I cried out in Arabic, “Infidels, thieves, and robbers! come on, or we shall presently attack you:” upon which I immediately fired a ship-blunderbuss with pistol small bullets, but with little elevation, among the bushes, so as not to touch them. The three or four men that were nearest fell flat upon their faces, and slid away among the bushes on their bellies, like eels, and we saw no more of them.
We now put our vessel into the stream, filled our fore-sail, and stood off, Mahomet crying, Be upon your guard, if you are men, we are the Sanjack’s soldiers, and will come for the turban to-night. More we neither heard nor saw.
We were no sooner out of their reach, than our Rais, filling his pipe, and looking very grave, told me to thank God that I was in the vessel with such a man as he was, as it was owing to that only I escaped from being murdered a-shore. “Certainly, said I, Hassan, under God, the way of escaping from being murdered on land, is never to go out of the boat, but don’t you think that my blunderbuss was as effectual a mean as your holiness? Tell me, Mahomet, What did they do to you?” He said, They had not seen us come in, but had heard of us ever since we were at Metrahenny, and had waited to rob or murder us; that upon now hearing we were come, they had all ran to their houses for their arms, and were coming down, immediately, to plunder the boat; upon which he and the Moor ran off, and being met by these three people, and the boy, on the road, who had nothing in their hands, one of them snatched the turban off. He likewise added, that there were two parties in the town; one in favour of Ali Bey, the other friends to a rebel Bey who had taken Miniet; that they had fought, two or three days ago, among themselves, and were going to fight again, each of them having called Arabs to their assistance. “Mahomet Bey, says my Howadat Arab, will come one of these days with the soldiers, and bring our Shekh and people with him, who will burn their houses, and destroy their corn, that they will be all starved to death next year.”
Hassan and his son Mahomet were violently exasperated, and nothing would serve them but to go in again near the shore, and fire all the guns and blunderbusses among the people. But, besides that I had no inclination of that kind, I was very loth to frustrate the attempts of some future traveller, who may add this to the great remains of architecture we have preserved already.
It would be a fine outset for some engraver; the elegance and importance of the work are certain. From Cairo the distance is but four days pleasant and safe navigation, and in quiet times, protection might, by proper means, be easily enough obtained at little expence.
Voyage to Upper Egypt continued—Ashmounein, Ruins there—Gawa Kibeer Ruins—Mr Norden mistaken—Achmim—Convent of Catholics—Dendera—Magnificent Ruins—Adventure with a Saint there.
The Rais’s curiosity made him attempt to prevail with me to land at Reremont, three miles and a half off, just a-head of us; this I understood was a Coptic Christian town, and many of Shekh Abadé’s people were Christians also. I thought them too near to have any thing to do with either of them. At Reremont there are a great number of Persian wheels, to draw the water for the sugar canes, which belong to Christians. The water thus brought up from the river runs down to the plantations, below or behind the town, after being emptied on the banks above; a proof that here the descent from the mountains is not an optic fallacy, as Dr Shaw says.
We passed Ashmounein, probably the ancient Latopolis, a large town, which gives the name to the province, where there are magnificent ruins of Egyptian architecture; and after that we came to Melawé, larger, better built, and better inhabited than Ashmounein, the residence of the Cacheff. Mahomet Aga was there at that time with troops from Cairo, he had taken Miniet, and, by the friendship of Shekh Hamam, the great Arab, governor of Upper Egypt, he kept all the people on that side of the river in their allegiance to Ali Bey.
I had seen him at Cairo, and Risk had spoken to him to do me service if he met with me, which he promised. I called at Melawé to complain of our treatment at Shekh Abadé, and see if I could engage him, as he had nothing else to employ him, to pay a visit to my friends at that inhospitable place. This I was told he would do upon the slightest intimation. He, unfortunately, however, happened to be out upon some party; but I was lucky in getting an old Greek, a servant of his, who knew I was a friend, both to the Bey and to his Patriarch.
He brought me about a gallon of brandy, and a jar of lemons and oranges, preserved in honey; both very agreeable. He brought likewise a lamb, and some garden-stuffs. Among the sweetmeats was some horse-raddish preserved like ginger, which certainly, though it might be wholesome, was the very worst stuff ever I tasted. I gave a good square piece of it, well wrapt in honey, to the Rais, who coughed and spit half an hour after, crying he was poisoned.
I saw he did not wish me to stay at Melawé, as he was afraid of the Bey’s troops, that they might engage him in their service to carry them down, so went away with great good will, happy in the acquisition of the brandy, declaring he would carry sail as long as the wind held.
We passed Mollé, a small village with a great number of acacia trees intermixed with the plantations of palms. These occasion a pleasing variety, not only from the difference of the shape of the tree, but also from the colour and diversity of the green.
As the sycamore in Lower Egypt, so this tree seems to be the only indigenous one in the Thebaid. It is the Acacia Vera, or the Spina Egyptiaca, with a round yellow flower. The male is called the Saiel; from it proceeds the gum arabic, upon incision with an ax. This gum chiefly comes from Arabia Petrea, where these trees are most numerous. But it is the tree of all deserts, from the northmost part of Arabia, to the extremity of Ethiopia, and its leaves the only food for camels travelling in those desert parts. This gum is called Sumach in the west of Africa, and is a principal article of trade on the Senega among the Ialofes.
A large plantation of Dates reaches all along the west side, and ends in a village called Masara. Here the river, though broad, happened to be very shallow; and by the violence with which we went, we stuck upon a sand bank so fast, that it was after sun-set before we could get off; we came to an anchor opposite to Masara the night of the 19th of December.
On the 20th, early in the morning, we again set sail and passed two villages, the first called Welled Behi, the next Salem, about a mile and a half distant from each other on the west side of the Nile. The mountains on the west side of the valley are about sixteen miles off, in a high even ridge, running in a direction south-east; while the mountains on the east run in a parallel direction with the river, and are not three miles distant.
We passed Deirout on the east side, and another called Zohor, in the same quarter, surrounded with palms; then Siradé on the east side also, where is a wood of the Acacia, which seems very luxuriant; and, though it was now December, and the mornings especially very cold, the trees were in full flower. We passed Monfalout, a large town on the western shore. It was once an old Egyptian town, and place of great trade; it was ruined by the Romans, but re-established by the Arabs.
An Arabian 110author says, that, digging under the foundation of an old Egyptian temple here, they found a crocodile made of lead, with hieroglyphics upon it, which they imagine to be a talisman, to prevent crocodiles from passing further. Indeed, as yet, we had not seen any; that animal delights in heat, and, as the mornings were very cold, he keeps himself to the southward. The valley of Egypt here is about eight miles from mountain to mountain.
We passed Siout, another large town built with the remains of the ancient city 111Isiu. It is some miles inland, upon the side of a large calish, over which there is an ancient bridge. This was formerly the station of the caravan for Sennaar. They assembled at Monfalout and Siout, under the protection of a Bey residing there. They then passed nearly south-west, into the sandy desert of Libya, to El Wah, the Oasis Magna of antiquity, and so into the great Desert of Selima.
Three miles beyond Siout, the wind turned directly south, so we were obliged to stay at Tima the rest of the 20th. I was wearied with continuing in the boat, and went on shore at Tima. It is a small town, surrounded like the rest with groves of palm-trees. Below Tima is Bandini, three miles on the east side. The Nile is here full of sandy islands. Those that the inundation has first left are all sown, these are chiefly on the east. The others on the west were barren and uncultivated; all of them mostly composed of sand.
I walked into the desert behind the village, and shot a considerable number of the bird called Gooto, and several hares likewise, so that I sent one of my servants loaded to the boat. I then walked down past a small village called Nizelet el Himma, and returned by a still smaller one called Shuka, about a quarter of a mile from Tima. I was exceedingly fatigued with the heat by the south wind112 blowing, and the deep sand on the side of the mountain. I was then beginning my apprenticeship, which I fully compleated.
The people in these villages were in appearance little less miserable than those of the villages we had passed. They seemed shy and surly at first, but, upon conversation, became placid enough. I bought some medals from them of no value, and my servants telling them I was a physician, I gave my advice to several of the sick. This reconciled them perfectly, they brought me fresh water and some sugar-canes, which they split and steeped in it. If they were satisfied, I was very much so. They told me of a large scene of ruins that was about four miles distant, and offered to send a person to conduct me, but I did not accept their offer, as I was to pass there next day.
The 21st, in the morning, we came to Gawa, where is the second scene of ruins of Egyptian architecture, after leaving Cairo. I immediately went on shore, and found a small temple of three columns in front, with the capitals entire, and the columns in several separate pieces. They seemed by that, and their slight proportions, to be of the most modern of that species of building; but the whole were covered with hieroglyphics, the old story over again, the hawk and the serpent, the man sitting with the dog’s head, with the perch, or measuring-rod; in one hand, the hemisphere and globes with wings, and leaves of the banana-tree, as is supposed, in his other. The temple is filled with rubbish and dung of cattle, which the Arabs bring in here to shelter them from the heat.
Mr Norden says, that these are the remains of the ancient Diospolis Parva, but, though very loth to differ from him, and without the least desire of criticising, I cannot here be of his opinion. For Ptolemy, I think, makes Diospolis Parva about lat. 26° 40´, and Gawa is 27° 20´, which is by much too great a difference. Besides, Diospolis and its nome were far to the southward of Panopolis; but we shall shew, by undoubted evidence, that Gawa is to the northward.
There are two villages of this name opposite to each other; the one Gawa Shergieh, which means the Eastern Gawa, and this is by much the largest; the other Gawa Garbieh. Several authors, not knowing the meaning of these terms, call it Gawa Gebery; a word that has no signification whatever, but Garbieh means the Western.
I was very well pleased to see here, for the first time, two shepherd dogs lapping up the water from the stream, then lying down in it with great seeming leisure and satisfaction. It refuted the old fable, that the dogs living on the banks of the Nile run as they drink, for fear of the crocodile.
All around the villages of Gawa Garbieh, and the plantations belonging to them, Meshta and Raany, with theirs also joining them (that is, all the west side of the river) are cultivated and sown from the very foot of the mountains to the water’s edge, the grain being thrown upon the mud as soon as ever the water has left it. The wheat was at this time about four inches in length.
We passed three villages, Shaftour, Commawhaia, and Zinedi; we anchored off Shaftour, and within sight of Taahta. Taahta is a large village, and in it are several mosques. On the east is a mountain called Jibbel Heredy, from a Turkish saint, who was turned into a snake, has lived several hundred years, and is to live for ever. As Christians, Moors, and Turks, all faithfully believe in this, the consequence is, that abundance of nonsense is daily writ and told concerning it. Mr Norden discusses it at large, and afterwards gravely tells us, he does not believe it; in which I certainly must heartily join him, and recommend to my readers to do the same, without reading any thing about it.
On the 22d, at night, we arrived at Achmim. I landed my quadrant and instruments, with a view of observing an eclipse of the moon; but, immediately after her rising, clouds and mist so effectually covered the whole heavens, that it was not even possible to catch a star of any size passing the meridian.
Achmim is a very considerable place. It belonged once to an Arab prince of that name, who possessed it by a grant from the Grand Signior, for a certain revenue to be paid yearly. That family is now extinct; and another Arab prince, Hamam Shekh of Furshout, now rents it for his life-time, from the Grand Signior, with all the country (except Girgé), from Siout to Luxor.
The inhabitants of Achmim are of a very yellow, unhealthy appearance, probably owing to the bad air, occasioned by a very dirty calish that passes through the town. There are, likewise, a great many trees, bushes, and gardens, about the stagnated water, all which increase the bad quality of the air.
There is here what is called a Hospice, or Convent of religious Franciscans, for the entertainment of the converts, or persecuted Christians in Nubia, when they can find them. This institution I speak of at large in the sequel. One of the last princes of the house of Medicis, all patrons of learning, proposed to furnish them with a compleat observatory, with the most perfect and expensive instruments; but they refused them, from a scruple least it would give umbrage to the natives. The fear that it should expose their own ignorance and idleness, I must think, entered a little into the consideration.
They received us civilly, and that was just all. I think I never knew a number of priests met together, who differed so little in capacity and knowledge, having barely a routine of scholastic disputation, on every other subject inconceivably ignorant. But I understood afterwards, that they were low men, all Italians; some of them had been barbers, and some of them tailors at Milan; they affected to be all Anti-Copernicans, upon scripture principles, for they knew no other astronomy.
These priests lived in great ease and safety, were much protected and favoured by this Arab prince Hamam; and their acting as physicians reconciled them to the people. They told me there were about eight hundred catholics in the town, but I believe the fifth part of that number would never have been found, even such catholics as they are. The rest of them were Cophts, and Moors, but a very few of the latter, so that the missionaries live perfectly unmolested.
There was a manufactory of coarse cotton cloth in the town, to considerable extent; and great quantity of poultry, esteemed the best in Egypt, was bred here, and sent down to Cairo. The reason is plain, the great export from Achmim is wheat; all the country about it is sown with that grain, and the crops are superior to any in Egypt. Thirty-two grains pulled from the ear was equal to forty-nine of the best Barbary wheat gathered in the same season; a prodigious disproportion, if it holds throughout. The wheat, however, was not much more forward in Upper Egypt, than that lower down the country, or farther northward. It was little more than four inches high, and sown down to the very edge of the water.
The people here wisely pursuing agriculture, so as to produce wheat in the greatest quantity, have dates only about their houses, and a few plantations of sugar cane near their gardens. As soon as they have reaped their wheat, they sow for another crop, before the sun has drained the moisture from the ground. Great plenty of excellent fish is caught here at Achmim, particularly a large one called the Binny, a figure of which I have given in the Appendix. I have seen them about four feet long, and one foot and a half broad.
The people seemed to be very peaceable, and well disposed, but of little curiosity. They expressed not the least surprise at seeing my large quadrant and telescopes mounted. We passed the night in our tent upon the river side, without any sort of molestation, though the men are reproached with being very great thieves. But seeing, I suppose, by our lights, that we were awake, they were afraid.
The women seldom marry after sixteen; we saw several with child, who they said were not eleven years old. Yet I did not observe that the men were less in size, less vigorous and active in body, than in other places. This, one would not imagine from the appearance these young wives make. They are little better coloured than a corpse, and look older at sixteen, than many English women at sixty, so that you are to look for beauty here in childhood only.
Achmim appears to be the Panopolis of the ancients, not only by its latitude, but also by an inscription of a very large triumphal arch, a few hundred yards south of the convent. It is built with marble by the Emperor Nero, and is dedicated in a Greek inscription, ΠΑΝΙ ΘΕΩ. The columns that were in its front are broken and thrown away; the arch itself is either sunk into the ground, or overturned on the side, with little separation of the several pieces.
The 24th of December we left Achmim, and came to the village Shekh Ali on the west, two miles and a quarter distant. We then passed Hamdi, about the same distance farther south; Aboudarac and Salladi on the east; then Salladi Garbieh, and Salladi Shergieh on the east and west, as the names import; and a number of villages, almost opposite, on each side of the river.
At three o’clock in the afternoon we arrived at Girgé, the largest town we had seen since we left Cairo; which, by the latitude Ptolemy has very rightly placed it in, should be the Diospolis Parva, and not Gawa, as Mr Norden makes it. For this we know is the beginning of the Diospolitan nome, and is near a remarkable crook of the Nile, as it should be. It is also on the western side of the river, as Diospolis was, and at a proper distance from Dendera, the ancient Tentyra, a mark which cannot be mistaken.
The Nile makes a kind of loop here; is very broad, and the current strong. We passed it with a wind at north; but the waves ran high as in the ocean. All the country, on both sides of the Nile, to Girgé, is but one continued grove of palm-trees, in which are several villages a small distance from each other, Doulani, Consaed, Deirout, and Berdis, on the west side; Welled Hallifi, and Beni Haled, on the east.
The villages have all a very picturesque appearance among the trees, from the many pigeon-houses that are on the tops of them. The mountains on the east begin to depart from the river, and those on the west to approach nearer it. It seems to me, that, soon, the greatest part of Egypt on the east side of the Nile, between Achmim and Cairo, will be desert; not from the rising of the ground by the mud, as is supposed, but from the quantity of sand from the mountains, which covers the mould or earth several feet deep. This 24th of December, at night, we anchored between two villages, Beliani and Mobanniny.
Next morning, the 25th, impatient to visit the greatest, and most magnificent scene of ruins that are in Upper Egypt, we set out from Beliani, and, about ten o’clock in the forenoon, arrived at Dendera. Although we had heard that the people of this place were the very worst in Egypt, we were not very apprehensive. We had two letters from the Bey, to the two principal men there, commanding them, as they would answer with their lives and fortunes, to have a special care that no mischief befel us; and likewise a very pressing letter to Shekh Hamam at Furshout, in whose territory we were.
I pitched my tent by the river side, just above our bark, and sent a message to the two principal people, first to the one, then to the other, desiring them to send a proper person, for I had to deliver to them the commands of the Bey. I did not choose to trust these letters with our boatman; and Dendera is near half a mile from the river. The two men came after some delay, and brought each of them a sheep; received the letters, went back with great speed, and, soon after, returned with a horse and three asses, to carry me to the ruins.
Dendera is a considerable town at this day, all covered with thick groves of palm-trees, the same that Juvenal describes it to have been in his time. Juvenal himself must have seen it, at least once, in passing, as he himself died in a kind of honourable exile at Syene, whilst in command there.
This place is governed by a cacheff appointed by Shekh Hamam. A mile south of the town, are the ruins of two temples, one of which is so much buried under ground, that little of it is to be seen; but the other, which is by far the most magnificent, is entire, and accessible on every side. It is also covered with hieroglyphics, both within and without, all in relief; and of every figure, simple and compound, that ever has been published, or called an hieroglyphic.
The form of the building is an oblong square, the ends of which are occupied by two large apartments, or vestibules, supported by monstrous columns, all covered with hieroglyphics likewise. Some are in form of men and beasts; some seem to be the figures of instruments of sacrifice, while others, in a smaller size, and less distinct form, seem to be inscriptions in the current hand of hieroglyphics, of which I shall speak at large afterwards. They are all finished with great care.
The capitals are of one piece, and consist of four huge human heads, placed back to back against one another, with bat’s ears, and an ill-imagined, and worse-executed, fold of drapery between them.
Above these is a large oblong square block, still larger than the capitals, with four flat fronts, disposed like pannels, that is, with a kind of square border round the edges, while the faces and fronts are filled with hieroglyphics; as are the walls and ceilings of every part of the temple. Between these two apartments in the extremities, there are three other apartments, resembling the first, in every respect, only that they are smaller.
The whole building is of common white stone, from the neighbouring mountains, only those two in which have been sunk the pirns for hanging the outer doors, (for it seems they had doors even in those days) are of granite, or black and blue porphyry.
The top of the temple is flat, the spouts to carry off the water are monstrous heads of sphinxes; the globes with wings, and the two serpents, with a kind of shield or breast-plate between them, are here frequently repeated, such as we see them on the Carthaginian medals.
The hieroglyphics have been painted over, and great part of the colouring yet remains upon the stones, red, in all its shades, especially that dark dusky colour called Tyrian Purple; yellow, very fresh; sky-blue (that is, near the blue of an eastern sky, several shades lighter than ours); green of different shades; these are all the colours preserved.
I could discover no vestiges of common houses in Dendera more than in any other of the great towns in Egypt. I suppose the common houses of the ancients, in these warm countries, were constructed of very slight materials, after they left their caves in the mountains. There was indeed no need for any other. Not knowing the regularity of the Nile’s inundation, they never could be perfectly secure in their own minds against the deluge; and this slight structure of private buildings seems to be the reason so few ruins are found in the many cities once built in Egypt. If there ever were any other buildings, they must be now covered with the white sand from the mountains, for the whole plain to the foot of these is o’erflowed, and in cultivation. It was no part, either of my plan or inclination, to enter into the detail of this extraordinary architecture. Quantity, and solidity, are two principal circumstances that are seen there, with a vengeance.
It strikes and imposes on you, at first sight, but the impressions are like those made by the size of mountains, which the mind does not retain for any considerable time after seeing them; I think, a very ready hand might spend six months, from morning to night, before he could copy the hieroglyphics in the inside of the temple. They are, however, in several combinations, which have not appeared in the collection of hieroglyphics. I wonder that, being in the neighbourhood, as we are, of Lycopolis, we never see a wolf as an hieroglyphic; and nothing, indeed, but what has some affinity to water; yet the wolf is upon all the medals, from which I apprehend that the worship of the wolf was but a modern superstition.
Dendera stands on the edge of a small, but fruitful plain; the wheat was thirteen inches high, now at Christmas; their harvest is in the end of March. The valley is not above five miles wide, from mountain to mountain. Here we first saw the Doom-tree in great profusion growing among the palms, from which it scarcely is distinguishable at a distance. It is the 113Palma Thebaica Cuciofera. Its stone is like that of a peach covered with a black bitter pulp, which resembles a walnut over ripe.
A little before we came to Dendera we saw the first crocodile, and afterwards hundreds, lying upon every island, like large flocks of cattle, yet the inhabitants of Dendera drive their beasts of every kind into the river, and they stand there for hours. The girls and women too, that come to fetch water in jars, stand up to their knees in the water for a considerable time; and if we guess by what happens, their danger is full as little as their fear, for none of them, that ever I heard of, had been bit by a crocodile. However, if the Denderites were as keen and expert hunters of Crocodiles, as some 114historians tell us they were formerly, there is surely no part in the Nile where they would have better sport than here, immediately before their own city.
Having made some little acknowledgment to those who had conducted me through the ruins in great safety, I returned to the Canja, or rather to my tent, which I placed in the first firm ground. I saw, at some distance, a well-dressed man, with a white turban, and yellow shawl covering it, and a number of ill-looking people about him. As I thought this was some quarrel among the natives, I took no notice of it, but went to my tent, in order to rectify my quadrant for observation.
As soon as our Rais saw me enter my tent, he came with expressions of very great indignation. “What signifies it, said he, that you are a friend to the Bey, have letters to every body, and are at the door of Furshout, if yet here is a man that will take your boat away from you?”
“Softly, softly, I answered, Hassan, he may be in the right. If Ali Bey, Shekh Hamam, or any body want a boat for public service, I must yield mine. Let us hear.”
“Shekh Hamam and Ali Bey! says he; why it is a fool, an idiot, and an ass; a fellow that goes begging about, and says he is a saint; but he is a natural fool, full as much knave as fool however; he is a thief, I know him to be a thief.”
“If he is a saint, said I, Hagi Hassan, as you are another, known to be so all the world over, I don’t see why I should interfere; saint against saint is a fair battle.”—“It is the Cadi, replies he, and no one else.”
“Come away with me, said I, Hassan, and let us see this cadi; if it is the cadi, it is not the fool, it may be the knave.”
He was sitting upon the ground on a carpet, moving his head backwards and forwards, and saying prayers with beads in his hand. I had no good opinion of him from his first appearance, but said, Salam alicum, boldly; this seemed to offend him, as he looked at me with great contempt, and gave me no answer, though he appeared a little disconcerted by my confidence.
“Are you the Cafr, said he, to whom that boat belongs?”
“No, Sir, said I, it belongs to Hagi Hassan.”
“Do you think, says he, I call Hagi Hassan, who is a Sherriffe, Cafr?”
“That depends upon the measure of your prudence, said I, of which as yet I have no proof that can enable me to judge or decide.”
“Are you the Christian that was at the ruins in the morning? says he.”
“I was at the ruins in the morning, replied I, and I am a Christian. Ali Bey calls that denomination of people Nazarani, that is the Arabic of Cairo and Constantinople, and I understand no other.”
“I am, said he, going to Girgé, and this holy saint is with me, and there is no boat but your’s bound that way, for which reason I have promised to take him with me.”
By this time the saint had got into the boat, and sat forward; he was an ill-favoured, low, sick-like man, and seemed to be almost blind.
You should not make rash promises, said I to the cadi, for this one you made you never can perform; I am not going to Girgé. Ali Bey, whose slave you are, gave me this boat, but told me, I was not to ship either saints or cadies. There is my boat, go a-board if you dare; and you, Hagi Hassan, let me see you lift an oar, or loose a sail, either for the cadi or the saint, if I am not with them.
I went to my tent, and the Rais followed me. “Hagi Hassan, said I, there is a proverb in my country, It is better to flatter fools than to fight them: Cannot you go to the fool, and give him half-a-crown? will he take it, do you think, and abandon his journey to Girgé? afterwards leave me to settle with the cadi for his voyage thither.”
“He will take it with all his heart, he will kiss your hand for half-a-crown, says Hassan.”
“Let him have half-a-crown from me, said I, and desire him to go about his business, and intimate that I give him it in charity, at same time expect compliance with the condition.”
In the interim, a Christian Copht came into the tent: “Sir, said he, you don’t know what you are doing; the cadi is a great man, give him his present, and have done with him.”
“When he behaves better, it will be time enough for that, said I?—If you are a friend of his, advise him to be quiet, before an order comes from Cairo by a Serach, and carries him thither. Your countryman Risk would not give me the advice you do?”
Risk! says he; Do you know Risk? Is not that Risk’s writing, said I, shewing him a letter from the Bey? Wallah! (by God) it is, says he, and away he went without speaking a word farther.
The saint had taken his half-crown, and had gone away singing, it being now near dark.—The cadi went away, and the mob dispersed, and we directed a Moor to cry, That all people should, in the night-time, keep away from the tent, or they would be fired at; a stone or two were afterwards thrown, but did not reach us.
I finished my observation, and ascertained the latitude of Dendera, then packed up my instruments, and sent them on board.
Mr Norden seems greatly to have mistaken the position of this town, which, conspicuous and celebrated as it is by ancient authors, and justly a principal point of attention to modern travellers, he does not so much as describe; and, in his map, he places Dendera twenty or thirty miles to the southward of Badjoura; whereas it is about nine miles to the northward. For Badjoura is in lat. 26° 3´, and Dendera is in 26° 10´.
It is a great pity, that he who had a taste for this very remarkable kind of architecture, should have passed it, both in going up and coming down; as it is, beyond comparison, a place that would have given more satisfaction than all Upper Egypt.
While we were striking our tent, a great mob came down, but without the cadi. As I ordered all my people to take their arms in their hands, they kept at a very considerable distance; but the fool, or saint, got into the boat with a yellow flag in his hand, and sat down at the foot of the main-mast, saying, with an idiot smile, That we should fire, for he was out of the reach of the shot; some stones were thrown, but did not reach us.
I ordered two of my servants with large brass ship-blunderbusses, very bright and glittering, to get upon the top of the cabbin. I then pointed a wide-mouthed Swedish blunderbuss from one of the windows, and cried out, Have a care;—the next stone that is thrown I fire my cannon amongst you, which will sweep away 300 of you instantly from the face of the earth; though I believe there were not above two hundred then present.
I ordered Hagi Hassan to cast off his cord immediately, and, as soon as the blunderbuss appeared, away ran every one of them, and, before they could collect themselves to return, our vessel was in the middle of the stream. The wind was fair, though not very fresh, on which we set both our sails, and made great way.
The saint, who had been singing all the time we were disputing, began now to shew some apprehensions for his own safety: He asked Hagi Hassan, if this was the way to Girgé? and had for answer, “Yes, it is the fool’s way to Girgé.”
We carried him about a mile, or more, up the river; then a convenient landing-place offering, I asked him whether he got my money, or not, last night? He said, he had for yesterday, but he had got none for to-day.—“Now, the next thing I have to ask you, said I, is, Will you go ashore of your own accord, or will you be thrown into the Nile? He answered with great confidence, Do you know, that, at my word, I can fix your boat to the bottom of the Nile, and make it grow a tree there for ever?” “Aye, says Hagi Hassan, and make oranges and lemons grow on it likewise, can’t you? You are a cheat.” “Come, Sirs, said I, lose no time, put him out.” I thought he had been blind and weak; and the boat was not within three feet of the shore, when placing one foot upon the gunnel, he leaped clean upon land.
We slacked our vessel down the stream a few yards, filling our sails, and stretching away. Upon seeing this, our saint fell into a desperate passion, cursing, blaspheming, and stamping with his feet, at every word crying “Shar Ullah!” i. e. may God send, and do justice. Our people began to taunt and gibe him, asking him if he would have a pipe of tobacco to warm him, as the morning was very cold; but I bade them be content. It was curious to see him, as far as we could discern, sometimes sitting down, sometimes jumping and skipping about, and waving his flag, then running about a hundred yards, as if it were after us; but always returning, though at a slower pace.
None of the rest followed. He was indeed apparently the tool of that rascal the cadi, and, after his designs were frustrated, nobody cared what became of him. He was left in the lurch, as those of his character generally are, after serving the purpose of knaves.
Arrive at Furshout—Adventure of Friar Christopher—Visit Thebes—Luxor and Carnac—Large Ruins at Edfu and Esné—Proceed on our Voyage.
We arrived happily at Furshout that same forenoon, and went to the convent of Italian Friars, who, like those of Achmim, are of the order of the reformed Franciscans, of whose mission I shall speak at large in the sequel.
We were received more kindly here than at Achmim; but Padre Antonio, superior of that last convent, upon which this of Furshout also depends, following us, our good reception suffered a small abatement. In short, the good Friars would not let us buy meat, because they said it would be a shame and reproach to them; and they would not give us any, for fear that should be a reproach to them likewise, if it was told in Europe they lived well.
After some time I took the liberty of providing for myself, to which they submitted with christian patience. Yet these convents were founded expressly with a view, and from a necessity of providing for travellers between Egypt and Ethiopia, and we were strictly intitled to that entertainment. Indeed there is very little use for this institution in Upper Egypt, as long as rich Arabs are there, much more charitable and humane to stranger Christians than the Monks.
Furshout is in a large and cultivated plain. It is nine miles over to the foot of the mountains, all sown with wheat. There are, likewise, plantations of sugar canes. The town, as they said, contains above 10,000 people, but I have no doubt this computation is rather exaggerated.
We waited upon the Shekh Hamam; who was a big, tall, handsome man; I apprehend not far from sixty. He was dressed in a large fox-skin pelisse over the rest of his cloaths, and had a yellow India shawl wrapt about his head, like a turban. He received me with great politeness and condescension, made me sit down by him, and asked me more about Cairo than about Europe.
The Rais had told him our adventure with the saint, at which he laughed very heartily, saying, I was a wise man and a man of conduct. To me he only said, “they are bad people at Dendera;” to which I answered, “there were very few places in the world in which there were not some bad.” He replied, “Your observation is true, but there they are all bad; rest yourselves however here, it is a quiet place; though there are still some even in this place not quite so good as they ought to be.”
The Shekh was a man of immense riches, and, little by little, had united in his own person, all the separate districts of Upper Egypt, each of which formerly had its particular prince. But his interest was great at Constantinople, where he applied directly for what he wanted, insomuch as to give a jealousy to the Beys of Cairo. He had in farm from the Grand Signior almost the whole country, between Siout and Syene, or Assouan. I believe this is the Shekh of Upper Egypt, whom Mr Irvine speaks of so gratefully. He was betrayed, and murdered some time after, by one of the Beys whom he had protected in his own country.
While we were at Furshout, there happened a very extraordinary phænomenon. It rained the whole night, and till about nine o’clock next morning; and the people began to be very apprehensive least the whole town should be destroyed. It is a perfect prodigy to see rain here; and the prophets said it portended a dissolution of government, which was justly verified soon afterwards, and at that time indeed was extremely probable.
Furshout is in lat 26° 3´30´´; above that, to the southward, on the same plain, is another large village, belonging to Shekh Ismael, a nephew of Shekh Hamam. It is a large town, built with clay like Furshout, and surrounded with groves of palm trees, and very large plantations of sugar canes. Here they make sugar.
Shekh Ismael was a very pleasant and agreeable man, but in bad health, having a violent asthma, and sometimes pleuretic complaints, to be removed by bleeding only. He had given these friars a house for a convent in Badjoura; but as they had not yet taken possession of it, he desired me to come and stay there.
Friar Christopher, whom I understood to have been a Milanese barber, was his physician, but he had not the science of an English barber in surgery. He could not bleed, but with a sort of instrument resembling that which is used in cupping, only that it had but a single lancet; with this he had been lucky enough as yet to escape laming his patients. This bleeding instrument they call the Tabange, or the Pistol, as they do the cupping instrument likewise. I never could help shuddering at seeing the confidence with which this man placed a small brass box upon all sorts of arms, and drew the trigger for the point to go where fortune pleased.
Shekh Ismael was very fond of this surgeon, and the surgeon of his patron; all would have gone well, had not friar Christopher aimed likewise at being an Astronomer. Above all he gloried in being a violent enemy to the Copernican system, which unluckily he had mistaken for a heresy in the church; and partly from his own slight ideas and stock of knowledge, partly from some Milanese almanacs he had got, he attempted, the weather being cloudy, to foretel the time when the moon was to change, it being that of the month Ramadan, when the Mahometans’ lent, or fasting, was to begin.
It happened that the Badjoura people, and their Shekh Ismael, were upon indifferent terms with Hamam, and his men of Furshout, and being desirous to get a triumph over their neighbours by the help of their friar Christopher, they continued to eat, drink, and smoke, two days after the conjunction.
The moon had been seen the second night, by a Fakir115, in the desert, who had sent word to Shekh Hamam, and he had begun his fast. But Ismael, assured by friar Christopher that it was impossible, had continued eating.
The people of Furshout, meeting their neighbours singing and dancing, and with pipes of tobacco in their mouths, all cried out with astonishment, and asked, “Whether they had abjured their religion or not?”—From words they came to blows; seven or eight were wounded on each side, luckily none of them mortally.—Hamam next day came to inquire at his nephew Shekh Ismael, what had been the occasion of all this, and to consult what was to be done, for the two villages had declared one another infidels.
I was then with my servants in Badjoura, in great quiet and tranquillity, under the protection, and very much in the confidence of Ismael; but hearing the hooping, and noise in the streets, I had barricadoed my outer-doors. A high wall surrounded the house and court-yard, and there I kept quiet, satisfied with being in perfect safety.
In the interim, I heard it was a quarrel about the keeping of Ramadan, and, as I had provisions, water, and employment enough in the house, I resolved to stay at home till they fought it out; being very little interested which of them should be victorious.—About noon, I was sent for to Ismael’s house, and found his uncle Hamam with him.
He told me, there were several wounded in a quarrel about the Ramadan, and recommended them to my care. “About Ramadan, said I! what, your principal fast! have you not settled that yet?”—Without answering me as to this, he asked, “When does the moon change?” As I knew nothing of friar Christopher’s operations, I answered, in hours, minutes, and seconds, as I found them in the ephemerides.
“Look you there, says Hamam, this is fine work!” and, directing his discourse to me, “When shall we see it?” Sir, said I, that is impossible for me to tell, as it depends on the state of the heavens; but, if the sky is clear, you must see her to-night; if you had looked for her, probably you would have seen her last night low in the horizon, thin like a thread; she is now three days old.—He started at this, then told me friar Christopher’s operation, and the consequences of it.
Ismael was ashamed, cursed him, and threatened revenge. It was too late to retract, the moon appeared, and spoke for herself; and the unfortunate friar was disgraced, and banished from Badjoura. Luckily the pleuretic stitch came again, and I was called to bleed him, which I did with a lancet; but he was so terrified at its brightness, at the ceremony of the towel and the bason, and at my preparation, that it did not please him, and therefore he was obliged to be reconciled to Christopher and his tabange.—Badjoura is in lat. 26° 3´ 16´´; and is situated on the western shore of the Nile, as Furshout is likewise.
We left Furshout the 7th of January 1769, early in the morning. We had not hired our boat farther than Furshout; but the good terms which subsisted between me and the saint, my Rais, made an accommodation very easy to carry us farther. He now agreed for L. 4 to carry us to Syene and down again; but, if he behaved well, he expected a trifling premium. “And, if you behave ill, Hassan, said I, what do you think you deserve?”—“To be hanged, said he, I deserve, and desire no better.”
Our wind at first was but scant. The Rais said, that he thought his boat did not go as it used to do, and that it was growing into a tree. The wind, however, freshened up towards noon, and eased him of his fears. We passed a large town called How, on the west side of the Nile. About four o’clock in the afternoon we arrived at El Gourni, a small village, a quarter of a mile distant from the Nile. It has in it a temple of old Egyptian architecture. I think that this, and the two adjoining heaps of ruins, which are at the same distance from the Nile, probably might have been part of the ancient Thebes.
Shaamy and Taamy are two colossal statues in a sitting posture covered with hieroglyphics. The southmost is of one stone, and perfectly entire. The northmost is a good deal more mutilated. It was probably broken by Cambyses; and they have since endeavoured to repair it. The other has a very remarkable head-dress, which can be compared to nothing but a tye-wig, such as worn in the present day. These two, situated in a very fertile spot belonging to Thebes, were apparently the Nilometers of that town, as the marks which the water has left upon the bases sufficiently shew. The bases of both of them are bare, and uncovered, to the bottom of the plinth, or lowest member of their pedestal; so that there is not the eighth of an inch of the lowest part of them covered with mud, though they stand in the middle of a plain, and have stood there certainly above 3000 years; since which time, if the fanciful rise of the land of Egypt by the Nile had been true, the earth should have been raised so as fully to conceal half of them both.
These statues are covered with inscriptions of Greek and Latin; the import of which seems to be, that there were certain travellers, or particular people, who heard Memnon’s statue utter the sound it was said to do, upon being struck with the rays of the sun.
It may be very reasonably expected, that I should here say something of the building and fall of the first Thebes; but as this would carry me to very early ages, and interrupt for a long time my voyage upon the Nile; as this is, besides, connected with the history of several nations which I am about to describe, and more proper for the work of an historian, than the cursory descriptions of a traveller, I shall defer saying any thing upon the subject, till I come to treat of it in the first of these characters, and more especially till I shall speak of the origin of the Shepherds, and the calamities brought upon Egypt by that powerful nation, a people often mentioned by different writers, but whose history hitherto has been but imperfectly known.
Nothing remains of the ancient Thebes but four prodigious temples, all of them in appearance more ancient, but neither so entire, nor so magnificent, as those of Dendera. The temples at Medinet Tabu are the most elegant of these. The hieroglyphics are cut to the depth of half-a-foot, in some places, but we have still the same figures, or rather a less variety, than at Dendera.
The hieroglyphics are of four sorts; first, such as have only the contour marked, and, as it were, scratched only in the stone. The second are hollowed; and in the middle of that space rises the figure in relief, so that the prominent part of the figure is equal to the flat, unwrought surface of the stone, and seems to have a frame round it, designed to defend the hieroglyphic from mutilation. The third sort is in relief, or basso relievo, as it is called, where the figure is left bare and exposed, without being sunk in, or defended, by any compartment cut round it in the stone. The fourth are those mentioned in the beginning of this description, the outlines of the figure being cut very deep in the stone.
All the hieroglyphics, but the last mentioned, which do not admit it, are painted red, blue, and green, as at Dendera, and with no other colours.
Notwithstanding all this variety in the manner of executing the hieroglyphical figures, and the prodigious multitude which I have seen in the several buildings, I never could make the number of different hieroglyphics amount to more than five hundred and fourteen, and of these there were certainly many, which were not really different, but from the ill execution of the sculpture only appeared so. From this I conclude, certainly, that it can be no entire language which hieroglyphics are meant to contain, for no language could be comprehended in five hundred words, and it is probable that these hieroglyphics are not alphabetical, or single letters only; for five hundred letters would make too large an alphabet. The Chinese indeed have many more letters in use, but have no alphabet, but who is it that understands the Chinese?
There are three different characters which, I observe, have been in use at the same time in Egypt, Hieroglyphics, the Mummy character, and the Ethiopic. These are all three found, as I have seen, on the same mummy, and therefore were certainly used at the same time. The last only I believe was a language.
The mountains immediately above or behind Thebes, are hollowed out into numberless caverns, the first habitations of the Ethiopian colony which built the city. I imagine they continued long in these habitations, for I do not think the temples were ever intended but for public and solemn uses, and in none of these ancient cities did I ever see a wall or foundation, or any thing like a private house; all are temples and tombs, if temples and tombs in those times were not the same thing. But vestiges of houses there are none, whatever116 Diodorus Siculus may say, building with stone was too expensive for individuals; the houses probably were all of clay, thatched with palm branches, as they are at this day. This is one reason why so few ruins of the immense number of cities we hear of remain.
Thebes, according to Homer, had a hundred gates. We cannot, however, discover yet the foundation of any wall that it had; and as for the horsemen and chariots it is said to have sent out, all the Thebaid sown with wheat would not have maintained one-half of them.
Thebes, at least the ruins of the temples, called Medinet Tabu, are built in a long stretch of about a mile broad, most parsimoniously chosen at the sandy foot of the mountains. The Horti117 Pensiles, or hanging gardens, were surely formed upon the sides of these hills, then supplied with water by mechanical devices. The utmost is done to spare the plain, and with great reason; for all the space of ground this ancient city has had to maintain its myriads of horses and men, is a plain of three quarters of a mile broad, between the town and the river, upon which plain the water rises to the height of four, and five feet, as we may judge by the marks on the statues Shaamy and Taamy. All this pretended populousness of ancient Thebes I therefore believe fabulous.
It is a circumstance very remarkable, in building the first temples, that, where the side-walls are solid, that is, not supported by pillars, some of these have their angles and faces perpendicular, others inclined in a very considerable angle to the horizon. Those temples, whose walls are inclined, you may judge by the many hieroglyphics and ornaments, are of the first ages, or the greatest antiquity. From which, I am disposed to think, that singular construction was a remnant of the partiality of the builders for their first domiciles; an imitation of the slope118, or inclination of the sides of mountains, and that this inclination of flat surfaces to each other in building, gave afterwards the first idea of Pyramids119.
A number of robbers, who much resemble our gypsies, live in the holes of the mountains above Thebes. They are all out-laws, punished with death if elsewhere found. Osman Bey, an ancient governor of Girgé, unable to suffer any longer the disorders committed by these people, ordered a quantity of dried faggots to be brought together, and, with his soldiers, took, possession of the face of the mountain, where the greatest number of these wretches were: He then ordered all their caves to be filled with this dry brushwood, to which he set fire, so that most of them were destroyed; but they have since recruited their numbers, without changing their manners.
About half a mile north of El Gourni, are the magnificent, stupendous sepulchres, of Thebes. The mountains of the Thebaid come close behind the town; they are not run in upon one another like ridges, but stand insulated upon their bases; so that you can get round each of them. A hundred of these, it is said, are excavated into sepulchral, and a variety of other apartments. I went through seven of them with a great deal of fatigue. It is a solitary place; and my guides, either from a natural impatience and distaste that these people have at such employments, or, that their fears of the banditti that live in the caverns of the mountains were real, importuned me to return to the boat, even before I had begun my search, or got into the mountains where are the many large apartments of which I was in quest.
In the first one of these I entered is the prodigious sarcophagus, some say of Menes, others of Osimandyas; possibly of neither. It is sixteen feet high, ten long, and six broad, of one piece of red-granite; and, as such, is, I suppose, the finest vase in the world. Its cover is still upon it, (broken on one side,) and it has a figure in relief on the outside. It is not probably the tomb of Osimandyas, because, Diodorus120 says, that it was ten stadia from the tomb of the kings; whereas this is one among them.
There have been some ornaments at the outer-pillars, or outer-entry, which have been broken and thrown down. Thence you descend through an inclined passage, I suppose, about twenty feet broad; I speak only by guess, for I did not measure. The side-walls, as well as the roof of this passage, are covered with a coat of stucco, of a finer and more equal grain, or surface, than any I ever saw in Europe. I found my black-lead pencil little more worn by it than by writing upon paper.
Upon the left-hand side is the crocodile seizing upon the apis, and plunging him into the water. On the right-hand is the 121scarabæus thebaicus, or the thebaic beetle, the first animal that is seen alive after the Nile retires from the land; and therefore thought to be an emblem of the resurrection. My own conjecture is, that the apis was the emblem of the arable land of Egypt; the crocodile, the typhon, or cacodæmon, the type of an over-abundant Nile; that the scarabæus was the land which had been overflowed, and from which the water had soon retired, and has nothing to do with the resurrection or immortality, neither of which at that time were in contemplation.
Farther forward on the right-hand of the entry, the pannels, or compartments, were still formed in stucco, but, in place of figures in relief, they were painted in fresco. I dare say this was the case on the left-hand of the passage, as well as the right. But the first discovery was so unexpected, and I had flattered myself that I should be so far master of my own time, as to see the whole at my leisure, that I was rivetted, as it were, to the spot by the first sight of these paintings, and I could proceed no further.
In one pannel were several musical instruments strowed upon the ground, chiefly of the hautboy kind, with a mouth-piece of reed. There were also some simple pipes or flutes. With them were several jars apparently of potter-ware, which, having their mouths covered with parchment or skin, and being braced on their sides like a drum, were probably the instrument called the tabor, or122tabret, beat upon by the hands, coupled in earliest ages with the harp, and preserved still in Abyssinia, though its companion, the last-mentioned instrument, is no longer known there.
In three following pannels were painted, in fresco, three harps, which merited the utmost attention, whether we consider the elegance of these instruments in their form, and the detail of their parts as they are here clearly expressed, or confine ourselves to the reflection that necessarily follows, to how great perfection music must have arrived, before an artist could have produced so complete an instrument as either of these.
As the first harp seemed to be the most perfect, and least spoiled, I immediately attached myself to this, and desired my clerk to take upon him the charge of the second. In this way, by sketching exactly, and loosely, I hoped to have made myself master of all the paintings in that cave, perhaps to have extended my researches to others, though, in the sequel, I found myself miserably deceived.
My first drawing was that of a man playing upon a harp; he was standing, and the instrument being broad, and flat at the base, probably for that purpose, supported itself easily with a very little inclination upon his arm; his head is close shaved, his eye-brows black, without beard or mustachoes. He has on him a loose shirt, like what they wear at this day in Nubia (only it is not blue) with loose sleeves, and arms and neck bare. It seemed to be thick muslin, or cotton cloth, and long-ways through it is a crimson stripe about one-eighth of an inch broad; a proof, if this is Egyptian manufacture, that they understood at that time how to dye cotton, crimson, an art found out in Britain only a very few years ago. If this is the fabric of India, still it proves the antiquity of the commerce between the two countries, and the introduction of Indian manufactures into Egypt.