l^^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES UNIVEKBITY of CAUFUKJMa-i. AT LOS ANGELES LIBRABX THE REPOSE IN EGYPT A MEDLEY BY SUSAN E. WALLACE AUTJiOR OP "the land of THE PUEBLOS." "THE S'BORIED SKA,' "aiNEVRA," ETC. wrrr illustrations NEW YORK JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER 1891 146079 CopyriRht. 1888. SUSAII E. ^VAL.LACE. « * « • • • •.;••. •-■ • • • • •••• • •",*• ••• . '. : .*. ;•. .• •. ; ■»,••• ,•..' w lb ■» DEDICATION, TO The two dear friends with whom I learned that tra/vel is trie saddest of pleasures. S. E. W. Crawpordsville, Ind October, 1888. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. An Egyptian Woman Frontispiece Head of Menephthah, the " Pharaoh" of the Exodus.. 32 On the Banks of the Nile 38 Head of Rameses II 53 " " Thothmes II 52 The Asp 60 The Ibis 60 Egyptian Standards 64 Forms of Isis 64 -J Egyptian Vases and Amphora 68 ^ Egyptians Ploughing and Hoeing 76 m The Tomb-Chamber of the Third Pyramid 80 '^s. The Sphinx of the Pyramids 96 . View of the Great and Second Pyramids 110 "^ Band of Six Musicians 168 Q, Egyptian Systrum 168 The Twin Colossi of Amenophis III 176 Pharaoh "Necho" 178 An Egyptian King destroying His Enemies 180 Egyptian Columns 196 Egyptian War Chariot 206 Crown Prince of the Ottoman Empire 389 THE TIEPOSE IN EGYPT. Chapter Paqk I. The Burden of Egypt, - 9 II. The Landing, - - - H III. Suez and Sinai, - - 24 IV. Crossing tlie Red Sea, - - 30 Y. Alexandria, - - - 35 VI. Obelisks, - - - 45 VII. Cleopatra, . - - 59 VIII. To Cairo, ... 70 IX. The Rise of the Nile, - 78 X. At Heliopolis, - - - 85 XL The Fhght into Egypt, - 94 XII. The Return of the Holy Carpet, 106 XIIL The Pilgrimage to Mecca, - 120 XIV. Mecca, the Sacred City, - 128 XV. Pilgrimage, - - - 136 XVI. The Repose, - - - 142 XVII. Poetry and Music of the Arabs, 157 XVIIL The First Cinderella: A Tale of the Red Pyramid, - - 175 XIX, In the Isle of the Lily : The Story of the Three Kings, - 194 CONTENTS. Chapter Page XX. In tlio Isle of the Lily : Thalia's Story, - - - 212 XXI. Still ill the Isle of the Lily : The Antiquary's Story, - 223 XXII. Conclusion, - - 252 ALONG THE BOSPHOEUS. I. The First Voyage, 1390 b.c, - 263 II. The Second Voyage, a.d., 1884, 288 III. One Woman : A True Romance, 314 lY. In the Harem, - - 368 V. Wedding Customs in the East, 377 YI. At Yildiz Palace, - - 383 PREFACE. The papers here collected contain little to re ward the lover of useful knowledge, their pur- pose being to amuse rather than to instruct. Yet when truth is offered it is on high authority or the result of patient investigation, that no mis- take of mine may mislead the reader with whom .1 love to journey. None will find half tlie pleas- ure in' hearing, that the writer has had in telling her tale. The Story of One Woman is easily identified. A life, somewhat idealized, too well-known to elude recognition, and familiar in the Orient as stories of Lady Hester Stanhope and Lady Mary Montague were to a past generation. For permission to re-appear in tliis shape, I must thank the father of the nameless magazine which died young (Peace to its ashes !), the re- spective editors of The Independent^ Advance^ Congregationalist, YoutKs Companion^ Chris- tian Advocate, Bacheller Syndicate, Frank Les- lie's Magazine, and Sunday-School Times. THE REPOSE IS EGYPT. I THE BURDEN OF EGYPT. I DID not think to write it, but petitions have come to me, mainly from readers who pine to sing and soar, and see ; whose unsatisfied wishes are strong and numerous, whose salaries are nar- row and narrowing. Give us something about the Nile they say. Tell how the Sphinx looks ; is the nose really knocked off? and how about the Pyramids, are they equal to their fame ? and were you disappointed in Karnak ? So I have a message to deliver; which is the mission of the traveller from the times of Caleb the spy, to the days of Livingston the explorer. I cannot tell anything but what has been told a thousand times, and a thousand times better than I can tell it. For in the oldest literary composition we find allusion to the Pyramids. The name is thought to be the same with the Hebrew chara- both^ rendered in our version, " desolate places." The first sheik of Arabia, the patient man of Uz, knew those wonderful sepulchres ; and their purpose i:: exactly expressed in his words: " For now I should have lain still and been quiet* I should have slept; then had I been at rest With kings and counselors of the earth Who built themselves pyramids." lo The Repose m Egypt. In the face of description at least four thou- sand years old, I dare not hope to offer new facta or fictions, yet, as the Oriental face changes not, but always holds a compelling interest for the stranger, so the scenes of its abiding are forever old, forever new, in spite of countless repetition ; attempt to describe the indescribable. I confess to pleasvire in thinking there are readers who believe all has not been sung and said about the Pyramids, To behold those un- fabled mountains of stone, had been to me a desire and a despair from childhood to mature years, and when at last I did see them, with these eyes, looking exactly as they should look, I felt like Simeon of old in the Temple. You who have felt the fascination and mys- tery of the shrouded land of Sais ; the inscruta- ble divinity over whose face was written, "I am that has been, wliich is, and which shall be, and no mortal hath lifted my veil," may turn this leaf. You who have read its story, till the country of Mizriam is a twice told tale, need go no further. Not for you I sing. But for you^ the young and the poor, tlie lustrous eyes beloved scanning a near horizon, the men and women of scant leisure, whose restless souls are filled with unsatisfied longings for the fnr-off, the dim, the unattainable, you are the reader claimed for these chapters. The Landing. \\ n. THE LANDING. After a voyage, smooth from Beirout, witli- out incident or accident we landed at Port Said. Four travellers from the land made Holy by the blessed feet of the Man of Nazareth, the Son of God. We had knocked about so much that sharp American angles had been rounded; the acute had become obtuse. We had learned to accept our portion whatever it might be, asking no question ; to manage salads drest with strange oils suggesting petroleum, cucumbers stufi'ed with abominations, cbeese-cakes with pepper, and we gaily saluted a rosebud in the butter and accepted nutmeg in mashed potatoes, though no one pretended to admire the flavor. Better than this discipline, we had discovered that immediately means in an hour or so, pres- ently means next week, and to-morrow means never. When we missed a train, we did not rave or fume, but silently betook ourselves to sketch, scratch, and other books and calmly bided our time. Western activity is doomed to death, suffocated under the soft, slow feather-bed pres- sure of Oriental iadolence, and we were in a fair way of conversion to kismet^ and of incoming ills to say, "Allah wills it," and serenely accept destiny. Long travel had somewhat changed the party 12 The Repose in Egypt. whom I trust tlie dear reader has not forgotten^ for we journejed together across the Storied Sea. The two, of whom jour correspondent is one, looked and felt older by a year than when we parted. Travel enriches memory and lavishes treasure for imagination, but it is a wearing pleasure, and we felt no time was to be lost till we set our fac^s in return toward the best land the sun shines oru The Antiquary's crow's feet were a deeper track. His eyebrows mealy, and hair weak and stratytrling, and he was more helpless than ever without the green goggles. Thalia, the widow, my pretty Thalia, was younger and prettier than last year ; this partly because she had laid aside mourning. I suspect the mourner had a struggle with, herself over the point, and she broke it to me gently on this -wnse, one morning in our state- room, when she was trying to brush the dust out of her kilt pleats. •• I think," she began, hesitating, and fiery red, '■ no dresses are so hard to keep clean as black." "True," I said, not raising my eyes from my paper, " you know brown is my favorite color." "Don't you think," embarrassed and doubtful, *' Id better try a plaid of some sort, or get out that old dark merino in the bottom of my trunk? '' This from my domineering friend, who in mat- ters of taste ruled us without thought of disobe- dience! What was going to happen? I laid down my pen, first wiping it with slow deliberation, and looked straight into the girlish The Landing. I3 face so eager and timid, the little blue veins iu her temples beating a swift pulse. "Wistful, anxious, as though life and death were in the coming words, she appeared to regard my judg- ment about the expediency of the travelling dress as a decree or a sentence. I knew perfectly well what she wished to hear and, ^NTth determination to be agreeable said, boldly, "Slate color or gray are much better, they shake out without rusting." There was dead silence as she went on with the coat brush. She must have known what I Buspected ; so I added, meaningly, " pardon, dear child, but it is time ; the day has come to make a change." She blushed, paled, trembled. " Yes, it is time," she said with sharp, unnatural voice ; and what did the dear girl do but drop the dress on the floor, and burst into a passion of tears. Kow Thalia had never given me her con- fidence in words, and I did not feel free to ad- vise, where advice had not been asked, in a matter of deepest inoment to her ; wherefore I thought best to slip away and let her cry it out alone. For in tliat implied confession, she snapped the last thread of the bond which had bound her to Willy Benson, her husband, lying two years in dreamless sleep b}' the blue lake at Chicago. Mavbe she thouaht we had not noticed the criss-crossed letters, covered with post marks, which came with unvarying regularity, and were shyly read without comment, but -with brighten- ing eyes and tell-tale cheeks. Maybe she 14 The Repose in Egypt. tliouglit her fellow vojageurs insensible to tlie fact of her sitting vip o' nights, not to jot down notes, nor to abandon herself to tlie fascinations of the guide-book. I would not wrong my Thalia by such suspicion of search for useless knowledge. Presumably the midnight oil was spent in answering those Aveighty documents. Maybe she did not know that a generation ago we too learned how to conjugate the first verb taught in the languages of the nations. There is deep meaning in the custom which makes the wedding blossom a bloomer at all times and seasons, perpetual emblem of happy marriage. Bud, flower, and fruit come on to- gether, and fast as one golden bough is stripped, another as bright and as shining appears, I had watched this second start ; a late, summer growth, about which she was bashful as a school- girl. At some unwonted beauty of sea or sky, she had ceased to whisper in cherished echo of early feeling, " How Willy would have enjoyed this." Latterly in dreamy abstraction she wore the look which revealed her eyes were with her heart, and that was far away. Love is immor- tally young, in fact never anything but a boy, and l)lind at that. There was no good cause why the widow, but little ])ast twenty-eight, should not gather up the broken threads of lier life, and weave them again into a tissue of bright- ness. Thalia has an April day temperament, and the warm shower of tears went by, leaving no sign save in the freshened roses of her cheek, and The Landing. 15 a vivacious lighting of the entire face. After our greasy breakfast, she came on deck in the old drab merino. Thalia's dresses never scrape or rustle; they are the clinging kinds without starch, as becomes her still and modest presence ; in harmony with the voice, " ever soft, gentle, and low." Th^ old merino was wrinkled by long packing, but borrowed grace from the girlish shape, and behold, in her straw hat an ostrich feather 1 No cloudy apparition, as I at first thought, but a genuine waving plume, one of the tender grays, bought never so cheaply as that day at Port Said. Her abundant hair, still the golden age, was loosely knotted below it, low in her neck. I could hardly believe my eyes, but there it was, blown this way and that, by the warm land breeze ; dancing, flut- tering, the modest, yet unmistakable signal that the old wound had ceased its fevered throbbing and had healed, not without a scar. From a dried bouquet which lasted from Jaffa she had picked out a few carnations not en- tirely withered, and with a spray of evergreen made a bright houtoni^re. So the period of mourning was ended, and it was plain as day- light we could not hope to keep our spoiled darling abroad much longer, or one more must be added to our party. Antiquary gazed at the nodding feather with undisguised admiration for the wearer. The old man made no secret of his worship of the most lovable Avoman in the world, with whom he had many rousing debates verging on the fascinating 1 6 The Repose in Egypt. edge of quarrel. Tliey had great disparity of years and of tastes. Tlie works, grand and dry, in wliicli the bachelor revelled, she detested, and there was a pathetic appeal in his hopeless and constant obedience to her, when he knew her smiles were not for him ; and by no magic juice on her oyelids could she admit him to the realm enchanted, where youth rules forever. Without words he wanted to show his ap- proval of Thalia's toilet, and toward evening came up from below with a sealed paper envelope, very delicate in tissue, peach-bloom in tint. He tore open one end of the package, and drew out and unrolled a large square kerchief of gold and brown silk, edged with brown and yellow knot- ted fringes and flossy tassels. " Will you wear this? " lie asked, with quiet directness. "It is very pretty," said Thalia, evidently de- lighted with the sheen and texture of the showy garment, " but do you think it will be suitable for me ? " " Nothing can be more so. Pardon," he added, as in slow and painstaking movement, he hipped one corner bias on another, "but it will please me to see you in it ; in fact will keep me in good humor a wliolc day." Antiquary has tiie pale, slender hands we associate with our ideal scholar, and there was ])()silive grace in the action, when he laid the folded scarf respectfully, even reverently, on the shoulders whose taper line the vile fashion of e])auleltes had not d(;formcd. She passed the ends through a large cornelian ring, bought ol a TJic Landing. 1 7 Meccan trader, a trinket warranted to keep oft' the evil eje. " The kufiych is from Damascus," said the lover of antiquities. •' It came by caravan, and by the changeless fashions of the Orient we may safely assume such a head-covering was w^orn by Job, foremost of Arab sheiks when he w^as first of all men of the East. The Arabians arrange it in several loose layers, pleats you call them, don't you ? " he asked, with a man's helplessness in matters of toilet. "Folds, you mean," said the smiling Thalia. " Yes, folds, close down to the eyes, and keep it in place by a silk or camel-hair rope round the head." " I remember that gallant Bedouin, the Sheik of the Jordan, flaunted such a thing when he escorted us from Jerusalem to Hebron, and think- ing how changed he looked when he took it off', under the oak of Mamre.'" " Right," said Antiquary, gratified at the allusion, " and it is fitting that the first woman who has entered the Cave of Macpelah, should adopt a portion of the costume of the Abrahamic dispensation. I believe a garment like this shaded the neck of the Friend of Guests, as the Moslems name him, when he sat in his tent in the heat of the day and beckoned the wandering angels in." " I remember too, this lovely color, in some picture of the Magii." " Right again, you are improving, Mistress Thalia. In the celebrated Adoration at Ant- 2 1 8 The Repose in Egypt. werp, !Nrelclnon, tlie Arabian King, wears the huJiTjeh to show his oriental origin. It becomes you," he continued, admiringly, *' it gives the sunny look I love. The colors vary and shift with the light, like tints in the plumage of certain feathered throats." And the vivid changeable dyes did harmonize with the violet eyes, and the clearness of a com- plexion whose ivory neither freckle nor tan could hurt, " Yes," he continued, encouraged by his suc- cessful compliment, " Thalia is one of the Muses, one of the Graces as well. "Now," — with his antiquated bow — "I see all the Graces in one. Her namesake of old lived in the Parnassus, and drank of the Castilian Si)ring ; her statue in the Vatican wears ivy leaves and holds a shepherd's crook. She presides over comedy." "You are too kind," said the radiant Thalia; " this is really move lh;m I deserve." And she had reason to be gratified over such speech from a dry old bookworm. "The h{fi)/<'h is so graceful and pleasant," he went on, as if speaking to a large andience, " it must have been in general use and, not despised by princes, it may have bound the beantiful brows of Absalom. Tlie ]ialc light ones olVercd in the Ba/.ars of Smyrna are connterfeits; only the brown and gold are tlic tnu-ones. They are woven in the peerless city called by the ancients Ciirysorhoa, or Stream of Gold, beloved by Naaman of old. h'l'oin it conM^ swords of secret power, and scimitars of matchless temper. These The Landing. 19 silky stuffs are worthy her prime Lefore she fell into the hands of thefanatic legionsof the Desert, hertreasures scattered till but two genuine blades of Damas steel remain in that oldest of living cities. The Syrian from whom I bought the kerchief said, it throws the sun and the moon into shade, and so it cjoes when worn by Her Grace Madame Thaha. It has taken six thou- sand years of aesthetic culture to produce the perfected ugliness of the Christian stove-pipe hat. The people we call heathen," he prosed along, warming with his own eloquence, "and barbarian, knew how to mix dyes and how to make them- selves comfortable," No one opposed or ansAvered the scholar, Thalia was gazing with unseeing eyes at the long low coast line, looking not at it at the past or the present, but into the future, opening brightly into Paradise Eegained, The undaunted speaker continued. " More than that, they knew how to write ' respectable compositions. When Job penned the Iliad of his woes, and the shepherd king sang the Lord is my shepherd, the latter day poets who insist Adam was a baby man, and evolution's the thing, may learn something of musical numbers, that is if vanity and ego- tism allow ; " and the Antiquary gave a grunt, as is his wont when in disapproval. He was dying for a discussion, but for once we let the gentlest of grumblers have the disappoint- ment of his own way without opposition. Thalia demurely moved her seat, to watch the coming 20 The Repose in F.c^vpf. and going of passengers, and the old man follow- ing lier with dim eyes, murmured : " On her glowinp;, languid visage Lay the magic of the Orient. And her garb recalled the splendor Of Scheherezade's legends." Mj feminine reader who has felt the depressing effect of long- worn crepe may recall the feeling with which it is laid aside. In the beginning, there is a sort of sad surprise at self, for in the first dark days of funereal gloom we are sure we shall never smile again nor put off the trappings of woe ; and we believe that impossible state of mind must be lifelong. It is a forgetfulness, a sort of treachery to the one over whose head- stone we wrote in heartbreak, was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow? Surprise comes that we could or would be comforted ; in fact, it must be admitted, are already so. In those days of per- petual anguish how brutal the thought of second marriage ! A whisper of such thing would be sacrilege. Thalia's dusty bombazine was in the bottom of the trunk or the sea, and her spirits rose with the first clastic rebound from heaviness cast by memory of tlie dearly loved, early lost, deeply iiioiimed, and soon 1o be rc])laced liusband of her voutli. llcr charming yrtzf*^^' (Zu coewr came l)a(;k. Willi sparkling eyes and glittering hair flhc was a phantom of delight. Instead of tlie {.(Tlictiug refrain about the returning dead Doug- las, usually hutumecl in the Iwiliglit, she gave a bar of the liluc Danube, ami a Sii\f waltz steps with her own sliadow, moving with airy case and The Landings 21 v> "buoyant grace. I never knew her so deliglitful, and we all caught the gay contagion. Later she overflowed in playful pranks and little mischiefs which culminated in the decrepit joke of tick- ling the back of my neck with a straw, making me jump and brush off a supposed representa- tive of the fourth plague of Pharaoh. Tiiere was no comment on her change of dress or manner, for we try to keep in that small and charming circle of human beings who never ask questions. And we felt sure that in good time the secret would be out. So our landing at Alexandria was a very dif- ferent affair from what it had been without the gray ostrich feather ! Strangely enough, the spectator in these famil- iar dramas sometimes has a lingering pity for the beloved dead, which the main actor does not share. Especially is this the case where the bereaved one is young and the observer old ; for the grief of later years though less vehement, is more oppressive than in youth and clings with rooted tenacity to its object. Thalia had been seven months an idolized wife, two years a faithful widow. Her husband was snatched from her by a violent death and the sliarp pang which parted them was the only one tlien known; hence her first love brought her first sorrow. Not romantic, and too healthful for deep dejection, she did not seek solitude to nurture spectral fancies and drop into the melancholy whose common outlet is sad prose or elegaic verse. Given absolute health, a 22 The l\epose in Egypt. clieerful disposition, ample fortune, grief is easier to bear than where there is the wrestle with two giants, poverty and indigestion, and nights of writhing in the fangs of neuralgia. She was born to trip it on the sunny side of the wall, to gather tlie roses and feed among the lilies. Fainter and fainter come the voices from the tombs, little by little the daylight of the world gains on the dreary night of mourning, the stars have willed it. Destiny foretold it, now it was gray, now purple, now a blushing gleam, now full dawn again, and lo! in the golden kerchief, clad with beauty she is radiimt as ever in the outlook toward second marriage. There are better players in the world than on the stage, and we need not seek Jo. Jeflcrson to realize how soon our places are filled when wo disapi)ear from the sight of our nearest and dearest. Sometimes it seems inexplicable that the grief of parted lovers is more lasting than the mourn- ing of the married. Is it not because the sen- tence of Death is final ? The black curtain droi)pcd, that act is en.hd. Tlu- decree accepted, there is nothing to do but move forwrnd into other scenes and form new tics and associations to pooi)le tlic emplini^ss wliich :it llisl rules the univor.se. Tlie huin.in mind readily adjusts itself to :i ccsrlainty, but wiiile tiiis side eternity tlje l)ch)ved oih! remains and unwed, the dream may go ou unbroken, there are ])o.ssibilitics of re-nuion in the future. Among them, tlic secret uncoufes.sed even lo .s- country where quails yet aV)ound, and ])leasant valleys where he can reach sweet water, drink and live. The nortli end of the lied Sea exhibits the Crossimr tJie Red Sea. '.b 3' same conditions us when Jehovah led his })eople like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron, The rise of the tide is from three to six feet, above a long, narrow sand-bank which stretches many miles westward, slightly covered when the tide is out. Before the canal was cnt, caravans often crossed the head of the gulf in safety, and on the verge of the great sea when strong east winds blew, the waters were pressed back, sometimes so rapidly that shoals of fish were left dead on the shore; the water was changed to land and an easy path opened through the bed for a host. The Bedouins yet tell of ruins of cities on the eastern shore, where Pi-hahiroth was of old, and other armies besides Pharaoh's, flushed w^ith conquest, have been destroyed by the treacherous winds and waves of Yam Stqoh or the " Sea of Eeeds," as the Hebrews named it. In makins; the way for the shi})s, a work declared by Darius, the Ptolemies and Pharaohs, to be im- possible, y . de Lesseps records he has seen the north en(? of the sea blown almost dry, when next day the waters Aveie driven far up on the land. When it blows from the south the tide joined to this wind makes a depth to be dreaded, where a faw hours before the ford was dry. As the, Israelites, fainting with fear and their hearts dying within them, lifted up their eyes and beheld the Egyptians marching after them, they " cried unto the Lord, and he caused the Bca to go back by a strong, east wind all that night, and he made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. It is a night to be much 32 The Repose in Egypt. .observed unto the Lord for bringing tbeni outot tbe Land of Egypt; this is that night of the Lord to be observed of the children of Israel in their generations." No other migration has been like that flight of a whole nation. They had eaten the unleavened bread of the Passover, with loins girded, with shoes on their feet, staff in hand; eaten it in haste. They were well warned and ready to move tlie day when the first Passover feast was done. That very night they w^ere cast out by their enemies, their ren- dezvous the wilderness, their goal the Promised Land. The road across the desert was before them, but God led tlicm not the way of the Land of the Philistines, tliough that was near, for " God said. Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and return to Egypt." In the roaring tempest, in confusion and alarm, six hundred thousand men with flocks and herds, their wives and their little ones huddled by the coast. These bond-slaves had been used to look- ing through green forests of reeds on the placid waters bordering the Plain of Zoan, and tlie "great sea" was a sight to fill them with awe and wonder, had there been no otlier terror. Through the cries of ariguish and wild prayers <)(■ the fugitives, tlie reassuring order came to the bewildered aud friglitened souls, "Fear ye not, stand still and sec the salvation of the Lord wliich he will show to you, for tlie Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see tliem again no more forever." Tlie strong wind blew, the waters were gatliered together, the floods HEAD OF MEXEPHTHAH. THE "PHARAOH" OF THE EXODUS. Crossing the Red Sea. 33 Stood upriglit, a black w;ill on lliuir right hand and their left. God's way was in the sea, and his path in the great waters, and his footsteps were not known. The ransomed crossed in safety, the Egyptians followed in close pursuit, but the wind fell, the tide rose, the sea returned to his strength, foaming billows drowned the chariots and the horsemen, and of all the hosts of Pharaoh that came after them there remained not so much as one. They sank as lead in the mighty waters. It was my good fortune to know an English- man familiar with the regions round about Suez, who had crossed the Red Sea ten times. He sought the route of the Hebrews and says he had marched in the midst of the sea near Pi-hahiroth (See Exodus xiv : 2) " The Place of Abysses." When the waves receded the land became so solid that sometimes it scarcely took the imprint of a camel's foot. To experiment on the quality of the soil, he pressed the end of a cane into the ground, when "suddenly, at a few inches' depth, it was swallowed up nearly to the hilt." Pre- cisely the condition as when horses, horsemen and chariots were sunk. " And it came to pass in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire, and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians and took off' their chariot wheels that they drave them heavily." It was light to tli*} pursued, dark to the pursuers. There was no waste of power in the miracle of destruction ^ a"«l Moses knew the doom of the proud, wiieb no 3 34 The Repose in Egypt. sang, " Thou stretcliedst out tliy right haud and the earth swallowed them." It was the beginning of liberty for the en- slaved Hebrews, and in the morning watch when Emancipation Day broke over the rock-moun- tains of Arabia, Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the sea-shore. Looking eastward the desert is bare till the eye reaches a clump of palms, warped and twisted by varying winds, the first oasis marking the watering-place known from immemorial ages as the wells of Moses. A green scum covers the pool, but under it the water boils up freshly as it did when the greatest of caravans encamped by the inexhaustible spring, and Miriam the prophetess and all the women after her went to greet the ransomed host. In this very s])ot she took up the song of Moses, answering, in chorus, " Sing ye unto the Lord for he has riumplied gloriously, the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." A few tamarisks cling to life beside the wells, and dried carcasses of camels tell tlie woeful talc of privation and starvation in the road which runs eastward from Siic;^. 'riicre can be no doiiht that tliis w:is the first li;ilting-])l;ice for the i'u^itivc slaves. ]] jh 36 The Repose in Egypt. somewliat in the spirit of the Roman Emperov, who, after visiting the shrines of Hol}^ Land, went to search the Red Sea for the hosts wlio pursued the Hebrews, (petrified into rocks at the bottom,) and to kiss the footsteps left in the sands by the infant Jesus while He dwelt with his parents, safe from the vengeance of Herod. We have little time to mark the coral reefs of the Red Sea, which are marvelously beautiful. Their levels are slightly raised above the water and their varied color makes them appear like floating gardens. The flowery meads, not fitted to sustain palms and willows, are full of running vines of scarlet leaves and blooms. Lovely isles such as dreamy poets sing of, rocking with slow rise and fall, wafted by warm winds to happy shores or swinging like freighted vessels idly lying at anchorage. The waves dash over the surface and keep the basins and pools filled, and birds of swift and tireless wing dart across and circle round the red reefs making the air resound with shrill notes. At evening the ripples break in rings of iri- descent light about them ; a fringe beaded with brilliiinls like the coronation robes of an Indian Prince. The native boatmen note the phosphoric gleam and name the rainbow flashes, "jewels of the dee]»." Ai)i)r()achiiig Ahwandi'la wv. f(H>l avc arc enter- ing ihe oldest (loni.ii 11 of history Here are the tnost venerable rccoids of tlie race of man, ;^;uli>tni'eil heCoie the jKM-iod when Abraham Alexandria, 37 drove liis herds into Egypt, in quest of fresh pastures which drought had destroyed in Canaan. Freshly come to mind the old, old stories which our mothers (they rest in peace!) taught us with our cradle liymns. We see the pathetic figure of Joseph, the darling boy sold as a slave by his brothers, and afterward set over all the Land of Egypt. Tlie King's ring (such are found in the oldest tombs,) on 'his hand, a gold chain about his neck, his vesture of fine linen, his char'ot next the jewelled wheels of the demigod who spoke and said, " I am Pharaoh and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt." A reality, even at this late hour of the changed yet unchanged Egypt, beside which all other kingdoms and empires are dim and their splendors transitory and fleeting. The Nile, the sacred, beneficent Nile, is alone like a god ; and like a god the pagans worshiped and sacrificed to the divinity by which they existed. For the country was, and is the gift of the river ; and without the overflow would be nothing but bare rock and sad. It varies from a width of ten miles to a shrunken strip of verdure. There is no border of famishing vegetation los- ing itself in drought. The water limit makes a dividing line, clean cut as with a sharp knife. You may lay one hand on the tenderest, most exquisite herbage in the world and fill the other with arid, gray sand. Perfected vegetation against absolute sterility, and all by the bounty of the blessed river. For lilteeu hundred miles he moves solitary. 146079 3^ The Repose in Egv/>t. During that long course, wholly unshaded, exposed to the evaporation of tierce sunbeat, lowered by tliousauds of canals, absorbed by porous banks and thirsty sands, maintaining by healthful water eveiy living thing. When the star Sirius, the most adorable light in the universe of God, rises with the sun he outshines, the sympathetic stream begins to rise. Slowly it swells ; moving with such fate-like precision that agriculture is jiredetermined with the exactness of mathematics. There are no rain-clouds to be dreaded, no frosts to blight, no winds to lay the harvests Ioav. Three months the Delta is a lake; then the mud houses built on raised mounds stand like islands in the level expanse. The water carries a rich deposit of loam and the grounds needs nothing more, not even a sabbath-year to lie falloAV. From the unknown ages, Nilus has almost invariably risen to within a 'lq,\k hours of the same time and to within a few inches of the same height, year after year. When the flood recedes the ooze is scratched with the crooked stick which has been the Ori- ental plough through fifty centuries, and three crops a year of corn, wheat, sugar, cotton may be raised. The tranquil inundation, placid as everything is in this land of ceaseless calm, leaves no mark of violence; iiotliing is disturbed by the weight of the waters. Within banks the Nile carries a tremendous volume, but without rusli or hurry; steadily flowing, majestic as the Bcrcne and stately sculptures on its shore which Alexandria. 39 look on witli stony, sleepless ej'es to all eternity, seeming to say while the river runs I stand. So the years come and go ; from the beginning the same, no guessing ahout the weather, no dread of changes for there will be none. Every- thing is foreknown and the seasons are arranged as by a Destiny. You may travel by steamer from Alexandria twelve hundred miles, and afterward in a light sailboat, only the guide-book may tell how far. Away, away, to mythic haunts of the Plioe- nix, the regions of Chimeras, Flying Serpents, Basalisks, Vampyres and Dragons ; where men's feet blister and lions' manes are scorched off by the heat. Of the mysteries and marvels of the Upper Nile, the ancients told many wonderful stories. Not the least among the wonders were the miraculous springs which supply "the life-giv- ing artery of Egypt whose pulse gives one throb a year." They tell us the water of the Nile never becomes impure, whether reserved at home or exported. On board vessels bound for Italy that which remains is good, while what they happen to take in on the voyage is corrupt. It is pre served in jars like wine, and, anciently, with the age of the water was an increase of value, as with wine : — a legend we are disposed to doubt. Familiar as it was, by story and picture, I was not prepared for the appearance of the Land of Goshen, which lies to-day much the same as when seventeen hundred years before our era, Pharaoh gave it to Joseph. It is very like toe 40 The Repoie in Egypt. prairies of Illinois ; riclier, with ii lighter green — the true Nile-green — than the wlieat lands of the Mississippi va]le\^ and a more even level. It does not "roll" like our prairies, but stretches flat as a floor; fat with the black loam which forms the "golden soil." Sowing, })lougliing, reaping go on at the same hour in the mild December which is sweet as bridal June with us. The ])apyrus — which the Greek wrote over with undying names — the rush on whose frail bark are records more enduring than marble, has disappeared ; but tlicre are yet rank, aquatic plants, in the stagnant marshes, left alter the overflow. They lift their graceful, feathery heads in close, dank masses, and a man in a rush canoe casting seed upon the waters, reminds us of the olden promise of bread and the fair child of the Hebrews saved from the curse of its brethren. From some such reeds as these was made the basket-boat, where the sorrowing mother — with what anguish of soul lot otlier mothers tell — laid the baby Moses. There was an ancient be- lief that the papyrus was a protection against crocodiles, and the tall flags on the river's bank were like these wliich shadow the shallow waters we see. We arc very ncnr llie spot where the childless })rinccss caine down lo bathe in the sacred river, and seeing the grceu ai'k among the flags she scut her maid to fctcli it. I'he cliild wept, and J'liarnoirs daughter adopted liim with the name wiiich iiic;iiis, "Saved from tlie Water." The tropic hixuriance ol' the Delta — the gar- den of the Lord as it is called in the Old Testa- Alexandria. 41 ment — was a delight to the Israelites. They longed for the fertile valley bearing melons, on- ions, encumbers, which were part of their daily rations. They remembered the sycamore and fig trees, the luscious date palms and waving willows. When fainting in the blazing heats of Arabia, among awful fiery peaks and wells of bitter waters, their souls sunk within tliem. They had, in the grim and vast expanse, prickly thorns, starved weeds, and the stanted acacia of which the Tabernacle was made. They longed with feverish longing for draughts of the cool, abundant, brimming river of the land of cap- tivity and bondage and groaned out, " because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness ? " Not strange tliat the heart of their meek leader was well- nigh broken in the thankless cause, and he prayed that the burden of the people might be removed, " I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. Kill me and let me not see my wretchedness." After the ceaseless stir and activity of crowded Egypt, the stillness of the desert was like the silence of death. The dwarf mimosa, the outer picket of vegetation, fights for life at the foot of Sinai, but there is no chance for animals there. No bird, bee, insect, sings or hums in the lifeless waste, and the desolation Avas the more complete from contrast with the green valley left behind. The weird silence of the desert gave full efiect to the dread thunders of Sinai, and the orders 42 The Repose in Egypt. under which the encampment was made and tents strack in the Sand-sea of Sin, The fertile Delta is the land shadowing with wings, and swarms with aquatic birds which ap- pear strangely tame. The pigeons are familiar to us, the nestlings of the belfries in our village churches. They do not excite our curiosity, nor do the cormorants, pelicans, or storks on the reedy margins. One bird, moving in robes of white, we single out for our inquiry and interest. The gentle Ibis ; the avatar or living emblem of the god Thoth or Hermes, the Egyptian deity who an- swered to the Mercury of the Greek. Its spot- less plumage well symbolizes the moon, and its snowy broad-winged counterpart in the Ever- glades of Florida is named the White Ileron. Never has the beautiful bird, haunting " The gloomy inoss-liung cypress grove " been so well described as by our poet, ^faurice Thompson. The long, slender, curving neck is exceedingly graceful, and the snowy feathers of the Ibis, in the good old times of the gods, used to sciare tlie crocodile and even kill him. Jt appeared in Kgypt at the rise, and disapjieared with the inundation of the Nile ; and such was its devotion to the Kingdom of the Pharaohs tliat it i)incd and died of self-starvation if sen- tenced to banishment from its native land. Spotless in outward, as well as inner life, it dr.iiik oidy of the purest water, and tlic strictest of the })riesthood dinnk nothing except water Alexattclfiu. 43 from the pools where the Ibis luul l)ccu seen. To kill such a divinity was punishable with death. Besides, the Ibis was the deliverer of Egypt from the winged serpents of Arabia which, since the beginning, have guarded the divine perfume that lives in the frankince;ise-trees. In the time of Herodotus (and a very good old time it was,) they flew from Arabia, in the spring, through a strait between two mountains which the first of historians and story-tellers visited, and he saw prodigious mounds of serpent bones and ribs piled on heaps of different heights. Sup- posably the remains left by the avenging Ibis. But let us not smile too broadly at the tale. Hear Isaiah : " Tlie burden of the beasts of the South ; into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper, and fiery flying serpent." One writer affirms the sacred flying-serpent' had wings like a grasshopper, and others that animals bred in the slime of the Nile were devoured by the friendly Ibis ; itself incorrupti- ble by death. If incorruptible, we cannot understand why they should be mummied, as we found them at Memphis done up in terra cotta jars, covered with a lid and sealed with lime. The sacred white bird and the asp are forever recurring in the hieroglyphs, and I was at some pains to find a genuine specimen of the " Pretty worm of Nllus That kills and pains not." 44 The Repose in Es^>f>t. It is a vile gray snake, mottled about tlie Lead Avith yellow splashes. The head is large and dilates like a cobra's when the reptile is excited. The bite — a mere prick almost painless — pro- duces gradual lethargy, overcoming the senses like natural sleep. Hence the name, Aspis som- nkuhsa. Cleopatra pursued conclusions infinite, of easy ways to die, and boasted " if knife, drugs, serpents have Edge, sting or operation, 1 am safe." and after many experiments she chose the death which follows the aspic's bite, to the "imperi- ous show of the full-fortuned Caesar." In the Delta, I made diligent inquiry about the Phoenix. It has disappeared from mortal sight, except in lurid chromos which emblazon tlie walls of insurance offices in the United States. Even good old Herodotus never saw it, except in a picture. Surely the student of ac- curate knowledge will thank me for copying his account of the bird : — " It comes to Heliopolis but once in five hundred years and then only at the decease of the parent bird. If it bear any resemblance to its picture the wings are partly of j^old and partly of ruby color, and its form and size perfectly like tlie eagle. They relate one thingof it which Hiirpasses credibility. They say that it conies from Ara- bia to the Temple of the Sun, bearing the dead body of its parent, enclosed in myrrh, wliich it buries. It makes a ball of myrrli shajx-d like an egg, as large as it is able to carry, which it proves by experiment. This done it exca- vate.s tlie mass into which it introduces the body of the dead bird ; it again closes the ajiertiire with myrrh, and the vViio'e becomes the same weiglit, as when comiiosed entirely of myrrh; it theu proceeds to Egypt to the Temple of the Sun." Alexandria. 45 Remcuiberinrr tliis tradition, the Plioeueciaus gave tlie name Phcenix to the palm-tree, because wlieii burnt down to tlie ground it springs up again fairer and stronger than ever. A more satisfactory interpretation of the antique mytli than anv other I have been able to find. The Egyptians supposed the Phoenix to have fifty orifices in his tail, and that after living one thou- sand years he builds himself a funeral pile, sings a melodious air of different harmonies through his fifty organ pipes, flaps his wings with a velocity which sets fire to the wood and so con- sumes himself. I asked, too, about Pygmies. They have vanished into the golden mist overhanging the First Cataract. We may safely presume our own Midgets are the last representatives of this interesting people, who by the help of ladders climbed up the goblet of Hercules to drink from its contents. VI. OBELISKS. Since the pillage of Alexandria, in 1882, it has lain an nnburied wreck. There is not much left worth seeing, and you must draw on imag- ination to fill the empty, dreary spaces. The hackneyed sights are names familiar from school days. A twenty-second revolving light in the harbor has replaced the beacon in the Pharos^ whatever that was— dedicated by the King Ptolemy to the Saviour God of those who travel 46 The Repose in Egypt. by sea ; and in tlie island of that name Greek traders sought shelter before the days of Homer. Anciently, two great streets crossed each other at right angles ; in their intersected square was the superb mausoleum which held the body of Alexander. It was embalmed in Babylon, brought hither with dazzling pomp, and laid in its resting-place with honors due to a god. The warmest fancy cannot raise from these ashes the city declared the centre of Alexander's world when all was conquered. It was circled with stupendous walls, fifteen . miles in circumference. Eead Gibbon for accounts of it in the days of its glory, when the revenues of a province were allotted the crown princess for her sandal strings, when idleness was unknown among the people, and even the lame and the blind had industries suited to their condition. After the Saracenic conquest, the temples of Alexandria were one by one torn to pieces to buikl Cairo, the "City of Victory," and in one Turkish mosque tlierc arc four hundred Greek columns from this (alien star in the East, once a slirine to scholars and the greatest depository of learning in the world. I'he desolate column known us Pomjicy's Pillar is the last survivor of the four hundred belonging to the ^Pemple oi' Seraj)iH, tlie noblest building then on the face of the globe, except ihc; Ca])il()l at Kome. This sliaft was perhaps parf of the quadrangular ])or- tico, a matchless work, which sheltered marble statues, the best of (irccian genius, and was reached by one hundred steps of purest marble. Obelisks. 47 Among the columns, shaded from the fierce light and heat, wise philosophers walked and talked, asking then, as their thinking descendants yet ask, the old, unanswerable questions : Whence com6 I ? Where go I ? And wearily they worked at the unsolved problem : Given Self to find God. Here was the lecture-room of Hypatia, the beautiful, crowded with the wealth and fashion of the luxurious Orient. Tlie gilded chariots of effeminate, pleasure-loving youth stopped daily at her door, and her learning and eloquence, her spotless life and tragic death, shed a last illus- trious light over the fading myths of Greece. Here was the greatest library of antiquity, " the assembled souls of all which men hold wise," and here Cleopatra wore the holy garment of the goddess Isis and conquered the conquerors. Here Mark Anthony gave the world for love and thought it well lost ; and while he kissed away kingdoms and provinces, she demanded of her royal lover the whole of Judea and Arabia ; but the mailed Bacchus pacified her with the presei.t of two hundred thousand volumes for the Library of the Serapion. No trace of these glories, as we drive through sandy waste and Moslem tombs, be3^ond the stir of city life, to the site of the despoiled temple which once lifted its proud front and glittering roof, plated with metal, against the rainless blue. In order to mingle the transient glory of his Egyptian campaign with the abiding fame of the Pliaraohs, Napoleon, in 1798, buried the soldiers 48 The Repose in i-gypt. who I'ell ill tlie attack on Alexandria at tlieba^e of Pompej's Pillar. The whole army assisted at the august ceremony, and the names of the heroes are recorded below the inscription of the Emperor Diocletian, " the Invincible." IIow well he understood human nature, that young general of twenty-nine years, who with the loss of only thirty men, planted the tri -color on the walls of Alexander's cityl Where is the Frenchman who would not do and dare all things for such a record of service rendered ? The great historian will tell you the tale of final ruin of the Serapion by Christians, when the marble walls were a fortress ; and how the successor of Mohammed destroyed the library the reader near his school days knows. The books, mainly of papyrus, supplied the four thousand baths with fuel for six months. When the victorious general sent to the Caliph to know his pleasure, said the fanatic Omar : " If the writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran, they are useless, and need not be i)rcserved ; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed." A strange order for one who habitually quoted the Arabic ])roverb: "Para- dise is as much for him who rightly uses the pen as for him who takes th(^ sword." Such is the tale taught in our schools; but tho earliest and wisest of J*]gyi)tologists say that the famous treasures of the Alexandrian Library were stolen, scalti^cd in portions, and sold to Constantinople, long before Caliph Omnr invaded Kgypt. The accepted story is demonstrably a Obelisks. 4.9 tribute to the Empire of Fable. Mohammedan lieroeo, iu tlic fresh inspiration of theirneAV faith, and necure iu the sanctity of their cause, de- molished the old foundations of many kingdoms, and tried to conquer Egypt in the same way. " Know, O soul," they said, with reverence and solemnity, " that everything in the world that is not of God is doomed to perish." The fine, susceptible mind of the Arabs, their keen, quick apprehension, enabled them to ap- propriate rapidly scientific researches of the conquered Egyptians ; and the hoarded treasures of priestly lore were transferred to Cairo, the new city, founded opposite ]\[emphis. Caliph Omar was shrewd enough to see that a restlesc, mari- time capital, often insurrectionary, and rent by bloody religious feuds, was not the best center of the new religion he intended to plant in the Nile valley. The victorious Moslem in Alexandria boasted of having captured a city of four thou- sand palaces. He dwelt with rapture on the elegance of the G3'mnasium, and the space and splendor of the Hippodrome for chariot-races and games ; and such was the store of wheat sent by caravan to Medina, that he declares the first of an unbroken line of camels entered the Holy City of the Prophet before the last camel had left Egypt. This latter declaration we may be permitted to doubt. Not far from Pompey's Pillar, there were till recently two obelisks of the fine red granite of Syene, engraved with the names of the Pharaons who placed tiie frontier of Egyjit just wLere 4 JO The Repose in Egypt. the J pleased ; the throne-names which appeal often on the sacred beetles in the hearts of mviin- mies. Tlie obelisks (named Cleopatra's needles ; why or when I know not), were symbols of sun- beams, or taper fingers of the sun, ever pointing upward to the flaming god of Eastern idolatry. Tliey were from the sacred and learned city of On — city of the evening sun, seat of solar worship — where Joseph married the priest's daughter. They may have seen him and his bride, with their arms round each other's necks, posed like the sculptured figures about us, bear- ing the bland, restful expression of a stately pair, linked in loving marriage. The continual re- currence of such pictures of husband and wife, with arms entwined, makes us think those wedded lovers in old times ^vere of a race not only affectionate, but demonstrative, and not ashamed of public stare or criticism. Gazing in each other's eyes, with quiet admiration, the strange, sad, half-smile on their lips, which modem sculptors vainly try to reproduce, thus they have sat for thousands of years, worship- ping the one eternally beautiful and beloved. Among stiff, grim drawings of all i)()ssiblc and impossible animals and ])hints, it Avas always a rofreshmont 1o conic on ihis ])lcasant picture, which needs no reader of hieroglyphs to interpret. It can have but one meaning. One of the obelisks, which lay j)rostrate for centuries in sand and mud by l^ompey's Pillar, '^ow siands alone and gloomy in the murky air of the Thames, above Waterloo bridge. Its Obelisks. 51 twin-brother may be seen by the reader, in a re- moter country and a stranger environment, in 'ihe New York Central Park. The far New World, which comes to learn of the oldest, boasts of this ancient monument, and of the mixed spoils carried away, year by year, by greedy collectors, and rich hunters of curios. In the year 357, Constantius, son of Constan- tine, wished to present the Eomans some memo- rial of his gratitude for their munificence. He thought first of offering an equestrian statue, but concluded an obelisk from Ileliopolis would be the most kingly present to the most arrogant of his allies. The death of Constantine had suspended the transportation of one of these marvelous pillars, and left it, after floating down the Nile, neglected at Alexandria. Constantius had a special vessel provided to convey the tre- mendous weight, and it was safely transferred from the Nile to the Tiber, and raised, with great rejoicings and solemn ceremonials, in the Circus Maxim us at Kome. Long before, Augus- tus had embellished the amphitheatre with a similar trophy, and the Emperor doubtless dreamed, as he sat alone in his sacred car, daz zling the sight with robes encrusted with gems, that the obelisk he offered to propitiate the populace would remain till the sun himself should die. Scholars of the nineteenth century are doubtful if it still exists. In what siege of the many Roman sieges, or in what earthquake the shaft was overthrown, is not known. The antiquary vainly seeks its history and its frag- 52 The Repose vi Egypt. ments, if tliey be spared from barbarian fury and violence. The Vatican is enriched witli obelisks, and beside the Favninian gate stands one, in the Piazza del Popolo, which Moses must have seen when he was a student in tlie learning of the Egyptians. It is the most ancient thing in the Eternal City, and old Rome is young beside the hoary antiquity of that granite sunbeam. The obelisk in front of the Church St. John Lateran, is the tallest in the world, 105 feet in height. It is covered with tlie choicest sculptures. The tracings of the figures drawn in liieroglyph writ- ing, are delicate as cameos, carefully engraved as the intaglio of a ring, and bear the appear- ance of being impressed with seals, instead of being wrought with chisels into stone that is hard as adamant. A history of what it has seen, and what it has survived, would fill many a volume. The procession of nations in resistless march passed by, till lour successive cm])ires, drunk with glory, declined and died, while this consecrated pillar pointed heavenward in Kgypt. A living interest attaches to it, because it retains the symbol of the force which first opi)Osed the ])Ower of the living God. For unto that Pha- raoh, 'I'hothmcs Second, whose cartouche is en- graven on its side, was the message sent throu0, a Obelisks. 57 memorial of his victory over Maximus, usurper of the Empire of the West. The monohtli rests on a pedestal seven feet high, which is based on three circular steps. On one side, sculptured in bas-relief, are the Emperor Theodosius, with his wife, enthroned, receiving ambassadors and the homage of barbarians. On another, the saint figure, viewing chariot-races and the Olympic games. The third shows the Hippodrome and its adornments, and the machinery by which the obelisk was raised, after it had been thrown down by an earthquake. In the fourth bas-relief, the Emperor appears with the crown princess holding a diadem. The hieroglyphs engraved on the red granite shaft are of different periods, and belong to sev- eral dynasties. The side facing the South is inscribed with the following touching and sim- ple prayer, from one of the greatest of the Phar- aonic kings to the life giving deity : "God Phta Sakaris. "Grant power, and cover with the principle or divine wisdom the gentle king. Oh I guardian Sun, vigilant and just Sun, continuator of life. "Guide his innermost thoughts, so he may show himself active and just in all things. "Sublime Wisdom, grant to him the principle of thy essence, and the principle of thy light, so that he may collect fruits in the impetuosity of his career. " Four times he thus distinctly implores thee. 58 " The Repose in Egypt, Vigilant Sun of Justice of all times ! May the request wliich lie makes to thee be granted to him." Many a scene, revolting to humanity, has this obelisk looked upon. One of the saddest was when the conqueror of the Huns, Persians, Afri- cans, Vandals, and Goths — Beli sarins, surnamed "The Glory of the Greeks" — with eyes blind and heart-broken, groped his way, begging for bread at tlie base of the monuments of antiquity which his arms had so often defended and saved from destruction by barbarians. There are grat- ulation and high ceremonial when the poor, mis- placed obelisks, scattered to the four winds of heaven, are set up on foreign shores. To me, they appear raonarchs banished to lifelong exile, uncrowned, mourning for the cloudless face of the god of their idolatry. To rest undisturbed in the dry, dewless air of Egypt, is earthly immortality. Names idly scribbled by travelers remain indelible as though deeply carved; and lotus- wreaths round the heads of mummies are perfectly kept in the painted tombs scented yet witli strange spicery. Well }night the arrogant Pharaohs name them- selves "Lords of the Daybreak," "Children of the Sun." So unchangeable is this dead-alive country that modern engineers have adopted a stone record, forty-five hundred years old, and from it have exact routes of travel in the Delta — metes and bounds, oases and wells, given with- out fault, and relied on by English armies of to- day. It is 1<) be hoped that England's sleadj Cleopatra. ' 59 ha^id <)\\ Kgypt may protect her memorials of the pjtst, and one day lift the glorious statue of Rameses from the mud, and set the godlike face once more to the morning sun and tlie river of his love, YII. CLEOPATRA. We miist riot leave Alexandria without further mention of Cleopatra. In these tropic airs she rode on swift camels and floated in gilded barges with Anthony, and after years of revel, here she was buried with imperial pomp in his tomb. You know she was last of the race of Ptolemies and was of Greek descent. Hers is a melodious name, through many generations a favorite in the royal families of Macedonia and Greece, and it had a sweet meaning for the little girl in her downy cradle : '' The Pride of her Father." No princess of unmixed Oriental blood was ever so named, for in the East the pride of fathers is bound up in their sons and the word is not empty sound to those who comprehend. We ask, as thousands have asked before us, What was the secret of her charm? Tlie his- torian who lived within her century and had per- haps the testimony of men who had seen the siren, describes her as rather slight in stature, not so beautiful in person as bewitching in man- ner. Her whole aim and study was the art of pleasing, and her voice was like a musical instru- ment tuned with many strings. Slie had at 6o The Repose in Egypt. command seven languages in wliicli slie ad- dressed ambassadors at lier court, each in his own tongue ; slie kne\Y how to adapt herself to the varying moods of men, governing them by change with resistless fascination. In the ruinous roads of Alexandria there is not one trace of the shining marble pavement where the capricious witch, yielding to Anthony's humor, hopped forty paces through the streets; nor is there sign of the palace where she was unrolled from the bale of carpet, and tamed with one glance the mighty Julius. There later she vainly tried her charm on the cautious and cruel Octavius Ca3sar. Nor is there one stone left on another of the monument where, close to the Temple of Isis, she collected treasures, gold, sil- ver, emeralds, ])earls, ivory, ebony and cinna- mon, heaped with quantities of combustibles ready to consume her misfortunes and herself in one tremendous flame. This is the site of the city which saw the costly shows for the people which almost made them forget the extravagance that drained the royal treasury. Here she sat in a chair of jew- eled gold on a tribune of silver, wearing the many colored robe of Isis, calling herself a god- dess. Enthroned beside lu^r was Anlhony, her king, in regal diadem ami Oriental scimitar, beneath their feet crimson scarfs on which sat their twin children named the Sun and Moon, kings of kings. One little jirincc. in Median dress, with turban and tiara, the other in long cJoak and slippers, his head circled by a diadem. THE ASP. THE IBIS. Cleopatra. 6i In wanton waste tliey broke alabaster boxes made from the mines east of the Nile and filled the whole palace with the precious perfume. "With the masters of the world, the queen feasted; she gamed, she hunted, she drank. The stories of her salt fishing and of the pearl ear-ring need no repetition here. They have been recorded with the undying names of eternal Eome, and accounts of her rambles at night in a soldier's cloak, seeking adventures. Tricked in her best attire she showed herself to the populace at theaters and in the crowds of the Circus or Hippodrome, where chariot-races were made in power and splendor which Eome could not surpass ; and in the Gymnasium with the small white hand familiar to the lips of kings, she crowned the best wrestlers and boxers. In company with Anthony, she fed to the sacred crocodiles, cakes and wine and when the sun, looking over the hills of Arabia, kissed the statue of Memnon, they listened to the wondrous songs without words that answered the warm touch of the Lord of the Daybreak. They moved in state, surrounded by a body-guard of four hundred Gauls — after Cleopatra's death given by Octavius to Herod. And, by way of variety in their pastimes, they made ghastly trials with vinknown poisons on slaves and con- demned criminals. Like victims foreseeing their approaching doom, they sought knowledge of the swiftest, surest, most painless death. The Pharos was a square building of white limestone, laid in several stories, each smaller 62 The Repose in Egypt. than the one below it. A winding road led to the top, and Cleopatra drove a pair of horses to the summit and there turned and drove them down again. Doubtless thej consulted the sa- cred bull, Apis, with small faith in his divinity ; visited Lake Moeris to laugh at the ascetic Jews on its marshy shore and in their mad pranks threaded the mazy Labyrinths which after all were not serpentine, but quadrangular, with rooms and passages of multiplied doors. Blind- ing structures for concealing the coffins of their builders. In their impious daring they must have entered the Pyramids and wondered at the mountains of stone piled over the tomb of one king. Perhaps in mockery they knelt to Sera- pis, the Sun-god, who ruled the hours and the seasons, the winds and the storms, king of the stars — himself an immqrtal fire. Plutarch records that his grandfather had ac- counts from, or, as we might say, had interviewed the cooks of Alexandria who basted wild-boars for the su})pers whose profusion shamed the del- icate banquets of Apicius. Read his quaint chronicle and for the sj)irit of the "Serpent of old Nile," who professed to believe her soul had oinic, been the soul of a tigress, read the sensu- ous poem of W. \V. Story, llcr lament for tlic lo.st existence when she knew no law but the law of her moods. IMic tig(!r bloo