Part 8 (1/2)
A black hand, extended from the lowest deck beneath us, grasps one of these loaves and begins to finger it with a view to purchase; we cannot see the owner of the hand, but we can see his fingers feeling cautiously all around that loaf; he nips it between finger and thumb, he prods it, kneads it, rubs it, and finally, when no inch of it has been untouched, he hands over reluctantly a small coin and withdraws with the bread.
”Hope that isn't for us,” says the cheerful voice of a young officer leaning over the rail beside us in the dark. ”Think I'll cut off my crust at dinner to-night on the off-chance, anyway!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: AN EGYPTIAN SOLDIER.]
CHAPTER IX
A MILLION SUNRISES
It is very cold and quite dark when I wake. The steamer is anch.o.r.ed close up to the bank and not a sound comes from the still water. My blankets are very comfortable; it can't be time to turn out yet. It is an effort even to stretch out a hand and strike a light to see my watch--5.15! Yes, we ought to go!
You take some waking, and only my threat of, ”You'll never get another chance in your life,” brings you out of your bunk at last.
If you've ever done anything nastier than trying to dress against time, two together in a small cabin on a cold morning in the pitch dark, I'd like to know it. The electric light is off, because the engines are not running, and there are no candles. By the time we've got into some sort of clothing we're both at snarling-point. Twice I've violently tried to put on your boots, thinking they were mine, and I know you've got my s.h.i.+rt on, because I couldn't find it and had to drag out a clean one!
A walk along the cold dark deck and across a slippery plank to the mud bank does not improve matters. Apparently we have this exhilarating entertainment all to ourselves, for the rest of the fifteen pa.s.sengers have not appeared.
The sand is like the softest silk, and it seems sometimes as if we must be walking backwards so little headway do we make. If it wasn't for this icy wind I should think I was still dreaming. All the time that red bar in the east glows steadily brighter, and warns us that if we want to see one of the grandest sights in the world--Abu Simbel by sunrise--we must hurry up.
When at last we get clear of the sand we find ourselves on a piece of ground cut up by cracks wide enough to put a foot in. There is just sufficient light to keep us from twisting our ankles if we walk along with our eyes glued to the ground, and so we get along somehow, till suddenly we stop--sunrise is here!
A considerable distance in front of us and above our level we see three mighty seated figures and the remains of a fourth in a flat recess chiselled out of the side of a great rounded cliff. That first touch of dawn has tinged them with rosy pink, and they sit with their faces to the sunrise, which they must have seen somewhere about one million times already. Night succeeding day, day succeeding night, light following darkness, darkness following light, thus has time flickered before them throughout their stupendous age. As we creep nearer and climb higher they seem to rise and rise in size. Silently we seat ourselves on a stone, forgetting the s.h.i.+vering wind, and we stare and gaze spellbound at the triumphant eager expression on those mighty features, which, as the dawn spreads, softens to a deep complacence. Then the pink changes to a splendour of living gold, which sweeps over like a curtain, and the full majesty of them strikes us almost like a blow.
Their expression has in it something akin to that of all mighty time-resisting images set up by man; it is found in the face of the Sphinx and on that of the Buddhas of the East. It is an expression of soul-crus.h.i.+ng superiority, so without doubt of its own una.s.sailable dignity that it can afford to be benign. We must make up a word and call it ”supremity”--it is the only one that fits it.
Under the knee of each mighty figure is the plump outline of a little wife, small it looks from here, but draw nearer still, stand right under that colossus on the right and you will find that she is twice the height of a man.
As they tower above us, seeming to grow greater every instant as the light filters into the crevices, we get some idea of the monster size of these n.o.ble statues, and discover that each foot is nearly as long as a man! From the broken face of the sloping cliff they have been hewn, not built and pieced together and brought here from elsewhere, but born full size, springing to life from out the living rock. They all represent the king with whom we are already familiar, Rameses II., who caused this great temple to be made to celebrate his victory over the Kheta, a tribe of Syrians, living far away by the river Orontes in the north of the Holy Land.
Two on each side of the temple doorway the statues sit, and between them, in low relief, is the small figure of the G.o.d Harmakhis. Running above, across them all, is an inscription, part of which signifies--
”I give to thee all life and strength.”
Look up at it beyond those towering immovable heads, and from it again to the rough cliff untouched by tool, and from that to the sky, now of the purest, softest blue, hanging like a canopy above.
The high black doorway of the temple lies like a gash on the face of the cliff, and on one day of the year the ray of light from the rising sun falls through it clean as a shot arrow. The black-robed guardian has been expecting us, he stands waiting, holding his staff of office, and admits us to the interior. It is very dark, and even with the light of the flickering candle he holds up it is difficult to make out those great columns, each seventeen feet high, carved with an image of the G.o.d Osiris. As for the deep-cut pictures everywhere on the walls we can only get the merest glimpses of them. We pa.s.s on through several halls, noting how the angles and lines are absolutely plumb and true, and come to the innermost sanctuary, where we find the king again as one of four seated statues, not very large, the other three being G.o.ds! That was the idea Rameses had of his own importance!
Then it grows on us with increasing wonder that all this temple--the walls, the columns, the statues--are cut out of the actual rock, and that all the stone dislodged in the cutting must have been carried out through that doorway. How was it achieved? The depth of the temple to its farthest wall is one hundred and eighty-five feet, or almost three times a cricket-pitch! Imagine this depth driven in to the rock and cleared out to a great height without any machine power or modern tools!
And this was accomplished in the reign of one king. Rameses reigned some sixty years, and his great victory over the Kheta was five years after his coronation, so perhaps sixty years is the longest we can give for the construction of the temple, and it was probably much less. The story goes that in this great battle the king, cut off from his men and alone in the midst of a hostile army, performed prodigies of valour; he slew and hewed right and left until he sent the greater part of the Syrian army flying before him; all this is recorded on the walls. Of course in the case of kings these doings are apt to be magnified, still, there is no doubt that this was one of the most memorable occasions of his life, and he has certainly caused it to be remembered by building this enduring monument.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHILD HOLDS OUT A STRANGE LITTLE BEAST.]
We hear voices, and are joined by half a dozen of our fellow-travellers from the steamer. As we all walk back together a child sidles up and holds out a strange little beast with a head like a skull and a long tail like a rat. It is about as big as your hand. One of the army men takes it and puts it in the sleeve of his green tweed coat, and as he walks along carrying it the quaint little beast turns a greenish colour.
It is a chameleon and has the faculty of changing to the colour of its background whatever that may be; this forms a protection against its enemies, who cannot easily see it.
”I'll keep it,” says the soldier, laughing and giving the child a coin.
”He is a useful little beggar. You should see that tongue of his flick out and catch an unwary fly half a foot away.”