Bonaparte in Egypt and the Egyptians of To-day Part 6

The man whom G.o.d has blessed by freeing his mind from all the cares and worries of this life. Astounding ignorance! Degrading superst.i.tion! That, my dear reader, is no doubt how you see it. That is how Bonaparte saw it, and, it may surprise you to hear, that is how Gabarty the historian saw it. And I will follow such high authorities so far as to admit that seeing such things as you do and they did, only "darkly and as through a gla.s.s," your view is a very correct one.

But if the people thus err, there is a reason--a reason that you will never discover so long as you wrap yourself up in your superior intelligence, and will not stoop to learn from the facts you so glibly criticise. Not that the solution of this mystery is either recondite or difficult of attainment. Far from that. If I could present to your inspection two maps of the world, one whereon was marked by varying depths of colour those parts of the world wherein the bulk of the people find life most burthensome and least attractive, and the other marked in the same way and in the same colours to show where this reverence for the imbecile and other kindred follies are most rife, you would say, "But the two maps are the same!" and you would be correct, for this "lowest of all superst.i.tions" is but the expression of the hopeless, helpless longing for freedom from care that comes to those whose lives are one long burthen, unaided and unrelieved by strength of mind or healthy training. Of what use to appeal to such with the arguments that might stir the blood and stimulate the thoughts of the Frenchman, be he chatelain or sans culotte? Surely so long as Bonaparte and the French could not see these things, neither he nor they could do much to lift or elevate the people or to render their lives happy!

Nor if the lower cla.s.ses were thus effectually shut out from French influence were the better informed much less widely separated from them. Children fighting for garden plots and bra.s.s-headed nails!

Ruskin might have written that parable to ill.u.s.trate the aspect which French ambitions offered to the Ulema. Garden plots and bra.s.s-headed nails! Things useful and desirable in themselves, but not worth fighting for. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" that is for ever the song of the Ulema, and though with Pope they hold that "Not a vanity is given in vain," yet they will not admit that any given vanity is worth fighting for. They are ready enough to turn aside in Vanity Fair and to enjoy its vanities, but they never forget that they are vanities. As the old Arabic has it, "This world is a place of going, not a place of staying." Why, then, toil and moil for mere vanities that we must leave behind us? If we labour at all let it be for treasures, not vanities--treasures that once they are ours are ours for all time and all eternity, treasures that all the armies of all the Bonapartes and Sultans and Beys in the world cannot rob us of--deeds of charity and deeds of piety, kindly words and kindly acts, mercy and forgiveness.

This is the philosophy of the Egyptian and of the Eastern, as it is that of Christ Himself. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d and thy neighbour as thyself." Christian clergymen of all denominations teach it and preach it, Christian citizens profess it, Christian civilisation applauds--and ignores it. That most insignificant-looking of letters, the Greek iota, was sufficient to split the Christian Church in twain, but this philosophy has never caused a breath or whisper of dissent or discord. The Christian priest, the Moslem Sheikh, the Brahman Guru, the Buddhist Lama, all are agreed in this, in the dogma, though not all in its application. The Eastern takes it very literally. The European looks upon it as a pretty ideal, good to be spoken of now and then, but having nothing whatever to do with the realities of actual life. Whence Plugson of Undershot, whom Carlyle places on a level with the Chactaw Indians, with, as I think, scant justice to the Chactaw, whose ideal is, or rather was, a higher one that Plugson's, seeing that Plugson has no higher ideal than his own individual interests, whereas the Chactaw always had the honour of his tribe in mind, and would, if need be, die for that very unsubstantial figment, whence it is evident that the Chactaw had in reality advanced towards the highest real civilisation a full stage further than has Plugson. For all true civilisation is, in spite of certain philosophers' opinions, the negation of individualism. The very lowest type of humanity is the man thinking, acting only for himself, like the brutes of the forest, knowing no ambition, no need, beyond his own individual wants or wishes. Such men as these are only possible in a "highly civilised" community, and will be found most abundantly in the most civilised and among the highest, or at least the wealthiest cla.s.ses of these. Among mere savages, by a merciful provision of nature, such men wage such ruthless war with each other that it is well-nigh impossible for two to survive. But if these men exist in and are a product of civilisation, it is only as the sc.u.m floating on the surface of the molten metal, as base, as mean, and worthless as the dregs that lie at its bottom.

As to the Egyptian, neither a Plugson nor yet a Chactaw, he is rather to be compared to poor old Abbot Hugo, or some of his patient, faithful monks, striving in a certain halting, faltering, wholly incompetent, and yet withal more or less earnest way to do right--very p.r.o.ne, like Christian himself, to be tempted over the stile into the pleasant-looking byways of the road, and to start back at the sight of the lions at Mr. Interpreter's house, and yet, like Faithful, resolute enough to stand unabashed in the pillories of Vanity Fair and to face undaunted the terrors of the Valley of the Shadow. How could such men as these fall down and worship the golden calf of the French Republic?

How could the French, whose farthest horizon was no further off than the short limits of "the average duration of life," comprehend the Egyptian?

The first brief fraternising of the two peoples had been as the momentary intermixing of water and oil suddenly thrown into a common receptacle; thereafter their inherent mutual repugnance inevitably drove them apart, and in the calm that followed the riot the separation became daily more and more complete. Hence it was that Gabarty and all his kind, while they could admire and wonder at the marvels the French showed them, and could and did appreciate much of the law, order, and good discipline they obeyed, yet, weighing these things in the balance of man's relations to the infinite as they conceived these to be, rejected them.

It is not to be supposed that the Egyptians measured in any such way as I have done the difference between themselves and the French, or that they thought of, or were even aware of, the philosophy by which they were guided. They simply looked upon the French from a very simple, practical, everyday point of view, first as usurping foreigners, and secondly as men with a wholly unaccountable, extraordinary, and irrational conception of life and its needs; a people showing a strange indifference to that oldest and most indisputable of all truths--that man is mortal, and who, giving all their thoughts and energies to vain theories and ambitions, were hopelessly bewildered and befogged by their own cleverness, madly bartering true happiness for a brilliant but worthless imitation; a people the more mad and the more foolish that there was no need for them to make such an unprofitable trade. For in the French conception of civilisation and happiness there was little if anything absolutely irreconcilable with the Egyptian view. There was no reason why men should not profit to the utmost from all the arts, sciences, knowledge, or progress of any kind, but these things should be sought as the complement and completion of better things and not as the ultimate good, and they could be sought much better if the people were not worried by the endless forms and formalities, needless rules and regulations, and idle and burthensome restraints the French put upon them.

This was, and is, the Egyptian's ideal of civilisation--not unlike that of Carlyle and Ruskin: civilisation as a means and not as an end--an ideal of which we at home seem at last to be getting a faint, glimmering perception, as evidenced by the victory of the "living wage" verity over the "supply and demand" falsity--a victory whereby English civilisation has been advanced a long step towards the Egyptian and Islamic ideal for which the rabbit-brained "smart set"

and other puerilities and senilities have so much contempt.

Unfortunately the Egyptian fails to see the duty that his ideal imposes upon him, and thus only too well justifies the criticisms of those who take the imperfections of the man as those of his ideals.

They did not, and they as yet do not, clearly see that however high and n.o.ble a man's ideal may be, it is useless and vain unless it be converted into action. The best of seed kept in a gla.s.s case for men to admire is but an unprofitable perfection. That it may be prolific, beneficial to men, it is needful to take it from its case and plant it in the soil to grow. So with our ideals--however perfect, however beautiful, they are worthless unless planted in the soil of that strenuous effort President Roosevelt has so rightly lauded. Perhaps some day, when Englishmen in general begin to see these things more clearly, when we begin to understand that after all the swelling of the budget and the filling of our individual pockets are not the highest, nor indeed high aims at all, when we can openly accept and act upon the creed of Burns, that "the rank is but the guinea's stamp," then perhaps we may be able to help the Egyptian also to a higher and purer conception of true civilisation. At present, not possessing that article, it is scarcely possible for us to transfer it to or share it with the Egyptian or any one else.

CHAPTER XII

PEACE WITHOUT HONOUR

The months succeeding the suppression of the revolt were months of peace though scarcely of honour, and certainly not of content. The people were no longer hara.s.sed by daily innovations or angered by daily arrests and executions, and looking forward to the early coming of a Turkish army as certain to sooner or later bring them relief, they submitted pa.s.sively to the presence of the French. The Dewan, which had been suspended from the time of the revolt, was at the end of the year re-formed, and Bonaparte took the opportunity to issue a proclamation in which he had the foolish arrogance to claim to be inspired. This, addressed to Mahomedans, was a gross mistake, and is yet another proof of his inability to learn from experience or to comprehend the task he was so blunderingly pursuing. The Egyptians received the proclamation with the ridicule it deserved, but they were careful to keep their opinion of it to themselves, having learned very thoroughly the exact value of the "liberty, equality, and fraternity"

of which they had heard so much, and knew perfectly well that "liberty" must by no means be taken to include the liberty of criticising the French. As to "equality," Bonaparte did certainly show some impartiality--at all events in matters not directly affecting the French. Thus some native Christians, who had been too bold in availing themselves of their new-found liberty to insult the Moslems, were summarily punished, not so much probably for the offence as to discourage their provoking reprisals from which the French might suffer. Some soldiers too, who had been captured after raiding the house of a Moslem and outraging the women in it, were executed, this being a serious offence against discipline. These matters were referred to by the General in his proclamation as evidence of his friendship for and desire to do justice to the people. But the people put their own construction upon these acts and his allusion to them.

The whole tenor of the system under which they were so unwillingly living was, in their opinion, utterly opposed to justice and reason, and they could not bring themselves to conceive these incidents as anything more than mere concessions made to mislead them. They had always been accustomed to receive in their private affairs a certain amount of justice under the Beys. This was indeed usually of a very rough and ready kind. Thus one of the Beys one day pa.s.sing through the town meeting a citizen who had just bought some meat from a butcher in the market, took it into his head to see whether the seller had given his customer full weight, and finding that he had not done so at once ordered the deficiency to be supplied from the butcher's own body.

French justice was less fantastic and impulsive than this, whether it was more effective is not so certain, but it had to the Egyptian mind the great defect of being in general less amenable to the pleadings of mercy, and was, like the Beys', so often misdirected as to become injustice. Thus Bonaparte gained but little from his good intentions in this respect. As to "Fraternity," the cannon of the revolt had been the stormy requiem of all possibility of that. The battered houses of the town were infinitely more eloquent to the people than all that Bonaparte could say, and he could have but little a.s.sistance in preaching or enforcing his ideas on this subject, for the French generally, though quite loyal, were scarcely enthusiastic in their efforts to realise his wishes in this direction, and could in any case do but little, while the native Christians who could have done much, unable to rise above the pettiness of their own vindictive feelings, so far from seeking to promote friendship between the French and the Moslems, lost no opportunity of exciting the one against the other. So poor Fraternity lay neglected in the tomb that Bonaparte's blundering had so speedily and so unnecessarily dug for it.

All through the occupation the worst friends that the French had were the Christians of the country. Divided among themselves, they were at one, though not united, in the feelings with which they quickly learned to regard the French. There was no open disunion nor apparent discord, but the bitterness of sectarian animosities that prevailed among them was of the keenest. The Franks being Christians of the "Orthodox" or Greek Church held the Copts as heretics, and these looked upon those as infidels. Nor were they less divided by their political and social ideas and habits, and, as such rival sects always are, were more strongly moved by their mutual distrust than by their common Christianity. This, indeed, served them as a bond only for evil in their common hatred for the Moslems. These, though they had for centuries to endure more oppression, injustice, and tyranny than either of the two Christian peoples had ever suffered from, were conscious of and showed a dignity and self-respect that was galling and offensive to the others. Our friends the historians lose no opportunity of condemning the Moslems for this characteristic, denouncing it as "arrogant pride," "fanatical conceit," and I know not what else. But though the Moslem too often renders himself liable to criticism on this point, his fault in no way abrogates the truth that the self-respect that is in varying degrees the birthright of all men is to him alone justified by his religion, for Islam alone of all religions, while teaching the frailty of man's nature, teaches also the doctrine that man is naturally inclined to good, and that his sins and his follies are the result not of a corrupt nature but of ignorance and false teaching--a n.o.bler and truer conception than the degrading superst.i.tion that it is their nature to do evil. The Moslem, unlike those Methodists whose sole anxiety in life is for the salvation of their own miserable souls, has no salvation to seek. As a Moslem he is a.s.sured of eternal happiness. It is inevitable, therefore, that he should respect himself, even as the Christian who has but a jot of belief in the teaching of his religion cannot look upon himself as other than a "child of wrath," by nature evil and a lover of evil. Truly a grovelling, debasing creed. And it is with creeds as with ideals. That they should influence the whole life and nature of a man it is by no means necessary that he should be conscious of their influence, much less that he should a.n.a.lyse or even be capable of a.n.a.lysing it. Whence no degradation, no tyranny, no misery can deprive the Moslem of the self-respect that is his inheritance--a self-respect no other religion permits, and one that no follower of any other religion can by any possibility enjoy, since he who has it must be a believer in the essential doctrines of Islam and thus, though he know it not, a Moslem. This is an essential difference that must for ever hold all Moslem peoples apart from all others. I have shown already how not the Moslem only, but all Easterns measure life by a standard irreconcilable with that of the European, and when we put the influence of these two causes together we get a current of thought, native to the Moslem wherever he is found, no outside influence or power can stem or divert. And this being so, apart from all considerations of their respective political relations, it is evident that the Moslems and Christians of Egypt as of other countries could not be otherwise than opposed to each other, and that the very causes that made them so served to sever both alike from the French.

As Orientals the native Christians had, in spite of their differences, many thoughts and many habits and customs that they shared with the Moslems, but which were wholly unacceptable to the French. Nor were the French less disappointed by the att.i.tude of the Moslems to them than were the Christians by that of the French towards them. They had expected from the French a preference they did not get, and a patronage that was withheld, while the openly professed friendship of Bonaparte for the Moslems and their religion was to them the act of a traitor and a renegade, and none the less so that they, like the Moslems, were by no means misled as to the real nature of the friendship or of its object.

Great as was the hatred of the Christians for the Moslems it was not, as we have seen, sufficient to prevent their joining these in their protest against a French reform that touched their own prejudices; but though that incident might have taught them that it would be to their own interests to conciliate Moslem feeling, so far from attempting anything of the kind they hastened to avail themselves of the collapse of the revolt to indulge in language and acts offensive to the Mahomedans. Believing that the permanency of French rule was now a.s.sured, they abandoned all the restraints they had been compelled to submit to in the time of the Beys, and which they had been more or less chary of neglecting under the early pro-Moslem policy of their successors. Having suffered but little from the event that had proved so disastrous to the Moslems, they had ample funds to enable them to follow their own inclinations, and, throwing aside the simple costumes and habits prescribed for them by the old law, went abroad clad in gold-embroidered garments, carrying weapons and mounted upon horses--all luxuries that had long been forbidden to them--and did not fail to flaunt their new-born liberty in the eyes of the Moslems, and openly exult in the discomfiture that had overtaken these.

Meanwhile a party of the French army was in constant pursuit of the fugitive Mamaluks, and small parties were being sent from Cairo to punish raiding Bedouins or villages that obstinately refused to pay the taxes imposed upon them. These latter always returned to Cairo with such booty of flocks and herds and other property as they had been able to obtain, all of which was appropriated to the use of the French. However excusable or even necessary this continuation of military operations may have been, it had a most disastrous effect upon the trade and commerce of the country. The small foreign trade that the country still possessed at the time of the invasion had ceased altogether, and the disturbed condition of the country had been almost equally fatal to local trade. Communications between Cairo and distant towns, even Alexandria and Damietta, were rare and uncertain, and the attempts of the French to maintain a postal service between the scattered portions of the army had almost completely failed. As a consequence of the general disorder thus prevailing, the merchants and dealers of Cairo suffered so heavily that large numbers of them were reduced to indigency and compelled to seek a livelihood by any means that offered. Some who had contrived to save a small amount from the wreck of their business opened restaurants or coffee-houses, or took to the sale of fruits and cakes and other small articles that were in demand among the French, while yet others gained a living by hiring the donkeys they had once themselves ridden in state to the soldiers, who had taken to donkey-riding and racing as one of their chief amus.e.m.e.nts.

The approach of the second year of the occupation brought no change in the condition of affairs, but rumours of the coming of a Turkish army were growing not only more frequent but more consistent, and Bonaparte, believing that it would be better for him to a.s.sume the offensive than to await an attack, began to hasten the carrying out of preparations for the conquest of Syria. The prospect of active service was hailed with pleasure by the troops, but the native Christians were dismayed at the idea of any large body of the French army leaving the immediate vicinity of the town, fearing that the Moslems would seize the opportunity to avenge themselves for the insults and injuries they had been bearing at their hands. Urged by this fear and with the idea of inducing Bonaparte to postpone his departure if not to abandon it altogether, some Syrians went to him and told him that the Moslems were preparing a new revolt. Fortunately for the Moslems these mischief-makers, in the excess of their cunning and anxiety to influence the French, gave a number of alleged details which Bonaparte at once saw afforded him a possibility of testing the truth of the information given. Some precautions were taken, but it was soon evident that the Moslems had no intention whatever of modifying in any way the pacific att.i.tude they had a.s.sumed. Enraged at the attempt to mislead him, Bonaparte not only had the offenders arrested but issued an order that all the Syrians in the town were to resume the distinctive costume and be subjected to the other restrictions that had formerly been imposed upon them by the Beys. The annual fast of the month of Ramadan, during which the Moslems abstain from eating, drinking, and smoking from early dawn until sunset, beginning about this time, a proclamation was issued forbidding all non-Moslems to eat, drink, or smoke in the streets, or in sight of those who were fasting, and a Christian who was caught smoking was promptly arrested and bastinadoed. These and other concessions that were made to Moslem sentiment were not altogether unappreciated by them, but coming as they did at a time when, as they were well aware, the French had more than usual interest in gaining their goodwill, they could not but regard these things as the husks of the corn that the French were to eat, and saw, therefore, but little reason to be grateful for them, but they at least returned them in kind by according the French the pa.s.sive submission they were so anxious for, and so, satisfied by the conduct of the people that he could safely withdraw the bulk of his army, Bonaparte started for Syria.

With the story of this ill-fated expedition we have nothing to do, for though usually given at great length in the histories of the country it forms no part of its history, the Egyptians having no further interest in it than that arising from their sympathy with the people attacked. They heard with pleasure of the difficulties and privations the army had to encounter and endure, with regret of its successes, and with sincere rejoicing of its ultimate discomfiture. It was in vain that Bonaparte sent them the most rose-coloured reports; no one accepted or believed them. The cold-blooded butchery of six thousand disarmed prisoners at Jaffa was an incident of the expedition which historians in vain try to gloss over or excuse, but with all the fawning fallacies with which they seek to save the honour of their hero, the ma.s.sacre was one of the most brutal and inexcusable atrocities of all those that sully the pages of history. No sophisms can defend it, for not only was there not the slightest ground for a plea of justification, but the measure was a stupid and impolitic blunder. The soldiers, we are told, carried out their revolting task of shooting down the bound and helpless victims with the greatest reluctance. It was a notable example of the power of discipline, the immediate, unquestioning obedience of the soldier; but such discipline as this! When we think of the men on the fast-sinking _Birkenhead_ falling into rank and standing to order as the doomed vessel made her final plunge one feels that discipline may be great and glorious--but the discipline that stained the sands of Jaffa with the blood of six thousand unarmed, pinioned men!

Meanwhile the Ramadan having come to an end, the people of Cairo celebrated the Eed, or feast with which they return to the ordinary routine of life, in much the same way but with much less feasting and rejoicing than usual. According to the regular custom in all Mahomedan towns and villages, the people a.s.sembled on the first day of the feast to celebrate it with special prayers and thanksgivings, and we get a curious insight into their manner of regarding the ceremonies of their religion from an incident that occurred on this occasion. By some strange forgetfulness the Imam, or official leader of the prayers, omitted to recite the Fatiha, the prayer which is in Islam that which the "Lord's Prayer" is in the Christian Church, with the addition that it is always recited as the opening prayer whenever and wherever Moslems worship. Under all ordinary circ.u.mstances the Moslem idea of propriety in a mosque or place of prayer is such as prevails in the churches of Europe, but the reverent attention that is customarily given to the Imam will not stand any great strain and so, reminded by a storm of protests from the thousands of worshippers present, the Imam on this occasion had to recommence the service! Let the reader try and imagine the congregation at some great festival in St. Paul's or St. Peter's roaring at his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, or his Holiness the Pope that he had omitted the collect for the day, and peremptorily ordering him to recommence the service!

Two months later, in May, 1799, the great Eed, or day of sacrifice, was kept, but in this as in all things the shadow of the French occupation overhung the people and embittered their feelings. Sheep, which for several reasons are the animals generally chosen for sacrifice, could not be had, partly because the flocks of the neighbouring villages had been almost wholly consumed by the French and partly because the restless condition of the country prevented those of more distant places being sent into the town. So the salvos of artillery with which according to custom the occasion was celebrated were listened to by the people but failed to awaken the usual enthusiasm, and, fired as they were by the unorthodox hands of the French gunners, were to the Moslems little better than a mockery.

Early in the year when the plague had first appeared rigorous police regulations had been issued for the protection of the French, who suffered from the dread of epidemics so universal in Christian Europe, but which, as readers of Kinglake's "Eothen" will remember, so slightly disturb the Oriental mind. As the year had advanced the plague had shown no signs of disappearing, and new and more stringent orders were issued in the hope of restricting it. Dire penalties were therefore imposed for concealing a case or a death, or for neglecting the prescribed sanitary precautions, and some idea of the frantic terror that possessed the compilers of these regulations may be gathered from the fact that death was the punishment proclaimed for any one sick of the plague who should dare enter any other house than his own dwelling.

Thus the first year of the French occupation and the year of the Moslem calendar came to an end within a few days of each other, and Gabarty winds up his long and yet all too brief record of the woes and tribulations of the twelve months by saying that it had been full of "unheard-of events, the most important being that the people of Egypt had been unable to make the pilgrimage to Mecca!"

A very notable conclusion of the year's story--a conclusion that tells us much of the people and their most extraordinary and irrational way, as you no doubt think it, of looking upon the affairs of life. The coming of the French, the terrible sufferings of the panic-stricken town, the gathering of that wild storm of revolt, its bursting, collapse, the long-delayed hope of relief, the daily outraging of the most cherished prejudices of the people--all these, the great flood of evil and sorrow that was the one recollection of that miserable time for all the people--all this was of less importance than the fact that a few hundred individuals had been unable to perform the dangerous journey to Mecca!

Death, want, misfortune and misery of every kind had filled the record of the year for one and all of the people, but this one thing in which but a few of them only could have any direct personal interest, this was "the most important event of the year!"

Is it any wonder that the people refused to fall down and worship the golden calf of the French Republic that Bonaparte and his Staff were so vainly trying to exalt!

That the reader may the more justly appreciate Gabarty's comment on the history of the year he must recall two facts with reference to the composition of his history--first that it was written at the time. It is not a record compiled in after years when the feelings, emotions, and thoughts of the moment had been forgotten or blurred, It was rather a diary scribbled down from day to day, and one written, too, with no special object other than that of recording the princ.i.p.al occurrences of the time. A mere narrative, not written in support of a theory, nor as a study of men or things, nor as a text for the exposition of the author's views, but simply in the plainest and most literal sense a mere narrative. Secondly, it is not as an opinion but as a fact that he puts this failure of the pilgrimage down as the most important event of that disastrous year. And he puts it down as a fact in terms that show clearly that he believes that as a matter of opinion it is one no one who may ever read his history will for a moment think of questioning or doubting in any way.

If the reader can by any possibility bring himself to comprehend in the faintest degree the true purport of this summing up of the year's history he will have got a long, a very long, way on the road to a clear comprehension of the Egyptian as he was in 1798, and as he still is.

It may help the reader somewhat to form some idea of his own on this subject if I turn aside for a moment to tell him what this pilgrimage to Mecca is, and how it is regarded by the Moslems of Egypt and other countries.

Itself surrounded by the hills of the desert district of the Hegaz, the city of Mecca has grown around and encircles a great rectangular open but cloister-bounded s.p.a.ce, in the centre of which rises a flat-roofed building occupying a mere spot in the vast courtyard, and which, but for its height, might be termed a cube, clothed on all sides by a hanging cloth of the deepest black, relieved only by a band of Arabic lettering wrought in gold. Nature herself has produced no more impressive sight than that presented by this small building thus strangely garbed and hid away in the wastes of the desert. In size, in form, in all things save its sable garment gently swaying to the slightest breeze, the building is one that would never draw from the stranger a second glance, but as it is, once seen it dwells upon the mind for ever with a vividness of detail no other sight can produce.

This is the _Beit Allah_, the "House of G.o.d" of Islam, first erected, as Moslem tradition relates, by the Prophet Abrahim, and ever since a place of pilgrimage for all true worshippers of G.o.d. Hither while yet Christianity and Islam were yet unknown, in the "days of ignorance,"

when the Arabs still worshipped idols of stone, they came from all parts of the Arab-speaking world as pilgrims, counting all the many dangers of the road as nought compared to the rich rewards awaiting in the future those who should accomplish this duty. Enjoined upon the Moslems as one of the five great obligations of their creed, the pilgrimage to-day draws Moslems from the most distant parts of the world by long and tedious journeys through the wildest and least-civilised parts of the earth, heedless of dangers and difficulties, counting it a gain to suffer by the way, and content to die once their eyes have fallen upon the sacred building. And of all Moslems the Egyptian, and most especially the Cairene, has a special and peculiar interest in the pilgrimage since it is the privilege of Cairo to supply from year to year the new _Kiswa_, or clothing for the _Beit Allah_.

Here, then, we have a partial clue to the importance attached to the failure of the pilgrimage by the Cairenes, but, as I have said, the failure was one that directly affected but a few hundreds of the people--those who under more favourable circ.u.mstances would have taken part in the pilgrimage. But these, from the point of view of their own pilgrimage, would accept the impossibility of performing it in that year as a matter of destiny, and would have regarded the impoverishment of their resources caused by the endless exactions of the French as a greater evil, as one not only preventing their making the pilgrimage in that year, but possibly also in future years, since the expenses of the journey are such that to the ordinary pilgrim they are only to be met by the economy of years.

There was, therefore, some other reason why the failure of the pilgrimage should be looked upon as so great a calamity, and if the reader will recall the incident of the omitted prayer at the festival of the Eed, it may a.s.sist in guiding him to the solution of the problem, for in that incident we get an aid to the understanding of the Egyptian's att.i.tude towards his religion and his interpretation of its duties. This and other matters that I have had occasion to speak of may perhaps enable the reader to understand at least this much--that this people has a standard of good and evil very different to his own, and that no scale of weal and woe that he could draw out would be at all likely to commend itself to their acceptance. He who has grasped this fact will have gained a position from which he may hope to pursue his study of the Egyptians and their history, with at least one solid, indisputable fact to guide him--a fact that, almost impossible as one would think it to be, the ordinary historian of the country seems quite unable to realise. It is true that in so many set words or phrases they tell their readers that the Egyptian does not reason or think as other men do, but having said so much they describe and criticise their actions and thoughts without the least reference to this fundamental and controlling fact. Nor is it the historians alone who make this cra.s.s mistake. Men living in the country, nay, even those born and reared in it, and living in the closest intimacy with Egyptians, are no wiser, and hence, whenever Egyptian thought or opinion run counter to their own, they all agree in attributing the difference to "stupidity" or "fanaticism." And what is still less realised is that this difference is not limited to the Moslems, but is shared by the Christians of the country. Severed from each other as the Moslem and Eastern Christian are in thought and aspiration, they are, though not wholly one, strongly sympathetic in their estimates of European civilisation as it is commonly presented to them. The active effect of their sympathy is partly nullified by the interest the Christian has in seeing the predominant power in the hands of his coreligionists, and it was this interest, and this interest alone, and not any sympathy with French views or French ideals, that gained from the Christians of Egypt whatever of support they gave the French. In all books on the East it is tacitly a.s.sumed by the writers that were the East Christianised it would be in full sympathy with European thought. No greater error is conceivable. The Coptic or the Syrian clerk in the service of the Egyptian Government of to-day, compelled as he is by the official regulations, attends his office in European dress, but goes home to throw that off at the first possible moment to resume the garb of the country, the loose, flowing garments that good sense and experience alike tell him are not only the most comfortable but the most healthy in a climate such as that of Egypt. And as in this so in other things. Like the Moslem, he accepts many of the comforts and conventions of European life, but like him he rejects not a few of these that north of the Mediterranean are deemed indispensable.

These were things that the French did not and perhaps could not see.

And there was yet another obstacle they had to surmount, but of the presence of which they seem to have been oblivious. The civilisation that the French wished to plant in Egypt had not been the growth of a day, but the fruit of centuries of slow and halting progress. Had it been possible for a foreign power to have attempted to introduce that civilisation into France, say in the ninth or tenth century, what manner of reception would it have had? Think you that the French people of that time would have hailed the innovations forced upon them with rapturous delight? that they would at once have appreciated every little detail, and hastened to abandon all their time-honoured habits and customs to adopt those of their new teachers? How did our Hereward the Wake look upon the innovations of the Norman Conqueror?

Was it with an ecstasy of admiration that Gurth the swineherd thought of the Norman civilisation of his day? Was it enthusiasm for the benefits advancing civilisation was bestowing upon them that led the Luddites in their machine-wrecking riots? The parallels are not perfect I admit, yet there is in them a sufficient resemblance of circ.u.mstance and fact to justify the comparison, and more than enough to discredit the conclusions that so many authors have drawn from the att.i.tude of the people of Egypt towards the French.

We have not reached the pleasant lands of our modern civilisation wafted by a gentle breeze on a smoothly gliding bark, but have won our way through storm and tempest by paths bedewed with blood and tears, and withal our progress has been less a striving for good than a flight from evil, and though we are not perhaps all sensible of it, our appreciation of our civilisation is largely our appreciation of our triumph over evils and difficulties. The ignorant and thoughtless, whether of the "Smart Set" or of the slums, do not see this. They and all of their cla.s.s take life, as do their cats and dogs and the beasts of the field, as they find it. Yet he who can and will think must admit that it is so, and, admitting this, will see that in addition to the other causes that prevented the Egyptians accepting the French and their reforms there was this very important one, that they could not in any way appreciate them as reforms, seeing that they were not yet conscious of the existence of the evils they were intended to remedy.

To the Egyptian, as I have said before, the life he had been living under the Mamaluks needed but little to make it perfect. Moderate taxation and the abolition of the erratic tyranny from which the people suffered were the two things wanted to make his life wholly desirable and pleasant. These evils, so far from being abolished by the French, were, in the opinion of the Egyptian, increased a hundredfold. And to these the French added a host of minor evils: worrying and wearisome regulations, cramping the liberty and freedom the people had always enjoyed, thwarting their natural instincts and burthening them with a sense of control they had never before experienced.

Again, I ask, what wonder was it that they did not fall down and worship the golden calf of the Republic?

CHAPTER XIII

THE SIEGE OF CAIRO

It was the middle of June, 1799, before Bonaparte got back to Cairo from Syria. His prolonged siege of Acre had been an utter failure, and save for a little worthless loot the whole expedition had been but a sample of that which his whole life was to be--a selfish, reckless waste of human life, useless, unprofitable, and, in spite of the servile adulation it has had, entirely contemptible. That this man was personally brave, skilful in war, a clever general--in short, that he was a man of many abilities that, rightly exercised, would have ent.i.tled him to respect and admiration--is perfectly true, but it is not more true of him than of many that the world has rightly and properly agreed to cla.s.s as criminals. Seeking nothing but his own gain, in this futile expedition he had sacrificed thousands of lives, wrecked hundreds of innocent homes. More than a third of his army had perished, including twelve hundred of his sick and wounded abandoned to the vengeance of the enemy for his own ruthless slaughter of his prisoners. Such is the great hero of modern civilisation!

But defeated and discomfited as he was, he entered Cairo in triumph with banners flying, drums beating, and all the rest of the idle fanfaronade and pompous puerilities a.s.sociated with triumphal entries.

Five long hours the grand procession occupied in pa.s.sing through the city gates, and thenceforth for three days and nights his coming was celebrated with loud rejoicings and feastings, and the Egyptians looked on and even took such part in the hollow mockery as they were commanded to do, but they were in no way deceived; the gaunt skeleton of defeat and failure was clothed but not concealed by the gaudy glare of lying pretence.

So the "Great" Bonaparte paid honour to himself, heedless of the droning of the surges on St. Helena's distant sh.o.r.e.

A month later the long-expected Turkish army arrived by sea, and, landing at Abou Kir on the 14th of July, was besieged by the French under Bonaparte himself on the 25th. Although aided by Sir Sidney Smith, who was in command of a fleet that had already a.s.sisted in the defence of Acre, the Turks, defeated by starvation, had to yield on the 2nd of August.

The news of the arrival of the Turks had been received in Cairo with unbounded joy, though none but a few of the hot-headed lower cla.s.ses had given any open expression to their feelings, but when Bonaparte returned to the city with a long file of Turkish prisoners the despondency of the people was overwhelming; yet, though it was felt by all to be a rebinding of the chains of their bondage, they gave no sign, and the life of the town went on in the listless way that was becoming habitual to it. It was the easier for the people to bear this reverse that they by no means looked upon it as in any way a final one. The defeat of the Turks was but the defeat of a small force taken at great disadvantage, and one which they did not doubt was but the advance guard of an army against which the French could make no stand.

Meanwhile, the period of the inundation having arrived, the rising of the Nile was celebrated by order, as it had been the year before, but this time with an abandon on the part of the Christians that gravely shocked Gabarty, who tells us that the eve of the _fete_ was spent by them in boats on the river, or in the open along its banks, with feasting and drinking and women and music. "On this occasion," he writes, "they forgot their self-respect and cast modesty aside for indecency, raillery, impudence, and impiety. The pen refuses to paint the scandals of the night. Licence was carried to its extreme, and the dregs of the people, following the example set them, the debauchery and effrontery were without limit." All night the Baccha.n.a.lian festival was continued, the outrageous orgie ceasing only with the utter exhaustion of the degraded devotees of pleasure.