The city has handsome bazaars and a large bath, built by Mohammed Bey Defterdar, the savage son-in-law of Mohammed Ali. The halls are spacious, supported by granite columns, and paved with marble. Little threads of water, scarcely visible in the dim, steamy atmosphere, shoot upward from the stone tanks, around which a dozen brown figures lie stretched in the lazy beatitude of the bath. I was given over to two Arabs, who scrubbed me to desperation, plunged me twice over head and ears in a tank of scalding water, and then placed me under a cold douche. When the whole process, which occupied more than half an hour, was over, a cup of coffee and a pipe were brought to me as I lay stretched out on the divan, while another attendant commenced a course of dislocation, twisting and cracking all my joints and pressing violently with both hands on my breast. Singularly enough, this removed the languor occasioned by so much hot water, and gave a wonderful elasticity to the frame. I walked out as if shod with the wings of Mercury, and as I rode back to our boat, congratulated my donkey on the airy lightness of his load.
The Cleopatra.
CHAPTER VII.
LIFE ON THE NILE.
Independence of Nile Life—The Dahabiyeh—Our Servants—Our Residence—Our Manner of Living—The Climate—The Natives—Costume—Our Sunset Repose—My Friend—A Sensuous Life Defended.
——“The life thou seek’st
Thou’lt find beside the Eternal Nile.”—Moore’s Alciphron.
We hear much said by tourists who have visited Egypt, concerning the comparative pains and pleasures of life on the Nile, and their decisions are as various as their individual characters. Four out of every five complain of the monotony and tedium of the voyage, and pour forth touching lamentations over the annoyance of rats and cockroaches, the impossibility of procuring beef-steak, or the difficulty of shooting crocodiles. Some of them are wholly impermeable to the influences of the climate, scenery and ruins of Egypt, and carry to the Nubian frontier the airs of Broadway or Bond-street. I have heard such a one say: “This seeing the Nile is a nice thing to have gotten over, but it is a great bore while you are about it.” Such is the spirit of those travelling snobs (of all nations), by some of whom sacred Egypt is profaned every winter. They are unworthy to behold the glories of the Nile, and if I had the management of Society, they never should. A palm-tree is to them a good post to shoot a pigeon from, Dendera is a “rum old concern,” and a crocodile is better than Karnak.
There are a few, however, who will acknowledge the truth of the picture which follows, and which was written in the cabin of the Cleopatra, immediately after our arrival in Upper Egypt. As it is a faithful transcript of my Nilotic life, I have deviated from the regular course of my narrative, in order to give it without change:—