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FRONTISPIECE

EXCAVATIONS OF THE LABYRINTH, HAWARA .

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The Land of Khemi

UP AND DOWN THE MIDDLE NILE

BY
LAURENCE OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF 'the LAND OF GILEAD,' * LORD ELGIN'S
MISSION TO CHINA,' ' PICCADILLY,' ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXXII

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ' BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.'

PREFACE.

My first .visit to Egypt took place just forty
years ago, and I have a very vivid recollec
tion of its aspect in those days, and of the
strong impression which the contrasts of ori
ental life, to all that I had been accustomed
to, produced upon my youthful mind. During
the following twenty years, I traversed it seven
or eight times, — sometimes hurriedly, some
times leisurely. I have been, therefore, en
abled to judge of its progress between 1861
and 1 88 1, as compared with the previous
period. The subject has, however, been so
thoroughly exhausted by the various works
which have been published since the days of
Mehemet Ali, and the country is now so large
ly frequented by invalids, and so overrun by

VI PREFACE.
tourists, that I should not have ventured to
contribute to the popular literature on Egypt,
had not the kindness of the authorities enabled
me to spend some months in the interior under
conditions particularly favourable for an obser
vation of the present state of the people, and
which, moreover, tempted me, in spite of
ignorance and inexperience, to venture a little
upon the inexhaustible field of antiquarian
research. My notes at the time I embodied
in articles in ' Blackwood's Magazine,' which I
had no intention, when I wrote them, of pub
lishing in any other form. I only do so now
in the hope that they may encourage visitors
to depart a little from the beaten track, as
proving that, even in a country so well worn
by the feet of tourists, there are other things
to be done in the valley of the hill besides
living in Shepheard's Hotel, and going straight
up to the Second Cataract and back. Un
fortunately, our winter in Egypt was a medical
prescription, and both my wife and I were
too great invalids to profit by our opportuni
ties to the extent we could have wished. As

PREFACE. VII
I make no pretensions to being an Egyptolo
gist, but was merely bitten by the interest of
the subject as it forced itself upon my notice,
I have rarely ventured beyond an attempt to
popularise certain historical or archaeological
views, more or less agreed upon by those best
competent to judge ; so if I have hazarded
suggestions of my own, it is with the greatest
diffidence, the more especially as, having since
had occasion to go almost direct to America,
I have not been in a position to revise my
work, or to refer to authorities other than the
few stray books I happened to have with me
in Egypt.
In conclusion, I would express my sense of
obligation and thanks to his Highness the
Khedive, his Excellency Riaz Pasha, and
Sir Edward Malet, H.B. Agent and Consul-
General, for the hospitality with which we
were treated, and the courtesy and consid
eration shown to us by the officials at our
various places of residence.
Salem-on-Erie.

CONTENTS.

I. THE ARSINOITE NOME, . . . . I
II. THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES, . 52
III. OLD AND NEW,  I05
IV. SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES, . . . 156
V. EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB, . . . 208

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Excavations of the Labyrinth, Hawara, Frontispiece
Prostrate Obelisk near Edgib, in the Fayoum, 98
Fellahah Girl, Middle Egypt, . . .144
Tombs of Beni Hassan,  200

THE LAND OF KHEMI.

CHAPTER I.
THE ARSINOITE NOME.
About seventy miles to the south - west of
Cairo, and twenty-five miles from the Nile, in
a depression of the Libyan desert, lies a region
celebrated above all others in Egypt for the
luxuriance of its vegetation and the variety of
its products. Known in modern days as the
Fayoum, it was called by the Greeks the
Arsinoite Nome, and by the early Egyptians
Phiom, or " the district of the marsh ; " and a
:radition still exists among the country people
;hat this marsh was reclaimed by Joseph the
son of Jacob. Whether it derived another

2 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
and equally ancient appellation of Ta-She, or
" Land of the Lake," from the Birket el Kurun
(Lake of the Horn) — a large sheet of water
on its western margin — or from the once cele-
brated Lake Mceris, the dikes of which still
remain to indicate its former site, is not pos
sible to determine ; but its wealth of water in
all ages was calculated to invest it with a pecu
liar charm in a country dependent, not upon
the rainfall, but upon natural conditions, for its
supply of that commodity. Herodotus, Strabo,
and Pliny have all written in terms of enthu
siasm of this oasis, while modern travellers
have bestowed comparatively little attention
upon it ; and hence, though a valetudinarian,
I was tempted to its sequestered palm-groves,
and have only since had reason to regret that
the state of my health prevented my explor
ing it thoroughly, and exhausting its varied
attractions. There is something very unromantic in the
idea of going by railway to an oasis in the
desert ; but I consoled myself by thinking, as
I whirled along the left bank of the Nile in a
cloud of dust, that the fatigue of a three days'
camel journey, which has thus been super-

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 3
seded, would have presented an insuperable
obstacle to my trip — and endeavoured to ex
tract from the motley throng of native passen
gers who crowded the second and third class
carriages, that oriental flavour which the ap
pliances of modern civilisation are tending so
rapidly to destroy.
At the station of Wasta, fifty miles from
Cairo, the road branches off to the Fayoum.
Here we are delayed a couple of hours to wait
for the down-train ; and seated in a date-grove,
evidently consecrated to al fresco meals, to
judge by the great quantity of shells of hard-
boiled eggs which are strewn around, we pre
pare our afternoon tea by the aid of a spirit-
lamp, to the intense interest of the spectators,
and sketch the curiously shaped Pyramid of
Meidum, rising in stages behind the village of
that name, some four miles distant,— interesting
as having furnished, from the adjoining Masta-
bas, the oldest sculptures in the world, and the
earliest existing examples of the art of writing.
Monsieur Daninos, the French Egyptologist,
who unearthed these statues about ten years
ago, gave me an interesting account of their
discovery. It seems that the sheikh of the

4 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
village of Meidum took the unprecedented
step ¦ of sending a message direct to Ismail
Pasha, the late Khedive, to tell him that he
had discovered caverns full of treasure in his
neighbourhood. The Khedive referred the
intelligence to the late Mariette Pasha, who
did not attach much credit to it, but despatched
Daninos Bey, who was then assisting him in
his antiquarian researches, to verify it. On
arriving at the spot, Daninos Bey found the
sheikh in considerable trepidation from the
threats of one of the local officials, who re
sented his having reported to the Khedive
direct instead of through the regular channels.
However, he was comforted by a decoration,
and the promise of protection, and was re
quested to lead the way to the cavern. This
turned out to be an unimportant little hole ; but
Daninos Bey saw other indications in the' neigh
bourhood, which induced him to believe that
excavation might be attended with success —
the more especially as he had got his excavat
ing party on the spot, and was unwilling to
return re infecta. He therefore set his men to
work to uncover one of the mounds, and they
shortly disclosed a slab which appeared to form

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 5
part of the roof of an opening leading into a
tomb. Soon the leading Arab, who had crawl
ed into the aperture, reappeared in the utmost
alarm, saying that there were living people in
side. Monsieur Daninos at once climbed up
the mound, and, squeezing through the open
ing, was startled by the life-like appearance
of two seated figures with sparkling eyes and
flesh-like tints. They were a young and hand
some couple — the male painted a reddish
brown, the female a light yellow. In their
eyes were crystals, which imparted to them a
peculiarly living aspect. Their features, which
were calm and dignified, were as perfect as the
day they were chiselled. They had been seated
in this chamber, hermetically sealed from the
outward air, for 5600 years, when the garish
light of nineteenth-century civilisation was let
in upon them. They represent the Prince
Raho-tep, son of King Seneferoo of the third
dynasty, and his wife Nefert, who both died
young; and they are now preserved under
glass in the museum at Boulak, where they
are among its most valued treasures.
The branch train to Fayoum is a very rattle
trap affair, but, fortunately, travels at so slow a

6 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
rate, that the danger of its falling to pieces is
comparatively remote. The traces of paint,
which once adorned the carriages, are rapidly
vanishing, and they look as brown and barbar
ous as the desert they traverse. As first-class
passengers are rare, there is only one com
partment for them, and this is seldom used,
and becomes a permanent repository of dust.
However, we were glad to take possession of
it, " bag and baggage," and crawled out of the
station in a westerly direction, leaving the
pyramid, and the village which occupies the
site of the ancient city — " Beloved of Tum " —
to the right. The high mound on which the
modern village of Meidum is situated must
contain the ddbris of one of the oldest cities in
Egypt, and would probably well repay exca
vation, as its name occurs on the monuments
of the third dynasty, B.C. 3900.
It takes scarcely a quarter of an hour to
traverse the cultivated strip that intervenes
between the hill and the desert — just before
reaching which, on the left, we pass a village
of pigeon -towers, that presents a curious ap
pearance, as the population of the village is
comparatively small, while that of the pigeons

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 7
is relatively great. They inhabit conical domes
of mud, like large bee-hives, which are grouped
upon towers and upon narrow oblong con
structions, built expressly for them — eight or
ten upon each tower, and sometimes as many
as thirty upon one roof. In these mud-cones
earthenware vessels are embedded, opening
inwards ; while a row of holes admits the bird
into the interior of the structure, where, as
well as on the outside, numerous perches are
arranged. The advantage of this contrivance
is, that whenever a pigeon is wanted, the
owner goes at night into the house while the
birds are in their nests, and abstracts as many
as he chooses without disturbing the others.
The swarms of pigeons which are thus reared
serve the double purpose of furnishing food
and manure ; but I doubt whether, on the
whole, they do not do more harm to the young
crops than good to the land.
We now emerge from the desert, and the
road gradually ascends for a few miles to a
summit-level of about a hundred and forty
feet above the level of the sea — as great an
altitude, probably, as that attained by any
railway in the country. On our left Is a

8 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
range of sand-hills, and beyond It we can
distinctly observe the depression which was
once filled by the waters of Lake Moeris, and
a portion of which is now a sandy desert ; its
southern extremity is marked by the Pyramid
of Illahoon, also clearly visible. A little fur
ther on we cross the Bahr Bela Ma — a broad
wady with precipitous sides, down the centre
of which winds a narrow sluggish stream ; and
near it we observe the remains of some of
the old embankments of the lake. In a few
minutes more we are cheered by the sight of
a grove of date-trees, and our short traject of
fifteen miles of desert is at an end. We are
at El Edwa, the first village of the Fayoum ;
and a run of five miles more through richly
cultivated country, lands us at Medinet el
Fayoum, the capital of the province, and
practically the terminus of the railway, so far
as ordinary travel is concerned.
Although the kindness of the Government
had provided us with lodgings (for hotels are
unknown In the Fayoum), our first night, owing
to the late hour of our arrival, was spent in a
tent ; and I was lulled to sleep by the wailing
and sighing of the numerous water-wheels or

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 9
sakkyas, which are a special characteristic of
the Fayoum. They differ from those of other
parts of Egypt, inasmuch as the motive power
does not consist of oxen or buffaloes, but of
the water itself, — the natural incline of the
country giving the canals a sufficient current
to enable them to turn these huge undershot
wheels, which are made of date-fibre, and on
which are fixed alternately earthen jars and
wooden paddles ; as they revolve, they groan
and strain under the pressure, as though some
mortal injury was being inflicted upon them.
It is not the harsh creaking of wood, but the
plaintive moan of over-stretched fibre ; and as
the whole province resounds with their lamen
tations, one almost feels inclined to pity It as
the victim of some serious nervous disorder.
There was something very weird in the sound
that first night, as with mournful cadence it
rose and fell in the still air, now sinking al
most to a sigh, now rising to a harsh scream ;
and my first impulse in the morning was to
go and Inspect the primitive mechanism which
thus fertilises the whole country with its never-
ending day and night rotation. As Medinet
el Fayoum is the great centre of water distrl-

10 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
butlon for the province, there are probably a
ereater number of these water-wheels collected
here than elsewhere, and the place is sur
rounded by a network of canals and rivulets
which encompass it at all seasons with a set
ting of the richest verdure, and have made its
orchards and gardens the theme of the travel
ler and historian from the earliest times. All
this is due to the Bahr Youssef, or " river of
Joseph," which is, in fact, a branch of the
Nile, diverted from that river at Slout, and
which, after a tortuous course of upwards of
two hundred miles along the base of the
Libyan hills and parallel with the Nile, takes
advantage of a depression in the chain, and is
conducted by sluices at Illahoon into the pro
vince — flowing through the town of Medinet
in a broad deep stream until It reaches Its
northern end, when it is dammed across and
diverted Into seven different channels and
ceases to be navigable. Before this occurs,
however, numerous minor canals and sakkyas
keep robbing it of its water ; and just outside
our place of abode, which was at the entry to
the town, three considerable streams, all turn
ing water-wheels, diverged from it into the

THE ARSINOITE NOME. II
country. Many traditions connect Joseph In
the popular mind with this river and city ;
but nothing definite upon the subject has
been discovered. A Copt told me that the
Fayoum was the creation of Joseph when
Pharaoh gave him. pleins pouvoirs to deal with
the famine. That he then conceived the idea
of diverting the waters of the Nile into this
natural depression, and turned what had for
merly been a marsh into a most fertile pro
vince ; and a further tradition exists to the
effect that he was burled here, and that it
was from this neighbourhood that his body
was removed by the Jews at the time of the
exodus. Unfortunately for the Copt's story,
evidence of the strongest kind exists to show
that the Fayoum was a flourishing province
many hundred years before Joseph's time, to
which I shall presently allude. It does not,
however, follow ithat Joseph had nothing to
do with perfecting the irrigation works con
nected with the river which is called after
him. There is generally some foundation for
names and traditions of this sort ; and it Is
probable that the Israelites — who were not
slow to discover the most available spots for

12 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
their industry — when they came to Egypt,
settled at some subsequent period in the
Fayoum as well as in Goshen ; for It is said
of the children of Israel after Joseph's death,
that they " multiplied and waxed exceeding
mighty, and the land was filled with them."
Indeed, Leo Africanus says, in his descrip
tion of this locality, — " The ancient city was
built by one of the Pharaohs on an elevated
spot, near a small canal from the Nile, at the
time of the exodus of the Jews, after he had
afflicted them with the drudgery of hewing
stones, and other laborious employments,"
thus establishing a connection between the
Jews and the Fayoum ; though I think there
can be no doubt that the ancient city, the
remains of which still strew the neighbour
hood, existed here long anterior to the period
of the Jewish exodus.
Before, however, entering upon a descrip
tion of the antiquities of the Fayoum, it may
be Interesting to note the modern aspect of
the province and its capital. There can be
no doubt that in ancient days the cultivable
area of the oasis was much greater than It is
at present, as the Indications of a town and

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 13
Irrigation works near the ruins of Kasr Kha-
roon, at the south-western extremity of the
Birket el Kurlin, where it is now a desert,
abundantly testify. At the present day it
measures twenty-three miles north and south,
and twenty-eight miles east and west. The
town of Medinet el Fayoum is situated on a
plateau which is about the same level as the
Nile. From here the country trends rapidly
to the Birket el Kuriin, which Is, according to
Linant, 94 feet below the level of the Medi
terranean, thus falling about 1 70 feet In fifteen
miles. The Birket el Kurun is a lake of
brackish water, about thirty-five miles long
and seven broad ; and into this drain fall the
waters of the Bahr Youssef, after they have
fertilised the whole area of the province. The
result is, that the country is intersected by
numerous more or less swiftly-running streams,
which, cutting through the soft soil, often form
little gorges of great beauty and luxuriance, as
at the village of Fidlmin, where they overflow
their dams in cascades — a scenic feature un
known in any other part of Egypt. Where
these dams exist there are often little lakes,
embowered in palm-groves and gardens, thus

14 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
giving the Fayoum a pre-eminence, so far as
beauty of landscape is concerned, over every
other part of the country. Strabo was evi
dently much struck with the exceptional fer
tility and beauty of the Fayoum.
" The Arsinoite Nome," he says in his
account of the Nomes of Egypt, " Is the most
remarkable of all, both on account of its
scenery and its fertility and cultivation ; for
It alone is planted with large, perfect, and
richly productive olive-trees — and the oil is
good when carefully prepared. Those who
are neglectful may, indeed, obtain oil in abun
dance, but it has a bad smell. In the rest of
Egypt the olive - tree is never seen, except
in the gardens of Alexandria, where, under
favourable circumstances, they yield olives,
but no oil. Vines, corn, podded plants, and
many other products, also thrive in this dis
trict In no small abundance."
Olive-oil seemed to hold an exceptionally
high rank in the estimation of the old his
torian ; but persons of other tastes will find
here In the season a profusion of figs, oranges,
apricots, and other fruits, which will equally
justify the reputation of the province for pro-

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 15
ductiveness. Twenty years ago Its beauty
was even greater than it is now. The gar
dens that had made it celebrated throughout
Europe had latterly gradually been allowed to
run waste, owing to the extreme severity of
the taxation with which this province was
afflicted during the rdgime of the late Khedlve.
The peasants were thus Impoverished to such
an extent that the province stood a fair chance
of being ruined, and its fertility of being de
stroyed, when the change of government took
place under which it has begun to prosper
with surprising rapidity. Unfortunately, one
of its main and most attractive staples of in
dustry has disappeared; through no fault, how
ever, of the Government. Fifteen years ago
Medinet was surrounded by fields of roses,
covering hundreds of acres ; and the inhabi
tants drove a profitable trade by the sale of
attar of roses. Durinsf the rose season the
town was the most fragrant residence in
Egypt. Unfortunately, the rose-trees were
attacked by a malady which has entirely
ruined the industry ; and although efforts
have since been made to renew it, they have
hitherto been without success. Sugar and

l6 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
cotton are now the principal products of the
province ; and fields of beans, lentils, wheat,
and other cereals stretch in all directions as
far as the eye can reach.
According to tradition, the Arsinoite Nome
contained in former days 366 towns and vil
lages, which, even supposing Its limits to have
far exceeded those that now exist, seems
an over-estimate. The present population is
probably about 150,000 souls, of whom 9000
live In the chief town. This, after establishing
ourselves In the quarters which had been kindly
provided for us, we lost no time in exploring.
It is the habit of dragomans to lay in
large supplies of food for the tourists they
nurse In the East. As, however, we had care
fully avoided providing ourselves with that
functionary, and had decided to live upon
the food of the country, with the aid of a
single servant ^ and our own culinary acquire
ments, it became important to discover what
meat and vegetables were furnished by the
bazaar. This consists of a long narrow street,
1 For the benefit of any of my readers who propose visiting
Egypt, I cannot too highly recommend this man, whose name
is Mohamet Achmet, as a servant. He is also qualified to act
as a dragoman.

THE ARSINOITE NOME. \^
for the most part covered over in the usual
way, and extremely characteristic and oriental
in its aspect. At one place the Bahr Youssef
runs under it, but there is nothing to suggest
that we are on a bridge, as it is completely
built over with shops. For the benefit of
future travellers, who want to know what
they may depend upon finding in an ordinary
Arab town of this description, I may say that
the staple of food is beans and lentils,^ — the
latter making a most excellent purde, and the
former, when eaten very young, almost equal
ling peas. Onions, yams, spinach, and ok'ra
are abundant ; rice and potatoes rare. Native
bread, made from the country wheat, would
be good, .were it not rather sour ; but we used
to make soda-cakes ; and after some trouble,
discovered a mill at which maize could be
ground rough instead of fine. This enabled
us to have mush, which, eaten with rich
cream, makes a delicious substitute for por
ridge. The land flows with milk and honey,
and there is no lack, therefore, of butter and
cream-cheeses. Beef Is not procurable ; the
mutton is bad, generally suspiciously pervaded
with the flavour of goat ; chickens are cheap

l8 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
and abundant — four dozen eggs can be bought
for a shilling ; and pigeons are elghtpence a-
pair. Fish In great quantities are brought
from the Birket el Kurun, resembling, gen
erally, very large carp. There is a prejudice
against them, and it is said they give fever ;
but I thought them excellent. Teal and wild
duck occasionally come into the market, and
cost about sixpence apiece. They are caught
by the hunter putting his head in a calabash
and wading out, accompanied by some tame
ducks as decoy ; he then scatters food on the
water, and when the wild ducks come to feed
round him, gently draws them under water
with his hand. As they always have a sen
tinel out, it is necessary in approaching them to
dispose of this gentleman first. The flock, not
noticing his disappearance, and completely off
their guard, may then be easily got at.
From all this it will appear that it was our
own fault if we failed to have proper nourish
ment at Fayoum. I vainly tried one day to
add to our larder with an extemporised fishing-
rod and a worm ; but beyond a dozen small
creatures, which collectively weighed about a
pound and a half, I extracted nothing from the

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 19
most tempting-looking pools under the water-
wheels : and as the cook declined to cook
them, on the ground that they were unwhole
some, I was discouraged from any further
effort. A more profitable occupation was to
wander over the ruins of the ancient city of
Crocodilopolis Arslnoe ; and this. was a never-
ending source of Interest and amusement. The
high mounds oi dibris, which cover an immense
area of ground, were scarcely a mile from our
abode, and consist of an enormous accumula
tion of potsherds, bones, bricks, rags, fibre, and
dust. The highest mound is fifty feet above the
level of the plain, and its summit commands a
panoramic view of the whole of the province.
It is impossible to describe the rich and
glowing beauty of the sunsets I have seen
from this spot. The extraordinary clearness
of the atmosphere brought out with the utmost
distinctness the most distant outline. In the
far east one could see the forms of the desert-
ranges beyond the Nile, faintly blushing in the
last rays of the sun. Nearer still, are the sand
hills of the desert on this side of the river,
with the Pyramids of Howara and Illahoon
standing out conspicuously ; then succeeds a

20 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
carpet of cultivation, to the brilliant green of
which the more sombre hues of the palm-
groves furnish a fitting contrast; amidst all
this luxuriance water Is sparkling and winding
everywhere. In the extreme western distance
we catch glimpses of the " Lake of the Horn,"
lying in the shadow of the Libyan hills ; while
in the immediate foreground the quaint ceme
tery and mud-houses of Medinet el Fayoum
which crown the hlo-h banks of the Bahr Yous-
sef, so uncouth and barbarous looking at other
times, are now all melted into a confused haze,
as the sun setting behind the town throws It
into a bluish-purple shadow, from which shoot
here and there a minaret or a palm-tree. After
we have feasted our eyes with the view from
the top of the mound, we go down to see what
is to be discovered at the bottom of it. We
find on one side that it Is scarped and perfectly
precipitous, and that it is apparently a huge
heap of ddbris. In which the pottery, bones,
rags, straw, and date-fibre are packed in layers
looking like strata. In places we see cropping
out the remains of old brick walls, still stand
ing wedged In the mound ; here and there they
are undermined by the labours of the peasants.

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 21
who come and scoop out the dust of ages which
fills these old chambers, and In which the pot
tery and bones are embedded. This they sift
and carry off" to put upon their fields as manure.
It Is a fine Impalpable powder, which gets into
one's nose and eyes, and penetrates into the
innermost recesses of one's garments ; never
theless we revel in it for the sake of the treas
ures which It may contain. Here at the base
of the mound we observe a protruding skull,
with short curly hair still clinging to it. We
make an Arab manure-sifter exhume the mor
tal remains, and find clinging to the legs the
wrappages of coarse linen. In which the whole
body was once swathed : the skin is tightly
drawn over the ribs, but none remains on the
face. As we grub in the cloud of dust raised
by this operation, we come across lumps of
soft yellow stuff", which turns out to be mummy-
cloth of a finer texture. Meantime another
Arab triumphantly hands us a piece oi papyrzcs,
which he has found somewhere else, and on
which, in spite of its tattered condition, we
can make out an invocation to Allah, in
Arabic letters of the style used in the first
century of the Hegira, which shows that It

22 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
cannot be above twelve hundred years old, —
a comparatively modern relic, which we treat
with contempt while grubbing amid the re
mains of the twelfth dynasty. At the same
time, we cannot flatter ourselves that what we
do discover dates back beyond the Roman, or,
at most, the Ptolemaic period. In the course
of five or six walks which we took over these
ruins, we picked up ourselves seven coins, of
which four were of the reigns of Vespasian,
Diocletian, Constantine, and Trajan. One was
a curious Cufic coin ; and we procured about
a dozen more from the Arabs, most of which
were undecipherable, but those we made out
were also Roman. Some of the pottery was
of a blue, green, or yellow glaze, the colours
remarkably brilliant ; but unfortunately we only
found it in fragments. Pieces of glass bottles
were common ; and I picked up one perfect
little phial of Iridescent glass, used by the
sympathetic ancients to contain tears. Beads
were comparatively abundant, and we made
quite an assortment of them. There were
numerous fragments of glass bracelets, un
fortunately none perfect. From the appear
ance and shape of the broken amphora, which

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 23
lay strewn around in great profusion, they
must have been of a great size ; and from one
spot we may look over hundreds of acres of
this shattered ware, testifying to the exten
sive use of pottery by the ancients. I pulled
out several large pieces of coloured cloth from
the base of this cliff of projecting ddbris, a hand-
broom made of date-fibre, and a key of curious
shape, heavily oxidised. From the great quan
tities of slag lying about in parts of these ruins.
It would seem as though the city had been
subjected at some time to the action of fire ;
and large fragments of blue glass were to
be found which had evidently undergone a
process of fusing. These, however, may have
been the runnings from the glass furnaces. It
is worthy of note, nevertheless, that a tradition
exists among the Copts, of the city having
been burnt by a besieging army, who tied
torches to the tails of cats and drove them
into the town.
The Arab diggers, who live in huts in the
neighbourhood of these ruins, occasionally pick
up valuable antiquities ; but they are too ignor
ant to know their worth, and it is painful to
think how many objects of interest they must

24 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
smash in the course of their excavations for
manure-dust. As it is, when they want to
build, they come here for bricks which have
stood the test of centuries ; and I saw one
man loading his donkey with large sun-dried
bricks, twenty inches long by nine wide, which
he was picking out of a wall just showing
through the mound. In one part of these
ruins there are numbers of chambers, built of
crude brick. In a very fair state of preservation ;
and it was in these that I found most of the
beads and coins. Besides bricks and pottery,
one now and then stumbles across a small
piece of marble carving, or some larger frag
ments of granite columns. In looking over
these chambers and mounds, we can trace the
difference between the Roman and Egyptian
periods. We see on the surface the strewn
pottery, glass-ware, and coins of the later time,
with here and there a few burnt bricks, which
were most probably Roman, as the Egyptians
rarely used them ; but as we get lower down
in our examination of the scarped cliff of ddbris,
we come upon all the evidences of Egyptian
structure, with bones and mummy-cloth more
abundant, and thicker layers of straw or fibre.

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 25
It was from the bottom of the cliff" that I pulled
out a fragment, at least a foot square, of what
must have been an ancient Egyptian fishing-
net. The crude brick walls which crop out from
the base of these mounds, and over which prob
ably a later town was built, are sometimes
curved or waving in their construction. The
whole description answered exactly to that
given by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, who says : —
" The use of crude bricks baked in the sun
was universal throughout the country, for pri
vate and for many public buildings ; and the
dry climate of Egypt was particularly suited to
those simple materials. They had the recom
mendation of cheapness, and even of durability ;
and those made 3000- years ago, whether with
or without straw, are even now as firm and fit
for use as when first put up In the reigns of
the Amenophis and Thotlnes, whose names
they bear. When made of the hill -mud or
alluvial deposit, they required straw to pre
vent their cracking ; but those formed of clay
(now called haybeK) taken from the torrent-beds
on the edge of the desert, held together with
out straw ; and crude brick walls frequently
had the additional security of a layer of reeds

26 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
or bricks, placed at intervals to act as binders.
The courses of bricks were also disposed occa
sionally in horizontal curves, or a succession
of concave and convex lines, throughout the
length of the wall ; and this undulating arrange
ment was even adopted in stone, especially in
quays by the river-side."
The modern cemetery of Medinet el Fay
oum, with its picturesque tombs, Is placed amid
these ruins at the point where they most nearly
approach the town.
The Egyptian monarch whose name Is most
intimately associated with this province, and to
whom it probably owed, in the first instance,
its development Into a region of exceptional fer
tility, was Amenemhat the Third, who reigned
In Egypt about 3000 years before Christ, and
600 years, therefore, before the arrival of Joseph
in the country. In those days Egypt was called
"the Land of Khemi," the "Ham" of the Bible,
or " the Black Country " — a name derived from
the blackness of the soil. Amenemhat seems
to have had a great talent for engineering, and
for irrigating this black soil in the most effec
tual manner. It is almost beyond a doubt that
he it was who led the Bahr Youssef through

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 27
the Libyan hills, and formed the vast reservoir
of Lake Moeris ; for the Greeks called him
Ameris, believing that the Lake Moeris, which
they regarded as a marvel of engineering skill,
was called after him. The word meri, how
ever. Is Egyptian for " lake." On its margin
was situated the famous labyrinth, which I
afterwards visited ; and here blocks of stone
have been found bearing the name of Amen
emhat. This lake extended to the city, the
ruins of which I have just described, and which
in those days was called Shat, or Pl-Sebek,
" the abode of Sebek ; " and it was the head
quarters of the worship of the sacred croco
dile, kept in Lake Mceris, — hence the name
by which this city was afterwards known, of
Crocodilopolis. Sebek is the name of the
Egyptian god, who is always represented with
the head of a crocodile ; and that reptile was
held especially sacred to him in the Arsinoite
and several other nomes. He was by no
means generally worshipped, however ; indeed
a certain Typhonic or Infernal character was
attributed to him. And this was specially the
case In the adjoining Heracleopolltan nome,
where the inhabitants worshipped the ichneu-

28 THE LAND OF KHEML
mon, the greatest enemy of the crocodile ; and
it was their hatred which finally caused the
destruction of the Labyrinth.
One of the most interesting antiquities, how
ever, discovered in the Fayoum, is the head of
one of the Hyksos, or shepherd-kings. From
the discoveries recently made at San, the Greek
Tanis, and the Biblical Zoan, which they made
their capital, and which was also the chief city
of the -land of Goshen, there can be little doubt
that these conquerors of Egypt were a Semitic
race from the East, and it is not impossible
that among their kinsfolk were Abraham and
Sarah, whose sojourn in the country forms the
earliest notice of it to be found in the Bible ;
more especially as it will be remembered that
Hagar, the patriarch's second wife, and his
daughter -in law, Ishmael's wife, were both
Egyptians. They ruled over the land for
nearly four centuries and a half, while the
exiled royal race took refuge in Upper Egypt.
They adopted the style, language, religion,
arts, and writing of the conquered country,
and according to Dr Brugsch, It was under
the reign of the Hyksos Pharaoh Nub, b.c.
1 730, that Joseph was sold into Egypt ; and

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 29
during the reign of his successor, ApopI, that
he rose to honour, and that the famine took
place which brought Jacob and his family to
Egypt, and which Is mentioned on a tomb at
El Kab. The tomb belonged to the father of
Aahmes, a naval officer who took part in the
expulsion of the Hyksos — an event which, as
Joseph lived to the age of a hundred and ten
years, must have occurred before his death.
It runs thus : " When a famine prevailed for
many years, then I gave the city corn during
each famine." As we learn from the Biblical
record that " Pharaoh made Joseph ruler over
all the land of Egypt " during these years, it
is evident that the father of Aahmes must
have been one of his subordinate officers.
The accounts given of the methods to which
Joseph resorted during these seven years of
famine for supplying the necessities of the
whole population of Egypt, whom he ulti
mately caused to sell all their lands to Pharaoh,
excepting only those belonging to the priests,
clearly warrant the inference that the Fayoum,
which was the most fertile portion of it, must
have come under his special notice as a gran
ary ; and the tradition that he was buried

30 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
there may have a foundation in fact. The
sacred historian is careful to tell us that when
Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years
old, " they embalmed him, and he was put in
a coffin in Egypt." There is, indeed, every
reason to suppose that so great a benefactor
to the country, and a man who had filled such
high office, was honoured with a tomb worthy
of his greatness. And although we are in
formed that at the exodus Moses took his
body to Palestine, the substantial character of
these monuments makes It not impossible that
his place of sepulture, and possibly a statue
representing him, may yet be discovered in
Egypt, and that the most likely place to find
It would be the Fayoum.
Like the Hyksos conquerors themselves. It
is probable that Joseph Identified himself with
the religion and customs of the Egyptians. We
learn that Pharaoh " gave him to wife Asenath,
the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On."
Potlphe-ra means " dedicated to Ra," or " the
sun." In other words, his father-in-law was
a priest of the temple at Heliopolis. The
Hyksos themselves, although they seem to
have compromised with their consciences by

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 31
applying the name of the Egyptian god Set
to their own gods (Baalim), were apparently
Baal-worshippers before coming to Egypt.
This indication of a Semitic origin has given
rise to the notion that the Hyksos may
have been Phoenicians, while others think
they were tribes from the Arabian desert.
There are many circumstances strongly con
ducing to such ideas, though the three heads
In the Boulak museum, the features of which
show remarkable power, are not, it must be
admitted, of a marked Semitic type ; and
the advice Joseph gave to his father and
brethren before they asked permission of the
shepherd-king to allow them to settle in Egypt,
has a most significant allusion to their dyn
astic appellation. " When Pharaoh," he says,
" shall call you, and shall say. What is your
occupation ? then ye shall say. Thy servants'
trade hath been about cattle from our youth
even until now, both we and also our fathers :
that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen ; for
every shepherd is an abomination unto the
Egyptians." Now Tanis, which the Hyksos
kings had made their capital, was in the land
of Goshen. Joseph, no doubt, resided In it.

32 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
and he wished his kindred to be settled near
him. He therefore appeals to the weak side
of the shepherd-king, who is himself Semitic
and not Egyptian by race, and gives as a
reason why they should live near the capital,
where, doubtless, the conquering Semitic popu
lation preponderated, that they are shepherds,
and that they would probably be ill-treated by
the Egyptians, who abominate shepherds. If
they went beyond the Immediate protection of
the ruling centre.
Pharaoh Is apparently completely won over
by the sympathy thus established of identity
of occupation, and probably of race. He gives
them the choice of the whole country to settle
in; and tells Joseph to choose from his brethren
" men of activity to rule over his cattle." It
is evident, then, that the Israelites were in
high favour at this time ; but a change must
have taken place in their circumstances al
most Immediately afterwards, when Aahmes
or Amosis, the first king of the eighteenth
dynasty, defeated the army of the Hyksos,
consisting, according to Manetho, of 24,000
men, took their capital, and drove a large pro
portion of them out of Egypt, most of them

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 33
retreating to Palestine, where they finally
settled, and, according to some authorities,
founded Jerusalem. Those who remained,
however, were subjected to great persecution,
in which the Israelites, who as Semites had
been identified with them, shared. The so
journ of the latter is said by St Paul to have
lasted four hundred years ; and the explana
tion of their having multiplied during that
period into a nation of 600,000 souls, may
perhaps be found in the fact that they had
mingled and become identified with those of
the Hyksos Semites that remained. Indeed
it Is recorded that when they left Egypt " a
mixed multitude went up also with them."
In opposition to the theory that I have here
enunciated, and which is advocated by many
eminent Egyptologists, in regard to the date
of the arrival of Joseph in Egypt, and the
period of the sojourn of the Israelites, it is
only right to say that it is a point which is
still open to discussion, and that such men as
Bunsen and Lepsius maintain widely opposite
opinions. Bunsen holds that the family of
Jacob came to Egypt in the reign of Seser-
tesen (Sesostris), about 2650 years before
c

34 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Christ ; and since he agrees with Lepsius In
placing the exodus in the reign of Meneptah,
he allows an interval of 1440 years to elapse
between Joseph and the exodus, or more than
fourteen centuries. Lepsius, however, enters
upon an elaborate and most carefully digested
argument to prove that only about 90 years
Intervened from the entrance of Jacob to the
exodus of Moses, and about as much from the
entrance of Abraham into Canaan to Jacob's
exodus ; so that from Abraham to Moses only
about 180, or, if we wish to make the most of
it, 215 years passed, which alone, according
to this calculation, are reckoned from Abraham
to Jacob. Josephus maintains that the Hyksos
were the Jews ; and it Is a curious fact that
the Hyksos reigned in Egypt exactly 430
years, the period mentioned in Exodus as that
of the sojourn of the children of Israel in
Egypt; but Josephus dates his 430 years
from the arrival of Abraham in Egypt, and
leaves 215 years as the period intervening
between Joseph and Moses. Now we know
by the genealogies that Moses was the grand
son of Levi by his mother Jochebed,^ and
^ Exodus vi. 20.

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 35
therefore the grand-nephew of Joseph. Levi,
who was Jacob's third son, must have been a
middle-aged man when he came to Egypt, as
we are told that Joseph was thirty when his
brethren arrived. He died when he was a
hundred and thirty-seven years old. Moses
was eighty years old when he led the children
of Israel out of Egypt. In order to make up
the 215 years of Josephus, we should have to
suppose that Levi had been seventy years in
the country, and was therefore probably about
a hundred and twenty years old when Jochebed
was born, and that she was sixty-five years
old when she conceived Moses — both some
what extreme assumptions. Under no cir
cumstances, without a miracle, such as took
place in the case of Sarah, can we stretch
the period to the 430 years of Exodus, or the
400 of St Paul. It is worthy of note that,
according to the Septuagint, the period of 430
years is not calculated from the entry of Jacob
and his family, but from the entrance of Abra
ham into Canaan. It reads thus : " Now the
dwelling of the children of Israel, which they
dwelt in the land of Egypt and in the land of
Canaan, was 430 years ; " but it is difficult

36 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
to extend the generations from Abraham to
Moses, even to that extent. The whole sub
ject is encompassed with difficulty. As a con
temporary record, the account which Manetho
gives of the exodus is full of interest, as con
taining the Egyptian version of the expulsion
of the Lepers, as he calls the Jews ; and indeed
he insinuates that they had become a public
nuisance, not only from the disease which was
prevalent among them, but from the hold they
had got upon the country, and their ever-in
creasing influence and possessions In It.
Egyptologists generally seem agreed that it
was under the reign of Rameses the Great that
Moses was born ; and it is an Interesting fact
that the second court of the Temple of Abydos
furnishes us with the name of the daughter of
Pharaoh who found him In the bulrushes. All
the names of the daughters of Rameses are
inscribed there, and that of the eldest bears
so close a similarity to the name furnished by
Josephus, allowing for the Greek termination
which he uses, as to leave no moral doubt as
to their identity. The name given by Josephus
is Mautaretis ; that inscribed in the chamber
of Abydos is Maut-Art, or the great mother —

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 37
thus furnishing a curious confirmation of the
truth of the narrative. According to the frag
ment of Manetho, Moses passed the early part
of his life as a priest in the temple dedicated
to the worship of the sun at Heliopolis. The
notice is curious, and runs as follows : " It Is
said that a priest who founded their (the Jews')
•polity and laws — a Heliopolltan by race, named
Osarsiph — when he went over to this nation
from the service of the god Osiris in Helio
polis, received a change of name and was called
Moses." I have already alluded to Joseph's
connection with the same temple ; and it is not
unlikely that during the whole of this time the
Israelites had, to some extent, conformed to
the religion of the country with which both
Joseph and Moses were so intimately associ
ated, and in which the latter, with his great
talents, had probably distinguished himself by
his priestly learning. Indeed It would seem
as though his theology, even after he became
lawgiver to the Israelites, had been imbued
with this early training. It is a singular and
interesting fact that we find much of it em
bodied in the early funereal papyri. Thus the
departed soul, pleading his justification before

38 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Osiris, recounts the temptations he has resisted
in such words as these : " I have not committed
murder ; I have not stolen ; I have not com
mitted adultery; I have not removed my neigh
bour's landmark, nor caused him to shed tears,"
— and so on, developing a moral code of a very
high order. It was as a general, however, that
Moses rose to the highest distinction ; for Jo
sephus tells that he was placed by Rameses
in command of the Egyptian armies In Ethio
pia, where he waged a successful war, and
married the daughter of the king whom he
had conquered, returning to Egypt in the reign
of Meneptah. He was thus a man of varied
experience, of great learning, and of high posi
tion In Egypt when he was compelled to flee
to Midian, returning at the age of eighty, emi
nently qualified by the training he had under
gone for the functions he was then called upon
to fulfil.
It was under Meneptah the Second that the
exodus took place, about the year B.C. 1325.
He does not seem to have perished in the Red
Sea, though, according to the song of Moses,
his horse was lost. His tomb is at Thebes, In
the Bab el Molook, immediately behind that

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 39
of Rameses the Great. At the same time,
this does not furnish absolute proof that he
was placed in it, as the Egyptian kings used
to commence to build their tombs when they
began to reign. I have been led by the dis
covery of the head of a Hyksos king In the
Fayoum, and the traditional connection of
Joseph with that province, into a digression
which only belongs to It in so far as it goes to
establish the possibility of his tomb being here,
and to confirm the impression, also evidently
entertained by Leo Africanus, that the Jews
were settled here as well as in the land of
Goshen, as it must have been for more than
400 years under Semitic rule.
The oasis Is next mentioned in the days of
Osorkon the First, of the twenty-second dy
nasty, when Crocodilopolis was so embellished
and extended by that monarch, that it was
called " the city of Osorkon" in the celebrated
stele of Piankhi. This Osorkon was the Zerah
of the Bible, who invaded Palestine with an
army of a million of men, and was defeated by
Asa. He lived about 950 years before Christ.
Seven hundred years after this, Crocodilopolis
lost its uncouth name, and Ptolemy Phlla-

40 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
delphus bestowed upon it the more eupho
nious appellation of Arslnoe, after his wife,
and the " Land of the Lake " became " the .
Arsinoite Nome." One of the modern names
for Medinet el Fayoum is Medinet el Faris, or
"the City of the Horseman or Knight;" and
these ruins, after having been called succes
sively Pi-Sebek, Crocodilopolis, and Arsinoe,
are known in the present day to the natives as
Kom Faris. The most perfect relics of the
magnificence of this once rich and populous
city are to be found in the mosque of Kalt
Bey, which spans the Bahr Youssef, at the
point where it finally emerges from the town,
and which is itself a most picturesque ruin,
about 400 years old. It has long since lost its
roof, and from its centre, by the side of a well
with an old stone basin, rise two tall date-trees;
but the marble and granite columns, with their
Corinthian capitals, which are all still standing,
came from Arslnoe. There are two small fluted
marble columns near the pulpit, which are parti
cularly delicate and beautiful. The pulpit itself
is an elaborate work of arabesque, inlaid with
ivory. On the bridge in front of this mosque
are the remains of an old wall ; and the view

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 41
of the Bahr Youssef, seen through the crum
bling arches, as it winds away under the date-
trees which fringe its banks, when the women
are filling their water-jars. Is one of the most
striking in the town, and equalled only, per
haps, by one a little further on, where there
is another old mosque, also roofless, and also
ornamented with columns plundered from Ar
slnoe, that stands on the brink of the river,
and is irresistible in its situation and pictur
esque decay, from an artistic point of view.
Indeed our walks and rides about Fayoum
were being perpetually interrupted by the
charming studies for the pencil which they
presented ; and we spent half our time squat
ting on heaps of brickbats, surrounded by ad
miring crowds of women and children, in the
attempt to carry away In our sketch - books
reminiscences of the scenes which it afforded
us so much enjoyment to discover. One of
the most characteristic and Interesting of these
was the fair, which takes place every Tuesday,
when a large proportion of the country popula
tion flock to Medinet, to buy and sell produce.
There must have been nearly 2000 people
assembled on the large open space outside the

42 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
town, on the day that we visited it. In one
quarter were collected all the camels, buffaloes,
oxen, donkeys, and sheep, that were for sale.
Down the centre of the most crowded part a
temporary street of canvas-booths had been
erected, where Manchester goods were tempt
ingly displayed : here the country-women were
chaffering for the blue cotton, of which their
garments are made ; Bedouins from the neigh
bourhood of the Birket, with their independent
swagger, were supplying themselves with cook
ing utensils in the quarter devoted to copper
and brass ware ; there were Copts, with quite
a different cast of countenance, and crushed
and downcast manner, haggling and bargain
ing, with the facility of getting the best of It
which is peculiar to them. Here was a man
blowing a trumpet as an invitation to a peep-
show ; there a crdtin, with receding skull, epi
leptic tremor, and idiotic stare, receiving the
homage of the unsophisticated fellahin, who
kissed his hand as a tribute to his infirmity.
Altogether it was an insecty, odoriferous,
screaming, wrangling, jostling throng, to shoul
der one's way amongst. There was no mis
take about the oriental flavour, In more senses

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 43
than one. And the satisfaction of our curiosity
and interest Involved a certain sacrifice of per
sonal comfort, as we came to discover after
wards, during an arduous and protracted effort
to reduce the numbers of the hopping memen
toes of our visit.
Mere existence, and, much more, sight-see
ing, in Egypt, Involves a perpetual struggle
with fleas ; and one goes into a crowd with
about the same shiver of reluctance that one
would feel before taking a plunge into the
Serpentine In the depth of winter. These
were our sensations one Sunday when we
determined to attend service in the Coptic
church. We were escorted thither by some
of the leading members of the community,
who are largely employed here, as elsewhere
in Egypt, as clerks in the pubHc office —
writers, accountants, and so forth. The church
was a square building, supported by eight
columns, and divided by two screens running
across it longitudinally. Behind one, which
was of open arabesque work, sat the women
by themselves. In the centre the male con
gregation for the most part squatted on their
heels ; but there were two rows of chairs In

44 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
front provided for the more aristocratic por
tion of the congregation, where we were
furnished with seats. Immediately in front
of us was an opaque screen, ornamented with
rude Scripture pictures, and consisting of in
laid ebony and ivory, that divided us from the
apse. In the middle of it was an opening
through which was visible the altar, a massive
brick erection, upon which a sheep might have
been conveniently sacrificed. It was now
covered with a curtain, upon which the Coptic
cross, with its peculiar pendent squares, was
designed. In the centre of it was the case, also
covered, which contained the chalice. In the
midst of the congregation was a reading-desk,
at which two of the deacons read from the lit
urgy, alternately in Coptic and Arabic. This
was removed before the service was completed.
The congregation, which was composed of four
or five hundred persons, was decidedly Irrever
ent ; there was a constant movement of places
and subdued conversation going on all the
while that the priests were intoning the ser
vice in the rapid nasal voice peculiar to them.
It was a form that apparently had to be got
through by the priests In as little time as

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 45
possible, and by the people with no attention
whatever. The sacrament was celebrated by
a priest in a white surplice embroidered with
gold, but who, according to invariable usage,
was barefoot. When the celebration began
we were allowed to take off" our shoes and
take a couple of chairs into the apse and seat
ourselves beside the altar. There were be
sides ourselves and the priest two or three
youths, apparently neophytes, and three little
boys leaning over the altar opposite the cele
brant, one to fan the flies off", and the others
to chant responses : at the door of the apse
was a man swinging incense. Four candles
were burning on the altar, and a very old
chandelier hung from the roof During the
whole time that the priest chanted the ser
vice he held extended In either hand a square
piece of richly embroidered cloth, emblazoned
with the cross and sundry Coptic devices.
The bread, on which was stamped a cross,
consisted of a substantial cake, something like
a hot cross bun, and when the priest took it,
one like It was handed to each of us, apparently
as a keepsake. Having broken it into a glass
saucer and elevated it before the congrega-

46 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
tlon, he uncovered the wine, dipped his finger
into it and crossed the bread. He then com
menced to partake of the bread, giving It at
the same time to a young man by his side,
and to a child about seven years old, who
walked incessantly round the altar with a
candle In his hand and a square embroidered
cloth held to his mouth. Every time he
passed the priest he stopped, received a
mouthful, and then started off" again with the
cloth held tightly to his mouth, continuing his
walk until the bread was finished. I asked a
young Copt the meaning of this child's per
formances, and he said he was, " like Samuel,
training for the priesthood from his infancy."
All this time, when the priest was not Inton
ing, a group of four boys outside in the church
were chanting the responses in Arabic, In a
loud discordant key, in alternation with those
within the apse, who chanted In Coptic. It
was a wild Arabic cadence, which sounded
strangely In connection with a Christian ser
vice, and with the constantly recurring refrain
of " Kyrle Eleison." When the bread and
wine were disposed of, and the vessels di
vested of the last crumb and drop, the chalice

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 47
was filled with water and handed to us, so
that we, together with those so minded, might
partake of it. After the service was over we
adjourned to an enclosed court outside the
church where there was a divan, and where
we were regaled with coffee and cigarettes,
and introduced to the old priest who had
officiated, and who had so gentle and winning
an expression of countenance, that I was led
to hope that his religion consisted of some
thing beyond the forms I had been witness
ing. There is a small Roman Catholic Church
in Medinet, which we also visited, and where
an Italian curd, who was unfortunately absent,
officiates to a congregation of about fifty per
sons, mostly converts or their descendants.
He is the only European permanently resi
dent in the place. The Protestant American
Mission opened a school here not long ago ;
but it was so badly supported, and their
efforts met with so little success, that it was
abandoned after a short time.
The Copt population of the province of
Fayoum Is about 5000 ; of these a large pro
portion are fellahin. Those in the town, as
I have already said, are for the most part

48 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
scribes, and after going to their church, I
am inclined to think may also be Pharisees.
During our stay in the Fayoum we saw a
good deal of the mudir or governor, and one
or two of the other officials, to whom we were
much indebted for various acts of kindness.
For the last ten years the Fayoum has been
administered with marked success by the pre
sent governor, who has, in consequence, held
his position for an almost unprecedented length
of time. The mode of administering an Egyp
tian province Is in some respects patriarchal.
The mudir is, or should be, easy of access to
the humblest fellah ; and if he Is a capable
man, can exercise the functions of a benevo
lent despot without let or hindrance. On the
other hand, the power thus at his disposition
may easily be, and often is, abused. Once a-
week the sheikhs of villages used to congre
gate In the avenue leading to the Government
offices. As a rule, they were tall handsome
men, and formed striking groups, in their
black flowing abeihs, beneath which the white
under-garment folded across the chest shows
in strong and harmonious contrast. With all
these men the governor was In direct and

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 49
constant contact, and was thus in a position
to know the exact condition of every village
in his mudirate. Sometimes he would ad
dress them collectively, after receiving their
various reports ; and on occasions of disputes
or complaints, groups of the lowest class of
fellahin might be seen waiting for their
audience. This same avenue was on certain days of
the week the resort of numerous letter-writers,
who, seated on the ground under the trees,
would draw up petitions or write letters for
those who could not do so for themselves ;
here, too, were pitched the tents of the party
who are making a cadastral survey of the pro
vince under Colonel Mason, to whose hospi
tality we were indebted for a tent on the first
night of our arrival. As this avenue was also
the approach to our own rooms, we were In a
position to know pretty well what was going
on generally. Nor was Fayoum without its
dissipations. One evening we dined out and
accomplished the feat of steadily wading with
our fingers, in the absence of plates or knives
and forks, through fifteen elaborately cooked
native dishes, which had been prepared In the
D

50 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
harem by the ladles of our host, who were
skilled in the culinary art. As the plats were,
not cooked dry, but consisted of cunningly
prepared gravies and sauces, fingers seemed
especially Inadequate, even with the aid of
bread, to secure satisfactory mouthfuls. How
ever, as we had so many to do justice to, a
little of each went a long way. Turkish and
Arabic cookery errs perhaps on the side of
being too greasy ; but I confess I prefer it
to any other, perhaps because I acquired the
taste for it in my youth.
We had now pretty well exhausted the
attractions of the town of Medinet, and de
termined to make some expeditions to such
objects of interest In the Fayoum as were
within our power. There were a prostrate
obelisk and some curious ruins still to be seen
within an easy distance of the town, but we
had more especially set our hearts upon visit
ing the Pyramid of Howara, and the far-famed
Labyrinth which, in the days of Herodotus,
was numbered among the seven wonders of
the world, and the ruins of which have lately
been discovered by Linant Bey, upon the
shores of the dried-up Lake Moeris. Indeed

THE ARSINOITE NOME. 51
the two great attractions which had Induced
me to visit the Arsinoite Nome consisted in
the prospect that it afforded of exploring
the mysteries of the Labyrinth, and of fish
ing in the brackish waters of the Birket el
KurCin.

52

CHAPTER II.
THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES.
The most striking object which meets the eye
from the summit of the highest mound of ruin
of the ancient city of Arsinoe, is the Pyramid
of Howara, distant about five miles as the
crow flies from the modern town of Medinet
el Fayoum, but considerably farther by the
road, — If the narrow paths which traverse the
fields can be called roads, — ^for the country is
so intersected by canals, that one Is frequently
obliged, in riding, to make long detours in
search of a bridge. As our capacity for endur
ing fatigue was somewhat limited, we deter
mined, under these circumstances, to make the
expedition In a boat — a mode of locomotion
not usually employed in the Fayoum. There
are, indeed, only about fourteen miles of navi
gable river, the sluices at Illahoon barring all

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 53
farther progress eastwards, and the subdivision
of the Bahr Youssef at Medinet into numerous
minor canals blocking it by dams and water-
wheels in all directions. I held converse with
the head of the boating fraternity on the feasi
bility of my project, and found that ten heavy
barges and two small boats composed the
entire carrying capacity of the river. The
barges are used for conveying manure to the
fields adjoining the canal, and bringing their
produce to the town. I inspected the small
boats, and having selected the one which was
least old and leaky, had her cleaned, and an
awning put up in the stern. I am thus par
ticular in describing the boating resources of
the canal, because I was misled by the glowing
description of Monsieur Lenoir,^ in an account
which he gives of a hurried visit to the Fay
oum, and its chief town, of the general accuracy
of which his description of Its commerce may
serve as an illustration :
" Boats and immense barges," he says, "are
moored as far as the eye can reach along its
brick quays, which come hither to obtain grain
and straw, the produce of the last harvest.
1 Le Fayoum, Sinai, et Petra, par Paul Lenoir.

54 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Numberless caravans compete with this navi
gation transport, and serve to connect Medinet
with Cairo."
Out of the twelve boats and barges which
exist, I never saw more than two fastened to
the river-bank at one time. " The brick quays
along which they are moored as far as the eye
can reach," exist entirely In the writer's imag
ination ; and It Is evident, as the canal is only
navigable for about fourteen miles in an exactly
opposite direction to that of Cairo, which is
about seventy miles distant, that the " number
less caravans" have not much reason to fear
competition. It Is true that in former years,
during the inundation, boats came up from the
Nile by the El Magnoun canal to Illahoon,
where produce was transferred from the barges
from Medinet; but this route has long been
discontinued, and there is now no connection
between Illahoon and Cairo, excepting by fol
lowing the tortuous course of the Bahr Yous
sef up to Slout, which would involve a circuit
of nearly 500 miles. As a matter of fact, the
produce of the Fayoum goes to Cairo neither
by camel nor boat, but by railway. Sails are
not used by this magnificent fleet of boats and

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 55
barges, and masts are only erected for towing
purposes. It was on a warm lovely morning in Feb
ruary that we spread ourselves on the carpet
at the stern of the boat, and, towed by two
sturdy fellahin, made our way against the
current at the rate of about three miles an
hour. As there Is no regular towing-path,
our progress is constantly impeded by over
hanging trees, by projecting sakkyas, by the
walls of mud-villages, which occasionally rise
straight out of the water ; and our trackers
are sometimes wading waist-deep, sometimes
running far into the bean -fields to turn the
corners of creeks — sometimes one side be
comes impossible, and we have to take them
on board and transfer them to the opposite
bank ; but in spite of all this, they push along
with so much energy that we pass rapidly one
or two old barges laden to the water's edge
with manure-dust, but which are an extremely
picturesque feature in the landscape — though,
in so far as age and shape are concerned, they
might advantageously figure in a museum of
Egyptian antiquities. The banks are just too
high to prevent our seeing much of the country

56 , THE LAND OF KHEMI.
over them, but they furnish us with glimpses
of peasant life as we glide past the little mud-
villages on their margin, where the women are
engaged in their perpetual occupation of wash
ing and filling their M^ater-jars, or, squatted
opposite the dead wall of a house, are jerking
to and fro a goat -skin bag containing milk,
with a view in this primitive fashion of con
verting it into butter, and where half- naked
men are standing in rows opposite each other
as if they were going to dance Sir Roger de
Coverley, when suddenly they fall to with pon
derous flails, and thrash out the corn, accom
panying their blows with a measured and not
unmusical chant. Buffaloes, blindfolded in
order that they may be spared a conscious
ness of the monotonous nature of their occu
pation, as they tramp slowly round in a circle,
are grinding it, after it has been thrashed, in
creaking mills, above which flocks of pigeons
flutter round their quaint conical towers.
Water is being dipped out of the canal by
men In pairs working the double -lever sha
doofs, who laboriously swing up and down
the long bars weighted with mud at one end
and with a basket-work bucket at the other.

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 57
Naked children of the tenderest years are pad
dling in the mud, or screaming with a virulence
and pertinacity peculiar to the Arab infant.
Amid these sights and sounds we glide gently
through the rich country; and when from time
to time we land, it is to look over an inter
minable expanse of wheat, beans, lentils, and
clover, with here and there dark groves of
date-trees clustered round villages on distant
mounds. The whole country is lulled into a
luxury of repose, which the lowing of cattle,
the wail of the water-wheels, and the hum of
distant voices seem rather to enhance than to
disturb ; and our noiseless mode of travel is
in keeping with the universal calm. In fact
there is a sort of Sunday feeling in the very
air of Egypt, which the sleepy agricultural
operations of the peasantry are too placid to
destroy. After we had proceeded thus for
about an hour and a half, we landed to in
spect a massive embankment which had been
erected by the ancients, but had been renewed
in more modern times to prevent the Bahr
Youssef in seasons of inundation from burst
ing into the broad ravine of the Bahr Bela Ma,
or " river without water" — most appropriately

58 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
SO called, for It was a wide dry wady about a
hundred yards across, with precipitous banks
thirty feet high — that cuts through the whole
length of the Fayoum, winding away by the
raofored bed the floods have cut for it in the
course of the overflows of ages to the north
west, till It reaches the village of Tamiyeh,
where it is dammed up Into a small lake or
reservoir, which discharges its superfluous
waters Into the Birket el Kurun. In ancient
times it is probable that this ravine, as well as
another as gigantic, the Bahr Nazlet, which
runs to the south-west, was used to carry off
the waters of Lake Moeris. These.two wadies,
with villages perched on the cliffs which form
their banks, form a striking feature in the
scenery of the Fayoum.
So long as the Bahr Youssef remains In the
valley of the Nile, skirting the base of the
Libyan hills, it Inundates the country like its
parent stream ; but when It has passed the
sluices of Illahoon and entered the Fayoum,
It is brought under control, and only allowed
to flow into the numerous wadies which are
dry at other seasons. Sometimes, however, it
bursts its restraining banks, and rushes into a

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 59
new channel, scooping out the mud and form
ing the bed of a broad river. This had been
the case with the Bahr Bela Ma, though at
what date the embankment had been last re
newed the boatmen were unable to tell me.
At all events, its invasion upon that occasion
involved a dike of great length and solidity,
and must have been a work of great expense.
Soon after this the current became swifter,
and the dolce far niente we had enjoyed to
such perfection was rudely Interrupted ; a
sakkya projecting Into the river where It was
unusually narrow, forced It into quite a little
rapid, the tow-rope got entangled with the
water-wheel, and the mast gave way and came
down with the run, breaking the rotten thwarts
of the boat as she broached to the current,
which swept us down sideways till we stuck
on a friendly bank. There was an immense
amount of shouting and wading before we
repaired damages and got under way again,
but the Bahr Youssef had become a lively
stream, and our progress was slow : we were,
in fact, ascending to the level of the highest
plateau of the Fayoum, and before long we
came to a worse rapid than the last, where

6o THE LAND OF KHEMI.
our men, unwarned by the previous disaster,
allowed the same thing to happen to us.
Fortunately we were not far from the village
of Howara, the sheikh of which had been
notified of our arrival the day before ; and he
appeared just at this juncture, accompanied
by a large proportion of the male population
of the village, and the donkeys upon which
we were to ride to the Pyramid. We there
fore determined to leave the boat to find its
way up the next rapid without us, till it
reached the spot nearest the Pyramid, where
we Intended to re-embark, while we started
off along the banks on donkey -back. We
now soon began to observe evidences of an
tiquity ; and these were of especial interest
when we reached the ten - arched bridee of
Kanatir el Agami. This spans a dry culti
vated wady, in which is a grove of date-trees ;
but in ancient times it was the main channel
by which the waters of the Bahr Youssef were
conducted into Lake Mceris. The ancient
buttresses of the bridge rest on foundations
of massive stone ; and the embankment that
now prevents the river from flowing Into its
old channel is very solid, and bears the marks

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 6l
of extreme age. We rode along It until we
reached the Katasanta structure, which con
sists of a terrace of six carefully-jointed steps
of large and well-hewn blocks, but bears no
inscription whatever : it no doubt formed part
of the artificial limits of Lake Moeris. Then
we crossed the Bahr Wardani, a deep stream
flowing out of the Bahr Youssef, also an
ancient channel of the river into the lake,
and called by the Arabs the Bahr es Sherki,
or " River of the East." We turned sharply
after crossing it, and followed its left bank ;
then traversing a hot little bit of desert, we
reached our destination, after a journey of
three hours and a half from Medinet. The
first view of the Labyrinth was eminently
disappointing, and consisted of nothing but
mounds of ruins. However, in the midst of
these we came upon the traces of what prob
ably was once a temple of some magnificence,
though all that now remains of it are some
large blocks of granite and limestone, and the
shaft and capital of a papyrus column with
traces of sculpture. Some blocks here have
been disinterred, which are now covered with
sand, bearing the name of Amenemhat III.

62 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Traversing this waste of ruin, we reached the
base of the Pyramid of Howara, and found a
cool spot in its shade in which to lunch, prior
to a more minute examination of the sur
rounding objects. We began already to feel,
however, that our imaginations had been un
duly excited by the descriptions of the writers
of antiquity by whom they had been visited.
I venture to quote the accounts given by
Herodotus and Strabo of the interesting spot
upon which we now found ourselves ; for al
though comparatively so little met the eye,
it is Impossible not to feel convinced that the
sand-hills which we were investigating conceal
substantial remains, yet to be discovered, of
one of the most marvellous monuments of
ancient grandeur and ingenuity of which we
have any record. Herodotus writes : —
" I have seen this monument ; and I be
lieve that if one were to unite all the build
ings and all the works of the Greeks, they
would yet be inferior to this edifice, both in
labour and expense, although the temples
of Ephesus and Samos are justly celebrated.
Even the Pyramids are certainly monuments
which surpass their expectation, and each one

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 6^
of them may be compared with the greatest
productions of the Greeks. Nevertheless,
the Labyrinth is greater still. We find In
Its interior twelve roofed azilcs, the doors of
which are alternately opposite each other.
Six of these aulis face to the north, and six
to the south : they are contiguous to one
another, and encircled by an enceinte, formed
by an exterior wall. The chambers that the
buildings of the Labyrinth contain are all
double, one underground and the other built
above it. They number 3000, 1500 in each
level. We traversed those that are above
ground, and we speak of what we have seen ;
but for those which are below, we can only
say what we were told, for on no account
whatever would the guardians consent to
show them to us. They say that they con
tain the tombs of the kings who in ancient
times built the Labyrinth, and those of the
sacred crocodiles, so that we can only report
on these chambers what we have heard. As
to those of the upper storey, we have seen
nothinsf greater among- the works of man.
The infinite variety of the corridors and the
galleries which communicate with one an-

64 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Other, and which one traverses before arriving
at the atilcB, overwhelm with surprise those
who visit these places, and who pass now
from one of the aulcs into the chambers which
surround it, now from one of these chambers
into the porticoes, or again from the porticoes
into the other aiilce. The ceilings are every
where of stone, like the walls, and these walls
are covered with numberless figures engraved
in the stone. Each one of these atdce is orna
mented with a peristyle executed in white
stone, perfectly fitted. At the angle where
the Labyrinth terminates there Is a pyramid
240 feet in height, decorated with large
figures sculptured in relief There Is an
underground passage of communication with
this pyramid."
Strabo, who visited the Labyrinth hundreds
of years later, was no less struck with the
magnificence and design of this wonderful
structure. " There is also," he says, " the Labyrinth
here, a work as important as the Pyramids,
adjoining which Is the tomb of the king who
built the Labyrinth. After advancing about
thirty or forty stadia beyond the first entrance

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 65
of the canal, there is a table-shaped surface on
which rise a small tower and a vast palace,
consisting of as many royal dwellings as there
were formerly nomes. There is also an equal
number of halls bordered with columns and
adjoining each other, all being in the same
row and forming one building, like a long
wall having the halls in front of it. The
entrances to the halls are opposite the wall.
In front of the entrances are long and nu
merous passages, which have winding paths
running through them, so that the ingress
and egress to each hall is not practicable to
a stranger without a guide. It is a mar
vellous fact that each of the ceilings of the
chambers consists of a single stone, and also
that the passages are covered in the same
way with single slabs of extraordinary size,
neither wood nor other building material
having been employed. On ascending the
roof, the height of which is inconsiderable, as
there is only one storey, we observe a vast
plain of stone slabs. Descending again, and
looking Into the halls, we may observe the
whole series borne by twenty-seven mono
lithic columns : the walls also are constructed

66 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
of Stone of similar size. At the end of this
structure, which is more than a stadium in
length, is the tomb, consisting of a square
pyramid, each side of which is four plethra
[400 feet] in length, and of equal height.
The deceased who is burled here is called
Ismandes. It is also asserted that so many
palaces were built because it was the custom
for all the nomes, represented by their mag
nates, with their priests and victims, to as
semble here to offer sacrifices and gifts to
the gods, and to deliberate on the most Im
portant concerns."
This is what we learn from ancient sources
of the Labyrinth. It will now be interesting
to turn to the only serious attempt which has
been made in later years to explore its mys
teries. This was undertaken by the Prussian
expedition under Lepsius, about forty years
ago, when the Identification of its site had
first been made by Linant Bey. They had
a hundred men at work for nearly a month,
and this was the result : — ¦
"Where the French expedition had vainly
sought for chambers, we literally at once found
hundreds of them, both next to and above one

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 6j
another, small, often diminutive ones, besides
greater ones, and large ones supported by
small columns, with thresholds, and niches
in the walls, with remains of columns and
single casing stones, connected by corridors,
so that the descriptions of Herodotus and
Strabo in this respect are fully justified. The
whole Is so arranged that three immense masses
of buildings 300 feet broad enclose a square
place which is 600 feet long and 500 feet
wide. The fourth side, one of the narrow
ones, is bounded by the Pyramid which lies
behind it — it is 300 feet square, and therefore
does not quite reach the side wings of the
above-mentioned masses of buildlnpfs. . . .
We found no inscriptions In the ruins of the
great masses of chambers which surround the
central space. It may easily be proved by
future excavations that this whole buildlne,
and probably also the disposition of the twelve
courts, belong only, in fact, to the twenty-sixth
dynasty of Manetho, so that the original temple
of Amenemhat formed merely part of this
gigantic architectural enclosure."
It Is most earnestly to be hoped that these
excavations anticipated by Lepsius will some

68 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
day be made, as, when we compare his ac
count with those of Herodotus and Strabo,
it falls far short of what we should have been
led to expect ; and there can be little doubt
that these mounds of sand, which cover the
surface of a far greater area than he dealt
with, conceal treasure which would richly
reward further examination. Unfortunately
his excavations have since been buried by
the sand.
Our first proceeding after luncheon was to
scramble to the top of the Pyramid so as to
get a bird's-eye view of the ruins. Strabo ap
parently overestimated its dimensions. When
perfect, the base was fifty feet less each way
than he gives it ; and Herodotus, who puts
the height at 240 feet, was more nearly right
than Strabo, who estimates It at 400. It is by
no means an imposing structure, and is one of
four built of crude brick mixed with straw, one
being at Illahoon, and two at Sakkara. If it
was built, as Strabo tells us, by Ismandes, who
is identical with Semempses, the fifth king of
the first dynasty, then it is the oldest pyramid
existing in Egypt. It has been suggested that
it was built by Asychis, the fourth king of the

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 69
third dynasty ; but even in that case it must
rank immediately after Meidum and Dashour,
which become the oldest. The ground for
this hypothesis is, that Herodotus tells us
that, according to the priests, a king named
Asychis, desirous of eclipsing all his prede
cessors, left a pyramid of brick as a monument
of his reign, with the following inscription en
graved on the stone : —
" Despise me not in comparison with the
stone pyramids, for I surpass them all, as
much as Zeus surpasses the other gods. A
pole was plunged into the lake, and the mud
which clave thereto was gathered, and bricks
were made of the mud, and so I was formed."
The proximity of the lake may account for
this allusion, and it has been ascertained that
the nucleus is a natural mass of rock, thirty-
nine feet high, which may be " the stone "
upon which the inscription was cut. Its
present appearance would certainly disap
point the king's expectations, for the sides
have crumbled so much away that I have
since regretted that I did not achieve the
proud distinction of riding on my donkey to
the top of the oldest pyramid in the world.

70 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
It appears originally to have been built in
stages, and from its summit we could obtain
an idea of the shape of the Labyrinth, which
was of a horse-shoe form, and of the position
and size of the temple, the remains of which
were mapped out at our feet. On the opposite
side of the Bahr es Sherki we overlooked a
congeries of crude brick-built chambers, all
roofless. To the north was a long line of
small chambers, with the crumbling walls of
others scattered here and there. The form
of Lake Mceris, on the margin of which this
pyramid was built, might also be detected by
the aid of a strong Imagination ; and, about
eight miles off, the Pyramid of Illahoon stood
out sharply against the distant line of the hills
beyond the Nile. To the southward a long
grove of date-trees marked the limit of the
oasis ; and to the westward the town of Medi
net, surrounded by gardens and palm-trees,
formed an attractive feature In the landscape.
To the eastward, all was desert, bounded by
sand-hills. A closer Inspection of the ruins,
after we had descended from the Pyramid, on
the left bank of the Bahr es Sherki, disclosed
little of Interest beyond a curious sort of double

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 71
underground passage, formed by flags of lime
stone. The upper passage seemed to have
been roofed in on a level with the surface of
the soil, and below this again there was a
second one, which, however, was so choked
with sand that It was impossible to follow it
As I was examining it I put up a jackal,
which (darted away across the desert, startled
at the sudden intrusion upon his soHtude.
There were some mummied bones about, and
I wondered whether flesh which had under
gone the drying process of ages could afford
satisfactory gnawing material for these sca
vengers of the wilds. I suppose a human leg
three thousand years old, if it does not contain
much nourishment, must have a taste of some
sort. There can be no doubt that we owe the
modern word " labyrinth " to the strange
accumulation of chambers and tortuous pas
sages which once existed on the shores of
Lake Mceris. According to Manethon, the
Labyrinth derived its name from King La-
barys, its founder, also known as Amenemhat
III. ; but another derivation has been sug
gested, which possesses the combined merit of

72 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
extreme antiquity and originality. It seems
that the old Egyptian word for the mouth of
a reservoir, which Lake Mceris undoubtedly
was, is ra-hunt or la-hunt. Hence one of the
names of the lake was " Hunt." The temple
of the mouth of the reservoir would be ra-pe-
ro-hunt, or la-pe-lo-hii,nt. From laperohunt we
get to laperint, and then, by easy stages, to
"labyrinth." It is more likely, however, to
have been the combination from which Illa
hoon is derived — the terminations lo-hunt and
la-hunt not being very dissimilar, the addition
of the Arabic article el forming the word.
In allusion to Lake Moeris, over which we
were now looking, Herodotus says: "Won
derful as is the Labyrinth, the work called the
Lake of Moeris, which is close by the Laby
rinth, is still more astonishing." Strabo says
of it : —
" Owing to its size and depth, It is capable
of receiving the superabundance of water dur
ing the inundation without overflowing the
habitations and crops; but later, when the
water subsides, and after the lake has given
up its excess through one of its two mouths,
both It and the canal retain water enough for

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 73
purposes of irrigation. This is accomplished
by natural means, but at both ends of the
canal there are also lock-gates by means of
which the engineers can regulate the influx
and efflux of the water."
These lock-gates — which, according to Dio-
dorus, cost ;^ 1 1,250 every time they were
opened — are, no doubt, the great stone dikes
and sluices mentioned later by Aboolfeda at
Illahoon, which regulated the quantity ad
mitted into the Fayoum ; and it seems not
improbable that the modern Illahoon, with its
pyramid, was the site of the ancient town of
Ptolemais. The Greeks believed that Lake Moeris was
constructed by a king of the same name ; but
It is proved that no such king existed, and
that they invented the king from the Egyptian
word " mere," which exactly corresponds to
our word "mere." Until within a compara
tively recent period, the Birket el Kurun was
popularly supposed to have been the ancient
Lake Moeris ; but as we know that the great
object of Lake Moeris was to act as a reservoir
for the waters which fertilised the Fayoum,
and that it was constructed as a triumph of

74 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
engineering skill by Amenemhat III., it be
comes absolutely impossible to identify it with
the Lake of the Horn, which is two hundred
feet below the level of Lake Moeris and the
country it was intended to irrigate, and is evi
dently a natural sheet of water fed by springs :
but even If It were not. It Is at all events a
natural depression, which it would require no
g-enlus to fill with water. Moreover, Hero-
dotus, speaking of the Labyrinth, says : " It
was a little above Lake Moeris, opposite Cro
codilopolis." Now the Lake of the Horn is
fifteen miles from the site of Crocodilopolis,
but the dikes which testify to the existence
of some vast ancient reservoir are In the im
mediate vicinity of the latter. According to
the estimate of Linant Bey, to whom Is due
the discovery of the site of the Labyrinth and
the position of Lake Moeris, this sheet of
water must have been about sixty miles in
circumference, and with an average depth of
twenty feet. Pomponlus Mela says that it
was navigated by large vessels which con
veyed the produce of the Fayoum to other
parts of Egypt. The Pyramid and Laby
rinth were situated at the point where the

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 75
river entered it, and the vast expanse of green
over which the eye wanders between the
Pyramid and Medinet was formerly covered
by its waters. Wherever the natural forma
tion of the country did not restrain them,
immense dikes were built, which must have
been in some places thirty feet high, and
Avhich, to judge by the traces that exist on
the north and west sides, must have been about
thirty miles long, with an average breadth of
one hundred and fifty feet — a work on a
scale which would have appalled engineers
not accustomed to- build pyramids. Linant
Bey calculates that this reservoir must have
irrigated a superficies of 600,000 acres, as,
besides feeding the Fayoum, he believes that
its waters were carried down into the pro
vince of Gizeh, and so ultimately into the old
Canopic branch of the Nile at Mariout. Nor
can one wonder that an artificial lake of such
great extent should have seemed a prodigy of
engineering skill to the ancients. In addition
to its great utility as a fertilising agent, it was
Invested with a character of sanctity which
gave it a wide celebrity. The sacred croco
dile, which was carefully tended and petted in

j6 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
its waters, was an object of the deepest venera
tion to the inhabitants of the Arsinoite Nome,
who treated it with the most marked respect,
and kept it at considerable expense, while a
most elaborate cuisine provided It with dain
ties. " Geese, fish, and various fresh meats,"
says Sir Gardner Wilkinson, " were dressed
purposely for It ; they ornamented Its head
with ear-rings. Its feet with bracelets, and its
neck with necklaces of gold and artificial
stones ; it was rendered perfectly tame by
kind treatment ; and after death Its body was
embalmed In a most sumptuous manner."
It was rather unfortunate for the crocodile
and his worshippers that the inhabitants of the
adjoining Heracleopolltan Nome worshipped
the Ichneumon, the bitter enemy of the croco
dile, which, it Is reported, waged war upon him
by the original device of crawling down his
throat when he was asleep, and feeding upon
his intestines. The antipathy between the
crocodile and the ichneumon, In consequence
of this unfair mode of proceeding, seems to
have extended to the worshippers of the two
animals, which led, during the reign of the
Romans, to disputes that terminated in blood-

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 'j:j
shed, and made the contending parties forget
the respect due to the sacred monuments of
their adversaries to such an extent, that the
destruction of the Labyrinth by the Heracleo-
politans was the final result. It Is difficult to
reconcile, psychologically, a worship so full of
trivialities with a religion so replete with lofty
moral conceptions, and with the high intellec
tual capacity which created a Lake Moeris,
reared huge pyramids, constructed the stupen
dous work of art that was celebrated through
out the then civilised world as the Labyrinth,
and called Into existence, out of a tract of
desert, the fertile province which for many
centuries derived its name as the Crocodilo-
politan Nome, from the animal thus venerated.
When we had exhausted our examination
of the left bank of the Bahr es Sherki, we
announced our intention to the crowd of at
tendant Arabs who had accompanied us from
the village, of crossing over to see the network
of chambers on the other side. To our dis
may they pronounced the stream unfordable,
and told us we should have to make a circuit
of two miles by a bridge. This I resolutely
declined, and some of the Arabs accordingly

78 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Stripped to try and find a ford. The channel
was so narrow that it might easily have been
jumped with the aid of a leaping-pole ; but the
men had some difficulty in finding a spot where
the water only came up to their armpits. This
was the depth even close to the bank ; but by
performing a sort of circus feat, and each of us
sitting astride the heads of two men, we got car
ried across, while our donkeys were sent round.
It was not a very graceful performance for a
lady ; but in the absence of any other specta
tors than the sons of the desert, it did not so
much matter. The chambers were a disap
pointing collection of tiny apartments, with
thick walls of crude brick — possibly over a
hundred In number — their floors strewn with
pottery, rags, and bones. We picked up a
bead, some good specimens of blue and green
glazed terra cotta, and fragments of glass. In
one room alone I observed five human skulls,
and there were numerous bones to which the
dried flesh still adhered under the wrappings
of mummy-cloth. Altogether, the vestiges of
these ruins conveyed as much the idea of a
necropolis as of an assemblage of council-
chambers, and It is not unlikely that Its primi-

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 79
tlve design was simply to serve as a vast
sepulchre like that at Sakkara. There can
be little doubt that pyramids invariably form
the centres of such burial - places — Indeed
Herodotus tells us that he was informed by
his guides that the lower chambers were used
for funeral purposes ; and Amenemhat may
have selected this spot on the shores of the
lake he had created, as his own resting-place
and that of the chief men of his reign. From
the records upon the inscriptions where his
name has been found, it is almost beyond a
doubt that he is buried here, although not
within the Pyramid ; and the mode of sepul
ture among the ancient Egyptians renders
It, in the opinion of some Egyptologists, ex
tremely likely that this vast congeries of apart
ments, which at a later period were converted
into council - halls, were originally mortuary
chambers, but upon a scale of such magnifi
cence and vastness that the subsequent dy
nasties considered them available for other
purposes. Indeed we have no record of the
Labyrinth being used for great imperial as
semblies until the period immediately pre
ceding the Psamtlkides of the twenty - sixth

8o THE LAND OF KHEMI.
dynasty, or about 1900 years after the time
of Amenemhat, its constructor. At the same
time. It is not Impossible that the Labyrinth
was used for other purposes as well as those
of sepulture, even from the earliest period ;
for the assemblage of twelve palaces or aul^B,
as described by Herodotus, must have had
some reference to the twelve nomes Into
which Egypt was divided before the number
was increased by Rameses II. to thirty-six.
And we may be safe in saying that if we
carry our Imaginations back 3500 years, or
even more, the spot upon which we were now
standing presented an aspect of scenic beauty,
of architectural magnificence, and was invest
ed with a character of political and religious
importance, unrivalled In the world, which it
retained for nearly 2000 years. It was evi
dently selected, from its central position on
the boundary-line that divided Upper from
Lower Egypt, for the great regal, political,
and sacerdotal rites which were celebrated
here. Standing on the shores of a beautiful
lake, the waters of which reflected the mag
nificent city of Crocodilopolis Arsinoe imme
diately opposite, and which was navigated by

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 8l
numberless craft, and surrounded by palm-
groves and those gardens of fruits and flowers
for which the province was celebrated, the
Labyrinth occupied a position of great scenic
beauty, and of political significance. It was
the great council-hall of Egypt. Hither flocked
the representatives of the different nomes to
the great assembly of the nation ; here con
gregated the high priests to celebrate those
great religious ceremonies which demanded
the united homage of the people. Here pro
bably kings were crowned, laws were made,
great public works decided upon, questions of
war or peace settled, — in a word, in this con
geries of palaces, under the shadow of the
Pyramid, on the banks of this vast artificial
lake, that had been adorned and beautified
by the taste and resources of successive cen
turies, all the highest Interests of the nation
were discussed In assemblies composed of the
great powers of the State — the king, the
priesthood, and the army. It Is difficult to
associate In one's mind the crude brick rooms
which are still standing, or even the discov
eries of Lepsius, now covered with sand, with
all this splendour and magnificence, of which
F

82 THE LAND OF KHEML
more important vestiges must still remain to
reward the labours of the explorer.
We returned to the village of Howara by
another road, approaching the bluff", upon the
edge of which it Is built like a fortress, through
a grove of date - trees, and re - embarked at
a spot where an Arab was working a most
primitive ferry-boat. It presented the ap
pearance of a straw raft with sides, and was
constructed entirely of bundles of reeds ; one
bundle was placed upright in the bows, and
round it a rope was passed that stretched
across from one bank to the other, and by
means of which the boat was worked. We
floated back over the placid waters of the Bahr
Youssef in the glow of the brilliant sunset,
the men keeping time to the lazy plash of
their oars with boat-songs, — their choruses
now measured and dreamy, as though unable
to resist the somnolent influences which per
vaded all nature — now wild and fitful, as they
put on a spurt, probably under the still more
potent inspiration of empty stomachs and a
pot of lentils in prospect.
The railway, which has its terminus -at Med
inet el Fayoum for regular traffic, is continued

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 83
to the Government sugar-factory at Aboukser
as an agricultural line ; and twice a-week dur
ing the cane-cutting season, a waggon — it can
scarcely be called a carriage — is attached for
the conveyance of passengers. I was glad to
join a party, consisting of the governor and
two or three native officials, on a trip to the
factory, which is situated in the vicinity of the
Birket el Kurun, or " Lake of the Horn." It
is not much more than ten miles, as the crow
flies, to Aboukser ; but as the difference of level
between the plateau on which Medinet is sit
uated and the lake is about 1 70 feet, and the
descent becomes more abrupt towards the end
of the plateau, the line takes a long curve,
partly for the sake of an easier gradient, and
partly because it thus traverses a wider extent
of cane-field — its whole length being thus over
fifteen miles. The train at starting consisted
only of the engine and waggon, which might
have been a baggage-van with four windows
cut in it, and a divan placed all round ; but
before we had gone very far, we came upon a
couple of trucks filled with cane standing on
the line in the middle of a cane-field. They
were mere iron cradles, their walls consisting

84 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
of long stalks of sugar-cane woven into the
iron so as to hold the cane, which was cut into
lengths from two to three feet long. They
were attached in front of the engine, which
then moved slowly along till we came to an
other batch. These were almost empty ; but
the cane was piled on each side of the line,
and gangs of Arabs rapidly loaded them, while
Ave took advantage of the delay to water the
engine. This was performed in the most
primitive fashion by a couple of sakkas, or
water-carriers, who, having placed a notched
section of a date-tree between the engine and
the ground to serve as a ladder, laboriously
filled the goatskins, which are swung on their
backs, at a ditch by the side of the track,
climbed up the tree-ladder on to the engine,
and emptied their goatskins into the boiler.
By the time it was full the trucks were loaded,
and we went on again, pushing about a dozen
of them before us. This operation was per
formed several times, until at last there were at
least thirty loaded trucks ahead of the engine.
As may be imagined, under these circum
stances we never attained a very high rate of
speed ; but we were not in a hurry, and I was

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 85
not sorry to traverse an entirely new tract of
country thus leisurely, as it enabled me the
better to appreciate its rich luxuriance and still
undeveloped capabilities. The Fayoum con
tains, at a rough estimate, about 250,000 acres
of land, of which half belongs to the Govern
ment, and the remainder to the peasants and
native proprietors. Among these latter some
are very rich ; and one of my fellow-passengers
on this occasion, had an estate of about a thou
sand acres, on which he had built a handsome
country-house. He pointed It out to me as we
passed it about a mile from the track, and in
vited me to pay him a visit, an invitation which
I regretted I was unable to accept. From all
that I could learn, a well-managed farm in the
Fayoum may be made a most profitable under
taking. If the cultivation of the sugar, cotton,
and Indigo, for which it is eminently adapted,
has not proved so successful as It might be,
the causes are not far to seek.
There are no regular stations on this line,
but we stop " apropos accordingly," as my
coachman used to say, whenever sugar-cane
happens to be lying about. We passed, never
theless, many thriving villages, most of them

86 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
picturesquely situated on mounds, or on the
edge of one of the precipitous wadies which
intersect the country, and which form in places
pretty wooded glens through which brawl run
ning streams, while heavy palm-groves throw
their shade over all. After leaving SIneru,
which is a large, village, with gardens of prickly
pear, and a little grove of opuntia trees, the
country begins to slope more rapidly towards
the lake, and the railway takes a wide curve
past the villages of Agamieh, Nazlet, and
Bisheh, all lying to the left of the line, and
connected with each other by dense groves of
date-trees. Of these, Nazlet is the most pic
turesquely situated on the Bahr Nazlet, which
in former times was one of the outlets of the
Lake Moeris, and Is now a ravine 250 yards
broad from bank to bank, and 100 feet deep,
which forms quite a romantic and Imposing
feature In the landscape. Near Bisheh the
line crosses the extensive mounds of an ancient
town, covered, like those at Arslnoe, with frag
ments of pottery, glass, bones, brickbats, &c. ;
but unfortunately there was no sugar-cane at
the spot, so the train did not stop to enable me
to get out and examine it. Indeed we had

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 87
picked up all the loaded trucks by this time,
and were rumbling along at the rate of about
ten miles an hour, followed by a racing, scram
bling crowd of boys and girls, who rush out of
the adjoining villages when the train passes,
to pick up the scatterings of sugar-cane which
fall from the trucks. For at least a couple
of miles we were thus pursued, old men and
women occasionally joining In the race, and in
their eagerness to clutch the cane, rolling Over
each other on the track. By this time we have
reached our lowest level : to the left, about
five miles distant, beyond a flat, and in places
marshy, tract, the blue waters of the lake
glisten in the afternoon sun ; and rising abrupt
ly from their western margin are the Libyan
hills, beyond which stretches an unexplored and
desolate tract of the Sahara. In strong con
trast with the wildness and beauty of the scene,
a row of tall iron funnels or chimneys right in
front of us Indicate our destination, and we '
pull up between more piles of sugar-cane. In
an atmosphere strongly flavoured with the all-
pervading odour of molasses. On a bluff" about
a mile to the right is the village of Aboukser,
while the flat tract that intervenes between us

88 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
and the lake is an expanse of cane -fields,
through which radiate branches of the agri
cultural railway In all directions.
Unfortunately I was not well enough to en
counter the fatigue of a ride to the lake and
back, and the boating and fishing expedition
on Its waters which had been the main object
of my trip. Indeed I had hoped to be able
to visit the ruins of Kasr Karoon, which are
situated at Its south-western extremity, as well
as those of Kasr NImroud just opposite, on
the summit of the desert cliff, and the ruined
walls of which could be distinguished from
Aboukser with a spy- glass. There are no
villages worthy the name on the margin of
the lake. The fishing population are mostly
Bedouin Arabs, who live in tents or hovels,
and whose open undecked boats are of a prim
itive unwieldy description, without masts or
sails, redolent of decayed fish, and affording,
as I was informed, a maximum of discomfort
in every way. I afterwards met an old resident
in Egypt, and a distinguished Egyptologist,
who had camped for eight days at the ruins
of Kasr NImroud, and who described them as
consisting of gigantic mud -brick walls, evi-

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 89
dently those of an ancient fortress, situated
on a high plateau of natural rock, an hour
distant from the margin of the lake, the road
leading to which was paved with immense
flags of stones, on which were visible ruts as
of chariot - wheels. But, curiously enough,
neither he nor any person at Aboukser of
whom I made inquiry, had ever heard of
DImeh, with its street 400 yards long embel
lished with lions, and its ruined temple. Lep
sius says it was marked on his map as Medinet
NImroud, but he could only hear of it by the
name of DImeh — an experience that illustrates
how easy It is for travellers In these parts to
be misled in regard to nomenclature : it is sup
posed to be the site of the ancient Bacchis.
The ruins of Kasr Karoon are much better
known than those of DImeh- or Kasr NImroud ;
but even they would certainly repay further
investigation. Five miles beyond Aboukser,
on the same side of the lake. Is the village of
Senhur, which Is situated on mounds indicating
the site of an ancient city of some extent. In
deed there is every reason to suppose that in
former times the edge of this plateau overlook
ing the lake was crowned with a series of towns

90 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Inhabited by a large population. In point of
position and surroundings, all the modern vil
lages have a sort of family resemblance, and
of these Aboukser may be taken as a type.
At the base of the bluff was an extensive grove
of fine palm-trees, beneath which sugar-cane
had been planted ; and as I passed through
It, the whole population were out cutting it.
Men, women, children, camels, and buffaloes
were picturesquely grouped under the shade
of the tall feathering trees in the cane-field,
all noisily at work ; while through it curved
a canal abundantly supplied with water, that
found Its way to the lower level by an artificial
cascade about forty feet high, which foamed
over a high dike that In former times retained
its waters in a lake. After sketching so un-
usual an object in Egypt as a waterfall, I made
my way to the top of It with the view of ex
amining the ancient structure. The lake was
now dry, and its bottom served as the vege
table garden for the village ; but there was no
question as to the extreme antiquity of the solid
masonry, which might easily be repaired if It
was considered worth while to reconstruct the
reservoir. Above it to the right rose the high

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 91
mound upon which the modern village, looking
almost like a fortress, is built ; In rear of it are
cactus-gardens, and the usual waste of brick
bats and pottery, while here and there the
mud - brick walls of an old house crop out,
among which I found a few fragments of blue
and green glaze. Interesting enough to carry
away. From the highest mound of ddbris a
magnificent view is obtained over the lake,
with a rocky Island In the middle, and the
plain stretching away north-east and south
west far as the eye can reach. The Birket el
Kurun is steadily stealing away the good land
from the country, either submerging it alto
gether, or Impregnating It so abundantly with
salt as to destroy its value for all purposes of
cultivation. This arises from the fact that
owing to an absence of a proper surveillance
of Irrigation In the Fayoum, about three times
more water is allowed to run into the lake than
the evaporation can carry off", as, owing to Its
depression below the level of the sea, it has
no outlet. This water might be advantage
ously employed in irrigating land now unpro
ductive for the lack of It. Instead of its super
abundance being thus utilised, It is allowed to

92 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
submerge land which would otherwise be avail
able for cultivation ; and thus, so far from being
a benefit to the country, it becomes an injury to
it, — besides which, whenever water is allowed
to stagnate in Egypt, it infiltrates for some
distance beyond Its margin, and the effect Is to
cause the saline qualities in the soil to rise to
the surface. Owing to this double process of
submergence and Infiltration, it Is calculated
that about 10,000 acres which would otherwise
have been available for sugar, belonging to the
Daira Sanieh alone, are practically lost. There
can be no doubt that an immense tract of land
could be reclaimed from the lake without very
much difficulty, which would in the first instance
be available for rice, and by degrees become
fit for cane. More cane-land is much wanted ;
for as it is, the sugar-factory can scarcely be
made to pay Its expenses, owing to the want
of a sufficient quantity of cane, and in some
years it works at a loss. At Masserah Edoud-
dah, about three hours from Aboukser, there
is a large sugar-factory which is permanently
closed owing to this cause. Altogether, there
are 76,000 acres of land In the Fayoum belong
ing to the Daira Sanieh, which might be largely

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 93
Improved by a more careful rotation of crops,
and increased by reclaiming land from the
lake, and which no doubt Is capable of being
made a magnificent and profitable property.
Besides the sugar-mill already alluded to at
Masserah, there is a fine cotton-oil mill and
gin at Edsa, not far from Medinet el Fayoum,
which has not worked for two years ; and also
one at Tamyeh, on the north-eastern margin
of the province, which is also standing idle.
No doubt, under the Improved system which
is being introduced by the Commission that
now administers the Daira Sanieh, the pro
ductive capacity of the property in the Fay
oum will be largely increased. There are also
46,000 acres belonging to the department of
the Domaines ; so that altogether there are
122,000 .acres of Government land in this
province alone, the revenues of which are
hypothecated to foreign creditors.
About half a mile from the factory, towards
the lake. Is a grove of date-trees overshadow
ing a house of unusual pretensions for this
part of the country. I was introduced to the
proprietor of it, and found to my surprise that
he was the head sheikh of all the Bedouin

94 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Arabs an both sides of the lake. The idea
of a Bedouin sheikh living like a civilised
being In a large whitewashed two-storeyed
house was entirely new to me. He had for
tunately not yet adopted a white waistcoat
and lavender-coloured gloves, but retained his
native garb In all its picturesqueness, which,
however, was composed of the most costly
material. His handsome Arab horse was
gorgeously caparisoned, the bridle mounted
with solid silver ; and his groom carried an
old-fashioned rifle richly inlaid. Though a
man evidently mindful of the effect of ex
ternal show, and somewhat of a " buck " in
his personal attire, he retained under all cir
cumstances an attitude of the most calm and
dignified politeness ; and it was impossible
to judge from the imperturbable repose of
his handsome features what was passing in
his mind. He was a man about fifty years
old, exercised a controlling influence over the
Arab tribes for many miles round, and was
possessed of great wealth, not merely in flocks
and herds, but in land. The object of his visit
to the factory on the occasion when I saw him
was to be present at a dispute between some

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 95
Arabs and ^orr^^ fellahin, the nature of which
also helps to illustrate how rapidly the intro
duction of the appliances of civilisation tends
to change the habits of the wild sons of the
desert. The whole party came up and argued
their case In the presence of the Moufettlsh,
whose guest I had become, for the governor
had returned to Medinet. On the one side
were a group oi fellahin, the bloody shirt of
one suggesting that he had got the worst of
a recent scuffle ; on the other, in marked con
trast to these, with their haughty and defiant
demeanour, stood four minor Arab sheikhs,
all strikingly handsome men, with flowing
abeih and creamy-white Jierams.
Between these angry disputants was seated
the Moufettlsh, and at his side the chief
sheikh, whose rich apparel and impassive
demeanour I have already described. The
villagers, it appeared, had contracted with
the Moufettlsh to cut a certain amount of
sugar-cane in a given time, and had engaged
a number of Bedouins to supply camels, and
otherwise assist In carrying out the operation,
— making, in fact, a sub-contract with them, to
which It was complained that they had not

g6 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
adhered, and had even beaten those who
ventured to expostulate. The quarrel turned
upon the amount and nature of the work
which practically had been divided between
them, and I failed to follow Its Intricacies
sufficiently to know who were in the right
- — probably the fellahi^i,— hut certainly, when
Bedouin Arabs enter into contracts for har
vesting cane for a steam sugar - factory, a
change Is coming over the spirit of their
dream. To watch the eager and almost
ferocious expression of their countenances as
they argued their case with " beastly bellow-
ings" and wild gesticulations, it was evident
that it would take a long course of peaceful
avocations before the change went beyond
the spirit of the dream to the spirit of the
man. I afterwards visited one of their en
campments, where the usual tents were sup
plemented with huts and enclosures made of
straw and cane - leaves ; but they retained,
nevertheless, their general gipsy and nomadic
aspect. On my return journey to Medinet the fol
lowing day, I had the divaned waggon all to
myself, and we reversed the operation of our

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 97
former experience. Starting with a long train
of empty cane-trucks, we stopped at intervals
and dropped them by twos and threes wher
ever the cane had been piled, to be picked up
when the train went back the next day.
We tried, one afternoon, an experimental
ride on camels, with a view of testing the
merits of some saddles from the Soudan,
which, we were assured, were especially com
fortable. The object of our trip was to ex
amine a prostrate obelisk, distant about three
miles. The weather so far had been delight
ful, the thermometer seldom falling below 65";
and the gardens beneath our windows were
redolent with the perfume of roses — for which
the Fayoum was formerly so celebrated — in
full bloom. On this afternoon, however, we
had scarcely started when the weather changed,
and before we reached our destination, a cold
wind set in, accompanied by smart showers of
rain, which made the poor camels shiver and
tremble with anxiety as they staggered slowly
over the smooth slippery mud. The experi
ence was by no means agreeable to the riders,
as the prospect of coming down headlong,
camel and all, is quite a different sensation
G

98 THE LAND OF KHEML
from that which one feels under like conditions
on horseback. It seems scarcely possible to fall
from such a height without the certainty of
breaking one's bones. When at last we reached
the village of BIggIg, we found our camel-men
did not know the way, and we had to ask for a
guide — a request which resulted In the greater
proportion of the male population volunteering
their services and accompanying us. We had
quite a difficult ride across fields where there
were no paths, and numerous ditches had to
be crossed, before we found, half embedded
in mud and water, the two huge fragments of
this great monolith, one of which measures
26^ feet, and the other 16 feet 3 inches long.
The face of the lower half, which is covered
with hieroglyphics, measures 6 feet 9 inches
at its lower end, and the sides are about 4
feet in width. At the upper part of the face
are five compartments, one over the other, in
each of which are figures of King Orsltarsen,
also known as Amenemhat I., offering to two
deities. This obelisk, which Is of red por
phyry, is contemporaneous with the one at
Heliopolis, and was erected by the same king,
the second of the twelfth dynasty, who reigned

PROSTRATE OBELISK NEAR EDGIB IN THE FAYOUM ,

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 99
about 2440 years B.C., and about 140 years,
therefore, before Amenemhat III., to whom
I have already referred as the creator of the
Labyrinth and the lake. It is evident, how
ever, from the existence of this great monu
ment, that the province was highly esteemed
before his time ; and the historical tradition Is
probably correct which attributes the reclaim
ing and conversion of the Fayoum to Phlops,
the Mceris of the Greeks and Romans, who
was the fourth king of the sixth dynasty, and
lived about 3000 B.C. It is difficult to account
for the isolated position of this obelisk. There
is not a vestige of a ruin nearer than Arsinoe ;
and it must either have been dropped here on
its way to that city, or possibly was an orna
ment to gardens which were a place of resort.
Had there been a temple in the immediate
vicinity, it could scarcely have disappeared
without leaving a trace. As it Is, the flat
surface of the black soil is unbroken by any
mound or tumulus ; nor are there any frag
ments of granite or stone in the neighbour
hood. It differs from other obelisks inasmuch
as Its summit is rounded, and not pointed, and
In the breadth of its faces and sides being so

100 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
dissimilar. A groove has been cut in its apex,
doubtless to hold an ornament like that at
Heliopolis. In the hieroglyphics on the sides,
the king is said to be beloved of Ptah and
Mandoo, who. It is supposed, were the prin
cipal divinities of the place. Whatever may
be its origin and meaning, there is something
solemn and suggestive in the aspect of this
great fractured block of history, traced with
the records of extreme antiquity, and lying
here neglected in a bean-field, a mile from
any human habitation, an object of mystery
and awe to the ignorant peasantry, and of
speculation to ourselves, which will probably
never be satisfied. It, at all events, disposes
finally of a popular theory, that all the pyra
mids were on one side of the Nile, and all the
obelisks on the other.
As we were neither of us in a condition, so
far as strength was concerned, to walk back
through the mud and rain, our return journey
on our lofty animals was not a little perilous,
the more especially as darkness came on be
fore we reached home. Our way for the most
part was along the slippery edge of a gully
which cut through soft country. Sometimes

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. lOl
we took refuge in the young wheat-fields, to
the intense indignation of the proprietors, who
shouted angry remonstrances ; sometimes we
scrambled down into the bed of the wady,
hoping to find safer travelling-ground. At
last, wet and tired, after being four hours in
the saddle. Instead of two, as we expected,
we reached the town just as our anxious
friends had sent out their servants to look
for us. After this experience we were obliged
to give up our trip to Biahmu, a village about
four miles to the north of Medinet, where
the remains of two ancient monuments exist,
the nature of which I was anxious to try
and verify, as it is still a matter of dispute.
Linant considers them the remains of the
pyramids upon which were the statues of
King Moeris and his consort, which Herod
otus indicates as being in the middle of the
lake. Lepsius describes them as built out
of great massive blocks, of which the nuclei
are still standing, but not in the centre of the
almost rectangular enclosures, which, by their
appearance, they seem to have originally
occupied. While Linant makes these out
side enclosures " square," and Lepsius " almost

I02 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
square," Murray's ' Guide ' makes them meas
ure 65 feet by 45. Lepsius believes that
the height of the central masses was never
greater than It is now — viz., 23 feet — to
which must be added a peculiar and some
what projecting base of 7 feet. The foun
dations were on Nile mud, and the incli
nation of their angle 64°, which is steeper
than that of ordinary pyramids, and hence
he concludes against Linant Bey's hypothesis.
On the other hand, the lower stones bear
the traces of water — the Nile mud may have
been Lake Moeris mud. There are no other
remains within the area of the lake, and the
remains of the dams would go to show that
they stood in its extreme north-east angle.
The fact that they were not ordinary pyr
amids, but rather pyramidal pedestals for
statues, may account for the steeper inclina
tion of their angles. At all events, the point
is an Interesting one, which a more thorough
investigation would probably decide.
We should gladly have lingered longer In the
Fayoum had it been in our power to take our
tents and camels and wander about in search
of the antique and the picturesque. Unfor-

THE LABYRINTH AND THE LAKES. 103
tunately, our experience of camel-riding had
proved too fatiguing, and we were obliged
to substitute another project, which, however,
proved scarcely less agreeable. We could
not leave the Fayoum without wondering
at the neglect of the tourist who has done
Thebes, and Luxor, and the Second Catar
act, and is looking for more worlds to conquer
— of a region with so many attractions, and
so accessible. The sportsman, the artist, and
the archaeologist will all find their tastes grat
ified In this charming oasis. The Birket el
Kurun offers, probably, better sport to the
angler than he would find elsewhere in Egypt.
In the thickets in some of the ravines are to
be found wild boar ; while lynxes, wolves,
jackals. Ichneumons, and hares are more or
less abundant. Pelicans, wild geese, ducks,
teal, and water - fowl of different varieties,
frequent the marshy shores of the lake.
The antiquarian would find Arsinoe, the
Labyrinth, the Temple of Kasr Karoon, and
the ruins on the western shores of the lake,
full, not merely of interest, but of possible
discoveries. At Senoorls there are the graves
of the early Christians who are said to have

104 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
been martyred, and the peasantry have no
scruple in exhuming them to satisfy the curi
osity of the anthropologist who desires to have
a specimen of an early Christian's skull, or the
curious coffins in which their corpses were
placed ; while the fortress - like village of
Tamiyeh, the thicket-clad gorge of Fidlmin,
and the broad precipitous wady at Nazlet,
would offer subjects for the artist of a char
acter not to be found elsewhere in Egypt.
It is true that modern no less than ancient
writers have in some respects exaggerated
the luxuriance of the Fayoum. One writes
of " a virgin forest," and of " orange-trees
as big as oaks ; " and another of " a planta
tion of opuntia, the growth of which is so
gigantic as almost to resemble a forest," which
I happened to see, and which certainly fell
far short of this description : but in spite
of all this, there can be no doubt that the
Fayoum possesses a charm denied to any
other section of the country, and Its brawling
streams and verdant recesses will well repay
the traveller In search of "fresh fields and
pastures new."

105

CHAPTER III.

OLD AND NEW.

The more one sees of the " Land of Khemi,"
the more one is amazed at the extent of the
remains which still exist awaiting a thorough
examination, and which lie so temptingly
strewn over the face of the country that it Is
almost an insult to them to leave them still
unexplored. The mounds and cliffs seem to
be crying out, " Come and dig, — we contain
all the records of the ages ; we only conceal
the pages of ancient history which are still
dark, because no one will take the trouble to
turn us over ; we can reveal the secrets of the
little-known period when the shepherd-kings
reigned over the land ; we can throw light
upon the obscure annals of the pontifical
monarchs of the twenty-first dynasty ; we can
tell all about the seventh, eighth, ninth, and

Io6 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
tenth dynasties, of which no record whatever
has yet been found upon any of the monu
ments ; under these superincumbent masses
of brickbats and potsherds, in rock-cut tombs
and undiscovered mastabas, it is all written In
imperishable letters, — only come and dig." It
would be doing a gross Injustice to the dis
tinguished body of Egyptologists, from Cham-
polllon down to Mariette and Brugsch Pashas,
to say that this appeal has not been responded
to, and that In the great works at Sakkara,
and the excavations which have taken place,
a wonderful effort has not been made ; but
what strikes one is, that the task is so vast
and endless — that In spite of all the time and
money that have been already spent, so much
remains to be done.^ In fact one does not
know which Is most wonderful, what has been
^ Since the above was written. Monsieur Maspero has
opened a pyramid near Sakkara, containing discoveries of
the utmost importance, as throwing light upon the unknown
history of some of the earliest dynasties ; while the highly
interesting researches of Monsieur Emile Brugsch, in the
neighbourhood of Thebes, has resulted in a trouvaille of the
very highest interest, consisting of no fewer than 4000 objects,
among which are thirty-six royal sarcophagi, with their inner
cases and mummies intact, belonging to Pharaohs, queens,
princes, princesses, and high priests of the seventeenth,
eighteenth, nineteenth, and twenty-first dynasties.

OLD AND NEW. 107
achieved, or what yet remains to be accom
plished. The ordinary tourist who visits the
Boulak museum and the Necropolis of Sak
kara, and then runs up to the First or the
Second Cataract, Is apt to think that the subject
must be wellnigh exhausted ; and is scarcely
conscious of the fact that the banks of the
Nile from Cairo to Thebes, between which
he glides so rapidly in a Cook's steamer, or,
more tranquilly, journeys in a dahabeeya, are
strewn with the mounds of ancient cities,
especially on the eastern shore, and that its
cliffs are honeycombed with tombs. It was
the knowledge of this fact which tempted us,
in the most humble and unassuming manner,
and without any pretensions to a knowledge
of the subject, to try and see whether we
could not discover something In a very small
way, by poking about in a leisurely manner,
from various centres on the banks of the river,
where we were kindly provided with accom
modation. Indeed, so far as our experience
went, the hospitality of the Government was
only equalled by that of private friends. To
one of these, learned in the lore of the an
cient Egyptians, we were Indebted for our

I08 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
first attempt, and In fact for the encourage
ment of any latent tendency we possessed
towards researches, which, when once the
taste for them Is fully developed, becomes
one of the most absorbing and interesting of
pursuits. About a hundred miles up the Nile from
Cairo lies the small town of Feshn ; here we
were most kindly entertained by Monsieur
Daninos, who is resident there, and who
assisted the late Mariette Pasha in many of
his earlier researches. On the opposite bank
of the river, the limestone cliffs of the Jebel
Ther recede suddenly at a spot known to
the natives as Haybee, near which there is a
small hamlet of hovels, a grove of young date-
trees, and the remains of a very ancient pier,
which, in the days when there was an important
town and fortress stretching along the shore,
projected into the river. Near the stones that
still mark its site we moored our bark, which
was nothing more or less than a common vil
lage boat, in which we had crossed from the
opposite bank in company with our erudite
friend on archaeological researches bent. He
had given notice of our projected visit the day

OLD AND NEW. 109
before, and the sheikh of the neighbouring
village, with a dozen or more of its male
inhabitants, was on the bank awaiting our
arrival. As soon as we got through the date-
grove we came upon the mounds of an ancient
town, whose name, as found in the hierogly
phics, was Isembheb. Scrambling over these,
with eyes eagerly scanning the ddbris for coins,
beads, and other relics, we followed our guides
to a projecting shoulder of the mounds, beyond
which they said there was a cave ; but we had
no sooner reached the brow, than we were
arrested by the remarkable view which burst
upon us. The recess had widened into an
amphitheatre surrounded by limestone cliffs,
which bore the marks of having been exten
sively quarried both in modern and ancient
times, the trenches and cuttings increasing the
quaint picturesqueness of the natural forma
tion. Immediately to our left, and rising out
of the mound on which we stood, was a cliff",
partly faced and partly crowned with brick to
a height of fifty feet, and about a hundred
yards broad, the massive construction of crude
brick presenting quite an imposing appearance.
In other directions there were fragments of

no THE LAND OF KHEMI.
similar buildings and walls, the whole sug
gesting the idea that in former years a for
tress of considerable dimensions had been
erected here to guard the passes to the river
which break the cliffs behind. From the
heights on which we stood, the view of these
masses of masonry crowning the lofty mounds,
together with the quarried precipices and the
sharp outline of the ranges of desert mountain
beyond, with the placid Nile, lined with palm-
groves, sweeping beneath us, was striking in
the extreme. When we had feasted our eyes
upon it, we descended to the cave, the entrance
to which we were disappointed to find was so
choked with sand that it was with the greatest
difficulty one of the Arabs squeezed himself into
the bowels of the earth, where he stood every
chance of being suffocated. On these occa
sions they always go In feet first, not merely
in order to get as much air as possible, but
because the passages are often so narrow and
choked as to prevent their turning round.
The man came to the surface in a few mo
ments, saying that the passage was blocked ;
so we sent to the village for some mattocks,
and went meanwhile to examine another cave.

OLD AND NEW. in
The entrance to this was a little larger, but
it presented more difficulties of excavation
on account of the masses of rock by which it
was encased. I managed to crawl in a short
distance, feet first, but all progress was almost
immediately blocked by a number of sarcophagi
piled one upon the other. The lid of one was
broken, and I poked my foot into it in the
dark. There was something so very " un
canny " In the soft feeling of the mummy
against it, that I drew it back with great
alacrity. It was impossible to get the mummy
out without a great expenditure of time and
labour, as though the crack in the lid was big
enough to allow of my foot passing In, the
mummy could only have been got out piece
meal. Moreover, there Is no particular in
terest attaching to fragments of a mummy.
There were perhaps ornaments in the sarco
phagus, but its position made it impossible
either to get the lid off" or to grub into its
interior ; so we abandoned it for the present,
lest by spending too much time over it we
might lose something that was more interest
ing, and proceeded to a third cave which was
nearer the bank of the river. The entrance

112 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
to this was by a square hole in the face of the
cliff", about five feet from its base. We put
two Arabs in, very much as one would put
ferrets into a rabbit-hole ; and as they stayed
in nearly half an hour we began to get alarmed,
although they had lights. Finally they reap
peared, thoroughly exhausted. They reported
that, after squeezing along a narrow passage
for about a hundred feet, they came to four
chambers, opening into one another, but con
taining no sarcophagi. From these they as
cended about ten feet by a perpendicular shaft.
Into a number of small chambers, — they could
not tell how many on account of the bats, which
they averred were so numerous as to prevent
their making any observations. Of course all
inquiry as to whether there were hieroglyphics
on the walls was comparatively useless, as their
accuracy could not be relied upon ; but they
declared most positively that there were none.
Their account was, however, sufficiently inter
esting to tempt Daninos Bey to try his luck.
I was unfortunately not strong enough to
attempt the scramble. He soon reappeared
in a half-stifled condition, saying that he had
been obliged to come back for want of air.

OLD. AND NEW. 113
and on accojjtat of the extreme narrowness of
the passage, in which he was afraid of sticking
permanently. Our exertions, though they had
not so far been attended with any great success,
had given us an appetite, so we adjourned to
the date-grove for luncheon, sending the Arabs
in search of bricks, if there were any stamped
with hieroglyphics. In a short time they
brought us several fragments, but Daninos
Bey could make nothing of them, they were
so imperfect. It was not until we reached the
spot from which they had been taken that, by
piecing the most perfect fragments together,
and comparing several, he deciphered their
meaning. The Inscription read as follows : —
" Nouter-hon atep en Amman
Pinedjem, pet our Khent Isis; "
which, being interpreted, signifies " Grand
Priest of Ammon Pinedjem, Protector of the
Grand Sanctuary of Isls." The bricks on
which this inscription was stamped were about
fifteen inches by nine, and the presumption
is that this wall formed part of a temple
dedicated to I sis, which was built by the
pontiff-king Pinedjem, the third of the twenty-
H

114 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
first dynasty, who reigned about 1043 B.C.;
and this hypothesis is borne out by the fact
that the signification of the ancient Egyptian
name of the town, Isembheb, is " the Isls of
Heb," thus indicating that the locality was
one sacred to the goddess, and adorned doubt
less by a temple which had been erected in
her honour by the priest-king Pinedjem. The
history of the dynasty to which these kings
belonged is so obscure that It would be most
interesting if further light could be thrown
upon it; and it Is probable that these ruins
conceal records which would be of great his
torical value. It would appear from what we
do know, that during the dynasty of the Ram
eses they exercised supreme spiritual functions
at Tanis, the Zoan of the Bible, in Lower
Egypt, and at Thebes ; and that when, owing
to the weakness of the sixteenth and last
Rameses, the high priest Herhor, then chief
prophet of Ammon, succeeded In overthrow
ing this dynasty, he established himself upon
the throne of Egypt, and fixed the seat of
government at Tanis ; but the high priests
of Thebes, in order to retain the spiritual
supremacy of that ancient city, started a con-

OLD AND NEW. 1 15
temporaneous line, so that for some time
Upper and Lower Egypt were governed
independently of each other. Lepsius gives
only three Tanlte sovereigns and seven The-
ban, from which it would appear that a union
must have taken place under the latter, who,
however, seem to have reigned somewhat in-
gloriously. The most vigorous of them ap
pear to have been Plankh and Pinedjem, who
was possibly the Pharaoh with whom Solomon
" made affinity " by marriage ; " for Pharaoh
king of Egypt had gone up and taken Gezer,
and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaan-
ites that dwelt in the city, and given it for
a present unto his daughter, Solomon's wife."
And we read further that Solomon built a
house especially for her, because she seems
to have retained the religion of her royal
father, the high priest of Ammon ; therefore
" Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh
out of the city of David unto the house he had
built for her : for he said. My wife shall not
dwell In the house of David king of Israel,
because the places are holy whereunto the
ark of the Lord hath come." It seems odd
that It should not have struck Solomon that

1X6 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
If his wife was too unholy even to live in a
sacred city, she was too unholy to be his
wife ; meantime his father-in-law, who, if he
was not Pinedjem, was undoubtedly one of
the priest-kings of Ammon, was celebrating
mysterious rites, possibly in this very temple
of Isls whose ruined walls we were now
identifying. Nor did these religious scruples
interfere with intimate relations being kept up
between Egypt and Palestine during the reign
of Solomon and these pontiff-kings, for we
hear that " Solomon had horses brought out
of Egypt and linen yarn : the king's mer
chants received the linen yarn at a price.
And a chariot came up and went out of
Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and
an horse for an hundred and fifty." These
commercial relations came to an end when
Egypt was invaded by the Assyrians under
Sheshong the First, and the dynasty of the
Ammon monarchs was overthrown. This
king is the Sesonchis of the Greeks, and the
Shishak of the Bible, with whom Jeroboarn
took refuge when he fled from Rehoboam,
and who afterwards " came up against Jeru
salem, and took away the treasures of the

OLD AND NEW. 1 17
house of the Lord, and the treasures of the
king's house ; he took all : he carried away
also the shields of gold which Solomon had
made." An inscription on one of the walls
of the great hall at Karnak commemorates
this campaign against Judah, and gives a list
of the conquered towns and districts.
It is worthy of note that the modern name
of bricks formed of clay, and not requiring
straw, should be haybee, as we found no straw
in the bricks of these ruins, which now bear
the same name, though in some of the walls
which formed its fortifications are layers of
reeds in every fourth course, to serve as
binders. The bricks on which we found
the inscription of prophet of Pinedjem were
burnt ; so that Sir Gardner Wilkinson is
mistaken when he says "that burnt bricks
were not used in Egypt, and when found
they are known to be of Roman time." ^
The rest of his notice on Egyptian brick
work, however, applies so accurately to those
at Haybee — which, with the exception of those
stamped, were all crude — that it is worth
quoting.
' Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, ii. 194.

Il8 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
" Enclosures of gardens or granaries, sacred
circuits surrounding the courts of temples, walls
of fortresses or towns, dwelling-houses and
tombs, and even some few of the temples
themselves, were of crude brick, with stout
columns and gateways ; and so great was the
demand, that the Government, foreseeing the
profit to be obtained from a monopoly of them,
undertook to supply the public at a moderate
price, thus preventing all unauthorised persons
from engaging in their manufacture. And In
order more effectually to obtain this end, the
seal of the king, or of some privileged person,
was stamped upon the bricks at the time they
were made ; and bricks so marked are found
both In public and private buildings, some
having the ovals of a king, and some the
names and titles of a priest, or other Influ
ential person. Those which bear no charac
ters either form part of a tale, of which the
first only were stamped, or were from the
brick-fields of individuals who had obtained a
licence from the Government to make them
for their own consumption."
It is not unlikely that if excavations were
prosecuted at Haybee on a more extensive

OLD AND NEW. 1 19
scale than those at which we were present a
month later, some still more interesting dis
coveries might be made, and light thrown
upon the legends concerning the pontiff-kings
of whose dynasties so little is known. I be
lieve that Brugsch Pasha has visited the ruins,
and found a brick or tablet of Thotmes the
Third. There are also some figures in the
museum at Cairo, which have been sent from
Haybee ; but they are not the result of organ
ised examination, but of quarrying operations,
undertaken for the construction of the sugar-
factories on the other side of the river. When
we got back to the first tomb we had visited,
where we had set a couple of men to dig, we
found that they had reached some sarcophagi ;
but they were too tightly wedged In, and our
time was too limited, to render it possible to
get at their contents. We afterwards found
some mortuary chambers hewn in the rock ;
and upon the lintel over the entrance of one
there was an Inscription, but it was too much
defaced to be deciphered. What we had
done, however, seemed to Daninos Bey to
be sufficiently encouraging to warrant his
applying to Monsieur Maspero, director-gen-

I20 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
eral of the museum at Boulak, for permission
to commence excavations on a small scale,
which that gentleman readily granted ; and
at these we were able to assist a few weeks
later. The sun was now sinking behind the Libyan
hills, and we reluctantly wended our way to
the river-bank, accompanied by a large retinue
of native followers. It was our first experi
ence of research of this description, and we
had just done enough of it to whet our appe
tites, and encourage us to go higher up the
river, in the hope of finding some spot which
might offer attractions of the same description.
With this object principally in view, we
fixed our headquarters at MInieh, a town of
some importance about i6o miles up the river
from Cairo, whose white houses and relatively
imposing appearance are familiar to dahabeeya
travellers and Cook's tourists. Our abode was
on the bank of the river ; and the arrival of a
Cook's steamer, with its passengers streaming
on shore for an hour, and then posting off not
much wiser than when they came, was an
event which reminded us from time to time that
we were within the pale of modern civilisation.

OLD AND NEW. 12 1
MInieh is a town of about 20,000 inhabitants,
the capital of the province, and residence of
the mudir, and of the principal superintendent
of the Daira Sanieh for Upper Egypt. The
only foreigners resident here are two or three
French employees connected with the large
sugar-factory which stands near the palace of
the Khedive on the banks of the river. To
the south of the town are the beautiful and
extensive gardens, belonging principally to
Sultan Pasha, the largest landholder and most
influential man in the province, whose palace
by the water-side is quite an imposing fea
ture ; while the elaborate pleasure - grounds
and gardens of the Khedive enclose the town
on the north. It thus lies between the Nile
in front, and the Ibrahimieh Canal in rear,
with groves of dates and oranges, at once
shady and odorous, on both flanks — and is
one of the most agreeable residences on the
river. Unfortunately, however, MInieh is not
at present available as a place of residence to
the ordinary tourist, unless he lives in a daha
beeya, or has tents, as it does not boast of a
hotel. On the opposite or eastern side of the
Nile, rises at a distance of about a mile from

122 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
the bank, the range of cliffs of nummullte
limestone, with the precipitous sides and fan
tastic forms of which, the Nile traveller is so
familiar. From time to time these cliffs are
rent by gorges similar to the one we had
already explored at Haybee ; and In old time
they were strategically of so much importance,
that the remains of fortifications are nearly
always to be found at them, and often the
mounds and tombs, which indicate the pre
vious existence of towns.
Nearly opposite the north end of MInieh
was a gorge of this description, upon which
we cast longing eyes, the more especially as
we could find no mention of it In any guide
book ; and we accordingly determined to make
it the object of our first expedition. We were
greeted on our arrival on the opposite shore
by the sheikh of the smaH village at which we
landed, and followed him under date-trees and
across wheat-fields to the base of the cliff". As
we approached it, we were startled by the
excited exclamation on the part of my ser
vant, Mohamet Achmet, who took a lively but
somewhat 111 - regulated Interest in hierogly
phics, of " Dere's a 'scriptlon ; " and on looking

OLD AND NEW. 123
up incredulously, we observed, to our delight
and .surprise, a series of hieroglyphics and
some pictorial representations cut on the wall
of rock — which was here at least a hundred
feet high — and about fifty feet from Its base.
I had, unfortunately, not brought my opera-
glass, and could only make out the characters,
some of which had been defaced by time. Im
perfectly. However, it looked as If it would
be possible, by turning the angle of the gorge,
to scramble along a narrow ledge which pro
jected from the wall of rock, and so reach
them. The face of the cliff — along the base
of which we now walked for about half a mile
— presented a most singular appearance : it
was furrowed and pitted with holes, as though
It had been afflicted in former ages by a vir
ulent attack of smallpox ; at its northern ex
tremity, where it was cleft by the gorge, it
was crowned by a projecting mass of rock,
most fantastic in form ; and immediately be
neath this, and on the shoulder which formed
one side of the gorge, we found the remains
of an ancient town. Our first instinct before
examining it, however, was to climb up the
slope of brickbats and potsherds, until we

124 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
reached what we calculated to be the level
of the inscription, and then to find the ledge
by which it could be reached. This proved
to be about two feet wide, with a horrible
sloping surface of small limestone gravel, and
after I had gone a few yards I found myself
clutching too affectionately to the Arab in
front of me for my peace of mind. I had
overestimated my steadiness of head, and was
compelled to beat a hasty and ignominious
retreat. I was partially compensated for my
humiliation and disappointment by the extreme
Interest and beauty of the view from this ele
vated spot. The amphitheatre was somewhat
similar, but superior in ruggedness of outline
and boldness of character generally to that
of Haybee. Looking eastward, and bounding
the prospect In that direction, at a distance of
about half a mile, was a lofty cliff" of natural
rock — a projecting mass of which terminated
abruptly on a lower ledge. Along the summit
of this ridge, which, in its turn, ended in a
precipice sixty or seventy feet high, ran a wall
of crude brick showing sharply against the
sky-line. As well as I could judge from the
distance at which I was, it was from sixty to

OLD AND NEW. 125
seventy yards long, and from fifteen to twenty
feet high, and was evidently part of the outer
fortifications of the town. In all probability
it formed a portion of the defensive system
which is said to have been constructed by an
ancient Egyptian queen, whose name was De-
looka, and which extended from Assouan along
the whole length of the valley of the Nile to
the sea.
DIodorus says that Sesostris " erected a
wall along the eastern side of Egypt to guard
against the incursions of the Syrians and Arabs,
which extended from Pelusium, by the desert,
to Heliopolis, being in length 1500 stadia"
(about 173 English miles). If this was neces
sary as far as Heliopolis, there is every reason
to suppose that it was no less essential to the
safety of the inhabitants further up the river,
and that, as an additional security, those fort
resses were built, the remains of which I have
seen at Haybee, Tehneh, Kom el Kafara, and
elsewhere on the eastern bank of the Nile.
The Arabs told us there were no mounds of
a town beyond the wall, but that there were
caves in the cliffs beyond ; and I have no
doubt that they would repay investigation, as

126 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
this neighbourhood seems somehow to have
escaped that careful examination which has
been bestowed upon almost every mile of the
Nile valley.
There were a few native huts among the
mounds, and the " oldest Inhabitant " told us
that half a day's journey to the eastward there
were two caves, the extent of which could never
be explored, they were so vast. He declared
that he himself had been with lights the better
part of a day's journey in one of them. That
in the limestone formation there may be natural
caves of some extent which have been magni
fied by native imagination is highly probable,
but I doubt whether they would repay a visit.
The population of the place we , were now
exploring, which is called Kom el Kafara,
assured us that though so near MInieh, they
had never known of any foreigners having
Investigated the ruins. They could, in fact,
only remember having once seen two who
came to shoot. We made them collect all
their treasures In the way of beads and coins,
the former of which the women wear as neck
laces, while the latter are kept by the men
under a vague impression that they represent

OLD AND NEW. 127
money of some sort. On one of these neck
laces I found a modern button, a modern glass
bead, and a scarabseus. The woman was evi
dently under the impression that the latter
was the least valuable of the three ; she put
a relatively high price on the button and the
bead, but I got the scarabaeus for twopence.
The coins were comparatively modern, with
Roman, Arabic, and Cufic inscriptions, but it
by no means follows that they were picked up
on the spot. In the low mud- wall of one of
the huts was the fragment of a marble papyrus
column about three feet high ; near by in the
mounds were two circular limestone plinths
about four feet apart, and three feet in diam
eter, which probably supported the columns
that formed the entrance to a temple ; and a
large circular block of carved marble was so em
bedded in the ddbris that we could not deter
mine Its exact size. The town was evidently
a small one, probably not much more than a
fortress, as the ruins only covered about 300
acres. Many of the walls of the houses, built
of crude brick, were still standing ; and on the
edge of a rude mummy-pit we found a bundle
still Intact, and tightly corded up. This we

128 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
eagerly untied. The flax rope that bound it
was as strong as the day it was first twisted
round the brown linen wrappages, layer after
layer of which we unwound, and which were
also In very good preservation. The bundle,
which was about eighteen Inches in diameter,
contained, when at last we reached its enclos
ure, a quantity of raw flax, a number of small
bones of some animal, and some grains of
wheat. There was no skull, and certainly not
nearly the full complement of bones. After
this we wandered over the mounds in search
of antiques, but found nothing of any value.
There were no fragments of glass, and only a
few of coloured glazed pottery ; but at last, to
our joy, on turning over the largest bricks, we
found some stamped with hieroglyphics. It
took us some time to piece the most perfect
of these together, and our former experience
at Haybee enabled us, with the assistance of
a hieroglyphic alphabet, to decipher it as fol
lows — " Nouter-hon-atep, Ra-men-cheper," or
" The High Priest of Ammon Ra-men-cheper."
The interest of this discovery lay in the fact
that Ra-men-cheper was the fourth king of the
twenty-first dynasty ; and I am not aware that

OLD AND NEW. 129
his name has been found upon any monument
before. It was a curious thing that the brick
we found at Haybee, sixty miles lower down
the river on the same bank, in an almost ex
actly similar gorge, should have been inscribed
with the name of his immediate predecessor,
Pinedjem. We know nothing about Ra-men-
cheper except his position in the royal lists ;
and it is possible that excavations here might
reveal some interesting records of his reign,
and of the dynasty of pontiff-kings to which
he belonged.
At the mouth of the gorge, on its northern
side, is the tomb of a sheikh ; and below this,
near a few date-trees, are two caves, — one nat
ural, about twenty feet high, but of no great
depth — and the other artificial, the entrance to
which, cut into the solid rock, was twelve feet
by six. The mortuary chamber within was forty
feet long by ten wide, but there were no in
scriptions on its rock sides ; and at one corner
was a perpendicular shaft, filled to within three
feet of the top with sand. The roof of a lower
chamber, which is usually the receptacle of
sarcophagi, was just visible at this point, and
we lighted some straw and found it was filled
I

I30 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
with sand and rubbish to within a foot of the
roof Under these circumstances, further in
vestigation, except with a gang of workmen,
was impossible. We had done enough to
prove the Interest of the spot, and the only
thing still remaining to be accomplished, short
of excavation, was the deciphering of the in
scription on the cliff". I revisited it some days
after for this purpose, and this time succeeded
in getting along the ledge to its base. I found
it to be about thirty feet long and nine feet
high. The name inscribed was that of Ram-.
eses the Third ; but the upper parts of the
figures were so mutilated that I was unable
to conjecture what they might signify until I
visited the cliffs near Tehneh, ten miles lower
down the river. Here I saw, occupying the
same position on the rock, what appeared to
be the same three figures ; but they were un-
mutilated, and have been decided, by those
competent to form an opinion, to be a repre
sentation of Rameses the Third receiving a
falchion from the hand of the crocodile-headed
god Savak, or Savak-Ra, in the presence of
Ammon. I feel little doubt that the figures
at Kom el Kafara have the same signification.

OLD AND NEW. 131
The natives evidently regarded the inscrip
tion with a good deal of awe and superstition.
The sheikh assured me that I should find the
stone at the base of the inscription would give
forth a hollow sound if I struck the rock, and
told me that there was a mysterious cavern
within, inhabited by afrites or devils, to which
no entrance had been found, but that it was
probably behind a curious stone, which he
called a " monkey stone," the singular shape
and black colour of which contrasted strangely
with the white limestone. It looked like black
basalt ; but whether it was, or how It got there,
I can form no definite opinion. It is certain,
however, that, on striking the rock, I failed to
make it emit a hollow sound. Rameses seems
to have had a propensity, in which he has been
imitated by the modern tourist, of writing his
name on rocks, but he did it in a style so im
perishable, that it has lasted just three thou
sand years ; and perhaps, considering his great
achievements both In war and peace, his van
ity may be excused. He rivalled his great
predecessor and relative, Rameses the Great,
the Sesostris of the Greeks, In his conquests,
in the benefits he conferred upon his country,

132 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
and in the monuments he left behind him. Of
these, the temple of Medinet Habou, on the
plain of Thebes, is perhaps the most remark
able. Among the inscriptions, there is one
which mentions, for the first time In history,
several of the nations of Europe ; and his tomb
is one of the finest of " the tombs of the kings."
I described these facts to the faithful Mo
hamet, who was extremely anxious to know
the Interpretation of the Inscription he had
been the first to point out, and who piloted
me along the ledge to enable me to copy it.
" This Is the name of the great Rameses," I
said. " You have heard of his tomb ? " " Yes,
sir," he promptly replied. " Captain Ramsay,
I know — he one English gentleman ; he not
burled here — his tomb furder up."
While our experiences so far had satisfied
us that the ancient land of Khemi was far from
exhausted as a field for antiquarian research,
we also found, in the phase through which the
modern land of Egypt is passing, much to
interest both In its political and material con
dition. Our mode of life brought us more
closely into contact with the people of all
classes than usually falls to the lot either of

OLD AND NEW. 133
the tourist hurrying to the First Cataract, or
the valetudinarian leading a hotel life in Cairo.
I had myself visited Egypt upon eight previ
ous occasions, on flying visits, and can therefore
realise how erroneous is the impression pro
duced upon the traveller who sees it for the
first time from the windows of a railway car
riage, or the deck of a dahabeeya. The squalid
aspect of the mud - villages, the thinly clad
ragged population clustered round the holes
which serve for entrances into their dung-
daubed hovels, and the poverty-stricken aspect
of the population, would lead to a most in
correct conclusion, if it was formed entirely on
outward appearances. And indeed there has
been a time, and that not very remote, when
the external aspect of the people did not belie
their real condition ; when they were thrashed
and starved by a rapacious government, crying,
like " the horse-leech, 'Give, give,' " and which
never was satisfied. It is only since the ex
pulsion of the late Khedive that a change has
come over the spirit of their dream — a change
so great that they are bewildered by Its sudden
ness, and have not yet had time to alter the
outward habits of the life to which they have

134 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
SO long been accustomed, or to recover from
the sense of fear and mistrust by which they
were continually haunted. The character of
the people has been created by long periods
of misrule and oppression ; qualities of apathy,
suspicion, and deceit have been engendered,
which it will take years of just and equitable
administration to eradicate ; and it will prob
ably be long before they are stimulated by the
steady improvement in their economical con
dition to rise to a higher conception of the
comforts of daily life. No doubt the perfec
tion of the climate tends to militate against
any rapid change in this respect. The mud-
huts are good enough for a country in which
it never rains ; the thin ragged gowns warm
enough for a temperature which Is always
pleasant. The land is so fruitful that it does
not require the amount of labour which is
necessary upon a more ungrateful soil, to be
made to yield of Its abundance ; and the people
may have money enough in their pockets to
build better houses and buy finer clothes, long
before it will enter into their heads to do so.
There is a strong and very natural propen
sity to hoard among them ; and the possession

OLD AND NEW. 135
of wealth having always been synonymous
with persecution, when it was discovered, has
led to habits of secrecy in regard to It ; so that
the first instinct of a peasant who, by some
fortunate accident, acquires a sum of money,
is to bury it, and not disclose its existence,
even to his wife and family. Under the oven
is a favourite hiding-place, as there is a certain
security in a fire being generally burning over
it. Even to the last, men have been known
to guard the secret, dying with it unrevealed ;
and there can be little doubt that a good deal
of money has been lost in this way, and that,
if we add the stores of the ancients to those of
modern times, the country must contain a con
siderable amount of hidden treasure. This is
confirmed to some extent by the fact that the
ideas of the peasantry are always running upon
hidden treasure. I received a curious evidence
of this upon one occasion when I was trying to
induce a man to sell me some antiques which
he had dug out of a mound. Among them he
inadvertently said there was a large earthen
jar — on which his wife interrupted him, and
a violent argument took place between them.
She objected strongly to her husband selUng

136 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
the jar, on the ground that If It came to the
ears of the Government they would certainly
be accused of having stolen the treasure which
it contained, and be forced to pay money by
way of restitution.
In spite of all this suspicion and reluctance
to reveal the possession of money, by spending
it, we have but to look a little closely to see
the evidences of an Increasing material pros
perity all through Egypt. In many of the
smaller towns new houses are springing up
rapidly ; at Medinet el Fayoum, MInieh, Rho-
da, and other places which I visited, this was
observable. Land that had been allowed to
run out was being taken back into cultivation.
The Fayoum especially has taken a marvellous
start within the last two years. I was, per
haps, the more struck by the marked evidences,
everywhere visible, of a growing prosperity,
by the contrast which the country afforded to
Turkey, where I had passed the previous year.
It was the difference between a house In pro
cess of construction and a house crumbling to
decay. The unfortunate feature in the situa
tion Is, that the new house is being built under
the very shadow of the old, by the same build-

OLD AND NEW. 137
ers who are actually engaged in helping to pull
down the old, and who are only " construct
ing " in harmony now, from interested and
private motives, which must conflict whenever
the scramble begins for the remains of what
they are about to demolish. Under these
circumstances, though the present aspect is
encouraging, the conviction that its prosper
ity depends upon a combination of external
powers, with rival and selfish ends In view,
seriously detracts from what would otherwise
be a most hopeful prospect for the future.
Hence it is probable that the unfortunate
people will just have tasted enough of relief
from oppression and of material prosperity, to
make the relapse into the general chaos, that
must ensue upon the dismemberment of Tur
key, doubly painful to them ; and they will
find their suspicion and distrust of the future,
and the sort of instinct which prevails that the
present state of things is too good to last, well
founded. Meantime they seem to believe in
" making hay while the sun shines." Every
man has already learnt exactly how much
his annual tax amounts to, and refuses to be
squeezed out of a piastre more. The old

138 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
officials, who used to line their pockets out of
extortions from the peasantry, under pretext of
collecting taxes, which varied with the squeez
ability of the tax-payer, can do so no longer
without discovery ; for the peasant has learnt
from experience, to his astonishment, that ap
peal to the proper quarter secures protection
and redress. A consciousness which is, on
the other hand, apt to produce a reaction, and
make him insubordinate and untractable in
matters where he has certain duties to per
form, and to which he was compelled in old
days by a free use of the kurbatch.
In a country dependent for Its prosperity
upon its irrigation system being kept in good
repair, it is evident that every human being is
personally interested in the state of the sluices
and irrigating canals ; and from the earliest
times the population were obliged to contribute
their labour gratuitously for their preservation,
just as In the United States every farm in the
country is compelled to contribute its quota of
labour, without payment, to the maintenance
of the roads. The same system has always
prevailed in Egypt ; and the canals were kept
up by a corvde of the inhabitants, who en-

OLD AND NEW. 139
deavoured, by every means in their power, to
evade it, and were only compelled to obedience
by the liberal use of the stick. Now, however,
the use of the stick or kurbatch Is abolished,
but the men are none the less expected to
keep the irrigation works In repair by gratuit
ous labour. In some mudirates the peasantry
are compelled to work thus without payment
on the dikes and canals for six months in the
year, in others for one hundred and twenty
days. Nor can they exempt themselves by
payment, — as even, if the money were forth
coming. It would not be possible to find the
requisite amount of labour. In addition to
this, the men are often obliged to work at
a distance of one or two days' journey from
their homes, thus involving them in consider
able extra expense, to escape which they not
unfrequently bribe the minor employee. In
deed, although legally they cannot buy exemp
tion. In practice it is not so very difficult ; for
money, skilfully applied, generally provides a
means of escape from most dilemmas. It is
evident that no people in the world will will
ingly stand being forced to work six months
of the year without pay ; and now that they

I40 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
are no longer bastinadoed into it, they are
getting difficult to manage, and the canals are
suffering in consequence. The simple and
manifest solution of the difficulty would be
to clean them by machinery. There is some
thing at once grotesque and pathetic in this
nineteenth century in the sight of five thou
sand men, almost entirely naked, standing
waist-deep in the soft mud, and scooping it
out with no better instrument than their hands.
One can scarcely conceive a more disagreeable
operation, though it reminds one how little the
habits of the people are changed since those
ancient times when the huge monuments,
which at this day challenge our admiration,
were created by the application of physical
force upon a vast scale. By the introduction
of dredgers this great multitude might be
largely released, and enabled to devote them
selves to the culture of their own lands. At
the same time, the maintenance of dikes and
other irrigation works would always render a
certain amount of forced labour necessary;
and though it is repugnant to our feelings to
force them to work by beating them, still, as
their own salvation depends upon their fulfil-

OLD AND NEW. 141
ling this duty, it Is a question how far this
sentiment should prevail in a matter of such
vital interest to the country, arnong a popula
tion who have always been accustomed to this
mode of coercion, and who feel no disgrace
attaching to it. A curious Illustration of this
came under my notice while staying with a
friend who was engaged in keeping the canals
in good repair. A man who had persistently
evaded his duties, seemed to be pricked by his
conscience, and voluntarily came to him one
day, and said that he was prepared to go to
work on the canal, but that he could not do so
without being compelled. He had never in
his life worked on a canal until he had been
beaten, and there was apparently something
repugnant to his feelings in going to work
upon one, even for pay, voluntarily ; he there
fore requested that a hundred blows of the
kurbatch should be administered to him upon
the soles of his feet. My friend reluctantly
acceded to his request, thereby breaking the
law ; but the man received the required stimu
lus without a groan, and went to his work in a
peaceful and contented frame of mind, as one
who had relieved his conscience of a heavy

142 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
load. One could scarcely require a stronger
proof of the extent to which a population may
be ddnaturde by a long course of oppression
than this Instance, which Is perfectly authentic,
furnishes. From the illustration I have given of the
value of the kurbatch, it will be seen that it
has too strong a hold upon the people to be
readily abandoned ; and indeed, although it is
nominally prohibited by law, its use is largely
resorted to, sub rosa, by the native minor
officials, more especially In the detection of
crime. On one occasion, alighting from the
train at a small town where I was going to
spend a few days, I observed five prisoners,
heavily chained by the neck and arms, being
escorted by a guard of soldiers out of one of
the rear carriages. The leading man was a
negro, with by no means a bad cast of coun
tenance, who was smiling defiantly at the crowd
which had assembled to see them pass. The
others followed his example in a display of
contempt and indifference to their position,
and some of them were truculent-looking fel
lows enough. On inquiring as to their crime,
I was informed that a few days before they

OLD AND NEW. 143
had burglariously entered the house of a small
Greek trader in the town, whom they had fired
at and severely wounded, decamping with a
considerable sum of money, shooting and kill
ing on their way a policeman who attempted
to interfere. It was suspected that they formed
part of a large band who were credited with a
series of burglaries and other acts of violence
in the neighbourhood. They had been ar
rested owing to a curious train of circum
stances too long to recount, but I was anxious
to follow them to the office of the vakil in
order to hear them cross-examined. I was
requested, however, to refrain from doing so,
as the authorities would have hesitated to
apply the kurbatch in my presence ; and with
out it. It would be Impossible to discover the
names and hiding-places of their accomplices,
one of whom had been actually guilty of the
murder. I was therefore obliged to content
myself with receiving an accurate report of
what passed from one who was present. He
told me that the black man, who was one of
the ringleaders, and had been a slave, re
ceived a hundred blows of the kurbatch, bel
lowing loudly during the whole of the process.

144 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
before he announced himself willing to confess.
When he did so, his revelations were most
important. All his comrades were similarly
treated — one receiving In silence and in per
fect indifference 1500 blows of the kurbatch
without confessing. The executioner told my
informant that the man's feet were so hard he
felt as if he was beating Iron. He was then
put to various kinds of torture, but remained
obdurate to the end. As a result of what
was discovered, however, the remaining mem
bers of the band, numbering in all twenty-
two, were arrested, and six murders, accom
panied by assassination, were confessed with
all their details, besides numerous minor
offences. The fear of the peasantry, and
their reluctance to testify In cases where the
band Is powerful and influential by virtue of
its connection by blood with a large district
of country, would have rendered it impossible
to bring this gang of malefactors to justice
without resorting to these severe measures.
In the case in question, one girl proved an
exception to this rule, and showed as much
courage in giving her evidence as nerve and
presence of mind at the time of the burglary.

FELLAHAH GIRL MIDDLE EGYPT

OLD AND NEW. 145
It seems that the black slave came to her, as
she lay bound on the ground, for the purpose
of cutting her throat ; on which she said, " If
you want to cut my throat in order to get my
bracelets and earrings, here they are, and wel
come. I only gave two piastres for the brace
lets, and one for the earrings," — and she took
them off" and threw them to him ; on which the
chief of the band, picking them up, threw them
back to her with the remark, " We don't want
your false rubbish," and called off his black
comrade. They were really solid gold, and
the clever wench saved her life and her jewels
by her ready wit. Not uncommonly the police
are in league with the robbers ; and this must
have been the case in this instance, for out of
no town guardians, only two were proved to
have been on duty on the night of the occur
rence, and of these one was shot. Hence
there was no possibility of instituting a pur
suit at the time.
It is an unfortunate fact that the common
people seem to get demoralised in propor
tion as they are brought in contact with
foreigners. Thus the servants in the large
towns, and the Nile boatmen, are among the
K

146 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
most dishonest classes in the population. An
instance of the moral code prevalent among
the latter came under my notice one day,
when we were lying wind-bound, moored to a
sandy islet in the river. A large dahabeeya,
laden with grain, came and moored alongside,
and I observed the crew busy, apparently
throwing the grain in the air to clean it.
Upon my inquiring why they chose the time
and place for this operation, I was informed
that the boat was consigned to some foreign
house in Cairo, but that the Rels was making
a little speculation out of the cargo on his
own account, and having sold some of it at a
neighbouring town, was now engaged making
up the deficient weight with fine sand. When
the whole was thoroughly mixed he would
damp it a little, so as to increase the bulk
and weight of his cargo to the requisite ex
tent. This proceeding was carried on openly
under the eyes of our crew, who considered it
a perfectly natural one. Merchants who are
conversant with frauds of this kind, constantly
practised by the crews of Nile boats, usually
send a trustworthy person with their cargoes,
as watchman. The great amount of European

OLD AND NEW. 147
travel on the river of late years, the lavish ex
penditure of backsheesh, and the opportunities
which exist for swindling the unsophisticated
traveller, have made the Nile boatmen a greedy,
rapacious, and, unless they are kept well In
hand, an insolent class of the community.
Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the people are
peaceable and easily managed, contented with
little, and grateful for kind treatment, though
lacking in enterprise or energy, — a defect
which, however, may rather be due to a long
course of bad government than to the in
herent absence of those qualities. Now that
they are regularly paid for their day's labour
by the Daira Sanieh and Domalne admin
istrations, they show themselves industrious
enough ; and there is no difficulty in getting
labour where they feel they can rely upon
the m,ouffetish. There Is, however, a great
contrast in the methods in which the estates
of the Daira Sanieh are administered, depend
ing on the individual capacity and honesty of
the mouffetishes. Each of these functionaries
administers a teftish or farm, varying in size
from 10,000 to 50,000 acres, — the whole Daira
Sanieh lands amounting to about half a million

148 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
of acres. Of these, 200,000 lie In a strip ex
tending for eighty miles along the banks of the
Nile to a point about twenty miles above MIn
ieh ; 50,000 are situated above Luxor ; 76,000
are In the Fayoum ; and the rest in Lower
Egypt. On this land there are 375 miles of
agricultural railway, the plant, rolling stock,
and appurtenances of which are valued at
about a million sterling. There are nine
sugar-mills in operation, and three in full
working order, but these latter are closed
for want of a sufficient supply of cane. These
mills are valued at about ;^ 200,000 apiece;
and there is one which is not quite finished,
but the building materials for it are all on the
spot. Besides the sugar, there are sundry
cotton-mills, which are not at work. The
ex - Khedive is responsible for all this ex
travagance of Investment in machinery; and
it Is melancholy to see the quantity of good
material, of great value, lying about the fields,
which is destined never to be used. Huge
iron wheels, boilers, cylinders, fragments of
steam -ploughs, seem to strew the country;
while the long iron funnels of the sugar-
factories disfigure it. If these returned a

OLD AND NEW. I49
large profit on the expenses of working them,
it would be some consolation ; but at present
the Daira lands do not do much more than
pay their expenses, together with the charges
upon them, and in some years do not do that.
This is to some extent due to defective cul
tivation. The furrows in which the cane is
planted are not nearly deep enough ; the rows,
unlike those I have seen in the Southern
States of America, are single Instead of
double, and are only about half as far apart ;
and the cane Is not banked up. The present
administration has no doubt much to contend
with. First, it has the legacy of all the cor
ruption and evils which tainted every depart
ment under the late Government, and these
were especially rife in the Daira Sanieh, which
offered an exceptionally good field for plunder ;
then it has to bear the pressure of the bond
holders, who cannot wait for a process of
reform, or submit to the trying of experi
ments which are Incidental to a new system,
but which must of necessity take time and
money. It may be that by degrees these
experiments may be introduced ; for there can
be no doubt that, with certain changes in the

150 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
present system, and a judicious expenditure
of capital, especially on irrigation works, the
Daira Sanieh property might be made to yield
a very large return. It is due to Ismail Pasha
to acknowledge that he planned a system of
irrigation which possesses great merit, and
which only requires to be perfected to confer
a still greater benefit upon the country than it
already does. With a view of completely con
trolling and utilising to their fullest extent the
waters of the Nile, he constructed the canal
known as the Ibrahimieh Canal, which is called
after his son. It runs parallel with the Nile,
and generally within a mile distant from it,
and extends from a little above Rhoda to
Beni-Suef It was originally Intended to carry
it Into the Nile below that place, but instead
of this it dwindles away to nothing, and the
canal to a great extent fails to do the work
for which It was designed, and be a large full-
flowing river throughout its whole course.
One of the most Important public works await
ing accomplishment is the completion of this
canal. In addition to this most valuable
adjunct to the system of irrigation, the late
Khedive built a huge dike, also extending

OLD AND NEW. 151
from Rhoda to Beni-Suef, a distance of more
than a hundred miles ; and the land between
the Ibrahimieh Canal and this dike, on the
other side of which is the level watered by
the Bahr Youssef, forms the finest cultivable
area of the western bank of the Nile for that
distance. It is divided into basins. Into which
the water is conducted by the canal. These
basins store the inundation for as long a time
as is required, and the ceremony of open
ing the sluice-gates to admit the water from
one m,udirate to another Is quite an imposing
function. The two mudirs meet at the gate,
and the one formally hands over the water to
the other, who signs a written receipt for it.
The only natural overflows which now take
place are that of the waters of the Nile over
the narrow strip on its right bank, and that
of the Bahr Youssef, which runs behind the
dike. The whole of the rest of the country
is divided into basins' which are flooded as
desired ; and the impression of one's youth,
therefore, that the whole country was sub
merged at once by uncontrolled inundation
is erroneous. It is a question whether this
plan of storing the water and allowing it to

152 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Stagnate before it is led on into other basins,
does not deprive it of its fertilising qualities,
as it necessarily has not so much mud to de
posit as the constant fresh supply that came
down with the natural overflow. This would
not be the case if the Ibrahimieh Canal was
finished, as the waters would then run off, and
the fresh flood could be carried over the land.
As it Is, the stagnation of the water produces
infiltration, which causes the saline properties
in the soil to rise. Partly owing to this cause,
partly to the exhausting qualities of sugar-cane
and the neglect of a proper rotation of crops,
and partly to the deleterious effects in the
long-run of the nitrous soil that is excavated
from the old mounds and used as manure, —
the land will lose much of its productive
capacity ere long, unless steps are taken to
remedy these evils. Altogether, the system
not only of irrigation but of cultivation might
without much difficulty be improved ; and
there can be no doubt that the introduction
of foreign enterprise and capital would de
velop the resources of the country with far
greater rapidity and success than a Govern
ment department can do it, however well adr

OLD AND NEW. 153
ministered. Unfortunately there seems a dis
position on the part of the Government to
exclude agricultural enterprise, for fear, pos
sibly, of the foreign influence which must fol
low in its train, — and perhaps one can hardly
blame them. What with their Domalne lands
hypothecated to foreigners in one direction,
and their Daira Sanieh lands in another, and
all the principal departments of the Govern
ment under foreign control, one has no reason
to wonder at a reluctance to see foreigners
appropriating the very soil. I only know of
one instance of a considerable tract of land
being farmed by a private Individual who is
a foreigner, and he has no cause to regret his
venture ; but he has had much prejudice to
contend with on the part of the natives, and
had great difficulty in making his purchase in
the first instance.
This prejudice, so far as the peasantry are
concerned, is soon overcome. They have
every reason to be thankful for the system
under which the Government Is at present
administered; and foreigners, and especially
English, are decidedly popular among them.
Among the upper classes the sentiment is

154 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
different. The Turkish official element Is as
bitterly opposed to the foreigner as in Turkey
itself; whilst the sympathy of the higher offi
cials of Egyptian origin, and of the Copts, is
French rather than English. This is partly
owing to the great preponderance of the French
population in Egypt over the English, to the
much greater proportion of employees in the
Government service which belong to the for
mer nationality, and to the fact that the official
language is French. All the Arab papers In
the country but one, support the French. In
fact, Egypt is becoming rapidly Frenchified
morally, and under the present contrivance of
an Anglo-French administration French In
fluence must inevitably go on increasing. But
in Egypt, as elsewhere in Eastern countries
under the domination of the Porte, a feeling
of national independence Is gradually growing.
This is the case both in Egypt and Syria,
though from the fact that both countries have
lost all traditions of a national independent
existence, it is a plant of slow and tender
growth, and will not dare to find expression
until the central Turkish power is shaken to
its foundations. I think we may then see.

OLD AND NEW. 155
both in Syria and Egypt, an anti- Turkish
movement, which the old conquering race,
whose supremacy is now only based upon Its
prestige, will be no longer able to resist. When
such a movement takes place, the relations
that these two countries hold towards Eng
land and France will have to be determined,
and It will probably then be found that the
best solution would be an arrangement by
which Syria, excluding Palestine, should be
placed under the protectorate of France, and
Egypt under that of England. The national
party in both countries would hail such a
change with delight, and indeed are already so
far familiarised with the idea of obtaining their
freedom from the domination of Turkey by
some arrangement of the Western Powers,
that the only practical difficulties in the way
of a solution in this sense would arise, not
from the countries to be dealt with, but from
the suspicions and jealousies of those great
Powers whose function it must be ere long to
shape their destinies.

156

CHAPTER IV.
SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES.
Life In MInieh In the month of March left
nothing to be desired for those whose tastes
were moderate, and who were in search rather
of repose than of excitement. The climate was
soft and temperate ; the view from our place of
residence over the Nile, with precipitous lime
stone cliffs rising out of the palm-trees, present
ed a constantly renewing variety of marvellous
effects of light and shade, which it was a con
tinual source of delight to watch and attempt
to put on paper. The neighbourhood abound
ed, besides, in picturesque sketches ; while our
rooms were ever fragrant with the odours of
the orange and lemon groves in full bloom, by
which they were surrounded. Though the
bazaar was by no means so picturesque and
characteristic as that of Medinet el Fayoum, It

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 157
was much better supplied ; and so far as the
necessaries of life were concerned, we were
far better off". The town presents quite an
imposing effect from the river, with its white
mansions lining the bank ; and the palace of
the Khedive is one of the handsomest build
ings of the kind out of Cairo. There are
two or three mosques, which are chiefly inter
esting from the fact of their columns being
taken from old Graeco-Roman ruins of towns
in the neighbourhood, and presenting an un
usual variety of style of capital. One that
has completely fallen into decay is especially
picturesque : half-a-dozen beautiful little Cor
inthian columns rise out of a mass of rubbish ;
and on a neighbouring roof immediately above
them an ox is perpetually turning a sakkya,
which supplies the adjoining baths with water.
There does not seem to have been any city of
importance here in ancient times — the capital of
the Nome of Hermopolis Parva, in which it was
situated, lying a few miles to the south at the
village of Taha el Amoodaya, where some
mounds mark its site. Leo Africanus says that
MInieh was built in the time of the Moslems by
Khasseeb, who was appointed governor under

158 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
the Khalifat of Baghdad. He also observes
that " it abounds In every kind of fruits, and
boasts many handsome buildings and the re
mains of ancient Egyptian monuments," which
have certainly now disappeared.
So far as society was concerned, we had the
opportunity of moving in the most fashionable
native set, which, however, has always the dis
advantage of being confined exclusively to the
male sex ; so that the hospitality of which we
were the recipients, whether it took the form
of visits or dinners, became somewhat monot
onous. We were also most kindly furnished
with gaily caparisoned donkeys for afternoon
rides. One of these was a very proud animal,
which was of a pure Mecca breed, and had
cost his owner £?>o. Besides being a most
persistent brayer, he had a loud and un
pleasant manner of wheezing, or rather grunt
ing, as he walked, which made me suppose he
was broken-winded or asthmatic. So far from
this being the case, I was assured that this
wheezing was a highly esteemed quality in an
ass, and was produced by a diet of ham, of
which he was very fond, and which caused
him to grunt like a pig when he walked, at-

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 159
tractlng universal attention : thus when we
rode through the bazaar our donkey heralded
his approach from afar in a proud and osten
tatious manner, and so proclaimed both his
own value and the distinction of his rider.
He seemed to delight in these manifestations
in crowded places, thus confirming my impres
sion that donkeys are vain creatures by nature
— a belief which it will be remembered that
Hue says is entertained by the Chinese, who
prove It by tying a stone to their tails when
they begin to bray, which gives them such a
feeling of humiliation that they instantly sub
side Into a mortified silence. I often felt In
clined to try the experiment with my wheezing
friend, who had a habit of constantly stopping
suddenly, and indulging in the most prolonged
and portentous bray, during which time all
attempts to induce him to move on were
ineffectual. At other times he pulled at his
bit, in his eagerness and impetuosity, like a
high-mettled charger.
The most interesting social entertainment
to which we were invited while at MInieh,
was a festivity on the, occasion of the marriage
of the son and daughter of the two richest and

l6o THE LAND OF KHEMI.
most Influential Copts in the place. The
ceremony is generally performed in church
late on Sunday night ; but on Saturday even
ing wedding festivities take place both in the
houses of the bride and bridegroom. The
sexes, however, are not allowed to mingle,
but the women have theirs in their own
separate apartments. At eight o'clock in
the evening I followed my guide through
the tortuous, unlighted streets of the town
to the house of the bride's father. Here I
was received by the old gentleman, and
ushered into the inner court crowded with
guests, beyond which a select circle was col
lected in the small reception-room. I found
the governor of the province and all the prin
cipal officials assembled here. The whole of
the ground floor was brilliantly lighted ; and
though all wore the red fez cap or tarboosh,
the costume of the most aristocratic portion
of the assembly was more or less European-
ised. When all had seated themselves on
chairs round the room, and had partaken of
the due allowance of sherbet and coffee, the
performances commenced by the introduction
of a dancing-girl, gorgeously attired in crim-

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. l6l
son satin and brocade, abundantly spangled
with tinsel, and adorned with jewels of some
value. Masses of gold ornaments like coins
were attached to her flowing tresses, and
jingled on her back whenever she moved.
In her dress, however, one could remark the
growing influence of European habits : the
gauzy loose trousers of the Ghawazee of old
days have given place to a full skirt reaching
almost to the ground ; her feet, instead of
being bare, were shod with Parisian brode-
quins ; and under her small jacket was a
chemise-like garment of tolerable thickness,
which was also an Innovation adapted to im
ported notions of decency. Her dancing was
of the character usual in the East, excepting
that the attitudes were considerably modified,
and a general air of propriety prevailed, which
was also a decidedly modern improvement.
It is said that the modern Egyptian dance
is an inheritance bequeathed by the ancients,
whose priestesses in the temples dedicated to
Hathor, the Egyptian Venus, indulged in re
ligious exercises, which finally degenerated in
purity and dignity ; so that a return to these
qualities is scarcely to be regretted. The
L

l62 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
march of civilisation has now so far advanced,
that the native band and dance were, after
the first performance, abandoned for bad
European music by native artists, to which
the Egyptian girl did her best to waltz with
out a partner, with a step which certainly had
nothing In common with the trois temps. She
was succeeded by a characteristic Arab concert
— the orchestra being composed of four men,
one of whom played a sort of zither, another
reed-pipes, another a tom-tom, while the fourth
trusted entirely to his vocal powers for contri
buting to the general harmony, which it was
necessary to be an Arab to appreciate. When
the wild discordant strains raised by this quar
tette ceased, we were treated to a performance
of a very novel and grotesque kind. A loud
"tintamarre" was heard in the street, and a
procession, which was accompanied by shouts
of laughter from the spectators outside, entered
the house. It consisted of what was Intended
to represent an awkward squad of raw recruits.
The officer in command was dressed in British
uniform, but his men wore tall fool's caps of
paper, and were otherwise fantastically attired.
The principal performer was a clown, who,

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 163
it appears, is celebrated in the town for his
talents for mimicry and disguise. He kept
the assembly in roars of laughter by his absurd
attempts to obey words of command and learn
his drill, and by the insubordinate witticisms
to which he gave vent. Suddenly some
crackers were let off", supposed to represent
file - firing, and a sham fight ensued, which
resulted in the mock death of one of the
soldiers, who lay stiff in the middle of the
room, while his companions retired to prepare
for the next act in the comedy.
This consisted In their return, a few minutes
later, in the character of Coptic priests, whose
function It was to perform the last rites over
the dead man. The buffoon was now dis
guised as a Church dignitary, with long white
drapery, cap, and turban, and with a flowing
beard ; and with book and candle, followed by
his attendants, he solemnly approached the
dead man, and then suddenly burst forth with
an imitation of the Coptic funeral service,
which was an irresistibly ludicrous travesty
of a grave function. It was a blasphemous
and disagreeable proceeding ; but the imita
tion of the Coptic method of nasal chanting

164 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
by a man who was not uttering a word of the
language, was so clever that the audience
rolled in their seats with laughter. Our host,
however, apparently had not been prepared
for the scene, and it was brought to a some
what sudden close, to my great relief, for the
reason, as I was informed on inquiry, that the
archbishop, who was to perform the marriage
ceremony next evening, might be offended If
he heard that the most sacred rites of his
Church had been parodied In the house of the
bride's father the night before.
The dancing-girl was repeating her perform
ance in a somewhat less constrained manner
when I left the entertainment, which I under
stood was protracted until an early hour in
the morning. I declined to make a night
of it by going to the house of the bride
groom, where similar festivities were being
carried on.
On the following night I witnessed the mar
riage of a peasant couple, which took place
about ten o'clock, and which was, in some
respects, more Interesting than the aristocratic
wedding that succeeded it at midnight.
In the centre of the church, benches were

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 165
arranged so as to form three sides of a square.
In the middle of the centre bench sat the bride
and bridegroom, side by side, their bare feet
dangling about six Inches from the ground.
The male friends extended from hlrn to the
right, and the female from her to the left. As
they were of the fellah class, the women's
faces were uncovered, and they wore the blue
gown and head-gear common to the country
people. The bride, however, was an excep
tion ; her face was entirely concealed by a red
cotton handkerchief strained so tightly across
it that it was a mystery how she could draw
a breath. The bridegroom, who was quite a youth,
looked excessively shy and uncomfortable, and
held a white handkerchief persistently to his
mouth, as if he was suffering from toothache.
At first I thought he was ; but as, when his
hands were otherwise engaged, he held his
handkerchief In his teeth, I concluded that it
was only modesty. All, priest included, had
bare feet, and were most poorly clad.
The ecclesiastic who performed the cere
mony occupied evidently a very subordinate
position in the Church, and his principal object

l66 THE LAND OF KHEML
seemed to be to finish the operation as speed
ily as possible and get paid for it. He seated
himself on a low chair In front of the happy
couple, pulled a Coptic prayer-book out of his
breast, and gave the signal to his attendants
to commence operations ; on which a man,
squatting on his heels behind his chair, clashed
a huge pair of cymbals, and half-a-dozen others
in a like attitude set up a lugubrious chant in
a loud nasal voice. Whenever they paused,
the women ranged on the benches burst forth
in a shrill scream, with a quaver or ululation
resembling the note of the screech-owl. This
is accomplished by moving the tongue rapidly
between the lips while screaming, and is the
cry of female rejoicing common to Moslems
and Christians alike throughout the East. It
is called the zalghoot. It had a wild, barbaric
effect, as from time to time it broke In upon
the uncouth chanting and clanging cymbals of
the choir. Then the priest took up his part,
and read the service at racing speed, with
exactly the intonation so well given by the
burlesque actor the night before.
All this time men were talking and laughing
loudly ; babies were crying ; and every now

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 167
and then the priest would stop, apparently to
hold a little general conversation with those
nearest to him on the topics of the day.
Anything more Irreverent, or less like a
religious ceremony, it would be difficult to
imagine. In the midst of it all, and apropos
to nothing particular, the priest seized the
bridegroom's left hand, and put a ring upon
his little finger. After some more chanting,
reading, screeching, and general conversation,
he took a phial, which I presumed contained
holy water, and crossed the foreheads of the
bride and bridegroom with its contents. He
then opened the robe of the latter In front,
and made another cross on his breast ; and
then, baring his arms, made crosses on them.
After another interlude, he took off" the bride
groom's red cap and put a white one under
it, and replaced the red one. Again, after
an interval, he produced a black cord, which
he bound round the body of the bridegroom,
under his outer garment ; then taking off the
red cap again, he tied a piece of scarlet thread
round his head, and did the same to the bride,
who must long since have been nearly stifled.
All this time the audience were chattering, and

l68 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
holding little tallow-dips, which cast a sickly
light over the scene.
In spite of the rapidity with which the ser
vice was read, what with chanting and talk
ing, and the perpetual recurrence of " Kyrle
Eleison," followed by the zalghoot, at least
an hour elapsed before the priest seized the
heads of the bride and bridegroom, apparent
ly with the view of knocking them together.
However, he contented himself with press
ing them against one another, and waving
his hand over them, which, I presume, was
a blessing. He then untied the cords and
threads which he had fastened round them
— meaning, I suppose, that another and spir
itual knot had been tied — and then abruptly
snatched the handkerchief out of the bride
groom's mouth, and spread it over his own
knees. For the first time there was a silence,
as of hushed expectation ; then some silver
coins, amounting, I should say, to about ten
shillings, were dropped into the handkerchief,
and the priest rose solemnly, put some of the
money in his pocket, and proceeded to dis
tribute the rest among the minor officials, on
which arose the most furious clamour and

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 169
dispute as to how the filthy lucre should be
divided. It seemed to me that the man with
the cymbals got less than his share, and he
appeared to be of the same opinion ; while a
villanous-looking old creature, who acted as
a sort of beadle, endeavoured to grab the
whole. The priest, who had had the first
pull, seemed to be a good deal abused by the
others for having taken too much ; but order
was somehow at last restored, and the bride
groom got up and walked to the door. The
bride, however, seemed more difficult to deal
with : what she wanted I could not discover,
but her mother and two or three other women
seemed to be packing her up In some myste
rious way against her will. She was a slight
little thing, and they rolled her about on the
bench like a bale of goods. At last, in the
midst of her struggles, a man, I presume her
father, rushed in, put her on his shoulder, and
carried her off", followed by the rest of the
women, two of whom scrambled upon a flat
platform on the back of a squatting camel ;
the bride was wedged in between them. The
animal gave a lurch forward, and I thought
they were all going over his head — then a

170 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
lurch backward, and they seemed all about
to be precipitated over his tail, — and so he
gained his feet, and stalked off" with his pre
cious burden, just In time to make way for the
procession of the aristocratic bride, at whose
house I had been the night before.
First came iron cradles with flaming wood
torches, then the discordant band of European
music, then magnificent glass chandeliers car
ried on poles between men, then coloured
lanterns, then the bride's father attended by
his friends, then more glass chandeliers and
coloured lanterns ; then the bride on foot in
a brilliant costume of red satin, her face
masked with white silk covered with lace,
attended by her female relatives gorgeously
mantled and lightly veiled. Veiling, Indeed,
is only an act of conformity and convenience,
and Is not a custom otherwise enjoined upon
Copts. All this time there was a perpetual firing
of guns and screaming of women, and we all
crowded back again Into the church, which in
the interval had been brilliantly lighted up.
We had now to wait for the bridegroom to
arrive with his procession, likewise a noisy

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 171
and highly illuminated performance. Then
no less a person than the archbishop himself,
in full canonicals of white and gold, entered
to perform the ceremony ; but the prospect at
midnight of another hour and a half of inton
ing in an unknown tongue, amid the clash of
discordant musical instruments, and the chants
of nasal male voices, and the shrill screams of
female ones, appalled me. I had seen enough
to satisfy me that there are more kinds of
Christianity In the world than are dreamt of
in our philosophy.
While the marriage ceremonies of the Copts
are thus celebrated with all the ostentation
and display possible, their funerals, as well as
those of the Moslems, are not less important
functions, and take place on the opposite side
of the river. It Is said that it was a habit of
the ancient Egyptians to transport their dead
across the Nile for burial, and that this gave
rise to the old legend of Charon and the Styx.
Whether this Is so or not, the practice obtains
to the present day ; and two immense ceme
teries — one Christian and one Moslem — are
among the most interesting places to visit on
the eastern bank. The corpses are ferried

172 THE LAND OF KHEML
over from the south of the town ; and upon
more than one occasion I was present when
boat-loads of wailing women were conveyed
across, waving their mourning scarfs, and
making the air resound with their plaintive
cries. One day we went across to the Copt
village, or rather monastery, adjoining the
cemetery — for there are few inhabitants In the
little hamlet that surrounds the church and
adjacent building who have not ecclesiastical
functions of some sort — and we found It far
more interesting than we had any reason to
anticipate. The village is situated under the
cliff" about a mile from the river, and is ap
proached by a picturesque two-arched bridge
of ancient construction which spans a dry
canal. To the north of the monastery lies the
cemetery, covering an area of several hundred
acres. The dome-shaped rooms, like large
bee-hives, are closely packed together, and
serve as mortuary chambers in which the rela
tives of the deceased come to lament — a cus
tom that has probably descended from the
times of the ancient Egyptians, whose tombs
always had chambers attached for this pur
pose. The Copts were very proud of the fact

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 173
that their cemetery was open to Christians of
all denominations, and pointed out the grave
of a Catholic who had availed himself of the
privilege of a Christian resting-place. Indeed
Mohamet, my servant — whose knowledge
of human nature was more correct than his
theology — in order to give me an idea of the
general spirit of toleration which pervaded
this community of ecclesiastics, said, that if
you only paid them, they would bury here
French, English, Jews, or any other Christians.
As ecclesiastics their greed was only equal to
their grease, as we found out when we had
finished seeing their church. This was ap
proached by a flight of steps that led down
as If to a cellar; then we traversed an under
ground passage about seven yards long and
two wide, in which was an old stone font,
and found ourselves in the church, which was
hewn out of the solid rock. The nave, which
was like a gigantic well, measuring thirty-six
feet by twenty-one, was artificially roofed over,
at a height of about forty feet, by a depressed
dome, level with the earth's surface. It was
separated from the aisles and chancel by plain
brick columns, which were more for ornament

174 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
than for use, as the solid rock formed their
roof, and required no support. As the only
light was admitted from the dome, and that
part of the cavern which represented the chan
cel was forty-eight feet long, it was so dark
that we needed the aid of a number of tallow-
dips to see the altar-screen, which was of some
kind of brown wood inlaid with ebony and
ivory, with a few rough Scriptural represen
tations above. The apse was an innermost
recess hewn still deeper into the rock, contain
ing the altar — ^as usual a square block, like
those, according to the tradition of Biblical
design, employed in the worship of Baal.
The font in use was not the one in the pas
sage, but one sunk in the floor in the centre of
the nave, near the mouth of an old well, by the
side of which was an ancient stone basin. A
couple of rude representations of geese In white
plaster adorned the lower part of the dome,
but we were assured they were of modern
origin. However this may be, the ancient
character of the place was unmistakable ; It
had originally, doubtless, served the ancient
Egyptians for tombs and mortuary chambers,
and had been taken possession of by the early

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 175
Christians during the period when persecution
necessitated their religious services being con
ducted with secrecy, and had remained a Chris
tian place of worship ever since. On leaving
the church, our eyes having by this time
become accustomed to the general gloom, we
observed a stair winding upwards to the left of
the entry passage, and on ascending it, found
ourselves confronted by a locked door, the key
of which the priests presently brought, and
ushered us into a small chamber almost on a
level with the surface of the ground, that con
tained nothing but an oven in which the sacra
mental bread is baked. At the side of It was
a shaft cut out of the stone, now blocked with
rubbish, but which descended into what had
probably been a mortuary chamber. About
this time we became conscious that we had
chosen a wrong day to pay our visit to this
Coptic holy place. Experience has since con
vinced us that on Saturday Coptic fleas are
especially voracious. They have been de
prived of sustenance since the previous Sun
day, and rush at the unwary visitor towards
the end of the week with a ferocity which is
truly appalling. On a Sunday afternoon, after

176 THE LAND OF KHEML
they have been gorged during morning service,
one may satisfy one's archaeological propensi
ties with comparative impunity, but every day
after that increases the risk. We left Deyr el
Nasara, nevertheless, well satisfied with the
chance that had revealed to us a spot so char
acteristic, and the existence of which, until we
actually reached it, we so little suspected.
Indeed the banks of the Nile are replete
with objects of interest of this sort which are
not even in the guide-books, although it must
be said for Murray that his descriptions are
careful and exhaustive. It is, moreover, to
be remembered, that Nile tourists travel
either In Cook's steamers, in which case they
only stop to visit places which Cook thinks
worth seeing — or they go in their own daha-
beeyas, in which case they stop as little as
possible on the way up, so as to take advan
tage of the wind ; and on the way down
they have been surfeited with the wonders
of Thebes, Luxor, and the majestic remains
from Dendera upwards, and the descent of
the river becomes so wearisome, that they do
not think it worth while to stop to explore
ruins that can offer nothing so attractive as

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 177
those which they have seen. They thus pass
places on their way up and down the river
that, under other circumstances, could not fail
to attract their attention.
There Is, for instance, about ten miles below
MInieh, a village called Tehneh, where the
magnificent range of the Jebel Teyr is cleft
by a gorge, and a fragment of the cliff stands
isolated from the rest of the mountain, rear
ing its ragged crest to a height of about 200
feet above the level of the river. Its serrated
flanks perforated with rock-tombs, and its pro
jecting ledges affording as wild and desolate
a prospect eastwards as though one was in
the heart of the Sahara. Here a wady about
three miles long, with a bed half a mile wide
of white sand, is enclosed by an amphithe
atre of limestone rock, rent with fissures, and
rising into fantastic crags and pinnacles. If
we scramble up the steep shoulder, which is
covered with the mounds of an ancient Egyp
tian town, and enter the first cave we come to,
we find that the outer chamber is about 40 feet
square. Beyond it is a second smaller one,
and in the floor is a hole just large enough to
admit a man. Upon the rock by the side of
M

178 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
this hole, on the occasion of my visit, was a
heap of the guano of bats and a piece of rope.
Upon asking the Sheikh el Beled, who had
accompanied us, the meaning of this, he said
that a man was at that moment in the bowels
of the mountain collecting guano, and that
the hole was an entrance to subterranean cor
ridors in which you might journey for hours.
As it occurred to me that they might lead
to chambers or tombs used by the ancients
as yet undiscovered, I Insisted, in spite of
much opposition, in being lowered into the
chasm — a proceeding which did not altogether
suit Mohamet, though he was ashamed to
manifest any reluctance to assist me in ex
ploring these subterranean regions. It was
scarcely necessary to have taken the trouble
to tie the rope under my armpits, as I had
only begun to swing freely in the darkness,
and had hardly been let down twenty feet,
when I touched bottom. Then Mohamet
was lowered down, and then a couple of
candles. We had scarcely lighted these when
a wild-looking bearded creature, with nothing
on but a rag, made his appearance, looking
very much scared at our apparition, crawling

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 179
towards us on hands and knees out of the
gloom. We were glad to have him for a
guide, and told him to turn round and lead
the way. For the first twenty yards or so
we were obliged to crawl, but after this the
passage became about 6 feet high and 3 feet
wide. It was evidently a natural rift in the
rock, and I soon began to despair of finding
anything. However, I went on until I was
literally overpowered and driven back by the
bats. They charged us In dense whirring
battalions, banging into one's face, putting
out the candles, thumping on one's head, and
creating as much draught as if a fanning-
machlne was at work. At the same time,
the pungent odour of the guano was becom
ing overpowering — it was as though one was
being corked up in a bottle of sal-ammoniac^
and made my nose and eyes smart, to say
nothing of the unpleasantness of inhaling it.
I had now paced the distance from the en
trance-hole, and found it to be a hundred
yards. The guide assured me that it was
half-way to the end of the passage, and that
there were no other corridors or chambers of
any sort, but plenty more bats. I therefore

l80 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
decided to beat a retreat, and had to stand
another charge from them as they flew back
to their innermost recesses — finally regaining
the earth's surface, to the great relief of the
Sheikh el Beled, who seemed to think that
some disaster was certain to happen to me,
for which he would have been held personally
responsible. Passing round the shoulder of
the cliff, and scrambling up the face of the
rock, we now came to another grotto, on one
side of the floor of which was a carved figure
In a flowing robe, standing before something
which is supposed to be an altar, and holding
in one hand what may possibly be some twigs,
and in the other what, for anything that ap
pears to the contrary, may be incense ; but
all this requires an effort of Imagination to
decide. On the other side is a snake, prob
ably the Uraeus serpent of Horus, twined
round a staff. One is forcibly reminded by
it of the serpent of brass which Moses made
and set upon a pole, thus probably appealing
to an emblem with which the Israelites were
familiar, when they were called upon by an
act of faith to believe in its healing power.
In like manner Aaron, when he yielded to the

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. l8l
solicitations of the people " to make them gods
which should go before them," adopted the.
one with which both he and his countrymen
were most familiar, — the golden calf or the
holy sun-bull of Osiris, which was worshipped
at Heliopolis, where Moses himself, in his
younger days, had been a priest. This bull,
Mnenis, Is represented in the Egyptian paint
ings as being of gold,^ and was undoubtedly
Identical with the golden calves, the worship
of which King Jeroboam established in Bethel
and in Dan after his return from his sojourn
in Egypt — saying, as he did so, " Behold thy
gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of
the land of Egypt" (i Kings xli. 28). There
can be little doubt, could we only read them
aright, that these stones of Egypt contain
many interesting sermons. Over the door of
this same tomb is the winged disc of Horus,
under which emblem he represents the resur
rection of the dawn from darkness. Within
were twenty figures, in the same low relief. In
a more or less perfect state of preservation.
Some of them were so mutilated that it was
impossible to discover for whom they were
1 ChampoUion, ' Pantheon,' PI. 38.

1 82 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Intended ; but among the least destroyed it
was easy to recognise Isls giving sustenance
to Horus, Anubis, Thoth, and one or two
others. At the back of the headland of rock
in which these tombs are situated is a tablet
on which are sculptured two figures, apparent
ly in Roman attire, holding horses. Passing
from the isolated rock to the main cliff, we
observe upon its face the representation of
Rameses III. receiving the falchion from
Savak, to which I have already referred as
being apparently identical with the one I had
found at Kom el Kafara ; but here there Is no
corresponding inscription of his name in full
as at the latter place.
In the face of the cliff on the opposite side
of the gorge, and not far from a collection of
hovels appropriated to the residence of a small
Copt population, is a grotto with a pylon fa-
qade carved out of the rock. Here there were
evidently granite columns on each side of the
door, but of these only one remains. Within
is a procession of deities very much resembling
those in the cave before mentioned, and over
the door is the representation of a ship. The
traces of hieroglyphics remain on the door-

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 183
jambs, but they are too much effaced to be
decipherable. Indeed the nature of the rock
is not such as to resist the ravages of time
and the ignorant peasantry. This grotto is
approached by a flight of fourteen rock-cut
steps, that rise out of the ddbris which conceal
the rest. It seems that there Is a supersti
tion among the Copts that a visit by a newly
married couple to this cave will exercise a
beneficial Influence upon their married life.
Over another rough - hewn cave is an in
scription in Greek, which runs as follows :
" For the welfare of King Ptolemy, the god
Epiphanes, the great Eucharistes, Acoris the
son of Ergeus to Isls, Mochias, Soteira."
When we had exhausted the sights of Teh
neh, we adjourned to the yard — it could
hardly be considered a house — of the Sheikh
el Beled, to drink what he called coffee.
While we partook of his detestable beverage,
he Informed us that he, together with all the
male population of the village, with the excep
tion of the Copts, were Bedouin Arabs of the
Beni Aughba tribe, who had emigrated from
the Hejaz, not far from Mecca, about 150
years ago. He said they had lived here in

l84 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
tents at first, but finally decided upon building
houses and becoming sedentary. They had
no objection to taking wives from Xh^ fellahin,
but would not allow their own women to
marry peasants. They seemed rather proud
of the high degree of civilisation they had
attained, and especially of having acquired a
strongly developed taste for backsheesh.
Following the range northwards, we reach
in about two miles another gorge, with another
amphitheatre of limestone cliffs, some more
grottoes in the rock, the mounds of a small
ancient town, the traces of a wall which once
defended the pass from desert incursions, and
two wretched native villages picturesquely
huddled among the rocks, containing a squalid
population of what Mohamet called " mix
ings," by which he meant mingled Moslems
and Copts. I only entered four or five of the
rock-tombs here, but in none of them were
there any inscriptions. In the largest were a
couple of mummy-pits filled with rubbish to
within about six feet of the surface. They
had evidently been despoiled of their con
tents, much to Mohamet's disgust, who always
manifested the keenness of a sleuth-hound

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 185
when it became the question of a search for
what he called " dead men's boxes." The
most interesting ruin In this place was that of
the wall which extended from the base of a
precipitous rock on one side of the gorge to
that of one on the other, a distance of about a
third of a mile. The modern villages were built
of the crude bricks of which It had originally
been composed, and the only trace of it left is
a long mound of dried mud and brick-bats.
There Is no indication of its having been pro
longed in either direction, or of having formed
part of that built by the Queen Delooka —
unless, indeed, she built It In patches across
the different gorges which debouch into the
Nile valley. That the object of this one was
to protect the small town, the mounds of which
still remain within its enceinte, was very evident.
It is to be inferred from the way in which all
these ravines were fortified, that the nomad
population who in old time peopled the desert
between the Nile and the Red Sea, were far
more predatory and warlike in their habits than
those who now range over these sandy wastes.
Floating rapidly down with the stream be
neath the beetling cliffs of the Jebel Teyr, with

l86 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
the Coptic monastery of Deyr el Adra perched
upon its dizzy edge, we pass the grandest bit
of Nile scenery between Cairo and Slout, and
where the range recedes from the river at the
Wady ed Deyr, approach another most inter
esting and rarely visited spot. The river here
bends away to the westward, past Semaloot
and Golosaneh, leaving a small shallow branch
to follow Its old course, thus forming a large
island. If we leave our dahabeeya at the latter
place, a cruise of a little more than an hour
with a fresh breeze in a small boat takes us
to the retired village of Surarieh, nestling
amid its palm-groves ; and just beyond it a
spur from the limestone ridge comes down to
the river, rounding which, we find ourselves
on the mounds of an old city. This time it
is thoroughly ancient Egyptian. Here is no
waste of potsherds to indicate that at some
later date it was built upon by the Greeks or
Romans ; the tumuli are all formed of crude
brick, out of which crops the straw by which
it was formerly cemented. Here, too, are
traces of the old wall defending the gorge ;
and round its southern shoulder we come upon
range after range of quarry, the mountain look-

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 187
ing as if it had been cut out in square slices
like a cheese. At the base of some rocks half
hidden with sand, two black holes appear, evi
dently grottoes, and we have to cross half a
mile of desert to get to them. Crawling in
upon hands and knees, we find one to contain
three small rock-cut chambers without inscrip
tions. Climbing over the rock in which they
are hewn, we are startled by what at first
seems a temple of great dimensions standing
out in solitary grandeur on the waste of sand.
It is a solid mass of hewn rock, the ground-
plan of which at present is somewhat of an
L-shape, but which appears to be all that has
escaped being blasted away of a huge square
portico that had originally been pierced from
back to front and from side to side, each of
the existing sides having an immense portal
about 25 feet wide and as many In height.
The elevation of the rock, which has been
roughly hewn, is about 40 feet, and the length
of the longest side 33 yards. Its sides bear
the marks of recent blasting ; and some
quarrying which was apparently being now
prosecuted, though there were no workmen
visible, revealed the white cleanly cut lime-

l88 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Stone rock extending for about six feet down
into the sand. It is probable, therefore, that
if its base was cleared, the meaning of this
monument would become apparent. There is
no inscription or carving upon it ; but that it
was fashioned with design out of the rock in
situ, seems to me probable. Just opposite to
this mass, a large square cave has been hol
lowed out of the range, and the fragment of
a gigantic column, about four feet long, which
had been carved out of the living rock, depends
from the roof at the entrance ; the rest of it
has been blasted away In modern times. The
view from the Interior of this cave, with the
great Impending mass above, the carved rock
beyond, and the Nile valley seen in the dis
tance through its portal, was altogether unique.
As I was looking at It, a pair of wild geese
that had made their nest in a hole in the rock
just over my head, flew away with loud cries ;
they were as startled as I was by our unex
pected proximity. I now went in search of
the temple which Lepsius mentions, and the
existence of which does not appear to have
been known prior to his visit. It is situated
within a hundred yards of the rock gateway,

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 189
and cut out of the ledge of rock upon which
the latter stands. According to Lepsius, the
hieroglyphics upon its walls state that it was
dedicated by Meneptah, the son of Rameses
II., and the king under whom the exodus of
the Jews took place, to the Egyptian Venus
(Hathor). The three colossal figures In the
niche at the end of the temple were too muti
lated to tell much of a tale, but the small ones
at the sides were more distinct. I was not
sufficiently an Egyptologist, unfortunately, to
discover the meaning of the legend which
these eight or ten kings, gods and goddesses,
by their various attitudes, mean to convey.
Lepsius says that further on are groups of
tombs which have hitherto received scarcely
any notice, though from their extreme anti
quity they are peculiarly Interesting. The
sun was blazing with such intensity upon the
desert on the day of my visit, that I was
obliged to abandon the idea of prosecuting
my examination of the range any further ; but
the quarry trended away to the eastward for
a long distance. On the side of the rock near
the temple, the omnipresent Rameses III. has
cut his ovals,' and has again represented him-

igo THE LAND OF KHEMI.
self In close confabulation with the crocodile-
headed god Savak. Standing on the top of
the rock, and facing the quarry, I had occa
sion to call to Mohamet, and was startled by
hearing his name returned in a loud and mar
vellously distinct echo. He and the Rels
were so delighted with the phenomenon, that
they continued to experiment upon it for some
time. In the village of Surarieh Is a modern
tomb of some pretensions, erected to a certain
Sheikh Halld, of the Bedawee sect of der
vishes, who was so celebrated for his sanctity,
that, though he died only a few years ago, his
tomb has already become a spot to which
pilgrimages are annually made. Near here,
I met a very ancient dame whose necklace
attracted my attention ; it was composed of
beads found in the mounds, of simple but un
doubted ancient Egyptian manufacture. Al
though they were the collection of a lifetime,
I induced her to part with them for a con
sideration. Beyond this, I did not succeed in
obtaining any antiquities from the peasants,
though I think it highly probable, from the
extremely ancient character of the mounds,
that they would reward excavation. To the

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 191
north of Surarieh are the mounds of other
towns, and quarries and tombs in the range,
especially in the neighbourhood of Sheikh
Hassan. All this region is deserving of a
more thorough examination than it has yet
received, but I was unable at the time to
prosecute my researches any further in this
direction. One of the largest landed proprietors,
and at the same time the most influential
magnate at MInieh, told us that his country-
house, which was situated on the eastern bank
of the river a little higher up, was surrounded
by many objects of interest, and not merely
invited us to pay it a visit, but offered to lend
us his dahabeeya for further explorations up
the river. We were delighted to accept his
hospitality, and started one morning in his
handsomely equipped boat for his estate. It
was only about three miles above the Coptic
village we had already visited, and we arrived
early in the day, and were received at the
entrance to the handsome gardens belonging
to our host, which extended to the river-
bank. They consisted of groves of oranges
and lemons, of trellises covered with vines,

192 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
of acres of figs, pomegranates, apricots, and
peaches, the whole overshadowed by date-
trees, and In the midst of them a square sum
mer kiosk, with a handsome central hall and
sleeping apartments at each angle, decorated
with furniture of Parisian mode. Here don
keys were assembled for the conveyance of
the party to a gorge In the mountain, in which
was an ancient quarry. We rode between
the precipitous cliffs until the ascending ravine
ended in an amphitheatre, in the centre of
which was a cave about fifty feet wide at the
entrance. It was not more than thirty feet
deep by twenty across, and at its further end
was a niche with an old Christian painting
above it. It had evidently been used, like
the church at Deyr el Nasara, as a place of
worship, but was now not only abandoned
but defaced by quarryings still in progress —
two pilasters by which it had been ornamented
having quite recently been blasted out. We
were told that not far from this quarry, in the
desert to the eastward, were remains of an
alabaster quarry which had been extensively
worked at some former period ; and this in
formation was verified by the great quantities

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 193
of fragments of carved alabaster which we
discovered at the mounds of a small ancient
town that we now visited. These consisted
of pieces of alabaster cups and vases, and we
picked up a number of beautiful little stems
like miniature columns two and three inches
long, the exact use of which we could not
determine. We also found some ancient ala
baster draughtmen, which we could identify
by those we afterwards saw in the museum at
Boulak on the draught-boards. There were
also some carved blocks of limestone that
seemed to have formed part of a temple. A
little beyond these remains is the extensive
modern Moslem cemetery of Zowyeh el Miu-
teen — where a funeral was going on at the
time of our visit — which covers a very large
area of ground. It is quite in the desert ;
and behind rise some cliffs, in which are rock-
cut tombs, with the ruin-covered promontory
of Kom Ahmar, or the " Red Mound," pro
jecting into the Nile. Lepsius visited these
tombs, and says of them : —
" So little has been said by others, besides,
on most of the monuments of Central Egypt,
that almost everything we found here was
N

194 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
new to me. I therefore was not a little
astonished when we discovered at Zowyeh el
Mluteen a series of nineteen rock-tombs, all
of them bearing inscriptions which informed
us who were their inhabitants, and belonging
to the old time of the sixth dynasty, therefore
extending almost to the period of the great
Pyramids. Five of them contain more than
once the shield of Makrobloten Apappus Pepi,
who is said to have lived to the age of io6
years, and to have reigned lOO years ; and in
another Cheops is mentioned. Apart from
these, there Is also a single grave from the
period of Rameses."
It was hard work scrambling up to these
rarely visited tombs, and I was obliged to
content myself with two or three. The in
scriptions were being wantonly defaced by the
native quarrymen, who were blasting out one
of the tombs when we were there, and who,
when they are not engaged in wholesale de
struction, seem to amuse themselves by picking
out the coloured representations with their
chisels, so that in one tomb which was pro
bably highly ornamented when Lepsius saw
it, nothing now remains. One of the best

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 195
representations which we have of an ancient
Egyptian ship in full sail is yet visible in one
of these chambers ; but If the work of de
molition continues, it will not long survive
the others. The tombs I visited were about
twenty feet by fifteen, and six feet high, the
roofs covered with hieroglyphics ; and I think
it probable that there are many still undiscov
ered which may contain untouched sarcophagi.
The neighbourhood was evidently used in old
days as an extensive burying-ground ; for we
saw plenty of mummy-cloth lying about, and
perhaps the tradition has clung to It ever
since, which may account for the large Copt
and Moslem cemeteries in the Immediate
vicinity : the latter Is a veritable city of the
dead. Three times a-year the Moslems come
over and spend a week making ceremonious
lamentations over the tombs of their ancestors.
The mounds of Kom Ahmar must be familiar
to the Nile tourist, as they form a striking
feature in the scenery, with their crumbling
red-brick walls crowning the promontory to
a height of at least fifty feet above the level
of the river ; they are also abundantly strewn
with fragments of objects of alabaster, and it

196 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
is highly probable that these remains mark
the site of the ancient city of Alabastron.
Among other curiosities, I picked up here
a deformed image in copper, which repre
sented the god Bes— a sort of ancient Egyp
tian "Worth" who presided over the toilet of
the ladies.
Our dinner was prepared at the family
mansion of our host, in which he had been
born, which was situated in the village of
Nezlet es Sowyeh, the houses of which clus
tered round It like a brood of chickens under
the wings of a hen. It contrasted most fa
vourably with Egyptian villages generally, in
the cleanliness of the streets and the neatness
of the houses ; and the mosque and school,
which he had built, proved that even here
wealth was felt to entail its responsibilities,
and that our entertainer had been mindful
of the moral and intellectual condition of his
dependants. His wealth, which was very con
siderable, consisted largely in landed property,
— his estates on the banks of the Nile, com
prising some 4000 acres. The crop which
he found the most profitable was sugar-cane ;
and his principal overseer hinted, with some

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 197
triumph, that he was more successful in Its
cultivation than the Daira Sanieh. Our
dinner was served a la Turca, upon a round
table, with flat loaves of bread for plates, and
fingers for knives and forks ; but notwith
standing this primitive method of grappling
with It, to which we had by this time become
accustomed, the repast was abundant, and ex
cellently cooked. Altogether we saw enough
of life in an Egyptian country-house to con
vince us that It could be made pleasant enough,
provided one did not require any other society
but that of one's own wife or wives. As a
rule, those who can afford it have several town
and country houses, with a wife in each, thus
securing to themselves a harmonious establish
ment at each place. Persons who are unable
to afford this luxury find it better to confine
themselves to one wife, especially if she Is
still young, as domestic comfort is hopeless
with two or more young wives in the same
harem. We were furnished by our host with
an introduction to one of his relatives, at El
Kurm — a village about twelve miles higher
up the river — which we reached in the after
noon of the following day, and were most cor-

198 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
dially received by a handsome young man, who
was In the act of building himself a mansion
on the bank, to which, as it was nearly finished,
he Invited us. Here we found assembled the
kadi, the Sheikh el Beled, and sundry other
notables, who all sat in a circle, and smoked
cigarettes and sipped coffee ; but the figure
that Immediately arrested our attention was a
remarkably silent, dignified individual, of about
fifty, who smoked the old-fashioned chibouk,
and had altogether the tranquil air of the
Eastern grand seigneur, rarely to be met with
in these degenerate days. This proved to
be no less a personage than Hassabalu Abou
Sakr, the sheikh of all the Bedouin tribes who
wander over the desert between the Nile and
the Red Sea, from Suez to Kosseir. Even
he was becoming tainted by civilisation ; for
he told us he lived in a house lower down
the river, and only took his tents and made
his circuit through the tribes once every two
or three years. He assured us, that. If need
be, he could call out 4000 fighting men.
We made arrangements with our host — who
insisted upon sending down an ample dinner,
ready cookfcd, to our dahabeeya — to visit the

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 199
celebrated tombs of Beni Hassan the next
morning, and were just retiring to rest when
we were roused by the cries of women, the
screaming of children, the oaths of men, and
the barking of dogs on the bank above us.
I immediately rushed out to ascertain the
cause of the riot, and found that apparently
the whole village, of all ages and both sexes,
had turned out to have a free fight on the
open space under the date-trees on the river-
bank. I forthwith sent to' our friend to tell
him what was going on, and some men armed
with authority and sticks soon appeared upon
the scene and put a stop to the row. I am
bound to say that the women seemed the most
active combatants, and the most reluctant to
give in. I discovered afterwards that the
quarrel had originated in a domestic squabble,
which had culminated in the husband beating
his wife, on which her relatives interfered, and
the whole village took sides. I asked whether
there was much wife-beating among the natives
of Egypt ; and from what I could learn, it
seems to be almost as common a pastime with
them as it is with the natives of England.
On the following morning we pulled across

200 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
the river, accompanied by our entertainer and
all his guests of the night before, and our
picturesque cavalcade soon scrambled up. the
cliff to the tombs of Beni Hassan, which are
too familiar to Nile tourists to need descrip
tion ; but they were still objects of mystery
and wonder to those by whom I was accom
panied, though they lived in their Immediate
neighbourhood. They clustered round in a
most attentive and Interested group, when,
standing amid the handsome columns in the
tomb of Ameni, I explained to them his his
tory, finally reading to them the translation
of the Inscription in hieroglyphics (out of
Murray), in which this distinguished .adminis
trator says : —
" The hungry did not exist In my time, even
when there were years of famine. For, be
hold, I ploughed all the fields of Sah to its
frontiers both north and south ; thus I found
food for its inhabitants, and I gave them what
ever it produced. There were no hungry peo
ple in it. I gave equally to the widow as to
the married woman. I did not prefer a great
personage to a humble man in all that I gave
away ; and when the inundations of the Nile

<<

m
o

s
oE-'

SOCIETY IN THE PRQVINCES. 201
were great, he who sowed was master of his
crop. I kept back nothing for myself from the
revenues of the land."
The impartiality and disinterestedness of
these sentiments were received with loud
marks of approval, and my swarthy friends
went from one cave to the other examining
and discussing the various hieroglyphics and
pictorial representations, now that they had
some one to explain them, as keenly interested
as if they had been a party of British tourists
instead of residents on the spot. As the
Sheikh el Beled of the village of Beni Hassan
itself was with us, I called his attention to the
wanton destruction of these most interesting
illustrations of the manners and customs of
the ancient Egyptians at the hands, not only
of foreign travellers, but of the natives, and
implored him to use his authority to put a
stop to It as far as it lay in his power ; but I
fear, unless the Government take the matter
in hand, there will be very little remaining, a
few years hence, of the marvellous and minute
records which this most ancient people have
left of their daily lives and avocations. While
we were discussing this subject our luncheon

202 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
arrived, which was contained in a large circular
basket, and consisted of a lamb cooked whole,
peacefully reclining upon a layer of flat loaves
of bread. Indeed nothing could exceed the
kindness and hospitality of our host, who,
during the whole time of our stay. Insisted
upon providing the necessary means of loco
motion and all our meals. We parted from
him with many mutual expressions of regret
and goodwill, and made a prosperous run the
same evening to the charmingly situated little
town of Rhoda, where we proposed staying for
a few days.
Between Cairo and Luxor there is no spot
on the Nile which is held by the natives In
such high estimation for the purity of the air
and the salubrity of the climate as Rhoda.
Situated at the end of a long reach of the
river, it receives the full force of the north
wind, and even in summer it is said to be
cooler than any other place in Upper Egypt.
We seemed conscious of a remarkably invig
orating quality in the air, and this agreeable
attribute was enhanced by the beauty of our
surroundings. Here, as in MInieh, we lived in
a bower of orange-blossoms, the garden was

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 203
shaded, and the river-bank was lined with um
brageous trees, under which it was delightful
to sit at all hours of the day. Indeed a roof
promised to become a superfluity In our exist
ence ; breathing the pure air, and trying to
assimilate its health-giving properties, seemed
occupation enough. In fact I cannot Imagine
a spot better suited for the invalid ; all that is
wanted to make it a place of popular resort for
strangers is a hotel of some sort. My experi
ence of the Fayoum, and of Central Egypt
between Cairo and Slout, convinces me that,
so soon as accommodation Is provided, the
valley of the Nile and the oasis are destined
to become a favourite winter resort for inva
lids. I feel no doubt that It would be a most
profitable speculation to open small hotels
at Medinet el Fayoum, Rhoda, and other
places on the river. The experiments of hotels
at H el wan and Luxor which have already
been made, have proved so successful that it
is a matter of astonishment that nothing has
yet been accomplished in this direction, the
more especially as of late years Cairo has be
come decidedly unhealthy, and has lost much
of Its old charm, both in point of climate and

204 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
of that oriental cachet which was its great
attraction. Rhoda not only possesses beauty
of scenery, and an exceptionally good climate,
but Is surrounded by objects of archaeological
and historical Interest. Immediately opposite
are the ruins of the ancient city of Antinoe,
called by the Emperor Hadrian who founded
it, after his favourite youth Antinous, who
plunged into the Nile and drowned himself at
this spot. In the belief, based on an oracular
prediction, that the sacrifice of what was most
dear to his imperial master would bring him
back the good fortune which seemed to have
abandoned him. A little higher up are the
grottoes of Jebel Aboolfeda and Tel Amarna.
Indeed the mountains here are honeycombed
with a most Interesting series of tombs, con
taining pictorial representations, which have
never been thoroughly explored ; and I re
gretted that the operation was too laborious to
enable us to undertake it, as some of the most
interesting and least known objects lie at a
distance of several miles from the river.
While the east bank is thus prolific in anti
quarian remains, the west bank offers similar
attractions within easy distance from Rhoda.

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 205
Here are the mounds of Ashmoneyn, the site
of the ancient city of Hermopolis Magna, the
capital of the Nome ; and the Libyan hills be
yond it are perforated with tombs. An attempt
to describe in detail all that may be seen from
Rhoda would only weary the reader — nor need
the traveller who makes it his headquarters
expect to find monuments equalling in extent
or grandeur those of Thebes or Luxor ; but
as a centre of operations for investigation and
research, it possesses the combined merits
of being convenient, healthful, and beautiful.
From the numerous houses I saw in process
of erection, I should say that the town was
also prosperous. It contains a population of
about 3000 inhabitants, and besides a very
handsome palace belonging to the Khedive,
boasts a large sugar-manufactory.
I was present here at the important function
of the launch of one of the largest description
of Nile boats, which are used for traffic pur
poses by the Daira Sanieh, and the ceremony
was one at which a large number of the villa
gers assisted. Considering it evidently a sort
oifite, they came down with banners, dancing-
girls, music, and a large band of workmen.

2o5 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
and cheered the labours of the latter as. In
true old Egyptian style, they went to work
to launch the boat by the appliance of physi
cal force alone. The superintendent of their
efforts was evidently of opinion that backs
were made before levers, and that the true
way to launch a boat was, not to allow her to
glide into the water stern first, but to push
her down the ways sidewise by the sheer
force of a united shove. In order to get her
to move at all, however, he commenced opera
tions by rocking her to an extent that made
her seams crack and the whole boat bend and
creak ominously. When she was sufficiently
loosened and weakened generally by this oper
ation, the music struck up, the flags waved,
the dancing-girls danced, and the whole two
hundred men placing their backs beneath the
boat, lifted up. their voices in a loud groan of
concentrated effort ; then she moved an inch,
and everybody rested, and collected round the
girls, who were dressed in long flowing robes,
and not in the usual tight-fitting bodice and
loose trousers of the ghawazie. They were
abundantly decorated with jewels in the shape
of necklaces, bangles, ear-rings, and nose-rings,

SOCIETY IN THE PROVINCES. 207
and doubtless lightened the labours of the
workmen by their entertainment. The launch
of the craft, diversified by this "fantasia" —
by numerous slips of the stern, which would go
down more rapidly than the bows — by sundry
hitches, in which neither bows nor stern would
move at all — and then by unexpected slides,
when she threatened to topple over prema
turely into the river — lasted just ten hours.
However, it was accomplished with great tri
umph and beating of drums at last, and then
the procession marched back to the village to
reward themselves for the labours of the day
by more terpslchorean divertissement.
Meantime I had been gazing with longing
eyes at the mounds of the ancient Antinoe,
just visible through the date -trees on the
opposite side of the river, and decided to
make an examination of them the object of
my next expedition.

208

CHAPTER V.
EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB.
The mounds that mark the site of the ancient
city of Antinoe cover a vast area of ground,
with even a greater profusion than usual of
the brickbats and potsherds which indicate
ruins of a Roman period. There does not
seem to have been any certainty until recently
that the city founded by the Emperor Ha
drian in commemoration of the suicide of his
favourite, was built upon the remains of an
ancient Egyptian town, and these ruins were
consequently supposed to offer but little in
ducement for examination, as being of com-
paratlvely modern date. They were, however,
upon a vast and splendid scale : only a few
years ago whole streets of columns still re
mained to bear witness to its ancient magni
ficence ; and we have in books of travel of

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 209
comparatively recent date, pictures of trium
phal arches, temples, and public buildings,
which have all been carried away for building
purposes within the last ten years, and scarcely
a vestige of which now remains. I counted
three columns still erect, one of which was
fluted, and many fragments of sculpture lying
about ; but all the grandest monuments had
been broken up and built into the walls of the
sugar-factories. The mounds all bear the distinctive charac
teristics of a later civilisation than that of the
Egyptians. There is an absence of rags and
mummy-cloth, and a superabundance of broken
pottery and glass, which one would expect to
find in the capital of the Antinoite Nome.
There can be little doubt that these mounds
occupy the site of the ancient city of Besa,
famed for its oracle ; and Aboolfeda tells us
that the Nubian geographer Edressee speaks
of it as " an ancient city remarkable for the
fertility of its land, and said by common re
port to be the city of the magicians, who were
sent from thence by Pharaoh." It was only
last year that the dust-sifters, in their exca
vations for manure, revealed the existence of
O

210 THE LAND OF KHEML
fourteen pillars of an Egyptian temple of the
time of Rameses II., which is, however, with
the exception of its upper portion, still com
pletely covered by the mounds. The capitals
of ten columns, which form two sides of a
square, are now exposed to view, and are
formed of lotus - buds, upon which are the
ovals of Rameses II. In coloured hieroglyphics,
with a blue border above them. Besides the
ten columns, four others, just appearing above
the ddbris, evidently formed the peristyle. The
columns of the remaining two sides are still
buried in the mounds, but it is almost certain
that they will be found standing erect. From
the proportions of the capitals and upper part
of the columns which are visible. It is probable
that their total height Is about twenty feet.
A very little expense will suffice to lay bare
the remains of the whole edifice ; and It is to
be hoped that excavations may ere long be
undertaken which may reveal further monu
ments of ancient art thus buried beneath the
mounds of the Roman city. I unearthed here
some almost perfect amphorce ; and the vil
lagers who live on the edge of the remains
flocked round me with coins, beads, &c., which

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 211
they had picked up, when they found I was
looking for antiquities ; but all they had to
offer was of Roman date, with the exception
of some singular specimens of glass mosaic,
something like the pattern of a cashmere
shawl, which I have never seen anything like
elsewhere, and which is not only extremely
beautiful, but displayed a very high degree of
art. The old woman from whom I purchased
It thought herself well paid with a silver pias
tre worth twopence.
About four miles to the westward of Rhoda
is the site of the once important city of Hermo
polis Magna, the capital of the Hermopolitan
Nome ; and the agricultural railway which
intersects the Daira Sanieh sugar-estates in
all directions runs close past it. The Mou-
fettlshes have a very convenient method of
superintending the work in the more distant
part of the lands by means of small single-
horse tram -carriages. In a vehicle of this
description we took a drive to the mounds
that mark the position of the ancient city.
Here we were met by the local superinten
dent with donkeys, and scrambled over the
ddbris and tumuli, which reminded me very

212 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
much of those of Arsinoe in the Fayoum.
Like those of Antinoe, they had been searched
in all directions for blocks of stone with which
to construct the sugar-factories. In one place
I saw twelve porphyry columns erect that had
escaped the sacrilege, but the massive stone
work of an old Egyptian temple had not been
so fortunate. Of this edifice, which must have
been on a grand scale, only two plinths re
mained, the diameter of which was twelve feet,
and the height three feet. They were covered
with hieroglyphics and the ovals of Philip
Aridaeus, the titular successor of Alexander
the Great, so that It dated from the commence
ment of the Ptolemaic period ; but the rest of
this temple, we were told, formed part of the
foundations of the sugar-factory. I saw one
mass of granite, covered with hieroglyphics,
in the streets of Rhoda, evidently waiting till
it was wanted for building purposes. The
historian of future ages, grubbing amongst
the iron boilers, shafts, and wheels which are
characteristic of the age in which we live, will
be puzzled to account for the presence of these
immense blocks traced with the records of a
civilisation four thousand years older, and will

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 213
either come to the conclusion that the ancient
Egyptians used steam-engines, or that hiero
glyphics were the ornaments with which we
covered our sugar-factories. It is heart-break
ing to think how much injury has been done
to the antiquities of Egypt within the last
ten years by the reckless destruction of Its
monuments in order to make sugar more
cheaply. A gentleman who had been resi
dent at MInieh ten years ago, informed me
that he had seen a beautiful naked figure of
Antinous, carved In white marble, brought
over from the ruins of the city, and con
demned to be pounded into fragments in order
to form part of the foundations. It was such
an exquisite piece of sculpture that he almost
went on his knees to the Moufettlsh of that
date to spare it, promising that if he would
only give him time he would purchase it for
a large sum of money. The Egyptian official,
however, desirous of proving his zeal in the
cause of Western civilisation and his incor
ruptibility, was inexorable ; and the statue
was dashed to pieces then and there, and
pounded into the foundations of the sugar-
factory, as an evidence of his comprehension

214 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
of the utilitarian spirit of the age, and his
sympathies with the advanced ideas of the
late Khedive. At the same time, a stone
inscribed with three languages, which might
have proved of immense historical value, was
broken up by this enlightened official, who
also found sarcophagi very useful for building
purposes — the workmen engaged in making
the excavations ruthlessly blasting the tombs
covered with hieroglyphics, and flinging the
mummies into the Nile after appropriating
whatever they found of value in the coffins.
Nor has this work altogether stopped : at
Surarieh they are blasting within a few feet
of the tablets on which the figures of Rameses
and the god Savak are delineated, and the
little temple I had visited is evidently doomed.
Tombs and temples offer greater facilities for
blasting than the smooth surface of the rock,
which quarrymen are not slow to discover —
to say nothing of the hope of finding treasure.
The great majority of the sugar-factories on
the west side of the river have thus been con
structed from the monuments of the past ; and
during the last ten years more of the ancient
Egyptian sculptures have been destroyed under

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 215
the influence of the mechanical genius of
the nineteenth century, and the pressure of
money-making, than during the ten preceding
centuries, when It was left to the tender mercies
of a more barbarous age. Monsieur Maspero,
the able and energetic successor of the late
Marietta Pasha, Is, however, using his utmost
efforts to put a stop to the work of destruction.
Prior to this time It has chiefly been In the inter
ests of the Mohammedan religion that ancient
temples have been demolished, and the mosques
are abundantly furnished with the columns
and other fragments of a bygone architecture.
Thus at Ashmoneyn there was a most pictur
esque old ruined mosque with an Arabic in
scription on its wall, which dated back to the
first century of the Hegira, in which I counted
no fewer than thirty-one marble columns with
Corinthian capitals, two of which near the pul
pit were beautifully carved and fluted. While
we were drinking coffee at the house of the
Sheikh el Beled, waiting for any antiquities
that the villagers might produce, a man came
staggering up with a colossal head of a Roman
emperor upon his shoulders, which he flung
down at our feet, and then placed it on its

2l6 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
crown for us to admire. When, amid the laugh
ter of the bystanders, we turned it right side
up, we found it was a piece of sculpture in per
fect preservation, so far as the hair, beard, and
features were concerned, but too massive a
piece of work for us to carry away. The old
Egyptian name for this place is Schmum, from
which the modern appellation Is derived. It
was presided over by the god Thoth, the
Hermes of the Greeks, amongst whose func
tions it was, to record in the infernal regions
the result of the weighing of hearts, to keep
a register of the trials of the dead, and to
exhort their souls to return to the radiant
spirit of the universe. In the Libyan hills,
a few miles to the west of the ancient city,
its necropolis was situated among the rocks ;
and the tombs here would still offer a rich
harvest to the antiquary. I did not, how
ever, visit them, for I was obliged to go
to Cairo before returning to Haybee, where
the friend with whom I had originally visited
that interesting locality had obtained per
mission from Monsieur Maspero, in conse
quence of the indications we had found there,
to commence excavating on a small scale ;

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 217
and I was anxious to be present at the
operations. On my way back up the Nile I visited the
site of the ancient city of Aphrodltopolis,
distant forty miles from Cairo, on the margin
of the desert, about two miles from the river.
The modern village of Atfieh, which is perched
upon its mounds, is a populous place, and the
houses are built on the highest of the tumuli,
sixty or seventy feet above the level of the
plain. Not only do they cover the mounds,
which would probably be the most worth ex
cavating, but the present inhabitants actually
live in the shells of the ancient houses. In
places, the dust-sifters, after having by their
labours revealed the standing walls of an old
house, and cleared it of the fine dust they
value so much, have ended by living in it ; so
that the singular sight may be witnessed of
the people of modern Atfieh occupying the
identical houses that once sheltered the ancient
population who aforetime inhabited Aphrodlt
opolis. The city was then the capital of a
Nome of the same name, and had succeeded
to the ancient city of Hathor, the Egyptian
Venus, to whom also was sacred the white

2l8 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
COW, which, as Strabo tells us, was worshipped
here. Here also Horus, the son of I sis, was
more highly revered than in any other Nome.
The nature of the remains which still exist
here, shows that at one period it must have
boasted many handsome temples and other
buildings. Even under its present phase the aspect
of the place is extremely picturesque, and a
minute examination of the houses in which
the population live would probably reward
the effort Even during the hurried visit
that I made, I found many Interesting traces
of the past. In an old ruined mosque is a
stone with the name of Rameses II. In the
courtyard of a private house I found a sarco
phagus on which were some nearly obliter
ated hieroglyphics. The large block of stone
that formed the threshold to the door of
another house, also plainly bore the traces
of an Inscription nearly effaced by the friction
of feet In the walls of another was the frag
ment of an old papyrus column ; the steps up
to a third consisted of a couple of Corinthian
capitals. In a garden was a large block of
carved stone, only the upper half of which

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 219
was visible, and the use of which I failed to
discover. Under a small stack of straw, which
a man pulled down when he saw I was In
quest of objects of this description, I found a
sphinx about two feet long, the features of the
face unfortunately a good deal destroyed, and
too heavy an object to carry away. I also
found another piece of carving, which I have
not been able to place historically. It seems
to belong to no special school of ornamenta
tion, or rather disfiguration. It is the hideous
head of a monster, with perfectly round eyes,
and black stones let in for the pupils, and
round nostrils, and a circle for a mouth, and
long ears in the shape of leaves, with other
leaves round the head as a general setting.
Altogether it was about the size and had
something of the grotesque character of a
feline gargoyle, but it was too rude to be the
production of a very high form of art The
man who showed it to me called it a " monkey
stone." I also found here one or two old
pottery vases in a perfect state of preserva
tion. I caused some perturbation by taking a
sketch of the sphinx, as the people thought I
was doing so with the view of informing the

220 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Government that they were concealing some
thing of value.
About ten miles higher up the river there is
an Isolated fortress - like construction, which,
on the occasion when I had previously passed
it, I felt a curiosity to visit, as I observed
some low mounds behind it ; and it altogether
seemed a spot where something unexpected
might turn up. Its small round cupolas, and
the solid wall by which it was girdled, indi
cated pretty clearly Its sacred character ; and I
expected, when I landed and presented myself
at the ruined archway by which It was entered,
to be received by an austere Coptic monk.
So far from this being the case, we were in
stantly surrounded by a posse of garrulous and
rather handsome women. Not a man was to
be seen In the place. The gateway was
formed partly of the fragments of an old
column and partly of brick. Outside the
wall a projection from the limestone rock on
which the building was constructed had been
hewn at some very remote period into a small
cistern. The door was so massive that it was
difficult to swing it to and fro, and It was
formed of two blocks of wood studded with

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 221
nails. Followed by an ever-increasing crowd
of women and children, we went on till we
entered a court in which were the fragments
of three porphyry columns — the plinths stand
ing on the bare rock. In the positions ap
parently that they had occupied when the
temple which they supported was erected.
The Corinthian capitals and columns were
lying in the court, one part of which had been
screened off with brick pillars to form the
Coptic church, which boasted a dilapidated
altar-screen of inlaid wood and ivory, and an
altar very much out of repair. Still no man
appeared, and I began to wonder whether the
women were some new specimens of nuns,
when an extremely venerable half-blind old
priest tottered up. From him I learned that
the columns had been there from time im
memorial, and that the convent itself was of
extreme antiquity, but that the greater part
of the monks had moved to the monastery
of St Anthony, in the desert near the shores
of the Red Sea, distant four days' caravan-
journey, which contained about sixty celibate
monks ; that all the land in the neighbour
hood belonged to the latter ; and that the in-

222 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
habitants of this monastery, which was also
called St Anthony, cultivated it for them, and
sent them the produce. He told me that
there were seven Coptic priests here, and that
they were all married. Besides these, the
male population consisted of about fifty cul
tivators of the soil — lay brothers, I Imagine,
whom I do not venture to accuse of being
very much married, though the female popu
lation certainly exceeded fifty, and were very
prolific. Altogether, at least a hundred and
fifty men, women, and children occupied the
crowd of little houses which were encircled
by the massive wall. We explored the narrow
lanes that divided them, but could find nothing
else worthy of notice, nor had the mounds
in the neighbourhood produced any antiques.
At the back of the monastery is a cemetery
which is supplied with corpses by persons
who die in the Copt villages on the west bank
of the river, and who, according to the custom
that prevails both among Moslems and Copts,
like to be ferried across the river after death.
The monastery of St Anthony, to which
this is affiliated, is credited with being the
oldest in Egypt, and indeed one of the earliest

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 223
foundations of this description in the world.
From what the old priest, however, told us,
the tradition evidently exists that the original
monastery of St Anthony was the one we
visited ; and this will probably be found cor
rect About 300 A.D., the anchorite St An
thony established himself as a hermit in the
hills just to the east of Aphrodltopolis ; and
in those days his reputation for sanctity was
so great that numerous pilgrims visited his
cell, and Aphrodltopolis acquired quite a ce
lebrity from the proximity of the holy man.
Nothing is more likely than that, on his death,
a monastery dedicated to him should have
been founded In the immediate vicinity of the
spot which he had sanctified by his life ; and
that, owing to persecutions or other causes. It
should have been moved at a later period to
an inaccessible part of the desert
When we reached Haybee, we found that
the excavations had been commenced a day
or two prior to our arrival, at an immense
cemetery of rude mummy-pits, at a distance of
about three miles to the eastward, the exist
ence of which had been discovered, not long
before, by an Arab, whose foot sank into a.

224 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
hole. They had since been examined and
rifled by the peasants, who hoped to find
treasure ; but our investigations proved that
nothing of any value was likely to be found
there. The burying-ground was evidently of
the poorer classes ; and beyond a few rude
wooden masks, some painted fragments of
wooden coffins, and mummy-nets composed
of small green porcelain beads, nothing of
interest was discovered ; and it was deter
mined to begin digging immediately beneath
the massive structure in brick, that apparently
formed part of the enceinte In which the ancient
temple of Isls was situated, in the hope of
coming upon the relics of that edifice. In
stead of this we dropped, about six feet below
the surface of the earth, upon the entrance to
a mummy-pit. Into which, as soon as a suffi
ciently large hole had been made to admit
of the passage of a man's body, I descended
with candles. The scramble was a most dis
agreeable and difficult one. The rough un
hewn stone roofing was seldom more than
three feet from the floor of the pit, which was
thickly strewn with the mummies of human
bodies. Among these one had to grope about

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 225
on one's hands and knees. Sometimes I was
obliged to assume an even more prostrate
attitude, and pull myself over the bones, and
skulls, and rags, lying almost flat upon them.
In this way I advanced into the bowels of the
earth, for a distance, as nearly as I could cal
culate, of thirty-five yards. I had no difficulty
in breathing, although there was a peculiar
and indescribable odour, perfectly free, how
ever, from the taint of corruption. The pits
had evidently been visited and rifled at some
very remote period. The sarcophagi were
broken into fragments, and, in most cases, the
bodies had been taken from them, and were
lying, more or less in a disrupted condition,
by their sides. At last I arrived at a small
circular chamber. In which were a great many
fragments of wooden coffins and one sarco
phagus, the lid of which had been broken In
the middle ; but the body, beautifully packed,
was undisturbed. Only about a foot of the
central part of it was visible, the head and the
feet being concealed by what remained of the
stone coffin. I could not, therefore, make out
whether it was a male or a female ; but being
attracted by what appeared a piece of white
p

226 THE LAND OF KHEML
cloth, covered with characters, sewn on the
body, I put my hand upon it, and it instantly
sank into a mass of powder. After this I did
not like to grope about in the dark near the
mummy's head, where objects of interest are
usually found ; but I feel convinced that they
had been abstracted, as the whole pit had
evidently been thoroughly searched over ; but
it must have been very long ago, as the six
feet of solid soil above it was undisturbed
before we began to dig. At one side of the
circular chamber was a neatly hewn recep
tacle, about seven feet square, the entrance
to which was a hole two feet square, through
which I looked ; but it contained nothing but
bones, skulls, and mummy-cloth : the only ob
ject I found was a sort of urn of red pottery,
of a very coarse description, thirteen Inches
in diameter, and the same in height. This I
brought to the surface with me, arriving there
in a state of extreme fatigue and prostration.
We dug down in two or three other places in
this neighbourhood, and in each case came
upon mummy-pits; but they did not even
contain sarcophagi, and were probably those
used by the less wealthy part of the com-

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 227
munity. It was- becoming manifest, from the
extent of the necropolis, that a temple of great
importance must have stood in the immediate
neighbourhood, round which people had been
buried for successive ages, until the whole
place was undermined, and space had become
so scarce that the later bodies had been buried
near the surface. Some of these we found
only two feet down ; and a method of sepul
ture had been adopted which, so far as I am
aware, has never before been noticed in the
case of Egyptian mummies. Instead of being
placed In stone and wooden coffins, the bodies
in this case, after being embalmed and swathed
in mummy-cloth, were neatly packed in cradles
made out of the branches of palm-leaves beau
tifully bound together with fla.x string. The
process of mummification had been the rude
one of plunging the corpse into a preparation
of boiling bitumen, — a system resorted to by
poor people, and by the Egyptians generally
of a later period, when the original and costly
art of embalming seems to have been super
seded by this more simple but less effective
process. The consequence was, that in no
case did I see any of the features well pre-

228 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
served ; and with the exception of one wom
an's feet, which remained beautifully perfect,
the flesh was a black bituminous compound
that crumbled rapidly to the touch. I also
found a wig of long black hair in a good
state of preservation. Mohamet had a habit
of plunging his hand into the mummies' stom
achs, under the impression that they kept
their jewels there. I tried to break him of it,
but he none the less surreptitiously persisted
in the practice. In some cases the twisted
coloured cords, and the thick linen cloths
in which the mummy was wrapped, were
as strong and well preserved as on the first
day of their use. We were more anxious to
find Inscriptions or architectural remains than
mummy jewels or ornaments, and determined
to open a trench at the spot where we had
originally found the ovals of King Pinadjem
and the mention of the grand sanctuary of
I sis on the burnt bricks. We only had a
force of ten men, so the work was slow and
most unsatisfactory. When we had got down
about eight feet we came to the end of the
burnt brick, but the unburnt commenced and
seemed interminable. After digging on hori-

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 229
zontally at a width of three feet for some
yards, we again came to unburnt brick ; we
then struck at right angles, and always with
the sa,me result, — whichever way we went,
nothing but brick, burnt or unburnt. We had
hoped to find that these bricks composed the
walls of temples or houses ; but they must
either have formed part of some solid sub
structure, upon which an edifice or monument
had been erected, or else the massive walls of
an enceinte that enclosed the whole area in
which the temple was placed. That Haybee
was at one period a most important centre of
I sis-worship, we found enough to prove, as
among the burnt bricks we found the words
Isembheb, or " The Isls of Heb," and the
ovals of Ramenkheper. He was the fifth
pontiff- monarch of the twenty -first dynasty,
whose ovals I had already found on the bricks
sixty miles higher up the river at Kom el
Kafara. Whether a grand sanctuary had
been established here at an earlier date, or
whether the importance of Haybee as a
locality sacred to the worship of Isls dates
only from the reigns of those kings who have
thus identified their names with her temple,

230 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
we have as yet no means of determining ; but
the inscriptions on the bricks, the enceinte of
masonry of immense thickness with which the
natural cliffs were faced, and the extent of the
necropolis, all go to prove that the city of
Isembheb was a great centre of Isis-worship,
and flourished especially during the twenty-
first dynasty, or about i lOO years b.c. In
order to discover the thickness of the brick-
facing to the cliff", we dug into it at its base,
and found it to be about ten feet ; but in other
places it was much thicker.
We also dug down into the brick at the top
of the cliff for about eight feet without coming
to the rock. We extracted, however, at least
a bushel of ears of thrashed barley, which had
apparently been used as a cement, and a large
solid block of wood perforated at both ends,
which had been built in with the brick. To
look for the temple of Isls in this great stack
of brickwork with only ten men, was like look
ing for a needle in a bundle of hay. We had
no clue where to begin, and the result of each
day's work was simply to stack a heap of
bricks outside the well from which they had
been taken, and the solid walls of which were

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 23 1
still composed of them. While the men were
working, I explored the mounds in every
direction. They covered an area of rock
about half a mile long by a quarter of a
mile wide ; this had been quarried into
within the last ten years for the purpose of
getting stone for the sugar- factories on the
other side of the river. The blasting had
revealed the openings of rock - tombs which
had been entered by the workmen employed,
and the sarcophagi had been destroyed in the
hope of finding treasure. We were assured
by the natives on the spot that many objects
of value had thus been obtained ; but their
assertions must always be accepted with con
siderable reserve in matters of this sort. I
penetrated into several of these caves, the
entrances to which were generally filled with
sand, but were known to the peasants. One
of these into which I crawled contained several
large chambers, and among the broken pieces
of wooden coffin I found a very fairly pre
served mask, the eyes painted white and black,
and the rest of the face very slightly tinted.
When I emerged to the surface after the
scramble among legs, and arms, and ribs, I

232 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
found grouped round the small hole that formed
the entrance, a native gentleman with a sun-
umbrella, two native ladles, and a male friend
carrying a lantern. They were m&re.fella.hin;
and the women, one of whom was young and
pretty, were not so particular as they might
have been about covering their faces. As
from the presence of the lantern they seemed
to have some design on the mummy- pit, I
asked them what they wanted ; and I was
informed in the most delicate manner possible
by the leading personage, that he was looking
for an easily accessible tomb into which the
young and pretty woman might enter. She
meantime coyly cast her eyes first upon the
ground, and then wistfully Into the hole from
which I had just emerged upon all-fours.
" Sir," said my Informant, " she has at present
the misfortune of being childless, but half an
hour alone in one of these caves will put that
all right." I explained that I knew of others
more easy to get into, to which I recommended
her to repair ; and the party trotted off", ap
parently convinced that a short period of
seclusion in a mummy-pit was an infallible
receipt for a son and heir. I found that this

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 233
superstition was a very common one among
the peasants, and I had hardly reached the
boat when I became aware of another quite
as singular. A furious fight was going on
between two of the crew, who were so exas
perated against each other that they were
separated with some difficulty. On inquiring
into the cause of the quarrel, I was informed
that one of them had shortly before arrived
with a mummy's hand, which he had put into
a cupboard used by the crew for stowing away
food and other things. One of them had
objected to its being put there, and hence the
row. I naturally inquired what he wanted the
hand for, and was told, to put it under his left
arm as a cure against fever. I cross-examined
Mohamet in regard to this, and found that he
had himself secured a foot, but he admitted
that he doubted its efficacy : he had no doubt,
from repeated experience, about the hand.
He had a friend in Cairo who had one, and
he always borrowed it and put It under his
left arm when he had fever with unvarying
success ; but he never tried a foot. I asked
him whether the hand of any dead man would
do ; but he said it must be a mummy's, and in

234 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
a good state of preservation ; bones were of
no use. One of the most interesting caves I
examined was also the most difficult to enter.
The roof had sunk so much that it rested on
the upper tier of sarcophagi, and these were
so close together that I had first to send a
man in, then lie down on my side and make
him draw me by my legs between two sarco
phagi, which were just far enough apart to ad
mit the passage of a thin man, and then only
after a jam that threatened to rub the buttons
off one's waistcoat. When I did get In, and
could raise myself to my knees, I found sar
cophagi everywhere. The stone faces on
some of their lids were most striking In their
majestic repose. Out of about thirty, I could
only find six which had not been broken into
either at the side or the lid ; but the spoilers
had been contented with thrusting in their
hands, as in no case had the mummies been
abstracted. Nor, what disappointed me most,
was a trace of inscription to be found anywhere.
We now took the men off burrowing use
lessly among the bricks, to dig in the neigh
bourhood of this cave, in the hope of finding
another that had never been entered. This

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 235
we were fortunate enough to do ; and the
chambers which contained the coffins were
spacious enough to stand upright in. In
order to reach the farthest, it was necessary
to descend a shaft for a few feet ; and then,
on entering this last receptacle, the problem
suggested Itself of how the sarcophagi had
ever been placed there. It was impossible
to lower them down the shaft, which was too
narrow to admit them, and all round was the
smooth limestone rock. Six of the most pro
mising-looking sarcophagi were opened in the
upper and lower chambers. On the lid of one
was a magnificently sculptured head of a man;
and when the lid was removed, the contents
did not belie the promise of the exterior. It
was the mummy of a giant, but only the black
bituminous flesh adhered to the huge bones.
The bone of the skull was thicker than I
have seen in that of any human being before.
There was no inscription anywhere, nor did
the sarcophagus contain anything but the
body. Near it were three Canopian vases
of alabaster about a foot high. The lid of
one consisted of a carved human head, another
was a jackal's head, and the third that of a

236 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
cynocephalus. There should have been a
fourth with the head of a hawk, but this was
missing. They should, moreover, have been
all of the same shape ; but one differed from
the others, suggesting the idea that they had
not been specially made for the deceased, but
possibly obtained from some other tombs. It
was, at all events, contrary to the usual prac
tice that the set should neither have been
uniform nor complete : nor did they contain
any remains ; but these may have disappeared
with time. The Canopian vases were used to
contain the heart, viscera, and intestines of the
deceased. After they had been embalmed and
placed within them, the priest elevated them
to the sun, making use of the following invo
cation : " O thou Sun, our sovereign Lord,
and all ye deities who have given life to man,
receive me, and grant me an abode with the
eternal gods. During the whole course of
my life I have scrupulously worshipped the
gods my fathers taught me to adore. I have
ever honoured my parents who begat this
body. I have killed no one ; I have de
frauded no one ; nor have I done an injury
to any man : and if I have committed any

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 237
other fault during my life, either in eating
or drinking, it has not been done for myself,
but for these things." The four heads on the
lid represent respectively the four genii of
Amenthi — the Egyptian infernal regions. It
was after the body had been deprived of these
parts that the actual process of embalming
took place, which consisted in steeping it for
seventy days in natron, after which it was
taken out and carefully wrapped, every mem
ber separately, in cloths — those of the finest
texture inside. During the whole time that
the body was being soaked in the natron, the
relatives of the deceased mourned for him ;
and it is remarkable that in the account we
have of the embalming of Jacob by Joseph,
the period of mourning tallies exactly with
that which we know from Egyptian sources
was the time during which the steeping pro
cess lasted. We read that "Joseph com
manded his servants the physicians to embalm
his father : and the physicians embalmed Is
rael. And forty days were fulfilled for him ;
for so are fulfilled the days of those which
are embalmed : and the Egyptians mourned
for him threescore and ten days."

238 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Nothing more was found in these caves,
and nothing in the other sarcophagi, beyond
a small papyrus roll, which was apparently a
charm, as the string by which it hung round
the child's neck in whose coffin It was found,
remained attached. It was Impossible, in the
absence of inscriptions, to determine the date
of these mummies ; but the fact that the for
mer did not exist is rather in favour of the
antiquity of the latter, as just in proportion
as we go backwards .in Egyptian history do
hieroglyphics on the coffins and ornaments
inside become rare. Circumstances now com
pelled us to terminate our researches, which
had been disappointing on the whole. They
had, however, revealed three facts of interest :
first, that this locality must undoubtedly have
been a spot of great sanctity, at which the
worship of Isls was celebrated at a "grand
sanctuary " during the twenty-first dynasty ;
secondly, that there existed a mode of sepul
ture in cradles made of the stems of palm-
leaves, not hitherto known to have been
practised by the Egyptians ; and thirdly, that
there are sarcophagi, which we opened and
examined, carved with great care, and there-

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 239
fore the tombs evidently of people of Im
portance, destitute alike of those relics and
inscriptions that are almost invariably to be
found with similar monuments. Excepting
the Canopian vases, which were sent to the
museum at Boulak, we had nothing to carry
away with us as mementoes of our labours
except palm-branch cradles containing mum
mies; and these are too cumbrous as articles
of baggage, and too inconvenient as curiosi
ties after one has got them safely home, to be
desirable possessions. Considering the pre
cautions which the ancient Egyptians adopted
to preserve the material parts of their being in
a proper condition for their souls to re-enter
when the moment of resurrection arrived, it
seems rather hard that the elaborate process
they adopted to give effect to this cherished
belief should be thus ruthlessly sacrificed in
the interest of history and science. There
was something painful in disturbing a poor
body that had been hermetically sealed up in
a stone box, waiting to rise, for three thousand
years, in a state of tolerable preservation, and
taking away his skull because of its unusual
thickness; and for some time after my Haybee

240 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
researches, I could not shake off the feeling of
being somewhat of a " body-snatcher."
Perhaps the most remarkable experiences
which have befallen the human remains of an
ancient race, occurred to some mummies that
were taken to Paris, subsequently to the occu
pation of Egypt under the first Napoleon, and
placed in the Louvre. After the curiosity in
regard to them had worn off, they became a
nuisance, and, owing to the peculiar conditions
of climate, in the course of years slightly offen
sive. They had been stowed away in the
garrets of the Louvre, and the curators had
year after year been endeavouring to solve the
problem of how they could most decently be
got rid of, when the revolution of 1830 broke
out. As every one will remember, many of
the heroes of that episode fell in the court
of the Louvre. When the curators observed
that graves were being dug for distinguished
patriots and republicans under their very noses,
the brilliant idea occurred to them to slip sur
reptitiously into the same resting-places the
bodies of the ancient Egyptians which had
for so long been a cause of embarrassment
to them. With the inspiration of genius they

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 241
seized the opportunity, and thus associated the
past and the present of two great nations by
a common sepulture of those who had been
distinguished members of both. But the hon
our which had thus been conferred upon the
mummies was nothing to what was yet in
store for them. When the glorious days of
1848 arrived, it was decided to exhume the
heroes who had been buried in the court of
the Louvre, and remove them with great pomp
and ceremony to the Place de la Bastille.
The secret of the mummies' burial had been
well kept ; and when they were disinterred
with their companions of modern date, to the
superficial observer there was nothing to dis
tinguish their bones from those of an ordinary
French republican. They were therefore all
exhumed together, and formed the most Inter
esting, and possibly most respectable, part of
the procession which traversed Paris on that
occasion. Then magnificent funeral orations
were made over them by fervid orators, who
little suspected whose bones they were thus
honouring ; and to this day these mummies
are awaiting the final moment under the
Column of July. Meantime, according to the
Q

242 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
ancient belief of the Egyptians, the remark
able adventures which have thus befallen
these bodies have been narrowly watched by
their souls; for it was the idea of the Egyptians
that the soul retained the warmest interest in
the body after death — not merely from a
natural feeling of affection and sympathy for
a shell, so to speak, which one has inhabited
once, and would under certain altered condi
tions inhabit again, but because it was all that
the individual could leave for the world to
remember him by ; and hence he was desirous
that his body should be preserved in as perfect
a state as possible, and under such conditions
of splendour and durability as befitted earth
ly remains which were ultimately destined to
immortality. It was natural that those living on earth
should regard these embalmed memorials with
the utmost respect and veneration ; and they
therefore from time to time repaired to the
tombs of their deceased relatives and placed
small statuettes there, just as persons in the
present day cover the graves of those who
have passed away with immortelles. Quanti
ties of these have been found in the tombs.

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 243
and are to be seen in every good collection
of Egyptian antiquities, and can indeed be
obtained without difficulty at curiosity shops ;
but an erroneous idea often prevails regarding
them among collectors, who are under the
impression that they were presiding genii of
some sort They invariably represent the
deceased person as he is supposed to be at
present, in an intermediate condition some
what resembling purgatory, or the Hades of
the Greeks ; and he therefore bears not his
own form, but that of Osiris, under whose
special protection he is, and hence he is called
an Osirian. This accounts for the exact simi
larity of all these figures, which are of every
size, most usually of green porcelain. The
hands of the Osirian are folded on his breast,
and clasp the implements of labour; at his
back hangs a little bag of grain, — the seeds
which it contains represent the good deeds of
his earthly life, which he goes to sow in the
Elysian fields, where the object of his labour
is, with the help of Osiris, the final overcom
ing of evil by good work. The Osirian is
generally styled " illuminated," and is regarded
as having been justified before God by Osiris,

244 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
who, when on earth, was, with Isls and Horus,
a manifestation of the Divine Trinity — Amon,
Maut, and Khons. He was slain by his son
Typhon, who became the principle of dark
ness, as Osiris is the principle of light, and
now acts the part of judge and protector of
the dead in the other world. Thus we have
the expression occasionally occurring in the
Egyptian mythology — If mythology It can be
called — "justified In Osiris."
The statuettes are covered with hierogly
phics, varying but little in signification, and
extracted from the Book of the Dead, or
funereal ritual. The sentences selected are
those when the soul in Hades addresses his
shade, called Ushabti, an intermediate form
of the being between the soul and the body,
which is supposed to guard the latter on earth.
The shade occasionally responds, assenting to
the propositions of the soul, which are con
veyed in ideas of great beauty. Thus the
inscription on one in my possession is in
memory of a gentleman attached to the Court
of Psametik, the founder of the twenty-sixth
dynasty, who was named by Sardanapalus,
after the conquest of Egypt, governor at

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 245
Thebes, and who afterwards made himself
king. The date of the statuette would there
fore be about 660 B.C. The inscription runs
as follows : — -
" The illuminated, Osirian attacke-royaX of Psame
tik at Thebes, Cheotep. He says, ' O Ushabti, I,
the attachd-royaX at Thebes, Cheotep, am able to do
the necessary work in the Elysian fields, — to carry
the sand from the east to the west.
" ' See how he has overcome evil.
" ' To fertilise the fields ; to conduct water through
the streams, renewing it. I am taking care.
" ' Yes— thou— to all eternity.' "
The fact that we should have opened six
sarcophagi without finding one of these statu
ettes, was, I believe, unprecedented In inves
tigations of this description.
I suppose the result of any attempt to arrive
at some definite idea of the religion of an
ancient people by a study of the Imperfect
records and monuments of it which they may
have left, depends very much upon the atti
tude of mind and theological prejudices which
influence those who investigate it ; and that
If a philosophical commission were appointed
two thousand years hence to report upon the

246 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
religion of ancient Europe, an examination of
the pictures of the Trinity, of the Madonna
and Child, of the Scriptural illustrations upon
the stained glass of the ruined cathedrals, of
the shrines of saints, of crucifixes, relics, and
such fragments of the Bible — and especially
of the Old Testament — as had survived the
wreck of ages, supposing they could be pre
served for so long a period, — would lead them
to construct a theology very different from
the Christian religion, even as It exists at the
present day In its purest form. They might
possibly refer to it as a polytheistic or a pagan
system penetrated with a very high moral
quality, but nevertheless debased by many
superstitions, degrading alike to the Creator
and His worshippers. We are in the same
difficulty in regard to the religion of the an
cient Egyptians. If we assume the records of
it which have descended to us to possess an
esoteric meaning, they may contain a morality
as pure, and a theology as profound, as any
by which it has been succeeded. If we regard
only Its exoteric aspect, it possesses little claim
upon our religious sentiments. Many of its
external observances present a marvellous sim-

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 247
Ilarlty to those of the Hebrews, which may
possibly be accounted for to a great extent by
the residence of the latter in Egypt Thus,
if we compare the ten Hermetic books relat
ing to the Egyptian priesthood, with those
of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, we
find a remarkable agreement in ceremonial
observance. The Egyptian altars of sacrifice
may be seen in the Boulak museum ; and we
know that the laws concerning the choice of
victims, purification, the dress of the priests,
and the regulations to be observed by them
while officiating, all bear so striking a resem
blance to the Mosaic ceremonial, that we can
scarcely suppose it to have been fortuitous.
Wilkinson gives us in his book an illustra
tion of " one of the sacred boats or arks with
two figures representing cherubim," and he
tells us that the overshadowing wings were
those of two figures of the goddess Truth.
" This ark," he remarks, " was carried with
great pomp by the priests, a certain number
being selected for that duty, who, supporting
it on their shoulders by means of long staves
passing through metal rings by the side of
the sledge on which it stood, brought it Into

248 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
the temple, where it was placed on the stand
or table, in order that the prescribed cere
monies might be performed before it." The
stand was also carried in the procession by
another set of priests following the shrine, by
means of similar staves. The same Is said to
have been the custom of the Jews in some of
their religious processions, as in carrying the
ark " to its place. Into the oracle of the house,
to the most holy place, when the Temple was
built by Solomon." ^ The analogy might be
extended to great length, not merely in the
ceremonial but in the moral code, as showing
the influence which their sojourn in Egypt
exercised over the religious observances of the
Jews and their leader — as, for instance, in the
mention of three out of the Ten Command
ments already alluded to in the Invocation to
the Sun, and in some of the sentences con
tained in the code of justification. " I have
not moved my neighbour's landmark ; I have
not caused my neighbour to shed tears," recall
the Mosaic injunctions, " Thou shalt not re
move thy neighbour's landmark ; " ^ " Thou
' The Ancient Egyptians, i. 268. By Sir G. Wilkinson.
'¦' Deuteronomy xix. 14.

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 249
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."^ In
deed it is certain that Moses, — who, we are
told, was learned in all the knowledge of the
Egyptians — who, according to Philo and Cle
mens of Alexandria, had studied their hiero
glyphics, and had been a priest of the Temple
of the Sun himself, — was not ignorant of the
purer or more internal side of the Egyptian
theology. He must have known that its ap
parent polytheism was only symbolical, and
that it was a pure monotheism, — that is to
say, that it consisted in a belief In one God,
whose qualities and attributes were personified
by a corresponding number of active agents
or obedient divinities. These, when they
were represented by objects In nature, be
came objects of worship. Thus the sun, the
moon, the hawk, the king, the bull, the beetle,
all typified attributes, or were. In the modern
parlance of Swedenborg, " correspondences ; "
but while the learned only regarded them as
such, the common people invested them with
a divine character, and ultimately became wor
shippers of them.
It is recorded that the Roman travellers of
1 Leviticus xi.\. 18.

250 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
ancient times were entirely unable to reconcile
the advanced culture and philosophy of the
Egyptians with much that appeared to them
degrading in their religion. Thus, on visiting
their temples, and marvelling at the majestic
beauty of their architecture, and the taste
and harmony which characterised the decora
tion of their courts and chambers, they were
disgusted, on arriving at the innermost sanc
tuary, and being allowed to peep round the
corner of the veil of the temple, to find,
instead of the magnificent statue of a god,
as they expected, a solitary live animal, of
a species common to the country, reclining
upon a gorgeous carpet, and ornamented
with jewels. The Egyptians explained the
anomaly by affirming that it was more hon
ourable to the Deity to worship him through
an emblem pervaded with His life, breathing
with His breath, and fashioned by His hand,
than to invest a block of dead matter, formed
by the skill of man into a human likeness with
the attributes of Deity, and to worship Him
in it. Again, the Deity, or divine abstraction,
which In the belief of the early Egyptians
appears to have been bisexual in character.

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 251
divine father and mother in one, latterly
became subdivided into an infinite number of
divinities, almost each attribute becoming a
separate god or goddess. Thus we have as
separate names for Isls — Maut, the Universal
Mother; Neith, the Maternal Virgin ; Athyr,
the Mother of God; Hathor, the Model of
Mothers — the Mysterious Mother of the
World, — and other names, signifying respec
tively, the Soul of the Universe, or " World's
Soul," the Queen of Justice, the Mirror of
Virtue, the Queen of Heaven, and so forth.
All these names had really reference as much
to one goddess, who was at the same time
God, as similar names refer only in one phase
of Christianity to the Virgin Mary ; but they
became in process of time many goddesses,
— and so with the attributes of Amon the
Creator, who as Amon-ra became the " Light
of the World," and as Osiris incarnated him
self upon it. We can well understand why
Moses, who had seen the abuses which grew
out of this system of appealing to the imagin
ation of the masses, should insist, as the fun
damental principle of the purer religion which
he felt himself divinely commissioned to im-

252 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
part to his people, upon the belief in one God
alone ; why he should denounce the worship
of graven images, or hieroglyphics ; and why
he should take every precaution to prevent
his people from sliding back into the poly
theistic abuses to which it is evident they
clung for many years after deliverance from
Egypt, — at the same time giving them a legal
and ceremonial code more or less analogous
to that with which they had been familiar.
What does strike one as remarkable is, that
all reference to that future life which played
so great a part in the Egyptian theology,
should have been entirely omitted from that
of Moses. We hear nothing of any ritual of
burial, or of any importance being attached to
the condition either of the body or the soul
after death. There can be no doubt that
during the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt
they practised the Egyptian mode of sepul
ture : Jacob and Joseph, we know, were both
embalmed ; and we read at a later time " that
the manner of the Jews " was to bury the
body wound in linen cloths with spices. The
whole theory of embalming was based upon
the immortality of the soul. We cannot but

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 253
suppose that the Israelites while in Egypt
believed in a future state of rewards and pun
ishments, all reference to which is omitted in
the new theology instituted by Moses. We
have representations on the sides of Egyptian
tombs of souls being literally weighed in the
balance and found wanting ; but this idea, so
familiar to the Jews while in Egypt, seems to
have dropped out of their religious belief until
It was revived by our Saviour 1500 years
after they had left it While, however, the
Hebrew lawgiver dilates so amply upon the
duties and observances which should regulate
the conduct and worship of his people on
earth, to the exclusion of all reference to a
hereafter, we find that in his cosmogony a
certain analogy exists between his account of
the creation of the world and the fall of man,
with the belief which was entertained by the
Egyptians. In one of the Hermetic books —
which, according to ChampoUion and other
Egyptologists, have preserved for us more
accurately than can be found elsewhere the
psychological and cosmological doctrines of
the most ancient people — a conversation is
supposed to take place between Pimander, the

254 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Divine Intelligence, and Thoth, the Human
Intelligence, — the former revealing to the
latter, for the salvation of the human race, the
origin of the soul, its destiny. Its duties, and
the penalties and rewards in store for it, —
which I think so Interesting that I venture to
quote it. Thoth desires to know the nature
of things which exist, and to know God.
Pimander accedes to his request, and pro
ceeds to show him the primeval condition
of nature. Presenting himself as " a fearful
shade in oblique folds, he assumed a moist
character, and moved with a horrible sound ;
smoke escaped from it, accompanied by noise.
Out of this noise came a voice, which
seemed to me to be the voice of Light And
the Word Issued from this voice of Light.
This Word was sustained by a principle of
moisture, and there arose from it fire, which,
clear and light, was lost in the atmosphere.
The light here, like the Spirit, occupies the
space between the water and the fire. And
the earth and the waters were so intermingled
that the surface of the earth, enveloped by
the waters, was nowhere apparent They were
both moved by the Word of the Spirit, be-

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 255
cause it was suspended above them; and at
this moment Pimander said, ' Hast thou un
derstood the signification of this apparition ? '
I answered, ' I shall know It.' He added, ' I
am this Light I am Intelligence, — I am thy
God ; and I am more ancient than the princi
ple of moisture which escapes from the shades.
I am the germ of Thought, — the resplend
ent Word— the Son of God. I say to thee,
believe that that which sees and understands
in thee is the Word of the Master, and is the
Thought which is God the Father. They
are in no wise separate, and their union Is life.
The operating Intelligence and the
Word, enclosing circles, compose a mechan
ism which revolves with immense velocity
from the beginning to the end, without hav
ing beginning or end. It is from the total
ity of these circles that the Inferior elements
were drawn. The earth engendered the
animals which were In her — the quadrupeds,
&c. ; . . . only the Intelligence, Father
of all, who is life and light, procreated man
like to Himself, and received him as His son ;
for he was beautiful, and was the image of his
Father. . . . But man having seen in his

256 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Father the creator of all things, desired also
to create, and he rushed from the contempla
tion of his Father into the sphere of gener
ation. He desired to penetrate into the circles
and to rupture their circumference ; and hav
ing had power over mortal and unreasoning
animals, he raised himself and stepped out of
the bosom of harmony, penetrating and des
troying the power of the circles. Man be
came enamoured of nature, and thus was born
a form of being deprived of reason ; . . .
but of all earthly animals man alone is gifted
with a double existence, mortal by his body,
immortal by his real essence. As an Im
mortal, everything was subject to him, while
other living beings obeyed the law of destiny.
Thus man was a superior harmony ; but hav
ing willed to penetrate into it, he fell into
slavery." I am assured by a friend who was for many
years connected with the Egyptian department
in the Louvre, that there is there, on the lid
of a mummy-coffin — which dates many years
before the time of Moses — a representation of
a woman under the form of a serpent handing
an apple to a man ; but I am not aware of any

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 257
Egyptian theological legend explaining the
incident. It is, indeed, difficult to estimate
the extent of the Influence which the religion
and philosophy of the most ancient people
have exercised upon the moral instincts and
metaphysical thoughts of the most highly cul
tured of the early races of the world. The
holy singers of antiquity, Orpheus, Musaeus,
Melampus, and Eumolpus, acquired in Egypt
their theological wisdom. Lycurgus and So
lon Introduced Into their fatherland all the
wise regulations they there became acquainted
with. It was in Egypt that Archimedes in
vented his celebrated water-screw, and applied
it to the irrigation of the land. Pythagoras was
a long time in Egypt, and it is fair to assume
that his doctrine of the immortality of the
soul was derived from a theology in which the
existence of the spirit of man in a future state
played so prominent a part. The houses in
Heliopolis in which Plato and the mathema
tician Eudoxus lived for thirteen years, were
shown to Strabo ; and in the philosophy of
the former, we have abundant evidence of the
inspiration of Egyptian theology — for in it we
find the dogma enunciated that, as the mas-
R

258 THE LAND OF KHEMI.
cullne and feminine principles pervaded the
world, they must ascend to the Creator, who
must have been male and female in one ;
hence we have Isls under the form of Neith
forming one with Amon, and out of their dual
nature generating the dual principle of the
universe — a principle which Plato adopts
when he makes Aristophanes say, In his
' Symposium,' —
"In the first place, the sexes were originally
three In number — not two, as they are now.
There was man, woman, and the union of the
two, having a name corresponding to this
double nature which had once a real existence,
but is now lost. . . . There was a time,
I say, when the two were one ; but now, be
cause of the wickedness of mankind, God has
dispersed us as the Arcadians were dispersed
into villages by the Lacedaemonians."
Moses too, when he says in his account
of the creation of the world that God said,
" Let us make man in our image and after our
likeness," and "male and female created He
them," suggests the same train of thought ;
for the creation of the woman as a separate
individual took place some time afterwards.

EXCAVATIONS AT ISEMBHEB. 259
Carrying this principle into Inanimate nature,
the Egyptians considered the air male because
it produced the wind, and female because it
was cloudy and inert. They called the sea
male water, and every other kind of water
female water ; fire which burns with flame
male fire, and light without heat female fire ;
uncultlvable land they called male earth, and
cultivable land female earth.
Again, the immaculate virgin Neith — of
whom it was written over the temple dedi
cated to her at Sals, " The fruit which I have
conceived is the sun " — may have originated
an idea which extended through Asia, and
have been developed under another form in
Maya, the virgin mother of Buddha.
So, standing on the ruins of the temple
where in former ages the worship of the
divine creatrix Isls was celebrated, one was
led to connect the early ideas which sprang
from her worship, which pervaded all religions
and philosophies, and were perpetuated in
temples dedicated to her in more modern
countries, and the traditions and names of
which exist even to the present day. Thus
she had her temples at Benevento and at

26o THE LAND OF KHEMI.
Pompeii ; and the village of Issy, near Paris,
is called after a temple which once existed
there in her honour.
Regarded from this point of view, Egyp
tology is a science which possesses a far
deeper signification than any mere archaeolo
gical, historical, or antiquarian Interest which
may attach to it ; and the old land of Khemi
may contain monuments and graven records,
still to be discovered, destined to throw light
upon those mysterious problems which have
in all ages agitated the bosom of humanity.

THE END.

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