Boats on the Nile. Our enjoyments on the river. Water of the Nile. Villages. Ovens for hatching chickens. Egyptian bricks and case of the Israelites. Singular costume of the females. Thievish boatmen. First view of the Pyramids. Stupendous undertaking of Mohammed Ali at the Barage. Approach to Cairo. Moonlight scene.

The boats of the canal are confined exclusively to its waters, and we here found it necessary to look out for other conveyances, a necessity to which our last night’s experience made us very gladly submit; nor had we at any time occasion to find fault with the comfort or cleanliness of the boats on the Nile. Those which we engaged had about three fourths of the length of one of our canal boats, and about twice the breadth, and drew from three to four feet water; near the stern were a forward and an after cabin, the former of sufficient height to allow us to stand upright. In front of it we spread awnings above, and at the sides, so as to make a cool verandah or vestibule for eating and sitting during the day; and, with the aid of curtains, a pleasant sleeping apartment for the night. Towards the bow the deck ceased, and gave place to an open area filled with sand, where our excellent cook erected his throne, and chopped off as many heads as might have satisfied even Mohammed Ali himself.

Our party, consisting of twenty-six persons exclusive of attendants, engaged three of these boats. The Commodore and his family, and, by invitation, ——, and the writer of this, occupied one of them; a second was engaged by a party principally of lieutenants; and a third by midshipmen from the two ships. We had on board of each boat a person called a Cavass, an officer appointed by government to attend on travellers; he goes well armed, and bears in addition, as a badge of office, a long cane capped with silver or gold, to which dangle chains of the same material. His presence places the party under the protection of government, and gives it access to all public places to which he may choose to lead.

We were all a happy party on that river. Our steward had laid in abundantly, and provisions along the Nile were plentiful and cheap; we had books and musical instruments, and chessmen and society. We changed back and forward among the boats, and sometimes gave tea-parties; and often landed for a stroll along the river banks, or among the palm-groves of the villages. The officers unanimously voted that it was far preferable to keeping watch on shipboard. Nor must I forget another source of real and actual pleasure, in drinking the Nile water. It is a delicious fluid, and the natives have a saying handed down from father to son, “that if Mahomet had ever tasted the waters of the Nile, he would have placed his Paradise along its banks.” An earthern vessel, that would hold twenty or twenty-five gallons, was lashed at the stern of our boat, and kept filled, so as to allow the sediment to subside. The river, when we were ascending, was about one fourth advanced in the yearly flood, and the waters were of a light yellow color; on being allowed to rest in the jar, they took the color of lemonade, and were the most agreeable we had ever tasted. We drank prodigious quantities, but without having our health at all affected by them. The wind at this season blows constantly up stream during the day, but subsides a little after sunset, when we were obliged to come to and secure ourselves to the shore for the night. Descending boats take advantage of this interval of calm to drop down with the current.

We stopped first at Atfour, the city noticed above, where we found that what had seemed to us a palace was a large manufactory of Egyptian caps belonging to the Pasha. Thence we glided up the stream, the American ensign at the peak of each of our high lateen yards, fluttering, and seeming to rejoice as much as we at being on the Egyptian river. The banks, villages, islands, and groves, slipped along by our sides, presenting views sometimes highly picturesque, and always of a strikingly oriental character. The country, however, is generally at this season of the year tame and monotonous. The crops had been gathered in, and the open plains (for there are no enclosures, except occasionally to a garden) were burnt to a cinder by the fierce raging sun; the earth was gaping, and seemed to pant under its fury; and, except the neighborhood of the villages, and now and then a garden watered by artificial means, there was not a speck of verdure to be seen. The villages also, when we came to inspect them, we found to be miserable in the extreme. They consist of one or two hundred houses, made of bricks hardened in the sun and covered with domes of the same material. The bricks retain the original color of the muddy deposite, and the villages have a dull, gloomy appearance. Whitewash is never used within; but on the outside a mottled appearance is sometimes given to the houses by the custom of sticking cakes of camels’ ordure against their front and sides to dry; this being the only fuel used in the country. It is said to burn very well, and when thus prepared, to have no disagreeable odour. If the reader will imagine a collection of houses thus daubed on the outside, with earthern floors and bare walls of mud, a small hole for a window, excessively filthy within, and abounding in vermin; he will have an idea of an Egyptian village. He must add also now and then a large, well-filled granary of the Pasha in the neighborhood of the villages; and in the villages themselves a number of dwellings in ruins; for the bricks often yield to the operation of the weather, and the badly constructed domes tumble in. As we sailed along, our attention was very often drawn to the houses for hatching chickens, one or more of which may be seen in each of their villages. They are formed by taking a number of pots, of the capacity of about a gallon, contracted at the neck, which is turned towards the exterior. About fifty or sixty of these are built up with bricks and mud into an edifice like an elongated bee-hive, twelve or fifteen feet in height. The eggs are small and the fowls diminutive, but of a very pleasant flavor.

I examined the Egyptian bricks with reference to the complaint of the Hebrews, that straw was not allowed them in the manufacture. A few here have straw mixed up with them, and it will doubtless check the process of disintegration to which they are exposed, but it does not seem at present to be considered a necessary ingredient. But it is universally employed in the process of manufacturing, or rather in drying the bricks. They are in size like our bricks, and are cut with a spade from the earth when moistened by the yearly floods. Fine straw is then scattered on the adjoining grounds, and the bricks are spread over this to dry; and were this precaution not used, the bricks in drying would adhere to the earth and be spoiled. I conclude, then, that here was occasioned the dilemma in which the Israelites soon found themselves; they could make the tale of bricks, but when they came to remove them at the close of their labors, they found them attached to the soil and their labors lost. I frequently saw bricks exposed for drying, but never without a layer of fine straw beneath.

Their villages occur at intervals of five or six miles; generally they are on the river bank, but are often scattered over the interior, and with the groves of the graceful palm-tree often formed pretty groupings in the landscape. The natives are of a light ash color; and the men, though rather slender, are remarkably well-formed, light, and active, and capable of enduring fatigue. Their dress is sometimes like that of the Turks, but often simply a long piece of white cloth, like the Roman toga, wrapped around the body, with the ends thrown across the shoulders or supported under the arm; it is a graceful, but not very modest dress. But the women! How strange are the caprices of fashion, and often how extravagant and silly! In Turkey a woman is not allowed to show her face at all; a handkerchief drawn across the forehead, and another just below this, so as to cover all the face, and leave room only for the eyes to fall bashfully on the ground and pick out the lady’s way, secures their modesty. In Egypt a lady may expose all her face except the nose and mouth: these it would be the height of indelicacy to exhibit, and she protects them by a strip of black cotton stuff (black, think you!) about three feet in length and four inches wide. One end of this is fastened by a string passing across her forehead and tied at the back of her head; the cloth falls down over her nose and mouth, and the lady’s modesty is secure. It would be well for them to cover all the face, for a more ugly set of ladies I have never met with in any country. The Turkish costume has at least the advantage of making us imagine beauty; and many a stranger is put in raptures of love by a pair of flashing eyes glancing on him from beneath the jealous muslins, when, if the covering was removed from the face, he would be ungallant enough to turn with disgust from both face and eyes. The Egyptian ladies show a want of taste in not adopting the Turkish fashion.

At one of the villages, called Negila, we saw some of the dancing girls of the country. They were dressed in the national costume, but were decked off with beads and a great variety of tawdry ornaments, and were disgusting objects. Here is a large granary belonging to the Pasha, with vast stores of every kind; in our way to and from it we were beset with beggars, whose appearance exhibited the utmost wretchedness.

The breeze was fresh and our boats were comfortable, and the banks and the hours glided swiftly along. We had music, we played chess, we read, we chatted, we dozed when we preferred doing so. When meal-time came we slipped the leather trunks together for a table, and brought good appetites to the repast. Cleopatra herself had not a more cheerful party than ours.

Our boatmen often amused us by their agility. The sand banks at the bends of the river are planted with water-melons, and as the flood was beginning to reach the fruit, the inhabitants were busy gathering it in, though it was not yet fully ripe. The Arabs of our boat would often make a dash at these melons, and would have just time to select the best when the owners would rush with cries to the scene of plunder. Down they would all go together into the river, flouncing and tugging; the one for revenge, the other, amid so many witnesses of his exploit, struggling for fame as well as for the water-melon, and pushing it before him with all his might. Sometimes they would grapple, and in the consequent struggle of fierce passions the melon would escape from both, and glide quietly down the river: but generally the boatman succeeded in depositing it safely under the wing of the Cavass.

Towards evening of the 17th we came to a range of sand hills stretching along on our right; they are the commencement of the chain that higher up assists in forming the valley of the Nile. Up to this point our view on either side took in an unbroken level as far as the eye could reach.

The Pyramids.—It was with a thrill of joy that, on the morning of the 18th, as we sat at breakfast, at an exclamation from one of our party, we looked up, and saw before us the Pyramids. We were then twenty-four miles distant, but, though thin and airy-like, they were very distinct. These monuments are most impressive when the spectator is either close beneath them or at a distance like this. On the present occasion they produced a very powerful effect. Their regularity of outline kept their impression clear on the mind as works of art; their shadowy appearance showed them to be very distant, while their great elevation at so remote a point affected the mind strongly with their astonishing vastness. They were in sight, with brief intervals, during the whole day, and to the last were grand and sublime objects.

About noon we found ourselves approaching a spot, in which, from the representations of our Cavass, we had become highly interested. We were near the head of the Delta, a place which Mohammed Ali has selected for a work, which, if successful, will place him far above the constructors of the Pyramids, and make him one of the greatest benefactors that Egypt has ever known. The place opened upon us at length, but on looking up our first impression was one of deep and unqualified disgust. Before us was a busy scene. On the high bank at our left men were appearing in great numbers, with baskets of earth in their hands, and after discharging it down the bank, were retiring to give place for others; but as they stood out in strong relief against the sky, we could see others with whips, which they were using freely upon the poor wretches, whose writhings and accelerated movements gave proof of the smart.

We stopped on this occasion only to take a glance at the Barage, for so this place is called; but on our return from Cairo gave it a careful examination, and, by the politeness of the chief engineer, M. Lenon, were furnished with plans and explanations.

The traveller along the Nile is everywhere struck with the great value of irrigation to these lands. Water is frequently raised from the river by wheels turned by oxen or camels, and sometimes by buckets swung at the end of a pole and worked by men; and wherever this is done, we found, even at midsummer, gardens of the most intense verdure and of extreme luxuriance. It may be doubted, indeed, whether the annual floods do not benefit the country quite as much by the irrigation as by their muddy deposites. The object of the Pasha is, by means of dams, to raise the waters of the river to the surface of the adjoining country, and enable the cultivators to carry it by canals to any part, and to irrigate the whole region freely, wherever they may choose, and the place we were now at is the one which he has selected for this great undertaking. The idea of this is not quite a novel one, but was first grasped by the capacious mind of Buonaparte, between whose character and that of the Egyptian monarch, there is, by the way, quite a strong resemblance.

The reader will remember, that of the seven mouths by which the Nile formerly discharged itself, only two remain; one, the eastern, passing into the sea at Damietta; while the other, or western, discharges itself in a similar way near Rosetta. The Delta, lying between them, is of extreme fertility. Should he succeed, not only will the productions of this be greatly increased, but, by leading the waters off east and west of it, he will be able to redeem from the encroaching deserts an immense extent of country now quite abandoned. But difficulties of an alarming kind present themselves. The bottom of the river is loose and unstable; and the shores are so friable, that if an attempt is made to build a dam across it at once, the water will, in the mean time, be working out for itself new channels along the sides. Minds like that of Mohammed Ali, however, are only stimulated, not discouraged, by serious obstacles. He has employed M. Lenon, a French gentleman, and self-taught, but an engineer of superior abilities; and trusting the whole matter to him, has given him, as a nominal superior, Mahmoud Bey, the late governor of Cairo, one of the most wealthy men of the country, and apparently an agreeable coadjutor in this great undertaking. The subjoined plan is copied from one drawn for us by M. Lenon, and the measurements were also furnished by him.

In this A represents the river before branching, B B the Rosetta, and C C the Damietta branch. It is proposed to build a dam across at E and e, sufficiently high to elevate the waters nearly to the level of the banks, which are here about thirty feet above the usual surface of the river. The engineer commences with cutting the canals F F and f f, each thirteen hundred feet wide and thirty-two in depth, leaving cross strips at L and l, until the canal is ready for use. Across these canals at G and g dams are to be constructed forty-one feet in height, including the foundation, and a hundred and twenty-eight in thickness; and in them are to be left sluices of sufficient capacity to allow the passage of the entire river. When these are completed, the sluices are left open, and the cross slips at L and l being cut away, the river seeks the more direct passage, and leaves the old channels M and m nearly dry. Piles are now to be driven into the bottom of the river, and in these the dams E and e are to be constructed; the former one thousand, and the latter eight hundred and twenty feet in length, each thirty-four feet in height. These being completed, the sluices are to be closed, and the water is thus carried to the required height. By means of the canals I, I and K, it is to be carried over the Delta, and in a similar manner is also led off to the east and west, as far as they may desire. In this latter operation they will be assisted by the nature of the ground; for here, as along the Mississippi and the Ganges, the ground immediately adjoining the stream is higher than at places more remote. At K will be a gate for checking the flow of water, and at H and h small canals, with locks, for boats passing up and down the river. An immense water power will be thus created at the Barage; and it is in contemplation to erect there mills and manufactories of every species; and also to lay out a city after the European plan. Cairo will probably find here a formidable rival.

This is a great undertaking, whether we consider the advantages which it promises or the startling boldness of the design; for in our country we can scarcely form an idea of the difficulties that beset it on every side. Every thing, even the most trifling kind of tool necessary in the operation, has first to be made. Mons. Lenon informed us that he could not have found things less prepared for his hands, if he had commenced operations in the midst of the African deserts. And, in addition, both he and the sovereign have to encounter the ignorance and the prejudices of the jealous officers of the court. They came once to Mohammed Ali, complaining that the engineer was going to needless expense in importing wood for piles when they had trees enough at home, which, if spliced, would answer just as well. “Say you so,” replied the Pasha, “the experiment shall be made forthwith;” and looking out into his garden, he ordered trees at once to be cut down, and sent the complainants to see them spliced and arranged to their own satisfaction. This was done; the pile-driver was applied to them, and at the first stroke they flew into shivers. Since that time they have been more cautious in making complaints.

We found 10,000 men at work digging the canals; 6,000 on the Rosetta side and the balance on the Darietta branch. Mons. Lenon says, that if he can get men enough, he will finish it in three years: but at the present mode of working, it will require six or seven. They broke ground three months previous to our visit. One hundred great dredging machines are to be employed, thirty of which are already on the ground. These, as well as most of the tools, have to be imported from Europe. In the latter they are yet very badly provided. The ground is broken by hoes, and worked into baskets with shovels or fingers, as the case may be: these are carried on the head to the side of the river, and there emptied down its banks. The men are divided into companies of from thirty to fifty each, with one or two drivers, who hasten their operations by a free use of whips.

This inhumanity must not be laid to the charge of the engineer, who has in several ways endeavored to soften the hardships of their condition. We found him erecting hospitals, and conveniences for grinding corn and cooking; and he has prevailed on the Pasha to allow them wages, a thing heretofore quite unknown. They receive each thirty-six paras, or four and a half cents per day, from which six paras are deducted for their board. This in Egypt may be considered pretty handsome wages.

At our second visit we stopped at the tent of Mahmoud Bey, whom we found to be a fine specimen of the Turkish gentleman. He is a venerable looking man, with a splendid white beard falling over his breast. The tent was of mammoth dimensions, carpeted, and ornamented within with stripes of cotton or silken stuffs of gay colors, producing a rich and pleasing effect. His attendants brought fruits, coffee, and pipes with mouth-pieces set in diamonds. At Mons. Lenon’s tent we found the chief of the St. Simonians, who had lately been banished from France, and had taken refuge in this country.

Before dismissing the Barage, I should add a fact mentioned to us by Mons. Lenon, that in digging here they have come to bricks at the depth of sixty feet from the present surface of the ground.

But our boat is once more out upon the stream, and we are gazing upward, expecting each moment to see Cairo open to our view. Instead of the city however, came a hurricane, sweeping across from the western desert, and filling the air with a blood-red color and our eyes with sand. We took refuge under one of the high banks, and hugged the shore closely till it had passed. Again a little after sunset we gained the channel, and by the light of a dim moon glided onward towards the city. On our left soon appeared a mass of white houses, forming the Pasha’s summer palace of Shubra: it is surrounded by a garden forming a perfect fairy scene, and is connected with Cairo, three miles distant, by an avenue of noble trees. Of all this on the present occasion we got but an imperfect view; soon after several other large white edifices came in sight, and our imaginations, excited by the glimpses of splendor which we had caught, by the time, and the country, worked each into a scene of eastern enchantment, and we pictured in each of them fair captives from other countries, gazing through the lattice, and sighing for their distant native hills. The boat glided on, and presently our sympathies were interrupted by the glancing lights of the busy little town of Boulac, the port of Cairo. This city, as the reader is perhaps aware, is not situated on the river, but about a mile and a half from it on the west, and has at Boulac a landing-place and store-houses for all goods coming from the north; Old Cairo, a few miles higher up, answering a similar purpose for all vessels coming from up the river.

As it was too late to proceed to the city, we ran our boats across to the shore opposite Boulac, and made fast for the night near a summer palace and gardens. After tea we climbed the high bank over our boats to get once more a view of the Pyramids, now about eight miles distant on the west, but in the moonlight quite distinct.

There was something pleasing in being made to get our first impressions of this ancient region by moonlight. We were now amid the scenes of the earliest grandeur of Egypt. On one side of us, and but a few miles distant, had once stood the great city of Heliopolis; and on the other Memphis. Dim land of shadows and mystery, the pall of death hath been laid upon thee; but instead of concealing, it only makes thy features more solemn and more awful.

What a scene of life and bustle was once upon this now silent plain.

Ye buried ages, whose monuments stand yonder in the glimmering light, I have received the wizard’s spell, by which the entombed are brought to life once more; and lo, I spread it over you. Arise!

Ha, this is Memphis! And see how it stretches across, and covers all the plain. Towering aloft, is many a grave but magnificent temple; there stretches the deep shadowed and interminable colonade; here frowns the massive tower for defence; and there lies concealed the luxurious bower of the gay. Dwellings of the simple and the astute, the noble and the lowly serf stretch around, far as the eye can reach, and countless multitudes flock along thy streets; while here, closer to us, in the city of mummies, lie an equally countless number in the searments of the grave. City of many centuries and of stately grandeur, we yield thee the reverence—but what noise is that? the buzz of the multitude has suddenly changed, and now comes the sound of wailing on the ear; and mark, how it increases in intensity, and spreads; and now all the land is filled with woe. The cause—I have it now—their god Apis is dead. A white bull, fed solemnly and reverently in their temples, and to which all the land bowed down in worship, has suddenly expired, and the houses are all filled with alarm and woe.—And here comes a long procession, sweeping onward from one of the gates; these, too, are mourners, and they seem to be touched with even deeper grief. They are carrying a dozen singed cats to the place for solemn embalming, previous to interment, with sacred rites. These animals had been their peculiar household gods, and were kept in a sacred edifice, well fed and carefully tended; but the building took fire, on which the alarmed worshippers rushed into the flames, regardless of themselves, and desirous only of extricating their gods. But the bewildered animals in their fright escaped back to the fire, and numbers were burnt to death; and the procession is now carrying their bodies to be embalmed. And there is another procession passing onward along the streets; they carry in solemn state a dog, their god, now dead, and which they are transporting to the place for sacred washing, preparatory to its removal in state to the city of Busiris for interment. Here, from out the water gate, comes another crowd in the habiliments of woe, and with sounds of grief. They are transporting, perhaps, a great benefactor to their city, some one whose bounties have flowed largely upon the poor, for such the mourners seem to be? No—these are two companies, one carrying a dead shrew-mouse, and the other a dead hawk, to the place of sacred burial. But see, here comes a couple of hogs, hooted at and bewildered; and mark the alarm of the mourners as the animals become entangled among their ranks; and see how they rush to the river, and with their clothes on, plunge in to cleanse their souls from the pollution caused by the swinish contact.[2]

Ancient Memphis! our spell has been too potent, and wrought too effectually for the safety of our enthusiasm; and so we bid thee good night. Thou art well where thou art—laid low in the dust and almost forgotten.