"It is difficult to explain the state of society in which the civilized 'social evil' is not recognized as an evil. In the economy of the affections and the intercourse between the sexes, reappears that rude stage of society in which ethics were new to the mind of now enlightened man. Marriage with these people, as amongst all barbarians, and even the lower classes of civilized races, is a mere affair of buying and selling. A man must marry because it is necessary to his comfort; consequently the woman becomes a marketable commodity. Her father demands for her as many cows, cloths, and brasswire bracelets as the suitor can afford. He thus virtually sells her, and she belongs to the buyer, ranking with his other live stock. The husband may sell his wife, or, if she be taken from him by another man, he claims her value, which is ruled by what she would fetch in the slave-market. A strong inducement to marriage amongst the Africans, as with the poor in Europe, is the prospective benefit to be derived from an adult family; a large progeny enriches them. The African, like all barbarians, and, indeed, semi-civilized people, ignores the dowry by which, inverting nature's order, the wife buys the husband, instead of the husband buying the wife. Marriage, which is an epoch amongst Christians, and an event with Moslems, is with these people an incident of frequent recurrence. Polygamy is unlimited, and the chiefs pride themselves upon the number of their wives, varying from twelve to three hundred. It is no disgrace for an unmarried woman to become a mother of a family; after marriage there is somewhat less laxity. The mgoni, or adulterer, if detected, is punishable by a fine of cattle, or, if poor and weak, he is sold into slavery. Husbands seldom, however, resort to such severities; the offence, which is considered to be against vested property, being held to be lighter than petty larceny. Under the influence of jealousy, murders and mutilations have been committed; but they are rare and exceptional. Divorce is readily effected by turning the spouse out of doors, and the children become the father's property. Attachment to home is powerful in the African race; but it regards rather the comforts and pleasures of the house, and the unity of relations and friends, than the fondness of the family. Husband, wife, and children have through life divided interests, and live together with scant appearance of affection. Love of offspring can have but little power amongst a people who have no preventive for illegitimacy, and whose progeny may be sold at any time. The children appear undemonstrative and unaffectionate, as those of the Somal. Some attachment to their mothers breaks out, not in outward indications, but by surprise, as it were. 'Mamá! mamá!'—'Mother! mother!'—is a common exclamation in fear or wonder. When childhood is passed, the father and son become natural enemies, after the manner of wild beasts. Yet they are a sociable race, and the sudden loss of relatives sometimes, but rarely, leads from grief to hypochondria and insanity, resulting from the inability of their minds to bear any unusual strain. It is probable that a little learning would make them mad, like the Widad, or priest of the Somal, who, after mastering the reading of the Koran, becomes unfit for any exertion of judgment or common sense. To this over-development of sociability must be ascribed the anxiety always shown to shift, evade, or answer blame. The 'ukosa,' or transgression, is never accepted; any number of words will be wasted in proving the worse the better cause. Hence also the favourite phrase, 'Mbáyá we!'—'Thou art bad!'—a pet mode of reproof which sounds simple and uneffective to European ears.
"The social position of the women—the unerring test of progress towards civilization—is not so high in East Africa as amongst the more highly organized tribes of the South. Few of the country own the rule of female chiefs. The people, especially the Wanyamwezi, consult their wives; but the opinion of a brother or a friend usually prevail over that of a woman.
"The deficiency of the East African in constructive power has already been remarked. Contented with his haystack or beehive hut, his hemisphere of boughs, or his hide-acting tent, he hates, and has a truly savage horror of stone walls. He has the conception of the 'Madeleine,' but he has never been enabled to be delivered of it. Many Wanyamwezi, when visiting Zanzibar, cannot be prevailed upon to enter a house.
"The East African is greedy and voracious. He seems, however, to prefer light and frequent to a few regular and copious meals. Even the civilized Kisawahili has no terms to express the breakfast, dinner, and supper of other languages. Like most barbarians, the East African can exist and work with a small quantity of food; but he is unaccustomed, and therefore unable, to bear thirst. The daily ration of a porter is one kubabah (= 1.5 lbs.) of grain. He can, with the assistance of edible herbs and roots, which he is skilful in discovering in the least likely places, eke out this allowance for several days, though generally, upon the barbarian's impulsive principles of mortgaging the future for the present, he recklessly consumes his stores. With him the grand end of life is eating. His love of feeding is inferior only to his propensity for intoxication. He drinks till he can no longer stand, lies down to sleep, and awakes to drink again. Drinking-bouts are solemn things, to which the most important business must yield precedence. They celebrate with beer every event—the traveller's return, the birth of a child, and the death of an elephant. A labourer will not work unless beer is provided for him. The highest order rejoice in drink, and pride themselves upon powers of imbibing. The proper diet for a king is much beer and little meat. If a Wanyamwezi be asked, after eating, whether he is hungry, he will reply 'Yea,' meaning that he is not drunk. Intoxication excuses crime in these lands. The East African, when in his cups, must issue from his hut to sing, dance, or quarrel, and the frequent and terrible outrages which occur on these occasions are passed over on the plea that he has drunk beer. The favourite hour for drinking is after dawn—a time as distasteful to the European as agreeable to the African and Asiatic. This might be proved by a host of quotations from the poets, Arab, Persian, and Hindu. The civilized man avoids early potations, because they incapacitate him for necessary labour, and he attempts to relieve the headache caused by stimulants. The barbarian and the semi-civilized, on the other hand, prefer them, because they relieve the tedium of his monotonous day; and they cherish the headache because they can sleep the longer, and, when they awake, they have something to think of. The habit, once acquired, is never broken; it attaches itself to the heartstrings of the idle and unoccupied barbarian.
"In morality, according to the more extended sense of the word, the East African is markedly deficient. He has no benevolence, but little veneration—the negro race is ever irreverent—and, though his cranium rises high in the region of firmness, his futility prevents his being firm. The outlines of law are faintly traced upon his heart. The authoritative standard of morality fixed by a revelation is in him represented by a vague and varying custom, derived traditionally from his ancestors; he follows in their track for old-sake's sake. The accusing conscience is unknown to him. His only fear after committing a treacherous murder is that of being haunted by the angry ghost of the dead; he robs as one doing a good deed, and he begs as if it were his calling. His depravity is of the grossest: intrigue fills up all the moments not devoted to intoxication.
"The want of veneration produces a savage rudeness in the East African. The body politic consists of two great members—masters and slaves. Ignoring distinction of society, he treats all men, except his chief, as his equals. He has no rules for visiting: if the door be open, he enters a stranger's house uninvited; his harsh, barking voice is ever the loudest; he is never happy except when hearing himself speak; his address is imperious, his demeanour is rough and peremptory, and his look bold. He deposits his unwashed person, in his greasy and tattered goatskin or cloth, upon rug or bedding, disdaining to stand for a moment, and he always chooses the best place in the room. When travelling, he will push forward to secure the most comfortable hut: the chief of a caravan may sleep in rain or dew, but, if he attempts to dislodge his porters, they lie down with the settled purpose of mules—as the Arabs say, they 'have no shame.' The curiosity of these people is at times most troublesome. A stranger must be stared at; total apathy is the only remedy: if the victim lose his temper, or attempt to dislodge them, he will find it like disturbing a swarm of bees. They will come for miles to 'sow gape-seed:' if the tent-fly be closed, they will peer and peep from below, complaining loudly against the occupant, and, if further prevented, they may proceed to violence. On the road hosts of idlers, especially women, boys, and girls—will follow the caravan for hours; it is a truly offensive spectacle—these uncouth figures, running at a 'gymnastic pace,' half clothed except with grease, with pendant bosoms shaking in the air, and cries that resemble the howls of beasts more than any effort of human articulation. This offensive ignorance of the first principles of social intercourse has been fostered in the races most visited by the Arabs, whose national tendency, like the Italian and the Greek, is ever and essentially republican. When strangers first appeared in the country they were received with respect and deference. They soon, however, lost this vantage-ground: they sat and chatted with the people, exchanged pleasantries, and suffered slights, till the Africans found themselves on an equality with their visitors. The evil has become inveterate, and no greater contrast can be imagined than that between the manners of an Indian ryot and an East African Mshenzi.
"In intellect the East African is sterile and incult, apparently unprogressive and unfit for change. Like the uncivilized generally, he observes well, but he can deduce nothing profitable from his perceptions. His intelligence is surprising when compared with that of an uneducated English peasant; but it has a narrow bound, beyond which apparently no man may pass. Like the Asiatic, in fact, he is stationary, but at a much lower level. Devotedly fond of music, his love of tune has invented nothing but whistling and the whistle: his instruments are all borrowed from the coast people. He delights in singing, yet he has no metrical songs: he contents himself with improvising a few words without sense or rhyme, and repeats them till they nauseate: the long, drawling recitative generally ends in 'Ah! ha!' or some such strongly nasalized sound. Like the Somal, he has tunes appropriated to particular occasions, as the elephant-hunt or the harvest-home. When mourning, the love of music assumes a peculiar form: women weeping or sobbing, especially after chastisement, will break into a protracted threne or dirge, every period of which concludes with its own particular groan or wail: after venting a little distress in a natural sound, the long, long improvisation, in the highest falsetto key, continues as before. As in Europe the 'laughing-song' is an imitation of hilarity somewhat distressing to the spirits of the audience, so the 'weeping-song' of the African only tends to risibility. His wonderful loquacity and volubility of tongue have produced no tales, poetry, nor display of eloquence; though, like most barbarians, somewhat sententious, he will content himself with squabbling with his companions, or with repeating some meaningless word in every different tone of voice during the weary length of a day's march. His language is highly artificial and musical: the reader will have observed that the names which occur often consist entirely of liquids and vowels, that consonants are unknown at the end of a word, and that they never are double except at the beginning. Yet the idea of a syllabarium seems not to have occurred to the negroid mind. Finally, though the East African delights in the dance, and is an excellent timist—a thousand heels striking the ground simultaneously sound like one—his performance is as uncouth as perhaps was ever devised by man. He delights in a joke, which manages him like a Neapolitan; yet his efforts in wit are of the feeblest that can be conceived.
"'Use savages justly and graciously, with sufficient guard nevertheless.' They must be held as foes; and the prudent stranger will never put himself in their power, especially where life is concerned. The safety of a caravan will often depend upon the barbarian's fear of beginning the fray: if the onset takes place, the numbers, the fierce looks, the violent gestures, and the confidence of the assailants upon their own ground will probably prevail.
"They may be managed as the Indian saw directs, by a judicious mixture of the Narm and Garm—the soft and hot. Thus the old traders remarked in Guinea, that the best way to treat a black man was to hold out one hand to shake with him, while the other is doubled ready to knock him down. In trading with, or even when dwelling amongst these people, all display of wealth must be avoided. A man who would purchase the smallest article avoids showing anything beyond its equivalent.
"Much of this moral degradation must be attributed to the working, through centuries, of the slave-trade: the tribes are no longer as nature made them; and from their connection with strangers they have derived nothing but corruption. Though of savage and barbarous type, they have been varnished with the semi-civilization of trade and commerce, which sits ridiculously upon their minds as a rich garment would upon their persons.
"Nature, in these regions really sublime or beautiful, more often terrible and desolate, with the gloomy forest, the impervious jungle, the tangled hill, and the dread uniform waste tenanted by deadly inhabitants, arouses in his mind a sensation of utter feebleness, a vague and nameless awe. Untaught to recommend himself for protection to a Superior Being, he addresses himself directly to the objects of his reverence and awe: he prostrates himself before the sentiment within him, hoping to propitiate it as he would satisfy a fellow-man. The grand mysteries of life and death, to him unrevealed and unexplained, the want of a true interpretation of the admirable phenomena of creation, and the vagaries and misconceptions of his own degraded imagination, awaken in him ideas of horror, and people the invisible world with ghost and goblin, demon and spectrum, the incarnations, as it were, of his own childish fears. Deepened by the dread of destruction, ever strong in the barbarian breast, his terror causes him to look with suspicion upon all around him: 'How,' inquires the dying African, 'can I alone be ill when others are well, unless I have been bewitched?'
"Some missionaries have detected in the habit, which prevails throughout Eastern and Western Africa, of burying slaves with the deceased, of carrying provisions to graves, and of lighting fires on cold nights near the last resting-places of the departed, a continuation of relations between the quick and the dead which points to a belief in a future state of existence. The wish is father to that thought: the doctrine of the soul, of immortality, belongs to a superior order of mind, to a more advanced stage of society. The belief, as its operations show, is in presentity, materialism, not in futurity, spiritualism.
"When the savage and the barbarian are asked what has become of the 'old people' (their ancestors), they only smile and reply, 'They are ended.' It proves the inferior organization of the race. Some races have decided that man hath a future, since even Indian corn is vivified and rises again. The East African has created of his fears a ghost which never attains the perfect form of a soul.
"The East African's Credenda are based upon two main articles. The first is demonology, or rather, the spectra of the dead; the second, witchcraft or black magic. Few, and only the tribes adjacent to the maritime regions, have derived from El Islam a faint conception of the One Supreme.
"He has not, like the Kafir, a holiday at the epoch of new moon: like the Moslem, however, on first seeing it, he raises and claps his hands in token of obeisance. In his Fetish hut upon the ground, or suspended from the roof, are handfuls of grain and small pots full of beer, placed there to propitiate the ghosts, and to defend the crops from injury.
"The African temperament has strong susceptibilities, combined with what appears to be a weakness of brain, and great excitability of the nervous system, as is proved by the prevalence of epilepsy, convulsions, and hysteric disease.
"The negroid is, therefore, peculiarly liable to the epidemical mania called 'Phantasmata,' which, according to history, has at times of great mental agitation and popular disturbance broken out in different parts of Europe, and which, even in this our day, forms the basework of 'revivals.'
"Salim bin Rashíd, a half-caste merchant, well known at Zanzibar, avers, and his companions bear witness to his words, that on one occasion, when travelling northwards from Unyanyembe, the possession occurred to himself. During the night two female slaves, his companions, of whom one was a child, fell, without apparent cause, into fits which denote the approach of a spirit. Simultaneously, the master became as one intoxicated; a dark mass, material, not spiritual, entered the tent, and he felt himself pulled and pushed by a number of black figures, whom he had never seen before. He called aloud to his companions and slaves, who, vainly attempting to enter the tent, threw it down, and presently found him in a state of stupor, from which he did not recover till the morning. The same merchant circumstantially related, and called witnesses to prove, that a small slave-boy, who was produced on the occasion, had been frequently carried off by possession even when confined in a windowless room, with a heavy door carefully bolted and padlocked. Next morning the victim was not found, although the chamber remained closed. A few days afterwards he was met in the jungle, wandering absently like an idiot, and with speech too incoherent to explain what had happened to him.
"For ordeal the people of Usumbara thrust a red-hot hatchet into the mouth of the accused. Among the south-eastern tribes a heated iron spike, driven into some tender part of the person, is twice struck with a log of wood. The Wazaramo dip the hand into boiling water, the Waganda into seething oil, and the Wazegura prick the ear with the stiffest bristle of a gnu's tail. The Wakwafi have an ordeal of meat that chokes the guilty. The Wanyamwezi pound with water between two stones, and infuse a poisonous bark called 'Mwavi:' it is first administered by the Mganga to a hen, who, for the nonce, represents the suspected. If, however, all parties be not satisfied with such trial, it is duly adhibited to the accused.
"The Mganga (medicine man) aids his tribe by magical arts in wars, by catching a bee, reciting over it certain incantations, and loosing it in the direction of the foe, when the insect will instantly summon an army of its fellows and disperse a host, however numerous. This belief well illustrates the easy passage of the natural into the supernatural. The land being full of swarms, and man's body being wholly exposed, many a caravan has been dispersed like chaff before the wind by a bevy of swarming bees. Similarly, in South Africa the magician kicks an ant-hill and starts wasps which put the enemy to flight. And in the Books of the Hebrews we read that the hornet sent before the children of Israel against the Amorite was more terrible than sword or bow (Joshua xxiv.).
"On the coast and in the island of Zanzibar the slaves are of two kinds—the Muwallid or domestic, born in captivity, and the wild slave imported from the interior.
"In the former case the slave is treated as one of the family, because the master's comfort depends upon the man being contented; often also his sister occupies the dignified position of concubine to the head of the house. These slaves vary greatly in conduct.
"The Arabs spoil them by kinder usage; few employ the stick, the salib, or cross—a forked pole to which the neck and ankles are lashed—and the makantale, or stocks, for fear or desertion. Yet the slave, if dissatisfied, silently leaves the house, lets himself to another master, and returns after perhaps two years' absence as if nothing had occurred. Thus he combines the advantages of freedom and slavery.
"Full-grown serfs are bought for predial purposes; they continue indocile, and alter little by domestication. When not used by the master they are left to plunder or let themselves out for food and raiment, and when dead they are cast into the sea or into the nearest pit. These men are the scourge of society; no one is safe from their violence; and to preserve a garden or an orchard from the depredations of the half-starved wretches, a guard of musketeers would be required. They are never armed, yet, as has been recounted, they have caused at Zanzibar servile wars, deadly and lasting as those of ancient Rome.
"Arabs declare that the barbarians are improved by captivity—a partial theory open to doubt. The servum pecus retain in thraldom that wildness and obstinacy which distinguish the people and the lower animals of their native lands; they are trapped, but not tamed; they become captives, but not civilized. However trained, they are probably the worst servants in the world; a slave-household is a model of discomfort.
"The old definition of a slave still holds good—'an animal that eats as much and does as little as possible.' A whole gang will barely do the work of a single servant. He must deceive, for fraud and foxship are his force; when detected in some prodigious act of rascality, he pathetically pleads, 'Am I not a slave?' He will run away from the semblance of danger; yet on a journey he will tie his pipe to a leaky keg of gunpowder, and smoke it in that position rather than take the trouble to undo it. A slave belonging to Musa, the Indian merchant at Kazeh, unwilling to rise and fetch a pipe, opened the pan of his musket, filled it with tobacco and fire, and beginning to inhale it from the muzzle blew out his brains. Growing confident and impudent from the knowledge of how far he may safely go, the slave presumes to the utmost. He steals instinctively, like a magpie: a case is quoted in which the gold spangles were stripped from an officer's sword-belt whilst dining with the Prince of Zanzibar.
"The brutishness of negroid nature is brought out by the cheap and readily attainable pleasures of semi-civilization. Whenever on moonlight nights the tapping of the tomtom responds to the vile squeaking of the fife, it is impossible to keep either male or female slave within doors. All rendezvous at the place, and, having howled and danced themselves into happiness, conclude with a singularly disorderly scene.
"The negroid slaves greatly improve by exportation: they lose much of the surliness and violence which distinguish them at Zanzibar, and are disciplined into a kind of respect for superiors.
"In the present day the Persians and other Asiatics are careful, when bound on distant or dangerous journeys, to mix white servants with black slaves; they hold the African to be full of strange caprices, and to be ever at heart a treacherous and bloodthirsty barbarian.
"According to the Arabs there is another servile republic about Gulwen, near Brava. Travellers speak with horror of the rudeness, violence, and cruelty of these self-emancipated slaves; they are said to be more dangerous even than the Somal, who for wanton mischief and malice can be compared with nothing but the naughtiest schoolboys in England.
"The serviles at Zanzibar have played their Arab masters some notable tricks. Many a severe lord has perished by the hand of a slave. Several have lost their eyes by the dagger's point during sleep. Curious tales are told of ingenious servile conspiracy. Mohammed bin Sayf, a Zanzibar Arab, remarkable for household discipline, was brought to grief by Kombo, his slave, who stole a basket of nutmegs from the Prince, and, hiding them in his master's house, denounced him of theft. Fahl bin Nasr, a travelling merchant, when passing through Ugogo, nearly lost his life in consequence of a slave having privily informed the people that his patron had been killing crocodiles and preserving their fat for poison. In both these cases the slaves were not punished; they had acted, it was believed, according to the true instincts of servile nature, and chastisement would have caused desertion, not improvement.
"Prices of slaves range from six feet of unbleached domestics, or a few pounds of grain in time of famine, to seventy dollars, equal to £15. The slaves are cheapest in the interior, on account of the frequency of desertion: about Unyamwezi they are dearer, and most expensive in the island of Zanzibar.
"At Zanzibar the price of a boy under puberty is from fifteen to thirty dollars. A youth till the age of fifteen is worth a little less. A man in the prime of life, from twenty-five to forty, fetches from thirteen to twenty dollars; after that age he may be bought from ten to thirteen. Educated slaves, fitted for the work of factors, are sold from twenty-five to seventy dollars and at fancy prices. The price of females is everywhere about one-third higher than that of males. At Zanzibar the ushur, or custom-dues, vary according to the race of the slave: the Wahiao, Wangindo, and other serviles imported from Kilwa pay one dollar per head, from the Mrima or maritime regions two dollars, and from Unyamwezi, Ujiji, and the rest of the interior three dollars. At the central depôt, Unyanyembe, where slaves are considered neither cheap nor dear, the value of a boy ranges between eight and ten doti, or double cloths; a youth, from nine to eleven; a man in prime, from five to ten, and past his prime from four to six. In some parts of the interior men are dearer than children under puberty. In the cheapest places, as in Karagwah and Urori, a boy costs three shukkahs of cloth, and three fundo or thirty strings of coral beads; a youth, from ten to fifteen fundo; a man in prime, from eight to ten; and no one will purchase an old man. These general notes must not, however, be applied to particular tribes: as with ivory and other valuable commodities, the amount and the description of the circulating medium vary at almost every march.
"The average of yearly import into the island of Zanzibar was fourteen thousand head of slaves, the extremes being nine thousand and twenty thousand. The loss by mortality and desertion is thirty per cent. per annum; thus, the whole gang must be renewed between the third and fourth year.
"By a stretch of power slavery might readily be abolished in the island of Zanzibar, and in due time, after the first confusion, the measure would doubtless be found as profitable as it is now unpalatable to the landed proprietors and to the commercial body. A 'sentimental squadron,' like the West African, would easily, by means of steam, prevent any regular exportation to the Asiatic continent. But these measures would deal only with effects, leaving the causes in full vigour; they would strike at the bole and branches, the root retaining sufficient vitality to resume its functions as soon as relieved of the pressure from without. Neither treaty nor fleet would avail permanently to arrest the course of slavery upon the seaboard, much less would it act in the far realms of the interior. At present the African will not work; the purchase of predial slaves to till the harvest for him, is the great aim of his life. When a more extensive intercourse with the maritime regions shall beget wants which compel the barbarian, now contented with doing nothing and having nothing, to that individual exertion and that mutual dependency which render serfdom a moral impossibility in the more advanced stages of human society—when man, now valueless except to himself, shall become more precious by his labour than by his sale, in fact an article so expensive that strangers cannot afford to buy him—then we may expect to witness the extinction of the evil. Thus, and thus only, can 'Rachel, still weeping for her children,' in the evening of her days, be made happy.
"Meanwhile, the philanthropist, who after sowing the good seed has sense and patience to consign the gathering of the crop to posterity, will hear with pleasure that the extinction of slavery would be hailed with delight by the great mass throughout the length and breadth of Eastern Africa. This people, 'robbed and spoiled' by their oppressors, who are legionary, call themselves 'the meat,' and the slave-dealers 'the knife:' they hate and fear their own demon Moloch, but they lack unanimity to free their necks from his yoke. Africa still 'lies in her blood,' but the progress of human society, and the straiter bonds which unite man with man, shall eventually rescue her from her old pitiable fate."
APPENDIX H.
REPORT AFTER GOING TO SEARCH FOR PALMER.
"It is said to be generally believed in official quarters that the whole
of the troops forming the army of occupation in Egypt will have been
withdrawn by the end of the financial year (Daily Papers).
"'Many will consider the following statement sensational and exaggerated, while it is distinctly, confessedly realistic. There is no second opinion upon the subject amongst foreigners in Egypt, whatever Egyptians may say, not think. When the last English soldier leaves Alexandria, the last European had better embark with him. Shortly after the final eclipse of our Redcoats and our Bluejackets the Nile Valley will witness a human hurricane which its lively annals have not yet chronicled. As we are here so here we must perforce rest. It is our second conquest of the glorious land which—all know—was offered in gift to England some years before its final fall. We honestly declined the "Protectorate," or whatever it may be called. Now, the tyranny of circumstance forces—nay! has forced—it upon us.'
"These lines were written in early 1883, and time has brought with it no change. Our occupation of Egypt is compulsory as ever. We only have made matters worse by those 'extra-parliamentary utterances,' those pledges for withdrawal which have kept the Nile Valley in a state of chronic excitement. As for our newly raised 'Army' and Police force, these men would be the first to turn upon Europeans and to rend them.
"A few words concerning the voyage.
"Nothing can be pleasanter, if aught of the kind can please, than a steamer-trip from Trieste to Alexandria. This, too, despite the visages patibulaires of a First Class which should travel Second Class, of a Second which ever intrudes into the domains and dominions of a First Class, and despite the terrible infantry which makes an irritable Italian exclaim aloud, 'Sancte Herode ora pro nobis!' The weather is sometimes perfect even in gloomy November, boisterous December, and roaring January. The scene-shifting of the five days, which may be six, is ever various and ever picturesque. The first, which begins at noon, is the Trieste-Dalmatian, showing the many-featured and historic shores of Trieste, vice-queen of the Adriatic and the Istrian coasts, which want only a secret something to make them thoroughly classical and Italian. It ends as morning rises splendid over the snowy crest and the bold seafront of the Dinarian Alps; and forenoon and afternoon are spent in gazing at the grey archipelago sharply thrown out from the Mediterranean blue; the rock-stuck Pomo; 'piscous' Sant' Andrea; romantic Lissa, whose Egypto-Greek art-remains make the fortune of the Spalato Museum; Cazza, the 'spoon' with bulging handle and bowl; broken Lagosta; the Sabbion cello Promontory, tossed and towering in azure air; and Pelagosa, the last remnant of a volcanic rim where lightning is deadly and where wind-storms are unknown.
"No. 2, the Albanian-Corfu day, opens with a near prospect of the grand and grandly named Akrokeraunian (Cimariot) Rocks. Whatever gales, Tramontana or Scirocco, may roar outside, the basin of Korkyra, forty-eight hours from Trieste and seventy-two from Alexandria, is a haven of rest tranquil as a dry dock. We have time to land and to note that transfer from England to Greece has by no means ruined the city, and to hear Mr. Gladstone roundly abused for what was done by Lord Palmerston.
"At Corfu we shipped for Egypt 245 Arnauts, the sweepings of the Albanian hills. These men, who were popularly described as 'Bathmen (Hammámjís) in Stambul and Pharaohs in Cairo,' are now returning to Nile-land, whence they were expelled by Said Pasha. We know them a mile off by their broad brows and long straight uncombed locks; their cats' moustachios and peaky chins; their felt caps and 'shaggy capotes;' their foul fustanella-skirts, girt with leather-belts for the nonce void of weapons; their archaic leggings (knemides) and their barbarous hide-sandals, the Slav upanke. These savages would doubtless train to good light infantry; but they are engaged as police. Set a thief to catch a thief may be true, but when the latter is caught how does the former occupy himself?
"Six hours beyond Corfu we draw inshore, but not too near on account of a lately found shoal, the deposit of a supposed submarine volcano. Hard by us to port a tall white precipice, Leucatos, in inverted bow-window-shape, breaks the seaward front of Leukadia Island, alias Sta. Maura; and a long red streak shows 'Sappho's Leap.' Like Abel, whose slaughter-place is near Damascus, the poetess must have contained more 'curious juice' than a school of whales. A narrow strait separates Leukadia from Theaki (Ithaca), and we see distinctly the cause why Ulysses could not rest from travel. A double lump of grey-red limestone patched with dwarf evergreens, a few olives, and fewer cypresses; here and there a slip of field-slope no larger than a courtyard; sundry windmills on the hill-tops and rude tenements on the lower levels; a road gashed on the scaur-side leading to a 'port,' that consists of a covelet and one house and the general look of a place fit only for convicts, could have offered few charms to the crafty one who had seen the manners of many men and their cities. Cefalonia, the opposite feature, shows more fertility, because we see her landward face, and her tall cones Georgio and Elato, which make sunset about three p.m., condense the vapours and water her with 'Scotch mist.'
"Then comes the Zante-Morea day, the fair island fronted by the Skopo block with its white-walled monastery. Its huge old citadel overhanging the town, which stretches herself lazily upon the sunny slope, is still desert; not so the inner valley, 'O Kampos,' bounded by a hill-range which Zantiotes compare with the Jura line. On the fronting mainland south of grey Cape Glarenza (Clarence?) rises the once doughty pile Kastro Tornesi. Leaving the Zante-Channel we run near enough to distinguish the features of Pylus Bay, now Navarino ('of the Avars'), with its natural breakwater, Sphacteria, hodie Sphagia, Island, where the Spartans were made captives. Then Methone (Modon) Port and Town, sister of Pylus,[1] whence the Mekhitaris Fathers spread through Upper Italy and Lower Austria; Cervera Islet, with its lighthouse; and Matapan, where Southern Europe ends. A very bad name has this terminal point, Tænorum, the Matapan (forehead) amongst Moderns as amongst Ancients, despite the good auspices of Poseidon, Herakles, and Orion. A western in-draught through the Sicilian and Gibraltar Straits or the return current of the same blows up high side-seas. The Corinth cut is intended for a cure, but will it ever be cut? Dim in haze beyond Matapan we see the long outlines of Malta or St. Angelo Promontory, distinguished only by a hermitage which is never vacant.
"Despite frequent disillusions we open our eyes at the sight of Cerigo and Cerigotto. What dull, commonplace, miserable lumps of limestone to represent poetic Cythera! Did Greek fancy go mad when it chose such a home for lovely Cytheræa? During the night we run by Candia, Crete, a huge front of calcareous wall, with green-flecked sides and copings snow-powdered and mist-feathered. The last land we shall see (thirty-six hours from Corfu) is the Gavdo or Gozzo Islet, distinguished only by its French lighthouse. And now patience after Gavdo day (No. 4); we shall have nothing in view but air and water, and look forward to Alexandria on the morrow.
"At length a passenger, with eyes glued to his binoculars, screams that he sees le Phare or Eunostus light. All crowd around him, striving to see as much. Presently it stands up distinct, a white thimble-top capping the sheet of indigo. Running in we note the effects of the bombardment. Far to starboard rise the Marabút works, all knocked to pieces. Meks, over the bow, shows as much light through it as the shell of bulbous palace which it guarded: only one high flank now stands upright. Eastward lie the battered mainland batteries, between the harbour and Mareotis, the lake basin which we attempted, and this time failed, to flood. On the seaward side of the port are the works of Ras el-Tín, the headland (not 'of figs,' but) of clay, where rude potteries were once made. The walls are smashed, the big guns point wildly in all directions, and a white patch upon the tall light-tower marks where one of the heaviest bolts struck. The interior was found in fragments, but the sailors soon rigged up the apparatus. Further east Adda stands disconsolate, a series of breaches. Towered Fort Pharos, traditional site of the World's Wonder, at the heel of the Alexandrian sock, also shows huge chasms in the masonry. Picnics visit the ruins, but the artists of the various 'Illustrateds' have made the scene perfectly familiar to us. There has, however, been treasure-trove among the débris, such as stones with hieroglyphs, and a Latin inscription built up in the ashlar.
"A good result of this 'knocking about' will be to abolish the Alexandrian bar, which has kept thousands of tall ships rolling in the dangerous offing through livelong nights. The City of Zu'l-Karnayu (Alexander of the Two Horns) has built for herself a fine house, neglecting only the doorway, even as Balzac forgot only his villa staircase. The object of retaining the obstacle was to prevent the entrance of a fleet in war-time—incredible; but such was the policy of modern Egypt's short-sighted sons! The Bughaz, or Central Passage, flanked by Corvette Passage east, and west by Marabút Passage, is the main line, marked by buoys invisible at night—hence the delays. The scattered reefs of coralline must be blown up and the fragments removed, otherwise bad will wax worse. The work should be entrusted to an English contractor of repute, say Sir G. Elliot: a host of Levantines, Greeks and others, are proposing to do the job cheaply and badly. I heard £40,000 as the inadequate sum proposed.
"Very gay and lively is the glorious new Harbour, where warships of all nations, even Turkish, are alive with martial sounds. Steamers are puffing in and out, tugs are plying, and small craft under sail and oar are dotting the broad expanse. Three transports embark homeward-bound. The much-abused hospital ship Carthage, a whited sepulchre, lies apart, sulking as it were. Colliers and merchantmen line the landing-places, and even the Dry Dock is at work. Near the inner Mole stand the old Egyptian men-of-war, suggesting Greenwich pensioners; the sooner they are sold and broken up for building material the better. Presently appears the ubiquitous Cook's boat, as we learn from white calico letters sewn upon raiment red as the mediæval Headsman's. We surrender at discretion, leave a card at the custom-house, and take carriage at the Marina or quay.
"The burnings begin at once in the Darb el-Gumruk (Custom-house Street). A 'house of refreshment' was fired by the mob because frequented by the hated Frank, and the flames spread, but not far. Reaching the Darb Ras el-Tín, which connects the sea-palace with the main square, the ruins show in force, and extend in lines and patches through the Place to the walls that defend the city on the south and east.
"The Place des Consuls, or de Mahomet Ali, now shows its third phase. That of utter bareness and barrenness was described by the Pilgrim in 1852.[2] Then came the polished epoch of tall trees, round tanks and flower-plots, heavy chains, band-stand, and gravelled walks, which attracted hosts of nursery-maids and their sallow charges. The Great Old Man of Cavala still sits his bronze steed, but since 1882 he looks upon a Fair, a Kermesse, or rather a brand-new mining city in the Far West, set in a framework of ruins, an unburied Pompeii.
"On the west side of the square the huge Okem (Wakálat) Gharbi and its large café have bodily disappeared. Its northern neighbour, the Palazzo Zizinia, is reduced to a mere shell eight feet high. The northern houses between the main square and the old or eastern harbour are burnt in blocks, but the Club and Penasson's Library show no damage: the English church also escaped; and, as a rule, little harm was done to places of worship, Giaour or Moslem. More 'loot' was to be had out of the laity. The fire began, they say, with the English and French Consulates, a kind of poetic justice for the Condominium. At the east end of the square the large building labelled 'Tribunal and Police Office' is wholly unhurt, and the Redcoats on guard are good to see. The long block to the south of the square, and dividing it from Place Sainte Cathérine, formerly the fine property of Prince Ibrahim Pasha, displays the typical scene of destruction. The bases have been piled up to clear the thoroughfares. The midway heights show shells of painted and papered chambers, with here and there a scorched chair or bedstead still standing on the airy edge of the precipice; there are débris of archways and balconies, charred timbers and fragments of furniture, windows, doors, and shutters; iron work curiously twisted by the fire, toasted inscriptions and blistered advertisements, and fallen blocks of limestone burnt to lime. The sky-line of broken and blackened wall forms points and pinnacles of chimney and coping, thrown well out by the gold and azure of sun and air; many of these frets have fallen, and the first high wind after the first heavy rains will bring down showers of stones upon workmen's heads. The latter, however, are few. Little or nothing has been done, or will be done, till 'indemnity' is forthcoming. But—
'Wait: my faith is large—in Fire,'
as in Time. Cities gain by being burnt. Several companies have submitted plans for rebuilding; and now the only want is a Town-architect to regulate the façades, and to see that the masonry is good and solid. Only let him avoid arcades which shelter damp and Greek coffee-houses.
"A stroll through the Place des Consuls shows a parallel line of board-booths along the northern and southern faces. Gaps were left where men caught red-handed had been carefully shot and carelessly buried. Now tables are spread, and people dine merrily over the dead. This is essentially Egyptian, the mummy at the feast. The booths supply everything, from a needle to a ready-made suit: the staples, however, are bad liquor and worse women. The names mostly appeal to the fighting class; for instance, 'Admiral Seymour's Bazar,' 'Crocforde's,' 'Duke of Connaught's Rest,' and the 'Hole in the Wall.' Here and there are Birrerie, generally next door to the coiffeur's; καφφενεῑα, a cucina economica alla Triestina, and unclean card-tables, domino-tables, and billiard-tables. The number of tobacco-shops is a study.
"During my thirty years' experience I never saw Alexandria look so picturesque or so happy. The magic word Indemnity has much to do with her high spirits, and the indemnistists jauntily fixed their figure somewhere between four and five millions sterling. Life swarms and surges through the burnt thoroughfares. All are bustling about, busy as bees, except those who are eating and drinking, smoking and fighting. It is a Pays de Cocagne, where money seems to be a drug. About mid-September, 1882, not a carriage was to be seen; before the year ended they were everywhere; and the 'bus, a new introduction, heralds the advent of the tramway. Donkey-boys, never more free and easy than now, group, grin, and chatter at every corner. Cheeky shoeblacks, here the unerring test of well-doing, assail you like swarms of Nile-flies. The Redcoats give points of light, and riders in brown with M.P. (military police) on the arm afford a sense of security. The topboot-and-revolver period of invasion soon passed away, but the military tailor soon came well to the fore; and not a few uniforms reminded old hands of a Volunteer Review in London after the Crimean War.
"Alexandria is ordered to be in bed before twelve, but she enjoys her evenings. The Café Paradiso offers a hall full of billiard-tables ('balyards far unfit'), like bagatelle-boards, and music in the normal shape of a masculine and feminine Austrian band. The demoiselles-violinists are bound by contract to the best of behaviour during engagements. In descending scale is the Café Bel Ain, and a host of estaminets, groggeries, and beereries, till you touch bottom at depôts for Greek dancing and native music. Of the Teatro Rossini the less we say the better. The Theatre Zizinia opened with an Anglo-American troupe, distinguished by Le Cabinet infernal, Le Negre Paganini, and Le Jolly Coons, excentriques et high Kickers. It finally rose to Madame Angot in Italian.
"Standing before the ruins, we ponder over the events of June and July 11th, which confounded all 'old Egyptians'—myself included. The universal belief was that Alexandria had everything to fear, not from her Moslems, but from her mean white Christians—Italians, Greeks, and Levantines. Numerically they had the advantage, and all were more or less armed with long pistols and longer knives.
"How then came they to show such utter poltroonery? The only explanation is that they were surprised, scared, demoralized, by the soldiery and the murderous police taking part with a mob, dastardly, fanatic, and bloodthirsty as it was in the days of Hypatia. Whenever and wherever a knot of Europeans combined to defend themselves against the canaille, they fled like a flock of sheep. It is well to note and remember the fact, especially in the country parts of Egypt, where bad days may still be coming. Men who run are rarely merciful; after order was restored they would be cruel as they were cowardly. It was a sight to see their hangdog looks when they learnt that Arábi and Co. were not to be sus. per coll., or even shot.[3]
"For the English garrison of Alexandria much remained to be done. Of two thousand men (round numbers), four were buried per diem, at the yearly rate of 1460, and at an expense of £20,000, against £3200 per mensem. This excessive mortality of last autumn did not extend to the officers. The men died because fed with over-driven beef where mutton should have been preferred, and the horses were killed by rations of heating oats, where the natives use only cooling barley. The chief scourge, enteric fever, was attributed to 'bad water,' for which I should read 'strong waters.' It was the same in the time of Abercrombie. Men of both services might be seen at midday 'half-seas over' amongst the poison-selling booths. A Maltese lately convicted of 'hocussing' (vending drugged coffee) was let off without a flogging—-pour encourager les autres. It is to be feared that in a land where the rod only is respected, we shall govern too little, and thus distinguish ourselves from our French 'friends' who govern too much. The prime want was a Soldiers' Home in addition to canteens, where good liquor is to be bought. Men must leave their barracks for change of air and scene, but they should be ordered to walk about in knots, not singly, and they should be under agreement to drink nothing stronger than tea or coffee in the booths.
"The Police has been another serious consideration. The new 'Gendarmerie,' as it was called, consisted of a mongrel lot—jödelling Swiss, chestnut-sellers from Friuli, veteran soldiers from Dalmatia and Bosnia, Albanian shepherd-brigands, and a scatter of cosmopolitan mongrels. Far better to raise a brigade of three thousand 'Bobbies,' officered, drilled, and dressed (with due modification) after our London fashion. These men, who would not speak a word of any language but English, should be stationed in the port and capital, with detachments, relieved every quarter, at the six important towns, Damanhúr and Tantah, Zagázíg and Mansúrah, Port Said and Suez. Those who object forget that Swiss and Italians, Dalmatians and Arnauts, are as ignorant of Arabic as Englishmen are. The difference is, the latter are to be trusted; the former proved that they were not: some mutinied, others deserted, and all were dismissed.
"The environs of Alexandria had escaped any damage. The fair gardens and villas on 'the Canal' are as they were. Sídi Gábir was presently altered for better and for worse. The race-course served only to tether mules: the grand stand stood nodding to its fall, and 'Effendina's' palace and outhouses afforded shelter to the 18th Royal Irish. The fane of the old Maroccan Saint looks fresher and more flourishing than before. On the other side of the city the Boulevard de Ramleh suffered severely as its neighbours, Sherif Pasha and Tewfík[4] Streets: the station however remains, and the rails were not injured. As we issue from the land-fortifications we see them still crested by sand-bags. At that ticklish time, when Alexandria was left defended by few men and fewer cannon, Arábi might have attacked, and, aided by the half-cowed mob inside, might have driven us to extremes. Fortunately for Egypt, nothing less heroic than this hero. Ramleh, the 'Sand-heap' suburb, had nothing to complain of save the felling of trees and the plundering of gardens. The only changes we note there are the field-works near the water-tower thrown up to exchange long shots with the Rebels at Kafr Dawár. Here Abercrombie had his head-quarters before he was carried dying into the nearest mosque. Also the gypsy-like Bedawi who claimed the land have struck their foul black tents; and it will be the fault of the Ramleyites if the mean thieves are allowed to return.
"Leaving picturesque Alexandria behind us, we take the rail to Cairo. This, the main artery as well as the minor veins, so far from progressing under English management, of late years has distinctly retrograded. The rails are looser, the carriages dirtier, the employés less civil and obliging; the prices higher and the danger greater than under Egyptian direction. All that can be said for this trunk line is that it appears somewhat less risky than its dependents. One of Egypt's latest curses is the rule of superannuated Anglo-Indian officials, who, with some notable exceptions, draw large salaries for doing little work. Their early training is worse than useless, as we saw in the Crimea, where Sepoy officers were sent to command Turks, because, forsooth, they had commanded Hindí Moslems and Hindú Pagans. For the Egyptian services I should prefer to these seniors, juveniles, even clerks, fresh and direct from England.
"The main interest of the railway-trip is the aspect of Kafr Dawár, the 'village of tent-encampments,' which I last saw in the guise of a sleepy little hamlet-station. The outer and inner lines of Rebel-earthworks, with rude batteries commanding the iron road, and resting upon Lake Mareotis and the Mahmudiyah Canal, contrast with the heap of beehive huts and the white villas embosomed in tree-mottes. The framework of the picture is a glorious sky and a flat fatiguing to the eyes as the South American Pampas. The reason for our declining this line of attack is obvious: the land is a bog, cut moreover by deep ditches and drains. Here Arábi made his first fatal mistake. Instead of keeping his half-disciplined troops well in hand, and cuddling their courage for the decisive day, he separated them and allowed detachments to be beaten in detail. But he had neglected the studies of a military college, and his staff did not contain a single officer versed in strategic science. It was a child playing against a master of chess. May the British Army enjoy few such easy triumphs; similar Algerian victories spoilt the French soldiers for European service.
"The main stations, Damanhúr, Kafr Zayyát, and Tantah, all made themselves infamous in the late Rebellion. The 'mild Fellah' and his milder wife tied the limbs of murdered Franks to dogs' tails, poured petroleum upon the poor brutes, and set them on fire. These horrors have sunk a great gulf between native and stranger which will not be bridged over during this generation. One regrets not to see a detachment of Redcoats, or at least a body of British policemen, holding fortified barracks in these three old centres of furious bigotry. The jails of Tantah were long crammed, but the contents were paupers, not rich culprits.
"The villages improve as we approach the capital, and square houses take the place of round African clay huts. The land is the same everywhere—a virgin-mother younger only than the hills. Black ants, brown ants, and white ants crawl over her ample bosom, come and go, are born to work and fight and die, but the Nile flows and floods for ever.
"Cairo promises ruins, but shows none beyond the railway-station. Nizr el-Kahíreh, the city of (planet) Mars, is still rejoicing over her narrow escape: she was saved one day before death by the gallant march of the British cavalry: the mean foreigners jealously suggest the 'horseman of St. George,' which is the golden sovereign. She is gay as Alexandria. The Shubra road that showed in 1879-80 some half-dozen shandridans is now a line of Arab riders and neat equipages, of uniforms, un-uniforms, and of Parisian toilettes. Dinner-parties are the rule; balls are in prospect; Giroflé Giroflá is rehearsing at the Opera-house, and even that abomination the grind-organ has found its way into the city of the Mamelukes.
"Yet good old 'Shepherd's' is half-empty, and the New Hotel quasi-desert. Despite bogus lists and vamped-up reports this year will be, touristically speaking, a failure. And tourists are right. The tone of the population is disagreeable; the situation is unpleasant if not dangerous. Next season will be a success, on two conditions—the absence of cholera, and the non-withdrawal of the occupying army. But Cairo has suffered greatly in the loss of Lord Dufferin. It takes away one's breath (so rare is the sight) to see the right man in the right place; to miss the square peg in the round hole; to meet, for instance, General Feilding (a Hapsburg) at the Austro-Hungarian manœuvres, and to find Earl Dufferin sent to Egypt. The diplomat is a host in himself. His personal experience of 'the East' began nearly a quarter-century ago, when he organized the Libanus. He is a hard and conscientious worker; he has a priest's will with the 'courage of his opinions,' and he owns the gift of common sense which does not always characterize his profession. With one reservation (to err is human) we may hold primâ facie that what Lord Dufferin determines is right will be rightly done. If he fail it will be from being ordered to attempt the impossible, to make an England of Egypt. Meanwhile we ardently wish he would abate the plague of locust-strangers that flock to batten upon the land. They are reviving all the conditions which led to the late troubles; and they will lead to a repetition of the drama with only the part of Arábi left out.
"One of Cairo's marvellous escapes is the unique Bulak Museum. It was offered for sale to a commercial house, they say; but here we must now believe little of what we see and less of what we hear. The old station-house is rebuilt, and may now be pronounced safe. MM. Maspero and Brugsch Bey are doing their best, but slowly: they want more assistance, which means money; and their revised catalogue will not be ready for this season. Their recovery of the old Pharaohs reads a lesson not only to the antiquary but to the political. How little the Egyptian has changed from what he was under the Double Crown may be seen in Brugsch Bey's report. The Fellah women ran bare-headed and dishevelled along the Nile-banks, keening the death-cry, as it were, for their husbands or brothers, when they heard that the mummies of their olden kings were being boated down stream by the French. The corpses were pickled some three thousand years ago, but what is that in the land of Kemi?
"Sunday, November 12th, corresponded with the first Muharram A.H. 1300. No Moslem, however, could or would tell me whether A.H. 1299 was, or 1300 is to be, the Annus Mirabilis of Mohammedanism; even the comet had complicated the question by living too long. The popular expectation was a general uprising of the Moslem world, which, however, shows no sign; a kind of 'Battle of Armageddon;' the universal conquest of El-Islam and a general preparation for the end of time (Akhir el-Zamán), which is to follow in the fourteenth century. The superstitious noted a terrible omen. The Mahmal-litter, in which Rogers Bey finds a survival of the Covenant-ark (why not go back to Osiris?), was torn off its dromedary by a telegraph wire opposite the British camp, Suez, and (horrible to relate!) was mended by a Káfir, Mr. Campbell, engineer to the Compagnie Khédiviale.
"We wished the compliments of the season, Kull ám antum bi'l-Khayr! (may every year find you fair!), to all our Egyptian friends who were not in durance or under surveillance. Every second man seemed to be in trouble, and with rare exceptions none from Caliph to churl would have come out with clean hands. Even the little black and whity-brown Beys, who haunted English dames and demoiselles at Shepherd's, found it advisable to make themselves 'scarce.' A very few words will resume the long story. Political imbecility, financial mismanagement, and the greed of bourgeois-shareholders raised up a powerful party against Europeans, and it found a fitting leader in Arábi, the Fellah-pasha. The Porte, hoping once more to conduct into shrunken and impoverished Constantinople a Nile flowing lire and piastres, resolved that the Khedivial family should, in Napoleonic phrase, 'cease to reign.' Grand old Mohammed Ali was to be succeeded by a mere Pasha, or general, removable at will and retainable only whilst douceurs, avances, and tributes were regular. Hence the scandalous gift of the Medjidiah decoration to a palpable rebel. But the Fellah is né malin. He countered the Turkish project by transferring his allegiance from a 'Caliph' (successor), whose claims rest upon no legal base, to the Sheríf (Prince) of Meccah, the lineal descendant of the Apostle of Allah, whose right to succeed, if he choose to assert it, is indefeasible. How England was left to hack at, and lastly to cut, the Gordian knot need hardly be told.
"Finishing my work at the capital, I 'hardened my heart' to face the dangers of the Cairo-Suez railway. It is reported that the old direct line viâ the Desert, where Burckhardt saw ostriches in 1816, will be relaid, and that a section of twenty-one miles is almost ready. Despite the expense and the waste of coin in carrying water, at the rate of three waggons to one full of passengers, our occupation will require this move. Nor must we forget the artesian wells, of which the old Olympiodorus thus speaks when describing the Lybian waste: 'In this oasis the people used to scoop out excavations one hundred to two hundred and fifty feet deep, when jets of pure water rose in tall columns.'
"At the still Burnt Station we found a trainful of half-uniformed peasants, bearing bag and baggage, including Remingtons. They will be mustered to the tune of ten thousand at Suez, and sent to the Sudan or Upper Nile Provinces with the view of putting down the long-standing insurrection. They look already beaten, and I do not envy the man who is to command. The Arch-enemy is the Mahdí, the 'False Prophet' of the European Press, a title which describes exactly enough what he is not. D'Herbelot has told the world that the twelfth Imam, or Antistes, the lineal blood-descendant of the Apostle of Allah and the legal religious head of El-Islam, was born in A.H. 255 (= A.D. 868), was named Abu 'l Kásim Mohammed, and assumed the style of El-Mahdí, or the Director, i.e. in the path of the True Faith. He mysteriously disappeared (probably murdered) under the rule of the Abbaside, El Mohtade, the fourteenth of the Baghdad House. Hence his title El-Mutabattan—the Concealed; but of the many Redivivi noticed in history, he declared that he would return before the Last Day and lead a reformed Islamism to universal dominion in preparation for certain other Second Comings. Consequently every great political heave of Mohammedanism, in Africa as in Asia, has thrown up and still throws up one or more Mahdís. Of the latest 'Director' I could learn little, save that he is an inspired Carpenter: Cairo ignored even his real name. 'Mohammed Ahmed' of Dongola means nothing. Great men, religious or laical, always on promotion prefix to their own names 'Mohammed' or some variant. Thus Tewfík is Mohammed Tewfík, and Arábi is Ahmed Arábi. This Mahdí will, probably, like most of his predecessors, meet his death at the hands of his fanatical and infuriated mob of followers. Meanwhile, despite recurring reports of his being beaten, he is still formidable, and he will give trouble during the coming winter. The one only remedy will be an English expedition—costly, but not so costly as doing nothing.
"We detrained at Zagázíg after two hours and a half of dusting, which seemed to begin the process of burying alive. The modern town is the successor of Bubastis, Pi-Pasht, city of Pasht, Isis with the tabby-cat's head. Its position—a central point where roads, railways, and canals meet—has made it a Cottonopolis, and its factories, with tall stacks and huge warehouses, have entitled it the 'Manchester of Egypt.' It is the military key of the Delta; Napoleon Buonaparte, at the beginning of the century, drew his base from Bilbays to Sálihíyah, and the Arabists intended to do the same.
"I passed a day in the house of my friend M. Vetter, for the purpose of consulting with Mr. Charles Clarke, Chef des Télégraphes. He had been the managing man during my two expeditions to the Gold Lands of Midian; and his topographical and linguistic knowledge had enabled him to render the army valuable service during the late campaign. His house was carefully looted by English soldiers, who may have thought it belonged to some employé of M. de Lesseps, and by Indian sepoys, who tore up his wife's dresses to adorn their turbans, and his comfortable rooms were still bare and desolate. He had been invited to join the Palmer Expedition, but although on friendly terms with the powerful Bedawin chief, Sulayman Pasha El-Abázeh, he had declined. The game was not worth the candle. On my next visit I hope to find Mr. Clarke travelling Director of Telegraphs, a post which will suit him and which he will suit down to the ground. As yet he has received only the barren honour of a C.M.G., and H.H. the Khedive has shirked conferring any distinction to show that Mr. Clarke acted in his interest.
"The Zagázítes showed a peculiar, independent, free-and-easy bearing, and the resident Europeans, who lately begged two English officers in uniform to walk through the town, do not hold themselves safe without the protection of a detachment, British soldiers or policemen. For many reasons this should be granted to them. The adjoining villagers absolutely refuse to believe that Arábi has been fairly beaten: his defeat and capture are known in Southern Syria, but not within cannon-shot of Tel el-Kebir. Here, too, the Fellahs are ready to rise again at any given moment. They differ in blood from the inhabitants of the Nile Valley proper, but they are no improvement upon their neighbours.
"Prodigious is the iteration of books concerning the 'poor down-trodden Fellah,' serving sentimentality to contrast him with his Pharaohs, the Pashas and Beys who oppress him and his. This philanthropic and most ignorant twaddle began (not honestly) with the French invasion, endured through the age of Lane and Gardner Wilkinson, and is repeated in the old stock phrases by the latest writers, Baron de Mahortié and Dicey. Foreigners mostly know the city folk; their 'manners and customs of the modern Egyptians' should be called the 'manners and customs of Cairo.' Ask Mr. Charles Clarke of Zagázíg, or Mr. Curzon Tompson of Cairo, men who, never holding high official positions, could study the Fellah in his own home. They will confirm my statement that there is nowhere a more dogged and determined, turbulent and refractory, furious and fanatical, cruel and bloodthirsty race than these clowns of the 'Black Land.' Compared with them the 'finest pisantry' are a weak and violent race; nor do they produce, like the Felláhin, typical and remarkable men. This generation has seen the Mufattish, a son of the soil, who could hold his own against the ablest financiers of Europe, and who had amassed millions of money, when one fine night he was tumbled into the Nile. It has produced Arábi the Reb., who, despite his notorious want of physical pluck, has graved his name upon the memorial tablets of his native valley. Aided by the weakness of his opponents, he placed the captor between the horns of an exceptional dilemma. If put to death he would have become a Shahíd or martyr. If allowed to live, even in exile, it was because the Káfir feared to slay him, and because it will soon be found advisable to recall him.
"A few words concerning the early career of this modern Prætorian may be acceptable; his later career is known to all. Arábi, not Ourabi, and mispronounced Arăby, probably an echo of 'Araby the blest,' is neither a Frenchman, nor a Spaniard, nor an Irishman, nor a green-turban'd Sayyid. His father, an honest Fellah, ploughed the old paternal fields about Kafr el-Taur ('Bull village'), between Tantah and Birkat el-Saba', stations on the Alexandria-Cairo railway. His mother, who has been interviewed by more than one Englishwoman, and who is now living at El-Hurríyyah ('Liberty'), her son's proprietary village near Zagázíg, sent her three boys as volunteers to serve and die for Said Pasha. This remarkable step, for the Egyptian parent invariably did and does the reverse, attracted the ruler's attention to the lads. He placed them in the military college, and he was heard to say, according to his widow, an honest Anglophobe, that he expected great things from Arábi.
"But Arábi preferred studying theology, which means bigotry, at El-Azhar, the University-mosque of Cairo, where professors are numbered by hundreds, and pupils by thousands. He had risen to be Kaimmakám (Major), when his patron died. Ismail Khedive would have nothing to do with him: 'the man,' he said, 'has the eye of a Hayyeh' (snake). So he was kept on outpost duty till circumstances brought him to the fore, especially on February 1st, 1881, when his Azhar training proved peculiarly valuable. In 1882 he became the pivot of the situation. His right was that of being, after a fashion, the representative man; his claim was having posed before Egypt, England, and Europe as the Leader of the National Party.
"Returning to the Fellah, I would note that this race stands aloof from and above all its neighbours. As hair, features, and figure prove, the Nilote is of African not of Asiatic provenance, partly white-washed by foreign innervation. Mr. Lane dubbed him an 'Arab,' and derived him from the invading soldiery of Amru and other early Moslem conquerors, a handful whose nationality would be at once absorbed, would disappear in the next generation. You have only to place the Bedawi by the side of the Fellah, and the fallacy of the theory becomes palpable. The Fellah's half-brother is the Copt, who has kept his blood freer from 'miscegenation.' Both are perforce peculiar peoples. The climate of the Nile Valley allows no foreign-born to be viable; in its media neither Greek nor Roman, Persian, Turk, nor Circassian, German, Italian, Frenchman, nor Englishman, can permanently increase and multiply. It has thus an atmosphere of perfect conservatism. From the days of the monuments and of Herodotus, the Fellah has altered little but his faith: he preserves all the good and every bad and bitter quality of his forbears.
"The Home Press, when commenting upon the bloodshed and arson of June 11th, asked with wonder, how these 'lambs had suddenly turned wolves?' Lambs, indeed! why, no fighting ram is more obstinate and pugnacious, or less open to pity and mercy, than an Egyptian Fellah. And if the men are brutal and barbarous, the women are, if possible, worse; as mostly happens in hot damp climates, their morals are abominable, and, as Mr. Lane and the 'Arabian Nights' show, their modes of murdering are unutterably horrible. The account of these bestial beings, promenading the streets of Alexandria with the legs and arms of slaughtered Europeans, borne like flags on long staves, should open eyes that can be opened.
"The morbid philanthropy and the mawkish humanitarianism of modern days have created a theoretical, an ideal, Fellah; the factual man would start to see his own portrait. They must deserve compassion who have anything to do with him. There is hardly a European in Egypt who has frequented the villages as a sportsman or antiquary without being assaulted by the villagers, while several of my friends have been nearly killed. The peasants also act as their own police and 'ministers of high justice,' trying and punishing all criminal cases within their mud walls. If man or woman break the law, especially that of Rasm, or immemorial custom, the offence is kept from the guardians of society—policemen and magistrates, the worst robbers in the land. If certain 'commandments' be violated, he, she, or it, is carefully tied and trussed up, gagged, and thrown into the Great River. Father Nilus could tell more tales of murder than all the streams in the United Kingdom.
"Among the Fellah's good qualities we must not neglect his persistence and his bravery. A drive to the Pyramids will show you troops of half-naked urchins running a mile in the forlorn hope of a copper; and in this point the boy is the father of the man. The adult will be bastinado'd within an inch of his life before he pays his lawful rent, and his wife praises him as she dresses his wounds. Under Sesostris, who invented the phalanx, the Fellah-soldier overran the nearer East. Under Mohammed Ali and Ibrahim Pashas he beat the Arabs at Bissel and the Turks at Nezíb. Even a Moltke could not then save the Ottoman, and the late General Jochmus told me that he escaped defeat, when commanding the Tartar cavalry, only by systematically declining battle with Ibrahim Pasha and his Nilotic armies.
"The dogged pluck of the gunners at the Alexandrian forts and at Tel el-Kebir proves, that the stock has not degenerated; the easy final defeat is readily explained. There was treachery in the air, and the best and bravest men will not stand firm when they suspect that their right-hand, or left-hand neighbours, have been paid to leave them in the lurch. Had the rebels been disciplined, and led by English or French Officers, there would have been a very different tale. As a rule the sight of blood does not excite or terrify the Egyptian; it only makes him an 'uglier customer.'
"Such is the Fellah, the peculiar growth of long centuries. There are races, says M. Gambetta bluntly and truly, which want the rule of the rod. 'The green wand,' declares the Arab proverb, 'is from the trees of Paradise.' The abolition of the Kurbáj, or cowhide, had something to do with the late movement. The hill-peasant must either be beaten or beat; be tyrannized over or tyrannize: in the latter case, like the beggar on horseback, he beats to the death. Here it is no mercy to spare the stick; all forbearance is attributed to the ignoblest motive, craven fear; and the fancy that he is 'funked' makes even the coward brave. It is bad to bastinado, but it is better than to hang and shoot.
"From Zagázíg to Suez is one of the most rickety and dangerous bits of railway travelled over by Europeans. I have seen a single train catch fire twice in one day. You are pretty sure to be told of one which, a few hours ago, 'derailed' and made the hapless passengers pass a cold and hungry night in the waste. The only interest of the dangerous line is the casualty of running through the theatre of our latest campaign. War which, they say, teaches the British Public its geography, also brings into prominence and ennobles names known only to a local peasantry. Such are Kassásín, a lock-bridge over the Sweetwater Canal; Tel el-Mahútah, a mean ground-swell, where the Campaign and Mr. Neville have brought to life certain marvellous Pharaohnic remains; Mahsamah, an outpost station on the edge of Wady Tumilát, southern limit of the Land of Goshen; and Tel el-Kebír, which minor poets are invited to pronounce Keb-eer, not Kee-ber. The latter in 1878 was a mean village, distinguished only by tumble-down cavalry barracks of the Khedivial age, the Age of Modern Ruins. The name 'great mound' (Tel) alludes to a rubbish-heap which was removed for building-ground. There is a brother-hamlet, Tel el-Sagher (Little-mound) hard by, and it has suffered sorely in the maps.