Cities of the Dawn

Then came the blighting rule of the Turk, and the wise men moved away. They are all vanished – gone; in their place have come the Jew banker, the tradesman, and the merchant prince. The people amuse me. They wear the cotton tunic longer, and have a more Arabian cast of feature than the Jews. I see a funeral, with a long line of women following. I see a Turk at his devotions. He spreads a small carpet before him, then raises his arms above his head, muttering something all the while; then he bows his body so that the head touches the ground, and so he goes on.

In a little while we are off for Cairo, or Caire, as they call it here. On my way I get my first glimpse of one of the branches of the Nile, one of the largest, and certainly the most renowned, rivers in the world. In a few days I see more of the Nile, the overflow of which has not yet been dried up, and watch the people in the mud, far too soft to admit of ploughing, hoeing the land, rich and dark, and casting in the seed which is soon to bear an abundant harvest. On our way to Cairo we pass a fertile country, and see crops of sugarcane and rice and maize growing, and the blue-clad fellaheen at work. We pass several big towns, which seem thickly populated and full of life. The houses are everywhere the same – white, with flat roofs.

As originally founded, Alexandria was only equalled by Rome itself. It comprehended a circumference of fifteen miles, and was peopled by 300,000 free inhabitants, besides at least an equal number of slaves. The lucrative trade of Arabia and India flowed through its port to Rome and the provinces. No one lived an idle life. There was plenty of work for all, chiefly in glass-blowing, weaving of linen, and the manufacture of papyrus. The people, a mixture of all nations under the sun, were difficult to rule, and always ready for sedition. A transient scarcity of flesh or lentils, the neglect of a public salutation, a mistake of precedency in the public baths, or a religious dispute, such as the sacrilegious murder of a divine cat, was quite sufficient to create a bloody tumult.

Origen was a native of Alexandria. It was there, after his time, that the endless controversy as to the nature of the Three Persons in the Trinity originated – a controversy which lasted for centuries, which led to wars and massacres, and which finally separated the Churches of Greece and Rome. The Jews, who had settled in Alexandria by the invitation of the Ptolemies, carried the teaching of Plato into their religious speculations. In time Arius arose to proclaim his idea of the Logos, and Athanasius to oppose and protest, and ultimately triumph. The Homoousians prevailed, and the Homoiousians were branded and persecuted as heretics – enemies alike to God and man; yet Athanasius was driven from his diocese, and the famous St. George of Cappadocia reigned in his stead. The pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a Bishop whom they feared and esteemed. At a later time Cyril became the Archbishop, and distinguished his orthodox career by the animosity with which he expelled the Jews, and opposed the doctrine of Nestorius, who taught that there was a Divine and human Christ, and refused to worship the Virgin Mary as the mother of God.

‘He was a most expert logician,’ writes Zosimus, ‘but perverted his talents to evil powers, and had the audacity to preach what no one before him had ever suggested, namely, that the Son of God was made out of that which had no prior existence; that there was a period of time in which He existed not; that as possessing free will, He was capable of vice; and that He was created, not made.’ At the Council of Nicæa, held in the reign of Constantine, it was decided that Christ and the Father were of one and the same nature, and the doctrine of Arius, that Christ and God were only similar in nature, was declared heretical. Nevertheless, the Arians became more numerous than ever under the reign of Valens. As soon as the Christians of the West, writes Gibbon, had extricated themselves from the snares of the creed of Rimini, they happily relapsed into the slumber of orthodoxy, and the small remains of the Arian party that still subsisted in Sirmium or Milan might be considered as objects of contempt rather than resentment. But in the provinces of the East, from the Euxine to the extremity of Thebais, the strength and number of the hostile factions were equally balanced, and this equality, instead of recommending the counsels of peace, served only to perpetuate the horrors of religious war. The monks and bishops supported their arguments by invectives, and their invectives were sometimes followed by blows. Athanasius still reigned at Alexandria, but the thrones of Constantinople and Antioch were occupied by Arian prelates, and every episcopal vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult. The Homoousians were fortified by the reconciliation of fifty-nine Macedonian or semi-Arian bishops, but their secret reluctance to embrace the Divinity of the Holy Ghost clouded the splendour of their triumph, and the declaration of Valens, who in the first years of his reign had imitated the impartial conduct of his brother, was an important victory on the side of Arianism. Well might Dr. Arnold write that it was an evil hour for the Church when Constantine connected Christianity with the State. It is really wonderful that real Christianity survived that fatal step when the sword of the civil magistrate was drawn in its support. It is hardly yet recognised that the religion of Jesus of Nazareth flourishes best when free from State patronage and control.

CHAPTER XIV

IN CAIRO

Covered with dust, parched with thirst, exhausted with hunger, burnt up with heat, I am landed at the charming Hôtel du Nil, in the gardens of which, filled up with American rocking-chairs, and trees bearing gorgeous red flowers and bananas and palms, and eucalyptus and banyan-trees all around, I realize as I have never done before something of the splendour and the wondrous beauty of the East. It must have been a fairy palace at one time or other, this Hôtel du Nil, with an enchanted garden. In the day it is intolerably hot, but the mornings and evenings are simply perfection. If there be an Elysium on earth, it is this. I feel inclined to pitch my tent here, and for ever bid adieu to my native land. The dinners are all that can be desired, the bedrooms large and lofty, and the servants, who, with the exception of the German waiters, are Soudanese – tall, white-robed, with a girdle round the middle – seem to me to be the best and most attentive in the world. There is nothing they will not do for me, and they are honest as the day. Apparently the dark boys have a good deal of the negro in their blood. I walk out to see the fine buildings and palaces which lie between me and the railway-station, but I cannot stand the bustle and confusion of the street, and soon beat a hasty retreat. The infirmities of old age follow me into this land of perpetual youth.

I walk outside the narrow and sombre lane which leads to the hotel in the quaint and ancient street Mousky. Let me attempt to describe it, and it will give the reader an accurate idea of Oriental life. The Mousky is the busiest street in all Cairo. Here meet Greek and Syrian, Anglo-Saxons, American or English, Armenian and Turk, Maronite and Druse, Italians, French, Russians, German, Dutch, and Belgian, and the vast army of residents, men, women, and children, of all shades and complexions, from the ebony-black Soudanese to the olive-tinted Arab, walk its length, penetrate its dark and confusing bazaars, and there is nothing more for you to see. Donkey drivers, who beset me at every step, and the guides on the look-out for their prey, are a perpetual nuisance, even though they assure me they like the English and are glad to see them here.

Crowded together are nooks and corners where native merchants ply their trades, and the gloom of some dark recess is lit by the glowing blue and scarlet and purple of Persian rugs, and the glare of polished and embossed brass. In the street the modern descendant of Tubal Cain is hard at work, and the tailor plies his needle, and the cigarette-maker rolls up his tobacco in its thin wrapper of paper, and the weaver bends over his loom, differing in nothing from that used by his forefathers a thousand years ago. Eatables and drinkables of strange flavour and colour are exposed for sale, and pedlars meet you at every turn uttering hoarse and discordant cries. There is quite a buzz of conversation, but I cannot understand a word. Why, I ask, did not Leibnitz carry out his grand idea and give us a universal language? It would have saved some of us a good deal of trouble. The pavement is too narrow for anyone to walk on, as the shopkeeper sits outside smoking his cigarette, while the customers also do the same, and the street is completely blocked. You are obliged to get into the narrow way where carriages and donkey and luggage waggons meet you at every step.

Women abound, all clad in black, with a black cloth over their faces, leaving only the eyes and nose visible, and a cheek of pallid skin. The nose is covered with a little gilt ornament, I suppose they call it, coming from the forehead, so that you really see nothing of it. Now and then you pass a coffee-house where smoking and gambling seem to be going on all day. In the course of my ramblings I came to a street lined with scribes on stones writing letters for their clients, and was struck with the firm, clear hand in which their letters are written – all in Arabic, of course. Every now and then a swell passes me in his carriage, with a running footman to clear the way with a white or black staff. I expect to be knocked down every minute. To walk the Mousky in peace and safety, you require to be as deaf as a post and to have a pair at least of good eyes at the back of your head.

Wearied, I return to the quiet and shady groves of the hotel, a large pile of buildings streaked red and yellow, with a grand bit of garden ground at the back, and a wooden tower, from which you may see all Cairo at a glance. All the houses are flat-roofed, and many of them look unfinished, though not in reality so. I sink into a rocking-chair, light my pipe, and talk of the future of Cairo. I say I want to visit a Coptic Church, the church which was held heretical by the Orthodox Church, as they were said to have held imperfect ideas of the dual nature of Christ. One gentleman tells me I had better keep away, as the priests will pick your pockets in the very church. He has 30 °Copts in his employ, and gives them all a very bad character. I ask as to the Khedive; everyone gives him a bad character, though he has discovered one wife is enough for any man. ‘He has the bad blood of his father and grandfather,’ says an Englishman to me. He has a thin veneer of civilization, but he is weak and ignorant, eaten up with ambition, and over head and ears in debt, though his allowance is £100,000 a year, a sum which should go far in a city where the price of labour is from two piastres to five, the piastre being valued at twopence halfpenny.

The people live exclusively on maize-corn, certainly not an expensive article of diet. The intelligent people are all in favour of the English Government, but, alas! the majority does not in Cairo, as I am told it does at home, represent the enlightened opinions of an intelligent people. I hear the shilly-shally policy of the English Government bitterly condemned. We are here, and must remain here. As it is, the people know not what to expect. There is no progress, but a terrible paralysis all over the city. ‘I like you English,’ said an intelligent native; ‘but you are here to-day and may be gone to-morrow, and then we who have adhered to England will all have our throats cut. We are like a boat between two shores, and know not whither we are going. The English must either stop or go.’ Our stay is to the lasting advantage of all the European nations.

We have wonderfully improved the condition of the fellaheen, who, according to all I hear, are not too thankful for the liberty we have gained for them. I met an intelligent old Greek, who deeply resented that we had abolished flogging – a little of it now and then, according to him, did the natives good. Manual labour is so cheap that it is used in every department. At the hotel I note that they bring the coals in in baskets, and in the railway-station I see a native employed in laying the dust, with a skin of water, which he carries on his back, using the neck as a water-spout.

Of all the cities I have known – and, like Ulysses, I am ever wandering with a hungry heart – I infinitely prefer Cairo, and am not surprised that it is becoming more and more the winter residence of the English aristocracy. It was a delight to live when I was there, and as I took my breakfast al fresco in the beautiful grounds of the Hôtel du Nil, with tropical plants in full flower all round me, a bright sun and unclouded blue sky above, the question whether life was worth living seemed to me an absurdity. But, alas! no one can look for perfect happiness – at any rate, on earth. In Cairo there are the flies, not so bad as I have seen them in Australia or America, but a terrible infliction nevertheless. One of my companions, Mr. Willans, the popular proprietor of the Leeds Daily Mercury, suffered much from them, and had for a time to give up reading and writing, and to wear coloured glasses, but I was let off more easily. In Cairo, for the first time, I realized what a luxury it was to have dates to eat. We at home, who buy dates at the grocer’s, have no idea how juicy the date of Cairo is. Then the heat is great, and walking far is out of the question. But what of that? Directly you turn into the street the donkey-boy comes up to offer you a ride; and the Cairo donkey is lively, large, and white, and well groomed, sure of foot, swift in speed, and beautiful to look at. An English coster’s moke is not to be named on the same day with the Cairo donkey, on which you can have a ride for a trifling sum.

Life and prosperity seem everywhere to prevail, and the station at Cairo conducts you at once into a fine city, with broad streets, well watered, and shaded by trees, handsome shops, fine hotels, beautiful gardens, and the inevitable statue of Mohammed Ali, who did so much to develop modern Egypt. Palaces of all kinds attract the eye, one of the finest of these being the residence of Lord Cromer. Cairo is distinctly a society place, though, perhaps, not so much so as Cannes or Nice, and living is dear, though cheaper than it used to be. French seems the language principally used, though the guides, who pester you at every corner, and the donkey-boys, who are equally persistent, have a confusing smattering of English. The resident English colony is chiefly composed of the diplomatic and Consular bodies, or of those connected with the different Consular departments, and of officers of the garrison. You meet many English soldiers whose appearance is creditable to the country, and amongst the birds of passage are many Americans. There are two good clubs for visitors – the Khediveal and the Turf, the latter chiefly supported by army officers. The theatre, where French plays and Italian operas are performed, is a very fine building. In the same neighbourhood is also a café chantant in the gardens. All day long, under the bright blue sky, the scene is very animated.

But the visitors, although a welcome addition, do not entirely make up Cairene society. The gaiety begins and is mainly kept up by the residents, especially the British civil and military, who are always most hospitable at the winter time of year. Cairo is no doubt a court and capital, the residence of the sovereign to whom diplomatists are accredited from all the civilized Powers. But it is also a British military station, and it owes much of its present liveliness to the British officers and civil servants.

It was the British garrison that established the Cairo Sporting Club, where good polo is played, and very fair cricket, ‘squash’ rackets, and lawn-tennis; where there are monthly race-meetings, and officers ride steeplechases on their own horses. The big lunches, the pleasant afternoon teas, the dances and flirtations so constantly in progress, are essentially British.

Out at Mena, under the shadow of the Sphinx, there is a golf-course, and the caddie is an Arab boy in a long blue bed-gown, and you can aim your ball from the putting-green straight at the Pyramid of Cheops. Out at Matarieh, just where Mr. Wilfrid Blunt lives the life of an Arab patriarch, under tents, surrounded by his flocks and herds, there is a training stable, and the British sporting subaltern keeps his ‘tit’ there, and comes out to give him his gallops at early dawn.

But it is as you get away from the broad streets of new Cairo, and plunge into the bazaars and the narrow streets, that you realize what a bewildering place old Cairo is. The city of Cairo covers an area of three square miles, and greatly exceeds the limit of the old walls. On the south stands the ancient citadel, on a rock, memorable for the massacre of the Mamelukes. Of the most perfect of the old gateways still remaining is the Gate of Victory. Above the archway is an Arabic inscription: ‘There is no god but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet.’ The streets are narrow and irregular, and badly paved, while the white houses, with their overhanging windows, are, at any rate, picturesque.

The bazaars are of all sorts: the leather-sellers have one, the carpet-dealers another, silk-merchants another, and everywhere purchaser and buyer seem to spend a great deal of time in smoking cigarettes. The gold bazaar is so narrow that three persons can scarcely pass; there, and at the silver bazaar, you see the artificers constantly at work. Coptic churches and mosques you meet everywhere. There is a good attendance at the English Church; there are also a Presbyterian Church, and two Roman Catholic churches. I saw the bishop of one of them, who was to preach, driving along in very grand style. The Wesleyans have also a chapel. The howling dervishes have also their sanctum, where they exhibit their peculiarly unpleasant powers. I decline to go and see them, as everyone tells me they are a fraud; and if I want to be deceived, there is the Egyptian conjuror always ready with his little tricks. He comes daily to the hotel to give a performance; also daily resort there the Egyptian minstrels, whose performances we all greatly applaud.

The English have a party paper called the Sphinx, which, however, I fancy has little influence in the formation of public opinion. In Alexandria a daily English paper is published, which reaches Cairo about eight in the evening, but which gives little general news, and is chiefly devoted to trade and commerce. It was with a heavy heart I left Cairo and its bright and busy life for the gray skies and bleak winds of my native land. My consolation is that we breed better men than they do in southern climes – a fact of which the Roman Cæsars were aware when they drew their best troops from Britain or Northern Gaul.

The French complain bitterly of English influence in Egypt – a country for which we have done much, and which, if it ever becomes prosperous, will owe its prosperity to England alone; and yet it is the fact that the Englishman in Egypt lies under peculiar disadvantages, and that as much as possible English enterprise is discouraged and destroyed. It ought not to be so. We who have made Egypt what it is, who have fought its battles, developed its resources, improved the condition of its people, destroyed its corrupting and enervating influences, put its finances in a healthy condition, may be expected to have, at any rate, fair play there.

That this is not so, the case of Mr. Fell, of Leamington, one of the few men who have raised themselves from the ranks and become honoured far and near, is a notorious illustration. In 1890 he obtained a concession from the Egyptian Government giving him the right to make tramways in the city of Cairo. The particular department of the Egyptian Government which has to do with such affairs has at its head a Secretary of State – at that time the office was held by Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff – and a financial adviser appointed by the Egyptian Government on the recommendation of the English Government. Mr. Fell went to Egypt, had the whole city surveyed, and the plans drawn, a difficult task which occupied a considerable amount of time. In August of the same year he bought the steel rails, ordered the cars to be built, and did all he could to hasten the fulfilment of his contract, and, as a security, deposited with the Egyptian Government twenty-two Egyptian bonds of the value of £100 each. To still further strengthen his position, he had a letter from Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff to the effect that he was quite satisfied that Mr. Fell had complied with legal requirements.

So far all was straight sailing, but in April the Egyptian Government confiscated the bonds Mr. Fell had deposited with them, and also declared the contract null and void, on the ground that he had failed to comply with the conditions under which the contract was made. Mr. Fell had a long correspondence with the Egyptian Government of a very unsatisfactory character. In 1893 he returned to Egypt, and interviewed the authorities. Lord Cromer advised him to go to law. In his action against the Government, he was defeated on the plea that the letters written by Sir Scott Moncrieff, as Secretary of State, were not valid. In the meanwhile, the Egyptian Government advertised for a new concession in July, 1894, for which Mr. Fell again tendered, depositing a thousand guineas. In compliance with a request from the Egyptian Government, Mr. Fell again returned to Egypt, but found, on his arrival, that the contract had been given to a Belgian firm, who frankly admitted that they had paid so much for the concession that it was scarcely worth having. ‘My loss in consequence,’ said Mr. Fell to me, ‘is at least from £17,000 to £20,000, and this all through French intriguing.’

Such is a brief outline of a case of hardship, not to an individual, but the whole nation. Practically speaking, there is no British capital invested in Egypt except what was there previous to 1882. In the railway department, for instance, of late years all the works have been carried on by French and Belgian – to the exclusion of British – contractors. All the contracts for bridges which have recently been let have been let to Belgian contractors. The only companies that thrive in Egypt are French companies. Everything is in their favour. The law officers of the Crown are exclusively foreign, principally Corsicans, and they are able to control the native tribunal, notwithstanding the fact that there are English judges upon it; and to these Corsican law officers it is due that so much anti-English feeling exists in Egypt at this present time. Assuredly, Egypt makes us but a poor return for the money and blood we have spent in its behalf. We have a right to expect better treatment. If John Bull stands this sort of thing, he must be a poor creature indeed.

Anthony Trollope gives us an amusing illustration of the official life of Cairo in his time. He was sent there by the English Post-Office to accelerate the mail-service to Suez, and it took him two months to do his business. ‘I found, on my arrival,’ he writes, ‘that I was to communicate with an officer of the Pasha, who was then called Nubar Bey. I presume him to have been the gentleman who lately dealt with our Government as to the Suez Canal shares, and who is now well known as Nubar Pasha. I found him a most courteous gentleman, an Armenian. I never went to his office, nor do I know that he had an office. Every other day he would come to me at my hotel, and bring with him servants and pipes and coffee. I enjoyed his coming greatly, but there was one point on which we could not agree,’ and that was as to the rate of speed with which the mails should be carried through Egypt. The Post-Office said it must be done in twenty-four hours. The agent of the Egyptian Government contended that it would take forty-eight hours at the least. For a long time they could come to no agreement. Both were equally obstinate. It was impossible, said Nubar, that the mail could be carried at such a rate. It might do for England, but would not do for Egypt. The Pasha, his master, he said, would, no doubt, accede to any terms demanded by the British Post-Office, so great was his reverence for anything British. In that case, he, Nubar, would at once resign his position and retire into private life. He would be ruined, but the loss of life and bloodshed which would follow would not rest on his head. Nevertheless, he gave way after many days’ delay and a good deal of smoking and coffee-drinking. The twenty-four hours gained the day. It is to be hoped that official business is done more quickly now. A two months’ stay in Cairo over such an affair may have been pleasant. It certainly was expensive, and someone other than Mr. Trollope had to pay the bill.