CHAPTER VI.
FROM MEMPHIS TO SIOUT.
Leaving the Pyramids—A Calm and a Breeze—A Coptic Visit—Minyeh—The Grottoes of Beni-Hassan—Doum Palms and Crocodiles—Djebel Aboufayda—Entrance into Upper Egypt—Diversions of the Boatmen—Siout—Its Tombs—A Landscape—A Bath.
“It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave, mighty thought threading a dream.”
Leigh Hunt’s Sonnet to the Nile.
The extent of my journey into Africa led me to reverse the usual plan pursued by travellers on the Nile, who sail to Assouan or Wadi-Halfa without pause, and visit the antiquities on their return. I have never been able to discern the philosophy of this plan. The voyage up is always longer, and more tedious (to those heathens who call the Nile tedious), than the return; besides which, two visits, though brief, with an interval between, leave a more complete and enduring image, than a single one. The mind has time to analyze and contrast, and can afterwards confirm or correct the first impressions. How any one can sail from Cairo to Siout, a voyage of two hundred and sixty miles, with but one or two points of interest, without taking the Pyramids with him in memory, I cannot imagine. Were it not for that recollection, I should have pronounced Modern Egypt more interesting than the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies. I omitted seeing none of the important remains on my upward journey, so that I might be left free to choose another route homeward, if possible. It seemed like slighting Fortune to pass Dendera, and Karnak and Ombos, without notice. Opportunity is rare, and a wise man will never let it go by him. I knew not what dangers I might have to encounter, but I knew that it would be a satisfaction to me, even if speared by the Bedouins of the Lybian Desert, to think: “You rascals, you have killed me, but I have seen Thebes!”
The Pyramids of Dashoor followed us all the next day after leaving Memphis. Our sailors tugged us slowly along shore, against a mild south wind, but could not bring us out of the horizon of those red sandstone piles. Our patience was tried, that day and the next, by our slow and toilsome progress, hindered still more by running aground on sand-banks, but we were pledged to patience, and had our reward. On the morning of the fourth day, as we descried before us the minarets of Benisouef, the first large town after leaving Cairo, a timid breeze came rustling over the dourra-fields to the north, and puffed out the Cleopatra’s languid sails. The tow-rope was hauled in, our Arabs jumped on board and produced the drum and tambourine, singing lustily as we moved out into the middle of the stream. The wind increased; the flag lifted itself from the mast and streamed toward Thebes, and Benisouef went by, almost before we had counted its minarets. I tried in vain to distinguish the Pyramid of Illahoon, which stands inland, at the base of the Libyan Hills and the entrance of the pass leading to the Lake of Fyoom, the ancient Mœris. Near the Pyramid are the foundations of the famous Labyrinth, lately excavated by Dr. Lepsius. The Province of Fyoom, surrounding the lake, is, with the exception of the Oases in the Libyan Desert, the only productive land west of the mountains bordering the Nile.
All afternoon, with both sails full and our vessel leaning against the current, we flew before the wind. At dusk, the town of Feshn appeared on our left; at midnight, we passed Abou-Girgeh and the Mounds of Behnesa, the ancient Oxyrinchus; and when the wind left us, at sunrise, we were seventy miles from Benisouef. The Arabian Mountains here approach the river, and at two points terminate in abrupt precipices of yellow calcareous rock. The bare cliffs of Djebel el Tayr (the Mountain of Birds), are crowned with the “Convent of the Pulley,” so called from its inaccessible situation, and the fact that visitors are frequently drawn to the summit by a rope and windlass. While passing this convent, a cry came up from the muddy waters of the river: “We are Christians, O Howadji!” and presently two naked Coptic monks wriggled over the gunwale, and sat down, panting and dripping, on the deck. We gave them backsheesh, which they instantly clapped into their mouths, but their souls likewise devoutly yearned for brandy, which they did not get. They were large, lusty fellows, and whatever perfection of spirit they might have attained, their flesh certainly had never been unnecessarily mortified. After a breathing spell, they jumped into the river again, and we soon saw them straddling from point to point, as they crawled up the almost perpendicular cliff. At Djebel el Tayr, the birds of Egypt (according to an Arabic legend) assemble annually and choose one of their number to remain there for a year. My friend complained that the wild geese and ducks were not represented, and out of revenge fired at a company of huge pelicans, who were seated on a sand-bank.
The drum and tambourine kept lively time to the voices of our sailors, as we approached Minyeh, the second large town on the river, and the capital of a Province. But the song this time had a peculiar significance. After the long-drawn sound, something between a howl and a groan, which terminated it, we were waited upon by a deputation, who formally welcomed us to the city. We responded by a backsheesh of twenty-five piastres, and the drum rang louder than ever. We stayed in Minyeh long enough to buy a leg of mutton, and then sailed for the tombs of Beni-Hassan. The wind left us as we reached a superb palm-grove, which for several miles skirts the foot of Djebel Shekh Timay. The inhabitants are in bad odor, and in addition to our own guard, we were obliged to take two men from the village, who came armed with long sticks and built a fire on the bank, beside our vessel. This is a regulation of the Government, to which travellers usually conform, but I never saw much reason for it. We rose at dawn and wandered for hours through the palms, to the verge of the Desert. When within two or three miles of the mountain of Beni-Hassan, we provided ourselves with candles, water-flasks and weapons, and set off in advance of our boat. The Desert here reached the Nile, terminating in a bluff thirty to forty feet in height, which is composed of layers of pebbles and shelly sand, apparently the deposit of many successive floods. I should have attributed this to the action of the river, cutting a deeper channel from year to year, but I believe it is now acknowledged that the bed of the Nile is gradually rising, and that the yearly inundation covers a much wider space than in the time of the Pharaohs. It is difficult to reconcile this fact with the very perceptible encroachments which the sand is making on the Libyan shore; but we may at least be satisfied that the glorious harvest-valley through which the river wanders can never be wholly effaced thereby.
We climbed to the glaring level of the Desert, carrying with us the plumes of a beautiful gray heron which my friend brought down. A solitary Arab horseman was slowly moving along the base of the arid hills, and we descried in the distance a light-footed gazelle, which leisurely kept aloof and mocked our efforts to surround it. At the foot of the mountain we passed two ruined villages, destroyed several years ago by Ibrahim Pasha, on account of the marauding propensities of the inhabitants. It has a cruel sound, when you are told that the people were driven away, and their dwellings razed to the ground, but the reality is a trifling matter. The Arabs take their water-skins and pottery, jump into the Nile, swim across to a safer place, and in three or four days their palaces of mud are drying in the sun. We came upon them the next morning, as thievishly inclined as ever, and this was the only place where I found the people otherwise than friendly.