CHAPTER VII
THE CITY OF KINGS

I think this is the gayest scene I have ever looked upon in my life. See those mahogany-coloured boatmen in their brilliant scarlet and white striped jerseys and blue petticoats, grinning so as to show all their milk-white teeth. The boats are apple-green and scarlet, and they are reflected in the clear still water, and the dragoman, who marshals all the party into them, is a very splendid person indeed, in a long overcoat of turquoise blue cloth as soft and fine as a glove, with a striped gown of yellow Egyptian silk underneath.

We are off with a party of Cook's tourists to explore the Tombs of the Kings on the other side of the river It is a pretty stiff day's work, so we are up early, and it is only half-past eight now. As we near the other side of the river we see an excited group of donkey-boys who have brought their animals over earlier, and now stand expectant, looking like a fringe of blue beads.

"Lily best donkey – Lily name for Americans, Merry Widow for Engleesh – "

"Come, lady, with me, Sammy best donkey in Egypt, verry good, Sammy my donkey, best donkey – "

"Kitchener, lady, best donkey in Egypt, me speak verry good Engleesh, alla way gallop."

And so on in a continuous yell. The dragoman shouts out the numbers of the donkeys, and helps the ladies of the party to mount. Some ride on side-saddles, others, unused to any form of riding, prefer to get up astride, which they find difficult in the tight modern skirts. One German girl, after a frantic attempt, has to give it up, and sits wobbling on her saddle with her arms round the donkey-boy's neck, agonisingly appealing to him not to move! A very stout lady in black is lifted on to her mount by the united efforts of the dragoman and two donkey-boys, and, held in position by the boys, moves off, threatening a convulsive landslide to one side or the other at every step.

We are lucky in securing two fine greyish-white animals, almost as large as mules and very well fed and kept; yours is named "Sirdar" and has a single blue bead slung on a string round his neck as a charm, while mine, "Tommy Raffles," has a rattling chain of yellow and blue beads and much scarlet wool in his harness. You won't have much difficulty, I know, as you have been used to a pony since you could walk.

At first the soft powdery sand makes the going stiff, and we have much difficulty in restraining our boys, who run behind, from smacking or prodding the donkeys as they plough through. These boys are very proud and fond of their donkeys and treat them well, but it is the ambition of every donkey-boy to see his donkey head the cavalcade, and he is ready to die of envy and mortification if any other boy's donkey gets in front of him. We pass through clouds of dusty earth and then turn on to uneven narrow ways between tall green stalks of growing dhurra, stuff which looks like maize, except that it has a heavy head of grain which is ground up for making rough bread for the poorest people.

Along by a canal, over a bridge and a railway line we gallop, our animals going well. Their trot is impossible, as we soon find, but the easy loping canter delightful. We pass many black-clad women working in the fields, with crowds of bright-eyed friendly children who murmur "'Shish" in the vain hope that we may throw them some money. Then we see herds of black goats in among the cut stalks, and a tethered baby camel, who looks at us with innocent wondering eyes.

Far off rise up from the plain two mighty seated statues, the Colossi, set up by Amenhetep iii. as part of a temple now vanished. Presently we all stop to see another temple, interesting enough, but not so interesting as those already visited at Luxor and Karnak.

The dragoman, whose work is not easy, brings up the rear of the cavalcade, having managed to keep even behind the fat lady, who has stuck to the slippery surface of her saddle with many a desperate plunge firmly resisted by her escort.

The dragoman describes the temple fluently and intelligently, first in English, then in French, and adds a little explanation in German for the benefit of two men of that race who have talked loudly in their own guttural tongue all the time he has endeavoured to make the rest of the party hear. The dragoman does not reel his words off as if he were repeating a lesson, as, alas, so many of the guides at our own cathedrals do. He is a clever man, well educated and capable. It has taken him years to learn all he knows, and it is only the clever boys who can become good dragomans. One of our donkey-boys, a bright little fellow who speaks far better English than most of his companions, tells us, "I am going to be a dragoman." He says it deliberately, with a pause between each word to get them correctly. "Thus I speak always with the English and the Americans. To the English I speak English, which is what I have learned, but when I am with Americans I can talk to them in their own tongue too."

Laughing, we mount and are off again.

We are now penetrating into the great hills of sandstone we saw afar off from the hotel. The road winds into a gorge, and at each turn displays more vivid beauty. We feel a strange joy rising within us, so that we would like to sing or shout at the tops of our voices. The brilliance of the air shows up every line in the great precipices of orange-yellow, streaked with red and purple, which rise against a sky of thrilling blue. There is not a blade of grass or a leaf to be seen in these vast solitudes, only the massive stones, broken and split and scattered, lie in the fierce sun or black shadow. We can imagine these defiles looking much the same when three or four thousand years ago the funeral procession of one of the mighty Pharaohs wound its way into the heart of the mountains, carrying the man who had never known opposition or denied himself his slightest wish. They were very magnificent these processions, composed of hundreds of people who carried all sorts of things – furniture, chariots, boats, animals, fruit and flowers – with tremendous ceremony.

It is a longish ride before we alight again, and leaving the donkeys under a slight straw shelter penetrate into the fastnesses of the hills.

How many of these rock-tombs were made here will probably never be known, but year by year more are uncovered. The first we step into is like a large well-lighted cave cut out of a cliff-side, from it opens another cave-like room, and from that another, each sloping downward and the whole series giving the impression of a series of puzzle-boxes fitting into one another and then drawn out. The walls are covered with pictures, paintings on plaster, not outline pictures like those we saw in the temples, but filled in with blue and green, orange and terra-cotta, laid on thickly, and as fresh as the day they were done. Ever descending we pass on until we reach the last chamber, where the great sarcophagus or coffin of the king was placed right up against the face of the rock. The sarcophagus might be a mighty block of granite, enclosing a wooden case, and that again another case, probably carved and gilt, and finally, as a kernel, there was the body of the king, preserved and dried by spices, lying awaiting the final resurrection. The Egyptians believed in a future world, but they could not imagine a future world without there being human bodies in it such as we have now, so they took infinite trouble in preserving the dead body that it might be ready for its time of call. Most of the sarcophagi from these tombs have been removed and taken to the museum at Cairo, but in one to which we penetrate, hewn out at a slope so steep that we have difficulty in keeping our feet as we slither down, the mummy has been replaced and is left uncovered.

Lit up by electric light we see King Amenhetep ii., with his skin blackened to a parchment, drawn tightly over his chiselled aristocratic features. In the dome-shaped forehead, the Roman nose, and the tightly compressed lips there is an expression of infinite disdain, as if he, in his time the mightiest ruler in the world and the leader of civilisation, knew that now he was exposed to the gaze of a party of outer barbarians whose national histories were but of mushroom growth. This king struck terror into the hearts of his enemies; he raided the land of Syria, slew seven chiefs with his own hand and brought them back to Thebes, hanging head downward from the bows of his boat!

The very day after a king ascended the throne he used to begin hewing out the sepulchre where he should lie. The scenes drawn on the walls show what he expected to find in the other world. We see a pair of scales with the heart of the dead man in one balance and a feather in the other; a monkey sits on the top and adjusts the weight. The heart must weigh the feather exactly, for to be over-righteous was as bad as being wicked! The dead man also had to pass before forty-two judges, who each examined him searchingly as to whether he had committed one particular sin. As one of the party remarked in an awe-struck voice, "And if he did pass them all safely and another started up and asked him if he ever told a lie he'd be done, for no man could deny that he had committed any of the forty-two principal sins and remain truthful!"

To accompany the soul to the other world many things used to be buried in the tombs, clothes and food and utensils and weapons, and, thanks to this custom, numberless things have been saved to show us how the ancient Egyptians lived. These, however, have mostly been taken to Cairo for safe keeping. But here in Amenhetep's tomb one thing has been left. In a small side chamber, with the light falling full upon them, are three mummies, each with a hole in the skull and a gash on the breast, showing that they were the king's slaves, killed in order that their souls might accompany him and serve him beyond the tomb!

They lie there with their hair still on their heads, and even the false hair, they used to increase it, showing; on their faces is a ghastly grin. We wonder if they submitted quietly, proud of having been chosen, or if each fought fiercely for the life which belonged to him and was not any man's to take away.

It is very hot and close down in the rock-hewn chamber, and we are glad enough to stumble up and out again, though we are blinded by the sunshine as we emerge.

The next part of the day is the hardest of all, for we scramble up a mountain-side to gain a splendid view of gorges and valleys on one side and the flat plain spreading to the Nile on the other. The view is indescribable; from lemon-yellow to orange and saffron are the hills, with blue-grey shadows in their folds. Right opposite is one absolutely perpendicular, with immense rounded columns looking like giant organ pipes rising on its face. A fresh wind is blowing, and when we mount our donkeys, which have come round to meet us another way, and ride along a path a few feet wide, with no fence of any kind and a drop of some hundreds of feet on one side, we are devoutly thankful that the German girl and the stout lady went round the other and longer way by the valley!

Over the summit the donkeys are set free to get down the steep descent as best they may, and they are as sure-footed as goats, but we who follow find considerable difficulty as the loose stone and sand fall away in miniature avalanches from beneath our slipping feet and we get very hot. We are sheltered here from that fresh wind which is such a joy in Egypt, the sun is at its height, and we have done a good morning's work already after an early start. There, far below, looking like a doll's house, is the rest-house where we lunch, and beside it two of the men of the Mounted Police Camel Corps in khaki on their long-legged beasts.