| Southport : Original Sources in Exploration | | |
Voyage in Lower and Upper Egypt, during the Campaigns of General Bonaparte. Vivant Denon | | | | |
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Chapter
22: Departure from Cairo for Upper Egypt.—Pyramids of Saqqara and
Medoun.—Sacred Tree.—Desaix.—Mourat-Bey—Battle of Sediman. (p.115)
I
was very happy in Cairo; but it was not to feel comfortable in Cairo
that I left Paris. An Arab caravan arrived; she came from Mount Sinai;
she brought coal, gum, and almonds; it was composed of five hundred men
and seven hundred camels; it was a very expensive way of bringing goods
which would produce so little money: but they needed things that they
could not find elsewhere, and they only had coal to give in exchange:
some some of them had tried to escort Greeks, a month before, to find
out if the French, masters of Cairo, were not eating the Arabs; they
had been treated well, they arrived in caravans. The general in chief
wanted someone to take advantage of their return to learn about the
route to Tor: I was tempted to follow that of the Israelites; I offered
to the general to undertake this journey provided that he ensured my
return: he told me that he would keep the leader of the caravan
hostage: it laughed at my imagination to think that from there in
twelve days I would know and I I would have drawn the sites of the
marvelous part of Moses' expedition from his departure from Memphis to
his arrival in the desert of Pharan; that, without staying there for
forty years, I would have seen in a few days Mount Sinai, (p.116)
crossing one of the points of the earth whose annals go back the
furthest, the cradle of three religions, the homeland of three
legislators who governed the opinion of the world, all three coming
from the family of Abraham.
At
the first proposal that I made to the leader of the Arabs, he told me
that for all the gold in the world he would not take charge of me; that
it would be risking my life, that of the monks of Mount Sinai, and that
of all the individuals in the caravan, because two powerful tribes, the
Ovadis and the Ayaidis, had revenge to extract from the French. As I
came to report my mission to the general in chief, he gave orders to
send a convoy to Desaix: I wanted to leave for the east; I asked him
for a passport to the south, and a few hours later I was already on my
way.
The next day, at daybreak, we found ourselves a league from
Saqqara, having traveled, for lack of wind, only four leagues during
the night. I made a drawing of what I saw of the pyramids of Saqqara,
which seem to occupy the space of two leagues. Although far from the
river I could distinguish that the nearest one, of medium size, has
high tiers; then come other small pyramids almost destroyed: half a
league from these, there is one which appears to have as much base as
the largest of those of Giza, but less elevation; it is very well
preserved: another half-league from the latter there is one which is
the largest of all those of Saqqara; its shape is irregular, that is to
say that the line of its edge stops at the curvature of an inverted
console: very close to it there is a small one; and closer to the Nile
another absolutely in ruins, which only has the shape of a gray-brown
rock; its color is produced by the materials, which appeared to me to
be unfired brick: I believe that (p.117) the river bank hid other
smaller ones from us. This multitude of pyramids, the plain of the
mummies, the caves of the ibises, everything proves that the territory
of Saqqara was the Necropolis south of Memphis, and the suburb opposite
it, where are the pyramids of Giza, another city of the dead, which
ended at Memphis to the north, and which still gives the measure of its
extent today.
1.2.
Views of two brick pyramids, east of Fayoum. — 3. Pyramid of Meydouneh.
— 4- Pyramids of el-Metânyeh. — 5.6. Pyramids of Saqqara. Drawings by
Jomard.
"Fig. 1. View of a mudbrick pyramid, east of the
province of Fayoum and north of the Josup Canal; This view is taken at
the edge of the canal, opposite Haouârat el-Soghâyr. The monument is
entirely in the desert, and built on a high and sandy plateau; the
dimensions of this pyramid are larger than those of the pyramid of
el-Lâhoun, and it is much better preserved. (See fig. 2.) The length of
the base is 110 meters, and the width, approximately 60. It is believed
that this pyramid is the one which, according to the authors, was near
the labyrinth."
"Fig.2. a View of the brick pyramid of El
Lahoun, further east than the previous one, and near the village of
el-Lâhoun, which gave its name to this pyramid: it is also in the
desert."
"Fig. 3. Meydouneh pyramid, taking its name from a
village which is a league and a half from the Nile. The view is taken
from the surroundings of Raqqah ef-Kebyr.
This pyramid can be seen
from a great distance, because it is raised on a considerable massif
which itself has a pyramidal shape; we still notice it because of its
upper part, which is set back on the lower part, and which is
truncated. The entire pyramid is made of cut stone."
"Fig. 4.
View of the pyramids of el-Metânyeh, so called from a village from
which they are not far away. This view is taken from the banks of the
Nile, near the village. They are still quite well preserved; the
largest is built under two inclinations, like several of those of
Saqqârah. (See fig.5 and 6.)"
"Fig.5. View of one of the largest
pyramids of Saqqara, taken from the Nile. The difference in inclination
between the lower part and the upper part is here extremely strong and
remarkable: the second is like a pyramidion placed on the first."
"Fig.6. View of the last pyramids of Saqqara in the south, taken from the banks of the Nile." [Comments from Description de l'Egypte, vol.4, 1817.]
In
the afternoon, opposite Missenda, we saw another very large pyramid,
but so crude that in any country other than Egypt, at the great
distance from which it is seen from the Nile, it would be taken for a
mound: a league further there is another one and bigger and more
distorted.
The small islands which are at this height were covered with ducks, herons, and pelicans.
Towards evening we saw the pyramid of Medoun, between the villages of Rigga and Caffr-êl-Risk.
Fig.2: General Augustin Belliard.
The second night, our kitchen collapsed,
as did our stable; but, as phlegmatic as Muslims, we did not give up;
and besides, despite this accident, this house was still the best and
most visible in the village. In this part of Egypt all constructions
are made of mud and chopped straw cooked in the sun: the stairs.
(p.118) iiers, the embrasures, the ovens, the utensils, and the
furnishings are of the same material; so that, if it were possible for
there to be a momentary change in the order that nature has
imperturbably established in Egypt, if it happened, for example, that
extraordinary winds stopped and dissolved one of the groups of clouds
that the north wind pushes in the summer against the mountains of
Abyssinia, the towns and villages would be diluted and liquefied in a
few hours, and one could sow on their site: but, thanks to the climate,
a house built "in such a frail way the life of a man lasts; which is
enough for him whose son must redeem from his sovereign the land for
which he has already paid
The
day after my arrival, a column of three hundred men was going to raise
the miri or territorial imposition, and a requisition of horses and
buffaloes: in this we followed the ways of the Mamluks, who for the
same purpose made everyone in the province who was assigned to him the
same military march, encamping in front of towns and villages, feeding
at their expense until payment of what they had to receive. This
recalls what Diodorus of Sicily said of the Egyptians, that they
believed themselves duped into paying for what they cheated, before
being beaten to be forced to do so. I was able to notice that, without
ever refusing, there were all kinds of ingenious means that they did
not use to delay the release of their money by a few hours.
Plate 8-2: Pyramid at Medoun (Denon 1802 vol. 3 plate 8).
The
movements of this column became an advantageous means of making
discoveries and observing the particularities of the interior of the
country: this first course brought me near the pyramid of Medoun (plate 8-2), which
I had seen from afar; I was only half a league away, but this space was
crossed by the Joseph canal and another small canal, and (p.119) we had
no boat; with an excellent telescope and in the best weather I was able
to observe its details as if I had touched it: built on a secondary
platform of the Libyque chain, its shape is five steps in retreat; the
limestone of which it is built being more or less friable, its base
and. its first level is more degraded than all the others, and, in the
middle of the elevation of the second, there are several foundations
which have experienced the same degradation. Passing from the village
of Medoun to that of Sapht I was able to observe three faces of this
pyramid; it appears that an excavation was attempted in the second tier
on the north side: the rubble, covered with sand, rises to the height
of this excavation, and only reveals the corners of the first tier;
absolute ruin begins on the third, of which about a third remains: the
total height of what exists of this pyramid seemed to me to be about
two hundred feet.
The
whole country that we had traveled through was abundant, sown with
corn, sainfoin, barley, beans, lentils, and doura or sorghum, which is
a species of millet whose cultivation is almost general in Upper Egypt.
While the grain of this plant is in milk, the peasants roast it like
corn: they chew the green cane like that of sugar; the leaf feeds the
cattle, the dry pith serves as tinder; cane replaces wood for cooking
and heating the oven; from grain we make flour, and from this flour we
make cakes; and none of this is good.
Between Medoun and Sapht,
I found the ruins of a mosque among which were large columns of cipolin
marble: could these be remains of ancient Nicopolis? Moreover, I did
not find any wall tearing in the surrounding area which indicated the
existence of any antiquity. (p.120)
From Sapht we went to a
hamlet, which is very close, and which is a kind of mud fortress: this
feudal retreat is made up of an enclosure crossed by a few aligned
streets; in this enclosure is a small castle which serves as the
residence of the kiachef, all crenellated, with a covered path riddled
with loopholes: the kiachef had emigrated, his satellites believe to
have been dispersed, and their houses were pillaged; the inhabitants of
neighboring villages had seized this opportunity to take revenge.
On
our second outing we went to Maimoun, a very rich village of ten
thousand inhabitants; it is surrounded, like all the others, by mounds
of rubbish and rubble, which, in a plain country, form as much as the
mountains from which you can see the whole surrounding country: also
the crests and these mounds are each evening covered by a part of the
inhabitants, who, squatting, breathe the air, smoke their pipes, and
observe if the plain is quiet. The disadvantage of these piles of
garbage is that they offend the villages, make them unhealthy by
depriving them of air, and clog the eyes of the inhabitants with muddy
dust, mixed with bits of straw. imperceptible, and to be one of the
many causes of eye ailments with which Egypt is afflicted.
From
Maimoun we went to El-Eaffer, a pretty village in an excellent country;
there we collect gum, known under the name of Arabic gum, taken from
the incision of a mimosa, called Egyptian thorn, or cassie, bearing
very fragrant gold buttons: we were given beautiful horses at El-Eaffer
and a good lunch. We discovered Abousir, Beniali, Dallas, Bacher,
Tabouch, Bouch, Zeitoun, and Eschmend-el-Arab. At El-Eaffer we found a
dozen Arabs camped outside the village; I designed the chief's tent,
made up of nine stakes, supporting a poor woolen fabric, under which
were all the furniture of his household, consisting of a mat, and a
carpet of the same material as the tent (p.121) two bags , one of corn
for the master, and the other of barley for the mare; a large jar to
hold clothes; a hand mill for making flour; a chicken cage, a vase for
laying chickens; pots, finally coffee pots and cups. The women were
hideous, as were the children.
From El-EafTer we came to
Benniali; they gave us nothing: we took the sheikhs away; and the next
day they brought us elievels, and they counted out the miri's money to
us. I took another view of Zaoyé at its southern part, and without
regret left this first station to go and join Desaix [1], whom I knew, whom
I loved, whom I was no longer going to leave, and whose fate of
operations was going to be that of of my travels. We left Zaoyé, and
came to sleep at Chendaouych, passing through Meimound and Benniali:
the first to arrive at this village had found the inhabitants armed;
This resulted in a misunderstanding for which guns were fired; several
of them had been killed: but an explanation was made, and everything
was sorted out. A moment later we heard loud cries, which seemed to us
to announce some terrible catastrophe, or to be the result of it; the
ax of our sappers had attacked the dry branches of a rotten trunk,
which seemed to our soldiers very suitable for boiling soup; and it was
quite another grievance than the first.
Belief in a Supreme
Being, a few moral principles, in short everything that is reasonable
is enough for the wise man; but the passions of the ignorant man
require intermediate deities, gross deities, analogous to his crude
imagination, vicious deities, so to speak, with whom he can deal with
his vicious habits. The religion of Mohammed, which is reduced to
precepts, cannot therefore suffice for the fantastic ignorance of the
Arabs; also, despite their blind respect for the Koran, and their
absolute obedience for everything that comes from their prophet,
despite the anathemia pronounced against everything that deviates from
it, they (p.122) were unable to escape from heresy, and the charm of
idolatry: they therefore also have saints, to whom they do not assign a
separate place in their paradise, where everything is common, but to
whom they raise up. tombs, and whose ashes they revere; and what is
strangely stupid is that these saints only become the object of their
worship after having served them. laughed at during their lives. They
attribute to the poor in spirit, when they are dead, powers and
influences: one is the father of light, and heals the evil of the eyes;
another is the father of the generation, and presides over childbirth,
etc., etc. Most of these saints, crouching at the corner of a wall,
spent their lives constantly repeating the word was going, and
receiving without recognition what was enough for their subsistence;
others to hit their heads with stones; others, covered with rosary
beads, singing hymns; finally others, such as the fakirs, to remain
immobile, and absolutely naked, without ever showing the slightest
sensation, and waiting for an alms, which they do not ask for, and for
which they never thank.
Besides this idolatry, there are still
others which have a connection with magic: these are, for example,
stones, trees, which conceal a good or an evil genius, and which become
sacred, of which nothing can be done. detach without profanation, to
whom one will make domestic confidences, and communicate one's plans;
their cult is mysterious and secret, but they are publicly revered.
There was a tree of this kind in Chendaouyéh, and it was the danger it
had run which had excited the rumor: I went to see it, and I was struck
by its decrepitude: there was nothing left but one of its branches
which bore leaves, all the others, dried up and broken, were
scrupulously preserved at the place where, detaching themselves from
the trunk, they had fallen to the ground: I examined this tree
attentively; I found there hair tied with nails, teeth, small leather
bags, small standards, and very close to the tombs, isolated stones, a
(p.123) seat in the shape of a saddle, under which was a big lamp. The
hair had been nailed by women to fix the inconstancy of their husbands;
the teeth belong to adults, who dedicate them to implore the return of
the seconds; and of all miracles it is the most ordinary, because they
have the most beautiful and best teeth: the stones are votive, so that
the house that we are going to make is always inhabited by the one who
is going to build it: the seat is the place where he who makes his
night wish sits, after having lit the lamp below; ceremony at which; I
would have liked to be present to see it with the mysterious effect of
the night. I drew this tree as I saw it as well as a figure of these
figurines, and two others of the naked ones. I have also drawn some
particular figures of these beings, among whom there are some of the
greatest character, which relate rather to the elevation of history
than to the trivial and debased forms which usually accompany misery.
and the habit of begging.
At Chendaouyéh, we bivouaced in a
forest of palm trees, where for the first time I found grass in Egypt.
We had barely wrapped ourselves in our coats when a shot put us back to
our feet; we spent the night making the rounds of the posts, and
searching in vain for what had given us this alert: I made a drawing of
this picturesque bivouac. The next day, we arrived in Bénésouef.
Desaix
[2] had been charged with pursuing Mourat-bey [3] and conquering Upper Egypt,
where the latter had taken refuge after the battle of the pyramids; the
same day, the Desaix division went to take up position in front of
Cairo; and he had only come to this town to take orders from the
general in chief, and to coordinate his movements with his own; he left
on August 25 with a note which was to convey his march.
Fig.3: Portrait of General Louis Desaix made in 1798 by the artist André Dutertre, during the French campaign in Egypt.
Arriving at Siouth, where the Mamluks had not dared to wait for him, he
had tried to join them at Bénéadi, where they had retired with their
women and their crews: having finally all gathered in the Faïoum, he
left Siouth to go down to Tarout-êl-Cherif; he had embarked his army
there, had taken it up the Jusef canal, despite the incredible
obstacles offered by the windings of this canal, despite the attacks of
the Mamluks, and the opposition of the inhabitants, astonished to see
themselves obliged to serve for success of operations which they had at
first regarded as impossible. Desaix, however, arrived near Manzoura,
on the edge of the desert, where he finally joined Mourat: unable to
embark under enemy fire, he turned around to return to Minkia; the
Mamluks, encouraged by this counter-march, harassed the boats;
companies of grenadiers chased and dispersed them: the landing took
place, the troops formed into square battalions; we take the desert
path, accompanied by boats, up to Manzoura.
Fig.4: Portrait of Mourat-Bey made in 1798 by André Dutertre, during the French campaign in Egypt.
By following them,
we got away from the boats; we lacked food, we had to go back to get
some biscuits: the enemy thinks we are fleeing; he attacks us with
cries that resemble howls: our cannons drive the mass away; but the
most determined come with their sabers to defy our musketry, and take
two men even under our bayonets; only night delivers us from their
obstinacy. We return to the boats, we load ourselves with biscuits, and
after having taken some rest we set off again. During this time
Mourat-bey had brought to his army an unknown person who spread the
news that the English had destroyed what there was of Francis in
Alexandria, that the inhabitants of Cairo had massacred those who
occupied this city, finally that there remained in Egypt only this
handful of soldiers, who had been seen fleeing the day before, and who
were going to be annihilated; there was an ordered celebration, and in
this celebration a mock combat, where the Arabs representing the French
were ordered to allow themselves to be defeated; the party ended in the
manner of the cannibals, that is to say, they massacred the two
prisoners whom they had taken two days previously.
Desaix had
learned that Mourat was at Sediman, that he was moving to join him and
give him battle; he resolved to attack it himself; as soon as we had
left the covered and cultivated country, and on a level surface the eye
could count us, cries of fierce joy were heard; but the day was late,
the enemies postponed until the next day a victory which they believed
assured. The night was spent in celebrations in their camp; their
patrols came in the darkness to insult our (p.126) outposts by
counterfeiting our language. At first light, we formed into a square
battalion with two platoons on the flanks; a short time later, we saw
Mourat-bey at the head of his formidable Mamluks and eight to ten
thousand Arabs, covering a horizon of a league in extent from us. A
valley separated the two armies; we had to cross it to attack those who
were waiting for us; As soon as they see us engaged in this
disadvantageous position, they surround us on all sides and charge us
with a bravery that borders on fury: our pressed mass makes their
numbers useless; our musketry struck them down, and repelled their
first attack: they stopped, fell back as if to gain ground, and fell
all at once on one of our platoons; he is crushed by it; everything
that is not killed, by a spontaneous movement throws itself to the
ground: this movement unmasks the enemy for our large quarter; he takes
advantage of it and blasts him: this shot stops him again, and makes
him retreat again. What remains of the platoon returns to the ranks; we
gather the wounded.
We are again attacked en masse, no longer
with cries of victory, but with those of rage: the valor is equal on
both sides; they saw that of hope, we had that of indignation: our gun
barrels are cut with their saber blows; their horses are rushed against
our files, which are not shaken; these animals retreat at the sight of
our bayonets; their masters push them backwards, in the hope of opening
our ranks by dint of kicks: our people, who know that their salvation
lies in the unity of their efforts, press forward without disorder,
attack without engaging; the carnage is everywhere, and there is no
melee: the powerless attempts of the Mamluks excite in them a delirium
of fury; they throw against us weapons which could not otherwise have
reached us, and, as if this fight were to be the last, we (p.127) see
them throw rifles, blunderbusses, pistols, axes, and maces of arms; the
ground is littered with them. Those who are dismounted drag themselves
under the bayonets, and come to seek the legs of our soldiers with
their sabers; the dying gathers his strength, and still fights against
the dying, and their blood, which mixes in watering the dust, has not
appeased their animosity. One of our number, knocked down, had joined a
dying Mamluk, and slit his throat; an officer said to him: How, in the
state you are in, can you commit such a horror? You talk about it at
your leisure, you, he said to him, but I, who only have a moment to
live, I have to enjoy a little.
The enemies had suspended their
attack; they had killed many people; but in retreating they had not
fled, and our position had not become more advantageous: they had
barely withdrawn when, leaving us in the open, they brought into play a
battery of eight cannons, which they had masked, and which, with each
discharge, carried away six to eight of ours. There was a moment of
consternation and amazement; the number of wounded increased every
moment. To order a retreat was to restore courage to the enemy and
expose oneself to all kinds of dangers; to delay was to uselessly
increase the evil and expose oneself to perishing all: to march it was
necessary to abandon the wounded, and to abandon them was to deliver
them to assured death; a terrible circumstance in all wars, and
especially in the atrocious war we were waging. How to give an order?
Desaix, with a broken soul, remains motionless for a moment; the
general interest commanded; the voice of necessity drowned out the
cries of the unfortunate wounded, and we marched. We only had to choose
between victory or total destruction; this extreme situation had
brought all interests so close together that the army was no more than
an individual, and to cite the brave it would be necessary to name all
those who (p.128) comprised it: our light artillery, commanded by the
fiery Tournerie, performed prodigies of skill and celerity; and while
she is running to dismantle some of the Mamluks' cannons, our
grenadiers arrive; the battery is abandoned; this cavalry instantly
becomes surprised, shakes, falls back, moves away, and disappears like
a vapor; this tenfold mass of forces vanishes, and leaves us without
enemies.
Never was there a more terrible battle, a more
brilliant victory, a less anticipated result; it was a dream of which
only a memory remained of terror: to represent it I made two drawings.
The
real advantage we obtained at the battle of Sediman was to detach the
Arabs from the Mamluks; but we must still count among our successes the
terror which our way of fighting gave to the latter; despite the
disproportion in numbers, the disadvantageous position in which we
found ourselves, despite the circumstances which had favored their
weapons, and which must have made people believe in our total
destruction, the result of the combat had been for them only the loss
of An illusion. It followed that Mourat-bey no longer hoped to break
through the lines of our infantry, nor to hold out against his attacks
or to repel them: so he left us no more means of defeating him; we were
reduced to pursuing a fast and light enemy, who, in his anxious
precaution, left us neither rest nor security. Our way of waging war
had to be the same as that of Antony among the Parthians: the Roman
legions overthrowing the battalions, without counting the vanquished,
found no resistance except the space that the enemy left in front of
them; but, exhausted by daily losses, tired of victories, they were
determined to leave the territory of a people who, always defeated and
never subjugated, came the day after a defeat to harass with
ever-renewing audacity those to whom (p.129 ) the day before he had
abandoned a battlefield that was still mutilated to the winner.
The
heat of the days, the coolness of the nights in this season, had
afflicted the army with a large number of ophthalmia; this
disease is inevitable when long marches or great fatigue are followed
by bivouacs in which the humidity of the air reflects the perspiration:
these contrasts produce inflammations which attack either the eyes or
the insides.
Desaix, in a hurry to collect the miri and raise
horses in the province which he had just seized, left three hundred and
fifty men in Faïoum, and left to reduce the villages that Mourat-bey
had raised. While he was traveling through the province, a thousand
Mamluks and a number of fellahs or peasants came to attack those who
had remained ill in the city.
General Robin, and the brigade
leader Exuper, also suffering from ophthalmia, as well as those he
commanded, performed prodigies of valor, and repulsed a people of
enemies from street to street, after having made a massacre of them.
terrible. Desaix joins these brave men, and the whole army marches on
Benesouef to dispute with Mourat-bey the miri of this rich province.
Arriving
at Bénésouef, Desaix, to obtain the means to return to the campaign,
went to Cairo; he gathered there and sent out everything he believed
necessary to ensure his marches, and force Mourat to fight; Dreading
the delights of the capital, I remained in Bénésouef; somewhat
picturesque as it was, I made a drawing of it.
Footnotes:
1. [Editor's note:]
General Augustin Daniel Belliard (1769-1832), commissioned by Napoleon to lead French forces in Egypt, fought in the Battle of
the Pyramids, became governor of Upper Egypt, and advanced with his
troops into Nubia where he pursued the Mamluks.
2.
[Editor's note:] Louis Charles Antoine Desaix (1768–1800) was one of the French
generals sent by Bonaparte with the expeditionary force to Egypt. It was
his division which bore the brunt of the Mamluk attack at the Battle of
the Pyramids, and he obtained further victories pursuing Murad Bey in
Upper Egypt.
3. [Editor's note:] Murad Bey Mohammed (c. 1750 –
22 April 1801) was an Egyptian Mamluk chieftain (Bey), cavalry
commander and joint ruler of Egypt with Ibrahim Bey. On 21 July 1798,
he commanded the Mamluk cavalry during the Battle of the Pyramids,
alongside Ibrahim Bey, and was defeated at the hands of Napoleon's
armies led by Belliard and Desaix. Murad fled to Upper Egypt and began mounting a brief guerrilla
campaign that staved off Desaix for a year.
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