My Winter on the Nile / Eighteenth Edition

by Charles Dudley Warner

* Yalesah (I spell the name according the sound of the
pronunciation) was, some say, one of the sons of Noah who
was absent at the time the ark sailed, having gone down into
Abyssinia. They pushed the ark in pursuit of him, and Noah
called after his son, as the crew poled along, “Ha!
Yalesah!” And still the Nile boatmen call Yalesah to come,
as they push the poles and haul the sail, and urge the boat
toward Abyssinia. Very likely “Ha! Yale-sah” (as I catch it)
is only a corruption of “Halee!'.esà Seyyidnà Eesà” is the
Moslem name for “Our Lord Jesus.”

The first thing the Nubians want is something to eat—a chronic complaint here in this land of romance. Squatting in circles all over the boat they dip their hands into the bowls of softened bread, cramming the food down their throats, and swallow all the coffee that can be made for them, with the gusto and appetite of simple men who have a stomach and no conscience.

While the Nubians are chattering and eating, we are gliding up the swift stream, the granite rocks opening a passage for us; but at the end of it our way seems to be barred. The only visible opening is on the extreme left, where a small stream struggles through the boulders. While we are wondering if that can be our course, the helm is suddenly put hard about, and we then shoot to the right, finding our way, amid whirlpools and boulders of granite, past the head of Elephantine island; and before we have recovered from this surprise we turn sharply to the left into a narrow passage, and the cataract is before us.

It is not at all what we have expected. In appearence this is a cataract without any falls and scarcely any rapids. A person brought up on Niagara or Montmorency feels himself trifled with here. The fishermen in the mountain streams of America has come upon many a scene that resembles this—a river-bed strewn with boulders. Only, this is on a grand scale. We had been led to expect at least high precipices, walls of lofty rock, between which we should sail in the midst of raging rapids and falls; and that there would be hundreds of savages on the rocks above dragging our boat with cables, and occasionally plunging into the torrent in order to carry a life-line to the top of some seagirt rock. All of this we did not see; but yet we have more respect for the cataract before we get through it than when it first came in sight.

What we see immediately before us is a basin, it may be a quarter of a mile, it may be half a mile broad, and two miles long; a wild expanse of broken granite rocks and boulders strewn hap-hazard, some of them showing the red of the syenite and others black and polished and shining in the sun; a field of rocks, none of them high, of fantastic shapes; and through this field the river breaks in a hundred twisting passages and chutes, all apparently small, but the water in them is foaming and leaping and flashing white; and the air begins to be pervaded by the multitudinous roar of rapids. On the east, the side of the land-passage between Assouan and Philæ, were high and jagged rocks in odd forms, now and then a palm-tree, and here and there a mud-village. On the west the basin of the cataract is hemmed in by the desert hills, and the yellow Libyan sand drifts over them in shining waves and rifts, which in some lights have the almost maroon color that we see in Gerome's pictures. To the south is an impassable barrier of granite and sand—mountains of them—beyond the glistening fields of rocks and water through which we are to find our way.

The difficulty of this navigation is not one cataract to be overcome by one heroic effort, but a hundred little cataracts or swift tortuous sluiceways, which are much more formidable when we get into them than they are when seen at a distance. The dahabeëhs which attempt to wind through them are in constant danger of having holes knocked in their hulls by the rocks.

The wind is strong, and we are sailing swiftly on. It is im possible to tell which one of the half-dozen equally uninviting channels we are to take. We guess, and of course point out the wrong one. We approach, with sails still set, a narrow passage through which the water pours in what is a very respectable torrent; but it is not a straight passage, it has a bend in it; if we get through it, we must make a sharp turn to the left or run upon a ridge of rocks, and even then we shall be in a boiling surge; and if we fail to make head against the current we shall go whirling down the caldron, bumping on the rocks—not a pleasant thing for a dahabeëh one hundred and twenty feet long with a cabin in it as large as a hotel. The passage of a boat of this size is evidently an event of some interest to the cataract people, for we see groups of them watching us from the rocks, and following along the shore. And we think that seeing our boat go up from the shore might be the best way of seeing it.

We draw slowly in, the boat trembling at the entrance of the swift water; it enters, nosing the current, feeling the tug of the sail, and hesitates. Oh, for a strong puff of wind! There are five watchful men at the helm; there is a moment's silence, and the boat still hesitates. At this critical instant, while we hold our breath, a naked man, whose name I am sorry I cannot give to an admiring American public, appears on the bow with a rope in his teeth; he plunges in and makes for the nearest rock. He swims hand over hand, swinging his arms from the shoulders out of water and striking them forward splashing along like a sidewheeler—the common way of swimming in the heavy water of the Nile. Two other black figures follow him and the rope is made fast to the point of the rock. We have something to hold us against the stream.

And now a terrible tumult arises on board the boat which is seen to be covered with men; one gang is hauling on the rope to draw the great sail close to its work; another gang is hauling on the rope attached to the rock, and both are singing that wild chanting chorus without which no Egyptian sailors pull an ounce or lift a pound; the men who are not pulling are shouting and giving orders; the Sheykhs, on the upper deck where we sit with American serenity exaggerated amid the Babel, are jumping up and down in a frenzy of excitement, screaming and gesticulating. We hold our own; we gain a little; we pull forward where the danger of a smash against the rocks is increased. More men appear on the rocks, whom we take to be spectators of our passage. No; they lay hold of the rope. With the additional help we still tremble in the jaws of the pass. I walk aft, and the stern is almost upon the rocks; it grazes them; but in the nick of time the bow swings round, we turn short off into an eddy; the great wing of a sail is let go, and our cat-like sailors are aloft, crawling along the slender yard, which is a hundred feet in length, and furling the tugging canvas. We breathe more freely, for the first danger is over. The first gate is passed.

In this lull there is a confab with the Sheykhs. We are at the island of Sehâyl, and have accomplished what is usually the first day's journey of boats. It would be in harmony with the Oriental habit to stop here for the remainder of the day and the night. But our dragoman has in mind to accomplish, if not the impossible, what is synonymous with it in the East, the unusual. The result of the inflammatory stump-speeches on both sides is that two or three gold pieces are passed into the pliant hand of the head Sheykh, and he sends for another Sheykh and more men.