| For a Red Sea helmsman | drachmas | 8 |
| „ „ bowsman | „ | 10 |
| „ an able seaman | „ | 5 |
| „ a shipyard hand | „ | 5 |
| „ a skilled artisan | „ | 8 |
| „ a woman for prostitution | „ | 108 |
| „ „ immigrant | „ | 20 |
| „ a wife of a soldier | „ | 20 |
| „ a camel ticket | obols | 1 |
| „ sealing of said ticket | „ | 2 |
| „ each ticket for the husband, if mounted, when a caravan is leaving | drachmas | 1 |
| „ all his women, at the rate of | „ | 4 |
| „ a donkey | obols | 2 |
| „ a waggon with tilt | drachmas | 4 |
| „ a ship’s mast | „ | 20 |
| „ „ yard | „ | 4 |
The ninth year of the Emperor Cæsar Domitian Augustus Germanicus on the 15th of the month of May.
In the above tariff it will be seen that the persons or articles on which taxes were levied were such as one might expect to have passed between the Nile and the sea; and only those items concerning women seem to call for explanation. The very large tax imposed upon prostitutes must indicate that Indian or Arabian females coming into Egypt along this route, and liable to bring with them the evils of the East, could only be admitted when they were of the richest and, consequently, best and highest class. Such women were always taxed in the Roman Empire, and in this regard a rather humorous story is told in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana. That holy man was accosted by a tax-collector when about to cross the Euphrates, and was asked his wares. He replied with the somewhat banal remark that he had with him Sōphrosúnē kai Dikaiosúnē kai ’Andreia—“Temperance, Righteousness, and Courage.” The official at once assessed these as Doúlas, “Female slaves,” and would have taxed them as prostitutes, had not the prophet hastily corrected him by saying that they were not Doúlas but Despoínas, “Ladies of the House”! The “wives of soldiers” mentioned in the tariff shows that Mommsen was right in stating that the rule of the emperors was laxer in Egypt than elsewhere, for before the time of Severus it was not possible for legionaries to contract legal marriages while on active service; but in Egypt the marriages were so far recognised that the wives could be taxed as such, and the children could be enrolled as legionaries.
During mediæval times this Red Sea highroad was much used by traders, but its river terminus was now removed from Koptos to Kus, a town a few miles farther up-stream, which soon became second only to Cairo in size and wealth. A pottery figure of Buddha, some mediæval Chinese vases, and a few Arabian antiquities, found in Upper Egypt, are records of the use of this route at that time. In later days the terminus again shifted to Keneh, a few miles to the north of Koptos, and to that town there still come Arabian traders from across the Red Sea, and pilgrims sometimes use it as the base of the journey to Mecca.
From Wady Fowakhîeh our party set out along this highroad at about 7 A.M. on a bracing morning in November. From Bir Fowakhîeh the road branched off to the right along a fine valley, shut in by hills fantastic in shape and colour. Clustering on either side of the path for some distance there were groups of huts, and in the hillsides there were traces of gold mines long since abandoned. The road beneath one was hard, flat, and blue-grey in colour, as though some mighty torrent had brought down masses of gravel and had laid it level over the bottom of the valley. Gradually it sloped upwards, and as the hills drew in on either side one felt that the highest point of the whole road was soon to be reached. We were already half-way between the Nile and the sea, and so far there had been a continuous slope upwards, so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. The valley now twisted and turned narrowly between the dark hills, and the gravel bed became humped and banked up where the early waters had raced down some narrow gauge and had churned themselves through a natural basin into the wide bed beyond. The cold wind beat in our faces as we trotted up the narrowing valley, and the sun had not yet gained much power when, after a ride of two hours, we reached the rugged pass which forms the apex of the route.
The scenery here is superb. The pathway, such as it is, threads its way through a cluster of great grey boulders tumbled into the few yards’ width between the rocks of the hillside, so that on foot one may jump from stone to stone up the whole length of the pass, and on camelback one has to twist and turn, rise and descend, until the saddle-straps come near to bursting. Amidst the rocks there is a well, known as Bir es Sid, which may have been opened in ancient times, perhaps by the redoubtable Henu. A few natives were encamped near by, and not far away their goats were to be seen in the charge of a small girl, whose dark dress fluttering in the wind caught one’s eye amidst the pale grey of rocks and the cold blue of the shadows.
Riding on for another two hours we reached an open ridge from which an extraordinary prospect of rolling hills and innumerable humps was obtained. On the left of the pathway there was a hill at the top of which stood a ruined Roman watch-tower, one of a chain of such posts which crowned the higher peaks all along the route. Up this hill we scrambled on foot, and climbed the tower at the summit, burning a pipeful of tobacco to the gods of Contentment thereon. The array of hills around us, as closely packed and yet as individual as the heads of a vast crowd of people, were of a wonderful hue in the morning light. Those to the north were a dead grey, those to the east were pink and mauve, and those to the south every shade of rich brown, while the shadows throughout were of the deepest blue. The wind tore past us as we sat contemplating the fair world at our feet, and two black ravens sailed by on it to take stock of us. Far below the path wound its way through the humps; and in the distance the peaks and spires of the darker rocks into which it penetrated bounded the scene, and hid the sea from view.
Bir es Sid, the well at the highest point of the Red Sea highroad.—Page [65].
