DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0119
SIUT TO BENDER All. 101
tance a couple of hours ago is reached and passed. The
cargo-boat on which we have been gaining all the morning
is outstripped and dwindling in the rear. Now we pass a
bold bluff sheltering a sheik's tomb and a solitary dom
palm—now an ancient quarry from which the stone has
been cut out in smooth masses, leaving great halls, and
corridors, and stages in the mountain side. At Gow,* the
scene of an insurrection headed by a crazy dervish some ten
years ago, we see, in place of a large and poimlous village,
only a tract of fertile corn ground, a few ruined huts, and
a group of decapitated palms. We are now skirting Ge-
bol Sheik el Ilureedee; here bordered by a rich margin of
cultivated flat; yonder leaving space for scarce a strip of
roadway between the precipice and the river. Then comes
Raaineh, a large village of square mud towers, lofty and
battlcmented, with string-courses of pots for the pigeons
—and later on, Girgeh, once the capital town of Middle
Egypt, where we rmt in for half an hour to post and in-
quire for letters. Here the Nile is fast eating away the
bank and carrying the town by storm. A ruined mosque
with pointed arches, roofless cloisters, and a leaning column
that must surely have come to the ground by this time,
stands just above the landing-place. A hundred years ago
it lay a quarter of a mile from the river; ten years ago it
was yet perfect; after a few more inundations it will be
swept away. Till that time comes, however, it helps to
make Girgeh one of the most picturesque towns in Egypt.
At Farshut we see the sugar-works in active operation—■
smoke pouring from the tall chimneys; steam issuing from
* According to tlie account given in tier letters by Lady Duff Gor-
don, tliis dervish, who had acquired a reputation for unusal sanctity by
repeating the name of Allah three thousand times every night for three
years, helieved that he had by these means rendered himself invul-
nerable; and so, proclaiming himself the appointed slayer of Anti-
christ, he stirred up a revolt among the villages bordering Gebel
Sheik Hereedee, instigated an attack on an English dahabeeyah,
and brought down upon himself and all that country-side the swift
and summary vengeance of the government. Steamers with troops
commanded by Fad] Pasha were dispatched up the river; rebels were
shot; villages sacked; crops and cattle confiscated. The women and
children of the place were then distributed among the neighboring
hamlets; and Gow, which was as large a village as Luxor, ceased to
exist. The dervish's fate remained uncertain. He was shot, accord-
ing to some; and by others it was said that he had escaped into the
desert under the protection of a tribe of Bedouins.
tance a couple of hours ago is reached and passed. The
cargo-boat on which we have been gaining all the morning
is outstripped and dwindling in the rear. Now we pass a
bold bluff sheltering a sheik's tomb and a solitary dom
palm—now an ancient quarry from which the stone has
been cut out in smooth masses, leaving great halls, and
corridors, and stages in the mountain side. At Gow,* the
scene of an insurrection headed by a crazy dervish some ten
years ago, we see, in place of a large and poimlous village,
only a tract of fertile corn ground, a few ruined huts, and
a group of decapitated palms. We are now skirting Ge-
bol Sheik el Ilureedee; here bordered by a rich margin of
cultivated flat; yonder leaving space for scarce a strip of
roadway between the precipice and the river. Then comes
Raaineh, a large village of square mud towers, lofty and
battlcmented, with string-courses of pots for the pigeons
—and later on, Girgeh, once the capital town of Middle
Egypt, where we rmt in for half an hour to post and in-
quire for letters. Here the Nile is fast eating away the
bank and carrying the town by storm. A ruined mosque
with pointed arches, roofless cloisters, and a leaning column
that must surely have come to the ground by this time,
stands just above the landing-place. A hundred years ago
it lay a quarter of a mile from the river; ten years ago it
was yet perfect; after a few more inundations it will be
swept away. Till that time comes, however, it helps to
make Girgeh one of the most picturesque towns in Egypt.
At Farshut we see the sugar-works in active operation—■
smoke pouring from the tall chimneys; steam issuing from
* According to tlie account given in tier letters by Lady Duff Gor-
don, tliis dervish, who had acquired a reputation for unusal sanctity by
repeating the name of Allah three thousand times every night for three
years, helieved that he had by these means rendered himself invul-
nerable; and so, proclaiming himself the appointed slayer of Anti-
christ, he stirred up a revolt among the villages bordering Gebel
Sheik Hereedee, instigated an attack on an English dahabeeyah,
and brought down upon himself and all that country-side the swift
and summary vengeance of the government. Steamers with troops
commanded by Fad] Pasha were dispatched up the river; rebels were
shot; villages sacked; crops and cattle confiscated. The women and
children of the place were then distributed among the neighboring
hamlets; and Gow, which was as large a village as Luxor, ceased to
exist. The dervish's fate remained uncertain. He was shot, accord-
ing to some; and by others it was said that he had escaped into the
desert under the protection of a tribe of Bedouins.