The exhibition of Egyptian antiquities in the Cairo Museum is the most extensive and complete collection in existence, affording historic data of priceless value to the antiquarian. Here we have tangible history taking us back four thousand five hundred years before the coming of Christ, representing not only the art and culture, but also the religion of those remote periods, even to the days of Menes, the first recorded king. A wooden statue over four thousand years old, recovered from Memphis, launches one's imagination upon a busy train of thought. Here were curious tables, papyrus, bronze images, mummies, sculptures from stone, objects relating to domestic life, arms, rings, combs, vases, and many other articles which were in use four thousand years ago. By the Boulak Museum it is easily proved that the glory of Egyptian art belonged to the age of Cheops, its decadence to that of Rameses II. The collection, as we have intimated, throws a light upon Egyptian life and history for nearly five thousand years before the Christian era, but it is only a dim light. There can be but little consecutive reading of these isolated mementos. They afford us information as to generalities only, yet add link after link to a chain connecting those long past centuries with the present time.
The Mosque of Amer, some twelve centuries in age, though little more than a ruin, is still of considerable interest to the traveler. One enters the walls of an oblong court, the east end being formed of a gallery with columns inclosing the sanctuary. The north and south sides are inclosed by piazzas with many noble columns. There are two hundred and fifty of these, formed of single stones of granite and porphyry, which are known to have come from Memphis and Heliopolis. The whole deserted temple constitutes the most important monument of Arabian architecture in Cairo. Seen as it was in the dull gray of early morning, before the sun had fairly lighted the well-preserved minarets, it presented a solemn picture of faded glory. It is quite as much in their suggestiveness as in what they exhibit to the eye, that these decaying monuments interest and instruct us. The mosque was erected by the general whose name it bears, and was one of the few that escaped, five centuries later, the fire by which the Saracens burned Cairo to prevent its falling into the hands of the invading Christians.
Let us not forget to mention a brief visit to those strange fanatics, the whirling dervishes, in witnessing whose singular movements one is at a loss whether to sigh or to laugh. To the young the performance suggests that of the circus, and until wearied of the monotony of it, is perhaps as amusing; but to this more thoughtful observer it is melancholy to see men so debase themselves. The ring in which these people whirl about was full of deluded men, on the day of our visit, self-proclaimed disciples. About twenty of them commenced at a signal to turn rapidly about on their heels and toes, without a moment's pause, for a period of some thirty or forty minutes, to the monotonous notes of a fife and a sort of Chinese tom-tom, until finally their brains became addled, and they fell to the ground in a species of trance, their active devotion being supposed to have thus successfully terminated. The howling dervishes, seen in another temple, form a different branch of a similar style of worship or fanaticism; if possible, still more senseless than that already described. The bodily motion of the howlers is different, and is accompanied by a hoarse, disagreeable howling, like that of a pack of half-starved wolves, except that it is done to a certain musical accompaniment, enabling the participants to keep time, both as to the motion of the body and the hideous noise which they make. The motion is that of throwing the head and upper portion of the body forward, and bringing it back with a sudden jerk, which would, under ordinary circumstances, break a man's neck, but these creatures are used to it. The dervishes wear their hair long, which adds to their crazy appearance, by covering their faces with it during the jerking process, the hair flying back and forth with each movement. What the ecstatic point is in this ridiculous performance was not apparent, and they did not tumble down overcome by unconsciousness. It is supposed that all travelers visit them, but we came away more punished than entertained or interested in the senseless exhibition.
A week was all too brief a period to pass in the Queen City of the East, but at its close we started by rail for Ismailia, the little town which is located exactly midway on the great canal between the two seas, at the Bitter Lakes, through which the canal runs. It is a pretty and attractive place of four or five thousand inhabitants, and is a creation of the last sixteen years. Here we observed gardens filled with flowers and fruit trees; vegetation being in its most verdant dress, promoted by irrigation from the neighboring fresh-water canal. The place has broad macadamized streets, and a capacious central square ornamented with large and thrifty trees. It was here that the representatives of all nations met on the occasion of the inauguration ceremony on the completion of De Lesseps' grand canal. We took a small mail steamer at Ismailia through the western half of the canal to Port Said, which is the Mediterranean terminus of the great artificial river. It was a night trip, but had it been by daylight would have afforded us no views. We passed onward between two lofty hills of sand, the sky only visible overhead, and no vegetation whatever in sight; no birds, no animals, nothing to vary the monotony, but an occasional dredging machine, when we stopped at what are called watering-stations. The reader needs hardly to be told that this successful enterprise of cutting a canal across the Isthmus of Suez has proved a vast and increasing advantage to the commerce of the world. Large as it is, and under the best of management, it has already proved insufficient for the business which it has created, rendering a second parallel water-way imperatively necessary, plans for which are now under consideration. At present, so large is the demand upon its facilities that "blocks" and serious delays are of daily occurrence. That there will be ample and remunerative business for two canals is easily demonstrable by the statistics of the original company, which show a most remarkable annual increase. It is a singular fact worthy of mention, that, with all our modern improvements and progressive ideas, the Egyptians were centuries before us in this plan of shortening the path of commerce between the East and the West, or, in other words, of connecting the Red Sea with that of the Mediterranean across the Isthmus and through the Gulf of Suez.
Government engineers determined the difference of level between the two seas by careful processes, and the investigation showed that there was hardly a perceptible variation between the Mediterranean and the arm of the Indian Ocean formed by the Red Sea. The same fact has been scientifically settled regarding the Isthmus of Panama; while measurements along the Pyrenees have established the same level between the waters of the Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay. The traveler in navigating these several waters cannot but realize an interest in such important physical facts.
The only business of Port Said is that connected directly or indirectly with the transshipment of vessels to and from the Red Sea by way of Suez. The town contains nothing of interest, and is a mere sandy plain. The languages spoken are French and Arabic. There are, counting the floating population, some eight thousand people here, not more, composed of every possible nationality; while the social status is at as low an ebb as it can possibly be. The region is perfectly barren,—like Egypt nearly everywhere away from the valley of the Nile, which enriches an extent of ten or twelve miles on either side of its course by the annual overflow, to an amount hardly to be realized without witnessing its effect. The question often suggested itself as to how camels, donkeys, and goats could pick up sufficient nourishment, outside of this fertile belt, to sustain life. Through that part of the desert which we passed in coming from Suez one looked in vain for any continuous sign of vegetation. A peculiarity of the land is the entire absence of woods and forests; hence also the absence of wild beasts, only hyenas, jackals, and wolves being found. Here and there, at long intervals, an oasis was observed like a smile breaking over the arid face of nature upon which a settled gloom rested nearly all the while. Once or twice there was seen a cluster of solitary palms by a rude stone wall, hedged in by a little patch of green earth, about which a few camels and goats were quenching their thirst or cropping the scanty herbage. Some Arabs, in picturesque costumes, lingered hard by. The tents, pitched in the background, were of the same low, flat-topped, coarse camel's hair construction as these desert tribes have used for thousands of years. Such groups formed true Egyptian pictures, which are so often seen delineated on canvas.
Egypt has only her ruins, her antiquity, her Biblical associations to give her interest with the world at large. Japan is infinitely to be preferred in any light of contemplation; China, even, rivals her in all natural advantages; and India is much more inviting. In looking at Egypt we must forget her present and recall her past. The real Egypt is not the vast territory which we shall find laid down by the geographers, reaching to the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and embracing equatorial regions; it is and was, even in the days of the Pharaohs and Ptolomies, the valley of the Nile, from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean Sea, hemmed in by the Libyan and Arabian deserts. From hence came to the rest of the world so much of art, science, and philosophy; and here were built those time-defying monuments which to-day challenge the wonder of the world.
The native Egyptian, the fellah, he who tills the soil, who cultivates by irrigation and gathers the rich crops of the valley, is of a fine and industrious race, well-built, broad-chested, and always of lithe frame, altogether a fine looking and vigorous figure. He has a manly, oval face, a broad brow, and a bronzed complexion, with brilliant eyes, fine teeth, and naturally luxuriant beard. He is the same figure his ancestors were six thousand years ago, as represented on the tombs and temples of Thebes, and on the slabs of Gizeh in the Museum at Cairo. He still performs his work in the nineteenth century just as he did before the days of Moses, scattering the seed and working the shadoof. He is little seen in the cities; his place is in the field; there he lives and thrives. Though his native land has found such various masters in Greek and Roman, Arab and Turk, he has never lost his individuality. He has ever been, and is to-day, the same historic Egyptian. If he were a horse in place of a man, we should say of him that he was of a pure, uncontaminated breed. The women when young are very handsome, beauty being the first present Nature gives them and the first she takes away. They are exquisite in form, and with a most graceful gait, common to nearly all Eastern women, who, from childhood, carry jars of water upon their heads, thus inducing the perfection of carriage. It made us feel almost angry to see them tattooed, their nostrils and ears pierced with rings, and awkwardly bedecked with cheap jewelry, like their cruder sisters of the Malay Archipelago. These women are frequently mothers at the age of fourteen, and work as industriously in the field as at the domestic hearth. The words "domestic hearth" are used in a conventional manner, as their houses generally consist of one room, devoid of windows, and a door so low as to render it necessary to stoop in order to enter. This door is the only piece of wood in the structure, which is composed of sun-dried clay. These dens, so utterly unfit for human beings, are dark and dirty, but the people live and sleep much in the open air. Such abodes are the natural outgrowth of degradation and ignorance.
We waited four days at Port Said for the arrival of the P. and O. steamship Rome, as she was detained by one of the numerous "blocks" in the canal, but finally embarked on her for Malta and Gibraltar. The Rome is a five thousand-ton ship, and the favorite of this company's extensive fleet. Four days' sail, covering about a thousand miles, over the erratic waters of the Mediterranean, now calm and now enraged, brought us in sight of Malta. The city of Valetta lies immediately on the shore; and when we dropped anchor in the snug little harbor, we were surrounded by lofty forts, frowning batteries, and high stone buildings of various sorts. There are two harbors, in fact, known as Quarantine Harbor and Great Harbor. The Rome lay in the former. The island is about twenty miles long and half as wide, and had a place in historical record nearly three thousand years ago. We were not prepared, upon landing, to find so large, and fine a city, numbering, as Valetta does, at least a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. The houses are all large stone structures, many of which are architecturally noticeable; fronting thoroughfares of good width, well-paved, and in fine order, an aspect of cleanliness and freshness pervading everything.