The Bertrams Part 82

And so it was settled; and for the next six months the same dull, dreary life went on in the old house at Hadley.

CHAPTER VIII.

CAIRO.

Men and women, or I should rather say ladies and gentlemen, used long ago, when they gave signs of weakness about the chest, to be sent to the south of Devons.h.i.+re; after that, Madeira came into fas.h.i.+on; but now they are all despatched to Grand Cairo. Cairo has grown to be so near home, that it will soon cease to be beneficial, and then the only air capable of revigorating the English lungs will be that of Labuan or Jeddo.

But at the present moment, Grand Cairo has the vogue. Now it had so happened during the last winter, and especially in the trying month of March, that Arthur Wilkinson's voice had become weak; and he had a suspicious cough, and was occasionally feverish, and perspired o'nights; and on these accounts the Sir Omicron of the Hurst Staple district ordered him off to Grand Cairo.

This order was given in October, with reference to the coming winter, and in the latter end of November, Arthur Wilkinson started for the East. Two articles he had first to seek--the one being a necessary, and the other a luxury--and both he found. These were a curate and a companion. The Reverend Gabriel Gilliflower was his curate; and of him we need only hope that he prospered well, and lived happily under the somewhat stern surveillance of his clerical superior, Mrs.

Wilkinson. His companion was George Bertram.

About the end of November they started through France, and got on board the P. and O. Company's vessel at Ma.r.s.eilles. It is possible that there may be young ladies so ignorant as not to know that the P.

and O. is the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, and therefore the matter is now explained. In France they did not stop long enough to do more than observe how much better the railway carriages are there than in England, how much dearer the hotels are in Paris than in London, and how much worse they are in Ma.r.s.eilles than in any other known town in the world.

Nor need much be said of their journey thence to Alexandria. Of Malta, I should like to write a book, and may perhaps do so some day; but I shall hardly have time to discuss its sunlight, and fortifications, and hospitality, and old magnificence, in the f.a.g-end of a third volume; so we will pa.s.s on to Alexandria.

Oh, Alexandria! mother of sciences! once the favoured seat of the earth's learning! Oh, Alexandria! beloved by the kings! It is of no use. No man who has seen the Alexandria of the present day can keep a seat on a high horse when he speaks of that most detestable of cities. How may it fitly be described? May we not say that it has all the filth of the East, without any of that picturesque beauty with which the East abounds; and that it has also the eternal, grasping, solemn love of lucre which pervades our western marts, but wholly unredeemed by the society, the science, and civilization of the West?

Alexandria is fast becoming a European city; but its Europeans are from Greece and the Levant! "Auri sacra fames!" is the motto of modern Greece. Of Alexandria it should be, "Auri fames sacrissima!"

Poor Arabs! poor Turks! giving way on all sides to wretches so much viler than yourselves, what a destiny is before you!

"What income," I asked a resident in Alexandria, "what income should an Englishman have to live here comfortably?" "To live here _comfortably_, you should say ten thousand a year, and then let him cut his throat first!" Such was my friend's reply.

But G.o.d is good, and Alexandria will become a place less detestable than at present. Fate and circ.u.mstances must Anglicize it in spite of the huge French consulate, in spite of legions of greedy Greeks; in spite even of sand, musquitos, bugs, and dirt, of winds from India, and of thieves from Cyprus.

The P. and O. Company will yet be the lords of Egypt; either that or some other company or set of men banded together to make Egypt a highway. It is one stage on our road to the East; and the time will soon come when of all the stages it will neither be the slowest nor the least comfortable. The railway from Alexandria to Suez is now all opened within ten miles; will be all opened before these pages can be printed. This railway belongs to the viceroy of Egypt; but his pa.s.sengers are the Englishmen of India, and his paymaster is an English company.

But, for all that, I do not recommend any of my friends to make a long sojourn at Alexandria.

Bertram and Wilkinson did not do so, but pa.s.sed on speedily to Cairo.

They went to the Pharos and to Pompey's Pillar; inspected Cleopatra's Needle, and the newly excavated so-called Greek church; watched the high spirits of one set of pa.s.sengers going out to India--young men free of all enc.u.mbrances, and pretty girls full of life's brightest hopes--and watched also the morose, discontented faces of another set returning home, burdened with babies and tawny-coloured nurses, with silver rings in their toes--and then they went off to Cairo.

There is no romance now, gentle readers, in this journey from Alexandria to Cairo; nor was there much when it was taken by our two friends. Men now go by railway, and then they went by the ca.n.a.l boat.

It is very much like English travelling, with this exception, that men dismount from their seats, and cross the Nile in a ferry-boat, and that they pay five s.h.i.+llings for their luncheon instead of sixpence. This ferry does, perhaps, afford some remote chance of adventure, as was found the other day, when a carriage was allowed to run down the bank, in which was sitting a native prince, the heir to the pasha's throne. On that occasion the adventure was important, and the prince was drowned. But even this opportunity for incident will soon disappear; for Mr. Brunel, or Mr. Stephenson, or Mr. Locke, or some other British engineering celebrity, is building a railway bridge over the Nile, and then the modern traveller's heart will be contented, for he will be able to sleep all the way from Alexandria to Cairo.

Mr. Shepheard's hotel at Cairo is to an Englishman the centre of Egypt, and there our two friends stopped. And certainly our countrymen have made this spot more English than England itself.

If ever John Bull reigned triumphant anywhere; if he ever shows his nature plainly marked by rough plenty, coa.r.s.eness, and good intention, he does so at Shepheard's hotel. If there be anywhere a genuine, old-fas.h.i.+oned John Bull landlord now living, the landlord of the hotel at Cairo is the man. So much for the strange new faces and outlandish characters which one meets with in one's travels.

I will not trouble my readers by a journey up the Nile; nor will I even take them up a pyramid. For do not fitting books for such purposes abound at Mr. Mudie's? Wilkinson and Bertram made both the large tour and the little one in proper style. They got as least as far as Thebes, and slept a night under the shade of King Cheops.

One little episode on their road from Cairo to the Pyramids, I will tell. They had joined a party of which the conducting spirit was a missionary clergyman, who had been living in the country for some years, and therefore knew its ways. No better conducting spirit for such a journey could have been found; for he joined economy to enterprise, and was intent that everything should be seen, and that everything should be seen cheaply.

Old Cairo is a village some three miles from the city, higher up the river; and here, close to the Nilometer, by which the golden increase of the river is measured, tourists going to the Pyramids are ferried over the river. The tourists are ferried over, as also are the donkeys on which the tourists ride. Now here arose a great financial question. The reis or master of the ferry-boat to which the clerical guide applied was a mighty man, some six feet high, graced with a turban, as Arabs are; erect in his bearing, with bold eye, and fine, free, supple limbs--a n.o.ble reis for that Nile ferry-boat. But, n.o.ble as he was, he wanted too many piastres--twopence-halfpenny a head too much for each donkey, with its rider.

And then there arose a great hubbub. The ordinary hubbub at this spot is worse than the worst confusion of any other Babel. For the traffic over the Nile is great, and for every man, woman, and child, for every horse and every a.s.s, for every bundle of gra.s.s, for every c.o.c.k and for every hen, a din of twenty tongues is put in motion, and a perpetual fury rages, as the fury of a hurricane. But the hubbub about the missionary's piastres rose higher than all the other hubbubs. Indeed, those who were quarrelling before about their own affairs came and stood round in a huge circle, anxious to know how the n.o.ble reis and his clerical opponent would ultimately settle this stiff financial difficulty.

In half an hour neither side would yield one point; but then at last the Egyptian began to show that, n.o.ble as he looked, he was made of stuff compressible. He gradually gave up, para by para, till he allowed donkeys, men, and women to clamber over the sides of his boat at the exact price named by him of the black coat. Never did the church have a more perfect success.

But the battle was not yet over. No sooner was the vessel pushed off into the stream, than the n.o.ble reis declared that necessity compelled him to demand the number of piastres originally named by him. He regretted it, but he a.s.sured the clergyman that he had no other alternative.

And now how did it behove an ardent missionary to act in such a contest with a subtle Egyptian? How should the eloquence of the church prevail over this Eastern Mammon? It did prevail very signally. The soldier of peace, scorning further argument in words with such a crafty reis, mindful of the lessons of his youth, raised his right hand, and with one blow between the eyes, laid the Arab captain prostrate on his own deck.

"There," said he, turning to Wilkinson, "that is what we call a pastoral visitation in this country. We can do nothing without it."

The poor reis picked himself up, and picked up also his turban, which had been knocked off, and said not a word more about the piastres.

All the crew worked with double diligence at their oars, and the party, as they disembarked from the boat, were treated with especial deference. Even the donkeys were respected. In Egypt the donkeys of a man are respected, ay, and even his donkey-boys, when he shows himself able and willing to knock down all those around him.

A great man there, a native, killed his cook one morning in a rage; and a dragoman, learned in languages, thus told the story to an Englishman:--"De sahib, him vera respecble man. Him kill him cook, Solyman, this morning. Oh, de sahib particklar respecble!" After all, it may be questioned whether this be not a truer criterion of respectability than that other one of keeping a gig.

Oh, those pyramid guides! foul, false, cowardly, bullying thieves! A man who goes to Cairo _must_ see the Pyramids. Convention, and the laws of society as arranged on that point, of course require it. But let no man, and, above all, no woman, a.s.sume that the excursion will be in any way pleasurable. I have promised that I will not describe such a visit, but I must enter a loud, a screeching protest against the Arab brutes--the schieks being the very worst of the brutes--who have these monuments in their hands. Their numbers, the filthiness of their dress--or one might almost say no dress--their stench, their obscene indecency, their clattering noise, their rapacity, exercised without a moment's intercession; their abuse, as in this wise: "Very bad English-man; dam bad; dam, dam, dam! Him want to take all him money to the grave; but no, no, no! Devil hab him, and money too!"

This, be it remembered, from a ferocious, almost blackened Arab, with his face within an inch of your own. And then their flattery, as in this wise: "Good English-man--very good!"--and then a tawny hand pats your face, and your back, and the calves of your leg--"Him gib poor Arab one s.h.i.+lling for himself--yes, yes, yes! and then Arab no let him tumble down and break all him legs--yes, yes; break _all_ him legs." And then the patting goes on again. These things, I say, put together, make a visit to the Pyramids no delightful recreation. My advice to my countrymen who are so unfortunate as to visit them is this: Let the ladies remain below--not that they ever will do so, if the gentlemen who are with them ascend--and let the men go armed with stout sticks, and mercilessly belabour any Arab who attempts either to bully or to wheedle.

Let every Englishman remember this also, that the ascent is not difficult, though so much noise is made about the difficulty as naturally to make a man think that it is so. And let this also be remembered, that nothing is to be gained by entering the pyramid except dirt, noise, stench, vermin, abuse, and want of air. Nothing is to be seen there--nothing to be heard. A man may sprain his ankle, and certainly will knock his head. He will encounter no other delights but these.

But he certainly will come out a wiser man than he went in. He will then be wise enough to know how wretched a place is the interior of a pyramid--an amount of wisdom with which no teaching of mine will imbue him.

Bertram and Wilkinson were sitting beneath the pyramid, with their faces toward the desert, enjoying the cool night air, when they first began to speak of Adela Gauntlet. Hitherto Arthur had hardly mentioned her name. They had spoken much of his mother, much of the house at Hurst Staple, and much also of Lady Harcourt, of whose separation from her husband they were of course aware; but Arthur had been shy of mentioning Adela's name.

They had been speaking of Mrs. Wilkinson, and the disagreeable position in which the vicar found himself in his own house; when, after sitting silent for a moment, he said, "After all, George, I sometimes think that it would have been better for me to have married."

"Of course it would--or rather, I should say, will be better. It is what you will do when you return."

"I don't know about my health now."

"Your health will be right enough after this winter. I don't see much the matter with it."

"I am better, certainly;" and then there was another pause.

"Arthur," continued Bertram, "I only wish that I had open before me the same chance in life that you have--the same chance of happiness."

"Do not despair, George. A short time cures all our wounds."

"Yes; a short time does cure them all--and then comes chaos."

"I meant a short time in this world."

"Well, all things are possible; but I do not understand how mine are to be cured. They have come too clearly from my own folly."

"From such folly," said Arthur, "as always impedes the working of human prudence."

"Do you remember, Arthur, my coming to you the morning after the degrees came down--when you were so low in spirits because you had broken down--when I was so full of triumph?"

"I remember the morning well; but I do not remember any triumph on your part."