Meantime the surrender of the Egyptian position at Kafr Dowar took place. On its frowning batteries white flags in token of peace were everywhere displayed, and our troops entered without resistance. The terrible lesson taught the enemy at Tel-el-Kebir was not likely to be soon forgotten. Moreover, the firing of the Egyptian infantry was always rather defective, their Remington rifles being sighted much too high for short distances; thus, at the long range, their firing was always better than at close quarters.
From Belbeis General Lowe pushed on towards the capital, keeping on the borders of the desert. At every village he passed through, the swarthy population came pouring forth waving white flags and declaring themselves faithful to the Khedive, while masses of flying fugitives, on seeing our cavalry overtaking them, threw down their rifles and made signs of submission.
Galloping on without drawing rein, our cavalry entered Grand Cairo, after a forced march of fifty miles in thirty hours in heavy marching order, and by that act practically ended the war, and our troops had no adversaries now but the savage and plunder-loving Bedouins, who hovered and hung upon their skirts intent upon rapine and murder, as Allan Graham and some others ere long found to their cost.
The advance to Cairo was headed by the Bengal Horse, led in person by Sir Hugh Macpherson, though General Lowe was in command of the whole.
On the 22nd of the month the Black Watch left Belbeis for Grand Cairo, where the corps arrived in the evening, when the last rays of the setting sun tinted with the hue of blood and saffron the water of the Nile as it wound past the islets near El Ghizeh—flushed and red, as on the evening when, in long ages past, according to Mohammedan legends, Joseph sank Jacob's marble coffin in the stream; and it was with no ordinary emotion of admiration and interest that Allan and his comrades beheld the capital of Egypt basking in the sun ere he went down beyond the hills.
'Skirted by groves and gardens,' says a writer, 'its light airy structures seem to be based upon a mass of verdure; long lines of buildings, white, glittering, and infinitely varied in form, rise beyond each other, and the palace and citadel, cresting a steep projection of the Mokattam ridge, conduct the eye to the vast rocky barrier which protects "the victorious city" from the blasts of the desert.'
Streets of lofty and latticed houses abounding in carved balconies and florid arcades; the mosques, with delicate domes and airy minarets, covered with tracery and arabesques; the houses of beys and grandees; the fortified abodes of the stern old Mamelukes, now those of Egyptian nobles, recalling in their architecture the Moorish glories of the Alhambra and the Alcazar of Cordova—a perpetual dream of the Arabian Nights.
Even with night the bustle in its streets did not cease; the coffee-houses and hotels were filled with light, and, in the warm atmosphere, teemed with outdoor life, for there all who are afoot have lanterns, and there were the tellers of Arabian tales, the Nubian singer with his mandolin, and the Egyptian magician performing such tricks as one might think the devil alone could do; and now once again, as in the days of General Hutchison, the walls and towers of 'the Queen of Cities'—El Kahira of the fatalistic caliphs—re-echoed to the British drum and the Scottish warpipe, as the Highlanders defiled round it to their camp, where the tents were pitched outside the walls.
The soldiers were not allowed to enter the city, except on duty or with a pass, and, as a general rule, the latter was chiefly given to sergeants. This plan did not, of course, apply to officers, thus Allan, Evan Cameron, and some others lost no time in making their way to an European hotel, where something better than the repasts they had partaken of at Belbeis and elsewhere could be procured, and where, amid a somewhat polyglot society, consisting of Greeks and Egyptians, Hungarians and Cypriotes, they supped at an open window on a balcony overlooking a street abounding with bazaars, and lanterns swinging to and fro, crowded by people and innumerable vendors of street goods—turbaned or tarbooshed—the water-seller tinkling his dishes and quoting the Koran; the sellers of melons, of cresses and lily roots, of flowers of henna, wherewith to dye the nails of copper-coloured damsels; little donkeys ambling everywhere, and now and then a huge camel swaying along; and more than once the procession of a harem returning from the evening bath—the women enveloped in black garments and veils, with masks of white linen.
Amid the scenes of warfare the organ of wonder becomes blunted considerably, and thus after a time Allan, soothed by the fumes of a fragrant havannah, and weary, perhaps, with the events of a long day—the entraining and detraining of the regiment, its baggage and stores, and so forth—fell sound asleep in his chair, oblivious of the clatter of voices in the large room of the hotel, and the many sounds in the street below; while Cameron, re-entering the room, idled over an album of views of Grand Cairo and its vicinity.