The Quest of Julian Day (39 page)

The bulk of these ancient sanctuaries have now been cleared to their original ground level and as we wandered through the Luxor temple we saw, high up on one wall, the crude drawings with which the early Christians had defaced the beautiful Egyptian reliefs and, thirty feet above us in the corner of one courtyard, a mosque which is still used by an Arab congregation.

When the temple was cleared of refuse great efforts were made to obtain permission to demolish the mosque but the Egyptian Government would not grant it because a Mohammedan saint named Abu'l-Haggâg lies buried there; and Sylvia told me an interesting yarn about the excavator who had been foiled in his attempts to clear the whole temple.

The floor of the temple lies below the level of the Nile when the river is in flood and only about a hundred yards from it. Since the excavator could not induce the authorities to let him demolish this last incongruity which spoils the beauty of one of the courtyards, he planned so to arrange a new digging that there would be an ‘accident' and when the Nile rose its waters would flood the whole temple, undermine the foundation of the mosque, now unprotected by refuse, and bring it crashing down. He completed his preparations and waited patiently for the Nile to rise but on the very night of the inundation, when he intended to remove the barriers so that the water would come rushing in, he died of a heart attack.

The Mohammedans, learning of his intentions afterwards, attributed his death to a miracle by their saint, Abu'l-Haggâg.
In any case, the mosque remains inviolate and still spoils the symmetry of the courtyard.

When I got back to the hotel I found Oonas sitting in my room staring out of the window. She had evidently been working herself up all the afternoon and, the instant I appeared, she treated me to a grand scene of jealous anger.

‘How dare I', she demanded, ‘leave her at the very first opportunity for that brazen, pasty-faced, yellow-haired Mademoiselle Shane?'

I assured her that I had not the least interest in Sylvia, or Sylvia in me, beyond perfectly normal friendship. But she raved on so that I could hardly get a word in edgeways, declaring that if I preferred that bloodless, flat-chested, gawky creature to herself, she was not prepared to submit to such an indignity; she would rather kill Sylvia and be killed herself than surrender me to her.

I pointed out that there was no question of her surrendering me to anybody but she became positively hysterical with jealous rage and accused me of having spent the afternoon in Sylvia's bedroom.

For a moment her eyes goggled as though she was going to have a fit, then she burst into a violent storm of weeping; upon which I took her in my arms and kissed her.

It was a thoroughly unpleasant half-hour yet, owing to my calm perseverance, I managed to convince her that I really loved her, and by the time we parted to dress for dinner she was perfectly happy again.

In view of this jealous scene I thought it best that Oonas and Sylvia should not meet that evening so, after dinner, we just nodded to the others and went straight upstairs.

During the meal Oonas had suggested that next day we should make an expedition across the river; in consequence I ordered a picnic lunch to be packed for us and the following morning we set out together.

A motor-launch took us across the Nile and we were met on the other side by Oonas' chauffeur with her car which had been
ferried across. It was a beautiful silver Rolls and it carried us in luxurious comfort through the fertile belt to the edge of the desert where many tombs and temples are situated beneath a long line of towering sandstone cliffs.

One of the most interesting spots is the beautiful temple of Deir el Ba'hari which is cut out of the living rock in three huge terraces. It was constructed by Egypt's greatest woman ruler, Hat-shept-sut, the Queen Elizabeth of Ancient Egypt. She lived in the time of the mighty XVIIIth Dynasty and married Thothmes II, who seems to have been such a weak ruler that, even as a young girl, she soon gathered all power into her hands. She later succeeded in deposing her weak consort and proclaimed herself the divinely-chosen heir of his dead father, Thothmes I; but her half-brother or possibly step-son—it is not quite clear which—was proclaimed Thothmes III by certain members of the powerful priesthood; upon which this determined lady married him too, in order to eliminate him as a rival.

Thothmes III, apparently, was a young man who did not like being dominated by his forceful and now middle-aged wife so he left her to combine with the exiled Thothmes II against her. She had some difficult years endeavouring to suppress the two of them but Thothmes II died and Thothmes III apparently decided that he had better give in to her, so he returned to Egypt and reigned with her as co-ruler although up to the age of 40 he remained entirely in the background and she ruled with absolute power for a period of untroubled years.

This was the more remarkable in that Thothmes III later proved to be the greatest monarch in all Egyptian history. When he was in his early forties Egypt's Syrian dominions revolted, so the Queen allowed him to go at the head of an army to suppress the rising. He was signally successful, and while he was away on this campaign she died. Released at last from the leading-strings of his elderly wife-stepmother-half-sister, he became the supreme ruler and reigned for another seventeen years, fighting fifteen campaigns and consolidating the Egyptian Empire from the Third Cataract of the Nile to the banks of the Euphrates.

The hatred which this great conqueror bore his consort, on account of the score of years during the prime of his manhood
during which she had kept him idle and powerless, is recorded for ever by the vindictive manner in which, after her death, he defaced the monuments which she had erected.

Hat-shept-sut was a great builder and raised innumerable shrines to the gods where she was portrayed by carvings on the walls in the guise of a male Pharaoh divinely born, offering homage and incense to the local and national deities. With a fanatical thoroughness Thothmes III caused these images of her to be chipped out of the stone, together with her name which appeared in the Royal Cartouche beneath them. Throughout the length and breadth of Egypt he destroyed every memorial to her, with a single exception of one that is on a wall of the temple at Deir el Ba'hari; which he could not touch because the Queen is portrayed as a young girl being suckled by the cow-goddess Hathor and, since the two figures are linked together, he dared not deface that of the deity.

His efforts to erase the memory of the great queen from the annals of Egyptian history have proved quite unavailing, as the temples which she built are known and remain an abiding monument to the glory of her reign, while chief among them is this uniquely beautiful rock temple at Deir el Ba'hari.

It is here, along the inner side of one of the colonnades, that there is recorded the result of the first Egyptian expedition to the Land of Punt, as Abyssinia was called in those days. The Queen despatched five ships down the Red Sea and an exquisite series of carvings tells the story of the return of the expedition with ever sort of strange and valuable merchandise welcomed by a great multitude playing flutes and scattering flowers while there passes the procession of slaves and donkeys from the ships, laden down with gold, ebony, ivory, myrrh, living incense trees, baboons, apes, hounds and leopard skins.

Oonas and I spent the best part of the morning wandering round the temple and then retired to Cook's rest-house, which lies only about a quarter of a mile from it, to wash, eat our excellent picnic lunch and drink some of the best coffee procurable in Egypt.

We decided to spend the afternoon in the Valley of the Nobles which is in some ways more interesting than the Valley of the Kings as, although the tombs are much smaller, the
paintings, instead of being confined to formal delineations of the Pharaohs and the Gods, are mainly scenes of family life as the Egyptians lived it and hoped it would be in the next world.

In many of them these paintings are of such an extraordinary freshness that although they were done over 3,000 years ago they have all the appearance of having been finished only yesterday. The scenes depicted, too, are so human that they bridge the great gulf of years and present the Egyptians as cultured, kindly people, very much like ourselves. The sort of episodes portrayed are: a nobleman fishing from a boat with his wife unpacking the picnic basket beside him while, as he leans over to spear a fish, his little daughter is throwing her arms round one of his legs for fear he might fall overboard; the overseer of a farm kneeling down to remove a thorn from a slave-girl's bare foot; a blind harper being fed after he has entertained a gentleman's family. In every tomb the husband and wife are pictured seated side by side on the far wall of the burial chamber with their arms twined affectionately round each other's waists.

One tomb appealed to us particularly; it was that of Sennufer, a prince of Thebes and superintendent of the Royal gardens. Unlike the others, the rock of its low roof had not been chiselled flat but left rugged; the whole ceiling had then been painted over with vine leaves and great bunches of purple grapes. Owing to the uneven surface it was extraordinarily effective and in the flickering light of the candles it really gave the temporary illusion that one was standing beneath a wide spread vinery where the grapes were just ripe for picking.

Climbing up and down the sides of the steep hills in which these tombs are situated, under the blazing sun, and scrambling down into their dark, narrow entrances was dusty and tiring work, so although our day was full of interest we were glad enough to re-cross the river about five o'clock and get back to the hotel for a badly-needed bath.

That evening, just as we were finishing dinner, Harry came over to ask if we would like to join up for coffee in the lounge afterwards and we naturally accepted. The usual nightly dance got going shortly afterwards and I danced with all three of the girls in turn. Sylvia was in excellent spirits although later it
struck me that perhaps her gaiety was a little forced. While we were dancing together she chipped me a lot about my success with Oonas and, as I took it in good part, we were laughing most of the time that we glided round the room together.

It was that, I think, which upset Oonas again; added to the fact that she was an absolutely rotten dancer, heavy as lead and clumsy with it; whereas Sylvia, although much taller, was as light as a feather and danced divinely. She was obviously extremely fond of dancing, too, and as Harry was not particularly expert it was not surprising that a quarter of an hour later, when the band struck up an old favourite, she should suggest our dancing it together.

As I had only danced with Oonas once, this put the lid on it. She promptly stood up and declared sulkily that she was tired and going to bed. In common decency I could hardly say I was going with her and march off at the same moment so I wished her a polite good night and went on to the floor with Sylvia.

The incident served to change Sylvia's manner entirely. Instead of being amused she was annoyed and said at once:

‘The stupid little fool! What does she think I want to do? Eat you? But I suppose she's so used to snatching other people's men that she thinks everyone is tarred with the same brush.'

‘Now, now!' I laughed. ‘Give her a chance. Although she's had a European education she's extraordinarily primitive in many of her idea and if you weren't so good-looking I don't suppose she would be so jealous.'

‘Thanks for the compliment, but I'm no more attractive than three or four other girls you can see here if you look round the room. The thing is, if your little Egyptian friend considers herself fitted to mix with decent people she should learn our canons of behaviour. She ought to realise that girls like myself don't deliberately angle for young men who're obviously occupied elsewhere or want to rush off to bed with every man they meet.'

‘She'll learn in time,' I shrugged. ‘But I think what really got her was the fact that she's such a rotten dancer whereas you're quite obviously a star turn at the game.'

Sylvia thawed a little. ‘I simply adore it and that's really
what made me so angry. You dance awfully well yourself, Julian, and if this little minx hadn't come on the scene I should have had one of the best partners I've had for ages to dance with every evening. As it is, I suppose I've got to take a back seat, or else you'll have to pay for it by gruelling scenes of jealousy each night when you go along to that young woman's bedroom.'

‘Why should you think I do that?' I asked.

‘My dear, isn't that obvious? What possible attraction could she have for you otherwise? But don't think I blame you in the least. The tune they're playing at the moment is rather apt, isn't it, if you change the first word of its title?
She's Young and Healthy and You've Got Charm
.'

‘You're young and healthy too.' I countered rather foolishly.

‘Thanks. But I don't go in for that sort of thing. I'm not in the least prudish about other people's amusements, though. As a matter of fact, I think you're rather lucky to have Oonas fall for you because she looks as though she had been created for that sole purpose, and I wouldn't mind betting it's the breath of her life. The only thing that makes me so sick is her stupid and quite unwarrantable jealousy, because I do enjoy dancing with you quite frightfully much. Archie Lemming was pretty good but you're even better.'

‘Lemming,' I repeated in surprise.

‘Yes. As he was attached to father's outfit last winter we used to dance together practically every night except when we were up country on a “dig”.'

It had not occurred to me till then that Sylvia and Lemming must know each other well and I asked if she had heard anything of him since his return to Egypt.

She shook her head. ‘No. The poor boy must have gone crackers to get himself mixed up with O'Kieff, I think. Anyhow I was hoping you would take his place in giving me some dancing.'