During the XVIIIth Dynasty (1580-1350 B.C.) the highroad was used continuously both by the troops which were being launched against the Sudân, and by the officials who came to collect the taxes or to administer the laws. Great changes had taken place since the old days. The Land of Ghosts had disappeared almost entirely from the geography, though still it might exist somewhere above Khartûm. The people of Aam, now more correctly called Emaam, had entirely absorbed Arthet, and Sethu had fallen to the share of Wawat. Persons travelling by the highroad, and descending to the river at Tomâs or near the Second Cataract, found themselves in the sphere of influence of Emaam at either place. One obtains some idea of the inhabitant of this once mysterious land from a painting in the tomb of Huy, the viceroy of the south, at Thebes. Here one sees a procession of negro princes who have come to do homage to the Pharaoh’s representatives. They have evidently travelled by the highroad, for the Prince of Emaam rides in a heavy chariot drawn by two bulls, while his retinue walk behind him. A prince of Wawat is also shown; while the chieftains of Kush are there in numbers, bringing with them the produce of their country. Their clothes are more or less Egyptian in style, and their wealth in gold is such as an Egyptian’s eyes might stare at. In this sober, prosperous company, one looks in vain for a sign of that savage ferocity which made them the terror of Elephantine.
In the XIXth Dynasty (1350-1205 B.C.), when the armies of Rameses the Great and his successors passed up to the wars in the Sudân, the Elephantine road must have been one of the main routes of communication. The name of Rameses the Great is writ large upon the rocks of Tomâs, in contrast to the modest little records of those infinitely greater men of the early days. No so long afterwards it was the people of the Sudân who were using the road to march on Egypt, and soon the Egyptians were obliged to bow the knee to a negro Pharaoh. Later when they were once more the masters of their own affairs, the tax-gatherers returned to Emaam, and the names of some have been left on the road.
At this time Elephantine had become a city of considerable wealth and importance. Splendid temples rose amidst the houses and the trees, and fortified walls around the south end of the island frowned down upon the swift river. Priests, soldiers, and nobles walked the streets amongst the throng of the townspeople, or sailed to and fro over the broken waters. At the foot of the western hills, the bay from which the Nubian highway ran must have often been the scene of the busy loading and unloading of pack-donkeys; and at this time there may have been a masonry landing-stage at the river’s edge to terminate worthily the paved causeway.
Then came the Greeks and the Romans, and one may picture perspiring legionaries hastening along the highroad to join Petronius in his chase of the one-eyed queen Kandake and her flying Ethiopians. One may see the agents of Shems-ed-Dulah, the brother of Saladin, passing along to rout out Christianity from Nubia; and presently come the barbaric Mamelukes, driven before the armies of Ibrahim Pasha. The last great scene in the long history of this most ancient highroad was enacted not so many years ago. The Dervishes—the modern inhabitants of the Land of the Ghosts—marching on Egypt from the Sudân, picked up the road at the Second Cataract, at its earliest terminus, and headed towards Tomâs. An English and Egyptian force, travelling southwards, met and utterly defeated them some seven miles back from the river, behind the village of Toshkeh, not far from Abu Simbel. And if one journeys direct from the ancient land of Arthet to the land of Aam, the bones of the dead and the débris of their camp will be found strewn to right and left over the surface of the highway, as recorded in the last chapter.
Travelling in Egypt one sees so many remains of the solemn ceremonies of the ancient Egyptians, and reading at home one meets with so many representations of the sacred rites, that it is a real relief to come across some relic, such as this highroad, of human energy and toil. In the courts of the temples one has pictured the processions of the priests and the kneeling throng of the people. One has heard in the imagination the rhythmic chants, has smelt the heavy incense, and has seen the smoke of the sacrifice rising to the roof. Glum Pharaohs have stalked across the picture, raising their stiff hands to the dull gods, and rows of bedraggled prisoners have been led to the sanctuary, roped in impossible contortions. One has visited, or has read of a thousand tombs; and the slow funerals have passed in depressing array. But here on this highroad over the western hills, where the north wind blows free and the kites circle and call, where there comes vigour into the limbs and ambition into the heart, these relics of old adventures appeal with wonderful force. Here there are no mysteries except the mystery of the land to the south, and there are no prayers save the asking of a successful journey, and the piling of four stones to the honour of the gods. One does not pace through holy places whispering “how weird!” but stick in hand, and whistling a tune down the wind, one follows in the footsteps of the bold caravan-masters of the past; and one thanks them from the bottom of the heart for having played a man’s part on their page of the world’s history to serve for all time as an example. When the amusements of the luxurious hotels have given out, and the solemnity of the ancient ruins has begun to pall, the spirits of Herkhuf and of Sabna, of the captains and the caravan-conductors, are always to be found waiting on the breezy hill-tops behind the island of Elephantine, at the head of the Nubian highway.
CHAPTER XII
THE ALABASTER QUARRIES IN THE WADY ASSIOUT
A short expedition into the desert is often successful in dispelling that slack boredom which an Egyptian summer produces in the mind of a lonely man; and on one occasion, when my work carried me into a friend’s district, we decided to try a tonic of this nature. We had come together in the police rest-house at Assiout, and we therefore arranged to visit some alabaster quarries which were said to exist in a desert valley known as the Wady Assiout, some five-and-twenty miles back from the Nile.
The rest-house was connected by telephone with the police outpost on the opposite side of the river; and one sweltering noon we sent a sudden message across for camels to be saddled and to await us on that bank in an hour’s time.
The journey across the swollen river in a rickety native boat took some considerable time; and as the woodwork was too hot to sit upon, and the garments offered by the sailors in place of cushions too dangerously unclean, we were obliged to stand during the entire voyage, while the sun beat down mercilessly upon our helmets and the glare from the water beat up beneath them. The shade of the palms, therefore, where the camels awaited us, was a pleasant relief, and we were a little inclined to linger over the loading and saddling up.
However, by two o’clock we were trotting through the palm groves and along the rough country roads towards the desert. A smart little Bishari tracker, with his rifle at his side and his cartridge-belt across his shoulder, led the way on a lightly built camel; and we followed, lumbering along on heavier mounts. One of these, known as Abu Rasas, “the Father of the Bullet,” was a famous old veteran, so called because he was captured by the Dervishes during the war, escaped, and was shot in the stomach in the ensuing chase. A large growth over the region of the wound was then all that remained to tell of the time when he was a “prisoner of the Khalifa.” This camel later, and in his old age, developed a marvellous propensity for jumping, and he used to be put over the fences with extraordinary success, to the delight of assembled crowds.