strode hot-footed across the land, making broad ways that passed over hill and valley without pause or rest, yet now the empire of Rome is but a name.
CHAPTER IV
THE STRANGEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD
Looking down from the deck of the Orontes it seems as if we were peering into the folds of a black gauze curtain, between which demons from the pit rush yelling to and fro. These men are black from head to foot, with the exception of the gleaming white teeth which show between their open lips. They are black to begin with by nature, and are further covered, scanty clothing and all, with a thick coating of coal-dust, which sticks to their oily skins and dirty rags. They are digging frantically into the heaped-up coal of a great barge lying alongside, gathering it into baskets and rushing up planks to deposit it in the coal bunkers of the steamer, and all the while they shout in a strange chant at the tops of their voices. When white men are doing severe work they are silent, as they need all their strength for the task in hand, but when their dark-skinned brothers work they find it necessary to shout as loudly as they can, and the harder the work the more noise they make. At a little distance their confused yelling is like the cheering of a great crowd at a popular football match.
All the port-holes have been closed to keep out the dust, the ship's carpets are rolled away, the place looks as if prepared for a spring cleaning. It is time for us to go, for we have arrived at Port Said, the principal landing-place for Egypt, and we have to say good-bye to the Orontes here, though we shall not forget her as the first of the many ships which carry us on our great adventure.
It is easy enough to get a boat, competition is keen, and the laughing bright-eyed boys who row us across seem in the best of humour; they make a brilliant picture, for they are dressed in scarlet and blue for choice, with bits of orange wherever they can stick them on.
Port Said, where we have landed, is a large town with a big business, yet it is built on a site which a comparatively short time ago was nothing but a marshy salt lake. Men of all nations walk in its streets, and ships of all nations pass through its port. It is a strange mingling of East and West. Here the two meet, and those who come from the West for the first time cry with delight, "This is the East!" while those who have been exiled for many years from their western homes and are at last returning, exclaim, drawing a long breath, "Now I feel I really am in sight of home."
We are actually in Africa, that mysterious land which still contains the greater part of the unexplored territory of the world, and which for long was described as "The Unknown Continent," though it can hardly be called that now. Of all the countries which make up Africa, Egypt is the strangest, indeed, she is the strangest country in all the world – a weird and mysterious land whose ways are not as the ways of any other country on earth.
Imagine a land much longer than it is broad, in the shape of an ordinary hearth-rug, and then lay down lengthwise along this a mighty river which divides it into two parts. Have you seen the Eiffel Tower? If not, you have at all events seen pictures of it, well, imagine an Eiffel Tower lying prostrate along the hearth-rug and you will have a pretty fair idea of Egypt and its river. The legs of the Eiffel Tower are very near the bottom and stick out sharply; from the point where they meet the long body stretches upwards straight as an arrow.
The Nile is like that. Not so far above where it runs into the Mediterranean Sea it is split up into many channels like the legs of the tower. It is at the foot of one of these legs we have just landed, and presently we are going to pass on up to the junction of the many channels at Cairo, which is the capital town of Egypt. Of course the Nile is not perfectly straight and rigid like the man-made tower; it winds and turns, as all rivers do, but, taking it as a whole, the comparison is a good one.
We have to wait for our baggage to be brought across from the ship so that we can see it through the custom-house, and here it comes at last; it is carried by a boy about your age who is simply lost to sight beneath it. They begin young! He stands grinning, well pleased with himself. He certainly deserves a good tip, for he is no shirker. We have just got some Egyptian money from Cook's, so can give it him in his own coinage, though he would not in the least mind taking English money.
Egyptian money is not very difficult to understand: the principal coin is a piastre, which is equal to twopence-halfpenny; and half a piastre, which looks like a silver sixpence, but isn't silver at all, serves the purposes of a penny, though it is really equal to a penny-farthing. There are no coppers here. The most useful coin – corresponding to our shilling, the French franc, and the Italian lira – is rather like an overgrown shilling to look at and equal to five piastres or a halfpenny more than a shilling.
Now we have only to buy some cigarettes for me and some Turkish Delight for – well, for us both! Then we can go on to our train. Cigarettes and Turkish Delight are the two things no one ever fails to buy at Port Said, for here you get them good and cheap.
It will take us four hours to reach Cairo by rail, and we shan't see anything of the country, as it is dark. And what a country it is!
You will never get used to it, for it is run on lines of its own. The part of it lying between the legs of the imaginary Eiffel Tower, in other words, between the mouths of the Nile, is called the Delta, from the Greek letter Δ, which shape it is. Except in this delta rain never falls, that is to say, not to speak of. Up in Assouan, one of the larger towns, which we shall visit, they say, for instance, "Rain? Let me see – oh yes, we did have a shower, two years ago it was, on such and such a day at four in the afternoon. Pretty smart shower too; the roofs of the mud houses got squashy and slipped down on the inhabitants. Quite funny, wasn't it?"
It seems funny to us that anyone could remember the hour of one particular shower two years ago! With us if there is no rain for a few weeks the farmers begin to cry out that their crops are ruined. What a glorious land Egypt must be to live in when there is no chance of any excursion being spoiled by the weather!
"But how in the world does anything manage to grow?"
I thought you would ask that. Egypt has a system of its own. Once every year this gigantic river, which cleaves the land into two parts, rises and overflows all its banks; it submerges the low-lying flat land near it and carries all over it a rich fertilising mud. The land is thoroughly soaked, and when the Nile slowly retires, sinking back into its channel, the crops are planted in the spongy earth.
For many ages no one knew why this happened, and indeed no one troubled to ask; the ancient Egyptians thought the Nile was a god, and that this wonderful overflow was a miracle of beneficence performed for their benefit. Then Europeans began to penetrate into the heart of Africa and the mystery was solved. The Nile rises far up in the vast continent where there are mighty lakes lying in among the hills. The three largest of these lakes are called Victoria, Albert, and Edward, after our sovereigns, for the men who discovered them were British and naturally carried the names of their rulers to plant as banners wherever they penetrated. These lakes are not in Egypt, but far beyond, in a region where at one season of the year there is a terrific downfall of rain; this swells them up and makes them burst forth from every outlet in a tremendous flood. The Nile carries off most of this water, and some other rivers, which flow into it up there, bring down masses of water too, and all this rushes onward, spreading far over the thirsty land of Egypt and turns the desert into a garden, making it "blossom as the rose." Wherever the water reaches the land bears fruit, but beyond it is sandy and sterile desert.
The length of this amazing river from Lake Victoria to the sea is now reckoned to be between three thousand and four thousand miles, or almost half the length of the earth's diameter, and for over a thousand miles it receives no tributaries at all. In almost all rivers we are accustomed to we see streams and other tributaries running in and swelling the volume of water as the main river passes down to the sea, but for all these miles the Nile flows unsupported and unreplenished beneath the blazing sun. No wonder the Egyptians worshipped anything so splendid!
The
