KOSSEIR
WE had not long to wait before the Mudir, or Governor of Kosseir, arrived to welcome us. He was a stout, good-natured, middle-aged Maltese; he spoke English fluently, but with the accent of his countrymen. His pleasure at seeing us was very genuine, and the more we heard him tell of life in Kosseir, the more we appreciated what an event in his dull existence our arrival must have been. Besides his wife and little daughter there was not a European in the place, except an Austrian mechanic who attended to the sea-water condenser. A Syrian doctor had been sent here to attend to the sick, and as no one ever was sick, and the Mudir never had any cases to try, their only topic of conversation was of the dulness of the place. There were 1500 souls in Kosseir when the Mudir was first appointed, and now there are barely 300. They lived on the fish they caught and some bags of flour which a coasting steamer left here at long intervals. The arrival of the steamer was the one event which awakened the inhabitants, who, during the intervals, spent most of their time in sleep.
I asked what the large building was which we noticed when first we caught sight of the place, and I246 was told that it was a condenser which the government had erected so as to save the people having to go four miles to the nearest well to fetch the brackish water it supplied. The Mudir would show us over it the following morning, as well as the other objects of interest in the town. We were told we could not get some necessaries we thought we might be able to procure for our return journey. ‘There is nothing here, nothing, nothing,’ and which he pronounced ‘Nozing, nozing, nozing,’ while the tears almost started from the poor man’s eyes.
It appeared that when he was first sent here the people were often reduced to eating chopped straw with their fish. The little trade, which had hitherto kept the place going, disappeared when Suakin and Suez became the only places of call on that coast. The great condenser had supplied the ships with water, and a trade in fish gave the men an occupation and brought a little money into the place. The Mudir sent a report to the government on the starving condition of the inhabitants, and a grant was voted to transplant the population to more prosperous districts. Three-quarters of the people left when the means were given them to do so, and as none but the aged remained, it was hoped that Kosseir would soon cease as an inhabited town. So great, however, is the native’s attachment to his locality, that a certain number returned, after a while, to the semi-starvation of their natal place.
We asked if the people were honest and well-behaved. ‘Dere is nozing to steal, and when they are not fishing dey sleep,’ was our answer. The doctor had as little to247 do as the Mudir in his capacity as magistrate, for, in spite of the poor living, old age was the only physical complaint from which any one suffered.
On this barren coast, where no blade of grass can grow, the germs of disease do not easily spread, and the filth from the habitations is soon sterilised in the perpetual sunshine. To rust out takes longer than to wear out in such a climate, and this must account for the great age which most of the inhabitants attain.
Our baggage had arrived during these tales of woe, and we tried to induce the governor to share our dinner. He would not stay, but promised to have tea with us the next day, and to bring his daughter, the Austrian mechanic, and the Syrian doctor. He had hardly taken his departure when some men arrived bringing half a dozen chairs and a present of fish, with a message that if there was anything Kosseir could supply, it was at our orders. I think the kind-hearted Mudir left to spare us our expressions of gratitude.
To lie on the soft sand within a few yards of the gentle plashing of the incoming waves, and to watch the full moon slowly emerging above the sharp-cut line of the blue waters, consoled us that Kosseir could at least supply a half-hour of as exquisite enjoyment as any wealth could command in the most prosperous of cities. The fizzling sounds which proceeded from Selim’s cooking-tent did not jar in the least, for the anticipation of some fresh fish, after a régime of tinned meats, was far from disagreeable. After a course of crayfish and of a well-served belbul, we told Selim that he could give his tin-opener a thorough rest.
248 We returned to our soft couches in the sand, and lay there till the moon was high in the heavens, when we turned in for the night.
The Mudir was awaiting us when we arrived at his office at eight o’clock on the following morning. It was in a large building, for our host’s duties were various: he was consul to many nations, of whom a subject might be here cast ashore; he was also postmaster-general, in case a letter ever arrived; head of the customs—on what dutiable articles was not related. As captain of the coastguards a chance of some work might occur, for were this coast not guarded, hasheesh would be sure to find an inlet and poison some of the people in the Nile valley. He was here also to enforce the orders given by the sanitary inspectors in regard to pilgrims returning from Mecca through this port. In spite of these and other duties, Mr. Wirth (as we discovered his name to be) had plenty of time to place at our disposal, and when we had sipped the usual cup of coffee we started to see Kosseir under his guidance.
The huge and unsightly building which housed the condensing machinery was, as might be expected, the pièce de résistance, and with pride we were shown the one thing left in which some lingering signs of vitality remained. The government had spent ￡14,000 to put this thing up. It was large enough to supply water to 10,000 souls, and now by working it during two mornings per month it more than supplied the present population. A paternal government had decreed that a charge of one millième, that is a farthing, should be made for each pailful supplied; but as many had not249 the farthing, it was a case of ‘thank you for nothing.’ The governor informed us that many women filled their pitchers at the brackish well, four miles off, from want of this money to pay for the distilled water: a case of farthing wise and pound foolish on the part of the government.
I was glad when we got out of the place and proceeded to inspect the chief mosque. When we had awakened the caretaker, he started removing the matting, so as not to oblige us to take off our shoes. Mr. Wirth wittily remarked that the ground would be less likely to dirty our shoes than would the mats if we stepped on them. We prevented the man from moving one of them, so as not to disturb the sleep of one or two worshippers who lay there. It was a picturesque old mosque, and Mr. Whymper and I decided to return and make a drawing of it when we had seen what else Kosseir had to show.
The fort stands close by, and we were taken to see the place where Desaix had quartered some troops, and where these French soldiers pined, during two years, for their native country, until they were hurriedly dislodged by the Anglo-British force under Baird. Our Maltese friend, being a British subject, pointed out with pride the gate through which the English and Indian soldiers effected an entrance, and at the back of the fort he showed us from whence the poor Frenchmen escaped to try and reach the Nile across the desert. How many succeeded, history does not relate. Knowing what preparations have to be made to make a desert journey, it is awful to contemplate the fate of these250 soldiers with only the food they could hurriedly grab up, and the wells guarded by the enemy. We are told that the British troops reached Keneh, and that the French had by that time evacuated Egypt. General Desaix had joined Napoleon’s army more than a year before, and fell in the battle of Marengo on the 14th of June 1800.
His brilliant career was cut short while only in his thirty-second year, his greatest achievement being the conquest of Upper Egypt, where he became known by the natives as the Just Sultan.
The custodian of the fort told us how the British fired water from their ships on to the ammunition of the French, and the latter, then being unable to return the fire, tried to reach Keneh as best they could. Strange things are often related by Arab custodians!
The main street of Kosseir is picturesque, with the minaret towering above the deserted shops, or rather it might have been, had the coloured stuffs and fruits and a busy throng been there to furnish it with the usual properties which make up an oriental street picture. The two stalls which had something to sell had no other customers than a swarm of flies, and we should hardly have had the heart to wake the shopman from his profound sleep had there been anything worth buying. The Mudir had had the little quay repaired, as well as the wooden pier which formed the breakwater to a small harbour. He had also fenced in a space of about a hundred yards square in the sea, so as to allow any one who wished to bathe to be able to do so in safety from the sharks. We mentioned that one251 of our party had bathed near our camp, and he was horrified, for the sea, he told us, was alive with sharks. ‘Had we not noticed a shark lying on the strand with its throat cut?’ We mentioned that we had, though not till after our friend’s bath. We were then told that a youth was standing there with his feet just in the sea when a shark made a dash at him, and, missing his prey, landed too high on the beach to be able to get back into the water before the youth cut its throat. This had only happened a couple of days before our arrival at the coast.
Two high-sterned dhows were beached near here for repairs; they added considerably to the characteristics of the place, which had something un-Egyptian about them. Kosseir is a Red Sea port, and it bears something, hard to define, but which is not to be observed till on this side of Suez. The people dressed as Egyptians; but on studying their features more carefully, one could discern that nothing of the old Egyptian stock was here. Their blood is Arabian intermixed with that of the Ababdi tribe. We were neither pestered with beggars nor importuned by the officiousness met with in the Nile resorts.
I returned to the mosque to start my drawing, and remained there until it was time to join our tea-party at the camp. Two or three men dropped in during the midday prayer, but the caretaker beckoned to me not to move my easel. Some boys arrived later on and sat around an old sheykh who expounded the Koran to them.
A date stone of two hundred years ago, probably only252 alluded to a restoration. I should place the original construction some five centuries earlier, though in an out-of-the-world place such as this architectural style changes very slowly.
I arrived at the camp in time for our tea-party. The governor regretted that Mrs. Wirth was not well enough to accompany him; his daughter was a pretty girl of about thirteen years of age. The poor child seemed very conscious of having outgrown her frock, judging from the way she kept smoothing it down over her knees. She had plenty to say for herself, and could say it in four different languages. Her father regretted that no means of educating the child existed except such instruction as her mother could give her, and that there was not another child in Kosseir for her to associate with. ‘If I could only get her to Alexandria and get there myself also,’ he said with a sigh. ‘It is four years since we had an opportunity of getting her some frocks.’ The poor girl coloured up and seemed more conscious of her legs than ever, and had the last pleat of her skirt not been newly let out to its full limits, we should probably not have seen her at our party.
The Austrian mechanic was pleased to find some one who could speak German; but he, poor man, seemed conscious of being without a collar to his shirt. It was difficult to put him at his ease till he got well launched into the subject of what a dismal hole Kosseir was to live in. The Syrian doctor seemed disappointed at not seeing a possible patient amongst us; we all looked in disgustingly rude health. We promised to253 look in at his dispensary the next day, where he assured us he had the means of coping with every ailment; but as the whole population was always in the best of health, time hung heavily on his hands.
He amused himself by fishing occasionally, and told us of the extraordinary number of crayfish which were to be got by the simple process of getting on to the coral reefs at night and holding a candle over the pools. The stupid creatures then come to have a look at the light, and you have only then to pick them out of the water and put them in the basket. Should we care to have a try, he would be delighted to take us to the best place that very night. The moon was the difficulty, for a dark night was necessary. It was settled that he should bring some men and lanterns at midnight, when he reckoned that the moon would have disappeared.
We turned in after our dinner, so as to get what sleep we could before starting on our fishing expedition. When the doctor summoned us that night, the moon was so high in the sky that we were loath to turn out. Bed was so comfortable; while pottering about on a sunken reef, with the moon to spoil our sport, seemed hardly good enough. The doctor hoped that the moon would be down before we reached the coral reefs, and for the first time we realised that the reefs were three miles away. It seemed, however, ungracious not to go, so off we started.
The doctor was rather depressed when he heard moonlight effects being discussed, though we were thinking more of its pictorial aspects than of its influence on crayfish. Early recollections of coral islands,254 in a book which made my tenth birthday memorable, excited my curiosity to see at last what a coral reef was like. Grottos as pink as a necklace, of a ten-year-old little girl I associated with my book, rose in my imagination, and to see these in a brilliant moonlight might more than compensate me for a poor catch of crayfish.
We found several fishermen on the reefs, and we were puzzled to guess what they were up to. They appeared to be walking on the water, for when we first saw them they were some distance out at sea, and the water looked no shallower than that which we had hitherto skirted. Some were running about and beating the surface with long sticks, and the proceedings had an uncanny look until we got near enough to follow what they were about. A long net, which a couple of men hung on to at the water’s edge, reached some distance into the sea, making a slight curve to its furthest extremity, which was held by some men far out on the partially submerged reef; the water was being beaten with the object of driving the fish into the net. The men furthest out presently advanced towards the shore, dragging the net through the deep water while they walked along the edge of the reef. We were able to reach them by seldom being more than ankle deep, taking care, however, to avoid the deep holes in the coral. As the net curved more and more on the advance to the shore of its further end, our interest to see what it would bring in became as great as that of the fishermen.
When finally the whole net was drawn on to the255 strand, we beheld as strange an assortment of creatures as can be seen in the Naples Aquarium. Some had transparent bodies with long filmy tentacles, others were difficult to class, whether as fish or as marine plants, for they were so rapidly picked up and thrown into baskets that we had little time to examine them. The queer things left on the shore might safely be classed as unedible. The men telling us that the moon would not be down till three o’clock, I bothered no more about crayfish, but found plenty of entertainment in peering into the holes in the reef. The water was so transparent that, where the moonlight reached the bottom, the shadow of my head was clearly defined. I might have been looking into a depth of one or two feet instead of into several fathoms of water. Some of the beautifully arranged tanks in the Aquarium at Naples might have been modelled on what I saw here. The holes were sometimes globular in shape, though passages might have existed where the moonbeams did not fall. Two lights, an inch or two apart, moved about in the shadow of one of these holes, and disappeared whenever they reached the moonlit part. I crept down on my knees to see if I could distinguish any form around these weird lights, and as I could not do so, I concluded that they were the eyes of a transparent fish such as those we had seen taken out of the fishermen’s nets. The lights disappearing, I crept round to a hole a few yards off, and there I could distinguish the entrance to a passage leading towards the hole I had left. The two lights reappeared, were lost again as they passed through the moonlit space, and256 seen once more until they were lost in some cavern in the darkness.
Sea-anemones stuck to the sides and hung from the roofs of these fairylike chambers, the claws of a hermit crab just distinguishable in a hollow at the base of what looked more like some hot-house plant than of a conscious creature. On touching the spreading tentacles with my stick, they rapidly contracted to a conical knob.
The reefs in themselves were a disappointment, for I should hardly have known them as coral had I not been told so; but what we saw of the marvellous forms of life contained in their caverns well repaid us for our night’s excursion. Some attempts were made to beguile the crayfish with lighted candles; three were brought back to our camp, but I never quite got rid of a suspicion that the Syrian doctor had caught these out of the fishermen’s net by means of a piastre. He need not have looked so sad about his miscalculations, for each one of us had spent a most interesting hour or more on the reefs. It became too cold for us to remain any longer in our wet clothes, and we were glad to tramp briskly back to our camp.
Weigall and Erskine Nicol rode on the following morning to the ruins of Old Kosseir, some five miles north of the Arab town, while Whymper and I returned to the mosque to finish our drawings. We paid the doctor a visit in his dispensary, and were shown how up-to-date was its equipment. ‘But what is the use of all this,’ he said, ‘if no one is ever ill?’—one more proof of the ingratitude of the native.
We bid farewell to the kindly governor, and hoped for his sake that he might soon be transferred to some more congenial place, trusting that one who had the welfare of the people at heart as much as he had might be found to fill his post. May his charming little daughter be where suitable companions abound, and also frocks long enough to reach to her ankles. The doctor may now be surrounded with patients more than enough, for the two years’ exile he then anticipated are now over. Let us hope that the Austrian engineer has been replaced by one whose orders may allow him to distribute the distilled water without having to exact the farthing per bucket from the impoverished people of Kosseir.
We bought some pretty shells—about the only things the town had to sell. The good Mudir spoke the truth when he said, ‘In Kosseir dere is nozing, nozing, nozing!’
Some fish was sent to us as a departing present when we were starting on our return journey to the Nile valley. The whitewashed town was pink in the light from the rising sun when we again mounted our camels. Kosseir was asleep, and Kosseir has probably slept ever since, just waking up for a short while when the coasting steamer brings the bags of flour.