Russell H. Conwell

Grief and Despair.—Describes his Feelings.—Failing Health.—Severe Mental Labor.—Decides to go to Africa.—Visits Vienna.—Arrival at Alexandria.—Sails up the Nile.—Scenes in Cairo.—The Pyramids.—The Lovely Nile.—An Important and Pleasant Acquaintance.—A Lasting Friendship.—Learning the Language.—Assuming the Costume.—Sights by the Way.

The great grief which Mr. Taylor felt when his wife died, was so deep and keen that he was for many months unreconciled, and in a mental state somewhat akin to despair. His appearance among his friends, whether at Kennett or in the office of the “Tribune” at New York, did not, however, betray his feelings so much as his private correspondence and occasional poems. He was the sincerest of mourners; and his natural susceptibility to every shade of emotion made this severe bereavement an occasion of untold suffering. In his endeavors to banish the gloomy spectre, he resorted to hard work. Hence, the first half of the year 1851 was one of the busiest seasons of his life. He wrote early and late. He composed poems and essays, wrote editorials, and edited correspondence, some of it being the labor attached to his profession, but a great share of it written to occupy his mind and shut out his affliction.

His “Rhymes of Travel,” which had been published after his return from California, called the attention of the reading public to him as a poet, and there was a strong demand for another volume. His friends urged him to write, his uneasy heart pushed him into work, and the newspapers kept questioning him about the advent of a second volume, until he decided to bring out his book of “Romances, Lyrics, and Songs.” There was one poem in that volume which was very sweet when wholly disconnected with history, but which becomes fascinating and sad as Milton’s lament for his eyesight, when we once know the circumstances and the mental condition in which it was written. Two verses of that poem were printed, as follows:—

It was then that he wrote those pathetic lines, so full of his sadness and so descriptive of his bereavement, that he was never satisfied with a name for them and finally left them without a title, the first couplet of which sufficiently indicates the tenor,—

Such a sorrowful heart and such an overworked brain were too great a load for one human body to carry. His physical strength had never been remarkable, and there had been seasons before his visit to Europe when his health seemed permanently impaired. So when this great strain was made upon his system it began to weaken. To continue the effort was suicidal, and stoutly condemned by his relatives and friends. He then recalled his exhilarating walks among the Alps and on the plains of Europe. He kindled anew his zeal for adventure. He studied the map of the world to decide where was presented the most favorable field for discovery. He wished for rest from sorrow, and rest from close application to literary work. Such a relief could only be found in a climate and among a people wholly different from his own. In this choice he was guided somewhat by a fortunate opportunity to cross the Atlantic as a guest and friend, and by the accounts which a literary companion in the office of the “Tribune” gave of the interesting people and scenery along the coast of Palestine and Greece.

The winter had passed and the soothing winds of summer seemed so grateful and necessary, that he decided to pass the next winter on the Mediterranean, should his health admit of the necessary outlay of strength. In writing about that undertaking afterwards, he said a trip into Africa would furnish good material for a travelling correspondent and hence that continent was selected. “But,” he said, “there were other influences acting upon me which I did not fully comprehend at the time, and cannot now describe without going too deeply into matters of private history.” But while in Central Africa, enjoying the invigorating breezes along the Nile, he reveals a part of that private history by an incidental exclamation published in a letter to the “Tribune.” “Oh! what a rest is this from the tantalizing and sorrowful suggestions of civilization.” He fled from sorrow—driven into the desert.

Having reached Smyrna, on the coast of Asia Minor, by the overland route to Constantinople via Vienna, he re-embarked at that port for Alexandria in Egypt, arriving at the latter place Nov. 1, 1851. We shall not attempt here to give in any satisfactory detail the record of his wanderings in Africa, as they are so charmingly and instructively told in the book which he wrote concerning them, and as no book of travel in Egypt, except a scientific work, can supplant or equal the many which already honor our shelves. The writer having been over a large portion of Mr. Taylor’s routes, and feeling much indebted to him for his works, which were often used as guides, has perhaps a greater interest in recording his travels, than the reader would have in going through the story a second time. Hence, for the purposes of this outline sketch of Mr. Taylor’s life, we shall introduce only such incidents and facts connected with his wanderings as appear to have some direct or unusual bearing upon his character, or which display some peculiarity of his genius or taste.

He said, in a letter to a friend in New York, that he “owed a debt of gratitude” to the Providence which led him, to the country which attracted him, and to the vessel which carried him from Smyrna to Alexandria. That sentiment was awakened in his heart by the way in which some of the important events in his after life pointed back to that trip and to the valuable friend he met there. Mr. Taylor was of a genial, approachable nature, and easily made the acquaintance of any person whom he met. But having German blood in his veins, loving the German language, and entertaining a sincere respect for German literature, he naturally sought the company of the German people. On the very threshold of this trip into Africa he made the acquaintance of a German gentleman, whose culture and geniality made him a great acquisition in a strange land. They seem to have taken a deep interest in each other from the first time they met. It may be because their condition in life, socially and circumstantially, was so similar; but the more reasonable explanation is found in their similar tastes and equal regard for the works of genius and the beauties of nature. It will be like a romance, when told in all its detail, as it might be now, and will be when the present generation passes away. How little could his human understanding comprehend the great results turning upon the simple, common-place self-introduction to a German travelling companion! This friend, whom he met, and with whom he made the journey up to the cataracts of the Nile, was perhaps as remarkable a man as Taylor, and belonged to a family of scholars and long respected agricultural citizens of the German principality of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

The chief merit of Mr. Taylor’s descriptions lay in their apparent frankness and their charming details. He appeared to think that every reader was acquainted with the works of those great archÆologists, Lepsius and Champollion, and did not attempt to supply to his readers the information they had already given. He seems to have imagined that all the reading public wished to follow him, and he gave such information as the tourist would need. He told about the clothes he purchased in Alexandria, about the fit of his Arab attire, about the cost of a dinner, the conversation between dragomen and boatmen, the personal appearance of his companions, the faithlessness of his guide, the dirty appearance of his boat, and the gorgeous sunset. He described his own sensations and actions with the boldness of one unconscious of any motive to conceal or deceive. He reveals the sorrow of his heart by occasional remarks such as these: “For many months past I had known no mood of mind so peaceful and grateful.”—“I am away from reminders of sorrow.”—“It is not the beauty of the desert that gratifies me so much, in these days, after all, as the absence of civilization.”

The party, which consisted of Mr. Taylor, the German companion, and an Italian, engaged one of the Nile boats, at Alexandria, for the trip up the Nile, and after testing the comforts, or misery, of the Egyptian hotels, seeing Cleopatra’s Needle (now in London) and Pompey’s Pillar, which were then as in later years about all that there was to be seen of interest in Alexandria, they started on their lazy voyage up the wonderful Nile. He wrote with great enthusiasm of the sweet rest he found in a pipe of tobacco, after the manner of all habitual smokers. He seems to have had plenty of time to muse and smoke as he slowly ascended the stream. It has often been a subject of wonder that he could afterwards remember so many incidents and the impressions they had made on him, when perhaps weeks of time and some more exciting transactions had intervened. But Mr. Taylor did not wait long before recording his ideas and comments, and was in the habit of keeping a memoranda-book always at hand, and while travelling, noted with a pencil any peculiar thought or incident which awakened attention.

At Atfeh, which has been for hundreds of years an intermediate stopping-place on the highway and river between Alexandria and Cairo, he clambered up into the town and witnessed a marriage procession. He appears to have been inclined to get a near view of the bride; but the relatives hurried her off, and with cries and threatening gestures drove him back to cover. But he decided that if he could not see the bride, he would do the next best thing, and accordingly visited her father. The disconsolate parent was being comforted by a hoarse chant and appeared to be as cheerful as could be expected considering the din.

At the town of Nadir he went into a low mud hut, which pretended to be a cafe, and there saw the Egyptian fandango danced by the inmates. He records the shape and sound of the musical instruments and with polished and concise language pictured the scene to the reader’s eye. This, with the accounts of the improvements, rates of toll, and the manner of passing the boats by locks, and government officials, with many minor details is told in a manner which, notwithstanding the dryness of the subject, makes most fascinating reading.

But he counted his entrance into Cairo, the capital of Egypt, as the actual beginning of his tour into Africa. For at Alexandria and along the Nile as far as Bourak the people exhibited some traits which connect them with the civilized West. But Cairo is wholly Egyptian. The centuries have made no apparent changes in the people. The donkeys, the veiled women, the fierce Arabs, the water-skins, the fountains, the slaves, the palms, the white domes, and the low shops revive the historical associations and personify the Past. Like an oasis in the adjacent desert was the Hotel d’Europe. But it served to impress the reality of these surroundings more forcibly upon the travellers. With a readiness and enjoyment which his companions did not share, he accustomed himself to the manners and appearance of the people, and it was scarcely a day before Mr. Taylor would smoke his perfumed chibouk, sit cross-legged, and eat with his fingers like a native Arab. He rode the little donkeys as well as any citizen of Cairo, and was even more reckless than they, if that were possible, as he rode through the market-places at a furious speed. The Egyptians, like the Germans, Italians, French, Hungarians, and Syrians, felt a kind of fellowship for Mr. Taylor, and admired his good-sense in appreciating and adopting so many of their customs. He was the acquaintance and confidential friend of a dozen old Arabs before he had been two days in Cairo. He was a lover of mankind. He sympathized with them all. As the Shereef of Mecca rides by, Mr. Taylor admires his dignity and his imposing retinue. As a marriage procession files through the streets, he comments on the playing of the flutes, the crimson robes of the bride, and the diadem, with the simplicity of a country maiden in America. He enjoys the athletic tricks of the showmen, the skill of the swordsmen, the voices of the singers, the zeal of the beggars, and the endurance of the laborers. He is one of the same human family. They know it, and feel it, and he is welcome.

The German acquaintance, who had not intended to go farther than Cairo, was so delighted with Mr. Taylor’s companionship and Mr. Taylor was so interested in him, that he decided to go up the Nile as far as Assouan, which was on the border of the Central African countries. Mr. Taylor speaks with sentiments of enthusiastic thankfulness of his good fortune in thus securing a travelling companion, whose tastes and sentiments were so akin to his own. He little thought then, that while trying to shut out his sorrow by voluntary exile, he was opening the door to a second love. Mr. Taylor’s singular admiration and love for his companion is almost unaccountable, unless we adopt some theory of foreordination or providential design.

A most interesting, amusing, and friendly trip they had up the stream, for thousands of years so historic, in a boat manned by ten boatmen, and of which they were the commanders. Neither of them had ever been in Egypt before, but their maps and guide-books, coupled with their early historical training, made the localities along their route seem more familiar to them than to the dragomen, who made it a business to guide travellers. They named their boat the “Cleopatra,” ran up the Stars and Stripes to the peak, and, with contented minds but active brains, enjoyed to the full the strange scenes and historic ruins which showed themselves on every hand. They first visited the Pyramids, where Mr. Taylor gratified his taste for climbing heights, and nearly killed himself by rushing down. With characteristic regard for those who were to come after him, Mr. Taylor rebuked the importunities of the backsheesh-loving Arabs about the Pyramids, and obtaining no satisfaction from them, he reported them to the chief, who compelled the greedy desperadoes to submit to a severe whipping.

They visited ancient Memphis, which the French explorer, Mariette, was then exhuming, and trod the pavements over which had passed the feet of Menes, Amasis, Pharaoh, Strabo, and Cambyses. They were hospitably entertained by the great antiquarian, and felt that such a visit was ample reward for all their outlay. From Memphis they proceeded to Siout, and on the way talked, composed, and sung the praises of Father Nile. It may be that Mr. Taylor’s mood, which he so often mentions, had an influence upon his taste, or it may be that the season was one peculiarly adapted to the exhibition of beauty in the Nile, but the writer, in a later year, was not so charmed by the scenery and river as Mr. Taylor appears to have been. No other traveller has written such glowing encomiums upon the Nile as Mr. Taylor recorded in his letters, and either he appreciated nature more than other travellers, or there was something in his circumstances which placed a halo of beauty about the palms and meadows. In the “Nilotic Drinking-Song” Mr. Taylor said:—

His admiration was not spasmodic, for he always mentioned the Nile as the most majestic of rivers. To the majority of travellers, however, the hoary ruins of mighty cities, the tombs of priests, and the pyramids of kings are so much more exciting and mysterious, that the Nile is itself of secondary importance.

Yet, Mr. Taylor, with all his interest in the river, did not have less in the celebrated localities and ancient remains. He ascended many honeycombed mountains, to creep among the bones of men who lived thirty-five hundred years ago. He gazed with a yearning interest upon the broken columns of unknown temples, and dreamed of their former grandeur, while apathetically overseeing the affairs of his little monarchy over which he kept floating the Stars and Stripes. He became so absorbed in the climate, the people, and the history of the land, that he soon adopted the full costume of the country and became henceforth an Arab with the others. He was marvellously quick in picking up the words and phrases of any language, and soon, with the aid of a small phrase-book, he could readily converse with the natives along the shore. These characteristics made it safe and pleasant for him to travel where many others would have found only misery and death.