By This Means, Ground Glass Stoppers And Plentiful Cotton
Stuffing, The Most Volatile Essences May Be Carried About Without Great
Waste.
After six months of the driest heat, in Egypt and Arabia, not
more than about one-fourth of my Prussic acid and chloroform had
evaporated.
And, thirdly, if you travel in the East, a few bottles of
tincture of cantharides-highly useful as a rubefacient, excitant, et
cetera-must never be omitted. I made the mistake of buying my drugs in
England, and had the useless trouble of looking after them during the
journey. Both at Alexandria and Cairo they are to be found in
abundance, cheaper than in London, and good enough for all practical
purposes.
[p.29]CHAPTER III.
THE NILE STEAMBOAT-THE "LITTLE ASTHMATIC."
IN the days of the Pitts we have invariably a "Relation" of Egyptian
travellers who embark for a place called "Roseet" on the "River Nilus."
Wanderers of the Brucean age were wont to record their impressions of
voyage upon land subjects observed between Alexandria and Cairo. A
little later we find every one inditing rhapsodies about, and
descriptions of, his or her Dahabiyah (barge) on the canal. After this
came the steamer. And after the steamer will come the railroad, which
may disappoint the author tourist, but will be delightful to that
sensible class of men who wish to get over the greatest extent of
ground with the least inconvenience to themselves and others. Then
shall the Mahmudiyah-ugliest and most wearisome of canals-be given up
to cotton boats and grain barges, and then will note-books and the
headings of chapters clean ignore its existence.
I saw the canal at its worst, when the water was low; and I have not
one syllable to say in its favour. Instead of thirty hours, we took
three mortal days and nights to reach Cairo, and we grounded with
painful regularity four or five times between sunrise and sunset. In
the scenery on the banks sketchers and describers have left you nought
to see. From Pompey's Pillar to the Maison Carree, Kariom and its
potteries, Al-Birkah[FN#1] of the night birds, Bastarah
[p.30]with the alleys of trees, even unto Atfah, all things are
perfectly familiar to us, and have been so years before the traveller
actually sees them. The Nil al-Mubarak itself-the Blessed Nile,-as
notably fails too at this season to arouse enthusiasm. You see nothing
but muddy waters, dusty banks, a sand mist, a milky sky, and a glaring
sun: you feel nought but a breeze like the blast from a potter's
furnace. You can only just distinguish through a veil of reeking
vapours the village Shibr Katt from the village Kafr al-Zayyat, and you
steam too far from Wardan town to enjoy the Timonic satisfaction of
enraging its male population with "Haykal! ya ibn Haykal! O Haykal!-O
son of Haykal[FN#2]!" You are nearly wrecked, as a matter of course, at
the Barrage; and you are certainly dumbfoundered by the sight of its
ugly little Gothic crenelles.[FN#3] The Pyramids of Khufa and Khafra
(Cheops
[p.31]and Cephren) "rearing their majestic heads above the margin of
the Desert," only suggest of remark that they have been remarkably
well-sketched; and thus you proceed till with a real feeling of
satisfaction you moor alongside of the tumble-down old suburb "Bulak."
To me there was double dulness in the scenery: it seemed to be Sind
over again-the same morning mist and noon-tide glare; the same hot wind
and heat clouds, and fiery sunset, and evening glow; the same pillars
of dust and "devils" of sand sweeping like giants over the plain; the
same turbid waters of a broad, shallow stream studded with sand-banks
and silt-isles, with crashing earth slips and ruins nodding over a kind
of cliff, whose base the stream gnaws with noisy tooth. On the banks,
saline ground sparkled and glittered like hoar-frost in the sun; and
here and there mud villages, solitary huts, pigeon-towers, or watch
turrets, whence litt1e brown boys shouted and slung stones at the
birds, peeped out from among bright green patches of palm-tree,
tamarisk, and mimosa, of maize, tobacco, and sugar-cane. Beyond the
narrow tongue of land on the river banks lay the glaring, yellow
Desert, with its low hills and sand slopes, bounded by innumerable
pyramids of Nature's architecture. The boats, with their sharp bows,
preposterous sterns, and lateen sails, might have belonged to the
Indus. So might the chocolate-skinned, blue-robed peasantry; the women
carrying progeny on their hips, with the eternal waterpot on their
heads; and the men sleeping in the shade or following the plough, to
which probably Osiris first put hand. The lower animals, like the
higher, were the same; gaunt, mange-stained camels, muddy buffaloes,
scurvied donkeys, sneaking jackals, and fox-like dogs. Even the
feathered creatures were perfectly familiar to my eye-
[p.32]paddy birds, pelicans, giant cranes, kites and wild water-fowl.
I had taken a third-class or deck-passage, whereby the evils of the
journey were exasperated. A roasting sun pierced the canvas awning like
hot water through a gauze veil, and by night the cold dews fell raw and
thick as a Scotch mist. The cooking was abominable, and the dignity of
Darwaysh-hood did not allow me to sit at meat with Infidels or to eat
the food which they had polluted. So the Pilgrim squatted apart,
smoking perpetually, with occasional interruptions to say his prayers
and to tell his beads upon the mighty rosary; and he drank the muddy
water of the canal out of a leathern bucket, and he munched his bread
and garlic[FN#4] with a desperate sanctimoniousness.
The "Little Asthmatic" was densely crowded, and discipline not daring
to mark out particular places, the scene on board of her was motley
enough. There were two Indian officers, who naturally spoke to none but
each other, drank bad tea, and smoked their cigars exclusively
[p.33]like Britons.
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