The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-24
A START FOR UPPER EGYPT.
Scenes and Reflections on the Way to an
Egyptian Railroad Station.
Hotel Accommodations in Cairo Traditions
of hePyramids- Legend Concern
ing the Third of These Structures.
Correspondence of the indianapolis Journal


as have been in Egypt Palestine, Syria, Tur
key in Europe and Greece), I sit down to give
the Journal readers some account of my wander
ings. The home" which have written as the
first word of this letter, as many of your readers
will know, is Naples, in southern Italy, but as I
kept notes of my journey from day to day while
on the Nile, or visiting the wonders of upper
Egypt, or when travelling from Jaffa to Jerusalem,
or gazing upon the interesting scenes of Beirut,
Balbek and Damascus, or while steaming along
the shores of Asia Minor and amidst 'the isles of
Greece, up the Dardanelles or the Sea of Mar
mora TO Constantinople and through the Bos-
phorus, shall just date my letters from the
places where soiourned the longest, and re-
viewed my wanderings as we'll as my notes.
1t was bright morning in the first week of
February, this year, that, with my companions,
left Shepkeards Hotel, in Cairo, for the Boulak
station of the railway for upper Egypt. First,
let me say a word about Shepherds Hotel, an
institution" which you see mentioned
in almost every letter from Egypt, in
every guide-book to Egypt, and in every nov
ell about Egypt. AS do not travel as dead
head" my judgment may be considered toler-
ably impartial In one word, let me say to the
Indiana traveller who intends visiting Cairo, not
to go to Shepheard's. The NEW Hotel built by
the x-Khedive, is larger, airier, and better in
every way, and much more reasonable in price.
The original hotel-keeper, Shepheard, was an old
steward on one of the Peninsular and Oriental
steamships, before the day of the Suez canal
He has been dead these twenty years, and the
hotel named after him began to lose credit after
the ship canal was opened. But the troubles
and difficulties which brought the Intervention
of England into Egyptian affairs, brought scores
of old East Indian British officers to Cairo.
These men remembered the ''Shepheards" of
former times, and focked thither with their
wives, making it the fashionable hotel My IN
tercourse with these officers, must say, was
most pleasant But the general exclusiveness
of these sons of Mars and their decided ignoring
many of the civilians, both American and En-
glish, were such that could not help thinking
of Charley Hallocks definition of society at St
Johns New Brunswick, during our ''onpleasant-
ness" when a regiment of British artillery was
sent to that city renowned for shipbuilding and
lumber. Halock (who will be recalled as
former editor of the Forest and Stream wrote:
Society in st. Johns may be divided into four
know the officers third, those who don't know
the officers, but want to know them, and fourth,
those who don't care d-n for the officers"
That is the case as general thing, at Shep-
heards, in Cairo. Add to this an old ram
shackle building and exorbitant prices, and
there is every inducement for civilian to leave
Shepherds out in the cold and to go to some
other hotel.
The railroads from Alexandria and from Suez
enter Cairo within ten minutes of the principal
hotels. But the railway station for the road to
upper Egypt is the left bank (militarily
speakingl of the Nile, and is half way to the
Pyramids, and is just as inconvenient as if one,
in going from Indianapolis to Cleveland. would
have to take one of Frank Birds nice hacks and
drive over rough road out to Brightwood to
enter the Decline train. Indianapolis, of all
American cities, has need to be thankful for her
Union station, and / am glad to have Journal
containing picture of the proposed new Union
Station with Mr.. Malott's explanations But to
go to the station of the Upper Egyptian railway
at Bouak-Dakrur is infinitely more instructive
and interesting than to go from indianapolis to
Brghtwood. 1t was half past in the morning
when our carriage left the hotel in Cairo, and
at first bowled along the wide streets of the
European part of the city, and then came to the
outer edge. amidst the homes of the lowly, which
| seem like the whole Mohammedan power hurry
| ing to indistinct decay" Here the streets
| were narrower and 1t was almost impossible for
| us to get along, for there thousands and
thousands of camels thence all the way to the
| railway station. These huge beasts were bear
| ing green clover for the city horses
| would not have it understood that we were
in narrow roadway all the time. BY no means,
for we had scarcely cleared the wide
| iron bridge which spans the Nile
| without being full in the country. There it
| stretched on either hand, the land of fertility
along the banks of that wonderful river, far
as the eye could see. The battle ground of the
! Pyramids, eight miles north of the Pyramids, is
in the range of vision. The morning light of
| February shone down upon fields of wheat,
clover, sugar-cane, cotton and Indian corn, and
upon forests of date palms lifting their lofty
| fronds against the clear sky. And now west of
us and miles beyond our camel-thronged road,
we the Pyramids, all shining in the beams
| of a sun as warm as that of mid May in Indiana.
AS regards these hoary old Pyramids, never
4 tire of looking at those weird, mysterious sim
| pie, yet grand structures rising above the fields
before them and the centuries of sands behind
/ them. They impress me more solemnly than all
other works created by human hands AS the
sunlight played on their lofty submits and slop-
] ing Sides they were lit up with real splendor,
and / could not help recalling the tradition
| recorded by the Arabian historian Masudi-a
/ tradition not unlike the legend of the German
! Lorelei-viz.: that ION the western Pyramid is
enthroned beautiful naked woman 1.-THE Greeks
! called her Rhodope with dazzling teeth, who
/ allures desert wayfarers from the south and
west, embraces them in her arms and deprives
| them of reason Tom Moore aludes to the
same Egyptian egsnd in some of his melifuous
! lines:
| Fair Rhodope as story tells
/ The bright unearthly nymph who dwels
/ Mid sunless gold and jewels hid,
/ The Lady cf the Pyramid"
| By the way, Strabo told the original story,
/ which suspect is at the bottom of al, the after
! myths and legends in the subject, and it is rath
err of the Cinderella order, with eagle thrown
| in. 1t is as follows: While Rhodopis was bath
/ ing, an angel carried off one of her shoes, and
flying with it TO Memphis. dropped it into the
the lap of the King, who was sitting on the
| judgment seat. The King 'lyou see men were
very much then, as they are now, concerning la
| and surprised at the strange occurrence, sent
out messengers into all parts of the country to
find the owner of that shoe. The owner was