From sketch-book and diary Part 4

On board the little "_Rose_," lent us by an Armenian Bey, I tasted once more the placid pleasure of fresh water travel under sail and oar; and I again heard the strange intervals of the songs that kept the oarsmen in time at their work. But I also learnt what Egyptian rain was like, and how hideous the Mahmoudieh becomes under weeping skies. I saw in this land the deepest and ugliest mud in the world--mud of the colour of chocolate. The weather cleared usually towards evening, and nothing more weird have I ever seen than the villages, cemeteries, solitary tombs, goats, buffaloes, and wild human beings that loomed upon the sky-line on the top of the banks against the windy clouds, reddened by the fiery globe that had sunk below the palm-fringed horizon. These ca.n.a.l banks might give many people the horrors, and I certainly thought them in that weather the uncanniest bits of manipulated nature I had ever seen.

At Atfeh, after three days' ca.n.a.l, we emerged upon the wide and glorious Nile, and the skies smiled upon us once more. But the sadness of the country remained to us as we contemplated the miserable villages which occurred so frequently, with their poor graveyards at their sides, the latter only distinguishable by the smaller size of the dwellings, and the fact that the huts of the living had doors, and the huts of the dead had none--that was all.

Once on the swift Nile current, with the eight sweeps flashing and splashing to the rhythm of the strange singing (the prevailing north wind being against sailing), we made a good run down to Rosetta, on whose mud bank we thumped in a surprising manner, at 10 P.M. by a pale watery moonlight.

Never have I seen anything sadder than the land we pa.s.sed through that day--dead, neglected, forlorn. Every now and then what seemed a great city loomed mistily ahead of us, with domes and minarets, and what seemed mighty palaces, piled one above the other on stately terraces.

These apparitions were on the sites of once magnificent centres of wealth and luxury, and from afar they might still appear to be what once they were. Then, as we neared them, the domes unveiled themselves into heaps of filthy straw; the palaces were mud hovels a few feet high; the great mosques were merely poor half-ruined tombs into which a single person could scarcely crawl. The illusion occurred every time we came in sight of one of these phantasms, and the effect on the mind was most singular. City after city arose thus on one's sight in the distance, as though seen through the long ages that have rolled by since their prime, and those long ages seemed like a veil that rapidly dissolved to show us, as we approached, the wretched reality of to-day. "The pride of life," "pomp," "arrogance," "luxury,"--those epithets were their own once, while to-day the very ant.i.theses of such terms would best become them. They are literally all dust now, and there survive only the poor blunt-shaped dwellings for living and dead, that lie huddled together in such pathetic companionship.

As the daylight fades we see the people creeping into their shelters like their animals, to wait, like them, in the unlighted darkness, for the coming of the morning. Their up-river fellow-workers live in a land where the hardships of this cold and muddy winter misery are unknown.

I was glad to see the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, thus completing rather an extended, as well as intimate, knowledge of the great river from there to Sarras in the Soudan. Return tickets to Khartoum had not yet taken travellers by rail up the Nile in so many dusty hours.

Still grey was the weather down to where the river merges into the melancholy sea, between Napoleon's two dismantled forts, and what beauty there might have been was densely veiled. The old French "Fort St.

Julien" was interesting as being the place where the "Rosetta Stone,"

which gave the key to all the Egyptian hieroglyphics, was discovered.

There we moored for the night on our return to Rosetta, in a Napoleonic atmosphere, and next day I sketched the once opulent commercial city, where now nothing seems doing. A bald old pelican caused some movement in the streets by raiding the odoriferous fish-market and scurrying down, chased by small boys, to the water's edge where I was sitting, in order to float, by copious draughts, the fish that lay in his pouch down his throat, pill-wise. The pelican always got his pill down in time, and the race to the river was repeated more than once with the small boys.

On another evening, on our return voyage, we moored under the wild town of Syndioor, whose minaret, the tallest, I should think, in the world, proved to be no phantom, but a lovely and solid reality. In the pearly light of the succeeding mornings the shining cities looked, through their misty veils, more lovely afar off than ever. Finally we dropped back again between the mud banks of the ca.n.a.l, and in due time landed under the oleanders of our starting-place, the crew kissing hands and paying us the prescribed compliments of farewell.

Our major-domo, Ruffo the European, was with us on board. I must tell you of Ruffo; such an honest man in a country of much corruption! He did all my housekeeping, and that zealously; but, desiring sometimes to consult me about dinner, his figurative way of putting things before me was a little trying. "Miladi, would you like cutlets?" patting his ribs; "or a leg?" advancing that limb; "or, for a very nice entree, brains?"

tapping his perspiring forehead. "Oh no, Ruffo, _never_ brains, _please_!" He would rejoice in strokes of good luck in the market, and fly through the sitting-rooms to me, perhaps bearing, like a gonfalon, a piece of beef, where good beef was so rare; "Look, miladi, you will not often meet such beef walking in the street." He always smelled the melons on presenting them to me, to invite my attention to their ripeness.

After Cairo, Alexandria struck me very disagreeably at first; but when I got over its Western pseudo-Italian garishness, I was able to console myself with many a precious bit of orientalism, and even the bizarre mixture of flashy European tinsel with the true native metal amused me so much that I ended by enjoying the place and in being delighted to return there for yet another winter, and another. Nor can I ever forget that this appointment afforded us the most memorable journey of our lives--the ride through Palestine!

Not even the drive on the old s...o...b..a Road at Cairo surpa.s.sed the Alexandrian Rotten Row on the Mahmoudieh Ca.n.a.l on a Friday afternoon in its heterogeneous comicality. Every type was on the Mahmoudieh, in carriages, and on horseback--Levantine, Greek, Jew, Italian, Arab; up and down they rode on the b.u.mpy promenade, under the shade of acacias and other flowering trees that skirted the picturesque ca.n.a.l. Across this narrow strip of water you saw the Arab villages of a totally different world; and I really felt a qualm every time I saw a _fellah_ over the way turning his back to the western sun (and to us) to pray, in absolute oblivion of our silly goings-on. On our side was Worldiness running up and down, helter-skelter; on the other, the repose of Kismet.

Here comes a foreign consul--you know him by his armed, picturesque ruffian on the box--in a smart Victoria, driven by a coal-black Nubian in spotless white necktie and gloves; the Arab horse is ambling along with high measured action. Much admired is _Monsieur le Consul_--the observed of all observers; he looks as though he felt himself "quite, quite." But "Awah, awah!" Here come at a smart leaping run two shouting syces turbaned in the Alexandrian fashion; and behind them a barouche and pair driven by an English coachman of irreproachable deportment.

What thrilling rivalry is here!

Exquisite horses with showy saddle-cloths there are, with _le sport_ on their backs in the person of "young Egypt" in the inevitable _tarboosh_.

That _tarboosh_! It is the "bowler" hat of the East, and I don't know which I hate most--it or the "bowler."

The ladies are overwhelming; and I rest my eyes occasionally by watching the demure feminine figures of the "East end" who are filling their _amphorae_ under the oleanders over the way, or washing their clothes and their babies in the drinking water supply of the native town.

Towards sunset there is a _sauve qui peut_ of equipages citywards, and I never heard such a din as is set up as soon as the soft roads are pa.s.sed and the paved streets are reached. Over it all you may hear:--

The tow-row-row and the tow-row-row Of the British Grenadiers.

The Suffolks or the Surreys are marching from Mandara Camp to the sound of that drum which we like to remind ourselves "beats round the world."

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[Ill.u.s.tration: SYNDIOOR ON THE LOWER NILE]

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III

THE CAPE

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CHAPTER I

TO THE CAPE

I don't know whether in the Atlantic that lies between England and America you have had calm moonlight nights such as, taking the ocean longitudinally, one may have an impressive experience of, if timing the voyage rightly. I don't suppose a more favourable time for "detachment"

could be easily obtained than those night hours on board a great ship out at sea, when one more easily realizes than in the daytime how the huge "Liner" is but a pathetic little speck on the landless and fathomless waters. The heart of this atom beats courageously enough night and day, without a rest, as it carries its charge onwards to deliver it at the goal that lies in the "Under World," but never does one more sensitively feel the power of those words, "In the hollow of His hand," than when realising the true proportion of the "vessel" that carries us and our fortunes.

We spent--the children, Mrs. B. (wife of W.'s Military Secretary), and I--a few hours by night at Madeira, three days out from England, the only land we touched throughout the six thousand miles.

My diary says, 21st February '99: "We spent a memorable night on an enchanted Island. Arriving at Funchal overnight instead of in the morning of the next day, as we were timed to do, we took the place by surprise. First we saw a blazing light on an advanced rock, which stood out very black, well ahead of the dusky ma.s.s of the Island, which rose high behind it, dimly crowned with spectral snow. The moon, not yet full, was clearing her way through thin cloud veils, and the town at first could be guessed at only by cl.u.s.ters of lights along the sh.o.r.e, where the waves were breaking with a strange clamour on the pebbles.

"Presently b.a.l.l.s of fire were sent up on the slopes above the town to tell Funchal we were coming, and, as we slowly rounded into the smooth water of the bay, we could see a little armada of boats pushing out in a flurried line towards us, and we presently heard the Portuguese chatter of their occupants who were soon swarming up the side to try and get all the money out of us that they could in exchange for fruit, embroidery, basket-work, etc. Then a streaming triton appeared at the bulwarks, outside, his face and brawny muscles gleaming in our electric light against the deep-blue background of moonlit sea. The triton asked for sixpences to be thrown into the water, and he dived for them and came up, grinning and streaming, into the light again for more. All the world over, where the seas are clear, this game goes on to beguile the traveller. I must say I think those sixpences are fairly earned when I see to what depths these creatures dive for them in semi-darkness. To what metaphorical depths less honest men descend for petty pelf! but I haven't time to work this out.

"Soon Mr. Payne came on board, the wine-merchant prince, whom W. had asked to show us the Island and give us our deck chairs. To this most kind friend we are indebted for a memorable experience. He proposed, though it was night, to take us on sh.o.r.e, and I, the three children, and Mrs. B. followed him down the ship's side to one of the many boats that were lurching and b.u.mping at the foot of the ladder. The first boat tilted over on its side and nearly spilt her two rowers, who rolled out maledictions as the water filled her and lost them their chance of us.

We jumped into another and were rowed to the little jetty. On arriving in the town we found little hooded sledges, drawn by small oxen, waiting. We boarded two of these Madeira cabs and drove up to the Casino, our cabmen running by the side and whooping to the oxen. We entered an enchanted garden waving with palms, pines, and blue gum-trees, and other shadowy, dark-foliaged trees, while glossy and feathery shrubs of every type of tropical loveliness bore blossoms which shimmered white, red, and purple in the moonlight. There was a heavy scent of magnolia flowers. Was it all a dream to wake from in Sloane Street? I was in that murky region only three days ago. Was it all a dream? It might be, for things were getting mixed and incongruous. Now cigar smoke kills the magnolia, and some electric lamplets among the trees are jarring with the moon. We suddenly step into a pavilion where a band is playing, and I see smart men and women, very fashionably attired in evening dress, some of them raking in money at the roulette table. We do not stay long there, for we did not land to see such ba.n.a.lities, and, regaining the garden solitudes, make for our bullock sledges, which are to take us up 2000 feet higher through vine-trellised lanes all paved by those polished pebbles set edgewise for the sledges to run smoothly on. Away we go, our cabmen now and then placing a tallow candle enclosed in a bag under the sledge runners to lubricate them, or there would be disagreeable friction. As soon as one runner has pa.s.sed over the emaciated candle the man on that side throws the candle across to the man on the other, who, stooping, and always at a trot, performs the same juggernautic process on his side. The men are handsome and healthy fellows, wearing their coats hanging loose on their shoulders over snowy shirts. They never speak to Mr. Payne with covered heads.

"There is a funicular railway up this mountain, but it does not work at night, and we thus have a taste of the vanishing Past. Far more effective, this railway, for it climbs the hill boldly and with uncovered sides, whilst our old road is hemmed in by high vineyard walls, and the straining of the little goaded oxen is amongst those belongings of the Past which I will gladly see vanish with it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS HAND"]

"On our way up the incline, which would be impossible to horses and to wheels, our kind _cicerone_ invited us to see his garden and the view of the bay and the great ocean which was swelling away in the light towards Morocco. It was a lovely garden, and we crept about it round the little cosy house, and looked up at the closed shutters, within which _la famille Payne_ lay slumbering. We even went on tip-toe through the sitting-rooms, which the owner, looking as though he was burgling his own house, lit with a little lantern. In one there was a parrot asleep, in another an engraving of the 'Roll Call,' and again I began to think I might be dreaming and would wake, with tears, in Sloane Street. But the 'dream' was solid and we continued our upward progress with four additional oxen to each sledge and double whooping, and swearing, and prodding, for the gradient now was terrific. At the end of the sledge track we halted, and, getting out, we climbed to the hill top on foot and from there beheld a lovely sight--deep valleys and vine-clad hills and the great ocean beyond, and our Castle Liner blazing with electric light more than 2000 feet below in the profound calm of Funchal Bay. The stars were very l.u.s.trous and the 'Scorpion's Heart' aflame with red and green. We then took a mysterious walk in brilliant moonlight and intense black shadow to the edge of a great ravine or _coral_, from the bottom of which rose the harsh sound of a torrent, invisible in the shadow. Sugarcanes waved in the night breeze and banana plants rustled and whispered, but no one was awake in all the land but our little party.

"Dreamlike again, on our way back to where we had got out of the sledges, we had tea in another enchanted garden at 2 A.M. Our cabmen had hammered at that garden gate a long time, looking like stage peasants knocking at an operatic moonlit portal, before the waiter could be awakened, and by the time we returned from our walk the sleepy creature in tail coat, but minus his tie, was ready for us. When we pa.s.sed that mysterious threshold we found ourselves in a garden full of the scent of box hedges and tinkling with fountains. We walked in the chequered shadow cast by palms and cypresses, and, soothed by the sound of running water, we felt we would like to stay there till the dawn. What a night to impress the children's minds with! Our tea was hilarious, in an arbour facing the ocean, but our hilarity was to reach its climax when we got into two toboggans, three people in each, and _slithered_ down the 2000 foot declivity which our oxen had so painfully and slowly drawn us up. The oxen had vanished with the sledges and the drivers, and a new set of men piloted us down the tremendous incline.

"Nothing makes me laugh more than a toboggan in full flight with its helpless load. I had the pace moderated, in spite of protests, for I really did not care to have a variation of the too recent Bay of Biscay; but the toboggans got out of hand sometimes or had to be given their heads round the corners. It was vertigo then.

"Ah, good night, or rather good morning, peerless Madeira!"

Then followed days of blue weather and ever-increasing heat. A lonely voyage--not a sail to be seen. In that long-drawn-out monotony we made the most of trivialities.

I read in my diary one night in the Tropics:--

"There is to be a fancy-dress ball to-night, in connection with crossing the Line the other day, I suppose; the second cla.s.s pa.s.sengers are to come over and dance with the first cla.s.s on the gaily decorated promenade deck. I am pleased at the appearance of the three children. C.

has made up from some Eastern muslins a very coquettish Turkish costume with a little cap, which becomes her to my entire satisfaction. E. looks the typical 'duck' in a poke bonnet all over little pink roses, and I have buckled up little M. in a colonial cavalry 'rig,' slouched hat and all, Captain S. lending his sabre, which is somewhat longer than the temporary owner."