The Wanderer in Arabia ... With illustrations

Front matter

London Hurst01ackettl866. THE WANDERER IN ARABIA; OR, WESTERN FOOTSTEPS tn EASTERN TRACKS. BY GEORGE T. LOWTH, ESQ. ŒKt'tfj Elluatrattons. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HCJEST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1855. PRINTED DY C II A It LES BEVAN AND SON, SIUEET'S BUILDINGS, CHAPEL STREET, OHOSVENOIl SQUAttK. TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS ERNEST AUGUSTUS, REIGNING DUKE OF SAXE COBOURG AND GOTHA, Sus., &c., &c. Sir, Your Royal Highness has done me the honour to permit me to dedicate to You this book. It contains an attempt, but too imperfect, to give some account of a journey through countries which have ever a value for the student of antiquity, as for the disciple of Christianity, above that of all others — the countries in which are laid in the Sacred History the scenes of the events of the elder world.

However unworthy these volumes are of Your Royal Highness's acceptance, yet it is humbly DEDICATION. but truly wished that a Prince, as alive to all the animating novelties of varied Travel as You are to the beauty of the ancient works of man's hand, and the sublimer forms of Nature, — as earnest in the cultivation of the Useful Arts which civilise social life, as You are, by inheritance, desirous to aid the advancing steps of mankind in Civil and Religious Improvement, — may find in these pages some subjects of slight interest, or of entertainment. I venture to present these volumes to Your Royal Highness as a small tribute of sincere gratefulness and profound respect. I have the honour to subscribe myself, Sir, Your Royal Highness's Most obedient and very humble servant G. T. LOWTH.

Introduction

. Bold would be that man, who, in the present day, should offer to the public a work on the state of Egypt and Arabia and Syria in ancient times. If he followed in the steps of those great authors who have gone before him — if he but whipped up their contents afresh — but put their knowledge into a new coat — he would be held to be only a copyist and a bore. Should he attempt to surpass them in discovery — claim to see wha^ they had not seen, and to lay open what they had not been able to uncover — then must his courage be equal to his ability, and both of them be of a very high order. Almost equally bold would be that man who should venture to give to the world, as a work on the modern state of these great, old countries — as an authority to be VOL. I. a

INTRODUCTION.

. IV relied on by others — the scraps of information which he may have picked up, here and there, during a three months' voyage on the Nile, and a ride through the Holy Land. Far from me be such rashness. But although these two high roadways to the public ear — to one public ear — are blocked up and impassable to a simple traveller, there is still a private path open to him, by which he may attempt to approach the other ear of the Great Listener to the big and the little, the high and the lowly. There is an ear open but to the grand words and precious facts of science and philosophy, of learning and research ; and there is another always ready for the common and daily doings and sayings of common life, and which listens to the tale of what ordinary people have seen, and what they have done, and what they think, on their passage along the highways of life.

It is to this ear of the Great Public — the ear of com mon things — that I venture to offer these pages, believing, as I do, that although Egypt and Arabia and Palestine are old accustomed roads well beaten by a travelling race in a travelling age, yet still there is some novelty to be found in the various ways and manners in which different travellers get along these roads — something to be extracted of the useful, however small, or of amusement, from the different views and thoughts of the various wanderers along their tracks. If there still are to be found people, who, when the

INTRODUCTION.

. V names of Thebes and Philœ, of Sinai and Jerusalem, of Petra and Damascus, are sounded in their ears, feel but one half of the longing desire which ever, from earliest memories, stirred my inner nature to visit those ancient cities and world-honoured places — I shall venture to hope these peace ful and humble pages may find, even to-day in these heart absorbing days of war, a few readers, And may they not too severely criticise all the short-comings and the errors of a mere Tale of Travel. But there is a debt upon the book — a debt which I take this occasion to acknowledge with grateful pleasure, though I know not how to pay it. It is the drawings. I owe these clever pictures to the hands of friends, who, from the very rudest sketches of my pencil, have produced these excellent and very faithful representations of the scenes and places described in the text.

There are but a few words to add. The journey described in these volumes was made in 1850 — 51, and the account of it has been partly written for some time, but its completion delayed by circumstances ; and latterly, though finished with the exception of the last chapter of the second volume, the appearance of the book has been deferred, on account of me lancholy events connected with the war, until the present time. G. T. L. Paris, December, 1855. a ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I The Ruins os Sais in the Delta Frontispiece. The Coft Monks of Jebel El Davr Page 72 The Copt Convent at Abydtts . „ CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Chapter I

Dreams of Travel — First Impressions — Boatmen of Alexandria — The Mysterious Figure — A real Soldier — The Egyptian Hosier — The Camel at Home — Old Friends in a new Dress — The small Things of Life — Hire of a Boat — Choice of Servants — Selim Hassan — A professed Coot — A Consul's Dinner in jeopardy— The Caliph for a Day Hajji — A Day's Shopping — The fleshless Arab — Cleopatra's Needle — An Obelisk for Sydenham — The Pleasures of Slave-holding — Dreams and Dreams ... ... ... ... ... ... Page 1 — 25. CHAPTER H. Boat Life in Egypt — An Arabian December — Yusuf — Companions on the Journey — The ' Fortunata '—The Villages of the Delta — Visions of the Past — Interrupted Reveries— Egyptian I-aw and Justice — The Governor of Atfeh — The River Side — Everyday Life — The Sitteen — A Nile Breeze — Ancient Sais — The Temple of Neith — Dogs and Jackals — Interior Arrangements — The Caliph in his Kitchen — Our Cabins — The Sitt at Home — Dinner Time — The Slave of the Lamp — The Libyan Desert — All hail, ye Pyramids ! 26 — 18. CONTENTS.

Chapter III

The Desert — The Spirit of Liberty — Boyhood's Dreams — Alone in Arabia — ' Is the Frenchman in sight?' — An Afternoon's Sporting — Benisooef — The Moslem Sabbath — The Luxury of Egyptian Travel — The Crocodile's Friend — Pilgrims from Mecca — The Bishop of Gibraltar's Reis — An Amateur Sailor — The Dragomany of the East — Thefts on the Nile — ' Westley Richards ' at hand — The Disgrace of Paying — The Unlucky Money Jar 49—69.

Chapter IV

The Village of Golosaneh — The Lentisch — Jebcl El Dayr — An Egyptian Monk — The Copt Convent — Abbas Pasha's Sugar Manufactory — Ismacl Bey's Farm — Bayadeh — A Picturesque Copt — Achmet Bey — The Union Jack — A Night Watch — Turkeys for Christmas Day — The Nile Landscape — The Fellaheen — Winter Clothing in Egypt — Jebel Aboofayda — A Dangerous Passage — The Dahabeeh aground — Selim aroused ... ... ... 70 — 89.

Chapter V

An Egyptian Cemetery — A Party of Mourners — Grief but not Woe — Ossioot — The ' Fortunata ' again — The American's Boat — Selim's Disappointment — The Plain of Abooteg— Infinite Variety — The Two Cats in sight — Crocodiles and Pelicans — Jebel Sheikh Hereedeh — A Squall — An Exciting Race — The Country of the Howara — The Dog? of Girgeh — The Waste Lands of Egypt — Manufactures v. Agriculture — A Game of Rounders — Jellal — The People of Upper Egypt 90—110.

Chapter VI

New Tear's Day — The Arab Boatman's Fireside — Crocodiles and their Characteristics — A Dinner Party on the Nile — A Bill of Fare — Selim and the Big Fish — Thebes — Important Missives — The Captain and his Three Wives —A Reconciliation — Esneh — Sheikh Tombs — A Scarabæus for a Penny — A Mutiny — Justice and Mercy — A New Road to Sea Service — ' No Baksheesh ' — Peace Offerings and Harmony 111—130. CONTENTS. IX

Chapter VII

The News of the Day- Perfect Freedom— Sulky AJi — The Concert — Elephantina — Assouan— 'Good Society, — The Shadow of Palms and the Shadow of Death — The unlucky Dahabeeh — A busy Time. 131—146.

Chapter VIII

The Pleasures of the Nile Voyage — Dissatisfied Travellers — Philœ — The Village of Morada — A fine old Arab Gentleman — The Passage of the Cataract — Jealous Boatmen — -The Wreck of the ' Fortunata ' — Baksheesh and Sherry — Patience on an Island — The big Hole— ' Delicious words' — A Scene and a Success ... ... 147 — 165.

Chapter IX

Philœ the Beautiful — The Sacred Solitude — The unfortunate ' Fortu nata'— Our Nubian Pilot— The Bab El KalabsM— The Genii of Enterprise — Nubia and the Nubians — Kirosko — Courageous Ladies A Head Wind — The Country Girls — Traditional Hair-dressing — Nubian Peasant Life — Selini and AH — A Chance for the Bastinado — Anad and Zeyd — An angry Joke — Sticks against Sticks — Penitent Ali — Brecknockshire and Osiris — The Sheikh's Wheat-field — A Midnight Serenade — The Two Cats again — The Sands of Lybia — Mystio Moonlight— The Nile's Divinity 166—193.

Chapter X

Shadows from Temple Walls — Philosophy and Religion — The One God— A Partial Revelation— The Twofold Mind of Man— The Light Obscured — Divinity in Animals — Fall from Wisdom — A Voice in Egypt— The Visible God— A Peculiar People 194r-211.

Chapter XI

The Second Cataract — Wady Halfah — Modesty in Nubia — Black «. White — Christianity and Slavery — The 'Cambria's ' Mario — The Fine Gentleman — Officious Zeyd — Story-telling Djad — The ' Cambria's' Transformation — Jebel Aboosir — Joys of the Nile Boat — Sorrow everywhere at Home — The Goal — The Schools of Egypt — The Bible and the Koran — The Down Voyage — ' Everything passes away but God' 212—235. X CONTENTS.

Chapter XII

The Sitt turned Doctor — 'Beautiful Medicine' — Ophthalmia — Faras — The Lotus and Acanthus — Human Mutability — The Colossi of Epsambul — Fallen Greatness — The Heroes of Kalabshe' — An Egyptian Billingsgate — The Great Khenna Question ... ... 236 — 250. CHAPTER XHI. The Conscription — Unfilled Lands — Tafa — A Voice from Ali's Heart — Ali's Sister— The Ruins of Dabod— The Deserted Village— The Bed of Osiris — Descent of the Cataract — The Brave Sitt — An Exciting Moment— Still Water— A Chorus of Victory 251—267

Chapter XIV

News of the World — A Pirate Attacks the ' Antar ' aground — Rules of the Road — The Sitteen and the Race course — Ombus and Silsileh — The Harmony of Abundance — The Siwah Country — A band of Warriors — the Conscripts — The boatman's Sympathy — Fugitives — Rocks ahead ! — The ' Antar's ' disgrace — The British Consul's Thunder. 268—287.

Chapter XV

Thebes — Royal Procession— A Hymn — The real Antique — The Forest of Pillars — The Sacred Hawk — Dust and Ashes — Begging — History and Enthusiasm — The Colossi of the Plain 288 — 303.

Chapter XVI

Dendera — The Grottos of Kasr-el-Said — The Gold Mine of Egypt From Bellianeh to Abydus — From Abraham until Now — A Copt Convent — The Priests and the People — The Heart's Religion. 301—311.

Chapter XVII

The Power of Coffee — The Night Pull — Grand Cairo — Friends in Boats — The Floating Harem — ' Not much looking ' ... 312 — 321. CHAPTER XV1IJ. Abbas Pasha — His Character — His Political Economy — Mehemet Ah- — Egyptian Admiration of Strength — The Right Man at the Right Time — The Indian Transit — Mr. Shepherd's Story — The Old College —The Pyramids — The Delta and the Desert — The ' Cambria' alone again 322 — 334. THE WANDERER IN ARABIA.

Chapter I

Dreams of Travel — First Impressions — Boatmen of Alexandria — The Mysterious Figure — A real Soldier — The Egyptian Hosier — The Camel at Home — Old Friends in a new Dress — The small Things of Life — Hire of a Boat — Choice of Servants — Selim Hassan — A professed Cook — A Consul's Dinner in jeopardy — The Caliph for a Day Hajji — A Day's Shopping — The fleshless Arab — Cleopatra's Needle — An Obelisk for Sydenham — The Pleasures of Slave-holding — Dreams and Dreams. It is pleasant to dream a dream of travel ; but how much more is it pleasant to plan an actual plan, and, lying on your bed, to lay out an expedition to some distant shore, and to realise the possibility of accomplishing some old and dreamy scheme of a walk among storied people in legend-teeming lands. And then, how exciting is the active preparation — VOL. I. B DREAMS OF TRAVEL. the advancing reality — the book-reading, and con sulting of maps, and the gathering together of many things, of no great importance at home, but held to be indispensable ' out there ;' and, lastly, how eager is the imagining which leaps over every diffi culty budt up by stay-at-home wisdom, takes in its stride, as some strong horse in his gallop, a banked up heap of trouble and disaster, and puts danger and death under foot contemptuously.

And so you reach the right pitch for enterprise ; and the voyage be gins ; and Italy is left behind, and Malta disappears ; and the night arrives that you lay yourself down with the conviction that in the morning light you shall see wonders, and bathe your senses in charmed astonishment. And so you land in Egypt. There are few actual — not imaginary — events which produce so strong and entire a sensation of pleasure as that first landing on the distant and longed-for shore. The novelty is not a bit here and a bit there — a variation of known things, — but it is infinite, and in everything ; and so much is the attention startled, and the feeling of satisfaction so affected by sharp surprise, that the chief inclina tion — I answer for myself only, however — is to sit down at once upon the strand, and gaze and stare at each object in turn, and not feel the slightest desire to break the charm by considering there ALEXANDRIA — FIRST IMPRESSIONS. may be other things, and going in search of them.

Here is what you have come for, and at once every sense is occupied to the uttermost, and the cup of satisfaction is full to the brim. And so it was with me on that strand of Alex andria. For years, when but a boy, I had dreamed of Egypt, and now at last I was on its shore ; and I had done for a time with paved streets and ruddy cheeks, and such stale things of custom, and was in a new world. It was a kind of waking dream ; and so, giving up at once all attempts to look at things with a grave countenance, as becomes a serious and inquiring Englishman, I did nothing but perpetually laugh in people's faces, in the childish enjoyment of the soft bright air of summer (it was December), and the novel Arabian Nights' scene before me. And so, staring and laughing, and stopping and walking, I gave myself up to the charm with a sort of feeling that the whole thing was an unreal reality, and that the groups were scenic — on a theatrical stage for my amusement.

I wished it had been possible for us to have gone to a khan — that, surely, was the right place of entertainment for us — but I was not alone, and mv wjfe — she was scarcely Eastern enough for a B BOATMEN OF ALEXANDRIA. khan as yet — so I crushed the seducing thought in the bud, and went to the British Hotel. We had rooms looking out on the great square of Alexan dria, with a balcony, and on this balcony — the Sitt and myself, — we stood like two children ' gazing on all the town ' by the hour, and looking down on the perpetually shifting, and always curious and brilliant scene, as though it were dressed up for us, and was not every-day life. It is true that some, and many, of those figures before us were but old accustomed ones under new forms, but they were so changed as to be almost of a new nature.

Thus the men and women, in their brilliantly coloured, or elaborately quaint, or inge niously misformed garments, were not as our usual men and women — and from that secret corner of my being that loves novelty, I thanked the hea vens that they were not so. Those boatmen of the port of Alexandria, as we came in, — surely, they had dropped into their boats from somewhere by chance, and were not the real 'oars.' Were they got up for the occasion? It was doubtful : anyhow, they wore no blue-jackets — no fustian — no shirt-sleeves begrimed with smoke. It would have been a painful disappointment, had those men looked tba least in the world like sailors. THE MYSTERIOUS FIGURE. Is that tall form, clothed in one long blue robe, from its neck to its ankles, the evidently sole cover ing of the full luxuriance beneath — with bare and bronzed feet in the dust, and whose languid dark eyes shine out on you from the mysterious world within, the sole feature visible — is it a woman?

It is masked ; for a metal instrument, where the nose should be, connects the blue cotton mask below with the same above ; and, except two feet below, and two eyes above, there all is the un known. No — there are two dusky hands, and one of them holds a water-jar on the head. Is this a peasant, and of the same occupation as the Hamp shire girl, with open and ruddy face, and tidy many-petticoated dress, with her water-pail at the cottage door ? — I doubt, and should be very sorry to be quite certain they were both of the same nature — both women. I did not go to Egypt to see mere usual women. There is a figure pacing up and down on the city wall by Cleopatra's needle, and where you look out from the gap in the work across the Old Port, and to where Pharos once stood in its marble beauty. The said figure is habited in loose white clothing nondescript, nor robes of eastern ease, nor of western rigidity ; and which may be safely cal culated to fall off and disperse, should th*> walking A REAL SOLDIER — THE EGYPTIAN HOSIER. being within attempt a run.

Is it a real soldier — the same kind of creature as the smart and but toned-up sentinel at St. James's ? Perhaps — but the matter is very questionable. So you look at the spare and bronzed face with liquid eye and quiet, grave countenance, as the form it belongs to lies wrapped in a white abba, on a pile of woollen blankets in a quaint little wooden unwindowed box — one of a line of boxes, and which pass for shops ; and you think, for an instant, of a London hosier, sleek and fat, bustling and talka tive, in the midst of his large flaring gilt premises, gaudy with showy goods and plate-glass windows. What an odious vision of the memory ! Are these both men, and following the same calling? The one is a pain to the nerves of thought ; while you turn to that thin and dark-skinned and silent man of the blood of the wanderer of the desert, and you recognise in the self-possessed air and the high caste features the stamp of nature's nobility.

But the lower animals were not those of other lands. The camel had been to me but an ungainly and mis-shapen monster, the type of all awkward ness, while a monkey — the caricature animal — or some bejacketed dog, on his back, had fastened the gaunt form in the memory as ludicrous. But in Egypt the 'Ship of the desert' is no longer so. THE CAMEL AT HOME. 7 Bearing enormous piles of goods — half the contents of a house — or reservoirs of water — himself of huge proportions and gigantic power — he stalks through the narrow ways of Alexandria with his companions — a long line of them majestically moving under their towering burthens with easy and springing step, as though unladen ; he is no longer ludicrous, but a new and noble creature, grand and useful, of unguessed capabilities. I longed to get upon him, and feel under me that giant frame, and the elastic movement, and the carriage so imposing and digni fied beyond that of other and commoner animals. ' You and I will live in companionship,' said I, men tally addressing the stately creature, ' and together make acquaintance with the secret places of your habitation, the Desert.' Why, the very slave of slaves, the crushed and grief-stricken, is so no more in Egypt ; the battered drudge has become the willing servant.

Is that active little fellow, who, with race-horse coat and full flanks, moves under his rider with the light step and the action of a pony — is he the same animal with that starved and head-bowed object of the north — subject for all pity and cruelty — and clothed with rags and insult ? Look at him now. On he goes, rapid and free, with his small head well up, and as gay as a crimson saddle, and a OLD FRIENDS IN A NEW DRESS. bridle of bright chains and red leather can make him. It was a gladdening sight to see the unfor tunate as a new animal in Egypt. And so it was with other things — with trees and with houses — with nature animate and inanimate. We were in a new world. But we had business on hand. We must get a boat, and hire servants- — a cook and a dragoman — and buy stores, and come down from the heights of sensual enjoyment, and the regions of fancy to the bare realities and the small things of life.

We had arranged to get a good dahabeeh at Alexandria, and start on our expedition at once from there. It is customary with travellers to hire a country boat to get up to Cairo, as there is a poor choice of boats for the voyage to Upper Egypt, at Alexandria — while at Cairo the best are to be found, and plenty. But this plan involves dirt and discomfort for nearly a week, at the very outset — evils much to be avoided ; so we determined, if a good boat could be found at Alexandria, to take it — and thus escape the risk of having a damper thrown on the Nile expedition at its threshold. I had letters from the Foreign Office to our con suls in the East, and it is a pleasure to look back on the friendly and ready attention 1 met with from one and all of these different gentlemen. I feel a HIRE OF A BOAT. 9 warm satisfaction in recording my sense of their kindness on all occasions of my requiring their assistance.

By the aid of Mr. Gilbert, our then most obliging consul at Alexandria, I soon found a boat for our purpose, newly painted and repaired, furnished afresh with divans, and provided with all things necessary for the use of six persons. It was a dahabeeh with three cabins, and was managed by a Reis and nine men and a boy. In a few words with Mr. Georgio Adib, the chief dragoman of the British Consulate, and owner of the boat, I engaged to pay £120 for it, for four months, or five, if I pleased ; and never, from the day I took it, till I left it at Cairo in March, had I cause to find fault with it. It was buoyant on the water, sailed well, was very handy, and as well got up, and as bright and sound, as fresh paint and a thorough repair could make it. The deck was painted in large squares of black, and white, and when the Sitt stepped on board, the reis received her under a large awning which covered in the whole deck, and it was like entering a tent with a new oil-cloth under her feet.

This important point being arranged' the next thing was to procure two men-servants — a drago man and a cook. At Malta there are various native CHOICE OF SERVANTS. Maltese, who waylay travellers on their passage to the East, and induce them to hire them as servants for the Eastern journey, warning the unwary against all Orientals, as thieves and bad managers. With many protestations, these gentry place themselves in the broad fight of good men and true, and who will take care of their masters' interest. Some travellers are caught by these representations ; but I set my face at once and decidedly against all these people at Malta, and also at Alexandria. ' No,' said I, to myself, ' in the East I will sur round myself with Eastern people, and have done for a time, while it is in my power, with all coats and trousers (save my own), and all such hideous sights.' Moreover, I had a fancy to be cheated by Easterns, for the novelty of the thing, having be come rather tired of dealing with that flourishing class — the rogues of Europe — and wishing to shake myself free of them for a season.

So I gave it to be understood at once, at Alexandria, that I wanted two native servants. On returning from the Mahmoudieh Canal, where the boat was lying (she was to be called ' The Cambria,' in honour of the Sitt, who was a Welsh woman, and the name was to be painted on her sides forthwith), I found a man standing at the door of our rooms. He was tall — a bronzed SELIM HASSAN. 11 Egyptian, — handsome in face and figure, and well dressed. His dress was composed of a turban of snow-white cotton, folded round a red tarboosh, a brown cloth embroidered jacket, silk waistcoat, shawl round his waist, full and brilliantly white Turkish trousers short to the knee, white stockings, and red slippers. With erect figure, and well turned limbs, he was a handsome fellow. " You wanting a servant, sir ?'' He spoke in broken English.

" I do. Who are you ?" " My name, Selim Hassan. I living many times with English gentlemen." (These people use the participle generally.) " I living with Mr. WDson — I living with the Bishop Gibraltar — with Mr. Errington — with many gentlemen." " Let me see your papers." He pulled out of his breast — grateful sight — coat pockets were unknown to this eastern man — he pulled out various papers, of which the first was a long statement of Selim's talents and his services, signed, ' Carus Wilson.' There was in it warm praise ; and a second document set forth, also by an Englishman, his abilities in a similarly glowing light. Selim's appearance was good and thoroughly Eastern. He had^ a grave face and beautifully formed hands. SELIM HASSAN. It is indispensable in the East to have a good dragoman, and more particularly when there is a lady in the party of travellers, as all comfort and therefore much of enjoyment depend upon this man.

Money spared in this point is badly saved. If he is a managing fellow, ready witted and good tempered, everything goes easy throughout the ex pedition ; but if he be bad tempered, or careless, or stupid — you may be, as many travellers are, in per petual hot-water among the passionate and half. civilised people of those countries. I engaged Selim. The next thing was to find a cook. This, too, is an affair of moment, for if your cook, engaged on the strength of recommendation of perhaps incom petent judges, turns out a bad one on the voyage, there is no help for you. You cannot 'send away the cook' — you are out in the wilds, and must patiently eat dirt till you get down the Nile to civilised haunts again. — Your expedition is spoiled and your life is saddened, daily at morn and dewy eve, when the revolving hours — which should bear on their wings contentment and peace to the heart of man — bring but disappointment, and mourning, and sorrow.