By Mursi Saad El-Din Carson Ritchie, whom I am presenting this week, has been a regular visitor to Egypt without himself writing about it, rather he has recorded the history of those who died. To be exact he wrote about those he calls "Victorian Visitors" or English tourists in Egypt in the 19th century. In the mid 19th century as today, the highlight of a trip to Egypt was to travel up the Nile to the First or Second Cataract. As Carson Ritchie points out the best way was to travel under sail by dahabia. Of course the dahabias are now replaced by luxury cruisers which shuttle between Luxor and Aswan. It is interesting to note that the expectations of the traveller and the sites they most wished to see were almost the same a hundred years ago as they are today, but whereas the tourist will now snap away with his camera, in the 1850s impressions were recorded in diaries, often charmingly illustrated. The period between 1830 and 1860 was the heyday of travel up the Nile, says Carson Ritchie. Travel was by dahabia and European travellers had the means and the will to make the visit to the First Cataract and then turn southward once more. Carson asks why those travellers did not simply make their way up the Nile by steamer? "Some travellers, such as the Duc de Brabant, eldest son of the King of Belgium, did just that. 'The Belgian prince's steamboat whizzed past us this morning,' wrote an anonymous lady traveller. 'It was travelling so fast that His Royal Highness had hardly time to reply to our salutations, but he acknowledged them most graciously.' "The rate of progress (in a steamboat presumably) is far too rapid to let us abandon ourselves to the lotus- eating indolence which is so refreshing to the wearied frame and over- wrought brain of the traveller in search of health. Then, too, it is impossible to linger where we please, we must hurry on. Two hours may be enough for the tomb of Beni Hassan, three hours for the temple of Esna, four days for Luxor and Karnak, but it is distressing to feel that we cannot stop as we like. Haunted by the fear of being too late, we complete our survey, watch in hand, to be sure of catching the steamer before she leaves her moorings in the river. The risk of finding uncongenial company on board is likewise not inconsiderable. "The Nile boat enabled one to live in a wholly Egyptian atmosphere, something impossible ashore. It was easy to stop whenever there was an interesting ruin ashore, or where it seemed feasible to do some shooting. All kinds of visit, never made by steamer travellers such as visits to Coptic monasteries, were possible aboard a Dahabieh." Describing the Dahabieh, Carson says "The Dahabia was not a bit like the local craft in which the tourist of today takes a sail on the Nile at Aswan or Philae. It was a large craft, powered by lateen sails on two of the longest yards. "The dahabia had saloons and cabins which were on deck. Some were luxuriously fitted up, room being found even for a piano. Dahabias differed in size, affording accommodation far from two to six or eight passengers. It was important to choose a good boat, a good captain, or Rais, as he is called, and a good dragoman who attached himself exclusively to the group on board." Carson even gives the cost of having a dahabia all to oneself. It needed a considerable outlay of money. In 1854 it cost LE 70 to hire a boat for four people to travel to the Second Cataract and back. This price included the wages of the crew. But the price soon went up, and according to "Murray's Guide to Egypt," by 1873 it cost between 350- 400.
