Tuesday, 27th.—Began sketching, but am out of form from the heat. I am working chiefly because I am weary of idleness. I don't much care for the two sketches I have begun; they will therefore probably turn out badly. Going to try another presently.
Tuesday Evening.—Have begun a sketch which interests me more than the others; it is taken amongst the tombs and shrines on the hills south of the town towards Phylæ. As my evening's work was drawing to a close, I heard a shuffling of feet a little behind me, and, turning round, saw, in the full fire of sunset, what appeared to me at first to be a procession of golden apes with dark blue robes, light blue lips, and nose-rings; on closer inspection they turned out to be Nubian women going home to their village. Hosseyn, qui a le mot pour rire, apparently, engaged in conversation with them, and convulsed them with laughter; the flashes of teeth were very funny to see. At last he gave them a few halfpence, and desired them to sing; whereon they set up a series of the most uncouth howls I ever heard; one baboon in particular got up and, using a flat date basket as a tambourine, accompanied her vocal performance with hops and jumps that would have done honour to any inmate of the monkey-house in the Zoological Gardens.
The twilight, walking home, was lovely. The earth was in colour like a lion's skin; the sky of a tremulous violet, fading in the zenith to a mysterious sapphire tint. "Dolce color d'oriental zaffiro."
Slew another sheep—"Allah hou akbar!" (without which formula in the killing a good Muslim must not touch the meat): this sheep is no empty formality, for the unfortunate sailors would never see meat without it; they live on bread and occasional beans. This is the fourth night of the moolid, which is to last the whole week! At this very moment the tambourines of the dervishes are driving me nearly wild with their diabolic din.
Wednesday, 28th.—Got on indifferently with my sketches; only one of them interests me much. The morning was almost cool and really delightful, but the heat was as great as ever in the daytime. I have always been unable to see the extraordinary difference which is said to exist between the length of the twilight in the north, and in southern countries; I could have read large print to-night three-quarters of an hour after sunset. Habit is everything, no doubt, as we are reminded by Herodotus, à propos of a certain people who ate their dead relatives instead of burning them; but I wonder whether I should ever get accustomed to the aching, straining, creaking complaint of the water-wheel far and near, morning, noon and night, morning, noon and night; I can just fancy its becoming attaching as the clacking of a mill.
I have often wondered why, contrary to all analogy, the Spaniards call oil azedo, which at first sight appears to be the same word as the Italian aceto. I find that the word is Arabic: zeyd. Mem.: Look up the etymology of the English word cough, to which no European word that I remember has any affinity, and which rather appears to be onomatopœic. The Arabs say kokh (guttural ending); is this a mere coincidence, and does the word date beyond the Crusades? I find a good many words that have a curious likeness to English. My endeavours to pick up a little Arabic are almost entirely frustrated by Hosseyn's utter inability to pull a sentence to pieces for me. In an Arabic sentence of two words (e.g. azekan tareed—if you please) he could not tell me which word was the verb! literally; I had to find out as best I could. I never saw anything to approach his obtuseness in the matter, except perhaps that of Georgi, my dragoman in Turkey. As I was sketching this evening a Nubian passed me, very grandly draped and erect, and followed by two green monkeys that were fastened by leading-strings to his belt. They toddled very snugly after their stately master and made a queer group.
Sunday, November 1.—I am in a state of appreciative enjoyment of the comforts and civilised cleanliness of my steamer, having just returned from three or four days' roughing in the ruins of Phylæ. "Roughing" is a relative term, and my trials were of a very mild description, for though I slept à la belle étoile (or rather tried to sleep), at all events I had a bed to rest in, and the air at night was delightful; moreover, the commissariat was very satisfactorily managed, so that food and drink were abundant; nevertheless, I must maintain that living in an open ruin is not comfortable. I made two or three sketches, and should probably have enjoyed myself, but that on the second day I was entirely thrown off the rails by the heat whilst sketching; I thought I should get a coup de soleil; I was very indisposed in the evening, and utterly unable to work the next morning, so that I took the place en grippe, and could see nothing but the ugliness of the rocks and the wearing monotony of the hieroglyphs. Picked up in the evening, and liked the place better; made some original and striking reflections about the desirability of health.
Having heard much of the beauty of the full moon at Phylæ, timed my visit to see it, and was entirely delighted. The light was so brilliant that one could read with ease, but at the same time so soft, so rich, and so mellow that one seemed not to see the night, but to be dreaming of the day. The Arabs say of a fine night, "it is a night like milk," but there is more of amber than of milk in the nights of Phylæ. The rising of the moon last night was the first thing of the sort I ever saw; the disc was perfectly golden, not as in a mist, but set sharp and clear in the sky, and exactly like the sun, except that you could look at it without pain to the eyes. The effect of this effulgent light on the shoulder of the hill was magical. The last hour of the afternoon I spent in strolling about the villages, which are picturesque. The cottages are four brown, roofless walls, built of the usual unburnt brick, and coated with mud; but the doorways are always highly decorated with painted geometrical devices which, in the mass of plain, sober brown, have a very cheerful and artistic effect. The people, too, amuse me; a pleasant, gentle, grinning folk these Nubians seem; I like their jargon—after the guttural Arabic it sounds so soft and round, and the women have funny, cooing inflections of voice (pretty voices, often) that are pleasing. Some of the girls are good-looking; chiefly through the brightness of their eyes and the milky whiteness of their teeth. The coiffure of the children is too funny; it consists in tufts of hair of various shapes and patterns left on an otherwise shaven head; often a crest all down the middle and a tuft on each side, exactly like the clown's wig in a pantomime; it is irresistibly droll.
A grand sight is to see the villagers keeping the birds from their crops; they all serve in their turn, men, women, and children; they stand each on a rude sort of scaffold which rises about two feet clear of the corn; they are armed with slings from which they hurl lumps of clay at the birds, uttering loud cries at the same time. Their movements are full of grandeur and character. I wonder Gérôme has never treated a subject so well suited to him. Why, too, has he never painted mine enemy the sakkea, which is even more emphatically in his way, for, besides the scope for fine and quaint forms both in the men and the animals that work it, the accessories are abundant and interesting, and there are ropes in great abundance.
Is the sakkea my friend or my enemy? Its chant is so incessant that I should have to make up my mind if I stayed longer in the country; it would either fascinate me or drive me mad. As I listen in the silence of the evening, the rise and fall, the shifting and swaying of the wind bring its complaint from across the gurgling river in such a fitful way that it has the strangest and most unexpected effects: sometimes I fancy I hear deep, drowsy tones of a distant organ, sometimes the shrill quavering of a bagpipe; sometimes it is like a snatch of a song, sometimes like a whole chorus of voices singing a solemn strain in the sad, empty night; sometimes, alas! too often, like a snarling, creaking door-post.