Uarda | Page 3

the honored gentlemen, who called
my attention to certain errors, and among them will name particularly
Professor Paul Ascherson of Berlin, and Dr. C. Rohrbach of Gotha.
Both will find their remarks regarding mistakes in the geographical
location of plants, heeded in this new edition.
The notes, after mature deliberation, have been placed at the foot of the
pages instead of at the end of the book.
So many criticisms concerning the title "Uarda" have recently reached
my ears, that, rather by way of explanation than apology, I will here

repeat what I said in the preface to the third edition.
This title has its own history, and the more difficult it would be for me
to defend it, the more ready I am to allow an advocate to speak for me,
an advocate who bears a name no less distinguished than that of G. E.
Lessing, who says:
"Nanine? (by Voltaire, 1749). What sort of title is that? What thoughts
does it awake? Neither more nor less than a title should arouse. A title
must not be a bill of fare. The less it betrays of the contents, the better it
is. Author and spectator are both satisfied, and the ancients rarely gave
their comedies anything but insignificant names."
This may be the case with "Uarda," whose character is less prominent
than some others, it is true, but whose sorrows direct the destinies of
my other heroes and heroines.
Why should I conceal the fact? The character of "Uarda" and the
present story have grown out of the memory of a Fellah girl, half child,
half maiden, whom I saw suffer and die in a hut at Abu el Qurnah in the
Necropolis of Thebes.
I still persist in the conviction I have so frequently expressed, the
conviction that the fundamental traits of the life of the soul have
undergone very trivial modifications among civilized nations in all
times and ages, but will endeavor to explain the contrary opinion, held
by my opponents, by calling attention to the circumstance, that the
expression of these emotions show considerable variations among
different peoples, and at different epochs. I believe that Juvenal, one of
the ancient writers who best understood human nature, was right in
saying:
"Nil erit ulterius, quod nostris moribus addat Posteritas: eadem cupient
facientque minores."
Leipsic, October 15th, 1877.

U A R D A.

CHAPTER I.
By the walls of Thebes--the old city of a hundred gates--the Nile
spreads to a broad river; the heights, which follow the stream on both
sides, here take a more decided outline; solitary, almost cone-shaped

peaks stand out sharply from the level background of the many-colored.
limestone hills, on which no palm-tree flourishes and in which no
humble desert-plant can strike root. Rocky crevasses and gorges cut
more or less deeply into the mountain range, and up to its ridge extends
the desert, destructive of all life, with sand and stones, with rocky cliffs
and reef-like, desert hills.
Behind the eastern range the desert spreads to the Red Sea; behind the
western it stretches without limit, into infinity. In the belief of the
Egyptians beyond it lay the region of the dead.
Between these two ranges of hills, which serve as walls or ramparts to
keep back the desert-sand, flows the fresh and bounteous Nile,
bestowing blessing and abundance; at once the father and the cradle of
millions of beings. On each shore spreads the wide plain of black and
fruitful soil, and in the depths many-shaped creatures, in coats of mail
or scales, swarm and find subsistence.
The lotos floats on the mirror of the waters, and among the papyrus
reeds by the shore water-fowl innumerable build their nests. Between
the river and the mountain-range lie fields, which after the seed-time
are of a shining blue-green, and towards the time of harvest glow like
gold. Near the brooks and water-wheels here and there stands a shady
sycamore; and date-palms, carefully tended, group themselves in
groves. The fruitful plain, watered and manured every year by the
inundation, lies at the foot of the sandy desert-hills behind it, and stands
out like a garden flower- bed from the gravel-path.
In the fourteenth century before Christ--for to so remote a date we must
direct the thoughts of the reader--impassable limits had been set by the
hand of man, in many places in Thebes, to the inroads of the water;
high dykes of stone and embankments protected the streets and squares,
the temples and the palaces, from the overflow.
Canals that could be tightly closed up led from the dykes to the land
within, and smaller branch-cuttings to the gardens of Thebes.
On the right, the eastern bank of the Nile, rose the buildings of the

far-famed residence of the Pharaohs. Close by the river stood the