CHAPTER II.
FIRST VOYAGE ON THE NILE.
Departure—The Kangia—The Egyptian Climate—The Mahmoudieh Canal—Entrance Into the Nile—Pleasures of the Journey—Studying Arabic—Sight of the Pyramids—The Barrage—Approach to Cairo.
We paid a most exorbitant bill at the Oriental Hotel, and started on donkey-back for our boat, at sunset. Our preparations for the voyage consisted of bread, rice, coffee, sugar, butter and a few other comestibles; an earthen furnace and charcoal; pots and stew-pans, plates, knives and forks, wooden spoons, coffee-cups and water-jars; three large mats of cane-leaves, for bedding; and for luxuries, a few bottles of claret, and a gazelle-skin stuffed with choice Latakieh tobacco. We were prudent enough to take a supper with us from the hotel, and not trust to our own cooking the first night on board.
We waited till dark on the banks of the Canal before our baggage appeared. There is a Custom-House on all sides of Alexandria, and goods going out must pay as well as goods coming in. The gate was closed, and nothing less than the silver oil of a dollar greased its hinges sufficiently for our cart to pass through. But what was our surprise on reaching the boat, to find the same kangia and the same grizzly raïs, who had previously demanded three hundred piastres. He seemed no less astonished than we, for the bargain had been made by a third party, and I believe he bore us a grudge during the rest of the voyage. The contract placed the boat at our disposition; so we went on board immediately, bade adieu to the kind friends who had accompanied us, and were rowed down the Canal in the full glow of African moonlight.
Some account of our vessel and crew will not be out of place here. The boat was about thirty-five feet in length, with a short upright mast in the bow, supporting a lateen sail fifty feet long. Against the mast stood a square wooden box, lined with clay, which served as a fireplace for cooking. The middle boards of the deck were loose and allowed entrance to the hold, where our baggage was stowed. The sailors also lifted them and sat on the cross-beams, with their feet on the shallow keel, when they used the oars. The cabin, which occupied the stern of the boat, was built above and below the deck, so that after stepping down into it we could stand upright. The first compartment contained two broad benches, with a smaller chamber in the rear, allowing just enough room, in all, for three persons to sleep. We spread our mats on the boards, placed carpet-bags for pillows (first taking out the books), and our beds were made. Ibrahim slept on the deck, against the cabin-door.
Our raïs, or captain, was an old Arab, with a black, wrinkled face, a grizzly beard and a tattered blue robe. There were five sailors—one with crooked eyes, one with a moustache, two copper-colored Fellahs, and one tall Nubian, black as the Egyptian darkness. The three latter were our favorites, and more cheerful and faithful creatures I never saw. One of the Fellahs sang nasal love-songs the whole day long, and was always foremost in the everlasting refrain of “haylee-sah!” and “ya salaam!” with which the Egyptian sailors row and tow and pole their boats against the current. Before we left the boat we had acquired a kind of affection for these three men, while the raïs, with his grim face and croaking voice, grew more repulsive every day.
We spread a mat on the deck, lighted our lantern and sat down to supper, while a gentle north wind slowly carried our boat along through shadows of palms and clear spaces of moonlight. Ibrahim filled the shebooks, and for four hours we sat in the open air, which seemed to grow sweeter and purer with every breath we inhaled. We were a triad—the sacred number—and it would have been difficult to find another triad so harmonious and yet differing so strongly in its parts. One was a Landwirth from Saxe-Coburg, a man of forty-five, tall, yet portly in person, and accustomed to the most comfortable living and the best society in Germany. Another was a Smyrniote merchant, a young man of thirty, to whom all parts of Europe were familiar, who spoke eight languages, and who within four months had visited Ispahan and the Caucasus. Of the third it behooves me not to speak, save that he was from the New World, and that he differed entirely from his friends in stature, features, station in life, and every thing else but mutual goodfellowship. “Ah,” said the German in the fulness of his heart, as we basked in the moonlight, “what a heavenly air! what beautiful palms! and this wonderful repose in all Nature, which I never felt before!” “It is better than the gardens of Ispahan,” added the Smyrniote. Nor did I deceive them when I said that for many months past I had known no mood of mind so peaceful and grateful.
We rose somewhat stiff from our hard beds, but a cup of coffee and the fresh morning air restored the amenity of the voyage. The banks of the Canal are flat and dull, and the country through which we passed, after leaving the marshy brink of Lake Mareotis, was in many places still too wet from the recent inundation to be ploughed for the winter crops. It is a dead level of rich black loam, and produces rice, maize, sugar-cane and millet. Here and there the sand has blown over it, and large spaces are given up to a sort of coarse, wiry grass. The villages are miserable collections of mud huts, but the date-palms which shadow them and the strings of camels that slowly pass to and fro, render even their unsightliness picturesque. In two or three places we passed mud machines, driven by steam, for the purpose of cleaning the Canal. Ropes were stretched across the channel on both sides, and a large number of trading boats were obliged to halt, although the wind was very favorable. The barrier was withdrawn for us Franks, and the courteous engineer touched his tarboosh in reply to our salutations, as we shot through.