WHAT I SAW IN EGYPT.

Otago Witness, Issue 1892, 15 May 1890, Page 29

WHAT I SAW IN EGYPT.

(By Halkett Dawson, M.A., F.S.S., F.R-G.S.)

My chief object in going to Egypt was to see the famous Boulak Museum. Fancy my chagrin, therefore, when on arriving in Cairo I found that the marvellous collections were in tran&itu to the Ghizeh Palace, and that the museum could not possibly bo visited for about six weeks at the very earliest But where there is a will there is a way. I interviewed the museum authorities, and without much persuasion I was allowed to visit the partially displenished Boulak and the partially furnished Ghizeh Palace.

BOULAK

is the port of Cairo on the Nile. Here the famous collection of Egyptian antiquities, mummies, inscriptions, &o. has been housed for many years. But the past half-BCore years have added to such a degree to the collection that the building at Boulak was quite crammed and overflowing. It was a happy idea the converting one of the royal palaces into a museum. Iv Ismail's time palace after palace was erected and decorated in the most gorgeous Parisian style. When Ismail was deposed at the insitgation of Bismarck and a period of retrenchment inaugurated, several of those palace* were left empty. This waa the case with Ghizeh, and this is the case with the palace at Ismailia. The Khedive has still three or four palaces left— quite sufficient for the condition of Egypt. Henceforth the museum at Cairo will have most magnificent quarters — the finest rooms, perhaps, with the sole exception of the Vatican at Rome, devoted to museum purposes in the world. The rooms are very large, reminding one almost of Versailles ; while the decorations, though meretricious and vulgar, are moat imposing. To get an exhaustive view of the collection I had , to spend some time at Boulak and some time at Ghizeh. I am not to trouble my readers with an uuiuteresting catalogue of specimens, mummies, and inscriptions ; suffice it to say that the sight of this collection alone is well worth a visit to Cairo. It realises to the full my conception of what a museum ought to aim at. It is thoroughly Egyptian. It is Hot a mere show place, to attract of an afternoon tbe curious, the idler, ami the lounger ; it is a place for the etudent. Hither the student of the future will repair to study Egyptology. From Greece and Rome, with their splendid literature and antiquities, we have got nearly all w« are likely to get ; it is from Egypt aud Assyria that the fresh light of the future will come to our race. When we know as much about Egypt and Assyria as we know about Greece and Rome we shall modify ccmiderably some of our cherished views.

SPOILING THE EGYPTIANS, No country h&=» been so much spoiled as Egypt. Tho Romans stole wholesale from her. In Rome in front of nearly every church there is an obelisk from Egypt. That in front of the Lateran is the largest in the world. The museums of Italy are cram full of Egyptian antiquities. The National Museum at Naples is very rich in such spoils ; so is the Vatican. London, Paris, and Berlin have each much that ought to be in Cairo. At one time the pour Egyptians gave away everything— obelisks, Btatues, mummies, even sacred trees. The late Khedive presented tho ex-Empress of the French with the sycamore tree which sheltered the Virgin, Joseph, and the infant Christ in their flight into Egypt. This spoiling is now at an end. The Khedivial Government does not now allow the wholesale exportation of remains — the proper place for which is Cairo. I must make one famous exception, I mean the mutimies of cats. When I was in Liverpool in February there waß a shipload of mummified cats sold for manure. Single cats Jd anything like catlike shape f fetched 3s 6d !

THE SPHINX.

No one visits Egypt without seeing the famous Sphinx. It is quite close to the famous pyramids of Qheopa, Chephrea, and Myceriuus. I had iead much about this wonderful piece of work— who has not? I have read dozens of accounts of the thoughts of travellers about it. I shall add mine. Proceeding trom Cheops I was assailed by dozens of Bedouins. "Backsheesh, backsheesh, lnglese," from most of them ; from a select few — the cultured (?) broken English sentences, "Mr Governor, I have not seen you» coin this day." " I have a large family." "Buy this antique." Fitting the action to the request I had thrust under my nose a dark scull, or a scarab, or a Pharaoh's lamp. I had a pocketful of half piastres (there are 196 of them in a sovereign). I tried a few of these to get rid of my tormentors. Kill one with a gratuity and a couple takes his place. By the time I was in front of the Sphinx I had quite 50 ragamuffin Arabs around me. " Monsieur, I go to top of Sphinx for 6d." "Go to Gehenna," was my sentiment, and I looked it. But it was quite thrown away. English strong language is quite thrown away. An Egyptian policeman came up, and I thought I was now right. I asked my dragoman to unite his forces with the officer of law and order. Expletives in a hurricane ! That even came to no good, I gave it up .- Sat down in the sand on the 6i'de of the pit dug in front of the Sphinx — " the Squeezer," for that is the meaning of the word. Well named, probably in origin; exceedingly well named to-day. The struggle for existence among these poor Arabs— thin, skinny, hungry looking, like Pharoah's lean kine — was squeezing half piastres out of me. What squeezing there must have been before these huge pyramids were built ; before even the Suhinx was formed ! What squeezing has there been in this fair land during the ages. Persian, Greek, and Roman, not to mention Israelites, have spoiled the Egyptians.

The Squeezer is a fitting emblem to set up in the land of the kourbash and the bastinado. England has its rose; Scotland its thistle ; Egypt has the " Squeezer."

The face of the Sphinx is said to bo impassive looking, and so forth. I look upon it as a brutalised face ; not such a face as one pummelling from a Jem Mace, a Sullivan, or a Slavin could bring about, but rather a face of a wooden doll which a petulant child has battered against a wall for hours at a time. It seems to bfi a fitting emblem of the average fellah. For ages the poor fellaheen have been so brutally treated that they are now permanently degraded. If one were to convert the face of the Sphinx into womething resembling the choice products of the Greek chisel in its best days — to got p. face like that of Sophocles in the Muses, Prolano of the Lateran at Rome, one would have to tre it it like a block in the rough aud begin afresh : so with the fellaheen. When Arthur Young visited Fiance before! the Revolution he found many ot t c French peasants " mere bundles of tlirf. and rags." Yet the French peasant's soul was not quite battered out of him ; and since the Revolution, with better social and material surrounding?, a worthier peasant in every way has arisen. But with the fellah it seems as if the oppression of many long ages had all but rendered him as spiritless and timid as a hare. You could never breed a wild cat out of a hare !

Writers have been fond of usiug the name of thu Sphinx in connection with riddles and enigmas. I think it is Mallock who says in the New Republic that there is a sphinx in everyone's heart perpetually asking us this riddle :

What is the aim of life ? Why, surely, the aim is to live. I never saw better exemplified the great principle of self-conservation than at the base of the Sphinx in the clamouring of the Bedouin for backsheesh. Whatever the condition and environment may be, the sane and the healthy want to live. Since the Sphinx looked down upon the world from ita stony eyes there have been many changes and many different beliefs prevalent among mankiud. Take tho smokeroom of Shepheand's Hotel with picked men from all quarters of the world " from the river unto the ends of the earth," and observe their opinions. Are they not somewhat as follows :— • Progress is such improvement as you can verify by statistics ; education is such knowledge as can be tested by examination ; genius is a capacity for work, and you can measure capacity by the balance at one's bank : pleasure is the summum bonum, only one must not say so, though eveybody's life exemplifies the fact. Succeed in th:s world and you are certain to succed in the next.

I shall not trouble readers of tho Times with any further specimens of the public opinion of the civilised man who to-day looks upon the Sphinx. I made a move to rise up. A dozen Arabs at once began to assist. At least, quite a dozen said afterwards they did assist, and claimed their reward for services rendered. A few more half piastres. A short way off is the so-called Temple of the Sphinx. It goes by different names. Ife consists of enormous blocks of granite some 16fb in length. Here in recesses were found many royal mummies now in the museum. Having finished my inspection of the temple the Arabs brought me an ass, about the smallest I had ever seen. It waß impossible for me to walk back to the Pyramids. I musfc get on to the ass. I protested. It was cruelty to animals. The Arab does not understand this modern sentiment. I don't suppose he thinks beasts of burden have any feelings. Action is the criterion of belief. His actions show his beliefs on this subject are either nonexistent or at least most rudimentary. But on to the ass I had to get. Two Arabs at his ears ; three at each" side — as many or more at the tail; my legs on the ground — a moßb merciful thing for the poor ass ! When the job was over quite a crowd of Arabs had been in my employment. I tried to get particulars about the services rendered. Above all, I was anxious to find out the owner of the " wee ass." It must have been a lineal descendant of the ass that "snuffeth up the east wind,".about which the minister's man once remarked that it would be a long time ere it could get fat upon it. But the Arabs were too cuto. It was nobody's ass in particular. It belonged to everybody, and with everybody I must square up. It was on all-fours with a Maori transaction in land. I luckily fell upon an expedient. I beckoned to the driver of my trap. ' When he came up I put my hand into my" pocket, got a few piastres, threw them as far away as possible. Off went the Arabs like the shot from a gun. I jumped into the trap, and was soon out of the reach of my tormentors on the road to Cairo.