Part two

With Mr. Bankes in his voyage upon the Nile into Nubia (2)

Pursuing our voyage still downwards, we passed close to the nine noble columns of the portico at Gau¹, which the Nile was visibly undermining; and I grieve to say that there remained only one of them standing in my second voyage, and even that had disappeared when I passed the last time. No building in Egypt was so beautiful as this from the river.

The next day from thence brought us to Siout, which serves as a sort of capital to Upper Egypt, and was then the residence of Ibrahim Bey (son by adoption to Mahomet Ali), now Ibrahim Pasha, who was building a large palace there for himself, and laying out a spacious garden, with a sort of banqueting-house in the midst of it. Mr. Bankes seemed greatly to regret that a noble piece of ancient architecture² had been beaten down at Sheik Abbadi, and brought hither, to furnish materials; and could not refrain from intimating as much to the Bey himself during his interview, in which nothing, however, was wanting of civility and attention.

Since there are many curious sepulchres to be seen about Siout, we remained there all day; and at night the Bey’s European physician, after a supper at his house, called the dancing-girls in to exhibit their postures.

Our next landing was at Radamone, where we mounted asses and rode a distance of two hours to Ashmouneim³, to see a high and massive portico of twelve columns, which, by comparison, made those that we saw just afterwards on the other bank, at Sheik Abbadi (Antinoe), appear small and meagre, for they are not Egyptian; yet we regretted afresh the lofty gateway which Ibrahim Bey had so lately destroyed there.

At this place we had an instance of that shameless disposition to thieving which prevails among the lower orders, notwithstanding the severity with which it is punished by the existing government. A young lad of the village, after making his dinner with our crew on board, ran off, in the sight of every body, with the large pewter tray out of which he had been eating, on its being handed out to him to wash in the Nile. We could not recover it, but the sheik of the place was made responsible, and brought us a great wooden dish in its room.

Great part of that night and of the next day was spent in the excavated tombs at Ben y Hassan, which are filled with curious pictures, representing almost every circumstance of common domestic life many thousand years ago⁴.

Map

At Minieh a visit was due to Abdim Cashief, the governor, for the kindness that he always shows to the English; and we stopped afterwards at Ben y Souef to purchase a few necessaries, our stock of them being reduced so low, that they would not hold out another day.

The solitary pyramid of Meddoon is the southernmost of all that are visible from the Nile⁵. It stands on the border of the desert, about one hour distant from the water’s edge: here we landed, and made our way to it on foot, and afterwards walked on from thence to the pyramids of Dagshoor; and it being determined to proceed in the same manner all the way to those of Geeza, the vessel was ordered to drop down thither, and there to wait for us. Still on foot, therefore, we visited in passing each of the numerous pyramids of Saccara, great and small; and at last, when it was rather late in the day, reached those three, that so much surpass all others, at Geeza. After viewing them externally, and mounting to the summit, the interior was to be explored by torchlight; and there, in the innermost chamber, where is the sarcophagus, Mr. Bankes fainted, and lay without sense or motion.

I cannot tell whether this happened owing to the great fatigues of the day, or from his having, in his examination, got unawares into the influence of some foul air; but it was a case of great embarrassment to us, since some of the passages are so steeply slanted, and others so very low and crooked, that it was no easy matter to lift a body through them in which life was so entirely suspended, for he did not revive till he reached the external atmosphere.

Seizures of this nature in the subterranean and winding passages of Egypt are not uncommon; and it is even supposed that, in some cases, a person left in that condition, and not carried out, would breathe no more. At Thebes, whilst Mr. Bankes was drawing in one of the grottoes, an Arab, who was holding the light to him, fell down quite dead to appearance, though no other person present, nor even the candle that was in his hand betrayed any corresponding symptoms: but in that case, as in this, the recovery was immediate by removal to the air.

It was now night, and the inundation, though subsiding, still interposed so much water between the Pyramids and the village of Geeza, that we were not only obliged to make a very circuitous way to it, but also to be carried across in many places on the shoulders of the Arabs, who have huts thereabouts; so that it was near ten o’clock when we reached our vessel, in great need of repose, after a day of excessive bodily fatigue.

The next morning we crossed to Boulak, and so to Cairo, after an absence in the voyage to Nubia, of just three months (December 16, 1815).

Mr. Bankes here resumed his quarters in the Catholic convent, and rested himself for some time, handsomely remunerating all those who had borne part in his expedition, and myself among the number, though he had originally been no party to my engagement with Barthow.

It was now, however, proposed to me that I should continue in the capacity of his janissary and interpreter in the journey to Jerusalem, and other parts of Syria, and I was directed to hold myself in readiness accordingly to set out very shortly.

At the recommendation of Mr. Burckhardt, who was then resident at Cairo under the name of Sheik Ibrahim, and had become the intimate friend of Mr. Bankes, this gentleman now, for the first time, assumed the turban, having already suffered his beard to grow, as a preparatory step, and after he had once relinquished the European dress, he never afterwards resumed it for upwards of two years. Antonio, either from religious scruples, or from considering that such a weight of drapery must prove an incumbrance, was at first extremely averse to put on a corresponding habit, which the sheik had provided for him, as well as for his master; but it was insisted upon, and he soon became reconciled to it.

No sooner had the new disguise been adopted, than I was called upon to an office of some hazard: which was, to lead the way into some of the principal mosques of the city, particularly that of El Azahar, or the Thousand Columns; that of Sultan Hassan, and of Sultan Calaoon, and several others, – a task that was accomplished with great success: for in some few we found no one else besides the keeper of the mosque, and in such cases a small present always ensured civility, and no questions asked; in others, the sight of two persons entering side by side, or at a short interval, according to circumstances, and nearly dressed alike, excited no attention, so that a sight of all that was worth seeing was obtained, without any ill consequence.

The necessary escort, and proper written orders from the Pasha, were already applied for; and, during the short delay that intervened, two young Hanoverians⁶, who had scrambled their way to Cairo, and had there quartered themselves for some time past in the house of a Prussian physician, applied with so much importunity to be admitted of the party so far as Jerusalem, that it seemed very difficult to refuse them, although in such a journey the addition of two more persons is not a matter of indifference, on account of the increased consumption of water and provisions, especially of the former, which cannot be replenished, excepting at stated and sufficiently distant intervals. They were very meanly dressed in the European manner, and wore hats: one, we understood, had received his education in some veterinary college in France as a surgeon; the other was a cabinet-maker, and had worked at Rome: I could learn no more of their history than this. Both spoke French, and seemed to have no other incitement to their wanderings than restlessness and curiosity.

Seven dromedaries were provided by the Pasha’s order, of which one was for the son of the Sheik of El-Arish (Rinocoroua), to whom the safe conduct of the party was consigned; another was for Mr. Bankes; for Antonio and myself one each; and the remainder for baggage, necessaries, and water; each of these last being, over and above, mounted by an Arab, and two more Arabs accompanying us on foot.

It will be seen in this enumeration, that François Barthow was no longer with us, neither was Halleel the Alexandrian, nor Husseyn the Nubian. All of these remained settled in Cairo, but, with many more and particularly Mr. Burckhardt, accompanied us to the great gate of the city, that is called the Gate of Victory (Babel Fotouh), and there, with a thousand kind wishes, took their leave, just as the sun was going down.

This story continue here

from Narrative of the Life and Adventure of Giovanni Finati native of Ferrara
by Giovanni Finati, 1830

Notes

¹ Antaeopolis. It was the only specimen of an entire and uniform portico of the palm-leaved order of columns, of which order it is curious also that no single specimen of an early period should have come down to us, since it happens to be recorded that Amasis employed such in a temple which he built at Sais, so that it was not (as might else have been suspected) a form invented under the Ptolemics, to which period this temple of Antaeopolis belonged; and though the proportions were majestic, the work was not very good. Unfortunately the details given of it in the great plates of the French Institute, are, as usual, highly inaccurate. As a scene, the effect from the water was beautiful; the Nile undermined it by changing its course, and is doing the same at Ombos, part of which it has destroyed, and it may be feared that the same fate will also befal Luxor, an ancient and ruinous pier alone protecting it at present.

² The triumphal arch, a building purely Roman in point of style, but of large proportions it was unfortunately of lime stone, which, wherever it was employed, has been a main incentive to spoliation. It is this that has brought to the ground the majestic portico of Hermopolis since I quitted Egypt; and it proved, upon excavation, that the vast building (not perhaps second to any other at Thebes) that stood behind Memnon and his brother colossus at Thebes, had disappeared from the same cause: the sandstone, and even the granite, affording less temptation to the spoiler.

³ Hermopolis. This is that noble ruin whose recent disappearance has been mentioned in the preceding note.

⁴ I have always looked upon these tombs as the most curious in Egypt as to their details, and left it in charge with Dr. Ricci, of Sienna, to complete the drawings of them, which he begun under my eye – a task which he however never thought fit to resume.

⁵ This expression is very proper, for those of Illaoon, which are still more to the southward, are not to be seen from the river. I visited them, fully expecting to find that one of the two would show signs of having formed part of the labyrinth, and was satisfied on the spot that it did so, though the expression (“opus in visum miré infestorere”) of Pliny must be borne strongly in mind to account for the little actual remains to be seen. There is a site, however, of vast extent; and I found afterwards that Danville, with his usual sagacity, had not failed to hint at the very same spot. The pyramid itself, being of crude brick, presents no objection to the fact recorded of it, of its being covered over with figures of animals, since it was doubtless coated with stucco at least, if not cased with limestone. That not a trace or a vestige should occur of any pyramid at Thebes, nor in all Upper Egypt, nor till they are found again in quantities in the heart of Ethiopia, seems to me quite unaccountable.

⁶ The name of one was Frederick Haspelmath, the other I have forgotten. They seemed to be well-disposed and inoffensive young men.