Eastern Life. Harriet Martineau

asses, and imperturbable buffalo. Then, there were the long palisades of sugar-canes edging the banks; or the steep slopes, all soft and bright with the springing wheat or the bristling lupins. Then, there were the villages, with their somewhat pyramidal houses, their clouds of pigeons, and their shelter of palms: or, here and there, a town, with its minarets rising out of its cincture of acacia. And it was not long before we found our sight sharpened to discern holes in the rocks, far or near – holes so squared at the entrance as to hint of sculpture or painting within. And then, as the evening drew on, there was the sinking of the sun, and the coming out of the colours which had been discharged by the glare in the middle of the day. The vast and dreary and hazy Arabian desert became yellow, melting into the purple hills; the muddy waters took a lilac hue; and the shadows of the sharp-cut banks were as blue as the central sky. As for the moon, we could, for the first time in our lives, see her the first night – the slenderest thread of light, of cup-like form, visible for a few minutes after sunset: the old moon being so clearly marked as to be seen by itself after the radiant rim was gone. I have seen it behind a palm, or resting on the ridge of a mountain like a copper ball. And when the fuller moon came up from the east, and I, forgetting the clearness of the sky, have been struck by the sudden dimness, and have looked up to watch her passing behind a cloud, it was delicious to see, instead of any cloud, the fronds of a palm waving upon her disc. One night, I saw an appearance perfectly new to me. No object was perceptible on the high black eastern bank, above and behind which hung the moon: but in her golden track on the dimpled waters were the shadows of palms, single and in clusters, passing over swiftly, – »authentic tidings of invisible things.« And then, there was the rising of Orion. I have said that the constellations were less conspicuous than at home, from the universal brilliancy of the sky; but Orion shone forth, night by night, till the punctual and radiant apparition became almost oppressive to the watching sense. I came at last to know his first star as it rose clear out of the bank. He never issued whole from a haze on the horizon, as at home. As each star rose, it dropped a duplicate upon the surface of the still waters; and on a calm night, it was hard to say which Orion was the brightest. – And how different was the wind from our cloud-laden winds in England! Except that it carried us on, I did not like wind in Egypt. The palms, bowed from their graceful height, and bent all one way, are as ugly as trees can be: and the dust flies in clouds, looking like smoke or haze on land, and settling on our faces, even in the middle of the stream. Though called sand, it is, for the most part, mere dust from the limestone ranges, forming mud when moistened. The wind served, however, to show us a sand-pillar now and then, like a column of smoke moving slowly along the ground. On this second day of our voyage, when we were approaching Benisooeef, the wind made ugly what on a calm evening would have been lovely. A solitary house, in the midst of a slip of alluvial land, all blown upon with dust, looked to us the most dreary of dwellings. But the lateen sails on the river were a pretty feature, – one or two at a time, winding in and out with the bends of the stream. We saw one before us near Benisooeef, this day. It proved to be our Scotch friend's. Our boat beat his in a strong wind; and we swept past in good style, – the gentlemen uncapping and bowing; the ladies waving their handkerchiefs. I had no idea that the racing spirit had entered into them, till one of the ladies told me, the next time we met, »We were so mortified when you passed us!«

      Benisooeef is about eighty miles from Cairo: a good progress for twenty-three hours! It is the largest town in Upper Egypt; but it does not look very imposing from the river. Two or three minarets rise from it; and there is one rather good-looking house, which the Pasha inhabits when he comes. Its aspect was pretty as we looked back to it from the south.

      The wind carried us on towards the rocky region where our careful Rais would retard our progress by night, though we had a glorious lamp in the moon, the whole night through. We had a rocky shore to the east this afternoon – the Arabian mountains approaching the river: and in the early morning we passed the precipitous cliffs, on whose flat summit stands the Coptic convent of »Our Lady Mary the Virgin.« The forms of these limestone cliffs are most fantastic; and fantastic was the whole scene: the long rows of cormorants in front of their holes – a sort of burlesque upon the monks in their cells above; the unconnected flights of steps here and there on the rocks; the women and naked children on the ridge, giving notice to the begging monks of our approach; and the monks themselves, leaping and racing down the precipice, and then, two of them, racing through the water, struggling with the strong current, to board us for baksheesh. The one who succeeded was quite satisfied, in the midst of his panting and exhaustion, with five paras⁷ and an empty bottle. He waited a little, till we had gone about a mile, in order to have the help of the current, and then swam off to his convent.

      We passed the pretty town of Minyeh about noon; and then entered upon sugar districts so rich as to make one speculate whether this might not be, some day, one of the great sugar-producing regions of the world. The soil is very rich, and irrigated by perpetually recurring shadoofs; and the crops of canes on the flats between the rocks and the river were very fine, and extending onwards for some days from this time. The tall chimneys of the Rauda sugar manufactory stood up above the wood on a promontory, looking very strange amidst such a scene. – On our return, we visited the sugar manufactory at Hou, and learned something of the condition and prospects of the manufacture. The Hou establishment belongs to Ibraheem Pasha, whom we met there at seven in the morning. It is quite new; and a crowd of little children were employed in the unfinished part, carrying mortar in earthen bowls for 1 d. per day. The engineers are French, and the engine, one hundred-and-twenty horse power, was made at Paris. The managers cannot have here the charcoal formerly in use for clarifying the juice. From the scarcity of wood, charcoal is too dear; and burnt bones are employed instead, answering the purpose much better. We saw the whole process, which seemed cleverly managed; and the gentlemen pronounced the quality of the sugar good. An Englishman employed there said, however, that the canes were inferior to those of the West Indies, for want of rain. There were a hundred people at work in this establishment; their wages being, besides food, a piastre and a quarter (nearly 3 d.) per day. If, however, the payment of wages is managed here as I shall have to show it is usually done in Egypt, the receipts of the work-people must be considered much less than this. We heard so much of the complaints of the people at having to buy, under compulsion, coarse and dear sugar, that it is clear that much improvement in management must take place before Egypt can compete with other sugar-producing countries; but still, what we saw of the extensive growth of the cane, and the quality of the produce, under great disadvantages, made us look upon this as one of the great future industrial resources of Egypt.

      The next morning, we could still distinguish the tall chimney of Rauda. We had been at anchor under a bank all night, the Rais being in fear of a rock ahead. The minarets of Melawee were on a flat on the western bank, some way before us: and between us and them lay the caves of Benee Hasan – those wonderful repositories of monumental records of the old Egyptians, which we were to explore on our return, but must now pass by, as if they were no more than what they looked, mere apertures in the face of the mountains.

      The crew were tracking this morning, for the first time – stepping along at a funeral pace, and slipping off, one by one, to light a pipe where four or five smokers were puffing in a circle, among the sugar-canes. Our crew never appeared tired with their tracking; but in the mornings they were slow; and the man who was sent for milk moved very lazily, whether the one chosen were the briskest or the quietest of the company. The cook was rather too deliberate about breakfast, and Alee himself was not a good riser. It was their winter; and cold makes the Arabs torpid instead of brisk. Presently, we had to cross to the more level bank; and then we first saw our people row. It was very ridiculous. They sang at the top of their voices, some of them throwing their heads back, shutting their eyes and shaking their heads at every quaver, most pathetically; dipping their oars the while as if they were skimming milk, and all out of time with their singing, and with one another, while their musical time was perfectly good. – The wind presently freshened, and we stood away. It was fitful all day, but blew steadily when the moon rose. Just then, however, the Rais took fright about passing the next point at night, and we moored, beside four other boats, in the deep shadow of a palm-grove. On these occasions, two men of the neighbourhood and a dog are appointed to guard each boat that moors to the bank. The boat pays three piastres;⁸ and if anything is lost, complaint is made to the governor of the district, whose business it is to recover the property,