THE CROSS DESERT JOURNEY TO KOSSEIR
I PROPOSE now to break the sequence of events during my second season at Thebes, and attempt to describe a desert journey I took early in November. During the months I spent at Der el-Bahri, when I joined the camp of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, I was awakened every morning by the first light in the eastern sky, and daily saw the sun rise above the distant hills which shut off the Nile valley from the Arabian desert. The Libyan desert, on the eastern fringe of which we camped, stretches for two thousand miles and more in a westerly direction till it reaches Morocco, that land of the setting sun known in Egypt as el-Maghrib, the West.
The ‘call of the desert’ could easily have been satisfied without crossing the Nile valley; but the Libyan desert called me no further into its tractless wastes than to the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. Distance lent an enchantment to the view of the low-lying hills between me and the rising sun, and as Alice wished to see what went on in the room beyond the looking-glass, so I felt drawn to the land which lay between those hills and the Red Sea.
It was across that tract that the Thebans of old207 journeyed to the port of Kosseir to bring back the products from the far East. Beyond those hills gangs of slaves were driven to dig for the gold now found in the tombs of the Pharaohs—King Solomon’s mines are spoken of as being there—and the Rehenu valley of the ancient Egyptians, shut in with black breccia cliffs, echoed to the sounds of hammer and pick, while many a statue was there being fashioned, to be dragged down to the Nile and floated to far-away Gizeh or Memphis.
From the earliest dynasties right up to the present day each generation has left its mark on the rock surfaces between those hills and the sea-coast. Ancient Kosseir, which remained a port of some importance to within a quite recent date, had often been the goal of imaginary journeys I had made across the desert which lay between it and my present camp.
Imagine my surprise when, shortly after I and my assistant from Paris had settled down at Der el-Bahri, Mr. Weigall, who is Chief Inspector of Antiquities in Upper Egypt, told me he was about to take that desert journey, and wondered whether I would care to accompany him. I had only to provide my own camel and to share in the provisions we should need on the way; the chief expense of the train of camels and men to take the tents, the water-supply, and the other necessaries of a desert journey, would be borne by the government, as Mr. Weigall was going to get information connected with his department. Mr. Charles Whymper, who had come out from England with me, and Mr. Erskine Nicol, whom I had long known in Egypt, were also asked to join the party. None of us wished to lose208 such a chance, and in three or four days after first hearing the proposal, we mounted our camels and started from Luxor for the over and beyond which had been my dream for many a long day.
Our caravan consisted of twenty-three camels, fourteen of which left an hour or two before us, to take our heavy baggage to that night’s halting-place. We four started in company of the sheykh of the camel-drivers, two guards, Mr. Weigall’s servant, who carried our lunch, and an Ababdi son of the desert, who acted as our guide. We struck inland for a short distance and then took a northern course parallel to the Nile; we skirted the further side of the ruins of Karnak, and shortly after left the cultivation to continue our route on the higher level of the desert. During the twenty miles of our first day’s ride nothing could have been more dissimilar than the country on our right to that which we beheld to the left of us. The contrast was startling—the scorching desert on one hand, and on the other the shady palm groves on the fringe of the cultivation, with the rich dark soil covered in places by the Nile’s overflow or just turning to green by the lately sown crops. Yet this very contrast is more characteristic of Egypt than anything else; and it is this which must have called forth the saying of Herodotus that ‘Egypt is the gift of the Nile.’
Page 208
A MARKET ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT
View larger image
209 We halted for lunch under the shade of the tamarisk trees, which seem able to grow on a slightly higher level than the palms. The shade was more than welcome; for sitting still in the noonday sun is a very different matter to passing through it even at the gentle trot of our camels. It was a beautiful spot, for no trees harmonise with a desert background as do the tamarisks, and these had an especially massive and plumy leafage of an even more delicate grey than usual; their gnarled and twisted trunks seeming a mute protest to the poor soil in which fete had forced them to grow.
We did not remain here long, as we wished to reach the Coptic convent, Maris Bughtra, while there was still daylight, and there we proposed to pitch our camp for the night. Though the sun was hot, the crisp air was so invigorating that what would be a very fatiguing day elsewhere is easily borne in the desert. The motion of the camel is trying till one has got accustomed to it, and a few miles will cause the beginner an incredible amount of stiffness. There being no stirrups, it takes some time to learn to rise and fall with the motion of the beast, and until that is acquired every stride means a bump for the would-be rider. I had unhappily not acquired this, and felt rather stiff and sore when I dismounted for lunch; when we halted at the end of that day’s journey the stiffness was positive pain. I had misgivings as to how I should feel by the time Kosseir was reached and when longer hours in the saddle would be the order of the day. To lie down seemed more painful than to walk about, for on whatever part of one’s anatomy one rested that part seemed more painful than any other—until one tried that other.
Outside the walls of the Coptic convent we came on our baggage, and found the men already pitching our210 tents, hobbling the camels, and boiling some water over a fire of dry brushwood. We sent some one to Qus (on the outskirts of which little town this convent is situated) to find the priest who could show us over the building. No monks dwell there at present and the chapel is only used on the day dedicated to Saint Bughtra, whoever he may be. All that remains of the convent, except the chapel, could be seen before the priest arrived, as the fortress-like wall which encircled it had crumbled down in several places. A few cells were still roofed over, but for the most part ugly ruin had disfigured the buildings. Except where some fine columns or portals have endured the wear and tear of ages, as in the case of some of the temples, a desert ruin is a depressing sight; no growth to hide the shapeless bits of fallen masonry are there, neither moss nor lichen give it the beautiful colouring associated with the remains of bygone structures. A shrine which may have crumbled down centuries ago might have fallen in the day before yesterday unless the desert winds had swept a covering of sand to give it a partial burial.
The little many-domed church still stood erect amidst the fallen masonry, and when the priest arrived and fumbled with his wooden key to loose the bolt in the ponderous lock, our expectations somewhat revived. Some tawdry objects of piety showed that some folks still remained who gave this place of worship a passing thought; but in the otherwise neglected interior these tawdry ornaments reminded me horribly of the patches of paint I have seen on the cheeks of a corpse laid out for burial in Portugal. The simile may be far-fetched,211 but there it was, and I was pleased when we had gone through the farce of giving the priest his gratuity—called, to save his face, ‘for the upkeep of the church.’
We found our camp all prepared for us when we rejoined it. The packing-cases which served as a table were neatly set for dinner, and our saddles were arranged to do duty as chairs. Our two sleeping-tents stood primly one on each side of the small marquee which served as a dining-room. Weigall’s servant was an excellent cook, and a long day in the desert had prepared us to do justice to his dishes. The saddles make very good chairs when sitting is not a painful operation; they are covered with sheepskin, but the thickest fleece, in my condition, could not disguise the hard wooden skeleton beneath it. An air-cushion helped matters a trifle, though the air seemed harder than it usually is. Stiffness crept over the bodies of the two of us who had most recently come from England; but on comparing our complaints I fancied that I had more than my share—I was more conscious of it anyhow.
When the dinner was cleared and pipes were alight, we discussed our several interests in our desert journey. To Charles Whymper the birds we had seen along the fringe of the cultivation were of the greatest importance. We had passed many white Egyptian vultures; we had also put up some coveys of cream-coloured coursers; the desert lark, the sand-grouse, and desert martins had all been seen as well as the familiar hoopoes, the black kite, the little owl, and green bee-eaters—or shall we call them blue, for they can be either colour according212 as the light catches their plumage? The arch?ological interests were still before us, and though these had not been explored for some time, records of journeys in this eastern desert have been left by the German Egyptologist Lepsius, by Golenischeff, the Russian, as well as by the more recent Schweinfurth. Its pictorial aspects appealed to each of us, and as I had brought my sketching materials I hoped that there might be sufficiently long halts to allow of my doing some painting. Erskine Nicol is well versed in the habits of the wandering tribes who pitch their tents on the higher levels where the cultivation stops short. The Ababdi and the Bishareen territories meet on this desert highroad, and we should probably come across a few of both one and the other. As we were to start soon after sunrise the next morning, we deferred our topics of conversation to another occasion.
It was still dark in our tents when we were awakened, because the heavy baggage was to be got off as soon after daybreak as possible. The tents were lowered and stowed away on the camels, leaving us to pack our bedding in the open, and it was surprising to find what a difference in temperature there was when our canvas shelters were removed. It was bitterly cold, and much movement was impossible in my case, for I was rigidly stiff. I stuck to a couple of blankets, and with some straps improvised a primitive garment; my camel served as a shelter from the cold breeze and made a warm back to lean against, while we squatted in a circle to have our breakfast. The blankets would serve later, when the sun got up, as extra padding to the saddle.
213 Our cross desert journey began this morning, for on the previous day we had skirted the cultivation to reach at Qus the medi?val route from the Nile to the Red Sea port. We started before the baggage train of camels, which would overtake us before we reached Lakéta, a small oasis where we should spend the night. Selim, as the cook was called, and our Ababdi guide accompanied us. The former looked a quaint object, seated on his camel amidst pots and kettles, photographic apparatus, sketching materials, and any other odds and ends which we might require before the camp would again be pitched.
The rising sun was very beautiful; when I have tried to paint it, it has always risen and lost its rich colouring too quickly. This morning I was concerned with the slowness of these proceedings, for until it rose well above the distant hills I felt perished with the cold. We could plainly see the cliffs around Hatshepsu’s temple, right across the Nile valley; they and the Theban hills were pink in the early sunlight whilst we were still in the shade. Slowly the light caught us on our high mounts, while the soil beneath us was still in a blue grey tone. Looking back after a while camel legs a mile long could be seen in pale shadow on the track behind us, and by the time they contracted to a lengthened silhouette of a comprehensible form, I began to feel my blankets were more than I could stand.
To unrobe on a trotting camel was no easy matter, and to make the camel do anything different from those ahead of it was an impossibility. I had practised making the peculiar noise of the bedouin when they wish to214 make their beasts kneel down—it spells something like this, ‘ghrrr,’ and is repeated at rapid intervals. Laura, as my camel was called, either affected not to understand me or felt too great a contempt for her rider to heed what he said. She was very nearly riderless before the unrobing was completed, and I am not sure that Laura had not that wish in her mind. When I was near landing on her neck, I thought I saw Laura’s mouth working up towards my boot, which was her way of smiling. I tried to fix the blankets over the saddle, for the wooden skeleton beneath the sheepskin seemed painfully near parts of my skeleton; but I only gave Laura fresh cause to smile.
The clatter of Selim’s pots and pans was not far behind me, so I yelled out to the cook to overtake me and to stow my blankets amongst his ironmongery. Laura disapproved of this, for, as the clatter, clatter behind me got louder, she quickened her pace. There are no reins to check the creatures; the camel rope is merely fastened to a face strap, which is held in place by a second strap passing behind the nape of the neck. I lugged on to the rope as hard as I could, but as there were no stirrups I should have pulled myself off the saddle before I could have bent the beast’s stiff neck. Not to be beaten, I placed my foot on her neck, and thus got a sufficient leverage to pull her head sideways till I could see her ugly profile; by this means I checked her pace sufficiently for the cook to overtake me, and I threw the blankets amid the pots and pans.
We reached Gebel el-Korn about noon; we had seen this hill for the last two hours reflected in what215 appeared to be a lake, and as this effect of the mirage disappeared here, we saw it repeated in the distance beyond. Three routes to Kosseir join at this point; the medi?val one we had been on was a part of the highway which the caravans took since the Mohammedan invasion and until Keneh eclipsed Qus as a Nilotic town. The Keneh route, starting some twenty miles further down the river, is still used by the Arabs, who bring camels from Arabia to barter in the Nile valley. The ancient Egyptian road was from Kuft, known as Koptos in Gr?co-Roman times, and starts about midway between the two others to join the one great highway uniting the Thebaid to the sea.
Gebel el-Korn, or the Hill of the Horn, would have been more attractive had it been steep enough to shade us from the midday sun. The rise in temperature in the moist air of cultivated lands is as nothing to what it is in the dry air of the desert. We saw some bushes ahead, along what appeared to be a dried watercourse, and we decided to move on and possibly to find some shade in which to pass our midday halt. This, however, was nothing more than camel-thorn—a dried-up mass of prickles—as useless for shade as it apparently was for fodder. But Laura and the other camels thought differently; the absence of shade did not trouble them, and the way they started devouring these long sharp thorns reminded us that of the twenty-three camels which formed our caravan not one carried anything in the shape of fodder. They would be away no less than a fortnight from the cultivation, and on questioning our guide as to what the creatures would have to eat, he216 seemed to think that enough fodder could be picked up on the journey. ‘You forget the hump,’ said one of our companions. Camels having ‘the hump’ is an old and well-seasoned jest, but their feeding on their humps was news to me. I decided to examine Laura’s hump when next she was unsaddled and see if it held a fortnight’s nutrition, also to take daily observations of its disappearance. The throaty noise spelt ‘ghrrr!’ from our guide brought his camel down on its haunches. I made the same noise, or thought I did, and, like descending a lift in two shifts, Laura came down to the ground. She looked at me when I jumped off, as much as to say, ‘Don’t flatter yourself that I have come down owing to the silly noise you made; I was only following the example of my husband over there.’
Laura was not her real name, it was more like Laharrha with a throat-scraping sound in the middle. This was not euphonious, and all the throat-scraping sounds I could produce were to be reserved for when a halt should be called.
We decided to lunch on the top of a low-lying hill where, if there was no shade, we should at all events get the benefit of what breeze there was. My word! we did enjoy that lunch. I forget what we had, and can only remember the appetite with which we ate it. I kept some back for Laura, to see if kindness could overcome the dislike I felt sure she had for me. She gobbled it up, and nearly took a bit of my hand with it. I think she preferred this to the sharp thorns of her last snack; but if she felt any gratitude, she carefully disguised it. It was probably more contempt for me as a rider than a dislike of me personally. Her expression was as a sealed book with an ugly cover.
Page 216
THE TOMBS OF THE KHALIFS
View larger image
217 Now was the time to fix the blankets on to the saddle, and the Ababdi guide and Selim made a good job of it. The trot at which we started was less painful in consequence, and I had also, by carefully watching the motion of our guide, fallen into the movement myself, and the bump, bump of the previous day, which had caused my discomfiture, disappeared, and I rose and fell to the motion of my mount. When once this is acquired, a long day’s ride will cause less stiffness than an hour’s journey to a novice.
It was not until we had reached Gebel el-Korn that we finally lost sight of the Der el-Bahri cliffs. A feeling of being far away from home and of venturing into the unknown got hold of me, though I was barely twenty miles in a direct line from the hut beneath those cliffs. I consoled myself that the assistant I had brought out from Paris had some French neighbours close by, who could assist him with his novel housekeeping. M. Baraize and his wife would also appreciate having a near neighbour who spoke their language.
Nothing much in the way of arch?ological finds were made during the day, and these were not to be expected till the wide track closed in between the rock surfaces. We saw in the distance the little oasis of Lakéta, with its palms upside down in illusive sheets of water at their bases; for a moment it looked like an island shimmering in the sunlight, and which might vanish as easily as the reflections it cast. It looked as if it might be reached in a half-hour’s trot; but it had218 that look for a long while—the appearance of water gave way to that of the arid waste all around us more than an hour before the oasis was reached.
How strange it looked when we were near enough to see some crops, between the palms, growing apparently out of the desert soil. We then caught sight of a man working a shadoof, and after that we could distinguish the chessboard patterning of the ground, so familiar in the Nile valley. The whole oasis seemed little more than three or four acres in extent; but probably a good deal more cultivable soil had been covered by the sand drifts where no walling existed to prevent this. Some half-dozen Ababdi families lived here; our guide found friends amongst them, and we heard some greetings in their dialect. The people seemed very little surprised to see us, and this not being a tourist-ridden spot, we had no beggars. A building with a many-domed roof stood here, and looked very like a deserted Coptic convent, though I was told that it was formerly built for an Arab caravanserai.
I watched a woman patching up the mud runnels to carry the water from the shadoof to the furthest squares of cultivated ground, and I tasted the water when the man first tilted it out of his leathern bucket. It was distinctly brackish—the only thing, of course, which these poor creatures had to drink. The man did not seem to mind that; but he complained that it was a thirsty soil, and that working all day at the shadoof hardly brought up a sufficiency of water to irrigate his little patch of corn. Taking me for an official, he asked me if I could not induce the government to place219 a small pumping station here. ‘Were it only known what a lot could be grown here if enough water could be got up, the government would not hesitate to bring the machinery.’ The poor man might genuinely have thought so; but the cost of the fuel, brought to this out-of-the-way place to raise the brackish water, had evidently not entered the man’s calculations.
Canon Tristram mentions in his book, The Great Sahara, that artesian wells were used by the Rouaras centuries before the principle of those wells was acknowledged in Europe. What a blessing they might be here! Possibly the sub-soil would not be suitable for such borings or they would have been in use.
The sun was still hot enough for us to enjoy our tea in the shade of the tamarisks which grew here. The children watched us from a distance and spoke in hushed voices. ‘Were these people dangerous who spoke in an unknown tongue and wore a strange garb?’ A smile and a hint that sugar was good brought them a little nearer. A venturesome little tot came near enough to pick up a lump, and then scampered away; by the time we had finished our tea, the juvenile population of Lakéta knew the taste of a Huntley and Palmer biscuit and a lump of sugar.
A little bird, the green willow-wren, according to our ornithologist, was less shy than the children, and picked up crumbs long before the latter ventured so near us.
Our baggage camels were only just in sight when we sat down, and at their rate of travel it would take an hour and a half before they reached us. I tried to make220 a sketch of the little oasis, which looked charming in the evening sunlight, but I was too stiff and tired to do much. A vague hope that it might look as well on our return journey induced me to put up my materials and lie on my back and stare at nothing in particular, till I became unconscious of my surroundings.
It was dark when I was awakened by the noise of the men driving in the tent-pegs. The four tents, including the little one which served as a cook-shop, were being erected, camp beds and bedding sorted out and fixed up, and all the other bustle was going on of pitching a camp. While I slept, Weigall had found our first graffiti: it was a fragment of stone on which we could read the name of the Emperor Tiberius Claudius.
A very good account of the arch?ological finds we made during our journey is given in Mr. Arthur Weigall’s Travels in the Upper Egyptian Deserts, published by Messrs. Blackwood and Sons. These have been so fully described in that handy volume, that I do not purpose to mention more than one or two.