Chapter V: Letter III: Cairo, the 16th October, 1842

We were detained almost fourteen days in Alexandria. The whole time was spent in preparations for our farther journey. I saw the Pascha several times again, and found him always favourably inclined towards our expedition. But we had gained little in a scientific point of view. We visited Pompey’s Pillar, which has nevertheless no connection with Pompey, but, as we learn by the Greek inscription on the base, was placed there by the Prefect Publius, in honour of the Emperor Diocletian. The blocks of the foundation are partly fragments of older buildings; the Royal Ring of the second Psammeticus could still be recognised upon one of them.

The two obelisks, of which the one still standing is called Cleopatra’s Needle, are very much destroyed on the sides which are exposed to the weather, and in part have become totally illegible. They were erected by THUTMOSIS III., in the sixteenth century before Christ; at a later period RAMSES MIAMUN has inscribed his name, and still later, on the outermost borders of the four sides, another king, who proved to be hitherto wholly unknown, and was therefore gladly greeted by me. I must also mention an interesting collection of objects of every sort connected with ethnography and natural history, which was made by Werne, a native of Prussia, during the second expedition of the Pascha up the Nile, as far as the White River, in lands till then unknown, and which a few months previously had been conveyed to Alexandria.[4] It appeared to me of such value, and to be so unique in its kind, that I have purchased it for our Museums. While we were still there, it was packed up, ready to be despatched. I think it will be welcome in Berlin.

At length the Bujurldis (Firman) of the Pascha was ready, and we hastened to quit Alexandria. We embarked the same day that I received it (the 30th September), on the Mahmudieh canal. Darkness surprised us before we had accomplished this first difficult departure. It was nine o’clock before we drove off from our hotel, on the extensive and beautiful Frank-square, in two carriages belonging to M. d’Anastasi, preceded by the customary runners with torches. The gate was opened at the watchword that had been given to us; our baggage had already been conveyed to the boat some hours previously on camels, so that we were able to depart very soon after our entrance into the roomy vessel, which I had hired in the morning. The Nile, which we entered at Atfeh, had tolerably high waves, as the wind was strong and unfavourable. The usual mode of navigation here, is with two pointed sails, which rise upwards like the wings of a bee; these are easily beaten down, by every violent gust of wind, not without danger, especially in the dark. I therefore granted the sailors permission to stop every stormy night.

The following day, the 2nd of October, we landed at SA EL HAGER to visit the ruins of ancient SAIS, the city of the Psammetici, famous by its temple to Minerva. The circular walls of the town, built of bricks of Nile earth, and the deserted ruins of the houses, are alone extant; there are no remains of stone buildings with inscriptions. We paced the circumference of the city, and made a simple plan of the locality. The Acropolis was situated to the north-west of the town, which is even now marked by tolerably high mounds of rubbish. We spent the night at NEKLEH. I have got the great maps of the “Description de l’Egypte” beside me, on which we were able to trace almost every step of our excursions. We have hitherto found it almost everywhere to be depended upon.

The 3rd of October we landed on the western bank, to inspect the remains of the old Rosetta canal, and spent almost the whole afternoon till sunset in examining the ruins of an old town near NAHARIEH. No walls are now visible, only mounds of rubbish, yet we found in the houses of the modern town several stones with inscriptions, chiefly built into door-sills, which had originally belonged to a temple of King Psammeticus I. and APRIES (Hophre). The next night we stopped on the western bank at TEIRIEH, and landed there the following morning to search for some ruins, an hour distant from the bank, but from which we obtained nothing. The Libyan desert here for the first time advances quite close to the Nile, and presented us with a new and deeply impressive sight.

On the following morning, we first saw the Great Pyramids of Memphis, rising above the horizon; I could not for a long time take my eyes off them. We still continued to sail on the Rosetta arm; about mid-day we reached the so-called Cowsbelly, where the Nile divides into its two principal arms. Now for the first time we were able to survey the noble, wonderful river in its whole magnitude, which with its fertilising and sweet-tasting water, influences the life and manners of the inhabitants on its banks like no other river in the world. It usually attains its greatest height about the beginning of October. But this year an inundation has occurred, such as has not been remembered for generations past. A breach in the dams is dreaded, which after the great murrain, that is said to have carried off up to the last week forty thousand head of cattle, would cause Egypt to be afflicted a second time this year.

About five o’clock in the evening we arrived at BULAQ, the harbour of Cairo. We rode at once from the harbour to the town, and made arrangements for a considerable stay. By-the-by, when we say CAIRO, and the French LA CAIRE, it proceeds from a pure error in language. The town is never called anything by the Arabs now, but MASR, and the country the same; that is the old Semetic name, which is more easily pronounced by us in the dual termination Mis’raim. It was only in the tenth century, when the present city was founded, that the modern Masr, by the addition EL QAHIREH, that is “the victorious,” was distinguished from the earlier MASR EL ATIQEH, the present Old Cairo. The Italians then omitted the _h_, which they could not pronounce, mistook the Arabic article EL for their masculine IL, and thus by its termination also, stamped the whole word as masculine.

It was just the commencement of the Musulmans’ holy fasting month, the Ramadan, during which they neither take food, nor “drink smoke or water” the whole day, and receive no visits, but only begin the whole business of life after sunset; thus completely changing day and night, which, on account of our Arabian servants, causes us much inconvenience. Our Kawass (the Pascha’s guard of honour that had been given us), which had missed the time of our departure from Alexandria, established itself here. As our Prussian vice-consul is out of health, I applied to the Austrian consul, M. Champion, to whom I had been warmly recommended by Ehrenberg, with respect to our being presented to the representatives of the Pascha at this place. He received us with the greatest politeness and anxiety to serve us, and has obtained for us everywhere a good reception. On my official visits, which, on account of the Ramadan, were necessarily made about eight o’clock in the evening, I was usually accompanied by Erbkam and Bonomi. Our torch-bearers ran before us, then followed on asses, first the Dragoman of the consul, and our Pascha’s Kawass, then we ourselves, in stately procession. We rode almost across the whole town to the Citadel, through the narrow streets, which were filled with Arabs, and picturesquely illuminated by our torches, there we first paid a visit to Abbas Pascha,[5] a grandson of Mehemet Ali. He is governor of Cairo, but rarely there. From him we went to Scherif Pascha, his representative, and then to the minister of war, Ahmet Pascha. We were everywhere received with great courtesy.

On the day after our arrival, I received a diploma as honorary member of the older Egyptian Society, from which the younger one, which had already forwarded to London the same invitation to me, has separated. Both held meetings during the first days after our arrival, but I was only able to attend one of them, in which an interesting paper was read by Krapf, on certain nations in Central Africa. The accounts were given him by a native of the country of Enarea, who had travelled into the country of the Doko on mercantile business, and describes the people there very much as Herodotus describes the Libyan dwarf nation, according to the account of the Nasamonians, namely, as composed entirely of little people, about the size of children from ten to twelve years old. We might almost imagine that they were speaking of apes. As the geographical notices of the hitherto wholly unknown land of the Doko are also interesting, I had the whole paper copied, in order to send it along with the small map which belongs to it, to our venerated Ritter.[6]

On the 13th of October we made our first excursion from this place to the ruins of HELIOPOLIS, the biblical _On_, whence Joseph took his wife Asnath, the daughter of a priest. Nothing remains of this highly-praised city, which prided itself in possessing, next to Thebes, the most learned body of priests, but the walls, which now resemble great ramparts of earth, and an obelisk still erect, and perhaps in its original site. The peculiar interest of this obelisk is, that it was erected by King SESURTESEN I. in the Old Monarchy, about B.C. 2300, and is by far the most ancient of all known obelisks; for the broken one in the Fayoum at Crocodilopolis, which bears the name of the same king, is rather a lengthened _stele_, or tablet, in the form of an obelisk. Boghos Bey has received a present of the ground on which the obelisk stands, and has laid out a garden round it. The flowers of the garden have attracted a multitude of bees, and they have been unable to find a more commodious habitation than in the deep and sharply-cut hieroglyphics of the obelisk. Within the space of a twelvemonth, they have covered the inscriptions of the four sides to such a degree, that a great portion of them have now become quite illegible. They had been, however, previously published, and we had little difficulty in our examination, because three sides bear the same inscription, and that on the fourth, also, differs but little.

Yesterday, the 15th October, was our king’s birthday, and I had selected this day for the first visit to the Great Pyramids. We would there, with a few friends, commemorate our King and our Fatherland in a joyous festival. We invited the Austrian consul, Champion; the Prussian consul, Bokty; our learned countryman, Dr. Pruner, and Messrs. Lieder, Isenberg, Mühleisen, and Krapf to join our party, some of whom however, were to our regret, prevented from attending.

The morning was beautiful beyond description, fresh and festive. We rode in a long procession through the yet quiet city, and through the green avenues and gardens which are now laid out before it. Wherever, almost, that we met with new and well carried out works, Ibrahim Pascha was named to us as their originator. He seems to be doing much in all parts of Egypt for the embellishment and improvement of the country.

It is impossible to describe the scene that met our view when we emerged from the avenues of date-trees and acacias; the sun rose on the left behind the Moqattam hills, and illuminated the summits of the Pyramids in front, which lay before us in the plain like gigantic rock crystals. All were overpowered, and felt the solemn influence of the splendour and grandeur of this morning scene. At Old Cairo we were transported across the Nile to the village of Gizeh, from which the largest Pyramids are called HARAM EL GIZEH. From this spot, in the dry season, one may ride over to the Pyramids, by a straight road, in an hour, or little more. But as the inundation now stands at its highest point, we were compelled to make a great circuit on long dams; we came nearly as far up as Saqâra, and only reached the foot of the greatest Pyramid at the end of five hours and a half.

The unexpected length of the ride gave us an appetite for the simple breakfast which, in order to strengthen us for the ascent of the greatest Pyramid, we partook forthwith in one of the old sepulchral chambers; these had been here hewn in the rock, somewhere about five thousand years ago, and are now inhabited by some Bedouins. Meantime, a spacious tent, with decorations of various colours, which I hired in Cairo, had arrived. I had it pitched on the northern side of the Pyramid, and the great Prussian royal standard, the black eagle with the golden sceptre, the crown and the blue sword on a white ground, which our artists had themselves, during the last few days, sketched, stitched, and fastened to a high pole, was planted before the door of the tent.

About thirty Bedouins had, in the meanwhile, gathered around us, and waited for the moment when we should ascend the Pyramids, in order to raise us, with their strong brown arms, up the steps, which are between three and four feet high. Scarcely had the signal for departure been given, than immediately each of us was surrounded by several Bedouins, who dragged us up the rough, steep path to the summit, as in a whirlwind. A few minutes later, and our flag was unfurled on the summit of the oldest and highest of human works that is known, and we greeted the Prussian eagle with three joyous cheers to our king. Flying towards the south, the eagle turned his crowned head towards our home in the north, from which a refreshing wind blew, and diverted the hot rays of the mid-day sun from off us. We also looked homewards, and each one thought aloud, or silently in his heart, of those who loving, and beloved, he had left behind.

The panoramic view of the landscape spread out at our feet next riveted our attention. On the one side the Nile valley, a wide sea of overflowed waters, intersected by long serpentine dams; here and there broken by villages rising above its surface like islands, and by cultivated promontories filling the whole plain of the valley that extended to the opposite Moqattam hills, on whose most northerly point the citadel of Cairo rises above the town stretched out at their base. On the other side, the Libyan desert, a still more wonderful sea of sandy plains and barren rocky hills, boundless, colourless, noiseless, enlivened by no creature, no plants, no trace of the presence of man, not even by tombs; and between both, the ruined _Necropolis_, whose general position and simple outline lay spread out clearly and distinctly as on a map.

What a spectacle, and what recollections did it call forth! When Abraham came to Egypt for the first time, he saw these very Pyramids, which had been already built many centuries before his coming. In the plain before us lay ancient Memphis, the residence of the kings on whose tombs we were then standing; there dwelt Joseph, and ruled the land under one of the most powerful and wisest Pharaohs of the newly restored Monarchy. Farther away, to the left of the Moqattam hills, where the fruitful low ground extends on the eastern arm of the Nile, beyond Heliopolis, distinguished by its Obelisk, begins the blest region of Goshen, out of which Moses led his people to the Syrian desert. It would not, indeed, be difficult from our position to recognise that ancient fig-tree on the road to Heliopolis, at Matarîeh, under whose shade, according to the tradition of the country, Mary rested with the infant Christ. How many thousand pilgrims of all nations have since visited these wonders of the world down to ourselves, who, the youngest in time, are yet but the predecessors of many other thousands who will succeed us, ascend these Pyramids, and contemplate them with astonishment. I will not describe any further the thoughts and feelings which agitated me during these moments. There, at the goal of the wishes of many years, and at the same time at the commencement of our expedition; there, at the summit of the Cheops-Pyramid, to which the first link of our whole monumental historical inquiry—not merely for the history of Egypt, but for that of the world—is immoveably attached; there, where I looked down upon the wonderful field of tombs, from which the Moses’-wand of science now calls forth the shadows of the ancient dead, and causes them to pass before the mirror of history, in the order of their time and rank, with their names and titles, and with all their peculiarities, customs, and surrounding accompaniments.

After I had taken an exact survey of the neighbouring tombs, with a view to select some points for future excavations, we once more descended to the entrance of the Pyramid, and, providing ourselves with lights, entered, like miners, the steeply sloping shaft with some guides, and reached the gallery, and so-called King’s Chamber, by paths already familiar to me by drawings. We admired the infinitely fine seams of the enormous blocks, and examined the quality of the stones of the passages and chambers. In the spacious hall, whose floor, walls, and ceiling, are entirely built of granite, and, therefore, return a metallic-sounding echo, we sang our Prussian hymn, which sounded so powerful and so solemn that our guides afterwards told the remaining Bedouins that we had selected the innermost part of the Pyramid to perform divine service and utter a loud general prayer. We now visited also the so-called Chamber of the Queen, and then quitted the Pyramid, reserving the view of the chambers which were more difficult of access for a future and longer visit.

Meantime, our orientally-ornamented tent had been arranged, and a dinner was prepared within it, seasoned by the importance of the festival, of which only Prussians partook, with the exception of our two English companions. It need hardly be told that our first toast on this occasion, also, was to the king and his household, and it required no great eloquence to inspire all hearts.

The remainder of the day passed in cheerful, festive, and tender reminiscences and conversation, till the time for our departure had arrived. We were still obliged to wait a quarter of an hour after sunset to give our servants, our mule-drivers, and other Arabian attendants, time to eat their frugal meal, as, on account of the Ramadan, in spite of the heat and labours of the day, they had not yet tasted anything. Then the clear, full moon guided us in the cool and silent night across the sea of sand and waters, through villages and palm-groves back to the city, which we did not reach before midnight.