CHAPTER XXI. THE NILE UP TO THE FIRST CATARACT Emblem art thou of Time, memorial Stream ' SIR J. HANMER. In a constant yet varying succession of such scenes, we advance hourly towards the South. Brighter suns, and starrier skies, and stranger scenery-wilder, lonelier, more silent-receive us sometimes we travel for hours, and even days, through the desert, where nothing but a narrow band of green, that feeds itself from the river exhalations, is visible besides. Then we enter tracts of richly green meadows, flushed with flowers, or wide fields of the blossoming bean that fill the air with their delicious and delicate perfume. Here are gardens of cucumbers, fenced round with twigs and stalks of Indian corn; there, fields of the Indian corn itself, a very forest of yellow grain; there are little farms of lupines, millet, and sweet pea; banks goldspeckled with melons, and, haply, a crocodile or two basking beneath them on the sands, like dragons guarding the golden fruit of the Hesperides. All this produce and luxuriance is pumped out from the Nile, whose scattered waters are returned with rich usury from the grateful soil that has so unexpectedly received them, in shape of every green thing that the heart of (Egyptian) man or beast can desire. At intervals, all along the river, are to be seen little bowers, or sheds, like those that shelter the swans' nests upon the Thames, and under these the Arab and the buffalo are ceaselessly employed in irrigating the land. There are two species of water-engines, called the Shadoof, and the Sakeeah; the former consists of a prop fixed in the earth, on which plays a long lever, with a leather bucket attached to one end, counterpoised at the other with a weight; the pumper lets down his leathern bucket into a trench cut from the river, and, assisted by the counterpoise, lifts it up, and empties it into a trench some five or six feet of higher level. Thence it flows along a little canal, branching off into lesser ones among the crops. Sometimes, the level of the land is so high that there are three, or even four pumps and reservoirs, one over the other, each with its reservoir from which the Arab above pumps out. This is the most severe labor in Egypt, yet it is so associated with ideas of home, and perhaps of prosperity, that it is the burden of many of their national songs. The exile and the soldier (terms synonymous in Egypt) use this word as we might do "our hearths :" notwithstanding its poetry, however, no man can endure it for more than two hours at a time, so they work in gangs in the shade, the reliefs sleeping away their alternate hours of repose. The Sakeeah is a large water-wheel raised on a platform, and turned by two buffaloes; behind these, a black little naked urchin sits on the splinter-bar, continually goading his somnambulistic team. The creaking of these wheels, mingled with the monotonous drip of water, is not unmusical, and, as they are generally at work night and day, I often listened to their sound with pleasure, so blended with other and softer sounds, and refined by distance and the clear atmosphere. These sakeeahs each produce as much irrigation as five shadoofs, and are calculated at 50,000 throughout Egypt and Nubia. So vital are they to the land, that Mehemet Ali himself supplies the buffaloes to work them; for which, however, he charges twenty dollars a year as a tax upon each wheel. We passed an evening at Keneh, to collect some stores and write letters, before leaving the last African town that has any connection with the world of Europe. A Greek merchant from Sennaar, seeing lights in our cabin, came on board to claim the hospitality of pipes and coffee. He spoke Italian very fluently, and gave us an animated and interesting account of his desert journeys, and his trade, which lay in ivory, precious stones, gums. slaves, and other tropical luxuries. He inveighed with all the energy of an English radical against the unjust and impolitic restrictions laid by Mehemet Ali on the slave trade. "Would you believe it," he exclaimed in a tone of the most virtuous indignation, "the Pasha has levied a tax of five dollars on each slave imported into Egypt! Why, sir, it amounts to a prohibition, and will be the ruin of the trade!" Most of our crew were very lax in their religious observances, but some few were very zealous in their devotion: we had been several days without touching land, and this evening Mohammed availed himself of being on terra firma at sunset. He had no carpet, poor fellow, to purify the ground, but he spread his capote, and knelt down with an abstraction and apparent devotion that would have become a purer faith: his hands were clasped on his bosom, and at every utterance of the Holy Name, he pressed his forehead to the ground. All this time, an ugly negro, named Asgalani, who was a free-thinker and a wit, was amusing the crew by endeavoring to "put him out ;" and this scoffer was greatly cheered by the rest of the crew, as he skipped about him, squeaking like a monkey, barking like a dog, crowing like a cock, grinning in his face, and inquiring "how he was off for a Prophet?" This did not for a moment disturb the gravity of the worshipper; and, when he rose from his devotions, he went to his work with perfect good humor and disregard of the joker. Our impatience to proceed became greater every day, until we should reach the Thebes, but the evening fell dead calm, and we lay moored to the bank at Keneh ;* as the Arab sailors cannot, or will not, tow the boat at night. About midnight, I was awakened by a faint ripple against the bank; then came a breeze, sighing through the rigging, which was immediately followed by poking Mahmoud on the ribs through the window. Keneh is the port of the Nile in connection with Cosseir, on the Red Sea. The desert-way between the two is only seventy miles in length, and offers serious rivalry to Suez as a candidate for railway or canal to connect the Indian trade with that of Europe. This is also one of the Mecca routes. 66 Up sprung that indefatigable dragoman. "Yallough!" shouted he, in a voice that made the crew spring from their dreams; Yallough!" echoed they, the hawser was loosed, the sails spread, and our little boat darted away over the star-spangled stream, tottering and bending under the pressure of the brisk breeze on her enormous sails. Soon the crew subsided into their respective holes; the men at the sheets affected some semblance of attention, but their sleep was only the more rigid; only the faithful Bacheet, our pilot, watched throughout the night with me. I did not sleep, for some of the romance of youth came back upon my spirit, as we caught the first glimpse of mighty Thebes-unequalled amid all the world's wonders. A wanderer over the wide world from my youth up, I have visited most of the scenes consecrated by the power and the poetry of ancient times. I have stood upon the hill of Tara, where the kings of Ireland once ruled, and the assembled Thanes debated the vain but glorious deeds of conquest that their Bards inspired. I have roamed among the Highland glens, where Ossian sang, and chieftains warred. I have visit ed the battle-field of Hastings, where my Norman-robber an cestors helped to triumph over that freedom which they afterwards restored with interest to the Saxon; the plain of Tours-the Oak-tree of Guernica-the Valhalla of the Teuton-the Capitol of imperial Rome, and the Acropolis of republican Athens. I have smoked my cigar or my chibouque upon them all, and mused and marvelled at the vain, schemes and fleeting energies of my fellow-men; and at the sustained purpose and enthusiasm that ran undying along the successive representatives of their perishable race. But far beyond all these in impressiveness, if not in interest, is the mighty and mysterious Thebes-isolated among its deserts and forgotten ages, bearing awful testimony to the nothingness of mankind in its mightiest development. The first faint streak of morning reveals the vast propylæa or Carnak darkening over the bright horizon; now day-light shines on the precipitous mountains, perforated with the tombs of the kings, and the sun's first ray seems to waken Memnon into sight, if no longer into sound: a cloud, rich as a prism, with all the colors that ever glowed, hangs over the Arabian hills, and, when. the sun shines above it, we are moored under the gigantic columns of Luxor, that fling their shadow over this Portsmouth of the Pharaohs. On these waters, the armaments of Sesostris once swarmed, and their anxious crews hurried, and strove, and thought that their present moment was the only critical point of time. Now they lie mummied, monarch and minion; the manly bosom that beat for glory, and the gentle hearts that beat for them alone-all lie now at peace, in pickle, unless the antiquary or the cockney purchase their embalmed carcases for the student or the citizen to scrutinize and stare at. Little did the anxious embalmer of an imperial corpse think what pains he was bestowing to please Paddington or Cheapside; little did the expiring Pharaoh dream that Mr. Tomkins should be his resurrection angel! One glimpse at Luxor, one gallop over the plain of Carnak, and away! The wind is fair for the regions of the far South; the Mountains of the Moon lie before us, and we must reach our goal, wherever it may be, before the terrible khampseen comes on; and before we pause to examine those marvellous revelations that have taken even our excited fancy by surprise-those marvels the first of which is enough for a month's memory. The breeze only lasted until it bore us out of sight of Thebes, which is composed, so to speak, of Gournou, the Memnonium, and Medinet Abou on the Lybian side; of Carnak and Luxor on the Arabian. These are detached villages of ruins, some ten miles apart, but once connected by the dwellings of those who worshipped, or paid court in these temples and palaces. We passed the governor of Upper Egypt, who was sitting under a canopy in a neat galley, pulled by ten half-naked Arabs; an escort of four or five boats filled with officers and soldiers at tending him. Strange is the power of discipline; these very soldiers, a few months ago, were peasants, shuddering at the name of conscription, and ready to resist it to the death. They had been caught, however, and sent, as usual, in chains to Cairo there, under the lash of the drill sergeant, they had contracted such a taste for military service that they were now guarding |