Outside the walls of the Coptic convent we came on our baggage, and found the men already pitching our tents, hobbling the camels, and boiling some water over a fire of dry brushwood. We sent some one to Qus (on the outskirts of which little town this convent is situated) to find the priest who could show us over the building. No monks dwell there at present and the chapel is only used on the day dedicated to Saint Bughtra, whoever he may be. All that remains of the convent, except the chapel, could be seen before the priest arrived, as the fortress-like wall which encircled it had crumbled down in several places. A few cells were still roofed over, but for the most part ugly ruin had disfigured the buildings. Except where some fine columns or portals have endured the wear and tear of ages, as in the case of some of the temples, a desert ruin is a depressing sight; no growth to hide the shapeless bits of fallen masonry are there, neither moss nor lichen give it the beautiful colouring associated with the remains of bygone structures. A shrine which may have crumbled down centuries ago might have fallen in the day before yesterday unless the desert winds had swept a covering of sand to give it a partial burial.
The little many-domed church still stood erect amidst the fallen masonry, and when the priest arrived and fumbled with his wooden key to loose the bolt in the ponderous lock, our expectations somewhat revived. Some tawdry objects of piety showed that some folks still remained who gave this place of worship a passing thought; but in the otherwise neglected interior these tawdry ornaments reminded me horribly of the patches of paint I have seen on the cheeks of a corpse laid out for burial in Portugal. The simile may be far-fetched, but there it was, and I was pleased when we had gone through the farce of giving the priest his gratuity—called, to save his face, ‘for the upkeep of the church.’
We found our camp all prepared for us when we rejoined it. The packing-cases which served as a table were neatly set for dinner, and our saddles were arranged to do duty as chairs. Our two sleeping-tents stood primly one on each side of the small marquee which served as a dining-room. Weigall’s servant was an excellent cook, and a long day in the desert had prepared us to do justice to his dishes. The saddles make very good chairs when sitting is not a painful operation; they are covered with sheepskin, but the thickest fleece, in my condition, could not disguise the hard wooden skeleton beneath it. An air-cushion helped matters a trifle, though the air seemed harder than it usually is. Stiffness crept over the bodies of the two of us who had most recently come from England; but on comparing our complaints I fancied that I had more than my share—I was more conscious of it anyhow.
When the dinner was cleared and pipes were alight, we discussed our several interests in our desert journey. To Charles Whymper the birds we had seen along the fringe of the cultivation were of the greatest importance. We had passed many white Egyptian vultures; we had also put up some coveys of cream-coloured coursers; the desert lark, the sand-grouse, and desert martins had all been seen as well as the familiar hoopoes, the black kite, the little owl, and green bee-eaters—or shall we call them blue, for they can be either colour according as the light catches their plumage? The archæological interests were still before us, and though these had not been explored for some time, records of journeys in this eastern desert have been left by the German Egyptologist Lepsius, by Golenischeff, the Russian, as well as by the more recent Schweinfurth. Its pictorial aspects appealed to each of us, and as I had brought my sketching materials I hoped that there might be sufficiently long halts to allow of my doing some painting. Erskine Nicol is well versed in the habits of the wandering tribes who pitch their tents on the higher levels where the cultivation stops short. The Ababdi and the Bishareen territories meet on this desert highroad, and we should probably come across a few of both one and the other. As we were to start soon after sunrise the next morning, we deferred our topics of conversation to another occasion.
It was still dark in our tents when we were awakened, because the heavy baggage was to be got off as soon after daybreak as possible. The tents were lowered and stowed away on the camels, leaving us to pack our bedding in the open, and it was surprising to find what a difference in temperature there was when our canvas shelters were removed. It was bitterly cold, and much movement was impossible in my case, for I was rigidly stiff. I stuck to a couple of blankets, and with some straps improvised a primitive garment; my camel served as a shelter from the cold breeze and made a warm back to lean against, while we squatted in a circle to have our breakfast. The blankets would serve later, when the sun got up, as extra padding to the saddle.
Our cross desert journey began this morning, for on the previous day we had skirted the cultivation to reach at Qus the mediæval route from the Nile to the Red Sea port. We started before the baggage train of camels, which would overtake us before we reached Lakéta, a small oasis where we should spend the night. Selim, as the cook was called, and our Ababdi guide accompanied us. The former looked a quaint object, seated on his camel amidst pots and kettles, photographic apparatus, sketching materials, and any other odds and ends which we might require before the camp would again be pitched.
The rising sun was very beautiful; when I have tried to paint it, it has always risen and lost its rich colouring too quickly. This morning I was concerned with the slowness of these proceedings, for until it rose well above the distant hills I felt perished with the cold. We could plainly see the cliffs around Hatshepsu’s temple, right across the Nile valley; they and the Theban hills were pink in the early sunlight whilst we were still in the shade. Slowly the light caught us on our high mounts, while the soil beneath us was still in a blue grey tone. Looking back after a while camel legs a mile long could be seen in pale shadow on the track behind us, and by the time they contracted to a lengthened silhouette of a comprehensible form, I began to feel my blankets were more than I could stand.
To unrobe on a trotting camel was no easy matter, and to make the camel do anything different from those ahead of it was an impossibility. I had practised making the peculiar noise of the bedouin when they wish to make their beasts kneel down—it spells something like this, ‘ghrrr,’ and is repeated at rapid intervals. Laura, as my camel was called, either affected not to understand me or felt too great a contempt for her rider to heed what he said. She was very nearly riderless before the unrobing was completed, and I am not sure that Laura had not that wish in her mind. When I was near landing on her neck, I thought I saw Laura’s mouth working up towards my boot, which was her way of smiling. I tried to fix the blankets over the saddle, for the wooden skeleton beneath the sheepskin seemed painfully near parts of my skeleton; but I only gave Laura fresh cause to smile.
The clatter of Selim’s pots and pans was not far behind me, so I yelled out to the cook to overtake me and to stow my blankets amongst his ironmongery. Laura disapproved of this, for, as the clatter, clatter behind me got louder, she quickened her pace. There are no reins to check the creatures; the camel rope is merely fastened to a face strap, which is held in place by a second strap passing behind the nape of the neck. I lugged on to the rope as hard as I could, but as there were no stirrups I should have pulled myself off the saddle before I could have bent the beast’s stiff neck. Not to be beaten, I placed my foot on her neck, and thus got a sufficient leverage to pull her head sideways till I could see her ugly profile; by this means I checked her pace sufficiently for the cook to overtake me, and I threw the blankets amid the pots and pans.
We reached Gebel el-Korn about noon; we had seen this hill for the last two hours reflected in what appeared to be a lake, and as this effect of the mirage disappeared here, we saw it repeated in the distance beyond. Three routes to Kosseir join at this point; the mediæval one we had been on was a part of the highway which the caravans took since the Mohammedan invasion and until Keneh eclipsed Qus as a Nilotic town. The Keneh route, starting some twenty miles further down the river, is still used by the Arabs, who bring camels from Arabia to barter in the Nile valley. The ancient Egyptian road was from Kuft, known as Koptos in Græco-Roman times, and starts about midway between the two others to join the one great highway uniting the Thebaid to the sea.