Book: The Treasury of Ancient Egypt

A >> Arthur E. P. B. Weigall >> The Treasury of Ancient Egypt




There can be no question that he was a writer of great power, and this
tale of his adventures must be regarded as one of the jewels of the
ancient Egyptian language. The brief description of the Prince of
Byblos, seated with his back to the window, while the waves beat against
the wall below, brings vividly before one that far-off scene, and
reveals a lightness of touch most unusual in writers of that time. There
is surely, too, an appreciation of a delicate form of humour observable
in his account of some of his dealings with the prince. It is appalling
to think that the peasants who found this roll of papyrus might have
used it as fuel for their evening fire; and that, had not a drifting
rumour of the value of such articles reached their village, this little
tale of old Egypt and the long-lost Kingdoms of the Sea would have gone
up to empty heaven in a puff of smoke.




CHAPTER VI.

THE STORY OF THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR.


When the early Spanish explorers led their expeditions to Florida, it
was their intention to find the Fountain of Perpetual Youth, tales of
its potent waters having reached Peter Martyr as early as 1511. This
desire to discover the things pertaining to Fairyland has been,
throughout history, one of the most fertile sources of adventure. From
the days when the archaic Egyptians penetrated into the regions south of
the Cataracts, where they believed that the inhabitants were other than
human, and into Pount, the "Land of the Ghosts," the hope of Fairyland
has led men to search the face of the earth and to penetrate into its
unknown places. It has been the theme of countless stories: it has
supplied material for innumerable songs.

And in spite of the circumambulations of science about us, in spite of
the hardening of all the tissues of our imagination, in spite of the
phenomenal development of the commonplace, this desire for a glimpse of
the miraculous is still set deeply in our hearts. The old quest of
Fairyland is as active now as ever it was. We still presume, in our
unworthiness, to pass the barriers, and to walk upon those paths which
lead to the enchanted forests and through them to the city of the Moon.
At any moment we are ready to set forth, like Arthur's knights, in
search of the Holy Grail.

The explorer who penetrates into Central Africa in quest of King
Solomon's mines is impelled by a hope closely akin to that of the
Spaniards. The excavator who digs for the buried treasures of the Incas
or of the Egyptians is often led by a desire for the fabulous. Search is
now being made in the western desert of Egypt for a lost city of
burnished copper; and the Anglo-Egyptian official is constantly urged by
credulous natives to take camels across the wilderness in quest of a
town whose houses and temples are of pure gold. What archaeologist has
not at some time given ear to the whispers that tell of long-lost
treasures, of forgotten cities, of Atlantis swallowed by the sea? It is*
not only children who love the tales of Fairyland. How happily we have
read Kipling's 'Puck of Pook's Hill,' De la Motte Fouque's 'Undine,'
Kenneth Grahame's 'Wind in the Willows,' or F.W. Bain's Indian stories.
The recent fairy plays--Barry's "Peter Pan," Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird,"
and the like--have been enormously successful. Say what we will, fairy
tales still hold their old power over us, and still we turn to them as a
relief from the commonplace.

*Transcriber's note: In the original text the word "is" is omitted.

Some of us, failing to find Fairyland upon earth, have transferred it
to the kingdom of Death; and it has become the hope for the future. Each
Sunday in church the congregation of business men and hard-worked women
set aside the things of their monotonous life, and sing the songs of the
endless search. To the rolling notes of the organ they tell the tale of
the Elysian Fields: they take their unfilled desire for Fairyland and
adjust it to their deathless hope of Heaven. They sing of crystal
fountains, of streets paved with gold, of meadows dressed with living
green where they shall dwell as children who now as exiles mourn. There
everlasting spring abides and never-withering flowers; there ten
thousand times ten thousand clad in sparkling raiment throng up the
steeps of light. Here in the church the most unimaginative people cry
aloud upon their God for Fairyland.

"The roseate hues of early dawn,
The brightness of the day,
The crimson of the sunset sky,
How fast they fade away!
Oh, for the pearly gates of Heaven,
Oh, for the golden floor...."

They know no way of picturing the incomprehensible state of the future,
and they interpret it, therefore, in terms of the fairy tale.

I am inclined to think that this sovereignty of the fairies is
beneficial. Fairy tales fill the minds of the young with knowledge of
the kindly people who will reward with many gifts those that are
charitable to the old; they teach a code of chivalry that brings as its
reward the love of the beautiful princess in the tower; they tell of
dangers overcome by courage and perseverance; they suggest a contact
with nature which otherwise might never be developed. Where angels and
archangels overawe by their omnipotence, the microscopic fairies who can
sit singing upon a mushroom and dangle from the swaying stem of a
bluebell, carry the thoughts down the scale of life to the little and
really important things. A sleepy child will rather believe that the
Queen of the Fairies is acting sentry upon the knob of the bedpost than
that an angel stands at the head of the cot with great wings spread in
protection--wings which suggest the probability of claws and a beak to
match.

The dragons which can only be slain by the noble knight, the
enchantments which can only be broken by the outwitting of the evil
witch, the lady who can only be won by perils bravely endured, form the
material of moral lessons which no other method of teaching could so
impress upon the youthful mind.

And when mature years are attained the atmosphere of Fairyland remains
with us. The lost songs of the little people drift through the brain,
recalling the infinite possibilities of beauty and goodness which are so
slightly out of reach; the forgotten wonder of elfs and brownies
suggests itself to us from the heart of flowers and amidst the leaves of
trees. The clear depths of the sea take half their charm from the
memory of the mermaid's palace; the silence of forests is rich with the
expectancy of the Knight of the Golden Plume; the large spaces of
kitchens and corridors are hushed for the concealment of Robin
Goodfellow.

It is the elusiveness, the enchantment, of Fairyland which, for the
mature mind, constitutes its greatest value and charm; it is a man's
desire for the realms of Midsummer-night that makes the building of
those realms in our childhood so valuable. We are constantly
endeavouring to recapture the grace of that intangible kingdom, and the
hope of ultimate success retains the elasticity of the mind. Held fast
by the stiffened joints of reason and closeted with the gout of science,
we are fettered prisoners in the world unless there be the knowledge
that something eludes us to lead us on. We know quite well that the
fairies do not exist, but at the same time we cannot deny that the
elusive atmosphere of Fairyland is one with that of our fondest dreams.

Who has not, upon a grey morning, awakened from sleep with the knowledge
that he has passed out from a kingdom of dream more dear than all the
realms of real life? Vainly we endeavour to recall the lost details, but
only the impression remains. That impression, however, warms the tone of
our whole day, and frames our thoughts as it were with precious stones.
Thus also it is with the memory of our childhood's idea of Fairyland:
the impression is recalled, the brain peers forward, the thoughts go on
tiptoe, and we feel that we have caught a glimpse of Beauty. Indeed, the
recollection of the atmosphere created in our youthful minds by means of
fairy tales is perhaps the most abundant of the sources of our knowledge
of Beauty in mature years.

I do not suppose that I am alone in declaring that some of the most
tender feelings of childhood are inspired by the misfortunes of the
Beast in the story of "Beauty and the Beast"; and the Sleeping Beauty is
the first love of many a small boy. Man, from his youth up, craves
enchantment; and though the business of life gives him no opportunity
for the indulging in day-dreams, there are few of us indeed who have not
at some time sought the phantom isles, and sought in vain. There is no
stormy night, when the wind moans through the trees, and the moon-rack
flies overhead, but takes something of its mystery from the recollection
of the enchantments of the dark ages. The sun does not sink into the sea
amidst the low-lying clouds but some vague thought is brought to mind of
the uncharted island whereon that maiden lies sleeping whose hair is
dark as heaven's wrath, and whose breast is white like alabaster in the
pathway of the moon. There she lies in the charmed circle under the
trees, where none may enter until that hour when some pale, lost mariner
shall surprise the secret of the pathway, and, coming suddenly upon her,
shall kiss her shadowed lips. Vague, elusive, undefined, as such
fancies must be, they yet tinge the thoughts of almost every man at
certain moments of his life, and set him searching for the enchantment
of bygone days. Eagerly he looks for those

"...Magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn";

and it is the fact of their unreality that gives them their haunting
value.

The following story, preserved in a papyrus now at St Petersburg,
describes a mysterious island whereon there dwelt a monster most lovable
and most forlorn: a creature so tenderly drawn, indeed, that the reader
will not fail to enthrone him in the little company of the nobility of
the kingdom of the fairy tale. Translations of the story by two or three
savants have appeared; but the present version, which I give in its
literal form, has been prepared especially for this volume by Mr Alan
Gardiner; and, coming from him, it may be said to be the last word of
the science upon the subject of this difficult text.

The scene with which the story opens is clearly indicated by the
introductory sentences, though actually it is not described. A large
war-galley had come swinging down the Nile from the land of Wawat in the
south, the oars flashing in the Nubian sunlight. On the left the granite
rocks of the island of Bigeh towered above the vessel; on the right the
island of Philae, as yet devoid of buildings, rested placidly on the
blue waters. Ahead were the docks of Shallal, where the clustered boats
lay darkly against the yellow of the desert, and busy groups of figures,
loading and unloading cargoes, moved to and fro over the sand. Away to
the left, behind Bigeh, the distant roar of the First Cataract could be
heard as the waters went rushing down from Nubia across the frontier
into Egypt.


[Illustration: PL. XIV. A sailor of Lower Nubia and his son.]

[_Photo by E. Bird._


The great vessel had just returned from the little-known country of
Ethiopia, which bordered the Land of the Ghosts, having its frontiers
upon the shores of the sea that encircled the world; and the sailors
were all straining their eyes towards these docks which formed the
southernmost outpost of Egypt, their home. The greatest excitement
prevailed on deck; but in the cabin, erected of vari-coloured cloth in
the stern of the vessel, the noble leader of the expedition which was
now at its conclusion lay in a troubled sleep, tossing nervously upon
his bed. His dreams were all of the terrible ordeal which was before
him. He could take no pleasure in his home-coming, for he was driven
nigh crazy by the thought of entering the presence of the great Pharaoh
himself in order to make his report.

It is almost impossible to realise nowadays the agonies of mind that a
man had to suffer who was obliged to approach the incarnation of the sun
upon earth, and to crave the indulgence of this god in regard to any
shortcomings in the conduct of the affairs intrusted to him. Of all the
kings of the earth the Pharaoh was the most terrible, the most
thoroughly frightening. Not only did he hold the lives of his subjects
in his hand to do with them as he chose, but he also controlled the
welfare of their immortal souls; for, being a god, he had dominion over
the realms of the dead. To be censured by the Pharaoh was to be
excommunicated from the pleasures of this earth and outlawed from the
fair estate of heaven. A well-known Egyptian noble named Sinuhe, the
hero of a fine tale of adventure, describes himself as petrified with
terror when he entered the audience-chamber. "I stretched myself on my
stomach," he writes, "and became unconscious before him (the Pharaoh).
This god addressed me kindly, but I was as a man overtaken by the
twilight: my soul departed, my flesh trembled; my heart was no more in
my body that I should know life from death."[1] Similarly another
personage writes: "Remember the day of bringing the tribute, when thou
passest into the Presence under the window, the nobles on each side
before his Majesty, the nobles and ambassadors (?) of all countries.
They stand and gaze at the tribute, while thou fearest and shrinkest
back, and thy hand is weak, and thou knowest not whether it is death or
life that is before thee; and thou art brave (only) in praying to thy
gods: 'Save me, prosper me this one time.'"[2]

[Footnote 1: Sinuhe, 254-256.]

[Footnote 2: Papyrus Koller, 5, 1-4.]

Of the Pharaoh it is written--

"Thine eye is clearer than the stars of heaven;
Thou seest farther than the sun.
If I speak afar off, thine ear hears;
If I do a hidden deed, thine eye sees it."[1]

[Footnote 1: Anastasi Papyri, 4, 5, 6 ff.]

Or again--

"The god of taste is in thy mouth,
The god of knowledge is in thy heart;
Thy tongue is enthroned in the temple of truth;
God is seated upon thy lips."[2]

[Footnote 2: Kubban stela.]

To meet face to face this all-knowing, all-seeing, celestial creature,
from whom there could be no secrets hid nor any guilt concealed, was an
ordeal to which a man might well look forward with utter horror. It was
this terrible dread that, in the tale with which we are now concerned,
held the captain of this Nubian vessel in agony upon his couch.

As he lay there, biting his finger-nails, one of the ship's officers,
himself a former leader of expeditions, entered the cabin to announce
their arrival at the Shallal docks.

"Good news, prince," said he cheerfully to his writhing master. "Look,
we have reached home. They have taken the mallet and driven in the
mooring-post; the ship's cable has been put on land. There is
merrymaking and thanksgiving, and every man is embracing his fellow. Our
crew has returned unscathed, without loss to our soldiers. We have
reached the end of Wawat, we have passed Bigeh. Yes, indeed, we have
returned safely; we have reached our own land."

At this the prince seems to have groaned anew, much to the distress of
his friend, who could but urge him to pull himself together and to play
the man.

"Listen to me, prince," he begged, "for I am one void of exaggeration.
Wash yourself, pour water on your fingers."

The wretched, man replied, it would seem, with a repetition of his
fears; whereupon the old sailor seems to have sat down by his side and
to have given him a word of advice as to how he should behave in the
king's presence. "Make answer when you are addressed," he said; "speak
to the king with a heart in you; answer without restraint. For it is a
man's mouth that saves him.... But do as you will: to talk to you is
wearisome (to you)."

Presently the old sailor was seized with an idea. He would tell a story,
no matter whether it were strictly true or not, in which his own
adventures should be set forth. He would describe how he was wrecked
upon an unknown island, how he was saved from death, and how, on his
return, he conducted into the Pharaoh's presence. A narration of his own
experiences before his sovereign might give heart to his captain, and
might effectually lift the intolerable burden of dread from the princely
shoulders.

"I will relate to you," he began, "a similar thing which befell me my
very self. I was making a journey to the mines of the sovereign ..."

The prince may here be supposed to have sat up and given gloomy
attention to his friend's words, for Egyptians of all ages have loved a
good story, and tales of adventures in the south were, in early times,
most acceptable. The royal gold mines referred to were probably situated
at the southern-most end of the eastern Egyptian desert. To reach them
one would take ship from Kossair or some other Red Sea port, sail down
the coast to the frontiers of Pount, the modern Somaliland, and then
travel inland by caravan. It was a perilous undertaking, and, at the
time when this story was written, the journey must have furnished
material for amazing yarns.

"I went down on the Great Green Sea," continued the speaker, "in a ship
one hundred and fifty cubits[1] in length and forty cubits in breadth,
and in it were a hundred and fifty sailors, picked men of Egypt. They
scanned the heavens and they scanned the earth, and their hearts were
stouter than lions. They foretold the storm or ever it came, and the
tempest when as yet it was not."

[Footnote 1: The average cubit was about 20-1/2 inches.]

A storm arose while they were out of sight of land, and rapidly
increased in violence, until the waves, according to the very restrained
estimate of the narrator, were eight cubits high--that is to say, about
thirteen or fourteen feet. To one who was accustomed to the waves of the
Nile this would be a great height; and the passage thus suggests that
the scribe was an untravelled man. A vessel of 150 cubits, or about 250
feet, in length might have been expected to ride out a storm of this
magnitude; but, according to the story, she went to pieces, and the
whole ship's company, with the single exception of the teller of the
tale, were drowned. The survivor managed to cling to a plank of wood,
which was driven by the wind towards the shores of an uncharted island,
and here at length he was cast up by the waves.

Not far from the beach there was a small thicket, and to this the
castaway hastened, sheltering therein from the fury of the storm. For
three days in deep despair he lay hidden, "without a companion," as he
said, "save my heart;" but at last the tempest subsided, the sun shone
in the heavens once again, and the famished mariner was able to go in
search of food, which, to his delight, he found in abundance.

The scene upon which he gazed as he plucked the fruit of the laden trees
was most mysterious, and all that he saw around him must have had an
appearance not altogether consistent with reality, for, indeed, the
island was not real. It had been called into existence, perhaps, at the
bidding of some god to relieve the tedium of an eternal afternoon, and
suddenly it had appeared, floating upon the blue waters of the ocean.
How long it had remained there, how long it would still remain, none
could tell, for at any moment the mind of the god might be diverted, and
instantly it would dissolve and vanish as would a dream. Beneath the
isle the seas moved, and there in the darkness the fishes of the deep,
with luminous, round eyes, passed to and fro, nibbling the roots of the
trees above them. Overhead the heavens stretched, and around about
spread the expanse of the sea upon which no living thing might be seen,
save only the dolphins as they leapt into the sunshine and sank again
amidst the gleaming spray.

There was abundant vegetation upon the island, but it does not appear to
have looked quite real. The fig-trees were heavy with fruit, the vines
were festooned from bough to bough, hung with clusters of grapes, and
pomegranates were ripe for the plucking. But there seems to have been an
unearthliness about them, as though a deep enchantment were upon them.
In the tangled undergrowth through which the bewildered sailor walked
there lay great melons and pumpkins. The breeze wafted to his nostrils
the smell of the incense-trees; and the scent of the flowers, after the
storm, must have made every breath he breathed a pleasure of Paradise to
him. Moving over the luxuriant ground, he put up flights of wonderful
birds which sped towards the interior, red, green, and golden, against
the sky. Monkeys chattered at him from the trees, and sprang from
branch to branch amidst the dancing flowers. In shadowed pools of clear
water fishes were to be seen, gliding amidst the reeds; and amongst the
rocks beside the sea the castaway could look down upon the creatures of
the deep imprisoned between the tides.

Food in all forms was to hand, and he had but to fill his arms with the
good things which Fate had provided. "I found there," he said, "figs,
grapes, and all manner of goodly onions; melons and pomegranates were
there, and pumpkins of every kind. Fishes were there and fowls: there
was nought that was lacking in it. I satisfied myself, and set upon the
ground the abundance of that with which my arms were filled. I took the
fire-borer and kindled a fire, and made a burnt-offering to the gods."

Seated in the warm sunshine amidst the trees, eating a roast fowl
seasoned with onions or some equally palatable concoction, he seems to
have found the life of a shipwrecked mariner by no means as distressing
as he had anticipated; and the wording of the narrative appears to be so
arranged that an impression of comfortable ease and security may
surround his sunlit figure. Suddenly, however, all was changed. "I
heard," said he, "a sound as of thunder, and I thought it was the waves
of the sea." Then "the trees creaked and the earth trembled"; and, like
the Egyptian that he was, he went down on his shaking hands and knees,
and buried his face in the ground.

At length "I uncovered my face," he declared, "and I found it was a
serpent that came, of the length of thirty cubits"--about fifty
feet--"and his tail was more than two cubits" in diameter. "His skin was
overlaid with gold, and his eyebrows were of real lapis lazuli, and he
was exceeding perfect."

"He opened his mouth to me," he continued, "as I lay on my stomach
before him, and said to me: 'Who brought thee, who brought thee, little
one?--who brought thee? If thou delayest to tell me who brought thee to
this island I will cause thee to know thyself (again only) when thou art
ashes, and art become that which is not seen'"--that is to say, a ghost.

"Thus you spoke to me," whispered the old sailor, as though again
addressing the serpent, who, in the narration of these adventures, had
become once more a very present reality to him, "but I heard it not. I
lay before thee, and was unconscious."

Continuing his story, he told how the great serpent lifted him tenderly
in his golden mouth, and carried him to his dwelling-place, setting him
down there without hurt, amongst the fruit-trees and the flowers. The
Egyptian at once flung himself upon his stomach before him, and lay
there in a stupor of terror. The serpent, however, meant him no harm,
and indeed looked down on him with tender pity as he questioned him
once more.

"Who brought thee, who brought thee, little one?" he asked again, "Who
brought thee to this island of the Great Green Sea, whereof the (under)
half is waves?"

On his hands and knees before the kindly monster the shipwrecked
Egyptian managed to regain possession of his faculties sufficiently to
give an account of himself.

"I was going down to the mines," he faltered, "on a mission of the
sovereign, in a ship one hundred and fifty cubits in length and forty in
breadth, and in it were one hundred and fifty sailors, picked men of
Egypt. They scanned the heavens and they scanned the earth, and their
hearts were stouter than lions. They foretold the storm or ever it came,
and the tempest when as yet it was not. Every one of them, his heart was
stout and his arm strong beyond his fellow. There was none unproven
amongst them. The storm arose while that we were on the Great Green Sea,
before we touched land; and as we sailed it redoubled (its strength),
and the waves thereof were eight cubits. There was a plank of wood to
which I clung. The ship perished, and of them that were in her not one
was left saving me alone, who now am at your side. And I was brought to
this island by the waves of the Great Green Sea."

At this point the man seems to have been overcome once more with
terror, and the serpent, therefore, hastened to reassure him.

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