After the disappearance of the festive board, there was an Oriental dance. Four gliawazee with their musicians were brought into the parlor, and the dance began at once. Pipes and coffee had been served the instant the table disappeared, and the party took its position on the divans where they could look on with complaisance.
The Orientals understand dancing in its true sense, and cannot comprehend why we should caper through a waltz or a cotillion, when we can hire somebody to do it for us.
“Why don’t you make your servants do this?” was the wondering inquiry of a Chinese official, when invited to a ball given by some of the English residents of Hong Kong.
The day at length arrived for our departure from Thebes, and as the boat steamed away from the landing the crowd on shore sung a farewell chorus, the consuls fired guns and pistols, and the whole town in fact seemed bent on making as much noise as possible.
The market for antiquities declined rapidly before our departure, and articles were offered at less than half the figures that ruled on the day of our arrival.
We tied up as usual during the night, and next morning about breakfast time we were at Esneh, a town of six or seven thousand inhabitants and containing a temple of which only a small portion has been cleared out. The remainder is quite covered by the houses of the modern town, and is thought to be quite extensive. The portico, the only portion visible, is reached by a stairway which we descended to the floor. The columns are well preserved but the sculptures are injured somewhat, and in places are hardly legible.
Most of the features of the gods are broken, and this is the case in a large number of the temples of Upper Egypt. The injury is attributed to the Persians, but a large portion of it is due to the early Christians, who sought in their religious zeal to destroy the evidences of pagan worship. In some temples they plastered over the sculptures, and thus unintentionally preserved them. The plaster has been removed in modern times, and the sculptures are found in excellent condition.
Esneh is famous, like Keneh, for its dancing girls, and there is quite a colony of them at the southern side of the town. We visited their quarter in the evening, and were beset by the young ladies with appeals for “backsheesh” and invitations to visit their households and witness a dance.
There are several cafés on the bank just above the river, and we found quite a collection of Arabs in them. They were smoking their pipes, sipping coffee, and singing and looking very dignified and disinclined to move. The Arab song may be best described as a monotonous chant, consisting of about four measures and a chorus like a prolonged “ah-ah”. They sing everywhere, but more especially when at work together. Men engaged in rowing or pulling a boat are constantly singing; one sings the measure and the whole join in the chorus. The song may be on any subject, like popular airs everywhere, and frequently are extemporized by the singers. I was much struck with their resemblance to the songs of the negro deck hands on the Mississippi steamers, and also to those of the Canadian voyageurs on the St. Lawrence and its tributary rivers. The boatmen of the Volga and the Dwina have also similar songs while rowing or pulling their craft.
One of the prettiest things I saw at Esneh was, not a girl, but a donkey. He was a beauty, and I would have given more for his photograph than for that of any human being I saw there. His color was white, but according to the Arab custom his hair was closely shaven. He was plump, round, and large; his ears were perfectly erect, and his trappings were rich and evidently selected with taste. He belonged to the governor, who was pleased at the admiration bestowed upon his property, and stood approvingly by while one of the artists of our party took a sketch of the animal. I ventured to ask how much such a donkey would be worth.