SIOOT, THE ANCIENT LYCOPOLIS.—SCENES ON THE RIVER.
From Beni-sooef the steamer proceeded to Sioot, or Asyoot, a city of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, and one of the most important places of Upper Egypt. It is about two miles back from the river, from which water is brought by a canal, and the roadway passes along a high embankment lined with shade-trees. Just at the entrance of the city there is a picturesque gate-way, which reminded our friends of some of the gates of Cairo. The city is on the site of the ancient Lycopolis, and has borne its present name for more than two thousand years. Nevertheless it is called a modern town by most of the writers on Egyptian history, and is not allowed any claim to antiquity.
A SCENE NEAR SIOOT.
"At the landing-place of Sioot," said the boys in their journal, "we found better donkeys than at Beni-sooef, and were able to ride with some degree of comfort. We went first to some tombs which are cut in the side of the mountain overlooking the valley, and were the burial-places of the ancient Lycopolis. There are a good many of them, and they were formerly well filled with mummies, but at present the mummies are gone, and the tombs contain nothing worth carrying away. According to the historical accounts the inhabitants of Lycopolis worshipped the wolf as a divinity, and when the tombs were plundered a good many mummies of wolves were found in them.
"The view from the mountain where these tombs were excavated is very pretty, as it embraces a considerable extent of the Nile Valley; some writers have called it the finest in all Egypt, as there is an unbroken view for several miles of beautiful green such as you find nowhere else in the world. Dean Stanley was charmed with the spot, and compared the mud villages that are scattered among the luxuriant fields to the marks of a soiled foot on a rich carpet. The mountain has an additional interest to many people, as the caves in its sides were the homes of the early Christians during the periods of persecution.
SCENE IN THE BAZAARS.
"We had been told that the bazaars of Sioot were almost as fine as those of Cairo, though naturally less extensive, and so we hurried down from the mountain in order to see as much as possible of the place.
"It happened to be market-day when we were there, much to our delight, as it enabled us to see what the country-people had brought in for sale. The market square was crowded with people, and also with donkeys and camels, and we had to keep both eyes wide open to escape being run over or knocked down. The camels were specially dangerous, as they seemed to have adopted the motto of the donkey dancing among the chickens—'Let everybody look out for his own feet!' They had great loads of sugar-canes or fresh cut grass, and as these loads stuck out on each side they needed a wide path, and took it too. It was a wonder that they didn't kill somebody, or, at any rate, do a good deal of damage, but somehow they didn't.
"All over the square were groups of men and women with heaps of sugar-cane, palm-stalks, beans, pease, wheat, and other products of the soil for sale. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry, and every transaction required a great deal of bargaining before it was concluded. All around the edge of the square was a fringe of solemn old Arabs, whose entire occupation appeared to be to sit on the ground and smoke their pipes. The stem of each pipe was about four feet long and made of a hollow reed, and when a man is engaged in smoking one of these pipes he can do very little else. In this part of the world the pipe is a very cumbersome thing, and occupies the entire attention of the smoker.
"One of the most interesting parts of the market at Sioot was the place where donkeys were sold. We went to see them, and asked the prices; but as the natives knew we did not want to buy any, they put the figures absurdly high. We found out that good ones could be bought for thirty or forty dollars—just good common donkeys for every-day wear; but if you wanted a fancy animal, you must go much higher. A hundred dollars would buy a handsome one, with a great deal of 'style' and corresponding strength, and there were some for which two hundred dollars had been refused. A two hundred dollar donkey is something that only the wealthy can afford.
ROOM IN AN ORIENTAL HOUSE.
"We had a chance to go into a fine house, and of course we embraced it at once. We passed through a gate-way with a lofty arch, and entered a narrow passage that led to the principal room of the building. They tell us that this passage-way is generally made crooked, in order that people on the street cannot look inside when the doors are open by any chance; this is especially the case with the women's apartments, into which no man except the master is allowed to look under any pretence, and great care is taken that he shall not do so. We were shown into the reception-room, which had low windows that only let in a dim light: we wondered at this, until our guide explained that it was desirable to exclude the heat as much as possible, and therefore the windows were made low and the walls very thick. At one end of the room there was a platform six inches higher than the floor; there was an alcove in the middle of this platform, which was supposed to face toward Mecca, and, consequently, it was the place of worship at the hours when prayers were said.
"There were no chairs in the room, and no tables whatever; the only furniture we saw were some divans like wide sofas, and on these we were invited to sit while the servants brought coffee for us to drink. There were heavy cushions at the back of the divans, and these are arranged so that they can be moved around just as one may desire in order to make himself comfortable. The Orientals sit cross-legged on these divans, and not after our style; and if you invite them to occupy an arm-chair they will quite likely double up into it, and put their feet beneath them. It is torture for them to sit as we do, just as it is torture for us to sit in the Oriental way.
AN ORIENTAL GENTLEMAN.
"The ordinary mode of sitting on one of these divans is to get into a corner, or rather to make one by piling two of the cushions together across the divan. If an Oriental gentleman receives you, it is quite likely you will find him sitting as we have described, with his feet gathered under him, and his shoes lying where he can easily step into them in case he wishes to rise. In this position he will sit for hours perfectly contented, or, what is quite as likely, he will fall back on the divan and go to sleep. The divans are occupied pretty much all the time, as they are used to sit upon during the day, and form sleeping-couches by night. As they are rarely less than three feet wide, are well stuffed, and covered with cloth resembling chintz, they are not to be despised, and form excellent substitutes for beds.
AN EGYPTIAN LAMP.
"There was a handsome lamp in the hall-way of the house, and the Doctor told us it was much like the lamps that are used for decorating the mosques. It hung under a wooden frame in the shape of a six-pointed star. The ornamentation upon the outside of the body of the lamp was in curious patterns of arabesque design; the light was given by a series of little cups hanging on the outside, and not by the lamp itself. Each cup was partly filled with oil, and a tiny wick floated on its surface, and gave out a small blaze of light. It reminded us of the floating wicks for burning in a sick-room at home, and we readily understood why there were so many of them. A single flame would not have been enough to light the hall-way, and it was only by employing a great many that the proper illumination could be secured.
"On leaving the house we went to the bazaars, which were crowded with people, partly because it was market-day, when so many country people, men and women, came to town, and partly because of the large party of strangers that had landed from the steamboat, and were sure to be in the bazaars before continuing their journey.
"We bought some fans of ostrich feathers, which were offered for about half of what they would cost in Cairo. Sioot is one of the starting-points of the caravan routes to the regions where ostriches abound, and it is only natural that these things should be cheaper here than farther down the river. We also bought some cups and saucers, and a few pipe-bowls, made of a fine clay peculiar to the neighborhood of Sioot, and highly prized throughout Egypt. Of course we were obliged to bargain a long time to save ourselves from being cheated. It is of no use to tell these people you are in a hurry, and must have the lowest price at once; they cannot understand you, and will lose the chance of selling their goods rather than change their mode of dealing.
"Leaving Sioot we found ourselves in a region where the river winds considerably. The wind blowing from the north does not choose to follow all the bends of the Nile. A boat sailing up the stream will have a fair wind one hour and an adverse one the next, and when she finds both wind and current against her she must wait for a change in the breeze, or send the crew out with the tow-line. Towing up stream is slow work, but it is better than no progress at all. Ten or fifteen miles a day may be made by it, and sometimes as many as twenty miles, and if the passengers have a fondness for hunting they can indulge it very easily. Sometimes a walk of a few miles will cover a whole day's journey of the dahabeeah while she is working around a bend, and even the steamer is not averse to gaining distance while her passengers are on shore.
"Towing is the hardest part of the occupation of the crew of a Nile boat. They are harnessed like horses, and attached to a rope which is taken to the bank. The captain remains on board to steer the craft, and if the sailors are remiss in their work he shouts to them in a voice the reverse of pleasing; and while it is a laborious task for the men it is a severe trial to the passengers, this dragging along at a snail's pace, and listening to the imprecations of the captain, which grate harshly on the ear, even though they are uttered in an unknown tongue.
PIGEON-HOUSES.
"We wound along the river, sometimes close to the cliffs that form the eastern bank, and sometimes in the midst of a fertile plain, with the desert at a distance. We passed several villages, and the conductor told us their names; but as they were all pretty much alike, we did not think it worth while to write them down. An interesting feature of the villages was the great number of pigeon-houses, some of them standing by themselves, and others built on the tops of dwellings. The pigeons are kept in great flocks. Sometimes they are owned in common by a whole village, while at others they are the private property of individuals. The guano from the pigeon-houses is carefully saved for enriching the melon patches; and, where the house is the common property of the village, the key is kept by the sheik or chief. Some of the houses are like square towers, with a great many holes where the birds enter, and the inside of the walls is full of niches, where the pigeons make their nests. Others are of a circular shape, and have protuberances on the top like chimneys, which are filled with holes for admitting the pigeons, but too small for the hawks and other birds of prey that pursue them.
THE ORIENTAL PIGEON.
"The pigeons get their living in the fields around the village, and sometimes they do a great deal of damage. When the grain begins to ripen the people erect booths in the midst of the fields, where men are stationed to frighten away the birds. They are armed with slings, with which they can throw stones to a considerable distance, and they keep up the alarm by blowing horns and making other noises. That the ancient Egyptians had the same practices we learn from the paintings in the tombs, where men are represented standing on platforms and using the sling to frighten away the thieving birds.
A WATCHMAN'S BOOTH.
"The abundance of pigeons in this part of Egypt is shown by the frequency with which the bird appears on our table. We have broiled pigeon for breakfast, cold pigeon for lunch, and roast pigeon for dinner. We do not have cold pigeon for supper, and probably this can be accounted for by the fact that we do not have any supper at all. They give us a cup of tea and a piece of dry cake in the evening, and it is quite possible that if anybody asked for pigeon he would be accommodated; but nobody seems to want it.
"We met some funny-looking rafts a few miles above Sioot, and wondered what they could be. They did not appear to be made of logs, or barrels, or anything of the sort, and yet they were floating along, and each carried two or three men. What do you suppose they were?
"Doctor Bronson said they were made up of large jars for holding water, and were principally from a town called Ballas. The jars are arranged in rows, with the mouth uppermost, and when enough of them have been put together to form a raft, they are enclosed in a frame of poles and reeds; then they are ready to float down the river to Cairo, where they are sold. The jar is made of a porous clay that lets the water filter slowly through it. Every few hours the men in charge of the raft must bail out their conveyance, which they do by means of a sponge or bunch of reeds lowered into each jar. Unless they do this the raft would soon take in water enough to sink it, and not only would the jars be lost, but the men would run the risk of being drowned into the bargain.
INFLATED SKIN RAFT (FROM ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE).
"It seemed so funny to make up a raft in this way, but the Doctor informed us that the idea was a very old one. He said it was in practice among the ancient Assyrians, as there were pictures on the walls of their temples of men rowing rafts made of inflated skins, which were preferred to jars on account of their obviating the necessity of frequent bailing.
"We thought of the scriptural phrase, and asked, 'Is there anything new under the sun?'
AN ANCIENT LIFE-PRESERVER.
"'There are fewer new things than you might suppose,' was the Doctor's reply. 'Perhaps you think the inflated life-preserver is a modern invention, but it isn't. The Assyrians had it centuries ago; and we learn from their sculptures that their warriors used to swim across rivers on the skins of goats that were filled with air, just as we fill the life-preservers that we buy in New York or London. I believe that a patent was granted to the modern inventor, but the Assyrian was thousands of years ahead of him.'
"One of us suggested that perhaps the modern inventor was honest, and thought he really had made an entirely new thing.
"'That is quite likely,' the Doctor answered. 'Many a man has applied for a patent on something that he had honestly invented; he thought it out himself, and kept it from the knowledge of everybody else till he sent his model to the Patent-office. Then he learned to his surprise that his invention was an old one, and either secured already, or had been so long in use that no one could get a patent for it. The experts in the Patent-office at Washington could tell you of hundreds of instances of this kind, and they could also tell you that it not unfrequently happens that two or three persons in different parts of the country, and wholly unknown to each other, have hit upon the same thing at almost the same moment, without the least suspicion that either of them knew what the other was doing.
"'One instance that occurs to me is of the use of chloroform and similar substances for preventing pain during surgical operations. There were no less than four claimants to the honor of the discovery of anæsthetics, and monuments have been erected to the memory of two of these gentlemen. There is no ground for believing that either of them encroached on the other, for their experiments were quite independent, and in different parts of the country, and each believed he was the first in the field. The invention of printing by means of movable types is claimed for two men; the steam-engine had two or three inventors, and so had the system of electric telegraphy. A curious circumstance is that many things which have been considered new in our times were known to the ancients. Samuel Colt received a patent for the revolving pistol, when the same weapon had been made in Europe two or three centuries ago; and patents have been taken out for the invention of things that were afterward found in the ruins of Pompeii, where they had been buried for 1800 years. Of course there are many new things under the sun, but not everything is new that appears so when we first see it.'"
MODERN "KELEKS," OR SKIN RAFTS.