. . And look! There is
even amongst them the almost proverbial belated dame who, for private
reasons of her own, follows at a respectable distance behind. She is a
little mature perhaps, so far as can be judged in the moonlight, but
nevertheless still sympathetic to her driver, who, with both hands,
supports her from behind on her saddle, with a touching solicitude
that is peculiar to the country. Ah! these little donkeys of Egypt, so
observant, so philosophical and sly, why cannot they write their
memoirs! What a number of droll things they must have seen at night in
the outskirts of Cairo!
This good lady evidently belongs to that extensive category of hardy
explorers who, despite their high respectability at home, do not
hesitate, once they are landed on the banks of the Nile, to supplement
their treatment by the sun and the dry winds with a little of the
"Bedouin cure."
CHAPTER VIII
ARCHAIC CHRISTIANITY
Dimly lighted by the flames of a few poor slender tapers which flicker
against the walls in stone arches, a dense crowd of human figures
veiled in black, in a place overpowering and suffocating - underground,
no doubt - which is filled with the perfume of the incense of Arabia;
and a noise of almost wicked movement, which sirs us to alarm and even
horror: bleatings of new-born babies, cries of distress of tiny mites
whose voices are drowned, as if on purpose, by a clinking of cymbals.
What can it be? Why have they descended into this dark hole, these
little ones, who howl in the midst of the smoke, held by these
phantoms in mourning? Had we entered it unawares we might have thought
it a den of wicked sorcery, an underground cavern for the black mass.
But no. It is the crypt of the basilica of St. Sergius during the
Coptic mass of Easter morning. And when, after the first surprise, we
examine these phantoms, we find that, for the most part, they are
young mothers, with the refined and gentle faces of Madonnas, who hold
the plaintive little ones beneath their black veils and seek to
comfort them. And the sorcerer, who plays the cymbals, is a kind old
priest, or sacristan, who smiles paternally. If he makes all this
noise, in a rhythm which in itself is full of joy, it is to mark the
gladness of Easter morn, to celebrate the resurrection of Christ - and
a little, too, no doubt, to distract the little ones, some of whom are
woefully put out. But their mammas do not prolong the proof - a mere
momentary visit to this venerable place, which is to bring them
happiness, and they carry their babes away: and others are led in by
the dark, narrow staircase, so low that one cannot stand upright in
it. And thus the crypt is not emptied. And meanwhile mass is being
said in the church overhead.
But what a number of people, of black veils, are in this hovel, where
the air can scarcely be breathed, and where the barbarous music,
mingled with wailings and cries, deafens you! And what an air of
antiquity marks all things here! The defaced walls, the low roof that
one can easily touch, the granite pillars which sustain the shapeless
arches are all blackened by the smoke of the wax candles, and scarred
and worn by the friction of human hands.
At the end of the crypt there is a very sacred recess round which a
crowd presses: a coarse niche, a little larger than those cut in the
wall to receive the tapers, a niche which covers the ancient stone on
which, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary rested, with the child
Jesus, in the course of the flight into Egypt. This holy stone is
sadly worn to-day and polished smooth by the touch of many pious
hands, and the Byzantine cross which once was carved on it is almost
effaced.
But even if the Virgin had never rested there, the humble crypt of St.
Sergius would remain no less one of the oldest Christian sanctuaries
in the world. And the Copts who still assemble there with veneration
have preceded by many years the greater part of our Western nations in
the religion of the Bible.
Although the history of Egypt envelops itself in a sort of night at
the moment of the appearance of Christianity, we know that the growth
of the new faith there was as rapid and impetuous as the germination
of plants under the overflow of the Nile. The old Pharaonic cults,
amalgamated at that time with those of Greece, were so obscured under
a mass of rites and formulae, that they had ceased to have any
meaning. And nevertheless here, as in imperial Rome, there brooded the
ferment of a passionate mysticism. Moreover, this Egyptian people,
more than any other, was haunted by the terror of death, as is proved
by the folly of its embalmments. With what avidity therefore must it
have received the Word of fraternal love and immediate resurrection?
In any case Christianity was so firmly implanted in this Egypt that
centuries of persecution did not succeed in destroying it. As one goes
up the Nile, many little human settlements are to be seen, little
groups of houses of dried mud, where the whitened dome of the modest
house of prayer is surmounted by a cross and not a crescent. They are
the villages of those Copts, those Egyptians, who have preserved the
Christian faith from father to son since the nebulous times of the
first martyrs.
*****
The simple Church of St. Sergius is a relic hidden away and almost
buried in the midst of a labyrinth of ruins. Without a guide it is
almost impossible to find your way thither. The quarter in which it is
situated is enclosed within the walls of what was once a Roman
fortress, and this fortress in its turn is surrounded by the tranquil
ruins of "Old Cairo" - which is to the Cairo of the Mamelukes and the
Khedives, in a small degree, what Versailles is to Paris.
