pyramids have no special interest, nor yet the two or three others, very small ones by comparison, lying about the greater. The latter are evidences of a very short reign, or perhaps were only intended to serve as a monument of sufficient height, to ensure their never being sunk or overwhelmed with the sand typhoon of the desert.

On Friday afternoon, the Sabbath of the Moslems, we went to see the religious service held by the sect of Howling Dervishes.

Passing through a quiet court where the musicians were taking their places, through an outer room, we came into a whitewashed mosque, whose unornamented dome, as we shall presently see, has a splendid echo. A goat-skin mat is arranged round in a circle, on which the twenty or thirty worshippers enter one by one and kneel. The sheik squats in the kibla or niche, and we sit on chairs ranged round the wall.

The priest or sheik intones some prayers, to which they all respond, the echo lingering and repeating the sonorous tones of the response, till it forms an accompaniment to the following prayer.

Then they begin repeating the same word or phrase, Allah, Allah, Allah, with a gentle inclination of the body. This action gradually increases with the rise of the voices, which, if they unconsciously flag for a minute, are vigorously taken up and maintained again. At a given sign from the sheik they cease. All stand up.

Then the same recommences with increased exercise, and an occasional howl from some more devout worshipper, while soft wild music is heard outside. Gradually you are fascinated by this circle of men, all bowing at the same moment, all intoning on one note; and now it is a groaning noise they make, and it grows and grows, till the raising of the sheik's hands stops it once more.

Then they take off their clothes, their turbans, and undo their long hair, and the real work of worship commences. The sheik touches a man on the shoulder, and singles him out to stand in the centre. The swaying recommences, but with the violence where they left off as the first stage, and the dervish in the centre leads, swaying, bending, all in time. Music strikes up, the tom-tom of large tambourines--a deafening, discordant pandemonium, to which they are moving in time, urged on by the increase and swell of the music faster, ever increasing, louder the music, deafening its sound. A circle of wild magnetic creatures tossing their locks of hair, unconscious, mechanical, holding a mesmerized look on the dervish, who with closed eyes performs with ecstasy the exercise of his salvation. Another steps into the circle, and begins, with arms outstretched, slowly to turn and twirl round and round and round--never moving from the exact spot of ground where he first took his stand--gently at first, increasing slowly, becoming fast, faster--a whirl now. All is utter confusion. Chaos has come. The scene swims before your eyes; the wild fanatical little body of surging, swaying dervishes is becoming indistinct, when a sudden raising of the finger brings it all to a close in an instant; only one last resounding thud of the tom-tom, one prolonged howl lingers on the echo. The spinning dervish sinks exhausted to the ground.

_Saturday, March 7th._--Lady Baring took me to the Vicereine's "at home" on Saturday afternoon at the Atchin Palace. We entered by a private way and back staircase, and were shown through a succession of reception-rooms to a small drawing-room or boudoir, where her Highness sat.

She is still young and has pretty features--all say she is most pleasant and good-natured; but she has grown, and is growing, enormously stout. The Vicereine was arrayed in a Parisian toilette of black, and, save for the representative feature of a bunch of red roses and diamond ornaments, looked completely European. The slaves, too, were dressed in English materials of old gold, blue, and pink silks, with gilt waistbands and bunches of roses, and not as one had looked to see them, in some graceful Oriental costume. We all sat round in a circle for the prescribed time, and cigarettes were offered and coffee brought, that nasty, bitter Arabian coffee, in tiny cups with Turkish stands.

The same afternoon we called on M. Camille Barrère at the French Agency, the most beautiful house in Cairo, just purchased by the French Government. There are some very unique ceilings and mosaic dados in it, and a great quantity of the pretty mushrebeeyah.

We dined in the evening with Nubar Pasha, the Prime Minister, and Madame Nubar; and after dinner went to a Turkish piece at the theatre. Quite half the galleries were curtained for the ladies of the harem, behind which, we could see, they were crowded; and when everybody left the house between the acts, it was from thence came the clouds of smoke that filled the theatre. Nubar Pasha is a very charming and courteous man.

_Sunday, March 8th._--The Premier very kindly lent us his dahabeeyah to go up the Nile.

One always has a very mistaken idea about the beauty of the Nile. It is an exceedingly ugly river, with shoals and sandbanks lying about in its course. Going up only a little way from Cairo, there is a fine view of the Mokattam Range, the citadel, with the mosque of Mahomet Ali, whose slender minars tower as high again above the hills. Warehouses and manufactories, followed by mud villages, render the banks utterly hideous and uninteresting. The nuggars, with their sharp-angled sails and enormously tall, slanting masts, are alone pretty and picturesque. We returned to Cairo as the sun was setting.

_Wednesday, March 11th._--Got up early, packed, drove to the station, took our seats in the train for Suez, to embark on board the P. and O. _Tasmania_ for Malta, Gibraltar, and Spain. Three minutes before the train started, bag and baggage we bundled out again. I saw in the paper there were fresh earthquakes in Spain, and particularly at Malaga, where we must have landed from Gibraltar.

We spent the day in Cairo, and left again in the evening by the mail to Alexandria, to go _viâ_ Brindisi to Cannes.

We drove through the streets of Alexandria by gaslight, seeing the remains of the bombardment on all sides. What a national reproach are the ruins and the houses partially riddled with cannon-shot, the neat piles of broken brick and stone by the road. They are only just beginning to rebuild Alexandria after the lapse of two years.

We got on board the P. and O. mail steamer _Assam_ at eleven o'clock, and weighed anchor early next morning.

_Thursday._--Sea flat, calm.

_Friday._--The shores of Crete and Candia in view, the bold outline of her mountains covered with snow.

_Saturday._--Within sight of beautiful Zanté, an island of the Ionian Group.

A very rough night on board, half a gale blowing, and the next morning we are at Brindisi. Dear little Brindisi (though few will agree in this term of endearment), desolate and dreary as she is, greeting us with a snowstorm as she did, looked homelike and sweet to us, if only because she was so near home--a distance of no account after what we have done. The trees about the harbour were budding and breaking into blossom, notwithstanding the grey north-easter blowing.

All day we were travelling along the leg of Italy, by the storm swept ocean breaking in angry breakers along the shores, across the fertile plains of Tuscany--Bologna reached at one in the morning. Left the next day, to arrive at Genoa the same evening. Then a day spent in crawling along the beautiful Riviera, its orange-groves, olive-yards, and flowers smiling us a sunshiny greeting. Cannes reached at length that evening. Hearty welcomes. Home-like feelings. Renewing acquaintance with our little daughter Vera.

A fortnight's pleasant rest after our long journey, a gathering up of the thread of events, domestic and otherwise, since we left England in July last, and London reached on the 1st of April. Home at last.

We had been absent not quite nine months, had travelled rather more than 40,000 miles, visited America and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Netherlands India, the Malay Peninsula, India, and Egypt, gained useful information without end, and laid up stores of knowledge that will never cease to be precious till our lives' end; had many and many a pleasant recollection left of little adventures, anecdotes, and incidents such as happen in common to all travellers, and made not a few interesting acquaintances.

Let me finally take this opportunity of expressing to all the many kind friends, particularly those in the colonies, our gratitude for the hearty welcome and cheery hospitality extended to us by all.

Should any one wish for nine months, or, better still, a year of perfect enjoyment, of rest and relief from the weary round of duty and so-called pleasure, which is the life and lot of so many of us--I say, Go a tour, _not_ round the world, not mere globe-trotting, but a complete tour of study through the glorious British empire, such as we have tried to do, and failed only in that the Cape was, for circumstances already mentioned, impossible for us.

In Greater Britain, all who are countrymen or women, all coming from the mother country, are sure of the same kindness and warm reception we experienced; all are sure of great enjoyment, all are sure of a wealth of bright, pleasant memories for the future. Such has been our experience. To all I would say, "Go and do thou likewise."

Written under circumstances of some difficulty, chiefly on board ship, in cabins close and dark, tossed and swung about, this journal has been put together. Poor little journal as it is, the first production of an unskilful pen, I am but too fully conscious of its defects.

It is up to date now, the last entry has been made, and, with a sigh, it has been confided to the hands of the printer and publisher. May they and the public be merciful to it!

THE END.

GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE, LONDON.

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