I mention these particular instances because they were told to me by educated persons; but amongst the peasants even more incredible stories are gravely accepted. The Omdeh, or headman, of the village of Chaghb, not far from Luxor, submitted an official complaint to the police a short time ago against an afrit or devil which was doing much mischief to him and his neighbours, snatching up oil-lamps and pouring the oil over the terrified villagers, throwing stones at passers-by, and so forth. Spirits of the dead in like manner haunt the living, and often do them mischief. At Luxor, lately, the ghost of a well-known robber persecuted his widow to such an extent that she finally went mad. A remarkable parallel to this case, dating from Pharaonic days, may be mentioned. It is the letter of a haunted widower to his dead wife, in which he asks her why she persecutes him, since he was always kind to her during her life, nursed her through illnesses, and never grieved her heart.[1]
[1] Maspero: 'Études egyptologiques,' i. 145.
These instances might be multiplied, but those which I have quoted will serve to show that the old gods are still alive, and that the famous magic of the Egyptians is not yet a thing of the past. Let us now turn to the affairs of everyday life.
An archæological traveller in Egypt cannot fail to observe the similarity between old and modern customs as he rides through the villages and across the fields. The houses, when not built upon the European plan, are surprisingly like those of ancient days. The old cornice still survives, and the rows of dried palm stems, from which its form was originally derived, are still to be seen on the walls of gardens and courtyards. The huts or shelters of dried corn-stalks, so often erected in the fields, are precisely the same as those used in prehistoric days; and the archaic bunches of corn-stalks smeared with mud, which gave their form to later stone columns, are set up to this day, though their stone posterity are now in ruins. Looking through the doorway of one of these ancient houses, the traveller, perhaps, sees a woman grinding corn or kneading bread in exactly the same manner as her ancestress did in the days of the Pharaohs. Only the other day a native asked to be allowed to purchase from us some of the ancient millstones lying in one of the Theban temples, in order to re-use them on his farm. The traveller will notice, in some shady corner, the village barber shaving the heads and faces of his patrons, just as he is seen in the Theban tomb-paintings of thousands of years ago; and the small boys who scamper across the road will have just the same tufts of hair left for decoration on their shaven heads as had the boys of ancient Thebes and Memphis. In another house, where a death has occurred, the mourning women, waving the same blue cloth which was the token of mourning in ancient days, will toss their arms about in gestures familiar to every student of ancient scenes. Presently the funeral will issue forth, and the men will sing that solemn yet cheery tune which never fails to call to mind the far-famed Maneros—that song which Herodotus describes as a plaintive funeral dirge, and which Plutarch asserts was suited at the same time to festive occasions. In some other house a marriage will be taking place, and the singers and pipers will, in like manner, recall the scenes upon the monuments. The former have a favourite gesture—the placing of the hand behind the ear as they sing—which is frequently shown in ancient representations of such festive scenes. The dancing girls, too, are here to be seen, their eyes and cheeks heavily painted, as were those of their ancestresses; and in their hands are the same tambourines as are carried by their class in Pharaonic paintings and reliefs. The same date-wine which intoxicated the worshippers of the Egyptian Bacchus goes the round of this village company, and the same food stuff, the same small, flat loaves of bread, are eaten.
Passing out into the fields the traveller observes the ground raked into the small squares for irrigation which the prehistoric farmer made; and the plough is shaped as it always was. The shadoof, or water-hoist, is patiently worked as it has been for thousands of years; while the cylindrical hoist employed in Lower Egypt was invented and introduced in Ptolemaic times. Threshing and winnowing proceed in the manner represented on the monuments, and the methods of sowing and reaping have not changed. Along the embanked roads, men, cattle, and donkeys file past against the sky-line, recalling the straight rows of such figures depicted so often upon the monuments. Overhead there flies the vulture goddess Nekheb, and the hawk Horus hovers near by. Across the road ahead slinks the jackal, Anubis; under one's feet crawls Khepera, the scarab; and there, under the sacred tree, sleeps the horned ram of Amon. In all directions the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians pass to and fro, as though some old temple-inscription had come to life. The letter m, the owl, goes hooting past. The letter a, the eagle, circles overhead; the sign ur, the wagtail, flits at the roadside, chirping at the sign rekh, the peewit. Along the road comes the sign ab, the frolicking calf; and near it is ka, the bull; while behind them walks the sign fa, a man carrying a basket on his head. In all directions are the figures from which the ancients made their hieroglyphical script; and thus that wonderful old writing at once ceases to be mysterious, a thing of long ago, and one realises how natural a product of the country it was.
| [Photo by E. Bird. |
| In the palm-groves near Sakkâra, Egypt. |
| Pl. iv. |
In a word, ancient and modern Egyptians are fundamentally similar. Nor is there any great difference to be observed between the country's relations with foreign powers in ancient days and those of the last hundred years. As has been seen in the last chapter, Egypt was usually occupied by a foreign power, or ruled by a foreign dynasty, just as at the present day; and a foreign army was retained in the country during most of the later periods of ancient history. There were always numerous foreigners settled in Egypt, and in Ptolemaic and Roman times Alexandria and Memphis swarmed with them. The great powers of the civilised world were always watching Egypt as they do now, not always in a friendly attitude to that one of themselves which occupied the country; and the chief power with which Egypt was concerned in the time of the Ramesside Pharaohs inhabited Asia Minor and perhaps Turkey, just as in the middle ages and the last century. Then, as in modern times, Egypt had much of her attention held by the Sudan, and constant expeditions had to be made into the regions above the cataracts. Thus it cannot be argued that ancient history offers no precedent for modern affairs because all things have now changed. Things have changed extremely little, broadly speaking; and general lines of conduct have the same significance at the present time as they had in the past.
I wish now to give an outline of Egypt's relationship to her most important neighbour, Syria, in order that the bearing of history upon modern political matters may be demonstrated; for it would seem that the records of the past make clear a tendency which is now somewhat overlooked. I employ this subject simply as an example.