The Pharaoh and the Priest.

by Alexander Glovatski.

PREFATORY REMARKS

The position of Ancient Egypt was unique, not in one, but in every sense. To begin at the very foundation of life in that country, we find that the soil was unlike any other on earth in its origin. Every acre of fruitful land between the first cataract and the sea had been brought from Inner Africa, and each year additions were made to it.

Out of this mud, borne down thousands of miles from the great fertile uplands of Abyssinia by rivers, grew everything needed to feed and clothe man and nourish animals. Out of it also was made the brick from which walls, houses, and buildings of various uses and kinds were constructed. Though this soil of the country was rich, it could be utilized only by the unceasing co-ordinate efforts of a whole population constrained and directed. To direct and constrain was the task of the priests and the pharaohs.

Never have men worked in company so long and successfully at tilling the earth as the Egyptians, and never has the return been so continuous and abundant from land as in their case.

The Nile valley furnished grain to all markets accessible by water; hence Rome, Greece, and Judaea ate the bread of Egypt. On this national tillage was founded the greatness of the country, for from it came the means to execute other works, and in it began that toil, training, and skill indispensable in rearing the monuments and doing those things which have made Egypt famous forever, and preserved to us a knowledge of the language, religion, modes of living, and history of that wonderful people who held the Nile valley. No civilized person who has looked on the pyramid of Ghizeh, the temple of Karnak, and the tombs of the pharaohs in the Theban region, can ever forget them. But in those monuments are preserved things of far greater import than they themselves are. In the tombs and temples of Egypt we see on stone and papyrus how that immense work of making speech visible was accomplished, that task of presenting language to the eye instead of the ear, and preserving the spoken word so as to give it to eye or ear afterwards. In other terms, we have the history of writing from its earliest beginnings to the point at which we connect it with the system used now by all civilized nations excepting the Chinese. In those monuments are preserved the history of religion in Egypt, not from the beginning of human endeavor to explain first what the world is and then what we ourselves are and what we and the world mean together, but from a time far beyond any recorded by man in other places.

Egyptians had the genius which turned a narrow strip of Abyssinian mud and a triangular patch of swamp at the end of it into the most fruitful land of antiquity. They had also that genius which impels man to look out over the horizon around him, see more than the material problems of life, and gaze into the beyond, gaze intently and never cease gazing till he finds what his mind seeks. It was the possession of these two kinds of genius and the union of the two which made the position of Egypt in history unique and unapproachable.

The greatness of Egypt lay primarily in her ideas, and was achieved through a perfect control over labor by intellect. While this control was exerted even approximately in accordance with the nation's historical calling, it was effectual and also unchallenged. But when the exercise of power, with the blandishments and physical pleasures which always attend it, had become dearer to the priesthood and to pharaohs than aught else on earth or in their ideals, then began the epoch of Egypt's final doom: foreign bondage and national ruin.

The action presented in the volume before us relates to those days when the guiding intellect of Egypt became irrevocably dual, and when between the two parts of it, the priests and the pharaohs, opposition appeared so clearly defined and incurable that the ruin of both sides was evident in the future.

The ruin of a pharaoh and the fall of his dynasty, with the rise of a self-chosen sovereign and a new line of rulers, are the double consummation in this novel. The book ends with that climax, but the fall of the new priestly rulers is a matter of history, as is the destruction wrought on Egypt by tyrants from a.s.syria and Persia. The native pharaohs lost power through the priesthood, whose real interest it was to support them; but fate found the priests later on, and p.r.o.nounced on them also the doom of extinction.

Alexander Glovatski was born in 1847 in Mashov, a village of the Government of Lublin. He finished his preliminary studies in the Lublin Gymnasium, and was graduated from the University of Warsaw. He took part in the uprising of 1863, but was captured, and liberated after some months' detention. As a student he showed notable power, and was exceptionally attracted by mathematics and science, to which he gives much attention yet, though occupied mainly in literature.

Glovatski's published works are in seventeen volumes. These books, with the exception of "The Pharaoh and the Priest," are devoted to modern characters, situations, and questions. His types are mainly from Polish life. Very few of his characters are German or Russian; of Polish types some are Jewish.

Alexander Glovatski is a true man of letters, a real philosopher, retiring, industrious, and modest. He spends all his winters in Warsaw, and lives every summer in the country. He permits neither society nor coteries, nor interests of any sort, to s.n.a.t.c.h away time from him, or influence his convictions. He goes about as he chooses, whenever he likes and wherever it suits him. When ready to work he sits down in his own house, and tells the world carefully and with kindness, though not without irony, what he sees in it. What he sees is exhibited in the seventeen volumes, which contain great and vivid pictures of life at the end of the recent century. Men and women of various beliefs, occupations, and values, are shown there.

Glovatski is entirely unknown to Americans. This book will present him.

Excepting the view in the temple of Luxor the ill.u.s.trations given in this volume are from photographs taken by me in 1899, while I was travelling in Egypt.

The t.i.tle of this volume has been changed from "The Pharaoh" to "The Pharaoh and the Priest," at the wish of the author.

JEREMIAH CURTIN.

INTRODUCTION

In the northeastern corner of Africa lies Egypt, that land of most ancient civilization. Three, four, and even five thousand years ago, when the savages of Central Europe wore untanned skins for clothing and were cave-dwellers, Egypt had a high social organization, agriculture, crafts, and literature. Above all, it carried out engineering works and reared immense buildings, the remnants of which rouse admiration in specialists of our day.

Egypt is that rich ravine between the Libyan sands and the Arabian desert. Its depth is several hundred metres, its length six hundred and fifty miles, its average width barely five. On the west the gently sloping but naked Libyan hills, on the east the steep and broken cliffs of Arabia form the sides of a corridor on the bottom of which flows the river Nile.

With the course of the river northward the walls of the corridor decrease in height, while a hundred and twenty-five miles from the sea they expand on a sudden, and the river, instead of flowing through a narrow pa.s.sage, spreads in various arms over a broad level plain which is shaped like a triangle. This triangle, called the Delta of the Nile, has for its base the sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean; at its apex, where the river issues from the corridor, stands the city of Cairo, and near by are the ruins of Memphis, the ancient capital.

Could a man rise one hundred miles in the air and gaze thence upon Egypt, he would see the strange outlines of that country and the peculiar changes in its color. From that elevation, on the background of white and orange colored sands, Egypt would look like a serpent pushing with energetic twists through a desert to the sea, in which it has dipped already its triangular head, which has two eyes,--the left Alexandria, the right Damietta.

In October, when the Nile inundates Egypt, that long serpent would be blue, like water. In February, when spring vegetation takes the place of the decreasing river, the serpent would be green, with a blue line along its body and a mult.i.tude of blue veins on its head; these are ca.n.a.ls which cut through the Delta. In March the blue line would be narrower, and the body of the serpent, because of ripening grain, would seem golden. Finally, in the first days of June the line of the Nile would be very narrow and the serpent's body gray from dust and drought. The chief climatic feature in Egypt is heat. During January it is 57 above zero, in July 99; sometimes the heat reaches 149 which answers to the temperature of a Roman bath. Moreover, in the neighborhood of the Mediterranean, on the Delta, rain falls barely ten times a year; in Upper Egypt it falls once during ten years.

In these conditions Egypt, instead of being the cradle of civilization, would have been a desert ravine like one of those which compose the Sahara, if the waters of the sacred Nile had not brought life to it annually. From the last days of June till the end of September the Nile swells and inundates almost all Egypt; from the end of October to the last days in May the year following it falls and exposes gradually lower and lower platforms of land. The waters of the river are so permeated with mineral and organic matter that their color becomes brownish; hence, as the waters decrease, on inundated lands is deposited fruitful mud which takes the place of the best fertilizer. Owing to this mud and to heat, Egyptian earth-tillers, fenced in between deserts, have three harvests yearly and from one grain of seed receive back about three hundred.

Egypt, however, is not a flat plain, but a rolling country; some portions of its land drink the blessed waters during two or three months only; others do not see it every year, as the overflow does not reach certain points annually. Besides, seasons of scant water occur, and then a part of Egypt fails to receive the enriching deposit.

Finally, because of heat the earth dries up quickly, and then man has to irrigate out of vessels.

In view of all these conditions people inhabiting the Nile valley had to perish if they were weak, or regulate the water if they had genius.

The ancient Egyptians had genius, hence they created civilization.

Six thousand years ago they observed that the Nile rose when the sun appeared under Sirius, and began to fall when it neared the constellation Libra. This impelled them to make astronomical observations and to measure time.

To preserve water for the whole year, they dug throughout their country a network of ca.n.a.ls many thousand miles in length. To guard against excessive waste of water, they built mighty dams and dug reservoirs, among which the artificial lake Moeris occupied three hundred square kilometres of surface and was fifty-four metres deep.

Finally, along the Nile and the ca.n.a.ls they set up a mult.i.tude of simple but practical hydraulic works; through the aid of these they raised water and poured it out upon the fields; these machines were placed one or two stories higher than the water. To complete all, there was need to clear the choked ca.n.a.ls yearly, repair the dams and build lofty roads for the army, which had to march at all seasons.

These gigantic works demanded knowledge of astronomy, geometry, mechanics, and architecture, besides a perfect organization. Whether the task was the strengthening of dams or the clearing of ca.n.a.ls, it had to be done and finished within a certain period over a great area.

Hence arose the need of forming an army of laborers, tens of thousands in number, acting with a definite purpose and under uniform direction,--an army which demanded many provisions, much means, and great auxiliary forces.

Egypt established such an army of laborers, and to them were due works renowned during ages. It seems that Egyptian priests or sages created this army and then drew out plans for it, while the kings, or pharaohs, commanded. In consequence of this the Egyptians in the days of their greatness formed as it were one person, in which the priestly order performed the role of mind, the pharaoh was the will, the people formed the body, and obedience gave cohesion.

In this way nature, striving in Egypt for a work great, continuous, and ordered, created the skeleton of a social organism for that country as follows: the people labored, the pharaoh commanded, the priests made the plans. While these three elements worked unitedly toward the objects indicated by nature, society had strength to flourish and complete immortal labors.

The mild, gladsome, and by no means warlike Egyptians were divided into two cla.s.ses,--earth-tillers and artisans. Among earth-tillers there must have been owners of small bits of land, but generally earth-tillers were tenants on lands belonging to the pharaohs, the priests, and the aristocracy. The artisans, the people who made clothing, furniture, vessels, and tools, were independent; those who worked at great edifices formed, as it were, an army.

Each of those specialties, and particularly architecture, demanded power of hauling and moving; some men had to draw water all day from ca.n.a.ls, or transport stones from the quarries to where they were needed. These, the most arduous mechanical occupations, and above all work in the quarries were carried on by criminals condemned by the courts, or by prisoners seized in battle.

The genuine Egyptians had a bronze-colored skin, of which they were very proud, despising the black Ethiopian, the yellow Semite, and the white European. This color of skin, which enabled them to distinguish their own people from strangers, helped to keep up the nation's unity more strictly than religion, which a man may accept, or language, which he may appropriate.

But in time, when the edifice of the state began to weaken, foreign elements appeared in growing numbers. They lessened cohesion, they split apart society, they flooded Egypt and absorbed the original inhabitants.

The pharaohs governed the state by the help of a standing army and a militia or police, also by a mult.i.tude of officials, from whom was formed by degrees an aristocracy of family. By his office the pharaoh was lawgiver, supreme king, highest judge, chief priest; he was the son of a G.o.d, a G.o.d himself even. He accepted divine honors, not only from officials and the people, but sometimes he raised altars to his own person, and burnt incense before images of himself.

At the side of the pharaoh and very often above him were priests, an order of sages who directed the destinies of the country.

In our day it is almost impossible to imagine the extraordinary role which the priests played in Egypt. They were instructors of rising generations, also soothsayers, hence the advisers of mature people, judges of the dead, to whom their will and their knowledge guaranteed immortality. They not only performed the minute ceremonies of religion for the G.o.ds and the pharaohs, but they healed the sick as physicians, they influenced the course of public works as engineers, and also politics as astrologers, but above all they knew their own country and its neighbors.

In Egyptian history the first place is occupied by the relations which existed between the priests and the pharaohs. Most frequently the pharaoh laid rich offerings before the G.o.ds and built temples. Then he lived long, and his name, with his images cut out on monuments, pa.s.sed from generation to generation, full of glory. But many pharaohs reigned for a short period only, and of some not merely the deeds, but the names disappeared from record. A couple of times it happened that a dynasty fell, and straightway the cap of the pharaohs, encircled with a serpent, was taken by a priest.

Egypt continued to develop while a people of one composition, energetic kings, and wise priests co-operated for the common weal. But a time came when the people, in consequence of wars, decreased in number and lost their strength through oppression and extortion; the intrusion of foreign elements at this period undermined Egyptian race unity. And when the energy of pharaohs and the wisdom of priests sank in the flood of Asiatic luxury, and these two powers began to struggle with each other for undivided authority to plunder the toiling people, then Egypt fell under foreign control, and the light of civilized life, which had burnt on the Nile for millenniums, was extinguished.

The following narrative relates to the eleventh century before Christ, when the twentieth dynasty fell, and after the offspring of the sun, the eternally living Rameses XIII., San-Amen-Herhor, the high priest of Amon and ever-living offspring of the sun, forced his way to the throne and adorned his head with the ureus.