For a fine showy assertion that looks very original and striking, but is not calculated for pedantic verification, commend me to a Frenchman. The other day, at Boulay, Mariette Bey, the creator and the curator of the Museum of that ilk, and a man of high standing as an Egyptologist, told me that the Nile was turned into its actual course by a great chain of hills at Syoot which, serving as a rampart, alone prevented it from following its obvious tendency to flow into the Red Sea. "Il allait évidemment se jeter dans la Mer Rouge;" in fact, but for this hill, there would have been no Lower Egypt, that country being literally the child of the Nile which alone prevents the sands of the central deserts from ruling over the whole breadth of the land. Here was a dramatic revelation of coincidences! Here was a startling suggestion of contingencies!
It fairly took your breath away! without that hill no Nile north of Syoot! half Egypt would not have been! No Memphis! Memphis with its wisdom! No Alexandria with its schools! No Cairo with its four thousand mosques! No Pharaohs! No Moses! (The poor devil of a sculptor who drowned himself in his own fountain because he found he had made his Moses too short might have died in his bed.) No Cleopatra! (turn in your grave, noble dust of Antony!)—"forty centuries" would have had no Pyramids from which to look down on the conquering arms of Buonaparte. Mr. Albert Smith's popular entertainment would have been shorn of half its glories! Let me breathe! To what fantastic proportions did that hill grow as one thought of it!
Alas! then, for prosaic fact; and oh! for unimaginative maps! On consulting the latter I observed that, by the time it reached Syoot, the Nile had been flowing for nearly two hundred miles in a north-westerly direction, away from the Red Sea rather than towards it; and on visiting the spot I saw, oh confusion! that the hills which bore the responsibility (according to Mariette) of making the history of the world what it is, were on the western bank of the river!—there, at least, or nowhere, for a vast plain closes in on the east.
This evening more visitors on board—lemonade and cigars—pour changer; Consuls, &c. &c.—tedious.
Monday, 19th.—Left Syoot at six, and arrived at Sohag before three. Suffered a good deal in the morning from spasms of some sort, and was not in a frame of mind to appreciate the scenery. Was, moreover, driven near the verge of exasperation by the steersman (Reis Ali), who droned select passages from the Koran, sotto voce, within two yards of my ears from 8 A.M. till 2 P. ditto; the same four bars over and over, for ever and for ever in one unceasing guttural strain. I trust the pious exercise did more for his soul than for my temper. Hosseyn informs me that he is about to buy a lamb, and "make him big sheep." It appears that, during a serious illness three years ago, he vowed a votive sheep to Sitteh Zehneb—the granddaughter of the Prophet—on condition that he should recover. Since then he has put her off (oh, humanity!) with candles and occasional prayer; now, at last, he is going to fulfil his vow. Admire thrift combined with piety, and observe the economy on the lamb.
Habit is a strange thing! Hosseyn, whose manners have been corrupted by evil communication with Europeans, occasionally attempts to use a fork in the bosom of his family—particularly when salad is put before him. On these occasions his elder brother invariably asks him with grim sarcasm whether he has no fingers. Hosseyn desists at once—"Brabs he beat me!—he big!"
This evening I went out shooting amongst the palms and gum trees. It was very delightful, though ferociously hot. The village is charmingly situated; the ground prettily tumbled about, and trees and houses group themselves in the most picturesque manner. (I noticed some new mouldings over the doorways that had a very artistic effect.) I can't shoot at all; but the birds are so plentiful that something is sure to cross your gun if you only fire. I got a hawk, some doves, a dozen little birds nameless for me, and two little green birds of a kind that I have not seen before; they are quite lovely; must ascertain what they are called. The sun had set when I reached the boat, and all the dark plumes of the palm trees stood clear over the black outlines of the village; above, the new moon, a keen, golden sickle.
Hosseyn has given up fishing. "Oh, oh! nasty fish! he to laugh me!"
Was much amused this morning by the device and trade-mark on a tin of jam. (Jam, if you please, of Messrs. Barnes & Co. of Little Bush Lane and Tooley Street.) The device was "Non sine labore"—and the trade-mark?—a beehive?—no!—the Pyramid of Cheops! Excusez.
Some twenty miles above Syoot, or, say, fifteen, the eastern chain of mountains makes a bend towards the river, and for some distance ranges near it; the stream, in its usual tortuous course, sometimes flowing for a few hundred yards towards them and then for a few hundred yards in the opposite direction. I wonder whether one of these bends served as a foundation, or rather as a blind, for Mariette's astounding assertion that the Nile "allait évidemment se jeter dans la Mer Rouge." Did he "to laugh me," as the fish did by Hosseyn? Or did he merely mean to say that, if the Valley of the Nile had not turned north-west between Keneh and Manfaloot, it might have turned north-east? If so, joke for joke, I prefer the great Pyramid on the jam-pot of Mr. Barnes of Little Bush Lane and Tooley Street.