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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.06/12/01*END* +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com +and John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz + + +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 Etext of Egypt (La Mort De Philae), by Pierre Loti + |