Chapter XLVII: A Visit to a Harem in Upper Egypt.--Life Among the Nubians

_A Visit to a Harem--Among the Daughters of the Nile--How they Looked and What was Done--Painted Eyelids--The Use of Henna--A Minute Inspection of Garments--Mustapha Agar “At Home”--Arab Astonishment--A Dinner a l’Arabe--Fingers vs. Forks--An Array of Queer Dishes--Novel Refreshment--Dancing Girls--Truck and Decker at Luxor--More “Ghawazee,” Pipes and Coffee--“A Love of a Donkey”--Song of Arabs--Arab Cruelty--A Nation of Stoics--Endurance of Pain--Among the Nubians--Ostriches, Arrows and Battle Axes--A Nubian Dress--A Very Small Dressmaker’s Bill--A Scanty Wardrobe._

THE ladies of the party did not accompany us to the Tombs of the Kings, as the day was hot and the ride a long one. Besides, they had what was more attractive to them, an invitation to visit the harem of the English Consul.

I volunteered to accompany them, but my escort was declined, for the reason that gentlemen were not admitted any more than they were to the studios of some of the fortune-tellers of New York. When we returned to the boat, they were in great glee, and it was not long before we had all the details, or at any rate, all that they chose to give us. We hardly recognized them, as their eyelids had been stained with henna, after the Arabic manner, giving a great prominence and lustre to the eye. The result is the same as that obtained by actresses and others, who apply red paint around the eyes and not upon the lids.

I will try to give the story as nearly as possible, in the words {601}

{603}of one of the fair visitors. I endeavored to induce her to write it out for me, but she shrunk from the effort as something herculean, and all my prayers were of no avail.

“We went to the consulate,” said the narrator, “and there we found Mustapha Agar waiting for us. We walked from there to his house, which is quite pretty when you get inside, and has a sort of garden on a balcony, and from this balcony we went into the harem. The consul staid outside with Mr. ---------- (the husband of one of the visitors), and we were shown in by one of the slaves. The consul’s son, who speaks English, went in for a few moments and interpreted, but for the rest of the time we had to talk by signs, as the women spoke nothing but Arabic, There were half a dozen women, some the wives of the consul, and some the wives of his son, but we didn’t know which were which.

“They saluted us in Arabic as we entered, and asked us to sit down on the carpet with them, and we squatted as best we could. There were divans at the side of the room, and a rich carpet in the centre, and we sat on the carpet more than on the divans. The women wore the loose dress of the Arabs and had no veils on their faces; one of them, a young girl of fifteen or about, had a very richly-embroidered dress, much better than that of any other, and I thought she must be the favorite of either the j consul or his son. They began at once to examine us, to look at our faces, our boots, our clothing, and everything, and we returned the compliment by examining them. What most excited their curiosity was Mrs.------‘s hair. They pinched it and looked at it in all sorts of ways, took it down, and were not easy till they had satisfied themselves that it was natural, and even then they kept examining it and feeling it in their fingers every few minutes until we came away.”

I remark by way of explanation that the lady referred to was English, and her hair was of the pure blonde type. It was of a golden hue, rich and glossy, and was no doubt the first of its kind that these Arab women had ever seen. I do not wonder that their curiosity was aroused.

“Before we knew what they were about, they had our heads in their laps and were staining our eyelids; they wanted to stain {604}our finger-nails and tattoo our chins, but we declined. Several times they renewed the request, but we thought it was enough to have our eyelids stained in this way. They had their hair loose, with the exception of bands around their heads; the young girl had a rich head-dress, with a great many pieces of gold attached to it, and her hair was of a jet black. They served us pipes and coffee, and were much surprised that we didn’t smoke. We drank the coffee, and they made us take a few whiffs from the _narghileh_, and were much amused when Mrs. ---------- swallowed some of the smoke and began to cough.

“We staid there about half an hour. When we came away they embraced us, but did not kiss us, and they didn’t let us off until they had taken another pinch at Mrs. ----------‘s hair. They followed us to the door and intimated by signs that they would like to go to see us on the boat.”

The next evening a party went to dine _a l’Arabe_ at the Engglish consulate, but as a part of them were masculine they were not admitted to the harem. The party was seated on the carpet, and the table was about two feet high, just high enough to be comfortably reached from the seat on the floor. Hands were washed before and after the meal, and sometimes between the courses, the water being brought by a servant and poured upon the hands after the Eastern manner.

There were about twenty courses in all,--soup, meats, and _pates_ of various kinds,--and all were eaten with the hands except the soup, for which spoons were supplied. The consul presided at the table, and his sons supervised the service, which was quite rapid. The bones were piled on the table in front of each guest, and were afterward removed. Some of the viands were so hot that one or two of the guests found their hands somewhat burned. There was an abundant supply, enough for a party four times as large, and the cooking was said to be very good. The most prominent article was a turkey which was brought on whole, and from which each person tore off what he wanted. There were no knives or forks at the table, and some of the visitors made rather awkward work getting along without them.

All ate from the same soup-dish without hesitation, and luckily {605}they did not have time to continue at it long. The etiquette was to take only a few mouthfulls of each dish, and whether good or bad, the dishes were not allowed to stay. Roasts, _entrees, pâtés_, pilaufs, succeeded each other rapidly, and before the party was aware that the end had come, the host gave the signal by rising and the table was removed.

After the disappearance of the festive board, there was an Oriental dance. Four _gliawazee_ with their musicians were brought into the parlor, and the dance began at once. Pipes and coffee had been served the instant the table disappeared, and the party took its position on the divans where they could look on with complaisance.

The Orientals understand dancing in its true sense, and cannot comprehend why we should caper through a waltz or a cotillion, when we can hire somebody to do it for us.

“Why don’t you make your servants do this?” was the wondering inquiry of a Chinese official, when invited to a ball given by some of the English residents of Hong Kong.

The day at length arrived for our departure from Thebes, and as the boat steamed away from the landing the crowd on shore sung a farewell chorus, the consuls fired guns and pistols, and the whole town in fact seemed bent on making as much noise as possible.

The market for antiquities declined rapidly before our departure, and articles were offered at less than half the figures that ruled on the day of our arrival.

We tied up as usual during the night, and next morning about breakfast time we were at Esneh, a town of six or seven thousand inhabitants and containing a temple of which only a small portion has been cleared out. The remainder is quite covered by the houses of the modern town, and is thought to be quite extensive. The portico, the only portion visible, is reached by a stairway which we descended to the floor. The columns are well preserved but the sculptures are injured somewhat, and in places are hardly legible.

Most of the features of the gods are broken, and this is the case in a large number of the temples of Upper Egypt. The injury is attributed to the Persians, but a large portion of it is {606}due to the early Christians, who sought in their religious zeal to destroy the evidences of pagan worship. In some temples they plastered over the sculptures, and thus unintentionally preserved them. The plaster has been removed in modern times, and the sculptures are found in excellent condition.

Esneh is famous, like Keneh, for its dancing girls, and there is quite a colony of them at the southern side of the town. We visited their quarter in the evening, and were beset by the young ladies with appeals for “backsheesh” and invitations to visit their households and witness a dance.

There are several cafés on the bank just above the river, and we found quite a collection of Arabs in them. They were smoking their pipes, sipping coffee, and singing and looking very dignified and disinclined to move. The Arab song may be best described as a monotonous chant, consisting of about four measures and a chorus like a prolonged “ah-ah”. They sing everywhere, but more especially when at work together. Men engaged in rowing or pulling a boat are constantly singing; one sings the measure and the whole join in the chorus. The song may be on any subject, like popular airs everywhere, and frequently are extemporized by the singers. I was much struck with their resemblance to the songs of the negro deck hands on the Mississippi steamers, and also to those of the Canadian _voyageurs_ on the St. Lawrence and its tributary rivers. The boatmen of the Volga and the Dwina have also similar songs while rowing or pulling their craft.

One of the prettiest things I saw at Esneh was, not a girl, but a donkey. He was a beauty, and I would have given more for his photograph than for that of any human being I saw there. His color was white, but according to the Arab custom his hair was closely shaven. He was plump, round, and large; his ears were perfectly erect, and his trappings were rich and evidently selected with taste. He belonged to the governor, who was pleased at the admiration bestowed upon his property, and stood approvingly by while one of the artists of our party took a sketch of the animal. I ventured to ask how much such a donkey would be worth.

“I paid twenty pounds for him,” replied the governor, “when {607}he was a year old. I have since refused a hundred pounds, and I should refuse two hundred if anybody should offer it.”

Above Esneh there are several places containing the ruins of temples, of which the most interesting is that of Edfou. Only since 1864 has it been visible; up to that time it was covered by rubbish and the houses of the modern village so that only the propylon tombs were visible.

The long-accumulated rubbish had helped to preserve it so, that when it was cleared out the sculptures were found in better condition than in most other temples.

The temple greatly resembles that of Denderah and has numerous small chambers that were used for the storage of valuable articles used in the sacred ceremonies.

The sanctuary contains a _sanctum sanctorum_, a large cage cut from a single block of granite, and once enclosing the hawk I which was the emblem of the divinity to whose worship the temple was dedicated.

That night while we lay at the landing, one of the ladies came to induce us to perform a work of charity. She had discovered that the cooks in preparing chickens for the table did not kill the birds until after plucking the feathers, and sometimes a featherless chicken would get loose and run around the bank. We went out to the place on shore where the picking was in progress and found that her story was correct. We called the dragoman and had him explain to the Arabs that such a custom was not pleasing and that hereafter they must kill the chickens before picking them. They were astonished at the suggestion, but promised compliance. {608}The Orientals are thoughtlessly cruel, and this arises partly from a lack of nerves in their own organization. A Chinese will, sit in a chair or ride in a cart that would be torture to a European, and a Turk or an Arab will sleep on a hard bed when he could have an easier one if he chose. A native of any part of the Orient is less sensitive than an Occidental to a cudgeling, and he is quite indifferent to the sufferings of animals. No dog in London or New York would be regarded as indifferently by the inhabitants of those cities as are the dogs of Constantinople and Cairo by the Mohammedans. They beat their donkeys and, buffaloes with great cruelty; one of the unpleasant features of riding on a donkey is the pounding that the brute receives from his driver, and when he is doing his best he will frequently get a blow that would floor a man. Many of the donkeys have large sores where their hips have been punched with sharp sticks, and these sores are kept open by a continuance of the punching. I don’t think the Arabs are intentionally cruel; it is difficult to make them understand the sufferings of animals when they themselves are quite indifferent to pain and discomfort.

As we approached Assouan the sandstone formation disappeared and granite came into view. Along this part of the river there were numerous boulders in the stream; they change their places through the action of the current and make navigation somewhat dangerous. A steamer that left Cairo after we did struck one of these boulders while going at full speed and was of no use as a steamboat after that. Passengers, crew, and baggage were saved, but the boat went to what Mr. Mantalini would call the “demnition bow-wows.”

We made several windings with alternate views of fertile ground and sandy desert, rocky hills and huge boulders, and a last on a rounded summit there appeared a dome that overlookes Assouan. We made a sharp bend to the left passing more boulders and with the island of Elephantine on our right swung in towards the town and made fast to the bank.

The river seemed to end here; we were enclosed in an amphitheatre variously composed of sand, granite, town, and verdure from which there appeared to be no egress save by the route through which we had advanced. Steam was blown off and the upward journey of our boat was ended. {609}As we went on shore we met a crowd of Arabs and Nubians with ostrich feathers, Nubian dresses, old coins, arrows, silver ornaments, battle axes and the like for sale.

The Arabs were like those we had seen down the river, but the Nubians were another lot.

Their black skins were covered with scanty clothing, and their woolly hair was done into small ringlets about the size of lead pencils and plentifully saturated with grease. To trade with them required as much bargaining as with the Arabs, and sometimes a little more.

They had high prices for their ostrich feathers, but we gradually brought them down. One article dealt in here was the {610}whip of hippopotamus hide which goes by the name of _courbash_. Some of the passengers bought each a dozen or more; I contented myself with one whip and a cane as I did not wish to affect the market.

It was late when we arrived so that there was only time to take a stroll through the bazaars which contained nothing of special importance.

Assouan is a town of about four thousand inhabitants, and occupies the site of the ancient Sy-ene. At certain seasons it presents many curious features as the trade from Nubia centres there and the product of the Soudan and Central Africa which has been sent by camels around the cataract is reloaded here. Ostrich feathers, ivory, gum arabic, lion and leopard skins and the like are the chief articles from those countries, and may sometimes be seen at Assouan in considerable quantities.

In front of Assouan and in the middle of the river is Elephantine’ Island, so named probably, because no elephant was ever seen there. We went there in a small boat rather rickety and leaky in its character, and which stuck in the mud at twenty feet or more from the land. The island has been famous through many hundred years, and once contained a city of considerable importance. We visited the ruins of this city and also of a temple which was destroyed about fifty years ago to furnish stone for the construction of some modern buildings in Assouan.

The island has a fertile appearance and is kept in a luxuriant condition by several _sakkiehs_ which are worked not by men as on the lower Nile but by oxen. A pair of oxen turn a wheel by which a quantity of buckets are made to lift water from the

{611}river. We visited one of these sakkiehs, but the driver did not greet us kindly as his team took fright at our coming and nearly wrecked the machine before he could stop and pacify them.

The inhabitants of the island are all Nubians, and as we landed they flocked down to meet us. They offered for sale old coins, agates, spears, arrows, and Nubian dresses, but they did not drive a lively trade. The Nubian dress is not an extensive affair; one of the passengers bought one and put it in his coat pocket, and several were offered to me that weighed only a few ounces each. They were the costumes of ladies, not of men, and consisted of a fringe of strips of leather like shoe strings attached to a strap. This strap was fastened around the loins, and the strings hanging down constituted the dress.

This custom is quite unfit for the climate of America; it is better for Nubia where the thermometer ranges high during the entire year and rain never falls. I saw several young ladies dressed in these airy garments and they did not appear at all uncomfortable.

If a lady wants to get herself up gorgeously, she adds a string of beads to the above apparel and her toilet is complete. One dusky maiden of about sixteen summers took off her string of beads and proffered them for sale. I gave her a franc for the lot and she then removed the rest of her apparel and proposed selling it for two francs.

What a country,--where a feminine wardrobe in the height of fashion can be bought for three francs!

{612}