CHAPTER L—SUNSET IN THE ORIENT.—VOYAGING DOWN THE NILE.
An Egyptian Sunset—A Gorgeous Spectacle—The Sky that bends above the Nile—Singular Atmospheric Phenomena—A Picture for an Artist—Shadows from History—Napoleon and the Pyramids—Our Voyage back to Cairo—Scenes by the Way—“Cook’s Tourists”—An Amusing Sight—Night-Fall on the Nile—A Flame of Rockets—“What does it Mean?”—The Marriage of the Khedive’s Son—Feminine Disappointment—Jumping Ashore—Aboard of Donkeys—Gustave’s Somersault—Practical Sympathy—In the Pasha’s Garden—A Magnificent Sight—The Wedding Pageant—Elbowing an Arab Crowd—A Pyrotechnic Shower.
THE tenth of February was the last day of our journey on the Nile. Both gladly and reluctantly we hailed the end.
The sun went down according to his usual custom and at the time set by astronomers for him to do so. There was nothing remarkable in the fact that sunset occurred at the close of the day, but there was something remarkable in the coloring of the sky, and in the lights and shadows of the hour. An Egyptian sunset is about the finest thing of the kind that can be found anywhere, and it is no wonder that poets rave about it and artists make long pilgrimages and endure many hardships in order to transfer it to canvass. I have seen the glorious orb of day leave the world “to darkness and to me” in many lands and climes of this terrestial ball—in unsentimental English I have seen the same sun set in many places—but I have never found it making a spectacle more gorgeous than the Egyptian one. The Egyptian morning has some color, but not much; in the middle of the day every particle of tint disappears altogether, and the sky is perfectly clear—a sort of grayish blue in which there is only the very faintest suggestion of cerulean. An hour or two before sunset a close observer will discover faint outlines or ghosts of clouds—cirrus and cirro-cumulus—streaming up from the western half of the horizon, and furtively gaining little by little until they are at the zenith. At first these clouds are colorless, but as they grow and take definite shape, and the minutes roll on, they become purple and scarlet, and crimson and golden, until the whole western heavens from north to south, and from south back to north again seem to be aglow with lurid flames. The sands of the Desert have absorbed during the middle of the day all the effulgent beams of the sun; now they are giving them back in all their prismatic variety and painting a picture of rarest beauty. The colors are brightest as the sun drops into the waste of sand in the west. If we are standing on the Mokattam Hills overlooking Cairo we have the pyramids of Gizeh between us and the declining sun and their outlines become more and more distinct as the day wanes. The colors linger on the clouds but gradually they fade and disappear till at last we see only a bright line of light along the horizon. This in turn melts away and the day is done.
“Soldiers,” said Napoleon, as he formed his army in line to resist the desperate charge of the Mamelukes, “soldiers,—from the lights of yonder pyramids forty centuries look down on you.”
Forty centuries and more have rolled away since Cheops and Cephren built these monuments on the banks of the Nile. Could those stony masses be endowed with speech what stories might they not tell us of the glories of ancient Egypt, of the rise and fall of dynasties and kingdoms, of the horrors of war and the blessings of peace, and of the many events which their existence has embraced. They could tell us of many thousand sunset scenes like the one we have just witnessed; of gorgeous pictures painted on cloud and sky in colors that fade not as time rolls on but remain to-day as brilliant as when the morning stars first sang together ages and ages ago.
Our return voyage was not marked by any special incident. At sunset we just caught a glimpse of the citadel that overlooks Cairo and commands with its black-mouthed cannon the city of the Caliphs and the Mamelukes. The arrowy minarets of the mosque of Mohammed Ali were faintly discernible against the sky, and the orange groves of the Island of Roda filled the foreground of the picture with their dark foliage.
We were on deck and busily engaged in studying the scene. There was a gentle breeze blowing up the Nile and we met numerous boats taking advantage of the wind that favored their southward journey. Most of them were empty; they had been at Cairo and a market, and were now homeward bound. Some were filled with men and women,—villagers from the banks of the river, and every few moments we heard sounds of music and merriment from these densely laden craft. One boat was so crowded that there were not seats for all, and the gunwale of the craft was not more than two inches above the water.
“What can they be?” asked a young lady who was generally the leader in questioning.
“Don’t you know?” was the prompt reply, “it is a party of Cook’s tourists on a pleasure trip.” Despite the untruth it contained the reply caused a laugh on the part of all who heard it, including the fair maiden who sought to be informed as to the character of the party.
Darkness gathered over us and the stars came out in a moonless sky as we moved slowly down the stream. Out of the gloom came a white-winged dahabeeah, or Nile pleasure boat, and sailed directly in the track we were pursuing. There was much running and shouting by the Arab crews: the long sails were hastily swung around but not soon enough to save us from collision and attendant excitement.
Happily there was no damage done, and happily too there was none of the emphatic conversation such as we might have heard had the crews been of the English speaking race.
Just as we swung clear of the upward bound boat and were once more under way, a rocket shot up in the distant darkness and exploded into a constellation of stars not to be found in any celestial atlas.
Another and another followed in quick succession, and then there arose a tongue of flame that brought the palm trees into bold relief.
A wild shout was wafted to us on the northerly breeze, and it redoubled when several rockets rose from the Citadel as if answering the more distant ones that first appeared. Then a hundred or more rockets rose almost together and the heavens that before were calm and silent, and luminous only with the bright dottings of myriad stars became resonant with explosions and flashing with the corruscations of the flying pyrotechnics. ‘The stars were paled by the nearer and more brilliant lights of man’s handiwork, and we saw again the sunset colors released from the serene glory of sky and cloud, and darting here and there as if the sun had burst and the clouds were being chased away by a dozen opposing winds.
“What does all this mean?” came from the lips of our inquisitive maiden.
This time her question was seriously answered.
“It is the beginning of the festivities in honor of the marriage of one of the sons of the Khedive,” was the reply. “The ceremony took place this morning, and the affair terminates with a round of festivities that include fireworks, and dinners, and a good time generally.”
“We are just in time,” exclaimed all the male voices in the party. “We are just too late,” was the exclamation from all the female mouths.
Did you ever see a woman who wouldn’t give all her antiquated bootees to attend a wedding ceremonial, and did you ever see a man who wouldn’t give quite as much to stay away from one—(his own included)—if there was any social regulation requiring his attendance? Of course there are exceptions but they only affirm the correctness of the rule. I know of no subject on which there is more divergence of opinion between the sexes than on that of attending other people’s weddings. In the present instance all the women of our party thought we had missed everything in missing the ceremony, while every man thought we were fortunate in getting there for the festivities. As a spectacle in a strange land the wedding might have been interesting, but from a social and matrimonial point of view it was of no consequence to a single beard-wearer.
“The rockets’ red glare and the bombs bursting in air” continued as we descended the stream, and tied up to the east bank of the Nile, just above the new iron bridge that spans the river and enables you to take a carriage drive whenever you wish to the Geezereh palace, or to the pyramids.
It was so late that the ladies concluded not to leave the boat, but we masculines were not so particular.
We jumped ashore and quickly clambered up the bank, and before many minutes elapsed, Gustave and I had secured donkeys and were scampering away in the direction of the fireworks. Gustave was lighter than I, and urged his beast so fast that I could not keep up. I was striving to overtake him, when suddenly I heard a thud in the dust-cloud just ahead of me and a remark that was not altogether evangelical in its character. I had no difficulty in overtaking Gustave then.
He and his donkey were lying all in a heap, and it was difficult to say how much was donkey and how much was Gustave.
Both were covered with dust and looked as if they had been the principal attendants of a country flouring mill, or stevedores engaged in the stowage of a cargo of plaster of Paris.
My tendency to risibility was suddenly terminated by the fall of my donkey, and there we were in an indiscriminate mass, two men and two donkeys. Some rude jester may remark that there were four donkeys and no men in the heap, but I shall take no notice of such impertinence.
We righted ourselves and shook the dust from our feet as a testimony against such accidents. I dusted Gustave with my riding-whip and he dusted me, and we did it so vigorously that a policeman came to arrest us for fighting. An explanation in English, French, and German, which he did not understand, with a small silver coin, which he did, made it all right. He went his way rejoicing and left us to go ours. Our drivers got the donkeys up and put them together; we remounted and proceeded, this time at a more solemn pace. Gustave had suddenly remembered that the show was to last ten days, and there was no occasion for us to be in a hurry. We had no more falls that evening.
Moral: When you ride a donkey in Cairo, take your time and go slow. If you attempt to push things, you will suddenly find yourself a greater ass than the other one.
The fantasia, as the natives call it, was on a large open space where were formerly the plantations of Ibrahim Pasha. It is outside the city, on the road from Cairo to Old Cairo, and is studded with trees that bear many marks of antiquity. The road is broad, macadamized, and modern, and for a mile or more is as straight as a sunbeam. Along this straight portion there was a framework of posts and horizontal planks, hung with Chinese lanterns, in great variety of colors and in number about as countable as a political meeting on election night.
There were thousands of these lights, but whether five, ten, or twenty thousands, I will not pretend to say. There was a four-inch candle in each lantern, and the aggregate of illumination was sufficient to make the way unmistakably clear.
The open field as we approached it, was on the left of the road, and opposite, on the right hand, was the vice-regal palace known as the Kasr-el-Ali.
Over the road or street in front of the palace, was a sort of arch of triumph, and this was covered with a profusion of lanterns. There were four or five rows of them; the lower one red, the next green, and the rest of other colors, so that the combined effect was quite picturesque and had a great deal of Oriental brilliancy about it.
The street was full of carriages, and the policemen had no easy work to keep the double files in place. Then there were crowds of pedestrians and equestrians, i.e., if a man mounted on a donkey can be called an equestrian—and it was no easy matter to work one’s way through the struggling mass. But luckily it happens that an Arab crowd is a good-natured and non-pushing one, and by a use of time and patience we managed to get along. We were borne on the current into the field where carriages were not allowed to penetrate, and once inside we dismounted and left the donkeys and their drivers to wait till we were ready to return to the boat.
Two sides of the field were bounded by fences, and the other two by tents, each tent quite open at the end next the field. There were three or four bands of music in as many places, and each band played without much regard for the others.
The heavens were ablaze with the glare of rockets, and there were Catherine wheels and composite pieces on frames in countless numbers. On every side you heard expressions of astonishment and delight, just as you hear them under similar pyrotechnic circumstances in New York or elsewhere.
The contrast between the solemn stillness which reigned amid the mighty ruins of the temples, tombs, and cities of the upper Nile, which we had so lately visited, and the brilliancy of the scene we were now gazing upon, excited tumultuous emotions, which I will not stop to analyze. We hastened forward, and in a few minutes succeeded in pushing our way into the centre of the crowd.
CHAPTER LI—THE WEDDING OF THE KHEDIVE’S SON.—ENJOYING A MONARCH’S HOSPITALITY.
High Jinks in the Egyptian Capital—Dancing Horses—Arabian Blooded Steeds—Treading the “Light Fantastic Toe”—Bedouin Riders—The Mysterious Cage—Egyptian Prima Donnas—A Spice of the Arabian Nights—A Silken Palace—Headquarters of the Khedive—Thoughtless Intruders upon Royalty—A Glimpse of the Princes Royal—The Heir of the Throne of Egypt—His Appearance, Dress, and Character—A Cordial Invitation—Partaking of the Khedive’s Hospitality—A Turkish Comedy—A Free Lunch—End of the Festival.
NEAR the entrance of the field, of which I have spoken, there was a platform twelve or fifteen feet high, and twenty-five or thirty feet square, where a dozen acrobats were performing by the light of a row of open pots of burning oil.
A little farther on there was an exhibition of dancing horses. A pace was set off with a surrounding of ropes and stakes, and into this space the horses were led, two or three, sometimes half a dozen, at a time. The rider then took his place in the saddle, flourished a spear, and the dance began. You remember what Dr. Johnson said about a dog that walked on his hind legs: It was a very bad imitation of upright walking, and you wonder not at the way he does it, but that he does it at all. It was so with this equine dance. The animals were of pure Arabian stock and had been well trained, and showed great intelligence; but after all, when you considered the performance from a terpsichorean point of view, it wasn’t much. Some Arabic music was played, and the horses seemed to be keeping time to it, though the real fact was that the time was kept by the rider. It was the sort of thing that most of us have seen at the circus, and not equal to what we sometimes see in that entertainment. The riders were dressed like Bedouins of the desert, but were really some of the Khedive’s cavalry, attired for the occasion, to make them more picturesque. A very few moments sufficed to satisfy us with the performance.
The next thing that attracted our attention was a large crowd around a sort of cage about ten feet square, and near the cage several musicians were standing, and playing an Arab air of a rather doleful character. Guards with rattan canes kept the assemblage from approaching too near, and I must do the crowd the credit to say that the native portion of it did not make any attempt to overstep the bounds. Not so the strangers, of whom we were two; we wanted to investigate and didn’t heed the guards until they called us to order and motioned for us to fall back.
The sides of the cage were of lattice-work, and not unlike the lathed walls of a room before the plaster is laid on. We could see forms moving within, but could not make out whether they were men, women, or beasts. The instrumental music ceased what was evidently an overture, as it soon struck up again, and this time there was an accompaniment of voices from the interior of the cage. Now the mystery was explained.
In the Orient it is not considered proper for women to speak in public on the stage, or even to sing there. They have no Nilssons or Pattis there, and neither have they a Miss Anthony or Mrs. Stanton. The Orient does not trouble itself about women’s rights; in fact there are very few women’s rights there of any sort, and as for the men’s rights, they are scarce enough. This cage that we saw was a Steinway Hall or Academy of Music, and the women that sang there were inside, where the eyes of men could not reach them. They could peer through the openings and see the crowd, but the crowd couldn’t peer through the openings to see them. The guards were very watchful, and kept the masculine eyes from approaching too near the sacred enclosure. We couldn’t throw bouquets or kiss our hands to the fair singers, and there was no obliging usher who would undertake to convey a note to the prima donna, begging the honor of an introduction. I don’t think much of the Oriental opera. The music had no charms to soothe my Occidental breast, and even had such been the case, it would have lost much by the concealment of the singers. Think of going to a concert in New York or London, where the performers are hid behind a grating or obliged to sing through a curtain impervious to vision! Give me the opera of the Occident, where you can see the singers.
In all parts of the field the people were collected in crowds, particularly around the tents, which seemed to be the centres of attraction.
I may as well say something about all the tents, and what they were there for. They were supposed to be tents of repose and refreshment, and each person who visited the field of the festivities was supposed to be the guest of the Khedive. Readers of the Arabian Nights will remember that the rulers whose careers are there recorded, were constantly giving entertainments to the people, just as the Roman emperors did in their day, and just as some of the rulers in Europe are accustomed to do at the present time. Many of the customs of the time of the Arabian Nights are continued in Mohammedan countries at the present day, but the fêtés are less magnificent than of old, for the reason that money is less abundant.
Everything was free in the show I am describing; lamps, music, fireworks, acrobats, dancing horses, and tents, were paid for out of the Khedive’s purse, and it was emphatically his blowout.
The tents were a part of the entertainment; that on the extreme left of the field was of silk, and had rich divans and carpets in the interior, and the one next to it was nearly but not quite as magnificent in material and decorations. As we moved towards the right we found the tents steadily diminishing in luxury; the last of the lot was fitted with common chairs and uncushioned divans, and had the earth for a carpet. A placard or sign in front of the entrance indicated the use of each tent and the persons to whom it was appropriated.
Beginning on the left, the tents were appropriated as follows: First, the Khedive and his sons; second, the corps diplomatique; third, judges and law officials. Then there was a tent each to the ministers of war, navy, foreign affairs, finance, etc. Then there was a tent for each of the following departments and classes: Military and naval officers; court and staff officers; engineer’s staff; custom-house officials; higher courts; clergy—Mohammedan clergy, Arab and Coptic clergy, Christian clergy; city officials; police officials; school officials; railway officials; merchants of higher class; builders and architects; medical men; merchants of Cairo; merchants of Alexandria; merchants of other parts of Egypt; officials of small towns; gentlemen of upper Egypt; gentlemen of lower Egypt; and last, the public in general, to whom four tents were assigned.
Each tent had several attendants, one of whom—the chief—was supposed to represent the Khedive, and to entertain visitors in his name. We thoughtlessly endeavored to enter the first tent, where the Khedive’s sons had just arrived with a numerous following of staff officers, but the guards kept us back. The two youths were sipping coffee and chatting with those around them; the elder, the heir to the throne, has a pleasing face, and appeared quite vivacious, but the second was a trifle too fat and stout to have any very expressive lines about his features. A few evenings later I had an introduction to both of them, followed by a chat of a quarter of an hour, principally with the elder. He speaks French fluently, and has an easy, polished manner quite unlike the traditional gravity of the Oriental. His dress is entirely European, with the exception of the fez, and his general appearance reminds one more of Europe than of the drowsy East. Great care has been bestowed on his education, and when he comes to the throne he will not be unaware of his duties and responsibilities.
Several officers of the diplomatic corps were in the tent appropriated to them, and were sipping coffee and smoking cigars and cigarettes in an easy, unconcerned way. A few screens had been set up at one side of the tent to form an extempore theatre, where half a dozen actors were giving a Turkish comedy. I say actors for the reason that though two women were in the piece, their characters were sustained by men so well disguised in dress, voice, and manner, that their sex would not be suspected.
The diplomats paid very little attention to the play, and the most appreciative part of the audience was that which stood outside the ropes and could not get in. We endeavored to gain admission to tent after tent, but were politely but firmly kept back until we reached the one appropriated to the engineer staff, where the representative of the Khedive spoke to us in French and invited us to walk in. An attendant was ordered to bring us coffee and another to bring us cigars or cigarettes at our choice, and we were shown to seats on the divans. We crossed our legs in Oriental style, and thus made a favorable impression that secured us a second cup of coffee before we left.
From this tent onward we were welcomed at all, but we were quite satisfied after visiting three or four, as etiquette required that we should take coffee whenever we sat down, and the coffee of the East is like Sam Weller’s veal pie, “werry fillin.” We had a good taste of Oriental hospitality, and were not at all displeased with the courtesy that was shown us.
All foreigners who were on the ground were treated with similar liberality and coffee, but the general populace was not allowed to enter any of the tents except those specially assigned to it.
Returning to the front of the Diplomatic tent I found the Turkish comedy still in progress and the diplomats as inattentive as before. While we were standing near the ropes our Consul-General, Mr. Beardsley, caught sight of me and came out to shake hands. The instant he spoke to me the guards made way and escorted Gustave and myself into the tent and were as civil to us as to any of the accredited occupants. The attendants brought coffee and cigars on the instant; the coffee was better and the cigars were of much finer quality than those we had received in the tents further down the line The divans were softer and the carpet was real Turkey that must have cost many piastres to the square yard. We reclined in front of the improvised theatre, and pretended to be much interested in the play, thinking that was the proper thing to do. Mr. Beardsley explained that we would offend nobody, not even the actors, by paying no attention to the show, and as we could not understand the dialogue, we very soon became as careless and unobservant as anybody else.
Turkish comedy must be a tame affair according to Western ideas, and I would not advise any enterprising manager to import a company from Constantinople or Cairo under the belief that he could make a sensation and with it a fortune. The recitations were monotonous and the plot was exceedingly simple as Mr. Beardsley explained it, and had the usual mixture of love and jealousy that we find in comedies all over the globe.
“It is fortunate for you,” said he with a smile, “that you do not understand Turkish dialogue. Your sensibilities might receive a shock from some of the allusions which are rather too indelicate for the English or American stage.”
“Where ignorance is bliss ‘tis folly to be wise,” saith the old proverb. We drank our coffee and smoked our cigars undisturbed by the improprieties we could not comprehend.
Cakes and sweetmeats were brought but we declined them, and soon followed Mr. Beardsley to the outer gate where his carriage awaited him. Bidding him good night we returned to the enclosure and stumbled upon a large tent standing apart from the rest. Investigating this we found that it was a restaurant with what a New Yorker would call a free lunch standing ready, for those who were hungry. The bill of fare was not extensive, but consisted of Arab stews of mutton and goat’s flesh, and of two or three dishes in which rice was a prominent ingredient. We were invited to enter but declined as we had had all the Arab dishes we wanted during our Nile journey.
When the hereditary prince was married the restaurants were more numerous and better supplied than on the present occasion, and I was told that in one of them there was a free service of champagne to all foreigners. No really good Mohammedan drinks wine—his religion forbids it—but they are not very straight-laced in Egypt, and you not unfrequently find steady drinkers who between their glasses repeat reverentially the Moslem formula “La illah, il Allah; Mohammed yessul illah!” (There is no God but God and Mohammed is the Prophet of God.) The East is fast becoming civilized. As I have before said, many Orientals who would have been horrified at the thought twenty years ago will now treat their wives as though they were human beings, and do not hesitate to get drunk when occasion offers. New England missionaries and New England rum are more popular in the Orient than they were formerly. But while I have been talking, the pyrotechnics have burned out, the musicians—Arab and Occidental—have ended their strains, the tent-lamps are burning dimly, the candles in the Chinese lanterns are flickering, the acrobats and singers have disappeared, and the crowd is dispersing. So we will to our donkeys and gallop back to our boat moored against the bank of the lotos-bearing Nile, and in the quiet of its cabins will fall into a well-earned sleep to be filled with dreams of a gala night in Egypt.
