The Ship-Dwellers: A Story of a Happy Cruise

The Reprobates had done Upper Egypt, however. They had done it in one day. They had left Cairo in the evening, telegraphing ahead for carriages to meet the train at Luxor, where they had arrived next morning. They had driven directly from the train to Karnak, from Karnak to the temple of Luxor, from Luxor to the hotel for luncheon. In the afternoon they had soared over to the Valley of the Kings; from the Kings they had dropped down on the House of Hatasu, the temples of Rameses and others; they had come coursing back by the Colossi of Memnon in time to catch the Cairo express, which landed them at Shepheard's about daybreak. The Reprobates had enjoyed Upper Egypt very much, though I could see they regretted the necessity of devoting all that time to it when Shepheard's still remained partially unexplored.

I had hardly landed in my room when a call-boy from the office came up to say that a police-officer was below, asking for me. For a moment I wondered a little feverishly what particular thing it was he wanted me for. Then the boy said, "Pyramid police," which brought a gleam of light. "Oh, why – yes, of course – show him up!"

And now, while we are waiting for him, I am going to record a circumstance which I suppose a good many readers – especially those familiar with the East – may find it difficult to believe. Nevertheless, it is authentic and provable.

In Egypt, baksheesh is a national institution. Everybody takes it – every Egyptian, I mean; if I should begin by saying I had met an exception to this rule I could not expect any one who knows Cairo to read any further. This by-the-way.

It was during our first stop in Cairo, and we had been there a day or two before we made our official visit to the Pyramids and Sphinx. We went in carriages then, attended by two guides. For some reason, however, our protectors left us to shift pretty much for ourselves when we got there, and it was a pretty poor shift. The fortune-tellers and scarab-sellers and donkey-men and would-be guides swarmed about us and overran us and would not be appeased. When we repulsed them temporarily they rallied and broke over us in waves, and swept us here and there, until we became mere human flotsam and jetsam on that tossing Egyptian tide.

It was all like a curiously confused dream. Members of our party would suddenly turn up, and as suddenly disappear again: there would be moments of lull when we seemed about to collect, then, presto! without any apparent cause there would occur wild confusion and despair.

It was no use. Laura and I wanted to go inside the Great Pyramid, and we did not want to climb it. It was impossible to do one, and it was about equally impossible not to do the other. Out of the confusion of things at last I remembered a young officer of the police, whom I had met riding home that first night on the trolley – a mere lad of nineteen or twenty, but a big fellow, who spoke excellent English and said he was Superintendent of the Pyramid Police. I decided now to see if this was true, and, if so, to ask his advice in our present difficulties.

I remembered that the police station was near the trolley terminus, and we gradually fought our way back there. Yes, there he was, at his desk, a handsome Soldierly figure in a tall red fez. He rose and bowed, remembering us immediately.

We would like to look about a little, I said, and to go inside the big Pyramid, but we preferred to be alive when we got through; also fairly decent as to appearance. Couldn't he pick us out a guard or two, who would keep the enemy in check, and see us through?

He bowed with easy grace.

"I will accompany you myself," he said.

Now, I already knew the custom of Egypt, and I began to make a hasty estimate of my ready money, wondering if I had sufficient for a baksheesh of this rank. It was by no means certain. However, there would be ship-dwellers about: I could borrow, perhaps.

I decided presently that whatever the duty imposed, it was worth it. With that big uniformed fellow at our side we were immune to all that hungry horde of Arab vultures. We walked through unscathed. Our protector procured the entrance tickets for us; he selected two strong men to push and pull us up the long, dark, glassy-slick passage that leads to the sepulchre of Khufu in the very heart of the Pyramid; he went with us himself into that still mysterious place, explaining in perfect English how five or six thousand years ago the sarcophagus of the great king was pushed up that incline; he showed us the mortises in the stone where uprights were set to hold the great granite coffin when the laborers stopped to rest. It was a weird experience in the cool, quiet darkness of that mightiest of tombs with the flaring candles and eager sure-footed Arabs; it seemed to belong in Rider Haggard's story of She. Then, after we had seen the old black sarcophagus, which is empty now, and had remained a little in that removed place, trying to imagine that we were really in the very centre of the big Pyramid, we made our way out again to light and the burning desert heat. I settled with our Arabs with little or no difficulty, which is worth something in itself, and when we had found a quiet place I thanked our guardian and tendered him what I thought a liberal honorarium – fairly liberal, even for America.

He drew back a little.

"Oh no," he said, "I beg your pardon."

I had not made it large enough then. I glanced about for some of the party who would have funds.

"I am sorry," I began, "it is not more. I will – "

"I beg your pardon," he repeated, "but I could not accept anything for what is but my duty. I am only very glad to do what I may for you. I will do something more, if you wish."

Then, of course, I knew it must be a dream, and that I would wake up presently in Shepheard's Hotel to find that we hadn't started for the Pyramids yet. Still, I would keep up the blessed trance a moment longer.

"You mean that you will not allow me to acknowledge your great favor to us?" I said in that polite manner for which our ship is justly famous.

"Not in money," he said. "The Government pays me a salary for my work and this is only part of my work. It has also given me pleasure."

I surreptitiously pinched myself in certain tender places to see if I couldn't wake up. It was no use. He persisted in his refusal, and presently produced an ancient corroded coin, Greek or Roman, such as is sometimes found among the débris.

"I should like to offer you this," he said. "I found it myself, so I am sure it is genuine."

Ah, this was the delicate opportunity.

"You will let me buy it, of course."

But no, he declined that, too. He wished us only to remember him, he insisted. He added:

"I have two scarabs at home; I should like to bring them to your hotel."

It was rather dazing. The seller of scarabs – genuine or imitation – will not let a prospective purchaser get out of sight. I wondered why we should be trusted in this unheard-of way; I also wondered what those two scarabs were likely to be worth. Could he come to-night? I asked; we should be sight-seeing to-morrow and leaving for Upper Egypt in the afternoon.

But no, he would not be home in time. He would wait until we returned from Upper Egypt.

So it was we had parted, and in the tumult of sight-seeing up the Nile I had forgotten the matter altogether. Now, here he was. I counted up my spare currency, and waited.

He had on his best smile as he entered, also a brand-new uniform, and he certainly made a handsome figure. He inquired as to our sight-seeing up the Nile, then rather timidly he produced two of those little Egyptian gems – a scarab and an amulet, such as men and women of old Egypt wore, and took with them to their tombs.

"I got them from a man who took them from a mummy. They are genuine. I want to give them to you and the little lady," he said.

"But you must not give them to us – they are too valuable," I began.

He flushed and straightened up a little.

"But that is why I wish you to have them."

Now, of course, no one who knows Cairo can ever believe that story. Yet it all truly happened, precisely as I have set it down. He was just a young Egyptian who had attended school in Alexandria, and he spoke and wrote English, French, Italian, and the dialects of Arabic. The Egyptian acquires the lore of languages naturally, it would seem, but that this youth should acquire all those things, and such a standard of honor and generosity, here in a land where baksheesh is the native god, did seem amazing. When we left, he wrote down our address in the neatest possible hand, requesting permission to send us something more.

Note. – As my reputation for truth is already gone I may as well add, a year later, that he has since sent two presents – some little funerary figures, and a beautiful ivory-handled fly-whip.

XLIV

SAKKARA AND THE SACRED BULLS

One begins and finishes Egypt with Cairo. Starting with the Sphinx and Pyramids of the Fourth Dynasty, you work down through the Theban periods of the Upper Nile and then once more at Cairo, leap far back into the First period in a trip to Memphis, the earliest capital of Egypt, the beginning of all Egyptian things. After which, follows the Museum, for only after visiting localities and landmarks can that great climax be properly approached.

I think we were no longer very enthusiastic about ruins, but every one said we must go to Sakkara. There was yet another very wonderful statue of Rameses there, they said, also the oldest pyramids ever built, and the Mausoleum of the Sacred Bulls. It would never do to miss them.

I am glad now that I did not miss them, but I remember the Memphis donkeys with unkindness. The farther down the Nile the worse the donkeys. We thought they had been bad at Abydos, but the Abydos donkeys were without sin compared with those of Sakkara. Mine was named "Sunrise," and I picked him for his beauty, always a dangerous asset. He was thoroughly depraved and had a gait like a steam-drill. The boat landed us at Bedrashen and I managed to survive as far as the colossal statue of Rameses, a prostrate marvel, and the site of the ancient city of Menes – capital of Egypt a good deal more than six thousand years ago – that is, before the world began, by gospel calculation. I was perfectly willing to stay there among the cooling palms and watch the little children gather camel-dung and pat it into cakes to dry for fuel, and I would have done it if I had known what was going to happen to me.

It is a weary way across the desert to the pyramids and the tombs of those sacred bulls, but I was not informed of that. When I realized, it was too late. The rest of the party were far ahead of me beyond some hills, and I was alone in the desert with that long-eared disaster and a donkey-boy who stopped to talk with the children, beset by a plague of flies that would have brought Pharaoh to terms. It was useless to kick and hammer that donkey or to denounce the donkey-boy. Sunrise had long ago formulated his notions of speed, and the donkey-boy was simply a criminal in disguise. When we passed a mud village, at last, and a new brigade of flies joined those I had with me, I would have given any reasonable sum to have been at Cairo with the Reprobates, in the cool quiet of Shepheard's marble halls.

Beyond the village was just the sand waste, and not a soul of the party in sight. I didn't have the courage to go back, and hardly the courage to go on. I said I would lie down by the trail and die, and let them find me there and be sorry they had forsaken me in that pitiless way. Then for the sake of speed I got off and walked. It was heavy walking through the loose sand, with the sun blazing down.

Presently I looked around for my escort. He was close at my heels – on the donkey's back. I said the most crushing things I could think of and displaced him. Then we settled down into the speed of a ram-headed sphinx again. Everything seemed utterly hopeless. It was useless to swear; I was too old to cry.

I don't know when we reached the first pyramid, but the party had been there and gone. I did not care for it much. It might be the oldest pyramid in the world, but it was rather a poor specimen, I thought, and could not make me forget my sorrow. I went on, and after a weary time came to the Tomb of Thi, who lived in the Fifth Dynasty and was in no way related to Queen Thi of Tell al-Amarna, who came along some two thousand years later. There was an Englishman and his guide there who told me about it, and it was worth seeing, certainly, with its relief frescoes over five thousand years old, though it is not such a tomb as those of the Upper Nile.

I overtook the party at the Tomb of the Sacred Bulls. By that time I had little enthusiasm for bulls; or for tombs, unless it was one I could use for Sunrise. The party had done the bulls, but when I got hold of Gaddis and laid my case before him, he said he would find me a new donkey and that the others would wait while we inspected the bulls. So everything was better then, and I was glad of the bulls, though I was still warm and resentful at Sunrise and his keeper, and even at Gaddis, who was innocent enough, Heaven knows.

In the tomb of the bulls everything unpleasant passed away. It was cool and dark in there, and we carried lights and wandered along those vast still corridors, which are simply astounding when one remembers their purpose.

This Serapeum or Apis mausoleum is a vast succession of huge underground vaults and elaborate granite sarcophagi, which once contained all the Apis or Sacred Bulls of Memphis. The Apis was the product of an immaculate conception. Lightning descended from heaven upon a cow – any cow – and the Apis was the result. He was recognized by being black, with a triangular spot of white on his forehead and a figure of an eagle on his back. Furthermore, he had double hairs in his tail and a beetle on his tongue. It was recognized that only lightning could produce a bull like that, and no others were genuine, regardless of watchful circumstance.

Apis was about the most sacred of the whole synod of Egyptian beasts. Even the Hawk of Horus and the Jackal of Anubis had to retire to obscurity when Apis came along, mumbling and pawing up the dust. When he died there were very solemn ceremonies, and he was put into one of those polished granite sarcophagi, with a tablet on the walls relating the story of his life, and mentioning the King whose reign had been honored by this bellowing bovine aristocrat. Also they set up a special chapel over his tomb, and this series of chapels and tombs eventually solidified into a great temple with pylons approached by an avenue of sphinxes.

The Serapeum dates from about 1500 b. c. and continued in active use down to the time of the Ptolomies. The Egyptian Pantheon was breaking up then, and Apis was probably one of the first deities to go. A nation's gods fall into disrepute when they can no longer bring victory to a nation's arms, and a sacred bull who could not beat off Julius Cæsar would very likely be asked to resign.

There are sixty-four vaults in the part of the Serapeum we visited, and twenty-four of them contain the granite sarcophagi. The sarcophagi are about thirteen feet long by eleven feet wide, and eight high – that is to say, the size of an ordinary bedroom – and in each of these, mummified and in state, an Apis slept.

He is not there now. Only two of him were found when these galleries were opened in modern times. But I have seen Apis, for one of him sleeps now in a glass case in the Historical Library in New York City. I shall visit him again on my return, and view him with deeper interest and more respect since I have seen his tomb.

XLV

A VISIT WITH RAMESES II

I have never quite known just how it was I happened to be overlooked and deserted that next evening at the Museum. I remember walking miles through its wonderful galleries; I recollect standing before the rare group of Rameses and his queen – recently discovered and put in place – the most beautiful sculpture in Egypt; I recall that we visited the room of Mr. Theodore Davis and looked on all the curiously modern chairs and couches and the perfectly preserved chariot taken from the tombs opened in the Valley of the Kings; also the room where all the royal jewels are kept, marvellous necklaces and amulets, and every ornament that would delight a king or queen in any age; I have a confused impression of hundreds of bronze and thousands of clay figures taken from tombs; I know that, as a grand climax, we came at last to the gem of the vast collection, the room where Seti I., Rameses the Great, and the rest of the royal dead, found at Der al-Bahari, lie asleep. I remember, too, that I was tired then, monumentally tired in the thought that this was the last word in Egypt; that we were done; that there was no need of keeping up and alive for further endeavor – that only before us lay the sweet anticipation of rest.

The others were tired, too, but they wanted to buy some things in the little salesroom down-stairs, and were going, presently. They would come back and see the kings again, later. I said I would stay there and commune a little alone with the great Seti, and his royal son, who, in that dim long ago, had remembered himself so numerously along the Nile. They meant to come back, no doubt, the party, I mean; they claim now that the main museum was already closed when they had finished their purchases, and they supposed I had gone. It does not matter, I have forgiven them, whatever their sin.

It was pleasant and restful there, when they had left me. I dropped down on a little seat against the wall and looked at those still figures, father and son, kings, mighty warriors and temple-builders when the glory of Egypt was at full flood.

It was an impressive thought that those stately temples up the Nile, which men travel across the world to see, were built by these two; that the statues are their statues; that the battles and sacrifices depicted on a thousand walls were their battles and their sacrifices; that they loved and fought and conquered, and set up monuments in those far-off centuries when history was in its sunrise, yet lie here before us in person to-day, frail drift on the long tide of years.

And it was a solemn thought that their life story is forever done – that any life story can last but a little while. Tossed up out of the unexplored, one's feet some day touch the earth – the ancient earth that had been going on so long before we came. Then, for a few years, we bustle importantly up and down – fight battles and build temples, maybe – and all at once slip back into the uncharted waste, while the world – the ancient world – fights new battles, builds new temples, sends new ships across the sea, though we have part in it no more, no more – forever, and forever.

Looking at those two, who in their brief sojourn had made and recorded some of the most ancient history we know, I recalled portions of their pictured story on the temple walls and tried to build a human semblance of their daily lives. Of course they were never troubled with petty things, I thought; economies, frivolities, small vanities, domestic irritations – these were modern. They had been as gods in the full panoply of a race divinely new. They had been —

But it was too much of an effort. I was too worn. I could only look at them, and envy the long nap they were having there under the glass in that still, pleasant room.

I was a good deal surprised, then, when I fancied I saw Rameses stir and appear a little restless in his sleep. It was even more interesting to see him presently slide away the glass and sit up. I thought there must be some mistake, and I was going to get an attendant, when he noticed me and seemed to guess my thought.

"It's all right," he said, "you needn't call any one. The place closed an hour ago and there is only a guard down-stairs, who is asleep by this time. It happens to be my night to reincarnate and I am glad you are here to keep me company. You can tell me a good deal, no doubt. These people here don't know anything." He waved a hand to the sleepers about him. "They are allowed only one night in a thousand years. The gods allow me a night in every century. I was always a favorite of the gods. It is fortunate you happened to stop with us to-night."

"It is fortunate," I said. "I shall be envied by my race. I have just been trying to imagine something of your life and period. That is far more interesting than to-day. Tell me something about it."

Rameses rested comfortably on the side of his case.

"Oh, well," he said, reflectively, "of course mine was a great period – a very great period. Egypt was never so great as it was under my rule. It was my rule that made it great – my policy, of course, and my vigorous action. I was always for progress and war. The histories you have of my period are poor things. They never did me justice, but it was my own fault, of course. I did not leave enough records of my work. I was always a modest man – too modest for my own good, everybody said that.

"I was religious, too, and built temples wherever there was room. It is said that I claimed temples that I did not build. Nonsense! – I built all the temples. I built Karnak; I built Luxor; I built Abou-Simbel; I built Abydos; I built the Pyramids; I built the Sphinx; I invented the sacred bulls; I was all there was to religion, in Egypt. I was all there was to Egypt. I was the whole thing. It is a pity I did not make a record of these things somewhere."

"There are a few statues of you," I suggested, "and inscriptions – they seem to imply – "

"Ah yes," he said, "but not many. It was slow work carving those things. I could have had many more, if the workmen had been more industrious. But everything was slow, and very costly – very costly indeed – why, I spent a fortune on that temple of Karnak alone. You saw what I did there; those ram-headed sphinxes nearly bankrupted me. I had to cut down household expenses to finish them.

"Yes, my wife objected a good deal – I speak collectively, of course, signifying my domestic companionship – there were fourteen of her.

"She wanted jewelry – collectively – individually, too, for that matter – and it took such a lot to go around. You saw all those things in the next room. They were for her; they were for that matrimonial collection; I could never satisfy the female craving for such things. Why, I bought one round of necklaces that cost as much as a ram-headed sphinx. Still she was not satisfied. Then she was sorry afterward – collectively – and bought me a sphinx as a present – got it made cheap somewhere with her picture carved on the front of it. You may have noticed it – third on the right as you come out. I used it – I had to – but it was a joke. When wives buy things for their husbands it is quite often so.

"Oh yes, I was a great king, of course, and the greatest warrior the world has ever seen; but my path was not all roses. My wife – my household collection – wanted their statues placed by the side of mine. Individually! Think of what a figure I would have cut! It was a silly notion. What had they done to deserve statues? I did it, though – that is collectively – here and there. I embodied her in a single figure at my knee, as became her position. But she wasn't satisfied – collectively and individually she declared she amounted to as much as I did, and pointed at our seventy-two sons.

"No, I was never understood by that lot. I was never a hero in my own house. So I had to order another statue, putting her at my side. You saw it down-stairs. It is very beautiful, of course, and is a good likeness of her, collectively. She always made a good composite picture, but is it fair to me? She was never regarded in that important way, except by herself.

"Yes, it is very pleasant here – very indeed. The last time I was allowed to reincarnate, I was still in the cave at Der al-Bahari, where they stored us when Cambyses came along and raided Thebes. Cambyses burned a number of my temples. It was too bad. The cave was a poor place, but safe. My tomb was much pleasanter, though it was not as grand as I had intended it to be. I meant to have the finest tomb in the valley, but my contractor cheated me.

"The men who furnished the materials paid him large sums and gave me very poor returns. His name was Baksheesh, which is how the word originated, though it means several things now, I believe."