From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

This Mission School some years ago was the scene of a romantic incident. An Indian prince, then living in England, was on his way to India, with the body of his mother, who had died far from her country, but with the prejudices of a Hindoo strong in death, wished her body to be taken back to the land of her birth. While passing through Cairo, he paid a visit to the American Mission, and was struck with the face of a young pupil in the girls' school, and after due inquiry proposed to the missionaries to take her as his wife. They gave their consent, and on his return they were married, and he took her with him to England. This was the Maharajah Dhuleep Sing, a son of old Runjeet Sing, the Lion of Lahore, who raised up a race of warriors, that after his death fought England, and whose country, the Punjaub, the English annexed to their Indian dominions; and here, as in other cases, removed a pretender out of the way by settling a large pension on the heir to the throne. Thus the Maharajah came into the possession of a large revenue from the British government, amounting, I am told, to some £30,000 a year. Having been from his childhood under English pupilage, he has been brought up as a Christian, and finds it to his taste to reside in England, where he is able to live in splendor, and is a great favorite at court. His choice of a wife proved a most happy one, as the modest young pupil of Cairo introduced into his English home, with the natural grace of her race, for she is partly of Arab descent, the culture and refinement learned in a Mission school. Nor does he forget what he owes to the care of those who watched over her in her childhood, but sends a thousand pounds every year to the school in grateful acknowledgment of the best possible gift it could make to him, that of a noble Christian wife.

Besides this foreign society, there is also a resident society which, to those who can be introduced to it, is very attractive. The government of the Khedive has brought into his service some men who would be distinguished in any European court or capital. The most remarkable of these is Nubar Pasha, long the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Judge Batcheller kindly took me to the house of the old statesman, who received us cordially. On hearing that I was on my way around the world, he exclaimed, "Ah, you Americans! You are true Bedouins!" I asked him what was the best guide-book to Egypt? He answered instantly, "The Bible." It was delightful to see his enthusiasm for Egypt, although he is not an Egyptian. He is not an Arab, nor a Turk, nor even a Mussulman; but an Armenian by birth and by religion. His uncle, Nubar Pasha, came over with Mehemet Ali, whose prime minister he was for forty years; and his nephew, who inherits his name, inherits also the traditions of that great reign. Though born on the other side of the Mediterranean, he is in heart an Egyptian. He loves the country of his adoption, and all his thoughts and his political ambition are for its greatness and prosperity. He has lived here so long that he sometimes speaks of himself playfully as "one of the antiquities of Egypt." "Of the first dynasty?" we ask. "Yes, of the time of Menes." I do not believe he could exist anywhere else. He loves not only the climate, but even the scenery of Egypt, which is more charming to his eyes than the hills and vales of Scotland or the mountains of Switzerland. "But you must admit," I said, "that it has a great monotony." "No," he replied, "in Lombardy there is monotony; but Egypt is immensity, infinity, eternity. The features of the landscape may be the same, but the eye never wearies." Surely his eye never does, for it is touched with a poetic vision; he sees more than meets the common eye; every passing cloud changes the lights and shadows; and to him there is more of beauty in the sunset flashing through the palm groves, as the leaves are gently stirred by the evening wind, than in all the luxuriance of tropical forests. Even if we did not quite share his enthusiasm, we could not but be charmed by the pictures which were floating before his mind's eye, and by the eloquence of his description. As he loves the country, so he loves the people of Egypt. Poor and helpless as they are, they have won upon his affection; he says "they are but children;" but if they have the weakness of children, they have also their simplicity and trustfulness; and I could see that his great ambition was to break up that system of forced labor which crushes them to the earth, and to secure to them at least some degree of liberty and of justice.

With all its newness and freshness this city retains its Oriental character. Indeed Grand Cairo is said to be the most Oriental of cities except Damascus. It has four hundred thousand inhabitants, and in its ancient portions has all the peculiar features of the East. Not only is the city different from Constantinople, but the people are different; they are another race, and speak another language. Turks and Arabs are as different as Englishmen and Frenchmen.

We are entertained every time that we go out of doors, with the animated and picturesque life of the streets. There are all races and all costumes, and all modes of locomotion. There are fine horses and carriages. I feel like Joseph riding in Pharaoh's chariot, when we take a carriage to ride out to Shoobra, one of the palaces of the Khedive, with syces dressed in white running before to herald our royal progress, and shout to the people to get out of our way. But one who prefers a more Oriental mode of riding, can mount a camel, or stoop to a donkey, for the latter are the smallest creatures that ever walked under the legs of a man, and if the rider be very tall, he will need to hold up his feet to keep them from dangling on the ground. Yet they are hardy little creatures, and have a peculiar amble which they keep up all day. They are very useful for riding, especially in some parts of the city where the streets are too narrow to allow a carriage to pass.

The donkey-men are very sharp, like their tribe in all parts of the world. The Arabs have a great deal of natural wit, which might almost entitle them to be called the Irish of the East. They have picked up a few words of English, and it is amusing to hear them say, with a most peculiar accent, "All right," "Very good," "Go ahead." They seem to know everybody, and soon find out who are their best customers. I cannot go down the steps without a dozen rushing toward me, calling out "Doctor, want a donkey?" One of them took me on my weak side the first day by saying that the name of his animal was "Yankee Doodle," and so I have patronized that donkey ever since, and a tough little beast he is, scudding away with me on his back at a great rate. His owner, a fine looking Arab, dressed in a loose blue gown and snowy turban, runs barefooted behind him, to prick him up, if he lags in his speed, or if perchance he goes too fast, to seize him by the tail, and check his impetuosity. We present a ludicrous spectacle when thus mounted, setting out for the bazaars, where our experience of Constantinople is repeated.

Of course the greatest sight around Cairo is the Pyramids. It is an event in one's life to see these grandest monuments of antiquity. The excursion is now very easy. They are eight miles from Cairo, and it was formerly a hard day's journey to go there and back, as one could only ride on a donkey or a camel, and had to cross the river in boats; and the country was often inundated, so that one had to go miles around. But the Khedive, who does everything here, has changed all that. He has built an iron bridge over the Nile, and a broad road, raised above the height of the annual inundations, so as never to be overflowed, and lined with trees, the rapid-growing acacia, so that one may drive through a shaded avenue the whole way. A shower which had fallen the night before we went (a very rare thing in Egypt at this season) had laid the dust and cooled the air, so that the day was perfect, and we drove in a carriage in an hour and a half from our hotel to the foot of the Pyramids. The two largest of these are in sight as soon as one crosses the Nile, but though six miles distant they seem quite near. Yet at first, and even when close to them, they hardly impress the beholder with their real greatness. This is owing to their pyramidal form, which, rising before the eye like the slope of a hill, does not strike the senses or the imagination as much as smaller masses which rise perpendicularly. One can hardly realize that the Pyramid of Cheops is the largest structure in the world—the largest probably ever reared by human hands. But as it slopes to the top, it does not present its full proportions to the eye, nor impress one so much as some of the Greek temples with their perpendicular columns, or the Gothic churches with their lofty arches, and still loftier towers, soaring to heaven. Yet the Great Pyramid is higher than them all, higher even than the spire of the Cathedral at Strasburg; while in the surface of ground covered, the most spacious of them, even St. Peter's at Rome, seems small in comparison. It covers eleven acres, a space nearly as large as the Washington Parade Ground in New York; and is said by Herodotus to have taken a hundred thousand men twenty years to build it. Pliny agrees in the length of time, but says the number of workmen employed was over three hundred thousand!

But mere figures do not give the best impression of height; the only way to judge of the Great Pyramid is to see it and to ascend it. One can go to the top by steps, but as these steps are blocks of stone, many of which are four feet high, it is not quite like walking up stairs. One could hardly get up at all but with the help of the Arabs, who swarm on the ground, and make a living by selling their services. Four of them set upon me, seizing me by the hands, and dragging me forward, and with pulling and pushing and "boosting," urged on by my own impatience—for I would not let them rest a moment—in ten minutes we were at the top, which they thought a great achievement, and rubbed down my legs, as a groom rubs down a horse after a race, and clapped me on the back, and shouted "All right," "Very good." I felt a little pride in being the first of our party on the top, and the last to leave it.

These Arab guides are at once very troublesome and very necessary. One cannot get along without them, and yet they are so importunate in their demands for backsheesh that they become a nuisance. They are nominally under the orders of a Sheik, who charges two English shillings for every traveller who is assisted to the top, but that does not relieve one from constant appeals going up and down. I found it the easiest way to get rid of them to give somewhat freely, and thus paid three or four times the prescribed charge before I got to the bottom. No doubt I gave far too much, for they immediately quoted me to the rest of the party, and held me up as a shining example. I am afraid I demoralized the whole tribe, for some friends who went the next day were told of an American who had been there the day before, who had given "beautiful backsheesh." The cunning fellows, finding I was an easy subject, followed me from one place to another, and gave me no peace even when wandering among the tombs, or when taking our lunch in the Temple of the Sphinx, but at every step clamored for more; and when I had given them a dozen times, an impudent rascal came up even to the carriage, as we were ready to drive away, and said that two or three shillings more would "make all serene!"—a phrase which he had caught from some strolling American, and which he turns to good account.

But one would gladly give any sum to get rid of petty annoyances, and to be able to look around him undisturbed. Here we are at last on the very summit of the Great Pyramid, and begin to realize its immensity. Below us men look like mice creeping about, and the tops of trees in the long avenue show no larger than hot-house plants. The eye ranges over the valley of the Nile for many miles—a carpet of the richest green, amid which groups of palms rise like islands in a sea. To the east beyond the Nile is Cairo, its domes and minarets standing out against the background of the Mokattam hills, while to the west stretches far away the Libyan desert.