this change they do not understand.
Here is how we pass our time on board: We rise between six and seven, and each one, as soon as ready, takes what the Hindoos call the Chotee Hazree, or little breakfast—coffee, eggs, bread, and butter: canned butter brought from England, very sweet; bread baked on board which would do credit to the best café in Europe; coffee far better than all Paris could make; and eggs of a correspondingly excellent quality. After this Mr. S—— and I generally go ashore and shoot. If the wind be not strong, and the men track or pole, we can easily walk ahead of the boat. Madam reads, sews, and sometimes walks with us. Father H—— spends several hours writing in his room, and about ten o’clock shows his bright, cheerful face on deck, ready for a walk, talk, or almost anything else. At noon we breakfast together, and the afternoons are generally spent in practising taxidermy. Many travellers complain that the long Nile voyage is somewhat tiresome. Assuredly it is to one who has no other resources than looking upon the scenes around. The scenery is monotonous, the general features of river, plain, and mountain being almost precisely alike from Cairo to Wady Haifa. To us time was short; day glided into day, week into week—no marked transition, no jarring, scarce anything to note the change, to show that to-day is not yesterday. Nor, in sooth, do we care what day, what week, what month it is. We have left the world and its regulations of time behind us, and we will have naught of the world until we return to civilization. Pleasant occupation of the mind is one of the highest worldly happinesses one can hope
to attain. We were constantly employed in pleasing occupations. Add to this the cloudless sky, the sweet, delicious atmosphere, the soft calm and stillness, unknown in our own harsher clime, and one seems lifted above the dull realities of this hard world, and to live in the brightest dream-land. Truly, this is the very acme of pleasure-travelling.
We learned in an empiric manner the art of taxidermy. At first we knew nothing about it—had no books upon the subject. The first birds we prepared were sorry specimens. Each day we made new discoveries, and finally we preserved over one hundred birds in perfect order and condition. In this interesting occupation the afternoon hours glided swiftly by. At six we dined. Then one would read aloud for an hour or more. After that we played dominos or engaged in conversation until ten o’clock, when we retired.
At half-past six of the afternoon of December 30, amid the waving of flags and the firing of pistol-shots, we cast anchor off the town of Luxor. Ali Murad, our worthy consul, appeared on his house-top, and saluted us with a battery in the shape of a pair of antiquated horse-pistols, the firing of which seemed to afford him much amusement. Ali is a fine fellow, it is said. He called and spent half an hour with us. He did not talk—in fact, he could not talk much intelligibly; in short, he could not talk at all so that we could understand him. He represents the majesty and power of the great republic of the western ocean, and is not able to speak the first word of English. But he can shake hands, and tell us through Ahmud that he is glad to see us; so we stop his
mouth with a nargileh, and supply him with coffee, and he squats on the divan and is happy.
That night we visited majestic Karnak. The soft light of the moon playing here and there among its ruined halls and fallen obelisks made the picture so rich and beautiful that we lingered on till late in the night. Luxor, Karnak, and the temples on the western shore mark the site of hundred-gated Thebes. The western division of the city was, in ages long since passed away, under the particular protection of Athor. For, taught the learned priests, beneath yon western mountain our holy goddess receives each evening the setting sun in her outstretched arms. We sailed on the next day, dipping our flag as we passed the Nubia and Clara, occupied by a very pleasant party from Boston, whom we were destined to meet again at the extremity of our voyage. Passing Erment on the west bank, where there is a sugar-factory, we saw a long line of camels carrying sugar-cane. There must have been at least five hundred of these patient animals; but the load that each one carried could not have weighed fifty pounds. Soon we reach Esne. We are to stop here seventy-four hours, according to contract, for the men to bake their bread. They paid three pounds for the doora, or grain, from which the bread is made; this included the grinding. Having kneaded and prepared the dough, it was baked in a public oven at the cost of seventeen shillings. This bread is the staple food of the crew. The quantity baked on January 3 lasted the men until we returned to Sioot, the 21st of March following. The bread was then brought aboard, and for two days the little old cook was busy cutting it up into small
pieces, which were strewn over the deck and exposed to the sun for a few days, until they became hard as stones. The preparation of their meals is very simple. A number of these slices of bread are put into a pot filled with water; to this is added some salt and lentils, and the whole is then boiled and stirred over a fire. This meal they have twice a day. Many a time have I joined them in their humble repast; and it was palatable indeed, this time-honored mess of red porridge for which the hungry Esau sold his birthright to his ambitious brother. These fellows, strong and hardy as they were, eat meat but four times in as many months, on which occasions we presented them with a sheep. The animal served them for two meals. It was butchered and skinned by the captain, and the only parts not used were the entrails. The body was divided into fifteen equal parts, one for each man. These parts were weighed to ensure a fair distribution, and the hoofs and head were boiled with the porridge to impart flavor to it.
Some years ago the authorities at Cairo became suddenly imbued with high ideas of morality. In a fit of virtuous indignation they banished thence the ghawázee, or dancing girls of not very reputable character. Numbers of them ascended the Nile to Esne and settled there. Many Eastern travellers, filled with those romantic feelings touching everything Oriental, have raved in wild rhapsodies about the beauty and grace of these ghawázee. Those that I saw were coarse, corpulent, and homely. They were attired in bright robes and tawdry finery, their actions were disgusting, and their movements in dancing a little more graceful than the frantic struggles of a half-boiled lobster.
What numbers of shadoofs we now see on either bank! Before the voice of God called his servant Abraham to enter the kingdom of the mighty Pharaos, these shadoofs—or more properly in the plural, shawadéef—were the common means employed to supply artificial irrigation to the parched but fruitful soil. As the Nile recedes it leaves a rich and heavy alluvial deposit; in this the first crop is sown and brought forth, but it soon becomes dry, parched, and cracked, as rain scarcely ever falls in Upper Egypt. The shadoof is then used. From the top of an upright frame placed on the river bank is swung a long pole. To one end a rope is attached, from which swings a bucket made of skin. On the other end of the pole is fastened sufficient clay, hardened as a rock by the sun, to keep the pole in a horizontal position when the bucket is filled with water. The operator pulls downward on the rope until the bucket is immersed and filled. By a very slight effort it is then raised to the top of the bank, sometimes eight or ten feet high, and emptied into a trough, from which the water is conducted through numberless little canals to a distance often of five or six miles. These canals run in every direction, and by breaking the banks any part of the soil may be covered with water.