Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedivé

by F. Barham Zincke

In this wide field of the dead how much of early thought and feeling, and life is storied. How much contemporary history in wood and stone, in earthenware, and glass, and paint. Contemporary history—not history composed, heaven save the mark! centuries after the events, often by authors (sometimes truly the authors of all they tell) who did not understand their own time, often merely for bread and cheese;—not composed twentieth-hand from writings which, even at their original source and fountain-head, were the work of men who were not agents in what they endeavoured to record, and who, not knowing truly the events, their causes, or their consequences, were but ill qualified to write the record;—not composed when the feelings and ways of thinking of the time were no longer living things, but had died out, and other thoughts and feelings come in their place, and when what the writer had to construct had become obscure by party prejudice in politics and religion, and by social misunderstandings. Nothing of this kind is here. What is here is contemporary history, presented in such a form that it is the actual pressure and embodiment of the heart and mind of each individual. Here are the occupations he delighted in, the sentiments that stirred him, the business that was the business of his life, the clothes he wore, the furniture he used, the forms religious thought had assumed in his mind, the forms social arrangements had assumed around him. No people have ever so written their history. Here is a biography of each man as he knew himself. Here every man is a Boswell to himself. It is a nation’s life individually photographed in granite.

We sat after luncheon taking our kêf, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of the little fantastic wreaths of cloud formed by our cigars. But the few remarks that were made showed that the thoughts of most of us were occupied in resuscitating the past, and repeopling the sacred terrain around with the grand impressive ceremonies and funeral processions of five thousand years back. What a scene must this have been then. The mountains—for that is the meaning of the Pyramids—not rugged and dilapidated as now, but cased with polished stone, each with its temple in front of it. The many smaller Pyramids that have now disappeared, or are only seen as mounds of rubbish, then acting as foils to their giant brethren. Great Pyramids reaching all along the foot of the hills as far as the eye could see towards the south: some of these still figure in the landscape. The Sphinx was standing clear of sand with a temple between his paws. Everything was orderly, bright, and splendid. The dark red granite portals of the thousand houses of those, who slept in the city of the dead, were standing out conspicuous upon the sober limestone area, unchequered by a plant, unstained by a lichen. The black basalt causeways traversed the green plain from the silver river to the Pyramid plateau. The whole scene was alive with those, who were visiting, and honouring, the dead, and preparing their own last, earthly resting-places. Above all was spread out the azure field of the Egyptian sky.

The word kêf is used everywhere throughout the East, from Constantinople to Cairo, to convey an idea, that is not European. It is the idea of sensational comfort combined with mental repose, produced by the narcotic leaf, when used under circumstances, where the comfort and the repose are felt. There is no kêf in its use as you walk or drive, or even talk with the usual effort and purpose. You must be seated, and in a kiosk, or garden, or some pleasant place, where the entourage feeds the fancy through the eye, spontaneously, with delightful, and soothing images. You must not be urging the mind to exert itself. Conscious mental exertion, equally with bodily, is destructive of kêf. The thoughts must be pleasant, and they must come, too, of themselves, from surrounding objects. Bodily sensations must be so lulled, and yet, at the same time, so stimulated, as to be in perfect accord with the stream of thought, that is languidly, and dreamily, floating through the mind.

CHAPTER XIII.
ABYDOS.

Series longissima rerum

Per tot ducta viros antiquæ ab origine gentis.—Virgil.

In descending the river we stopped at Bellianéh to visit Abydos. It was from Abydos, the primæval This, that Menes came, whose name stands first on the list of Egyptian kings. From it also came the dynasty that succeeded that of Menes. The great extent of cultivable land—the valley here opening out to double its usual width—gave space enough for a rich and populous state, the rulers of which appeared to have overpowered their neighbours, and, by consolidating their conquests, to have formed an enduring monarchy. As the great preponderance of population and wealth was thenceforth in the Delta and Lower Egypt, the head of the Delta became the centre of gravity, and so, by natural causes, the centre of affairs, and the site of the capital.

Was This, in Upper Egypt, the first seat of Egyptian power, and if so, how came it to be so? These are questions of much interest, the important bearing of which on early Egyptian history has been indicated already.

The landing-place at Bellianéh is overshadowed by a grove of palms, the crowns of which are tenanted by turtle-doves. Among the palms we saw that the ground was covered with crude bricks, lately moulded, and going through their first stage of desiccation. We were soon surrounded by a crowd of bare-legged idlers from the town, most of whom were boys.