The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 20, 1906, Page 9

T SRSy L e e 2 ‘Ir I3 cz:z?zNLv A GaYy L BY GEORGE ADE. dream of many years has come true. w e moving (outward) up the Nile. sy sand flles we are flitting, across white patches of rrow learned to spar fight them out of donzeys bewildered " I can do.” take 100 pounds of ‘d lagoes and go eve sald. nd a anything we've ire a boy with Tk aw some one-legged women . with~ their wrong way, and TI'll nand make my fortune.” “six dollars” to visit e of the is to > guards at looks will satisfy the At Beni-Hassan. Mr. d, when he arrived at the d mbs, that he hi ket writh r ity in gaining admission to bs under the name of “Miss erson.” inging into the detalls of our tis aly fair t the induigent der should know how and why we came eating up the Nile. And first of all he know something about his wonder- has been described imes, ‘at @ rough. guess, and k of dealing out superfluous I am going to insert some she rly 4000 miles. - For nds of years it has po; ation along its ears ago no came. The d that it came from nhat somew ere 1200 am from the delta outlet the = mot recelve any tributary. It er a limestane base. and-trough ess desert between high 2nd barren Ogasionally, where. there is oundation, the stream is orces its way through rus! i thesé are known as the es up stream s bas, for - many centuries arked the border line of Egypt proper. the south is the land of the warlike biacks, who have been -trouble makers beginning .of time. The First Cataract s the usual terminus of tourist travel, but those- who wish to see Nubia o Sopdan board a small steamer, 1gh. the, locks of the new dam iver 210 miles to Wadi Haifa, rail .576_miles to,Khartoum. about 1350 miles. up stream White and Blue Niles converge g down from the rainy rjua- gions the floods of muddy water are the anual salvation of Egypt vears ago Khartoum seemed as that th which Ten naccessible as the north pole. . It was headquarters for the most. desperate swarm of frengled fanatics that ever swept a region with fire and sword. They had wiped out British armies and put don’s head on a pole. They were in runken ecstasy of Mohammedan zeal, er to fight and ready to die. and they got all that they were looking for. It is less than eight years since Kitch- ' THE 'SAN' FRANCISCO: SUNDAY . CALL. A IF ener went down to call on them. Of all ooded and frozen-natured cians of the inexorable Kitchener stands pre-eminent. ral Grant in his grimmest moment Iy emotional and acrobatic with Kitchener. He carried his veins and his mental icked with Birmingham reg- did not get excited and dash o the open trap, as all the others had He moved slowly but relentlessly drezd country built a ral! e went along. He carried ever army needs—marma. done into the > poni st ginger ae, ed meats ete. We cannot »de them, because stampeding is specialty,” said Kitchener, “but I will Hck them by algebra.” He did not say this, because he never , but this is what he indi- cated by his calm preparations. He knew that the dervishes were -frothing at the mouth and ving Allah to give them another « > to swim' in gore, s6 he simply e hin striking dis- tance of d out his ground and walt cope hero would have galloped up and down the line, shouti . , men, and.at them!” But Kitchener w not a hero. He was busi- ness manager of an attoir. His object was not to win a great battle, but to ex- terminate. & species.. ~And- he - probably THE DERVISHES~ARE S 7 aid one of the neatest jobs of house cleaning on record. The bloodthirsty mob, led by the Khalifa, or Dowie, of the Soudan, charged across an open plain. Bach ‘determined dervish carried in his right hand a six- foot spear, with which he hoped to do considerable damage. When he still lacked about a mile of being within pok- ing distance of the hated infidel, the ma- chine guns opened up and began to sweep the plain back and forth in long regular swaths, just as the sickle sweeps through the vellow grain. it was quite a handicap for the invincible children of Allah. They could not use their six-foot rpears on any one a mile away, and before they could recover, from the chagrin occasioned by this unexpected move on the part of the enemy, about 11,000 of them had winged their ‘way to eternal® happlness and’ the others were radiating in all directions, pursued by those who wished to civilize them and bring them under British con- trol. Those of the dervishes who escaped are supposed to be still running. At least they never came back to start an- other Messiah movement. Ten years'ago the Soudan was sealed to the whole world 'and death waited for the unmbeliever who crossed the border. Today..the table d'hote roams unafraid, and the illustrated post-card blooms even as the rose. The Nile of which you have read and along which are scattered the Simon Pure ;;0550 T0O BE STULL RUNNING - monuments of antiquity is the sixty miles of winding river between Assouan, the First Cataract and the sea. For the en- tire distance, until it-gpreads into a fan- shaped delta and filtegs into the Mediter- ranean, the stream is walled in by flat- topped hills of barran- aspéct. They are capped with limestone and carpeted about with shifting sands,’ and- they look for all the world like the mesas of New Mexico and Arizona, for they lle baking in the same kind of clarified sunshine. This meandering' hollow between the rugged hill ranges is the Valey of the Nile. Here and there the hills close in until the river banks are high and chalky cliffs. At one point the valley spreads to a width of thirty-three miles. East and west of the hills are vast areas of desert without even a spear of vegetation' ‘except where there Is a miraculous rise of water to the surface. The spots are grateful landmarks of tall ‘palms¢ and are' known a: oases. The Valley of the Nile would be just as bare and monotonous as’an asphalt pavement were it not for the fact that once a year the Nile overflows. It has been “overflowing every year for thou- sands of years, bringing down from t. 3 mountains of Abyssinia and the far- away regions of tropical rains a spreading volume of muddy water. Every winter, when the ' dwindling stream' gets back into the customary bed, it has left a layer of black sediment over the inundated 'dis- #EW OF THE NIL e 2 trict. So many layers of sediment have been deposited that now the rich black soil is thirty to fifty feet deep. along, the river, thinning out as it meets the slope of the desert. Unlike our prairie soil of the middle west, the Nile farm lands, are , not underlaid with clay. The Nile soil is black all the way down to limestone— a floury mineral powder of even com- position. The only parts of Egypt which can be cultivated are those touched by the annual overflow. Egypt is really a ribbon of alluvial sofl following the stream on either side. The tourist standing on the top deck. of a Nile steamer can 'see both to east and west the raw and breken edges of the desert. The entire population lives on the river, literally: ‘and figuratively. Dark robed ‘women come down to the stream .in end- less processions to fill their K water, fars, and it seems that about every forty feet or so all the way up from Cairo the in- dustrious fellah is Jifti water up the bank ‘and irrigating his’little fleld with the same old-fashionpd sweep and bucket. arrangement that was in use when Joseph came over to Egypt and attracted, t: attention of Potiphar's 7ife. The Egyp- tion farmer is called.a fellah. The cloth- ing that he wears would wad a gun— that’ls, a rifle, not a shotgun. He puts in at’least fourteen hours a day and his'pay is from tcn to fifteen cents. Mr. ' Peasléy. told a’ tourist,the other day that the song ‘“He's a Jolly ‘Good Fellah” BY ' GEORGE V. HOBART. I recelvcd a.letter the other day that put me-over the ropes. T'llpaste it up here just to suow .you that it's on the level: “Philadelphia, This Week. “Dear John: I have never met you per- somally, but I've heard my brother, Teddy, speak of ‘you S0 often that you really seem to be one-of the fami (Teddy talks slang something fierce.) “Dear John, will you please pardon the liberty 1 take in grabbing a two- cent ‘stamp and . jumping S0 uncere- moniously..at one who s, after all, a perfect: stranger? “Dear John, - if “you look around you can. see ron. every hand that the glad season of the year is here, and if you listen attentively, you ,may ’ hear the hoarse cry of the. summer resort beckoning us. to that- bourne -from which no traveler yeturns -without ‘get- ting his pocketbook dislocated. “Dear John. could-you please tell me how to play bridge whist, so that when 1 go to th-~ seashore 1 will be armed for .defraying expenses. P “Dear: John, I -am .sure - that if I could play bridge whist .Jouc enough to win four dollars every once in awhile I could spend a Jarge bunch of the sum- “mer at the seashore. . “Dear John; would you tell a loving but perfect stranger how to play the game without having to wear a mask? “Dear John, I played a couple of games recently with a wide-faced young man who grew very playful and threw,the parjor furniture at me because I trumped his ace. I fancy I must have did wrong. The fifth.time I trumped his ace the young man arose, put on his gum shoes and-* skeedaddled out of the house. Is it not considered a breach of etiquette to put on gum shoes in the presence of a lady? “If you please, dear John, tell me how to play bridge whist. “Yours fendly, - GLADYS JONES. “P. 8.—The furniture which he threw ENRY DI was not his property to dispose of J v ' “Q. 3. When my wife g8t a flash of this letter she made. a .kick to- the.effect that it was some kindof acipher, possibly the beginning of a secret correspondence. It. was up to.me to hand Gladys:the frosty get-back, so this is, what I sald: “Respected -Madam: I'm a slob on that-bridge whist thing, plain poker being the only game with cards that ever coaxes my dough from the stocking, but I'll do the advice gag if it chokes me: “Bridge whist is played with' cards, Jjust like pinochle, with the exception of the beer. 2 ‘“Not enough cards is a misdeal; too many cards is a mistake; and cards up: the sleeve is a slap on the front piazza if they catch vou at it. “You shouldn’t get up and -...ce the snakentine dance every time you take a trick. It looks more genteel and pic- turesque to do the two-step. “Don’t forget what is trumps more than eighteen times during one hand. The “limit used to be twenty-six times, .. but since the insuranc: people have been, playing Hyde and seek the best bridge whist authorities have put the limit down to eighteen. “It isn’t wise to have a conniption fit every time you lose a trick. Nothing Jooks 'so. bad ‘as a conniption fit when it doesn’t match the complexion, and generally it delays the game. “ “When the game is close don't get excited; and climb up on the; table.: It shows a want of refilnement, especially if. you are. not a quick climber.’ “Never whistle while waiting for some one to play. Whistling is not in good taste. Go over and bite out a couple , of tunes on the piano. “When your opponent trumps an ace don’t ever hit him carelessly across the forehead with the bric-a-brac. £ remember when you are in society that bric-a-brac is expensive. . ¥ “Don’t lead the ten of clubs by mis- take for the ace of trumps and then get * bridge without mad and ‘Jump seventeen feet in the air :ec;use they refuse to let'you pull it “There, ‘Gladys, if you follow these rules I think you cén play the gaz.> of putting a bruise on the Monrog/ dodtrine. Lie —When you playfor’' money' al- CUSSES B way bite the coin to see if it means as much as it looks.” ¥ + The next day, in order to square my- self. with' my wife for getting a letter T fladn’t any use for, T went to one of those New. York department’ stores: toget her a birthday present, 3 Say! did you ever get ‘tangled up in one of these department store mobs and have a crowd of perfect ladies use you for, & door mat? i I got’ iy b rcé nly taught/me the Rojest- A Of the department store a nice " with a pink necktle and B bowed to me. BT, '%flghwfl ish?’ he asked. “dp yo! = 3 | W ,:?“,.%i}; K p‘d’u;nq:l;enxw ‘gne; a > ¢ . ‘M ent for my wife. T wor “whiéh would afford ‘her - ~ a 'thrill* of- encouragement. - s ‘when I give it to her and which ¥ could use afterwards ds a pen- wiper or a fisling rod.” : d_floor, to the right; take 'the T,” said the man. X Did vou ever try to take an eélevator in a department store and find that 3943 other, American citizens and, citizenesses ;rer‘e ‘algo trying to take the same eléva- or?, » AT 3 How sweet it is to mingle'in the arms’ of utter strangers and to feel the gentle of a foot we néver. hope to meet 1 was standing one of the counters on the second floor when a shrill voice crept up over a few bales of dry goods and said, “‘Are vou a buyer or a handler?” el “I am looking for, a birthday present for, my wife,” 1 answered. “I want to get g that will look swei. on the parior table and may be used later, as a tobatco jar or a trousers str-tcher!” “Fourth floor, to 'thie left; take the elevator!" 'said the luzg;- voice.”, With bowed head I walked away. I began to feel sorry for my wife. Nobody ‘seemed to' be very much inter- ested whether she got a birthday present; or_not. y TR ©On the fourth .floor I stopped at a counter where a lot of eager dames were pawihg ‘over some’ chinchilla ribbon ‘and chiffon overskirts. - # ¥ It reminded. me,of the, way our.dog digs, up the vegetables, in the garden. 1 enjoyed the excitement ‘of the game; for about ten minutes and:then I said to the " clerk behind the counter who ‘was refereeing the match: *“Can you tell' me where I can buy a sterling silver birth-" day present for my wife which I could use ‘afterward as a night key or a bath sponge?” : “Fifth floor, to' the rear; 'take the elevator!” said the clerk. P On the fifth floor I went over to a: table where a young lady was selling ‘“The Life and’Libraries of Andrew Carnegie!’: at four dollars a month and fifty cents a week, and in three years' it is' yours if. you don't lose the receipts. A5 She gave me a glad smile and I felt “Excuse me,” I said, “but I am looking for a birthday present for my wife which. Wil make'all the neighbors jealous, and which I' can use afterward as an ash recelver or a pocket ' flask.” - The young lady”cut out the jiggles 'and pofnted’ to the northwest. L ' I'went over ‘there.. ‘. ' | £ To my surprise I found anpther counter. A pale young woman was behind it. <1 was just about to ask:her the fatal question when a young wearing a ragtime expression on his rushied up and said to the young lady behind ‘the (o for a young ey Fng. of thne present_for a young of e with, golden, brown Ir, 'Could you %mfi o 3o 1 came an y who said: T 1EW OF THE NILE originated In Egypt during the time of the Ptolemles. This is a sample of the kind of idiotic observation that is sup- posed to enliven a so-called pleasure trip. But let us get back to the river, for in Egypt one must get back to the river at least once every twenty minutes. The Nile is Egypt and Egypt is the Nile. All this description may sound .ke a few pages from the trusty red gulde book, and yet the word t"” will have no meaning to the ‘who does not get a clear panoramic: vision of this wonder- fully slim waisted country. Nearly six hundred miles long and yet containing only twelve thousand five hundred square miles, about the size of Maryland. ‘Th® strip of black land which ylelds the plentiful crops is nowhere “more than tén miles wide, a mere fringe of fertil- ity weaving aleng through dryness and desolation. Anywhere along the river if you wili Slimb¥'to the rocky plateau, you will see the slow moving river, probably a’ half-mile wide, ‘as a ‘glassy thread on ‘which _are, strung: flelds of living green, bordered by the dreary uplifts of desert. The traveler who goes by boat from Cairo to’ Assoudn sees all of Egypt.’ The cities and temples and tombs of olden times were perched on the high spots or planted in the baré ‘hills; so as-tobe safe from the annual rise of waters. Anything worth seeing in the whole country is within an easy donkey ride of the river bank. The river-is the only artery to travel. There * bought some organdie dress goods for a . shirt waist last. Tuesday and.I would .like to exchange -them for .a -music bex, for ‘my: daughter!s little boy, Freddie, if you please!"” : z + 'The saleslady again showed her teeth and the old lady ducked for cover. , After about fifty people had rushed up <to the saleslady and then rushed away again, I went.over and spoke to her. “I am looking,” I said, “for a birthday present for. my. wife.. I want to get something that will give her a great amount of pleasuge dnd “which I ¢an use later ‘on, as a ‘pipe.cleaner or a. pair of suspende: Le £ aa . The saleslady fainted, so I moved over. ‘At arther”codnter another young lad sald to me: “‘Have you-been waited on “No,” I.replied,. “I have been stepped on, sat on and walked on, but I have not yet been walted on.” ‘“What do you wish?” young woman. N 2 « “I,am looking for a birthday present for my wife,” I said. “I want to buy her something that will bring great joy to /her heart and which I might use after- . ward as a pair of slippers. or a sHaving inquired the “You,” she screamed, “you complete a total of 23,493 people who have been in this department store to-day without Jkpowing what they are doing here, and I refuse to be a human encyclopedia for the sake. of -eight, d”hn a week. On your way for yourst” . ;I began to apologize, M:n under the and pulled out 4 :l'hvh. she, said, . a wild look in her side lamps; “this is the happy sum- mer _season. but, nevertheless, the next guy that leaves his_.rains at home and tries to make me tell him what is a good ‘birthday present for ‘wife will get a bitter swipe across the forehead!" It was up to me, ¢> I went home with- out a e (owyr'lz, t, 1905, by G. . Company. 3 ) hut she reached . yery chiselly at times. .Egypt, bring your flannels along. “send out for it. You may walk is a raflway, but it foiows the river all the way up to Assouan. It would seem that the country was especially laid out and punctuated with ights” for the convenience of the mod- ern traveler, for the visitor who goes up the Nile and stops off at the right spots can do a clean job of sight-seeing with- out doubling on his tracks. Until a few years ago the tourist going up the Nile had to take a dahabeah. Thig sounds like the name of a disease, but it is really a big, roomy, flat-bottomed sailbeat. The dahabeah moves only When the wind is in the right direction, and to go from Calro to Assouan requires the greater part of a lifetime. Those trav- elers who have money to burn and who are content to settle down to many weeks of rest and indolence charter the private dahabeahs. When a traveler goes aboard a dahabeah he tears up the calendar and lets his watch run down. Those who have more money and are in a hurry use the private steam dahabeahs. A majority of travelers go by pas- senger boats. The tourist steamers de- vote thre weeks to a loafing voyage up to Assouan and back, with daily excursions to the graveyards and ruins. The express steamers, carrying freight and native passengers, take less time for the round trip, as they skip some of the less inter- tsting antiquities. We took an express, steamer, thereby missing many of the tombs and temples, but still getting enough of them to last for the next hun- dred years or so. Our steamer is a frall affalr, double decked and of no draught worth mention- ing. It resembles the old style of Mis- souri river boat, built to run on a heavy dew. There are thirty --ssengers, who devote most of their time to lolling on deck waliting for the next meal. Mud banks, natives hoisting water, green flelds stretching away to the bald range of hills, dobe huts, spindly palms, now and then a solemn row of camels, always several donkeys and goats in evidence, every few miles the tall stack of a sugar mill, perpetual sunshine—it is monoton- ous travel, and yet thers s con- tinally something doing along the banks and ‘the traveler cannot get away from that feeling of satisfaction which results from lying back to watch other people work. And the sunsets! You cannot est!mate the real dignity and artistic value of a camel until you see him or her silhouetted against a sky of moiten gold just at twilight. I have made two or three at- tempts to describe the glory of a sunset in- the desert, but I find myself as help- less as Mr. Peasley, who after gazing for five minutes at the flaming horizon can only murmur a low but reverent “Gosh It may interest the reader to hear what Baedecker has to say on the sub- ject. Baedecker says (p. 216), “The sun- sets are very fine.” That's what I like about Baedecker. He doesn’t fuss over a lot of words and tack on superfluous adjectives. As soon as he has imparted the necessary information in a trim and concise manner he moves on to the next subject. I am sending herewith two sketches which show the beauty and variety of landscape to which we are treated every day. View No. 1 is most characteristie. We see before us. the rippling Nile and beyond it the sheer river bank of black dirt: Then the fleld of waving grain, In the distance the range of hills and over all a dazzling sunshine. No. 2 is more varied. Agaln we have the river, the mud bank and the growing crops, together with the distant hills, behind which the sun iIs silently sinking. In the foreground at the left is a majestie palm. The structure at the right is a native house and will indicate something of the simple life of the agriculturist. The complicated device on the river bank at stage senter is the shadouf, used for lifting water from the stream. The cavernous In the distant hill (marked X in the drawing) is the entrance to a rock tomb. By studying this picture the reader may get a fair understanding of the -architectural splendor of these anclent sepulchres. Traveling on the Nile has two reltable features to commend It. The weather is always fair' and the native population constantly enlivens .the picture, for the lower river is crowded with salls and every inch along the .anks is under culti- vation. ' Also, ‘the Nile has some sur- prises in 'store. Two definite delusions are. soon shattered. Delusion No. 1—Heat. It i3 not al- ways warm in Egypt. In the middie of the day, out of the wind and on the desert, it may work up to a good sum- mery temperature at this season, but In the shade it is cool, and as soon as the .sun has set a bracing autumnal chill comes into the air and the heavy over- coat is needed. The north wind can be il coming te Delusion No. 2—Crocodiles. There are no crocodiles in the Nile. We have al- ways supposed that 4he bank of the river was polkadotted with these mousters, 'y- ing in wait for small dark children. It is said that two thousand years ago the Nile .was bordered with papyrus reeds or bullrushes, within the tangles of which lurkel the hippopotamus. ecrocodiles, dragomans and other reptiles, but the animals have disappeared, and so has the river vegetation. The other day we visited the island en which Pharaoh’s daughter discovered little Moses. The island is still there. but there is~'t a bulirugh within a mile of it One of the penalties of travel is to have old setled bellefs uprooted. For in- stance, there are no Ilaltese cats in Maita, no,Venetian blinds in Venice, ne Roman punch in Rome. If you want Nea ice cream in Naplcs yoy must > t all day in Bologna 'wit. .ut seeing a d of Bologna sausage. Egyptian m?z:. ) are. | throughout ‘the wogld, drinking Martinis. Truly, the stereotyped a are deceptive. (Copyright, 1906, by George Ade.): 4