The Tour Part 4

"Find Caleb and bring him here to me."

The little slave returned in a short time and ushered in Caleb, who approached with graceful salaams. Tarrar left his master alone with the Sabaean.

"Caleb," said Lucius, "sit down and listen. I need your advice."

"Your faithful servant is listening, my lord," said Caleb, sitting down on a chair.

"Caleb," continued Lucius, "I have not come to Egypt merely to see the things of interest which this country supplies. I have another object. There are mysterious oracles in Egypt; there are prophets and sibyls, so I am told, living in the desert. I want to know something. I want to know where some one is, one who is dear to me and far away. I want to consult the oracles and the prophets and sibyls. You must conduct me, without saying a word to my uncle or my tutor, because they do not approve of the attempts which I wish to make to find this person whom I love. Be my guide, Caleb, and I will reward you."

"I will be your guide, my lord," replied Caleb, "and this very night I will conduct you...."

"Where?"

"To the sibyl of Rhacotis, an old sorceress who knows everything."

"We will go by ourselves, in secret."

"Very well, my lord; no one shall accompany us.... What do you think: would you not like a cool sherbet after your rest? And divert yourself with looking at the goods which the travelling merchants from distant foreign lands, who happen to-day to be staying in the diversorium, have to offer for sale? I will have the sherbet prepared and the merchants informed, my lord. And to-night I will lead you through Rhacotis: we will go by ourselves, my lord, and no one shall know anything of our nocturnal expedition."

Caleb went away; Tarrar drew the curtains aside. Beyond the bedchamber was a pillared portico; and the green shadow of the palm-garden outside fell within doors. Uncle Catullus was still asleep, but Thrasyllus already sat reading his Egyptian guide-books at a table under a palm-tree. The wonderful, fantastic stories of Herodotus charmed the old tutor's mind, which was not disinclined to fantasy; but Thrasyllus also took pleasure in the more succinct descriptions of the learned Eratosthenes, Ptolemy Evergetes' librarian, who lived three centuries before and was a noted astronomer, philosopher and geographer. Thrasyllus loved to consult his splendid maps, which had never yet been bettered and which lay spread in heavy parchment on the table before him; and the tutor followed the cinnabar-traced Nile on these maps down to Ethiopia and the mysterious sources of the sacred stream.

Yes, Eratosthenes was the most respectable guide. When he went blind, in his eighty-second year, he starved himself. Thrasyllus honoured him as a martyr of science. But the tutor also consulted Artemidorus and Hypsicrates, for he wished to be well-informed about the country which he was about to visit, that mysterious country of age-old history and colossal art, while also he did not despise the quite modern writings of his contemporary, Strabo: what a contemporary told about a country over the whole of which he had travelled was perhaps most important of all, because of its practical utility and also because of the freshness of the new impressions.

So Thrasyllus sat under his palm-tree at a table strewn with unrolled papyri; more scrolls stood in a case by his side; and his fingers followed the cinnabar-traced Nile. Lucius in the portico smiled in kindly approval. But the travelling merchants, led by Caleb, arrived through the garden. They were Indians, Sabaeans, Arabs, Phoenicians; and their slaves toiled under their heavy bales of merchandise, which were slung on pliant sticks over their shoulders. The merchants bent low in salaams before the wealthy Roman, bowed down to the earth, kissed the ground which his foot had trodden, all eager to sell their exotic wares at a profit above the ordinary to so distinguished a traveller. The Phoenicians made their slaves spread out Damascus tapestry, but Lucius looked at it with scorn and the Phoenicians at once rolled up their inferior tapestry. Then, however, they displayed embroidery from Nineveh and Tyre; and Lucius turned a little pale, because he thought of Ilia. It was all very beautiful in hue and very curious in pattern.

"Call Uncle Catullus here," he said to Tarrar, who was squatting beside him like a faithful little monkey.

Tarrar hastened to Catullus, who thereupon arrived, sleepily rubbing his eyes, in a wide silk indoor simar; his grey hair stood in a tangle around his bald skull.

"Uncle," said Lucius, aside, "look here, if you please. Those embroideries from Tyre and Nineveh: I want them. Bargain for them."

For Uncle Catullus knew how to bargain. He began by turning up his nose at the embroideries; and the merchants uttered loud cries of protest and lifted their hands and invoked all the G.o.ds. But Uncle Catullus scornfully shook his head and said:

"No, I won't buy that trash. Show me other things."

Then the Phoenicians showed gold vessels from Tartessus, but the Arabs offered perfumes and aromatics from Jeddah and Zebid. The Sabaeans displayed wonderful amulets, which bring luck and blissful dreams: the Indians showed tame, trained snakes, as domestic pets: the snakes had a small sardonyx encrusted in their heads, where it had grown into their scaly skin, and they danced on the tips of their tails, to the piping of the Indians' flutes. They were attractive little creatures and did not cost more than one stater apiece, with the ebony casket in which they were kept; and Lucius impatiently bought them at once, partly because Tarrar found them so attractive and grinned where he squatted and looked on while the snakes danced and twisted one among another.

But at last a Mongolian merchant arrived, with a pale-yellow face and narrow eyes, which looked as though they were closed, and his hair, around his shaven head, ended in a pigtail of purple silk, with a ta.s.sel to it. This merchant offered little black b.a.l.l.s, to be smoked in peculiar pipes; he asked Lucius to accept a pipe and a couple of little black pills in a yellow-silk bag, without payment, and to smoke them when he had the opportunity. The intoxication which they produced was something very peculiar, said the merchant.

Meanwhile Uncle Catullus had duly succeeded in acquiring the embroideries from Tyre and Nineveh at a really laughable price and presented them to his nephew, who of course paid for them in his stead. But, when Lucius held them in his hands--they were narrow strips embroidered with a.s.syrian lions and strange unicorns--he grew sad and said:

"What use are they to me, after all? Time was when I should have given them to Ilia as a border for her stola. Tarrar, put the pretty embroideries away, with the Mongolian pills and all the other rubbish which I have bought without wanting to: the little gold vases and the Sabaean amulets."

"And the dear little snakes, my lord?" asked Tarrar, with glittering eyes.

"You may keep them ... to play with," said Lucius, carelessly.

Meanwhile Caleb had had the cups of sherbet handed round. Uncle Catullus thought it particularly good and considered that Lucius' cook ought really to write down this Egyptian recipe; but Lucius gave his to Tarrar, who scooped up the sherbet greedily with his black fingers.

CHAPTER V

Night had fallen over the city, a dark, starless night. To escape attention, Lucius and Caleb mounted a small, inconspicuous litter at the back of the diversorium. Caleb sat at Lucius' feet with his legs dangling out of the litter, which was lifted by four powerful Libyans, in preparation for departing at a trot.

"Have you your dagger, my lord?" asked Caleb.

Yes, Lucius had a dagger in his girdle.

"And are you wearing your Sabaean amulets?"

Yes, Lucius had hung the amulets which he had bought round his neck, for Caleb was full of confidence in these talismans of his country: the amulets warded off all ill-luck; Caleb himself wore amulets everywhere, on his chest and round his waist and even on a narrow gold bangle round his ankle.

The bearers scurried through Bruchium and past the Gymnasium and the Museum, as though they had an enemy at their heels. They came to a square that lay higher than the Great Harbour; and Lucius looked out across the quays at the different harbours. Red and green and yellow lights and signals shone over a variegated, patched throng of ships and boats and swarming people. But the wonder to Lucius' eyes was the light-house of Pharos. The nine storeys of the tall marble monument, stacked one on top of the other like so many cubes, each cube smaller than the one below, ended in a sort of cupola, where a heap of burning coal gleamed from immense mirrors and reflectors, which turned and turned continually, sending bright, broad rays from the summit of the tower upon the harbours, which they lit up each time, before stretching into the dark night. Sometimes the wide sheaves of light struck the high marble bridge of the Heptastadium, which led to the light-house itself and which at this hour was crowded with women and idlers.

"My lord," whispered Caleb, "would you not like to get out ... and walk ... there? The loveliest women in Alexandria are strolling yonder ... and you can take your choice."

Lucius shook his head:

"I want to go to the sibyl," he said.

"Your lordship is sick," said Caleb. "Your lordship is sick with longing and useless pining. The lovely women of Alexandria would cure your lordship. They have often cured me, my lord, when I was sick with longing and pining."

"Longing and pining for what, Caleb?"

"For my country, for Saba, my lord, for Saba, the fairest and dearest country in the world, my lord, which I have had to leave ... for the sake of business, my lord, for the sake of business. For we do no business in Saba."

The four bearers trotted on. They were now trotting past the immemorial temple of Serapis, the Serapeum: sombre and grey it lay with its terraces below the Acropolis; and numbers of other shrines, also sombre, grey and mysterious, were ranged, with the needles of their obelisks, around the vast temple.

"These shrines are deserted, my lord," said Caleb, "and no longer find worshippers. Even the Serapeum is deserted ... for the temple of Serapis at Canopus. And the modern Alexandrians hold all this sacred quarter in but slight esteem since the quinquennial games were inst.i.tuted at Nicopolis. All those who wish to do honour to Serapis repair to Nicopolis and Canopus. We will go there too, my lord, and you shall dream dreams full of import high up, on the roof of the temple.... Look, my lord, here we are, at Rhacotis...."

The trotting bearers had left the aristocratic quarters. They were now hurrying through a narrower, sombre street.

"We had better get out here, my lord, and walk," said Caleb. "We shall find our litter here when we return."

Lucius and Caleb alighted. The sombre street was hardly lit, but was nevertheless swarming with people, including drunken sailors and fighting beldames.

"It's very different here, my lord, from the Heptastadium and Lake Mareotis. Here the people, soldiers and sailors take their pleasure. Here a dagger is drawn as quick as thought. Here is nothing but kennels and taverns. But every traveller who wants to know Alexandria comes here.... Look, my lord, here it is," said Caleb, "here!"

They had gone through a network of little lanes and alleys and come to a square. At one corner an old, ragged philosopher stood arguing and expounding. Around him soldiers, sailors and wenches gathered, listening attentively to what he said of true wisdom. When he put out his hand for alms, two soldiers gave him some coppers, but the others laughed and pelted him with rotten vegetables. He fled and disappeared, pursued by yelping dogs that bit him in the skirt of his torn toga.

"Will you not see the Syrian boys dance, my lord?" asked Caleb. "They dance so beautifully."

"No, I want to go to the sibyl," Lucius answered, impatiently.