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diff --git a/39522.txt b/39522.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e8d4420 --- /dev/null +++ b/39522.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4385 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Rulers of the Mediterranean, by Richard Harding Davis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Rulers of the Mediterranean + +Author: Richard Harding Davis + +Release Date: April 23, 2012 [EBook #39522] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RULERS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN *** + + + + +Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, Julia Neufeld +(illustrations were generously made available by The +Internet Archive) and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). + +Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. + + +[Illustration: ONE OF THE CAMEL CORPS OF EGYPT] + + The Rulers + + of + + The Mediterranean + + BY + + RICHARD HARDING DAVIS + + AUTHOR OF + + "THE WEST FROM A CAR-WINDOW" "GALLEGHER" + "VAN BIBBER AND OTHERS" ETC. + + ILLUSTRATED + + [Illustration: Publisher's Logo] + + NEW YORK + + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + + 1894 + + Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + + _All rights reserved._ + + + TO + + HON. EDWARD C. LITTLE + + EX-DIPLOMATIC-AGENT AND CONSUL-GENERAL + + OF + + THE UNITED STATES TO EGYPT + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAP. PAGE + + I THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR 1 + + II TANGIER 37 + + III FROM GIBRALTAR TO CAIRO 72 + + IV CAIRO AS A SHOW-PLACE 102 + + V THE ENGLISHMEN IN EGYPT 139 + + VI MODERN ATHENS 178 + + VII CONSTANTINOPLE 198 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + ONE OF THE CAMEL CORPS OF EGYPT _Frontispiece_ + + THE MAN FROM DETROIT 5 + + THE ROCK FROM THE BAY 9 + + TYPES 13 + + GIBRALTAR AS SEEN ACROSS THE NEUTRAL GROUND 15 + + AN ENGLISH SENTRY 19 + + A SPANISH SENTRY 21 + + SIGNAL STATION ON THE TOP OF THE ROCK 25 + + CANNONS MASKED BY BUSHES 29 + + TEA IN THE OFFICERS' QUARTERS 33 + + BREAD MERCHANTS AT THE GATE 41 + + SANITARY OUTFIT DUMPING REFUSE OVER THE WALL 47 + + A WOMAN OF TANGIER 53 + + WATER-VENDER AT THE DOOR OF A PRIVATE HOUSE 57 + + A STREET DANCER 63 + + IN THE PRISON 67 + + MALTESE PEDDLERS 75 + + STREET OF SANTA LUCIA, MALTA 79 + + BRINDISI 85 + + PILLAR OF CAESAR AT BRINDISI 89 + + APPROACH TO ISMAILIA BY THE SUEZ CANAL 93 + + STEAM-DREDGE AT WORK IN THE SUEZ CANAL 97 + + BAZAR OF A WORKER IN BRASS 105 + + GROUP OF NATIVES IN FRONT OF SHEPHEARD'S HOTEL 109 + + A BRITISH SQUARE FORMED IN FRONT OF THE PYRAMIDS 117 + + SHADOW OF THE PYRAMID OF CHEOPS 123 + + A SECTION OF THE PYRAMID 129 + + DAHABEEYAHS ON THE NILE BEFORE CAIRO 135 + + EGYPTIAN INFANTRY IN THEIR DIFFERENT UNIFORMS 141 + + RIAZ PASHA, PRIME-MINISTER OF EGYPT 145 + + AN EGYPTIAN LANCER 149 + + TIGRANE PASHA, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS 153 + + A CAMEL CORPS PATROL AT WADI HALFA 157 + + H. H. ABBAS II., KHEDIVE OF EGYPT 161 + + THE GUN MULE OF THE MULE BATTERY 165 + + LORD CROMER, THE ENGLISH DIPLOMATIC AGENT IN EGYPT 169 + + A GUN OF THE MULE BATTERY IN ACTION 173 + + GREEK SOLDIER IN THE NATIONAL (ALBANIAN) UNIFORM 179 + + GREEK PEASANT GIRL 181 + + THE UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS 183 + + ALBANIAN PEASANT WOMAN 186 + + ALBANIAN PEASANT WOMAN 187 + + GREEK PEASANT 188 + + ALBANIAN PEASANT IN THE STREETS OF ATHENS 189 + + POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL 191 + + AN OLD ATHENIAN OF THE PRESENT DAY 194 + + A GREEK SHEPHERD 195 + + GENERAL VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE 201 + + ONE OF THE SULTAN'S PALACES ON THE BOSPORUS 205 + + A FIRE COMPANY OF CONSTANTINOPLE 209 + + STREET DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 215 + + GUARD OF CAVALRY PRECEDING THE SULTAN TO THE MOSQUE 219 + + EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA 225 + +[Illustration: THE RULERS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN] + + + + +I + +THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR + +[Illustration: Gibraltar] + + +If you have always crossed the Atlantic in the spring-time or in the +summer months, as do most tourists, you will find that leaving New York +in the winter is more like a relief expedition to the north pole than +the setting forth on a pleasure tour to the summer shores of the +Mediterranean. + +There is no green grass on the hills of Staten Island, but there is, +instead, a long field of ice stretching far up the Hudson River, and a +wind that cuts into the face, and dashes the spray up over the tugboats +in frozen layers, leaving it there like the icing on a cake. The +Atlantic Highlands are black with bare branches and white with snow, and +you observe for the first time that men who go down to the sea in ships +know nothing of open fireplaces. An icy wind keeps the deck as clear as +a master-at-arms could do it; and sudden storms of snow, which you had +always before associated with streets or fields, and not at all with the +decks of ships, burst over the side, and leave the wood-work wet and +slippery, and cold to the touch. + +And then on the third or fourth day out the sea grows calm, and your +overcoat seems to have taken on an extra lining; and strange people, who +apparently have come on board during the night, venture out on the +sunlit deck and inquire for steamer chairs and mislaid rugs. + +These smaller vessels which run from New York to Genoa are as different +from the big North Atlantic boats, with their twin screws and five +hundred cabin passengers, as a family boarding-house is from a Broadway +hotel. This is so chiefly because you are sailing under a German instead +of an English flag. There is no one so important as an English +captain--he is like a bishop in gold lace; but a German captain +considers his passengers as one large happy family, and treats them as +such, whether they like their new relatives or not. The discipline on +board the _Fulda_ was like that of a ship of war, where the officers and +crew were concerned, but the passengers might have believed they were on +their own private yacht. + +There was music for breakfast, dinner, and tea; music when the fingers +of the trombonist were frozen and when the snow fell upon the taut +surface of the big drum; and music at dawn to tell us it was Sunday, so +that you awoke imagining yourself at church. There was also a ball, and +the captain led an opening march, and the stewards stood at every point +to see that the passengers kept in line, and "rounded up" those who +tried to slip away from the procession. There were speeches, too, at all +times, and lectures and religious services, and on the last night out a +grand triumph of the _chef_, who built wonderful candy goddesses of +Liberty smiling upon the other symbolic lady who keeps watch on the +Rhine, and the band played "Dixie," which it had been told was the +national anthem, and the portrait of the German Emperor smiled down upon +us over his autograph. All this was interesting, because it was +characteristic of the Germans; it showed their childish delight in +little things, and the same simplicity of character which makes the +German soldiers who would not move out of the way of the French bullets +dance around a Christmas-tree. The American or the Englishman will not +do these things, because he has too keen a sense of the ridiculous, and +is afraid of being laughed at. So when he goes to sea he plays poker and +holds auctions on the run. + +There was only one passenger on board who objected to the music. He was +from Detroit, and for the first three days remained lashed to his +steamer chair like a mummy, with nothing showing but a blue nose and +closed eyelids. The band played at his end of the deck, and owing to +the fingers of the players being frozen, and to the sudden lurches of +the ship, the harmony was sometimes destroyed. Those who had an ear for +music picked up their steamer chairs and moved to windward; but this +young man, being half dead and firmly lashed to his place, was unable to +save himself. + +On the morning of the fourth day, when the concert was over and the band +had gone to thaw out, the young man suddenly sat upright and pointed his +forefinger at the startled passengers. We had generally decided that he +was dead. "The Lord knows I'm a sick man," he said, blinking his eyes +feebly; "but if I live till midnight I'll find out where they hide those +horns, and I'll drop 'em into the Gulf Stream, if it takes my dying +breath." He then fell over backwards, and did not speak again until we +reached Gibraltar. + +There is something about the sight of land after one has been a week +without it which supplies a want that nothing else can fill; and it is +interesting to note how careless one is as to its name, or whether it is +pink or pale blue on the maps, or whether it is ruled by a king or a +colonial secretary. It is quite sufficient that it is land. This was +impressed upon me once, on entering New York Harbor, by a young man who +emerged from his deck cabin to discover, what all the other passengers +already knew, that we were in the upper bay. He gave a shout of ecstatic +relief and pleasure. "That," he cried, pointing to the west, "is Staten +Island, but that," pointing to the right, "is LAND." + +The first land you see on going to Gibraltar is the Azores Islands. They +are volcanic and mountainous, and accompany the boat for a day and a +half; but they could be improved if they were moved farther south about +two hundred miles, as one has to get up at dawn to see the best of them. +It is quite warm by this time, and the clothes you wore in New York seem +to belong to a barbarous period and past fashion, and have become heavy +and cumbersome, and take up an unnecessary amount of room in your trunk. + +[Illustration: THE MAN FROM DETROIT] + +And then people tell you that there is land in sight again, and you +find how really far you are from home when you learn that it is +Portugal, and so a part of Europe, and not an island thrown up by a +volcano, or stolen or strayed from its moorings at the mainland. +Portugal is apparently a high red hill, with a round white tower on the +top of it flying signal flags. Its chief industry is the arranging of +these flags by a man. It is, on the whole, a disappointing country. +After this, everybody begins to pack and to exchange visiting-cards; and +those who are to get off at Gibraltar are pursued by stewards and +bandmasters and young men with testimonials that they want signed, and +by the weak in spirit, who, at the eleventh hour, think they will not go +on to Genoa, but will get off here and go on to Tangier, and who want +you to decide for them. And which do you think would pay best, and what +is there to see in Tangier, anyway? And as that is exactly what you are +going to find out, you cannot tell. + +When I left the deck the last night out the stars were all over the +heavens; and the foremast, as it swept slowly from side to side, looked +like a black pendulum upside down marking out the sky and portioning off +the stars. And when I woke there was a great creaking of chains, and I +could see out of my port-hole hundreds of fixed lights and rows and +double rows of lamps, so that you might have thought the ship during the +night had run aground in the heart of a city. + +The first sight of Gibraltar is, I think, disappointing. It means so +much, and so many lives have been given for it, and so many ships have +been sunk by its batteries, and such great powers have warred for twelve +hundred years for its few miles of stone, that its black outline against +the sky, with nothing to measure it with but the fading stars, is +dwarfed and spoiled. It is only after the sun begins to turn the lights +out, and you are able to compare it with the great ships at its base, +and you see the battlements and the mouths of cannon, and the clouds +resting on its top, that you understand it; and then when the outline of +the crouching lion, that faces all Europe, comes into relief, you +remember it is, as they say, the lock to the Mediterranean, of which +England holds the key. And even while you feel this, and are greedily +following the course of each rampart and terrace with eyes that are +tired of blank stretches of water, some one points to a low line of +mountains lying like blue clouds before the red sky of the sunrise, dim, +forbidding, and mysterious--and you know that it is Africa. + +Spain, lying to the right, all green and amethyst, and flippant and gay +with white houses and red roofs, and Gibraltar's grim show of +battlements and war, become somehow of little moment. You feel that you +have known them always, and that they are as you fancied they would be. +But this other land across the water looks as inscrutable, as dark, and +as silent as the Sphinx that typifies it, and you feel that its Pillar +of Hercules still marks the entrance to the "unknown world." + +Nine out of every ten of those who visit Gibraltar for the first time +expect to find an island. It ought to be, and it would be one but for a +strip of level turf half a mile wide and half a mile long which joins it +to the sunny green hills of Spain. But for this bit of land, which they +call "the Neutral Ground," Gibraltar would be an island, for it has the +Mediterranean to the east, a bay, and beyond that the hills of Spain to +the west, and Africa dimly showing fourteen miles across the sea to the +south. + +[Illustration: THE ROCK FROM THE BAY] + +Gibraltar has been besieged thirteen times; by Moors and by Spaniards, +and again by Moors, and again by Spaniards against Spaniards. It was +during one of these wars between two factions in Spain, in 1704, that +the English, who were helping one of the factions, took the Rock, and +were so well pleased with it that they settled there, and have remained +there ever since. If possession is nine points of the law, there was +never a place in the history of the world held with nine as obvious +points. There were three more sieges after the English took Gibraltar, +one of them, the last, continuing for four years. The English were +fighting America at the time, and rowing in the Nile, and so did not do +much towards helping General George Elliot, who was Governor of the Rock +at that time. It would appear to be, as well as one can judge from this +distance, a case of neglect on the part of the mother-country for her +little colony and her six thousand men, very much like her forgetfulness +of Gordon, only Elliot succeeded where Gordon failed (if you can +associate that word with that name), and so no one blamed the home +government for risking what would have been a more serious loss than the +loss of Calais, had Elliot surrendered, and "Gib" gone back to its +rightful owners, that is, the owners who have the one point. The history +of this siege is one of the most interesting of war stories; it is +interesting whether you ever expect to visit Gibraltar or not; it is +doubly interesting when you walk the pretty streets of the Rock to-day, +with its floating population of twenty thousand, and try to imagine the +place held by six thousand half-starved, sick, and wounded soldiers, +living at times on grass and herbs and handfuls of rice, and yet +carrying on an apparently forlorn fight for four years against the +entire army and navy of Spain, and, at the last, against the arms of +France as well. + +We are apt to consider the Gibraltar of to-day as occupying the same +position to the Mediterranean as Queenstown does to the Atlantic, a +place where passengers go ashore while the mails are being taken on +board, and not so much for their interest in the place itself as to +again feel solid earth under their feet. There are passengers who will +tell you on the way out that you can see all there is to be seen there +in three hours. As a matter of fact, one can live in Gibraltar for many +weeks and see something new every day. It struck me as being more +different kinds of a place than any other spot of land I had ever +visited, and one that changed its aspect with every shifting of the +wind, and with each rising and setting of the sun. It is the +clearing-house for three most picturesque peoples--the Moors, in their +yellow slippers and bare legs and voluminous robes and snowy turbans; +the Spaniards, with romantic black capes and cloaks and red sashes, the +women with the lace mantilla and brilliant kerchiefs and pretty faces; +and, mixed with these, the pride and glory of the British army and navy, +in all the bravery of red coats and white helmets, or blue jackets, or +Highland kilts. It is a fortress as imposing as the Tower of London, a +winter resort as pretty as St. Augustine, and a seaport town of free +entry, into which come on every tide people of many nations, and ships +flying every flag. + +[Illustration: A TYPE] + +[Illustration: A TYPE] + +Around its base are the ramparts, like a band of stone and steel; above +them the town, rising like a staircase, with houses for steps--yellow +houses, with light green blinds sticking out at different angles, and +with sloping red roofs meeting other lines of red roofs, and broken by a +carpeting of green where the parks and gardens make an opening in the +yellow front of the town, and from which rise tall palms and palmettoes, +and rows of sea-pines, and fluttering union-jacks which mark the +barracks of a regiment. Above the town is the Rock, covered with a green +growth of scrub and of little trees below, and naked and bare above, +stretching for several miles from north to south, and rearing its great +bulk up into the sky until it loses its summit in the clouds. It is +never twice the same. To-day it may be smiling and resplendent under a +warm, brilliant sun that spreads out each shade of green, and shows each +terrace and rampart as clearly as though one saw it through a glass; the +sky becomes as blue as the sea and the bay, and the white villages of +Spain seem as near to one as the red soldier smoking his pipe on the +mountings half-way up the Rock. And to-morrow the whole top of the Rock +may be lost in a thick curtain of gray clouds, and the waters of the bay +will be tossing and covered with white-caps, and the lands about +disappear from sight as though they had sunk into the sea during the +night and had left you alone on an island. At times a sunset paints the +Rock a martial red, or the moonlight softens it, and you see only the +tall palms and the graceful balconies and the gardens of plants, and +each rampart becomes a terrace and each casemate a balcony. Or at night, +when the lamps are lit, you might imagine yourself on the stage of a +theatre, walking in a scene set for _Fra Diavolo_. + +There are no such streets or houses outside of stage-land. It is only in +stage cities that the pavements and streets are so conspicuously clean, +or that the hanging lamps of beaten iron-work throw such deep shadows, +or that there are such high, heavily carved Moorish doorways and +mysterious twisting stairways in the solid rock, or shops with such +queer signs, or walls plastered with such odd-colored placards--streets +where every footfall echoes, and where dark figures suddenly appear from +narrow alleyways and cry "Halt, there!" at you, and then "All's well" as +you pass by. + +[Illustration: GIBRALTAR AS SEEN ACROSS THE NEUTRAL GROUND] + +Gibraltar has one main street running up and clinging to the side of the +hill from the principal quay to the most southern point of the Rock. +Houses reach up to it from the first level of the ramparts, and continue +on up the hill from its other side. On this street are the bazars of the +Moors, and the English shops and the Spanish cafes, and the cathedral, +and the hotels, and the Governor's house, and every one in Gibraltar is +sure to appear on it at least once in the twenty-four hours. But the +color and tone of the street are military. There are soldiers at every +step--soldiers carrying the mail or bearing reports, or soldiers in bulk +with a band ahead, or soldiers going out to guard the North Front, where +lies the Neutral Ground, or to target practice, or to play football; +soldiers in two or threes, with their sticks under their arms, and their +caps very much cocked, and pipes in their mouths. But these make slow +progress, for there is always an officer in sight--either a boy officer +just out from England riding to the polo field near the Neutral Ground, +or a commanding officer in a black tunic and a lot of ribbons across his +breast, or an officer of the day with his sash and sword; and each of +these has to be saluted. This is an interesting spectacle, and one that +is always new. You see three soldiers coming at you with a quick step, +talking and grinning, alert and jaunty, and suddenly the upper part of +their three bodies becomes rigid, though their legs continue as before, +apparently of their own volition, and their hands go up and their pipes +and grins disappear, and they pass you with eyes set like dead men's +eyes, and palms facing you as though they were trying to learn which way +the wind was blowing. This is due, you discover, to the passing of a +stout gentleman in knickerbockers, who switches his rattan stick in the +air in reply. Sometimes when he salutes the soldier stops altogether, +and so his walks abroad are punctuated at every twenty yards. It takes +an ordinary soldier in Gibraltar one hour to walk ten minutes. + +Everybody walks in the middle of the main street in Gibraltar, because +the sidewalks are only two feet wide, and because all the streets are as +clean as the deck of a yacht. Cabs of yellow wood and diligences with +jangling bells and red worsted harness gallop through this street and +sweep the people up against the wall, and long lines of goats who leave +milk in a natural manner at various shops tangle themselves up with long +lines of little donkeys and longer lines of geese, with which the local +police struggle valiantly. All of these things, troops and goats and +yellow cabs and polo ponies and dog-carts, and priests with +curly-brimmed hats, and baggy-breeched Moors, and huntsmen in pink coats +and Tommies in red, and sailors rolling along in blue, make the main +street of Gibraltar as full of variety as a mask ball. + +Of the Gibraltar militant, the fortress and the key to the +Mediterranean, you can see but the little that lies open to you and to +every one along the ramparts. Of the real defensive works of the place +you are not allowed to have even a guess. The ramparts stretch all along +the western side of the rock, presenting to the bay a high shelving wall +which twists and changes its front at every hundred yards, and in such +an unfriendly way that whoever tried to scale its slippery surface at +one point would have a hundred yards of ramparts on either side of him, +from which two sides gunners and infantry could observe his efforts with +comfort and safety to themselves; and from which, when tired of watching +him slip and scramble, they could and undoubtedly would blow him into +bits. But they would probably save him the trouble of coming so far by +doing that before he left his vessel in the bay. The northern face of +the Rock--that end which faces Spain, and which makes the head of the +crouching lion--shows two long rows of teeth cut in its surface by +convicts of long ago. You are allowed to walk through these dungeons, +and to look down upon the Neutral Ground and the little Spanish town at +the end of its half-mile over the butts of great guns. And you will +marvel not so much at the engineering skill of whoever it was who +planned this defence as at the weariness and the toil of the criminals +who gave up the greater part of their lives to hewing and blasting out +these great galleries and gloomy passages, through which your footsteps +echo like the report of cannon. + +[Illustration: AN ENGLISH SENTRY] + +Lower down, on the outside of this mask of rock, are more ramparts, +built there by man, from which infantry could sweep the front of the +enemy were they to approach from the only point from which a land +attack is possible. The other side of the Rock, that which faces the +Mediterranean, is unfortified, except by the big guns on the very +summit, for no man could scale it, and no ball yet made could shatter +its front. To further protect the north from a land attack there is at +the base of the Rock and below the ramparts a great moat, bridged by an +apparently solid piece of masonry. This roadway, which leads to the +north gate of the fortress--the one which is closed at six each +night--is undermined, and at a word could be blown into pebbles, turning +the moat into a great lake of water, and virtually changing the Rock of +Gibraltar into an island. I never crossed this roadway without wondering +whether the sentry underneath might not be lighting his pipe near the +powder-magazine, and I generally reached the end of it at a gallop. + +[Illustration: A SPANISH SENTRY] + +There is still another protection to the North Front. It is only the +protection which a watch-dog gives at night; but a watch-dog is most +important. He gives you time to sound your burglar-alarm and to get a +pistol from under your pillow. A line of sentries pace the Neutral +Ground, and have paced it for nearly two hundred years. Their +sentry-boxes dot the half-mile of turf, and their red coats move +backward and forward night and day, and any one who leaves the straight +and narrow road crossing the Neutral Ground, and who comes too near, +passes a dead-line and is shot. Facing them, a half-mile off, are the +white adobe sentry-boxes of Spain and another row of sentries, wearing +long blue coats and queer little shakos, and smoking cigarettes. And so +the two great powers watch each other unceasingly across the half-mile +of turf, and say, "So far shall you go, and no farther; this belongs to +me." There is nothing more significant than these two rows of sentries; +you notice it whenever you cross the Neutral Ground for a ride in Spain. +First you see the English sentry, rather short and very young, but very +clean and rigid, and scowling fiercely over the chin strap of his big +white helmet. His shoulder-straps shine with pipe-clay and his boots +with blacking, and his arms are burnished and oily. Taken alone, he is a +little atom, a molecule; but he is complete in himself, with his food +and lodging on his back, and his arms ready to his hand. He is one of a +great system that obtains from India to Nova Scotia, and from Bermuda to +Africa and Australia; and he shows that he knows this in the way in +which he holds up his chin and kicks out his legs as he tramps back and +forward guarding the big rock at his back. And facing him, half a mile +away, you will see a tall handsome man seated on a stone, with the tails +of his long coat wrapped warmly around his legs, and with his gun +leaning against another rock while he rolls a cigarette; and then, with +his hands in his pockets, he gazes through the smoke at the sky above +and the sea on either side, and wonders when he will be paid his peseta +a day for fighting and bleeding for his country. This helps to make you +understand how six thousand half-starved Englishmen held Gibraltar for +four years against the army of Spain. + +This is about all that you can see of Gibraltar as a fortress. You hear, +of course, of much more, and you can guess at a great deal. Up above, +where the Signal Station is, and where no one, not even an officer in +uniform not engaged on the works, is allowed to go, are the real +fortifications. What looks like a rock is a monster gun painted gray, or +a tree hides the mouth of another. And in this forbidden territory are +great cannon which are worked from the lowest ramparts. These are the +present triumphs of Gibraltar. Before they came, the clouds which shut +out the sight of the Rock as well as the rest of the world from its +summit rendered the great pieces of artillery there as useless in bad +weather as they are harmless in times of peace. The very elements +threatened to war against the English, and a shower of rain or a veering +wind might have altered the fortunes of a battle. But a clever man named +Watkins has invented a position-finder, by means of which those on the +lowest ramparts, well out of the clouds, can aim the great guns on the +summit at a vessel unseen by the gunners lost in the mist above, and by +electricity fire a shot from a gun a half-mile above them so that it +will strike an object many miles off at sea. It will be a very strange +sensation to the captain of such a vessel when he finds her bombarded by +shells that belch forth from a drifting cloud. + +No stranger has really any idea of the real strength of this fortress, +or in what part of it its real strength lies. Not one out of ten of its +officers knows it. Gibraltar is a grand and grim practical joke; it is +an armed foe like the army in _Macbeth_, who came in the semblance of a +wood, or like the wooden horse of Troy that held the pick of the enemy's +fighting-men. What looks like a solid face of rock is a hanging curtain +that masks a battery; the blue waters of the bay are treacherous with +torpedoes; and every little smiling village of Spain has been marked +down for destruction, and has had its measurements taken as accurately +as though the English batteries had been playing on it already for many +years. The Rock is undermined and tunnelled throughout, and food and +provisions are stored away in it to last a siege of seven years. +Telephones and telegraphs, signal stations for flagging, search-lights, +and other such devilish inventions, have been planted on every point, +and only the Governor himself knows what other modern improvements have +been introduced into the bowels of this mountain or distributed behind +bits of landscape gardening on its surface. + +On the 25th of February, at half-past ten in the morning, three guns +were fired in rapid succession from the top of the Rock, and the windows +shook. Three guns mean that Gibraltar is about to be attacked by a fleet +of war-ships, and that "England expects every man to do his duty." So I +went out to see him do it. Men were running through the streets trailing +their guns, and officers were galloping about pulling at their gloves, +and bodies of troops were swinging along at a double-quick, which always +makes them look as though they were walking in tight boots, and bugles +were calling, and groups of men, black and clearly cut against the sky, +were excitedly switching the air with flags from every jutting rock and +every rampart of the garrison. + +[Illustration: SIGNAL STATION ON THE TOP OF THE ROCK] + +Behind the ramparts, quite out of sight of the vessels in the bay, were +many hundreds of infantrymen with rifles in hand, and only waiting for a +signal to appear above the coping of the wall to empty their guns into +the boats of the enemy. The enlisted men, who enjoy this sort of play, +were pleased and interested; the officers were almost as calm as they +would be before a real enemy, and very much bored at being called out +and experimented with. The real object of the preparation for defence +that morning was to learn whether the officers at different points +could communicate with the Governor as he rode rapidly from one spot +to another. This was done by means of flags, and although the officer +who did the flagging for the Governor's party had about as much as he +could do to keep his horse on four legs, the experiment was most +successful. It was a very pretty and curious sight to see men talking a +mile away to a party of horsemen going at full gallop. + +The life of a subaltern of the British army, who belongs to a smart +regiment, and who is stationed at such a post as Gibraltar, impresses +you as being as easy and satisfactory a state of existence as a young +and unmarried man could ask. He has always the hope that some day--any +day, in fact--he will have a chance to see active service, and so serve +his country and distinguish his name. And while waiting for this chance +he enjoys the good things the world brings him with a clear conscience. +He has duties, it is true, but they did not strike me as being wearing +ones, or as threatening nervous prostration. As far as I could see, his +most trying duty was the number of times a day he had to change his +clothes, and this had its ameliorating circumstance in that he each time +changed into a more gorgeous costume. There was one youth whom I saw in +four different suits in two hours. When I first noticed him he was +coming back from polo, in boots and breeches; then he was directing the +firing of a gun, with a pill-box hat on the side of his head, a large +pair of field-glasses in his hand, and covered by a black and red +uniform that fitted him like a jersey. A little later he turned up at a +tennis party at the Governor's in flannels; and after that he came back +there to dine in the garb of every evening. When the subaltern dines at +mess he wears a uniform which turns that of the First City Troop into +what looks in comparison like a second-hand and ready-made garment. The +officers of the 13th Somerset Light Infantry wore scarlet jackets at +dinner, with high black silk waistcoats bordered with two inches of gold +lace. The jackets have gold buttons sewed along every edge that presents +itself, and offer glorious chances for determining one's future by +counting "poor man, rich man, beggar-man, thief." When eighteen of these +jackets are placed around a table, the chance civilian feels and looks +like an undertaker. + +Dining at mess is a very serious function in a British regiment. At +other times her Majesty's officers have a reticent air; but at dinner, +when you are a guest, or whether you are a guest or not, there is an +intent to please and to be pleased which is rather refreshing. + +We have no regimental headquarters in America, and owing to our officers +seeking promotion all over the country, the regimental _esprit de corps_ +is lacking. But in the English army regimental feeling is very strong; +father and son follow on in the same regiment, and now that they are +naming them for the counties from which they are recruited, they are +becoming very close corporations indeed. At mess the traditions of the +regiment come into play, and you can learn then of the actions in which +it has been engaged from the engravings and paintings around the walls, +and from the silver plate on the table and the flags stacked in the +corner. + +[Illustration: CANNONS MASKED BY BUSHES] + +When a man gets his company he presents the regiment with a piece of +plate, or a silver inkstand, or a picture, or something which +commemorates a battle or a man, and so the regimental headquarters are +always telling a story of what has been in the past and inspiring fine +deeds for the future. Each regiment has its peculiarity of uniform or +its custom at mess, which is distinctive to it, and which means more the +longer it is observed. Those in authority are trying to do away with +these signs and differences in equipment, and are writing themselves +down asses as they do so. + +You will notice, for instance, if you are up in such things, that the +sergeants of the 13th Light Infantry wear their sashes from the left +shoulder to the right hip, as officers do, and not from the right +shoulder, as sergeants should. This means that once in a great battle +every officer of the 13th was killed, and the sergeants, finding this +out, and that they were now in command, changed their sashes to the +other shoulder. And the officers ever after allowed them to do this, as +a tribute to their brothers in command who had so conspicuously +obliterated themselves and distinguished their regiment. There are other +traditions, such as that no one must mention a woman's name at mess, +except the title of one woman, to which they rise and drink at the end +of the dinner, when the sergeant gives the signal to the band-master +outside, and his men play the national anthem, while the bandmaster +comes in, as Mr. Kipling describes him in "The Drums of the Fore and +Aft," and "takes his glass of port-wine with the orfficers." The +Sixtieth, or the Royal Rifles, for instance, wear no marks of rank at +the mess, in order to express the idea that there they are all equal. +This regiment had once for its name the King's American Rifles, and +under that name it took Quebec and Montreal, and I had placed in front +of me at mess one night a little silver statuette in the equipment of a +Continental soldier, except that his coat, if it had been colored, +would have been red, and not blue. He was dated 1768. In the mess-room +are pictures of the regiment swarming over the heights of Quebec, +storming the walls of Delhi, and running the gauntlet up the Nile as +they pressed forward to save Gordon. All of this goes to make a +subaltern feel things that are good for him to feel. + +Every day at Gibraltar there is tennis, and bands playing in the +Alameda, and parades, or riding-parties across the Neutral Ground into +Spain, and teas and dinners, at which the young ladies of the place +dance Spanish dances, and twice a week the members of the Calpe Hunt +meet in Spain, and chase foxes across the worst country that any +Englishman ever rode over in pink. There are no fences, but there are +ravines and canyons and precipices, down and up and over which the horses +scramble and jump, and over which they will, if the rider leaves them +alone, bring him safely. + +And if you lose the rest of the field, you can go to an old Spanish inn +like that which Don Quixote visited, with drunken muleteers in the +court-yard, and the dining-room over the stable, and with beautiful +dark-eyed young women to give you omelet and native wine and black +bread. Or, what is as amusing, you can stop in at the officer's +guard-room at the North Front, and cheer that gentleman's loneliness by +taking tea with him, and drying your things before his fire while he +cuts the cake, and the women of the party straighten their hats in +front of his glass, and two Tommies go off for hot water. + +There was a very entertaining officer guarding the North Front one +night, and he proved so entertaining that neither of us heard the sunset +gun, and so when I reached the gate I found it locked, and the bugler of +the guard who take the keys to the Governor each night was sounding his +bugle half-way up the town. There was a dark object on a wall to which I +addressed all my arguments and explanations, which the object met with +repeated requests to "move on, now," in the tone of expostulation with +which a London policeman addresses a very drunken man. + +[Illustration: TEA IN THE OFFICERS' QUARTERS] + +I knew that if I tried to cross the Neutral Ground I would be shot at +for a smuggler; for, owing to Gibraltar's being a free port of entry, +these gentlemen buy tobacco there, and carry it home each night, or run +it across the half-mile of Neutral Ground strapped to the backs of dogs. +So I wandered back again to the entertaining officer, and he was filled +with remorse, and sent off a note of entreaty to his Excellency's +representative, to whom he referred as a D. A. A. G., and whose name, he +said, was Jones. We then went to the mess of the officers guarding the +different approaches, and these gentlemen kindly offered me their own +beds, proposing that they themselves should sleep on three chairs and a +pile of overcoats; all except one subaltern, who excused his silence by +saying diffidently that he fancied I would not care to sleep in the +fever camp, of which he had charge. I had seen the officer of the +keys pass every night, and the guards turn out to salute the keys, and I +had rather imagined that it was more or less of a form, and that the +pomp and circumstance were all there was of it. I did not believe that +the Rock was really closed up at night like a safe with a combination +lock. But I know now that it is. A note came back from the mysterious D. +A. A. G. saying I could be admitted at eleven; but it said nothing at +all about sentries, nor did the entertaining officer. Subalterns always +say "Officer" when challenged, and the sentry always murmurs, "Pass, +officer, and all's well," in an apologetic growl. But I suppose I did +not say "Officer" as I had been told to do, with any show of confidence, +for every sentry who appeared that night--and there seemed to be a +regiment of them--would not have it at all, and wanted further data, and +wanted it quick. Even if you have an order from a D. A. A. G. named +Jones, it is very difficult to explain about it when you don't know +whether to speak of him as the D. A. A. G. or as General Jones, and +especially when a young and inexperienced shadow is twisting his gun +about so that the moonlight plays up and down the very longest bayonet +ever issued by a civilized nation. They were not nice sentries, either, +like those on the Rock, who stand where you can see them, and who +challenge you drowsily, like cabmen, and make the empty streets less +lonely than otherwise. + +They were, on the contrary, fierce and in a terrible hurry, and had a +way of jumping out of the shadow with a rattle of the gun and a shout +that brought nerve-storms in successive shocks. To make it worse, I had +gone over the post, while waiting for word from the D. A. A. G., to hear +the sentries recite their instructions to the entertaining officer. They +did this rather badly, I thought, the only portion of the rules, indeed, +which they seemed to have by heart being those which bade them not to +allow cows to trespass "without a permit," which must have impressed +them by its humor, and the fact that when approached within fifty yards +they were "to fire low." I found when challenged that night that this +was the only part of their instructions that I also could remember. + +This was the only trying experience of my stay in Gibraltar, and it is +brought in here as a compliment to the force that guards the North +Front. For of them, and the rest of the inhabitants and officers of the +garrison, any one who visits there can only think well; and I hope when +the Rock is attacked, as it never will be, that they will all cover +themselves with glory. It never will be attacked, for the reason that +the American people are the only people clever enough to invent a way of +taking it, and they are far too clever to attempt an impossible thing. + + + + +II + +TANGIER + + +A great many thousand years ago Hercules built the mountain of Abyla and +its twin mountain which we call Gibraltar. It was supposed to mark the +limits of the unknown world, and it would seem from casual inspection, +as I suggested in the last chapter, that it serves the same purpose to +this day. Men have crept into Africa and crept out again, like flies +over a ceiling, and they have gained much renown at Africa's expense for +having done so. They have built little towns along its coasts, and run +little rocking, bumping railroads into its forests, and dragged launches +over its cataracts, and partitioned it off among emperors and powers and +trading companies, without having ventured into the countries they +pretend to have subdued. But from Paul du Chaillu to W. A. Chanler, "the +Last Explorer," as he has been called, just how much more do we know of +Africa than did the Romans whose bridges still stand in Tangier? + +The "Last Explorer" sounds well, and is distinctly a _mot_, but there +will be other explorers to go, and perhaps to return. There are still a +few things for us to learn. The Spaniards and the Pilgrim fathers +touched the unknown world of America only four hundred years ago, and +to-day any commercial traveller can tell you, with the aid of an A B C +railroad guide, the name of every town in any part of it. But Turks and +Romans and Spaniards, and, of late, English and Germans and French, have +been pecking and nibbling at Africa like little mice around a cheese, +and they are still nibbling at the rind, and know as little of the +people they "protect," and of the countries they have annexed and +colonized, as did Hannibal and Scipio. The American forests have been +turned into railroad ties and telegraph poles, and the American Indian +has been "exterminated" or taught to plough and to wear a high hat. The +cowboy rides freely over the prairies; the Indian agent cheats the +Indian--the Indian does not cheat him; the Germans own Milwaukee and +Cincinnati; the Irish rule everywhere; even the much-abused Chinaman +hangs out his red sign in every corner of the country. There is not a +nation of the globe that has not its hold upon and does not make +fortunes out of the continent of America; but the continent of Africa +remains just as it was, holding back its secret, and still content to be +the unknown world. + +You need not travel far into Africa to learn this; you can find out how +little we know of it at its very shore. This city of Tangier, lying but +three hours off from Gibraltar's civilization, on the nearest coast of +Africa, can teach you how little we or our civilized contemporaries +understand of these barbarians and of their barbarous ways. + +A few months since England sent her ambassador to treat with the Sultan +of Morocco; it was an untaught blackamoor opposed to a diplomat and a +gentleman, and a representative of the most civilized and powerful of +empires; and we have Stephen Bonsal's picture of this ambassador and his +suite riding back along the hot, sandy trail from Fez, baffled and +ridiculed and beaten. So that when I was in Tangier, half-naked Moors, +taking every white stranger for an Englishman, would point a finger at +me and cry, "Your Sultana a fool; the Sultan only wise." Which shows +what a superior people we are when we get away from home, and how well +the English understand the people they like to protect. + +Tangier lies like a mass of drifted snow on the green hills below, and +over the point of rock on which stands its fortress, and from which +waves the square red flag of Morocco. It is a fine place spoiled by +civilization. And not a nice quality of civilization either. Back of it, +in Tetuan or Fez, you can understand what Tangier once was and see the +Moor at his best. There he lives in the exclusiveness which his religion +teaches him is right--an exclusiveness to which the hauteur of an +Englishman, and his fear that some one is going to speak to him on +purpose, become a gracious manner and suggest undue familiarity. You see +the Moor at his best in Tangier too, but he is never in his complete +setting as he is in the inland cities, for when you walk abroad in +Tangier you are constantly brought back to the new world by the presence +and abodes of the foreign element; a French shop window touches a bazar, +and a Moor in his finest robes is followed by a Spaniard in his black +cape or an Englishman in a tweed suit, for the Englishman learns nothing +and forgets nothing. He may live in Tangier for years, but he never +learns to wear a burnoose, or forgets to put on the coat his tailor has +sent him from home as the latest in fashion. The first thing which meets +your eye on entering the harbor at Tangier is an immense blue-and-white +enamel sign asking you to patronize the English store for groceries and +provisions. It strikes you as much more barbarous than the Moors who +come scrambling over the vessel's side. + +[Illustration: BREAD MERCHANTS AT THE GATE] + +They come with a rush and with wild yells before the little steamer has +stopped moving, and remind you of their piratical ancestors. They look +quite as fierce, and as they throw their brown bare legs over the +bulwarks and leap and scramble, pushing and shouting in apparently the +keenest stage of excitement and rage, they only need long knives between +their teeth and a cutlass to convince you that you are at the mercy +of the Barbary pirates, and not merely of hotel porters and guides. + +My guide was a Moor named Mahamed. I had him about a week, or rather, to +speak quite correctly, he had me. I do not know how he effected my +capture, but he went with me, I think, because no one else would have +him, and he accordingly imposed on my good-nature. As we say a man is +"good-natured" when there is absolutely nothing else to be said for him, +I hope when I say this that I shall not be accused of trying to pay +myself a compliment. Mahamed was a tall Moor, with a fine array of +different-colored robes and coats and undercoats, and a large white +turban around his fez, which marked the fact that he was either married +or that he had made a pilgrimage to Mecca. He followed me from morning +until night, with the fidelity of a lamb, and with its sheeplike +stupidity. No amount of argument or money or abuse could make him leave +my side. Mahamed was not even picturesque, for he wore a large pair of +blue spectacles and Congress gaiters. This hurt my sense of the fitness +of things very much. His idea of serving me was to rush on ahead and +shove all the little donkeys and blind beggars and children out of my +way, at which the latter would weep, and I would have to go back and +bribe them into cheerfulness again. In this way he made me most +unpopular with the masses, and cost me a great deal in trying to buy +their favor. I was never so completely at the mercy of any one before, +and I hope he found me "intelligent, courteous, and a good linguist." + +As a matter of fact, there is very little need of a guide in Tangier. It +has but few show places, for the place itself is the show. You can find +your best entertainment in picking your way through its winding, narrow +streets, and in wandering about the open market-places. The highways of +Tangier are all very crooked and very steep. They are also very uneven +and dirty, and one walks sometimes for hundreds of yards in a maze of +dark alleys and little passageways walled in by whitewashed walls, and +sheltered from the sun by archways and living-rooms hanging from one +side of the street to the other. Green and blue doorways, through which +one must stoop to enter, open in from the street, and you are constantly +hearing them shut as you pass, as some of the women of the household +recognize the presence of a foreigner. You are never quite sure as to +what you will meet in the streets or what may be displayed at your elbow +before the doors of the bazars. The odors of frying meat and of fresh +fruit and of herbs, and of soap in great baskets, and of black coffee +and hasheesh, come to you from cafes and tiny shops hardly as big as a +packing-box. These are shut up at night by two half-doors, of which the +upper one serves as a shield from the sun by day and the lower as a pair +of steps. In the wider streets are the bazars, magnificent with color +and with the glitter of gold lace and of brass plaques and silver +daggers; handsome, comfortable-looking Moors sit crossed-legged in the +middle of their small extent like soldiers in a sentry-box, and speak +leisurely with their next-door neighbor without gesture, unless they +grow excited over a bargain, and with a haughty contempt for the passing +Christian. There is always something beneficial in feeling that you are +thoroughly despised; and when a whole community combines to despise you, +and looks over your head gravely as you pass, you begin to feel that +those Moors who do not apparently hold you in contempt are a very poor +and middle-class sort of people, and you would much prefer to be +overlooked by a proud Moor than shaken hands with by a perverted one. +But the pride of the rich Moorish gentlemen is nothing compared to the +fanatic intolerance of the poor farmers from the country of the tribes +who come in on market-day, and who hate the Christian properly as the +Koran tells them they should. They stalk through the narrow street with +both eyes fixed on a point far ahead of them, with head and shoulders +erect and arms swinging. They brush against you as though you were a +camel or a horse, and had four legs on which to stand instead of two. +Sometimes a foreigner forgets that these men from the desert, where the +foreign element has not come, are following out the religious training +of a lifetime, and strikes at one of them with his riding-whip, and then +takes refuge in a consulate and leaves on the next boat. + +I find it very hard not to sympathize with the Moors. The Englishman is +always preaching that an Englishman's house is his castle, and yet he +invades this country, he and his French and Spanish and American +cousins, and demands that not only he shall be treated well, but that +any native of the country, any subject of the Sultan, who chooses to +call himself an American or an Englishman shall be protected too. Of +course he knows that he is not wanted there; he knows he is forcing +himself on the barbarian, and that all the barbarian has ever asked of +him is to be let alone. But he comes, and he rides around in his baggy +breeches and varnished boots, and he gets up polo games and cricket +matches, and gallops about in a pink coat after foxes, and asks for +bitter ale, and complains because he cannot get his bath, and all the +rest of it, quite as if he had been begged to come and to stop as long +as he liked. Sometimes you find a foreigner who tries to learn something +of these people, a man like the late Mr. Leared or "Bebe" Carleton, who +can speak all their dialects, and who has more power with the Sultan +than has any foreign minister, and who, if the Sultan will not pay you +for the last shipment of guns you sent him, or for the grand-piano for +the harem, is the man to get you your money. But the average foreign +resident, as far as I can see, neither adopts the best that the Moor has +found good, nor introduces what the Moor most needs, and what he does +not know or care enough about to introduce for himself. Tangier, for +instance, is excellently adapted by nature for the purposes of good +sanitation, but the arrangements are as bad and primitive as they were +before a foreigner came into the place. They consist in dumping the +refuse of the streets, into which everything is thrown, over the +sea-wall out on the rocks below, where the pigs gather up what they +want, and the waves wash the remainder back on the coast. + +[Illustration: SANITARY OUTFIT DUMPING REFUSE OVER THE WALL] + +If some of the foreign ministers would use their undoubted influence +with the Bashaw to amend this, instead of introducing point-to-point +pony races, they might in time show some reason for their invasion of +Morocco other than the curious and obvious one that they all grow rich +there while doing nothing. The foreign resident has a very great +contempt for the Moor. He says the Moor is a great liar and a rogue. +When people used to ask Walter Scott if it was he who wrote the Waverley +Novels he used to tell them it was not, and he excused this afterwards +by saying that if you are asked an impertinent or impossible question +you have the right not to answer it or to tell an untruth. The very +presence of the foreigner is an impertinence in the eyes of the Moor, +and so he naturally does not feel severe remorse when he baffles the +foreign invader, and does it whenever he can. + +As a matter of fact, the foreign invader at Tangier is not, in a number +of cases, in a position in which he can gracefully throw down gauntlets. +There is something about these hot, raw countries, hidden out of the way +of public opinion and police courts and the respectability which drives +a gig, that makes people forget the rules and axioms laid down in the +temperate zone for the guidance of tax-payers and all reputable +citizens. As the sailors say, "There is no Sunday south of the equator." +It is hard to tell just what it is, but the sun, or the example of the +barbarians, or the fact that the world is so far away, breeds queer +ideas, and one hears stories one would not care to print as long as the +law of libel obtains in the land. You have often read in novels, +especially French novels, or have heard men on the stage say: "Come, let +us leave this place, with its unjust laws and cruel bigotry. We will go +to some unknown corner of the earth, where we will make a new home. And +there, under a new flag and a new name, we will forget the sad past, and +enter into a new world of happiness and content." + +When you hear a man on the stage say that, you can make up your mind +that he is going to Tangier. It may be that he goes there with somebody +else's money, or somebody else's wife, or that he has had trouble with a +check; or, as in the case of one young man who was feted and dined +there, had robbed a diamond store in Brooklyn, and is now in Sing Sing; +or, as in the case of a recent American consul, had sold his protection +for two hundred dollars to any one who wanted it, and was recalled under +several clouds. And you hear stories of ministers who retire after +receiving an income of a few hundred pounds a year with two hundred +thousand dollars they have saved out of it, and of cruelty and bursts of +sudden passion that would undoubtedly cause a lynching in the chivalric +and civilized states of Alabama or Tennessee. And so when I heard why +several of the people of Tangier had come there, and why they did not +go away again, I began to feel that the barbarian, whose forefathers +swept Spain and terrorized the whole of Catholic Europe, had more reason +than he knew for despising the Christian who is waiting to give to his +country the benefits of civilization. + +Tangier's beauty lies in so many different things--in the monk-like garb +of the men and in the white muffled figures of the women; in the +brilliancy of its sky, and of the sea dashing upon the rocks and +tossing the feluccas with their three-cornered sails from side to side; +and in the green towers of the mosques, and the listless leaves of the +royal palms rising from the centre of a mass of white roofs; and, above +all, in the color and movement of the bazars and streets. The streets +represent absolute equality. They are at the widest but three yards +across, and every one pushes, and apparently every one has something to +sell, or at least something to say, for they all talk and shout at once, +and cry at their donkeys or abuse whoever touches them. A water-carrier, +with his goat-skin bag on his back and his finger on the tube through +which the water comes, jostles you on one side, and a slave as black and +shiny as a patent-leather boot shoves you on the other as he makes way +for his master on a fine white Arabian horse with brilliant trappings +and a huge contempt for the donkeys in his way. It is worth going to +Tangier if for no other reason than to see a slave, and to grasp the +fact that he costs anywhere from a hundred to five hundred dollars. To +the older generation this may not seem worth while, but to the present +generation--those of it who were born after Richmond was taken--it is a +new and momentous sensation to look at a man as fine and stalwart and +human as one of your own people, and feel that he cannot strike for +higher wages, or even serve as a parlor-car porter or own a barbershop, +but must work out for life the two hundred dollars his owner paid for +him at Fez. + +There is more movement in Tangier than I have ever noticed in a place of +its size. Every one is either looking on cross-legged from the bazars +and coffee-shops, or rushing, pushing, and screaming in the street. It +is most bewildering; if you turn to look after a particularly +magnificent Moor, or a half-naked holy man from the desert with wild +eyes and hair as long as a horse's mane, you are trodden upon by a +string of donkeys carrying kegs of water, or pushed to one side by a +soldier with a gun eight feet long. + +There is something continually interesting in the muffled figures of the +women. They make you almost ashamed of the uncovered faces of the +American women in the town; and, in the lack of any evidence to the +contrary, you begin to believe every Moorish woman or girl you meet is +as beautiful as her eyes would make it appear that she is. Those of the +Moorish girls whose faces I saw were distinctly handsome; they were the +women Benjamin Constant paints in his pictures of Algiers, and about +whom Pierre Loti goes into ecstasies in his book on Tangier. Their robe +or cloak, or whatever the thing is that they affect, covers the head +like a hood, and with one hand they hold one of its folds in front of +the face as high as their eyes, or keep it in place by biting it between +their teeth. + +The only time that I ever saw the face of any of them was when I +occasionally eluded Mahamed and ran off with a little guide called +Isaac, the especial protector of two American women, who farmed him out +to me when they preferred to remain in the hotel. He is a particularly +beautiful youth, and I noticed that whenever he was with me the cloaks +of the women had a fashion of coming undone, and they would lower them +for an instant and look at Isaac, and then replace them severely upon +the bridge of the nose. Then Isaac would turn towards me with a shy +conscious smile and blush violently. Isaac says that the young men of +Tangier can tell whether or not a girl is pretty by looking at her feet. +It is true that their feet are bare, but it struck me as being a +somewhat reckless test for selecting a bride. I will recommend Isaac to +whoever thinks of going to Tangier. He speaks eight languages, is +eighteen years old, wears beautiful and barbarous garments, and is +always happy. He is especially good at making bargains, and he +entertained me for many half-hours while I sat and watched him fighting +over two dollars more or less with the proprietors of the bazars. He was +an antagonist worthy of the oldest and proudest Moor in Tangier. He had +no respect for their rage or their contempt or their proffered bribes or +their long white beards. Sometimes he would laugh them to scorn--them +and their prices; and again he would talk to them sadly and plaintively; +and again he would stamp and rage and slap his hands at them and rush +off with a great show of disgust, until they called him back again, when +he and they would go over the performance once more with unabated +interest. Mahamed always paid them what they asked, and got his +commission from them later, as a guide should; but Isaac would storm and +finally beat them down one-half. Isaac can be found at the Calpe Hotel, +and is welcome to whatever this notice may be worth to him. + +[Illustration: A WOMAN OF TANGIER] + +I had read in books on Morocco and had been given to understand that +when you were told that the price of anything in a bazar was worth three +dollars, you should offer one, and that then the Moor would cry aloud to +Allah to take note of the insult, and would ask you to sit down and have +a cup of coffee, and that he would then beat you up and you would beat +him down, and that at the end of two or three hours you would get what +you wanted for two dollars. It struck me that this, if one had several +months to spare and wanted anything badly enough, might be rather +amusing. The first thing I saw that I wanted badly was a long gun, for +which the Moor asked me twelve dollars. I offered him eight. I then +waited to see him tear his beard and unwrap his turban and cry aloud to +Allah; but he did none of these things. He merely put the gun back in +its place and continued the conversation, which I had so flippantly +interrupted, with a long-bearded friend. And no further remarks on my +part affected him in the least, and I was forced to go away feeling very +much ashamed and very mean. The next day a man at the hotel brought in +the gun, having paid fourteen dollars for it, and said he would not sell +it for fifty. We would pay much more than that for it at home, which +shows that you cannot always follow guide-books. + +There are only five things the guides take you to see in Tangier--the +cafe chantant, the governor's palace, the prisons, and the harem, to +which men are not admitted. They also take you to see the markets, but +you can see them for yourself. The markets are bare, open places covered +with stones and lined with bazars, and on market-days peopled with +thousands of muffled figures selling or trying to sell herbs and eggs +and everything else that is eatable, from dates to haunches of mutton. +It is a wonderfully picturesque sight, with the sun trickling through +the palm-leaf mats overhead on the piles of yellow melons at your feet, +and with strings of camels dislocating their countenances over their +grain, and dancing-men and snake-charmers and story-tellers, as eloquent +as actors, clamoring on every side. + +The cafe chantant is a long room lined with mats, and with rugs +scattered over the floor, on which sit musicians and the regular +customers of the place, who play cards and smoke long pipes, with which +they rap continually on the tin ash-holders. The music is very strange, +to say the least, and the singing very startling, full of sudden pauses, +and beginning again after one of these when you think the song is over. +It is not a particularly exciting place to visit, but there is no choice +between that and the hotel smoking-room. Tangier is not a town where one +can move about much at night. There is also a place where the guests +tell you that you can see Moorish women dance the dance which so +startled Paris in the Algerian exhibit at the exposition. As I had no +desire to be startled in that way again, I did not go to see them, and +so cannot say what they are like. But it is quite safe to say that any +visitor to Tangier who thinks he is seeing anything that is real and +native to the home life of the people, and that is not a show gotten up +by the guides, is going to be greatly taken in. The harem to which they +lead women is not a harem at all, but the home of the widow of an +ex-governor, who sits with her daughters for strange women to look at. +It is a most undignified proceeding on the part of the widow of a dead +Bashaw, and no one but the guides know what she is doing. I came to +find out about it through some American women who went there with Isaac +in the morning, and were taken to call at the same place by an English +lady resident in the afternoon. The English woman laughed at them for +thinking they had seen the interior of a harem, and they did not tell +her that they had already visited her friends and paid their franc for +admittance to their society. + +The other show places are the governor's palace and the prisons. The +palace is a very handsome Moorish building, and the prisons are very +dirty. All that the tourist can see of them is the little he can discern +through a hole cut in the stout wooden door of each, which is the only +exit and entrance. You cannot see much even then, for the prisoners, as +soon as they discover a face at the opening, stick it full of the +palm-leaf baskets that they make and sell in order to buy food. The +government gives them neither water, which is expensive in Tangier, nor +bread, unless they are dying for want of it, but expects the family or +friends of each criminal to see that he is kept alive until he has +served out his term of imprisonment. + +[Illustration: WATER-VENDER AT THE DOOR OF A PRIVATE HOUSE] + +A great deal has been written about these prisons of the Sultan, and of +the cruelty shown to the inmates, notably of late by a Mr. Mackenzie in +the London _Times_. You are told that in Tangier, within the four square +walls of the prison, there are madmen and half-starved murderers and +rebels, loaded with chains, dying of disease and want, who are +tortured and starved until they die. For this reason no one in Morocco +is sentenced for more than ten or twelve years, so you are told, because +he is sure to die before that time has expired. It seemed to me that if +this were true it would be worth while to visit the prison and to tell +what one saw there. When I was informed that, with the exception of two +residents of Tangier, no one has been allowed to enter the Sultan's +prison for the last _ten years_, I suspected that there must be +something there which the Sultan did not want seen: it was not a +difficult deduction to make. So I set about getting into the prison. It +is not at all necessary to go into the details of my endeavors, or to +tell what proposals I made; it is quite sufficient to say that in every +way I was eminently unsuccessful. It was interesting, however, to find a +people to whom the arguments and inducements which had proved effective +with one's own countrymen were foolish and incomprehensible. For two +days I haunted the outer walls of the prison, and was smiled upon +contemptuously by the Bashaw's counsellors, who sat calmly in the cool +hallway of the palace, and watched me kicking impatiently at the stones +in the court-yard and broiling in the sun, while the governor or Bashaw +returned me polite expressions of his regret. I finally dragged the +Consul-General into it, and brought things to such a pass that I could +see no way out of it but my admittance to the prison or a declaration of +war from the United States. + +Either event seemed to promise exciting and sensational developments. +Colonel Mathews, the Consul-General, did not, however, share my views, +but arranged that I should have an audience with the Bashaw, during the +course of which he promised he would bring up the question of my +admittance to the prison. + +On board the _Fulda_, I had had the pleasure of sitting at table next to +the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Field, the editor of the _Evangelist_, and a +distinguished traveller in many lands. While on the steamer I had +twitted the doctor with not having seen certain phases of life with +which, it seemed to me, he should be more familiar, and I offered, on +finding we were making the same tour for the same purpose, to introduce +him to bull-fights and pig-sticking and cafes chantants, and other +incidents of foreign travel, of which he seemed to be ignorant. He +refused my offer with dignity, but I think with some regret. I was, +nevertheless, glad to find that he was in Tangier, and that he was to be +one of the party to call at the governor's palace. On learning of my +desire to visit the prison Dr. Field added his petition to mine, and I +am quite sure that Colonel Mathews wished we were both in the United +States. + +We first called upon the Sultan's Minister of Foreign Affairs, who +received us in a little room leading from a pretty portico near the +street entrance. It was furnished, I was pained to note, not with divans +and rugs, but with a set of red plush and walnut sofas and chairs, such +as you would find in the salon of a third-rate French hotel. The +Minister of Foreign Affairs was a dear, kindly old gentleman, with a +fine white beard down to his waist, but he had a cold in his head, and +this kept him dabbing at his nose with a red bandanna handkerchief +rolled up in a ball, which was not in keeping with the rest of his +costume, nor with the dignity of his appearance. He and Dr. Field got on +very well; they found out that they were both seventy years of age, and +both highly esteemed in their different churches. Indeed, the Minister +of Foreign Affairs was good enough to say, through Colonel Mathews, that +Dr. Field had a good face, and one that showed he had led a religious +life. He rather neglected me, and I was out of it, especially when both +the doctor and the cabinet minister began hoping that Allah would bless +them both. I thought it most unorthodox language for Dr. Field to use. + +We then walked up the hill upon which stand the fort, the prisons, the +treasury, and the governor's palace, and were received at the entrance +to the latter by the same gentlemen who had for the last two days been +enjoying my discomfiture. They were now most gracious in their manner, +and bowed proudly and respectfully to Colonel Mathews as we passed +between two rows of them and entered the hall of the palace. We went +through three halls covered with colored tiles and topped with arches of +ornamental scrollwork of intricate designs. At the extreme end of these +rooms the Bashaw stood waiting for us. He was the finest-looking Moor I +had seen; and I think the Moorish gentleman, though it seems a strange +thing to say, is the most perfect type of a gentleman that I have seen +in any country. He is seldom less than six feet tall, and he carries his +six feet with the erectness of a soldier and with the grace of a woman. +The bones of his face are strong and well-placed, and he looks kind and +properly self-respecting, and is always courteous. When you add to this +clothing as brilliant and robes as clean and soft and white as a +bride's, you have a very worthy-looking man. The Bashaw towered above +all of us. He wore brown and dark-blue cloaks, with a long +under-waistcoat of light-blue silk, yellow shoes, and a white turban as +big as a bucket, and his baggy trousers were as voluminous as Letty +Lind's divided skirts. He could not speak English, but he shook hands +with us, which Moors do not do to one another, and walked on ahead +through court-yards and halls and up stairways to a little room filled +with divans and decorated with a carved ceiling and tiled walls. There +we all sat down, and a soldier in a long red cloak and with numerous +swords sticking out of his person gave us tea, and sweet cakes made +entirely of sugar. As soon as we had finished one cup he brought in +another, and, noticing this, I indulged sparingly; but the doctor +finished his first, and then refused the rest, until the Consul-General +told him he must drink or be guilty of a breach of etiquette. + +[Illustration: A STREET DANCER] + +The Bashaw and Colonel Mathews talked together, and we paid the governor +long and laborious compliments, at which he smiled indulgently. He did +not strike me as being at all overcome by them; he had, on the contrary, +very much the air of a man of the world, and seemed rather to be bored, +but too polite to say so. He looked exactly like Salvini as Othello. +While the tea-drinking was going on we were making asides to Colonel +Mathews, and urging him to propose our going into the prison, which he +said he would do, but that it must be done diplomatically. We told him +we would give all the prisoners bread and water, or a lump sum to the +guards, or whatever he thought would please the Bashaw best. He and the +Bashaw then began to talk about it, and the doctor and I looked +consciously at the ceiling. The Bashaw said that never since he had been +governor of Tangier had he allowed either a native or a foreigner to +enter the prison; and that if a European did so, he would be torn to +pieces by the fanatics imprisoned there, who would think they were +pleasing Allah by abusing an unbeliever. Colonel Mathews also added, on +his own account, that we would probably catch some horrible disease. The +more they did not want us to go, the more we wanted to go, the doctor +rising to the occasion with a keenness and readiness of resource worthy +of a New York reporter after a beat. I can pay him no higher compliment. +After a long, loud, and excited debate the Bashaw submitted, and the +Consul-General won. + +The first prison they showed us was the county jail, in which men are +placed for a month or more. It was dirty and uninteresting, and we +protested that it was not the one which the Bashaw had described, and +asked to be shown the one where the enemies of the government were +incarcerated. Colonel Mathews called back the Bashaw's soldiers, and we +went on to the larger prison immediately adjoining. Some time ago the +inmates of this made a break for liberty, and forced open the one door +which bars those inside from the outer world. The guards fired into the +mass of them, and the place shows where the bullets struck. To prevent a +repetition of this, three heavy bars were driven into the masonry around +the door, so close together that it is impossible for more than one man +to leave or enter the prison at one time even when the door is open. And +the opening is so small that to do this he must either crawl in on his +hands and knees, or lift himself up by the crossbar and swing himself +in feet foremost. It impressed me as a particularly embarrassing way to +make an entrance among a lot of people who meditated tearing you to +pieces. I pointed this out to the doctor, but he was determined, though +pale. So the guards swung the door in, and the first glimpse of a +Christian gentleman the prisoners had in ten years was a pair of yellow +riding-boots which shot into space, followed by a young man, and a +moment later by an elderly gentleman with a white tie. We made a +combined movement to the middle of the prison, which was lighted from +above by a square opening in the roof, protected by iron bars. This was +the only light in the place. All around the four sides of the patio or +court were rows of pillars supporting a portico, and back of these was a +second and outer corridor opening into the porticos, and so into the +patio. The whole place--patio, porticos, and outer corridor--was about +as big as the stage of a New York theatre. It was paved with dirt and +broken slabs, and littered with straw. There was no furniture of any +sort. With the exception of the sink upon which we stood, directly under +the opening in the roof, the place was in almost complete darkness, +although the sun was shining brilliantly outside. + +I think there must have been about fifty or sixty men in the prison, and +for a short time not one of them moved. They were apparently, to judge +by the way they looked at us, as much startled as though we had +ascended from a trap like goblins in a pantomime, and then half of them, +with one accord, came scrambling towards us on their hands and knees. +They were half naked, and their hair hung down over their eyes; and +this, and their crawling towards us instead of walking, made them look +more or less like animals. As they came forward there was a clanking of +chains, and I saw that it was because their legs were fettered that they +came as they did, and not standing erect like human beings. The guard +who followed us in was over two minutes in getting the door fastened +behind him, and my mind was more occupied with this fact than with what +I saw before me; for it seemed to me that if there was any tearing to +pieces to be gone through with, I should hate to have to wait that long +while the door was being opened again. This thought, with the shock of +seeing thirty wild men moving upon us out of complete darkness on their +hands and knees, was the only sensation of any interest that I received +while visiting the prison. + +[Illustration: IN THE PRISON] + +The inmates looked exactly like the poorer of the Moors outside, except +that their hair was longer and their clothing was not so white. There +was one man, however, quite as well dressed as any of the Sultan's +counsellors, and he seemed to be the only one who objected to our +presence. The rest did nothing except to gratify their curiosity by +staring at us; they did not even hold out their hands for money. They +were very dirty and poorly clothed, and their long imprisonment had +made them haggard and pale, and the iron bars around their legs gave +them a certain interest. The atmosphere of the place was horribly foul, +but not worse than the atmosphere of either the men's or women's ward at +night in a precinct station-house in New York city. Indeed, I was not so +much impressed with the horrors of the Sultan's prison as with the fact +that our own are so little better, considering our advanced +civilization. I do not mean our large prisons, but the cells and the +vagrants' rooms in the police stations. There the vagrant is given a +sloping board and no ventilation. In Tangier he is given straw and an +opening in the roof. To be fair, you must compare a prisoner's condition +in jail with that which he is accustomed to in his own home, and the +homes of the Moors of the lower class are as much like stables as their +stables are like pigsties. The poor of Tangier are allowed, through the +kindness of the Sultan, to sleep on the bare stones around the entrance +to one of the mosques. For the poor sick there has been built a portico, +about as large as a Fifth Avenue omnibus, opposite this same mosque. +This is called the hospital of Tangier. It is considered quite good +enough for sick people and for those who have no homes. And every night +you will see bundles of rags lying in the open street or under the +narrow roof of the portico, exposed to the rain and to the bitter cold. +If this, in the minds of the Moors, is fair treatment of the sick and +the poor, one cannot expect them to give their criminals and murderers +white bread and a freshly rolled turban every morning. + +If I had seen horrible things in the Sultan's prison--men starving, or +too sick to rise, or chained to the walls, or half mad, or loathsome +with disease--I should certainly have been glad to call the attention of +other people to it, not from any philanthropic motives perhaps, but as a +matter of news interest. I did not, however, see any of these things. +Dr. Field, I believe, was differently impressed, and is of the opinion +that the outer corridor contained many things much too horrible to +believe possible. He compared this to Dante's ninth circle of hell, and +made a point of the fact that the guard had called me back when I walked +towards it. I, however, went into it while the doctor and the guard were +getting the door open for us to return, and saw nothing there but straw. +It seemed to me to be the place where the men slept when the rain, +coming through the opening in the roof, made it unpleasant for them to +remain in the court. + +It may seem that my persistence in visiting the prison is inconsistent +with what I have said of foreigners forcing themselves into places in +Morocco where they are not wanted, but I am quite sure that, had any one +heard the stories told me of the horror of these jails, he would have +considered himself justified in learning the truth about them; and I +cannot understand why, if the members of the legations who tell these +stories believe them, they have not used their influence to try and +better the condition of the prisoners, rather than to introduce +game-laws for the protection of partridges and wild-boars. It is, +perhaps, gratifying to note that the two gentlemen of whom I spoke as +having visited the prison in the last ten years were the American +Consul-General and another resident American. Both of these contributed +food to the prisoners, and reported what they had seen to our +government. + +On the whole, Tangier impresses one as a fine thing spoiled by +civilization. Barbarism with electric lights at night is not attractive. +Tangier to every traveller should be chiefly interesting as a +stepping-stone towards Tetuan or Fez. Tetuan can be reached in a day's +journey, and there the Moor is to be seen pure and simple, barbarous and +beautiful. + + + + +III + +FROM GIBRALTAR TO CAIRO + + +There are certain places and things with which the English novel has +made us so familiar that it is not necessary for us to go far afield or +to study guide-books in order to feel that we have known them intimately +and always. We know Paddington Station as the place where the detective +interrogates the porter who handled the luggage of the escaping +criminal, and as the spot from which the governess takes her ticket for +the country-house where she is to be persecuted by its mistress and +loved by all the masculine members of the household. We also know that a +P. and O. steamer is a means of conveyance almost as generally used by +heroes and heroines of English fiction as a hansom cab. It is a vessel +upon which the heroine meets her Fate, either in the person of a young +man on his way home from India, or by being shipwrecked on a desert +island on her way to Australia, and where the only other surviving +passenger tattooes his will upon her back, leaves her all his fortune, +and considerately dies. Long ago a line of steamers ran to the +Peninsula of Spain; later they shortened their sails, as the Romans +shortened their swords, and, like the Romans, extended their boundaries +to the Orient. This line is now an institution with traditions and +precedents and armorial bearings and time-hallowed jokes, and when you +step upon the deck of a P. and O. steamer for the first time you feel +that you are not merely an ordinary passenger, but a part of a novel in +three volumes, or of a picture in the London _Graphic_, and that all +sorts of things are imminent and possible. It may not have occurred to +you before embarking, but you know as soon as you come over the side +that you expected to find the deck strewn with laces and fans and +daggers from Tangier, and photographs of Gibraltar, and such other +trifles for possible purchase by the outbound passengers, and that the +crew would be little barefooted lascars in red turbans and long blue +shirts, with a cumberband about their persons, and that you would be +called to tiffin instead of to lunch. + +A fat little lascar balanced himself in the jolly-boat outlined against +the sky and held aloft a red flag until the hawser swung clear of the +propeller, when he raised a white flag above him and stood as motionless +as the Statue of Liberty, while the _Sutlej_ cleared Europa Point of +Gibraltar and headed towards the East. Then he pattered across the deck +and leaned over the side and crooned in a lazy, barbarous monotone to +the waves. The sun fell upon the boat like a spell and turned us into +sleepy and indolent fixtures wherever it first found us, and showed us +the white-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada of Spain to the north, and +the dim blue mountains of Africa to the south. The deck below was +scrubbed as white as a bread-board, and the masts and rigging threw +black shadows on the awning overhead, and on every side the blue +Mediterranean and the bluer Mediterranean sky met and sparkled and +reflected each other's brilliancy like mirrors placed face to face. + +For four days the sun greeted the _Sutlej_ by day and the moon by night, +and the coast of Africa played hide-and-seek along her starboard side, +disappearing in a white mist of cloud for an hour or so, and then +running along with us again in comfortable proximity. On the other side +boats passed at almost as frequent intervals, and at such friendly range +that one could count the people on the decks and read their flag signals +without a glass. The loneliness of the North Atlantic, where an iceberg +stands for land, and only an occasional tramp steamer rests the eye, is +as different to this sea as a railroad journey over the prairie is to +the jaunt from New York to Washington. On the second night out we see +Algiers, glowing and sparkling in the night like a million of +fire-flies, and with the clear steady eye of the light-house warning us +away, as though the quarantine had not warned some of us away already. +And on the third night we pass Cape Bon, and can imagine Tunis lying +tantalizingly near us, behind its light-house, shut off also by the +quarantine that the cholera at Marseilles has made imperative wherever +the French line of steamers touch. By this time the twoscore passengers +have foregathered as they would never have done had they all been +Americans, or had there been three hundred of them, and their place of +meeting the deck of a transatlantic steamer instead of one of this +picturesque fleet, upon which you expect strange things to happen. + +[Illustration: MALTESE PEDDLERS] + +When an American goes to sea, he reads books, or he calculates the +number of tons of coal it is taking to run the vessel at that rate of +speed, and he determines that rate of speed by counting the rise and +fall of the piston-rod, with his watch in his hand; and when this ceases +to amuse him he plays cards in the smoking-room or holds pools on the +run and on the pilot's number. The Englishman joins in these latter +amusements, because nothing better offers. But when his foot is on his +native heath or on the deck of one of his own vessels, he demonstrates +his preference for that sort of entertainment which requires exercise +and little thought. If it is at a country-house, he plays games which +entail considerable running about, and at picnics he enjoys "Throw the +handkerchief," and on board ship he plays cricket and other games dear +to the heart of the American at the age of five. This is partly because +he always exercises and likes moving about, as Americans do not, and +because the reading of books (except such books as _Mr. Potter of +Texas_, which, I firmly believe, every Englishman I ever met has read, +and upon which they have bestowed the most unqualified approval as the +truest picture of American life and character they have ever found) +entertains him for but a very short period at a time. + +So a netting is placed about the upper deck for him, and he plays +cricket; not only he, but his wife and his sister and his mother and the +unattached young ladies under the captain's care, who are going out to +India, presumably to be met at the wharf by prospective husbands. There +is something most charming in the absolute equality which this sport +entails, and the seriousness with which the English regard it. We could +not in America expect a white-haired lady with spectacles to bowl +overhand, or to see that it is considered quite as a matter of course +that she should do it by the member of the last Oxford eleven, nor would +our young women be able to hold a hot ball, or to take it with the hands +crossed and only partly open, and not palm to palm and wide apart. An +American, as a rule, walks in order that he may reach a certain point, +but the Englishman walks for the sake of the walking. And he plays +games, also, apparently for the exercise there is in them; games in +which people sit in a circle and discuss whether love or reason should +guide them in going into matrimony do not appeal to him so strongly as +do "Oranges and lemons," or "Where are you, Jacob?" which is a very fine +game, in which an early training in sliding to bases gives you a certain +advantage. It is certainly instructive to hear a captain who got his +company through storming Fort Nilt last year in the Pamir inquire, +anxiously, "Oranges or lemons? Yes, I know. But _which_ should I say, +old chap? I'm a little rusty in the game, you know." If people can get +back to the days when they were children by playing games, or in any +other way, no one can blame them. + +The island of Gozo rose up out of the sea on the fourth day--a yellow +rib of rock on the right, with houses and temples on it--and +demonstrated how few days of water are necessary to rob one's memory of +the usual look of a house. One would imagine by the general interest in +them that we had spent the last few years of our lives in tents, or in +the arctic regions under huts of snow and ice. And then the ship heads +in towards Malta, and instead of dropping anchor and waiting for a +tender, glides calmly into what is apparently its chief thoroughfare. It +is like a Venice of the sea, and you feel as though you were intruding +in a gentleman's front yard. The houses and battlements and ramparts lie +close on either side, so near that one could toss a biscuit into the +hands of the Tommies smoking on the guns, or the natives lounging on the +steps that run from the front doors into the sea itself. The yard-arms +reach above the line of the house-tops, and the bowsprit seems to +threaten havoc with the window-panes of the custom-house. We are not +apparently entering a harbor, but steaming down the main street of a +city--a city of yellow limestone, with streets, walls, houses, and waste +places all of yellow limestone. We might, for all the disturbance we are +making, be moving forward in a bark canoe, and not in an ocean steamer +drawing twenty-five feet of water. And then when the anchor drops, +dozens of little boats, yellow and green and blue, with high posts at +the bow and sterns like those on gondolas, shoot out from the steps, and +their owners clamor for the proud privilege of carrying us over the +few feet of water which runs between the line of houses and the ship's +sides. + +[Illustration: STREET OF SANTA LUCIA, MALTA] + +There was at the Centennial Exposition the head of a woman cut in +butter, which attracted much attention from the rural visitors. For this +they passed by the women painted on canvas or carved in marble, they +were too like the real thing, and the countrymen probably knew how +difficult it is to make butter into moulds. For some reason Malta +reminds you of this butter lady. It is a real city--with real houses and +cathedral and streets, no doubt, but you have a feeling that they are +not genuine, and that though it is very cleverly done, it is, after all, +a city carved out of cheese or butter. Some of the cheese is mouldy and +covered with green, and some of the walls have holes in them, as has +aerated bread or _Schweitzerkase_, and the streets and the pavements, +and the carved facades of the churches and opera-house, and the earth +and the hills beyond--everything upon which your eye can rest is glaring +and yellow, with not a red roof to relieve it; it is all just yellow +limestone, and it looks like Dutch cheese. It is like no other place +exactly that you have ever seen. The approach into the canal-like harbor +under the guns and the search-lights of the fortifications, the moats +and drawbridges, and the glaring monotony of the place itself, which +seems to have been cut out of one piece and painted with one brush, +suggest those little toy fortresses of yellow wood which appear in the +shop windows at Christmas-time. + +Of course the first and last thought one has of Malta is that the island +was the home of the Order of the Knights of St. John, or Knights +Hospitallers. This order, which was the most noble of those of the days +of mediaeval chivalry, was composed of that band of warrior monks who +waged war against the infidels, who kept certain vows, and who, under +the banner of the white cross, became honored and feared throughout the +then known world. Their headquarters changed from place to place during +the four hundred years that stretched from the eleventh century, when +the order was first established, up to 1530, when Charles V. made over +Malta and all its dependencies in perpetual sovereignty to the keeping +of these Knights. They had no sooner fortified the island than there +began the nine months' siege of the Turks, one of the most memorable +sieges in history. When it was ended, the Turks re-embarked ten thousand +of the forty thousand men they had landed, and of the nine thousand +Knights present under the Grand Master Jean de la Valette when the siege +had opened, but six hundred capable of bearing arms remained alive. + +The order continued in possession of their island until the beginning of +the nineteenth century, when the French, under General Bonaparte, took +it with but little trouble. The French in turn were besieged by Maltese +and English, and after two years capitulated. In 1814 the island was +transferred to England. It now, in its monuments and its memories, +speaks of the days of chivalry; but present and mixed with these is the +ubiquitous red coat of the British soldier; and the eight-pointed +Maltese cross, which suggests Ivanhoe, is placed side by side with the +lion and the unicorn; the culverin has given way to the quick-throbbing +Maxim gun, the Templar's sword to the Lee-Metford rifle, and the heroes +of Walter Scott to the friends of Mr. Rudyard Kipling. + +The most conspicuous relic of the French occupation is not a noble one. +It is the penitential hood of the Maltese woman--a strangely picturesque +article of apparel, like a cowl or Shaker bonnet, only much larger than +the latter, and with a cape which hangs over the shoulders. The women +hold the two projecting flaps of the hood together at the throat, and +unless you are advancing directly towards them, their faces are quite +invisible. The hoods and capes are black, and are worn as a penance for +the frailty of the women of Malta when the French took the place and +robbed the churches, and pillaged the storehouses of the Knights, and +bore themselves with less restraint than the infidel Turks had done. + +Malta retains a slight suggestion of mediaevalism in the garb of the +Capuchin monks, whose tonsured heads and bare feet and roped waists look +like a masquerade in their close proximity to the young officers in +tweeds and varnished boots. But one gets the best idea of the past from +the great Church of St. John, which is full of the trophies and gifts of +the Grand Masters of the Order, and floored with two thousand marble +tombs of the Knights themselves. Each Grand Master vied with those who +had preceded him in enriching this church, and each Knight on his +promotion made it a gift, so that to-day it is rich in these and +wonderfully beautiful. This is the chief show-place, and the Governor's +palace is another, and, to descend from the sublimity of the past to the +absurdity of the present, so is also the guard-room of the officer of +the day, which generations of English subalterns have helped to +decorate. Each year a committee of officers go over the pictures on its +walls and rub out the least amusing, and this survival of the fittest +has resulted in a most entertaining gallery of black and white. + +The Order of Jerusalem, or of St. John, still obtains in Europe, and +those who can show fourteen quarterings on one side and twelve on the +other are entitled to belong to it; but they are carpet knights, and +wearing an enamel Maltese cross on the left side of an evening coat is a +different thing from carrying it on a shield for Saracens to hack at. + +[Illustration: BRINDISI] + +Sicily showed itself for a few hours while the boat continued on its way +to Brindisi; and as that day happened to be the 4th of March, the +captain of the _Sutlej_ was asked to make a calculation for which there +will be no further need for four years to come. This calculation +showed at what point in the Mediterranean ocean the _Sutlej_ would be +when a President was being inaugurated in Washington, and at the proper +time the passengers were invited to the cabin, and the fact that a +government was changing into the hands of one who could best take care +of it was impressed upon them in different ways. And later, after +dinner, the captain of the _Sutlej_ made a speech, and said things about +the important event (which he insisted on calling an election) which was +then taking place in America, and the English cheered and drank the new +President's health, and the two Americans on board, who fortunately were +both good Democrats, felt not so far from home as before. + +You must touch at Brindisi, which is situated on the heel of the boot of +Italy, if you wish to go a part of the way by land from the East to +London or from London to the East. And as many people prefer travelling +forty-eight hours across the Continent to rounding Gibraltar, one hears +often of Brindisi, and pictures it as a shipping port of the importance +of Liverpool or Marseilles. Instead of which it is as desolate as a +summer resort in midwinter, and is like that throughout the year. There +was a long, broad stone wharf, and tall stucco houses behind, and banks +of coal which suggested the rear approach to Long Island City, and the +soft blue Italian skies of which we had read were steely blue, and most +of us wore overcoats. We lay bound fast to the wharf, with a plank +thrown from the boat's side to the quay, for the day, and we had free +permission to learn to walk on streets again for full twenty-four hours; +but after facing the wind, and dodging guides who had nothing to show, +we came back by preference to the clean deck and the steamer-chair. +Desperate-looking Italian soldiers with feathers in their hats, and +custom-house officers, and gendarmes paraded up and down the quay for +our delectation, and a wicked little boy stood on the pier-head and sang +"Ta-ra-ra-boom-chi-ay," pointedly varying this knowledge of our several +nationalities by crying: "I _say_, buy box matches. Get out." This show +of learning caused him to be regarded by his fellows with much envy, and +they watched us to see how far we were impressed. + +[Illustration: PILLAR OF CAESAR AT BRINDISI] + +There are two things which need no newspaper advertising and which +recognize no geographical lines; one is a pretty face and the other is a +good song. I have seen photographs for sale of Isabelle Irving and +Lillian Russell in as different localities as Santiago in Cuba, and +Rotterdam, and I saw a play-bill in San Antonio, Texas, upon which the +Countess Dudley and the Duchess of Leinster were reproduced under the +names of the Walsh Sisters. A good song will travel as far, changing its +name, too, perhaps, and its words, but keeping the same melody that has +pleased people in a different part of the world. When the moon came out +at Brindisi and hid the heaps of coal, and showed only the white houses +and the pillar of Caesar, a party of young men with guitars and +mandolins gathered under the bow and sang a song called "Oh, Caroline," +which I had last heard Francis Wilson sing as a part of the score of +"The Lion-tamer," to very different words. As the scene of "The +Lion-tamer" is laid in Sicily, the song was more or less in place; but +the contrast between the dark-browed Italian and Mr. Wilson's genial +countenance which the song brought back was striking. And on the night +after we had left Brindisi, when the crew gave a concert, one of them +sang "Oh, promise me," and some one asked if the song had yet reached +America. I did not undeceive him, but said it had. + +After Brindisi the hands of the clock go back a few thousand years, and +we see Cethdonia, where Ulysses owned much property, and Crete, from +whence St. Paul set sail, with its long range of mountains covered with +snow, and then we come back to the present near the island of Zante, +where the earthquake moved a month ago and swallowed up the homes of the +people. + +The _Sutlej_ had been going out of her course all of the fourth day in +order to dodge possible islands thrown up by the earthquake, and she was +late. That night, as she steamed forward at her best speed, the level +oily sea fell back from her bows with a steady ripple as she cut it in +two and turned it back out of the way. A light on the horizon, like a +policeman's lantern, which changed to the burnt-out end of a match and +back again to a bull's-eye, told us that beyond the light lay the level +sands of Egypt, almost as far-reaching and monotonous as the sea that +touched its shore. + +[Illustration: APPROACH TO ISMAILIA BY THE SUEZ CANAL] + +The force of habit is very strong on many people, and if they approach +the land of the Pharaohs and of Cleopatra an hour after their usual +bedtime, they feel no inclination to diverge from their usual habits on +that account. When you consider how many hours there are for slumber, +and how many are given to dances, you would think one hour of sleep +might be spared out of a lifetime in order that you could see Port Said +at night. There was a long line of lamps on the shore, like a gigantic +row of footlights or a prairie fire along the horizon, and we passed +towards this through buoys with red and green lights, with a long +sea-wall reaching out on one side, and the natural reef of jagged rocks +rising black out of the sea in the path of the moon on the other. Then +black boats shot out from the shore and assailed us with strange cries, +and men in turbans and long robes, and negroes in what looked like +sacking, and which probably was sacking, but which could not hide the +suppleness and strength of their limbs, climbed up over the high sides. +These were the coal-trimmers making way for the black islands, filled +with black coal and blacker men, who made fast to the side and began +feeding the vessel through a blazing hole like an open fireplace in her +iron side. Four braziers filled with soft coal burnt with a fierce red +flame from the corners of the barges, and in this light from out of +the depths half-naked negroes ran shrieking and crying with baskets of +coal on their shoulders to the top of an inclined plank, and stood there +for a second in the full glare of the opening until one could see the +whites of their eyes and the sweat glistening on the black faces. Then +they pitched the coal forward into the lighted opening, as though they +were feeding a fire, and disappeared with a jump downward into the pit +of blackness. The coal dust rose in great curtains of mist, through +which the figures of the men and the red light showed dimly and with +wavering outline, like shadows in an iron-mill, and through it all came +their cries and shouts, and the roar of the coal blocks as they rattled +down into the hold. + +Port Said occupies the same position to the waters of the world as Dodge +City once did to the Western States of America--it is the meeting-place +of vessels from every land over every water, just as Dodge City was the +meeting-place of the great trails across the prairies. When a cowboy +reached Dodge City after six months of constant riding by day and of +sleeping under the stars by night, and with wild steers for company, he +wanted wickedness in its worst form--such being the perversity of man. +And you are told that Port Said offers to travellers and crew the same +attractive features after a month or weeks of rough voyaging that Dodge +City once offered to the trailsmen. In _The Light that Failed_ we are +told that Port Said is the wickedest place on earth, that it is a sink +of iniquity and a hole of vice, and a wild night in Port Said is +described there with pitiless detail. Almost every young man who leaves +home for the East is instructed by his friends to reproduce that night, +or never return to civilization. And every sea-captain or traveller or +ex-member of the Army of Occupation in Egypt that I met on this visit to +the East either smiled darkly when he spoke of Port Said or raised his +eyes in horror. They all agreed on two things--that it was the home of +the most beautiful woman on earth, which is saying a good deal, and that +it was the wickedest, wildest, and most vicious place that man had +created and God forgotten. One would naturally buy pocket-knives at +Sheffield, and ginger ale in Belfast, and would not lay in a stock of +cigars if going to Havana; and so when guides in Continental cities and +in the East have invited me to see and to buy strange things which +caused me to doubt the morals of those who had gone before, I have +always put them off, because I knew that some day I should visit Port +Said. I did not want second-best and imitation wickedness, but the most +awful wickedness of the entire world sounded as though it might prove +most amusing. I expected a place blazing with lights, and with +gambling-houses and _cafes chantants_ open to the air, and sailors +fighting with bare knives, and guides who cheated and robbed you, or led +you to dives where you could be drugged and robbed by others. + +[Illustration: STEAM-DREDGE AT WORK IN THE SUEZ CANAL] + +So I went on shore and gathered the guides together, and told them for +the time being to sink their rivalry and to join with loyal local pride +in showing me the worst Port Said could do. They consulted for some +time, and then said that they were sorry, but the only gambling-house in +the place closed at twelve, and so did the only _cafe chantant_; and as +it was now nearly half-past twelve, every one was properly in bed. I +expressed myself fully, and they were hurt, and said that Egypt was a +great country, and that after I had seen Cairo I would say so. So I told +them I had not meant to offend their pride of country, and that I was +going to Cairo in order to see things almost as old as wickedness, and +much more worth while, and that all I asked of Port Said was that it +should live up to its name. I told them to hire a house, and wake the +people in Port Said up, and show me the very worst, lowest, wickedest, +and most vicious sights of which their city boasted; that I would give +them four hours in which to do it, and what money they needed. I should +like to print what, after long consultation, the five guides of Port +Said--which is a place a half-mile across, and with which they were +naturally acquainted--offered me as the acme of riotous dissipation. I +do not do so, not because it would bring the blush to the cheek of the +reader, but to the inhabitants of Port Said, who have enjoyed a +notoriety they do not deserve, and who are like those desperadoes in the +West who would rather be considered "bad" than the nonentities that +they are. I bought photographs, a box of cigarettes, and a cup of black +coffee at Port Said. That cannot be considered a night of wild +dissipation. Port Said may have been a sink of iniquity when Mr. Kipling +was last there, but when I visited it it was a coaling station. I would +hate to be called a coaling station if I were Port Said, even by me. + +When I awoke after my night of riot at Port Said the _Sutlej_ was +steaming slowly down the Suez Canal, and its waters rippled against its +sandy banks and sent up strange odors of fish and mud. On either side +stretched long levels of yellow sand dotted with bunches of dark green +grass, like tufts on a quilt, over which stalked an occasional camel, +bending and rocking, and scorning the rival ship at its side. You have +heard so much of the Suez Canal as an engineering feat that you rather +expect, in your ignorance, to find the banks upheld by walls of masonry, +and to pass through intricate locks from one level to another, or at +least to see a well-beaten towpath at its side. But with the exception +of dikes here and there, you pass between slipping sandy banks, which +show less of the hand of man than does a mill-dam at home, and you begin +to think that Ferdinand de Lesseps drew his walking-stick through the +sand from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and twenty thousand negroes +followed him and dug a ditch. On either side of this ditch you see +reproduced in real life the big colored prints which hung on the walls +of the Sunday-School. There are the buffaloes drawing the ploughs of +wood, and the wells of raw sun-baked clay, and the ditches and +water-works of two cog-wheels and clay pots for irrigating the land, and +the strings of camels, and the veiled women carrying earthen jars on the +left shoulder. And beyond these stretches the yellow sand, not white and +heavy, like our own, but dun-colored and fine, like dust, and over it +amethyst skies bare of clouds, and tall palms. And then the boat stops +again at Ismailia to let you off for Cairo, and the brave captains +returning from leave, and the braver young women who are going out to +work in hospitals, and the young wives with babies whom their +fathers have not seen, and the commissioners returning to rule and +bully a native prince, pass on to India, and you are assaulted +by donkey-boys who want you to ride "Mark Twain," or "Lady Dunlo," or +"Two-Pair-of-Black-Eyes-Oh-What-a-Surprise-Grand-Ole-Man." A jerky, +rumbling train carries you from Ismailia past Tel-el-Kebir station, +where the British army surprised the enemy by a night march and took a +train back to Cairo in three hours. And then, after a five hours' ride, +you stop at Cairo, and this chapter ends. + + + + +IV + +CAIRO AS A SHOW-PLACE + + +As a rule, when you visit the capital of a country for the first time it +is sufficient that you should have studied the history of that +particular country in order that you may properly appreciate the +monuments and the show-places of its chief cities; it is not necessary +that you should be an authority on the history of Norway and Sweden to +understand Paris or New York. For a full appreciation of most of the +great cities of the world one finds a single red-bound volume of +Baedeker to be all-sufficient; but when you go to Cairo, in order that +you may understand all that lies spread out for your pleasure, you +should first have mastered the Old and the New Testament, a complete +history of the world, several of Shakespeare's plays, and the files of +the London _Times_ for the past ten years. Almost every man who was +great, not only in the annals of his own country, but in the history of +the world, has left his mark on this oldest country of Egypt, as +tourists to the Colosseum have scratched their initials on its stones, +and so hope for immortality. You are shown in Cairo the monuments of +great monarchs and of a great people, who were not known beyond the +limits of their own country in contemporaneous history only because +there was no contemporaneous history, and of those who came thousands of +years later. The isle of Rodda, between the two banks of the Nile at +Cairo, marks where Moses was found in the bulrushes; a church covers the +stones upon which Mary and Joseph rested; in the city of Alexandria is +the spot where Alexander the Great scratched his name upon the sands of +Egypt; the mouldering walls of Old Cairo are the souvenirs of Caesar, as +are the monuments upon which the Egyptians carved his name with +"Autocrator" after it. At Actium and Alexandria you think of Antony and +of the two women, so widely opposed and so differently beautiful, whom +Sarah Bernhardt and Julia Neilson re-embody to-day in Paris and in +London, and to whom Shakespeare and Kingsley have paid tribute. +Mansoorah marks the capture of Saint-Louis of France, and the crescent +and star which is floating over Cairo at this minute speak of Osman +Sultan Selim I., with whom began the dependence of Egypt as a part of +the Ottoman Empire. From there you see the windmills and bake-ovens of +Napoleon, which latter, stretching for miles across the desert, mark the +march of his army. Abukir speaks of Nelson and the battle of the Nile; +and after him come the less momentous names Tel-el-Kebir and "England's +Only General," Wolseley, and the fall of Khartoom and the loss of +Gordon. The history of Egypt is the history of the Old World. + +Moses, Rameses II., Darius, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Mehemet Ali, and +Nelson--these are all good names; and yet what they failed to do is +apparently being done to-day by an Army of Occupation without force, but +with the show of it only: not by a single great military hero, but by a +lot of men in tweed suits who during business hours irrigate land and +add up columns of irritating figures, and in their leisure moments +solemnly play golf at the very base of the pyramids. The best of Cairo +lies, of course, in that which is old, and not in what has been imported +from the New World, and its most amusing features are the incongruities +which these importations make possible. I am speaking of Cairo now from +a tourist's point of view, and not from that of a political economist. +He would probably be interested in the improved sanitation and the Mixed +Tribunal. + +[Illustration: BAZAR OF A WORKER IN BRASS] + +I had pictured Cairo as an Oriental city of much color, with beautiful +minarets piercing the sky-line, and with much richness of decoration on +the outside of its palaces and mosques. Cairo is divided into two parts, +that which is old and decaying and that which is European and modern; +the prevailing colors of both are gray, a dull yellow, and white. The +mosques are of gray stone, the houses of dirty white, and in the new +part the palaces and residences remind one of white Italian villas. +These are surrounded by tropical gardens, which alone save the city from +one monotonous variation of sombre colors. It is not, therefore, the +buildings, either new or old, which make Cairo one of the most +picturesque and incongruous and entertaining of cities in the whole +world; it is the people who live in it and who move about in it, and who +are so constantly in the streets that from the Citadel above the city +its roar comes to you like the roar of London. In that city it is the +voice of traffic and steam and manufactures, but in Cairo it emanates +from the people themselves, who talk and pray and shout and live their +lives out-of-doors. These people are the natives, the European +residents, the Army of Occupation, and, during the winter months, the +tourists. When you say natives you include Egyptians, Arabians, Copts, +Syrians, negroes from the Upper Nile, and about a hundred other +subdivisions, which embrace every known nationality of the East. + +Mixed with these are the residents, chiefly Greek and French and Turks, +and the Army of Occupation, who, when they are not in beautiful +uniforms, are in effective riding-clothes, and their wives and sisters +in men's shirts and straw hats or Karkee riding-habits. The tourists, +for their part, wear detective cameras and ready-made ties if they are +Americans, and white helmets and pugarees floating over their necks and +white umbrellas if they are English. This latter tropical outfit is +spoiled somewhat by the fact that they are forced to wear overcoats the +greater part of the time; but as they always take the overcoats off when +they are being photographed at the base of the pyramids, their envious +friends at home imagine they are in a warm climate. + +The longer you remain in Cairo the more satisfying it becomes, as you +find how uninterruptedly the old, old life of the people is going on +about you, and as you discover for yourself bazars and mosques and tiny +workshops and open cafes of which the guide-books say nothing, and to +which there are no guides. You can see all the show-places in Cairo of +which you have read in a week, and yet at the end of the week you feel +as though what you had seen was not really the city, but just the goods +in the shop-window. So keep away from show-places. Lose yourself in the +streets, or sit idly on the terrace of your hotel and watch the show +move by, feeling that the best of it, after all, lies in the fact that +nothing you see is done for show; that it is all natural to the people +or the place; that if they make pictures of themselves, they do so +unconsciously; and that no one is posing except the tourist in his pith +helmet. + +The bazars in Cairo cover much ground, and run in cliques according to +the nature of the goods they expose for sale. From a narrow avenue of +red and yellow leather shoes you come to another lane of rugs and +curtains and cloth, and through this to an alley of brass--brass lamps +and brass pots and brass table-tops--and so on into groups of +bookbinders, and of armorers, and sellers of perfumes. These lanes are +unpaved, and only wide enough at places for two men to push past at one +time; at the widest an open carriage can just make its way slowly, and +only at the risk of the driver's falling off his box in a paroxysm of +rage. The houses and shops that overhang these filthy streets are as +primitive and old as the mud in which you tramp, but they are +fantastically and unceasingly beautiful. On the level of the street is +the bazar--a little box with a show-case at one side, and at the back an +oven, or a forge, or a loom, according to the nature of the thing which +is being made before your eyes. Goldsmiths beat and blow on the raw +metal as you stand at their elbow; bakers knead their bread; laundrymen +squirt water over the soiled linen; armorers hammer on a spear-head, +which is afterwards to be dug up and sold as an assegai from the Soudan; +and the bookbinders to the Khedive paste and tool the leather boxes for +his Highness with the dust from the street covering them and their work, +with two dogs fighting for garbage at their feet, and the uproar of +thousands of people ringing in their ears. The Oriental cannot express +himself in the street without shouting. Everybody shouts--donkey-boys +and drivers, venders of a hundred trifles, police and storekeepers, +auctioneers and beggars. They do not shout occasionally, but +continually. They have to shout, or they will either trample on some one +or some one will as certainly trample on them. Camels and donkeys and +open carriages and mounted police move through the torrent of +pedestrians as though they were figures of the imagination, and had no +feelings or feet. On the second story over each bazar is the home of its +owner. The windows of this story are latticed, and bulge forward so that +the women of the harem may look down without being themselves seen. +Above these are square, heavy balconies of carved open wood-work, very +old and very beautiful. Scattered through the labyrinth of the bazars +are the mosques, with wide, dirty steps covered with the red and yellow +shoes of the worshippers within, and with high minarets, and facades +carved in relief with sentences from the Koran, or with the name of the +Sultan to whom the temple is dedicated. + +[Illustration: GROUP OF NATIVES IN FRONT OF SHEPHEARD'S HOTEL] + +The bazars are very much as one imagines they should be, the fact that +impresses you most about them being, I think, that such beautiful things +should come from such queer little holes of dirt and poverty, and that +you should stand ankle-deep in mud while you are handling turquoises and +gold filigree-work as delicate as that of Regent Street or Broadway. At +the bazars to which the dragomen take tourists you will be invited to +sit down on a cushion and to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes, but you +will pay, if you purchase anything, about a pound for each cup of coffee +you take. The best bazars for bargains are those in Old Cairo, to which +you should go alone. In either place it is the rule to offer one-third +of what you are asked--as I found it was not the rule to do in +Tangier--and it is not always safe to offer a third unless you want the +article very much, as you will certainly get it at that price. You feel +much more at home in the bazars and the cafes and in all of the +out-of-door life of Cairo than in that of Tangier, owing to the +good-nature of the Egyptian. The Moor resents your presence, and though +that in itself is attractive, the absolute courtesy of the Egyptian, +when it is not, as it seldom is, servility, has also its advantage. If +you raised your stick to a Moorish donkey-boy, for instance, you would +undoubtedly have as much rough-and-tumble fighting as you could attend +to at one time; but you have to beat an Egyptian donkey-boy, or strike +at him, or a dozen of him, if you want peace, and every time you hit him +he comes up smiling, and with renewed assurances that the Flying +Dutchman is a very good donkey, and that all the other donkeys are +"velly sick." There is nothing so inspiring as the sight of a carefully +bred American girl, who would feel remorse if she scolded her maid, +beating eight or nine donkey-boys with her umbrella, until she breaks +it, and so rides off breathless but triumphant. This shows that +necessity knows no laws of social behavior. + +When you are weary of fighting your way through the noise and movement +of the bazars, you can find equal entertainment on the terrace of your +hotel. There are several hotels in Cairo. There is one to which you +should certainly go if you like to see your name encompassed by those of +countesses and princes, and of Americans who spell Smith with a "y" and +put a hyphen between their second and third names. There are, as I say, +a great many hotels in Cairo, but Shepheard's is so historical, and its +terrace has been made the scene of so many novels, that all sorts of +amusing people go there, from Sultans to the last man who broke the bank +at Monte Carlo, and its terrace is like a private box at a mask ball. +About the best way to see Cairo is in a wicker chair here under waving +palms, something to smoke, and with a warm sun on your back, and the +whole world passing by in front of you. Broadway, I have no doubt, is an +interesting thoroughfare to those who do not know it. I should judge +from the view one has of the soles of numerous boots planted against the +windows of hotels along its course that Broadway to the visiting +stranger is an infinite source of entertainment. But there are no camels +on Broadway, and there are no sais. + +A camel by itself is one of the most interesting animals that has ever +been created, but when it blocks the way of a dog-cart, and a smart +English groom endeavors to drive around it, the incongruity of the +situation appeals to you as nothing on Broadway can ever do. Mr. +Laurence Hutton, who was in Cairo before I reached it, has pointed out +that the camel is the real aristocrat of Egypt. The camel belongs to one +of the very first families; he was there when Mena ruled, and he is +there now. It does not matter to him whether it is a Pharaoh or a +Mameluke or a Napoleon or a Mixed Tribunal that is in power, his gods +are unchanged, and he and the palm-tree have preserved their ancient +individuality through centuries. He shows that he knows this in the +proud way in which he holds his head, and in his disdainful manner of +waving and unwinding his neck, and in the rudeness with which he impedes +traffic and selfishly considers his own comfort. These are the signs of +ancient lineage all the world over. He is not the shaggy, moth-eaten +object we see in the circus tent at home. He is nicely shaven, like a +French poodle, and covered with fine trappings, and he bends and struts +with the dignity of a peacock. He possesses also that uncertainty of +conduct that is the privilege of a royal mind; fellahin and Arabs +pretend they are his masters, and lead him about with a rope, but that +never disturbs him nor breaks his spirit. When he wants to lie down he +lies down, whether he is in the desert or in the Ezbekiyeh Road; and +when he decides to get up he leaves you in doubt for some feverish +seconds as to which part of him will get up first. To properly +appreciate the camel you should ride him and experience his getting up +and his sitting down. He never does either of these things the same way +twice. Sometimes he breaks one leg in two or three places where it had +never broken before, and sinks or rises in a northeasterly direction, +and then suddenly changes his course and lurches up from the rear, and +you grasp his neck wildly, only to find that he is sinking rapidly to +one side, and rising, with a jump equal to that of a horse taking a +fence, in the front. He can disjoint himself in more different places, +than explorers have found sources for the river Nile, and there is no +keener pleasure than that which he affords you in watching the +countenance of a friend who is being elevated on his back for the first +time. He and the palm-tree can make any landscape striking, and he and +the sais are the most picturesque features of Cairo. + +The sais is a runner who keeps in front of a carriage and warns common +people out of the way, and who beats them with a stick if they do not +hurry up about it. He is a relic of the days when the traffic in all of +the streets was so congested that he was an absolute necessity; now he +makes it possible for a carriage to move forward at a trot, which +without his aid it could not do. It is obvious that to do this he must +run swiftly. Most men when they run bend their bodies forward and keep +their mouths closed in order to save their wind. The sais runs with his +shoulders thrown back and trumpeting like an enraged elephant. He holds +his long wand at his side like a musket, and not trailing in his hand +like a walking-stick, and he wears a soft shirt of white stuff, and a +sleeveless coat buried in gold lace. His breeches are white, and as +voluminous as a woman's skirts; they fall to a few inches above his +knee; the rest of his brown leg is bare, and rigid with muscle. On his +head he has a fez with a long black tassel, and a magnificent silk scarf +of many colors is bound tightly around his waist. He is a perfect ideal +of color and movement, and as he runs he bellows like a bull, or roars +as you have heard a lion roar at feeding-time in a menagerie. It is not +a human cry at all, and you never hear it, even to the last day of your +stay in Cairo, without a start, as though it were a cry of "help!" at +night, or the quick-clanging bell of a fire-engine. There is nothing +else in Cairo which is so satisfying. There are sometimes two sais +running abreast, dressed exactly alike, and with the upper part of their +bodies as rigid as the wand pressed against their side, and with the +ends of their scarf and the long tassel streaming out behind. As they +yell and bellow, donkeys and carriages and people scramble out of their +way until the carriage they precede has rolled rapidly by. Only +princesses of the royal harem, and consuls-general, and the heads of the +Army of Occupation and the Egyptian army are permitted two sais; other +people may have one. They appealed to me as much more autocratic +appendages than a troop of lifeguards. The rastaquouere who first +introduces them in Paris will make his name known in a day, and a Lord +Mayor's show or a box-seat on a four-in-hand will be a modest and +middle-class distinction in comparison. + +[Illustration: A BRITISH SQUARE FORMED IN FRONT OF THE PYRAMIDS] + +These camels and sais are but two of the things you see from your wicker +chair on the marble terrace at Shepheard's. The others are hundreds of +donkey-boys in blue night-gowns slit open at the throat and showing +their bare breasts, and with them as many long-eared donkeys, rendered +even more absurd than they are in a state of nature by fantastic +clippings of their coats and strings of jangling brass and blue beads +around their necks. + +There are also the women of Cairo, the enslaved half of Egypt, who have +been brought, through generations of training and tradition, to look +upon any man save their husband as their enemy, as a thing to be +shunned. This has become instinct with them, as it is instinctive with +women of Northern countries to turn to men for sympathy or support, as +being in some ways stronger than themselves. But these women of Cairo, +who look like an army of nuns, are virtually shut off from mankind, with +the exception of one man, as are nuns, and they have not the one great +consolation allowed the nun--they have no souls to be saved, nor +religion, nor a belief in a future life. + +There was a young girl married while I was in Cairo. The streets around +the palace of her father were hung with flags for a week; the garden +about his house was enclosed with a tent which was worth in money twenty +thousand dollars, and which was as beautiful to the eye as the interior +of a mosque; for a week the sheiks who rented the estates of the high +contracting parties were fed at their expense; for a week men sang and +bands played and the whole neighborhood feasted; and on the last night +everybody went to the wedding and drank coffee and smoked cigarettes and +listened to a young man singing Arabian love-songs. I naturally did not +see the bride. The women who did see her described her as very +beautiful, barely sixteen years old, and covered with pearls and +diamonds. She was weeping bitterly; her mother, it appeared, had +arranged the match. I did not see her, but I saw the bridegroom. He was +fat and stupid, and over sixty, and he had white hair and a white beard. +A priest recited the Koran before him at the door of the house, and a +band played, and the people cheered the Khedive three times, and then +the crowd parted, and the bridegroom was marched to the door which led +to the stairs, at the top of which the girl awaited him. Two grinning +eunuchs crouched on this dark staircase, with lamps held high above +their heads, and closed the door behind him. His sixteen-year-old bride +has him to herself now--him and his eunuchs--until he or she dies. We +could show similitudes between this wedding and some others in civilized +lands, but it is much too serious a matter to be cynical about. + +The women of Egypt are as much slaves as ever were the negroes of our +South. They are petted and fattened and given a home, but they must look +at life through barriers--barriers across their boxes at the opera, and +barriers across the windows of their broughams when they drive abroad, +and barriers across their very faces. As long as one-half of the +Egyptian people are enslaved and held in bondage and classed as animals +without souls, so long will an Army of Occupation ride over the land, +and insult by its presence the khedival power. No country in these days +can be truly great in which the women have no voice, no influence, and +no respect. There are worse things in Egypt than bad irrigation, and the +harem is the worst of them. If the Egyptians want to be free themselves, +they should first free their daughters and their mothers. The educated +Egyptian is ashamed of his national costume; but let him feel shame for +some of his national customs. A frock-coat and a harem will not go +together. + +The English, who have done so many fine things for Egypt's good, and who +keep an army there to emphasize the fact, have arranged that any slave +who comes to the office of the Consul-General and claims his protection +can have it; but these slaves of the married men are not granted even +this chance of escape. + +And so they live like birds in a cage. They eat and dress and undress, +and expose their youth and beauty, and hide their age and ugliness, +until they die. The cry along the Nile a few years ago was, "Egypt for +the Egyptians," and a very good cry it was, although the wrong man first +started it. But there was another cry raised in the land of Egypt many +hundreds of years before of "Let my people go," and the woman who can +raise that again to-day, and who can set free her sisters of the East, +will be doing a greater work than any woman is doing at the present time +or has ever done. + +The women who pass before you in the procession at the foot of the +terrace are of two classes only. There is no middle class in Egypt. The +poor are huddled up in a black bag that hides their bodies from the +crown of the head to the feet. What looks like the upper end of a black +silk stocking falls over the face from the bridge of the nose and +fastens behind the ears, and a brass tube about the size of a spool is +tied between the eyes. You see in consequence nothing but their eyes, +and as these are perhaps their best feature, they do not all suffer from +their enforced disguise. The only women whose bare faces you can see, +and from whom you may judge of the beauty of the rest, are the good +women of the Coptic village, who form a sort of sisterhood, and the +dancing-girls, who are not so good. Some of these have the straight +nose, the narrow eyes, and the perfect figure of Cleopatra, as we +picture her; but the faces of the majority are formless, with broad, fat +noses, full lips, and their figures are without waists or hips, and +their ankles are as round as a man's upper arm. When they are pretty +they are very pretty, but those that are so are so few and are so +covered with gold that one suspects they are very much the exception. Of +the women of the upper class you see only a glimpse as they are swept by +in their broughams, with the sais in front and a eunuch on the box and +the curtains half lowered. + +[Illustration: SHADOW OF THE PYRAMID OF CHEOPS + +(From a Photograph taken on the top of the Pyramid just before sunset)] + +Besides these, much passes that is intended for your especial +entertainment. Sellers of turquoises, which they dig out from various +creases in their robes; venders of stuffed crocodiles and live monkeys; +strange men from the desert with a jackal, which they throw, bound by +all four legs, and snarling and snapping, on the marble at your feet; +little girls who sing songs, and play accompaniments to them on their +throats with the tips of their fingers; women conjurers, who draw +strings of needles and burning flax from their mouths, and who swallow +nasty little wriggling snakes, and hatch pretty fluffy little chickens +out of the slabs of the terrace. Or else there is a troop of blue and +white Egyptian soldiers marching by, or gorgeous young officers on polo +ponies, or red-coated Tommies on donkeys, with their toes trailing in +the dust and the ribbons of their Scotch caps floating out behind; and +consuls-general with gorgeous guards in gold lace, and with +wicked-looking curved silver swords; or the young Khedive himself, who +comes with a great clatter of hoofs and bellowing sais before, and +another galloping troop of cavalry in the rear, at the sound of which +the people run to the curb and touch the fez, as he raises his hand to +his, and rolls by in a cloud of dust. + +There are very good things to see, and with a companion on one side to +explain them, and another on the other side to whom you can impart this +information as though you had been born knowing it, you cannot spend a +more entertaining afternoon. There is only one drawback, and that is a +lurking doubt that you should be up and about seeing the show-places. +Friday, in consequence, is the best day in Cairo, as all the things you +ought to see are then closed, and you can sit still on the terrace with +a clear conscience. Among the mosques and the tombs and the palaces and +museums to which all good tourists go, and of which there are excellent +descriptions, giving their various dimensions and other particulars, in +the guide-books, there are the Citadel and the Mosque of Mehemet Ali. +The Citadel is the fortress built on the hill above the city, but which, +with the Oriental incompleteness of that time, was reared upon high but +not upon the highest ground. The sequel to this naturally was that when +Mehemet Ali wanted the city of Cairo he sought out the highest ground, +and dropped cannon-balls into the fortress until it capitulated. He +afterwards asked all the Mamelukes to dinner at the Citadel, and then +had them treacherously killed--all but one, who rode his horse down the +side of the Citadel and escaped. If you can imagine the reservoir at +Forty-second Street placed upon the top of Madison Square Garden, and a +man riding down the side of it, you can understand what a very difficult +and dangerous thing this was to do. There is no doubt that he did it, +for I saw a picture of him in the very act in a book of history when I +was at school, and I also have seen the marks of his horse's hoofs in +the stone parapet of the Citadel, and they are just as fresh as they +were three years ago, when they were on the other side. + +The Mosque of Mehemet Ali surmounts the Citadel, and its twin minarets +are the distinguishing mark of Cairo; they are as conspicuous for miles +above the city as is the dome of St. Paul's over London, and they are as +light and graceful as it is impressive and heavy. The men on guard tie +big yellow shoes on your feet before they allow you to enter this +mosque, the outer court-yard of which is floored with alabaster, over +which you slide as though you were on a mirror or a sheet of ice. It is +very beautiful, and one is as unwilling to walk on it as to tramp in +muddy boots over a satin train. The floor of the mosque is covered with +the most magnificent rugs, as wide-spreading as a sheet and as heavy as +so much gold; alabaster pillars reach to the top of the square, empty +building, and from these rise five domes, colored blue and red, and +lightened with gilded letters. It is very rich-looking, gloomy, silent, +and impressive. It is the best of the mosques. From the outside, on the +ramparts, you can see Cairo stretching out below for miles in a level +gray jumble of flat roofs and rounded domes and slender minarets, with +the high walls of a palace here and the thick green of a park there to +break the monotony; beyond it lies the Nile, a twisting ribbon of +silver; and beyond that rich green fields and canals and bunches of +palm-trees; and seven miles away, where the green ceases and the desert +begins, are three monuments of gray stone, looking, at that distance, +disappointingly small and familiarly commonplace. It is not, I think, +until you have seen them several times, and have climbed to their top +and gazed up at them from below, that you appreciate the pyramids as you +had expected to appreciate them; but after they have laid their charm +upon you, you will find yourself twisting your neck to take another +look, or going out of your way to see them again before the sun has said +good-night to them, as it has done ever since it first climbed over the +edge of the world and found them waiting there. + +There is a mosque on the outside of the city which people visit on +certain days to see the howling dervishes go through their peculiar form +of worship. This mosque consists of four square walls with a dome. It is +whitewashed within, and bare and rude and old. The sunlight enters it +through square holes cut in the dome, and beats upon thirty or forty men +who stand in a semicircle facing the East. They are of all sorts, from +Arabs of the desert with long hair and wild eyes, to fat, +pleased-looking merchants from the bazars, and the beggars and +water-carriers of the streets. Around them on chairs are the tourists +and the residents, like the spectators at a play rather than the guests +of a religious sect watching a religious ceremony. Most of the men wear +their hats, and some of the women take careful notes and make sketches. +They reminded me of medical students at a clinic when a man is being cut +up. An archdeacon from one of our Western cities wore his hat, to show, +probably, that he disapproved of the whole thing; but as he used to eat +with his knife while on board the _Fulda_, his conduct in any place was +not to be considered. The priest recites something from the Koran, and +the men repeat it, moving their bodies back and forward as they do so +with gradually increasing rapidity. What they may be saying is quite +unintelligible, and the chorus they make resembles that of no human +sound, but rather the gasping or panting of an animal. It is to the +visitor absolutely without any religious significance; all that is +impressive about it is its horrible earnestness and its at times +repulsive results. As the voice of the priest grows more accentuated the +bodies of the men swing farther and lower, until their hair sweeps the +floor, and their eyes, when they throw their bodies back, are on a +level with those of the spectators. A drum beats in quickening time to +the voice of the priest and to the gasps of the dervishes, and a flute +playing a weird accompaniment seems to mock at their fierce grunts and +breathings. It was one of the most unpleasant exhibitions I ever +witnessed, and affected one's nerves to such a degree that several of +the women had to leave. The eyes of the men rolled in their sockets, and +their lips parted, and through their clinched teeth came fiercer and +louder gasps, until the chorus of sound reached you like the quick +panting of an engine as it draws out of a station. The sweat ran from +them like water from a sponge, and the veins stood out on their faces, +showing in congested knots beneath the skin. Some of them groaned, and +others shrieked and cried out, "Allah! Allah!" This acted like the +strokes of a whip on the others, who rocked more and more violently, and +swung themselves almost off their feet. Then, as the music grew fainter +the motion of the bending bodies grew less vigorous and finally ceased, +and the men stood rigid, some apparently unmoved and unconcerned, and +others turning and reeling in a fit. + +While this was going forward, and you felt as though you were assisting +at a heathen rite in which self-punishment was being inflicted as a bid +for God's indulgence, two interesting things happened. An officer in the +English Army of Occupation turned to his dragoman and cried at the top +of his voice, angrily: "Do you call this worth ten piasters? Well, I +don't. Now if you've got anything to show me, take me to see it. This +isn't worth coming to see. You're a rank impostor." + +[Illustration: A SECTION OF THE PYRAMID] + +The other thing was the act of a native woman, who brought her child to +the door and handed it to a priest, who took it in his arms and passed +with it in front of the swinging, gasping, crazy semicircle of men. The +child was about three years old, and was dying, and the mother had +brought it there to be cured by the breath of the dervishes. As it +passed before them, the hair of some of the men swept its arm, and it +turned its frightened eyes up to those of the priest, who smiled gravely +down upon the baby and bore him outstretched in his arms three times in +front of the swinging crescent. The faith of the child's mother appealed +to some of us more than did the Englishman's desire to get his money's +worth. The incident is only of interest here as showing perhaps why the +Army of Occupation is not as popular as it might be. This officer was no +doubt an excellent soldier--the ribbons on his tunic showed that--and no +one would have thought of questioning his ability to handle raw recruits +or his knowledge of tactics. But in handling the Egyptian tactics do not +count for so much as tact. + +There are several ways of reaching the pyramids, and it is eminently in +keeping with the other incongruities of the place and time that the most +popular way of visiting them is on a four-in-hand coach, with a guard in +a red coat and a bell-shaped white beaver tooting on his horn, and a +young gentleman with a boutonniere and an unhappy smile holding the +reins and working his way in and out between long strings of camels. +There is a very smart hotel about two hundred yards from the foot of the +pyramids, and you take a donkey there or a camel and ride up a sandy +road to the base of the Pyramid of Cheops. There are then several things +that you may do. You can either climb to the top of this first pyramid, +or crawl into its interior, or walk over to see the Sphinx, or make a +tour of subterranean tombs and passageways of alabaster and polished +stones, which are lighted for you by magnesium wire or stumps of +candles. + +It seems absurd to say that the Sphinx is disappointing, but so many who +have seen it say so that I feel I am one of many, and not individually +lacking in reverence or imagination. In the first place, the approach to +it is bad; you come at the Sphinx not from the front, but from the rear, +where all you can see of it is a round ball of crumbling stone spreading +out from a neck of broken outline, much smaller and meaner than you had +imagined it would be. In the second place, instead of looking up at it, +or having it look down at you, you view it first from a semicircular +ridge of sand, at the bottom of which it reposes, and at such a near +view that whatever outline or character of countenance it once possessed +is lost. I have seen photographs of the Sphinx, taken while I was in +Cairo, much more impressive than the Sphinx itself. Lying in a hollow of +the sand hills as it does, the farther you move away from it in order to +get a better focus, the less you see of it, and as you draw nearer to it +it loses its meaning, as does the scenery of a theatre when you are on +the wrong side of the foot-lights. I know that that is an unpopular +thing to say, and that there are many who feel thrills when they first +look upon the face of the Sphinx, and who describe their emotions to you +at length, and who write down their impressions in their diaries when +they get back to the hotel. But they have come a long way expecting to +be thrilled, and they do not intend to be disappointed. Some of the +sphinxes in the museum of Gizeh, which you pass on your way to the +pyramids, impressed me more than did the one great Sphinx, though they +were indoors and surrounded by attendants and the cheap decoration of +the museum, once a palace for the harem. They were of green stone and of +huge proportions, and with "the curling lip and sneer of cold command"; +and if you look at them long enough you feel uncomfortable shivers down +your back, and a perfectly irrational impulse to rush at them and beat +them in the face and force them to tell you what they know and what they +have kept back and have been keeping back for centuries and centuries. +Their faces show that they know all that we know and much besides that +we shall never know, and when the world at last comes to an end they +will stretch themselves and smile at one another and say: "Now _they_ +know it, but we knew it all the while. We could have told had we liked, +but we have enjoyed watching them fretting and fuming and prying about +and tinkering at our faces with their little hammers, and blowing us up +with saltpetre only to try and put us back again with steam. We who have +kept our secret from Herodotus and Caesar, are we likely to give it up to +Ebers and Mark Twain?" + +But this same Sphinx by moonlight impressed me more than did anything I +saw in the East. Not as one sees it by day, with tourists and +photographers and donkey-boys making it cheap and familiar, but at +night, when the tourists had gone to bed, and the donkey-boys had been +paid to keep out of sight, and the moonlight threw the great negro face +and the pyramids back of it into shadows of black and lines of silver, +and the yellow desert stretched away on either side so empty and silent +that I thought I was alone and back two thousand years in the past, +discovering the great monuments for myself, and for the first time. + +Before you ascend the Pyramid of Cheops you must deal with a middle-man +in the person of the sheik of the pyramids, who selects guides for you, +and who acts as though the pyramids were his private show, and he was +both sole proprietor and ticket-taker at the door. He lives in a village +near by, and he and his forefathers have always been allowed a monopoly +of the pyramids, and distribute their patronage to those guides who will +pay them the highest percentage of what they receive from the visitors. +You have three men to help you, two to pull, and one to push and to +dilate on the view. It takes over ten minutes to climb to the top, with +the men jerking at your wrists, and the third man shoving you from +below. It is not a difficult feat, and women accomplish it every day, +but it leaves you in a breathless state when you reach the summit, and +you are stiff above the knees for a day or two after you have come down. +When you have reached the summit the guides cheer feebly to give you the +idea that you have accomplished something which has often been +attempted before, but never so successfully; but you are not deceived, +and you do not feel like cheering yourself. The view is worth the climb, +however, and the sight of the shadow of the pyramid, spreading out over +the villages and canals below like a black cloud, impresses you more +with its immensity than the fact that it is a hundred feet higher than +the top of the Diana on the Madison Square Garden tower. I am sure of +this fact, because the man who built the Madison Square Garden assured +me of it between breaths on the summit of the pyramid. While you are +resting, the thing to do is to pay one of the guides to attempt to run +down the pyramid you are on, cross the heavy sand to the pyramid beyond, +and reach its top in eight minutes. When you give the word he disappears +with a bound and drops into space, skipping and jumping and growing +smaller and smaller as he goes, until he looks like a fluttering +handkerchief; and when he reaches the sand he is as small as a child of +three, and his ascent of the other pyramid suggests a white pigeon +shuffling up the steep roof of a barn. It is distinctly on his part a +sporting thing to do. The descent of the pyramid is very much worse than +going up, and you need to go very slowly, and not to look too often at +the people crawling about like ants below. Only four men, however, in +six years have slipped and fallen during this descent, and one of them +had been drinking. They were all killed. The more you see of the +pyramids the more you want to see of them, although I think one +ascent is all perhaps you will care about taking; but their dignity and +the wonder of their being where they are, and for so long, increases +with every look at them. You cannot grow too familiar with the pyramids. +They will not have it. + +[Illustration: DAHABEEYAHS ON THE NILE BEFORE CAIRO] + +On the road back from the Pyramids of Gizeh there are other pyramids +within sight of Cairo, but these are those with which the Sphinx is +associated. You will see here one of the most beautiful sights of Cairo, +the dahabeeyahs on the Nile. They and their white sails, especially when +they come wing and wing before the wind, are the most beautiful of +floating objects, and when there are hundreds of them coming towards you +in lessening perspective, with the sun shining on the sails, and the +banks on either side alive and moving with the palms, the river Nile +becomes the best part of Cairo. + +There is another place on the Nile which you should visit, and to which +tourists seldom go. This is the isle of Rodda, on the bank of which +Moses was found, and where you may see the Nilometer. This is a well +about sixteen feet in diameter, connected by a channel with the Nile. It +is made of masonry, and down one side there runs a column on which are +inscribed ancient Arabian and Cufic numerals, or what answer for +numerals. It was dug many centuries ago, and it marks the rising and +falling of the river, and at the same time the prosperity or dismay of +Egypt. When the tide begins to rise, this rude instrument is watched +hourly, and the hopes of the people rise and fall as the muddy water +moves up or down the narrow well. When it reaches a certain height the +sheik in charge declares that the time has come for cutting the banks +and irrigating the land. In ancient days the rate of taxation was +determined by the height of the inundation, and it is said that the +sheik in charge of the Nilometer is still under the influence of the +government, to whose advantage it is to make the fellahin believe that +the inundation is favorable. It was the engineers under Napoleon who +discovered that the Nilometer was being tampered with, but there is no +likelihood of its being abused to-day under the English, whose +improvement of the irrigation of Egypt has been their best work, and for +the fellahin's best good. But it is interesting, nevertheless, to look +down into the old well, overgrown with vines and surrounded by ruin and +crumbling walls and broken lattices, and to think that for centuries it +brought news of famine or of plenty, and that it was, primitive as its +construction is, the pulse of Egypt. + +The pulse of Egypt to-day is not shown in the mere rising or falling of +a body of water. It is less primitive in its construction, and no one +knows which way it is going to jump. In the next chapter I shall try to +tell something of the men who have their fingers on Egypt's pulse, and +who are agreed in only one thing--that there are too many fingers for +Egypt's good. + + + + +V + +THE ENGLISHMEN IN EGYPT + + +When the visitor to Cairo first grasps the extent of his own ignorance +of Egypt, and appreciates that if he is to understand its monuments and +the signs of past times about him he must study the history of the whole +world for forty centuries, he is apt to retreat precipitately. Later, as +a compromise, he proposes skipping thirty-nine centuries and limiting +his researches to the study of the political and social conditions of +Egypt during the last ten years. And when he begins jauntily on this he +finds that all that has gone before, from Rameses II. to Mehemet Ali, is +as simple as the line of Popes in comparison with the anomalies and +intricacies of government that have arisen within the last decade. Yet +the very intricacies of the subject give to this study a fascination +entirely apart from its rare picturesqueness, and no matter what manner +of man he may be, he cannot but find some side of the situation which +appeals to him. If his mind be constituted like that of a ready reckoner +he can revel in unravelling the intricacies of the Caisse and the Laws +of Liquidation; if it is judicial, he can perhaps elucidate the powers +of the Mixed Tribunal; if romantic, he has the career of Ismail, the +most magnificent of patriots and profligate of monarchs; and if it turns +towards adventure and the clash of arms, he can read of the heroic +fanaticism of Fuzzy Wuzzy, the son of the Mahdi, of the futile mission +of Gordon, of Stewart's march across the desert, and of the desperate +valor of the fight at Aboo-Klea. + +But it is the paradoxical nature of Egypt's present situation which +gives it its chief interest, and lends to it the peculiar fascination of +a puzzle, or one of Whistler's witticisms. For, while Egypt is not free, +as is Morocco, nor under a protectorate, as is Tunis, she is still free +and still protected. She is free to coin money, to maintain an army, and +to make treaties; and yet she pays six million dollars a year tribute to +Turkey as a part of the Ottoman Empire, and her army that she is allowed +to maintain is officered by English soldiers, whom she is also allowed +to maintain. She may not pay out the money she is allowed to coin +without the consent of foreigners; she cannot punish the man who steals +this money, be he Greek, English, or American, without the approval of +these foreigners; and her official language is that of one foreign +power, her ostensible protector is another, and her real protector is +still another, whose commands are given under the irritating disguise of +"advice." + +[Illustration: EGYPTIAN INFANTRY IN THEIR DIFFERENT UNIFORMS] + +Alfred Milner, the late under-secretary for finance in Egypt, whose +_England in Egypt_ is the best book on the subject, though it reads like +a novel, has put it in this way: "It is not given to mortal intelligence +to understand at one blow the complexities of Turkish suzerainty and +foreign treaty rights; to realize the various powers of interference and +obstruction possessed by consuls and consuls-general, by commissioners +of the public debt, and other mixed administrations; to distinguish +English officers who are English from English officers who are Egyptian, +foreign judges of the international courts from foreign judges of the +native courts; to follow the writhings of the Egyptian government in its +struggle to escape from the fine meshes of the capitulations; to +appreciate precisely what laws that government can make with the consent +of only six powers, and for what laws it requires the consent of no less +than fourteen." + +It seems rather unfair to saddle the responsibility for all of these +burdens and for this remarkable condition of affairs, which is +unequalled in history, upon the shoulders of one man, but one man is +responsible for it directly and indirectly. He is still alive, a hanger +on at the court of the Sultan of Turkey, he who was at one time the most +picturesque monarch of the world. Ismail Pasha became Khedive a little +before the time of the close of our Civil War. Egypt had never been more +prosperous than then--owing but fifteen million dollars. In 1876, when +Ismail was deposed and his son Tewfik Pasha put in his place, he had +increased the debt of Egypt to four hundred and forty-five million +dollars. Ismail was a typical Oriental ruler; he had the typical +Oriental ruler's French veneer and education, a combination which has +been found to produce most serious results. When an Oriental is left +alone he is a barbarian, or he used to be; now, after he has been made +the talk of Paris for nine days, and has been given a state dinner at +Marlborough House, and a few stars for his coat, and called "cousin," he +goes home with no particular disgust for his former eccentricities of +mis-government, but with a quiver full of new tastes, desires, and +ambitions, and thereafter plays his role of monarch with one eye on the +grand stands of Europe. He wants their good opinion, but he wants to get +it in his own way--the old way. He begins to build railroads and +hospitals, but he continues, after his past custom, to draw the money +for such improvements from licensed gambling-houses or from the sale of +opium. He has a French cook, but he retains the kurbash; he puts up +telephones, but he does not give up the bowstring. + +[Illustration: RIAZ PASHA, + +Prime-minister of Egypt] + +Ismail was the first Khedive who discovered that the easiest way to get +money is to borrow it. He found that all one has to do is to sign a +paper, and you get the money. It was very easy for Ismail to borrow +money, because the credit of Egypt was good and sound in itself, and +because foreigners, who even at that time swarmed in Egypt, knew that +the repudiation of debts, while possible in a powerful or free +government, was not to be feared from that country. So there began a +reign of extravagance for which history has no parallel. If "money +breeds money," it is also true that those who spend money freely are +given more chances to do so than any one else. Adventurers, charlatans, +rascals of every climate and every nationality, swarmed down upon Cairo, +and fought with one another for a chance to glut themselves at the +repast which this reckless profligate spread for all comers. No man +probably was ever so basely cheated as was Ismail, or on so magnificent +a scale. And nothing remains but ruins to show where the money spent on +his own personal pleasure was bestowed. That other magnificent +reprobate, William M. Tweed, left monuments like the Court House to +commemorate his thefts of public money; but Ismail's palaces are falling +in pieces, the rain has washed the paint off the boards, the tips of the +crescents are broken, and great gardens filled with fountains and +mosaic paths are choked with weeds and covered with fallen leaves and +the dirt and dust of neglect and decay. You can walk over long marble +floors which have sunk by their own weight through the rotten +foundations, and see yourself at full length in bleared mirrors +surrounded by the gilt borders and blue silken curtains of the Second +Empire. Ismail ordered these palaces as men order hats, and threw them +away as you toss an empty cartridge from a gun-barrel. And that was all +the most of them ever were, empty cartridges, mere shells of wood +painted to look like marble, and gilding and mirrors, as tasteless as +the buildings at the Centennial Exposition, and lasting as long. + +And yet they pleased him, and he ordered more and more, so that wherever +his eye might rest it would fall upon a palace which would serve as a +fitting covering for his royal person, and as a testimony to his +magnificence. He wanted many, and he wanted them at once. He had them +built at night by the light of candles. The Palace of Gizeh, which is +now a museum, was reared in this way while Cairo slept, and at a cost of +twenty-four million dollars. The curtains ordered for its windows cost +one thousand dollars each, and when it was found that they did not fit +the windows, the entire front of the building was torn down, and a new +front with windows to match the curtains was put in its place. He built +an opera-house as fine as that of Covent Garden in six months, and a +grotto as dark and cool as the Mammoth Cave, with stalactites of painted +rope and rocks of papier-mache and mud, with its sides lined with +aquariums, in which swam strange fish. The wind and the dust play +through this grotto to-day; for he no sooner reared a palace in air than +he turned from it to some new toy. These are the things you can see. You +can hear stories--some of them true, some of them possible--of things +that are past, such as his swimming-tanks where a hundred of the slaves +of the harem bathed together for his edification; the pie out of which, +when it was opened, there stepped a ballet-dancer; and the story of the +disappearance of the Pasha who grew too rich. This is, unfortunately, a +true story, and not one out of the _Arabian Nights_. This Pasha was +invited by Ismail to see a new dahabeeyah, and never returned. But one +of the attendants on the Khedive came back some weeks later with his +finger bitten off at the joint. He and Ismail alone know where the Pasha +who was too rich has gone. + +These extravagances and these eccentricities were all in keeping with +our idea of what an Oriental despot should be, but it would be most +unfair and ungenerous to give only this side of Ismail's character. He +was a man of much mind and of large ideas, as well as a man with the +tastes of a voluptuary, and the means, for a time, of a Count of Monte +Cristo. It was he who built the harbor of Alexandria; and the railways +and canals that others have completed were started under his regime. All +of these things--railroads, palaces, canals, and grottos made of +mud--cost money; and there were other expenses. Knights of industry and +rascals of all degrees extorted vast fortunes from him in indemnities +for supposed failures on his part to keep up with his agreements, and to +stick to the letter of concessions. Some of these, like the payment of +fifteen million dollars to the Suez Canal Company, were just enough; but +there was also an enormous sum given in backsheesh to Turkey to gain the +consent of the Porte to a proposed change in the line of succession and +the establishment of the rule of primogeniture. Up to that time the +eldest male member of the ruling family had always succeeded to power, +but Ismail obtained a firman from the Sultan allowing his son to follow +him. The gratification of this natural vanity or love of family was not +obtained for the asking, and cost his people dear. They were already +groaning under a multitude of taxes; the army was unpaid; the +bureaucracy was rotten throughout; bribery and extortion, unfair +taxation, and open seizure of the property of others had reduced the +country almost to bankruptcy. Ismail in sixteen years had brought about +a state of things that threatened utter ruin, to not only the native, +but to the strangers within and without the gates. The strangers made +the move for reform. I have told this much of Ismail not because it is +new or unfamiliar, but because it shows how, through his misrule, the +foreign element was able to obtain a footing upon the shore of Egypt, +which footing has now grown to a trampling under foot of what is native +and properly Egyptian. This entering wedge was called the Dual Control, +and France and England were appointed receivers for Egypt, just as we +appoint receivers for a badly managed railroad, and Ismail was deposed, +his son Tewfik taking his place. + +[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN LANCER] + +But although this was the first important and most official recognition +of the right of the stranger to dictate to Egypt, he had already +obtained peculiar rights in Egypt through capitulations, or those +privileges granted in the past to foreign residents in Turkey and its +dependent state of Egypt. In the sixteenth century the foreigners who +traded in these Oriental countries stood in actual need of protection +from the natives. Because they were foreigners they were regarded with +such lack of consideration that, in order to balance the disadvantages +of having their shops destroyed and their throats cut, the Sultan gave +them certain privileges--such as immunity from taxation, immunity from +arrest, the inviolability of domicile, and the exemption from the +jurisdiction of the local courts. + +These privileges were unimportant when the foreign element in +Constantinople was so little and so weak that the position of the +Chinamen in San Francisco in '49 was that of a powerful aristocracy in +comparison; but the snake warmed at the hearth-stone grew, and the +Sultan's empire dwindled, and the privileges which were given to bribe +the foreigner to come and to remain became a bane to Turkey and a curse +to the weaker state of Egypt. The inviolability of domicile, for +instance, is at this very day made use of by foreigners who are carrying +on some wickedness or who have committed a crime for which they cannot +be arrested by an Egyptian policeman unless he is accompanied by an +official representative of the country to which the foreigner belongs. +Let us suppose, for example, that the police of New York wished to raid +a gambling-house. This, I know, is asking a good deal of the reader's +intelligence, but we will suppose it to be a gambling-house which has +not paid its assessment to the police regularly, and which should be +given a lesson. All that the proprietor of the house would have to do, +did capitulations extend in New York, would be to lease the house to an +Italian, or to take out papers of naturalization from the British +government. You can imagine the chagrin of an officer of the law who, +when he goes to make an arrest, is confronted with a German who says he +is an Englishman, and whose domicile is accordingly sacred. This, as you +can imagine, would impede the wheels of justice. + +When I was in Cairo a Greek, who had taken out papers as an American +citizen, flaunted this fact in the faces of the native police whenever +they came to arrest him for keeping a gambling-house. They applied to +our consul-general, Mr. E. C. Little, of Abilene, Kansas, who so far +differed from the etiquette observed by some other consuls-general in +Cairo as not to delay and not to warn the criminal. He sent his soldiers +to be present at the arrest. The offender met this by bringing forth +another American citizen of Greek parentage, to whom he claimed to have +leased the house, and whose family were inside. Mr. Little, feeling that +the American flag did not look well as a cloak for gambling-houses, and +being a young man who has assisted at county-seat fights and who can +pitch three curves, said that if the roulette tables were not out of the +house in twenty-four hours he would himself break them into +kindling-wood with an axe. This incident shows how the capitulations of +the sixteenth century are acting as stumbling-blocks to the Egyptian of +to-day, even when the consuls-general are willing to assist the native +government, which is seldom. + +[Illustration: TIGRANE PASHA, + +Minister of Foreign Affairs] + +This is not all. The immunity from full taxation, now that the +foreigners are among the richest inhabitants of Cairo, is most +manifestly unjust; and though the mixed courts of an international +judiciary have done away with trial of the foreign resident, or lack of +trial, in civil cases, by the several consuls-general, the abuses of the +capitulations are still a grievous and most unjust imposition by the +great powers, ourselves included, upon a weaker one. To return to the +Dual Control and to the story of the growth of the foreigners' hold on +Egypt. The Dual Control was unpopular; so was the foreigner and his +capitulations, who, waxing fat on the weaknesses of the country after +Ismail's debauchery of its strength, grew insolent--so insolent that the +cry raised by a general in the Khedive's army of "Egypt for the +Egyptians" was taken up, and found expression in the Arabist movement or +rebellion. Its leader was Arabi Pasha. He wanted what the Know-Nothing +party of America wanted--his country for his countrymen. What else he +wanted for himself does not matter here. He was, in the eyes of the +Khedive, a rebel. In the eyes of some of the people he was the would-be +preserver of his country against the plague of the foreign invasion. + +The trouble began at Alexandria, where the excited people attacked the +foreign residents, killing some, and destroying valuable property. +Men-of-war of the two powers represented in the Dual Control had already +arrived to put down the rebellion. When the riot on shore was at its +height, the English war-vessels bombarded the city. The bombarding of +Alexandria was war, but it was not magnificent. There are certain things +made to be bombarded--forts and ships of war--but cities are not built +for that purpose or with that ultimate end in view. The English people, +as a people, however, regret the bombardment of Alexandria as much as +any one. The French war-vessels, for their part, refused to join the +bombardment, and so were requested by the English admiral to sail away +and give the other half of the Dual Control a clear field. Different +people give you different reasons for the departure of the French fleet +at this crisis. Some say that M. Clemenceau, who hated M. Freycinet and +his policy, possibly raised the cry of the German wolf on the frontier, +and pointed out the danger at home if the army and navy were engaged +otherwise than in protecting the border. Others say that, like the good +one of the two robbers in the _Babes in the Wood_, one of the Dual +Control drew the line at murder or at the bombardment of a country she +was supposed to protect. Plundering the Egyptians was possible, but not +bombarding their city. They stopped at that. The English followed up the +bombardment of Alexandria by the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, which ended the +rebellion. The Citadel of Cairo surrendered at their approach, and the +Khedive's rule was again undisturbed. The English remained, however, to +"restore order," and to see to the "organization of proper means for the +maintenance of the Khedive's authority." They have been doing that now +for ten years, and it is interesting to note that they have made so +little progress that the last "disorder" in Cairo was due to the action +of the British consul-general himself in allowing the young Khedive just +twenty-four hours in which to dismiss one of his cabinet. This can +hardly be described as "maintaining the authority of the Khedive," which +the English had promised to do. + +[Illustration: A CAMEL CORPS PATROL AT WADI HALFA] + +After the battle of Tel-el-Kebir Great Britain stood undoubtedly in the +position of the savior of the Khedive if not of Egypt. Her soldiers had +crushed the rebellion, and as she had sent her Only General and one of +the royal family and many thousands of good men to do it, and as she had +lost not only men, but money, she thought she deserved something in +return. The something she has taken in return has been taken gradually, +and is the control of Egypt at the present day. It is possible that had +the English not lost many more men and much more money in the campaign +in the Soudan, which followed immediately after the suppression of +Arabi, they might not have gone so far as they have gone in settling +themselves in Egypt. But there was a not unnatural feeling that the +Soudan campaign, which had cost so much, and which was a failure in all +but in showing the bravery of the British troops, ought to be paid for, +or made up to the English in some way. I should like to go into the +story of this most picturesque and heroic of campaigns, but it would +require a book by itself. Its history is briefly this: The religious +and military chieftain known as "the Mahdi," shortly after the defeat of +Arabi, threatened all Egypt from the Soudan, which rose under his +leadership. General Hicks, an Englishman, with ten thousand men, in the +service of the Khedive, was sent against him. He was killed, and most of +the troops with him. The English, who were at that time the only power +in Egypt with authority of any sort back of it, and who were virtually +in control, felt that they should take the responsibilities of their +position as well as its benefits, and avenge the massacre, drive back +the Mahdi's forces, and, if possible, crush him and them for all time. +The campaign was later further complicated by the presence at Khartoom +of Major-General C. G. Gordon, who had gone there to lead back in safety +the Egyptian troops still remaining in the Soudan. He was, after his +arrival at Khartoom, virtually a prisoner at that place, which is a mud +city on the banks of the Nile far above the fifth cataract. The attempts +to rescue him and to suppress the Mahdi were equally unsuccessful. + +This is, in a few words, the story of a campaign which has been +unequalled within the last twenty years in picturesqueness, heroism, and +dramatic surprises. It had been said that the old days of personal +bravery, of hand-to-hand slaughter, and of the attack and defence of man +against man, were at an end; that owing to the new weapons of war, by +which an enemy can be attacked when several miles distant from the +attacking party, when the pressing of an electric button destroys an +army corps, and when turning a handle will send three hundred bullets a +minute into a mass of infantry, the necessity for personal courage was +over. But seldom in history has there been as fierce personal encounters +as in the Soudan, or as unusual methods of warfare. On the one hand were +the naked supporters of the Mahdi, armed with their spears and knives, +and protected only by bull-hide shields, but actuated by a religious +fanaticism that drove them exulting at their enemies, and with no fear +of death, but with the belief that through it they would gain joyous and +proud immortality. Against them were the British troops, outnumbered ten +to one, with hundreds of miles of sandy desert before, behind, and on +every side of them, cut off from communication with the outside world, +in a country barren and unfamiliar, and attacked by tens of thousands, +who came when they pleased and where they pleased, rising as swiftly as +a sand-storm rises, and disappearing again as suddenly into the desert. + +When I was in Cairo I was told of one of the Mahdi's men who continually +rushed at a British square during an engagement holding his shield clear +of his body as he advanced to throw a spear, and then retreated again. +This looked like the worst form of foolhardiness to the English, until +they saw that he was protecting with his shield his little boy, who was +hiding behind it, and that when the chance offered, this child, who +could not have been more than seven, and who was as naked of protection +as his father, would throw a spear of his own. The father was wounded +four times, but each time the bullet struck him he only shook himself, +as a dog shakes off water, and once more rushed forward. When he fell +for the last time the boy tumbled across him, unconscious from a wound +in his thigh. The surgeons dressed this wound and bandaged it; but when +the child came to and saw what they had done, he leaped up and tore the +clothes from around him, and then, as the blood from the reopened wound +ran out, fell over backwards dead. The English officer who told this +story asked if fighting such men could be considered agreeable work from +any point of view. + +[Illustration: H. H. ABBAS II. + +Khedive of Egypt] + +But the Soudan is only of interest here as showing how, having lost so +much through it, the British did not feel more inclined than before to +evacuate Egypt, although there were many who thought, as a few still +think, that Egypt has cost them too much already, and more than they can +ever get back. The loss of Gordon was perhaps the disaster of all the +most keenly felt. How keenly is shown partly by the statue the English +have placed to him in Trafalgar Square, surrounded by their kings and +greatest generals. It shows him with one foot placed on the battlement +of Khartoom, with his arms folded, and with the head thrown slightly +forward, looking out, as he had done for so many weary months, for the +relief that came too late. This monument is a reproach to those whose +uncertainty of mind and purpose cost Gordon his life. It was doing a +brave thing to put it up in a public place, being, as it is, a standing +reminder of the neglect and half-heartedness that lost a valuable life, +and one that had been risked again and again for his country. It is not +only a monument to General Gordon, but to the English people, who have +had the courage to admit in bronze and stone that they were wrong. + +For the last ten years the English have been as tardy in getting out of +Egypt as they were in going after Gordon into the Soudan. They have +repeatedly declared their intention of evacuating the country, not only +in answer to questions in the House, but in answer to the inquiries of +foreign powers. But they are still there. They have not been idle while +there, and they have accomplished much good, and have brought benefits +innumerable to Egypt. They have improved her systems of irrigation, upon +which the prosperity of the land depends, have strengthened her army, +have done away with the corvee, or tax paid on labor, and with the +kurbash, or whip used in punishment, and, what is much the most +wonderful, they have brought her out of ruin into such a condition of +prosperity that she not only pays the interest on her enormous debt, but +has a little left over for internal improvements. There has also been a +marked change for the better in the condition of the courts of justice, +and there has been an extension of a railroad up the Nile as far as +Sirgeh. + +But the English to-day not only want credit for having done all this, +but they want credit for having done it unselfishly and without hope or +thought of reward, and solely for the good of mankind and of Egypt in +particular. They remind me of those of the G. A. R. who not only want +pensions and medals, but to be considered unselfish saviors of their +country in her hour of need. There is no reason why a man should not be +held in honor for risking his life for his country's sake, and honors, +if he wants them, should be heaped upon him, but not money too. He +either served his country because he was loyal and brave, or because he +wanted money in return for taking certain risks. Let him have either the +honors or the money, but he should not be so greedy as to want both. +England has made a very good thing out of Egypt, and she has not yet got +all she will get, but she wants the world to forget that and look upon +her as an unselfish and enlightened nation that is helping a less +prosperous and less powerful people to get upon their feet again. Of +course it is none of our business (at least it is our policy to say so) +when England stalks forth like a roaring lion seeking what she may +devour all over the world. Americans travel chiefly upon the Continent, +and unless they go into out-of-the-way corners of the world they have no +idea how little there is left of it that has not been seized by the +people of Great Britain. For my own part I find one grows a little tired +of getting down and sailing forth and landing again always under the +shadow of the British flag. If the United States should begin with +Hawaii and continue to annex other people's property, we should find +that almost all of the best corner lots and post-office sites of the +world have been already pre-empted. Senator Wolcott once said to Senator +Quay: "I understand, Quay, you want the chairmanship of the Library +Committee. You seem to want the earth; if you don't look out you will +interfere with my plans." + +If the United States had taken away the little princess's island from +her and continued to plunder weaker nations, she would have found that +England wants the earth too, and that she is in a fair way of getting it +if some one does not stop her very soon. There are a number of good +people in England who believe that for the last ten years their +countrymen have spent their time and money in redeeming Egypt as a form +of missionary work, and there are others quite as naive who put the +whole thing in a word by saying, "What would we do with our younger sons +if it was not for Egypt?" + +[Illustration: THE GUN MULE OF THE MULE BATTERY] + +Three-fourths of the officers in the army of the Khedive are English +boys, who rank as second lieutenants at home and as majors in Egypt. +They are paid just twice what they are paid in the English army, and it +is the Khedive who pays them and not the English. In this way England +obtains three things: she is saved the cost of supporting that number of +officers; she gets the benefit of their experience in Egypt, which is an +excellent training-school, at the expense of the Egyptians; and she at +the same time controls the Egyptian army by these same officers, and +guards her own interests at Egypt's cost. And as if this were not +enough, she plants an Army of Occupation upon the country, and with it +menaces the native authority. The irrigation of Egypt has of late been +carried on by Englishmen entirely and paid for by Egypt; her railroads +are built by the English; her big contracts are given out to English +firms and to English manufacturers; and the railroad which will be built +to Kosseir on the Red Sea may have been designed in Egypt's interest to +carry wheat, or it may have been planned to carry troops to the Red Sea +in the event of the seizure of the Suez Canal or of any other impediment +to the shortest route to India. We may not believe that the Egyptians +are capable of governing themselves, we may believe that it is written +that others than themselves shall always rule them and their country, +but we must prefer that whoever do this should declare themselves +openly, and act as conquerors who come and remain as conquerors, and not +as "advisers" and restorers of order. Napoleon came to Cairo with flags +flying and drums beating openly as an enemy; he did not come in the +disguise of a missionary or an irrigation expert. + +And there is always the question whether if left alone the Egyptians of +the present day could not govern themselves. Those of the Egyptians I +met who were in authority are not men who are likely to return to the +debauchery and misrule of Ismail. They would be big men in any country; +they are cultivated, educated gentlemen, who have served in different +courts or on many important diplomatic missions, and whose tastes and +ambitions are as creditable and as broad as are those of their English +contemporaries. + +The two most prominent advisers of the Khedive at present are his +Prime-minister, Riaz Pasha, and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tigrane +Pasha. The first of these is a Turk, the second an Armenian and a +Christian. It is told of Riaz that he was brought to Egypt when a boy as +a slave. A man who can rise from such a beginning to be Prime-minister +must have something in him. He showed his spirit and his desire for his +country's good in the time of Ismail, whose extravagances both he and +Nubar Pasha strenuously opposed, and his aid to the English in +establishing Egyptian finance on a firmer footing was ready and +invaluable. He has held almost every position in the cabinet of Egypt, +and is not too old a man to learn new methods, and if left alone is +experienced and accomplished enough as a statesman to manage for +himself. + +[Illustration: LORD CROMER, + +The English Diplomatic Agent in Egypt] + +Tigrane Pasha struck me as being more of a diplomat than a statesman, +but he showed his strength by the fact that he understood the weak +points of the Egyptians as well as their virtues. It is not the +enthusiast who believes that all in his country is perfect who is the +best patriot. To say that such a man as this--a man who has a better +knowledge of many different governments than half of the English cabinet +have of their own, and who wishes the best for his Khedive and his +country--needs the advice or support of an English resident minister, is +as absurd as to say that the French cabinet should govern themselves by +the manifestoes of the Comte de Paris. These men are not barbarians nor +despots; they have not gained their place in the world by favor or +inheritance. Their homes are as rich in treasures of art and history and +literature as are the homes of Lord Rosebery or Sir Henry Drummond +Wolff, and if they care for their country and the authority of their +Khedive, it is certainly hard that they may not have the right of +serving both undisturbed. + +The Khedive himself has been very generally represented through the +English press as a "sulky boy" who does not know what is best for him. +It is just as easy to describe him as a plucky boy who wishes to govern +his own country and his own people in his own way. And not only is he +not allowed to do this, but he is treated with a lack of consideration +by his protectors which adds insult to injury, and makes him appear as +having less authority than is really his. He might very well say to Lord +Cromer, "It was all very well to dissemble your love, but why did you +kick me down-stairs?" + +Sir Evelyn Baring, now Lord Cromer, and the ruling figure in Egypt, has +served his country as faithfully and as successfully as any man in her +debt to-day. He has been in Egypt from the beginning of these ten years, +and he has been given almost unlimited power and authority by his own +country, of which his nominal position of Consul-General and Diplomatic +Agent is no criterion. He is a typical Englishman in appearance, +broad-shouldered and big all over, with a smooth-shaven face, and the +look of having just come fresh from a bath. In conversation he thinks +much more of what he has to say than of how he says it; by that I mean +that he is direct, and even abrupt; the Egyptians found him most +unpleasantly so. But were he more tactful, he would probably have been +better liked personally, but would not have succeeded in doing what he +has done so well. + +I do not like what he has done, but I want to be fair in showing that +for the work he was sent to do he is probably the best man England could +have selected. A man less self-reliant might have feared to compromise +himself with home authorities, and would have temporized and lost where +Lord Cromer bullied and browbeat and won. He is a very remarkable man. +He studies for a half-hour every day after breakfast, and plays tennis +in the afternoon. When he is in his own room, with a pipe in his mouth, +he can talk more interestingly and with more exact knowledge of Egypt +than any man in the world, and your admiration for him is unbounded. In +the rooms of the legation, on the contrary, or, again, when advising a +minister of the Khedive or the Khedive himself, he can be as intensely +disagreeable in his manner and as powerfully aggressive as a polar-bear. +During the last so-called "crisis" he gave the Khedive twenty-four hours +in which to dismiss his Prime-minister. He did this with the assurance +from the English Foreign Office that the home government would support +him. He then cabled with one hand to Malta for troops and with the other +stopped the Black Watch at Aden on their way to India, and called them +back to Cairo, after which he went out in full sight of the public and +banged tennis balls about until sunset. A man who can call out "forty, +love!" "forty, fifteen!" in a calm voice two hours after sending an +ultimatum to a Khedive and disarranging the movements of six thousand of +her Majesty's troops will get what he wants in the end, and a boy of +eighteen is hardly a fair match for him. + +As I have said, the English press have misrepresented the young Khedive +in many ways. He is, in the first place, much older both in appearance +and manner and thought than his age would suggest, and if he is sulky to +Englishmen it is not to be wondered at. They could hardly expect his +Highness to regard them as seriously as his friends as they regard +themselves. The Khedive gave me a private audience at the Abdine Palace +while I was in Cairo, and from what he said then and from what others +who are close to him told me of him, I obtained a very different idea of +his personality than I had received from the English. + +[Illustration: A GUN OF THE MULE BATTERY IN ACTION] + +He struck me as being distinctly obstinate--a characteristic which is so +marked in our President that it can only be considered one of the +qualifications for success, and is probably the quality in the Khedive +which the English describe as sulkiness. What I liked in him most was +his pride in his army and in the Egyptian people as Egyptians. It is +always well that a ruler should be so enthusiastic over what is his own +that he shows it even to the casual stranger, for if he exhibits it to +him, how much more will he show it to his people! The Khedive has +gentle tastes, and is said to find his amusement in his garden and among +flowers and on the farm lands of his estates; he speaks several +languages very well, and dresses and looks--except for the fez and his +attendants--like any other young man of twenty-three or twenty-four in +Paris or New York. His ministers, who know him best, describe him as +having a high spirit, and one that, as he grows older and will be guided +by greater experience, will lead him to firmer authority for his own +good and for the good of his people. + +One remark of the Khedive's which is of interest to Americans was to the +effect that the officers in his army who had been trained by Stone Bey, +and those other American officers who entered the Egyptian army after +the end of our Civil War, were, in his opinion, the best-trained men in +their particular department in his army. This is the topographical work, +and the making of maps and drawings; but those Americans who are in +charge of Egyptian troops on the frontier are also well esteemed. It is +the English, however, who have made the fighting part of the army what +it is. Before they came the troops were unpaid, and badly treated by +their officers, but now the infantry and the camel corps and artillery +have no trouble in getting recruits. + +The Egyptian is not a natural fighter, as is the Soudanese, who fights +for love of it, but he has shown lately that when properly officered and +trained and well treated, he can defend a position or attack boldly if +led boldly. I suggested to the Khedive that he should borrow some of our +officers, those who have succeeded so well with the negroes of the Ninth +Cavalry and with the Indians, for it seemed to me that this would be of +benefit to both the officers and the Egyptian soldier. It was this +suggestion that called forth the Khedive's admiration for the Americans +of his army; but, as a matter of fact, the English would never allow +officers of any other nationality than their own to control even a +company of the Egyptian army. They cannot turn out those foreigners who +are already in, but they can dictate as to who shall come hereafter, and +they fill all the good billets with their own people; and if there is +one thing an Englishman apparently holds above all else, it is a "good +billet." I know a good many English officers who would rather be +stationed where there was a chance of their taking part in what they +call a "show," and what we would grandly call a "battle," than dwell at +ease on the staff of General Wolseley himself; but, on the other hand, +if I were to give a list of all the subalterns who have applied to me +for "good billets in America," where they seem to think fortunes grow on +hedges, half the regimental colors from London to Malta would fade with +shame. + +And Egypt is full of "good billets." It is true the English have made +them good, and they were not worth much before the English restored +order; but because you have humanely stopped a runaway coach from going +over a precipice, that is no reason why you should take possession of it +and fill it both inside and out with your own friends and relations. +That is what England has done with the Egyptian coach which Ismail drove +to the brink of bankruptcy. + +It is true the Khedive still sits on the box and holds the reins, but +Lord Cromer sits beside him and holds the whip. + + + + +VI + +MODERN ATHENS + + +Perhaps the greatest charm of Athens and of the islands and mountains +round about it lies in their power to lure back your belief in a great +many fine people of whose remarkable deeds you had grown sceptical--of +whose existence even you had begun to doubt. It is something very +serious when one loses faith in so delightful a young man as Theseus, +and it is worth while sailing under the lee shores of Crete, where he +killed the Minotaur, if for no other purpose than to have your +admiration for him restored. If we could only be as sure of restoring by +travel all of those other people of whom our elders ceased telling us +when we left the nursery, I would head an expedition to the north pole, +not to discover open seas and altitudes and eclipses and such weighty +things, but to locate that nice and kindly old gentleman, and his toy +store and his reindeer, who used to come at Christmas-time, and who has +stopped coming since I left school. It is certainly worth while going +all the way to Greece to see the Hill of the Nymphs, and the very cave +where Pan used to sleep in the hot midday, and to thrill over the four +crossroads and the high, gloomy pass where the Sphinx lay in wait for +OEdipus with her cruel claws and inscrutable smile. + +[Illustration: GREEK SOLDIER IN THE NATIONAL (ALBANIAN) UNIFORM] + +The story that must always strike every child as most sad and +unsatisfactory is the one which tells us how the father of Theseus +killed himself when his son came sailing back triumphant, and so +gallantly engaged in entertaining the beautiful Athenian maidens whose +lives he had saved that he forgot to hoist the white sails, and caused +his father to throw himself off the high rocks in despair. + +This used to appeal to me as one of the most pathetic incidents in +history; but as time wore on my sympathy for the father and indignation +against Theseus passed away, and I forgot about them both. But when they +point out where the black sails were first seen entering the bay, and +you stand on the rock from which the people watched for Theseus, and +from which his father threw himself down, you feel just as sorry, and +you rebel just as strongly against that morbid anticlimax, as you did +when you first read the story in knickerbockers. It seems almost too sad +to be true. + +They had such a delightful way of mixing up the histories of gods and +mortals in those days that the imaginative person who visits Athens will +find himself gazing as gratefully and as open-eyed at the rocks in which +the Centaur hid as at those from which Demosthenes delivered his +philippics, just as in London the room at the Charter House where +Colonel Newcome said "Adsum" for the last time is much more real than +that room in Edinburgh in which Rizzio was killed, or as the rock from +which Monte Cristo sprang, at the base of the Chateau d'If, is so much +more actual than the entire field of Waterloo. It is hard to know just +which was real and which a delightful myth; and yet there has been so +little change in Greece since then that you are brought nearer to +Alcibiades and to Pericles than you can ever come, in this world at +least, to Dr. Johnson and Dean Swift. You cannot recreate Grub Street +and the debtors' prison, but Euboea still "looks on Marathon, and +Marathon on the sea," and, if you are presumptuous, you can strut up and +down the rocky plateau from which Demosthenes spoke, or take your seat +in one of the marble chairs of the Theatre of Dionysus, and pretend you +are a worthy citizen of Athens listening to a satire of Sophocles. + +[Illustration: GREEK PEASANT GIRL] + +The quiet and fresh cleanliness of modern Athens comes to you after the +roar and dirt of Cairo's narrow lanes and dusty avenues like the touch +of damask table linen and silver after the greasy oil-cloth of a +Mediterranean coasting steamer. It is quiet, sunny, and well-bred. You +do not fight your way through legions of donkey-boys and dragomans, nor +are your footsteps echoed by swarms of guides and beggars. It is a +pretty city, with the look of a water-color. The houses are a light +yellow, and the shutters a watery green, and the tile roofs a delicate +red, and the sky above a blue seldom shown to ordinary mortals, but +reserved for the eyes of painters and poets, who have a sort of second +sight, and so are always seeing it and using it for a background. Athens +is a very new city, with new streets and new public buildings, and a new +King and Royal Palace. It is like a little miniature. There is a little +army, chiefly composed of officers, and a miniature cabinet, and a +beautiful miniature university, and everybody knows everybody else; and +when the King or Queen drives forth, the guard turns out and blows a +bugle, and so all Athens, which is always sitting at the cafes around +the square of the palace, nods its head and says, "The Queen is going +for a drive," or, "Her Majesty has returned early to-day," and then +continues to clank its sword and to twirl its mustache and to sip its +coffee. Modern Athens tends towards the Frank in dress and habit of +thought. The men have adopted his costume, and the women wear little +flat curls like the French ladies in _Le Figaro_, and peaked bonnets and +high heels. + +[Illustration: THE UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS] + +The national costume of the Greeks is taken from the Albanians, but it +is much more honored in the breach than in the observance. Like all +national costumes, it is only worn, except for political effect and +before a camera, by the lower classes, and also by three regiments of +the army. You see it in the streets, but it is not so universally +popular as one would suppose from the pictures of Athens in the +illustrated papers and by the photographs in the shop-windows. It is a +most remarkable costume, and as widely different from the flowing robe +and short skirt of the early Greeks as men in accordion petticoats and +heavy white tights and a Zouave jacket must evidently be. In the country +it still obtains, and it is the farmers and peasants and their wives and +the soldiers who supply the picturesque element of dress to the streets +of the city. + +It is an inscrutable problem why, with all the national costumes in the +world to choose and pick from, the world should have decided upon the +dress of the Frank, that is, of the foreigner--ourselves. In Spain the +peasants have discarded their knickerbockers and short jackets, even in +the country, for the long trousers and ill-fitting ready-made clothing +of a French "sweater," and the Moors cover their robes with overcoats +from Manchester, and the Arabs and Chinese and Swiss and Turks are +giving up the picturesque garments that are comfortable and becoming to +them, and look exceedingly ugly and uncomfortable in our own modern +garb, which is the ugliest and most uncomfortable of national costumes +yet devised by men or tailors. If you judge by the uniforms of the army +of officers and by the dress of the women of Athens, you would think +you were in a French city and among French people. It seems a pity that +this should be so; that Athens, of all cities, should be built of +Italian villas, inhabited by people who ape the French, and governed by +a King from Denmark; still, they did not make a success of it when they +tried, fifty years ago, to govern themselves. It is perhaps hardly fair +to expect the Greeks, or even the Athenians, to live up to the great +rock and the monuments that crown it, and the people of Greece are no +doubt as fine as those of other little kingdoms or principalities +scattered about Europe; but then the other kingdoms and principalities +have not the history of early Greece to call their own nor the Acropolis +to look up to. + +[Illustration: ALBANIAN PEASANT WOMAN] + +[Illustration: ALBANIAN PEASANT WOMAN] + +The rock of the Acropolis is hardly more a part of modern Greece than +the Rock of Gibraltar is a part of Spain. Geographically it is, but it +belongs as much to the visitor as to the native, so little inspiration +has he apparently drawn from it, and so little has it served to bring +out in him to-day those qualities that made demigods of his ancestors. I +think I represent the average intelligence, and yet at this moment I +cannot think of any Greek within the last hundred years who has gained +world-wide renown, either as a sculptor, an artist, a soldier, a writer +of comedies and satires, a statesman, nor even as an archaeologist; the +very historians of Greece and the exponents of its secrets and the most +distinguished of its excavators are of other countries. They have many +heroes of their own; you see their portraits or their photographs in +every shop-window; but they are not as familiar to you as the faces and +histories of those other Greeks who sighed because there were no more +worlds, and whose fame has lasted long after the other worlds were +discovered. One would think that some young Greek, on arising in the +morning and seeing the Acropolis against the sky, would say to himself, +"To-day I shall do something worthy of that." And were he to say that +often enough, and try to live up to the fortress and the temple above +him, he might help to make Greece in this known world what she was in +the smaller world of her day of glory. It is not because the world has +grown and given her more with which to compete that she has fallen into +lesser and lesser significance; for though the world has increased in +latitude and longitude, it has not yet carved another Hermes like that +of Praxiteles; and though it has added three continents since his day, +it has never equalled in marbles the fluttering draperies of the Flying +Victory, nor the carvings over the doorway of the Erechtheum. + +[Illustration: GREEK PEASANT] + +[Illustration: ALBANIAN PEASANT IN THE STREETS OF ATHENS] + +But, as far as in him lies, the Greek has endeavored to copy the +traditions of his ancestors. He holds Olympic games in the ancient arena +which King George has had excavated, and if victorious receives a wreath +of wild olives from the hands of the King; and he builds the new market +where the old market stood, and the new military hospital as near as is +possible to the hospital of AEsculapius. But he cannot restore to the +market-place that very human citizen who cast in his shell against +Aristides because he was aweary of hearing him called the Just; nor can +either his games or his hospital bring back the perfect figure and +health of the men whose figures and profiles have set the model for all +time. He has, however, retained the Greek language, which is very +creditable to him, as it is a language one learns only after much +difficulty, and then forgets at once. He even goes so far as to put up +the names of the streets in Greek, which strikes the bewildered tourist +trying to find his way back to his hotel as a trifle pedantic, and he +prints his daily newspaper in this same tongue. This is, perhaps, going +a little too far, as it leaves you in some doubt as to whether you have +been reading of the Panama scandal or a reprint on the battle of +Marathon. + +Baron Sina, a Greek banker, has shown the most public-spirited and +patriotic generosity, and taste as well, in erecting the buildings of +the university at his own expense and giving them to the city. They are +reproductions in many ways of different parts of the temples of the +Acropolis in miniature. The Polytechnic is almost an exact copy of the +front of the Parthenon. There is a picture of it from a photograph given +in this article, but it can supply no idea of the beauty of the modern +reproduction of this temple. The lines and measurements are the same in +degree; and the Polytechnic, besides, is colored and gilded as was the +original Parthenon, and for the first time makes you understand how +brilliant reds and beautiful blues and gold and black on marble can be +combined with the marble's purity and help rather than cheapen it. It is +a lesson in loveliness, and is as wonderful and brilliantly beautiful a +building as the marble and gold monument to the Prince Consort in Hyde +Park is vulgar and atrocious. If this copy in miniature, this working +model of the Parthenon, moves one as it does, it can be understood how +great must be the strength and purity of the Parthenon, even in +ruins, with its gilt washed to a dull brown and its colors and +bass-reliefs stripped from its pediment. I shall certainly not attempt +to describe it. + +[Illustration: POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL] + +There are very few tourists who visit Athens in proportion to those who +visit far less momentous ruins; thousands go to Rome and see the +Colosseum, to Egypt and view the storied walls of the great rude temples +along the Nile, and as many more make the tour of the English cathedral +towns; but in Athens it is almost difficult to find a guide. There are +not more than a half-dozen, I am sure, in the whole city, and the +Acropolis is yours if you wish, and you are often as much alone as +though you had been the first to climb its sides. I do not mean by this +that it is neglected, or that relic-hunters may chip at it or carry away +pieces of its handiwork, or broken bits of the Turkish shells that have +shattered it, but the guards are unobtrusive, and you are free to wander +in and out in this forest of marble and fallen trunks of columns as +though you were the ghost of some Athenian citizen revisiting the scenes +of his former life. + +There is no question that half of the pleasure you receive in wandering +over the top of this great wind-blown rock, with the surrounding +snow-touched mountains on a level with your eye, and the great temples +rearing above you or lying broken at your feet, magnificent even there, +is due to your seeing them alone, to the fact that no guide's +parrot-like volubility harasses you, no guard's scornful gloom chills +your enthusiasm. The great bay of turquoise-blue and the green fields +and the bunches of cactus and groves of dark olive-trees below are +unspoiled by modern innovations, and the hills are still dotted with +sheep and shepherds, as they were in the days of Sappho. + +[Illustration: AN OLD ATHENIAN OF THE PRESENT DAY] + +Overhead is the blue sky, with the ivory columns between, far below you +is the steep naked rock, or, on the other hand, the two semicircles of +marble seats cushioned with velvet moss and carpeted with daisies and +violets, and beyond the limits of the yellow town and its red roofs and +dark green gardens stretches the green plain until it touches the sea, +or is blocked by Mount Hymettus or Mount Pentelicus, beyond which latter +lies the field of Marathon. Sitting on the edge of the rock, you can +imagine the actors strutting out into the theatre below, and the +acquiescent chorus chanting its surprise or horror, and almost see the +bent shoulders and heads of the people filling the half-circle and +leaning forward to catch each word of the play as it comes to them +through the actors' masks. + +[Illustration: A GREEK SHEPHERD] + +Sounds, no matter how far afield, drift to you drowsily, like the voice +of one reading aloud on a summer's day--the bleating of the sheep in the +valley where Plato argued, and the jangling of a goat's bell, or the +laughter of children flying kites on the Pnyx, a quarter of a mile away. +And beyond the reach of sound is the AEgean Sea weltering in the sun, +with little three-cornered sails, like tops, or a great vessel drawing a +chalk-line after it through the still surface of the water. All things +are possible at such a time in this place. You can almost hear the bees +on Mount Hymettus, and you would receive the advance of a Centaur as +calmly as Alice noted the approach of the White Rabbit. You believe in +nymphs and satyrs. They have their homes there in those caves, and in +the thick green, almost black, woods at the base of the Parnes range, +and you love the bravery of St. Paul, who dared to doubt such things +when he stood on the rock at your feet and told the men of Athens that +they were in many things too superstitious. It is something to have seen +the ribs cut in the rock on the top of the Acropolis which kept the +wheels of the chariots from slipping when the Panathenaic procession +moved along the Via Sacra to the Eleusinian mysteries, to have looked +upon the caryatides of the Erechtheum, and to have wanted back as a lost +part of your own self, for the time being, the Elgin marbles. When +Napoleon stole the Venus of Milo he placed her in the Louvre, where +every one will see her sooner or later; for if he is good he goes to +Paris when he dies, and if he is bad he is sure to go there in his +lifetime. But _who_ has ever been to the British Museum? One would as +soon think of visiting Pentonville prison. And how do the marbles look +under the soot-stained windows or the gray of London fog? Like the few +Lord Elgin did not want, and that stand out like ivory in their proper +height against the soft sky that knows and loves them? When the people +of Great Britain have returned the Elgin marbles to Greece, and the Rock +of Gibraltar to Spain, and the Koh-i-noor diamond to India, and Egypt to +the Egyptians, they will be a proud and haughty people, and will be able +to hold their heads as high as any one. + +One cannot help feeling that the King of Greece has a much greater +responsibility than he knows. Other monarchs must look after their +boundaries; he must not only look after his boundaries, but his +sky-line. Another such affront to good taste as the observatory on the +Hill of the Nymphs, and the sky-line of Athens will be unrecognizable. +And the tall chimneys at the Piraeus are not half as attractive to the +view as the spars of the ships. It is much better not to have +manufactories that must have chimneys than to spoil a view which no +other kingdom can equal. Any king can put up a chimney; very few are +given the care of an Acropolis; and if the King and Queen of Greece wish +to be remembered as kindly by the rest of the world as they are loved +dearly by their adopted people, they will guard the treasure put in +their keeping, and sweep observatories from sacred hills, and continue +to limit the guides on the Acropolis, and so win the gratitude of a +civilized world. + + + + +VII + +CONSTANTINOPLE + + +A little Italian steamer drew cautiously away from the Piraeus when the +waters of the bay were quite black and the quays looked like a row of +foot-lights in front of the dark curtain of the night. She grazed the +anchor chains of H. M. S. the _Colossus_, where that ship of war's broad +white deck lay level with the water, as heavy and solid as a stone pier. +She seemed to rise like an island of iron from the very bottom of the +bay. Her sailors, as broad and heavy and clean as the decks, raised +their heads from their pipes as we passed under the glare of the +man-of-war's electric lights, and a bugle call came faintly from +somewhere up in the bow. It sounded as though it were a quarter of a +mile away. Our lower deck was packed with Greeks and Albanians and +Turks, lying as closely together on the hard planks as cartridges in the +front of a Circassian's overcoat. They were very dirty and very +handsome, in rakish little black silk pill-box caps, with red and gold +tops, and the initials "H. I." worked in the embroidery; their canvas +breeches were as baggy and patched and muddy as those of a +football-player, and their sleeveless jackets and double waistcoats of +red and gold made them look like a uniformed soldiery that had seen very +hard service. Priests of the Greek Church, with long hair and black +formless robes, and hats like stovepipes with the brim around the upper +end, paraded the narrow confines of the second cabin, and German +tourists with red guide-books, and the Italian ship's officers with a +great many medals and very bad manners, stamped up and down the +main-deck and named the shadowy islands that rose from the sea and +dropped out of sight again as we steamed past them. + +In the morning the islands had disappeared altogether, and we were +between high banks--higher than, but not so steep as the Palisades; rows +of little scrubby trees ran along their fronts in lateral lines, and at +their base mud forts with mud barracks and thatched roofs pointed little +cannon at us from every jutting rock. We were so near that one could +have hit the face of the high hills with a stone. These were the +Dardanelles, the banks that nature has set between the Sea of Marmora +and the Mediterranean to protect Constantinople from Mediterranean +squadrons. We pass between these banks for hours, or between the high +bank of Roumelia on one side and the low hilly country of Asia where +Troy once stood on the other, until, at sunset, we are halted in the +narrowest strait of the Dardanelles, between the Castle of Asia and the +Castle of Europe, "the Lock of the Sea"--that sea of which Gibraltar is +the key. That night we cross through the Sea of Marmora, and by sunrise +are at Constantinople. + +Constantinople is such a long word, and so few of the people you know +have visited it in comparison with those who have wintered at Cairo or +at Rome, or who have spent a season at Vienna, or taken music-lessons in +Berlin, that you approach it with a mind prepared for surprises and with +the hope of the unexpected. I had expected that the heart of the Ottoman +Empire would be outwardly a brilliant and flashing city of gilded domes +and minarets, a cluster of colored house fronts rising from the dancing +waters of the Bosporus, and with the banks lined with great white +palaces among gardens of green trees. There are more gilded domes in New +York city and in Boston than in Constantinople. In New York there are +three, and in Boston there is the State House, which looks very fine +indeed from the new bridge across the Charles when the river is blocked +with gray ice, and a setting sun is throwing a light on the big yellow +globe. But Constantinople is all white and gray; the palaces that line +the Bosporus are of a brilliant white stucco, and the mosques like +monster turtles, which give the city its chief distinction, are a dull +white. In the Turkish quarter the houses are more sombre still, of a +peculiar black wood, and built like the old log forts in which our +great-great-grandfathers took refuge from the Indians--square +buildings with an overhanging story from which those inside could +fire down upon the enemy below. The jutting balcony on the Turkish +houses is for the less serious purpose of allowing the harem to look +down upon the passers-by. + +[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE] + +Constantinople is a fair-weather city, and needs the sun and the blue +sky and the life of the waters about it, which give to the city its real +individuality. It misses in winter the pleasure-yachts of the summer +months, the white uniforms of the thousands of boatmen, and the brighter +dressing of the awnings and flags of the ships and steamers. But the +waters about Constantinople are its best part, and are fuller and busier +and brighter than either those around the Battery or those below the +Thames Embankment, and by standing on its wide wooden bridge, over which +more people pass in a day than over any other (save London Bridge) in +the world, one can see a procession of all the nations of the East. + +Constantinople is a much more primitive city than one would expect the +largest of all Eastern cities to be. It impresses you as a city without +any municipal control whatsoever, and you come upon a building with the +stamp of the municipal palace upon it with as much surprise as you would +feel in finding an underwriter's office at the north pole. In many ways +it is the most primitive city that I have ever been in. In all that +pertains to the Sultan, to the religion of the people, of which he is +the head, and to the army, the recognition due them is rigidly and +impressively observed. But in what regards the local life of the people +there seems to be absolutely no interest and no responsibility. There is +no such absolute power in Europe, not excepting that of the Czar or of +the young Emperor, as is that exercised by the Sultan; and the mosques +of the faithful are guarded and decorated and held more highly in +reverence than are many churches of a more civilized people; and the +army impresses you as one you would much prefer to lead than one from +which you would elect to run away. But the comfort of the inhabitants of +Constantinople is little considered. There is nothing that one can see +of what we call public spirit, unless building a mosque and calling it +after yourself, in a city already supplied with the most magnificent of +such temples, can be called public-spirited. Of course one does not go +to Constantinople to see electric lights and asphalt pavements, nor to +gather statistics on the poor-rate, but it is interesting to find people +so nearly in touch with the world in many things, and so far away from +it in others. As long as I do not have to live in Constantinople, I find +its lack of municipal spirit quite as interesting a feature of the city +as its mosques. + +[Illustration: ONE OF THE SULTAN'S PALACES ON THE BOSPORUS] + +Constantinople, for example, is a city with as large a population as has +Berlin or Vienna, and its fire department is what you see in the +illustration accompanying this chapter. They are very handsome men, as +you can note for yourself, and very smart-looking, but when they go to a +fire they make a bargain with the owner of the building before they +attempt to save his property. The great fire-tower in this capital of +the Ottoman Empire is in Galata, and from it watchmen survey the city +with glasses, and at the first sight of a blazing roof one of them runs +down the tower and races through the uneven streets, calling out the +fact that a house is burning, and where that house may be. Each watchman +he meets takes up the cry, and continues calling out that the house is +burning, even though the house is three miles away, until it burns down +or is built up again, or the watchman is retired for long service and +pensioned. Besides these amateur firemen there are two real fire +companies, but they can do little in a city of 880,000 people. + +The police who guard Constantinople at night are an equally primitive +body of men. They carry a heavy club, about five feet long and as thick +as a man's wrist, and with this they beat the stones in the streets to +assure people that they are attending strictly to their work, and are +not sleeping in doorways. The result of this is that no one can get to +sleep, and all evil-minded persons can tell exactly where the +night-watchman is, and so keep out of his way. The watchman under my +window seemed to act on the idea of the gentleman who, on taking his +first trip on a sleeping-car, declared that if he couldn't sleep no one +else should, and acted accordingly. + +There is nothing, so far as I can see, in which the Oriental delights as +much as he does in making a noise. It is most curious to find a whole +people without nerves, who cannot talk without shouting, and who cannot +shout without giving you the idea that they are in great pain, and that +unless relief comes promptly they will die, and that it will be your +fault. Those of them who sell bread or fruits or fish or beads, or +whatever it may be, in the streets, bellow rather than shout, or cry in +sharp, agonizing shrieks, high and nasal and fierce. They apparently +never "move on." They always meet under your window or at the corners of +a street, and there all shout at once, and no one pays the least +attention to them. They might be lamp-posts or minarets, for all the +notice they receive. I can imagine no fate or torture so awful as to be +ill in Constantinople and to have to lie helpless and listen to the +street cries, to the tin horns of the men who run ahead of the +streetcars--which incidentally gives you an idea of the speed of these +cars--and to the snarling and barking of the thousands of street dogs. + +[Illustration: A FIRE COMPANY OF CONSTANTINOPLE] + +There are three or four intensely interesting ceremonies and many +show-places in Constantinople which are unlike anything of the same sort +in any other city. Apart from these and the bazars, which are very +wonderful, there is nothing in the city itself which makes even the +Oriental seek it in preference to his own mountains or plains or native +village. Constantinople, so far as its population is to be considered, +is standing still. It impresses you as stagnant before your statistical +friend or the oldest member of the diplomatic corps or the oldest +inhabitant tells you that it is so. You can very well imagine the +Frank's finding a long residence in Cairo possible, or in pretty little +Athens, where the boulevards and the classics are so strangely jumbled, +but one cannot understand a man's settling down in Constantinople. Where +there are no women there can be no court, and the few rich Greek +residents and still fewer of the pashas and the diplomats make the +society of the city. Even these last find it far from gay, for it so +happens that the ambassadors are all either bachelors, widowers, or the +husbands of invalid wives, and the result is a society which depends +largely on a very smart club for its amusement. In the wintertime, when +the snow and rain sweep over the three hills, and the solitary street of +Galata is a foot deep in slush and mud, and the china stoves radiate a +candle-like heat in a room built to let in all the air possible, I can +imagine few less desirable places than the capital of the Ottoman +Empire. This is in the winter only; as I have said, it is a fair-weather +city, and I did not see it at its best. + +There are three things to which one is taken in Constantinople--the +mosque of St. Sophia, the treasures of the Sultan, and the Sultan going +to pray in his own private mosque. The Sultan's own mosque is situated +conveniently near his palace, not more than a few hundred feet distant. +Once every Friday he rides this distance, and once a year journeys as +far as the mosque of St. Sophia. With these outings he is content, and +on no other occasions does he show himself to his people or leave his +palace. This is what it is to be a sovereign of many countries in +Europe, Asia, and Africa, the head of the Mussulman religion; and the +ruler of nations and lands conquered by your ancestors, of which you see +less than a donkey-boy in Cairo or the owner of a caique on the +Bosporus. We used to sing in college, + + "The Sultan better pleases me; + His life is full of jollity." + +The jollity of a life which the possessor believes to be threatened by +assassination in every form and at any moment is of a somewhat ghastly +nature. + +You obtain tickets for the Selamlik, as the ceremony of the Sultan's +visit to his mosque is called, and you are requested, as you are +supposed to be the guest of the Sultan on these occasions, not to bring +opera-glasses. But it is nevertheless strongly suggestive of a +theatrical performance. The mosque is on one side of a wide street; the +houses in which the spectators sit, like the audience in a grand-stand, +are on the other. One end of the street is blocked by a great square, +and the other by the gateway of the palace from which the Sultan comes. +The street is not more than a hundred yards in length. A band of music +enters this square first and plays the overture to the ceremony. The +musicians are mounted on horseback and followed by a double line of +cavalrymen on white horses, and each carrying a lance at rest with a +red pennant. There are thousands of these; they stretch out like +telegraph poles on the prairie to an interminable length, their scarlet +pennants flapping and rustling in the sharp east wind like a forest of +autumn leaves. You begin to suspect that they are going around the +square and returning again many times, as the supers do in "Ours." Then +the horses turn black and the overcoats of the men change from gray to +blue, and more scarlet pennants stretch like an arch of bunting along +the street leading to the palace, until they have all filed into the +open square and halt there stirrup to stirrup, a moving mass of four +thousand restless horses and four thousand scarlet flags. And then more +bands and drums and bugle-calls come from every point of the city, and +regiment after regiment swarms up the hill on which the palace rests, +the tune of one band of music breaking in on the tune of the next, as do +those of the political processions at home, until every approach to the +gate of the palace is blocked from curb to curb with armed men, and you +look out and down upon the points of five thousand bayonets crushed into +a space not one-fifth as large as Madison Square. There is no populace +to see this spectacle, only those of the faithful who stop on their way +to Mecca to catch this glimpse of the head of their religion, and a few +women who have brought petitions to present to him and who are allowed +within the lines of soldiers. + +[Illustration: STREET DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE] + +But pashas and beys and other high dignitaries are arriving every moment +in full regalia, for this is like a drawing-room at Buckingham Palace, +or a levee at St. James's, and every one must leave all other matters to +attend it. Twenty men with twenty carts rush out suddenly from the +curtain of Zouaves and sailors, and scatter soft gravel on the fifty +yards of roadway over which the Sultan intends to drive. They remind you +of the men in the circus who spread sawdust over the ring after the +horses' hoofs have torn it. And then, high above the heads of the nine +thousand soldiers and the few thousand more dignitaries, diplomats, and +spectators, a priest in a green turban calls aloud from the top of the +minaret. It is a very beautiful cry or call, in a strong, sweet tenor +voice, inexpressibly weird and sad and impressive. It is answered by a +bugle call given slowly and clearly like a man speaking, and at a +certain note the entire nine thousand soldiers salute. It is done with a +precision and shock so admirable that you would think, except for the +volume of the noise, that but one man had moved his piece. The voice of +the priest rises again, and is answered by triumphant strains of brass, +and the gates of the palace open, and a glittering procession of +officers and princes and pashas moves down the broad street, encircling +a carriage drawn by two horses and driven by servants in gold. At the +sight of this the soldiers cry "Long live the Sultan" three times. It is +like the roar of a salute of cannon, and has all the feeling of a cheer. +The Sultan sits in the back of the open carriage, a slight, +tired-looking man, with a pale face and black beard. He is dressed in a +fur overcoat and fez. As he passes, the men of his army--and they _are_ +men--salute him, and the veiled women stand on tiptoe behind them and +stretch out their petitions, and the pashas and chamberlains and cabinet +officers bend their bodies and touch the hand to the heart, lip, and +forehead, and drop it again to the knee. The pilgrims to Mecca fall +prostrate on their faces, and the Sultan bows his head and touches his +hand to his fez. Opposite him sits Osman Pasha, the hero of the last +war, and one of the greatest generals of the world, his shoulders +squared, his heart covered with stars, and his keen, observant eyes +wandering from the pale face of his sovereign to the browned, +hardy-looking countenances of his men. + +The Sultan remains a half-hour in the mosque, and on his return drives +himself back to the palace in an open landau. This was the first time I +had seen the Turkish soldier in bulk, and he impressed me more than did +any other soldier I had seen along the shores of the Mediterranean. I +had seen the British troops repulse an imaginary attack upon the rock of +Gibraltar, and half of the Army of Occupation in Egypt dislodge an +imaginary enemy from the sand hills around Cairo, and I had seen French +and Italian and Greek soldiers in lesser proportion and in lesser +activity. But to me none of these had the build or the bearing or the +ready if rough look of these Turks. The French Zouaves of Algiers came +next to them to my mind, and it may be that the similarity of the +uniform would explain that; but as I heard the Sultan's troops that +morning marching up the hills to their outlandish music, and looked into +eyes that had never been shaded from the sun, and at the spring and +swing of legs that had never worn civilized trousers, I recalled several +notable battles of past history, and the more recent lines of Mr. +Rudyard Kipling where he pays his compliments to the Russian on the +frontier: + + "I'm sorry for Mr. Bluebeard, + I'd be sorry to cause him pain; + But a hell of a spree + There is sure to be + When he comes back again." + +[Illustration: GUARD OF CAVALRY PRECEDING THE SULTAN TO THE MOSQUE] + +The Oriental is one of those people who do things by halves. He has a +fine army, but the bulk of his navy has not left the Golden Horn for +many years, and it is doubtful if it could leave it; his palace walls +are of mosaic and wonderfully painted tiles, and the roofs of rusty tin; +his sons are given the questionable but expensive education of Paris, +and his daughters are not allowed to walk abroad unless guarded by +servants, and with the knowledge that every policeman spies upon them, +knowing that, could he detect them in an indiscretion, he would be +rewarded and gain promotion. Consequently it does not surprise you +when you find the Sultan's treasures heaped together under dirty glass +cases, and treated with the indifference a child pays to its last year's +toys. + +The crown-jewels and regalia kept at the Tower, itself under iron bars +and guarded by Beefeaters, are not half as impressive as are the jewels +of the Sultan, which lie covered with dust under a glass show-case, and +guarded by a few gloomy-looking effendis in frock-coats. All the +presents from other monarchs and all the gifts of lesser notables who +have sought some Sultan's favor, all the arms and trophies of +generations of wars, are piled together in this treasury with less care +than one would give to a rack of pipes. It is a very remarkable +exhibition, and it is magnificent in its Oriental disregard for wealth +through long association with it. Bronze busts of emperors, jewelled +swords, imperial orders, music-boxes, gun-cases, weapons of gold instead +of steel, precious stones, and silver dressing-cases are all heaped +together on dusty shelves, without order and classification and without +care. You can see here handfuls of uncut precious stones on china +plates, or dozens of gold and silver pistols thrown in a corner like +kindling-wood. And the most remarkable exhibition of all is the +magnificent robes of those Sultans who are dead, with the jewels and +jewelled swords and belts and insignia worn by them, placed on dummies +in a glass case, as though they were a row of stuffed birds or specimens +of rock. In the turbans of one of these figures there are pearls as +large as a woman's thumb, and emeralds and rubies as large as eggs, and +ropes of diamonds. This sounds like a story from the _Arabian Nights_; +but then these are the heroes of the _Arabian Nights_--the Sultans who +owned the whole northern coast of Africa and Asia, and who spent on +display and ornament what we put into education and railroads. + +The present Sultan, Abd-ul-Hammed II., so far differs from those who +have preceded him that he as well as ourselves spends money on education +and railroads and all that they imply. As the head of a religion and of +an empire he may not cheapen himself by being seen too often by his +people, but his interests spread beyond even the great extent of his own +boundaries, and his money is given to sufferers as far apart in all but +misfortune as the Johnstown refugees and the victims of the earthquakes +of Zante and Corfu. And his protection is extended to the American +missionaries who enter his country to preach a religion to which he is +opposed. While I was in Constantinople he showed the variety of his +interests in the outside world by making two presents. To the Czar of +Russia he gave a book of photographs of the vessels in his navy, and in +contrast to this grimly humorous recognition of Russia's ambitions he +presented to our government an emblem in gold and diamonds, +commemorating in its design and inscription the discovering of this +country, worth, intrinsically, many thousands of dollars. He was, I +believe, the only sovereign who showed a personal interest in our +national celebration, and his gift was properly one of the government's +most conspicuous exhibits at the Columbian Fair. + +The Mosque of St. Sophia is one of the first things you are taken to see +in Constantinople. It is to the Mussulman what St. Peter's is to the +good Catholic, although Justinian built it, and the cross still shows in +many parts of the great building. Three times during the year this +mosque is illuminated within and without, and every good Mussulman +attends there to worship. + +There is something very fine about the religion of Mohammed--you do not +have to know much about it to appreciate the faith of its followers, +whether you know what it is they believe or not. In their outward +observance, at least, of the rules laid down for them in the Koran, they +show a sincerity which teaches a great lesson. You can see them at any +hour of the day or in any place going through their devotions. A soldier +will kneel down in a band stand, where a moment before he has been +playing for the regiment, and say his prayers before two thousand +spectators; and I have had some difficulty in getting my trunks on the +Orient Express, because the porters were at another end of a crowded, +noisy platform bowing towards the East. Once a year they fast for a +month, the season of Ramazan, and as I was in Eastern countries during +that month I know that they fast rigidly. Ramazan begins in Egypt when +the new moon appears in a certain well near Cairo. Two men watch this +well, and when they see the reflection of the new moon on its surface +they run into Cairo with the news, and Ramazan begins. There is nothing +which so well illustrates the unchangeableness of the East and its +customs as the sight of these men running through the streets of Cairo, +with its dog-carts and electric lights, its calendars and almanacs, to +tell that the moon has again reached that point that it had reached for +many hundreds of years before, when all the faithful must fast and pray. + +[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA] + +On one of the last days of Ramazan I went to the door of St. Sophia, and +was led up a winding staircase in one of its minarets--a minaret-tower +so broad and high that the staircase within it has no steps, but is +paved smoothly like a street. It seemed as though we had been climbing +nearly ten minutes before we stepped out into a great gallery, and +looked down upon thousands of turbaned figures bowing and kneeling and +rising again in long rows like infantry in close order. Between these +worshippers and ourselves were fifty circles of floating tapers swinging +from chains, and hanging like a smoky curtain of fire between us and the +figures below. The voice of the priest rose in a high, uncanny cry, and +the sound of the thousands of men falling forward on their faces and +arms was like the rumble of the waves breaking on the shore. Outside, +the tops of minarets were circled with lights and lamps strung on long +ropes, with the ends flying free, and swinging to and fro in the night +wind like necklaces of stars. This was the most beautiful of all the +sights of Constantinople; and as a matter of opinion, and not of fact, I +think the best part of Constantinople is that part of it that is in the +air. + + * * * * * + +Before ending this last chapter, I should like to make two suggestions +to the reader who has not yet visited the Mediterranean and who thinks +of doing so. Let him not be deterred, in the first place, by any idea of +the difficulties of the journey, for he can go from Gibraltar along the +entire northern coast of Africa and into Greece and Italy with as little +trouble and with as much comfort as it is possible for him to make the +journey from New York to Chicago. And in the second place, should he go +in the winter or spring, let him not be misled by "Italian skies," or +"the blue Mediterranean," or "the dancing waters of the Bosporus," into +imagining that he is going to be any warmer on the northern coast of +Africa than he is in New York. I wore exactly the same clothes in Italy +that I wore the day I left the North River blocked with ice, and I +watched a snow-storm falling on "the dancing waters of the Bosporus". +There are some warm days, of course, but it is well to follow that good +old-fashioned rule in any part of the world, that it is cold in winter +and warm in summer, and people who spend their lives in trying to dodge +this fact might as well try running away from death and the postal +system. To any one who has but a little time and a little money to +spend on a holiday, I would suggest going to Gibraltar, and from there +to Spain and Morocco. This is the only place, perhaps, in the world +where three so widely different people and three such picturesque people +as the Moor, the British soldier, and the Spaniard can be found within +two hours of one another. + +Morocco, from political causes, is less civilized than any other part of +the northern part of Africa; and it can be seen, and with it the +southern cities of Spain and the Rock of Gibraltar, in five or six +weeks, and at a cost of a very few hundred dollars. This was to me the +most interesting part of the Mediterranean, chiefly, of course--for it +possesses few of the beauties or monuments or historical values of the +other shores of that sea--because it was unknown to tourists and +guide-books. A visit to the rest of the Mediterranean is merely +verifying for yourself what you have already learned from others. + + +THE END + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's note: + +Inconsistent hyphenation remains as in the original. + +Spelling has been made consistent throughout where the author's +preference could be ascertained. + +Punctuation has been normalized. + +Page 203: "It all that pertains to the Sultan" + +"It all" has been changed to "In all". + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rulers of the Mediterranean, by +Richard Harding Davis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RULERS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN *** + +***** This file should be named 39522.txt or 39522.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/5/2/39522/ + +Produced by Mark C. 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