Wilbour in Egypt: The Maiden Voyage of The Seven Hathors

In her introductory blog Deirdre discussed Charles Edwin Wilbour, the American Egyptologist whose collections form the backbone of the Museum’s Egyptian holdings. This post is about Wilbour’s interest in Egypt. Some of the photographs and documents illustrated here are in the Library Display Cases at the Brooklyn Museum until May 2010.

Wilbour spent his winters in Egypt, working at sites throughout the country from 1880 until his death in 1896. Wilbour travelled from site to site by train, postal steamer, or hitching a lift on the steamer belonging to the Department of Antiquities. By the time of his visit in 1886, however, he had decided to buy a dahabiya (houseboat), which would accommodate him, his visiting family, and his library in greater comfort.

Brooklyn Museum Archives. Wilbour’s calling card. Charles E. Wilbour Archival Collection, [9.4.026], Notebook 3A

Travelling by dahabiya was simple: you used the prevailing wind to sail upstream (south), and drifted downstream (north) with the current. This method had changed little over millennia—the Egyptian hieroglyph for ‘travel north’ is a boat with its sail furled, and ‘travel south’ a boat with its sail raised.

Wilbour never regretted the purchase of The Seven Hathors: “Greece and Italy are delightful, but the moment when I feel twice as much alive comes to me when the Nile banks begin to slide past the dahabiya from Bedresheyn to Aswan.”

The following excerpts from Wilbour’s letters to his mother and aunt show his acquisition of The Seven Hathors, and its maiden voyage:

Cairo

November 29, 1886

Thursday Arminius the Copt came to my terms about his dahabiya, declared before witnesses that she was mine, and I went over to raise the Stars and Stripes on her. … We have in the house part a space 16 2/3 feet by 54 feet, just nine hundred square feet, and on the deck about seven hundred feet more covered in by canvas. Below I have to stretch a little to reach the ceiling, so there is no danger of Dora bumping her high hat. I think we shall be comfortable and only wish you had an Enchanted Carpet to transport you suddenly to this Land of the Sun.

Cairo

Monday December 13, 1886

They [Wibour’s wife Charlotte (‘Lottie’), their children, Victor, Evelyn, and Dora, and Evelyn’s husband Ned] arrived Wednesday after a bad voyage and ever since Lottie and I have been running about buying the things for housekeeping. You may get almost everything here, but you have to bargain which takes time.

Lantern Slide Collection: Views, Objects: Egypt. General Views\People [selected images]. View 051: Egypt – Market at Kasr-en-Nil., n.d., T. H. McAllister, Manufacturing Optician. 49 Nassau Street, New York. Brooklyn Museum Archives (S10|08 General Views_People, image 9794).

They are all very much pleased with the boat and instead of wanting to wait and see the splendours of Cairo are anxious to be off up the river. There are yet carpenters and plumbers and painters at work, but Victor says that it seems like home. Lottie is already speaking of the things she will put over to do next year and so her occupation in Egypt which was to be for this winter only, seems already growing to be like the English. We go out mostly afternoons to the boat and see the sunset there, which is gorgeous.

Lantern Slide Collection: Views, Objects: Egypt. General Views\People [selected images]. View 088: Egypt – Sunset on the Nile., n.d. Brooklyn Museum Archives (S10|08 General Views_People, image 9831).

… We have held Council over the boat’s name and have concluded to call her The Seven Hathors. It lends itself to hieroglyphic decoration and Egyptians will call her “Seven,” Seba. We find the Seven Hathors on most of the more perfect temples. In the sky they are the Pleiades. Being a wooden boat she would almost float if full of water, but in order to make a life boat I am having four hundred empty petroleum cans sealed up to be put in her holds at its sides. If she should ever fill with water they will lift seven tons and so prevent her from sinking. I have done this so that Lottie might sleep better…

Seven Hathors

December 20, 1886

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