Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 2

by Andrew Dickson White

For our journey of five weeks upon the Nile we had what was called a "special steamer," the Sethi; and for our companions, some fourteen Americans and English—all on friendly terms. Every day came new subjects of thought, and nearly every waking moment came some new stimulus to observation and reflection.

Deeply impressed on my mind is the account given me by Brugsch Bey, assistant director of the Egyptian Museum, of the amazing find of antiquities two or three years before—perhaps the most startling discovery ever made in archaeology. It was on this wise. The museum authorities had for some time noted that tourists coming down the river were bringing remarkably beautiful specimens of ancient workmanship; and this led to a suspicion that the Arabs about the first cataract had discovered a new tomb. For a long time nothing definite could be found; but, at last, vigorous measures having been taken,—measures which Brugsch Bey did not explain, but which I could easily understand to be the time-honored method of tying up the principal functionaries of the region to their palm-trees and whipping them until they confessed,—the discovery was revealed, and Brugsch Bey, having gone up the Nile to the place indicated, was taken to what appeared to be a well; and, having been let down into it by ropes, found himself in a sort of artificial cavern, not beautified and adorned like the royal tombs of that region, but roughly hewn in the rock. It was filled with sarcophagi, and at first sight of them he was almost paralyzed. For they bore the names of several among the most eminent early sovereigns and members of sovereign families of the greatest days of Egypt. The first idea which took hold of Brugsch's mind while stunned by this revelation was that he was dreaming; but, having soon convinced himself that he was awake, he then thought that he must be in some state of hallucination after death—that he had suddenly lost his life, and that his soul was wandering amid shadows. But this, too, he soon found unlikely. Then came over him a sense of the reality and importance of the discovery too oppressive to be borne. He could stay in the cavern no longer; and, having gone to the entrance of the well and signaled to the men above, he was drawn up, and, arriving at the surface, gasped out a command to them all to leave him. He then sat down in the desert to secure the calm required for further thought; and, finally, having become more composed, returned to the work, and the mummies of Rameses the Great and of the other royal personages were taken from their temporary home, carried down the river, and placed in the museum at Cairo.

Another experience was of a very different sort. I had passed a day with the Egyptian minister of public instruction, Artin Pasha, at the great technical school of Cairo, which, under the charge of an eminent French engineer, is training admirably a considerable number of Egyptians in various arts applied to industry; and at luncheon, I had noticed on the wall a portrait of the Khedive, Tewfik Pasha, representing him as most commanding in manner—over six feet in height, and in a gorgeous uniform. On the evening of that day I went to dine with the Khedive, and, entering the reception-rooms, found a large assemblage, and was welcomed by a kindly little man with a pleasant face, and in the plainest of uniforms, who, as I supposed, was the prime minister, Riaz Pasha. His greeting was cordial, and we were soon in close conversation, I giving him especially the impressions made upon me by the school, asking questions and making suggestions. He entered very heartily into it all, and detained me long, I wondering constantly where the Khedive might be. Presently, the great doors having been flung open and dinner announced, each gentleman hastened to the lady assigned him, and all marched out together, my thought being, "This is the Oriental way of entertaining strangers; we shall, no doubt, find the sovereign on his throne at the table." But, to my amazement, the first place at the table was taken by the unassuming little man with whom I had been talking so freely. At first I was somewhat abashed, though the mistake was a very natural one. The fact was that I had been completely under the impression made upon me by the idealized portrait of the Khedive at the technical school, and the thought had never entered my mind that the real Khedive might be physically far inferior to the ideal. But no harm was done; for, after dinner, he came to me again and renewed the conversation with especial cordiality. I also had a long talk with the real Riaz, and found him intelligent and broad-minded. One thing he said amused me. It was that he especially liked to welcome Americans, because they were not seeking to exploit the country.

In Cairo and Alexandria I enjoyed meeting the American and English missionaries,—among them my old Yale friend Dr. Henry Jessup, who has for so many years rendered admirable services at Beyrout; but the most noteworthy thing was a lecture which I heard from Dr. Grant, an eminent Presbyterian physician connected with the mission. It was on the subject of the Egyptian Trinities. The doctor explained them, as well as the Trimurtis of India, by expressing his belief that when the Almighty came down in the cool of the day to refresh himself by walking and talking with Adam in the garden of Eden, he revealed to the man he had made some of the great mysteries of the divine existence, and that these had "leaked out" to men who took them into other countries, and there taught them!

I also found at Cairo another especially interesting man of a very different sort, an Armenian, Mr. Nimr; and, on visiting him, was amazed to find in his library a large collection of English and French books, scientific and literary—among them the "New York Scientific Monthly" containing my own articles, which he had done me the honor to read. I found that he had been, at an earlier period, a professor at the college established by the American Protestant missionaries at Beyrout; but that he and several others who had come to adopt the Darwinian hypothesis were on that account turned out of their situations, and that he had taken refuge in Cairo where he was publishing, in Arabic, a daily newspaper a weekly literary magazine, and a monthly scientific journal. I was much struck by one remark of his—which was, that he was doing his best to promote the interests of Freemasonry in the East, as the only means of bringing Christians and Mohammedans together under the same roof for mutual help, with the feeling that they were children of the same God. He told me that the worst opposition he had met came from a very excellent Protestant missionary, who had publicly insisted that the God worshiped by the Mohammedans was not the God worshiped by Christians. This reminded me of a sermon which one of my friends heard in Strasburg Cathedral in which a priest, reproving his Catholic hearers for entering into any relations with Protestants, especially opposed the idea that they worshiped the same God, and insisted that the God of the Catholics and the God of the Protestants are two different beings.

Among the things which gave me a real enjoyment at this period, and aided to revive my interest in the world about me, was the Saracenic architecture of Cairo and its neighborhood. Nothing could be, in its way, more beautiful. I had never before realized how much beauty is obtainable under the limitations of Mohammedanism; the exquisite tracery and fretwork of the Saracenic period were a constant joy to me, and happily, as there had been no "restorers," everything remained as it had left the hands of the men of genius who created it.

In this older architecture a thousand things interested me; but the greatest effect was produced by the tombs at Beni Hassan, as showing the historical linking together of human ideas both in art and science—the development of one period out of another. Up to the time of my seeing them I had supposed that the Doric architecture of Greece, and especially the Doric column, was of Greek creation; now I saw the proof that it was evolved out of an earlier form upon the lower Nile, which had itself, doubtless, been developed out of forms yet earlier.

At one thing I was especially surprised. I found that, excellent as are our missionaries in those regions, their work has not at all been what those who send them have supposed. No Mohammedan converts are made. Indeed, should the good missionaries at Cairo wake up some fine morning in the spacious quarters for which they are so largely indebted to the late Khedive Ismail, and find that they had converted a Mohammedan, they would be filled with consternation. They would possibly be driven from the country. The real Mohammedan cannot be converted. There were, indeed, a few persons, here and there, claiming to be converted Jews or Mohammedans; but we were always warned against them, even by Christians, as far less trustworthy than those who were true to their original faith. Whatever good is done by the missionaries is done through their schools, to which come many children of the Copts, with perhaps a certain number of Mohammedans desirous of learning English; and the greatest of American missionary successes is doubtless Robert College at Constantinople, which has certainly done a very noble work among the more gifted young men of the Christian populations in the Turkish Empire.

Several times I attended service in the United Presbyterian church at Cairo, and found it hard, unattractive, and little likely to influence any considerable number of persons, whether Mohammedan or Christian. It was evident that the preachers, as a rule, were entirely out of the current of modern theological and religious thought, and that even the best and noblest of them represented ideas no longer held by their leading coreligionists in the countries from which they came.

After a stay of three months in Egypt, we left Alexandria for Athens, where I enjoyed, during a considerable stay, the advantages of the library at the American School of Archaeology, and the companionship of my friend Professor Waldstein, now of Cambridge University. Very delightful also were excursions with my old Yale companion, Walker Fearne, our minister in Greece, and his charming family, to the Acropolis, the Theater of Dionysus, the Bay of Salamis, Megara, and other places of interest. An especial advantage we had in the companionship of Professor Mahaffy of Trinity College, Dublin, whose comments on all these places were most suggestive.