Customer Reviews

Boat Life in Egypt and Nubia 1857

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This book is best when American William Prime is describing his feelings about his voyage in Egypt. He'd dreamed of a trip on the Nile since childhood and was able to fulfill the dream in 1855 with his wife and another couple. His descriptions of antiquities are good but he's best when waxing poetically (for a Victorian American) about the emotional impact of his experience in Egypt.

A lovely moment was their first night at Abu Simbel. The temple was still mostly buried in sand and they had to crawl down into the small opening in the temple entrance.

After strategically lighting the temple interior with lamps and candles, the men retrieved their wives from the boat and spent three hours talking and sipping wine in the temple sanctuary. Prime later stayed in the temple alone until the flames all died out and there he sat in the pitch black of Ramses temple.

Familiar names appear if you've already read books by 19th century travelers to Egypt: Mustapha Aga, Hussaneyn Bey, Hekekian Bey, and others.

Prime is typically Victorian when discussing the Egyptian fellahin (peasants). Like most Europeans and Americans, Lucie Duff Gordon excepted, he viewed the modern Egyptians as a "degraded race" of baksheesh-begging liars. He eagerly let his eye be captive to the allure of Egyptian womanhood, but ascribed little humanity to a people bowed by the tyranny of absoute Ottoman monarchs. The bedouin he found more appealing.

If you can ignore Prime's 19th-century bigotry, the rest of the book is really a great read. As they head back down from Nubia, they take lunch on an Oriental rug laid in the sands near some temple by the Nile. Prime muses disappointedly that the adventure has truly gone out of travel, as they enjoy their sumptuous picnic and claret.

Prime later wrote about his journey in the Holy Land, was an early supporter of the Metropolitan Museum and helped establish the art department at Princeton, later teaching in that department.