I was back in Egypt; to be there once more was bliss. The now brimming Mahmoudieh saw me haunting it again; the predominating red of the flowering trees and creepers that I noted before had made place for enchanting variations of yellow, and all the vegetation had deepened. The heat was great at first. I was particularly struck by the enhanced beauty of the date palms, whose golden and deep purple fruit now hung in clusters under the graceful branches. But all too soon came a good deal of rain, to my indignation. Rain in Egypt! The natives say we have brought it with us. I never saw any in Cairo nor upstream.
The Governor of the city had invited us to make use of a little dahabiyeh, the Rose, for a cruise on the Lower Nile, and on November 20th we started. My husband had already welcomed on their arrival, in a worthy manner, the officers of the French fleet, with whom he was in perfect sympathy; but my Diary records the happy necessity for our departure by the scheduled time on board the Rose on that very November 20th. That morning the German squadron arrived and the thunder of its guns gave us an unintentional send-off! They were duly honoured, of course, but the General himself was away.
It was a nine days’ cruise to the mouth of the Nile and back. Quite a different reading of the Nile from the one I have recorded in my letters to my mother, and reproduced in “From Sketch Book and Diary.” Very few tourists or even serious travellers have come so far down, so that one is less afraid of being forestalled by abler writers in recording one’s impressions there. It was pretty to see the big Turkish flag fluttering at our helm, and a beautifully disproportionate pennon streaming in crimson magnificence from the point of the little vessel’s curved felucca spar. But our first days were damping: “November 22nd.—Oh, the rain! Alas! that I should know Egypt under such deluges, and see in this land the deepest, ugliest mud in the world. We had to moor off the residence of the Bey, to whom this dahabiyeh belongs, last night, as we wished to pay him our respects and tender him our thanks this morning. He made us stay to luncheon, and a very excellent Arab repast it was. I got on well with him as he spoke excellent French, but his mother! Oh! it was heavy, as she could only talk Turkish, and my translated remarks didn’t even get a smile out of her. I must say the Mohammedan women are deadly.
“We proceeded on our voyage very late in the day, on account of this visit which common civility made necessary. The weather brightened up at sunset and nothing more weird have I ever seen than the mud villages, cemeteries, lonely tombs, goats, buffaloes and wild human beings that loomed on the banks as we glided by, brown and black against that sky full of racing clouds that seemed red-hot from the great fiery globe that had just sunk below the palm-fringed horizon. These canal banks might give many people the horrors. I certainly think them in this weather the most uncanny bits of manipulated nature I have ever seen. I was fortunate in getting down in colour such a telling thing, a goatherd in a Bedouin’s burnous, which was wildly flapping in the hot wind against the red glow in the west, driving a herd of those goats I find so effective, with their long, pendant ears, and kids skipping in impish gambols in front. ‘Apocalyptic’ apparition, caught, as we left it astern, in that portentous gloaming! I shall make something of this. As to the inhabitants of those regions, to contemplate their life is too depressing. As darkness comes on you see them creeping into their unlighted mud hovels like their animals. On the Upper Nile, at least, the fellaheen have glorious air, the sun, the clean, dry sand, but here in that mud——!
“November 23rd.—No more rain. At Atfeh we left the canal at last, by a lock, and I gave a sigh of relief and contentment, for we were on the broad bosom of Old Nile. After a delay at this mud town to buy provisions we pushed out into the current and with eight immensely long ‘sweeps’ (the wind was against sailing) we made a good run to Rosetta, on whose mud bank we thumped by the light of a pale moon. The rhythmic sound of those splashing oars and of the chant of the oarsmen in the minor key, with barbaric ‘intervals’ unknown to our music, continued to echo in my ears—it all seemed wild and strange and haunting.
“November 24th.—Began this morning a sketch of Rosetta to finish on our return from rounding up our outward voyage at the western mouth of the great river where we saw it emerge into a very desolate, grey Mediterranean. I may now say I have a very good idea of the mighty river for upward of a thousand miles of its course—a good bit further, both below and above stream, than the authoress of ‘A Thousand Miles up the Nile’ knew it, whom in my early days I longed to emulate and, if possible, surpass! An old-fashioned book, now, I suppose, but all the more interesting for that. Furling sail, for the wind had been fair to-day, we turned and were towed back to Fort St. Julian, where we moored for the night.
“November 25th.—After a nice little sketch of the Fort St. Julian, celebrated in Napoleonic annals, we started off, and reached Rosetta in good time, so that I was able most satisfactorily to finish my large water-colour of the place. I was rather bothered where I sat at the water’s edge by the small boys and a very persistent pelican, which kept flying from the river into the fish market and returning with stolen fish, to souse them in the water before filling its pouch, in time to avoid capture by the pursuing brats.
“November 26th.—From Rosetta we glided pleasantly to Metubis, one of the many shining cities, as seen from afar, that become heaps of squalid dwellings when viewed at close quarters. But the minarets of those phantom cities remain erect in all their beauty, and this city in particular was transfigured by the most magnificent sunset I have ever seen, even here.”
The wild town of Syndioor was our mooring place for the next night, and at sunrise we were off homewards. Syndioor and the opposite city of Deyrout were veiled in a soft mist, out of which rose their tall minarets in stately beauty, radiant in the level light. The effect on the mind of these ruined places, once magnificent centres of commerce and luxury, is quite extraordinary. They are now, all of them, derelicts. And so in time we slipped back into the canal, landing under the oleanders of our starting place. The crew kissed hands, the reis made his obeisance, and we returned to the hard stones and rattle of the Boulevard de Ramleh, refreshed. The Germans were gone.
Balls, picnics, gymkhanas and dinners were varied by intervals of water-colour sketching in the desert. One picnic, out at Mex, to the west of Alexandria, was distinguished by a great camel ride we all had on the soft-paced, mouse-coloured mounts of the Camel Corps, the Englishwomen looking so nice in their well-cut riding habits, sitting easily on their tall steeds. I managed to secure several sketches that day of the men and camels of the corps, and have one sketch of ourselves starting for our turn in the desert. Our ponies took us back home. The sort of day I liked. As I record, the completeness of my enjoyment was caused by my having been able to put some useful work in, as usual. I had a Camel Corps picture in petto at this time.