Chapter III (2)

At Mahatter we left our donkeys and took a boat to Phylae, a
quarter of a mile, which takes half an hour owing to the
rapidity of the current just above the cataract. The scenery
about Phylae has been spoken of as Paradise; I never saw anything
less like my notion of Paradise, and so far, therefore, I am
disappointed. Original and strange it is, in a high degree. It
is in fact exactly like the valley of which I spoke a little
further back, only that the hills are four times as high, and
water takes the place of the sand; the same breaking up of the
rocks into a myriad of fragments, putting all grandeur and
massiveness of form out of the question--and, with the exception
of a few palm trees and a sycamore or two, the same barrenness.
Looking up in the direction of Wady Halfa, the mountains appear
to grow finer in outline, and a tract of very yellow sand
amongst their highest crests is striking and original--gold dust
in a cup of lapis lazuli. With the island itself and its
beautiful group of temples it is impossible not to be delighted.
Nothing could be more fantastic or more stately than the manner
in which it rises out of the bosom of the river like a vast
ship, surrounded as it is on all sides by a high wall sheer from
the water to the level on which the temples stand. One hall in
the main temple, and one only, shows still a sufficient amount
of colour to give a very good idea of what the effect must have
been originally; the green and blue capitals must have been very
lovely. It is needless to say that here, as elsewhere,
travellers have left by hundreds lasting memorials of their
brutality, in the shape of names and dates drawn, painted,
scratched, and cut on every wall and column, so that the eye
finds no rest from them. This strange and ineffably vulgar mania
is as old as the world, and the tombs of the kings at Thebes are
scrawled over with inscriptions left there by ancient Greek and
Roman visitors. I shall return to Phylae shortly to make a sketch
or two--_Insha Allah._

Here, at last, I have found that absolutely clear crystalline
atmosphere of which I had so often heard; I own it is not
pleasing to me; a sky of burnished steel over a land of burning
granite would no doubt be grand if the outlines of the granite
were fine--but they are not. Meanwhile, perspective is
abolished--everything is equally and obtrusively near, and I
sadly miss the soft mysterious veils and pleasant doubts of
distance that enchant one in other lands. I think it very likely
that in winter one has great compensation from the exhilarating
purity of the air; but just now the heat, which is simply
infernal, is too trying for me to do justice to these
advantages; no doubt the air is light and dry, but I feel
unfortunately so very heavy and wet, that I am not in a position
fully to appreciate it. Returning to Assouan in the evening, saw
a dahabieh that had just got through the jaws of the cataracts,
always rather a nervous matter; at least so they say; "to be
very dyinger" (dangerous?), according to Hosseyn; the men were
chanting a monotonous strain that had little of triumph in it,
but rather conveyed a feeling of an always impending calamity
escaped _this_ time; it was melancholy and very striking, I
thought, in the silence of the gloaming; very likely pure fancy
on my part, for I doubt whether more than a couple of boats are
lost in a season, and the sailors of the Nile must be well
accustomed to the dangers of these rapids; but the impression on
me at the time was very strong.

_Monday, 26th._--The dragoman of the ship having a swelling of
some sort on his arm, an Arab doctor was sent for, and forthwith
informed him that his arm was possessed of the devil!! Went to
see the island of Elephantina opposite Assouan, but saw nothing
to suggest its ancient magnificence. Gave a silver farthing to a
funny little child, which (the farthing) being perforated, his
mother immediately tied into one of his little oily locks--an
ingenious substitute for a pocket. I observed several little
boys simply attired in a piece of string tied round their
loins--there, Diogenes!

_Tuesday, 27th._--Began sketching, but am out of form from the
heat. I am working chiefly because I am weary of idleness. I
don't much care for the two sketches I have begun; they will
therefore probably turn out badly. Going to try another
presently.

Tuesday Evening._--Have begun a sketch which interests me more
than the others; it is taken amongst the tombs and shrines on
the hills south of the town towards Phylae. As my evening's work
was drawing to a close, I heard a shuffling of feet a little
behind me, and, turning round, saw, in the full fire of sunset,
what appeared to me at first to be a procession of golden apes
with dark blue robes, light blue lips, and nose-rings; on closer
inspection they turned out to be Nubian women going home to
their village. Hosseyn, _qui a le mot pour rire_, apparently,
engaged in conversation with them, and convulsed them with
laughter; the flashes of teeth were very funny to see. At last
he gave them a few halfpence, and desired them to sing; whereon
they set up a series of the most uncouth howls I ever heard; one
baboon in particular got up and, using a flat date basket as a
tambourine, accompanied her vocal performance with hops and
jumps that would have done honour to any inmate of the
monkey-house in the Zoological Gardens.

The twilight, walking home, was lovely. The earth was in colour
like a lion's skin; the sky of a tremulous violet, fading in the
zenith to a mysterious sapphire tint. "Dolce color d'oriental
zaffiro."

Slew another sheep--"Allah hou akbar!" (without which formula in
the killing a good Muslim must not touch the meat): this sheep
is no empty formality, for the unfortunate sailors would never
see meat without it; they live on bread and occasional beans.
This is the fourth night of the moolid, which is to last the
whole week! At this very moment the tambourines of the dervishes
are driving me nearly wild with their diabolic din.

_Wednesday, 28th._--Got on indifferently with my sketches; only
one of them interests me much. The morning was almost cool and
really delightful, but the heat was as great as ever in the
daytime. I have always been unable to see the extraordinary
difference which is said to exist between the length of the
twilight in the north, and in southern countries; I could have
read large print to-night three-quarters of an hour after
sunset. Habit is everything, no doubt, as we are reminded by
Herodotus, _a propos_ of a certain people who ate their dead
relatives instead of burning them; but I wonder whether I should
ever get accustomed to the aching, straining, creaking complaint
of the water-wheel far and near, morning, noon and night,
morning, noon and night; I can _just_ fancy its becoming
attaching as the clacking of a mill.

I have often wondered why, contrary to all analogy, the
Spaniards call oil _azedo_, which at first sight appears to be
the same word as the Italian _aceto_. I find that the word is
Arabic: _zeyd_. Mem.: Look up the etymology of the English word
_cough_, to which no European word that I remember has any
affinity, and which rather appears to be onomatopoeic. The Arabs
say _kokh_ (guttural ending); is this a mere coincidence, and
does the word date beyond the Crusades? I find a good many words
that have a curious likeness to English. My endeavours to pick
up a little Arabic are almost entirely frustrated by Hosseyn's
utter inability to pull a sentence to pieces for me. In an
Arabic sentence of two words (_e.g._ _azekan tareed_--if you
please) he could not tell me which word was the verb! literally;
I had to find out as best I could. I never saw anything to
approach his obtuseness in the matter, except perhaps that of
Georgi, my dragoman in Turkey. As I was sketching this evening a
Nubian passed me, very grandly draped and erect, and followed by
two green monkeys that were fastened by leading-strings to his
belt. They toddled very snugly after their stately master and
made a queer group.

_Sunday, November 1._--I am in a state of appreciative enjoyment
of the comforts and civilised cleanliness of my steamer, having
just returned from three or four days' roughing in the ruins of
Phylae. "Roughing" is a relative term, and my trials were of a
very mild description, for though I slept _a la belle etoile_
(or rather tried to sleep), at all events I had a bed to rest
in, and the air at night was delightful; moreover, the
commissariat was very satisfactorily managed, so that food and
drink were abundant; nevertheless, I must maintain that living
in an open ruin is not comfortable. I made two or three
sketches, and should probably have enjoyed myself, but that on
the second day I was entirely thrown off the rails by the heat
whilst sketching; I thought I should get a _coup de soleil_; I
was very indisposed in the evening, and utterly unable to work
the next morning, so that I took the place _en grippe_, and
could see nothing but the ugliness of the rocks and the wearing
monotony of the hieroglyphs. Picked up in the evening, and
liked the place better; made some original and striking
reflections about the desirability of health.

Having heard much of the beauty of the full moon at Phylae, timed
my visit to see it, and was entirely delighted. The light was so
brilliant that one could read with ease, but at the same time so
soft, so rich, and so mellow that one seemed not to see the
night, but to be dreaming of the day. The Arabs say of a fine
night, "it is a night like milk," but there is more of amber
than of milk in the nights of Phylae. The rising of the moon last
night was the first thing of the sort I ever saw; the disc was
perfectly golden, not as in a mist, but set sharp and clear in
the sky, and exactly like the sun, except that you could look at
it without pain to the eyes. The effect of this effulgent light
on the shoulder of the hill was magical. The last hour of the
afternoon I spent in strolling about the villages, which are
picturesque. The cottages are four brown, roofless walls, built
of the usual unburnt brick, and coated with mud; but the
doorways are always highly decorated with painted geometrical
devices which, in the mass of plain, sober brown, have a very
cheerful and artistic effect. The people, too, amuse me; a
pleasant, gentle, grinning folk these Nubians seem; I like their
jargon--after the guttural Arabic it sounds so soft and round,
and the women have funny, cooing inflections of voice (pretty
voices, often) that are pleasing. Some of the girls are
good-looking; chiefly through the brightness of their eyes and
the milky whiteness of their teeth. The coiffure of the children
is too funny; it consists in tufts of hair of various shapes and
patterns left on an otherwise shaven head; often a crest all
down the middle and a tuft on each side, exactly like the
clown's wig in a pantomime; it is irresistibly droll.

A grand sight is to see the villagers keeping the birds from
their crops; they all serve in their turn, men, women, and
children; they stand each on a rude sort of scaffold which rises
about two feet clear of the corn; they are armed with slings
from which they hurl lumps of clay at the birds, uttering loud
cries at the same time. Their movements are full of grandeur and
character. I wonder Gerome has never treated a subject so well
suited to him. Why, too, has he never painted mine enemy the
sakkea, which is even more emphatically in his way, for, besides
the scope for fine and quaint forms both in the men and the
animals that work it, the accessories are abundant and
interesting, and there are ropes in great abundance.

_Is_ the sakkea my friend or my enemy? Its chant is so incessant
that I should have to make up my mind if I stayed longer in the
country; it would either fascinate me or drive me mad. As I
listen in the silence of the evening, the rise and fall, the
shifting and swaying of the wind bring its complaint from across
the gurgling river in such a fitful way that it has the
strangest and most unexpected effects: sometimes I fancy I hear
deep, drowsy tones of a distant organ, sometimes the shrill
quavering of a bagpipe; sometimes it is like a snatch of a song,
sometimes like a whole chorus of voices singing a solemn strain
in the sad, empty night; sometimes, alas! too often, like a
snarling, creaking door-post.

Phylae being above the cataracts, my steamer stopped at Assouan,
and I went there by donkey as before; returning, I chartered a
dahabieh to see the said cataracts, of which for some days I had
heard so much; amongst other things, that a ship was wrecked
there three weeks ago (I saw it stuck on its rock to-day). The
cowardice of the people here, at least in this particular
matter, is very funny; too naif to inspire disgust: my captain,
an old sailor, and the nicest old gentleman possible, told
Hosseyn that nothing would induce him to go down them; I thought
I observed a shade of respectful interest in his reception of me
on my return from an exploit which most English _women_ would
consider good fun. I make no doubt that when the water is much
lower, and your dahabieh shoots a good six or eight feet drop,
and goes half into the water besides, considerable excitement
may be got out of it; but now that the drop is not or does not
look more than about a yard, and that the whole affair consists
in a few plunges and shipping a little water, the emotion is
very mild, and I own to considerable disappointment, though as
far as it went it was pleasant. Nevertheless I did not for a
moment regret coming if only on account of the amusement I got
out of the sailors and pilots; the latter were men of years; the
former, fine, jolly-looking lads as one could wish to see; but
their demeanour throughout was infinitely droll; they rested
their feet (according to custom here) on inclined planks, up
which they ran three steps with their arms well forward to fetch
the stroke, getting back into the sitting position as they
pulled through the water (and wonderfully fine the action looks
in a large crew all pulling well together); but the contortions
in which they indulged, the gnashing and grinding of teeth, the
throwing back of agonised heads, the frowns, the setting of
jaws, the straining of veins, the rolling of eyes, the groans,
and, absurdest of all, the coming down on one another's laps and
the cutting of crabs, were ineffably grotesque, and would have
convulsed me with laughter if I had not controlled myself
manfully. Meanwhile the pilots were howling at one another and
them with all the vehemence of a violent altercation, and for no
discernible reason. When they were not shrieking at one another,
the crew took up the usual Arab boatmen's chant (I know no
better word); one man gives out a short sentence, or name, or
form of prayer (not exceeding four syllables) in a quavering
treble, and the rest then repeat it in chorus in a graver
key--the effect is very original. As we got within sight of the
big cataract and the stranded ship, Hosseyn loudly exhorted the
crew to pray to the Prophet, and all the saints who have their
shrines on the heights of Assouan, to see them safely through
the danger; the invitation was loudly responded to, and
everybody who had not an oar to pull held up his hands and
prayed with great fervour--which was very pretty, and done with
the dignified simplicity which always accompanies an Arab's
devotions; but it was certainly disproportionate to the
emergency. When we had danced up and down (or rather down and
up) three or four times, I had the curiosity to look about for
the _sailor_ and waiter I had brought with me from the steamer;
they were respectively green and yellow in their unfeigned
terror. Then there was a nominal _small_ cataract (the first one
is called the _great_ cataract), and indeed I believe there was
a _third_ little commotion; then Hosseyn, throwing up his arms,
exclaimed, "El Hamdul illah!! finish!!" and it was, as he said,
"finish." I am utterly ignorant of the mysteries of navigation,
but one figure we executed between the cataracts and Assouan
struck me as novel: it consisted in turning entirely round in a
wide circle to take (as it were) a fresh start; this manoeuvre
we performed with much gravity and success two successive times.
An elaborate salute from the guns of the dragoman and engineer,
responded to with appropriate solemnity by Hosseyn, announced my
return to my steamer--and, oh joy! my tub.

In the evening governor of course.

_Monday, 2nd._--Resumed work; painted for a couple of
hours--badly--in a high wind at an ugly study of a view I don't
like. I consider it a sort of discipline. The wind to-day is
tremendously high; the dahabiehs will come flying up now. I saw
my friend the captain just now sitting on the bank in the midst
of an interested circle having his fortune told. There is a
blessing for them that wait. Hosseyn has caught a fish! two
fishes, to-day! his glee is unlimited, he is radiant; when that
boy is at the near end of his fishing rope, he is so absorbed I
can't get him to attend to me or to answer a question. His
brilliant piscatorial success is an opportune set-off against a
chagrin the poor boy had this morning; he was taking a dip
somewhere under the paddle-box, and lost, in putting away his
clothes (_he_ thinks by a black but improbable theft), a Koran
with which he travels and to which he attributes much luck; he
was greatly cut up, and after telling me how much he valued the
book, proceeded to inform me that it contained a little piece of
wood from Abyssinia with something written on it, "some, what
you call, scription," which, when worn round the neck,
infallibly cured the bite of the scorpion; seeing that this
announcement did not impress me as much as he had expected, he
asked me with some warmth how I supposed, pray, that the
snake-charmers prevented the snakes from biting them if it was
not by saying something out of the Bible.

Another sheep to-day; there was some hitch about the manner of
the killing which caused a little excitement; his throat was not
turned to the sun (or the East?) whilst he was being
slaughtered; an important matter. I observe that Turkish
officials are not expected to be able to write; my captain can,
but I remarked that when his secretary, a poor, wizened little
thing, whose nose and trousers are far too short, but whose
mouth and ears offer ample compensation through their length,
brought him to-day the ship's accounts, he stamped his signature
at the foot of the page instead of writing it, although he
happened to have a pen in his hand; I was giving him his English
lesson. Talking of accounts, the Arabs have a curious way of
singing or rather intoning their sums, rocking all the while
backwards and forwards like so many Dervishes. I have seen a
large house of business (at Sohag) where _all_ the clerks were
doing it at once; it was like a madhouse. Oh, Lombard Street,
and oh, Mark Lane! what would you have felt at the sight?

_Tuesday, 3rd._--My last day at Assouan. Finished my sketches,
took leave of the governor, and had a final stroll about the
streets of the town, which seemed to me unusually picturesque. I
remark that I invariably like a place best the day I leave it;
if I am sorry to go, my regret casts a halo over it; if I am
glad, my gladness makes everything brighter. How picturesque the
people are! their flowing, flying draperies are wonderfully
grand. I hope I may carry away with me some general impressions,
but the immense multitude and rapid succession of striking
things drive individual memories fatally out of the field.
Sketching figures is out of the question--the effects are all
too fugitive. This was also the last day of the moolid, and high
time too; I met in the morning, in a narrow street, a procession
of sailors carrying a boat, which they were about to deposit in
the tomb of the sheykh in whose honour the moolid is held, and
whose name they were loudly invoking. In front, drums and flags,
and cawasses firing guns; behind, in front, everywhere, a host
of most paintable ragamuffins enjoying the fun; above, over the
brown house-tops, dark blue figures of women huddled peering at
the procession; over them a blue sky with a minaret standing
against it, a palm tree; some doves--there was the picture, it
was charming. The children as usual called out, "Baksheesh
howaga;" the so-called begging of the people has been
ludicrously exaggerated; in the first place, only the children
ask for baksheesh (I mean, of course, without the pretext of a
service rendered), and in the next, they treat the whole thing
as an excellent joke, and evidently have seldom the slightest
expectation that they are to get anything. When you approach a
village, every child, from as far as it sees you, whether from a
window, or a doorway, or half-way up a palm tree, or the middle
of the road, holloas out lustily, "Baksheesh, baksheesh,"
generally with much laughter, and frequently with a universal
scamper in every direction except towards you. What I call
begging is that importunate whining that clings to you, and
harasses you wherever you turn in the south of Italy or Spain,
and with which this clamorous performance has nothing in common.
I have remarked, with regard to grown-up Arabs, that though they
wrangle vehemently with the dragoman on the subject of payment,
they invariably show the master a pleasant and satisfied face. I
speak, of course, only of my own experience. As strange a thing
as a satisfied man is a _barking_ fish; the fish that Hosseyn
has caught of late--for Fortune is his handmaid now--all utter a
sound which I can only describe as a faint bark; perhaps
everybody knows that some fishes do this, but I did not, and my
surprise was extreme. They are nasty-looking objects, all fins
and teeth (a thick row of little bristle-like teeth). They are
fat and shiny and most insipid eating.

_Wednesday, 4th._--Started at six down stream; my face is turned
towards bonny old England again, and I feel as if I had wings.
At Kom Ombo (the first halt to-day) there are some ruins on a
rock which crops up abruptly by the riverside in the midst of a
flat country. The morning was divine, and the view from the
temple, looking north, surpassingly lovely in colour. The form
was nothing much; a vast sandy plain (tigered here and there
with stripes of green), and in the distance a long low nest of
mountain peaks; but the colour!--the gradation from the
fawn-coloured glimmering sands in the foreground to the faint
horizon with its hem of amethyst and sapphire was as enchanting
a thing, in the sweet morning light, as I have ever seen. The
temple is fine though heavy, and less delicate in detail than
Phylae. On the under surface of the architrave, between the
columns, are some most curious and interesting unfinished
decorations, on squares marked out in red, and showing (slight
sketch) such as for instance a figure tried two ways on the same
spot. The outlines are drawn out, in red also, with
extraordinary firmness and freedom. Speaking of the squares,
Gardiner Wilkinson--in his, I am told, most erudite, and, I am
certain, most dry and heavy, guide-book--says that they were
used (in the manner in which "squaring off" is practised in the
present day) for the purpose of transferring a design. In this,
however, he is obviously mistaken, because the squares are
adapted not to the pictures but to the space to be decorated;
the hieroglyphs and the figures being adapted to the squares,
not the squares to them: that these squares, once made the
_basis_ of the decoration and fixing its proportions and
distribution, may then have been used also for enlarging a small
design, or even, instead of tracing, for transferring one of the
same size, is probable enough; but that was not their original
function. In corroboration of this view, compare the frets and
ornaments painted on the _back_ of the architrave of the
Parthenon, which I have examined closely; they are painted in
squares marked out with a sharp instrument, and determining the
space to be decorated exactly as at Kom Ombo. The case is so
entirely parallel as to suggest the idea that the Greeks learnt
the practice in Egypt. The great temple of Edfou, where we
stopped next, far surpasses anything I have yet seen in Egypt;
not so much, perhaps, for any especial beauty of
detail--although the sculptures are extremely fine--as for its
general aspect, which is superb, and its wonderful state of
preservation; many parts of it look as if they had been finished
yesterday. The gigantic Propylaea, and the no less gigantic wall
which encloses the whole of this fortress-temple, are almost
entirely intact, and make it unlike any other ruin I know. The
great court, a giant cloister into which one first enters,
discloses the temple itself, blocked out in vast masses of light
and gulfs of shade, and tunnelled through by a corridor which
reaches to its extremest end; the absence of some portions of
the roof, by letting the light play fantastically into the inner
spaces, only adds to the mysterious grandeur of the effect. A
broad, open peribolus runs round the temple, dividing it from
the towering _mur d'enceinte_ which encloses the whole building.
The western part of the temple is as full of staircases, secret
passages, and dark chambers as any Gothic castle. Every square
inch of the whole immense fabric is covered with sculptures and
hieroglyphs.

I forgot to say that I stopped between Kom Ombo and Edfou at the
ancient quarries of Gebel Silsily, from which the material of
the sandstone temples was mostly quarried. They are extremely
striking, and have a grandeur of their own. It was curious to
compare them mentally with the marble quarries of Pentelicus
from which Ictinus carved the Parthenon and Pheidias the Fates.

In a tomb at El Kab are some most amusing and interesting
sculptures (with the colour almost intact on them) representing
the various occupations of Egyptian life, agricultural, &c. The
reaping of the corn and durrah is pretty--a vintage and
wine-treading pleased me vastly. Had they wine in this district?

Coming upon a magnificent view, stopped the steamer for the
night; want to see it by sunrise. The absurd spurious importance
my steamer confers on me in the eyes of the natives is too
funny. At Edfou I found the whole place _en emoi_; horses
handsomely caparisoned, a most polite governor, sheykhs, and a
general profusion of salaams. It appears that the viceroy had
the authorities in the different places telegraphed to be civil
to me; and God knows they are. I was struck with the
magnificence of the population here, the men at least; they are
most stately fellows. I should like immensely to paint some of
them, but for that there is no time; I can only hope that
something will stick to me from this dazzling multitude of fine
things. We are now again in the region of doves, whose presence
in large numbers affects the architecture of the villages in a
most curious manner. Every house has, or rather, _is_, a
dovecot, the chief _corps de batiment_ being a tower, or several
towers, of which the whole upper part is exclusively affected to
the doves. Their sides are inclined like the sides of the
propylaea of the temples, with which they harmonise amazingly
well; they are divided horizontally by bands of colour which
have an excellent effect, recalling strongly the marked parallel
strata of the mountains. (There is no more curious study than
the concord which constantly manifests itself between national
(and notably domestic) architecture, and the nature in the midst
of which it grows up.) The construction of these towers is both
peculiar and ingenious; they are built up entirely with earthen
jars, sometimes placed topsy-turvy, but most often on their
sides, and tier above tier like bottles in a cellar. The
exterior is then filled in with mud, and the interior presents
the appearance of a honeycomb, the cells being formed by the
hollow jars; in these jars the doves have their abode. It is
easy to see that by turning a few of the jars _outwards_ a very
simple but pretty decoration may be obtained; a crest is added
at the top by placing jars upside down at certain intervals; the
bands of colour are generally divided by a string-course of
bricks something after this fashion, but with much variety; and
each of these string-courses is garnished with a perfect hedge
of branches and twigs projecting horizontally a yard or more,
and forming resting places for thousands of doves. Many houses
have two towers, and the wealthier people have towers of great
size subdivided again into small turrets; but in all cases the
height of these edifices is the same, or nearly so, so that the
villages received from them a very monumental look. The large
towers are divided after the manner shown in the sketch. The
natives also make to themselves curious pillar cupboards of mud
(about man high), which from a distance have the oddest
appearance; they look like raised pies on pedestals.

_Thursday, 5th._--Made a little sketch from the paddle-box
before starting. Then to Esne to return the visit of my amiable
friend, the governor; him of the flowers. There is a temple
here; a heavy-looking portico of the Roman period, coarsely
executed, but with a grand, cavernous look, buried as it is in
the ground which rises all round it to half the height of the
columns, so that you have to descend a considerable flight of
steps to get at it. At Arnout, or at least within three miles of
it, are a few fragments of the Caesarium. The portraits of
Cleopatra and Caesarion (he is always seated on her lap), which
occur here several times, would be of the greatest interest if
they were not utterly conventional, and exactly like everybody
else in every temple of the date. Got to Lougsor at sunset, and
found no letters, no Sterlings, no Lady Duff Gordon. I trust the
letters may still turn up before I go, for, if not, I shall
probably lose them entirely, through my desire to get them a
little earlier. In the evening dined with Mustafa Aga, and met
there the American Consul-General, Mr. Hale, who had run up from
Alexandria to show the Nile to a friend of his; both are
agreeable men (Mr. Hale earned my warmest blessings by lending
me a pile of English newspapers); there was also the Consul from
Syoot with a friend of his. After dinner the dancing girls were
asked in, and, presently, a buffoon who stripped to his waist
and performed various antics; he was clever and a good mimic,
but became terribly tedious after a short time. His performance
was of the most Aristophanic coarseness. With the girls, of
whom I had heard so much, I was decidedly disappointed; in the
first place they were mostly ugly, one or two only were
tolerably good-looking--_et encore!_ Then they were clumsily
built, and their dress was quite ludicrous: it consisted in a
body fitting tight to the figure and four inches too long in the
waist, tight sleeves, a petticoat, in shape exactly like a
pen-wiper, and very full, loose trowsers (bags) down to the
feet; the whole of printed calico. In front of their waists hung
a sort of _breloque_, or chain, looped up at intervals in
festoons, the object of which was to jingle as they moved, and
to add to the effect of certain little brass _castagnette_
cymbals which they held on the middle finger and thumb of either
hand. A profusion of ornaments hung round their necks. Their
dancing is very inferior to that of the Andalusian dancers of
the same class, whose performance is full of a quaint grace and
even dignity--inferior, too, to the Algerine dancing, to which
that of the south of Spain more nearly approaches in character;
it is monotonous in the extreme--very ugly for the most part,
and remarkable only as a gymnastic feat; sleight of loins, so to
speak. These are, however, no doubt, unfavourable specimens; I
shall see the best of the kind in Keneh at the house of the
Consul, who has come all the way here from that place to invite
me thereto.

_Friday, 6th._--Went to the palace and temples of Medinet Haboo,
with which I was delighted beyond my expectation. What pleased
me most, and was an entire surprise to me, was a bit of purely
secular architecture--the remains of a royal residence, with its
towers flanking the great entrance, its windows of various
shapes, balconies, semicircular crenelations, outer wall; in
fact, identically such a building as one sees occasionally in
Egyptian sculptures, and, curiously enough, as if it were a
portrait of it, on the walls of the very temple to which this
palace leads. The temple, too (the large one), interested me
extremely from the wonderful preservation of the coloured
decoration in parts of it; one really gathers an excellent idea
of the original effect, and a most brilliant and magnificent
(though barbarous) effect it must have been. The columns in the
great hall here are of what, for want of a better word, I shall
call the "ninepin" pattern; and I think on the whole I prefer it
to the bell-capped pattern; because, besides its character and
massive strength, there is no suggestion in it (as in the other)
of the Doric order, with which comparison is obviously
dangerous. As far as I can observe, there is no trace of colour
on any of the propylaea, but the pylon is always richly decorated
and highly coloured. This decorative importance given to the
door must have had a very striking effect, and reminds me of the
same peculiarity in the dwellings of Upper Egypt.

Visited a private tomb near Medinet Haboo, which is full of the
most curious paintings, many of them in excellent preservation,
and representing every sort of domestic and professional
occupation. They are very superior in execution and character to
those of El Kab. In the evening had a dinner on board: Mr. Hale
and friend, Mustafa Aga and the Syoot Consuls (one of whom does
not speak a word of anything but Arabic). I had also invited
Mustafa's younger son, but find that he may not sit down with
his father. (He accompanied me this morning, and insisted on
lunching with the servants; on the other hand, my servant is
addressed as Hosseyn _Effendi_, if you please! and conversed
with as a gentleman. Service appears to be looked upon in an
entirely patriarchal light.) The entertainment went off
successfully, and Ottilio, the Italian waiter, covered himself
with glory by his excellent waiting. After dinner Mr. Hale
received a telegram to the effect that General Grant had been
elected President of the United States, with Mr. Colfax as Vice.
He was in great excitement and delight; we had a recrudescence
of champagne, and gave the new President three cheers in British
fashion. The news had come in _three days_ from Washington to
Thebes! it is marvellous.

_Saturday, 7th._--Went to Karnak. Wilkinson advises the
traveller to see this group of temples last; and wisely, for it
is indeed the crowning glory of all, and must satisfy, if it
does not surpass, the most sanguine expectations. The vast
unfinished propylaea of the large temple prepare one by their
colossal dimensions for the gigantic grandeur of the great
central hall, in which one is at a loss what most to admire--the
originality of the general design, combining, as it does in a
surprising degree, freedom and variety with the gravest
simplicity--the massive and reposeful breadth of the forms or
the exquisite subtlety of the colour. The latter has of course
gained very much from the blending hand of time, and is now of a
most delightful mellowness, but, judging from the better
preserved portions, it must have been at all times of singular
beauty. It seems strange at first that a decoration consisting
entirely of small blots of vivid colour on a white ground, like
butterflies on a wall, can have a _large_ architectural effect;
but, in fact, the _repetition_ over large surfaces of wall and
column restores, through its monotony, the balance of breadth.
The design of this hall is very curious: the great central nave,
flanked on each side by two aisles of the same height as itself,
but of less breadth (diminishing, roughly, in a proportion of
10, 7, 5), runs, as in a Gothic cathedral, perpendicular to the
main entrance; beyond the second aisle, however, on either side,
the lintels or architraves which connect the columns run at
_right angles_ to the nave; the effect of this arrangement must
have been peculiar and striking. (Too little remains now, except
the columns, to enable one to form a distinct idea.) The central
nave, with the aisles immediately adjoining, rises in a
clerestory thirty or forty feet above the rest of the building,
and was lighted by massive square windows filled with slabs of
stone (sketch), perforated vertically, and of a severe and very
fine (sketch) effect. These windows fill the space between the
entablature of the lateral columns and of the roof of the
clerestory, and must be some twenty to twenty-five feet high. I
find it difficult to reconcile my eye to the far-fetched
"asymetria" in the arrangement of the columns, the lesser ones
standing in no definite relationship, on the plan, to the two
central rows, neither immediately behind them nor half-way
between them. How differently the Greeks managed these things!
The inner row of columns at the east and west ends of the
Parthenon differs also in size, height, and level from the outer
row, and also stands back; but it is only _one row_ at each end;
so that variety and play of form are obtained without a repeated
jar on the eye; and an otherwise uniform rectangular plan is not
gratuitously distorted. In a very ancient temple beyond and
behind that of the great hall are some curious polygonal columns
that have a very Doric look about them, though they are very
rude and undeveloped.

The walls of Karnak are of course defaced and disfigured by the
usual amount of inscriptions; one commemorative tablet,
however, like a similar one at Phylae, inspires a different
feeling. Both are memorials of the French Campaign in Egypt; the
one at Phylae, dated "an VIII. de la Republique Francaise,"
alludes with simple dignity to the victorious march of the
French army to the first cataract, giving the names of the
generals who were fighting "sous les ordres de Bonaparte"; the
other, under the same date, is a simple scientific memorandum
giving the latitude and longitude of the chief towns on the
Nile. It is impossible to read the first of these inscriptions
without emotion: how remote from us, already, seems that stern,
invincible French Republic, tracing its proud name with an
undoubting finger here in the grave-dust of an empire that stood
more centuries than this young giant completed years! How
thickly, already, does the dust lie now on the grave of this
thing of yesterday!

In writing about Phylae, I forgot to notice the henna tree, which
grows in great quantities round the skirts of the temple, and
has a delicious scent. In this wilderness of granite and most
unsavoury haunt of bats, its perfume wafted unexpectedly on the
air is infinitely delightful.

_Sunday, 8th._--Sketched.

_Monday, 9th._--Ditto. In the evening went out to shoot, but
could not get near the pelicans and crows--they see you half a
mile off. Returning, against stream, Hosseyn, anxious to be
useful, took a _punting pole_ and _rowed_ away with an air of
conviction which was worthy of the fly on the coach-wheel in the
fable.

The heat, though still considerable (greater than with us at
midsummer), has diminished within the last few days, and does
not inconvenience me as much as it did in sketching. Towards
evening, soft autumnal veils of mist rise from the smooth, swift
river, and shroud everything in their mysterious folds; to-night
the effect was especially striking; a pale golden sun hung in a
pale golden mist, tempered so that one could look at it
undazzled, and so shorn of its fires that the eastern bank,
instead of burning orange, showed only a faint violet flush over
its dark-brown ridges. On a dahabieh alongside me an Arab is
singing endless strophes of some poem of love and war,
accompanied by the thud and jingle of a tambourine; the melody,
a wandering, nasal strain, full of turns and runs and triplets,
appears to be entirely improvised, and is full of character and
melancholy. At the end of each strophe I hear a prolonged, deep
groan of approval uttered in a chorus by the audience, rising in
pitch after a particularly happy effort of the rhapsodist, whose
song begins again and again in mournful gusts like the song of
the wind. It is dark; I only hear--don't see--the singer and his
listeners.

_Tuesday, 10th._--Sketched. A frequent companion in my work is
my friend, little Fatma, a sweet, small child of about five,
with a bright face and two rows of the whitest teeth ever seen.
She squats down snugly by my side, sometimes looking at the
picture, sometimes at the painter, most often at the paint-box,
at which she twiddles silently; sometimes she pensively draws a
pattern with a little brown finger on my dusty boots. I remember
at Rhodes, last year, a knot of little girls used to watch me
sketching in the Street of the Knights; but the little Turks
were not so nice as Fatma, the little Arab; some used to giggle,
and some used to frown at the Djiaour; but one very chatty young
lady of about six with the manners and graces of sixteen would
exclaim in a little fluty voice, "Mash Allah! Mash Allah!
beautiful indeed! nobody here can write like you!" (Turk., if my
memory helps me: _Guzel! guzel! Bir khimse burda senci zhibi
yazamas!_) I had a visit on board the other day from Mustafa
Aga's youngest son, bonny and rosy as an apple. He wore a
flowing robe of linen, _a ramages_, buttoned summarily and once
for all at the neck, but entirely open from the neck downwards;
over this an enormous embroidered jacket with anticipatory
sleeves turned up at the wrists, and on, or rather about, his
feet, a pair of his papa's shoes; he was irresistibly funny and
pretty; an _amorino_, dressed up as the Dog Toby. He was very
chatty; not so his playfellow, "Genani," the son of Abdallah,
the servant of Mustafa, a putto by Raphael modelled in
chocolate; a wild, black-eyed, trembling, romping, dusty,
stark-naked little imp (I used to call him Afreet), and the
finest child I ever saw. The nearest approach to social
intercourse I could get out of him was a sudden plunge at a
proffered cake; after which he would dart off with affected
dismay, and frown at me through an ill-suppressed grin from
behind the nearest place of safety.

_Wednesday, 11th._--Got on with my sketches. Have begun two or
three rough small studies of heads. Hate sketching heads
rapidly; it is unavoidably and odiously free and easy, and
nearly all that is worth escapes. But I have no time for more,
and, I suppose, the sketches will be useful. One man, with a
face like a camel, whom I drew in profile, was annoyed (though
in a general way complimentary) at seeing only one eye in the
picture. This struck me as quaint; for he was _blind_ of the
other; he had not been defrauded of much. My delight, in the
evening, is to watch the processions of women and girls coming
down to the Nile to fetch water. The brown figures, clad in
brown, coming, in long rows, along the brown bank in all the
glow and glory of sunset, look very grand; very grand, too,
returning up the steep bank, along the violet sky, with their
long, flowing folds and the full pitchers now erect on their
heads (when empty they carry them horizontally). They are
neither handsome individually nor particularly well made, but
their movements are good, and the repetition of the same
"motive" many times in succession makes the whole scene
impressive and stately. There is no more fruitful source of
effect in Nature or Art than iteration.

The suppleness of the limbs of the children here is
extraordinary. I have seen little girls squatting like
grasshoppers in the Nile drinking, _a meme_, the water in which
they were standing little more than ankle deep.

An hour after nightfall the dahabieh, my neighbour, slipped her
cables and began to drift down the river; but not till the
rhapsodist had chanted his ditty to the approving murmurs of his
little circle as on the preceding night. His singing has a great
charm for me; I shall miss it. It reminds me much of Andalusian
singing and moonlight nights in the Bay of Cadiz--there is about
it a strangeness and a wayward melancholy that attach and charm
me. It was a love song (I am told, for I could not hear the
words, and should have understood very few if I had).

"Ya leyl! ya leyl! ya leyl!"--the eternal refrain of Arab songs.
"Oh night! oh night! oh night! you have left a fire in my heart,
oh my beloved! Oh my beloved, do not forget me!" &c. &c. &c.

A day or two ago I heard a youth calling the faithful to noonday
prayer, from the gallery of a minaret, with one of the finest
voices I have ever heard; he was tearing his notes from the
inmost depths of his chest with that eagerness of yet
unconscious passion that I have often noticed in southern
children, and which to me is singularly pathetic; he retained
his last notes as long as his breath allowed it, and they
vibrated in distinct waves like a sonorous metal set in motion:
from a little distance the effect was _saisissant_. I could not
see him, and the air seemed to throb with sound as well as with
heat in the sultry noon.

The departure of the dahabieh was celebrated with the usual Arab
waste of powder, and all the echoes of the valley of the tombs
across the river were aroused by the popping of many guns. All
the consuls fired officially, everybody else fired unofficially.
Hosseyn fired officiously--chuckling and nearly tumbling over;
and the dahabieh itself, having opened the ball, fired again at
intervals from a long distance as if it had forgotten
somebody--they are too funny.

_Thursday, 12th._--More sketching. The weather, which is a
little too canicular at noon, is deliciously fresh and cool for
an hour after sunrise; the Arabs, however, look much aggrieved
at the severity of the cold; they sit huddled in muffled groups
with a pinched look that would become a British December day.

I observe that half the men in middle life have no forefinger to
their right hand. They all of them mutilated themselves to avoid
conscription under Said Pasha, who, however, having found them
out, enlisted them all the same. A curious equality prevails
here: whilst sketching two of Mustafa Aga's servants this
morning, I learnt from his son that they were both his
relations. One of them appears to be a particularly nice fellow,
and is a perfect gentleman in his manners.

_Friday, 13th._--My last day in Thebes. When I arrived here and
found neither friends nor letters, I thought, caring little for
the place apart from the ruins, that I should stay four or five
days; to-morrow when I leave I shall have been here _nine_, and
shall go with regret. Work has exercised its usual attaching
influence.

I have drawn in pencil a few heads that will be of use and
interest to me. The subject of one of my studies (Mustafa's
gardener) on receiving from Hosseyn two shillings for one hour's
sitting, accused him, to his infinite disgust and anger, of
having suppressed the _remaining_ eighteen shillings out of a
putative pound which he conceived to be destined for him.
_Excusez!_

_Saturday, 14th._--Got up early to finish a couple of sketches,
and started at half-past eleven amidst salutes and salaams. To
my great relief, the letters which I very rashly sent for from
Cairo three weeks ago have just turned up at the last
moment--fewer than I had expected, but a great delight: the
first and only news I have received since leaving home--such are
Egyptian posts!

Weather divine: the Nile like an opal mirror, reflecting without
a break the faint, sleeping, sultry hills on the horizon: a
lovely, drowsy scene. Arrived shortly after three at the village
at which one lands for Keneh; a very cheery town about a mile
inland. It is generally separated from the landing place on the
river during the floods by a vast sheet of water; this year,
however, owing to the calamitous lowness of the Nile, a narrow,
shallow strip of water, only, intercepts the road, and a large
tract of country remains untilled and unfruitful from the want
of the quickening flood. Keneh is a very pretty sample of an
Egyptian town; it is animated and full of colour, has some
pretty minarets, some charming gardens, and more than the usual
allowance of ornamental doorways: the effect of the mosaic of
black and white bricks is most satisfactory, and has the charm
which always accompanies a considerable result produced by very
sober and simple means. Great relief is frequently obtained by a
band or frieze of carved wood, running across the decorated
surface at the springing of the arch; this band is generally
carved in circles enclosing patterns and picked out with green
and red. In the jambs of the door of one of the mosques, a very
beautiful effect was produced by alternate bands of brickwork
and minutely carved wood, _not_ coloured (three courses of brick
to one band of wood).

Visited a pottery, and for the first time in my life saw a
pattern-wheel and the artist at work--a most fascinating sight:
the bottles and jugs flow into the most graceful forms as if by
magic, and look incomparably prettier than when they are baked.
I could hardly get away. A little boy scratches a pattern on
them as they leave the wheel.

The Consul's white donkey, on which I ride about here, is as
fleet as the wind and as oily in his movements as a two-oared
gondola.

_A propos_ of consuls, Mustafa at Thebes showed me his
travellers' book--in it I saw an entry of the names of Speke and
Grant, with the numbers of their regiments, and the dates of
their departure from Zanzibar and their arrival at Khartoum and
Thebes. A simple conventional travellers' entry, as if they had
returned from an ordinary journey--nothing to hint at the great
achievement which brought them such honour and lasting fame.