Sometimes we follow the banks instead of the desert, coming now and then to a creaking sakkieh turned by a melancholy buffalo; or to a native village hidden behind dwarf-palms. Here each hut has its tiny forecourt, in the midst of which stand the mud oven and mud cupboard of the family—two dumpy cones of smooth gray clay, like big chimney-pots—the one capped with a lid, the other fitted with a little wooden door and wooden bolt. Some of the houses have a barbaric ornament palmed off, so to say, upon the walls; the pattern being simply the impression of a human hand dipped in red or yellow ocher and applied while the surface is moist.
The amount of “bazaar” that takes place whenever we enter one of these villages is quite alarming. The dogs first give notice of our approach; and presently we are surrounded by all the women and girls of the place, offering live pigeons, eggs, vegetable marrows, necklaces, nose-rings and silver bracelets for sale. The boys pester us to buy wretched, half-dead chameleons. The men stand aloof, and leave the bargaining to the women.
And the women not only know how to bargain, but how to assess the relative value of every coin that passes current on the Nile. Rupees, roubles, reyals, dollars and shillings are as intelligible to them as paras or piasters. Sovereigns are not too heavy nor napoleons too light for them. The times are changed since Belzoni’s Nubian, after staring contemptuously at the first piece of money he had ever seen, asked: “Who would give anything for that small piece of metal?”
The necklaces consist of onyx, carnelian, bone, silver, and colored glass beads, with now and then a stray scarab or amulet in the ancient blue porcelain. The arrangement of color is often very subtle. The brow-pendants in gold repoussée, and the massive old silver bracelets, rough with knobs and bosses, are most interesting in design, and perpetuate patterns of undoubted antiquity. The M. B.’s picked up one really beautiful collarette of silver and coral, which might have been worn three thousand years ago by Pharaoh’s daughter.
When on board, we begin now to keep a sharp lookout for crocodiles. We hear of them constantly—see their tracks upon the sand-banks in the river—go through agonies of expectation over every black speck in the distance; yet are perpetually disappointed. The farther south we go the more impatient we become. The E’s, whose dahabeeyah, homeward-bound, drifts slowly past one calm morning, report “eleven beauties,” seen altogether yesterday upon a sand island, some ten miles higher up. Mr. C. B.’s boat, garlanded with crocodiles from stem to stern, fills us with envy. We would give our ears (almost) to see one of these engaging reptiles dangling from either our own mainmast or that of the faithful Bagstones. Alfred, who has set his heart on bagging at least half a dozen, says nothing, but grows gloomier day by day. At night, when the moon is up and less misanthropic folk are in bed and asleep, he rambles moodily into the desert, after jackals.
Meanwhile, on we go, starting at sunrise; mooring at sunset; sailing, tracking, punting; never stopping for an hour by day, if we can help it; and pushing straight for Abou Simbel with as little delay as possible. Thus we pass the pylons of Dabôd with their background of desert; Gertássee, a miniature Sunium, seen toward evening against the glowing sunset; Tafah, rich in palms, with white columns gleaming through green foliage by the water side; the cliffs, islands, and rapids of Kalabsheh, and the huge temple which rises like a fortress in their midst; Dendûr, a tiny chapel with a single pylon; and Gerf Hossayn, which from this distance might be taken for the mouth of a rock-cut tomb in the face of the precipice. About half way between Kalabsheh and Dendûr, we enter the tropic of cancer. From this day till the day when we repass that invisible boundary, there is a marked change in the atmospheric conditions under which we live. The days get gradually hotter, especially at noon, when the sun is almost vertical; but the freshness of night and the chill of early morning are no more. Unless when a strong wind blows from the north, we no longer know what it is to need a shawl on deck in the evening; or an extra covering on our beds toward dawn. We sleep with our cabin-windows open, and enjoy a delicious equality of temperature from sundown to sunrise. The days and nights, too, are of almost equal length.
Now, also, the southern cross and a second group of stars, which we conclude must form part of the Centaur, are visible between two and four every morning. They have been creeping up, a star at a time, for the last fortnight; but are still so low upon the eastern horizon that we can only see them when there comes a break in the mountain-chain on that side of the river. At the same time, our old familiar friends of the northern hemisphere, looking strangely distorted and decidedly out of their proper place, are fast disappearing on the opposite side of the heavens. Orion seems to be lying on his back, and the Great Bear to be standing on his tail; while Cassiopeia and a number of others have deserted en masse. The zenith, meanwhile, is but thinly furnished; so that we seem to have traveled away from the one hemisphere and not yet to have reached the other. As for the Southern Cross, we reserve our opinion till we get farther south. It would be treason to hint that we are disappointed in so famous a constellation.
After Gerf Hossayn, the next place of importance for which our maps bid us look out, is Dakkeh. As we draw near, expecting hourly to see something of the temple, the Nile increases in breadth and beauty. It is a peaceful, glassy morning. The men have been tracking since dawn, and stop to breakfast at the foot of a sandy bank, wooded with tamarisks and gum-trees. A glistening network of gossamer floats from bough to bough. The sky overhead is of a tender, luminous blue, such as we never see in Europe. The air is wonderfully still. The river, which here takes a sudden bend toward the east, looks like a lake and seems to be barred ahead by the desert. Presently a funeral passes along the opposite bank; the chief mourner flourishing a long staff, like a drum-major; the women snatching up handfuls of dust and scattering it upon their heads. We hear their wild wail long after the procession is out of sight.
Going on again presently, our whole attention becomes absorbed by the new and singular geological features of the Libyan desert. A vast plain covered with isolated mountains of volcanic structure, it looks like some strange transformation of the Puy de Dôme plateau, with all its wind-swept pastures turned to sand and its grassy craters stripped to barrenness. The more this plain widens out before our eyes, the more it bristles with peaks. As we round the corner, and Dakkeh, like a smaller Edfû, comes into sight upon the western bank, the whole desert on that side, as far as the eye can see, presents the unmistakable aspect of one vast field of volcanoes. As in Auvergne, these cones are of all sizes and heights; some low and rounded, like mere bubbles that have cooled without bursting; others ranging apparently from one thousand to fifteen hundred feet in height. The broken craters of several are plainly distinguishable by the help of a field-glass. One in particular is so like our old friend the Puy de Pariou that in a mere black-and-white sketch the one might readily be mistaken for the other.
We were surprised to find no account of the geology of this district in any of our books. Murray and Wilkinson pass it in silence; and writers of travels—one or two of whom notice only the “pyramidal” shape of the hills—are for the most part content to do likewise. None seem to have observed their obvious volcanic origin.