Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedivé

by F. Barham Zincke

Ignorance is the curse of God,

Knowledge the wing whereby we fly to Heaven.—Shakspeare.

The question that I find has been most frequently put to me since my return home is—What effect travel in the East has on belief?

What the effect may be in any case will, of course, depend on what were the ingredients and character of the belief. If, for instance, a traveller makes the discovery that old Egypt was far grander, far more civilized, and far more earnest than the mention of it in the Hebrew Scriptures had led him to suppose, he will receive a shock; or if a man finds the agricultural capabilities of the greater part of Syria utterly unadapted to English methods of farming, and has no idea of other methods; and if, furthermore, he is ignorant of the ways in which commerce can maintain a large population anywhere, he will receive another shock. We can imagine that such persons will ever afterwards affirm that the effects are bad. They were bad in their own minds, and they cannot see how they can be good in any other mind.

We will take these two instances first. Suppose a different kind of traveller, one who had previously arrived at some not altogether inadequate conceptions of the mind, and of the greatness of old Egypt. He had also observed the fact that these things are not dwelt on in the Hebrew Scriptures, and had formed some opinion as to the cause of the omission. Then he will receive no shock from what he sees in the monuments of the greatness of Egypt, and of the evidently high moral aims of its religion. Suppose, again, that he had quite understood that he should not see the same kind of agriculture in Syria as in Suffolk; and that when he was among the hills he had found, often to a greater extent than he had expected, that formerly every rood of ground had been turned to account; it is true, in a very un-English manner, but still in a manner well adapted to the locality; that terraces had been formed wherever terraces could be placed; that corn, figs, olives, vines had been grown on these terraces (on some hills the actual summit is still a vineyard), and that, where the ground was not suitable for terracing, it had been depastured by flocks and herds; and that there is evidence that many hills must have been clothed from the bottom to the top with olives. And suppose also that he was quite aware that populous cities could have been maintained by trade and commerce in Judæa just as easily, to say the least, as were Palmyra and Petra in the wilderness. Then he will receive no shock from the un-English agricultural aspects of Syria. Instead of any disagreeable sensation of that kind, he will see in the present desolation of the country interesting and instructive evidence of a change in the channels of commerce, and a demonstration of the sad fact that where the Turk sets his foot, although he is a very good fellow, grass will not grow.

But to go on with the discoveries that cause shocks. With many Jerusalem is the great stumbling-block. If, however, we can imagine a traveller visiting the Holy City with sufficient historical knowledge to enable him to recall in a rough way the city of David and of Solomon, we may be quite certain that he will, as far as that part of the subject goes, receive no shock from the modern city. The same, too, I believe, may be said, to a very great extent, even of the city of Herod. One who can rightly imagine what that city was externally will not, I think, be disappointed at the sight of modern Jerusalem. I am not now speaking of the Greek traders, the Roman soldiers, the Pharisees, and Sadducees, who might have been seen in the streets, but of the city itself. It must be seen from the Mount of Olives, and I submit that the grand Mosk of Omar, as beheld from that point, is a far more imposing structure, architecturally, than the temple of Herod was likely to have been, which, when seen from a distance, being in the Greek style of architecture, was, probably, too much wanting in height to produce any very great effect. The Mosk combines great height with variety of form, for there are the curves of the dome as well as the perpendicular lines of the walls and great windows. The dwelling-houses, too, of the modern city must, with their domed stone roofs be more imposing than those of the old city. The cupolas and towers of the churches, and the minarets of the mosks are additional features. The walls also of the modern city are lofty, massive, and of an excellent colour; and I can hardly think that those of old Jerusalem could have added more to the scene. Herod’s Palace, and the greater extent of his city are probably the only particulars in which what has passed away was superior to what is seen now. As looked at from the mount of Olives this day, the city does not appear to contain a single mean building. History, then, will again save the traveller from receiving a shock at the sight of the outward appearance of Jerusalem; or if it must be felt, will much mitigate its force.

The traveller, however, might be one who had never rambled so far as the field of history, and was only expecting to find in the Christians of Jerusalem, that is, in the specimens of the Greek and Latin communions there, living embodiments of the Sermon on the Mount; but instead of this, finds littlenesses, frauds, formalism, animosities, dirt. Of course, he receives a shock; and this is, perhaps, the commonest shock of all. But the fault was in himself: he ought to have known better than to have allowed himself to indulge in such unlikely anticipations.

Every one, then, of these shocks was unnecessary and avoidable.

And now let us look at another order of suppositions. Suppose the traveller is desirous of understanding something about the efforts that have been made to interpret, and to shape man’s moral and spiritual nature under a great, and, on the whole, progressive variety of circumstances, out of which has arisen, from time to time, a necessity for enlarging and recasting former conclusions, so as to include the results of the new light, and to adapt ideas and practices to new circumstances: then what he sees of the East, and of its people, will help him mightily in understanding what he wishes to understand. We are supposing that he has limited his expectations to certain clearly-defined objects, such, for instance, as the observation of what now can be seen, that will throw light on the history of the people, whose record is in the Sacred volume, on what kind of people they were, and how it came to pass that they became what they were; and on what it was in the natural order that made their minds the seed-bed for the ideas, with which, through their Scriptures, we are all more or less familiar; and on what there was in the people that made the moral element more prominent and active in their civilization than in that of Greece and Rome: that is to say, if his objects are strictly limited to what can be investigated and understood by what one sees in the East, because it is the investigation and understanding of what may be seen in the Eastern man, and in Eastern nature; then I think that travel in Egypt and Syria will not cause any shocks or disappointments. On the contrary, I think the traveller will feel, on his return home, that he has brought back with him some light, and some food for thought, he could not have obtained elsewhere.

As to myself: for of course I can only give my own experience; and equally, of course, it is only that that can be of value, should it happen to possess any, in what I may have to say on this question: I now feel, as I read the sacred page, that I understand it in a way I never did before. It is not merely that I can, sometimes, fit the scene to the transactions—that is something; but that, which is more, I am better able to fit the people to the thoughts, and even to understand the thoughts themselves. The interest, therefore, and possibly the utility, too, of what I read is increased for me. I have seen the greater simplicity of mind of these oriental people. I have seen that the moral element in them is stronger, either relatively to their intellect, or absolutely in itself—I know not which—and obtains more dominion over them than over our beef-eating, beer-drinking, and indoor-living people; that the idea of God is more present to them than to us, and has a more constant, and sometimes a deeper, power over them.