Buch lesen: «Eastern Life»
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Publisher: heptagon
Berlin 2013
ISBN: 978-3-934616-47-9
www.heptagon.de
The text was also published on the CD-ROM: »Sociological Classics, Berlin 2000.« The original book is: »Harriet Martineau: Eastern Life. A new edition, with illustrations, London 1875.«
Eastern Life
Prefaces
Preface to the New Edition
It is nearly thirty years since I entered by travel upon my study of »Eastern Life, Present and Past«; yet, in preparing for the issue of a new Edition of the book in which I there recorded my impressions and thoughts, there has not been more than a moment's pause upon the question how to present it after so considerable a lapse of time. The practice of many authors, poets, essayists, philosophers, and, among the rest, travellers, – of altering passages of their works to make them accord with the latest views or impressions of the writer's, must operate either as an example or a warning in such a case as the present. Which should it be? – a warning or an example, – in case of such a lapse of years as must have wrought more or less change in the mind of the writer, and in the aspect of the objects described?
I must say that this is a matter on which I have never entertained any serious doubt. Even in the most questionable case of all that of works of the Imagination, and of productions of the great Masters of Expression, I have always regretted, as no doubt most readers have, the changes too often introduced by poets and essayists in the latest edition of their works, upon the assumption that experience and practice must have improved them, – giving them something more and different to say, and power to say it better.
Many, however, who would agree with me in regarding the practice of altering prose and polishing verse as a mistake, may consider books of Travel to be so essentially different from other books as to be treated in a wholly different manner.
If changes have been wrought in the scenery of a remote country, or if an ancient people has been brought nearer to us by the advancing civilisation of its inhabitants, the traveller, or his readers, may entertain a doubt whether his book should not be altered, so as to make it as like a picture of the present time as new impressions can make it. For my part, I am satisfied that this is a grave mistake. In writing of my Eastern travel my object was to present faithfully and vividly what I saw, and learned, and felt, and thought; and the book is reissued now unaltered, because I can answer only for what I witnessed; I have nothing to say about the consequences of the deaths of the rulers of Egypt, or of the creation of the Suez Canal, or about life in the Lebanon at this day; or about the exploration of Palestine.
An apt illustration of the case of a book of Travel which is still demanded after a course of years, and by a new generation, may be seen in the extraordinary interest which is inspired at this day by Abdallatif's narrative of his Egyptian travel in the twelfth century. Who that has read that book could possibly wish that a line of it had been altered to keep up with the changes constantly wrought by time upon the aspect, and the life, and the character of Egypt?
Are we not rather eager to see the wonders of the land as he saw them, – the colonnades gracing the sea-shore, before any hint had been offered of the destruction at work at their bases? When the traveller now sees the sparkling granite of one of those pillars emerging, as bright and as fresh as ever, from its grave in the barren sand hills, is he not thankful that we have Abdallatif's picture of the temple in its beauty, rather than any afterthought of its fate when one and another of its columns had been laid low? – Did not Abdallatif himself enjoy the thought of Father Abraham walking reverentially round the Great Pyramid, gazing at its smooth pictured sides? And would he have exchanged this vivid retrospect for the truest description of the changes wrought by the crumbling away of the surface, the blunting of the angles, the conversion of the shining stone mountain into a gigantic staircase, – such as it has by degrees become? The cause which Abdallatif himself assigns for the interest inspired by the Pyramids is that »they put us in possession of the life and actions of the men of those days.« – Again, we learn much that we could never otherwise have known of life in Egypt from Abdallatif's narrative of the event which he witnessed, – the failure of the Nile inundation, near the end of the twelfth century. Any future traveller, or Abdallatif himself, after twenty or thirty years, would have deprived us of important knowledge, of a key to various facts of human history, by altering the physician's record, to bring it into harmony with an average course of life in Egypt. On the one fearful and protracted occasion of cannibalism being common in Egypt, it is good that we should witness it through the eyes of the learned and accurate traveller. If he, or another in his name, should in the next generation suppress or alter the description because grain crops were waving on the river banks, and vineyards were stretching up the skirts of the hills, and there was certainly not a cannibal in the land, the world of readers would have been injured where they now are privileged. Great as is the occasion so well used by Abdallatif, and small as ordinary modern travel appears by the side of his, the illustration he affords of the true method of presenting personal travel to the world may be the more and not the less instructive. Nearly seven centuries after his time we may know, – as if by his own voice, – that the value of a record of foreign travel lies in its absolute fidelity to the impressions received, and the facts witnessed; and that any modifying touches, the growth of afterthought, are nearly certain to injure the picture, and to mislead the reader. It should be considered, also, that when the reissue of a book is desired by the public, the book demanded is that which the public knows and likes, and not a work of which any part, however small, is unknown. Something is offered which readers desire to accept; and if they consider themselves deceived by something different being put into their hands, the writer can scarcely complain of the imputation, however good his intention may have been.
For these reasons, if for no other, I should feel it my duty to issue unaltered a new edition of my rather old book. To myself its records are as fresh and true as ever, though thirty years have wrought great changes in the countries visited. As for my readers, it is certain that to this day the book serves the purposes of those who make it the companion of their Eastern Travel, while those who read it by the fireside are best pleased to accept it as it was written, – avoiding the risk of confusion of impressions, such as must too probably arise when a book is written in one posture or condition of mind, and altered or added to in another.
H. M.
THE KNOLL, AMBLESIDE,
June 4th, 1875.
Preface
In the autumn of 1846, I left home for, as I supposed, a few weeks, to visit some of my family and friends. At Liverpool I was invited by my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Richard V. Yates, to accompany them in their proposed travels in the East. By the zeal and kindness of those who saw what a privilege this journey would be, all obstacles in the shape of business and engagements were cleared away; and in a month, I was ready to set out with my kind friends. – At Malta, we fell in with Mr. Joseph C. Ewart, who presently joined our party, and remained with us till we reached Malta on our return. There is nothing that I do not owe to my companions for their unceasing care and indulgence; but one act of kindness I felt particularly. They permitted me to read to them my Egyptian journal (there was no time for the others); that I might have the satisfaction of knowing whether they agreed in my impressions of the facts which came under our observation. About these facts there is an entire agreement between them and me. – For the opinions expressed in this book no one is answerable but myself.
It is by permission of my companions that I have thus named them here, and spoken of them in my book as occasion required. I am truly obliged to them for granting me this freedom, by which I am spared much trouble of concealment and circumlocution which, in their opinion and mine, the personal affairs of travel are not important enough to require and justify. – Not having asked a similar permission, from our comrades in our Arabian journey, I have said as little as possible about them, and suppressed their names. I shall be glad if they find anything in my narrative to remind them pleasantly of that remarkable season of our lives, – our five weeks' abode in the Desert.
Sir G. Wilkinson must be almost tired of the testimonies and thanks of grateful travellers: but I must just say that he was, by his books, a daily benefactor to us in Egypt. It is really cheering to find that any one can be so accurate, and on so large a scale, as his works prove him to be. Such almost faultless correctness requires an union of intellectual and moral powers and training which it is encouraging for those who are interested in the results of travel to contemplate After making the fullest use of his »Modern Egypt and Thebes«, we find only about half a dozen points in which we differ from him.
In regard to that difficult matter, – difficult to those who do not understand Arabic, – the spelling of the names of places and persons in Egypt and Arabia, – I have done what everyone will allow to be the safest thing; – I have followed the authority of Mr. Lane wherever I could. If any English reader complains of me for altering the look of familiar Egyptian names, it is enough to reply that Mr. Lane knows better than anyone, and that I copy from him. If I have departed from his method anywhere, it is merely because I had not his authority before me in those particular instances.
H. M.
AMBLESIDE, 25th March, 1848.
I. Egypt and its Faith
»They are extremely religious, and surpass all men in the worship they render to the gods.«
HERODOTUS, II. 37.
»Wherefore they were highly celebrated by Apollo's oracle (recorded by Porphyrius) and preferred before all other nations for teaching rightly ›that hard and difficult way, that leadeth to God and happiness.‹«
CUDWORTH. Intellectual System, Book I. 4.
»For, as for the uttermost antiquity, which is like Fame that muffles her head, and tells tales, I cannot presume much of it; for I would not willingly imitate the manner of those that describe maps, which when they come to some far countries, whereof they have no knowledge, set down how there be great wastes and deserts there: so I am not apt to affirm that they knew little, because what they knew is little known to us.«
BACON. Interpretation of Nature, ch. V.
I. First Sight of Africa – First Sights in Africa – Alexandria
My first sight of Africa was on a somewhat lurid November when the descending sun marked out by its red light a group of purple rocks to the westward, which had not been visible till then, and which presently became again invisible when the sun had gone down behind them, and the glow of the sky had melted away. What we saw was the island of Zembra, and the neighbouring coast of Tunis. Nothing in Africa struck me more than this its first phantom appearance amidst the chill and gathering dusk of evening, and with a vast expanse of sea heaving red between us and it.
My next sight of Africa was when I came on deck early on the morning of the 20th of November. A Libyan headland was looming to the south-east. Bit by bit, more land appeared, low and grey: then the fragments united, and we had before us a continuous line of coast, level, sandy, and white, with an Arab tower on a single eminence. Twice more during the day we saw such a tower, on just such an eminence. The sea was now of a milky blue, and lustrous, as if it were one flowing and heaving opal. Presently it became of the lightest shade of green. When a tower and a ruined building were seen together, everyone called out »Alexandria!« and we expected to arrive by noon: but we passed the tower and ruins, and saw only a further stretch of low and sandy coast. It was three o'clock before we were in harbour. – When we came on deck after dinner, we found that we were waiting for a pilot; and that we ought to be growing impatient, as there was only an hour of daylight left, and the harbour could not be entered after dark. There was no response from a pilot-boat which we hailed; and one of our boats was sent off to require the attendance of the pilot, who evidently thought he could finish another piece of business before he attended to ours. He was compelled to come; and it was but just in time. The stars were out, and the last brilliant lights had faded from the waters, before we anchored. As we entered the harbour, there was, to the south-west, the crowd of windmills which are so strange an object in an African port: before us was the town, with Pompey's Pillar rising behind the roofs: further north, the Pasha's palace and hareem, with their gardens and rows of palms coming down to the margin of the sea: further round, the lighthouse; and to the east, at the point of the land, a battery. The Pasha's men-of-war, which do not bear well a noon-day examination, looked imposing amidst the brilliant lights and deep shadows of evening, their red flag, with its crescent and single star, floating and falling in the breeze and lull. But for the gorgeous light, there would have been nothing beautiful in the scene, except the flag (the most beautiful in the world) and the figure of our pilot as he stood robed, turbaned, and gesticulating on the paddle-box; – a perfect feast to western eyes: but the light shed over the flat and dreary prospect a beauty as home-felt as it does over the grey rain-cloud when it brings out the bow. As we were turning and winding into the harbour, a large French steamer was turning and winding out, – setting forth homewards, – her passengers on deck, and lights gleaming from her ports. Before we came to anchor, she was aground; and sorry we were to see her lying there when we went ashore.
Before our anchor was down, we had a crowd of boats about us, containing a few European gentlemen and a multitude of screaming Arabs. I know no din to be compared to it but that of a frog concert in a Carolina swamp. We had before wondered how our landing was to be accomplished; and the spectacle of the departure of some of our shipmates did not relieve our doubts. We could not pretend to lay about us with stout sticks, as we saw some amiable gentlemen do, purely from the strength of their philosophical conviction that this is the only way to deal with Arabs. Mr. E. had gone ashore among the first, to secure rooms for us: and what we three should have done with ourselves and our luggage without help, there is no saying. But we had help. An English merchant of Alexandria kindly took charge of us; put our luggage into one boat and ourselves into another, and accompanied us ashore. The silence of our little passage from the ship to the quay was a welcome respite: but on the quay we found ourselves among a crowd of men in a variety of odd dresses, and boys pushing their little donkeys in among us, and carts pulled hither and thither, – everybody vociferating and hustling in the starlight. Our luggage was piled upon a long cart, and we followed it on foot: but there was an immediate stoppage about some Custom House difficulty, – got over we know not how. Then the horse ran away, broke his girths, and scattered some of our goods. At last, however, we achieved the walk to our hotel; – a walk through streets not narrow for an eastern city. All the way we had glimpses of smoking householders in their dim interiors, turbaned artisans, and yellow lamplight behind latticed windows. The heat was oppressive to us, after our cool days at sea. – The rest of the evening was fatiguing enough.
The crowd of Bombay passengers hurrying over their preparations, their letter-writing and their tea, in order to start for Cairo at nine o'clock; the growling and snarling of the camels, loading in the Square; the flare of the cressets; the heat, light, noise, and hurry, were overpowering after the monotony of sea life. I sought repose in letter-writing, and had nearly forgotten our actual position, when I was spoken to by a departing shipmate, and looking up, saw a Greek standing at my elbow, an Arab filling up the doorway, and a Nubian nursemaid coming in for a crying child. – Before ten o'clock, all was comparatively quiet, – the Square clear of omnibuses, camels, and the glare of torches, and our Hotel no longer a scene of crowding and confusion. There was nothing to prevent our having a good night, in preparation for our first day of African sight-seeing.
When I looked out of my window early the next morning, I saw, at the moment, nothing peculiarly African. The Frank Square is spacious, and the houses large; but they would be considered shabby and ugly anywhere else. The consular flagstaves on the roofs strike the eye; and the flood of brilliant sunlight from behind the minaret made the mornings as little like England in November as could well be. Presently, however, a string of camels passed through the Square, pacing noiselessly along. I thought them then, as I think them now, after a long acquaintance with them, the least agreeable brutes I know. Nothing can be uglier, – unless it be the ostrich; which is ludicrously like the camel, in form, gait, and expression of face. The patience of the camel, so celebrated in books, is what I never had the pleasure of seeing. So impatient a beast I do not know, – growling, groaning and fretting whenever asked to do or bear anything, – looking, on such occasions, as if it longed to bite, if only it dared. Its malignant expression of face is lost in pictures: but it may be seen whenever one looks for it. The mingled expression of spite, fear, and hopelessness in the face of the camel always gave me the impression of its being, or feeling itself, a damned animal. I wonder some of the old painters of hell did not put a camel into their foreground, and make a traditional emblem of it. It is true, the Arab loves his own camel, kisses its lips, hugs its neck, calls it his darling and his jewel, and declares he loves it exactly as he loves his eldest son: but it does not appear that any man's affection extends beyond his own particular camel, which is truly, for its services, an inestimable treasure to him. He is moved to kick and curse at any but the domestic member of the species, as he would be by the perverseness and spite of any other ill-tempered creature. The one virtue of the camel is its ability to work without water; but, out of the desert, I hardly think that any rider would exchange the willing, intelligent, and proud service of the horse for that of the camel, which objects to everything, and will do no service but under the compulsion of its own fears.
When the camels had passed, some women entered the Square from different openings. I was surprised to see their faces hardly covered. They pulled their bit of blue rag over, or half over, their faces when anyone approached them, as a matter of form; but in Alexandria, at least, we could generally get a sight of any face we had a mind to see, – excepting, of course, those of mounted ladies. As we went up the country, we found the women more and more closely veiled, to the borders of Nubia, where we were again favoured with a sight of the female countenance.
The next sight in the Square was a hareem, going out for a ride; – a procession of ladies on asses, – each lady enveloped in a sort of balloon of black silk, and astride on her ass, – her feet displaying a pair of bright yellow morocco boots. Each ass was attended by a running footman; and the officer of the hareem brought up the rear.
By this time, my friends were ready for a cup of coffee and a walk before breakfast: and we went forth to see what we could see. After leaving the Square, we made our way through heaps of rubbish and hillocks of dust to the new fortifications, passing Arab huts more sordid and desolate-looking than I remember to have seen in other parts of the country. We met fewer blind and diseased persons than we expected; and I must say that I was agreeably surprised, both this morning and throughout my travels in Egypt, by the appearance of the people. About the dirt there can be no doubt; – the dirt of both dwellings and persons; and the diseases which proceed from want of cleanliness: but the people appeared to us, there and throughout the country, sleek, well-fed, and cheerful. I am not sure that I saw an ill-fed person in all Egypt. There is hardship enough of other kinds, – abundance of misery to sadden the heart of the traveller; but not that, as far as we saw, of want of food. I am told, and no doubt truly, that this is partly owing to the law of the Kurán by which every man is bound to share what he has, to the last mouthful, with his brother in need: but there must be enough, or nearly enough food for all, whatever be the law of distribution. Of the progressive depopulation of Egypt for many years past, I am fully convinced; but I am confident that a deficiency of food is not the cause, nor, as yet, a consequence. While I believe that Egypt might again, as formerly, support four times its present population, I see no reason to suppose, amidst all the misgovernment and oppression that the people suffer, that they do not still raise food enough to support life and health. I have seen more emaciated, and stunted, and depressed men, women, and children in a single walk in England, than I observed from end to end of the land of Egypt. – So much for the mere food question. No one will suppose that in Egypt a sufficiency of food implies, as with us, a sufficiency of some other things scarcely less important to welfare than food.
We saw this morning a sakia1 for the first time, – little thinking how familiar and interesting an object the sakia would become to us in the course of three months, nor how its name would for ever after call up associations of the flowing Nile, and broad green fields, and thickets of sugar-canes, and the melancholy music of the waterwheel, and the picturesque figures of peasant children, driving the oxen in the shady circuit of the weed-grown shed. This, the first we saw, was a most primitive affair, placed among sand hillocks foul with dirt, and its wooden cogwheels in a ruinous state. We presently saw a better one in the garden of the German Consul. It was on a platform, under a trellice of vines. The wheel, which was turned by a blindfolded ox, had rude earthen jars bound on its vanes, its revolutions emptying these jars into a trough, from which the water was conducted to irrigate the garden.
In this garden, as in every field and garden in Egypt, the ground was divided off into compartments, which are surrounded by little ridges, in order to retain whatever water they receive. Where there is artificial irrigation, the water is led along and through these ridges, and distributed thus to every part. I found here the first training of the eye to that angularity which is the main characteristic of form in Egypt. It seems to have been a decree of the old gods of Egypt that angularity should be a prime law of beauty; and the decree appears to have been undisputed to this day: and one of the most surprising things to a stranger is to feel himself immediately falling into sympathy with this taste, so that he finds in his new sense and ideas of beauty a fitting avenue to the glories of the temples of the Nile.
The gardens of Alexandria looked rude to our European eyes; but we saw few so good afterwards. In the damp plots grew herbs, and especially a kind of mallow, much in use for soups: and cabbages, put in among African fruits. Among great flowering oleanders, Marvel of Peru, figs, and oranges, were some familiar plants, cherished, I thought, with peculiar care under the windows of the consular houses; – monthly roses, chrysanthemums, Love-lies-bleeding, geraniums, rosemary, and, of course, the African marigold. Many of these plots are overshadowed by palms, and they form, in fact, the ground of the palm-orchards, as we used to call them. Large clusters of dates were hanging from under the fronds of the palms; and these were usually the most valuable product of the garden. The consular gardens are not, of course, the most oriental in aspect. We do not see in them, as in those belonging to Arabs, the reservoir for Mohammedan ablution, nor the householder on the margin winding on his turban after his bath, or prostrating himself at his prayers.
The contrast is great between these gardens and the sites of Cleopatra's Needle and Pompey's Pillar – curiosities which need not be described, as everyone has seen them in engravings. The Needle stands on the burning sands, close to the new fortification wall, whose embankment is eighty feet high, and now rapidly enclosing the town. The companion obelisk, which was offered to England, but not considered worth bringing away, is now buried in this embankment. There it will not decay; for there is no such preservative as the sand of Egypt. When, and under what circumstances, will it again see the light? In a time when it may be recognised as an object known now? or in an age so distant as that the process of verification must be gone over again? Everyone now knows that these obelisks are of the time of the early Pharaohs, some of whose names they bear inscribed; that they stood originally at Heliopolis, and were transported to Alexandria by the Caesars.
The Pillar stands in a yet more desolate place. We reached it through the dreariest of cemeteries, where all was of one dust-colour – even to the aloe which was fixed upon every grave. The graves were covered with mortar, much of which was broken and torn away. A Christian informant told us that this was done by foxes and dogs; but a Mohammedan declared that such ravage was prevented by careful watching. There is a rare old book which happily throws light on what this Pillar was. In the twelfth century, while the Crusaders were ravaging Syria, a learned physician of Bagdad, named Abdallatif, visited Egypt, and dwelt a considerable time there. He afterwards wrote an admirable account of whatever he himself saw in the country; and his work has been translated by some Arabic scholars. The best translation is by De Sacy (Paris, 1810). Abdallatif tells us that the column (now called by us Pompey's Pillar), which is so finely seen from the sea, was called by the Arabs »the pillar of the colonnades«; that he had himself seen the remains of above four hundred columns of the same material lying on the margin of the sea; and he tells us how they came there. He declares that the governor of Alexandria, the officer put in charge of the city by Saladeen, had overthrown and broken these columns to make a breakwater! »This«, observes Abdallatif, »was the act of a child, or of a man who does not know good from evil.« He continues: »I have seen also, round the pillar of the colonnades, considerable remains of these columns; some entire, others broken. It was evident from these remains that the columns had been covered by a roof which they supported. Above the pillar is a cupola supported by it. I believe that this was the Portico where Aristotle taught, and his disciples after him; and that this was the Academy which Alexander erected when he built the city, and where the Library was placed which Amrou burned by the permission of Omar.«2 De Sacy reminds us that the alleged destruction of this portico must have taken place, if at all, at most thirty years before the visit of Abdallatif; so that as »all the inhabitants of Alexandria, without exception«, assured that traveller of the fact, it would be unreasonable to doubt it.3 He decides that here we have the far-famed Serapéum. – From the base of the Pillar the view was curious to novices. The fortifications were rising in long lines, where groups of Arabs were at work in the crumbling, whitish, hot soil; and files of soldiers were keeping watch over them. To the south-east, we had a fine view of Lake Mareotis, whose slender line of shore seemed liable to be broken through by the first ripple of its waters. The space between it and the sea was one expanse of desolation. A strip of vegetation – some marsh, some field, and some grove – looked well near the lake; and so did a little settlement on the canal, and a lateen sail, gliding among the trees.
We had a better view than this, one morning, from the fort on Mont Cretin. I believe it is the best point for a survey of the whole district; and our thinking so seemed to give some alarm to the Arabs, who ceased their work to peep at us from behind the ridges, and watch what we did with telescope, map, and compass. The whole prospect was bounded by water, – by the sea and Lake Mareotis, – except a little space to the north-east; and that was hidden by an intervening minaret and cluster of houses. Except where some palms arose between us and Lake Mareotis to the south, and where the clustered houses of the town stood up white and clear against the morning sky, there was nothing around us but a hillocky waste, more dreary than the desert, because the dreariness here is not natural but induced. If we could have stood on this spot no longer ago than the times of the Ptolemies (a date which we soon learned to consider somewhat modern), it would have been more difficult to conceive of the present desolation of the scene than it now is to imagine the city in the days of its grandeur. On the one hand, we should have seen, between us and the lake, the circus, with the multitude going to and fro; and on the other, the peopled gymnasia. Where Pompey's Pillar now stands alone, we should have seen the long lines of the colonnades of the magnificent Serapéum. On the margin of the Old Port, we should then have seen the towers of the noble causeway, the Heptastadium, which connected the island of the Pharos with the mainland. The Great Harbour, now called the New Port, lay afar this day, without a ship or boat within its circuit; and there was nothing but hillocks of bare sand round that bay where there was once a throng of buildings and of people. Thereabouts stood the temple of Arsinoë, and the Theatre, and the Inner Palaces; and there was the market. But now, look where we would, we saw no sign of life but the Arabs at work on the fortifications, and a figure or two in a cemetery near. The work of fortification itself seems absurd, judging by the eye; for there appears nothing to take, and therefore nothing to defend. Except in the direction of the small and poor-looking town, the area within the new walls appears to contain little but dusty spaces and heaps of rubbish, with a few lines of sordid huts, and clumps of palms set down in the midst; and a hot cemetery or two, with its crumbling tombs. I have seen many desolate-looking places, in one country or another; but there is nothing like Alexandria, as seen from a height, for utter dreariness. Our friends there told us they were glad we stayed a few days, to see whatever was worth seeing, and be amused with some African novelties; for this was the inhabitants' only chance of inspiring any interest. Nobody comes back to Alexandria that can help it, after having seen the beauty of Cairo, and enjoyed the antiquities of Upper Egypt. The only wonder would be if anyone came back to Alexandria who could leave the country in any other way.
