Tag Archives: Oswald Walters Brierly

Beaten by a head in the race

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In January 1869, exactly 150 years ago, Miss Riggs joined Thomas Cook’s very first tour to Egypt and the Holy Land. Travelling overland, the journey would take three months, there and back. Miss Riggs kept a diary of her adventure and I am going to be posting from it over the coming weeks. This is day thirty.

Tuesday, 23 February
Left Edfou at 5 in the morning for Assouan, there by 4. Saw the Prince of Wales steamers and the one the Viceroy had conveyed the Prince in. He and his party had left that morning in dahabeahs for the 2nd Cataract, so we have missed them again – count Bismark was there – we started off at once across the deep sand for the bazaars; hardly repaid one. On the return most gorgeous sunset – sands deep gold and mountain deep violet-red – a colouring I had not seen before – suppose tropical in tint. Dinner at 7.

Egyptian boat above the First Cataract by Brierly, 24th February 1869

Egyptian boat above the First Cataract by Oswald Walters Brierly, 24th February 1869

Miss Riggs may have missed the Prince but some of his party remained in Aswan, including the scathing journalist William Howard Russell. “Cook’s tourists have also arrived!” he wrote. “Their steamers are just below us in the stream. The tourists are all over the place. Some are bathing off the banks; others, with eccentric head-dresses, are toiling through the deep sand. They are just beaten by a head in the race! Another day, and the Prince and Princess would have been at their mercy.”

The real issue here was not concern for the privacy of the Prince and Princess, but snobbery. Russell could not bear the thought that the Nile had to be shared with fellow countrymen (and women) of a lower status. “It is a nuisance to the ordinary traveller to have his peace broken,” he wrote, although by “ordinary” he clearly meant upper class. Cook aimed to democratize Nile tourism and in years to come, among a certain class of people, he would be despised for it.

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Luxor at last

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In January 1869, exactly 150 years ago, Miss Riggs joined Thomas Cook’s very first tour to Egypt and the Holy Land. Travelling overland, the journey would take three months, there and back. Miss Riggs kept a diary of her adventure and I am going to be posting from it over the coming weeks. This is day twenty-six.

Friday, 19 February
Started at day-break and arrived at Thebes by 12 at noon. Ran aground often on our way – the river getting shallow at Keneh 2 miles from the shore. We saw pottery made with the wheel, very quickly and prettily. Dancing girls there which the gentlemen patronized. Luxor our aim and arrived at last – landed and proceeded en masse to the consul who spoke English very well. A low and roomy house facing the landing place. We were sorry to find that owing to our accident of paddle e had missed the grand illuminations at Karnak, which took place in honour of the Prince and Princess of Wales the evening before. Consul’s name Mustapha Aga – wrote all our names in his book and then read the entries of the Royal party.

The Prince and party had left this morning for Assouan, He enquired after our party and sorry we had met with an accident. Got saddles out of boat and proceeded to Karnak on donkeys – 2 miles ride, sandy and dusty.

Spent about 3 hours at Karnak and then returned on our donkeys getting to sunset – lovely sky. Backsheesh men very troublesome – with much struggling managed to get our saddles on board. Table d’hote pleasant – sit on deck.

I skipped the entry for Thursday, 18 February, which was minimal, because Miss Riggs and party spent all day not doing anything at all at Keneh. One of the paddlewheels on the Benha was broken and they had to wait around for it to be repaired. Why they didn’t use the time to pay a visit to the nearby temple at Dendara is a mystery.

Friday they push on to Luxor. The entry for that day includes pages of description at Karnak, which I am not transcribing because, as we established at Alexandria, Miss Riggs knows nothing of Egyptian history. Anything she writes must be cribbed from her guidebook.

What’s of more interest here is the further mention of the English royal party. Miss Riggs and company have a great interest in them. Understandably so. It must have been a huge source of excitement to discover that the other English party on the Nile at the time was the Prince and Princess of Wales. (Miss Riggs carefully copies into her diary the names of the Royal party as listed in Mustapha Aga’s book.) However, the joy was not mutual. Travelling as part of the Prince’s retinue was William Howard Russell, a war correspondent of some renown attached to the London Times. He afterwards reported that Cook’s party had been in “full cry up the river after the Prince and Princess”. He was scathing of Cook’s clients, who he considered had been inappropriately “thrown off their balances by the prospect of running the Prince and Princess of Wales to earth in a Pyramid, of driving them to bay in the Desert, of hunting them into the recesses of a ruin”.

Incidentally, also among those making up the Royal party was the watercolourist Oswald Walters Brierly, who was along to document the journey. He produced a series of paintings, several of which are below. The originals are part of the Royal Collection.

Pyramid of Meidun, 7 February 1869

Pyramid of Meidun, 7 February 1869

Beni Suef, 7 February 1869

Beni Suef, 7 February 1869

Near Girga, 13 February 1869

Near Girga, 13 February 1869

Girga, 14 February 1869

Girga, 14 February 1869

Royal arty visiting the Valley of the Kings, 17 February 1869

Royal party visiting the Valley of the Kings, 17 February 1869

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Following the prince

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In January 1869, exactly 150 years ago, Miss Riggs joined Thomas Cook’s very first tour to Egypt and the Holy Land. Travelling overland, the journey would take three months, there and back. Miss Riggs kept a diary of her adventure and I am going to be posting from it over the coming weeks. This is day twenty-one.

Sunday, 14 February
Stopped at Assiout; went with the Newmans to Mission School kept by Mr. and Mrs. Hogg, a theological master – a Scotch family – 2 children. Most difficult to find the town, some distance from the shore; our donkeys wound through street after street. When we arrived the morning service was going on – although in Arabic we remained and had a good survey of the attentive hearers. After service we went up to their private rooms and had an interesting chat. The Prince and Princess had been in these schools the Friday before. Returned to steamer by 1 o’clock. Miss Crichton and others had made the ascent of a hill for the view – they came back very hot and tired. In the evening we stopped the night at Nachara.

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The Prince of Wales and party in Egypt in February 1869

I skipped day twenty, Saturday 13th, a day on which Miss Riggs and companions visited the cave-tombs of Beni Hassan. What’s interesting on this day, the 14th, is not Miss Riggs determination to visit every missionary school on the Nile, but the mention of the ‘Prince and Princess’. The prince was Albert, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Queen Victoria and heir apparent to the British throne. He was in Egypt on a second honeymoon with his wife Alexandra – also expediently making himself absent from England at a time when his name was being linked to a high-profile adultery scandal. The royals had departed Cairo four days ahead of Miss Riggs’s party in a fleet of five blue and gold steamers, plus tender, and a towed dahabiya that served as the royal couple’s private sleeping quarters. Each steamer was decorated with scenes depicting incidents from the life of Antony and Cleopatra, and each towed a barge of ‘necessities and luxuries’, which between them included 3,000 bottles of champagne and 4,000 of claret, not to mention sherry, ale and liqueurs of all sorts. They had horses, a white donkey and four French chefs, plus a “stuffer” to deal with all the animals the prince was going to shoot.

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