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ART. II.-EGYPT AND THE WHITE NILE.

Life and Landscapes from Egypt to the Negro Kingdoms of the White Nile. By BAYARD TAYLOR, author of "Views Afoot," &c. Second Edition. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Co., Ludgate Hill; 1855.

We do not remember to have ever read a more entirely agreeable book of travels than this of Mr. Bayard Taylor. The author's own intense feelings of enjoyment transmit themselves, as by a sort of spiritual rapport, to his reader; and as he floats up the glorious Nile, drinking in happiness through every sense, we seem, in reading his descriptions of all he sees, and hears, and feels, as though we were ourselves partakers in his joy; the colouring of his landscapes and the perfume of his mimosa trees surrounding us, in fancy, with a like Elysium. His pictures have no affectation about them. The sensations he describes are evidently as real as they are charmingly depicted; but as it is rarely, save in a tropical, or almost tropical climate, that such sensations of exhilaration, as a natural state of mind, are experienced after the period of early youth, few who have never left our foggy shores at home will be perhaps inclined to give the author credit for simple truth in his glowing descriptions. In England people are not happy merely because they are alive; and among those who crave the physical sensation of happiness, there are some who are too often fain to create a false imitation of it by artificial means, which have their reaction; but there is no reaction in the gentle intoxication of the sweet sunlight and pure air of Egypt. Man may enjoy this foretaste of paradise, as Adam enjoyed his Eden, without one disturbing thought of a blue avenger in prospect, to chequer his present bliss and overbalance it with future misery. Let those, therefore, who know what it is to feel Novemberish in England, and who do not know what it is to feel that life is in itself a joyous possession, settle their accounts, pack up their trunks, and take their passage to Alexandria.

Oh! that first landing!—that first introduction to our fellowman coloured like unto the very dust from whence he sprang, suggestive of the idea that we "flesh-coloured" Christians (as we conceitedly specialise our chalky hue) are but washed-out speci

First sensations in Egypt.

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mens of the original Adam, and that we now, for the first time, behold the primeval tint of our first parent. That first sight of living camels, and of palm trees growing au naturel; of turbans not in a masquerade or on the stage, but worn as the common head-gear of citizens in the open street; of women with masked faces, to whom breathing does not seem to be a necessity of existence, dressed either in black robes, like nuns, or in white sheets, like ghosts, and who wear enormous yellow boots. Oh! who can describe the inspiriting novelty of the scene!-the intense and delighted curiosity with which the eye glances rapidly from object to object at once so puzzlingly familiar, though so new; puzzlingly familiar, from their having been a thousand times already seen in paintings, engravings, or on the stage; and so creating a dreamy doubt as to whether what is gazed upon be indeed a reality of every-day life, and not a scenic repre

sentation.

Mr. Taylor does not favour his readers with more than a very slight sketch of Alexandria. The pillar misnamed "Pompey's is the only monument of antiquity he alludes to, and among the modern sights he does not appear to have visited even the Pacha's palace, that Parisian-adorned barrack, fitted up with brocade and chandeliers for the delectation of one lone man. Yes, for a pair of male eyes only are those richly painted ceilings, those floors of tesselated wood, those hangings and window draperies of gorgeous silk and satin; the "house of the women" being a separate building. The absence of every token of domesticity in this Mussulman abode, is very striking to the fresh English eye. It seems but a splendid desolation. There are Mosaic tables presented by the Pope, of all people in the world, but they are evidently intended for putting nothing upon. There are divans all round the walls, cushioned, luxurious, but as evidently intended for doing nothing either. Not a symptom of book, pen, or paper. The newly-arrived spectator feels at once that he has got far away from England, at any rate, considerably beyond the influence of that land where it amounts almost to a sin to be, what is there considered," idle,” that is, not actively employed,-where it is matter of reproach to sit, for one hour, "with one's hands before one," as Mrs. Bull would herself express it. Ahi ahi! the Turk does little else! We are evidently not born under the same commandments.

This may be, perhaps, one secret of the charm of an Egyptian Nile voyage. It is a holiday of peace,-life, for the first time, enjoyed in repose by the over-busy Saxon. So Mr. Taylor seems

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especially to feel it, who belongs to that super-restlessly toiling branch of the race-the United States American.

He engages a boat at Cairo, and launches himself upon the Mahmoudieh Canal, in company with a German landowner and a Smyrniote merchant; and, almost from the moment that he commences his voyage, he alludes continually to this delightful sensation of repose:

"Our men tracked the boat slowly forward, singing cheerily as they tugged at the long tow-rope. The Asian spread on the deck his Albanian capote, the European his ample travelling cloak, and the representatives of three Continents, travelling in the fourth, lay on their backs enjoying the moonlight, the palms, and more than all, the perfect silence and repose. With every day of our journey I felt more deeply and gratefully this sense of rest. Under such a glorious sky, no disturbance seemed possible. It was of little consequence whether the boat went forward or backward, whether we struck on a sand-bar or ploughed the water under a full head of wind; everything was right. My conscience made me no reproach for such a lazy life. In America we live too fast and work too hard, I thought: shall I not know what rest is, once before I die? The European said to me naïvely one day: 'I am a little surprised, but very glad, that no one of us has yet spoken of European politics.' Europe! I had forgotten that such a land existed: and as for America, it seemed very dim and distant.”

Our traveller reaches the Barrage on the evening of the fourth day of his slow but not tedious voyage, and justly remarks upon the strange fact of so great a work being scarcely known out of Egypt. He thus describes it :

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:

The same evening we reached the northern point of the Delta, where we were obliged to remain all night, as the wind was not sufficiently strong to allow us to pass the Barrage. Singularly enough, this immense work, which is among the greatest undertakings of modern times, is scarcely heard of out of Egypt. It is nothing less than a damming of the Nile, which is to have the effect of producing two inundations a year, and doubling the crops throughout the Delta. Here, where the flood divides itself into two main branches, which find separate mouths at Damietta and Rosetta, an immense dam has not only been projected, but is far advanced toward completion. Each branch will be spanned by sixty-two arches, besides a central gateway ninety feet in breadth, and flanked by lofty stone towers. The point of the Delta, between the two dams, is protected by a curtain of solid masonry, and the abutments which it joins

The

are fortified by towers sixty or seventy feet in height. piers have curved breakwaters on the upper side, while the opposite parapet of the arches arises high above them, so that the dam consists of three successive terraces, and presents itself like a wedge, against the force of such an immense body of water. The material is brick, faced with stone. When complete, it is intended to close the side-arches during low water, leaving only the central gateway open. By this means sufficient water will be gained to fill all the irrigating canals, while a new channel, cut through the centre of the Delta, will render productive a vast tract of fertile land. The project is a grand one, and the only obstacle to its success is the light, porous character of the alluvial soil on which the piers are founded. The undertaking was planned and commenced by M. Linant, and has since been continued by other engineers.

We ob

"The Egyptian boatmen have reason to complain of the Barrage. The main force of the river is poured through the narrow space wherein the piers have not yet been sunk, which cannot be passed without a strong north wind. Forty or fifty boats were lying along the shore, waiting the favorable moment. tained permission from the engineer to attach our boat to a large Government barge, which was to be drawn up by a stationary windlass. As we put off, the wind freshened, and we were slowly urged against the current to the main rapid, where we were obliged to hold on to our big friend. Behind us the river was white with sails-craft of all kinds pushed up by the wind, dragged down by the water, striking against each other, entangling their long sails, and crowding into the narrow passage, amid shouts, cries, and a bewildering profusion of Arabic gutturals. For half an hour the scene was most exciting, but thanks to the windlass, we reached smoother water, and sailed off gaily for Cairo.

"The true Nile expanded before us nearly two miles in width. To the south, the three Pyramids of Gizeh loomed up like isolated mountain-peaks on the verge of the Desert. On the right hand the Mokattam Hills lay red and bare in the sunshine, and ere long, over the distant gardens of Shoobra, we caught sight of the Citadel of Cairo, and the minarets of the mosque of Sultan Hassan. The north wind was faithful: at three o'clock we were anchored in Boulak, paid our raïs, gave the crew a backsheesh, for which they kissed our hands with many exclamations of 'taïb!' (good!) and set out for Cairo."

It would appear, by what Mr. Taylor here says, that the Barrage is still in progress of completion. Soon after Abbas Pacha's accession the works were entirely suspended, and it was reported that this beautiful structure, upon which two millions of money

had been already spent, and which to complete would, it was said, cost two millions more, was pronounced to be a failure, and worse than a failure-a dangerous obstacle to the free flow of the river, the course of which, it was feared, would be turned through the rapid accumulation of mud round the piers. It was said that the floodgates, if once closed, could never be opened again, on account of the pressure of the soil that would immediately deposit itself against them. Nevertheless, it appears that the Barrage is, after all, to be finished; and if it does indeed succeed, philanthropy must pray for a large and speedy accession to the agricultural population of Egypt, to work the superabounding tracts of fertility that the increased and doubled inundation will call into existence. Let her present two millions of oppressed fellahs be multiplied, by the magic of good government, up to her former seven millions of lightly-taxed peasant proprietors, free to reap according as they have sown, and Egypt may once more become, what of old she was, the granary of nations.

That her people were, in the palmy days of the Pharaohs, moderately taxed, Dr. Kitto has, we think, clearly shown in his vindication of the policy and revenue settlement of the Patriarch Joseph. (See Kitto's Palestine, vol. ii., book ii.) Dr. Kitto repudiates the idea that Joseph dealt harshly with the Egyptians, or that he basely favoured rapacity in the sovereign whose government he administered. The tax levied by him, of one-fifth of the produce, Dr. Kitto considers to have been a commutation in lieu of all former imposts; the purchase of the cattle he regards as a merciful and sagacious act, relieving the people of animals they could not feed, and which were, during the time of sterility, of no use to them, and enabling the Government to preserve the stock alive in the most economical manner. Agriculture was at a stand-still, for the Nile had failed to rise (the sole cause of an Egyptian famine, and a cause that renders the land at once uncultivable); the people were therefore removed from their scattered farms, on which they could no longer labour with hope of profit, to the granary towns where they could be fed systematically and at least expense. That they continued to consider themselves as the proprietors of their lands, and not mere serfs labouring on Government property, is evident from their grateful acceptance of seed-corn for sowing them; and though they called themselves, in oriental phrase, Pharaoh's "servants" or slaves, yet it is clear from the context that they were no more than his hereditary tenants, occupying farms over which they held an absolute right of possession so long as they paid to the king their equitable assessment of one