Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water

Thus, as you draw near, it becomes a line of perspective, in which each pyramid recedes and recedes behind the greater one, till only Cheops is left in solitary glory.

But even thus he does not seem stupendous; he does not seem to crush you with his size, to be ungraspable from height, to be immeasurable for width. He does not impress you with a feeling of your own insignificance. He is very large—that is all.

Even when we had driven up the last steep ascent and stood under his very shadow, I felt scarcely more impressed. There was a peculiar effect of following with the eye some way up, and then suddenly feeling that the pyramid was receding from your sight—when you saw that you were looking at its cone.

You must gaze upon the Pyramids, bearing in your mind's eye all the time the grand idea that called them into existence; the despotic monarch who thought to build for himself an everlasting monument, who thought, by the stupendousness of the work, to preserve his body when all others should have perished, to perpetuate the memory of his reign to worlds of generation.

The vanity of all human aims and desires! The tomb was opened, sacked for the treasures of gold and silver that so great a builder would surely have interred with his remains. And the bones of Cheops—where are they now? Consigned to the sand of the desert, to the dust whence he came.

It is wonderful to think that this outer pyramid is only the covering for a number of similar ones inside; how many, is only conjectured by the size of the outer one. When the building of a pyramid was commenced, a piece of rock, it is said, was taken as the centre to form the support of the apex of the first tiny pyramid, and then a space was hollowed out in the rock wherein the sarcophagus would rest some day. The pyramid grew with the length of the reign of the royal builder. Year by year its growth increased, and at his death it was finished off at the point it had then reached.

Various theories have been advanced as to the use of the Pyramids. Some have thought they were for astronomical purposes. One, that it was simply a meterological monument, large enough to serve for all kinds of measurements; but Egyptologists are now agreed in thinking they are tombs "hermetically sealed everywhere, the for ever impenetrable casing of a mummy."

There are many who will share in Lord Lindsay's beautiful but mystic idea of their origin, but I for one do not.

"Temples or tombs, monuments of tyranny or of priestly wisdom, no theory as to the 'meaning' of the Pyramids, those glorious works of fine intelligence" has been broached so beautiful to my mind as old Sandy's, who, like Milton and the ancients, believing them modelled in imitation of "that formless, form-taking substance, fire," conceives them to express the "original things." "For as the pyramid, beginning at a point, little by little dilateth into all parts, so nature, proceeding from an individual fountain, even God, the Sovereign Essence, receiveth diversity of form, effused into several kinds and multitudes of figures uniting all in the supreme head from whence all excellences issue."

We are soon surrounded, and the prey of the body of Bedouins who squat in a group at the corner of the Great Pyramid; but at the bidding of the all-powerful sheik, six men are singled out for the ascent.

The steps, if such they can be called, are blocks from two to four feet high, and come nearly up to the waist, of such a small person as myself. Therefore you stand and look doubtful as to how to ascend the first one; but there is no time for much thought before the guides have seized you with a grasp that leaves its mark, and by main force you are lifted and dragged up, while at some of those still higher, the guide behind gives a heaving help and push. The exercise is violent; the sockets of your arms feel elongated; the muscles of the legs, particularly at the back, are aching; you feel that the disposal of your petticoats is getting higher than you like; but there is no time to stay, you scramble on somehow, hardly knowing how you are going to reach the next step, before you are there.

The Bedouins take you up at a tremendous pace, and hardly give you time to breathe in occasional halts; but it is a good plan, in that you have no time to hesitate whether you will turn back, daunted. It is very dizzy work looking down on such layers and layers, such rows upon rows of yellow steps below—added to which, the sudden change of temperature 500 feet higher makes respiration more difficult. When you arrive at the summit, on the platform, you are too breathless and exhausted to enjoy the view much.

The fertile valley of the Nile is on one side, but on the other there is that huge, vast, arid desert, the Great Sahara. It is that which determined me to ascend the Pyramids. I wanted to gain the idea of what a desert can be when that and that alone is seen. It is very terrible.

The Bedouins clamoured around me, including the Sakka, or water-carrier, who always accompanies the ascent, for backsheesh and the sale of coins; and as C., having been up before, had stopped halfway, I was alone at the top, and was fain to descend to be rid of them.

The descent is far worse than the ascent. The jar to the system of jumping from step to step is very trying, and it is really best to sit down on the step and slide over, however inelegant.

The entrance to the pyramid is a little way up in the centre of one side. The steps here are sunk in sideways, so as to form a slanting platform to a small aperture. Over this there are two enormous blocks of marble laid pent-ways, to form an arch in the pyramid, and to support its weight on the roof of the passage. You slip and slide down the steep passage, feeling you are going down into the bowels of the earth, "the entrails of the Great Pyramid," and a last long slide brings you into the chamber. Here you see the material of which the Pyramids are constructed, a rock called nummulite limestone, often containing fossil remains. In one place it is rough and glistening, in another smooth and polished, as if worn away—by what means is not known. In the roof there is a recess, where the sarcophagus is supposed to have stood, but none was found when it was opened for the first time, as was supposed. In reality the tomb had been opened and sacked, probably not such an untold number of years after the death of Cheops.

Then we walked ankle-deep in sand a quarter of a mile away to the south-east of the Great Pyramid, to where the Sphinx stands. Her whereabouts is only decided by a mass of rock that looks at first sight (please excuse the familiar simile) like the Toadstool Rock at Tunbridge Wells, for it is only a mass of rock supported on a column. As we approach, however, and finally stand under the Sphinx, we begin to understand the fascination she exercises.

We see the Egyptian helmet with the long flaps, under which are the protruding ears, so very distinct. Then we notice the eyes, the forehead, the broken, flattened nose, and the thick lips. It is in the lips lies the expression of the Sphinx, the disdainful, haughty look, or anon the smile that parts them. The remainder of the face follows the mood expressed on the lips. But at all times the Sphinx is unsympathetic, cold as the stone she is carved in. With face turned towards the rising waters of the Nile, she changes not with the ruddy glow of sunset, nor the blush of morning, reflected from its waters. She is human, but relentless. The animal body of the Sphinx is again buried in the sand—for once, a century ago, excavation revealed it. Between the front paws it was then found there was an altar, where sacrifices must have been offered under the very head of the Sphinx herself, and a sanctuary with some tablets was discovered under the breast.

Stanley said, "Its situation and significance are worthy of the Sphinx; if it was the giant representative of royalty, then it fitly guards the greatest of royal sepulchres, and with its half-human and half-animal form is the best welcome and the best farewell to the history and religion of Egypt."

Connected as it was supposed to be with her worship, the Temple of the Sphinx is peculiarly appropriate to her in its massidity. The enormous blocks of granite and alabaster, laid lengthways across other blocks, on which we look down, gives to it the appearance of the crypt of a cathedral.

The two remaining pyramids have no special interest, nor yet the two or three others, very small ones by comparison, lying about the greater. The latter are evidences of a very short reign, or perhaps were only intended to serve as a monument of sufficient height, to ensure their never being sunk or overwhelmed with the sand typhoon of the desert.

On Friday afternoon, the Sabbath of the Moslems, we went to see the religious service held by the sect of Howling Dervishes.

Passing through a quiet court where the musicians were taking their places, through an outer room, we came into a whitewashed mosque, whose unornamented dome, as we shall presently see, has a splendid echo. A goat-skin mat is arranged round in a circle, on which the twenty or thirty worshippers enter one by one and kneel. The sheik squats in the kibla or niche, and we sit on chairs ranged round the wall.

The priest or sheik intones some prayers, to which they all respond, the echo lingering and repeating the sonorous tones of the response, till it forms an accompaniment to the following prayer.

Then they begin repeating the same word or phrase, Allah, Allah, Allah, with a gentle inclination of the body. This action gradually increases with the rise of the voices, which, if they unconsciously flag for a minute, are vigorously taken up and maintained again. At a given sign from the sheik they cease. All stand up.

Then the same recommences with increased exercise, and an occasional howl from some more devout worshipper, while soft wild music is heard outside. Gradually you are fascinated by this circle of men, all bowing at the same moment, all intoning on one note; and now it is a groaning noise they make, and it grows and grows, till the raising of the sheik's hands stops it once more.

Then they take off their clothes, their turbans, and undo their long hair, and the real work of worship commences. The sheik touches a man on the shoulder, and singles him out to stand in the centre. The swaying recommences, but with the violence where they left off as the first stage, and the dervish in the centre leads, swaying, bending, all in time. Music strikes up, the tom-tom of large tambourines—a deafening, discordant pandemonium, to which they are moving in time, urged on by the increase and swell of the music faster, ever increasing, louder the music, deafening its sound. A circle of wild magnetic creatures tossing their locks of hair, unconscious, mechanical, holding a mesmerized look on the dervish, who with closed eyes performs with ecstasy the exercise of his salvation. Another steps into the circle, and begins, with arms outstretched, slowly to turn and twirl round and round and round—never moving from the exact spot of ground where he first took his stand—gently at first, increasing slowly, becoming fast, faster—a whirl now. All is utter confusion. Chaos has come. The scene swims before your eyes; the wild fanatical little body of surging, swaying dervishes is becoming indistinct, when a sudden raising of the finger brings it all to a close in an instant; only one last resounding thud of the tom-tom, one prolonged howl lingers on the echo. The spinning dervish sinks exhausted to the ground.

Saturday, March 7th.—Lady Baring took me to the Vicereine's "at home" on Saturday afternoon at the Atchin Palace. We entered by a private way and back staircase, and were shown through a succession of reception-rooms to a small drawing-room or boudoir, where her Highness sat.

She is still young and has pretty features—all say she is most pleasant and good-natured; but she has grown, and is growing, enormously stout. The Vicereine was arrayed in a Parisian toilette of black, and, save for the representative feature of a bunch of red roses and diamond ornaments, looked completely European. The slaves, too, were dressed in English materials of old gold, blue, and pink silks, with gilt waistbands and bunches of roses, and not as one had looked to see them, in some graceful Oriental costume. We all sat round in a circle for the prescribed time, and cigarettes were offered and coffee brought, that nasty, bitter Arabian coffee, in tiny cups with Turkish stands.

The same afternoon we called on M. Camille Barrère at the French Agency, the most beautiful house in Cairo, just purchased by the French Government. There are some very unique ceilings and mosaic dados in it, and a great quantity of the pretty mushrebeeyah.

We dined in the evening with Nubar Pasha, the Prime Minister, and Madame Nubar; and after dinner went to a Turkish piece at the theatre. Quite half the galleries were curtained for the ladies of the harem, behind which, we could see, they were crowded; and when everybody left the house between the acts, it was from thence came the clouds of smoke that filled the theatre. Nubar Pasha is a very charming and courteous man.

Sunday, March 8th.—The Premier very kindly lent us his dahabeeyah to go up the Nile.

One always has a very mistaken idea about the beauty of the Nile. It is an exceedingly ugly river, with shoals and sandbanks lying about in its course. Going up only a little way from Cairo, there is a fine view of the Mokattam Range, the citadel, with the mosque of Mahomet Ali, whose slender minars tower as high again above the hills. Warehouses and manufactories, followed by mud villages, render the banks utterly hideous and uninteresting. The nuggars, with their sharp-angled sails and enormously tall, slanting masts, are alone pretty and picturesque. We returned to Cairo as the sun was setting.

Wednesday, March 11th.—Got up early, packed, drove to the station, took our seats in the train for Suez, to embark on board the P. and O. Tasmania for Malta, Gibraltar, and Spain. Three minutes before the train started, bag and baggage we bundled out again. I saw in the paper there were fresh earthquakes in Spain, and particularly at Malaga, where we must have landed from Gibraltar.

We spent the day in Cairo, and left again in the evening by the mail to Alexandria, to go viâ Brindisi to Cannes.

We drove through the streets of Alexandria by gaslight, seeing the remains of the bombardment on all sides. What a national reproach are the ruins and the houses partially riddled with cannon-shot, the neat piles of broken brick and stone by the road. They are only just beginning to rebuild Alexandria after the lapse of two years.

We got on board the P. and O. mail steamer Assam at eleven o'clock, and weighed anchor early next morning.

Thursday.—Sea flat, calm.

Friday.—The shores of Crete and Candia in view, the bold outline of her mountains covered with snow.

Saturday.—Within sight of beautiful Zanté, an island of the Ionian Group.

A very rough night on board, half a gale blowing, and the next morning we are at Brindisi. Dear little Brindisi (though few will agree in this term of endearment), desolate and dreary as she is, greeting us with a snowstorm as she did, looked homelike and sweet to us, if only because she was so near home—a distance of no account after what we have done. The trees about the harbour were budding and breaking into blossom, notwithstanding the grey north-easter blowing.

All day we were travelling along the leg of Italy, by the storm swept ocean breaking in angry breakers along the shores, across the fertile plains of Tuscany—Bologna reached at one in the morning. Left the next day, to arrive at Genoa the same evening. Then a day spent in crawling along the beautiful Riviera, its orange-groves, olive-yards, and flowers smiling us a sunshiny greeting. Cannes reached at length that evening. Hearty welcomes. Home-like feelings. Renewing acquaintance with our little daughter Vera.

A fortnight's pleasant rest after our long journey, a gathering up of the thread of events, domestic and otherwise, since we left England in July last, and London reached on the 1st of April. Home at last.

We had been absent not quite nine months, had travelled rather more than 40,000 miles, visited America and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Netherlands India, the Malay Peninsula, India, and Egypt, gained useful information without end, and laid up stores of knowledge that will never cease to be precious till our lives' end; had many and many a pleasant recollection left of little adventures, anecdotes, and incidents such as happen in common to all travellers, and made not a few interesting acquaintances.

Let me finally take this opportunity of expressing to all the many kind friends, particularly those in the colonies, our gratitude for the hearty welcome and cheery hospitality extended to us by all.

Should any one wish for nine months, or, better still, a year of perfect enjoyment, of rest and relief from the weary round of duty and so-called pleasure, which is the life and lot of so many of us—I say, Go a tour, not round the world, not mere globe-trotting, but a complete tour of study through the glorious British empire, such as we have tried to do, and failed only in that the Cape was, for circumstances already mentioned, impossible for us.

In Greater Britain, all who are countrymen or women, all coming from the mother country, are sure of the same kindness and warm reception we experienced; all are sure of great enjoyment, all are sure of a wealth of bright, pleasant memories for the future. Such has been our experience. To all I would say, "Go and do thou likewise."

Written under circumstances of some difficulty, chiefly on board ship, in cabins close and dark, tossed and swung about, this journal has been put together. Poor little journal as it is, the first production of an unskilful pen, I am but too fully conscious of its defects.

It is up to date now, the last entry has been made, and, with a sigh, it has been confided to the hands of the printer and publisher. May they and the public be merciful to it!

THE END

1

This was written before the introduction of the 6d. telegram in England.

2

As I correct the proofs, we are grieved to hear of the death of this genial and kind-hearted man.

3

Since proved to be a forgery.

4

Now Sultan.

5

I am mainly indebted to Dr. Hunter's "History of the Indian People" for the above facts.

6

After several days of continual anxiety, we heard that at the very commencement of the engagement he had been slightly wounded.

7

The Fortress has now been given back to the Maharajah.

8

Since this was written, Lady Dufferin has founded a society with this excellent object in view.