A thousand miles up the Nile

by Amelia B. Edwards

It is a curious fact that one out of the three inscribed sarcophagi should bear the oval of Cambyses—that Cambyses of whom it is related that, having desired the priests of Memphis to bring before him the god Apis, he drew his dagger in a transport of rage and contempt and stabbed the animal in the thigh. According to Plutarch, he slew the beast and cast out its body to the dogs; according to Herodotus, “Apis lay some time pining in the temple, but at last died of his wound, and the priests buried him secretly;” but according to one of these precious Serapeum tablets, the wounded bull did not die till the fourth year of the reign of Darius. So wonderfully does modern discovery correct and illustrate tradition.

And now comes the sequel to this ancient story in the shape of an anecdote related by M. About, who tells how Mariette, being recalled suddenly to Paris some months after the opening of the Serapeum, found himself without the means of carrying away all his newly excavated antiquities, and so buried fourteen cases in the desert, there to await his return. One of these cases contained an Apis mummy which had escaped discovery by the early Christians; and this mummy was that of the identical Apis stabbed by Cambyses. That the creature had actually survived his wound was proved by the condition of one of the thigh-bones, which showed unmistakable signs of both injury and healing.

Nor does the story end here. Mariette being gone, and having taken with him all that was most portable among his treasures, there came to Memphis one whom M. About indicates as “a young and august stranger” traveling in Egypt for his pleasure. The Arabs, tempted perhaps by a princely bakhshîsh, revealed the secret of the hidden cases; whereupon the archduke swept off the whole fourteen, dispatched them to Alexandria, and immediately shipped them for Trieste.[13] “Quant au coupable,” says M. About, who professes to have had the story direct from Mariette, “il a fini si tragiquement dans un autre hemisphère que, tout bien pesé, je renonce à publier son nom.” But through so transparent a disguise it is not difficult to identify the unfortunate hero of this curious anecdote.

The sarcophagus in which the Apis was found remains in the vaults of the Serapeum; but we did not see it. Having come more than two hundred yards already, and being by this time well-nigh suffocated, we did not care to put two hundred yards more between ourselves and the light of day. So we turned back at the half distance—having, however, first burned a pan of magnesian powder, which flared up wildly for a few seconds; lit the huge gallery and all its cavernous recesses and the wondering faces of the Arabs, and then went out with a plunge, leaving the darkness denser than before.

From hence, across a farther space of sand we went in all the blaze of noon to the tomb of one Ti, a priest and commoner of the fifth dynasty, who married with a lady named Neferhotep-s, the granddaughter of a Pharaoh, and here built himself a magnificent tomb in the desert.

On the façade of this tomb, which must originally have looked like a little temple, only two large pillars remain. Next comes a square court-yard, surrounded by a roofless colonnade, from one corner of which a covered passage leads to two chambers. In the center of the court-yard yawns an open pit some twenty-five feet in depth, with a shattered sarcophagus just visible in the gloom of the vault below. All here is limestone—walls, pillars, pavements, even the excavated débris with which the pit had been filled in when the vault was closed forever. The quality of this limestone is close and fine like marble, and so white that, although the walls and columns of the court-yard are covered with sculptures of most exquisite execution and of the greatest interest, the reflected light is so intolerable that we find it impossible to examine them with the interest they deserve. In the passage, however, where there is shade, and in the large chamber, where it is so dark that we can see only by the help of lighted candles, we find a succession of bas-reliefs so numerous and so closely packed that it would take half a day to see them properly. Ranged in horizontal parallel lines about a foot and a half in depth, these extraordinary pictures, row above row, cover every inch of wall-space from floor to ceiling. The relief is singularly low. I should doubt if it anywhere exceeds a quarter of an inch. The surface, which is covered with a thin film of very fine cement, has a quality and polish like ivory. The figures measure an average height of about twelve inches, and all are colored.

Here, as in an open book, we have the biography of Ti. His whole life, his pleasures, his business, his domestic relations, are brought before us with just that faithful simplicity which makes the charm of Montaigne and Pepys. A child might read the pictured chronicles which illuminate these walls and take as keen a pleasure in them as the wisest of archæologists.

Ti was a wealthy man and his wealth was of the agricultural sort. He owned flocks and herds and vassals in plenty. He kept many kinds of birds and beasts—geese, ducks, pigeons, cranes, oxen, goats, asses, antelopes and gazelles. He was fond of fishing and fowling, and used sometimes to go after crocodiles and hippopotamuses, which came down as low as Memphis in his time. He was a kind husband, too, and a good father, and loved to share his pleasures with his family. Here we see him sitting in state with his wife and children, while professional singers and dancers perform before them. Yonder they walk out together and look on while the farm-servants are at work, and watch the coming in of the boats that bring home the produce of Ti’s more distant lands. Here the geese are being driven home; the cows are crossing a ford; the oxen are plowing; the sower is scattering his seed; the reaper plies his sickle; the oxen tread the grain; the corn is stored in the granary. There are evidently no independent tradesfolk in these early days of the world. Ti has his own artificers on his own estate, and all his goods and chattels are home-made. Here the carpenters are fashioning new furniture for the house; the shipwrights are busy on new boats; the potters mold pots; the metal-workers smelt ingots of red gold. It is plain to see that Ti lived like a king within his own boundaries. He makes an imposing figure, too, in all these scenes, and, being represented about eight times as large as his servants, sits and stands a giant among pigmies. His wife (we must not forget that she was of the blood royal) is as big as himself; and the children are depicted about half the size of their parents. Curiously enough, Egyptian art never outgrew this early naîveté. The great man remained a big man to the last days of the Ptolemies, and the fellah was always a dwarf.[14]

Apart from these and one or two other mannerisms, nothing can be more natural than the drawing, or more spirited than the action, of all these men and animals. The most difficult and transitory movements are expressed with masterly certitude. The donkey kicks up his heels and brays—the crocodile plunges—the wild duck rises on the wing; and the fleeting action is caught in each instance with a truthfulness that no landseer could distance. The forms, which have none of the conventional stiffness of later Egyptian work, are modeled roundly and boldly yet finished with exquisite precision and delicacy. The coloring, however, is purely decorative; and, being laid on in single tints, with no attempt at gradation or shading, conceals rather than enhances the beauty of the sculptures. These, indeed, are best seen where the color is entirely rubbed off. The tints are yet quite brilliant in parts of the larger chamber; but in the passage and court-yard, which have been excavated only a few years and are with difficulty kept clear from day to day, there is not a vestige of color left. This is the work of the sand—that patient laborer whose office it is not only to preserve but to destroy. The sand secretes and preserves the work of the sculptor, but it effaces the work of the painter. In sheltered places where it accumulates passively like a snow-drift, it brings away only the surface detail, leaving the under colors rubbed and dim. But nothing, as I had occasion constantly to remark in the course of the journey, removes color so effectually as sand which is exposed to the shifting action of the wind.