DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14563#0128
RIVER SAINTS AND COPTIC HERMITS.
97
could stem the swift current of the Nile with apparent ease.
This is accounted an evidence of his saintship. The
sailors, who take to the water like ducks, say that such
swimming in the cold water would' kill them, but he swims
by miracle.
The Mohammedans, with all their hatred of image-wor-
ship, are very superstitious. All along the Kile, you see
the rude tombs of their sheiks and saints filled with votive
otFerings, just like the altars of the saints in Italy. They
tell their beads, and believe in signs and omens. Withal
they are intense fatalists in theory, though this does not
seem to impair their freedom or their personal activity in •
any practical affairs. When this poor beggar-saint dies, he
will be honored with a tomb that will become a place of
pilgrimage for the neighborhood, and for passing sailors. A
saint at Minieh is reputed to have power to prevent croco-
diles from advancing further down the Nile, by means of
incantations that throw them upon their backs.
But our religious privileges were not confined to a visit
and a benediction from a Mohammedan saint. Later in
the day we were boarded by a swimming deputation from a
community of Coptic monks, the lingering and degenerate
representatives of a system that once had in Egypt and its
adjacent deserts as many convents and monasteries as there
are days in the year, among which were institutions whose
learning and piety enjoyed a world wide reputation. We
encountered these priests "all shaven and shorn," as we
were sailing under the brow of Gebel e Tai/r, " the moun-
tain of the bird " — a bald rugged rock, about half a mile
in length, that rises perpendicularly out of the river to the
height of two hundred feet. On the top of this mountain is
a little mud-brick building known as the convent of " our
Lady Mary the Virgin," which is occupied by about thirty
Copts belonging to some order of mendicant friars. When-
9
97
could stem the swift current of the Nile with apparent ease.
This is accounted an evidence of his saintship. The
sailors, who take to the water like ducks, say that such
swimming in the cold water would' kill them, but he swims
by miracle.
The Mohammedans, with all their hatred of image-wor-
ship, are very superstitious. All along the Kile, you see
the rude tombs of their sheiks and saints filled with votive
otFerings, just like the altars of the saints in Italy. They
tell their beads, and believe in signs and omens. Withal
they are intense fatalists in theory, though this does not
seem to impair their freedom or their personal activity in •
any practical affairs. When this poor beggar-saint dies, he
will be honored with a tomb that will become a place of
pilgrimage for the neighborhood, and for passing sailors. A
saint at Minieh is reputed to have power to prevent croco-
diles from advancing further down the Nile, by means of
incantations that throw them upon their backs.
But our religious privileges were not confined to a visit
and a benediction from a Mohammedan saint. Later in
the day we were boarded by a swimming deputation from a
community of Coptic monks, the lingering and degenerate
representatives of a system that once had in Egypt and its
adjacent deserts as many convents and monasteries as there
are days in the year, among which were institutions whose
learning and piety enjoyed a world wide reputation. We
encountered these priests "all shaven and shorn," as we
were sailing under the brow of Gebel e Tai/r, " the moun-
tain of the bird " — a bald rugged rock, about half a mile
in length, that rises perpendicularly out of the river to the
height of two hundred feet. On the top of this mountain is
a little mud-brick building known as the convent of " our
Lady Mary the Virgin," which is occupied by about thirty
Copts belonging to some order of mendicant friars. When-
9