My Winter on the Nile / Eighteenth Edition

by Charles Dudley Warner

We approach Bellianeh under such fine headway that we fall almost into the opposite murmuring, that this helpful breeze should come just when we were obliged to stop and lose the benefit. We half incline to go on, and leave Abydus in its ashes, but the absurdity of making a journey of seven thousand miles and then passing near to, but unseen, the spot most sacred to the old Egyptians, flashes upon us, and we meekly land. But our inclination to go on was not so absurd as it seems; the mind is so constituted that it can contain only a certain amount of old ruins, and we were getting a mental indigestion of them. Loathing is perhaps too strong a word to use in regard to a piece of sculpture, but I think that a sight at this time, of Rameses II. in his favorite attitude of slicing off the heads of a lot of small captives, would have made us sick.

By eleven o'clock we were mounted for the ride of eight miles, and it may give some idea of the speed of the donkey under compulsion, to say that we made the distance in an hour and forty minutes. The sun was hot, the wind fresh, the dust considerable,—a fine sandy powder that, before night, penetrated clothes and skin. Nevertheless, the ride was charming. The way lay through a plain extending for many miles in every direction, every foot of it green with barley (of which here and there a spot was ripening), with clover, with the rank, dark Egyptian bean. The air was sweet, and filled with songs of the birds that glanced over the fields or poised in air on even wing like the lark. Through the vast, unfenced fields were narrow well-beaten roads in all directions, upon which men women, and children, usually poorly and scantily clad, donkeys and camels, were coming and going. There was the hum of voices everywhere, the occasional agonized blast of the donkey and the caravan bleat of the camel. It often seems to us that the more rich and broad the fields and the more abundant the life, the more squalor among the people.

We had noticed, at little distances apart in the plain, mounds of dirt five or six feet high. Upon each of these stood a solitary figure, usually a naked boy—a bronze image set up above the green.

“What are these?” we ask.

“What you call scarecrows, to frighten the birds; see that chile throw dirt at 'em!”

“They look like sentries; do the people here steal?”

“Everybody help himself, if nobody watch him.”

At length we reach the dust-swept village of Arâbat, on the edge of the desert, near the ruins of the ancient Thinis (or Abvdus), the so-called cradle of the Egyptian monarchy. They have recently been excavated. I cannot think that this ancient and most important city was originally so far from the Nile; in the day of its glory the river must have run near it. Here was the seat of the first Egyptian dynasty, five thousand and four years before Christ, according to the chronology of Mariette Bey. I find no difficulty in accepting the five thousand but I am puzzled about the four years. It makes Menes four years older than he is generally supposed to have been. It is the accuracy of the date that sets one pondering. Menes, the first-known Egyptian king, and the founder of Memphis, was born here. If he established his dynasty here six thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine years ago, he must have been born some time before that date; and to be a ruler he must have been of noble parents, and no doubt received a good education. I should like to know what sort of a place, as to art, say, and literature, and architecture, Thinis was seven thousand and four years ago. It is chiefly sand-heaps now.

Not only was Menes born here, in the grey dawn of history, but Osiris, the manifestation of Light on earth, was buried here in the greyer dawn of a mythic period. His tomb was venerated by the Pharaonic worshippers as the Holy Sepulchre is by Christians, and for many ages. It was the last desire of the rich and noble Egyptians to be buried at Thinis, in order that they might lie in the same grave with Osiris; and bodies were brought here from all parts of Egypt to rest in the sacred earth. Their tombs were heaped up one above another, about the grave of the god. There are thousands of mounds here, clustering thickly about a larger mound; and, by digging, M. Mariette hopes to find the reputed tomb of Osiris. An enclosure of crude brick marks the supposed site of this supposed most ancient city of Egypt.

From these prehistoric ashes, it is like going from Rome to Peoria, to pass to a temple built so late as the time of Sethi I., only about thirty-three hundred years ago. It has been nearly all excavated and it is worth a long ride to see it. Its plan differs from that of all other temples, and its varied sculpture ranks with the best of temple carving; nowhere else have we found more life and grace of action in the figures and more expressive features; in number of singular emblems and devices, and in their careful and beautiful cutting, and brilliant coloring, the temple is unsurpassed. The non-stereotyped plan of the temple beguiled us into a hearty enjoyment of it. Its numerous columns are pure Egyptian of the best style—lotus capitals; and it contains some excellent specimens of the Doric column, or of its original, rather. The famous original tablet of kings, seventy-six, from Menes to Sethi, a partial copy of which is in the British Museum, has been re-covered with sand for its preservation. This must have been one of the finest of the old temples. We find here the novelty of vaulted roofs, formed by a singular method. The roof stones are not laid flat, as elsewhere, but on edge, and the roof, thus having sufficient thickness, is hollowed out on the under side, and the arch is decorated with stars and other devices. Of course, there is a temple of Rameses II., next door to this one, but it exists now only in its magnificent foundations.