Part 34

“Undoubtedly,” I replied, tranquilly.

He looked a little staggered. He had encountered my belligerent spirit before, and he did not expect me to agree with him.

“You—you, an American, admit that?” he said.

“Surely,” I replied. “But why?” he persisted, most unwisely, for it gave me my chance.

“Because the Americans are the only ones who ever whipped them! American soldiers can beat even the best!”

It is now six weeks since I said that, but as yet he has made no reply.

XI THE NILE

In travelling abroad there are some things which you wish to do more than others. There are certain treasures you particularly desire to see, certain scenes your mind has pictured, until the dream has almost become a reality. The ascent of the Nile was one of my Meccas, and now that it is over the reality has almost become a dream.

In Egypt the weather is so nearly perfect during the season that it was no surprise to find the day of our departure a cloudless one. I seldom worry myself to arrange beforehand for the creature comforts of a journey, trusting to the beneficent star which seems to hover over the unworthy to shine upon my pathway. But this time I had so dreamed of and brooded over and longed for the Nile that I went so far as to investigate the different lines of boats, and we chose the moonlight time of the month, and we hurried through Russia and Turkey and Greece with but one aim in view, and that was to have our feet on the deck of the Mayflower on the 19th of February. And we succeeded.

Ah, it was a dream well worth realizing! Twenty-one days of rest. Three glorious weeks of smooth sailing over calm waters. Three weeks of warmth and sunshine by day, and of poetry and starlight by night. Three weeks of drifting in the romance which surrounds the name of that great sorceress, that wonderful siren, that consummate coquette, that most fascinating woman the world has ever known. Three weeks of steeping one’s soul in the oldest, most complete and satisfactory ruins on the face of the earth. Here, in delving into the past, we would have no use for the comparative word “hundreds.” We could boldly use the superlative word “thousands.” What memories! what dreams! what fragments of half-forgotten history and romance came floating through the brain! I have, generally, little use for guide-books except, afterwards, to verify what I have seen. But I admit that I had an especial longing to reach the temple of Denderah, which was said to contain the most famous relief of Cleopatra extant. I was anxious to see if her beauty or her charm or anything which accounted for her sorceries were reproduced. “If Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter, the whole history of the world would have been changed.” How far away she seemed! How near she would become!

On the terrace at Shepheard’s the morning of our departure you could see by people’s faces how they were going to make this journey. Some had Stanley helmets on, and were laden with cushions and steamer-chairs and fruits as if for an ocean voyage. Others were clutching their Baedeker, and their Amelia Edwards, and their “Kismet,” and their note-books, and wore a do-or-die expression of countenance. One or two others floated around aimlessly, with dreamy eyes, as if they were already lost in the past which now pressed so closely at hand. Then the coach from the Gehzireh Palace rolled by in a cloud of dust, and people hurried down the steps of Shepheard’s and took their places in our coach, and the dragomans in their gorgeous costumes followed with wraps, and the porters bustled about stowing away hand-luggage, and Arabs crowded near, thrusting their violets and roses and amber necklaces and beaded fly-brushes into your very face, and the old man who sells turquoises made his last effort to sell you a set for shirt-studs, and the Egyptians and East-Indians from the bazaars opposite came to the door and looked on with the perennial interest and friendliness of the Orient, and a swarm of beggars pleaded, with the excitement of a last chance, for backsheesh, and there was a babel of tongues—French, English, Italian, German, and Arabic, all hurtling about your ears like so many verbal bullets in a battle, when suddenly the door slammed, the driver cracked his whip, the coach lurched forward, the children scattered—and we were off.

Everybody knows when a boat starts up the Nile, and everybody is interested and nods and waves to everybody else. There was a short drive to the river amid polite calls of “good-bye” and “bon voyage,” and there lay the Mayflower, like a great white bird with comfortably folded wings. Nobody seemed to hurry much, for a Nile boat does not start until her passengers are all on board. An hour or so makes no difference.

You go down the bank of the Nile to go on board a boat upon steps cut in the earth, and if your hands are full and you cannot hold up your dress, you sweep some three inches of fine yellow dust after you. But you don’t care. The man ahead scuffed his dust in your face, and the woman behind you is sneezing in yours, and everything and everybody are a little yellowish from it, but nobody stops to brush it off. It is too exciting to hurry up on deck and place your steamer-chair and fling your things into your stateroom and rush out again for fear that you will miss something. There were Italians, French, English, Poles, Swedes, and Americans on board. Some of them had titles. Some had only bad manners, with nothing to excuse them. But, after all, everybody was nice, I got through the whole three weeks without hating anybody and with only wanting to drown one passenger. What better record of amiability could you ask?

But one thing marred the start. This Anglo-American line of boats is the only line in Egypt which flies the American flag. That was the final inducement they offered which decided my choice of the Mayflower. But while we knew that she was obliged to fly the British flag also, we were indignant beyond words to see a huge Union Jack floating at the top of the forward flagstaff and beneath it a toy American flag about the size of a cigar-box. Beneath the English flag! I nearly wept with rage. The owner of the line was at hand, and I did not wait to draw up a petition or to consult my fellow-Americans. I just said: “Have the goodness to haul down that infant American flag, will you? I have no objection to sailing under both, but I do object to such an insulting disparity in size. Besides that, you seem to have forgotten that the American flag never flies below any other flag on God’s green earth!”

He made some apologies, and gave the order at once. The baby was hauled down amid the smiles of the English passengers. But at Assiout we were avenged when an enormous American flag arrived by rail and was hoisted to the main flagstaff, twenty feet higher than the British. When I came out on deck that Sunday morning, and saw that blessed flag waving above me, everything blurred before my eyes, and I do assure you that it was the most beautiful sight I saw in all of that European continent. You may talk about your temples and your ruins and your old masters! Have you ever seen “Old Glory” flying straight out from a flagstaff in a foreign country seven thousand miles away from home?

The Nile is much broader than I expected to find it, and, like the Missouri and the Golden Horn, it is always muddy. The Mayflower carries only fifty passengers, which is of the greatest advantage for donkey-rides and for seeing the ruins, a larger party being unwieldy. She draws but two feet of water, having been built expressly for Nile service, so we had the proud satisfaction of seeing one of the big Rameses boats stuck on a sand-bank for eighteen hours, while we tooted past her blowing whistles of defiance and derision. Whenever we felt ourselves going aground on a sand-bank we just reversed the engines and backed off again, or else put on extra steam and ground our way through it. In the whole three weeks we were not aground five minutes, although we passed one wreck settling in the water, with the bedding and stores piled up on the bank, and the passengers sailing away in the swallow-winged feluccas, which had swooped down to their rescue like so many compassionate birds.

Afternoon tea on the Nile is an unforgetable function. Everybody comes on deck and sits under the awning and watches the sun go down. Each day the sunsets grow more beautiful. Each day they differ from all the rest. Such yellows and purples! Such violet shadows on the golden water! Such a marvellously sudden sinking of the sun in a crimson flame behind the flat brown hills! And then the stillness of the Nile in the opal aftermath! Those sunsets are something to carry in the memory forever and a day.

At night the sailors lower the side awnings, crawling along the railings with their naked prehensile feet. The captain, a Nubian, on a salary of eighty-five cents a day, selects a suitable spot on the bank where the boat may remain all night. Then the bow of the boat heads for the shore and digs her nose in the soft mud. The sailors pitch the stakes and mallets out on to the bank and spring ashore. Then with Arab songs which they always sing when rowing, hauling ropes, scrubbing the decks, or doing any sort of work, the stern is gradually hauled alongside the bank, and there we stay until morning in a stillness so absolute that even the cry of the jackals seems in harmony with the loneliness of it.

I dreaded the first excursion. It was to Memphis and Sakhara, eighteen miles in all, and I never had been on a donkey in my life. I am not afraid of horses, but donkeys are so much like mules. My friends encouraged me all they could. They said that I would have a donkey-boy all to myself, that the donkey never went out of a walk, and wound up by the cheerful assurance that if he did pitch me over his head I would not have far to fall.

The donkey-boys of the Nile deserve a book all to themselves. Such craft! Such flattery! Such knowledge of human nature! With unerring sagacity they discover your nationality and give your donkey names famous in your own country. Never will an Englishman find himself astride “Yankee Doodle” or “Uncle Sam,” or an American upon “John Bull.” They pick you up in their arms to put you on or take you from your donkey as if you were a baby. They run beside you holding your umbrella with one hand, and with the other arm holding you on if you are timid. Staid, dignified women who teach Sunday-school classes at home, who would not permit a white manservant to touch them, lean on their donkey-boys as if they were human balustrades.

My first donkey-boy was an enchanting rascal. He looked like a handsome bronze statue. My donkey was a pale, drab little beast, woolly and dejected. He looked as though if you hurled contemptuous epithets at him for a week they would all fit his case. My companion’s was more jaunty. He had been clipped in patterns. His legs were all done in hieroglyphics, and he held his ears up while mine trailed his in the sand.

Nevertheless, I was so deadly afraid of him that I saw my forty-nine fellow-passengers leave me, one after the other, while I still hesitated and eyed him suspiciously. Perhaps I never would have mounted had not Imam, the dragoman, with the frank unceremoniousness of the East, caught me up in his arms and landed me on my donkey before I could protest. And in the face of his childish smile of confidence I could only gasp. We moved off with the majesty of a funeral procession.

“What’s the name of my donkey?” asked my companion.

“Cleveland,” came the answer like a flash.

We were enchanted.

“And what’s the name of mine?” I asked.

“McKinley!”

Then we shouted. You have no idea how funny it sounded to hear those two familiar names in such strange surroundings. We nearly tumbled off in our delight, and so quick are those clever little donkey-boys to watch your face and divine your mood that in a second they gave that Weird, long-drawn donkey call, “Oh-h-ah-h!” and my companion’s donkey swung into a gentle trot, with her donkey-boy running behind, beating him with a stick and pinching him in the legs.