USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. I > Part 29
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The King's Chamber is of the same size, with square roof and no names on the walls, which are of malachite and so pol- ished no trace of the joining of the slabs could be seen by the tapers that were carried by the sheiks. It is three hundred and fifty feet from the Queen's Chamber. They again said: "Do you want light, new tapers, a shilling each," and were told to light them. Should we come thousands of miles to see the pyramids and fail for a few shillings of seeing all they had to show? We descended to the plane where there was a ltitle daylight and they again asked for money. When two dollars were offered they declined it; when a five dollar gold piece was given them,
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they took from a white canvas bag, half filled with money, two- fifty, and were satisfied.
Once back to our carriage a photographer was there, but my husband waved him aside. "You are as red as a lobster." And when a camel knelt for me to go to the sphinx, he said: "I want my dinner, you have been two long hours in the pyra- mids. Let us go to Hotel Mena." It was two o'clock.
The hotel is the resort of the nobility of England. The entrance is a porch, shaded by fret-work. Fret-work is also in the partition separating the parlor from the hall. A gong was ringing for dinner; couples passed to the dining room each lady dressed in most elaborate costume, with trails of half a yard; one in jet, one in white, one in light blue, one in pink.
I went to the house of "notions" in the yard, and my hus- band lighted his cigar. We could reach Cairo in an hour and we postponed our dinner until then. Of the many beautiful things for sale, I found them in the stores of Cairo at less price.
Our next trip was to the Garden of the Pasha. We passed by cars, with men in red fez caps at every window; also an Arabian village built in block shape, with a roof on which were clothes to dry. Chickens and geese; each door with one window represented a house. The cooking was done out of doors. We saw where the Wadena of Cleveland, a yacht owned by Homer Wade, was stationed last year.
The Pasha was a young man and was to be married as soon as he had reached 21 years. His palaces for his many wives were painted light blue. We entered the Pasha's Gardens of fifty or more acres. A high board walk led up to the circle bordered on either side with every variety of cacti, begonias, lilacs (which grow like trees), and the oleander of enormous height. In the circle was a marble statue of Columbus, holding
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a sphere on which was marked Spain, the Atlantic and North and South America. Numerous statues marked the avenues, but on examining them we could see the red pottery, where the white had scaled off. One was of a lady twining a wreath; an- other a lady holding something and closely examining it. As we returned, at the entrance gate a man was there with "Mes- sina" oranges, three cents a dozen. We gathered twigs from the pepper tree that stood in the highway, which is like our cherry tree; the seeds are red and afterwards turn black. As we came to town by another route, we passed cottages covered with vines, and through wheat fields, with no fences, and huge sewer pipes, beside the railroad. Two boys on the ground were chewing sweet flag, out of which sorghum is made.
On the broad avenues we saw on one door "English College." On another very much carving, and were told it was the home of a wealthy Hebrew; in a shoe store a wealthy native woman had on a black silk dress with a double skirt, the upper one she drew over her head as she went out, and drew up a piece of cloth which hid all but her forehead and eyes. It was the ex- ception and not the rule of the women.
We took cars for Alexandria and in our compartment came a Jew. Of him we asked questions. "What is that bundle of calico on the grass plot in the field?" He said: "That is a woman who guards the cows. Do you see those division lines of. water? Every one must keep his beast on his own ground." She draws her double skirt over her head. "What are those stone altars?" "They are where the people put money for the priests. This is the Goshen of the Israelites, and where they made the brick to build the pyramids and the monuments." When we stopped at a village, he said: "This is a college town and the men with the red fez caps are the students. The giris
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at the depot selling you dates are here more to see the young men than to sell anything." He left before we reached Alexan- dria, where the windmills are better than the one he pointed out, as of the old time-there a pail went down with a windlass and on the other end a bucket came up with water and was upset into a trough, which would run down around the plot of grass about four yards square.
We stopped at the Abbott Hotel. In front was a square on which stood the statue of Abraham Pasha. A large Bazaar was on the first floor, from which we purchased many mats and em- broideries. The photographs were opposite in a store by them- selves. In the dry goods stores only one clerk was necessary; if you wanted silk, he gave you cards that had samples, of prices on one page, ranging from fifty cents to one dollar per yard. If you wanted dimity he would give you another card on which were samples, from ten cents to one dollar per yard. We could do as well in New York-yes, better. We went to a photograph gallery that had colored photos, but they were double our price. We took four, however, bought on the ground of the great Pha- raohs. A man approached with a long bright rug. "How much ?" "Fifteen dollars." "But it might have been exposed to small pox." So we refused to buy. When we went to our rooms there were on the bureau bowls of fresh figs, Messina oranges and nuts.
When we went to our boat to sail for Naples, the conductor asked for our passports, the first time in all our travels, but he said: "I am a Mohammedan, and we are stricter than you Chris- tians." On board the boat we met a lady, Miss Crabtree, and mother. Her letters were delivered at our cabin door. When a day or two out suddenly there was no noise of the engine. We were standing still, but on inquiry at the deck, they said:
CARTHAGE, AFRICA
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"All was safe." When at dinner we asked the Captain "How many engines have you?" He replied: "Ten." "That will do to tell the marines." "Yes, it is true; we have ten; one to grind the knives; one to do every sort of thing that needs doing." When on deck I said: "What did you mean by saying 'We have ten en- gines'?" "Let me ask you a question, Why do you Americans come over here in such droves? Last trip we had eighty-seven, and one person lost a child by fever. Did she go back home? No, indeed! She had it embalmed, left it in town, and went on with her journey. Why do you come over here?" I replied : "It is the historic ground. If America had such a record you would all go to America to see it for yourselves."
ANCIENT EGYPT
The name pyramid is supposed to be derived from pi-rami, meaning mountain, or the Greek word signifying a pointed cake, used in the rites of Bacchus. There are seventy remains of pyr- amids in Egypt; that of the First Dynasty Sakhara; the last is Amenhut at Illahorn. All have been identified in height.
They had books on religion, meals, travel, and on morals, but the style was forced and stilted; their architecture was greater than that of Greece. It had the effect of mass, color glaring. They worked in shackles, a dull conventionalism; in morals it is said that Moses compiled his laws from the "Book of the Dead." The men openly practiced impurity and used a rod to avenge crimes; they were not good soldiers and were as a bruised reed; there was drunkenness among young men and sensual pleasure was the end of existence. Life was passed in feasting and sport; they gradually declined in power and were the subjects of Ethiopians, Assyrians, Persians and Greeks.
The Amu were the herdsmen who were treated with con-
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tempt. There were those of Palestine also called herdsmen, called Hittites or sons of Hitt; these came from the north and the Philistines fought against them. From the Biblical Ency- clopedia of Severance, page 816. "The Hittites were a nation of warriors and the most powerful in northwestern Asia. In the dynasty of Rameses II the king of the Hittites had under his control Trojans, Dardanese and ten or more other peoples. A mighty host was brought into the field by a voice of command that must be obeyed. When the ambassadors of the Hittites went down into Egypt they carried a silver plate on which the Hittite text was engraved in their own language and character. A copy of it is on the walls of Rameses. There was among them much progress in commerce, law and civil institutions. They used silver as a standard of value." Dr. Isaac Taylor said, "They were one of the most powerful people of the prim- eval world.
Their empire extended from the frontier of Egypt to the Ægean sea. They had an art, a culture and a script peculiar to themselves; they had holy cities or Cities of Refuge where the debtor or homicide were safe. The Queen of Sheba, the mother of Solomon, was a Hittite. In the time of the siege of Samaria they were distinguished for their swift chariots, their horses and engines of war. They appeared for the first time 3800 B. C. and do not disappear until the time of Sargon, 1717 B. C. Their features are those of a northern people; the Chinese appearance of the Hittites is very remarkable; they have a shaven head, with a single lock of hair on the crown, as shown in their sculpture are non-Semitic.
The commencement of monarchy in Egypt was 2450 B. C. and of Babylon 2300 B. C. The Egyptian language is a dead language, but used in Coptic churches. The hieroglyphics is
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the language of abbreviation used in writing; it reports all the eye can see-O, for the sun; the crescent, for the moon; small o, for the mouth, and a goose for a son; mountains represent for- eign countries; A, for eagle; as, for eagles, it also means elbow. They have nine hundred signs, read from right to left or vice versa if the characters face the other way. The numerals are known by straight lines, I, II, III, IO for ten, 20 for twenty, 30 for thirty, etc. Four volumes have been translated into Eng- lish by the Egyptians.
A Song of Thotmes, the Greatest King of the Eighteenth Dynasty-Egyptian Poetry
"As Ray rises up every morn, So woman conceived and man is born.
Each soul in its turn draws its breath; Each man born of woman sees death;
Take thy pleasures today
'Mid the joys of delight.
Soon life's pilgrimage ends,
And we pass to silence and night.
Patriarch, perfect and pure, Nofer Hotep, blessed art thou;
Didn't finish thy course on earth
And art with the blessed ones now.
Men pass to the great silence there And their places do know them no more."
The temple succeeded the tombs. The oldest, Chephern, is 100 feet long. Then Medenet Abou of the eighteenth dynasty. Then Rameses II of the nineteenth dynasty. Then the temple of Karnak, which had seven monarchs and five hundred years in building. That of Medenet Abou is like a cross and has
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pylons or towers to support the roof. Rameses at Theles is on a similar plan; it has round towers and eight square pillars on either side, regularly set, and thirty-six round towers, all orna- mented with patterns and hieroglyphics cut in stone and highly colored. It has nine chambers for priests back of the hall and a sitting colossus known as the vocal Memnon. That of Karnak is 350 x 370 feet and has 164 massive stone columns, 12 x 66 feet and 30 feet in circumference, six on either side. An obelisk 70 feet in height and of 300 tons. The obelisks stood in pairs on each side of the gateway.
There are two kinds of temples, palace temples, residence of the kings, and strictly temples. The Arab says, "The arch never sleeps." The Egyptian prefers solidity and does not use the arch because it spoils that view of it. They also prefer non- uniformity; the wings of houses do not match; the pillars are of different heights. They say absolute uniformitv is wearisome. This makes the building seem greater than it is, which is a merit.
The Hyksos, or shepherd kings, came from the East, but al- lowed the Theban kings to rule over their own dominions. They even gathered some of their art and built stone temples after the Egyptian models (page 194, Rawlinson's history). They gave dates to times and places; they established revenues and a military system and had a single head, or fixed centre. The Hyksos produced the glories of the Later Empire.
Set was the one they placed at their head as they over- came the territory. Set established himself at Memphis and visited his soldiers and paid them. He was called the great and glorious Almoner. All kings were called Pharaohs. Appi made Joseph his heir and invited Joseph's family to Egypt. Appi sent a challenge to Rasaka and at last forced a war with the Hyksos
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and drove them out of Egypt. This war lasted five years. Then Ahmes ascended the Nile and conquered the Nubians, but in turn was conquered by them. Peace reigned twenty-eight years.
Ahmes began restoring the upper Nile. Ahmes married an Ethiopian so as to claim his wife's right to the upper part of the Nile. She was called Nefert, which means beautiful, and consecrated the temple of Thebes by granite obelisks seventy-five feet high. Thotmes did not care for Nefert and his sister is supposed to have caused his brother's death and erased from the monuments his name. She wore male attire. She connected her temple to the others by long rows of sphinxes in repose and erected a monument to her architect, which is now in the Brit- iish museum. She made an annual expedition to the Red Sea for frankincense, ivory and trees for gum, and had it all ex- hibited on the marble of her temple. Her younger brother came to the throne and erased her name. In seven years he died at forty years of age; nobody could tell why.
Thotmes III forced his way to Syria, besieged Megiddo and captured 5,900 prisoners, 924 chariots, and returned to Egypt in triumph. In his fifth campaign he took prisoners as host- ages. In his eighth campaign he went to Nineveh and Assur gave tribute to Thotmes III, year after year. He was given in all 11,000 captives, 1,111 chariots, 3,800 horses, 4,500 cattle, 36,000 goats, 4,000 pounds of gold, 3,000 pounds of silver, two kinds of birds and one goose, all told on his wall. He arranged chrono- logically sixty kings. The great tablet at Karnak is his. He erected obelisks which are now in Rome, England and America; also the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis. He left more monu .. ments than any one except Rameses II. He had a reign of fifty-six years and died at sixty years of age, 1500 B. C. His son, who reigned with him, had conquered the Bedouins and he
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had his hands full to keep them conquered. Thotmes IV devoted himself to clearing away the sands of the sphinxes. He died a young man, after reigning nine years (page 256, Rawlinson History).
Hotep, born of an Ethiopian woman, married a wife also foreign and through her influence worshiped the sun. The sun was to be substituted for forty or fifty Gods, as it was the lord of light.
Anonaphis reigned thirty-six years. He erected the temple at Luxor and united it with Karnak with an avenue of sphinxes; also built a temple at Elephantine and erected a statue of him- self at the gateway, made of red sandstone, sixty-one feet, and a crown that made it seventy feet high; no other is more than fifty feet high. One emitted musical sounds and is called the vocal Memnon. He gave to Egypt grand and solid masterpieces of art. He loved field sports and tamed some lions. Since then they have been an emblem of royalty. He was kindly in manner and reigned with his mother and deferred to his wife.
Amen Hotep III created the Disk worship and said, "Thou art he who created that which previously was not, who art everything." Amen Ophis, eigteenth, built a new city and re- moved his mother to it and called it Kharten. He had several daughters and reigned twelve years. His daughters' husbands reigned in succession, but the priests restored the ancient re- ligion. The chisel had removed the traces of the changes. Amen Ophis IV restored the temple that had fallen into ruin and won great victories over the Ethiopians by a general named Haren Meheb, 1400 B. C. Some say his brother-in-law was Rameses II. He reigned but sixteen months and gave his son the name of Seti, in honor of the sun-god Seti. He checked the Hittites of Western Asia. He was at once beset by the Semitics and
LUXOR, EGYPT
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Turanian races. He ravaged Idumea, defeated the Hittites and obtained Mesopotamia. On his return he and his son Rameses went to the eastern borders of Egypt. The dwellers fled to caves. He also went to the south against the Cushites. He built a canal between the Nile and Red Sea twenty miles long. He arranged the tables at Abydos in chronological order, con- taining seventy-five predecessors. It differs from that of Thot- mes III. He married the grand-daughter of Kharton and had three sons, and his son Rameses II united the claims of the two rival houses. He crowned Rameses II at twelve years of age and his son carried on his father's work. Setti II reigned twelve years alone and eighteen years with Rameses. The two reigns were eighty years. At twenty-eight Rameses II entered on his reign. He had one long war and it ended in a treaty. He went against the Hittites, taking one side of the river and Ra the other. Ra was attacked and overcome. Rameses heard of it, turned to the right, rushed in and was cut off from the rest of his army and confronted by 2,500 of the enemy. He fought right and left and pursued them to the waters, where they fell like crocodiles. The brother and secretary of the king were killed, and Kharton pleaded for peace and it was granted.
Not for five years was there any war. Khatusin was called the great king of Khita and Rameses the great ruler of Egypt. Each bound themselves to come to the assistance of the other and in no case to invade each other's dominion, nor his sons, nor his sons' sons. Rameses married the daughter of the Hittite king Khatusi. She had captured his heart when she plead for the captives of her native land.
Rameses cared only to obtain slaves. Whole tribes were removed from Soudan, and Lybians and Asiatics were planted on the upper Nile, Aperi and Hebrew, the latter of 600,000 adult males./
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The canal from the Nile to the Red Sea was ninety miles with store cities. The cities were Tunis, Heropolis and Para, and had temples, obelisks, tombs and canals, rich in fish; also onions, grapes, almonds, figs and apples were raised in abun- dance. The king owned all the land and did not cramp farming operations, but they had to first pay the tax-gatherer. The seed was scattered on the rich deposit of the Nile as soon as the waters receded and was trodden down by sheep, goats or pigs. Egypt had 100,000 square miles; seven-eighths were worthless The Blue Nile rises in Abyssinia. At Abel Homed it makes a great bend and to shorten the distance travelers go by camel across the Nubian desert. In the bend are the sites Appolosilus and Setopolis; then the two mountains hem it in, called Gibilene, and then through the plains of Homenthus and Thebes; then the valley of Abydos, ten miles wide; then to Youseck to Cynop- olis, and here the canal of Egypt is built 120 miles long. It took twenty years and sixty thousand men to build Cheops, the only pyramid that contained a gallery and tombs. The gallery was a telescope from which stars could be seen day and night, and the great heavens divided each hour the stars into constella- tions and reduced them to a system.
It was the patriarchal age when thousands of people could be fed and obeyed by one man. When the Arabs came into pos- session they believed much gold was buried here and a great army of them opened the sealed pyramid about thirty feet from its door, which fell at last and therefore the entrance is zig-zag. No money was found, but so clamorous were the people the leader deposited some for them to find and they were satisfied.
CONSTANTINOPLE
ARCH OF TRIUMPH, PARIS
FUJI MOUNTAIN, JAPAN
JAPAN
Remarks of W. G. Griffiths, late of the Imperial University of Tokio, Given at Plymouth Church, Cleveland, O.
In 1868 the Higo students came to the United States and were of equal good breeding and mental acumen.
From twelve to fifteen years of age the child is sent to a school, that does nothing else but teach the laws of etiquette.
At New Brunswick, N. J., they studied with Mr. Griffiths. Six died, and Mr. Griffiths was invited to go to Japan and or- ganize a school, which he did in 1870.
One of those who was here is now president of the Univer- sity of Japan. Two are the sons of its Prime Minister and were generals and soldiers in the war.
Japan had thirty-three millions of people and is situated on a number of islands.
They probably emigrated from Manchuria, because of sim- ilar physiognomy, high cheek bones, oblique eyes, black hair, broad face. They are also supposed to be the ancestors of the Indians of North America. They are a mixture of five races, Arno, Maglog, Negrito, Corean and Tomato.
Shinto is the oldest religion and was to ward off calamities. It had no priests. In the second century the Buddhists came and abolished burying one or two attendants when a man died.
When the Queen died, they substituted a clay image and thus a reform began.
There are no words meaning truth, morality or property. There was a military class which established a new aristocracy, by distributing among themselves the land they conquered.
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The court nobles are descendants of the Mikado or Kings. A family would hold some high office and it would be kept in the family. They married their daughters to the Mikado.
In 888 A. D. the head of the Fugiwara tribe married his daughter to the Mikado and her son would be a Mikado at the death of the empress.
In 1879 the capital was removed to Kiota; before that it was in Nera. Kiota means the capital, in Chinese. It is in the middle of the northwest neck of land between the Sea of Japan and Pacific Ocean, accessible to ships from the west and a har- bor for ships east and west.
The Yodo River flows through the center. Hills are on all sides on which are seen the red temples of Shinto, pagodas and shrines.
The Mikado, after the entrance of Buddhism, would re- move from the vain world after two years and become a monk in a monastery.
In the streams of water were black and silvery fish.
On holidays a paper fish is put upon a pole before every house and it is hollow and fills with the breeze and flaps its tail and fins as if in the water. The carp can swim against the current, and leaps over waterfalls, and so is used for the young man as one who can surmount difficulties.
They have a folk-lore or grandmothers' stories. They have the superstition that if a person is very sick and you upset a cup of medicine it is sure the person will get well. If they tell a lie the imps will pull out their tongues. To grow tall you must not carry a basket on your head; also that when a person falls asleep the soul goes out to play.
The Mikado rode out in a car, closely curtained. The mili- tary classes dominated until 1868. The list of emperors from 127 to 1867 was 123. Kobo-Dashi made an alphabet, i, ro, ha,
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ni, no, he, to. Kobo was born in 1774, died when 61 years old and founded the temple called "True Words." There were eight sects; two exist.
In the 13th century there was an arrival of Buddhism. One of its innovations is to have a flowing invocation. A piece of cloth is suspended, a pail of water and wooden dipper is beside it. When the cloth is worn out so it will not drain the water through, the spirit is freed from sin, and rises to the resurrection. The cloth can be purchased only at the temple. Some can buy cloth that will break in a little white, perhaps a day.
They also have evening games. The feast flag is the fifth and the like. They play shuttlecock, which is a gilded seed stuck around with feathers. Those who fail have a mark of black ink put around their eyes.
In the schools were eight hundred students. Those who study do not shave off their hair. The house was sixty feet broad and one hundred deep, with twelve rooms. Floors of soft mats. The paper partitions could all be taken out. The ceiling was twelve feet high.
I visited the Mikado, who had American chairs. On tables were half peeled oranges and fresh sponge cake. Boys brought tea in cups of silver. They handed me cards on which was, "I am glad your President is in good health. If you have need of anything make your wants known to me."
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