Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874.

Part I.— Egypt

Chap. Page

I. Alexandria After Twenty-two Years 9

II. From Alexandria to Cairo by Rail 18

III. A New Picture of Cairo 28

IV. Sights In and Around Cairo 37

V. A Trip to the Pyramids 44

VI. Interview with the Khedive 53

VII. Railways in Egypt f>3

VIII. A Trip to the Fyoom. 69

IX. The Egyptian Antiquities at Boolak 104

X. Fragments of Early Egyptian Literature. 120

XI. Egypt Under the Khedive’s Rule 133

XII. Final Notes from Egypt 143

CONTENTS.

Part Ii.— Iceland

Chap. Page

I. On the Way to Iceland 153

II. A Sketch of Iceland’s History 160

III. A Day at the Orkneys 170

IV. The Shetland Islands 177

V. Holiday at the Faroe Islands 182

VI. On the Northern Ocean 189

VII. Rejkiavik and the King’s Arrival 197

VIII. Further Impressions of Iceland 206

IX. The Millennial Celebration at Rejkiavik 213

X. The Ride to Thingvalla 225

XI. From Thingvalla to the Geysers 233

XII. Waiting for the Great Geyser to Spout. 242

XIII. The National Festival at Thingvalla... 254

XIV. A New Political Era for Iceland 266

XV. The Return to Rejkiavik and Voyage to

Scotland 274

PART I.

EGYPT.

Egypt.

chapter i. ALEXANDRIA AFTER TWENTY-TWO YEARS

Alexandria, Egypt, March 14, 1874.

HEN we passed Crete, two days ago, the north wind — -the very same “ Euroclydon ” which once so interfered with the voyage of St. Paul — grew finally tired of blowing, and a light breeze, with the promise of summer on its wings, stole over the waters from the unseen Libyan shore. The gales which have convulsed the Mediterranean this winter left only a long, uneasy swell behind them, and we were even glad to escape the sight of land, coupled as it was in Sicily and Calabria and Crete with that of abundant snow. Winter is never so wearisome as when one is trying to escape it.

I saw Egypt for the last time in 1852, when steamers were just beginning to ply upon the Nile, and a line of very rude omnibuses crossed the desert from Cairo to Suez about once a month. There had been a survey for a railroad, I believe, but the first spadeful of earth had not yet been turned, and the Suez Canal

EGYPT.

was among the things not only unprojected, but almost unmentioned. Abbas Pasha was making awkward attempts to introduce the European military system, upon the success of which further innovations seemed to be waiting; Soudan was hardly subjected to the Egyptian rule, and Gondokoro, now the starting-point of exploration on the White Nile, was then its farthest limit. My own journey to Central Africa was something so unusual that it was considered hazardous, for scarcely a dozen travellers had penetrated into Nubia beyond the Second Cataract.

All these conditions have been wonderfully changed, and now, in returning for the second time to a country which, once seen, forever after attracts, my chief interest will be to ascertain what corresponding change has taken place in the condition, the habits, and the ideas of the people. It is still an undecided point how far the requirements of modern civilization will — or can — be accepted by any portion of the Oriental race, since there are so few which do not interfere with either religious traditions or social usages of nearly equal sanctity. There is no permanence in an exotic civilization, possessed only by the governing class, as has been the case heretofore ; but now that ship-canal, railway, telegraph, and printing-press are owned by Egypt, the native race must perforce change or go under. This much by way of indicating the point of view which I have proposed to myself.

We took passage at Naples on the Rubattino (Italian) line of steamers, in consequence of reasonable recoin-

ALEXANDRIA.

ii mendation. The little, slow-going Sicilia, however, with her berths in which you could not lie at full length, her cabin in which you could not stand upright, her delicate sympathy with the least restlessness of the waves, and her refusal to make more than nine miles an hour under the most favorable circumstances, was rather a sore disappointment to the seven American and four English passengers. But the fifth morning came at last, balmy and cloudless, and before noon the pharos of Alexandria hovered like a faint streak over the far-sparkling water. The white houses on the point, the Cape of Figs, the glare of the sandy Libyan coast, the windmills and clumps of stumpy, wind-beaten palm-trees, rose and blended into a low landscape, just as I had seen them before. Then came a new mole, creating a grand artificial harbor, with an inner port, crowded with vessels. The water was alive with boats ; dolphins leaped through the dancing ripples, and flocks of snowy gulls circled in the sun or dropped upon the waves. New York Bay, on a fair June morning, is not more bright, breezy, and joyous.

My former smattering of Arabic seemed to come back suddenly with the necessity for using it, and the vessel was barely anchored before I had bargained with a boatman to take us ashore. In fact, we got away so rapidly that a courteous Egyptian officer was compelled to accompany us, in order that there might be somebody to receive us at the almost deserted landing place. Passports are still called for, which seems a most unnecessary regulation, since no fee is de-

EGYPT.

manded ; a douceur of two francs to the officer of customs saves the necessity of opening trunks, and the traveller is then admitted into the whirlpool of coachmen, donkey-drivers, and porters, waiting in the street outside. But the cries and gesticulations mean nothing serious, and the stranger who has been frightened by the representations of certain guide-books may possess his soul in peace if he only keeps a serene countenance. Show signs of timidity or bewilderment, and the uproar may rise to a fearful pitch ; announce your will briefly, and with an air of calm authority, in either English, French, or Italian, and you will be understood and readily obeyed.

In twenty minutes from the time we left the steamer’s deck we were seated in a carriage, and threading the narrow streets of the old town, on our way to the Hotel d’Europe. I only needed to say, in Arabic, “ I have been in Alexandria before,” to change the howls of the porters into grins and stop their clamor for more pay. The noises which followed were simply picturesque — merchants crying their wares, warnings of coachmen and donkey-boys, or greetings and gossip in the open booths. Here was old Alexandria still; nor was there much sign of change when we emerged into the dusty and shabby “ Grand Square.” A bronze equestrian statue of Mohammed Ali, in the centre thereof, now offends the faith of Islam, while it encourages but very slightly one’s own faith in art. The hotel has added an immense sign, “Patronized by H. R. H. the Prince of Wales,” with the three feathers, but omitting the “ Ich dicn,” which I thought

ALEXANDRIA.

a bad omen, until reassured by finding service and table really good.

A far larger stream of human life and a more motley mixture of nationalities poured through the square ; otherwise I noticed but one striking change. This is the astonishing spread of the English language within the last twenty years, resulting both from the numbers of English and American travellers who visit the East, and the use of the language by travellers of other nationalities. French, which until within the last few years was indispensable, has been slowly fading into the background, and is already less available than English for Italy and all the Orient. I wras not a little surprised, in Rome, at being accosted by a native boot-black w'ith : “Shine up your boots?’’ In

Naples, every peddler of canes, coral, photographs, and shell-fish knows at least enough to make a good bargain ; but this is nothing to what one meets in Egypt. The bright-witted boys learn the language with amazing rapidity, and are so apt at guessing what they do not literally understand that the traveller no longer requires an interpreter. At the base of Pompey’s Pillar to-day a ragged and dirty little girl came out of a Fellah hut and followed us crying, “ Give me a ha’penny ! ” All the coachmen and most of the shopkeepers are familiar with the words necessary for their business, and prefer to use them, even after they see that you are acquainted with Italian or Arabic. The simple, natural structure of the English language undoubtedly contributes also to its extension. It is already the leading language of the world, spoken by

EGYPT.

M

ninety millions of people (double the number of the French-speaking races), and so extending its conquests year by year that its practical value is far in advance of that of any other tongue.

In the older streets, and especially in the native bazars, all is gay, diversified, Oriental. The faces, costumes, and dialects of Syria, Tripoli, and Tunis are mixed with those of Egypt, and even groups of wondering Desert Arabs are a daily sight. I saw several this morning, evidently very much puzzled by a collection of large children’s dolls in a shop window ; their faces were an interesting study. But with what a simple dignity they wore their ragged burnouses ! What fine, statuesque grace in every deliberate movement or gesture ! These pictures, which meet you at every turn, give to the newer portion of Alexandria, which is architecturally like Leghorn or Marseilles, a semi Oriental character. Of its 225,000 inhabitants, at least 100,000 are of European blood. It has more than doubled in twenty years, and the rubbish of unfinished or demolished buildings meets your eye wherever you go. The banking capital of the city is estimated at $125,000,000 — not much less than that of New-York. where, however, the amount of business is not always an evidence of the basis upon which it is carried on. Where everybody rode on donkeys, in 1852, there are now superb equipages, and the rich merchants are building up a suburb of sumptuous villas and gardens at Ramleh, four or five miles to the eastward of the city.

We drove to the Pasha’s garden under fair sunshine,

ALEXANDRIA.

through mild and yet bracing air ; but the signs of a severe Winter were visible in the nipped and dilapidated banana trees, the dull hues of the palms, and the absence of any but the very first indications of Spring. The sycamore, fig, and mulberry trees are still as naked and gray as in Northern Italy ; only the almond and apricot are in blossom. The garden seemed to be under a mysterious ban; Summer, Spring, and Winter were mixed in the trees and plants, as if Nature had lost her calendar and were feebly endeavoring to find out the season. A large military band, in scarlet uniform, played various clashing and jingling pieces to about a hundred auditors, and half a dozen gardeners, in blue cotton caftans, lounged about to see that the few geraniums, and gilliflowers were not plucked.

The return along the bank of the Mahmoudieh Canal was altogether more satisfactory. The winding water-course has all the character of a natural river ; native villages have sprung up on the further bank; native craft, towed by men, move slowly back and forth; camels and donkeys bring loads of lush green grass from the fields beyond; crowds of women wash clothes or vegetables in the water, and now and then you see a devout Moslem, turned towards Mecca, praying his afternoon prayer. I remembered an Egyptian coffee-house, shaded with palms, but could not find it again. In its place there was a small Greek establishment, where an inferior Mocha was brought to us in Frank cups, and even the narghileh had lost its former fashion. Indeed, our going to such a place i6

EGYPT.

at all seemed to surprise the Arab coachman, and to be hardly welcome to the keeper of the cafe. But what is to become of the Orient if its characteristic features thus disappear? With the cafe, the story-teller will go ; next, the pipe and the little cup of frothy, aromatic coffee ; and finally, the Egyptian will sit indoors, at a marble table, with a cigar in his mouth and a bottle of soda-water (?) before him.

Moslem and Frank seem to live very harmoniously here, side by side. The former have either conquered their religious prejudices or learned to suppress the evidence of them. Even in passing through the bazar of the Tunisians, who have always been narrowly fanatical in this respect, a few words in their language brought courteous and friendly answers. Whatever Frank habits the people may have adopted, they still keep their grace and cheerfulness, their clamor for much and their satisfaction with little. I am inclined to think that a change of costume (which means far more here than in most other countries) must precede — or at least be the sign of — any important change in their ideas.

If the Suez Canal has injured the commerce of Alexandria, as was predicted, the loss has certainly been made up in other ways, for few cities of its size show greater evidence of present growth and prosperity. Mr, Babbitt, the American Vice Consul-General, informs me that the trade with the United States has greatly increased within the past year. It is not a place where the tourist tarries long — for the column which the Arab coachmen call “ Bombey’s Billar ”

ALEXANDRIA.

may be seen in an hour — but it is really an interesting frontispiece to the new civilization of Egypt. The hotels have all the European comforts except that of bells, but if H. R. H. was willing to stand at his chamber door and clap his hands three times for a waiter to come, why should we object? Besides, you may remember that they did just so in the Arabian Nights.

So many American travellers imagine March to be too late a month for Egypt, that I must inform them we are just comfortable — and no more — without fires. The temperature is that of a day in early June, say 70° in the shade.

Chapter II. From Alexandria To Cairo By Rail

HE old route from Alexandria to Cairo, by steam or rail, along the Mahmoudieh Canal to Atfeh, and up the Rosetta arm of the Nile, is a thing of the past. Instead of twelve hours on the steamer, or three to six days on a dahabiyeh, the express trains now make the intervening hundred and thirty miles in exactly four hours and a half, and carry the traveller across the rich inland levels of the Delta, which he never saw in former years. All authorities, guide-books included, warn you solemnly against taking the ordinary trains, on the ground that they never obey the time-table and may be delayed for hours on the way. For us. however, the express was too punctual, because too fast. I did not consider an additional hour and a half any too much for an entirely new route, and was not particularly satisfied when the predictions proved false and the train kept its exact

At the Alexandria station, a large dusty building beyond the canal, there was certainly, at the start, an atmosphere of great repose and indifference. The ticket-seller at the open window counted gold pieces time,

FROM ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO B V RAIL. 19

for about five minutes before attending to my demand, and the officials in the baggage-room discussed a variety of topics while weighing and registering our two small trunks. The first-class fare is a little less than six dollars, which, with one franc for baggage, is not an excessive charge. A dozen persons were gathered in the shabby waiting-room, while the native passengers, third and fourth-class, came forth as a large multitude from their separate den. The first and second-class cars were made after the English model, the former with comfortable leather seats, but without curtains to the windows. The conductor and his subalterns spoke English, with a smattering of French and Italian. Every one connected with the train seemed to be lounging about the platform, moving slowly, speaking gently, and apparently coveting an opportunity for a good nap. There was no noise ; the locomotive neither whistled nor snorted ; only a bell, with a very lazy clapper, struck once or twice somewhere, and, at the appointed minute, the train slid almost noiselessly out of the station. From first to last, indeed, there was less jarring and sound than upon any other railway I have ever travelled. The track, almost perfectly level and with few curves, rests on a low embankment of the elastic alluvial soil, into which the rails are kept from sinking by using broad iron saucers in place of sleepers.

For the first twenty-five miles, between Lake Mareotis on the right and the canal on the left, there is little to be seen. Water and reeds, sandy shores in the distance, wild ducks and pelicans, and congrega-

EGYPT.

tionsof storks in the nearer marshes, appear on the one hand : on the other are scant fields of wheat and barley, pastures where horses and buffaloes graze, clumps of tamarisk or palm, and, bounding all, like a very dirty frame to a simple but sunny picture, the banks of the canal, above which you sometimes see the curved and pointed top of a lateen sail. Every halfmile or thereabouts, wherever there is a little mound rising a few feet above the inundatable soil, you see a Fellah village, resembling a nest of mud-wasps magnified, with lean chickens and children scratching about in the sun, and a woman or two carrying water from the neighboring pool.

The first two stations were little more than wateringplaces for the engines ; but even there we found water-carriers with their porous earthen jars, and vendors of oranges and sugar-cane clamoring for custom. The names of the places were not called out ; but an assistant conductor, who scented backsheesh in the distance, and spoke a little English, privately announced them to us. A native attendant with a large dinner-bell on his shoulder, was always on hand, grave and responsible, to give the signal for departure. Yet, although we halted every twelve miles, making a leisurely and friendly call in each instance, our running speed was between twenty-five and thirty miles an hour.

Once having rounded the eastern end of Lake Mareotis, the road turns to the southward, and enters the broad, triangular region of Lower Egypt. The near marshes and the distant ridges of sand are no longer

ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO B Y RAIL.

seen ; fields of cotton, beans, wheat, barley, and clover stretch away to the horizon, intersected by canals of irrigation, whose courses may be traced by their borders of tamarisk — the tree sacred to Osiris. The men and children seem to be all out of doors, plowing with buffalo teams, cutting clover, watching the grazing animals, or squatting on their heels in the sun and doing nothing. A fresh, balmy smell of vegetation enters the open windows as we speed along. The temperature makes the breeze welcome, yet our woollen garments are none too warm. It is like a warm spring without its languor, or a summer tempered by high mountain air.

About forty miles from Alexandria we approach the large town of Damanhoor, the capital of nearly all the agricultural region west of the Nile, with which it is connected by a navigable canal. Some hundreds of previous mud towns must have crumbled into ruin and been again built upon, to form the mound upon which the present place is built. Its material, also, is chiefly mud; but the lines of the houses, '‘battering in ” (to use the builder’s term) like the pylae of okl temples, give them a certain stateliness. It was either market-day, or a fair was being held : thousands of men, women, children, camels, oxen, and asses filled the open space on the western slope of the mound, and crowds of the curiously-inclined thronged about the station. The Egyptian passengers bought heads of lettuce, which they ate with great relish, curds, and cakes of coarse, dark bread. The water-jars were also in demand for the washing of hands ; so that the

EGYPT.

railway, thus far, seemed to have adapted itself to native habits rather than to have modified them. The people who came to look at the train were simply idlers, to whom neither locomotives nor Franks were any longer an astonishment: the innovation was accepted as a part of the Inevitable. As a Progressist, I ought to have been disappointed ; but I am afraid there was a feeling of satisfaction at the bottom of my unregenerate nature, on finding that the Oriental repose had not yet been seriously shaken.

Our glimpse of the fair at Damanhoor was like a tableau upon which the curtain falls before one has fairly seen it. The main country road, however, ran side by side with the railway for ten or fifteen miles further, and gave us the view of an almost unbroken procession of people on their way to market. Nothing could have been more varied and picturesque. A Copt in his black mantle, bulged out by the wind, as he sat on his donkey ; a camel laden with sacks of grain, on the top of which was perched a coop full of chickens ; a whole Fellah family, partly on foot, the men riding, the women with bundles balanced on their heads ; a naked boy, washing himself in a pool left in the drying canal ; a peddler resting cross-legged in the sun, and as grave as the Pope giving his benediction to the world ; an Egyptian officer, prancing along on horseback, with his pipe-bearer, in white and scarlet, running in advance — these were the chief figures in a procession which was strongly relieved in color, against the deep, juicy green of the wheat-fields or the pale, pearly blue of the air. But for these figures,

ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO BY RAIL.

the Delta would have resembled an Illinois prairie as much as anything.

At noon we reached the Nile, crossing it by a magnificent iron bridge to the town of Kafr ez-Zyat, where the train stops twenty minutes. There is said to be a restaurant here, but it is hardly in the station, and I suspect few passengers patronize it, or a guide would have been on hand. Lettuce, stalks of sugar-cane and fig paste were abundantly offered, also oranges grimy with much handling. We were the only Frank travellers, and undoubtedly received less attention than if we had come by the express. The sub-conductor was the only person who seemed at all interested in our fortunes, and his purpose therein was evident from the start. But we had prudently brought a lunch with us, and so enjoyed the stop at Kafr ez-Zyat, which might otherwise have been a disappointment.

For eleven miles further, to Tantah, the country is a superb agricultural picture. Every foot of it yields a rich return, and the soil does not seem to require more than a week’s rest between crops. Wheat is now a foot high, barley is coming into head, horse-beans are in blossom, and the almond-trees are fair with young leaves. Looking toward the sun, the wide level gleamed like a perfect emerald. The dark brown loam, as it was turned by the plow, crumbled with a mellowness which would have made an American farmer’s mouth water. With such a soil, and under such a sky, the labor in the fields seemed to be half play. But the Egyptian Fellah, with all his capacity for indolence, is by no means a lazy man. On the con-

EGYPT.

trary, he is a steady and cheerful worker, wlienevei compelled by necessity, or directed by an authority which he respects. Few people, in proportion to their means and the development of their rcsouices, aie at present so heavily taxed, and none bear their buidens with equal patience.

Tantah is a large and lively town, and possesses one of the forty or fifty palaces of the Khedive. Othei railways branch from it down the Delta; the station is spacious and unusually clean, and foi the first time since leaving Alexandria there was a large accession of passengers. Many of the recently built houses are Italian in character, handsomely stuccoed and painted, and embowered in pleasant gardens. This was all I could observe of a place which I hope to revisit and describe more particularly before leaving Egypt.

The further stretch of twenty miles before reaching the Damietta arm of the Nile only repeated what we had already seen. Once the fertile alluvial plain was interrupted by a sand-island — a low ridge, four or five miles in length— which appeared to have been blown from the Eastern Desert, in the lapse of many centuries, to its present position. Such islands are probably erratic in their character, like those in Northern Germany, and might be made stationary by the same means — that is. covering them with certain tenacious grasses and shrubs. Their elevation above the plain is so slight that they might even be irrigated, and thus lose their barrenness. I saw, in fact, the beginning of the latter process at several points along the road.

But for the palm-trees and the mud villages, this

ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO BY RAIL.

part of the Delta might be compared to the richest lowlands of England, in early June. The deep colors of the vegetation and the soft, changing hues of the sky prevented it from becoming monotonous to the eye. When we had crossed the second Nile and passed the flourishing town of Benha, where the railway sends off a branch to Ismailia and Suez, the country became even more densely populated. This region is the Goshen of the Israelites, and one can hardly wonder that many of them sighed for its flesh-pots while following Moses through the bleak valleys of Sinai. At this point you see two far blue peaks, rising above the palms and tamarisks on the south-western horizon, and know them to be the Pyramids by the precision of their outlines.

It is but twenty miles further to Cairo, and the landscape becomes gradually more and more crowded with life. On both sides, in the distance, the bare yellow hills of the Desert arise to enhance, by contrast, the luxuriance of the plain : the Fellah villages disappear, and well-built country-houses, with gardens of orange and banana trees, take their place. A constant string of horses, camels, and donkeys fills the main road ; flocks of sheep, with heavy brown fleeces, graze along the bank, and the white ibises stand upright and look at the train without fear as it passes. Here a little portable steam engine is at work, pumping water for irrigation ; there a man is loosening large cubes of rich soil from the cracked bottom of a dry canal, and heaping them up for the enrichment of his gardens. Camels carry manure to the fields in widebaskets, and

EGYPT.

return laden with bales of fresh lucern. As the Citadel of Cairo, with the reed-like minarets of Mohammed All’s mosque comes in sight, we also see the smoky chimneys of manufactories, great barracks and buildings on either side, — in short, a vast, crowded, active suburb, where there were only open fields in my memory.

At the station of Kalioob, another railway branches off to the eastward, following the course of the new fresh-water canal, which carries the Nile to Port Said and Suez. It unites with the road from Benha at the town of Zagazig, and thus forms the communication by rail between Cairo and the Red Sea. The former shorter railway, directly across the Desert, has been abandoned.

On time, but almost too soon, our train entered the terminal station at Shoobra. An omnibus from the Hotel du Nil was in waiting, and its conductor carried us quietly through a raging sea of Arab porters. The native passengers, less fortunate, were seized and tossed hither and thither ; a hundred throats screamed, entreated or expostulated, and two hundred hands were hurled forward in menace or toward Heaven in frantic appeal. How long the confusion lasted, I cannot guess. It grew fainter as we drove away, without appearing to grow less.

The broad, crowded streets through which we passed ; the European architecture, signs in English, French and Italian ; the open carriages and unveiled ladies — were these Cairo ? I could scarcely believe it. Vainly I peered to right and left, in the hope of discovering

ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO BY RAIL.

some old landmark. There was a large, open, dusty square: could it be the shady Ezbekeeyeh, the haunt of native gossips and story-tellers ? At last came the old street of the Mooskee, but crowded and muddy as I had never seen it. Now the omnibus stops : we thread a narrow, winding lane between high Oriental houses, and suddenly emerge into a sunny garden of palms and acacias, surrounded by the quadrangle of the hotel. Here, in the balmy evening, as the muezzin calls the asser prayer from a near minaret, no other sound or cry penetrating from the motley streets, I feel that I have reached Cairo.

Chapter III. A New Picture Of Cairo

IT is not quite easy to make the changes which Cairo has undergone during the last twenty years clear to any one who was not acquainted with the extent and appearance of the city at that time. Its germ, or original starting point, was the citadel, which crowns the extremity of a low spur of the Mokattam Hills, about three miles from the Nile, and where the mosque built by Saladin and the well he excavated in the limestone rock are still in existence. The Saracenic city of the Middle Ages grew up around the western and southern base of this fortress, admitting Coptic, Jewish, and Frank quarters as it spread, and as commercial intercourse with Europe brought practical tolerance to its rulers and people. The western suburb thus always represented the latest phase of growth, and the stranger reached successively older belts of history as he penetrated eastward toward the Citadel. But even the part added by Mohammed Ali, including the square of the Ezbekeeyeh, was more Oriental than European in character. The native Cairenes adopted it as a ground for rest and gossip, and always crowded its open-air cafes.