In Pastures New Part 17

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Where Kaiser Wilhelm got all his tips_]

Some warriors are content with overcoming one man at a time, but Rameses is seen holding ten of them by the hair, getting ready to clout them into insensibility. The picture is an artistic success, but is somewhat shy anatomically. The ten enemies have a total of only three legs for the whole crowd. They are better supplied with arms, the total being thirteen, or about one and one-third to the man. Notice also the relative size of Rameses and his foes. There we have the real, unchanging spirit of autobiography--the great I triumphant and the petty antagonists all coming about knee high to him.

No. 2 is also very characteristic. One of the kings is represented as defeating two burly warriors. He is walking on one and pushing his spear through the other. Undoubtedly a glorious achievement. It would be still more glorious if the two gentlemen putting up the fight against the King had carried weapons of some sort. The one on the ground, who is lifting his hands in mild protest against being used as a rug, has nothing on his person to indicate that he is a soldier. The one who is being harpooned carries in his left hand what appears to be a box of handkerchiefs. The raised right arm would suggest that he attempted to slap the King, who caught him by the arm and held him until he could select a good vital spot in which to p.r.o.ng him.

Attention is called to the fact that both of the victims wear the long and protuberant chin whisker, which would indicate that the honest farmer was getting the worst of it even four thousand years ago.

The carvings and paintings which do not depict warlike scenes usually show the monarchs receiving homage from terrified subjects or else mingling on terms of equality with the princ.i.p.al deities of the period.

Ill.u.s.tration No. 3 is a very good specimen. King Amenophis and his wife are seen seated on their square-built Roycroft thrones, while two head priests of Ammon burn incense before them and sing their praises and tell them that the people are with the administration, no matter how the Senate may carry on. There was no race prejudice in those days. The Queen is shown to be a coal-black Nubian. In one hand she carries what seems to be a fly brush of the very kind that we used all the time we were up the Nile, and if the article in her other hand is not a c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s then the artist has wilfully libelled her.

No. 4 is interesting as a fashion plate. Ptolemeus and Cleopatra are making offers to the hawk-headed G.o.d and the G.o.ddess Hathor. This picture will appeal to women inasmuch as it gives us a correct likeness of Cleopatra, the man trapper. No one can dispute the fact that she is beautiful, but how about the combination of an Empress gown with a habit back? Is it not a trifle daring? And the hat. Would you call it altogether subdued?

Another well-preserved painting to be found in the temple at Edfou reveals the innate modesty of the Ptolemies. The King (No. 5) is represented as being crowned by the G.o.ddesses of the south and the north--that is, of Upper and Lower Egypt. These divinities seem to be overcome with admiration of the athletic monarch. One has her hand resting on his shoulder, as if she hated to see him go. The other, having just fitted him with his new gourd-shaped hat, has both hands in the air, and you can almost hear her say, "Oh, my! It looks just fine!"

Seti I. was another shrinking violet. In one of his private three-sheet advertis.e.m.e.nts (No. 6) he has the sublime effrontery to represent the great G.o.ddess Hathor as holding his hand tenderly and offering him the jewelled collar which she is wearing. Notice the uplifted hand. He is supposed to be saying, "This is all very sudden, and besides, would it be proper for me to accept jewelry from one of your s.e.x?" Of course, there never was any Hathor, and if there had been she wouldn't have hob-n.o.bbed with a man who had his private interviews done into oil paintings. But this painting and one thousand others that we have seen in Egypt help to give us a line on the ancient Kings. If there was any one of them that failed to get the swelled head soon after mounting the throne, the hieroglyphs are strangely silent regarding his case. They were a vain, self-laudatory lot, and all of them had that craving for the centre of the stage and the hot glare of the spot-light which is still to be found in isolated cases.

After all is said and done can we blame them? Rameses wanted to be remembered and talked about and he laid his plans accordingly. He carved the record of his long and successful reign on the unyielding granite and distributed his pictures with the careful prodigality of a footlight favourite. What has been the result? His name is a household joke all over the world. People who never heard of Professor Harry Thurston Peck or Marie Corelli or the present Khedive of Egypt know all about Rameses the Great, although no two of them p.r.o.nounce it the same.

CHAPTER XIX

ROYAL TOMBS AND OTHER PLACES OF AMUs.e.m.e.nT

One morning we rode across the Nile from Luxor in a broad and buxom sailboat, climbed on our donkeys, and rode to the west. We followed the narrow road through the fresh fields of wheat and alfalfa until we struck the desert, and then we took to a dusty trail which leads to a winding valley, where the kings of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth dynasties are being dug up.

This narrow valley, with the steep hills rising on either side, is the sure-enough utterness of desolation; not a tree, not a shrub, not a blade of gra.s.s, not even a stingy little cactus. No wonder the old kings picked out this valley for a cemetery. Life has no charm in this dreary region. Eternal sleep would seem to offer peculiar advantages.

After winding through the sun-baked gravel for about a mile we came to a settlement of houses and a high fence thrown across the roadway.

Also there was an electric light plant buzzing away merrily. The tombs of the kings are now strung with incandescent lights. Can you beat that for sacrilegious enterprise?

There are forty-one of these royal tombs that have been discovered and opened to date. The less important are not lighted, and are mere tunnels leading back to one or two bare chambers. Those really worth visiting are dug far back into the hills. The halls are s.p.a.cious and brilliantly decorated, and before you get through exploring one of them you think that you are pretty well down toward the centre of the earth.

Mr. Peasley had read up on the Tomb of Amenhotep Third and when we entered it he pushed the regular guide out of the way and gave us one of his own vivid lectures. The native guide lacks imagination. His idea of showing the traveller a frolicksome time is to point out a lot of paintings in which the deceased is seen travelling across the Nile in a funeral barge. Mr. Peasley, on the other hand, gave us an insight into the character of the wily Amenhotep.

"Now, look at the entrance to this tomb," he said, as we started down the new wooden steps. "It looks as if someone had been blasting for limestone. The walls are rough and unfinished. Old Amenhotep figured that if anyone ever came across the opening to the tomb he would size up this ordinary hole in the ground and conclude that it was either a cave used as a storehouse or the last resting place of some cheap two-dollar official."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Now look at the entrance to this tomb," he said_]

After descending some twenty feet we came to a small chamber which was rudely frescoed about half of the way around.

"Do you know why he left this job unfinished?" asked Mr. Peasley. "He knew that some day or other an inquisitive foreigner would be prowling around here trying to uncover ancient treasures, and he put this measly little antechamber here to throw Mr. Archaeologist off the scent. He wanted it to appear that the man who was buried here had been so poor that he couldn't complete the decorations. And now I'll show you something more foxy still. Come with me down this long flight of steps to the second chamber."

He led us down another flight to a tall chamber about the size of a freight car stood on end.

"When the French explorers opened this place in 1898 the chamber which you are now inspecting seemed to be the end of the tunnel," continued Mr. Peasley. "The four side walls were perfectly smooth and unbroken, but down at the bottom they found a pit which had been filled with heavy stones. They supposed, of course, that this was the mummy pit, and that if they removed the stones they would find some royal remains at the other end of the hole. So they worked day after day, lifting out the boulders, and finally they came to the end of the pit and found that they had drawn a blank. Naturally they were stumped. They thought they had been exploring a tomb, but it was only an April fool joke. One of the professors was not satisfied. He felt sure that there must be a royal mummy tucked in somewhere about the premises, so he took a ladder and climbed around and began tapping all over the walls of this second chamber. What do you think? He discovered that the wall had a hollow sound just opposite the tunnel at which they had entered. So he used a battering ram and broke through into the real tomb. Yes, sir; these two outer chambers, with their cheap stencil frescoes and fake mummy pit, had been a blind."

We pa.s.sed over a narrow wooden bridge and entered the tunnel beyond the second chamber. The whole place was brightly illuminated and one could readily believe that he was in a modern hallway decorated in the most gorgeous Egyptian style. The bordering frescoes and the historical paintings were as fresh in tone as if they had been put on only yesterday. One of the larger chambers looked exactly like the gaudy "Oriental apartment" of a Paris or New York hotel, and we shouldn't have been surprised or displeased to see a waiter come in with a tray full of cool drinks.

At last we came to the tomb chamber, and there in a deep hollow, with a modern wooden railing around it, reclined the great King Amenhotep, with the incandescent lamps dangling above him and flooding him in a radiant light. The original granite cover of the outer case has been removed and plate gla.s.s subst.i.tuted. We leaned on the rail and gazed down at the serene countenance of the once mighty monarch who had been lying there for 3300 years. The funeral garlands which had been laid on his breast were still undisturbed, and the shrunken face was illumined by that calm smile of triumph which Amenhotep wore when he pa.s.sed away confident in the belief that the Nile tourist would never discover his hiding place.

We visited the tomb in company with a bustling swarm of American excursionists of the happy, irreverent kind. The fact that they were strolling about in a private and highly aristocratic sarcophagus did not seem to repress their natural gush of spirits or induce any solemn reflections. They were all steaming hot, but very happy and having a lot of fun with the King. One enterprising Yankee, who carried his coat and vest on his arm, started to climb over the wooden railing in order to make a close inspection of the mortuary remains, but was restrained by the guards.

After leaving the valley of tombs we made a short cut over a very hot and a very high hill to the "rest house" which has been erected far out on the desert by one of the tourist agencies. We collapsed on the shady side of the building, dusty and short of breath, and immediately we were attacked by a most vociferous horde of native peddlers. And what do you suppose they were selling? We landed there on Friday, and the remnant sale of mummies was in full blast. Here are some of the cut prices:--

_Head of adult .................... 4 shillings._ _Foot of adult .................... 1 shilling._ _Hand of adult .................... 1 shilling._ _Two feet and two hands (warranted_ _mates) ........................ 3 shillings._ _Arm and head ..................... 6 shillings._ _Special reduction for juvenile sizes._

Can you imagine anything more disquieting to the nerves, when you are resting and getting ready for luncheon, than to have a villainous child of the desert rush up and lay a petrified human head in your lap and beg you to make an offer? Within two minutes after we arrived we had fragments of former humanity stacked all around us. And they were unmistakably genuine. The native swindlers can make imitation scarabs and potteries, or else import them by the gross from Germany and Connecticut, but the mummy heads which they offer for sale are horribly bona fide. It would not pay to manufacture an imitation article, inasmuch as the whole desert region to the west of ancient Thebes is a vast cemetery. If the merchant's stock runs low he can go out with a spade and dig up a new supply, just as a farmer would go after artichokes.

Our guide co-operated with the ghouls. He rushed about hunting up strange and grisly specimens and brought them to us and begged us to examine them and then pick out a few for the loved ones at home. I regret to say that we did purchase a few of these preserved extremities. The guide said we could use them as paper weights.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _For the loved ones at home_]

This same dragoman, or guide, or highbinder, or whatever you may choose to call him--and Mr. Peasley called him nearly everything--gave us a lot of cheerful entertainment during our four days in Luxor. Mr.

Peasley was in hot pursuit of guaranteed antiquities. He said he had an old bookcase at home which he was going to convert into a curio cabinet. There is one dealer in Luxor who is said to be absolutely trustworthy. He supplies museums and private collections throughout the world, and if you buy a scarab or a carved image from him you know that you have something genuine and worth keeping. Mr. Peasley in a thoughtless moment requested the dragoman to conduct us to this shop.

We went in and burrowed through the heaps of tempting rubbish and began to d.i.c.ker for a job lot of little images, tear jars, amulets, etc., that are found in the mummy cases. That dragoman saw the covetous gleam in the Peasley eye and he knew that the man from Iowa intended loading up with antiques, and he also knew that Mr. Peasley wished to do this purchasing single-handed and without the a.s.sistance of a dragoman, who would come in for a ten per cent. commission. We told the dealer we would drop around later. So we went to the hotel and dismissed the dragoman--told him to go home and get a good night's rest and be on hand at nine o'clock the next morning.

After we were safely in the hotel Mr. Peasley confided his plans to us.

"I don't want to buy the stuff while that infernal Mahmoud is along,"

he said. "Why should he get a rake-off? We didn't go to the shop on his recommendation. Now, I'll go over there by myself, pick out what I want, and strike a bargain."

We offered to go along and a.s.sist, so we started up a side street, and after we had gone a block Mahmoud stepped out from a doorway and said, "Come, I will show you the way." We told him we had just sauntered out for a breath of air, so we walked aimlessly around a block and were escorted back to the hotel.

"I'll go over the first thing in the morning," said Mr. Peasley. "I'll be there at eight o'clock, because he isn't due here until nine."

When he arrived at the shop early next morning Mahmoud was standing in the doorway wearing a grin of devilish triumph. Mr. Peasley kept on walking and pretending not to see him, but he came back to the hotel mad all the way through.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Mahmoud--wearing a grin of devilish triumph_]

"We're up against an Oriental mind-reader, but I'll fool him yet," he declared. "When we come back to the hotel for luncheon and he is waiting for us with the donkey boys on the east side of the hotel we will go out the west door to the river bank and cut south around the Presbyterian Mission and come back to the shop."

Mr. Peasley did not know that Mahmoud had organised all the hotel servants into a private detective agency. He must have known of our escape on the river side before we had gone a hundred feet from the hotel, for when, after executing our brilliant flank movement, we arrived at the shop of the antiquarian, Mahmoud and the proprietor were sitting in the front room drinking Turkish coffee and waiting for the prey to wander into the trap. Mahmoud did not seem surprised to see us. He bade us welcome and said that his friend the dealer was an Egyptologist whose guarantee was accepted by every museum in the world, and if we were in the market for antiques he would earnestly advise us to seek no further. After this evidence of a close and friendly understanding between the dragoman and the dealer we had a feeling that Mahmoud would get his ten per cent, even if we succeeded in eluding him and buying on our own hook.

But we hated to acknowledge ourselves beaten. At dusk that evening we started toward the shop, in a half-hearted and experimental spirit, and presently we observed Mahmoud following along fifty feet behind us. We went to the garden of a neighbouring hotel and sat there until eleven o'clock. When we came out Mahmoud was at the gateway. He said it was not always safe for travellers to be about the streets at night, so he would protect us and show us the way back to our hotel.

We found it impossible to get away from him. No Siberian bloodhound ever followed a convict's trail more closely. If we ventured forth, early or late, we found ourselves shadowed by that smiling reprobate.

When it came to the last day in Luxor Mr. Peasley did the bold thing.

He permitted Mahmoud to escort him to the shop, and then he said to the dealer:--"This man is our guide, but he is not ent.i.tled to any commission because he did not bring us to your shop. If he had recommended your shop in the first place we would not have come here at all. He is a bluff. He is trying to ring in. I want to buy a few things here, with the understanding that he doesn't get anything out of it. We have already paid him two salaries for guiding us and he isn't a guide at all--he's a night watchman."

The dealer vowed and protested that he never paid commissions to anyone. Mahmoud, not at all ruffled by the attack on his character, said that his only ambition in life was to serve the n.o.ble gentleman from the famous country known as Iowa. So Mr. Peasley bought his a.s.sortment of antiques, and Mahmoud looked on and then carried the parcel back to the hotel, walking respectfully behind the "n.o.ble gentleman."

"Well, I blew myself," reported Mr. Peasley. "And I'll bet a thousand dollars that Mahmoud gets his ten per cent."

Whereupon Mahmoud smiled--the pensive, patronising smile of a civilisation five thousand years old looking down on the aboriginal product of the Western prairies.

On the morning of our departure from Luxor Mahmoud came around for his letter of recommendation. I had worked for an hour to write something evasive which would satisfy him and not perjure me too deeply. When he came to the hotel I gave him the following:--