Eastern Life. Harriet Martineau

in its place, and the innumerable beetles, which everywhere left a network of delicate tracks on the light sand. Distant figures are striking in the Desert, in the extreme clearness of light and shade. Shadows strike upon the sense here as bright lights do elsewhere. It seems to me that I remember every figure I ever saw in the Desert; – every veiled woman tending her goats, or carrying her water-jar on her head; – every man in blue skirting the hillocks; every man in brown guiding his ass or his camel through the sandy defiles of the black rocks, or on a slope by moonlight, when he casts a long shadow. Every moving thing has a new value to the eye in such a region.

      When we came out upon Mahatta, we were in Nubia, and found ourselves at once in the midst of the wildness of which we had read so much in relation to the First Cataract. The Mississippi is wild: and the Indian grounds of Wisconsin, with their wigwam camps, are wild: but their wildness is only that of primitive Nature. This is fantastic – impish. It is the wildness of Prospero's island. Prospero's island and his company of servitors were never out of my head between Aswan and the next placid reach of the river above Philae. – The rocks are not sublime: they are too like Titanic heaps of black paving-stones to be imposing, otherwise than by their oddity; and they are strewn about the land and river to an excess and with a caprice which takes one's imagination quite out of the ordinary world. Their appearance is made the more strange by the cartouches and other hieroglyphic inscriptions which abound among them; – sometimes on a face above the river; sometimes on a mere ordinary block near the path; sometimes on an unapproachable fragment in the middle of the stream. When we emerged from the Desert upon Mahatta, the scene was somewhat softened by the cultivation behind the village, and the shade of the spreading sycamores and clustered palms. Heaps of dates, like the wheat in our granaries for quantity, lay piled on the shore; and mounds of packages (chiefly dates) ready for export. The river was all divided into streamlets and ponds by the black islets. Where it was overshadowed, it was dark grey or deep blue; but where the light caught it, rushing between a wooded island and the shore, it was of the clearest green. – The people were wild, especially the boys, who were naked and excessively noisy: but I did not dislike their behaviour, which was very harmless, though they had to be flogged out of the path like a herd of pigs. – We saw two boats, and immediately became eager to secure the one below. I was delighted at this, as we were thus not deprived of the adventure of ascending the Cataract.

      On our return, we sent Alee forward to secure the kandjia; and we diverged to the quarries, passing through the great cemetery, with its curious grave-stones, inscribed in the Cufic character. The marks of the workmen's tools are as distinct as ever on the granite of the quarries. There are the rows of holes for the wooden pegs or wedges which, being wet, expanded and split the stone. There are the grooves and the notches made, by men who died several thousands of years ago, in preparation for works which were never done. There are the playful or idle scratches made by men of old in a holiday mood. And there, too, is the celebrated obelisk, about which, I must take leave to say, some mistakes are current at this day.

      It may look like trifling to spend any words on the actual condition of an obelisk in the quarry: but, if we really wish to know how the ancients set about works which modern men are only again becoming able to achieve, we must collect all the facts we can about such works, leaving it for time to show which are important and which are not. We spend many words in wondering what could be the mechanical powers known to the old Egyptians, by which they could detach, lift, carry, and dress such masses of stone as we find before our eyes. When we chance to meet with one such mass in a half-finished state, it is surely worth while to examine and report upon its marks and peculiarities, however unaccountable, as one step towards learning hereafter how they came there.

      This obelisk was declared, by a traveller who judged naturally by the eye, to be lying there unfinished because it was broken before it was completely detached from the rock. Other travellers have repeated the tale, – one measuring the mass, and taking for granted that an irregular groove along the upper surface was the »crack« – the »fissure«; and another, comfortably seated on an ass_v not even getting down to touch it at all. Our friend Mr. E. was not satisfied without looking into things with his own eyes and his own mind: and he not only measured and poked in the sand, but cleared out the sand from the grooves till he had satisfied himself that there is no breakage or crack about the obelisk at all.

      The upper surface is (near the centre of its length) about twelve feet broad: and there is every appearance of the other three sides having the same measurement, – as the guide says they have, – allowing for the inequalities of the undressed stone. There is no evidence that it is not wholly detached from the rock. Of course, the existing inhabitants cannot move it; but the guide declares that, when cleared of sand, a stick may be passed under in every part. And it seems improbable that the apex of the obelisk should be reduced to form before the main body is severed from the rock. – As for the supposed »fissure«, it is certainly a carefully-wrought groove, and no crack. Its sides are as smooth as any tablet; and its breadth appears to be uniform – about an inch wide at the top. Its depth is about three inches; and it is smooth and sound all along the bottom. Near it is a slight fault in the stone – a skin-deep crack, little more than a roughness of the surface. Across the upper face were some remarkable holes. Besides those which are usually prepared for wedges or pegs, there were two deep grooves, slanting and not parallel. If they had been straight and parallel, we should have immediately supposed them intended to hold the chains or ropes by which the mass was to be raised: and it is still possible that they were so. But we do not know what to make of the groove which is commonly called the fissure. It is deep; it is longitudinal; and it is devious; not intended, evidently, to bear any relation to the centre of the face, nor to be parallel with either side, nor to be straight in its direction. The only conjecture we could form was, that it was in preparation for the dressing of the stone, after the erection of the obelisk: but then its depth appears too great for such a purpose. We observed a considerable bulge on the upper face of this obelisk. We know that this is necessary, to obviate that optical deception which gives an appearance of concavity to a perfectly correct pyramidal line: and we know that the old Egyptians so well understood this architectural secret, that they might be the teachers of it to all the world. But the knowledge of this does not lessen the surprise, when the proof of it, in so gigantic a form, is under one's hand. – The block was ninety feet long above the sand, when we were there; and the guide said that the sand covered thirty more. Judging of the proportions of the apex from what we saw, it must either require much cutting away in the dressing, or be a little spire. It would doubtless be much reduced by cutting, – We left the quarries, full of speculation about what manner of men they were who cut and carved their granite mountains in this noble style, and by what inconceivable means they carried away their spoils. It would hardly surprise me more to see a company of ants carrying a life-size statue, than it did to measure the building stones and colossi of the East.

      In our walk this evening we saw a pretty encampment of Albanian soldiers among the palms. One had to rub one's eyes to be sure that one was not in a theatre. The open tent, with the blue smoke rising, the group of soldiers, in their Greek dress, on the ground and seen between the palm stems; the arms piled against a tree, and glittering in the last rays of the sun; – all this was like a sublimated opera scene. And there was another, the next morning, when they took their departure southwards, their file of loaded camels winding away from under the shade into the hot light.

      We went early to Elephantine, this morning (the 27th), after seeing the Scotch boat arrive. The remains of Elephantine are not now very interesting – at least, we did not find them so: and we do not enter into the ordinary romance about this »Island of Flowers.« Not only we saw no flowers, but we could perceive no traces of any: and our guide could not be made to understand what flowers were. Conversation was carried on in Italian, of which the man appeared to have no lack. First he said there were many flowers there: then that there were none: and he ended by asking what »fiori« were. He shook his head in despair when we showed him. The northern end of the island is green and fertile, but the southern end is one dreary heap of old stones and broken pottery. The quantity of broken pottery in these places is unaccountable – incredible.

      The quays are gone, and the great flight of steps to the river. The little ancient temple of Kneph is gone; and another, and the upper portion of the Nilometer, were pulled down, some years since, to supply