showed us the famous likeness of Cleopatra and her son Cæsarion. Salem was pleased with the way we took our first temple, and rewarded us by saying it was only the beginning of what was to come. We complimented him on his choice of subjects, blew out our candles, picked the candle grease from our fingers, and reached the dahabiyeh by sundown. By one o'clock, on December 19th, we were abreast of the promised Karnak, and could see the top of its pylons and obelisk. We had saved most of our enthusiasm for this place, and we were anxious to get ashore and expend it, and reluctantly I went by it a few miles to Luxor for a better landing, where we were watched by a bank-load of natives until four o'clock. Then we walked through them to the village and temple of Luxor, which served as a curtain raiser to the next day's visit to the greatest of all temples. That evening a Cook's steamer arrived, and we were deserted by the crowd on the bank. After dinner Ghesiri entertained the sheiks of the donkey boys and made arrangements for our mounts for the next day. Two of us volunteered to go to the village and locate the dancing that the guide-books said could be found here, but we learned that, for some reason, there was to be none until the following Saturday. The next day was spent at Karnak, where Ghesiri led us over its famous stones, until lunch was brought from the "Nitocris," and served in a colonnade surrounded by columns resembling huge granite lozenges, piled at all angles one on top of the other, like ancient friends, those who had fought successfully with time supporting those who had been less fortunate; and apart from the rest, requiring no support, and with no friends to be helped, stood the greatest column of them all, the lonely survivor of the great peristyle court, with its lotus capital, looking down on all but its lonely rival, an obelisk. It looks as though it had been polished and placed there the day before, in striking contrast to its unfortunate mate, which centuries ago gave up battling with earthquakes and wars and lay, a hopeless ruin, at its feet. We spent the next three days at Karnak and Thebes, saving On the bank at Komombos. the Tombs of the Kings until we should stop again, on our way down from Assuan. And now the important question was, where should we spend Christmas? The better we knew Karnak and Thebes, the more forbidding they had grown. They were too stiff and formal, and their great rigid Rameses too depressing, for a Christmas. We wanted a cheerful temple, and we found it at Komombos. We left Karnak on the morning of December 24th, and spent Christmas Eve at Edfu. That night the deck was entirely housed in by canvas. The crew sat in a circle back of the smokestack, and while they divided the cigarettes we had bought for them at Luxor, they listened to our "Down pity, for Komombos' temple is dainty in upon the Suwanee River." Christmas morning we came on deck, and found that Ghesiri had transformed it into a bower of palm branches, sugar-cane, and oranges. The crew were all smiles, and when we presented them with the price of a sheep, they gave us three cheers and a merry Christmas. More cigarettes were distributed, and shortly after breakfast we started for Komombos. comparison with Karnak, where great stiff Rameses stand with their arms folded across their breasts in very much the same manner in which the real arms are held in the glass case at the Gizeh Museum. At Karnak there were miles of half-buried walls, and cut deep in them gigantic figures of Rameses, with one hand raised about to strike off the heads of enemies done up in bundles like asparagus and held by the hair There was little in the day to remind a New of their heads, while armies are shown flying Englander of Christmas. In the lightest in confusion. The bas-reliefs at Komombos clothes, we sat about the deck and watched are more cheerful and cut with greater skill. the villages go by. It was good to see our old friends the water-wheels and cheerful sakiehs again. They looked better to us after our somber stay at Karnak. Early in the afternoon we came to Komombos, the temple we were looking for, and tied to the river's bank just below it; and if you must be traveling on Christmas, there can be no better place to stop. At Komombos the never-resting Nile has worked its way to the foot of the little hill on which the temple is making its last stand against time. Some kind friends have covered the bank with stones, but the river is slowly wearing them away, and sooner or later it will claim its own; and it will be a Guardians of the Temple. They represent the ancient gods of Egypt in their more playful moods, floating down the Nile, spearing miniature hippopotamuses and crocodiles, with here and there a triumphant procession. The débris of the forgotten city that once covered Komombos has been removed, and the great hall, with its Holy of Holies now exposed to the light of day, is swept by the wind as clean as Dutch kitchen; and yet the carvings are as fresh as the day they were made. From the "Nitocris" to the temple is only a few steps, through some sugar-cane. It was a novel experience finding no donkey-boys with their patient and sleepy donkeys. But the natives were different from any we had heretofore seen, and proved that we were getting into real Africa. They were mostly Nubians, and very black, and our preconceived idea of what an African should be. Komombos and Philæ are the only temples we climbed up to, and it seems to me that they, above all others, lend themselves more readily to the sentimental tourist. It is easier for the imagination to people them; they are more like dwellings. After tea had been brought from the "Nitocris" and served in its portals, we all decided that Komombos would be the temple to own. That evening the crew hung lanterns around the deck among the sugar-canes and palms, and after dinner they gave an exhibition, which started well enough with a dance by the first mate. Since then I have found that all travelers on the Nile are likely to have this same experience. We were proof against the "Dhabir Devil" that the guide-books had warned us against, but "Baedeker" had made no mention of the possibility of this entertainment happening to us; still the crew went at it as though it was an old story with them, and as I write this there may be some unsuspecting tourist about to go through with it. It sounds very goodnatured on the part of the crew; and if the entertainment had stopped when the mate had finished the dance, it would have been well enough; but the dance was only to hold our attention while the others were getting ready, and then the dreary horse-play began. There was a barber-shop scene, in which flour paste was used and a door-mat acted as a towel. A crew that mutinies is tame compared with an Egyptian crew that act. We stopped them as soon as we could without hurting their feelings, and they later subsided and formed a circle back of the smoke-stack. The rest of the evening was spent in entertainment of our own choice, and we soon forgave the crew, and by midnight all was still but the river, that never rests. During the summer of 1898, I made the trip from Ashcroft, British Columbia, to Glenora, on the Stikine River, by means of pack train. The trail as it runs is about one thousand miles in length. It was filled with men, lured into the wilderness by the hope of finding gold. Some were on the trail to prospect, some to hunt, but most of them were bound for Teslin Lake. They struggled forward, month after month, over a trail which drew upon the best energies of both man and beast, for a period ranging from seventy to ninety days. It was a journey in a forest, and, for the most part, under gloomy skies. It led to failure at the end, and suicide and murder marked it with tragic dashes of red. In the midst of prose descriptions of this singular caravan, certain moods and scenes seemed to demand verse, and the following poems were written during the actual journey. Some were written on horseback, as I plodded along at the head of my little pack train. I have left them pretty nearly in their original bluff, rude form, in order that the flavor of the actualities of the trail should not be lost. HAMLIN GARLAND. |