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diff --git a/3685-0.txt b/3685-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bced161 --- /dev/null +++ b/3685-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5796 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Egypt (La Mort De Philae), by Pierre Loti + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Egypt (La Mort De Philae) + +Author: Pierre Loti + +Translator: W. P. Baines + +Release Date: April 12, 2006 [EBook #3685] +Last Updated: March 6, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EGYPT (LA MORT DE PHILAE) *** + + + + +Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger + + + + + +EGYPT (LA MORT DE PHILAE) + +by Pierre Loti + + +Translated from the French by + +W. P. Baines + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A WINTER MIDNIGHT BEFORE THE GREAT SPHINX + +A night wondrously clear and of a colour unknown to our climate; a place +of dreamlike aspect, fraught with mystery. The moon of a bright silver, +which dazzles by its shining, illumines a world which surely is no +longer ours; for it resembles in nothing what may be seen in other +lands. A world in which everything is suffused with rosy color beneath +the stars of midnight, and where granite symbols rise up, ghostlike and +motionless. + +Is that a hill of sand that rises yonder? One can scarcely tell, for it +has as it were no shape, no outline; rather it seems like a great rosy +cloud, or some huge, trembling billow, which once perhaps raised itself +there, forthwith to become motionless for ever. . . . And from out this +kind of mummified wave a colossal human effigy emerges, rose-coloured +too, a nameless, elusive rose; emerges, and stares with fixed eyes and +smiles. It is so huge it seems unreal, as if it were a reflection cast +by some mirror hidden in the moon. . . . And behind this monster +face, far away in the rear, on the top of those undefined and gently +undulating sandhills, three apocalyptic signs rise up against the sky, +those rose-coloured triangles, regular as the figures of geometry, but +so vast in the distance that they inspire you with fear. They seem to be +luminous of themselves, so vividly do they stand out in their clear +rose against the deep blue of the star-spangled vault. And this apparent +radiation from within, by its lack of likelihood, makes them seem more +awful. + +And all around is the desert; a corner of the mournful kingdom of sand. +Nothing else is to be seen anywhere save those three awful things that +stand there upright and still--the human likeness magnified beyond all +measurement, and the three geometric mountains; things at first sight +like exhalations, visionary things, with nevertheless here and there, +and most of all in the features of the vast mute face, subtleties +of shadow which show that _it_ at least exists, rigid and immovable, +fashioned out of imperishable stone. + +Even had we not known, we must soon have guessed, for these things are +unique in the world, and pictures of every age have made the knowledge +of them commonplace: the Sphinx and the Pyramids! But what is strange is +that they should be so disquieting. . . . And this pervading colour of +rose, whence comes it, seeing that usually the moon tints with blue the +things it illumines? One would not expect this colour either, which, +nevertheless, is that of all the sands and all the granites of Egypt and +Arabia. And then too, the eyes of the statue, how often have we not seen +them? And did we not know that they were capable only of their one fixed +stare? Why is it then that their motionless regard surprises and chills +us, even while we are obsessed by the smile of the sealed lips that seem +to hold back the answer to the supreme enigma? . . . + +It is cold, but cold as in our country are the fine nights of January, +and a wintry mist rises low down in the little valleys of the sand. And +that again we were not expecting; beyond question the latest invaders of +this country, by changing the course of the old Nile, so as to water the +earth and make it more productive, have brought hither the humidity +of their own misty isle. And this strange cold, this mist, light as it +still is, seem to presage the end of ages, give an added remoteness +and finality to all this dead past, which lies here beneath us in +subterranean labyrinths haunted by a thousand mummies. + +And the mist, which, as the night advances, thickens in the valleys, +hesitates to mount to the great daunting face of the Sphinx; and covers +it with the merest and most transparent gauze; and, like everything +else here to-night, this gauze, too, is rose-colored. And meanwhile the +Sphinx, which has seen the unrolling of all the history of the world, +attends impassively the change in Egypt's climate, plunged in profound +and mystic contemplation of the moon, its friend for the last 5000 +years. + +Here and there on the soft pathway of the sandhills are pigmy figures +of men that move about or sit squatting as if on the watch; and small +as they are, low down in the hollows and far away, this wonderful silver +moon reveals even their slightest gestures; for their white robes +and black cloaks stand sharply out against the monotonous rose of the +desert. At times they call to one another in a harsh, aspirate tongue, +and then go off at a run, noiselessly, barefooted, with burnous flying, +like moths in the night. They lie in wait for the parties of tourists +who arrive from time to time. For the great symbols, during the hundreds +and thousands of years that have elapsed since men ceased to venerate +them, have nevertheless scarcely ever been alone, especially on nights +with a full moon. Men of all races, of all times, have come to wander +round them, vaguely attracted by their immensity and mystery. In +the days of the Romans they had already become symbols of a lost +significance, legacies of a fabulous antiquity, but people came +curiously to contemplate them, and tourists in toga and in peplus carved +their names on the granite of their bases for the sake of remembrance. + +The tourists who have come to-night, and upon whom have pounced the +black-cloaked Bedouin guides, wear cap and ulster or furred greatcoat; +their intrusion here seems almost an offence; but, alas, such visitors +become more numerous in each succeeding year. The great town hard +by--which sweats gold now that men have started to buy from it its +dignity and its soul--is become a place of rendezvous and holiday +for the idlers and upstarts of the whole world. The modern spirit +encompasses the old desert of the Sphinx on every side. It is true that +up to the present no one has dared to profane it by building in the +immediate neighbourhood of the great statue. Its fixity and calm disdain +still hold some sway, perhaps. But little more than a mile away there +ends a road travelled by hackney carriages and tramway cars, and noisy +with the delectable hootings of smart motor cars; and behind the pyramid +of Cheops squats a vast hotel to which swarm men and women of fashion, +the latter absurdly feathered, like Redskins at a scalp dance; and sick +people, in search of purer air; and consumptive English maidens; and +ancient English dames, a little the worse for wear, who bring their +rheumatisms for the treatment of the dry winds. + +Passing on our way hither, we had seen this road and this hotel and +these people in the glare of the electric lights, and from an orchestra +that was playing there we caught the trivial air of a popular refrain +of the music halls; but when in a dip of the ground all this had +disappeared, what a sense of deliverance possessed us, how far off +this turmoil seemed! As soon as we commenced to tread upon the sand of +centuries, where all at once our footsteps made no sound, nothing seemed +to have existence, save only the great calm and the religious awe of +this world into which we were come, of this world with its so crushing +commentary upon our own, where all seemed silent, undefined, gigantic +and suffused with rose-colour. + +And first there is the pyramid of Cheops, whose immutable base we had +to skirt on our way hither. In the moonlight we could see the separate +blocks, so enormous, so regular, so even in their layers, which lie +one above the other to infinity, getting ever smaller and smaller, and +mounting, mounting in diminishing perspective, until at last high up +they form the apex of this giddy triangle. And the pyramid seemed to be +illumined by some sad dawn of the end of the world, a dawn which made +ruddy only the sands and the granites of earth, and left the heavens, +pricked with their myriad stars, more awful in their darkness. How +impossible it is for us to conceive the mental attitude of that +king who, during some half-century, spent the lives of thousands and +thousands of his slaves in the construction of this tomb, in the fond +and foolish hope of prolonging to infinity the existence of his mummy. + +The pyramid once passed there was still a short way to go before we +confronted the Sphinx, in the middle of what our contemporaries have +left him of his desert. We had to descend the slope of that sandhill +which looked like a cloud, and seemed as if covered with felt, in order +to preserve in such a place a more complete silence. And here and there +we passed a gaping black hole--an airhole, as it seemed, of the profound +and inextricable kingdom of mummies, very populous still, in spite of +the zeal of the exhumers. + +As we descended the sandy pathway we were not slow to perceive the +Sphinx itself, half hill, half couchant beast, turning its back upon +us in the attitude of a gigantic dog, that thought to bay the moon; its +head stood out in dark silhouette, like a screen before the light it +seemed to be regarding, and the lappets of its headgear showed like +downhanging ears. And then gradually, as we walked on, we saw it in +profile, shorn of its nose--flat-nosed like a death's head--but having +already an expression even when seen afar off and from the side; already +disdainful with thrust-out chin and baffling, mysterious smile. And +when at length we arrived before the colossal visage, face to face with +it--without however encountering its gaze, which passed high above +our heads--there came over us at once the sentiment of all the secret +thought which these men of old contrived to incorporate and make eternal +behind this mutilated mask. + +But in full daylight their great Sphinx is no more. It has ceased as +it were to exist. It is so scarred by time, and by the hands of +iconoclasts; so dilapidated, broken and diminished, that it is as +inexpressive as the crumbling mummies found in the sarcophagi, which no +longer even ape humanity. But after the manner of all phantoms it comes +to life again at night, beneath the enchantments of the moon. + +For the men of its time whom did it represent? King Amenemhat? The Sun +God? Who can rightly tell? Of all hieroglyphic images it remains the +one least understood. The unfathomable thinkers of Egypt symbolised +everything for the benefit of the uninitiated under the form of +awe-inspiring figures of the gods; and it may be, perhaps, that, after +having meditated so deeply in the shadow of their temples, and sought so +long the everlasting wherefore of life and death, they wished simply to +sum up in the smile of these closed lips the vanity of the most profound +of our human speculations. . . . It is said that the Sphinx was once +of striking beauty, when harmonious contour and colouring animated the +face, and it was enthroned at its full height on a kind of esplanade +paved with long slabs of stone. But was it then more sovereign than it +is to-night in its last decrepitude? Almost buried beneath the sand of +the Libyan desert, which now quite hides its base, it rises at this hour +like a phantom which nothing solid sustains in the air. + +***** + +It has gone midnight. In little groups the tourists of the evening +have disappeared; to regain perhaps the neighbouring hotel, where the +orchestra doubtless has not ceased to rage; or may be, remounting their +cars, to join, in some club of Cairo, one of those bridge parties, in +which the really superior intellects of our time delight; some--the +stouthearted ones--departed talking loudly and with cigar in mouth; +others, however, daunted in spite of themselves, lowered their voices as +people instinctively do in church. And the Bedouin guides, who a moment +ago seemed to flutter about the giant monument like so many black +moths--they too have gone, made restless by the cold air, which +erstwhile they had not known. The show for to-night is over, and +everywhere silence reigns. + +The rosy tint fades on the Sphinx and the pyramids; all things in the +ghostly scene grow visibly paler; for the moon as it rises becomes +more silvery in the increasing chilliness of midnight. The winter mist, +exhaled from the artificially watered fields below, continues to rise, +takes heart and envelops the great mute face itself. And the latter +persists in its regard of the dead moon, preserving still the old +disconcerting smile. It becomes more and more difficult to believe that +here before us is a real colossus, so surely does it seem nothing other +than a dilated reflection of a thing which exists _elsewhere_, in +some other world. And behind in the distance are the three triangular +mountains. Them, too, the fog envelops, till they also cease to exist, +and become pure visions of the Apocalypse. + +Now it is that little by little an intolerable sadness is expressed +in those large eyes with their empty sockets--for, at this moment, the +ultimate secret, that which the Sphinx seems to have known for so many +centuries, but to have withheld in melancholy irony, is this: that all +these dead men and women who sleep in the vast necropolis below have +been fooled, and the awakening signal has not sounded for a single +one of them; and that the creation of mankind--mankind that thinks and +suffers--has had no rational explanation, and that our poor aspirations +are vain, but so vain as to awaken pity. + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PASSING OF CAIRO + +Ragged, threatening clouds, like those that bring the showers of our +early spring, hurry across a pale evening sky, whose mere aspect makes +you cold. A wintry wind, raw and bitter, blows without ceasing, and +brings with it every now and then some furtive spots of rain. + +A carriage takes me towards what was once the residence of the great +Mehemet Ali: by a steep incline it ascends into the midst of rocks and +sand--and already, and almost in a moment, we seem to be in the desert; +though we have scarcely left behind the last houses of an Arab quarter, +where long-robed folk, who looked half frozen, were muffled up to the +eyes to-day. . . . Was there formerly such weather as this in this +country noted for its unchanging mildness? + +This residence of the great sovereign of Egypt, the citadel and the +mosque which he had made for his last repose, are perched like eagles' +nests on a spur of the mountain chain of Arabia, the Mokattam, which +stretches out like a promontory towards the basin of the Nile, and +brings quite close to Cairo, so as almost to overhang it, a little of +the desert solitude. And so the eye can see from far off and from +all sides the mosque of Mehemet Ali, with the flattened domes of its +cupolas, its pointed minarets, the general aspect so entirely Turkish, +perched high up, with a certain unexpectedness, above the Arab town +which it dominates. The prince who sleeps there wished that it should +resemble the mosques of his fatherland, and it looks as if it had been +transported bodily from Stamboul. + +A short trot brings us up to the lower gate of the old fortress; and, by +a natural effect, as we ascend, all Cairo which is near there, seems to +rise with us: not yet indeed the endless multitude of its houses; but at +first only the thousands of its minarets, which in a few seconds point +their high towers into the mournful sky, and suggest at once that an +immense town is about to unfold itself under our eyes. + +Continuing to ascend--past the double rampart, the double or triple +gates, which all these old fortresses possess, we penetrate at length +into a large fortified courtyard, the crenellated walls of which shut +out our further view. Soldiers are on guard there--and how unexpected +are such soldiers in this holy place of Egypt! The red uniforms and the +white faces of the north: Englishmen, billeted in the palace of Mehemet +Ali! + +The mosque first meets the eye, preceding the palace. And as we +approach, it is Stamboul indeed--for me dear old Stamboul--which +is called to mind; there is nothing, whether in the lines of its +architecture or in the details of its ornamentation, to suggest the +art of the Arabs--a purer art it may be than this and of which many +excellent examples may be seen in Cairo. No; it is a corner of Turkey +into which we are suddenly come. + +Beyond a courtyard paved with marble, silent and enclosed, which serves +as a vast parvis, the sanctuary recalls those of Mehemet Fatih or the +Chah Zade: the same sanctified gloom, into which the stained glass of +the narrow windows casts a splendour as of precious stones; the same +extreme distance between the enormous pillars, leaving more clear space +than in our churches, and giving to the domes the appearance of being +held up by enchantment. + +The walls are of a strange white marble streaked with yellow. The ground +is completely covered with carpets of a sombre red. In the vaults, very +elaborately wrought, nothing but blacks and gold: a background of black +bestrewn with golden roses, and bordered with arabesques like gold lace. +And from above hang thousands of gold chains supporting the vigil lamps +for the evening prayers. Here and there are people on their knees, +little groups in robe and turban, scattered fortuitously upon the red of +the carpets, and almost lost in the midst of the sumptuous solitude. + +In an obscure corner lies Mehemet Ali, the prince adventurous and +chivalrous as some legendary hero, and withal one of the greatest +sovereigns of modern history. There he lies behind a grating of gold, of +complicated design, in that Turkish style, already decadent, but still +so beautiful, which was that of his epoch. + +Through the golden bars may be seen in the shadow the catafalque of +state, in three tiers, covered with blue brocades, exquisitely faded, +and profusely embroidered with dull gold. Two long green palms freshly +cut from some date-tree in the neighbourhood are crossed before the door +of this sort of funeral enclosure. And it seems that around us is an +inviolable religious peace. . . . + +But all at once there comes a noisy chattering in a Teutonic tongue--and +shouts and laughs! . . . How is it possible, so near to the great dead? +. . . And there enters a group of tourists, dressed more or less in the +approved “smart” style. A guide, with a droll countenance, recites to +them the beauties of the place, bellowing at the top of his voice like +a showman at a fair. And one of the travellers, stumbling in the sandals +which are too large for her small feet, laughs a prolonged, silly little +laugh like the clucking of a turkey. . . . + +Is there then no keeper, no guardian of this holy mosque? And amongst +the faithful prostrate here in prayer, none who will rise and make +indignant protest? Who after this will speak to us of the fanaticism of +the Egyptians? . . . Too meek, rather, they seem to me everywhere. Take +any church you please in Europe where men go down on their knees +in prayer, and I should like to see what kind of a welcome would +be accorded to a party of Moslem tourists who--to suppose the +impossible--behaved so badly as these savages here. + +Behind the mosque is an esplanade, and beyond that the palace. The +palace, as such, can scarcely be said to exist any longer, for it has +been turned into a barrack for the army of occupation. English soldiers, +indeed, meet us at every turn, smoking their pipes in the idleness of +the evening. One of them who does not smoke is trying to carve his +name with a knife on one of the layers of marble at the base of the +sanctuary. + +At the end of this esplanade there is a kind of balcony from which one +may see the whole of the town, and an unlimited extent of verdant +plains and yellow desert. It is a favourite view of the tourists of the +agencies, and we meet again our friends of the mosque, who have preceded +us hither--the gentlemen with the loud voices, the bellowing guide and +the cackling lady. Some soldiers are standing there too, smoking their +pipes contemplatively. But spite of all these people, in spite, too, +of the wintry sky, the scene which presents itself on arrival there is +ravishing. + +A very fairyland--but a fairyland quite different from that of Stamboul. +For whereas the latter is ranged like a great amphitheatre above the +Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmora, here the vast town is spread out +simply, in a plain surrounded by the solitude of the desert and +dominated by chaotic rocks. Thousands of minarets rise up on every side +like ears of corn in a field; far away in the distance one can see their +innumerable slender points--but instead of being simply, as at Stamboul, +so many white spires, they are here complicated by arabesques, by +galleries, clock-towers and little columns, and seem to have borrowed +the reddish colour of the desert. + +The flat rocks tell of a region which formerly was without rain. The +innumerable palm-trees of the gardens, above this ocean of mosques and +houses, sway their plumes in the wind, bewildered as it were by these +clouds laden with cold showers. In the south and in the west, at the +extreme limits of the view, as if upon the misty horizon of the plains, +appear two gigantic triangles. They are Gizeh and Memphis--the eternal +pyramids. + +At the north of the town there is a corner of the desert quite singular +in its character--of the colour of bistre and of mummy--where a whole +colony of high cupolas, scattered at random, still stand upright in +the midst of sand and desolate rocks. It is the proud cemetery of the +Mameluke Sultans, whose day was done in the Middle Ages. + +But if one looks closely, what disorder, what a mass of ruins there +are in this town--still a little fairylike--beaten this evening by the +squalls of winter. The domes, the holy tombs, the minarets and terraces, +all are crumbling: the hand of death is upon them all. But down there, +in the far distance, near to that silver streak which meanders through +the plains, and which is the old Nile, the advent of new times is +proclaimed by the chimneys of factories, impudently high, that disfigure +everything, and spout forth into the twilight thick clouds of black +smoke. + +The night is falling as we descend from the esplanade to return to our +lodgings. + +We have first to traverse the old town of Cairo, a maze of streets +still full of charm, wherein the thousand little lamps of the Arab shops +already shed their quiet light. Passing through streets which twist at +their caprice, beneath overhanging balconies covered with wooden trellis +of exquisite workmanship, we have to slacken speed in the midst of a +dense crowd of men and beasts. Close to us pass women, veiled in black, +gently mysterious as in the olden times, and men of unmoved gravity, in +long robes and white draperies; and little donkeys pompously bedecked in +collars of blue beads; and rows of leisurely camels, with their loads of +lucerne, which exhale the pleasant fragrance of the fields. And when +in the gathering gloom, which hides the signs of decay, there appear +suddenly, above the little houses, so lavishly ornamented with +mushrabiyas and arabesques, the tall aerial minarets, rising to a +prodigious height into the twilight sky, it is still the adorable East. + +But nevertheless, what ruins, what filth, what rubbish! How present is +the sense of impending dissolution! And what is this: large pools of +water in the middle of the road! Granted that there is more rain here +than formerly, since the valley of the Nile has been artificially +irrigated, it still seems almost impossible that there should be all +this black water, into which our carriage sinks to the very axles; for +it is a clear week since any serious quantity of rain fell. It would +seem that the new masters of this land, albeit the cost of annual upkeep +has risen in their hands to the sum of fifteen million pounds, have +given no thought to drainage. But the good Arabs, patiently and without +murmuring, gather up their long robes, and with legs bare to the knee +make their way through this already pestilential water, which must be +hatching for them fever and death. + +Further on, as the carriage proceeds on its course, the scene changes +little by little. The streets become vulgar: the houses of “The Arabian +Nights” give place to tasteless Levantine buildings; electric lamps +begin to pierce the darkness with their wan, fatiguing glare, and at a +sharp turning the new Cairo is before us. + +What is this? Where are we fallen? Save that it is more vulgar, it might +be Nice, or the Riviera, or Interkalken, or any other of those towns +of carnival whither the bad taste of the whole world comes to disport +itself in the so-called fashionable seasons. But in these quarters, +on the other hand, which belong to the foreigners and to the Egyptians +rallied to the civilisation of the West, all is clean and dry, well +cared for and well kept. There are no ruts, no refuse. The fifteen +million pounds have done their work conscientiously. + +Everywhere is the blinding glare of the electric light; monstrous hotels +parade the sham splendour of their painted facades; the whole length of +the streets is one long triumph of imitation, of mud walls plastered so +as to look like stone; a medley of all styles, rockwork, Roman, Gothic, +New Art, Pharaonic, and, above all, the pretentious and the absurd. +Innumerable public-houses overflow with bottles; every alcoholic +drink, all the poisons of the West, are here turned into Egypt with a +take-what-you-please. + +And taverns, gambling dens and houses of ill-fame. And parading the +side-walks, numerous Levantine damsels, who seek by their finery to +imitate their fellows of the Paris boulevards, but who by mistake, as +we must suppose, have placed their orders with some costumier for +performing dogs. + +This then is the Cairo of the future, this cosmopolitan fair! Good +heavens! When will the Egyptians recollect themselves, when will they +realise that their forebears have left to them an inalienable patrimony +of art, of architecture and exquisite refinement; and that, by their +negligence, one of those towns which used to be the most beautiful in +the world is falling into ruin and about to perish? + +And nevertheless amongst the young Moslems and Copts now leaving +the schools there are so many of distinguished mind and superior +intelligence! When I see the things that are here, see them with +the fresh eyes of a stranger, landed but yesterday upon this soil, +impregnated with the glory of antiquity, I want to cry out to them, with +a frankness that is brutal perhaps, but with a profound sympathy: + +“Bestir yourselves before it is too late. Defend yourselves against +this disintegrating invasion--not by force, be it understood, not by +inhospitality or ill-humour--but by disdaining this Occidental rubbish, +this last year's frippery by which you are inundated. Try to preserve +not only your traditions and your admirable Arab language, but also +the grace and mystery that used to characterise your town, the refined +luxury of your dwelling-houses. It is not a question now of a poet's +fancy; your national dignity is at stake. You are _Orientals_--I +pronounce respectfully that word, which implies a whole past of early +civilisation, of unmingled greatness--but in a few years, unless you are +on your guard, you will have become mere Levantine brokers, exclusively +preoccupied with the price of land and the rise in cotton.” + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MOSQUES OF CAIRO + +They are almost innumerable, more than 3000, and this great town, +which covers some twelve miles of plain, might well be called a city of +mosques. (I speak, of course, of the ancient Cairo, of the Cairo of +the Arabs. The new Cairo, the Cairo of sham elegance and of “Semiramis +Hotels,” does not deserve to be mentioned except with a smile.) + +A city of mosques, then, as I was saying. They follow one another along +the streets, sometimes two, three, four in a row; leaning one against +the other, so that their confines become merged. On all sides their +minarets shoot up into the air, those minarets embellished with +arabesques, carved and complicated with the most changing fancy. They +have their little balconies, their rows of little columns; they are so +fashioned that the daylight shows through them. Some are far away in the +distance; others quite close, pointing straight into the sky above our +heads. No matter where one looks--as far as the eye can see--still there +are others; all of the same familiar colour, a brown turning into rose. +The most ancient of them, those of the old easy-tempered times, bristle +with shafts of wood, placed there as resting-places for the great free +birds of the air, and vultures and ravens may always be seen perched +there, contemplating the horizon of the sands, the line of the yellow +solitudes. + +Three thousand mosques! Their great straight walls, a little severe +perhaps, and scarcely pierced by their tiny ogive windows, rise above +the height of the neighbouring houses. These walls are of the same brown +colour as the minarets, except that they are painted with horizontal +stripes of an old red, which has been faded by the sun; and they are +crowned invariably with a series of trefoils, after the fashion +of battlements, but trefoils which in every case are different and +surprising. + +Before the mosques, which are raised like altars, there is always a +flight of steps with a balustrade of white marble. From the door one +gets a glimpse of the calm interior in deep shadow. Once inside there +are corridors, astonishingly lofty, sonorous and enveloped in a kind of +half gloom; immediately on entering one experiences a sense of coolness +and pervading peace; they prepare you as it were, and you begin to be +filled with a spirit of devotion, and instinctively to speak low. In +the narrow street outside there was the clamorous uproar of an Oriental +crowd, cries of sellers, and the noise of humble old-world trading; men +and beasts jostled you; there seemed a scarcity of air beneath those so +numerous overhanging mushrabiyas. But here suddenly there is silence, +broken only by the vague murmur of prayers and the sweet songs of birds; +there is silence too, and the sense of open space, in the holy garden +enclosed within high walls; and again in the sanctuary, resplendent in +its quiet and restful magnificence. Few people as a rule frequent the +mosques, except of course at the hours of the five services of the day. +In a few chosen corners, particularly cool and shady, some greybeards +isolate themselves to read from morning till night the holy books and to +ponder the thought of approaching death: they may be seen there in their +white turbans, with their white beards and grave faces. And there may +be, too, some few poor homeless outcasts, who are come to seek the +hospitality of Allah, and sleep, careless of the morrow, stretched to +their full length on mats. + +The peculiar charm of the gardens of the mosques, which are often very +extensive, is that they are so jealously enclosed within their high +walls--crowned always with stone trefoils--which completely shut out the +hubbub of the outer world. Palm-trees, which have grown there for some +hundred years perhaps, rise from the ground, either separately or in +superb clusters, and temper the light of the always hot sun on the +rose-trees and the flowering hibiscus. There is no noise in the gardens, +any more than in the cloisters, for people walk there in sandals and +with measured tread. And there are Edens, too, for the birds, who +live and sing therein in complete security, even during the services, +attracted by the little troughs which the imams fill for their benefit +each morning with water from the Nile. + +As for the mosque itself it is rarely closed on all sides as are +those in the countries of the more sombre Islam of the north. Here in +Egypt--since there is no real winter and scarcely ever any rain--one of +the sides of the mosque is left completely open to the garden; and the +sanctuary is separated from the verdure and the roses only by a simple +colonnade. Thus the faithful grouped beneath the palm-trees can pray +there equally as well as in the interior of the mosque, since they can +see, between the arches, the holy Mihrab.[*] + + [*] The Mihrab is a kind of portico indicating the direction + of Mecca. It is placed at the end of each mosque, as the + altar is in our churches, and the faithful are supposed to + face it when they pray. + +Oh! this sanctuary seen from the silent garden, this sanctuary in which +the pale gold gleams on the old ceiling of cedarwood, and mosaics of +mother-of-pearl shine on the walls as if they were embroideries of +silver that had been hung there. + +There is no faience as in the mosques of Turkey or of Iran. Here it is +the triumph of patient mosaic. Mother-of-pearl of all colours, all kinds +of marble and of porphyry, cut into myriads of little pieces, precise +and equal, and put together again to form the Arab designs, which, never +borrowing from the human form, nor indeed from the form of any animal, +recall rather those infinitely varied crystals that may be seen under +the microscope in a flake of snow. It is always the Mihrab which is +decorated with the most elaborate richness; generally little columns of +lapis lazuli, intensely blue, rise in relief from it, framing mosaics so +delicate that they look like brocades of fine lace. In the old ceilings +of cedarwood, where the singing birds of the neighbourhood have their +nests, the golds mingle with some most exquisite colourings, which time +has taken care to soften and to blend together. And here and there very +fine and long consoles of sculptured wood seem to fall, as it were, from +the beams and hang upon the walls like stalactites; and these consoles, +too, in past times, have been carefully coloured and gilded. As for the +columns, always dissimilar, some of amaranth-coloured marble, others +of dark green, others again of red porphyry, with capitals of every +conceivable style, they are come from far, from the night of the ages, +from the religious struggles of an earlier time and testify to the +prodigious past which this valley of the Nile, narrow as it is, and +encompassed by the desert, has known. They were formerly perhaps in the +temples of the pagans, or have known the strange faces of the gods of +Egypt and of ancient Greece and Rome; they have been in the churches of +the early Christians, or have seen the statues of tortured martyrs, +and the images of the transfigured Christ, crowned with the Byzantine +aureole. They have been present at battles, at the downfall of kingdoms, +at hecatombs, at sacrileges; and now brought together promiscuously +in these mosques, they behold on the walls of the sanctuary simply the +thousand little designs, ideally pure, of that Islam which wishes that +men when they pray should conceive Allah as immaterial, a Spirit without +form and without feature. + +Each one of these mosques has its sainted dead, whose name it bears, +and who sleeps by its side, in an adjoining mortuary kiosk; some priest +rendered admirable by his virtues, or perhaps a khedive of earlier +times, or a soldier, or a martyr. And the mausoleum, which communicates +with the sanctuary by means of a long passage, sometimes open, sometimes +covered with gratings, is surmounted always by a special kind of cupola, +a very high and curious cupola, which raises itself into the sky like +some gigantic dervish hat. Above the Arab town, and even in the sand of +the neighbouring desert, these funeral domes may be seen on every side +adjoining the old mosques to which they belong. And in the evening, when +the light is failing, they suggest the odd idea that it is the dead man +himself, immensely magnified, who stands there beneath a hat that is +become immense. One can pray, if one wishes, in this resting-place of +the dead saint as well as in the mosque. Here indeed it is always more +secluded and more in shadow. It is more simple, too, at least up to the +height of a man: on a platform of white marble, more or less worn and +yellowed by the touch of pious hands, nothing more than an austere +catafalque of similar marble, ornamented merely with a Cufic +inscription. But if you raise your eyes to look at the interior of the +dome--the inside, as it were, of the strange dervish hat--you will see +shining between the clusters of painted and gilded stalactites a number +of windows of exquisite colouring, little windows that seem to be +constellations of emeralds and rubies and sapphires. And the birds, you +may be sure, have their nests also in the house of the holy one. +They are wont indeed to soil the carpets and the mats on which the +worshippers kneel, and their nests are so many blots up there amid the +gildings of the carved cedarwood; but then their song, the symphony that +issues from that aviary, is so sweet to the living who pray and to the +dead who dream. . . . + +***** + +But yet, when all is said, these mosques seem somehow to be wanting. +They do not wholly satisfy you. The access to them perhaps is too easy, +and one feels too near to the modern quarters of the town, where the +hotels are full of visitors--so that at any moment, it seems, the spell +may be broken by the entry of a batch of Cook's tourists, armed with +the inevitable _Baedeker_. Alas! they are the mosques of Cairo, of +poor Cairo, that is invaded and profaned. The memory turns to those of +Morocco, so jealously guarded, to those of Persia, even to those of Old +Stamboul, where the shroud of Islam envelops you in silence and gently +bows your shoulders as soon as you cross their thresholds. + +And yet what pains are being taken to-day to preserve these mosques, +which in olden times were such delightful retreats. Neglected for whole +centuries, never repaired, notwithstanding the veneration of their +heedless worshippers, the greater part of them were fallen into ruin; +the fine woodwork of their interiors had become worm-eaten, their +cupolas were cracked and their mosaics covered the floor as with a hail +of mother-of-pearl, of porphyry and marble. It seemed that to repair +all this was a task incapable of fulfilment; it was sheer folly, people +said, to conceive the idea of it. + +Nevertheless, for nearly twenty years now an army of workers has been at +the task, sculptors, marble-cutters, mosaicists. Already certain of +the sanctuaries, the most venerable of them indeed, have been entirely +renovated. After having re-echoed for some years to the sounds of +hammers and chisels, during the course of these vast renovations, they +are restored now to peace and to prayer, and the birds have recommenced +to build their nests in them. + +It will be the glory of the present reign that it has preserved, before +it was too late, all this magnificent legacy of Moslem art. When the +city of “The Arabian Nights,” which was formerly there, shall have +entirely disappeared, to give place to a vulgar _entrepot_ of commerce +and of pleasure, to which the plutocracy of the whole world comes every +winter to disport itself, so much at least will remain to bear testimony +to the lofty and magnificent thought that inspired the earlier Arab +life. These mosques will continue to remain into the distant future, +even when men shall have ceased to pray in them, and the winged guests +shall have departed, for the want of those troughs of water from the +Nile, filled for them by the good imams, whose hospitality they repay +by making heard in the courts, beneath the arched roofs, beneath the +ceilings of cedarwood, the sweet, piping music of birds. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HALL OF THE MUMMIES + +There are two of us, and as we light our way by the aid of a lantern +through these vast halls we might be taken for a night watch on its +round. We have just shut behind us and doubly locked the door by which +we entered, and we know that we are alone, rigorously alone, although +this place is so vast, with its endless, communicating halls, its high +vestibules and great flights of stairs; mathematically alone, one might +say, for this palace that we are in is one quite out of the ordinary, +and all its outlets were closed and sealed at nightfall. Every night +indeed the doors are sealed, on account of the priceless relics that +are collected here. So we shall not meet with any living being in these +halls to-night, in spite of their vast extent and endless turnings, and +in spite too of all these mysterious things that are ranged on every +side and fill the place with shadows and hiding-places. + +Our round takes us first along the ground floor over flagstones that +resound to our footsteps. It is about ten of the clock. Here and there +through some stray windows gleams a small patch of luminous blue sky, +lit by the stars which for the good folk outside lend transparency to +the night; but there, none the less, the place is filled with a solemn +gloom, and we lower our voices, remembering perhaps the dead that fill +the glass cases in the halls above. + +And these things which line the walls on either side of us as we pass +also seem to be in the nature of receptacles for the dead. For the most +part they are sarcophagi of granite, proud and indestructible: some of +them, in the shape of gigantic boxes, are laid out in line on pedestals; +others, in the form of mummies, stand upright against the walls and +display enormous faces, surmounted by equally enormous head-dresses. +Assembled there they look like a lot of malformed giants, with oversized +heads sunk curiously in their shoulders. There are, besides, some that +are merely statues, colossal figures that have never held a corpse in +their interiors; these all wear a strange, scarcely perceptible smile; +in their huge sphinxlike headgear they reach nearly to the ceiling and +their set stare passes high above our heads. And there are others that +are not larger than ourselves, some even quite little, with the stature +of gnomes. And, every now and then, at some sudden turning, we encounter +a pair of eyes of enamel, wide-open eyes, that pierce straight into the +depths of ours, that seem to follow us as we pass and make us shiver as +if by the contact of a thought that comes from the abysm of the ages. + +We pass on rapidly, however, and somewhat inattentively, for our +business here to-night is not with these simulacra on the ground floor, +but with the more redoubtable hosts above. Besides our lantern sheds so +little light in these great halls that all these people of granite and +sandstone and marble appear only at the precise moment of our passage, +appear only to disappear, and, spreading their fantastic shadows on the +walls, mingle the next moment with the great mute crowd, that grows ever +more numerous behind us. + +Placed at intervals are apparatus for use in case of fire, coils of hose +and standpipes that shine with the warm glow of burnished copper, and I +ask my companion of the watch: “What is there that could burn here? Are +not these good people all of stone?” And he answers: “Not here indeed; +but consider how the things that are above would blaze.” Ah! yes. +The “things that are above”--which are indeed the object of my visit +to-night. I had no thought of fire catching hold in an assembly of +mummies; of the old withered flesh, the dead, dry hair, the venerable +carcasses of kings and queens, soaked as they are in natron and oils, +crackling like so many boxes of matches. It is chiefly on account of +this danger indeed that the seals are put upon the doors at nightfall, +and that it needs a special favour to be allowed to penetrate into this +place at night with a lantern. + +In the daytime this “Museum of Egyptian Antiquities” is as vulgar a +thing as you can conceive, filled though it is with priceless treasures. +It is the most pompous, the most outrageous of those buildings, of no +style at all, by which each year the New Cairo is enriched; open to all +who care to gaze at close quarters, in a light that is almost brutal, +upon these august dead, who fondly thought that they had hidden +themselves for ever. + +But at night! . . . Ah! at night when all the doors are closed, it +is the palace of nightmare and of fear. At night, so say the Arab +guardians, who would not enter it at the price of gold--no, not even +after offering up a prayer--at night, horrible “forms” escape, not only +from the embalmed bodies that sleep in the glass cases above, but also +from the great statues, from the papyri, and the thousand and one things +that, at the bottom of the tombs, have long been impregnated with human +essence. And these “forms” are like unto dead bodies, and sometimes to +strange beasts, even to beasts that crawl. And, after having wandered +about the halls, they end by assembling for their nocturnal conferences +on the roofs. + +We next ascend a staircase of monumental proportions, empty in the whole +extent, where we are delivered for a little while from the obsession of +those rigid figures, from the stares and smiles of the good people in +white stone and black granite who throng the galleries and vestibules on +the ground floor. None of them, to be sure, will follow us; but all the +same they guard in force and perplex with their shadows the only way by +which we can retreat, if the formidable hosts above have in store for us +too sinister a welcome. + +He to whose courtesy I owe the relaxation of the orders of the night is +the illustrious savant to whose care has been entrusted the direction +of the excavations in Egyptian soil; he is also the comptroller of this +vast museum, and it is he himself who has kindly consented to act as my +guide to-night through its mazy labyrinth. + +Across the silent halls above we now proceed straight towards those of +whom I have demanded this nocturnal audience. + +To-night the succession of these rooms, filled with glass cases, which +cover more than four hundred yards along the four sides of the building, +seems to be without end. After passing, in turn, the papyri, the +enamels, the vases that contain human entrails, we reach the mummies +of the sacred beasts: cats, ibises, dogs, hawks, all with their mummy +cloths and sarcophagi; and monkeys, too, that remain grotesque even +in death. Then commence the human masks, and, upright in glass-fronted +cupboards, the mummy cases in which the body, swathed in its mummy +cloths, was moulded, and which reproduced, more or less enlarged, the +figure of the deceased. Quite a lot of courtesans of the Greco-Roman +epoch, moulded in paste in this wise after death and crowned with roses, +smile at us provokingly from behind their windows. Masks of the colour +of dead flesh alternate with others of gold which gleam as the light of +our lantern plays upon them momentarily in our rapid passage. Their eyes +are always too large, the eyelids too wide open and the dilated pupils +seem to stare at us with alarm. Amongst these mummy cases and these +coffin lids fashioned in the shape of the human figure, there are some +that seem to have been made for giants; the head especially, beneath its +cumbrous head-dress, the head stuffed as it were between the hunchback +shoulders, looks enormous, out of all proportion to the body which, +towards the feet, narrows like a scabbard. + +Although our little lantern maintains its light we seem to see here +less and less: the darkness around us in these vast rooms becomes almost +overpowering--and these are the rooms, too, that, leading one into the +other, facilitate the midnight promenade of those dread “forms” which, +every evening, are released and roam about. . . . + +On a table in the middle of one of these rooms a thing to make you +shudder gleams in a glass box, a fragile thing that failed of life some +two thousand years ago. It is the mummy of a human embryo, and someone, +to appease the malice of this born-dead thing, had covered its face with +a coating of gold--for, according to the belief of the Egyptians, these +little abortions became the evil genii of their families if proper +honour was not paid to them. At the end of its negligible body, the +gilded head, with its great foetus eyes, is unforgettable for its +suffering ugliness, for its frustrated and ferocious expression. + +In the halls into which we next penetrate there are veritable dead +bodies ranged on either side of us as we pass; their coffins are +displayed in tiers one above the other; the air is heavy with the +sickly odour of mummies; and on the ground, curled always like some +huge serpent, the leather hoses are in readiness, for here indeed is the +danger spot for fire. + +And the master of this strange house whispers to me: “This is the place. +Look! There they are.” + +In truth I recognise the place, having often come here in the daytime, +like other people. In spite of the darkness, which commences at some ten +paces from us--so small is the circle of light cast by our lantern--I +can distinguish the double row of the great royal coffins, open without +shame in their glass cases. And standing against the walls, upright, +like so many sentinels, are the coffin lids, fashioned in the shape of +the human figure. + +We are there at last, admitted at this unseasonable hour into the +guest-chamber of kings and queens, for an audience that is private +indeed. + +And there, first of all, is the woman with the baby, upon whom, without +stopping, we throw the light of our lantern. A woman who died in giving +to the world a little dead prince. Since the old embalmers no one has +seen the face of this Queen Makeri. In her coffin there she is simply +a tall female figure, outlined beneath the close-bound swathings of +brown-coloured bandages. At her feet lies the fatal baby, grotesquely +shrivelled, and veiled and mysterious as the mother herself; a sort +of doll, it seems, put there to keep her eternal company in the slow +passing of endless years. + +More fearsome to approach is the row of unswathed mummies that follow. +Here, in each coffin over which we bend, there is a face which stares at +us--or else closes its eyes in order that it may not see us; and meagre +shoulders and lean arms, and hands with overgrown nails that protrude +from miserable rags. And each royal mummy that our lantern lights +reserves for us a fresh surprise and the shudder of a different +fear--they resemble one another so little. Some of them seem to laugh, +showing their yellow teeth; others have an expression of infinite +sadness and suffering. Sometimes the faces are small, refined and still +beautiful despite the pinching of the nostrils; sometimes they are +excessively enlarged by putrid swelling, with the tip of the nose eaten +away. The embalmers, we know, were not sure of their means, and the +mummies were not always a success. In some cases putrefaction ensued, +and corruption and even sudden hatchings of larvae, those “companions +without ears and without eyes,” which died indeed in time but only after +they had perforated all the flesh. + +Hard by are ranked according to dynasty, and in chronological order, the +proud Pharaohs in a piteous row: father, son, grandson, great-grandson. +And common paper tickets tell their tremendous names, Seti I., Ramses +II., Seti II., Ramses III., Ramses IV. . . . Soon the muster will be +complete, with such energy have men dug in the heart of the rocks +to find them all; and these glass cases will no doubt be their final +resting-place. In olden days, however, they made many pilgrimages after +their death, for in the troubled times of the history of Egypt it was +one of the harassing preoccupations of the reigning sovereign to hide, +to hide at all costs, the mummies of his ancestors, which filled the +earth increasingly, and which the violators of tombs were so swift to +track. Then they were carried clandestinely from one grave to another, +raised each from his own pompous sepulchre, to be buried at last +together in some humble and less conspicuous vault. But it is here, in +this museum of Egyptian antiquities, that they are about to accomplish +their return to dust, which has been deferred, as if by miracle, for +so many centuries. Now, stripped of their bandages, their days are +numbered, and it behoves us to hasten to draw these physiognomies of +three or four thousand years ago, which are about to perish. + +In that coffin--the last but one of the row on the left--it is the great +Sesostris himself who awaits us. We know of old that face of ninety +years, with its nose hooked like the beak of a falcon; and the gaps +between those old man's teeth; the meagre, birdlike neck, and the hand +raised in a gesture of menace. Twenty years have elapsed since he was +brought back to the light, this master of the world. He was wrapped +_thousands of times_ in a marvellous winding-sheet, woven of aloe +fibres, finer than the muslin of India, which must have taken years in +the making and measured more than 400 yards in length. The unswathing, +done in the presence of the Khedive Tewfik and the great personages of +Egypt, lasted two hours, and after the last turn, when the illustrious +figure appeared, the emotion amongst the assistants was such that they +stampeded like a herd of cattle, and the Pharaoh was overturned. He has, +moreover, given much cause for conversation, this great Sesostris, since +his installation in the museum. Suddenly one day with a brusque gesture, +in the presence of the attendants, who fled howling with fear, he raised +that hand which is still in the air, and which he has not deigned since +to lower.[*] And subsequently there supervened, beginning in the old +yellowish-white hair, and then swarming over the whole body, a hatching +of cadaveric fauna, which necessitated a complete bath in mercury. He +also has his paper ticket, pasted on the end of his box, and one may +read there, written in a careless hand, that name which once caused the +whole world to tremble--“Ramses II. (Sesostris)”! It need not be said +that he has greatly fallen away and blackened even in the fifteen yeas +that I have known him. He is a phantom that is about to disappear; in +spite of all the care lavished upon him, a poor phantom about to fall to +pieces, to sink into nothingness. We move our lantern about his hooked +nose, the better to decipher, in the play of shadow, his expression, +that still remains authoritative. . . . To think that once the destinies +of the world were ruled, without appeal, by the nod of this head, which +looks now somewhat narrow, under the dry skin and the horrible whitish +hair. What force of will, of passion and colossal pride must once have +dwelt therein! Not to mention the anxiety, which to us now is scarcely +conceivable, but which in his time overmastered all others--the anxiety, +that is to say, of assuring the magnificence and inviolability of +sepulture! . . . And this horrible scarecrow, toothless and senile, +lying here in its filthy rags, with the hand raised in an impotent +menace, was once the brilliant Sesostris, the master of kings, and by +virtue of his strength and beauty the demigod also, whose muscular limbs +and deep athletic chest many colossal statues at Memphis, at Thebes, at +Luxor, reproduce and try to make eternal. . . . + + [*] This movement is explained by the action of the sun, + which, falling on the unclothed arm, is supposed to have + expanded the bone of the elbow. + +In the next coffin lies his father, Seti I., who reigned for a much +shorter period, and died much younger than he. This youthfulness is +apparent still in the features of the mummy, which are impressed besides +with a persistent beauty. Indeed this good King Seti looks the picture +of calm and serene reverie. There is nothing shocking in his dead +face, with its long closed eyes, its delicate lips, its noble chin +and unblemished profile. It is soothing and pleasant even to see him +sleeping there with his hands crossed upon his breast. And it seems +strange, that he, who looks so young, should have for son the old man, +almost a centenarian, who lies beside him. + +In our passage we have gazed on many other royal mummies, some tranquil +and some grimacing. But, to finish, there is one of them (the third +coffin there, in the row in front of us), a certain Queen Nsitanebashru, +whom I approach with fear, albeit it is mainly on her account that I +have ventured to make this fantastical round. Even in the daytime she +attains to the maximum of horror that a spectral figure can evoke. What +will she be like to-night in the uncertain light of our little lantern? + +There she is indeed, the dishevelled vampire in her place right enough, +stretched at full length, but looking always as if she were about to +leap up; and straightway I meet the sidelong glance of her enamelled +pupils, shining out of half-closed eyelids, with lashes that are still +almost perfect. Oh! the terrifying person! Not that she is ugly, on the +contrary we can see that she was rather pretty and was mummied young. +What distinguishes her from the others is her air of thwarted anger, of +fury, as it were, at being dead. The embalmers have coloured her very +religiously, but the pink, under the action of the salts of the skin, +has become decomposed here and there and given place to a number of +green spots. Her naked shoulders, the height of the arms above the +rags which were once her splendid shroud, have still a certain sleek +roundness, but they, too, are stained with greenish and black splotches, +such as may be seen on the skins of snakes. Assuredly no corpse, either +here or elsewhere, has ever preserved such an expression of intense +life, of ironical, implacable ferocity. Her mouth is twisted in a little +smile of defiance; her nostrils pinched like those of a ghoul on the +scent of blood, and her eyes seem to say to each one who approaches: +“Yes, I am laid in my coffin; but you will very soon see I can get out +of it.” There is something confusing in the thought that the menace of +this terrible expression, and this appearance of ill-restrained ferocity +had endured for some hundreds of years before the commencement of our +era, and endured to no purpose in the secret darkness of a closed coffin +at the bottom of some doorless vault. + +Now that we are about to retire, what will happen here, with the +complicity of silence, in the darkest hours of the night? Will they +remain inert and rigid, all these embalmed bodies, once left to +themselves, who pretended to be so quiet because we were there? What +exchanges of old human fluid will recommence, as who can doubt they +do each night between one coffin and another. Formerly these kings and +queens, in their anxiety as to the future of their mummy, had foreseen +violation, pillage and scattering amongst the sands of the desert, but +never this: that they would be reunited one day, almost all unveiled, +so near to one another under panes of glass. Those who governed Egypt in +the lost centuries and were never known except by history, by the papyri +inscribed with hieroglyphics, brought thus together, how many things +will they have to say to one another, how many ardent questions to +ask about their loves, about their crimes! As soon as we shall have +departed, nay, as soon as our lantern, at the end of the long galleries, +shall seem no more than a foolish, vanishing spot of fire, will not the +“forms” of whom the attendants are so afraid, will they not start +their nightly rumblings and in their hollow mummy voices, whisper, with +difficulty, words? . . . + +Heavens! How dark it is! Yet our lantern has not gone out. But it seems +to grow darker and darker. And at night, when all is shut up, how one +smells the odour of the oils in which the shrouds are saturated, and, +more intolerable still, the sickly stealthy stench, almost, of all these +dead bodies! . . . + +As I traverse the obscurity of these endless halls, a vague instinct of +self-preservation induces me to turn back again, and look behind. And +it seems to me that already the woman with the baby is slowly raising +herself, with a thousand precautions and stratagems, her head still +completely covered. While farther down, that dishevelled hair. . . . Oh! +I can see her well, sitting up with a sudden jerk, the ghoul with the +enamel eyes, the lady Nsitanebashru! + + + +CHAPTER V + +A CENTRE OF ISLAM + + “To learn is the duty of every Moslem.” + --Verse from the Hadith or Words of the Prophet. + +In a narrow street, hidden in the midst of the most ancient Arab +quarters of Cairo, in the very heat of a close labyrinth mysteriously +shady, an exquisite doorway opens into a wide space bathed in sunshine; +a doorway formed of two elaborate arches, and surmounted by a high +frontal on which intertwined arabesques form wonderful rosework, and +holy writings are enscrolled with the most ingenious complications. + +It is the entrance to El-Azhar, a venerable place in Islam, whence +have issued for nearly a thousand years the generations of priests and +doctors charged with the propagation of the word of the Prophet amongst +the nations, from the Mohreb to the Arabian Sea, passing through the +great deserts. About the end of our tenth century the glorious Fatimee +Caliphs built this immense assemblage of arches and columns, which +became the seat of the most renowned Moslem university in the world. And +since then successive sovereigns of Egypt have vied with one another +in perfecting and enlarging it, adding new halls, new galleries, new +minarets, till they have made of El-Azhar almost a town within a town. + +***** + + “He who seeks instruction is more loved of God than he who fights + in a holy war.” + --A verse from the Hadith. + +Eleven o'clock on a day of burning sunshine and dazzling light. El-Azhar +still vibrates with the murmur of many voices, although the lessons of +the morning are nearly finished. + +Once past the threshold of the double ornamented door we enter the +courtyard, at this moment empty as the desert and dazzling with +sunshine. Beyond, quite open, the mosque spreads out its endless +arcades, which are continued and repeated till they are lost in the +gloom of the far interior, and in this dim place, with its perplexing +depths, innumerable people in turbans, sitting in a close crowd, are +singing, or rather chanting, in a low voice, and marking time as it were +to their declamation by a slight rhythmic swaying from the hips. They +are the ten thousand students come from all parts of the world to absorb +the changeless doctrine of El-Azhar. + +At the first view it is difficult to distinguish them, for they are far +down in the shadow, and out here we are almost blinded by the sun. In +little attentive groups of from ten to twenty, seated on mats around a +grave professor, they docilely repeat their lessons, which in the course +of centuries have grown old without changing like Islam itself. And we +wonder how those in the circles down there, in the aisles at the +bottom where the daylight scarcely penetrates, can see to read the old +difficult writings in the pages of their books. + +In any case, let us not trouble them--as so many tourists nowadays do +not hesitate to do; we will enter a little later, when the studies of +the morning are over. + +This court, upon which the sun of the forenoon now pours its white fire, +is an enclosure severely and magnificently Arab; it has isolated us +suddenly from time and things; it must lend to the Moslem prayer what +formerly our Gothic churches lent to the Christian. It is vast as a +tournament list; confined on one side by the mosque itself, and on the +others by a high wall which effectively separates it from the outer +world. The walls are of a reddish hue, burnt by centuries of sun into +the colour of raw sienna or of bloodstone. At the bottom they are +straight, simple, a little forbidding in their austerity, but their +summits are elaborately ornamented and crowned with battlements, which +show in profile against the sky a long series of denticulated stonework. +And over this sort of reddish fretwork of the top, which seems as if it +were there as a frame to the deep blue vault above us, we see rising up +distractedly all the minarets of the neighbourhood; and these minarets +are red-coloured too, redder even than the jealous walls, and are +decorated with arabesques, pierced by the daylight and complicated +with aerial galleries. Some of them are a little distance away; others, +startlingly close, seem to scale the zenith; and all are ravishing and +strange, with their shining crescents and outstretched shafts of wood +that call to the great birds of space. Spite of ourselves we raise our +heads, fascinated by all the beauty that is in the air; but there is +only this square of marvellous sky, a sort of limpid sapphire, set +in the battlements of El-Azhar and fringed by those audacious slender +towers. We are in the religious East of olden days and we feel how the +mystery of this magnificent court--whose architectural ornament consists +merely in geometrical designs repeated to infinity, and does not +commence till quite high up on the battlements, where the minarets point +into the eternal blue--must cast its spell upon the imagination of the +young priests who are being trained here. + +***** + +“He who instructs the ignorant is like a living man amongst the dead.” + +“If a day passes without my having learnt something which brings me +nearer to God, let not the dawn of that day be blessed.” + +Verses from the Hadith. + +He who has brought me to this place to-day is my friend, Mustapha Kamel +Pacha, the tribune of Egypt, and I owe to his presence the fact that I +am not treated like a casual visitor. Our names are taken at once to +the great master of El-Azhar, a high personage in Islam, whose pupil +Mustapha formerly was, and who no doubt will receive us in person. + +It is in a hall very Arab in its character, furnished only with divans, +that the great master welcomes us, with the simplicity of an ascetic and +the elegant manners of a prelate. His look, and indeed his whole face, +tell how onerous is the sacred office which he exercises: to preside, +namely, at the instruction of these thousands of young priests, who +afterwards are to carry faith and peace and immobility to more than +three hundred millions of men. + +And in a few moments Mustapha and he are busy discussing--as if it were +a matter of actual interest--a controversial question concerning the +events which followed the death of the Prophet, and the part played by +Ali. . . . In that moment how my good friend Mustapha, whom I had seen +so French in France, appeared all at once a Moslem to the bottom of +his soul! The same thing is true indeed of the greater number of these +Orientals, who, if we meet them in our own country, seem to be quite +parisianised; their modernity is only on the surface: in their inmost +souls Islam remains intact. And it is not difficult to understand, +perhaps, how the spectacle of our troubles, our despairs, our miseries, +in these new ways in which our lot is cast, should make them reflect and +turn again to the tranquil dream of their ancestors. . . . + +While waiting for the conclusion of the morning studies, we are +conducted through some of the dependencies of El-Azhar. Halls of every +epoch, added one to another, go to form a little labyrinth; many contain +_Mihrabs_, which, as we know already, are a kind of portico, festooned +and denticulated till they look as if covered with rime. And library +after library, with ceilings of cedarwood, carved in times when men +had more leisure and more patience. Thousands of precious manuscripts, +dating back some hundreds of years, but which here in El-Azhar are no +whit out of date. Open, in glass cases, are numerous inestimable Korans, +which in olden times had been written fair and illuminated on parchment +by pious khedives. And, in a place of honour, a large astronomical +glass, through which men watch the rising of the moon of Ramadan. . . . +All this savours of the past. And what is being taught to-day to the ten +thousand students of El-Azhar scarcely differs from what was taught to +their predecessors in the glorious reign of the Fatimites--and which was +then transcendent and even new: the Koran and all its commentaries; the +subtleties of syntax and of pronunciation; jurisprudence; calligraphy, +which still is dear to the heart of Orientals; versification; and, last +of all, mathematics, of which the Arabs were the inventors. + +Yes, all this savours of the past, of the dust of remote ages. And +though, assuredly, the priests trained in this thousand-year-old +university may grow to men of rarest soul, they will remain, these calm +and noble dreamers, merely laggards, safe in their shelter from the +whirlwind which carries us along. + +***** + +“It is a sacrilege to prohibit knowledge. To seek knowledge is to +perform an act of adoration towards God; to instruct is to do an act of +charity.” + +“Knowledge is the life of Islam, the column of faith.” + +Verses from the Hadith. + +The lesson of the morning is now finished and we are able, without +disturbing anybody, to visit the mosque. + +When we return to the great courtyard, with its battlemented walls, +it is the hour of recreation for this crowd of young men in robes and +turbans, who now emerge from the shadow of the sanctuary. + +Since the early morning they have remained seated on their mats, +immersed in study and prayer, amid the confused buzzing of their +thousands of voices; and now they scatter themselves about the +contiguous Arab quarters until such time as the evening lessons +commence. They walk along in little groups, sometimes holding one +another's hands like children; most of them carry their heads high and +raise their eyes to the heavens, although the sun which greets them +outside dazzles them a little with its rays. They seem innumerable, and +as they pass show us faces of the most diverse types. They come from +all quarters of the world; some from Baghdad, others from Bassorah, from +Mossul and even from the interior of Hedjaz. Those from the north have +eyes that are bright and clear; and amongst those from Moghreb, from +Morocco and the Sahara, are many whose skins are almost black. But +the expression of all the faces is alike: something of ecstasy and of +aloofness marks them all; the same detachment, a preoccupation with the +self-same dream. And in the sky, to which they raise their eyes, the +heavens--framed always by the battlements of El-Azhar--are almost white +from the excess of light, with a border of tall, red minarets, which +seem to be aglow with the refection of some great fire. And, watching +them pass, all these young priests or jurists, at once so different +and so alike, we understand better than before how Islam, the old, old +Islam, keeps still its cohesion and its power. + +The mosque in which they pursue their studies is now almost empty. +In its restful twilight there is silence, and the unexpected music of +little birds; it is the brooding season and the ceilings of carved wood +are full of nests, which nobody disturbs. + +A world, this mosque, in which thousands of people could easily find +room. Some hundred and fifty marble columns, brought from ancient +temples, support the arches of the seven parallel aisles. There is +no light save that which comes through the arcade opening into the +courtyard, and it is so dark in the aisles at the far end that we wonder +again how the faithful can see to read when the sun of Egypt happens to +be veiled. + +Some score of students, who seem almost lost in the vast solitude, still +remain during the hour of rest, and are busy sweeping the floor with +long palms made into a kind of broom. These are the poor students, whose +only meal is of dry bread, and who at night stretch themselves to sleep +on the same mat on which they have sat studying during the day. + +The residence at the university is free to all the scholars, the cost of +their education and maintenance being provided by pious donations. But, +inasmuch as the bequests are restricted according to nationality, there +is necessarily inequality in the treatment doled out to the different +students: thus the young men of a given country may be almost rich, +possessing a room and a good bed; while those of a neighbouring country +must sleep on the ground and have barely enough to keep body and soul +together. But none of them complain, and they know how to help one +another.[*] + + [*] The duration of the studies at El-Azhar varies from + three to six years. + +Near to us, one of these needy students is eating, without any false +shame, his midday meal of dry bread; and he welcomes with a smile the +sparrows and the other little winged thieves who come to dispute with +him the crumbs of his repast. And farther down, in the dimly lighted +vaults at the end, is one who disdains to eat, or who, maybe, has no +bread; who, when his sweeping is done, reseats himself on his mat, +and, opening his Koran, commences to read aloud with the customary +intonation. His voice, rich and facile, and moderated with discretion, +has a charm that is irresistible in the sonorous old mosque, where at +this hour the only other sound is the scarcely perceptible twittering of +the little broods above, among the dull gold beams of the ceiling. Those +who have been familiar with the sanctuaries of Islam know, as well as I, +that there is no book so exquisitely rhythmical as that of the Prophet. +Even if the sense of the verses escape you, the chanted reading, which +forms part of certain of the offices, acts upon you by the simple magic +of its sounds, in the same way as the oratorios which draw tears in +the churches of Christ. Rising and falling like some sad lullaby, the +declamation of this young priest, with his face of visionary, and garb +of decent poverty, swells involuntarily, till gradually it seems to fill +the seven deserted aisles of El-Azhar. + +We stop in spite of ourselves, and listen, in the midst of the silence +of midday. And in this so venerable place, where dilapidation and +the usury of centuries are revealed on every side--even on the marble +columns worn by the constant friction of hands--this voice of gold +that rises alone seems as if it were intoning the last lament over the +death-pang of Old Islam and the end of time, the elegy, as it were, of +the universal death of faith in the heart of man. + +***** + +“Science is one religion; prayer is another. Study is better than +worship. Go; seek knowledge everywhere, if needs be, even into China.” + +Verses from the Hadith. + +Amongst us Europeans it is commonly accepted as a proven fact that +Islam is merely a religion of obscurantism, bringing in its train the +stagnation of nations, and hampering them in that march to the unknown +which we call “progress.” But such an attitude shows not only an +absolute ignorance of the teaching of the Prophet, but a blind +forgetfulness of the evidence of history. The Islam of the earlier +centuries evolved and progressed with the nations, and the stimulus it +gave to men in the reign of the ancient caliphs is beyond all question. +To impute to it the present decadence of the Moslem world is altogether +too puerile. The truth is that nations have their day; and to a period +of glorious splendour succeeds a time of lassitude and slumber. It is a +law of nature. And then one day some danger threatens them, stirs them +from their torpor and they awake. + +This immobility of the countries of the Crescent was once dear to me. +If the end is to pass through life with the minimum of suffering, +disdaining all vain striving, and to die entranced by radiant hopes, the +Orientals are the only wise men. But now that greedy nations beset them +on all sides their dreaming is no longer possible. They must awake, +alas. + +They must awake; and already the awakening is at hand. Here, in Egypt, +where the need is felt to change so many things, it is proposed, too, +to reform the old university of El-Azhar, one of the chief centres of +Islam. One thinks of it with a kind of fear, knowing what danger there +is in laying hands upon institutions which have lasted for a thousand +years. Reform, however, has, in principle, been decided upon. New +knowledge, brought from the West, is penetrating into the tabernacle +of the Fatimites. Has not the Prophet said: “Go; seek knowledge far and +wide, if needs be even into China”? What will come of it? Who can tell? +But this, at least, is certain: that in the dazzling hours of noon, +or in the golden hours of evening, when the crowd of these modernised +students spreads itself over the vast courtyard, overlooked by its +countless minarets, there will no longer be seen in their eyes the +mystic light of to-day; and it will no longer be the old unshakable +faith, nor the lofty and serene indifference, nor the profound peace, +that these messengers will carry to the ends of the Mussulman +earth. . . . + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN THE TOMBS OF THE APIS + +The dwelling-places of the Apis, in the grim darkness beneath the +Memphite desert, are, as all the world knows, monster coffins of black +granite ranged in catacombs, hot and stifling as eternal stoves. + +To reach them from the banks of the Nile we have first to traverse +the low region which the inundations of the ancient river, regularly +repeated since the beginning of time, have rendered propitious to +the growth of plants and to the development of men; an hour or two's +journey, this evening through forests of date-trees whose beautiful +palms temper the light of the March sun, which is now half veiled in +clouds and already declining. In the distance herds are grazing in the +cool shade. And we meet fellahs leading back from the field towards the +village on the river-bank their little donkeys, laden with sheaves +of corn. The air is mild and wholesome under the high tufts of these +endless green plumes, which move in the warm wind almost without noise. +We seem to be in some happy land, where the pastoral life should be +easy, and even a little paradisiacal. + +But beyond, in front of us, quite a different world is gradually +revealed. Its aspect assumes the importance of a menace from the +unknown; it awes us like an apparition of chaos, of universal death. +. . . It is the desert, the conquering desert, in the midst of which +inhabited Egypt, the green valleys of the Nile, trace merely a narrow +ribbon. And here, more than elsewhere, the sight of this sovereign +desert rising up before us is startling and thrilling, so high up it +seems, and we so low in the Edenlike valley shaded by the palms. With +its yellow hues, its livid marblings, and its sands which make it look +somehow as if it lacked consistency, it rises on the whole horizon like +a kind of soft wall or a great fearsome cloud--or rather, like a long +cataclysmic wave, which does not move indeed, but which, if it did, +would overwhelm and swallow everything. It is the _Memphite desert_--a +place, that is to say, such as does not exist elsewhere on earth; a +fabulous necropolis, in which men of earlier times, heaped up for some +three thousand years the embalmed bodies of their dead, exaggerating, as +time went on, the foolish grandeur of their tombs. Now, above the sand +which looks like the front of some great tidal wave arrested in its +progress, we see on all sides, and far into the distance, triangles of +superhuman proportions which were once the tombs of mummies; pyramids, +still upright, all of them, on their sinister pedestal of sand. Some +are comparatively near; others almost lost in the background of the +solitudes--and perhaps more awesome in that they are merely outlined in +grey, high up among the clouds. + +***** + +The little carriages that have brought us to the necropolis of Memphis, +through the interminable forest of palm-trees, had their wheels fitted +with large pattens for their journey over the sand. + +Now, arrived at the foot of the fearsome region, we commence to climb +a hill where all at once the trot of our horses ceases to be heard; the +moving felting of the soil establishes a sudden silence around us, as +indeed is always the case when we reach these sands. It seems as if it +were a silence of respect which the desert itself imposes. + +The valley of life sinks and fades behind us, until at last it +disappears, hidden by a line of sandhills--the first wave, as one might +say, of this waterless sea--and we are now mounted into the kingdom of +the dead, swept at this moment by a withering and almost icy wind, which +from below one would not have expected. + +This desert of Memphis has not yet been profaned by hotels or motor +roads, such as we have seen in the “little desert” of the Sphinx--whose +three pyramids indeed we can discern at the extreme limit of the view, +prolonging almost to infinity for our eyes this domain of mummies. There +is nobody to be seen, nor any indication of the present day, amongst +these mournful undulations of yellow or pale grey sand, in which we seem +lost as in the swell of an ocean. The sky is cloudy--such as you can +scarcely imagine the sky of Egypt. And in this immense nothingness of +sand and stones, which stands out now more clearly against the clouds +on the horizon, there is nothing anywhere save the silhouettes of those +eternal triangles; the pyramids, gigantic things which rise here and +there at hazard, some half in ruin, others almost intact and preserving +still their sharp point. To-day they are the only landmarks of this +necropolis, which is nearly six miles in length, and was formerly +covered by temples of a magnificence and a vastness unimaginable to the +minds of our day. Except for one which is quite near us (the fantastic +grandfather of the others, that of King Zoser, who died nearly +5000 years ago), except for this one, which is made of six colossal +superposed terraces, they are all built after that same conception of +the _Triangle_, which is at once the most mysteriously simple figure +of geometry, and the strongest and most permanently stable form of +architecture. And now that there remains no trace of the frescoed +portraits which used to adorn them, nor of their multicoloured coatings, +now that they have taken on the same dead colour as the desert, they +look like the huge bones of giant fossils, that have long outlasted +their other contemporaries on earth. Beneath the ground, however, the +case is different; there, still remain the bodies of men, and even +of cats and birds, who with their own eyes saw these vast structures +building, and who sleep intact, swathed in bandages, in the darkness +of their tunnels. _We know_, for we have penetrated there before, what +things are hidden in the womb of this old desert, on which the yellow +shroud of the sand grows thicker and thicker as the centuries pass. +The whole deep rock had been perforated patiently to make hypogea and +sepulchral chambers, great and small, and veritable palaces for the +dead, adorned with innumerable painted figures. And though now, for +some two thousand years, men have set themselves furiously to exhume +the sarcophagi and the treasures that are buried here, the subterranean +reserves are not yet exhausted. There still remain, no doubt, pleiads of +undisturbed sleepers, who will never be discovered. + +As we advance the wind grows stronger and colder beneath a sky that +becomes increasingly cloudy, and the sand is flying on all sides. The +sand is the undisputed sovereign of the necropolis; if it does not surge +and roll like some enormous tidal wave, as it appears to do when seen +from the green valley below, it nevertheless covers everything with an +obstinate persistence which has continued since the beginning of time. +Already at Memphis it has buried innumerable statues and colossi and +temples of the Sphinx. It comes without a pause, from Libya, from the +great Sahara, which contain enough to powder the universe. It harmonises +well with the tall skeletons of the pyramids, which form immutable rocks +on its always shifting extent; and if one thinks of it, it gives a more +thrilling sense of anterior eternities even than all these Egyptian +ruins, which, in comparison with it, are things of yesterday. The +sand--the sand of the primitive seas--which represents a labour of +erosion of a duration impossible to conceive, and bears witness to a +continuity of destruction which, one might say, had no beginning. + +Here, in the midst of these solitudes, is a humble habitation, old and +half buried in sand, at which we have to stop. It was once the house +of the Egyptologist Mariette, and still shelters the director of the +excavations, from whom we have to obtain permission to descend amongst +the Apis. The whitewashed room in which he receives us is encumbered +with the age-old debris which he is continually bringing to light. The +parting rays of the sun, which shines low down from between two clouds, +enter through a window opening on to the surrounding desolation; and the +light comes mournfully, yellowed by the sand and the evening. + +The master of the house, while his Bedouin servants are gone to open and +light up for us the underground habitations of the Apis, shows us his +latest astonishing find, made this morning in a hypogeum of one of the +most ancient dynasties. It is there on a table, a group of little people +of wood, of the size of the marionettes of our theatres. And since it +was the custom to put in a tomb only those figures or objects which were +most pleasing to him who dwelt in it, the man-mummy to whom this toy +was offered in times anterior to all precise chronology must have been +extremely partial to dancing-girls. In the middle of the group the man +himself is represented, sitting in an armchair, and on his knee he holds +his favourite dancing-girl. Other girls posture before him in a dance +of the period; and on the ground sit musicians touching tambourines and +strangely fashioned harps. All wear their hair in a long plait, which +falls below their shoulders like the pigtail of the Chinese. It was +the distinguishing mark of these kinds of courtesans. And these little +people had kept their pose in the darkness for some three thousand years +before the commencement of the Christian era. . . . In order to show it +to us better the group is brought to the window, and the mournful light +which enters from across the infinite solitudes of the desert colours +them yellow and shows us in detail their little doll-like attitudes +and their comical and frightened appearance--frightened perhaps to find +themselves so old and issuing from so deep a night. They had not seen a +setting of the sun, such as they now regard with their queer eyes, too +long and too wide oepn, they had not seen such a thing for some five +thousand years. . . . + +The habitation of the Apis, the lords of the necropolis, is little more +than two hundred yards away. We are told that the place is now lighted +up and that we may betake ourselves thither. + +The descent is by a narrow, rapidly sloping passage, dug in the soil, +between banks of sand and broken stones. We are now completely sheltered +from the bitter wind which blows across the desert, and from the dark +doorway that opens before us comes a breath of air as from an oven. It +is always dry and hot in the underground funeral places of Egypt, which +make indeed admirable stoves for mummies. The threshold once crossed we +are plunged first of all in darkness and, preceded by a lantern, make +our way, by devious turnings, over large flagstones, passing obelisks, +fallen blocks of stone and other gigantic debris, in a heat that +continually increases. + +At last the principal artery of the hypogeum appears, a thoroughfare +more than five hundred yards long, cut in the rock, where the Bedouins +have prepared for us the customary feeble light. + +It is a place of fearful aspect. As soon as one enters one is seized +by the sense of a mournfulness beyond words, by an oppression as of +something too heavy, too crushing, almost superhuman. The impotent +little flames of the candles, placed in a row, in groups of fifty, on +tripods of wood from one end of the route to the other, show on the +right and left of the immense avenue rectangular sepulchral caverns, +containing each a black coffin, but a coffin as if for a mastodon. +And all these coffins, so sombre and so alike, are square shaped too, +severely simple like so many boxes; but made out of a single block +of rare granite that gleams like marble. They are entirely without +ornament. It is necessary to look closely to distinguish on the smooth +walls the hieroglyphic inscriptions, the rows of little figures, little +owls, little jackals, that tell in a lost language the history of +ancient peoples. Here is the signature of King Amasis; beyond, that of +King Cambyses. . . . Who were the Titans who, century after century, +were able to hew these coffins (they are at least twelve feet long by +ten feet high), and, having hewn them, to carry them underground (they +weigh on an average between sixty and seventy tons), and finally to +range them in rows here in these strange chambers, where they stand as +if in ambuscade on either side of us as we pass? Each in its turn has +contained quite comfortably the mummy of a bull Apis, armoured in plates +of gold. But in spite of their weight, in spite of their solidity which +effectively defies destruction, they have been despoiled[*]--when is +not precisely known, probably by the soldiers of the King of Persia. +And this notwithstanding that merely to open them represents a labour +of astonishing strength and patience. In some cases the thieves have +succeeded, by the aid of levers, in moving a few inches the formidable +lid; in others, by persevering with blows of pickaxes, they have +pierced, in the thickness of the granite, a hole through which a man has +been enabled to crawl like a rat, or a worm, and then, groping his way, +to plunder the sacred mummy. + + [*] One, however, remains intact in the walled cavern, and + thus preserves for us the only Apis which has come down to + our days. And one recalls the emotion of Mariette, when, on + entering it, he saw on the sandy ground the imprint of the + naked feet of the last Egyptian who left it thirty-seven + centuries before. + +What strikes us most of all in the colossal hypogeum is the meeting +there, in the middle of the stairway by which we leave, with yet another +black coffin, which lies across our path as if to bar it. It is as +monstrous and as simple as the others, its seniors, which many centuries +before, as the deified bulls died, had commenced to line the great +straight thoroughfare. But this one has never reached its place and +never held its mummy. It was the last. Even while men were slowly +rolling it, with tense muscles and panting cries, towards what might +well have seemed its eternal chamber, others gods were born, and the +cult of the Apis had come to an end--suddenly, then and there! Such a +fate may happen indeed to each and all of the religions and institutions +of men, even to those most deeply rooted in their hearts and their +ancestral past. . . . That perhaps is the most disturbing of all our +positive notions: to know that there will be a _last_ of all things, +not only a last temple, and a last priest, but a last birth of a human +child, a last sunrise, a last day. . . . + +***** + +In these hot catacombs we had forgotten the cold wind that blew outside, +and the physiognomy of the Memphite desert, the aspects of horror that +were awaiting us above had vanished from our mind. Sinister as it is +under a blue sky, this desert becomes absolutely intolerable to look +upon if by chance the sky is cloudy when the daylight fails. + +On our return to it, from the subterranean darkness, everything in its +dead immensity has begun to take on the blue tint of the night. On the +top of the sandhills, of which the yellow colour has greatly paled since +we went below, the wind amuses itself by raising little vortices of sand +that imitate the spray of an angry sea. On all sides dark clouds stretch +themselves as at the moment of our descent. The horizon detaches itself +more and more clearly from them, and, farther towards the east, it +actually seems to be tilted up; one of the highest of the waves of this +waterless sea, a mountain of sand whose soft contours are deceptive in +the distance, makes it look as if it sloped towards us, so as almost to +produce a sensation of vertigo. The sun itself has deigned to remain on +the scene a few seconds longer, held beyond its time by the effect of +mirage; but it is so changed behind its thick veils that we would prefer +that it should not be there. Of the colour of dying embers, it seems +too near and too large; it has ceased to give any light, and is become a +mere rose-coloured globe, that is losing its shape and becoming oval. +No longer in the free heavens, but stranded there on the extreme edge of +the desert, it watches the scene like a large dull eye, about to close +itself in death. And the mysterious superhuman triangles, they too, of +course, are there, waiting for us on our return from underground, some +near, some far, posted in their eternal places; but surely they have +grown gradually more blue. . . . + +Such a night, in such a place, it seems the _last_ night. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE OUTSKIRTS OF CAIRO + +Night. A long straight road, the artery of some capital, through which +our carriage drives at a fast trot, making a deafening clatter on the +pavement. Electric light everywhere. The shops are closing; it must +needs be late. + +The road is Levantine in its general character; and we should have no +clear notion of the place did we not see in our rapid, noisy passage +signs that recall us to the land of the Arabs. People pass dressed in +the long robe and tarboosh of the East; and some of the houses, above +the European shops, are ornamented with mushrabiyas. But this blinding +electricity strikes a false note. In our hearts are we quite sure we are +in the East? + +The road ends, opening on to darkness. Suddenly, without any warning, +it abuts upon a void in which the eyes see nothing, and we roll over +a yielding, felted soil, where all noise abruptly ceases--it is the +_desert_! . . . Not a vague, nondescript stretch of country such as in +the outskirts of our towns, not one of the solitudes of Europe, but the +threshold of the vast desolations of Arabia. _The desert_; and, even if +we had not known that it was awaiting us, we should have recognised it +by the indescribable quality of harshness and uniqueness which, in spite +of the darkness, cannot be mistaken. + +But the night after all is not so black. It only seemed so, at the first +moment, by contrast with the glaring illumination of the street. In +reality it is transparent and blue. A half-moon, high up in the heavens, +and veiled by a diaphanous mist, shines gently, and as it is an Egyptian +moon, more subtle than ours, it leaves to things a little of their +colour. We can see now, as well as feel, this desert, which has opened +and imposed its silence upon us. Before us is the paleness of its sands +and the reddish-brown of its dead rocks. Verily, in no country but Egypt +are there such rapid surprises: to issue from a street flanked by shops +and stalls and, without transition, to find this! . . . + +Our horses have, inevitably, to slacken speed as the wheels of our +carriage sink into the sand. Around us still are some stray ramblers, +who presently assume the air of ghosts, with their long black or white +draperies, and noiseless tread. And then, not a soul; nothing but the +sand and the moon. + +But now almost at once, after the short intervening nothingness, we +find ourselves in a new town; streets with little low houses, little +cross-roads, little squares, all of them white, on whitened sands, +beneath a white moon. . . . But there is no electricity in this town, no +lights, and nobody is stirring; doors and windows are shut: no movement +of any kind, and the silence, at first, is like that of the surrounding +desert. It is a town in which the half-light of the moon, amongst so +much vague whiteness, is diffused in such a way that it seems to come +from all sides at once and things cast no shadows which might give them +definiteness; a town where the soil is so yielding that our progress +is weakened and retarded, as in dreams. It seems unreal; and, in +penetrating farther into it, a sense of fear comes over you that can +neither be dismissed nor defined. + +For assuredly this is no ordinary town. . . . And yet the houses, +with their windows barred like those of a harem, are in no way +singular--except that they are shut and silent. It is all this +whiteness, perhaps, which freezes us. And then, too, the silence is +not, in fact, like that of the desert, which did at least seem natural, +inasmuch as there was nothing there; here, on the contrary, there is +a sense of innumerable presences, which shrink away as you pass but +nevertheless continue to watch attentively. . . . We pass mosques in +total darkness and they too are silent and white, with a slight bluish +tint cast on them by the moon. And sometimes, between the houses, there +are little enclosed spaces, like narrow gardens, but which can have no +possible verdure. And in these gardens numbers of little obelisks rise +from the sand--white obelisks, it is needless to say, for to-night +we are in the kingdom of absolute whiteness. What can they be, these +strange little gardens? . . . And the sand, meanwhile, which covers the +streets with its thick coatings, continues to deaden the sound of our +progress, out of compliment no doubt to all these watchful things that +are so silent around us. + +At the crossings and in the little squares the obelisks become more +numerous, erected always at either end of a slab of stone that is about +the length of a man. Their little motionless groups, posted as if on the +watch, seem so little real in their vague whiteness that we feel tempted +to verify them by touching, and, verily, we should not be astonished if +our hand passed through them as through a ghost. Farther on there is a +wide expanse without any houses at all, where these ubiquitous little +obelisks abound in the sand like ears of corn in a field. There is +now no further room for illusion. We are in a cemetery, and have been +passing in the midst of houses of the dead, and mosques of the dead, in +a town of the dead. + +Once emerged from this cemetery, which in the end at least disclosed +itself in its true character, we are involved again in the continuation +of the mysterious town, which takes us back into its network. Little +houses follow one another as before, only now the little gardens are +replaced by little burial enclosures. And everything grows more and more +indistinct, in the gentle light, which gradually grows less. It is as if +someone were putting frosted globes over the moon, so that soon, but for +the transparency of this air of Egypt and the prevailing whiteness of +things, there would be no light at all. Once at a window the light of a +lamp appears; it is the lantern of gravediggers. Anon we hear the voices +of men chanting a prayer; and the prayer is a prayer for the dead. + +These tenantless houses were never built for dwellings. They are simply +places where men assemble on certain anniversaries, to pray for the +dead. Every Moslem family of any note has its little temple of this +kind, near to the family graves. And there are so many of them that now +the place is become a town--and a town in the desert--that is to say, in +a place useless for any other purpose; a secure place indeed, for we +may be sure that the ground occupied by these poor tombs runs no risk of +being coveted--not even in the irreverent times of the future. No, it is +on the other side of Cairo--on the other bank of the Nile, amongst the +verdure of the palm-trees, that we must look for the suburb in course +of transformation, with its villas of the invading foreigner, and the +myriad electric lights along its motor roads. On this side there is no +such fear; the peace and desuetude are eternal; and the winding sheet of +the Arabian sands is ready always for its burial office. + +At the end of this town of the dead, the desert again opens before us +its mournful whitened expanse. On such a night as this, when the wind +blows cold and the misty moon shows like a sad opal, it looks like a +steppe under snow. + +But it is a desert planted with ruins, with the ghosts of mosques; a +whole colony of high tumbling domes are scattered here at hazard on the +shifting extent of the sands. And what strange old-fashioned domes they +are! The archaism of their silhouettes strikes us from the first, +as much as their isolation in such a place. They look like bells, or +gigantic dervish hats placed on pedestals, and those farthest away give +the impression of squat, large-headed figures posted there as sentinels, +watching the vague horizon of Arabia beyond. + +They are the proud tombs of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries +where the Mameluke Sultans, who oppressed Egypt for nearly three hundred +years, sleep now in complete abandonment. Nowadays, it is true, some +visits are beginning to be paid to them--on winter nights when the moon +is full and they throw on the sands their great clear-cut shadows. At +such times the light is considered favourable, and they rank among the +curiosities exploited by the agencies. Numbers of tourists (who persist +in calling them the tombs of the caliphs) betake themselves thither of +an evening--a noisy caravan mounted on little donkeys. But to-night +the moon is too pale and uncertain, and we shall no doubt be alone in +troubling them in their ghostly communion. + +To-night indeed the light is quite unusual. As just now in the town of +the dead, it is diffused on all sides and gives even to the most massive +objects the transparent semblance of unreality. But nevertheless +it shows their detail and leaves them something of their daylight +colouring, so that all these funeral domes, raised on the ruins of the +mosques, which serve them as pedestals, have preserved their reddish or +brown colours, although the sand which separates them, and makes between +the tombs of the different sultans little dead solitudes, remains pale +and wan. + +And meanwhile our carriage, proceeding always without noise, traces +on this same sand little furrows which the wind will have effaced by +to-morrow. There are no roads of any kind; they would indeed be as +useless as they are impossible to make. You may pass here where you +like, and fancy yourself far away from any place inhabited by living +beings. The great town, which we know to be so close, appears from +time to time, thanks to the undulations of the ground, as a mere +phosphorescence, a reflection of its myriad electric lights. We are +indeed in the desert of the dead, in the sole company of the moon, +which, by the fantasy of this wonderful Egyptian sky, is to-night a moon +of grey pearl, one might almost say a moon of mother-of-pearl. + +Each of these funeral mosques is a thing of splendour, if one examines +it closely in its solitude. These strange upraised domes, which from +a distance look like the head-dresses of dervishes or magi, are +embroidered with arabesques, and the walls are crowned with denticulated +trefoils of exquisite fashioning. + +But nobody venerates these tombs of the Mameluke oppressors, or keeps +them in repair; and within them there are no more chants, no prayers +to Allah. Night after night they pass in an infinity of silence. Piety +contents itself with not destroying them; leaving them there at the +mercy of time and the sun and the wind which withers and crumbles +them. And all around are the signs of ruin. Tottering cupolas show us +irreparable cracks; the halves of broken arches are outlined to-night +in shadow against the mother-of-pearl light of the sky, and debris of +sculptured stones are strewn about. But nevertheless these tombs, +that are well-nigh accursed, still stir in us a vague sense of +alarm--particularly those in the distance, which rise up like +silhouettes of misshapen giants in enormous hats--dark on the white +sheet of sand--and stand there in groups, or scattered in confusion, at +the entrance to the vast empty regions beyond. + +***** + +We had chosen a time when the light was doubtful in order that we might +avoid the tourists, but as we approach the funeral dwelling of Sultan +Barkuk, the assassin, we see, issuing from it, a whole band, some twenty +in a line, who emerge from the darkness of the abandoned walls, each +trotting on his little donkey and each followed by the inevitable +Bedouin driver, who taps with his stick upon the rump of the beast. They +are returning to Cairo, their visit ended, and exchange in a loud voice, +from one ass to another, more or less inept impressions in various +European languages. . . . And look! There is even amongst them the +almost proverbial belated dame who, for private reasons of her own, +follows at a respectable distance behind. She is a little mature +perhaps, so far as can be judged in the moonlight, but nevertheless +still sympathetic to her driver, who, with both hands, supports her from +behind on her saddle, with a touching solicitude that is peculiar to +the country. Ah! these little donkeys of Egypt, so observant, so +philosophical and sly, why cannot they write their memoirs! What a +number of droll things they must have seen at night in the outskirts of +Cairo! + +This good lady evidently belongs to that extensive category of hardy +explorers who, despite their high respectability at home, do not +hesitate, once they are landed on the banks of the Nile, to supplement +their treatment by the sun and the dry winds with a little of the +“Bedouin cure.” + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +ARCHAIC CHRISTIANITY + +Dimly lighted by the flames of a few poor slender tapers which flicker +against the walls in stone arches, a dense crowd of human figures veiled +in black, in a place overpowering and suffocating--underground, no +doubt--which is filled with the perfume of the incense of Arabia; and a +noise of almost wicked movement, which sirs us to alarm and even horror: +bleatings of new-born babies, cries of distress of tiny mites whose +voices are drowned, as if on purpose, by a clinking of cymbals. + +What can it be? Why have they descended into this dark hole, these +little ones, who howl in the midst of the smoke, held by these phantoms +in mourning? Had we entered it unawares we might have thought it a den +of wicked sorcery, an underground cavern for the black mass. + +But no. It is the crypt of the basilica of St. Sergius during the Coptic +mass of Easter morning. And when, after the first surprise, we examine +these phantoms, we find that, for the most part, they are young mothers, +with the refined and gentle faces of Madonnas, who hold the plaintive +little ones beneath their black veils and seek to comfort them. And the +sorcerer, who plays the cymbals, is a kind old priest, or sacristan, +who smiles paternally. If he makes all this noise, in a rhythm which +in itself is full of joy, it is to mark the gladness of Easter morn, to +celebrate the resurrection of Christ--and a little, too, no doubt, to +distract the little ones, some of whom are woefully put out. But +their mammas do not prolong the proof--a mere momentary visit to this +venerable place, which is to bring them happiness, and they carry their +babes away: and others are led in by the dark, narrow staircase, so low +that one cannot stand upright in it. And thus the crypt is not emptied. +And meanwhile mass is being said in the church overhead. + +But what a number of people, of black veils, are in this hovel, where +the air can scarcely be breathed, and where the barbarous music, mingled +with wailings and cries, deafens you! And what an air of antiquity marks +all things here! The defaced walls, the low roof that one can easily +touch, the granite pillars which sustain the shapeless arches are all +blackened by the smoke of the wax candles, and scarred and worn by the +friction of human hands. + +At the end of the crypt there is a very sacred recess round which a +crowd presses: a coarse niche, a little larger than those cut in the +wall to receive the tapers, a niche which covers the ancient stone on +which, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary rested, with the child +Jesus, in the course of the flight into Egypt. This holy stone is sadly +worn to-day and polished smooth by the touch of many pious hands, and +the Byzantine cross which once was carved on it is almost effaced. + +But even if the Virgin had never rested there, the humble crypt of St. +Sergius would remain no less one of the oldest Christian sanctuaries in +the world. And the Copts who still assemble there with veneration have +preceded by many years the greater part of our Western nations in the +religion of the Bible. + +Although the history of Egypt envelops itself in a sort of night at the +moment of the appearance of Christianity, we know that the growth of the +new faith there was as rapid and impetuous as the germination of plants +under the overflow of the Nile. The old Pharaonic cults, amalgamated at +that time with those of Greece, were so obscured under a mass of rites +and formulae, that they had ceased to have any meaning. And nevertheless +here, as in imperial Rome, there brooded the ferment of a passionate +mysticism. Moreover, this Egyptian people, more than any other, was +haunted by the terror of death, as is proved by the folly of its +embalmments. With what avidity therefore must it have received the Word +of fraternal love and immediate resurrection? + +In any case Christianity was so firmly implanted in this Egypt that +centuries of persecution did not succeed in destroying it. As one goes +up the Nile, many little human settlements are to be seen, little groups +of houses of dried mud, where the whitened dome of the modest house +of prayer is surmounted by a cross and not a crescent. They are the +villages of those Copts, those Egyptians, who have preserved the +Christian faith from father to son since the nebulous times of the first +martyrs. + +***** + +The simple Church of St. Sergius is a relic hidden away and almost +buried in the midst of a labyrinth of ruins. Without a guide it is +almost impossible to find your way thither. The quarter in which it is +situated is enclosed within the walls of what was once a Roman fortress, +and this fortress in its turn is surrounded by the tranquil ruins of +“Old Cairo”--which is to the Cairo of the Mamelukes and the Khedives, in +a small degree, what Versailles is to Paris. + +On this Easter morning, having set out from the Cairo of to-day to be +present at this mass, we have first to traverse a suburb in course of +transformation, upon whose ancient soil will shortly appear numbers of +these modern horrors, in mud and metal--factories or large hotels--which +multiply in this poor land with a stupefying rapidity. Then comes a mile +or so of uncultivated ground, mixed with stretches of sand, and already +a little desertlike. And then the walls of Old Cairo; after which begins +the peace of the deserted houses, of little gardens and orchards among +the ruins. The wind and the dust beset us the whole way, the almost +eternal wind and the eternal dust of this land, by which, since the +beginning of the ages, so many human eyes have been burnt beyond +recovery. They keep us now in blinding whirlwinds, which swarm with +flies. The “season” indeed is already over, and the foreign invaders +have fled until next autumn. Egypt is now more Egyptian, beneath a more +burning sky. The sun of this Easter Sunday is as hot as ours of July, +and the ground seems as if it would perish of drought. But it is always +thus in the springtime of this rainless country; the trees, which have +kept their leaves throughout the winter, shed them in April as ours +do in November. There is no shade anywhere and everything suffers. +Everything grows yellow on the yellow sands. But there is no cause for +uneasiness: the inundation is at hand, which has never failed since +the commencement of our geological period. In another few weeks the +prodigious river will spread along its banks, just as in the times +of the God Amen, a precocious and impetuous life. And meanwhile the +orange-trees, the jasmine and the honeysuckle, which men have taken care +to water with water from the Nile, are full of riotous bloom. As we pass +the gardens of Old Cairo, which alternate with the tumbling houses, this +continual cloud of white dust that envelops us comes suddenly laden with +their sweet fragrance; so that, despite the drought and the bareness of +the trees, the scents of a sudden and feverish springtime are already in +the air. + +When we arrive at the walls of what used to be the Roman citadel we +have to descend from our carriage, and passing through a low doorway +penetrate on foot into the labyrinth of a Coptic quarter which is dying +of dust and old age. Deserted houses that have become the refuges of +outcasts; mushrabiyas, worm-eaten and decayed; little mousetrap alleys +that lead us under arches of the Middle Ages, and sometimes close over +our heads by reason of the fantastic bending of the ruins. Even by such +a route as this are we conducted to a famous basilica! Were it not for +these groups of Copts, dressed in their Sunday garb, who make their way +like us through the ruins to the Easter mass, we should think that we +had lost our way. + +And how pretty they look, these women draped like phantoms in their +black silks. Their long veils do not completely hide them, as do +those of the Moslems. They are simply placed over their hair and leave +uncovered the delicate features, the golden necklet and the half-bared +arms that carry on their wrists thick twisted bracelets of virgin +gold. Pure Egyptians as they are, they have preserved the same delicate +profile, the same elongated eyes, as mark the old goddesses carved in +bas-relief on the Pharaonic walls. But some, alas, amongst the young +ones have discarded their traditional costume, and are arrayed _a la +franque_, in gowns and hats. And such gowns, such hats, such flowers! +The very peasants of our meanest villages would disdain them. Oh! why +cannot someone tell these poor little women, who have it in their power +to be so adorable, that the beautiful folds of their black veils give +to them an exquisite and characteristic distinction, while this poor +tinsel, which recalls the mid-Lent carnivals, makes of them objects that +excite our pity! + +In one of the walls which now surround us there is a low and shrinking +doorway. Can this be the entrance to the basilica? The idea seems +absurd. And yet some of the pretty creatures in the black veils and +bracelets of gold, who were in front of us, have disappeared through it, +and already the perfume of the censers is wafted towards us. A kind of +corridor, astonishingly poor and old, twists itself suspiciously, and +then issues into a narrow court, more than a thousand years old, where +offertory boxes, fixed on Oriental brackets, invite our alms. The odour +of the incense becomes more pronounced, and at last a door, hidden in +shadow at the end of this retreat, gives access to the venerable church +itself. + +The church! It is a mixture of Byzantine basilica, mosque and desert +hut. Entering there, it is as if we were introduced suddenly to the +naïve infancy of Christianity, as if we surprised it, as it were, in +its cradle--which was indeed Oriental. The triple nave is full of little +children (here also, that is what strikes us first), of little mites +who cry or else laugh and play; and there are mothers suckling their +new-born babes--and all the time the invisible mass is being celebrated +beyond, behind the iconostasis. On the ground, on mats, whole families +are seated in circle, as if they were in their homes. A thick deposit of +white chalk on the defaced, shrunken walls bears witness to great age. +And over all this is a strange old ceiling of cedarwood, traversed by +large barbaric beams. + +In the nave, supported by columns of marble, brought in days gone by +from Pagan temples, there are, as in all these old Coptic churches, high +transverse wooden partitions, elaborately wrought in the Arab fashion, +which divide it into three sections: the first, into which one comes +on entering the church, is allotted to the women, the second is for +the baptistery, and the third, at the end adjoining the iconostasis, is +reserved for the men. + +These women who are gathered this morning in their apportioned space--so +much at home there with their suckling little ones--wear, almost all of +them, the long black silk veils of former days. In their harmonious and +endlessly restless groups, the gowns _a la franque_ and the poor hats +of carnival are still the exception. The congregation, as a whole, +preserves almost intact its naïve, old-time flavour. + +And there is movement too, beyond, in the compartment of the men, which +is bounded at the farther end by the iconostasis--a thousand-year-old +wall decorated with inlaid cedarwood and ivory of precious antique +workmanship, and adorned with strange old icons, blackened by time. It +is behind this wall--pierced by several doorways--that mass is now being +said. From this last sanctuary shut off thus from the people comes the +vague sound of singing; from time to time a priest raises a faded silk +curtain and from the threshold makes the sign of blessing. His vestments +are of gold, and he wears a golden crown, but the humble faithful speak +to him freely, and even touch his gorgeous garments, that might be those +of one of the Wise Kings. He smiles, and letting fall the curtain, +which covers the entrance to the tabernacle, disappears again into this +innocent mystery. + +Even the least things here tell of decay. The flagstones, trodden by +the feet of numberless dead generations, are become uneven through the +settling of the soil. Everything is askew, bent, dusty and worn-out. +The daylight comes from above, through narrow barred windows. There is +a lack of air, so that one almost stifles. But though the sun does not +enter, a certain indefinable reflection from the whitened walls reminds +us that outside there is a flaming, resplendent Eastern spring. + +In this, the old grandfather, as it were, of churches, filled now with +a cloud of odorous smoke, what one hears, more even than the chanting +of the mass, is the ceaseless movement, the pious agitation of the +faithful; and more even than that, the startling noise that rises +from the holy crypt below--the sharp clashing of cymbals and those +multitudinous little wailings, that sound like the mewings of kittens. + +But let me not harbour thoughts of irony! Surely not. If, in our Western +lands, certain ceremonies seem to me anti-Christian--as, for example, +one of those spectacular high masses in the over-pompous Cathedral of +Cologne, where halberdiers overawe the crowd--here, on the contrary, +the simplicity of this primitive cult is touching and respectable in the +extreme. These Copts who install themselves in their church, as round +their firesides, who make their home there and encumber the place with +their fretful little ones, have, in their own way, well understood the +word of Him who said: “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and +do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God.” + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE RACE OF BRONZE + +A monotonous chant on three notes, which must date from the first +Pharaohs, may still be heard in our days on the banks of the Nile, +from the Delta as far as Nubia. At different places along the river, +half-made men, with torsos of bronze and voices all alike, intone it +in the morning when they commence their endless labours and continue it +throughout the day, until the evening brings repose. + +Whoever has journeyed in a dahabiya up the old river will remember this +song of the water-drawers, with its accompaniment, in slow cadence, of +creakings of wet wood. + +It is the song of the “shaduf,” and the “shaduf” is a primitive rigging, +which has remained unchanged since times beyond all reckoning. It +is composed of a long antenna, like the yard of a tartan, which is +supported in see-saw fashion on an upright beam, and carries at its +extremity a wooden bucket. A man, with movements of singular beauty, +works it while he sings, lowers the antenna, draws the water from the +river, and raises the filled bucket, which another man catches in its +ascent and empties into a basin made out of the mud of the river bank. +When the river is low there are three such basins, placed one above the +other, as if they were stages by which the precious water mounts to +the fields of corn and lucerne. And then three “shadufs,” one above +the other, creak together, lowering and raising their great scarabaeus' +horns to the rhythm of the same song. + +All along the banks of the Nile this movement of the antennae of the +shadufs is to be seen. It had its beginning in the earliest ages and +is still the characteristic manifestation of human life along the river +banks. It ceases only in the summer, when the river, swollen by the +rains of equatorial Africa, overflows this land of Egypt, which it +itself has made in the midst of the Saharan sands. But in the winter, +which is here a time of luminous drought and changeless blue skies, it +is in full swing. Then every day, from dawn until the evening prayer, +the men are busy at their water-drawing, transformed for the time into +tireless machines, with muscles that work like metal bands. The action +never changes, any more than the song, and often their thoughts must +wander from their automatic toil, and lose themselves in some dream, +akin to that of their ancestors who were yoked to the same rigging four +or five thousands years ago. Their torsos, deluged at each rising of the +overflowing bucket, stream constantly with cold water; and sometimes the +wind is icy, even while the sun burns; but these perpetual workers are, +as we have said, of bronze, and their hardened bodies take no harm. + +These men are the fellahs, the peasants of the valley of the Nile--pure +Egyptians, whose type has not changed in the course of centuries. In the +oldest of the bas-reliefs of Thebes or Memphis you may see many such, +with the same noble profile and thickish lips, the same elongated eyes +shadowed by heavy eyelids, the same slender figure, surmounted by broad +shoulders. + +The women who from time to time descend to the river, to draw water +also, but in their case in the vases of potters' clay which they +carry--this fetching and carrying of the life-giving water is the one +primordial occupation in this Egypt, which has no rain, nor any living +spring, and subsists only by its river--these women walk and posture +with an inimitable grace, draped in black veils, which even the poorest +allow to trail behind them, like the train of a court dress. In this +bright land, with its rose-coloured distances, it is strange to see +them, all so sombrely clothed, spots of mourning, as it were, in the +gay fields and the flaring desert. Machine-like creatures, all untaught, +they yet possess by instinct, as did once the daughters of Hellas, a +sense of nobility in attitude and carriage. None of the women of Europe +could wear these coarse black stuffs with such a majestic harmony, and +none surely could so raise their bare arms to place on their heads the +heavy jars filled with Nile water, and then, departing, carry themselves +so proudly, so upright and resilient under their burden. + +The muslin tunics which they wear are invariably black like the veils, +set off perhaps with some red embroidery or silver spangles. They are +unfastened across the chest, and, by a narrow opening which descends +to the girdle, disclose the amber-coloured flesh, the median swell of +bosoms of pale bronze, which, during their ephemeral youth at least, are +of a perfect contour. The faces, it is true, when they are not hidden +from you by a fold of the veil, are generally disappointing. The rude +labours, the early maternity and lactations, soon age and wither them. +But if by chance you see a young woman she is usually an apparition of +beauty, at once vigorous and slender. + +As for the fellah babies, who abound in great numbers and follow, half +naked their mammas or their big sisters, they would for the most part be +adorable little creatures, were it not for the dirtiness which in this +country is a thing almost prescribed by tradition. Round their eyelids +and their moist lips are glued little clusters of Egyptian flies, which +are considered here to be beneficial to the children, and the latter +have no thought of driving them away, so resigned are they become, by +force of heredity, to whatever annoyance they thereby suffer. Another +example indeed of the passivity which their fathers show when brought +face to face with the invading foreigners! + +Passivity and meek endurance seem to be the characteristics of this +inoffensive people, so graceful in their rags, so mysterious in their +age-old immobility, and so ready to accept with an equal indifference +whatever yoke may come. Poor, beautiful people, with muscles that never +grow tired! Whose men in olden times moved the great stones of the +temples, and knew no burden that was too heavy; whose women, with their +slender, pale-tawny arms and delicate small hands, surpass by far in +strength the burliest of our peasants! Poor beautiful race of bronze! +No doubt it was too precocious and put forth too soon its astonishing +flower--in times when the other peoples of the earth were till +vegetating in obscurity; no doubt its present resignation comes from +lassitude, after so many centuries of effort and expansive power. Once +it monopolised the glory of the world, and here it is now--for some two +thousand years--fallen into a kind of tired sleep, which has left it an +easy prey alike to the conquerors of yesterday and to the exploiters of +to-day. + +Another trait which, side by side with their patience, prevails amongst +these true-blooded Egyptians of the countryside is their attachment to +the soil, to the soil which nourishes them, and in which later on they +will sleep. To possess land, to forestall at any price the smallest +portion of it, to reclaim patches of it from the shifting desert, that +is the sole aim, or almost so, which the fellahs pursue in this world: +to possess a field, however small it may be--a field, moreover, which +they till with the oldest plough invented by man, the exact design of +which may be seen carved on the walls of the tombs at Memphis. + +And this same people, which was the first of any to conceive +magnificence, whose gods and kings were formerly surrounded with an +over-powering splendour, contrives, to live to-day, pell-mell with its +sheep and goats, in humble, low-roofed cabins made out of sunbaked +mud! The Egyptian villages are all of the neutral colour of the soil; +a little white chalk brightens, perhaps, the minaret or cupola of the +mosque; but except for that little refuge, whither folk come to pray +each evening--for no one here would retire for the night without having +first prostrated himself before the majesty of Allah--everything is of +a mournful grey. Even the costumes of the people are dull-coloured and +wretched-looking. It is an East grown poor and old, although the sky +remains as wonderful as ever. + +But all this past grandeur has left its imprint on the fellahs. They +have a refinement of appearance and manner, all unknown amongst the +majority of the good people of our villages. And those amongst them who +by good fortune become prosperous have forthwith a kind of distinction, +and seem to know, as if by birth, how to dispense the gracious +hospitality of an aristocrat. The hospitality of even the humblest +preserves something of courtesy and ease, which tells of breed. I +remember those clear evenings when, after the peaceful navigation of the +day, I used to stop and draw up my dahabiya to the bank of the river. (I +speak now of out-of-the-way places--free as yet from the canker of the +tourist element--such as I habitually chose.) It was in the twilight at +the hour when the stars began to shine out from the golden-green sky. As +soon as I put foot upon the shore, and my arrival was signalled by the +barking of the watchdogs, the chief of the nearest hamlet always came to +meet me. A dignified man, in a long robe of striped silk or modest +blue cotton, he accosted me with formulae of welcome quite in the grand +manner; insisted on my following him to his house of dried mud; and +there, escorting me, after the exchange of further compliments, to the +place of honour on the poor divan of his lodging, forced me to accept +the traditional cup of Arab coffee. + +***** + +To wake these fellahs from their strange sleep, to open their eyes at +last, and to transform them by a modern education--that is the task +which nowadays a select band of Egyptian patriots is desirous of +attempting. Not long ago, such an endeavour would have seemed to me a +crime; for these stubborn peasants were living under conditions of the +least suffering, rich in faith and poor in desire. But to-day they are +suffering from an invasion more undermining, more dangerous than that of +the conquerors who killed by sword and fire. The Occidentals are there, +everywhere, amongst them, profiting by their meek passivity to turn +them into slaves for their business and their pleasure. The work of +degradation of these simpletons is so easy: men bring them new desires, +new greeds, new needs,--and rob them of their prayers. + +Yet, it is time perhaps to wake them from their sleep of more than +twenty centuries, to put them on their guard, and to see what yet they +may be capable of, what surprises they may have in store for us after +that long lethargy, which must surely have been restorative. In any case +the human species, in course of deterioration through overstrain, would +find amongst these singers of the shaduf and these labourers with the +antiquated plough, brains unclouded by alcohol, and a whole reserve +of tranquil beauty, of well-balanced physique, of vigour untainted by +bestiality. + + + +CHAPTER X + +A CHARMING LUNCHEON + +We are making our way through the fields of Abydos in the dazzling +splendour of the forenoon, having come, like so many pilgrims of old, +from the banks of the Nile to visit the sanctuaries of Osiris, which lie +beyond the green plains, on the edge of the desert. + +It is a journey of some ten miles or so, under a clear sky and a burning +sun. We pass through fields of corn and lucerne, whose wonderful green +is piqued with little flowers, such as may be seen in our climate. +Hundreds of little birds sing to us distractedly of the joy of life; the +sun shines radiantly, magnificently; the impetuous corn is already in +the ear; it might be some gay pageant of our days of May. One forgets +that it is February, that we are still in the winter--the luminous +winter of Egypt. + +Here and there amongst the outspread fields are villages buried under +the thick foliage of trees--under acacias which, in the distance, +resemble ours at home; beyond indeed the mountain chain of Libya, like +a wall confining the fertile fields, looks strange perhaps in its +rose-colour, and too desolate; but, nevertheless amidst this glad music +of the fields, these songs of larks and twitterings of sparrows, you +scarcely realise that you are in a foreign land. + +Abydos! What magic there is in the name! “Abydos is at hand, and in +another moment we shall be there.” The mere words seem somehow to +transform the aspect of the homely green fields, and make this pastoral +region almost imposing. The buzzing of the flies increases in the +overheated air and the song of the birds subsides until at last it dies +away in the approach of noon. + +We have been journeying a little more than an hour amongst the verdure +of the growing corn that lies upon the fields like a carpet, when +suddenly, beyond the little houses and tress of a village, quite a +different world is disclosed--the familiar world of glare and death +which presses so closely upon inhabited Egypt: the desert! The desert of +Libya, and now as ever when we come upon it suddenly from the banks +of the old river it rises up before us; beginning at once, without +transition, absolute and terrible, as soon as we leave the thick velvet +of the last field, the cool shade of the last acacia. Its sands seem to +slope towards us, in a prodigious incline, from the strange mountains +that we saw from the happy plain, and which now appear, enthroned +beyond, like the monarchs of all this nothingness. + +The town of Abydos, which has vanished and left no wrack behind, rose +once in this spot where we now stand, on the very threshold of the +solitudes; but its necropoles, more venerated even than those of +Memphis, and its thrice-holy temples, are a little farther on, in the +marvellously conserving sand, which has buried them under its tireless +waves and preserved them almost intact up till the present day. + +The desert! As soon as we put foot upon its shifting soil, which +smothers the sound of our steps, the atmosphere too seems suddenly to +change; it burns with a strange new heat, as if great fires had been +lighted in the neighbourhood. + +And this whole domain of light and drought, right away into the +distance, is shaded and streaked with the familiar brown, red and yellow +colours. The mournful reflection of adjacent things augments to excess +the heat and light. The horizon trembles under the little vapours of +mirage like water ruffled by the wind. The background, which mounts +gradually to the foot of the Libyan mountains, is strewn with the debris +of bricks and stones--shapeless ruins which, though they scarcely rise +above the sand, abound nevertheless in great numbers, and serve to +remind us that here indeed is a very ancient soil, where men laboured in +centuries that have drifted out of knowledge. One divines instinctively +and at once the catacombs, the hypogea and the mummies that lie beneath! + +These necropoles of Abydos once--and for thousands of years--exercised +an extraordinary fascination over this people--the precursor of +peoples--who dwelt in the valley of the Nile. According to one of the +most ancient of human traditions, the head of Osiris, the lord of the +_other world_, reposed in the depths of one of the temples which to-day +are buried in the sands. And men, as soon as their thought commenced to +issue from the primeval night, were haunted by the idea that there were +localities helpful, as if were, to the poor corpses that lay beneath the +earth, that there were certain holy places where it behoved them to +be buried if they wished to be ready when the signal of awakening was +given. And in old Egypt, therefore, each one, at the hour of death, +turned his thoughts to these stones and sands, in the ardent hope that +he might be able to sleep near the remains of his god. And when the +place was becoming crowded with sleepers, those who could obtain no +place there conceived the idea of having humble obelisks planted on the +holy ground, which at least should tell their names; or even recommended +that their mummies might be there for some weeks, even if they were +afterwards removed. And thus, funeral processions passed to and fro +without ceasing through the cornfields that separate the Nile from +the desert. Abydos! In the sad human dream dominated by the thought of +dissolution, Abydos preceded by many centuries the Valley of Jehosophat +of the Hebrews, the cemeteries around Mecca of the Moslems, and the holy +tombs beneath our oldest cathedrals! . . . Abydos! It behoves us to walk +here pensively and silently out of respect for all those thousands of +souls who formerly turned towards this place, with outstretched hands, +in the hour of death. + +The first great temple--that which King Seti raised to the mysterious +Prince of the Other World, who in those days was called Osiris--is quite +close--a distance of little more than 200 yards in the glare of the +desert. We come upon it suddenly, so that it almost startles us, for +nothing warns us of its proximity. The sand from which it has been +exhumed, and which buried it for 2000 years, still rises almost to its +roof. Through an iron gate, guarded by two tall Bedouin guards in black +robes, we plunge at once into the shadow of enormous stones. We are in +the house of the god, in a forest of heavy Osiridean columns, surrounded +by a world of people in high coiffures, carved in bas-relief on the +pillars and walls--people who seem to be signalling one to another and +exchanging amongst themselves mysterious signs, silently and for ever. + +But what is this noise in the sanctuary? It seems to be full of people. +There, sure enough, beyond a second row of columns, is quite a little +crowd talking loudly in English. I fancy that I can hear the clinking of +glasses and the tapping of knives and forks. + +Oh! poor, poor temple, to what strange uses are you come. . . . This +excess of grotesqueness in profanation is more insulting surely than to +be sacked by barbarians! Behold a table set for some thirty guests, and +the guests themselves--of both sexes--merry and lighthearted, belong to +that special type of humanity which patronises Thomas Cook & Son (Egypt +Ltd.). They wear cork helmets, and the classic green spectacles; drink +whisky and soda, and eat voraciously sandwiches and other viands out of +greasy paper, which now litters the floor. And the women! Heavens! what +scarecrows they are! And this kind of thing, so the black-robed Bedouin +guards inform us, is repeated every day so long as the season lasts. A +luncheon in the temple of Osiris is part of the programme of pleasure +trips. Each day at noon a new band arrives, on heedless and unfortunate +donkeys. The tables and the crockery remain, of course, in the old +temple! + +Let us escape quickly, if possible before the sight shall have become +graven on our memory. + +But alas! even when we are outside, alone again on the expanse of +dazzling sands, we can no longer take things seriously. Abydos and the +desert have ceased to exist. The faces of those women remain to haunt +us, their faces and their hats, and those looks which they vouchsafed us +from over their solar spectacles. . . . The ugliness associated with the +name of Cook was once explained to me in this wise, and the explanation +at first sight seemed satisfactory: “The United Kingdom, justifiably +jealous of the beauty of its daughters, submits them to a jury when +they reach the age of puberty; and those who are classed as too ugly to +reproduce their kind are accorded an unlimited account at Thomas Cook & +Sons, and thus vowed to a course of perpetual travel, which leaves +them no time to think of certain trifles incidental to life.” The +explanation, as I say, seduced me for the time being. But a more +attentive examination of the bands who infest the valley of the Nile +enables me to aver that all these good English ladies are of an age +notoriously canonical; and the catastrophe of procreation therefore, +supposing that such an accident could ever have happened to them, must +date back to a time long anterior to their enrolment. And I remain +perplexed! + +Without conviction now, we make our way towards another temple, +guaranteed solitary. Indeed the sun blazes there a lonely sovereign in +the midst of a profound silence, and Egypt and the past take us again +into their folds. + +Once more to Osiris, the god of heavenly awakening in the necropolis +of Abydos, this sanctuary was built by Ramses II. But the sands have +covered it with their winding sheet in vain, and have been able to +preserve for us only the lower and more deeply buried parts. Men in +their blind greed have destroyed the upper portions,[*] and its ruins, +protected and cleared as they are to-day, rise only some ten or twelve +feet from the ground. In the bas-reliefs the majority of the figures +have only legs and a portion of the body; their heads and shoulders have +disappeared with the upper parts of the walls. But they seem to have +preserved their vitality: the gesticulations, the exaggerated pantomime +of the attitudes of these headless things, are more strange, more +striking, perhaps, than if their faces still remained. And they have +preserved too, in an extraordinary degree, the brightness of their +antique paintings, the fresh tints of their costumes, of their robes of +turquoise blue, or lapis, or emerald-green, or golden-yellow. It is an +artless kind of fresco-work, which nevertheless amazes us by remaining +perfect after thirty-five centuries. All that these people did seems +as if made for immortality. It is true, however, that such brilliant +colours are not found in any of the other Pharaonic monuments, and that +here they are heightened by the white background. For, notwithstanding +the bluish, black and red granite of the porticoes, the walls are all of +a fine limestone, of exceeding whiteness, and, in the holy of holies, of +a pure alabaster. + + [*] Not long ago a manufacturer, established in the + neighbourhood, discovering that the limestone of its walls + was friable, used this temple as a quarry, and for some + years bas-reliefs beyond price served as aliment to the + mills of the factory. + +Above the truncated walls, with their bright clear colours, the desert +appears, and shows quite brown by contrast; one sees the great yellow +swell of sand and stones above the pictures of these decapitated people. +It rises like a colossal wave and stretches out to bathe the foot of the +Libyan mountains beyond. Towards the north and west of the solitudes, +shapeless ruins of tawny-coloured blocks follow one another in the sands +until the dazzling distance ends in a clear-cut line against the sky. +Apart from this temple of Ramses, where we now stand, and that of Seti +in the vicinity, where the enterprise of Thomas Cook & Son flourishes, +there is nothing around us but ruins, crumbled and pulverised beyond all +possible redemption. But they give us pause, these disappearing ruins, +for they are the debris of that ageless temple, where sleeps the head of +the god, the debris of the tombs of the Middle and Ancient Empires, and +they indicate still the wide extent and development of the necropoles +of Abydos, so old that it almost makes one giddy to think of their +beginning. + +Here, as at Thebes and Memphis, the tombs of the Egyptians are met +with only amongst the sands and the parched rocks. The great ancestral +people, who would have shuddered at our black trees, and the corruption +of the damp graves, liked to place its embalmed dead in the midst of +this luminous, changeless splendour of death, which men call the desert. + +***** + +And what is this now that is happening in the holy neighbourhood of +unhappy Osiris? A troupe of donkeys, belaboured by Bedouin drivers, is +being driven in the direction of the adjacent temple, dedicated to the +god by Seti! The luncheon no doubt is over and the band about to depart, +sharp to the appointed hour of the programme. Let us watch them from a +prudent distance. + +To be brief, they all mount into their saddles, these Cooks and +Cookesses, and opening, not without a conscious air of majesty, their +white cotton parasols, take themselves off in the direction of the Nile. +They disappear and the place belongs to us. + +When we venture at last to return to the first sanctuary, where they had +lunched their fill in the shade, the guardians are busy clearing away +the leavings and the dirty paper. And they pack the dubious crockery, +which will be required for to-morrow's luncheon, into large chests on +which may be read in large letters of glory the names of the veritable +sovereigns of modern Egypt: “Thomas Cook & Son (Egypt Ltd.).” + +All this happily ends with the first hypostyle. Nothing dishonours +the halls of the interior, where silence has again descended, the vast +silence of the noon of the desert. + +In the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, men already marvelled at this +temple, as at a relic of the most distant and nebulous past. The +geographer Strabo wrote in those days: “It is an admirable palace built +in the fashion of the Labyrinth save that it has fewer galleries.” There +are galleries enough however, and one can readily lose oneself in its +mazy turnings. Seven chapels, consecrated to Osiris and to different +gods and goddesses of his suite; seven vaulted chambers; seven doors for +the processions of kings and multitudes; and, at the sides, numberless +halls, corridors, secondary chapels, dark chambers and hidden doorways. +That very primitive column, suggestive of reeds, which is called in +architecture the “plant column” and resembles a monstrous stem of +papyrus, rises here in a thick forest, to support the stones of the blue +ceilings, which are strewn with stars, in the likeness of the sky of +this country. In many cases these stones are missing and leave large +openings on to the real sky above. Their massiveness, which one might +have thought would secure them an endless duration, has availed them +nothing; the sun of so many centuries has cracked them, and their own +weight, then, has brought them headlong to the ground. And floods of +light now enter through the gaps, into the very chapels where the men of +old had thought to ensure a holy gloom. + +Despite the disaster which has overtaken the ceilings, this is +nevertheless one of the most perfect of the sanctuaries of ancient +Egypt. The sands, those gentle sextons, have here succeeded miraculously +in their work of preservation. They might have been carved yesterday, +these innumerable people, who, everywhere--on the walls, on this forest +of columns--gesticulate and, with their arms and long hands, continue +with animation their eternal mute conversation. The whole temple, with +the openings which give it light, is more beautiful perhaps than in the +time of the Pharaohs. In place of the old-time darkness, a transparent +gloom now alternates with shafts of sunlight. Here and there the +subjects of the bas-reliefs, so long buried in the darkness, are deluged +with burning rays which detail their attitudes, their muscles, their +scarcely altered colours, and endow them again with life and youth. +There is no part of the wall, in this immense place, but is covered with +divinities, with hieroglyphs and emblems. Osiris in high coiffure, +the beautiful Isis in the helmet of a bird, jackal-headed Anubis, +falcon-headed Horus, and ibis-headed Thoth are repeated a thousand +times, welcoming with strange gestures the kings and priests who are +rendering them homage. + +The bodies, almost nude, with broad shoulders and slim waist, have a +slenderness, a grace, infinitely chaste, and the features of the faces +are of an exquisite purity. The artists who carved these charming heads, +with their long eyes, full of the ancient dream, were already skilled +in their art; but through a deficiency, which puzzles us, they were only +able to draw them in profile. All the legs, all the feet are in profile +too, although the bodies, on the other hand, face us fully. Men needed +yet some centuries of study before they understood perspective--which to +us now seems so simple--and the foreshortening of figures, and were able +to render the impression of them on a plane surface. + +Many of the pictures represent King Seti, drawn without doubt from life, +for they show us almost the very features of his mummy, exhibited now +in the museum at Cairo. At his side he holds affectionately his son, the +prince-royal, Ramses (later on Ramses II., the great Sesostris of the +Greeks). They have given the latter quite a frank air, and he wears a +curl on the side of his head, as was the fashion then in childhood. He, +also, has his mummy in a glass case in the museum, and anyone who has +seen that toothless, sinister wreck, who had already attained the age +of nearly a hundred years before death delivered him to the embalmers of +Thebes, will find it difficult to believe that he could ever have been +young, and worn his hair curled so; that he could ever have played and +been a child. + +***** + +We thought we had finished with the Cooks and Cookesses of the luncheon. +But alas! our horses, faster than their donkeys, overtake them in the +return journey amongst the green cornfields of Abydos; and in a stoppage +in the narrow roadway, caused by a meeting with a number of camels laden +with lucerne, we are brought to a halt in their midst. Almost touching +me is a dear little white donkey, who looks at me pensively and in such +a way that we at once understand each other. A mutual sympathy unites +us. A Cookess in spectacles surmounts him--the most hideous of them +all, bony and severe. Over her travelling costume, already sufficiently +repulsive, she wears a tennis jersey, which accentuates the angularity +of her figure, and in her person she seems the very incarnation of the +respectability of the British Isles. It would be more equitable, too--so +long are those legs of hers, which, to be sure, have scant interest for +the tourist--if she carried the donkey. + +The poor little white thing regards me with melancholy. His ears twitch +restlessly and his beautiful eyes, so fine, so observant of everything, +say to me as plain as words: + +“She is a beauty, isn't she?” + +“She is, indeed, my poor little donkey. But think of this: fixed on thy +back as she is, thou hast this advantage over me--thou seest her not!” + +But my reflection, though judicious enough, does not console him, and +his look answers me that he would be much prouder if he carried, like so +many of his comrades, a simple pack of sugarcanes. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE DOWNFALL OF THE NILE + +Some thousands of years ago, at the beginning of our geological period, +when the continents had taken, in the last great upheaval, almost the +forms by which we now know them, and when the rivers began to trace +their hesitating courses, it happened that the rains of a whole +watershed of Africa were precipitated in one formidable torrent across +the uninhabitable region which stretches from the Atlantic to the +Indian Ocean, and is called the region of the deserts. And this enormous +waterway, lost as it was in the sands, by-and-by regulated its course: +it became the Nile, and with untiring patience set itself to the proper +task of river, which in this accursed zone might well have seemed +an impossible one. First it had to round all the blocks of granite +scattered in its way in the high plains of Nubia; and then, and more +especially, to deposit, little by little, successive layers of mud, to +form a living artery, to create, as it were, a long green ribbon in the +midst of this infinite domain of death. + +How long ago is it since the work of the great river began? There is +something fearful in the thought. During the 5000 years of which we have +any knowledge the incessant deposit of mud has scarcely widened this +strip of inhabited Egypt, which at the most ancient period of history +was almost as it is to-day. And as for the granite blocks on the plains +of Nubia, how many thousands of years did it need to roll them and to +polish them thus? In the times of the Pharaohs they already had their +present rounded forms, worn smooth by the friction of the water, and the +hieroglyphic inscriptions on their surfaces are not perceptibly effaced, +though they have suffered the periodical inundation of the summer for +some forty or fifty centuries! + +It was an exceptional country, this valley of the Nile; marvellous and +unique; fertile without rain, watered according to its need by the great +river, without the help of any cloud. It knew not the dull days and the +humidity under which we suffer, but kept always the changeless sky of +the immense surrounding deserts, which exhaled no vapour that might dim +the horizon. It was this eternal splendour of its light, no doubt, and +this easiness of life, which brought forth here the first fruits of +human thought. This same Nile, after having so patiently created the +soil of Egypt, became also the father of that people, which led the way +for all others--like those early branches that one sees in spring, +which shoot first from the stem, and sometimes die before the summer. +It nursed that people, whose least vestiges we discover to-day with +surprise and wonder; a people who, in the very dawn, in the midst of the +original barbarity, conceived magnificently the infinite and the divine; +who placed with such certainty and grandeur the first architectural +lines, from which afterwards our architecture was to be derived; who +laid the bases of art, of science, and of all knowledge. + +Later on, when this beautiful flower of humanity was faded, the Nile, +flowing always in the midst of its deserts, seems to have had for +mission, during nearly two thousand years, the maintenance on its banks +of a kind of immobility and desuetude, which was in a way a homage of +respect for these stupendous relics. While the sand was burying the +ruins of the temples and the battered faces of the colossi, nothing +changed under this sky of changeless blue. The same cultivation +proceeded on the banks as in the oldest ages; the same boats, with the +same sails, went up and down the thread of water; the same songs kept +time to the eternal human toil. The race of fellahs, the unconscious +guardian of a prodigious past, slept on without desire of change, and +almost without suffering. And time passed for Egypt in a great peace of +sunlight and of death. + +But to-day the foreigners are masters here, and have wakened the +old Nile--wakened to enslave it. In less than twenty years they have +disfigured its valley, which until then had preserved itself like a +sanctuary. They have silenced its cataracts, captured its precious water +by dams, to pour it afar off on plains that are become like marshes and +already sully with their mists the crystal clearness of the sky. The +ancient rigging no longer suffices to water the land under cultivation. +Machines worked by steam, which draw the water more quickly, commence to +rise along the banks, side by side with new factories. Soon there will +scarcely be a river more dishonoured than this, by iron chimneys and +thick, black smoke. And it is happening apace, this exploitation of +the Nile--hastily, greedily, as in a hunt for spoils. And thus all its +beauty disappears, for its monotonous course, through regions endless +alike, won us only by its calm and its old-world mystery. + +Poor Nile of the prodigies! One feels sometimes still its departing +charm, stray corners of it remain intact. There are days of transcendent +clearness, incomparable evenings, when one may still forget the ugliness +and the smoke. But the classic expedition by dahabiya, the ascent of the +river from Cairo to Nubia, will soon have ceased to be worth making. + +Ordinarily this voyage is made in the winter, so that the traveller may +follow the course of the sun as it makes its escape towards the southern +hemisphere. The water then is low and the valley parched. Leaving the +cosmopolitan town of modern Cairo, the iron bridges, and the pretentious +hotels, with their flaunting inscriptions, it imparts a sense of sudden +peacefulness to pass along the large and rapid waters of this river, +between the curtains of palm-trees on the banks, borne by a dahabiya +where one is master and, if one likes, may be alone. + +At first, for a day or two, the great haunting triangles of the pyramids +seem to follow you, those of Dashur and that of Sakkarah succeeding +to those of Gizeh. For a long time the horizon is disturbed by their +gigantic silhouettes. As we recede from them, and they disengage +themselves better from neighbouring things, they seem, as happens in +the case of mountains, to grow higher. And when they have finally +disappeared, we have still to ascend slowly and by stages some six +hundred miles of river before we reach the first cataract. Our way lies +through monotonous desert regions where the hours and days are marked +chiefly by the variations of the wonderful light. Except for the +phantasmagoria of the mornings and evenings, there is no outstanding +feature on these dull-coloured banks, where may be seen, with never +a change at all, the humble pastoral life of the fellahs. The sun is +burning, the starlit nights clear and cold. A withering wind, which +blows almost without ceasing from the north, makes you shiver as soon as +the twilight falls. + +One may travel for league after league along this slimy water and make +head for days and weeks against its current--which glides everlastingly +past the dahabiya, in little hurrying waves--without seeing this warm, +fecundating river, compared with which our rivers of France are mere +negligible streams, either diminish or increase or hasten. And on +the right and left of us as we pass are unfolded indefinitely the two +parallel chains of barren limestone, which imprison so narrowly the +Egypt of the harvests: on the west that of the Libyan desert, which +every morning the first rays of the sun tint with a rosy coral that +nothing seems to dull; and in the east that of the desert of Arabia, +which never fails in the evening to retain the light of the setting sun, +and looks then like a mournful girdle of glowing embers. Sometimes the +two parallel walls sheer off and give more room to the green fields, to +the woods of palm-trees, and the little oases, separated by streaks +of golden sand. Sometimes they approach so closely to the Nile that +habitable Egypt is no wider than some two or three poor fields of corn, +lying right on the water's edge, behind which the dead stones and the +dead sands commence at once. And sometimes, even, the desert chain +closes in so as to overhang the river with its reddish-white cliffs, +which no rain ever comes to freshen, and in which, at different heights, +gape the square holes leading to the habitations of the mummies. These +mountains, which in the distance look so beautiful in their rose-colour, +and make, as it were, interminable back-cloths to all that happens +on the river banks, were perforated, during some 5000 years, for the +introduction of sarcophagi and now they swarm with old dead bodies. + +And all that passes on the banks, indeed, changes as little as the +background. + +First there is that gesture, supple and superb, but always the same, +of the women in their long black robes who come without ceasing to fill +their long-necked jars and carry them away balanced on their veiled +heads. Then the flocks which shepherds, draped in mourning, bring to +the river to drink, goats and sheep and asses all mixed up together. +And then the buffaloes, massive and mud-coloured, who descend calmly to +bathe. And, finally, the great labour of the watering: the traditional +noria, turned by a little bull with bandaged eyes and, above all, the +shaduf, worked by men whose naked bodies stream with the cold water. + +The shadufs follow one another sometimes as far as the eye can see. It +is strange to watch the movement--confused in the distance--of all +these long rods which pump the water without ceasing, and look like the +swaying of living antennae. The same sight was to be seen along this +river in the times of the Ramses. But suddenly, at some bend of +the river, the old Pharaonic rigging disappears, to give place to a +succession of steam machines, which, more even than the muscles of +the fellahs, are busy at the water-drawing. Before long their blackish +chimneys will make a continuous border to the tamed Nile. + +Did one not know their bearings, the great ruins of this Egypt would +pass unnoticed. With a few rare exceptions they lie beyond the green +plains on the threshold of the solitudes. And against the changeless, +rose-coloured background of these cliffs of the desert, which follow you +during the whole of this tranquil navigation of some 600 miles, are to +be seen only the humble towns and villages of to-day, which have +the neutral colour of the ground. Some openwork minarets dominate +them--white spots above the prevailing dullness. Clouds of pigeons whirl +round in the neighbourhood. And amongst the little houses, which are +only cubes of mud, baked in the sun, the palm-trees of Africa, either +singly or in mighty clusters, rise superbly and cast on these little +habitations the shade of their palms which sway in the wind. Not long +ago, although indeed everything in these little towns was mournful and +stagnant, one would have been tempted to stop in passing, drawn by that +nameless peace that belonged to the Old East and to Islam. But, now, +before the smallest hamlet--amongst the beautiful primitive boats, that +still remain in great numbers, pointing their yards, like very long +reeds, into the sky--there is always, for the meeting of the tourist +boats, an enormous black pontoon, which spoils the whole scene by its +presence and its great advertising inscription: “Thomas Cook & Son +(Egypt Ltd.).” And, what is more, one hears the whistling of the +railway, which runs mercilessly along the river, bringing from the +Delta to the Soudan the hordes of European invaders. And to crown all, +adjoining the station is inevitably some modern factory, throned there +in a sort of irony, and dominating the poor crumbling things that still +presume to tell of Egypt and of mystery. + +And so now, except at the towns or villages which lead to celebrated +ruins, we stop no longer. It is necessary to proceed farther and for the +halt of the night to seek an obscure hamlet, a silent recess, where we +may moor our dahabiya against the venerable earth of the bank. + +And so one goes on, for days and weeks, between these two interminable +cliffs of reddish chalk, filled with their hypogea and mummies, which +are the walls of the valley of the Nile, and will follow us up to the +first cataract, until our entrance into Nubia. There only will the +appearance and nature of the rocks of the desert change, to become the +more sombre granite out of which the Pharaohs carved their obelisks and +the great figures of their gods. + +We go on and on, ascending the thread of this eternal current, and +the regularity of the wind, the persistent clearness of the sky, the +monotony of the great river, which winds but never ends, all conspire +to make us forget the hours and days that pass. However deceived and +disappointed we may be at seeing the profanation of the river banks, +here, nevertheless, isolated on the water, we do not lose the peace of +being a wanderer, a stranger amongst an equipage of silent Arabs, who +every evening prostrate themselves in confiding prayer. + +And, moreover, we are moving towards the south, towards the sun, and +every day has a more entrancing clearness, a more caressing warmth, and +the bronze of the faces that we see on our way takes on a deeper tint. + +And then too one mixes intimately with the life of the river bank, +which is still so absorbing and, at certain hours, when the horizon is +unsullied by the smoke of pit-coal, recalls you to the days of artless +toil and healthy beauty. In the boats that meet us, half-naked men, +revelling in their movement, in the sun and air, sing, as they ply their +oars, those songs of the Nile that are as old as Thebes or Memphis. When +the wind rises there is a riotous unfurling of sails, which, stretched +on their long yards, give to the dahabiyas the air of birds in full +flight. Bending right over in the wind, they skim along with a lively +motion, carrying their cargoes of men and beasts and primitive things. +Women are there draped still in the ancient fashion, and sheep and +goats, and sometimes piles of fruit and gourds, and sacks of grain. Many +are laden to the water's edge with these earthenware jars, unchanged for +3000 years, which the fellaheens know how to place on their heads with +so much grace--and one sees these heaps of fragile pottery gliding along +the water as if carried by the gigantic wings of a gull. And in the +far-off, almost fabulous, days the life of the mariners of the Nile had +the same aspect, as is shown by the bas-reliefs on the oldest tombs; it +required the same play of muscles and of sails; was accompanied no doubt +by the same songs, and was subject to the withering caress of this same +desert wind. And then, as now, the same unchanging rose coloured the +continuous curtain of the mountains. + +But all at once there is a noise of machinery, and whistlings, and +in the air, which was just now so pure, rise noxious columns of black +smoke. The modern steamers are coming, and throw into disorder the +flotillas of the past; colliers that leave great eddies in their wake, +or perhaps a wearisome lot of those three-decked tourist boats, which +make a great noise as they plough the water, and are laden for the most +part with ugly women, snobs and imbeciles. + +Poor, poor Nile! which reflected formerly on its warm mirror the utmost +of earthly splendour, which bore in its time so many barques of gods and +goddesses in procession behind the golden barge of Amen, and knew in the +dawn of the ages only an impeccable purity, alike of the human form and +of architectural design! What a downfall is here! To be awakened from +that disdainful sleep of twenty centuries and made to carry the floating +barracks of Thomas Cook & Son, to feed sugar factories, and to +exhaust itself in nourishing with its mud the raw material for English +cotton-stuffs. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN THE TEMPLE OF THE GODDESS OF LOVE AND JOY + +It is the month of March, but as gay and splendid as in our June. Around +us are fields of corn, of lucerne, and the flowering bean. And the +air is full of restless birds, singing deliriously for very joy in +the voluptuous business of their nests and coveys. Our way lies over a +fertile soil, saturated with vital substances--some paradise for beasts +no doubt, for they swarm on every side: flocks of goats with a +thousand bleating kids; she-asses with their frisking young; cows and +cow-buffaloes feeding their calves; all turned loose among the crops, to +browse at their leisure, as if there were here a superabundance of the +riches of the soil. + +What country is this that shows no sign of human habitation, that +knows no village, nor any distant spire? The crops are like ours at +home--wheat, lucerne, and the flowering bean that perfumes the air with +its white blossoms. But there is an excess of light in the sky and, in +the distance, an extraordinary clearness. And then these fertile plains, +that might be those of some “Promised Land,” seem to be bounded far +away, on left and right, by two parallel stone walls, two chains of +rose-coloured mountains, whose aspect is obviously desertlike. Besides, +amongst the numerous animals that are familiar, there are camels, +feeding their strange nurslings that look like four-legged ostriches. +And finally some peasants appear beyond in the cornfields; they are +veiled in long black draperies. It is the East then, an African land, or +some oasis of Arabia? + +The sun at this moment is hidden from us by a band of clouds, that +stretches, right above our head, from one end of the sky to the other, +like a long skein of white wool. It is alone in the blue void, and seems +to make more peaceful, and even a little mysterious, the wonderful +light of the fields we traverse--these fields intoxicated with life +and vibrant with the music of birds; while, by contrast, the distant +landscape, unshaded by clouds, is resplendent with a more incisive +clearness and the desert beyond seems deluged with rays. + +The pathway that we have been following, ill defined as it is in the +grassy fields, leads us at length under a large ruinous portico--a +relic of goodness knows what olden days--which still rises here, quite +isolated, altogether strange and unexpected, in the midst of the green +expanse of pasture and tillage. We had seen it from a great distance, so +pure and clear is the air; and in approaching it we perceive that it is +colossal, and in relief on its lintel is designed a globe with two long +wings outspread symmetrically. + +It behoves us now to make obeisance with almost religious reverence, for +this winged disc is a symbol which gives at length an indication of +the place immediate and absolute. It is Egypt, the country--Egypt, +our ancient mother. And there before us must once have stood a temple +reverenced of the people, or some great vanished town; its fragments +of columns and sculptured capitals are strewn about in the fields of +lucerne. How inexplicable it seems that this land of ancient splendours, +which never ceased indeed to be nutritive and prodigiously fertile, +should have returned, for some hundreds of years now, to the humble +pastoral life of the peasants. + +Through the green crops and the assembled herds our pathway seems to +lead to a kind of hill rising alone in the midst of the plains--a hill +which is neither of the same colour nor the same nature as the mountains +of the surrounding deserts. Behind us the portico recedes little by +little in the distance; its tall imposing silhouette, as mournful and +solitary, throws an infinite sadness on this sea of meadows, which +spread their peace where once was a centre of magnificence. + +The wind now rises in sharp, lashing gusts--the wind of Egypt that never +seems to fall, and is bitter and wintry for all the burning of the +sun. The growing corn bends before it, showing the gloss of its young +quivering leaves, and the herded beasts move close to one another and +turn their backs to the squall. + +As we draw nearer to this singular hill it is revealed as a mass of +ruins. And the ruins are all of a kind, of a brownish-red. They are the +remains of the colonial towns of the Romans, which subsisted here for +some two or three hundred years (an almost negligible moment of time in +the long history of Egypt), and then fell to pieces, to become in time +mere shapeless mounds on the fertile margins of the Nile and sometimes +even in the submerging sands. + +A heap of little reddish bricks that once were fashioned into houses; a +heap of broken jars or amphorae--myriads of them--that served to carry +the water from the old nourishing river; and the remains of walls, +repaired at diverse epochs, where stones inscribed with hieroglyphs lie +upside down against fragments of Grecian obelisks or Coptic sculptures +or Roman capitals. In our countries, where the past is of yesterday, we +have nothing resembling such a chaos of dead things. + +Nowadays the sanctuary is reached through a large cutting in this hill +of ruins; incredible heaps of bricks and broken pottery enclose it on +all sides like a jealous rampart. Until recently indeed they covered it +almost to its roof. From the very first its appearance is disconcerting: +it is so grand, so austere and gloomy. A strange dwelling, to be sure, +for the Goddess of Love and Joy. It seems more fit to be the home of +the Prince of Darkness and of Death. A severe doorway, built of gigantic +stones and surmounted by a winged disc, opens on to an asylum of +religious mystery, on to depths where massive columns disappear in the +darkness of deep night. + +Immediately on entering there is a coolness and a resonance as of a +sepulchre. First, the pronaos, where we still see clearly, between +pillars carved with hieroglyphs. Were it not for the large human faces +which serve for the capitals of the columns, and are the image of the +lovely Hathor, the goddess of the place, this temple of the decadent +epoch would scarcely differ from those built in this country two +thousand years before. It has the same square massiveness. + +And in the dark blue ceilings there are the same frescoes, filled with +stars, with the signs of the Zodiac, and series of winged discs; in +bas-relief on the walls, the same multitudinous crowd of people who +gesticulate and make signs to one another with their hands--eternally +the same mysterious signs, repeated to infinity, everywhere--in the +palaces, the hypogea, the syringes, and on the sarcophagi and papyri of +the mummies. + +The Memphite and Theban temples, which preceded this by so many +centuries, and far surpassed it in grandeur, have all lost, in +consequence of the falling of the enormous granites of their roofs, +their cherished gloom, and, what is the same thing, their religious +mystery. But in the temple of the lovely Hathor, on the contrary, except +for some figures mutilated by the hammers of Christians or Moslems, +everything has remained intact, and the lofty ceilings still throw their +fearsome shadows. + +The gloom deepens in the hypostyle which follows the pronaos. Then come, +one after another, two halls of increasing holiness, where the daylight +enters regretfully through narrow loopholes, barely lighting the +superposed rows of innumerable figures that gesticulate on the walls. +And then, after other majestic corridors, we reach the heart of this +heap of terrible stones, the holy of holies, enveloped in deep gloom. +The hieroglyphic inscriptions name this place the “Hall of Mystery” and +formerly the high priest _alone, and he only once in each year_, had the +right to enter it for the performance of some now unknown rites. + +The “Hall of Mystery” is empty to-day, despoiled long since of the +emblems of gold and precious stones that once filled it. The meagre +little flames of the candles we have lit scarcely pierce the darkness +which thickens over our heads towards the granite ceilings; at the most +they only allow us to distinguish on the walls of the vast rectangular +cavern the serried ranks of figures who exchange among themselves their +disconcerting mute conversations. + +Towards the end of the ancient and at the beginning of the Christian +era, Egypt, as we know, still exercised such a fascination over the +world, by its ancestral prestige, by the memory of its dominating past, +and the sovereign permanence of its ruins, that it imposed its gods +upon its conquerors, its handwriting, its architecture, nay, even its +religious rites and its mummies. The Ptolemies built temples here, which +reproduce those of Thebes and Abydos. Even the Romans, although they had +already discovered the _vault_, followed here the primitive models, and +continued those granite ceilings, made of monstrous slabs, placed flat, +like our beams. And so this temple of Hathor, built though it was in +the time of Cleopatra and Augustus, on a site venerable in the oldest +antiquity, recalls at first sight some conception of the Ramses. + +If, however, you examine it more closely, there appears, particularly in +the thousands of figures in bas-relief, a considerable divergence. The +poses are the same indeed, and so too are the traditional gestures. But +the exquisite grace of line is gone, as well as the hieratic calm of the +expressions and the smiles. In the Egyptian art of the best periods the +slender figures are as pure as the flowers they hold in their hands; +their muscles may be indicated in a precise and skilful manner, but they +remain, for all that, immaterial. The god Amen himself, the procreator, +drawn often with an absolute crudity, would seem chaste compared with +the hosts of this temple. For here, on the contrary, the figures might +be those of living people, palpitating and voluptuous, who had posed +themselves for sport in these consecrated attitudes. The throat of the +beautiful goddess, her hips, her unveiled nakedness, are portrayed with +a searching and lingering realism; the flesh seems almost to quiver. +She and her spouse, the beautiful Horus, son of Iris, contemplate +each other, naked, one before the other, and their laughing eyes are +intoxicated with love. + +Around the holy of holies is a number of halls, in deep shadow and +massive as so many fortresses. They were used formerly for mysterious +and complicated rites, and in them, as everywhere else, there is no +corner of the wall but is overloaded with figures and hieroglyphs. Bats +are asleep in the blue ceilings, where the winged discs, painted in +fresco, look like flights of birds; and the hornets of the neighbouring +fields have built their nests there in hundreds, so that they hang like +stalactites. + +Several staircases lead to the vast terraces formed by the great +roofs of the temple--staircases narrow, stifling and dimly lighted by +loopholes that reveal the heart-breaking thickness of the walls. And +here again are the inevitable rows of figures, carved on all the walls, +in the same familiar attitudes; they mount with us as we ascend, making +all the time the self-same signs one to another. + +As we emerge on to the roofs, bathed now in Egyptian sunlight and swept +by a cold and bitter wind, we are greeted by a noise as of an aviary. It +is the kingdom of the sparrows, who have built their nests in thousands +in this temple of the complaisant goddess. They twitter now all together +and with all their might out of very joy of living. It is an esplanade, +this roof--a solitude paved with gigantic flagstones. From it we see, +beyond the heaps of ruins, those happy plains, which are spread out with +such a perfect serenity on the very ground where once stood the town of +Denderah, beloved of Hathor and one of the most famous of Upper Egypt. +Exquisitely green are these plains with the new growth of wheat and +lucerne and bean; and the herds that are grouped here and there on the +fresh verdure of the level pastures, swaying now and undulating in the +wind, look like so many dark patches. And the two chains of mountains of +rose-coloured stone, that run parallel--on the east that of the desert +of Arabia, on the west that of the Libyan desert--enclose, in the +distance, this valley of the Nile, this land of plenty, which, alike in +antiquity as in our days, has excited the greed of predatory races. The +temple has also some underground dependencies or crypts into which you +descend by staircases as of dungeons; sometimes even you have to crawl +through holes to reach them. Long superposed galleries which might serve +as hiding-places for treasure; long corridors recalling those which, +in bad dreams, threaten to close in and bury you. And the innumerable +figures, of course, are here too, gesticulating on the walls; and +endless representations of the lovely goddess, whose swelling bosom, +which has preserved almost intact the flesh colour applied in the times +of the Ptolemies, we have perforce to graze as we pass. + +***** + +In one of the vestibules that we have to traverse on our way out of +the sanctuary, amongst the numerous bas-reliefs representing various +sovereigns paying homage to the beautiful Hathor, is one of a young man, +crowned with a royal tiara shaped like the head of a uraeus. He is shown +seated in the traditional Pharaonic pose and is none other than the +Emperor Nero! + +The hieroglyphs of the cartouche are there to affirm his identity, +albeit the sculptor, not knowing his actual physiognomy, has given him +the traditional features, regular as those of the god Horus. During the +centuries of the Roman domination the Western emperors used to send from +home instructions that their likeness should be placed on the walls +of the temples, and that offerings should be made in their name to the +Egyptian divinities--and this notwithstanding that in their eyes Egypt +must have seemed so far away, a colony almost at the end of the earth. +(And it was such a goddess as this, of secondary rank in the times of +the Pharaohs, that was singled out as the favourite of the Romans of the +decadence.) + +The Emperor Nero! As a matter of fact at the very time these +bas-reliefs--almost the last--and these expiring hieroglyphics were +being inscribed, the confused primitive theogonies had almost reached +their end and the days of the Goddess of Joy were numbered. There had +been conceived in Judaea symbols more lofty and more pure, which were to +rule a great part of the world for two thousand years--afterwards, +alas, to decline in their turn; and men were about to throw themselves +passionately into renunciation, asceticism and fraternal pity. + +How strange it is to say! Even while the sculptor was carving this +archaic bas-relief, and was using, for the engraving of its name, +characters that dated back to the night of the ages, there were already +Christians assembled in the catacombs at Rome and dying in ecstasy in +the arena! + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +MODERN LUXOR + +The waters of the Nile being already low my dahabiya--delayed by +strandings--had not been able to reach Luxor, and we had moored +ourselves, as the darkness began to fall, at a casual spot on the bank. + +“We are quite near,” the pilot had told me before departing to make his +evening prayer; “in an hour, to-morrow, we shall be there.” + +And the gentle night descended upon us in this spot which did not seem +to differ at all from so any others where, for a month past now, we had +moored our boat at hazard to await the daybreak. On the banks were dark +confused masses of foliage, above which here and there a high date-palm +outlined its black plumes. The air was filled with the multitudinous +chirpings of the crickets of Upper Egypt, which make their music here +almost throughout the year in the odorous warmth of the grass. And, +presently, in the midst of the silence, rose the cries of the night +birds, like the mournful mewings of cats. And that was all--save for +the infinite calm of the desert that is always present, dominating +everything, although scarcely noticed and, as it were, latent. + +***** + +And this morning, at the rising of the sun, is pure and splendid as +all other mornings. A tint of rosy coral comes gradually to life on the +summit of the Libyan mountains, standing out from the gridelin shadows +which, in the heavens, were the rearguard of the night. + +But my eyes, grown accustomed during the last few weeks to this +glorious spectacle of the dawn, turn themselves, as if by force of some +attraction, towards a strange and quite unusual thing, which, less than +a mile away along the river, on the Arabian bank, rises upright in the +midst of the mournful plains. At first it looks like a mass of towering +rocks, which in this hour of twilight magic have taken on a pale violet +colour, and seem almost transparent. And the sun, scarcely emerged +from the desert, lights them in a curious gradation, and orders their +contours with a fringe of fresh rose-colour. And they are not rocks, in +fact, for as we look more closely, they show us lines symmetrical +and straight. Not rocks, but architectural masses, tremendous and +superhuman, placed there in attitudes of quasi-eternal stability. And +out of them rise the points of two obelisks, sharp as the blade of a +lance. And then, at once, I understand--Thebes! + +Thebes! Last evening it was hidden in the shadow and I did not know it +was so near. But Thebes assuredly it is, for nothing else in the world +could produce such an apparition. And I salute with a kind of shudder +of respect this unique and sovereign ruin, which had haunted me for many +years, but which until now life had not left me time to visit. + +And now for Luxor, which in the epoch of the Pharaohs was a suburb of +the royal town, and is still its port. It is there, it seems, where we +must stop our dahabiya in order to proceed to the fabulous palace which +the rising sun has just disclosed to us. + +And while my equipage of bronze--intoning that song, as old as Egypt +and everlastingly the same, which seems to help the men in their arduous +work--is busy unfastening the chain which binds us to the bank, I +continue to watch the distant apparition. It emerges gradually from the +light morning mists which, perhaps, made it seem even larger than it is. +The clear light of the ascending sun shows it now in detail; and reveals +it as all battered, broken and ruinous in the midst of a silent plain, +on the yellow carpet of the desert. And how this sun, rising in its +clear splendour, seems to crush it with its youth and stupendous +duration. This same sun had attained to its present round form, had +acquired the clear precision of its disc, and begun its daily promenade +over the country of the sands, countless centuries of centuries, before +it saw, as it might be yesterday, this town of Thebes arise; an +attempt at magnificence which seemed to promise for the human pygmies +a sufficiently interesting future, but which, in the event, we have +not been able even to equal. And it proved, too, a thing quite puny and +derisory, since here it is laid low, after having subsisted barely four +negligible thousands of years. + +***** + +An hour later we arrive at Luxor, and what a surprise awaits us there! + +The thing which dominates the whole town, and may be seen five or six +miles away, is the Winter Palace, a hasty modern production which has +grown on the border of the Nile during the past year: a colossal hotel, +obviously sham, made of plaster and mud, on a framework of iron. Twice +or three times as high as the admirable Pharaonic Temple, its impudent +facade rises there, painted a dirty yellow. One such thing, it will +readily be understood, is sufficient to disfigure pitiably the whole of +the surroundings. The old Arab town, with its little white houses, its +minarets and its palm-trees, might as well not exist. The famous temple +and the forest of heavy Osiridean columns admire themselves in vain in +the waters of the river. It is the end of Luxor. + +And what a crowd of people is here! While, on the contrary, the opposite +bank seems so absolutely desertlike, with its stretches of golden sand +and, on the horizon, its mountains of the colour of glowing embers, +which, as we know, are full of mummies. + +Poor Luxor! Along the banks is a row of tourist boats, a sort of two or +three storeyed barracks, which nowadays infest the Nile from Cairo to +the Cataracts. Their whistlings and the vibration of their dynamos make +an intolerable noise. How shall I find a quiet place for my dahabiya, +where the functionaries of Messrs. Cook will not come to disturb me? + +We can now see nothing of the palaces of Thebes, whither I am to repair +in the evening. We are farther from them than we were last night. The +apparition during our morning's journey had slowly receded in the plains +flooded by sunlight. And then the Winter Palace and the new boats shut +out the view. + +But this modern quay of Luxor, where I disembark at ten o'clock in the +morning in clear and radiant sunshine, is not without its amusing side. + +In a line with the Winter Palace a number of stalls follow one another. +All those things with which our tourists are wont to array themselves +are on sale there: fans, fly flaps, helmets and blue spectacles. And, +in thousands, photographs of the ruins. And there too are the toys, the +souvenirs of the Soudan: old negro knives, panther-skins and gazelle +horns. Numbers of Indians even are come to this improvised fair, +bringing their stuffs from Rajputana and Cashmere. And, above all, there +are dealers in mummies, offering for sale mysteriously shaped coffins, +mummy-cloths, dead hands, gods, scarabaei--and the thousand and +one things that this old soil has yielded for centuries like an +inexhaustible mine. + +Along the stalls, keeping in the shade of the houses and the scattered +palms, pass representatives of the plutocracy of the world. Dressed +by the same costumiers, bedecked in the same plumes, and with faces +reddened by the same sun, the millionaire daughters of Chicago merchants +elbow their sisters of the old nobility. Pressing amongst them impudent +young Bedouins pester the fair travellers to mount their saddled +donkeys. And as if they were charged to add to this babel a note of +beauty, the battalions of Mr. Cook, of both sexes, and always in a +hurry, pass by with long strides. + +Beyond the shops, following the line of the quay, there are other +hotels. Less aggressive, all of them, than the Winter Palace, they have +had the discretion not to raise themselves too high, and to cover their +fronts with white chalk in the Arab fashion, even to conceal themselves +in clusters of palm-trees. + +And finally there is the colossal temple of Luxor, looking as out of +place now as the poor obelisk which Egypt gave us as a present, and +which stands to-day in the Place de la Concorde. + +Bordering the Nile, it is a colossal grove of stone, about three hundred +yards in length. In epochs of a magnificence that is now scarcely +conceivable this forest of columns grew high and thick, rising +impetuously at the bidding of Amenophis and the great Ramses. And how +beautiful it must have been even yesterday, dominating in its superb +disarray this surrounding country, vowed for centuries to neglect and +silence! + +But to-day, with all these things that men have built around it, you +might say that it no longer exists. + +We reach an iron-barred gate and, to enter, have to show our permit to +the guards. Once inside the immense sanctuary, perhaps we shall find +solitude again. But, alas, under the profaned columns a crowd of people +passes, with _Baedekers_ in their hands, the same people that one sees +here everywhere, the same world as frequents Nice and the Riviera. And, +to crown the mockery, the noise of the dynamos pursues us even here, for +the boats of Messrs. Cook are moored to the bank close by. + +Hundreds of columns, columns which are anterior by many centuries to +those of Greece, and represent, in their naïve enormity, the first +conceptions of the human brain. Some are fluted and give the impression +of sheaves of monstrous weeds; others, quite plain and simple, imitate +the stem of the papyrus, and bear by way of capital its strange flower. +The tourists, like the flies, enter at certain times of the day, which +it suffices to know. Soon the little bells of the hotels will call +them away and the hour of midday will find me here alone. But what in +heaven's name will deliver me from the noise of the dynamos? But look! +beyond there, at the bottom of the sanctuaries, in the part which should +be the holy of holies, that great fresco, now half effaced, but still +clearly visible on the wall--how unexpected and arresting it is! An +image of Christ! Christ crowned with the Byzantine aureole. It has +been painted on a coarse plaster, which seems to have been added by an +unskilful hand, and is wearing off and exposing the hieroglyphs beneath. +. . . This temple, in fact, almost indestructible by reason of its +massiveness, has passed through the hands of diverse masters. Its +antiquity was already legendary in the time of Alexander the Great, on +whose behalf a chapel was added to it; and later on, in the first ages +of Christianity, a corner of the ruins was turned into a cathedral. +The tourists begin to depart, for the lunch bell calls them to the +neighbouring _tables d'hote_; and while I wait till they shall be gone, +I occupy myself in following the bas-reliefs which are displayed for a +length of more than a hundred yards along the base of the walls. It +is one long row of people moving in their thousands all in the same +direction--the ritual procession of the God Amen. With the care which +characterised the Egyptians to draw everything from life so as to render +it eternal, there are represented here the smallest details of a day +of festival three or four thousand years ago. And how like it is to a +holiday of the people of to-day! Along the route of the procession are +ranged jugglers and sellers of drinks and fruits, and negro acrobats who +walk on their hands and twist themselves into all kinds of contortions. +But the procession itself was evidently of a magnificence such as we no +longer know. The number of musicians and priests, of corporations, of +emblems and banners, is quite bewildering. The God Amen himself came by +water, on the river, in his golden barge with its raised prow, followed +by the barques of all the other gods and goddesses of his heaven. The +reddish stone, carved with minute care, tells me all this, as it has +already told it to so many dead generations, so that I seem almost to +see it. + +And now everybody has gone: the colonnades are empty and the noise of +the dynamos has ceased. Midday approaches with its torpor. The whole +temple seems to be ablaze with rays, and I watch the clear-cut shadows +cast by this forest of stone gradually shortening on the ground. The +sun, which just now shone, all smiles and gaiety, upon the quay of the +new town amid the uproar of the stall-keepers, the donkey drivers +and the cosmopolitan passengers, casts here a sullen, impassive and +consuming fire. And meanwhile the shadows shorten--and just as they do +every day, beneath this sky which is never overcast, just as they have +done for five and thirty centuries, these columns, these friezes +and this temple itself, like a mysterious and solemn sundial, record +patiently on the ground the slow passing of the hours. Verily for us, +the ephemerae of thought, this unbroken continuity of the sun of Egypt +has more of melancholy even than the changing, overcast skies of our +climate. + +And now, at last, the temple is restored to solitude and all noise in +the neighbourhood has ceased. + +An avenue bordered by very high columns, of which the capitals are in +the form of the full-blown flowers of the papyrus, leads me to a place +shut in and almost terrible, where is massed an assembly of colossi. +Two, who, if they were standing, would be quite ten yards in height, are +seated on thrones on either side of the entrance. The others, ranged on +the three sides of the courtyard, stand upright behind colonnades, but +look as if they were about to issue thence and to stride rapidly towards +me. Some broken and battered, have lost their faces and preserve only +their intimidating attitude. Those that remain intact--white faces +beneath their Sphinx's headgear--open their eyes wide and smile. + +This was formerly the principal entrance, and the office of these +colossi was to welcome the multitudes. But now the gates of honour +flanked by obelisks of red granite, are obstructed by a litter of +enormous ruins. And the courtyard has become a place voluntarily closed, +where nothing of the outside world is any longer to be seen. In moments +of silence, one can abstract oneself from all the neighbouring modern +things, and forget the hour, the day, the century even, in the midst +of these gigantic figures, whose smile disdains the flight of ages. The +granites within which we are immured--and in such terrible company--shut +out everything save the point of an old neighbouring minaret which shows +now against the blue of the sky: a humble graft of Islam which grew +here amongst the ruins some centuries ago, when the ruins themselves had +already subsisted for three thousand years--a little mosque built on a +mass of debris, which it new protects with its inviolability. How many +treasures and relics and documents are hidden and guarded by this mosque +of the peristyle! For none would dare to dig in the ground within its +sacred walls. + +Gradually the silence of the temple becomes profound. And if the +shortened shadows betray the hour of noon, there is nothing to tell +to what millennium that hour belongs. The silences and middays like +to this, which have passed before the eyes of these giants ambushed in +their colonnades--who could count them? + +High above us, lost in the incandescent blue, soar the birds of +prey--and they were there in the times of the Pharaohs, displaying in +the air identical plumages, uttering the same cries. The beasts and +plants, in the course of time, have varied less than men, and remain +unchanged in the smallest details. + +Each of the colossi around me--standing there proudly with one leg +advanced as if for a march, heavy and sure, which nothing should +withstand--grasps passionately in his clenched fist, at the end of the +muscular arm, a kind of buckled cross, which in Egypt was the symbol +of eternal life. And this is what the decision of their movement +symbolises: confident all of them in this poor bauble which they hold in +their hand, they cross with a triumphant step the threshold of death. +. . . “Eternal Life”--the thought of immortality--how the human soul has +been obsessed by it, particularly in the periods marked by its greatest +strivings! The tame submission to the belief that the rottenness of +the grave is the end of all is characteristic of ages of decadence and +mediocrity. + +The three similar giants, little damaged in the course of their long +existence, who align the eastern side of this courtyard strewn with +blocks, represent, as indeed do all the others, that same Ramses II., +whose effigy was multiplied so extravagantly at Thebes and Memphis. But +these three have preserved a powerful and impetuous life. They might +have been carved and polished yesterday. Between the monstrous reddish +pillars, they look like white apparitions issuing from their embrasure +of columns and advancing together like soldiers at manoeuvres. The +sun at this moment falls perpendicularly on their heads and strange +headgear, details their everlasting smile, and then sheds itself on +their shoulders and their naked torso, exaggerating their athletic +muscles. Each holding in his hand the symbolical cross, the three giants +rush forward with a formidable stride, heads raised, smiling, in a +radiant march into eternity. + +Oh! this midday sun, that now pours down upon the white faces of these +giants, and displaces ever so slowly the shadows cast upon their breasts +by their chins and Osiridean beards. To think how often in the midst of +this same silence, this same ray has fallen thus, fallen from the same +changeless sky, to occupy itself in this same tranquil play! Yes, I +think that the fogs and rains of our winters, upon these stupendous +ruins, would be less sad and less terrible than the calm of this eternal +sunshine. + +***** + +Suddenly a ridiculous noise begins to make the air tremble; the dynamos +of the Agencies have been put in motion, and ladies in green spectacles +arrive, a charming throng, with guidebooks and cameras. The tourists, +in short, are come out of their hotels, at the same hour as the flies +awake. And the midday peace of Luxor has come to an end. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A TWENTIETH-CENTURY EVENING AT THEBES + +An impalpable dust floats in a sky which scarcely ever knows a cloud; a +dust so impalpable that, even while it powders the heavens with gold, it +leaves them their infinite transparency. It is a dust of remote ages, of +things destroyed; a dust that is here continually--of which the gold at +this moment fades to green at the zenith, but flames and glistens in +the west, for it is now that magnificent hour which marks the end of the +day's decline, and the still burning globe of the sun, quite low down +in the heaven, begins to light up on all sides the conflagration of the +evening. + +This setting sun illumines with splendour a silent chaos of granite, +which is not that of the slipping of mountains, but that of ruins. And +of such ruins as, to our eyes unaccustomed hereditarily to proportions +so gigantic, seem superhuman. In places, huge masses of carven +stone--pylons--still stand upright, rising like hills. Others are +crumbling in all directions in bewildering cataracts of stone. It is +difficult to conceive how these things, so massive that they might have +seemed eternal, could come to suffer such an utter ruin. Fragments of +columns, fragments of obelisks, broken by downfalls of which the mere +imagination is awful, heads and head-dresses of giant divinities, all +lie higgledy-piggledy in a disorder beyond possible redress. Nowhere +surely on our earth does the sun in his daily revolution cast his light +on such debris as this, on such a litter of vanished palaces and dead +colossi. + +It was even here, seven or eight thousand years ago, under this pure +crystal sky, that the first awakening of human thought began. Our Europe +then was still sleeping, wrapped in the mantle of its damp forests; +sleeping that sleep which still had thousands of years to run. Here, a +precocious humanity, only recently emerged from the Age of Stone, that +earliest form of all, an infant humanity, which saw massively on its +issue from the massiveness of the original matter, conceived and built +terrible sanctuaries for gods, at first dreadful and vague, such as its +nascent reason allowed it to conceive them. Then the first megalithic +blocks were erected; then began that mad heaping up and up, which was +to last nearly fifty centuries; and temples were built above temples, +palaces over palaces, each generation striving to outdo its predecessor +by a more titanic grandeur. + +Afterwards, four thousand years ago, Thebes was in the height of her +glory, encumbered with gods and with magnificence, the focus of the +light of the world in the most ancient historic periods; while our +Occident was still asleep and Greece and Assyria were scarcely awakened. +Only in the extreme East, a humanity of a different race, the yellow +people, called to follow in totally different ways, was fixing, so that +they remain even to our day, the oblique lines of its angular roofs and +the rictus of its monsters. + +The men of Thebes, if they still saw too massively and too vastly, +at least saw straight; they saw calmly, at the same time as they saw +forever. Their conceptions, which had begun to inspire those of Greece, +were afterwards in some measure to inspire our own. In religion, in art, +in beauty under all its aspects, they were as much our ancestors as were +the Aryans. + +Later again, sixteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, in one +of the apogees of the town which, in the course of its interminable +duration, experienced so many fluctuations, some ostentatious kings +thought fit to build on this ground, already covered with temples, +that which still remains the most arresting marvel of the ruins: the +hypostyle hall, dedicated to the God Amen, with its forest of columns, +as monstrous as the trunk of the baobab and as high as towers, compared +with which the pillars of our cathedrals are utterly insignificant. +In those days the same gods reigned at Thebes as three thousand years +before, but in the interval they had been transformed little by little +in accordance with the progressive development of human thought, and +Amen, the host of this prodigious hall, asserted himself more and more +as the sovereign master of life and eternity. Pharaonic Egypt was really +tending, in spite of some revolts, towards the notion of a divine unity; +even, one might say, to the notion of a supreme pity, for she already +had her Apis, emanating from the All-Powerful, born of a virgin +mother, and come humbly to the earth in order to make acquaintance with +suffering. + +After Seti I. and the Ramses had built, in honour of Amen, this temple, +which, beyond all doubt, is the grandest and most durable in the world, +men still continued for another fifteen centuries to heap up in its +neighbourhood those blocks of granite and marble and sandstone, whose +enormity now amazes us. Even for the invaders of Egypt, the Greeks and +Romans, this old ancestral town of towns remained imposing and unique. +They repaired its ruins, and built here temple after temple, in a style +which hardly ever changes. Even in the ages of decadence everything +that raised itself from the old, sacred soil, seemed to be impregnated a +little with the ancient grandeur. + +And it was only when the early Christians ruled here, and after them +the Moslem iconoclasts, that the destruction became final. To these new +believers, who, in their simplicity, imagined themselves to be possessed +of the ultimate religious formula and to know by His right name +the great Unknowable, Thebes became the haunt of “false gods,” the +abomination of abominations, which it behoved them to destroy. + +And so they set to work, penetrating with an ever-present fear into the +profound depths of the gloomy sanctuaries, mutilating first of all the +thousands of visages whose disconcerting smile frightened them, and then +exhausting themselves in the effort to uproot the colossi, which even +with the help of levers, they could not move. It was no easy task +indeed, for everything was as solid as geological masses, as rocks or +promontories. But for five or six hundred years the town was given over +to the caprice of desecrators. + +And then came the centuries of silence and oblivion under the shroud of +the desert sands, which, thickening each year, proceeded to bury, and, +in the event, to preserve for us, this peerless relic. + +And now, at last, Thebes is being exhumed and restored to a semblance +of life--now, after a cycle of seven or eight thousand years, when our +Western humanity, having left the primitive gods that we see here, to +embrace the Christian conception, which, even yesterday, made it live, +is in way of denying everything, and struggles before the enigma +of death in an obscurity more dismal and more fearful than in the +commencement of the ages. (More dismal and more fearful still in this, +that plea of youth is gone.) From all parts of Europe curious and +unquiet spirits, as well as mere idlers, turn their steps towards +Thebes, the ancient mother. Men clear the rubbish from its remains, +devise ways of retarding the enormous fallings of its ruins, and dig in +its old soil, stored with hidden treasure. + +And this evening on one of the portals to which I have just +mounted--that which opens at the north-west and terminates the colossal +artery of temples and palaces, many very diverse groups have already +taken their places, after the pilgrimage of the day amongst the ruins. +And others are hastening towards the staircase by which we have just +climbed, so as not to miss the grand spectacle of the sun setting, +always with the same serenity, the same unchanging magnificence, behind +the town which once was consecrated to it. + +French, German, English; I see them below, a lot of pygmy figures, +issuing from the hypostyle hall, and making their way towards us. Mean +and pitiful they look in their twentieth-century travellers' costumes, +hurrying along that avenue where once defiled so many processions of +gods and goddesses. And yet this, perhaps, is the only occasion on +which one of these bands of tourists does not seem to me altogether +ridiculous. Amongst these groups of unknown people, there is none who is +not collected and thoughtful, or who does not at least pretend to be +so; and there is some saving quality of grace, even some grandeur of +humility, in the sentiment which has brought them to this town of Amen, +and in the homage of their silence. + +We are so high on this portal that we might fancy ourselves upon a +tower, and the defaced stones of which it is built are immeasurably +large. Instinctively each one sits with his face to the glowing sun, and +consequently to the outspread distances of the fields and the desert. + +Before us, under our feet, an avenue stretches away, prolonging towards +the fields the pomp of the dead city--an avenue bordered by monstrous +rams, larger than buffaloes, all crouched on their pedestals in two +parallel rows in the traditional hieratic pose. The avenue terminates +beyond at a kind of wharf or landing-stage which formerly gave on to +the Nile. It was there that the God Amen, carried and followed by long +trains of priests, came every year to take his golden barge for a solemn +procession. But it leads to-day only to the cornfields, for, in the +course of successive centuries, the river has receded little by little +and now winds its course a thousand yards away in the direction of +Libya. + +We can see, beyond, the old sacred Nile between the clusters of +palm-trees on its banks; meandering there like a rosy pathway, which +remains, nevertheless, in this hour of universal incandescence, +astonishingly pale, and gleams occasionally with a bluish light. And +on the farther bank, from one end to the other of the western horizon, +stretches the chain of the Libyan mountains behind which the sun is +about to plunge; a chain of red sandstone, parched since the beginning +of the world--without a rival in the preservation to perpetuity of dead +bodies--which the Thebans perforated to its extreme depths to fill it +with sarcophagi. + +We watch the sun descend. But we turn also to see, behind us, the ruins +in this the traditional moment of their apotheosis. Thebes, the immense +town-mummy, seems all at once to be ablaze--as if its old stones were +able still to burn; all its blocks, fallen or upright, appear to have +been suddenly made ruddy by the glow of fire. + +On this side, too, the view embraces great peaceful distances. Past the +last pylons, and beyond the crumbling ramparts the country, down there +behind the town, presents the same appearance as that we were facing a +moment before. The same cornfields, the same woods of date-trees, +that make a girdle of green palms around the ruins. And, right in the +background, a chain of mountains is lit up and glows with a vivid coral +colour. It is the chain of the Arabian desert, lying parallel to that of +Libya, along the whole length of the Nile Valley--which is thus +guarded on right and left by stones and sand stretched out in profound +solitudes. + +In all the surrounding country which we command from this spot there +is no indication of the present day; only here and there, amongst the +palm-trees, the villages of the field labourers, whose houses of dried +earth can scarcely have changed since the days of the Pharaohs. Our +contemporary desecrators have up till now respected the infinite +desuetude of the place, and, for the tourists who begin to haunt it, no +one yet has dared to build a hotel. + +Slowly the sun descends; and behind us the granites of the town-mummy +seem to burn more and more. It is true that a slight shadow of a warmer +tint, an amaranth violet, begins to encroach upon the lower parts, +spreading along the avenues and over the open spaces. But everything +that rises into the sky--the friezes of the temples, the capitals of +the columns, the sharp points of the obelisks--are still red as glowing +embers. These all become imbued with light and continue to glow and shed +a rosy illumination until the end of the twilight. + +It is a glorious hour, even for the old dust of Egypt, which fills the +air eternally, without detracting at all from its wonderful clearness. +It savours of spices, of the Bedouin, of the bitumen of the sarcophagus. +And here now it is playing the role of those powders of different shades +of gold which the Japanese use for the backgrounds of their lacquered +landscapes. It reveals itself everywhere, close to and on the horizon, +modifying at its pleasure the colour of things, and giving them a kind +of metallic lustre. The phantasy of its changes is unimaginable. Even +in the distances of the countryside, it is busy indicating by little +trailing clouds of gold the smallest pathways traversed by the herds. + +And now the disc of the God of Thebes has disappeared behind the Libyan +mountains, after changing its light from red to yellow and from yellow +to green. + +And thereupon the tourists, judging that the display is over for +the night, commence to descend and make ready for departure. Some in +carriages, others on donkeys, they go to recruit themselves with the +electricity and elegance of Luxor, the neighbouring town (wines and +spirits are paid for as extras, and we dress for dinner). And the dust +condescends to mark their exodus also by a last cloud of gold beneath +the palm-trees of the road. + +An immediate solemnity succeeds to their departure. Above the mud houses +of the fellah villages rise slender columns of smoke, which are of a +periwinkle-blue in the midst of the still yellow atmosphere. They tell +of the humble life of these little homesteads, subsisting here, where in +the backward of the ages were so many palaces and splendours. + +And the first bayings of the watchdogs announce already the vague +uneasiness of the evenings around the ruins. There is no one now within +the mummy-town, which seems all at once to have grown larger in the +silence. Very quickly the violet shadow covers it, all save the extreme +points of its obelisks, which keep still a little of their rose-colour. +The feeling comes over you that a sovereign mystery has taken possession +of the town, as if some vague phantom things had just passed into it. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THEBES BY NIGHT + +The feeling, almost, that you have grown suddenly smaller by entering +there, that you are dwarfed to less than human size--to such an extent +do the proportions of these ruins seem to crush you--and the illusion, +also, that the light, instead of being extinguished with the evening, +has only changed its colour, and become blue: that is what one +experiences on a clear Egyptian night, in walking between the colonnades +of the great temple at Thebes. + +The place is, moreover, so singular and so terrible that its mere name +would at once cast a spell upon the spirit, even if one were ignorant +of the place itself. The hypostyle of the temple of the God Amen--that +could be no other thing but one. For this hall is unique in the world, +in the same way as the Grotto of Fingal and the Himalayas are unique. + +***** + +To wander absolutely alone at night in Thebes requires during the winter +a certain amount of stratagem and a knowledge of the routine of the +tourists. It is necessary, first of all, to choose a night on which the +moon rises late and then, having entered before the close of the day, to +escape the notice of the Bedouin guards who shut the gates at nightfall. +Thus have I waited with the patience of a stone Osiris, till the grand +transformation scene of the setting of the sun was played out once more +upon the ruins. Thebes, which, during the day, is almost animate by +reason of the presence of the visitors and the gangs of fellahs who, +singing the while, are busy at the diggings and the clearing away of +the rubbish, has emptied itself little by little, while the blue shadows +were mounting from the base of the monstrous sanctuaries. I watched the +people moving in a long row, like a trail of ants, towards the western +gate between the pylons of the Ptolemies, and the last of them had +disappeared before the rosy light died away on the topmost points of the +obelisks. + +It seemed as if the silence and the night arrived together from beyond +the Arabian desert, advanced together across the plain, spreading out +like a rapid oil-stain; then gained the town from east to west, and rose +rapidly from the ground to the very summits of the temples. And this +march of the darkness was infinitely solemn. + +For the first few moments, indeed, you might imagine that it was going +to be an ordinary night such as we know in our climate, and a sense of +uneasiness takes hold of you in the midst of this confusion of enormous +stones, which in the darkness would become a quite inextricable maze. +Oh! the horror of being lost in those ruins of Thebes and not being able +to see! But in the event the air preserved its transparency to such a +degree, and the stars began soon to scintillate so brightly that the +surrounding things could be distinguished almost as well as in the +daytime. + +Indeed, now that the time of transition between the day and night +has passed, the eyes grow accustomed to the strange, blue, persistent +clearness so that you seem suddenly to have acquired the pupils of a +cat; and the ultimate effect is merely as if you saw through a smoked +glass which changed all the various shades of this reddish-coloured +country into one uniform tint of blue. + +Behold me then, for some two or three hours, alone among the temples of +the Pharaohs. The tourists, whom the carriages and donkeys are at this +moment taking back to the hotels of Luxor, will not return till very +late, when the full moon will have risen and be shedding its clear light +upon the ruins. My post, while I waited, was high up among the ruins on +the margin of the sacred Lake of Osiris, the still and enclosed water +of which is astonishing in that it has remained there for so many +centuries. It still conceals, no doubt, numberless treasures confided +to it in the days of slaughters and pillages, when the armies of the +Persian and Nubian kings forced the thick, surrounding walls. + +In a few minutes, thousands of stars appear at the bottom of this +water, reflecting symmetrically the veritable ones which now scintillate +everywhere in the heavens. A sudden cold spreads over the town-mummy, +whose stones, still warm from their exposure to the sun, cool very +rapidly in this nocturnal blue which envelops them as in a shroud. I +am free to wander where I please without risk of meeting anyone, and I +begin to descend by the steps made by the falling of the granite blocks, +which have formed on all sides staircases as if for giants. On the +overturned surfaces, my hands encounter the deep, clear-cut hollows of +the hieroglyphs, and sometimes of those inevitable people, carved +in profile, who raise their arms, all of them, and make signs to one +another. On arriving at the bottom I am received by a row of statues +with battered faces, seated on thrones, and without hindrance of any +kind, and recognising everything in the blue transparency which takes +the place of day, I come to the great avenue of the palaces of Amen. + +We have nothing on earth in the least degree comparable to this avenue, +which passive multitudes took nearly three thousand years to construct, +expending, century after century, their innumerable energies in carrying +these stones, which our machines now could not move. And the objective +was always the same: to prolong indefinitely the perspectives of pylons, +colossi and obelisks, continuing always this same artery of temples +and palaces in the direction of the old Nile--while the latter, on the +contrary, receded slowly, from century to century, towards Libya. It +is here, and especially at night, that you suffer the feeling of having +been shrunken to the size of a pygmy. All round you rise monoliths +mighty as rocks. You have to take twenty paces to pass the base of a +single one of them. They are placed quite close together, too close, +it seems, in view of their enormity and mass. There is not enough air +between them, and the closeness of their juxtaposition disconcerts you +more, perhaps, even than their massiveness. + +The avenue which I have followed in an easterly direction abuts on as +disconcerting a chaos of granite as exists in Thebes--the hall of the +feasts of Thothmes III. What kind of feasts were they, that this king +gave here, in this forest of thick-set columns, beneath these ceilings, +of which the smallest stone, if it fell, would crush twenty men? In +places the friezes, the colonnades, which seem almost diaphanous in the +air, are outlined still with a proud magnificence in unbroken alignment +against the star-strewn sky. Elsewhere the destruction is bewildering; +fragments of columns, entablatures, bas-reliefs lie about in +indescribable confusion, like a lot of scattered wreckage after a +world-wide tempest. For it was not enough that the hand of man should +overturn these things. Tremblings of the earth, at different times, have +also come to shake this Cyclops palace which threatened to be eternal. +And all this--which represents such an excess of force, of movement, +of impulsion, alike for its erection as for its overthrow--all this is +tranquil this evening, oh! so tranquil, although toppling as if for an +imminent downfall--tranquil forever, one might say, congealed by the +cold and by the night. + +I was prepared for silence in such a place, but not for the sounds which +I commence to hear. First of all an osprey sounds the prelude, above my +head and so close to me that it holds me trembling throughout its long +cry. Then other voices answer from the depths of the ruins, voices very +diverse, but all sinister. Some are only able to mew on two long-drawn +notes: some yelp like jackals round a cemetery, and others again imitate +the sound of a steel spring slowly unwinding itself. And this concert +comes always from above. Owls, ospreys, screech-owls, all the different +kinds of birds, with hooked beaks and round eyes, and silken wings that +enable them to fly noiselessly, have their homes amongst the granites +massively upheld in the air; and they are celebrating now, each after +its own fashion, the nocturnal festival. Intermittent calls break upon +the air, and long-drawn infinitely mournful wailings, that sometimes +swell and sometimes seem to be strangled and end in a kind of sob. And +then, in spite of the sonority of the vast straight walls, in spite of +the echoes which prolong the cries, the silence obstinately returns. +Silence. The silence after all and beyond all doubt is the true master +at this hour of this kingdom at once colossal, motionless and blue--a +silence that seems to be infinite, because we know that there is +nothing around these ruins, nothing but the line of the dead sands, the +threshold of the deserts. + +***** + +I retrace my steps towards the west in the direction of the hypostyle, +traversing again the avenue of monstrous splendours, imprisoned and, +as it were, dwarfed between the rows of sovereign stones. There are +obelisks there, some upright, some overthrown. One like those of Luxor, +but much higher, remains intact and raises its sharp point into the sky; +others, less well known in their exquisite simplicity, are quite plain +and straight from base to summit, bearing only in relief gigantic lotus +flowers, whose long climbing stems bloom above in the half light cast +by the stars. The passage becomes narrower and more obscure, and it is +necessary sometimes to grope my way. And then again my hands encounter +the everlasting hieroglyphs carved everywhere, and sometimes the legs of +a colossus seated on its throne. The stones are still slightly warm, so +fierce has been the heat of the sun during the day. And certain of the +granites, so hard that our steel chisels could not cut them, have kept +their polish despite the lapse of centuries, and my fingers slip in +touching them. + +There is now no sound. The music of the night birds has ceased. I listen +in vain--so attentively that I can hear the beating of my heart. Not a +sound, not even the buzzing of a fly. Everything is silent, everything +is ghostly; and in spite of the persistent warmth of the stones the air +grows colder and colder, and one gets the impression that everything +here is frozen--definitely--as in the coldness of death. + +A vast silence reigns, a silence that has subsisted for centuries, on +this same spot, where formerly for three or four thousand years rose +such an uproar of living men. To think of the clamorous multitudes who +once assembled here, of their cries of triumph and anguish, of their +dying agonies. First of all the pantings of those thousands of harnessed +workers, exhausting themselves generation after generation, under the +burning sun, in dragging and placing one above the other these stones, +whose enormity now amazes us. And the prodigious feasts, the music of +the long harps, the blares of the brazen trumpets; the slaughters and +battles when Thebes was the great and unique capital of the world, +an object of fear and envy to the kings of the barbarian peoples who +commenced to awake in neighbouring lands; the symphonies of siege and +pillage, in days when men bellowed with the throats of beasts. To think +of all this, here on this ground, on a night so calm and blue! And these +same walls of granite from Syene, on which my puny hands now rest, to +think of the beings who have touched them in passing, who have fallen by +their side in last sanguinary conflicts, without rubbing even the polish +from their changeless surfaces! + +***** + +I now arrive at the hypostyle of the temple of Amen, and a sensation of +fear makes me hesitate at first on the threshold. To find himself in the +dead of night before such a place might well make a man falter. It +seems like some hall for Titans, a remnant of fabulous ages, which +has maintained itself, during its long duration, by force of its very +massiveness, like the mountains. Nothing human is so vast. Nowhere on +earth have men conceived such dwellings. Columns after columns, higher +and more massive than towers, follow one another so closely, in +an excess of accumulation, that they produce a feeling almost of +suffocation. They mount into the clear sky and sustain there traverses +of stone which you scarcely dare to contemplate. One hesitates to +advance; a feeling comes over you that you are become infinitesimally +small and as easy to crush as an insect. The silence grows +preternaturally solemn. The stars through all the gaps in the fearful +ceilings seem to send their scintillations to you in an abyss. It is +cold and clear and blue. + +The central bay of this hypostyle is in the same line as the road I +have been following since I left the hall of Thothmes. It prolongs and +magnifies as in an apotheosis that same long avenue, for the gods and +kings, which was the glory of Thebes, and which in the succession of the +ages nothing has contrived to equal. The columns which border it are +so gigantic[*] that their tops, formed of mysterious full-blown petals, +high up above the ground on which we crawl, are completely bathed in the +diffuse clearness of the sky. And enclosing this kind of nave on either +side, like a terrible forest, is another mass of columns--monster +columns, of an earlier style, of which the capitals close instead of +opening, imitating the buds of some flower which will never blossom. +Sixty to the right, sixty to the left, too close together for their +size, they grow thick like a forest of baobabs that wanted space: they +induce a feeling of oppression without possible deliverance, of massive +and mournful eternity. + + [*] About 30 feet in circumference and 75 feet in height + including the capital. + +And this, forsooth, was the place that I had wished to traverse alone, +without even the Bedouin guard, who at night believes it his duty to +follow the visitors. But now it grows lighter and lighter. Too light +even, for a blue phosphorescence, coming from the eastern horizon, +begins to filter through the opacity of the colonnades on the right, +outlines the monstrous shafts, and details them by vague glimmerings on +their edges. The full moon is risen, alas! and my hours of solitude are +nearly over. + +***** + +The moon! Suddenly the stones of the summit, the copings, the formidable +friezes, are lighted by rays of clear light, and here and there, on the +bas-reliefs encircling the pillars, appear luminous trails which reveal +the gods and goddesses engraved in the stone. They were watching in +myriads around me, as I knew well,--coifed, all of them, in discs or +great horns. They stare at one another with their arms raised, spreading +out their long fingers in an eager attempt at conversation. They are +numberless, these eternally gesticulating gods. Wherever you look their +forms are multiplied with a stupefying repetition. They seem to have +some mysterious secret to convey to one another, but have perforce to +remain silent, and for all the expressiveness of their attitudes their +hands do not move. And hieroglyphs, too, repeated to infinity, envelop +you on all sides like a multiple woof of mystery. + +***** + +Minute by minute now, everything amongst these rigid dead things grows +more precise. Cold, hard rays penetrate through the immense ruin, +separating with a sharp incisiveness the light from the shadows. +The feeling that these stones, wearied as they were with their long +duration, might still be thoughtful, still mindful of their past, grows +less--less than it was a few moments before, far less than during the +preceding blue phantasmagoria. Under this clear, pale light, as in +the daytime, under the fire of the sun, Thebes has lost for the moment +whatever remained to it of soul; it has receded farther into the +backward of time, and appears now nothing more than a vast gigantic +fossil that excites only our wonder and our fear. + +***** + +But the tourists will soon be here, attracted by the moon. A league +away, in the hotels of Luxor, I can fancy how they have hurried away +from the tables, for fear of missing the celebrated spectacle. For me, +therefore, it is time to beat a retreat, and, by the great avenue again, +I direct my steps towards the pylons of the Ptolemies, where the night +guards are waiting. + +They are busy already, these Bedouins, in opening the gates for some +tourists, who have shown their permits, and who carry Kodaks, magnesium +to light up the temples--quite an outfit in short. + +Farther on, when I have taken the road to Luxor, it is not long before I +meet, under the palm-trees and on the sands, the crowd, the main body +of the arrivals--some in carriages, some on horseback, some on donkeys. +There is a noise of voices speaking all sorts of non-Egyptian languages. +One is tempted to ask: “What is happening? A ball, a holiday, a grand +marriage?” No. The moon is full to-night at Thebes, upon the ruins. That +is all. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THEBES IN SUNLIGHT + +It is two o'clock in the afternoon. A white angry fire pours from the +sky, which is pale from excess of light. A sun inimical to the men of +our climate scorches the enormous fossil which, crumbling in places, is +all that remains of Thebes and which lies there like the carcass of a +gigantic beast that has been dead for thousands of years, but is too +massive ever to be annihilated. + +In the hypostyle there is a little blue shade behind the monstrous +pillars, but even that shade is dusty and hot. The columns too are hot, +and so are all the blocks--and yet it is winter and the nights are cold, +even to the point of frost. Heat and dust; a reddish dust, which hangs +like an eternal cloud over these ruins of Upper Egypt, exhaling an odour +of spices and mummy. + +The great heat seems to augment the retrospective sensation of fatigue +which seizes you as you regard these stones--too heavy for human +strength--which are massed here in mountains. One almost seems to +participate in the efforts, the exhaustions and the sweating toils of +that people, with their muscles of brand new steel, who in the carrying +and piling of such masses had to bear the yoke for thirty centuries. + +Even the stones themselves tell of fatigue--the fatigue of being crushed +by one another's weight for thousands of years; the suffering that comes +of having been too exactly carved, and too nicely placed one above the +other, so that they seem to be riveted together by the force of their +mere weight. Oh! the poor stones of the base that bear the weight of +these awful pilings! + +And the ardent colour of these things surprises you. It has persisted. +On the red sandstone of the hypostyle, the paintings of more than three +thousand years ago are still to be seen; especially above the central +chamber, almost in the sky, the capitals, in the form of great flowers, +have kept the lapis blues, the greens and yellows with which their +strange petals were long ago bespeckled. + +Decrepitude and crumbling and dust. In broad daylight, under the +magnificent splendour of the life-giving sun, one realises clearly that +all here is dead, and dead since days which the imagination is scarcely +able to conceive. And the ruin appears utterly irreparable. Here and +there are a few impotent and almost infantine attempts at reparation, +undertaken in the ancient epochs of history by the Greeks and Romans. +Columns have been put together, holes have been filled with cement. But +the great blocks lie in confusion, and one feels, even to the point of +despair, how impossible it is ever to restore to order such a chaos of +crushing, overthrown things--even with the help of legions of workers +and machines, and with centuries before you in which to complete the +task. + +And then, what surprises and oppresses you is the want of clear space, +the little room that remained for the multitudes in these halls +which are nevertheless immense. The whole space between the walls was +encumbered with pillars. The temples were half filled with colossal +forests of stone. The men who built Thebes lived in the beginning of +time, and had not yet discovered the thing which to us to-day seems so +simple--namely, the vault. And yet they were marvellous pioneers, these +architects. They had already succeeded in evolving out of the dark, as +it were, a number of conceptions which, from the beginning no doubt, +slumbered in mysterious germ in the human brain--the idea of rectitude, +the straight line, the right angle, the vertical line, of which Nature +furnishes no example, even symmetry, which, if you consider it well, is +less explicable still. They employed symmetry with a consummate mastery, +understanding as well as we do all the effect that is to be obtained by +the repetition of like objects placed _en pendant_ on either side of a +portico or an avenue. But they did not invent the vault. And therefore, +since there was a limit to the size of the stones which they were able +to place flat like beams, they had recourse to this profusion of columns +to support their stupendous ceilings. And thus it is that there seems +to be a want of air, that one seems to stifle in the middle of their +temples, dominated and obstructed as they are by the rigid presence +of so many stones. And yet to-day you can see quite clearly in these +temples, for, since the suspended rocks which served for roof have +fallen, floods of light descend from all parts. But formerly, when a +kind of half night reigned in the deep halls, beneath the immovable +carapaces of sandstone or granite, how oppressive and sepulchral it must +all have been--how final and pitiless, like a gigantic palace of Death! +On one day, however, in each year, here at Thebes, a light as of +a conflagration used to penetrate from one end to the other of +the sanctuaries of Amen; for the middle artery is open towards the +north-west, and is aligned in such a fashion that, once a year, one +solitary time, on the evening of the summer solstice, the sun as it sets +is able to plunge its reddened rays straight into the sanctuaries. At +the moment when it enlarges its blood-coloured disc before descending +behind the desolation of the Libyan mountains, it arrives in the very +axis of this avenue, of this suite of aisles, which measures more +than 800 yards in length. Formerly, then, on these evenings it shone +horizontally beneath the terrible ceilings--between these rows of +pillars which are as high as our Colonne Vendome--and threw, for some +seconds, its colours of molten copper into the obscurity of the holy +of holies. And then the whole temple would resound with the clashing of +music, and the glory of the god of Thebes was celebrated in the depths +of the forbidden halls. + +***** + +Like a cloud, like a veil, the continual red-coloured dust floats +everywhere above the ruins, and, athwart it, here and there, the sun +traces long, white beams, But at one point of the avenue, behind the +obelisks, it seems to rise in clouds, this dust of Egypt, as if it were +smoke. For the workers of bronze are assembled there to-day and, hour by +hour, without ceasing, they dig in the sacred soil. Ridiculously small +and almost negligible by the side of the great monoliths they dig and +dig. Patiently they clear the ruins, and the earth goes away in little +parcels in rows of baskets carried by children in the form of a chain. +The periodical deposits of the Nile, and the sand carried by the wind of +the desert, had raised the soil by about six yards since the time when +Thebes ceased to live. But now men are endeavouring to restore the +ancient level. At first sight the task seemed impossible, but they +will achieve it in the end, even with their simple means, these fellah +toilers, who sing as they labour at their incessant work of ants. Soon +the grand hypostyle will be freed from rubbish, and its columns, which +even before seemed so tremendous, uncovered now to the base, have added +another twenty feet to their height. A number of colossal statues, which +lay asleep beneath this shroud of earth and sand, have been brought +back to the light, set upright again and have resumed their watch in the +intimidating thoroughfares for a new period of quasi-eternity. Year +by year the town-mummy is being slowly exhumed by dint of prodigious +effort; and is repeopled again by gods and kings who had been hidden for +thousands of years![*] Year in, year out, the digging continues--deeper +and deeper. It is scarcely known to what depth the debris and the ruins +descend. Thebes had endured for so many centuries, the earth here is so +penetrated with human past, that it is averred that, under the oldest of +the known temples there are still others, older still and more massive, +of which there was no suspicion, and whose age must exceed eight +thousand years. + + [*] As is generally known, the maintenance of the ancient + monuments of Egypt and their restoration, so far as that may + be possible, has been entrusted to the French. M. Maspero + has delegated to Thebes an artist and a scholar, M. Legrain + by name, who is devoting his life passionately to the work. + +In spite of the burning sun, and of the clouds of dust raised by +the blows of the pickaxes, one might linger for hours amongst the +dust-stained, meagre fellahs, watching the excavations in this unique +soil--where everything that is revealed is by way of being a surprise +and a lucky find, where the least carved stone had a past of glory, +formed part of the first architectural splendours, was _a stone of +Thebes_. Scarcely a moment passes but, at the bottom of the trenches, as +the digging proceeds, some new thing gleams. Perhaps it is the polished +flank of a colossus, fashioned out of granite from Syene, or a little +copper Osiris, the debris of a vase, a golden trinket beyond price, +or even a simple blue pearl that has fallen from the necklace of some +waiting-maid of a queen. + +This activity of the excavators, which alone reanimates certain quarters +during the day, ends at sunset. Every evening the lean fellahs receive +the daily wage of their labour, and take themselves off to sleep in the +silent neighbourhood in their huts of mud; and the iron gates are shut +behind them. At night, except for the guards at the entrance, no one +inhabits the ruins. + +***** + +Crumbling and dust. . . . Far around, on every side of these palaces and +temples of the central artery--which are the best preserved and remain +proudly upright--stretch great mournful spaces, on which the sun from +morning till evening pours an implacable light. There, amongst the +lank desert plants, lie blocks scattered at hazard--the remains of +sanctuaries, of which neither the plan nor the form will ever be +discovered. But on these stones, fragments of the history of the world +are still to be read in clear-cut hieroglyphs. + +To the west of the hypostyle hall there is a region strewn with discs, +all equal and all alike. It might be a draught-board for Titans with +draughts that would measure ten yards in circumference. They are the +scattered fragments, slices, as it were, of a colonnade of the Ramses. +Farther on the ground seems to have passed through fire. You walk over +blackish scoriae encrusted with brazen bolts and particles of melted +glass. It is the quarter burnt by the soldiers of Cambyses. They were +great destroyers of the queen city, were these same Persian soldiers. To +break up the obelisks and the colossal statues they conceived the plan +of scorching them by lighting bonfires around them, and then, when +they saw them burning hot, they deluged them with cold water. And the +granites cracked from top to base. + +It is well known, of course, that Thebes used to extend for a +considerable distance both on this, the right, bank of the Nile, where +the Pharaohs resided, and opposite, on the Libyan bank, given over to +the preparers of mummies and to the mortuary temples. But to-day, except +for the great palaces of the centre, it is little more than a litter +of ruins, and the long avenues, lined with endless rows of sphinxes or +rams, are lost, goodness knows where, buried beneath the sand. + +At wide intervals, however, in the midst of these cemeteries of things, +a temple here and there remains upright, preserving still its sanctified +gloom beneath its cavernous carapace. One, where certain celebrated +oracles used to be delivered, is even more prisonlike and sepulchral +than the others in its eternal shadow. High up in a wall the black hole +of a kind of grotto opens, to which a secret corridor coming from the +depths used to lead. It was there that the face of the priest charged +with the announcement of the sibylline words appeared--and the ceiling +of his niche is all covered still with the smoke from the flame of his +lamp, which was extinguished more than two thousand years ago! + +***** + +What a number of ruins, scarcely emerging from the sand of the desert, +are hereabout! And in the old dried-up soil, how many strange treasures +remain hidden! When the sun lights thus the forlorn distances, when +you perceive stretching away to the horizon these fields of death, you +realise better what kind of a place this Thebes once was. Rebuilt as +it were in the imagination it appears excessive, superabundant and +multiple, like those flowers of the antediluvian world which the fossils +reveal to us. Compared with it how our modern towns are dwarfed, and our +hasty little palaces, our stuccoes and old iron! + +And it is so mystical, this town of Thebes, with its dark sanctuaries, +once inhabited by gods and symbols. All the sublime, fresh-minded +striving of the human soul after the Unknowable is as it were petrified +in these ruins, in forms diverse and immeasurably grand. And subsisting +thus down to our day it puts us to shame. Compared with this people, who +thought only of eternity, we are a lot of pitiful dotards, who soon will +be past caring about the wherefore of life, or thought, or death. Such +beginnings presaged, surely, something greater than our humanity of the +present day, given over to despair, to alcohol and to explosives! + +***** + +Crumbling and dust! This same sun of Thebes is in its place each day, +parching, exhausting, cracking and pulverising. + +On the ground where once stood so much magnificence there are fields +of corn, spread out like green carpets, which tell of the return of the +humble life of tillage. Above all, there is the sand, encroaching now +upon the very threshold of the Pharaohs; there is the yellow desert; +there is the world of reflections and of silence, which approaches like +a slow submerging tide. In the distance, where the mirage trembles from +morning till evening, the burying is already almost achieved. The few +poor stones which still appear, barely emerging from the advancing +dunes, are the remains of what men, in their superb revolts against +death, had contrived to make the most massively indestructible. + +And this sun, this eternal sun, which parades over Thebes the irony of +its duration--for us so impossible to calculate or to conceive! Nowhere +so much as here does one suffer from the dismay of knowing that all +our miserable little human effervescence is only a sort of fermentation +round an atom emanated from that sinister ball of fire, and that that +fire itself, the wonderful sun, is no more than an ephemeral meteor, +a furtive spark, thrown off during one of the innumerable cosmic +transformations, in the course of times without end and without +beginning. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +AN AUDIENCE OF AMENOPHIS II. + +King Amenophis II. has resumed his receptions, which he found himself +obliged to suspend for three thousand, three hundred and some odd years, +by reason of his decease. They are very well attended; court dress +is not insisted upon, and the Grand Master of ceremonies is not above +taking a tip. He holds them every morning in the winter from eight +o'clock, in the bowels of a mountain in the desert of Libya; and if he +rests himself during the remainder of the day it is only because, as +soon as midday sounds, they turn off the electric light. + +Happy Amenophis! Out of so many kings who tried so hard to hide for ever +their mummies in the depths of impenetrable caverns he is the only one +who has been left in his tomb. And he “makes the most of it” every time +he opens his funeral salons. + +***** + +It is important to arrive before midday at the dwelling of this Pharaoh, +and at eight o'clock sharp, therefore, on a clear February morning, +I set out from Luxor, where for many days my dahabiya had slumbered +against the bank of the Nile. It is necessary first of all to cross the +river, for the Theban kings of the Middle Empire all established their +eternal habitations on the opposite bank--far beyond the plains of the +river shore, right away in those mountains which bound the horizon +as with a wall of adorable rose-colour. Other canoes, which are +also crossing, glide by the side of mine on the tranquil water. The +passengers seem to belong to that variety of Anglo-Saxons which is +equipped by Thomas Cook & Sons (Egypt Ltd.), and like me, no doubt, they +are bound for the royal presence. + +We land on the sand of the opposite bank, which to-day is almost +deserted. Formerly there stretched here a regular suburb of +Thebes--that, namely, of the preparers of mummies, with thousands of +ovens wherein to heat the natron and the oils, which preserved the +bodies from corruption. In this Thebes, where for some fifty centuries, +everything that died, whether man or beast, was minutely prepared and +swathed in bandages, it will readily be understood what importance this +quarter of the embalmers came to assume. And it was to the neighbouring +mountains that the products of so many careful wrappings were borne for +burial, while the Nile carried away the blood from the bodies and the +filth of their entrails. That chain of living rocks that rises before +us, coloured each morning with the same rose, as of a tender flower, is +literally stuffed with dead bodies. + +We have to cross a wide plain before reaching the mountains, and on +our way cornfields alternate with stretches of sand already desertlike. +Behind us extends the old Nile and the opposite bank which we have +lately quitted--the bank of Luxor, whose gigantic Pharaonic colonnades +are as it were lengthened below by their own reflection in the mirror of +the river. And in this radiant morning, in this pure light, it would be +admirable, this eternal temple, with its image reversed in the depth of +the blue water, were it not that at its sides, and to twice its height, +rises the impudent Winter Palace, that monster hotel built last year +for the fastidious tourists. And yet, who knows? The jackanapes who +deposited this abomination on the sacred soil of Egypt perhaps imagines +that he equals the merit of the artist who is now restoring the +sanctuaries of Thebes, or even the glory of the Pharaohs who built them. + +As we draw nearer to the chain of Libya, where this king awaits us, we +traverse fields still green with growing corn--and sparrows and larks +sing around us in the impetuous spring of this land of Thebes. + +And now beyond two menhirs, as it were, become gradually distinct. Of +the same height and shape, alike indeed in every respect, they rise side +by side in the clear distance in the midst of these green plains, which +recall so well our fields of France. They wear the headgear of the +Sphinx, and are gigantic human forms seated on thrones--the colossal +statues of Memnon. We recognise them at once, for the picture-makers +of succeeding ages have popularised their aspect, as in the case of the +pyramids. What is strange is that they should stand there so simply in +the midst of these fields of growing corn, which reach to their very +feet, and be surrounded by these humble birds we know so well, who sing +without ceremony on their shoulders. + +They do not seem to be scandalised even at seeing now, passing quite +close to them, the trucks of a playful little railway belonging to a +local industry, that are laden with sugar-canes and gourds. + +The chain of Libya, during the last hour, has been growing gradually +larger against the profound and excessively blue sky. And now that it +rises up quite near to us, overheated, and as it were incandescent, +under this ten o'clock sun, we begin to see on all sides, in front +of the first rocky spurs of the mountains, the debris of palaces, +colonnades, staircases and pylons. Headless giants, swathed like dead +Pharaohs, stand upright, with hands crossed beneath their shroud of +sandstone. They are the temples and statues for the manes of numberless +kings and queens, who during three or four thousand years had their +mummies buried hard by in the heart of the mountains, in the deepest of +the walled and secret galleries. + +And now the cornfields have ceased; there is no longer any +herbage--nothing. We have crossed the desolate threshold, we are in the +desert, and tread suddenly upon a disquieting funereal soil, half sand, +half ashes, that is pitted on all sides with gaping holes. It looks like +some region that had long been undermined by burrowing beasts. But it is +men who, for more than fifty centuries, have vexed this ground, first +to hide the mummies in it, and afterwards, and until our day, to exhume +them. Each of these holes has enclosed its corpse, and if you peer +within you may see yellow-coloured rags still trailing there; and +bandages, or legs and vertebrae of thousands of years ago. Some lean +Bedouins, who exercise the office of excavators, and sleep hard by in +holes like jackals, advance to sell us scarabaei, blue-glass trinkets +that are half fossilised, and feet or hands of the dead. + +And now farewell to the fresh morning. Every minute the heat becomes +more oppressive. The pathway that is marked only by a row of stones +turns at last and leads into the depths of the mountain by a tragical +passage. We enter now into that “Valley of the Kings” which was the +place of the last rendezvous of the most august mummies. The breaths of +air that reach us between these rocks are become suddenly burning, and +the site seems to belong no longer to earth but to some calcined planet +which had for ever lost its clouds and atmosphere. This Libyan chain, +in the distance so delicately rose, is positively frightful now that +it overhangs us. It looks what it is--an enormous and fantastic tomb, a +natural necropolis, whose vastness and horror nothing human could +equal, an ideal stove for corpses that wanted to endure for ever. +The limestone, on which for that matter no rain ever falls from the +changeless sky, looks to be in one single piece from summit to base, and +betrays no crack or crevice by which anything might penetrate into the +sepulchres within. The dead could sleep, therefore, in the heart of +these monstrous blocks as sheltered as under vaults of lead. And of what +there is of magnificence the centuries have taken care. The continual +passage of winds laden with dust has scaled and worn away the face of +the rocks, so as to leave only the denser veins of stone, and thus +have reappeared strange architectural fantasies such as Matter, in the +beginning, might have dimly conceived. Subsequently the sun of Egypt has +lavished on the whole its ardent reddish patines. And now the mountains +imitate in places great organ-pipes, badigeoned with yellow and carmine, +and elsewhere huge bloodstained skeletons and masses of dead flesh. + +Outlined upon the excessive blue of the sky, the summits, illumined +to the point of dazzling, rise up in the light--like red cinders of a +glowing fire, splendours of living coal, against the pure indigo that +turns almost to darkness. We seem to be walking in some valley of the +Apocalypse with flaming walls. Silence and death, beneath a transcendent +clearness, in the constant radiance of a kind of mournful apotheosis--it +was such surroundings as these that the Egyptians chose for their +necropoles. + +The pathway plunges deeper and deeper in the stifling defiles, and +at the end of this “Valley of the Kings,” under the sun now nearly +meridian, which grows each minute more mournful and terrible, we +expected to come upon a dread silence. But what is this? + +At a turning, beyond there, at the bottom of a sinister-looking recess, +what does this crowd of people, what does this uproar mean? Is it a +meeting, a fair? Under awnings to protect them from the sun stand some +fifty donkeys, saddled in the English fashion. In a corner an electrical +workshop, built of new bricks, shoots forth the black smoke, and all +about, between the high blood-coloured walls, coming and going, making a +great stir and gabbling to their hearts' content, are a number of Cook's +tourists of both sexes, and some even who verily seem to have no sex +at all. They are come for the royal audience; some on asses, some in +jaunting cars, and some, the stout ladies who are grown short of wind, +in chairs carried by the Bedouins. From the four points of Europe they +have assembled in this desert ravine to see an old dried-up corpse at +the bottom of a hole. + +Here and there the hidden palaces reveal their dark, square-shaped +entrances, hewn in the massive rock, and over each a board indicates the +name of a kingly mummy--Ramses IV., Seti I., Thothmes III., Ramses IX., +etc. Although all these kings, except Amenophis II., have recently been +removed and carried away to Lower Egypt, to people the glass cases of +the museum of Cairo, their last dwellings have not ceased to attract +crowds. From each underground habitation are emerging now a number of +perspiring Cooks and Cookesses. And from that of Amenophis, especially, +they issue rapidly. Suppose that we have come too late and that the +audience is over! + +And to think that these entrances had been walled up, had been masked +with so much care, and lost for centuries! And of all the perseverance +that was needed to discover them, the observation, the gropings, the +soundings and random discoveries! + +But now they are being closed. We loitered too long around the colossi +of Memnon and the palaces of the plain. It is nearly noon, a noon +consuming and mournful, which falls perpendicularly upon the red +summits, and is burning to its deepest recesses the valley of stone. + +At the door of Amenophis we have to cajole, beseech. By the help of a +gratuity the Bedouin Grand Master of Ceremonies allows himself to be +persuaded. We are to descend with him, but quickly, quickly, for the +electric light will soon be extinguished. It will be a short audience, +but at least it will be a private one. We shall be alone with the king. + +In the darkness, where at first, after so much sunlight, the little +electric lamps seem to us scarcely more than glow-worms, we expected a +certain amount of chilliness as in the undergrounds of our climate. But +here there is only a more oppressive heat, stifling and withering, and +we long to return to the open air, which was burning indeed, but was at +least the air of life. + +Hastily we descend: by steep staircases, by passages which slope so +rapidly that they hurry us along of themselves, like slides; and it +seems that we shall never ascend again, any more than the great mummy +who passed here so long ago on his way to his eternal chamber. All this +brings us, first of all, to a deep well--dug there to swallow up the +desecrators in their passage--and it is on one of the sides of this +oubliette, behind a casual stone carefully sealed, that the continuation +of these funeral galleries was discovered. Then, when we have passed +the well, by a narrow bridge that has been thrown across it, the stairs +begin again, and the steep passages that almost make you run; but +now, by a sharp bend, they have changed their direction. And still we +descend, descend. Heavens! how deep down this king dwells! And at each +step of our descent we feel more and more imprisoned under the sovereign +mass of stone, in the centre of all this compact and silent thickness. + +***** + +The little electric globes, placed apart like a garland, suffice now for +our eyes which have forgotten the sun. And we can distinguish around us +myriad figures inviting us to solemnity and silence. They are inscribed +everywhere on the smooth, spotless walls of the colour of old ivory. +They follow one another in regular order, repeating themselves +obstinately in parallel rows, as if the better to impose upon our +spirit, with gestures and symbols that are eternally the same. The gods +and demons, the representatives of Anubis, with his black jackal's head +and his long erect ears, seem to make signs to us with their long +arms and long fingers: “No noise! Look, there are mummies here!” The +wonderful preservation of all this, the vivid colours, the clearness of +the outlines, begin to cause a kind of stupor and bewilderment. Verily +you would think that the painter of these figures of the shades had only +just quitted the hypogeum. All this past seems to draw you to itself +like an abyss to which you have approached too closely. It surrounds +you, and little by little masters you. It is so much at home here that +it has _remained the present_. Over and above the mere descent into the +secret bowels of the rock there has been a kind of seizure with vertigo, +which we had not anticipated and which has whirled us far away into the +depths of the ages. + +These interminable, oppressive passages, by which we have crawled to the +innermost depths of the mountain, lead at length to something vast, the +walls divide, the vault expands and we are in the great funeral hall, +of which the blue ceiling, all bestrewn with stars like the sky, is +supported by six pillars hewn in the rock itself. On either side open +other chambers into which the electricity permits us to see quite +clearly, and opposite, at the end of the hall, a large crypt is +revealed, which one divines instinctively must be the resting-place of +the Pharaoh. What a prodigious labour must have been entailed by this +perforation of the living rock! And this hypogeum is not unique. All +along the “Valley of the Kings” little insignificant doors--which to +the initiated reveal the “Sign of the Shadow,” inscribed on their +lintels--lead to other subterranean places, just as sumptuous and +perfidiously profound, with their snares, their hidden wells, their +oubliettes and the bewildering multiplicity of their mural figures. And +all these tombs this morning were full of people, and, if we had not +had the good fortune to arrive after the usual hour, we should have +met here, even in this dwelling of Amenophis, a battalion equipped by +Messrs. Cook. + +In this hall, with its blue ceiling, the frescoes multiply their +riddles: scenes from the book of Hades, all the funeral ritual +translated into pictures. On the pillars and walls crowd the different +demons that an Egyptian soul was likely to meet in its passage through +the country of shadows, and underneath the passwords which were to be +given to each of them are recapitulated so as not to be forgotten. + +For the soul used to depart simultaneously under the two forms of a +flame[*] and a falcon[+] respectively. And this country of shadows, +called also the west, to which it had to render itself, was that where +the moon sinks and where each evening the sun goes down; a country to +which the living were never able to attain, because it fled before them, +however fast they might travel across the sands or over the waters. On +its arrival there, the scared soul had to parley successively with the +fearsome demons who lay in wait for it along its route. If at last +it was judged worthy to approach Osiris, the great Dead Sun, it was +subsumed in him and reappeared, shining over the world the next morning +and on all succeeding mornings until the consummation of time--a vague +survival in the solar splendour, a continuation without personality, of +which one is scarcely able to say whether or not it was more desirable +than eternal non-existence. + +[*] The Khou, which never returned to our world. + +[+] The Bai, which might, at its will, revisit the tomb. + +And, moreover, it was necessary to preserve the body at whatever cost, +for a certain _double_ of the dead man continued to dwell in the dry +flesh, and retained a kind of half life, barely conscious. Lying at the +bottom of the sarcophagus it was able to see, by virtue of those two +eyes, which were painted on the lid, always in the same axis as the +empty eyes of the mummy. Sometimes, too, this _double_, escaping from +the mummy and its box, used to wander like a phantom about the hypogeum. +And, in order that at such times it might be able to obtain nourishment, +a mass of mummified viands wrapped in bandages were amongst the thousand +and one things buried at its side. Even natron and oils were left, +so that it might re-embalm itself, if the worms came to life in its +members. + +Oh! the persistence of this _double_, sealed there in the tomb, a prey +to anxiety, lest corruption should take hold of it; which had to serve +its long duration in suffocating darkness, in absolute silence, without +anything to mark the days and nights, or the seasons or the centuries, +or the tens of centuries without end! It was with such a terrible +conception of death as this that each one in those days was absorbed in +the preparation of his eternal chamber. + +And for Amenophis II. this more or less is what happened to his +_double_. Unaccustomed to any kind of noise, after three or four hundred +years passed in the company of certain familiars, lulled in the same +heavy slumber as himself, he heard the sound of muffled blows in the +distance, by the side of the hidden well. The secret entrance was +discovered: men were breaking through its walls! Living beings were +about to appear, pillagers of tombs, no doubt, come to unswathe them +all! But no! Only some priests of Osiris, advancing with fear in a +funeral procession. They brought nine great coffins containing the +mummies of nine kings, his sons, grandsons and other unknown successors, +down to that King Setnakht, who governed Egypt two and a half centuries +after him. It was simply to hide them better that they brought them +hither, and placed them all together in a chamber that was immediately +walled up. Then they departed. The stones of the door were sealed +afresh, and everything fell again into the old mournful and burning +darkness. + +Slowly the centuries rolled on--perhaps ten, perhaps twenty--in a +silence no longer even disturbed by the scratchings of the worms, long +since dead. And a day came when, at the side of the entrance, the same +blows were heard again. . . . And this time it was the robbers. Carrying +torches in their hands, they rushed headlong in, with shouts and cries +and, except in the safe hiding-place of the nine coffins, everything was +plundered, the bandages torn off, the golden trinkets snatched from +the necks of the mummies. Then, when they had sorted their booty, +they walled up the entrance as before, and went their way, leaving an +inextricable confusion of shrouds, of human bodies, of entrails issuing +from shattered vases, of broken gods and emblems. + +Afterwards, for long centuries, there was silence again, and finally, +in our days, the _double_, then in its last weakness and almost +non-existent, perceived the same noise of stones being unsealed by blows +of pickaxes. The third time, the living men who entered were of a race +never seen before. At first they seemed respectful and pious, only +touching things gently. But they came to plunder everything, even the +nine coffins in their still inviolate hiding-place. They gathered the +smallest fragments with a solicitude almost religious. That they might +lose nothing they even sifted the rubbish and the dust. But, as for +Amenophis, who was already nothing more than a lamentable mummy, without +jewels or bandages, they left him at the bottom of his sarcophagus of +sandstone. And since that day, doomed to receive each morning numerous +people of a strange aspect, he dwells alone in his hypogeum, where there +is now neither a being nor a thing belonging to his time. + +But yes, there is! We had not looked all round. There in one of the +lateral chambers some bodies are lying, dead bodies--three corpses +(unswathed at the time of the pillage), side by side on their rags. +First, a woman, the queen probably, with loosened hair. Her profile has +preserved its exquisite lines. How beautiful she still is! And then a +young boy with the little greyish face of a doll. His head is shaved, +except for that long curl at the right side, which denotes a prince of +the royal blood. And the third a man. Ugh! How terrible he is--looking +as if he found death a thing irresistibly comical. He even writhes with +laughter, and eats a corner of his shroud as if to prevent himself from +bursting into a too unseemly mirth. + +And then, suddenly, black night! And we stand as if congealed in our +place. The electric light has gone out--everywhere at once. Above, on +the earth, midday must have sounded--for those who still have cognisance +of the sun and the hours. + +The guard who has brought us hither shouts in his Bedouin falsetto, in +order to get the light switched on again, but the infinite thickness of +the walls, instead of prolonging the vibrations, seems to deaden them; +and besides, who could hear us, in the depths where we now are? Then, +groping in the absolute darkness, he makes his way up the sloping +passage. The hurried patter of his sandals and the flapping of his +burnous grow faint in the distance, and the cries that he continues to +utter sound so smothered to us soon that we might ourselves be buried. +And meanwhile we do not move. But how comes it that it is so hot amongst +these mummies? It seems as if there were fires burning in some oven +close by. And above all there is a want of air. Perhaps the corridors, +after our passage, have contracted, as happens sometimes in the anguish +of dreams. Perhaps the long fissure by which we have crawled hither, +perhaps it has closed in upon us. + +But at length the cries of alarm are heard and the light is turned on +again. The three corpses have not profited by the unguarded moments to +attempt any aggressive movement. Their positions, their expressions have +not changed: the queen calm and beautiful as ever; the man eating +still the corner of his rags to stifle the mad laughter of thirty-three +centuries. + +The Bedouin is now returned, breathless from his journey. He urges us +to come to see the king before the electric light is again extinguished, +and this time for good and all. Behold us now at the end of the hall, on +the edge of a dark crypt, leaning over and peering within. It is a place +oval in form, with a vault of a funereal black, relieved by frescoes, +either white or of the colour of ashes. They represent, these frescoes, +a whole new register of gods and demons, some slim and sheathed narrowly +like mummies, others with big heads and big bellies like hippopotami. +Placed on the ground and watched from above by all these figures is an +enormous sarcophagus of stone, wide open; and in it we can distinguish +vaguely the outline of a human body: the Pharaoh! + +At least we should have liked to see him better. The necessary light is +forthcoming at once: the Bedouin Grand Master of Ceremonies touches an +electric button and a powerful lamp illumines the face of Amenophis, +detailing with a clearness that almost frightens you the closed +eyes, the grimacing countenance, and the whole of the sad mummy. This +theatrical effect took us by surprise; we were not prepared for it. + +He was buried in magnificence, but the pillagers have stripped him of +everything, even of his beautiful breastplate of tortoiseshell, which +came to him from a far-off Oriental country, and for many centuries +now he has slept half naked on his rags. But his poor bouquet is there +still--of mimosa, recognisable even now, and who will ever tell what +pious or perhaps amorous hand it was that gathered these flowers for him +more than three thousand years ago. + +The heat is suffocating. The whole crushing mass of this mountain, of +this block of limestone, into which we have crawled through relatively +imperceptible holes, like white ants or larvae, seems to weigh upon our +chest. And these figures too, inscribed on every side, and this mystery +of the hieroglyphs and the symbols, cause a growing uneasiness. You are +too near them, they seem too much the masters of the exits, these gods +with their heads of falcon, ibis and jackal, who, on the walls, converse +in a continual exalted pantomime. And then the feeling comes over +you, that you are guilty of sacrilege standing there, before this open +coffin, in this unwonted insolent light. The dolorous, blackish face, +half eaten away, seems to ask for mercy: “Yes, yes, my sepulchre has +been violated and I am returning to dust. But now that you have seen me, +leave me, turn out that light, have pity on my nothingness.” + +In sooth, what a mockery! To have taken so many pains, to have adopted +so many stratagems to hide his corpse; to have exhausted thousands of +men in the hewing of this underground labyrinth, and to end thus, with +his head in the glare of an electric lamp, to amuse whoever passes. + +And out of pity--I think it was the poor bouquet of mimosa that awakened +it--I say to the Bedouin: “Yes, put out the light, put it out--that is +enough.” + +And then the darkness returns above the royal countenance, which is +suddenly effaced in the sarcophagus. The phantom of the Pharaoh is +vanished, as if replunged into the unfathomable past. The audience is +over. + +And we, who are able to escape from the horror of the hypogeum, reascend +rapidly towards the sunshine of the living, we go to breathe the air +again, the air to which we have still a right--for some few days longer. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +AT THEBES IN THE TEMPLE OF THE OGRESS + +This evening, in the vast chaos of ruins--at the hour in which the +light of the sun begins to turn to rose--I make my way along one of the +magnificent roads of the town-mummy, that, in fact, which goes off at a +right angle to the line of the temples of Amen, and, losing itself more +or less in the sands, leads at length to a sacred lake on the border of +which certain cat-headed goddesses are seated in state watching the +dead water and the expanse of the desert. This particular road was +begun three thousand four hundred years ago by a beautiful queen called +Makeri,[*] and in the following centuries a number of kings +continued its construction. It was ornamented with pylons of a superb +massiveness--pylons are monumental walls, in the form of a trapezium +with a wide base, covered entirely with hieroglyphs, which the Egyptians +used to place at either side of their porticoes and long avenues--as +well as by colossal statues and interminable rows of rams, larger than +buffaloes, crouched on pedestals. + +[*] To-day the mummy with the baby in the museum at Cairo. + +At the first pylons I have to make a detour. They are so ruinous that +their blocks, fallen down on all sides, have closed the passage. Here +used to watch, on right and left, two upright giants of red granite from +Syene. Long ago in times no longer precisely known, they were broken +off, both of them, at the height of the loins. But their muscular legs +have kept their proud, marching attitude, and each in one of the armless +hands, which reach to the end of the cloth that girds their loins, +clenches passionately the emblem of eternal life. And this Syenite +granite is so hard that time has not altered it in the least; in the +midst of the confusion of stones the thighs of these mutilated giants +gleam as if they had been polished yesterday. + +Farther on we come upon the second pylons, foundered also, before which +stands a row of Pharaohs. + +On every side the overthrown blocks display their utter confusion of +gigantic things in the midst of the sand which continues patiently +to bury them. And here now are the third pylons, flanked by their two +marching giants, who have neither head nor shoulders. And the road, +marked majestically still by the debris, continues to lead towards the +desert. + +And then the fourth and last pylons, which seem at first sight to mark +the extremity of the ruins, the beginning of the desert nothingness. +Time-worn and uncrowned, but stiff and upright still, they seem to be +set there so solidly that nothing could ever overthrow them. The two +colossal statues which guard them on the right and left are seated on +thrones. One, that on the eastern side, has almost disappeared. But the +other stands out entire and white, with the whiteness of marble, against +the brown-coloured background of the enormous stretch of wall covered +with hieroglyphs. His face alone has been mutilated; and he preserves +still his imperious chin, his ears, his Sphinx's headgear, one might +almost say his meditative expression, before this deployment of the vast +solitude which seems to begin at his very feet. + +Here however was only the boundary of the quarters of the God Amen. The +boundary of Thebes was much farther on, and the avenue which will lead +me directly to the home of the cat-headed goddesses extends farther +still to the old gates of the town; albeit you can scarcely distinguish +it between the double row of Krio-sphinxes all broken and well-nigh +buried. + +The day falls, and the dust of Egypt, in accordance with its invariable +practice every evening, begins to resemble in the distance a powder of +gold. I look behind me from time to time at the giant who watches me, +seated at the foot of his pylon on which the history of a Pharaoh is +carved in one immense picture. Above him and above his wall, which grows +each minute more rose-coloured, I see, gradually mounting in proportion +as I move away from it, the great mass of the palaces of the centre, +the hypostyle hall, the halls of Thothmes and the obelisks, all the +entangled cluster of those things at once so grand and so dead, which +have never been equalled on earth. + +And as I continue to gaze upon the ruins, resplendent now in the rosy +apotheosis of the evening, they come to look like the crumbling remains +of a gigantic skeleton. They seem to be begging for a merciful surcease, +as if they were tired of this endless gala colouring at each setting of +the sun, which mocks them with its eternity. + +All this is now a long way behind me; but the air is so limpid, the +outlines remain so clear that the illusion is rather that the temples +and the pylons grow smaller, lower themselves and sink into the earth. +The white giant who follows me always with his sightless stare is now +reduced to the proportions of a simple human dreamer. His attitude +moreover has not the rigid hieratic aspect of the other Theban statues. +With his hands upon his knees he looks like a mere ordinary mortal who +had stopped to reflect.[*] I have known him for many days--for many days +and many nights, for, what with his whiteness and the transparency of +these Egyptian nights, I have seen him often outlined in the distance +under the dim light of the stars--a great phantom in his contemplative +pose. And I feel myself obsessed now by the continuance of his attitude +at this entrance of the ruins--I who shall pass without a morrow from +Thebes and even from the earth--even as we all pass. Before conscious +life was vouchsafed to me he was there, had been there since times +which make you shudder to think upon. For three and thirty centuries, or +thereabouts, the eyes of myriads of unknown men and women, who have gone +before me, saw him just as I see him now, tranquil and white, in this +same place, seated before this same threshold, with his head a little +bent, and his pervading air of thought. + +[*] Statue of Amenophis III. + +I make my way without hastening, having always a tendency to stop +and look behind me, to watch the silent heap of palaces and the white +dreamer, which now are all illumined with a last Bengal fire in the +daily setting of the sun. + +And the hour is already twilight when I reach the goddesses. + +Their domain is so destroyed that the sands had succeeded in covering +and hiding it for centuries. But it has lately been exhumed. + +There remain of it now only some fragments of columns, aligned in +multiple rows in a vast extent of desert. Broken and fallen stones and +debris.[*] I walk on without stopping, and at length reach the sacred +lake on the margin of which the great cats are seated in eternal +council, each one on her throne. The lake, dug by order of the Pharaohs, +is in the form of an arc, like a kind of crescent. Some marsh birds, +that are about to retire for the night, now traverse its mournful, +sleeping water. Its borders, which have known the utmost of +magnificence, are become mere heaps of ruins on which nothing grows. And +what one sees beyond, what the attentive goddesses themselves regard, is +the empty desolate plain, on which some few poor fields of corn mingle +in this twilight hour with the sad infinitude of the sands. And +the whole is bounded on the horizon by the chain, still a little +rose-coloured, of the limestones of Arabia. + +[*] The temple of the Goddess Mut. + +They are there, the cats, or, to speak more exactly, the lionesses, for +cats would not have those short ears, or those cruel chins, thickened +by tufts of beard. All of black granite, images of Sekhet (who was the +Goddess of War, and in her hours the Goddess of Lust), they have the +slender body of a woman, which makes more terrible the great feline head +surmounted by its high bonnet. Eight or ten, or perhaps more, they are +more disquieting in that they are so numerous and so alike. They are +not gigantic, as one might have expected, but of ordinary human +stature--easy therefore to carry away, or to destroy, and that again, if +one reflects, augments the singular impression they cause. When so many +colossal figures lie in pieces on the ground, how comes it that they, +little people seated so tranquilly on their chairs, have contrived to +remain intact, during the passing of the three and thirty centuries of +the world's history? + +The passage of the march birds, which for a moment disturbed the clear +mirror of the lake, has ceased. Around the goddesses nothing moves and +the customary infinite silence envelops them as at the fall of every +night. They dwell indeed in such a forlorn corner of the ruins! Who, to +be sure, even in broad daylight, would think of visiting them? + +Down there in the west a trailing cloud of dust indicates the departure +of the tourists, who had flocked to the temple of Amen, and now hasten +back to Luxor, to dine at the various _tables d'hote_. The ground here +is so felted with sand that in the distance we cannot hear the rolling +of their carriages. But the knowledge that they are gone renders more +intimate the interview with these numerous and identical goddesses, +who little by little have been draped in shadow. Their seats turn their +backs to the palaces of Thebes, which now begin to be bathed in +violet waves and seem to sink towards the horizon, to lose each minute +something of their importance before the sovereignty of the night. + +And the black goddesses, with their lioness' heads and tall +headgear--seated there with their hands upon their knees, with eyes +fixed since the beginning of the ages, and a disturbing smile on their +thick lips, like those of a wild beast--continue to regard--beyond the +little dead lake--that desert, which now is only a confused immensity, +of a bluish ashy-grey. And the fancy seizes you that they are possessed +of a kind of life, which has come to them after long waiting, by virtue +of that _expression_ which they have worn on their faces so long, oh! so +long. + +***** + +Beyond, at the other extremity of the ruins, there is a sister of these +goddesses, taller than they, a great Sekhet, whom in these parts men +call the Ogress, and who dwells alone and upright, ambushed in a narrow +temple. Amongst the fellahs and the Bedouins of the neighbourhood she +enjoys a very bad reputation, it being her custom of nights to issue +from her temple, and devour men; and none of them would willingly +venture near her dwelling at this late hour. But instead of returning to +Luxor, like the good people whose carriages have just departed, I rather +choose to pay her a visit. + +Her dwelling is some distance away, and I shall not reach it till the +dead of night. + +First of all I have to retrace my steps, to return along the whole +avenue of rams, to pass again by the feet of the white giant, who has +already assumed his phantomlike appearance, while the violet waves that +bathed the town-mummy thicken and turn to a greyish-blue. And then, +leaving behind me the pylons guarded by the broken giants, I thread my +way among the palaces of the centre. + +It is among these palaces that I encounter for good and all the night, +with the first cries of the owls and ospreys. It is still warm there, on +account of the heat stored by the stones during the day, but one feels +nevertheless that the air is freezing. + +At a crossing a tall human figure looms up, draped in black and armed +with a baton. It is a roving Bedouin, one of the guards, and this more +or less is the dialogue exchanged between us (freely and succinctly +translated): + +“Your permit, sir.” + +“Here it is.” + +(Here we combine our efforts to illuminate the said permit by the light +of a match.) + +“Good, I will go with you.” + +“No. I beg of you.” + +“Yes; I had better. Where are you going?” + +“Beyond, to the temple of that lady--you know, who is great and powerful +and has a face like a lioness.” + +“Ah! . . . Yes, I think I understand that you would prefer to go alone.” + (Here the intonation becomes infantine.) “But you are a kind gentleman +and will not forget the poor Bedouin all the same.” + +He goes on his way. On leaving the palaces I have still to traverse an +extent of uncultivated country, where a veritable cold seizes me. Above +my head no longer the heavy suspended stones, but the far-off expanse of +the blue night sky--where are shining now myriads upon myriads of stars. +For the Thebans of old this beautiful vault, scintillating always with +its powder of diamonds, shed no doubt only serenity upon their souls. +But for us, _who knows, alas!_ it is on the contrary the field of the +great fear, which, out of pity, it would have been better if we had +never been able to see; the incommensurable black void, where the worlds +in their frenzied whirling precipitate themselves like rain, crash into +and annihilate one another, only to be renewed for fresh eternities. + +All this is seen too vividly, the horror of it becomes intolerable, on a +clear night like this, in a place so silent and littered so with ruins. +More and more the cold penetrates you--the mournful cold of the sidereal +spheres from which nothing now seems to protect you, so rarefied--almost +non-existent--does the limpid atmosphere appear. And the gravel, the +poor dried herbs, that crackle under foot, give the illusion of the +crunching noise we know at home on winter nights when the frost is on +the ground. + +I approach at length the temple of the Ogress. These stones which now +appear, whitish in the night, this secret-looking dwelling near the +boundary wall of Thebes, proclaim the spot, and verily at such an hour +as this it has an evil aspect. Ptolemaic columns, little vestibules, +little courtyards where a dim blue light enables you to find your way. +Nothing moves; not even the flight of a night bird: an absolute +silence, magnified awfully by the presence of the desert which you feel +encompasses you beyond these walls. And beyond, at the bottom, three +chambers made of massive stone, each with its separate entrance. I know +that the first two are empty. It is in the third that the Ogress dwells, +unless, indeed, she has already set out upon her nocturnal hunt for +human flesh. Pitch darkness reigns within and I have to grope my way. +Quickly I light a match. Yes, there she is indeed, alone and upright, +almost part of the end wall, on which my little light makes the horrible +shadow of her head dance. The match goes out--irreverently I light many +more under her chin, under that heavy, man-eating jaw. In very sooth, +she is terrifying. Of black granite--like her sisters, seated on the +margin of the mournful lake--but much taller than they, from six to +eight feet in height, she has a woman's body, exquisitely slim and +young, with the breasts of a virgin. Very chaste in attitude, she +holds in her hand a long-stemmed lotus flower, but by a contrast +that nonplusses and paralyses you the delicate shoulders support the +monstrosity of a huge lioness' head. The lappets of her bonnet fall on +either side of her ears almost down to her breast, and surmounting the +bonnet, by way of addition to the mysterious pomp, is a large moon disc. +Her dead stare gives to the ferocity of her visage something unreasoning +and fatal; an irresponsible ogress, without pity as without pleasure, +devouring after the manner of Nature and of Time. And it was so +perhaps that she was understood by the initiated of ancient Egypt, who +symbolised everything for the people in the figures of gods. + +In the dark retreat, enclosed with defaced stones, in the little temple +where she stands, alone, upright and grand, with her enormous head and +thrust-out chin and tall goddess' headdress--one is necessarily quite +close to her. In touching her, at night, you are astonished to find that +she is less cold than the air; she becomes somebody, and the intolerable +dead stare seems to weigh you down. + +During the _tete-a-tete_, one thinks involuntarily of the surroundings, +of these ruins in the desert, of the prevailing nothingness, of the cold +beneath the stars. And, now, that summation of doubt and despair +and terror, which such an assemblage of things inspires in you, is +confirmed, if one may say so, by the meeting with this divinity-symbol, +which awaits you at the end of the journey, to receive ironically all +human prayer; a rigid horror of granite, with an implacable smile and a +devouring jaw. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A TOWN PROMPTLY EMBELLISHED + +Eight years and a line of railway have sufficed to accomplish its +metamorphosis. Once in Upper Egypt, on the borders of Nubia, there was +a little humble town, rarely visited, and wanting, it must be owned, in +elegance and even in comfort. + +Not that it was without picturesqueness and historical interest. Quite +the contrary. The Nile, charged with the waters of equatorial Africa, +flung itself close by from the height of a mass of black granite, in +a majestic cataract; and then, before the little Arab houses, became +suddenly calm again, and flowed between islets of fresh verdure where +clusters of palm-trees swayed their plumes in the wind. + +And around were a number of temples, of hypogea, of Roman ruins, of +ruins of churches dating from the first centuries of Christianity. The +ground was full of souvenirs of the great primitive civilisations. For +the place, abandoned for ages and lulled in the folds of Islam under +the guardianship of its white mosque, was once one of the centres of the +life of the world. + +And, moreover, in the adjoining desert, some three or four thousand +years ago, the ancient history of the world had been written by the +Pharaohs in immortal hieroglyphics--well-nigh everywhere, on the +polished sides of the strange blocks of blue and red granite that lie +scattered about the sands and look now like the forms of antediluvian +monsters. + +***** + +Yes, but it was necessary that all this should be co-ordinated, focused +as it were, and above all rendered accessible to the delicate travellers +of the Agencies. And to-day we have the pleasure of announcing that, +from December to March, Assouan (for that is the name of the fortunate +locality) has a “season” as fashionable as those of Ostend or Spa. + +In approaching it, the huge hotels erected on all sides--even on the +islets of the old river--charm the eye of the traveller, greeting him +with their welcoming signs, which can be seen a league away. True, they +have been somewhat hastily constructed, of mud and plaster, but they +recall none the less those gracious palaces with which the Compagnie des +Wagon-Lits has dowered the world. And how negligible now, how dwarfed +by the height of their facades, is the poor little town of olden times, +with its little houses, whitened with chalk, and its baby minaret. + +The cataract, on the other hand, has disappeared from Assouan. The +tutelary Albion wisely considered that it would be better to sacrifice +that futile spectacle and, in order to increase the yield of the soil, +to dam the waters of the Nile by an artificial barrage: a work of solid +masonry which (in the words of the Programme of Pleasure Trips) “affords +an interest of a very different nature and degree” (sic). + +But nevertheless Cook & Son--a business concern glossed with poetry, as +all the world knows--have endeavoured to perpetuate the memory of the +cataract by giving its name to a hotel of 500 rooms, which as a result +of their labours has been established opposite to those rocks--now +reduced to silence--over which the old Nile used to seethe for so many +centuries. “Cataract Hotel!”--that gives the illusion still, does it +not?--and looks remarkably well at the head of a sheet of notepaper. + +Cook & Son (Egypt Ltd.) have even gone so far as to conceive the idea +that it would be original to give to their establishment a certain +_cachet_ of Islam. And the dining-room reproduces (in imitation, of +course--but then you must not expect the impossible) the interior of +one of the mosques of Stamboul. At the luncheon hour it is one of the +prettiest sights in the world to see, under this imitation holy cupola, +all the little tables crowded with Cook's tourists of both sexes, the +while a concealed orchestra strikes up the “Mattchiche.” + +The dam, it is true, in suppressing the cataract has raised some +thirty feet or so the level of the water upstream, and by so doing has +submerged a certain Isle of Philae, which passed, absurdly enough, for +one of the marvels of the world by reason of its great temple of Isis, +surrounded by palm-trees. But between ourselves, one may say that the +beautiful goddess was a little old-fashioned for our times. She and her +mysteries had had their day. Besides, if there should be any chagrined +soul who might regret the disappearance of the island, care has been +taken to perpetuate the memory of it, in the same way as that of the +cataract. Charming coloured postcards, taken before the submerging of +the island and the sanctuary, are on sale in all the bookshops along the +quay. + +Oh! this quay of Assouan, already so British in its orderliness, its +method! Nothing better cared for, nothing more altogether charming could +be conceived. First of all there is the railway, which, passing between +balustrades painted a grass-green, gives out its fascinating noise and +joyous smoke. On one side is a row of hotels and shops, all European in +character--hairdressers, perfumers, and numerous dark rooms for the use +of the many amateur photographers, who make a point of taking away +with them photographs of their travelling companions grouped tastefully +before some celebrated hypogeum. + +And then numerous cafes, where the whisky is of excellent quality. And, +I ought to add, in justice to the result of the _Entente Cordiale_, you +may see there, too, aligned in considerable quantities on the shelves, +the products of those great French philanthropists, to whom indeed our +generation does not render sufficient homage for all the good they have +done to its stomach and its head. The reader will guess that I have +named Pernod, Picon and Cusenier. + +It may be indeed that the honest fellahs and Nubians of the +neighbourhood, so sober a little while ago, are apt to abuse these +tonics a little. But that is the effect of novelty, and will pass. And +anyhow, amongst us Europeans, there is no need to conceal the fact--for +we do not all make use of it involuntarily?--that alcoholism is a +powerful auxiliary in the propagation of our ideas, and that the dealer +in wines and spirits constitutes a valuable vanguard pioneer for our +Western civilisation. Races, insensibly depressed by the abuse of our +“appetisers,” become more supple, more easy to lead in the true path of +progress and liberty. + +On this quay of Assouan, so carefully levelled, defiles briskly a +continual stream of fair travellers ravishingly dressed as only those +know how who have made a tour with Cook & Son (Egypt Ltd.). And along +the Nile, in the shade of the young trees, planted with the utmost +nicety and precision, the flower-beds and straight-cut turf are +protected efficaciously by means of wire-netting against certain acts of +forgetfulness to which dogs, alas, are only too much addicted. + +Here, too, everything is ticketed, everything has its number: the +donkeys, the donkey-drivers, the stations even where they are allowed to +stand--“Stand for six donkeys, stand for ten, etc.” Some very handsome +camels, fitted with riding saddles, wait also in their respective places +and a number of Cook ladies, meticulous on the point of local colour, +even when it is merely a question of making some purchases in the town, +readily mount for some moments one or other of these “ships of the +desert.” + +And at every fifty yards a policeman, still Egyptian in his countenance, +but quite English in his bearing and costume, keeps a vigilant eye on +everything--would never suffer, for example, that an eleventh donkey +should dare to take a place in a stand for ten, which was already full. + +Certain people, inclined to be critical, might consider, perhaps, +that these policemen were a little too ready to chide their +fellow-countrymen; whereas on the contrary they showed themselves very +respectful and obliging whenever they were addressed by a traveler in +a cork helmet. But that is in virtue of an equitable and logical +principle, derived by them from the high places of the new +administration--namely, that the Egypt of to-day belongs far less to the +Egyptians than to the noble foreigners who have come to brandish there +the torch of civilisation. + +In the evening, after dark, the really respectable travellers do not +quit the brilliant dining saloons of the hotels, and the quay is left +quite solitary beneath the stars. It is at such a time that one is able +to realise how extremely hospitable certain of the natives are become. +If, in an hour of melancholy, you walk alone on the bank of the Nile, +smoking a cigarette, you will not fail to be accosted by one of these +good people, who misunderstanding the cause of the unrest in your soul, +offers eagerly, and with a touching frankness, to introduce you to the +gayest of the young ladies of the country. + +In the other towns, which still remain purely Egyptian, the people would +never practise such an excess of affability and good manners, which have +been learnt, beyond all question from our beneficent contact. + +Assouan possesses also its little Oriental bazaar--a little improvised, +a little new perhaps; but then one, at least, was needed, and that +as quickly as possible, in order that nothing might be wanting to the +tourists. + +The shopkeepers have contrived to provision themselves (in the leading +shops, under the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli) with as much tact as good +taste, and the Cook ladies have the innocent illusion of making bargains +every day. One may even buy there, hung up by the tail, stuffed with +straw and looking extremely real, the last crocodiles of Egypt, which, +particularly at the end of the season, may be had at very advantageous +prices. + +Even the old Nile has allowed itself to be fretted and brought up to +date in the progress of evolution. + +First, the women, draped in black veils, who come daily to draw the +precious water, have forsaken the fragile amphorae of baked earth, +which had come to them from barbarous times--and which the Orientalists +grossly abused in their picture; and in their stead have taken to +old tin oil-cans, placed at their disposal by the kindness of the +big hotels. But they carry them in the same easy graceful manner as +erstwhile the discarded pottery, and without losing in the least the +gracious tanagrine outline. + +And then there are the great tourist boats of the Agencies, which are +here in abundance, for Assouan has the privilege of being the terminus +of the line; and their whistlings, their revolving motors, their +electric dynamos maintain from morning till night a captivating +symphony. It might be urged perhaps against these structures that +they resemble a little the washhouses on the Seine; but the Agencies, +desirous of restoring to them a certain local colour, have given them +names so notoriously Egyptian that one is reduced to silence. They are +called Sesostris, Amenophis or Ramses the Great. + +And finally there are the rowing boats, which carry passengers +incessantly backwards and forwards between the river-banks. So long +as the season remains at its height they are bedecked with a number of +little flags of red cotton-cloth, or even of simple paper. The rowers, +moreover, have been instructed to sing all the time the native songs +which are accompanied by a derboucca player seated in the prow. Nay, +they have even learnt to utter that rousing, stimulating cry which +Anglo-Saxons use to express their enthusiasm or their joy: “Hip! Hip! +Hurrah!” and you cannot conceive how well it sounds, coming between the +Arab songs, which otherwise might be apt to grow monotonous. + +***** + +But the triumph of Assouan is its desert. It begins at once without +transition as soon as you pass the close-cropped turf of the last +square. A desert which, except for the railroad and the telegraph poles, +has all the charm of the real thing: the sand, the chaos of overthrown +stones, the empty horizons--everything, in short, save the immensity +and infinite solitude, the horror, in a word which formerly made it so +little desirable. It is a little astonishing, it must be owned, to find, +on arriving there, that the rocks have been carefully numbered in white +paint, and in some cases marked with a large cross “which catches the +eye from a greater distance still” (sic). But I agree that the effect of +the whole has lost nothing. + +In the morning before the sun gets too hot, between breakfast and +luncheon to be precise, all the good ladies in cork helmets and blue +spectacles (dark-coloured spectacles are recommended on account of the +glare) spread themselves over these solitudes, domesticated as it were +to their use, with as much security as in Trafalgar Square or Kensington +Gardens. Not seldom even you may see one of them making her way alone, +book in hand, towards one of the picturesque rocks--No. 363, for +example, or No. 364, if you like it better--which seems to be +making signs to her with its white ticket, in a manner which, to the +uninitiated observer, might seem even a little improper. + +But what a sense of safety families may feel here, to be sure! In spite +of the huge numbers, which at first sight look a little equivocal, +nothing in the least degree reprehensible can happen among these +granites; which are, moreover, in a single piece, without the least +crack or hole into which the straggler could contrive to crawl. No. The +figures and the crosses denote simple blocks of stones, covered with +hieroglyphics, and correspond to a chaste catalogue where each Pharaonic +inscription may be found translated in the most becoming language. + +This ingenious ticketing of the stones of the desert is due to the +initiative of an English Egyptologist. + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE PASSING OF PHILAE + +Leaving Assouan--as soon as we have passed the last house--we come at +once upon the desert. And now the night is falling, a cold February +night, under a strange, copper-coloured sky. + +Incontestably it is the desert, with its chaos of granite and sand, its +warm tones and reddish colour. But there are telegraph poles and the +lines of a railroad, which traverse it in company, and disappear in the +empty horizon. And then too how paradoxical and ridiculous it seems +to be travelling here on full security and in a carriage! (The most +commonplace of hackney-carriages, which I hired by the hour on the +quay of Assouan.) A desert indeed which preserves still its aspects +of reality, but has become domesticated and tamed for the use of the +tourists and the ladies. + +First, immense cemeteries surrounded by sand at the beginning of these +quasi-solitudes. Such old cemeteries of every epoch of history. The +thousand little cupolas of saints of Islam are crumbling side by side +with the Christian obelisks of the first centuries; and, underneath, the +Pharaonic hypogea. In the twilight, all these ruins of the dead, all the +scattered blocks of granite are mingled in mournful groupings, outlined +in fantastic silhouette against the pale copper of the sky; broken +arches, tilted domes, and rocks that rise up like tall phantoms. + +Farther on, when we have left behind this region of tombs, the granites +alone litter the expanse of sand, granites to which the usury of +centuries has given the form of huge round beasts. In places they +have been thrown one upon the other and make great heaps of monsters. +Elsewhere they lie alone among the sands, as if lost in the midst of +the infinitude of some dead sea-shore. The rails and the telegraph poles +have disappeared; by the magic of twilight everything is become grand +again, beneath one of those evening skies of Egypt which, in winter, +resemble cold cupolas of metal. And now it is that you feel yourself +verily on the threshold of the profound desolations of Arabia, from +which no barrier, after all separates you. Were it not for the lack of +verisimilitude in the carriage that has brought us hither, we should +be able now to take this desert quite seriously--for in fact it has no +limits. + +After travelling for about three-quarters of an hour, we see in the +distance a number of lights, which have already been kindled in +the growing darkness. They seem too bright to be those of an Arab +encampment. And our driver turning round and pointing to them says: +“Chelal!” + +Chelal--that is the name of the Arab village, on the riverside, where +you take the boat for Philae. To our disgust the place is lighted by +electricity. It consists of a station, a factory with a long smoking +chimney, and a dozen or so suspicious-looking taverns, reeking of +alcohol, without which, it would seem, our European civilisation could +not implant itself in a new country. + +And here we embark for Philae. A number of boats are ready: for the +tourists allured by many advertisements flock hither every winter in +docile herds. All the boats, without a single exception, are profusely +decorated with little English flags, as if for some regatta on the +Thames. There is no escape therefore from this beflagging of a foreign +holiday--and we set out with a homesick song of Nubia, which the boatmen +sing to the cadence of the oars. + +The copper-coloured heaven remains so impregnated with cold light that +we still see clearly. We are amid magnificent tragic scenery on a lake +surrounded by a kind of fearful amphitheatre outlined on all sides by +the mountains of the desert. It was at the bottom of this granite circus +that the Nile used to flow, forming fresh islets, on which the eternal +verdure of the palm-trees contrasted with the high desolate mountains +that surrounded it like a wall. To-day, on account of the barrage +established by the English, the water has steadily risen, like a tide +that will never recede; and this lake, almost a little sea, replaces +the meanderings of the river and has succeeded in submerging the sacred +islets. The sanctuary of Isis--which was enthroned for thousands of +years on the summit of a hill, crowded with temples and colonnades and +statues--still half emerges; but it is alone and will soon go the way +of the others, There it is, beyond, like a great rock, at this hour in +which the night begins to obscure everything. + +Nowhere but in Upper Egypt have the winter nights these transparencies +of absolute emptiness nor these sinister colourings. As the light +gradually fails, the sky passes from copper to bronze, but remains +always metallic. The zenith becomes brownish like a brazen shield, while +the setting sun alone retains its yellow colour, growing slowly paler +till it is almost of the whiteness of latten; and, above, the mountains +of the desert edge their sharp outlines with a tint of burnt sienna. +To-night a freezing wind blows fiercely in our faces. To the continual +chant of the rowers we pass slowly over the artificial lake, which is +upheld as it were in the air by the English masonry, invisible now in +the distance, but divined nevertheless and revolting. A sacrilegious +lake one might call it, since it hides beneath its troubled waters ruins +beyond all price; temples of the gods of Egypt, churches of the first +centuries of Christianity, obelisks, inscriptions and emblems. It is +over these things that we now pass, while the spray splashes in our +faces, and the foam of a thousand angry little billows. + +We draw near to what was once the holy isle. In places dying palm-trees, +whose long trunks are to-day under water, still show their moistened +plumes and give an appearance of inundation, almost of cataclysm. + +Before coming to the sanctuary of Isis, we touch at the kiosk of Philae, +which has been reproduced in the pictures of every age, and is as +celebrated even as the Sphinx and the pyramids. It used to stand on +a pedestal of high rocks, and around it the date-trees swayed their +bouquets of aerial palms. To-day it has no longer a base; its columns +rise separately from this kind of suspended lake. It looks as if it had +been constructed in the water for the purpose of some royal naumachy. We +enter with our boat--a strange port indeed, in its ancient grandeur; a +port of a nameless melancholy, particularly at this yellow hour of the +closing twilight, and under these icy winds that come to us mercilessly +from the neighbouring deserts. And yet how adorable it is, this kiosk of +Philae, in this the abandonment that precedes its downfall! Its columns +placed, as it were, upon something unstable, become thereby more +slender, seem to raise higher still the stone foliage of their capitals. +A veritable kiosk of dreamland now, which one feels is about to +disappear for ever under these waters which will subside no more! + +And now, for another few moments, it grows quite light again, and tints +of a warmer copper reappear in the sky. Often in Egypt when the sun has +set and you think the light is gone, this furtive recoloration of the +air comes thus to surprise you, before the darkness finally descends. +The reddish tints seem to return to the slender shafts that surround us, +and also, beyond, to the temple of the goddess, standing there like a +sheer rock in the middle of this little sea, which the wind covers with +foam. + +On leaving the kiosk our boat--on this deep usurping water, among the +submerged palm-trees--makes a detour in order to lead us to the temple +by the road which the pilgrims of olden times used to travel on foot--by +that way which, a little while ago, was still magnificent, bordered with +colonnades and statues. But now the road is entirely submerged, and will +never be seen again. Between its double row of columns the water lifts +us to the height of the capitals, which alone emerge and which we could +touch with our hands. It seems like some journey of the end of time, in +a kind of deserted Venice, which is about to topple over, to sink and be +forgotten. + +We arrive at the temple. Above our heads rise the enormous pylons, +ornamented with figures in bas-relief: an Isis who stretches out her +arms as if she were making signs to us, and numerous other divinities +gesticulating mysteriously. The door which opens in the thickness of +these walls is low, besides being half flooded, and gives on to depths +already in darkness. We row on and enter the sanctuary, and as soon as +one boat has crossed the sacred threshold the boatmen stop their song +and suddenly give voice to the new cry that has been taught them for the +benefit of the tourists: “Hip! Hip! Hip! Hurrah!” Coming at this +moment, when, with heart oppressed by all the utilitarian vandalism that +surrounds us, we were entering the sanctuary, what an effect of gross +and imbecile profanation this bellowing of English joy produces! The +boatmen know, moreover, that they have been displaced, that their day +has gone for ever; perhaps even, in the depths of their Nubian souls, +they understand us, for all that we have imposed silence on them. The +darkness increases within, although the place is open to the sky, and +the icy wind blows more mournfully than it did outside. A penetrating +humidity--a humidity altogether unknown in this country before the +inundation--chills us to the bone. We are now in that part of the temple +which was left uncovered, the part where the faithful used to kneel. The +sonority of the granites round about exaggerates the noise of the oars +on the enclosed water, and there is something confusing in the thought +that we are rowing and floating between the walls where formerly, +and for centuries, men were used to prostrate themselves with their +foreheads on the stones. + +And now it is quite dark; the hour grows late. We have to bring the boat +close to the walls to distinguish the hieroglyphs and rigid gods which +are engraved there as finely as by the burin. These walls, washed for +nearly four years by the inundation, have already taken on at the base +that sad blackish colour which may be seen on the old Venetian palaces. + +Halt and silence. It is dark and cold. The oars no longer move, and we +hear only the sighing of the wind and the lapping of the water against +the columns and the bas-reliefs--and then suddenly there comes the noise +of a heavy body falling, followed by endless eddies. A great carved +stone has plunged, at its due hour, to rejoin in the black chaos below +its fellows that have already disappeared, to rejoin the submerged +temples and old Coptic churches, and the town of the first Christian +centuries--all that was once the Isle of Philae, the “pearl of Egypt,” + one of the marvels of the world. + +The darkness is now extreme and we can see no longer. Let us go +and shelter, no matter where, to await the moon. At the end of this +uncovered hall there opens a door which gives on to deep night. It is +the holy of holies, heavily roofed with granite, the highest part of the +temple, the only part which the waters have not yet reached, and there +we are able to put foot to earth. Our footsteps resound noisily on the +large resonant flags, and the owls take to flight. Profound darkness; +the wind and the dampness freeze us. Three hours to go before the rising +of the moon; to wait in this place would be our death. Rather let us +return to Chelal, and shelter ourselves in any lodging that offers, +however wretched it may be. + +***** + +A tavern of the horrible village in the light of an electric lamp. It +reeks of absinthe, this desert tavern, in which we warm ourselves at a +little smoking fire. It has been hastily built of old tin boxes, of the +debris of whisky cases, and by way of mural decoration the landlord, an +ignorant Maltese, has pasted everywhere pictures cut from our European +pornographic newspapers. During our hours of waiting, Nubians and +Arabians follow one another hither, asking for drink, and are supplied +with brimming glassfuls of our alcoholic beverages. They are the workers +in the new factories who were formerly healthy beings, living in the +open air. But now their faces are stained with coal dust, and their +haggard eyes look unhappy and ill. + +***** + +The rising of the moon is fortunately at hand. Once more in our boat +we make our way slowly towards the sad rock which to-day is Philae. The +wind has fallen with the night, as happens almost invariably in this +country in winter, and the lake is calm. To the mournful yellow sky has +succeeded one that is blue-black, infinitely distant, where the stars of +Egypt scintillate in myriads. + +A great glimmering light shows now in the east and at length the full +moon rises, not blood-coloured as in our climates but straightway very +luminous, and surrounded by an aureole of a kind of mist, caused by +the eternal dust of the sands. And when we return to the baseless +kiosk--lulled always by the Nubian song of the boatmen--a great disc is +already illuminating everything with a gentle splendour. As our little +boat winds in and out, we see the great ruddy disc passing and repassing +between the high columns, so striking in their archaism, whose images +are repeated in the water, that is now grown calm--more than ever a +kiosk of dreamland, a kiosk of old-world magic. + +In returning to the temple of the goddess, we follow for a second time +the submerged road between the capitals and friezes of the colonnade +which emerge like a row of little reefs. + +In the uncovered hall which forms the entrance to the temple, it is +still dark between the sovereign granites. Let us moor our boat against +one of the walls and await the good pleasure of the moon. As soon as +she shall have risen high enough to cast her light here, we shall see +clearly. + +It begins by a rosy glimmer on the summit of the pylons; and then takes +the form of a luminous triangle, very clearly defined, which grows +gradually larger on the immense wall. Little by little it descends +towards the base of the temple, revealing to us by degrees the +intimidating presence of the bas-reliefs, the gods, goddesses and +hieroglyphs, and the assemblies of people who make signs among +themselves. We are no longer alone--a whole world of phantoms has been +evoked around us by the moon, some little, some very large. They had +been hiding there in the shadow and now suddenly they recommence their +mute conversations, without breaking the profound silence, using only +their expressive hands and raised fingers. And now also the colossal +Isis begins to appear--the one carved on the left of the portico +by which you enter; first, her refined head with its bird's helmet, +surmounted by a solar disc; then, as the light continues to descend, +her neck and shoulders, and her arm, raised to make who knows what +mysterious, indicating sign; and finally the slim nudity of her torso, +and her hips close bound in a sheath. Behold her now, the goddess, +come completely out of the shadow. . . . But she seems surprised and +disturbed at seeing at her feet, instead of the stones she had known +for two thousand years, her own likeness, a reflection of herself, that +stretches away, reversed in the mirror of the water. . . . + +And suddenly, in the mist of the deep nocturnal calm of this temple, +isolated here in the lake, comes again the sound of a kind of mournful +booming, of things that topple, precious stones that become detached +and fall--and then, on the surface of the lake, a thousand concentric +circles form, close one another and disappear, ruffling indefinitely +this mirror embanked between the terrible granites, in which Isis +regards herself sorrowfully. + +_Postscript._--The submerging of Philae, as we know, has increased by +no less than seventy-five millions of pounds the annual yield of the +surrounding land. Encouraged by this success, the English propose +next year to raise the barrage of the Nile another twenty feet. As a +consequence this sanctuary of Isis will be completely submerged, the +greater part of the ancient temples of Nubia will be under water, and +fever will infect the country. But, on the other hand, the cultivation +of cotton will be enormously facilitated. . . . + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Egypt (La Mort De Philae), by Pierre Loti + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EGYPT (LA MORT DE PHILAE) *** + +***** This file should be named 3685-0.txt or 3685-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/8/3685/ + +Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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