The Egyptian

BOOK 5
The Khabiri
1

I speak now of Syria and of the different cities to which I came, and to this end I should explain first of all that the Red Lands differ from the Black Lands in every particular. There is, for example, no river there like ours; instead, water pours from the sky and wets the ground. Every valley has its hill, and beyond every hill lies another valley. In each of these dwells a distinct people governed by a prince who pays tribute to Pharaoh-or did at the time of which I write. The dress of the people is colorful and expertly woven of wool and it covers them from head to foot, partly, I think, because it is cooler in their country than in Egypt and partly because they think it shameful to expose their bodies except when they relieve themselves in the open-which to an Egyptian is abomination. They wear their hair long and allow their beards to grow and eat always within doors. Their gods, of which each city has its own, demand human sacrifice. From all this it may readily be seen that everything in the Red Land differs from the ways of Egypt.

It is also clear that to those distinguished Egyptians who held resident posts in the Syrian cities, supervising taxation or commanding the garrisons, their task appeared more of a punishment than an honor. They yearned for the banks of the Nile-all but a few, that is, who had succumbed to the alien ways. These had altered the style of their garments and their thoughts and made sacrifice to strange gods. Moreover, the constant intrigues among the inhabitants, the cheating and roguery of the taxpayers, and the squabbles between rival princes embittered the lives of the Egyptian officials.

I lived in Smyrna for two years during which I learned the Babylonian language, both spoken and written; for I was told that a man with this knowledge could make himself understood among educated people throughout the known world. The written characters, as is well known, are imprinted on clay with a sharp stylus, and all correspondence between kings is so conducted. Why this is so I cannot tell unless it be that paper will burn but a clay tablet endures forever as a testimony to the speed with which rulers forget their pacts and treaties.

Syria differs from Egypt also in that the physician must seek out his patients, who, instead of coming to him, trust to their gods to send him to them. Moreover, they give their presents before and not after they have been cured. This profits the doctor, for patients tend to be forgetful once they are well again.

It was my intention to follow my calling here quite unpretentiously, but Kaptah was of another mind. He wished me to lay out all I had in fine clothes and to hire criers who would make known my fame in every public place. These were to announce also that I did not visit patients but that they must come to me, and Kaptah forbade me to receive any who did not bring at least one gold piece with them as a present. I told him this was folly in a city where no one knew me and where the customs differed from those of the Black Land, but Kaptah stood his ground. I could do nothing with him, for when once he got an idea into his head, he was as stubborn as a donkey.

He persuaded me also to visit those doctors who were held in highest repute and to say to them:

“I am Sinuhe, an Egyptian physician to whom the new Pharaoh gave the name of He Who Is Alone, and I am a man of renown in my own country. I restore the dead to life and bring back sight to the blind if my god wills it-for I have a small but powerful god whom I carry with me in my traveling chest. Knowledge differs from one place to another, however, nor are diseases everywhere the same. For this reason I have come to your city to study maladies and to cure them and to profit by your learning and wisdom.

“I do not mean in any way to encroach upon your practice, for who am I to compete with you? I propose, therefore, that you send to me such patients as are under your god’s displeasure so that you cannot cure them, and especially those requiring treatment with the knife-for the knife you do not use-that I may see whether my god will bring them healing. And should such a patient be cured I will give you half of what he gives me, for I have not come here for gold but for knowledge. Should I fail to cure him, I will take nothing from him at all but send him back to you with his gift.”

The physicians whom I met in the streets and market places visiting their patients and to whom I spoke swung their cloaks and fingered their beards and said:

“You are young, but truly your god has blessed you with wisdom, for your words are agreeable to our ears. What you say of gold and of presents is wise as is also your allusion to the knife. For we never use knives to heal the sick, a man who comes under the knife being more certain of death than he who does not. One thing only we desire of you, and that is that you will effect no cures by sorcery, for our own witchcraft is very powerful, and in that branch there is too much competition both in Smyrna and in the other cities along the coast.”

This was true, for there were many illiterate men haunting the streets who undertook to heal the sick by means of magic and lived fatly in the homes of the credulous until their patients either recovered or died.

In this way sick people with whom others had failed came to me, and I treated them, but those I could not cure I sent back to the physicians of Smyrna. From Ammon’s temple I brought sacred fire to my house that I might carry out the prescribed purification and so venture to use the knife and to perform operations at which the physicians fingered their beards and marveled greatly. I was fortunate enough to give a blind man back his sight, although both physicians and sorcerers had smeared clay mixed with spittle upon his eyelids to no effect. I treated him with the needle, as the Egyptian manner is, thereby greatly enhancing my reputation. However, after some time the man lost his sight again, for the needle cure is but temporary.

The merchants and wealthy men of Smyrna led an idle and luxurious life; they were fatter than the Egyptians and suffered from breath- lessness and stomach troubles. I used the knife on them till they bled like pigs. When my medical stores were exhausted, I found good use for my knowledge in the matter of gathering herbs upon the right days and under favorable aspects of moon and stars, for in this the men of Smyrna had little science, and I dared not trust to their remedies. To the obese I gave relief from their abdominal pains and saved them from suffocation by means of medicines I sold to them at prices graded according to their means. I quarreled with none but gave presents to the doctors and city authorities, while Kaptah spread a good report of me and gave food to beggars and storytellers that they might cry my praises in street and market and preserve my name from oblivion.

I earned a quantity of gold. All that I didn’t spend or give away I invested with the merchants of Smyrna, who sent ships to Egypt, to the islands in the sea, and to the land of Hatti, so that I had a share in many vessels-a hundredth or a five-hundredth, according to my means at the time. Some ships were never seen again, but most of them returned, and my stakes in them-now doubled or tripled-were entered in the trading books. This was the custom in Smyrna, though unknown in Egypt. Even the poor speculated in this way and either increased their funds or became still more impoverished; ten or twenty of them would pool their copper pieces to buy a thousandth share in a vessel or her cargo. Thus I never had to keep gold in my house as a lure for robbers. Neither was I obliged to carry it with me when I traveled to other cities, such as Byblos and Sidon, in the course of my work, for then the merchant gave me a clay tablet to be presented at the business houses of those cities, by which I could obtain money from them whenever I required it.

Thus all went well with me. I prospered, and Kaptah grew fat in his expensive new clothes and anointed himself with fine oils. Indeed he became insolent, and I was compelled to thrash him. But why everything favored me so I cannot say.