May 3rd.—Are you still shivering in the cold, while I am gliding through the calm sea under an awning, and going against a breeze sufficiently light to do no more than fan us pleasantly? If it would never go beyond this, there is certainly something very delightful in such a climate; the clear atmosphere, bright stars, light nights, and soft air; and to be wafted along through all this, as we now are, at the rate of some twelve miles an hour, with so little motion that we hardly know that we are making progress. It will be a different story, I fear, when we get into the Red Sea, where we may expect a wind behind us, and around us the hot air of the Desert!… I have been employing myself for a good part of to-day in a sad work. I took with me a number of letters of very old date, and have been looking over them, and tearing up a great part of them, and throwing them overboard. I thought it would be an occupation suited to this heavy tropical sea-life. I shall be sorry when it is over, as it is also soothing, and brings back many pleasing memories which had nearly faded away. Some few I keep, because they are landmarks of my past life.
[Sidenote: The Pyramids.]
[Sidenote: The Sphinx.]
Steamer 'Simla.'—May 9th.—I had only a few moments to write before we left Suez, and my writing, such as it was, I performed under difficulties, as the bustle of passengers finding their cabins, and conveying to them their luggage, or such portions of it as they could rescue from its descent into the hold, was going on all around me. I had, therefore, only time to tell you that our visit to the Pyramids has been a success. It was one of the greatest which I ever achieved in that line. It came about in this way. When Baron Gros and I, accompanied by Betts Bey, the chief director of the railway, were journeying in our pachalic state-carriage from Alexandria to Cairo, a question arose as to how we were to spend the few hours which we should have to remain at the latter place. I expressed a desire to see the Pyramids, as I had witnessed all the other lions of Cairo. But Betts Bey observed, that to go there during the day, at this season of the year, was a service of considerable danger, the risk of sunstroke being more than usually great. We were, in fact, traversing Egypt during the period (of about six weeks' duration) when the wind from the south blows, and the only air one receives is like the blast of a furnace heavily charged with sand. He added, however, that it was not impossible to go to the Pyramids at night, remain there till dawn, see the sunrise from the summit, and return before the great heats of the day. When I found myself at Cairo, I proposed to my entourage that we should undertake this expedition. My proposal was eagerly accepted, especially by 'Our own Correspondent,' Mr. Bowlby, who is a remarkably agreeable person, and has become very much one of our party. It was arranged that we should dine at the table d'hote at 7 P.M., start at 9, in carriages to the crossing of the Nile (about four miles), and on donkeys from Gieja (about six miles). The Pasha's state-coach came to the door at the appointed hour; we started, our own party, Mr. Bowlby, Captain F., and M. de B., Gros' secretary. Gros himself, having twice seen the Pyramids, declined going with us. The moon was very nearly full, and but for the honour of the thing we might have dispensed with the torch-bearers, who ran before the carriage and preceded the donkeys, after we adopted that humbler mode of locomotion. Our row across the river to the chant of the boatmen invoking the aid of a sainted dervish, and our ride through the fertile borders of the Nile, covered with crops and palm-trees, were very lovely, and, after about an hour and a half from Cairo, we emerged upon the Desert. The Pyramids seemed then almost within reach of our outstretched arms, but lo! they were in fact some four miles distant. We kept moving on at a sort of ambling walk; and the first sign of our near approach was the appearance of a crowd of Arabs who poured out of a village to offer us their aid in various ways. We had been told before we started, that a party who had visited the Pyramids the night before had been a good deal victimised by these Arabs, who, alas! in these degenerate days, have no other mode of indulging their predatory propensities than by exacting the greatest possible amount of 'backshish' from travellers who visit the Pyramids. We pushed on over the heaps of sand and débris, or probably covered-up tombs, which surround the base of the Pyramids, when we suddenly came in face of the most remarkable object on which my eye ever lighted. Somehow or other I had not thought of the Sphinx till I saw her before me. There she was in all her imposing magnitude, crouched on the margin of the Desert, looking over the fertile valley of the Nile, and her gaze fixed on the East as if in earnest expectation of the sun-rising. And such a gaze! The mystical light and deep shadows cast by the moon, gave to it an intensity which I cannot attempt to describe. To me it seemed a look, earnest, searching, but unsatisfied. For a long time I remained transfixed, endeavouring to read the meaning conveyed by this wonderful eye; but I was struck after a while by what seemed a contradiction in the expression of the eye and of the mouth. There was a singular gentleness and hopefulness in the lines of the mouth, which appeared to be in contrast with the anxious eye. Mr. Bowlby, who was a very sympathique inquirer into the significancy of this wonderful monument, agreed with me in thinking that the upper part of the face spoke of the intellect striving, and striving vainly, to solve the mystery—(What mystery? the mystery, shall we say, of God's universe or of man's destiny?)—while the lower indicated a moral conviction that all must be well, and that this truth would in good time be made manifest.
We could hardly tear ourselves away from this fascinating spectacle to draw nearer to the Great Pyramid, which stood beside us, its outline sharply traced in the clear atmosphere. We walked round and round it, thinking of the strange men whose ambition to secure immortality for themselves had expressed itself in this giant creation. The enormous blocks of granite brought from one knows not where, built up one knows not how; the form selected solely for the purpose of defying the assaults of time; the contrast between the conception embodied in these constructions and the talk of the frivolous race by whom we were surrounded, and who seemed capable of no thought beyond a desire for daily 'backshish,'—all this seen and felt under the influence of the dim moonlight was very striking and impressive. We spent some time in moving from place to place along the shadow cast by the Pyramid upon the sand, and observing the effect produced by bringing the moon sometimes to its apex and sometimes to other points on its outline. I felt no disposition to exchange for sleep the state of dreamy half- consciousness in which I was wandering about; but at length I lay down on the shingly sands, with a block of granite for a pillow, and passed an hour or two, sometimes dozing, sometimes wakeful, till one of our attendants informed me that the sun would shortly rise, and that it was time to commence to ascend the Pyramid, if we intended to witness from its summit his first appearance. We had intended to spend the night in the tombs, but it was so hot that we were only too glad to select the spot in which we could get the greatest amount of air. A very soft and gentle breeze, wafted across the Desert from an unknown distance, fanned me as I slept. The ascent was, I confess, a much more formidable undertaking than I had anticipated; and our French friend gave in after attempting a few steps. The last words which had passed between him and me before we retired to rest, were interchanged as we were standing in front of the Sphinx, and were characteristic: Ah! que c'est drôle! was the reassuring exclamation which fell from his lips while we were there transfixed and awestruck. As far as the ascent of the Pyramid was concerned, I am not sure but that I was sometimes tempted to follow his example, when I found how great was the effort required to mount up, in the hot air, the huge blocks of granite, and the unpleasantness of feeling every now and then with what facility one might topple downwards. This sensation was most disagreeably felt when, as generally happened at any very critical place, my Arab friends, who were helping me up, began to talk of 'backshish,' and to insinuate that a small amount given at once, and before the ascent was completed, would be particularly acceptable. However, after a while the summit was reached. I am not sure that it repaid the trouble; at any rate, I do not think I should ever wish to make the ascent again. We had a horizon all around tinted very much like Turner's early pictures, and becoming brighter and more variegated as the dawn advanced, until it melted into day. Behind, and on two sides of us, was the barren and treeless Desert, stretching out as far as the eye could reach. Before us, the fertile valley of the Nile; the river meandering through it, and, in the distance, Cairo, with its mosques and minarets, the highest, the Citadel Mosque, standing out boldly upon the horizon. It was a fine view, and had a character of its own, but still it was not in kind very different from other views which I have seen from elevated points in a flat country. It does not stand forth among my recollections as a spectacle unique, and never to be forgotten, as that of the night before does. Very soon after the sun rose the heat became painful on our elevated seat, and we hastened to descend-an operation somewhat difficult, but not so serious as the ascent had been. We mounted our donkeys, and after paying a farewell visit to the Sphinx, we returned to Cairo as we had come, all agreeing that our expedition was one of the most agreeable and interesting we had ever made. I confess that it was with something of fear and trembling that I returned to the Sphinx that morning. I feared that the impressions which I had received the night before might be effaced by the light of day. But it was not so. The lines were fainter, and less deeply marked, but I found, or thought I found, the same meaning in them still.
[Sidenote: Passengers homeward bound.]
May 10th.—We are now passing some islands, nearly opposite to Mocha: to morrow at an early hour we shall probably reach Aden. Shall we find any Chinese news there? And if we do, what will be its character? We have not yet heard a syllable to induce us to think that matters will be settled without a conflict, but then we have seen nothing official. We met, at the station-house on the Nile, between Alexandria and Cairo, the passengers by the last Calcutta mail-steamer. There were some from China among them, but I could gather from them nothing of any interest. It was a curious scene, by the way, that meeting: 260 first-class passengers, including children, pale and languid-looking, thrown into a great barn-like refectory, in which were already assembled our voyage companions (we ourselves had a separate room), jovial-looking, and with roses in their cheeks, which they are doubtless hastening to offer at the shrine of the sun. These two opposing currents, bearing such legible records of the climes from which they severally came, met for a moment on the banks of the Nile, time enough to interchange a few hasty words, and then rushed on in opposite directions. As I am not like the Englishman in 'Eothen,' who passes his countryman in the Desert without accosting him, I had as much talk as I could with all the persons coming from China whom I could find, though, as I said, without obtaining any information of value.
[Sidenote: Perim.]
May 11th.—Seven A.M.—Before I retired last night, I saw, through the starlight (we have little moon now) Perim. On the right is an excellent safe channel, eleven miles wide; so that it will be impossible to command the entrance of the Red Sea from Perim. There is a good anchorage on this side, so says our captain; but of course we could not see it. I am sorry we passed it so late, as I should have liked Gros to have seen it, in order that he might calm the susceptibilities of his Government in respect to its formidable character. I enclose a little bit of a plant which I gathered on my return from the Pyramids. The botanist on board says it is a species of camomile. It is a commonplace plant, with a little blue flower, but I took a fancy to it, because it had the pluck to venture farther into the Desert, and to approach nearer the Pyramids than any other which I saw.
[Sidenote: Aden.]
On Shore at Aden.—Noon.—I am at the house of Captain Playfair, who represents the Resident during his absence. A very pleasant breeze is blowing through the wall of reeds or bamboo, which encloses the verandah in which I am writing. I am most agreeably disappointed by the temperature; and, strange to say, both Captain P. and his wife do not complain of Aden! So it is with all who live here. And yet, when one looks at the place, dry as a heap of ashes, glared upon by a tropical sun, without a single blade of grass to repose the eye, or a drop of moisture from above to cool the air, save only about once in two years, when the sluices of Heaven are opened, and the torrents come down with a fury unexampled elsewhere, one feels at first inclined to doubt whether it can be possible for human beings to live here. I suppose that it is the reaction, produced by finding that it is not quite so bad as it appears, that reconciles people to their lot, and makes them so contented. We have got some scraps of China news; and what there is, seems to be pacific.