Those Who Were Cautious And Wise,
Took A Brace Of Donkeys.
At least five times during the route did
my animals fall with me, causing me to repeat the desert experiment
over again, but with more success.
The space between a moderate
pair of legs and the ground, is not many inches. By eschewing
stirrups, the donkey could fall, and the rider alight on the
ground, with the greatest ease and grace. Almost everybody was
down and up again in the course of the day.
We passed through the Ezbekieh and by the suburbs of the town,
where the garden-houses of the Egyptian noblesse are situated, to
Old Cairo, where a ferry-boat took the whole party across the Nile,
with that noise and bawling volubility in which the Arab people
seem to be so unlike the grave and silent Turks; and so took our
course for some eight or ten miles over the devious tract which the
still outlying waters obliged us to pursue. The Pyramids were in
sight the whole way. One or two thin silvery clouds were hovering
over them, and casting delicate rosy shadows upon the grand simple
old piles. Along the track we saw a score of pleasant pictures of
Eastern life:- The Pasha's horses and slaves stood caparisoned at
his door; at the gate of one country-house, I am sorry to say, the
Bey's GIG was in waiting, - a most unromantic chariot; the
husbandmen were coming into the city, with their strings of donkeys
and their loads; as they arrived, they stopped and sucked at the
fountain: a column of red-capped troops passed to drill, with
slouched gait, white uniforms, and glittering bayonets. Then we
had the pictures at the quay: the ferryboat, and the red-sailed
river-boat, getting under way, and bound up the stream. There was
the grain market, and the huts on the opposite side; and that
beautiful woman, with silver armlets, and a face the colour of
gold, which (the nose-bag having been luckily removed) beamed
solemnly on us Europeans, like a great yellow harvest moon. The
bunches of purpling dates were pending from the branches; grey
cranes or herons were flying over the cool shining lakes, that the
river's overflow had left behind; water was gurgling through the
courses by the rude locks and barriers formed there, and
overflowing this patch of ground; whilst the neighbouring field was
fast budding into the more brilliant fresh green. Single
dromedaries were stepping along, their riders lolling on their
hunches; low sail-boats were lying in the canals; now, we crossed
an old marble bridge; now, we went, one by one, over a ridge of
slippery earth; now, we floundered through a small lake of mud. At
last, at about half-a-mile off the Pyramid, we came to a piece of
water some two-score yards broad, where a regiment of half-naked
Arabs, seizing upon each individual of the party, bore us off on
their shoulders, to the laughter of all, and the great perplexity
of several, who every moment expected to be pitched into one of the
many holes with which the treacherous lake abounded.
It was nothing but joking and laughter, bullying of guides,
shouting for interpreters, quarrelling about sixpences. We were
acting a farce, with the Pyramids for the scene. There they rose
up enormous under our eyes, and the most absurd trivial things were
going on under their shadow. The sublime had disappeared, vast as
they were. Do you remember how Gulliver lost his awe of the
tremendous Brobdingnag ladies? Every traveller must go through all
sorts of chaffering, and bargaining, and paltry experiences, at
this spot. You look up the tremendous steps, with a score of
savage ruffians bellowing round you; you hear faint cheers and
cries high up, and catch sight of little reptiles crawling upwards;
or, having achieved the summit, they come hopping and bouncing down
again from degree to degree, - the cheers and cries swell louder and
more disagreeable; presently the little jumping thing, no bigger
than an insect a moment ago, bounces down upon you expanded into a
panting Major of Bengal cavalry. He drives off the Arabs with an
oath, - wipes his red shining face with his yellow handkerchief,
drops puffing on the sand in a shady corner, where cold fowl and
hard eggs are awaiting him, and the next minute you see his nose
plunged in a foaming beaker of brandy and soda-water. He can say
now, and for ever, he has been up the Pyramid. There is nothing
sublime in it. You cast your eye once more up that staggering
perspective of a zigzag line, which ends at the summit, and wish
you were up there - and down again. Forwards! - Up with you! It
must be done. Six Arabs are behind you, who won't let you escape
if you would.
The importunity of these ruffians is a ludicrous annoyance to which
a traveller must submit. For two miles before you reach the
Pyramids they seize on you and never cease howling. Five or six of
them pounce upon one victim, and never leave him until they have
carried him up and down. Sometimes they conspire to run a man up
the huge stair, and bring him, half-killed and fainting, to the
top. Always a couple of brutes insist upon impelling you
sternwards; from whom the only means to release yourself is to kick
out vigorously and unmercifully, when the Arabs will possibly
retreat. The ascent is not the least romantic, or difficult, or
sublime: you walk up a great broken staircase, of which some of
the steps are four feet high. It's not hard, only a little high.
You see no better view from the top than you behold from the
bottom; only a little more river, and sand, and ricefield. You
jump down the big steps at your leisure; but your meditations you
must keep for after-times, - the cursed shrieking of the Arabs
prevents all thought or leisure.
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