kem, “the black land,” in hieroglyphic, or kemi, in the later and more familiar demotic, was so called from its dark and fruitful soil, a loam, which turned up freshly, after a recent inundation of the nile, has, as one traveller describes it, “a brown and velvety lustre.”
through it winds and flows the great river of which homer speaks as “egypt’s heaven descended stream” and that more than any other has set its stamp upon the country and its inhabitants. so potent for weal or woe is it that one scarce wonders it was worshipped as a deity, and the arabs call it “el bahari,” the sea. it is difficult to find the word travel in their language, with the egyptian it is always up and down stream. from the river he drew the fish which formed part of his daily food, its fructifying waters, spreading over the land, called forth abundant harvests, and from the mud on its banks he built the hut in which he lived, or manufactured the bricks for the construction of his[2] tomb or other more ambitious edifice. the rushes that grew beside it furnished his writing material, and its muddy or turbid water, as a beverage, had for him the charm of a crystal rill.
leigh hunt says of the nile:
“it flows through old hushed egypt and its sands
like some grave mighty thought threading a dream;
and times and things as in that vision seem
keeping along it their eternal stands.”
the nile has been said to be less like a river than a sinuous lake with islands and sand-bars interspersed.
the sacred name of the nile was “hapi, the concealed.” the early egyptians believed that its source was in fountains, bottomless and far away, and the tears of the goddess isis caused its ebb and flow. the explorations of comparatively modern travellers have solved the mystery of its being, and to-day we know that it springs from great lakes which their discoverers named respectively, victoria and albert nyanza.
of the three great rivers, the nile, the mississippi, and the amazon, the first is the longest, the second has the largest number of ramifications, and the third the greatest volume of water.
a nilometer, a pillar standing in a pit, chronicles the rise of the tide, and great festivities attended the opening of the canals which were dug in all directions to carry its beneficent stream. a human victim was sacrificed to appease the river god. a young girl was each[3] year dedicated to this purpose. bound to a stake, adorned with flowers, and hailed as “aruseh, the bride of the nile,” she stood and watched the on-coming flood which was to shut out for her the light of day. perhaps it was in the terror with which the bounding pulses of youth must ever regard the great destroyer. perhaps with the heroic spirit of a martyr she awaited her fate, glorying in it and giving herself up a willing sacrifice, as the hindoo woman is said occasionally to have done in the suttee, when she cast herself on the funeral pile of her husband.
it was a mohammedan general who put an end to this annual tragedy and refused to permit the usual offering. the river delayed its rising, and the murmurs of the people waxed loud against him. in this dilemma he appealed to the kadlif omar, he who destroyed the alexandria library, saying that if it agreed with the koran it was useless to preserve it, and if it differed it was pernicious. but in this matter he showed himself larger-minded. he obligingly wrote a letter which was cast into the water and ran thus: a. d. 640, “from abd allah omar, prince of the faithful, to the nile of egypt. if thou flow of thine own accord, flow not, but if it be allah, the one, the mighty, who causeth thee to flow, then we implore him to make thee flow.”
the prayer was successful and the inundation began. henceforth a mud pillar, originally no doubt in human form, and still called “the bride of the nile,” was substituted for a trembling[4] maiden, and melted away before the encroaching stream. at the inundation the land looks like a marsh, the towns, etc., being just above the level of the water, and even now the crier announces the rise of the current.
the juncture of the white and blue nile shows the difference in the tint of the water for some time after. the nile has no tides. the dews are heavy in lower egypt and the nights cool and refreshing, while the temperature is, as a rule, most agreeable. from the low, long, level shore and with a coast line much the same as three thousand years ago, we follow the river through a fertile valley, which in time narrows between mountains and table-lands of sand. at the cataracts the stream surges and swells round little rocky islands and the rapids cause navigation to be difficult if not dangerous.
the delta, so called from its resemblance to the greek letter, is a level plain, highly cultivated, varied by lofty dark brown, ancient mounds, on which villages are often built, surrounded by palm trees. the greeks and romans divided egypt into the delta, or lower egypt, and the thebaid or upper. the rocks are generally of limestone, till one reaches thebes, and then they are of sandstone, while at the first cataract red granite bursts through the sandstone. the granite is yellowish or reddish, with no vegetation on the rocks. the drifts of yellow sand are everywhere. in some parts the mountains are three hundred feet high, and at thebes they rise to four times that height. on the eastern side they are close to the water, while on the[5] western they are further from the edge. what is called the fayum is a fertile tract in the hollow of the desert, while at the furthest extremity is a lake of brackish water.
upper egypt is bounded by mountains, through which the river has cut its way, their height overshadowing it, but not rising into sharp peaks. it is narrow and cultivated. from the mouth of the nile to the first cataract is six hundred miles of fertile valley, and it is said that the scenery of the first cataract resembles nothing but that of the second.
the beauty of egypt is in its coloring. the small proportion of green is compensated for by its intensity. over the velvet soil hangs a sky of turquoise blue, the sand sparkles like precious stones and the clear air is luminous. “the land where it is always afternoon” might almost be named the golden land. the traveller with the poetic or enthusiastic temperament revels in the delicate variety of its hues. he sees the sun turning the sands to gold, the river reflecting the sky, the blue lotus blossoms and the reeds, the picturesque buffaloes standing in the water with sleepy blue eyes and the vivid green of wheat fields. another describes the rusty gold of the libyan rocks, the paler hue of the driven sand slopes, the warm mauve of the nearer pyramid, which from a distance is a tender rose, like the bloom of an apricot, in delicate tone against the sky. low on the horizon, soft and pearly tints, blue and luminous at the zenith, while opalescent shadows, pale blue and violet and greenish grey, nestle in the hollows of the rocks and curves of[6] the sand drifts. lakelike plains, with palm groves and corn flats, relieve the glowing distance. even in the moonlight one seems to see the color.
from the top of the pyramids the valley of the nile looks like a carpet of rich green, the groves of palm trees like figures woven in deeper tints. another speaks of the palms as sculptured in jasper and malachite against the rosy evening sky.
a sense of rest and tranquillity pervades the mind.
“straight in his ears the gushing of the wave
far, far away did seem to mourn and rave.”
even the conscience slumbers. but the prosaic traveller hurries through all with unseeing eyes. like the tourist who visited cologne and was too sleepy to get up and look at the cathedral, he gapes at the pyramids, viewing them perhaps as “warts on the face of creation,” and sees no glory in the heavens, no beauty in the earth, the story of the ages has no charm for him.
long before “once upon a time,” if such a period can be conceived of, the great monuments were raised, the colossal temples were built, which have been the wonder of all succeeding centuries, and yet still back of and beyond that, stretching away to the confines of eternity, we picture to ourselves the land as it then was, without these marvels of art, when nature ruled supreme. then as now the plains stretched out, the yellow cliffs rose against the azure sky, the[7] desert spread afar, the purple cloud of the simoom hovered over it. the sun sank in splendor of violet, rose and gold, the torn and ragged sides of the mountains poured down their torrents of shining sand, the fissures burning with a crimson lustre. the splendor passed and ashy paleness followed; then a second paler but intense yellow hue, ere the stars shone out. and ever the nile calm and unruffled swept on with its eternal flow, while the air breathed balm. sometimes the waters gained, sometimes the sand. the byblos or papyrus, now almost extinct, abounded; along the waters edge forests and reeds, later destroyed, were plentiful, and wild bear, hippopotami and crocodiles whose ancient haunts know them no more, roved freely. the lakes abounded with fish, pelicans and ducks lived on the shores, and turtle doves brooded on the palm trees. the language of egypt has been changed once, the religion twice, but the natural conditions remain steadfast.
before menes, the first king of whom any distinct record has yet been recovered, man, civilized man, possessed the earth. in tracing the course of egyptian history we never, as with many other nations, seem to reach primeval humanity. like minerva, springing ready armed from the brain of jupiter, the earliest egyptian known is in a measure civilized. the wild savage, who develops into the more perfect man, exists in theory, but we cannot lay our hand upon him. some authorities, as professor petrie, attribute the beginning of egyptian civilization, as the greeks found it, to mesopotamian influences,[8] and think the conquering race came over the red sea and the conquered were of the same general type as the libyans of north africa. but none of these stories have yet been proved beyond the possibility of differing opinion by other students. strabo said “the egyptians lived from the first under a regular form of government, they were a people of civilized manners and settled a well-known country.”
claiming to be the most ancient of peoples the old story tells how the egyptians yet yielded their pretensions to the phrygians. the king caused a shepherd to bring up two children, nursed by a goat, and to observe what word they first spoke. running towards him they cried “beccos,” the phrygian for bread, which decided the question, but the wise mother goat perhaps considered they were but imitating her “ba-a!”
the early egyptian believed that osiris and isis, brother and sister, as also husband and wife, were the children of seb (saturn), and nepthys was the sister of isis. the two were called “the incubators,” who spread their wings over the mummy to impart new life, isis, represented as a female figure, wearing on her head the pshent or crown of upper and lower egypt, was the earth, the receptive one, was regarded as the mother of all and held somewhat the position to the egyptians that juno did to the greeks. the egyptians also believed that the heavens were upheld by four pillars and that the stars were lamps lighted therein at night. osiris and isis stood for the nile and egypt, and osiris was the sun’s power, the winter solstice,[9] the birth of horus the summer solstice, the inundations of the nile the autumnal equinox. his gods and goddesses were innumerable, their images existing for him in the shape of various animals and birds, and, among royalties, the ancestors were deified.
we of to-day thrust from us the thought of death, and live as much as may be in the present. not so the egyptian, it pervaded his daily life and it shared in his feasts and festivals. it rang in his laughter, “let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die!” and his favorite occupation was the building of his tomb.
no other nation possesses such a variety of monuments, says one writer. their stone quarries were inexhaustible, their facilities for transportation on the great river unlimited, and the sand and the climate combined to preserve what the hand of man erected. kings pressed their signets on the mountains that the generations to come might know of them and their power.
the sun and soil of egypt, we are told, demands one breed of men and will no other. the children of aliens die, and the special race characteristics remain to the present day. the fellah woman, in the picture often seen, crouching beside the statue of an ancient king, has the same contour of face, the same high cheek bones and nose, and the same immutable expression. as the life rule of egypt’s great river changes not, year after year repeating the same history, so the race shows the same characteristics, century after century. she shares with china her changelessness. like japan, she has her types[10] of face, long, oval, slender, with heavy lidded eyes, and nose characteristically depressed at the tip, with sensitive open nostrils, the under lip slightly projecting, the chin short and square, with a slim square shouldered figure. or a lower, squatter type, belonging to the plebeian, forehead low, nose depressed and short, face prognathous and sensual-looking, the chin heavy, the jaw large, the lips thick and projecting. both exist on the earliest monuments and to our own time. one writer thinks that the mummies differ from the arabs of the present day in having a better balance of the intellectual and moral faculties. it is also said that in men the countenance is narrower than in women. the forehead small and retreating, with a long large black and well-shaped eye, a long nose, with a slight bridge, cheek bones a little prominent, an expressive mouth, with full lips, and white regular teeth, and a small round chin. the complexion of men a dark brown, that of women olive to a pink flesh color. the women and girls are slender, with small straight brows and close lashes on each lid, which gives an animated expression to their almond-shaped eyes, the use of kohl (sometimes said to be sanitary in its effects) enhancing this. the forehead is receding, cheekbones high, the bridge of the nose low, the mouth wide and thick-lipped. the peasantry are darker than the townspeople and the color deepens from pale brown to bronze as you go south.
co-existent with, prior even, perhaps, to the pyramids is the great sphinx. maspero believed[11] that it dated before the time of menes. battered, mutilated, time worn, yet rearing itself nobly still with its majestic face in its tranquil grandeur, turned towards the east. towering sixty feet above one of the sand dunes, with a background of yellow sand or sapphire sky, or whitening in the moonlight against the starlit indigo heavens rises this colossal head and shoulders. “mutilated though it is,” says one traveller, “the changeless serenity, the eternal repose of the noble countenance impresses and awes all beholders.” the typical sphinx, a male or female head, with an animal’s body, in the greek “the strangler,” signifies intelligence or force. it was a favorite form in architecture and sometimes the face was a portrait of an existing king or queen. the great sphinx is said, from an inscription at edfu, to represent one of the personifications of the god horus. it was designated as horem khou, “horus on the horizon,” and bore the shape of a human-headed lion to vanquish typhon (set) principle of evil, and turning east awaited the resurrection of his father osiris. as horus was supposed to have reigned over egypt, kings took the name horus, or “golden hawk.”
a picture of the sphinx, by elihu vedder, is very impressive. the great head looms skyward, the desert spreads around, the silence of eternity broods over all. a crouching figure, old and tattered, kneels before it and lays his ear to the silent lips, as if to learn their hidden secrets.
the land is rich in fruits and vegetables, but it has comparatively few trees, and no great variety[12] of flowers. palms, sycamores, figs, and accasias are among the most frequent of the former. vegetables are peas, lentils, leeks, onions, garlic, celery, cucumbers, carrots, turnips, tomatoes, egg-fruit, peppers, etc. fruits are melons, of which the flesh is often a rich golden color, grapes, dates, almonds, figs, pomegranates, apricots, peaches, etc. the lotus, now comparatively rare, might once have been called the national, as it certainly was the favorite flower. it was used at feasts and for decorations, and its buds, blossoms and leaves were continually reproduced in architectural designs. it was chiefly because the water lily bud opened its petals at sunrise and closed them at sunset that the ancients held it sacred to the sun. pliny says: “it is reported that in the euphrates the flower of the lotus plunges into the water at night, remaining there until midnight, and to such a depth that it cannot be reached with the hand. after midnight it begins gradually to rise, and as the sun rises above the horizon the flower also rises above the water, expands and raises itself some distance above the element in which it grows.” “and it was also through this peculiarity,” says another writer, “that hankerville proved that the egyptians considered the lily an emblem of the world as it rose from the waters of the deep.”
other flowers include the rose, jassamine, narcissus, lily, convolvulus, violet, chrysanthemum, geranium, dahlia, basil, etc.
the horse was not an early inhabitant—there were camels, elephants, and cattle of special breeds, doves and other birds and many varieties[13] of fish. a number of animals were tamed in egypt and some of them would seem to us a singular collection of pets, lions, leopards, monkeys, gazelles and even crocodiles, and, above all, cats were household pets, as were the last two among the sacred animals.
everywhere possible at the present day excavation is going on. seventy-five centimes a day was at one time the rate for the diggers and fifty for the children who carried away the baskets of rubbish, the food consisting of bread, water, a few dates, cucumbers or onions, and, rarely if ever, any meat.
“the nile shore,” says bayard taylor, “shows either palm groves, fields of cane or doura, young wheat, or patches of bare sand blown from the desert. the villages have mud walls and the tombs of moslem saints looking like white ovens. the arabian and libyan mountains sweep into the foreground, the yellow cliffs overhang and recede into a violet haze at the horizon, while the blue evening shadows lie on rose-hued mountain walls.”
life in the east moves more slowly, even in modern times, than in the strenuous west. one traveller playfully remarks that one can perceive in the face after a nile voyage something of the patience and resignation of the sphinx, and another says that egypt is the best place in the world to rest, and recommends that one “go 600 or 700 miles up the nile before the season opens and occupy a hotel alone. you will find each day at least forty-eight hours long, and you will think of nothing but egyptian antiquities[14] and arabs, both of which are wonderfully soothing to the tired mind.”
egypt may be likened to a woman with coloring and charm, who surpasses sometimes in attraction another of more beautiful and regular form. in this land of golden light, of perpetual sunshine, lived and moved the egyptian queen. different and yet the same as her sisters of to-day, now she seemed a goddess in might and beauty, and again as the meanest of her slaves, swayed by ambitions, torn by passions, swept by waves of love and hate—a woman still. each in turn played her little part on the stage of life and passed beyond the curtain, leaving a few, and but few, traces of her existence. passed into “the land which loveth silence,” the dim amenti of the gods.