EGYPT.

Erk's Work, 1 February 1941, Page 40

EGYPT.

Egypt is one of the oldest countries in the world, and is called the Land of the Pharaohs. One reads of these Pharaohs, or Kings of Egypt, in the Bible as far back as the Old Testament. In the time of Christ we read of how Joseph and Mary fled into Egypt with the Holy baby, Strangely enough the customs, even the dress of the Egyptians of to-day, amongst almost all the women, rich and poor, and amongst the men of the lower class mostly, are exactly the same as in the time of Christ. One sees the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, and indeed, all the towns, thronged with women, their faces almost hidden by the Yashmack,” a veil, sometimes white, sometimes black, which covers the lower part of the face, leaving the eyes only exposed, and, as with their plain black dress, they wear a black hood over their faces, very little is to be seen of a" native woman’s face as a rule. But there is always an exception to every rule, and in this case when a woman or girl is good looking, she wears a very thin yashmack and then you can see more than her eyes. The Egyptian law does not oblige a woman to veil herself, but it says, “if thy beauty cause strife amongst men, then it were better that it should be hid,” and as there never was a woman yet who believed herself to be really ugly, they all veil themselves, even the ugliest old hags. The men, different from men of European countries, are the butterflies of Egypt. They wear the most beautiful colours in their Galahibers and cloaks. With the rich, the Galahiber, a straight garment to the feet, is made of striped silk, the cloak of fine cloth embroidered with gold; with the poor, it is of cotton, and now they wear a European overcoat, but perhaps the most picturesque dress is that of the Bedouins, a tribe that lives in tents, mostly in the desert. They wear only a fine white blanket, draped in graceful folds around their bodies, and are a most dignified race.. Their women folk do not cover their faces, but they tattoo them, each tribe having a different mark. A “Sais,” or runner, wears another very picturesque dress. These unfortunate men (there are generaly two of them) have to run in front of the carriage of a high official and clear the way for him. They generally die young, as the strain of running so fast is too much for their hearts, though nowadays in these times of motors a sais is not often seen, and they are generally employed as footmen. A few of the old sheiks or chiefs of villages still wear the native dress, even to the Khedive’s receptions, where His

Highness and every one else is in European dress. Of course every Egyptian from the Khedive downwards wears the native “Tarbusch,” or red cap, which is somewhat the shape of a flower pot, with a black tassel on top, and all officials in the Egyptian service of every nation must wear it too. The Egyptian seldom takes his tarbusch off, as it is considered an insult to uncover your head before your equal or superior.

Now we come to the customs of the country. I will commence with a wedding, which is a great event for the bridegroom, but the poor bride only has the doubtful joy of driving through the streets in a carriage, with both windows shut and the blinds pulled down, and with a heavy covering thrown right over the carriage so that she must be nearly suffocated. But of course she must not be seen by anyone, for even the bridegroom does not see her till after the marriage.

Another custom which may give the bride pleasure is that all her household belongings are paraded through the streets on open carts —gaudy plush suites of furniture, pots and pans, looking-glasses, of which there are many, and even the bedroom furniture. Now the bridegroom has much feasting; the food is served in a bowl and each guest dips into the middle for what he fancies, as no forks are used. And the bridegroom has a band, and oh, such a band; music there is none, but noise there is plenty, and he trails through the town with a long train of musicians, camels and carriages to mosque, and is finally escorted by friends of his own age with lighted torches, music and uproar to his veiled bride, when for the first time he is allowed to lift her veil and look at her.

An Egyptian funeral is very different to a European one. To begin with, the body is not put in a coffin as with us, but wrapped in numerous white cloths very much in the same way as mummies are. It is then put into a long narrow wooden box on four legs, with a short pole standing up at one end. On this pole, if it is a man who has died, his tarbusch is placed; if a woman, a lock of her hair. The body is laid in this bier and covered with a cloth, and'in this it is carried to the grave, followed by relations and paid mourners, the men chanting a sort of melancholy dirge, the women wailing and screeching and waving black rags towards the bier. On arriving at the cemetery the body in its grave cloths is lowered just as it is into the grave and then covered up. On Friday morning, the Sunday of the Mohammedans, the women go to the cemetery and eat their breakfast with the dead, chattering and laughing all the time.

The procession of the Holy Carpet is the Mohammedans’ greatest religious ceremony. Every year a large green and gold carpet is woven. It is very beautiful, and when finished it is taken with great show and ceremony through the streets of Cairo. Then it is taken by train to Suez and through the streets and down to the docks, where it is put on board the Khedivial steamer and taken to Jeddah, and from there across the desert to Mecca, where it is blessed and laid over the tomb of Mohamed, the founder of their religion. Here it remains for a year till the new carpet is brought again from Cairo; then the old one is returned, cut up into small squares and distributed amongst the numerous mosques. This happens every year. Directly one carpet has left they start to make a new one. In the olden days it was made by the ladies of the harem, but now it is made by professional carpet makers, and when it is finished it is taken to the Citadel, where His Highness goes to inspect it. Then it is conveyed through the streets on poles by about eighty men to a large mosque or church, where it is hung, and almost everyone is allowed to see it if they obtain a pass. Here it remains for one night and great religious ceremonies take place and many prayers are offered up. The carpet is then folded and placed in a small tent, and put on the back of a white camel, followed by a band, men in uniform, more camels, donkeys, men on horses, and thousands of Arabs on foot. The pilgrimage to Mecca is the great event of a Mohammedan’s life, as when they have undertaken this journey they feel certain of going to their heaven, though hundreds of them die on the way, as the have to undergo the most awful privations- —• crowding in thousands in the steerage of a ship to Jeddah, and then having to walk from there to Mecca across the desert.

The public history of Egypt is written on the walls of the temples, and the private history is written on the tombs, all in “Hieroglyphics,” or “picture” characters.

But the language of Hieroglyphics died soon after 300 A.D. The knowledge of the characters was completely lost, and for many centuries there was no clue as to the meaning of these picture characters until the year 1800 when the “Rosetta Stone” was discovered, on which the same inscription was written in three different forms —Hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek— although the inscription was not very long, it was sufficient to enable the students gradually to unravel the meaning of the picture characters, and to discover some of the past history. The Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum in London. Egypt is a land of mystery. Like in “Peter Pan” it is

a sort of “never never” land where all sorts of wonderful things happen. They believe in all sorts of things which we cannot swallow.

For instance, when a house was being reconstructed for my father in the Arsenal at Alexandria, a “Holy Man’s” tomb was found in one of the underground rooms, and as the Mohammedans think a great deal of these Holy Tombs, or tombs of their saints, my father thought it was not right to have it in a private room occupied by Christians, so he had a wall built separating it from the rest of the house, and a door made opening into the public street for “the Faithful” to enter by.

The Arabs were very delighted and excited at this. One Arabic newspaper enlarged upon it, and said that Allah, their prophet, had appeared to Gedge Pasha three times in the night, and the third time seized him by the collar of his pyjamas and dragged him downstairs, followed by the “Sit” — that is, my mother—in her nightdress, her hair down, and a candle in her hand.

Another Arabic paper said that Gedge Pasha had sent all the way to Mecca for the stone to build the wall with. Even a well-educated Arab said to my father, “Oh, Pasha, you must have had an inspiration.”

Animal life, with the exception of the beautiful little Arab ponies and donkeys, is most uninteresting. There is the camel, which you know, is about the ugliest and most ungainly brute ever seen, and the Arabs use them in towns for carrying heavy loads such as sand and stone for building purposes, and also “burseen,” a kind of clover.

The camel squats on the ground while the panier bags at its sides are being loaded, and it generally protests loudly all the time, by making the most horrible groans, and if it thinks the load is too heavy, nothing will induce it to get on its legs again, until it is lightened. All the camels look mangy and old, with the exception of the coastguard ones; these are fine, well-kept animals, and very swift. It is very difficult to ride a camel till you are used to it; it makes many people very sick. You know it is sometimes called the “Ship of the Desert,” and it almost always makes you ache all over for days after you have been for a ride. They are vicious brutes, too, and many natives die of hydrophobia from their bite.

Another hideous brute is the ghamous, which takes the place of our cow. The milk is very rich, but almost white in colour. There is a tradition in Egypt, that after God

made the cow, the devil coming to have a look, burst out laughing, and declared he could do better himself with his eyes shut. God took him at his word. The devil set to work, and produced the ghamous.

The donkeys are very different from the European ones, much smaller and more graceful; prettier altogether, and they do not seem to suffer quite so much agony when they lift up their beautiful voices.

There are, of course, heaps of crocodiles in the Nile, and these are hideous creatures. One of the most interestingthings in Egypt is the “scarabean,” the ancient religious beetle, and it is quite wonderful to watch it pushing with its hind legs a huge piece of mud, about ten times its own size. The scarabeans, the grasshoppers and the locusts still cause the same serious ravages as they did in the time of Moses, so you see it’s a great mistake to suppose that Moses did away with the plagues. They are still there in the summer ; the whole ground swarming with tiny little frogs, and the air is full of their croakings—such a volume of sound to come from such small bodies.

Now all this is about Egypt generally, but I should like to talk about Alexandria, where my father was stationed. First of all I will describe the journey out.

You can either go overland through different parts of Europe, or all the way by sea. With our usual extravagance, we will take the overland route.

We start from London, and take the train to Dover on that filthy line —the London, Chatham and Dover. Then we cross to Calais, one of the nastiest crossings I know of, on a rough day. The last time I went to Egypt, when I arrived at Calais it was snowing hard, and I hardly knew what I was doing. I was recommended by a gentleman to take dinner, so I went into a restaurant close by and was served with some frog, I should imagine; after being swindled out of the little money I had, I took the train to Marseilles without any of my luggage at all. I was then told it was coming on by another train. After a tedious two-days’ journey, we arrived at Marseilles, and I felt absolutely lost, having no idea what to do next.

I hailed the last carriage, but it was bagged before I had a look in, so I just went down to the boat in the cart with the luggage. T travelled by the North German Lloyd, and after five days of rolling and pitching, we entered the outer port of Alexandria, the famous town founded by Alexander the Great, the town where once dwelt the beautiful Queen Cleopatra.

The harbour of Alexandria is one of the finest in the world, but it is not beautiful, and though very large, it is hardly large enough for the shipping out there, which has increased very much of late years. The outer harbour is sheltered by an enormous breakwater of loose stones, which stands the force of the water much better than a made wall. The inner harbour is sheltered by the point of Ras-el-Tin. On this point stands the lighthouse, and the English Military Hospital. Till two years ago, there was only one pass into the harbour, the Boghas Pass, and this was too shallow to allow large ships to enter by, but now there is a second one which enables any ship to enter; it is called the New Boghas Pass.

The Arab quarter is very interesting to newcomers, though it is filthy and smelly in the extreme. Here you see a swarming crowd — men, women and children, crying, running, shouting, buying, selling, quarrelling; the children half-naked, generally filthy, and often with sore eyes covered with flies. The shops are nothing but square sheds, with no doors or windows, and they “shut up shop” by hanging a piece of matting in front of their wares. At. night time, these shops are lit by large paraffin lamps, and sometimes by flaring torches; then dirt and shabbiness is hidden and everything looks very picturesque, particularly the fruit shops and brass shops. But the shop most patronised by Europeans is the one where they sell carpets and rugs; some of these are very beautiful and very expensive, and the older he carpet, the more you have to pay; but it is advisable to take someone with you who speaks Arabic and understands carpets, before attempting to buy, for somewhat like Aladdin’s uncle, they will sell you new carpets for old. You must give yourself plenty of time at these shops, as you have to bargain. The carpet-seller will name a price, with no idea of getting it; you promptly offer half; he protests, but comes down a little in price, and you go up a little, and this goes on for days, or even weeks, till you both agree to a fair price. There is one thing to be said about these shops —you never leave them without taking something away with you, and how you wish you hadn’t, for you are on the fidget the whole way driving home again, until you can retire to the privacy of your own bedroom.

Leaving the Arab town behind, you arrive into the quarter inhabited by Europeans and the rich Egyptians. Here you have broad streets, huge houses, fine shops, and gay cafes, and very fine square called “Mohamed Ali Square,” in the middle of which stands a life-size statue of Mohamet Ali, seated on a beautiful Arab horse. He was the founder

of the reigning dynasty, but died in a madhouse.

Alexandria is not at all an Eastern-looking town; in fact, it is very cosmopolitan. People of all nationalities live there, and if a business man wishes to get an appointment, he must be able to speak English, French, Italian and Arabic, to get on. There are very few places of interest, and I suppose that is why tourists seldom stop in Alexandria. There is Aboukir Bay, where Nelson fought, there is Pompey’s Pillar, which is made out of one piece of granite, there is a small museum, and an underground place where Egyptians used to live hundreds of years ago, and that is about all. Now Cairo, the capital of Egypt, is much more Easternlooking, in spite of the thousands of tourists that yearly visit this gay city, and there are many more interesting places to visit. First, there is the Citadel, which can be reached by carriage, as it stands high above the town on a hill. From here, you get a magnificent view of Cairo, and the desert, which stretches far away into the distance. On this hill is the alabaster mosque where is to be seen the tomb of Mahomet Ali.

There are many beautiful mosques, where Christians are allowed to enter, if they either take their shoes off, or cover them with large quaint soft leather ones kept outside the mosques for this purpose. There is a most beautiful museum Riled with mummies, quaint vases, jewels and precious stones, taken from the tombs of the once powerful Kings of Egypt. There are the bazaars, which are long covered-in alleys with small shops on either side, where all the products of the East are exposed for sale, besides German and Manchester imitations, which one meets everywhere.

Here are carpets, curtains, carved wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory, old weapons, perfumes, jewels, precious stones, silks, and all kinds of brass and copperware; here many a morning may be passed without a dull moment, but if you are wise, you will not take much money with you, for the bazaar merchant is a clever humbug, and over a cup of Turkish coffee, which they offer to you with many bows and pretty compliments, he will wheedle you out of your last piastre, and get you into debt for more.

And last, but not least, there are the pyramids of Ghizeh. To get to these, you cross the Nile, and drive for about twenty minutes through a beautiful avenue, which was made so that Empress Eugenie might drive comfortably to the pyramids at the time of the opening of the Suez Canal. The pyramids and the sphinx are on the borders of the desert. Many people have speculated rather wildly about the object of pyramids, but Egyptologists have come to

the conclusion that they are tombs; as one man said, “the gigantic and for ever impenetrable casing of a mummy.” Some are enormous. The one at Gizeh, the tomb of Khafea “the Great,” is 472 feet high (about the height of St. Paul’s Cathedral) ; and there is another 481 feet high; but they are of all sizes, even down to 20 feet high.

The Royal Tombs are chambers with shelves for the mummies to lie on, in the centre of the pyramid, and are reached by low, narrow tunnels through which you have to stoop and crawl and slide up and down the slopes. It was evident that the builders thought it necessary to try and secrete the whereabouts of these chambers, for there are decoy approaches and galleries leading nowhere, and even deep shafts cut in the passage which to-day you have to be helped over by guides, and were evidently intended for traps for the unwary robber who might try to get the jewels of the buried kings. Pliny says that there were 366,000 men employed for 20 years in building “the Great” Pyramid.

About a quarter of a mile from “the Great” Pyramid is the Sphinx, called “the sun in his resting place.” The body is 140 feet long, and the front paw is about 50 feet long, so you can see it is an enormous thing.

The subject of Egypt is so great, and the interests are so many in all the customs and monuments, that it is difficult to know when to stop. The country has, of course, been through the usual routine of being occupied in ancient times by the Persians, Greeks, Romans; during the Middle Ages by the Arabs and Turks, and in recent times by the English.