EGYPTIAN B OND S.*
A REVIEWER sees the name of a new author in the department of fiction with a mixed feeling of weariness and curiosity. A new writer will probably only add to the heaps of rubbish that even kindle can do nothing with, or at best, to the rows of colour- less, insipid, and harmless tales that fill so many of his shelves. But the critics must form an opinion of him, nevertheless, and there is some interest in the chance of finding an author with power of some sort. There is evidence in Egyptian Bonds that Miss Bates possesses both power and taste, though her virgin work has some glaring faults. She has humour and feeling, great ease of style, and perfect refinement, and she writes the purest English we have met with for a long time, from either male or female writers ; her descriptions are simple and truthful, and yet lively, and three of her characters are sketched in a really masterly way. Miss Bates's style is eminently quiet, and yet shows a great interest in her subject, and a power of describing it with vivid- ness and spirit. But she has made the mistake of supposing that a lively diary of a trip up the Nile is a novel, because, probably, the names—perhaps even the people themselves and the exact circumstances—are creations of her imagination. But for a tale we must have incident, out of which other incidents grow, or upon which they hang ; hero, in the first, or diary, volume, we have, for incident, only the death of a mildly obstinate old lady, upon which nothing whatever turns—except the daha- beeah, whatever that may be, which forthwith took them back to Cairo and us into the second volume—for a growing attach- ment cannot claim to be called an incident, in the story-meaning of that word. Volume two has more claim to be considered a story, as the heroine loses therein both her first and second lover and her father, and Miss Bates owes us an interesting sequel, showing how her very cleverly drawn and lovable heroine fell in love at last with the right man, and was happy ever after. For, as it stands, such story as there is, is very dreary, and yet fails to reach the dignity of tragedy. Can anything be either less cheering or less interesting than for the deserted young heroine to settle down with a commou-place aunt in London, who is not even poor, so as to be comforted by her niece's wealth, but who has many children, and a proper complement of servants to wait on them, including a butler and a coachman ? No! Even the second volume cannot properly he called a story, it is rather a graphic chronicle, by our authoress, of a young friend's growing attachment, and painful discovery that her early engagement is a mistake, followed by the still more painful discovery that the man she really does love is unworthy of her devotion. There is absolutely no plot and no incident. And there is another glaring defect in the book. It is written in the first person and in the present tense, a trying form of compo- sition for any one, and one that should not be attempted by a beginner, though it was, of course, inevitable in a diary ; but though a lady's Christian name is on the title-page, it is a man who is nominally the writer. This is a sad mistake, as it is not one person in a thousand, we should think, who can successfully and continuously play the part of the opposite sex. To realise the opinions and feelings, and to adopt the style of expression of a man, require a knowledge and an experience of a most ex- ceptional kind, and a wakeful carefulness and power in writing that only a George Eliot can command. Consequently, with the name of " Katharine " on the title-page abiding in the reader's memory, and the unmistakable feminine mind speaking in every passage of the narrative, the mention of "my wife," "my cigar," and other manly possessions and properties, has a very quaint and amusing effect.
* Egyptian Bond& 2 vole. By E. Katharine Bates. London: Mantra Bentley and Son. Egypt Ian Bonds are not the bonds for the interest on which our fellow-countrymen are so eager, nor the bonds of the wretched " Fellahs " whose painful toils earn the said interest, and about which our countrymen do not show much eagerness. or anxiety. They are evidently the bonds which our heroine puts off and puts on, on board the dahabeeah Rameses,' when she decides to discard Fred and accept Oscar. Her warm and. impressionable nature is described with considerable power and spirit. The irritability aroused within her by the matter-of-
fact Fred, who plods on, Murray in hand, doing the Nile in an orderly manner, and interrupting and interfering in a loving but arbitrary fashion, if he fears that his Rachel is likely to over-fatigue herself, or to catch cold ; and her fits of contrition afterwards for her impatience with the poor, devoted, faithful lover, because he cannot see the poetical side of things as well as she can, and be fl,S enthusiastic as she is ; her various moods of rapture, indignation, love, tenderness, and contrition—all are very natural, and Rachel would be vary lovable, if she did not distinctly " gush " sometimes in a sickly way, and if we did not hear so much of her " intense " nature. Fancy her saying to her host and hostess, in explaining why she accepted the prosaic Fred,—
" 'if I were strong-minded, I could put all this away, no doubt ; but I um not strong-minded; clever perhaps—so people say—but strong- minded F—itever, It is just as necessary to me to be loved first and best by some one human being; to look forward to feeling a littlo child's arms round my neck some day, and merging seil, with all its worrie3 and weariness, in that little life—just as necessary to ma, all this, as if I was the veriest female fool that ever lived ;' and the girl looks up in my wife's face with her dark oyes full of unshed tears."
But she is very demonstrative, and certainly not shy, and sings an appropriate song to Fred, when she has rejected him, to com- fort him on his lonely way. Oscar, Fred's fortunate rival, is even better sketched than Rachel. His emotional Irish nature, ready eloquence, sensitiveness to external beauty, whether of sight or sound, and ready response to all influences, seem drawn from life. They easily captivate the excitable Rachel ; his good-humoured irony puts poor Fred con- stantly in the wrong, while his ever-ready tact stops in to save Rachel from the unwelcome presence of Fred, in her high-flown moods, and from his untimely and awkward exercise of affianced authority. No less wen-painted is the self-indulgent side of Oscar's nature, the tenderness which comes to tho rescue in times of trouble to others, only to save his own pain at the sight of suffering, and the underlying selfishness which never can, not even in the climax of his love-paroxysm, risk, much less sacri- fice, a single atom of his own personal comfort, even in the far future. The rather arbitrary and very matter-of-fact, but tender nature of Fred, with his dog-like faithfulness and utter self-devotion, is no less admirably described; and we are con- vinced that, with such insight into character and the motives of human action, and so great a feeling for, and power of describing, the beauties both of nature and art, and. the in- fluence of their surroundings, Miss Bates might achieve a real success as a writer. The other characters are dummies merely, and are evidently intended for nothing else ; and Charlie, the supposed journalist, is, as we have implied, an arrant humbug.
Miss Bates should have given us only the first volume, and illus- trated it with some of Oscar's sketches,—Eastern sky-effects, temples, colossi, Egyptian boys, and Nubian girls. Had she done this, and given us a map and some much-needed foot-note explana- tions of words, and called it, what it is, "A Winter on the Nile," the book would have been eagerly read. Even as it is, we recommend any one who is going to sail up the Nile to buy and
read Egyptian Bonds. We might extract many picturesque little bits of description,—of the Hall of Columns at Karnak,
the dirty village of Derr, the scene from the heights above Thebes, the Lower Falls, the troubles and pains of travel with donkeys and donkey-boys in the hot, deep sand, and over the slippery rocks and rough roads ; but we must hasten to a con- clusion, and can only afford space for a moonlight-night walk through an Arab village :—
"Oscar walks on in front, with our three Arabs ; each man carries along pole in his right hand and a lantern in his left ; the dim, moor- thin light of the latter casting weird shadows on our lath, giving to the lissome Arab figure proportions almost gigantic, whilst the reflec- tion of their long staves stretches far out into the darkness beyond. A groat plain of sand surrounds us; we outch the dim outline of rocky hills in the distance, right and loft, whilst over one crag, higher than the rest, the moon is rising slowly in the bright, cold glory peculiar to this Eastern atmosphere. 'Sinking ankle-deep in the sand, and then only emerging to be tripped up by a bit of brushwood, is apt to become monotonous,' as Oscar observes, adding, 'Glad the poor wretches have energy to cultivate anything, but I wish
to goodness they would do it in a more convenient place. Not very encouraging to pay a visit to people who choke up their front-drive with cabbages and bean.stalks No, we can scarcely be said to have had a friendly welcome,' answers Rachel, with a little shiver ; for by this time we are entering the deserted Arab village, and a per- fect army of ill-conditi.mcd, wolfish dogs set up a chorus of barks and howls to keep us away. The long poles do their work now. A few judicious strokes in their midst, and the wretched mongrels slink away, sulky and discomfited ; and we are allowed to enter in peace. The bright moonlight falls on the low white roofs of the miserable Arab houses, or rather hovels ; we pass in silence through narrow dirty lanes, ehut in by high mud walls. Here and there a dog, more daring than the rest, greets us with a sleepy growl ; but otherwise a death- like stillness prevails. No human being is visible. Our own indi- viduality becomes almost oppressive, in the weird-like desolation around. The bright, clear moon shines down upon dirt and abomina- tion of every sort, lighting it up with pitiless truth. Refuse, heaps of bean-pods, cabbage-stalks, broken pottery, and wisps of dirty straw, -he about in reckless confusion. Every footstep brings fresh signs of misery and squalor. How hard and unlovely it must all seem in the daylight ! But the shadows and the moonlight, and, above all, the strange, unnatural silence, give a touch of ghost-like poetry to the village now. 'It is like a city of the dead,' whispers Rachel, pressing closer to Elsa and me. The girl's face has a white, strange look about it in the moonlight. Oscar sees it also, and turns round as though to speak to her, but chocks himself. The spirit of the place is upon us all. For a moment we stand in hushed silence, gazing on the ruin and desolation around us ; then mechanically turn our steps onward. A few moments more we walk in single file through another narrow lane of hovels, end then emerge upon a large square, probably the native market-place. Here a strange sight greets us. Rachel's city of the dead seems suddenly to have restored her victims. But can they be living, breathing human beings P Two long rows of crossed- legged Arabs stretch from end to end of the square. They are seated in absolute silence upon the ground, smoking their long 'nargbilehs.' Their white turbans and feet shod in bright red-and-yellow morocco slippers form the only points of colour and relief to the dark, pic- turesque-looking rags that cover them with a sort of pathetic dignity no English rags could ever achieve. We pause for a moment watch- ing the strange scene, hardly liking to venture down the narrow path between them. It seems almost like invading the solitude of a com- pany of ghosts. But oar Arabs have no such scruples, and the men themselves are utterly without curiosity, so far as we are concerned. They treat our presence with an absolute indifference, which is almost humiliating. Not a single eye is raised to watch the Howadji,' and we walk through the curious, silent ranks, unnoticed and unmolested. I think we all breathe more freely when the last ghost-like couple has been left behind, and we find ourselves on the farther side of the village, with the open sand once more beneath our feet ; the great black rocks above us, and fur below the stretch of the shore ; and the old Nile slumbering peacefully under the Eastern moon."
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