A Trip to the Orient Part 20

[Ill.u.s.tration: THIS IS A PICTURE OF CLEOPATRA AND HER SON.]

Mahmoud took great pride in showing his many references in prose and rhyme, and the members of our party were glad to contribute in prose to his collection. But at the end of the week we presented him with another testimonial of a more practical kind.

"The Nile is a most wonderful river," remarked the professor one evening as we sat on the open deck watching the moonlight glisten on the green water. "Several other rivers rival it in length; the Congo is noted for its size; the Amazon, swelled by great tributaries, discharges a volume of water immensely greater; and the Missouri, including the Mississippi to the Gulf, may be longer; but the Nile is unique in that for twelve hundred miles it flows without a tributary through a rainless region.

Not a drop of rain nor a single brook adds to its volume in all that distance, and a hot sun, ca.n.a.ls, ditches, sakiyehs, shadoofs, and water carriers are continually taking away from it throughout every mile of its winding course. The river is wider here but it has less volume than one thousand miles farther up the stream. It is unique also in the regularity of the annual inundations, which begin on almost the same day, continue the same length of time, and rise to an almost similar height each year, and have done so annually for untold centuries. In our land a flood is a disaster causing loss and sorrow; in this country it is a blessing producing wealth and joy. When the slowly rising waters each year reach the figures on the stone column of the Nilometer which show that the Nile has spread abroad his fertile bounty by covering the cultivable lands, and has filled the dams and ditches for future needs, the news is spread abroad and the people rejoice with festivities and processions."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'TWAS SCENES LIKE THESE WE LOOKED UPON.]

Before taking the trip on the Nile we had thought that the days on the river might become monotonous and tiresome; but we found, on the contrary, that every hour was full of interest. Each day some excursion on sh.o.r.e was taken. One day the patient donkeys carried the tourists on a long trip to the ruins of the great temple of Seti at Abydos to view its sculptured columns and famous list of kings. On another day carriages conveyed us to the rock tombs on the limestone hills above a.s.siout and we visited the bazaars and the noted potteries of that busy town. On the last day of our sail the donkeys of Bedrashen were called into service for a ride through the palm forest and green fields, past the fallen columns of Ramses, to Sakkara, the tombs of the sacred bulls, and the pictured tombs of Ptahhotep and Ti.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TROD ROUND AND ROUND THE WHEEL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COLUMNS AT ABYDOS ARE OF GREAT SIZE.]

"This is the height of enjoyment," said a member of our party one day while we were lounging in easy chairs taking afternoon tea on the deck, and lazily watching the panoramic scenes as the Amasis steamed down the river.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOTTED WITH PILES OF YELLOW WATER-JARS.]

It was scenes like these we looked upon. Along the banks of the river at short intervals, the shadoof man, or drawer of water, with his shadoof resembling an old-fashioned spring-pole or well sweep, drew up his dripping bucket and lowered it again, his only garment an ap.r.o.n at the waist.

All through the day the red-brown man Stands on his perch in the red-brown bank; Waters never more gratefully ran, Cuc.u.mbers never more greedily drank.

--Canon Rawnsley.

Where the bank was very high, a series of two, three, or four natives, each with his spring-pole, raised the water one to the other until it reached the top and was poured into the little channels that carried it over the rich, but very thirsty soil of a rainless land. On the river-bank, also, interspersed with the shadoofs of the poorer cla.s.s of agriculturists, the more prosperous farmers, who were the happy possessors of buffaloes or camels, lifted the irrigating water from the stream by means of sakiyehs, or wooden power wheels, which creaked unceasingly as the patient camels or buffaloes, with eyes covered by blinders of mud, trod round and round the wheel.

Rough clout upon his patient head, The stately camel round doth go, With gentle hesitating tread; And yoked, and blind with frontlets, made Of black Nile mud, the buffalo Plies with him his unequal trade.

--Canon Rawnsley.

A large Dahabeah with rugs, easy chairs, and piano on deck, and the stars and stripes hanging listlessly overhead, floated by, propelled by fourteen Arab rowers--there being no wind to fill the sails. A drove of gray buffaloes, forty in number, were taking their bath, splashing the water like a party of schoolboys in a swimming pool. A group of women filled earthen jars at the water's edge, and with the dripping jars on their heads mounted the steep river bank. Here and there were irregular groups of mud huts, intersected by crooked alleys and surrounded by date palms, little villages where doves were flying overhead and from which came the sound of barking dogs to mingle with the puffs of the steamer.

Flat-bottomed boats freighted with sugar cane lay with drooping sails in a noonday calm, or, later in the day, sped before the evening breeze.

Near the pottery towns the river banks were dotted with yellow water jars in scattered piles ready for shipment to the city market. Immense stacks of the sugar-cane just harvested had been brought to the sh.o.r.e for conveyance to the sugar factories. And fields of cotton covered with white bloom extended into the distance.

We could see, too, the fertile Nile valley, not more than ten miles in breadth at its widest part, bounded on both sides by ranges of yellow, barren cliffs. On the western side the cliffs were farthest away; on the eastern side the valley was narrow, and the cliffs were sometimes distant, sometimes so near that they completely crowded out the cultivable soil and approached to the water's edge.

"There is something peculiar in the air of this dry land," observed one of the tourists after sitting quiet awhile. "The atmosphere lends a softness to the outlines of distant objects and adds delicate tints in the afternoon light. See how the barren cliffs are glorified with a flush of pink, the wheat fields are a brilliant green, and the barley fields, almost ready for the harvest, are golden. Even the mud huts and the white-washed mosque of that village on the western sh.o.r.e have lost their crude outlines and have become picturesque. At sunset the western sky will change to crimson and the eastern cliffs will change to gold.

The sunsets, though, are not so gorgeous in coloring, nor do they show such striking contrasts as I have seen occasionally in my western home, but they are beautiful."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALL EYES WERE FIXED ON THE MAGICIAN'S MOVEMENTS.]

During the latter part of our sail down the Nile, where the river broadened and was shallow, we had some interesting experiences with sandbars.

"This is the Amasis' last trip of the season," said one of the officers as we stood on the upper deck at the bow of the steamer watching two sailors poling below. "The Nile always falls rapidly in the spring, the channels change, new sandbars form, and navigation becomes difficult.

The water is now very low, and we have to be careful and alert wherever the river broadens as it does here before us."

On account of the indications of shallowness ahead the Amasis was steaming very slowly, occasionally merely drifting with the current. The two Arab boatmen stationed in the bow continually tested the depth of the water with poles and shouted in Arabic the results of their measurements to the anxious commander on the deck above. Notwithstanding these precautions, our steamer occasionally sc.r.a.ped on the sandbars, sometimes sticking on them for a short time.

"Surely this is an unlucky day," exclaimed the captain later, looking at his watch as we came within sight of a railroad bridge with a draw in it that was then being closed for an approaching train. "It is now four o'clock, and, according to the official rules, that drawbridge is closed for the day and will not be opened for steamers to pa.s.s through until nine o'clock to-morrow morning. We shall have to anchor here until that time. That last stop of half an hour on the sandbar robs us of half a day's time."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHOVING FROM ITS DECK WITH LONG POLES.]

The delay at the bridge was provoking, but a greater test of the temper of the officers and patience of the pa.s.sengers was to come. On Friday morning while at breakfast we felt a jar that caused the vessel suddenly to stop. We heard an unusual puffing of the engine and felt vibrations that caused the steamer to tremble and the dishes to rattle.

"What's the matter? What's the trouble?" cried several.

"Struck another sandbar," laconically remarked the doctor at the end of the table. "Eat your breakfast. We'll be off in a few minutes."

But succeeding events proved that the doctor was a false prophet. For during the next twenty hours the Amasis lay helpless in the midst of the stream, notwithstanding all the attempts of the officials and crew to free her from the bar, and it was not until Sat.u.r.day morning that their efforts were crowned with success and the steamer floated free.

However, we took the doctor's advice the first morning and finished our omelet and coffee. Then we hurried to the deck to investigate and ask numberless questions of the worried officials. Our baggage had been packed in antic.i.p.ation of landing before noon at Cairo, which was but sixty miles distant, and we feared that a delay might interfere with our plans for a busy afternoon of sight-seeing in the city.

"'Misery loves company,' says an old proverb. If that is true we should be happy," remarked one of the tourists as we gathered on the deck gazing at an animated scene. "Look! There are thirty boats in the same predicament as our own."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PALMS GROW ON THE SITE OF ANCIENT MEMPHIS.]

Within sight in different directions on the wide river lay thirty loaded feluccas stranded on the bars, and in addition to these were sixty-five others not aground. Alongside of one laden with live cattle a dozen sailors were in the shallow water, shouting and splashing, endeavoring to push their sloop off the bar. On many of the stranded sloops the sailors were transferring parts of their cargoes to other boats which were not aground. At some places the dark-hued laborers were shoveling grain from a stranded felucca into a lighter one; at others they were carrying unwieldy bundles of sugar-cane from one deck to another. Here they were handling, with much difficulty, large blocks of stone; there throwing yellow water-jars one at a time, pa.s.sing red-bricks slowly, or shifting stacks of green clover from deck to deck.

They accompanied the work of disburdening the vessels with strange cries and chants in which the name of Allah noticeably recurred, occasionally stopping to test the result of their labor by plunging into the water and pushing the felucca, or by shoving from its deck with long poles.

One of the officers of the Amasis with some sailors in a row-boat carried an anchor to its cable's length from the steamer and dropped it in the water, then a donkey-engine on deck to which the cable was attached was started and the steamer shook with the throbs of the engine endeavoring to pull it off the bar toward the anchor. Unsuccessful in tugging the steamer in that direction, they raised the anchor into the row-boat and took it to other locations one after another; but the engine panted and throbbed in vain. In the meantime the captain had gone to a village on the sh.o.r.e, had hired sixty natives, and brought them out in boats. The Arabs, dropping off their long blue gowns, and arrayed only in loin cloths, jumped into the water, which was not over three feet in depth. Then, placing their shoulders against the steamer, the gang of naked Arabs, chanting in unison a prayer to Allah for help and protection, pushed, or pretended to push, in order to a.s.sist the puffing engine in its task. With intermissions for rest, the pushing, the throbbing, and the chanting of the Arabic song, "Allah il Allah, Allah il Allah," continued during the remainder of the day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PROSTRATE BROKEN STATUE OF RAMSES II IS ENORMOUS.]

There was so much of interest happening around them that the pa.s.sengers could scarcely take time to eat their meals, and their disappointment in not reaching Cairo was almost forgotten.

"This has been to me one of the most interesting days of the trip. I will mark it with a red letter," said one of our party in the evening.

"I do not regret the delay. I would not have missed those amusing and novel sights for anything."

When efforts were resumed at dawn on Sat.u.r.day, the Amasis floated free, and before noon we arrived at Cairo. Our joyous trip on the Nile, with its pleasant a.s.sociations of fellow voyagers, dragomen, donkey boys, temples, tombs, and gallops over the sand, was at an end.

CHAPTER XVI.

NAPLES AND POMPEII.

By noon on Sunday, March twenty-second, the various parties had rea.s.sembled as one large family on board the Moltke in the harbor of Alexandria, and shortly afterward they saw the land of the palms disappear from sight below the horizon. Friends and acquaintances who had chosen different excursions on land and had been separated for some time had many experiences to relate to one another. Some, who had taken the Damascus trip, gave a description of the magnificent ruins of the famous temple of Baalbek and of the enormous size of the granite blocks which lay scattered over the ground at that place, and displayed bargains in hammered bra.s.s and silken rugs which they had secured in the bazaars of the oldest city in the world. Others, who had taken a sail on blue Galilee and a journey on horseback through the interior of Palestine, told of the unexpected luxuries of camp life, of squalid villages and more squalid inhabitants, of bridgeless streams that had to be forded, of Arab camps and Bedouin chiefs, and of towns, mountains, plains, and wells, the names of which were familiar to the student of the Bible. They showed to their friends alb.u.ms in which they had pressed the flowers gathered in villages where the Savior once strayed, or culled in fields through which He probably had trod. Some who had taken a carriage ride to the Dead Sea and the River Jordan described the loneliness of the road and the armed Bedouin protectors who accompanied them, the dilapidated condition of Jericho, the desolate sh.o.r.es and bitter salty taste of the Sea, the muddy banks of the River Jordan and a row on the rapid stream. Their souvenirs were vials filled with salt water from the Sea, and bottles of the fresh, but not very clear water from Jordan's stream.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE BANK OF THE RIVER JORDAN.]

"The only place where we were treated with disrespect during our trip was in Hebron," said one of a group around a table in the library.

"There the natives were an ill-tempered set. They scowled as if resentful of our presence, and when we were driving away some hoodlums of the town threw chunks of mud and stone after our carriage."

"That reminds me," said another, "of a picture I want to show you. On the landing at Esneh up the Nile we thought that our clothes would be torn to pieces by the natives, but not through ill-will. The donkey boys were so eager to secure our custom that a struggle ensued in which donkey boys, donkeys, and tourists were inextricably mixed until the dragoman used his whip. My brother took a snap-shot of the scene just as Achmet raised his whip."

Some of the tourists had stayed ten days in Jerusalem, some twelve days in Cairo, others had been at Philae and the Cataract of the Nile. Each one was enthusiastic over his trip and appeared to be satisfied with the way in which the eighteen days in Palestine and Egypt had been spent.