Armchair travels with Pierre Loti

He was a great French writer and a tireless traveller. He went to India, the Sahara, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Morocco and even Iceland. He also wrote tales of the Pyrenees and Brittany. Jill Kamil joined Pierre Loti on his travels in Egypt
Pierre Loti's book, L'Egypte, originally published in 1909 and translated from French by W P Baines in 1938, is no longer in print. So when I chanced upon a copy in a second-hand book sale in Maadi at the bargain price of LE5, I snapped it up and took it along for an afternoon's relaxing read at the Maadi Yacht Club. I was particularly intrigued by his sub-title, La Mort de Philae, and recalled that Loti was one of the first travel writers to criticise modern technology and the changes being wrought on traditional society.
I soon found myself chuckling with delight. Only two days previously I had given a short presentation to a group of university students on the dangers of mass tourism, and here, in my hands, was a book written at the turn of the 20th century, a hundred years ago, which even then voiced similar concerns.
Pierre Loti came to Egypt with the pictures from Description de l'Egypte in his mind's eye and a desire for the mystique of the Arabian Nights in his heart. What he found in Cairo was" ... the blinding glare of the electric light; monstrous hotels (which) parade the sham splendour of their painted facades; the whole length of the streets is one long triumph of imitation, of mud walls plastered so as to look like stone; a medley of all styles, rockwork, Roman, Gothic, New Art, Pharaonic, and, above all, the pretentious and the absurd ... "
"Poor Luxor!" wrote Pierre Loti. "Along the banks is a row of tourist boats, a sort of two- or three-storeyed barracks, which nowadays infest the Nile from Cairo to the Cataracts. Their whistlings and the vibration of their dynamos make an intolerable noise. How shall I find a quiet place for my dahabiya, where the functionaries of Messrs Cook will not come to disturb me?"
Even in those days, it was more difficult than he imagined. On his visit to Luxor temple, where he raved about "epochs of a magnificence that is now scarcely conceivable ... a forest of columns grew high and thick, rising impetuously at the bidding of Amenophis and great Ramses ... " he reached the iron-barred gate to the temple where he showed his permit to the guards, hopeful that once he was inside "the immense sanctuary" he would find the solitude he sought.
"But, alas, under the profaned columns a crowd of people passes, with Baedekers in their hands, the same people that one sees here everywhere, the same world as frequents Nice and the Riviera. And, to crown the mockery, the noise of the dynamos pursues us even here, for the boats of Messrs Cook are moored to the bank close by."
What would Loti have said could he see the crowds of tourists in Luxor today: an estimated 80 cruise vessels (four deep) at anchor on the eastern bank of the Nile, and 7,000 to 8,000 people (with or without Baedeker's new edition in hand) visiting the Theban necropolis daily.
At the turn of the 20th century, Aswan was a retreat for aristocrats escaping the cruel European winters. With its warm winter sunshine and cool Nile breeze it was Egypt's most picturesque river city. At the time of Loti's visit the original Aswan barrage had just been erected, and already he feared for the future. When it was first built in 1899-1902 the barrage was 33 metres high, and in 1907, five years after its completion, it was raised another five metres. "The cataract ... has disappeared from Assouan," Loti wrote. "The tutelary Albion wisely considered that it would be better to sacrifice that futile spectacle" -- he was referring to the seven miles of rapids -- "and, in order to increase the yield of the soil, to dam the waters of the Nile by an artificial barrage: a work of solid masonry which (in the words of the Programme of Pleasure Trips) 'affords an interest of a very different nature and degree.'
"But nevertheless," Loti continued, "Cook & Son -- a business concern glossed with poetry, as all the world knows -- have endeavoured to perpetuate the memory of the cataract by giving its name to a hotel of 500 rooms, which, as a result of their labours, has been established opposite to those rocks -- now reduced to silence -- over which the old Nile used to seethe for so many centuries. 'Cataract Hotel' ... looks remarkably well at the head of a sheet of notepaper."
The travel writer who had roamed the Sahara, who wrote with wit and humour of "Mon Frere Yves" in Brittany, and who had visited India sans les Anglais had expected to visit eternal Egypt as, in his opinion, it was meant to be. But what he found was Cook & Son (Egypt Ltd.), and so critical was he that he even criticised the architecture of the Cataract Hotel.
" ... (they) have even gone so far as to conceive the idea that it would be original to give to their establishment a certain cachet of Islam. And the dining-room reproduces (in imitation, of course -- but then you must not expect the impossible) the interior of one of the mosques of Stamboul. At the luncheon hour it is one of the prettiest sights in the world to see, under this imitation holy cupola, all the little tables crowded with Cook's tourists of both sexes, while a concealed orchestra strikes up the Mattchiche."
As for the monuments on the island of Philae, Loti noted that the water level upstream following the construction of the Aswan barrage had already risen some 30 feet. "Charming coloured post-cards, taken before the submerging of the island and the sanctuary, are on sale in all the book-shops along the quay," he noted.
"Oh! this quarry of Assouan, already so British in its orderliness, its method!" he wrote with obvious cynicism. "First of all there is the railway, which, passing between balustrades painted a grass-green, gives out its fascinating noise and joyous smoke ... And then numerous cafes, where the whisky is of excellent quality. And, I ought to add, in justice to the result of the Entente Cordiale, you may see there, too, aligned in considerable quantities on the shelves, the products of those great French pilanthropoligists, to whom indeed our generation does not render sufficient homage for all the good they have done to its stomach and its head. The reader will guess that I have named Pernod, Picon and Cusenier."
Reading ancient travelogues while sitting on the bank of the Nile is a great delight. Sharing the memoirs of such travellers as Amelia Edwards, Lady Duff Gordon and Florence Nightingale is a delight to all English-speakers. Reading the words of a great French travel writer is an unexpected reward, largely because of his unbiased approach.
Walking in Cairo, Loti observed the "Levantine damsels, who seek by their finery to imitate their fellows of the Paris boulevards" of all the "poisons of the West."
Poor Pierre Loti! How disappointed he was. "This, then, is the Cairo of the future, this cosmopolitan fair! Good heavens! When will the Egyptians recollect themselves, when will they realise that their forebears have left to them an inalienable patrimony of art, of architecture of exquisite refinement; and that, by their negligence, one of those towns which used to be the most beautiful in the world is falling into ruin and about to perish ... When I see things that are here, see them with the fresh eyes of a stranger, landed but yesterday upon this soil, impregnated with the glory of antiquity, I want to cry out to them, with a frankness that is brutal perhaps, but with a profound sympathy:
"Bestir yourselves before it is too late. Defend yourselves against this disintegrating invasion ... not by force, be it understood, not by inhospitality or ill-humour ... but by disdaining this Occidental rubbish, this last year's frippery by which you are inundated. Try to preserve not only your traditions and your admirable Arab language, but also the grace and mystery that used to characterise your town, the refined luxury of your dwelling-houses."
Those words were written by Pierre Loti a hundred years ago. They are worth pondering today.
Recommend this page
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
Send a letter to the Editor