Part Two

A Visit to the Convent of Sittna (Our Lady), Damiane (2)

Connected with our labors in the book-shop, I must give some account of our friend Makar’s doings. Poor man! it seemed he had to be every where, and with that one eye of his see and attend to every thing. He is a tall, rawboned man, with a good deal of executive capacity, which seemed tasked to the utmost. Wherever there was a row or quarrel, a case to be settled, a bargain to be made, or money to be received, there his towering form was conspicuous among the sea of heads. When he could find time, or needed to rest a while, he came and sat down beside us on the church steps, and here causes were brought to him for judgment, and votive offerings to be received, and thus we had an opportunity of observing many cases of sharp practice as well as of monkish jurisprudence. At former Mulids it has been usual for several policemen to be present. This year there were none, and so, besides his other onerous duties, he had to perform all the police duty of this whole encampment of feasting and carousing pilgrims. I may here state that, when I left on Thursday morning, it was estimated that there were over three hundred tents on the ground, and yet they were coming. On my ride of two hours down to the river that morning I met 240 pilgrims still on their way thither, and that by this one read, besides those who came from other directions. He seemed often quite confused and distracted with the multiplicity of calls upon him, and I heartily pitied him. I will give a few examples of what I saw.

Word came to him that there had been a great quarrel and fight in the church between two of the blind Areefs (or schoolmasters) about the division of some of the spoils. He immediately sent for the culprits, and when they came one of them had his finger badly bitten by the other, who, he loudly complained, had first “eaten” some of his perquisites and then fell upon his finger. Without stopping to bear the other side of the story he ordered the other one to be held, and called for a “Korbaj” (a heavy whip of hippopotamus), when he administered to him several very heavy blows.

Again word came from the encampment without that some one had violated the renowned chastity of the Mulid by bringing dancing-girls to it to ply their trade. The girls were immediately sent away, and the man who had brought them was incarcerated in the convent lock-up. I did not see the propriety of the latter clause of this sentence, unless it was from a fear that, if he sent the man away with them, he might only remove his tent to a more distant part of the surrounding plain and get up a party in his favor, and thus bid him defiance.

Also that another had brought, with his barrels of wine and arrack, musicians with their instruments of music. The Arabs, when they drink, want the accompaniments, viz., music and the dance. To those who are acquainted with the Oriental music and dancing in vogue on these occasions I need not describe how obscene they are. Makar gave judgment that the musicians must pack off with their instruments; but this time he was a little too fast. As the phrase is, “he put his foot into it.” The man who had hired and brought them was a Greek, and he soon appeared strongly backed by a company of his brother Greek grog-sellers. (Most of this trade, I am happy to say to the credit of the Copts, is in the bands of the Greeks.) He loudly protested against the judgment; said he did not know that the Mulid had any such rule; that all drank, and music was a necessary accompaniment of drinking; that he had been at great expense in bringing the musicians, and that if sent away he would demand damages; and he clenched all by drawing from his bosom a long passport showing that he was a European protégé; and said that on his return he would enter complaint at his consulate. Thus staggered poor Makar, and he handed me the paper and asked if it was a true passport. I told him it seemed to have all the necessary signatures and seals, and that the only question could be as to whether the name mentioned in it was that of the man holding it. But, though staggered, still Maker held strongly to his decision; and for a time matters looked very warlike; but finally he began to conclude that prudence was the better part of valor, and asked me what he had better do. I told him that the man on his return to Damietta would doubtless institute against him a troublesome and expensive lawsuit; and that, after all, there was not much use in straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel; and that if the people were suffered to drink they might about as well have the music. I never played the lawyer in so had a cause, and my client triumphed.

This system of giving European passports to natives whose circumstances make it worth their while to purchase them is a great nuisance. One day, as I was walking down to the tent, I saw a native who evidently had a heavy cargo of arrack aboard, and who, as he flourished his arms all a-kimbo, to steady his navigation, cried out, “I am a French protégé for seven hundred piastres!” The consular agent who sold him the passport did not, I apprehend, anticipate its being noised abroad so publicly.

But the above was not the only instance in which Makar was forced to eat his own words. While sitting beside us a man came to him saying that – had a shop (viz. a little square of ground) just without the convent gate for so much – mentioning the sum – and that he (the speaker) would give so much, mentioning a much larger sum. Makar immediately gave judgment that the other man should be turned out and this man take the shop. This brought forward the other man, who bitterly complained, but without avail, until some one came and whispered in Makar’s ear that this man came every year and brought a large votive offering to the Sitt, when judgment was reversed and the man was allowed to keep his shop.

Another man, who had hired a bit of ground within the inclosure just in front of our shop, on which he exposed his trinkets for sale, managed to take under his wing a friend who had a box of soap to sell. Makar’s quick eye detected the artifice, and nearly an hour’s angry altercation was the result; and finally the man had to pay an extra dollar for the privilege of selling his soap in his friend’s shop.

Word came from the church that a Muslim was within, paying his devotions to the Sitt. The sentence was immediately issued, “Put him out!” and out he came, though it cost quite a tussle. I may here remark that the Muslims also believe in Sitt Damiane. They say she was a Muslim saintess, and that the Copts stole her from them. I am inclined to believe they are right; for in all my reading in Coptic church history I have not been able to find her name. On my return to the river I asked a Muslim boatman whether he had not been up to pay his respects to the Sitt? “No,” he said, “hut I read to her a fatahah (opening chapter of the Kuran), and it has reached her” – a pretty long journey for a fatahah.

Another case aroused my sympathies even more than that of the Muslim who was dragged out. Word came to Makar that there were within some beggars who were receiving pretty large contributions from the people. It seemed too had that all should not go into the pocket of Damiane. Makar’s only eye was single in its regards to her interests, and the beggars were ordered out. They came, a motley group, blind and halt and maimed, and raised a vociferous chorus of complaint against his act. He was firm, however, and forbade their re-entering the church during the feast. One of them, an old shriveled woman, shrieked out, “Can’t we go into the church to worship?” This was a poser. Makar hesitated a moment; but the interests of Damiane triumphed, and he thundered out, “No, you pigs – did you come here to worship? Away to your homes, and cursed be ye and he that brought you.” I was left in doubt, and I think most present were, whether by the last expression he meant God, or only meant to intimate that some one had brought them there as a speculation. At any rate the remark was received with no favor. The by-standers shook their heeds and exchanged significant glances. But Makar was now on the high horse, and he went on to reform another abuse. “And,” he said, “any priest from any other place who baptizes a child, or says prayers, or hears confessions, or performs any other priestly service in the tents or in the church, cursed and anathema be he from the Saviour and his holy Apostles, from the saints and martyrs and the poor servant” (meaning himself). A couple of priests stood-by, and their heads immediately dropped. Whether they had been guilty in this point I know not; their hopes, however, of doing any further business there were cut off. Thus the banks of the stream of gold which was pouring in were raised high and strong. It all emptied itself into the lap of Damiane – at least what did not go to the Greeks. And now I will leave Makar sitting on the church steps and receiving the votive offerings and does of the Sitt as they are handed to him by those who enter, or brought out by his faithful coadjutors, the three priests belonging to the convent, who are at the same work within the church, and laying his hand, after it has been kissed by them, upon the heads of those who come to bins, and giving them the Apostolic benediction.

Let us go in for a while to see what is doing there. And, first, let us step into the chamber of imagery, the camera obscure, where the miraculous phantoms pass and repass on the wall. It is crowded, and the close air and stench from so many dirty, sweaty bodies is almost insufferable. During the intervals of the apparitions a man, who seemed to have this department in charge, chanted in a low and not unmusical voice the praises of the Virgin and the Sitt; and then, when the shadow mines, he and all, with uplifted heads or outstretched necks, scream out the ejaculations and prayers of which I have already given a specimen. When these shadows flitted over the wall the people below put me in mind of a nest of young birds, with outstretched necks, open bills, and chattering throats, awaiting the mother bird hovering over them. Once, when the interval was longer than usual, the man who chanted entertained the astonished group by relating how, early that morning, he came there alone, and the Virgin and St. George came and stood there more than an hour. He said they looked down upon him as if they would speak to him, but they did not, and he did not darn to speak to them, but stood fixed in his piece and affrighted.

Several times, when the people saw that I had no petitions to offer, and made no demonstrations when the shadows passed (there may, too, have been something of incredulity, perhaps of sarcasm, in my countenance), they came to me and privately asked what I had to say of this. I plainly told them that the shadows were produced by people walking on the roof before the aperture, and I also constantly told the truth to the people whom we met, especially in the tent of Barsum; but Awid and I had agreed that we would reserve our full exposure upon the house tops of this greet imposture till the last greet day of the feast, when our books should all have been sold. Otherwise we knew our work would be stopped in the very midst, and we thought a little of the wisdom of the serpent in place here.

One day a deranged girl was brought in to have the devil cast out of her. Poor thing! There she sat in the midst of the crowd sweating and gasping for breath, while those around her were constantly vexing her by asking if she felt no better nor different; if the devil was not yet coming out of her, and the like. I am sure if she had had seven devils, or even a legion in her, they would, under such a discipline, have taken their flight for more comfortable quarters. I do not think she was deranged; but whatever may have been her state, this course of treatment must produce some effect. If mad, it might possibly make her sane; if sane, it was enough to craze her. They say that in such cases, when the demon comes out, be leaves a spot of blood on the garment, above the place where he makes his exodus. I have heard many strange stories on this subject, but have not yet sufficiently sifted them to expose the cheat.

They said, that not only did the shadows appear by day, but forms of light passed over the wall by night. These, I suppose, were from persons carrying lanterns on the roof. I went up two different evenings, and though the room was crowded with people as by day, we saw nothing; all was darkness. One night some giggling and other demonstrations gave evidence that some Greek lads and lasses, or other interloping Infidels, were forgetting themselves, or rather were thinking too much of themselves and each other, and forgetting the sanctity of the place, when an old Coptess fell upon them and gave them such a sound cursing that they were glad to retreat.

Bet we have breathed this stifling atmosphere long enough. Let us go into the church and sit down upon the cool floor a while, and see what is going on there. The mats are new and clean. The silk curtains before the altars are the gayest and newest of the large store which devotees have brought as votive offerings to the Sitt, and all is in holiday dress, for on the last great day of the feast the Patriarch himself is to perform high mass here; and the picture of the Sitt, surrounded by her forty Virgins, looks less stiff and formal and staring than the stereotype pattern which may be seen in all the Coptic churches throughout the land. Indeed she seems almost smiling upon the worshipers who file along as each of them stops to pay her his devotions. The walls are disfigured by charcoal remembrancers – “O Lord remember thy servant Abdallah!” “0 Sitt Damiane, help!” etc. – as well as snatches from the Gospel and Psalms.

But here are our friends the priests, plying their money-making trade. Two of them are now sitting before a woman, holding their hands and a beautifully jeweled cross upon her head, while one of them is repeating prayers to cure her of headache. She must be well attended to and thoroughly cured, for she has brought to the Sitt a candle four feet long and two inches thick, which is now burning before her picture. (As soon as the lady left, the candle was put out and set aside; doubtless to be sold to some other devotee of the Sitt wishing to do a nice thing for her, or to be used on some great occasion when all the congregation would say, “See how liberally the priests have provided for their patroness!”)

The third priest has a stout young man in hand who has been troubled with a pain in the side. His doting mother stands by, as his side is bared and anointed with holy oil “in the name of the Lord Jesus, and all the saints and Sittna Damiane,” and hereafter it will doubtless be well. He has done with him now, and received the fee in cash, and next, pulling down a little open lamp which is burning before the picture, he dips his finger into the oil and addresses himself to the task of crossing with it, upon their foreheads and between their breasts, some ladies who have come to him for the purpose. I trust his heart is in the prayer which in the mean time he is mumbling; but the Copts generally are beginning to whisper among themselves that this is not the business for monks who are under the vow.

This done, he turns to a man who wishes to buy and devote to the Sitt an oke (2 3/4 pounds) of candles. The price is 20 piastres (a double charge of course), and the man objects to the imposition, and an angry dispute is the consequence. Finally, the matter is referred to Makar without, who also says 20 piastres is the price, and the man submits. He takes the candles and arranges them on the little pierced board before the Sitt, insists on lighting them himself, though the priest protests it is not necessary for him thus to trouble himself, as he will attend to it after a little. The man, however, does it and then leaves, when the priest goes and extinguishes them, and puts them aside (of course to be sold to some one else); but in a little while the man happens in again, and asks where his candles are, and relights them.

This will suffice for a specimen of the doings of the priests. The people are constantly going and coming; and many, tempted like ourselves by the cool shade of these high arches, sit down and smoke and talk. The boys are around playing and fighting and enjoying themselves generally and to fill out the picture, myself sitting cross-legged upon the mat with my hack supported by the reading-desk, and pencil and paper in hand, “A chiel amang them taking notes, and faith he’ll prent ‘em.” On entering, most of the people do the round of the altars and pictures, performing their genuflections and crossings, and blessing themselves by rubbing their faces with the curtains, and touching or kissing the frames of the pictures. One I saw who had a sore eye. He touched the picture repeatedly with his fingers, and then passed it over his eye. I have not heard whether he afterward found that virtue had gone out of the sightless wood to make him see.

I also peeped in in the evenings, when I came to see the bright shadows upon the wall. I found that at night also the church was a favorite resort, as it was not only cool by day but warmer than the open air by night; small parties were seated here and there upon the door, some of them smoking and drinking and playing cards. I witnessed one act there which was the most Christian one I saw in all the Mulid. One of these parties had become rather boisterous, and an old woman in the outer department or the church began to curse them, and ask them if they were Jews that they were thus drinking and going on in church? I think, from her voice, that it was she who cursed the Greeks for “cutting up” the night before in the Sitt’s room. When she spoke she did not see who they were; but she soon learned who one of them was, to her sorrow; for a young man who, through the Mulid, had made himself conspicuous by his silver-wrought girdle and fine horse and swaggering gait, sprang out before her like a wild beast, and asked her what she meant to call the son of – a Jew, and dealt her a sounding slap upon the cheek. Her feathers dropped. She humbly apologized that she did not know that the son of – was there; but she added, “Should you strike an old woman thus?” and turning her other cheek, she said, “Strike this one also: the Gospel says we must do so.”

Before taking you down to the tents we will go up stairs and call upon Gurgis, the old abbot of the convent, who has just been deposed by the new Patriarch to make place for his trusty favorite, Makar. He stays in a little upper room in the northwest corner of the convent. He never goes down nor mingles with the crowds below, but may often be seen disconsolately enough walking the roof in front of his door, usually alone, sometimes with a few of those who still cling to him in his fallen fortunes. These made interest with me to call upon him, and I did so. After they got me up there, and over the pipes and coffee, when all was pleasant and sociable and the old man most profuse in his professions of resignation and gratitude to God, they brought it about, very neatly, as Arabs always do such things, that the object was to have me intercede with the Patriarch for his reinstatement. But I have lived long enough to know that there is no use talking against a “foregone conclusion,” nor a “fait accompli,” nor yet in interfering with an Eastern potentate’s favorite; and so I had conscientious scruples on the subject, doubts as to whether the Patriarch would receive my intercessions; at least “we will see”. The appearance of the man was strongly against his suit. I have seldom seen a man in the East who looked so much like a Western sot, and I subsequently heard enough of his past rule and doings for nearly twenty years to assure me that I was right in not wasting sympathy upon him. I was told that for years, under the easy role of the last Patriarch, his capacious stomach had engulfed all or nearly all the revenues of the Sitt, and a large part of them in the form of arrack and fat sheep. Indeed the Greeks used to have a fine time of it during his administration. Their trade was not an uncertain one, for the stores which they had left at the end of the Mulid be took in the barrel, and the sheep of the Arabs who supply the Mulid in the flock, and then keeping some of his choice friends with him, they kept a second high feast, offering meat-offerings and pouring out libations in praise of the Sitt for weeks. I may give the following specimen of his rule, which was subsequently related to me by our friend Barsum. Several years ago, his (Barsum’s) son George, being in the church at the Mulid, witnessed some improper conduct on the part of some young men from the Said, which he openly rebuked. The young men seized their opportunity when he was outside the convent to fall upon him and beat him terribly. As soon as the young man recovered sufficiently he went into the convent and complained to Father Gurgis, who, without taking the trouble to inquire into the case, ordered him thrown and had a severe bastinadoing administered to him. Word was now brought to Barsum in his teat that his son George had been killed. He immediately started for the convent, and on his way the story was told him. When he appeared before the dignitary of the place he could obtain no bearing, but was ordered away into a dark room, where he was put into irons and shut up, and was struck a severe blow on the head, which caused him to faint. The people without, hearing what had happened, grasped their guns and clubs and fell upon the convent, determined to deliver him and have revenge on Father Gurgis, who was forced to retire to his room and barricade the door, and finally to send out peacemakers to compose the quarrel.

And now let us take a stroll among the tents. They are pitched very closely together and at random, without plan or regularity, so that one has to be constantly on his guard lest he be tripped up by the ropes. By day the men are mostly quiet, sleeping off the effects of last night’s debauch. The women and female slaves (and I never before realized that so many of the Copts possessed them) are about, attending to the duties of the kitchen or gossiping from tent to tent. The Bedouins are in the outskirts of the encampment with their flocks of sheep, and, like Israel on the night of the Passover, almost each house, “according to the eating thereof,” most daily have its lamb. The servants of the Sitt are carrying up to the convent back-loads of pelts; for the law of Moss here reigns, and the skins are the perquisite of the priests. Often, too, a choice quarter with the “rump (tail), and the fat thereof,” are sent op with the pelts. By night, feasting and drinking are the order of the programme. I have already intimated that Venus is no favorite with the Sitt; and it is well, or this would be a hell. Bet surely Bacchus must have been her brother-in-law, or some other very near relative, for in all my residence in the East I have not seen so much drinking as during those few days. The Orientals have some peculiarities in their drinking. First, almost without exception, “they that are drunken are drunken in the night.” Second, they do all their drinking upon an empty stomach, before touching their late dinner. This will often be delayed till late in the night, and a guest who is intent on deep potations will often be offended at the man of the house for ordering dinner too early, as it is understood that after eating there is to be no more drinking. The beverage mostly used is “arrack,” which is a spirit distilled from wine, or dates, or raisins, and is as sharp and pungent but not quite so heavy is our brandy. A green-headed barrel of New England rum, from a cargo on which some missionary has probably gone out to Smyrna in one of the fruit vessels which ply between Boston and that place, may also occasionally be seen. The effects of all this spirit upon empty stomachs may be imagined. I shall not attempt to describe the orgies of those maddened crowds, yelling, fighting, singing, dancing, gambling, and then, finally, gorging themselves with their heavy suppers and tumbling over to sleep.

But my stay bare must be brought abruptly to a close. I undertook this journey, fleeing from the sentence of the doctors that I must go house, and hoping by it to secure a stock of health which would carry me through the hot summer at Cairo. But the labors by day, and the cold bed upon the ground in the open tent by night, were too much for me, and Wednesday afternoon I concluded to leave the next morning. That night the hospitality of our new-made friends made it necessary for me to feign to eat three dinners, and give offense by declining a fourth. The last of the three was at our friend Barsum’s. It was late in the evening, and I was sorry to find him and his friends squatting in a circle in the midst of the tent around the arrack cups. I read him a lecture on temperance, or rather total abstinence, an he had never been free in the use of the article – to all of which he heartily assented. When rising, and extending my hand, I told him that I too was a priest, and had the power of binding and loosing as well as he who had that day prohibited his brother priest from praying or baptizing, be took my hand, and solemnly pledged his faith that he would not again touch the cup which was working such havoc around. He had evidently long felt it his duty to take this step; and, once taken, he felt so joyful over it that he wished at once to go into the other tent to tell his wife and children.

After dinner Awid, weary with the labors of the day, went to our tent to sleep, and I went up with Barsum and two or three of his friends for a final visit to the convent. We found Makar, with his three trusty priests and a few friends, sitting on the seat without the convent gate, eating a late sapper, after the long toils of the day. As Barsum, although apparently convinced of the truth of my explanation of the day shadows, seemed yet to be staggered with the report of the night apparitions, I took him within to the Sitt’s room, and we remained some time, but saw nothing. It was crowded as usual; and while there my spirit was so stirred within me that, notwithstanding the compact Awid and I had made not to disturb the shadows until the books were sold, I felt that I could not leave without at least making an attempt with Makar and the priests who had been so kind to us during our stay. On our return we found that they had finished discussing their dinner and the day’s toils and gains, and were quietly enjoying their post-prandial pipes and coffee. They bade us be seated, when, as kindly as I could (and it was not a pot-on kindness, for my heart yearned over those deluded ones within), I opened the subject. I told him that he should shut that orifice in the Sitt’s room; that, as he had come there so recently, we could not yet suppose him a willing party in the cheat; but that it was lamentable to see Christ’s servants, purchased with his precious blood, thus worshiping shadows, etc. At first he was much confused, and pretended not to understand to what I referred; but he soon recovered himself, and insisted that the shadows were true miracles, and started off in the praise of the many virtues and wonders of the Sitt. I told him, “Very well: if the miracle be true, let us stop up the aperture, and the shadows will still appear – that the east one would still be open, and was enough for light and ventilation.” He said, “Do so; stop it up if you wish;” but at the same time told a story of a man who one year undertook to stop it with his coat, and the Sitt burned his coat. I told him I would risk my coat; and, acting on his permission, I started for the gate, but he called me back; and then he threw aside the veil, and stood forth the bold deceiver. He used language which implied that be knew it was a cheat; but that it would not answer to stop it up – that the people would not endure it, etc. In this latter I have no doubt he was right; that the next day, had the people found that their shadowy gods had disappeared, there would have been found a crowd, like that of Ephesus, to cry by the hour, “Great is Damiane, protectress of the two seas and the two lands!” and that, were it known that he and I had spirited away the shadows, they would have been ready to tear us in pieces. I told him that I had to leave the next morning; that I had now done my duty in warning him of this imposture; and that, if he did not put a stop to it, I could not be held responsible if I exposed the cheat to the public, and made his name and that of the Sitt stink in all the land of Egypt. He said I should not be responsible, and so I left him.

When I got down to the tent, and awaked Awid and told him what I had done, he was much concerned as to the reception he and his books would meet with the next day; but I knew he was, as the Arabs say, “as big as his position,” which, being interpreted, means equal to any emergency, and that in case of trouble he would have a strong party with him.

Next morning I arose early for the journey, and found that Barsum had provided a very fine horse for me. As I was leaving I saw that Makar was already up and without the convent gate. I rode up to him, and bade him farewell; but there was an evident coolness in his manner, and he barely touched with the tips of his fingers my cordially extended hand, while he formally wished me a safe journey and a happy return of my visit to the Sitt. I turned from him, vowing vengeance in my heart against him and his Sitt, and planning how I might best execute it – whether by writing and publishing an exposure of the imposture, or by arranging one of the rooms in our mission-house at Cairo as a camera obscura, and inviting the pilgrims, on their return by way of Cairo, to come up and witness greater miracles than those they had gone so far to see. (This I did one year at Alexandria, when the pilgrims returned there from the Mulid, loud in the praise of the Sitt and her miracles.) But what took place there that day, and the course pursued by the Patriarch and Bishop – the highest authorities in the Church – convinced me that the time for such open war had not yet arrived. That morning Awid went up to the shop with just apprehensions as to the reception he and his books would meet with from Makar and his friends. He opened and arranged his wares, but no one came to purchase. He waited – still no one came. He then shut his shop, and went up directly to the Patriarch and asked him why he had prohibited the people from buying books. The Patriarch called God to witness that he had done no such thing; but Awid insisted that he must have done so, as all the people had suddenly stopped buying. The Patriarch then called Makar up, and the matter was explained, and he said, “Why did not Mr. L – speak to me about it, and I would have suffered him to shot the orifice?” He then went down and the Bishop with him, and each of them bought a Bible, and paid the price before all the people, and then, holding them up, said, “See, we have bought books: come now, all of you, and buy.” There was then a rush for the bookshop, and all its Bibles and Testaments and most of the other books, were soon sold.

During this conference the Patriarch said to Awid, “Shall I tell you something?” “Yes,” said Awid, “if your Holiness pleases.” When he said, “I love Mr. L – .” To which Awid answered, “And I also will tell your Holiness something. Mr. L – used to love you before you were Patriarch, but I don’t know how it is with him now.” I have not told this story to insinuate that Mr. L – must be a very amiable man to be so beloved by this successor of St. Mark, but as a nail upon which to hang a story illustrative of the manner in which, in many cases, these old saints and saintesses acquired their influence among an ignorant and superstitious people. Last year I went with Mr. Thayer, our consul-general, to the Convent of Makar and the other convents of Nitria. The Patriarch was then Abbot of Maker, and we found him down at the Nile near Wordan, amidst the flocks and herds belonging to the convent. He received us very kindly; and when we told him that we wished to visit the convents he furnished us a guide and a monk to go with us, and other necessaries for the journey. On the third day we returned – a journey of thirteen hours – over a howling, barren desert, all intersected with paths, and in a burning sirocco day. When we reached him his first question was, “Where are your guides and men?” And when we told him we had left them early in the morning he held up his hands in astonishment, and exclaimed, “Thirty years have I journeyed back and forth over that desert, and to this day I dare not venture it without a guide. The Lord Jesus and his angels have brought you.” He immediately refreshed us with milk and coffee, the most grateful we had ever tasted, almost dying as we were from weariness and thirst, when he gave orders for the slaying of the fatted lamb. But we could not stay; so we went down to the boat, and he accompanied us. When we reached the boat I said to him, “You see we have a nice, comfortable boat. Come, now, and go with us to Cairo.” He said, “Why should I go to Cairo?” I said, “That we may make you Patriarch. No one is to be made Patriarch of the Coptic Church but you.” He laughed, and said, “No, that can not happen.” I insisted that it must happen, and that he was just the man they were looking for. They were looking for just such a man, tall and of commanding person, with a good beard, and, withal, without brains; for the old fogy party had had enough of enlightenment – Protestantism as they called it – in the last Patriarch, who was an able man, partially enlightened, and disposed to reform the Church, but crazy; and they were determined to have this time, as they plainly said, a donkey – that is, a man of the old school, and I saw he was just the man for them. Still, there was not then the most distant prospect of the fulfillment of my prophecy. The bishops had then been for months in Cairo quarreling over the matter, and each one striving to obtain the office for himself. Besides, there was no precedent for electing a Patriarch from any other convent than Antonius, near the Red Sea. I merely said the thing to rally and flatter ham a little after all his kindness to us. But, by one of those queer movements which our American politicians understand so well, it was hardly a month after that before all parties saw the necessity of uniting upon some unknown man; and they did so upon him, and, according to the old custom of “Nolo episcopari,” they got Government soldiers to go and bring him from the mountains in chains. He was ordained Patriarch of the Coptic Church under the name Demetrius; and he had hardly squared himself upon the throne before he said, “Mr. L – said it, that I should be Patriarch. He is a true prophet.” Other things have since shown that that circumstance had a great influence on his mind; and if posterity makes Demetrius a saint, and honors him, like St. George, with a “meimer” (a word which, in our English, has become memoir) and a picture, I expect to figure in them, like little Athanasius of old, as the dragon.

I have told the above story to illustrate how common sinners have often been made saints by a superstitions people. No one can read the life of Athanasius himself without concluding that it was thus in a great measure that he became the great St. Athanasius of the orthodox, and the great wizard and magician of the age with the heretics.

Barsum’s horse took me down to the river before the sun became hot; and well it was, for I was hardly in the boat and started before it turned to be the hottest day I have ever experienced in Egypt. Indeed, the oldest resident tells nothing of any such day, and had we many such Egypt would deserve the epithet usually applied to it by the Syrians, Gehennem. Not a breath of wind was stirring. The air was as hot as the blast of a furnace. A dark, misty haze hung over the dead waters of the river in which the cattle and buffaloes were lying, the latter with only their eyes and nostrils out of water, which also they occasionally plunged under by way of driving away the flies, and among them the men and boys of the villages, the latter by their joyous shouts and gambols furnishing the only exhibition of life that could be seen, the cool water counterbalancing with them the effects of the hot air. The women, too, as they came down with their water-jars threw them down, and stripping off their loose robes plunged in with the rest; and the swallows, quitting their gay gyrations in the air, were sitting disconsolately on the beach wondering why they, too, might not bathe. I followed the example of the rest, and retired to the bath-room and sat in the cold water as long as I dared; and then, when I came out, it was but a few minutes until my mouth and nostrils were again parched, and my brains as if bursting from heat. The covers of the books around were twisting and writhing as if in agony; and the flies, attracted by the shade and the scent of the lunch I had brought with me, came in by thousands to vex me with that pertinacious clinging to one which is the peculiarity of the Egyptian fly. The deck was so hot that I could not stand upon at in my stockings; and to crown all, when evening came and I unrolled the lunch which they had given me at the tents – a cooked chicken and some meat and bread – I found it a mass of putridity, and I supped and breakfasted the next morning on a cap of tea without milk or sugar, and a piece of hard tack begged from the sailors, and hard and black enough it was. So much for an Egyptian sirocco. Home and its comforts were eventually reached, and were most welcome, and the sentence was renewed that a more distant home must be sought.

I most now finish the story of Beshetly, and then I am done. Beshetly is one of our elders, and the report of the Bishop concerning him, if true, was a sad one. We could not bear the thought of a wolf so soon turning up in our little flock. We found, too, that the report had begun to be whispered in Cairo. So, after consultation, we concluded, in the first instance, to send Salih, his brother elder, to him to see what he might say on the subject. Beshetly is the Peter, and Salih the John, of our band. The latter went to him: “Brother Beshetly, we have heard so and so about you. Is it true?” (He had instructions not to say that it was from us that he had heard it.) “It is all true,” said the other. Salih, who is so modest a man that he seldom looks up when addressing one, did not look up to the face of the other, and, consequently, did not see the twinkle in his eye, nor the look of sarcasm with which he made his confession. He made his report to us, and we could only conclude, painful as it was, that the pruning-knife must already be applied to our Gospel tree. It was concluded that Salih and I should first see him alone, and try the effect upon him of plain Christian talk. So the two were sent for, and soon we were closeted in the study. “Beshetly, we have heard such and such reports about you.” “And not a word of them are true,” he answered, with great emphasis. “But – but – ” we answered, quite staggered by this sudden turn of the affair, “whence those reports, and why did you yourself confess that they were true?” He then went on to explain; and to make a long story short, the reports were the inventions of his enemies the priests, provoked by his constant and bold attacks upon their superstitions; and he, original as he is able, weary with denying them, finally took the other tack, and to every one who said any thing to him on the subject, he said, “Yes, it is all so, and whose business is it but my own?” After reproving him for thus thoughtlessly bringing upon, or at least suffering others to bring upon, our Protestant Church such a reproach, we told him: “Go to the Bishop and confront him with his story, and the more people that may chance to be in the Patriarchate at the time the better; and you may incidentally inform his Holiness that we have an American consul, and an importation of American law and justice even here in Egypt, and that, according to American law, libel is a crime to be punished by the judges. Beshetly immediately sent his son, who was below in the school, to his house to tell the maid to get herself ready, as he wished to take her out; and soon the two left, and, taking the maid with them, appeared in the Patriarchate, where they found the Bishop sitting in state, surrounded as usual by the council of the “pillars of the Church.” Salih, now as hold as a lion, opened upon him with “Your holiness has reported so and so about our brother Beshetly here. We wish the truth of this matter to be known. Here is the maid. Call now your running women, and let them take her aside, and let an investigation be made into the truth of the report which your Holiness has seen fit to circulate.” Thus the Bishop was transfixed and put to the wall by his lie; but in the Orient, even more readily than here, one lie begets another, and so he soon recovered himself, and said, “I never circulated such a report, nor have I heard it till this moment.”

They had accomplished their purpose; and so they turned and came home, and reported what had occurred. Some of my readers will say, “What did you do next? He gave you the lie. Did you not pursue the matter?” No. We do not pursue falsehoods in the East; they fly too thick for that. We, however, did another thing. Taking Beshetly aside, no talked to him of the sin of slavery, and the occasion which thus, unknown to us, he had given this adversaries to reproach, and of the temptation which he had thus brought into his house; and told him that, as on the morrow we were to depart for America, we could only go with a light heart on condition that he would put away this slave. He is a poor man, with a large family, and we have already spoken of the difficulty of procuring female domestic help except in this way. It was therefore a great sacrifice to ask; but he only hesitated a moment, when the tears started, and he said, “You shall go with a light heart. I will do it.“ And subsequent accounts show that it has been done.

P.S. – The render will notice in the preceding narrative some guesses at the identity of Sitt Damiane. After writing the article, in thinking over the doings of the pilgrims in going and returning in their boats, a passage which I had long since read in Herodotus was suggested. Starting immediately for the book, I found in it the following passages (Book II., chapters LIX. and LX.):
“LIX. In the course of the year the Egyptians celebrate various public festivals; but the festival in honor of Diana at the city of Bubastis is the first in dignity and importance. The second to held in honor of Isis at the city Busiris, which is situated in the middle of the Delta, and contains the largest temple of that goddess. Isis is called in the Greek tongue Demeter, or Ceres. The solemnities of Minerva observed at Sais are the third in consequence. The fourth are at Heliopolis, and sacred to the sun. The fifth are those of Latona at Butos. The next those of Mars, solemnized at Papremis.

“LX. They who meet to celebrate the festival at Bubastis embark in vessels, a great number of men and women promiscuously mixed. During the passage some of the women strike their tabors, accompanied by the men playing on flutes. The rest of both sexes clap their hands and join in chorus. Whatever city they approach the vessels are brought to shore. Of the women some continue their instrumental music. Others call aloud to the females of the place, provoke them by injurious language, dance about, and indecently throw aside their garments. This they do at every place near which they pass. On their arrival at Bubastis the feast commences by the sacrifice of many victims, and on this occasion a greater quantity of wine is consumed than in all the rest of the year. The natives report that at this solemnity seven hundred thousand men and women assemble, not to mention children.”

In chapter CLV. we also find this passage:

“The Egyptian oracle *** is a temple of Latona, situated in this midst of a great city on the Sebennytic mouth of the Nile, at some distance op the river from the sea. The name of the city, as I have before observed, is Buto, and in it are two other temples also, one of Apollo and one of Diana.”

In these extracts we doubtless have the truths as to the genealogy of Sitt Damiane. The description is exact in all its particulars. The position upon the Sebennytic branch of the Nile, near Lake Buto, now Boorlos, the actions of the pilgrims, singing and dancing, with instrumental music, and the women uncovering or unveiling themselves, the “abundant sacrifices,” and the heavy consumption of wine – all are exact.

I am not, however, so sure whether the goddess who is now worshiped as Damiane was Diana, or Isis, or Latona. Taking Herodotus in these and other passages as our guide, much might be said in favor of each of them; and here is an opportunity for a learned disquisition. But this is not my department. And having given the text, I will leave this Egyptologers to their learned wranglings on the subject; and while they are on the subject they may also settle it why Herodotus, chapter CLVI., says that Apollo and Diana are the children of Bacchus (Osiris) and Isis, while they all say that Osiris and Isis had but one child, whose name was Horus. For my part, I hold to Herodotus, the father of history. His simple, straightforward narrative gives evidence that he was, at least, as honest an inquirer as our modern savans; and as he visited Egypt over 2300 years ago, he must have enjoyed as good opportunities of learning the truth as they do in these days.

There is now too much to do to leave time for these learned investigations. When the millennium comes we will have ample time to study Egyptian antiquities, and to praise God that his Gospel has triumphed in spite of the Egyptologers.

From Egypt's princes: a narrative of missionary labor in the Valley of the Nile
by Rev. Giulian Lansing, 1865