Yesterday an Arab came aboard with a basket on his arm, and he was literally covered or clothed with live snakes. They were crawling over his shoulders, arms, breast, and whole body in general, and his head was an emblem of Discord. Serpents looked in all directions, while their forked tongues signaled their wrath, like little flashes of lightning. This was a “snake charmer,” and we concluded we would test his skill, and gave him a quarter to go to the mountains and call out of the rocks some of his prey. Having arrived, he sang a melancholy strain like that of a dove in spring time, occasionally raising his voice like a lonely crane, and after ten or fifteen minutes of this proceeding, brought some three serpents from the crevices of the rock, and quietly walked to them and they crawled on his arm. He offered to guarantee one crawling on me without biting, but I was not willing to make any contract to that effect. He returned to the boat with us, and one of our Arabs, who was a very incredulous man, told us that the “rascal” was possessed of no power at all over the wild serpents, but had placed these serpents there before, and that they were taught to come when called. But this Arab of ours was jealous of the interesting entertainment we enjoyed. The charmer knew not where we were taking him until we told him to call the snakes. The Reice of our boat was afraid the charmer would get too much bucksheesh, and called on us in our cabin to inform us, that some months before he had seen this man with the same serpents, and I asked him how he distinguished the serpents, and he said, “by their color.” He gave me to understand, that though we were very learned this rascal could fool us, but with him it was very different. He said that “old Marmoud’s beard was white, but few men knew more than he did.” He appealed to our generosity, to keep some of the bucksheesh, “don’t want the rascal to get all the bucksheesh.”
At night the jackalls are quite noisy. Two came within fifty yards of our boat, and played their howling notes some time. No Arab takes notice of jackalls, foxes, or crocodiles. I went into six sugar houses on the Nile, and all owned by the Pacha. No man can show his money here without getting it borrowed. The man who refuses to loan it to the Pacha when asked, cannot live. A wise man and his money must part.
THEBES AND BACK TO CAIRO.
Two great streams rises in the Mountain of the Moon, in Abyssinia, and unites in Nubia, and flows through Egypt, and makes what we call “The Nile.” This splendid old stream flows on gradually as in the days of Pharaoh, and Jupiter Hammon; splendid, because in those days its banks were walled with rich cities. The remains of Thebes stand like Catskill mountains, unshocked. I mean the remains, the renowned Memnonian, Luxor and Carnack. The tall columns of the Memnonian is here like untold riddles to be explained. The paintings are as bright to-day as any modern picture I have seen in the Louvre, at Paris. The carved chariots on the walls convey the idea, “I see Remesees and Pharaoh’s on the battlefield.” These chariots seem to have carried only two or three warriors with their spears in the battle. On the outside wall of this temple is carved, the exact likeness of a “man’s individual part,” varying from 6 to 13 inches in length, and hanging beneath each is two balls, seeming to be connected like the two big parts of a heart, and both gradually sloping down together. It is supposed, that cutting off these parts of man was the punishment or qualification required to degrade those gents of the Remesee court, who were too polite to the ladies. But why gallant gentlemen should be treated so I shall leave for the conjecture of the learned reader. Some light may be thrown on this subject by reference to the preceeding page, on Constantinople’s manner of preparing gentlemen’s nature for taking ladies to the baths.
These great temples are situated so that it takes a man many days to see them. They are on different sides of the Nile. Carnack is a tremendous mass of splendid ruins. Owls and foxes dwell within; and I saw a pretty bird, half asleep, that a man told me was a whip-poor-will. It is no pleasant thing to stop in these ruins a few hours alone, unless a man was possessed of no imagination at all. On one of the splendid painted broken columns that ran up through the hall or court of the unapproachable Pharaoh, Ptolemy, or Remese, a fox or hawk had been breakfasting on a rabbit, and martins had their nests perched on the side of the spreading columns that supported the beams of solid stone, of 12 feet wide and 20 long, over head. These ruins were sights of wonder to behold. Thebes could send to war 20,000 men from each of her hundred gates, making in all two millions of men. But to-day her walls cannot be found; we know her but by Carnack, and the rest of her temples, and the stadium of the Nile.
England and America has a consul here. He is a colored man named Mustapha. He insisted on us taking dinner with him before we left, and so we did. He had what is called a fashionable Egyptian dinner of to-day. The goat was cooked whole, and in a standing posture, and when placed on the table, uncarved, the strongest fingered man gets the best part with more ease and facility than the weaker. Whoever has seen a skinned calf’s head hanging by a butcher’s stall, can imagine how melancholy this cooked goat’s head looked.
Mr. Mustapha had no chairs or tables, but he had ample room round the tray in the middle of the floor, where this goat is placed. We all squatted as well as possible and dined at nine o’clock at night; each one of us had hold of Mustapha’s goat at the same time. The Consul was indeed skilled in obtaining long pieces of tenderloin. If he is as well posted in diplomatic affairs as in finding tender parts of a goat, he will do honor to England and America, or Memphis of old. About 12 o’clock Mustapha said, “all the dinner was eaten up, and now we would have some dancing.” The girls were called in, and they stocked their bodies, and made a general preparation with their bells tied to their waist. This was called tuning up. They went off in their different strains, as you have heard three or four sleigh turnouts, one after the other, and all getting together. Such a jingling; such screwing in and out of bodies; such a gesturing; and such a quivering of the bodies from their necks to their knees, is only to be imagined. One girl stuck her head between her legs in front, whilst another done the same over backwards. A few minutes afterwards, we eat some dates, smoked some pipes, and drank some arrack, a liquid used here as we use whisky, brandy, and gin, to raise the spirits. The feast over, Mustapha informed us that it was usual to pay his cook and waiter for their services. The next day he also informed us that it was usual to pay him for being our consul, as he performed this service for our government gratis. This is his short cut to the meeting house of distinction and gain. We paid, hoisted our sails, rowed away, and arrived in three weeks afterwards, back to Cairo.