A thousand miles up the Nile

by Amelia B. Edwards

And now it is our object to turn that corner, so as to get into a better position for starting when the wind drops. The current here runs deep and strong, so that we have both wind and water dead against us. Half our men clamber round the corner like cats, carrying the rope with them; the rest keep the dahabeeyah off the bank with punting poles. The rope strains—a pole breaks—we struggle forward a few feet and can get no farther. Then the men rest awhile; try again; and are again defeated. So the fight goes on. The promenade and the windows of the mosque become gradually crowded with lookers on. Some three or four cloaked and bearded men have chairs brought and sit gravely smoking their chibouques on the bank above, enjoying the entertainment. Meanwhile the water-carriers come and go, filling their goat-skins at the landing-place; donkeys and camels are brought down to drink; girls in dark-blue gowns and coarse black veils come with huge water-jars laid sidewise upon their heads and, having filled and replaced them upright, walk away with stately steps, as if each ponderous vessel were a crown.

So the day passes. Driven back again and again, but still resolute, our sailors, by dint of sheer doggedness, get us round the bad corner at last. The Bagstones follows suit a little later; and we both moor about a quarter of a mile above the town. Then follows a night of adventures. Again our guards sleep profoundly; but the bad characters of Beni Suêf are very wide awake. One gentleman, actuated no doubt by the friendliest motives, pays a midnight visit to the Bagstones; but being detected, chased and fired at, escapes by jumping overboard. Our turn comes about two hours later, when the writer, happening to be awake, hears a man swim softly round the Philæ. To strike a light and frighten everybody into sudden activity is the work of a moment. The whole boat is instantly in an uproar. Lanterns are lighted on deck; a patrol of sailors is set; Talhamy loads his gun; and the thief slips away in the dark like a fish.

The guards, of course, slept sweetly through it all. Honest fellows! They were paid a shilling a night to do it and they had nothing on their minds.

Having lodged a formal complaint next morning against the inhabitants of the town, we received a visit from a sallow personage clad in a long black robe and a voluminous white turban. This was the chief of the guards. He smoked a great many pipes; drank numerous cups of coffee; listened to all we had to say; looked wise; and finally suggested that the number of our guards should be doubled.

I ventured to object that if they slept unanimously forty would not be of much more use than four. Whereupon he rose, drew himself to his full height, touched his beard and said with a magnificent melodramatic air: “If they sleep they shall be bastinadoed till they die!”

And now our good luck seemed to have deserted us. For three days and nights the adverse wind continued to blow with such force that the men could not even track against it. Moored under that dreary bank, we saw our ten days’ start melting away and could only make the best of our misfortunes. Happily the long island close by and the banks on both sides of the river were populous with sand-grouse; so Alfred went out daily with his faithful George and his unerring gun and brought home game in abundance, while we took long walks, sketched boats and camels and chaffered with native women for silver torques and bracelets. These torques (in Arabic Tók) are tubular but massive, penannular, about as thick as one’s little finger and finished with a hook at one end and a twisted loop at the other. The girls would sometimes put their veils aside and make a show of bargaining; but more frequently, after standing for a moment with great wondering black velvety eyes staring shyly into ours, they would take fright like a troop of startled deer and vanish with shrill cries, half of laughter, half of terror.

At Beni Suêf we encountered our first sand-storm. It came down the river about noon, showing like a yellow fog on the horizon and rolling rapidly before the wind. It tore the river into angry waves and blotted out the landscape as it came. The distant hills disappeared first; then the palms beyond the island; then the boats close by. Another second and the air was full of sand. The whole surface of the plain seemed in motion. The banks rippled. The yellow dust poured down through every rift and cleft in hundreds of tiny cataracts. But it was a sight not to be looked upon with impunity. Hair, eyes, mouth, ears, were instantly filled and we were driven to take refuge in the saloon. Here, although every window and door had been shut before the storm came, the sand found its way in clouds. Books, papers, carpets, were covered with it; and it settled again as fast as it was cleared away. This lasted just one hour, and was followed by a burst of heavy rain; after which the sky cleared and we had a lovely afternoon. From this time forth, we saw no more rain in Egypt.

At length, on the morning of the fourth day after our first appearance at Beni Suêf and the seventh since leaving Cairo, the wind veered round again to the north, and we once more got under way. It was delightful to see the big sail again towering up overhead, and to hear the swish of the water under the cabin windows; but we were still one hundred and nine miles from Rhoda, and we knew that nothing but an extraordinary run of luck could possibly get us there by the twenty-third of the month, with time to see Beni Hassan on the way. Meanwhile, however, we make fair progress, mooring at sunset when the wind falls, about three miles north of Bibbeh. Next day, by help of the same light breeze which again springs up a little after dawn, we go at a good pace between flat banks, fringed here and there with palms, and studded with villages more or less picturesque. There is not much to see, and yet one never wants for amusement. Now we pass an island of sand-bank covered with snow-white paddy-birds, which rise tumultuously at our approach. Next comes Bibbeh, perched high along the edge of the precipitous bank, its odd-looking Coptic convent roofed all over with little mud domes, like a cluster of earth-bubbles. By and by we pass a deserted sugar factory, with shattered windows and a huge, gaunt, blackened chimney, worthy of Birmingham or Sheffield. And now we catch a glimpse of the railway and hear the last scream of a departing engine. At night, we moor within sight of the factory chimneys and hydraulic tubes of Magagha, and next day get on nearly to Golosanèh, which is the last station-town before Minieh.

It is now only too clear that we must give up all thought of pushing on to Beni Hassan before the rest of the party shall come on board. We have reached the evening of our ninth day; we are still forty-eight miles from Rhoda; and another adverse wind might again delay us indefinitely on the way. All risks taken into account, we decide to put off our meeting till the twenty-fourth, and transfer the appointment to Minieh; thus giving ourselves time to track all the way in case of need. So an Arabic telegram is concocted, and our fleet runner starts off with it to Golosanèh before the office closes for the night.

The breeze, however, does not fail, but comes back next morning with the dawn. Having passed Golosanèh, we come to a wide reach in the river, at which point we are honored by a visit from a Moslem santon of peculiar sanctity, named “Holy Sheik Cotton.” Now Holy Sheik Cotton, who is a well-fed, healthy-looking young man of about thirty, makes his first appearance swimming, with his garments twisted into a huge turban on the top of his head, and only his chin above water. Having made his toilet in the small boat, he presents himself on deck and receives an enthusiastic welcome. Reïs Hassan hugs him—the pilot kisses him—the sailors come up one by one, bringing little tributes of tobacco and piasters, which he accepts with the air of a pope receiving Peter’s pence. All dripping as he is, and smiling like an affable Triton, he next proceeds to touch the tiller, the ropes, and the ends of the yards, “in order,” says Talhamy, “to make them holy;” and then, with some kind of final charm or muttered incantation, he plunges into the river again, and swims off to repeat the same performance on board the Bagstones.