by George Ade
CHAPTER XVII
IN AND AROUND LUXOR, WITH A SIDE LIGHT ON RAMESES THE GREAT
Until we arrived at Luxor we did not know the total meaning of the word"old." The ruins, which are the stock in trade of this ancient City ofThebes, date so far back into the dimness of Nowhere that all the otherantiquities of earth seem as fresh and recent as a morning newspaper.
"Old" is merely a relative term, after all. I remember in my nativetown we small boys used to gaze in reverent awe at a court house thatwas actually built before the Civil War. We would look up at thatweather-beaten frame structure, two stories high, with a square birdcage on top of it, and to us it had all the historic interest of amediaeval castle. Later, in Chicago, when the special writer on thenewspaper ran short of topics he would dish up an illustrated story onthe oldest building in town. It was constructed away back in 1833.
When a man from the West goes East for the first time and seesIndependence Hall in Philadelphia, he takes off his hat and tries tograsp the overwhelming fact that the building stood there even in thefar distant Colonial period. When he travels to London and walksthrough St. Paul's or stands in the Henry VII. Chapel at Westminster hebegins to get a new line on the meaning of "old." Later he sees theForum at Rome and declares to himself:--"At last I have found somethingreally ancient."
But when he arrives at Luxor and rambles among the elephantine ruinsand sits in the deep cool shade of temples that had been standing agood many centuries before anyone thought of laying out the Forum inRome he will begin to understand how everything else in the world iscomparatively hot from the griddle. One day we were in the shop ofMouhammed Mouhassib, in Luxor, and the old antiquarian reached underthe counter and lugged out a mummy. The body was well preserved, andthe embalming cloth in which it was wrapped and cross-wrapped stillretained a definite texture.
"This mummy dates back beyond any of the dynasties of which we have arecord," said the dealer. "There were no inscriptions on the mummycase, because when this gentleman lived it was not the custom toinscribe the cocoon. You will observe, however, that he was buried ina sitting posture, and we know that this manner of burial wasdiscontinued about 6000 B.C."
As we stood there gazing into the calm features of the unidentifiedhas-been and realised that he had been sitting in that easy attitudefor eight thousand years waiting for us to come along and be presentedto him, we began to get a faint inkling of what the word "old" reallymeans.
Goodness knows I am not going to attempt any detailed description ofthe stupendous ruins which make Luxor the most interesting spot inEgypt. Anyone who is going to describe Luxor needs a new box ofadjectives every few minutes, and, besides, to repeat over and overagain that the columns and cavernous sanctuaries at Karnak are"gigantic," and "colossal," and "huge," and so on, cannot bring thereader to any actual conception of the barbaric massiveness of theseancient structures.
The rulers who built the main temple of Karnak, a section at a time,thought they were not doing themselves credit unless they piled upcolumns about the size of the redwood trees in California and guardedeach entrance with statues as big as the Goddess of Liberty in New YorkHarbour, and when they made a wall to enclose a courtyard, they put upsomething to resemble a mountain range. The ordinary 150 pound mortaledging his way through the corridors and under the vast shadows ofthese overwhelming uplifts of masonry feels about as large and asimportant as a gnat.
Everywhere about these temples there are uniformed guards whose duty itis to protect the remains against the vandal and the relic hunter. Theguard follows a few feet behind you as you roam through the many acresof toppling ruin. He is afraid that you will steal something.Inasmuch as the smallest fragment of one of these huge statues, orobelisks, would weigh probably six hundred pounds, we felt that he wasnot justified in suspecting us. But he followed along and then, whenwe were leaving, he calmly came forward and indicated that he was readyto take a money insult. This move on his part was most characteristicof the Egyptian attitude toward visitors in general. Every nativeexpects to get something out of a traveller for the simple reason thathe needs the money. Suppose that a suspicious character should arrivein an American city and the chief of police sent out a detective toshadow him and see that he did not blow open any safes or crawl intoany second stories. The detective, having followed the suspect allday, approaches him at nightfall and says, "Look here; you have put meto a lot of trouble. I have been on my feet all day watching you forfear that you were going to commit a burglary, and I think it is onlyright that you should pay me something."
Every time we visited an antiquity these guards tagged at our heels,watching us like hawks, and invariably they tried to hold us up for apiece of silver before we departed. There is a Masonic understandingamong the natives that the tourist is to be fleeced. For instance,although the copper coins are in common use among the natives, and inthe cheaper shops the prices are usually reckoned in milliemes, it isalmost impossible for a traveller to get any of these copper coinsbecause the natives want him to bestow his gratuities in piastres. Amillieme is worth one-half cent, and then the millieme is furthersubdivided into fractional coins, some of which are about the size ofthe mustard seed and worth about as much as a share of mining stock.
Egyptian money is very easily understood by Americans. The piastre isthe same as our five-cent piece or nickel. The silver five piastrepiece resembles our quarter and has the same value. The ten piastrepiece is the same as our half-dollar. The 100 piastre bill is worthfive dollars. Inasmuch as many of the prices sound large and importantwhen quoted in piastres, the dealers have learned to demand Englishpounds sterling or American dollars. That is, they name their firstprices in sovereigns and dollars and then gradually work down topiastres. I saw a native trying to sell a scarab to a tourist. Hisfirst price was L7, equivalent to $35. After a half-hour of hagglinghe had cut it to 7 piastres, or 35 cents, and the deal was consummated.
The old city of Thebes was a huge and hustling metropolis, surroundedby a high wall of a hundred gates, with countless regiments of soldiersmarching out to conquer distant lands and bring back slaves in littlebatches of 80,000 or so. This was along about 2000 B.C. The citybegan to lose some of its importance a few centuries before theChristian era and dwindled in size until twenty years ago it was a merevillage of huts nestling in the shade of the great temples. Then thetourist travel set in very heavily, and to-day Luxor is a hustling citywith large hotels and fancy shops and a general air of prosperity. Themagnificent temple of Luxor is in the very heart of the new city. Therambling temple of Karnak is a short donkey ride to the north, andacross the river, some three miles to the west, there are more templesand shattered statues and the wonderful tombs of the kings. In oldendays there was a broad avenue leading north to Karnak and thence westto the valley in the desert, where the kings were buried, and thisboulevard was guarded on either side, for the entire distance, by hugerecumbent Sphinxes carved out of granite. Can you imagine a double rowof gigantic figures crouched on each side of the street and abouttwenty feet apart all the way up Broadway to Central Park and thenthrough the Park to Riverside Drive and up the drive to the distantsuburbs? If so, you will understand to what an extent these old rulers"went in" for sphinxes. Labour cost nothing and time did not count foranything and if a king wished to build an avenue of sphinxes leading tohis private temple or tomb all he had to do was to give the word.
As soon as a king mounted the throne he began making his funeralpreparations, and ordered the entire staff of stone cutters to chiselout hieroglyphs explaining that he was great and good and just, andthat he never took off his hat to anyone except the gods, and then notordinary picayune gods, but only those of the very first magnitude.According to the hieroglyphs, every king that ruled in Egypt was aswise as Solomon, as brilliant in military strategy as Napoleon, and ashard on the evildoer as our own beloved T.R.
This unanimous outpouring of eulogy is largely explained by the factthat every memorial in honour o
f a ruler was erected and supervised bythat ruler himself. It's a fact! Of all the countless temples andobelisks and godlike granite figures and festal tomb chambers remainingin Egypt to testify to the majesty and splendour of the ancientdynasties, every one was built under the personal supervision of theman who gets all of the glory out of the inscriptions. The succeedinggeneration never got up subscription lists to build monuments tostatesmen or military commanders. The dutiful and loving son neverordered a memorial in honour of his illustrious father. He was toobusy carving his own biography on the sandstone and depicting himselfas pursuing the enemy or taking afternoon tea with haughty three-headedgods.
In old Egypt every king was his own press agent. These rulers couldhave written some great "personal recollections" for the magazines,because they remembered all the incidents that brought them to thecentre of the stage with the calcium turned on, and wisely forgot alldetails calculated to injure their standing with posterity.
_In old Egypt every king was his own press agent_]
You take Rameses the Great. He is regarded as perhaps the king pin ofall the rulers during Egypt's long period of national splendour. Haveyou ever heard anyone say a word in criticism of Rameses' fiscalpolicy, his treatment of the rebate system, management of the Senate,or his social relations with the dark emissaries that came up fromNubia? No! Everyone has a good word for Rameses. The writers ofancient history extol him, and the guide books print his name in bigblack letters, and the travellers to Egypt gather about hisglass-covered coffin in the Ghizeh Museum at Cairo and try to tracenoble lineaments in the shrunken features. They sigh over hisdeparture and look down at him mournfully, with their hats in theirhands, as if they had lost him this spring, instead of 3164 years agothis spring. They say:--"Well, he certainly was a grand character andit's too bad we haven't got some rulers of his calibre nowadays."
_They look down at him mournfully_]
It is not my desire to attack Rameses, but I feel it my duty to submitto students of history and archaeologists a very interesting papyrus,which came into my possession at Luxor. If this document is acceptedas authentic and the statements are believed, then it would appear thatRameses was the champion advertiser of ancient times. If Rameses werealive to-day he would own all the billboards in America. He would takea full page in every Sunday paper and have his picture on freecalendars. He would give Lawson cards and spades.
In all accepted records discovered up to this time Rameses has receivednothing but praise. Why? Because all the records were doctored byRameses himself. He was the great builder of Egypt and all over thewalls of every building that he erected he had his picture and tales ofhis mighty achievements blazoned forth in bright colors like the row ofbanners in front of a side show. Wherever in Egypt he could find alarge smooth-faced rock he would engage a member of the Royal Academyto sculp something about Rameses, and he would always stand and lookover the sculptor's shoulder to make sure that the king didn't get theworst of it. If the army of Rameses suffered a defeat at the hands ofthe Hittites, did any mention of the fact find its way into theinscriptions? Most assuredly not. Rameses had the hieroglyphs reportthat he made a masterly manoeuvre in order to develop the strength ofthe enemy and then retired to a new and more strategic position.
_To make sure the King didn't get the worst of it_]
We cannot discover from the old inscriptions that any Egyptian armyever suffered defeat, and yet it has been learned from other sourcesthat now and then an invading army had the whole native populationrunning foot races up and down the Nile. However, it was notconsidered good form for historians to mention these painful incidents.The rate of mortality among those who criticised the administration wasexactly 100 per cent. It is because all of the familiar records areknown to have been under censorship that the papyrus discovered by meat Luxor possesses a most startling interest.
As a cold matter of fact, I discovered this manuscript by proxy. Thatis, I bought it from the man who said he had found it concealed in thefuneral vestments of a mummy uprooted near Thebes in the month ofFebruary. I cannot give the name of this Egyptian for the reason thatall valuable antiquities discovered in Egypt are supposed to belong tothe government, and anyone concealing an art treasure or some documentof rare value may be severely punished. I can say this much,however--the native from whom I bought the papyrus assured me that hewas an honourable and truthful guide, and he gave me his personalguarantee that he had removed the document from the mummy'sundergarment with his own hands and had been waiting an opportunity tooffer it to a traveller who was really a _connoisseur_ of antiquitiesand a reverent student of ancient languages. All this he told me whilewe were out on the desert together, and after looking apprehensively inall directions to make sure that no human being was within three milesof us, he pulled a tin cylinder from under his robe and carefullyremoved from it the time-stained but still intact roll of papyrus. Imust say that I never saw a more convincing document. The hieroglyphslooked as Egyptian as anything could be, and as soon as I saw them Ihad a burning curiosity to know what message to future generations thispoor mummy had been hugging in his bosom through all these centuries.I asked regarding the mummy on which the papyrus had been found andlearned that the inscription on his outer coffin indicated that he hadbeen an officer assigned to the royal palace of Rameses II., the typeof courtier who must bend the supple knee and wear the smiling face, atall times concealing his real opinion of things in general.
The guarantee which accompanied the papyrus was so heartfelt andaltogether emphatic that I made the purchase. The price was large, butI felt justified in paying it, for the native assured me that I couldsell it to the British Museum at any time for twice as much. Ipromised faithfully that I would never mention his name in connectionwith the deal, and this promise was easily kept, because he had a namethat no one could have remembered for two minutes.
For obvious reasons I did not show the document to my travellingcompanions. I knew that if people heard of my discovery and got totalking about it I might not be permitted to take it out of thecountry. When we arrived at Cairo I went to Mr. Ralph Blanchard, anAmerican who is noted as an antiquarian, Egyptologist, and mummycollector, and after a few cautious preliminaries told him that I had adocument in hieroglyphics of which I desired a translation. I beggedhim not to inquire where or how I had obtained the papyrus. All Iwanted him to do was to tell me what the fool thing meant.
Blanchard was startled as soon as he looked at the document. I couldsee that. He said he had deciphered a good many acres ofhieroglyphics, but this record was unique and the most interesting thathad ever come under his observation. He spent two days on thetranslation, so as to be absolutely accurate regarding every fine pointand get not only the cold words but also the literary style and thereal spirit of the original communication.
_The original papyrus_]
Let the translation speak for itself. I must confess that when it wascompleted I was overwhelmed. Not only had a flood of light been let inupon a most important epoch, but there were also surprising revelationsas to the origin of valued words and phrases. Here is thetranslation:--
_Rameses Second is a Smooth Citizen. His Foxy Scheme is to bunkoPosterity. His Soldiers go out and put up a hard Scrap and do up theenemy and he hires a Stonecutter to give an Account of it on a GraniteRock and hand all the Bouquets to Rameses. He is building manyTemples. The Architects draw the Plans. The Labourers do the Work.The Public foots the Bill. Rameses and the Local Deities are the onlyones who butt into the Inscriptions. He has the future doped out asfollows:--Three thousand years from now, when Cook's Tourists see myPictures all over the Shop, they will conclude that I must have beenthe real Works and they will call me Rameses the Great._
_Translation of the Rameses papyrus_]
This revelation in regard to the self-advertising proclivities of thegreat monarch, coming, as it did, from one who had been intimatelyassociated with him, was so vastly important that Mr. Blanchard
thoughtit better to verify the translation. He took a copy of the document toseveral eminent Egyptologists, and they agreed with him on every point.They said there was no getting away from "scraps" and "butt in" and"dope out" and other characters which seemed to me to have somewhat ofa modern flavour.
After a man has been universally respected for nearly three thousandtwo hundred years it does seem a low down trick to show him up. And,possibly, the anonymous writer was prejudiced because he had failed tosecure an appointment. Did the papyrus really come from the bosom ofthe mummy? Who knows? Sometimes it is the duty of the traveller torecord facts as they come under his observation and not to draw hastyconclusions.
The documentary evidence is submitted herewith--first a copy of theoriginal papyrus and then the translation, word for word and phrase byphrase. The testimony should convince any who are disposed to besceptical. My only hope is that it will not entirely blast thereputation of Rameses.