Warner Charles Dudley
My Winter on the Nile
We looked at the pretty houses and gardens, the dry-dock and the shops, and the world-famous dredges, without which the Suez Canal would very likely never have been finished. These enormous machines have arms or ducts, an iron spout of semi-elliptical form, two hundred and thirty feet long, by means of which the dredger working in the center of the channel could discharge its contents over the bank. One of them removed, on an average, eighty thousand cubit yards of soil a month. A faint idea may be had of this gigantic work by the amount of excavation here, done by the dredgers, in one month,—two million seven hundred and sixty-three thousand cubic yards. M. de Lesseps says that if this soil were “laid out between the Arc de Triomphe and the Place de la Concorde, it would cover the entire length and breadth of the Champs Elysées, a distance equal to a mile and a quarter, and reach to the top of the trees on either side.”
At the pier our felucca met us and we embarked and sailed into the mouth of the canal. The channel leading to it is not wide, and is buoyed at short intervals. The mouth of the canal is about nine hundred feet wide and twenty-seven deep,5 and it is guarded on the east by a long stone mole projected from the Asiatic shore. There is considerable ebb and flow of the tide in this part of the canal and as far as the Bitter Lakes, where it is nearly all lost in the expanse, being only slightly felt at Lake Timsah, from which point there is a slight uniform current to the Mediterranean.
From the canal entrance we saw great ships and steamboats in the distance, across the desert, and apparently sailing in the desert; but we did not follow them; we turned, and crossed to the Asiatic shore. We had brought donkeys with us, and were soon mounted for a scrambling gallop of an hour and a half, down the coast, over level and hard sand, to Moses’ Well. The air was delicious and the ride exhilarating. I tried to get from our pleasant Arab guide, who had a habit of closing one eye, what he thought of the place of the passage.
“Where did the Children of Israel cross?”
“Over dat mountain.”
“Yes, but where did they cross the Sea?”
“You know Moses?”
“Yes, I know Moses. Where did he cross?”
“Well,” closing his eye very tight, “him long time ago, not now. He cross way down there, can’t see him from here.”
On the way we passed the white tents of the Quarantine Station, on our right by the shore, where the caravan of Mecca pilgrims had been detained. We hoped to see it: but it had just set out on its desert march further inland. It was seen from Suez all day, straggling along in detachments, and at night camped about two miles north of the town. However, we found a dozen or two of the pilgrims, dirty, ragged, burned by the sun, and hungry, lying outside the enclosure at the wells.
The Wells of Moses (or Ain Moosa, “Moses’ Well,” in the Arabic) are distant a mile or more from the low shore, and our first warning of nearness to them was the appearance of some palms in a sandy depression. The attempt at vegetation is rather sickly, and the spot is but a desolate one. It is the beginning of the route to Mount Sinai, however, and is no doubt a very welcome sight to returning pilgrims. Contrast is everything; it is contrast with its surroundings that has given Damascus its renown.
There are half a dozen of these wells, three of which are some fifteen to twenty feet across, and are in size and appearance very respectable frog-ponds. One of them is walled with masonry, evidently ancient, and two shadoofs draw water from it for the garden, an enclosure of an acre, fenced with palm-matting. It contains some palms and shrubs and a few vegetables. Here also is a half-deserted house, that may once have been a hotel and is now a miserable trattoria without beds. It is in charge of an Arab who lives in a hut at the other side of the garden, with his wife and a person who bore the unmistakable signs of being a mother-in-law. The Arab made coffee for us, and furnished us a table, on which we spread our luncheon under the verandah. He also gave us Nile-water which had been brought from Suez in a cask on camel-back; and his whole charge was only one bob (a shilling) each. I mention the charge, because it is disenchanting in a spot of so much romance to pay for your entertainment in “bobs.”
We had come, upon what I may truly call a sentimental pilgrimage, on account of Moses and the Children of Israel. If they crossed over from Mount Attâka yonder, then this might be the very spot where Miriam sang the song of triumph. If they crossed at Chaloof, twenty miles above, as it is more probable they did, then this might be the Marah whose bitter waters Moses sweetened for the time being; the Arabs have a tradition that Moses brought up water here by striking the ground with his stick. At all events, the name of Moses is forever attached to this oasis, and it did not seem exactly right that the best well should be owned by an Arab who makes it the means of accumulating bobs. One room of the house was occupied by three Jews, traders, who establish themselves here a part of the year in order to buy, from the Bedaween, turquoise and antiquities which are found at Mount Sinai. I saw them sorting over a peck of rough and inferior turquoise, which would speedily be forwarded to Constantinople, Paris, and London. One of them sold me a small intaglio, which was no doubt of old Greek workmanship, and which he swore was picked up at Mount Sinai. There is nothing I long more to know, sometimes, than the history of wandering coins and intaglios which we see in the Orient.
It is not easy to reckon the value of a tradition, nor of a traditional spot like this in which all the world feels a certain proprietorship. It seemed to us, however, that it would be worth while to own this famous Asiatic well; and we asked the owner what he would take for it. He offered to sell the ranche for one hundred and fifty guineas; this, however, would not include the camel,—for that he wanted ten pounds in addition; but it did include a young gazelle, two goats, a brownish-yellow dog, and a cat the color of the sand. And it also comprised, in the plantation, a few palms, some junipers, of the Biblical sort, the acacia or “shittah” tree of the Bible, and, best of all, the large shrub called the tamarisk, which exudes during two months in the year a sweet gummy substance that was the “manna” of the Israelites.
Mother-in-law wore a veil, a string of silver-gilt imitation coins, several large silver bracelets, and a necklace upon which was sewed a string of small Arabic gold coins. As this person more than anyone else there represented Miriam,—not being too young,—we persuaded her to sell us some of the coins as mementoes of our visit. We could not determine, as I said, whether this spot is associated with Miriam or whether it is the Marah of bitter waters; consequently it was difficult to say what our emotions should be. However, we decided to let them be expressed by the inscription that a Frenchman had written on a wall of the house, which reads:—Le cour me palpitait comme un amant qui revoit sa bien aimée.
There are three other wells enclosed, but unwalled, the largest of which—and it has near it a sort of loggia or open shed where some dirty pilgrims were reposing—is an unsightly pond full of a green growth of algæ. In this enclosure, which contains two or three acres, are three smaller wells, or natural springs, as they all are, and a considerable thicket of palms and tamarisks. The larger well is the stronger in taste and most bitter, containing more magnesia. The water in all is flat and unpleasant, and not enlivened by carbonic acid gas, although we saw bubbles coming to the surface constantly. If the spring we first visited could be aerated, it would not be worse to drink than many waters that are sought after. The donkeys liked it; but a donkey likes any thing. About these feeble plantations the sand drifts from all directions, and it would soon cover them but for the protecting fence. The way towards Sinai winds through shifting sand-mounds, and is not inviting.
The desert over which we return is dotted frequently with tufts of a flat-leafed, pale-green plant, which seem to thrive without moisture; and in the distance this vegetation presents an appearance of large shrub growth, greatly relieving the barrenness of the sand-plain. We had some fine effects of mirage, blue lakes and hazy banks, as of streams afar off. When we reached an elevation that commanded a view of the indistinct Sinai range, we asked the guide to point out to us the “rosy peaks of Mount Sinai” which Murray sees from Suez when he is there. The guide refused to believe that you can see a rosy peak one hundred and twenty miles through the air, and confirmed the assertion of the inhabitants of Suez that Mount Sinai cannot be seen from there.
On our return we overtook a caravan of Bedaween returning from the holy mount, armed with long rifles, spears, and huge swords, swinging along on their dromedaries,—a Colt’s revolver would put the whole lot of braggarts to flight. One of them was a splendid specimen of manhood, and we had a chance to study his graceful carriage, as he ran besides us all the way; he had the traditional free air, a fine face and well-developed limbs, and his picturesque dress of light-blue and buff, somewhat in rags, added to his attractions. It is some solace to the traveler to call these fellows beggars, since he is all the time conscious that their natural grand manner contrasts so strongly with the uncouthness of his more recent and western civilization.
Coming back into Suez, from this journey to another continent, we were stopped by two customs-officers, who insisted upon searching our lunch-basket, to see if we were attempting to smuggle anything from Asia. We told the guide to give the representative of his Highness, with our compliments, a hard-boiled egg.
Suez itself has not many attractions. But we are much impressed at the hotel by the grave Hindoo waiters, who serve at table in a close-fitting habit, like the present extremely narrow gown worn by ladies, and ludicrous to our eyes accustomed to the flowing robes of the Arabs. They wear also, while waiting, broad-brimmed, white, cork hats, slightly turned up at the rim. It is like being waited on by serious genii. These men also act as chambermaids. Their costume is Bengalee, and would not be at all “style” in Bombay.
Suez is reputed a healthful place, enjoying both sea and desert air, free from malaria, and even in summer the heat is tempered. This is what the natives say. The English landlady admits that it is very pleasant in winter, but the summer is intensely hot, especially when the Khamseen, or south wind, blows—always three days at a time—it is hardly endurable; the thermometer stands at 110° to 1140 in the shaded halls of the hotel round the court. It is unsafe for foreigners to stay here more than two years at a time; they are certain to have a fever or some disease of the liver.
The town is very much depressed now, and has been ever since the opening of the canal. The great railway business fell off at once, all freight going by water. Hundreds of merchants, shippers and forwarders are out of employment. We hear the Khedive much blamed for his part in the canal, and people here believe that he regrets it. Egypt, they say, is ruined by this loss of trade; Suez is killed; Alexandria is ruined beyond reparation, business there is entirely stagnant. What a builder and a destroyer of cities has been the fluctuation of the course of the East India commerce!
CHAPTER XXXVII.—“EASTWARD HO!”
WE left Suez at eight in the morning by rail, and reached Ismailia in four hours, the fare—to do justice to the conductor already named—being fourteen francs. A part of the way the Bitter Lakes are visible, and we can see where the canal channel is staked out through them. Next we encountered the Fresh-Water Canal, and came in view of Lake Timsah, through which the Suez canal also flows. This was no doubt once a fresh-water lake, fed by water taken from the Nile at Bubastis.
Ismailia is a surprise, no matter how much you have heard of it. True, it has something the appearance of a rectangular streeted town dropped, ready-made, at a railway station on a western prairie; but Ismailia was dropped by people of good taste. In 1860 there was nothing here but desert sand, not a drop of water, not a spear of vegetation. To-day you walk into a pretty village, of three or four thousand inhabitants, smiling with verdure. Trees grow along the walks; little gardens bloom by every cottage. Fronting the quay Mohammed Ali, which extends along the broad Fresh-Water Canal, are the best residences, and many of them have better gardens than you can find elsewhere, with few exceptions, in Egypt.
The first house we were shown was that which had most interest for us—the Swiss-like châlet of M. de Lesseps; a summerish, cheerful box, furnished simply, but adorned with many Oriental curiosities. The garden which surrounds it is rich in native and exotic plants, flowers and fruits. On this quay are two or three barn-like, unfurnished palaces built hastily and cheaply by the Khedive for the entertainment of guests. The finest garden, however, and as interesting as any we saw in the East, is that belonging to M. Pierre, who has charge of the waterworks. In this garden can be found almost all varieties of European and Egyptian flowers; strawberries were just ripening. We made inquiry here, as we had done throughout Egypt, for the lotus, the favorite flower of the old Egyptians, the sacred symbol, the mythic plant, the feeding upon which lulls the conscience, destroys ambition, dulls the memory of all unpleasant things, enervates the will, and soothes one in a sensuous enjoyment of the day to which there is no tomorrow. It seems to have disappeared from Egypt with the papyrus.
The lotus of the poets I fear never existed, not even in Egypt. The lotus represented so frequently in the sculptures, is a water-plant, the Nymphaea lutea, and is I suppose the plant that was once common. The poor used its bulb for food in times of scarcity. The Indian lotus, or Nelumbium, is not seen in the sculptures, though Latin writers say it existed in Egypt. It may have been this that had the lethean properties; although the modern eaters and smokers of Indian hemp appear to be the legitimate descendants of the lotus-eaters of the poets. However, the lotus whose stalks and buds gave character to a distinct architectural style, we enquired for in vain on the Nile. If it still grows there it would scarcely be visible above water in the winter. But M. Pierre has what he supposes to be the ancient lotus-plant; and his wife gave us seeds of it in the seed-vessel—a large flat-topped funnel-shaped receptacle, exactly the shape of the sprinkler of a watering-pot. Perhaps this is the plant that Herodotus calls a lily like a rose, the fruit of which is contained in a separate pod, that springs up from the root in form very like a wasp’s nest; in this are many berries fit to be eaten.
The garden adjoins the water-works, in which two powerful pumping-engines raise the sweet water into a stand-pipe, and send it forward in iron pipes fifty miles along the Suez Canal to Port Said, at which port there is a reservoir that will hold three days’ supply. This stream of fresh water is the sole dependence of Port Said and all the intervening country.
We rode out over the desert on an excellent road, lined with sickly acacias growing in the watered ditches, to station No 6 on the canal. The way lies along Lake Timsah. Upon a considerable elevation, called the Heights of El Guisr, is built a château for the Khedive; and from this you get an extensive view of the desert, of Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes. Below us was the deep cutting of the Canal. El Guisr is the highest point in the Isthmus, an elevated plateau six miles across and some sixty-five feet above the level of the sea. The famous gardens that flourished here during the progress of the excavation have entirely disappeared with the cessation of the water from Ismailia. While we were there an East India bound steamboat moved slowly up the canal, creating, of course, waves along the banks, but washing them very little, for the speed is limited to five miles an hour.
Although the back streets of Ismailia are crude and unpicturesque, the whole effect of the town is pleasing; and it enjoys a climate that must commend it to invalids. It is dry, free from dust, and even in summer not too warm, for there is a breeze from the lakes by day, and the nights are always cooled by the desert air. Sea-bathing can be enjoyed there the year round. It ought to be a wholesome spot, for there is nothing in sight around it but sand and salt-water. The invalid who should go there would probably die shortly of ennui, but he would escape the death expected from his disease. But Ismailia is well worth seeing. The miracle wrought here by a slender stream of water from the distant Nile, is worthy the consideration of those who have the solution of the problem of making fertile our western sand-deserts.
We ate at Suez and Ismailia what we had not tasted for several months—excellent fish. The fish of the Nile are nearly as good as a New-England sucker, grown in a muddy mill-pond. I saw fishermen angling in the salt canal at Ismailia, and the fish are good the whole length of it; they are of excellent quality even in the Bitter Lakes, which are much salter than the Mediterranean—in fact the bottom of these lakes is encrusted with salt.
We took passage towards evening on the daily Egyptian pocket-boat for Port Said—a puffing little cigar-box of a vessel, hardly fifty feet long. The only accommodation for passengers was in the forward cabin, which is about the size of an omnibus, and into it were crammed twenty passengers, Greeks, Jews, Koorlanders, English clergymen, and American travelers, and the surly Egyptian mail-agent, who occupied a great deal of room, and insisted on having the windows closed. Some of us tried perching on the scrap of a deck, hanging our legs over the side; but it was bitterly cold and a strong wind drove us below. In the cabin the air was utterly vile; and when we succeeded in opening the hatchway for a moment, the draught chilled us to the bones.
I do not mean to complain of all this; but I want it to appear that sailing on the Suez Canal, especially at night, is not a pleasure-excursion. It might be more endurable by day; but I do not know. In the hours we had of daylight, I became excessively weary of looking at the steep sand-slopes between which we sailed, and of hoping that every turn would bring us to a spot where we could see over the bank.
At eight o’clock we stopped at Katanah for supper, and I climbed the bank to see if I could obtain any information about the Children of Israel. They are said to have crossed here. This is the highest point of the low hills which separate Lake Menzaleh from the interior lakes. Along this ridge is still the caravan-route between Egypt and Syria; it has been, for ages unnumbered, the great highway of commerce and of conquest. This way Thothmes III., the greatest of the Pharaohs and the real Sesostris, led his legions into Asia; and this way Cambyses came to repay the visit with interest.
It was so dark that I could see little, but I had a historic sense of all this stir and movement, of the passage of armies laden with spoils, and of caravans from Nineveh and Damascus. And, although it was my first visit to the place, it seemed strange to see here a restaurant, and waiters hurrying about, and travelers snatching a hasty meal in the night on this wind-blown sand-hill. And to feel that the stream of travel is no more along this divide but across it! By the half-light I could distinguish some Bedaween loitering about; their little caravan had camped here, for they find it very convenient to draw water from the iron pipes.
It was quite dark when we presently sailed into Lake Menzaleh, and we could see little. I only know that we held a straight course through it for some thirty miles to Port Said. In the daytime you can see a dreary expanse of morass and lake, a few little islands clad with tamarisks, and flocks of aquatic birds floating in the water or drawn up on the sand-spits in martial array—the white spoonbill, the scarlet flamingo, the pink pelican. It was one o’clock in the morning when we saw the Pharos of Port Said and sailed into the basin, amid many lights.
Port Said was made out of nothing, and it is pretty good. A town of eight to ten thousand inhabitants, with docks, quays, squares, streets, shops, mosques, hospitals, public buildings; in front of our hotel is a garden and public square; all this fed by the iron pipe and the pump at Ismailia—without this there is no fresh water nearer than Damietta. It is a shabby city, and just now has the over-done appearance of one of our own western town inflations. But its history is a record of one of the most astonishing achievements of any age. Before there could be any town here it was necessary to build a standpoint for it with a dredging machine.
Along this coast from Damietta to the gulf of Pelusium, where once emptied the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, is a narrow strip of sand, separating the Mediterranean from Lake Menzaleh; a high sea often breaks over it. It would have saved much in distance to have carried the canal to the Pelusium gulf, but the Mediterranean is shallow there many miles from shore. The spot on which Port Said now stands was selected for the entrance of the canal, because it was here that the land can be best approached—the Mediterranean having sufficient depth at only two miles from the shore. Here therefore, the dredgers began to work. The lake was dredged for interior basins; the strip of sand was cut through; the outer harbor was dredged; and the dredgings made the land for the town. Artificial stone was then manufactured on the spot, and of this the long walls, running out into the sea and protecting the harbor, the quays, and the lighthouses were built. We saw enormous blocks of this composite of sand and hydraulic lime, which weigh twenty-five tons each.
It is impossible not to respect a city built by such heroic labor as this; but we saw enough of it in half a day. The shops are many, and the signs are in many languages, Greek being most frequent. I was pleased to read an honest one in English—“Blood-Letting and Tooth-picking.” I have no doubt they all would take your blood. In the streets are vagabonds, adventurers, merchants, travelers, of all nations; and yet you would not call the streets picturesque. Everything is strangely modernized and made uninteresting. There is, besides, no sense of permanence here. The traders appear to occupy their shops as if they were booths for the day. It is a place of transit; a spot of sand amid the waters. I have never been in any locality that seemed to me so nearly nowhere. A spot for an African bird to light on a moment on his way to Asia. But the world flows through here. Here lie the great vessels in the Eastern trade; all the Mediterranean steamers call here.
The Erymanthe is taking in her last freight, and it is time for us to go on board. Abd-el-Atti has arrived with the baggage from Cairo. He has the air of one with an important errand. In the hotels, on the street, in the steamer, his manner is that of one who precedes an imposing embassy. He likes state. If he had been born under the Pharaohs he would have been the bearer of the flabellum before the king; and he would have carried it majestically, with perhaps a humorous twinkle in his eye for some comrade by the way. Ahman Abdallah, the faithful, is with him. He it was who made and brought us the early morning coffee to-day,—recalling the peace of those days on the Nile which now are in the dim past. It is ages ago since we were hunting in the ruins of Abydus for the tomb of Osiris. It was in another life, that delicious winter in Nubia, those weeks following weeks, free from care and from all the restlessness of this driving age.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you were right, Abd-el-Atti, in not wanting to start for Syria sooner. It was very cold on the boat last night.”
“Not go in Syria before April; always find him bad. ‘Member what I say when it rain in Cairo?—’This go to be snow in Jerusalem.’ It been snow there last week, awful storm, nobody go on the road, travelers all stop, not get anywhere. So I hunderstand.”
“What is the prospect for landing at Jaffa tomorrow morning?”
“Do’ know, be sure. We hope for the better.”
We get away beyond the breakwater, as the sun goes down. The wind freshens, and short waves hector the long sea swell, Egypt lies low; it is only a line; it fades from view.
