Henry Field - From Egypt to Japan

On the Bosphorus there are birds which the Turks call "lost souls," as they are never at rest. They are always on the wing, like stormy petrels, flying swift and low, just skimming the waters, yet darting like arrows, as if seeking for something which they could not find on land or sea. This spirit of unrest sometimes enters into other wanderers than those of the air. One feels it strongly as he comes to the end of one continent, and "casts off" for another; as he leaves the firm, familiar ground, and sails away to the distant and the unknown.

So felt a couple of travellers who had left America to go around the world, and after six months in Europe, were now to push on to the farthest East. It was an autumn afternoon near the close of the year 1875, that they left Constantinople, and sailed down the Marmora, and through the Dardanelles, between the Castles of Europe and Asia, whose very names suggested the continents that they were leaving behind, and set their faces towards Africa.

They could not go to Palestine. An alarm of cholera in Damascus had caused a cordon sanitaire to be drawn along the Syrian coast; and though they might get in, they could not so easily get away; or would be detained ten days in a Lazaretto before they could pass into Egypt; and so they were obliged at the last moment to turn from the Holy Land, and sail direct for Alexandria; touching, however, at Mitylene and Scio; and passing a day at Smyrna and at Syra. With these detentions the voyage took nearly a week, almost as long as to cross the Atlantic.

But it was not without its compensations. There was a motley company in the cabin, made up of all nations and all religions: English and Americans, French and Germans and Russians, Greeks and Turks, Christians and Mohammedans. There was a grand old Turk, who was going out to be a judge in Mecca, and was travelling with his harem, eight women, who were carefully screened from the observation of profane eyes. And there were other Mussulmans of rank, gentlemen in manners and education, who would be addressed as Effendis or Beys, or perhaps as Pashas, who did not hesitate to spread their small Persian carpets in the cabin or on the deck at any hour, and kneel and prostrate themselves, and say their prayers.

Besides these, the whole forward part of the ship was packed with pilgrims (there were four hundred of them) going to Mecca: Turks in white turbans and baggy trousers; and Circassians in long overcoats, made of undressed sheepskins, with tall, shaggy hats, like the bear-skin shakos of Scotch grenadiers. Some of them had their belts stuck thick with knives and pistols, as if they expected to have to fight their way to the tomb of the Prophet. Altogether they were not an attractive set, and yet one could not view, without a certain respect, a body of men animated by a strong religious feeling which impelled them to undertake this long pilgrimage; it requires three months to go and return. Nor could one listen quite unmoved as at different hours of the day, at sunrise, or midday, or sunset, the muezzin climbed to the upper deck, and in a wailing voice called the hour of prayer, and the true believers, standing up, rank on rank, turned their faces towards Mecca, and reverently bowed themselves and worshipped.

On the afternoon of the sixth day we came in sight of a low-lying coast, with not a hill or elevation of any kind rising above the dreary waste, the sea of waters breaking on a sea of sand. The sun sinking in the west showed the lighthouse at Alexandria, but as the channel is narrow and intricate, ships are not allowed to enter after sunset; and so we lay outside all night, but as soon as the morning broke, steamed up and entered the harbor. Here was the same scene as at Constantinople – a crowd of boats around the ship, and boatmen shouting and yelling, jumping over one another in their eagerness to be first, climbing on board, and rushing on every unfortunate traveller as if they would tear him to pieces. But they are not so terrible as they appear, and so it always comes to pass, that whether "on boards or broken pieces of the ship," all come safe to land.

In spite of this wild uproar, it was not without a strange feeling of interest that we first set foot in Africa. A few days before we had touched the soil of Asia, on the other side of the Bosphorus – the oldest of the continents, the cradle of the human race. And now we were in Africa – in Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs, out of which Moses led the Israelites; the land of the Pyramids, the greatest monuments of ancient civilization.

As soon as one comes on shore, he perceives that he is in a different country. The climate is different, the aspects of nature are different, the people are different, the very animals are different. Caravans of camels are moving slowly through the streets, and outside of the city, coming up to its very walls, as if threatening to overwhelm it, is the "great and terrible" desert, a vast and billowy plain, whose ever-drifting sands would speedily bury all the works of man, if they were not kept back from destruction by the waters of the Nile, which is at once the creator and preserver of Egypt.

Alexandria, although founded by Alexander the Great, whose name it bears, and therefore more than two thousand years old – and although in its monuments, Cleopatra's Needle and Pompey's Pillar, it carries back the mind to the last of the Ptolemies, the proud daughter of kings, and to her Roman lovers and conquerors – has yet in many parts quite a modern aspect, and is almost a new city. It has felt, more than most places in the East, the influence of European civilization. Commerce is returning to its ancient seats along the Mediterranean, and the harbor of Alexandria is filled with a forest of ships, that reminds one of New York or Liverpool.

But as it becomes more European, it is less Oriental; and though more prosperous, is less picturesque than other parts of Egypt; and so, after a couple of days, we left for Cairo, and now for the first time struck the Nile, which reminds an American traveller of the Missouri, or the lower Mississippi. It is the same broad stream of turbid, yellow waters, flowing between low banks. This is the Great River which takes its rise in the heart of Africa, beyond the equator, at a point so remote that, though the Valley of the Nile was four thousand years ago the seat of the greatest empire of antiquity, yet to this day the source of the river is the problem of geographers. Formerly it was a three days' journey from Alexandria to Cairo, but the railroad shortens it to a ride of four hours, in which we crossed both branches of the Nile. Just at noon we came in sight of the Pyramids, and in half an hour were driving through the streets of the capital of Egypt.

We like Cairo, after two or three weeks, much better than Constantinople. It has another climate and atmosphere; and is altogether a gayer and brighter city. The new quarter occupied by foreigners is as handsomely built as any European city. The streets are wide and well paved, like the new streets and boulevards of Paris. We are at the "Grand New Hotel," fronting on the Ezbekieh gardens, a large square, filled with trees, with kiosks for music, and other entertainments. Our windows open on a broad balcony, from which we can hear the band playing every afternoon, while around us is the city, with its domes and minarets and palm trees.

The great charm of Egypt is the climate. It is truly the Land of the Sun. We landed on the first day of December, but we cannot realize that this is winter. The papers tell us that it is very cold in New York, and that the Hudson river is frozen over; but here every thing is in bloom, as in mid-summer, and I wear a straw hat to protect me from the heat of the sun. But it is not merely the warmth, but the exquisite purity of the atmosphere, that makes it so delicious. The great deserts on both sides drink up every drop of moisture, and every particle of miasm that is exhaled from the decaying vegetation of the Valley of the Nile, and send back into these streets the very air of Paradise.