Literature · Humor

Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife 23

Chapter 23

HolleyEnglish

Cairo is different from any other city under the sun, and after you've been there when you shet you eyes and see it agin in memory, the brilliant colorin' sheds its picturesque glow over the brilliant seen. The deep bright blue of the sky, the splendor of the sunlight, the dazzlin' white of the buildings, the soft mellow brown of the desert and the green of the tropical foliage always comes back to brighten the panorama.

And the crowds of people from all parts of the world, each dressed in his and her natural costume, every style of dress and every color under the sun. And the milds of bazars, little booths about ten feet square but all runnin' over with the richest embroideries, silken fabrics, gold, silver, amber and everything else gorgeous. Then there is the new part of Cairo, the broad, long streets lined with magnificent buildin's. The great Citadel of Cairo and the Alabaster Mosque up on a rocky height, six hundred feet above the city. The Citadel wuz built by Saladin in 1100, most a thousand years ago. Where is Mr. Saladin and his folks? and his dynasty? All forgot centuries ago, but the work he thought out is here still. The Mosque is the only building' in the world built of alabaster; it wuz begun by Mehemet Ali, the great-grandfather of the Khedive. The alabaster looks like satin, amber and white color, mebby some of my readers have got a little alabaster box or figger that they set store by, it is so costly and fine. Then think of a hull buildin' three hundred feet square built of it. The ruff is uplifted by alabaster columns; the alabaster galleries are a hundred feet above the floor. The gilded dome can be seen twenty or thirty milds away. The view from the terrace in front is so beautiful that you don't want to leave it. The city lies before you and a long view of the Nile, rich gardens, green fields, towering palms, the pyramids standin' like ghosts out of the past, Memphis, oldest city of the world. Turn your head and there is the land of Goshen; how many times amidst the overwhelmin' cares of a Jonesville kitchen have we mentioned "Land of Goshen," but solemn now to look at and contemplate as the home of the patriarchs. Only two milds off down the Nile is the spot where Napoleon fought with the Mamelukes and won the Battle of the Pyramids. And jest under you as you look down, you see the ruff of the Egyptian Museum where the body of Ramesis lays, once rulin' with a high hand he and his folks, as many as a dozen of 'em, over all the land our stranger eyes looked down on. But now they're nothin' but a side show, as you may say in a museum.

Josiah wuz dretful took with the sights of shops on either side of the narrow streets of old Cairo and all sorts of trades bein' carried on there right out doors: goldsmiths and silversmiths makin' their jewelry right there before you, and Josiah sez: "I lay out to have a shop rigged out doors to hum and make brooms and feather dusters; and why don't you, Samantha; how uneek it would be for you to have your sewin'-machine or your quiltin'-frames in the corner of the fence between us and old Bobbett's, and have a bedquilt or a crazy blanket draped behind you on the fence. You could have a kind of a turban if you wanted to; I would lend you one of my bandannas. I'm goin' to wear 'em in my bazar when I rig one up, and my dressin'-gown, and I shall have Ury wear one and sandals. I can make some crackin' good sandals for us all out of shingles, and lace 'em on with colored ribbins. How dressy they will make me look. I shall lace my sandals on with yeller and red baby ribbin, them colors are so becomin' and make my complexion look fairer. We shall jest coin money out of my bazar, and I shall write to Ury to put in a piece of broom corn, and mebby we shall make jewelry; we could make some good mournin' jewelry out of coal and lam-black."

Well, I didn't argy with him, thinkin' most probable that he'd forgit it, but Arvilly, who wuz with us, sez: "I guess it would be mournin' jewelry in good earnest if you made it; I guess it would make anybody mourn to see it, let alone wearin' it."

"Wait till you see it," sez he.

And she sez, "I am perfectly willin' to wait."

"But I shan't set on the floor as they do here," sez he, "I am sorry for some of them poor old men that can't afford chairs, and I would be perfectly willin' to make 'em some stools if they'd furnish the lumber."

Sez I, "It's their way, Josiah, they like it."

"I don't believe it," sez he; "nobody loves to scrooch down flat with their legs under 'em numb as sticks." But right whilst we were talkin' we met a funeral procession. The head one had hard work to git through the crowd crying out:

"There is no deity but God! Mohammed is his apostle!" Then come some boys singin' a funeral him; and then the bier, borne by friends of the corpse and covered by a handsome shawl. Then come the hired mourners--wimmen--for I spoze they think they're used to mournin' and can earn their money better. 'Tennyrate, these screeched and wailed and tore their hair and beat their breast-bone as if they meant to earn their money. Then come the relatives and friends. Of course, they no need to have wep' a tear, havin' hired it done. But they did seem to feel real bad, they couldn't have wept and wailed any more if they had been hired to. Josiah sez:

"Samantha, when I'm took, if you hire anybody to mourn get some better lookin' females than these. I had almost ruther die onlamented than to have such lookin' creeters weepin' over my remains; now some fair lookin' females such as sister Celestine Bobbett and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury----"

But I interrupted him by telling him truly that no hired tears would fall on his beloved face if I outlived him, and no boughten groans would be hearn. Sez I, "The tears of true love and grief would bedew your forward."

"Well," sez he, "it would be my wishes."

As we wended our way along we met several water-carriers with leather bottles, jest such a one as Hagar took with her and Ishmael out in the desert, and it wuz on this same desert whose sands wuz siftin' in about us every chance it had that she lay the child down to die and angels come and fed him. And, also, it bein' along towards night we met several shepherds; one wuz carryin' a tired lamb in his arms. They wuz patriarkal in appearance and dressed jest like the Bible pictures. I felt as though I had met Abraham or Isaac onbeknown to them.

Another sight that impressed my pardner fearfully wuz the howlin' dervishes--we'd hearn about 'em a sight, and so we thought we would go and hear 'em howl. By payin' a little backsheesh (which is money) we got permission to attend one of their religious meetin's. There wuz a chief or Sheik, which Josiah always called a "shack"--and I d'no but he wuz well named--and about twenty or thirty howlers in long white robes. They made a low bow to the Shack and then knelt round him in a circle; then they bowed agin a number of times clear to the floor and begun to sing or pray. I d'no what you would call it, but the axents wuz dretful and the music that accompanied it harrowin' in the extreme. Then they got up and bowed agin to the Shack and begun to shake their heads and their arms and their feet rapid and voylent, all keepin' time to the music, or what I spoze they called music, their hair hangin' loose, their yellin' fearful, and then they begun to whirl like a top spinnin' round, faster and faster, whirlin' and howlin' and shriekin' till they couldn't howl or whirl any longer. Then the meetin' broke up as you may say, they formed a half circle agin round the Shack, bowed to the ground before him and fell down perfectly wore out on the floor. I should have thought they'd died. Why, I couldn't have stood it and lived nor Josiah couldn't; it wuz all we could stand to see it go on.

One day Miss Meechim and I visited an American Mission School for Arab and Egyptian children, and it wuz from one of these very schools that one of the Rajahs or native princes took his wife. She wuz a little donkey driver, and the teacher of the Mission, liking her and pitying her, got permission of her mother (a poor donkey driver of Cairo living in a mud hut) to take the child into her school. When she wuz about fourteen years old the Rajah, who had accepted the Christian religion, visited this school, and the little girl wuz teaching a class of barefooted Egyptian girls, sittin' on the floor about her.

Who can tell the mysteries of love? Like lightning it strikes where it will and must. Why should this Prince, educated in England, a friend of Queen Victoria, who had seen beautiful women all his days onmoved, why should he fall in love with this little girl, late a donkey driver in the streets of Cairo?

I d'no, but so it wuz, and he told the lady in charge of the school that he wanted to make her his wife. She wuz greatly surprised, and not knowin' he wuz what he said he wuz, asked him polite to go away and select some other bride. But the next day he come back, sent in his card and a autograph letter from Queen Victoria, and agin expressed his desire to marry the bright-eyed little Egyptian.

When the subject wuz broached to her she wep' and pleaded not to be sold into slavery, spozin' that wuz what it meant. But the Prince made her understand that he wanted her for his wife, and she consented to be educated in a fitting manner, and at last the weddin' took place at the home of the teacher.

The Prince took his wife to London, where she wuz presented at Court, and makes him a good wife, so fur as I know, and they say she's dretful good to the poor; 'tennyrate the Prince must think a good deal of her, for he presented every year one thousand pounds to help on the school where he found his Princess. This story is true and is stranger than most lies.

I spoze that from that time on all the dark-eyed little Egyptian maids in that school wuz lookin' out anxiously to see some prince comin' in and claim 'em and make a royal princess of 'em. But one swallow don't make a spring; I don't spoze there has been or will be agin such a romance.

Josiah said that we must not leave Cairo without seein' Pharo. Josiah said he felt real well acquainted with him, havin' read about him so much. Sez he, "He wuz a mean creeter as ever trod shoe-leather and I'd love to tell him so."

They keep him in the Museum of Cairo now, a purpose, I spoze, to scare folks from doin' what he did, for a humblier lookin' creeter I never see, and hard lookin'; I don't wonder a mite at the bad things I've hearn tell on him; why, a man that looked like that wuz sure to be mean as pusley. He looked as if he wuz bein' plagued now with every single plague that fell on him for his cruelty and I d'no but he is. I wonder that the Israelites got along with him so long as they did; Josiah wouldn't have stood it a week, he's that quick-tempered and despises the idee of bein' bossed round, and how Pharo did drive them poor children of Israel round; ground 'em right down to his terms, wouldn't let 'em say their soul wuz their own, worked 'em most to death, half starved 'em, wouldn't give 'em any rights, not a single right. But as I sez to Josiah, he got his come-up-ance for his heartless cruelty, he got plagued enough and drownded in the bargain.

He's a mummy now. Yes, as Josiah sez when he looked on him:

"You've got to be mum now, no givin' orders to your poor overworked hired help in your brick-fields, not lettin' 'em have even a straw that they begged for to lighten their burden. The descendants of them folks you driv round can stand here and poke fun at you all day and you've got to keep your mouth shet. Yes," sez he, "you've got to a place now where you can't be yellin' out your orders, you've got to be mum, for you're a mummy."

I didn't love to have Josiah stand and sass Pharo right to his face, but it seemed so gratifyin' to him I hated to break it up, and I felt towards him jest as he did, and Arvilly and Miss Meechim felt jest as we did about it; they loathed his looks, hatin' what he'd done so bad. But I thought from what I hearn Robert Strong sayin' to Dorothy that he had doubts about his being the real Bible Pharo, there wuz quite a lot of them kings by the same name, you know. But Miss Meechim hearn him and assured him that this was the very Pharo who so cruelly tortured the Israelites and who was drownded by the Lord for his cruelty, she knew it by her feelings. And she said she was so glad that she had seen for herself the great truth that the Pharo spirit of injustice and cruelty wuz crushed forever.

But Robert said that Pharo's cruelty sprang from unlimited power and from havin' absolute control over a weaker and helpless class; he said that would arouse the Pharo spirit in any man. That spirit, he said, was creeping into our American nation, the great Trusts and Monopolies formed for the enrichment of the few and the poverty of the many; what are they but the Pharo spirit of personal luxury and greed and dominion over the poor?

I knew he was thinkin' of his City of Justice, where every man had the opportunity to work and the just reward of his labor, where Charity (a good creeter Charity is too) stayed in the background, not bein' needed here, and Justice walked in her place. Where Justice and Labor walked hand in hand into ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. He didn't say nothin' about his own doin's, it wuzn't his way, but I hearn him say to Dorothy:

"The Voice is speaking now to America as it did to Egypt, Let my people go, out of their helpless bondage and poverty into better, more just and humane ways, but America doesn't listen. The rich stand on the piled up pyramid of the poor, Capital enslaves Labor and drives it with the iron bit of remorseless power and the sharp spur of Necessity where it will. But there must be a day of reckoning; the Voice will be heard, if not in peace with the sword:

'For the few shall not forever sway The many toil in sorrow, We'll sow the golden grain to-day, The harvest comes to-morrow.'"

But the greatest sight in Cairo and mebby the hull world is the Pyramaids.

I d'no as I had so many emotions in the same length of time durin' my hull tower as I did lookin' at them immense structures. It don't seem as if they wuz made by man; they seem more like mountains placed there by the same hand that made the everlastin' hills. They say that it took three hundred thousand men twenty years to build the biggest one. And I don't doubt it. If I had been asked to draw up specifications I wouldn't have took the job for a day's work less. Why, they say it took ten years to build the road over which them stuns wuz brought from the Nile, and good land! how did they ever do it? No hands nor no machinery that we know anything about at the present day could move one of them stuns, let alone bringin' 'em from heaven knows where. They couldn't have been got into any boat, and how did they do it? I d'no nor Josiah don't. Mebby the sphynx knows, most probable she duz, but she's a female that don't git herself into trouble talkin' and gossipin'. Lots of wimmen would do well to foller her example.

From the first minute we got to Cairo and long enough before that we had lotted on seein' the Pyramaids, Josiah had talked about 'em a sight, and told me time and agin that he did want to see the spink, he had got to see the spink.

Sez I, "You mean the Sphynx, Josiah."

"Yes," sez he, "the spink; I'm bound to see that. I want to tell Deacon Henzy and Brother Bobbett about it; they crowed over me quite a little after they went to Loontown to see them views of the spink and the Pyramaid of Chops. You know I wuz bed-sick at the time with a crick in my back. I guess they'll have to quirl down a little when I tell 'em I've walked round the spink and seen old Chops with my own eyes."

Well, I know lots of folks travel with no higher aim than to tell their exploits, so I didn't argy with him. And the hull party of us sot off one pleasant day to view them wonders; they're only six miles from Cairo. The Pyramaid of Cheops is higher than any structure in Europe; the Strassburg Cathedral is the highest--that is four hundred and sixty feet, and Cheops is four hundred and eighty feet high. Each of its sides is seven hundred and sixty feet long above the sand, and I d'no how much bigger it is underneath. The wild winds from the desert piles up that sand everywhere it can; it was blowin' aginst that pyramaid three or four thousand years before Christ wuz born, and has kep' at it ever sense; so it must have heaped up piles about it. The pyramaid is made of immense blocks of stun, and I hearn Josiah explainin' it out to Tommy. Sez he, "It is called Chops because the stun is chopped off kinder square."

But I interrupted and sez, "Josiah Allen, this wuz named after Cheops, one of the kings of Egypt; some say it wuz his tomb."

Miss Meechim sez, "They say it took three hundred thousand men twenty years to build it," and she remarked further, "How many days' work this king did give to the poor, and how good it wuz in him!" And Robert Strong said:

"Their work has lasted while the king is forgotten; labor against capital, labor ahead."

Dorothy looked dreamily up onto the immense pile and said nothin'.

Arvilly said if she had a long whitewash brush she would advertise her book, the "Twin Crimes," by paintin' a drunken man in a hovel beatin' his wife and children, whilst America wuz furnishin' him with the clubs, and the "Wild and Warlike Deeds of Men" in different wild and warlike attitudes.

And little Tommy wonnered if he could climb up on it and wonnered what anybody could see from the top.

And I looked on it and felt as if I could almost see the march of the centuries defile by its stubborn old sides, and I wondered like Tommy what one could look off and see from the top, gazing out acrost our centuries so full of wonders and inventions, into the glowin' mysteries of the twentieth century.

Robert Strong said that some thought it wuz built for astronomical purposes, for there is a passage down three hundred and twenty feet from the bed rock from which you can view the sky.

"And some think," sez Dorothy, "it wuz built to measure distances correctly, it stands true east, north, south, west."

And Miss Meechim sez, "I believe it wuz built for religious purposes: the interior passages have many stones and symbols that are a mystery to every one unless it is explained in this way."

Sez Arvilly, "I believe it wuz made to shet up folks in that got drunk and acted. Probable there wuz some even in that fur-off time that made fools of themselves jest as they do now, and old Chops built it to shet 'em up in, and mebby he wuz shet up in it, too; mebby he took to drinkin'. I wish I could have sold him the 'Twin Crimes'; it would have helped him a sight, but I wuzn't born soon enough," sez she, sithin'.

Tommy stood back a little, lookin' up and seein' some people half-way to the top, lookin' like flies on the side of the meetin' house, said:

"I wonner, oh, I wonner who made it and what it wuz made for, and oh, how I do wonner how they ever got them big stones to the top."

And I sez to myself, "the child is wiser than any of us. He don't try to measure his weak surmises on them great rocks and problems, but jest wonders at it all," and I thought I would foller his example, and I felt considerable better after I gin up.

Robert Strong and Dorothy and Arvilly clumb clear to the top, helped by Arab lifters and boosters. Arvilly and Dorothy wuz tuckered when they come down and they both said they wouldn't have undertook it if they had known what a job it wuz, but they said the view from the top wuz wonderful, wonderful! and I spoze it wuz, but I thought I would ruther hear 'em tell on't than to go through what they did gettin' up and down, and Miss Meechim, I guess, felt so too.

The other two pyramaids in this group wuz smaller than Cheops and stood not fur away. The Sphynx stands about a quarter of a mild off, lookin' off towards the east, facin' the risin' sun. I wonder if she expects the sunrise of civilization to dawn ag'in into her sight. 'Tennyrate she seems to be lookin' out for sunthin'.

There she has sot, meditatin' all these years. She wuz old, old as the hills when Christ wuz born. What hain't them old eyes seen if she senses anything?

From Cairo we went to Alexandria, where we made a short stay; we couldn't stay long anyway, we had loitered so on the journey. Here it wuz June. Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Nazareth we must visit, and still how could we hurry our footsteps in these sacred places that our soul had so longed to see?

Alexandria was considerable interestin' on several accounts; it wuz the home of Cleopatra, and the home of Hypatia, the friend and teacher of women. A smart creeter Hypatia Theon wuz, handsome as a picter, modest, good appearin', and a good talker. 'Tennyrate the rooms where she lectured on philosophy and how to git along in the world wuz crowded with appreciative hearers, and I spoze Mr. Cyrel, who wuz preachin' there at the time, and didn't get nigh so many to hear him, wuz mad as a hen at her for drawin' away the head men and wimmen. 'Tennyrate she wuz killed and burnt up some time ago, a-goin' on two thousand years. Yes, they burnt up all they could of her; they couldn't burn up her memory, nor liberty, nor the love of wimmin for talkin', and her stiddy practice on't when she gits a chance, not bein' able to. But to resoom:

The evenin' we got there Josiah looked out of our winder and see a camel kneelin' to take on its load, and sez Josiah: "If I could train the old mair to kneel down in front of the Jonesville meetin' house for me to git onto her back, how uneek it would look."

Sez I coldly, "Then you lay out to go to meetin' horseback, do you? And where should I be?"

"Oh, I might rent a camel for you from some circus; you know what big loads camels can take on, they can carry a ton or more, and it could carry you all right."

I despise such talk, I don't weigh nigh so much as he makes out.

But Josiah went on, "I d'no but a camel could carry both on us, I wouldn't add much to the load, I don't weigh very hefty."

"No," sez I, "you're not very hefty anyway."

But good land! I knew he couldn't rent any camel; circuses need 'em more than we do.

The next day we all went out to see Pompey's Piller which we had seen towerin' up before we landed, all on 'em ridin' donkeys but me, but I not being much of a hand to ride on any critter's back, preferred to go in a chair with long poles on each side, carried by four Arabs. Pompey's Piller is most a hundred feet high. Cleopatra's Needles wuz brought from Heliopolis. One is standing; the other, which lay for a long time nearly embedded in the drifting sand, wuz given as a present by Egypt to America, where it stands now in Central Park, New York. To see the mate to it here made us feel well acquainted with it and kinder neighborly. But we couldn't read the strange writin' on it to save our life. Some say that they wuz raised by Cleopatra in honor of the birth of her son, Cæsarion. But I d'no if she laid out to write about it so's I could read it, she'd ort to write plainer; I couldn't make out a word on't nor Josiah couldn't.

Cleopatra wuz dretful good lookin', I spoze, and a universal favorite with the opposite sect. But I never approved of her actions, and I wished as I stood there by that piller of hern that I could gin her a real good talkin' to. I would say to her:

"Cleopatra," sez I, "you little know what you're a-doin'. Mebby there wouldn't be so many Dakota and Chicago divorces in 1905 if it wuzn't for your cuttin' up and actin' in B. C. I'd say stealin' is stealin', and some wimmen think it is worse to steal their husbands away from 'em than it would be to steal ten pounds of butter out of their suller. And that, mom, would shet any woman up in jail as you well know. And you know, Cleopatra," sez I, "jest how you went on and behaved, and your example is a-floatin' down the River of Time to-day, same as you sailed down the Sydnus in that barge of yourn. And to-day your descendants or influence posterity sail down the River of Time in picture hats and feather boas, makin' up eyes and castin' languishin' glances towards poor unguarded men till they steal their hearts and souls right out of their bodies; steal all the sweetness and brightness out of some poor overworked woman's life, and if they don't take the body of their husband nothin' is said or done. Good land! what would I care for Josiah Allen's body if his love had been stole. I would tell the woman to take that in welcome sence she had all the rest. But they sail along down the River of Life, coquettin' with weak, handsome male Antonys, who had better be to home with their own lawful Octavias. So it goes." I always hated Cleopatra's doin's. And I wondered as I looked dreamily at that writin' of hern, if she wuz sorry for her actions now in that spear of hern, wherever it wuz, and wanted to ondo it.

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