From Egypt to Japan Part 5

In recalling this memory of Egypt, my object is not merely to furnish a poetical and romantic description, but to invite the attention of the most sober readers to what may well be a study and an instruction.

This Pyramid was the greatest of the Seven Wonders of the World in the time of the Greeks, and it is the only one now standing on the earth.

May it not be that it contains some wisdom of the ancients that is worthy the attention of the boastful moderns; some secret and sacred lore which the science of the present day may well study to reveal? It may be (as Piazzi Smyth argues in his learned book) that we who are now upon the earth have "an inheritance in the Great Pyramid;" that it was built not merely to swell the pride of the Pharaohs, and to be the wonder of the Egyptians; but for our instruction, on whom the ends of the world are come. Without giving our adhesion in advance to any theory, there are certain facts, clearly apparent, which give to this structure more than a monumental interest. For thousands of years it had been supposed to have been built for a royal tomb--for that and that only. So perhaps it was--and perhaps not. At any rate a very slight observation will show that it was built also for other purposes. For example:

Observe its geographical position. It stands at the apex of the Delta of the Nile, and Piazzi Smyth claims, in the centre of the habitable globe! He has a map in which its point is fixed _in_ Africa, yet between Europe and Asia, and which shows that it stands in the exact centre of the land surface of the whole world. This, if it be an accident, is certainly a singular one.

Then it is exactly on the thirtieth parallel of lat.i.tude, and it stands four-square, its four sides facing exactly the four points of compa.s.s--North, South, East, and West. Now the chances are a million to one that this could not occur by accident. There is no need to argue such a matter. It was certainly done by design, and shows that the old Egyptians knew how to draw a meridian line, and to take the points of compa.s.s, as accurately as the astronomers of the present day.

Equally evident is it that they were able to measure the solar year as exactly as modern astronomers. Taking the sacred cubit as the unit of measure there are in each side of the Pyramid just 365 cubits, which gives not only the number of days in the year, but the six hours over!

That it was built for astronomical purposes, seems probable from its very structure. Professor Proctor argues that it was erected for purposes of astrology! Never was there such an observatory in the world. Its pinnacle is the loftiest ever placed in the air by human hands. It seems as if the Pyramid were built like the tower of Babel, that its top might "touch heaven." From that great height one has almost a perfect horizon, looking off upon the level valley of the Nile. It is said that it could not have been ascended because its sides were covered with polished stone. But may there not have been a secret pa.s.sage to the top? It is hard to believe that such an elevation was not made use of by a people so much given to the study of the stars as were the ancient Egyptians. In some way we would believe that the priests and astrologers of Egypt were able to climb to that point, where they might sit all night long looking at the constellations through that clear and cloudless sky; watching Orion and the Pleiades, as they rose over the Mokattam hills on the other side of the Nile, and set behind the hills of the Libyan desert.

There is another very curious fact in the Pyramid, that the pa.s.sage by which it is entered points directly to the North Star, and yet not to the North Star that now is, but to Alpha Draconis, which was the North Star four thousand years ago. This is one way in which the age of the Pyramid is determined, for it is found by the most exact calculations that 2170 years before Christ, a man placed at the bottom of that pa.s.sage, as at the bottom of a well, and looking upward through that shaft, as if he were looking through the great telescope of Lord Rosse, would fix his eye exactly on the North Star--the pole around which was revolving the whole celestial sphere. As is well known, this central point of the heavens changes in the lapse of ages, but that star will come around to the same point in 25,800 years more, when, if the Pyramid be still standing, the observers of that remote period can again look upward and see Alpha Draconis on his throne, and mark how the stars "return again" to their places in the everlasting revolutions of the heavens.

As to the measurement of _time_, all who have visited astronomical observatories know the extreme and almost infinite pains taken to obtain an even temperature for clocks. The slightest increase of temperature may elongate the pendulum, and so affect the duration of a second, and this, though it be in a degree so infinitesimal as to be almost inappreciable, yet becomes important to the accuracy of computations, when a unit has to be multiplied by hundreds of millions, as it is in calculating the distances of the heavenly bodies. To obviate this difficulty, astronomical clocks are sometimes placed in apartments under ground, closed in with thick walls (where even the door is rarely opened, but the observations are made through a gla.s.s window), so that it cannot be affected by the variations of temperature of the outer world. But here, in the heart of this mountain of stone, the temperature is preserved at an absolute equilibrium, so that there is no expansion by heat and no contraction by cold. What are all the observatories of Greenwich, and Paris and Pulkowa, to such a rock-built citadel as the Great Pyramid?

But not only was the Pyramid designed to stand right in its position towards the earth and the heavenly bodies; but also, and perhaps chiefly (so argues Prof. Smyth) was it designed for metrological (not met_eo_rological) purposes--to furnish an exact standard of weights and measures. The unit of lineal measure used in the Pyramid he finds to correspond not to the English _foot_, nor to the French _metre_, but to the Hebrew _sacred cubit_. This is certainly a curious coincidence, but may it not prove simply that the latter was derived from the former? Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and may have brought from the Valley of the Nile weights and measures, as well as customs and laws.

But this cubit itself, wherever it came from, has some very remarkable correspondences. French and English mathematicians and astronomers have had great difficulty to fix upon an exact standard of lineal measure. Their method has been to take some length which had an exact relation to one of the unchangeable s.p.a.ces or distances of the globe itself. Thus the English inch is one five hundred millionth part of the axis of the earth. But Prof. Smyth finds in the Great Pyramid a still better standard of measure. The cubit contains twenty-five of what he calls "Pyramid inches," and fifty of these are just equal to one ten-millionth part of the earth's axis of rotation! He finds in the Pyramid a greater wonder still in a measure for determining the distance of the earth from the sun, which is the unit for calculating the distances of the heavenly bodies! That which scientific expeditions have been sent into all parts of the earth within the last two years to determine by more accurate observations of the transit of Venus, is more exactly told in the Great Pyramid erected four thousand years ago!

It is a very fascinating study to follow this learned professor in his elaborate calculations. He seems to think the whole of the exact sciences contained in the Great Pyramid. The vacant chest of red granite in the King's Chamber, over which Egyptologists have puzzled so much, is to him as the very ark of the Lord. That which has been supposed to be a sarcophagus, with no other interest than as having once held a royal mummy, he holds not to be the tomb of Cheops, or of any of the kings of Egypt, but a sacred coffer intended to serve as a standard of weights and measures for all time to come. He thinks it accomplishes perfectly the arithmetical feat of squaring the circle!--the height being to the circ.u.mference of the base, as the radius is to the circ.u.mference of a circle.

But the Great Pyramid has, to Professor Smyth, more than a scientific--it has a religious interest. He is a Scotchman, and not only a man of science, but one who believes, with all the energy of his Scotch nature, in a Divine revelation; and as might be supposed, he connects this monument of scientific learning with One who is the source of all wisdom and knowledge. However great may have been the wisdom of the Egyptians, he does not believe that they had a knowledge of geodesy and astronomy greater than the most learned scientific men of our day. He has another explanation, that the Great Pyramid was built by the guidance of Him who led the Israelites out of Egypt, and who, as he shone upon their path in the desert, now shines by this lighthouse and signal tower upon the blindness and ignorance of the world. He believes that the Pyramid was constructed by Divine inspiration just as much as the Jewish Tabernacle; that as Moses was commanded to fashion everything according to the pattern showed to him in the Mount, so some ancient King of Egypt, working under Divine inspiration, builded better than he knew, and wrought into enduring stone, truths which he did not perhaps himself understand, but which were to be revealed in the last time, and to testify to a later generation the manifold wisdom of G.o.d. As to its age he places it somewhere between the time of Noah and the calling of Abraham. Dr.

Grant even thinks it was built before the death of Noah! But mankind could hardly have multiplied in the earth in the lifetime of even the oldest of the patriarchs, so as to be capable of building such monuments. The theory is that it was not built by an Egyptian architect. There is a tradition mentioned in Herodotus of a shepherd who came from a distant country, from the East, who had much to do with the building of the Pyramid, and was regarded as a heavenly visitant and director. Prof. Smyth thinks it probable, that this visitor was Melchisedek! He even gives the Pyramid a prophetic character, and thinks that the different pa.s.sages and chambers are designed to be symbolical of the different economies through which G.o.d educates the race. The entrance at first _descends_. That may represent the gradual decadence of mankind to the time of the Flood, or to the exodus of the Israelites. Then the pa.s.sage begins to _ascend_, but slowly and painfully, which represents the Jewish Dispensation, when men were struggling towards the light. After a hundred and twenty-seven feet of this stooping and creeping upward, there is a sudden enlargement, and the low pa.s.sage rises up into the Grand Gallery, just as the Mosaic economy, after groping through many centuries, at last bursts into the full glory of the Christian Dispensation.

Believing in its inspired character, he finds in every part of this wonderful structure signs and symbols. Taking it as an emblem of Christian truth, where is the chief corner-stone? Not at the base, but at the top--the apex! At the bottom, there are four stones which are equal--no one of which is above another--the _chief_ corner-stone therefore must be the capstone!

It will be perceived that this is a very original and very sweeping theory; that it overturns all our ideas of the Great Pyramid; that it not only turns Cheops out of it, but turns Science and Revelation together into it. We may well hesitate before accepting it in its full extent, and yet we must acknowledge our indebtedness to Prof. Smyth.

He has certainly given a new interest to this h.o.a.ry monument of the past. Scientific men who reject his theory are still deeply interested in the facts which he brings to light, which they recognize as very extraordinary, and which show a degree of scientific knowledge which not only they did not believe to exist among the Egyptians, but which hardly exists in our day.

So much as this we may freely concede, that the Pyramid has a scientific value, if not a sacred character; that it is full of the wisdom of the Egyptians, if not of the inspiration of the Almighty; and that it is a storehouse of ancient knowledge, even if it be not the very Ark of the Covenant, in which the holiest mysteries are enshrined!

Leaving out what may be considered fanciful in the speculations of the Scotch astronomer, there is yet much in the facts he presents worthy the consideration of the man of science, as well as the devout attention of the student of the Bible, and which, if duly weighed, will at once enlarge our knowledge and strengthen our faith.

Such are the lessons that we derive from even our slight acquaintance with the Great Pyramid; and so, as we looked back that night, and saw it standing there in the moonlight, its cold gray summit, its "chief corner-stone," pointing upwards to the clear unclouded firmament, it seemed to point to something above the firmament--to turn our eyes and thoughts to Heaven and to G.o.d.

CHAPTER VIII.

LEAVING EGYPT--THE DESERT.

We left Cairo the next morning. Our departure from Egypt was not exactly like that of the Israelites, though we came through the land of Goshen, and by the way of the Red Sea. We did not flee away at night, nor hear the rush of horses and chariots behind us. Indeed we were very reluctant to flee at all; we did not like to go away, for in those five or six weeks we had grown very fond of the country, to which the society of agreeable travelling companions lent an additional charm.

But the world was all before us, and necessity bade us depart. It was the 6th of January, the beginning of the feast of Bairam, the Mohammedan Pa.s.sover. The guns of the Citadel ushered in the day, observed by all devout Mussulmans, which commemorates the sacrifice by Abraham--not of Isaac, but of _Ishmael_, for the Arabs, who are descendants of Ishmael, have no idea of his being set aside by the other son of the Father of the Faithful. On this day every family sacrifices the paschal lamb (which explains the flocks of sheep which we had seen for several days in the streets of the city), and sprinkles its blood upon the lintels and doorposts of their houses, that the angel of death may pa.s.s them by. The day is one of general rejoicing and festivity. The Khedive gives a grand reception to all the foreign representatives at his palace of Gezireh, at which I had been invited to be present. But from this promised pleasure I had to tear myself away, to reach the steamer at Suez on which we were to embark the next day for India. But if we missed the Khedive, we had at least a compensation, for as we were at the station, who should appear but Nubar Pasha! He had just resigned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which took a load off his shoulders, and felt like a boy out of school, and was now going off to a farm which he has a few miles from Cairo, to have a holiday. He immediately came to us and took a seat in the same carriage, and we sat together for an hour, listening to his delightful conversation, as he talked of Egypt with a patriot's love and a poet's enthusiasm. There is no man who more earnestly wishes its prosperity, and it would be well for the Khedive if he were always guided by such advisers. At the station his servants met him with one of those beautiful white donkeys, so much prized in the East, and as he rode away waving his hand to us, we felt that we were parting from one of the wisest and wittiest men whom it had been our good fortune to meet in all our travels.

At Zagazig, the railroad from Cairo unites with that from Alexandria.

Here we stopped to dine, and while waiting, a special train arrived with Mr. Cave, who has come out from London to try and put some order into the financial affairs of Egypt. If he succeeds, he will deserve to be ranked very high as a financier. He was going on to Ismailia to meet M. de Lesseps, that they might go through the Suez Ca.n.a.l together.

And now we leave behind us the rich land of Goshen, where Joseph placed his father Jacob and his brethren, with their flocks and herds; we leave the fertile meadows and the palm groves. We are on the track of the Israelites; we have pa.s.sed Rameses, the first station in their march, and entered the desert, that "great and terrible wilderness" in which they wandered forty years. We enter it, not on camels or horses, but drawn by a steed of fire. A railway in the desert! This is progress indeed. There is something very imposing to the imagination in the idea of an iron track laid in the pathless sands, over which long trains move swifter than "the swift dromedaries," and carrying burdens greater than the longest caravans. These are the highways of civilization, which may yet carry it into the heart of Africa. Here, too, are the great ships, pa.s.sing through the Suez Ca.n.a.l, whose tall masts are outlined against the horizon, as they move slowly from sea to sea.

And now we are approaching the border line between Asia and Africa. It is an invisible line; no snow-capped mountains divide the mighty continents which were the seats of the most ancient civilization; no sea flows between them: the Red Sea terminates over seventy miles from the Mediterranean; even the Suez Ca.n.a.l does not divide Asia and Africa, for it is wholly in Egypt. Nothing marks where Africa ends and Asia begins, but a line in the desert, covered by drifting sands. And yet there is something which strangely touches the imagination, as we move forward in the twilight, with the sun behind us, setting over Africa, and before us the black night coming on over the whole continent of Asia.

So would I take leave of Africa--in the Night and in the Desert. Byron closes his Childe Harold with an apostrophe to the Ocean, his Pilgrim ending his wanderings on the sh.o.r.e. The Desert is like the Sea: it fills the horizon, and shuts out the sight of "busy cities far away,"

leaving one on the boundless plain, as on the Ocean--alone with the Night. Perhaps I may be indulged in some quiet musings here, before we embark on the Red Sea, and seek a new world in India.

But what can one say of the desert? The subject seems as barren as its own sands. _Life_ in the desert? There is _no_ life; it is the very realm of death, where not a blade of gra.s.s grows, nor even an insect's wing flutters over the mighty desolation; the only objects in motion, the clouds that flit across the sky, and cast their shadows on the barren waste below; and the only sign that man has ever pa.s.sed over it, the bleaching bones that mark the track of caravans.

But as we look, behold "a wind cometh out of the North," and stirring the loose sand, whirls it into a column, which moves swiftly towards us like a ghost, as if it said: "I am the spirit of the desert; man, wherefore comest thou here? Pa.s.s on. If thou invadest long my realm of solitude and silence, I will make thy grave." We shall not linger, but only "tarry for a night," to question a little the mystery that lies hidden beneath these drifting sands.

We look again, and we see shadowy forms coming out of the whirlwind--great actors in history, as well as figures of the imagination. The horizon is filled with moving caravans and marching armies. Ancient conquerors pa.s.s this way for centuries from Asia into Africa, and back again, the wave of conquest flowing and reflowing from the valley of the Tigris to the valley of the Nile. As we leave the Land of Goshen, we hear behind us the tramp of the Israelites beginning their march; and as the night closes in, we see in another quarter of the horizon the wise men of the East coming from Arabia, following their guiding star, which leads them to Bethlehem, where Christ was born.

And so the desert which was "dead" becomes "alive;" a whole living world starts up from the sands, and glides into view, appearing suddenly like Arab hors.e.m.e.n, and then vanishing as if it had not been, and leaving no trace in the sands any more than is left by a wreck that sinks in the ocean. But like the sea, it has its pa.s.sing life, which has a deep human interest. And not only is there a life of the desert, but a literature which is the expression of that life--a history and a poetry, which take their color from these peculiar forms of nature--and even a music of the desert, sung by the camel-drivers, to the slow movement of the caravan, its plaintive cadence keeping time to the tinkling of the bells.

It has been one of the problems of physical geographers: What was the _use_ of deserts in the economy of nature? A large part of Africa is covered by deserts. The Libyan Desert reaches to the Sahara, which stretches across the continent. All this seems an utterly waste portion of the earth's surface. The same question has been raised in regard to the sea: Why is it that three-fourths of the globe are covered by water? Perhaps the same answer may be given in both cases.

These vast s.p.a.ces may be the generators and purifiers of the air we breathe--the renovators of our globe's atmosphere.

And the desert has its beauty as well as its utility. It is not all a dead level, a boundless monotony, but is billowy like the sea, with great waves of sand cast up by the wandering winds. The color, of course, is always the same, for there is no green thing to relieve the yellow sand. But nature sometimes produces great effects with few materials. This monotony of color is touched with beauty by the glow of sunset, as the light of day fades over the wide expanse. Sunrise and sunset on the desert have all the simple but grand effects of sunrise and sunset on the ocean. What painter that has visited Egypt has not tried to put on canvas that after-glow on the Nile, which is alike his wonder and his despair? Egypt is one of the favorite countries sought by European artists, who seek to catch that marvellous color which is the effect of its atmosphere. They find many a subject in the desert. With the accessories of life, few as they are, it presents many a scene to attract a painter's eye, and furnishes full scope to his genius. A great artist finds ample material in its bare and naked outlines, relieved by a few solitary figures--the Arab and his tent, or the camel and his rider. Perhaps the scene is simply a few palm trees beside a spring, under whose shade a traveller has laid him down to rest from the noon-tide heat, and beside him are camels feeding! But here is already a picture. With what effect does Gerome give the Prayer in the Desert, with the camel kneeling on the sands, and his rider kneeling beside him, with his face turned towards Mecca; or Death in the Desert, where the poor beast, weary and broken, is abandoned to die, yet murmurs not, but has a look of patience and resignation that is most pathetic, as the vultures are seen hovering in the air, ready to descend on their prey!

A _habitat_ so peculiar as the desert must produce a life as peculiar.

It is of necessity a lonely life. The dweller in tents is a solitary man, without any fixed ties, or local habitation. Whoever lives on the desert must live alone, or with few companions, for there is nothing to support existence. It must be also a nomadic life. If the Arab camps, with his flocks and herds, in some green spot beside a spring, yet it is only for a few days, for in that time his sheep and cattle have consumed the scanty herbage, and he must move on to some new resting-place. Thus the life of the desert is a life always in motion.

The desert has no settled population, no towns or villages, where men are born, and grow up, and live and die. Its only "inhabitants" are "strangers and pilgrims," that come alone or in caravans, and pitch their tents, and tarry for a night, and are gone.

Such a life induces peculiar habits, and breeds a peculiar cla.s.s of virtues and vices. Nomadic tribes are almost always robbers, for they have to fight for existence, and it is a desperate struggle. But, on the other hand, their solitary life as well as the command of the prophet, has taught them the virtue of hospitality. Living alone, they feel at times the sore need of the presence of their kind, and welcome the companionship even of strangers. An Arab sheik may live by preying on travellers, but if a wanderer on the desert approaches his tent and asks shelter and protection, he gives it freely. Even though the old chief be a robber, the stranger sleeps in peace and safety, and his entertainer is rewarded by the comfort of seeing a human face and hearing a human voice.

To traverse s.p.a.ces so vast and so desolate would not be possible were it not for that faithful beast of burden which nature has provided.

Horses may be used by the Bedouins on their marauding expeditions, but they keep near the borders of the desert, where they can make a dash and fly; but on the long journey across the Great Sahara, by which the outer world communicates with the interior of Africa, no beast could live but the camel, which is truly the ship of the desert. Paley might find an argument for design in the peculiar structure of the camel for its purpose; in its stomach, that can carry water for days, and its foot, which is not small like that of the horse, but broad, to keep the huge animal from sinking in the sands. It serves as a snow-shoe, and bears up both the beast and his rider. Then it is not hard like a horse's hoof, that rings so sharp on the pavement, but soft almost like a lion's paw. And tall as the creature is, he moves with a swinging gait, that is not unpleasant to one accustomed to it, and as he comes down on his soft foot, the Arab mother sits at ease, and her child is lulled to rest almost as if rocked in a cradle.

Thus moving on in these slow and endless marches, what so natural as that the camel-riders should beguile their solitude with song? The lonely heart relieves itself by pouring its loves and its sorrows into the air; and hence come those Arabian melodies, so wild and plaintive and tender, which const.i.tute the music of the desert. Some years since a symphony was produced in Paris, called "The Desert," which created a great sensation, deriving its peculiar charm from its unlikeness to European music. It awakened, as it were, a new sense in those who had been listening all their lives to French and German operas. It seemed to tell--as music only tells--the story of the life of the desert. In listening one could almost see the boundless plain, broken only by the caravan, moving slowly across the waste. He could almost "feel the silence" of that vast solitude, and then faintly in the distance was heard the tinkling of the camel-bells, and the song of the desert rose upon the evening air, as softly as if cloistered nuns were singing their vesper hymns. The novel conception took the fancy of the pleasure seekers of Paris, always eager for a new sensation. The symphony made the fame of the composer, Felicien David, who was thought to have shown a very original genius in the composition of melodies, such as Europe had not heard before. The secret was not discovered until some French travellers in the East, crossing the desert, heard the camel-drivers singing and at once recognized the airs that had so taken the enthusiasm of Paris. They were the songs of the Arabs. The music was born on the desert, and produced such an effect precisely because it was the outburst of a pa.s.sionate nature brooding in solitude.

Music and poetry go together: the life that produces the one produces the other also. And as there is a music of the desert, so there is a poetry of the desert. Indeed the desert may be almost said to have been the birthplace of poetry. The Book of Job, the oldest poem in the world, older than Homer, and grander than any uninspired composition, was probably written in Arabia, and is full of the imagery of the desert.

But while the mind carols lightly in poetry and music, its deeper musings take the form of Religion. It is easy to see how the life of the desert must act upon a thoughtful and "naturally religious" mind.

The absence of outward objects throws it back upon itself; and it broods over the great mystery of existence. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, when he was

"Alone on the wide, wide sea,"

found that

"So lonely 'twas that G.o.d himself Scarce seemed there to be."

But in the desert one may say there is nothing but G.o.d. If there is little of earth, there is much of heaven. The glory of the desert is at night, when the full moon rises out of the level plain, as out of the sea, and walks the unclouded firmament. And when she retires, then all the heavenly host come forth. The atmosphere is of such exquisite purity, that the stars shine with all their splendor. No vapor rises from the earth, no exhalation obscures the firmament, which seems all aglow with the celestial fires. It was such a sight that kindled the mind of Job, as he looked up from the Arabian deserts three thousand years ago, and saw Orion and the Pleiades keeping their endless march; and as led him to sing of the time "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of G.o.d shouted for joy."

Is it strange that G.o.d should choose such a vast and silent temple as this for the education of those whom He would set apart for his own service? Here the Israelites were led apart to receive the law from the immediate presence of G.o.d. The desert was their school, the place of their national education. It separated them from their own history.

It drew a long track between them and the bitter past. It was a fit introduction to their new life and their new religion, as to their new country.

In such solitudes G.o.d has had the most direct communion with the individual soul. It was in the desert that Moses hid himself in a cleft of the rock while the Lord pa.s.sed by; that the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind; and from it that John the Baptist came forth, as the voice of one crying in the wilderness.