From Egypt to Japan

At Zagazig, the railroad from Cairo unites with that from Alexandria. Here we stopped to dine, and while waiting, a special train arrived with Mr. Cave, who has come out from London to try and put some order into the financial affairs of Egypt. If he succeeds, he will deserve to be ranked very high as a financier. He was going on to Ismailia to meet M. de Lesseps, that they might go through the Suez Canal together.

And now we leave behind us the rich land of Goshen, where Joseph placed his father Jacob and his brethren, with their flocks and herds; we leave the fertile meadows and the palm groves. We are on the track of the Israelites; we have passed Rameses, the first station in their march, and entered the desert, that "great and terrible wilderness" in which they wandered forty years. We enter it, not on camels or horses, but drawn by a steed of fire. A railway in the desert! This is progress indeed. There is something very imposing to the imagination in the idea of an iron track laid in the pathless sands, over which long trains move swifter than "the swift dromedaries," and carrying burdens greater than the longest caravans. These are the highways of civilization, which may yet carry it into the heart of Africa. Here, too, are the great ships, passing through the Suez Canal, whose tall masts are outlined against the horizon, as they move slowly from sea to sea.

And now we are approaching the border line between Asia and Africa. It is an invisible line; no snow-capped mountains divide the mighty continents which were the seats of the most ancient civilization; no sea flows between them: the Red Sea terminates over seventy miles from the Mediterranean; even the Suez Canal does not divide Asia and Africa, for it is wholly in Egypt. Nothing marks where Africa ends and Asia begins, but a line in the desert, covered by drifting sands. And yet there is something which strangely touches the imagination, as we move forward in the twilight, with the sun behind us, setting over Africa, and before us the black night coming on over the whole continent of Asia.

So would I take leave of Africa – in the Night and in the Desert. Byron closes his Childe Harold with an apostrophe to the Ocean, his Pilgrim ending his wanderings on the shore. The Desert is like the Sea: it fills the horizon, and shuts out the sight of "busy cities far away," leaving one on the boundless plain, as on the Ocean – alone with the Night. Perhaps I may be indulged in some quiet musings here, before we embark on the Red Sea, and seek a new world in India.

But what can one say of the desert? The subject seems as barren as its own sands. Life in the desert? There is no life; it is the very realm of death, where not a blade of grass grows, nor even an insect's wing flutters over the mighty desolation; the only objects in motion, the clouds that flit across the sky, and cast their shadows on the barren waste below; and the only sign that man has ever passed over it, the bleaching bones that mark the track of caravans.

But as we look, behold "a wind cometh out of the North," and stirring the loose sand, whirls it into a column, which moves swiftly towards us like a ghost, as if it said: "I am the spirit of the desert; man, wherefore comest thou here? Pass on. If thou invadest long my realm of solitude and silence, I will make thy grave." We shall not linger, but only "tarry for a night," to question a little the mystery that lies hidden beneath these drifting sands.

We look again, and we see shadowy forms coming out of the whirlwind – great actors in history, as well as figures of the imagination. The horizon is filled with moving caravans and marching armies. Ancient conquerors pass this way for centuries from Asia into Africa, and back again, the wave of conquest flowing and reflowing from the valley of the Tigris to the valley of the Nile. As we leave the Land of Goshen, we hear behind us the tramp of the Israelites beginning their march; and as the night closes in, we see in another quarter of the horizon the wise men of the East coming from Arabia, following their guiding star, which leads them to Bethlehem, where Christ was born.

And so the desert which was "dead" becomes "alive;" a whole living world starts up from the sands, and glides into view, appearing suddenly like Arab horsemen, and then vanishing as if it had not been, and leaving no trace in the sands any more than is left by a wreck that sinks in the ocean. But like the sea, it has its passing life, which has a deep human interest. And not only is there a life of the desert, but a literature which is the expression of that life – a history and a poetry, which take their color from these peculiar forms of nature – and even a music of the desert, sung by the camel-drivers, to the slow movement of the caravan, its plaintive cadence keeping time to the tinkling of the bells.

It has been one of the problems of physical geographers: What was the use of deserts in the economy of nature? A large part of Africa is covered by deserts. The Libyan Desert reaches to the Sahara, which stretches across the continent. All this seems an utterly waste portion of the earth's surface. The same question has been raised in regard to the sea: Why is it that three-fourths of the globe are covered by water? Perhaps the same answer may be given in both cases. These vast spaces may be the generators and purifiers of the air we breathe – the renovators of our globe's atmosphere.

And the desert has its beauty as well as its utility. It is not all a dead level, a boundless monotony, but is billowy like the sea, with great waves of sand cast up by the wandering winds. The color, of course, is always the same, for there is no green thing to relieve the yellow sand. But nature sometimes produces great effects with few materials. This monotony of color is touched with beauty by the glow of sunset, as the light of day fades over the wide expanse. Sunrise and sunset on the desert have all the simple but grand effects of sunrise and sunset on the ocean. What painter that has visited Egypt has not tried to put on canvas that after-glow on the Nile, which is alike his wonder and his despair? Egypt is one of the favorite countries sought by European artists, who seek to catch that marvellous color which is the effect of its atmosphere. They find many a subject in the desert. With the accessories of life, few as they are, it presents many a scene to attract a painter's eye, and furnishes full scope to his genius. A great artist finds ample material in its bare and naked outlines, relieved by a few solitary figures – the Arab and his tent, or the camel and his rider. Perhaps the scene is simply a few palm trees beside a spring, under whose shade a traveller has laid him down to rest from the noon-tide heat, and beside him are camels feeding! But here is already a picture. With what effect does Gérome give the Prayer in the Desert, with the camel kneeling on the sands, and his rider kneeling beside him, with his face turned towards Mecca; or Death in the Desert, where the poor beast, weary and broken, is abandoned to die, yet murmurs not, but has a look of patience and resignation that is most pathetic, as the vultures are seen hovering in the air, ready to descend on their prey!

A habitat so peculiar as the desert must produce a life as peculiar. It is of necessity a lonely life. The dweller in tents is a solitary man, without any fixed ties, or local habitation. Whoever lives on the desert must live alone, or with few companions, for there is nothing to support existence. It must be also a nomadic life. If the Arab camps, with his flocks and herds, in some green spot beside a spring, yet it is only for a few days, for in that time his sheep and cattle have consumed the scanty herbage, and he must move on to some new resting-place. Thus the life of the desert is a life always in motion. The desert has no settled population, no towns or villages, where men are born, and grow up, and live and die. Its only "inhabitants" are "strangers and pilgrims," that come alone or in caravans, and pitch their tents, and tarry for a night, and are gone.

Such a life induces peculiar habits, and breeds a peculiar class of virtues and vices. Nomadic tribes are almost always robbers, for they have to fight for existence, and it is a desperate struggle. But, on the other hand, their solitary life as well as the command of the prophet, has taught them the virtue of hospitality. Living alone, they feel at times the sore need of the presence of their kind, and welcome the companionship even of strangers. An Arab sheik may live by preying on travellers, but if a wanderer on the desert approaches his tent and asks shelter and protection, he gives it freely. Even though the old chief be a robber, the stranger sleeps in peace and safety, and his entertainer is rewarded by the comfort of seeing a human face and hearing a human voice.

To traverse spaces so vast and so desolate would not be possible were it not for that faithful beast of burden which nature has provided. Horses may be used by the Bedouins on their marauding expeditions, but they keep near the borders of the desert, where they can make a dash and fly; but on the long journey across the Great Sahara, by which the outer world communicates with the interior of Africa, no beast could live but the camel, which is truly the ship of the desert. Paley might find an argument for design in the peculiar structure of the camel for its purpose; in its stomach, that can carry water for days, and its foot, which is not small like that of the horse, but broad, to keep the huge animal from sinking in the sands. It serves as a snow-shoe, and bears up both the beast and his rider. Then it is not hard like a horse's hoof, that rings so sharp on the pavement, but soft almost like a lion's paw. And tall as the creature is, he moves with a swinging gait, that is not unpleasant to one accustomed to it, and as he comes down on his soft foot, the Arab mother sits at ease, and her child is lulled to rest almost as if rocked in a cradle.

Thus moving on in these slow and endless marches, what so natural as that the camel-riders should beguile their solitude with song? The lonely heart relieves itself by pouring its loves and its sorrows into the air; and hence come those Arabian melodies, so wild and plaintive and tender, which constitute the music of the desert. Some years since a symphony was produced in Paris, called "The Desert," which created a great sensation, deriving its peculiar charm from its unlikeness to European music. It awakened, as it were, a new sense in those who had been listening all their lives to French and German operas. It seemed to tell – as music only tells – the story of the life of the desert. In listening one could almost see the boundless plain, broken only by the caravan, moving slowly across the waste. He could almost "feel the silence" of that vast solitude, and then faintly in the distance was heard the tinkling of the camel-bells, and the song of the desert rose upon the evening air, as softly as if cloistered nuns were singing their vesper hymns. The novel conception took the fancy of the pleasure seekers of Paris, always eager for a new sensation. The symphony made the fame of the composer, Felicien David, who was thought to have shown a very original genius in the composition of melodies, such as Europe had not heard before. The secret was not discovered until some French travellers in the East, crossing the desert, heard the camel-drivers singing and at once recognized the airs that had so taken the enthusiasm of Paris. They were the songs of the Arabs. The music was born on the desert, and produced such an effect precisely because it was the outburst of a passionate nature brooding in solitude.

Music and poetry go together: the life that produces the one produces the other also. And as there is a music of the desert, so there is a poetry of the desert. Indeed the desert may be almost said to have been the birthplace of poetry. The Book of Job, the oldest poem in the world, older than Homer, and grander than any uninspired composition, was probably written in Arabia, and is full of the imagery of the desert.

But while the mind carols lightly in poetry and music, its deeper musings take the form of Religion. It is easy to see how the life of the desert must act upon a thoughtful and "naturally religious" mind. The absence of outward objects throws it back upon itself; and it broods over the great mystery of existence. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, when he was

"Alone on the wide, wide sea,"

found that

"So lonely 'twas that God himselfScarce seemèd there to be."

But in the desert one may say there is nothing but God. If there is little of earth, there is much of heaven. The glory of the desert is at night, when the full moon rises out of the level plain, as out of the sea, and walks the unclouded firmament. And when she retires, then all the heavenly host come forth. The atmosphere is of such exquisite purity, that the stars shine with all their splendor. No vapor rises from the earth, no exhalation obscures the firmament, which seems all aglow with the celestial fires. It was such a sight that kindled the mind of Job, as he looked up from the Arabian deserts three thousand years ago, and saw Orion and the Pleiades keeping their endless march; and as led him to sing of the time "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."

Is it strange that God should choose such a vast and silent temple as this for the education of those whom He would set apart for his own service? Here the Israelites were led apart to receive the law from the immediate presence of God. The desert was their school, the place of their national education. It separated them from their own history. It drew a long track between them and the bitter past. It was a fit introduction to their new life and their new religion, as to their new country.

In such solitudes God has had the most direct communion with the individual soul. It was in the desert that Moses hid himself in a cleft of the rock while the Lord passed by; that the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind; and from it that John the Baptist came forth, as the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

So in later ages holy men who wished to shun the temptations of cities, that they might lead lives of meditation and prayer, fled to the desert, that they might forget the world and live for God alone. This was one of the favorite retreats of Monasticism in the early Christian centuries. The tombs of the Thebaïd were filled with monks. Convents were built on the cliffs of Mount Sinai that remain to this day.

We do not feel the need of such seclusion and separation from the world, but this passing over the desert sets the mind at work and supplies a theme for religious meditation. Is not life a desert, where, as on the sea, all paths are lost, and the traveller can only keep his course by observations on the stars? And are we not all pilgrims? Do we not all belong to that slow moving caravan, that marches steadily across the waste and disappears in the horizon? Can we not help some poor wanderer who may be lonely and friendless, or who may have faltered by the way; or guide another, if it be only to go before him, and leave our footprints in the sands, that

"A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,Seeing may take heart again?"

CHAPTER IX

ON THE RED SEA AND THE INDIAN OCEAN

Suez lies between the desert and the sea, and is the point of departure both for ships and caravans. But the great canal to which it gives its name, has not returned the favor by giving it prosperity. Indeed the country through which it passes derives little benefit from its construction. Before it was opened, Egypt was on the overland route to India, from which it derived a large revenue. All passengers had to disembark at Alexandria and cross by railroad to Suez; while freight had to be unshipped at the one city and reshipped at the other, and thus pay tribute to both. Now ships pass directly from the Mediterranean into the canal, and from the canal into the Red Sea, so that the Englishman who embarks at Southampton, need not set his foot on the soil of Egypt. Thus it is not Egypt but England that profits by the opening of the Suez Canal; while Egypt really suffers by the completion of a work which is of immense benefit to the commerce of the world.

Though the Suez Canal is an achievement of modern times, yet the idea is not modern, nor indeed the first execution. It was projected from almost the earliest period of history, and was begun under the Pharaohs, and was at one time completed, though not, as now, solely for the passage of ships, but also as a defence, a gigantic moat, which might serve as a barrier against invasions from Asia.

There is nothing in Suez to detain a traveller, and with the morning we were sailing out in one of the native boats, before a light wind, to the great ship lying in the harbor, which was to take us to India. We had, indeed, a foretaste, or rather foresight, of what we were soon to look upon in the farthest East, as we saw some huge elephants moving along the quay; but these were not familiar inhabitants, but had just been disembarked from a ship arrived only the day before from Bombay – a present from the Viceroy of India to the Viceroy of Egypt.

Once on board ship I was as in mine own country, for now, for the first time in many months, did I hear constantly the English language. We had been so long in Europe, and heard French, German, Italian, Greek and Turkish; and Arabic in Egypt; that at first I started to hear my own mother tongue. I could not at once get accustomed to it, but called to the waiter "garçon," and was much surprised that he answered in English. But it was very pleasant to come back to the speech of my childhood. Henceforth English will carry me around the globe. It is the language of the sea, and of "the ends of the earth;" and it seems almost as if the good time were coming when the whole earth should be of one language and of one speech.

And now we are on the Red Sea, one of the historical seas of the world. Not far below the town of Suez is supposed to be the spot where the Israelites were hemmed in between the mountains and the sea; where Moses bade the waves divide, and the fleeing host rushed in between the uplifted walls, feeling that, if they perished, the waters were more merciful than their oppressors; while behind them came the chariots of their pursuers.

It was long before we lost sight of Egypt. On our right was the Egyptian coast, still in view, though growing dimmer on the horizon; and as we sat on deck at evening the gorgeous sunsets flamed over those shores, as they did on the Nile, as if reluctant to leave the scene of so much glory.

On the other side of the sea stretched the Peninsula of Sinai, with its range of rugged mountains, among which the eye sought the awful summit from which God gave the law.

This eastern side of the Red Sea has been the birthplace of religions. Half way down the coast is Jhidda, the port of Mecca. Thus Islam was born not far from the birthplace of Judaism, of which in many features it is a close imitation.

I have asked many times, What gave the name to the Red Sea? Certainly it is not the color of the water, which is blue as the sea anywhere. It is said that there is a phosphorescent glow, given by a marine insect, which at night causes the waters to sparkle with a faint red light. Others say it is from the shores, which being the borders of the desert, have its general sandy red, or yellow, appearance. I remember years ago, when sailing along the southern coast of Wales, a gentleman, pointing to some red-banked hills, said they reminded him of the shores of the Red Sea.

But whether they have given it its name or not, these surrounding deserts have undoubtedly given it its extreme heat, from which it has become famous as "the hottest place in the world." The wind blowing off from these burning sands, scorches like a sirocco; nor is the heat much tempered by the coolness of the sea – for indeed the water itself becomes heated to such a degree as to be a serious impediment to the rapid condensation of steam.

We began to feel the heat immediately after leaving Suez. The very next day officers of the ship appeared in white linen pantaloons, which seemed to me a little out of season; but I soon found that they were wiser than I, especially as the heat increased from day to day as we got more into the tropics. Then, to confess the truth, they sometimes appeared on deck in the early morning in the most negligé attire. At first I was a little shocked to see, not only officers of the ship, but officers of the army, of high rank, coming on deck after their baths barefoot; but I soon came to understand how they should be eager, when they were almost burning with fever, to be relieved of even the slightest addition to weight or warmth. In the cabin, punkas, long screens, were hung over the tables, and kept swinging all day long. The deck was hung with double awnings to keep off the sun; and here the "old Indians" who had made this voyage before, and knew how to take their comfort in the hot climate, were generally stretched out in their reclining bamboo-chairs, with a cigar in one hand and a novel in the other.

The common work of the ship was done by Lascars, from India, as they can stand the heat much better than English sailors. They are docile and obedient, and under the training of English officers make excellent seamen.

But we must not complain, for they tell us our voyage has been a very cool one. The thermometer has never been above 88 degrees, which however, considering that this is midwinter, is doing pretty well!

If such be the heat in January, what must it be in July? Then it is fairly blistering; the thermometer rises to 110 and 112 degrees in the shade; men stripped of clothing to barely a garment to cover them, are panting with the heat; driven from the deck, they retreat to the lower part of the ship, to find a place to breathe; sometimes in despair, the captain tells me, they turn the ship about, and steam a few miles in the opposite direction, to get a breath of air; and yet, with all precautions, he adds that it is not an infrequent thing, that passengers overpowered sink under a sunstroke or apoplexy.

Such heat would make the voyage to India one of real suffering, and of serious exposure, were it not for the admirable ships in which it can be made. But these of the Peninsular and Oriental company are about as perfect as anything that swims the seas. We were fortunate in hitting upon the largest and best of the fleet, the Peshawur. Accustomed as we have been of late to the smaller steamers on the Mediterranean, she seems of enormous bulk, and is of great strength as well as size; and being intended for hot climates, is constructed especially for coolness and ventilation. The state-rooms are much larger than in most sea-going steamers, and though intended for three persons, as the ship was not crowded (there were berths for 170 passengers, while we had but 34, just one-fifth the full complement) we had each a whole state-room to ourselves. There were bath-rooms in ample supply, and we took our baths every morning as regularly as on land.

On the Peshawur, as on all English ships, the order and discipline were admirable. Every man knew his place, and attended to his duty. Everything was done silently, and yet so regularly that one felt that there was a sharp eye in every corner of the ship; that there was a vigilant watch night and day, and this gave us such a sense of safety, that we lay down and rose up with a feeling of perfect security.

Besides, the officers, from the captain down, not only took good care for the safety of our lives, but did everything for our comfort. They tried to make us feel at home, and were never so well pleased as when they saw us all pleasantly occupied; some enjoying games, and others listening to music, when some amateur was playing on the piano, at times accompanied by a dozen manly and womanly voices. Music at sea helps greatly to beguile the tedium of a voyage. Often the piano was brought on deck, at which an extemporized choir practised the hymns for public service; among which there was one that always recurred, and that none can forget:

"Eternal Father, strong to save,Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,Who bid'st the mighty ocean deepIts own appointed limits keep:Oh, hear us when we cry to TheeFor those in peril on the sea."

And when the Sunday morning came and the same prayers were read which they had been accustomed to hear in England, many who listened felt that, whatever oceans they might cross, here was a tie that bound them to their island home, and to the religion of their fathers.