Imagination's prophet eye By her shall view unfurled The future greatnesses that lie Then fold the tent-then on again; The only sign that there has lain, At noon and eve a home, Till we have left our tent behind The homeless ocean-foam.* In Syria the tent is generally one's only home, but on the Nile we seldom use it, as we sleep on board our boat, and were generally sailing at night. Our boat was of the class called Kandjiah. She was about fifty feet long, with a mast amidships, and another at the bow raking forward. From these masts sprang two spars of immense length, to which were bent lateen sails in proportion. These sails are very difficult to handle, especially in the gusty parts of the river, which the mountains overhang. The Arabs are miserable sailors, and excellent swimmers, so that Europeans who are not predestinarians or amphibious should keep a good look-out. Close to the bows of the boat a complicated fire-place, with oven, &c., is built of brick and mortar; and on this, little charcoal fire-places, like the holes in a bagatelle table, are for ever sparkling under coffee, or kabobs, or some Egyptian condiment. The crew sit two and two along the thauts, or sleep between them; and where these end, there is a small carpeted space, generally covered with an awning. Then comes a little cabin, open in front, not unlike the boxes of Vauxhall Gardens. In this we dined, and kept our books and guns. Within was our sleeping apartment, with a berth on each side; and beyond this was a luggage-room, and one or two smaller apartments. Such was our river home for two months, and a very comfortable one we found it, with a few trifling exceptions. * Milnes. Whilst I was at Memphis, the boat was unloaded and sunk, to clear her of rats, of which there was great slaughter. While this and other preparations were being made, I roamed over the country in search of antiquities and adventures. I wandered towards the forest of palms that embosoms the lake of Acherusia, and the few traces that remain of the ancient city of the Pharaohs. The former-its gloomy waters shadowed by dark foliage, and only broken by a promontory black with blasted and gnarled stems-was a spot that Rembrandt would have loved to paint; with the vivid sunshine, here and there, bursting through the gloom, like bars of burning gold. Nor would he have forgotten Charon, with his spectral passengers steering his demon ship to that vast necropolis, whose tombs are pyramids. Some mounds among these forests are generally received as Memphis. The site of Vulcan's temple, and that where the bull Apis was kept, are supposed to be ascertained. Cambyses, the tauricide, however, coming so soon after Nebuchadnezzar, and the desert-the most resistless invader of all— have left little trouble to the tourist, little harvest for the antiquary. The only inhabitant I saw was Rhampses the Great, who lies upon his face in the mud: the benignant expression or his countenance has rather a ludicrous effect, considering his attitude. He is forty feet long, and with his wife and four sons, must have formed an imposing family-party in front of the Temple of Vulcan. The lady and young gentleman have disappeared; let us hope they are gone to the Elysian fields, which ought to be somewhere in this neighborhood; but, as is natural, they are much more difficult to find than the other place, which lies yonder-near enough. The quick twilight was come and gone, as I wandered and wondered in this strange and lonely scene; the last rays of light fell upon the pyramid of Cheops, just visible through a vista of gigantic palm-trees, that opened from the lake of Acherusia, on the distant desert. I stole down to the water's edge, to get within gun-shot of some pelicans; but the solemn and thoughtful aspect of the scene converted my murderous intention into a fit of musing, and I almost thought I could hear the old trees whispering the dread prophecy :-"The country shall be destitute of that whereof it was full, when I shall smite all them that dwell therein; and Noph shall be desolate." The next day I was sitting at the door of my tent towards sun-set, enjoying, under the rose-coloring influence of the chi bouque, the mood of mind that my situation naturally superinduced. At my feet flowed the Nile, reflecting the lofty spars of our gaily-painted boat; beyond the river was a narrow strip of vegetation, some palm and acacia trees; then a tract of desert, bounded by the Arabian hills, all purple with the setting sunlight. Far away on the horizon the minarets and citadel of Cairo were faintly sketched against the sky; around me lay fields of corn, beneath which Memphis, with all its wonders, lay buried; and, farther on, a long succession of pyramids towered over the dark belt of forest that led along the river. Suddenly the sleeping sailors started to their feet; a shout was heard from the wood; and I saw my friend slowly emerging from its shade, accompanied by some India-bound friends of his, who were escorting him so far upon his desert way. We passed the evening together and something more, for morning blushed at finding the party only then separating-our friends for India, we for Ethiopia-allons! 9 CHAPTER XVII. EGYPTIAN MUSIC. O surely melody from heaven was sent KIRKE WHITE. FROM Memnon to Mehemet Ali all Egypt luxuriates in music. In the Pasha's palace, in the peasant's hut, at the soldier's bivouac, on the sailor's deck; in every circumstance of the Arab's life, I have found it regarded as the chief source of his enjoyment. He is born, he is married, he dies, he is buried, to the sound of music. It cheers his labor, it heightens his festival controls his passions, and soothes his miseries. It whiles away the monotonous hours of his weary travel; and the very camels seem to have an ear for music, quickening their pace along the desert, as weary soldiers when the band strikes up. The drivers chaunt alternately, or one of them sings a verse alone, to which the others reply in chorus. This has sometimes a very singular effect, as when the single voice sings a mournful measure, while the chorus answers cheerily; thus contrasting the fate of the lonely wanderer with the social home. For instance, a driver will sing in a voice so sad, that the camels sometimes weep (a most unpolitic expense of moisture, by the by, under their circumstances). Never more, never more, Shall I see my loved ones fill the tent's cool door. Then the chorus replies in a quick measure, to which the camel's steps, and probably his heart, keep time: Hark! hark; the home-song; See the glad throng Of our wives and our little ones bounding along. And thus, in the bleak desert, the weary hours are enlivened by dramatizing the vicissitudes of fear and hope. Our crew sang for two months almost without intermission, yet never seemed to tire of their songs. Among the items furnished by our dragoman as necessary to our outfit, were a drum and some Nile flutes. The former consisted of a large earthen bowl, with a skin stretched over it; the latter resembled the double flageolet, and was made of reeds it seemed capable of a much wider range of notes than their monotonous music required its sound was shrill, but not unpleasing, and every sailor on board seemed a proficient in its use: I could detect but little variety in the airs, and the words were of the simplest kind. I listened as vainly for the songs of Antar among the Arabs of Egypt, as I had done for those of Tasso among the gondoliers of Venice.* The songs of the Arab sailor are generally of home, of the Nile-never of war, but most of all of love: few of these last are fit for translation; and, as the home-made poetry of a people always takes for its subject that which is uppermost in their thought, I fear the sensuality of their muse must be taken as some index of their character. It is true that the songs of our sailors and our cottagers are not always of the most edifying character; but the popularity of some of the "old songs that are the music of the heart;" the enthusiasm for the compositions of Moore, Burns, and Dibdin, which linked in one sympathy the castle and the cottage, and the sailor's home,-all proves that there is an echo to a purer * I subjoin the following passage from a letter of Lord Lindsay's; its interest will, I hope, plead my apology for such publication of a private letter:"When you were at Venice, did you seek for any of the old Gondolieri, who can sing Tasso? Perhaps they are all dead now; but a long time ago (in 1829), I took two of them out one night on the great Lagoon (very old men), each in a separate gondola, and myself in a third, some distance apart. They sang Tasso to me for above an hour, one of them in Venetian, the other in Tuscan. The effect was inexpressibly beautiful; what with the association, the moonlight, and the distant bells from the city, which kept up a running accompaniment throughout The air is singularly wild and beautiful, descending, like a cascade, at the end of each stanza." |