THE NILE BOAT.*
MR. Banmsrr is known to the public as a traveller who can impart freshness and interest to beaten routes, by the vivacity of his mind and his artistical training. Wherever form or description is the essence of his subject, the eye of the artist enables him to select the characteristic traits, while his literary ability presents them with graphic effect. Often as the Desert and Mount Sinai have been visited of late years, Mr. Bartlett gave novelty and information to what would appear an exhausted theme. In The Nile Boat, he has rendered attractive the still triter subject of a steam voyage from Marseilles to Alexandria, the passage thence to Cairo, an ascent of the Nile, with an exploration of Egyptian
antiquities. In addition to his natural and professional advantages, Mr. Bartlett has the experience of a traveller and a knowledge of the East. He can adapt himself to circumstances, and bring out the qualities of the persons with whom he comes in contact ; while his familiarity with the East has given him great advantages over a raw tourist in casual meetings with the people. He has also, be it said, the experience of a bookmaker ; he knows what to put in, and what to leave out.
The illustrations are another feature of Mr. Bartlett's works ; being really illustrations, not plates inserted; the text and the plates be- long to each other. This is more especially the case with the volume before us ; where street views, buildings, ruins, and water scenery, predominate over landscape. Of course there is no comparison between Mr. Bartlett's octavo and the splendid folios that have been published on the Egyptian monuments ; but it presents a very good idea of the subject upon a small scale. The artist is also displayed in the descriptive comments : we not only have the impression made upon the mind, but the cause of it. Information is given from the works of Sharpe, Wilkin- son, and others : at the same time, modern Egypt is not overlooked. The street scenes of Cairo and Alexandria convey a lively idea of Egyptian life and Oriental architecture, if the squalidness and inferior material are not sunk in the plates. For their accuracy of form Mr. Bartlett vouches : " the whole of the illustrations were drawn upon the spot, many with the camera lacida." Were it not for the intelligible though subdued descrip- tion of certain Oriental practices, The Nile Boat would be a capital sub- stitute for the Annuals. It is a handsomer book for the table ; the plates are mach more numerous and interesting; the literature is at once instruc- tive and amusing. The book is a compendious coup-dkeil of Egypt as it is.
Besides all these, there are the story and incidents of a book of travels, with sketches of manners and society : for Mr. Bartlett can perceive the mental and moral characteristics as well as those of the external form.
This is a smart little portrait of the gamin of Cairo. " The Caireen donkey-boy is quite a character, and mine in particular was a perfect original. He was small and spare of frame; his rich brown face relieved by the whitest of teeth and the most brilliant black eyes ; and his face beamed with a merry yet roguish expression, like that of the Spanish or rather Moorish boy in Marino's well-known masterpiece, with whom he was probably of cognate blood. Living in the streets from infancy, and familiar with all the chances of out-door life and with ever description of character,—waiting at the door of a mosque or a café, or crouching in a corner of the bazaar,—he had acquired a tho- rough acquaintance with Caireen life; and his intellect, and I fear his vices, had become somewhat prematurely developed. But the finishing-touch to his educa- tion was undoubtedly given by the European travellers whom he had served; and of whom he had, with the imitativeness of his age, picked up a variety of little accomplishments, particularly the oaths of different languages. His audacity had thus become consummate; and I have heard him send his fellows to — as coolly and in as good English as any prototype of our own Metropolis. His Muesulman prejudices sat very loosely upon him, and in the midst of religious ob- servances he grew up indifferent and prayerless. With this inevitable laxity of faith and morals, contracted by his early vagabondage, he at least acquired an emancipation from prejudice, and displayed a craving after miscellaneous informa- tion, to which his European masters were often tasked to contribute. Thrown almost in childhood upon their own resources, the energy and perseverance of these boys is remarkable. My little lad had, for instance, been up the country with some English travellers, in whose service he had saved four or five hundred piastres, (41. or 51.,) with which he bought the animal which I bestrode: on whose sprightliness and good qualities he was never tired of expatiating, and with the pro- ceeds of whose labour he supported his mother and himself. He had but one habitual subject of discontent—the heavy tax imposed upon his donkey by Mehemet Ali; upon whom he invoked the curse of God,—a curse, it is to be feared, uttered not loud but deep by all classes save the employ4s of Government. His wind and endurance were surprising: he would trot after his donkey by the hour together; urging and prodding it along with a pointed stick, as readily in the burning sandy environs, and under the noon-day sun, as in the cool and shady alleys of the crowded capital; running, dodging, striking, and shouting with all the strength of his lungs, through the midst of its labyrinthine obstructions." 4, The Ella Boat ; or Glimpses of the Land of Egypt. By W. H. Bartlett, Author of "Forty Days In the Desert." rubnahett by Hall, Virtue, and Co. In all countries the national prejudices linger longest amongst the poor, and Egypt is not an exception to the rule. True Mahometanism, which is leaving most other classes, takes refuge with the boatmen of the Nile.
" Tracking is toilsome.for the men and small is the progress thus made against the current: a new source of delay also has arisen in the Ramadan, the 'month of fasting,' whose inauspicious moon succeeded this night. My servant is a rigid and pionsDiussulman, and pilgrim to boot; several times a day he prostrates himself upon the deck. Happily, his zeal in my service seems to keep pace with his piety, and his fury against the worthless Reis more than equals the fervour of his prayers. I was condoling with him on the hardship of preparing. so many good dishes, of which he could not partake on account of his religions principles; when he gravely smiled, and assured me that I was under a mistake, there being a special exemption in behalf of travellers who, in consideration of their fatigues, were allowed to perform their month's dsting by future instalments, a discretion, in the same manner as Sancho liquidated his thousand lashes. I asked if this merciful provision also extended to the Reis and sailors: but this idea he indig- nantly repudiated; as they were only labouring in their ordinary vocation, the ex- emption did not apply to them; and this curious distinction without a difference themselves admitted, all but the Reis himself—a man of no religion—apractical infidel—a Kafir, as Saline indignantly told him, who, instead of religiously work- ing and not eating, would only eat and not work, sleeping like a dog during the greater part of the day. The rest, from the old steersman to the last of the crew, never, to my knowledge, infringed in the slightest instance the terrible rigour of this prohibition: the cravings of hunger they indeed contrived in some measure to satisfy, by taking their meals shortly before sunrise ; but, with their beloved Nile at hand, not a drop of water passed their lips during the burning summer's day ; nor were they even free to amuse the vacuum of their stomachs by the fumes of the consoling pipe: listless and languid, they laboured at the toilsome tracking as usual, though with diminished energy, until the hour of sunset. Then the welcome pipe might safely be taken up; for I remarked they always began with it; and after their temperate meal they were full of merriment, sing- ing often to a late hour in the night. I frequently endeavoured insidiously to undermine the faith of the poor old steersman with arguments of expediency drawn from his weakness and from the compassion of Allah, urging him to take the food which his infirmities really required: but he remained impenetrable to all my infidel solicitations and tempting offers."
It is probable that the Western peoples have little conception of the true state of social morals in the East, from the difficulty of stating the truth without offending. Polygamy—the practical if not theological no- tion of the soulless nature of women—the absence of intellectual pursuits in all classes—the fineness of the climate, which does not require the hard labour of Northern regions—with the system of domestic slavery, mild as it is—corrupt society to its very core. We have often had descriptions of dancing-girls, but we never before saw the sensual character of the exhibition and its admirers so clearly brought out.
"About noon the following day, we saw the groves and minarets of Beni-souef, the first town of importance on the Western bank of the Nile. A few articles of provision were wanting, and the boat was towed on to the usual landing-place; while I preferred walking along the shore. I found it so excessively hot as to wish myself back again; and was about to hail the vessel, when the sound of music caught my ears, and I perceived an assemblage of people under the shade of a cluster of sont-trees near the river, and, rising now and then over their heads, the braceleted arms and castanets of the famous Ghawazee,' or dancing-girls; who, banished from the capital, were forced to carry their voluptuous allurements farther up the river. Having often wished for an opportunity of witnessing their performances, I slipped among the miscellaneous assemblage who clustered around an elevated platform on which the girls were dancing, and, as I flattered myself, unperceived; for on such occasions as these, one is not curious to be con- spicuous. But my Frank hat, and the umbrella which I carried on account of the heat, betrayed me ; and an officer of the Pasha, leaping up from his seat, pushed aside the rabble, and, taking me by the hand, hoisted me up on the plat- form, and made me sit down by his side: a distinction which I was equally un- willing to accept or without offence unable to decline. "The stage or platform might have been some thirty feet square, partly over- shadowed with trees, and partly covered with a rude awning of palm leaves; yet the heat was almost overpowering: the river floated slowly past like boiling oil, and the distance was one undistingnishable blaze of heated mist. Around the platform were grouped a number of the Pasha's officers, civil and military, some on low seats, and others squatted on the ground. The ci most part seemed men grown grey under a system of cruel oppression, of which they were the agents: their faces were grave to coldness, hard and cruel lines were about their eyes and months, and they rarely moved a muscle but when some little by-play of the dan- cers specially addressed to themselves brought a hideously sensual smile across their pallid faces. These personages occupied the seats of honour; and behind them, as well as below, were crowded together fellahs and boatmen, women and children of all ages, equally intent upon enjoying what may be considered the national dance. The two dancing-girls who were ministering to the delight of this respectable audience seemed half overcome with the heat, the excitement, and raki, which an old white-bearded fellow from a neighbouring café administered at the end of every dance. They had once been handsome, but were now, though young, decidedly use, worn out with early profligacy, and bedaubed ad nauseam with a thick layer of vermillion. Their dress consisted of very large loose trousers of silk, and a tight-bodied vest open at the bosom, and having long sleeves, with a large shawl wreathed round and supporting their lan- guid figures: they were also profusely decorated with gold coins and bracelets. When I ascended to my post of honour, or rather humiliation, they were merely figuring in lazy and somewhat graceful attitudes around the platform, clicking their castanets, and exchanging speaking glances with the hoary sinners around ; but on my seating myself, one of them saluted me with a pas of such an equally original and unequivocal character as elicited a burst of laughter and applause from old and young, brought the blood into my cheeks, and mode me wish myself anywhere else than where I was. The dance then began: but I am not going, like some travellers, to give what Byron calls a chaste description' of it: suffice it to say, that at first modestly coquettish, it became by degrees the excitement of wanton phrensy, and at length died away in languor."
Besides the use made of his works in the coarse of the travels, Mr. Sharpe supplies an Historical Introduction, which gives a sketch of Egyp- lianhistory from the earliest ages to the Mahometan conquest ; and as Mr. Bartlett introduces a good deal of modern history into the text, the reader has a summary of the subject. This is useful, and gives variety ; but the literary character of the book depends upon that matter which is more directly the product of observation.
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