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CHAPTER
VI. MINIEH TO
SIÛT. IT is
Christmas Day. The M. B.’s are coming to dinner; the cooks are up
to their eyes
in entrées; the crew are treated to a sheep in honour of the
occasion; the
new-comers are unpacking; and we are all gradually settling down into
our
respective places. Now, the new-comers consist of four persons:
a painter, a happy couple, and a maid. The painter has already been up the Nile
three times,
and brings a fund of experience into the council. He knows all about
sandbanks,
and winds, and mooring-places; is acquainted with most of the native
governors
and consuls along the river; and is great on the subject of what to
eat, drink,
and avoid. The stern-cabin is given to him for a studio, and contains
frames,
canvases, drawing-paper, and easels enough to start a provincial school
of art.
He is going to paint a big picture at Aboo-Simbel. The happy couple, it
is
unnecessary to say, are on their wedding tour. In point of fact, they
have not
yet been married a month. The bridegroom is what the world chooses to
call an
idle man; that is to say, he has scholarship, delicate health, and
leisure. The
bride, for convenience, shall be called the little lady. Of people who
are
struggling through that helpless phase of human life called the
honeymoon, it
is not fair to say more than that they are both young enough to make
the
situation interesting. Meanwhile
the deck must be cleared of the new luggage that has come on board, and
the day
passes in a confusion of unpacking, arranging, and putting away. Such
running
to and fro as there is down below; such turning-out of boxes and
knocking-up of
temporary shelves; such talking, and laughing, and hammering! Nor is
the bustle
confined to downstairs. Talhamy and the waiters are just as busy above,
adorning the upper deck with palm-branches and hanging the boat all
round with
rows of coloured lanterns. Once can hardly believe, however, that it is
Christmas Day – that there are fires blazing at home in every
room; that the
church-field, perhaps, is white with snow; and that the familiar bells
are
ringing merrily across the frosty air. Here at midday it is already too
hot on
deck without the awning, and when we moor towards sunset near a
river-side
village in a grove of palms, the cooler air of evening is delicious. There is
novelty in even such a commonplace matter as dining out, on the Nile.
You go
and return in your felucca, as if it were a carriage; and your
entertainers
summon you by firing a dinner-gun, instead of sounding a gong. Wise
people who
respect the feelings of their cooks fire a dressing-gun as well; for
watches
soon differ in a hopeless way for want of the church-clock to set them
by, and
it is always possible that host and guest may be an hour or two apart
in their
reckoning. The
customary guns having therefore been fired, and the party assembled, we
sat
down to one of cook Bedawee’s prodigious banquets. Not, however,
till the
plum-pudding, blazing demoniacally, appeared upon the scene, did any of
us
succeed in believing that it was really Christmas Day. Nothing
could be prettier or gayer than the spectacle that awaited us when we
rose from
table. A hundred and fifty coloured lanterns outlined the boat from end
to end,
sparkled up the masts, and cast broken reflections in the moving
current. The
upper-deck, hung with flags and partly closed in with awnings, looked
like a
bower of palms. The stars and the crescent moon shone overhead. Dim
outlines of
trees and headlands, and a vague perspective of gleaming river, were
visible in
the distance; while a light gleamed now and then in the direction of
the
village, or a dusky figure flitted along the bank. Meanwhile,
there was a sound of revelry by night; for our sailors had invited the
Bagstones’ crew to unlimited coffee and tobacco, and had quite a
large party on
the lower deck. They drummed, they sang, they danced, they dressed up,
improvised a comic scene, and kept their audience in a roar. Reïs
Hassan did the
honours. George, Talhamy, and the maids sat apart at the second table
and
sipped their coffee genteelly. We looked on and applauded. At ten
o’clock a pan
of magnesium powder was burned, and our Fantasia ended with a blaze of
light,
like a pantomime. In Egypt,
by the way, any entertainment which is enlivened by music, dancing, or
fireworks is called a Fantasia. And now,
sometimes sailing, sometimes tracking, sometimes punting, we go on day
by day,
making what speed we can. Things do not, of course, always fall out
exactly as
one would have them. The wind too often fails when we most need it, and
gets up
when there is something to be seen on shore. Thus, after a whole
morning of
tracking, we reach Beni Hassan at the moment when a good breeze has
suddenly filled
our sails for the first time in forty-eight hours; and so, yielding to
counsels
which we afterwards deplored, we pass on with many a longing look at
the
terraced doorways pierced along the cliffs. At Rhoda, in the same way,
we touch
for only a few minutes to post and inquire for letters, and put off
till our
return the inland excursion to Dayr el Nakhl, where is to be seen the
famous
painting of the Colossus on the Sledge. But sights deferred are fated
sometimes
to remain unseen, as we found by and by to our exceeding loss and
regret. Meanwhile,
the skies are always cloudless, the days warm, the evenings exquisite.
We of
course live very much in the open air. When there is no wind, we land
and take
long walks by the river-side. When on board, we sketch, write letters,
read
Champollion, Bunsen, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson; and work hard at
Egyptian
dynasties. The sparrows and water-wagtails perch familiarly on the
awnings and
hop about the deck; the cocks and hens chatter, the geese cackle, the
turkeys gobble
in their coops close by; and our sacrificial sheep, leading a solitary
life in
the felucca, comes baaing in the rear. Sometimes we have as many as a
hundred
chickens on board (to say nothing of pigeons and rabbits) and two or
even three
sheep in the felucca. The poultry yard is railed off, however, at the
extreme
end of the stern, so that the creatures are well away from the
drawing-room;
and when we moor at a suitable place, they are let out for a few hours
to peck
about the banks and enjoy their liberty. L.----- and the little lady feed
these
hapless prisoners with breakfast-scraps every morning, to the profound
amusement of the steersman, who, unable to conceive any other motive,
imagines
they are fatting them for table. Such is
our Noah’s Ark life, pleasant, peaceful, and patriarchal. Even on
days when
there is little to see and nothing to do, it is never dull. Trifling
incidents
which have for us the excitement of novelty are continually occurring.
Other
dahabeeyahs, their flags and occupants, are a constant source of
interest.
Meeting at mooring-places for the night, we now and then exchange
visits.
Passing each other by day, we dip ensigns, fire salutes, and
punctiliously
observe the laws of maritime etiquette. Sometimes a Cook’s
Excursion-steamer
hurries by, crowded with tourists; or a government tug towing three or
four
great barges closely packed with wretched-looking, half-naked
fellâheen bound
for forced labor on some new railway or canal. Occasionally we pass a
dahabeeyah sticking fast upon a sandback; and sometimes we stick on one
ourselves. Then the men fly to their punting poles, or jump into the
river like
water-dogs, and, grunting in melancholy cadence, shove the boat off
with their
shoulders. The birds,
too, are new, and we are always looking out for them. Perhaps we see a
top-heavy pelican balancing his huge yellow bill over the edge of the
stream,
and fishing for his dinner – or a flight of wild geese trailing
across the sky
towards sunset – or a select society of vultures perched all in a
row upon a
ledge of rock, and solemn as the bench of bishops. Then there are the
herons
who stand on one leg and doze in the sun; the strutting hoopoes with
their
legendary top-knots; the blue and green bee-eaters hovering over the
uncut
dura. The pied kingfisher, black and white like a magpie, sits
fearlessly under
the bank and never stirs, though the tow-rope swings close above his
head and
the dahabeeyah glides within a few feet of the shore. The paddy-birds
whiten
the sandbanks by hundreds, and rise in a cloud at our approach. The
sacred
hawk, circling overhead, utters the same sweet, piercing, melancholy
note that
the Pharaohs listened to of old. The
scenery is for the most part of the ordinary Nile pattern; and for many
a mile
we see the same things over and over again:– the level bank
shelving down
steeply to the river; the strip of cultivated soil, green with maize or
tawny
with dura; the frequent mud-village and palm-grove; the deserted
sugar-factory
with its ungainly chimney and shattered windows; the water-wheel slowly
revolving with its necklace of pots; the shâdûf worked by
two brown athletes;
the file of laden camels; the desert, all sand-hills and sand-plains,
with its
background of mountains; the long reach, and the gleaming sail ahead.
Sometimes,
however, as at Kom Ahmar, we skirt the ancient brick mounds of some
forgotten
city, with fragments of arched foundations, and even of walls and
doorways,
reaching down to the water’s edge; or, sailing close under ranges
of huge
perpendicular cliffs, as at Gebel Abufayda, startle the cormorants from
their
haunts, and peer as we pass into the dim recesses of many a rock-cut
tomb
excavated just above the level of the inundation. This Gebel
Abufayda has a bad name for sudden winds; especially at the beginning
and end
of the range, where the Nile bends abruptly and the valley opens out at
right
angles to the river. It is fine to see Reïs Hassan, as we approach
one of the
worst of these bad bits – a point where two steep ravines divided
by a bold
headland command the passage like a pair of grim cannon, and rake it
with
blasts from the North-Eastern desert. Here the current, flowing deep
and
strong, is met by the wind and runs high in crested waves. Our little
captain,
kicking off his shoes, himself springs up the rigging and there stands
silent
and watchful. The sailors, ready to shift our mainsail at the word of
command,
cling some to the shoghool1 and some to the end of the
yard; the
boat tears on before the wind; the great bluff looms up darker and
nearer. Then
comes a breathless moment. Then a sharp, sudden word from the little
man in the
main rigging; a yell and a whoop from the sailors; a slow, heavy lurch
of the
flapping sail; and the corner is turned in safety. The cliffs
here are very fine; much loftier and less uniform than at Gebel et
Tayr; rent
into strange forms, as of sphinxes, cheesewrings, towers, and bastions;
honeycombed with long ranges of rock-cut tombs; and undermined by
water-washed
caverns in which lurk a few lingering crocodiles. If at Gebel et Tayr
the rock
is worn into semblances of Arabesque ornamentation, here it looks as if
inscribed all over with mysterious records in characters not unlike the
Hebrew.
Records they are, too, of prehistoric days – chronicles of his
own deeds carved
by the great god Nile himself, the Hapimu of ancient time – but
the language in
which they are written has never been spoken by man. As for the
rock-cut tombs of Gebel Abufayda, they must number many hundreds. For
nearly
twelve miles, the range runs parallel to the river, and throughout that
distance the face of the cliffs is pierced with innumerable doorways.
Some are
small and square, twenty or thirty together, like rows of portholes.
Others are
isolated. Some are cut so high up that they must have been approached
from
above; others again come close upon the level of the river. Some of the
doorways are faced to represent jambs and architraves; some, excavated
laterally, appear to consist of a series of chambers, and are lit from
without
by small windows cut in the rock. One is approached by a flight of
rough steps
leading up from the water’s edge; and another, hewn high in the
face of the
cliff, just within the mouth of a little ravine, shows a simple but
imposing
façade supported by four detached pillars. No modern travellers
seem to visit
these tombs; while those of the old school, as Wilkinson, Champollion,
etc.,
dismiss them with a few observations. Yet, with the single exception of
the
mountains behind Thebes, there is not, I believe, any one spot in Egypt
which
contains such a multitude of sepulchral excavations. Many look, indeed,
as if
they might belong to the same interesting and early epoch as those of
Beni
Hassan. I may here
mention that about half-way, or rather less than half-way, along the
whole length
of the range, I observed two large hieroglyphed stelæ incised
upon the face of
a projecting mass of boldly rounded cliff at a height of perhaps a
hundred and
fifty feet above the river. These stelæ, apparently royal ovals,
and sculptured
as usual side by side, may have measured from twelve to fifteen feet in
height;
but in the absence of any near object by which to scale them, I could
form but
a rough guess as to their actual dimensions. The boat was just then
going so
fast, that to sketch or take notes of the hieroglyphs was impossible.
Before I
could adjust my glass they were already in the rear; and by the time I
had
called the rest of the party together, they were no longer
distinguishable. Coming
back several months later, I looked for them again, but without
success; for
the intense midday sun was then pouring full upon the rocks, to the
absolute
obliteration of everything like shallow detail. While watching vainly,
however,
for the stelæ, I was compensated by the unexpected sight of a
colossal bas-relief
high up on the northward face of a cliff standing, so to say, at the
corner of
one of those little recesses or culs-de-sac which here and
there break
the uniformity of the range. The sculptural relief of this large
subject was
apparently very low; but, owing to the angle at which it met the light,
one
figure, which could not have measured less than eighteen or twenty feet
in
height, was distinctly visible. I immediately drew L.-----’s attention
to the spot;
and she not only discerned the figure without the help of a glass, but
believed
like myself that she could see traces of a second. As neither
the stelæ nor the bas-relief would seem to have been observed by
previous
travellers, I may add for the guidance of others that the round and
tower-like
rock upon which the former are sculptured lies about a mile to the
southward of
the sheik’s tomb and palm-tree (a strikingly picturesque bit
which no one can
fail to notice), and a little beyond some very large excavations near
the
water’s edge; while the bas-relief is to be found at a short
distance below the
Coptic convent and cemetery. Having for
nearly twelve miles skirted the base of Gebel Abufayda – by far
the finest
panoramic stretch of rock scenery on this side of the second cataract
– the
Nile takes an abrupt bend to the eastward, and thence flows through
many miles
of cultivated flat. On coming to this sudden elbow, the wind which had
hitherto
been carrying us along at a pace but little inferior to that of a
steamer, now
struck us full on the beam, and drove the boat to shore with such
violence that
all the steersman could do was just to run the Philæ’s nose
into the bank, and
steer clear of some ten or twelve native cangias that had been driven
in before
us. The Bagstones rushed in next; and presently a large iron-built
dahabeeyah,
having come gallantly along under the cliffs with all sail set, was
seen to
make a vain struggle at the fatal corner, and then plunge headlong at
the bank,
like King Agib’s ship upon the Loadstone Mountain. Imprisoned
here all the afternoon, we exchanged visits of condolence with our
neighbours
in misfortune; had our ears nearly cut to pieces by the driving sand;
and
failed signally in the endeavour to take a walk on shore. Still the
fury of the
storm went on increasing. The wind howled; the river raced in turbid
waves; the
sand drove in clouds; and the face of the sky was darkened as if by a
London
fog. Meanwhile, one boat after another was hurried to shore, and before
night-fall we numbered a fleet of some twenty odd craft, native and
foreign. It took
the united strength of both crews all next day to warp the Philæ
and Bagstones
across the river by means of a rope and an anchor; an expedient that
deserves
special mention, not for its amazing novelty or ingenuity, but because
our men
declared it to be inpracticable. Their fathers, they said, had never
done it.
Their fathers’ fathers had never done it. Therefore, it was
impossible. Being
impossible, why should they attempt it? They did
attempt it, however, and, much to their astonishment, they succeeded. It was, I
think, towards the afternoon of this second day, when strolling by the
margin
of the river, that we first made the acquaintance of that renowned
insect, the
Egyptian beetle. He was a very fine specimen of his race, nearly half
an inch
long in the back, as black and shiny as a scarab cut in jet, and busily
engaged
in the preparation of a large rissole of mud, which he presently began
laboriously propelling up the bank. We stood and watched him for some
time,
half in admiration, half in pity. His rissole was at least four times
bigger
than himself, and to roll it up that steep incline to a point beyond
the level
of next summer’s inundation was a labour of Hercules for so small
a creature.
One longed to play the part of the Deus ex machina, and carry
it up the
bank for him; but that would have been a dénouement beyond his
power of
appreciation. We all
know the old story of how this beetle lays its eggs by the
river’s brink;
encloses them in a ball of moist clay; rolls the ball to a safe place
on the
edge of the desert; buries it in the sand; and when his time comes,
dies
content, having provided for the safety of his successors. Hence his
mythic
fame; hence all the quaint symbolism that by degrees attached itself to
his little
person, and ended by investing him with a special sacredness which has
often
been mistaken for actual worship. Standing by thus, watching the
movements of
the creature, its untiring energy, its extraordinary muscular strength,
its
business-like devotion to the matter in hand, one sees how subtle a
lesson the
old Egyptian moralists had presented to them for contemplation, and
with how
fine a combination of wisdom and poetry they regarded this little black
scarab
not only as an emblem of the creative and preserving power, but perhaps
also of
the immortality of the soul. As a type, no insect has ever had so much
greatness thrust upon him. He became a hieroglyph, and stood for a word
signifying both to be and to transform. His portrait was multiplied a
million-fold;
sculptured over the portals of temples; fitted to the shoulders of a god;
engraved on gems; moulded in pottery; painted on sarcophagi and the
walls of
tombs; worn by the living and buried with the dead. Every
traveller on the Nile brings away a handful of the smaller scarabs,
genuine or
otherwise. Some may not particularly care to possess them; yet none can
help
buying them, if only because other people do so, or to get rid of a
troublesome
dealer, or to give to friends at home. I doubt, however, if even the
most
enthusiastic scarab-fanciers really feel in all its force the symbolism
attaching to these little gems, or appreciate the exquisite naturalness
of
their execution, till they have seen the living beetle at its work. In Nubia,
where the strip of cultivable land is generally but a few feet in
breadth, the
scarab’s task is comparatively light, and the breed multiplies
freely. But in
Egypt he has often a wide plain to traverse with his burden, and is
therefore
scarce in proportion to the difficulty with which he maintains the
struggle for
existence. The scarab race in Egypt would seem indeed to have
diminished very
considerably since the days of the Pharaohs, and the time is not
perhaps far
distant when the naturalist will look in vain for specimens on this
side of the
first cataract. As far as my own experience goes, I can only say that I
saw
scores of these beetles during the Nubian part of the journey; but that
to the
best of my recollection this was the only occasion upon which I
observed one in
Egypt. The Nile
makes four or five more great bends between Gebel Abufayda and
Siût; passing
Manfalût by the way, which town lies some distance back from the
shore. All
things taken into consideration – the fitful wind that came and
went continually;
the tremendous zigzags of the river; the dead calm which befell us when
only
eight miles from Siût; and the long day of tracking that
followed, with the
town in sight the whole way – we thought ourselves fortunate to
get in by the
evening of the third day after the storm. These last eight miles are,
however,
for open, placid beauty, as lovely in their way as anything north of
Thebes.
The valley is here very wide and fertile; the town, with its
multitudinous
minarets, appears first on one side and then on the other, according to
the
windings of the river; the distant pinky mountains look almost as
transparent
as the air or the sunshine; while the banks unfold an endless
succession of
charming little subjects, every one of which looks as if it asked to be
sketched
as we pass. A shâdûf and a clump of palms – a triad
of shaggy black buffaloes,
up to their shoulders in the river, and dozing as they stand – a
wide-spreading
sycamore fig, in the shade of which lie a man and camel asleep –
a fallen palm
uprooted by the last inundation, with its fibrous roots yet clinging to
the
bank and its crest in the water – a group of sheiks’ tombs
with glistening
white cupolas relieved against a background of dark foliage – an
old disused
water-wheel lying up sidewise against the bank like a huge teetotum,
and
garlanded with wild tendrils of a gourd – such are a few out of
many bits by
the way, which, if they offer nothing very new, at all events present
the old
material under fresh aspects, and in combination with a distance of
such
ethereal light and shade, and such opalescent tenderness of tone, that
it looks
more like an air-drawn mirage than a piece of the world we live in. Like a
mirage, too, that fairy town of Siût seemed always to hover at
the same
unattainable distance, and after hours of tracking to be no nearer than
at
first. Sometimes, indeed, following the long reaches of the river, we
appeared
to be leaving it behind; and although, as I have said, we had eight
miles of
hard work to get to it, I doubt whether it was ever more than three
miles
distant as the bird flies. It was late in the afternoon, however, when
we
turned the last corner; and the sun was already setting when the boat
reached
the village of Hamra, which is the mooring-place for Siût –
Siût itself, with
clustered cupolas and arrowy minarets, lying back in the plain, at the
foot of
a great mountain pierced with tombs. Now, it
was in the bond that our crew were to be allowed twenty-four hours for
making
and baking bread at Siût, Esneh, and Assuân. No sooner,
therefore, was the
dahabeeyah moored than Reïs Hassan and the steersman started away
at full speed
on two little donkeys, to buy flour; while Mehemet Ali, one of our most
active
and intelligent sailors, rushed off to hire the oven. For here, as at
Esneh and
Assuân, there are large flour-stores and public bakehouses for
the use of
sailors on the river, who make and bake their bread in large lots; cut
it into
slices; dry it in the sun; and preserve it in the form of rusks for
months
together. Thus prepared, it takes the place of ship-biscuit; and it is
so far
superior to ship-biscuit that it neither moulds nor breeds the maggot,
but
remains good and wholesome to the last crumb. Siût,
frequently written Asyoot, is the capital of Middle Egypt, and has the
best
bazaars of any town up the Nile. Its red and black pottery is famous
throughout
the country; and its pipe-bowls (supposed to be the best in the East),
being
largely exported to Cairo, find their way not only to all parts of the
Levant,
but to every Algerine and Japanese shop in London and Paris. No lover
of
peasant pottery will yet have forgotten the Egyptian stalls in the
Ceramic
Gallery of the International Exhibition of 1871. All those quaint red
vases and
lustrous black tazzas, all those exquisite little coffee services,
those
crocodile paper-weights, those barrel-shaped and bird-shaped bottles,
came from
Siût. There is a whole street of such pottery here in the town.
Your dahabeeyah
is scarcely made fast before a dealer comes on board and ranges his
brittle
wares along the deck. Others display their goods upon the bank. But the
best
things are only to be had in the bazaars; and not even in Cairo is it
possible
to find Siût ware so choice in color, form, and design as that
which the two or
three best dealers bring out, wrapped in soft paper, when a European
customer
appears in the market. Besides
the street of pottery, there is a street of red shoes; another of
native and
foreign stuffs; and the usual run of saddlers’ shops,
kebab-stalls, and Greek stores
for the sale of everything in heaven or earth from third-rate cognac to
patent
wax vestas. The houses are of plastered mud or sun-dried bricks, as at
Minieh.
The thoroughfares are dusty, narrow, unpaved and crowded, as at Minieh.
The
people are one-eyed, dirty, and unfragrant, as at Minieh. The
children’s eyes
are full of flies and their heads are covered with sores, as at Minieh.
In
short, it is Minieh over again on a larger scale; differing only in
respect of
its inhabitants, who, instead of being sullen, thievish, and
unfriendly, are
too familiar to be pleasant, and the most unappeasable beggars out of
Ireland.
So our mirage turns to sordid reality, and Siût, which from afar
off looked
like the capital of Dreamland, resolves itself into a big mud town as
ugly and
ordinary as its fellows. Even the minarets, so elegant from a distance,
betray
for the most part but rough masonry and clumsy ornamentation when
closely
looked into. A lofty
embanked road planted with fine sycamore-figs leads from Hamra to
Siût; and
another embanked road leads from Siût to the mountain of tombs.
Of the ancient
Egyptian city no vestige remains, the modern town being built upon the
mounds
of the earlier settlement; but the City of the Dead – so much of
it, at least,
as was excavated in the living rock – survives, as at Memphis, to
commemorate
the departed splendor of the place. We took
donkeys next day to the edge of the desert, and went up to the
sepulchres on
foot. The mountain, which looked a delicate salmon pink when seen from
afar,
now showed bleached and arid and streaked with ochreous yellow. Layer
above
layer, in beds of strongly marked stratification, it towered overhead;
tier
above tier, the tombs yawned, open-mouthed, along the face of the
precipice. I
picked up a fragment of the rock, and found it light, porous, and full
of
little cells, like pumice. The slopes were strewn with such stones, as
well as
with fragments of mummy, shreds of mummy-cloth, and human bones all
whitening
and withering in the sun. The first
tomb we came to was the so-called Stabl Antar – a magnificent but
cruelly
mutilated excavation, consisting of a grand entrance, a vaulted
corridor, a
great hall, two side-chambers, and a sanctuary. The ceiling of the
corridor,
now smoke-blackened and defaced, has been richly decorated with
intricate
patterns in light green, white, and buff, upon a ground of dark
bluish-green
stucco. The wall to the right on entering is covered with a long
hieroglyphic
inscription. In the sanctuary, vague traces of seated figures, male and
female,
with lotus blossoms in their hands, are dimly visible. Two colossal
warriors
incised in outline upon the levelled rock – the one very perfect,
the other
hacked almost out of recognition – stand on each side of the huge
portal. A circular
hole in the threshold marks the spot where the great door once worked
upon its
pivot; and a deep pit, now partially filled in with rubbish, leads from
the
centre of the hall to some long-rifled vault deep down in the heart of
the
mountain. Wilful destruction has been at work on every side. The
wall-sculptures are chipped and defaced – the massive pillars
that once
supported the superincumbent rock have been quarried away – the
interior is
heaped high with débris. Enough is left, however, to attest the
antique
stateliness of the tomb; and the hieroglyphic inscription remains
almost intact
to tell its age and history. This
inscription (erroneously entered in Murray’s Guide as uncopied,
but interpreted
by Brugsch, who published extracts from it as far back as 1862) shows
the
excavation to have been made for one Hepoukefa, or Haptefa, nomarch of
the
Lycopolite Nome, and chief priest of the jackal god of Siût.2
It is
also famous among scientific students for certain passages which
contain
important information regarding the intercalary days of the Egyptian
kalendar.3
We observed that the full-length figures on the jambs of
the doorway
appeared to have been incised, filled in with stucco, and then
coloured. The
stucco had for the most part fallen out, though enough remained to show
the
style of the work.4 From this
tomb to the next we crept by way of a passage, tunnelled in the
mountain, and
emerged into a spacious, quadrangular grotto, even more dilapidated
than the
first. It had been originally supported by square pillars left standing
in the
substance of the rock; but, like the pillars in the tomb of Hepoukefa,
they had
been hewn away in the middle and looked like stalactite columns in
process of
formation. For the rest, two half-filled pits, a broken sarcophagus,
and a few
painted hieroglyphs upon a space of stuccoed wall, were all that
remained. One would
have liked to see the sepulchre in which Ampère, the brilliant
and eager
disciple of Champollion, deciphered the ancient name of Siût; but
since he does
not specify the cartouche by which it could be identified, one might
wander
about the mountain for a week without being able to find it. Having
first
described the Stabl Antar, he says:– “In another grotto I
found twice over the
name of the city written in hieroglyphic characters, Çi-ou-t.
This name
forms part of an inscription which also contains an ancient royal
cartouche; so
proving that the present name of the city dates back to Pharaonic
times.”5
Here,
then, we trace a double process of preservation. This town, which in
the
ancient Egyptian was written Ssout, became Lycopolis under the Greeks;
continued to be called Lycopolis throughout the period of Roman rule in
Egypt;
reverted to its old historic name under the Copts of the middle ages,
who wrote
it Siôout; and survives in the Asyoot of the Arab fellâh.
Nor is this by any
means a solitary instance. Khemmis in the same way became Panopolis,
reverted
to the Coptic Chmin, and to this day as Ekhmîm perpetuates the
legend of its
first foundation. As with these fragments of the old tongue, so with
the race.
Subdued again and again by invading hordes; intermixed for centuries
together
with Phœnician, Persian, Greek, Roman, and Arab blood, it fuses
these
heterogeneous elements in one common mould, reverts persistently to the
early
type, and remains Egyptian to the last. So strange is the tyranny of
natural
forces. The sun and soil of Egypt demand one special breed of men, and
will
tolerate no other. Foreign residents cannot rear children in the
country. In the
isthmus of Suez, which is considered the healthiest part of Egypt, an
alien
population of twenty thousand persons failed in the course of ten years
to rear
one infant born upon the soil. Children of an alien father and an
Egyptian
mother will die off in the same way in early infancy, unless brought up
in
simple native fashion. And it is affirmed of the descendants of mixed
marriages, that after the third generation the foreign blood seems to
be
eliminated, while the traits of the race are restored in their original
purity.
These are
but a few instances of the startling conservatism of Egypt, – a
conservatism
which interested me particularly, and to which I shall frequently have
occasion
to return. Each Nome,
or province, of ancient Egypt had its sacred animal; and Siût was
called
Lycopolis by the Greeks6 because the wolf (now almost
extinct in the
land) was there held in the same kind of reverence as the cat at
Bubastis, the
crocodile at Ombos, and the lion at Leontopolis. Mummy-wolves are, or
used to
be, found in the smaller tombs about the mountain, as well as mummy
jackals;
Anubis, the jackal-headed god, being the presiding deity of the
district. A
mummied jackal from this place, curiously wrapped in striped bandages,
is to be
seen in the First Egyptian Room at the British Museum. But the
view from the mountain above Siût is finer than its tombs and
more ancient than
its mummies. Seen from within the great doorway of the second grotto,
it looks
like a framed picture. For the foreground, we have a dazzling slope of
limestone
débris; in the middle distance, a wide plain clothed with the
delicious tender
green of very young corn; farther away yet, the cupolas and minarets of
Siût
rising from the midst of a belt of palm-groves; beyond these again, the
molten
gold of the great river glittering away, coil after coil, into the far
distance; and all along the horizon, the everlasting boundary of the
desert.
Large pools of placid water left by the last inundation lie here and
there,
like lakes amid the green. A group of brown men are wading yonder with
their
nets. A funeral comes along the embanked road – the bier carried
at a rapid
pace on men’s shoulders, and covered with a red shawl; the women
taking up
handfuls of dust and scattering it upon their heads as they walk. We
can see
the dust flying, and hear their shrill wail borne upon the breathless
air. The
cemetery towards which they are going lies round to the left, at the
foot of
the mountain – a wilderness of little white cupolas, with here
and there a
tree. Broad spaces of shade sleep under the spreading sycamores by the
road-side; a hawk circles overhead; and Siût, bathed in the
splendour of the
morning sun, looks as fairy-like as ever. Lepsius is
reported to have said that the view from this hill-side was the finest
in
Egypt. But Egypt is a long country, and questions of precedence are
delicate
matters to deal with. It is, however, a very beautiful view; though
most
travellers who know the scenery about Thebes and the approach to
Assûan would
hesitate, I should fancy, to give the preference to a landscape from
which the
nearer mountains are excluded by the position of the spectator. The
tombs
here, as in many other parts of Egypt, are said to have been largely
appropriated by early Christian anchorites during the reigns of the
later Roman
emperors; and to these recluses may perhaps be ascribed the legend that
makes
Lycopolis the abode of Joseph and Mary during the years of their
sojourn in
Egypt. It is, of course, but a legend, and wholly improbable. If the
holy family ever journeyed into Egypt at all, which certain Biblical
critics
now
hold to be doubtful, they probably rested from their wanderings at some
town
not very far from the eastern border – as Tanis, or Pithom, or
Bubastis. Siût
would, at all events, lie at least 250 miles to the southward of any
point to
which they might reasonably be supposed to have penetrated. Still, one would like to believe a story that laid the scene of our Lord’s childhood in the midst of this beautiful and glowing Egyptian pastoral. With what profound and touching interest it would invest the place! With what different eyes we should look down upon a landscape which must have been dear and familiar to Him in all its details, and which, from the nature of the ground, must have remained almost unchanged from His day to ours! The mountain with its tombs, the green corn-flats, the Nile and the desert, looked then as they look now. It is only the Moslem minarets that are new. It is only the pylons and sanctuaries of the ancient worship that have passed away. ____________________________1 Arabic – shoghool:
a rope by which the mainsail is regulated. 2 The known
inscriptions in the tomb of Haptefa have recently been recopied, and
another
long inscription, not previously transcribed, has been copied and
translated,
by Mr. F. Llewellyn Griffith, acting for the Egypt Exploration Fund.
Mr.
Griffith has for the first time fixed the date of this famous tomb,
which was
made during the reign of Usertesen I, of the twelfth dynasty. [Note to second edition.] 3 See "Recueil
des Monuments Egyptiens", Brugsch. Part I. Planche xi. Published
1862. 4 Some
famous tombs of very early date, enriched with the same kind of inlaid
decoration, are to be seen at Meydûm, near the base of the
Meydûm pyramid. 5 "Voyage en
Egypte et en Nubie," by J. J. Ampère.
The cartouche may perhaps be that
of Rakameri, mentioned by Brugsch: "Histoire d’Egypte,"
chap. vi.,
first edition. 6 The Greeks
translated the sacred names of Egyptian places; the Copts adopted the
civil
names. |
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