The Pharaoh and the Priest: An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt

by Bolesław Prus

  CHAPTER XLII

  The western boundary of Egypt for a distance of more than a hundredgeographic miles is composed of a wall of naked limestone hills abouttwo hundred metres high, intersected by ravines. They run parallel tothe Nile, from which they are sometimes five miles distant, sometimesone kilometre.

  Whoso should clamber up one of these hills and turn his face northwardwould see one of the strangest sights possible. He would have on hisright hand the narrow but green plain cut lengthwise by the Nile; onhis left he would see an endless yellow open region, varied by spots,white or brick colored.

  Monotony, the irritating yellow color of the sand plain, the heat,and, above all, boundless immensity are the most peculiar traits ofthe Libyan desert, which extends westward from Egypt.

  But viewed more nearly the desert is in fact less monotonous. Its sandis not level, but forms a series of swellings which recall immensewaves of water. It is like a roused sea solidified on a sudden. Butwhoso should have the courage to go across that sea for an hour, twohours, a day, directly westward would see a new sight. On the horizonwould appear eminences, sometimes cliffs and rocks of the strangestoutlines. Under foot the sand would grow thinner, and from beneath itlimestone rocks would emerge just like land out of water.

  In fact that was a land, or even a country in the midst of a sandocean. Around the limestone hills were valleys, in them the beds ofstreams and rivers, farther on a plain, and in the middle of it a lakewith a bending line of shores and a sunken bottom.

  But on these plains, hills, and heights no blade of grass grows; inthe lake there is no drop of water; along the bed of the river nocurrent moves. That is a landscape, even greatly varied with respectto forms, but a landscape from which all water has departed,--the verylast atom of moisture has dried from it; a dead landscape, where notonly all vegetation has vanished, but even the fertile stratum ofearth has been ground into dust or dried up into rock slabs.

  In those places the most ghastly event has taken place of which it ispossible to meditate: Nature has died there, and nothing remains buther dust and her skeleton, which heat dissolves to the last degree,and burning wind tosses from spot to spot.

  Beyond this dead, unburied region stretches again a sea of sand, onwhich are seen, here and there, towering up in one and another place,pointed stacks as high as a house of one story. Each summit of such alittle hill is crowned by a small bunch of gray, fine, dusty leaves,of which it is difficult to say that they are living; but it may besaid that they cannot wither.

  One of these strange stacks signifies that water in that place hasnot dried up altogether, but has hidden from drought beneath theearth, and preserves dampness in some way. On that spot a tamarindseed fell, and the plant has begun to grow with endless effort.

  But Typhon, the lord of the desert, has noted this, and begun tostifle it with sand. And the more the little plant pushes upward, thehigher rises the stack of sand which is choking it. That tamarindwhich has wandered into the desert looks like a drowning man raisinghis arms, in vain, heavenward.

  And again the yellow boundless ocean stretches on with its sand wavesand those fragments of the plant world which have not the power toperish. All at once a rocky wall is in front, and in it clefts, whichserve as gateways.

  The incredible is before us. Beyond one of these gateways a broadgreen plain appears, a multitude of palms, the blue waters of a lake.Even sheep are seen pasturing, with cattle and horses. From afar, onthe sides of a cliff, towers up a town; on the summit of the cliff arethe white walls of a temple.

  That is an oasis, or island in the sand ocean.

  In the time of the pharaohs there were many such oases, perhaps sometens of them. They formed a chain of islands in the desert, along thewestern boundary of Egypt. They lay at a distance of ten, fifteen, ortwenty geographic miles from the Nile, and varied in size from a fewto a few tens of square kilometres in area.

  Celebrated by Arab poets, these oases were never really the forecourtsof paradise. Their lakes are swamps for the greater part; from theirunderground sources flow waters which are warm, sometimes of evilodor, and disgustingly brackish; their vegetation could not comparewith the Egyptian. Still, these lonely places seemed a miracle towanderers in the desert, who found in them a little green for the eye,a trifle of coolness, dampness, and some dates also.

  The population of these islands in the sand ocean varied from a fewhundred persons to numbers between ten and twenty thousand,according to area. These people were all adventurers or theirdescendants,--Europeans, Libyans, Ethiopians. To the desert fledpeople who had nothing to lose,--convicts from the quarries,criminals pursued by police, earth-tillers escaping from tribute, orlaborers who left hard work for danger. The greater part of thesefugitives died on the sand ocean. Some of them, after sufferingsbeyond description, were able to reach the oases, where they passeda wretched life, but a free one, and they were ready at all times tofall upon Egypt for the sake of an outlaw's recompense.

  Between the desert and the Mediterranean extended a very long, thoughnot very wide strip of fruitful soil, inhabited by tribes which theEgyptians called Libyans. Some of these worked at land tilling, othersat navigation and fishing; in each tribe, however, was a crowd of wildpeople, who preferred plunder, theft, and warfare to regular labor.That bandit population was perishing always between poverty andwarlike adventure; but it was also recruited by an influx of Siciliansand Sardinians, who at that time were greater robbers and barbariansthan were the native Libyans.

  Since Libya touched the western boundary of Lower Egypt, barbariansmade frequent inroads on the territory of his holiness, and wereterribly punished. Convinced at last that war with Libyans wasresultless, the pharaohs, or, more accurately, the priesthood, decidedon another system: real Libyan families were permitted to settle inthe swamps of Lower Egypt, near the seacoast, while adventurers andbandits were enlisted in the army, and became splendid warriors.

  In this way the state secured peace on the western boundary. To keepsingle Libyan robbers in order police were sufficient, with a fieldguard and a few regiments of regulars disposed along the Canopus armof the great river.

  Such a condition of affairs lasted almost two centuries; the last warwith the Libyans was carried on by Rameses III., who cut enormouspiles of hands from his slain enemies, and brought thirteen thousandslaves home to Egypt. From that time forth no one feared attack on theLibyan boundary, and only toward the end of the reign of Rameses XII.did the strange policy of the priests kindle the flame of war again inthose regions.

  It burst out through the following causes:--

  His worthiness, Herhor, the minister of war, and high priest of Amon,because of resistance from his holiness the pharaoh, was unable toconclude with Assyria a treaty for the division of Asia. But wishing,as Beroes had forewarned him, to keep a more continued peace withAssyria, Herhor assured Sargon that Egypt would not hinder them fromcarrying on a war with eastern and northern Asiatics.

  And since Sargon, the ambassador of King Assar, seemed not to trusttheir oaths, Herhor decided to give him a material proof of friendlyfeeling, and, with this object, ordered to disband at once twentythousand mercenaries, mainly Libyans.

  For those disbanded warriors, who were in no way guilty and had beenalways loyal, this decision almost equalled a death sentence. BeforeEgypt appeared the danger of a war with Libya, which could in no casegive refuge to men in such numbers,--men accustomed only to comfortsand military exercise, not to poverty and labor. But in view of greatquestions of state, Herhor and the priests did not hesitate attrifles.

  Indeed, the disbanding of the Libyans brought them much advantage.

  First of all, Sargon and his associates signed and swore to a treatyof ten years with the pharaoh, during which time, according topredictions of priests in Chaldea, evil fates were impending overEgypt.

  Second, the disbanding of twenty thousand men spared four thousandtalents to the treasury; this was greatly important.

  Third, a war with Libya on th
e western boundary was an outlet for theheroic instincts of the viceroy, and might turn his attention fromAsiatic questions and the eastern boundary for a long time. Hisworthiness Herhor and the supreme council had calculated very keenlythat some years would pass before the Libyans, trained in pettywarfare, would ask for peace with Egypt.

  The plan was well constructed, but the authors of it failed in onepoint; they had not found Rameses a military genius.

  The disbanded Libyan regiments robbed along the way, and reached theirbirthplace very quickly,--all the more quickly since Herhor had givenno command to place obstacles before them. The very first of thedisbanded men, when they stood on Libyan soil, told wonders to theirrelatives.

  According to their stories, dictated by anger and personal interest,Egypt was then as weak as when the Hyksos invaded it nine hundredyears earlier. The pharaoh's treasury was so poor that he, the equalof the gods, had to disband them, the Libyans, who were the chief, ifnot the only honor of the army. Moreover, there was hardly any armyunless a mere band on the eastern boundary, and that was formed ofwarriors of a common order.

  Besides, there was dissension between the priesthood and his holiness.The laborers had not received their wages, and the earth tillers weresimply killed through taxes, therefore masses of men were ready torebel if they could only find assistance. And that was not the wholecase, for the nomarchs, who ruled once independently, and who fromtime to time demanded their rights again, seeing now the weakness ofthe government, were preparing to overturn both the pharaoh and thesupreme priestly council.

  These tidings flew, like a flock of birds, along the Libyan boundary,and found credit quickly. Those barbarians and bandits ever ready toattack, were all the more ready then, when ex-warriors and officers ofhis holiness assured them that to plunder Egypt was easy.

  Rich and thoughtful Libyans believed the disbanded men also; forduring many years it had been to them no secret that Egyptian nobleswere losing wealth yearly, that the pharaoh had no power, and thatearth-tillers and laborers rebelled because they suffered.

  And so excitement burst out through all Libya. People greeted thedisbanded warriors and officers as heralds of good tidings. And sincethe country was poor, and had no supplies to nourish visitors, a warwith Egypt was decided on straightway, so as to send off the newarrivals at the earliest.

  Even the wise and crafty Libyan prince, Musawasa, let himself be sweptaway by the general current. It was not, however, the disbandedwarriors who had convinced him, but certain grave and weighty personswho, in every likelihood, were agents of the chief Egyptian council.

  These dignitaries, as if dissatisfied with things in Egypt, oroffended at the pharaoh and the priesthood, had come to Libya from theseashore; they took no part in conversations, they avoided meetingswith disbanded warriors, and explained to Musawasa, as the greatestsecret, and with proofs in hand, that that was just his time to fallon Egypt.

  "Thou wilt find there endless wealth," said they, "and granaries forthyself, thy people, and the grandsons of thy grandsons."

  Musawasa, though a skilful diplomat and leader, let himself be caughtin that way. Like a man of energy, he declared a sacred war at once,and, as he had valiant warriors in thousands, he hurried off the firstcorps eastward. His son, Tehenna, who was twenty years of age at thattime, led it.

  The old barbarian knew what war was, and understood that he who plansto conquer must act with speed and give the first blows in thestruggle.

  Libyan preparations were very brief. The former warriors of hisholiness had no weapons, it is true, but they knew their trade, and itwas not difficult in those days to find weapons for an army. A fewstraps, or pieces of rope for a sling, a dart or a sharpened stick, anaxe, or a heavy club, a bag of stones, and another of dates,--that wasthe whole problem.

  So Musawasa gave two thousand men, ex-warriors of the pharaoh, andfour thousand of the Libyan rabble to Tehenna, commanding him to fallon Egypt at the earliest, seize whatever he could find, and collectprovisions for the real army. Assembling for himself the mostimportant forces, he sent swift runners through the oases and summonedto his standard all who had no property.

  There had not been such a movement in the desert for a long time. Fromeach oasis came crowd after crowd, such a proletariat, that, thoughalmost naked, they deserved to be called a tattered rabble. Relying onthe opinion of his counsellors, who a month earlier had been officersof his holiness, Musawasa supposed, with perfect judgment, that hisson would plunder hundreds of villages and small places fromTerenuthis to Senti-Nofer, before he would meet important Egyptianforces. Finally they reported to him, that at the first news of amovement among the Libyans, not only had all laborers fled from theglass works, but that even the troops had withdrawn from fortresses inSochet-Heman on the Soda Lakes.

  This was of very good import to the barbarians, since those glassworks were an important source of income to the pharaoh's treasury.

  Musawasa had made the same mistake as the supreme priestly council. Hehad not foreseen military genius in Rameses. And an uncommon thinghappened: before the first Libyan corps had reached the neighborhoodof the Soda Lakes the viceroy's army was there, and was twice asnumerous as its enemies.

  No man could reproach the Libyans with lack of foresight. Tehenna andhis staff had a very well-organized service. Their spies had madefrequent visits to Melcatis, Naucratis, Sai, Menuf, and Terenuthis,and had sailed across the Canopus and Bolbita arms of the Nile.Nowhere did they meet troops; the movements of troops would have beenparalyzed in those places by the overflow, but they did see almosteverywhere the alarm of settled populations which were simply fleeingfrom border villages. So they brought their leader exact intelligence.

  Meanwhile the viceroy's army, in spite of the overflow, had reachedthe edge of the desert in nine days after it was mobilized, and now,furnished with water and provisions, it vanished among the hills ofthe Soda Lakes.

  If Tehenna could have risen like an eagle above the camp of hiswarriors, he would have been frightened at seeing that Egyptianregiments were hidden in all the ravines of that district, and thathis corps might be surrounded at any instant.