/
 
 WAYNE S. VUCINICH 
 
 ^/it i^iC^^W^*- r'Jx^f' 
 
 GEISEL LIBRARY *> *£ 
 
 ORh/fRSlTY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN WIGQ ^ 
 
 LA XXIA. CALIFORNIA ^ ^^
 
 WAYNE S. VUCINICH 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA.
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 THEIR SCENERY AND THEIR PEOPLE. 
 
 BEING 
 
 INCIDENTS OF HISTORY AND TRAVEL, 
 
 FROM THE BEST AND MOST RECENT AUTHORITIES, 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 J. L. BURCKHARDT AND LORD LINDSAY. 
 
 J. A. ST. JOHN. 
 
 ElLElTHTlAS. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE WOOD ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGB 
 
 Historical Importance of Egypt — Shores of Egypt — Arrival at Alexandria 
 
 —Ophthalmia— The Donkey Ride— The Quarantine Harbour , . 1—10 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Description of Alexandria— Its History — Divisions of the City — Wretched- 
 ness of the Arabs— Porapey's Pillar— Cleopatra's Needles . . 10—19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Climate of Egypt— A Levantine Party— The Pasha's Fleet— Naval Regula- 
 tions— Bazaars of Alexandria ...... 19—29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Sheikh Ibrahim — Insurrection at Alexandria — Castle of the Phai'os — 
 
 Pasha's Salt-water Baths .....•• 30—38 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Catacombs— Gardens of Boghos Bey— Character of Mohammed Ali 
 
 39—4 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Journey to Rosetta — General View of Egypt — Bedouin Encampment — 
 Aboukir Bay— Night Scene— Lakes of Egypt— Rosetta — Battle of the 
 Nile — Famines in Egypt— Eating live Serpents .... 48 — 63 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Delta— Voyage by the Nile to Damietta — Circumcision Feast — Menouf 
 — Mansoura — Love Charms — Damietta — The Pasha's System of Taxation 
 — Misery of the Fellahs — Departure from Damietta — A Bedouin 
 Encampment — Voyage up the Nile ..... 64 — 82 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Journey across the Delta — Ferry over the Nile — Hunting Excursion — 
 Manufactories of Fouah— Sa of the Stones — A Sheikh in want of Wine 
 — Shibin-el-Kom — Fair of Tanta— Marketing in the East— Mohammedan 
 Justice — Distant View of the Pyramids — Movement of the Population of 
 Cairo 82—103 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Cairo — Description of Cairo — An Eastern Dwelling-house — Story of El- 
 
 Amj ad and the Lady ..... . • 104 — 111
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER X, PAGE 
 
 The Citadel of Cairo — The Hall of Saladin — Interview with the Governor 
 of Cairo — Saladin's Well — Visit to the Pasha's Harem — Massacre of the 
 Memlooks — The Spuinx — Excursion to the Pyramids — The Sphinx — 
 Operations of Captain Caviglia — Discoveries in Front of the Sphinx — 
 Sentiments inspired by the Pyramids — View from the Summit of the 
 Pyramids — Discussion on Petrified Lentils — Oriental Account of the 
 Pyramids — Descent into the Well — Interior of the Pyramid — Sunset 
 near the Pyramids ....... 112 — 147 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Haj Escort — Memlook Horsemanship — The Virgin's Tree — Historical 
 
 Conjectui-es ........ 147 — 153 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Across the Desert to the Fatoum — Terrors and Charms of the Desert — 
 Supper near the Site of Memphis — The Desert— Reports of Insurrection 
 — The Mh-age, or Goblin of the Desert — Mysterious Sounds of the Desert 
 — The Fayoom — Fix-st View of Lake Mceris .... 153 — 166 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 Adventures during a Visit to Lake Mceris — Beautiful Scenery — Rebellion 
 of the Moggrebyns — The Shores of Lake Moeris — Voyage across the 
 Lake — Ruins on the Western Shores of the Lake — Danger from the 
 Moggrebyns — Rose-Gardeus— Medinet . . . . .166—180 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 From Medinet to Benisooef — Brick Pyramid of Hawara — Bedouin Encamp- 
 ment — Noble Bridge over the Bahr Yusuf — Market-Day at Benisooef . 181—190 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Harem-el-Kedab — False Pyramid — Route to Mitraheni — Pyramids of 
 Dashour — Colossus at Mitraheni — Pyramid of Sakkarah — Pyramid of 
 Cephrenes— Egyptian Superstition ..... 191 — 205 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Superstitions of the Modern Egyptians — Theory of the Jinn — The Jinn in 
 England — Stoi-y of the Haunted House — Continued Persecutions of an 
 Efrit— Death of a Ghost ....... 205—2)5 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Departure of the Pilgrim Caravan — Animated Scene — Lawlessness of the 
 Bedouins — Visit to the Madhouse of Cairo — Description of the Bazaars 
 —Lock-Makers and Turners ...... 215—226 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Egyptian Saints— Character of the Santons— Story of Weli— Palace of 
 Ahmed Pasha — Interior of the Harem — Characters of the Ladies and 
 their Slaves — Inmates of the Harem — Reception of Visitors — Devotion 
 in the Harem ........ 226—241 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Gardens of Shoubra— Kiosks and Baths — Egyptian Horses . . 242 — 245
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. PAGB 
 
 Visit to the Mosque of Flowers, to that of Sultan Hassan — Dwellers in 
 the Mosque — Tomb of Sultan Hassan — The Ashoora — Shrine of El- 
 Hoseyn ......... 245—253 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The Nilometer and the Island of Rhoda — Island of Rhoda — Valley of the 
 
 Wanderings ........ 253—258 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Isthmus of Suez — Desert of Suez — Slave Bazaar — Patriarch of the Copts — 
 
 The Pasha ........ 259—267 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Dancing Girls of Egypt — The Dancing Girls — Song of the Ghawazee — 
 
 Armenian Entertainment — The Dance ..... 268 — 276 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Departure from Cairo — Tracking on the River — Melancholy Incident — 
 Quarries of El-Massara — Arab Burial — Scenes on the Nile — The Pelican 
 — Arab Aversion for the Army — One-eyed Regiment . . . 277 — 288 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Voyage up the Nile — Pleasure of the Journey — Incident — Storm on the 
 Nile — Visit of a Hyaena to the Boat — Conflagration — Splendid Sunset — 
 Coptic Convent on the Bird-Mountains — Swimming Monk — Ruins of 
 Achoris — Story of Ibn Khasib ...... 288 — 302 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 From Mineh to Manfaloot — Grottoes of Benihassan — Approach to Man- 
 
 faloot — Story- telling on the Nile ..... .303 — 311 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Crocodile Mummy Pits — Preparations to visit the Catacombs — Search for 
 the Entrance — Second Attempt — Dangers of the Pit — Explanatory 
 Legend ......... 311—321 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 From Manfalootto Siout — Conscription in Egypt — Affectionate Parting — 
 Visit to Siout — Anecdotes of the Defterdar Bey — Administration of 
 Justice in Turkey—" The Cities of the Dead "—Egyptian Village . 321—335 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 From Siout to Abydos — Condition of the People — The Red and White Con- 
 vents — A Stuffed Crocodile — Market-day at Es-Serat — Palace of Memnon ' 
 — Adventure — Site of Chenoboscion — Temple of the Goddess of Love — 
 Approach to Thebes — First View of Thebes — Egyptian Theory of Art — 
 Visit to the Tombs of the Kings — View of the Plain of Thebes — Descrip- 
 tion of the Memnonium — The Vocal Statue of Memnon — Medinet Abou 
 — Tombs of the Queens — Temple of Luxor — Temple of Karnak — The 
 Hall of Columns — Egyptian Serpents . . . 335 — 378
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. page 
 
 Rebellion of an Arab Prophet — Battle of Gamounli — Rout and Massacre 
 
 at Gheueh— Victims of the Rebellion . . " . . . 378 - 386 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Voyage to Esneh — Temple of Cleopatra — Mode of administering Justice — 
 En-yptian Barber— Oases of Libya — The Ghost Caravan — People of 
 Breris 386-398 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 From Esneh to Es-Souan — The Harvest Home — Arrival at Fares — Quarries 
 at Silsilis — Arrival at Syene— Isle of Elephantine'— Distant View of the 
 Nubian Desert — Ludicrous Scene— Island of Philae— A Dancing Party — 
 Philse by Moonlight — Crossing the Nile — Ancient Tunnel — Evenings on 
 the Nile 398—422 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 From the Gates of Kalabshi to the Second Cataract — Stony Mountains — 
 Human Sacrifice — The Nubians — Irrigation — Gyrshe and Gherf Hussein 
 — The Nubian Desert — Dakke — Nubian Hamlets — The Lion's Valley — 
 Lovely Prospect — Nubian Households — Arrival at Derr — The Wady 
 Ibrim — Pyramidal Rocks — Approach to Aboosambal — The smaller 
 Temple— Egyptian Sculpture — Aboosambal — Desert Town and Castle 
 — The Torpedo — Faras — Moonlight Scene — Vegetation of the Desert — 
 Rock Abousir — The Cataracts— Conclusion. . . . 422-472
 
 Alexandria— Terrace Pwoofs. 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Historical Importance of Egypt — Arrival at Alexandria. 
 
 From time immemorial Egypt has been an object of extreme curiosity 
 to the rest of the world. The number of travellers who have explored and 
 described it is accordingly immense ; yet each successive visitor feels as 
 though he were approaching a new scene, a country of undelineated beauties, 
 the very home and abiding-place of all that is most strange and mysterious 
 in human society, and in the monuments of past ages. Of these feelings 
 the roots lie scattered far and wide over the face of history and tradition. 
 Almost the dawn of Scripture light breaks upon the rocks and sands of this 
 wonderful valley, whose vast river, rolling from the unknown regions of 
 Central Africa, diflFuses fertility wherever it flows, and has, through all 
 ages, inspired those subsisting on its bounty with feelings closely akin to 
 piety and religion. In Egypt, Abraham, a Bedouin from Mesopotamia, 
 sojourned as a stranger, when his wife Sarah was taken from him to be 
 transferred to the king's harem. Here, during four hundred and thirty
 
 2 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 years, the Beni-Isr.ael, or Children of Israel, served the Pharaohs, and 
 grew up, despite their captivity, into a great nation. From the banks of 
 the Nile they set out on that marvellous pilgrimage to Sinai' and Zion, 
 those two rocky pinnacles whence the awful splendours of the law, and the 
 mild and beneficent radiance of the Gospel, beamed forth upon mankind. 
 Tradition, faithful appai'ently in this instance to its trust, still points out 
 the track they pursued, conducting the traveller towards the Red Sea, 
 tlirough the Valley of the Wanderings. 
 
 But that which most hallows and endears Egypt to us, is the know- 
 ledge that its soil received the impress of the foot of Christ, who fled thither 
 when a child to escape the cruelty of Herod. The tree under whose thick 
 and spreading foliage the Holy Family is believed to have sheltered itself 
 from the noon-day sun, is shown to the traveller, shattered and time-worn, 
 but still verdant, its trunk and lower boughs quaintly carved all over with 
 the names of Christian pilgrims. 
 
 The religion of the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, shrouded in symbol 
 and obscurity, is still an unsolved problem to the learned, though 
 many of its temples are yet standing almost entire, and have, painted 
 or sculptured on their walls, innumerable representations of their charac- 
 teristic rites and ceremonies. These venerable edifices have many of them 
 survived the vicissitudes of perhaps four thousand years. Their massive 
 proportions and primaeval simplicity carry us back almost to the birth of 
 society. What a cloud of doubts and conjectures rests upon the Pyramids ! 
 What vague hopes and expectations are excited by the hieroglyphics im- 
 pressed on the countenance as it were of ancient Egypt, not to reveal, but 
 hide, what it thought and did. Who has not heard of its spacious 
 though gloomy fanes excavated in rocks beneath the earth, and of those 
 gorgeous subterranean palaces, in many of which the dust of its ancient 
 kings still reposes in peace, though some have been opened and rifled by 
 the curiosity of modern times. Even the sepulchre of Osiris still exists, 
 and may yet be discovered in the sacred Island of Philse, situate beyond 
 the borders of Egypt, nearly beneath the Tropic, where the subjects of the 
 Pharaohs came in contact with the black races of the interior. 
 
 Nor are the associations of civil history less rife in this extraordinary 
 land. The Valley of the Nile constituted the extreme limits of Persian 
 conquest towards the south-west. Here Alexander the Macedonian and 
 his successors fought and founded a new empire, overthrown a few centuries 
 later by the legions of Rome, which, in their turn, yielded up the palm of 
 victory to the fanatical and victorious Arabs. On the shores of Egypt, 
 moreover, many a stern crusader was gathered to his fathers ; and in our 
 own days, the fleets and armies of England have reaped abundant laurels 
 on its waves and sands. Besides, throughout the whole civilised world, 
 speculation is busy conjecturing the nature of the next change in its 
 destiny, a change obviously fast approaching, and fraught with paramount 
 interest to Great Britain. 
 
 The satisfaction with which I approached the shores of Egypt, over which, 
 as I have said, history, both ancient and modern, has cast so extraordinary 
 a degree of glory, was greatly heightened by a feeling of security ; it having
 
 SHORES OF EGYPT. 3 
 
 been more than once doubtful, during the voyage from Leghorn, whether 
 we should ever arrive or not, so boisterous and contrary were the winds, 
 and so tempestuous was the sea. On the preceding day, the level sandy 
 coast of Africa, west of the Arab's Tower, had been for a short time visible. 
 It was found, however, that we had made the land much too far west, and 
 the wind proving contrary, we again put out to sea, and worked nearly in 
 the teeth of the weather towards Alexandria. In the course of the night 
 the sailors, with their glasses, often caught glimpses of the coast, but it did 
 not become visible to my unpractised eye until some time after dawn, when, 
 as the sun rose behind the city, every eminence and inequality in the line 
 of the horizon appeared, relieved against the pure saffron sky. The first 
 object we discovered was the Pasha's palace, on the point of the Cape of 
 Figs ; the next Pompey's Pillar ; and then the windmills and the shipping. 
 Tiic land itself was so low, that we seemed to descend to it from the water. 
 For some time before the shore becomes visible, the colour of the sea, by the 
 intermixture of the waters and mud of the Nile, changes from blue to a 
 dirty green, from wliich some travellers have inferred that the line of the 
 coast is continually gaining upon the sea, though, on account of its physical 
 conformation, it seems that no further enlargement of Egypt can be effected 
 by the agency of the river.* 
 
 It has been said that the uniformity of the shore is so great, that there 
 are extremely few points sufficiently individualised to serve as landmarks to 
 the mariner, for which reason shipwrecks are frequent. Nevertheless, in 
 autumn, the proximity of the coast before it becomes visible is indicated by 
 the colour of the water. At that season of the year, the Nile pours so vast a 
 volume into the sea that it is almost blanched by the mud held in suspen- 
 sion. The gradual deposition of this mud in the course of ages has formed 
 the Delta, and given rise to those bars which obstruct the entrance of the 
 river. The same cause diminishes every day the depth of the sea near the 
 shore, and it is supposed may contribute, in time, to the increase of the dry 
 land. But although this, up to a certain point, may be the case, it seems 
 reasonable to infer that the sea at low Nile counteracts its influence. The 
 sites of many large cities and celebrated temples on the shore are at present 
 overflowed. Lakes have always existed ; but their dimensions have been 
 extended. Those of Menzaleh and Bourlos now communicate with the 
 sea, and their waves roll over the roofs of several towns, which, in some 
 instances, have formed islands. It may be calculated, therefore, that the 
 equilibrium of the waters of the sea and those of the Nile is different from 
 what it was formerly. t 
 
 On drawing near the land, numerous sea-mews, fishing-eagles, and other 
 aquatic birds, were observed skimming along, or settling upon, the waves. 
 The wind had sunk into a light breeze, the sky was cloudless, the sun, 
 warm as in our northern latitudes during summer, cast a veil of beauty over 
 sea and land ; and my mingled feelings of thankfulness, curiosity, and joy, 
 strongly disposed me to invest every object around with golden hues. 
 In itself, however, the scene was highly interesting : pillars, obelisks, forts, 
 
 * Travels in the Valley of the Nile. t D«c de Ras;use.
 
 4 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 palaces, with other edifices of use or luxury, white, and sparkling in the 
 sun, lining the shore, and partly beheld through a forest of masts ; merchant- 
 vessels and ships of war, with outspread sails and colours flying, entering 
 or quitting the port ; and numerous jerms, feluccas, and pilot-boats, scud- 
 ding, like huge sea-fowl, with large white sails, along the waves. The Bay 
 of Aboukir, rendered memorable by the battle of the Nile, was distinctly 
 visible on our left ; and the small sandy eminences extending westward to 
 the ancient Necropolis, were surmounted by a number of windmills of a 
 peculiar construction, and not unpicturesque aspect. 
 
 Presently the Arab pilots, dressed in the Turkish costume, which is much 
 more convenient than the long loose dress of the Egyptian for those engaged 
 in any active occupation, came on board, and began to direct our move- 
 ments. A recent traveller * was greeted even before landing with signs of 
 the most prevalent malady of Egypt. I picked up a pilot, he says, 
 blind of one eye, as were all the crew, except an old man who had lost 
 both. He very deliberately squatted himself, cross-legged, upon the poop, 
 and commenced smoking his long pipe, which he scarcely ever removed 
 from his lips till we anchored. He seemed, however, to understand his 
 business very well, and was the first of his profession we had met whose 
 opening inquiry was not after the rum-bottle. It took us about two 
 hours and a half to make our way in ; the entrance, winding between 
 shoals and sunken rocks, being peculiarly difiicult and dangerous. As soon 
 as we had entered, numerous boats, filled with Arabs, Turks, and dirty 
 Italians, came crowding alongside ; and when the anchor was cast, the 
 whole of this promis- 
 cuous rabble, motley 
 in complexion as in =_^i . 
 
 garb, poured upon the ^-^?^^^HS|:-- - 
 
 deck, chattering, bar- 
 gaining, wrangling, 
 like a herd of Jews 
 in 'Change Alley. The 
 sun, glowing in a 
 cloudless sky, poured 
 its warm rays upon 
 the deck. Around, 
 the quivering and glit- 
 tering waters flowed in 
 channels of greater or 
 less dimensions, be- 
 tween the ships of war which lay motionless on tbo surface, while nume- 
 rous small boats passed incessantly to and fro between the shipping and 
 the quays. 
 
 Late in the afternoon we landed at one of the wharfs near the custom- 
 house, and met a company of the troops in undress, who all looked 
 rather dirty, and walked like so many turkeys in long grass. Their 
 
 Pluuos in the dibUiice. 
 
 * Wilde.
 
 OPHTHALMIA. 5 
 
 dress, which is of white cotton, may be the reason they appeared so very 
 dinwy, but otherwise they were all very comfortably clad. Their costume 
 consists of a light jacket ; wide trousers, fitting tightly to the leg from 
 the knee to the ankle, and buttoned down the side like gaiters ; red 
 shoes, a striped cotton sash round the waist, and a small red cap, 
 with a blue tassel, buff belts, and bright Birmingham fire-locks. Each 
 party was preceded by a set of drums and fifes. As we walked along the 
 wharfs we met several groups of both sailors and soldiers off duty. They 
 seemed exceedingly happy, generally walking hand in hand, or playing with 
 each other. They were all young, and mostly slight-made active men. 
 
 Our entree into the city of the Ptolemies was anything but pleasing. 
 Outside the gate, we had to pass through a village of miserable mud huts, 
 only equalled in tilth and squalidness by the wretched-looking set of old 
 people, half-clad women, and wholly naked children, squatted around them. 
 These extend all along the walls of the town on the land side, and are the 
 abodes of the wives and families of the troops and sailors. 
 
 The streets are much wider than those of Algiers, and many of them 
 very filthy. I was not many minutes in Alexandria before I was forcibly 
 struck by the numbers of blind people I met at every turn : it is really 
 incredible : the majority had but one eye, but many others were grop- 
 ino- their way through the streets in perfect darkness. Squinting is a 
 very common affection among the people of Alexandria, and the greater 
 number of the lower orders are what would be termed " blear-eyed ;" and 
 wherever we went we discovered lamentable traces of the ravages of 
 ophthalmia.* Prosper Alpinus, who resided many years in Egypt during 
 the sixteenth century, accounts more satisfactorily perhaps than any writer 
 for the extraordinary prevalence of ophthalmia in that country. The causes 
 lie assigns are three : — first, the prodigious quantity of nitre mingled with 
 the soil, which, ascending in dust, injuriously affects the sight ; second, the 
 hot winds, which, blowing for a length of time in summer, sufiice of them- 
 selves to produce inflammation; third, the sands carried through the air by 
 those burning blasts, which, sometimes, in the course of a few minutes, pro- 
 duce the most painful effects. In this way, he observes, at least fifty per- 
 sons out of every hundred are afilicted by ophthalmia, t In the desert tracts of 
 Sinde, immediately on the banks of the Indus, ophthalmia has been found 
 to prevail in an almost equal degree, and is there chiefly attributed to the 
 immense clouds of dust which at certain seasons of the year are continually 
 driving before the wind, penetrating tents and houses, and covering the 
 very meat upon the table, as though it were dredged with flour. On one 
 occasion, an officer jocularly observed, that his champagne was almost 
 converted into a paste by the dust. j: 
 
 During our walk through the city, we happened to light upon one of the 
 donkey stations, when a scene ensued that beggars all description. The 
 whole body of donkey boys, with their animals, rushed upon us with one 
 accord the moment we made our appearance, pushing, jostling, and abusing 
 
 * Wilde, Narrative, p. 246. f De Medicina jEgyptiorum, lib. i., p. 53. 
 
 X Delhi Gazette. 
 
 b2
 
 G EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 each other in most unintelligible jargon; and half-a-dozen laying hold of 
 each of us at once, attempted to place us, nolens rdens, on their don- 
 keys, I was literally lifted off and on three of them, before I could 
 employ my stick to any advantage, to deter others from plucking nie oflf 
 the one on which I had at last secured a seat. The whole scene is really so 
 ludicrous, that it is worth witnessing for once, after which I would advise 
 all travellers to provide themselves with a good stout koorbask, which is 
 made of the hide of the hippopotamus, and forms a staple article of com- 
 merce with the inhabitants of Upper Nubia, and on the Blue River ; it is 
 the only remedy for an Alexandrian ass-boy. As soon as we were fairly 
 seated, the boys set the animals off at a most dashing pace, through the 
 narrow streets, over bread-stalls, old women, and all the various merchandise 
 that strew the floor of an eastern bazaar. The boys kept goading the 
 donkeys with a sharp stick, and shouting to the people, " Riglac, riglac, 
 darick," — " Get out of the way," and cursing in tolerably plain English. 
 It was quite impossible to stop or hold up against the vis a tergo. I 
 nearly came in collision with several enormous camels, ran foul of various 
 Egyptian ofl&cers, naval and military, and narrowly escaped upsetting 
 numerous blind people at every turn ; bounding or trampling over whole 
 hosts of half-starved dogs that are always lurking about the bazaars. To 
 attempt to reason with our drivers was out of the question ; the more we 
 endeavoured to pull up, the more they shouted and urged on the animals ; 
 and to turn in the narrow crowded streets was impossible. The boys 
 laughed and seemed to enjoy it of all things, beating the unfortunate dogs 
 most unmercifully whenever they came across them, I formed but a very 
 passive member of the trio to which I belonged ; as a formidable blow on 
 my donkey's head, from some passing stick, very soon convinced me. At 
 this the beast suddenly twisted into the mouth of a narrow lane, which 
 seemed from the smell to be the tobacco-bazaar ; when in rushed a crowd of 
 every description, as if pursued by some terrible enemy — an avalanche could 
 not have more confused the city. When the panic had subsided, in 
 majestic state came the governor's coach ; and, indeed, it was necessary to 
 fly from it. Away it rattled with four horses and a proportion of out- 
 riders, as indifferently as if it had been flying over Salisbury Plain, bumping 
 against the shops from side to side as it went. It would not have been 
 possible to upset it ; and, aware of this security, with most imposing dig- 
 nity sat the Pasha of Alexandria, with an amber-headed pipe in his 
 mouth, and an equally grave companion on the opposite seat. This 
 was an apparition I never expected ; and although such an advance in 
 civilisation is highly commendable, I hope, when carriages become 
 general, those who indulge in them may see the necessity of building 
 towns to liold them.* This was all ludicrous enough. Another exhi- 
 bition, equally characteristic, was now encountered. AYe were stopped by 
 a large crowd, which quite filled the street, near one of the public ware- 
 houses. I heard heavy blows, followed by piercing cries, in the midst of 
 the throng of rather shabby-looking people. Urging on my donkey to the 
 
 * Maj'H- Skinner.
 
 THE DONKEY RIDE. 7 
 
 spot, I saw an athletic man inflicting merciless blows upon a female with a 
 heavy stick. She cried out i)iteously, but without any eflFect. The crowd 
 looked on with interest and apparent satisfaction, and no one attempted to 
 interfere. I inquired of a young Arab dragoman what was the meaning of 
 this outrage. He answered, with an air of great indifference, in his bad 
 English, " It is an Arab man licking his woman." I asked him if this 
 was a common practice ; he answered, " Yes ; the wife do bad, and the 
 Arab lick 'em." I afterwards learned that this sort of domestic discipline 
 is universal in this country. No one supposes it is wrong, or that the con- 
 jugal relation can exist on better terms. A European lady, resident in 
 Alexandria, informed us that she had lately inquired of a favourite servant 
 after the health of his wife,—" Very well," he said ; " better than common 
 the last two days, since he had given her a good flogging." She told him 
 that Englishmen did not whip their wives. He replied it was indispensa- 
 ble to whip Arab women, otherwise their husbands could not live with 
 them : they were not like Frank women.* 
 
 To return, however, to our montures. It has been remarked by some 
 travellers that the Egyptian donkey, as well as the camel, is shaven. How- 
 ever, a shaved jack-ass is a phenomenon which neither in Egypt nor 
 elsewhere ever came under my observation. In the desert the camels are 
 said to be clipped by the Bedouins ; but it would greatly enhance the comedy 
 of a pilgrimage to Mecca to behold a string of those ungainly quadrupeds 
 closely shaven, with their enormous burdens on their backs, surmounted by 
 the driver, toiling over the sandy plains, or down the rocky ravines which 
 separate the Egyptian Mussulman from tlie tomb of his prophet. The 
 barbers no doubt would greatly approve of the fashion, though there might, 
 perhaps, be some difliculty in passing the razor over the camel's hunch. 
 The ass would submit to this, as to every other infliction, patiently. 
 
 Ali Bey, a propos of asses, observes, that although the Egyptian quad- 
 rupeds of this species be extremely small — in some cases not exceeding 
 thirty-seven inches in height — they are extremely quick-paced and full of 
 vivacity. It may often be doubted, however, whether the vivacity resides 
 in the ass or in the koorbash of the urchin who urges it forward. It may, 
 nevertheless, be conceded to the worthy traveller, that the introduction of 
 these beasts into our great European cities would be judicious ; and had his 
 beyship ever visited Hampstead Heath, he would have perceived that some 
 steps have already been taken towards carrying out his suggestion. 
 
 When I had reached the midst of an extensive area, on one side of which 
 was a wide street running down to the borders of the old harbour, with a 
 row of high white-washed houses on each side, while, on the other, was a 
 heap of mud, and narrow lanes opening upon it, that would, I think, have 
 done no discredit to our St. Giles's, my little guide stopped me, and asked 
 where we were to go. This was a simple question, and conveyed to me in 
 one Italian word—" Dove ? " but it was far beyond my power to answer. 
 I took the oi)portunity of a parley, however, to shake off my companion 
 and his donkey ; and having gained some piastres from the boatman who 
 
 * Dr. Olin.
 
 8 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 brought me on sl)ore, in exchange for a French piece, I rewarded him 
 beyond all his hopes. 
 
 I alighted in front of a guard-room that stands at the entrance of the 
 street. The men had just turned out to do honour to a mounted officer, 
 who caracoled past on a pretty little horse, and had the air of a man of 
 some distinction. He was dressed in blue cloth, a la Turque, with a pair 
 of European boots and large brass spurs ; instead of a shawl round his 
 waist, he had a girdle, and no turban graced his head. He wore the close 
 red cap, with about half an inch of a neat white one peeping below it ; he 
 was compact, and, I may add, soldier-like enough, but shorn of everything 
 that gives in my eyes dignity and grace to an Oriental. He reminded me 
 very much of the compressed and uncomfortable appearance of a cock that 
 has just had its comb cut off. The soldiers of the guard wore the same 
 sort of head-dress, and were clothed in scarlet serge, being in make some- 
 thing of a compromise between the fashions of the East and "West ; the 
 officer, who was a Turk — (his men were Arabs) — was dressed in the same 
 manner, with the addition of a quantity of gold ; and round his wrist he 
 wore a strip of hide, with which he inflicted most tremendous cuts on the 
 faces of the poor men if they were not, in military phrase " well dressed."* 
 Though the persons to whom I had brought letters of introduction hap- 
 pened on my arrival to be absent at Cairo, I still experienced the princely 
 hospitality which our countrymen settled in the East seldom fail to exercise. 
 An invitation to sup and spend the evening out awaited me on my landing, 
 so that, having seen my baggage safely deposited at the " Aquila D'Oro," 
 I immediately proceeded to the house of my new friends. All the donkeys 
 of Alexandria were of course at my disposal ; and though I could only ride 
 one at once, I had the satisfaction to be followed all the way by half a 
 dozen supernumeraries, which the owner of each maintained was far supe- 
 rior to the one I had mounted. Every Englishman is transformed at 
 Alexandria into a naval officer, or the master of a ship at least. I had of 
 course the honour to be thus complimented : " I say, captan," exclaimed 
 a crowd of laughing, grinning urchins, pushing their beasts before me, as 
 they shouted, to stop the way, " ber good donkey, dam good jackass ; take, 
 take!" The owner of my beast, alarmed lest, if sufficient time were 
 allowed me, I might perchance change my mind and my vionture, applied 
 his stick vigorously to the crupper of my donkey, and bawling out at the 
 same time in his best Lingua Franca, " Lashee la breed, lashee la breed, 
 Senor Captan ! " soon made an opening through his opposing rivals, floor- 
 ing some, and sending others spinning on either side towards the walls of 
 the houses. In this dashing way we proceeded until, in an incredibly short 
 space of tinse, I was safely deposited at my place of destination. 
 
 English people are the same all the world over. I need scarcely there- 
 fore describe my entertainment, which was such, that, had it not been for 
 the divans, the windows, the pipes, and those who filled them, I might have 
 imagined myself at home again. The ladies exhibited all that quiet elegance 
 of manners which belongs almost exclusively to our countrywomen. They 
 
 * Major Skinner.
 
 THE QUARANTINE HARBOUR. 9 
 
 had seen much of the world, and conversed well, but never obtruded their 
 remarks. We talked of my projected journey and of the countries 
 through which I was to pass. The coffee, the wine, and the pipes were 
 excellent ; and so deeply interested were we all in the topics under discussion, 
 that it was not until a very late hour we thought of separating. 
 
 On taking leave of my hospitable entertainers, I learned the existence of 
 a salutary regulation, compelling all persons after dark to have a light 
 borne before them, or run the risk of being arrested by the nightly guard, 
 and detained until the morning. Accordingly an Arab servant was 
 ordered to conduct me with a lantern to my inn. It was late ; few persons 
 were in the streets ; the Arab paced before mc in silence ; but, not knowing 
 exactly where I lodged, took me to the wrong inn. This was perplexing ; 
 for as he spoke no European language, and I no Arabic, we stood still in 
 the street, looking at one another. The few stragglers who passed were all 
 natives, ignorant of every language but their own. After turning over the 
 matter in his mind for some time, the man seemed to derive some encourage- 
 ment from my long black beard, and in an inquiring tone pronounced the 
 word " Greco ? " I shook my head. " Franco V 1 replied in the affirm- 
 ative in all the languages I knew : but this did not help us in the least. 
 At length I remembered that the Tuscan Consul resided at the Golden 
 Eagle, and on repeating his name, the Arab turned round and discovered 
 the unknown house within five paces of where we stood. 
 
 The window of my bed-chamber overlooked the quarantine harbour. It was 
 late, as I have said, yet, feeling little inclination to sleep, I drew aside the 
 curtains, and gazed forth with feelings of indescribable pleasure on the tran- 
 quil basin. There was no moon : but the stars shone so brilliantly that all 
 objects within a certain distance were distinctly visible. Numerous vessels, 
 each carefully stationed a short way from the others, lay motionless 
 upon the waters. They were all from suspected countries, and one with 
 the plague then on board had cast anchor within fifty yards of where I stood. 
 There was an Austrian gun-brig, on the deck of which, but a few days later, 
 a most extraordinary tragedy was enacted. All the crew having been 
 attacked by the plague, they one day, in the height of their delirium, rushed 
 on deck, and fired the guns which happened to be loaded. The balls flew 
 thick among the other shipping, and the cause of this strange conduct being 
 conjectured, it was for some time thought it would be necessary to sink 
 them. But the poor wretches were unable to reload their guns, on the 
 carriages of which many of them dropped and died ; one individual only — 
 an ofiicer, I am told — ultimately survived, the strength of his constitu- 
 tion triumphing, in spite of all disadvantages, over the disease. 
 
 The bedsteads of the Golden Eagle, on one of which I am now^ about to 
 throw myself, were all of iron, wood in these latitudes being somewhat 
 too apt to harbour bugs. An ample curtain of thin gauze, descending from 
 a considerable height, fell on all sides, and rested upon the bed-clothes, for 
 the purpose of excluding the musquitoes. It is a nice operation to slip 
 under this curtain without admitting one of your enemies along with you ; 
 for if a single intruder get in with you, farewell to your night"'s rest, I had 
 the happiness to succeed, and the 1mm of the disappointed foe, mingling 
 with the murmur of the waves on the beach, soon hushed me to sleep.
 
 10 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 A former traveller, whom fear of the plague induced to sleep in the 
 vessel that brought him hither, says : " We have a minor plague on board, 
 musquitoes and flies ; they boarded us yesterday as busy as custom-house 
 officers ; the flies are wading incessantly through this scrawl, following my 
 pen as crows do the plough. What trouble, not sport, Domitian would 
 have had here ! Sir R. Wilson states that he used to kill such quautities at 
 a time, that it appeared as if a cask of currants had been spilt. It is surely 
 no harm to kill a musquito, and I do not know which are our greatest 
 enemies, the flies or the musquitoes ; they hold divided sway — half sting 
 by night, the others sting by day." * 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Description of Alexandria. — Pompey's Pillar. — Cleopatra's Needles. 
 
 I WAS awakened, soon after dawn, by the singular scream of the stork 
 under my window, mingled with the shrill voices of the Arabs, and the 
 crowing of the cock, which does not here, as in Europe, proclaim the 
 approach of morning, but is heard indififerently at all hours. My bed- 
 chamber overlooked the sea-port, where on the left I enjoyed a view of the 
 island on which the Pharos of Ptolemy Soter stood ; and on the right of the 
 modern fort, which commands the entrance into the harbour, a low ledge 
 of rocks, commencing at the site of the Pharos, stretches out a considerable 
 distance into the sea, and over this the waves break continually in spray 
 and foam. Other rocks, unconnected with the former, occupy the centre of 
 the harbour's mouth, and, opposing the course of the waves, are almost 
 perpetually covered with snowy breakers. 
 
 OIJ Harbour of .\lexandria. 
 
 Alexandria is situated in 31° 13' 5" north latitude, and 27" 35' 30" 
 
 * Sir Frederick Henniker.
 
 HISTORY OF ALEXANDRIA. 11 
 
 longitude, near Lake JMareotis, on an isthmus which connects with Urra- 
 firma the peninsula that forms the two ports. The new port on the east 
 is very open, and does not afford secure anchorage in stormy weather. At 
 the extremity of the mole which protects it, the fort of the Pharos is built 
 on the site where anciently stood the celebrated light-house of the Ptolemies. 
 The old port on the west offers to ships of all sizes a deep and safe basin, 
 though the entrance, as we have said, is difficult for such as draw much 
 water. Before Mohammed All's time. Christian vessels were forbidden to 
 enter the harbour, being compelled to content themselves with the danger- 
 ous road on the east. The prohibition probably traced its origin to a 
 prophecy which foretold that upon the entrance of the first Christian ship 
 into this port, the empire of the Jlussulman in Egypt would be at an end. 
 The prediction has not been literally accomphshed ; for European vessels 
 are there, and the Crescent is still in the ascendant. It may be possible, 
 however, to foresee the period in which the words of the seer shall receive 
 their fulfilment. 
 
 Surrounded on one side by the sea, and on the other by the sands of the 
 desert, Alexandria is placed, we may almost say, in an insular position. The 
 present city, as has been often remarked, has inherited scarcely anything 
 from the ancient one but its name and its ruins. The original city was 
 built by the architect Dinocrates, after plans sketched by Alexander. Accord- 
 ing to Pliny, its circuit was fifteen miles, and it contained a population of 
 300,000 citizens and as many slaves. A street, two thousand feet long and 
 one himdred broad, traversed it from north to south, and was crossed 
 by another nearly as beautiful. Magnificent palaces, temples, gymnasia, 
 circuses, theatres, monuments of every kind were crowded in the cir- 
 cumference. 
 
 When Alexandria was taken by Amrou it formed, according to the Arab 
 historian, three cities, Menne, Nekite, and Iskanderia. In his report to 
 the Caliph Omar, Amrou says, that it contained 4,000 palaces, 4,000 baths, 
 400 theatres or public buildings, and 12,000 shops. About the year 
 1212 of our aera, a successor of Saladin surrounded it with a wall two 
 leagues in length, flanked by a hundred towers, which still exist, and have 
 been repaired by Mohammed Ali. Under the yoke of the Mussulmans, 
 but principally under that of the Mamlouks, Alexandria declined rapidly ; 
 and, at the time of the French invasion, was nothing but a large straggling 
 village and a resort of pirates. Its population amounted scarcely to 8,000 
 souls, its fortifications were crumbling to decay, and such was the audacity 
 of the Bedouins, that they frequently rode with impunity up to its walls to 
 commit their ravages, and it was dangerous even to pay a visit to Pompey's 
 Pillar without an escort. 
 
 The rule of the French in Egypt was not sufficiently long to allow them 
 to do much towards restoring the former splendour of Alexandria. They 
 added, however, new fortifications, and repaired the old ones, which were 
 fast going to ruin when they came into their possession. Mohammed Ali, 
 however, was no sooner established in power than he pei'ceived the three- 
 fold importance, military, maritime, and commercial, with which nature 
 had endowed Alexandria.
 
 12 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 The city indeed is tlie military key of Egypt, the point against which 
 the first attacks of an enemy must necessarily be directed. It was above 
 all things requisite, therefore, to provide for its defence. The descent 
 made by the British in 1807 proved to the Viceroy how fatal the least 
 negligence in this particular might prove. 
 
 The ports of Alexandria are the only ones possessed by Egypt ; and if 
 fleets are necessary to protect the independence of this country, which 
 European powers can only attack from the sea, Alexandria affords a vast 
 and well-defended retreat. Mohammed Ali has availed himself of all the 
 natural advantages of the place. He has made of Alexandria a military 
 port, and has there established his arsenal. 
 
 The commercial importance of any point on the northern coast of Egypt 
 depends of course on the facility of the intercourse which may be carried 
 on with the centre, Cairo. In antiquity, Alexandria communicated with 
 the heart of the country by a branch of the Nile, at the mouth of which 
 it was placed ; but this branch being gradually filled up by the deposits of 
 the water, the first Arab conquerors were compelled to dig a vast canal, 
 of which Eastern historians give a magnificent description. But under the 
 administration of the Mamlouks this canal gradually deteriorated and soon 
 became a mere ditch, completely dry during the greater part of the year. 
 Upon this Alexandria lost its commercial importance, which was transferred 
 to Rosetta. But Mohammed Ali has restored it to its rightful uses, by 
 
 Bridge of the Aqueduct over the Canal, Alexandria. 
 
 opening the navigable canal called Mahmoudiyah, in honour of the Sultan 
 Mahmoud ; and the whole commerce of Egypt is now concentrated at 
 Alexandria. The office of the minister of commerce is established in that 
 city, and it is there that he disposes to European merchants of the exports 
 of that country. 
 
 Thus regenerated, the population of Alexandria has rapidly increased,
 
 DIVISIONS OF THE CITY. 
 
 13 
 
 amounting now to 60,000 souls, including the crews of the fleet and the 
 workmen of the arsenal, forming about one-third. The other two-thirds 
 include 20,000 Arabs, 6,000 Turks, 10,000 Jews and Copts, and 5,000 
 Europeans. 
 
 The aspect of the city, it will be easily imagined, has been greatly 
 chanfred within the last few years. The immense cemeteries which were 
 once within the walls have been removed without. The sheets of stagnant 
 water which formerly gave rise to noxious exhalations have been dried up, 
 and the hollows filled. The streets have not been paved, it is true, but 
 they are clean, which was not formerly the case. Buildings of all kinds, 
 arsenals, palaces, barracks, manufactories, hospitals, &c., have been erected ; 
 and a considerable portion of the wall near the shore has been thrown 
 down to make way for the growth of the city. 
 
 The marine arsenal is built on the peninsula called Ras-el-Tin, the 
 Cape of Figs, together with the palace of the Viceroy, and many other 
 edifices belonging to the government. The isthmus which unites Ras-el- 
 Tyn to terra-firma is covered by the Turkish town, built on the ordinary 
 plan of Mussulman cities. Then comes the European quarter, formerly 
 called the Frank quarter, which has long been superior to those parts of the 
 town occupied by the natives. But it is more especially since the establish- 
 ment of Mohammed All's government, — for until then the residence of the 
 consuls-general had never been definitively fixed at Alexandria, — that it has 
 begun to assume an imposing aspect. In 1825 there were still but few 
 okellas ; but now the quarter has entirely changed, having extended from 
 the New Port to Cleopatra's Needles. In the neighbourhood of these 
 
 Cleopatra's A'eeJles. 
 
 monuments there exists at present a sort of square about 800 yards 
 long and 150 broad. The houses v/hich surround this place arc built 
 after European designs, and are very elegant. Some of them belong 
 to Ibrahim Pasha. Here are the residences of the principal consuls. 
 
 Within the old wall are two eminences about 200 feet in height, crowned
 
 14 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 by forts built by the French army. One of them still retains the name of 
 General CafFarclli Dufalga, killed at the siege of St. Jean d'Acre. The 
 hill on which it is situated, the nearest to the town, is formed by a heap of 
 rubbish, and does not, to all appearance, date farther back than the time of 
 the Arabs. The other, called Kom-el-Dyck, the Cock's Hill, is a calcareous 
 rock, against which in old times stood a theatre. On its sides until lately 
 were a few wretched Arab huts ; but at present the rich Europeans, having 
 discovered the healthiness of the spot, have built upon it villas, each with 
 its garden. 
 
 The environs of Alexandria are covered, for the space of two leagues, 
 with extensive ruins, which prove that there is nothing exaggerated in what 
 historians have related of the wonders of the ancient city. The materials 
 with which the Arab town is constructed, were furnished by such ruins as 
 were scattered near the surface ; but vast remains may still be found even 
 at the depth of sixty feet. 
 
 Preparatory to issuing forth for the purpose of examining minutely the 
 interesting and varied scenes, of which the above is an outline, I, in com- 
 pliance with the custom of travellers, had my head shaved, and assumed 
 the tarboosh, an elegant red felt cap with a blue silk tassel, which in Egypt 
 has almost universally superseded the turban. But this must be regarded 
 as a highly injudicious innovation ; for, besides that the forehead, entirely 
 exposed to the burning sun, becomes blistered and wrinkled, the eyes 
 suffer extremely from the fierceness of the light, so that, after a few days' 
 journey, ophthalmia frequently ensues. Broad- brimmed hats, if the Pasha 
 could cause them to be adopted, might in part prevent the Egyptians from 
 degenerating into a race of Cyclops. To guard the head from the heat of 
 the sun, two of these caps, with another of double calico, are worn ; and as 
 the season advances, or as we proceed further south, a thick handkerchief is 
 stuffed into the crown. Notwithstanding that the hair is always closely shaven, 
 all these envelopes keep the head exceedingly warm, and may, perhaps, con- 
 tribute more than any other cause to render the Egyptians grey-headed from 
 their youth. The effect of the climate of Egypt upon the hair is remarkable. 
 ]\Iy own beard, which in Europe was soft, silky, and almost straight, began 
 immediately on my arrival at Alexandria to curl, to grow crisp, strong, and 
 coarse, and before I had reached Essouan resembled horse-hair to the touch, 
 and was all disposed in ringlets about the chin. This is no doubt to be 
 accounted for by the extreme dryness of the air, which, operating through 
 several thousand years, has, in the interior, changed the hair of the negro 
 into a kind of wool. At least the conclusion seems v.'arranted by experi- 
 ence ; for again on quitting the country I found, in traversing the moist 
 atmosphere of the Mediterranean, that nearly all the curl and crispness of 
 the beard disappeared. My experiment, however, terminated at Malta, 
 where I shaved and re-assumed the European costume. 
 
 It is the custom among the Franks of Alexandria to dine about noon, 
 after which, in imitation of the Orientals, they generally indulge themselves 
 with a siesta; but I always found one or two individuals who preferred 
 riding out among the ruins, and who, having themselves frequently visited 
 every quarter of the city, were tolerably indifferent respecting the direc- 
 tion we took. Most travellers eschew the sight of misery ; and it is
 
 WRETCHEDNESS OF THE ARABS. 15 
 
 the regular practice of the Pasha's professional admirers to dwell incessantly 
 on his magnificent constructions, on his dockyards, his arsenals, his fleets, 
 and his palaces. It is proper, however, sometimes to look at the otiier side 
 of the picture, and observe the striking contrast existing in this country 
 between the ruling class and the oppressed and powerless people. 
 Evidences of this exist everywhere, but most strikingly present themselves 
 perhaps in the Arab suburbs of Alexandria; which I was careful to visit 
 soon after my arrival. 
 
 A few hundreds of low and dark mud hovels, built or rather hidden amidst 
 vast heaps of rubbish, afford a scanty shelter to a population whose misery 
 seems to exceed the bounds of possibility, little accustomed as I was then 
 to contemplate the new civilisation of Egypt : father, mother, children 
 are huddled in these pestiferous dens, pell-mell with dogs, cows, goats, all 
 impressed with the same aspect of misery as the wretches to whom they 
 belonw. It was scarcely possible to recognise our fellow-creatures in these 
 men, undermined by want and blighted by slavery; in those half-naked, 
 squalid, ricketty children, with swollen bellies, and eyes and mouths per- 
 petually assailed by a cloud of flies, which they have neither the will nor 
 the strength to drive away ; in those women, whose long blue tattered 
 garments scarcely conceal their emaciated forms, and whose countenance, 
 shaded by a black veil, recals the woful aspect of the penitent nuns. 
 
 Nothing can give an idea of the wretchedness to which are reduced these 
 unfortunate natives ; for in Egypt woe to whatever is Egyptian ! To the 
 Turks, to the Europeans, are accorded liberty, privilege, licence ; to the 
 Arabs and the Blacks, absolute deprivation of all rights. Power is the lot 
 of the first class, subjection of the other. 
 
 What a strange country is this, in which man and nature seem to have 
 vied in accumulating the most striking and painful contrasts ! By the 
 side of the most luxuriant and varied vegetation, the African desert spreads 
 its sad scenes of desolation ; and near monuments which have braved the 
 storms of ages, palaces of yesterday are crumbling to ruin ; in the midst of 
 abundance, on the most fertile soil in the whole world, the fellahs are in 
 rags and dying of hunger. The entire population of the country bends 
 unresistingly beneath an iron yoke, and exhausts itself to minister to the 
 luxuries of a handful of strangers who oppress it.* 
 
 Nothing could more forcibly exemplify the frailty of the Arab tenements 
 in tlie Alexandrian suburbs, than a circumstance which occurred during a 
 recent winter, which being more rainy than ordinary, between three or 
 four hundred of them were washed down in the course of one stormy niglit. 
 On the morrow the wretched inhabitants, fathers, mothers, and children, were 
 beheld sitting in the most forlorn and pitiable state, on the vast heaps of 
 mud to which their dwellings had been reduced. In many cases they had 
 not even had time to carry out the few earthen pots and mats which con- 
 stituted their whole worldly substance, before the walls fell in and smashed 
 or buried them. Here, therefore, was an occasion for the exercise of charity. 
 Nor was the occasion neglected. First, the Europeans came forward, and in 
 the course of a few hours subscribed a large sum, which, however, knowing 
 the character of the tyrant with whom they had to deal, they did not venture 
 
 * De Cadalveue et De Bieuvciv.
 
 16 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 to distribute without having first obtained the Pasha's permission. Upon 
 their application it was peremptorily refused ! His Highness, shamed by 
 their alacrity, or jealous of the influence they might thus obtain over the 
 Arabs, said he would provide for his own poor, and advised them to bestow 
 what they had collected on the European hospital. This of course they did ; 
 and, to the honour of Mohammed Ali be it said, the sufi'erers by the storm 
 were provided for, and had new huts erected for them, better in all pro- 
 bability than those which had been thrown down.* 
 
 In the midst of the prostrate remains of the ancient city we find, thinly 
 scattered, the modern dwellings of the actual lords of the soil, of which 
 some are fine large houses, in the Turkish style of architecture, situated for 
 the most part in gardens, or rather small groves of date palms ; which, with 
 their lofty columnar trunks, and long pendulous branches waving and 
 trembling in the breeze, constitute one of the most interesting objects in an 
 African landscape. This beautiful tree was now loaded with fruit, which 
 hung down between the branches in prodigious clusters of from fifty to one 
 hundred pounds weight. Of these dates, some were small and of a dark 
 yellow ; others red, and others nearly black. The stems of the clusters, as 
 large as a man's arm, and of a tawny yellow colour, come out between the 
 branches on every side, and scarcely seem equal to the great weight which 
 they have to support. The yellow dates are by far the smallest known, 
 and the black ones the largest, in Lower Egypt ; but at Es-Souan, in the 
 confines of Nubia, are found yellow dates three inches in length, though I 
 was told that only one tree bearing such fruit existed in Egypt. Nothing 
 in the vegetable creation can be more beautiful than a date palm, a hun- 
 dred feet in height, loaded with ripening fruit, such as we find on the 
 plains of Memphis. I say ripening, because, as soon as ripe, each date is 
 gathered to make room for the rest, and lest it should fall and perish. 
 Even the creaking sounds of the water-wheels, as the blindfold oxen went 
 round and round, and of the tiny cascade splashing from the string of 
 earthen pots into the troughs, which receive and distribute the water to 
 the wooden canals, arranged for conveying it over the grounds, were not 
 disagreeable to my ears ; since they called up before the imagination the 
 primitive ages of mankind, and the rude contrivances of the early kings of 
 Egypt for the advancement of agriculture, which have undergone little 
 change or improvement up to the present hour. 
 
 As almost everything at Alexandria which can be regarded as a relic of 
 past ages lies beyond the inner wall, it is customary with travellers to divide 
 the environs into a certain number of parts, all of which they visit in suc- 
 cession. The place, however, is now interesting merely as a site. Power, 
 and art, and beauty, and learning, have, we know, been there ; but for this 
 knowledge we are almost wholly indebted to history. Still, while musing 
 among its scanty fragments and choked and broken cisterns, we experience 
 that melancholy satisfaction which every relic of a great people, now 
 vanished, inevitably inspires. Riding out with a young Egyptian lady 
 
 * The disaster which on this occasion befel the poor Arabs, may serve to show the fallacy of 
 the opinion that rain is unknown in Egypt. Abdellatif observed, long ago, that although rain is 
 rare in the Said, it falls abundantly in the northern part of the country and on the coast, par- 
 ticularly at Alexandria and Damietta, though little or no advantage be taken of it in agriculture.
 
 POMPEY'S PILLAR. K 
 
 toward the Rosotta or Canopic suburbs, I passed those overthrown cohnmis 
 and vast substructions, which, according to M. Chaaipollion, mark the 
 position of the famous Alexandrian Hbrary ; and, having issued through the 
 gate, entered on a country wild and barren, but exceedingly interesting to the 
 imagination, where long trains of camels, laden with water or with wood, 
 and mounted or followed by Arabs, were toiling across the sands toward 
 the city. The march of these tall, spare, uncouth animals, with heads erect, 
 is singularly majestic : beautiful they undoubtedly are not ; but here, on the 
 borders of the wilderness, neither the ass nor the horse appears so entirely 
 in harmony with the scene. On each side of the road, which is merely a 
 broad pathway worn in the soil by the feet of animals, large mounds of 
 sand, thrown up by the action of the winds, or by the hands of man, 
 diversify the aspect of the plain, whose undulating surface reminded me of 
 the sea. In the distance, toward Rosetta, a long dark line of verdure 
 like a cloud, marked the site of extensive date groves ; and near at hand 
 were various plantations and gardens, the property of Europeans, which 
 we traversed, and proceeded to the bank of the Mahmoodiyah, or great canal 
 of Alexandria, where we saw numerous large boats bringing merchandise 
 from Cairo, and towed along by men, as barges are by horses in England. 
 In the course of our ride we observed the elegant palace and gardens of 
 Moharram Bey, and returned towards the city by Pompey's Pillar. 
 
 The appearance, dimensions, and history of this famous column have so 
 frequently engaged the attention and excited the controversial propensities 
 of travellers, that nothing new can now be advanced concerning it : but 
 it may be worth remarking, that monuments which, from the frequent 
 mention made of them, seem hackneyed and common- place in books, by no 
 means appear so when actually beheld. You for the time forget the dis- 
 sertations of the antiquarian, the measurements of the mathematician, the 
 spruce trim copy of the artist, and yield up your mind to the romantic 
 enthusiasm inspired by grand historical associations. It is doubtless im- 
 portant that we should not attribute to one man the great public works 
 bequeathed to mankind by another, whether those works were designed 
 for use or ornament; but there is a pleasure altogether independent of 
 antiquarian erudition derived from the contemplation of the monuments of 
 past ages, vague, shadowy, composed of many mingled sentiments and 
 feelings, but sweet to the mind, and perhaps the only adequate compensa- 
 tion which the traveller can ever receive for his toils and privations. 
 While gazing on this vast lonely column, the names of Leo Africanus, 
 Pietro della Valle, Pocock, Shaw, Bruce, Volney and Denon, all men of 
 immortal reputation, who had once mused on the spot where I then stood, 
 came crowding upon my memory. I thought, too, of what Alexandria 
 was when that pillar was erected ; of the temples, the theatres, the gardens, 
 which once delighted the eye from tliat barren eminence — all now vanished 
 like a dream. 
 
 The height of Pompey's Pillar, including that of the pedestal and 
 capital^ is ninety feet. Some travellers have inferred, on account of its 
 rough workmanship, that the capital is extremely ancient, whereas its 
 coarseness of execution and bad taste prove it to be the production of a 
 very lute period, when the arts had all degenerated in Egypt. The shaft
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 of rose-coloured granite >Yas exceedingly beautiful before it had been dis- 
 figured by the absurd vanity of nautical travellers, who have daubed it all 
 
 ■Pompey's Pillar. 
 
 over with their barbarous names. Miss Talbot, a young Irish lady, who 
 ascended with a party of officers to the summit, is said to have written there 
 a letter to Mr. Salt, which she dated : — " From the top of Pompey's Pillar." 
 The Consul, then at Cairo, very wittily, in replying to her, dated his 
 epistle : — " From the bottom of Joseph's Well." Into antiquarian 
 research it is not my province to enter. That the column had no reference, 
 however, to the Great Pompey may be very confidently assumed. Though 
 by whom it was erected, and in honour of what emperor, if of any, are 
 points scarcely capable of decision. At any rate, they are not worth all 
 the learning which has already been expended on them. Objects of this 
 kind have in all ages most amazingly puzzled the Arabs. One of their 
 writers, who visited the pillar in the thirteenth century, tells us that there 
 then existed a cupola on its summit, and that, strewed around in confusion, 
 were the fragments of other columns, whicli, along with it, had supported 
 the roof of a vast portico erected, he surmised, by Alexander the Great, 
 for the accommodation of Aristotle, who there taught philosophy to the
 
 CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLES. 
 
 19 
 
 Egyptians ! On the same spot also stood the famous library burned at the 
 command or with the permission of Omar by Ararou-Bcn-Alas.* Gibbon, 
 to mitigate the pungency of our sorrow for this catastrophe, insinuates that 
 the greater number of the books must have been on theology, if in reality 
 the conflagration ever took place. 
 
 From this relic of antiquity, near which we descended into the vaulted 
 passages of an extensive venerable edifice, whose lower part seems still to 
 exist beneath the sands, we proceeded over innumerable heaps of ruins, to 
 Cleopatra's Needles, those beautiful obelisks of rose-granite, which are 
 supposed to have adorned the entrance to the palace of the ^Egyptio- 
 Macedonian kings. Of these the one towards the east is still standing : 
 the other has been overthrown, probably by an earthquake, and lies partly 
 buried in the sand. The latter is mounted on props, and seems as if pre- 
 pared for a journey : accident alone has prevented its being in England. t 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Climate of Egypt. — A Levantine Party. — The Pasha's Fleet. 
 
 In their description of Alexandria, travellers would frequently appear to 
 have been more intent 
 on indulging their ge- 
 nius for satire or ex- 
 aggeration, than of 
 conveying a correct 
 idea of the place. 
 No two accounts re- 
 semble each other ; 
 but, as the city itself 
 has undergone innu- 
 merable revolutions 
 and changes of for- 
 tune, much of these 
 discrepancies may, per- 
 haps, have arisen from 
 this circumstance. At 
 present it is a respect- 
 able, if not a handsome 
 city. The number of 
 spacious okellas in- 
 habited by European 
 merchants ; the new 
 detached houses erect- 
 ed in various quarters 
 by Turks and Franks ; 
 the elegant well-fur- 
 nished shops ; the 
 
 Tower in the Wall of the Arab Quarter. 
 
 * Abdcllatif. 
 
 f Richardsou.
 
 20 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 mosques, convents, villas, and palaces, situated within the walls, — render its 
 aspect gay and agreeable. As a place of residence, it is undoubtedly pre- 
 ferable to any other city in Egypt; indeed, it would, in many respects, bear 
 a comparison with some of the seaport towns of Italy or France. Two small 
 theatres, with temporary decorations and scenery, and supported by amateurs, 
 have been established by the French and Italian residents ; and the per- 
 formances, though no professed actors are employed, are far from being 
 contemptible. Other amusements, adapted to the taste of civilised nations, 
 are likewise obtainable ; music parties, conversazioni, soirees, balls, routs, 
 dinners, wine, dancing girls, &c. Latterly, indeed, the Pasha has affected 
 extreme strictness on the subject of the ghawazi, who are forbidden to visit 
 professionally the houses of Europeans. But they still exhibit at the 
 coffee-houses, of which there are numbers at Alexandria. Here, while 
 sipping your mocha and flourishing a palm-flapper to drive away the flies, 
 you may behold the performances of the artiste, or listen to the tales of 
 some wandering story-teller who has by accident found his way to the coast. 
 A book-club, consisting of the most respectable residents, has been esta- 
 blished ; and a newspaper, in French and Arabic, is published by the Pasha. 
 Both here and elsewhere in Eo-ypt, the dwellings of the fellahs, unworthy 
 the name of houses, are inferior in comfort and appearance to dog-kennels 
 or pig-sties ; but these constitute no part of the city, being merely a strag- 
 gling suburb attached to certain quarters. A wise government, however, 
 would provide the poor with more airy and commodious habitations, with 
 the view of arresting the progress of depopulation, and interesting the body 
 of the people in its support. 
 
 Though nearly surrounded by water, Alexandria, in the time of Strabo, 
 was esteemed ahealthy city; and for this phenomenon the geographer accounts 
 in a satisfactory and philosophical manner, by explaining the peculiar nature 
 of Lake Mareotis. Other lagoons, he says, from the effects of evapora- 
 tion, become half-dry in the season of the greatest heat; and their shores, 
 converted into so many swamps or morasses, exhale mephitic eflluvia, which 
 corrupt the air and engender disease. Mareotis, on the contrary, being 
 filled by the influx of the Nile, whose inundation occurs in summer, instead 
 of retiring within its bed, and exposing a marshy, slimy margin to the action 
 of the sun, rises above its ordinary level, and abundantly irrigates the neigh- 
 bouring fields, thus effectually preventing all pestiferous exhalations. In 
 the time of the Mamlooks, wlien this lake had been in a great measure dried 
 up, the miasmata arising from it, though the land was partly brought into 
 cultivation, seem greatly to have accelerated the ravages of the plague ; 
 which, since the sea was introduced into it by the English, has been much 
 less frequent and destructive. 
 
 At present Alexandria appears to be a salubrious city, though the atmo- 
 sphere in winter is, perhaps, too moist and cold. My own health, during 
 my short stay there, was upon the whole good ; and the observations I 
 made on the health of others likewise corroborated my opinion, the majority 
 of the European inhabitants bein j- no less hale and robust than tliey could 
 have been in their respective countries. Even the complexions of such 
 women as take exercise, without too much exposing themselves to the 
 sun, are ruddy and clear ; and their forms, entirely abandoned to nature,
 
 CLIMATE OF EGYPT. 21 
 
 possess all that plumpness and richness of contour which distinguish the 
 females of the North. 
 
 It should, however, be observed that the constitution, though not sub- 
 jected, by the nature of the climate, to more than the ordinary chances of 
 disease, appears to wear out more rapidly than in Europe. Youth and 
 manhood are of comparatively short duration ; and old age, both of the 
 mind and body, makes its approaches earlier. Nowhere have I beheld 
 so few old people. But the remark applies equally to natives and 
 foreigners, to women no less than to men. The signs of premature decay, 
 and of an old age unconnected with length of days, everywhere meet the 
 eye. Women, who, in the temperate regions of Europe, would still be 
 regarded as in the bloom of life, or objects of the deepest interest and love, 
 here seem to be verging towards decrepitude, with their hanging bosoms, 
 hollow eyes, wrinkles, and emaciated limbs. 
 
 " Quo fugit Venus ? heu ! quove color ? deccns 
 Quo niotus ? Quid habes illius, illius, 
 Quae spiiabat amores ? ' 
 
 The men, also, supposed to be less the creatures of climate, experience early 
 a damping of the fire of the imagination, from the decrease, probably, of 
 that animal heat, that physical energy, which supplies fuel to the passions ; 
 in short, the sun of life is obscured before it has declined from the meridian. 
 Intemperance and excesses, in which both Turk and Christian are here too 
 apt to indulge, may, perhaps, contribute towards producing this premature 
 decline of the senses and intellect ; but the result is principally chargeable 
 on the climate, since, even to the temperate and virtuous, length of days, and 
 
 " A green old age unconscious of decay," 
 
 are rarely vouchsafed. 
 
 Among the Bedouins, instances occur of men who attain the age of one 
 hundred, or one hundred and ten years ; but no example of such longevity 
 in Turk or Fellah, inhabiting the valley of the Nile, has ever, I believe, 
 been known. The ancient Egyptians, who probably discovered, at a very 
 early period, this peculiar defect of their climate, laboured, by rigid atten- 
 tion to diet and medicine, to counteract its eflPects, though without any re- 
 markable degree of success, since it was observed by the ancients tliat, of 
 all mankind, the Egyptians were the shortest-lived. To children, likewise, 
 the air of Egypt is highly unfavourable. Instead of that freshness and 
 beauty, that benignant placidity, betokening the unrufiled calm of the soul, 
 which, in more temperate regions, are the companions of childhood, infants 
 generally exhibit countenances deformed by pain and sickness. With their 
 eyes running and half-closed with purulent matter, swollen bellies, tot- 
 tering limbs, scurfy heads, and sallow squalid features, tliey repress that 
 involuntary affection to which the innocence and loveliness natural to their 
 age would otherwise give birth. Among the Greeks and rich Turks fine 
 children are frequently found ; but the offspring of Europeans who settle in 
 the country are generally cadaverous and unsightly. Their lives, also, are 
 extremely uncertain ; and, accordingly, large families are rare. The Arabic 
 writers best acquainted with Egypt observe that it is not until young men 
 approach their twentieth year that they begin to develop the beauties of
 
 22 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 the form.* With this opinion, however, my own experience does not 
 concur. It appeared to me that about the age of thirteen or fourteen, boys 
 already had become sHm and active, while girls of the same age already 
 displayed many of the charms of womanhood. 
 
 On the plague of flies, which is still one of the plagues of Egypt, Sir 
 Frederick Henniker observes : — " The most strange, the most disgusting, and 
 the most unavoidable sight in Alexandria is this — the eyes and mouths of 
 all the children are literally embanked with flies ; their mouths are beset as 
 if they were the mouths of honey-bottles, their eyes are too filthy for 
 description ; the children have no prescient dread of ophthalmia, but sufitr 
 the vermin to remain undisturbed ; whether these two organs of sense are 
 used as fly-traps, or whether to be fly-blown is to be complimented, I will 
 not decide ; but Plato was more fortunate in his infancy in being over- 
 swarmed by bees." 
 
 But, whatever may be the disagreeables or inconveniences of Alexan- 
 dria, the Franks and Levantines who reside there contrive to spend their 
 time agreeably enough. One of the habits most general amongst them may 
 have some reference to the flies : they all smoke inveterately. A lady with 
 whom I spent many hours during my stay used constantly to present me 
 with a pipe on my entrance, after which, taking another herself, she would 
 seat herself beside me on the divan, where for an hour or so we pufi'ed away 
 as oravely as two Pashas, occasionally intermingling a remark or an obser- 
 vation with the smoke. On such occasions the musquitoes generally made 
 themselves scarce, having obviously an aversion to the fumes of tobacco. 
 It may be doubted therefore whether the most fastidious persons, if they 
 had to choose between the two evils, would not prefer the smoke to the 
 flies, and if so, their presence will constitute the apology of the chibouque- 
 loving ladies of the East. Other methods of killing time, more consonant 
 with our European ideas, are likewise resorted to in the Frank quarter. 
 Theatres and cofi"ee-houses have already been mentioned ; and to tliese may 
 be added baths, dinners, evening parties, scandal, and dancing. 
 
 At the house of a French family I had the good fortune to meet all the 
 principal Europeans of the city ; the men were generally in Frank costumes, 
 but among the ladies there were some of the gayer fashions of the Levant ; 
 and several of the elder ones stumped across the room in the high wooden 
 shoes of Aleppo, made like clogs of sandal-wood, prettily inlaid witli 
 mother-of-pearl, which raised their wearers a foot at least above their 
 natural height, while the younger ones had their black tresses braided 
 round a scarlet cap similar to that worn by the men, like the folds of a 
 turban, and tastily intertwisted with the threads of the silk tassel that hung 
 from it. There appeared a struggle between Eastern and Western manners 
 which should gain the ascendancy. The old ladies, without scruple, as they 
 sat on the couches round the room, screwed up their legs a la Turque ; and 
 I thought I sometimes detected, by the absence of a pretty little foot that 
 had been stolen up to a position it was accustomed to, that the young ones 
 also would have preferred such an attitude. 
 
 There was an absence of form at any rate in the society, and I thought, 
 
 * Abdellatif.
 
 A LEVANTINE PARTY. 
 
 ill one ceremony that amused me mucli, not a little simplicity : most of the 
 (lancers, who seemed mere girls, were young mothers who could not for any 
 time be separated from their babes ; instead, however, of remaining at 
 
 Interior of an Egyptian 11 
 
 home, they determined to combine their pleasure and their duty, and a pro- 
 cession of nurses, after a little while, filed through the dancing-room to an 
 adjoining chamber. I did not quite understand the meaning of this inte- 
 resting group at first ; but a gentle whine from one of the infants caught 
 the ears of an old lady, who clumped upon her pattens up to the seeming 
 girl with whom I was dancing, and in very plain terms scolded her for 
 suffering her child to starve. " I know its tone," said the old lady, " from 
 a thousand." — " It is not mine, mama, I am sure," said my partner, and I 
 thought a siiarp argument would arise between them upon the subject ; 
 wlien suddenly the note was taken up by all the infants, and the old ladies, 
 jumping off their seats, bustled about to drive in the young ones, who, to 
 do them justice, showed no unwillingness, and in an instant the dance was 
 abandoned, until, the office being performed, the mothers returned, and, 
 apologising prettily for what could not be neglected, gave their hands once 
 more to their partners, and resumed the dance until the lambs should again 
 call them away by their bleating.* 
 
 Among the public establishments of Alexandria, the most important is 
 undoubtedly the arsenal. Here Mohammed Ali has endeavoured, and not 
 altogether without success, to imitate the maritime powers of Europe, 
 tliough, while creating material improvements, he has not by any means 
 been equally careful to promote the comforts or connect the interests of the 
 natives engaged in carrying out his views. On the other hand, the Euro- 
 peans employed are generally rewarded with honour, and paid liberally. 
 
 * jNIajor Skinner.
 
 24 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 Coffee Service. 
 
 Of these, the greater number have always been French, who have laboured 
 to persuade the Pasha that, by attending sedulously to his navy, he might 
 in time become the rival of Great Britain. As an Englishman, therefore, 
 I could not but feel some curiosity to visit this, the chief creation of the 
 Pasha. I was first ushered into an office near the entrance, where the 
 commissioners of the dock-yard were seated, cross-legged, on a divan. They 
 were exceedingly courteous, as, indeed, we invariably found the higher 
 classes of Egyptian 
 Moslems. CoflFee was 
 presented in small 
 china cups, holding 
 about a third of one 
 of ours, not on a tray, 
 but handed to each 
 individual by a sepa- 
 rate servant, on a 
 small silver stand 
 (zerf), exactly like 
 an egg-cup, which I 
 have always found 
 very serviceable, as 
 the finjans are so 
 hot, one is in great danger of burning one^s fingers. 
 
 The cofi'ee is far superior to that commonly used by us ; it is drunk 
 without cream or sugar, boiling hot, and, as they never strain it, thick as 
 mud ; yet it has a delicious fragrance. Who will say that it is not a more 
 grateful and more rational, while it is fully as refreshing, and much less 
 injurious a beverage, than those intoxicating liquors in use in our northern 
 countries ? 
 
 In this, my first visit into polite society in the East, I was surprised at 
 seeing each of the Moslems present make the usual salutation, by touching 
 the forehead with the tips of the right-hand fingers, on receiving their 
 cofi'ee. At first I imagined it for the servant, but I afterwards learned 
 that it is intended for the master of the house, who returns it. Their 
 salute is {peculiarly easy and graceful. Besides that mentioned above, others 
 generally approach the open hand to the lips, and then touch the forehead. 
 To an intimate friend, or superior, the salutation is by laying the hand first 
 upon the breast, and then touching the lips and forehead, accompanied by 
 a gentle inclination of the body forward. 
 
 Their dress was remarkably handsome. The outer cloak, or beneesh, of 
 brown or drab cloth, trimmed with sable, fell in loose folds upon the divan, 
 where they sat cross-legged, leaving their red, pointed slippers on the floor 
 beneath. Their under-garment, of striped silk, was confined round the 
 waist by a splendid cashmere sliawl, in which was placed the ink-horn — 
 the badge of their profession. The turban, bold, yet graceful, of white 
 spotted muslin, overshadowed a face, handsome, expressive, and intellectual. 
 The eyes of all those present were of exceeding brilliancy, and their long 
 silky beards gave a dignity to their appearance, such as is not to be found
 
 THE PASHA'S FLEET. 25 
 
 in the trim, well-shaven features of the European. Some few Copts, who 
 were engaged in the office, wore black, the only colour allowed them 
 in Egypt. 
 
 But we must pay a visit to those fine vessels now upon the stocks — and 
 here is one just ready to be launched, which I will tell you something about, 
 without having your ears assailed by the most stunning of all noises, the 
 caulking and coppering. This is a two-decker, but corresponding in number 
 of guns to our tiiree-deckers, than any of which it is larger, being 3000 
 tons. It is not so long as some of ours, being but 189 feet by 40 in the 
 beam, and will mount 100 guns. The timber of these vessels is confessedly 
 very inferior, and much smaller than would be used in any English vessel 
 of war ; but as there are no forest trees in this land, most of it is imported 
 from Trieste, as formerly from Karamania in Asia ]Minor. The shipwrights 
 endeavour to make up in quantity for deficiency in quality, so that the 
 bottoms of these vessels are perfect beds of timber. This is the tenth 
 of this class, and there are eight in commission. The ninth was brought 
 out of tlie docks yesterday, to be rigged and got ready for sea. The com- 
 plement of men on board each of these is 1005, including officers, who in 
 rank and number correspond to those of the English navy. Besides the 
 ten line-of-battle ships, there are seven frigates, an armed steamer, four 
 corvettes, eight brigs, and other small craft, in commission. So far as the 
 vessels go, they are, I suspect, rather more than a match for the Porte. In 
 our walk round the yard, we were surprised at the number and extent of 
 the works, all divided into their several departments, and at the order and 
 regularity that prevailed. Brass-founders, carvers, blacksmiths, carpenters, 
 rope-makers, sail-makers, and all the diffiirent requisites in ship-building, 
 upon a most extensive scale, all worked by native hands, who amount to 
 about 800. 
 
 Tlie stores and arsenal were as neat, as clean and orderly, as could pos- 
 sibly be. Originally, the heads of the different departments were Europeans, 
 but at present the situations are nearly all filled by natives, who rose under 
 their instruction, or were educated in France or England ; among these was 
 the principal mathematical instrument-maker, a very intelligent young man. 
 How very fluently, and with what a good accent, many of these speak our 
 language ! There is an extensive rope-walk, and we saw some of the cables 
 being worked by a patent machine : the head of this department is a 
 Spaniard, but there is also a native fully capable of conducting the work. I 
 was much struck with the skill and neatness of several of the workmen, 
 particularly in brass-turning, carving, &c. We were shown a handsome 
 room for the drawings, plans, engine-work, &c., and several models of the 
 crack English vessels. 
 
 There is a mosque in the yard, whither the men go three times a day 
 to pray, for about five or ten minutes. It is a small but neat building, 
 covered with clematis, and other creepers, now in blow, and has a pretty 
 fountain attached to it, where the men perform their ablutions each time 
 they go to worship. All the workmen are enlisted in the Pasha's service 
 as sailors or soldiers, and are drilled occasionally, so as to be capable of 
 almost immediate service. They are fed, clothed, and get from fifteen to
 
 26 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 tliirty piastres a montli pay, which they, and all the men in the service 
 of Mohammed Ali, receive into their own hands, to prevent any sort of 
 peculation. The wages of these artisans are raised according to their merit, 
 and are never in the same arrear as those of the army or navy. The greater 
 number are married, their wives inhabiting wretched hovels outside the 
 tovvn ; if they liave sons, each receives fifteen piastres a month from the 
 government, and the child must be brought to receive it in his own hand. 
 Their wives are all in some ss.rt of traffic or huckstering, and tend much to 
 the support of their husbands ; so that the more viives a soldier or trades- 
 man in Alexandria has, the better he lives ! The majority have a plurality, 
 and if sons are the result, it is a rather good speculation. 
 
 The men work from sunrise to sunset, with the exception of an hour at 
 breakfast and dinner ; they get three meals a day, and during our visit 
 the drum beat to the mid-day meal, which consists of a plentiful supply of 
 coarse brown bread and bean porridge ; and for breakfast they are allowed, 
 in addition, olives, with some vinegar and oil. All the artisans are given 
 meat once a week, and the troops once a month. They are divided into 
 messes of three and five each. The greatest order and quiet prevailed, 
 and if the countenance be an index of the inner man, contentment seemed 
 to reign amongst them. The ancliors, and most of the foreign goods in 
 the dock-yard, are English ; and there were also a vast number of fine 
 brass and metal guns, in most perfect preservation, lately fished up in 
 Aboukir Bay. 
 
 I next day visited one of the vessels of war. No. 8, along with its surgeon, 
 an Englishman, whose salary of £10 a month and rations, consisting of 
 beans and brown bread, although equal to the ordinary expenses of a 
 country where necessaries are so cheap, is yet insufl&cient inducement to any 
 number of well-educated English medical men to enter the service of the 
 Pasha ; and consequently, with the exception of the professors at Cairo, and 
 those filling higher stations, the general run of European medical men in 
 the service are ignorant and uneducated Italians and Frenchmen. 
 
 I found this vessel, and others that I visited, particularly clean and 
 orderly, and this is the more marked, as there is a greater quantity of brass 
 inlaying and ornamental work in them than is usual in any of our men-of- 
 war. This is a 100-gun ship, but equal in tonnage to ours carrying 120. 
 The uniform is a dark brown, and the officers are principally distinguished 
 from the men by the fineness of the regimentals, and having an anchor, 
 star, or crescent, emblematic of their rank, and composed of silver, gold, or 
 jewels, on the left breast. In the navy as well as the army, neither beard 
 nor whiskers are allowed ; except the mustache, all must be close-shaven 
 daily ; this at first was considered a very great innovation, and was loudly 
 complained of as quite too Christian and uncircumcised a form. Precisely 
 the contrary has recently taken place in France, where the judges have 
 refused to sufi^er the lawyers to ])lead in mustaches, though beards are 
 allowed, legal wisdom being supposed to reside all below the mouth. 
 
 The men are trained to military tactics, as well as to go aloft, and in this 
 latter they are often very clumsy, to the no small amusement of any English 
 tars who may be lovpering top-gallants, or reefing topsails at the same time.
 
 NAVAL REGULATIONS. 
 
 27 
 
 But much cannot be expected from a navy called into existence since the 
 battle of Navarino, and whose service has consisted in little else than a great 
 summer visit to Candia. There is a moolah, or priest, on board each ship. 
 The men are not allowed to smoke in watches, and a certain number each 
 niffht are permitted to go to their families, who live near the town. There 
 was an air of great simpHcity in the officers' berths, even in that of the 
 
 Principal Bazaar, Alexandria. 
 
 captain ; a plain divan surrounded two sides of the cabin — a table with 
 writino- materials, and a couple of chairs, and on the side of each was 
 huno- a plain glazed frame, in which was written the name of God, and 
 sometimes a verse of the Koran underneath. From a desire to avoid even 
 the appearance of any " graven image," there are no figure-heads to any of 
 the Egyptian vessels. There is a naval academy at Alexandria, where the 
 young officers are instructed; a noble establishment, having accommodation 
 for 1200 students.* 
 
 Though the bazaars of Alexandria, compared with those of some other 
 
 • Wilde.
 
 28 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Oriental cities, may be regarded as insignificant, they have still preserved 
 mncli of their Eastern character, and therefore deserve to be visited by the 
 traveller ; at least if lie arrive from Europe. This was my case ; and they 
 accordingly possessed much novelty for me. At Cairo, Constantinople, 
 Ispahan, Kandahar, Shikarpore, and other great cities of the ]\Iohammedan 
 world, the bazaars are of vast extent, and make a display of riches scarcely 
 to be looked for in countries so ill governed, and so little civilised. But 
 the commercial capital of Egypt is approximating more and more every 
 day in appearance to a Frank city. All the traders of the place are now 
 by no means found in the bazaars. Shops of every kind are springing 
 up in other quarters. These, kept, many of them, by our Maltese subjects, 
 whose indefatigable industry is proverbial in the Levant, or by Greeks or 
 Italians, contain a respectable assortment of European goods, mercery, 
 drapery, cutlery, china, glass, &c. Except as signs of progress in civilisa- 
 tion, however, such shops command little notice from the stranger. His 
 attention is directed to the place where the native buyers and sellers 
 congregate, as it necessarily presents many characteristics of the people 
 and the coimtry. 
 
 The buildings which in England go under the name of bazaars in no re- 
 spect resemble those of the East, which consist of a number of narrow streets 
 covered above, generally crossing each other at right angles, and having on 
 each side shops open in front, like the booths in a country fair, with floors 
 raised about thi*ee feet and a half above the level of the pavement, project- 
 ing a yard or so beyond the wall of the house into the street, and forming 
 a broad bench, which, joining with that of the next tenement, extends the 
 whole length of the bazaar. Both the bench and the floor are covered with 
 neat mats or carpets, and the walls with deep shelves, divided into large 
 compartments, in which the various kinds of merchandise are arranged with 
 little attention to display. Tlie shopkeeper, with nargeel or chibouque in 
 his mouth, sits cross-legged on the bench in front of his wares. When a 
 customer presents himself, he lays aside liis pipe, receives him with a smile 
 and a bow, but continues sitting. The salaam is given and returned. A 
 sort of conversation is then set on foot. When the parties are nearly of 
 the same rank the dialogue commences pretty much as follows : " In the 
 name of God is your house well ? " — " Kater kke rouhene." — " Thank God 
 it is well." — "And your house?" — "The same." — '"''Fih sakkar?" — "Have 
 you any sugar ? " — " Majish — There is none." — " Wallah ! Mafish ? " — 
 " By God have you none ? "— " Wallah ! "— " By God ! " The customer 
 then inquires perhaps for some other article; the merchant, a name 
 generally afi"ected even by the most humble dealer, treats him to a whiff 
 from his pipe ; they smoke and talk together for an hour, after which the 
 buyer strolls on leisurely to some other shop. In these narrow and crowded 
 passages, while prying into the mystery of buying and selling, the safety of 
 your head is frequently endangered by the passage of a string of loaded 
 camels which go shufiling along with burdens of grass, or vast panniers, 
 reaching nearly across the street. The appearance and arrangement of the 
 sliops often recall to one's mind the descriptions in the " Arabian Nights." 
 Here the barber, the draper, the money-changer, the jeweller, and even the
 
 BAZAARS OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 2t» 
 
 schoolmaster, exercise tlieir various arts and mysteries in the view of the 
 public, and all, to judge from their appearance, conduct their business with 
 a dignity and self-satisfaction which must contribute greatly to their general 
 happiness. 
 
 The provision markets of Alexandria are almost always as well furnished 
 as the best in Africa. There are various kinds of meat, fresh and dried 
 fruits, vegetables, herbs, fowls, game, fish in abundance, very good bread, 
 eggs, and milk. The country round about produces very little, being sur- 
 rounded with a desert ; but the productions of Rosetta, and all Lower 
 Egypt, tlie borders of Syria, the ishmds of the Archipelago, and the African 
 coast to Derna, are brought to tlie city, without interruption, in little boats ; 
 so that, in regard to provisions, this town has everything that could be 
 wished for.* 
 
 * Ali Bev. 
 
 Tree of the Pilgrims, and Aqncduct, Alexandria.
 
 30 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Sheikh Ibrahim. — Castle of the Pharos. — Pasha's Bark. 
 
 MonAMMED Ali is said recently to have made some progress towards the 
 ;il)olition of the slave-trade in his country ; and may success attend his 
 efforts, if he really make any ! I fancy, however, that very little has 
 hitherto been done: at all events, when I was in the country, slaves were as 
 common in that part of the bazaar appropriated to the flagitious traffic as 
 Manchester piece goods, though the supply on hand depended on the 
 irregular arrivals of Kafilas from the interior. It is still moreover reported 
 that his highness looks with a sort of Janus-face upon the slave trade, 
 frowning with the one which is turned towards Europe, but with the one 
 turned towards Africa smiling and encouraging the slave hunts. I was 
 indebted to accident for my knowledge of the manner in which the traffic in 
 slaves is transacted. Groping my way one morning through some of the 
 dirtiest and darkest parts of the city, my servant, assuming a most comical 
 grin, ushered me suddenly through a small-arched passage into a filthy 
 gloomy court, little removed in wretchedness from an Irish pound. On 
 entering, about a dozen or two young creatures of both sexes, but princi- 
 pally girls, perfectly black, and with scarcely a rag of covering on them, 
 rushed tumultuously out of the low dens by which the court was sur- 
 rounded, wondering at my Frank dress, and particularly delighted at the 
 sight of a dead flamingo I carried in my hand, and which they seemed to 
 recognise as an old acquaintance, these birds being very plentiful in the 
 Dongola country, from whence most of these slaves are brought. So sudden 
 and unexpected was my entree, and so very strange the scene, that I almost 
 forgot where I was, till an involuntary start awoke me from my reverie, as 
 one of the slave-dealers, a most kidnapping-looking scoundrel, stepped up 
 and inquired if I wished to become a purchaser. I did not, because I dared 
 not, knock the fellow down. 
 
 The greater number of these slaves are girls from ten to fifteen years 
 of age, and generally bought for houseliold servants. They seem quite 
 unconscious of a situation which Christians look upon as so degrading. 
 These young ladies, although nearly in a state of nature, had all necklaces 
 and bracelets of blue beads — had their hair plaited in small twists, and were 
 already beginning to assume the modesty of Mohammedan women, and 
 attempted to cover their faces while the rest of their persons was wholly 
 devoid of garments.* 
 
 On another occasion I found a wholly diff"erent class of gii'ls for sale. 
 They were of a bright, warm, copper colour, and beautifully formed, though 
 their countenances were far from handsome. From what part of Africa 
 they came the slave-merchant either could not or would not explain. 
 Negresses it would be improper to denominate them, though their crisp and 
 
 * WUde.
 
 SHEIKH IBRAHIM. 31 
 
 curly hair, the thickness of their lips, and the peculiar conformation of their 
 heads, appear to denote their affinity to the negro family of mankind. 
 The cells in which they habitually sat looked gloomy and squalid, but the 
 young women themselves were scrupulously clean in their persons. Clothes 
 of any description they had none, their only defence from the cold being the 
 mats which closed the entrance to their dormitories, and the rugs and 
 blankets, rolled in which they usually slept on the ground. It may here be 
 remarked that the African slaves found at Alexandria are generally the refuse 
 of the Egyptian market ; for as the Kafilas enter from Nubia, the rich men in 
 all the cities through which they pass enjoy the opportunity of making their 
 purchases first. Sometimes, indeed, it happens that girls of more than 
 ordinary beauty are reserved for the Cairo market, where the Pashas and 
 opulent Turks habitually reside. In such cases, they are not exhibited at 
 all in the cities of Upper Egypt, as Siout Girgeh and JManfalout, but kept 
 concealed in separate enclosures. The Georgian, Circassian, and Mingre- 
 lian slaves, are never I believe brought to the bazaars at all, but kept in 
 the houses of their owners, whither the men of rank proceed to view them. 
 Having heard much of one Sheikh Ibrahim, a popular Mohammedan 
 preacher, distinguished at least as much for his fanaticism as for his 
 eloquence, I one day paid him a visit. He resided in a wing of the princi- 
 pal mosque. He received us very politely, talked a great deal, and, among 
 other things, inquired with much apparent interest about Sir Sidney Smith, 
 whom he said he had known. Pie ap])eared to take a great liking to my 
 beard, which he was fully persuaded must be a mark that I belonged to the 
 caste of mufti or priests ; nor, tliough we denied it, did he seem at all con- 
 vinced, as the Mohammedans, having themselves little respect for truth, 
 imagine that we Christians exactly resemble Ulysses in the accounts which 
 we give of ourselves to strangers. When we seemed to have exhausted 
 the Arabic of our interpreter, the old gentleman undertook to show us the 
 Medressy, (school or college of the mosque,) and his own library, supposed 
 to be the richest in Alexandria. In the appearance of the Medressy there 
 was nothing remarkable, except that, instead of being seated on forms 
 ranged regularly in the centre of 
 the apartment, the boys were all 
 squatted ci-oss-legged upon a mat, 
 with the pedagogue in the raids-t 
 of them. In Egypt, Nubia, and, 
 I believe, generally in Mohamme- 
 dan countries, boys are taught to 
 write upon a smooth thin tablet 
 painted white, about the size of 
 an ordinary cijjhering-slate, with a 
 handle at one end. From this the 
 characters are easily effaced by wash- 
 ing. While studying, or rather learn- 
 ing to repeat, their lessons, each boy declaims his portion of the Koran 
 aloud at the same time, rocking his body to and fro, in order, according to 
 their theory, to assist his memory ; and as every one seems desirous of 
 
 Schoolboys
 
 32 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 drowning the voices of his companions, the din produced hy so many shrill 
 discordant notes reminds one of the " labourers of Babel."* They who wish 
 to make any great advances in study, go to Cairo ; but even here the most 
 respectable sheikhs in the city give lectures in the principal mosques, which 
 seem to diffuse instruction. The sheikh, when he delivers liis lectures, is 
 seated in the middle of the mosque upon a carpet, and the auditors form a 
 circle at a distance round him ; those who arrive in succession, form circles 
 beyond, being all seated with the greatest regularity upon the ground. 
 There is a little green candle placed upon a low table in the middle. Oppo- 
 site the sheikh is seated a reader with papers in his hand. These papers 
 contain generally the articles of the principal expounders of the Koran. 
 The reader begins a verse, which he has hardly commenced, before he is 
 interrupted by the sheikh, who comments upon it for a long or a short 
 time, and occasionally makes the most extravagant commentaries upon a 
 single word. The reader resumes his discourse, and the sheikh his remarks, 
 speaking always as if he was inspired ; now and then he introduces some 
 agreeable sallies and hon mots.\ 
 
 The library of Sheikh Ibrahim consisted of some six or seven hundred 
 manuscripts, carelessly piled upon each other in an awkward kind of book- 
 case, or strewed in a slovenly way about the floor. Several of those which 
 we examined were beautifully written on fine parchment, and might, per- 
 haps, be valuable. I wished to see a copy of the Koran. The time is past 
 in which such a request could be regarded as imprudent ; but the fanaticism 
 and bigotry of Sheikh Ibrahim were well known, and it was foreseen that 
 he would refuse, or escape from the dilemma by some ingenious evasion. 
 Accordingly, he replied, that he would at that time show me the commen- 
 tators on the sacred text ; but that on some future day, when I should 
 favour him with a second call, he would permit me to view the hallowed 
 volume itself. He was next made to understand that it would give us great 
 pleasure to be allowed to see the interior of the mosque. His excuse was 
 ready : his vakeel, or deputy, who was entrusted with the keys of the 
 edifice, was absent, and it was, therefore, out of his power to oblige us. 
 
 But, with the exception of the great mosque, and that of St. Sidi Abilab- 
 bas, the patron of the city, whose tomb is in one of the chapels, there are 
 no mosques in Alexandria wortii mentioning. It is remarkable that the 
 ground-floor of the greater part of the mosques contains shops, store-houses, 
 and dwellings, I perceived an addition in the form of their worship, 
 which I had not previously remarked in the East. Before the commencement 
 of the prayers on Friday, several singers recite some verses in the choir ; an 
 old man afterwards walks to the foot of the preacher's pulpit, and takes in 
 his hand a sort of cross or long stick, and, turning towards the people, says 
 in a nasal trembling tone of voice, as if he were going to give up the ghost, 
 " Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar," and the choristers sing the same words 
 twice ; after which the old man continues the whole form of the call, which 
 the former I'epeat verse after vei'se in singing. At length the old man, in a 
 low voice, repeats a sentence from the Koran, in which the Friday's prayer is 
 recommended ; then, laying aside his stick, he goes away, and the imam 
 
 * Laue. t Ali Bey.
 
 INSURRECTION AT ALEXANDRIA. 33 
 
 begins his sermon. This small addition, which is practised in all the 
 mosques of Alexandria, is imposing, inasmuch as it gives to the worship a 
 degree of seriousness.* 
 
 Many curious anecdotes are related at Alexandria of our friend Sheikh 
 Ibrahim, who is a determined enemy of Jlohammed Ali, and constantly 
 holds up, in his sermons, all his innovations and improvements to public 
 execration. Some years ago, when his highnes'^'s power was less firmly 
 established than it is now. Sheikh Ibrahim contrived to excite a popular 
 commotion, by constantly preaching on a subject equalling in importance 
 the ground of controversy between the Big-endians and the Little-endians 
 commemorated by Swift. It would appear that, about the period alluded 
 to, that penetrating people the Jews, ever intent on turning the penny, had 
 monopolised the butchering trade throughout Alexandria ; so that however 
 grateful, as the Cairo almanack affirms, it might be to eat mutton-chops, no 
 pious Mussulman could enjoy this honest gratification, without the secret 
 drawback of knowing that the animal, on whose xmfortunate remains he 
 was regaling himself, had been slaughtered by a Yahoodi with a knife hav- 
 ing only three nails in the handle ; whereas it is an acknowledged fact that 
 no Mohammedan, who fears God and honours the Prophet, should ever 
 taste of animal food not killed with a knife having five nails in the handle, 
 and with the head turned towards Mecca ; a circumstance which it was not 
 to be expected that a misbelieving Yahoodi should attend to. Against 
 this enormity Sheikh Ibrahim lifted up his voice ; and so cogent and convinc- 
 ing were his arguments, that the people trembling on the brink of perdi- 
 tion, on account of the sin of the three-nailed knife-handles, and knowing 
 no other mode of putting a stop to it, burst into a furious insurrection. 
 Mohammed Ali, who had all the while been aware of the preacher's declama- 
 tion, was now constrained to exercise his authority, and the orator was 
 exiled to Tunis ; upon which the people, each fearing a similar or worse 
 fate, were quickly cured of the fever of fanaticism. For some years Sheikh 
 Ibrahim remained quiet in his place of banishment ; but, bigot as he was, 
 the love of home at length prevailed over his intemperate zeal, and he 
 caused it to be represented to the Pasha, that if his highness would grant 
 him permission to return, the butchers might slaughter their victims with 
 any sort of knife whatsoever ; nor would he any longer concern himself as 
 to whether, in its last moments, a sheep had its head or its tail towards 
 Mecca. But the Pasha refrained from taking the slightest notice of his 
 application. At length an English ship of war touching at Tunis on its 
 way to Egypt, the preacher, now thoroughly humbled, sued for permission 
 to proceed to Alexandria under the protection of the British flag. His 
 request being readily granted, on his safe arrival he invited the captain to 
 dine with him at his own house, where our countryman found a numerous 
 party of Turks assembled, and spent a very agreeable day with his grateful 
 host. When the hour of parting arrived. Sheikh Ibrahim led his guest 
 aside, and, taking a large bag of dollars from under his garment, put it into 
 his hands, begging that he would accept it as a token of his gratitude. 
 Surprised and not displeased at this proof of good feeling in such a fanatic, 
 
 * Ali Bev.
 
 34 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 the Englishman endeavoured to make him understand that it was incon- 
 sistent with the character of a gentleman to accept of a pecuniary reward 
 for an act of kindness performed through mere humanity ; but his argu- 
 ments were thrown away : the Mussulman, ignorant of the refined casuistry 
 of civilised nations, insisted that " one good turn deserved another," observ- 
 ing that as Europeans in general appeared to value gold above all things, 
 he was persuaded that his money was refused from the belief that he was 
 poor. " If that be your reason," said he, " let it no longer deter you. 
 I am rich ; I have bags of gold : you have saved me from pining to death 
 in exile : you have behaved towards me like a brother by the way ; I have 
 more money than I need ; and Wallah ! by God you shall share it." — " You 
 are a fine fellow," replied the captain, pushing aside the bag with his hand ; 
 " and it rejoices me exceedingly to think I have been of service to you; 
 but for your money, by God ! I will not touch a piastre of it." 
 
 Among the many attractive objects in Alexandria and its vicinity, the 
 most interesting perhaps is the Castle of the Pharos, which, even under the 
 liberal government of Mohammed Ali, has never, I believe, been visited by 
 any Christian traveller but myself. Lord Belmore, when in Egypt, was 
 positively refused admittance; JMr. Barker, the British Consul-General, 
 during the whole period of his residence, used his official influence with 
 no better success ; several British and foreign merchants in the highest 
 favour with the Pasha, who had lived, many of them twenty years, at 
 Alexandria, had never been able to obtain the slightest glimpse of the inte- 
 rior of this fortress. 
 
 Such being the case, _ - r£^^r^^r^;r^ 
 
 I can only attribute _ i:r=;^=^ ^^^^^:;=^^v -> 
 
 my better fortune to . 7''v^g gSs ag-^ s ^ g g:^-.^ g ^g^=g ^ :S^jV'z- 
 
 the caprice of his __ 
 
 Highness, who per- ^^=1 -^^ - --- - ^3==.*i^^, 
 
 haps desired on this '^ j^^^?: V _^ ^^^^^^E~ 
 
 Cial claims. My prin- Castle of the Pharos. Old Harbour of Alcxaiidna, 
 
 cipal reason for de- 
 siring to view the spot was the belief that I might possibly discover there 
 some traces of the famous liglithouse, once enumerated among the seven 
 wonders of the world. Xorden supposed that some fragments of it 
 might be still remaining in his time ; and more modern writers also have 
 entertained the same belief. Indeed it seems somewhat difficult to 
 imagine, that of so magnificent a structure as the Pharos, which we 
 know to have been still existing in the thirteenth century,* no portion 
 whatsoever should have escape d the rage of time and barbarism. Some 
 
 * Abd-el-Atiif.
 
 CASTLE OF THE PHAROS, 35 
 
 idea of its grandeur and dimensions may be formed from the following 
 passage : — 
 
 " On various headlands and promontories of the ancient world, beacon- 
 fires were habitually kindled to guide the course of the ships into port ; in 
 after-ages, lighthouses, adorned with every beauty of architecture, and 
 carried to a vast height, were substituted. Of these, the most remarkable 
 was that erected for Ptolemy Pliiladelphos, by Sostratos, the Cnidian, whose 
 name, by permission of the king, was inscribed upon the structure. By 
 one author it is described as 450 feet high, and equal in dimensions at the 
 base to one of the great pyramids of Memphis, In form it may possibly 
 have resembled the Harem-el-Kedab, which consists of a series of square 
 towers from the basement upwards, diminishing in size, and appearing to 
 spring up out of each other. With this the language of Strabo very well 
 agrees, since he tells us it was a building consisting of numerous stages. 
 On the summit bright fires were kept perpetually burning, so that on that 
 low shore, where tliere is no hill or mountain for many days' journey, the 
 Pharos was ever the first object which presented itself to mariners at sea, 
 where its light, we are told, was visible at the distance of 100 miles. 
 Occasionally, however, from its great size and brilliancy, it was mistaken 
 for the moon, as this planet itself, I'ising behind the domes and towers of 
 a great capital, has suggested to distant beholders the idea of a conflagra- 
 tion." * The Arabs pretend that there was on the top of the Pharos a huge 
 mirror, so marvellously constructed, that you might behold represented 
 on its surface the image of all ships which issued from the ports of Greece. 
 
 Several gentlemen, anxious to take advantage of the Pasha's extraordi- 
 nary act of courtesy, requested permission to accompany me, which I very 
 readily granted, not foreseeing that I thus ran the risk of being excluded 
 myself. It was a fine clear morning, the wind blowing gently from the 
 sea. Impatient to enjoy the anticipated pleasure, we sipped our coffee 
 liastily, and, attended by a superior officer from the palace, mounted our 
 beasts, and proceeded h.astily towards the place of attraction. On arriving 
 at the entrance of that long narrow causeway, carried over an artificial 
 foundation from the mainland to the islet, where the celebrated lighthouse 
 stood, the soldiers on duty at first refused admittance even to the Pasha^s 
 representative, considering it incredible that Franks should have received 
 his highness''s sanction to enter this military sanctuary. But the officer, 
 irritated at their fanatical intolerance and want of respect for his authority, 
 menacing them with the punishment awarded to disobedience of orders, 
 they reluctantly made way. The road now lay between two high walls, 
 which cut off the view on either side, but the sound of the waves dashing 
 against the rocks informed us we were surrounded by the sea. On reach- 
 ing the gates of the castle, fresh difficulties occurred. The governor, a 
 Turk of rank and distinction, informed us, that in addition to his general 
 orders, he had received private instructions to admit no strangers under any 
 pretext whatever ; but the bearer of his highness's peremptory commands 
 replied — " On my head be it ; " at the same time placing his hand upon his 
 
 * History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece.
 
 36 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 turban: upon which the governor, making a low bow, allowed us to 
 advance. 
 
 Passing the drawbridge we entered the court of the castle, under an 
 immense portcullis, between long files of soldiers, drawn up on either side 
 the gateway. Traversing this area, which is of spacious dimensions, and 
 mounting tlie platform, we examined the guns, mortars, bombs, and piles 
 of ball, which meet the eye on all sides. The parapet, of unusual height 
 and tliickness, is cased, like the platform, with prodigious blocks of stone. 
 A lower line of fortifications, erected by the Pasha, encircles the castle ; 
 and its guns, when the works are completed, will be nearly on a level with 
 the surface of the water. These, I imagine, would do more execution than 
 those above. From the entire absence of breakers, the sea, it may be 
 inferred, is of considerable depth, so that it is probable ships of war might 
 approach almost close to the guns. No portion of the islet is at present 
 uncovered; whatever remains of the Pharos it may formerly have contained 
 have therefore been buried beneath the foundations of the fortress. 
 
 The castle is a large square lofty building, surmounted by a lighthouse, 
 in the shape of a minaret. Ascending to its summit by a narrow winding 
 staircase, we enjoyed a magnificent prospect over the quarantine harbour, 
 the palace on the Cape of Figs, and a large portion of Alexandria. Numer- 
 ous ships, with their white sails bellying before the wind, were visible in 
 the ofling. Here and there, between the Pharos and the Pharillon, and 
 along the shores towards Aboukir Bay, the existence of numerous sunken 
 rocks is indicated by breakers incessantly dashing over them in snow-white 
 foam. A view very different in character was commanded from this spot 
 in the time of the Ptolemies, when each harbour was crowded with elegant 
 Greek galleys, and the shore, as far as the eye could reach, lined with 
 obelisks, palaces, and temples. On descending from the roof, we entered 
 a small mosque in the centre of the building, in which the soldiers of the 
 garrison perform their devotions. An extraordinary revolution has been 
 efi^ected since the year 1819, when the Christians, according to a former 
 traveller, were turned away with insult from the fortress, for now a Chris- 
 tian, having examined at his leisure the military portion of the structure, 
 entered into the mosque in his boots, under the guidance of a Turkish 
 officer. These advantages we owe to the enlightened tolerance of Moham- 
 med Ali, who is perseveringly, though quietly, proceeding with the destruc- 
 tion of those prejudices which interrupt the free intercourse of Turk and 
 Christian. Failing in our attempt at discovering any remains of antiquity 
 in this island, we returned towards the promontory of Ras-el-Tyn^ and 
 passing between the Pasha's harem and divan, entered the fort, where files 
 of infantry under arms were drawn up on either side, as at the castle. The 
 habitations of the soldiers extend round a spacious area, containing several 
 large cisterns, excavated in the rock, which, when it is judged necessary, 
 are probably filled from the Mahmoodiyah by camels; but they were now 
 entirely dry. The service magazine is found, I imagine, at the northern 
 extremity of tlie quadrangle, where a handsome colonnade perhaps conceals 
 the'entrance to it. Proceeding beyond the fort, over the rocks, which here 
 project considerably into the waves, I endeavoured to discover some trace
 
 PASHA'S SALT-WATER BATHS. 37 
 
 of tlic numerous edifices formerly found on tliis island, wliere many persons 
 suppose the Pharos itself to have been situated ; for Cas.sar describes a 
 village as existing on the same cluster of rocks with the lighthouse. A 
 few brick substructions and fragments of pottery were all that rewarded 
 my search. The fort itself is ill-constructed, and in many places crumbling 
 to decay ; the walls having been shattered by the firing of the guns on 
 occasion of public rejoicing. In its form there is nothing remarkable,^lie 
 bastions advancing and receding in a series of obtuse angles. The guns are 
 mounted on old decayed carriages, and not numerous ; the whole number, 
 both here and in the castle, not exceeding lO'O. Close imder the walls of 
 the harem is a battery, which the officer feared to show us, lest, the 
 windows of the sacred apartments being open, any of us should commit 
 the unpardonable indiscretion of regarding the ladies. However, at our 
 desire he ventured farther perhaps than was prudent ; but finding nothing 
 to reward our search, the scrutiny was not carried far. A low rampart of 
 sand-bags had been thrown up along the beach, flanked by numerous guns. 
 Our next visit was to the Pasha's salt-water baths, situated in the sea, 
 below the palace, on the western side of Ras-el-Tin. They consist of a 
 large low edifice, resting on several rows of pillars, and constructed entirely 
 of wood. A narrow wooden causeway, extending from the shore to the 
 esplanade, leads to the entrance, which, being surrounded with clear water, 
 and rendei'ed exquisitely cool by the sea-breezes, forms a most agreeable 
 retreat during the heats of summer. Entering the building, and leaving a 
 spacious saloon, the walls and roof of which are tastefully decorated, we 
 arrived at the principal bath, where a low flight of steps descends to the 
 water, which is of moderate depth, and so beautifully clear, tliat every pebble 
 in the bottom is visible. A narrow corridor, with neat railings, extends 
 round the apartment; pillars, disposed at regular intervals, support the 
 roof ; and at each of the four corners is a diminutive aviary for a number 
 of singing-birds. Arranged along the pillars is a series of rose-leaves in 
 bronze, curled and hollow, in which the birds may build their nests. From 
 the centre of the glazed cupola depends a magnificent chandelier, which in 
 the evening, when the ladies of the harem generally bathe, casts a dazzling 
 splendour over the waters ; and on these occasions, when a number of 
 beautiful forms are seated unadorned in those cool refreshing recesses, 
 sporting in the waves, talking, laughing, singing, or listening to some wild 
 tale related by their handmaidens, the fictions of the Arabian Nights appear 
 to be realised. The female bath occupies the centre of the edifice, and is 
 surrounded by a long suite of dressing-rooms, elegantly furnished, where, 
 after bathing, the ladies sip coffee or sherbet, seated on English chairs, or 
 reposing on soft divans, while they are shampooed, fanned, or perfumed 
 with essences by their women. In all these apartments the divans, though 
 tasteful and elegant, are less sumptuous than in the palaces of Cairo, being 
 covered with gay chintzes of Egyptian manufacture. The windows in 
 general are fitted up with ground glass. On the northern side of the 
 building is the children's bath, resembling the larger one in form, but more 
 plainly fitted up, and containing shallower water. At the western part, 
 facing the harbour, is a large open verandah, with seats, where the Pasha
 
 38 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 smokes and amuses himself in the summer evenings, by observing the ships 
 entering or leaving the port. A narrow gallery, furnished with showy 
 railings, surrounds the exterior of the batlis. 
 
 When the Duke of Ragusa visited Alexandria, he found the forts CaflFa- 
 relli and Kom-el-Dyck nearly in the condition in which they were left when 
 the French were driven out of Egypt by the English thirty years before. 
 They liad been constructed under liis own orders; and with the proud feelings 
 of an old soldier, who had distinguished himself on many a well- fought 
 field, he probably regarded their freshness and fine preservation as emblem- 
 atic of his own glory. He ran through them eagerly, looked down from 
 their ramparts over the city, which had changed so much ; and in the 
 tumultuous state of his feelings missed notliing but the palisades which had 
 once extended along the works. A closer scrutiny might have disclosed to 
 him the fact, that Time had not, as he supposed, been quite idle there. No 
 doubt the climate of Egypt, even to its most northern limit, is favourable 
 to the preservation of monuments of all kinds; but ruins and storms some- 
 times visit Alexandria, and both the celebrated forts in question were some 
 years ago considerably the worse for their visitations. "When I saw Fort 
 Caffarelli, it contained a small cistern, and a few houses in which lodge the 
 last of the famous Turkish gunners, many of whom are now deaf. The 
 guns, which appeared to be about forty-eight pounders, are six in number, 
 and without platforms. Tliere were also two ten-inch mortars, directed 
 towards the town. The shot and shells lay about in confusion. The ram- 
 parts are sand, and half-riveted with masonry ; but the whole has been 
 suffered to go to decay ; and by means of the neighbouring buildings, hills, 
 and hollows, it may be approached the whole way up under cover. 
 Achmed Chelebi, who has the superintendence of the re]iairs, is engaged in 
 renewing the drawbridge ; but the ditch is nearly filled up. Wooden 
 platforms are making. ■ It possesses a species of covered way, but this 
 likewise had been nearly overwhelmed by debris from the ramparts above. 
 The neighbourhood, however, abounds with materials for all the requisite 
 repairs, so that it might be easily converted into a respectable post. 
 
 Mohammed AH would, no doubt, have put this and all other parts of 
 the fortifications of Alexandria in thorough repair, had the apprehensions 
 of war with England, exj>erienced during our operations in Syria, been of 
 longer duration. Indeed much, it is said, was actually done during the 
 first paroxysm of fear. But he grievously deceived himself if he supposed 
 that, witli any improvements he could have effected, his maritime capital 
 would have been able to oppose any lengthened resistance to our arms ; and 
 probably the fate of St. Jean d'Acre enlightened his mind on this point.
 
 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Catacombs. — Charactkr of Mohammed All 
 
 The manner of interment prevalent among ancient nations, more parti- 
 cularly in the East, was far better calculated than that which now obtains 
 in Europe to reconcile the imagination to the sepulchre. In the vicinity of 
 
 Ceuieteiy of Alexandria. 
 
 all great cities there was another city inhabited by the dead. And how 
 serene and solemn was its aspect ! Thither the living might repair, when 
 desirous to subdue and soften their minds, and in the gloom of twilight, or 
 beneath the calm radiance of the moon, imbibe the chastening influence of 
 the place. No spot in the whole valley of the Nile seemed so sweet or beau- 
 tiful to me as the abodes of the dead. There, the Egyptian sleeps with his 
 fathers; there, distant generations have been brought together; there, the 
 subjects of the Pharaohs, ay, and the Pharaohs themselves, slumber calmly 
 in odoriferous coffins, in spacious but dark halls, adorned nevertheless with 
 paintings as gorgeous and elaborate as though the eye were expected to 
 dwell on them daily in the most brilliant light. 
 
 Most travellers seem to have experienced more or less pleasure in ex- 
 ploring the tombs of Egypt. It is universally felt that they are " the 
 houses prepared for all living." Of this feeling I have always, perhaps.
 
 40 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 experienced more than my share; and consequently, among the earliest 
 inquiries which I made on entering any Egyptian city was that wliich 
 reo-arded the way to the tombs. But, properly to enjoy so solemn a delight, 
 one must seek it in Upper Egypt, and, if not altogether alone, yet certainly 
 accompanied by few. At- Alexandria such an arrangement is scarcely 
 possible. If you have friends or acquaintances, they will insist on accom- 
 panying you to the Catacombs, and it would appear highly ungracious to 
 reject their hospitable attentions. I was fortunate enough to meet with 
 many there who took a warm interest in my movements, and of these the 
 greater number made up a party expressly for the purpose of exploring 
 with me the principal excavations of the Necropolis. 
 
 We were attended by a janissary, a kawass from the palace, and a number 
 of donkey-boys ; all such excursions being performed on asses. It was one 
 of those beautiful winter days which seem peculiar to Egypt, when the 
 sun's heat is so tempered by the sea-breezes that it is rather refreshing than 
 oppressive. The landscape, though divested of all those charms arising 
 in other lands from mountains, running streams, and luxuriant vegetation, 
 was clothed in beauties altogether its own, which, whether intrinsically of 
 a picturesque character or not, affected the imagination no less powerfully 
 than alpine snow and mountain cataracts. Words can represent but indis- 
 tinctly the characteristic peculiarities of such a scene. We were treading 
 on the verge of the boundless desert of Libya, that mysterious portion of 
 our globe, the nature and exact extent of which are hitherto unknown, and 
 whose skirts a scanty number of hardy adventurers have passed hastily 
 with fear and tremblinsr, while the simoom, the whirlwind, the sand-storm, 
 and the fierce inhospitable Bedouins, hovered aroiind their path. A secret 
 reference to ideas of this kind imparted to the rocky and barren wilderness 
 an aspect of savage grandeur not properly, perhaps, belonging to it ; though 
 the drifted sand-heaps, of all forms and dimensions, with the traces of the 
 hurricane still fresh upon them; the gaping mouths of innumerable sepulchres 
 profaned and rifled of their dead ; the rocks fretted to honey-comb by the 
 everlasting action of the waves ; the deep, deep blue sea, the stainless sky, 
 the silence, the solitude, the utter desolation visible on all sides, necessarily 
 produced an impressive effect upon the mind. From time to time, as 
 we looked towards the desert, we discovered a single Bedouin, on a laden 
 camel, moving, afar in the distance, across the plain, which only appeared to 
 render us the more sensible of the sterility and forlorn condition of this 
 unblessed land. 
 
 We rode leisurely along the rocky shore, among the crumbling remains 
 of the Necropolis, which have in many places been broken up, and the 
 fragments employed in the erection of the neighbouring forts. At length 
 we arrived at the entrance to the catacombs, which faces the sea, and, 
 during the prevalence of high north winds, must be filled with the spray 
 and foam of the waves. It at present resembles the mouth of a quarry ; 
 but I make no doubt there were formerly a droraos or court, a portico, a 
 corridor, and all the regular appendages of an Egyptian hypogeum. Lord 
 Lindsay seems to have made his way into the catacombs by some other 
 opening, because he and his companions took much pains, he says, to dis-
 
 THE CATACOMBS. 41 
 
 cover the grand entrance, which he conjectures must have been from the 
 shore. There could however, I tliink, have been no other than that 
 through which we passed, at once spacious and lofty, in all respects suitable 
 to the chambers within. 
 
 In the great hall, or vestibule, we threw aside our burnooses, or Arab 
 cloaks, and having lighted our wax tapers, proceeded with eager curiosity 
 to the examination of the interior. The apartment into which we passed 
 from the vestibule is of vast dimensions, and communicates, on the left, 
 with another, smaller, and provided with three recesses for coffins. On the 
 right is a very large saloon, with a circular roof, which, by the illusion of 
 sculpture, seems to spring up into a dome. From this, which has been 
 dignified, I know not wherefore, with the appellation of " state-room," 
 numerous passages branch ofi^ in different directions, leading through the 
 rock to various other chambers of inferior dimensions. These passages are 
 in many places filled up with earth nearly to the roof, so that you creep 
 along with difficulty ; in others, the surface of the ruins and rubbish sinks 
 so low as to allow of your standing upright ; while, from time to time, you 
 find deep holes, descending, perhaps, to the original floor. There are two 
 suites of chambers ; the one running in a southerly, the other in a westerly 
 direction. I pushed on through the latter ; and, notwithstanding the 
 intricacy of the passages, the extreme lowness of the roof in some places, 
 and the heat, which very much resembled that of an oven, succeeded in 
 reaching what appeared to be the extremity of the hypogeum towards the 
 west ; but in all this long succession of rooms I saw only one niche. When 
 we had arrived at what seemed to be the end of the catacomb, we observed 
 that the rock was jagged and broken, like the side of a natural cavern ; and 
 it is possible that, between these rough projections, some straight passage, 
 not discoverable by the faint light of our two tapers, may exist, leading 
 still farther westward. On returning towards the entrance, we found 
 some of our party engaged in examining a small opening which seemed to 
 have been recently broken in the rocky partition, and was at first supposed 
 to lead to an upper suite of chambers ; but having, with much difficulty, 
 forced in my head and the upper part of my body, I discovered it to be 
 nothing but a diminutive sepulchral cell, from which the mummy and 
 sarcophagus, if it ever contained any, had been removed. Besides this 
 western suite of rooms, there seemed, as I have already observed, to be 
 another, branching off^ towards the south ; for a low narrow passage, care- 
 fully cut in the rock, conducted, Ave could not doubt, to other apartments ; 
 though our Arab guide assured us gravely that it extended beneath the 
 desert all tlie way to Cairo, ajid asserted that he had ci'ept along through 
 it for several hours without meeting with a single chamber. Had we fol- 
 lowed this opening, we might, perhaps, have arrived in a few minutes at 
 apartments similar to those we had traversed ; but the heat was oppressive ; 
 and our curiosity betrinningto be satisfied, — for every new chamber seemed 
 exactly to resemble that which had preceded it, so that nothing appeared 
 likely to be gained by pushing our researches any farther, — we therefore 
 turned round, and proceeded towards daylight ; while our scattered compa- 
 nions, many with candles in their hands, through distant chambers, now 
 
 E 2
 
 42 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 appearing and now disappearing in the dark passages, or behind the angles 
 of the rocks, resembled so many phantoms. Numerous writers have marked 
 their names upon the walls, which, like Pompey's Pillar, are daily more 
 and more disfigured by this vulgar ambition. 
 
 On emerging into the open air, we found it exceedingly keen and cold ; 
 but yet proceeded to examine what are vulgarly called Cleopatra's Baths, 
 consisting of three contiguous excavations in the rock, on the western side of 
 a large artificial basin, into which the sea enters by a narrow opetiing. 
 They are somewhat difficult of access, unless approached through the water, 
 which is beautifully clear, and by no means deep. A low divan, cut in the 
 rock, surrounds these chambers, the largest of which may be about ten or 
 twelve feet long, and eight or ten broad. Two are lighted from without ; 
 but the other is quite dark ; and tlie noise produced within by the roaring 
 of the waves is loud and almost incessant. They have been hewn with 
 considerable care ; and, though it would be difficult to believe that the 
 voluptuous and beautiful wife of Ptolemy Dionysius ever bathed in these 
 rocky, sequestered chambers, they may have contained no less beautiful 
 forms, when they had been rendered cold and rigid by death. In fact, 
 from their situation and vicinity to the tombs, it is probable that they were 
 appropriated to the washing of dead bodies previous to their being 
 embalmed. Behind, likewise cut in the rock, are two other apartments, 
 warm and dry, where all the subsequent process of embalming may 
 have been performed. 
 
 One has no leisure to be ill while engaged in travelling. The excite- 
 ment of the imagination produced by a constant succession of new objects, 
 imparts a force to the frame which enables it to triumph awhile over disease 
 or fatigue. Still the seasoning fever which ushers most persons to the 
 pleasures of Egypt did not entirely spare me, and I was labouring under 
 a slight attack of it when I paid my first visit to the garden of Ibrahim 
 Pasha. The road, running along tlie naked shore, was bleak and dreary, 
 and exposed to the north-west wind, which blew so keen and cold, that our 
 thick Arab cloaks were scarcely sufficient to protect us from its bitterness. 
 The gardens, formerly a mere expanse of sand, are surrounded by a hedge 
 of lofty reeds, which, when full-grown, will form an excellent fence, imper- 
 vious to the sight. The ground is laid out in large square compartments 
 or beds, somewhat in the French style of gardening ; and these are divided 
 from each other by numerous broad walks, bordered on either side with 
 rows of acacias, mimosas, and peach and orange-trees. At the extremity 
 of the gardens, near the water-wheel, there is a neat kiosk, with a terrace 
 before it, commanding a fine view over the whole breadth of the Mareotic 
 Lake, the canal, and the magnificent expanse of verdure produced by the 
 new plantations which adorn this part of the vicinity of Alexandria. 
 These gardens, it is supposed, are intended to be always left open to the 
 public. A few small flowers, the last of the year, were blooming near the 
 water-wheel. They were of a brilliant colour, but their odour was faint, 
 barely sufficient to awaken our regret at the absence of the spring. In this 
 neighbourhood were situated the vineyards Avhich produced the Mareotic 
 wine, celebrated by several of the ancients.
 
 GARDENS OF BOGHOS BEY. 43 
 
 An Armenian gentleman, who had travelled much in Europe, was engaged, 
 at the period to which these pages refer, in laying out extensive vineyards 
 on the site apparently of those celebrated of old. Of the numerous varieties 
 of the vine known in Europe he had imported between forty and fifty, 
 which appeared to like the soil and to thrive well in it. This example has 
 since been followed by many others. All the plantations I saw to the best 
 advantage in the following spring, when every bush and tree was in full 
 leaf. The unusually copious rains of the preceding winter had, in fact, 
 clothed the surrounding plains and eminences with verdure. Among the 
 plants that here flourish, during a short period, is the ffhassoul, of which 
 fifteen thousand quintals are annually collected by the government, the 
 ashes being used in the manufacture of salt. Viewed from any command- 
 inw heio-ht, the country now exhibits a luxuriant and smiling aspect, every 
 green hollow and swelling undulation being sprinkled with wild flowers, 
 impregnating the air with their short-lived fragrance. Here the ice-plant 
 is found in great abundance on the sand-hills. Hitherto all attempts at 
 naturalising fruit-trees have been found unsuccessful ; for, after the sixth or 
 seventh year, their roots descending, enter the sand impregnated with salt, 
 upon which their topmost branches, it is said, immediately begin to decay, 
 until about the twelfth year, when they perish entirely. Yet the Egyptian 
 sycamore, in size equal to the oak, finds nutriment in a soil supposed to be 
 destructive to other large trees. 
 
 The late Boghos Bey, who, though his whole life was spent in political 
 intrigue, cherished a fondness for rural objects, possessed an elegant villa 
 within the walls, surrounded by a large garden, containing a great variety 
 of rare flowers, among which the most remarkable were the carnations, four 
 feet high, the largest and finest, perhaps, in the world. Here I was 
 shown an extraordinary fruit-tree, produced by an extremely ingenious 
 process. They take three seeds — the citron, the orange, and the lemon — and 
 carefully removing the external coating from both sides of one of them, and 
 from one side of the two others, place the former between the latter, 
 and binding the three together with fine grass, plant them in the earth. 
 From this mixed seed springs a tree, the fruit of which exhibits three dis- 
 tinct species included within one rind, the division being perfectly visible 
 externally, and the flavour of each compartment as different as if it had 
 grown on a separate tree. This curious method of producing a tripartite 
 fruit, was introduced by Boghos Yusuf, from Smyrna, his native city, 
 where it is said to have been practised from time immemorial. 
 
 The site of Alexandria, between two lakes and the sea, is a dull desert of 
 moving sand, which has no other vegetation than some large tufts of grass. 
 But at a small depth, under the bed of sand, is a sheet of water ; so that, 
 whei'ever they dig, they find water more or less briny, and sometimes nearly 
 drinkable. It is on this account that plantations of fig and palm trees, as also 
 some melons, may be discovered on the side of Aboukir, where it would be 
 thought impossible for anything to thrive. The horses bury themselves in 
 the moving sand up to their bellies to enjoy the moisture. The way in 
 which they plant their melons is as follows : they dig large ditches of forty- 
 five or sixty feet in length, and eight or ten in depth, that cost little trouble
 
 44 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 on account of the sand, which they prevent from falling in by giving an 
 inclination to the sides of the ditches, which are by these means very wide 
 at the upper part, and have only a foot in width at the bottom ; where they 
 sow a row of melon seeds throughout the whole length. The plants spring 
 up and run over the sides of the ditch. As the roots find plenty of water 
 early, the plants grow very vigorously. Every plantation consists of a 
 number of these ditches parallel to each other. They cultivate some few 
 vines in this manner.* 
 
 Before quitting Alexandria, I ought perhaps to give some short account 
 of him who has imparted to it all its present prosperity. Much has 
 already been written on him. Some having received favours at his hands, 
 have thought it incumbent on them to cover him with flattery in return for his 
 liberal treatment. Others again, either through attachment to the Turkish 
 Sultan, or because they suppose themselves to have been personally injured 
 or insulted by the Pasha, have indulged in the bitterest satire against both 
 his character and measures. I shall not imitate either of these classes of 
 writers. For, although Mohammed Ali showed me many civilities, some 
 of which, as the admission into his harem and into the castle of the Pharos, 
 might almost perhaps be termed favours, I cannot consent on that account 
 to admire what my conscience tells me is wrong in his policy. I shall, 
 therefore, speak of him as though he had conferred on me no obligation. 
 He is a public man, and his character has already passed into the domain of 
 history. All, consequently, that he can demand of any traveller is the plain 
 truth, expressed as courteously as may be consistent with the complete 
 statement of it. 
 
 Mohammed Ali is a man of middling stature, robust and stout in his 
 make, exceedingly upright, and, for a man of his age, hale and active. 
 His features, possessing more of the Tartar cast than is usual among Euro- 
 pean Turks, are plain, if not coarse ; but they are lighted up with so much 
 intelligence, and his dark gray eyes beam so brightly, that I should not be 
 surprised if I found that persons familiar with his countenance thought him 
 handsome. In dress he differs but little, if at all, from any other Turkish 
 gentleman : he has, however, a certain dignity in his manner, which, in 
 the estimation of many, even borders upon majesty. But this dignity 
 seems almost inseparable from the possession of power : the man who 
 can do much good or harm, whatever may be his stature, form, or features, 
 will always appear to exhibit it : as the scorpion, in size no larger than a 
 snail, is viewed with awe, because he is supposed to carry death in 
 his sting. 
 
 The manner in which the Pasha spends his time is nearly as follows : — 
 He sleeps very little. Europeans who have happened to repose in the 
 same tent with him, while on a journey, complain of having been often 
 disturbed in the night by his asking them questions, and afterwards con- 
 tinuing to talk on when they wished to sleep. He rises at or before day- 
 break ; and, very shortly afterwards, leaves his harem on horseback, and 
 repairs to his divan for the despatch of business. Here he receives all 
 memorials, petitions, despatches, &c. Shortly after his arrival, the 
 
 * Ali Bey.
 
 CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED ALT. 45 
 
 secretaries walk in with large bundles of letters, received since the day 
 before, the contents of which are road to him. He then commands, and 
 sketches out, viva voce, in a rapid manner, the necessary replies. Then 
 the answers to letters and papers, ordered to be made on the preceding day, 
 are brought in, and read to him by the secretaries ; and when he has heard 
 and approved of their contents, he orders his signet, which he delivers into 
 their hands, to be afhxed to them, while he generally paces up and down 
 the room, turning over the matter in his mind, and probably deliberating 
 whether there shall any postscript be added. This sort of business usually 
 occupies him till about nine o'clock ; at which hour all those consuls and 
 other persons, who desire a public audience, arrive. In an hour or two 
 these individuals take their leave ; upon which he retires to his harem, 
 where he remains till about three or half-past three in the afternoon. Even 
 here, however, he is still employed ; and his general orders are, that if 
 any verbal message be forwarded to him, it is to be delivered to the chief 
 of the eunuchs : but that, if any letter or note arrive, whether by day or 
 night, he is to be immediately awakened from sleep. Boghos Yusuf 
 often attends him in the harem for the despatch of important business. At 
 half-past three o'clock he again returns to the divan; when,— except 
 that the order of proceeding is reversed, as he first gives audience, and then 
 enters into the affairs of the interior, — the same mode of business is gone 
 through as in the morning. About an hour after sunset he takes a slight 
 repast, and remains in the divan until ten or eleven o'clock at night. 
 During these evening hours, he generally finds time for a game or two at 
 chess, a person retained for the purpose being always in attendance to 
 play with him ; and this fellow, being his Highnesses buffoon as well as 
 companion in amusement, always afi'ects to be inconsolable, and makes a 
 sad outcry, when the pieces are taken from him. 
 
 Both the Pasha and his court are very plain at Alexandria ; but at 
 Cairo, where, however, he spends but a small portion of the year, things 
 are conducted with more state, though he is everywhere extremely acces- 
 sible. Any person who has leisure, and knows no better mode of employ- 
 ing it, may go every evening to the palace, whether he have business there 
 or not, and, if he does not choose to force himself upon the notice of the 
 Pasha, he can enter into any of the other magnificent apartments, which 
 are lighted up as well as the audience-chamber, and converse, if he pleases, 
 with some of the numerous company there assembled. To show his 
 Highness's close habits of business, it has been remarked, that when 
 accidentally indisposed at Alexandria, and compelled to take exercise in 
 his carriage instead of on horseback, he is known constantly to take on 
 with him the public despatches. Driving to the banks of the canal, he 
 has his carpet spread upon the ground ; and there, while coffee is prepar- 
 ing, he usually sits reading and sealing his despatches. He will then 
 enjoy his coffee and pipe, and afterwards return directly to the palace. 
 This is one of his recreations. In the harem he reads, or has books read to 
 him, or amuses himself by conversing with the abler of his eunuchs. 
 
 At other times he is employed in dictating his history, or in playing at 
 chess, to which, like most other Orientals, he appears to be passionately
 
 46 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 addicted. In fact, his active, restless temper, will never suffer him to be 
 unoccupied ; and, when not engaged with graver and more important affairs, 
 he descends even to riddling. Nothing is too minute for him. For 
 example, a young Egyptian Turk, educated in the school of law, now pro- 
 fessor of the mathematics, and teacher of the junior officers at Alexandria, 
 is compelled every week to give him an exact account of the manner in 
 Avhich each of his pupils pursues his studies. 
 
 During the period in which he was pushing forward the preparations 
 necessary for putting his fleet to sea, a much smaller portion of the day 
 than usual was devoted to his audience and ordinary business. Indeed, he 
 would often give audiences in the arsenal, where he spent a considerable 
 part of his time ; after which he used to step into his elegant little state- 
 barge, and cause himself to be rowed out into the harbour among his ships, 
 to observe the progress of the naval architects and shipwrights, and urge 
 them forward by his presence ; and in these little excursions of business he 
 was sometimes so deeply interested that he would not return to the palace 
 before twelve o''clock, thus greatly abridging his hours of relaxation. The 
 accidents of the weather never interfered with his resolutions : he will some- 
 times set out on a journey in the midst of a heavy shower of rain or a 
 storm, which has more than once caused him very serious illness. His 
 movements are sudden and unexpected ; he appears in Cairo or Alexandria 
 when least looked for, which maintains a certain degree of vigilance among 
 the agents of government ; though something of all this may, perhaps, be 
 set dovi'n to caprice or affectation. In the gardens of Shoubra there is a 
 small alcove, where the Pasha, during his brief visits to that palace, will 
 frequently sit, about eleven or twelve o'clock at night, and, dismissing from 
 about him all his courtiers and attendants, remain for an hour or so. From 
 this alcove two long vistas, between cypress, orange, and citron trees, 
 diverge and extend the whole length of the grounds ; and in the calm 
 bright nights of the East, by moon or starlight, when the air is perfumed 
 by the faint odours of the most delicate flowers, a more delicious or romantic 
 station could hardly be found. In the affairs of the heart, IMohammed Ali 
 is not altogether without delicacy : during the whole life-time of his wife, 
 an energetic and superior woman, he invariably treated her with the most 
 profound respect, and she alv^^ays retained a great influence over him. 
 Even since her death, he has never married another woman, though he has 
 not refrained from keeping a number of female slaves in his harem. She 
 lies buried beside her son Toussoun, in a sumptuous tomb near Cairo ; and, 
 when I visited the place, some friendly hand had recently been strewing 
 sweet flowers over their graves. 
 
 Latterly, it is said, the Pasha has greatly reduced his female establish- 
 ment; and the mode in which he effected this reduction is highly character- 
 istic. He ordered all the unmarried ofiicers of his court and army, who 
 were of sufficient merit and rank, to assemble at an appointed hour in the 
 garden of one of his palaces. They were advised of his gracious intentions, 
 and properly arranged for the mode of procedure which had been chosen 
 as most favourable to a judicious selection of husbands for the fair brides. 
 The old lady who had the care of the harem, from a position where she was
 
 CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED ALL 47 
 
 concealed from view, examined the physiognomy and port of each of the 
 assembled bachelors, and, without further ceremony, wrote down the name 
 of the lady whom she thought best suited to a man of such developments. 
 The assembly was then dismissed ; and each man, on going to his house, 
 received his bride. Tliis honour was not without its disadvantages, 
 since, if it should unaccoimtably happen that a man was not exactly suited 
 in his new wife, he was deprived of the distinguishing privilege of other 
 Mussulmans. He hnd taken her for better or for worse, as no prudent 
 courtier would incur the displeasure of the Pasha by divorcing a wife 
 received under such circumstances. The Pasha has now only three elderly 
 slaves, who have little influence over him.* 
 
 The Duke of Ragusa has attempted an appreciation of the political cha- 
 racter of Mohammed Ali, with partial success. He has described ably all 
 Ins better qualities, and estimated at their full value whatever reforms or 
 improvements he has efi"ected in the countries under his rule. But he 
 has omitted to complete the picture by describing the mischief eflfected by the 
 Pasha, and the numerous lamentable failures which have attended his prin- 
 cipal enterprises. I have enjoyed more extensive opportunities than the 
 Duke of observing the working of the modern Egyptian system, and can 
 therefore venture to speak of it with greater confidence. Every part of the 
 country supplied unequivocal proofs that his Higlmess understood but 
 ill the art of civil government. Under the Mamlooks, a superabundance 
 of prosperity will not be supposed to have existed, for their Beys were 
 tyrants, eager to live in splendour and luxury at the expense of the indus- 
 trious classes. Nevertheless, ignorant and oppressive as they were, their 
 sway still left the peasant numerous material comforts, with moans of 
 cultivating his land, which we should now look for in vain in the whole 
 Valley of the Nile. Since the accession of Mohammed Ali, innumerable 
 villages have been deserted, most of the towns and cities have shrunk in their 
 dimensions, the clothes of the people have been exchanged for rags, their 
 food has been deteriorated by many degrees, whole districts have been 
 thrown out of cultivation, and are fast becoming a prey to the sands of the 
 desert, and the population has dwindled from three millions to one million and 
 a half, according to the estimate of Sir Gardner Wilkinson, which may, how- 
 ever, be somewhat too low. In Syria, while it continued in the hands of 
 the Pasha, the same process rapidly went on. This fact, which it is impos- 
 sible to deny, appears to be a very important set-off against the Pasha"'s 
 successful achievements, whatever they may be. It is much easier to build 
 ships, and construct arsenals, and excavate canals, than to promote the 
 happiness of the people, which all will confess ]\Iohamnied Ali to be 
 incapable of doing, who reflect that his government has cost Egypt half as 
 many lives as, by all the wars of Napoleon, were destroyed in Europe. To 
 speak the truth frankly, Mohammed Ali is an ignorant politician, easily 
 duped by adventurers of all kinds ; and ever since his arrival at power in 
 Egypt, he has been incessantly encircled by a cloud of the locusts collected 
 from all parts of Europe, but chiefly from France, where the animal abounds 
 in greatest plenty. These, for their own advantage, have urged him into 
 
 * Dr. Olin.
 
 48 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 an extravagant expenditure, and the most wanton waste of human life, to 
 secure themselves employment, and gratify their unworthy passions of every 
 
 Mohammed Ali. 
 
 kind. Again, in diplomacy the Pasha has alNva)'S been the tjol of his 
 worst enemy, the court of the Tuileries, which, while using its utmost 
 exertions to bring about a rupture between him and Great Britain, lias 
 been secretly undermining his authority in Egypt, and taking every prac- 
 ticable means to precipitate his downfall. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 Journey to Rosetta. — Egyptian Lakes. — Battle of the Nile. 
 
 Though I am far from adopting the notion of Volney, that Alexandria 
 belongs not properly to Egypt, because it seems not naturally and origin- 
 ally to have been visited by the waters of the Nile, I admit that there 
 exists the greatest possible contrast between its barren environs and the 
 noble land Avhich the Nile's deposits have created. Over this land, stand-
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF EGYPT, 49 
 
 ing now upon the verge of it, and about to enter, it may be useful to cast 
 a cursory glance. Egypt consists properly of a single valley, upon an 
 average about eidit miles in breadth, extendino; for five hundred miles from 
 Essouan, under the tropic of Cancer, to Cairo, a little below which tlie 
 country branches out on botli sides, and assumes the figure of an equilateral 
 triangle, the base of which rests against the sea. Througli the whole lengtli 
 of this valley, the Nile, entering between piles of basaltic roclcs from Nubia, 
 flows in a majestic stream, diffusing fertility and abundance on all sides, 
 and branching off here and there into canals, which in one case have called 
 into existence a rich and beautiful province in the heart of the desert. 
 Arriving at the apex of the triangle above mentioned, its waters divide and 
 flow north-oast and noi'th-west along the limits of the cultivable land, dis- 
 charging themselves into the Mediterranean near Damietta and Rosetta. 
 Anciently the Nile had seven mouths, which were adorned by so many 
 cities; and even at the present day the river communicates by various minor 
 channels with the sea. The Delta is interveined throughout its whole 
 extent by canals, which maintain, as it were by circulation, the principle of 
 vitality. 
 
 From this very brief sketch it will be seen that Egypt is a country of 
 extraordinary character. But, in order to convey a complete idea of its 
 aspect, it must be added, that through eight degrees of latitude two lofty 
 chains of barren mountains, running parallel with the Nile, wall the country 
 in, as it were, from the Libyan desert on the one hand, and from the desert 
 of Arabia on the other. Here and there gaps in these chains open up a 
 communication with the wilderness, and admit from time to time torrents 
 of sand which, tumultuously driven in by the hurricane, bury the fertile 
 soil for miles : these defy the labours of the husbandman. But the same 
 wind which brings, by degrees disperses them ; and the Nile, by its benig- 
 nant inundation, in time obliterates all traces of their inroad. From one 
 end to the other of the valley, and over the spacious plains of the Delta, 
 cities, towns, and villages are more or less thickly interspersed, their 
 vicinity being always marked to the eye by groves of palm-trees towering 
 above the loftiest buildings, and shading in many places undulating 
 mounds of rubbish, the growth of centuries, which daily rise higher and 
 higher round the habitation of man in Egypt. These the traveller, at first 
 sight, invariably pronounces a nuisance and a deformity. But during the 
 period of the inundation, when, by the rising of the river, Egypt is con- 
 verted into a sea, these mounds constitute the protection of the people, and 
 are beheld rising above the surface of the water, like the hilly shores of so 
 many small islets. At this season Egypt assumes a character of beauty 
 altogether its own ; for though the Ganges and the Indus overflow their 
 banks, and present frequently a much vaster surface of water to the eye, 
 they want those rocky barriers on either hand, which here confine the flood, 
 and are reflected in all their grandeur from its surface. Nor does the beauty 
 of these arid ridges consist in their height and precipitous cliffs only. 
 Flooded morning and evening by the oblique rays of the sun, they present 
 an infinite variety of brilliant colours to the eye, assuming at every instant, 
 as the luminary rises or descends, fresh hues which, blending differently,
 
 50 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 produce the most gorgeous effect in the world. And on this spectacle how 
 delightful it is to gaze in the freshness of the dawn, or toward the close of 
 evening! Overhead an amethystine sky; in the distance, on all sides, 
 towering forests of palm- trees, mingling with mosques, domes, and minarets, 
 and the broad and majestic Nile at your feet, converted into a golden 
 expanse by the illusions of light ! The atmosphere, too, impregnated with 
 delicious perfume, lends its influence to complete the intoxication, while 
 the notes of music, rude but joyous, burst from each village as your boat 
 sails by; for even despotism itself cannot wholly repress the Arab's buoyant 
 s])irits. 
 
 Towards sights and enjoyments such as these I felt that I was hastening, 
 while engaged in pre- 
 paration to quit Alex- 
 andria. I had left 
 Europe alone ; but, 
 during my short stay 
 in the above city, 
 formed numerous ac- 
 quaintances, some of 
 whom were to accom- 
 pany me to Cairo, 
 while others resolved 
 to afford us the plea- 
 sure of their society, 
 for some hours at least, 
 on our way thither. 
 We had the choice 
 of three routes, — one 
 
 across the Desert, usuallv performed on camels; the other by the Mah- 
 moodiyah canal and the Nile ; and the third through Rosetta and the Delta. 
 I preferred the last, as being incomparably the most interesting. Our beasts 
 were donkeys, the owners of which sent a number of lads to attend us 
 and bring back the animals from the capital. 
 
 About one o'clock in the afternoon we quitted Alexandria by the Canopic 
 gate, our road at first lying between high mounds of sand and ruins, 
 which, as we advanced, became smaller and fewer, and at length wholly 
 disappeared. "We then entered upon the Desert, and for a time lost sight of 
 every trace of vegetation, although, in the course of the afternoon, we saw 
 a few small clusters of date palms, with two or three poor Bedouin tents, 
 whose owners were absent with their flocks. Near one of these little groves 
 we observed a Mohammedan cenotaph or head-stone, consisting of a low 
 slender pillar of white marble, surmounted by a neatly-sculptured turban, 
 beneath which, in very legible characters, was a long inscription. In the 
 sandy waste, close to this spot, where our friends took their leave of us, I 
 for the first time beheld the phenomenon of the mirage, or " false water of 
 the Desert." 
 
 About a league in advance there appears to be a large sheet of water, 
 interspersed with rocks and cattle immersed to their knees ; their images are 
 
 Arab Musicians
 
 BEDOUIN ENCAMPMENT. 51 
 
 seen reflected, though the surface of the mirror is disturhed by a flickering 
 liaziness ; oppressed with heat and sand, you hasten onwards, the water 
 still receding as you advance ; surely one of the plagues of Tantalus was 
 invented on this spot ; an i(/nis fatims is not half so provoking as this 
 " mirage," again and again continuing, though the last deception left you 
 determined not to be deceived again. Thus, even the Desert is productive 
 of interest ; an infinity of sand is in itself a novelty, — not a pleasing one ; 
 yet to know that it is sand, and at the same time only not believe that 
 it is water, equals any deception in the legerdemain of nature. Swallows 
 in great numbers skim over the plain — are they also deceived? The 
 plumage of their breasts is of a deep red colour : I leave it to naturalists to 
 determine whether it is the same bird that comes wnth summer, when 
 summer does come to England, and if in changing country it changes 
 plumage.'* 
 
 Pursuing our way through the waste, in which the drifted sand was 
 in' some places blown up into heaps ; in others spread out into vast beds, 
 where our animals often sank a foot deep, and in others, again, covered 
 with water and reduced to soft mud, we a little before nightfall arrived 
 opposite the ruins, or rather site, of Canopus. The remains of this 
 desolate city, erected gradually, according to tradition, around the rude 
 tomb of the pilot of Menelaus, have long been covered by the waves, 
 which, in this part of the coast, must be gaining on the land, against 
 which they are driven with great and continual violence by the north 
 wind. We now approached some Bedouins ; they live in low ragged tents ; 
 a wooden bowl, a cofi'ee-pot, a mat to sleep on, a gourd rind for water, a 
 donkey, and a goat for milk, comprise tlieir domestic utensils ; they pack 
 up and pack ofi" at a moment's notice, as our gipsies. I requested a 
 draught of water, which was brouglit to me in the bowl, enough for man and 
 donkey ; the bearer of it, a fine young woman, wore a pair of large ear- 
 rings ; it seemed as if she had sold her wardrobe to purchase these barbarous 
 ornaments ; she was, otherwise, beauty unadorned, except being tattooed, 
 not only as to her eyes and chin, but very low down. A man was employed 
 in making cloth — I hope for the young woman. The Bedouins in general 
 live beyond the reach of despotism, and differ much from those who dwell 
 in the cultivated parts of the country. We had passed the spot where 
 Abercrombie fell, and were now within sight of Aboukir, Denon, speaking 
 of the battle of the Nile, boasts that two or three vessels escaped from 
 Nelson, having cut and run in a fog — '■'■ fallereet effugere est triumpkus." t 
 Through the inner extremity of the bay the sea was turned by the 
 English into Lake Mareotis, where it is said a number of villages, with their 
 fields and gardens, were overwhelmed beneath the watei-, which is now 
 again excluded by a wall, or stone embankment, erected by the Pasha. 
 Latterly, however, the old works were found insuflicient to resist the fury 
 of the waves, and workmen were now employed in erecting a new line of 
 wall immediately within the old one. The wind, blowing from the north, 
 was very high, and the sea came roaring and dashing in a tremendous 
 manner on the shore, frequently breaking over the old wall, along the top of 
 
 « Sir Frederick Henniker. t Idem.
 
 5-2 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 which the road now lay. For several miles our course continued close to the 
 southern extremity of Aboukir Bay, where the aspect of the Desert, viewed 
 
 -iKi. 
 
 Aboukir hay. 
 
 in the dull twilight of a cold cloudy day, was dreary and desolate beyond 
 expression. This was in fact the moment for feeling the full influence of 
 the waste, not a sound being anywhere heard but the howling of the wind 
 and the dashing of the surge, mingled at intervals with the melancholy 
 scream of the heron or stork. We had ourselves ceased to speak, every 
 one seeming to be absorbed in his own thoughts ; and these, if I might 
 judge by the complexion of my own, were as gloomy and comfortless as the 
 landscape. Myriads of enormous crabs, issuing from tlie holes in which 
 they had lain concealed during the day, traversed our route, grievously 
 terrifying the donkeys, wliich appeared not hitherto to have cultivated the 
 slightest acquaintance witli this description of beast. * 
 
 It had been already dark for some time when we reached that broad 
 deep channel, formerly perhaps the mouth of the Canopic branch of the 
 Nile, by which the sea flows into Lake Edko ; and, owing to the lateness 
 of the hour, and the boisterousness of the weather, there at first appeared 
 to be but little likelihood, even if the wind would allow us to make our- 
 selves heard, that tlie Arab ferrymen would risk their boats in such anight. 
 "We shouted with all our might, but no answering voice from the opposite 
 shore gave us the assurance of being heard, and we in vain looked across 
 the dusky waves in search of a boat ; tlie wind blew more and more fiercely, 
 
 * Cadalvene et Breuvery.
 
 NIGHT SCENE. ^3 
 
 the cold grew bitterer, and something between rain and dew began to 
 fall. To bivouac unsheltered on the open plain, or to return to the village 
 of Aboukir, appeared to be our only alternative ; but at length some one 
 advised the firing off of a pistol, and this means succeeded ; for presently 
 afterwards we had the satisfaction of hearing a shout from tlie water, and 
 in a short time beheld the ferry-boat approaching. The embarking scene 
 which now took place was not a little ludicrous. Our luggage, beds, &c., 
 were, of course, easily put on board ; but when it came to the asses, they 
 seemed to have some secret objection to this mode of conveyance, and 
 exhibited so striking a degree of that firmness of purpose for which their 
 race has long been renowned, that it appeared altogether doubtful whether 
 they could be prevailed upon to go over or not. However, the vociferation 
 of the Arabs, and the blows which were most unsparingly dealt upon their 
 cruppers, at length convinced thorn that they were likely to get the worst 
 of the argument ; so that they yielded up the point ; and, the long dispute 
 over, we were carried on board on the backs of the Arabs, and the boat 
 put off. It was by this time so dark that we could scarcely distinguish 
 one another, and the crazy old harls rolled and pitched in an extraordinary 
 manner. At length, however, we reached tlie opposite shore, a bare 
 unsheltered beach, where we found a solitary stone hut, half in ruins, 
 round which all the winds of heaven seemed to be blowing. On entering 
 this wretched tenement, which, in European maps, is dignified wnth the 
 appellation of a caravanserai, we found a Turk established in the least 
 uncomfortable corner, where he had spread his carpet, and was smoking 
 his pipe, by the light of a small dim lamp, burning beside him on a window- 
 seat. It was one of those wild-looking places which writers of romance 
 delight in describing. Situated on the bleak sea-beach, almost within 
 reach of the spray, slightly built at first, and now fast crumbling to ruins, 
 with shattered doors, a few rough boards for windows, long fowling-pieces, 
 pistols, sabres, &c., suspended against the wall, and one solitary man, 
 smoking and musing in the partial gloom — it formed a savage picture, which, 
 under other circumstances, I should have contemplated with pleasure. 
 
 The Turk saluted us civilly as we entered, and in the hope, perhaps, 
 of a small consideration, yielded us up his place, undertaking to assist our 
 Arabs in preparing tea and coffee. While this operation was going for- 
 ward, we spread our beds upon the floor, "and put evei-ything in readiness 
 for passing the night. As it blew almost a hurricane, the wind entered in 
 strong gusts through the numerous apertures in the Avail, and swept scl 
 violently round the room, that it was with much difficulty that either 
 candle or lamp could be kept burning ; but having despatched our simple 
 meal, we bade defiance to the winds, and, retiring to bed, every one of the 
 party, except myself, was almost immediately asleep. From various 
 causes I found it quite impossible to follow their example : fleas, bugs, and 
 other vermin, enumerated among the plagues of Egypt, soon found their 
 way into my bed, and began to initiate me into the mysteries of travelling : 
 the strong tea and coffee which we had taken, co-operating with the 
 excitement created by our extremely novel situation, had also their share 
 in producing wakefulness ; and there I lay — 
 
 " Chewing the tuJ of sweet and bitter fiincy;"
 
 54 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 listening to the roaring of the sea and the storm, and ardently wishing for 
 the dawn. About midnight, when the Turk and the muleteers, after 
 much loud talking, had fallen asleep, a party of Bedouins arrived, 
 demanding, with vociferous shouts, to be admitted out of the rain, which 
 was now falling in torrents. Not being immediately attended to, they beat 
 the old door with their lances, and were, I believe, upon the point of sending 
 it in to the middle of the floor, when the Arab awaked and admitted them. 
 The dying embers of the fire were now kindled once more into a blaze, and 
 the new-comers, crowding round it to dry themselves, contrived by their 
 noisy conversation to keep me still longer awake ; but they again departed 
 before day-break, and left us to our repose. 
 
 Sir Frederick Henniker found somewhere near this spot a still inferior 
 tenement, where he passed a night of discomfort, which he describes with 
 as much zest as if he had enjoyed it. "The half-way house is a wooden 
 hut, nearly filled with a wooden dresser ; stretched my mattress and myself 
 upon it. A dirty fellow was baling out coffee all night ; a gin-shop cannot 
 be more disagreeable ; the boards of the roof had parted company, and 
 the stars and myself were winking at one another till morning." 
 
 When we arose in the morning, the rain, which had fallen heavily during 
 the night, had ceased, though the wind still continued A^ery high. We 
 breakfasted hastily and set out. Tiie portion of the Desert upon which we 
 now entered seemed still more wild and desolate than that traversed on the 
 preceding evening. Our route still lay close along the edge of the sea, 
 where alone the sand was hard enough to support the weight of our beasts, 
 which frequently moved through the waves, from whose crests the wind 
 snatched away the foam, and wafted it over the Desert, while our garments 
 were almost drenched by the spray. A few miles beyond the caravanserai 
 we saw a part of the hull of an English ship, recently cast on shore and 
 wrecked there ; the planks had been nearly all stripped off^ and the waves 
 were now running like sluices through the ribs. Various parties of Arabs, 
 some on foot, others mounted, like ourselves, on asses, passed us on their 
 way to Alexandria. Our attendants, consisting of two men and three lads, 
 were exceedingly cheerful and merry, laughing and singing snatches of 
 Arab songs all the way. From time to time we discovered the date groves 
 of Edko, and about ten o'clock the lofty minarets and palm-trees of 
 Rosetta became visible ; shortly after which a black pillar, about eight or 
 ten feet in height, informed us that we were to strike off from the shore ; 
 and similar columns, erected at regular distances, marked the track across 
 the Desert, the city itself being discernible at a distance only in very clear 
 days. 
 
 Before finally quitting the shore, it may perhaps be useful to take a 
 rapid view of the extraordinary series of lakes which stretches along it from 
 beyond the Arab's Tower in the west, almost to the environs of El-Arish 
 eastvvard, a distance of nearly two hundred miles. Many of the lakes 
 communicate by narrow openings with the sea. When this is not the case, a 
 belt of sand-hills, narrowing sometimes to a mere causeway, and descending 
 in level almost to that of the watei', separates the lakes from the Mediter- 
 ranean. The most westerly, that of Mareotis, was, previous to the French 
 expedition, almost entirely dried up, only a very small portion of water
 
 LAKES OF EGYPT. 55 
 
 remaining- in the lower ynYt of the liollow. All the rest of the broad area 
 was cultivated and studded with villages. In order to distress the French 
 who occupied Alexandria, the English broke down the dikes towards the 
 east, and let into this vast basin the waters of the sea, which took sixty- 
 three days to fill it. Forty-four villages, with the lands on which the inha- 
 bitants subsisted, were thus deluged. But the loss sustained in territory 
 was amply, perhaps, compensated for by the increased salubrity of the 
 atmosphere of Alexandria. By the works of Mohammed Ali the sea has 
 been ao-ain excluded, so that the existence of the lake depends on the rain 
 and the overflowings of the canal. In summer, consequently, it subsides 
 greatly ; but so completely saline do its waters continue, that the lands 
 uncovered as it retires, are clothed with a thick crust of salt. It is the inten- 
 tion of Mohammed Ali to drain it entirely, and restore its area to cultivation. 
 
 Lake Maadiah, divided from the former by the narrow neck of land over 
 which the canal has been carried, is of much inferior extent ; it is Hkewise 
 salt, and supposed to be of recent formation. The line of works by which it 
 is separated from Aboukir Bay I have described above. The next basin, 
 proceeding eastward, is that of Lake Edko, partly surrounded by groves of 
 palm-trees, which nearly conceal the tombs, mosques, and minarets of the 
 village. Lake Bourlos in the Delta, the largest, perhaps, of the Egyptian 
 lakes after that of Menzaleh, communicates with the Mediterranean by one 
 mouth. The channels by which the sea enters Lake Menzaleh are sup- 
 posed to represent the Mendisian and Tanitic mouths of the Nile. Its waters 
 abound with fish, and its banks are celebrated for the number of wild birds 
 there caught. The most remarkable is the flamingo, from whose tongue 
 is extracted a species of oil, though they are not now eaten, as in the time 
 of the Romans, who esteemed them great delicacies. Under the emperors, 
 Egypt paid a great part of its tribute in flamingos' tongues. The water of 
 Lake Menzaleh is less salt and disagreeable than that of the sea. The rice 
 planted on its borders enjoys a great reputation, attributable, no doubt, to 
 the quality of the soil impregnated with salt, which everywhere covers the 
 surface with a white incrustation.* 
 
 Farther to the east we have the Birket-el-Balah or Date Lake, and the 
 Sebaka Bardual or 
 
 " Sirbonian bog, 
 Where armies whole have sunk." 
 
 Modern experience has verified the account given of this singular tract 
 by the ancients. The descriptions of Strabo and Diodorus Siculus are still 
 applicable to its present state. Diodorus tells us that entire armies have 
 perished through ignorance of this marsh, which the wind sometimes 
 covers with sand that conceals its dangers. " This does not," he adds, 
 " give way immediately beneath the feet, but sinks by degrees, as if to 
 betray travellers, who continue to advance, until, discovering their error, 
 they endeavour in vain to assist one another, their eftbrts contributing only 
 to their destruction. Their struggles only plunge them deeper and deeper 
 until they are finally overwhelmed. For this reason the name of Barathron 
 was given to this marshy plain." -j- 
 
 * CaJalvene et Brcuvcry, t. i., p. 42. t Clot Bey.
 
 56 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 I now resume the journey to Rosetta. It has been observed above, that 
 a line of high columns marks the route across the Desert, from the sea to the 
 environs of the city, in traversing which we arrived at a well, furnished, for 
 the use of travellers, with a small metal basin. Our attendants, desirous 
 of keeping all the water for themselves, pretended it was dry, and would 
 have persuaded us not to alight ; but, being thirsty, we thought it best to 
 examine for ourselves, and found that the well contained much more than 
 the whole company needed. 
 
 The approach to Rosetta from the Desert is singularly striking and 
 agreeable. The imagination, which for many hours has been dwelling, 
 though not without pleasure, upon ideas of barrenness, aridity, desolation, 
 feels suddenly an influx of delightful images, arising partly from contrast, 
 partly from the view of luxuriant verdure, exhibiting, in spite of winter, 
 all the glossy freshness of spring. Though the first date-palms at which 
 we arrived stood in the midst of dry shifting sand, where it is wonderful 
 that they should find any moisture, they were loaded with noble clusters of 
 ripe fruit, which our donkey-boys thinned, as they went along, with stones 
 and brickbats. It appears to be generally believed that these trees naturally 
 spring up with tall columnar trunks, bare of branches to the summit ; but, 
 in fact, this nakedness is the work of man, for the young palm of two or three 
 years' growth is covered with branches from the earth upwards, like a huge 
 
 Mosque near Rosetta 
 
 flag or water-lily; and a plantation of them in the improved state is 
 peculiarly verdant and beautiful. Were the sap, however, allowed to 
 distribute itself through these superfluous branches, the tree would never 
 acquire that towering height which it now reaches, nor would the fruit 
 attain the size or flavour it possesses in its cultivated state ; and for this 
 reason the lower branches are annually lopped ofi*, both in the date and 
 doum trees. 
 
 Many men, however, of many minds. The date-palm, which to me 
 always appeared so magnificent, lias been found to suggest extremely
 
 ROSETTA. 57 
 
 different ideas to others. A palm, observes Sir Frederick Henniker, is 
 elegant as to its leaves ; but tlie trunk is a long and bare straight line, like 
 Lady Lath-and-Plaster at a drawing-room, or a corpse carrying its own 
 plume of feathers. 
 
 The city of Rosetta, properly Ilas/iid, built by a grandson of Ilaroun-al- 
 Rashid, and situated about four miles from the sea, is surrounded by low 
 walls, and at a short distance wears the appearance of a European town ; 
 but this resemblance vanishes when you enter, though its long streets, lofty 
 red brick houses, with projecting latticed windows, numerous mosques, 
 and large open spaces like squares, impart to it an original and important 
 air, far superior to the Turkish portion of Alexandria. Many of the houses, 
 like those of Lahore, are five stories high, and have several tiers of project- 
 ing windows, in the form of small Gothic turrets, with curious open work. 
 They are higher than those in Alexandria, with the convenience that, in 
 the upper stories, you may shake hands across the streets. The mosques, 
 though all, I believe, built of brick, are spacious and lofty, and adorned 
 with tall slender minarets, surrounded by three or four narrow galleries, 
 placed, the one above the other, at various heights. From the size of the 
 l^lace, it must formerly, I imagine, have contained at least 30,000 inhabit- 
 ants, which have now dwindled down to about half that number; its 
 decline being justly attributed to the formation of the Mahmoodiyah, which 
 has almost wholly turned into another channel the trade between Cairo 
 and Alexandria, and is daily enriching Fouah at the expense of Rosetta. 
 
 Our party, which was somewhat numerous, put up at an inn kept by an 
 Italian. The accommodations found here were none of the most magnificent; 
 but there being no other in the place, we were reduced to ITobson's choice. 
 Having deposited our baggage in the sleeping apartment allotted to us, 
 a huge chamhre de menage^ common to all travellers of all grades, the beds 
 being ranged round the apartment as in an hospital, w^e strolled forth to 
 examine the city and its environs. To me the object of greatest curiosity 
 was of course the Nile, consecrated by the associations of four thousand years, 
 which roll as it were through the pages of sacred and profane history, allying 
 itself with tl)e most extraordinary events, and borrowing additional interest 
 from a thousand creations of Oriental fiction. It was to me almost a 
 fabulous river ; and now that I ai)proached so near its banks, I began to 
 apprehend I should experience considerable disappointment. But when 
 emerging from a narrow and crowded street I stood suddenly upon the quay, 
 and beheld its magnificent expanse stretching eastward, with all the beau- 
 ties of the Delta beyond it, I felt that, in this instance at least, the reality 
 exceeded expectation. This, then, was the Nile ! The river celebrated by 
 Herodotus, and a long line of historians after him ! On the banks of this 
 stream the lawgiver of the Israelites had lain in a cradle of bulrushes. 
 From its waters the Saviour of mankind had quenched his thirst. I gazed 
 up and down, to the north and to the south ; the sun, though slightly 
 declined from the zenith, was shining brilliantly ; clear and blue stretched 
 the atmosphere above ; innumerable groves of palm-trees, rising behind 
 each other, appeared to unite and form one vast forest, stretching over the 
 plains of the Delta to the verge of the horizon, leaving, however, the
 
 58 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 green and sunny glades for the eye to rest upon between ; on the river 
 were many sail gliding lazily before the breeze, while the sounds of a 
 new language filled my ears : all these circumstances united, rendered the 
 moment in which I first caught sight of the Nile one of the most pleasure- 
 able of my life. 
 
 Volney, whose imagination appears to have been sick during his stay in 
 Eo-ypt, though he does j ustice to the environs of Rosetta, disparages the 
 Nile by comparing it with the Seine between Auteuil and Passy ; exactly 
 as Tavernier discovers the Ganges to be very much like the same river oppo- 
 site the Louvre. Between the city of Rosetta and the river there is a 
 spacious quay, where all those boats which drop so far down the stream 
 land their cargoes. Here, likewise, the inhabitants enjoy the air in the cool 
 of the evening ; for, if the Orientals do not walk so much as Europeans, 
 they ai'e no less fond of promenades, where they can lounge at their ease, 
 and build castles in the air. A Turk of consequence was here performing his 
 ablutions as we passed, near the river's edge, in public ; one slave poured water 
 over his foot as he held it up, another wiped it, and in the same manner with 
 his hand: ablution, as the purification 
 from all uncleanliness, is commanded 
 to be performed five times a day, 
 and extra, after every dirty act, 
 such as touching a dog or a Chris- 
 tian, (dogs and Christians are often 
 called by the same name, Kelb) ; 
 thus often is a Mohammedan bap- 
 tised. A Turk does not wear either 
 gloves or stockings, nor even his 
 walking-shoes in a house, lest they 
 might be considered a screen of dirt ; 
 cleanliness is next to godliness.* 
 
 Continuing our ramble along the 
 banks of the stream, we soon reached 
 the celebi'ated gardens, which lie 
 chiefly to the south of the city, on the 
 way to the convent of Abou-Man- 
 door. They are not, however, gar- 
 dens in the European sense of the 
 word, but large walled plantations 
 of henna, pomegranate, banana, lemon, citron, and orange-trees, inter- 
 mingled irregularly ; luxuriant, unpruned, a verdant wilderness of every 
 variety of tint, with fruit, glowing like spheres of gold, clustering thick 
 among the leaves, weighing down the boughs, and tempting the hand at 
 every turn. Here and there, among this almost matted undergrowth, a 
 palm-tree towers aloft, and waves in the wind its graceful feathery 
 branches, while near it the Egyptian sycamore, or Pharaoh's fig-tree, the 
 growth of a thousand years, stretches forth its vast tortuous boughs, 
 affording, even when the sun is hottest, a grateful refreshing shade. Were 
 
 * Sir Frederick Hcnnikcr. 
 
 Head of a Greek, Rosetta.
 
 BATTLE OF THE NILE. 59 
 
 these inclosures a little larger, and their woods of lovely fruit-trees separated 
 from each other by open spaces of greensward, they might without impro- 
 priety be compared with those paradises of the Persian kings, described by 
 Xenophon ; and with this advantage on their side, that no Persian garden 
 ever beheld so majestic a river as that which flows beneath their walls. 
 
 The gardens of Rosetta afford the Arab an agreeable shelter from 
 the intense heat; and here he frequently takes his evening meal of 
 pilau (boiled rice and fowls), doubly grateful from the abstinence of the 
 day, and the refreshing shade. The grounds are watered by the Persian 
 wheel, from wells filled by the Nile during the inundation. The small 
 wheels are turned round by asses, the larger by buffaloes. The gardens 
 of Rosetta derive mucli of their celebrity from the sudden contrast witnessed 
 by the traveller in exchanging the barren wastes in the circuit of Alexan- 
 dria, for a tract of country round Rosetta, and in the Delta, abounding in 
 trees and the mosrt luxuriant vegetation.* 
 
 From the gardens we proceeded along the Nile to the convent of Abou- 
 Mandoor, situated on a sharp and somewhat elevated promontory project- 
 ing into the river. This convent, erected in honour of a saint of the same 
 name, which in Arabic signifies the Father of Brightness,+ is inhabited by 
 certain dervishes, intrusted with the care of keeping in order a superb 
 fountain, the pious foundation of a Mussulman. Fruits of a religious 
 spirit, these institutions of public ntility, so common in the East, are nearly 
 all due to private individuals. X 
 
 Turning a little to the right, we ascended to an old tower standing on the 
 summit of the hio[hest eminence in the neighbourhood, where Mohammed 
 Ali has lately erected a telegraph. The low hills, which here border t!ie 
 stream on the west, appear to have been formed by the sands of the desert, 
 and are in many places sprinkled with a few hardy plants, coarse and prickly, 
 but which occasionally serve as pasture for the ass and the camel. The 
 Arab intrusted with the working of the telegraph Avillingly permitted us 
 to ascend the tower. The weather, though cold, was clear, and the view 
 v.'hich presented itself interesting and varied in a very high degree. To the 
 south and west was the desert ; to the north the sea ; beneath our feet, 
 towards the east, the Nile, with numerous sail moving to and fro upon its 
 broad surface ; and beyond the level bright open rice fields, the diminutive 
 lakes and canals, the picturesque villages, and vast forests of the Delta. 
 To all these elements of a charming landscape must be added the trans- 
 parence of an African atmosphere, the brightness of the sunshine, and, 
 still more, the glory and splendour which prodigious ancient renown has 
 cast over that singular land. 
 
 It was from the summit of this tower that the ti-aveller Denon, in con- 
 stant apprehension of being captured by the Arabs, witnessed the first 
 movements of the British and Fx'ench fleets in the famous battle of the 
 Nile. His description is so rapid and lively, and so vividly realises the 
 feelings which a spectator so circumstanced must have experienced, tliat I 
 am tempted to translate it here. 
 
 " On the l4th Fructidor, chance had led us to Abou-Mandour, which 
 is the termination of a pretty walk from Rosetta along the banks of the 
 
 * Dr. Hume. f Clot Bey. + Cadalveiie ct De Breuvciv.
 
 60 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 stream. Having ascended the tower which commands tlie monastery, we 
 perceived twenty sail approaching the Bay of Aboukir : to near it, to form 
 in order of battle, and begin the attack, was the affair of a moment. The 
 first cannon was heard at five o'clock ; and the smoke soon concealed from 
 ns the movements of the two armaments ; but when night came on, we were 
 able to distinguisli a little better v/hat was doing, though without being 
 able to form any very clear conception. The danger we ran of being sur- 
 prised by the smallest party of Bedouins could not turn away our atten- 
 tion from an event to us of such vast moment. The rolling and redoubled 
 fire was perpetual; we could not doubt that the combat was terrible, and 
 maintained on both sides with equal obstinacy. On returning to Rosetta 
 we got upon the tops of our houses ; towards ten o'clock a great light 
 announced a conflagration ; a few minutes after, a frightful explosion was 
 followed by a profound silence ; we had indistinctly seen ships of war on 
 either side of the burning object, firing upon it, and we guessed that our 
 countrymen it was who had set it on fire. Tlie silence which succeeded 
 seemed to indicate the retreat of the English, who alone could continue or 
 cease the combat, since their motions alone were not confined and restricted. 
 At eleven o'clock a slow firing recommenced ; by midnight the battle raged 
 ns fiercely as ever, but by two in the morning it once more ceased. By the 
 break of day I was at the advanced posts ; and, ten minutes after, the 
 cannonade recommenced ; at nine, another vessel blew up ; at ten, four 
 ships, the onl}' ones that remained entire, traversed under all sail the field 
 of battle, of which they seemed to be masters, since they were neither 
 attacked nor followed. Such was the phantom conjured up by the enthu- 
 siasm of hope ! 
 
 " I spent most of my time at the tower of Abou-Mandoor ; I counted 
 twenty-five ships, of which one-half were mere wrecks, whilst the rest 
 were so disabled as to be unable to manoeuvre in order to rescue them : 
 for three days we remained in this painful state of im certainty. With my 
 telescope in hand I had sketched the disasters I had seen, in order to learn if 
 the morrow brought forth any change. We refused to believe in the evi- 
 dence of our senses ; but the boghaz closed, and all communication with 
 Alexandria cut off, soon taught us that our fortunes were changed ; that, 
 separated from our mother-country, we had become almost compelled to 
 exist on our own means imtil the closing of the war : we learned, in fine, 
 that the English fleet had doubled our line, which was not sufiiciently well 
 sheltered by the island against which it rested ; that the enemy, taking 
 with a double line our vessels, one after the other, had rendered, by this 
 manoeuvre, one half of our force the spectators of the destruction of the 
 rest ; that it was the Orient that blew up at ten o^clock ; that L'Hei'cule 
 sprang the next morning, and that the vessels Guillaume Tell, Genereux, 
 Diane, and Justice, had taken advantage of the eneniy^s weariness to escape 
 from its united strength. We learned, in fact, that the 14th Fructidor had 
 deprived us of one half of our strength ; and that tlie destruction of our 
 fleet had restored to our enemies the empix*e of the Mediterranean, 
 which the unexampled exploits of our armies had snatched from them, and 
 which the preservation of our ships would have enabled us to retain."* 
 
 * Voyage, pp. 35, 36.
 
 FAMINES IN EGVPT. Gl 
 
 Returning to tlie city, we visited the deserted rice-mills of the Pasha, 
 where large sums of money have been squandered upon steam-engines, and 
 a complicated apparatus for cleansing the rice from the husk, which have 
 all proved utterly useless ; as, instead of effecting the intended purpuse, 
 they only crush and spoil the grain. A large factory, likewise, erected at 
 great expense, has been for some time abandoned, and is fast going to ruin. 
 The great tannery we found in operation, under the direction of three or 
 four Europeans, who employ in the works about three hundred Arabs. 
 The shoonah^ or warehouse, of the Pasha, where prodigious quantities of 
 red and yellow rice were piled up in heaps, employs a great number of 
 hands. Nearly all the rice in the kingdom is collected here, and it all 
 belongs to one man, the Pasha himself. This merchant- viceroy monopo- 
 lises the whole, and at his own price, vi et armis : when the grain is nearly 
 ripe, soldiers are placed in the fields as guards, lest the Pasha should be 
 defrauded, and lest he who sows should reap : " proprio condidit horreo, 
 quicquid de Lil)ycis verritur acervis."* 
 
 Here, in 1829, the most fearful scenes are said to have taken place, 
 when there was a famine in Egypt, an artificial famine, created by the 
 Pasha's monopoly of grain ; when the people, collecting in crowds around 
 the public stores, beheld, through the palisades of this same shoonah, huge 
 piles of corn spoiling in the open air, while they were perishing of hunger. 
 It has been asserted, but I trust incorrectly, that government refused to 
 sell the grain to the people, until it was spoiled, and that it would not 
 even permit them to purchase better elsewhere. This famine was equally 
 felt throughout the country. At Cairo the government first sold a kind 
 of mixture, half wheat and half barley ; but for the wheat mouldy beans 
 were afterwards substituted ; and this continued for about three or four 
 months, during which corn was contraband throughout Egypt. Some 
 wheat was even imported, by private speculators, from Syria ; a thing 
 unheard of since the famine of Ismain Bey ; but a heavy duty put a stop 
 to this promised relief, f 
 
 It may not be improper to make, in this place, a few remarks on the 
 subject of famines in Egypt, occasioned generally by the inadequate rise of 
 the Nile. We find one great dearth described in Genesis ; ancient histo- 
 rians, also, relate many remarkable examples of scarcity, in which, through 
 the deficiency of proper nourishment, the inhabitants fed upon human flesh, 
 though they spared the sacred animals. Several terrible famines are re- 
 corded by Jemaleddin, in his History of Modern Egypt : — In the reign 
 of Almostanser Billah, who succeeded his father Aldhader in a.h. 427, 
 occurred a dearth greater than had been known in the memory of man. 
 A small measure of wheat sold for two golden dinars (neai'ly 1/. sterling), 
 and in a short time the price was again doubled. This, however, was but 
 the beginning of their calamities : for all the usual articles of food at 
 length failing, they openly devoured dogs and human flesh. The dogs 
 which survived, rendered furious by hunger, broke into the houses, and 
 tore to pieces the children in the sight of their parents, who were too wea k 
 
 * Sir Frederick Henniker. t Deux Mots sur rEgyptc.
 
 G2 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 to defend tliem. In the street Altabek, the most elegant in Cairo, twenty 
 houses, the meanest valued at a thousand dinars, were sold for a small 
 quantity of bread. The same calamity occurred thrice in two years. It is 
 related by Ben Aljouzi, that a lady of great opulence and distinction, 
 taking four measures of jewels in her hands, went forth into the streets, 
 exclaiming, " Who will give me corn for these gems ?" No person attending 
 to her cries, she thus spake : — " Since ye cannot aid me in my distress, what 
 need have I of you ?" and with these words she cast them into the street, 
 where they were suflFered to remain, no person regarding them. Almostanser 
 exhausted the public treasures in alleviating the miseries of his people ; and 
 these not sufficing, he disposed of his personal ornaments and possessions, 
 and the riches of his palace, amounting, it is said, to thirty thousand gems 
 of all kinds, seventy-five thousand garments inwrought with gold, twenty 
 thousand swords, together with eleven thousand villas. In this manner 
 he was reduced to such extreme poverty, that he possessed nothing but the 
 carpet on which he knelt to pray, and a wooden footstool. Borrowing a mule 
 from the president of the council, he descended from the citadel to the mosque 
 of El Azhar, where he exhorted the few survivors to patience ; and shortly 
 after this, his affairs assuming a new aspect, the whole kingdom of Egypt was 
 restored to its wonted prosperity. A story not dissimilar to that of Aljouzi is 
 related by Ibn Hasham. By the rushing of a sudden torrent a sepulchre was 
 uncovered in Yemen, in which lay the body of a woman, with seven strings 
 of pearls about her neck, on each of her hands and feet anklets and bracelets, 
 besides seven other crural and brachial ornaments, rings set with gems of 
 great price on every finger, and at her head a chest filled with riches, on 
 which was this inscription : — " In thy name, O God ! God Hamyar ! I, 
 the lady Di Shafar, sent my steward to Yusuf, who, delaying to return, 
 I despatched my maid with a bushel of money for a bushel of wheat ; this 
 not succeeding, I sent a bushel of pearls : which also proving of no avail, I 
 commanded them to be broken to pieces, and took refuge in the tomb." In 
 the year 695 of the Hegira, another grievous famine afflicted Egypt, in 
 which, as before, men fed on dogs and on each other's bodies. The governor 
 of Cairo discovered three ruffians, sitting round the body of a little child, 
 which they were eating, having seasoned itwith salt, onions, and vinegar. 
 On being apprehended, they confessed they had long subsisted on the flesh 
 of infants, one of which they had devoured daily. Being executed, their 
 bodies were gibbeted at the gate Zawilet ; but, during the night, they were 
 taken down, and eaten by the famishing people. To this famine a terrible 
 plague succeeded; and ah. 784, another grievous famine. But, even in 
 times of plenty, the Egyptians, as we learn from Scripture, used to feed on 
 mallows. 
 
 It is remarked by an Arabian historian, that the numerous examples of 
 Cannibalism which occurred in Egypt during the above famines, so accus- 
 tomed the people to human flesh that the eating of it excited neither disgust 
 nor astonishment : they grew altogether reconciled to this dreadful kind 
 of food ; they contracted at length a fondness for it throughout the country, 
 and began to lay up a store of it for future use, without betraying any
 
 EATING LIVE SERPENTS. 
 
 G3 
 
 tokens of shame or remorse ; so easy is the slope to the lowest depths of 
 wickedness.* 
 
 No doubt the sufferings of the inhabitants of Rosetta, above described, 
 were greatly multii)lied by the state of extreme poverty to which the city 
 had been reduced by the want of trade and other causes. An air of 
 sadness and destitution broods over the whole place. Scarcely a vestige 
 of the meri'y character of the Arab is anywhere discernible ; and when 
 they endeavour to procure themselves entertainment, it is by spectacles 
 which would sadden any other people. There is a tribe of Arabs in 
 Egypt, who pretend that they arc respected by serpents, and that no 
 sort of snake can hurt them. As a proof of this, they have an annual 
 procession through the streets of Rosetta, of which I was a witness ; 
 one of their number is obliged to cat a living snake in public, or so much 
 of it as to occasion its death. Probably the snake may have been 
 rendered harmless by some means ; the people, however, suppose that for 
 some act of piety performed by the ancestors of this tribe or family (which 
 is by no means numerous), the Prophet protects the descendants from any 
 injury which the snakes might occasion. The ophiophagus, who is to keep 
 up this ridiculous farce, being, no doubt, well paid, begins to eat the living 
 reptile ; a pretty large snake is held in his hands, which writhes its folds 
 around his naked arm as he bites at the head and body. Horror and fury 
 are depicted in the man's countenance, and in a strong convulsive manner 
 he puts the animal to death, by eating and swallowing part of it alive. 
 This disgusting and horrible spectacle, however, is but seldom exhibited at 
 present.-|- 
 
 The environs of Rosetta, and as much of the Delta as is visible from tlie 
 eminence above the city, are described by Sir Robert Wilson as barren 
 and unsightly. His motives for thus misrepresenting the country, it is, of 
 course, impossible to determine with certainty. Nevertheless, he seems to 
 have been considerably influenced by a desire to contradict the accounts of 
 the French, many of whom are doubtless prone to exaggeration. Still, in 
 this particular instance, I think their delineations more to be relied on than 
 his. My experience, at least, and, consequently, my opinion, coincides 
 with theirs. 
 
 Guide Posts in the Desert leading to Rosetta. 
 
 * Abdellatif. 
 
 t Dr. Hume.
 
 C4 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 The Delta. — Damietta. — Anecdotes illustrative of Egyptian Despotism. 
 
 I INTEND making the tour of Lower Egypt before I visit Cairo ; the 
 boatmen have persuaded me to take their skiff, which is only eigliteen feet 
 long ; the waters are out, and lean cut across the country. The fashion- 
 able thing is a kanjia, or a maash, which you hire reasonably to yourself, 
 and in your own cabin you can go from one end of Egypt to the other with- 
 out seeing anything, and perform your journey, moreover, with great 
 expedition ; but I am not carrying dispatches, and so wish to see the man- 
 ners of the natives. A kanjia being to a maasli as a gondola is to a barge, 
 is a decked boat, with two masts and two triangular sails, of which the 
 foremost is much smaller than the other. There are two cabins upon deck : 
 one about six feet in length, in which you live ; the other, much shorter, 
 for containing your provisions. Several small windows, with sliding 
 shutters, but without glass, afford you a prospect of the river and country 
 on both sides, and let in the cool air. Your servant sleeps in a small tent 
 of mats before your door. The boatmen, with their captain, occupy the 
 fore part of the kanjia, where they sit, cook their victuals and sleep. The 
 steersman is perched aloft on your after-cabin.* 
 
 My boatman promised that he would not sit all day long cross-legged and 
 smoking; the English vice-consul answers for his honesty, and I am per- 
 suaded. As to the honesty of this place, I have been robbed twice, and 
 this has happened, on two successive nights. Without alluding to the 
 circumstance, I inquired the character of my hosts. The vice-consul assured 
 me that they are of good repute. I did not mention my loss, willing rather 
 to abide it, than cast even a suspicion on characters reputedly honest. 
 A hook, either through the roof or through the windows, may have been 
 the means : the window-place is open, having neither glass nor board. 
 
 The skiff is ready, a matting is put up ; a mattress, a small sail, and a 
 pair of oars, incommode the crew considerably. At taking leave of the 
 vice-consul, coffee and pipes are i^resented by a slave: the vice-consul is 
 not an Englishman ; he is, however, supposed to be a Christian. Coffee 
 and pipe answer to " refreshment," and are invariably brought in with a 
 " Will you allow me to offer?" Drinking and smoking are expressed by 
 the same word in Arabic (eishereh) ; the pipe is of wood, either cherry or 
 jasmine ; in length about six feet : length cools the smoke. Kinneir men- 
 tions one too long for the room, and always put in at the window — 
 mem., to try a fishing-rod. Presenting a cup of coffee, the slave places his 
 liand on his forehead, his lips and his heart, signifying that he honours you 
 in thought, word, and strength ; he pledges faith to you at the same time 
 in one of the usual forms of " double life to you," or some other set phrase. 
 Poison is sometimes administered in coffee ; there is no other cup for the 
 
 " Egypt and Mohammed Ali.
 
 VOYAGE BY THE NILE TO DAMIETTA. 05 
 
 tragedy given here ; but the slave does not " make essay," the cup not 
 beino- so big as an egg-shell. On starting we proceeded up the Rosetta 
 branch, which is lined with palms, sycamores, and acacias ; the numberless 
 villages are enlivened with birds unknown in England, such as the white 
 ibis, the Egyptian crow, the black hoopoe, the Damietta duck, and the 
 Oriental dotterel. This last bird is about the size of a crow, and is gene- 
 rally found in the acacia groves of this part of Egypt, or near the sepul- 
 chres of the ancient Egyptians, or in the Desert. Like the black wood- 
 pecker, it has a shrill voice which it raises and lowers, successively, uttering 
 agreeable notes. This bird is greatly valued by the Turks and Egyptians, 
 who, if they can take it alive, keep it in a cage for the sake of its singing. 
 Its flesh is hard, and very well tasted, and somewhat aromatic. The dotterel 
 is a very voracious bird, catching and devouring rats and mice, which 
 abound in Egypt. It seldom drinks, and, when taken young and kept in 
 a cac^e, they give it no water for several months, but feed it with fresh 
 meat, macerated in water, which it devours greedily.* 
 
 The Damietta branch of the Nile is much more wooded than the 
 Rosetta branch ; willows and poplars form tufted thickets on every side, 
 and even droop over the waters ; the eye perceives in the distance vast 
 forests of palms, and the plain is dotted with numerous turrets built for 
 the pigeons ; numerous herds of cattle pasture in the green meadows, and 
 well-built villages rise on either bank.f 
 
 My boatmen are two brothers ; the elder does nothing but smoke ; the 
 younger all the work : the latter is near-sighted, but coolly reconciles 
 everything in the true Italian style, " Cosa-fa ? Non-fa-niente." I natu- 
 rally call busy-body, " Cosa-fa," and lazy-boots, " Non-fa-niente.'" 
 
 The country seems as fertile of sparrows as it is of grain. Aristotle, 
 speaking of the fecundity of Egypt, says, that a woman has been known 
 to give birth to twenty children in four accouchements ! This, however, is 
 nothing to the story told by Ibn Kathir, who relates with much gravity, 
 that in the year ^58 of the Hejira, a slave-girl in the harem of the Emir 
 Alhamdan, brought forth at once forty children, fourteen of which were 
 girls, the remainder boys, and all remarkable for their beauty. Jemmaled- 
 din, who abridges the story, exclaims, and not without reason, " May God 
 have mercy upon Ibn Kathir ! " which shows, I suppose, what degree of 
 credit he attached to his narrative. J 
 
 Frequently the mast of a foundered vessel is seen rising out of the water. 
 It being the grain season, and the vessels laden for the Pasha, they are, 
 probably, wilfully scuttled. I went on shore ; there Avas a jerm aground, 
 and a corn vessel had been sunk near it ; saw six naked black fellows jump 
 overboard, and thought myself their prey. They seized my boat; I 
 hastened back ; they told me that their vessel was aground, and the pas- 
 sengers wanted to be put on shore. I went with them for that purpose ; 
 there was a company of soldiers on board, two of whom immediately 
 jumped into our boat, and took us on a cruise. We soon fell in with a 
 jerm, which the soldiers seized, and liberated us. One of them, when he 
 
 * Hazelquist. f Michaud et Poujoulat. + Mauied Allatafet.
 
 gft EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 took possession, told me tliat lie was " a Turk — a Turk — not a fellah." 
 Our boatmen are what are termed fellahs, that is, native labourers. Fellah 
 seems to answer to our old word villanus, and to be synonymous with 
 villain as a term of reproach. Sais is under water ; nothing to be seen 
 except the mound that indicates the ancient site, and the excavations that 
 indicate the labour of the Arabs. They tell us that Franks, foolish Franks, 
 come there to buy whatever is found ; that only one statue or monument 
 is left, and that, because it cannot be taken away, " not even an English- 
 man can move it ;" it is at present under water. I here shot some beautiful 
 birds, the entire plumage snow-white, and in form as graceful as the 
 heron, but the body not larger than a parrot. Cosa-fa concealed them, 
 lest the natives should be offended. This bird lives upon locusts and grass- 
 hoppers. A Dutchman would not thank me for killing a stork. The 
 country is flat and covered with water. It resembles the sea, at least as 
 much as do the lagunes of Venice. 
 
 Upon an artificial elevation, on the banks of the river, were huddled 
 together men and cattle, driven from their village by this annual deluge : 
 they will never find their houses again, for the inundation will cause them 
 to return to the mud of which they came ; however, they can soon re-earth 
 themselves, and their houses will make good manure. I would have gone 
 on shore, but Cosa-fa was afraid that I, in my character of Christian, 
 might be bastonadoed. I confess that the spirit of martyrdom did not 
 urge me on. 
 
 I observed a Turkish encampment on the bank ; the cavalry were 
 amusing themselves with the exercise of the jerreed. We steered towards 
 them. The Turkish soldiers fight individually — each man trusts to his 
 own prowess. In practising the jerreed he urges his horse to full speed, 
 throws a lance, stops short in mid-gallop, and wheels suddenly. Slaves, or 
 running- footmen in attendance pick up the lances. The variety and 
 gaiety of their costume give a fine stage effect to this " game of soldiers." 
 AVe were within a few yards of the bank, when an officer, snatching up a 
 musket, took aim at poor Non-fa-niente, commanding him to run the boat 
 ashore immediately, which he did. Cosa-fa said that " the officer woiild 
 have shot him as soon as he would a duck, though he had better shoot a 
 duck." A soldier came on board, and we were ordered to give him a 
 passage to Cairo ; as soon as out of gun-shot of the camp, I offered him 
 the choice of going on shore where we then were, or on board the first 
 vessel we should see going up the river ; he preferred the latter : and, as 
 he seemed a hon diable, I did not care to turn him out. The sound of 
 music led us on shore at the village of Beara, where a "fantasia" was 
 given to celebrate the circumcision of the village children, who, undergoing 
 the same operation in company, may, if they can, laugh at one another. This 
 event, which generally takes place among the peasantry when the lads are 
 between the age of twelve and thirteen,* occasions as much rejoicing to the 
 Mohammedan parents as the christening of a son and heir in Christendom ; 
 two drums and two squeaking pipes formed the band; eight villagers were 
 
 * Lane, Modern Egyptians.
 
 CIRCUMCISION FEAST— MENOUF. 67 
 
 very awkwardly, but very innocently, handling some long poles, with which 
 they pretended to strike at one another, but gave a minute's notice as to 
 what part of the body was the object of attack. During this, they kept 
 time to the music like dancing bears ; these poles are iron-bound at either 
 end, and are the arms of the villagers; the dance and sham-fight are as much 
 objects of delight to the Arabs as the Romaika to the Greeks : the jokes 
 of our sword-stick players are serious. The band belonged to some ladies 
 of easy, or no virtue, who graced this tournament with their company, 
 seated on horseback, and bedizened with feathers, grease, necklaces of 
 onions, and other attractions. The clown, upon a donkey, with his face 
 to the tail, was the master of the ceremonies ; he cleared the way for us, 
 and did not forget backsheesh ; his face was white- washed, and he was 
 clothed, which is no slight disguise to an Arab. The ladies were without 
 masks, which is a less happy conceit ; our soldier was of considerable use 
 in rendering the corps de ballet content with the profiFered backsheesh : he 
 was also himself very liberal in the use of his whip. 
 
 To avoid the current, we frequently cut across the country ; occasionally 
 aground, once so fast that we all got out to help the boat off. I am no 
 longer astonished at the fecundity of the Delta : I was up to my knees in 
 the alluvial deposit ; and our military friend, being a heavy man, was 
 fairly planted: I had thoughts of leaving him there to try what he would grow 
 to. We shortly, however, regained the river. Many boats were goino- up ; and 
 though we could get within hail, not one would allow us to approach near; at 
 length, the soldier concealed his red cap; we came alongside a jerm, and Don 
 Whiskerandos jumped on board ; but moving all things by his frown, he 
 took Turkish possession of the best place — so much for the cap of liberty, 
 the appearance of which, on board our boat, had alw\ays indicated a corsair. 
 He was extremely proud of being a Turk, and used to tell poor Non-fa-niente 
 that it would stain his sword to take off Arab heads. I had a pocket- 
 pistol, which was a subject of great ridicule to him : he conceived it im- 
 possible that so short a barrel could be of any service, and almost enticed 
 me to fire at him. His own pistol was nearly as long as a blunderbuss. 
 
 JMenouf, on the north side of the canal of the same name, is a large 
 village, which, according to the inhabitants and Dr. Pococke, is a 
 city :* it is surrounded by an embankment of rubbish. aAt first it is 
 almost impossible to conceive how such mounds could be formed ; but, 
 considering the cheapness of crockery-ware, and the fragility of mud- 
 houses, the laziness of the people who never repair, and who are not com- 
 pelled to carry the rubbish beyond the outskirts of the town, the wonder 
 nearly ceases. At Menouf is a manufactory of mats, made of rushes ; 
 they are exported throughout Turkey. There are no remnants of ancient 
 buildings, except that in a mosque are some columns of cipolino and 
 granite; columns are bought wholesale for this use. On leaving Menouf, 
 we had some difficulty in finding a hole to hide our boat in : great appre- 
 hension of land pirates. At day-break, drew our boat over land into a 
 garden ditch, by which means we entered the canal of Harien : moored at 
 
 * Description of the East.
 
 68 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 the mouth of it. At 7 a.m. entered the Damietta branch of the Nile, and 
 floated down to Senienhoud : the remains of an ancient building are here to 
 be seen ; that is, a piece of masonry has been discovered, and recovered ; 
 but it is uncovered as often as any one will give backsheesh. This town 
 is not ill-built, and has a population of between three and four thousand. 
 It marks the site of the ancient Sebenitus.* 
 
 Left Senienhoud : in two hours landed on the west bank, opposite to 
 Wheesh, and in half an hour reached the ruins of Beybait : here was once a 
 granite temple, the materials, the style, and the hieroglyphics of w^hich, 
 rendered it perhaps one of the most beautiful in Egypt : there is not now 
 one stone upon another in the order they ought to be in ; it is fallen into a 
 mass like the temple of Hercules at Girgenti. I was ruminating on the 
 strength of Samson, when an Arab of the neighbouring village gave me 
 the following tradition : — Mohammed passing by the temple, applied to a 
 Christian for a bit of bread ; the Christian refused : the temple fell imme- 
 diately, and the town went to ruins. To this he added : — " You Franks 
 come here to look for treasure because your ancestors built these temples ; 
 there were a great many more in the kingdom, but Mohammed destroyed 
 them all, and you are a blasted people." Such ideas naturally suggest 
 themselves to Arab minds, when they see Franks carrying away mummies 
 with as much anxiety as if related to them, and blocks of masonry as if 
 they had found the philosopher's stone. The relics of Beybait are worth 
 visiting : the hieroglyphics are on granite, beautifully executed, and there 
 is nothing to disturb you but owls and jackals. 
 
 On our way down the river we encountered a sandstorm ; all our sails 
 ■were immediately reefed ; clouds of dust overhung us ; a huge column 
 advanced towards our kanjia, and for a moment I thought we should be 
 submerged. It disappeared, however, suddenly, and was swallowed up 
 noiselessly by the waters of the Nile, like a vast phantom that had quitted 
 for awhile the regions of darkness to threaten and disappear. In about 
 an hour the sky cleared up, and the minarets of Mansoura (the Zoan of 
 Scripture f) appeared on our right. This town is of no very ancient date. 
 It took its rise subsequently to the sixth crusade ; for after the siege of 
 Damietta by the Christians, the Sultan fell back to the right bank of the 
 Ashmoun canal with his army ; tents were first erected, then houses, then 
 palaces, then mosques. Mansoura, like Cairo, was a camp before it was a 
 city. It gives its name to a province, of which it is the capital, and is 
 renowned for its salubrity, patients being sent thither from Cairo and even 
 Damietta. I visited the famous canal of Ashmoun, called by the crusaders 
 the canal of Tannis. We found the place where the engineer of Saint 
 Louis undertook to construct a causeway, and farther on, the ford over 
 which the Christian army passed. J 
 
 "SVe now entered the canal leading to Menzaleh : our boatmen were 
 very unwilling; they had "never been there before, and the people 
 might be savages ;" at length, with backsheesh in one hand and stick 
 in the other, I persuaded them. At the village of Mersy we endea- 
 
 * Michaud et Poujoulat. f Pococke. + Michaud et Poujoulat.
 
 MANSOURA— LOVE CHARMS. 
 
 69 
 
 voured to procure some bread, but it was impossible ; the Pasha's agents 
 having accurately calculated to a tooth the quantity of grain requisite for 
 the village,had sent the overplus to the Pasha^s granary. A crowd of women 
 and children came to the boat : I commenced a sketch ; all my subjects 
 
 ran away shrieking. Cosa-fa begged me to put up my pencil ; the villagers 
 imagined that I was writing talismans, and he himself knew the force of 
 magic. He had been in love witli a fair one who despised the charms 
 of his face and fortune ; at length he procured a subtler spell, and, though 
 neither himself nor his Dulcinea could read, she was so afraid that she 
 acceded to his proposals. The charm had cost him a dollar : the Bank of 
 England could not have found one more serviceable. This is distress- 
 ing, as it is common to observe the fear and superstition of the people in 
 general ; a pen will put them to flight ; a hat, though looked upon as the 
 ensign of freedom, will clear a field of workmen, will irritate the dogs, and 
 even the buffalo ; that animal that used to alarm us, will break from its 
 labour at the approach of a Frank, 
 
 About four miles south-east of Mersy is a mound of rubbish, to which 
 we were directed in pursuance of our inquiries concerning antiquities. The 
 waters were out — the way dangerous and intricate : at length a guide 
 appeared, curiosity induced me, and money prevailed on him to proceed. 
 A considerable part of the distance we waded nearly breast-high, for which 
 we were half-stripped, (N.B., leeches here), but of the temple, there are 
 only two small parcels of worthless granite. The rashes that grow here are of 
 a three-sided or prismatic form, lately cut, perhaps the papyrus plant; if 
 not, I have seen none since leaving Syracuse. There were cattle upon the 
 mounds; and it was remarkable that whenever a hoof had been impressed at 
 the water's edge, the indentation was covered with a lamina of salt, having
 
 70 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 tlie appearance of ice, yet the water is perfectly fresh, the sand alone being 
 imprecrnated with salt. Those who work in salt mines are subject to a 
 complaint in the eyes ; perhaps the ophthalmia is in some measure to be 
 attributed to the same cause. The excursion occupied four hours. A man 
 in liis own country will scarcely deviate from the road to see a lake or a 
 cathedral : in a strange land where he cannot move without danger and an 
 interpreter, he pries into everything. 
 
 From Mansoura to Menzaleh cost us three days ; between which latter 
 place and JMersy we saw other rubbish mounds, but were informed that 
 there were not even stones there. I had sufficiently cooled not to doubt my 
 informant. Menzaleh is a large town, and gives name to the lake. Even here, 
 however, it was with great difficulty that we could procure rice and bread. 
 
 We succeeded in dragging our bark into the lake of Menzaleh : and were 
 taken in tow by the Damietta passage-boat. A rapid sail of four hours 
 brought us to the Garden of Palm-trees. The Lake of Menzaleh abounds 
 with fishermen and fish, great quantities of which , especially a sort of mullet, 
 are brought to Damietta. Their roes, when cured, are called botargo. 
 When they desire to preserve them in the best manner, they dip them 
 in wax, and carry them not only all over Turkey, but also to many 
 parts of Christendom.* A beggar living on a scrap of an island, about 
 five yards square, called loudly as we passed for his daily bread, which 
 
 was thrown to him. Rows of pelicans stretched along the smooth 
 surface of the water ; they appear even more beautiful when on wing ; 
 they resemble swans, while at the same time part of their plumage is rose- 
 coloured, and glistens to the sun. 
 
 * Pococke.
 
 DAMIETTA. 71 
 
 There is no inn at Damietta : I therefore lodged in the house of the 
 EngHsli Vice-Consul. His table is hospitably spread : beds there are none ; 
 lie allowed ns to sleep upon the boards, but the musquitoes would not. 
 Thus far our journey has been tedious and unsatisfactory. One village is 
 remarkable as having a house one story bigh ; it must belong to a man of 
 consequence. It contains a mat, a coffee-pot, cups, spoons, bowls, earthen 
 vessels, water-jars, pumpkins, and two stones for pounding corn ; hoopoes, 
 hawks, doves, and sparrows abound, and live together in apparent harmony. 
 
 "We dined with Signor , rich, fat, and jolly. To be rich is to be fat — 
 
 fat is an evil loss than care. There are many extraordinary things in his 
 house ; excellent and various wines, with a free use thereof; knives, forks, 
 and chairs ; books, and the assurance that your host can read and write. 
 Dinner was served a V Anglaise — at least so it was thought to be ; excepting 
 a capon, its head stretched out like that of a flying wild duck, and its legs in 
 the act of supplication, all the meats were in scraps, according to the custom 
 of a country where knives and forks are unknown, and though we had also 
 these rarities, even our host's son did not understand the use of them, but 
 ate with his fingers. A slave was in attendance upon each to brush away 
 the flies. These animals seem to have emigrated from Alexandria. Dinner 
 was finished by half-past one, mid-day ; water was poured over our hands, 
 followed by eau cle rose. Pipes and coffee were then served, and our host 
 retired to his " siesta." He generally reads himself to sleep, and his library 
 furnishes plenty of soporifics. The common wine in use here is imported 
 from Cyprus in goat-skins ; it is sold at about a penny a gallon, but is not 
 worth so much ; it tastes of the skin. There is no memento of St. Louis 
 and the Crusades, save the name. 
 
 The extent and population of this city have often been very greatly 
 exaggerated. Instead of the seventy or eighty thousand inhabitants, 
 which many have supposed it to contain, it possesses, at the utmost, from 
 twenty-five to thirty thousand. The principal buildings worthy of notice 
 are the mosques, rice-warehouses, barracks, and military school. The 
 modern city has been built at about the distance of two leagues from the site 
 of the Damietta of the Crusaders. Many of the houses are spacious and 
 stand in the midst of extensive gardens. They are flat-roofed and fur- 
 nished with terraces, from which can be descried in the distance the course 
 of the Nile ; the streets are wider than those of the capital ; the air 
 circulates freely through them, and as the heat is thus tempered, the 
 inhabitants are compelled to take fewer precautions against the sun. 
 Rain is frequent, especially in winter. The pompous descriptions which 
 have been given of the environs of Damietta must be received with some 
 reserve. However, there is much to admire in the vast rice-fields, which 
 form the source of the city's wealth, and the extensive meadows intersected 
 by a thousand canals, whose waters disappear beneath the green shade of 
 the lotus. I often wandered forth amidst these beautiful scenes, gazing on 
 the groves of citron and orange-trees, the palm-woods, the plantations of 
 sycamores, the gardens where grow the broad-leaved banana-tree, the pome- 
 gxanate with its scarlet blossom, and the lovely cassia. 
 
 The people of Damietta appear less indolent than the Calreens ; fewer
 
 72 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 jugglers and dancers are seen in the streets, and fewer idlers in the coffee- 
 houses. Damietta has its alme, but they do not make their appearance in 
 public places. The rich often give concerts, to which the singers of the 
 country are invited ; and, to certain musical parties are brought nightin- 
 gales trained to sing in concert. 
 
 The city has some fine bazaars, which were evidently built at the time 
 when commerce was flourishing. Damietta carried on formerly an exten- 
 sive trade with Syria, Cyprus, and Marseilles ; it received the silks of 
 Mount Lebanon, the tobacco of Lattakia, the soap of Palestine, the wood 
 of Asia Minor, and furnished to all these countries the productions of 
 Egypt. But monopoly and heavy duties have cut oft" these sources of 
 prosperity. Damietta has no longer any connection with Cyprus. The 
 mouth of the Nile is no longer visited by vessels from France, or 
 Italy. Formerly ships from Marseilles came to fetch the finest rice pro- 
 duced in Egypt. But since the Pasha has placed himself at the head of 
 agricultural industry, and that attempts have been made to improve the 
 method of preparing rice, it has come to pass that the rice of Damietta has 
 deteriorated in quality, and that, in all the markets of Europe, it has been 
 unable to compete with that of Lombardy and Piedmont. On entering 
 Egypt by the Nile, the decline of commerce and industry becomes evident 
 even to the eye. When we passed Rosetta, the Nile was covered with 
 sails ; at Damietta, there were but a few jerms that had escaped the 
 shallows of the Bogaz. 
 
 JVIany Arab historians tell us that Damietta was formerly celebrated 
 for its jasmin-oil,* and its tissues of gold and silk: it no longer manufac- 
 tures any rich stuffs, but still furnishes table napkins to all Egypt and the 
 neighbouring countries. This branch of industry, which affords occupation 
 to a great number of artisans in the city and the villages on the banks of 
 the Nile, would suffice to maintain the people in comfort if the Pasha had 
 not interfered, and imposed a heavy tax.t 
 
 But it is not, perhaps, so much the amount of the taxes paid as the 
 manner in which they are collected, that causes the ruin of the peasantry. 
 According to the Pasha''s execrable system, each man is liable for the debts 
 of his neighbour, each village for the debts of the neighbouring village, and 
 each district for the district adjoining. It is therefore next to impossible that 
 the population of Egypt should be a thriving one. Scarcely, in fact, can people ■ 
 desire to amass property, when the laziness or the misfortune of others may 
 at any moment furnish the government with an excuse for depriving them 
 of it. This new mode of raising a revenue is said to have been invented 
 by Mahmoud Bey, who, in consequence, rose greatly in his master's favour. 
 Guttemberg in discovering the art of printing, Christopher Columbus in 
 opening a new world to mankind, did not experience a livelier joy than 
 this Albanian, wlien he formed in the recesses of his mind the new financial 
 system which was destined to be so profitable to the coffers of his lord and 
 master, Mohammed AH. Mahmoud Bey presented himself in a state of 
 triumphant exultation in the palace of his highness ; he gave to his gracious 
 
 * Abdellatif. -f- Michaud et Poujoulat.
 
 THE PASHA'S SYSTEM OF TAXATION. 73 
 
 sovereign the paper on wliich was traced his famous plan. Mohammed AH 
 read and re-read this precious memoir, then grasped the paper firmly in 
 his hands, and exclaimed in an ecstatic transport of joy, " Oh, peki ! peki ! 
 a thousand times peki ! Thou art a man of genius, O Mahmoud Bey ! 
 Henceforth the population of Egypt shall pay its debts, past, present, and 
 future !" An European consul was present at this scene ; Mohammed Ali 
 was unable to contain himself before him. In what way could Mahmoud 
 Bey be rewarded for having rendered such a service to the state ? The 
 viceroy nominated him Minister at War ! 
 
 To illustrate the practical working of this system, I may relate two or 
 three anecdotes, which, however exaggerated they may seem, are perfectly 
 in keeping with the manners of the country. A short time ago, a peasant 
 found himself utterly unable to pay the miri and the other taxes ; all that 
 remained to him was an ox. His father had left him this, and for no 
 consideration was he inclined to part with it. Pay he must, however, or 
 die under the stick. The fellah was therefore obliged to go and sell his 
 ox at the yearly fair of Farescouz, not far from Damietta, The peasant 
 demanded six hundred piastres for his beast, but no purchaser presented 
 himself. A Frank, inhabiting Damietta, happened to be at this fair of 
 Farescouz. He offered six hundred piastres to the fellah for his ox, but he 
 could not pay this sum in less than forty days. What was to be done ? 
 The stick was raised over the head of the fellah. The sequel was this — a 
 tax-gatherer bought his ox for one hundred and fifty piastres. But tliis is 
 not all. Wait awhile. When the rice harvest was got in, and the govern- 
 ment had paid the amount of it, the same tax-gatherer forced the fellah to 
 buy back the ox for six hundred piastres ! 
 
 On another occasion, two of these agents happened to be in a village 
 not far from Damietta. It was evening ; some fellahs were smoking the 
 chibouk in the sheikh's house, constructed of the mud of the Nile, like all 
 the others in the Delta. The two tigers were this time sitting in the 
 midst of the sheep, without having much the appearance of desiring to 
 devour them ; but suddenly one of the Turks perceived a few grains of 
 rice on a peasant's beard. The poor devil had forgotten his after-supper 
 ablution. 
 
 " You have been eating rice, you wretch ! " cried the tax-gatherers in a 
 terrible voice. 
 
 " I assure you, effendi, that I have not eaten rice," replied the trembling 
 fellah. 
 
 The two Turks entered the peasant's hut, and searched carefully for 
 hidden rice, but found none. What then did these two Turks do ? They 
 compelled the fellah to swallow soap- water, that they might convince 
 themselves he had eaten rice ! After this, they administered two hundred 
 strokes with the stick on the soles of his feet. O Egyptian civilisation ! 
 
 Under all circumstances, the bastinado is the tax-gatherer's instrument 
 in Egypt. If a man be rich, more than he owes is required of him, and 
 he is bastinadoed till he pays ; if he be poor, demands are still made upon 
 him, and he is bastinadoed till he robs or borrows wherewith to satisfy the 
 claims of government. What a Jesuit once said of China is equally true
 
 74 EGYPT AND NUDIA, 
 
 of Egypt, — it is the stick that governs it, — all ranks receive the stick, 
 which falls, however, as a matter of course, most heavily on the poor, 
 especially when they owe anything to the treasury; this almost neces- 
 sarily excites in thoni the spirit of resistance, which, however, is most passive 
 in its character. When they happen to possess money, they will almost 
 suhmit to be flayed alive sooner than part with it, and often refuse to pay 
 their taxes till they have been well bastinadoed, thus apparently justifying 
 the opinion of Abderrahman Bey. But they know their government, and 
 are apprehensive that, if they paid their taxes too easily, they would shortly 
 be called upon for twice as much. This circumstance accounts for the 
 occurrence of such scenes as the following : — 
 
 A fellah declared with many protestations that he was unable to pay his 
 tax, amounting, I think, to 15 or 20 piastres. He was ordered by the 
 proper functionary to receive a certain number of blows upon the soles of 
 his feet, which were inflicted with such skill and violence as to extort the 
 most piteous groans and exclamations. The sufferer, upon being released, 
 was unable, for a considerable time, to stand upon his feet. AVhen at 
 length he was able to advance towards the magistrate's seat, he was asked 
 again if lie would paj' his tax. He re-affirmed, with many solemn protes- 
 tations, his utter inability to comply with the demand ; a punishment still 
 more severe was immediately ordered ; the poor man was laid again upon 
 his face, and was held down by two soldiers, while the practised operator 
 returned to his task with increased vigour. The culprit struggled and 
 screamed as in the last agonies, and finally swooned before the claims of 
 justice were satisfied ; after some time had elapsed, he recovered so far as to 
 be able to hobble up to the tribunal, where he kissed the hand of the officer, 
 and thanked him for his great lenity, promising to bring the money and 
 pay the demand of the government without further delay.* 
 
 On arriving once at Mansoura, I paid a visit to the governor of the 
 city, who filled also the office of revenue-collector of the beautiful and rich 
 province of Sharkieh. This collector, who is no more than twenty-seven 
 years of age, is called Abderrahman Bey. He is by birth a Copt. 
 Abderrahman passed his youth in the palace of Mohammed Ali as writer 
 to his highness. He received the title of Bey when he renounced the faith 
 of Christ to embrace that of Mohammed. Abderrahman is thin, and not 
 more than four feet in height. He has a little unbearded face, with an 
 expression of mingled gentleness and ferocity impossible to define. Such 
 is the type of a collector. No one knows better than he how to screw the 
 taxes out of the fellahs. These never pronounce without trembling the 
 name of Abderrahman Bey. Abderrahman is the demon, the terror, the 
 affright, of the inhabitants of the province of Sharkieh. I found him sitting 
 at the corner of a handsome scarlet divan. By his side was an Italian, his 
 private medical attendant. The Bey received me with distinguished 
 politeness. Five pipes were offered me in rapid succession by his slaves ; 
 the coffee, the sherbet, the sweetmeats, which he graciously shared with me, 
 were banded to me on plates of silver, fashioned in rich oriental style. 
 
 * Olin.
 
 MISERY OF THE FELLAHS. 75 
 
 " How did yon find the country wliicli you have crossed in coming from 
 Cairo to ^lansoura?" inquired the Bey. 
 
 " Admirable, your excellence, admirable ; Lower Egypt is a perfect 
 terrestrial paradise ; but it is painful to behold, in the midst of this Eden, 
 a population so unhappy. These poor fellahs have no bread to eat. Yester- 
 day evening, I saw in the village of Fisbeh, five hours from Mansoura, 
 peasants supping on clover and thistles." 
 
 "These fellahs are so miserly!" answered tlie Bey with a grimace, 
 which sufficiently expressed his regret for having asked me the first 
 question. 
 
 I continued : " The peasants have nothing wherewith to clothe them- 
 selves : I have seen young women, young girls, old men, children, with 
 no other clothing than a miserable piece of stuff round their loins."" 
 
 " These fellahs are in civil costume," said the Italian doctor with a 
 smile. 
 
 " Methinks the doctor might have chosen a more fitting theme for his 
 jokes." 
 
 " I will explain myself," proceeded the medical man. " A hundred 
 fellahs, in the costume you observed in the Delta, were taken, some time 
 ago, for the army. They were conducted to Cairo, into the court of the 
 Minister at War's palace. A few Turks and some Europeans attached 
 to the Egyptian government happened at this moment to be in the 
 Minister's reception hall. Among the Europeans was a Frenchman, 
 who was surgeon in one of Ibrahim's regiments. He looked into 
 the court and said, 'Here come some conscripts,' — 'In uniform?"' 
 inquired the Minister. ' >so, your Excellency,' replied the Frenchman 
 very seriously, ' the conscripts are still in civil costume."' The JMinister, 
 the Turk, the European, surprised at this answer, rose, approached the 
 window, and beheld a troop of men either in rags or completely naked. 
 At this a general laugh was raised. Those words, ' The conscripts are 
 still in civil costume,' have become quite famous among the Frencli esta- 
 blished in Cairo and Alexandria. It is no longer said, in speaking of the 
 fellahs, *They are covered with rags,' but ' They are in civil costume.'" 
 
 Let us now return to Abderrahman Boy, wlio could not help lauLdiinc; 
 at the doctor's narrative. 
 
 " You vi'ill have a false idea of the condition of the peasantry of Egypt," 
 said the Bey, " if you judge them from their costume and their bad food, 
 which they take pleasure in displaying to all travellers. I have already 
 told you that these people are excessively avaricious. I may add that they 
 have hidden treasures in the earth ; the proof of which is, that the fellah's 
 bring them forth when compelled by the bastinado. The province of 
 Mansoura, or Sharkieh, has eight hundred villages ; it owed one hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand purses to my master's treasury. Before my lime 
 no collector could obtnin a para of this sacred debt. I have been in my 
 place only eight months, and the fellahs owe only eighteen purses. Pasha- 
 el-Kebir has received this money ; and has done me the honour to give 
 me, as a recompense for this poor service, the title of general. May God 
 preserve the days of his highness !"
 
 76 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 The Bey, however, did not relate to me all the atrocities he committed 
 to wring these hundred and fifty thousand purses from the fellahs. He 
 had caused thirty-six of them to die under the stick ! The cruel renegade 
 became so hateful to me, when I heard of these enormities, that I could not 
 make up my mind to go and pay him my adieus. It is well to observe 
 that these hundred and fifty thousand purses were not owed by those who 
 paid them. They were the debts of a number of villages that no longer 
 exist. 
 
 A sheikh, who had been ruined by taxation, one day observed to me : 
 " Listen to the following story. You will recognise in it the image of the 
 justice of Mohammed 
 Ali, on whom be the 
 curse of God ! There 
 lived at Menouf a ricli 
 manufacturer of silk. — 
 One night a robber 
 broke into his house. 
 Having no light with 
 him, this malefactor ran 
 his eye against a nail 
 which stuck out from 
 the wall, and blinded 
 himself. Discomfited 
 by this accident, he got 
 out of the house as well 
 as he could, whilst the 
 manufacturer still slept. 
 Next day the robber 
 went to complain to the 
 governor of Cairo, whose 
 name was Haraos ; he 
 told him that the manu- 
 facturer of silk had put 
 him to sleep in a room, 
 in the wall of which 
 were nails, and that, being without a candle, he had knocked out his eye. 
 The governor ordered the manufacturer to be brought before him, and said, 
 ' When a man sticks nails in the walls of his house, he must take care and 
 give a light to those who come and ask hospitality of him. You have not 
 done so, and justice requires that my cawass thrust out your eye, as one 
 of your nails has thrust out the eye of this man. That's all.' 
 
 " ' But I do not know this man ; I have never seen him.' 
 
 " ' Silence !' exclaimed the governor. ' Guards, seize this manufacturer 
 of silk, and thrust a nail into his eye.' 
 
 "'A moment! a moment!^ cried the inhabitant of Menouf, 'My 
 neighbour is a man who passes his life in shooting the birds of the Nile ; 
 one eye is enough for him ; shall I bring him before you ?"* 
 
 " ' Very good !' said Haraos. 
 
 Egyptian Merchant.
 
 DEPARTURE FROM DAMIETTA. 77 
 
 " The hunter accordingly was brought to Cairo, where his . eye was 
 thrust out. The responsibility established by j\Iohammed Ali is nothing 
 else — what I can't pay, my neighbour must. In this way we are both 
 ruined at the same time."* 
 
 In the Nile, near Damietta, dolphins, it is said, have always been com- 
 mon ;f and, according to an Arabic historian, the hippopotamus also was 
 anciently found in this part of the river. The hippopotami of those 
 days, however, will seem to have been far more bold and ferocious than 
 those at present found in the Nile. They now only show themselves at 
 night, and that with the greatest possible caution, whereas, in the thirteenth 
 century, they used to attack boats in open daylight, and when they could 
 succeed in upsetting them, devoured tlieir crew, A couple of these ani- 
 mals, more enterprising than their fellows, were accustomed, it is said, to 
 make excursions into the neighbouring fields, where they snapped up indis- 
 criminately whatever fell in their way, cows, fellahs, and even buifaloes ! 
 It was in vain that the inhabitants collected together, and sought to kill 
 them. In all encounters the hippopotami were victorious. At length, 
 however, a number of hunters were sent for from Nubia, who, being accus- 
 tomed to the sport, soon delivered the good people of Damietta from their 
 persecutors.! Occasionally, during the inundation, crocodiles are still 
 carried down to the sea, though they have never, I believe, been found in 
 the Rosetta branch ; but the hippopotamus has not, for many centuries, 
 been seen in Egypt. 
 
 On quitting Damietta I determined to visit Sann and Pelusium, the 
 Kashiff having given me a favourite slave as a guard, and promised that at 
 Matarieh we shovild be furnished with a sheikh to guide us. We were 
 soon on board our little skiff once more. The slave lent to be our guard 
 was a black, in himself a host, armed with a brace of horse-pistols, a 
 sabre, and a firelock. In four hours we landed at ]\Iatarieh. Matarieh 
 gives name to two small islands, covered with wretched habitations : 
 its trade consists in salt-fish and botargo ; the former was in perfection, 
 if I might judge by my nose. Tame pelicans are in constant attendance to 
 receive the overplus of the miraculous draughts of fishes taken at this place. 
 The price of a pelican is two piastres. We were delayed here all night 
 for a guide. The sheikh sent in that capacity had a patriarchal appearance. 
 We steered for Sann, where we arrived in twelve hours. We were hailed 
 (four A.M.) by the Cavaliere Frediani and M. Gemini; the latter was " chan- 
 cellor," i. e. secretary, to the English Consul at Damietta. At Sann we saw 
 six obelisks ; their bases vary from six to seven feet ; on each is a perpendicu- 
 lar row of hieroglyphics; all are prostrate: but it appears that they did stand 
 in a direct line drawn east and west, in length about one hundred and sixty 
 yards; at either end are blocks of granite, so that this place was probably 
 ofice worth seeing — for farther particulars inquii'e of Denon. Upon one of the 
 highest mounds is a heap of bricks and stones : every passing Mussulman 
 adds something to the pile. I was requested to do the same ; it is the 
 burying place of a sheikh or saint; the object is to perpetuate his memory. 
 
 * Baptistin Poiijoulat. t Sxard. X Abdellatif.
 
 78 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 We paraded a small village in search of provisions ; — surrounded by the 
 astonished natives ; the object of curiosity, a hat. A man requested per- 
 mission to put mine on his head, for he had seen the consuls in the Levant, 
 who, notwithstanding their Eastern robes, wore a hat in token of freedom ; 
 and he wished to be free. Those who were not acquainted with the pro- 
 perty of the hat of Fortunatus, laughed immoderately at it. 
 
 I agreed to accompany the cavaliere to the Tanitic branch, and to 
 cross the lake. While I slept, blackie gave orders to moor in the sedge ; 
 waking I missed the other boat ; after four hours' search I rejoined it and 
 accepted the offer of going aboard. Here I dismissed Cosa-fa, Non-fa-niente, 
 and Othello ; the black refused to go, and stating that he was the favourite 
 of the governor, and I only a Christian, ordered both boats home. He 
 also tlireatened the men of the other with a bastinado for daring to bring 
 Christians on the lake without permission ; the men who knew the power 
 of a favourite slave, were inclined to obey him, and it was with some diffi- 
 culty I changed my quarters. Blackie insisted on coming also ; he fired 
 his pistols and reloaded them ; he then put his bundle into our boat ; it was 
 thrown back, and he submitted ; I gave Cosa-fa a note to the Consul at 
 Rosetta ; I refused also to take the sheikh, till, being informed that he was 
 necessary to our safety, and that any accident which might happen to us, 
 would be visited upon him, I gave assent. We proceeded by the Tanitic 
 branch to the opening " Om Faraj." This mouth is about one hundred yards 
 in width, but too shallow for even our boat to pass ; dolphins sported 
 round ; the sheikh requested me not to fire at them, as the crew classically 
 believe that they assist drowning mariners. Do they not give notice 
 of storms ? 
 
 The lake is celebrated for the great number of birds that are taken on its 
 banks. The most remarkable is the flamingo, from the tongues of which 
 they now make oil instead of eating them, as in the time of the Romans, 
 who esteemed them a great delicacy. Under the emperors Egypt paid a 
 part of its tribute in flamingo-tongues. The waters of Lake Menzaleh are 
 less disagreeably salt than those of the sea. The rice growing on its 
 banks is in much repute, which is doubtless to be attributed to the quality 
 of the soil impregnated with salt, everywhere seen crusting the surface.* 
 
 From Om Faraj we directed our course towards the Bubastic branch. 
 I went on shore shooting ; the Cavaliere, the Cancelliere, the Sheikh, 
 and another, joined me. — We proposed to visit Pelusium, and a Bedouin 
 encampment. After three hours' walk we arrived at the " Bubastic 
 Mouth," which we forded, knee-deep. It is a hundred yards wide. We 
 soon came within sight of a long dark rag, flapping in the wind ; and 
 this the Sheikh informed us was the outpost of the Bedouins — not in our 
 route, but it was judged better to visit than to be visited. We marched 
 towards it, our guide giving us instructions as to our line of conduct. 
 We had a boisterous but friendly welcome : when once an Arab has 
 given his faith, his hospitality is inviolable. We sat down cross- 
 legged ; coffee was prepared. The Arabs swore " by the Sun " that we 
 
 * Cadalveae et Breuvery.
 
 A BEDOUIN ENCAMPMENT. 79 
 
 were safe, and offered to conduct ua to their encampment, at the Roman 
 mountain, " Gebel Romano.'' One of the Bedouins, an invalid, re- 
 quested advice, concluding that we, being Franks, were of necessity 
 skilled in medicine, though not one of us had more right to the title of 
 doctor than if we had bought diplomas — if such things are to be bought. 
 Our sick friend offered us, however, room for " twenty-one days," and 
 every other requisite that Bedouins can offer ; we arranged that he should 
 accompany us to his party at Gebel Romano, and to our boat on the fol- 
 owing day for medicine : thus his illness insured our welfare. Four hours' 
 walk, and quite dark, when the assault of dogs warned us of our approach 
 to the habitations of men or Bedouins. A party were seated on the sand 
 round a glimmering fire; an occasional ray exhibited them to horrible 
 advantage : ten men, with black beards, white teeth, half-clothed, and com- 
 pletely armed ; what would Mrs. Radcliffe have given to have seen them, 
 or I to have been away ? Bandits, when out-bandittied on the stage, are 
 gentlemen in appearance compared to these Bedouins. They sprang up, as 
 if taken by surprise ; we performed the ceremony of Salam Aleikoom with 
 the whole party. In a few minutes a blazing fire was furnished by hospi- 
 tality and curiosity ; our number increased by at least fifty, all armed ; for 
 arms are the first, and clothing a very secondary consideration. Pipes, 
 coffee, boiled rice, and bread, in form and thinness resembling pan- 
 cakes, were soon prepared. These inhabitants of the desert " practise the 
 laws of good breeding" with a punctilio that even Frenchmen would call 
 ultra-polite. Whenever an elderly man made his appearance, the whole 
 party invariably stood up, and unconscious of the applause that such 
 conduct ever obtained, offered the seat, according to priority of years. 
 Women were seen gliding among the trees, more anxious to see than to 
 be seen ! The Frank fowling-piece is greatly admired. English gun- 
 powder is compared with Turkish : the grains of the latter are nearly as 
 large as mustard-seed. Having been drawn on this expedition from a 
 shooting walk, I had come without either coat, shoes, or stockings, and now 
 had leisure to feel the cold. I requested to be shown to my bed-room ; did 
 not expect a flat-candlestick and a pan of coals ; but having been invited to 
 a residence for three weeks, I did hope for a hut of some kind. There was 
 not one without women ; and to be admitted into the same apartment with 
 the females, would be an innovation unprecedented in Arabian customs. 
 We were therefore desired to huddle together in the sand, and a rush mat, 
 big enough for the great bed at AVare, was spi'ead over the whole party. 
 Twelve Bedouins mounted guard in a circle round us ; one of them taking 
 notice that I placed my fowling-piece carefully by my side, tied an old 
 gun-barrel to a stick, without a lock, and offered it to my neighbour. Our 
 guard disencumbered themselves of their clothes, and placing them upon 
 their heads, were soon asleep in the sand. We did not indulge in bed after 
 daybreak ; a sheep was killed, and dejeuner sans fourchette prepared ; bread, 
 rice, coffee, boiled mutton, and pipes ; fingers supplied the place of forks ; 
 this hastily finished, we took leave and scrambled up a lofty ridge of sands ; 
 where it is said that Pompey was killed, and hence the name Gebel Romano.
 
 '80 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fatigue of the a?ccnt, we were followed by all the 
 invalids of the village, not only those really unwell, but those who fancied 
 themselves so, and others who begged for physic, that they might be so ; 
 I prescribed for them all ; for many of them a bastinado, which prescription 
 was received with great good humour. A plain of sand leads to Pelusium, 
 a lamina of salt, about an inch in thickness, and of a pale rose colour, forms 
 a surface over many hollow places (natural salt-beds) in the sand. Accom- 
 panied by the invalid and three others, four hours' march brought us to the 
 groundwork of Pelusium. Pelusium is said to have been the " key of 
 Egypt," and to have " been sacked three times." There is nothing to dis- 
 prove the latter assertion. Of its boasted magnificence, four red granite 
 columns remain, and some few fragments of others. 
 
 It was dark ere we regained the lake of Menzaleli ; as we entered into 
 it we were hailed, and ordered to bring to ; we could distinguish two large 
 boats moored in the sedge ; returned no answer to the first order ; to the 
 second, asked by whose command ? " The governor of Matarieh is here 
 in person." The cavaliere, who had lived some time in Egypt, concluded 
 that it was a "ruse des Bedouins," for they are generally reputed robbers, 
 and two men were on board our boat ; we held these two in surveillance and 
 crowded all sail ; the two boats followed, and, notwithstanding our repeated 
 threats to fire, still approached ; we fired across the bow of the nearest : " No 
 bono," was the reply ; " you have shot at the governor ;" the boats sheered 
 off, and we pursued our course to the islet of Tenneys, where we moored 
 about four hours after midnight. At daybreak we discovered two kanjias, 
 a broad red flag flying, and two swallow-tailed pennants. " The governor, 
 really the governor," was the reiterated exclamation of the frightened 
 Sheikh and crew : while we were disputing what ought to be done, two slaves 
 from the governor's boat came to ours with provisions. We now agreed 
 that the English secretary should go and demand satisfaction for the con- 
 duct of Blackie ; this was followed by the present of a live sheep (a peace 
 ofi'ering). The governor himself descended from his boat, and we went to 
 meet him, told him that we came to desire that Blackie might be punished 
 for his violence. The good old governor almost in tears replied, " I have 
 punished him for daring to return without you. Do you wish for his head ? 
 I have brought you bread and meat and water, and hearing that your boat 
 was uncomfortable, there is a kanjia at your service ; and when at Cairo 
 you mention this affair to the Pasha, make it not against me." We went 
 on board the governor's boat, v^here we were presented with coffee, sweet- 
 meats, and pipes. On returning to my own, we found the slaves waiting 
 for backsheesh. It is an insult to the master not to reward his servant ; 
 custom requires it to be done in gold, and at least to the full value of the 
 present. One of the Bedouins, seeing us at a loss, took the rag from his 
 head, and offered us as much gold as we might desire. The policy of the 
 Pasha of Egypt induces him to show every attention to Franks, and the 
 governor of Matarieh was therefore afraid lest any complaint should be 
 made against himself. The slave, who knew his own power over his 
 master, bad treated us as Turks ordinarily treat Christians. Slaves in
 
 VOYAGE UP THE NILE. 81 
 
 general have an ascendancy over their employers, and are not to be killed 
 and stuffed for a museum ad libitum* 
 
 Tennys has been thoroughly ransacked, the virtuosi having carried avvay 
 every sign of its former grandeur, except a small cistern encrusted similarly 
 to those of the " Sette sub/' at Rome. To the west is the island of Toomah, 
 where is the burial-place of a sheikh, — a small room hung with strings of 
 wooden beads like a button-maker's shop ; in the centre is a square frame 
 covered with green cloth, on which is embroidered a text from the Koran. 
 One of our boatmen, who wore a long string of coarse beads round his 
 neck, was said to be a priest, and entered this chamber uttering dismal 
 yells. Then shutting his eyes, and reiterating "Allah hu !" he continued 
 walking round till I complained of the ear-ache, when he tore off a scrap 
 of the cloth, and giving it to me demanded backsheesh. 
 
 Having visited the Debbee, or False Mouth, we returned to Damietta, 
 and found there Cosa-fa and Non-fa-niente. The note to the consul at 
 Rosetta was written on so small a piece of paper, that Cosa-fa thought it 
 resembled too much an order for a bastinado to contain any good, and the 
 poor fellow was afraid to go home ; for had he returned without a certifi- 
 cate of my safety, he would have been imprisoned ; and had he not also 
 
 had a sood character of himself, he would have been bastinadoed. Sucli 
 
 . . . 1 
 
 regulations, though a melancholy necessity, are a restramt upon guides, 
 
 and ensure the safety of the travellers. In the more dangerous parts it is 
 by no means uncommon for a guide to leave his son in hostage for the 
 travellers' safety, the sins of the father being visited upon the children in 
 many cases by the Turkish law. 
 
 I gave up my design of navigating the Alvey canal on finding that 
 it would cost ten additional days, and afford no gratification. We had 
 already lost thirty to the same effect. I renewed my engagement with 
 Coso-fa, taking care at the same time to provide myself with a bastinado 
 stick ; notwithstanding which, we advanced on our voyage like snails. 
 It is but a cowardly thing to beat an Arab, they are so used to it. 
 The English who complain so much of the want of liberty have at 
 least that of returning a blow. Among our delays must be reckoned a 
 stoppage at Mansoura for the purpose of visiting Tmai. The waters were 
 unabated, and, with some difficulty, we procured a rude species of fen- 
 duck boat. Three of us contrived to balance ourselves in it, and leaving 
 Mansoura at twelve o'clock, about half-past four reached Tmai. But a few^ 
 years since, here stood a temple, which, according to report, was one of the 
 least injured and most beautiful in Egypt ; what ought to have preserved 
 it has caused its destruction. It is now in worse condition than the temple 
 of Beybait. There is scarcely a stone unturned and unbroken. " If gold be 
 not concealed in them," say the Arabs, " why are the Franks at the trouble 
 of visiting and the expense of carrying away these stones?" I searched 
 till nearly sunset, but in vain, for any object that might satisfy my labour 
 and curiosity. Suddenly I was startled by most dismal cries, such as 
 Hecate would have ordered by particular desire for the entertainment ot 
 
 * Sir Frederick Henniker.
 
 82 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Macbeth"'3 witches : running suddenly towards the spot whence the sound 
 proceeded, I discovered an assembly of jackals at their evening conver- 
 sazione. Their tones are the most unhappy variations of the dying howl 
 of a dog and the amorous ditty of a cat. I would fain have shot any of 
 the serenaders. We again balanced ourselves in the canoe, and about an 
 hour after midnight regained Mansoura, not only cold and tired, but having 
 been for many hours wet to the skin, owing to the dew ; " it droppeth like 
 the gentle dew from heaven" with a vengeance. Having satisfied our 
 curiosity as far as concerned this part of Egypt, we returned by the shortest 
 route to Rosetta, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Journey across thk Delta. 
 
 "We left Rosetta about eight o'clock in the morning, and shortly 
 afterwards, struck off into the desert, which, immediately south of the 
 mosque 'of Abou-Mandour, comes down close to the water's edge. Very 
 heavy rain having fallen during the two preceding nights, the blades of a 
 fine tender grass were this morning quite thick among the loose sand, 
 giving their wavy surface an appearance of verdure, which convinces me that 
 water only is wanted to render even the Desert fertile. Here and there 
 several small groves of date-palms enlivened the waste, which, ascending and 
 descending in strongly-marked undulations, wore a very striking aspect. 
 
 Mosque of Abou Mandour. 
 
 In a short time, divcrginor a little to the left, we came down to the bank 
 of the river, directly opposite the (Treat bend which it here makes towards
 
 FERRY OVER THE NILE. 83 
 
 the east, and, on turning round, enjoyed a noble prospect of the convent 
 of Abou Mandour, with its elegant dome and minaret, embosomed in 
 pahn-trees ; and, beyond these, the city and orange-groves of Rosetta, 
 beautified by distance. The Nile is here exceedingly deep ; its banks 
 are perpendicular ; and, notwithstanding the decrease of the inimdation, 
 the water was not many feet below the level of the land. Our path- 
 way, which ran close along the edge of the stream, proved, in many places, 
 barely wide enough to allow of the passing of a single beast between the 
 sand-hills and the water, and so unstable and slippery, that the smallest 
 degree of unsteadiness would inevitably have precipitated us into the 
 Nile. 
 
 For some hours our road still continued to lead through the Desert, 
 or over those fields, once fertile, which its perpetual encroachments have 
 snatched from cultivation ; once, in the midst of this sterile tract, we 
 passed by a lofty ancient tower, in the Saracenic style, standing in the 
 sands, close to the deserted mosque or convent of Mesa. The character 
 of the country now changed. From a bare waste expanse, whose surface 
 is the perpetual plaything of the winds, we entered upon a marsh, adorned, 
 in many parts, by groves of date-trees, and various kinds of shrubs, rushes, 
 reeds, and other aquatic plants. Scattered here and there among these 
 woods and copses were numerous sheets of clear water, which beautifully 
 reflected the passing clouds, and on whose surface were seen, on all sides, 
 snipes, curlews, wild-ducks, with large flights of the white ibis, or paddy- 
 bird, moving hither and thither, or settling on the branches of the trees, 
 like immense snow-drops. The appearance of these diminutive lakes, 
 running in various shapes among low sandy shores, their surface dotted 
 with small bosky islands, or with mud-banks, covered with a thick 
 efilorescence of salt, as white as snow, was exceedingly picturesque. 
 
 At length, after a ride of several hours, we arrived at Tifeny, a village 
 situated on both sides of the Nile, where we were to cross over into the 
 Delta. There being no caravanserai at this place, we halted by a sheikh's 
 tomb close to the river, where our beasts were unladen. Dates, butter 
 and excellent buffalo's milk, with bread, brought from Alexandria, con- 
 stituted our mid-day meal, which we ate sitting in the sun, while the 
 muezzin, from the minaret of a neighbouring mosque, was summoning the 
 faithful to Salak-il-Do/ir, or " noon-prayer," which is generally repeated, 
 however, when the sun begins to decline.* On the margin of the river, 
 various operations connected with the domestic economy of the Arabs, 
 were, at the same time, going on. There was a man cutting up, upon 
 the mud, a l)ufi"alo, which he had just killed, while the dogs were lapping 
 the blood. Three or four parties were engaged about their rude mud ovens 
 baking bread. Several women were employed in turning the entrails inside 
 out, and others in hacking and hewing the reeking limbs for immediate 
 consumption. A little below these was a party of washerwomen. While 
 I was engaged in looking at these different groups, a pretty young female, 
 bareheaded and barefoot, came tripping across the green, to draw water 
 
 * Lane, Modern Egyptians, i. 82.
 
 84 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 from the river. The immodest costume wliich Euripides objects to the 
 Spartan women,* was decent, compared with that of this young Arab 
 matron ; for the open- 
 ing in the blue chemise, 
 the only garment which 
 she wore, not only ex- 
 posed to view the whole 
 of the bosom, but the 
 greater part of the abdo- 
 men. At this, however, 
 I soon ceased to be sur- 
 prised ; for the fair sex, 
 in Egypt, provided they 
 can hide their face, — 
 and it is those of the 
 higher order only who 
 attempt to do this — 
 care not what other part 
 of their person they ex- 
 hibit ; observing that it 
 is by the features alone 
 that one individual is 
 distinguished from an- 
 other, all women being, 
 in other respects, pretty 
 nearly alike. Females 
 of the class immediately 
 above the lowest wear 
 loose calico drawers and 
 a piece of cloth or muslin thrown over the head.t Having filled the jar, our 
 young matron twisted a wisp of straw into a ring, and placed it on her 
 head to hold the vessel, which an Arab, apparently a neighbour, lifted 
 up for her. 
 
 In crossing the ferry, our party occupied three boats, one with a sail, 
 which drew the second after it. The third was rowed across. As soon 
 as we entered the Delta, we observed on every side proofs of its amazing 
 fertility : luxuriant crops of young wheat exquisitely green, exuberant 
 rank grass, plants of gigantic size, beautiful tall tufted reeds, and palms 
 and sycamores of enormous growth. Our road lay along the banks of the 
 Nile, whose muddy waters were now beautifully smooth, and reflected 
 every reed which fringed its margin, and every lazy sail that moved upon 
 its surface. Game abounds prodigiously in these rich plains. Wild ducks, 
 widgeons, snipes, curlews, hoopoes, doves, pigeons, plovers gray and green, 
 partridges, together with hares, and fine large wild boars, are met with in 
 the greatest abundance ; but, the hares and boars requiring too much time 
 and preparation, we confined our attention principally to the doves, snipes, 
 
 Egyptian Oven. 
 
 * History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece. 
 
 j Lane.
 
 HUNTING EXCURSION. 
 
 85 
 
 and wild-ducks. Tvvonty-four birds of all sorts were shot in a few hours, 
 as we went along, and served to exercise the ingenuity of our Arab co(jk 
 in the evening. 
 
 On one occasion, daring a sporting excursion, we found ourselves on tlie 
 hank of a stream which it was necessary to cross; on the other side Ave 
 saw a strapping Arab, and called to him to come and carry us over. Like 
 most of his tribe, he was not troubled with any superfluous clothing, and 
 slipping over his head the fragments of his frock, he was in a moment by 
 our side, in all the majesty of nature. I started first, mounted upon his slij)- 
 pery shoulders, and went along very well until we had got more than lialf-way 
 over, when I becran to observe an irreo-ular totterinff movement, and heard 
 behind me the smothered laugh of my companions. I felt my Arab slowly 
 and deliberately lowering his head ; my feet touched the water ; but with 
 one hand T held my gun above my head, and with the other griped him by 
 the throat. I found myself going, going deeper and deeper, let down with 
 the most studied deliberation, till all at once he gave his neck a sudden 
 toss, jerked his head from under me, and left me standing up to my middle 
 in the stream. I turned round upon him, hardly knowing whether to 
 laugh or to strike him with the butt end of my gun ; but one glance at the 
 l)Oor fellow was enough ; the sweat stood in large drops on his face, and 
 ran down his naked breast ; his knees shook, and he was just ready to drop 
 himself. He had supported me as long as he could; but finding himself 
 failing, and fearing we should both come down together with a splash, at 
 full length, he had lowered me as gently as possible.* 
 
 At about an hour's distance from Fouah we passed a sheikh's, or 
 
 saint's tomb, erected under the shade of a sycamore of extraordinary 
 
 * Stephens, Incidents of Travel.
 
 86 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 size and antiquity, in the trunk of wliicli had been driven a number 
 of large nails, intended to support as many votive offerings, consisting of 
 rags of every possible form and colour. In other parts of Africa, 
 where Pagan superstition still prevails, trees themselves sometimes appear 
 to be the objects of worship, and are adorned by the natives with a 
 number of polished bones.* Here, however, the offerings were made 
 to the saint, in whose honour, elsewhere in Egypt, the women bring 
 offerings of flowers of the hennah-tree, and jasmine and roses, and 
 sprigs of myrtle and palm-leaves.f 
 
 It is not in the villages only that we meet with the tombs of saints ; they 
 frequently, in all parts of Egypt, stand in solitary places, and have usually 
 a fountain and f^mall grove adjoining, where the wandering derwish pauses 
 to pray, and the less pious traveller to quench his thirst, or enjoy the cool 
 shade. These buildings generally consist of a large square apartment, 
 surmounted by a dome, in many cases handsomely fluted ; and some pious 
 or gloomy man commonly devotes himself to the service of the sheikh, and 
 resides in the tomb, where we always find a mat, a «ater-jug, and a small 
 chest to receive the donations of the passer-by. 
 
 On arriving at Fouah, we proceeded to the caravanserai, which stands in 
 the midst of the bazaar ; and, having taken possession of a large apartment, 
 began at once to feather our birds and j)repare for supper. The dates and 
 bananas, which constituted our dessert, were of excellent quality, and the 
 finest Nile water was our beverage. 
 
 Fouah is a large town, picturesquely situated on the right bank of the 
 Nile, in the midst of vast groves of palms and sycamores, and has a small 
 island in front of it, covered with tall reeds.:}: It contains, moreover, high 
 brick houses, with many windows, now partly in ruins, and possesses 
 several mosques, cupolas, minarets, baths and manufactories. § The tar- 
 boosh manufactory, founded by Mohammed Ali, enjoys some celebrity in 
 Egypt, and is in the hands of Tunisians. It is a large building, well con- 
 ducted, and is kept neater and cleaner than any other of the Pasha's other 
 factories. The fulling-mill, moved by a wheel turned by oxen, is placed 
 below the surface of the groimd, and in it stands the driver who urges on 
 the animals. They make some of the best European wool, partly 
 imported from Spain, which, after being carded in small slips, is spim by 
 women and netted into tarbooshes by little girls. || The caps are then taken 
 to the fulling-mill, where they undergo the operation of being cleansed 
 with soap and water of very high temperature, in which they shrink to 
 nearly half their original volume. They are then wrung, put upon blocks 
 to drv, teased and sheared smooth and neat, after whicli they are dyed to 
 any intensity of shade required, though the prevalent opinion is, that the 
 colour is always inferior to that of the Tunisian caps. They are after- 
 wards furbished up with fine shears, brushes, &c., and being marked and 
 mounted with silk, are put under a press. The cattle used in the mills 
 were all in excellent order ; and the working-people of both sexes, 
 
 * Barboot, Book i. chap. 10. + Lane, Modern Egyptians, i. 306. 
 
 :J: Due de Raguse, Voyage, torn. iii. p. 223. § Clot-Bey, Apeifu Ge'n^mlde L'Egypte. 
 II Cadalvene et Breuvcry, torn. i. p. 33,
 
 MANUFACTORIES OF FOUAH. 87 
 
 amounting to two thousand, seemed much better off than the poor devils 
 employed in the cotton-mills. This establishment can manufacture six 
 
 
 thousand caps in a week.* The Pasha used, in time of war, to send in 
 orders for thirty or forty thousand for the army. A finer sort of tar- 
 booshes is likewise turned out here for the Cairo market, where they are 
 made to pass for Tunisian or Fezzani. They formerly produced, for Con- 
 stantinople, tarbooshes higher in the crown, and thicker, than those worn in 
 Egypt, where two, the one a little smaller than the other, are generally 
 used to protect the head from the sun. But the most curious articles pro- 
 duced at Fouah are certain very delicate caps for the Pasha's harem, of 
 the most beautiful texture, and so small as to fit the nipple of the breast ; 
 it being the custom among ladies of rank in the East, to show the bosom 
 through a thin gauze, but to cover the most tender part with red, probably 
 for the sake of eftect. There is also a department for the manufacture of 
 zaboots, or coarse woollen military cloaks for the troops. 
 
 After breakfasting on coffee, eggs, dates, bananas, and most excellent 
 fresh butter, we quitted Fouah about half-past seven o'clock. The morn- 
 ing, though there was a cool breeze stirring, was sunny and beautiful ; 
 and the country so richly wooded, so varied in aspect by different kinds of 
 cultivation, so dotted with villages, and flocks and herds, and flights (if 
 white ibises, that it might well be called picturesque. Our road constantly 
 lay within a short distance of the Nile, and sometimes close along its edge, 
 where there was just I'oom enough to pass between the water and those 
 high banks of earth, or grassy thickets, which, in many places, boi'der the 
 stream. The river, in this part of its course, is much broader than at 
 
 * Due de Raguse, Voyage, torn. iii. p. 225.
 
 88 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Ro'jetta, and here and tliere its cliannel is divided by small fairy islands, 
 thickly covered with wood. Numerous boats with large triangular sails, 
 and manned with Arabs and Nubians, were sailing rapidly along the 
 shore ; some stemming, others taking advantage of the current. The 
 villages are extremely thick in this part of the Delta; and though, in 
 reality, poor and ruinous, their mosques, cupolas, minarets, and white 
 turrets, seen from afar through openings in the forest by which they are 
 surrounded, have an air of importance and grandeur which serves to 
 delight the eye. 
 
 In the course of the afternoon we passed through Ed Desoug, or Deir 
 Ibrahim, a large village, possessing a celebrated mosque, formerly, we are 
 told, held in veneration through(mt Egypt, and visited twice a year by up- 
 wards of two hundred thousand pilgrims. The traveller* to whom we are 
 indebted for this piece of information observes, that the saint interred here 
 performs no greater miracle than suspending, during their pilgrimage to 
 his tomb, the jealousy of all Moslems, since their women, it is said, were 
 allowed extraordinary liberty. Numerous alme, here as elsewhere, per- 
 form their pantomimic dances for the amusement of the multitude. At 
 present Ed Desoug seems no longer to be a place of pilgrimage : at least 
 the inhabitants were unable to give us any information on the subject. 
 
 Ed Desoug occupies the site of the ancient Naucratis, tlie port at which 
 all the Greeks resided during their stay in Egypt, which the Pharaohs 
 granted them in the same w^ay as the Chinese emperors formerly did Canton 
 to the Europeans, as their abode. Here, by permission of Amasis, such 
 Greeks as traded with Egypt built altars and erected sacred inclosures 
 in the neighbourhood of the city, tliough I vainly sought, when on the spot, 
 to discover the slightest trace of them. The nine cities of the lonians, Do- 
 rians, and ^olians, erected, at their common expense, a sacred edifice, which 
 they called Ilellenion. The Ionian cities were Cliios, Teos, Phocea, and 
 Clazomense ; the Dorian — Rhodes, Cnidos, Halicarnassos, and Phaselis ; 
 the iEolian — IMitylene. The ^ginetans raised for their own use a temple 
 to Zeus, the Samians to Hera, the Milesians to Apollo. + At that time, 
 however, Naucratis was tlie only hai'bour in Egypt ; and as this was 
 pretty generally known, ships making land anywhere else were naturally 
 suspected of being pirates, for wliicli reason the captain was required to 
 swear that he bad come thither involuntarily. This done, he had to steer 
 for the Canopic mouth of the Nile ; or, if the weather were contrary, his 
 cargo was conveyed round the Delta in barides to Naucratis, which the 
 historian understood to be done for the benefit of the foreign settlers; 
 so greatly, says he, was Naucratis honoured. At this time, one of the 
 principal articles exported into Egypt by the Greeks Avould appear to 
 have been wine, since all the drink in the country was foreign, the vine 
 not having been as yet introduced. + 
 
 From Ed Desoug we proceeded to Sa el Haggar, or " Sa of the Stones," 
 near which is supposed to have stood Sais, once the capital of Lower 
 Egypt. Long before we reached the place, vast mounds of rubbish were 
 seen rising beliind the village ; and close to the road stood a small rocky 
 
 * Denon, Voyage, p. 54. t HtroJotus, ii. 178. 
 
 + History of the Mauiiers and Customs of Ancient Greece, vol. iii. p. 259.
 
 SA OF THE STONES. 89 
 
 eminence, in the face of which were two or three low openinf^s, like the 
 entrance to so many caverns. Trusting to the assurances which were given 
 lis, that no antiquities whatever existed in this y)lace, we made no stay at 
 Sa el Haggar ; but, although there seems to be no reason to doubt the 
 accuracy of these assertions, I still regret that I did not devote at least one 
 day to the city of Neith, where stood of old the mysterious statue of 
 Nature, with the inscription — " / am all that has been, is, or shall he ; and 
 no mortal hath ever draion aside my veil." Apries, who was conquered at 
 Momemphis by Amasis, had here a magnificent palace ; and his successor, 
 not to be outdone by him in taste or splendour, is said to have constructed 
 in this city propyltea so vast, and built with stones of so prodigious a mag- 
 nitude, that they surpassed in grandeur everything of the kind which had 
 been before seen.* But with Herodotus such expressions are not uncom- 
 mon : he makes use of much the same phrases in speaking of the Labyrinth 
 which the colleagues of Psarameticlius erected in tlic Arsinoitic Nome ; and 
 modern travellers, fond of dealing in the marvellous, repeat the hackneyed 
 tale one after another. 
 
 Next day, having crossed the canal of El Feresak, and passed through 
 the villao-e of Beis, we arrived about noon at Kafr Diami, where we dined 
 in the shade of a beautiful orange and citron grove. The ground was 
 covered with fine green turf, and the trees were filled with doves and 
 pigeons. Directly opposite this village, on the other side of the canal, we 
 observed a great number of men employed in raising an embankment. 
 Among these poor people there appears to exist no idea of modesty or deco- 
 rum ; for the greater number of the men were quite naked, notwithstanding/ 
 that a crowd of women and children — probably their wives, motliers, and 
 daughters — were assembled close by, looking on. The men, in this part of 
 the country, have generally athletic forms, brown complexions, and fine 
 features; and many of the women are good-looking, if not handsome, and 
 have very graceful figures. Boys always go naked to the age of puberty ; 
 the girls have commonly a few rags to cover them. 
 
 The SanU or mimosa tree, whose thin shade is compared by the 
 Arabs to a false friend, who deserts you when most needed, is extremely 
 common, and in some places literally embowers the road, or rather per- 
 haps track, occasionally leading over ploughed fields, intersected with 
 sloughs and ditches. The canals, numerous in this part of the Delta, 
 are generally traversedin ferry-boats ; but we this morning found a fi.ne 
 stone bridge thrown over one of the principal branches of the canal" of 
 Harinen. This is one of the useful works of the Pasha. A few good 
 roads and bridges would do more than a hundred cotton-mills towards 
 amelioratino- the condition of the people — the first step towards genuine 
 civilisation : for though the Nile forms a vast and splendid highway from 
 one end of Egypt to the other, ordinary roads are still wanting, more 
 especially in Lower Egypt. Several children who passed us in the after- 
 noon, mounted astride on buflaloes, possessed extremely fair com]dexions, 
 and one, that particulai-ly attracted my attention, had long light hair, and 
 all the engaging features of a European child. These buffaloes diflfer 
 
 * Euterpe, cap. 175. 
 I 2
 
 90 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 remarkably from these of India, in not having the hump upon the back. 
 They are large awkward animals, with horns turned back flat upon the head, 
 and, like their brethren of Asia, love to roll in the mud, and lie in the 
 water during hot weather, with their noses only appearing above the 
 surface. 
 
 The buffiilo does not appear to be indigenous in Egypt ; * for it is never 
 represented on ancient monuments, nor found in the mummy state. It is 
 said tliat it was introduced after the conquest of the Arabs. The climate 
 and soil of the country agree admirably with this animal. The breed is, 
 in fact, multiplied with tlie greatest facility, and has acquired a very fine 
 size. The Egyptian buffaloes have little hair; the colour of their skin is 
 black or iron-gray. They live so much in the water that they might almost 
 be called amphibious. Though fierce in aspect, they are in reality extremely 
 gentle, and do not possess the suspicious ferocity of the buffalo of Europe, 
 and particularly of Romagna. The females yield on an average from seven 
 to eight quarts of excellent milk a-day. The Arabs have not as yet ren- 
 dered the prodigious strength of the buffalo useful, by employing it in 
 domestic labour. Its flesh is very coarse, and is eaten only by the humbler 
 classes. 
 
 Wilkinson observes, that he has met in the ancient sculptures witli no 
 representation of the buffalo ; though, from its being now so common in the 
 country, and indigenous in Abyssinia, he infers that it was not unknown 
 to the ancient Egyptians. The Indian, or humped ox, was common in 
 former times, and is abundant in Upper Ethiopia, though no longer a 
 native of Egypt. Like other cattle, it was used for sacrifice as well as 
 for ti:e table ; and large herds were kept in the farms of the wealthy 
 Egyptians, by whom the meat, particularly the hump on the shoulder, was 
 doubtless esteemed as a dainty. It is sometimes represented, decked with 
 flowers and garlands, on its way to the altar ; but there is no appear- 
 ance of its having been emblematic of any deity, or of having held a post 
 among the sacred animals of the country, -f- 
 
 Some time before arriving at our halting-place, I had separated from the 
 rest of the company, and was riding on alone. One of our Arabs, wlio 
 understood a little of that strange kind of Italian spoken at Alexandria, 
 immediately deserted the sumpter animals, and stuck close to my skirts. 
 I desired him to leave me and attend to his charge ; but, as he did not 
 i\ppear to understand me, I repeated the same thing twice or three times; 
 and at length became rather angry. He then shovved me his stick, and, 
 pointing across the field to several fellahs, who were at work, replied : 
 " I will not leave you here alone. Those Arabs are bad men ; but they 
 will not touch you while I am by. When the other gentlemen come up, 
 I will attend to the baggage." I told him I wore pistols. " No matter," 
 said he, '• your pistols are but two, and the Arabs are a thousand." There 
 were at most tliirty persons within sight, but this is their manner of speak- 
 ing. " Very well, Mohammed," I replied, " you may stay ;" and he 
 accordingly trotted behind me as long as he tliought proper. 
 
 * Clot-Bey, Apercu General de I'Egypte, t. i. p. 175. 
 t Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptiaus, vol. v. p. 199.
 
 A SHEIKH IN WANT OP WINE. 91 
 
 We arrived about nightfall at Tookh-el-Nassera, where we were lodged 
 in the house of the Sheikh of the village. The room assigned to us was 
 in the upper part of the building, and approached by a narrow flight of 
 steps on the outside, as is the fashion in Switzerland. While our people 
 were preparing supper, which they did in the open air, we witnessed a 
 ])roof of that degeneracy of manners among the Moslems, which unhappily 
 ])re vails, more or less, throughout the East. The Sheikli, accompanied by 
 several persons, came in the course of the evening to pay us a visit, from 
 hospitable motives, as we at first supposed. Our agreeable delusion was 
 soon dispelled ; he had brought some papers in his hands, which, as he had 
 no lamp at home, he requested permission to read by our candle. Of 
 course, we were too happy to be able to oblige him. He therefore spelled 
 over the documents, slowly and deliberately ; and from the gravity of his 
 visage, one might have conjectured that they related to matters of import- 
 ance. Probably, however, he had perused them a dozen times before. At 
 any rate, their contents no way disturbed his equanimity; but, interrupting 
 himself in the midst of his task, he, with a most knowing and waggish look, 
 requested we would favour him and his friends with a little wine. For 
 the best of all reasons, we were compelled to appear inhospitable in his 
 eyes. We assured him that it was not, while travelling, our practice to 
 drink wine, especially in Egypt, where the water of the Nile was so excel- 
 lent. He was incredulous, and grinned, and joked, and looked insinuating, 
 fully persuaded that he should overcome our obduracy at last. When the 
 wine, however, appeared not to be fortlicoming, he whispered something 
 about brandy. One of my companions, full of mischief, and fond of playing 
 tricks upon the Arabs, proposed that we should dose them with Eau cle 
 Cologne ; but this having been overruled, our guests departed, disgusied 
 by what they, no doubt, regarded as a proof of Prankish meanness. 
 
 This scene over, I wrapped myself in my burtioose, and went forth to 
 observe the appearance of an Arab village by night. The lanes were 
 dark and narrow, and the dogs, barking as I passed, brought out many an 
 old woman to the door. The majority, indeed, had retired to rest ; but in 
 several cottages, and in one large building, I heard the sound of the spinning- 
 wheel, which, as I was unluckily compelled to observe, continued at work 
 all night. Tookh being a walled village, there stood at every gate a senti- 
 nel keeping watch as in a besieged city — aproof of the insecurity in which the 
 peasantry pass their lives. Returning, I retired to bed with the rest, one 
 of whom had a fever, another the dysentery. Few slept much, and myself 
 not at all ; for the fleas, bugs, musquitoes, and other vermin, literally 
 swarmed, and the rats and mice, rummaging in the baskets of provisions, 
 biting each other, squeaking, creeping down the walls, leaping upon our 
 feet or breasts, eflectually put sleep to flight. I might have very properly 
 exclaimed with Cowley — 
 
 " The halcyon sleep will never build his nest 
 In any stormy breast. 
 'Tis not enough that he does find 
 Clouds and darkness in their mind, 
 
 Darkness but half his work will do; ; 
 
 'Tis not enough ; he must find quiet too."
 
 92 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 There being every possible inducement to early rising, we were up long 
 before four o'clock ; and, having taken coffee, and saddled and bridled our 
 beasts, were prepared to start with the dawn. Sooner than this we could 
 not, as our asinarii were unacquainted with the tracks which, the waters 
 of the inundation not having yet retired, were exceedingly circuitous and 
 intricate ; but as soon as the light began to appear in the east, we took our 
 leave of the musquitoes and rats of Tookh-el-Nassera. It was a fine 
 serene morning ; the skylarks were already busy among the gray clouds; 
 the peasants afield ; and I watched with unusual interest the unfolding of 
 the landscape, as its rich and varied features came forth one after anotlier. 
 A vast canal, which we crossed about six o'clock, supplied witli its wind- 
 ing course and reedy banks the place of a river, and the wliole face of the 
 country, green and level as a meadow, was beautifully ornamented with small 
 tufted groves of the mimosa tree, intermingled with ])alms and sycamores. 
 After passing through two or three smaller villages, we arrived, about 
 half-past ten o'clock, at Shihin-el-Kom, a place of some consideration, where 
 the Paslia has erected an extensive factory. Here we entered into a large 
 garden, and breakfasted under the shade of orange and citron-trees. While 
 the coffee was boihng, we were enlivened by what, in popular phraseology, 
 may be termed a row between two or three men, and a woman who 
 appeared to be the proprietor's wife. Upon promise of a small reward, she 
 had permitted us to enter the garden, which the husband on arriving 
 thought proper to take amiss, and began to jDour forth a torrent of abuse 
 upon his helpmate. She returned his vituperation with interest ; and, in 
 
 the end, though he was backed by 
 two of his workmen, whose tongues 
 were to the full as loud as his ovvn, 
 the matron, who from time to time 
 pointed at us with her finger, clearly 
 gained the victory, and sent them 
 all away grumbling to their work. 
 Another young female, with a child 
 in her arms, who seemed to have 
 entered the garden in order to gaze 
 at us, was tattooed in an extraordi- 
 nary manner, having several lines of 
 small figures running across the chin, 
 a row of blue stars and flowers on the 
 inside of the arm, and round the 
 wrists a very curious imitation of 
 bracelets. This practice prevails 
 more or less among all Arab 
 women, especially of the humbler 
 classes, whose chins are generally 
 thus disfigured ; in addition to 
 which, some imprint the form of a small flower on the left breast, or 
 three small circles in the space between the breasts, others on the backs 
 of the hands and feet ; but I have nowhere observed a person so ingeniously 
 
 'j'attcioud remalc
 
 FAIR OF TANTA. 93 
 
 ornamontccl as tins young woman. The punctures, as among the South 
 Sea Islanders, are made with the points of needles, generally seven tied 
 together. Some smoke-black of wood or oil, mixed with milk from a 
 woman's breast, is then rubbed in, and in about a week, before the skin is 
 quite healed, a paste of the pounded fresh leaves of white beet or clover is 
 applied, and gives a blue or greenish colour to the marks. It is generally 
 performed at the age of about five or six years, and by gipsy women. 
 The term applied to it is duk. jMost of the females of the higher parts of 
 Upper Egypt, who ai'e of a very dark complexion, tattoo their lips instead 
 of the parts above mentioned ; thus converting their natural colour into a 
 dull blueish hue, which to the eye of a stranger is extremely displeasing.* 
 
 It may be added, that the Coptic women generally, among the tattooed 
 ornaments of tlieir breasts, introduce the figure of a cross. The process is 
 highly dangerous ; fevers almost invariably ensue, which sometimes termi- 
 nate fatally. 
 
 A little to the north of Shibin-el-Kom, the canal of Tanta joins that of 
 Harinen. We were here tempted to turn aside from our direct track to visit 
 Tanta, a city celebrated throughout the East for the saints which reside in it, 
 and the number of pilgrims by which it is annually frequented. I once met 
 in the Libyan Desert a holy man, accompanied by two servants, who after 
 having visited the shrine of Sheik-el-Bedawy, at Tanta, was proceeding 
 towards the banks of the White River to converse with a celebrated saint, 
 who resided there. Pilgrims are constantly passing to and fro between 
 the several holy ])laces of the Mohammedan world ; and wherever there is 
 a remarkable shrine numbers of devout personages, who gradually acquire 
 the reputation of saints, are sure to settle near it, and attract visitors. 
 Tanta in this respect is to Egypt what Haridwara is to Hindustan, and 
 Mecca to Arabia — the most distinguished place of pilgrimage, and the 
 most remarkable resort of merchants, traders, and pleasure-seekers, from 
 all parts of the world. We were of course anxious to behold the fair, and 
 the great variety of amusements by which it is enlivened. It happened, 
 huwever, that we were disappointed. We arrived " the day after the 
 fair," notwithstanding which our curiosity was not altogether disappointed. 
 The town occupies a little ridge running north and soutli : to the east is 
 seen a kind of hill, or rather, huge heap of rubbish. We passed through 
 two gates and two walls of inclosure in entering. The houses are built of 
 unburnt brick ; and the streets are dirty and narrow. Shops occur every- 
 where. The fair, although over, had bequeathed for a while to the city 
 an animated appearance. 
 
 We visited a great many okellas, where are laid up all kinds of mer- 
 chandise ; one of these okellas contained black slaves. Tanta possesses 
 many bazaars, one devoted to silks, another to cloths and stutfs, another 
 to corn, another to agricultural instruments. We went to the great 
 j\Iosque, the most I'emai'kable building in the town ; the edifice occupies a 
 considerable raised space in the centre of the city ; the two minarets of 
 white stone may be seen afar off : they have two galleries, and are sur- 
 
 * Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, vol. i. p. 46 ; vol. ii. p. 310.
 
 •84 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 mounted by a crescent with balls of bronze. The dome of the mosque is 
 covered with lead ; the walls of the sanctuaiy are marble ; under the dome 
 stands the tomb of Sidi- Ahmet Bedawy. An iron railing surrounds the 
 sarcophagus, which is covered over with silk. Here and there were fine 
 columns, removed no doubt from some temple of Isis ; around the sacred 
 inclosure we were shown a reservoir for ablutions, the dwellings of the 
 Imams who officiate in the mosque, a bake-house, a kitchen where food 
 for the poor is prepared, and, not far from the temple, a sort of fish-pond, 
 in which, every evening, the infirm and the sick come to bathe, in hopes 
 of obtaining a miraculous cure. The mosque, at all hours of the day, and 
 especially at the hour of prayer, is filled with a great multitude of the 
 faithful — women and men mingled ; conversation is carried on aloud, the 
 pipe is smoked, articles of female dress and children's toys are sold. 
 
 The Sheikh Bedawy lived in the thirteenth century, and established 
 himself at Tanta about the time when St. Louis landed in Egypt. As he 
 died with a great reputation for sanctity, a tomb and a chapel were in the 
 first instance raised in his honour. In the next century, the Sultan Malek- 
 el-Nar built him a mosque, and to this a great number of Mussulmans were 
 attracted by devotion ; commerce followed in the track of tlie pilgrims, 
 and from the earliest times there Avas held at Tanta an annual fair, 
 whither flocked merchants from India, Syria, Persia, Asia Minor, and all 
 parts of Africa. The famous Ali Bey rebuilt the Mosque of Sheikh 
 Bedawy ; at the same time many great okellas were erected in the city 
 of Tanta. 
 
 The mosque, which was richly endowed, fed numbers of poor people ; 
 and the city afibrded to travellers and merchants all kinds of amusements 
 and merchandise. The influx of strangers, therefore, increased every year, 
 and amounted in times of peace to as many as one hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand. The mosque of Tanta has now been deprived of its revenues, the 
 Pasha of Egypt at present defraying all the expenses of the establishment. 
 Every year he sends the red silken cloth which covers the holy man's sar- 
 cophagus ; and he pays all who officiate in tlie mosque, or are employed 
 about it. Their number is considerable. Poor pilgrims are fed by the 
 charity of the faitliful ; the rich kill buffiiloes, oxen, and sheep, for the 
 mosque; the fellahs bring fowls, pigeons, ducks, geese, rice, onions, cab- 
 bages, and other vegetables. All these ofl:erings of devotion are cast into 
 great caldrons, and distributed every day to the multitude, who offer 
 thanks to the patron of the place. 
 
 Women upon whom nature has inflicted the curse of barrenness, come to 
 ask a remedy from the Sheikh Bedawy. This singular species of devotion lias 
 always brought great crowds to Tanta, and profligacy has not failed to 
 follow in the train of superstition. The alme of Cairo, of Upper Egypt, 
 of the Delta, and the shores of the Nile, flock to this place during the first 
 half of April, In their train come mountebanks, singers, musicians, whose 
 task it is to enliven the multitude ; men and women appear in the mosque, 
 repeat a prayer before the tomb of the saint, then spread themselves 
 through the city and in the coffee-houses that cover the plain. Every- 
 where are pitched tents, which soon become the abode of amusement and
 
 FAIR OF TANTA. 95 
 
 pleasure ; on all sides shows and dances are seen ; and the sound of the 
 tambourine is heard, with the noise of castanets, and voices that call to the 
 passers-by from beneath a screen of verdure, or a tent of reeds : " Tale ! 
 tale !" — " Come, come !" 
 
 After having visited the city, still filled with merchants, and the envi- 
 rons, where thousands of stalls and tents remained standing, we i-epaired 
 to the hill before mentioned, which forms so conspicuous an object. It is 
 an enormous collection of rubbish and unburnt bricks, and presents in some 
 places a precipitous face. Certain travellers have considered that this 
 mound marks the site of an ancient city, the name of which is not known. 
 It has been long the cemetery of Tanta, and is covered with monumental 
 stones ; some surmounted by a turban, others bearing inscriptions of sen- 
 tences from the Koran. Before many tombs lighted lamps were placed. 
 Groups of women and children were praying in the place, and their pious 
 abstraction formed a singular contrast with the sound of tambourines with 
 wiiich the plain was filled. In descending the hill on the north side, we 
 came to the cattle-bazaar, where, during the fair, a prodigious quantity of 
 sheep, camels, buffliloes, and oxen, had been offered for sale. Horses, 
 also, of the Delta breed, are brought thither ; and it is to this market that 
 the butchers of Cairo, and even Rosetta and Alexandria, repair to obtain 
 their cattle.* 
 
 The following adventure was related to us at Tanta : — A European 
 merchant, born in Egypt, happening to be at the fair some years back, 
 dressed in the Oriental style, was arrested by the police on some pretext 
 or other, and imagined that his character of Frank gave him a right to 
 strike the chief of the guard. Being led before the Nazir, he could not, 
 for want of a passport, prove his European origin, which was not at all 
 confirmed by the facility with which he spoke the language of the country. 
 In spite of his protestations, accordingly he received one hundred strokes 
 with the koorbash on his back. On his return to Alexandria, he laid his 
 complaint before his consul ; in consequence of whose energetic remon- 
 strances the Nazir was condemned to receive the same number of blows he 
 had administered. But this individual, high in credit with the Viceroy, 
 obtained permission to send his khaznadar, or treasurer, in his stead. This 
 officer, therefore, thus made the representative of the Nazir, received the 
 hundred strokes with the koorbash in presence of the consul and the beaten 
 merchant, who actually consented to this substitution !t 
 
 For some time after leaving Shibin-el-Kom, we proceeded along the stream 
 formed by the jimction of the canals of Tanta and Ilarinen, which, though 
 an artificial cut, possesses all the beauty of a natural river, its winding banks 
 being richly adorned with plantations of orange and lemon-trees, whose 
 golden fruit, now ripe, and clustering thick among the deep-green foliage, 
 glowed in the sun. The earth in many places was beautifully carpeted with 
 tender green corn ; and groves of sant, tamarisks, acacias, and sycamores, 
 exhibiting all shades of verdure, formed a remarkable contrast with the 
 fields of ripe yellow grain, which clothed every broad glade and opening 
 
 * Micliaud et Poujoulat. t Cadalvene et Bieuvcrj-.
 
 96 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 vista with an air of opulence and abundance. Indeed, the land had here all 
 the characteristics of the finest park scenery, and at one particular bend of 
 the river greatly resembled the landscape on the Thames below Richmond. 
 Our track lay almost constantly along the banks of the great canals, so that 
 we probably saw the most fertile part of the country ; Ijut as small arms or 
 branches from the main streams ramificate, like veins, in every direction, 
 there can nowhere, I imagine, be any lack of rich corn-fields or noble 
 pasturage. Yet in the midst of this magnificent plain, lying between the 
 canal of Menouf and the Damietta branch of the Nile, fertile even to rank- 
 ness, the poorest villages perhaps in Egypt are found. The Nile overflows, 
 and the sun ripens in vain. Misgovernment more than counterbalances 
 the bounty of nature, and leaves the wretched peasant pining with want 
 in the midst of luxuriant harvests and well-filled granaries. 
 
 The ruined cities which attract the traveller into Egypt, their temples 
 and tombs, the enduring monuments of its former greatness, do not yet 
 present themselves. The modern villages are all built of mud or of unburnt 
 bricks, and sometimes, at a distance, beinff surrounded by palm-trees, 
 make a pleasing appearance ; but this vanishes the moment you approach 
 them. The houses, or rather huts, are so low that a man can seldom stand 
 up in them, with a hole in front like the door of an oven, into which the 
 miserable Arab crawls, more like a beast than a being made to walk in 
 God's image. The same spectacle of misery and wretchedness, of poverty, 
 famine, and nakedness, which I had seen in the suburbs of Alexandria, con- 
 tinued to meet me at every village on the Nile, and soon suggested the 
 interesting consideration, whether all this came from country and climate, 
 from the character of the people, or from the government of the great 
 reformer. At one place, I saw on the banks of the river forty or fifty 
 men chained together, with iron bands around their wrists, and iron collars 
 around their necks. Yesterday they were peaceful Fellahs, cultivators of 
 the soil, earning their scanty bread by hard and toilsome labour, but eating 
 it at home in peace. Another day, and the stillness of their life is for ever 
 broken ; chased, run down, and caught, torn from their homes, from the 
 sacred threshold of the mosque, the sword and musket succeed the imple- 
 ments of their quiet profession ; tliey are carried away to fight battles in a 
 cause which does not concern them, and in which, if they conquer, they 
 can never gain. * 
 
 On arriving at Bershaum, we found that the Sheikh el Beled, who had 
 several villages under his government, was absent, and not expected to return 
 that night ; in consequence of which we for some time inquired in vain for a 
 lodging, and began to think of passing the night in the street ; but at length 
 some good-natured Arab consented to accommodate us with a cow-house, 
 and another small chamber capable of containing two beds. 
 
 The inhabitants of the village crowded round us with all sorts of things 
 for sale, and beset us so closely that we were obliged to station our people 
 round to keep them off in some degree. As many of them had the same 
 kind of goods, we had often some difficulty in choosing the person with 
 
 * Stephens, Incidents of Travel.
 
 MARKETING IN THE EAST. 
 
 97 
 
 whom we would deal ; for, tliougli the competition was so great, they 
 never oflfered to undersell each other, but adhered with plaguy unanimity 
 all of them to one price. At last our friend, who usually took charge of 
 the commissariat department, got over the difficulty with his accustomed 
 cleverness, by making no purchase except from the youngest and prettiest 
 women, whereat the old ones set up a tremendous screeching, and there 
 was such a comical squabbling and fighting, that we were compelled, by 
 dint of laughter, to put an end to the market. Nothing could be more 
 ludicrous than the almost frantic eagerness with which the women ran up 
 with their heavy burthens, and strove, with all sorts of coaxing and wheed- 
 ling, to obtain custom. One of them, for instance, would have a basket of 
 butter and eggs on her head, some fowls in one hand, and a pitcher of milk 
 in the other, ^ and all 
 this they balanced so 
 adroitly, that in spite 
 of the pushing and driv- 
 ing, nothing was spilt or 
 broken. Each woman 
 had generally one or 
 two dirty little brats 
 holding fast by her blue 
 shift, which they never 
 ventured to let go from 
 fear of the Franks. The 
 poor little things fared, 
 therefore, very roughly 
 in the confusion ; many 
 a time they were laid 
 sprawling, and their 
 shrill wailings mingled 
 harmoniously with the 
 screeching of the wo- 
 men. At last we had 
 completed our necessary 
 purchases; we did not 
 require much, for it was 
 the last day we should 
 have to cook our own 
 pillaus and fowls. We withdrew into the shed to get rid of the throng, 
 with which, for many reasons, we were not desirous of coming in close 
 contact.* 
 
 The floor of the cow-house, where we dined, was thickly strewed with 
 dhoura straw ; and our lantern, shaken to pieces by the jolting of the road, 
 placed upon the earthen vessel which contained our butter, was often upset 
 among the straw, to the no small danger of the whole tenement. How- 
 ever, our Arab cook, accustomed to scanty conveniences, served up an 
 
 Egyptian Woman. 
 
 * Hackliindcr, DagiieiTcotypen, u. s. w.
 
 98 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 excellent supper, consisting of doves, snipes, quails, &c., stewed in onions ; 
 and our long day*'s journey had provided us with an appetite. 
 
 Next morning, being desirous of reaching Cairo before sunset, we set out 
 soon after dawn, through a thick white fog, like those which during the 
 preceding winter I had seen covering the great plains of Burgundy. Though 
 our course on quitting Bershaum lay close along the Damietta branch of 
 the Nile, we could at first discover nothing beyond the mere edge of the 
 stream ; but as the fog cleared up a little, and suffered us to discover the 
 opposite bank, this arm of the river expanded before us in all its mag- 
 nificence. By degrees, as the sun gained force, a light breeze sprang up, 
 and began to dissipate the vapour, which was driven along like sleet, 
 leaving the whole earth drenched as after a heavy shower. Every object 
 beheld through this mist appeared greatly magnified ; a man riding an ass 
 seemed to be mounted on a camel, and a little boy looked like a man. The 
 heat of the sun now became very powerful ; every person felt oppressed, 
 and our animals moved along faintly and languidly — the efiect of humidity ; 
 for in Upper Egypt and Nubia, where the heat is far greater, no sucli 
 languor is experienced. 
 
 At Shubr-es-Shawieh we crossed the Nile, and entered what is 
 generally called the Land of Goslien, the residence of the Beni Israel, 
 once fertile and flourishing, but now more than half deserted, and 
 rapidly assimilating in character and features to the desert. At Kelioub, 
 the capital of this district, our party halted to breakfast. There, 
 beneath a spreading sycamore, we foimd a kind of hedge coffee-house, 
 the landlord having kindled a fire between two piles of loose bricks, 
 and spread his mat under the shelter of a mud wall. We took up 
 our position on the other side of the tree, and while some proceeded to 
 the village in search of dates, eggs, milk, and butter, the remainder under- 
 took to boil rice and prepare coffee. The Pasha's monopoly having 
 rendered the real Mokha exceedingly scarce and dear, the poor Arabs have 
 long been fain to content themselves with a very inferior American sub- 
 stitute, which, in order to render it more palatable, they sometimes flavour 
 with cloves or cardamom seed. Occasionally they impart a peculiar flavour 
 to the coffee, by fumigating their cups with the smoke of mastic ; " and 
 the wealthy," observes Lane, " sometimes impregnate the coffee with the 
 delicious fragrance of ambergris." * But the beverage which the man of 
 Goshen distributed to the wayfarers in Kelioub, was the clove mixture 
 above mentioned. This being exceedingly hot to the palate, was much 
 relished by the natives. My companions, who ventured on a single cup, 
 thought it execrable, though to me it seemed not much amiss. When our 
 meal was ready, we sat down and ate it under the tree ; and a poor old 
 beggar, who had previously established himself there, and whom we per- 
 mitted to share with us, called down tlie blessings of Allah on our 
 unbelieving heads. Charity covereth a multitude of sins. He was pro- 
 bably one of those derwishes, who travel about the country from village to 
 village, appealing to the charity of the people in the name of God " the 
 
 * Modern Egyptians, vol. i. p. 169.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN JUSTICE. 99 
 
 Compassionate, the Merciful," and wlio, to the honour of the Egyptians be 
 it spoken, are never allowed to want. Frequently these men are treated 
 and spoken of as impostors, and some of the fraternity are doubtless no 
 better. In many instances they go about mounted on horseback, and 
 accompanied by two or three men carrying flags or beating drums, for the 
 purpose, I suppose, of rousing in their countrymen the sleeping spirit of 
 charity. 
 
 It was at Kelioub that I for the first time tasted the conserve of dates, 
 so well known in the East, made in the latter end of autumn, when the 
 fruit is perfectly ripe, by taking out the stones, and then pressing them in 
 thick masses together. This conserve will keep all the year, and is extremely 
 well tasted ; but, in some cases, when no care has been taken to cleanse 
 the fruit, a number of sandy particles are found grating under the teeth. 
 Near the sycamore-tree was a large pond of water, left by the inundation, 
 vv'hich served as fountain, washing-place, and horse-pond to the whole 
 village. 
 
 Kelioub, where there are several factories and cotton mills, is very much 
 frequented on account of the cattle-market held there every week. After 
 a long walk through its dark and iiarrow streets, we went to see the 
 Memour, who received us in the most friendly manner. Whilst he was 
 giving us some information about the province under his government, four 
 men were brought before him accused of murder. These unhappy beings 
 were immediately sent to the kihaya, or secretary, to be interrogated. 
 He reported in a quarter of an hour, that from the confusion exhibited in 
 their answers, he doubted not that they were the assassins of the Eftendi 
 killed some days before. 
 
 " Good ; inquire of the authorities at Cairo, by means of the telegraph, 
 what I am to do with them." 
 
 The answer was not long w^aited for — 
 
 " Since their guilt is evident," was the message of the chief of the council, 
 " let them be executed." 
 
 It was market day. Besides, as we were bound for Cairo, the Memour 
 was glad that we should be able to give a good account of the way in 
 which he administered justice in his province. Orders were consequently 
 given to hang these unfortunate men, who in all probability were innocent, 
 that very day. We were present at the execution. 
 
 The four prisoners were taken out of a kind of warehouse, where they 
 had been confined for want of a prison, and led to a little open place near 
 the ]\Iemour's house. The merchants there assembled remained squatting 
 by the side of their goods, and saw with the most perfect indifference these 
 wretched men pass by under a guard of six soldiers and a sergeant. Every 
 one continued to attend quietly to his own affairs ; and had it not been 
 for the cries of the women and children who followed to the place of 
 execution their fathers, their husbands, their only friends, one might have 
 thought that nothing was to happen out of the established order of every- 
 day life. 
 
 Four gibbets had been erected at the four corners of the place. The 
 soldiers asked the neighbours for some cords ; but they were luxuries
 
 100 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 tliat nobody possessed. The sergeant therefore went and brought some 
 twine, which the soldiers instantly set about plaiting. Some standers-by 
 obligingly offered their assistance to perform this operation, whilst the 
 condemned looked on with tranquillity, without thinking of attempting to 
 escape, which would have been easy enough, their hands only being care- 
 lessly tied behind their backs, and nobody paying any particular attention 
 to them. 
 
 The fatal moment at length arrived. The younger was chosen to be 
 hanged first. 
 
 " Blockhead ! that is not the way to go about it," said one of the soldiers 
 to his companion, who was about to fasten the cord in the first instance 
 round the neck of the victim; "better tie it first to the gibbet." 
 
 Upon this he ordered one of the spectators to bring him a ladder, and 
 made the necessary preparation to despatch the condemned man, who, 
 being taken round the waist by another soldier, was raised without offering 
 the slightest resistance, and soon expired, after having protested his inno- 
 cence. Three of these unhappy men had already ceased to exist ; the last 
 remaining was an old man, with a white beard, surrounded by his wife and 
 children, and who, in answer to their sobs and shrieks, contented himself 
 with repeating that he was innocent. 
 
 " Ah !" said the sergeant to one of his soldiers, " if you were to go to 
 the Memour, and ask the life of this poor old man, he might, perhaps, 
 spare it — go !" 
 
 The soldier, carelessly shouldering his gun, repaired slowly to the 
 governor to fulfil his mission. In the meantime the old man tranquilly 
 conversed with his family. A few ininutes only had passed before the 
 soldier reappeared ; at sight of him a gleam of hope and joy brightened the 
 faces of the women ; but soon their cries and sobs were redoubled ; the 
 Memour had refused a pardon. 
 
 " 'Tis a pity," said the sergeant ; " this old man seems an honest fellow ; 
 but his last hour is come." 
 
 Whilst pronouncing these words he himself passed the cord round the 
 neck of the condemned, who, after having embraced with wonderful resig- 
 nation his wife and children, simply exclaimed, " God is great !" 
 
 The small number of persons whom curiosity had drawn to witness this 
 sad spectacle, now slowly dispersed among the neighbouring coffee-shops ; 
 and very soon nothing was to be heard but the sound of musical instru- 
 ments, and the song of the alme.* 
 
 Remounting our beasts we pushed on towards Cairo. The slight haze, 
 which had all the morning obstructed our view, now cleared away, and we 
 discovered, on the edge of the Libyan desert, the apex of the Pyramids. 
 Upon this I felt that I was in Egypt. But, notwithstanding the ideas, 
 manifold and mysterious as they are, which history has invincibly con- 
 nected, in our mind, with these pi'odigious structures, they by no means, 
 when first beheld from afar, excite those powerful emotions of astonish- 
 ment and admiration to which the sublimity of nature gives birth. On the 
 
 * Cadalvene et Bveuverv.
 
 DISTANT VIEW OF THE PYKAMIDS, 101 
 
 contrary, when beginning to loom upon you across the desert, througli 
 openings in the palm forests, they appear little better than large brick-kilns. 
 In fact, you only see a small portion of their upper part. But when you 
 consider that you are still at the distance of a long day's journey ; that these 
 fair proportions are apparently curtailed by the mere rotundity of the globe ; 
 that they have withstood the wear and tear of three thousand years; and 
 that, if left entirely to the action of the elements, tliey will probably equal 
 the world itself in duration, your imagination begins to take fire, and 
 acquires, by degrees, a just conception of the sublime design of the architect. 
 As we rode along, the eye, thus aided by the imagination, which alone 
 vivifies and endues this sublunaiy scene with beauty, began to be fami- 
 liarised with them, to measure them more accurately, and to transmit to 
 the mind a juster idea of their magnitude and grandeur. Every other 
 object, from this time, was forgotten. They occupied and filled the v^diole 
 
 mind ; and as we drew nearer and nearer, they seemed to lift themselves 
 up, like giants, far above everything around — the monuments and the tombs 
 of an extinct people, whose bones and ashes, gathered together, might all 
 have been hidden within the dimensions of those prodigious edifices. Two 
 only of the Pyramids are at first visible ; and it is some time before that of 
 Mycerinus appears. As you advance, those of Cheops and Cephrenes seem 
 to join at the base : you behold two points apparently rising from one foun- 
 dation, and, shortly afterwards, the former entirely masks the latter, and 
 they appear to be reduced to one. 
 
 Arriving at Shoubra, we passed through the grounds of the Pasha^s 
 palace, and entered that grand avenue which leads all the way from thence 
 to Cairo. The road, raised several feet above the surrounding country, to 
 keep up the communication with the city during the inundation,* is here at 
 least a hundred feet in breadth, and bordered on either side by a row of 
 noble sycamores, acacias, mimosas, and tamarisks, the successors of those 
 mulberries which Mohammed Ali had at one swoop cut down,t and whose 
 branches, meeting above in many places, form a verdant arch, at all times 
 impervious to the rays of the sun. The views on both sides are magnificent. 
 
 * Wilde, Narrative, i. 330. f Mrs. Lusbington, Narrative, p. 122.
 
 102 EGYPT AxXD NUBIA. 
 
 Close at hand, on the right, is the Nile, with its whole surface trembling 
 and ghttering in the sun ; numerous small barks, with lateen sails, moving 
 up and down the stream ; and, beyond these, a richly cultivated country 
 backed by the desert. On the left, between the stems of the trees, we 
 could perceive Cairo itself, with its walls, and minarets, and domes, and 
 towers, basking in the sun, apparently at the very foot of the Porphyry 
 mountains, which, unlike all others, appear red at a distance, even when 
 their tops seem to blend with the sky. When the Pasha is at Shoubra 
 " the couriers passing and repassing upon their dromedaries, at a rapid pace, 
 to the royal residence, and the number of persons who throng this avenue, 
 give spirit and animation to the scene."* 
 
 Beheld from afar, Cairo truly appears worthy to be the metropolis of 
 Egypt ; skirted by groves and gardens, its light, airy structures seem to be 
 based upon a mass of verdure ; long lines of buildings, white, glittering, 
 and infinitely varied in form, rise behind each other ; and the palace and 
 citadel, cresting a steep projection of the Mokattam ridge, conduct the eye 
 to that vast rocky barrier which protects the Victorioust city from the 
 blasts of the desert. At the termination of the grand avenue, where the 
 road from Boolak unites with that of Shoubra, immense mounds of rubbish, 
 with the appearance of natural eminences, obstruct the view of the Nile ; 
 but, on the left, the eye is still refreshed by the sight of numerous gardens 
 of banana, lemon, orange and citron-trees, laden with ripe fruit, and scat- 
 tering through the air a faint but delicious perfume. The Alexandrians 
 had tauglit me to expect a very diiFerent prospect. Tlie entrance from 
 Shoubra to the capital, they said, was mean, naked, insignificant; but I 
 found it otherwise. In fact, the near view of the city from this side was 
 more imposing than the distant one. Lofty garden walls, over which long 
 regular rows of palm-trees were waving their elegant pendulous branches ; 
 houses, in many cases new, spacious, and furnished with glass windows, or 
 very neat lattice-work, conducted us to the place Esbekeyah, an immense 
 square, containing large sheets of water, fields of green corn, and groves of 
 towering sycamores ; and traversed by a fine, broad gravel walk, over which 
 crowds of people were passing to and fro, some on foot, others on horses, 
 or asses, or camels, or dromedaries, in every variety of costume, from the 
 meanest to the most gorgeous. Two sides of this immense square, equal in 
 dimensions to the Champ de Mars at Paris, or upwards of sixty acres, are 
 surrounded by palaces, one of which, during the French expedition, was 
 occupied by Napoleon ; on the other sides are ranges of lofty antique struc- 
 tures, which, though considerably dilapidated, have still a striking Oriental 
 air, resembling, in some respects, the architectural palaces of Prout and 
 Canaletti. In one of the gardens extending behind this square General 
 Kleber was assassinated by a janisary. During the month of September, 
 when the inundation of the Nile attains its greatest height, the whole area 
 of this square was formerly filled with water many feet deep, on which 
 floated numerous barks, illuminated during the night. Having crossed this 
 
 * Wilde, Narrative, i. 330. 
 f Masr cl Kabira, or " the Victorious," ihe Oriental name of Cairo.
 
 MOVEMENT OF THE POPULATION OF CAIRO. 103 
 
 open space, the principal in all Cairo, we plunged into the narrow, tortuous 
 streets leading to the Frank quarter, through so motley a crowd as no other 
 city, perhaps, in the world could have supplied : — Arabs, Jews, Armenians, 
 Copts, Turks, Negroes, Germans, Poles, Italians, French, English, Greeks, 
 — all in their national dresses, — red, blue, yellow, green, gray, black, white ; 
 — in short, all the colours of the rainbow. 
 
 Clot-Bey, a man extremely familiar with the scene, presents us with the 
 following animated picture : — " The movement of the population of Cairo 
 commences at six o'clock in the morning ; it is discontinued, during the 
 heat of the day, from twelve to three o'clock. All travellers who have 
 written on Egypt, speak of the picturesque scene exhibited in the streets, 
 the bazaars, and the squares, by the motley crowd which fills them. 
 All speak of the numerous contrasts it presents ; the v/ealthy man in 
 his splendid and gold-covered garments by the side of the beggar in his 
 rags ; the man of business passing rapidly before the indolent santon who 
 receives, as he lies carelessly stretched on the ground, the touches of the 
 women whose superstition teaches them to expect thus to obtain their cure 
 or some other miraculous favour ; and then all those men of different nations, 
 religions, and sects, distinguished from each other by their physical charac- 
 teristics and peculiar costumes ; and those ladies with everything but their 
 eyes concealed by the voluminous folds of their dresses, gliding hither and 
 thither like phantoms ; and here, moreover, threading the crowd, the ass 
 goaded on by his young and petulant driver, there the grave and slow camel, 
 then again the horse of the noble magniucently caparisoned and the man of 
 law's mule moving along with a gentle and measured pace ; in fine, those 
 numerous mountebanks who amuse the passers-by, those story-tellers, who, 
 in the coffee-shops, feed the contemplative spirit of the indolent smoker. 
 To the peculiarities of its population add the strange physiognomy which 
 is bestowed on Cairo by its terraced houses, its serpentine streets, the innu- 
 merable minarets which rise on every side, and you will obtain a conception 
 of a city the like of which nowhere else exists, a city stamped with a 
 genuine Arab impress, a true city of the Arabian Nights."
 
 101 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Description of thk City and Houses of Caiuo. 
 
 The city of Cairo, or, as the natives denominate it, Masr-el-Kahirali, situate 
 in latitude 30° 2' 21" N., and longitude 28° 58' 30" E., is about nine 
 
 MaliuiouJiyeh Slosiiue, and City Gate, Cairo. 
 
 miles in circumference, and contains a population which has been vai-iously 
 estimated at from two hundred to three hundred thousand.* Truth, how- 
 ever, may lie between : it is probably two hundred and fifty thousand, 
 rather less than more. The descriptions of this truly Oriental capital 
 which have been given by travellers are extremely numerous, but all of 
 them perhaps in some respects imperfect. My picture will doubtless be 
 so also, my object being rather to dwell on its prominent and characteristic 
 features than to enter into those minute details which an attempt at com- 
 pleteness would involve. 
 
 Cairo was formerly surrounded by a wall, strengthened and adorned by 
 towers, and pierced by several magnificent gates, (sixty-nine, great and 
 small, according to some accounts,) several of which still remain in all their 
 beauty. In many places, however, the fortifications have crumbled into 
 dust, and, suburbs projecting themselves beyond the old circumference, 
 
 • Jomard, Descriptiou du Caire.
 
 DESCRIPTION OF CAIRO. 105 
 
 that which was meant as a defence lias noAV dwindled into a mere orna- 
 ment. The interior is divided into fifty-four quarters, or systems of 
 buildings, so contrived that each has but one issue by Avhich it communi- 
 cates with the neighbouring sections of the city. This outlet is closed at 
 night by massive wooden doors, with huge locks and bolts, which a porter 
 inhabiting a square low cell close at hand watches over. The men who 
 act in this capacity are commonly Berbers, from Lower Nubia, who have 
 in Egypt a reputation for incorruptible fidelity, like the Swiss guards in 
 Europe.* These quarters, some of which derive their appellation from 
 the profession of those who inhabit them, or from some market-place, 
 bath, or tomb, are all of them traversed by innumerable streets, or rather 
 lanes, courts, or alleys, so narrow for the most part, (some not exceeding 
 two feet and a half in width) that they exclude at all hours the rays of 
 the sun ; to effect which more completely, a succession of palm-mats is 
 thrown across on poles, with narrow apertures here and there, to admit a 
 certain supply of light. This custom the generality of European travel- 
 lers strongly condemn ; but when, after a long ride in the suburbs or 
 surrounding country, I have returned to Cairo about the middle of the day, 
 nothing used to appear to me more delightful than to plunge out of the 
 scorching sunshine into the cool and dusky passages, where a brisk current 
 of air is generally felt. No doubt sufficient care is by no means taken to 
 cleanse these streets, which ai'e consequently in many parts filled with 
 offensive and noxious effluvia. This, however, it will be perceived, is a 
 wholly different consideration. Attempts have recently been made by the 
 Government to introduce certain improvements, after the European 
 fashion, widening the streets, and bringing them as near as possible into a 
 straight line, chiefly, however, with reference to the convenience of the 
 Pasha, whose equipage it was impossible to draw through Cairo in its 
 pristine state. These changes may also be beneficial, because a broad and 
 agreeable promenade may during the cool hours of the day tempt the 
 inhabitants to forsake their indolent habits, and walk abroad. 
 
 It would be wrong to infer, as from certain accounts one might be 
 tempted to do, that the whole of Cairo, even as it existed originally, was 
 a crowded, pestiferous agglomeration of buildings, in which a large popu- 
 lation huddled together could scarcely find room to move or breathe. It 
 is quite true that in many quarters, more particularly in that of the Jews, 
 the population is much concentrated in lofty ill-ventilated, uncleanly 
 houses. But this is not the case universally. In many parts there are 
 large open spaces, encumbered indeed with mounds of rubbish, but perfectly 
 dry. They in some respects answer the purpose of our squares. Again, 
 around the mosques, of which there are nearly four hundred, small and 
 great, there is generally a. clear space, commonly swept very clean. Here 
 the air is cooled by a splashing fountain, erected by some pious Moslem for 
 the use of the passers-by. Trees, also, in some cases, wave over the gilded 
 gates, which, in the opinion of the natives, open the way to Paradise. 
 Besides, all the ])alaces of the great, and many houses of a humbler character, 
 
 * Cadulveiii; et Breuvery, I'Egypte et la Nubie, t. i. p. 96.
 
 106 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 open behind into gardens more or less extensive, planted with row3 
 of shady trees, adorned with bowers and alcoves, and almost invariably 
 possessing a fountain or two. Nay, so fond are the Caireens of the aspect 
 of vegetation, that they plant palm-trees even in tlie narrow courts of 
 their houses, which, soon growing to a great height, at once shade them 
 on their terraces, and impart a beauty to the general aspect of the city. 
 The Kalish or Great Canal, which traverses Cairo in its whole length, 
 is at one season of the year an ornament to the quarters through which 
 it passes, being bordered by gardens and shaded by lofty trees. It then 
 reminds the traveller of Venice, being spanned here and there by light 
 bridges, and reflecting on its broad smooth surface the picturesque fa9ades 
 of the neighbouring houses. But at low Nile, the whole state of the case 
 is changed. It then ceases to be a running stream, and presents to the eye 
 nothing but a succession of green stagnant pools, from which a fetid exha- 
 lation perpetually ascends, generating fever and plague. Nevertheless, it 
 was close to this kalish that the unfortunate Burckhardt chose his dwelling. 
 The house, when I saw it, was falling rapidly to decay ; moist, yellowish 
 lichens were growing along the walls in patches ; the little garden was 
 damp, neglected, and covered with weeds ; and I could well fancy the 
 depressed spirits and dreary thoughts which saddened the last days of the 
 enterprising traveller. 
 
 The citadel by which Cairo is overlooked and commanded, is a very 
 striking and spacious structure, erected on a bold lofty projection of the 
 Jebel Mokattam. From almost every open space in the neighbourhood it 
 is beheld white and glittering in the brilliant sunshine, in very marked and 
 extraordinary contrast with the sordid Arab hovels which the eye is able 
 to take in at the same time on the plain below. To the north and to the 
 south are extensive cemeteries, where the taste of the Mohammedans is exhi- 
 bited to great advantage in the construction and ornaments of tlieir tombs, 
 domes, cupolas, sarcophagi, oblong square basements, and humbler graves, 
 whose frail mounds speedily mingle with the sands of the desert. On one 
 side are the tombs of the Caliphs, a succession of splendid mosques, each 
 adorned with fountains, colonnades, and aspiring minarets, from the upper 
 galleries of which one may behold at a single glance both the city of the 
 living and the cities of the dead, by far the more beautiful and impressive. 
 Towards the Nile, and extending southward from Boulak to the island of 
 Iloudah, we behold the palace and gardens of Ibrahim Pasha, with exten- 
 sive plantations of olive trees, which now occupy the site of those mounds 
 of rubbish, so large as to resemble hills, which formerly encompassed three 
 sides of the city. All are not yet removed, but they are rapidly disappear- 
 ing. Hundreds of workmen were employed at the task during the whole 
 of my stay. 
 
 If we describe noAV the private dwellings of the inhabitants, it may be 
 observed, that the basement walls, to the height of the first floor, are cased 
 externally, and often internally, with the soft calcareous stone of the neigh- 
 bouring mountain. Its surface, when newly cut, is of a light-yellowish 
 hue, which, however, soon deepens. The alternate courses of the front, 
 particularly in large houses and mosques, are sometimes painted red and
 
 AN EASTERN DWELLING-HOUSE. 
 
 107 
 
 white, or green, on which, in several cities of Upper Egypt, I observed 
 representations of fishes, trees, and otlicr natural objects. The super- 
 structure, the front of which generally projects about two feet, and is 
 supported by corbels or piers, is of burnt brick, of a dull-red colour, often 
 coated with an inferior kind of plaster. 
 
 The external doorways of private liouses are generally arched, and orna- 
 mented with a kind of torus in low relief. Below, they are furnished with 
 a raised threshold, consisting usually of a single stone. The door itself is 
 sometimes painted green, adorned above with sundry compartments in red, 
 with white borders. On one of these, in black or white characters, is the 
 inscription, " God is the Creator, the Everlasting.""" 
 
 In ordinary houses the street-door commonly consists of a number of 
 planks rudely put together. It has generally an iron knocker and a 
 wooden lock. Close to the entrance is a stone seat, which serves horsemen 
 as a mounting-stone, and is gene- 
 rally occupied in the cool of tlie 
 evening by the elders of the family 
 engaged in smoking and chatting 
 with their neighbours. The ground- 
 floor apartments near the street 
 have small wooden-grated win- 
 dows, placed sufficiently high to 
 render it impossible for a person 
 passing by in the street, even on 
 horseback, to see through them. 
 Tlie windows of the upper apart- 
 ments generally project a foot and 
 a half or more, and are mostly 
 formed of turned lattice- work, 
 which is so close that it shuts out 
 much of the light and sun, and 
 screens the inmates of the house 
 from the view of persons without, 
 while at the same time it admits 
 the air. Occasionally, however, in 
 very warm weather these lattices 
 
 are thrown wide open, so that it is quite possible for a man riding by on a 
 lofty dromedary to look into the chambers. The wood-work is commonly 
 unstained, though in some few cases it is painted red and green. A window 
 of this kind is called a ros/ian, or, more commonly, a meshrebeyeh. Some- 
 times a window of the kind above described has a considerable projection 
 in front, or on each side. In this, in order to be exposed to a current 
 of air, are placed porous earthen bottles, used for cooling water by 
 evaporation. Hence the name of meshrelfyeh, which signifies a place for 
 drink, or for drinking. 
 
 Similar practices for cooling water are resorted to ihrougliout the East. 
 At Bassora they suspend porous vases in the shade, and in a current of 
 air, though the efl^ect thus produced is by no means constant ; for when 
 
 Street Door of a Dwelling House.
 
 108 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 the north wind blows, the water in these jars is rendered delightfully cool, 
 whereas the south wind is itself so warm and humid, that it cannot operate 
 as a refrigerator. At Bassora, however, the heat is much greater than in 
 Egypt, for drinking-glasses, unless kept constantly filled, become too hot 
 to drink out of. * 
 
 The use of glass for windows, formerly almost wholly unknown, is now 
 becoming fashionable in Cairo, the houses of the wealthy being generally 
 furnished with frames, closed in winter to exclude the cold, which is 
 severely felt in Esypt when the thermometer of Fahrenheit is below 60°. 
 Instead of glass, thin plates of gypsum, elaborately painted with gorgeous 
 and glowing colours, are frequently used by the wealthy, so that when 
 opposed to the morning or evening sun, they admit a flood of many- 
 coloured light into the room. 
 
 The houses in general are two or three stories high, or sometimes even 
 four in the more populous quarters ; and when sufficiently large, inclose an 
 open impaved court, entered by a passage constructed with one or two 
 turnings, for purposes of privacy. In this passage, just within the door, 
 there is a long stone seat, called mastabah, built against the back or side 
 wall, for the porter or other servants. In the court is a well of slightly 
 brackish water, which filters through the soil from the Nile ; and on its 
 most shaded side are commonly two water -jars, replenished daily from the 
 same river. The principal apartments look into the court ; and their 
 exterior walls, when of brick, are plastered and whitewashed. Of the 
 several doors which lead thence into the house, one, called Bahel-harim, is 
 the entrance of the stairs, leading to the apartments appropriated exclu- 
 sively to the women, with their master and his children. Most houses of 
 distinction have, on the ground-floor, an apartment called mandardh, 
 which, like the andron of the ancient Greeks, is assigned to the men of the 
 family, who there receive their male visitors. A wide wooden-grated win- 
 dow or two, opening into the court, supplies it with light and air. A 
 portion of the floor, depressed six or seven inches below the rest, is paved 
 with black and white marble, interspersed with pieces of red tile, disposed 
 in fanciful and complicated patterns. Here there is a fountain, whose 
 waters, after rising into the air, fall perpetually with a splashing sound 
 into a shallow basin of many-coloured marbles, diffusing around a refresh- 
 ing coolness, and soothing the inmates with an agreeable murmur. 
 
 Fronting the door there is generally a shelf of marble or common stone, 
 called sooffeh, about four feet from the floor, supported by two or more 
 arches, under which are placed utensils in ordinary use, such as perfuming 
 vessels, basins for ablution, coffee cups, water bottles, &c. In handsome 
 houses the arches of the sooffeh are faced with marble and tile, like the pool 
 of the fountain, and sometimes the wall over it, to the height of about 
 four feet or more, is also cased with similar materials, partly with large 
 upright slabs, and partly with small pieces. The raised part of the 
 floor is called the leewan, a corruption of el eeican^ which signifies " any 
 elevated place to sit upon," and also a " palace." Every person slips off 
 
 * Fontanier, Voyage dans I'lnde.
 
 AN EASTERN DWELLING-HOUSE. 109 
 
 his shoes hefore he steps upon the leetcan, chiefly tliat he may not defile a 
 mat or carpet upon whicli prayer is usually said. The origin of this prac- 
 tice, which dates from the earliest antiquity, may be traced to the idea, 
 that to go barefoot is a mark of humility ; it was to inspire this feeling that 
 the Lord said to Moses, when he stood before the burning bush, " Put off 
 thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy 
 ground."* The leewan is generally paved with common stone, covered 
 occasionally with mats and carpets, and is surrounded by a deewan, 
 consisting of a mattress and cushions jilaced against each of its three 
 walls. The mattress, which is generally about three feet wide, and 
 three or four inches thick, is placed either on the ground, or on a 
 raised frame ; and the cushions, which are usually of a length equal to 
 the width of the mattress, and of a height equal to half that measure, 
 lean against the wall. Both mattress and cushions are stuffed with 
 cotton, and covered with printed calico, cloth, or some more expensive 
 stuff. The walls are plastered and whitewashed, and generally contain 
 two or three shallow cupboards, with doors composed of very small panels, 
 on account of the heat and dryness of the climate, which cause wood to 
 warp and shrink as if it were placed in an oven. For this reason the 
 doors of the apartments also are constructed in the same manner. We 
 observe great variety and much ingenuity displayed in the different modes 
 in which these small panels are formed and disposed. The ceiling over 
 the leewan is of wood, with carved beams, generally about a foot apart, 
 partially painted, and sometimes gilt. But that part of the ceiling which 
 is over the durkah, in a handsome house, is usually more richly decorated ; 
 here, instead of beams, numerous thin slips of wood are nailed upon the 
 planks, forming patterns curiously complicated, yet perfectly regular, and 
 having a highly ornamental effect. The slips are painted yellow or gilt, 
 and the spaces within green, red, and blue. From the centre a chandelier 
 is often suspended. 
 
 In some houses there is another room, called a nudad, for the same use 
 as a mandarah, having an open front, with two or more arches, and a low 
 railing ; and also, on the ground floor, a square recess, called a sukhtahosh, 
 with an open front, and generally a pillar to support the wall above ; its 
 floor is a paved leewan ; and there is often a long wooden sofa placed along 
 each of its three walls. The court, during the summer, is habitually 
 sprinkled with water, whicli renders the surroiuiding apartments agreeably 
 cool. 
 
 In several of the upper rooms in the houses of the wealthy, there are, 
 besides the window of lattice- work, others of coloured glass, representing 
 bunches of flowers, peacocks, and other gay and gaudy objects, or merely 
 fanciful patterns, which have a pleasing effect. These coloured glass win- 
 dows are mostly from a foot and a half to two feet and a half in height, 
 and from one to two feet in width, and are generally placed along the top 
 of the projecting lattice window in rows, or disposed in a group so as to 
 form a large square, or elsewhere in the upper parts of the walls, singly or 
 in pairs, side by side. The panes are small pieces of glass of various 
 
 * Exodus, iii. 5, comp. Joshua, v. 15.
 
 no 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBTA. 
 
 colours, set in a rim of fine plaster, and inclosed in a frame of wood. On 
 the walls of some apartments are paintings of the temple of Mecca, or of 
 the tomb of the Prophet, or of flowers and other objects, executed by 
 native Moslem artists. These occasionally are very tasteful, and in addi- 
 tion to the objects above enumerated, represent scenes in the neighbourhood 
 of the city, in which kiosks and palm-trees are generally conspicuous 
 objects. Sometimes, also, the walls are ornamented with Arabic inscrip- 
 tions of maxims, &c., written in letters of gold, on paper, in an embellijihed 
 style, and inclosed in glazed frames. No chambers are furnished as bed- 
 rooms. The bed, in the day-time, is rolled up, and placed on one side, or 
 in an adjoining closet, which, in the winter, is a sleeping- pi ace ; in summer 
 many people lie upon the house-top. A mat or carpet, spread upon the 
 raised part of the stone floor, and a deewan, constitute the complete 
 furniture of a room. 
 
 Every door is furnished with a wooden lock, the mechanism of which 
 may be thus described. A number of small iron pins, four, five or more, 
 drop into corresponding holes in the sliding bolt, as soon as the latter 
 is pushed into the 
 staple of the door- 
 post. The key, also, 
 has small pins, made 
 to correspond with the 
 holes, into which they 
 arejintroduced to open 
 the lock : the ' former 
 pins beingthuspushed 
 up, the bolt may be 
 drawn back. The 
 wooden lock of a 
 street-door is com- 
 monly about fourteen 
 inches long ; those of 
 the doors of apart- 
 ments, cupboards, &c., are about seven, eight, or nine inches. The locks of 
 the gates of quarters, public buildings, &c., are of the same kind, and mostly 
 two feet, or even more, in length. It is not difiicult to pick or break this kind 
 of lock. In the " Story of the Two Princes, El-Amjad and El- Asad," there 
 occurs a passage which the abovedescriptionmay serve to illustrate. El-Amjad 
 having in the street formed an acquaintance with a strange lady, she offered 
 to accompany him to his house, but living as he did in mean lodgings he 
 was ashamed to take her thither or to acknowledge that he possessed no 
 dwelling of his own. She followed him, and he continued walking on 
 with her from by-street to by-street, and from place to place, until the 
 damsel was tired, and she said to him, " O, my master, where is thy 
 house ? " He answered, " Before us, and there remaineth but a short dis- 
 tance to it." Then he turned aside with her into a handsome by-street, 
 and continued walking along it ; she followed him, until he arrived at the 
 end of it, when he found that it was not a thoroughfare. So he said, 
 " There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the Great ! " And, 
 
 Wooden Lock.
 
 STORY OF EL-AMJAD AND THE LADY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 looking towards tlie upper end of the street, he saw there a groat door 
 with two niastabahs ; but it was locked. El-Anijad therefore seated him- 
 self upon one mastabah, and the damsel seated herself upon the other, and 
 said to him, " O, my master, for what art thou waiting ? " Upon this, he 
 hung down his head for a long time towards the ground ; after which he 
 raised it, and answered her, " I am waiting for my mcmlook ; for he hath 
 the key, and I said to him, ' Prepare for us the food and beverage, and the 
 flowers for the wine, by the time that I come forth from the bath.' " He then 
 said within himself, " Probably the time will become tedious to her, and 
 so she will go her way and leave me here." But when the time seemed 
 long to her, she said to him, " O, my master, thy memlook hath been slow 
 in returning to us, while we have been sitting in the street." And she 
 arose and approached 
 
 tlie wooden lock with T 
 
 a stone. So El-Amjad 
 said to her, " Hasten 
 not ; but be patient 
 until the memlook 
 Cometh." Paying no 
 attention, however, to 
 his words, she struck 
 the wooden lock with 
 tlie stone, and split it 
 in two ; so that the 
 dooropened. He there- 
 fore said to her, "What 
 possesseth thee, that 
 thou didst thus ? " — 
 " O, my master," said 
 she, " what hath hap- 
 pened ? Is it not thy 
 house ? " — He an- 
 swered, " Yes : but 
 there was no necessity 
 for breaking the lock," 
 In the plan of almost 
 every dwelling there 
 is an utter want of 
 regularity. The apart- 
 ments are generally of diflFerent heights — so that a person has to 
 ascend or descend one, two, or more steps, to pass from one chamber to 
 another adjoining it. The principal aim of the architect is to render the 
 house as private as possible ; particularly that part of it which is inhabited 
 by the women ; and not to make any window in such a situation as to 
 overlook the apartments of the neighbours. Another object of tlie archi- 
 tect, in building for a person of wealtli or rank, is to make a secret door 
 from which the tenant may make his escape in case of danger from an 
 arrest, or an attempt at assassination ; and it is also common to construct 
 a hiding-place for treasure in some part of the house. 
 
 street in Cairo.
 
 112 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Citadel of Cairo. — Massacre of the Mkmlooks. 
 
 Though many travellers have published their remarks on Cairo, it 
 appears to me that a new and very interesting volume might still be 
 written on that city alone. It is, in fact, an epitome of the whole Eastern 
 world. Tliere, as in a hot-bed, flourish all those vices which have proved 
 the bane of the vast, but often short-lived, despotisms of the East. Converse 
 with whomsoever you please, you quickly discover, amid the charms of the 
 most dazzling and fascinating manners, infernal ideas and principles peeping 
 forth, like the asp and the scorpion, among flowers. Corruption, if not 
 universal, is so general that it seems to exhibit itself everywhere. The 
 very tombs, Avhen a little secluded, are not free from pollution. Yet, in 
 the midst of this vortex of iniquity, the exterior aspect of manners, the 
 features and costume in which society presents itself to the eye of the 
 stranger, are generally solemn and stately ; virtue and gravity ai'e compli- 
 mented with a ritual of hypocritical observances ; and barbarians, in whom 
 meanness and ignorance are as the breath of life, affect, in their walk and 
 conversation, a dignity and generosity which belong to the highest w^isdom 
 alone. To the traveller, however, all this masquerading furnishes amuse- 
 ment ; each day presents some new moral group to his observation ; he 
 learns to detect, one after another, the numerous contrivances which are 
 resorted to, by every one, to baffle his peneti'ation ; and, perhaps, among 
 all the phenomena which excite his astonishment, none are more truly 
 wonderful than the metamorphoses which Europeans appear to undergo in 
 that Circean sty. But, besides these ethical pictures, Cairo affords more 
 palpable spectacles, which, though perhaps less instructive, are yet not 
 destitute of interest. 
 
 Among these is the citadel, which we early one day proceeded to visit. 
 The crowds which circulate through tlie streets of this vast city never 
 appeared more animated or gay than on that morning, the fine sunshine 
 which succeeded the previous night's rain, seeming to liave quite revived 
 them. On our way to the castle, we passed by several noble mosques and 
 public fountains ; many of the latter adorned with marble steps and gilded 
 railings, and furnished with clean bright brass cups, for the use of the 
 people. On arriving at the entrance to the citadel, we were invited to 
 aliglit, to view the Pasha's menagerie, which consisted of a young elephant, 
 of very meagi'e appearance, and three lions, not of a large size, which are 
 kept chained (though rather carelessly and slightly) in a wretched shed, 
 closed in front with mats. One of the lions was blind, perhaps from 
 ophthalmia, which, in Egypt, attacks both man and beast ; but there was 
 a young lioness of remarkable beauty, though inferior in size to that of the 
 King of Naples at Portici. The Turkish keeper not being present, we 
 witnessed none of those foolish familiarities which are usually exhibited at
 
 THE HALL OF SALADIN. 
 
 113 
 
 menageries between lions and their valets, the Arab deputy being possessed 
 by a salutary fear of those ferocious animals. 
 
 Citadel of Cairo. 
 
 From this miserable exhibition we ascended into the citadel ; which is 
 reached by two winding ascents cut in the solid rock. Of these, one 
 mounts the northern face of the pile, and terminates in the Gate of the 
 Arabs; the other leads from the east towards the Gate of the Janisaries. On 
 entering the great area which occupies its centre, Ave were exceedingly pleased 
 with the first coiip-frmil. The fa9ade of the palace, which, in design, 
 approaches nearer than I could have expected to the European style of 
 architecture, is adorned by a small light portico, with raised terrace, in the 
 Oriental taste ; and in front of what may be termed a wing (though it 
 contains the principal apartments), there is another portico, with tall 
 slender columns of elegant form and proportions. On a part of this open 
 space stood formerly the hall of Saladin, in which the Ayubite Sultans 
 dispensed justice to their subjects. The explosion of a powder-magazine 
 in 1824, reduced this ancient structure to so ruinous a state, that it became 
 necessary to pull it down entirel}'. It was seen, however, by a European 
 traveller in its dilapidated condition, and described in the following 
 terms : — The roof of this edifice is very beautiful. It is formed of a 
 succession of little domes made of wood, into which are introduced con- 
 cave circles, containing octagons of blue and gold. The corners and 
 arches of the building are carved in the best gothic manner, and in many 
 places the colours and gilding continue perfectly bright. The columns
 
 114 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 of rose (rranite which decorated this celebrated deewan (originally, per- 
 haps, from J\Iemphis)* were subsequently bestowed by JMohamraed 
 All on the mosque which he caused to be erected on the same site. 
 It has been said that the interior of this mosque is to be faced with alabas- 
 ter, and adorned by columns of the same beautiful material, obtained from 
 tlie celebrated quarries in the Arabian chain, the sight of which having 
 been lost sight of for many centuries, was re-discovered a few years ago. 
 AVhen I visited the country the building was still incomplete, but it has 
 probably by this time been finished, though the Pasha is by no means 
 remarkable for a display of diligence in his works of pious munificence. 
 He intends, nevertheless, it is said, to have his own mausoleum erected 
 in this mosque, not being of opinion, as a late traveller has remarked, that 
 after life's fitful fever he should sleep well among the Memlouk Beys in the 
 cemetery below. The scene presented by the persons engaged in clearing the 
 area for the construction of the square and mosque was most striking and 
 characteristic. Parties of women and children were seen running up and 
 down the precipitous rock on which the citadel stands, on planks without 
 railings, removing the rubbish, and carrying mortar for the new building. 
 My heart ached when I saw these poor creatures struck with a thick stick 
 which the overseer flourished in his hand ; though but for the blows I 
 should scarcely have known they were not all in play, as they were singing 
 in the loudest key ; this, however, I afterwards learned, was compulsory. 
 The different parties, in presenting themselves for work, almost tore the 
 overseers to pieces, screaming out their song, and never ceasing to run 
 round and round, like so many dervishes in a circle, till their hods were 
 emptied or filled. Moved by their apparently hard fate, I was lamenting 
 my inability to relieve the whole of the wretched crowd, when, after a 
 longer inspection, I observed with astonishment how little either the 
 children or women seemed to care for it themselves — the former, with all 
 tlie hilarity of their early age, were dancing about, and running up and 
 down without their burthens, evidently for pleasure ; while the women 
 shrunk away, hiding under the guns, and behind the rubbish, and when 
 detected by the harassed overseers, only flew from the expected blow with 
 a loud laugh : in the end, I scarcely knew who was most to be pitied, 
 the overseers or themselves. Each village sends a certain number of 
 inhabitants for the public works, and also an overseer, who being of the 
 same village, and a countryman, might be expected to feel more com- 
 passion than a Turk. Tlie labourers w^ere supplied with as much bread as 
 they could eat, in fact, were better fed than they would have been at home; 
 and on the collection of the taxes, a small sum was remitted to them, 
 equal, I believe, to a penny a day each.t 
 
 Intending to be presented to Habib Effendi, the governor of Cairo, we 
 ascended the principal flight of steps ; and, passing through the portico, 
 and a long suite of spacious but rather plain apartments, filled with crowds 
 of oflicers and persons assembled on public business, entered the audience- 
 chamber, where the principal dragoman and a number of attendants were 
 
 * Cadalvene, p. 99. t Mrs- Lushington, p. 131.
 
 INTERVIEW WITH THE GOVERNOR OF CAIRO. 115 
 
 waiting for the arrival of ilie governor. We were received politely, and 
 invited to seat ourselves on the divan ; while the dragoman, with that 
 restless curiosity which distinguishes the Armenian, immediately com- 
 menced making inquiries respecting our professions and pursuits ; and we 
 observed that, in order to effect his purpose, he adroitly contrived to 
 mingle a considerable portion of flattery with his questions. 
 
 The audience-chamber, smaller in dimensions than that of Alexandria, 
 is much more highly ornamented, both the walls and ceilings being richly 
 adorned with arabesques of very elegant design. The various niches, or 
 recesses, which break the uniformity of the wall, are likewise covered with 
 small landscapes ; and both these little paintings, and those which orna- 
 ment the roof, all representing rural objects (the green fields, the groves, 
 the winding river, tlic sea-shore, with temples and ruins interspersed), are 
 extremely well conceived, though executed in that stiff, inanimate style, 
 which prevailed in Italy before the time of Giotto. In a lai'ge recess, at 
 tlie bottom of the room, we observed the instruments for administering 
 torture : a small pole, with a loop of reddish cord suspended from the 
 centre, for containing the feet ; and the koorbash, or strip of hippopota- 
 mus hide, with which the strokes on the soles are given. Through the 
 windows, which were partly hung with fine chintz curtains, we could 
 command a very magnificent view of the city and environs of Cairo. 
 
 It was not long before Habib Effendi arrived. He was a man some- 
 what advanced in years, with a cold savage look, but handsome. Yet, 
 though possessing much finer features, we could discover in his countenance 
 nothing of that intelligence and energy which light up with interest the 
 face of ]\Iohammed Ali. He was calm and quiet ; but there was a feeble- 
 ness in his eye incompatible with great powers of mind. Our conversa- 
 tion with him, if conversation it could be called, was perfectly common- 
 place. He put a great number of questions, but none which denoted 
 acuteness or capacity ; and, long before he terminated his inquiries, I was 
 impatient to take my leave. While this scene was enacting, the rightful 
 heir to the throne of the Ilejaz, a lineal descendant of the Prophet, taken 
 prisoner by the Pasha, and detained in Egypt as a hostage, entered the 
 audience-chamber, and took his seat on the divan. He appeared to be 
 engaged in conversation witli the governor, but constantly cast a curious, 
 inquiring look upon us. His complexion was very dark, almost black ; 
 his features sharp, angular, unprepossessing ; his figure short and undig- 
 nified. He was dressed in green, the livery of the Prophet's descendants; 
 but his turban was flat and of a different colour. The governor, to do him 
 justice, was exceedingly obliging, and readily granted us permission to see 
 both the palace and the harem ; that is, as much as could be viewed 
 without encroaching upon the parts actually occupied by the ladies. 
 
 Taking our leave of his Excellency, we proceeded to visit the curiosities 
 included within the walls of the citadel. Previous to this, however, the 
 kawass conducted us to the terrace of the palace, which commands one of 
 the noblest and most extensive views in the world. Here the eye, almost 
 at a single glance, takes in the whole city of Cairo, with its innumerable 
 gilded domes and minarets, its squares and bazaars, and public places, its
 
 116 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 walls, and gates, and groves, and gardens, and battlements ; and those vast 
 melancholy suburbs, — the cemeteries, — whither the gay and giddy Caireens, 
 when the dream of life is over, retire to their eternal abodes. A little 
 beyond, winding its way through the richest valley of Africa, was the 
 bountiful Nile, whose broad surface, studded with numerous sails, glittered 
 in the morning sun like a sheet of molten silver. On the right hand were 
 the tombs of the khalifs, Boulak, and the site of Heliopolis ; behind us, 
 the sterile ridges of Mokattam ; to the left, the spacious plains, where 
 once stood Babylon, Troia, Acanthus, and Memphis, cities which, except- 
 ing in the pages of history, have left no certain traces of their existence. 
 Farther still, and beyond the reach of the inundation, were the pyramids of 
 Ghizeh, Sakkarah, Abousir, and Dashour, skirting the boundless expanse 
 of the Libyan desert, whose dim, dismal colour seemed to be diffused over 
 everything on botli sides of the river ; for, in this interminable landscape, 
 the fields, groves, and gardens of the valley appeared like mere specks of 
 verdure in an ocean of sand and rock and water. Directly under the 
 palace windows was a large open space, in which several regiments of the 
 Pasha's military slaves were performing their evolutions, marching, 
 charging, firing, and the other operations of war. 
 
 It ought here, perhaps, to be observed, that the citadel covers the side 
 and summit of an eminence divided by a narrow valley, from the Mokat- 
 tam range. In the age of Saladin, by whom it was erected, it may doubt- 
 less have been a strong place, and sufiiced to overawe the city ; but, 
 although it be skilfully fortified and furnished with thirty large guns and 
 ten mortars, it can no longer be regarded as formidable to a European 
 enemy. It is, in fact, completely commanded by a spur of the Jebel 
 Mokattam, on which, for that reason, Mohammed Ali some years ago con- 
 structed a fort. Of this the Duke of Ragusa judges favourably, and 
 although in any other matter his testimony is of little value, we may allow 
 it some weight in an affair of this kind. " It is," he remarks, " a fort 
 built in the Turkish style, but with considerable care. It is capable, there- 
 fore, of offering some resistance, and may be deemed impregnable by the 
 enemy most likely to bring a force against it, since it can scarcely be sup- 
 posed that it will ever have to sustain a regular siege. It is a small square 
 with a revetement, in the midst of which rises a tower, the whole mounted 
 with cannon."* 
 
 Returning into the palace, we visited the Mint, a wretched establish- 
 ment, where we found a few Arab workmen employed in hammering out 
 four-piastre pieces (gold coins, value one shilling) on clumsy little anvils. 
 The currency of Egypt passes for thirty-three and one-third per cent, more 
 than its full value ; that is, the kheri, or nine -piastre piece, which has been 
 assayed at Genoa and Paris, is worth only six piastres. The value of the 
 gold used up annually by the Pasha's Mint, has been estimated at about 
 two hundred thousand pounds. The gradual deterioration of all Turkish 
 coin, and especially of the paras, has compelled the viceroy to renounce the 
 manufacture of these small pieces, which constituted some years ago one of 
 
 * T. iii. p. 281.
 
 SALADIN'S WELL. 117 
 
 the most active branches of Egyptian commerce. It will be easy to appre- 
 ciate the deterioration which these coins have undergone, if we remark that 
 in 1772, under the government of Ali-Bey, ninety paras were worth one 
 Spanish dollar ; the value of the same coin was fixed at one hundred and 
 fifty paras at the time of the French expedition, and at present it answers 
 to eight hundred ! * 
 
 From the Mint we proceeded to Saladin's Well.-|- Though we had with 
 us a kawass, or officer of the governor, we experienced some difficulty in 
 gaining admittance ; a difficulty which was satisfactorily accounted for 
 when we had descended. The entrance to this great work, which is far 
 more useful than magnificent, and has little in it, more than a great coal- 
 pit, to strike the imagination, is as mean and obscure as that into 
 a cellar. Kindling each a small wax taper to light him, we all fol- 
 lowed the footsteps of the guide. The well is of a square form, cut per- 
 pendicularly, though not in one continued shaft, in the solid rock, to the 
 depth of about three hundred and eighty feet ; that is, to a level with the 
 waters of the Nile. A little more than half-way down, it widens into a 
 spacious chamber, containing a large deep cistern, and the wheel, turned by 
 a cow, draws up the series of small earthen pots (attached to a rope, as 
 in a common sakia) by which the cistern is replenished. A similar appara- 
 tus at the top fills the cisterns which supply the citadel, and are so capacious 
 that one of them would contain water enough to serve a large garrison 
 during a whole year. A narrow staircase, hewn out in the rock, winds 
 round the w-ell from top to bottom, with so easy a descent, that you might 
 almost ride down on horseback; on assback you certainly might. In fact, 
 the cow or bullock, which turns the wheel below, descends this staircase, 
 which resembles a Macadamised road, though there seem formerly to have 
 been steps. At short intervals cut in the rock, there are several large 
 windows for the purpose of admitting light, and to enable those descending 
 the staircase to look out into the well ; and these windows, except that 
 they are much larger and lower, considerably resemble those in the galleries 
 of the Simplon. When we had reached the great chamber, or half-way 
 
 house, our cuide related to us the ostensible reason — a desire to be bribed 
 
 . ...... 
 
 being the real one — why so much difficulty is now experienced in obtain- 
 ing permission to descend. About five years ago a man was mur- 
 dered in that very chamber, where his body being discovered, our cicerone 
 himself had been suspected of the deed, and cast into prison ; but, having 
 remained twenty-one days in confinement, and no proofs of his guilt appear- 
 ing — perhaps none were sought — he was liberated. The murdered man, 
 an Armenian, had gone down with a sum of money about him ; and the 
 spot where the body had been found was pointed out to us, perhaps by the 
 man who had hidden it there. On the same side of the gallery we were 
 shown a large fissure in the rock, now walled up, to which another legend 
 is appended. Two or three years ago, the cow employed in turning the 
 water-wheel, on being liberated from her task in the evening, squeezed 
 
 * Cadalvene, i. 101. 
 f Commonly called Joseph's Well, because the prenomen of Saladin was Yussiif; but it is 
 better to avoid the equivoque and the explanation by denominating it at once Saladiu's Well.
 
 118 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 herself into this fissure, and, wandering away into some dark unexplored 
 passage, entirely disappeared. One of the poor Arabs, more venturous 
 than his companions, taking a lamp in his hand and overcoming his national 
 apprehension of the Marid and the Jinn, entered in search of her, but was 
 never more heard of. Twelve days they awaited his return, but at the 
 expiration of that period, giving him up for lost, they walled up the cavern, 
 thus cutting off all chance of his escape from the Stygian gloom. Perhaps 
 he fell, by some oblique descent, into the well below, and they may now 
 be drawing water from among his bones. The wheels, pots, ropes, &c., 
 had an extremely antique and dilapidated appearance ; and, if much 
 used, would undoubtedly fall to pieces. But the excavation itself is a 
 splendid work, and well worthy of the chivalrous Sultan who executed it. 
 Our next visit was to the apartments appropriated to the use of the 
 Translation Committee, which is under the direction of a Frenchman and 
 an Armenian, both of whom received us very politely. A number of 
 young scribes of various countries were squatting about the rooms on 
 divans and carpets, translating books or documents, or interpreting them 
 to secretaries. The greater number, perhaps the whole of these young 
 men, were Christians ; or, if there were any Mohammedans among them, 
 they were far from being riofid Islamites. The printing-office, close at 
 hand, where the Cairo Gazette, in Arabic, is printed, is a small insigni- 
 ficant establishment, which would be novt'here remarkable but in such a 
 country as Egypt. The press, the tympans, the galleys, the sticks, the halls, 
 &c., were all of a very inferior description, and the forms apj)ear to be 
 made np in a slovenly way upon the press itself. There were but few 
 compositors or pressmen at work, but they all seemed rather expert. 
 The Arabic manuscripts from which they were composing, written on one 
 side only, were such as European compositors rarely meet with — extremely 
 legible, the lines being wide apart, and the interlineations and corrections 
 very carefully made. The works which have issued from the press — gene- 
 rally history and poetry — have hitherto met with but little favour from the 
 Arabs, whether the blame is to be attributed to their poverty or their want 
 of taste. Mohammed All's authors meet with, in fact, but few buyers, so 
 that the records of their labours, piled up in warehouses, are abandoned as 
 a prey to the rats and mice, or to be decomposed slowly under the influence 
 of the climate. The reason is obvious. No pains are taken to adapt the 
 publications to the wants and predilections of the people, who care little to 
 read histories which dare record no truth, if it happen to be unpleasing to 
 the Pasha, and who have little relish for poetry which derives its inspiration 
 from a state of society which has no analogy with theirs. 
 
 Having passed through the apartments where the diplomatic scribes and 
 secretaries were at work, we entered the council chamber, where we 
 were introduced to the president, a merry old Turk, who laughed and 
 chatted with amazing volubility. The council of which he is the chief, 
 consists of a number of individuals, public officers, and government clerks, 
 who assemble daily for the despatch of business. This is what, in Europe, 
 has been denominated the senate, or parliament of Egypt ; but it is a 
 parliament of a very extraordinary kind. When the Pasha has anything
 
 VISIT TO THE PASHA'S HAREM. 119 
 
 agreeable to do, he does it himself, without consulting this WTetched 
 assembly, which, he well knows, would not dare to entertain an opinion 
 different from his ; but when application is made to him for money, or 
 some favour is demanded, whicli it might be inexpedient to grant and im- 
 prudent to refuse, he suddenly feigns a high veneration for the authority of 
 his council, refers the applicants to them, and while he imperiously directs 
 their decisions, shifts off the odium upon their shoulders. Such is the 
 parliament of Egypt. 
 
 The next object of our curiosity was the harem. It will not, of course, 
 be supposed that we beheld the ladies ; it was an unusual favour to be 
 allowed to enter at all into the female apartments ; to see tlie rooms in 
 which they usually sit, and the divans fi'om which they had just risen to 
 make way for us. Crossing a large gravelled court, we entered a spacious 
 hall, divided into compartments by many rows of elegant columns. A 
 grand staircase of white marble conducted us to the principal apartment on 
 the first floor, which was in the form of a Greek cross, large, lofty, tastefully 
 ornamented, with numerous noble windows commanding nearly the same 
 prospect as the terrace near the divan. The Kaah where, when in Cairo, 
 the Pasha usually sits, surrounded by his family, was finely matted and fur- 
 nished with a soft and beautiful divan of scarlet cloth, with a long blue silk 
 fringe hanging to the floor, running round three sides of the apartment. 
 A recess adorned with carved ornaments and slender columns with gilded 
 capitals, occupied the bottom of the room. Arabesques and landscapes, 
 executed in the same style as those in the audience-chamber, adorned the 
 ceiling of this spacious apartment, which would be admired even in 
 London. It measures one hundred and fifty by one hundred and twenty 
 feet, is furnished with large plate glass windows, and paved with marble 
 slabs, of the extraordinary size of eighteen feet in the square. The furni- 
 ture of the side rooms was cloth of gold, embossed with tulips and roses, 
 in purple and green velvet, and had been brought from Constantinople. 
 The bed-chambers, offices, &c., were neat, and scrupulously clean, but 
 contained nothing remarkable. 
 
 While passing through a small ante-chamber we met a young Memlook 
 — a Greek or Georgian boy. about nine years old, beautiful as an angeL 
 His exquisite little mouth, his fair complexion, his dark eyes, and finely 
 arched eyebrows, his smooth lofty forehead and clustering ringlets — 
 everything conspired to enhance his loveliness. Anywhere else I should 
 have supposed it to be a girl in disguise. In a large apartment in this 
 part, of the palace we were shown the Pasha's children. We found the 
 three yoimg princes sitting side by side on a carpet at the farther end of 
 the room, busily engaged with their writing lessons, under the direction 
 of a master ; and when we were presented to them they looked up surprised 
 and wonder-stricken, like children to whom such things were not familiar, 
 and cast many furtive inquiring glances at each other, but did not speak. 
 They must have been by three different mothers, as their ages seemed 
 nearly the same. The one who, if there was any difference, appeared to 
 be the youngest, may have been about five years old ; he was dressed in 
 green j and there was a pride and fire in his eye which strikingly distin-
 
 120 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 guished him from his brethren. They were accompanied in their studies 
 by a number of otlier boys, all under twelve years old ; and their governor, 
 a grave venerable Turk, seemed pleased to exhibit his pupils, but 
 did not run into the common fault of flattering them by extraordinary 
 praise. 
 
 I had been dissuaded from demanding permission to enter the old mosque 
 in the citadel, from an apprehension of being refused ; but while the rest 
 of the party were otherwise engaged, I walked up to the door, where I 
 found two soldiers, a negro on the one side, and an Arab on the other, 
 both looking good-tempered ; I, therefore — the interpreter being absent — 
 inquired by signs whether I might go in, and they replied, in the same 
 language, and with smiles, that I might. So I stepped over the threshold, 
 and found myself in a spacious Mohammedan place of worship. It was 
 a hypajthral building, consisting of a neatly paved area, and a series 
 of arcades, resembling the colonnades of a monastery, which extended all 
 round. The minaret, which towers far above every other part of the 
 citadel, is remarkable for the chasteness of its design, which is exceed- 
 ingly light and elegant, the turret, galleries, and fairy cupola harmonising 
 finely together. On either side of the door-way was an antique column. 
 The one on the left hand was surmounted by a curious capital, which could 
 be referred to no order of architecture ; but that on the right belonged 
 to the Corinthian order, and the foliage is most rich and delicately 
 executed. 
 
 On leaving the citadel we descended by the road which had been the 
 scene of the slaughter of the Memlooks. On our right and left were the 
 lofty walls and buildings from the summit of which the Albanians had 
 fired on their victims. The road, as I have already observed, is cut in 
 the rock, and commencing at the summit of the hill goes down its steep 
 slope, winding now to the right, now to the left, in obedience to the 
 accidents of the ground, and narrowed exceedingly in parts by projecting 
 angles of the rock. At the bottom, a strong gate opens upon the place 
 Roumeileh. On the morning of the massacre, March 1st, 1811, all the 
 Memlook Beys in Northern Egypt repaired, at the invitation of the Pasha, 
 to the citadel. Shahin Bey appeared at the head of his house. He came 
 with the other chiefs to pay his respects to the Pasha, who awaited them 
 in the great reception hall. He caused coflPee to be handed round, and en- 
 tered into conversation with them. The whole having assembled, the signal 
 for departure was given ; each took the place assigned to him by the master 
 of the ceremonies. A corps of Dehlis, commanded by Uzoun-Ali, took 
 the lead ; then came the Wali, the Aga of the Janisaries, and the Chief 
 of the Commissariat, the Ojaklis, the Yoldashes ; next was Saleh-Kosh 
 with his Albanians ; and following him were the Memlooks, led by Soli- 
 man Bey, El-Bawab ; the infantry, the cavalry, and the officers of the 
 government. The head of the column was ordered to descend along the 
 steep road above described, towards the gate El-Azab, opening upon the 
 place Roumeileh. But no sooner were the Dehlis and Aghas fairly out of 
 the defile tlian Saleh Kosh gave orders to shut the gate, and communicated 
 to his followers the Viceroy's command, to exterminate all the Memlooks.
 
 MASSACRE OF THE MEMLOOKS. 121 
 
 The Albanians immediately turned round, and climbing to the top of the 
 rocks on either side of the road, to be out of reach of their adversaries, and 
 to take a surer aim, fired upon them. 
 
 Having heard the report of the guns, the hindermost troops began in 
 turn to fire from the summit of the rocks which afforded them protection. 
 Tiie Memlooks, who had reached the first gate, tried to take another 
 route to return to the citadel, but not being able to manage their steeds, 
 on account of the difficult position in which they found themselves engaged, 
 and seeing many of their companions already killed or wounded, they 
 alighted, abandoned their horses, and took off their upper garments. In 
 this desperate situation they retraced their steps sword in hand ; but no 
 one would oppose them face to face ; they were shot down from the houses. 
 Shahin Bey fell before the gate of Saladin's palace. Solyman Bey El- 
 Bawab ran half-naked to implore in his fear the protection of the harem, 
 which among the Memlooks was looked upon as a sanctuary ; but in vain ; 
 lie was dragged to the palace, where the Viceroy gave orders to cut off his 
 head. Others went to implore the mercy of Toussoun-Pasha, who took 
 no part in the transaction. 
 
 Those who were not killed by the fire, were dragged from their horses 
 and stripped naked ; Avith a handkerchief bound round their heads, and 
 another round their waists, they were led before the Pasha and his sons, 
 and by them ordered to immediate execution. Even there the suffering 
 Avas aggravated, and, instead of being instantly beheaded, many were not 
 at first wounded mortally ; they were shot in different parts of their bodies 
 with pistols, or stuck witli daggers ; many struggled to break loose from 
 those who held them ; some succeeded, and were killed in corners of the 
 citadel, or on the top of the Pasha^s harem. Others, quite boys of twelve 
 or fourteen years, cried eagerly for mercy, protesting, with very obvious 
 truth, that they were innocent of any conspiracy, and offering themselves 
 as slaves to the Pasha : all these, and, in short, every one, however young 
 and incapable of guilt, or however old and tried in his fidelity, the most 
 elevated and the most obscure, were hurried before the Pasha, who sternly 
 refused them mercy, one by one, impatient until he was assured the 
 destruction was complete.* 
 
 Orders were now sent round to the troops to seize upon all Memlooks 
 wherever they might be found, and no sooner were they taken than they were 
 led before the Kiaya-Bey, who gave instant orders for their decapitation. 
 Many individuals who were not included among the obnoxious party, 
 perished in spite of tlieir innocence, so eager did the soldiers become in 
 the work of carnage. The corpse of Shahin-Bey was dragged by a rope 
 round its neck here and there through the city. The citadel was one vast 
 bloody arena : the mutilated bodies of the dead encumbered the passages ; 
 on all sides were seen richly-caparisoned horses stretched by the side of 
 their masters ; Sa'is or foot-attendants, pierced with balls ; broken weapons 
 and garments stained with blood : all the booty was given up to the 
 soldiery. In the morning were counted four hundred and seventy mounted 
 Memlooks; not one of them escaped from the massacre. 
 
 * Walpole, Meiuoivs on Europvan and Asiatic Turkey.
 
 122 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 None of tbo Frencli Memlooks were included in the proscription. Those 
 ■who happened to be in the citadel in the service of the governor, were 
 warned by the Kiaya-Bey, who shut them up in a chamber adjoining his 
 own, to protect them from all injury. Mourad-Bey, of the house of Elfy, 
 had for a long time employed them about his person ; by a lucky accident 
 they did not ride out that day. 
 
 Amin-Bey did not share the sad fate of his colleagues. He had delayed 
 taking part in the ceremony ; for being detained in his house by some 
 pressing business, he did not arrive near the citadel until the Dehlis had 
 commenced defiling from the gate El-Azab. The issuing forth of this troop 
 prevented him from entering; he waited for it to pass ; but seeing the gate 
 close after them, and hearing almost at the same time the firing, he put 
 spurs to his horse and escaped with his suite to Basatin, whence he repaired 
 to Syria, under the protection of an Arab Sheikh, of the province of 
 Sharkieh. 
 
 Scarcely had the procession put itself in motion, when the Pasha became 
 uneasy ; his movements betrayed his feelings. When he heard the 
 first discharge of musketry, his agitation redoubled ; he turned pale ; fear- 
 ing lest, through his orders not being punctually obeyed, a combat should 
 be begun, which might compromise the safety of his family, and even his 
 own life. The sight of the prisoners and the heads that were brought 
 in relieved him from his fear, but did not restore serenity to his counte- 
 nance, or appease the anguish of his mind. Soon afterwards the Genoese 
 Mendrici, one of his physicians, entered the apartment where he was, and 
 drawing near to him said gaily — " The affair is over ; this must be a day 
 of rejoicing to your highness." The prince answered nothing, but his 
 silence was expressive ; he then asked for something to drink. 
 
 Meanwhile the passage of the procession was anxiously awaited in the 
 city; all the inhabitants assembled in the streets had come out to take 
 part in the solemnity. The crowd blocked up the entrance to the shops. 
 After long waiting, the Dehlis, with the Aghas and their suite, appeared. 
 A sullen silence, precursor of the sinister events which were soon to be 
 known, succeeded the passage of this troop. An instant after, a number 
 of terrified Sais passed, running at intervals, without uttering a single word. 
 This sudden flight had given rise to a thousand conjectures, when a 
 confused noise was heard, and a voice exclaimed — " Shahin-Bey is killed ! " 
 Upon this the shops were instantly shut, and every one hastened to retire 
 to his own house. The streets were soon deserted. Notliing was to be 
 seen but bands of soldiers, rushing pell-mell into the houses of the pro- 
 scribed to sack and plunder them. These ruthless men committed all kinds 
 of atrocities ; the women were insulted, their clothes torn from their 
 backs ; and a soldier even, in his eagerness to gain possession of a bracelet 
 which was on a lady's wrist, actually cut off her hand. 
 
 The Turks, who could only marry women of an inferior class, saw^ with 
 displeasure that those of a higher, rank, disdaining their alliance, showed 
 the greatest eagerness to ally themselves with a Momlook family. They 
 had the baseness to revenge themselves on this occasion upon a defenceless 
 sex. The spoils were incalculable. The houses of the Beys were rich ;
 
 MASSACRE OF THE MEMLOOKS. 123 
 
 many among them were making preparations for marriage ; furniture, costly 
 stuffs, Kashmeers, and jewels, had been bought. Not only were the houses 
 of the proscribed sacked, but those in their neighbourhood underwent the 
 same fate ; on every side were seen traces of pillage. The city resembled 
 a place taken by storm ; no inhabitant appeared in the street ; all waited 
 in their own retreat the fate decreed him by destiny. 
 
 The following day the soldiers indulged in the same excesses ; murder 
 and pillage continued. At length 3Iohammed Ali thought it his duty to« 
 descend from the citadel ; he was followed by numbers of armed men, on 
 foot, in state costume. He traversed various quarters. At each post he 
 severely reprimanded the chiefs for having permitted such crimes ; but 
 these, far from having attempted to restrain their men, had been the first to 
 set the example of pillage. Near Bab-El-Zoweyleh, the governor encountered 
 a Moggrebin, who complained of the pillage of his house, asserting that he 
 w-as neither soldier nor Memlook ; the prince stopped, inquired into the 
 matter, and sent to the man's house some of his guards, who arrested a 
 Turk and a fellah, whose heads were ordered to be cut off. In advancing 
 towards the quarter of Kakkir, some one came to tell him the Sheikhs had 
 assembled in order to come and compliment him. The Pasha replied, that 
 he would go in person to receive their felicitations. He repaired to the 
 house of Sheikh-El-Sherkawy, and having passed an hour with him, 
 returned to the citadel. 
 
 Next day Toussoun-Pasha traversed the streets, followed by a numerous 
 guard, causing all those whom he found engaged in pillage to be decapi- 
 tated. It was necessary to take the severest measures, for the city w-ould 
 have been otherwise completely ravaged. Nevertheless, the search after 
 the Memlooks was continued, and even the most aged and those who had 
 never quitted Cairo were put to death. The Kiaya-Bey was their most 
 inveterate enemy ; no one obtained mercy in his sight. Many, however, 
 in spite of his diligence, escaped by hiding with the Dehlis and taking their 
 costume ; and others, disguised as women, repaired to Upper Egypt. 
 
 The Viceroy had communicated his secret to Hassan-Pasha, to Saleh- 
 Kosh, to the Kiaya-Bey, and to Soliman-Agha, his selikdar. He had 
 caused his Deewan-Effendi to write to the governors of provinces orders to 
 arrest and put to death all the Memlooks who were scattered among the 
 villages. Provided with the authority of their master, the Kashefs put to 
 death without distinction all those whom they wished to get rid of ; their 
 heads were sent to Cairo, where they were exposed in public. The sight of 
 this bloody spectacle re-awakened feelings which had begun to be deadened; 
 and vengeance dictated new death-warrants. Omar-Bey-Elfy was seized in 
 the Fayoom, whither he had escaped ; and his head and fifteen others were 
 exhibited on the same day. Those of the principal Beys were skinned, and 
 sent to Constantinople. The corpses were thrown pell-mell into holes dug 
 in the citadel. There perished on this occasion more than a thousand 
 persons. 
 
 The relations of the Memlooks, overwhelmed by their own misfortunes, 
 could not demand the dead that they might give them sepulture. The 
 mother of Marzouk-Bey obtained, however, the body of her son, which was
 
 124 EGYPT AND XUBIA. 
 
 recognised after three days' search ; he was the only one buried in the tomb 
 of his family. The Pasha granted safeguards to the women of the Mem- 
 looks, and allowed his favourites to take some of them as wives. 
 
 In many cases, however, a still worse fate awaited them. Stripped of 
 nearly all their clothes, deprived of every refuge, they were long left wan- 
 dering without a protector, without a home, and even without bread. 
 
 After this tragic event, a Kashef, sent by the Beys of Upper Egypt, came 
 ' to inform the Pasha that they were at Beyra, that they entreated for mercy, 
 and a place whither they might retire and live in peace. The governor made 
 him wait for an answer, and secretly sent Mustapha-Bey, his brother-in- 
 law, to Upper Egypt, with the command of all the troops, and orders to 
 make war on the Memlooks. The messenger of the Beys followed him 
 with this intelligence, which he carried to the camp at Beyra. 
 
 The order of the Viceroy was punctually obeyed in the Sai'd. Sixty-four 
 Memlooks taken in the province were brought to Old Cairo ; they were 
 put to death at night, by torch-light ; their heads were exposed at Bab-El- 
 Zoweyleh, and their bodies thrown into the Nile.* 
 
 It may not be uninteresting to follow a few steps further the fortunes of 
 the Memlooks. About eleven hundred of them, under the command of 
 Ibrahim Bey, escaped the ferocious persecution of Mohammed Ali, and 
 cut their way into Nubia, closely pursued by a Turkish army under 
 Ibrahim Pasha. Being encumbered with baggage and women, they could 
 not march with their usual rapidity, and the Turks at length came xip 
 with them about night-fall. Feeling sure of his victims, Ibrahim Pasha 
 would not attack them in the dark, but pushing forward a small body in 
 advance of their position, held them as it were in a trap. The jNIemlooks, 
 far inferior in numbers, assembled anxiously to deliberate. On one side 
 they were hemmed in by their enemies ; on the other lay the broad Nile. 
 Towards the dead of night, when the Turkish camp was buried in profound 
 sleep, the Memlooks mounted their horses, and placing their wives and 
 the most valuable of their effects before them, plunged into the stream, 
 and succeeded, without the loss of a man, in traversing it. According to 
 some, the Nile at that very place is fordable ; others say that their horses 
 swam the stream. Be this as it may, it is impossible to describe the rage 
 of the Turks next morning on discovering that their prey had escaped them. 
 Escaped, however, they had, and that so completely, that the most eager 
 pursuit proved wholly unavailing. The Memlooks succeeded in reaching 
 Dongola, where, after destroying the petty chiefs of the country, they 
 armed five or six thousand blacks. One of their Beys was acquainted 
 with the art of casting cannon, and among them were many English and 
 French deserters, t 
 
 * Mengin, Histoire de I'Egypte. f Captain Light.
 
 125 
 
 CHAPTElt X. 
 
 Thf. Sphinx — Thf. Pyramids. 
 
 The traveller's sojourn at Cairo is usually diversified by a number of 
 excursions each, to borrow a phrase from the Arabian Nights, more 
 interesting than the other. We enjoyed exceedingly our visit to the 
 Citadel, with its numerous historical associations and actual display of 
 magnificence ; we felt that we were traversing a Scriptural landscape as 
 our feet wandered towards Heliopolis and tlie Fountain of the Sun. One of 
 the events recorded in Exodus appeared to be enacting before us, when 
 through a gap in the Arabian chain we diverged away from the cultivated 
 country into the Valley of the Wanderings. Similar were our sensations 
 when traversing the skirts of the Libyan Desert ; we made our way 
 towards the Fayoom, with its orange plantations, rose gardens, and the 
 ruins 0*^ that wonderful labyrinth and still more wonderful lake, which, 
 surviving its twin-marvel, still bares its broad bosom to the sun, in the 
 midst, as it were, of the Great Sahara. But none of these enjoyments 
 was perhaps so replete with pleasure as our visit to the great pyramids of 
 Ghizeh. To most persons those structures have now been rendered familiar 
 by description. Thousands of travellers have beheld them, hundreds have 
 delineated their forms, and repeated their dimensions. But this considera- 
 tion does not in the slightest degree diminish the delight with which the 
 European who arrives for the first time at Cairo imdertakes his little 
 expedition across the Nile. On the morning fixed for our first visit to the 
 Pyramids, we rose several hours before day, and, having breakfasted, 
 mounted our donkeys, and set out in the dark. Our Janissary, likewise 
 riding on an ass, preceded us through the streets, and an Arab with 
 a lantern ran before to liwht us along. It had rained hard during the 
 night, and the ground was so slippery that two or three of our party fell 
 down with their beasts before we had proceeded the length of a single 
 street. The Muezzins from the minarets of the various mosques were sum- 
 moning the people to their devotions — •■' Arise, ye faithful, and pray ! 
 Prayer is better than sleep ! " And these sounds descending through the 
 air at that calm and still hour, before dawn had lighted up the earth, before 
 any other indication of life was abroad, had a thrilling, solemn eflect, nearly 
 allied to piety. The streets of Cairo, traversed at such a time, present a 
 ciirious appearance. No lamps, no movement, no sign of inhabitants but 
 the Berber porters and gate-keepers slumbering in their cloaks on the 
 bare earth. 
 
 After traversing a large portion of the city, followed by troops of savage 
 dogs, we emerged into the country, where we found, even thus early, the 
 labourers of Ibrahim Pasha employed in levelling and carrying away the 
 mounds of rubbish which used to encumber the environs of Cairo. In 
 approaching Masr-el- Atikeh, we saw on our left the Great Aqueduct, which
 
 126 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 conveys the water of the Nile to the citadel. Apropos of this aqueduct, a 
 very absurd story is told. The architect, they say, in constructing the 
 
 Aqueduct of the Nile to Cairo. 
 
 steep winding passage which leads to the summit, forgot half his design, 
 and made it too narrow to admit the oxen that were to work the water- 
 wheels ; in consequence of which a number of calves were carried up, and 
 kept there until they acquired the necessary size. But how the wheels 
 were turned while the calves were growing, the story sayeth not. Another 
 story, which may be better founded, is, that the King of England a few 
 
 years ago presented the Pasha with a complete hydraulic apparatus, for 
 raising the water of the Nile into this aqueduct, which was utterly spoiled 
 by the engineer employed in setting it up.
 
 EXCURSION TO THE PYRAMIDS. 127 
 
 Having passed through a portion of 3Iasr-cl-Atikeh, or Old Cairo, 
 we arrived about sunrise at the ferry, and embarked upon the Nile. The 
 prospect, as we moved across, was truly magnificent. The long lines 
 of white buildings on the eastern bank ; the tower of the Nilometer ; 
 the groves and gardens on the Island of Rhoudah ; the village of Ghizeli, 
 flanked by palm-woods ; glimpses of the Libyan Desert between the trees ; 
 the lofty summits of the Pyramids ; the broad bosom of the river enlivened 
 by numerous sails ; the partially clouded sky illumined by the first rays of 
 the sun, — all these elements harmonising beautifully together, formed 
 a panorama of incomparable interest. But the air was exceedingly keen 
 and cold, so that our thoughts were often diverted from the landscape to 
 the means of protecting ourselves from the wind. At a short distance to 
 the south of the point where we crossed, the patriarch Joseph, according to 
 a tradition of the Moslems, was buried in the Nile. They laid his body, it 
 is said, in a stone colfin, closed it with lead, and covered it with a varnish 
 which keeps out air and water, and then threw it into the river opposite 
 the town of Memphis, where in the fourth century of the Hegira stood the 
 Mosque of Yusuf. Arriving at Ghizeh, on the western bank, we re- 
 mounted, and pushed on hastily towards Sakkiet Mekkah. Tlie plain we 
 now traversed being intersected in various directions by canals, and partly 
 covered by broad sheets of water, the remains of the inundation, between 
 which in many places lay the road, over slippery causeways or banks 
 of earth, barely wide enough to admit of one person's riding along them at 
 a time. Large flights of ibises, as white as snow, continually kept 
 hovering about us or alighted on the lakes, while several other kinds of 
 water-fowl, of brilliant plumage, were scattered here and there in flocks. 
 A threat portion of the plain was covered with forests of date-palms, of 
 magnificent growth, planted in regular lines ; and springing up from a level 
 carpet of grass or young corn of the brightest green. Interspersed among 
 these woods and numerous smaller groves of tamarisks and acacias, were 
 the villages, mosques, and Sheikhs' tombs ; not un])leasing objects when 
 beheld by a cheerful eye. Here and there were fields of ripe dhourra sefi, 
 a species of Indian corn, of prodigious powers of increase, which grows to a 
 great height, and forms a principal ingredient in the food of the Arabs. 
 Hamilton reckoned on one ear of this corn three thousand grains ; and a 
 lady who frequently made the experiment in the Thebaid, constantly found 
 between eighteen hundred and two thousand. 
 
 As, owinc/ to the quantity of water which still remained from the inun- 
 dation, the pathway turned in various directions, and proceeded in a very 
 circuitous manner, we often seemed to be moving towards the East, and 
 cauoht a view of the Mokattam mountains : frequently the pyramids of 
 Sakkarah, Abousir, and Dashour became visible in the distance towards 
 the south ; but though they are many in number, I could discover no more 
 than seven. The appearance of the country continued exceedingly fine ; 
 and the rocks and gray sand-hills of the Desert, which bounded our view 
 towards tlie west, seemed only to enhance by contrast the splendour of the 
 intervening landscape. It would appear to be mere prejudice to suppose 
 that a fine level country like Egypt contemplated through an atmosphere
 
 128 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 of extraordinary purity, with a surface diversified by all the accidents of 
 wood and water, rustic architecture, flocks and herds, and hemmed in by 
 rocks and sands eternally barren, must necessarily be insipid and un- 
 picturesque. The landscape now before me was beautiful ; and there are 
 artists in England who, from such materials, and without overstepping the 
 modesty of Nature, could create pictures to rival the softest scene among 
 the works of Claude. The date-palm itself is a lovely object, far more 
 lovely than I have ever seen it represented by the pencil ; and when beheld 
 in its native country, relieved against a deep blue sky, or against the yellow 
 sands of the desert, with a herd of buffaloes, a long string of laden camels, 
 or a troop of Bedouins passing under it, lance in hand, it constitutes a per- 
 fect picture. But when we have before us whole forests of these trees, of 
 all sizes, from ten to one hundred feet in height, intermingled with mimosas, 
 acacias, tamarisks, and Egyptian sycamores, more noble, if possible, than 
 the oak, disposed in arched echoing walks, with long green vistas, glimpses 
 of cool shady lakes, villages, mosques, pyramids, the whole over-canopied 
 by a sky of stainless splendour, and glowing beneath the pencil of that 
 arch-painter, the sun, nothing seems to be wanting but genius to discover 
 the elements of the most magnificent landscapes. 
 
 The pyramids themselves, though towering far above everything around, 
 did not disclose all their vastness, there being no object near by which to 
 judge by comparison of their magnitude. Standing alone in the desert, 
 which they exactly resemble in colour, they appeared to appertain to and 
 form a part of it ; but before we approached them they seemed near, quite 
 at hand, and the intervening space, a field or two, over which we should 
 pass in a few minutes. We rode on for another hour ; and though they 
 certainly seemed to have increased in dimensions, there was no very 
 striking difference in their aspect : yet we could see that we had still some 
 space to traverse. Another hour : the pyramids had insensibly increased 
 In bulk ; the sun occasionally shone upon them, and gilded their peaks, 
 and the shadows of the clouds as they passed along travelled over them 
 as over the face of a mountain. At length we crossed the Bahr Yusuf, 
 emerged from the cultivated country and entered upon the desert, where 
 our animals sank deep, at every step, into the sand, stretching away la 
 mound and valley Interminably towards the left ; while flocks of plovers, 
 quails, Ibises, &c., rested upon the fields on the right, or skimmed along 
 the atmosphere, tempting our sportsmen. A considerable space of sand, 
 interspersed vi'ith small patches of a kind of prickly plant, eaten by the 
 camel, still remained to be crossed. We now saw a number of Bedouins 
 hastening towards us, to offer their services as guides ; the greater number 
 were tall, muscular, clean-limbed, young men, in many cases handsome ; 
 and they all appeared lively and good humoured. There were far too 
 many of them : but though they were so Informed, and positively assured 
 that they could not be all employed, not one of the number would relin- 
 quish the hope of earning a piastre, and the whole party, laughing and 
 chattering, ran bounding along over the heavy sand, with as light and 
 springy a step as If it had been a smooth gravel walk. 
 
 At length we entered the hollow valley, at the foot of the Pyramids,
 
 THE SPHINX. 
 
 129 
 
 -IL 
 
 Sphinx, after Denoa. 
 
 in wliicli the Sphinx is buried all but the head. Three superb spreading 
 trees, nourished by a hidden fountain, afford an agreeable shade in the 
 centre of this burning hollow ; and there, should I ever revisit the spot, 
 I would pitch my tent during my stay. The features of the Sphinx, 
 whatever their beauty or merit may formerly have been, are now so time- 
 worn and mutilated 
 by violence that they 
 can scarcely be said to 
 represent the human 
 countenance; but from 
 the outline of the face, 
 no man, not under the 
 influence of some vi- 
 sionary system, could 
 ever, I think, conclude 
 with Volney that the 
 physiognomy was that 
 of a negro. Even 
 Denon, who has deli- 
 neated the Sphinx 
 with a negro face, contradicts in his text the authority of his own pencil. 
 Were the whole of this hollow cleared of the sand which now encumbers 
 it, and the land restored to cultivation, as it might be without any very 
 extraordinary expense, the Sphinx, in spite of the injuries of time, might 
 once more be a sublime object ; as it is, the greater part of the interest 
 which it inspires is traceable to the imagination. 
 
 Nevertheless the physiognomy of this stupendous image has drawn from 
 a recent traveller the following reflections : — " Near the Pyramids, more 
 wondrous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the 
 lonely Sphinx. Comely the creature is, but the comeliness is not of this 
 world ; the once- worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this 
 generation : and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were 
 fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty — some mould of 
 beauty now forgotten : forgotten, because that Greece drew forth Cytherea 
 from the flashing foam of the JEgean, and in her image created new forms of 
 beauty, and made it a law among men, that the short and proudly- 
 wreathed lip should stand for the sign and the main condition of loveliness, 
 through all generations to come. Yet still there lives on the race of those 
 who were beautiful in the fashion of the elder world ; and Christian girls 
 of Coptic blood will look on you with the sad serious gaze, and kiss your 
 charitable hand with the pouting lips of the very Sphinx." * 
 
 It is impossible, however, to form any adequate idea of the grandeur of 
 the Sphinx without having recourse to laborious and expensive excava- 
 tions ; for although the imagination may descend through the sand and 
 pursue the dimensions of the statue, it is necessarily checked by the reflec- 
 tion, that it has no certainty to proceed on, and may be dealing with one 
 
 * Eothen.
 
 130 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBlA, 
 
 of its own creations while attempting to familiarise itself with a reality. 
 Once, and once only, since the time of the Romans, has this prodigious 
 image been laid bare to its basis. Mr. Salt, while Consul-General of 
 Egypt, and Captain Caviglia, achieved this undertaking ; and the account 
 given by the former of their operations is so interesting, that I am tempted 
 to abridge it here : — 
 
 This monument, so imposing in its aspect, even in the mutilated state 
 to which it has been reduced, has always excited the admiration of those 
 
 The Sphinx laid bare 
 
 who possessed sufficient knowledge of art to appreciate its merits at a first 
 glance ; for though, to an untutored eye, there remains so little of the 
 features as scarcely to give more than a general idea of the human head, 
 yet, by repeated and accurate observation, the several parts may be suffi- 
 ciently traced to afford a tolerably complete idea of its original perfection. 
 The 'contemplative turn of the eye, the mild expression of the mouth, 
 and the beautiful disposition of the drapery at the angle of the forehead, 
 sufficiently attest the admirable skill of the artist by whom it was executed. 
 It is true that no great attention has been paid to those proportions which 
 we are accustomed to admire, nor does the pleasing impression which it
 
 OPERATIONS OF CAI^TAIN CAVIGLIA. 131 
 
 produces result from any known rule adopted in its execution, but it may 
 rather be attributed to the unstudied simplicity of the conception, to the 
 breadth yet high finish of the several parts, and to the stupendous magni- 
 tude of the whole. 
 
 Such ai'c the sentiments which a repeated view of this extraordinary 
 Avork has inspired. At first, I confess, that, like many otlier travellers, 
 I felt that the praises lavished u])on it by Nordcn, Denon, and by others, 
 were exaggerated ; but the more I studied it at different liours of the day, 
 and under different effects of light and of shade, the more I became con- 
 vinced of their having barely done justice to its merits : it must indeed be 
 allowed, that the drawings by both these gentlemen but faintly accord with 
 their encomiums ; but, after having repeated the same task myself with 
 little success, I must admit, that the difficulties which attend the under- 
 taking are sufficient to baffle the efforts of any one not professionally 
 dedicated to the arts. 
 
 Before I proceed, I must premise, that the general impression made upon 
 me by this monument, has been produced by a deliberate contemplation of 
 it, when laid open to its base, with the fragments of a beard resting beneath 
 the chin, with its paws stretched fifty feet in advance, and with the temple, 
 the granite tablet, and the altar, represented in the accompanying sketches, 
 spread out on a regular platform in its front. These interesting objects, 
 which no one for ages had had an opportunity of seeing, have undoubtedly 
 tended to exalt it in my estimation ; and, in order that I may endeavour to 
 convey something of the same feelings to others, I shall proceed to a de- 
 tailed account of what was discovered by Captain Caviglia; which, together 
 with the several sketches taken on tlie spot during the progress of his 
 operations, may remain as a record of his labours, when the objects them- 
 selves are destroyed, or again entombed in the moving sands. 
 
 From various reports I learned that the French had made a considerable 
 excavation in front of the Sphinx, and that they had just discovered a door 
 when compelled to suspend operations. This account was repeatedly con- 
 firmed by the Arabs, several of whom declared that they had been present 
 at the discovery ; and said, that the door led into the body of the Sphinx ; 
 while others affirmed that it conducted up to the second pyramid. Though 
 little stress could be laid on such statements, they still rendered Captain 
 Caviglia very unwilling to give up his researches, without at least doiuf 
 all in his power to ascertain the fact. 
 
 To tliis end he first began to open a deep trench on the left, or northern 
 side, opposite the shoulder of the statue; and, though the sand was so 
 loose, that the wind drove back frequently during the night more than 
 half of what had been removed in the day, yet he managed by the aid of 
 planks, arranged so as to support the sides, to dig down in a few days to 
 the base. The trench, however, being no more than twenty feet across at 
 the top, and not above three feet wide at the bottom, the workmen were 
 evidently placed in a dangerous situation ; for if any large body of sand 
 had fallen in, it must have smothered those who were employed below. It 
 was, therefore, found necessary to abandon this part of the attempt. By 
 what had been done, however, the height of the statue from the top of the
 
 132 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 head to the base was ascertained, and it was also found that the external 
 surface of the body was composed of stones of various sizes, put together 
 with much care. The form of the masonry was not very regular, but it 
 consisted of three successive ledges, sufl&ciently broad for a man to stand 
 upon, and intended, probably, to represent the folds of a mantle or dress. 
 It seemed to have been added by the Romans. 
 
 The result of the first operation not proving satisfactory, Captain 
 Caviglia began a large excavation towards the front, in which he employed, 
 from the beginning of March to the end of June, from sixty to a hundred 
 labourers. Many interesting discoveries were now made. Among other 
 fragments that were found, were portions of the beard of the Sphinx, and 
 the head of a serpent. Most of these lay in a small temple, ten feet long 
 and five feet broad, which was immediately below the chin of the statue, 
 and which contained, according to Pliny, the body of Amasis, the first 
 king of the eighteenth dynasty. Between the front walls of this temple, 
 a small lion of good workmanship was found, with the head towards the 
 image ; and, as small statues of the bull JMahdes are similarly placed in 
 Indian temples, I conceive that this statue was in its original position. 
 Fragments of other lions, rudely carved, and the head and shoulders of 
 a Sphinx, were likewise discovered. All these remains, together with 
 certain tablets found in the small temple, the walls, and the platform, had 
 been ornamented with red paint ; which colour, according to Pausauias, 
 was appropriated in Egypt, as in India, to sacred purposes. 
 
 A large part of the left paw was uncovered, and the platform of masonry 
 was found to extend beyond it. In the course of a fortnight Captain 
 Caviglia had removed the sand from the paw, and from the outer walls of 
 the temple, in front of which was an altar formed of granite. It is now in 
 the British Museum, and has had at the angles projecting stones, which 
 may be supposed to have been called the horns of the altar. This fragment 
 still retains the marks of fire — the effects, probably, of burnt ofi"erings. 
 
 Captain Caviglia succeeded in laying open the base of the Sphinx, and 
 in clearino- away the sand in front of it, to the extent of more than a 
 hundred feet. Many short Greek inscriptions were indistinctly cut on the 
 paws of the statue. They prove that the image was held in high venera- 
 tion ; confirm the expression of Pliny, " quasi silvestre nemus accolen- 
 tium ;" and contain various phrases, which elucidate many doubtful points 
 in the sculptures of the adjacent tombs. 
 
 It is scarcely possible for any person, unused to occupations of this kind, 
 to form an idea of the difficulties which Captain Caviglia had to surmount 
 when working at the depth of the base ; for, in spite of all his precautions, 
 the slightest breath of wind or concussion set the surrounding particles of 
 sand in motion, so that the sloping sides crumbled away, and mass after 
 mass tumbled in, till the whole moving surface bore no unapt resemblance 
 to a cascade of water. Even when the sides appeared most firm, if the 
 labourers suspended their work only for an hour, they found that the greater 
 part of their labour had to be renewed. This was particularly the case on 
 the southern side of tlie right paw, where the people were employed for 
 seven days without making any sensible advance, because the sand rolled
 
 DISCOVERIES IN FRONT OF THE SPHINX. 133 
 
 down in one continued and regular torrent as fast as it was removed. He 
 therefore only examined the end of the paw.^ when an imperfect descrip- 
 tion was discovered on tlic second dio;it, and a few dedicatory phrases, 
 addressed to llarjiocrates, Ares, and Ilerines. At the distance of about 
 two feet to the southward of the right paw, the platform abruptly termi- 
 nated. It was therefore supposed that the Sphinx was placed upon a 
 pedestal ; but, by extending the operations in front of the statue, the plat- 
 form was found to be continued, and the steps were discovered. They 
 were bounded on each side by walls formed of unburnt brick, like those 
 which enclosed the ancient cities and temples of Egypt. The inner sides 
 of the walls, nearest the steps, were lined with stone, and coated with 
 plaster; the stonework, however, appeared comparatively modern, for 
 upon several of the blocks were the remains of Greek inscriptions, which 
 alluded to other buildings. Another of the inscriptions recorded repairs, 
 which were performed by the orders of Antoninus, and of Yerus. The 
 walls appeared to branch off towards the north, and also towards the south, 
 and to form a large enclosure around the Sphinx ; but their direction Avas 
 not ascertained. The steps, about a foot in breadth and eight inches in 
 height, were thirty in number. They ended abruptly on the northern 
 side, so as to leave a passage between them and the wall. This passage 
 was not examined. On a stone platform, at the top of the steps, was a 
 small building, which, from its construction, and from various inscriptions 
 found near it, seemed to have been a station whence the emperors, and other 
 persons of distinction who visited the Pyramids, could witness the reli- 
 gious ceremonies performed at the altar below. An inscription on the 
 front of it was much worn. 
 
 The platform above the steps was of narrower dimensions, and the 
 al)utments had a theatrical appearance. In a few days another flight of 
 thirteen steps was discovered, and another small building, which appeared 
 by the inscription to have been erected under the Emperor Septimius 
 Severus ; and the name of Geta is erased from the inscription, in the same 
 manner as it has been taken from the inscription upon the triumphal arch 
 at Rome. At this place, another inscription on a stele, erected in the 
 reigns of Mai-cus Antoninus and of Lucius Verus, was found ; it was sent 
 to the British JMuseum, and recorded that the walls vv^ere restored on the 
 15th of Paclion, (10th of May,) in the sixth year of the reign of the 
 Emperors Antoninus and Verus. From these facts, and many others to 
 which we might refer, it appears that the Romans were at considerable 
 pains to preserve the sacred monuments of the countries they conquered. 
 In this they set us an example which we should do well to follow. The 
 Taj Mahal, indeed, and one or two other great monuments, are preserved 
 at the public expense in India ; but others, equally interesting, are suffered 
 to go to decay, and to have the operations of time accelerated by ignorance 
 and barbarism. 
 
 At the top of the second flight of steps a platform is carried on with a 
 gradual ascent, to the length of 135 feet, bounded by a wall on the 
 southern side till it arrives nearly at the level of the ground, when the 
 rock rapidly descends towards the Nile, whether or not in the form of
 
 134 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 steps was not discovered. It is difficult to convey, even by drawings, a 
 distinct idea of this approach to the Sphinx. It was impossible, however, 
 to conceive anything more im- 
 posing than the general effect ; 
 or better calculated to set off to 
 advantage the grandeur of tlie 
 enormous monument, particularly 
 in the evening, when the suu was 
 setting behind it. The spectator 
 advanced on a level with the 
 breast, and thereby witnessed the 
 full effect of that admirable ex- 
 pression of countenance, which 
 characterises tlie features, whilst, 
 as he descended the successive 
 flights of stairs, the stupendous 
 image rose before him, wliiist his 
 view was confined, by the walls 
 on either side, to the interesting 
 object, for the contemplation of 
 which, even when he had reached 
 the bottom of the steps, a suffi- 
 cient space was allowed for him 
 to comprehend the whole at a 
 single glance. 
 
 Such was the result of Captain Caviglla's exertions in June, when, in 
 consequence of exposing himself too much to the sun, he was unfortunately 
 seized by an attack of ophthalmia, that compelled him to suspend his 
 operations, and shortly afterwards to return to take charge of his ship at 
 Alexandria. It is, perhaps, a circumstance unexampled in Mohammedan 
 countries, that these operations should have been carried on by a single 
 individual, attended occasionally only by one soldier, without the slightest 
 molestation having been offered, or unpleasant circumstance having 
 occurred, notwithstanding that numerous parties of idle soldiers went every 
 day to inspect the excavation, and that thousands of Arabs, during part of 
 the time, were encamped in the neighbourhood ; the circumstance unques- 
 tionably does honour to the government of Mohammed AH, who, on this 
 occasion, as well as on many others, has shown a remarkable liberality in 
 facilitating the researches carried on by Europeans in any way connected 
 witli science. The whole expense of these operations amounted to about 
 18,000 piastres (^450) ; "and I have to add," says Col. Vyse, "that 
 Captain Caviglia, to whom by our engagement was left the disposal of 
 everything that might be discovered, very handsomely requested me to 
 forward the whole, of what I might think interesting, to the British 
 Museum, as a testimony of his attachment to our country, imder the flag of 
 which he had for some years sailed."* 
 
 Entrance to Sepulchral Chamber near Sphinx. 
 
 * Col. Howard Vyse.
 
 SENTIMENTS INSPIRED BY THE PYRAMIDS. 135 
 
 Tlic rocky eminence upon which Cheops and his successors erected their 
 vast pyramidal temj)les to Venus, rises about one hundred feet above the 
 
 Panoramic View of the Plain of Gizeh 
 
 level of the Egyptian plain, and has now^ been covered, by the action of the 
 west wind, with sandy mounds, various in form and height, which cause it 
 to exhibit a ruggeduess of aspect altogether congruous with our ideas of the 
 Libyan waste. When we had gained the summit of this height, and 
 cleared the hillocks which at first obstructed oiu* view, all the sublimity of 
 the Pyramids burst at once upon us. The tallest among our companions, 
 standing at their feet, were scarcely so high as a single layer of stones ; and 
 when I drew near and beheld the mighty basis, the vast breadth, the pro- 
 digious solidity, tlie steep acclivity of the sides, misleading the eye, which 
 appears to discover the summit among the clouds, whilst the kite and tlie 
 eagle, wheeling round and round, far, far aloft, were yet not so high as the 
 apex, I secretly acknowledged the justice of tlie popular opinion which 
 enumerates those majestic structures among the wonders of the world. 
 Here, then, after many disappointments and hopes frequently deferred, I 
 at lengtii stood, realising, by the indulgence of Providence, one of the long 
 cherished schemes of my youtli. Nor did the pleasure fall short a jot of 
 the measure of delight promised at a distance by hope. Genius of the first 
 order had reared these Titanian temples, and so thoroughly did it succeed 
 in embodying its vast conceptions, that men the most illiterate, and of the 
 grossest apprehension, contem])lating these mysterious fanes, have their 
 minds penetrated and warmed into admiration by a spark of enthusiasm, 
 an involuntary consciousness of the sublime. Less than these it was impos- 
 sible I should feel. Pythagoras, Plato, Herodotus, Germanicus had gone 
 of old on the same pilgrimage, and though I may never share their renown, 
 not one of them all could have experienced more pleasurable emotions, 
 or sympathised more earnestly witii the unknown architect in tlie glorious 
 triumph of his intellect. I'.Ien, ambitious of the reputation of philosophers, 
 have declaimed in all ages about the inutility of tlie Pyramids. But can 
 anything be called useless by which the mind is elevated and aggrandised ? 
 which rouses and fires the imagination with ideas of diuturnity and 
 grandeur and power? What are we, divested of the pleasures furnished b\' 
 the imagination ? Why has Art in all ages mimicked tlie creative energy 
 of Nature ? Is it not that we may I'emove from ourselves that sense of 
 insignificance which is inspired by the feebleness of our physical power, by
 
 136 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 tlie exertion of another power, in which it would appear from many of the 
 works of men that we are not deficient ! However this may he, I thanked 
 Cheops, Cephrenes, and Mycerinus for creating a marvel in the regions of 
 art, and thus, whatever may he pretended to the contrary, adding to the sum 
 of permanent enjoyment. If in the execution of tlieir designs they 
 oppressed their subjects, the fact is to be lamented ; but too many modern 
 princes, with equal recklessness of what they inflict upon the people, 
 wantonly engage in wars which still more lavishly and uselessly exhaust 
 their treasures, without producing anything for the instruction or gratifica- 
 tion of posterity. 
 
 Proceeding with our guides to the entrance, which is the common point 
 of departure, whether we mount to the top or descend into the interior, we 
 selected two Arabs, to aid us in running along the narrow ledges, and pass- 
 ing over the dangerous projections and angles, and forthwith began to 
 ascend. At first it must be owned " the way seemed difficult and steep 
 to climb," but as we proceeded and rose from one of the Bomidai (as the 
 steps are aptly termed by Herodotus) to another, you gradually become 
 familiar with your position and leai'n to be bold. Our track lay along the 
 north-eastern angle, where time and the irresistible storms which sweep 
 across the desert have tumbled down many of the stones; and thus made, 
 at various heights, resting-places for the traveller. And indeed such rest- 
 ing-places are exceedingly necessary ; for the exertion and labour of the 
 ascent, with the impatience which animates most persons on such occasions, 
 soon put you out of breath, and make you glad to sit down from time to time^ 
 to contemplate what you have already achieved. Looking upward along the 
 face of the Pyramid the steps, like those of the visionary ladder of Padan- 
 aram, seem to ascend to the clouds ; and if you turn your eyes below, the 
 height looks dizzy, prodigious, fearful, and the people at the bottom appear 
 to be shrunk to dwarfs. The prospect of the country enlarges at every 
 step ; the breadth of the Pyramid sensibly diminishes ; and at length after 
 considerable toil you find yourself on the small table land which Vandalism, 
 or the premature death of the original builder, has left upon the top of the 
 Great Pyramid. A number of large blocks of an unfinished layer occupy 
 a portion of the square area, and serve the travelltT (or at least served me) 
 as a desk to write on. They are covered with the names of innumerable 
 visitors of all nations cut deep in the stone ; but I saw none to which any 
 great celebrity is attached. 
 
 It was now about mid-day, and the sun, entirely free from clouds, smote 
 upon tlie Pyramid with great vehemence ; so that, what with the warmth 
 produced by the labour of the ascent and the ardour of its rays, we expe- 
 rienced a heat resembling that of an oven. The air was clear, and our view 
 unimpeded on all sides. To the south, scattered in irregular groups, were 
 the Pyramids of Sakkarah, Abousir, and Dashour, glittering in the sun, 
 like enormous tents ; and appearing from their numbei", and the confusion 
 of their arrangement, to extend to an unknown distance into the desert. 
 On the west was the wilderness of Libya, stretching away to the edge of 
 the horizon; arid, undulating, boundless, apparently destitute of the very 
 principle of vegetation, an eternal prey to the sand-storm and the whirl-
 
 VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT OF THE PYRAMIDS. 137 
 
 wind. A flock of gazelles, or a troop of Bedouins scouring across the plain, 
 would have relieved its monotony; but neither the one nor the other 
 appeared. In the foreground the sand of various colours, yellow, dusky 
 brown, and gray, swelled into hillocks which looked like the nuclei of new 
 pyramids. To the north and the east the landscape presented a perfect 
 contrast to this savage scenery : night and day are not more different; and 
 if the contests of Typhon and Osiris represented symbolically the struggles 
 between the desert and the river — the one to nourisli, the other to destroy 
 — the gods were still there, drawn up in battle array against each other ; 
 though the evil demon, alas ! had evidently long prevailed, and was daily 
 curtailing the empire of his adversary. All, however, that remains of the 
 valley of the Nile is luxuriantly covered with verdure and beauty; corn- 
 fields, green meadows, woods of various growth and foliage, scattered 
 villages, a thousand shining sheets of water, and, above all, the broad 
 glittering stream of the Nile s])reading fertility on all sides like a god. 
 Beyond this were the white buildings of Cairo, Babylon, and Rhodah, 
 backed by the long lofty range of the Gebel Mokattam, reflecting the bright 
 warm rays of the mid-day sun. 
 
 We remained for some time on the summit of the Pyramid, as if loth to 
 quit the spot, admiring with unwearied delight the extraordinary features of 
 the landscape beneath, but it at length became necessary to descend. AVhen 
 I approached the edge of the platform, and looked down the steep rugged 
 side of the Pyramid (a slope of nearly eight hundred feet), I no longer won- 
 dered at the accident which caused the death of poor Maze, v/ho, as some 
 persons in Egypt suppose, threw himself purposely down, from the same 
 motive which impelled Eratostratos to destroy the Temple of Diana at 
 Ephesos. But the accident may very well be accounted for witliout this 
 supposition ; in fact, the wonder is, that such things should not frequently 
 happen. Hasselquist, we know, failed twice in his attempt to reach the 
 top ; the first time because he feared that the high wind then blowing 
 would have hurled him down ; the second, because the steps had been so 
 intensely heated by the sun that they burned his feet through his boots. 
 We descended rapidly. I had an Arab on either hand, who actively 
 assisted me, springing from step to step with the agility of a chamois. It 
 was now that the height looked pernicious, the blocks on Avhicli we stood 
 vast, and the labour that had ])iled them upon each other marvellous ; but 
 we reached the bottom in perfect safety, in one-twentieth part of the time 
 it had taken us to ascend, 
 
 It is generally supposed that the whole of this part of the desert is so 
 completely sterile, that no plant of any kind will groAv in it, and its appear- 
 ance certainly suggests so much. But an attentive naturalist may discover 
 even here jiroofs that no part of God's creation is entirely destitute of 
 the princij)le of life. One solitary plant, the gum succori, and more than 
 one species of animal, were found in the sand by Hasselquist ; and j)erhaps 
 if a diligent search were made, other individuals of both kingdoms might 
 present themselves. The small lizard, common in the Levant, where it 
 may be beheld gliding like a little shadow along tlie faces of houses, garden- 
 walls, or ruins, nestles in the burning hollows at the foot of the Pyramids, 
 
 N 2
 
 138 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 subsisting on heaven knows what. Its neighbour in these solitudes is the 
 lion-ant, which, guided by instinct, erects, on the shifting surface of the 
 
 Top of the Great Pyramid. 
 
 waste, structures which, though infinitesimally small, rival the Pyramids 
 themselves in subtle contrivance and ingenuity. They are probably the 
 only republicans in this part of the world, who, setting sultan and pasha 
 at defiance, have erected their well-ordered commonwealth in sight of 
 the immemorial hot-bed of despotism. They may generally be seen travel- 
 ling in o-rcat numbers upon the sand, each holding a morsel of stone or a 
 rotlen bit of wood between his curious jaws, and hastening with it to the 
 dwellings which they have made for themselves in the ground. I saw 
 numbers of this insect's nests. They were tlirown up in tufts in the sand, 
 about the size of the two fists, and slightly depressed at the top. In the 
 middle of this depression was a little hole, no larger than a pipe stem, 
 throuf'h which they w^ent in and out. I attacked them within their 
 entrenchments in hopes of seeing tlie inward construction of their nests, 
 but I was deceived, and only demolished their outworks, from which went 
 a private passage, so artfully conducted, that it was vain to endeavour to 
 come to their innermost dwelling. All the arcliitecture, magnificence, and 
 expense, displayed in the Pyramids, cannot give a contemplater of nature 
 such hifrh ideas, as the art of these little creatures can excite.* 
 
 Strabo, who visited this spot eighteen hundred years ago, after having 
 described somewhat too concisely the grandeur and mechanism of the 
 Pyramids, speaks of certain curious petrifactions discovered in the mounds 
 scattered here and there around their bases. His relation has given rise 
 to much discussion among the learned. He observed, he says, in the 
 
 * Ilasselquist.
 
 DISCUSSION ON PETRIFIED LENTILS. 139 
 
 heaps formed by the cliippings of the stone used in erecting the vast struc- 
 tures near at hand, multitudes of small pebbles, in form and size resembling 
 a lentil. It would have been altogetlier an extraordinary thing had the 
 Egyptians failed to have a legend associated with these petrifactions : they 
 informed him that they were so many relics of the food with which the old 
 pyramid builders had sustained themselves, then, as now, consisting in great 
 part of lentils. By some, however, the pebbles were thought to be like 
 grains of dhoura imperfectly hulled. I say dlioura, fur the idea of Greaves, 
 that barley is meant by Strabo, seems to me extremely erroneous. Strabo 
 was not at all indisposed to accept the marvellous interpretation of the 
 Egyptians, though by what agency lentils could, in such a situation, be 
 turned into stone, it would be diflficult to comprehend. Besides, he had 
 seen in his own country an abundance of pebbles similar in shape and 
 dimensions, and he remarks that everywhere along the sea-shore, and along 
 the banks of rivers, an abundance of such pebbles may be met with. 
 Greaves, because he could discover none of these relics himself, appears 
 more than half inclined to call in question Strabo's veracity; though, on 
 second thoughts, he confesses it to be pi'obable that the sands of the desert 
 may, in process of time, have buried the heaps of stones which the Greek 
 geographer saw. He then, by way of illustration, repeats certain super- 
 stitious stories, curious enough in themselves, and characteristic of Oriental 
 credulity, though not, perhaps, strictly appropriate in the place they occupy : 
 " Were not Strabo a writer of much gravity and judgment, I should sus- 
 pect that these petrified grains (though I know such petrifactions to be no 
 impossibility in nature ; for I have seen, at Venice, the bones and flesh of 
 a man, and the whole head, except the teeth, entirely transmuted into 
 stone ; and at Rome, clear conduit water, by long standing in aqueducts, 
 hath been turned into perfect alabaster) are like those loaves which are 
 reported to be found by the Red Sea, converted into stone, and by the 
 inhabitants supposed to be some of the bread the Israelites left behind them, 
 when they passed over for fear of Pharaoh. They are sold at Grand Caii'o 
 handsomely made up in the manner of the bread of these times, which is 
 enough to discover the imposture. For the Scripture makes them to have 
 been unleavened cakes ; ' They baked unleavened cakes of the dough which 
 they brought forth out of Egypt."" Or else Strabo's relation may be like 
 the tradition of the rising of dead men's bones every year in Egypt; a 
 thing superstitiously believed by the Christians, and by the priests, either 
 out of ignorance, or policy, maintained as an argument of the resurrection. 
 Sandys, in his travels, writes that they are seen to rise on Good Fridav. 
 A Frenchman at Grand Cairo, who had been present at the resurrection, 
 sliowed me an arm which he had brought from thence ; the flesh shrivelled up 
 and dried like that of the mummies. He observed the miracle to have 
 been always behind him ; once casually looking back, he discovered some 
 bones carried privately by an Egyptian, under his vest, whereby he under- 
 stood the mystery," 
 
 Diodorus, describing the environs of the Pyramids, obliterates all trace 
 of the mounds noticed by Strabo. He obsi-rves that no marks of human 
 labour were anywhere discoverable, no fragments of stone, no rubbish,
 
 no 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 !?"rfp^ 'ATfflBOIwr^Wr^ jf 
 
 i^ 
 
 Bridie in Southern Djke. 
 
 nothino- but tlie sandy level of the wilderness, and the towering monuments 
 of Egyptian magnificence, springing out of it as though they had been 
 placed there entire by the hand of some divinity. The Roman naturalist, 
 always ready to be 
 
 carried away by a -^ ,_^^. _ 
 
 striking idea, adopts 
 
 the representation of - 
 
 Diodorus, in which 
 he has been imita- 
 ted by some modern 
 writers, who, from 
 this circumstance, 
 seem to infer that 
 Strabo's mounds were 
 imaginary. The sligh- 
 test familiarity, how- 
 ever, with the Libyan 
 Desert ought to have 
 suggested a diflferent 
 
 CDiiolusion. Nothing is there more common than the shifting of sand-heaps, 
 which to-day perhaps, in certain localities, may rise to the elevation of 
 hills, while the whirlwind of to-morrow may carry them away, and leave 
 the stony skeleton of the earth stripped as it were of its integuments. 
 
 Before we enter the Pyramids, it may not be wholly without interest to 
 consider what the writers of the nation which now possesses the country 
 think of the origin and purpose of those mysterious structures. Many 
 strange theories have obtained currency in Europe upon this subject. 
 They have been tombs, and temples, and I know not what besides. 
 Among the ancient Sabfeans they were regarded as objects of mysterious 
 reverence ; the professcjrs of that religion proceeded from Mesopotamia on 
 pilgrimage to the Pyramids, conceiving, probably, that they had some 
 talismanic connection with the celestial spheres. The imagination of the 
 wildest speculators amongst us has fallen far short of the notions suggested 
 to the Orientals by the sublimity of these buildings. "The greatest part 
 of chronoloorers agree," say they, " that he who built the Pyramids was 
 Saurid Ibn Salhouk, King of Egypt, who lived three hundred years before 
 the flood. The occasion of this was, because he saw in his sleej), that the 
 whole earth was turned over, with the inhabitants of it, the men lying 
 upon their faces, and the stars falling down, and striking one another \\\\\\ 
 a terrible noise ; and being troubled, he concealed it. After this he saw 
 the fixed stars falling to the earth, in the similitude of white fowl ; and 
 they snatched up nu'u, carrying them between the great mountains; and 
 these mountains closed upon them, and the shining stars were made dark. 
 Awaking with great fear, he assembled the chief priests of all the provinces 
 of Egypt, an hundred and thirty priests ; the chief of them was called 
 Aclimum. Relating the whole matter to them, they took the altitude of 
 the stars, and, making their prognostications, foretold of a deluge. The 
 King said, ' AVill it come to our country ? ' They answered, ' Yea, and will
 
 ORIENTAL ACCOUNT OF THE TYRAMIDS. 141 
 
 destroy it.' And there remained a certain number of years for to come, 
 and be commanded in tbe mean space to build the Pyramids, and a vault 
 to be made, into wbicb tbe river Nilus entering, sbonld rnn into tbe 
 countries of tbe West, and into tbe land Al-Said ; and be filled tbem witb 
 telesmes, and witb strange tilings, and witb ricbes and treasure, and tbe 
 like. He engraved in tbem all tbings tbat were told bim by wise men, as 
 also all profound sciences, tbe names of alakakirs, tbe nses and burts of 
 tbem ; tbe science of astrology, and of aritbmetic, and of geometry, and of 
 pbysic. All tins may be interpreted by bim tbat knows tbe cbaracters 
 and language. After be bad given orders for tbis building, tbey cut out 
 vast columns, and wonderful stones. Tbey fetcbed massive stones from tbe 
 Ethiopians, and made witb these tbe foundation of tbe three Pyramids, 
 fastening them together with lead and iron. Tbey built tbe gates of tbem 
 forty cubits nnder ground, and they made tbe height of the Pyramids an 
 bnndred royal cubits, which are fifty of ours in these times ; he also made 
 each side of them an hundred royal cubits. Tbe beginning of tbis building 
 was in a fortunate horosco])e. After that he had finished it, be covered it 
 with coloured satin from tbe top to tbe bottom ; and be appointed a solemn 
 festival, at which were present all tbe inhabitants of his kingdom. Then 
 be built in tbe western Pyramid thirty treasuries, filled with store of ricbes 
 and utensils, and with signatures made of precious stones, and with instru- 
 ments of iron, and vessels of earth, and witb arms which rust not, and 
 with glass, wbicb might be bended and yet not broken, and witb strange 
 spells, and with several kinds of alakakirs, single and double, and witb 
 deadly poisons, and witb other tbings besides. He made, also, in tbe east 
 Pyramid, divers celestial spheres and stars, and what tbey severally operate, 
 in their aspects, and tbe perfumes which are to be used to tbem, and tbe 
 books which treat of these matters. He also put in tbe coloured Pyramid 
 tbe commentaries of the priests, in chests of black marble, and witb every 
 priest a book in which were the wonders of his profession, and of bis 
 actions, and of bis nature, and what was done in bis time ; and what is, 
 and what shall be, from tbe beginning of time to tbe end of it. He placed 
 in every Pyramid a treasurer ; the treasurer of the westerly Pyramid was 
 a statue of marblestone, standing upright, witb a lance, and, upon bis 
 head, a serpent wreathed. Those tbat came near it, and stood still, tbe 
 serpent bit of one side, and, wreathing round about bis throat, and killing 
 him, returned to his place. He made tbe treasurer of the east P^^ramid 
 an idol of black agate, his eyes open and shining, sitting upon a throne, 
 with a lance ; when any looked upon bim, be beard of one side a voice, 
 which took away bis sense, so tbat be fell prostrate upon his face, and 
 ceased not till he died. He made the treasurer of the coloured Pyramid a 
 statue of stone, called Albut, sitting ; be which looked towards it was 
 drawn by tbe statue till he stuck to it, and could not be separated from it 
 till such time as he died. The Coptites write in their books, tbat there is 
 an inscription engraven upon them, the exposition of which in Arabic is 
 tbis : ' I, King Saurid, built tbe Pyramids in such and such a time, and 
 finished tbem in six years. He that comes after me, and says that he is 
 equal to me, let bim destroy tbem in six hundred years ; and yet it is
 
 142 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 'W)Wi- 
 
 known, that it is easier to pluck down than to buiUl up. I also covered 
 them, when I had finished them, with satin ; and let him cover them with 
 mats.' After that Almamon the Caliph entered Egypt, and saw the 
 P3Tamids, he desired to know what was within, and therefore would 
 have them opened. They told him it could not possibly be done. He 
 replied, I will have it certainly done. And that hole was opened for him, 
 which stands open to this day, with fire and vinegar. Tiie smiths prepared 
 
 and sharpened the iron and engines 
 which they forced in ; and there 
 was a great expense in the opening 
 of it. The thickness of the wall 
 was found to be twenty cubits. 
 And when they came to the end 
 of the wall behind the place they 
 had diofCfed, there Avas an ewer of 
 green emerald ; in it were a thuu- 
 .sand dinars, very weighty ; every 
 dinar was an ounce of our ounces : 
 they wondered at it, but knew not 
 the meaning of it. Then Alma- 
 mon said, ' Cast up the account, 
 how much hath been spent in 
 making the entrance.' They cast 
 it u]), and, lo, it was tlie same sum 
 which they found ; it neither ex- 
 ceeded, nor was defective. Within 
 they discovered a square well, in 
 the square of it there were doors ; 
 every door opened into an house or vault, in which there were dead bodies 
 wrapped up in linen. They found, towards the top of the Pyramid, a 
 chamber, in which there was a hollow stone ; in it was a statue of stone 
 like a man, and within it a man, upon whom was a breastplate of gold, 
 set with jewels : upon his breast was a stone of incalculable price, and at 
 his bead a carbuncle of the bigness of an egg, shining like the light of the 
 day ; and upon him were characters written with a pen ; no man knows 
 what they signify. After Almamon had opened it, men entered into it 
 for many years, and descended by the slippery passage which is in it ; 
 and some of them came out safe, and other.s died." 
 
 We now propose to descend into the interior chambers. The entrance, 
 which is in the northern face of the Pyramid, about forty feet above the 
 level of the Desert, and equidistant from either side, is approached over 
 an artificial elevation of the soil. The heat and closeness being very great 
 within, we partly undressed, and leaving behind us our superfluous gar- 
 ments, each person took a lighted taper and followed his Arab guide, who, 
 accustomed to the place, crept down the slippery passage like a cat ; but 
 raised in his progress such clouds of dust, that I considered myself fortunate 
 in being the foremost of the i)arty. The ])ass.nge, which dips at an angle 
 of twenty-six degrees, is entirely cased with slabs of oriental pori)hyry. 
 
 Entrance to the Great Pyramid.
 
 DESCENT INTO THE WEU* 143 
 
 finely polished, and so exquisitely fitted to each other as to seem but one 
 piece. 
 
 When we reached the mouth of the well, we quickly discovered that 
 the precaution we had taken of bringing a good quantity of cord had not 
 been useless. There are indeed some steps, or rather holes, on both 
 sides of the shaft ; but they are broken in many places, and so worn 
 throughout, that to trust to them would most certainly be to put one's 
 neck in danger of dislocation. To avoid so fatal a catastrophe, I tied the 
 cord round my body. Before descending, I let down a lantern by a piece 
 of twine. When it reached the bottom, I prej)ared to follow. Two 
 servants and three Arabs held the rope which was attached to nie, though 
 with evident reluctance, for they wislied me to relinquish the hazardous 
 undertaking. They did all in their power to frighten nie, expatiating on 
 the dangers I ran, and averring, " that there were spirits below, from 
 whose clutches I should never escape." When they saw, however, that I 
 was resolved to rush uj)on my ruin, and that their remonstrances only made 
 me laugh, they consented to hold the rope, and contented themselves with 
 deploring my sad fate, and looking upon me as if it was to be for the last 
 time. At length, after having provided myself with paper, a compass, a 
 measure, and a candle in my hand, I began to descend, sometimes trustingr 
 to the rope, sometimes to the steps, until I had reached the bottom of the 
 first well. The opening at this place is towards the south, and leads 
 into a passage about eight feet long, after which there is a perpendicular 
 descent of four feet. Four feet and ten inches from this there is another 
 well, or rather a continuation of the same. The entrance is almost blocked 
 up by a huge stone, leaving only a small aperture, through which it is 
 somewhat difficult to pass. I now again let down the lantern, not only 
 that I might see my way, but also to discover whether or not the air was 
 mephitic. On this occasion, however, the precaution was of no avail ; 
 because this well is not, like the other, an exact perpendicular, but a little 
 crooked, so that when I had let down the light I could no longer see it. 
 But this did not discourage me. I was determined to descend as far as 
 I could go; there was no other way of satisfying my curiosity. I now 
 found it necessary to have some one to hold the rope at the mouth of the 
 second well, as well as at the first, and I accordingly called two of the 
 Arabs who were above ; but, instead of coming, they began to relate a 
 thousand stories to excuse themselves ; among others that of a Frank, w^ho 
 some years ago coming to the place where I then was, and having let down 
 a long cord to ascertain the depth, had it snatched from his hands by 
 some demon. I knew very well to whom they were indebted for this 
 story ; for the Dutch Consul swears that the thing happened to himself. 
 There is only one way of dealing with such folks — I mean the Arabs. I 
 promised money to the first who would come, and besides that the treasure, 
 if there really was one below, as they pretended, should be all for 
 him. This last observation had its weight ; all conceived some desire to 
 brave the dangers of the well ; but no sooner had one begun to descend 
 than superstition overcame him, and he drew back in a state of great 
 trepidation. I was not in a mood, or in a place, highly conducive to
 
 144 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 patience. I bawled for a long time in bad Arabic without producing any 
 effect, and was at length about to give np the attempt in despair, when 
 the love of money overcame the superstitious fear of one of tlie Arabs, and 
 he began to descend, though with manifest signs of repugnance. It was 
 easy to see that he did not come down with all liis heart. He was in such 
 a state of agitation that he did not know what he was doing. He passed 
 his tremblino- hand over the wall without being able for a long time to 
 find the holes which were to assist him. I, accordingly, judging it not 
 safe to remain directly under him, retired towards the other well. Wlien 
 he reached the bottom, he seemed more like a spectre than a man. Pale 
 and trembling, he cast furtive glances on every side. His hair, if he 
 had had any, would have stood upright on his head. 
 
 I hastened to go down lest I might give him time to repent of what he had 
 done. I had tlie rope still tied round my waist. I soon discovered the 
 lantern far below me, whicli showed that this well was deeper than the 
 former. A little lower than the middle I perceived the entrance of a 
 grotto, about fifteen feet deep by four or five wide, for it is not regular, 
 and hioh enough to allow of my walking upright. From thence I descended 
 to the°entrance of a third well, which is not perpendicular, like the others, 
 and whose slope is very rapid. I found it was of great depth by rolling a 
 stone down. I called out to the Arabs to slacken the rope by degrees 
 until I told them to pull, and dropping the lantern before me as I 
 went, descended as well as I could, putting my feet in the little holes 
 which had been cut in the sides. I continued following the lantern for a 
 lono- time witliout perceiving any sign of a termination to this horrible 
 place. I was proceeding in a perfectly straight line, when suddenly the 
 well became perpendicular, and shortly afterwards 1 reached the bottom. 
 It is choked up with stones, sand, &c. I had liere only two things to 
 fear ; first, that the bats should fly against my candle and extinguish it, and 
 second, that the great stone, of which I have spoken at the entrance of the 
 second well, and upon which the Arab was obliged to lean his whole weight, 
 should fall forward and shut me down where I was for ever. It is cer- 
 tainly very fine to say that I ought to have considered it an honovir to be 
 buried in a pyramid, in one of the famous monuments which were destined 
 only for kings. I candidly acknowledge that I had no ambition that way. 
 On the contrary, I was a thousand times more glad to emerge into 
 air and daylight, than I should have been at being buried alive in so 
 remarkable a place. I found a rope-ladder at the bottom of the second 
 Avell, whicli, though it had lain there many years, was as fresh and 
 stroncT as when it was first made. The rounds were of wood. It was 
 left by a traveller who attempted to descend where I now was, but who 
 did not ffo further than the grotto. It was on this occasion that the Dutch 
 Consul averred that some one below had snatched the cord out of his hands, 
 a relation of which the Arabs preserve every circumstance recorded in their 
 memories. By means of my rope we succeeded in bringing up the ladder, 
 thouo-h with some difficulty, because the second well is, as I have said, 
 somewhat crooked, and the wooden pieces caught every now and then in 
 the holes in the sides. When we reached the bottom of the first well
 
 INTERIOR OF THE PYRAMID. 145 
 
 our candle fell and was extinguished, upon which my poor Arab gave 
 himself up for lost. He seized the rojje when I attempted to ascend, 
 and protested that he would rather I should blow his brains out than 
 be left down alone in company with the Efrcets. I accordingly allowed 
 him to mount first, for which he seemed very grateful. Although it is 
 much more difficult to ascend than to descend, I don't know how it was, 
 but he got up a hundred times quicker than he came down. 
 
 "When I issued from this extraordinary place I was as black as a smith, 
 and my clothes, it will easily be believed, had not benefited by the rottgh 
 usage they had met with. The first well is twenty-two feet in depth, the 
 second twenty-nine, and the third ninety-nine ; which, with the descent of 
 five feet between the first and second wells, makes a total of one hundred 
 and fifty-five.* 
 
 We now proceeded to the adit leading to the King's Chamber. This 
 narrow, smooth corridor, which mounts with a steep ascent, is cased, like 
 tlie former, with porphyry. We passed over the mouth of the entrance to 
 the Queen's Chamber, which lies directly under that of the King. Notches 
 cut in the pavement enabled us to fix our footsteps ; and after groping 
 along for a considerable time, through dust and heat, we arrived at a 
 level passage of no great length, which led directly into the royal chamber. 
 
 Here our tapers, though numerous, at first seemed inadequate to the light- 
 ing up of the apartment ; but our eyes by degrees began to pierce through 
 the gloom, and to discover the form and dimensions of objects. The 
 mysterious sarcophagus, wliich, in my opinion, was never meant to contain 
 the bones of any mortal, is placed with its head turned to the north, the 
 sacred quarter, towards which the fables and traditions of all ancient 
 nations point as to the birth-place of their ancestors. It has been much 
 injured ; the cover has been removed, and it is more than half-filled with 
 dust and fragments of sandstone. In the southern wall of tlie apartment 
 there is a small niche, which may have contained a mimic coffin during the 
 celebration of the mysteries ; but it is now empty. The pavement is 
 covered with dust. The walls are beautifully coated with square slabs of 
 polished granite, exquisitely joined. The ceiling is formed of a number of 
 blocks of stone, about three feet in breadth, which reach across the apart- 
 ment ; and being alternately of a lighter and darker grain, give the roof 
 the appearance of being painted in broad stripes of different colours. We 
 found the length of the apartment to be above thirty-nine feet, the breadth 
 about eighteen, and the height about twenty-two. In the northwest corner 
 there were two small square cavities sunk in the floor, and probably of great 
 depth ; but they were now nearl}' filled up with dust. Their use we could 
 not conjecture. Before we left this apartment, a small pistol was fired off. 
 The sound, which seemed louder than that of a cannon, almost rent the 
 drum of the ear ; and went on rolling through the Pyramid, as if multiplied 
 by a thousand echoes. Indeed, the interior of these mysterious struc- 
 tures doubtless contains innumerable undiscovered chambers and passages ; 
 and, as I listened to the sound, it seemed to sink or mount from cavity 
 to cavity ; to rebound repeatedly from obstructing walls ; to divide ; 
 
 * Davisou.
 
 146 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Sepulchral Chamber in Third Pyramid. 
 
 to be multiplied, and at length to die away in distant vaults. If this 
 was fancy, it produced at the time all the effect of reality ; and I am 
 not sorry to find that this idea has likewise occurred to others, and that 
 subsequent researches have proved 
 
 its correctness* The Queen's .4^|.. >,%^. 
 
 apartment, to which wo now ' "^'':. 
 
 descended, is considerably smaller 
 tiian that of the King ; and the 
 ceiling rises to a point in the 
 middle, like the inside of the roof 
 of an European house. Being 
 ignorant when we left Cairo that 
 the Bedouins had destroyed the 
 wooden staircase, by which tra- 
 vellers used to ascend into what 
 is commonly called " Davison's 
 Chamber," we had come impre- 
 pared with a ladder, and our 
 guides were unable to supply the 
 deficiency. As, moreover, the 
 greater part of the day was spent, 
 it would have been too late to 
 remedy the evil by searching for a 
 ladder among the distant villages. 
 
 The heat in the interior is very great ; the big drops of perspiration stood 
 upon our faces like peas ; and when we emerged into the open air, our 
 heavy cloaks could scarcely enable us to bear the change of temperature, 
 even in the sunsliine. 
 
 We dined in the rocky chanibers in the eastern face of the hill ; after 
 which I quitted the party, and returned alone to explore the numerous 
 sepulchral chambers which here occupy the skirts of the Desert. I found 
 the whole surface of the ground, east of the Pyramid of Cheops, strewed 
 with Egyptian pebbles, or agates, of which I picked up several. I like- 
 wise took three small pieces of calcareous stone from tlie Pyramid itself; 
 together with a little of the mortar, of a pale pink colour, in which the 
 stones were imbedded. Now the vast structure presented itself to my 
 mind in all its grandeur. I stood by it alone. Neither noise, nor 
 laughter, nor contests with the Bedouins, disturbed me. No living thing 
 was anywhere to be seen, save the eagle of the Desert, which wheeled and 
 floated in the sunshine, far aloft towards the alpine summit. Below and 
 all around were tombs and absolute stillness. I wandered to the mouth 
 of the second Pyramid. The entrance, like the other, is cased with 
 beautiful porphyry ; but having no light, I could not descend into the 
 interior. The space between the two larger of these structures seems 
 unquestionably to be traversed by covered passages ; and judging by the 
 sounds which the earth returned to my footsteps, I thought I could 
 
 * See Colonel Vyse's " Operations," &c.
 
 SUNSET NEAR THE PYRAMIDS. 147 
 
 reckon at least four or five. Wlien I had been here some time, I heard 
 the shout of Arabs at a distance ; and soon afterwards saw my guides 
 running towards me across the sand, which here seems to be entirely 
 formed of the crumbling particles of the Pyramids. As what I had given 
 them appeared liberal payment in their eyes, they were desirous of mani- 
 festing their gratitude, by showing me a shorter way across the plain than 
 the one by which we had come ; and ran with much glee by the side of 
 my donkey, imtil I requested them to return to their village. 
 
 As the evening drew near, the air was richly scented by the odour of 
 numerous bean-fields in full blossom. In recrossing the Nile, from Ghizeh 
 to Old Cairo, the scene was beautiful beyond description. The sun, just 
 as we embarked on the river, was setting behind the Pyramids and the 
 Desert ; and the summits of the woods, the tombs, the minarets, and other 
 lofty objects, were relieved against a sky of the richest hues. The firma- 
 ment, on the edge of the horizon, was of a deep tawny-orange colour, which, 
 growing paler as it ascended, appeared, a little higher, to change into a 
 light green ; and this again, in its turn, growing less and less intense 
 towards the summit of the vast arch which it described, terminated in a 
 lovely purple flush, which diffused its brilliance over the whole circle of 
 the hemisphere. The moon, calmly rising in the east, threw its soft rays 
 over a portion of the river ; while, on the other hand, the indescribably 
 beautiful purple, and pink, and green, and gold of the sky, were reflected 
 from the surface of the water, which, when slightly rufiled by the motion 
 of the boat, or the dip of the oar, shone and glistened like a metallic sea. 
 In the back-ground, towards the east, the naked rocks of the Gcbel Mokat- 
 tam were painted with the most gorgeous hues by the setting sun, which 
 seemed to convert its rude pinnacles into masses of lapis lazuli, turquoises, 
 and amethysts. But, had I the pen of Milton, or the pencil of Claude, I 
 should despair of imparting to others a just conception of that sunset, which 
 I never, but once in Upper Egypt, saw surpassed. It was quite dark when 
 we reached Cairo. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Haj Escort. — Horsemanship. — The Virgin's Tkee. — Heliopolis. 
 
 Another of the attractions which exist in the neighbourhood of Cairo, 
 is the site of Heliopolis. To this I paid my visit in the spring, under the 
 exhilaratiDgr influence of the returnino; sun, when the face of nature 
 throughout Egypt is most lovely, and when persons in robust health enjoy 
 a flow of animal spirits indescribably delightful. Both sacred and profane 
 traditions impel the traveller to make this excursion, llelioi^olis, now 
 Matarea, was the On of the Scriptures ; but its principal charm to me 
 consisted in the fact — for as sucii I regard it — that the feet of the Virgin 
 had rested there, and that the glory of Christ had illuminated it. Few 
 places consequently on the earth are so holy beyond the precincts of Pales-
 
 148 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 tino ; and to me these were the outworks of that Land, which I did hot 
 visit, hallowed by the cycle of Gospel events. 
 
 As the road leading to Heliopolis lay over the extensive sandy plain, 
 north-east of Cairo, stretching from the city to the mountains, — where 
 at this time the military escort, designed to protect the pilgrim caravan in 
 its march across the Arabian desert towards Mekka, was encamped — 
 we deviated a little from our course in order to observe the tents and 
 equipments of this diminutive host. Though the number of the soldiers 
 was small, the whole materiel of the scene — tents, horses, furniture, arms, 
 all in their form and appearance Oriental — presented an aspect highly 
 striking and characteristic. On the countenance of every individual, the 
 marks of having braved the sun and scorching blasts of the deserts were 
 deeply engraved. They were mostly veterans ; men who, in the numerous 
 shocks and vicissitudes of life, had been entirely emancipated from the 
 ingenuous prejudices of youth, from the influence of ardent enthusiasm, 
 from the love of adventure, from the passion for distinction, all now 
 replaced by that valour generated by continual exposure to danger. To 
 behold this camp, and not to feel the desire to accompany it in its perilous 
 marches over the sandy plains of Arabia, was impossible. In a few days 
 it would be in motion, at the head of many thousand pilgrims, who had 
 already, in their advance to the Holy City, traversed the greatest part of 
 the African continent, from beyond Fez and Morocco ; and, had fortune 
 permitted, nothing could have been more flattering to my imagination than 
 to have joined this vast body of enthusiasts, penetrated with them 
 through the indescribable paths of the Wilderness, and contemplated their 
 wild but pious exercises at the birth-place and tomb of their Prophet. The 
 tents of the common soldiers and inferior ofllicers were white, and of the 
 ordinary form ; but those of the commander and treasurer of the troops, 
 who probably claimed a descent from Mohammed, were of a light leaf- 
 green colour, and most elegantly fashioned. Numerous horses, several 
 of them of rare beauty, were picketed in the usual manner on the 
 plain, eating corn, in the London fashion, from small bags suspended on 
 their noses; while their owners, in the gorgeous costume and sparkling 
 decorations of the Egyptian cavalry, were sauntei-ing idly through the 
 camp. Formerly it would have been highly imprudent in a traveller to 
 venture among these fanatical Moslems, who, when preparing to visit their 
 holy places, seem to have been animated by a double portion of the spirit 
 of persecution. The ordonnances and example of the Pasha have 
 effected a wonderful change in these matters : and whatever may have been 
 the secret feelings with which they beheld us ride among their tents, and 
 scrutinise their horses, accoutrements, and arms, their behaviour manifested 
 no disposition to insolence, but rather a desire to exhibit to the best advan- 
 tage all the politeness they were masters of. Supposing that all English- 
 men, since they are admirers of horses, must necessarily be proficients in the 
 veterinary art, they did us the honour to consult our judgment respecting 
 the various ailments of their beasts, several of which they said had for three 
 days rejected their food, while others ate a great deal without getting fat. 
 In some of these cases we prescribed bleeding, in others physic ; but they
 
 MKMLOOK HORSEMANSHIP. H9 
 
 appeared to entertain a horror of Caircen phlebotoinists ; and were 
 evidently inclined, after all, to trust the whole affair to nature. Mean- 
 while, one of those who possessed hcaltliy steeds, mounted, in order to 
 amuse us with some of the singular feats of Turkish horsemanship; lie 
 wheeled, he curvetted, he stopped his courser in mid-gallop ; but in exhi- 
 bitions of this kind the Turks fall short, perhaps, of the old Memlook 
 cavaliers in boldness and dexterity. 
 
 These celebrated horsemen were all admirably disciplined according to 
 their peculiar system, which included exhibitions of skill better suited to 
 Astley's theatre than a field of battle. They were taught to stand upright 
 on a swift horse, and even on two, running side by side, and in that posi- 
 tioH to discharge arrows in all directions. It was also their custom to ride 
 with two swords fixed in their saddle, one pointing to their back, the 
 other to their abdomen ; so that on the slightest awkwardness one of these 
 might pierce them. Others lay on their backs upon the fleetest horses, 
 discharging their arrows as the animals galloped along. Volney describes 
 the exercises of the Memlooks of a later period, in which fire-arms were 
 substituted for the bow. Tiiey assembled every morning in a plain near 
 Cairo, and there acccustomed themselves, while on full gallop, to draw the 
 carbine from their belt, to fire it with exactness, to place it under their 
 thigh, in order to seize a pistol, which they discharged and threw over their 
 shoulders ; then a second, with which they did the same, trusting to the 
 cords by which they were fastened, without giving themselves time to 
 replace them. The Beys who were present encouraged them ; and he who 
 shattered the earthen vase, which served for their target, was rewarded with 
 praises and money. They were also taught skilfully to manage the sabre, 
 especially the reverse stroke, wliich cuts upwards, and is most difficult to 
 ward off. The edge of the Memlook sabre was so excellent, and their 
 hands were so dexterous, that many would cut through a bale of wet cotton, 
 as if it were butter. * 
 
 At a short distance beyond the pilgrim camp, we passed along the skirts 
 of one of those extensive cemeteries, which may almost be said to encom- 
 pass Cairo on every side. These necropolises, or suburbs of the dead, are not 
 inclosed, as in European countries, with wall or railings, or by a circum- 
 vallation of pious reverence as in Nubia ; thither, on the contrary, the 
 jugglers, the dancing girls, the lewd and profligate of both sexes, repair ; 
 and by their bacchanalian orgies, conducted with indescribable effrontery, 
 profane, in open daylight, the peaceful but neglected grave. In the midst 
 of the cemetery stand a few superior mausolea, the last home of the 
 wealthy and the great, consisting of a neat square building, in the light 
 Saracenic style, surmounted by a dome or cupola, resembling that whence 
 Bedreddin Hassan was taken away in his sleep by the Jinneyeh ; but by 
 far the greater number are humble tombs, whitewashed, as in Wales, and 
 exhibiting evident signs of dilapidation and decay. Having traversed this 
 melancholy spot, and the sandy tract beyond it, we entered on the richly- 
 cultivated plain of Heliopolis, interspersed with groves of spreading trees, 
 and the evergreen odoriferous gardens of Africa. Such landscapes, though 
 
 * Oriental Herald, vol. iv. p. 175, et s(q.
 
 150 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 destitute of the charm of hill and dale, always appeared to me eminently 
 beautiful, when clotlied, as they now were, with the fresh vegetation of 
 spring. Here the rhamniis-lotus, the lime-tree, the citron, and the orange, 
 growing in unpnmed luxuriance, presented to the eye their lovely fruit, 
 partly green and partly gold, clustering thick among the dark leaves, which, 
 when pressed or shaken by the wind, exhaled a rare and delicious per- 
 fume. Every part of the prospect, far as the eye could reach, exhibited some 
 peculiar charm. The trees and bushes by the wayside — many of the latter 
 apparently deciduous — were already covered with young leaves ; and innu- 
 merable wild flowers ; some — as the daisy and the butter-cup — familiar, 
 others unknown, enamelled the fields. In several places the ground was 
 covered with newly-cut grass, which, as the warm rays fed upon its 
 moisture, diffused that well-known, but exquisite fragrance, which scents 
 our English hay-fields ; while numerous rills of clear water, running 
 through grassy channels, maintained an agreeable freshness in the air. 
 But, perhaps, the master-charm of all derived its power from historical 
 associations, — I was approaching the birth-place of Moses ; before me was 
 the plain on which the Hebrew shepherds first pitched their tents on their 
 arrival in Egypt ; and such considerations, whatever may be the case 
 with others, have always, I confess, exerted much influence over me. 
 
 Sometime before arriving at Matarea, we turned into a citron grove on the 
 right hand of the road, to behold that venerable sycamore, in whose shade the 
 Virgin, with the infant Christ, is said to have reposed during the flight into 
 Egypt. In all respects this grove was an agreeable retreat. The spaces 
 between the trees, roofed by a thick canopy of verdure, completely excluded 
 the rays of the sun, while a cool breeze circulated through them freely. Other 
 "kinds of fruit-trees, besides the citron, rose here and there in the grove, and 
 presented, in their unpruned luxuriance, an aspect of much beauty. Birds 
 of agreeable note, or gay plumage, flitted to and fro, or perched upon the 
 branches ; otherwise, the silence and stillness would have been complete, 
 and might have tempted me to remain there for hours, delighting my ima- 
 gination with reminiscences of the Arabian Nights, whose heroes and 
 heroines are often represented reposing in such places. Here, likewise, 
 is the Ai7i Shems, or " Fountain of the Sun," which, though supposed by 
 Catholic traditions to have been miraculously produced to quench the thirst 
 of the holy fugitives, existed, no doubt, in all ages ; and was, perhaps, if 
 we may derive any inference from the modern appellation, consecrated 
 to the service of a temple of Arotiris. Our brethren of the Church of 
 Rome love to interpolate the traditions of antiquity, and to complete a 
 legend, if they imagine it in any respects to require rounding off. According 
 to them, for example, it was in the fountain at our feet, that the Virgin, 
 with her own hands, washed the garments of the infant Saviour. Nothing 
 is more natural or probable, nor, for a fact of this kind, should we require 
 the testimony of history. I see no harm, therefore, in supposing that it 
 was so ; and it seems to me to be a very perverse species of ingenuity to 
 get up a formidable array of arguments to demolish harmless traditions 
 like these. The Tree of the Madonna, as it is denominated, even by the 
 Mohammedans, consists of a vast trunk, the upper part of which having
 
 THE VIRGIN'S TREE, 151 
 
 been blown down by storms, or shattered by lightning, young branches have 
 sprung forth from the top, and extending their arms on all sides, still afford 
 a broad and agreeable shade. Its shape is remarkable : flat on both sides, 
 like a wall, but with an irregular surface, it leans considerably, forming a 
 kind of natural penthouse. Numerous names, accompanied by the figure 
 of the cross, have been cut by Catholic travellers ; but even the ]\Ioslems 
 seem to regard it with veneration ; for those who visited it witli us spoke 
 low and reverentially, as if they esteemed the spot where they stood to be 
 holy ground. Protestants, from I know not what motive, sometimes aflFect 
 to consider the tradition which sanctifies this tree as one of those many 
 childish legends which liaA'e diverted Christians from the spirituality and 
 simplicity of faith, but by what chain of ratiocination they arrive at this 
 conclusion, it appears somewhat difficult to discover. At all events, since the 
 Egyptian sycamore, among various other trees, will live many thousand years, 
 there is nothing absurd in the supposition that the Virgin may have sat 
 with the infant Saviour under the shade of this noble trunk, which bears 
 all the appearance of prodigious antiquity. 
 
 According to a tradition prevalent among the ]\Iohammedans, Elizabeth 
 also fled with the infant John the Baptist into Egypt. Respecting Zacha- 
 riah, the father of John, they relate a most extravagant story. The Jews 
 having accused him of a great crime, and sought to put him to death, he 
 hid himself in the heart of a tree, and might thus have escaped, had not 
 Satan, the enemy of God, discovered his hiding-place. The people split- 
 ting the tree, in order to secure their victim, accidentally cut him to pieces 
 with their axes, as the story is very gravely told by El-Masudi. 
 
 In Pietro della Valle's time, a house was shown at Matarea, in which 
 the Virgin was supposed to have lived ; and beneath a small window or 
 recess in the wall, the Christian clergy resident in the country used to say 
 mass. 
 
 From this grove we ])roceeded through beautiful corn-fields to the site 
 of Heliopolis, marked by extensive mounds, and a single obelisk, rising 
 alone in the plain, and at this time surrounded by a thick crop of barley. 
 This obelisk, consisting of one block of red granite, about sixty-five feet 
 in height, is still nearly perfect ; a part of the western face only havino- 
 been chipj)ed away, probably at the time when Cambyses ordered immense 
 fires to be kindled around this and similar monuments, in order to oblite- 
 rate the traces of an idolatry which he despised, or of an ancient power 
 which he had overthrown, and whose regeneration he may have dreaded. 
 An inscription in hieroglyphical characters is repeated on each of its four 
 faces ; from which antiquaries, versed in the sacred language of the 
 Egyptians, have discovered the name of the monarch by whom it was 
 erected ; but of this science I am entirely ignorant. 
 
 The Arab historian, Abdalatif, gives a very strange account of this obelisk. 
 It was capped, he says, in his time with burnished copper, on which was 
 represented the figure of a man seated on a throne and looking towards the 
 east. But the most remarkable part of the story is this, that from beneath 
 the copper coating water perpetually oozed forth and supplied nourishment 
 to a quantity of fine moss, whicli extended a considerable way down the
 
 152 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 obelisk, though neither the moss nor the water ever reached the ground. 
 This circumstance the writer does not relate on hearsay : he saw it himself. 
 Possibly, however, writing a long while afterwards from memory, he may 
 have allowed his imagination to run away with his judgment, without 
 intending to deceive. At all events he exaggerates greatly the dimensions 
 of the obelisk, which he supposes to be 100 cubits high. The expression 
 by which he seeks to characterize the rose-granite is curious. He says it 
 resembled the couch of Venus, and was transparent. Somewhere near this 
 spot stood the temple of which Potipherah, the father of Joseph's wife, was 
 priest. Heliopolis, in fact, appears to have been the ancient capital of 
 the country before the foundation of Memphis ; for from the historical 
 details in the book of Genesis it seems clear that, when Jacob and his 
 sons came by the invitation of Joseph into Egypt, the seat of government 
 and the palace of the Pharaohs were here, nigh to the land of Goshen, 
 which the minister obtained for his relations. When, in subsequent ages, 
 Memphis arose and became the habitation of the kings, Heliopolis dwindled 
 into a city of inferior rank, though it still contained the most celebrated 
 colleges of the priests, and was regarded as the university of Egypt. 
 Here, accordingly, we find that Herodotus, Plato, and Eudoxus, men dif- 
 fering greatly from eacli other in character and genius, devoted much time and 
 pains to the examination of the sciences and pretensions of the Egyptians : 
 but from this period it must have fallen rapidly to decay ; as, when Strabo 
 and iElius Gallus visited the spot, about thirty years before the Christian 
 era, it had already been deserted by the priests, though the great Temple 
 of the Sun was still standing and apparently frequented as a place of 
 worship. The Greek geographer's description comprehends the notice of 
 various ruins, temples, propylsea, obelisks, sphinxes, which no longer exist. 
 Pococke, indeed, discovered several sphinxes among the mounds of rubbish; 
 but these seem to have been buried by the continual accumulation of soil, 
 for we could perceive no trace of them. Perhaps the solitary obelisk 
 which marks the site of On, the city of the Sun, should be regarded as 
 the most ancient monument existing in Egypt, since it was probably 
 erected while this wms the capital of the kingdom long before the founda- 
 tion of Memphis. Diodorus, indeed, speaks of two obelisks set up here 
 by Sesostris, one hundred and eighty feet in height, and twelve feet square 
 at the base ; and Pliny relates, that Sochis and Rameses, the latter con- 
 temporary with Priam, erected each four obelisks : those of Sochis seventv- 
 two, those of Rameses sixty feet in height. But little stress can be laid 
 on the vague traditions collected by such writers respecting the monarchs 
 to whom certain public works should be attributed. In all probability, 
 the Great Rameses of the Egyptians (whose name occurs in the book of 
 Genesis), like the Rama of the Hindoos, was a mythological personage, 
 identical with Papremis, their God of War ; every great undertaking, 
 the author of which was unknown, seeming, among the Egyptians, to have 
 been referred to Rameses, as to Semiramis among the Assyrians. To him 
 the priests of Thebes, (who probably knew no more of the ancient sacred 
 language than we do), in their conversation with Germanicus, attributed 
 the great military achievements and conquests of their ancestors, indulging,
 
 HISTORICAL CONJECTURES. 153 
 
 for the purpose of raisin^ his wonder, in a ridiciilous style of exaggeration, 
 which must have excited his laughter. The village of Matarca is situated 
 about six miles N.E, of Cairo, at no great distance from the Birket-el- 
 Haj, or Lake of the Pilgrims, where the caravan usually encamps on the 
 second night of its departure for Mekka. On our return to Cairo, we 
 passed two of the government Abattoirs, filthy, stinking, and surrounded 
 by pools of blood, which, with the other abominations of the place, 
 attracted thither in troops the wild dogs of the neighbourliood. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Across the Deseht to thk Fayoum. 
 
 In Egypt, the government intermeddles with everything. If, for 
 example, you desire to enter into an engagement with a Bedouin Sheikh, 
 to pass with security through any portion of the desert belonging to his 
 tribe, it is necessary to appear before the governor of Cairo ; to have your 
 contract drawn up in his presence ; and, when the instrument has been 
 duly signed and sealed by both parties, to deposit the original, or a copy 
 of it, in the citadel ; should dromedaries be required for the purpose of 
 performing a journey within the limits of Egypt, or of the other dominions 
 of the Pasha, the regular course is, to make application to government, 
 which will furnish, at a reasonable price, the necessary number of animals, 
 properly accoutred, with the requisite Bedouin guides and attendants. To 
 the traveller this regulation is of inestimable advantage. The sum to be 
 paid being determined, no disagreeable wrangling, at least on this score, 
 can take place between the stranger and the camel-drivers ; and the 
 undertaking is usually accomplished, where inveterate insolence or ill- 
 nature does not constitute the characteristic of the parties concerned, in 
 the utmost harmony and good feeling. In some cases, however, the 
 authorities through heedlessness or indifference, seriously endanger the 
 traveller's safety, by placing in his service guides, or attendants, belonging 
 to tribes hostile to the lords of the country through which he is to pass ; 
 and as he must generally be ignorant of the history or existence of such 
 feuds, the first circumstance, perhaps, which calls his attention to the sub- 
 ject, is a sudden attack in the desert ; for the chivalrous Bedouins seem to 
 regard it as a point of honour not to disturb the imaginations of their 
 employers by awakening apprehensions of dangers which, after all, may 
 not be predestined to happen. Such was the conduct of Habib Effendi in 
 our particular case. He knew perfectly well that the Mahazi, or Atouni 
 Arabs, inhabiting the desert extending from Suez to Kossier, were at 
 enmity, — as most of the Eastern tribes are, — with the Moggrebyn Bedouins 
 of Libya ; yet it was from among the Atouni, abhorred by the people west 
 of the Nile, that he selected for us a guide to Lake Moeris, through a 
 province where even the Pasha's own engineers, in the most peaceable 
 times, dared not make their appearance without a powerful military escort;
 
 l.H EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 a fact of which I was assured at Alexandria by Mr. Wallace, who had 
 been employed by the Pasha in surveying the various districts of the 
 Fayoum, and who very kindly dissuaded me from hazarding the journey 
 without a guard. It was, therefore, not unwarned tliat we imdertook it ; 
 but the peril would have been considerably diminished, had our guide been 
 chosen from any other tribe of Bedouins. 
 
 In all journeys of this kind, the pleasures of preparation and setting 
 out, with the dim shadowing forth by the imagination of the adventures in 
 which it is possible you may be engaged, are, perhaps, among the best that 
 travelling supplies. Our provisions and kitchen utensils having been 
 made ready, the impatience with which we awaited the appearance 
 of our Mahazi, with his dromedaries, was extreme. At length, late in 
 the day, he arrived, with four spare, long-legged animals, whicli seemed, 
 like conscientious Mussulmen, to have gone through all tlie rigid observances 
 of the Ramad'han. Mohammed, the guide, appeared from his bronzed, 
 weather-beaten countenance, adorned with a long deep scar, and from the 
 extreme airiness and freedom of his demeanour, differing entirely from that 
 of the Fellahs, to be a fresh importation from the desert. He received 
 our reproaches for the lateness of his arrival, as if conscious they were well 
 merited, and replied only by the alacrity and activity with which he loaded 
 tlie sumpter-camel, on which he was himself to be mounted, and adjusted 
 the saddles of the other beasts. These operations completed, he informed 
 us that all was ready ; held down the heads of our dromedaries while we 
 mounted ; and then, vaulting lightly into his own saddle, put himself in 
 advance of our little procession, and led the way through the tortuous, 
 innumerable, endless streets of Cairo. Rejoiced at being once more in 
 motion, my spirits rose as I quitted the city and began to look towards the 
 desert, upon which we were soon to enter. The condition of mind in which 
 travellers usually find themselves on such occasions, must, when described 
 in words, appear, to such as have never experienced it, exceedingly incom- 
 prehensible, if not altogether absurd. These find it difficult to conceive 
 what satisfaction a man can promise himself from riding on a dromedary, 
 in the burning sun, across a waste of sand, where, if he encounters 
 any living creature, it will probably be an enemy, where neither ruins 
 nor any other traces of civilisation exist, and where, in fact, it is impossible 
 that man should ever leave any permanent marks of his vanity or power. 
 But these very considerations include the secret cause of the delight which 
 is generated by a journey through the wilderness. Most persons have 
 been made sensible, by experience or hearsay, of the sublimity of the 
 ocean, traceable to the terrors, the uncertainties, the vast powers of 
 destruction with which it has been endued by the Creator. But with all 
 these qualities the desert appears to be clothed in a superior degree. You 
 indeed feel, while traversing its pathless expanses, that you have your foot 
 upon the earth ; but you behold all around, as far as the eye can reach, 
 innumerable mounds and hillocks of light sand, those inexhaustible magazines 
 of destruction, ever ready to be lifted up by the whirlwind, and poured in 
 irresistible torrents upon the traveller or the caravan. Here, moreover, iu 
 these desolate places of the earth, roams the indomitable Bedouin, the
 
 TERRORS AND CHARMS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 155 
 
 model of primitive warfare and hospitality. Such are the circumstances 
 which render the great wastes of Africa — those oceans of sand — delightful 
 to traverse ; not that they are dangerous, — for no man can he in love with 
 danger, — hut that tliey awaken the spirit of adventure, tlie most fascinating, 
 the most inexhaustihle of all pleasures, and cast the gorgeous mantle of 
 romance and poetry over the imagination, which, in the ordinary high-road 
 of life, is apt to he clad in colours somewhat too sohor. 
 
 On emerging from the streets of the city, we found that the wind, whicli 
 hlew with great violence from the south, was hringing along with it tor- 
 rents of dust and sand, so thick and impetuous, that it was impossihle to 
 keep the eyes open for many seconds at a time. Even the dromedaries. 
 
 habituated as they must have been to such a state of the atmosphere, 
 seemed to go trembling on with their eyes closed, so that it was sometimes 
 with difficulty we could keep them from striking against the walls, or run- 
 ning foul of each other. The sky, as usually in the scirocco, was filled with 
 thick hazy clouds, througli which the sun, when at intervals visible, 
 appeared pale and raylcss, like the moon. At the ferry between Old Cairo
 
 156 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 and Ghizeh, we experienced some delay; but the time was not lost; for the 
 scenes we witnessed among the Fellahs, male and female, who crowded the 
 
 bank of the river, with their camels and asses, were so characteristic, and at 
 the same time so grotesque and ludicrous,that they would have afforded many 
 hours' amusement. There were several boats, but the number of passengers 
 was so great that they scrambled for a place with as much warmth and 
 eagerness as if they had been making their escape from an enemy. In their 
 haste to cross the Nile, and return to the village, even the deference usually 
 shown to a Frank was forgotten. Scarcely could we squeeze ourselves into 
 one of the boats, between camels, asses, men, women, old and young, bags 
 of corn, and baskets of bread, fruit and vegetables ; and when we were in, 
 the next difficulty was to keep the asses, in the midst of which we stood 
 bolt upright, from treading on our toes. For some minutes a promiscuous 
 crowd of men and beasts poured after us into the boat, the camels roaring, 
 the asses braying, the women and children shrieking, the men swearing, 
 until the mingled din exceeded that of Babel; at length, becoming impa- 
 tient and angry, we compelled them to put off. On account of the violence 
 of the wind, there was the greatest difficulty in keeping the boat steady ; 
 but, on the other hand, we crossed very rapidly, and had soon remounted 
 on the opposite bank. I have already, in the account of my visit to the 
 Pyramids, described the country through which we passed. The plain 
 before us was that of IMemphis, and the rich pasture, the corn-fields, the 
 lofty date- woods, and the flocks and herds by which its surface was now 
 diversified, clothed in the sombre hues of twilight, seemed rather to belong 
 to antiquity than to the present day. In a short time the moon rose, and 
 conferred a still more poetical character on the landscape ; for the scirocco 
 had passed, and with it the clouds and mist which had obscured the atnw)- 
 sphere. It is difficult to convey a just idea of the effect produced by moon- 
 light on the figures of the numerous pyramids now visible : ranged like a file 
 of pale shining mountains along the skirts of the desert, they seemed to be 
 some shadowy spectral things, not of this world; the white expanse of 
 sand at their feet, contrasted with the dusky hue of the cultivated land, 
 giving them the appearance of huge fabrics based upon a cloud, like those
 
 SUPPER NEAR THE SITE OF MEMPHIS. 157 
 
 which the mind often fasliions at evening among the vapours of a 
 summer sky. 
 
 It was our intention, at starting, to proceed as far as Dashour ; but 
 Mohammed seemed to be of opinion that as, on the morrow, we should have 
 to make a long journey, it would be better to go early to rest. "We there- 
 fore directed our course towards the village of Mitraheni, guided by the 
 extensive date woods and vast mounds, commonly supposed to be those of 
 Memphis. Here the Fellahs have built their houses of unburned brick. 
 Our first inquiry regarded not the antiquities scattered about the neighbour- 
 hood, or anything relating to them, but the practicability of getting some- 
 thing for dinner, which our long ride had rendered a matter of considerable 
 importance ; but the modern IMemphians, whatever may have been the case 
 with their ancestors, were so exceedingly ill provided, that our piastres, 
 after making in vain the tour of the whole village, returned in their original 
 shape to our purses, instead of being transmuted, by the divine alcliemy of 
 commerce, into beef or pigeons. Had we come empty-handed from the 
 victorious city, we might therefore, if we pleased, have devoured the remains 
 of the temple of Vulcan ; but we contented ourselves with rice and macca- 
 roni, which we shared with our Mahazi guide, who, though somewhat 
 advanced in years, still exhibited in his appetite, as well as in everything 
 else, the vigour and activity of youth. The little caravanserai of Mitra- 
 heni, which has seldom, I conceive, been applied to the accommodation of 
 a Frank, exhibited, during our culinary and commercial operations, a very 
 original spectacle. Our baggage being stowed away in a corner, we 
 arranged our beds near, and, sticking a lamp in the earth, opened our maps 
 and books close beside it, and lay down to consult them ; so that the Arabs, 
 whom curiosity attracted in crowds to the spot, took us, no doubt, for the 
 members of some fanatical sect, who performed their devotions in that 
 strange posture. The women, in particular, were greatly amused at our 
 style of praying ; and, after regarding us for some time with a feeling 
 midway between laughter and astonishment, burst out into their usual ex- 
 clamation of " Wallah !" (By God !) Meanwhile our Caireen and Bedouin 
 attendants had kindled a fire not far from us on the ground, the smoke of 
 which, having no appropriate vent above, made the circuit of the room, 
 and, being of a very pungent quality, brought tears into the eyes of our 
 fair friends, putting them forcibly in mind of that " Gehenna," to which 
 they charitably condemn all Franks and Giaours. In a short time, there- 
 fore, the majority made their retreat ; but when the rice and maccaroni 
 were served up, they did us the honour to return, in order to satisfy them- 
 selves respecting the manner in which an infidel eats his stipper, — expect- 
 ing perhaps to be invited to share it, and cursing, all the time we ate, our 
 inhospitable disposition ; though, in point of fact, our whole stock, had it 
 been cooked at once, would not have afforded our guests a mouthful each. 
 When bed-time came, the ladies most politely quitted us ; not from any 
 idea of decorum, but because they were sleepy ; for several, less drowsy than 
 the rest, entered or passed through the room after we had lain down. 
 
 Having a long ride before us, we departed early next morning from 
 Mitraheni ; and proceeded along the skirts of the cultivated country, — one
 
 158 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 of the most fertile and beautiful plains in the world. The morning was 
 lovely. Fields and copses steeped in dew, — which, trickling over the 
 leaves and grass, glittered like diamonds in the sun, — and sprinkled with 
 delicate wild flowers, involuntarily recalled to remembrance the enthusiastic 
 descriptions of poetry, and that golden age of impassioned innocence, — 
 
 " When love was liberty, and Nature law." 
 
 To the traveller, in a climate so warm and delightful as that of Egypt, the 
 Golden Age, so long as the inhabitants are out of sight, is no fable. Kept 
 continually in a state of rapturous excitement by the sun, his imagination 
 casts its own vivid colouring over everything, and causes him to move 
 about in an atmosphere of poetry. His spirits buoyant as air, his feelings 
 harmonised, his heart involuntarily overflowing with benevolence, he is at 
 peace with heaven and earth, and can with difficulty be made to believe in 
 the existence of crime or misery. In such a frame of mind the plainest 
 morsel is sweet ; and, accordingly, the meals which we cooked and ate on 
 the road, in the valley or the desert, beneath the shade of a tree, or 
 amid hillocks of drifted sand, seemed more delicious than anything I had 
 ever tasted ; but for this pleasure, I was principally, perhaps, indebted to 
 
 Wayside Coffeehouse. 
 
 health and hunger. At Kafr el-Kebir, we halted and unloaded our camels 
 at a Sheikh's tomb, which we took the liberty to convert into a breakfast 
 parlour. Our fire, however, was kindled, and our cofiee prepared in the 
 open air beside the camels, which always lay down and ate when we did. 
 Some young women from the village brought us milk and new-laid eggs, 
 remaining there laughing and talking until we mounted our dromedaries to 
 depart ; and then wished us, Franks and infidels as we were, a pleasant 
 and prosperous journey.
 
 THE DESERT.— REPORTS OF INSURRECTION. 159 
 
 Mohammed, our Maliazi guide, now advised us to load and keep in 
 readiness our arms, as tlie road on which we were about to enter — if road 
 it could be called, where road was none — was always beset by marauding 
 parties of Moggrcbyns, whose profession is robbery. Emerging from the 
 cultivated country, we entered upon the Desert. It is difficult to convey a 
 correct idea of those desolate and barren expanses bordering on the Valley 
 of the Nile, to which the above term is applied. By the Arabs they are 
 denominated Gebel, or " the JNIountain," because the only mountains with 
 which they are acquainted are characterised by extreme sterility. Besides, 
 the surface of these boundless wastes, though seldom sufficiently elevated 
 to possess, in the eyes of an European accustomed to the prodigious 
 masses of the Alps, the aspect of a mountainous country, is in reality very 
 far from being uniformly plane, or from presenting that dull monotonous 
 appearance, which for want of experience, we are in general apt to attri- 
 bute to it. But the face of the Desert is singularly diversified. Arid no 
 doubt it is, and, to many, gloomy and dispiriting, suggesting ideas of death, 
 which are certainly in most cases unwelcome : yet this is by no means 
 the effijct which it generally produces, since the Bedouins are, beyond most 
 other nations, gay and cheerful; and, in my own case, never were my spirits 
 more light, my fancy and imagination crowded with more pleasurable 
 images, or my perceptions of the delights of existence more exquisitely 
 keen, than when riding on a fleet dromedary across the sands, or through 
 the stony valley of the Libyan desert, amid the refreshing breezes of the 
 morning. 
 
 When we had proceeded several miles through the wild rocks inter- 
 spersed among sandy hollows, which bordered our track, we perceived, on 
 turning the foot of a hill, a party of Arabs a little in the rear, who, pur- 
 suing the same route, seemed to be proceeding towards the Fayoom. 
 Amono- them was a Turkish gentleman, who, when he saw us, detached 
 himself from the Arabs, and came galloping until he had overtaken our 
 party. He then very politely demanded wli ether, as we appeared to be 
 travelling in the same direction, we would permit him to join our company, 
 since, the roads being unsafe, a large party was preferable to a small one : 
 to which we assented, and somewhat slackened our pace, in order to enable 
 his mule to keep up with us. In the course of the rambling conversation 
 that ensued, and was kept up by our Turk with great vivacity, he inquired 
 whether we had heard the news. Supposing he was alluding to some local 
 affiiir, utterly indifferent to a stranger, we replied that, not being interested 
 in such matters, we seldom concerned ourselves about them. " But in this 
 affair," he said, " you are deeply interested. It relates to tlie Fayoom — the 
 province whitlier you are going — in which by the machinations of the 
 Moggrebyns, the fire of revolt has been kindled, and made to spread in 
 the space of eight days over the whole country ; where the authority of the 
 Pasha is for the present at an end, and where his soldiers, in a battle near 
 Sanhoor, have been defeated with loss by the Bedouins, and afterwards 
 pursued up to tlie very walls of Medinet." He was himself, he observed, 
 returning after a week's absence to the capital of the province, though 
 exceedingly doubtful whether he should be able to reach it. Thisintelli-
 
 160 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 gence threw a damp over our enthusiasm, since, instead of the " peace and 
 welcome" with which we had everywhere else in Egypt been received, it 
 seemed probable that, if subjected to nothing worse, we should at least 
 experience a portion of the insolence and humiliation which were heaped 
 upon our older travellers. Come what might, however, we determined to 
 proceed. Our spirits and our arms were good ; and although, if attacked 
 by numbers, there would be no chance of escape, we trusted to that aver- 
 sion, which even bad men feel, to shed the blood of the solitary stranger 
 who confidently ventures among them. 
 
 By degrees the conversation flowed into another channel, and our imagi- 
 nations became occupied by the singular features of the landscape. Here 
 and there the rocks, though never rising to any great height, put on the 
 appearance of houses, fortresses, or ruined castles, perched on grey cliffs, 
 overhanging ravines narrow and tortuous, whose mouths only presented 
 themselves to the eye as we passed. To these succeeded broad flinty or 
 sandy valleys ; long reaches, like the bed of a great river, between bare, 
 stony mountains, alternating with extensive plains of sand or gravel ; hil- 
 locks of various colours ; and winding tracks through passes, where a few 
 Bedouins might easily rout a whole caravan. 
 
 On our way we met or passed several small parties of Arabs going 
 to or returning from Egypt, all of whom gave us the " Salaam Aleyciim," 
 or friendly salutation, to which we made the proper reply. Formerly, 
 no Mohammedan, however lax in his religious principles, would have 
 addressed these words — which appear to imply friendship and corre- 
 sponding opinions — to a Christian, even though otherwise disposed to 
 treat him with kindness ; but with the decline of their national power, 
 a less overbearing style of manners has been introduced ; and it is now 
 not uncommon, at least in Egypt, for both Turks and Arabs thus to 
 salute the stranger, whatever may be his creed. Nevertheless, I have 
 met with well-informed persons at Alexandria, who, not having remarked 
 the change, insisted it had not taken place. The argument happen- 
 ing, however, to be carried on among the ruins of the ancient city, while 
 riding home in the evening from the tower of the Caesars, was imme- 
 diately terminated ; several Arabs, returning to their villages, passed us on 
 the road ; to each of these I addressed the " Salaam Aleycum,*" and was 
 invariably saluted, in reply, with the " Aleycum Salaam." By this means 
 my friends were convinced that the Egyptian Moslem is no longer averse 
 to address this sacred formula to a Christian, knowing him to be such. 
 
 Our Turkisli companion was mounted on a mule of exceeding beauty, 
 equally remarkable for colour and form ; and, as we rode along on our 
 spare ungainly beasts, whose utility can only be surpassed by their ugliness, 
 it was impossible not to cast down, occasionally, an admiring glance at the 
 sleek and spirited animal by our side, which seemed to be animated by the 
 resolution not to be outdone in speed even by the native courser of the 
 Desert. Observing our admiration, which, in the East, appears to be 
 always interpreted into begging, the Turk immediately made us an offer of 
 his mule; adding, politely, by way of inducement, that at home he pos- 
 sessed a great number of similar animals ; that it was, in reality, of no
 
 THE MIRAGE, OR GOBLIN OF THE DESERT. 161 
 
 value ; but that since it seemed to hit our fancy, we should oblige him 
 much by accepting it. From this obligation, or compliment, whichever it 
 may have been, we defended ourselves, by saying it was our intention to 
 return to our country by sea, when the confinement, want of exercise, and 
 tossing about by storms, if they did not kill, would probably spoil the 
 beast ; and therefore, though highly sensible of his generosity, we must 
 decline profiting by it. 
 
 In all the long tract of country, extending, in this direction, between 
 the Nilotic valley and the Fayoom, the principle of vegetation appears to 
 be entirely extinct ; neither tree, nor shrub, nor plant of any kind, however 
 minute or simple in its organisation, presenting itself to the eye. Of 
 animals and reptiles, native to the wild, no trace appears. Death, there- 
 fore, seems here the paramount lord of all ; if death can be said to reign 
 where there is nothing to die. But I would not be understood to assert 
 positively that neither plants nor animals exist in this Desert, though 
 unquestionably we saw none ; for, since even the snows on the solitary and 
 nearly inaccessible heights of tlie Hindu Kiish are said to be peopled with 
 what, by the natives, is denominated the snow-worm, it is exceedingly 
 probable that the sands, also, of the wilderness have their inhabitants, 
 which may yet be discovered by the minute investigations of science. 
 
 I had been riding along in a reverie, when, chancing to raise my head, 
 I thought I perceived, desertwards, a dark strip on the far horizon. "What 
 could it be ? My companion, who had very keen sight, was riding in 
 advance of me, and, with a sudden exclamation, he pulled up his di'ome- 
 dary, and gazed in the same direction. I called to him, and asked him 
 what he thought of yonder strip, and whether he could make out anything 
 in it distinctly. He answered, that water had all at once appeared there ; 
 that he saw the motion of the waves, and tall palms and other trees bend- 
 inor up and down over them, as if tossed by a strong wind. An Arab was 
 at my side, with his face muffled up in his burnous ; I roused his attention, 
 and pointed to the object of our inquiry. " iMashallah ! " cried the old 
 man, witli a face as if he had seen a ghost, and stared with all his might 
 across the Desert. All the other Arabs of the party evinced no less 
 emotion ; and our interpreter called out to us, that what we saw Avas the 
 evil spirit of the desert, that led travellers astray, luring them farther and 
 farther into the heart of the waste, ever retreating before them as they 
 pursued it, and not finally disappearing till its deluded victims had irre- 
 coverably lost themselves in tlie pathless sands. This, then, was the 
 Mirage. My companion galloped towards it, and we followed him, though 
 the Arabs tried to prevent us, and ere long I could, with my own eyes, 
 discern something of this strange phenomenon. It was, as my friend had 
 reported, a broad sheet of water, with fresh green trees along its banks ; and 
 yet there was nothing actually before us but parched yellow sand. The 
 apparition occasioned us all very uncomfortable feelings, and yet we con- 
 gratulated ourselves on having seen for once the desert wonder. 
 
 The phenomenon really deserves the name the xVrabs give it, of Goblin 
 of the Desert ; an evil spirit that beguiles the wanderer from tlie safe path, 
 and mocks him with a false show of wliat his heated brain paints in glow- 
 
 p2
 
 162 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 ing colours. Whence comes it that this illusion at first fills with uneasiness 
 — I mifflit even say, with dismay — those even who ascribe its existence to 
 natural causes ? On a spot where the bare sands spread out for hundreds 
 of miles, where there is neither tree nor shrub, nor a trace of water, there 
 suddenly appeared before us groups of tall trees, proudly girding the run- 
 nino- stream, on whose waves we saw the sunbeams dancing. Hills clad in 
 pleasant green rose before us and vanished ; small houses, and towns with 
 liio-h walls and ramparts, were visible among the trees, whose tall boles 
 swayed to and fro in the wind like reeds. 
 
 Far as we rode in the direction of the apparition, we never came any 
 nearer to it : the whole seemed to recoil, step for step, with our advance. 
 "We halted, and remained long in contemplation of the magic scene, until 
 whatever was unpleasant in its strangeness ceased by degrees to affect us. 
 Never had I seen any landscape so vivid as this seeming one ; never water 
 so bright, or trees so softly green, so tall and stately. Everything seemed 
 far more charming there than in the real world ; and so strongly did we 
 feel this attraction, that, although we were not driven by thirst to seek for 
 water where water there was none, still we would willingly have followed 
 on and on after the phantom ; and thus we could well conceive how the 
 despairing wanderer, who, with burning eyes, thinks he gazes on water 
 and human dwellings, will struggle onward to his last gasp to reach them, 
 until his fearful, lonely doom befals him. 
 
 We returned slowly to our Arabs, who had not stirred from the spot 
 where we left them. Looking back once more into the desert, we saw the 
 apparition gradually becoming fainter, until at last it melted away into a 
 dim band, not unlike a thin mist sweeping over the face of a field.* It 
 was probably this phenomenon, which is beheld as well in Hadramaut and 
 Yemen as in the deserts of Egypt, which gave rise to the fable of the 
 Garden of Irem, described in the story of the Phantom Camel, in the 
 " Tales of the Ramad'han." 
 
 But the sense of vision is not the only one which the genius of the Desert 
 mocks with fantastic trieks : the ear too sometimes experiences illusions, 
 an instance of which is related by a recent traveller as having occurred to 
 him on his way from Gaza to Cairo. " On the fifth day of my journey," 
 he says, " the air above lay dead, and all the whole earth that I could reach 
 with my utmost sight and keenest listening, was still and lifeless, as some 
 dispeopled and forgotten world that rolls round and round in the heavens 
 throuo-h wasted floods of light. The sun, growing fiercer and fiercer, shone 
 down n«w more mightily than ever on me he shone before, and as I dropped 
 ray head under his fire, and closed my eyes against the glare that surrounded 
 me, I slowly fell asleep, for how many minutes or moments I cannot tell; but 
 after a while I was gently awakened by a peal of church bells — my native 
 bells — the innocent bells of Marlen, that never before sent forth their music 
 beyond the Blaygon hills ! My first idea naturally was that I still remained 
 fast under the power of a dream. I roused myself and drew aside the silk 
 that covered my eyes, and plunged my bare face into the light ; then, at 
 
 * Hacklander.
 
 MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS OP THE DESERT.— THE FAYOOM. 163 
 
 least, I was well enough wakened, but still those old JMarlen bells kept 
 ringing on, not ringing for joy, but properly, prosily, steadily ringing ' for 
 church.' After a while the sound died away slowly : it happened that 
 neither I nor any of my party had a watch by which to measure the exact 
 time of its lasting, but it seemed to me that about ten minutes bad passed 
 before the bells ceased. 1 attributed the ettect to the great heat of the sun, 
 the perfect dryness of the clear air through which I moved, and the deep 
 stillness of all around me ; it seemed to me that these causes, by occasioning 
 a great tension and consequent susceptibility of the hearing organs, had 
 rendered them liable to tingle under the passing touch of some mere 
 memory, that must have swept across my brain in a moment of sleep. 
 Since my return to England it has been told me that like sounds have been 
 heard at sea, and that the sailor becalmed under a vertical sun in the midst 
 of the wide ocean, has listened in trembling wonder to the chiming of his 
 own village bells."* 
 
 At length, late in the afternoon, we discovered, on the verge of the 
 horizon, tlie tops of the palm-trees, extending in one dark line from west 
 to east, as far as the eye could reach, and marking the northern boundary 
 of that celebrated and beautiful oasis, — for such is the Fayoom, — towards 
 which we were journeying. If the Desert has its charms, — and charms 
 not a few it has, — those green and fertile spots, which its burning sands 
 encompass like an ocean, are, in a different way, no less attractive. To 
 the former belong wildness, grandeur, sublimity — qualities that powerfully 
 stir up the energies of the soul, and nerve it for exertion and strife ; to the 
 latter, whatever is soft, and soothing, and lovely ; or, to sum up all agree- 
 able qualities in one word, all that is feminine in nature. The Desert, 
 therefore, can only please certain temperaments, and in certain moods of 
 mind ; but those landscapes on which heaven has showered down the prin- 
 ciples of beauty and fertility, where the earth is filled with abundance, 
 and the air with fragrance, must delight, like woman, at all times, by 
 awakeninof those poetical and impassioned associations that constitute the 
 elements of the most perfect enjoyment. As we approached nearer and 
 nearer to the cultivated region, we observed various changes in the surface 
 of the waste. At first, a few scattered wild plants and flowers, the out- 
 posts or advanced guard of vegetation, showed themselves timidly among 
 the sand-hills, where some imperceptible moisture — the scanty dews dif- 
 fused thus far, perhaps, by the exhalations of Lake INIoeris — sustained their 
 verdure. As wo advanced, these signs of fertility became more numerous. 
 A thin net- work, as it were, of creeping plants, denser in the hollows, 
 more rare upon the eminences, clothed with a greyish verdure the undu- 
 lating outline of the Desert, as if to prepare us gradually for the luxuriant 
 and almost tropical magnificence of vegetation which we were to witness 
 farther on. 
 
 In approaching Tameia, we traversed the ancient canal, which, during 
 the inundations, conducts the waters of the Nile from the Bahr Yusuf 
 to the lake ; for the town, contrary to what appears in the ordinary maps, 
 
 * Eothen.
 
 164 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 is situated on the south-west bank of the watercourse. Our Turkish com- 
 panion accompanied us to the caravanserai, where, in confirmation of the 
 alarminc intelligence he had given by the way, we perceived a Bedouin 
 horseman, lance in hand, mounting guard at the gate. Fortunately, the 
 Bedouin, whose attention at the moment was otherwise engaged, observed 
 not the Turk, who, hastily bidding us farewell, slipped behind a wall, and 
 made his escape. With us the case was dififerent. It was not by avoid- 
 ing but by boldly facing the Bedouin, that we were to hope for safety. 
 Riding, therefore, directly up to the gateway, and passing the guard, 
 who made way for us, we entered the court, dismounted, and, ordering our 
 beasts to be unladen, took possession of the best room in the caravanserai. 
 This done, we went forth, unattended, to view the town and its antiqui- 
 ties. It soon became obvious that we had got among people exceedingly 
 different from the Fellahs on the Nile ; for, instead of exhibiting that naive 
 simpUcity and curious wonder, always evident on the countenance of the 
 latter, the Fayoomis displayed in their behaviour an impudent familia- 
 rity, bordering on positive insolence ; rushed to snatch our arms out of our 
 liands, in order to satisfy their curiosity in their own way ; followed us 
 about in crowds, insisting, whether we would or not, on constituting them- 
 selves our guides ; to which we at length put a stop, by informing them 
 that, whether they guided or left us to ourselves, was a matter of perfect 
 indifference, for that, in either case, we had determined not to give them a 
 single para. However, two or three men still stuck close to our skirts, 
 but conducted themselves very civilly ; and we promised to employ them, 
 should we need any guides on the morrow. 
 
 At Tameia the principal objects of curiosity are the remains of the 
 extensive reservoir and water-works, by means of which all the fields in 
 the vicinity were formerly irrigated. Pococke, in whose time this reservoir 
 was still perfect, believed it to have been a recent work, constructed in 
 consequence of the gradual filling up of the canal; which originally, he sup- 
 posed, conveyed from the Nile sufficient water for the purposes of agriculture. 
 But since the beds of the canals, everywhere, perhaps, in the Fayoom, are 
 hio-her than the lake, reservoirs or sluices must always have been necessary, 
 to prevent the water-courses from becoming absolutely dry. To those 
 who may think the canals were formerly deep, I may observe that the 
 water, nowhere half-leg deep, now runs like a natural rivulet, among 
 pebbles, over the living rock. On either shore of this tiny stream the soil 
 left by the inundation, not rising a foot above the level of the water, was 
 in many places covered with a good crop of corn. The banks are high, 
 and lined at intervals with masonry, while massive ruins and substructions 
 are scattered about in various directions. A dam, or wall, of immense 
 height and thickness, supported externally by a number of enormous but- 
 tresses, was formerly thrown across the valley, — for, from its great depth 
 and breadth, it deserves the name ; — but this has been partly swept away 
 by some resistless flood, leaving a gap, towards the centre, of about fifty 
 yards across. The water-works, of inferior dimensions and importance, 
 exist close to this, on the western bank of the canal, and are still available 
 in irrigation. The canals by which this part of the Fayoom is fertilized.
 
 FIRST VIEW OP LAKE MCERIS. 165 
 
 do not, as Pococke imagined, communicate directly with the Nile; being 
 minor branches of the Bahr Yiisuf, running off from the main stream 
 in the neighbourhood of Ilawara and Senofor, passing some by Saylek, 
 Sirsin, and Ma^itli, and others by INIasloob, El Massera, and Zirbi. Exten- 
 sive tracts of land, formerly cultivated to the east of the canals, are novv 
 neglected, and gradually, through lack of moisture, crumbling into sand, 
 and mingling with the Desert, which at present seems to be everywhere 
 gaining ground. 
 
 About the bed of the canal were numerous water-fowl, such as wild-ducks, 
 curlews, snipes, and siksaks, skimming to and fro, and uttering their plain- 
 tive screams ; but as it seemed probable we should have other use for our 
 arms, wo did not molest them. The stream, diminutive but rapid, ran in 
 limpid purity through a channel sometimes rocky, sometimes lined with a 
 mossy grass, rippling, murnmring, or breaking in tiny cascades over abrupt 
 descents in its bed. We pursued its course for two or three miles, in the 
 hope of discovering some genuine remnant of antiquity, or that remarkable 
 opening, whether natural or artificial, by which Lake Moeris is said to have 
 flowed, during six months of the year, into the Nile. In the latter expec- 
 tation we were disappointed ; nothing resembling such a channel appeared ; 
 and observing that sunset was drawing near, we desisted from further 
 search. Before we quitted the channel of the canal, an hyena appeared in 
 one of the breaks on the opposite bank ; but very quietly, on our approach, 
 made its escape into the Desert. On attaining an elevated point of the 
 undulating plain, west of the stream, I caught the first glimpse of Lake 
 Moeris, magnificently stretching away from east to west, crimsoned all over 
 by the setting sun, and glittering like a sea of molten amethyst. To 
 obtain a more extensive view of this glorious prospect, we climbed to the 
 top of a ruined Sheikh's tomb — such as are found picturesquely scattered 
 over all the desert parts of Egypt, — and from thence beheld what, if it be 
 really, as antiquity believed, artificial, must incontestibly be regarded as 
 the greatest, most poetical, and sublime of all the works of the Egyptian 
 kings. My thoughts in an instant were hurried away to the shores of 
 Lake Leman, where my children were then at play ; and this ideal asso- 
 ciation imperceptibly, perhaps, imparted to the scene a beauty, a grandeur, 
 an enchaining interest, which, for many other travellers, it may not possess. 
 But, independently of any such consideration, this noble lake must always 
 be regarded with enthusiasm. Those vast basins, scooped out by the hand 
 of nature on the surface of our globe, however immense they may be, excite 
 in us no wonder, since we know that to the Power which created them all 
 things are possible ; but when we behold something similar effected by the 
 genius and labour of man, producing a remarkable and permanent feature 
 in the external configuration of the world, it seems lawful to experience 
 something like exultation, while we reflect that, however feeble and transi- 
 tory we may be, it is still within our competency, when seconded by the 
 co-operation of others, to construct for the admiration and benefit of future 
 ages monuments little less durable, perhaps, than the world itself. 
 
 Near the saint's tomb, the ruins of which afforded us so fine a view of 
 the lake, we observed, in a field formerly cultivated, fragments of two red
 
 166 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 granite columns, exquisitely polished and scolloped. Some great public 
 edifice, palace, or temple, must, therefore, have formerly existed near this 
 spot, of which further traces might probably be discovered by excavation ; 
 but for this, even in more tranquil times, a military escort would, perhaps, 
 be necessary. On returning to the caravanserai, we found a mob collected 
 round the Bedouin horseman at the gateway ; but with what intentions we 
 knew not. Fi'om their looks, however, it was clear they regarded us with 
 no friendly eye, though they offered us no opposition. The agitation now 
 prevailing among this savage populace had an aspect altogetlier revolu- 
 tionary. Deserting their homes, and putting off those domestic habits, to 
 which, under ordinary circumstances, they are attached, they seemed to be 
 in momentary expectation of some exciting event, which might apparently 
 justify them in taking up arms, and plunging into excesses. Our apart- 
 ment close to the gate, having no door, exposed us to the perpetual gaze of 
 the multitude, continually passing and repassing. By day the wretched 
 place received light through several holes in the roof and walls, which now 
 admitted the cold evening air ; while overhead, a goat was running to and 
 fro, shaking down upon our heads showers of dust and straw, with wliich 
 it was fortunate that no scorpions were mingled. Dinner being ready, we 
 sat down on the beds, and placing the plates upon our knees, despatched 
 our meal thus, by the light of a small lamp stuck in the floor ; while the 
 insolent crowd filled the doorway, staring and laughing in the rudest man- 
 ner. At this moment a number of soldiers, who had just traversed the 
 Desert, arrived at the caravanserai ; upon which the Bedouin sentinel dis- 
 appeared, as if by magic ; and the mob slinking away from about the 
 entrance, tranquillity was for the time restored. However, it was possible 
 that the place might still be assaulted during the night, in order, as at 
 Sanhoor, to cut off the soldiers ; and, therefore, when the great gate had 
 been shut, and we lay down to sleep, our brave and faithful Atouni guide, 
 wakeful and vigilant, as accustomed to the sudden surprises and night- 
 attacks of a Desert life, placed himself across the doorway, that, should 
 any attempt be made upon us, the assailants might have to pass, in the 
 first instance, over his body. Fatigued and drowsy, it was not long before 
 we fell asleep ; and no disturbance occurred during the night to interrupt 
 our slumbers. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Adventures during a Visit to Lake M(eris. 
 
 Had the Moggrebyns stormed the Okella that night, they would have 
 acquired considerable booty, it being filled with merchants, chiefly inha- 
 bitants of the province, returning with the goods they had purchased at 
 Cairo. Most of these persons, as is the custom in the East, were stirring 
 and preparing to depart at an extremely early hour ; and when, shortly 
 after dawn, the gates were opened, recommenced their journey. Our 
 Atouni guide, whose " green old age " had left him all the vigour and
 
 BEAUTIFUL SCENERY. 167 
 
 activity of youth, waa on foot witli the earliest of them, and engaged in 
 saddling and loading the dromedaries. Nothing so much contributes, 
 I imaf^ine, to the habit of early rising, so universal in the East, as their 
 custom of lying on the ground, and never undressing when they go to rest; 
 for it requires no effort to rise early, when you have only to put on your 
 slippers, and adjust your turban, in order to be ready for a journey ; and 
 where, besides, the air is so pleasant that it is a luxury to be abroad. All 
 things being ready, we departed immediately after sunrise ; and our dro- 
 medaries, fresh and naturally swift-paced, soon overtook the long strings of 
 laden camels and asses proceeding towards the interior, which had quitted 
 the caravanserai so much earlier. Their road lying towards Medinet, we 
 very quickly left them behind, and struck off into a different track in the 
 direction of Senooris and the lake. 
 
 The country in the immediate neighbourhood of Tameia consists of a 
 rich alluvial soil, which would repay tlie labours of the husbandman 
 with abundant harvests, but it seems to have been long abandoned, and 
 was now in an entirely uncultivated state. We very soon entered, 
 however, upon a plain smiling and fertile, intersected by innumerable 
 small canals, along the banks of which ran high causeways, serving as 
 roads, and forming the only links of communication between the villages 
 during the time of the inundation. In many places the water still 
 remained in small pools, bordered with rushes and tufted reeds, consti- 
 tuting an interesting feature in a plain of matchless beauty, clothed with 
 vegetation ; — tender young corn, wheat in the ear, lupines, clover, beans, all 
 in flower, enamelling the fields, and impregnating the whole air with 
 fragrance. Towards the right, through breaks in the date forests, and the 
 thick undergrowth of tamarisks and mimosas, we occasionally, in riding 
 along, caught hasty glimpses of the calm shining surface of the lake, with 
 the sterile crags and wide wastes of sand which form its northern shore. 
 Never, at any period of my life, — except, perhaps, on the day that saw nie 
 wandering among the barren mountains of Messenia in the Peloponnesus, — 
 did I derive, from the presence of mere inanimate objects, a delight so 
 perfect, so capable of absorbing the thoughts and filling tlie whole mind, 
 so replete witli poetical enjoyment, so intense and rapturous, as I expe- 
 rienced during this morning's ride. The landscape appeared to compre- 
 hend every element of interest and beauty ; a plain of unrivalled richness 
 and fertility, exhibiting each various shade of verdure, intersected by streams 
 of water, sprinkled with tufted groves, disclosing between their foliage the 
 rural village, and the towering minaret ; beyond these, the artificial sea of 
 Moeris, quivering and glittering in the sun ; and, in the distance forming 
 the majestic background of the picture, a range of rocky mountains, of com- 
 manding elevation, arid, frowning, desolate, but invested with an air of 
 gloomy grandeur highly congenial to the state of mind in which I viewed 
 them. To those mute physical sources of pleasure, others of a moral 
 nature were added. History and fable had assisted in peopling the spot 
 with numerous interesting reminiscences ; but, more than each and all of 
 these, extending in an almost contimious line along that edge of the lake, 
 was a series of black tents, the dwelling-places of the redoubtable cavalry
 
 168 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 of the Desert, wliicli had defied and broken the power of Persian, and Greek, 
 and Roman, and Turk ; and although, in tlie actual posture of aflfairs, we 
 were not without apprehension from their marauding character, the conside- 
 ration by no means diminished the pleasurable excitement of the moment. 
 
 About nine o'clock we halted at a small caravanserai, standing near the 
 cemetery, in the outskirts of Senooris ; and while Abu Zaid was engaged in 
 kindling a fire and preparing coffee, our active old Bedouin proceeded into 
 the village in search of milk. The inhabitants, little accustomed to the 
 visits of strangers, seeing us dismount from our camels, came flocking 
 thither in crowds which increased every moment. Our dress and appear- 
 ance, which had elsewhere excited no attention, seemed to them an object 
 of wonder ; and my writing apparatus, viewed with some degree of 
 suspicion in all parts of Egypt, called forth so many extraordinary remarks, 
 and was beheld with so many evident signs of disa])probation and alarm, 
 that it appeared judicious to make no further use of it in their sight, lest 
 it should draw upon us some impleasant consequences. 
 
 In Europe, more especially in the sceptical atmosphere of large cities, 
 even the vulgar affect to be delivered from the terrors of superstition, and 
 the belief in the force of charms and talismans ; though, were the matter 
 probed to the bottom, the old leaven might still, perhajis, be found lurking 
 in the recesses of their souls ; but in the East, ignorance has not yet learned 
 to conceal its deformity behind the mask of j)hilosophy. What they 
 believe and apprehend, that they profess to apprehend and believe. 
 Dissimulation, on sucli subjects, is above their reach. It was, therefore, 
 as I have said, not without terror and dislike that they observed me 
 writing, and consulting books and maps, all which things they ingenuously 
 regard as the implements of a magician ; and at length, in order to put a 
 stop to my diabolical machinations, it was hinted that the drift of our 
 proceedings was perfectly well understood ; that we were come to take 
 away the gold which, according to them, lies concealed in great abundance 
 in tlie earth on the shores of Lake Moeris. We were supposed to be in 
 possession of a book, by the reading of which, in the vicinity of buried 
 treasures, we could cause the ground to open, and attract the gold to the 
 surface ; which, they assured us, had, to their knowledge, been done by a 
 famous magician, who visited the province some years ago. This is their 
 only idea of the use of books. 
 
 In order to tranquillize their minds respecting their hidden treasures, I 
 shut up all my magical instruments, and, quitting the caravanserai, strolled 
 forth among the tombs in the cemetery. But this was making a transition 
 from bad to worse. Ghouls and Efi"rits and Marids, in the shape of men, 
 delight to roam about amid graves and sepulchres, where, at certain periods 
 of the day or night, they unearth the dead and feed upon their corpses; and, 
 to judge by their looks, the good people of Senooris seemed not to be 
 entirely exempt from the suspicion that we might possibly belong to that 
 infernal order of beings. When, however, they beheld us sit down to 
 breakfast in front of the caravanserai, and make use, like JMussulmans, of 
 coflfee and bread, their ideas took another direction, and they seemed, poor 
 creatures ! to envy us every mouthful we ate. They, in fact, acknowledged
 
 REBELLION OF THE MOGGREBYNS. 109 
 
 th.it tlic oppression and rapacity of the Pasha's government had reduced 
 them to a state of starvation ; observing that, at length, the old prophecy 
 was fulfilled, the father's hand being turned against the child, and the 
 child's against the father, food being now all they thought of; that honest 
 men, instigated by hunger, and beholding their wives and little ones pining 
 and perishing around them through want, had become robbers, and 
 infested the roads, on which assaults and murders were daily committed ; 
 and that jVIohammed AH, — " upon whom," exclaimed they, " be the curse 
 of God ! " — with his monopolies and ambition, was the cause of all their 
 calamities. On the rebellion of the Moggrebyn Bedouins they appeared 
 to dwell with satisfaction, as if they hoped, through their aid, to recover 
 their independence, and see better days. It is possible, therefore, they 
 may have somewhat exajjgerated their forces, the extent of their political 
 views, and the terror of their arms ; but, whether this was the case or 
 not, it v/as quite clear, from every view of their account, that we had 
 entered the Fayoom at a peculiarly inauspicious moment, and could neither 
 retreat nor advance, in any direction, without running imminent risk of 
 being murdered; for the Western Arabs, taking advantage of the discon- 
 tents of the people, the absence of the Pasha's military forces in Syria and 
 the Hejaz, and crediting, or feigning to credit, the report of the arrival of 
 an English and French fleet at Alexandria, for the purpose of deposing 
 Mohammed Ali, had poured themselves in from the Desert in va£t bodies, 
 encamped close to the towns, or spread themselves in marauding parties 
 through the country, everywhere setting at defiance the authority of 
 government. 
 
 Tliough relying, perhaps, upon the support of the Moggrebyns, and 
 for the moment, fearing nothing from the Pasha, the people of Senooris, 
 unlike their brethren of Tameia, behaved — if we except their aversion 
 to our talismans — with exemplary civility, running eagerly to fetch 
 from the village whatever we vvanted, and accepting with thankfulness 
 the trifles given them in return for their services. By the time we had 
 ended our meal, however, and prepared to remount, the crowd which 
 had collected round us was considerable ; though their manners underwent 
 no change. They merely ventured to advise us, in a friendly way, not to 
 advance any fui'ther into the country, which we should find teeming with 
 difficulties and dangers ; but not knowing what degree of credit to yield to 
 their reports, and unwilling to turn back for what might afterwards appear 
 to be but a vain rumour, we declined following their counsel, and inquired 
 whether there was any one among them who, for a handsome present, 
 would undertake to be our guide to the turbulent town of Sanhoor and the 
 lake. The idea appeared absurd, and they allowed us to ride away without 
 a guide ; but we had scarcely turned the eastern extremity of the town, 
 before a young man, of bold but prepossessing countenance, presented him- 
 self, offering to conduct us whithersoever we might desire ; and to his 
 fidelity and good sense we were indebted, before the sun went down, for 
 our lives. 
 
 Senooris is a considerable town, possessing a handsome mosque, adorned 
 with a lofty minaret ; but, in accordance with the practice everywhere
 
 170 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 prevailing in Egypt, its environs are deformed by enormous mounds of 
 filth and rubbish, between which a canal winds its way through a deep 
 broad channel toAVards the north. In our way to Zaouya, the lake was 
 constantly visible, unless when the view was intercepted by trees. Occa- 
 sionally the windings of the camel-track conducted us into the immediate 
 vicinity of the Moggrebyn encampments, from which we at length saw a 
 small party of horse detach itself, and move westward, parallel with our 
 route, evidently for the purpose of reconnoitring our movements. Per- 
 ceiving the difficulty of our position, it might, perhaps, have been prudent 
 to have abandoned the idea of descending to the shores of the lake, — of 
 which we could now command an admirable prospect, — and have directed 
 our course towards Medinet. But it was for the purpose of beholding the 
 creation of Moeris that we had principally desired to visit the Fayoom ; 
 and to have returned without tasting its waters, and contemplating at 
 leisure the wild beauties of its shores, would have grieved us exceedingly. 
 Besides, in all intercourse with savages, it has been observed, that less 
 danger is incurred by advancing carelessly and confidently among them, 
 than by manifesting symptoms of dread ; and, therefore, without appearing 
 to observe the hostile demonstrations of the " Sons of Ismael," we con- 
 tinued to pursue our original plan. Now, however, our stout-hearted old 
 Atouni began, not altogether without reason, to entertain apprehensions 
 for the safety of his camels ; — if he felt any for his own, he was too proixd 
 to own it ; — and, lifting up his hands, bewailed the poor beasts, as if they 
 were already lost. Between his tribe and the Moggrebyns of the Fayoom 
 there existed, he said, a blood-feud ; and they would certainly not let sUp 
 the present occasion of satiating their rancorous and hereditary hatred. I 
 observed, however, that he made no mention of turning back, either con- 
 ceiving it to be too late, or from the natural predilection of his whole race 
 for strife and bloodshed. Many causes combined to render our progress 
 slow and irksome. Owing to the infinite number of small canals, which 
 intersect the country in all directions, the camel-track meanders in the most 
 extraordinary manner, now leading towards the north, and now towards 
 the south. Frequently, it became necessary to dismount, and force or coax 
 the dromedaries to leap the ditches which crossed our path ; and, on one 
 occasion, fortunately when no one was on his back, one of them fell, and 
 rolled into the canal, from whence we had some difficulty to extricate him. 
 At Zaouya, where we paused to make some passing inquiries, our Cairo 
 domestic was on the point of seriously compromising us, by informing the 
 inhabitants, through the vanity of being supposed to belong to the service 
 of persons in authority, that we were officers of the Pasha, proceeding 
 through the country in the execution of our duty ; which, since all these 
 people were in league with the enemy, would, in all probability, have 
 effected our destruction. Understanding quite enough of Arabic to detect 
 the purport of his discourse, we questioned him on the subject ; and find- 
 intr our suspicions well founded, he was directed to contradict his former 
 statement, and forbidden to propagate such a report for the future, on pain 
 of being instantly shot. 
 
 Continuing to advance in a westerly direction, and passing through the
 
 THE SHORES OF LAKE MCERIS. 171 
 
 villages of Bayheeth and Tirseli, we at length arrived at the rehel town of 
 Sanhoor, where, a few days before, had taken place the battle, in which 
 the Pasha's forces were worsted by the Bedouins. It is, in fact, an 
 extensive village, buried in a forest of date trees, and partly surrounded by 
 a deep water-course. The canals of the Fayooni, though at this season of 
 the year extremely shallow, have all the characteristic beauties of natural 
 rivulets, running for the most part down gentle declivities, in a winding 
 course, rippling and transparent, in many places over gravelly bottoms, 
 between banks frino;ed with slender reeds or willows. On drawing near 
 the town, we perceived a number of people engaged in a very noisy quarrel 
 among the rubbish mounds,* but we received no molestation ; on the con- 
 trary, an old man, with a venerable grey beard, who professed to be well 
 acquainted with the country round the lake, came voluntarily forward, 
 offering to be our guide. Having accepted his services, we were shortly 
 afterwards joined by two other Arabs, who likewise, without further 
 ceremony, constituted themselves our guides ; so that, being attended by 
 four gentlemen of this profession, not to mention our Mahazi Bedouin, 
 there was little danger of losing our way. 
 
 On emerging from the date woods of Sanhoor, we observed that the land 
 sloped gradually to the water's edge, and was covered, in the immediate 
 vicinity of the town, with wheat, barley, and trefoil, and, further on, with 
 halfah grass and copses of tamarisk. The view of the Sea of Moeris, with 
 its Avild picturesque shore, was now peculiarly grand. Equalling in breadth 
 the Lake of Geneva, between Rolles and Thonon, but differing in its 
 accessories from everything in Europe, it seemed to have been created for 
 the purpose of awakening in the mind the spirit of poetry. Alpine peaks 
 with glaciers and eternal snows, are here not found, to rouse and elevate 
 the imagination ; but in their stead, something no less sublime, no less 
 calculated to suggest lofty and ennobling trains of thought, to carry the 
 mind beyond the limits of the every-day world, and, by rendering it con- 
 versant with the stupendous aspect of nature, in the burning, boundless 
 Desert, the sun-scorched mountain, the abandoned plain, the unnavigated 
 wave, to induce a habit of contentment and serenity, images of a novel 
 character, and a love of whatever is gifted with the irresistible attributes of 
 beauty. Towards the east, the opposite shore is low, consisting of a series 
 of undulating sand-hills, which, as the eye turns westward, give place to 
 rocky eminences, rising gradually into mountains, barren and wild, extend- 
 ing westward to the extreme verge of the horizon. Between this arid chain 
 and the traveller who contemplates it from the verdant plains of the 
 Fayoom, lies the Lake of Moeris, which, on the morning of our visit, glit- 
 tered in the sun like a sea of molten silver, and, neither of its extremities 
 being visible, seemed to be of interminable extent. After pausing some 
 time to enjoy the distant prospect, we alighted from our camels, and, 
 leaving them to browse upon the plain, walked down to the beach, which 
 I approached with more true pleasure than I had anywhere else expe- 
 rienced in Egypt. Though a cool breeze, blowing across the lake, somewhat 
 
 * See AVilkinsoa.
 
 172 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 tempered the lieat of the sun, it was fortunately not sufficient to chill the 
 atmosphere, the temperature of which greatly exceeded that of July in 
 Europe. Everything, therefore, contributed to augment our enjoyment. 
 Absolute solitude prevailed on all sides. Our camels and attendants being 
 concealed from sight by copses and thickets, and the distant villages, — here 
 exceedingly few, — by lofty woods, nothing presented itself to the eye 
 which could suggest a reference to human society. Enormous flights of 
 aquatic birds — pelicans, wild-ducks, gulls, petrels, and white ibises — were 
 here seen, some rising, others lighting on the shores, or swimming on the 
 lake. Of these great quantities are taken by hooks attached to long lines, 
 that are stretched at intervals over the surface. I saw a large black 
 fowl with a sharp serrated bill, caught in this manner, and two fish, 
 called Shillbee Beeri, with flat heads, and beards, or whiskers, six or seven 
 inches long, which were said to be very fine, and were nearly a yard in 
 length.* In the grass, almost under our feet, were numerous coveys of 
 partridges ; and, when we had reached the beach, both sight and smell 
 were struck by prodigious numbers of dead fish, which having, as the 
 natives afterwards informed us, recently perished through cold, had been 
 driven on land by a tempestuous north wind. The quantity was incre- 
 dible, lining the shoi'e in heaps as far as the eye could reach, as if a 
 multitude of fishermen had just emptied their nets there. They were 
 exceedingly varied in form and size ; some measuring nearly five feet in 
 length, and of more than proportionate thickness, — and of these many 
 hundreds lay among the smaller fry upon the mud, — while others were no 
 bigger than a herring. In general the largest were closest to the water, 
 the smallest, in many instances, having been carried by the waves twenty 
 or thirty yards inland. The stench arising from so great a quantity of fish 
 putrefying in the sun was almost insupportable, and must have communi- 
 cated a pestilential quality to the atmosphere. 
 
 According to Diodorus, the species of fish caught in this lake anciently 
 amounted in number to twenty-two. I did not count those we saw, but 
 should certainly have supposed there were many more. Sir Gardner 
 Wilkinson thinks that the fish of Lake Moerls are identical in kind with 
 those of the Nile, though greatly superior in flavour. His opinion may 
 possibly be correct, but among all the fish caught in the river I never saw 
 any at all resembling the larger species which I have found upon the beach, 
 nor did I ever meet with any person who had seen such. The fisheries of 
 this lake are exceedingly productive, and abundantly supply the whole 
 markets of the F.iyoom. 
 
 Like that of the canals, the lake fishing is farmed by the government to 
 some rich inhabitants of the district, who are usually Copt Christians ; and 
 the fish, as in former times, are either taken fresh to the market, or are 
 dried and salted, as Diodorus observes in his notice of the lake, though the 
 number of persons engaged in this occupation bears a very small proportion 
 to that of former times. This custom of farming the fisheries was pro- 
 bably derived by the Arab government from their predecessors. It does 
 
 * Colonel Howard Vjse.
 
 VOYAGE ACROSS THE LAKE. 173 
 
 not, however, seem to have been adopted at their first occupation of the 
 country, since the Arab historian, El JMakrisi, who wrote in the fourteentli 
 century of our era, mentions it as a new idea. It may hero be observed, that 
 Lake Moeris lies about a hundred feet below the level of the Nile,* and that 
 its waters could never have risen to a much greater height than at present, 
 since we find the remains of ancient buildings close to tlie shore. As soon as 
 we gained a practicable part of the beach, my companion, inipatient of the 
 heat, bathed in the lake ; while I contented myself with tasting the water, 
 and strolling along the shore. Whatever may be its depth towards the 
 middle, JMoeris is extremely shallow near the land ; it being necessary, 
 on this part of the coast, to advance several hundred yards before one can 
 swim. I found the water of a brackish taste, though not to the degree 
 mentioned by Pococke, who thought it " almost as salt as the sea." As 
 far as we proceeded, the quantity of fish upon the beach continued imdi- 
 minished ; so that the account furnished by the priests to Herodotus, of 
 the value of the fisheries of Lake Moeris, does not seem to have been 
 exaggerated ; foi', judging by appearances, they would furnish food to half 
 Egypt. All this part of the shore is adorned with slender tamarisk bushes, 
 covered, in many cases, with red catkins, like the willow, which, drooping 
 and waving over the water, render the beach highly beautiful. The boat 
 that formerly conveyed persons to the opposite shore had long been 
 destroyed ; but an Arab, who lived some leagues farther to the west, was 
 said still to possess a small bark, which might easily be hired. In the 
 present state of the country, however, covered with marauding Moggrebyns, 
 and rebel camps, it was judged unsafe to venture far from the camels and 
 luggage ; and we had very soon reason to congratulate ourselves on our 
 determination. 
 
 Other travellers visiting the Fayoom at a more propitious moment, have 
 crossed Lake Moeris and examined tlie ruins of towns and temples scattered 
 on its western shores. Belzoni in particular was most fortunate in his 
 visit. He found the province in peace, and the poor people eager to attend 
 him for the smallest reward. Still it was not without some difficulty that he 
 procured a boat, which he describes as so ancient and rickety that it might 
 probably have served Charon himself to convey the corpses of the Egyptians 
 to their last resting-place. The Roman traveller, full of the theories which 
 prevailed in his day, discovered everywhere proofs that this was the 
 original scene of the fable of Charon ferrying over the shades to Hades. 
 
 The bark was entirely out of shape. The outer shell or hulk was com- 
 posed of rough pieces of wood, scarcely joined and fastened by four other 
 pieces, bound together by four more across, which formed the deck. No 
 tar or pitch had been used, either inside or without, and the onJy thing 
 
 * Monsieur Linant de Bellefonds bns written an elaborate and voluminous memoir to prove 
 that the Birket-el-Karoon is not the Lake Moeris of the ancients, which he places on a part 
 of the Fayoom, now dry, in the vicinity of Medinet. He argues the point with much ingenuity, 
 though ids reasoning scarcely, perhaps, pioduces conviction. This, however, is not llie place to 
 enter into such discussions; otherwise it would perhaps be possible to bring forward quite as 
 many and as weighty arguments, and possibly a little more accurate learning, to prove Lake 
 Maris and the Birkct-el-Karooa to be identical. 
 
 q2
 
 174 EGYPT AND NUBI.\, 
 
 wliich prevented tlie water entering through the seams was a kind of weed. 
 " IlavintT," says Belzoni, " made an agreement with the owner, who re- 
 semhled the pilot of the Stygian flood, we put on board some provisions and 
 made towards the west, where the famous Labyrinth was supposed to have 
 been situated. The water of the lake was now drinkable, owing to the 
 extraordinary overflow of the Nile, which surmounting all the high lands, 
 and in addition to the Bahr Yusuf, poured in such torrents into the lake 
 that it raised its level twelve feet higher than ever it had been remembered 
 by the oldest fisherman. ^Ve advanced with our old Baris, towards the 
 West, and at sunset saw the shore quite deserted, there remaining nothing 
 to look at save the lake and the mountains on the north. The pilot lighted 
 a fire, while his companion went to fish with a net, and soon returned with 
 sufficient for our supper. The land we were now in had anciently been 
 cultivated, as there appeared many stumps of palm and other trees nearly 
 petrified. I observed also the vine in great plenty. The scene here was 
 beautiful : the silence of the night — the beams of the radiant moon shining 
 on the still water of the lake — the solitude of the place — the sight of our 
 boat — the group of fishermen — the temple which bears the name of Old 
 Charon, a little way ofi", reminded me of the Lake Acheron, the boat Baris, 
 and the old ferryman of the Styx. I perceived this was the very spot 
 where the poet originated the fable of the passage of the souls over the 
 river Oblivion. Nothing could be more pleasing to my imagination than 
 being so near the Elysium, perhaps on the very Elysium itself. I thought 
 that the plants which appeared nearly petrified, were the very ones 
 amongst which the souls were enjoying the happiness of their purity. I 
 strolled along the banks of the lake in solitary musing, not unlike one of 
 these wandering souls waiting its turn to cross the Styx, while my old 
 Charon, with his semi-demons, was preparing supper. I thought that 
 night one of the happiest of my life, and imagined myself out of the reach 
 of evil mortals. Happy in the Elysian Fields, I feared not the mahce and 
 treacherous arts of envy, jealousy, spite, revenge, nor the thousand other 
 snares of man. I nearly forgot I was living ; and I suppose that, had 
 I continued in my ecstacy, I should have proved that these waters have 
 the power of oblivion. Next morning before sunrise we entered the old 
 Baris, and steered towards the west, till we arrived near the end of the 
 lake, which, according to these fishermen, now extended further than they 
 ever remembered it, in consequence of the above extraordinary inundation. 
 We landed here, and I took two of the boatmen and set oS^ for the temple 
 called Kasr-el-Karoon, about three miles distant, standing in the midst of 
 a ruined town, the foundations of whose walls are still to be seen, along 
 with the substructures of several houses and small temples. There are also 
 fragments of columns and blocks of stone. The temple, in tolerable 
 preservation, is constructed in a style different from that of the Egyptians. 
 No hieroglyphics are painted on the walls, and only two figures, which 
 may be those of Osiris and Amnion. Part of the town is covered with 
 sand. Towards the east there is a something like a gateway in an octan- 
 gular form, and at a little distance a Greek chapel elevated on a platform, 
 with cellars under it. In visiting this ruin I was near becoming the
 
 RUINS ON THE WESTERN SHORES OF THE LAKE. 175 
 
 breakfast of an liyena; for having loft my arms behind, I was about to 
 mount the flight of steps, when the fierce animal, rushing forth from the 
 apartments heneatli the chapel, darted past me. He had evidently been 
 himself alarmed, but perceiving that I carried no weapon, was on the point 
 of returning to the attack, when he was scared away by the shrieks of the 
 terrified Arabs, after having shown us its pretty teeth, and treated us to 
 one of its loudest roars. Whatever remains of beauty were to be seen in this 
 town, it could not have been the site of the famous Labyrinth. The Laby- 
 rinth was a building of three thousand chambers, one half above and one half 
 below the surface of the earth. Such an immense edifice would probably 
 have bequeathed to us sufficiently numerous fragments to determine where 
 it had stood ; but not a trace of any such a building is anywhere to be 
 seen. The town was about a mile in circumference, with the temple in its 
 centre, so I cannot see how the Labyrinth could be placed in this situation. 
 I accordingly left the place, and on my return towards the lake passed a 
 tract of land which had once been cultivated, and saw a great many stumps 
 of plants almost burnt. On my reaching the shore, a high wind arose 
 from the south-west, and greatly agitated the waters, drifted the sand in 
 the air, and stranded our boat. There being plenty of wood, we lighted a 
 fire, and passed the night under shelter of a mat suspended over two sticks 
 fixed in the ground. In the morning, the wind having abated, we again 
 embarked, and shaped our course northward along the coast the whole 
 day. In several parts we observed great quantities of weeds growing 
 from beneath the waters, among which game greatly abounded. 
 
 " The pelican is here as common as on the Nile. There are also many 
 wild-ducks, and a kind of large snipe. Next morning the boatmen, being 
 tired of the expedition, resolved to recross the lake. I had somewhere 
 read, however, that there existed the ruins of a town near this spot, and 
 shortly after daybreak set out alone in search of it. The Arabs imme- 
 diately ran after me, observing that there was nothing to be seen save a 
 few ruined houses and a high wall. But this was enough for me. I 
 determined to proceed, and they, after exhibiting the usual amount of 
 obstinacy, consented to go along with me. Having passed a narrow strip 
 of bushes, where the slots of leopards and of antelopes were visible, we 
 ascended a steep ridge, on which there had evidently been vineyards, as 
 the remains were to be perceived struggling through the sand, that now 
 covers the extensive ranges of desert mountains to such a depth, that their 
 rocky summits are the only objects perceptible in the undulating waste. 
 As the sand is deep and drifted, it is impossible, without very extensive 
 excavations, to determine what was the former surface of the country ; 
 but it is evident tliat the part next the water had been cultivated, and 
 that the ancient town we came to visit had been placed to gi-eat advan- 
 tage ; and that before the plains and mountains between it and the lake 
 had been overwhelmed with the vast body of sand, had it commanded a 
 magnificent prospect of the lake, from which it is not three miles distant, 
 and of the fertile province on the eastern shore. On reaching the summit 
 of a low range of hills, I discovered the ruins of a town not far distant. 
 This must have been the city of Bacchus, which I have seen marked on 
 many ancient maps. There are a great number of houses half tumbled
 
 176 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 down and a hifrli wall of sunburnt bricks, which incloses the ruins of a 
 temple. The houses are detached, and arranged irregularly, and divided 
 from each other by straggling lanes, narrow as those of Cairo. The temple, 
 which faces the south, is approached by a causeway, constructed with 
 laro-e stones, and extending all the way from the town. In the centre of 
 the city I observed several houses underground, roofed with beams of wood, 
 with layers of canes, clay, and bricks, so that one might walk over with- 
 out perceiving that he was treading on the top of a house. As the fisher- 
 men had brought their hatchets, I caused two or three of these houses to 
 be uncovered, and found a fireplace in every one of them. They were not 
 more than ten or twelve feet square, and the communication to each house 
 was by a narrow lane, not more than three feet wide, which was also 
 covered." Mr. Belzoni was at a loss to understand why these subterranean 
 habitations had been constructed. It could not, he thought, have been 
 for coolness, since they must have had all the force of the sun upon them 
 without the slightest chance of a breath of wind. Probably, however, 
 they were only the underground floors of the ordinary dwellings, built, ats in 
 Affo-hanistan and elsewhere in the East, to be occupied during the great heats 
 of summer, being kept cool by the shelter of the superincumben structure. 
 " The houses above-ground were constructed in a manner somewhat difier- 
 ent from any I had seen before. Few had a second floor, and those which 
 were higher than the rest were very narrow, so that they resembled towers 
 rather than common houses ; but now there is scarcely one to be seen 
 entire. As to the temple, it is fallen, but appears to have been pretty 
 extensive. The blocks of stone are of the largest size, some eight and nine 
 feet lon<y. The ruins are in such confusion, that it is impossible to form an 
 idea of its plan or foundation. I am almost certain, by what I could see, 
 that the falling of this temple was caused by violence, as it appears to me 
 that it never could have been so dilapidated by the slow hand of time. 
 Anions these blocks I saw the fragments of statues, of breccia and other 
 stones^of Grecian sculpture, but no granite ; and I observed the fragment 
 of one which appeared to me not unlike part of an Apollo. There were 
 also fragments of lions of grey-stone, not belonging to these mountains. 
 The town, from what I could see, might have consisted of five hundred 
 houses, the largest of which was not more than forty feet square. The 
 area of the wall which surrounded the temple is a hundred and fifty feet 
 square, thirty feet high, and eight feet thick. On the north side of this 
 town is a valley, which appears to have been once cultivated, but at 
 present is covered with sand. On inquiry, I found this town was known 
 to the Arabs of the lake under the name of Denay. We returned to the 
 boat, and crossed to the island of El Hear, which is entirely barren, and 
 no trace of any habitation anywhere to be seen." * 
 
 Thus far Belzoni and Vyse. To return to our own narrative:— 
 Having remained sopie time on the beach, we were joined by our guide 
 and attendants, who had been left with the camels, and now appeared 
 uneasy at our delay. But as they stated no reasons, we paid little atten- 
 tion to their disquietude, which might arise from mere impatience ; at 
 
 * Belzoni. Colonel Howard Vvsc.
 
 DANGER FROM THE MOGGREBYNS. 177 
 
 length, observing that the day was far spent, and no new object of curio- 
 sity presenting itself, wc quitted the lake, and began to retrace our steps 
 towards Sanlioor. To the loft were many Bedouin encampments, near 
 which several troops of cavalry had been seen passing to and fro during 
 the day ; nevertheless, as they had hitherto abstained from ottering us any 
 molestation, we began to imagine that it might, after all, be possible to 
 effect our retreat out of the province without meeting with any difiiculty. 
 We had not, however, proceeded above a mile, before a small body of 
 horse, armed with muskets and lances, issuing from among the date-woods, 
 made towards us at full gallop. Our Mahazi guide, who first perceived 
 them, without exhibiting the slightest sign of trepidation, though quite 
 unarmed, requested us to ride close together; trotting on as if we saw 
 them not, but keeping our fire-arms in our hands, cocked ready for action. 
 My dromedary being a female, big with young, and greatly fatigued by 
 the violent manner in whicli we had travelled, now lagged in the rear ; so 
 that had not my companion slackened his pace, to allow me time to come 
 up, I might have been easily cut off from the rest of the party. AVhen 
 the Moggrebyns had approached to within a few hundred yards, two 
 horsemen, detached from the main body, advanced to question us. Gal- 
 loping at full speed, they called aloud, that the Pasha's government being 
 at an end, the Bedouins were now lords of Egypt, and that as we were 
 partisans of the Pasha, they should make war upon and destroy us. The 
 guides who had joined us at Sanhoor, either taking no interest in our fate, 
 or reckoning on sharing the spoil should we be speared by the enemy, 
 walked doggedly along without uttering a word ; but the youth from 
 Senooris, after beating my dromedary into a trot, remained behind, in 
 order to confer with our pursuers. At first they insisted we belonged to 
 the Pasha's service, and had been sent by that cunning despot to observe 
 their movements and numbers, that he might know how and with what 
 force to attack them, in the vain hope of recovering possession of the 
 province ; and that, therefore, they could not, without betraying their 
 own cause, allow us to escape. To this our guide made answer, that we 
 were mere travellers, whose business it was to run about the world ; mea- 
 suring the length and breadth of rivers, and the circumference of seas ; 
 observing the buildings which ancient nations had left behind them ; and 
 inquiring into what every man ate and drank ; that, in short, we were 
 Englishmen, who had never been known, like other Franks, to make war 
 upon or kidnap the natives for the Pasha. The men of Sanhoor now join- 
 ing in tliis representation, they were at length convinced we were English- 
 men, who, thank God ! seem to be everywhere respected for their honour 
 and integrity. Relinquishing, therefore, their hostile design, they suffered 
 us to proceed on our way in peace. 
 
 From the borders of the lake to Medinet el Fayoom, is between twelve 
 and thirteen miles ; and the day already drawing towards its close, we at 
 first entertained the intention of passing the night at Sanhoor. But the 
 inhabitants were in league with the Arabs of the Desert, a party of whom 
 might arrive in the village, — where the Pasha possessed not a single 
 soldier, perhaps not a single partisan, — and quietly cut us off during the 
 nio-ht. To advance, after dark, was likewise hazardous ; for our camels
 
 178 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 being nearly knocked up, and the road intricate and intersected by canals, 
 we might, should our guide fail us, be left to wander all night through a 
 country infested by marauding parties, and dangerous even by day. How- 
 ever, having much faith in the young man, we determined to rely wholly 
 on his fidelity, and desired him to proceed, by the nearest route, towards 
 the capital of the province. Hitherto, we had beheld neither the rose- 
 gardens nor the olive plantations, for which the Fayoom has always been 
 celebrated ; but, shortly after quitting Sanhoor, we entered on a country 
 exhibiting considerable irregularity of surface, covered in many parts by 
 groves of olive trees, extending along and shading the road. The general 
 features of the landscape were here exceedingly beautiful, every turn of 
 the pathway presenting a new vista, between wood and copse, over fields 
 exquisitely green, and ending, perhaps, with the prospect of some distant 
 village. But this part of the province, though highly fertile, is thinly 
 peopled, the hamlets being few and distant from each other ; and, as in all 
 countries where property and life are insecure, no scattered villas, farms, 
 or cottages, are anywhere seen. About sunset we arrived at Fedmin ; 
 where Belzoni, building, as usual, on a popular tradition, supposed the 
 Labyrinth may have been situated. The tradition, however, relates to 
 three hundred Christian churches, — the dream, in all probability, of some 
 Copt ; — but if we multiply three hundred by ten, we shall have three 
 thousand, out of which there will be no difficulty in erecting a Labyrinth. 
 Proceeding in this way, nothing can arrest our progress ; tradition, in 
 Egypt, will always be at hand, in support of any hypothesis : we shall 
 only have to adapt them to our particular purposes. Still, it is probable 
 that Fedmin stands on the site of some ancient town, the mounds of dust 
 and rubbish — the constant accompaniment of an Egyptian village, among 
 which, however, we could see no substructions, bricks, or remains of 
 ancient buildings — being here large and more numerous than usual. A 
 canal, with a very deep channel, but no great quantity of water, runs close 
 to the place on the east. 
 
 Night came on shortly after. There was no moon, but the stars shone 
 brightly, affbrding considerable light, by which we continued to ])rosecute 
 our journey. Nevertheless, from the hesitating manner of our guide, when 
 there were several paths branching off" in different directions, it was evident, 
 though he would not confess it, that he was but imperfectly acquainted 
 with the way. We moreover began, as well as our beasts, to experience 
 some fatigue, having been about fourteen hours on the road ; and the idea 
 of passing the night at some of the hamlets on the left, the situation of 
 which we could discover by the lights burning in the cottages, at length 
 presented itself; but while we were discussing the point and inquiring into 
 the merits of the diff"erent villages, we met a party of Turkish soldiers, 
 marching upon Fedmin, who said that another half hour would bring us to 
 IMedinet. Though not unacquainted with the length of an Egyptian half 
 hour, we now abandoned the design of stopping short of the capital, and 
 l)ushed on with all speed. All this part of the Fayoom is intersected in a 
 wonderful manner by canals, which everywhere in Egypt, and more par- 
 ticularly in this province, present, as I have before observed, the appearance 
 of natural rivers, possessing picturesquely wooded banks, meandering
 
 ROSE-GARDENS.— MEDTNET. 179 
 
 courses, and streams of clear water, alternately deep and shallow, with a 
 rippling current always perceptible. Along the edges of such canals, our 
 road frequently lay over narrow foot-paths worn in the face of their lofty 
 steep banks, where one false step would have precipitated us into the water 
 below. The night being much too dark to pretend to guide the drome- 
 daries, which had the same motive as ourselves for guarding against acci- 
 dents, we were fain to trust to them entirely the care of our necks. No 
 less sure-footed than the mule, they proved themselves well worthy of the 
 confidence we reposed in tliem, mounting and descending the steepest 
 eminences without slipping or stumbling. Here, we were told, the famous 
 rose-gardens are situated ; but the roses were not yet in bloom, so that, 
 even had we not traversed the coimtry in the dark, they would have 
 added less to the beauty of the prospect than so many gooseberry-bushes. 
 However, the cultivation of the rose, and the manufacture of attar, are still 
 conducted on a large scale in the Fayoom, where the plantations of one 
 European speculator occupy thirty thousand acres. 
 
 As we approached Medinet, — which, from the spot where we met with 
 the soldiers, was more than twice the distance they stated, — the canals 
 became larger, and the docks, sluices, and bridges more frequent. To 
 thread the winding camel-track between the numerous arms of these vast 
 water-works was an undertaking of some nicety, our path frequently 
 leading over the top of a narrow causeway, thrown across extensive reser- 
 voirs ; while all around was heard the noise of water falling over the 
 dams and sluices into deep canals. At length, on arriving among the 
 mounds encumbering its environs, supposed to mark the site of the ancient 
 Crocodilopolis, or Arsinoe, we heard the barking of dogs in the city, and, 
 just as the muezzin were chaunting the " Turk," or evening prayer, 
 entered the gates ; which, in all Mohammedan countries, are then closed 
 for the night, Medinet w^ould appear to be a populous town. The streets, 
 when we entered, were crowded, the shops open and tolerably well lighted, 
 indicating considerable business and activity. Our appearance excited 
 much curiosity, and numbers of idle persons and boys followed us towards 
 the caravanserai, where we found a good upper room to sleep in. The 
 stairs and walls of this building contained several fragments of granite 
 and marble, some of which were covered with hieroglyphics and Egyptian 
 bas-reliefs. While dinner was preparing, the keeper, an old Arab of 
 jolly, jocund countenance, paid us a visit, and related the news of the day, 
 in the hope, apparently, of being paid in kind. According to his account, 
 the afi^air with the Moggrebyns had been far more important than we had 
 hitherto supposed : learning that marauding parties were daily pouring in 
 from the Desert, and spreading themselves over the country, the IMemour, or 
 governor of the province, had proceeded, with all the power he commanded, 
 towards the lake, where he found the enemy encamped. There an action 
 took place, in which, after some loss on both sides, the Bedouins were 
 worsted, and compelled to fly, with their wives and children, leaving their 
 camels, cattle, sheep, &c. behind them. Upon this, as a lawful plunder, 
 the ]\Iemour immediately made seizure, and was about to march away with 
 them, when the Arabs, in the hope of recovering their property, attacked 
 him suddenly, but were a second time beaten off, though not without loss
 
 180 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 on the side of the governor ; who, fearing they might once more return, in 
 greater force, hastened with all possible celerity towards Medinet, where 
 he arrived, with his booty, before dark, and caused the gates to be closed, 
 after which he began to congratulate himself upon his victory. But the 
 affair was not yet over ; for about midnight, the Bedouins, who had all 
 the way hovered at a distance in his rear, broke open the gates, entered 
 the city in great numbers, and, by the connivance or through the terror of 
 the inhabitants, rescued the whole of their flocks and herds, with which 
 they departed, without committing any other act of hostility. Ashamed 
 of his negligence, or distrustful of the disposition of the inhabitants, the 
 governor has since that day abstained from going abroad, and still remained 
 in voluntary confinement in his own palace ; but Ahmed Pasha, late 
 governor of the Hejaz, was said to have arrived with a large military force 
 at Benisooef, on his way to the Fayoom ; Avhere his presence, it was 
 expected, would speedily put a stop to the depredations and absurd hopes of 
 the Bedouins. 
 
 Instead of remaining at the caravanserai, we repaired to the residence of 
 Ali Dud, the Madyr. He was not in his house, but in a small square apart- 
 ment on a level with and on the opposite side of the street. The room, 
 which appeared to be his hall of audience, was crowded with Coptic secre- 
 taries, Turks, and Arabs of every description. He gave me a very civil 
 reception ; and, after the usual ceremony of coffee and pipes, we produced 
 our firmans. AVhen business was over, we accompanied the Madyr to his 
 own residence. We passed through a court, in which there were several 
 horses, and then through long passages, and a dirty staircase, to a spacious, 
 but cold apartment, as the large windows of lattice- work were but partially 
 covered with oiled paper. A well-grated window, over a door into the 
 harem, afforded to its inhabitants an opportunity of observing what took 
 place. The floor was paved with red tiles ; but a carpet was laid before a 
 low sofa, covered with cushions, and extending round two-thirds of the 
 room. These, together with a small mirror, and a basin and ewer, consti- 
 tuted the furniture ; and the whitewashed walls were adorned with a 
 solitary group of three small prints of Britannia, cut out of an English 
 shop-bill. The room was not particularly clean, although probably the 
 best in the whole province. After pipes and coffee had been introduced, a 
 plentiful supper was served in the usual manner ; and as the Madyr, 
 myself, my companion, and our interpreter, sat together on the floor, round 
 a circular tray in front of the latticed- window of the harem, we must have 
 presented an amusing spectacle to those within, whose lights from time 
 to time appeared, although their persons could not be distinguished. The 
 Madyr was an old man, and had been a considerable merchant, and, pro- 
 bably on account of his wealth, had been obliged by the Pasha to accept 
 the government of the province. He appeared extremely credulous, but 
 was very civil and obliging, and contributed all he could to my conve- 
 nience. He remained for a considerable time after supper, and a long con- 
 versation was carried on. I then retired to the sofa, but not to sleep, 
 owing to the quantity of gnats and of vermin with which the place 
 abounded.* 
 
 * Colonel Howard Vyse.
 
 181 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FiioM Medinf.t to Benisooef — Pyramids of Hawara and Illahoon. 
 
 At j\Iedinet, from wliicli we departed about sunrise, our active and 
 faithful guide from Senooris quitted us, seemingly well satisfied with the 
 presents we made him. After accompanying us a short distance beyond 
 the city, he struck off into a different path, leading towards his liome. Of 
 Arsinoe, or Crocodilopolis, if it really stood here, nothing now remains but 
 heaps of rubbish, among which fragments of columns and ancient bi'icks 
 are occasionally found. In the neighbourhood are situated the few vine- 
 yards which are still kept up in the Fayoom. Formerly, it is said, a good 
 white wine was made here ; but this, I believe, is no longer the case, the 
 grapes being sent to Cairo for eating. In this city the rose-water and attar 
 are manufactured ; but as, of course, the process takes place much later in 
 the spring, we could not witness it. Close to the walls we saw one of the 
 rose-gardens ; but the bushes being scarcely in leaf, made a very sorry 
 appearance. 
 
 On quitting the Fayoom it may be worth while to offer a few observa- 
 tions on its general appearance and the condition of its inhabitants, which 
 liave already been ])artly illustrated in detail. This province presents a 
 striking contrast to tlie alluvial plains of the rest of Egypt, as it consists of 
 liigh, undulating ground, and fruit-trees, gardens of roses, and vineyards, 
 amidst groves of olive, and of mulberry-trees, vary its appearance. The 
 Lake Moeris presents a fine expanse of water to the westward, and beyond 
 it is the interminable desert. The ancient canals and watercourses seem to 
 have been constructed with great skill ; and it is to be regretted that no 
 regular survey of them exists, as it would probably show the former level 
 of the Nile, and afford information respecting the Bahr Bela Mah, and 
 might also lead to the discovery of the famous labyrinth, and of other 
 celebrated remains. Yet, notwithstanding its fertility, in no part of the 
 country is distress more apparent, or cultivation less attended to : indeed, 
 a considerable part of the land is entirely neglected ; for, besides the 
 oppression which affects the whole country, the Bedouins, as I have 
 mentioned, are allowed to encamp in great numbers, and their cattle are 
 turned out amongst the crops in perfect security ; whilst those of the 
 inhabitants are obliged to be driven home every evening to the villages : 
 and the report of firearms, shouting of men, and the continual barking of 
 dogs during the night, show that, even there, they are not in safety. The 
 Sheikhs of the villages connive at depredation, and keep on good terms 
 with these savage intruders, that, in case of necessity, they may find a 
 secure retreat amongst them. They themselves oppress and plunder the 
 jieople to the last degree, not only to meet the demands of the Pasha, and 
 to preserve an interest by bribing his officers, but also to amas? treasure
 
 182 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 for their own purposes, which they keep in a portable and available shape 
 and ready for immediate flight whenever caprice, or other circumstances 
 may make it expedient. The dilapidated state of the villages may, there- 
 fore be easily imagined, but the habits of rapacity thus produced can be 
 scarcely conceived. I saw an astonishing instance of this in crossing Lake 
 Moeris. The boatmen, who rented the fishery from the Sheikh, brought 
 two larcre fish for sale, and also a jar of fresli water for our accommodation. 
 The Sheikh immediately seized upon the fish, and the jar, and, unless we 
 had interfered, a scufile would have ensued, as the poor people, to whom 
 these objects were of value, although not intrinsically worth a piastre, were 
 determined to defend their property.* 
 
 Pursuing our journey eastward, crossing several large canals, over 
 bridges of stone, we hastened towards the Pyramid of Hawara; where 
 the French, and those who have adopted their notions, place the site of the 
 Labyrinth. Our progress, however, was slow, the country itself being a 
 real labyrinth, where canals, ditches, morasses, small lakes, — the slender 
 remains of the inundation, — obliged us every moment to turn out of our 
 course, to w^ind hither and thither, to mount, to descend, to retrace our 
 footsteps, until at length, when our patience was nearly exhausted, we 
 found ourselves near the pyramid. But at this point we were completely 
 stopped, having got entangled in a swamp, from which there appeared no 
 way of extricating ourselves. Our excellent old Bedouin, now our only 
 guide, having never been in this part of the country, the whole day might 
 probably have been wasted in wandering about the delusive bogs, had we 
 not at length discovered a peasant in the fields, whom we tempted, by the 
 promise of a few piastres, to abandon his labour, and become our guide. 
 By liis aid we traversed the bed of the great arm of the Bahr Yusuf, 
 bv which, at the season of tlie inundation, the waters of the Nile are con- 
 ducted into Lake Moeris, and diffused in innumerable smaller streams over 
 the province, which they fertilise and beautify. In several parts of the 
 channel, now dry, we observed immense quantities of oyster-shells, bright 
 and shining like mother-of-pearl ; and excellent oysters, of a particular 
 kind, are caught among the ponds and lagoons, in different parts of the 
 canal, where a bed sufficiently deep is afforded to the water. Having 
 crossed the channel of the Bahr Yusuf, we arrived at a small muddy 
 ridge, formed, perhaps, originally by the earth thrown up out of the canal, 
 parallel with which it runs. Here we dismounted, and directing our 
 attendants to kindle a fire among the sand-hills, and prepare breakfast, 
 proceeded towards the pretended site of the labyrinth ; having been carried, 
 on the shoulders of our guides, over a small deep canal, running towards 
 the north along the foot of the pyramid. 
 
 Between this branch of the Bahr Yusuf and the ruins there is a succes- 
 sion of mounds of considerable height ; passing over which, we came to a 
 small plain, extending northward to the foot of the P5'ramid, evidently the 
 site of some great edifice, or collection of edifices, and thickly strewed with 
 fragments of columns, some of a very beautiful white marble, others of red 
 
 * Colonel Howard Vyse.
 
 BRICK PYRAMID OF IIAWARA. 183 
 
 or blue granite. Nearly all the pillars had been clustered, like those in the 
 hypogea of Benihassan, or in a Gothic cathedral. The surface of the plain 
 resembles in appearance the top of a town overwhelmed by the sand, where 
 the roofs have fallen in, where the walls have been entirely buried, and 
 where pits and slight undulations alone mark the spot, and suggest the 
 idea that human habitations once existed below. But if the Labyrinth was 
 here situated, the fifteen hundred chambers erected or excavated beneath 
 the surface of the soil must still remain ; for it is incredible that buildings 
 of such dimensions and solidity, surrounded and supported by the earth, 
 should have wholly disappeared ; yet nothing of the kind has been found, 
 tliough the pits and hollows above described are evidently the burrows 
 of antiquarians, who, in default of hieroglyphics, are compelled to seek 
 the more unequivocal testimony of architectural monuments. Numerous 
 shells, glittering like pearl, and almost calcined by the sun, lie scattered 
 over the sand-heaps among the fragments of ruins. Having minutely 
 examined the scanty remains discoverable above ground, we proceeded 
 to ascend the Pyramid, by a steep narrow track at the south-west angle, 
 winding upwards through heaps of loose bricks and earth, which slide 
 down from beneath the feet. On reaching the top, formerly fortified 
 by the Arabs, we enjoyed an immense prospect over the whole of this 
 part of the Fayoom, far beyond Medinet on one side, and lUahoon on the 
 other, across rich green plains, alternating with sandy deserts. At a 
 little distance towards the east, we observed a small Bedouin encampment, 
 and sevei-al scattered parties of Arabs toiling beneath the scorching sun 
 over the waste. Running nearly east and west, between the cultivated 
 country and the sands, were several canals with high banks of earth ; 
 but nothing worthy the name of a hill was anywhere visible. The 
 Pyramid has been opened on the northern side, where a deep ravine, 
 extending from top to bottom like a torrent bed, has been produced by 
 the slovenly excavators. An adit and chambers are said to have been 
 discovered ; but the bricks, descending in heaps, and crumbling in their 
 fall, have once more choked up the entrance, and rendered a second 
 excavation necessary. I have nowhere seen larger bricks than those used 
 in the construction of this Pyramid, which are seventeen inches in length, 
 eight in breadth, and four and a half in thickness ; but, being merely 
 sun-dried, they easily crumble away, and the Pyramid, already almost 
 reduced to a shapeless heap, will, in a short time, appear only as an 
 immense barrow. I examined several of these bricks in the hope of finding 
 a cartouche, by which the date and origin of this ancient building, and 
 probably, by inference, that of the canal, might be discovered. But 
 although many, no doubt, exist in the midst of such a quantity of materials, 
 I could only find the usual marks of a hand having been drawn over the 
 reverse sides. High mounds, which seem to be the ruins of a Peribolus 
 surroimd the Pyramid on all sides.* 
 
 On descending to the plain, we walked round the structui-e, close to 
 the northern face of which are the remains of an Arab village, erected with 
 
 * Colonel Howard Vjse.
 
 184 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 tlic spoils of tlie Egyptians ; but this also has long fallen to decay, the sands 
 of the Desert now creeping over the walls, while all around there is the 
 silence of death. Returning by the way we had come, and breakfasting 
 among the sand-hills on the banks of the canal, we were about to depart, 
 when we observed an Arab reconnoitring our movements from the top of 
 the Pyramid. He had probably intended to offer his services as a guide, 
 but arrived too late. Our road now lay along the edge of the Desert, 
 sometimes passing over a series of lofty mounds, or a raised causeway, 
 running parallel with the great arm of the Balir Yusuf, which branches 
 forth from the main canal a little to the east of lUahoon. This great 
 artificial river, probably the work of Mceris, having been long neglected, 
 is rapidly filling up. It was now in a great measure dry, but when 
 filled during the inundation with water, must present the appearance of 
 a noble river, rather than of a canal, since in some parts it cannot fall far 
 short of four or five hundred yards in breadth. The road between 
 Medinet and Benisooef appears to be well frequented. All the morning 
 we were constantly passing or meeting with small parties of peasants, 
 some driving camels or asses laden with wood to the Fayoom, others 
 proceeding with the produce of their lands Nilewards. In many places 
 the banks of the canals are shaded by fine tall willows, which we found 
 the peasants busily employed in cutting ; but what use they make of them 
 I could not learn. 
 
 The Pj'ramid of Illahoon was already in sight ere we quitted that of 
 Hawara; but, owing to the sinuosities of the way, which seemed some- 
 times to approach, sometimes to recede from the desired point, it was 
 nearly twelve o'clock before we arrived opposite to where it stands. Here 
 we dismounted from our camels, which exhibited signs of great fatigue, and 
 leaving them to browse on the coarse prickly plants growing upon the 
 skirts of the Desert, walked towards the Pyramid, across the burning sand, 
 between huge fragments of rock, many of which bore evident marks of 
 the chisel, and through low hollows, where the sun's rays, concentrated 
 and reflected from the earth, were literally scorching. Of more intense heat 
 than this I can form no conception : the rocks and sands were kindled by 
 the sun, so that we seemed to be walking over the fresh cinders of a 
 volcano. Every object around being clothed with insuflFerable splendour 
 by the dazzling light, descending like a flood upon the Desert, it was neces- 
 sary to advance with half-closed eyes; and from a long journey over a region 
 of this kind, with no other covering for the head than the Turkish cap, which 
 I then wore, ophthalmia, if not blindness, would inevitably ensue. On 
 drawing near th.e Pyramid, we observed a striking peculiarity in its 
 appearance : between the dark unburned bricks, with which it seems to 
 be constructed, we could perceive, on every side, immense blocks of stone 
 projecting through the casing. This circumstance leading me to reflect 
 more maturely on the subject, I was convinced by the observations I 
 afterwards made, that the majority, if not the whole of the Pyramids, 
 are merely small natural hills faced with masonry. To a certain extent, 
 we know this to be the case with that of Cheops, in which the living rock 
 is visible in the interior. At Sakkarah, likewise, the same advantage has
 
 BEDOUIN ENCAMPMENT. 185 
 
 been taken of a large rocky nucleus furnished by nature ; so that, in the 
 erection of these vast temples of Venus, the Egyptians would appear to 
 have done nothing more than build round a number of those conical hillocks 
 of stone, which are so numerous in this part of the Libyan Desert, adding 
 to their bulk and height, and fashioning them so as to represent on all 
 sides the mystic Delta, in whose honour they were constructed. We may 
 thus also account for the seemingly fortuitous manner in which the Pyra- 
 mids are scattered over the face of the waste, and for their remarkable 
 proximity to each other, in the case of those at Ghizeh. Herodotus 
 relates that Asychis, desirous of surpassing his predecessors, not by the 
 grandeur or magnificence of his public works, but by the difficulties which 
 he knew how to overcome, erected a pyramid of bricks made with mud 
 drawn up by poles from the bottom of the lake ; and that he com- 
 memorated his silly achievement on a stone in the face of the Pyramid. 
 If the lake intended in this passage was that of IMoeris, or the Bahr 
 Yusuf — which seems to have been not unfrequently confounded with 
 the lake — then the Pyramid of Asychis may be that of Illahoon, or of 
 Ilawara ; though the inscription nowhere appears. By compelling the 
 people to labour, however, on works of this kind, to the neglect of agri- 
 culture and commerce, Asychis reduced his subjects to great poverty and 
 misery ; so that, in order to raise money for their subsistence, they were, 
 in many cases, compelled to pawn the dead bodies of their parents. Like 
 the Haram-el-Kedab, the Pyramid of Illahoon springs up almost per- 
 pendicularly from a conical base, and having attained a certain elevation, 
 slopes rapidly to a point. Originally, therefore, it was not possible to 
 ascend to its summit ; but by the industry of the Arabs, a path has been 
 formed on its southern face, leading in a zig-zag direction to the top. 
 Denon considers this the most dilapidated of all the Pyramids of Egypt ; 
 but it is, perhaps, less ruinous than that of Hawara ; and in the Desert 
 near Dashour and Sakkarah, there are several structures of this kind already 
 reduced to the shape and appearance of barrows. No attempt seems to 
 have been made to open a passage into the interior, though it probably 
 contains chambers, like the other Pyi'amids ; but on the sand, all around 
 its base, we observed the tracks of numerous wheeled carriages, which we 
 found, upon examination, had been employed in carrying away stones cut 
 from the north-east corner of the hill, on which it has been erected ; so that 
 in all probability it will shortly be undermined and totally overthrown. 
 The stones thus obtained would appear to be used in the public buildings 
 and sluices on the Bahr Yusuf. 
 
 On the edge of the desert near thia spot, there was another Bedouin 
 encampment. In the course of the morning we had ridden through two 
 or three similar clusters of tents, the inhabitants of which always greeted 
 us civilly as we passed ; but in no instance were we invited to stop, or 
 enter their dwellings, though accompanied by a Bedouin. The appearance 
 of these encampments inspired me with a favoiu'able idea of the nomadic 
 life. Arranged in the form of a half-moon, with their doors, if they may 
 be so called, all turned towards the east, the tents stood sufficiently near 
 each other for the purpose of good neighbourhood, though separated by a
 
 im 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBU. 
 
 space tliroiigli which their cattle might pass to and fro ; while the whole 
 area inclosed between the horns of the crescent, in most cases covered with 
 short grass, formed a sort of lawn, or play-ground for the children of the 
 camp, where they would always be under their m.other's eye. No litter or 
 filth of any kind polluted the neighbourhood of their dwellings. Great 
 happiness and freedom may certainly be enjoyed in a life of wandering, like 
 tliat of the Bedouins, when the tribe numbers sufficient young and vigorous 
 members to render it feared or respected by its enemies. All the affections 
 are brought properly into play ; the physical powers are exercised without 
 being exhausted ; and the mind, though deprived of the aids and incentives 
 to exertion supplied by European civilisation, and abandoned more to its owa 
 
 -irab Story-tcUer. 
 
 resources, finds in the romances of the story-teller and a certain rich and 
 irregular poetry, pleasures which more cultivatediutellects would not, perhaps, 
 disdain to share. The tents are low, but spacious and airy, having at each 
 end something resembling a chimney, designed for the admission of cool air, 
 which spoils, however, the appearance of the whole. Like the abbas, or 
 outer-garment of the men, they are made of a brown and white cloth, the 
 stripes of which are from a foot and a half to three feet in width ; but, 
 while the former are of cotton or wool, these are manufactured of camel's 
 hair. By day they are entirely open on one side, so as to expose the whole 
 of the interior, even the part inhabited by the women ; for the Bedouins 
 entertain few of those prejudices respecting the sex which prevail in most 
 ^>arts of the East. Being themselves free, they allow their wives and
 
 XOBLE BRIDGE OVER THE BAIIR YUSUF. 187 
 
 (laughters to enjoy the same liberty, Avhich is very rarely abused. In y)cr- 
 sonal charms, the women of the desert are greatly superior to those of the 
 cultivated country ; possessing more delicate features, bright eyes, and 
 countenances indicative of great intelligence and vivacity : though I saw none 
 of those beautiful girls described by some travellers, whose judgment in 
 these matters was not, perhaps, sufficiently exercised ; for, according to 
 European notions, all the Bedouin women are deficient in that softness, 
 harmony, and elongation of features indispensable to female beauty. In 
 them, as among the men, the characteristic national type is remarkably 
 unvaried ; for though, of course, differences in complexion and countenance 
 may be observed, tlioy seem, upon the whole, like the members of one 
 immense family. Both sexes are tattooed, — the men on the arms ; the 
 women both on the arms and chin, — with the figures of flowers or stars, or 
 some other fanciful ornament. In every respect these small encampments 
 looked highly interesting ; for, though a number of the men were absent 
 with their flocks and herds, enough remained to confer an air of life and 
 activity upon the scene. 
 
 I have already observed that the heat of the sun, in the sands near the 
 pyramid, was exceedingly powerful, rendering walking a laborious task ; 
 but the moment we mounted our dromedaries, and put them in motion, 
 there again appeared to be an agreeable coolness in the air. In the desert, 
 the camel possesses many decided advantages as a saddle animal over the 
 horse ; for, in addition to those arising from the peculiarity of its construc- 
 tion, and its capacity to endure privation and fatigue, it places the rider so 
 high above the ground, that the reflection of the sun''s rays, nearly into- 
 lerable on foot, is scarcely at all felt, while an agreeable freshness is kept 
 up in the air by the rapidity of its movements. Turning off" towards the 
 right, we crossed the bed of the canal of Illahoon, over a long causeway, 
 wliere wall after wall has been thrown across the channel, for the purpose 
 of retaining water for irrigation ; and the ponds and reservoirs thus formed 
 were still far from being exhausted. Proceeding towards the cast, we in a 
 short time arrived at a noble bridge of many arches, thrown across the 
 Bahr Yusuf, and intended, not for the use of the peasant or traveller 
 desirous of traversing the canal, but to regulate the quantity of water 
 admitted into the Fayoom during the inundation ; for which purpose each 
 arch is furnished with a kind of portcullis, which can be lowered or 
 raised, in proportion as more or less water is wanted. This is one of the 
 useful works of the Pasha ; and its design and execution are hio-hly 
 creditable to the architect. A small village containing several public 
 buildings in a state of forwardness, occupies the bank of the canal at the 
 southern extremity of the bridge, erected a little to the east of some ancient 
 water-works, apparently of more massive but less tasteful construction. 
 Keturning over the bridge, which we had crossed by mistake, we pro- 
 ceeded along the northern bank of the Bahr Yusuf towards Benisooef. 
 
 During the whole of this journey, from the time of our quitting the river 
 at Ghizeh, we had drunk bad and sometimes brackish water, and I now 
 longed with an earnestness indescribable, to reach Benisooef, that I might 
 again drink pure watei*. It is a saying among the Arabs, that whoever
 
 188 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 lias once tasted of the Nile, can never wholly abandon the Sacred Valley, 
 but, wherever he may wander, will some time or another return to Egypt, 
 drawn thither by the magical attraction of its river : and I pardon the 
 Arabs for their enthusiasm, for on this day, though surrounded by canals, 
 the water of the Nile appeared to me like that fountain for which David 
 thirsted, — more desirable than milk or honey ; — and, as I rode across the 
 wide plain which separated me from them, I beheld with extreme impa- 
 tience the village groves coming in sight, one after another, informing me 
 I was still far from the river. At length, however, early in the afternoon, 
 the white minarets of Benisooef, glittering among the deep verdure of the 
 date-palms, appeared in the distance, inspiring me with delight, for I knew 
 that the Nile Ho wed at their feet ; but while I was enjoying, by anticipa- 
 tion, the luxury of quenching my thirst with pure water, myriads of winged 
 ants, ai'ising from the earth and stagnant pools, settled on our faces, 
 shoulders, and hands, buzzing and stinging like bees. Their numbers were 
 incredible. We appeared to each other like moving ant-hills ; for though 
 we swept them off and killed them by thousands, until they stunk like 
 putrid flesh, about our hands and clothes, the swarm never seemed to be 
 diminished, until, on our arrival at Benisooef, they were killed with a 
 besom in the court of the caravanserai. On reaching the city, unusual 
 bustle and activity were observable in the streets, now so crowded that our 
 dromedaries had scarcely room to put their feet upon the ground without 
 trampling on some person. The cause soon appeared. Ahmed Pasha, 
 with a division of the Egyptian army, had just arrived from the Hejaz, 
 and the soldiers, previous to their march into the Fayoom against the 
 JVIoggrebyns, were spreading themselves through the city, snatching in haste 
 the coarse pleasures within their reach. All the dancing- girls, singers, and 
 musicians, 'were consequently employed ; and we found the caravanserai so 
 entirely occupied by this military rabble, that not a single apartment could 
 be obtained. We were therefore constrained to pass the night in a kind of 
 open shed, half-filled with sacks of corn and other merchandise. In the 
 court, several asses and camels, besides our own, were stabled ; and, had 
 any of them felt disposed during the night to share our lodgings, there 
 was nothing to prevent them, the floor of the shed not being elevated a foot 
 above the yard. Here, for the use of the wayfarer, stood a large jar of 
 Nile water, which, in comparison with what we had been compelled to drink 
 in the Fayoom, seemed doubly sweet. There was likewise in the court 
 a kind of coffee-house, kept by a young ragged Arab woman, who, with the 
 camels' dung, and similar substances, which she used for fuel, raised so acrid 
 and abominable a smoke, that we were almost driven by it out of our deu. 
 However, the poor girl, who was good-natured and obliging, voluntarily 
 assisted our attendants, now considerably fatigued, in their culinary opera- 
 tions, bringing them water, attending to their fire, »8:c. with great alacrity. 
 When our mattresses had been unrolled in the shed, we sat down close to 
 the entrance, to enjoy the curious spectacle which the motley groups, con- 
 stantly entering or quitting the caravanserai, pi'esented. Poverty and 
 wretchedness are not always companions : more ragged devils than were 
 here collected it would be difiicult to find in any country ; but they were
 
 MARKET-DAY AT BENISOOEF. 189 
 
 not, as miglit have been expected, distinguislicd by rueful countenances, 
 and a sullen spiritless gait. On the contrary, the ease and hilarity with 
 which they supported the weight of despotism, and contumely, and want, 
 at first made me angry : it seemed as if they hugged their chains. But 
 this superficial view of the subject was succeeded by reflections of a dif- 
 ferent character, and I acknowledged the wisdom and beneficence of nature, 
 in making up for the want of freedom and its concomitant dignity, by a 
 happy insensibility, and a disposition to catch and reflect from the speculum 
 of the mind every enlivening ray which circumstances allow to find its way 
 thither. Soon after we had dispatched pur dinner, the great gate of the 
 caravanserai was shut, and the sober part of its inmates retired to rest ; but 
 in the upper suite of apartments there were several boisterous Turkish 
 soldiers, who sang, laughed, and made a great noise to a comparatively 
 late hour. The youthful mistress of the coffee-house slept close to us, in 
 the passage. For some time a small, dim lamp, suspended against a wall 
 in the court, cast a gloomy light over our uncouth resting-place ; bnt the 
 wind blew tempestuously, accompanied witli rain, which, falling in large 
 drops on the flame, at length extinguished it, and left us in total darkness. 
 Once or twice, when I awoke during the night, the camels and asses, 
 incommoded by the weather, seemed very much inclined to quit the wet 
 court, and step into our bed-chamber ; but they forbore, and permitted 
 us to maintain undisturbed possession of it until morning. 
 
 Benisooef is a place of some consideration, with several mosques, cara- 
 vanserais, and large private houses, together with an extensive well-supplied 
 bazaar, frequented once a week by the peasants of the covintry round. As 
 it happened to be market-day, this bazaar, thronged with people, formed 
 an interesting and striking, but not a gay scene : both sellers and buyers, 
 with but few exceptions, had an air of poverty ; and among these excep- 
 tions were the officers of a regiment of cavahv, quartered in the town, 
 whose gorgeous uniforms, glittering with gold, contrasted disagreeably 
 with the rags which scarcely covered the nakedness of the half-starved 
 fellahs. If you except the necessaries of life, the articles exposed for sale 
 in an Egyptian bazaar would in general be regarded with scorn at an English 
 fair : in an earthenware shop at Benisooef, for example, all the articles of 
 English manufacture consisted of one small white bason, a soup-plate, and 
 a few dessert-plates of the commonest kind, most of which I bought for 
 four ]>iastres. In another place you see a man vending pipe-heads, whose 
 whole stock might he purchased for five shillings ; yet he gets his living, 
 such as it is, by selling them. Another person has a few onions, another 
 a small quantity of dates, a third, the most thriving person by far, is 
 engaged in selling hot cakes mixed with butter, at ten paras each, which 
 he bakes as you eat them. Bread every day grows cheaper as you ascend 
 the Nile : at Benisooef we bought, for a piastre, sixteen small cakes, as 
 nice, though not quite so fine, as muffins ; thirty-two eggs for the same 
 money ; eight small lemons, or rather citrons, for ten paras ; mutton twenty- 
 eight paras per pound ; butter and milk, both excellent, were rather dearer. 
 
 From this part of the bazaar we proceeded to that which is held among 
 the large mounds of rubbish to the north of the town. Here we observed
 
 1,00 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Female Spinuicg 
 
 a more lively scene. On one side, near an old wall, were a number of 
 water-jars, pots, and pans, with a row of Arab women squatting down 
 behind them, laughing and chatting with infinite glee and volubility. 
 Near these appeared a group of female itinerant linendrapers, each with 
 a piece of coarse linen on her lap, and in the midst of them a woman 
 engaged in spinning 
 
 the thread from which /y^ 
 
 this coarse fabric is 
 manufactured. Fur- 
 ther on, a man with 
 mats, another with 
 printed cottons, and a 
 third with carrots or 
 other vegetables. In 
 the midst of these, as 
 if to shame the mean- 
 ness of their humble 
 dress, we observed a 
 number of cavalry 
 officers, in their rich 
 variegated costume, 
 
 mounted on superb horses, dashing up the steep mounds, then down again, 
 checking their fiery steeds in mid-gallop. Their principal commander, 
 dressed in a magnificent scarlet cloak, embroidered vest, and costly shawl, 
 with a fine horse and sabre, appeared, from his luxuriant carrotty musta- 
 chios, to be some German renegade ; though, on the day before, I had seen 
 an Arab with a red beard, and even mummies have been found with hair 
 of this colour. A large building, with numerous glass windows and green 
 blinds, situated at the northern entrance to the town, is one of the Pasha's 
 abandoned cotton manufactories, now converted into a hospital. One of 
 the principal mosques of the city has been undermined by the Nile, which, 
 unless artificially dammed off, will soon wash away the whole town. The 
 great sugar plantations of Egypt commence a little to the north of Bene- 
 sooef, and these, together with the Dhourra, seem to occupy all the 
 industry of the inhabitants, there being fine fields of tobacco, wheat, and 
 cotton, and indigo plantations. Sucking the raw sugar-cane is a great 
 luxury with the Arabs ; and, in reality, the juice has a pleasant taste. 
 
 Arab servants of Europeans generally behave very insolently towards 
 their countrymen. This morning, in the bazaar, my Arab took an old 
 man by the beard, because he laughed at him for ofi"ering too little for his 
 goods ; and struck another person in the face, for daring to speak, no doubt, 
 impertinently about the article which he was buying. He depended upon 
 the respect which is everywhere shown to the English : alone, he would 
 not have dared to act thus for his life. Reprimands, however, have very 
 little effect in checking his passions ; for as often as the occasion presents 
 itself, the fault is repeated.
 
 191 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Haram-el-Ivedab — Pyramids of Sakkmiah — Bird Mumsiy Pits. 
 
 Quitting Benisooef at an early hour, and turning tlic heads of our 
 dromedaries northwards, Ave proceeded gently along the banks of tlie Nile. 
 The sky was overcast, and a slight sprinkling of rain fell as we entered on 
 the plain ; so that, judging from our northern experience, we looked for 
 nothing less than a perpetual succession of heavy showers. As far as the 
 eye could reach, the whole face of the country was covered with verdure 
 and signs of luxuriant fertility ; beautiful fields of wheat, lujnnes, and 
 beans in blossom impregnating the atmosphere with an agreeable odour. 
 Intermingled with these were extensive patches of tall sedory jrrass, used 
 by the Egyptians in the manufacture of mats ; and elsewhere large tracts 
 remained fallow. The rain having several times commenced and blown oflf, 
 at length, as we drew near Boosh, began to fall heavily, rendering the 
 paths slippery for the camels, and drenching us to the skin. This rich and 
 populous village is approached by a fine long avenue of Mimosa trees, 
 which, embowering the road, afforded us some shelter, and in the surround- 
 ing fields and paddocks, were numerous herds of buffaloes and kine. Halt- 
 ing at the caravanserai, at some distance from the village, by some sup- 
 })osed to have been the Ptolemais of the ancients,* we kindled a fire in one 
 of the courts, and, notwithstanding the rain, ate our breakfast in the other, 
 the interior having been defiled by some dirty Arab. Here we saw pass 
 an immense train of camels, intermingled with dromedaries, amounting to 
 upwards of a thousand: a great number were unladen, and several, of 
 enormous bulk and stature, shuffling along like so many elephants. AVhile 
 j)roceeding at his natural pace in a line after many others, or when ridden 
 by a person to whom lie is accustomed, the dromedary is certainly a ducile 
 animal ; but remove him out of these circumstances, ])ut a stranger on his 
 back, endeavour to compel him to travel abreast with another, or drive 
 him through a bean or corn-field, without permitting him to stop and eat, 
 and he grows savagely imruly, roars, snatches at the food, or suddenly 
 throws himself upon the ground, to the imminent danger of the rider's neck. 
 I have frequently seen these tricks played by a very good dromedary, 
 Avhich, though sufficiently tractable in the desert, where there was nothincr 
 to rouse his appetite, annoyed and impeded us perpetually in the cultivated 
 country. 
 
 From Boosh we proceeded northward to the village of IMaydoon, where, 
 instead of pursuing the ordinary route, we turned to the left towards the 
 false Pyramid, which had been long visible, sometimes presenting the 
 appearance of a prodigious tent on the edge of the verdant horizon ; some- 
 
 * Pocock, Description of tlic East.
 
 192 
 
 EGYPT AND NT'BIA. 
 
 times dwindling, from the undulations of the ground, to an insignificant 
 cone, or disappearing entirely behind the larger eminences. Occasionally 
 we were conducted, by a bend in the road, into its immediate vicinity ; 
 but pursuing the sinuosities of the path, winding hither and thither, accord- 
 ing to the position of the different hamlets, it again receded, seeming to fly 
 our approach, like the unreal waters of the desert : and from this circum- 
 stance it may have been denominated by the Arabs, the false or delusive 
 Pyramid, though others derive the name from its being only in part of the 
 pyramidal form. Our progress across the cullivated country, where no paths 
 of any kind exist, was much impeded by extensive corn-fields, which could 
 not be traversed without inflicting considerable injury on the proprietors. 
 The Bahr Yusuf skirting the desert, whose encroachments and devastations 
 it limits and confines, is now, by the neglect of government, reduced, 
 during the hot season, to a chain of small shallow ponds, in many places 
 miles asunder. Immediately after crossing the bed of this ancient canal, 
 we emerged into the desert, and, leaving tlie camels to browse on the coarse 
 prickly plants growing among the sand, ascended towards the Pyramid, 
 over the lofty mounds 
 irregularly situated 
 round its base. Its 
 appearance from a 
 short distance is so 
 red, that, like the 
 other religious struc- 
 tures, it appears to 
 have been painted ; 
 but the ruddy tint is 
 in the stone, which, 
 when broken by the 
 hammer, discloses 
 numerous rubiginous 
 strata. This Pyramid 
 difl^ers in construction 
 
 from those of Memphis, consisting of a series of square inclined towers, 
 erected upon each other, successively diminishing in size to the summit, 
 and orioinally terminating, I imagine, in a point. Each tower, however, 
 was built completely, from the foundation to the apex, before that which 
 encloses it like a sheath was commenced, so that the Egyptians here 
 exhibited the utmost prodigality of expense and labour ; for the masonry 
 of this prodigious structure is so admirable, the stones are so truly squared 
 and so exquisitely fitted in the parts intended to be concealed, no less than 
 in those which present themselves to the eye, that it would be impossible 
 o insert the point of a penknife between them.* Midway up the third 
 
 * Mr. Perring conjectures that the whole was originally covered with large unsquared bricks,* 
 so as to complete the shape of a regular pyramid ; but this supposition appears to me contrary 
 to all probability ; first, because the coveriug of a stone building with brick, would be absurd in 
 itself; and, secondly, because if such bad been the case, some trace of the bnck addition would 
 have been discoverable about the Pyramid. 
 
 * See Nordeu, Pocock, and Richardson. 
 
 The False Pyramid.
 
 FALSE PYRAMID. 193 
 
 tower, reckoning from the base, a band of unfinislicd masonry, about eight 
 feet broad, extends along each of its four faces, while all above and below 
 is finely polished. Though the Egyptians appear always to have ])laned 
 and made even their walls after they were erected, beginning in most cases 
 from the top, and working downwards, this rough band cannot be 
 supposed to have been accidentally left unfinished, being everywhere of 
 the same depth, and studded with greater inequalities than would iiave 
 been found on a surface intended to be smoothed. It is, therefore, 
 probable, that it was originally covered with a fine stucco, ornamented 
 with bas-reliefs or intaglios, and painted in the most gorgeous style 
 observable in the tcmjdes. 
 
 Thus adorned, it would be difficult to conceive a more striking object 
 than this vast barbaric pile, towering aloft in a transparent atmosphere, 
 and overlooking, like a mighty fortress, the whole extent of the sacred 
 valley. In fact, the false pyramid greatly resembles the idea which the 
 descriptions of the ancients convey of the Tower of Belus, except that no 
 flight of steps, running along the face of the edifice, conducts to the summit ; 
 though it may be conjectured that the central turret contains a staircase, 
 approached by some subterranean entrance now unknown. Grand, how- 
 ever, as this structure is, its magnificence has not sufficed to protect it from 
 the bai'barism of the Turks, who, to obtain materials for the construction 
 of cotton mills or barracks, have commenced the demolition of the exterior 
 towers. An attempt has likewise been made, high in the northern face, 
 to discover a passage into the interior ; but, after considerably defacing the 
 beauty of the Pyramid, the barbarian, who most probably was in search of 
 treasure, relinquished his hopeless undertaking. Heaps of stones and 
 rubbish, the spoils of the edifice, encumber the ground, and beyond these 
 are the sand-hills of the desert, and constantly advancing their shifting 
 bases towards the cultivated country. 
 
 In regaining the road leading from Maydoon to Riga, a considerable 
 circuit was rendered necessary by the Bahr Yusuf, which intersected our 
 course, and in this part still contained water. The wind, blowing almost 
 a hurricane, and the appearance of the sky threatening rain, we hastened 
 with all possible celerity towards the next village, intending there to pass 
 the night ; for the Mahazi Bedouin, who understood the signs of the 
 atmosphere, predicted a sand-storm. At first, indeed, this was regarded 
 as a false alarm ; but presently, on looking towards the river, we observed 
 that the scirocco was already in the eastern desert, whirling aloft the sands 
 in enormous clouds, and driving them impetuously towards the north, 
 covering the whole face of the country like a thick mist, and rising above 
 the summits of the mountains. Behind us, and on our left, the same 
 terrific masses were in motion. The wind blew tempestuously, and rain, 
 though not continuous as in our climates, but descending in big, heavy, 
 drops, like those accompanying a thunder-storm, mingled with the driving 
 sand. The firmament became lurid, and appeared to be borne down 
 towards the earth ; the villages, the palm-groves, the mountains, were 
 alternately hidden and revealed, and the whole landscape exhibited an
 
 194 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 aspect of sombre grandeur well calculated to strike the imagination. 
 Through those sand clouds, on every point of the horizon, rolling along 
 with incredible rapidity, we continued to advance for some time, but, at 
 length, growing impatient of pursuing the windings of the narrow path, lead- 
 ing from hamlet to hamlet, we diverged towards the left, in the hope, by mak- 
 ing straight across the plain, of discovering a shorter route ; instead of which, 
 we lost our way, and went on floundering through the ditches and mire, 
 ploughed fields and patches of desert, until the storm was past. Though 
 much fatigued, the camels still proceeded at a brisk trot, so that, a little 
 before nightfall, we reached the village, which, for many hours, had 
 appeared to be flying from us. Here, close to the walls, we found a 
 wretched caravanserai, with neither doors nor windows, but pierced with 
 numerous air-holes, letting in the cold winds on all sides, and otherwise 
 much dilapidated. While engaged in establishing our quarters in this 
 tenement, the Sheik el-Beled, not, I regret to say, from motives of hospi- 
 tality, invited us to his own house, where, he observed, both ourselves and 
 our beasts would be secure from the attacks of the marauding parties which 
 nightly overran the country. His representations were undoubtedly 
 founded on truth, but it soon appeared that his principal motive for making 
 them was mercenary ; since, for every article of provisions he supplied us 
 with, double the price 
 
 was demanded. He _„:z- 
 
 was a rich man ; and, 
 before the closing of 
 the village gates, we 
 saw his numerous 
 flocks andherds, camels 
 and she-goats, and 
 kine, driven into a 
 strong place for safety. 
 Here his ploughs, har- 
 rows and other imple- 
 ments of agriculture 
 were carefully laid up 
 when not in use. In 
 the erection of that 
 
 portion of his house appropriated to the use of travellers, several frag- 
 ments of marble and polished granite had been employed, which renders 
 it probable that some ancient city was situated near the spot. 
 
 Quitting, about sunrise, the dwelling of the sheikh, we continued our 
 journey over a plain of extraordinary fertility and beauty. Thousands of 
 spring flowers, red, yellow, white, purple, and blue, enamelled the greensward 
 by the wayside, while a magnificent expanse of bright verdure extended on 
 one hand to the Nile, on the other to the desert. Numerous mimosa- 
 trees in blossom, budding palms and odoriferous shrubs and plants, difi'used 
 a fragrance through the air, rendered soft and balmy by the genial influence 
 of spring. But, if the prospect of inanimate nature was exhilarating, the 
 pleasure derived from it was frequently damped by spectacles which a 
 
 Egyptian Plough.
 
 ROUTE TO MITRAHENI, 
 
 195 
 
 country afflicted with the plague of despotism could alone supply : troops 
 of men, torn violently from their homes, marching away under the sur- 
 veillance of foreign mercenaries ; while their wives and children, menaced 
 by penury and want, followed 
 them with sobbing and lamenta- 
 tion as long as their strength 
 would permit, and then re- 
 turned, widowed and fatherless, 
 to their villages. Poverty we 
 had beheld in every shape, until 
 it had ceased to excite attention; 
 but in this rich and smiling part 
 of the country, where nature 
 was bountiful even to profusion, 
 its evils seemed to us to be 
 by that circumstance greatly 
 aggravated. We had elsewhere 
 seen men feeding like cattle on 
 lupines, and trefoil, and wild 
 herbs ; emaciated women, with 
 scarcely a rag to cover their 
 waists, gliding like spectres 
 through the ruined villages; and 
 children, as naked as when born, 
 sallow, squalid, bloated, eyeless, 
 too young to know their danger, 
 with no mother to guard, no 
 father to maintain them, sitting The Lotus. 
 
 among the rubbish, infested, 
 
 during summer, with lizards, scorpions, and every noxious reptile, sub- 
 sisting on the spontaneous but precarious charity of the poor. 
 
 This morning the condition of the peasantry appeared more debased and 
 humiliating than evei', for the neighbouring hamlets had been visited by a 
 recruiting party, who, having collected a number of men, was proceeding 
 with them towards Mitraheni : seeing that we were about to overtake 
 them — for our camels were fleet and powerful — they hastily turned aside, 
 and stood at a considerable distance until we had passed. Some wretched 
 Frank was, perhaps, at their liead, who, not having lost all sense of shame, 
 thus sought, by a precipitate retreat, to avoid the finger of scorn. The 
 female relations of the conscripts, who had probably been forcibly compelled 
 to return, we met upon the road : a heart-stricken, sorrowful group ; some 
 absorbed in sullen grief, others weeping bitterly. Continuing our journey, 
 we soon observed a complete shifting of the scene ; — small parties of 
 peasants, male and female, young and old, with laughing eyes and merry 
 faces, proceeding to a fair, held at a neighbouring village. Towards this 
 point numerous pathways converged from distant parts of the plain, and, 
 mounted on lofty camels, we could from afar discover the various groups as
 
 196 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 they appeared and disappeared among the scattered date-groves ; several 
 knots we overtook and passed. Some, like pedlars, were carrying their 
 usual merchandise, the produce of their fields and gardens, to sell at the 
 fair; others, from their being empty-handed, were evidently proceeding 
 there to buy ; but all seemed equally lively, laughing, talking, and cracking 
 their jokes, as if Egypt contained no Pasha. The men were invariably 
 armed, some with muskets or spears, others with those long heavy sticks, 
 called " naboots," without which no Arab ever ventures abroad. I observed 
 that the women always walked on foot, while the men, perhaps, were 
 mounted on asses, and cari'ied the children on their laps : why the Avomen 
 do not ride, is more than I can comprehend — it may be barbarism, it may 
 be decency ; as, without saddles or stirrups, it would be difficult for them 
 to do so without exposing themselves. Even in Cairo, where the fair sex 
 wear trousers, and are enveloped in ample drapery, the legs, by the 
 awkward manner in which they sit their beasts, are frequently bared up to 
 the knee ; while the rude ass-driver, in lifting them up and down, and in 
 preserving them in slippery places from falling, makes exceedingly free with 
 the persons of women supposed to live retired in inviolable harems, and 
 who, when abroad, affect scrupulously to conceal their faces. 
 
 On arriving at the bazaar, held, like an English country-fair, in a field 
 on the outskirts of the village, we alighted under a palm-tree, and leaving 
 our attendants to prepare breakfast, mingled among the crowd of Arabs 
 assembled on the plain. The scene was highly characteristic ; rare and 
 costly spices from the farthest East, which could scarcely be supposed ever 
 to find their way into the hut of an Egyptian peasant, were spread upon 
 the grass in the midst of ordinary Venetian beads, corn, peas, beans, cheese, 
 and butter. Rows of market-women, some with bread, others with eggs 
 and dried dates, sat on the ground, surrounded by horses, asses, and camels, 
 which cautiously passed to and fro, beneath their heavy burdens, without 
 trampling on the hem of their garments. Both men and women, however, 
 exhibited that brawling propensity which in all countries distinguishes the 
 vulgar. The buyer and the seller, whatever might be the value of the 
 article in question, seemed, by the loudness of their voices, and the fierce- 
 ness of their gesticulations, to be engaged in mortal conflict ; but when the 
 bargain was concluded, the vociferation likewise ceased, and the disputants 
 chatted and laughed together with their usual good humour. If a sturdy 
 Fellah were engaged in cheapening an ass, you might behold twenty indi- 
 viduals of both sexes, nowise interested in the transaction, encircling the 
 chapmen, and entering with so mucli earnestness into the business — some 
 siding with the buyer, others with the seller — that a stranger would cer- 
 tainly suppose that they were to receive a commission on the proceeds. 
 To a painter in search of the grotesque, these motley groups would have 
 afforded delectable materials ; for even tlie Neapolitan lazzaroni are less 
 wild in their attitudes, and less whimsical in their costume, than the Arabs. 
 Turbans, white, black, red, or green ; cream-coloured, brown, or striped 
 white and green cloaks, blue shirts, tattered blankets, which disguised 
 rather than covered the wearer, and rags of every colour in the rainbow.
 
 PYRAMIDS OF DASIIOUR. 197 
 
 fluttering in the wind — met the eye on all sides ; but the countenances of 
 the Fellahs exhibit little variety, excepting such as results from sex or age, 
 or different stages of famine or disease. Hungry dogs, the universal 
 scavengers of Egypt, prowled about the bazaar, ravenously snatching up 
 whatever was thrown to them, and seeming quite prepared to rend and 
 devour the donors themselves. 
 
 The path, upon quitting this village, leads towards the Nile ; upon which, 
 long before the water was visible, numerous white sails appeared gliding 
 along the green banks as if belonging to the land. 
 
 Our track now lay along the top of an elevated causeway, running parallel 
 with the stream, and intended to protect the irrigated districts from the 
 inundation. Here we overtook two Bedouin pedestrians, armed with 
 muskets and bayonets, who appeared to be travelling towards Cairo. Like 
 the generality of their countrymen west of the Nile, they exhibited in their 
 manner an impudent familiarity, betokening what is termed, " knowledge 
 of the world ; " which signifies, that having, in their profligate career, lost 
 all self-respect, they had likewise ceased to respect others, or the laws 
 which make a difference between tnine and thine. Entering at once into 
 conversation with our Mahazi guide — a simple, honest man — they very 
 quickly learned from him all the particulars on which they desired to be 
 informed ; — as, where we had been ; whither we were going ; which of us 
 was treasurer, &c. The sight of our arms, however, appeared to stagger 
 them ; they, therefore, dropped behind, with the design of robbing our 
 Caireen attendant, who always loitered in the rear ; with him they used no 
 ceremony, but began immediately to inquire what was in the saddle-bags. 
 "Nothing but papers," he replied. — "Kafir!" they exclaimed, "it is 
 false ! Franks never travel without money. Come down, therefore, you 
 dog ! and open the bags, or we will shoot you, and burn your father ! " 
 And there can be no doubt they would in a few minutes have made them- 
 selves masters of our baggage, had we not just at the moment rode back to 
 put an end to their conference. Upon this the Bedouins made their escape 
 across the fields towards a small encampment, to which they perhap? 
 belonged. 
 
 Pushing on rapidly towards Dashour, we visited and examined its seve- 
 ral pyramids, which have nothing very peculiar in their construction, except 
 that the largest having been commenced on a grand scale, with the evident 
 intention of being carried to an immense height, contracts suddenly, and 
 terminates in a blunt point.* Its entrance, as usual, is found in the northern 
 face, about twenty-five feet from the ground. Of the other pyramids, 
 built in tlie same style as those of Sakkarah, there is one which has been so 
 completely uncovered that the hillock of earth forming the original nucleus 
 of the structure alone remains Leading from the valley are several cause- 
 ways, the existence of which has given rise to various conjectures; for if 
 they are admitted to have been the work of the ancient Egyptians, it will 
 follow that the desert has not greatly encroached on the cultivated country, 
 and that the pyramids must have been originally erected on rocks in the 
 
 * Sir Frederick Henuiker. 
 s2
 
 198 EGYPT Ax\D NUBIA. 
 
 midst of sand-hills. But, supposing them of modern date, constructed for 
 the convenience of removing stones and bricks to be used elsewhere, the 
 presumption would ensue, that the Pyramids were built in the valley 
 considerably in advance of the desert. Appearances are favourable to the 
 latter hypothesis; for the immense masses of stone which have been dis- 
 placed are no longer to be seen, though the sands have not risen so high as 
 to conceal them, did they still exist upon the spot. Without laborious 
 and extensive operations it would, however, be impossible accurately to 
 determine to what extent the sands of the Libyan waste have advanced 
 eastw\ard ; but it is probable that the loss of land here sustained exceeds 
 what has been acquired by the enlargement of the Delta. 
 
 Evening approaching, we once more descended into the valley, and 
 proceeded towards Mitraheni. The country on which w^e now entered, 
 formerly celebrated for the ruins it contained, is now distinguished only for 
 its richness and beauty. Covered with a carpet of luxuriant verdure, and 
 adorned at intervals with magnificent palm-forests, traversed by lofty 
 imibrageous avenues, and peopled with echoes, it seemed to be a fragment 
 of fairy land. Passing through Sakkarah, situated at the northern extremity 
 of these Avoods, and hastening over the intervening plain, wo arrived at 
 Mitraheni, while sufficient daylight remained to enable us to examine the 
 mounds and fragments of antiquity in its vicinity. Here, perhaps, the 
 loftiest palm-trees in the world are found, many of them exceeding 100 feet 
 in height ; their smooth trunks resembling tall slender columns, terminating 
 in a capital of waving leaves. The ancient remains, supposed to be those 
 of Memphis, stand on the southern shore of a small lake, in the midst of a 
 wood, and consist chiefly of brick substructions, overwhelmed by exten- 
 sive mounds of rubbish. With the exception of one colossal statue, there 
 is little at Mitraheni calculated to support the hypothesis, that the ancient 
 metropolis of lower Egypt, the dwelling-place of the Pharaohs, adorned with 
 magnificent temples aud palaces, was here situated ; the traces of ruins, 
 though widely scattered, being less considerable than in the neighbourhood 
 of many Egyptian cities of inferior note. Nothing advanced by Pococke, 
 Bruce, or any other traveller, with the design of invalidating the argu- 
 ments of Shaw, who fixes the site of Memphis on the plains of Gizeh, is 
 at all satisfactory; independently of the appearance of the ground, which, 
 in my opinion, is unfavourable to their views ; the scanty architectural 
 fragments, here discovered, being of too mean and paltry a character to be 
 allowed much weight in the discussion, 'which must, therefore, be conducted 
 on other grounds. 
 
 The colossal statue above mentioned is properly a fragment, which, hav- 
 ing been cast down, like Dagon, from its pedestal, lies upon its face, in a 
 small hollow, opened by excavation, with the legs broken off a short way 
 below the knees. The back has been greatly corroded by the atmosphere, 
 and in parts wantonly defaced by violence ; but the countenance, the breast, 
 and the drapery, descending in wavy folds over the limbs, are in a state of 
 high preservation, and enable us to judge, with some degree of precision, 
 of the merits of Egyptian sculpture at the period when this statue was
 
 COLOSSUS AT MITRAIIENI. 199 
 
 executed. There seems to be nothing in tlie costume or ornaments which 
 positively determines whether it be the effi<iy of a hero or a god, tliough, 
 from the style of features, resembling what we observe in other Egyptian 
 representations of divinity, where ideas of power are sought to be awakened 
 by gigantic masses in repose, I conclude it was intended for a deity. As- 
 suming this to be the case, a comparison may fairly be instituted between 
 it and the creations of the Grecian chisel, likewise designed to embody the 
 nearest possible approach to ideal beauty. It would appear to have been 
 the aim of the artist, to exhibit in this colossus, the union of vast ])hysical 
 power with placidity and gentleness; but if so, he has indul)itably fallen 
 short of his mark. Instead of indomitable energy, quelled and reduced to 
 tranquillity by the harmonising influence of a godlike intellect, we merely 
 discover the absence of those mighty passions, in the generous manifestation 
 of which all dignity and majesty consist. The Greeks, on the contrary, 
 who have been supposed to borrow from the masters of this school their 
 first notions of art, delighted, above all things, in delineating action and 
 the play of the passions. Their statues, accordingly, are seldom or never 
 in an attitude of repose. You perceive that they have done, are doing, or 
 are about to do, something ; and intense satisfaction, joy, solicitude, or 
 anxiety, breathe forth from every lineament of their countenance. The 
 Greeks, in one word, represented action ; the Egyptians, inaction ; and the 
 diflference may, perhaps, be philosopliically accounted for, by considering 
 the national character of each people. Like all other Orientals, the inha- 
 bitants of Egypt supposed the supreme good to consist in cessation from 
 labour, corporeal and mental, and a certain dreamy tranquillity, in which 
 the mind yields itself up to the sway of fantastic visions, forming imprac- 
 ticable schemes, and executing in idea what in real life it would shrink 
 from attempting. Hence, according to them, rest is better than action, 
 sleeping than being awake, and death than life. Among the Greeks, who, 
 in this, resembled the other European nations, happiness was traced to the 
 exertion of mental and physical energy; consequently, the pervading spirit 
 of their plastic arts, which, wherever a distinct style of imitation exists, is 
 merely the representative of the national character, was creative, and vivi- 
 fying, and manifested itself in forms exhibiting passion and energy. The 
 colossal statue of Mitraheni may be regarded as the type of Egyptian 
 sculpture. Everything in its appearance is adverse to oiir ideas of beauty 
 or sublimity ; the forehead being low and retreating, the eyes long and 
 sleepy, the eyebi'ows elongated by paint, the cheeks spare, the nose of the 
 meanest form, exhibiting a dull curve at the point, with the cartilage 
 between the nostrils ; the mouth well formed, but expressive rather of 
 benevolence than vigour ; the chin of the negro cast ; — and indeed, though 
 the hypothesis of Volney, that tlie Egyptians were genuine negroes, be 
 equally at variance with history and the testimony of existing monuments, 
 there appears to be some ground for stispecting they were a mixed race — 
 partly Asiatic, partly African. 
 
 Returning across the plain, in search of guides, to the Bird Plummy Pits, 
 we directed our course towards Sakkarah. In all Egyptian villages situated
 
 200 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 in the vicinity of ruins or catacombs, every person not more profitably 
 employed constitutes himself a guide ; so that when strangers make their 
 appearance, they are immediately surrounded by a crovs^d of vagabonds, 
 determined to serve them whether they will or not. To threaten the 
 supernumeraries with non-paj^ment is useless ; they understand the character 
 of travellers, and so implicitly rely on their generosity, and reluctance to 
 turn away, without reward, a poor devil, who has at least shown a 
 disposition to be useful to them, that they always persevere, and seldom 
 lose their labour. On quitting Sakkarali, we were accompanied only 
 by a single guide ; but in crossing the plain, two otlier men, abandoning 
 their labour in the field, joined our party ; and, upon entering the desert, 
 another man, and two fine young women, whose regular business appeared 
 to consist in searching for antiquities among the sand-hills and excavations, 
 coolly enlisted themselves in the same service. 
 
 Attended by all these followers, not one of whom, perhaps, ever before 
 acted as a guide, we proceeded towards the largest of the Pyramids, the 
 entrance of which they strenuously insisted had not hitherto been discovered. 
 Arriving at the spot, hovvever, we discovered the adit at the bottom of a 
 deep pit, partly filled with sand and stones. Externally, this structure 
 resembles the Haram-elKedab, consisting of a series of square inclined 
 towers, built upon each other, and terminating in a point. To descend into 
 the interior many lights are necessary ; but, coming from the Fayoom, 
 where such articles are not procurable, we, of course, had neither tapers nor 
 candles ; but our guides had brought with them a number of dry palm- 
 branches, with wliich, and our small travelling lamp, we prepared to 
 descend : as the heat is always considerable in subterraneous chambers, we 
 partly undressed. Tlie Bedouin took charge of the baggage. Though in 
 other respects sufficiently venturous, the Arab girls refused to enter the 
 Pyramids, the mouth of which they seemed to regard with horror ; but 
 sitting down at a short distance, said they would there await our return. 
 
 We now descended into the pit with the guides ; who, after clearing a 
 portion of the sand away with the hands, threw themselves on their faces, 
 and proceeding feet foi'emost, forced their way with much difficulty beneath 
 the superincumbent rock. We did the same, and found ourselves in a low 
 horizontal passage, leading directly towards the centre of the pyramid. 
 Here the lamp and palm-branches were kindled, and we commenced the 
 exploring of the subterranean galleries, a part of the Arabs preceding, others 
 following us. For a short distance the passage continued so low, that it 
 was necessary to stoop ; but becoming higher by degrees, we were enabled 
 to proceed with greater facility, until at length it branched oft*, on either 
 hand, into numerous smaller corridors, leading in different directions, like 
 those intricate excavations which extend beneath the foundations of Perse- 
 polis.* Evidently unacquainted with the topography of the place, the guides 
 here seemed in doubt respecting the track they ought to follow ; but after 
 a moment's pause, selected a passage conducting, by an abrupt descent, to 
 
 * For an account of the ruins of this ancient and luagnificeut city, see Travels in Suristan and 
 Anibistan, by the Baron de Bode, vol. i. pp. 156, sqq.
 
 PYRAMID OF SAKKARAH. 201 
 
 a lower level. All these galleries and corriilors are excavated in the solid 
 rock, which appears to constitute the whole interior of the pyramid, and 
 probably lead to as many different suites of apartments ; though to ascer- 
 tain this it would he necessary, in some cases, to clear away numerous 
 blocks of stone, which have detached themselves from the roof, and closed 
 the passages. Arriving at length at a small fissure in the rock, the guide, 
 who moved in front of me witii the flaming palm-branches in his hand, 
 descended through this opening, disappeared with his light, and it was 
 some time before he returned, having, I imagine, hurried forward, in the 
 hope of discovering whither it led. As soon as the light appeared, we also 
 went down, and proceeding through narrow galleries and corridors, wind- 
 ing:, mountintr, descending, and crossings each other — at length arrived at a 
 hall of immense height, excavated in the solid rock. A pistol was here 
 fired, but the report, though loud, w:;s succeeded by none of those extra- 
 ordinary echoes distinguishable in the Pyramid of Cheops. From this 
 chamber another series of passages, the entrance to which is now closed 
 with stones and I'ubbish, seems formex'ly to have descended to inferior suites 
 of apartments hitherto imexplored. The light yielded by the lamp and 
 palm-branches was insufficient to discover the roof, or the exact form of 
 several openings, resembling balconies or galleries, where, perhaps, during 
 the celebration of the mysteries, the initiated may have sat observing the 
 movements of the hierophants. Numerous lateral galleries, diverging fi'om 
 this point, appear to extend on all sides beneath the foundations of the 
 Pyramid ; but in attempting to explore them, our progress was generally 
 obstructed by heaps of stone or sand. At length, however, after pur- 
 suing for some time the windings of a low corridor, we arrived suddenly at 
 the mouth of a chasm of imknown depth, whose dimensions w^ere concealed 
 by tlie shadows of the projecting rocks. Deceived at first by the dimness 
 of the light, I was about to step forward, when a loud and sudden exclama- 
 tion from my terrified companion, who perceived the danger I was in, 
 arrested my progress, and saved me from being precipitated into the abyss. 
 On further examination it appeared that we were standing in one of the 
 balconies overlooking the great hall. Retracing our footsteps from this 
 perilous gallery, and finding nothing further in the Pyramid to detain lis, 
 we returned towards the entrance, and emerging into the desert found all 
 our baggage and garments wetted by the rain. 
 
 jVIounting our camels we now proceeded towards the celebrated mummy 
 pits over an undulating sandy ])lain, diversified at intervals with 
 small rocky eminences perforated with sepulchral chambers of various 
 dimensions, wantonly dilapidated and rifled of their dead. Numerous 
 beautiful sarcophagi, in perfect preservation and richly adorned with 
 sculpture and hieroglyphics, lay scattered over the waste, all opened and 
 plundered. Among them also were broken funeral urns, fragments of 
 coffins and cere-cloths, and portions of disinterred human bodies. A small 
 chapel standing in the midst of this interminable cemetery contains the 
 entrance to the depository of the sacred birds, excavated at a considerable 
 de{)th in the rock, the descent to which is by a square well, slippery and 
 dangerous. For the use of travellers, small notches have been cut in its
 
 202 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 perpendicular sides, but so sliallow as barely to receive tlie point of the toe. 
 The Arabs, barefoot, and accustomed to the operation, descended with 
 the utmost facility ; but when it became our turn to follow, the case was 
 somewhat different, though by perseverance we ultimately succeeded. 
 Arriving at the bottom, we moved after the guides through lono- passages 
 cut in the rock, crushing at every step the frail jars which stood in heaps 
 upon the ground ; the lamp yielding but a dim light, it was impossible to 
 discover the form and dimensions of the gallery, or the nature of the floor 
 where the dust, bones, and envelopes of the ibises, lay mingled with 
 innumerable fragments of pottery, rendering access to the interior irksome 
 and laborious ; and the guides, desirous of displaying their intimate know- 
 ledge of the locality, or of enhancing the merit of their services, by creating 
 an extraordinary idea of the intricacy and vastness of the hypogea, seem 
 to have selected the most circuitous route ; but, at length, after traversing 
 numerous dark passages, from whence the mummies had been removed, we 
 reached the deep recess filled with jars, piled tier beyond tier, precisely as 
 the old Egyptians had left them. 
 
 Notwithstanding the care lavished on the remains of the sacred birds, 
 time in most instances has done its work, and reduced them, bones and all, 
 to dust ; so that travellers, intent on obtaining a perfect specimen, ignor- 
 antly or heedlessly break a hundred jars before they succeed ; by which 
 means these curious relics of ancient superstition and art, must, in a few 
 years, be wholly destroyed. This Vandalism is perfectly gratuitous, for, 
 by shaking the vessel, it is easy to discover the state of its contents. The 
 jars, about fifteen inches in length, and seven or eight in diameter, are 
 light, porous, and unglazed, ingeniously closed with two small round plates, 
 partly let down into the vessels, meeting and lapping over each other in 
 the middle, and firmly bound together by a coarse white cement. Though 
 apparently solid and well preserved, the mummies frequently fall to ashes 
 when exposed to the air, and therefore, for osteological and anatomical 
 purposes, those embalmed at Thebes, — where, instead of being deposited 
 in earthen vessels, they were wrapped in numerous linen bandages, are 
 greatly to be preferred. 
 
 Having paid and discharged our guides, including the young women, 
 and leaving the whole party engaged in a furious quarrel respecting the 
 division of the spoil, we proceeded along the skirts of the desert towards 
 the Pyramids of Gizeh ; which, when approached from the south, present 
 a still more magnificent and sublime aspect than from the opposite quarter. 
 In this portion of the valley, the encroachment of the Libyan waste is too 
 manifest and palpable to be disputed. Plants, the peculiar production of 
 the fertile fields, are beheld surrounded by a thin layer of sand, marking 
 the extreme boundary of the desert, which, incessantly, though imper- 
 ceptibly, advances towards the river, obliterating all traces of cultivation. 
 To a wise government, however, this phenomenon would be no subject of 
 disquietude ; since it is possible, not only to oppose, by the excavation of 
 canals, an insuperable barrier to the growtli of the wilderness, but even to 
 reclaim and fertilise a large portion of its inhospitable downs, where moisture 
 alone is wanting to vivify the germs of vegetation. In the deep hollow
 
 PYRAMID OF CEPIIRENES. 203 
 
 immediately south of the Sphinx, six lofty trees, mimosas and sycamores, 
 are nourished and clothed with luxuriant verdure by a scanty spring, 
 concealed beneath the sand ; while the surface of the arid expanse, border- 
 ing on the corn fields and meadows of Gizeh, is thinly covered witli a dry 
 long grass, which irrigation would quickly convert into rich pasture. 
 
 The whole vicinity of the Pyramids is occupied by tombs, some exca- 
 vated in the rock, others constructed with vast blocks of stone, — masses of 
 solid masonry, or, perhaps, containing chambers whose entrances are 
 unknown. One of the former, now inhabited by a Mohammedan saint, 
 is divided by a screen of Egyptian workmanship into two commodious 
 apartments, adorned with sculpture and hieroglyphics, and containing 
 numerous small niches for coffins. A row of figures, in alto-relievo, for- 
 merly extended the whole length of the tomb ; but these, fanaticism or 
 antiquarian avarice has long since removed. The saint was absent, begging, 
 perhaps, in the villages ; but his hospitable door stood open, so that 
 whosoever chose might enter and rest himself. From this tomb we pro- 
 ceeded to the Pyramid of Mycerinus, the smallest, but once the most beauti- 
 ful of these extraordinary temples, having been coated with red granite 
 from Siene. Very few of the blocks now retain their original position; 
 the greater number, displaced by Turkish or antiquarian barbarians, 
 encumbering the soil about its base. South-west are two similar struc- 
 tures of smaller dimensions, and much dilapidated. Proceeding northward, 
 along the great inclosure wall of the second Pyramid, we entered a spacious 
 tomb, where, as at Eilithyas and Gournou, are delineated, in a rude style, 
 the occupations and amusements of the Egyptians ; butchers cutting up 
 oxen, a favourite subject, dancing, fighting, &c. On one of the walls is a 
 representation of a river fight, in which the boats containing the com- 
 batants seem very little superior to the coracles of the ancient Britons 
 described by Caesar. In the delineation of cattle, the artists of Thebes 
 and Memphis appear to have made considerable proficiency ; several bulls 
 on the interior of this tomb are ably portrayed ; and from the fulness and 
 beauty of their form, it may be inferred that much care was bestowed in 
 improving the breed of this animal, which was sometimes worshipped and 
 sometimes eaten. 
 
 Having omitted during our first visit to enter the Pyramid of Cephrenes, 
 opened by Belzoni, we now, accompanied by several Bedouins who had 
 joined us from the neighbouring villages, descended into the interior ; the 
 operation involving neither difiiculty nor danger. All the passages are 
 beautifully cased with oriental porphyry. In the floor of the larger cham- 
 ber — the only one now accessible — is a sunken sarcophagus, in which, it 
 has been said, the bones of an ox (more probably of a cow) were found ; 
 a circumstance at variance with the vulgar hypothesis, that the Pyramids 
 were royal tombs. Numerous names are scrawled upon the walls, but 
 none possessing any interest, excepting that of Belzoni ; those old Moham- 
 medan signatures, visible on the first opening of the Pyramid, being no 
 longer legible.* A passage, now blocked up with large stones, leads 
 
 * See Walpole's " Travels iu the East."
 
 204 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 towards the base of the edifice, where there probably exist many cham- 
 bers excavated in the rock. 
 
 I now felt an inclination to mount this Pyramid ; but had I been 
 acquainted with the difficulties to be encountered, I much doubt whether 
 my enthusiasm would have induced me to venture up. There are some 
 Arabs in the neighbourhood wlio are celebrated for the performance. We 
 sent for two of them ; one an old man, the other about forty, and they 
 engaged to assist i;s. The steps on the northern face are much worn by the 
 pebbly sand, and the havoc of those who have seai'ched for an entrance ; 
 we therefore ascend on the south side, and arrive, without much 
 difficulty, at that point which travellers generally attain. The steps 
 henceforth are cut away as with a plane ; not even a ledge is left ; and to 
 form an idea of the whole, you must fancy the pyramid of Caius Sestus 
 smoother than a slated roof, and placed at such a height from the earth, 
 that the slightest faux pas would occasion a fall double what it w^ould be 
 from the top of the Monument. Here was an obstacle I knew not how 
 the Arabs themselves could surmount, much less how I could possibly 
 master; for above our heads jutted over, like an eave or coping, the lower 
 stones of the coating which still remain, and retain a smooth polished 
 surface. As considerable precaution was necessary, the men now made 
 me take off my hat, coat, and shoes ; the younger then placed his 
 raised and extended hands against the projecting edge of the lower stone, 
 which reached to above his cliin ; and the elder, taking me in his arms, 
 as I would a child, set my feet on the other's shoulders, and my body 
 flat on the smooth surface of the stone ; in this position we formed an angle 
 with each other, and here I remained for upwards of two minutes, till the 
 older man went round, and by some other means contrived to get over 
 the projection, when, creeping along the line of junction of the coping, 
 he took my hands, drew me up to where he was, and then letting down 
 his girdle, assisted to mount up the younger, but less active and less daring 
 climber of the two. We then proceeded much as follows : — One of them 
 got on the shoulders of the other, and so gained the joining of the stone 
 above, which was often five feet asunder ; the upper man then helped me 
 in a similar action, while the lower pushed me up by the feet. Having 
 gained this row, we had often to creep for some way along the joining to 
 where another op]iortunity of ascending was afforded. In this way w^e 
 proceeded to the summit, and some idea may be formed of my feelings, 
 when it is recollected, that all these stones of such a span, are highly 
 pohshed, are set at an angle less than 45°, and that the places we had lo 
 grasp with our hands and feet were often not ten inches wide, and their 
 height above the ground upwards of 400 feet ; a single slip of the foot, or 
 a slight gust of wind, and, from our position, we must all three have been 
 dashed to atoms, long before reaching the ground. On gaining the top, 
 my guide gave vent to sundry demonstrations of satisfaction, clapping me 
 on the back, patting my head, kissing my hands, and uttering a low 
 growl, which presently rose into the more audible, and, to my ear, less 
 musical cry of "backsheesh!" From all this I began to suspect that 
 something wonderful had been achieved ; and some idea of my perilous
 
 EGYPTIAN SUPERSTITIONS. 205 
 
 situation broke upon me, as I saw several of my friends beneath waving their 
 iiats, and looking up with astonishment, as we sat perched upon the top, 
 which is not more than six feet square. The apex stone is off, and the plat- 
 form now consists of five slabs, and one in the centre, which is raised upon 
 its end and leans to the eastward. I do not think that human hands could 
 have lifted it thus from its bed, on account of its size, and the confined 
 space they would have to work on. I am inclined to think the top was 
 struck with lightning, and the position thus altered by it. The three of 
 us had just room to sit upon the place. I saw two or three names 
 scratched upon the central slab, to which of course I added my own, and 
 collected some bones of the jerbil, which lay scattered about. At first 
 I imagined these might have been carried up by hawks, but I soon heard 
 tlie animals squeaking under where I sat. I had passed a vulture's nest 
 on my way up. The heat was now most intense, and the stones so hot, 
 that it became unpleasant to sit on them very long, and it would have 
 been rather too daring an experiment to attempt standing. The descent 
 was, as might be expected, much more dangerous, though not so difficult 
 as the ascent.* 
 
 This pyramid, if in Hyde Park, might possibly be worn into a Sunday's 
 amusement ; but in its present state, I believe that nothing short of heaven 
 itself would ever tempt me to go so near to heaven again by the same 
 means. I ask permission to give some proofs of the real or imaginary 
 difficulty of the undertaking. The Arabs in the neighbourhood of Cairo 
 are much bolder than elsewhere, and even make a practice of hooting and 
 laughing at Franks. We on our return towards the river became the butts of 
 some labourers in the fields ; our guides, who Avere still in company, 
 informed them that we had been to the top of the Pyramid of Cephrenes, 
 and the tongue of ridicule became immediately silent. 
 
 " And when they talk of it, they shake their heads, 
 And whisper one another in the ear." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Superstitions of the Modern Egyptians. 
 
 After recounting the above long journey, it may be proper to direct 
 our attention a little to certain notions and manners characteristic of the 
 people of the country. We were, it will be remembered, in the great 
 capital of the " Arabian Nights," the centre of the circle of Islam, where 
 whatever is most remarkable in the habits or opinions of the eastern w^orld 
 may be said to flourish in greatest perfection. It would seem at first sight 
 that the Arab inhabitants of Egypt, being brought frequently into contact 
 with Europeans, ought by this time to'have adopted something of our way 
 of thinking, and to have imbibed some small portion at least of our learn- 
 ing. But this is not really the case. The two races regard each other 
 
 " Wilde. " Narrative."
 
 206 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 rather with suspicion than with sympathy ; and it will be many ages before 
 the Arabs at least project themselves, if they ever do, into the sphere of 
 our ideas and opinions. There appears to be some hidden influence in the 
 climate and atmosphere of every country, which affects more or less power- 
 fully the minds of its inhabitants. The operation of this principle, what- 
 ever it may be, is more easily discernible in the East than elsewhere ; and, 
 having existed from the earliest ages of the world up to this time, it seems 
 fair to infer that it will always continue in activity. Nor does this appear 
 to me matter of any very poignant regret, so long as what we denominate 
 superstition does not lead to crime. Some inconvenience may possibly 
 arise at times from the belief in Efrits and Jinn ; but, upon the whole, it 
 may w^ell be doubted whether it does not serve to render the life of the 
 Arab more agreeable. His imagination requires to be excited by some- 
 thing, and there is no means more generally at hand than those fantastic 
 hobgoblins with which he peoples the elements. It is unphilosophical, 
 therefore, to lament his illusions. He derives satisfaction from the rela- 
 tions which he supposes to exist between himself and those supernatural 
 beings, and it would be inhuman, and therefore unwise, to deprive him of 
 whatever pleasure the notion may impart. His sources of enjoyment, 
 Heaven knows, are not too numerous ! All the evils of bad government 
 press with their full weight upon him. He has to struggle with poverty, 
 with contempt, and every form of active oppression ; and he would sink 
 under the accumulated load of misery, were he not buoyed up by the thick 
 stratum of elastic superstitions which extend under him, and break the 
 force of his frequent falls. Every time I have conversed with an Arab, I 
 have become more and more convinced of this truth. He turns away from 
 the real evils which beset him, from his sordid hut, tattered garments, and 
 empty board, to the palace, and magnificent raiment, and costly feasts, and 
 beautiful harem, which he possesses in his ideal world, and in this way 
 manages to taste some sort of happiness. No one can doubt this who has 
 ever heard an Arab tell a story. He does not recount languidly a narra- 
 tive which he knows to be fiction. By the plastic power of fancy he 
 converts imaorinary beings and events into realities, and moves among 
 them as an actor, generally as the principal actor, moulding circumstances 
 as he pleases, and feeding his appetite for pomp and splendour and physi- 
 cal enjoyment in a way unintelligible to colder natures. His eyes flash, 
 his pulse quickens, his cheeks redden and pale by turns, he smiles, laughs 
 outright, or indulges in tears and sorrow, as the incidents of his tale appear 
 to require. Generally he is in a trance of delight ; he beholds around him 
 spiritual existences, some good, others malevolent, but all capricious ; who 
 may, some day or other, take it into their heads to make a Sheikh or an 
 Emir of him, to shower on him boundless wealth, and render him master 
 of the lawful number of fair wives. I used to observe this especially in 
 my interpreter, Suliman. He had known what it was to be poor and in bad 
 health, but whenever he walked abroad at dawn or twilight, it was obvious 
 that he expected some benevolent Jinneh to appear and discover to him 
 a hidden treasure. His eye and his smile were full of this anticipation, 
 more especially when on the Nile at midnight, in the delicious calm of
 
 THEORY OF THE JINN. 207 
 
 those latitudes, and surrounded by the nodding ruins of temples or palaces, 
 he used to keep me awake by recounting the wild adventures of some Arab 
 hero or heroine. 
 
 Mr. Lane, therefore, is perfectly correct, when he describes the inhabit- 
 ants of Egypt as a very superstitious people. It is true, too, that many 
 of their superstitions constitute a part of their religion, being sanctioned by 
 the Koran. The most prominent of these is the belief in Jinn, with whose 
 character and attributes everybody has been rendered familiar by the 
 " Thousand and one Nights." Tiie Jinn are said to be of pre-Adamite origin, 
 and a class of beings intermediate between angels and men, created of fire, 
 and capable of assuming the forms and material fabric of men, brutes, and 
 monsters, and of rendering themselves invisible at pleasure. Like mortals, 
 they eat and drink, and become the parents of children, their helpmates being 
 generally selected from among the descendants of Adam. They ai'e subject, 
 moreover, to death, though in most cases their lives are protracted through 
 many centuries. Their principal abode is in the chain of mountains, 
 called Kaf, which, by the Moslems, who believe the earth to be a plane 
 surface, is supposed with the ocean to encompass the habitable world. 
 Some of these spirits are believers in El-Islam ; others are infidels. Of 
 both these classes the Arabs stand in groat awe ; and for the former they 
 entertain a high degree of respect. It is a common custom of this people, 
 in pouring water on the ground, to exclaim or mutter, destoo'r, that is, 
 to ask the permission or crave the pardon of any Jinneh that may chance 
 to be there ; for the Jinn are supposed to pervade both the solid matter of 
 the earth and the firmament. They are also believed to inhabit rivers, 
 ruined houses, wells, baths, and ovens; hence persons, when they let down 
 a bucket into a well, or light a fire, and on other occasions, say " Permis- 
 sion !" or "Permission ye blessed !" which words they sometimes preface 
 with a prayer for God's protection against all evil spirits. These customs 
 present a commentary on the story in the " Thousand and one Nights," in 
 which a merchant is described as having killed a Jinneh, by throwing aside 
 the stone of a date which he had just eaten (almond shells in the old trans- 
 lation). In the same story, and in others of that collection, a Jinneh is 
 represented as approaching in a whirlwind of sand or dust ; and it is the 
 general belief of the Arabs of Egypt that the Zobaah, or whirlwind, which 
 carries the sand or dust in the form of a pillar of prodigious height, so 
 often seen sw-eeping across the fields and deserts of this country, is 
 caused by the flight of one of these beings ; or in other words, that the 
 Jinneh rides in the whirlwind. A charm is usually uttered by the 
 Egyptians to avert the Zobaah when it seems to be approaching ; some 
 of them exclaim, " Iron, thou unlucky ! " as Jinn are supposed to have 
 a great dread of that metal ; others endeavour to drive away the monster 
 by exclaiming " God is most great."* What we call a falling star, is com- 
 monly believed to be a dart thrown by God at an evil Jinneh ; and the 
 Egyptians, when they see it, exclaim, " May Allah transfix the enemy of 
 
 • See, in the " History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece," un account of similar 
 superstitions among the Hellenes.
 
 208 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 the faith!" The evil Jinn are commonly termed Efrits. The exist- 
 ence of Efrits must be believed by the Moslems, on accoiint of the 
 occurrence, in the Koran, of these words : — " An Efrit from among the 
 Jinn answered." They are generally believed to differ from the other Jinn 
 in being very powerful, and always malicious; but to be, in other respects, 
 of a similar nature. Connected with the history of the Jinn are many 
 fables, not acknowledged by the Koran, and therefore not credited by the 
 sober Moslems, but only by the less instructed. The latter believe that 
 the earth was inhabited before the time of Adam by a race of beings dif- 
 fering from ourselves in form, and much more powerful ; and that forty 
 (or, according to some, seventy-two) pre- Adamite kings, each of whom 
 bore the name of Sooleyman or Solomon successively governed this people. 
 The last of the Sooleymans was named Ga'n Ibn Ga'n, and from him, it is 
 said, the Jinn, who are also called Ga'n, derive their name. Hence some 
 believe the Jinn to be the same with the pre-Adamite race here mentioned ; 
 but others assert that they were a distinct class of beings, and brought 
 into subjection by the other race. 
 
 Jinn are believed often to assume, or perpetually to wear, the shapes 
 of cats, dogs, and other brute animals. The Sheikh Khaleel El-i\Ieda- 
 bighee, one of the most celebrated of the ulema of Egypt, and author of 
 several works on various sciences, who died at a very advanced age, during 
 the period of my former visit to this country, used to relate the following 
 anecdote : — He had, he said, a favourite black cat, which always slept afe 
 the foot of his bed. Once at midnight he heard a knocking at the door of 
 liis house ; and his cat went and opened the hanging shutter of his window, 
 and called, "Who's there?" A voice replied, "I am such-a-one (men- 
 tioning a strange name), the Jinneh ; open the door," " The lock," said 
 the Sheikh's cat, " has had the name of God pronounced upon it," " Then 
 throw me down," said the other, " two cakes of bread." " The bread- 
 basket," answered the cat at the window, " has had the name pronounced 
 upon it." " Well," said the stranger, " at least give me a drink of water." 
 But he was answered that the water-jar had been secured in the same 
 manner ; and asked what he was to do, seeing that he was likely to die of 
 hunger and thirst. The Slieikh's cat told him to go to the next house, and 
 went there also himself, and opened the door, and soon after returned. 
 Next morning the Sheikh deviated from a habit which he had constantly 
 observed ; he gave to the cat half the fateereh upon which he breakfasted, 
 instead of a little morsel, wliich he was wont to give ; and afterwards said, 
 " O my cat, thou knowest that I am a poor man ; bring me then a little 
 (Told ;" upon which words the cat immediately disappeared, and he saw it 
 no more. 
 
 It is commonly affirmed that malicious or disturbed Jinn very often 
 station themselves on the roofs, or at the windows of houses in Cairo, and 
 other towns of Egypt, and throw bricks and stones down into the streets 
 and courts. I was once told of a case of this kind, which had alarmed the 
 people in the principal street of the metropolis for a whole week ; many 
 bricks having been thrown down from some of the houses every day during 
 this period, though nobody was killed or wounded. I went to the scene
 
 THE JINN IN ENGLAND. 20!) 
 
 of these pranks of this Jinncli to witness them, and to make inquiries on the 
 subject ; but on my arrival there, I was told that the rejm or throwing 
 had ceased, I found no one who denied the falling down of the bricks, 
 or doubted that it was the work of the Jinn ; and the general remark 
 on mentioning the subject was, " God avert froni us this evil doing." One 
 of my friends observed to me on this occasion, that he had met with some 
 Englishmen who disbelieved in the existence of Jinn ; but he concluded 
 that they had never witnessed a public performance, though common m 
 their country, of which he had since lieard, called Koomcdyeh (Comedy), 
 by which term he meant to include all theatrical performances. Addressing 
 one of his own countrymen, and appealing to me for the confirmation 
 of his words, he then said — " An Algerine a short time ago gave me an 
 account of a spectacle of this kind which he had seen in London." Here 
 his countryman interrupted him by asking, " Is not England in London ? 
 or is London a town in England V My friend with diffidence, and looking 
 to me, answered, that London was the metropolis of England, and then 
 resumed the subject of the theatre. " Tlie house," said he, " in which 
 the spectacle was exhibited cannot be described ; it was of a round form, 
 with many benches on the floor, and closets all round, in rows one above 
 another, in which people of the higher class sat ; and there was a large 
 square aperture closed with a curtain. When the house was full of 
 people, who paid considerable sums of money to be admitted, it suddenly 
 became very dark ; it was at night, and the house had been lighted up 
 with a great many lamps ; but these were almost entirely extinguished, 
 all at tlie same time, without being touched by anybody. Then the great 
 curtain was drawn up ; they heard the roaring of the sea and wind ; and 
 indistinctly perceived through the gloom, the waves rising and foammg 
 and lashing the shore. Presently a tremendous peal of thunder was heard ; 
 after a flash of lightning had clearly shown to the spectator the agitated 
 sea ; and then there fell a heavy shower of real rain. Soon after the day 
 broke ; the sea became more plainly visible ; and two ships were seen m 
 the distance ; they approached, and fought each other, firing their can- 
 nons ; and a variety of other extraordinary scenes were afterwards 
 exhibited. Now, it 'is evident," added my friend, "that such wonders 
 must have been the work of Jinn, or, at least, performed by their 
 assistance." 
 
 During the month of Ramad'han, the Jinn, it is said, are confined in 
 prison ; and hence, on the eve of the festival which follows that month, 
 some of the women of Egypt, with the view of preventing these objects 
 of dread from entering their houses, sprinkle salt upon the floors of the 
 apartments, saying as they do it, " In the name of God, the Com- 
 passionate, the Merciful." 
 
 A curious relic of ancient Egyptian superstition may here be men- 
 tioned. It is believed that each quarter in Cairo has its peculiar guardian 
 genius, or Agathodtcmon, which has the form of a serpent. The ancient 
 tombs of Egypt, and the dark recesses of the temples, are commonly 
 believed by the people of this country to be inhabited by Efrits. 
 
 The term Efrit is commonly apphed rather to an evil Jinneh than any 
 
 T 2
 
 210 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 other being ; but the ghosts of dead persons are also called by this name ; 
 and many absurd stories are related of them ; and great are the fears 
 wliich they inspire. There are many persons, however, who hold them 
 in no deo^ree of dread. I had once a humorous cook, who was somewhat 
 addicted to the intoxicating hasheesh ; soon after he had entered my 
 service I heard him one evening muttering and exclaiming on the stairs, 
 as if in surprise at some event ; and then politely saying, " But why are 
 you sittincr here in the draught ? Do me the favour to come up into the 
 kitchen, and amuse me with your conversation a little." This civil 
 address not being answered, was repeated and varied several times ; 
 till I called out to the man, and asked him to whom he was speaking. 
 '- The Efrit of a Turkish soldier," he replied, " is sitting on the stairs, 
 smoking his pipe, and refuses to move ; he came up from the well below ; 
 pray step and see him." On my going to the stairs, and telling the 
 servant I could see nothing, he only remarked that it was because I had 
 a clear conscience. He was told afterwards that the house had been 
 liaunted ; but he asserted that he had not been previously informed of the 
 supposed cause : which was, the fact of a Turkish soldier having been 
 murdered there. 
 
 Stories of liaunted houses are quite as common in Cairo and other parts 
 of the East as they are in the remoter districts of our own island.* Fre- 
 quently many excellent dwellings are deserted and suffered to fall to decay, 
 because Efrits are supposed to have taken up their abode in them. Some- 
 times these reports may be traceable to the malice of neighbours, though 
 generally noises, occasioned by unknown causes, give rise to them. In 
 order to illustrate the popular belief of the Arabs on this subject, I shall 
 here introduce the stoiy of a haunted house in Cairo, premising that the 
 narrator is a lady now residing with her family in that city. 
 
 "After having searched for a habitation during a month in vain, 
 we were delighted with the offer of an exceedingly good one, which 
 appeared in every respect eligible, and in which we are now residing. But 
 our domestic comfort in this new abode has been disturbed by a singular 
 trouble, which has obliged us to arrange as soon as possible for a removal. 
 The house is an admirable one, being nearly new, though on the old 
 construction. 
 
 " We were much surprised, after passing a few days here, to find that om* 
 servants were unable to procure any rest during the night ; being disturbed 
 by a constant knocking, and by the appearance of what they believe to be 
 an Efrit. The manner of the servants' complaint was very characteristic. 
 Having been mucli annoyed one morning by a noisy quarrel under our 
 windows, my brother called one of our servants to ascertain how it had 
 arisen, when he replied, ' It is a matter of no importance, O Efendi ; but 
 the subject which perplexes us is, that there is a devil in the bath.' My 
 brother being aware of their superstitious prejudices, replied : ' Well, is 
 there a bath in the world that you do not believe to be a resort of evil 
 spirits, according to the well known tradition on that subject V ' True, O 
 
 * See on this snbjecl tliice extremely curious and intertsting articles on " Dreams, Nigiit- 
 Noises, &c.," by Mr. Oilier, in " Ainsworth's Magazine."
 
 STORY OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 211 
 
 my master,' rejoined the man, ' tlie case is so ; this devil has long been 
 the resident of the house, and he will never permit any other tenant to 
 retain its quiet possession for many years ; no one has remained more than 
 a month within these walls, excepting the last person who lived here, and 
 he, though he had soldiers and slaves, could not stay more than about nine 
 months ; for the devil disturbed his family all night.' I must here tell 
 you that during our short stay in the house, the maids have left us, one 
 after another, without giving us any idea of their intentions, and have never 
 returned ; and the cau-^e of their sudden disappearance was now explained 
 by the men their fellow-servants. Certainly our own rest was grievously 
 disturbed ; but we had attributed all the annoyance to a neighbour's extra- 
 ordinary demonstrations of joy on the subject of his own marriage, and 
 whose festivities were, perhaps, the more extravagant, because he is an old 
 man, and his bride a young girl. The noise was deafening during the 
 whole of eight nights, and, when we were becoming accustomed to the 
 constant din, we were roused by three tremendous reports of fire-arms, 
 which rang through the apartments of our own and the neighbouring 
 houses, and shook our dwellings to the very foundation. It is, therefore, 
 not remarkable that we did not hear the sounds which disturbed our poor 
 servants, in addition to the sufficient uproar without. 
 
 "It appeared, on inquiry, that the man to whom this house formerly 
 belonged, and who is now dead, had, during his residence in it, murdered 
 a poor tradesman who entered the court with his merchandise, and two 
 slaves : one of these (a black girl) was destroyed in the bath, and you will 
 easily understand how far such a story as this, and a true one too, sheds 
 its influence on the minds of a people who are superstitious to a proverb. 
 We can only regret that my brother engaged the house in ignorance of 
 these circumstances ; had he known them, he would also have been awaro 
 that the prejudice among the lower orders would be insurmountable, and 
 that no female servant would remain with us. The sudden disappearance 
 of our maids was thus gravely explained by our door-keeper. ' Why did 
 Amineh and Zeyneb leave you?^ ' Verily, O my master, because they feared 
 for their security. When Amineh saw the Efrit, she said at once : " I 
 must quit this house ; for if he touch me I shall be deranged, and unfit for 
 service;" and truly,' he added, 'this would have been the case. For our- 
 selves, as men, we fear not ; but we fear for the harem. Surely you will 
 consider their situation, and quit this house.' This, he thought, was 
 putting the matter in the strongest light. ' Try a few nights longer,' said 
 my brother ' and call me as soon as the spirit appears ; we might have 
 caught him last night, when you say he was so near you, and after giving 
 him a sound beating, you would not have found your rest disturbed.' At 
 this remark it was evident that the respect of both servants for their 
 master had received a temporary shock. ' Oh Efendi,' exclaimed one 
 of them, ' this is an Efrit, and not a son of Adam, as you seem to sup- 
 pose. He assumed last night all imaginary shapes, and when I raised my 
 hand to seize him, he became a piece of cord or any other trifle.' Now 
 these men ai"e valuable servants, and wc should be sorry to lose them, 
 especially in our present predicament; therefore my brother merely
 
 212 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 answered, that if the annoyance did not cease, he would make inquiries 
 respecting another house. 
 
 " I have omitted to observe, that the inhuman wretch to whom this house 
 belonged bequeathed it to a mosque, perhaps as an expiation for his crimes, 
 but left it, for the term of her life, to the person who is our present land- 
 lady ; and now a circumstance was explained to our minds which we had 
 not before fully understood. On the day before we desired to remove 
 here, we sent one of our servants to hire some women, and to superintend 
 the clearing of the house ; and on his arrival there, the landlady, whose 
 name is Lalah-Zar, or bed of tulips, refused him admission, saying, 
 ' Return to the Efendi, and say to him that I am baking cakes in the 
 oven of his kitchen, that I may give them away to-morrow at the tomb of 
 the late owner of the house, to the poor and needy. This is a meritorious 
 act for your master's sake, as well as for my own, and your master will 
 understand it.' 
 
 " Poor woman ! it is now evident to us that she hoped by this act of 
 propitiation to prevent further annoyance to her tenants, and consequent 
 loss to herself. 
 
 " The morning after the conversation I have related took place, the 
 servant's report was considerably improved. They had passed, they said, 
 a comfortable night, and we hoped we might arrange to remain here ; but 
 the following day a most singular statement awaited us. The doorkeeper, 
 in a tone of considerable alarm, said that he had been unable to sleep at 
 all ; that the Efrit had walked round the gallery all night m clogs ! and 
 had repeatedly knocked at his door with a brick, or some other hard sub- 
 stance. Then followed the question, why one of the men had not called 
 my brother, evidently because neither of them dared pass the gallery round 
 which the supposed Efrit was taking his midnight walks, striking each 
 door violently as he passed it. For many nights the noise continued, and 
 many evenings they began before we retired to rest ; and as we could never 
 find the offender, I sadly feared for my children ; not for their personal 
 safety, but lest they should incline to superstition : and nothing impover- 
 ishes the mind so much as such a tendency, 
 
 " Another singular circumstance attending this most provoking annoyance 
 was our finding, on several successive mornings, five or six pieces of char- 
 coal laid at the door leading to the chambers in which we sleep, conveying 
 in this country a wish, or rather an imprecation, which is far from agree- 
 able ; viz., ' May your face be blackened ! ' However, under all these 
 circumstances, I rejoiced to find my children increasingly amused by these 
 pranks, and established in the belief that one or more wicked persons liked 
 the house so well, that they resolved to gain possession, and to eject, by dint 
 of sundry noises and other annoyances, any persons who desired its occupa- 
 tion. It is, however, a more serious matter to poor Lalah-Yar than to us ; 
 for it is certain that the legacy of the late possessor will never produce a great 
 benefit to her. You will be surprised when I tell you, that the rent of 
 such a house as this does not exceed twelve pounds per annum. It is a 
 very superior dwelling, and infinitely beyond the usual run ; therefore 
 always styled by the people of tlie country the house of an Emii\"
 
 CONTINUED PERSECUTIONS OF AN EFRIT. 213 
 
 To continue the story of the glioat or Efrit. " Ramad'han arrived, and 
 we were for a time freed from liis visitation; but when it ended, the compara- 
 tive quiet of our nights ended also. To describe all the various noises by 
 which we have been disturbed is impossible. Very frequently the door of 
 the room in which we were sitting late in the evening, within two or three 
 hours of midnight, was violently knocked at many short intervals : at other 
 times it seemed as if something very heavy fell upon the pavement close 
 under one of the windows of the same room, or of one adjoining ; and as 
 these rooms were on the top of the house, we imagined at first that some 
 stones or other things had been thrown by a neighbour, but we could find 
 nothing outside after the noise I have mentioned. The usual sounds con- 
 tinued during the greater part of the night, and were generally like a heavy 
 trampling, like the walking of a person in large clogs, varied by knocking 
 at the doors of many of the apartments, and at the large water-jars, which 
 are placed in recesses in the galleries. Our maids have come and gone like 
 shadows ever since our residence here, excepting during Ramad'han ; and 
 saum qui pent seems to iiave been their maxim, for they believe that one 
 touch of an Efrit would render them demoniacs. 
 
 " A little while ago, a girl who had only passed two days in the house, 
 rushed to our usual sitting room, whence she had just removed our supper, 
 exclaiming that a tall figure in white was standing with outspread arms at 
 the entrance of the upper gallery, to prevent her passing. We all imme- 
 diately returned with her, and as you will anticipate, found nothing. This 
 white figure our servant called a Saint, and they assert that the house is 
 haunted by a Saint and an Efrit. One man assures us that this same 
 Saint, who is, to use his expression, of dazzling whiteness, applied himself 
 one night to the bucket of the well in the court, and, having drawn up 
 water, performed his ablutions and said his prayers. Frightening servant- 
 maids is, I ween, rather inconsistent with such conduct. Certainly the 
 servants do not complain without reason, and it is particularly grievous, 
 because there is not, throughout the whole healthful part of the city, one 
 comfortable house vacant. 
 
 "During Ramad'han, the Moslems believe that Efrits are imprisoned, and 
 thus our attendants accounted for our freedom from annoyance during that 
 month. We, on the other hand, believed that we had bolted and barred 
 out the off"ender, by having discovered his place of ingress, and were much 
 disappointed at finding our precautions useless. 
 
 " A few days since, our door-keeper, a new servant, complained that he 
 not only could not sleep, but that he never had slept, since his arrival, 
 more than a few minutes at a time, and that he never coixld sleep consist- 
 ently with his duty, unless the Efrit could be destroyed. He added, that 
 he came every night into the upper gallery, leading to our sleeping-room, 
 and there he found the figure I have mentioned, walking round and round, 
 and concluded with an anxious request that his master would consent to 
 his firing at the phantom, saying that devils have always been destroyed by 
 the discharge of fire-arms. We consented to the proposal, provided he 
 used neither ball nor small shot. Two days and nights passed, and we 
 found on the third that the door-keeper was waiting to ascertain whether
 
 214 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Egyptian Cradle 
 
 the spectre Avere a saint or a devil, and had therefore resolved to question 
 him on the ensuing night before he fired. 
 
 " The nio-ht came, and it was one of unusual darkness. We had really 
 forgotten our recent intentions, although we were talking over the subject 
 of tlie disturbances un- 
 til near midnight, and 
 speculating upon the 
 cause in theroom where 
 my children were hap- 
 pily sleeping, when we 
 were startled by a tre- 
 mendous discharge of 
 fire-arms, which was 
 succeeded by the deep 
 hoarse voice of the 
 door-keeper exclaiming 
 ' There he lies, the 
 accursed ! ' and a sound 
 
 as of a creature struggling and gasping for breath. In the next 
 moment the man called loudly to his fellow-servants, crying, ' Come up, 
 the accursed is struck down before me ! ' and this was followed by such 
 mysterious sounds, that we believed either a man had been shot, and was 
 in his last agony, or that our man had accidentally shot himself. 
 
 " My brother went round the gallery, while I and my sister-in-law stood 
 like children trembling hand in hand, and my boys mercifully slept (as 
 young ones do sleep) sweetly and soundly through all the confusion and 
 distress. It appeared that the man used not only ball cartridges, but put 
 two charges of powder, with balls into his pistol. I will describe the event, 
 however, in his own words : — "The Efrit passed me in the gallery and 
 repassed me, when I thus addressed it, ' Shall we quit this house or will 
 you do so ?' ' You shall quit it,' he answered ; and, passing me again, he 
 threw dirt into my right eye. This proved he was a devil," continued the 
 man, " and I wrapped my cloak around me and watched the spectre as it 
 receded. It stopped in that corner, and I observed its appearance atten- 
 tively. It was tall and perfectly white. I stooped, and before I moved 
 a^ain discharged my pistol, which I had before concealed, and the accursed 
 was struck down before me, and here are the remains." So saying, he 
 picked up a small burnt mass, which my brotlier showed us afterwards, 
 resembling more the sole of a shoe than anything else, but perforated by 
 fire in several places, and literally burnt to a cinder. This the man asserted 
 was always tlie relic when a devil was destroyed, and it lay on the ground 
 under a part of the wall where the bullets had entered. The noise which 
 succeeded the report, and which filled me with horror, is and must ever 
 remain a mystery. On the following morning we closely examined the 
 spot, and found nothing that could tlirow light on the subject. The burnt 
 remains do not help us to a conclusion ; one thing, iiowever, I cannot but 
 believe that some one who had personated the spirit suffered some injury, 
 and that the darkness favoured his escape. It is truly very ridiculous in
 
 DEATH OF A GHOST. 215 
 
 these people to believe that the remains of a devil resemble the sole of an 
 old shoe. It reminds me of the condensed spirits of whom we read in the 
 ' Thousand and One Nights," who were bottled up, hermetically sealed, 
 and thrown into the sea by order of Suleyman, the son of Da-ood. 
 
 " I need scarcely say that the servant was reprimanded for disobeying his 
 orders with regard to charging the pistol. With tliis exception he has 
 proved ever obedient, most respectful, and excellent in every point. I 
 really believe the man was so worn out by want of sleep, and exasperated 
 by finding the same figure nightly pacing round the galleries and prevent- 
 ing his rest, that he became desperate." * 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Dkparture of the PiLoiiiM Caravan. — Madhouse. — Bazaars. 
 
 Among the spectacles witnessed by the traveller in the city and environs 
 of Cairo, none perhaps is more deserving of notice than the departure of 
 tlie pilo-rim caravan, which yearly in the spring traverses the Arabian 
 wilderness to Mekka. From the decay of religious zeal in all parts of the 
 Mohammedan world, the pomp and magnificence formerly dispkyed on 
 these occasions, have for ages been gradually diminishing. The Khalifs of 
 Egypt, when they undertook the pilgrimage in person, frequently exhibited 
 the extreme of barbaric grandeur, being attended by innumerable cavaliers 
 in gorgeous costume, mounted on horses or dromedaries richly caparisoned 
 in purple or gold; and even in later ages, the governors and pashas 
 entrusted with the management of the sacred calvalcade, expended consi- 
 derable sums in what was regarded as a work of piety. But the passion 
 for costly and glittering pageants, characteristic of barbarous times and 
 nations, has long been on the wane in the East, where a more simple taste, 
 introduced by good sense or poverty, is imperceptibly succeeding it. 
 Perhaps, as regards Egypt, the decay of pilgrimage may be connected with 
 the policy of Mohammed Ali, the pervading spirit of whose government 
 is wholly adverse to the influence of religious zeal. ^ 
 
 Early in the morning, shortly after the salah il subh, the firing of cannon, 
 and an unusual noise and commotion in the streets, announced the com- 
 mencement of the important day. The whole population of the city appeared 
 to be agitated by the anticipation of some extraordinary event. Groups of 
 men and women, congregating in the squares and public places, or hurrying 
 hither and thither with shouts and clamour, as during the first movements 
 of an insurrection, imparted to the scene an aspect of unusual interest; and 
 a few turbulent spirits, dexterously availing themselves of the eff"ervescence 
 excited among the multitude, might easily have converted the religious 
 assembly into a political tumult. Residing in the Turkish quarter, we 
 enjoyed the advantage of beholding everything tiiat took place. On no 
 occasion had the Caireens ever appeared so full of vivacity. All business 
 
 * Lane. " The Englishman in Egypt," &c.
 
 216 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 was suspended, and the inhabitants, closing their warehouses and their 
 shops, came forth, attired in their holiday costume, to behold or join in the 
 procession. The crowd, dressed in garments of various colours, with 
 
 gay variegated turbans, were all moving towards the citadel whence the 
 sacred covering for the Kaaba, accompanied by the Saint, the pilgrims and 
 the military escorts, was to descend into the city, and be conveyed to the 
 encampment in the desert. Mingling among the multitude, and traversing 
 the city in various directions, we passed through the Birket-el-Fil, and 
 proceeded ultimately to the street leading to tlie Gate of Victory, through 
 which the cavalcade must necessarily pass ; and taking our stand in front of 
 a coffee-house, surrounded by Turks and Arabs, awaited the appearance of 
 the procession. Directly opposite was a mosque, upon tlie projecting galleries 
 of wliich were several ladies of distinction, leaning over the balconies, and 
 looking earnestly in the direction of the citadel. As far as the eye could reach, 
 the streets were occupied by a dense crowd, packed so close together, that the 
 whole space appeared to be paved with turbans. In a short time a Turkish 
 horseman, whose business it was to clear the wav for the pageant, appeared, 
 and was immediately succeeded by a long file of heavily-laden camels, 
 bearing the baggage of the pilgrims. As the animals passed, the ladies, 
 occupying the high Saracenic gallery of tlie mosque, inspired like the 
 Maenades of old by the fervour of devotion, uttered one of those shrill 
 indescribable shrieks of joy peculiar to the ftmales of the East, which pro- 
 bably accompanied the bacchanalian orgies of Osiris. Next succeeded the 
 military escort, horse and infantry, designed to protect the religious adven- 
 turers from the attacks of the Bedouins. The common soldiers, in the 
 ordinary uniform of the Nizam, had a plain appearance ; but the officers.
 
 ANIMATED SCENE. 217 
 
 in their magnificent dresses of green, scarlet, and gold, with their sparkling 
 decorations, shavvl-sashos, and glittering arms, recalled to mind the old 
 barbaric si>]endonr of the East. On this occasion European instruments 
 were judiciously dispensed with ; the band, though scanty, being in the 
 genuine Turkish style, consisting of kettle-drums mounted on camels, and 
 fifes, yielding those loud ear-piercing notes, which alone the Orientals regard 
 as music. Several of tiie drums, formed of copper and parchment, were of 
 immense size, resembling the nakarras of Mewar, with which, in former 
 ages, they used to proclaim from the ancient palace of Oodipoor, the opening 
 of the festival of Bhavani. These were followed by the Sheikhs or Saints 
 of Cairo; and the whole body of pilgrims, many from the most distant 
 Mussulman ])rovinces of Africa, mounted on lofty camels, with green and 
 scarlet housings embroidered with gold, intermingled with numerous 
 fanatical devotees on foot, bearing flags containing mottoes and devices. 
 
 To these succeeded a man in very peculiar costume, on a fine drome- 
 dary, carrying on his lap a cat, the favourite animal of the Prophet, which 
 seemed well pleased with its situation, and, as it moved along, regarded the 
 surrounding multitude with the utmost complacency. This circumstance, 
 tliough trilling in itself, conveys a high idea of the veneration still, in spite 
 of time, entertained by the Mohammedans for the founder of their religion. 
 At lengtli came the Mahmal, or sacred camel, bearing the covering for the 
 Kaaba, suspended on a lofty frame-work, resembling a tent. This was the 
 object of universal veneration ; every individual in the crowd eagerly pressed 
 towards the camel, in the hope of touching it as it passed, while thousands 
 of persons, principally women, thronged the large projecting windows on 
 either side, and letting down from above long shawls or girdles, or the 
 linen of their turbans, upon tlie holy veil, again drew them up, and pressed 
 them with an air of deep devotion on their hearts or foreheads. Meanwhile 
 shouts of joy rent the air, as the Mahiial went shuffling ali)ng, amid crowds 
 of anxious faces, above and below, and waving turbans and dishevelled hair. 
 The commander of the Ilaj, a Turk of rank and distinction, was followed 
 by a camel bearing a small canopy, or howdah, probably indicative of his 
 office, as it appeared too small for use. Numerous jesters or buffoons, the 
 original type of our professed "fools" of Europe, moved on among the 
 saints, making strange grimaces, and uttering studied absurdities for the 
 amusement of the populace. Of these motley personages, some were borne 
 on men's shoulders, others rode upon camels ; while the less distinguished, 
 like the renowned Martinus Scribbcrus, made their own legs their com- 
 passes. Their fantastic dresses and quaint appearance defy description ; 
 but the principal fool wore a capote of sheep-skin, dressed with the wool 
 on, and possessed a prodigious pair of mustachios, at least six or seven 
 inches long, painted of divers colours, and sticking out on either side like 
 leeks. 
 
 When the procession had formed, we followed among the throng, and 
 going out through the Gate of Victory, pursued the track of the pilgrims 
 along the skirts of the extensive cemeteries, where the populace were 
 engaged with their noisy amusements, drums, monkeys, and dancing-girls, 
 whose performances called forth frequent bursts of applause. The more
 
 218 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 ordinary species of ghawazies had taken possession of the ruined tombs, 
 and other oki buildings, where they 
 were at home to visitors of all de- 
 scriptions. At the corner of an 
 old mosque, or large tomb, sat a 
 street-scribe with his elaborate 
 writing apparatus, consisting of a 
 massive inkstand, the long case in 
 which he kept his reed-pens, &c. 
 He was engaged apparently in com- 
 posing a letter, and paid no atten- 
 tion to the crowds that swept past. 
 Ascending the lofty mounds of rub- 
 bish beyond the cemetery, we 
 watched the long line of pilgrims 
 winding its way through tombs 
 and gardens to its station in the 
 desert, where the tents of the 
 Turkish escort had been pitched for 
 several weeks. Of the nvimerous 
 individuals forming this remarkable 
 procession, the greater number, in 
 all probability, would never return ; 
 
 since in these expeditions, many perish on the road from fatigue, or are 
 cut off by the Bedouins ; others fall victims to the deleterious climate of 
 
 A Writing Case. 
 
 Mekka ; while others, embarking in frail, ill-manned vessels, are drowned 
 on their way home in the Red Sea. On all sides small parties of 
 Arabs, dispersed over the sands, some with their wives and children, 
 others with a knot of dancing-girls, were enjoying the delights of idleness, 
 or listening to the marvellous relations of the story-teller. The view com- 
 prehending all the groups, and extending over the whole of Cairo, was 
 strikingly interesting ; but it became more so, when, descending from the 
 hillocks, we mingled among the multitude, pouring like bees along the 
 plain. Most persons appear to advantage on a holiday; for pleasures, at 
 least such as may be enjoyed in the open air, have an irresistible tendency
 
 LAWLESSNESS OF THE BEDOUINS. 210 
 
 to foster habits of benevolence and toleration,— men being exceedingly 
 disposed, when melted by the warnitli of enjoyment, to behold whatever 
 comes before them in glowing and agreeable colours. And this appears 
 particularly to be the case among the Arabs, whose lively excitable natures, 
 receiving with facility the impulses of voluptuousness, have at the same 
 time a proneness to conversation and sociability. At this time the enemies 
 of Mohammed AH, who, among the Turkish part of the population, greatly 
 outnumber his friends, industriously ])r<)])agatcd the report that a dan- 
 gerous rebellion had broken out in the Delta, and the newly-governed 
 province of Syria ; and by these and other means, great political agitation, 
 popular discontent, and the expectation and hope of change, were every- 
 where maintained. The Pasha's authority, which it was hoped would 
 speedily terminate, was every day set at nought. Robbers and murderers, 
 issuing from their hiding-places, imagining that the reign of law was anni- 
 hilated, began openly to exercise their profession, diffusing terror and 
 perturbation through the community. Everything, in short, seemed to 
 indicate the approach of one of those periods of transition in which govern- 
 ments are overthrown, and society shaken to its foundation. Even the 
 sanctity of the pilgrim character was insufficient to protect its possessors. 
 Three hajjis, from Fez, or Morocco, proceeding along the eastern bank of 
 the river towards Cairo, to join the Sacred Caravan, then about to depart 
 for the Hejaz, were by a band of robbers attacked and plundered, and one 
 of their number was killed. Similar atrocities were perpetrated in the 
 very bazaars, close to the capital. At a village in the neighbourhood of 
 Ghizeh, where a cattle-market is weekly held, a peasant having disposed 
 of a number of oxen, was standing beside a camel, the last of his flock, 
 when a Moggrebyn Bedouin accosted him, demanding the price of the 
 beast. The peasant, according to custom, asked double its value, in 
 order to atFord the Bedouin an occasion for exercising his sagacity and tact 
 at bargaining ; and after much debating, the animal was sold for two 
 hundred and fifty piastres. Not long after the fellah, who had remained 
 in the bazaar, saw the Moggrebyn return mounted on horseback, with a 
 spear in his hand, riding hastily towards him ; the insolent marauder 
 exclaimed, " Dog ! and son of a dog ! I will burn your father ! You have 
 sold mo a bad camel, and I must have back my money !" To this uncour- 
 teous salutation the fellah replied, that whatever might be the qualities of 
 the beast — though he maintained it to be an excellent one — the Bedouin 
 had purchased it with his eyes open, and should therefore abide by his 
 bargain. A quarrel now ensuing, tlie peasant, inflamed with anger, drew 
 forth his purse, and shaking it at his enemy, bade him bring back the 
 camel and he was ready to refund the money. This was exactly what 
 the Bedouin had anticipated : stooping suddenly, he snatched the purse 
 out of his hands, and plunging the spear into his heart, rode off into the 
 desert, leaving the body weltering in blood in the midst of the market- 
 place, surrounded by many hundred people, none of whom made the 
 slightest attempt at arresting the murderer. 
 
 Entertaining the design of visiting Mount Sinai, and penetrating by the 
 Gulf of Akaba to the Dead Sea, it was requisite to obtain from the Greek
 
 220 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 Bridge OD Canal, Caiio. 
 
 bishop, residing at Cairo, a letter of recommendation, Avithout which no 
 traveller is admitted into the convent. Repairing tlierefore to the establish- 
 ment, having on the 
 way crossed tlie kalish 
 by an old bridge of one 
 arch, possessed by the 
 Sinai monks in the 
 capital, situated in 
 one of its most ob- 
 scure quarters, and 
 being admitted into 
 the outer court, we 
 inquired for the bishop 
 or principal of the 
 order. A number of 
 Bedouins, and inferior 
 monks of still more 
 sinister aspect, were 
 lounging about the 
 yard ; and one of the latter, in reply to our inquiries, directed us to ascend a 
 narrow flight of stairs, but without offering to lead the way. Having 
 mounted to an upper court, a monk of superior grade presented himself, to 
 whom we explained our business. Instead of inviting us into an ante- 
 chamber, or displaying anything of that politeness affected by men of his 
 caste in Europe, he abruptly entered, carefully closing the door after him, 
 without condescending even to apologise for his unceremonious conduct. 
 The bishop, who probably had not yet risen, v/as a considerable time in 
 preparation ; but at length the monk reappeared, and observing that his 
 superior was now ready to receive us, led the way into a very neat apart- 
 ment, at one end of which was a raised platform, covered with carpets and 
 surrounded by a divan, while the other extremity exhibited the common 
 stone floor. Here an antique book-case, ornamented with dusky carving, 
 displayed the scanty conventual library; old folio editions of the principal 
 fathers of the Greek church, in plain binding, with their titles written on 
 the back on ordinary paper. A few quaint prints of the Virgin and 
 JMount Sinai adorned the walls. In the midst of the apartment stood the 
 bisliop, a handsome, venerable old man, with long white beard, and comely, 
 healthful countenance. He received us very politely, and, conducting us to 
 a seat on the divan, entered at once into a rather animated conversation^ 
 one of his monks serving him as interpreter, and Osman performing the same 
 office for us. Monks, in most countries, are ignorant on all subjects not 
 immediately connected with the temporal interests of the church ; but the 
 knowledge possessed by these poor men was scanty even for monks. To 
 our first inquiry respecting the safety of the road to Mount Sinai they 
 returned a direct and satisfactory answer ; but when we proceeded to 
 demand, whether it would be practicable, with a small escoi't of Bedouins^ 
 to traverse the valleys of Ghor and Araba, they appeared not only to be 
 unacquainted with the nature of the country, but with the very names and
 
 VISIT TO THE MADHOUSE OF CAIRO. 221 
 
 characters of tlie nomadic tribes in tlieir own immediate vicinity. The 
 number of monks in the convents of Sinai and Cairo are about forty-six, 
 equally divided between tlie two establishments. From these topics, which 
 they discussed with evident impatience, as promising not tlie slightest 
 interest for them, tliey made an abrupt transition to their own state, and 
 inquired when they were to be emancipated from the yoke of the Turks ? 
 It was at first difiicult to discern the exact drift of the question ; but in 
 the sequel we found that they desired to know how long the English meant 
 to defer the conquest of Egypt. Had we been Frenchmen, the same 
 question, with a slight variation, would probably have been put to us, it 
 being utterly indifferent to them by what nation they are delivered from 
 the yoke of the Mussulman. This was followed by a modest demand for a 
 considerable sum of money ; not timidly and bashfully made, as if they 
 doubted the propriety or delicacy of the transaction, but with the most 
 confident assurance, scarcely admitting of any denial, like persons who 
 only require what is due to them. Their appearance, however, pre- 
 sented no indication of poverty : the furniture of the apartment was 
 respectable, and in the centre stood two magnificent candelabra. 
 
 From the convent we proceeded to visit the madhouse, forming one of 
 the wings or out-buildings of a spacious mosque, through the principal 
 entrance to which we were conducted into the court where the insane are 
 confined. In all countries a lunatic asylum constitutes a fearful spectacle, 
 shocking to the feelings and humiliating to the pride of humanity. But 
 nowhere perhaps on earth can anything so terrible, so disgusting, be wit- 
 nessed, as the madhouse of Cairo, where, as may certainly be inferred from the 
 ferocious aspect of the keepers, and the appearance of the victims, lacerated 
 and covered with wounds, scenes of suffering and cruelty cannot elsewhere 
 be exhibited out of hell. In the centre of the court is a square pool, 
 sometimes dignified with the name of a fountain ; but which, in smell and 
 appearance, rather resembles a common sewer. The atmosphere, impreg- 
 nated by its infernal exhalations, is consequently more offensive and corrupt 
 than that of a dissecting-room in July ; and the walls and pavement are 
 covered with a green ropy matter, and most dismal hue, which prepares 
 the mind for the horrors to be witnessed in the cells. In the face of the 
 dingy wall, surrounding the court, are a number of square iron-grated holes, 
 which would appear to lead to so many old neglected dens of wild beasts, 
 but that within each, closely pressed perhaps against the rusty gratings, 
 a human being is beheld, generally stark naked. From the heavy iron 
 collar encircling his neck is suspended a massive chain, which, issuing 
 through the grating, and running like a festoon along the wall to the mouth 
 of the neighbouring den, connects him with his next companion in madness ; 
 so that when one retires into the cell, the other at the opposite end of the 
 chain is necessarily dragged forward in proportion. In the first cell, com- 
 mencing on the right, was a young Arab, sunk in a lethargy from which 
 nothing could rouse him. He turned his eyes after us as we passed, other- 
 wise he might have been taken for a statue. The next was an Arnaout 
 soldier, who, becoming mad in Candia, had been sent thither by IMohammed 
 Ali, to spend the remainder of his life in chains. He sat cross-logged close
 
 222 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 to the gratings, perfectly naked, with his arms crossed upon his breast, 
 and his eyes closed as if in a dream. Being roused and called upon by 
 name, he slowly opened his eyes, while one of the bystanders presented 
 him with a flower, which he smelled and appeared to regard with interest, 
 smiling when addressed, but uttering not a word ; and when we quitted 
 him, he again relapsed into his dreamy state. The individual occupying 
 the neighbouring cell, lying in a corner, rolled up in a blanket and mat, 
 lifted up his head when called upon, stared wildly at the spectators, and 
 tlien covering himself, again refused to come forth. Seated by the next 
 grating was a youth, about eighteen years old, who, having been forced 
 away from his village, and carried as a conscript to the army, had grown 
 mad with the thoughts of home, but by proper treatment might probably 
 have recovered. Beyond this young man was a lively prating Ai'ab, who 
 related with singular fluency the history of his imprisonment, caused, he 
 assured us, by his sister, who, having led him away from his village, had 
 afterwards entrapped him into this place. To him succeeded another Arab, 
 wanton as a satyr, equally talkative, and equally mad. But it is impossible 
 to describe, one by one, all the dwellers in this prison-house. The most 
 fearful examples of 
 
 " Moody madness, laughing ■wild 
 Amid severest wot;" — 
 
 was a Caireen, of respectable family, covered with boils and scars — gaunt, 
 emaciated, and consumed by the fever which had destroyed his intellect. 
 His burning eyeballs, blood-shot, and ready to start from their sockets, 
 were rolling wildly, as he exhibited, in the most shocking manner, the loath- 
 someness of his disorder. Close to this man was a religious fanatic, who, 
 discovering us to be Franks, was lavish in those terms of abuse, which 
 none but a madman could now utter with impunity in Egypt. Among 
 these lunatics, there was one individual who, having, as he himself related, 
 been guilty of a crime of unspeakable enormity, had been therefore suspected 
 of insanity, and confined in this dismal place, where he was employed in 
 manufacturing hooks-and-eyes : and except that he spoke laughingly of his 
 demoniacal flagitiousness, exhibited no signs of madness. Perhaps, when 
 apprehended, and in danger of condign punishment, he had commenced the 
 appearance of lunacy, to save his forfeit life. The old Arab keeper, who 
 showed us round the building, having been rendered, by long habit, utterly 
 insensible to the misery he witnessed, lauglied heartily at their wild 
 incoherent babbling, which to him was merely matter of amusement. 
 How the wretched creatures are fed and treated, I know not. The estab- 
 lishment is sometimes visited by medical men ; but the mere appearance 
 and economy of the place are a blot on the character of Moliammed Ali, 
 and prove him to be utterly destitute of the ordinary feelings of humanity. 
 His lions and elephants in the citadel are better housed. 
 
 In the adjoining hospital, the arrangements are somewhat superior ; 
 though it may still be doubted whether it be a nuisance or a benefit to 
 the public : the rooms open in front, and closed at night with a mat, extend- 
 ing round a filthy court, and being furnished each with a stream of water
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE BAZAARS. 
 
 223 
 
 stinking like a puddle. A few miserable wooden bedsteads stand in the 
 middle of the apartments, which appeared to contain no other convenience. 
 All the patients, several of whom lay stretched, perhaps in malignant 
 fevers, on their shattered couches, exhibited a squalid, filthy, appearance, 
 causing us to shudder as we passed. The apartments of the governor we 
 did not visit. 
 
 From these horrid spectacles, which hari'ow up and sadden the mind, 
 we proceeded to the bazaars which were, some of them, of great extent 
 and magnificence.* The Turkish shopkeeper uses little art to induce 
 purchasers ; sitting in solemn silence, scarcely deeming it worth while to 
 remove the pipe when you wish to see or know the price of anything. 
 But towards each other, or to those Franks whom they know, or who are 
 habited in eastern costume, they are exceedingly courteous, and provide a 
 pipe and coffee during the negotiation. They are sure to ask a Frank, but 
 especially an Englishman, more than five times the value of any article, 
 and will invariably sell cheaper to a Mohammedan. 
 
 The bazaar, however, which deserves the most especial attention, is the 
 one situated near the slave-market. It has four entrances from different 
 quarters of the city. Some of the magazines in this khan were devoted 
 entirely to the toilet of the Osmanli lords of the creation, where they could 
 fit themselves out, from the embroidered shirt to the cashmere girdle. 
 Others displayed to the wondering gaze all the paraphernalia requisite for 
 the beauties of the eastern harem, not only the exquisite satin jackets, 
 embossed with flowers, the shirt of silk gauze, and trousers of many colours, 
 
 Shawl Weaver. 
 
 but the crystal vase, and golden bodkin, the one to hold, and the other 
 with which to apply the khol, that enhances the lustre of the brightest 
 eyes in the world. Then there were tiny looking-glasses set in mother-of- 
 pearl, gold, or gems, and a thousand other trinkets ; the little embroidered 
 
 * Wilde.
 
 224 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 slippers, and the flat rice-spoons, studded with jewels, and composed of 
 ivory or tortoiseshell. Some of the costumes I looked over were magni- 
 ficent, and composed of the richest materials, often of cloth of gold. 
 
 ' I 'hihi H — ,- 
 
 Embroidered handkerchiefs were in abundance ; they are used both in the 
 bath and at dinner ; they are generally white, worked in gold, and very 
 costly. Near the place where these were exposed for sale, we saw a shawl- 
 weaver plying his trade. Many of the shops were devoted to jewellery, 
 others to pipes and hookahs ; the latter were generally of the most splendid 
 description, and the display of crystal vases was quite dazzling. In 
 fact, this bazaar was a union of the Howell and James, and Maradan 
 Casson of Cairo, and must have ruined many an Egyptian and Turkish 
 belle, who has trusted herself within its glittering and tempting pre- 
 cincts. We next visited the Shoe Bazzar, close by. Here hundreds of 
 workmen were employed in fabricating the yellow slippers, boots, and 
 shoes, so universally worn at Cairo, and for which there appears an 
 immense demand. 
 
 Thence we proceeded to the Hair-oil Bazaar. It seems an extraordinary 
 name, but it is a very veracious one, for nothing is sold here but scents, 
 oils, and gold-lace, for the hair. We dismounted at the entrance ; for the 
 path between the shops is only just wide enough for one person to walk ; 
 and where it is necessary to pass another, the squeezing is quite ridiculous. 
 Yet I should think it is full half a mile long, and is covered in. I came 
 with the intention of making some purchases, as my stock of the commodity 
 was almost exhausted ; but somehow or another, although I tried at every 
 shop, I could not satisfy my fastidious fancy. It is true, every variety of 
 perfume was offered to my notice, and many were very delicious, yet still 
 they were so unlike anything I had smelt before, and, above all, so un-English,
 
 LOCK-MAKERS AND TURNERS. 
 
 225 
 
 tliat visions of grey, or at least bumt-tiphnir,* flitted before my imagination, 
 and I was afraid of choosing, notvvithstanding the many fair young forms 
 who were busy around me, fearlessly making their selections. 
 
 But to return to the bazaars. It may easily be conceived that aromatic 
 odour was almost overpowering, when I say that every other shop 
 was devoted to hundreds of scented bottles, and the intervening ones to 
 exquisite ])erfumed head-dresses, consisting of braids of riband and gold- 
 lace, which, when worn, reach to the ground. On each divan sat one or 
 more ]\[uslim coiffeurs^ whose profession was stam])ed on their delicately- 
 turned moustache, and glossy silken beards. 
 
 AVe next paid a visit to tlie locksmith's department, if I may use the 
 term, though the locks were of wood ; afterwards we passed on to a ware- 
 house, where the small Turkish tables are sold. Some of them are beauti- 
 fully inlaid with gold, silver, and mother-of-pearl. The shape is exceed- 
 ingly elegant, usually an octagon. They are about a foot and a half high, 
 and only large enough to hold one dish ; the small prayer-carpets, used by 
 the Muslims ; and other commodities. Public auctions are held there 
 twice a week, on Monday and Thursday, on which occasion the khan is so 
 crowded, that it requires some patience and physical power to force a way 
 through. The auctioneer having a shawl, a gun, a turban, or any other 
 
 Wooden-Lock M.ikoi', 
 
 object fit for sale, stands up in the bazaar and inquires who will bid first. 
 Some person says, "One piastre;" another, "Two;" while the seller, 
 holding up the article, walks to and fro, proclaiming the highest sum 
 oftered, until he is satisfied with the price. 
 
 The sale begins early in the morning, and lasts till the noon-day prayers. 
 Clothes, old as well as new, shawls, and pipes, elegantly turned articles, 
 
 * Mrs. Griffith.
 
 226 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 and a variety of other goods, are offered in this manner, by brokers who 
 carry them up and down the market. Several water carriers, each with a 
 croat-skin of water on his back, and a brass cup, for the use of any one 
 who would drink, attend on these occasions. Sherbets of raisins, and bread 
 in round flat cakes, with other eatables, are also cried up and down the 
 market ; and, on every auction day, several real or pretended idiots, with a 
 distressing number of other beggars, frequent the klian. 
 
 One of the itinerant chapmen was a bookseller, whose stock consisted of 
 certain manuscript copies of the Khoran, enclosed in beautiful cases of 
 embroidered silk, or cloth of gold. On my expressing a desire to purchase 
 one of the volumes, he drew the Khoran out of the case, and, thrusting the 
 manuscript into his bosom, presented me witli the envelope, steadily 
 refusing, even for the love of gain, to place the holy volume in the hands 
 of a Christian. Indeed, he would not allow me even to look at it. The 
 different parts of the bazaar are divided from each other by heavy iron chains 
 suspended across the passages, about three feet and a half from the ground, 
 beneath which it is necessary to stoop. Here the thronging and pressing 
 are commonly so great, particularly among the women, who constitute the 
 principal population of the bazaars, that many a lady of rank must fre- 
 quently, I apprehend, lose her slippers in the crowd. The appearance of the 
 shops, when viewed sepai'ately, is far from splendid, no one merchant 
 making any extraordinary disjilay of wealth, or imagining that a profusion 
 of mirrors, or costly gilding, could, in the eyes of his customers, enhance 
 the value of his merchandise : and the general aspect of the bazaar is 
 highly picturesque and striking, from the extraordinary mingling of races, 
 complexions and costumes exhibited, where the half-naked negro, the 
 tattered Arab, the Turk with flowing drapery and majestic beard, and the 
 Greek in his gorgeous and glittering dress, are beheld moving among crowds 
 of ladies, whose black caftans or mantles, open in front, disclose their pink 
 silk garments, and the rich and brilliant shawls encircling their waists. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Egyptian Saints. — Visit to the Harem. 
 
 Locke, discoursing on notions of modesty, in his book on " Innate Ideas," 
 adduces, as an argument against the yjopular opinion, the example of 
 the Mohammedan Santons of Egypt, seen by Baumgarten sitting naked 
 among the sands. Whatever our judgment respecting the philosophical 
 theory may be, the example is still exhibited daily at Cairo. On the very 
 evening of my arrival, I saw, jostling through crowds of men and women, a 
 Santon, wholly naked, except that a piece of ragged blanketing was thrown 
 over his shoulders. Covered with filth, squalid, haggard, emaciated, with 
 eyes flashing forth the fire of insanity, he had in all respects the look of a 
 wild beast. No doubt many vagabonds adopt, through mere sloth, this 
 easy mode of living ; but when the Pasha shall set himself about the civil-
 
 CHARACTER OF THE SANTO NS. 227 
 
 isation of Egypt, he must begin by sending the whole of this race to the 
 madhouse or the gaUeys, together with tliat still more nefarious crew, with 
 perfumed tresses and effeniinate costume, who now offend the eye, and 
 disgrace, in the streets of Cairo, the very name of man. 
 
 With regard to the Santons, or Saints, it may bo observed, however, that 
 all by no means deserve to be confounded together in one category. Several 
 of the individuals known under that ap])ellation are not only harmless but 
 extremely pious persons, who do much good during their lives, and at their 
 deaths bequeath the legacy of a worthy example to the world. Such as 
 practise extra(jrdinary austerities may be compared with the Yoghis of 
 Hindostan ; though there are, I believe, no well-authenticated instances on 
 record of persons who have inflicted on themselves anything like the a,mount 
 of self-torture which the Hindoo ascetics cheerfully undergo. It is said that 
 there still lives at Cairo a saint, who, during thirty years, has been chained 
 to the wall of his chamber with an iron collar about his neck. But it is 
 also added, that, from time to time, a blanket is thrown over him, and that 
 when this is removed he is nowhere to be seen. We may, without much 
 want of charity, presume, that this takes place when the devotee is tired 
 of his chain, from which he possesses the means of delivering himself when 
 he thinks proper, together with a trap-door or sliding-panel, in the floor 
 or wall, by which to effect his escape. Be this as it may, no people in the 
 Mohammedan world believe so devoutly in the miraculous powers of saints 
 as the Egyptians. In fact, whatever religion the people of that country 
 have professed, they have connected it with a greater amount of supersti- 
 tion than any other believers in the same creed. An idiot or a fool is 
 vulgarly regarded by them as a being whose mind is in heaven, while his 
 grosser part mingles among ordinary mortals. Whatever enormities a 
 reputed saint may commit, such acts do not affect his fame for sanctity, for 
 they are considered to flow from his soul, or reasoning faculties, being wholly 
 absorbed in devotion, so that his passions are left without control. Some 
 of these saints go about, as we have said, perfectly naked, and are so highly 
 venerated, that the women, instead of avoiding them, sometimes suffer 
 these wretches to take any liberty with them in a public street, and, by 
 the lower orders, are not considered as disgraced by such actions, which, 
 howevei', are of very rare occurrence. Leo Africanus relates, that walking 
 one day by the door of a public bath, in the market-place of Bam-Elcar- 
 sarm, he observed a lady of distinction, and remarkable for her beauty, 
 come out into the street, which she had no sooner done than she was 
 seized and insulted before the whole market by one of those naked saints, 
 who are so numerous in Egypt and the otlier parts of Africa. The 
 magistrates of the city, who felt that their own wives might next be exposed 
 to equal shame, were desirous of inflicting condign punishment upon the 
 wretch, but were deterred by fear of the populace, who held such audacious 
 impostors in veneration. On her way home after tliis scene, the woman 
 was followed by an immense multitude, who contended with each other for 
 the honour of touching her clothes, as if some peculiar virtue had been com- 
 municated to them by the touch of the saint ; and even her husband, when 
 informed of what had happened, expressed the greatest joy j and thanking
 
 228 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 God, as if an extraordinary blessing had been conferred upon his family, 
 made a great entertainment, and distributed alms to the poor, who were 
 then taught to look upon such events as highly fortunate. 
 
 Some of the saints are seen clad in a cloak, or long coat, composed of patches 
 of various-coloured cloths, adorned with numerous i<trings of beads, wearing a 
 ragged turban, and bearing a staff with shreds of cloth of various colours 
 attached to the top. The Egyptian Moslems, in common with those of 
 other countries, entertain very curious superstitions respecting the persons 
 whom they call Welis, or Saints. In the first place, if a person seems to 
 express a doubt as to the existence of these Welis, he would be branded 
 with infidelity ; and the following passage of the Koran would be adduced 
 to condemn him : " Are not the favourites of God those upon whom no fear 
 shall come, and who shall not be grieved ? " This is considered as suf- 
 ficient to prove that there is a class of persons distinguished above ordinary 
 human beings. The question then suggests itself : " Who, or of what 
 description, are these persons ? " and we are answered, " They are 
 persons wholly devoted to God, and possessed of extraordinary faith ; 
 and, according to their degree of faith, endowed with the powers of per- 
 forming miracles." 
 
 The most holy of the Welis is termed the Kooteb, who, it is said, is often 
 seen, but not known as such ; and the same is believed of all who hold 
 authority under him. He always has a meek demeanour and mean dress ; 
 and mildly reproves those whom he finds acting impiously. Though he is 
 unknown to the world, his favourite stations are well known ; yet at these 
 places he is seldom visible. It is asserted, that he is almost constantly 
 seated at Mecca, on the roof of the Kaaba ; and, though never seen there, 
 is always heard at midnight to call thrice, " O thou most merciful of those 
 who show mercy ! " which is then repeated from the madnehs of the 
 temple by the mueddins. Another favourite station of this revered and 
 unknown personage is the gate of Cairo, called Bab-Zuwayleh, one leaf of 
 whose great wooden door, which is never sliut, turned back against the 
 eastern side of the interior of the gateway, conceals a small vacant space, 
 said to be the place of tlie Eooteb. iMany persons on passing by it read 
 a prayer ; and some give alms to a beggar who is generally seated there, 
 and who is regarded by the vulgar as one of the servants of the Kooteb. 
 Numbers of persons afflicted witli headache drive a nail into the door, to 
 charm away the pain ; and many sufferers from the toothache extract a 
 tooth, and insert it in a crevice of the door, or fix it in some other way, to 
 insure their not being attacked again by the same malady. Some curious 
 individuals often try to peep behind, in the vain hope of catching a glimpse 
 of the Kooteb. He has many other stations, but of inferior celebrity, in 
 Cairo, as well as one at the tomb of the Seyd Ahmad El-Bedawie, at 
 Tanta, and elsewhere. He is belitved to transport himself from 
 ]\Iekka to Cairo in an instant ; and so also from any one place to another. 
 Though he has a number of favourite stations, he dees not abide solely 
 at these, but wanders throughout the wiiole world, among persons of 
 every religion, whose appearance, dress, and language he assumes ; and 
 distributes to mankind, chiefly through the agency of the subordinate
 
 STORY OF AVELT. 229 
 
 Welis, acts and blessings, the awards of destiny. When a Kooteb dies, he 
 is immediately succeeded in liis oilioe by another. Certain Welis are said 
 to be commissioned by the Kooteb to perform certain offices, which are far 
 from being easy. In illustration of their employments, the following anec- 
 dote is related : — A devout tradesman in Cairo, who was ardently desirous 
 of becoming a Weli, applied to a person who was generally believed to 
 belong" to this holy class, imploring to be assisted in obtaining the honour 
 of an interview with the Kooteb. The applicant, after having undergone 
 a strict examination as to his motives, was desired to perform the ordinary 
 ablution very early the next morning, then to rcjKair to the Mosque of EI- 
 Moo-eyad, and to lay hold of the first person wliom he should see coming 
 out of the great door of the mosque. lie did so. The first person who 
 came out was an old venerable-looking man, but meanly clad, wearing a 
 brown woollen gown ; and this proved to be the Kooteb. The candidate 
 kissed his iiand, and intreated to be admitted among the Ashab-ed-Darak, 
 or " Datchmn." After much hesitation the prayer was granted ; the 
 Kooteb said, " Take charge of the district which consists of the Durb-el- 
 Ahmar and its immediate neighbourhood : " and immediately the person 
 thus addressed found himself to be a Weli, and perceived that he was 
 acquainted with things concealed from ordinary mortals : for a Weli is said 
 to be acquainted by God with all secrets necessary for him to know. This 
 Weli accordingly, as soon as he had entered upon his office, walked through 
 his disti'ict ; and seeing a man at a shop, with a jar full of boiled beans 
 before him, from which he was about to serve his customers as usual, took 
 up a large piece of stone, and with it broke the jar. The bean-seller 
 immediately jumped up, seized hold of a palm-stick that lay by his side, 
 and gave the Weli a severe beating : but the holy man complained not, 
 nor did he utter a cry : as soon as he was allowed, he walked away. When 
 he was gone, the bean-seller began to try if he could not gather up some of 
 the scattered contents of the jar. A portion of the jar remained in its 
 place ; and on looking into this, he saw a venomous serpent in it, coiled 
 round, and dead. In hoiTor at what he had done, he exclaimed, "There 
 is no strength nor power but in God ! I implore forgiveness of God, the 
 Great ! What have I done ! This man is a Weli ; and has prevented my 
 selling what would have poisoned my customers." He looked at every 
 passenger all that day, in the hope of seeing again the saint whom he had 
 thus injured, that he might implore his forgiveness, but he saw him not ; 
 for he was too much bruised to be able to walk. On the following day, 
 however, with his limbs still swollen from the blows he had received, the 
 Weli limped through his district, and broke a great jar of milk at a shop 
 not far from that of the bean-seller, and its owner treated him as the 
 bean-seller had done the day before; but, while he was beating him, some 
 persons ran up and stopped his hand, informing him that the person whom 
 be was thus punishing was a Weli, and relating to him the afifair of the 
 serpent that was found in the jar of beans. " Go and look," said they, 
 " in your jar of milk, and you will find at the bottom of it something 
 either poisonous or imclean." lie looked, and found, in the remains 
 of the jar, a dead dog. On the third day, the Weli, with the help
 
 230 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 of a staflf, hobbled painfully up the Durb-el-Ahmar, and saw a servant 
 carrying upon his head a supper-tray, covered with dishes of meat, 
 vegetables, and fruit, for a party who were going to take a repast in the 
 country. He put his staff between the servant's legs and overthi-ew him, 
 and the contents of the dishes were scattered in the street. With a 
 mouthful of curses, the servant immediately began to give the saint as 
 severe a thrashing as he himself expected to receive from his disap"p()inted 
 master for this accident ; but several persons soon collected around him, 
 and one of these bystanders observed a dog eat part of the contents of 
 one of the dishes, and, a moment after, fall down dead : he instantly 
 seized the hand of the servant, and informed him of the circumstance, which 
 proved that the man whom he had been beating was a Weli. Every 
 apology was made to the injured saint, with many prayers for his forgive- 
 ness ; but he was so disgusted with his new office, that he implored God 
 and the Kooteb to release him from it ; and, in answer to his solicitations, 
 his supernatual powers were withdrawn ; and he returned to his shop more 
 contented than before.* 
 
 The breast of the common swallow in Egypt, as Sir Frederick Henniker 
 has already observed, is quite red, and nut white, as with us. Does this 
 breed form a peculiar species not migratory? Denon found in this country 
 a kind of swallow of a grey colour, which was not, he conjectured, a bird 
 of passage ; though, even so far back as the time of Anacreon, the swallow 
 was supposed to forsake Greece with the summer, to spend the cold months 
 about Memphis and the Nile. Yet the winter nights, as most travellers 
 have observed, are exceedingly cold in Lower Egypt ; and indeed, when 
 you reflect upon the great heat of the days, the keenness of the air, all the 
 while that the sun is below the horizon, is almost incredible. On the first 
 of December, the sun w^as as hot as in July in Burgundy : towards evening 
 a cloak was quite necessary, as was also an additional covering on the bed 
 at nio-ht. Everywhere in the shade it is cold even by day ; and there is a 
 strong breeze constantly stirring, which increases the sharpness of the 
 atmosphere, and renders it, even in the sunshine, prudent to go warmly 
 clothed. To the neglect of this precaution may be attributed many of those 
 dangerous attacks of fever and dysentery experienced by travellers in 
 Egypt. In building their cities, the Orientals generally, but particularly 
 the Egyptians, have been greatly influenced by the above peculiarity in 
 their climate. Their streets are winding and narrow, as in such countries 
 they must be, to render the cities habitable ; for by this contrivance they 
 are protected by night from the extreme cold, and from the intolerable heat 
 by day. For the same reason it is an advantage that the houses are lofty, 
 and almost meet at the top. "We observe, moreover, that in the bazaars and 
 streets of business, where the inhabitants chiefly assemble, mats are extended 
 from house to house, wholly to exclude the sun, which in summer is not to 
 be endured from eight o'clock in the morning until five in the afternoon. 
 By these means, however, there is always, in the streets of Cairo, a fine 
 cool air stirring ; and when you enter its gates from the desert, where 
 
 * Lano.
 
 PALACE OF AHMED PASIIA. 
 
 231 
 
 the wind is sometimes like tlic blast of a furnace, your whole frame is 
 instantaneously refreshed, and you bless the architect who invented narrow 
 streets. 
 
 Among the curiosities of Cairo, I had often heard enumerated the palace 
 of Ahmed Pasha, which had recently been erected, and had the reputation 
 of beinw tlic handsomest buildino; in Cairo. From all that I have seen, it 
 appears well worthy of its renown. It consists of two stories, in each of 
 which there is a vast hall, in the shape of a Greek cross ; and in the corner, 
 which, in a square building, are created by this arrangement, the other 
 apartments are situated. These rooms are all fitted up in an eminently 
 striking and gorgeous style : the ceilings are covered with gilded arabesques, 
 the walls and cornices with paintings ; and the principal apartments are 
 adorned vvitli clustered columns, surmounted by gilded capitals, with elegant 
 niches or recesses, and furnished with the most superb divans of crimson 
 velvet, skirted with gold fringe a foot deep. In the harem, the divans, 
 cushions, &c., are of light flowered satin, with gold borders of great depth. 
 The sleeping apartments of the women, — which, the ladies being in the old 
 palace, we were allowed to visit, — were exceedingly light and airy, and 
 furnished with handsome glass windows. The furnishing, the lock fast- 
 enings, &c., however, were of inferior workmanship. In one of the great 
 halls we saw two beautiful fountains ; tlie one, fashioned in the wall, 
 descending like a series of shells, 
 sculptured in marble, and increas- 
 ing in size from the top downwards, 
 poured its sparkling waters into 
 two serpentine channels, cut in the 
 marble pavement, and containing 
 the figures of various species of 
 fish, which communicated with the 
 second fountain. This, however, 
 was merely a large marble basin, 
 sunk in the floor, with a column of 
 water risino; and falling in its centre. 
 As it was not permitted me to 
 view the harem peopled by its fair 
 inmates, I shall borrow from a 
 female traveller her description of 
 a visit to an establishment similar 
 to that of Ahmed Pasha, though 
 on an inferior and much smaller 
 scale. The lady was indebted for 
 her introduction to a French woman, 
 
 who supplied the harem with trinkets, " Half an hour's ride brought 
 us," says she,* " to the Turkish quarters of the city, the most open 
 and handsome in Cairo ; for here the court-yards are large, and some 
 
 * Mrs. Postans. See her lively and interesting work entitled " Facts and Fictions;" of 
 which the most valuable part is that which relates to India, and the manners and custoais_of its 
 inhabitants. 
 
 Caireen Lady.
 
 232 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 of tliem have trees, witli a few rays of sunslunc flickering among tLe 
 higher branches. At one of the largest of these courts we stopped, and, 
 dismounting from our donkeys, walked forward to a spacious doorway, 
 shaded with a heavy curtain of green cloth, covered with red embroidery. 
 This being lifted by a female slave richly dressed, and a eunuch, we found 
 ourselves at the foot of a handsome flight of marble stairs, covered with 
 fine matting, and decorated with numerous pairs of small shppers of red 
 and yellow morocco, the soles of the same material as the upper leather, 
 soft, and without stiffening. Here my conductress divested herself of her 
 out-of-door shroudings, and we ascended to a spacious hall, matted in a 
 similar way, and hung with handsome chandeliers. About this hall a 
 number of slave-girls were standing, all JMussulmans, gaily and hand- 
 somely dressed, and wearing great quantities of gold, silver, and coloured 
 ornaments. "We were next shown into an apartment of splendid dimen- 
 sions, the floor tesselated marble, and the arabesque ornaments of the 
 window-frames relieved by rich painted glass; the walls are elegantly 
 stencilled with very beautiful devices in French taste, and a raised divan 
 surrounded the room, of pale blue satin, richly embroidered with gold 
 flowers. In addition to this, small cushions and pillows were placed at the 
 upper end of the apartment, of various colours, but similarly embroidered, 
 some of pale green, others of blue and rose satin. 
 
 " After a short time passed in admiring the good taste and splendonr 
 of this Turkish room, the three young wives of Sami Pasha appeared, two 
 of them hand in hand, the first wife and the last ; the second walked alone, 
 a little behind the others ; she might feel aggrieved, and fancy the last 
 importation of beauty more aff'ected her interests and influence than they 
 did those of the earlier bride. Having greeted me courteously, all sat down 
 on the divans, and I had an opportunity to admire them at leisure. They 
 appeared to be about the same age, probably fifteen ; their faces were 
 round, fat, and particularly fair, but the countenances of two were totally 
 devoid of all expression; while the third, the last beloved, had a shrewish 
 look, that augured ill, I thought, for the peace of the fourth bride, whenever 
 it might please the Pasha to complete his conjugal establishment. The 
 dress and decorations of the ladies varied in colours only ; in richness, 
 material, and style, they were precisely alike ; and strange and grotesque 
 enough they looked, as may be supposed from a description. Faces, 
 naturally pretty, were rendered laughable by misapplied care to make them 
 more beautiful ; the fine dark eye-brow was painted in a brown arch of light 
 sienna, extending from the temple to the centre of the nose; a large arch, 
 like a black wafer, was stained on the lower part of the forehead, and the 
 cheeks were highly rouged, until they emulated the inner leaves of a full- 
 blown rose. This combination of pink, black and white, gave a most 
 Grimaldi-like appearance to the faces of my pretty friends, and its singu- 
 larity was increased rather than diminished, 1»y their head-dresses. These 
 consisted of a small tarbouche or red cap, with a depending purple tassel, 
 around which was wound a rich handkerchief, the whole worn very far 
 back upon the head, with plaits of hair folded over it. On this handker- 
 chief were clasped, on either temple, superb sprays of diamonds, cut and set
 
 INTERIOR OF THE HAREM. 233 
 
 in the English style, sparkling with great brilliancy, and of enormous 
 value ; but the effect of these was spoilt by the centre ornament, which 
 consisted of a tuft of short hair, curling upwards, and mixed with a bunch 
 of common paper artificial flowers, placed so as to stand upright from the 
 centre of the brow. The costume consisted of a figured satin boddice, of 
 the Levantine form, with full trousers, and a sort of pelisse worn over them, 
 terminating in a train, which, as the ladies walked, were supported by 
 little- slave-boys ; a fine Cashmere shawl, wound lightly round the waist, 
 completed the costume. The matex'ials of these dresses were of the richest 
 description, — French satins, figured with gold and silver, or brocades of the 
 most exquisite colours and fabric ; and among them I recognised many of 
 the beautiful articles I had admired in the Turkish dress-bazaars of 
 El Khaleda, particularly the Constantinopolitan embroideries of coloured 
 silk on fine white muslins, and the handkerchiefs and napkins worked and 
 fringed witii gold. In the whole attire of these Turkish girls, there was 
 nothing barbaric ; the fabric and jewels were all of European fashion, and 
 very beautiful. All that a critic could have objected to, was the free use of 
 disfiguring cosmetics, and in one or two cases, in consequence of the season, 
 the adoption of a finely-embroidered cloth jacket, worn over the Levantine 
 boddice, and looking very much as if it had been borrowed from the ward- 
 robe of the Pasha. 
 
 " After a short time had elapsed, a fourth lady entered similarly attired, 
 but considerably older than the rest ; she was still handsome, however, 
 and the rouge, which disfigured the youthful faces, tended certainly to 
 render hers more agreeable. This lady was followed by a troop of Circas- 
 sian slave-girls, and on her approach the young wives of the Pasha arose, 
 and put the hem of her robes to their lips. My conductress whispered me 
 that she was the mother of their husband, and, consequently, chief in the 
 harem. I thought there was something peculiarly pleasing in the manner 
 of this ladv, and fancied that, if the Pasha resembled her, his young wives 
 might justly feel a little jealous of his affections ; but, fortunately, such 
 things are unknown among Moslem ladies, and when any dislike is taken 
 to a slave who may be a chance favourite, the husband obligingly removes 
 her from the harem ; but even an objection of this kind, I am told, is very 
 rare. On the contrary, the ladies and attendants generally well understand 
 their position ; and should the husband unduly interfere, or attempt in any 
 way to reduce expenses, or infringe the rules of courtesy and custom, the 
 harem makes common cause against him ; and, it is said, solemn and 
 dignified as the Turk looks abroad, he wears a more subdued aspect under 
 the attack of female tongues, which sometimes greets the poor man in 
 domestic life. Only imagine four wives, and fifty slave-girls, clamorous 
 against some real or fancied outrage or privation, and then say if the Turk, 
 with all his pipes, coffee, and prospective houries, is a happier man than 
 he who hath but to endure the single- wived reproaches of the shrew whom 
 ill-fortune may have given to his bosom. 
 
 " After chatting for a short time through the medium of my conductress, 
 who spoke Turkish fluently, three Circassian girls entered, dressed in a 
 costume similar to that of their mistresses, and, excepting the jewels, in 
 
 X 2
 
 234 EGYPT AND NUBIA.' 
 
 fabrics of nearly equal richness. On coming into tlie apartment, they stood 
 with folded arms a little on one side, and were followed by three black slaves, 
 two bearing silver salvers, covered with gold-embroidered napkins, and the 
 third having a jewelled censer, from which rare perfumes were scattered 
 round the apartment. At a signal from the lady mother, the slaves bear- 
 ing the salvers advanced to me, and, removing the napkins, one appeared 
 with richly- cut tumblers, filled with artificially-cooled water of the most 
 perfect clearness, and the other supported vases of sweetmeats, consisting of 
 cakes made of honey and fruits, with small gold spoons and saucers. After 
 this refreshment, the slaves again took their places on either side of the door, 
 and two more entered, bearing coffee in a similar way, the little China cups 
 being held in outer cases of filigree silver-work. The coffee is never 
 handed on the tray, but gracefully presented by the attendant, holding the 
 little stand between tlie thumb and finger of the right hand.* To receive 
 our cups, of the contents of which we drank about two-thirds, another 
 slave approached, witli a large white embroidered kerchief, ostensibly for 
 the purpose of wiping the mouth ; but any lady would be thought quite a 
 novice who did more than touch it with her lips. Immediately after coffee, 
 Circassian slaves brought to each lady a chibouk twisted witli gold and 
 silver, with silver bowls and amber mouth-pieces ; which they smoked, 
 terrible as the custom may seem to our English notions, in a very lady-like 
 pretty way, gracefully reclining on their cushions, while the slave-girls, 
 with grave countenances and folded arms, stood respectfully before them. 
 There was tome something peculiarly disagreeable about these Circassians; 
 they were tall, much taller than the Turkish ladies, with fine figures, bril- 
 liantly fair complexions, highly rouged, and eyes and hair intensely black : 
 handsome, therefore, particularly handsome ; and yet the style of beauty 
 had that Gulnare-like expression, which led one rather to tremble than 
 admire. There was neither softness nor feeling in the gaze of these fair 
 Odalisques, but the expression was altogether fierce, stern, and betraying 
 a capability for any but gentle deeds. As I glanced fr-om the round, soft, 
 baby-like faces of the Turkish mistresses, to the haughty, imperious coun- 
 tenances of the Circassian slaves, and thought of them as spies over the 
 wives and favourites of the master, I pitied the poor girls more for their 
 companionship than for all that Turkish despotism might do : it seemed 
 like the union of the sparrow with the hawk ; and quite sure am I, that 
 the mistress in a Turkish harem often trembles at the power of the slave." 
 
 We must not, however, generalize too hastily. The interior of other 
 families presents an extremely different picture, where mistress and slave 
 exhibit much the same character, both swayed by the same influences of 
 climate and position. Describing the ladies of a different harem, another 
 female traveller observes, " They were nearly all natives of Syria, Circassia, 
 and Georgia, and I thus had leisure to survey those beauties who enjoy so 
 much celebrity. They undoubtedly merit their reputation ; I can, how- 
 ever, tell my fair countrywomen, to comfort them, and to do justice to 
 ti-uth, that Europe certainly can boast of beauties equal to those of the East. 
 
 * Mrs. Pool.
 
 CHARACTERS OP THE LADIES AND THEIR SLAVES. 
 
 235 
 
 Those whom I had now the pleasure of seeing, had tlie most amiable coun- 
 tenances, and delicate and regular features ; but what most attracted my 
 admiration was their hair, which fell in natural and waving curls down to 
 
 Children of Sul 
 
 I'aslia (Colonel S^ves). 
 
 their waist. They had each preserved their national costume, which agree- 
 ably varied this pretty parterre ; nor had they adopted the tresses of the 
 Egyptian women, which rather disfigure than improve the appearance. They 
 had exquisitely beautiful teeth, but the clearness and bloom of youth were 
 banished from their complexions ; they all had a languid air, and I did not 
 find among them that embonpoint which I had expected to meet. Perliaps 
 their sedentary mode of life, and the destructive climate of Egypt, have 
 contributed to tarnish the lustre of their charms. The climate of Egypt, 
 otherwise so salubrious, exercises a malignant influence upon female 
 beauty." * 
 
 " The mother of the Pasha apologized for not entertaining me with music 
 and dancing, one of their most common amusements; but as it was the 
 feast of Beiram, a marriage was celebrating at the house of a friend ; and 
 the slaves, who would otherwise have performed, had been permitted to 
 attend the feast. The yoimg ladies, however, displayed a vainety of Turkisii 
 embroideries, all most beautiful in fabric and design, consisting, principally, 
 of floss-silk and gold flowers wrought on a clear muslin ground ; but, unhke 
 the Kincaub manufactures and embroideries of India, these rich articles are 
 
 * The Baronness Von Minutoli.
 
 236 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 imwashable. Their expense as costumes must be enormous. Turkish ladies 
 usually embroider very beautifully, yet the wives of Sami Pasha absolutely 
 did nothing but stroll from room to room, sip coffee, smoke chibouks, dress 
 and re-dress themselves three or four times during the day. They 
 obligingly offered to show me over their apartments, and the whole party 
 set forth, the ladies shuffling along, much encumbered by loose trousers, 
 soleless slippers, and trains borne by little eunuchs, Avith Circassian slaves 
 following with pipes, and the negress with the censer making up the 
 
 " The apartments were all spacious, and furnished in similar fashion to 
 that in which I had been received ; in some were fountains of alabaster, 
 however, to afford refreshment in the summer season ; and in others, lines 
 of mirrors set in the walls. The bath-rooms were all lined with alabaster, 
 having fountains of hot and cold water ; but, curiously enough, the baths 
 were not formed for reclining in, but were square and small, and probably 
 about five feet deep, without steps, buc with a crimson cord from the 
 ceiling, by which the bather swung herself into the bath. I saw the 
 calcined Mekka stone, commonly used by the Cairo women, and the fibres 
 of the Arabian palm, both necessary to the bath toilet of the Turkish ladies, 
 which in Egypt is a ceremony of no short endurance, nor common labour, 
 rendering very necessary tlie rest afforded by the divan of the dressing- 
 room, with its pipes and coffee. 
 
 " From the harem we strolled forth into a garden of tolerable dimensions, 
 but with a wall of hopeless height. The caged birds were here safe enough, 
 and women of the rank of the Pasha''s wives seldom leave home, unless to 
 visit a friend on some state occasion, when they are strictly guarded. The 
 garden contained several varieties of Oriental and European plants, and 
 particularly the hennah, which the Turkish ladies, like the other Orientals, 
 use abundantly. I could not discover, either in the garden or the house, 
 a single object calculated to afford my new friends amusement ; there were 
 no birds, nor fawns, nor tame fish to pet, no pictures to be looked at, 
 children to be caressed, nor toys to be wearied of; their whole life seemed 
 passed in apathetic idleness." 
 
 A glance at a humbler harem reveals a somewhat different state of 
 things. A German lady, who visited the female establishment of an 
 ulema, describes what she saw with much vivacity, but is rather inclined 
 to put a harsh construction upon whatever she saw in tiie slightest degree 
 differing from European manners. " On my entrance," she says, " they 
 all crowded round me with expressions of noisy gaiety ; they were like a 
 troop of young foals liberated from the rein. I am not aware whether 
 they had been informed of my visit ; not having an interpreter, it was 
 impossible for me to converse with them. There were in the harem none 
 but Arab or Egyptian women, and some negx'o slaves ; they did not appear 
 to be so well bred as Turkish ladies in general are ; and their indelicate 
 style of dress forced me to avert my eyes. They tormented me with their 
 curiosity about my toilet ; and their importunity became so troublesome, 
 that, wearied with their noise, of which I comprehended nothing, and dread- 
 ing the fate of the cock stripped of his feathers in the fable, I resolved to
 
 TXMATES OF THE HARKM. 237 
 
 escape, notwithstanding tlicii' efforts to detain me, glad to be free from 
 tlieni, and to return to the protection of my liusband." 
 
 By way of contrast with tliis hast description, we shall accompany another 
 lady into one of the more fashionable harems of Cairo, Our conductress 
 in the first place minutely describees the a])artments appropriated to the use 
 of the ladies; but as we have already given the reader an exact idea of 
 the interior of an Egyptian house, it is unnecessary to enter into any 
 further details on that subject. Of the fair inmates, however, wc will 
 permit our female traveller to speak at full length : — " Seated cross-legged 
 on a pile of violet-coloured cushions, that were placed on the pavement close 
 to a fountain, was a beautiful and majestic-looking woman. Although 
 she must have been at least forty, not a wrinkle was to be detected in her 
 fine clear skin, which shows that the beauty of women is not always so 
 short-lived in the East as is commonly supposed. Her features were 
 remarkably handsc^me ; her teeth perfect and very white ; while her dark 
 blue eyes shone forth with benignity. I never saw such a countenance, so 
 dignified and at the same time so sweet. Her hair was entirely concealed 
 by a rich embroidered handkerchief, or far'oo\lee'yeh, bound round the 
 head-dress, or tarboosh. She was dressed in a shirt composed of a kind of 
 silk gauze, white as snow, and a pair of very wide trousers, of the same 
 material, fastened round the waist, and confi^ned a little below the knee, 
 but sufficiently long to hang down to the feet. A short vest, called 'an'terVe, 
 reaching just below the waist, and provided with loose open sleeves, com- 
 pleted her costume. Her only ornaments were five rows of very large- 
 sized pearls, suspended from her neck. Tiiis lady was the widowed mother 
 of Mochtah Bey's wife. She did not rise to receive us (as she was our 
 senior in years), but touched my hand with her right hand, pressed it on 
 her bosom, and then raised it to her lips and foreh.ead. She would not 
 hear of my taking a seat upon the divan, as she said she knew the 
 European custom, but despatched a pretty Georgian slave for a green satin 
 chair (the only one in the house), upon which she made me sit down close 
 to her. She then asked me a variety of questions. I satisfied her curiosity 
 as well as I could, and she appeared much amused with my answers. Her 
 voice was pc'culia,rly mild and sweet, and she uttered her various interroga- 
 tions with as much grace and politeness as if she were caiTying on the most 
 polished and intellectual conversation. After the first tide of queries, she 
 told me her daughter vvould soon be there, as she was particularly anxious 
 to make the acquaintance of an English lady. I had now a moment's 
 leisure to look around at the groups of beautiful slaves that were standing 
 about the room in various attitudes, laughing and pointing at my dress. 
 They were principally Georgians and Circassians, many of them exceedingly 
 lovely, with fair complexions and dai'k eyes. All were dressed in the 
 most costly materials, generally of gaudy coloiirs ; and two or three of the 
 prettiest wore very handsome ornaments of gold filigree and precious stones. 
 Their dresses were much handsomer than those of their mistresses ; but I 
 believe it is the delight of the Turkish ladies to deck out their favourite 
 slaves in all their most valuable clothes and trinkets, while they themselves, 
 except on particular occasions, dress very simply.
 
 238 EGYPT AND ^-JUBIA. 
 
 "At length the mistress of the house made her appearance, and a lovely 
 creature she was. Her complexion was the whitest and most brilliant 
 that can be imagined ; her forehead was lofty and entirely exposed, for her 
 auburn hair, escaping from her fai-'ooMee'yeh in careless phaits and tresses, 
 was according to the Turkish fashion, clipped close round her face. Her 
 teeth, which she constantly displayed through her rosy laughing lips, were 
 beautifully even, and transparently white ; while the effect produced by 
 her magnificent eyes, of the deepest and softest blue, was heightened by 
 the coquettish pencilling of khol, with which both the upper and under lids 
 and eyebrows were stained. This gives a depth and shadow to the 
 intensity of their beauty, in the same way that an appropriate setting 
 enhances the brilliancy of a diamond. 
 
 " Her dress was nearly similar to her mother's, excepting that her 
 'an'ter'ee was cut in such a manner as to leave her neck uncovered save by 
 the slight folds of her low gauze shirt, entirely displaying her shape. Her 
 arms were bare, and perfect models of beauty, both in form and colour ; 
 while the small taper fingers of her pretty hands were tipped with the rosy 
 dye of the hennah. 
 
 " She advanced towards me with the peculiar walk of all Turkish ladies, 
 and having saluted me in the same way her mother had done before, sat 
 herself down on a similar pile of cushions in another part of the room, 
 inviting me to sit close to her. Again I had to answer a string of questions, 
 and then she told me that her husband, Mochtah Bey, was a very hand- 
 some man ; and she named his height, and the length of his beard ; that 
 he was very learned, and that Mohamed Ali had sent him to England, 
 where he remained a year, and that when he came back again, he would 
 no longer eat with his fingers, but had tables and chairs made, and used a 
 knife and fork ; biit as he died a short time ago, she had parted with these 
 useless incumbrances, and was soon going to marry again. She appeared 
 exceedingly proud of being able to embroider a little ; this is considered a 
 great accomplishment amongst Eastern ladies. Her great grief, she said, 
 was, that she had never been a mother ; but in order to console herself in 
 some measure, she was adopting a poor child that had been taken out of 
 the streets, and was bringing it up as her own. She now despatched a 
 slave for the infant, which was brought in by the wet-nurse, its kind pro- 
 tectress had purchased for it. It was a little girl of about eight or ten 
 months old ; I thought it very ugly, and it was miserably and shabbily 
 dressed. As soon, however, as it entered the room, my lovely hostess took 
 it in her arms, and nursed and played with it as fondly as if it had been 
 lier own : it seemed the pet and darling of the whole harem. Presently 
 it beoan to cry, and there was quite a commotion : the elder lady took out 
 one of the cucumbers from the fruit that was cooling in the fountain and 
 crave it to the ch.ild to suck. I should have thought that this was enough 
 to kill it, but all the children here are constantly to be seen nibbling some- 
 thing of the kind, which may account in part for their wretched health. 
 I find the reason the baby was dressed so badly proceeded from the fear, 
 common to all Muslim mothers, lest finery should attract the evil eye. 
 Another pet of the young Turk's that struck me as a very extraordinary
 
 RECEPTION OF VISITORS. 239 
 
 one for a person of her creed, was a little pug dog, running about uncon- 
 strained all over the apartment, even upon the leewa'n, which is considered 
 sacred, as being the usual place of prayer ; but notwithstanding this little 
 ])iece of uncloaunoss, was allowed full liberty, and every moment polluted 
 the clothes of his mistress by rubbing up against them. She even patted 
 him several times with her fair liaiul, and laughed at his barks and antics. 
 I could not understand this incongruity. The next thing to be done was 
 to inspect minutely everything I had on ; my rings were scrutinised and 
 admired separately. I wore a black satin gown, and was asked why it 
 was not green, blue, or yellow. I replied, that as I was travelling I could 
 not carry all my wardrobe about with me. My bracelets were next looked 
 at ; then my hands were examined. A very large and handsome brooch 
 I wore particularly attracted the attention of the lady : she begged me to 
 take it off, that she might examine it, and tlien very quietly fastening it 
 into the folds of her shirt, continued talking upon other subjects. I waited 
 some time, and then, as she did not offer to return it, and as I did not feel 
 at all inclined to present her with it, I represented my fears to my com- 
 panion, who quietly suggested that it was so heavy, she feared it would 
 tear the gauze of her chemise, and offered to assist her in unclasping it. 
 She took the hint, although evidently disappointed ; and I felt quite sorry 
 that I had not brought something that I prized less, to present her with. 
 Had I done so, she would no doubt have returned the compliment. During 
 the time we were enwaffed lauohinw and talkin"; with the daughter, the 
 mother remained nearly silent, listening to what was going forward, some- 
 times suggesting a question in her soft harmonious Turkish, that seemed 
 to accord and blend with the musical trickling of the clear fountain before 
 her. She was delighted at the admiration I bestowed upon the latter, and 
 ordered one of her slaves to show me how the jet was turned on and off. 
 The cock was concealed in a small chest of inlaid wood, and the water 
 supplied by pipes laid on from the river. A variety of fruits were placed 
 in the basin to cool, and near it stood a handsome silver tray of porous 
 goblets, each furnished with a fanciful stopper of the same material. Two 
 pretty Georgian slaves now came in with coffee they had been preparing, 
 one carrying the coffee-pot of solid gold, and exceedingly handsome ; the 
 other bearing a silver tray, with the requisite number of china cups. 
 According to Eastern etiquette, the ladies of the hoiise were served first, 
 and then their guests. The coffee was extremely strong, and highly per- 
 fumed with ambergris ; no milk was mixed with it, and no sugar, excepting 
 in the cup destined for me, which was made as sweet as syrup, in order to 
 accommodate, as was supposed, my English taste. As soon as w^e had 
 finished sipping our coffee, pipes were brought : one was offered me, but 
 I begged to decline, explaining, that as I had never learnt the accomplish- 
 ment of smoking, I feared it would choke me, and thus materially interrupt 
 our agreeable conversation. They laughed, and appeared much amused at 
 my ignorance of this, one of their greatest and most refined luxuries. They 
 asked if Enghsh ladies never smoked, and being answered in the negative, 
 shrugged their shoulders with pity, and began to puff away with renewed 
 vigour.
 
 240 KGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 " Their pipes were quite as long, bxit rather more slender than those of 
 the men, and exquisitely ornamented in a very costly manner ; the mouth- 
 pieces were composed in part of red coral, set in gold, and enriched by 
 aii-ate and jasper, interspersed with precious stones. The pipes are always 
 of jasmine-wood or clierry-stick, but tliese were covered with coloured silks 
 interwoven with gold tliread ; the bowl of eacli rested in a small silver 
 tray, placed on the floor. The tobacco tliey employed was exceedingly 
 miid, and not disagreeable. The idea of a woman smoking conveys 
 immediately to one's mind a feeling of disgust, which it seems impossible 
 to overcome ; but my fair hostesses handled their jewelled pipes with as 
 much grace as if they were the wands of a fairy, and performed the whole 
 with so much elegance of manner, tliat I found myself admiring instead of 
 condemning the practice. TJie fair young Hanoum looked positively 
 bewitching while inhaling the perfumed weed through her delicate pipe, 
 and far from obstructing, it appeared only to give zest to her conversation. 
 It was now proposed that I should explore the house, but as the hour of 
 mid-day prayer was near, its young mistress did not accompany us ; we 
 were foHowed, however, by the whole suite of slaves, laughing and dancing 
 around like a pack of cliildren pleased with a new toy. In the court-yard 
 we encountered a group of hideous black human beings, tall and bony, 
 with only a small piece of cloth wound round their bodies, and their hair 
 hanging in dishevelled plaits about their faces. Thinking they looked 
 anything but feminine, and forgetting for a moment where I was, I asked 
 very innocently whether they were men slaves. The screams of surprise 
 and horror, mingled with laughter, that were raised as soon as this question 
 was translated, were quite deafening. The very idea of a man being 
 admitted into these mysterious precincts, shocked them beyond measure, and 
 yet it equally amused them. They pointed to the eunuch, and assured 
 me he was the only man, excepting the deceased master of the house, who 
 had ever seen them unveiled, 
 
 " The slaves in question, whose rough appearance had occasioned my 
 mistake, were Africans and Negro women, who acted as menials in the 
 establishment. The only employment of the white slaves is to make the 
 coffee, prepare and light the pipes, and adorn their own persons, as well as 
 those of their mistresses, and consequently a large portion of their time is 
 spent in idleness. After passing through a number of rooms, we arrived 
 at one which, to me, was the most curious and interesting I had yet seen : 
 it looked towards the garden, and was more in the Turkish style than any 
 of tlie others, being free from every attempt at Parisian fashions. Rude 
 representations of buds and flowers were painted all over the plastered 
 walls, and one side of the apartment was wholly occupied by a row of 
 curious little cupboards. The windows projected outwards, and were 
 entirely shaded by thick wooden lattice-work, of a very heavy pattern, but 
 beautifully and elaborately carved ; the top and sides were of coloured glass, 
 and the small ceilings were inlaid with great art and effect. This was 
 originally intended as the guest-chamber, but at present it was occupied by 
 my young hostess, whose bedstead was inlaid throughout with ivory and 
 mother-o'-pearl, similar to the beautiful Bombay boxes, and by the side 
 were her tiny embroidered slippers.
 
 DEVOTION IN THE IIAREM. 
 
 241 
 
 " Every one had taken off her slices at the entrance of the apartments. 
 I was the only person of the party of whom this ceremony was not 
 exacted. When we had seen all that was worthy of notice, we went 
 down stairs again to take our leave, but we found the young Khanoum 
 at her devotions, and as she could not be interrupted, we waited until 
 they were concluded. She was standing upon the ' leewa'n,' which is 
 generally appropriated as the place of prayer ; a small prayer-carpet was 
 spread before her, and a richly-worked wliite lace veil was thrown over 
 her head, reaching nearly to the ground. It is the custom amongst Muslim 
 women never to appear in supplication before their Maker unveiled ; it has 
 a touching look of modest humility, at least it gave such to the fair 
 worshipper before me. She went through the various evolutions of bowing 
 and prostrations enjoined by her religion with so much gravity and apparent 
 earnestness, that it inspired me with a feeling of respect for her, that 
 heightened the charm of her beauty. 
 
 "During all this time the mother, who was still smoking her shibouk, went 
 on talking and asking me questions about what we thought of the rooms, 
 as if notliing had been going on. At length the prayer was finished, the 
 veil thrown aside, and our pretty friend returned to her cushions, her 
 mouth still moving as if concluding her devotions. AVe now rose to take 
 leave ; but she begged us to walk through the garden before our departure. 
 She pressed me, also, to repeat my visit, and told me, that any day I 
 would send them word, I might bring my husband to show him the garden, 
 and they would look through the lattice-work of their windows at him, as 
 they wished so much to see what he was like. They both rose to bid me 
 adieu, and, after having gone through the same form of touching my hand 
 
 and then their own 
 bosoms and faces, 
 they accompanied me 
 through the inner 
 courts, walking along 
 on the cold marble 
 without shoes or 
 stockings. I must 
 here remark that their 
 feet were very small 
 and pretty. The 
 young one was, per- 
 haps, a little too fat, 
 but among the Turks 
 that is considered a 
 beauty. The last thing she did was to ask me to bring my husband to see 
 the garden.* '' 
 
 * Mrs. Griffiths.
 
 242 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Gardens of Shoubra. — Pasha's Stud. 
 
 One afternoon we rode to Shonbra, where Mohammed AH has a country- 
 house. The exterior of the buildinw exhibits nothing remarkable. On 
 ascending a terrace a few feet square, we passed through a rough wooden 
 door, such as is fit only for an out-house, and found ourselves in the Pasha's 
 room of audience. It was matted, and round the walls was fixed a row of 
 cu&hions, on two corners of which were placed satin pillows, marking the 
 seat the Pasha occupied according to the position of the sun. Just over a 
 low ledge in the door we stepped into a small room, with a bedding on 
 the floor ; this was his sleeping-chamber. Surely, never monarch had so 
 little luxury or state. Thence we came at once to the magnificent suite of 
 apartments appropriated to the chief lady of the harem. 
 
 The centre of the principal room formed a sort of octagon, with three 
 recesses, all inlaid with marble. From the four comers opened four smaller 
 rooms, fitted with splendid divans and cushions of velvet and cloth of gold; 
 and a set of marble baths completed this series of elegant apartments. 
 The ceilings, executed by a Greek artist, were lofty and vaulted, ornamented 
 with gold and representations of landscapes, or of palaces and colonnades ; 
 the whole painted in light and pleasing colours. 
 
 The Sultana's private sitting-room, says Mrs. Lushington, ^Yas still more 
 sumptuous. The ceiling consisted of a circus of palaces, the columns and 
 arches of which were delineated with a most successful regard to perspective. 
 These apartments were, until lately, occupied by the Pasha's deceased wife, 
 mother of Ibrahim Pasha, by a former husband. Their splendour was singu- 
 larly contrasted with the plainness of those inhabited by the Pasha himself. 
 This led one of my friends to ask if I was not penetrated with so convincing 
 a proof of the gallantry of the Turk ; and he challenged me to cite the 
 English husband who would have done so much for the exclusive gratifi- 
 cation of his wife. To which I could only reply, that, with my erratic 
 propensities, I should not willingly resign the privilege of locomotion for 
 such proof of affection ; and that I apprehended few Englishwomen would 
 answer either the Pasha's or Sancho Parza's idea of a good wife, by conti- 
 nually remaining, according to the batter's proverb, "like an honest woman, 
 at home, as if her leg were broken." 
 
 ^Mohammed All's late consort had great influence over him during her 
 life, as he considered his marriage with her the foundation of his good 
 fortune. She was esteemed and beloved by the people, for her influence 
 was ever employed on the side of justice and mercy. Much of her time 
 was occupied in receiving petitions ; but it was seldom she had to refer 
 them to the Pasha, as her power was too well known by the ministers to 
 require this last appeal. If, however, in consequence of any demur on
 
 KIOSKS AND BATHS. 243 
 
 their part, she had to apply to him, he answered their remonstrance by 
 saying, " It is enough. By my two eyes ! if she requires it, the thing 
 must be done, be it througli fire, water, or stone." His Highness, during 
 the heats of summer, sits below, in a room particularly adapted for coolness, 
 and having a marble fountain in the centre. On one of the walls is 
 inscribed, in large Arabic characters, a verse from the Koran, signifying, 
 " An hour of justice is worth seventy days of prayer." 
 
 The gardens of Shoubra are certainly among the finest I have anywhere 
 seen. They cover, perhaps, thirty or forty acres of ground, and arc laid 
 out in squares, parallelograms, triangles, &:c., divided from each other by 
 long straight alleys, formed, in many cases, with a hard kind of cement ; in 
 others, paved with pebbles of different colours, disposed in mosaics, like 
 those in the grottoes of the Isola Bella, and representing various objects of 
 nature or art, as plants, flowers, sabres, &c. In some places there are 
 trellissed arbours and marble fountains. The different cuuipartments of 
 the gardens are surrounded by railings, surmounting a broad stone base- 
 ment, upon which are ranged, in pots, innumerable exotic flowers, of the 
 richest fragrance and most brilliant colours. The choicest, perhaps, of these 
 were clustered round that tasteful alcove, where the Pasha sometimes 
 spends an hour or two in the calm summer nights. Flowering shrubs and 
 odoriferous plants, with lemon, orange, citron, and pomegranate trees, 
 loaded with golden fi'uit, deeply impregnated the whole air with perfume, 
 and recalled by their beauty the fabled gardens of the Ilesperides, which, 
 like these, were situated in the sands of Africa. Great taste and judgment 
 have been exhibited in the laying out of these grounds. The vistas are 
 exquisite. Rows of cypresses, the favourites of the Egyptian Pan, on one 
 hand ; mimosas, the growth of the Arabian wilderness, on the other. Here 
 dark evergreens extend their heavily-laden boughs, tempting the eye with 
 the most delicate fruit ; there, shrubs, coveted solely for their beauty, 
 delight the senses with their rich and fragrant blossoms. These gardens, 
 as well as those at Ilhoda, are intersected by numerous small canals. The 
 j)rincipal ones are of hewn stone, but the subordinate branches are merely 
 cut with the spade ; and from these the water is made to overflow, or 
 diverted into new channels, by damming them up with the foot.* 
 
 The baths, which cover at least an acre of ground, are of a quadrangular 
 form, and consist of a number of kiosks, united by colonnades, with elegant 
 slender pillars of white stone or marble, ranged round a large square basin, 
 occasionally filled with water, but now empty. Here a small boat, at this 
 time under repair, is sometimes paddled about for the amusement of the 
 Pasha or his ladies. In the centre of the basin are the baths of the harem, 
 formed of marble, and adorned with sculptured figures of crocodiles. The 
 kiosks are small but handsome buildings, containing dressing-rooms, with 
 divans, &c., where the Pasha and his family take coffee after bathing, and 
 sometimes sup. The effect of the whole upon the eye at night, when the 
 baths are filled with water, and the apartments and colonnades brilliantly 
 lighted up, must no doubt be fine; but by day, when closely examined, 
 
 * Kianear, p. 30.
 
 244 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 the whole has an air of shabbiness and decay ; the stones of the pavement 
 are loose, the entabhatures in many places broken, the rooms dirty, the 
 doors out of repair. In fact, the whole affair, it is quite eA'ident, was got 
 up by the Pasha rather to dazzle the Turks than to suit liis own tastes, 
 which are exceedingly plain ; and he has now grown tired of tlie toy. 
 
 In the gardens, his Highness has a second menngerie, a few English 
 deer, a kangaroo, and four giraffes, fine beautiful animals, three of which 
 died of cold during one winter ; the fourth, when its life was despaired of, 
 was given to an English gentleman, resident at Cairo, by whom it was 
 sent as a present to some menagerie in London. The Pasha has likewise a 
 stud here, in which were a great many horses, in open places ranged round 
 a yard, like bullock-sheds in England. Several of tliem were milk-white. 
 The groom pretended they were all Nejdis ; some few, however, were from 
 Dongola. Amongst others I remarked a small dark chestnut horse, of the 
 true blood, as his points would testify. He had a fine snake head, with an 
 expanding and projecting nostril ; but, contrary to English ideas of perfec- 
 tion, a remarkably small pointed ear. His forehead was wide, with an eye 
 expressive of boldness, generosity, and alacrity. His shoulder was thick 
 through, and finely laid back ; his ribs and loins were round and deep ; 
 his legs short and very powerful, the hoof being rather donkey-formed, 
 with an open heel ; and, from his muscular thighs and longish drooping 
 pasterns, there is no doubt he will be elastic, speedy, and lasting. The 
 groom said he was worth some hundred thousand paras. There were 
 several other Nejdis, partaking more or less of the same formation as the 
 one above described. They carried no flesh, had very rough coats, and 
 reminded me much of the Hungarian cavalry horse. The Nejdi, however, 
 is higher than the Hungarian, but looks small from his fine proportions. 
 Tlie tallest horse I have seen of this breed was fifteen hands one inch ; but 
 they are generally two or three inches under this. In walking through the 
 caravan encampment, about to leave Cairo for Mecca, we were admiring 
 a finely formed horse, when his owner pointed at another, which he 
 valued more highly. He was feeding out of a bag, so that the lower part 
 of his head was not visible ; but he was smaller than the other, and remark- 
 ably short and thick in all his proportions. He had what dog-amateurs 
 call " a coarse stern," his tail being entirely out of place, and his hind- 
 quarters cut off short like those of a camel. The Arab spoke much of his 
 great speed, and said he was a Nejdi of the famous Hassan breed. He 
 was surprised at our preferring the other. They were both chestnut. 
 
 The Dongola horse is black, with long white legs, and upright pasterns. 
 He has a coarse Cleveland head, and, when out of condition, grows flat- 
 sided and scanty in the loin. There is altogether a soft useless look about 
 him. A certain French writer has stated that these horses are highly 
 prized by the young gentlemen of Alexandria, who mount these long-legged 
 nags for an hour or two in the morning, before they mount their long-legged 
 stools ; but as tlieir judgment may possibly not have been matured upon 
 the Hambledon Hills, it is not to be blindly adopted. It is said that these 
 horses are very perfect in Dongola, but that they degenerate when exposed 
 to a colder climate. It may easily be believed^ that from such a cause a
 
 EGYPTIAN HORSES. 245 
 
 horse will lose his condition, and, apparently, his substance ; but tliat his 
 bone should waste, that his legs should grow longer, or his ribs shorter, seems 
 incredible. It is likely that those in the Tasha's stables were some of the 
 best specimens to be found. 
 
 The method in use among the Arabs, both of the cultivated country and 
 the desert, for securing their horses, whether in the stable, the field, or the 
 camp, is highly injurious, each fore-leg being fastened to the corresponding 
 one behind by a rope, so short tliat the former are drawn considerably 
 under the body, both when the horse is feeding and when at rest. In the 
 field, two other ropes, passing from his fore-legs at right angles with his 
 body, are pegged down at some distance on either side, and thus he is left 
 to feed as far as he can before him. In the stable, besides the short rope 
 fettering his legs, the horse's head is tied by two ropes to the ceiling, and 
 by two others to the earth, the ropes at right angles from his fore-legs being 
 fastened either to posts or to the wall, while his hind-legs are tied either to 
 tlie back wall, or to a strong rope, which passes along the ground below 
 the horse for that purpose. There may appear to be reason for putting 
 some of these restraints upon horses placed near together, without any par- 
 tition to prevent their maiming each other ; but it will scarcely be believed 
 that I have seen a single horse, in a loose box, confined in the same manner ; 
 and this, not because he was vicious, but because it was customary ! The 
 practice of fastening the fore-legs, and thus continually forcing them back 
 under the body, must confine the natural freedom of action which a horse 
 ought to possess ; and, as it is applied to colts when very young, it seems 
 not impossible that it may even displace the shoulder from the natural 
 position which it would otherwise take. This appears to me to be the 
 most rational way of accounting for the fact, that the greater number of 
 horses in Egypt have broken knees. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Visit to the Mosque of Flowers, to that of Sultan Hassan. — Festival of the Ashk.. 
 
 Formerly, a Christian traveller discovered in a mosque would have been 
 considered guilty of sacrilege, and compelled to abjure his religion or lose 
 his life ; and, even at the present day. Christians are rigidly prohibited the 
 entry of all Mahommedan places of worship ; so that, to obtain admission, 
 they must adopt the disguise of a native. Having, accordingly, assumed 
 the Turkish costume, and received from the governor an officer to accompany 
 me, I visited the two most remarkable mosques of Cairo, the interior of which 
 few travellers have beheld or described. The first I entered was the cele- 
 brated mosque of El Azhar, founded a. u. 358 (a. d. 968), during the reign 
 of Ali, the grandson of Akhshid, three years before the commencement of the 
 Fatimite dynasty. On arriving at the gateway, we doffed our slippers, 
 and entered a marble-paved court, surrounded by an elegant colonnade, 
 the entablature of which is adorned with arabesques of a bright red 
 colour. Numbers of poor Mussulmans, maintained by the charity of the 
 
 Y 2
 
 246 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 foundation, were lying asleep on mats in various parts of tlie area ; while 
 others, in their immediate vicinity, were engaged in prayer. To avoid 
 
 Ancient Mosque near Bab-el-^'asr. 
 
 attracting the attention of the fanatical worshippers, we passed on rapidly, 
 as if brought thither by devotion, and traversing the court, proceeded into 
 the body of the mosque, where a numerous congregation was assembled. 
 Contrary to the idea commonly prevailing in Europe, a large portion of 
 the votaries consisted of ladies, who were walking to and fro without the 
 slightest restraint, conversing with each other, and mingling freely among 
 the men. The pulpit, constructed entirely of stone, adorned with slender 
 pillars, and beautifully carved, greatly resembles the suggesti of catholic 
 churches, and stands at the extremity of the building, directly opposite 
 the entrance. Numerous rows of marble columns, about two feet in 
 diameter, extend the whole length of the edifice, supporting the roof, and 
 creating an idea of grandeur. The pavement, likewise, is of marble. But 
 the height of the mosque does not correspond with the extent of the ground- 
 plan ; and this imperfection diminishes the effect which its forest of pillars 
 and tasteful ornaments would otherwise produce. 
 
 Though originally erected for purposes of devotion, the mosques are 
 often converted into caravanserais ; where persons, having no other house, 
 may sleep and eat, listen to the relations of the stoiy-teller, or transact 
 business. In the time of Van Egniont, it was said, that between five and 
 six thousand persons received their daily subsistence from the mosque of 
 El Azhar, while two thousand students and mendicants slept habitually 
 within its walls. It remains, indeed, open all night, with the exception 
 of the principal place of prayer, which is called the Muksoorah, being 
 partitioned off from the rest of the building. In many other of the large 
 mosques, particularly in the afternoon, persons are likewise seen lounging,
 
 DWELLERS IN THE MOSQUK. 
 
 247 
 
 chatting together, eating, sleeping, and sometimes spinning or sewing, or 
 engaged in some other simple craft ; but, notwithstanding such practices, 
 the Muslims very highly respect their sacred edifices.* Many blind 
 paupers are supported at the mosque of El Aziiar, and we were much 
 affected by seeing some bent double by age, slowly walking through the 
 avenues of columns, knowing from habit every turn and every passage, 
 and looking like the patriarchs of the assembled multitude. f The 
 individuals attached to the service of this foundation, and those who 
 partook of its bounty, amounted once to forty thousand, though many 
 of them lived in distant parts of the country. J Though less rich and 
 flourishing than formerly, this establishment is still considerable, and 
 contains several colleges, where the Ulemas lecture on the Koran and 
 the laws. In other respects it resembles a caravanserai, divided into 
 several quarters, appropriated to the students of different nations, who 
 are supported by the revenues of the mosque. In going the round of 
 these apartments, after passing successively among natives of different 
 divisions of Egypt, we found 
 ourselves in the company of 
 people of Mecca and El Me- 
 dina ; then in the midst of 
 Syrians ; in another minute 
 among Muslims of Central 
 Africa ; next amid Moggre- 
 byns, or natives of Northern 
 Africa, west of Egypt ; then 
 with European and Asiatic 
 Turks ; and quitting these, we 
 were introduced to Persians, 
 and Muslims of India : we 
 may almost fancy ourselves 
 transported through their re- 
 spective countries.§ Each divi- 
 sion is under the superintend- 
 ence of a nazir, subordinate to 
 the principal director. On 
 every alternate day, three thou- 
 sand eight hundred pounds of 
 bread, and a quantity of oil for 
 the lamps, are distributed ; besides which, the students receive monthly a 
 small stipend. The whole annual expenditure is estimated at six hundred 
 and thirty thousand piastres; partly furnished by the government, and partly 
 arising from the rent of houses, shops, and warehouses, bequeathed to the 
 charity by pious individuals. |1 For the convenience of the crowds who 
 frequent the establishment, numerous entrances have been made on all sides. 
 A person of rank or wealth, when going to this mosque, is generally accom. 
 
 * Lane, i., 97. t Mrs. Pool, p. 161. J Van Egmont's Travels, vol. ii. p. 67. 
 
 § Mrs. Pool, p. 162. II McDgin, Ilistoirc de I'Egyptc, t. ii., p. 327.
 
 248 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 panied by a servant bearing a seggadeb, or small prayer-carpet, about the size 
 of a hearth-rug, upon which he prays. During the noon-prayers of the 
 congregation on Friday, the worshippers are very numerous, and, arranged 
 in parallel rows, they sit upon the matting. Different services at other times 
 are presented in the great portico of the Azhar. "We observed many lecturers 
 addressing their circles of attentive listeners, or reading to them commen- 
 taries on the Koran. In most cases these lecturers were leaning against 
 a pillar ; and I understand that in general each has his respective column, 
 where his j^upils regularly attend him, sitting in the form of a circle on the 
 matted floor.* 
 
 We next proceeded to the Mosque of Sultan Hassan, erected near the 
 gate leading to the citadel. The history of the founder of this magnificent 
 structure presents a striking example of the instability of Oriental despots. 
 Succeeding his brother Ilajji, murdered in A.n. 748, Hassan exercised 
 the supreme authority during three years, when he was deprived of the 
 sceptre by his brother, Al Salah ; but this prince, ignorant of the art of 
 reigning, being, in a.h. 755, dethroned and imprisoned, Hassan was a 
 second time invested with the purple. Sedition, however, and dissen- 
 sions between the Sultan and the chief of his Memlook army arising, a 
 civil war ensued, and the prince, defeated by his slaves, was compelled 
 to seek for safety in flight, and an obscurity from which he never again 
 emerged. A recent traveller heard from the keeper of the Mosque an 
 account somewhat different from the above : " Some red stains upon the 
 pavement," he says, " produced from us a remark, and from the old 
 attendant Turk a yarn. Sultan Hassan going into a far country, a 
 treacherous vizier usurped his throne, and, upon the return of his lord and 
 master, requested him to go back from whence he came, as he intended to 
 relieve him of the cares of government. This request the Sultan was 
 compelled to comply with. Years rolled on and still the sovereign power 
 was in the hands of the rebellious vizier, when one day a rich and holy 
 dervish appeared in the city of Delight, who, founding in his zeal a 
 splendid mosque, prepared a sumptuous banquet within the building, to 
 celebrate its perfection. The usurper, in all his stolen magnificence, attended. 
 The repast was over, a Costly revel was to succeed, and the most voluptuous 
 beauties of the East to dance before the Sultan and his court. The host 
 clapped his hands ; but instead of the jingling of anklets, and the soft 
 sounds of the cymbal and the lute, the clattering of arms was heard, the 
 dervish threw off his sacred guise, the ungrateful vizier quailed before his 
 dethroned lord, the Sultan Hassan, and in a moment he and his myrmi- 
 doms Avere cut to pieces. The blood-stained marble is a monument to 
 treacherous ambition." t 
 
 The mosque, built in the form of a parallelogram, is exceedingly 
 lofty, and surrounded by a projecting cornice and frieze, ornamented with 
 arabesques; and its minarets, surpassing all others in height, are the 
 first which the traveller beholds on approaching the city. Ascending a 
 
 * Mrs. Poo], pp. 163, 164. f Burrer.
 
 TOMB OF SULTAN HASSAN. 
 
 240 
 
 long flight of steps, and passing under a magnificent doorway, we entered 
 tlie vestibule, and proceeded towards the sacred portion of the edifice; 
 where, on stepping over a small railing, it was necessary to take ofi" our 
 
 Mosque of Sultan Hassan. 
 
 hahooshes^ or red Turkish shoes. Here we beheld a spacious square court, 
 paved with marble of various colours, fancifully arranged, with a beautiful 
 octagonal marble fountain in the centre, surmounted by a cupola of airy 
 proportions, resting on slender pillars. On each side of this area is an 
 exti'emely lofty arched recess, judiciously introduced for the purpose of 
 breaking up the uniformity of the enormous walls. 
 
 At the extremity of the court, and entirely open to it, is a large apart- 
 ment, containing a marble tabernacle, surrounded by slender tapering 
 columns, with a tasteful and finely-sculptured pulpit. Numerous Arabic 
 sentences are written on the walls in letters of gold ; and below, scratched 
 with pen or pencil, are the names of various devotees ; near which, in 
 defiance of the prohibition of the Px'ophet, I observed an attempt at delineat- 
 ing the human figure. ]\Iassive doors of bronze, elegantly ornamented, 
 close the entrance into the body of the edifice ; into which, for motives of 
 piety or prudence, my Turkish conductor was unwilling to introduce me. 
 To behold this, however, having been my principal object, I addressed 
 myself directly to the keeper of the mosque, at the risk of being discovered ; 
 and, somewhat to the surprise of the Turk, obtained instant permission to 
 enter. Here, in the centre of the apartment, and surrounded by a neat
 
 250 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 railing, stands the tomb of Sultan Hassan: though, according to Jemaleddin, 
 he disappeared after his defeat by Yelbog, the Memlook, and was never 
 afterwards heard of. The cenotaph, constructed in a simple style, with a 
 short pillar at either end, is of pure marble, without name or monumental 
 inscription. On the plain slab was placed an antique manuscript copy of 
 the Koran, in heavy massive binding, resembling that of our ancestors, 
 in which oak supplied the place of mill-board. Before I was permitted to 
 touch this sacred relic, the keeper of the mosque, whose suspicions were 
 evidently excited, explicitly demanded of my companion what were my 
 religion and country. Without the slightest hesitation, he replied, " He 
 is a Turk from Stambool ;" upon which the Koran was placed in my 
 hands. The manuscript, which was of fine parchment, and many centuries 
 old, was written partly with ink, and partly in gold characters, and beauti- 
 fully illuminated with stars of bright blue, purple, and gold. These taste- 
 ful ornaments, varying in size from that of a crown-piece to sixpence, 
 studded the pages and the margin, but varied only in dimensions, the 
 pattern being always the same. The title-page, slightly torn, exhibited a 
 glittering mass of gilding, intermingled with arabesques in brilliant colours. 
 Turning from the tomb to the apartment itself, I admired the simple beauty 
 of the dome, springing from a square basis, adorned above, at each angle, 
 with an ornament consisting of a cluster of octagonal bronze pipes of dif- 
 ferent lengths. Everything throughout the building displays a severe 
 masculine taste, suggesting the idea of a fortress, rather than a religious 
 edifice : and it is related that, in the sedition and revolution which 
 burst forth during the decline of the Memlook Empire, this mosque, like 
 the Temple of Jerusalem, was frequently converted into a place of defence. 
 It would have been an endless task to visit all the places of worship in 
 Cairo, though many of them are constructed in a beautiful style, and well 
 deserve to be described. Others are remarkable for circumstances acci- 
 dentally connected with them ; and among these may be reckoned the 
 mosque of the Hasaneyn. 
 
 On the day of Ashoora (tenth of Moharrem) the vicinity and interior of 
 this structure present a curious spectacle, which one who witnessed it thus 
 describes : — " The avenues were thronged with passengers, and in them 
 I saw several groups of ghawazee ; some dancing, and others sitting in 
 a ring in the public thoroughfare, eating their dinners, and, with the 
 exclamation of ' Bismillah ! ' inviting every well-dressed man who passed 
 by to eat with them. One of them struggled hard with me to prevent 
 my passing without giving them a present. The sight of these unveiled 
 girls, some of them very handsome, and with their dress alluringly 
 disposed to disjilay to advantage their fine forms, was but ill calculated to 
 prepare men who passed by them for witnessing religious ceremonies; but 
 so it is, that, on the occasion of all the great religious festivals in Cairo, and 
 at many other towns in Egypt, these female warrers against modesty, not 
 always seductive I must confess, are sure to be seen. On my way to the 
 mosque, I had occasion to rid myself of some of the small coins, which I 
 had provided, to children. My next occasion for disbursing was on arriv- 
 ing before the mosque ; when several water-carriers, of the class who
 
 THE ASHOORA. 251 
 
 supplied paf5scngers in the street, surrounded me : I gave two of tliem 
 twenty fu''dahs; for which each of them was to distrihute the contents of 
 the earthen vessel which he bore on his back to poor passengers, for the 
 sake of ' Our Lord El-IIoseyn.' 
 
 " On entering the mosque I was much suprised at the scene which pre- 
 sented itself in the great hall, or portico. This, which is the principal part 
 of the building, was crowded with visitors, mostly women, of the middle 
 and lower orders, with many children ; and there was a confusion of noises, 
 like what maybe heard in a large school-room where several hundred boys 
 are engaged in play ; there were children bawling and crying ; men and 
 women calling to each other; and, amid all tliis bustle, mothers and 
 children were importuning every man of respectable appearance for the 
 alms of the ashr. Seldom have I witnessed a scene more unlike that 
 which the interior of a mosque generally presents ; and in this instance I 
 was the more surprised, as the Hasaneyn is the most sacred of all the 
 mosques in Cairo. The mats, which are usually spread upon the pavement, 
 had been removed ; some pieces of old matting were put in their stead, 
 leaving many parts of the floor bare ; and these, and every part, were 
 covered with dust and dirt, brought in by the feet of many shoeless persons: 
 for on this occasion, as it is impossible to perform the ordinary prayers in 
 the mosque, people enter without having made the usual ablution, 
 and without repairing first to the tank to do this ; though every person 
 takes off his or her shoes, as at other times, on entering the mosque ; many 
 leaving them, as I did mine, with the door-keeper. Several parts of the 
 floor were wetted ; and though I avoided them, I had not been many 
 minutes in the mosque before my feet were almost black, with the dirt 
 upon which I had trodden, and with that from other persons' feet which 
 had trodden upon mine. The heat, too, was very oppressive ; like that of 
 a vapour bath, but more heavy ; though there is a very large square aper- 
 ture in the roof, with a mulkuf of equal width over it, to introduce the 
 northern breezes. The pulpit-stairs and the gallery were crowded with 
 females, and in the assemblage below the women were far more numerous 
 than the men. Why this should be the case I know not ; unless it be 
 because they are more superstitious, and have a greater respect for the 
 day of Ashoora, and a greater desire to honour El-Hoseyn, by visiting his 
 shrine on this day. 
 
 " It is commonly said, by the people of Cairo, that no man goes to the 
 Hasaneyn on the day of Ashoora but for the sake of the women ; that is, 
 to be jostled among them ; and this jostling he may indeed enjoy to 
 the utmost of his desire, as I experienced in pressing forward to witness 
 the principal ceremonies, which contribute, with the sanctity of the day, to 
 attract such swarms of people. By the back-wall, to the right of the 
 pulpit, were seated, in two rows, face to face, about fifty dervishes of various 
 orders. They had not yet begun their performances, or zikrs in concert ; but 
 an old dervish, standing between the two rows, was going through a zikr 
 alone ; repeating the name of God (Allah), and bowing his head each time 
 that he uttered the word, alternately to the right and left. In pushing 
 forward to see him, I found myself in a situation rather odd in a country
 
 252 EGYPT AND NL'BIA. 
 
 where it is deemed improper for a man even to touch a female who is not 
 his wife, or slave, or a near relation. I was so compressed in the midst of 
 four women, that, for some minutes, I could not move in any direction ; 
 and pressed so hard against one of them, face to face, that, but for 
 the veil, our cheeks had been almost in contact ; from her panting, it 
 seemed that the situation was not quite easy to her ; though a smile, 
 expressed at the same time by her large black eyes, show^ed that it was 
 amusing ; she could not, however, bear it long ; for she soon cried out, ' My 
 eye ! do not squeeze me so violently.' Another of these dames called out 
 to me, ' O Effendi ! by thy head ! push on to the front, and make way for 
 me to follow thee.' With considerable difficulty I attained the desired 
 place ; but in getting thither, I had almost lost my sword and the hanging 
 sleeves of my jacket : some person's dress had caught the guard of the 
 sword, and had nearly drawn the blade from the scabbard before I could 
 get hold of the handle. Like all around me, I was in a profuse perspiration." 
 " The dervishes I found to be of diflferent nations, as well as of different 
 orders. Some of them wore the ordinary turban and dress of Kgypt, 
 others the Turkish padded cap, and others again high caps, or turtoors, 
 mostly of the sugar-loaf shape. One of them had a white cap of the 
 form last mentioned, upon which were worked, in black letters, invoca- 
 tions to the first four Kalifehs, to El-IIasan, and El-Hoseyn, and to other 
 eminent saints, founders of different orders of dervishes. Most of these 
 devotees were Egyptians ; but there were among them many Turks and 
 Persians. I had not waited many minutes before they began their exer- 
 cises. Several of them first drove back the surrounding crowd with sticks ; 
 but as no stick was raised at me, I did not retire so far as I ought to have 
 done ; and before I was aware of what the dervishes were about to engage 
 in, forty of them, with extended arms, and joined hands, had formed a 
 large ring, in which I found myself inclosed. For a moment I felt half 
 inclined to remain where I was, and join in the zlkr, bow, and repeat the 
 name of God ; but another moment's reflection on the absurdity of the 
 performance, and the risk of my being discovered to be no dervish, decided 
 me otherwise : so, parting the hands of two of the holy men, I passed 
 outside the ring. The dervishes, who formed the large ring, which inclosed 
 five of the marble columns of the portico, now commenced their zikr, 
 exclaiming, over and over again, ' Allah ! ' and, at each exclamation, 
 bowing the head and body, and taking a step to the right ; so that the 
 whole ring moved rapidly round. As soon as they commenced this exer- 
 cise, another dervish, a Turk, of the order of Mowlawees, in the middle of 
 the circle, began to whirl, using both his feet to effect this achievement, and 
 extending his arms ; the motion increased in velocity until his dress spread 
 out like an umbrella. He continued whirling thus for about ten minutes ; 
 after which, he bowed to his superior, who stood within the circle ; 
 and then, without showing any signs of fatigue or giddiness, joined the 
 dervishes in the great ring, who had now begun to ejaculate the name of 
 God with increasing vehemence, and to jump to the right, instead of 
 stepping. Afcer the whirling, six dervishes, within the great ring, 
 formed anotlier smaller circle, each placing his arms upon the shoulders
 
 SHRINE OF EL-HOSEYN, 253 
 
 of those next liim ; ami thus disposed, they executed a revolution similar 
 to that of the larger ring, save that it was much more rapid ; repeating 
 also the same exclamation of ' Allah !' but with a rapidity ])roportionably 
 greater. This motion they maintained for about the same length of time 
 that the whirling of the single dervish before had occupied ; after which, 
 the whole ])arty sat down to rest. They rose again, in about a quarter of 
 an hour, and performed the same exercise a second time. I saw nothing- 
 more in the great jiortico that was worthy of remark, excepting the faquirs, 
 who, a bystander told me, were idiots dancing and repeating the name of 
 God, and each beating a tambourine. 
 
 " I was desirous of visiting the shrine of El-IIoseyn on the anniversary of 
 his death, and of seeing if any particular cen-inonies were performed there 
 on this occasion. With difficulty I pushed through the crowd in the great 
 portico to the door of the saloon of the tomb ; but there I found compara- 
 tively few persons collected. On my entering, one of the servants of the 
 mosque conducted me to an unoccupied corner of the bronze screen which 
 surrounds the monument over the place where the martyr's head is said to 
 be buried, that I might there recite the Fathah. This duty performed, ho 
 dictated to me the following prayer, pausing after every two or three 
 words for me to repeat them, which I affected to do ; and another person, 
 who stood on my left, saying ' Amen ! ' at the close of each part, ' O 
 God, accept my visit, and perform my want, and cause me to attain my 
 wish ; for I come with desire and intent, and urge thee by the Seyldeh 
 Zeyneb, and the Imam Esh-Shafee, and the Sultan Aboo Sood.' After this 
 followed similar words in Turkish, which were added on the supposition 
 that I was a Turk, and perhaps did not understand the former words in 
 Arabic. This short supplication has been often dictated to me at the tombs 
 of saints in Cairo on festival days. On the occasion above described, before 
 I proceeded to make the usual circuit round the screen which incloses 
 the monument, I gave to the person who dictated the prayer a small piece 
 of monev, and he in return presented me with four little balls of bread, 
 each about the size of a hazel-nut. This was consecrated bread, made of 
 very fine flour, at a saint's tomb, and brought hither to be given to the 
 more respectable of the visitors. Many ])ersons in Egypt keep one of these 
 little balls in their pocket as a charm ; others eat it, as a valuable remedy 
 against any disease, or as a preventive of disease." 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The NlLOMETKR AND THE IsLAND OF RhODA. VaLLEY OF THE WaNDEKINGS. 
 
 Few things in the neighbourhood of Cairo are better worth visiting than 
 the Kilometer and the Island of Rhoda. The lovers of Scriptural antiquity 
 will experience pleasure during the visit, from the tradition, that the 
 prophet Moses, when set afloat on the Kile in the ark of bulrushes, was 
 driven ashore by the wind or current on the southern extremity of this
 
 254 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 beautiful isle ; wliilc others will taste all the delight excited by picturesque 
 scenery, united with the most varied historical associations. To enjoy 
 
 The Island of KhoUa. 
 
 these beauties, we set out from Cairo early in the morning, mounted as 
 usual on donkeys ; and arriving at Masr-el-Atikeh, embarked in the 
 common passage-boat on the river. 
 
 When we reached the opposite bank, we paused to look around us. It 
 was a lovely scene. In fact, the bank of the river was studded with the 
 picturesque draw-wells of the country, while the town of Old Cairo 
 towered above. To the right and left the eye followed the windings of the 
 Nile, bearing on its bosom butterfly-winged boats, and the picturesque 
 latine sail ; while high on the bank behind us waved the majestic trees of 
 Rhoda gardens. We climbed the steps conducting to them : in a few 
 months hence the steps will be under water, as the Nile at its height washes 
 the verj- walls of this little paradise. It belongs to Ibrahim Pasha, whose 
 harem opens into its flowery shades. 
 
 I cannot fancy anything more lovely than this charming spot, although 
 I am told Shoobra surpasses it. But, at all events, this has the advantage, 
 that its beauties are fresh from Nature's hand ; and were it not for 
 the well-kept walks and weedless flower-beds, that of man would be 
 invisible. 
 
 Tiie most prevalent shrub is the luxuriant myrtle, covered with its 
 odoriferous white blossoms, and generally exceeding eight feet in height. 
 The whole garden is intersected by hedges of this beautiful plant. On one 
 side are magnificent avenues of acacias, in full bloom, leading to terraces 
 overhanging the Nile, shaded by groves of weeping-willows. Then, 
 following one of these narrow winding paths, cut through a plantation of 
 olive-trees, you come to a silvery stream, meandering beneath flowering 
 shrubs of every hue, from the graceful laburnum of the north to the blush- 
 ing pomegranate of the south. Beyond this you find yourself under the 
 shadow of an avenue of tall mulberry trees, which leads you to a sunny 
 region, where the rose and the geranium flourish in wild luxuriance, only 
 checked by the magnificent hedges of cactus that surround them, also in 
 full blossom ; and presenting, as a whole, the blended beauties of the 
 western and eastern worlds. 
 
 But, as I have said, description is vain ; it would require a pen dipped 
 in rainbow hues to write it. Everywhere gaudy-coloured butterflies and
 
 ISLAND OF RIIODA. 255 
 
 ganzy-wingcd drajron-flies were sipping and fluttering among the sweets 
 that surrounded them, while myriads of birds chanted forth their orisons 
 from the leafy branches above. Sometimes a hoopoe, with its glossy black 
 and white plumage, started uj) close to our feet from a neighbouring 
 thicket ; then a lively little blue bunting flew out from some flower-shrub, 
 and twittered around us almost within our grasp; immediately afterwards, 
 a crested-wren, perhaps, would cross our path. Everything appeared 
 replete with life and beauty in this favoured spot, and our senses of sight, 
 smell, and hearing, were equally gratified. 
 
 In a short time I had collected an exquisite bouquet of geraniums, roses, 
 pomegranates, and numerous other sweet;*, interspersed with myrtle. No 
 over-curious and lynx-eyed gardener forbids one to partake and carry away 
 a gleaning of those beauties so profusely scattered around. On the con- 
 trary, a young man, who was evidently entitled to do so by his oflice, came 
 forward, when he saw us, and presented me with a nosegay, composed of 
 the most choice plants of the garden. We had been wandering amongst a 
 plantation of olive-trees, when suddenly the narrow path we were following 
 opened upon the crystal stream I have before described, just at a point 
 where a handsome stone bridge was thrown over it. The material it was 
 composed of was almost hidden from view by a profusion of flowering 
 creepers, while aloes, planted by the water's edge, were rearing their gigantic 
 flower-stalks eleven and twelve feet in height above it, throwing the lemon 
 perfume of their petals into the already scented air. We crossed this 
 bridge, and found ourselves in a large open space, cnrpeted with turf, sur- 
 rounded by a walk, and a grove of pomegranate trees in full bloom. In 
 the centre of the lawn was a lofty flowering shrub, which I took at first 
 for the laburnum, but on approaching nearer found I was mistaken, although 
 the flower strongly resembles it ; it is exactly the same colour, but each 
 bunch of blossom is at least four or five times as long and full, and the 
 seedpods, some of which we gathered, were a foot and a half in length. 
 This open spot fronts a kiosk, or country-house, now building for the 
 Pasha. 
 
 We travelled on, as the sun had become very hot, to the acacia grove 
 on the other side, where wc seated ourselves on one of the numerous benches 
 which are to be found in every part of the gardens. Just as we were 
 thinking of going home, we met some friends, who dii'ccted our attention 
 to a curious grotto, whic'.i, as we had not seen it, we hurried back to visit. 
 The grotto is entered from a marble terrace overlooking the stream, which 
 is here widened into a large sheet of water surrounding three sides of the 
 kiosk. It is composed entirely of shells and coral, brought from the Red 
 Sea, very ingeniously inlaid. There are throe compartments, the first of 
 which is entered by a cavity barely large enough to admit a person when 
 bent double ; in the last is a sjiarkling fountain, sending the music of its 
 waters through the cool retreat. Here Ibrahim Pasha delights to smoke 
 his chibook, accompanied by a few chosen friends, and while away the mo- 
 notony of a Mohammedan day. This grotto reminded me of the one I saw 
 seven years ago in the garden of the Little Trianon at Versailles, where 
 Marie-Antoinette, and the favourite ladies of her court, retired to chat and
 
 256 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 sip their tea during tlic sultry evenings of summer, and forget the tedium 
 of regal splendour. 
 
 I accompanied our friends into the kiosk. The Pasha has a great many 
 of these small houses, perched ahout in the prettiest situations ; they are 
 intended for him to pass a few hours in during the summer heat, and smoke 
 his chibook, while he views the varied prospects beneath, and is refreshed 
 by the cool breezes wafted tlirough flowery regions. The present erection 
 is very simple and unostentatious, the principal feature being the water, 
 which surrounds it like a moat on three sides, and washes its walls. It is 
 three stories high, and the view from the top is enchanting. I stood upon 
 the little balcony of one of the windows, quite enchanted with the scene. 
 Immediately below me lay the whole extent of the island, spread out with 
 all its parterres and terraces, like a map of many colours, girded by the 
 silvery river, whose course stretclied on either side as far as the eye could 
 reach. Cairo was behind me ; but immediately in front stood out the 
 colossal Pyramids in bold relief, but the blue misty hue on their surface 
 reminded me of the many miles which divided us. I could have looked 
 nnd looked for ever ; but the carpenters, who were working at the window- 
 frames, and pestering for bucksheesh, would not allow me to interrupt them 
 any longer.* 
 
 At the southern extremity of the island the Pasha has erected powder- 
 mills, near which is the tower of the Nilometer, or JNIekyas, a marble pillar 
 divided into cubits and inches, for ascertaining the rise of the river. It 
 stands in a deep square basin ; and, in A. D. 847, the year of its erection, 
 its base was on a level with the surface of the river, at low Nile. Formerly, 
 as we learn from the Nubian geographer, an elegant cupola was erected 
 over the cistern, ornamented with arabesques in gold, blue, and other 
 colours ; but this no longer exists. A square beam, passing from wall to 
 wall, as represented in Pococke's engraving, rests on the top of the column, 
 and is now, perhaps, necessary to keep it erect, but greatly detracts from 
 the beauty of its appearance. "We descend into a well by a flight of steps, 
 once an ornament to the building, but at present neglected and covered 
 Avith mud. The water, like that of the Khalish, having been long stagnant, 
 was green and fetid ; and the whole place, like all the other buildings in 
 this country, had an appearance of dilai)idation and decay. It was on the 
 site of the Nilometer that Moses, according to the tradition of the country, 
 was discovered by Pharaoh''s daughter in the ark of bulrushes. 
 
 Egypt, it will have been seen, is everywhere full of Scriptui'al traditions. 
 Of these, one of the most remarkable is that which is connected with the 
 Exodus of the Israelites, who are popularly believed to have marched south 
 from the land of Goshen, skirted the Mokattam Mountains, traversed the 
 present site of Cairo, and turning to the left near Toura, to have travelled 
 towards the Red Sea through a wild gorge in the Arabian chain. Dr. 
 Robinson, who has diligently considered the whole question of the depar- 
 ture of the Israelites from Egypt, adduces many arguments f to show that 
 they pursued a different route. This is not the proper place to indulge in 
 
 * Mrs. GrifBtb. t " Biblical Researches."
 
 VALLEY OF THE WANDERINGS. 257 
 
 a controversy on the subject, but it may be observed, that although the 
 Doctor's theory is not without probabiHty, there may have been circum- 
 stances in their departure which made them select a difficult track for 
 their retreat. For example, knowing that the strength of Pharaoh consisted 
 greatly in chariots, they may have eschewed the broad level plain extending 
 towards Suez, and have struck purposely into the mountains, to interpose 
 as many obstacles as possible between the Egyptians and tiiemselves. Tliere 
 is no analogy between the movements of a modern army and that of fugi- 
 tives like the Israelites, who were escaping for their lives. In such cir- 
 cumstances, three days would suffice, even by the Valley of the Wanderings, 
 to carry them to the shores of the Red Sea. As I said, however, I shall 
 abstain from entering into anything like a discussion of this point, my 
 object being rather to describe what exists and is believed in the country, 
 than what may be invented by the learned to support any particular 
 hypothesis. 
 
 In the Valley of the AVanderings, extending from the vicinity of Toura 
 to the lied Sea, are found the remains of extensive forests, overthrown and 
 converted into agate, which we were desirous of visiting. Several of the 
 Franks of Cairo, who seldom venture beyond their threshold unattended 
 by a host of guides, understanding our intention, prophesied we should all 
 be murdered in this perilous adventure, unless ]>rotected by an escort of 
 Mahazi Bedouins — the lords paramount of the whole desert lyincr between 
 the latitudes of Cairo and Kosseir. Accustomed, however, to their credu- 
 lity and exaggeration, which, at an earlier stage of our journey, miglit 
 have deceived us, we slighted their prognostications, and proceeded on the 
 excursion with our own daring Arab attendant and usual arms. Quitting 
 the city by the gate of the citadel, and traversing the great Memlook 
 cemetery, we turned off to the left, a little beyond Toura, and entered 
 among the rocky hollows of the desert, where the ground is strewed with 
 the fragments of crystal, and large beds of the ostrca, diliiviana. The mouth 
 of the valley is of considerable breadth, and the hilly chain constituting its 
 northern boundary abrupt and rugged, being intersected by numerous deep 
 and rocky ravines, through which the gazelles descend at night into the 
 plain. In all places frequented by these animals, we observe the same 
 contrivances for destroying them — small semicircular breastworks, behind 
 which the sportsmen lie in wait for their game. 
 
 Having advanced some distance into the valley, in many places divided 
 by intervening ridges into several parallel channels, we arrived among the 
 petrifactions, scattered over the ground in large blocks of various forms. 
 The exterior of the stone exhibits the appearance and colour of wood ; 
 while the interior, resembling flint or agate, is often singularly varieo-ated. 
 In some specimens we observed the knots and roots of the trees twisted 
 and interlaced ; in others, a straight, fine grain ; and in a third sort — by far 
 the most plentiful — the loose, fibrous texture characteristic of palm-wood. 
 Hitherto, however, though we had advanced several miles up the valley, 
 none of those immense trees, spoken of at Cairo, presented themselves. 
 "We therefore continued in the same direction, until, in passing the entrance 
 to a narrow opening, we discovered in the distance a small bright red hill,
 
 258 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 wliicl), viewed in contrast with tlie surrounding grey rocks, seemed to have 
 been drenched with showers of blood. Thougli this is not the place where 
 the petrifactions are usually sought, the extraordinary aspect of the eminence 
 induced us to diverge from our course ; and immediately, almost in the 
 mouth of the gorge, we discovered enormous trees, bared of their branches, 
 overthrown, and converted into stone. Several of the trunks measured 
 three feet in diameter, and from forty to fifty-two feet in length ; in some 
 cases presenting the appeai'auce of having been sawn into various blocks; 
 in others, particularly on the slope of the hills, seeming to have been over- 
 thrown in their petrified state by floods or hurricanes, and shattered to 
 fragments in their fall. It is moreover worthy of remark, that in all cases 
 which came under my notice, the roots of the trees point towards the Red 
 Sea, and their summits towards Egypt. Few of these larger petrifactions 
 are palms, though we observed one specimen, three feet and a half in length, 
 which displayed all the rough annular appearance of the date-tree, whose 
 branches had been lopped off according to the present fashion. The greater 
 number are a species of timber no longer known in Egypt. A petrified peg, 
 or wedge, picked up by my companion, Dr. Hogg, contained two pieces of 
 rusty iron nail. The tops of the hills, the beds of the torrents, the hollows, 
 the glens, and ravines, are profusely covered with these petrifactions, which 
 would seem in most instances to have been transmuted in an upright 
 position, and afterwards cast down and broken. All this portion of the 
 desert, therefore, must once have been fertile and covered with forests ; 
 though, in process of time, the vegetation has disappeared, while the soil, 
 scorched and deprived of moisture by the sun, has lost the power of pro- 
 duction. On arriving at the red hill, we found it to be a hemispherical 
 eminence, covered with a thick coating of vermilion-tinted clay, which 
 might, perhaps, be advantageously employed in the manufacture of porce- 
 lain. The old priest of Sais, who in the Tiraaeus of Plato relates so many 
 extraordinary things to Solon, alludes to a tradition attributing the devas- 
 tation of these mountainous tracts to some marvellous change in the course 
 of nature, and the too near approach of the sun. Some obscure notion of 
 this kind the Greeks enveloped in the poetical fable of Phaeton. The 
 priest further observes, that when the low lands were devastated by a 
 deluge, the shepherds and herdsmen removed to the mountains, and were 
 there saved from destruction ; consequently, these chains could not have 
 been wholly destitute of vegetation.
 
 259 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Isthmus of Suez. — Slave Bazaar. 
 
 In describing the desert road between Suez and Cairo, now monthly 
 traversed by the overland mail, I shall make use of the pen of Sir William 
 Cornwallis Harris. This distinguished traveller, whose account of Southern 
 Abyssinia is now in everybody's hand, has, in a letter to me, not only 
 sketched the route from the Red Sea to the capital of Egypt, but also 
 given a rapid sketch of all he saw during his stay and on his passage down 
 the Nile. Upon two or three points already treated he has touched lightly, 
 but I would not omit anything of his lively and graphic narrative. I will 
 only add, that it affords me much pleasure to find that on almost every 
 question connected with Egypt, Sir William Harris's opinions coincide 
 with my own. 
 
 " In Quarantine off the Isle of Wight. 
 " My dear St. John, 
 
 ■•' Aware of the deep interest you take in all matters connected with 
 Abyssinia, and with my recent Embassy thither, I hasten to apprise you of 
 my safe arrival in the ' Oriental,' with the various presents sent by the 
 Christian King of Shoa to our Most Gracious Queen. With these I set out 
 on my return from the African highlands in February last, and was accom- 
 panied through the Adel desert to Bombay by two natives of Shoa ; the first 
 who have ever crossed the ocean, or even visited the coast. They were 
 deputed by his Majesty to view the glories of our Eastern possessions, and 
 were fairly bewildered with what they saw. It would be amusing to hear 
 the accounts they will carry to Sahela Selassie of ' the great salt water and 
 the steam houses that walk over it,' of the cathedral, the arsenal, the 
 dock-yard, and other wonders ; but especially of the Mint, whence the gold 
 and silver coins that he loves are, by some magic process, ' scattered over 
 the floor like the drops of rain !' 
 
 " I tarried only three weeks in India, and my subsequent route through 
 Egypt has brought me acquainted with the land on which you have written 
 so ably. Being detained a month, I re-read your travels on the spot with 
 increased pleasure and profit. Travellers have left nothing unsaid on the 
 subject that I could say, more especially to you ; and as even the record of 
 my impressions would prove an oft-told tale, I shall restrict myself to the 
 bare account of my onward progress. 
 
 " On my first arrival at Suez, those who, like myself, have viewed the 
 overland communication as the connecting link with their native land, will 
 be horrified, as I Avas, with the singular preparations making in the court- 
 yard adjoining the agent's house, for the ti'ansmission across the Desert of 
 the numerous boxes containing the mail. Hundreds of i-efractory camel-
 
 260 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 owners flock together with their turbulent beasts of burthen, and the 
 clamour and Babel-like confusion is presently at its climax. All are 
 eagerly eyeing the pile of cases, but none venture to approach. Suddenly 
 two or three janissaries, whose office it is to superintend the distribution, 
 arise from their seats, cast aside their long pipes, and lay about with their 
 ratans in the most indiscriminate fashion, without either favour or affection. 
 A general rush ensues. Camels growl and their drivers curse. The pack- 
 ages are rudely lashed upon the saddles, and as the loading of each drome- 
 dary is completed, away he goes at a trot through the dusty suburbs, and 
 is soon veiled from sight in the flat horizon. From the moment of starting, 
 each party is left to his own devices, with a simple understanding tliat he is 
 to make the best of his way to Cairo, and every letter of the thousands and 
 tens of thousands thus consigned to the Desert, reaches its destination in 
 from sixteen to twenty hours. 
 
 " Having arranged the transit of my own numerous bales, and seen them 
 fairly through the gate of the town, w^e strolled towards the substantial 
 caravanserai, or, more pro-perly, forti4cation, erecting by the Pasha for the 
 accommodation of pilgrims to Mecca ; and were invited to inspect one of 
 his Highness*'s new packet steamers, which was lying in the muddy creek. 
 The native engineer on board, who spoke English with extraordinary 
 fluency, and had profited well by a scientific education at Liverpool, had 
 just returned from a voyage to Jidda with a cargo of true believers destined 
 for the Holy City ; and if he was guilty of a little exaggeration when 
 detailing the number of knots completed during the hour, it was only 
 reasonable that he should be vain of his craft, which had been both length- 
 ened and widened under his own personal superintendence — her original 
 dimensions having proved too small by a few inches every way, for the 
 admission of the engines. 
 
 " The two-wheeled vans destined for our own conveyance were now 
 ready, and having duly packed ourselves within them, the whips were 
 cracked, and away bounded the unbroken steeds, kicking furiously, and 
 evincing no sort of respect for the established high road from India, which 
 is daily becoming more and more deeply worn by carriage- wheels. The 
 "overland" communication, in its present improved form, has completely 
 effaced the romance formerly attaching to the Desert of Suez. Within 
 the distance of eighty-four miles are to be found no fewer than seven, 
 station-houses, where the Peninsular and Steam-Navigation Company have 
 arranged to provide the traveller with every luxury, from the waters of the 
 Nile to sparkling champagne ; and there being relays of horses, the time 
 actually passed witliin the vehicles need not exceed twelve hours. The 
 centre station, however, affords the accommodation of excellent sleeping- 
 apartments for those who may prefer resting by the way. 
 
 " I looked at the isthmus with very curious eyes, for, as you already 
 know, I bad been some years previously nominated to superintend the 
 construction of surveys and plans for a canal across it, which was in con- 
 templation during the period of Lord Clare's administration at Bombay. 
 The Pasha's subsequent position interfered with my projected employment, 
 but I had carefully studied the subject, and felt well pleased to find myself
 
 DESERT OF SUEZ. 261 
 
 at last on the spot. Tlie navigation of the ancients was conducted through 
 a series of trough-hkc depressions forming the Lacus Amari of Pliny, and 
 tlience to the Nile hy certain wadys, which constitute a lung valley, 
 formerly overflowed, hut now dry. Whatever may once have been the 
 liydraulic capacity of this channel, there are at the present day many 
 formidable obstacles opposed to the re-establishment of navigable commu- 
 nication, and still more to the construction of a direct canal between the 
 Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Independently of the changes 
 undergone in the features of the tract to be cut through, it is evident that 
 the Red Sea, with its winds, rocks, and currents, continues to offer the 
 same impediments to sailing vessels, those of heavy burthen especially, that 
 it did in the days when ploughed by the fleets of Solomon, in quest of the 
 myrrh and frankincense of the Somauli Coast. And setting aside the vast 
 expense that would be involved by the construction of a large commercial 
 canal, with safe and efficient sea-ports, a serioiis objection is presented in 
 the length of time that must be required to complete so gigantic an under- 
 taking. Our relations with the East require that the communication should 
 be perfected at once, and this can only be accomplished by a railroad between 
 Suez and Cairo. 
 
 " I have heard all manner of absurd and childish objections urged to this 
 scheme, but when the difficulties to be overcome, and the comparatively 
 small expense to be incurred, are contrasted with the splendid results to be 
 obtained, it seems amazing that it should be only still a project. It was 
 first contemplated by the shrewd Viceroy of Egypt, about ten years 
 ago, but relinquished after a considerable portion of the iron work had 
 actually been prepared. The same jealousy that is arrayed against our 
 influence on both coasts of the Red Sea, is equally opposed to a Suez railroad, 
 which presents such important commercial advantages, and comes so com- 
 pletely within the limits of immediate application. In a scheme which I have 
 seen for a canal, England is the only nation of Europe not included in the 
 enumeration of those who are to be })articipators in the great commercial 
 advantages of a navigable highway ! The vanity of the Pasha, however, 
 still prompts him to leave behind a monument of his government laid in 
 iron not less durably than the laboured mausoleums of the Pharaohs; 
 and I thei-efore trust that the day is not far distant when we are to see 
 the barefooted pilgrim to the shrine at El Medina, not only taking steam 
 for Jidda, but whirling across the desert in the train of a locomotive 
 engine ! 
 
 " With the exception of occasional sand hillocks, which intersect the land- 
 scape, the isthmus is remarkably level and open, and the general character 
 of the soil is a hard compact gravel, overstrewed with pebbles, and nearly 
 destitute of vegetation ; but in spite of the absence also of water, this arid 
 and forbidding tract afl'ords an asylum to the ' desert-loving gazelle.' 
 Egypt is always overflowing \y\%\\ foreigners, and we met several grotesque 
 parties, in straw hats, plodding steadily towards ]\[ount Sinai, on the back 
 of the dromedary, with the bleached bones of which animal the roadside is 
 abundantly garnished. For ourselves, we neither broke down, were 
 overset, nor thrown in the path of adventures, and, after the usual baiting
 
 262 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 and changes of team, arrived all at once within sight of the pyramids, and 
 minarets, and palm-groves, of Grand Cairo. 
 
 '' By what a v^rhirl of ideas was my fancy hurried round, as I indulged 
 in a reverie of the past, with one foot resting on the barren desert, and the 
 other on the alluvial borders, annually refreshed by the overflowing of old 
 father Nile. His troubled waters, loaded with the highland soil I had so 
 recently trodden, were already rising, and I viewred them with an interest 
 scarcely to be described. No one who has read of Egypt can fail to be 
 prepared for a sudden transition from all that is herbless and lifeless, to the 
 most verdant and luxuriant vegetation ; but the strange division of the 
 landscape, into parallel belts, coloured green and yellow, must be seen to 
 be thoroughly comprehended. And then such a crowd of objects brought 
 together to excite and employ the imagination. I declare I felt in a sort of 
 fairy dream, as the vehicle passed, by a single revolution of the wheels, fi'om 
 the boundary of solitude, sterility, and silence, into the fertile valley, 
 whence the busy hum of thousands arose from a populous city, the centre 
 of the most attractive scenes of Oriental history. 
 
 " I was not much grieved to find myself unavoidably detained in Egypt 
 an entire month, by the inability to convey to Alexandria, in time to catch 
 the ' Great Liverpool,' the animate portion of the present with which I 
 am charged for her Britannic Majesty. This is a beautiful black mule, 
 designed for the Prince of Wales. ' Superior to all ' — for so she is 
 entitled — was the flower of the royal stud in Shoa, and contrived to excite 
 such admiration in Cairo, that there was always a crowd collected round 
 her stable door ; and I received from more than one portly Bey the offer of 
 pieces of gold in purchase, very greatly in excess of the mule price-current. 
 After bringing her ladyship in safety through a country where everybody 
 w'as anxious to steal her, and neither forage nor water could be obtained in 
 over-abundance, she was taken care of by Captain Haines, the political 
 authority at Aden, in order that I might resume my charge on my way 
 through again from Bombay. Like the Abyssins, the poor thing is no 
 sailor ; and the three thousand miles which she was thus spared over the 
 salt water, would sadly have impaired her present sleek and glossy condition. 
 
 " My sojourn in the land of Egypt afforded me the leisure I desired to 
 amble on donkey-back through the busy streets, those hot-beds of plague, 
 and to visit all ol)jccts of interest or curiosity in the environs of the metro- 
 polis. I was dragged up the Pyramids, and shoved down an inclined 
 plane into their interior ; and afterwards left to mourn over the modern 
 hieroglyphics, in red and yellow paint, with which these venerable piles 
 have been disfigured since the discovery of the Rosetta stone. I gazed and 
 marvelled at tlie placid Sphinx, dived into the sand-choked necropolis, of 
 which she is the presiding genius, and saw a dozen of mummies exhumed, 
 unpacked, and pulled to ])ieces. I peeped into Joseph's Well, and clambered 
 to the summit of the tallest minaret that marks the slumbers of the Caliphs. 
 I possessed myself of a fragment of the hoary sycamore that sheltered Mary 
 on her flight from Palestine, and penetrated into the sacred recesses of the 
 humble church that afforded an asylum to the infant Jesus. In the garden 
 at Matareah I plucked a leaf from a scion of the original Balm of Gilead,
 
 SLAVE BAZAAR. 
 
 203 
 
 brought to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba, and leaned against the proud 
 obelisk at Ileliopolis, which has laughed at three thousand winters, and is 
 all that remains of the city where Herodotus studied. I inspected in turn 
 all the ancient relics and all the modern embellishments of Cairo. I gazed 
 from the tower whence its ruler superintended the massacre of the Mame- 
 lukes ; and from all the high places looked forth over the ' Father of 
 "Waters,' and the surging billows of the Libyan Desert. 
 
 " The mosque, in progress of erection by the Pasha near the ruins of 
 Saladin's palace, is the only building new to you, and it promises, should 
 it ever attain completion, to be one of the most splendid edifices ever dedi- 
 cated to Allah. I conclude that this pious work is intended to obliterate 
 the adjacent stains of Mameluke blood ; and IMahomed Ali had even 
 resolved to dismantle the nearest of the Pyramids in order to obtain choicer 
 materials for its construction ; but he was fortunately deterred by the fear 
 of what would be thought in Europe of such an outrage. The anxiety 
 entertained by his Highness to stand well in the estimation of the civilised 
 world, doubtless moved him to the imposition of a duty on the slave-trade, 
 which in a very short space of time has almost caused its extinction at 
 Cairo. I visited the market-place where the traffic in human flesh was 
 lately flourishing, and send you a sketch, which will not fail to recall to 
 
 Slave-market at Cairo. 
 
 your recollection the old walls by which the square is hemmed in. But, 
 thanks to the tax aforesaid, business is now stagnant. The cells contained 
 only a few swarthy Nubians ; four or five 'red Abyssinians,' natives of
 
 264 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Gurague, who were decked out in all manner of finery to attract purchasers; 
 and one Galla maid, who hid her pretty face, and laughed archly between 
 her dark fingers, when unexpectedly saluted in her native tongue. 
 
 " Dr. Roth, who was employed with me in Abyssinia, had accompanied 
 me thus far on his return to Germany ; and, during a previous residence in 
 Egypt, he had made himself so thoroughly conversant with Cairo and its 
 environs, that I have reason to deem myself most fortunate in the possession 
 of such a guide. It is impossible, indeed, to eulogise too highly my most 
 agreeable companion, who is learned far beyond his years, and from his 
 extraordinary energy and application rendered me infinite service in Shoa. 
 He is quite a Humboldt, devoted to the cause of science, and, besides 
 making a surprising collection in every department of Natural History, 
 which I am now bringing home, was never happy unless when turning his 
 versatile talents to useful account. We were to part at last, and I never 
 felt melancholy with better reason than when his departure for Munich 
 left me to resume my journey alone. 
 
 " I could not help complaining to the Doctor of the merciless plunder to 
 which the ruins in Upper Egypt are being subjected, with the consent 
 of the Pasha ; but was consoled with the philosophical assurance, that the 
 time for sacking them had fully arrived. ' Unless this be sanctioned as .a 
 national undertaking,' he insisted, ' many inestimable relics must be lost 
 to the world, since the}' will inevitably be dispersed, and find their way 
 singly into the hands of those who are incapable of appreciating them.' 
 This devotion to science reminds me of an anecdote that diverted me exces- 
 sively, which is told of a visitor who came to Egypt in pursuit of objects 
 of Natural History. Whilst at Cairo, he cast a longing eye on the shaggv 
 old lions that lodged in the Pasha's menagerie, and mentally resolved to 
 add the stuffed spoils of one of their number to his museum. Application 
 was accordingly preferred to his Highness, who, in ignorance of the plot 
 conceived against the life of the animal, liberally passed a firman under the 
 great seal authori^^ing the removal of the finest. Transferred to a suitable 
 cage, the unsuspecting victim to dissection was wheeled away in triumph, 
 and great must have been his surprise, when, a few days afterwards, on 
 thrusting his head confidingly under the raised portcullis, he found his neck 
 entangled in a running noose of stout cord, the ends of which were violently 
 hauled in opposite directions between the bars. Thus taken in the toils, 
 resistance was vain ; and, in spite of much violent opposition, the strangled 
 lion was soon laid on the dissecting-table. IMahomed AH looked somewhat 
 disconcerted when he heard of the execution, but became better reconciled 
 on learning that the post mortem examination had revealed an affection of 
 the liver and other dangerous internal maladies, whicli, in the course of a 
 few days, must have proved not less fatal than a halter. 
 
 " You are aware, that in the present degenerate days the Patriarch of 
 Alexandria resides at Grand Cairo, and retains little more tlian his pompous 
 title. One of my first cares was to obtain an interview with his Holiness ; 
 and the Rev. Dr. Leider having readily undertaken to introduce Dr. Roth 
 and myself, we threaded our way through the intricacies of the Coptic 
 quarter, set apart for the occupation of ' Christian dogs.' Potros, the 108th
 
 PATRIARCH OF THE COPTS. 265 
 
 successor to St. Mark the Evangelist, ascended the patriarchal chair in 
 1803, and is now well stricken in years. We found the venerable man 
 basking in Oriental state, within his humble divan, surrounded by the 
 dignity of coffee and pipes, which were immediately handed round to his 
 visitors ; and the conversation turning at the same moment to the subject 
 of my recent correspondence with the Archbishop of Gondar, I took occa- 
 sion to comment on the fact, that, in Abyssinia, these Eastern luxuries are 
 denounced as Mahommcdan abominations by the juvenile prelate, who is, 
 nevertheless, an appointment of his own, and indebted for a superior educa- 
 tion to Dr. Leider. ' He ordains a thousand priests in a single day,' I 
 added, ' and is in the enjoyment of princely revenues ; but although his 
 ghostly influence more than his temporal power secures for him the homage 
 of every Christian potentate throughout his extensive see, he can only 
 maintain this spiritual despotism by thus subscribing to the prejudices and 
 fanaticism of the bigoted priesthood, who hold all classes iu chains.' A 
 silence of some minutes ensued, to allow the representative of St. Mark 
 time to turn the matter over in his mind ; and, after a deep-drawn pull at 
 his chehook, he was thus delivered of the result of his rumination : ' Aye, 
 but then you see Abba Salama has to deal in Abyssinia with a very igno- 
 rant set of people.' Now, this fact is not to be disputed ; but can it be 
 wondered at, when we reflect, that, until lately, the Primate of ^Ethiopia 
 was selected at random from among the monks of the convent of St. 
 Anthony, one of whom was torn from his austere cell, as each vacancy 
 occurred, and, much against his will, carried into exile, to be placed on an 
 episcopal throne ! 
 
 " Having seen everything in Cairo, I resolved to proceed leisurely down 
 the Nile, on my way to Alexandria, and took boat accordingly from Boulac, 
 having little idea, however, that five entire days and nights were to be 
 passed on the river. This very snail-like progress arose partly from adverse 
 winds, but principally from an insuperable aversion displayed by my laziest 
 of all lazy crews to the exercise of their brawny arms. Ever and anou 
 they dabbled their oars in the water to a lively boat chorus, but our impetus 
 was little accelerated, and, as the month drew towards a close, I began to 
 be very apprehensive of losing my passage, insomuch that I was glad to 
 offer a premium for increased exertion. Whilst still some hours distant 
 from the Mahmoudyeh canal, I was aroused in the middle of the calm night 
 by the distant labouring of paddle wheels, and thrusting my head out of 
 the cabin window, had the mortification to perceive a steamer flying up the 
 river like a shuttlecock, having on board, as I conjectured, the English 
 mails brought by the ' Oriental ' to Alexandria. Having watched her red 
 glare till she was out of sight, I retired to bed, congratulating myself that 
 at all events the passengers expected from Suez were still behind me ; but 
 scarcely had I closed my eyes on this reflection, when I was again aroused 
 by the booming of paddle-wheels from the opposite direction, and was dis- 
 mayed to perceive a second water- witch smoking, and steaming, and hissing 
 as she rushed down with the rapidity of lightning. Never before had I 
 been in a position to feel out of humour with the nautical steam-engine. 
 The whole business seemed like a nightmare ; but it was not until my
 
 266 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 arrival at Atfili the next afternoon that my conviction of being too late was 
 dissipated by the intelligence that the first cause of alarm was an express 
 with despatches from the Pasha ; and the other, the Steam Navigation 
 Company^s boat on her way down to await the expected passengers from 
 England, 
 
 " My progress through the Mahmoudyeh canal was scarcely more rapid 
 than that down the Nile, for owing to the scanty depth of water, the boat 
 was oftener aground than afloat. During the first night, and the forenoon 
 of the second day, we lay locked among a fleet of heavy barges, which, like 
 ourselves, had stuck fast in the mud ; and their philosophical crews, quite 
 ignorant of the value of time, sate smoking on deck as if they felt well 
 content to pass the residue of their sublunary existence in that precise 
 position. The janissaries, with whom I had been furnished at Atfih, were 
 not less comatose, but my entreaties and remonstrances at length aroused 
 them from their lethargy. Tucking up their loose trousers, they waded 
 on shore, and with the aid of their canes had soon driven together a flock of 
 fellahs, who happened to be passing on their own business. A tow rope was 
 placed in their hands, with orders to run away with it ; and whilst one 
 janissary urged them to proper exertion by the most convincing arguments, 
 the second flew from one impeding boat to another, and banged everybody 
 who was bold enough to come in his way. A poor woman who was 
 rigourously assailed, let her infant drop into the river, and then screamed 
 aloud. The stick rattled upon the shoulders of one of the crew, who 
 sprang over the side, and rescuing the little brat, restored it to the arms 
 of its mother, with a mouth crammed full of Nile mud. One obstacle after 
 another now gave way before the ratan. We were hauled into deep 
 water, and were no sooner in full sail, than a long string of donkeys passed 
 up the bank, laden with square boxes, on which the words ' Postmaster,' 
 and ' Secretary to the Government, Bombay,^ were sufficiently conspicuous. 
 The Oriental had arrived, and the covered green launch of the Transit 
 Company, towed rapidly by horses, passed presently afterwards, its deck 
 and latticed cabin crowded with passengers from England. 
 
 " One needs not many hours to visit Pompey's pillar, Cleopatra's needle, 
 and the few other lions of Alexandria, but I had made up my mind not 
 to depart out of Egypt until I should have been presented to its enlightened 
 Viceroy, without seeing whom I could be said to have seen nothing. My 
 obliging friend, Mr. Galloway, who deservedly holds a high place in the 
 opinion of his Highness, at once undertook to obtain an audience for me, 
 and after a few minutes' conversation with his Excellency Boghos Bey, 
 the minister, we were ushered into the presence of Mahomed Ali, at 
 a country seat, where he reclined upon an ottoman, in the cool recesses 
 of an arbour. He received me with great courtesy, but was for some 
 minutes totally absorbed in a voluminous Turkish manuscript, which 
 was in course of perusal aloud by the dragoman, and at every fourth 
 line, at least, embodied the word ' Napoleon.' It is matter of notoriety, 
 that the having come upon the world's stage in the same year as the Em- 
 peror, forms one of the peculiar vanities of the Pasha. I am unfortunately 
 not prepared to throw any further light upon the contents of the document
 
 THE PASHA. 
 
 2C7 
 
 under review, but as soon as he had duly digested them, I underwent a 
 sevei'e cross-examination on the subject of Abyssinia, the country that 
 contains the sources of the stream to wiiich his own dominions are indebted 
 for their fertility, and the country which he would fain have claimed to 
 append to those dominions, had not Lord Palmcrston undertaken to expound 
 clearly to his Highness how in this he laboured under a misconception. 
 ' And you are now the bearer of tokens of goodwill to Queen Victoria ?' 
 concluded the Pasha, when I had fully satisfied his curiosity upon every 
 point. ' AVell, I cannot but compliment you upon your success with such 
 a miser as I know the King of ^Ethiopia to be. Desiring to establish a 
 better understanding with his people, and to open up commercial intercourse 
 with the interior of Africa, I sent him all manner of fine things, and no 
 bounds were set upon his delight ; but when he came to dismiss my mes- 
 senger he entrusted him with the sum of ten dollars as a return present, 
 under the strictest injunctions to place the money in no other hands but 
 those of Mahomed Ali !' 
 
 " "With this anecdote of Abyssinian munificence, which I was happy to 
 be able to trace to the puppet Emperor of Gondar, instead of to the ruler 
 of Shoa, I must close my overland chapter. "We made a good passage, and 
 have still to perform sixty hours of quarantine ere permission can be accorded 
 to mix with the world ; but so soon as the days of our purification are 
 accomplished, I shall hope to shake hands with you in London. 
 
 " Meanwhile, and ever, believe me most sincerely yours, 
 
 " "W. C. Harris." 
 
 The IcbneumoD.
 
 268 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Dancing Girls of Egypt. 
 
 Among the most interesting and remarkable spectacles in the modem 
 capital of Egypt, are, or were lately at least, the performances of the 
 Ghawazee,* of which many travellers have made mention, without, how- 
 ever, bestowing on the accomplished actresses all the praises which they 
 appear to deserve. In reality, what is termed the " Dance of the 
 Ghawazee," is the opera of the Orientals. All ranks, and both sexes, 
 young and old, delight in the exhibition ; and the ladies of the harem, 
 instructed in the art by the Ghawazee themselves, perform in their own 
 apartments for the amusement of their families. Even the wives and 
 daughters of Europeans, who have long resided in the country, contract a 
 partiality for this dance, and are no more ashamed to entertain their friends 
 by the lascivious movements which it requires, than they are in Europe to 
 Avaltz or execute the polka. On my ai'rival at Cairo, therefore, one of my 
 first inquiries was concerning the dancing girls, who, I was told, lived apart 
 from the profane vulgar, in the little rural village of Sha'arah — the Eleusis 
 of modern Egypt — where the mysteries of Athor,the Mother of the Universe, 
 were until lately celebrated by those youthful priestesses. Traversing nearly 
 the whole of the city, we issued forth into the fields, through one of the 
 most ruinous and unfrequented suburbs ; and, in about half an hour, 
 
 " Facilis descensus Averni." 
 
 arrived at the village, which consists of a small collection of mud huts, 
 huddled together without order, though less poor and more cleanly than 
 any of the other villages we had seen ; so that sin, in Egypt, cannot be 
 reproached with the gorgeousness of its appearance, the Mahommedau 
 saints and hermits being, in general, better lodged than the Ghawazee. 
 On our arrival, a number of the dancers, many of them in very elegant 
 attire, and adorned with a profusion of ornaments, came forth to meet and 
 welcome us. They were all young — none, perhaps, exceeding twenty ; and 
 the majority between ten and sixteen years old. Some few would have 
 been considered handsome, even in London ; but the greater number, 
 though fairer than the Caireen women usually are, had little beside their 
 youth, and the alluring arts of their profession, to recommend them. 
 When they were told tliat we desired to witness their performances, they 
 proceeded to conduct us to the coffee-house, where the greater part of their 
 time was apparently consumed in sipping coffee, singing, and that sort of 
 piquant conversation which becomes their calling. 
 
 In the great saloon there were, perhaps, a hundred dancing girls assembled, 
 all intent on the enjoyment of the moment, pupils of that sage school which 
 motto is, " Carpe diem, quara minime credula postero." Not being 
 
 * Ghazeejeb, sing., a dancing girl : ghawazee, plural.
 
 THE DANCING GIRLS. 269 
 
 habituated to wine, coffee appeared to produce in them the same excite- 
 ment and petulant gaiety to whicli champagne or burgundy sometimes 
 gives birth among European women ; and having no motives for conceal- 
 ment, they expressed the subject of their meditations witli a cynical 
 intrepidity worthy of a Lais or a Phryne. Two or three — the handsomest of 
 all — were elegantly, or rather sumptuously dressed, in short embroidered 
 jackets, fitting close, and showing the whole contour of the form ; with long 
 loose trousers of half-transparent silk, a bright-coloured shawl round the 
 waist, and small graceful turbans of muslin and gold ; their hair, which 
 escaped in long black tresses from beneath the head-dress, was ornamented 
 with strings of gold coins, strung like pearls, which, in some cases, depended 
 in barbaric profusion over the forehead. Considerably the greater number 
 were below the middle size, like the generality of their countrywomen, 
 with clear brown complexions, oval face, fine teeth, and beautiful large 
 dark eyes. Their dress, when not purposely discomposed, is by no means 
 indecent; but, proud of the native grace of their forms, they seem daringly 
 heedless of appearances, and continued, with affected negligence, to display 
 in succession every hidden charm which nature had bestowed upon them. 
 Not having as yet stepped beyond the threshold of youth, their bosoms were 
 exceedingly beautiful, and their limbs exquisitely round and tapering. Though 
 evidently disposed to exhibit all their arts of allurement, and overflowing 
 with animal spirits, there was a quiet, easy voluptuousness about their 
 manner, inimical to extravagant gaiety. They sang, they smoked, they 
 sipped coffee, or conversed in soft tones with each other, indulging, from 
 time to time, in petulant movements and speaking glances, which revealed 
 the colour of their thoughts. Shakspeare, in his off-hand portrait of Cressida, 
 a thorough member of this sisterhood, has given an excellent idea of 
 their bearing and appearance : — 
 
 " There 's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip : 
 Nay, her foot speaks ; licr wanton spirit looks out 
 At every joint and motion of her body. " 
 
 The principal Ghazeeyeh now prepared to dance. She was a fine Arab girl 
 in the flower of her age — an Oriental would have thought her beautiful — 
 with a form resembling that of the Venus Kallipyga. Her ordinary dress, 
 perhaps regarded as too prudish, was exchanged for a light and more tantalis- 
 ing costume, which, for exhibiting every beauty and contour of the figure, 
 undoubtedly equalled the Coan robes, celebrated by Horace, or those trans- 
 parent Amorginian garments which Lysistrata, in Aristophanes, counsels the 
 Athenian ladies to assume, for the laudable purpose of putting an end to 
 the Peleponnesian war. The whole business of the toilet was performed in 
 public ; and when her dress had been arranged so as to expose nearly the 
 whole front of the person, she fastened round her waist a broad variegated 
 belt, as thick as a horse's girth, without the support of which many of the 
 postures required by the nature of the dance would be impossible. 
 Throwing off her slippers, she then commenced the pantomime, her move- 
 ments being accompanied by the music of the Egyptian pipe and drun», 
 the songs of two or tliree of her companions, and the wanton sounds of 
 the castanets. Many travellers affect to have been much disgusted by the 
 
 A a2
 
 270 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 performances of the Ghazeeyeli, and perhaps when the dancers are ugly, the 
 exhibition may have but few charms; but, in general, it is not beheld without 
 pleasure, and I fear that a company of accomplished Ghazeeyeh^ engaged 
 by an opera manager, would draw crowded houses in Paris or London. 
 The dance, which is kut eioxw mimetic, represents a tale of love — at 
 least, as love is understood in the East. Laying the scene in the desert, the 
 fair one first appears as if standing, in the twilight, at the door of her tent, 
 expecting her lover. Pensive, restless, tortured by delay, by suspicion, by 
 jealousy, she casts a wistful glance over the waste, on which the shadows 
 of evening are gathering, but beholds not her beloved, hears not the 
 resounding hoofs of his steed; while the rising moon, wont to light 
 him to her impatient arms, mingles its light with that of the retreat- 
 ing day, and rapidly acquires the ascendancy. In a reproachful, despondent 
 tone, which gradually becomes impassioned, as memory places before her 
 fancy the ])icture of past delights, she has recourse to the aid of song, in 
 order the more completely to depict her feelings. Tlie words, in the 
 Arabic, are imbued with all the ardour which consumes her soul ; but in 
 the following imitation, or rather paraphrase, much, I fear, of the erotic 
 fire is lost : — 
 
 SONG OF THE GIIAZEEYEH. 
 Ta Mi, ya lei; — Allah, ya lei. 
 " The night, the night, oh heaven ! the night 
 
 Which brings thee, Hassan, to my arms! 
 When those dear e3'es, so mild, so bright, 
 
 Bewitch me with their magic charms. 
 
 " The moon is up — each bush, each grove, 
 
 Is vocal with the night-bird's song ; 
 
 Therefore, oh, wherefore, then, my love ! 
 
 Tarries thy bounding steed so long ? 
 
 " Some dark-brown tent ; — some rival fair, 
 With ruddy lip, and flashing eye, 
 Hath cast around thy heart a snare — 
 While here alone I weep and sigh. 
 
 " She hears thy dear, deluding voice, 
 Flowing like some melodious river ; 
 And deems the moment's fickle choice 
 Will charm thy wayward heart for ever ! 
 
 " Ah, no ! — the wronged, the loved one, comes ! 
 I see him bounding o'er the plain . 
 Allah ! where'er my Hassan roams, 
 I ne'er will doubt his love again.'' 
 
 The lovers being now together, the pantomime proceeds. At first, not- 
 withstanding the earnestness with which she desired his presence, the 
 damsel behaves coyly and bashfully ; repels his advances with becoming 
 decorum ; plays the coquette ; retires while he pursues — 
 
 " Fugit ad salices, at se cupit ante videri ;" 
 
 but all the while betrays, by looks of complacency, and the humid sparkling 
 of the eyes, that her feet and heart are running different ways. By degrees 
 the dance assumes a more voluptuous character. The imagination of the 
 bayadere, wrought upon by the comedy which she performs, kindles to
 
 SONG OF THE OIIAWAZEE. 271 
 
 flamo ; her whole form is agitated by passion ; her eyes close, her head 
 drops backward, her arms are pressed against her bosom ; while the nixisic 
 and the song — for the whole is accompanied by words — exhibit the same 
 characteristics, and carry forward your ideas to the same goal. Lady 
 Montague, who witnessed the exhibition in the harem, has ably and forcibly 
 described the dance and its effects upon the imagination : but many other 
 exhibitions — comedies, operas, farces, waltzes — are open to the same 
 objections, and yet are tolerated, though the only difference seems to be, 
 that the latter are the irr'Uamenta cv,pidinum of civilised nations, the former 
 of barbarians. Vice, however, in whatever climate it is found, sooner or 
 later conducts its votaries to the bitter waters of repentance. Even the pan- 
 tomime of the Ghawazee has this moral ; for, the paroxysm of passion over, 
 we observe the fallen fair one a prey to the stings of remorse ; melancholy, 
 dejected, humiliated, a fugitive from her home, recalling, amidst the hollow 
 enjoyments of sin, the pure delights of her days of innocence, when her soul 
 was untainted, and her person the object of an honourable love. One of 
 their son^s, which I have endeavoured to imitate, expresses, with graphic 
 energy, the force and poignancy of their feelings : — 
 
 " ISIy heart is in the desert vale, with Ahmed, far away, 
 Where rush the streamlets down the rocks, where Arab maidens gay 
 Revel, all free and innonent ; nor waste one thought on her 
 Who left, long years ago, that vale, in pleasure's paths to err. 
 
 " Thither I wander in my dreams, and seem once more to stand, 
 All fair and guiltless, by my love, upon the golden sand; 
 While moonlight falls, in silver streams, around each rock and tree — 
 Likening to Paradise a scene, I never more must see. 
 
 " There, Ahmed with his desert bride, his loved one crowding near, 
 Laments no more his Leila's fate — he drops for me no tear : 
 Though once be still, my bursting heart ! — though once he seemed to prize 
 
 ' The perfume of my panting breath, the lightning of these eyes ! 
 
 " Bring music — bring the syren bowl ! let wine and minstrelsy 
 Drown these home-wandering thoughts, and teach my soul to taste of glee ! 
 Then bid my All, full of love, hush all my care to rest, 
 With his arm around my yielding waist, and his head upon my breast." 
 
 All the nations of the East have, from the remotest ages, delighted in 
 this species of exhibition, which from them passed into Greece and Rome, 
 where it furnished the poets with an agreeable theme for satire. Horace, 
 whose Divus Augustus had doubtless helped to introduce it, laments that 
 the young ladi(>s had acquired a taste for the Oriental style of dancing, 
 which was evidently popular at Rome. 
 
 And Juvenal, who had travelled in Egypt, at a later period, makes 
 mention of the Roman dancing-girls. 
 
 The Bayaderes, or Nautch-girls of Ilindostan, know no other kind of 
 dance ; and from paintings preserved in the grottoes of Eillthyias, and in 
 the tombs of Tliebes, we find that the ancient Egyptians had likewise their 
 Ghawazee, who were employed in their domestic entertainments to 
 heighten the effect of the song and the bov^l by their voluptuous move- 
 ments. At the time of which I am speaking, the ladies wlio practise 
 these arts, were divided into three or four classes, according to their
 
 272 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 beauty, and payed annually a tax to the Pasha, who, like his most 
 Christian Majesty, farmed out the vices of his subjects. They were placed 
 under the superintendence of the Pezawink Bashi ; and when a party 
 was sent for to perform in the evening at any private house, they were 
 first required to repair to their chief, give in their names, and pay a large 
 extra sum. 
 
 This honourable personage, after a lengthened delinquency, was at last 
 convicted of the most nefarious practices, among which was that of inserting, 
 in the list of these women, the names of several respectable ladies, the 
 wives or daughters of his superiors. His punishment quickly followed, and 
 was severe ; but I forget in what it consisted : probably he was thrown 
 into the Nile. The music which accompanies the dance, cannot, it must 
 be acknowledged, challenge much commendation ; but the Orientals gene- 
 rally appear to be exceedingly deficient in musical taste and science, and, like 
 many persons in Europe, 
 prefer noise and the cla- 
 mour of numerous in- 
 struments to the concord 
 of harmonious sounds. 
 But the singers are 
 chiefly women, and the 
 female voice, however 
 untutored, has always 
 perhaps the power to 
 cast a spell over the 
 judgment, more particu- 
 larly when impassioned 
 gestures, melting looks, 
 and a certain dithyram- 
 bic enthusiasm, trans- 
 port the singer beyond 
 herself, and render her 
 like the Meenades or 
 Bacchantes of old, un- 
 mindful of everything, 
 but the ideas and desires 
 which possess her soul, 
 and of which every cor- 
 poreal movement is an external manifestation. And this is not so much 
 art as nature ; she becomes what she would seem, foemina simplex — 
 uncurbed by that restraint, and moral discipline, and religious principle, 
 which, in Christian countries, more especially in England, subdue and 
 purify the passions, and elevate woman into the most chaste and 
 perfect of created things. 
 
 About fifteen years ago the Egyptian government came down upon the 
 whole body of the operatic profession with a sweeping measure of reform. 
 It issued an order one fine morning that all women known and licensed as 
 professional dancers, singers, &c., who were to be found in Cairo or its 
 
 Dancing Girl,
 
 ARMENIAN ENTERTAINMENT. 273 
 
 vicinity, should be seized forthwith and transported to Upper Egypt. On 
 arriving there they were disposed of in marriage among the soldiery ; from 
 which auspicious union doubtless some new heroic race is destined to arise. 
 We take the following account from a German traveller who visited Cairo 
 in 1841. (Hacklander, ii., 239.) 
 
 It was a great disappointment to us that we could not witness any of 
 those dances of which we had heard so much. That many of the per- 
 formers still lived secretly in Cairo, was known to everybody ; but the 
 police kept such a sharp watch upon them that it was no easy thing to get 
 them to dance, particularly before Christians. A German, however, whose 
 acquaintance we happened to make, and who was pretty well naturalised 
 in the place, promised to do what he could for us ; and at last he called 
 one evening to say that with the help of some Egyptian friends he would 
 try next day to arrange for us an entertainment of the kind we desired. 
 
 Next evening he came to us according to appointment, and accompanied 
 by another German, to whom and to the strenuous exertions of his Copt 
 wife, we were to be more immediately indebted for the promised fantasia. 
 Our new friend had wedded his amiable lady after the customary manner 
 of her people, that is to say, for such time as he should be pleased to retain 
 her ; for which privilege, and inasmuch as the lady was not remarkable 
 either for beauty or youthful bloom, he paid down to her parents the 
 moderate sum of ten dollars in cash, and covenanted to pay a further sum 
 of ten dollars on returning her upon their hands, whether with or without 
 children. While the wedlock lasted he was boimd to provide suitably for 
 her dress and maintenance, and to treat her well in all otlier respects ; 
 while she was to make a due return to her dear lord and spouse by love, 
 constancy, and sedulous care of his domestic concerns. This exemplary 
 lady had successfully exerted her interest to procure us admission into the 
 harem of the Armenian director of the mint, which lay in a sequestered 
 quarter of the town. 
 
 The house had all the requisites which the case demanded. It was so 
 remote from the populous part of the town that the screeching of the fiddles 
 was not likely to attract attention, and it was surrounded by high walls 
 that effectually shut out all prying eyes. We entered a room very prettily 
 arranged in the Oriental style, where we found some twenty persons already 
 assembled, and were very cordially welcomed by the master of the house 
 in the usual forms. Three sides of the room were furnished with the indis- 
 pensable divan, on which the Armenian's family and some of his acquaint- 
 ances reclined. Somewhat less than half the party consisted of ladies. On 
 the side of the apartment where there was no divan three Arab musicians sat 
 on the floor ; their instruments were tambourins and two-stringed cocoanut 
 violins, which they played with tolerable skill, and now and then accom- 
 panied with their voices. A couple of chandeliers hung from the ceiling, 
 and the floor was covered with handsome carpets. 
 
 After we had saluted on all sides by laying our hands on our hearts and 
 then on our heads, pipes and coffee were handed to us by the ladies, after 
 which one or another was continually plying us with small glasses of brandy.
 
 274 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 an incredible number of which were emptied. Between sips we had dates 
 and olives offered us ; and as we had to fish the latter out of the liquor with 
 our hands, they were always followed by a gold embroidered cloth on which 
 we wiped our fingers. Things went on in this way with short pauses 
 all through the evening ; and politeness required that there should be as 
 little refusal as possible on the part of the guests. 
 
 The females present, the first in the country we had seen in a state of 
 tolerable ease and freedom, wore rich Oriental garments, wide silk trousers, 
 gold and silver embroidered jackets, and cacheniir shawls round their waists. 
 The person most worthy of note amongst them was Bamba, the youngest 
 daughter of the house, a pretty girl of fourteen, whose face beamed with 
 cheerfulness and good-nature. Another interesting person was the 
 Armenian's daughter-in-law, a young woman of twenty or thereabouts, 
 of a remarkably fine figure, dignified deportment and noble features. But 
 what particularly attracted me was an expression of deep melancholy that 
 pervaded her whole being, a characteristic so seldom found among the 
 Orientals. Lastly, I must mention another pretty but extremely stout 
 lady of like age, who seemed to use a sort of black silk veil she wore 
 over her head for no other purpose than to set off the snowy whiteness of 
 a bosom of rare amplitude and very scantily clothed, by covering it with 
 the veil at regular intervals for a moment only. She continued this 
 coquettish manoeuvre all the evening, sitting in one spot and now and 
 then smoking a pipe. The faces of the elder women were very unin- 
 teresting and commonplace, and there was a general flabbiness about them 
 that showed itself still more strongly in the pendent under-lip almost 
 always exhibited by Turkish women. 
 
 I have not much to say of the men. Our entertainer was a punchy 
 Armenian, who showed us all the attention in his power, and none of the 
 others were at all remarkable. Bamba seated herself beside me, and tried 
 to entertain me by all sorts of little attentions. Sometimes she clapped 
 her little hands and called to the negro to bring me nohr (fire), thinking 
 my pipe had gone out ; sometimes she pressed upon me a small glass of date 
 brandy, and as she was too pretty to be put off with a refusal, I took what- 
 ever she offered me. 
 
 Suddenly the musicians, who had hitherto gratified us only with fantasias 
 of various kinds, and Arab melodies, struck up a dancing measure : the 
 door was opened, and two Arab dancers entered. They were girls 
 between the ages of sixteen and twenty, tall and admirably proportioned. 
 They wore wide white silk trousers embroidered with gold, not gathered 
 together below but hanging loose over their small feet, which were without 
 stockings and covered only with rose-coloured silk shoes. The upper part 
 of their persons was clothed in a kind of vest of yellow silk, open very low 
 in front, and adorned on the breast with gold tassels. Both garments 
 were connected together by a crimson silk girdle folded very tight round 
 the loins. They had jackets of red silk embroidered with silver, with 
 loose white sleeves hanging down over the fingers, which fell back with 
 every motion, and showed the well-formed arms glittering with gold and 
 silver spangles. There was something lady-like in their not very dark faces ;
 
 THE DANCE. 275 
 
 especially their sharply cut eyebrows, arching finely over their sparkling 
 eyes, and their delicately formed mouths were full of grace and witchery. 
 
 The dance began ; and at first their movements, which were performed 
 only with the body and arms, were easy and regular, but soon became 
 more animated, and exhibited a more and more impassioned character as 
 the dance proceeded. Their eyes shot fire ; their bosoms heaved and 
 panted, and their bodies assumed the most varied attitudes and inflexions. 
 They twined round each other snake-like, with a suppleness and a grace, 
 such as I had never seen before. Now, they let their arms drop, and their 
 whole frames seemed to collapse in utter exhaustion ; then might you see 
 how a new thought arose within them, and strove to express itself in 
 impassioned gestures. All this while, the music continued to play, and in 
 its very simplicity was like a pale background to the picture, from which 
 the gloAving figures of the girls stood out in so much the stronger relief. 
 Like the Spanish women, they wore a sort of silver castagnette on the 
 thumb of each hand, with which they beat time to the music. The more 
 strikingly the peculiar meaning of the dance was embodied in the per- 
 formance, the warmer were the applauses of the company, and especially 
 of the females. Bamba alone leaned back sometimes on the divan, and 
 looked in my face with a smile and a glance of singular inquiry. 
 
 After a pause, the second dance began. One of the ghawazee took a 
 little glass, filled with rose-water, between her teeth, and held it so 
 without spilling a drop, whilst she executed the most rapid and difficult 
 movements. She repeated nearly the whole of the preceding dance, and 
 it was certainly no trifling effort of skill to go through it without emptying 
 the glass. At last, she stepped up to one of the male spectators, and 
 clasping him round the middle with both arms, she bent backwards, and 
 continued her gesticulations without ceasing ; at last, she leaned forward, 
 and slowly poured the rose-water over his clothes, let tlie glass drop, 
 kissed his lips, and bounded back into the middle of the room. 
 
 The second girl now came forward, and began again with an indescrib- 
 able paSy stooping and sinking lower and lower ; and the nearer she 
 approached the floor, the gentler, I might almost say the more faint and 
 dying, were her movements. Suddenly she sank down completely on the 
 carpet, and lay quite still in a picturesque attitude. Thereupon, her com- 
 panion sprang to her, grasped her round the waist, and strove by the 
 tenderest caresses to recal the beloved being to life ; her features, at the 
 same time, exhibiting the most perfect and life-like expression of anguish 
 and distraction. Gradually the seemingly insensible girl recovered ani- 
 mation, first raising herself up slowly and languidly ; but with every 
 succeeding second her frame grew more vigorous, her gestures more 
 assured; until at last, both performers, as if to signify their joy, concluded 
 the dance with still more glowing vivacity than before, and were greeted 
 by the company with reiterated mashallahs ! 
 
 In another tour, one of the girls went up to an old Copt, who was 
 seated on the divan, and made him a pantomimic declaration of love, 
 which, however, he seemed to reject, whereupon she put forth all her 
 powers of fascination to soften tlie callous heart of the old gentleman. She
 
 276 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 hovered round him with looks of longing entreaty, bent down her head till 
 it nearly rested on his breast, gazed at him with an upshot glance, some- 
 times closing her eyes, whilst her lips were parted with an indescribable 
 smile that half displayed her snow-white teeth; at length, he could resist no 
 loncer, and raised the suppliant from the ground. Sometimes gold pieces 
 were laid on the cheeks of the dancers, and between their lips, by the male 
 guests ; and in the intervals between the dances, they played on their 
 tambourines, and sang a melancholy monotonous air. 
 
 The company, too, were not altogether idle ; now and then, one of the 
 ladies jumped up from the divan, and mingled in the dance ; and we, too, 
 were once obliged to take part in it. Later in the evening, the whole 
 party enacted a pantomime, or rather a tableau, the men assuming atti- 
 tudes with the ghawazee, which, it must be owned, were not all of them 
 quite decorous, according to our European notions. Others placed them- 
 selves on the divan, and formed, with the ladies, the most picturesque 
 and fantastic groups, which were frequently changed with prompt and 
 orderly facility, and, as it appeared to me, by previous concert. Our 
 German friend told us afterwards, these were scenes from the Arabian 
 Nights ; and an old Copt recited passages from them, accompanied by 
 music, in explanation of each scene. 
 
 At last, pipes and coffee made their appearance again, and the German 
 told us some more particulars of Oriental domestic life, which went to 
 show, as we thought, that it is almost wholly material. Among other 
 thino-s, he counted up to us the cost of his wife's rich vest and shawl, and 
 earnestly expatiated on the great advantages we should find in doing as he 
 had done, and contract a temporary marriage, each of us, with a Copt 
 lady. To me, he proposed that I should take little Bamba in that fashion, 
 and the poor girl did not seem at all averse to the match. The man was 
 a capital hand at building very pretty castles in the air. 
 
 It was now two o'clock, and we took our leave of our kind host, who 
 had this day afforded us an interesting glimpse of Eastern life, such as it falls 
 to the lot of few travellers to enjoy. As we left the house, the moon was 
 shining down on Cairo. The town, usually so busy, was now still as 
 death ; and as we rode along towards the gate, between the yellow tombs 
 of the caliphs, which, with their minarets and domes, form a small suburb, 
 we heard nothing but the howling of the jackals in the desert of Suez, 
 which spread out its interminable length before us in the moonlight. The 
 night was fine ; we cast a last look back at the Armenian's house, and saw 
 light still streaming through the latticed windows. No one spoke a word. 
 Yonder, the wild scene of nightly revelry, in which we had just been par- 
 takers ; here the Nile and the Pyramids in their quiet grandeur : — What 
 a contrast !
 
 277 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Departure from Cairo. — Voyage up the Nile. 
 
 Though the attractions of Cairo and its vicinity be very great, the desire 
 to be once more in motion at length became too strong for tliem, and I 
 made preparations for my departure. The mode of travelling in this country 
 is the most deliglitful imaginable. It effectually secures what in traversing 
 
 Port of 01.1 Cai 
 
 other countries can be very rarely tasted — the pleasure of solitude, which 
 one may exchange almost as often as one pleases for those of society. 
 I was myself, at least, particularly fortvmate in this respect. A divinity 
 student from Oxford, who had seen much of the world, and designed to 
 accompany me as far as I should go, had taken a separate boat, tliat our 
 movements might be perfectly independent, and, in case of accident, that 
 we might part company if we pleased. The word boat, without explana- 
 tion, would probably convey a false idea to the mind of the reader. IMy 
 vessel was a craft of about forty feet long, with two masts and a couple of 
 cabins, and manned by a crew of seven men. When the traveller has any 
 suspicion that his future dwelling is infested w-ith vermin, he causes it to be 
 sunk for a few days in the Nile. The water is then pumped out ; the 
 cabins, deck, &c., are well scrubbed, and as soon as the whole is dry, his 
 baggage and provisions are stowed away on board. My own boat was 
 perfectly clean without this process, and so completely water-tight, that 
 meal might have been kept in the bottom of the hold. Of the two cabins,
 
 278 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 T apjiropriated the inner one to my stores, consisting of biscuits, maccaroni, 
 vermicelli, tea, coffee, tobacco, with such other necessaries and hixuries as 
 I might expect to stand in need of duiing a long voyage. The other articles 
 of provision found a place where they could in the fore-cabin, than which 
 nothino- could be more comfortable. A narrow divan, which served as a 
 sofa by day and as a bed by night, occupied one side of it ; my books, maps, 
 and pajiers, the other; and, the whole being finely matted, my pipes, 
 coffee, dinner, or washing apparatus, as the case required, were laid out in 
 the centre. They who carry fowling-pieces place them loaded by their bed- 
 side ; and I, who bad no such weapon, usually slept with a pair of pistols 
 under my pillow. 
 
 It was somewhat late in the afternoon when we bade adieu to Boulak, 
 the port of Cairo. There was not a breath of wind stirring, so that the 
 Arabs were compelled immediately to take to their oars, which they did 
 with every mark of cheerfulness, alternately laughing and singing as we 
 skimmed along the smooth surface of the Nile. Our course lay through 
 the narrow channel between the island of Rhoda and the continent. On 
 both sides trees and luxuriant vegetation lined the banks and stretched forth 
 over the water, affording us here and there, through narrow openings, 
 glimpses of magnificent gardens and palaces. As we passed the palace of 
 Halim Bey, strains of rich music, probably from the harem, came floating 
 across the stream, and hushed for a moment the voices of my merry crew. 
 In a short time we passed the points of the Nilometer, and the broad Nile 
 opened upon us like a lake quivering beneath the sober light ; for the sky, 
 happening to be overcast, we were surrounded by none of the gorgeous tints 
 which on a former occasion seemed to convert it into a flood of gold. 
 
 The boatmen not being compelled by custom to track after dark, we 
 moored about sunset, close to the western bank. As soon as the kandjia 
 was made fast to the land, by a short pole driven into the earth, the hajji 
 and the boat's crew kindled their fires in small portable furnaces on the lee 
 side of the deck, and began their cooking operations. The ordinary repast 
 of the Arabs consists of lentil soup and bread ; animal food being generally 
 beyond their reach. Their constant beverage is Nile w^ater. Yet, upon 
 this coarse and simple fare, they are hale, athletic, and active. We spent 
 the evening comparing the reasonings of various travellers on the site of 
 Memphis. The barking of the village dogs was heard on shore until a late 
 hour ; and as I sat writing, long after my guest had left, I was now and 
 then startled by the shrill scream of some aquatic bird on the river. 
 
 The mosquitoes, to escape from which the old Egyptians sometimes 
 slept on the tops of lofty towers, were so exceedingly active during the night, 
 that, what with their troublesome attentions, the squeaking of the mice 
 and rats, and the loud talking of the Arabs watching on deck, who knew no 
 other means of keeping themselves awake, I was fain to pass a great many 
 hours in meditation. The moon rose rather early, and its light, entering 
 at every crevice, and mingling with that of the glimmering lamp which I 
 had left burning, imparted a wild aspect to the cabin. A short time before 
 daylight the wind, which had blown but faintly all night, began to increase 
 in strength, though, coming from the south, it was perfectly contrary. At
 
 TRACKING ON THE RIVER.— MELANCHOLY INCIDENT. 279 
 
 rlawn, tliorefore, whon I desired tho re'is to proceed, a number of men were 
 sent on shore to track; that is, to draw along the boat by a cord, as horses 
 draw coal-barges, &c., in England. From ])aintings in the sepulchral 
 grottos of Eilithyias, and in the tombs of the kings at Gournou, wo learn 
 that this practice has prevailed from time immemorial ; and one of my 
 boat's crew, who accompanied me to the above grottos, supposing that the 
 paintings he there saw represented the scenes which take ])lace in Hades, 
 exclaimed in a melancholy voice, " Ah, see ! the poor Arabs are compelled 
 to track, even in the other world ! " In some places the water for a 
 considerable distance from the shore is so shallow, tliat even there light 
 barks find too little to float them ; in which case the men take to their 
 oars, though but very little way can thus be made against both wind and 
 current. The ropes, oars, sails, and, in fact, all the appointments of a 
 kandjia, are commonly of the most wretched description. The sky all the 
 morning was dark and lowering, and in the afternoon it rained hard, while 
 the cold was excessive. We passed close to Deir Hhattein, a small town, 
 where a part of the Pasha's forces were encamped, preparatory, I imagine, 
 to their being marched down to the shore to embark for Syria. In general, 
 very small villages are, in Egypt, called /ta/r, a word which properly 
 signifies " hamlet," not " infidel," as has sometimes been supposed. This 
 opprobrious term has a totally different sound, being pronounced kafeer. 
 
 Hajji Suleiman, my dragoman, had had the misfortune to lose, on the 
 day before we left Cairo, a little boy, fifteen months old, on whom he had 
 bestowed the name of their ])rophet. The poor fellovv, though he had 
 still another boy, took it much to heart ; and every now and then, after long 
 silence and musing, would break out with some speech concerning his 
 child. Scraps of morality, wise old sayings, and even the consolations of 
 religion, were in vain called in to quell the feelings ; grief would have its 
 way; and though his cheeks were rough and dark, I often saw them moistened 
 by unbidden tears. This morning, when he had brought me my chiboi.k, 
 and saw me seated smoking by the cabin door, he drew near, and, in a 
 would-be cheerful tone, observed, that little children, when they die, not 
 only gain admittance to heaven themselves, but daily petition the 
 Almighty in behalf of their parents ; and, in proof of this, he quoted a verse 
 from the Koran. Accordingly pious people often rejoice, he said, to lose 
 a child, because it procures them a constant advocate before God : " but," 
 added he, placing his hand upon his heart, "it still pains one/«ere/" 
 However, as his wife was young — not more than nineteen — he still hoped 
 to have another son, whom he might name Mohammed, and thus be enabled 
 to forget the one he had lost. The expenses of tho funeral had amounted 
 to thirty piastres, to defray which he had been compelled to sell his Syrian 
 burnoose and several shirts. " And why, Suleiman," I inquired, " did 
 you not apply to me?'' — " You were not at the hotel, sir, just then, and 
 we could obtain no credit." I observe among all these Arabs, poor as they are, 
 proofs of strong natural affection, united with much sprightliuess and vivacity. 
 
 Opposite the village of Deir, the Arabian chain sinks considerably in 
 height. Traces of cultivation are few on the eastern bank, the ground 
 between the mountains and the river being very narrow and rocky. On
 
 280 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 the wefetern bank, likewise, the Desert seeins to approach nearer the river, 
 so that tills may perhaps be the narrowest part of the valley in Lower Egypt. 
 The summit of the mountains on the Arabian side, though here lower than 
 usual, is nearly as straight as if planed and levelled artificially ; and the 
 western face being perpendicular and exceedingly loftj^ has the appearance 
 of a vast wall, which, for five hundred miles, protects the land of Egypt 
 from the encroachments of the eastern Desert. 
 
 On arriving at the village of El-Massara, we quitted our boats, and, 
 mounting each a donkey, proceeded towards the vast quarries east of that 
 village, whence, in all probability, the materials for the great public struc- 
 tures and pyramids of Memphis were drawn. Every little Nilotic hamlet 
 stands in a grove of date-trees, which forms at once its riches and its 
 beauty ; and that of El-Massara was an extensive one. Turning this, and 
 a large field of dhoura sefi, nearly ripe, we crossed a wide plain, planted 
 with the fine tall grass from wliicii mats are manufactured, and then 
 entered upon a flat, stony desert, which conducted us to the foot of the 
 Gebel-Mokattam. Here the ground on all sides is encumbered with 
 enormous accumulations of rubbish from the quarries, which look more 
 like an attempt to cut the whole mountain into blocks, and remove it from 
 its place, than spaces cleared out by obtaining stones for building. At first 
 sight it would seem that all the cities of Egypt, which, according to 
 Diodorus, were 18,000 in number, might have issued forth from these 
 quarries. Tiie mountain has been cleft from top to bottom, and areas, as 
 large as Grosvenor Square, levelled with the plain. In other places, the 
 face of the clifF has been scooped out into immense halls, which, commu- 
 nicating with each other, run in vast colonnades from north to south, 
 adorned with rude pillars, which, from their gigantic proportions, might seem 
 to have been fashioned by the Titans. These spacious chambers extend far 
 into the bowels of the mountain, whose superincumbent weight is every- 
 where supported by huge columns, left at intervals between the excava- 
 tions. Of the entrances to the subterranean apartments, some are in 
 the form of an arch, 
 others like the Egyp- 
 tian doorways. In 
 Europe we have 
 nothing resembling 
 then), except, perhaps, 
 those of Senlis, near 
 Paris ; and those 
 quarries of Syracuse, 
 in which the 7000 
 Athenians were impri- 
 soned after the defeat 
 of Nicias and Demos- 
 thenes. The catacombs 
 of Alexandria, com- 
 pared in magnitude 
 with the excavations of El-Massara, are mere rat-holes ; and yet the 
 
 Granite Block.
 
 QUARRIES OF EL-MASSARA. 281 
 
 quarries of Hajjar Silsilis, in tlie Said, are still more inimense than 
 these. In one place the face of the mountain retreats in a straight line, 
 and then turning suddenly, and continuing to run parallel with the 
 river for perhaps a quarter of a mile, again projects in a right line into 
 the plain, leaving between the two ways, thus formed^ space enougli 
 for the site of a small city ; yet the rocks which once filled this great 
 area were sawn from their basis, and transported across the Nile. Here 
 and there, near the mouths of the caverns, prodigious masses of rock, like 
 those which detach themselves in winter from the summits of the Alps, 
 have broken away from the overhanging cliffs, and rolled down into the 
 plain, or been stopped among the mounds of rubbish which everywhere 
 abound. Some of thcni had evidently been severed by human labour from 
 the mountain ; but there the perseverance and mechanical powers, even of 
 the Egyptians, appeared to have failed. No force of man could lift them 
 from the earth, and they were abandoned in despair. 
 
 From the mounds of rubbish accumulated at the mouth of these rocky 
 chambers, which, it is clear, from numerous traces of fire, are sometimes 
 inhabited, we could command a fine view of that long line of pyramids, 
 which marks, towards the west, the extreme boundaries of the cultivated 
 land. Storms of rain were rapidly hurrying over the face of the country 
 from the Lybian Desert ; and the thick haze, cloudy sky, and dismal 
 aspect of nature, rendered the landscape almost sublime. Beneath our feet 
 was the ancient road, running in a straight line across the plain, and ter- 
 minating a little to the south of El-Massara, on the banks of the river, 
 directly opposite the Pyramids of Abousir. Near the mouth of one of the 
 excavations we found a hieroglyphic inscription, sculptured in a kind of 
 tablet on the face of the rock. The legend, probably, contains some account 
 of the quarries, but it has been purposely mutilated. Beneath it, on a base, 
 which seems to support the tablet, are represented, in rude outline, the 
 figures of three oxen, with as many drivers, drawing along, upon a kind 
 of sledge, an enormous block of stone. 
 
 In returning towards the village, w^e crossed a range of sand-hills, 
 or rather bank of sand, beginning near the village of Massara, and extend- 
 ing about half a mile beyond Towrah. It was no doubt the cemetery of 
 the people employed in the quarries. In it have been found a great number 
 of sarcophagi, composed of compact limestone, and for tlie most part perfect. 
 Several of them contained entire skeletons; but the bones were brittle, 
 and crumbled when they were handled. One coffin was found composed of 
 a single piece of earthenware ; and another, composed of four pieces of that 
 material, fastened together with strings and pegs. It was unfortunately 
 broken on taking it out ; but, upon the upper part, the form of a female 
 face could be traced, intended, no doubt, to be a portrait of the deceased. 
 It had been painted, and the eyes were shown to have been ornamented 
 with kohl, and it contained a few rude hieroglyphics. Within the sarcopha- 
 gus were some bones, and a round plate of earthenware. At the distance of 
 about two feet from this sarcopliagus, a small figure, cut out of limestone, 
 and inscribed with a row of hieroglyphics down the centre ; and in other 
 places a number of jars, of various forms and sizes, containing, in many
 
 282 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 instances, black pulverised earth, were dug up ; remains of walls, and of 
 bricks, composed of the mud of the river mixed with small pebbles, like- 
 wise pieces of copper, greatly corroded ; and the fragments of a small jar, 
 or bottle, were also found near the sarcophagi. Other skeletons had been 
 inclosed in wooden coffins, with wrappers of coarse woollen stuff. None of 
 these bodies had been embalmed, or prepared with bitumen ; but they 
 appeared to have been salted, as a quantity of salt was found on the 
 skeletons, and in the sarcophagi, and was collected by the Arabs for 
 culinary purposes. Many t^keletons, without sarcophagi or coffins, were 
 also discovered, generally near the above-mentioned walls. These bodies 
 appeared to have been buried in their clothes; one in particular, which had 
 four or five dresses, and an outer garment of bright red, seemed by the 
 hair to have belonged to a female. The skulls and bones were less decayed 
 than those in the sarcophagi ; the hair in one instance was finely curled, 
 and was of a red colour, which was supposed to have been held in 
 abomination by the Egyptians. All the wrappers were composed of coarse 
 woollen cloth, similar to that found in the third Pyramid of Gizeh. From 
 the proximity of these tombs to the quarries, and from the extreme pro- 
 bability that they contained the bodies of the people employed in them, 
 it was naturally expected that the remains of tools would be found,^ by 
 which the nature of the metal, anciently used in quarrying stone, might 
 have been ascertained. Nothing of the kind was, however, observed in 
 these excavations, or in the quarries.* 
 
 Embarking late in the afternoon, we continued our voyage. Next 
 morning the sky was thickly overcast with clouds, but the cold was less 
 severe. We landed at an early hour in search of turtle-doves, which 
 chiefly harbour in the woods about the villages ; and while walking 
 along the banks of the river we shot a small beautiful bird, called siksak 
 by the Arabs, concerning which the Egyptian peasants have a curious 
 legend, pretending that when the crocodile, in fine calm sunny days, 
 ascends out of tlie river to sleep upon some sandy islet, this bird always 
 keeps near, and, if danger approach, takes care to awaken him by his 
 sharp note. They add another particular, which, however fabulous it 
 may be, has prevailed in Egypt from the age of Herodotus down to the 
 present day, and seems to be founded on the physical structure of the bird. 
 The siksak, which is undoubtedly the trochilus of Herodotus, is armed at 
 the point of each shoulder of the wings with a small sharp horn, like the 
 talons of an eagle, the use of which the Arabs, with their habitual inge- 
 nuity, explain as follows :— The crocodile, they say, being at times tor- 
 mented by a noxious kind of vermin, which creep into his throat, and suck 
 his blood, lies down on the sand, and instinctively opens his mouth. The 
 siksak, impelled by the same instinct, mistaken by the Arabs for friend- 
 ship, coming up to the crocodile, hops into his mouth, and devours the 
 leeches, in pursuit of which he will even descend far into the throat. The 
 crocodile, forgetting the presenc(! of his friend, sometimes closes his mouth 
 and imprisons him ; upon which the siksak, which is purposely armed for 
 
 * Colonel Vyse.
 
 ARAB BURIAL. 283 
 
 the occasion, lifts up its wings, and, pricking the tender sides of Ins throat 
 with its sharp horns, quickly procures itself a safe return to upper air. 
 Whatever may be thought of this legend, it is very certain that the croco- 
 dile is rarely seen unattended by one or more of these birds, which seem to 
 approach him fearlessly, and to stand quite within his reach upon the sand. 
 
 I was one morning in bed, looking through the small window of my 
 cabin, and the men were on shore towing, when I was roused by a loud 
 voice of lamentation, in which the weeping and wailing of women predo- 
 minated. I stepped out and saw, on the bank of the river, the dead body 
 of an Arab, surrounded by men, women, and children, weeping and howl- 
 ing over it previous to burial. The body was covered with a wrapper of 
 coarse linen cloth, drawn tight over the head and tied under the neck, and 
 fastened between two parallel bars, intended as a barrow to carry it to its 
 grave. It lay a little apart before the group of mourners, who sat on the 
 bank above, with tlieir eyes turned towards it weeping, and apparently 
 talking to it. The women were the most conspicuous among the mourners. 
 The dead man had been more happy in his connections than I imagine the 
 Arabs generally are, if all the women sitting there were really lamentino- 
 his death. Whether they were real mourners, or whether they were 
 merely going through the formal part of an Egyptian funeral ceremony, I 
 cannot say; but the big tears rolled down their cheeks, and their cries 
 sounded like the overflowings of distressed hearts. A death and burial 
 scene is at any time solemn, and I do not know that it loses any of its 
 solemnity even when the scene is on the banks of the Nile, and the subject 
 a poor and oppressed Arab. Human affections probably glow as warmly 
 here as under a gilded roof, and I am disposed to be charitable to the 
 exhibition that I then beheld ; but I could not help noticing that the cries 
 became louder as I approached, and I had hardly seated myself at a little 
 distance from the corpse before the women seemed to be completely carried 
 away by their grief, and with loud cries, tearing their hair, and beatino- 
 their breasts, threw out their ai-ms towards the corpse, and prayed, and 
 wept, and then turned away, with shrieks piteous enough to touch the 
 heart of the dead.* 
 
 While we were shooting among the date-trees of Sagulteh,- a village 
 where we stopped to purchase such provisions as were to be found, it was 
 exceedingly amusing to witness the wonder of the Arabs at the dexterity 
 with which my companion brought down the flying birds. JMen, women, 
 and children crowded about us, some asking permission to look throutdi 
 my eye-glass, which they supposed to have some connection with the 
 effect of tlie fowling-piece ; others gazing in wonder at the detonating-caps, 
 which they feared to touch, seeing that they aided in some inconceivable 
 way in the work of death. Many of the children of both sexes were stark 
 naked ; and I saw one fine young maiden running from one house to 
 another, who was nearly in the same state. Upon the bank of the river, 
 in front of the village, a number of women, all young, were seated, selling 
 bread, dates, onions, &c., most of them having children at the breast, 
 
 * Su'phens.
 
 284 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 evidently their first, as the bosom had not as yet acquired that pendent 
 form, which, at a more advanced period of life, disfigures the appearance 
 of an Egyptian female. They were nearly all tattooed, some having three 
 or four lines of Arabic, probably sentences from the Koran, imprinted on 
 the chin ; others a line of small asterisms running on the inside of the right 
 arm, from the elbow to the wrist, which was also adorned with the repre- 
 sentation of a rich bracelet ; and several a small blue flower or star, stamped 
 npon the left breast. While young most of these women have handsome 
 bosoms, elegantly formed limbs, small hands and feet, full dark eyes, and, 
 in many instances, pretty faces ; but, when once past the flower of their age, 
 their features grow sharp and harsh, and their breasts (like those of the old 
 Hindoo woman represented in Heber's Journal) acquire an incredible 
 length, while all their limbs become spare and stick-like. Indeed they 
 become, when old, exceedingly ugly, though the Arabs retain, under 
 almost all circumstances, a look of good-natured simplicity, which prevents 
 them from being displeasing : besides, they are women still, and as such, 
 whether old or young, entitled at least to our respect ; indeed, I never 
 beheld one of these poor creatures, bending beneath the united weight of 
 years and poverty, Avithout experiencing the acutest commiseration — use- 
 less enough to them, but not to be avoided. Such of the Caireens as have 
 been much in company with Franks, even as domestics, generally contract 
 a violent prejudice against the peasantry, upon whom they afl"ect to look 
 down with extreme contempt. This morning, for example, at Sagulteh, 
 the hajji, in other respects a humane man, observing that I suff"ered an 
 Arab to take the fowling-piece in his hand, exclaimed with a kind of 
 disgust, " Oh, sir, don't allow that least to touch it." He thought we 
 should all be polluted by the mere contact with a Fellah. And it is from 
 persons of this description that Europeans ordinarily borrow their prepos- 
 terous ideas of the Egyptian peasantry. 
 
 In walking along the western bank of the Nile, a little to the south of 
 Sagulteh, we saw a confirmation of a curious assertion of Herodotus, which 
 has been groundlessly ridiculed by the critics. He observes, that, upon 
 the retiring of the river, the peasants cast the seed upon the mud, and 
 then drove their oxen, sheep, and hogs into the field to tread it in ; by 
 which means, without ploughing or harrowing, the grain was sunk sufii- 
 ciently deep into the earth. A large field, over which we passed this 
 morning, had undergone this process, having never been ploughed or har- 
 rowed, but the wheat, strewed upon the soft mud, had been trampled in by 
 various animals, and was now springing up beautifully. The practice, 
 however, is by no means general ; and, in fact, could only answer in the 
 soft alluvial deposit close to the banks of the river. Speaking of pigs 
 brings to my recollection two facts. The jNIohamedans consider as unclean 
 all animals which are shot, unless the sportsman, before life is extinct, 
 come up with his game and cut its throat, turning the head towards 
 Mekka, and reciting certain prayers. Aware of this prejudice, I inquired 
 of Suleiman whether he could conscientiously eat what had been killed 
 outright with a gun : he replied, " We who serve travellers, sir, eat every- 
 thing — even pork !" In general, I should not care to trust a pork-eating
 
 SCENES ON THE NILE.— THE PELICAN. 285 
 
 Mussulman; but in this instance the absence of religious prejudices was 
 not accompanied by the absence of honesty. Ricli Turks in Cairo and 
 elsewhere, who hold the hog in abomination, nevertheless keep one or two 
 of them about their houses as a preservative against the evil eye ! 
 
 The Nile, which seems daily to increase in grandeur and magnitude, here 
 resembled a little sea, studded with lovely islands, upon the rapid formation 
 and disappearance of which I have heard abundance of exaggeration : 
 some persons pretending that every inundation effects a total change in its 
 channel ; so that a traveller sailing up the country in spring, and I'eturning 
 in winter, would scarcely be able to recognise the features of the scene. 
 All rivers of great volume, which overflow their shores, are more or less 
 unsteady in their course ; which is particularly the case with the Indus 
 and the Ganges, whose waters have overthrown and washed away several 
 ancient cities that stood upon their banks, and deserted others, which have 
 in consequence fallen to decay. New islands, also, gradually spring up in 
 their channels, while others of considerable magnitude crumble away and 
 disappear. And such, likewise, is the case with the Nile; but the changes 
 are slowly Avrought. Nearly all the important islands, promontories, and 
 sinuosities marked in Colonel Leake's excellent map, constructed several 
 years ago, still exist in the same state ; which is sufficient to exculpate the 
 Nile from the charge of so extreme a deoree of fickleness as it has been 
 
 o o 
 
 reproached with. However, the stateliest date-palms often yield to its 
 gnawing waters ; an example of which I observed this morning — a fine tree 
 lay prostrate on the margin of the stream, which, though far from being 
 entire, was sixty feet in length. Elsewhere the ruins of mosques, villages, 
 or groves, partially undermined, hung nodding over the hollow banks, 
 ready to be swept away by the first inundation. 
 
 The Nile was here covered v^-ith immense flights of pelicans, which lay 
 in long rows upon the water, and, as we approached, rose in quick succes- 
 sion, screaming, and beating the stream with their wings. One of these 
 birds which we killed probably weighed nearly forty pounds. The thick, 
 soft, delicate plumage on the breast is milk-white at the roots, tinted at 
 the top with a faint tinge of pink or rose-cohnir, which shows beautifully 
 when the bird, just rising on the wing, turns its breast to the sun. Pro- 
 perly dressed, this portion of the pelican's skin would make superb muffs 
 or tippets for the ladies ; and should the article ever be in fashion, the 
 Nile would furnish a supply sufficient for all Europe, and many poor 
 Aiabs might be advantageously employed. The flesh, part of which we 
 cooked and tasted, in appearance resembled coarse beef ; but had an oily 
 fishy taste, and rank smell, which rendered it unpalatable, though it was 
 all eaten by the Arabs, whose stomachs were less fastidious than ours. 
 Belzoni, however, appears to have considered the flesh of the pelican as 
 somewhat of a dainty. He must have had a keen appetite when he came 
 to this conclusion. For my own part I would at any time as soon eat a 
 vulture. The pelican being the largest bird known to the Fellahs, they 
 have given it the name of Gamal el Bahr, or River Camel. There is a 
 story that Mohammed making war upon the Christians, and being 
 oppressed with thirst, water was brought to hiiu by this bird, which is
 
 286 EGYPT AND NUBlA. 
 
 hence called Sacar, or Water-carrier, which reminds one of the raven and 
 the Hebrew prophet. 
 
 About nightfall a small strange boat, filled with Arabs, moored close 
 under our stern for safety ; for robbers, equal in celebrity to the Dakoils 
 of the Ganges, are much dreaded on this part of the Nile ; both Bruce and 
 Niebuhr relate anecdotes illustrative of their dexterity. Soon after dark, 
 I heard, for the first time, the wild dismal cry of the jackals, which were 
 prowling near us on the banks of the river. They gave but one long 
 howl, and then ceased ; while the village dogs seemed upon the alert, barking 
 incessantly in several parts of the plain, Vvhich must therefore be thickly 
 inhabited. The wind blew in hollow gusts, and because there was more 
 danger than usual, our guards appeared to be all asleep. Looking forth 
 from my cabin windows, I witnessed a phenomenon not of very frequent 
 occurrence upon the Nile. Volumes of white mist were rolling down the 
 stream, obscuring its broad surface and the country on the opposite bank, 
 where the palm-trees seemed to spring out of a sea of vapour. The moon, 
 just then rising behind the Arabian mountains, and dimmed by a thin veil 
 of clouds, cast its pale light over this unsubstantial mass, which appeared 
 to be converted by its touch into waves of liquid pearl, transparent and 
 bright like the curled clouds in a calm summer sky. A short distance 
 a-head were seven small islands, lying almost in the middle of the stream. 
 Being of considerable height, and covered with reeds and other fluvial 
 plants, drooping and trembling over the water, they had a very picturesque 
 effect. 
 
 In the course of the following day, we walked to the village of Iksoor, 
 situated in a large grove of date-palms, inhabited by a tribe of Bedouins 
 recently become stationary ; and though half dispeopled by the recruiting 
 system, it was larger, better laid out, and cleaner, than the generality of 
 Egyptian villages. The poverty of this hamlet was extreme. Nothing 
 could here be procured for money — neither bread, meat, butter, milk, nor 
 eggs. Fowls, indeed, might have been purchased, but small and ill-fed, 
 like their owners. 
 
 From Iksoor we proceeded by a good cross-road, bordered at intervals 
 with rows of mimosa-trees, to the village of El TVuddi, where the same 
 poverty prevailed. INIilk, however, the principal object of our inquiries, 
 is only to be obtained in the mornings and evenings, when the buffaloes, 
 cows, and goats are milked. It was here that I, for the first time, ob- 
 served twelve large and very fine palm-trees, growing from a single root. 
 In all these villages we hear execrations poured forth against the Pasha for 
 the oppressive way in which he recruits his armies ; and the practices to 
 Avhich the Fellahs resort to elude his despotism, prove at once their intense 
 love of home, and their aversion to a military life, — not their cowardice, 
 for, when brought into the field, they fight with great bravery. As soon 
 as the news readies a village that a recruiting party is abroad — and it 
 spreads over the country like wildfire — many men blind themselves with 
 arsenic ; others thrust some sharj) instrument into one of their eyes, or 
 chop off the forefingers of the right hand. We had one day thirteen Arabs 
 in our service who were all thus mutilated. Nay, mothers, forgetting that
 
 ARAB AVERSION FOR THE ARMY.— ONE-EYED REGIMENT. 28? 
 
 the Pasha's wars cannot last for ever, have even been known to blind or 
 maim their own children. And to such an extent was this practice 
 carried, that at length the Pasha found it necessary to make it punishable. 
 An order was issued at Cairo to each of the principal persons in the city, 
 commanding them to produce a certain number of men for the army, \mder 
 pain of forfeiting 700 piastres for c^very deficiency. The consequence was, 
 that the streets presented the desolate appearance observed during the 
 plague ; the shops were closed, business was suspended, and women wailed 
 as for the dead ; the soldiers and inspectors employed in levying the men 
 soon discovered the lucrative trick of pressing invalids, and other persons 
 unfit for service, from whom menaces and their own fears extorted money 
 for their release. 
 
 But even this tyrannic order was found to be insuflBcient ; for men still 
 contrived, by practising on themselves, to elude the grasp of their oppressors ; 
 and at length the Pasha, in a moment of extreme irritation, issued the 
 following circular, printed in Turkish, and addressed to the military 
 governors of districts : — " With respect to the men whom we take for the 
 service of our victorious armies and navies (war department), on their way 
 to us — some draw their teeth, some put out their eyes, and others break 
 their arms, or otherwise maim themselves ; thus laying us under the 
 necessity of sending back the greater part, and causing the deficiency in 
 the report of the war department which I always perceive : Make up 
 these deficiencies, by sending immediately all the men who are wanting — 
 all fit for service, able-bodied, and healthy ; and this you must do in con- 
 cert with the sheikhs : and do thou also take care, in concert with them, to 
 levy the conscripts demanded, and send them immediately, informing me 
 at the same time, and with the least possible delay, of the number of men 
 who remain in thy department. This is what I demand." These circulars 
 were all scaled with the signet of Mahomed AH. 
 
 In order to strike a blow at the practice of half blinding, the Pasha 
 played ott' a practical joke, such as Pashas only can play oft". He did not, 
 in this case, send the poor victims to the galleys, neither did he fine nor 
 flog them ; but by the advice, it is said, of some European wag, he formed 
 a one-eyed regiment, which was, at least, competent to do duty in garri- 
 son. This new decision, as soon as it became known, very generally pre- 
 vented mothers from blinding their offspring, and men from putting out 
 one of their own eyes ; but had the Syrian war continued, I am persuaded 
 that thousands would rather have put out both their eyes, than quit their 
 own homes and families to perish for Mohammed Ali in a foreign land. 
 Blindness is not viewed with the same horror by Orientals as by us. 
 The princes, whose eyes a cruel policy has put out in Persia or Affgha- 
 nistan, appear still to enjoy the world almost as though nothing had hap- 
 pened ; and among the Fellahs of Egypt, few are more cheerful than those 
 who, for many years, perhaps, have been unable to see the sun. They 
 have a notion in Cairo, which is probably not peculiar to that city, that 
 blind men are excessively impudent ; and it appears to be quite certain, 
 that they do habitually presume considerably on the good nature and for- 
 bearance of their neighbours. It may be questioned, however, whether
 
 288 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 this fact is so discreditable to the blind, as it is honourable to the rest of the 
 community who tolerate their eccentricities out of pity for their misfor- 
 tune. 
 
 To return, we must do justice to the Pasha's government. Twenty 
 years ago, the villages in this neighbourhood were so many nests of 
 robbers, so that no stranger could with safety visit them. At present, 
 though the race is f;ir from being extinct, thieves are becoming more rare, 
 the constant levies for his Highness's victorious armies, " drawing them 
 away," to exercise their ingenuity in other quarters. I have heard the 
 Swiss defend the mercenary practice of selling the blood of their fellow- 
 citizens to foreign nations, by dwelling on the public advantage of getting 
 rid, in distant wars, of the turbulent and unprincipled part of their popu- 
 lation ; peace, which to other nations is a blessing, being a curse to them, 
 since it brings home all their thieves and highwaymen, to infest the roads, 
 brawl in the taverns, and fill the gaols. If caitiffs of this description alone 
 were kidnapped by the Pasha's Itahans for the army, the Egyptian pea- 
 santry would have but little cause for complaint ; but numerous as rogues 
 are in Egypt, I fear that Ibrahim would hardly have achieved his Syrian 
 victories had no honest man been admitted into the ranks. 
 
 Dovecot near the last Pyramid np the Nile. 
 
 CHAPTER XX Y. 
 
 Voyage up thk Nile. 
 
 In the ascent of the Nile each traveller meets with a peculiar set of 
 Incidents ; some appear to be surrounded with perpetual dangers, others 
 scarcely encounter a difficulty, while a third class seems to be completely 
 taken up by their personal privations. In my own case the dangers and 
 difficulties were few and far between, while the pleasure was perpetual, 
 and I never went to bed at night without a wish that the voyage would last 
 for years. Every circumstance by which I was surrounded, combined to 
 increase the romance of the situation. Often in dangerous places we cast
 
 PLEASURE OF THE JOURNEY—INCIDENT. 289 
 
 anchor in the middle of the broad stream, so that wh^n I threw open my 
 cabin windows and looked out to enjoy the pros])ect by star or moonlight, 
 we appeared to be lying in the midst of some land-locked sea with mountains 
 and forests of unknown extent, sweeping along the edge of the horizon. 
 The ideas wliicli inhabited my own imagination, imparted a peculiar 
 character to the landscape and the atmosphere. Events and creeds and 
 people, discerned dimly on the remotest verge of history, appeared to 
 surround me on all sides ; the old Egyptians lived again ; the tramp of the 
 Persian coursers, following at the heels of Cambyscs, seemed to be heard 
 clattering over the Desert, where Macedonian and Roman and Arab also 
 in their turn careered along. I used frequently, Avhen tlie moon was up, 
 to walk forth upon the deck where, at such hours, I was the only creature 
 awake. The Arabs, wrapped in their tattered brown burnooses, lay here 
 and there rolled up into balls, like so many gigantic liedgehogs. Afar over 
 the plain, a light would be perchance beheld burning through breaks in 
 the groves of palm-trees, while tire spreading majestic Nile flowed past me, 
 breaking in wliispers against my boat'^s prow, and trembling as if with life 
 beneath the moon-beams. The happiest man on earth might envy the deep 
 calm of these hours. Never was there a purer or brighter sky than that 
 which expanded its blue depths above, sprinkled thickly with stars of a 
 magnitude and splendour unknown in northern latitudes. Occasionally a 
 rout of jackals in pursuit of game — to me invisible, like themselves — would 
 scour down the distant shore, filling the air with their melancholy cry, 
 lieard and lost at intervals among the hollows, or behind the rocks. 
 Elsewhere, far upon the plain, was heard the bark of village dogs, which 
 seemed to be answering each other, as if for the purpose of convincing 
 night prowlers that they were not to be caught off their guard. When I 
 had taken my fill of this enjoyment I returned into my cabin, where sleep 
 would in a few moments convey me home, and place me in the midst of 
 my children, who perchance at the same moment were dreaming of me. 
 One morning, as we were entering on the confines of Middle Egypt, the 
 wind blowing strongly from the south, we met with a little adventure, 
 which at one time appeared likely to put an end, in a very summary manner, 
 to all the pleasures of which I have been speaking. Of course there were 
 no means of proceeding but by tracking, and for this purpose three men 
 were sent on shore. My fellow-traveller had left his boat early, while I 
 remained on board to write. At length I observed that the current, aided 
 by the wind, was becoming exceedingly violent ; that the three men on 
 shore were unequal to the task of tugging us along, and that owing to the 
 loftiness and steepness of the bank, there was no possibility of adding to 
 their number. About ten o'clock in the morning we reached a bend in the 
 river, where the bank was at least twenty feet high, and worn away at the 
 base by the action of the stream, and, in consequence, very liable to land- 
 slips or avalanches, which often sink boats in the Ganges. Hound this 
 point the Nile rushed along with fearful noise and velocity, forming many 
 v.'hirlpools and eddying vortices covered with foam, so that it required 
 extraordinary force to drag forwards the kandjia through this "hell of 
 waters," By great good fortune the other boat turned the promontory in
 
 290 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 safety ; but when mine came up, either the wind had increased and the 
 fury of the eddying current along with it, or my Arabs, already fatigued or 
 exhausted, made an untimely pause, thus giving the water a purchase, as 
 it were, by which to cast us back. Our reis, a highly active, but not a 
 stronc' man, knowing wherein the danger of our position consisted, endea- 
 voured, by the most strenuous exertions with the pole, to keep away the 
 boat from the overhanging bank, where huge masses of earth were ready to 
 fall upon our heads ; but the strength of the current was quite irresistible. It 
 was in vain that he exerted himself : three feet from the land he could find 
 no bottom, and his pole became useless. The kandjia, yielding to the force 
 of the stream, now drew back the trackers, and went down the river, 
 striking against the bank in the most fearful manner. In a few minutes 
 the Arabs, recovering breath, again came to the charge, again dragged her 
 along, until she was just turning the point, when the might of Old Nilus 
 once more prevailed, and down the stream she went a second time. The 
 other crew, who were out of danger, stood looking on, though our reis 
 several times called upon them for help. Their master not being present, 
 they would not stir. 
 
 Mohammed was not, however, to be discouraged : his passions, though 
 eno-aored in a strucrde with the elements, beginning to be excited, in a tone 
 of ancrer and fierce reproach he commanded the trackers to exert them- 
 selves like men. They obeyed; and, dashing desperately forward, our 
 little bark, in the midst of foaming whirlpools, had already turned the 
 promontory, when the strength of the poor fellows again failed, and com- 
 pelled them to yield to the stream. In a moment the kandjia was hurled 
 furiously against the cliff ; and a large mass of earth giving way, came 
 thundering down upon the cabin : the vessel was in an instant upon her 
 beam-ends, and one of the crew pitched overboard. The crash of the 
 kandjia's side, in striking against the land, made me think the game was 
 over; and she at once began to fill with water. Throwing off my cloak, 
 therefore, I prepared to swim ; though, owing to the severity of the cold, 
 the violence of the whirlpools, and the steepness of the bank for miles 
 down the river, the chances, had it come to that, would have been greatly 
 against me. However, the sharp despairing cry of the reis and sailors, 
 the extreme dismay of Suleiman, and the terrific appearance of the whole 
 scene, confirmed me in the notion that the boat, at all events, was lost. 
 
 At this stage of the adventure, my companion's crew came running to 
 lend their aid. The kandjia, in fact, was filling rapidly. Observing, as 
 she floated down along the shore, a small projecting ledge of earth, I 
 therefore leaped upon it, without pausing to consider whether it would 
 bear my weight or not. Before the Arabs could follow ray example, she 
 had already jjassed the ledge, and it was too late. But, though standing 
 on terra Jlrnia, my position was scarcely improved ; for the bank projected 
 so far over my head, and was so soft and crumbling, that another fall of 
 earth seemed likely to be produced by the slightest motion. However, 
 the Arabs on shore, quitting the tracking-line, hastened to my assistance ; 
 and, at the hazard of being themselves plunged into the river, leaned their 
 bodies over the brink, and, giving me their hands, enabled me to reach the
 
 STORM ON THE NILE. 291 
 
 summit. ]\reanwlillc, a portion of the earth had fallen into the river, and 
 the kandjia began to right herself. I now seized the cord ; and, in a 
 short time, we succeeded in keeping her steady : while the rels, Suleiman, 
 and the other two Arabs (the man who had fallen overboard having been 
 taken up), cleared off the rest of the earth. Monro and his servant, 
 Abuzaid, returning from some distant village, found us thus engaged ; and 
 with their aid (for the trackers were worn out) I at length drew my 
 unfortunate bark, soiled and shattered as she was, round the point which 
 had so long defied our utmost exertions. 
 
 "We pushed on for a few hours, but the wind continuing still ahead, and 
 blowing stronger than ever, I became desperate, and went again on shore, 
 resolved to wear it out. We were lying along the banks, on the Lybian 
 side, in company with fifteen or twenty boats wind-bound like ourselves. 
 It was near a little mud village, of which I forget the name, and several 
 Bedouin tents were on the bank, in one of which I was sitting smoking a 
 pipe. The wind was blowing down with a fury I have never seen sur- 
 passed in a gale at sea, bringing with it the light sands of the desert, and 
 at times covering the river with a thick cloud which prevented my seeing 
 across it. A clearing up for a moment showed a boat of the largest class, 
 heavily laden, and coming down with astonishing velocity : it was like the 
 flight of an enormous bird. She was under bare poles, but small portions 
 of the sail had got loose, and the Arabs were on the very ends of the long 
 spars getting them in. One of the boatmen, with a rope under his arm, 
 had plunged into the river, and with strong swimming reached the bank, 
 where a hundred men ran to his assistance. Their united strength turned 
 her bows around, up stream, but nothing could stop her ; stern foremost 
 she dragged the whole posse of Arabs to the bank, and broke away from 
 them perfectly ungovernable ; whirling around, her bows pitched into our 
 fleet with a loud crash, tore away several of the boats, and carrying one 
 off, fast locked as in a death-grasp, renewed her headlong course down the 
 river. They had gone but a few rods, when the stranger pitched her 
 bows under and went down in a moment, bearing her helpless companion 
 also to the bottom. It was the most exciting incident I had seen upon 
 the river. The violence of the wind, the swift movement of the boat, the 
 crash, the wild figure of the Arabs on shore and on board, one in a red 
 dress almost on the top of the long spar, his turban loose and streaming in 
 the wind, all formed a strange and most animating scene. I need scarcely 
 say that no lives were lost, for an Arab on the bosom of his beloved river 
 is as safe as in his mud cabin.* 
 
 In front of the village of El Kotoreh I observed a large party of people 
 at work in a field gathering cotton. I was walking alone, a little behind 
 the trackers, whom I soon saw engaged in a violent quarrel with these 
 cotton-gatherers. Their kasheff, who had a musket in his hand, whilst 
 some of his companions were ostentatiously loaded with pistols, had seized 
 upon an old man, the father of the reis, and were dragging him away 
 across the field for the ai-my as they pretended. I had unluckily left my 
 
 * Stephens.
 
 232 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 own arms on board ; but, provoked at their insolence, I pushed through the 
 crowd, and ran across tlie field in pursuit of the kasheff, who was dragging 
 away the old man. Upon my coming near, and speaking in a loud and 
 angry tone, he let go his hold, though he affected an air of authority, 
 presuming, I suppose, on his musket. I walked up close to him, and, 
 pronouncing the words Pasha and Firman, took the old man by the arm, 
 and led him back towards the river, no one attempting to interrupt me, 
 though the whole rabble followed at a few paces' distance. To get rid of 
 them, I threatened the kasheff that I would immediately write to the 
 Pasha, and have him disgraced, upon which he grew very civil, said he 
 was merely in jest ; and, on my inquiring why he carried a musket, pre- 
 tended it was merely to protect his own people while at work in the fields. 
 However, we learned in his village, that, having received an order from 
 the Maraoor of the district to furnish a certain number of men for the 
 army, he had, to spare his own people, actually set out early in the 
 morning on a kidnapping expedition about the banks of the river. 
 
 A short distance beyond this village we noticed a very remarkable 
 appearance in the sky, which seemed to portend the approach of a sand- 
 storm ; the whole horizon, on the edge of the Lybian Desert, being 
 obscured by a dense cloud of a black and lurid colour, flushed with a deep 
 blood-red. Excepting during a tyjyhon in the Messenian Gulf, I have never 
 witnessed so grand an atmospheric phenomenon. Though the wind blew 
 but faintly, no one could doubt, from the whole aspect of nature, that a 
 hurricane was at hand ; and in a few minutes the big drops, which usually 
 precede a tempest, began to fall. We were out on a bare open country, 
 . like a heath ; but at the distance of about half a league there stood a grove 
 of mimosa trees, towards which we hastened for shelter, but had not 
 advanced many paces before the rain descended with great violence ; so 
 that, ere we could have reached the wood, we should have been drenched 
 to the skin. In this dilenmia nothing was left us but to crouch down 
 beneath the low shelving sand-bank which marked the last rise of the 
 inundation. On lifting up my head soon aftei*, I beheld a spectacle of 
 terrific grandeur : thick driving rain obscured the landscape towards the 
 north, east, and south ; but in the west, the wliirlwind, having torn up 
 a prodigious quantity of sand in the Desert, was hurling it aloft in surging 
 columns, like the smoke of a capital city on fire ; darkening the whole 
 face of heaven, and seeming, as it came driving along the plain, to be about 
 to overwhelm and swallow up at once the whole of the cultivated country, 
 and the mighty Nile. In another moment, the sand-storm, mingled with 
 rain, had readied us. The river, the earth, the sky — everything was 
 hidden from our sight. My heart palpitated violently, my lungs seemed 
 as if they would burst ; I could scarcely breathe. Lest, therefore, we 
 should be suffocated (as many have been by this Desert blast), we wrapped 
 our heads iu our cloaks, and, bending down our faces towards the eartli, 
 allowed the storm to expend the first burst of its fury before we again 
 dared to look up. Neither of us uttered a word : but when the low fearful 
 rustling, which accompanied the passing of the sand, had partly abated, I 
 ventured to address my companion, who, like myself, had experienced a
 
 VISIT OF A IIY.ENA TO THE BOAT. 293 
 
 strongly suffocating feeling during the storm — or, rather, during the 
 whirling along of the sand — for the tempest still continued in all its fury. 
 We now, however, hegan to think of our boats. Running, therefore, 
 down along the bank, in the midst of torrents of rain, I discovered my 
 kandjia at a distance, drawn close to the shore, and Suleiman, with the reis, 
 and all his crew, engaged in preventing it from being driven out into the 
 river and sunk ; for the Nile, vexed by the whirlwind, resembled a tem- 
 pestuous sea, black with mud, tearing up its banks, and tossing hither and 
 thither our frail bark like a nut-shell. Five strong ropes, made fast to 
 different parts of the vessel, and held by the combined efforts of our whole 
 party, were barely sufficient to pi'cvent it from being lost ; for, though the 
 heavy rain had beaten down the clouds of sand, the wind appeared to 
 increase in vehemence every moment. 
 
 At length, late in the afternoon, the storm abated, the sky cleared up, 
 and the sun shone forth upon the still agitated river, I now found, upon 
 going on board, that the hurricane, which, as a spectacle, was magnificent 
 beyond description, had done me considerable injury; my books, papers, 
 maps, and bed having been wetted, or covered with ink, and my two 
 coffee-pots — no trifling loss where none could be found to replace them — 
 been thrown overboard. I now again landed, to spend the remainder of 
 the day in the fields. The greater part of the western plain was here laid 
 out in cotton plantations, which, partly covered with yellow flowers, partly 
 with the bursting snow-white fruit, had an exceedingly beautiful appear- 
 ance. The cotton-flower is bell-shaped, not unlike the tulip, though rather 
 smaller, with rich bright saffron petals, each of which is marked on the 
 inside with a red spot. 
 
 Late the same night, as I sat writing, with my little lamp burning 
 dimly before me, I was startled by the sudden springing of some wild beast 
 upon the cabin roof. From the weight with which he came down, I could 
 not doubt it was a hyaena or wolf. Suleiman and the crew were all fast 
 asleep as usual ; and it was doubtless with a view of eating one of them 
 that he had paid us this untimely visit. While I was laying down my 
 pen, and stooping to snatch up a pistol, I expected to hear the gentleman 
 in the midst of the Arabs ; but as he took some little time to reconnoitre 
 his prey before he pounced upon it, I was enabled to open the cabin-door, 
 which I did very softly, and step out upon the deck before he descended. 
 As it was dark, I had the lamp in one hand and a pistol in the other. 
 There was a small piece of matting between me and the enemy, wdiich I 
 proceeded therefore cautiously to move aside. Suleiman lay wrapped in 
 my Scotch plaid at my feet fast asleep, and at no great distance the other 
 Arabs in the same condition. My light, which was none of the brightest, 
 did not wake them, so that I had the hyaena, or whatever it might be, 
 all to myself. Stepping on one of our little furnaces, I raised myself up so 
 as to command a view of the cabin top, when, with a growl and a spring, 
 my unbidden guest regained the bank of the river, and left me to my 
 repose. For some time, however, my attention was divided between my 
 notes and him, as I fully expected his return, but he either thought better 
 of it, or got engaged in some other adventure, for I heard no more of him. 
 
 c c 2
 
 204 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Soon after passing Boosh we came to a large sandy island, dividing the 
 Nile into two very unequal streams, of which the eastern one only is 
 navigable. This island, at the northern extremity, is very low, but rising 
 gradually, it terminates at the south-east in high perpendicular banks, round 
 which the river rushes with extraordinary velocity. A jungle of sedge and 
 tall reeds, through which it is very difficult to force a passage, covers the 
 whole surface of the island, and in warm weather must be a nest of serpents. 
 On the south-western promontory I found a number of small semi-transpa- 
 rent pebbles of various colours ; and the sand itself, coarse and angular, as 
 not yet reduced to its proper state, seemed to consist entirely of particles of 
 decomposed granite. It was raised in clouds by the wind, and driven with 
 so much violence into our faces, that it was painful to open the eyes ; so 
 that a few hours passed in such a place would probably cause a dangerous 
 ophthalmia. 
 
 Not far south of this island, and nearly in front of the village of Shen- 
 dawieh, where the Nile is bordered by a bank of fine green turf, we came 
 suddenly upon a party of three Fellahs and a boy, who were employed in 
 digging a grave for a murdered man. Tlie body lay on its back in the 
 sun, close to the river, having no other covering than a coarse blue shirt. 
 The head was bare, and blood was oozing from a deep gash in the occiput, 
 and from the month, eyes, and nostrils. If one might judge by the features, 
 it was the corpse of a Nubian, from about Dongola, and appeared to have 
 been some hours in the river, being swollen and livid. Two young men 
 were digging the pit on the edge of a field of dhourra, close to the pathway 
 used by the trackers ; while an old man sat by silently watching their 
 operations. The boy, with a face of fear and wonder, knelt at the grave's 
 head, looking anxiously on. When the pit was thought deep enough, the 
 old man and the grave-diggers proceeded to take up the body, which they 
 laid in the ground, with the head towards the west, and the feet towards 
 ^lecca and the Nile. A tattered garment, seemingly belonging to the 
 deceased, was thrown over the face ; the arms were stretched down by the 
 sides ; a quantity of dhourra straw was placed upon the body ; and the 
 earth closed over all. "We could not learn the history of this murder ; but 
 it appeared to have been efifected by those rude spears, with iron heads two 
 feet in length, which are the common w'eapon of the Fellahs. Wherever was 
 his home, if he had one, it was thus rendered desolate for ever. His wife 
 and his children would await in vain his return. Ilis fate they could never 
 learn. They would probably suppose he had deserted them, and in their 
 liearts upbraid him for his cruelty, and stand at the door of their hovel, 
 looking till their eyes ached towards the Nile, and inquiring for him of any 
 boatmen who came up out of Egypt ; while he slept in his quiet grave 
 beneath the feet of the trackers, in company with some of whom he had 
 doubtless tugged and rowed in days gone by. 
 
 One morning, walking slowly along the river, admiring the richness and 
 beauty of the western plain, my attention was suddenly attracted to the 
 opposite shore by large volumes of smoke rising from among the reeds and 
 long grass. At first they ascended slowly, and were diffused through the 
 pure atmosphere, which they stained but for a moment, while bright
 
 CONFLAGRATION.— SPLENDID SUNSET. 295 
 
 flashes of fire appeared through the rolling vapour. Presently I heard a 
 noise resembling the quickly-repeated discharges of musketry, as if the 
 whole army of Upper Egypt had been assembled there in mock fight. 
 While musing on this fancy, I saw numerous pyramids of dark red flame 
 on various parts of the plain ; the cracking of the burning reeds became 
 terrific, and the conflagration spread with incredible velocity ; for the wind, 
 blowing strongly from the south-west, actively propagated tlie flames, until 
 at length nearly the whole country seemed but one vast bed of fire, from 
 which clouds of black smoke issued on every side. In the back-ground was 
 the Desert, whose white salt-like surface glittered in the sun ; and the 
 plain, on the western bank, with its beautiful corn-fields, woods, and 
 villages, afforded a striking contrast to this sublime spectacle. Upon 
 inquiring, I learned of the natives the cause of the conflagration : Avhen the 
 grass becomes too coarse and dry for the cattle, they set it on fire, after 
 which a tenderer and more delicate herbage springs up. The same prac- 
 tice has long prevailed in Greece, and in some measure accounts for the 
 destruction of the forests.* 
 
 Poets and travellers speak with enthusiasm of the sunsets of Italy, 
 Switzerland, and Greece. I have seen the sun go down in each of those 
 countries, but never with half the splendour which on this day accompanied 
 his disappearance ; and could I svicceed in reflecting upon the reader's 
 imagination half the grandeur of this gorgeous show, he would, unques- 
 tionably, concur with me in thinking that, but for its evanescent nature, it 
 was far more worth a voyage to Egypt even than the Pyramids. No 
 sooner had the sun''s disk disappeared behind the Lybian Desert, than the 
 whole western sky along the edge of the horizon assumed a colour which 
 for want of a better term, I shall call golden ; but it Avas a mixture of 
 orange, saffron, straw colour, dashed with red. A little higher, these bold 
 tints melted into a singular kind of green, like that of a spring leaf prema- 
 tui'ely faded ; and over this extended an arch of palish light, like that of 
 an aurora borealis, conducting the eye to a flush of deep violet colour, 
 which formed the groundwork of the sky on the very skirts of darkness. 
 Through all these semicircles of different hues, superimposed upon each 
 other, there ascended, as from a furnace, vast pyramidal irradiations of 
 crimson light, most distinctly divided from each other, and terminating in 
 a point ; and the contrast between these blood-red flashes, and the various 
 strata of colours which they traversed, was so extraordinary, that I am 
 persuaded no combination of light and shade ever produced a more wonder- 
 ful or glorious effect. 
 
 At Kolokosaneli we found coffee-houses, with ghawazee of the most 
 dissolute kind ; and proceeding thence by clear path-ways leading through 
 gardens and mimosa woods, over a country richly cultivated with wheat, 
 dhourra, and sugar-cane, here springing up at the foot of the loftiest date- 
 trees, we arrived at Semelud, a largo and tliickly-peopled town, with a 
 mosque and noble minaret towering aloft, white and glittering, among a 
 forest of palms. Still further to the west was a wood of the same trees, but 
 
 * History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece.
 
 296 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 with their intervals so completely filled up by an undergrowth of acacias, 
 tamarisks, and mimosas, that the whole appeared, at a distance, like the rich 
 masses of verdure of an English forest. Night and mooring time approach- 
 ing, we struck into a narrow pathway leading to the Nile. It was a 
 lovely evenincr, soft and balmy as June, the south wind having died away 
 to a gentle breeze, which wafted far and wide the perfume of the bean-fields, 
 now in full blossom, mingling with the mild fragrance of the ripe dhourra, 
 which the husbandmen were threshing with long sticks in the fields. A 
 rich old Turk, mounted on a well-fed black donkey, and followed by an 
 attendant with a fine led horse, travelled with us for several hours. The 
 boys, playing on the green sward about the different villages, saluted us 
 civilly as we passed, with the Salam Aleycum, to which we returned the 
 customary Aleycum Salam. They appeared to be well fed and happy; a 
 thino- of rare occurrence in Ewypt. We reached the banks of the river, a 
 few hundred yards to the north of the point where the gloomy frowning 
 cliffs of the Gibel et Teir, or " Mountain of Birds," hang over the Nile, 
 and there moored for the night. 
 
 The land in this part of the Hermopolitan Nome is in many places 
 covered with a tall sedge, which looks as verdant and beautiful as sugar- 
 cane. The peasants, early in the morning, were busily at work in the 
 fields, some getting in the dhourra, others preparing the ground for 
 another crop. The Egyptian plough, though originally invented by Osiris, 
 is perhaps the rudest instrument of its kind now in use, consisting merely 
 of three pieces of wood, of which two form the handle, and the third the 
 share. No iron is used in its construction, excepting a small band, which 
 keeps together its several parts. Two cows or bullocks yoked together by 
 a long beam of wood, from the centre of wdiich the plough is suspended, 
 draw the rude machine along. The animals at work in the fields through 
 which we passed, being refractory or unused to the labour, constantly ran 
 out of the right course, and drew from their director, who was ambitious of 
 exhibiting his best skill before the strangers, the opprobrious epithet of 
 kelh^ or " dog," which an angry Arab applies indiscriminately to man or 
 beast. The ploughman was followed by an older man, his father or master, 
 who, with a light kind of hoe or mattock, broke the rough clods left among 
 the furrows ; a very necessary process after such imperfect tillage. 
 
 The vast perpendicular cliffs of tlie Bird IMountains, now in the morning 
 no longer gloomy, continue for some miles to confine the course of the 
 stream towards the east, until at length a sinuosity in the river leaves 
 between it and their base a narrow slip of ground, which is brought into 
 cultivation. A little to the north of the village of Gehel et Teir, there is a 
 break in the chain, where the rocks bend inward in a semicircle, about the 
 centre of which they have been shattered, rent, and bored by the labour of 
 man ; and on the small sandy plain lying between the horns of the half- 
 moon, we saw the ruins of an ancient wall, which seems to have extended 
 from mountain to mountain, filling up the space left open by the retreating 
 of the rocks. In the face of tlie cliffs were numerous catacombs or grottoes, 
 to examine which we here crossed the Nile. It soon became evident why 
 the Arabian chain is in this part called the " Mountain of Birds ;" for the
 
 COPTIC CONVEiNT ON THE BIRD-MOUNTAINS. 297 
 
 number of coi'morants and black Damietta ducks frequenting it is pro- 
 digious. Every day, early in the morning, they arrive in vast flights fi'om 
 the Desert ; the rustling of tljeir wings in the wind, though at a great heiglit 
 above our heads, sounding like the rushing of a storm ; and, having reached 
 the mountains, settle in clouds upon ,the rocks, descending at intervals, 
 and diving for fish, which must here be very plentiful in the deep waters 
 below. 
 
 The feathers of the above-mentioned species of duck are said by some 
 travellers to be nearly ball-proof, on which account the Arabs, in their 
 picturesque phraseology, denominate them ball-eaters. I had not myself 
 the pleasure of tasting them, but they have been pronounced by good 
 authority unpalatable.* In addition to the ducks and cormorants, the 
 Gebel et Teir abounds with pigeons, hawks, and swallows. Of this last 
 bird the entire plumage is of the same colour with the sand, a remark which 
 may also be applied to the partridges and to many reptiles, which con- 
 sequently can scarcely be distinguished in their resting-places. It is a 
 convenient thing that the colour of their coats remains in fashion throughout 
 the whole year in Egypt, whereas in the north of Europe some animals 
 are at the chameleon-like trouble of changing. About 200 yards from 
 the river's edge, and at the southern extremity of a small grove of palm- 
 trees, the sand has lately been excavated to the depth of about twenty 
 feet. In this hole is seen a remarkable palm-tree; it is still erect, and had 
 been entirely overwhelmed by the drifted sand ; a new head and stem had 
 sprung up from the old one, almost equal to the parent tree ; but the leaves 
 of its ancient head being still attached to their birth-place, it presents the 
 appearance of one tree growing on the top of another. On the summit of 
 Gebel et Teir is a Coptic convent. The inhabitants commenced baking 
 for us; not having leisure to wait, the chief priest offered me a stale but 
 substantial bun, having Coptic characters and crosses on it ; this is sacra- 
 ment bread : he begged for an empty bottle, in the name of the Virgin. 
 Denon gives a drawing of this place, which lie calls the Convent of the 
 Chain ; accompanied by an account, that while boats were passing, the 
 monks used to be let down from the height into the river, to swim and beg, 
 or rob. In this convent, during a former visit to this country, I met with 
 a very interesting adventure, which seems to have something romantic in it, 
 though it really occurred. On reaching the foot of the Bird Mountains, I 
 was much struck by the singular form of the rocks, but my attention was 
 soon diverted to a still more remarkable object. I saw a man appear on 
 the summit, whence, with inconceivable agility, he descended by means of a 
 rope, and, throwing himself into the river, approached our boat to ask alms. 
 It was one of the Coptic monks, whose custom it is to implore the charity 
 of the passers by in favour of their convent. The great rapidity and 
 address with ■which the man had come down, and his answers to some of 
 our questions, having excited our curiosity, we rowed ashore, and ascended 
 in the track of our guide by the steep and narrow path cut in the rock, 
 which he had himself traversed. By this means, not without much 
 
 * Sir Frederick Hcuuikcr.
 
 298 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 difficulty, we reached the top, from whence our eyes wandered over an 
 immense horizon. Beneath our feet flowed the Nile, bordered by many 
 verdant spots, until it wound away in the distance through the fertile 
 plains of Minieh. Numerous villages, with their palm groves, and herds 
 of buffaloes and flocks of goats scattered over the plains, and the rich 
 vegetation of the country, presented the most pleasing and diversified scene. 
 What a contrast struck us as we looked towards the spot which we had 
 first reached ! Blocks of stone, detached and scattered here and there over 
 a desert of sand, extending further than the eye could reach, presented an 
 image of chaos : the hand of man had never attempted to change this 
 barren tract into a fruitful soil ; and it is probable that the endeavour 
 would have proved vain. We next perceived a wretched hut, which the 
 monk pointed out to us as his dwelling, situated in the midst of a small 
 cemetery ; and this convent, which resembled most other monasteries in 
 nothing but its elevated position, did not appear to us at all calculated to 
 inspire a love of retirement. Having satisfied our curiosity, we were 
 going to quit this place, which had so little to recommend it, when we 
 suddenly heard some words spoken in the beautiful language of Petrarch 
 and Tasso. We turned to the side from which the voice proceeded, and 
 beheld an old man, whose lofty and majestic form was unbent by age, and 
 who, introducing himself to us as the prior of the convent, invited us in 
 the most polite terms to enter and rest ourselves. Extremely surprised at 
 meeting, under the coarse habit of a Coptic monk, a man famiUar with the 
 language and customs of Europe, we accepted his invitation, and sat down 
 on a stone bench ; our host and three other monks, the only inmates of the 
 convent, immediately set before us some dates and bread, still quite warm, 
 which they had just baked in the ground between two stones, according to 
 tlie manner of the country. 
 
 Meanwhile, I attentively surveyed the singular and surprising individual 
 whom we had so unexpectedly met with in this place. A long silvery 
 beard descended in curls upon his breast ; his eyes still retained all the fire 
 and vivacity of youth ; yet there was in his looks something gloomy, and 
 expressive of profound melancholy ; his features were dignified and regular; 
 his mouth, which seemed as if it never smiled, diminished the effect of his 
 fine countenance, which might have been compared to a beautiful northern 
 landscape, deprived, by a misty atmosphere, of the effects of light, and of 
 the brilliant tints of the south. Being no longer able to repress the inte- 
 rest, or rather the curiosity which I felt, I ventured, with some hesitation, 
 to ask him some questions on his situation, and the reasons that could have 
 induced him to adopt it ; adding, that Egypt could certainly not be his 
 native country. A transient expression of melancholy overspread his 
 countenance, and being sensible of my indiscretion, I begged him to pardon 
 my curiosity, in consideration of the interest I felt for him. He replied, 
 that there was nothing particular in his history to merit the attention of 
 anybody ; that he was by birth a Roman, and that being the youngest of 
 his family, his parents had educated him fur the ecclesiastical profession, 
 for which he had a decided aversion ; that flying from the paternal roof, he 
 had passed the greater part of his life among infidels, whose faith he had
 
 SWIMMING MONK.— RUINS OP ACHORIS. 299 
 
 even embraced ; tliat the death of an adored being had made him sensible 
 of the enormity of his faults and his errors ; and that, determined to pass 
 the remainder of his life in penitence, he had chosen this wild and desert 
 spot to end his days. He thus concluded his short narrative ; and turning 
 his eyes toward tlie cemetery, added : " Port of the wretched ! the only 
 refuge against the storms of life, why dost thou not present thyself to the 
 imagination of men, when, agitated by tumultuous passions, and unbridled 
 desires, they act as if their life were without limit, and their afflictions 
 without end ; whereas, everything tends towards thee, and the remem- 
 brance of the good we may have done in this world, alone accompanies us 
 into the next, and survives our death." IMoved by these words, and the 
 expression which accompanied them, we took leave of the venerable old 
 man, who gave us his blessing on our departure. Nine montlis after, on 
 my return from Upper Egypt, being desirous of once more seeing the 
 Coptic prior, I took the road to his convent; as I approached, one of the 
 monks perceiving me, pointed to a fresh grave. He had ceased to suffer.* 
 
 Dr. Olin, wlio did not visit the convent, sketches, very graphically, the 
 manner in which its inmates sometimes descend to collect alms upon the 
 Nile. "• We were still nearly a mile distant," he says, " when a man 
 appeared on the cliffs that overhang the river, crying out to us with all his 
 strength of lungs. He addressed us in a mixture of Italian and Arabic, 
 ' Christiano Howaga,' which, it seems, is their standing salutation, as our 
 crew repeated it frequently before the aerial beggar made his appearance. 
 He seemed, from his dress, to belong to the fraternity, and, as we drew 
 nearer, offered low prayers for the safety of our voyage. A man perfectly 
 naked soon after approached, descending the precipitous rocks, whicli 
 appeared inaccessible to all but the winged race, who make it their habita- 
 tion. He bounded along with frightful velocity from the summit to the 
 base of the mountain, and, plunging into the river, here about three-fourths 
 of a mile wide, swam towards us with incredible speed, crying aloud, as 
 he cleft the turbid waves, ' Christiano Howaga.' We were ascending the 
 stream with a fair wind, and the strong current swept him far below us. 
 Soon, however, he reached the opposite shore, and running swiftly along 
 the sandy beach for perhaps a mile, plunged again into the river at a point 
 considerably above us, and being now aided by the current, soon succeeded 
 in reaching our boat, reiterating his learned salutation, ' Christiano 
 Ilowacra.^" 
 
 I shall not here pause to describe the ruins of Achoris, though we spent 
 considerable time in the examination of them ; for the stupendous remains 
 of Upper Egypt render everything else in the Valley of the Nile, by com- 
 parison, insignificant. We saw chapels, and inscriptions, and capacious 
 tanks excavated in the living rock, which interested us greatly at the time, 
 because, with the exception of tlie Pyramids, we had beheld nothing of the 
 nobler works of the Egyptians ; but they scarcely deserve to detain us from 
 tlie wonders of the Said. The Arabs of this neighbourhood are a wild, uncouth 
 race, who have the reputation of being both ferocious and dishonest. During 
 our visit to the ruins, we startled a number of women engaged in collect- 
 
 * Baroness MiuiUoli.
 
 300 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 ing salt, which was here spread in a thin crust over the surface of the 
 Desert. Uttering a cry of surprise and terror, they left their baskets, and 
 fled towards the rocks, among the cliffs and hollows of which they speedily 
 disappeared. While we were laughing at their unnecessary alarm, a 
 number of Bedouins, with long spears and shields, rushed forth from a 
 ravine, obviously with the intention of attacking us ; but were deterred 
 from carrying their design into execution by the sight of our pistols, the 
 burnished handles of which, protruding from our girdles, flashed brightly 
 in the sun. We had been repeatedly warned against entering any of the 
 villages in this district, the inhabitants of which, one of our attendants 
 described by the significant phrase of cativa genie ; and, in fact, two of 
 them, fellows of most truculent aspect, and formidably armed, dogged us 
 for several miles, but seeing no chance of effecting anything, retreated at 
 length to their lairs. 
 
 Next day, part of which we spent in the Necropolis of Achoris, was 
 Christmas. Having satisfied our curiosity, we descended by a rocky flight 
 of steps to the plain, and, following the pretty rural pathway, leading 
 along the foot of the Bird Mountains, directed our course towards Minieh. 
 The heat was quite as great as during very warm summers in Europe, but 
 had no enervating effect. Skylarks and butterflies on the wing ; fields 
 enamelled with bright wild flowers ; eagles and falcons wheeling aloft 
 among the stupendous precipices ; and foxes and jackals basking in the sun 
 at their feet — were circumstances at variance with our ideas of winter, 
 which, in fact, was now over for us. There were a great many large 
 caverns in the base of the mountains, which smelled like the dens of wild 
 beasts, and were thickly strewed with bones. As we walked along, my 
 companion brought down, from a great height, a small brown eagle, which 
 fell like a clod among the rocks, and measured, when his wings were expanded, 
 at least five feet. At the foot of this desolate range, we ate our noon-day 
 meal — biscuits, Arab cakes, and a few hard eggs — water was a luxury 
 beyond our reach — yet, no London Alderman enjoyed his Christmas fare 
 better, so keen and unceremonious were our appetites. On the way to Minieh, 
 we passed by a ruin€d village, picturesquely situated on the slope of a 
 rocky hill ; and, after a walk of several leagues, reached our boats a little 
 before dark, when Suleiman met us with the welcome intelligence that 
 dinner was ready. 
 
 The Nile, in front of Minieh, has been described by one traveller as 
 broad, by another as narrow ; and their disagreement has been regarded 
 as a proof, that the relations of travellers are not to be relied on. But the 
 stream is here divided by a low sandy island, and when this is concealed 
 by the waters, the channel is of a magnificent breadth ; but when the 
 Nile shrinks within its banks, and falls below a certain level, the island 
 reappears, and diminishes the grandeur of the river ; and if, at this season, 
 the observer should confine his view to the branch next the town, its 
 breadth would not be extraordinary. The sand bank was visible when I 
 passed ; but rising very little above the level of the river, and being 
 covered in many places with a thin veil of water distributed in small ponds, 
 it might very easily have been overlooked, as it did not sensibly interrupt 
 the uniformity of the surface line.
 
 STORY OF IBN KIIASIB. 301 
 
 On entering tlie town next morning, we found it was as yet too early 
 even for the Arabs to be abroad ; very few persons being in the streets, but 
 such as were returning from their devotions in the mosques, to which I had 
 heard tlie voice of the muezzin inviting them long before dawn. The very 
 bazaar, which is large, neat, and peculiarly clean, was still destitute of all 
 signs of activity, excepting two or three women with baskets of nice fresh 
 bread, forty cakes of which were here sold for a piastre. Two of these, 
 with tea or coffee, would be a breakfast for a man. Eggs we also found 
 at the rate of forty for a piastre ; and tliree bottles and a half of new milk 
 for twenty paras, or about one penny farthing. In all these towns the 
 coffee-houses, where dancing girls arc invariably found, appear to be con- 
 stantly open. The dwellings of such devout persons as have performed 
 the pilgrimage to Mekka, are generally covered with a kind of white 
 stucco, upon which, for I know not what reason, fishes and different kinds 
 of monsters are represented ; and, among others, I observed a figure, which 
 Suleiman assured me was intended for a crocodile ; but to render the spec- 
 tator quite certain of this, it would have been necessary to write the name 
 below. The city of Minieh contains several mosques, straight clean streets, 
 and rather neat shops, and appears to be more populous and opulent, than 
 any of the towns farther down the river. 
 
 Lord Lindsay, in speaking of this place, relates from Ibn Batuta, a 
 story which may be worth repeating : — Ages ago, in the days of the 
 Abbassides, to whom Egypt bowed the knee, from the middle of the eighth 
 to that of the ninth century, one of the Caliphs, even the great Haroun 
 Al Raschid himself, was displeased with the Egyptians, and desirous at 
 once to punish and make them an example to others, picked out the lowest 
 of his slaves, one Ibn Khasib, the bath-warmer of the palace, and sent him 
 governor to Egypt, in the confidence that the insolence, rapacity, and 
 cruelty of such a ruler, would amply express his resentment. Never was 
 a man more mistaken than the Caliph : never was Egypt happier than 
 under the mild rule of Ibn Khasib. His fame spread far and wide ; many 
 even of the Caliph's immediate courtiers, and one, especially, of his nearest 
 kinsmen, visited, and were entertained by him ; in short, Ibn Khasib was 
 a second Chebib. 
 
 On the return of his kinsman to Bagdad, the Caliph, who had remarked 
 and wondered at his absence, inquired where he had been ? " To Egypt," 
 replied the prince, and proceeded to extol the humanity, justice, benevo- 
 lence, and generosity of the governor, and display the presents he had 
 received from him. The Caliph, enraged at the failure of his scheme, sent 
 instant and peremptory orders for his degradation; that his house should 
 be razed to the ground ; his goods confiscated, his eyes put out, and that 
 he should be cast forth, naked and a beggar, into the streets of Bagdad. 
 
 To hear, of course, was to obey ; a few weeks, and behold Ibn Khasib, 
 friendless, hungry, destitute, groping his way through the streets, or 
 sitting near the gate of the Seraglio, forgotten by his old fellow-slaves, 
 unheeded by the nobles who had eaten his bread and salt in Egypt, and 
 whose silken garments touched as they swept past him; the summer birds 
 flv with the summer flowers !
 
 )02 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 He was accosted one morning by a poet : — "Ibn Khasib," said be, " I 
 was on tlie point of starting for Egypt witb a poem in your praise ; your 
 arrival bcre in Bagdad saves me tbe trouble of tbat long journey ; and, if 
 you will listen, I sball liave great pleasure in repeating it." 
 
 " Poor and blind, naked and miserable," replied Ibn Kbasib, " what 
 have I to give thee ? Go, my friend, seek a richer patron ; my star is set." 
 
 " Only listen to me," replied the child of song ; " and as for recompense, 
 (fod only do for you as you liave done for others ! " 
 
 Kbasib listened, and his heart was touched ; they were the first words 
 of sympathy that had consoled him in his misfortune. " Cut open this 
 seam," said he, when the song was ended, " and accept this ruby ; " it was 
 the only valuable that he had been able to secrete of the wreck of his for- 
 tunes. The poet expostulated. Ibn Kbasib insisted; and the poet accord- 
 ingly carried the gem to the jewellers' bazaar. 
 
 " Such a stone," cried the syndic of the jewellers, " can only belong to 
 the Caliph ;" and before the Caliph they brought him. He told his little 
 story; the Caliph's eye glistened; lie sent for Ibn Kbasib, owned he had 
 done wrong, loaded him with presents, and sent him back to Egypt, pro- 
 ])rietor of Minieh, the spot he was fondest of in all the valley of the Nile, — 
 that Nile, to whose bounty the poet's fancy had likened his own ; the place 
 is still called after him, " Minieh Ibn Kbasib," and his posterity flourished 
 there, for I cannot say how many generations, since they were extinct, 
 when my authority, Ibn Batuta, visited the spot in the fourteenth century. 
 
 Ruins of Oxyrynchui^
 
 303 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 From IMinmeh to IManfaloot. 
 
 Having no other occupation to while away the lime, I went in the even- 
 ing to the Bath. The Arabs and Turks soon began to pour in, in throngs ; 
 the)' came without any respect of persons ; the hauglity Turk, with his 
 pipe-bearing slave, and the poor Arab boatman ; in short, every one who 
 could raise a few paras. It was certainly not a very select company, nor 
 over-clean, — and probably veiy fev/ Europeans would have stood the thing 
 as I did. My boatmen were all there. They were my servants, said 
 the rais, and were bound to follow me everywhere. As I was a Frank, 
 and as such expected to pay six times as much as any one else, I had the 
 best place in the bath, at the head of the great reservoir of hot water. My 
 white skin made me a marked object among the swarthy figures lying 
 around me : and half-a-dozen of the operators, lank, long fellows, and per- 
 fectly naked, came up and claimed me. They settled it among themselves, 
 however, and gave the preference to a dried up old man, more than sixty, 
 a perfect living skeleton, who had been more than foi'ty years a scrubber in 
 the bath. He took me through the first process of rub])ing with the glove 
 and brush ; and having thrown over me a copious ablution of warm water, 
 left me to recover at leisure. I lay on the marble that formed the border 
 of the reservoir, only two or three inches above the surface of the svater, 
 into which I put my hand, and found it excessively hot ; but the old man, 
 satisfied with his exertion in rubbing me, sat on the edge of the reservoir, 
 with his feet and legs hanging in the water, with every appearance of satis- 
 faction. Presently he slid ofi" into the bason, and, sinking up to his chin, 
 remained so a moment, drew a long breath, and seemed to look around him 
 with a feeling of comfort. I had hardly raised myself on my elbow to look 
 at this phenomenon, before a fine brawny fellow, who had been lying fur 
 some time torpid by my side, rose slowly, slid off like a turtle, and con- 
 tinued sinking, until he, too, had immersed himself up to his chin. 1 
 expressed to him my astonishment at his ability to endure such heat ; but 
 he told me that he was a boatman, had been ten days coming up from 
 Cairo, and was almost frozen, and his only regret was that the water was 
 not much hotter. He had hardly answered me before another and anotiier 
 followed, till all the dark naked figures around me had vanished. By the 
 fitful glimmering of the little lamps, all that I could see was a parcel of 
 shaved heads on the surface of the water, at rest or turning slowly antl 
 quietly, as on pivots. Most of them seemed to be enjoying it with an air 
 of quiet dreamy satisfaction ; but the man with whom 1 had spoken first. 
 seemed to be carried beyond the bounds of Mussulman gravity. It operated 
 upon him like a good dinner ; it made him loquacious, and he urged me 
 to come in ; nay, he even became frolicsome, and, making a heavy surge,
 
 304 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 threw a large body of the water over the marble on which I was lying. I 
 almost screamed, and started up as if melted lead had been poured upon 
 me ; even while standing up, it seemed to blister the soles of my feet, and 
 I was obliged to keep up a dancing movement, changing as fast as I could, 
 to the astonishment of the dozing bathers, and the utter consternation of 
 my would-be friend. Roused too much to relapse into the quiet luxury of 
 perspiration, I went into another apartment of a cooler temperature, where, 
 after remaining in a bath of moderately warm water, I was wrapped up in 
 hot cloths and towels, and conducted into the great chamber. Here I 
 selected a couch, and, throwing myself upon it, gave myself to the 
 operators, who now took charge of me, and well did they sustain the high 
 reputation of a Turkish bath ; my arms were gently laid upon my breast, 
 where the knee of a powerful man pressed upon them ; my joints were 
 cracked and pulled ; back, arms, the palms of the hands, the soles of the 
 feet, all were visited in succession. I had been shan-.pooed at Smyrna, 
 Constantinople, and Cairo ; but who would have thought of being carried 
 to the seventh heaven at the little town of Minieh ? The men who had 
 me in hand were perfect amateurs, enthusiasts, worthy of rubbing the hide 
 of the Sultan himself; and the pipe and coffee that followed were worthy, 
 too, of the same mighty Seigneur. The large room was dimly lighted, and, 
 turn which way I would, there was a naked body, apparently without a 
 soul, lying torpid, and tumbled at will by a couple of workmen. I left 
 the bath a different man ; all my moral as well as physical strength were 
 renewed ; I no longer drooped or looked back ; and, come what would, 
 I was bent upon Thebes and the Cataracts.* 
 
 Setting sail with a fair wind, and making great way, in spite of the 
 strong current, we arrived, about twelve o'clock, at Benihassan. A broad 
 way, formerly adorned on either side with a row of pillars, leads directly 
 up the steep to the sepulchral excavations. In antiquity the ascent was 
 rendered easy by a flight of steps, constructed of a black compact stone, 
 frequently found in globular masses in the neighbouring cliffs. f The 
 tombs or temples — for they appear to have been both — are cut in the rock 
 in a straight line, running north and south along the face of the mountain, 
 about half-way to the summit. A broad terrace, now covered with sand 
 and partly broken up, extends in front of them along the hill, and forms an 
 esplanade, upon which all the entrances to the tombs open, like so many 
 street doors. Of these edifices, the first, reckoning from the north, is 
 adorned in front with a spacious and lofty portico, having four large 
 cohnnns, in their proportions and simplicity resembling the Doric; and 
 consists of two chambers, a sekos and an adytum ; the former of large 
 dimensions, nearly sixty feet in length by forty in breadth ; the latter small. 
 The surface of the walls, divided into numerous compartments, is covered 
 on all sides with paintings, representing, with more or less success, the 
 domestic occupations and amusements of the ancient Egyptians ; and not- 
 withstanding the difference of taste and style, and their decided inferiority, 
 they reminded me of the ancient frescoes of Spinello Aretino, and Buffal- 
 
 * Stiphen?. + Ccidalveae et Bieuvcrv.
 
 GROTTOES OF BENIHASSAN. 305 
 
 macco, in the Campo Santo at Pi!«a. To entf.T into anything like a minute? 
 description of the various compartments, would be a tiresome and a usele:<s 
 task ; nothing but a series of faithful engravings, coloured on the spot, 
 could convey a correct idea of the subjects they represent, or of tlie 
 manner in which those subjects are treated ; but thus copied, they would 
 deserve to be carefully studied by the antiquary, as no relic of antiquity 
 existing in Egypt seems so well calculated to throw light on the manners 
 of its ancient inhabitants, Plere, in fact, we see delineated, and not 
 altogether without talent, the mode of tilling the ground ; of gathering in 
 the harvest ; the vintage ; their manner of hunting, fowling, fishing ; their 
 style of dancing, wrestling, &c. From these sculptures, also, we learn 
 that the Egyptians were acquainted with the manufacture of linen, glass, 
 cal)inet-work, gold ornaments, and numerous objects indicative of art and 
 refinement ; and various gymnastic exercises, the games of draughts, ball, 
 mora, and other well-knovvn modern amusements, were common at the 
 same period.* 
 
 A series of figures in one compartment represents the exercise of the 
 several mechanic trades ; while in another we discover, in a numerous 
 group, the quaint and formal order of their feasts. Several of the repre- 
 sentations of gods and distinguished mortals, introduced into their 
 domestic pictures, are cleverly executed ; and the costumes and private 
 dwellings, though they convey no very exalted idea of the grandeur 
 or opulence of their possessors, are depicted with much ease and spirit. 
 The colours in which the whole have been painted retain not a little of 
 their freshness. In the size of the apartments, the number of columns, 
 the subjects on the wall, in short, in all their accidents and ornaments, 
 these sepulchral excavations differ greatly from each other. In some, for 
 example, the roof appears to rest upon four massive polyangular columns ; 
 in others, upon ten slender clustered pillars, painted, like the walls of the 
 cathedral of Genoa, with alternate horizontal bands, which here are green 
 and yellow, there black and white. These beautiful columns, resembling 
 those we find in many Gothic structures, represent four lotus stems, bound 
 together by fillets, the united budding flowers forming the capital. From 
 these interesting tombs, which date so far back as the reign of Osirtasen, 
 who expelled the Shepherd Kings from Egypt, and have been greatly 
 defaced by time, as much as by the rude scratches of the Arabs, we departed 
 reluctantly ; yet not before we had scrawled our names by the side of 
 many others, on a piece of unpainted wall. 
 
 Proceeding in search of the celebrated " Cave of Diana," on our way we 
 passed the ruined village of Benihassan, which, in extent, appears to have 
 fallen very little short of Minieh ; and having crossed a deep rocky ravine, 
 — the channel, in rainy seasons, of a furious mountain torrent, — reached 
 the skirts of the modern village, to the east of which a path, turning off 
 towards a wide lateral valley of the Arabian mountains, conducted us 
 through the village cemetery, where a small mound of sand, which would 
 be levelled by the first tempest, with an upright stick at one end, were all 
 
 * Wilkinson. 
 d2
 
 306 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 the sepulcliral lionours bestowed upon the dead ; and, in walking hastily 
 along through this humble necropolis, one of our party sank knee-deep into 
 a recent grave. Turning a blunt promontory of the mountain, we entered 
 a savage rocky valley, where, in many parts, the rugged summits of the 
 cliffs overhang their bases, while the bottom has been torn up and rent 
 into chasms by the action of tremendous rain-floods. In this dreary dis- 
 mal gorge, the goddess Bubastis, if she resembled Artemis, the mountain- 
 nymph of Greece, might well have delighted to be worshipped ; for if 
 sterility, solitude, and absolute desolation, afiforded her contentment, she 
 could nowhere have found a fitter residence. But, in fact, we had not yet 
 discovered her dwelling-place. There were here, indeed, two or three 
 natural caverns, in the wild rocks ovei-hanging the torrent-bed, but none 
 likely to have been dedicated by the Egyptians to the service of Diana. 
 Suleiman, who had previously been at the rock temple, for some time ran 
 about in search of it like a hound at fault; and, in the meanwhile, 
 we explored numerous small excavations, formerly inhabited by ascetics, 
 who sought peace and tranquillity of mind in such retreats as these. In 
 one of the grottoes I observed a beautiful arched niche cut in the rock, and 
 adorned on either side with an elegant pilaster. High up in the cliffs are 
 the entrances to numerous other excavations, whither their inhabitants 
 must have ascended by ropes or ladders ; and in imprudently endeavouring 
 to mount along the face of the rock to one of these chambers, I narrowly 
 escaped being dashed to pieces. Proceeding onward to the second lateral 
 valley, south of Benihassan, we discovered several large rock temples, with 
 sekos, adytum, and other chambers, adorned with porticoes, pillars, paint- 
 ings, bassi-rilievi, and hieroglyphics ; and the most extensive of these, on 
 the southern side of the valley, seemed, from its symbolical sculptures, to be 
 the " cave of Artemis," having a far more ancient appearance than the 
 northern grottoes, but differing not materially from the other cavern-temples 
 of Egypt. Evening a])proaching, we returned across the Desert, and 
 through numerous date-forests, to the banks of the river ; and, overtaking 
 our kandjias, continued to sail on by moonlight, with a favourable wind. 
 
 Next morning I visited a Sheikh's tomb, with which a curious, and no 
 doubt very ancient, superstition is connected. The neat little edifice was 
 picturesquely embosomed in a thicket of palms, mimosas, and other trees, 
 overhanging the river. I found the attendant extremely obliging, and 
 perfectly willing to admit me into the interior, though I wore my boots, 
 and was known not to be a Moslem. There was, as usual, a small chest, 
 neat mats on the floor, and two or three miniature boats suspended from 
 the roof. The saint here interred is held in peculiar veneration by the 
 mariners of the Nile, who, when no servant hajipens to be present, cast a 
 little bread into the river for Sheikh Said. Our humble offering, instead 
 of floating aw-ay with the stream, would, according to popular belief, 
 remain stationary, and be found under the Jioly man's window on the 
 morrow. It is not improbable, however, that the fish of the Nile may, 
 in this place, be in partnership with the Sheikh, and entitled to receive a 
 share of the gifts of the pious. Sacred fish have been worshipped in various 
 parts of the world ; and in the island of Cephalonia, off Cape Capro,
 
 APPROACH TO MANFALOUT. 307 
 
 offerings of bread are still made to the species called Melanouros, The 
 sailors, in casting them into the sea, make use of the following words : 
 " Health, Cape Capro, to your wife, to your children ; to you, CapeCapro, 
 to your wife (making the first offering) ; to your children (making a 
 second). You fish, Melanouros, eat the cake (making a third)." This is 
 probably the relic of some ancient custom ; the passage by the rock was a 
 dangerous navigation, and the fish Melanouros abounds here.* 
 
 It has been said that the eastern chain of mountains, all the way 
 from Er Rharamoun to IManfalout, comes down close to the water^s edge, 
 and is thickly perforated with excavations ; but this is not quite con-ect ; 
 as a little to the north of the village of Sheikh Said, it recedes considerably 
 from the Nile, and, having made a large semicircular sweep, again 
 approaches it near Gherf. Beyond this village it once more turns off 
 towards the east, leaving an extensive flat for cultivation, which extends 
 for several miles towai'ds the south. Up to this point there are few exca- 
 vations in the face of the mountains, which slope away towards the Desert 
 with an undulating, broken surface, without cliffs or precipices. 
 
 The weather, though mild, was all this day gloomy, the sun scarcely 
 appearing at all, while low misty clouds rolled continually along the pinnacles 
 of the mountains ; yet the fields resounded with the songs of the skylarks, 
 and the scent of wild flowers perfumed the air. Extensive plantations of 
 sugar-cane, fields of wheat, lupines in flower, peas eighteen inches high, 
 rich clover, &c., cover the whole surface of the country with a variegated 
 carpet of verdure, exceeding in beauty the poetical descriptions of Fenelon. 
 We expect to find crocodiles in the river about Manfalout ; the flesh of 
 these animals, which is eaten by the Nubians, has the reputation of being 
 a cure for fevers. 
 
 Hamilton, by I know not what course of reasoning, was led to think 
 that the sandy nature of most of the islands in the Nile, furnishes an 
 argument against the notion that it is the mud of this river which fattens 
 the soil of Egypt. But he would seem to have overlooked the fact that, 
 wherever a new channel is formed round any portion of land previously 
 rich and cultivated, the whole of the space thus severed from the mainland 
 is very quickly, unless kept in cultivation, reduced to a mere sand-bank. 
 This, however, is easy of explanation ; for the river, in its eftbrts to move 
 in a right line, attacks incessantly the shores of the island, loosening and 
 carrying away the lighter soil, while the heavier particles remain, and are 
 daily increased by the sands from the Desert. Afterwards, during the 
 inundation, when the current is most irresistible, the whole surface of 
 the island is lifted up from its bed, and hurried away by the waters, 
 leaving the lower stratum uncovered. In many parts, even the regular 
 banks, like the shores of the sea, are formed of yellow sand, which, in 
 Nubia, is coarse and heavy, consisting of large particles of decomposed 
 quartz, mica, felspar, &c. 
 
 At length, as we approach Manfalout, the eastern mountains assume a 
 more sublime appearance, putting on the form of ruined castles, with 
 
 * Dr. Olin. Dr. Sibthorp.
 
 30S EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 terraces, turrets, and battlements of prodigious grandeur, and projecting 
 their bases into the Nile, over which tliey frown, and tower to a vast 
 heidit. In the face of the cliffs are innumerable grottoes, of various form 
 and character ; some preserving their original rugged features, others 
 fashioned in the shape of temples, with porticoes, pediments, and friezes. 
 Some are natural, whilst others are cut by the hand of man ; and often 
 at a great distance above the waters — the retreats of the Christian hermits, 
 who treated Athanasius so kindly during his repeated exiles from Alex- 
 andria. We often sailed close under them ; and with the glass I could see 
 far within the dusky portals, uncrossed now for many centuries.* 
 
 In one of these, however, lives an old man, who has been there more 
 than fifty years; and an old wife, his companion for more than half a 
 century, is there with him. His children live in Upper Egypt, and once 
 a year they come to visit their parents. The patriarch is still hale and 
 strong ; at night a light is always burning in his tomb ; a basket is con- 
 stantly let down to receive the offerings of the charitable, and few 
 travellers, even among the poor Arabs, ever pass without leaving their 
 mite for the recluse of the sepulchre. t 
 
 When, towards evening, the mist cleared away, the sky assumed that 
 bright cerulean tint, which generally distinguishes it in these latitudes ; — and 
 the Nile, unruffled by the slightest breeze, presented to the eye a vast mirror, 
 beautifully reflecting the overhanging mountains, pale and blushing in the 
 light of the setting sun. This noble scene was succeeded by another, still 
 more serene and beautiful ; — the same landscape, painted in new colours by 
 the moon. It is extraordinary that the ancient Egyptians should have 
 been a quaint, unpoetical people, as Nature, however calm and regular, has 
 crowded together, in the land they inhabited, all those physical sources of 
 enthusiasm which are supposed to concur in kindling the fire of genius. 
 The vast naked rocks of the Arabian chain, which, but a few minutes 
 before, had been glowing in tlie setting sun, now stood like pale spectres 
 in the moonlight ; their bald and ghastly brow resembling that of a 
 skeleton ; while the river, broad, tranquil, of a deep azure tint, glittering 
 with the bright images of the moon's sharp crescent and a thousand 
 resplendent stars, displayed a still softer beauty than by day. In many 
 places the shadows of the mountains threw their huge masses over 
 its unruflfled bosom ; and on the opposite side, the low level shore, 
 scarcely elevated above the waters, gave rise to a kind of illusion, the 
 mighty river appearing to stretch away indefinitely towards the West, 
 where every group of date palms or mimosas, upon the plain, seemed to 
 mark the site of some higher island rising in the midst of the waters. 
 But no powers of language can ever embody the surpassing splendour of 
 this scene, or, perhaps, succeed in creating the belief that Egypt contains 
 a picturesque landscape ; though, for my own part, I have seldom been 
 more powerfully affected by scenes of acknowledged magnificence ; in the 
 mountains of Sicily ; in the beautiful valleys of the Apennines ; or among 
 the naked Alps of the upper Valais. It will, in fact, be conceded, that 
 
 * Lord Lindsay. t Stephens. 
 
 1 
 
 1
 
 STORY-TELLING ON THE NILE. 309 
 
 the effect of moonlight, faUlng upon a wilderness of white crags and 
 pinnacles, with innumerable gorges, ravines, hollows, chasms, and cavern 
 mouths, wrapped in deep shadow, partly concealing them from the eye, 
 and giving rise to mysterious conjectures respecting their forms, is, in the 
 highest degree, startling ; as those who have traversed by night any of the 
 loftier Alpine ridges will certainly have remarked. But in Egypt, the 
 historical, and, still more, tlie mythological associations, clinging to every 
 scene, especially when the mute figures of gods look down upon you from 
 walls, and cavern mouths, and ruins, augment, in a wonderful manner, 
 the effect of the natural scenery, and give rise in tlie mind to emc^tions 
 which it would be difficult to describe. To enjoy this magnificent 
 prospect, I sat under an awning on the deck, till the cold of the advancing 
 night compelled me to retreat into my cabin. 
 
 It is everywhere a happy time for sailors when a favourable wind blows ; 
 but on the Nile it is the signal of especial joy. Tiie neces?ary steps having 
 been taken to profit by the breeze are scarcely terminated, when the merry- 
 andrew of the kandjia, wearing a cap of jackal's skin, with many hanging 
 tails, seizes hold, tambourine-wise, of a great earthenware vessel without 
 a bottom, covered at one end with a tightly stretched skin, on which he 
 thumps v\ith liis iist while chanting a monotonous air. Another musician 
 accompanies him with a double flute, made of two reeds, and remarkable 
 for its sharp, shrill notes. This discordant harmony captivates during 
 many hours the attention of the audience, who demonstrate their extreme 
 satisfaction by performing saffe, as it is called, that is, by clapping their 
 hands in concert. The sound of this national music often drew the 
 attention of the inhabitants of the villages, who came in the evening to 
 dance by moonlight on the bank, near our kandjia, and reminded us, by 
 their picturesque appearance, of the primitive manners of pastoral ages.* 
 
 Suleiman, who, dnring his multifarious wanderings, had learned an 
 infinite number of stories, and was naturally an excellent narrator, proved 
 as good as a whole library of novels ; and it was his custom, when 
 t'le wind enabled us to sail by night, to present himself at the cabin- 
 door, as soon as coffee and the chibouque had been served, and ask per- 
 mission to relate a tale. This being obtained, he would seat himself 
 cross-legged upon the deck, and projecting his dusky face, beaming with 
 satisfaction and merriment, half-way into the cabin, would relate tale 
 after tale, so ingenious, so new, so rich and mirth-inspiring, that, while 
 thus ensiatied, dav has sometimes ovei'taken us unawares. The Arabs, 
 meanwhile, would generally be employed in the same manner, at a little 
 distance on the deck ; and at such times they always shared the 
 coffee and tobacco brought in between every fresh narration. f Much 
 of the pleasure derived from stories of this kind appears to arise from the 
 
 * Cadalvene et Bieuvciy. 
 
 ■)■ Jlost travellers have remr.rkcd the fondness of the Arabs for the class of fiction I have 
 described. Tiie Baroness Minutoli says : " I have often seen groups of women with their pipes 
 in their nioulhs sitting round an old sibyl, who narrated some fable, which made their hair 
 stand on end. They followed with their eyes all the motions of the sorceress with an expression 
 of terror and astonishment, and did not breathe freely till the conclusion had answered their 
 expectation."
 
 310 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 firm faith whicli the narrator himself puts in them. Being ionorant of 
 the bounds dividing the possible from the impossible, the most daring 
 miracles, wrought by enchanters and magicians, offend him not. Sudden 
 turns of fortune, examples of men springing, at a few hazardous bounds, 
 from poverty to empire ; princes reduced to slavery ; cities, once opulent, 
 inhabited by jackals and owls; and many other circumstances of a like 
 nature, are spectacles witli which the Orientals are familiar. Tlieir 
 favourite theme is ambition, which, — and not love, — is their ruling 
 passion, young and old ; and accordingly, they delight in picking up 
 their heroes from the liovel, and conducting them, by paths paved with 
 crime and slippery with blood, to a throne, where supreme happiness, they 
 imagine, is to be tasted, in spite of remorse, whose stings are invisible to 
 all but those who feel them. 
 
 The town of Manfalout, where we arrived late, is said to be less populous 
 than Minieh, l)ut appeared to be much larger and better built ; and its 
 bazaar was decidedly superior in appearance to any I had seen since leaving 
 Cairo ; the streets being clean and straight, and the shops neat and well 
 constructed. Little novelty or splendour can be expected in the articles 
 exposed for sale at a place so remote and unfrequented ; but even bread, 
 meat, butter, and the other necessaries of life, M'ere not plentiful. The 
 population is calculated at five thousand souls, among whom are two 
 hundred Coptic families and a bishop ; the houses of the inhabitants who 
 have performed the pilgrimage to Mecca are distinguished by a few 
 sentences from the Koran written round a representation of the holy kaaba, 
 painted in green or red over the doors. 
 
 Manfalout, situated on the left bank of the river, decreases in importance 
 
 Fish of tbe Nile. 
 
 every year. The Nile, as it changes its bed, has undermined the elevated
 
 THE CROCODILE MUMMY PITS. 311 
 
 and friable soil on which its mud houses are built, and more than a third 
 of which were carried away by the flood in 1829. The succeeding 
 inundations, by no means so considerable, have made fewer ravages ; but 
 the foundations of a great number of iiouses have been laid bare thirty feet 
 above the level of the river, and they cannot long fail to be swept away 
 in their turn. It may easily be seen that the Nile, opposite JManfalout, 
 once washed the feet of the Arabian chain, and that the fertile fields, 
 more than half a league in width, which now stretch on that bank, have 
 been left dry by it one after another in its passage towards the west. 
 These lands, composed of fresh alluvium, are easily recognisable in Egypt, 
 from the slightness of their elevation above the water-mark, and will only 
 in the course of ages be raised by the successive deposits of the Nile.* 
 
 CHAPTER XXYII. 
 
 Crocodilk Mummy Pits. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Manfalout, among the mountains above Maabde, 
 are those crocodile mummy pits, in an unsuccessful attempt to explore 
 which, Mr. Legh, in 1832, lost two of his guides, and where, through want 
 of due precaution, I was myself on the eve of sharing the same fate. That 
 gentleman's narrative is as follows : — " We descended without difficulty. 
 We formed a party of six ; each was to be preceded by a guide. Our 
 torches being lighted, one of the Arabs led the way, and I followed him. 
 We crept for seven or eight yards through an opening at the bottom of the 
 pit, which was partly choked up with the drifted sand of the desert, and 
 found ourselves in a chamber about fifteen feet high. Here we observed 
 fragments of the mummies of crocodiles ; we saw also great numbers of 
 bats flying about, and hanging from the roof. We now entered a long 
 gallery, in which we continued for more than an hour, stooping or creeping 
 as was necessary, and followed its windings, till at last it opened into a 
 large chamber, which, after some time, we recognised as the one we had 
 first entered. Our guides at last confessed they had missed their way, 
 but, if we would make another attempt, they would undertake to conduct us 
 to the mummies. We had been wandering for more than an hour, in low, 
 subterranean passages, and felt considerably fatigued by the irksomeness of 
 the posture in which we had been obliged to move, and the heat of our 
 torches in these narrow and low passages ; but the Arabs spoke so confi- 
 dently of succeeding in this second trial, that we were induced once more 
 to attend them. We found the opening of the chambir which we now 
 approached, guarded by a trench of unknown depth, and wide enough to 
 require a good leap. The first Arab jumped the ditch, and we all followed 
 him. The passage we entered was extremely small, and so low in some 
 places, as to oblige us to crawl flat on the ground, and almost always on 
 
 * Cailulveac et Buuvurv.
 
 312 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 our hands and knees. The intricacies of its windings resembled a labyrinth, 
 and it terminated at length in a chamber much smaller than that which we 
 had left, but, like it, containing nothing to satisfy our curiosity. Oar 
 search liitherto had been fruitless ; but the mummies might not be far 
 distant ; another effort, and we miglit still be successful. 
 
 " The Arab who led the way, now entered another gallery, and we all 
 continued to move in the same manner as before, each preceded by a guide 
 We had not gone far before the heat became excessive ; I found my 
 breathing extremely difficult, my head began to aclie most violently, and 
 I had a most distressing sensation of fulness about the heart. AVe felt we 
 had orone too far, and yet were almost deprived of the power of return. 
 At this moment, tlse toi'ch of the first Arab went out ; I was close to him, 
 and saw him fall on his side ; he uttered a groan — his legs were strongly 
 convulsed, and I heard a rattling noise in his throat ; — he was dead. The 
 Arab behind mo, seeing the torch of his companion extinguished, and con- 
 ceiving he had stumbled, passed me, advanced to his assistance, and stooped. 
 I observed him appear faint, totter, and fall in a moment ; — he also was 
 dead. The third Arab came forward, and made an effort to approach the 
 bodies, but stopped short. We looked at each other in silent horror. The 
 danger increased every instant : our torches burned faintly ; our knees 
 tottered under us, and we felt our strength was nearly gone. There was 
 no time to be lost. Our companion, the American, called on us to take 
 courage ; and we began to move back as fast as we could. We heard the 
 remaining Arab shouting after us, calling us Kaffirs, imploring our assis- 
 tance, and upbraiding us with deserting him. But we were obliged to 
 leave him to his fate, expecting every moment to share it with him. The 
 windino-s of the passage through which we had come, increased the difficulty 
 of our escape. We might take a wrong turn, and never reach the great 
 chamber we had first entered. Even supposing we took the shortest road, 
 it was but too probable our strength would fail us before we arrived. We 
 had each of us separately, and unknown to one another, observed 
 attentively the different shapes of the stones which projected into the 
 walleries we had passed, so that each had an imperfect clue to the labyrinth 
 we had now to retrace. We compared notes, and only on one occasion 
 had a dispute — the American differing from my friend and myself. In 
 this dilemma, we were determined by the majority ; and, fortunately, were 
 rio-ht. Exhausted with fatigue and terror, we reached the edge of the 
 deep trench, which remained to be crossed bifore wo got into the great 
 chamber. Mustering all my strength, I leaped, and was followed by the 
 American. Smelt stood on the brink, ready to drop with fatigue. He 
 called to us, for God's sake to help him over the fosse, or at least to stop, 
 if only for five minutes, to allow him time to recover his strength. It was 
 impossible — to stay was death — and we could not resist the desire to push 
 on and reach the open air, AVe encouraged him to summon all his force, 
 and he cleared the trench. When we reached the open air, it was one 
 o'clock, and the heat, in the sun, about 160". Our sailors, who were 
 waiting for us, had luckily a bardak full of water, which they sprinkled 
 upon us ; but, though a little refreshed, it was not possible to climb the
 
 PREPARATIONS TO VISIT THE CATACOMBS. 313 
 
 sides of the pit : tliey unfolded their turbans, and slinging them round our 
 bodies, drew us to the top. Our a])pcarance without our guides, naturally 
 astonished the Arab, who had remained at the entrance of the cavern ; and 
 he anxiously inquired for his hahabedas or friends. To have confessed 
 they were dead, would have excited suspicion of our having murdered 
 them. We replied they were coming, and were employed in bringing 
 out the mummies we had found. We lost no time in mounting our asses, 
 re-crossed the Desert, and passed hastily by the village, to regain the 
 ferry of Manfaloiit. Our kandjia was moored close to the town, and we 
 got safe on board by five o'clock." 
 
 I give this story in Mr. Legh's own words, but cannot refrain from 
 ofi'ering two or three remarks upon it. In the first place he and his com- 
 panions abandoned the Arabs much too readily. No pains were taken to 
 ascertain whether they were dead or not ; and the story told at the pit's 
 mouth to the poor native who remained there, put the finishing stroke to 
 their conduct. Still, my opinion is that the guides only shammed death, 
 and found their way out afterwards ; but as the travellers believed other- 
 wise, it was their duty to have made an eflfort to drag them out. Under 
 these circumstances it is some satisfaction to think that they were hoaxed, 
 and this is the conclusion at which Sir Frederic Henniker also arrived, 
 though the mephitic vapour of the cavern be sufficiently deleterious to 
 destroy life. 
 
 All that we had heard of the extraordinary dimensions, and wonderful 
 conformation of these pits, of the dismal chasms they contain, and of the me- 
 phitic vapours and fatal effluvia which were said to interpose an impassable 
 barrier between the traveller and the penetralia of the sacred crocodiles, had 
 powerfully excited our curiosity, but we deferred our visit until our return 
 down the river; when, landing early one morning, we proceeded to the 
 village in search of guides and asses. The wife and son of the Sheikh el 
 Beled, agreeably to their persuasion that all Europeans are physicians, 
 had been already at our boats, requesting that we would go and see the 
 Sheikh, whom they described as labouring under some violent disease. 
 Though ignorant of medicine, and determined, for this reason, to sport 
 with no man's chances of recovery — we, nevertheless, to oblige these poor 
 people, who appeared to imagine that it was in our power to do good, 
 accompanied them to their house ; and, on the way, saw many proofs of the 
 filth and misery in which they live. Passing through a number of dirty 
 courts and alleys, we were at length conducted to the room where the sick 
 man lay, extended on a bed upon the ground. I attempted to enter, 
 but the chamber was so close, and the smell so exceedingly offensive, that 
 I found it impossible to remain. The nature of the disease, however, could 
 not be mistaken, being a rapid consumption of the lungs (the only instance 
 I ever saw in the country), which had already reached the last stage. 
 We advised the best means we knew for allaying the patient's sufferings ; 
 and, as he seemed to be amused by conversing on business, which afforded 
 him a momentary respite from the thoughts of death, requested he would 
 order some of his people to furnish us with asses. This he immediately did, 
 at the same time fixing a price, with which the owners of the beasts appeared
 
 314 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 to be content. Instead, however, of bringing the animals, they waited for us 
 outside of tlie village, demanding six times the sum agreed on by the 
 Sheikh. The poor man being ill, and unable to enforce the execution of 
 his orders, we abstained from troubling him any further, and walked away; 
 upon which the villagers lowered their demands, but, to punish them for 
 attempting imposition, we refused to treat with them any further. 
 
 Crossing the plain from Sheghalghil to Maabde, we found that the 
 natives, as in the case of Sir Frederick Henniker, denied all knowledge of 
 the dreaded mummy-pits ; observing that the only two persons who could 
 have conducted us thither were absent at Manfalout, where it was market- 
 day. They moreover added, that several Arabs having perished in the 
 pits, no person would now venture thither, and appeared to be afraid even 
 to converse upon the subject. But their ignorance, as we suspected, was 
 feigned ; for, upon our repeated assurances that we would not require 
 them to enter, but merely to show us the mouth of the cavern, several men 
 consented to become our guides, though their wives, dreading lest they 
 should be tempted by the offer of a reward to hazard the descent, crowded 
 round, conjuring them to remain. The husbands, who had no intention of 
 going beyond their agreement, endeavoured to silence their fears ; but the 
 poor creatures, not relying on these promises, still followed at a distance, 
 with their children in their arms. Being unable, however, to keep pace 
 with us in climbing the rocks, we quickly lost sight of them. Henniker, 
 however, encountered greater difficulties, which he describes with much 
 humour. " Provided," says he, " with Davy's safety-lamp, a long light stick, 
 a thermometer, a plank and ropes, and accompanied by my dragoman and 
 three others, I set out for Maabde. In our way thither we met several 
 Arabs, every one of whom denied all knowledge of the pit. Arrived at the 
 village, we could get no information ; it was evidently withheld ; but at 
 length promise of backsheesh induced a man to be our guide under certain 
 conditions: 1. That he was to receive twenty-five piastres ; 2. That he 
 was to be accompanied by thirty of his friends armed ; that we (five) were 
 not to force them (thirty) into the cave; and that upon pointing out the 
 entrance they might be allowed to run away : 3. That the dragoman (a 
 Turk) should swear by the Prophet, by Mecca and Medina, that he would 
 not only not force them (thirty) into the cave, but that he would not go 
 in himself. To this he swore very readily — a Christian might go and be 
 
 . While these conditions were under consideration, the news spread 
 
 like wild-fire. Women and children crowded round us. ' What ! go 
 where my son died,' was the exclamation of a virago ; 'if you fill my house 
 with gold, my husband shall not go. He is an Englishman ; he has 
 magical incantations ; and he is taking our husbands and children to 
 certain death ; the soldiers who went last week are dead there ;' and many 
 other expressions well suited to deter me. On the other hand, the force 
 of my Arabic and argument was summed up in the word ' backsheesh.' 
 Our guides, as if preparing for ' certain death,' took leave of their 
 children ; the father doffed the turban from his own head and put it on that 
 of his son ; or put him in his place, by giving him his shoes — ' a dead 
 man's shoes.' This treaty and ceremony lasted more than an hour ; at
 
 SEARCH FOR THE ENTRANCE, 315 
 
 last we set forth with our j)osse comitatus, all armed. We liad not yet 
 cleared the village, when we were beset by women and children, who, 
 with frantic cries and gestures, took up dust by handfuls, and threw it in 
 the air ; as yet, however, there was no harm done, for the dust fell in their 
 own faces : we were still advancing, when a woman, brandishing a long 
 staflf, iron-bound at either end, stepped forward, like Hercules in petticoats, 
 and placing herself between our would-be guides and us, made such a 
 display of the argumentum ad hominem, that our thirty armed men 
 positively refused to accompany us another step. I must confess it was a 
 disappointment without sorrow, and we commenced a retraile honorable. 
 Met by the governor of the village, on learning the cause of our visit, he 
 asked if we would answer for our guides' safe return ; being assured in the 
 affirmative, he instantly commanded our men to lead us to the pit. We 
 were followed by the cries and curses of women and children ; the governor 
 himself escorted us to a bridge clear of the town, and here forbade a 
 passage to those whom we were far from wishing to accompany us. A 
 broad smooth winding road leads up the neighbouring mountain ; crystal 
 grows on the summit like grass, and gives a novelty and interest to the 
 scene, but there is not the slightest appearance of life ; we entered a ravine, 
 resembling the dry bed of a torrent. I was employed in culling crystal ; 
 when the guides ran ahead, and crying out, ' There — there it is ; there 
 died the soldiers, and there you are going to die' — they ran homeward with 
 all speed. One of them in passing called out for backsheesh, which 
 I offered, but he would not stop to receive it ; tl\ere must then have been 
 some cause truly alarming ; and such was the effect upon two of my boatmen, 
 that they threw down the plank, and would not advance another inch." 
 
 Of our several guides, one carried a large rope, by which we might let 
 ourselves down ; another, a jar of water ; a third, a long pole. When 
 we had reached the level summit of the mountain, it quickly appeared 
 either that they knew not tlie entrance to the cave, or were determined 
 not to point it out : in real or pretended search, they dispersed them- 
 selves on all sides ; while we, misled by the descriptions of former 
 travellers, struck off into a deep rocky valley, which in the season of the 
 rains, conveys the waters of the sudden floods into the Desert. We had 
 now entered upon that time of the year when the ardour of the sun's rays 
 is extremely powerful in Upper Egypt, particularly in such hollows as 
 this, surrounded on all sides by rocks, which, imbibing and reflecting the 
 heat, convert them into so many ovens. From our experience of the taste 
 of the Egyptians, it scorned extremely probable that we should here find 
 the pits ; and therefore, notwithstanding the heat, continued to follow the 
 windings of the valley, at the bottom of which we observed several bitter- 
 plants, in shape not unhke samphire, growing amid the scorching sand. 
 Numerous lateral gorges branched off to the right and left, containing 
 caverns, which, from the recent footmarks in the sand, and the bones 
 scattered about the openings, must doubtless be the dens of wild beasts. 
 Through the principal valley, as we judged from their tracks, the gazelles 
 usually pass in great numbers on their way from the Desert to the river, 
 to which they are compelled by thirst to descend nightly.
 
 316 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 After pursuing our course for several miles, until we found the hills 
 sinking gradually to the level of the desert, we despaired of success in 
 that direction, and retraced our footsteps. All the Arabs, excepting one, 
 had now quitted us ; but on drawing near the entrance of the valley, we 
 perceived another of the party, perched upon a height, coolly awaiting our 
 return. He had discovered the mouth of the pii, and in about half an 
 hour conducted us to it. Our first inquiry, however, as we had for several 
 hours been tortured with thirst, was respecting the bardak ; but we found 
 that the guides, having drunk nearly all the water, had removed, and sat 
 down on the rocks at a distance, leaving the almost empty jar by the 
 mouth of the cavern. The entrance, very inferior in depth and dimensions 
 to what we had expected, is a triangular hole, in shape somewhat re- 
 sembling a crocodile's head, and may be about six or seven feet in lengthy 
 by four in breadth, where widest. The deptli, probably, does not exceed 
 fourteen or sixteen feet. Impatient to visit the interior, I at once placed 
 my hands on the sides of the pit, and leaped down ; Suleiman and Monro 
 followed ; and one of the Arabs, observing us receive no detriment from 
 the descent, likewise ventured in ; so that our party now consisted of four. 
 The effluvia issuing from the interior, however, exceeded in nauseousness 
 all the disgusting smells to which I had ever been exposed. Men have 
 been known to faint at the stench of a dissecting-room ; but the smell of 
 a dead body in the worst state of decomposition is sweet compared with 
 the odious vapour which here made the very gorge rise. 
 
 Our tapers being lighted, we first groped our way through a low, narrow 
 passage on the right, gradually lessening as we advanced, and at length ter- 
 minating abruptly ; it was therefore necessary to return. On again coming 
 back to the mouth, we discovered on the left a very low, but much broader, 
 entrance, througli which we next advanced, and, after creeping along for 
 ten or twelve yards, found ourselves in a spacious but not lofty chamber, 
 with innumerable black stalactites depending from the roof. The Arab 
 who accompanied us, having never entered before, was no better acquainted 
 than ourselves with the secrets of the place. It was necessary to try every 
 opening and fissure of the rock. Close to a very narrow and low passage, 
 there was a square hole, like a window, much too small for Monro to 
 enter ; but it seemed possible that I, being considerably slighter, might 
 force my way through, feet foremost : after thrusting in my legs, however, 
 I found that my body would not follow. We next tried the passage ; but 
 this, after many turnings and windings, terminated in a small cleft in the 
 rock, through which nothing but a serpent or a bat could pass. Again, 
 therefore, we were forced back to the large chamber, where we sought in 
 vain for any other hole or passage ; so that, after continuing the scrutiny 
 for an hour or more, we despaired of success, and returned to upper air. 
 The Arabs, whom we found clustered about the mouth of the cave, seemed, 
 I think, pleased at our disappointment ; and by their subsequent refusal to 
 show us the nearest path to the boats, which were moored near the moun- 
 tains to the north of the plain of Maabde, they gave us reason to suspect 
 that they had purposely misled us, from motives known only to themselves. 
 The poor man who descended into the cave, whose legs exhibited symptoms
 
 SECOND ATTEMPT. 317 
 
 of incipient elephantiasis, still remained with our party; the others, 
 without asking for a present, left us abruptly to find our way how we 
 pleased, and made towards their village. 
 
 Following a sheep-track leading towards the edge of the cliffs, we dis- 
 covered a break in the rocks, through which we descended to the plain. 
 In the face of the mountain are several grottoes, once perhaps the abodes 
 of Christian hermits ; and in a very perilous situation beneath a projecting 
 crag, stands a Coptic convent of sun-dried bricks, with many windows, 
 containing no monks ; but on a certain day of the year, probably the 
 anniversary of some Coptic saint, all the Christians of the neighbourhood 
 repair to this convent, where they pass the day in feasting and rejoicing. 
 On reaching the kandjias, we paid our guide and began to proceed down 
 the river, but in less than half an hour, two Arabs were seen running along 
 the bank, shouting loudly to us to stop the boat. Being accordingly 
 ordered near shore, they were taken on board, and proved to be the guides 
 to the crocodile mummy-pits, who, hearing of our unsuccessful expedition, 
 had followed us to offer their services. They professed to be perfectly 
 acquainted with the place, and promised, if we would remain until next 
 day, to conduct us where we should find the crocodiles ; for it was now 
 evening, and we had been toiling during at least ten hours in the sun. 
 As they seemed to speak with complete confidence, we resolved to give 
 them a trial, and putting about, hoisted sail, and proceeded up the river to 
 Manfalout. This was an extremely windy day ; heavy clouds, towards 
 evening, covered the whole atmosphere, and the sun set under a blood-red 
 canopy. 
 
 On descending next morning to that part of the bank where our guides 
 had engaged to attend us, we found them waiting ; not two, however, but 
 tliirteen, all of whom had been attracted by the hope of backsheesh. Upon 
 inquiry we found it was the favourable report of the poor Arab who had 
 accompanied us on the preceding day, whose infirmity rendered him an object 
 of charity, that had sent all these guides in search of us. An old man, 
 with a white beard, who seemed to be tlie Sheikh of the party, said he had 
 known the pits from his youth, and would bring us where we should find 
 crocodile mummies of all sizes. We, therefore, desired them to proceed, 
 being impatient to discover whether he would conduct us to the cavern we 
 had visited on the preceding day ; and, if so, in what way we could possibly 
 enter. The point was soon settled. They took us to the same pit ; and 
 while we were undressing, and lighting our candles, those who were to 
 enter betook themselves to prayer, as persons about to plunge into des- 
 perate peril. I again descended before the others, and as the smell 
 seemed less disgusting than on the day before, did not in the least doubt 
 being able to withstand the mephitic vapour, whatever it might be. 
 When the Arabs had prayed, and stripped themselves nearly naked, we 
 took each a taper in our hands, and began to move forwards. The old 
 man, his son, and two other Arabs, led the way; my servant and I fol- 
 lowed ; and Monro came close after me, with a guide, who was to show 
 the way back, should we find it impossible to proceed. Having reached 
 the large chamber, where we had wasted so much time the preceding day, 
 
 E B 2
 
 318 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 tlie old guide turned to the right, and crept forward through a small hole, 
 the mouth of which was concealed by a projecting rock. We all followed 
 in the order we had observed in entering, and after proceeding about 
 twenty yards, arrived in the large natural chamber described by Legh and 
 Henniker, the latter of whom advanced no further. Continuing to push 
 forward, we entered a portion of the cavern resembling the mouth of hell ; 
 enormous rocks, huddled together, forming the floor, where chasms of 
 imknown depth yawned between the dark masses, while prodigious black 
 stalactites, with shining spars of crystal, glittering between them, hung 
 like dead snakes from the roof, and composed a kind of fretwork round the 
 sides. Everything wore the fuliginous appearance of a place which had 
 been the seat of some durable conflagration ; black as night, covered with 
 soot, oily, slippery, and exhaling a stench unutterably disgusting. Bats 
 without number hung from the roof, or flew against our faces, from the 
 countless holes and narrow diverging passages of the cavern : some striking 
 against the rocks and falling senseless to the ground, where we trod or 
 pressed upon them with our hands — for there was no time to be nice in 
 picking our way. At length they began to cling about my neck, and bite 
 my hands ; and several times extinguished my taper; but this was merely 
 disagreeable. By degrees, however, the passage grew low and narrow, so 
 that it became necessary to creep forward on hands and knees, with our 
 heads depressed, that they might not strike against the rocks. This posi- 
 tion I soon found extremely painful. The heat, likewise, appeared to be 
 insufferable, and the perspiration streamed from our bodies like rain. My 
 companions, according to the advice of the principal guide, had stripped 
 nearly to the skin : but trusting to my capacity for enduring heat, I had 
 slighted his counsel, and now suffered the penalty of my imprudence. 
 
 Still, however, I continued in the track of the guide ; but having advanced 
 about three or four hundred yards, I felt the blood rush to my head, and 
 experienced great sickness and faintness, accompanied by an extraordinary 
 oppression of the lungs, greatly augmented by the odour of putrid corpses 
 which issued from the extremity of the cave, and appeared to increase 
 every moment. For this effect I never could fully account : in all the 
 tombs and caverns and mummy-pits which we had hitherto entered, I had 
 seemed to suffer less than any one, and could remain in them whole hours 
 without inconvenience ; but now the case was different. In a short time 
 my head grew dizzy, and the cavern seemed to reel and swim round. Sup- 
 posing I was about to faint, in which case recovery was next to impossible, 
 I requested Monro, who seemed to experience nothing of the kind, to endea- 
 vour to creep by me, which the narrowness of the passage rendered nearly 
 impracticable, and ordered the Arab in the rear to lead the way back ; 
 Monro and Suleiman proceeded. When I had gained that part of the 
 cavern where it was possible to stand upright, the fulness and dizziness in 
 the head abated ; but my eyes had grown dim, and I fancied we had lost 
 our way. The guide, who evidently shared my suspicion, paused, and 
 surveyed the various openings with terror, while his trembling hands could 
 scarcely hold the taper. The cavern, in fact, appeared to have enlarged, 
 the paf^sr-o^es to have grown more numerous, and the stench and blackness
 
 DANGERS OF THE PIT. 319 
 
 more infernal. I moved along with tlie utmost difficulty, the bats flitting 
 before or striking against me, and looked with intense longing for the 
 appearance of light, and the smell of fresh air. A draught of water might, 
 perhaps, have revived me ; but the guides had neglected to bring any into 
 the cavern ; and to this circumstance I probably owe my extreme dis- 
 appointment, and might have owed something worse. 
 
 As the way appeared so much longer than it had on entering, the suspi- 
 cion frequently recurred tliat we had missed it ; but at length I discerned a 
 glimmering light, and felt the rushing in of the external air, which 
 now seemed perfumed, though on my first descending, I had thought 
 it execrable. On arriving at the entrance, the Arab flung himself, with a 
 groan, upon the ground ; and I, completely exhausted and overcome, sat 
 below upon the rocks in a kind of dream, unable to climb the rocky ascent 
 to the plain. 
 
 At the expiration of about half an hour I heard my servant's voice, 
 exclaiming, *' Oh ! Mr. Monro, we are in paradise !" They all came out 
 covered with dirt and perspiration, the Arabs bringing along with them 
 the mummies of two crocodiles. For the description of what they saw 
 after they left me, I am indebted to Monro. Another fissure, like the 
 former, he observes, now received us, the sides being formed of large dusky- 
 looking crystal stalactites, some of which were a foot, or even more, in 
 diameter. It became wider as we advanced, and terminated in a lofty 
 vaulted hall, apparently oblong, extending to the riglit and left ; the 
 bottom was covered with large pieces of rock, over which we made our 
 way as we best could. 
 
 Suleiman directed me to look down between two of these into a pit, 
 which he said was bottomless ; but on thrusting in the candle, I found it 
 to be about seven or eight feet deep. What may have been the extent of 
 this saloon to the left, I was imable to state, my only care being to retain 
 breath, and strength enough to reach the mummies ; and our lights were 
 insufficient to show the end of it as we passed. Our route now lay to the 
 right, through a contracted aperture, which we traversed sideways, our 
 bodies nearly horizontal, the rocks and the roof being in close contact, 
 and presenting as it were a concave and a convex surface, corresponding 
 with each other. Beyond was a small natural cavity, formed, like the 
 otiiers, of dark-coloured stalactites ; out of this we turned short to the riglit, 
 apparently in a direction towards the mouth of the cavern, and descended 
 through a naturally-formed window to a lower level. Here the Hajji 
 proposed that we should remain, while the guides went forward for the 
 crocodiles. The heat was considerable, and the atmosphere impleasant, 
 but not sufibcating ; I was still well, and though I advised him to I'eturn, 
 if it seemed necessary, it was my intention to proceed, while I might do 
 so with prudence ; he said no more, but went forward. The rest of our 
 course was made almost entirely in a crawling position, the passage being 
 a natural fissure closely hemmed in by stalactites, and in places very low, 
 sometimes running in a serpentine line, and at others turning at right 
 angles. After advancing a short time, I fixed my hand upon a round 
 irregular substance ; it was a human face ; the chest and body were beneath
 
 320 -EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 my arm. There was no time to examine it, nor indeed for any reflection 
 beyond the " omnes eodem cogimur," which would occur to every one ; I 
 passed on. Not far beyond this, the old Arab stopped, and laying his 
 hand upon another human head, pointed it out as a sort of landmark that 
 served for his guidance in this subterranean navigation. The head and 
 shoulders only were exposed, the rest of the body being concealed beneath an 
 impending and projecting rock. Round this we turned short to the left. 
 
 Soon after, the passage became lower than ever, and we were reduced to 
 the attitude and condition of snakes. The heat had considerably increased, 
 and the air became more noisome. The stalactites were now of a jet 
 black colour, and shone like pitch ; and in the recesses formed by them 
 were numerous human bodies ; and some also were scattered in the track 
 over which we crawled. Even the bats had not penetrated thus far into 
 this loathsome dungeon ; and though it was some relief to have escaped 
 from their importunities, it was a warning index that the air was unfit for 
 animal existence. Here, for the first time, I felt a slightly oppressive ful- 
 ness upon my chest ; and that I might feed scantily upon the noxious 
 vapour, I breathed as lightly and seldom as possible ; the inconvenience 
 was of short duration, the aperture enlarged, and passed into a long and 
 comparatively lofty cavern, where the air, though of the same quality, was 
 more plentiful, and I found immediate relief. We had now reached the end 
 of our wanderings ; this was the mysterious depository of the crocodiles. It 
 was an irregular fissure, of about thirty feet long from end to end, and 
 eight feet across in the widest part ; the height varied in different places. 
 The pendent stalactites were of a shining jet black, and, when the candle 
 was applied to them, burned and smoked like pitch ; being thickly encrusted 
 with a bituminous deposit, engendered, perhaps, by the mephitic vapours, 
 which had reigned here for centuries : immediately opposite the entrance, 
 which was near one end, lay a promiscuous heap of palm leaves, mummy 
 rags, and human bodies : it was a scene which even tlie guides, as well as 
 ourselves, mused upon for a few minutes in silence. Proceeding to the 
 farther extremity, my attention was directed to a series of apparently 
 small mummies, packed close together, and placed nearly vertically. Sup- 
 posing them to be little children, I inquired of the guides ; but was 
 informed that these were the crocodiles, of which the upper part only was 
 visible. When they had selected five, and extricated them from the mass, 
 Suleiman, who had been silent for some time, observed that he felt his 
 head swimming, and Avas unable to see ; when I perceived that his eyes 
 were closed, and that his head had fallen on one side. Immediately 
 roiising him from his stupor, I ordered a retreat, which was effected slowly, 
 as the guides were now encumbered with three of the mummies. 
 
 AVhen the old Arab and his companions had breathed the fresh air for a 
 short time, they again prepared to descend into the cave, in search of tlie 
 crocodiles which had been left behind. They also offered to bring me, if 
 I pleased, a human nnunmy ; the Egyptians having in this cemetery 
 mingled together the bodies of gods and mortals. This time they appeared 
 to be absent much longer than before ; but returned at length, dragging out 
 along with them two more crocodiles, together with the mummy of a red-
 
 EXPLANATORY LEGEND. 321 
 
 haired girl, about ten or twelve years old. It was nearly naked, the flesh 
 had shrunk to almost nothing, the skin was shrivelled, and as black as the 
 pitchy rocks within ; tlie head turned loosely, and trembled on the withered 
 neck ; the chest and abdomen were pitted in, the lips drawn hard over the 
 teeth — ghastly, disgusting, horrible, like death. — I refused to take it 
 away, and the Arabs laid it down upon the desert, where it soon became 
 the prey of the famished and voracious hyaenas, if they will devour a 
 mummy. Though the crocodile was regarded as a god by the Egyptians, 
 his body was less carefully preserved than their own. Neither coifin nor 
 sarcophagus enclosed the corpse, which having been enbalmed, was first 
 packed in palm leaves, disposed lengthwise along the body, and bound 
 round with cord, formed, like that in use at present, of the leaf of the palm 
 tree. The whole was then enveloped, like the human mummy, in linen 
 bandages, sewn together with twine, and secured with broad tape. The 
 entrails, separately embalmed and strung together in small bundles, were 
 placed in the palm leaves beside the .body. Two small oblong packets, 
 placed over the empty sockets, seem to have contained the eyes ; but 
 these we did not open. 
 
 The origin of the appearance of smoke and the remains of fires in 
 the crocodile mummy pits is explained in the following manner by the 
 Arabs. A long while ago, as they relate, a great Moggrebyn magician 
 arrived in the country with seven camels, and persuaded six fellahs to 
 assist him in taking away a treasure that he knew of, promising to allow 
 each of them to take for his share a camel-load of gold, and to be content 
 with an equal quantity himself. He led his companions into the desert, 
 and halted at the place where now is the entrance of the cave, and forcing 
 by his enchantments the rock to open, sent the poor fellahs imderground 
 to fetch up the gold. Already six camels had been laden ; but as they 
 descended to fetch the burden of the seventh, the faithless magician kindled 
 by his enchantments, an immense conflagration there, in which they 
 perished, whilst he departed with the treasure. Since that time he has 
 never been heard of; but during four j^ears a thick column of smoke rolled 
 forth from the grotto, and reached up to heaven. When at length it 
 became possible to enter, nothing was to be found but the dried-up bodies 
 of the unhappy victims of the magician's machinations.* 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Fkom Manfaloot to SlOUT. 
 
 Having listened to this story, I ordered the Arabs to take up the 
 crocodiles and departed. It was a singular cavalcade ; for the bearers, with 
 their dusky and half naked-bodies, appeared themselves like so many 
 mummies, condemned for their sins to walk upon earth, with their gods 
 
 • Cadalv^ne et Breuvery.
 
 322 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 upon their heads. Of all these thirteen men every one, I believe, except 
 the old Sheikh, had the forefinger of the left hand cut ofF, the stumps of 
 some recently amputated, being still red and swollen. This horrid practice, 
 resorted to in order to escape the army, must not be taken as a proof of 
 cowardice among the Arabs. Like all other rational people, they prefer 
 peace to war ; but their principal objection to the Pasha's service, they 
 say, arises from the disingenuous contrivances resorted to by the govern- 
 ment to cheat them of their miserable pay. Perhaps they know that 
 money sufficient to enable the Pasha honestly to discharge his debts 
 towards them does not exist in the country ; but this knowledge will not 
 blunt the feelings of the heart, when they see the wives and children, from 
 wliom they are forced away, condemned to poverty and want, or driven to 
 support a wretched existence with the wages of humiliation and vice. 
 Numbers of young wives, thus abandoned, are compelled by starvation, or 
 to prevent their infant children from perishing, to join the almae, all whose 
 profligate habits they must soon acquire. Such of their husbands, there- 
 fore, as live to return from the army, will in many cases find the wives 
 and daughters whom they perhaps loved and cherished, irremediably 
 lost : many families are thus entirely broken up. For, not content with 
 seizing on part of the men, they frequently take all fit for military service. 
 Such are the grounds for their disgust for the army. That they are all 
 interested in emancipating the country from the Ottoman yoke, seems 
 beyond a doubt ; but this they cannot, perhaps, comprehend, or, if they do, 
 the pressure of present evils forces them, in spite of this conviction, to curse 
 the Pasha and his wars. 
 
 The system of conscription is still in Egypt as bad as it can possibly be. 
 A supei'stition, hitherto invincible, opposes itself, it is said, to the establish- 
 ment of any registration of births, the only means of establishing a complete 
 control over the recruitment. It is inconceivable that Mohamed Ali has not 
 sought to root out this pernicious prejudice, which has nothing to do with 
 the doctrines of Islamism, and to re-establish an institution which has 
 already existed in the country. Makrizi tells us, in fact, that the Khalif 
 ]\[aniyason of Abu Sofy an, established in each of the Arab tribes domiciliated 
 in Egypt, a man whose business it was to take note of the birth of all 
 children of both sexes, and of all other additions to the tribe. This 
 person was expected to communicate, day by day, his information to the 
 divan, or the military board, where were inscribed the names of both the 
 new-born and the new-comers. For want of a proper system of registra- 
 tion of births everything, at present, in the matter of the conscription is left 
 to chance. If a levy is demanded, the governors take upon them to divide 
 among the villages under their command, the number of conscripts 
 required ; and they despatch as secretly as possible the irregular Albanians 
 attached to their service to execute their orders by carrying off the 
 required number of men. As soon as the presence of these agents 
 becomes known at any place, the peasants take to flight, and the soldiers 
 pursue them across the cultivated fields, which are trampled under the 
 feet of the horses, and devastated in every direction. At last, after many 
 expeditions of this kind, the number of prisoners determined by the
 
 CONSCRIPTION IN EGYPT. 323 
 
 authorities is obtained. But in spite of the orders received, which are 
 often enforced by the bastinado, the Albanians generally seize children, or 
 old men, or persons unfit for service, who, being less active in flight, are 
 necessarily first taken. 
 
 All the men captured by the irregulars are led in chains to the nearest 
 town, where they are imprisoned until a medical man has examined them, 
 which being done, sucli as are judged unfit for military service are sent 
 home again, and it becomes necessary to supply their place : a new expedi- 
 tion is then set on foot, when the same persons are often retaken, subjected 
 to a fresh examination and again dismissed. This ceremony is repeated at 
 least twenty times before the number required is made up. Meantime the 
 harvests are trampled under foot, the fields remain uncultivated, and often, 
 when the people are at leisure to resume work, the season has passed, and 
 all the labour of a year is thrown away. From this it may be guessed what 
 an enormous sum each soldier must cost the Pasha, even before he takes 
 his place in the ranks. It would be vain for the fellahs to refuse, under 
 the i^retext of having been formerly rejected, to follow the recruiting- 
 agents. The stick, and in case of need, the sword, are there to force them ; 
 and it must be confessed that the means of remedying this serious inconve- 
 nience is very difficult to discover. An attempt was once made to do so 
 by giving certificates to those who had been once examined ; but, in addi- 
 tion to the errors which this mode of proceeding naturally gave rise to, 
 most of the agents were xmable to read ; and those fellahs also, who from 
 their age and infirmities were certain of being exempted, made it a 
 practice to give their certificates to their relations or friends, and conscripts 
 became scarce. 
 
 Age and infirmity alone are the recognised reasons of exemption. 
 Neither marriage nor a numerous family is admitted as an excuse, 
 and six brothers have been taken away in one levy, all married, and 
 leaving more than thirty persons without resources ; they were pro- 
 nounced to be fit for service, and were unrelentingly dragged away to 
 the army. 
 
 Such is the love of the fellahs for the land of their birth, that they prefer 
 passing their lives in a wretched mud hut, where they are continually in 
 danger of death by hunger, to the profession of a soldier, and the expectation 
 of being well-clothed and well-fed ; and the horror they feel for military 
 life is so great, that it is very common for them to draw out all the teeth 
 of the upper jaw, and even to cast lime into their eyes, to avoid the con- 
 scription, to which they prefer even blindness — a calamity indeed so common 
 in Egypt, that they may almost be said to be familiarised with it. Deatli 
 has vainly been inflicted on many who have been proved to have vohmtarily 
 mutilated themselves. Recourse is still continually had to these means 
 of preservation from a soldier's life. 
 
 When I reached Maufalout, the recruitment had just taken place, and 
 the town presented the saddest possible spectacle. The wives of the unhappy 
 men selected for the service wandered up and down, tearing their hair, and 
 beating their breasts, and uttering piercing cries. Supported by their 
 friends, who also wept aloud, they stopped '^cfore the doors of the houses
 
 324 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 ■whose Inliabitants they knew, and called forth the women to join them in 
 their lugubrious concert. The day of departure was approaching. 
 
 About three hundred conscripts, tied two-and-two, were led out of the 
 prison ; their guards forced them with blows to take their ranks, and the 
 caravan began to move towards the stream. The sad procession cannot be 
 compared so appropriately to anything as to a string of convicts departing 
 for the galleys. A profound silence, an admirable resignation, was the 
 only answer that those unfortunate men made to the cruel treatment they 
 received. The women rushing behind them, uttered frightful shrieks, 
 imprecating curses on the head of the Pacha, and throwing themselves 
 desperately upon the guard in order to embrace once more those whom they 
 were not destined again to behold. 
 
 Meantime the chiefs of the escort, immovable in the midst of this tumult, 
 gravely directed the march of the troops, without appearing even to be 
 conscious of what was going on. 
 
 At length the banks of tlie Nile were reached, and whilst the conscripts 
 were being thrust in crowds into the boats which were to bear them to 
 Cairo, the shore exhibited a scene of indescribable confusion and despair. 
 At length the boats set sail, and then, whilst the majority of the women, 
 completely beside themselves, exhibited all the madness of grief, some 
 more energetic or bolder than the others collected togetlier, and began 
 to follow on foot along the river ; and, burdened by their children, set 
 out upon their journey, without provision, without resources, and with the 
 certainty of being decimated on the road by fatigue and hunger. Similar 
 troops of women follow in this manner in the rear of each batch of con- 
 scripts to the camp to which their husbands are taken, and build up in its 
 neighbourhood little mud hovels, where they live on the share that the 
 soldier can set apart for them from his rations. Every one of the Viceroy's 
 camps isthus surrounded by a still more numerous one, composed of women 
 and children, among whom misery and vice, which is its consequence, soon 
 make their appearance in their most hideous form.* 
 
 The Arabian mountains continue to follow their southerly direction ; 
 but as, in this part of its course, the Nile makes many extraordinary wind- 
 ings, we perpetually approach and recede from them. Near Siout, the 
 Libyan range begins to increase in height, and projects considerably to the 
 eastward of its usual direction, narrowing the valley, and adding a new 
 feature to the scenery. The numerous islands, too, which divide the river 
 into many smaller channels, improve the effect of the whole ; for, on issuing 
 from these narrow trenches, you appear to be sailing into a broad lake, 
 bordered in several places by deep green woods of acacia trees, which cover 
 for miles the whole face of the coimtry. 
 
 In passing the village of El-Wasteh, I witnessed a little scene which, 
 as it is creditable to tlie Egyptian character, I will describe at length. — 
 Among my crew were two brothers, Ahmed and ]Mohamed, both young, 
 cheerful, and playful as kittens. The latter the handsomest Arab I ever 
 saw, was strongly attached to me, and repeatedly expressed his earnest 
 
 • Cadalvt^ne et Bieuvery ; Due de Raguse, &c.^
 
 AFFECTIONATE PARTING. 325 
 
 desire to enter my service, and follow me through life. On approaching 
 the village abovementioned, I observed them look sad, and at length Sulei- 
 man came to say that they wished to go ashore. As the wind was fair, 
 and my companion, with whom I was to dine that evening, far ahead, I 
 replied that it would be inconvenient to stop just then ; but that we should 
 shortly moor for the night, when they might take as many hours as they 
 pleased. Nothing further was said, and the boat continued merrily to stem 
 the current of the Nile before the strong breeze. In a short time, happening 
 to cast a look at Mohamed, I saw him sitting sorrowfully on the deck witli 
 his head leaning on his hand, while the tears dropped like rain over his 
 cheeks. His brother Ahmed, too, was nearly in the same mood, and both 
 appeared to look reproachfully at me. I now, therefore, inquired more 
 particularly into the matter, and found that their home was at El Wasteh, 
 and that they had been desirous of paying a short visit to their father and 
 mother, and other relations, whom they had not seen for nearly a year. 
 Quite angry with myself for not making further inquiries before, and with 
 Suleiman and them for not explaining, I ordered the head of the kandjia 
 to be put about, and sailed back to the point opposite the village where 
 they had first desired to land. I would not for the world have deprived 
 tliem of a pleasure so natural and so delightful. They overrated the value 
 of my compliance with their wishes. Joy and gratitude beamed from their 
 countenances. They thanked me — they blessed me — they swore I was 
 the best master in the world. I felt ashamed at not deserving all the fine 
 things they said of me, and particularly at the refusal which my ignorance 
 of their motives had induced me to give. But out of evil good sometimes 
 follows. Had I not accidentally given a check to their feelings, I should 
 never have known how dearly they loved their friends, and the place of 
 their birth. To them. El Wasleh was the loveliest and most familiar spot 
 on earth ; but to me so little known, that but for them I should never have 
 heard of its name. As soon as we were sufficiently near the banks they 
 bounded ashore, and making good use of their heels, were out of sight in 
 a few seconds. Tlie bringing up of my journal enabled me profitably to 
 employ the period of their absence. How long they staid I did not there- 
 fore observe ; but at length Suleiman came into the cabin to tell me that 
 the Arabs and their friends were coming across the plain towards the boat. 
 Presently they arrived, and stood still, forming as striking and interesting 
 a group as Father Nile had ever witnessed upon his margin. An elder 
 brother, who had remained at home to comfort the old people, and aid in 
 the labours of the field, first came forward, and presented me with a quan- 
 tity of delicious dates. Then followed the father, a grave and venerable 
 man, who, looking upon Nubia, whither we were bound, as an outlandish 
 and barbarous country, earnestly recommended his sons to my care, and 
 expressed his hope that I would restore them to him safe on my return. I 
 promised to take the best care of them I could. Then came the parting. 
 The mother and sister, who had hitherto kept a little in the rear, hiding 
 their tears beliind their hoods, now came forward, and throwing their arms 
 round the necks of the young men, gave vent to their feelings. Nor was 
 their love thrown away. Ahmed and Mohamed were right honest lads,
 
 326 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 who, in tlie bustle and dissipation of C;iiro, never forgot their homes, but 
 treasuring up every para not laid out in necessaries, looked forward to the 
 unspeakable satisfaction of spending their savings in the old village, under 
 the sliade of the familiar old palm-trees, and going to and fro weekly 
 between their ov/n cottage and the old village mosque, where they had 
 been first taught to turn their thoughts towards God. I ought here, perhaps, 
 to relate as far as I know of the sequel of the history of these young Arabs. 
 On our return to Cairo, Mohamed, yielding to the spell of the European 
 character, quitted the boat and his brother, and followed me to my house, 
 where for nearly a week he slept in the eastern fashion at the door of my 
 chamber, in the hope of prevailing on me to take him to England with me. 
 When I reminded him of the above meeting, he shook his head and 
 tears came to his eyes, but he did not alter his resolution ; and when I 
 said that in Europe we had no mosques where he could worship God 
 according to his creed, he replied that he was sure I worshipped God 
 myself, and that my way must be good enough for a poor Arab like him. 
 He judged favourably of me, and I could not but like him for it ; but 
 looking a little further, I trust I resolved more prudently for him than he 
 would for hiir.self, by determining to leave him in the country and con- 
 dition in which he was born. Nevertheless it cost me an effort, for seldom 
 has Mohamedan clung to a Christian as Mohamed did to me. There 
 is an old proverb which says, " Let every man praise the bridge that 
 carries him safely over ; " and this must be my excuse for feeling towards 
 the Arabs as I do. I never met with unkindness or ingratitude from any 
 of them with whom I had personal intercourse. They forgot all their 
 religious prejudices in my case, and spoke to nie of their wives, their house- 
 hold, and their faith, as though I had been one of them. If I am partial, 
 therefore, to the race, and judge of it more favourably than most other 
 travellers, it is because I met with a more cordial reception and more 
 generous treatment. I should greatly pity the man, that, with my 
 experience, could speak disparagingly of the Egyptian Arabs," 
 
 In the accounts which travellers orive of Siout, there is of course as much 
 variety as in their characters and pursuits. Some, possessed by the mania 
 for antiquities, rush away at once to the caves and tombs in the mountains ; 
 others resort to the bazaars and coffee-houses ; while a third class are 
 happy to discover in the aspect of the place, or in the character of the 
 landscape by which it is surrounded, a pretext for indulging in philosophi- 
 cal reflections. Mr. Stephens, true to his plan of chronicling minutely 
 the events of his own journey, trots merrily into Siout on donkeyback, 
 accompanied by a smart little Arab girl, whose appearance and circum- 
 stances were well calculated to inspire interest in her behalf. " Among 
 the ass-drivers," says he, " who surrounded me the moment I jumped on 
 the bank, was a beautiful briglit-oyed little Arab girl, about eight years 
 old, leading a donkey, and flourishing a long stick with a grace that would 
 have shamed the best pupil of a fashionable dancing-master. By some 
 accident, however, her face and hands were clean, and she seemed to be a 
 general favourite among her ragged companions, who fell back with a 
 gallantry and politeness that would have done honour to the ball-room of
 
 VISIT TO SIOUT. 327 
 
 the danclng-mastor aforesaid. Leaving lier witliout a competitor, tlit-y 
 
 deprived me of the pleasure of showing my preference ; and putting myself 
 
 under her guidance, 1 foUowed her nimble little feet on the road to Siout. 
 
 I make special mention of this little girl, because it is a rare thing to see 
 
 an Egyptian child in whom one can take any interest. It was the only 
 
 time such a thinof ever occirred to me : and really she exhibited so much 
 
 • • 1 1 
 
 beauty and grace — such a mild, open, and engaging expression, and sucli 
 
 propriety of behaviour, as she walked by iny side, urging on the donkey, 
 
 and looking up in my face when I asked lier a question, that I felt ashamed 
 
 of myself for riding while she walked ; but tender and delicate as she 
 
 looked, she would have walked by the side of her donkey and tired the 
 
 strongest man. She was, of course, the child of poor parents, of whom 
 
 the donkey was the chief support. The father had been in the habit of 
 
 going out with it himself, and frequently taking the little girl with him as 
 
 a companion. As slie grew up she went out occasionally alone ; and even 
 
 among the Turks her interesting little figure made her a favourite; and 
 
 when all the other donkeys were idle, hers was sure to be engaged. This, 
 
 and many other things, I learned from her own pretty lips on my way to 
 
 Sijut. 
 
 " This city stands about a mile and a half from the river, in one of the 
 richest parts of the valley. At the season of inundation, when the Nile 
 rolls down in all its majesty, the whole intermediate country is overflowed; 
 and boats of the largest size, steering their course over the waste of waters 
 by the projecting tops of the palm-trees, come to anchor under the walls. 
 A high causeway, bordered by palms and sycamores, crosses the plain* from 
 the river to the city, a comparatively unknown and unnoticed, but stupen- 
 dous work, which for more than 3000 years has resisted the headlong 
 current of the Nile at its highest, and now stands, like the pyramids, not 
 so striking, but an equally enduring, and perhaps more really wonderful, 
 monument of Egyptian labour. A short distance before reaching the city, 
 on the right, are the handsome palace and gardens of Ibrahim Pashaf. 
 A stream winds through the plain, crossed by a stone bridge, and over this 
 is the entrance-gate of the city. The governor's palace, the most imposing 
 and best structure I had seen since the citadel at Cairo, standing first 
 within the walls, seemed like a warder at the door.:|: Siout has streets 
 wider and cleaner than are commonly those of Egyptian towns, and it 
 contains many fine squares, bazaars, factories, and mosques. In the centre 
 is beheld a public bath, remarkable for its beauty. It was constructed at 
 the expense of the Defterdar Bey, and the granite columns which adorn its 
 interior were brought from Dendera. The profits of this bath go to 
 maintain a mosque, also constructed by the Defterdar, and standing con- 
 tiguous to it. 
 
 Of this pious member of the Geographical Society of Paris, a French- 
 man relates the following characteristic particulars, which came under his 
 notice during a visit to his Excellency. 
 
 " We proceeded," he says, " towards a kiosk that rose in the centre of 
 
 * Joy Munis. f Due de Raguse. + Stephens.
 
 328 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 the Defterdar's garden. As we approached, piercing cries assailed our 
 ears. They were uttered by a slave whom the Bey had condemned to be 
 bastinadoed for having eaten the first fruits of some trees that had been sent 
 to him from Europe. ' Let him die under tlie kourbash, the rascally 
 glutton ! ' cried the Defterdar, on discovering the robbery. ' I will never 
 taste the produce of any of those trees, but woe to whomsoever ventures to 
 touch them. May the curse of God and of his prophet be upon him who 
 ventures to disobey my orders ! ' In strict deference to the wishes of his 
 son-in-law, Mohammed Ali, who has since become his heir, gave orders as 
 soon as he obtained possession of the garden, that all the fruit-trees in 
 question should be uprooted and replaced by others. 
 
 " A splendid flight of marble steps led us to the hall of audience. In 
 the centre stood erect some thirty domestics and khawasses, armed with 
 pistols, yataghans, swords, and silver-headed canes ; there were also some 
 irregular soldiers in their brilliant Albanian costume, mean looks, and 
 chibouckis ; and all the cohort of slaves ever ready to do the bidding of 
 the great. The Bey was playing at chess with his khaznadar when we 
 entered ; but on perceiving us he left his game unfinished and motioned to 
 us to sit down near him. Pipes and coffee were offered to us as soon as 
 the first compliments had passed. 
 
 " IMeanwhile the shrieks of the slave became louder and louder, and we 
 could not conceal our emotion. We were, indeed, just on the point of 
 opening our lips to plead for his pardon, when the Defterdar, making a 
 sign to one of his officers, said : ' Put an end to that dog ! . . . Don't you 
 perceive that the screams of the beast annoy my guests ? May I lose my 
 title of hajji if the creature don't make more noise than an overloaded 
 camel !' — He spoke, and all we afterwards heard was a few stifled cries — 
 the death-rattle of the victim. 
 
 " The Defterdar was a fine old Turk with his crimson gold-embroidered, 
 robes, and the kefyeh negligently wound round his tarboosh. And yet, 
 after we had seen him, we were doubtful whether we had seen a man. 
 There was in the impassibility of his manner, in his slightly-flattened nose, 
 in his long and bristling moustache, in the breadth of the lower part of his 
 face, and still more in the restless and uncertain glances of his gray eye, 
 something so remarkably savage, that he seemed the very heau ideal of 
 ferocity — a tiger in human shape, ' Once more,' said the Bey, smiling, 
 ' you are welcome ; I am glad to see you ; are you well ? ' — We responded 
 to his polite inquiries in a befitting manner. — ' What is the latitude of 
 Paris?' he added. When we replied '48° 60',' he took care to verify 
 our answer in a thick volume which he had by his side, and then smiled 
 approvingly upon us. 
 
 " After having expressed his great contempt for all who are ignorant of 
 geography, he began a learned dissertation on astronomy, expressing at the 
 same time his regret that the Viceroy had not caused some good French 
 work on the subject to be translated. ' I know,' said he, ' that you are 
 members of the Geographical Society of Paris, and I also belong to that 
 illustrious body,' he added, vvith some pride, ' I have received my 
 diploma, and in order to testify my gratitude for this piece of politeness, I
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE DEFTERDAR BEY. 329 
 
 shall send to Paris the map wliicli I have drawn up of an unknown province 
 of Africa, conquered by me for my lord and father Mohammed Ali.' So 
 saying, he signified to some one that the sketch should be brought. 
 
 " During our conversation a young panther, that we had not at first 
 perceived aslecsp on a corner of the divan, advanced slowly and lay down 
 close by his master, at the same time putting his paw upon one of us. At 
 this piece of unexpected familiarity we could not restrain a movement of 
 surprise. The Defterdar, who seemed to enjoy our embarrassment, gave 
 us a mischievous glance. 'Are you afraid?' said he. 'No,' we 
 replied. 'Why should wo be afraid? Are we not with a friend?' 
 ' Fear nothing,' quoth he, ' the animal is tame.' Saying these words 
 he pulled the panther's whiskers, and the brute, by showing his long sharp 
 teeth, and uttering a discontented growl, showed how little it relished this 
 conduct. ' I am sorry,' proceeded our host, ' that I cannot show you the 
 lion which I bnjiight from Sliendy ; but a few days ago I was making him 
 play with one of my mamlooks, vs'ho, awkwardly treading on the animal's 
 toe, was devoured before my eyes. I was compelled, for my own safety's 
 sake, to lodge a couple of pistol-bullets in his head. Poor animal — it was 
 so very fond of me ! ' 
 
 " We requested the Bey to have the kindness to send away his panther, 
 if he wished us to prolong our visit, and one of his khawasses delivered 
 us from its disagreeable company. 
 
 " The map was at length brought in and displayed before us. It was a 
 piece of cotton cloth several feet square, on which were sketched with consi- 
 derable skill, although roughly, outlines of the course of the Nile, the 
 frontier of Kordofan, and the names of the principal towns of the province. 
 AVe complimented the Bey on his interesting performance, and offered to 
 undertake to carry this gift to the Geographical Society ; ' No,' said he, 
 ' my map is not yet finished ; I will make a more careful copy, which I will 
 send another time.' Numerous stains of a doubtful colour were sprinkled 
 here and there over this strange contribution to geography. ' 'Tis nothing,' 
 said in a low voice the khaznadar, who had hitherto remained mute. 
 ' AVhilst his Excellency was sketching the map, the infamous assassins of 
 the prince Ismael Pasha (whom may God have taken to his bosom !) were 
 being executed under his inspection, and these stains are only the drops of 
 the blood of those Nubian dogs ! ' " * 
 
 Mr. Joy Morris, the American traveller, while giving an extremely lively 
 description of the Siouti Bazaar, and the mode of administering justice in 
 this country, supplies at the same time a proof that he acted on the occa- 
 sion in a very spiritless manner, which must have exposed him to the 
 contempt of the Turks, though probably his error originated in ignorance. 
 " Siout," says he, " is seated on a rich plain, covered with plantations of 
 dates and orange groves. A busy multitude thronged its bazaars, among 
 which were many Bedouins, from the great Desert of Sahara, tall stalwart 
 figures, clad in burnooses, with muskets slung across their backs in the 
 true Ishmaelitish spirit of distrust and hostility, and wearing a physiog- 
 
 * Cadalvene et Breiiveiy. 
 F f2
 
 330 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 nomy of gloomy ferocity. Tliree of our boatmen had been robbed in the 
 night of all their money and clothes. Failing to discover the robbers, they 
 began to accuse each other, and we found a civil v^^ar raging among our 
 subjects on returning to the boat. The reis begged us to interfere. We 
 went with him to the governor of the place, whom we found in his court- 
 yard, administering justice by the wholesale. The yard was filled with 
 motley groups of Arabs, Bedouins, and Copts, who had gathered here to 
 pay the miri or land-tax. Attendant scribes were registering the pay- 
 ment of the tax ; and in another part of the yard, the koorhash was falling 
 thick and fast on the ribs of unhappy culprits. So what with the cries of 
 the victims of the bastinado, the angry expostulations among the tax- 
 payers and tax-receivers, the noise of camels and donkeys urging their 
 way through the mass of people, for the road lay directly across the 
 court-yard, and the supplication of beggars, who had been drawn hither by 
 the jingle of piastres, the whole exhibited a most amusing scene of confu- 
 sion. We presented ourselves to his Excellency through the firman of the 
 Pasha, which served as a letter of introduction, and as an authoritative 
 preface to our complaints. We were politely received, seated among his 
 staff, and presented with pipes and coffee. After these preliminaries we 
 stated the robbery, and our desire that it might be investigated and its 
 perpetrators punished. His Excellency, who seemed to have a great 
 relish for these things, immediately sent for the crew, and the people of the 
 boats lying at the landing. Numerous questions were propounded, all of 
 which failed to elicit any clue to the author of the robbery. This wise 
 judge then turned to us, and propounded a very sound syllogism, whence 
 he drew a very logical corollary. It was somewhat in this form : — Some 
 one has committed this robbery ; we cannot discover the thief, therefore he 
 must be one of the crew. Upon drawing this logical sequence, he very 
 quietly ordered the whole crew to be bastinadoed. It was in vain to 
 attempt to refute such reasoning. The governor insisted that justice 
 should take its course, and that whether our Arabs were guilty or not, a 
 bastinadoing would not be unmerited, as they belonged to a race of scoun- 
 drels. The governor was a Turk, and, like all the foreign rulers of a 
 subdued people, entertained a profound contempt for his subjects. This 
 was the last time that we asked for the interposition of Turkish justice." 
 
 Lower down the Nile, Mr. Morris appeared to rejoice greatly in the 
 honour of bearing about the American flag, which he tells us he set up on 
 the top of the Great Pyramid instead of the union-jack, which he found 
 floating there ; but here, when a legitimate occasion offered itself for appeal- 
 ing to the protection of his stripes and stars, he suddenly forgot the influence 
 of his country's emblem, and suffered the unhappy Arabs, who expected 
 protection from him, to be cruelly bastinadoed by an unfeeling Turk. For 
 myself, though I hoisted no flag on my boat, I never permitted a single 
 Arab under my protection to be touched by governor or kashef. It was 
 always enough to say, that I was an Englishman, and that the boatmen 
 were mine, and that if they were subjected to the slightest insult or injury, 
 I would have the governor removed and punished, which, through the 
 English consul at Alexandria, I could have immediately done. I merely
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN TURKEY. 331 
 
 mention these circumstances, because of Mr. Morris's very foolish exhibition 
 on the Great Pyramid. At Bclianch, wliere two of the governor's underlings 
 assaulted my reis, the only one of them that could be identified was in- 
 stantly thrown on his face and bastinadoed, though the Turkish governor 
 afterwards declared he had never for a moment supposed him to be guilty, 
 and only punished him to oblige me. By way of illustrating the extraordinary 
 principles which appear everywhere to regulate the conduct of the Turks 
 in affairs of justice, I will here relate an anecdote, the scene of wliich is laid 
 in another part of the Ottoman eni])ire. 
 
 " One day, the Pasha of Aleppo, strolling alone and incognito 
 through the Bazaar of Antioch, noticed a furrier who seemed in deep 
 melanclioly, and whose whole stock-in-trade consisted of a great quantity 
 of fox-tails. ' AVhat is the cause of your uneasiness ? ' said the Pasha to 
 the merchant. ' Alas ! my master,' replied the man ; ' your servant has 
 been cruelly deceived by an Armenian, who sold me these fox-tails very 
 dear, assuring me that I should make a good profit by them. And now 
 they have been on my hands for three months; I have not sold one, and 
 I am a ruined man.' — ' By the head of the Sultan,' responded the Pasha, 
 ' I will put you in a way to sell them all at a high rate, if you will do 
 what I command you. You shall not part with a single tail for less than 
 three hundred piastres, and, Inshallah, in a few days you will not have 
 one left.' The next day the Pasha sent orders to the corporation of 
 Armenian merchants, requiring them to appear before him forthwith, and 
 commanding them at the same time, under the severest penalties, that, as 
 a token of ignominy due to their knavish commercial dealings, they should, 
 all of them, wear a fox-tail stitched to their hinder parts. The furrier's 
 shop was speedily thronged with customers, to whom he disposed of all his 
 tails, at a very handsome profit ; and he had the satisfaction of squeezing 
 an exorbitant sum out of the Armenian who had tricked him." 
 
 Quitting Siout, we proceeded to visit the tombs for which its neighbour- 
 hood is famous. The mountain where they are found is about as far 
 from the city as the river, and tlie approach to it is by another stony 
 causeway over the same beautiful plain. We left our donkeys at its foot, 
 and following the nimble footsteps of my little Arab girl, climbed by 
 a steep ascent to the lowest range of tombs. They were the first I had 
 seen, and ai'e but little visited by travellers ; and though I afterwards saw 
 all that were in Egypt, I still consider these well worth a visit. Of the 
 first we entered, the outer-chamber was perhaps forty feet square, and 
 adjoining it in the same range, were five or six others, of Avhich the 
 entrance-chambers had about the same dimensions. The ceilings wei'e 
 covered with paintings, finished with exquisite taste and delicacy, and in 
 some places fresh as if just executed; and on the walls were hieroglyphics 
 enough to fill volumes. Behind the principal chamber were five or six 
 others nearly as large, with smaller ones on each side, and running back 
 perhaps a hundred and fifty feet. The inmost chambers were so dark, and 
 their atmosphere was so unwholesome, that it was unpleasant, and perhaps 
 unsafe, to explore them ; if we went in far, there was always a loud 
 rushing noise ; and, as my servant suggested, their innermost recesses
 
 332 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 miolit now be the abode of wild beasts. "Wishing to see what caused the 
 noise, and at the same time to keep out of harm's way, we stationed our- 
 selves near the back-door of the entrance-chamber, and I fired my gun 
 
 
 Eg}-ptian Tomb at Lycopolis, the modem Siout. 
 
 within ; a stream of fire lighted up the darkness of the sepulchral chamber, 
 and the report went grumbling and roaring into the innermost recesses, 
 rousing their occupants to frenzy. There was a 
 noise like the rushing of a strong wind ; the light 
 was dashed from my companion's hand ; a soft 
 skinny substance struck against my face ; and 
 thousands of bats, wild with fright, came whizzing 
 forth from every part of the tomb to the only 
 avenue of escape. We threw ourselves down, and 
 allowed the ugly frightened birds to pass over us, 
 and then hurried out ourselves. For a moment 
 I felt guilty ; the beastly birds, driven to the light 
 of day, were dazzled by the glorious sun, and 
 flying and whirling blindly about, were dashing 
 themselves against the rocky side of the moun- 
 tain, and falling dead at its base. Cured of all 
 wish to explore very deeply, but at the same 
 time relieved from all fears, we continued going 
 from tomb to tomb, looking at the pictures on 
 the walls, endeavouring to make out the details, 
 admiring the beauty and freshness of the colours, 
 and speculating upon the mysterious hieroglyphics 
 
 which mocked our feeble knowledge. We were in one of the last when 
 we were startled by a noise different from any we had yet heard; and from 
 
 safP 
 
 Plan of the Tonib at Lycopolis.
 
 THE "CITIES OF THE DEAD." S33 
 
 the door leading to tlie dark recesses within, foaming, roaring, and gnashing 
 his teeth, out ran an enormous wolf; close upon his heels, in hot pursuit, 
 came another, — and almost at the door of the tomb, they grappled, fought, 
 growled fearfully, rolled over, and again the first broke loose and fled ; 
 another chase along the side of the mountain ; another grapple, a fierce 
 and desperate struggle, and they rolled over the side, and we lost sight of 
 them. The whole affair had been so sudden, the scene so stirring, and the 
 interest so keen, that my man and I had stood like statues, our whole 
 souls thrown into our eyes, and following tlie movements of the furious 
 beasts.* 
 
 Lord Lindsay tlms describes the " Stahl Antar," so called after the far- 
 famed Lover of Ibha : — " A lofty archway leads you into a hall of noble 
 proportions, once most elaborately ornamented with hieroglyphics on the 
 walls, and the richest tracery on the ceiling, flowers and diamond-shaped 
 devices, of different patterns and colours, succeeding eacli other in parallel 
 rows ; they are now much defaced, and, from the description a Danish 
 traveller of last century gives of them, must have suffered much during 
 the last hundred years. Great pains seem to have been taken with this 
 chamber ; we found in none of the others such elaborate ornament or such 
 beautiful proportions." These vast excavations have very properly obtained 
 the name of " Cities of the Dead." All the population of Egypt, rational 
 and irrational, converted into mummies, might conveniently be laid up 
 here, the catacombs being endless in number, and in many cases of prodi- 
 gious extent. Originally the greater number, perhaps, were quarries ; but 
 in extractino- the stones for raising habitations for their living bodies, those 
 prudent people were not unmindful that they must shortly stand in need 
 of another house, to be tenanted for a much longer period. They therefore 
 worked their quarries with this double view. Every block removed made 
 room for a coffin, and two dwellings were formed at once. 
 
 Toward the extremity of a spacious corridor is a narrow niche in the 
 southern wall, containing a ])it like the well of the Great Pyramid. Cast- 
 ing in a stone for the purpose of ascertaining its depth, we heard it rolling 
 first in one direction, then in another, until the noise became faint through 
 distance, like the reverberations of an echo dying away among the moun- 
 tains ; so that, apparently, the excavation has been carried down in a 
 zigzag manner to a prodigious depth. The natives, in their way of speak- 
 ing, pronounce it to be without bottom ; and relate a story of an Arab, 
 who, descending by a rope in search of a traveller's dog to a great depth, 
 at length despaired of success and returned, though several dollars were 
 offered for the recovery of the animal, — a sum which would tempt an 
 Arab to hazard his life in a thousand ways. Into this pit we were desirous 
 of making a descent ; but our guides having come unprovided with ropes, 
 the procuring of which from Siout would have occasioned great delay, we 
 proceeded with the examination of the other hypogete. Some of these, as 
 I have already observed, are immense quarries, extending very far into the 
 mountains, containing huge rock pillars, and divided into numerous apart- 
 ments ; while others are entirely open, and as large as Westminster Hall, 
 
 * Stephens.
 
 334 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 thou >li nearly filled up with rnhhish. In many the pillars have been 
 broken away, fragments of the shafts being left; in others we found long 
 dark passawos, leading through the heart of the rock from one suite of 
 chambers to another ; square apertures, letting down light from the terraces 
 above ; pits excavated in the floor ; niches, recesses, chapels ; winding, 
 slopiner, narrow corridors, intersecting each other, branching in various 
 directions, confounding all recollection of the localities, and apparently 
 rendering a return into the light doubtful. Numbers of these galleries are 
 now choked up with fallen rocks, and others are so much straitened, that 
 we forced our way through them with great difficulty. From the lofty 
 terraces, extending along the face of the mountain in front of the excava- 
 tions, we commanded a magnificent view of the plain of Siout, equalling 
 that of Abydos in riches and fertility, and greatly surpassing that of Thebes. 
 The component parts of the landscape, hov,'ever, were nearly the same, — 
 corn-fields, scattered woods, cities and villages, a mighty river, with ranges 
 of rocky, precipitous, barren mountains, extending like huge fortifications 
 round the plain, and closing the viuw on all sides. 
 
 To the gazelles, which are extremely numerous in the deserts west of 
 Siout, the tombs of the Egyptians now furnish a retreat during the night ; 
 for where the floor was strewed with sand, I observed their tracks and 
 lairs. 
 
 From the catacombs we descended to the plain, where a fine wide road, 
 level as a gravel walk, leads along the foot of the mountains towards the 
 capital, of whose extent and general appearance we could form a tolerably 
 just idea from the mouth of the tombs above. It is a place of considerable 
 extent, nearly circular, and surrounded by spacious gardens. The houses 
 are neat and well-built, and the streets much cleaner than ordinary. In all 
 Oriental cities we may form an estimate of the condition of the inhabitants, 
 approximating very nearly to the truth, by carefully observing the shops 
 and the bazaar, with the ap])earance of the persons who frequent them, or 
 expose their merchandise there. 
 
 The baznar of Siout is large, and tolerably well supplied with the 
 ordinary articles of food and clothing. It was, moreover, well frequented, 
 and men and women trod in many places so closely on each other's heels, 
 that more than one fine lady, as in the story of " Ardashir," seemed likely 
 to lose her slippers in the crowd. Among the vegetables of the season, 
 we observed very excellent beans and cauliflowers ; and the earliest fruit 
 of the year was nehk^ or lotus, which is produced in great abundance in 
 the o-ardens of Siout. The rhamnus lotus is a large beautiful tree, with 
 a small dark green leaf, like that of tlie olive. Its fruit, of a slightly 
 yellow or pale straw colour, with a few small streaks of red on the sunny 
 side, resembles an unripe cherry, though inferior in taste, and much less 
 juicy, having somewhat the flavour of an insipid apple, though by care 
 and cultivation it might, perhaps, be rendered a fine fruit. This has been 
 supposed to be the marvellous lotus described by Homer, 
 
 " Wbicli whoso tastes 
 Insatiate riots in tlie sweet repast ; 
 Nor other borne, nor other cnre intends, 
 But quits his house, liis co'jntry, and his friends! "
 
 EGYPTIAN VILLAGE. 335 
 
 Bat the lotus, whose taste could make a man forget liis home — it must be 
 a strange fruit that could do this— unquestionably possessed properties 
 extremely different from those we ate at Siout ; and, if it was anything 
 beyond a mere poetical creation, may have been the padma, that mystic 
 flower which acts so conspicuous a part in the mythologies of India and 
 Egypt. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 FllOM SlOUT TO AbVDOS. 
 
 In England, I always thought it pleasant to stroll through the country 
 on Sunday, when the general cessation from labour appears to diffuse over 
 the faces of the peasantry an air of cheerfulness and th.ankfulness, closely 
 allied to the more enlivening influences of religion. The ^Mohammedan of 
 Ei^ypt, who does not keep his own Sabbath, cannot, of course, be expected 
 to observe ours ; nevertheless, old associations caused me to imagine that 
 the poor fcUa/is seemed like our own husbandmen, more contented and 
 more happy on that day ; and their habits in these remote ])rovinces are 
 so simple and primitive, that, in the Scripture account of the departure of 
 Jacob from the house of Laban, his meeting with Esau, and subsequent 
 adventures in Palestine, which I was this morning engaged in reading, it 
 seemed easy to discover distinct traces of the manners which still prevail 
 here. 
 
 The rural villages through which I continually pass in my morning 
 walks, contain many objects for curious observation, which I have by no 
 means exhausted, though I have entered and carefully explored a great 
 many during this voyage. My visits are often made early in the morning, 
 occasionally before sunrise, when a majority of the people are asleep. On 
 these occasions I am always welcomed by a host of dogs, who are put 
 ujion the alert by the sight of a white face and European dress. The race 
 is surprisingly numerous, the first yelp of the sentinel cur being followed 
 in an instant by scores of canine voices. They rush towards me from all 
 quarters, while the more timid or indolent are seen taking their positions 
 on the mounds of rublnsh which encompass the village, or upon the flat 
 roofs of the houses, all barking in full chorus. They are a cowardly race, 
 A brickbat or two, which is always at hand, is commonly sufficient to put 
 this tumultu(.us array to flight, and still their uproar. If a fellah happens 
 to witness this scene, he usually calls off' the dogs, and then asks for 
 backsheesh. 
 
 The first persons who niake their appearance in the morning are women 
 with large earthen jars upon their heads, on their way to the river for 
 w\ater. They do not wear veils, but cover their faces with the corner of 
 their tattered robe, and peep at you with one eye only. Having performed 
 their ablutions, which extend to the hands, face, feet, and legs, they fill 
 their vessels, and return towards the village. They manifest the most 
 eager curiosity, and often turn back to gaze upon the stranger ! Next 
 appear a number of men, probably of the devout sort, going in the same
 
 336 EGYPT AND NUBIA. - 
 
 direction to perform their ablutions, and say tlieir prayers. Having 
 washed in the river, they reascend to the top of the bank, and bow down 
 with their faces towards the tomb of the Prophet. When the sun waxes 
 hot, tlie multitude come forth from their houses of mud into the bazaar, 
 but in the largest number to the open spaces and mounds outside of the 
 walls. Here, at the hour v.^hen the peasantry of other countries are 
 going forth into the fields with their implements of agriculture, these indo- 
 lent, degraded people, may be seen basking in the sunshine, sitting or 
 lying on the ground. These masses of rubbish, where the heat of the 
 climate, and the filthy habits of the people, have perpetuated the third of 
 the curses of Pharaoh, are the favourite haunts of the fellahs — a sort of 
 exchange, where they spend a considerable portion of their time, not, so 
 far as a stranger can perceive, socially and rationally, but in yawning 
 indolence or sleep.* 
 
 Beyond Siout, the Arabian chain again approaches the river, and 
 becomes loftier and more precipitous ; it often for a time retires from 
 the banks, but soon again approaches them. Here and there are gorges, 
 which allow gusts of wind to burst in upon the valley, and these, from the 
 high temperature of the neighbourhood of the river, come down Avith pro- 
 digious force and impetuosity. The phenomenon here described exactly 
 resembles the hora on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, at Trieste, and in 
 Dalmatia, where it is the terror of mariners. In this part of Egypt the 
 east-wind is very much feai'ed ; it blows in gusts, and all boatmen in 
 approaching Kaoum and Tahta slacken sail, and redouble their caution. •!• 
 
 The Arabian and Libyan mountains, of which the former is still by far 
 the loftier, after having diverged widely, and formed a broad semicircular 
 valley, again approach each other about the latitude of Tahta. Large 
 tracts of excellent land on the eastern bank have, in this province, been 
 recently thrown out of cultivation, notwithstanding the numerous small 
 canals which intei'sect the fields, and carry the waters of the inundation to 
 the very foot of the hills ; and these districts, unless quickly reclaim.ed, 
 will soon form a part of the Desert. During my walk, I met several 
 pretty Arab girls, with baskets of acacia charcoal on their heads, proceed- 
 ing down the bank of the river, to dispose of their merchandise at the 
 different villages. Men, too, were driving along camels or asses, laden 
 with the same article ; but these barbarians seldom carry any burdens 
 themselves. Women, nowhere treated Avith the tenderness and considera- 
 tion due to their sex, are in Egypt reduced to mere beasts of burden. 
 Everywhere you see them moving under heavy loads ; the cumbrous water 
 jar, the rubbish basket, the charcoal sack ; but, it should be observed, that, 
 notwithstanding this, the Arabs appear in general to live very affection- 
 ately with their wives and female relations, whom, in other respects, 
 therefore, they cannot ill-treat. Hard work, however, among the poor 
 women, has much more to do than climate in bringing on premature old 
 age, and I am persuaded, from several examples, that among the wealthier 
 classes beauty is preserved much longer than is generally imagined. 
 
 *Dr. Oliu. t Due dc Raguse.
 
 CONDITION OP THE PEOPLE. 337 
 
 In all this part of Eorj'pt, but particularly about Katieli, much charcoal 
 is manufactured from the wood of the acacia, which is here found in great 
 abundance. Small quantities of gum-arabic arc likewise produced by this 
 tree, but insufficient for commerce ; that which is commonly used in 
 Egypt is brought from the black countries, or from the desert. The 
 Bedouins, likewise, manufacture from tlie acacia immense quantities of 
 charcoal, which they bring on camels into Egypt. There must, therefore, 
 exist somewhere in the wilderness much more extensive woods than is 
 generally supposed ; since they have carried on this traffic from time im- 
 memorial, and always appear capable of proportioning the supply to the 
 demand. The young corn, in many phxces, is not above six inches high. 
 In the midst of the cultivated fields, I passed a sheik's tomb of spacious 
 dimensions, with an elegant white cupola. 
 
 The fellahs appear to have but feeble notions of cleanliness, their clothes 
 in general swarming with vermin, which they catch, and cast alive upon 
 the ground, to be transferred to tlie person who next happens to sit near 
 the spot ; but they are certainly ashamed of the fact, for they hunt them 
 by stealth, and not in the barefaced way observable among the common 
 people in Italy. They seem, however, to be naturally industrious and 
 active, though it depends upon the government to direct their energies into 
 a proper channel. Even the ancient Egyptians, with all their boasted 
 wisdom, in most of their great works, appear to have had utility very 
 little in view — vanity or superstition being generally the moving prin- 
 ciple. The result was splendid palaces, tombs, or temples, by none of 
 which were the people greatly benefited. Canals, bridges, and great 
 public highways, for the making of which no country can possess greater 
 facilities, seem to have been always subordinate in their estimation to 
 dwellings and sepulchres for their kings ; the monarch, in all such govern- 
 ments, being everything, and the people nothing, excepting so far as they 
 can be made to minister to their master's pleasures. And such, in a great 
 measure, must be the sentiments of those travellers, and idle speculators at 
 home, who, regarding nothing beyond the antiquities of the country, 
 imagine that the dust and bones of the old mummy-makers are of more 
 importance than the living multitude who now till the soil, and who, in 
 their dhourra- covered sheds, and unsightly nakedness, are superior, in 
 everything that concerns the dignity of human nature, to the superstitious 
 and degraded rabble of the Pharaohs and Ptolemies. The old Egyptians 
 laboured slavishly for their kings — the fellahs labour for their Pasha ; and 
 if history fable not, Mohammed Ali, with all his faiilts, is a much greater 
 and better sovereign than many of those who in antiquity ground the faces 
 of the poor in Egypt. 
 
 The Nile, a little to the north of Tahta, embraces many islands, and is as 
 wide as a lake. We passed, without lauding, the village of Gau-el-Kebir, 
 the ancient Antaeopolis, on the eastern bank, where no remains of antiquity 
 are now to be seen, except the substructions of a few dwelling-houses in 
 burnt brick, and part of a stone wall at the water's edge ; the rest having 
 been washed away. To this old habit of the Nile a contemporary poet 
 thus alludes : —
 
 338 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 " Even in my time the Nile liath mnde some head ; 
 Despite the embankments and the jealous care 
 Tliat watcheth liini, or the rich offerings made, 
 He, ever and anon, among the groves 
 And gilded palaces that hide his hanks. 
 Gives serious token he hath not forgot 
 His ancient reign, though men have clipped him in." * 
 
 The adjacent plain is supposed to have been the scene of the contest 
 between Isis and Typhon.t There are many Christians here, and their 
 ))lace of worship is about three miles off in the Desert. | The situation 
 of Antteopolis, on the skirts of a fertile semicircular plain, with high moun- 
 tains beliind, and the Nile in front, was highly advantageous ; but the 
 too great proximity of the river has been fatal to the ruins and the modern 
 village, the whole of the former, and the greater part of the latter, having 
 been undermined by a recent inundation. 
 
 Before arriving at the supposed site of Passalon, we arrived at Shen- 
 dowee, on the western shore. The surrounding plain extends about four 
 miles to the desert mountains, and is irrigated by a canal, that probably 
 joins the Bahr Yusuf, near Benisouef. Having applied to the Nazir of 
 Shendowee for horses and guides to the Red and White Convents (the 
 latter of which is also called Amba Slinoodeh), he sent his nephew, some 
 armed attendants, and a Coptic secretary, with whom I immediately pro- 
 ceeded. Such was the fertility of the plain over which we passed, that 
 the crops were reaped in four months after sowing. They were extremely 
 luxuriant, and quantities of cattle, camels, sheep, and goats, tethered 
 in rows to long ropes, were depastured on all sides. The sheep, as in 
 otlier parts of the country, were badly shaped, and marked with brown 
 and white ; but the cattle, and particularly the oxen, were very handsome, 
 and fine in the horn. The best were of a dark brown, or of a cream-colour. 
 
 TVe crossed the canal at a ford, and arrived in about two hours at 
 the White Convent, 
 which is a lofty quad- 
 rangular building si- 
 tuated in the sands, 
 at the termination of 
 the cultivated ground, 
 and not far from 
 the mountains, where 
 several ancient tombs 
 have been found. Tlie 
 walls are of stone and 
 have a projecting cor- 
 nice. The door is very 
 strong, and opens into 
 a square cloistered 
 court. The church is 
 in the form of a Greek cross, and contains four arched recesses, surmounted 
 
 * John Edmimd Reade, "Record of the Pyramids." A poem replete with suhlime thoughts 
 and nohle sentiments. f Colonel Howard Vyse. + Richardson. 
 
 Deir Beyadh — the White Conveut.
 
 THE RED AND WHITE CONVENTS. .339 
 
 in tlie middle by a cupola. The arches are rounded. The altar is of com- 
 mon stone, but appears to have been plated. The coved roof above it had 
 been originally adorned with mosaics, and a wooden screen before it had been 
 painted with figures of the Holy Virgin, of St. George and the Dragon, and 
 of other saints. The whole is in a most dilapidated and dirty state, as sheep 
 and cattle are brought into the cloister every night for security. It does 
 not appear that mucli service was performed, although three Coptic priests 
 constantly resided there. They invited me to take coffee, complained that 
 the grounds belonging to the convent had been seized upon by the govern- 
 ment, and that they were much impoverished ; but as they had sheep and 
 cattle, they must have had land for their support. They are, however, in 
 a great measure maintained by the Copts, who live in considerable num- 
 bers together with the Arabs in the neighbouring villages, and who visit 
 the convents on holidays. This building, as well as that which I after- 
 wards visited, was well adapted for defence, and also protected by an Arab 
 guard, said to be necessary on account of the bad disposition of the popula- 
 tion, the Coptic part of which, it is to be observed, were exempted from 
 the conscription. Several large mounds, broken pottery, and a few square 
 stones, indicate the site of ancient buildings. On some of the blocks I 
 observed hieroglyphics, and on one the remains of a triglyph. 
 
 The Red Convent was similarly situated, and built on the same plan, 
 but had been constructed with burnt bricks, and appeared of a more 
 recent date. The columns in the church were rather larger, and had some- 
 thing like Corinthian capitals, and in several of the architectural orna- 
 ments, particularly under the cupola, shells were introduced. The 
 communion-table was composed of granite. The church was locked uj) 
 and neolected, and the whole building in a worse condition than the other, 
 and merely inliabited by a few Coptic peasants, with their cattle. Some 
 mounds in the cultivated ground at a short distance from these convents, 
 and at present occupied by an Arab village, are the only remains of Itfou. 
 The ruins of Athribis are said to be at some little distance to the south- 
 ward, but I did not visit them, I came back to Shendowee by a circui- 
 tous road, in order to pass the canal at an easier ford, so that it was night, 
 before I arrived at the Nazir''s house ; whence I returned to the boat, and 
 immediately sailed. During this excursion I witnessed a ceremony which 
 was new to me : one of the attendants happening to meet an acquaintance, 
 knelt down on the ground, and made several prostrations, as if at prayer. 
 His friend did the same ; after which they got up, and embraced with the 
 usual salutations.* 
 
 A little to the south is the village of Rhaeineh picturesquely situated in 
 the midst of the most lovely corn-fields and acacia groves, at the foot of 
 Gebel Sheikh Haredi, where are two narrow ravines, with the appearance of 
 deep water-courses, torn up and shattered by violent rain-floods. But the 
 unbroken front which this interminable rocky ridge commonly presents to 
 the spectator is exceedingly remarkable, appearing always of the same 
 height, like a huge buttress supporting the pressure of the boundless table- 
 and of the Desert. However, on ascending to the summit, you discover, 
 
 • Colonel Howard Vyse.
 
 340 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 instead of a plain, the barren crests of other ridges extending farther than 
 the eye can reach, as in the vast chains of the Jura and Alps. Near the 
 villac^e of Rhaeineh we passed a L^rge boat laden with slaves from Darfour, 
 and the other black countries of the interior, drifting down the river 
 rudder foremost ; and we saw the negroes, male and female, standing bare- 
 headed in tlie sun, resembling so many cattle proceeding to a slaughter- 
 house, which, in fact, northern countries prove to them, not excepting even 
 Egypt, as they die there of cold by thousands. 
 
 The eastern mountains begin to present a change of feature. Instead 
 of running nearly in a straight line, north and south, they, above Rhaeineh, 
 fluctuate remarkably in their direction, now retreating inwards in the 
 form of a half-moon, and now advancing again over the plain in sharp 
 promontories, presenting to the eye a series of precipices of vast height, 
 and perfectly perpendicular. Sometimes several of these promontories are 
 beheld at once, obliquely approaching the river, like the termination of a 
 series of parallel ridges ; but, continuing to sail on, you successively discover 
 the craggy curtains which unite these projections to each other. In many 
 parts a succession of small wavy mounds of sand, like the section of a globe, 
 rest against the foot of the mountains, and slope down gently towards 
 the plain. It is true that for many hundred miles there is never seen, 
 upon this dreary range, a leaf, a single blade of grass, or any green thing ; 
 but a thousand circumstances concur in removing the stamp of monotony. 
 Sometimes you behold them lifting up their dark crests against the pale 
 jasper sky, just as the earth receives the first tints of the dawn ; then the 
 sun, bursting up from behind them, covers their pinnacles with glory; 
 anon tliey glow painfully brigh.t beneath the fiery sky of noon ; or are 
 transformed into columns of turquoise and amethyst by the magic illusions 
 of sunset. Such are the objects which, for many hundred miles, constitute 
 the principal sources of interest to the traveller; for neither are there 
 any ruins in this part of the valley, nor, after the edge of curiosity has 
 been blunted, do the caverns and grottoes excite very powerful emotions. 
 Nature, however, in these splendid climates is always beautiful. And 
 when the monuments of Egyptian art shall all have crnmbled to dust, and 
 the site of Thebes be more problematical than that of Babylon or Memphis, 
 Egypt will be still a wonder in itself, with its soil of inexhaustible fertility, 
 its deserts and mighty river, whicli rises and falls with a regularity almost 
 equal to that of the sun and moon. 
 
 Even the winds which blow over the Nile constitute a very remarkable 
 natural phenomenon. At nearly all seasons we find them following or 
 opposing the course of the current — a circumstance referrible to those two 
 extraordinary ridges of mountains which, running parallel with the river, 
 lieni in the narrow valley. Excepting when the stream diverges from the 
 riffht Hne towards the east or west, the voyager on the Nile is seldom 
 aflfected by side winds; though, in some few parts of the valley, not yet 
 sufficiently noted by travellers, sudden and violent gusts, descending from 
 the Arabian or Libyan mountains, endanger his safety by overturning or 
 submerging his boat. 
 
 The ordinary winds begin to blow faintly soon after dawn, and increas-
 
 A STUFFED CROCODILE. 341 
 
 inff with the increasing heat of the sun, are most powerful about three 
 o'clock in the afternoon, after which they gradually die away, and cease 
 entirely at sunset. Thus they proceed, day after day, with little varia- 
 tion, though instances occur of the south wind's continuing throughout the 
 niglit, blowing with unmitigated violence, or rising or sinking several 
 times during that period. Occasionally, in passing a village, the traveller 
 finds himself all at once becalmed, while the boats a little ahead or astern 
 are sailing beautifully before the wind, which is caused by the numerous 
 houses and the extensive surrounding groves that intercept and turn aside 
 the atmosplieric current. In consequence of this phenomenon, we generally 
 beo-in the day with tacking, the morning breeze not being sufficiently 
 powerful to enable us to stem the current ; from nine or ten o'clock until 
 night we trust to our sails, though, when the wind is faint, towing again 
 becomes necessary about five or six o'clock. 
 
 In the course of this afternoon we saw the first crocodile, basking in 
 the sun, on a low sandy island near the eastern bank ; and shortly after- 
 wards passed Soohaj, the ancient Crocodilopolis, a town of some consider- 
 ation, with three mosques, whose minarets looked well amid the foliage 
 of the date trees. 
 
 Stephens, a propos of crocodiles, has a good passage : — " While walking 
 by the river side, I met," says he, " an Arab with a gun in his hand, who 
 pointed to the dozing crocodiles on a bank before us, and, marking out a 
 space on the ground, turned to the village a little back, and made me 
 understand that he had a large crocodile there. As I was some distance 
 in advance of my boat, I accompanied him, and found one fourteen feet 
 long, stuffed with straw, and hanging under a palm-tree. He had been 
 killed three days before, after a desperate resistance, having been disabled 
 with bullets, and pierced with spears in a dozen places. I looked at him 
 with interest and compassion, reflecting on the difference between his 
 treatment and that experienced by his ancestors, but nevertheless opened 
 a negotiation for his purchase ; and though our languages were far apart 
 as our countries, bargains sharpen the intellect to such a degree, that the 
 Arab and I soon came to an imderstanding, and I bought him as he hung 
 for forty piastres and a charge of gunpowder. I had conceived a joke for 
 my own amusement. A friend had requested me to buy for him some 
 mosaics, cameos, &c. in Italy, wliich circumstances had prevented me from 
 doing, and I had written to him, regretting my inability, and telling him 
 that I was going to Egypt, and would send him a mummy or a pyramid : 
 and when I saw the scaly monster hanging by the tail, with his large jaws 
 distended by a stick, it struck me that he would make a still better sub- 
 stitute for cameos and mosaics, and that I would box him up, and without 
 any advice send him to my friend. 
 
 " Tlie reader may judge how desperately I was pushed for amusement, 
 when I tell him that I chuckled greatly over this happy conceit ; and 
 having sent my Nubian to hail the boat as she was coming by, I followed 
 with my little memorial. The whole village turned out to escort us — 
 more than a hundred Arabs, men, women, and children — - and we 
 dragged him down with a pomp and circumstance worthy of his better 
 
 G G
 
 342 
 
 EGYrT AND NUBIA. 
 
 days. Paul looked a little astonished when he saw me with a rope over 
 my shoulder, leading the van of this ragged escort, and rather turned up 
 his nose when I told him of my joke, I had great difficulty in getting 
 my prize on hoard, and when I got him there, he deranged everytliing else ; 
 but the first day I was so tickled that I could have thrown all my other 
 cargo overboard rather than him. The second day the joke was not so 
 good, and the third I grew tired of it, and tumbled my crocodile into the 
 river. I followed him with my eye as his body floated down the stream ; 
 it was moonlight, and the creaking of the water-wheel on the banks sounded 
 like the moaning spirit of an ancient Egyptian, indignant at the murder 
 and profanation of his god. It was, perliaps, hardly worth while to 
 mention this little circumstance, but it amused me for a day or two, 
 brought me into mental contact with my friends at home, and gave me 
 the credit of having myself sliot a crocodile, any one of which was worth 
 all the trouble it cost me. If the reader will excuse a bad pun, in con- 
 sideration of its being my first and last, it was not a dry joke ; for in 
 getting the crocodile on board, I tumbled over, and, very unintentionally 
 on my part, had a January bath in the Nile." * 
 
 The river, increasing in breadth and grandeur as we ascend, appeared 
 singularly beautiful to-night, on approaching Panopolis by moonlight. 
 This city, now Ekhmim, stands at some distance from the river ; but as it 
 contains some remains of antiquity, which, from the importance of the place, 
 and the remote date of its foundation, promised to repay our curiosity, we 
 would not postpone our visit until our return, but moored close to the 
 footpath leading to the town, in order to be there early on the morrow. 
 
 A little to the south of this 
 city we saw the first doiim tree, or 
 Palma Thehaica. When left to 
 nature, its trunk is covered with 
 a series of flat branches, which, 
 winding round it obliquely, and 
 lapping alternately over each other, 
 appear like the squares of a tes- 
 sellated pavement. These branches, 
 however, being cut off, as they gene- 
 rally are, the douin has a smooth 
 annul ated trunk, which divides 
 itself into several boughs, termi- 
 nating in a laro;e circular head of 
 waving leaves. It is smaller and 
 much less beautiful than the date- 
 palm. The leaves are disposed 
 upon the point of a prickly stem 
 in the shape of a fan, like those of 
 the jagara, so plentiful on the un- 
 cultivated hills in the neighbour- 
 hood of Agrigentum. 
 Proceeding onwards, we beheld, soon after sunrise, one of these magical 
 
 The Doum Palm. 
 
 Incidents of Travel.
 
 MARKET-DAY AT ES SERAT. 
 
 343 
 
 scenes winch tlic tropics and tlieir vicinity, I imagine, can alone furnish. 
 The mountains, cleft into numerous chains, and ascending in pinnacles of 
 
 various heights, were 
 enveloped by the haze 
 of the morning ; thick, 
 heavy, and white in the 
 valleys ; more silvery 
 about the summits, 
 which, thus veiled, ap- 
 peared almost trans- 
 parent ; wdiile tints of 
 indescribable brilliancy 
 were difiused over the 
 sky, and reflected from 
 the river. A little to 
 the north of Es-Serat 
 we landed, and walked 
 on towards the village, 
 where the eastern plain 
 is wide and highly 
 cultivated. The Nile, 
 flowing serenely, with 
 many creeks, sharp in- 
 lets, and small woody 
 islands in its channel, 
 has the appearance of 
 a beautiful lake, diffus- 
 ing its placid shining 
 waters among groves 
 of date and doum palms, mimosas, acacias, and tamarisks, fringing its 
 banks, and concealing its extent from the eye. 
 
 It was market-day at Es-Serat. The farmers had brought thither their 
 grain, the bakers their bread, the fishermen their fish, and the butchers 
 their cattle, ready to be killed as wanted. The sheep, which were feeding 
 on fine rich clover, had the large heavy tails mentioned by Herodotus ; 
 which, however, resembled not the tails of the Cape sheep, small at the 
 root, and increasing towards the point, but the contrary, being about eight 
 inches in breadth at the root, and diminishing gradually to the end. These 
 sheep were nearly all of a brown colour. Several of the cattle seemed to 
 be of the Indian breed, small, and with a hunch upon the back like the 
 Brahmini bulls. The market was held on the outside of the village, among 
 the date- trees, at the foot of which the butchers slaughtered their cattle, 
 permitting the blood to flow about for the dogs, many of which are seen 
 lapping it up warm, close to the throat of the animal before it was dead. 
 The head of the beast about to be killed was turned towards Mekka, and 
 its throat cut with prayers, and in the name of God : — " Bismillah, ya Allah 
 akbar !" One of the butchers we observed belabouring the body of a head- 
 less ox with a long stick, to make the skin come off the more easily. On 
 
 Doum I'ahii I'luit.
 
 344 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 the whole, I never beheld a more disgusting sight ; for the people assembled, 
 of both sexes and of all ages, seemed to have monopolised ugliness, squalid- 
 ness, and filth ; and several of the men had the most truculent aspect, like 
 that of certain galley-slaves I once saw at Mont St. Michel. Among 
 the crowd were a few negro slaves, looking plump and contented ; and a 
 great number of one-eyed people, young and old — proofs of the existence 
 and ravages of ophthalmia. I am surprised that the buflalo, which yields 
 so large a quantity of excellent milk, should not hitherto have been intro- 
 duced into England. In Egypt it forms the riches of the peasant. 
 
 I may here mention a singular feature belonging to most of the villages 
 of Upper Egypt. Every cottage, nearly, is surmounted by an additional 
 story, sometimes by two or three, occupied by pigeons.* These birds are 
 seen in incredible numbers liirhtincr on the fields and banks of the river, 
 and at the approach of evening they hover over the villages in such multi- 
 tudes, as to darken the air. Their houses are constructed of earthen jars 
 piled up in the form of a wall, each affording a place for a nest. Vast 
 quantities of the young are sent alive to Cairo and other markets, and they 
 form an important article of trade as well as of food. 
 
 I have taken various opportunities to look into the interior of the habi- 
 tations of the Fellahs. They dilFer but little from those seen in tlie Delta, 
 and are not commonly more than eight or ten feet in length or diameter, 
 for they are frequently circular. They are witliout doors or fireplaces, and 
 often without roofs, the mildness of the climate, and exemption from rains, 
 rendering a slight awning, formed of palm-leaves, a mat, or the stalks of 
 doura, a sufficient protection. In many instances these materials are merely 
 placed against the mud wall with one end upon the ground, thus forming 
 a rude shelter, under which these poor people sleep at night, and take 
 refuge by day, from the chilling winds which sometimes blow. The walls 
 of these huts, as well as the roofs, are often composed of the straw of the 
 dhoura, or of reeds. These materials are sometimes combined, and plastered 
 with a mud cement. The better class of cottages have flat roofs made of 
 mud resting on a layer of palm-leaves, or stalks of dhoura, which again are 
 sustained by rafters of the palm-tree. They contain but a few articles of 
 furniture. A bench, twelve or fifteen inches high, formed by a projecting 
 part of the wall, supplying a place to sleep on. Even this is not very 
 common, the floor of earth serving instead of chairs and beds, as well as 
 tables. It is rather unusual to see the additional luxury of a mat of palm- 
 leaves or straw. This and two or three earthen vessels for water and 
 cooking, appear to comprehend everything in the shape of furniture, f 
 
 On returning to the kandjias, we saw a large crocodile on the eastern 
 bank, standing on the sands, in the midst of a number of white ibises. 
 Though quite out of the reach of a fowling-piece, he was terrified at our 
 appearance, and immediately plunged into the river. Late in the afternoon 
 we passed Girgch^ and j)uslied on to Bellianeh. 
 
 Quitting this place at an early hour, we proceeded across the country 
 towards This, or Abydos, the Arabai Matfooneh, or " Arabat beneath the 
 
 • Due de Raguse. + Dr. Olio.
 
 PALACE OF MEMNON. 
 
 345 
 
 sands," of the Arabs. Strabo's description of the palace of King Memnon 
 ■which he visited eighteen centuries ago, excited our curiosity. Riding on 
 hastily, therefore, anxious to behold the magnificent ruin, we directed our 
 course towards the Libyan mountains, here of great height, and most 
 
 rugged aspect, present- 
 ing a series of lofty 
 cliffs, in many places 
 perfectly perpendicular ; 
 our path lying over one 
 of the richest and most 
 iiighly cultivated plains 
 in Egypt, now covered 
 Avith luxuriant crops 
 of clover, lentils, lu- 
 pines, onions, sugar- 
 cane, wheat, and about 
 two thousand acres of 
 beans in blossom ; and 
 these, which for a long 
 way bordered our path 
 on either side, were 
 intermingled with a 
 heavy under-erop of tall 
 clover, undoubtedly the 
 finest and most abun- 
 dant I have ever seen. 
 On all sides, as far as 
 the eye could reach, 
 arose the date-groves, 
 in which the villages 
 stood embosomed, and the farmers were everywhere busy in the fields. 
 Perched here and there, on the ground or in the trees, were doves, hawks 
 wliite and brown, which, from their familiarity with the otlur birds, would 
 appear not to be carnivorous ; large black eagles, resting aloft on the top 
 of the highest palms ; small flights of ibises, and innumerable sparrows and 
 pigeons. The young camels were gambolling about, and here and there an 
 old and stiff one, instead of supporting its character for staid and solemn 
 stateliness, might be seen, free from the control of pack-saddle or halter, 
 capering before his astonished comrades, flying before the wind at full 
 gallop, or playing such antics as the ungainly form nature had assigned him 
 might admit of.* 
 
 The buffalo, the horse, the cow, the sheep, and the goat, were feeding 
 in groups among the rich pasturage, which having been drenched by the 
 dews of the preceding night, heavy as those of Hermon, every leaf and 
 blade now glittered with sparkling dew-drops. Scenes of beauty and fer- 
 tility like this, involuntarily recall to mind those exquisite images w4iich 
 
 Street witli I'lgcoii-Uouse, Gir 
 
 * Ramsay.
 
 346 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Milton with so much taste and judgment has introduced into Eve's rap- 
 turous description of external nature : — 
 
 " Sweet is the breath of morn ; her rising sweet ; 
 Willi charm of earliest birds : pleasant the sun 
 When first on this delightful land he spreads 
 His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, 
 Glistening with dew." 
 
 Scarcely could paradise itself be more delightful than the land now before 
 us ; the whole atmosphere being perfumed faintly, but deliciously, by the 
 scent of many flowers, while every object which presented itself to the eye 
 was clothed with inimitable freshness and beauty. The weather was such 
 as we sometimes enjoy in England during the month of June, when the 
 sun's heat is tempered by light clouds which alternately admit and intercept 
 its beams. To enjoy it we slackened our pace ; Abydos and its Mem- 
 norium were, for the moment, forgotten, and the beauties of the landscape 
 were greatly enhanced by the buoyancy of my spirits and the indescribable 
 delights of health. I could now comprehend why the Romans sent their 
 consumptive patients, and the Turks their men grown prematurely old, to 
 the banks of the Nile, for nowhere on earth could they, in winter, find a 
 more congenial climate than that of Thebaid. 
 
 All this plain is abundantly inundated by the Nile, so that a few months 
 ago boats might have sailed where we now admired the richness of the 
 crops ; but there is also a canal by which, when the river has subsided, 
 water is conveyed to the foot of the desert ; and we observed them raising 
 it for the purposes of irrigation from small tanks. But one great cause of 
 the fertility of Egypt is the extraordinary dew which, as in all countries 
 where the atmosphere is generally free from clouds, falls during the night, 
 leaving the earth drenched as after heavy showers ; and to this circum- 
 stance the ancient Egyptians seem to have alluded in an epithet of Buto, 
 or the clear starry night, whom they termed the " Mother of Dew." In 
 about three hours we arrived at Abydos, and passing through the modern 
 village, — that has nothing renfiarkable except the noble palm wood in 
 which it stands— emerged into the desert, where numerous mounds of 
 rubbish, burnt brick, broken pottery, &c., marked the site of the ancient 
 city. Oar guides first conducted us to a set of small painted chambers, 
 evidently forming part of a spacious temple, probably of Osiris, whom, 
 according to Strabo, the people of Abydos held in extreme veneration. 
 
 We next proceeded to the ruins of the palace of Memnon. The sands 
 of the desert, accumulated by the winds of many thousand years, have 
 entered its magnificent halls and chambers, and gradually risen so high 
 that in some places they even conceal a portion of the capitals of the 
 columns. This building, of a parallelogramatic form, three hundred and 
 fifty feet in length by one hundred and fifty in breadth, is constructed, roof 
 and all, of enormous blocks of stone, more resembling such as are beheld 
 in Cyclopean structures than even those of the pyramids. Having walked 
 about for some time upon the roof, now not greatly elevated above the 
 surroundino- sands, we descended through a passage on the western side 
 into the great hall or audience chamber of Memnon. The roof of this
 
 ADVENTURE. 347 
 
 apartment seems to be supported — for the sand and darkness preclude all 
 possibility of speaking with certainty — by thirty-two pillars, disposed in 
 four rows, and surmounted by plain square capitals or plinths, differing in 
 form from those found in other parts of Egypt. The diameter of the shaft is 
 about four feet, and the intercolumniations two diameters and a half. The 
 length, tliei'efore,of the apartment must be about one hundred and thirty feet ; 
 its breadth about sixty- five. The roof is flat, and formed like that of the 
 temples, of immense slabs of stone, extending from one row of pillars to the 
 other. Around this great hall are numerous smaller chambers, all now 
 entirely choked up, excepting at the southern extremity, where we entered 
 through a break in the outer wall into an apartment of spacious dimensions. 
 
 It is not a little strange that what appears to be the principal front of 
 this magnificent palace, should be towards the west, where all prospect is 
 cut off" by the lofty mountains, at the foot of which it is situated. Along 
 the whole of this fagade there appears to have run a kind of screen or 
 colonnade, not connected above by a roof with the body of the building ; 
 and a still more remarkable feature in this portion of the structure is, that 
 opening into the colonnade there is a series of spacious and lofty arched 
 chambers, into which, perhaps, during the heats of summer, the inhabitants 
 of the palace retired for coolness. Strabo, observing their construction from 
 the pavement below, was led to suppose that the entire span of these arches 
 was nut in one single stone ; and Sir Frederick Henniker, who enjoyed the 
 advantage of examining them as nearly as he pleased, repeats the assertion 
 of Strabo. But the fact is not exactly so, for the stones upon which the 
 arched block rests on either side, enter into the head of the semicircle, and 
 form a part of the span. In the roof of these remarkable chambers we 
 observed two small and nearly square apertures, descending obliquely as 
 far as we could see ; but what their use may have been, or where they 
 terminate, we could not discover. 
 
 Having completed our examination we left Abydos, and re-waded the 
 canal. The donkeys had eaten the bowels of our saddles, and left us the 
 option of making use of our feet or their saw-like backs. We, therefore, 
 walked ; and it being quite dark, soon lost our donkeys and our way. 
 There is no turnpike road in Egypt. The alluvial deposit of the Nile 
 gives a new face to the path every year, like a new ploughed field. We 
 wandered mid beans, wheat, and lupins, wet with a heavy dew, and the 
 wind very cold. On a sudden we felt a warm vapour, as if from an oven. 
 We were at this moment passing by the side of a mound ; but there was 
 no fire ; we were sheltered from the wind, and the heat arose from the 
 earth, which is like a hot-bed : hence it is that the verdure is of so beautiful 
 a colour. The dews and winds are cold, and the birds consequently are 
 thickly feathered as in more northern latitudes. After wandering for 
 some time in perfect ignorance, the barking of dogs led us to a village ; 
 it was now so late that the rustic conversazione had exploded — even the 
 sheikh had retired — and the two last of the party were taking leave of the 
 dying fire. Though startled at our approach, they came forward imme- 
 diately and welcomed us ; one of them brought fuel, the other brought 
 the lord of the village with his stock of bread, dates, sour oil, and buffalo
 
 348 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 milk, already half way towards cheese ; the bread is made of dhoura and 
 lentils, and had it not been for hunger and hospitality I should have 
 thouo-ht it bitter. We learnt that we were still as far from our boat as we 
 were when we were at Abydos : the sheikh offered me his horse, but as it 
 could not carry all our party, I declined it : in return for his attention, 
 I desired the dragoman to pay him handsomely. He refused to receive 
 anything; saying " it was charity, not calculation, that brought him to a 
 stranger in distress." The dragoman forced a present upon him ; and I 
 then desired that the sum, whatever it was, might be doubled. The 
 sheikh followed us to call off the dogs, and would have accompanied us to 
 the boat had I permitted him ; he gave us a guide, and commanded him 
 to lead us by his sugar plantations, that we might help ourselves ; his 
 civility quite frightened me. I asked the dragoman how much he had 
 given him ; he said three piastres. I will answer, therefore, that it was 
 noimore than eiffhtpence. I have often given double the sum for half the 
 civility ; and the sheikh Avould never have received half so much for 
 tenfold his attentions if to a Turk. He had never seen an Englishman 
 before, or the market would have been spoiled. One ought to travel in 
 this country in forma pauperis. We regained our boat about midnight.* 
 
 Soon after passing Havou (the Diospolis Parva or Lesser Tliebes of the 
 ancients), an abrupt bend in the river presented to our view one of the 
 most magnificent landscapes in Egypt. The eye accustomed to the savage 
 beauties of nature can never be weary of looking on such scenes. But the 
 imagination, seeking, perhaps in vain, in the descriptions of the traveller, 
 those distinguishing features that constitute the characteristics of a land- 
 scape, rendering it essentially different from all others, may possibly grow 
 tired of the verbal pictures of them ; since language knows not how to 
 represent in colours sufficiently bold and glowing the sublime form which 
 nature, in such regions, frequently assumes. 
 
 It was at this place that we saw an animal of about three feet long, 
 basking on the bank, having an appearance between a lizard and a crocodile ; 
 the natives call it a " Wahren." It leaped into the river, and swam with 
 its head out of water ; a Nubian and myself pursued it — it landed and ran 
 into a hole, or cul-de-sac. I placed my hand upon its loins and drew it 
 out ; my companion took off his shirt and enveloped it. In this manner 
 we carried it to the boat, and with some fear and difficulty succeeded in 
 fixinof a cord round it and fastening it to the mast. It will make an 
 excellent man-trap ; not one of us dare approach him. A pan of charcoal 
 was burning within his reach ; he snatched a piece red hot from the furnace, 
 and the more it stung him, the more savagely he bit it. Poor thing : I 
 threw a pail of water over him, cut his throat, and flayed him.t 
 
 The mountains of the Arabian chain having made a wide circuit to the 
 east, are seen a little above the ruins of Chenoboscion, running across the 
 plain towards the Nile, almost in a right line ; and having approached 
 within about three miles of its channel, they suddenly rise greatly in 
 elevation, and towering perpendicularly to a vast height, again sweep 
 
 * Sir Frederick Henniker. t Ibid.
 
 SITE OP CIIENOBOSCION. 
 
 349 
 
 round towards tlie east, presenting to the eye one of the most stupendous 
 chains of rocky precipices in the world. The extreme point of this moun- 
 tain promontory, tlie foot of wliich is nearly washed by the Nile, wears 
 
 Sile of Cl;euoboscion. 
 
 from afar the appearance of a lofty Gothic castle, of prodigious magnitude 
 and grandeur, with huge projecting bastions, and regular battlements, 
 adorned all round, notwithstanding its vastness, with magnificent tracery ; 
 and the resemblance from a distance was so striking, that we were for a 
 moment in doubt. At the foot of this colossal structure, more sublime 
 than was ever raised by man, there runs a narrow belt of cultivated land, 
 covered with rich grass, corn, and woods of doum, date, and mimosa trees, 
 up to the very site of Chcnoboscion. The wind blew with extreme 
 violence as we passed these mountains, and my kanJjla, which was going 
 at an extraordinary rate, narrowly escaped being overturned. In the 
 course of the day we saw several crocodiles, — as many, I imagine, as fifteen 
 at a time; and among these there were some which could not have mea- 
 sured less than twenty-five or thirty feet in length. The balls fired at 
 them appeared to rebound from their " scaly rinds " harmless as hailstones ; 
 nor did such as were hit seem to quicken their pace in the least when 
 jumping into the river with the rest. Though the heat of the sun was 
 greatly tempered by the wind, it still appeared to have more power than 
 with us in July ; yet, though bathed in perspiration, we did not find 
 walking unpleasant, even in tlie hottest part of the day. Being eager to 
 reach Dendera, and the wind continuing to blow without intermission, we 
 sailed all night, and a little before sunrise, moored on the eastern bank, 
 opposite the temple. 
 
 Though I had not retired until four o'clock in the morning, we were 
 again stirring at an early hour, being impatient to visit the ruins. The 
 greater part of the plain, east of them, is covered with a sort of sedge,
 
 350 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 here used in malcing fine mats ; which having been recently burned, was 
 now springing up beautifully, rivalling, in appearance, the green corn. 
 with patclies of which the plain v/as interspersed. The modern village of 
 Dendera, at a short distance to the right, is embosomed in a thick grove 
 of doum palms ; and many of these trees are scattered singly over the 
 plain. Having proceeded about two miles from the banks of the Nile, 
 towards the west, we began to enter upon mounds, partly overgrown with 
 sedge, which mark the site and conceal the substructions of Tentyris. A 
 little farther the sedge disappears, and we find ourselves among those 
 confused irregular heaps of bricks, sun-dried and burnt calcareous 
 stone, broken pottery, and fine dust, which invariably point out to the 
 traveller the site of an Egyptian city. The path leading across the 
 plain towards the ruins— and it leads to nothing else— greatly resemble^ 
 that which, in remote parts of England, conducts you from some hamler 
 to the distant church — small and narrow, but well beaten by the fee; 
 of taste and learning. Here and there among the rubbish, you observe 
 numerous excavations, made by the Arabs, in the vain search aftc: 
 treasure, or by trading antiquaries, who regret to find whole temples no- 
 portable. 
 
 At length a turn in the path brought us suddenly in sight of the most 
 beautiful structure in Egypt, erected, as it well deserved to be, in honoiii 
 of the Goddess of Love. From the first glance I discovered that the noble 
 propylon, which a few years ago excited the admiration of Hamilton, had 
 recently been visited by the hand of the spoiler ; but although much of lln 
 front has been thrown down, and the stones either broken or carried av^aj , 
 enough still remains to justify the praises which a refined taste has 
 bestowed upon it. I could not pause, however, to examine minutely this 
 inconsiderable fragment. Hastening forward across the dromos, I eagerly 
 drew near the fa9ade of Venus's temple ; and if I felt any toil or difficult;, 
 during the whole of my journej', the pleasure of that moment more thai 
 repaid it all. But much of the delight which, in common with many 
 other travellers, I experienced at the first sight of the great temple of 
 Tentvris, might be traced, both in them and me, to causes extremely 
 foreign to the beauties of architecture, though we are apt upon the spot, 
 in the hurry and confusion of our feelings, to attribute all our satisfaction 
 to the irresistible effect of beauty and harmonious proportions on tlie 
 mind. The fables of the mythology, delightful because studied when every 
 thing is so, have consecrated in the memory of all educated men, the 
 imaginary being who was here adored of old ; and few are so steeled by 
 their passage through the world as not occasionally to experience, when the 
 scenes which feasted their boyish fancies, with all the bright associations 
 that cling to them, are again instantaneously spread before the mind ; 
 some touches of enthusiasm, warm and vivid in proportion as the studies, 
 to which they owe their birth, have been more or less pursued. Otlier 
 emotions also have their influence. The pleasure of beholding for yourself 
 an object greatly celebrated, yet seen by comparatively few, a secret 
 reference to the ages it has endured ; the fact that it has outlived the 
 reli'iou and the race for v.-hom it was erected; that it remains almost
 
 TEMPLE OF THE GODDESS OP LOVE. 
 
 351 
 
 solitary in the midst of a city long ruined, as if the power in whose honour 
 it was built, still protected its ancient fane from utter destruction. 
 
 ■■■:¥ 
 
 -■ ,*•«.';- 
 
 Portico ot the Great Teuipie ui Uenderali. 
 
 And what was this power ? The same, I apprehend, to which the 
 Pyramids were erected — Bhavani, Athor, Aphrodite, Venus: whose 
 symbols were the cow, the lotus-flower, the cone, the triangle, and who, 
 under different names, were worshipped throughout the whole Pagan 
 world. Isis, in the conception of the philosophers, was a personification 
 of Nature in general; Athor, of that principle by which homogeneous 
 and congruous elements are attracted towards each other, and united 
 for tlie generation of new beings ; whence the universe is peopled with 
 beautiful forms, wliich, under the influence of the primitive energy, 
 successively transmit to other forms the imperishable essence of life, 
 originally infused into them by Athor. Such, it appears to me, was the 
 idea which the Orientals anciently entertained of Venus. The Greeks, 
 when their fancy peopled heaven and earth with gods, conceived this 
 plastic power of nature somewhat differently. Observing the effect among 
 mankind, of beauty and a lively playful temper, they imagined a being
 
 352 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 endowed in the highest possible degree with those qualities, and placed her 
 on Olympus, among the immortals, to preside over the delights of gods and 
 men, the perpetuation of the human race, and of everything which breathes 
 the breath of life. It would appear, therefore, that the great temple of 
 Tentyris Avas dedicated to the principle of Love, which, when combined with 
 sentiment and affection, and divested of wings, all nations have embodied in 
 tlie female form. And the architect who erected this fane, in the contriv- 
 ance and arrangement of its several parts, in the capitals, in tlie sculpture, 
 the distribution of light, seems to have had in view the awakening of a 
 certain train of feelings, analogous in their moral character to those which 
 are excited by the contemplation of living beauty. The cornices, the mould- 
 in f^s, contain the richest curves. The capitals of tlie columns consist of a 
 woman's face four times repeated, which appears to smile upon you from 
 whatever side you regard it ; the sculptures for the most part represent 
 scenes of joy and pleasure, religious festivals, processions, groups charmed 
 by the sounds of music, figures reclining on delightful couches, and women, 
 all softness and benevolence, with infants of different ages at the breast. 
 On the roof of the pronaos, where learned fancies have discovered astro- 
 nomical signs, we observe a mythological representation of the birth of the 
 universe from tlie bosuni of Athor, whose outstretched arms appear to 
 embrace the whole expanse of heaven. From her mouth issues the winged 
 globe, emblematic of the self-poised world, floating as if on wings through 
 immeasurable space. Her womb also gives birth to the sun and moon, 
 which, as soon as born, diffuse their light and generative influence over the 
 whole of sublunary nature; while the other gods, with their stellar 
 mansions, mystic symbols, transmigrations, avatars, and earthly represen- 
 tatives, are seen moving in order along the firmament enveloped within 
 the skirts of her starry robe. She is, in short, that Remphah, " Queen 
 of Heaven," with whose worship the Scriptures reproach the old idolaters ; 
 and every image in her temple at Tentyris, breathes of that voluptuous 
 spell by which her votaries were bound, — 
 
 " Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch 
 Ezekiel saw, -nhen, by the vision led, 
 His eye surve)'ed the dark idolatries 
 Of alienated Judab." 
 
 Such, unquestionably, appears to me the design of the architect ; and, 
 if this be the case, he has triumphantly succeeded in embodying his con- 
 ceptions ; the sentiments awakened in the mind of the spectator, though 
 the religion of which they once formed a part be extinct, being precisely 
 those to which he must have been desirous of giving birth. 
 
 On quitting Dendera, the " Enemy of the Crocodile," * I paid a visit to 
 Gheneh, where I might have found much to interest and detain me, had I 
 not been so near Thebes, As it was, I overcame as speedily as possible the 
 obstacles to my progress, and in a state of most agreeable excitement set 
 sail. To attempt a description of the scenes and objects we passed during 
 
 * Stephanas Byzantinus.
 
 APPROACH TO THEBES. 
 
 353 
 
 this part of our voyage, would be lost labour. To an imaginative travel- 
 ler, minor ruins, like little stars in the neighbourhood of the moon, are 
 quite invisible in the environs of Thebes. The wind, however, refused to 
 
 One of tlie Temples of Deudera. 
 
 second my impatience. I should have welcomed a hurricane, provided it 
 would have blown from the north ; but Boreas was that day in tlie humour 
 to be gentle. It must have been the anniversary of the rape of Orithyia, 
 when, sporting on the cliffs of Attica, the god bore her away in Elysian 
 breezes. Towards evening I made arrangements with Suleiman for sitting 
 up all night. Our little furnace was lighted, and our largest coflfee-pot, 
 in order to supply both master and crew, set to simmer upon the fire. I 
 then drew out a box to the cabin door, where, under a mat awning, with 
 a long jasmine pipe in my mouth, I sat down, puffing clouds of fragrant 
 smoke towards my Arabs, squatted in indolent groups upon the deck, 
 smoking like myself, or listening to some delightful story out of the 
 " Thousand-and-One Nights." The moon, almost in its plenitude of 
 power, gave us a paler day in lieu of that which had just died away in the 
 west. Every object in the landscape was invested with indescribable 
 beauty. We sailed, as it were, between two firmaments ; for the Nile 
 mimicked heaven so gloriously, that it was difficult to say whether the stars 
 below or the stars above were the brighter. I got up in a sort of rapture 
 of delight and looked down upon the constellations that, deep set in the 
 liquid element, seemed to float away through the abysses of space at an 
 infinite distance beneath. The river passed down with a calm flow like 
 the blood of a healthy man in his sleep. The very ripple caused by the 
 boat'*s bows, as the imperceptible upper current of the air urged us along, 
 broke with a drowsy sound. As we moved right before the breeze, the 
 huge distended sail, swelling gently under the impulse of the wind, if wind 
 it could be called that filled it, looked like the mere phantasm of a sail 
 flitting athwart the waters of a dream. The whole scene brought to my 
 
 H n 2
 
 354 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 mind Leigh Hunt's noble sonnet on the Nile, in which, with wonderful 
 felicity, he says — 
 
 " It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands, 
 Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream." 
 
 Hushed indeed ! and never more hushed than on that prethehan night. 
 Yet our little boat was full of life, so full that we seemed like the crew of 
 some merry ark floating bodily through the regions of the dead. Ahmed, 
 perched aloft upon the cabin, at the helm, beyond earshot of the story- 
 tellers, hummed a boat-song for his own especial entertainment. The 
 Arabs on the deck roared with laughter at the exploits of Shater Mansour,* 
 or the Sleeper Awakened ; while, half unconscious of their merriment, I 
 sufi^ered my thoughts to busy themselves with those long past days in 
 which the mighty ruins we were approaching overflowed with a noisy 
 multitude now converted into mummies, and exported, like merchandise, 
 to all parts of the civilised world. 
 
 By degrees the chill of the night drove me into the cabin, where, with a 
 finjan of delicious Mokha, emitting its perfume beside me, and an amber- 
 headed pipe in my mouth, I gravely Hstened to Suleiman's relation of 
 King Bibars' Dream. No story in the " Thousandand-One Nights" is 
 wilder. Magicians, jinns, efreets, enchantments, beautiful female slaves, 
 marvellous turns of fortune, rapidly and confusedly succeed each other, 
 and absorb the fancy. I should now strive in vain to describe the sequence 
 of events, which flash upon my memory like the colours of a kaleidoscope 
 — brilliant, dazzling, indistinct. I remember, however, one adventure in 
 a garden — such a garden as the wealth of kingdoms only can create even 
 on the borders of the tropics. Sultan Bibars, or Berber, as the story calls 
 him, has dreamed a dream, of which, by the most bloody means, he seeks 
 the interpretation, putting all those to death whom he supposes to fail. 
 While things are in this posture, the youthful gardener of the palace, walk- 
 ing at daybreak among the plants and flowers which it is his duty to lend, 
 is accosted by a lady of wonderful beauty, who invites him to clear up to 
 Bibars the dream that troubles him. It would severely tax the most fertile 
 imagination in Europe to call up before the mind anything so enchanting 
 as the garden, minutely depicted to me by Suleiman, who excelled also in the 
 delineation of female loveliness ; the reader must f^cy whatever is most 
 charming in Oriental vegetation, arranged with unrivalled skill, mingled with 
 artificial rills and fountains, and kiosks and aviaries, and bees in golden 
 hives, and seats of jasper and chalcedony, piled with cushions of pink satin, 
 and protected from the dew by fanciful roofs of embossed silver. But the 
 lady whose marvellous beauty entranced the senses of the gardener, caused 
 all the other works of nature to be forgotten. Her countenance, like that 
 of Una, made a sunshine in the shady place j her voice too, sweeter than 
 the niglitingale's, rendered the hearer deaf to all other music. By this syren 
 the gardener is tempted to undertake the interpretation of the sultan's 
 dream, in which, through her aid, he succeeds, and rises to the rank 
 
 * This story, heard upon the Nile, I have related in the " Tales of the Ramad'han."
 
 FIRST VIEW OF THEBES. 355 
 
 of wezeer, and marries the lady, with whom he lives happily, till 
 they are disturbed by the " Terminator of delights and the Separator of 
 companions." 
 
 Story succeeding story, with a few nods between, consumed the whole 
 night. Just as the dawn was about to break, the captain came aft, and 
 told me that the ruins of Thebes would be in sight presently. Upon this 
 I desired him to put me on shore. It was a moment of indescribable 
 interest. Up the eastern sky, slightly flushed with pink, the golden 
 beams of the sun ascended with rapidly augmenting splendour towards 
 the zenith, where the eye could observe them in the act of extinguishing the 
 constellations. The summits of the Arabian chain, running high along the 
 horizon in an undulating line, seemed to be bordered with an intense glory, 
 as though they were kindling in the light of the morning. Lowering my 
 gaze to the plain, I could perceive dimly, over the palm-woods, by the 
 imperfect day now dawning upon them, the majestic masses of Karnak, 
 sanctified by the mysterious influence of four thousand years, and rendered 
 familiar to the whole human race by the glowing iterations of genius. I 
 could not walk slowly along. I ran close beside the Nile, wholly absorbed 
 by the mingled feelings of admiration and supreme content. I had attained 
 the principal object of my journey : I was in Thebes. Its stupendous 
 
 ruins were looming around me on all sides in the morning twilight. 
 Memnon had not yet uttered his plaintive cry ; but the twittering of 
 sparrows, and the cooing of turtle-doves, and the shrill scream of hawks 
 as they soared into the sky, expressed the joy of Nature at the approach of 
 the sun. I, too, was joyous, and — shall I confess it — my pleasure was 
 greatly enhanced by beholding, beneath the temple of Luxor, a very dimi- 
 nutive object upon the river, the boat of my companion, who had preceded 
 me up the stream. 
 
 The ruins of this great capital, the earliest seat of the Egyptian monarchy, 
 have in all ages deservedly excited the aihniration of travellers. Except- 
 ing the Labyrinth and the Pyramids, the greatest works of its greatest 
 princes were erected here ; where the architecture, invariably aiming at
 
 356 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 sublimity, has an air of vastness, of simplicity, of ponderous massiveness, 
 •which irresistibly strikes and elevates the imagination. This must be 
 allowed. It may moreover be added, as a strong presumption in favour 
 of its originality, that the impression left upon the mind by these monu- 
 ments, is not transient, like the eflFect of mere singularity, but is recurred 
 to, again and again, in after time, as a source of permanent satisfaction ; a 
 test which nothing but the creations of genius will bear. Inferior pro- 
 ductions, to whatever department of the mimetic arts they may belong, 
 always fail in this one essential requisite. Deluded perhaps, at first, by 
 meretricious ornaments and a spurious manifestation of power, we admire 
 and praise; but afterwards, when our cooler judgment has been consulted, 
 the warmth we experienced, and perhaps exhibited, causes us shame ; and 
 the snare in which we were entangled, being regarded with contempt, we 
 pass hastily to the antipodes of our first decisions. 
 
 When others, whose judgments we have esteemed and adopted, are found 
 to stand in the above predicament, the conduct of the mind is not greatly 
 dissimilar. Like most travellers who visit Egypt, I had read and admired 
 the relations of the magnificence of Thebes, which enthusiastic persons had 
 compiled, some in their closets, others on the spot. Above all things, the 
 brief but nervous sketch of Tacitus, in his account of the voyage of Ger- 
 manicus, dwelt upon my memory, tending to cast over those vast fragments 
 of an antique age a solemn air of grandeur and perfection greatly beyond 
 what, if viewed without pre-occupation, might perhaps belong to them. I 
 will not deny that I arrived at Thebes with a mind under such influence ; 
 and my first impressions, as generally happens, were not unfavourable to the 
 continuance of this feeling. Columns, obelisks, sphinxes, propylaea of 
 gigantic proportions, colossal statues, mysterious sculpture, subterranean 
 palaces, or halls of death, rendered doubly venerable by the marks every- 
 where left by the hoary hand of Time, and war, and barbarism, — all these 
 picturesquely grouped, and viewed by an eye not unwilling to admire, — 
 failed not to move powerfully, and fill the mind with images of gorgeous 
 magnificence and costly labour. 
 
 But these hurried emotions subsiding, the love of Truth, whose naked 
 majesty, more sublime than the creations of the architect, possesses, when 
 we follow the real bias of our nature, charms so irresistibly pleasing, soon 
 discovered its ascendancy, and left me free to exercise my judgment con- 
 scientiously. As my iiltimate opinions differed materially from those of 
 many other travellers, I considered it my duty to investigate the probable 
 causes of this dissimilitude ; and shall here venture to state the results of 
 my inquiry. In every pursuit which men follow continuously and with 
 eagerness, it usually happens that they ultimately invest it with an undue 
 importance, discovering beauties and excellences which others, absorbed 
 by different studies, perceive not at all, or in a very inferior degree. Such 
 persons, devoted exclusively to their favourite subject, omit to make those 
 discursive flights, those healthful pauses and diversions, those numerous 
 approximations and comparisons, without which it is impossible even for 
 the acutest minds to judge sanely. The greater number of Egyptian 
 antiquaries stand in this predicament ; and many, unbiassed by peculiar
 
 EGYPTIAN THEORY OF ART. 
 
 357 
 
 studies, appear to surrender their judgments to the direction of others, by 
 whose eloquence or assumption tliey are bound in fetters. Others, again, 
 whose sole pretensions are based on their acquaintance with the practice and 
 ordinary routine of the arts, presume, without any other qualification, to 
 decide magisterially in a question more connected with the abstract prin- 
 ciples of art, than with the traditional and manual ])iocesses in which the 
 lives of such persons are consumed. Besides, the peculiar intellectual cha- 
 racter possessed by different men must necessarily introduce much variety 
 into their decisions. And thus, ruined structures, the sight of which has 
 caused in some travellers extraordinary raptures and ecstacies, from whose 
 influence they seem never to have escaped, may produce on others efiects 
 far less marvellous. 
 
 The merit of a work of art consists in fulfilling tlie design with which it 
 
 View of Kamac. 
 
 was undertaken. In buildings set apart for the worship of God, or — where 
 God is unknown — for the worship of those elements, stars, or other 
 created beings which have usurped His place, the object must evidently be 
 to awaken in the mind ideas analogous to those which we may suppose the 
 visible presence of the Deity would occasion. The ancient Persians are said 
 to have thought no temple is worthy of God, but that in which he has 
 graciously placed us, adorned with all the magnificence of nature, and 
 lighted up in eternal succession by the sun, and moon, and stars. Philoso- 
 phically speaking, their opinion cannot be gainsaid. ^"'" """" " 
 
 But man is an imita-
 
 358 EGYPT AND NLBIA. 
 
 tive animal, and loves to taste, in a certain degree, the pleasures of creating ; 
 and tliis he seems to do when, embodying the original archetype in his mind, 
 he gives birth to forms which previously had no existence. If his conceptions 
 have been purified by religion or philosophy from the dross of superstition, 
 he will seek, in raising a temple, to copy, to the utmost of his power, the 
 harmony, beauty, and majesty, so resplendently visible in the great temple 
 of the universe. This endeavour is strikingly observable in the gothic 
 cathedrals of our ancestors, where the slender aspiring columns, " the 
 embowed roof," stretching over us like the vault of the sky, the vast 
 painted windows, the lofty cloisters, the fret-work, the tracery of stone, 
 the endless variety of chapels, recesses, niches, balconies, galleries, and 
 arcades, beheld in the " dim religious light " which pervades those sacred 
 edifices, and filled, peradventure, with the sounds of anthems^ or the 
 pealing notes of the organ, seem naturally to impel our thoughts heaven- 
 ward, purifying them as they rise. By the religious edifices of Greece a 
 train of impressions, in many respects different, was produced ; for in those 
 the object which architecture proposed to itself appears to have been the 
 present enjoyment arising from the contemplation of beauty, severe gran- 
 deur, majestic proportions, and the most exquisite harmony of design and 
 execution. The feeling of religion, therefore, though not wholly absent, 
 too closely resembling the intellectual delight which the mimetic arts, 
 under the direction of genius, diffuse over the soul, the divine breath that 
 swept over the minds of the worshippers partook less of piety than of 
 poetry. It moved, it enlivened, it vivified, but it did not elevate. 
 
 Egypt possessed a religion peculiar to itself, which, if it afibrded glimpses 
 of the soul's immortality and of a world beyond the grave, likewise con- 
 tained dogmas, material, degrading, absurd, and pre-eminently gloomy ; 
 and the character of its belief is indelibly impressed on its temples. Many 
 of their structui'es, when approached between rows of sphinxes or colossal 
 statues and obelisks, or through the lofty gateways of enormous propylsea, 
 have, no doubt, an air of extraordinary grandeur ; but it is the grandeur 
 of a fortress, or of the palace of some mighty barbaric king, not of the 
 house of God. The character of everything around concentrates and fixes 
 our ideas upon earth, or conducts them by a rapid transition to Hades. If 
 the Divs and Efreets had reared temples to Ahriman, the Evil Principle, 
 they would doubtless have selected for their model those of Egypt, in which 
 vast proportions and gorgeous magnificence are combined, with every image 
 and every contrivance calculated to quench in man the wish to be great 
 and good, and destroy all modesty and purity in women. But there is 
 deformity in the mere architectural proportions. If we imagine a humau 
 being who, from the huge dimensions of his limbs, must have been 
 designed to reach the height of a hundred feet, but, from some constitu- 
 tional defect, does not exceed sixty, we shall form a just idea of an 
 Egyptian temple, whose elevation seldom or never corresponds with the 
 length and breadth. An example will render this more palpable. The 
 great temple of Karnak measured, we are told, 1200 feet in length. But 
 what was its height ? Exclusive of the propylon, — less lofty, perhaps,
 
 VISIT TO THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS. 
 
 359 
 
 tlian that of Edfoo, — it did not exceed seventy feet, or one-seventeenth of 
 the length. Nearly the same imperfection is observable in that of Luxor, 
 and every other large structure in Egypt ; whicli gives them all the 
 appearance of buildings sunk half way into the earth by their enormous 
 weight. The accumulation of sand and rubbish, and the constant rising of 
 the soil, have, moreover, contributed to enhance this original defect ; an 
 unfortunate circumstance, for which, of course, the architects are not 
 answerable. 
 
 On the question respecting the antiquity of these edifices, I make no 
 pretensions whatever to decide. Those who profess to have discovered the 
 key to the ancient sacred language, attribute to them a prodigious dura- 
 tion ; but if any real progress has been made in the science of hieroglyphic^, 
 it would yet seem far too limited to enable its possessors to speak positively 
 in a matter of this kind. Judging from the style of architecture and 
 sculpture observable in all the Egyptian temples, it is my opinion that the 
 
 ^cc^ol)olis of Tlicbos. 
 
 most ancient and the most modern were erected within the compass of a 
 few hundred years of each other. 
 
 The first thing we visited was the Tombs of the Kings. Setting out at 
 an early hour, we proceeded across the plain towards the Libyan moun- 
 tains ; where the sun's heat, already very powerful, was felt to be oppres- 
 sive, more particularly when, having crossed tlic cultivated plain, we 
 touched upon the Desert, and entered those winding rocky defiles leading 
 to the Biban el Melook. The transition was most striking. The eye, 
 wiiich but a few minutes before had reposed upon verdant plains, palnj- 
 woods, and the cool blue waters of the Nile, now encountered the mo.st 
 desolate scenery — blasted rocks, huge perpendicular cliffs, deep and dismal 
 ravines, the seat of eternal silence and barrenness, the very " Valley of the
 
 360 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 One of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebea. 
 
 Shadow of Death." In certain conditions of mind, however, such places 
 
 are not unproductive 
 of delight. Nature, 
 elsewhere robed and 
 concealed from sight 
 by a thousand magi- 
 cal appearances, seems 
 here to stand before 
 us, naked in all her 
 majesty. Our ideas 
 wander beyond their 
 usual sphere ; for the 
 mind, seeming to have 
 pushed its researches 
 into forbidden regions 
 up to tlie very thresh- 
 old of eternity, feels 
 as if about to solve the mystery of life and death. Conscious of a firm 
 hold upon existence, our spirits buoyant with robust health, we enter, as 
 if assured of immortality, the portals of the grave, saying secretly to 
 ourselves, " Death has, indeed, been at work here ; but over us he has 
 no power!" Everything around is calm and motionless. No animals 
 bound along the earth, no trees wave in the wind, no streams, no rivulets 
 flow, reminding us, by their progression, of the flux of time. The 
 stainless purity of the atmospliere defends us even from the passing 
 shadow of a cloud. All is stationary, fixed, immutable, as if prepared 
 for eternal duration ; sunshine and tranquillity brood over the landscape, 
 and we participate in the calm of nature. 
 
 The Theban kings, in selecting wild solitary places wherein to build 
 their tombs, acted conformably to the general practice of the East alluded 
 to by Job : " Why," he exclaims, " died I not from the womb? For 
 now should I have lain still and been quiet ; I should have slept : then had 
 I been at rest, with kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate 
 places for themselves." Following the numerous windings of the valley, 
 we arrived at the point where it divides itself into several narrow ravines, 
 which, on the right, terminate abruptly in a rocky wall of vast height, 
 forming the base of a stupendous mountain ; and on the left, in a series 
 of inconsiderable gullies ; and this, we were told, was the spot chosen by 
 the Egyptian monarchs for their eternal abode. Proceeding a few steps 
 farther, the entrances to the tombs appeared, resembling at a distance the 
 shafts of so many mines. 
 
 '' Di, quibus iraperium est animarum, umbrteqiie sileiites : 
 Et Chaos, et Plilcgellion, loca nocte silentia late 
 Sit milii fcis audita loqui ; sit miniine vestro 
 Pandeie res alta. teriA. et caligine mersas." 
 
 " Ye realms, yet unrevealed to human sighf, 
 Ye gods, who rule the regions of the niglit 1 
 Ye gliding ghosts ! permit me to relate 
 The mystic wonders of } our silent slate." —Dryden.
 
 TOMBS OF THE KINGS. 361 
 
 The first tomb we entered was that opened by Bolzoni, which is the 
 most remarkable of the wliole. To the description of this, therefore, I 
 shall chiefly cc^nfine myself; as in the distribution of the apartments, as 
 well as in the columns, paintings, and hieroglyphics, they all, in a great 
 measure, resemble each other. Several untoward circumstances combine, 
 however, to render imperfect our ])ictures of these extraordinary hypogsea. 
 The mythology of Egypt, whose most secret mysteries — those relating to 
 the fate of the soul after its separation from the body — are supposed to be 
 here delineated, is hitherto scarcely at all understood ; and, on this account, 
 it is very difficult, in a series of complicated scenes, to pursue the thread 
 of events, and observe by wiiat nice transitions the sculptor passed from 
 one part of his narration to another. Perhaps, also, where the graver 
 failed, the aid of hieroglyphics was called in, to express the less palpable 
 and obvious ideas ; for we see them in long perpendicular bands upon the 
 walls, separating the various divisions of the sculptured tale into books or 
 chapters as it were ; but all these characters, which once spoke to the eye, 
 are now dumb. Even were our knowledge competent, however — which 
 it is not — to follow the sculptor and the scribe through the mazes of this 
 vast mythological labyrinth, the destructive ravages of M. ChampoUion, 
 and other antiquaries — who, by breaking down doorways, and sawing 
 off the faces of pillars covered with bas-reliefs and hieroglyphics, have 
 removed the connecting link of events, and rendered them, to a certain 
 extent, unintelligible for ever — would effectually arrest our progress. 
 
 But to proceed with what remains. When we entered, from the burning 
 leafless desert, into these gorgeous subterranean palaces, the effect was 
 indescribably grand. Without, the bare inhospitable waste, scorched by 
 an almost vertical sun, seemed scarcely to afford a shelter or a hiding-place 
 to the fox and the jackal ; within we found ourselves descending magnifi- 
 cent flights of steps, or wandering through long corridors, vast g;illeries, 
 lofty halls, and spacious banqueting-rooms, hewn in the solid rojk, and 
 extending five or six hundred feet into the bowels of the mountain ; the 
 walls, ceilings, and pillars, covered with symbolical representations, resem- 
 bling an endless picture-gallery. No idea, formed from reading, of the 
 character and manners of the ancient Egyjjtians, can possibly prepare the 
 traveller for what he finds here. With what object were these gay and 
 costly palaces constructed ? For the reception of a corpse : to be closed, 
 like other receptacles of the dead, until docmisday ; when their royal 
 inmates, roused by the last trump, should come shivering forth from their 
 stately halls, to stand before a far more terrible tribunal than that which 
 preceded their burial ? This seems wholly improbable. In my opinion 
 they were made for the use of the living, not of the dead. From the 
 ancients we learn that the Egyptians, resembling the Ghouls in taste, 
 wei'e enlivened and excited to enjoyment by the sight of a mock-corpse, 
 which, at grand banquets, was brought round and shown to every guest. 
 Many ancient nations reckoned the manes of their ancestors among the 
 Dii mlnoriwi gentium ; and at stated seasons, probabl)' on the anniver- 
 saries of their death, assembled together, and invoked them with feasts 
 and sacrifices. This practice is alluded to in the Book of Psalms : " They 
 joined themselves also unto Bael-peor," says the Prophet, " and ate the
 
 362 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 sacrifices of the dead." And the Hindus, among whom a religion similar 
 to that of Egypt still flourishes, annually devote fifteen days to the worship 
 of the manes of their ancestors ; during which period the princes of Mewar, 
 proceeding to the royal cemetery, perform at the tombs of their forefathers 
 the rites enjoined ; consisting of ablutions, prayers, and the hanging of 
 garlands of flowers and funereal leaves on their monuments. 
 
 But whether dedicated to mourning, or to pleasure and festivity, few, I 
 believe, ever paced these silent halls without experiencing some degree of 
 melancholy. Who and what were they that covered these chambers with 
 figures of the strange things they worshipped ? For whose instruction 
 were these mysterious symbols traced ? What persons were permitted to 
 enter there, to learn the secrets of life and death ? What kings and 
 counsellors were they, who built these desolate places for themselves? 
 All these questions might, perhaps, be answered, could we interpret the 
 characters which now mock us on the walls. And in this case should 
 we despise or admire ? As it is, the mind is profoundly irritated by 
 uncertainty. Naturally leaning to the more favourable interpretation, we 
 persuade ourselves that the monstrous combinations before us were not the 
 creations of a crazed brain, but symbols possessing a dignified recondite 
 meaning, to which the old colleges of priests could once have furnished a 
 key. And we contemplate them with an earnest curiosity, arising proba- 
 bly from the persuasion that, by a careful scrutiny, we might yet lift the 
 veil which, for many thousand years, has concealed their signification 
 from the world. To this Shelley alludes, where he speaks of 
 
 " The eternal pyramids, 
 Memphis and TLebes, and whatsoe'er of strange, 
 Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, 
 Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx, 
 Dark Ethiopia on her desert hills 
 Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, 
 Stupendous columns and wild images 
 Of more than man, where marble demons watch 
 The zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men 
 Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around. 
 He lingered, poring on memorials 
 Of the world's youth through the long burning day, 
 Gazed on those speechless shapes ; nor when the moon 
 Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades, 
 Suspended he that task, but ever gazed 
 And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind 
 Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw 
 The thrilling secrets of the birth of time." 
 
 We returned from our excursion to the tombs by a road different 
 from that by which we had reached them, climbing the mountain-side, 
 here rising like a wall. A narrow path, not more than a foot in width, 
 and steeps difficult to be climbed, lead up to the summit, whence the 
 completest view of the monuments of Thebes is to be obtained.* On the 
 Libyan side, at our feet, is El-Assassif, with its sacred inclosure ; a little 
 further off lies Gournou, with its innumerable hypogsea, the fragments of 
 its palace, and the chaotic surface of its soil ; then comes the Rameseion, 
 
 * Due de Raguse.
 
 VIEW OF THE PLAIN OF THEBES. 
 
 363 
 
 with the wonders of its architecture and the ruins of its gigantic colossus. 
 At the foot of the mountain, the little temple of the goddess Atlior barely 
 appears amidst the rubbish that surrounds it. At a greater distance, and soli- 
 tary in the midst of the plain, rise like towers the statues of Memnon; behind 
 which, relieved against a background of rugged rocks, appear the pi-opyltea, 
 tlie temples, and the palaces of Medinet-Abou ; and lastly, towards the 
 horizon, stretches out that vast hippodrome, formerly surrounded by 
 triumphal buihlings, where the ancient Egyptians applied themselves to 
 gymnastic exercises, and to horse and chariot racing. This immense 
 ruined circus has now the aspect of a chain of hills submitted to the pro- 
 cesses of agriculture. 
 
 Temple of Luxor. 
 
 Towards the south, on the Arabian side, Luxor exhibits its vast propy- 
 laea, its elegant obelisk, and its graceful colonnades, proudly rising above 
 the wretched mud-huts of the Fellahs. To the east, directly in front of 
 you, Karnak appears, with its immense avenues of sphinxes, its forest of 
 columns, and mountains of ruins ; beyond which may be perceived, towards 
 the horizon, the remains of Med-Amoud, whose houses of earth are in part
 
 364 EGYPT AND NUBfA. 
 
 hidden by a forest of palm-trees. Add to all this the distant mountains 
 of tlie Thebaid, and the desert hemming in on every side this wonderful 
 scene, in the midst of which the majestic Nile rolls along, and you will 
 have an idea of tlie aspect of Thebes, of a scene without a parallel in the 
 world, and which exerts upon the imagination an inexplicable and magical 
 influence.* 
 
 " How tranquilly the gorgeous city lies 
 
 Robed in the rich gleams of the setting sun. 
 Reflecting back its glories! her high domes, 
 And towers, and groves, all softened in the distance, 
 AVhile Nilus threads its pure streams through her gates 
 Like a bright glistening snake with mazy folds." 
 
 Reade's Record of the Pyramids. 
 
 It is impossible to enter here into a detailed description of the ruins 
 still foimd at Thebes. Innumerable travellers have attempted to convey 
 by language some idea of them, with more or less success ; but their 
 delineations are voluminous, and filled with so many elaborate details, that 
 to abridge would be to deprive them of all their merit. Most of the 
 structures on both sides of the river are of a sacred character, and built in 
 obedience to the same principles of taste. A brief sketch of the more 
 remarkable I shall bore introduce: — 
 
 The hewn temple of the Assassif, otherwise called Dayr-el-Bahree, is 
 excavated under tlie w^estern hills, and is more remarkable from circum- 
 stances connected witli its origin and construction, than for grandeur and 
 beauty. It is one of the oldest monuments of Thebes. Its chambers, 
 excavated in the friable rock, are roofed with corbelled vaults, formed of 
 horizontal courses; the chief apartment was entered through a granite pro- 
 ])ylon, and the whole was connected with the plain by an inclined ascent, 
 approached by a long avenue of sphinxes, now destroyed. Neither the 
 name nor sex of the founder has hitherto been satisfactorily determined. 
 Regarded as the work of an Ethiopian, Dayr-el-Bahree assumes a new 
 interest ; for as this is the only excavated monument in Egypt not 
 sepulchral, it is very probable that the idea was borrowed from Ethiopia; 
 that cavern-temples were then, as well as subsequently, common there ; 
 and that many of the characteristics of Egyptian architecture were derived 
 from such works. t 
 
 The village of Gournou, not far distant, towards the Nile, stands in a 
 grove of palm-trees, where the cultivated soil joins the rocky flat, exactly 
 at the spot where the road turns off to the right to go to the tombs of the 
 kings. It consists of a number of houses of unburned brick, generally 
 small, but some of them, much larger, are of superior workmanship to the 
 average of ruined houses in this country. At the time of our visit, 
 it was quite uninhabited. The natives had abandoned it, and retired to 
 the caves in the adjoining rocky flat ; because, from the low situation, 
 and the filling up of the canals, the village is liable to be overflowed during 
 the time of the inundation. However, when the river subsides, and the 
 ground becomes dry, they quit their rocky tenements and return to their 
 
 * Cidalvene et Brcuverv. t Wathen.
 
 DESCRIPTION OP THE MEMNONIUM. 365 
 
 mansions of clay, which are more conveniently situated for water, grazing, 
 and agriculture.* The ruin at Gournou is unlike any other monument in 
 Thebes. Instead of the ordinary lofty propylon, its front presents a long 
 shallow portico, or colonnade giving access through three entrances to as 
 many halls or vestibules with columns, conducting to various apartments 
 beyond. These are well lighted, open, and airy, with nothing of the 
 secrecy of the Egyptian adytum. The whole building indeed has a more 
 habitable air than any other at Thebes, except that before the palace of 
 Medinet Habou.f 
 
 The Rameseion, or Palace of Rameses, otherwise called the Memnonium, 
 and sometimes the Tomb of Osymandyas, deserves perhaps, from the purity 
 of its style, the first rank among the monuments of Thebes. Tlie propylaea, 
 with which it was furnished, and on which may still be made out many 
 military representations, having reference to the conquests of Rameses the 
 Great, or Sesostris of the Greeks, are nearly destroyed, and the waters of the 
 river, which year by year undermine their bases at the time of the inundation, 
 must succeed at length in utterly destroying them. The front part of the 
 edifice is in the worst preservation. Among its ruins are to be seen the 
 fragments of the colossal statue of Rameses, the most prodigious production 
 of the statuary's art. The royal legend graven on the upper part of the 
 arm of this enormous monolith, leaves no doubt as to the real name of the 
 prince whom it was intended to represent. The monarch, in a sitting 
 posture, was chiselled, as well as his seat, out of a single block of rose 
 granite of extraordinary beauty, and we heard that at this day the Arabs 
 take fragments of it to Cairo, where they are used to supply the place of 
 diamonds in glass-cutting. The proportions of the statue are so gigantic, 
 that one must stand at some considerable distance in order to take them in 
 at one glance ; it is now broken into several pieces, upon which may be 
 still distiuguished the marks of the wedges employed to mutilate it, and 
 
 whose slow and laborious action attested the extreme perseverance 
 exhibited in the work of destruction. 
 
 A vast hall, adorned with columns, the least preserved among those 
 
 * Dr. Richardson. t Wathen.
 
 366 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 of the Memnonium, affords one of the most perfect models remaining of 
 Egyptian architecture. Tlie roof is supported by two rows of pillars, 
 whose capitals, fashioned to represent the lotus flower, and still intact, are 
 executed in a style of great purity. A doorway, once gilded, leads from 
 this to another chamber now completely ruined. In this were formerly 
 treasured up the famous astronomical circle of gold, and that library 
 over which was written the significant inscription, " Medicine for the 
 Mind*." 
 
 Our next visit was to the colossal statues on the plain, one of which, 
 supposed to be that of Memnon, emitted vocal sounds when touched by the 
 first rays of the sun. On arriving, we found a troop of Arabs assembled, 
 provided with mummies, images, beads and sandals, scarabcei, pieces of 
 papyri, broken pottery, cracked ibis jars, and numerous other antiques, 
 which they insisted on our purchasing immediately. They were very 
 exorbitant in their prices ; but we brought them to terms by refusing to deal 
 with them ; they then lowered their demands, and we made a selection of 
 the most curious. These fellows were nearly naked, having only a ragged 
 gown thrown over their shoulders, and falling to the knees. Their heads, 
 which were shaven almost to the skull, were protected against the fierce heat 
 of the sun only by a thin cap which covered the crown. A wilder-looking 
 set of savages I have never seen even in the forests of North America. The 
 favoured few of whom we had made purchases, found themselves an object 
 of enmity with their companions, who declared that the articles sold were 
 common property. They insisted upon a distribution of the " spoils," 
 which, being refused, led to a battle-royal, upon which the skulls and 
 bones of the ancient Egyptians were pretty severely tested upon the bodies 
 of their descendants. Our horses, frightened by the clamour and tumult, 
 started off as if a pack of devils were at their heels ; whereupon, with our 
 Arab attendants, we fell upon the whole party, and with a vigorous 
 application of our sticks, soon put them to rout. They returned one by 
 one, not long after, and continued during the rest of the day dogging at our 
 heels, and pestering us with cries of " backshish f.^' 
 
 Relieved by the flight of these indefatigable virtuosi^ we sat down to 
 contemplate the statues. Elevated on bases or low pedestals, they rise 
 about fifty-two feet above the surface of the ground, which, having been 
 gradually elevated by the annual deposit from the Nile, is now several feet 
 above its ancient level. Seen from the western or Necropolis hills at 
 sunset, their effect is very remarkable. The eye can scarcely define their 
 forms as sitting figures, and they rise isolate in the midst of the plain like 
 rocks in the expanse of ocean. Companions for thirty-three centuries, 
 what revolutions of religion and empire have they witnessed ! The 
 " bleating gods " of Egypt sv/ept away before the conquering cross, — the 
 religion of Jesus, first obscured and adulterated, then almost extinguished 
 before the armies of Omar ; Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Turks, following 
 and expelling each other, — the natives the docile slaves to all ! Moses 
 may have belield these statues, and still they survive, — the lonely monarchs 
 of the ancient plain. 
 
 They bear the name of Amenof III., and stood on the line of approach 
 
 * Cadalvene et Breuverv. t J<'y Morris.
 
 THE VOCAL STATUE OF MEMNON. 
 
 367 
 
 to a temple of his foundation, the substructions of which alone remain. 
 Each was originally a single block of sandstone. The features are scarred 
 and half obliterated ; the massive head-dress descends over the breast ; the 
 hands lie stretched upon the thighs ; a line of hieroglyphics descends the 
 back. The sides of the throne are ornamented with an elegant device, 
 often met with in Egyptian sculpture, and supposed to be allusive to the 
 sovereign's dominion over Upper and Lower Egypt; the god Nilus bends 
 the long stalks of two different water-plants, indicative of the Upper and 
 the Lower country, round the support of a table or pedestal, over which 
 are the two royal ovals. Female figures are attached to the front of the 
 thrones : though reaching only to the knees of the great statues, these are 
 eighteen feet hieh ! 
 
 AVhen Strabo was at Thebes, the upper half of the musical statue was 
 wanting, having been broken off at the waist by an earthquake, as he was 
 told ; but an inscription with more probability says, by Cambyses. It was 
 subsequently completed with masonry, and thus remains. The legs are 
 
 covered with inscriptions in prose and verse, ancient and modern. j\Iany 
 visitoi's bare witness to the vocal powers of the statue. Some Roman 
 ladies, who accompanied Adrian and his consort in their progress, assure 
 us they heard the morning salutation in company with the emperor. 
 Seventeen centuries pass away, and our own countrywomen add their 
 names to those of Julia Romilla and Cecilia TrebouUa. 
 
 The tradition of the morning sound is still retained among the peasantry 
 in the vulgar name of the statue, Salamat, the common Arabic salutation.* 
 Numerous theories have been started to explain the miraculous sounds 
 uttered by this statue of Memnon. One writer supposes a man to have 
 been concealed high up in the interior, but without evidence or probability. 
 Sir Frederick Ilenniker appears to suggest that some kind of pipe may have 
 been employed ; while other writers have imagined various other means of 
 
 * Watlieu.
 
 368 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 accounting for the phenomenon. Monsieur Letronne has had recourse to a 
 physical theory, which, though accompanied hy several difficulties, is that 
 which I should feel most disposed to adopt. In the court of the great 
 temple of Kalabshe lies an enormous block of stone, which, on being struck, 
 even by the heel in passing, emits a loud sound, closely resembling that 
 supposed to have been uttered by the statue of Memnon. In this case, 
 however, no mention is made of any stroke, save that of the earliest rays 
 of the sun. Travellers mention similar phenomena in other parts of the 
 world. Humboldt heard something like the pealing of an organ issuing 
 from the granite rocks on the banks of the Orinoco ; and M. de Roziere 
 speaks of certain quarries in the Pyrenees, which give forth in the morn- 
 ing a strange sound, upon which have been bestowed the name of the 
 Matins of Maledetta. Messrs. Cadalvene and Breuvery mention also 
 "several travellers,"* but without naming them, who report themselves to 
 have heard in the granite chapel in the neighbouring temple of Karnak a 
 music resembling that of the J^olian harp. But if, upon the faith of ancient 
 writers, we admit the fact at all, we must admit all the circumstances 
 which they give in connection with it ; for we have no right to accept just 
 so much of the story as we fancy ourselves able to understand, and reject 
 the remainder. Now tradition says, that as the first beams of the sun break- 
 ing over the Arabian mountains, and shooting athwart the plain of Thebes, 
 smote upon the swarthy countenance of Memnon, a noise issued from the 
 statue, which was interpreted into a salutation. Strabo, however, intro- 
 duces a variation into the account. He tells us, that visiting the Memnon 
 during the first hour of the day, in company with ^lius Gallus and a 
 number of his friends and soldiers, he himself heard the sound; but whether 
 it came from the pedestal, or the fragment of the torso, or some of the 
 bystanders, he could not determine. But his account completely disposes 
 of one of the above-mentioned theories, for the statue was then broken in 
 two, and the lower part of the body only remained standing ; so that had 
 there been an interior staircase, it would have been easy to discover the 
 juggle. Besides, he states distinctly that the sound was believed to proceed 
 from the fragment of the figure or the base. 
 
 Several modern travellers, putting no faith in the tradition, that Septi- 
 mus Severus, by building up the statue, had extinguished its voice, have 
 repeated the experiment of Strabo. " Resolved to try our fortune," says 
 Dr. Richardson, " and to give the Memnon an opportunity of being equally 
 vocal to us as he had been to other travellers. Lord Corry and myself set 
 out one morning at peep of dawn, and arrived at the spot about half an 
 hour before sunrise. We remained till he was an hour above the horizon, 
 and, though the god of day shone out as bright and cloudless as ever he 
 did on the son of Tithonus, no grateful salutation of welcome was echoed 
 in return — all was still and silent as the grave. The voice had departed 
 from Memnon, and the vivifying ray touched the mute and monumental 
 effigies in vain." 
 
 I next visited the ruins of Medinet Habou, which, with the exception 
 of some few unimportant additions, unworthy the slightest attention, 
 
 * These travellers were tbe artists employed in the French expedition. Description de 
 I'Egypte, t. i. p. 234.
 
 MEDINET ABOU— TOMBS OF THE QUEENS. 
 
 369 
 
 should, I think, be regarded as the most ancient arcliitectural remains in 
 Etrypt. They have all the rude grandeur of an edifice erected in barbarous 
 times. The style of ornament, the massive proportions of the columns, the 
 gigantic statues, and the intaglios, cut deep in the face of the wall, and 
 representing with awkward vigour the circumstances of savage warfare, all 
 combine in these antique ruins to awaken the idea of a rock-temple, rather 
 than of a pile of masonry. Had this building been suffered to retain its 
 original form, it might probably have exhibited something like symmetry; 
 but the ages succeeding its erection, preferring the piecing out of an ancient 
 
 Palace and Temple ot Medinet Abou at Tliebes. 
 
 structure to the raising of a new one, added in one part a propylon, in 
 another a suite of chambers, in a third a court, until, by their heterogeneous 
 increments, they had succeeded in utterly confounding the primitive design. 
 Nor is this all. For while spoiling some portions by tlieir improvements, 
 they appear, with characteristic inconsistency, to have ruined others ; as 
 we find in the more modern walls stones on which are the remains of 
 sculpture and hieroglyphics reversed. 
 
 In a rocky sequestered valley, among the mountains of Medinet Plabou, 
 are found what have been denominated, I know not wherefore, the "Tombs 
 of the Queens." For this appellation there seems to be no other founda- 
 tion than the idea, that as the Egyptian ladies enjoyed, during life, a kind 
 of lawful empire over their husbands, the latter may not have chosen to 
 subject themselves, after death, to their despotism, which might have 
 disturbed the tranquillity and embittered the enjoyments of Amenti. But 
 this is a lame reason for supposing that the Theban queens were thus 
 interred apart, in a sort of eternal exile. These tombs, in all probability, 
 were private, like those of Gournou, but belonging to some more opulent 
 families, whose means enabled them to imitate, in some measure, the 
 sepulchral extravagance of their kings. The apartments are fewer, smaller, 
 and far less sumptuously ornamented than those in the Beban-el-Melook. 
 Many of them contain deep mummy-pits, and a lower suite of chambers. 
 Some were filled, when we visited them, with a profusion of mummies, in
 
 370 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 every statue of decay, so that it was in some places impossible to advance a 
 step -without crusliing a skull, or treading on the breastbone of a queen. 
 It was not without considerable reluctance that I thus profaned the relics 
 of the dead ; but, once entered, it was necessary to make our way out, and 
 the bodies lay everywhere in our path. From among the heaps of mum- 
 mies we picked up a thigh-bone, about three feet in length ; but to what 
 animal it belonged my ignorance of anatomy disabled me from deciding. 
 
 Travellers usually complain of the number and fierceness of the dogs 
 which infest the cemeteries and uninhabited parts of Alexandria. But 
 they are tame and gentle compared with those of Gournou, where night 
 and day their bark is heard, following at your heels in troops when you 
 leave the village, and angrily assailing you, at every winding of the road, 
 and the entrance to every tomb, on your return. Were they contented 
 with barking, however, the nuisance would be less intolerable ; but, if not 
 kept off by sticks or stones, and those neither light nor small ones, they 
 would tear you like wild beasts. The whole face of the hills, from the 
 tombs to the cultivated land, having been broken up in search of mummies, 
 is full of deep and dangerous pitfalls. Here, where the majority of the 
 vulgar dead seem to have been buried, fragments of bodies, unbandaged, 
 and torn open in search of papyri, legs, arms, bones, skulls, chips of 
 coffins, painted linen, morsels of bitumen and resin, and other funereal 
 paraphernalia, strew the ground in all directions. It does not appear that 
 the Arabs, as some travellers have pretended, habitually make use of the 
 dead bodies for fuel, though they would, no doubt, burn well, on account 
 of their dryness, and the great quantity of combustible matter they con- 
 tain ; for, though wood and charcoal are extremely dear, and they have 
 no substitute but the dry dung of animals, heaps of mummies are left to 
 fall to dust upon the surface of the earth, in the neighbourhood of their 
 dwellino-s. Yet, were all these remains collected, and consumed on one 
 pile, or even burned piecemeal by the Arabs, it would be less offensive to 
 the feelings than to behold them thus wantonly trampled under foot. 
 
 Desirous of examining the monuments on the eastern bank, we now 
 crossed the Nile ; and, before beginning our examination, breakfasted 
 with a friend, who had for some weeks resided in a small house at Luxor, 
 overlooking the river, a magnificent view of whicli we commanded from 
 the open window. He was engaged, when we entered, in taking the 
 height of the conical peak of the Libyan range, which he foiind to be 
 nearly thirteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. The western plain 
 exhibited a rich and beautiful appearance, with its palm-groves and verdant 
 fields, and the vast piles of Egyptian ruins stretching in the background 
 along the foot of the rocks. After finishing our coffee, we applied ourselves to 
 the business of the day, — a survey of the palaces and temples and sphinxes 
 and propyla^a and obelisks which still mark the site of the great city of Jove. 
 
 I scarcely hope that I shall be able to convey, by description, any 
 adequate idea of these venerable and magnificent structures. They differ 
 so widely from the specimens of architecture which belong to other coun- 
 tries and to modern times, that words, however carefully selected, lose 
 their power of imparting clear and accurate ideas ; and it would be much 
 easier to incur the suspicion of exaggerating, or even of misrepresenting,
 
 TEMPLE OF LUXOR. 371 
 
 tlian to communicate to others, through this medium, the impression made 
 by a careful and repeated inspection of the temples of Luxor and Karnak. 
 The drawings of these objects which I have seen have not been much more 
 successful than verbal descriptions, owing, I presume, to the same inherent 
 difficulties in the subjects. The painter can exhibit only colours and 
 forms, as the describer is mostly limited to giving dimensions and details ; 
 but both must leave it for the imagination to fill up the immense outline of 
 grandeur with that affluence of beautiful parts, and proportions, and sump- 
 tuous ornainents, which possess a much higher claim upon our admiration. 
 At a few hundred yards from the river is the temple of Luxor, the first 
 object that strikes the eye on approaching Thebes. It stands on an arti- 
 ficial foundation, sufficiently elevated to place it above tlie inundation. 
 We turned into the Arab village immediately before it, and approached it 
 on the north side. A stupendous propylon, more than two hundred feet 
 broad, and eighty feet high, gives entrance to the temple. Two colossal 
 statues, half-buried in the sand, are placed against the propylon ; and 
 immediately in front of them were two beautiful obelisks, eighty feet in 
 height, and covered with hieroglyphics, cut in the granite, near two inches 
 deep, with a finish and niceness of touch that is as fresh now as when first 
 sculptured. One of these obelisks is now in the Place de la Concorde at 
 Paris : the other still maintains its original position. The whole surface of 
 the propylon is covered with representations of battle scenes, cut in intaglio 
 rilievalo. The prodigious number of human figures, horses, and chariots, 
 is no less astonishing than the spirit and animation which pervades the 
 whole. It is a speaking picture, and excites the most vivid emotions of 
 S3'-mpathy with the vanquished, and exultation with the proud victors, 
 that are seen riding in triumph over the battle-field. The flight of the 
 enemy, the rapid pursuit, the contending cohorts, the rise and fall of glit- 
 tering standards, denoting the alternations of success and repulse, the 
 invincible victor of the day, discharging clouds of javelins from his chariot, 
 the fiery steeds of which are urging their way over the bodies of the slain, 
 with all the tumult, shock, and confusion of a great battle, are depicted 
 upon the wall of the propylon with a spirit and truth that may rival the 
 happiest effiirts of the pencil. This is a most interesting historical picture 
 of ancient warfare. The hero, whose glories are here so vividly celebrated, 
 is most probably Sesostris, whose victorious car, if we believe the ancient 
 writers, rode in triumph over all the known regions of the world.* 
 
 Passing under the portal of the propylon, we entered into a court, two 
 hundred and thirty-four feet long by one hundred and seventy-four feet 
 wide, where the remains of a double range of pillars, with the bell-shaped 
 capital, are still to be seen. This court is much obstructed by an Arab 
 village built within it, the huts of which, erected against the walls and 
 columns, much impair the eff'ect of the whole. A portion also serves as a 
 magazine of grain. Beyond this court are other propyltea, behind which is 
 a double row of seven columns, with lotus capitals, each twenty-two feet 
 in circumference. This row of columns conducts into a court one hundred 
 and sixty feet long, and one hundred and forty wide, terminated at each 
 
 * Joy Morris.
 
 372 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 side by a row of ])illars. Beyond this is another portico, of thirty-two 
 columns, and then follows the sanctuary, or innermost part of the temple. 
 It is impossible, by description, to give an adequate idea of these extensive 
 ruins. The temple of Luxor is supposed to be of great antiquity. Vast 
 cost and labour were expended in its construction ; and though it does not 
 equal the grandeur of Karnak, it exhibits much of that gigantic architec- 
 ture which characterises all the works of the Egyptians, and displays a 
 finish and skill in its sculptures that denote a highly-advanced period of 
 art. The interior of the temple is, however, so much filled up with sand- 
 heaps and Arab huts, that it is impossible to get an idea of it in its original 
 state. The exterior colonnades remain in almost unbroken lines, while the 
 interior is completely unroofed and ruined. It is still the skeleton of a 
 magnificent temple. 
 
 Our appearance among the ruins attracted a troop of Ghawazee, who 
 followed us, dancing to the sound of cymbals and Arab tambourines. 
 They are as distinct in form and feature from other Arabs, as the gypsies 
 from the people among whom they dwell. They were attired in rich 
 costume, which set off their voluptuous figures with much effect. As we 
 reclined against the base of a column, costumed a la Turque^ smoking our 
 pipes, and surveying the ruins, with this band of artistes before us, per- 
 forming some of those wild Oriental dances, which have more of grace than 
 modesty in them, striking their cymbals, and throwing themselves into 
 every variety of attitude, with some half-naked Arabs from our boat, and 
 a cluster of Bedouins standing behind us, with their muskets slung across 
 their shoulders, we formed quite a picturesque group. In the abstraction 
 in which we had been thrown by the music, the dance, and the ruins, we 
 had forgot the thievish character of the Bedouins behind us. They much 
 increased the picturesqueness of the scene by decamping with our breakfast, 
 which abruptly put an end to the reveries in which we had been indulging. 
 We walked into the bazar of the village, and made a breakfast on raw 
 eggs and Arab cakes. 
 
 The imposing front of the temple of Luxor faces that of Karnak, which 
 is distant from it nearly two miles, in a direction a little east of north. 
 These sacred edifices were formerly connected by an avenue of sphinxes, 
 extending from one to the other, and fifty feet wide. For a quarter of a 
 mile or more, next to Karnak, they still remain, though in a very mutilated 
 condition, and they may be traced more than half way to Luxor by a 
 multitude of fragments which retain their original position. Some have 
 found traces of them still nearer to Luxor. I discovered none south of the 
 point above indicated ; tliough, as my search was prosecuted by twilight, 
 I cannot rely with confidence upon its results. 
 
 These sphinxes are formed of the same kind of sandstone as that 
 employed in building the temple. They are in a couchant posture, 
 seventeen feet long, and about ten feet high. The paw of one of them 
 which I measured was twenty inches wide. They face each other, looking 
 directly across the avenue, and each holds between his paws a small human 
 figure, the hands crossed over the breast, and grasping a sort of mace, in 
 form like a cross. This appears perpetually among the figures which 
 adorn the Egyptian temples, and seems to be a badge of dignity or a symbol
 
 TEMPLE OF KARXAK. S73 
 
 of divinity. The distance between the sphinxes of the same row is about 
 ten feet. The whole number upon this avenue when entire was about 
 1600. Another avenue of sphinxes, of which a large number are still to 
 be seen next the tcmi)le, extended from its eastern point to the river, 
 opposite to Goui'uou, about the same distance from Karnak as Luxor. A 
 third connected its north front with some unknown point in that direction. 
 Of these two, a considerable number of sphinxes still remain in their 
 original position. Not less than four thousand of these massive statues 
 adorned the different approaches to t'iis magnificent edifice. They formed 
 the avenues through v.hich individual worshippers and religious processions 
 arrived at the holy yu'ecincts. The sphinx, which was composed of the 
 body of a Hon joined with the head of a ram, was sacred in the eyes of 
 the Egyptians ; and I can conceive of nothing better calculated to inspire 
 the devotee with overwhelming sentiments than an approach to this 
 magnificent temple, under the mild, but awful and immovable gaze of this 
 double row of Gods, each a visible representation of strength, intelligence, 
 and divinity. 
 
 The avenue that led from Luxor terminates in front of a temple of Isis, 
 which is connected with the grand temple, and distant from it 150 or 200 
 yards, in a southern direction. There are ten or more smaller temples 
 embraced within a circumference of less than two miles, all of which were 
 united with the main structure by colonnades and other splendid architec- 
 ture, and formed with it a system of saci'ed edifices which might, without 
 exaggeration or impropriety, be regarded as one immense temple.* 
 
 In describing the arts by which tyranny aimed of old at keeping the 
 people in subjection, Aristotle enumerates, among the most efficacious, that 
 of utterly impoverishing them, by erecting prodigiou8ly expensive struc- 
 tures, such as the pyramids of Egypt, and the magnificent dedications of 
 Cypselus. The Theban kings appear to have been deeply versed in these 
 arts. To their slaves, the motive assigned, if they condescended to assign 
 any, was, of course, piety towards the Gods ; and with persons of a 
 character analogous to that of their slaves, they have obtained, in succeed- 
 ing ages, credit for so holy an intention. But with their political motives 
 a large proportion of mere vanity was probably mingled — advancino- reck- 
 lessly to its own gratification, through the sweat and toil and homely 
 privations of the poor ; and to these united incentives we owe the archi- 
 tectural grandeur of such edifices as the temple of Karnak. Considerations 
 of this kind are not the first, however, which present themselves to the 
 mind of the traveller in the midst of ruins so vast and magnificent. 
 Beholding before him the result of the continuous labour of myriads, once 
 arranged and distributed into something like a whole, designed to create 
 in the minds of the spectators a sentiment of superstitious awe, but now 
 shattered to fragments, and grouped in picturesque masses of ruin by the 
 giant hand of Time, tlie feelings which spontaneously arise are those of 
 satisfaction and pleasure. Art, he perceives, has been there. The 
 towering column, the aspiring obelisk, the frieze and architrave covered 
 
 * Olin. 
 
 K K
 
 374 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 with symbolical imagery, together with the vast portals, beneath wliich 
 Typhteus or Enceladus might have entered without bowing the head, and 
 the innumerable characters of unknown import which everywhere meet the 
 eye, combine to awaken in his breast the sentiment of enthusiasm. Under 
 the influence of this feeling we long wandered through the temple. Each 
 took a diflferent way. I remained alone in the grand hall, where one 
 hundred and sixty- two columns, covered with painted sculpture and hiero- 
 glyphics, support the roof, and, disposed in numerous ranges, produce a 
 series of long vistas, resembling the openings in a forest. Sitting down at 
 the foot of one of these pillars, between which the bright sunshine streamed 
 in ,broad masses through the breaks in the wall, I contemplated at 
 leisure the features of the scene around me. Many doves, and in- 
 numerable sparrows, were perched above upon the painted capitals, 
 cooing and twittering, or flitting to and fro between the columns. 
 Hawks, too, the sacred birds of Osiris, were wheeling about and 
 screaming overhead. These were the only sounds audible, and they were 
 not unpleasing. 
 
 Few persons, in such a situation, would be able to resist the temptation 
 to indulge in melancholy reflections ; and though it was equally foreign 
 to my object and character to seek, among the wrecks of antiquity, the 
 means of saddening my mind, I imperceptibly fell into the trite subject of 
 the political fate of man, and the debased and humiliating condition to 
 which the greater number have been doomed in almost all countries. The 
 very edifice in which I sat had been one of the instruments by which the 
 political degradation of the Egyptians had been effected. Priestly craft, 
 combined with the absolute power of kings, sunk them, in many respects, 
 below the level of the brute ; and legislation, if the regulations by which 
 despots hedge round their power deserve the name, divided them, if there 
 be any faith in history, into castes, by which the majority were condemned 
 to pursue, from father to son, without hope or chance of a favourable 
 change, the most sordid and servile drudgery. From the enjoyments and 
 pleasures of science, literature, and arts, they were necessarily excluded 
 for ever. For, since the members of one caste could not encroach on the 
 province of another, all persons, not of the sacerdotal order, who preserved 
 the monopoly of intellectual pursuits, must necessarily have been plunged 
 in the profoundest Ignorance, which will account for the prevalence of 
 buman sacrifices so late as the age of Amasis ; and of animal worship, 
 until their bestial gods were put to flight by Christianity. Ancient 
 Egypt, if we draw aside the veil cast over it by ignorant admiration, was 
 nothing but a nest of priests and slaves ; for despotism itself was here 
 subordinate to the sacerdotal tyrants, who either elevated a member of their 
 order to the throne, or, when the sceptre had passed by unavoidable acci- 
 dent into the hands of another, associated its possessor with themselves. 
 Thus it happened that Egypt produced neither poets, nor historians, nor 
 artists, properly so called. By all these forms of intellectual exertion 
 men address themselves to the people, and in Egypt the people were not 
 only incapable of deriving either profit or advantage from such labours, 
 but were absolutely excluded by the law from enjoyments of this exalted
 
 THE HALL OP COLUMNS. 
 
 375 
 
 kind. Hence, to return to the point from •wliich I set out, though the 
 genius of the nation would appear to have quahfied them for excelling in 
 technical pursuits, none of the arts attained to perfection in this country, 
 and the greater number languished in cold mediocrity. 
 
 AV^hen I had remained for some time at the foot of the column, pursuing 
 my ideas into periods of remote antiquity, my companion returned into 
 the hypostyle, and we proceeded to examine together the general aspect of 
 the temple. We had hardly made half the circuit of the ruins before we 
 were overtaken by night. It stole so gently upon us, that we did not per- 
 ceive its coming on, except in the softer hues of the sky, and the mellow- 
 ing tints with which it invested the majestic ruins around us. As we had 
 designed returning to Karnak on the morrow, we did not think it worth 
 the trouble of going back to the boats that evening. Fortunately for my 
 companion, a full moon, rising early after sunset, gave him an opportunity 
 of sketching Karnak by moonlight. We made a frugal meal of eggs, 
 milk and bread, on the back of a sphinx, beneath a propylon, whose gods 
 and goddesses seemed to frown upon us in the dim twilight. We stabled 
 
 our donkeys in the 
 sanctuary, under the 
 protecting guardianship 
 of Isis and Osiris, and 
 then disposed of our- 
 selves for the night. 
 My companion, with a 
 servant and donkey- 
 boy, stationed himself 
 on a commanding point 
 of view to sketch the 
 ruins, while I, with 
 my servant, strolled 
 among the halls and 
 corridors of the palace. 
 I entered the great hall. 
 The glare of day was 
 gone ; not a zephyr was 
 stirring, and as we 
 walked down the cen- 
 tral avenue, our foot- 
 steps woke the slum- 
 bering echoes. I felt a 
 religious awe in dis- 
 turbing the solitude of 
 this ancient shrine. I 
 threw myself at the 
 base of one of the gigantic columns, unwilling to break the eternal silence 
 that seemed to repose here. Wherever I gazed, colossal figures of gods and 
 kings looked down upon me from the walls and columns. The moonlight 
 threw, its slant beams through the crevices and holes in the wall, enveloping 
 all in a dim, religious light. The roof was gone, and the columns that rose 
 
 Hall of Columns.
 
 376 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 from the interred pavement beneath, seemed to support the bhie canopy 
 above, fretted with a countless host of stars. The lofty capitals w^ere 
 indistinctly seen, buried in the blue void, and seemed to commingle with, 
 and be lost in, the depths above. 
 
 Three thousand years ago, and this forest of columns was standing; 
 these walls wei'e then as firm as now, and that stupendous propylon, wliich 
 cast its shadow down these pillared aisles, excited the astonishment of 
 those distant ages, as it has of all subsequent times. What changes has 
 the world seen since the foundations of this edifice were laid ! What count- 
 less generations of men have risen and fallen, and passed away ! What 
 transitions from barbarism to civilisation, and from civilisation to barbarism, 
 in that wide interval of time ! What mighty armies have passed through 
 this hall ! Here Cambyses stayed his chariot wheels to gaze in wonder 
 at the triumphs of architecture. Here Sesostris was welcomed back, with 
 the loud acclaim of millions, from his conquests. The sublimity of this 
 hall stayed the destroying hand of the Ptolemies. The Ca3sars were 
 awed into humility when they trod these aisles — and even the Arab hosts, 
 as they swept by on the tide of victory, paused to admire — and tlie armies 
 of France, as they rushed b)' in pursuit of the flying Memlooks, were so 
 struck with amazement at the ruins, that they fell upon their knees in 
 homao-e, and rent the. air with shouts of applause. 
 
 Losing myself in these reveries, I fell asleep, with a drowsy owl over 
 my head, hooting at his image among the hieroglyphics on the columns. 
 About midnight I was awoke by the distant tread of my companion. As 
 I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see an object seated at the base of a 
 column, about twenty feet distant, glaring upon me with the most diabolical 
 pair of eyes I had ever seen. As I slowly recovered my sight, I made out 
 the stranger to be a peculiarly ferocious-looking jackal. He seemed to be in 
 as deep an abstraction as that which put me asleep ; for, as I gently 
 unlashed my gun, he did not move an inch. I certainly was as much 
 surprised at his impudence as he at my imprudence. He did not recover his 
 senses until I had planted a few shot between his bright orbs. He then 
 betook himself to flight with a dismal howling that scared all the birds, 
 sacred and profane, from their haimts among the capitals of the columns, 
 stunning my ears with their confused plaints. As we had no desire to 
 give our bodies up as food to jackals, we mounted our donkeys and rode 
 back to the boat.* This scene recalled to my mind the verses of a de- 
 lightful poet, friendly and familiar to me for years, who, speaking of 
 other ruias in a distant land, thus addresses the stranger : — 
 
 " Whose eye shall here survey 
 The path of Time, where ruin marks his way, 
 Wheu wild]}- mnans the solemu midniglit biid, 
 And the gaunt j.ickal's piercing rry is heard ; 
 If thine the soul with sacred ardour fraught, 
 Rapt in the poet's dream, or sage's thought. 
 To thee, these mouldering walls a voice shall raise. 
 And sadly tell how earthly pride decays ; 
 How human hopes, like human works, depart. 
 And leave behind the ruins of the heart ["-t- 
 
 * Joy Morris. + D. L. Richaidson. "Literaiy Leaves."
 
 EGYPTIAN SERPENTS. 377 
 
 On the following day I witnessed a curious scene ; it was a war between 
 the wild dogs, which inhabit the ruins of Thebes, and the great hawks 
 which abound in Upper Egypt. Our cook had just killed a sheep, and 
 had thrown the intestines on the bank of the river. I was sitting with 
 my eyes fixed upon the magnificent ruins of Luxor, when I saw a crowd 
 of hungry dogs issue from them, which, desiring to liave their share of the 
 feast, immediately fell upon the refuse of the animal ; but their appetite 
 was not to be gratified so easily as they had expected ; for other creatures, 
 hovering in the air above us, had previously seen all that had passed, and 
 the moment that the cook withdrew, and the dogs approached, a swarm of 
 hawks and vultures, rapidly cleaving the air, rushed upon their prey, and 
 disputed it with their rivals. A very curious battle then began ; the bird 
 of Osiris, by turns attacking or attacked, sometimes succeeded in snatching 
 the booty from the jaws of the savage dog, which yelped and barked 
 after it, while the victor, rising into the air, seemed to mock at his 
 impotent cries. 
 
 There are many hyoenas in the environs of Thebes, and during the night 
 we frequently heard the bowlings of these furious animals. When Euro- 
 peans intend visiting a catacomb, they take the precaution of firing a pistol 
 before they enter, in order to oblige these creatures to quit their retreat. 
 A gentleman, whom his great love of antiquities induces to remain in these 
 savage dens, told us that he was sometimes visited during the night by 
 these animals, but that, thanks to the vigilance of his dog, he had succeeded 
 in dislodging them. I saw two of them in Lower Egypt, which a Frank 
 had brought up and almost tamed, — at least he was able to touch them : 
 but their natural ferocity is much more difficult to conquer than that of 
 the lion or even the tiger. 
 
 We never met with any serpents during the whole of our journey in 
 
 Upper Egypt, the season not being 
 sufficiently advanced : for the ser- 
 pents of these climates require ex- 
 cessive heat, and keep under ground 
 during the winter months. Some 
 of them are extremely venomous, 
 others not very dangerous, and 
 these are supposed to be the kind 
 which the ancient Egyptians re- 
 vered as emblems of the good genius. 
 An Italian physician, who had made 
 a nine months' stay at Thebes, told 
 me that one day taking his dinner 
 near the catacombs, he saw ten of 
 these animals, four or five feet in 
 length, of a flesh-colour inclining 
 to rose, approach and glide over 
 Asp some vessels filled with milk, which 
 
 were on the ground, in order to 
 drink. Their bodies, in this most graceful position, seemed to be a part of 
 
 K k2
 
 378 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 tlie vessel, and to form the handle ; and it was doubtless in tliis manner 
 tliat these animals gave the ancients the idea of those beautiful vases, 
 the elegant forms of which we still endeavour to imitate.* 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Rebellion of an Arab Prophet. 
 
 So far, however deep the interest created in our minds by the wonders 
 of the Thebaid, our feelings had flowed in a calm unbroken current, or at 
 any rate their surface had been disturbed only by some trifling obstacle 
 that served to break its monotony ; but now- — as occasionally in the course 
 of the Nile itself, upon whose banks we sojourned for the time — indications 
 began to manifest themselves of troubled waters not far ahead, of the neigh- 
 bourhood, in fact, of roaring cataracts. I had passed over to Gournou and 
 taken up my abode with M. Janni, a Greek collector of antiquities, and 
 the de facto head of the village ; but, drawn by the irresistible attraction 
 of the great temples of Luxor and Karnak with their avenues of sphinxes, I 
 made it a practice to go over from time to time and explore them. One 
 morning, having started with this intention, I was hastily recalled by the 
 servant of my host, who had, I learned, something important to commu- 
 nicate. This was no less than that the Arabs were in a state of open 
 rebellion, and that to cross the river would be to expose myself to the 
 greatest possible danger. I was grieved, though not surprised, at this 
 outbreak, knowing well in what detestation the Pasha's rule was held 
 throughout the country. Tliat it could only prove unsuccessful, however, 
 and must lead to useless bloodshed, I also knew. The composition of 
 the revolters, their hopes and the grounds of them, were eminently charac- 
 teristic. Tliree or four hundred Arabs, assembled at Beirat in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Medinet Habou, formed the nucleus of the insurrection, though 
 discontent was spread throughout the whole plain of Thebes. At their 
 head was a Sheikh, who, having assumed the title of prophet, promised 
 them victory in the name of lieaven ; and certainly his cause was one 
 which might well have been supposed to merit a blessing from above ; 
 nor, as will be seen, did his mild character and humane disposition ill 
 become the holy mission with Avliicli he may have supposed himself to be 
 entrusted. However, he did not disdain to resort to human means and 
 appliances ; and had sent a deputation, composed of some ten or twelve 
 persons, to wait on the chief of Gournou, and procure arms and ammu- 
 nition. A member of this party w^as seated with Janni on a carpet 
 when I arrived, and succeeded in persuading him to give up one gun 
 out of four, but no ammunition. With this he went away carrying 
 the intelligence, derived, it may be, from the fact of Janni's casting 
 some bullets in his presence, that we intended to defend ourselves. 
 
 * Miuutoli^
 
 ARAB REBELLION'. 379 
 
 This very shortly produced a sort of chaUonge from the insurgents, who 
 sent to say that they understood we wished to have a battle with them ; 
 but we returned an answer to the effect that we had no such desire, 
 and wished they would not molest us. The Arab who acted as our 
 herald on tliis occasion informed us, that during his audience some of 
 the Prophet's more zealous followers handed in a requisition to be 
 allowed to decapitate all the Copts, to which the saint answered by an 
 exhortation to general forbearance, urging the propriety of not injuring 
 any one unless compelled. " If you are attacked," said he, " you 
 may kill, but not otherwise." Myself and my companions also were 
 brought under his notice, and he solemnly declared "that the English were 
 his friends, and that he was their friend, and would protect them." Nay, 
 more, he swore by the Koran and the sword, " that if any one robbed an 
 Englishman, even of the cord of a camel or an ass, he would restore them a 
 camel or an ass in its place," and added, " that he had an order from God 
 and the Grand Signer to dethrone Mohammed Ali Pasha." He wound up 
 by averring that he had no intention of molesting us, but was resolved to 
 attack the new kasheff who had just arrived at Gamounli, a village six or 
 seven miles below Thebes. 
 
 In spite of these assurances, neither Janni nor his wife was very com- 
 fortable during the day ; but as evening came on their fears gradually 
 abated. By about nine o'clock the rest of the inhabitants of the village 
 seemed to be of the same mind, mustering courage to take to their guns 
 and long spears, with which they gathered before our house, where they 
 remained all night. 
 
 The extraordinary position in which I thus found myself, naturally 
 chased away sleep from my eyes. There I was in the depths of Africa, in 
 the midst of a village, the inhabitants of which were little, if anything, 
 above the savage state, and had now risen in arms, possibly to defend their 
 thresholds and their hearths, possibly to join in the movement v/hich was 
 gradually communicating itself to all the country round. On every side, 
 amidst the ruins of a capital that fell 20()J years ago, was scattered a popu- 
 lation that had long groaned under every species of oppression, and were 
 now driven, in the wildness of their despair, into hasty and irregular revolt 
 against a government whicli had grown strong by the spoils of their industry. 
 The means immediately at hand to quell this outbreak were insufficient, 
 and the knowledge of this may have fed the boldness of the people, who 
 were too ignorant to know with what tremendous force a regular govern- 
 ment can bring its power to bear on any given point. These considera- 
 tions, and anticipated pity for those who must suffer in this ill-judged 
 attempt, were quite sufficient to disturb my thoughts, apart from any 
 reference to my own personal safety, whicli it was manifest must be endan- 
 gered by a desperate and ignorant multitude on the one hand, and a brutal 
 and unscrupulous soldiery on the other. The . whispered conversation of 
 the inmates of the house, and the hum of voices from the guard without, 
 contributed to excite me, and towards midnight I went forth upon the roof 
 to ascertain, if possible, how matters proceeded. The moon shone brightly 
 over the whole of that extraordinary scene — on the cottages of Gournou,
 
 380 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 huddled in abject humility round the feet of the tall palms, between 
 whose trunks, as between the pillars of a temple, I gazed forth on the 
 plain beyond ; on the barren rocks of the Libyan chain, that threw them- 
 selves up in fastastic shapes to the west ; on the plain of Thebes, from 
 which rose the phantom-like forms of temple, obelisk, and statue, to the 
 south ; on the precipices of Medinet Habou, that bounded the view in that 
 direction ; on the broad and placid Nile which, beneficent as a God, has 
 given its inundations, for thousands and thousands of years, alike to just 
 and to unjust generations ; on the dim expanse of field and desert beyond, 
 peopled with sphinxes, and clustered with temples ; and on the jagged 
 outline of the Arabian mountains, pencilled boldly against a sky that 
 seemed heavy with stars and absolutely overcharged with light. Not a sound 
 at first smote upon my ear as I gazed forth upon this wonderful panorama, 
 save the murmur that arose from the armed men in the street, and the 
 occasional barking of a dog in his sleep. At length, however, all the watchful 
 guardians of the villages seemed on the alert, and loud and continuous 
 howls rang round the plain of Thebes. It was evident tliat the insur- 
 gents were shifting their position and coming towards us. At length, 
 indeed, they appeared in dusky masses, some on horse and some on foot, 
 in the neighbourhood of tlie Memnonium. What was their object, and 
 what their destination, we could not guess, but, passing along the border of 
 the Necropolis, at no great distance from us, they at length disappeared, 
 the commotion on the plain subsided, and all was once more hushed in 
 deep repose. Soon after this, yielding to the influence of fatigue, I retired 
 to rest. 
 
 Next morning was for a time comparatively quiet, but we were soon 
 informed that large straggling bodies of men were approaching Gournou 
 from the north, in the opposite direction to the movement I had seen 
 executed in the night. The largest of them returned straight to the temple 
 of Memnon, but several made towards us. Mistrusting their motives, the 
 men of the village again assembled in arms ; but it soon appeared that the 
 objects of our fear were merely those who had been wounded in an attempt 
 upon Gamounli, which had been repulsed, though not before the place 
 was sacked. Seventeen Arabs and three soldiers had fallen in this con- 
 flict, the result of which, however, did not seem to have at all discouraged 
 the insurgents. My host, Janni, who throughout exhibited the greatest 
 pusillanimity, interpreted events more keenly; and, looking upon the Arabs 
 as already defeated, actually proposed tliat we should fire on the bleeding 
 wretches who were dragging themselves past. He was not, however, by 
 any persuasion, to be induced to take the command of his men ; remaining 
 in his own house, looking out of the window, and bawling to every one to 
 keep close. By these means he contrived to secure the contempt of the 
 people of Gournou, and perhaps strengthened the disposition which they 
 had begun to manifest to go over to the Prophet's party. It appeared, 
 nevertheless, that they were by no means dazzled by his divine pretensions. 
 They did not believe him to be inspired ; and regarded the miracles related 
 by his enthusiastic companions as so many pious frauds. Taxation, how- 
 ever, pressed heavily upon them ; and what was wanting in credulity
 
 BATTLE OF GAMOUNLI. 381 
 
 was compensated by discontent ; so that it soon became evident tliat if tlie 
 insurrection could make head for any length of time, our guards would, 
 •without fail, be enlisted in its ranks. But their loyalty returned as temp- 
 tation receded ; and when towards evening the projjhet-rebel evacuated 
 the Memnonium, and retired southward towards Erment, they ceased for 
 a time to waver. 
 
 Througliout next day we heard nothing but rumours of the gradual 
 spread of the movement, of the increase of the insurgents to the number 
 of three tliousand, of tlie rising of the Arabs of Luxor and of Karnak, and 
 of the flight of the governor of the former place; but no steps seemed to be 
 taken, or contemplated, to quell the disturbance, and no soldiers appeared. 
 Next morning, however, a force of three or four hundred men arrived from 
 Ghizeh and Gamounli, and sacked and burned the village of Beirat, where 
 the rebellion had commenced, after which they most unaccountably 
 retreated. This infused new confidence into the Arabs ; and, on the fol- 
 lowing morning, even the men of Gournou, to whom it had been notified 
 that they should be exempt from the year's taxes if they remained quiet, 
 rose and marched oflf to join the Prophet's army. I have no doubt that 
 this circumstance considerably influenced our position ; for, some hours 
 after dark, two men came from Erment, where there had been a large 
 public meeting, in which it had been proposed to murder all Englishmen. 
 The Prophet, however, severely rebuked the person who advised the san- 
 guinary proceeding ; and, so far from giving it any countenance, sent 
 ns a letter, assuring us of his friendship, and promising us protection. 
 This aiTorded us great relief, and held out hopes of safety for the future ; 
 and it will easily be perceived that, without some such pledge, our situa- 
 tion was most insecure and dangerous. The whole country being in a 
 state of insurrection, it would have been madness to attempt either to 
 ascend or descend the river. Besides, even were we to succeed in escaping 
 downward, we knew that we should encounter a more terrible enemy 
 than the revolted Arabs, namely, the plague, which was ravaging Cairo 
 with imwonted violence. 
 
 We had notliing to do therefore but to remain quiet, and watch the 
 progress of the rebellion, which continued every day on the increase. 
 Five or six days after it first broke out, a small force advanced once more 
 from Gamounli upon the plain of Thebes. As the news of their ap])roach 
 spread, all the unarmed inhabitants, the women and children, left the 
 villages, and ran up the mountains to conceal themselves in the tombs ; 
 but the soldiers, after a skirmish near the smoking ruins of Beirat, again 
 retreated. Not long after, the Prophet collected about a thousand of his 
 followers, and marched upon Gamounli, which he attacked furiously in the 
 morning, and, after fighting all day, succeeded in driving out the garrison, 
 who cut their way through the Arabs, and retired down the river, followed 
 by the victors. 
 
 The old sheikh, however, seemed now to be appalled at the magnitude 
 of the enterprise he had undertaken. Instead of marching upon Siout 
 and deciding the fate of his attempt at once, he began to give out that he 
 had no orders to go so far, or to collect many followers about him. He
 
 382 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 accordingly retraced his footsteps, and sent many of his men back to 
 their villages, telling them that the great battle was to take place at the 
 first cataract. This looked as if he were now alarmed indeed, and saw 
 danger in pursuing his route down to Siout. We understood that the 
 Prophet asserted he could bring down the angels from heaven to fight in 
 his cause ; and said to his followers, " It is not you who fight ; I can 
 see Mohammed and the angels fighting for us ! " This they all believed ; 
 and even said, that " if cannon shot were fired at him, he would not be 
 touched by them." 
 
 In spite, however, of these preternatural attributes, in about forty-eight 
 hours after the successful attack upon Gamounli, the victorious Arabs 
 retraced their steps, and passing through the plain of Thebes, went on to 
 Esneh. Two or three days subsequent to this elapsed without any event 
 of importance occurring ; but at length the news came that a great body 
 of soldiers, with many cannon, were marching towards Gheneh. Their 
 approach was signalised by an instance of barbarity, intended probably to 
 strike terror into the minds of the insurgents. Arriving at a village, some 
 of the inhabitants of which may have joined the Prophet, they totally 
 destroyed it, putting every soul they met — man, woman, and child — to the 
 sword. Almost simultaneously with this exhibition of rigour, a small 
 army of disciplined Arabs, who had been sent towards Darfour, returned 
 to aid in quelling the insurrection, and coming to blows at Esneh, gained 
 a great victory. The rebels were thus hemmed in on both sides and were 
 evidently puzzled what course to pursue. Their chieftain, who had again 
 marched towards Gheneh, crossed the river and retired upon Luxor, from 
 whence he came over to the western side once more and went up to 
 Erment, with the view no doubt of disengaging his rear by crushing, if 
 possible, the division of the Pasha's army that was advancing from the 
 south. On several successive days various skirmishes took place in which 
 he had a decided advantage ; but he at length sustained a severe check at 
 Crocodilopolis, and a bloody defeat on the island of Rizacat, whither his 
 forces were drawn by a manoeuvre of some French ofiicers who commanded 
 the disciplined regiments. His fortune, he now felt, had departed from 
 him, and many of his followers also began to lose their faith and to fall 
 away. In spite of their success, however, the soldiers advanced very slowly 
 from the south, and it was not until several days after that they advanced 
 and burned Erment. It was evening when this chastisement was inflicted ; 
 and standing on the top of our house I could distinctly see the flames 
 rising through the air and casting a deep red glow over the rocks, and the 
 sky, and the river, and the whole country that stretched to the south of 
 Thebes. The conflagration lasted all night, and in the morning a heavy 
 column of smoke remained long poised above the ruined village, its summit 
 gradually melting away through the tranquil air. Similar appearances, 
 arising from different causes, are constantly, at this time of the year, 
 beheld on the opposite plain between Luxor and Karnak, where the sand is 
 blown by the Khamseen winds into pillars some six hundred feet in height, 
 that rise perpendicularly, and, sinking gradually, vanish by imperceptible 
 degrees.
 
 ROUT AND MASSACRE AT GIIENEH. 383 
 
 The utmost consternation now prevailed in all the villages around, and 
 every path was crowded with people driving their cattle, horses, camels, 
 and asses, some over the rocky track towards Gamounli, others towards 
 the excavation's in the mountains. And now it hegan to be suspected 
 that the sheiklfs prophetic character was false, though few gave utterance 
 to their thoughts, and many still continued to circulate accounts of his 
 miracles, and dole forth the most improbable pieces of intelligence that 
 could possibly be conceived. Sometimes a vast reinforcement was arriving 
 from Kosseir, sometimes the Pasha had fled to Alexandria, sometimes the 
 English had come to Cairo and had taken him prisoner. Whatever degree 
 of credit may have been given to these reports, it is certain that Derwish 
 Ahmed Lilwezeer did not consider that he had quite played out the 
 game ; for when two hundred Atouni Bedouins, armed with matchlocks, 
 had joined him, he began again to assume a high tone, and sending for the 
 Arabs who had seceded, told them that if they did not return he would burn 
 their houses. This representation produced the desired effect, and he was 
 enabled to appear before Gheneh with from ten to fifteen thousand men. 
 Ahmed Pasha, who had thrown himself into the town with a large body 
 of horse, sent a firman to the Arabs, requesting them to disperse and 
 return to their villages. To this they replied, by a verbal message, that 
 they should not return, and that either he must come out or they would 
 go in. At this juncture the Essouan infantry arrived, and landing, suc- 
 ceeded in drawing on an attack, during which Ahmed Pasha made a sortie 
 with two thousand six hundred horse. The rout was complete ; on every 
 side the half-armed and undisciplined Arabs gave way ; and the cavalry, 
 pursuing them, sabred an immense number; whilst others — men, women, 
 and children, who all contributed to swell the multitude — crowded into 
 the river, to escape being put to the sword, and were drowned. 
 
 Next day the disastrous result of the battle was known over the whole 
 Plain of Thebes, and parties of the insurgents began to drop into Gournou, 
 and get ready to fly to the excavations on the first appearance of the 
 soldiers. With my glass I could see several thousand scattered Arabs 
 retreating on the opposite side of the river, and making towards the distant 
 mountains of the Desert. All the morning men, horses and camels, 
 might be seen straggling in one direction across the plain. Many of the 
 inhabitants of Luxor passed over to Gournou and took up their abode in 
 the tombs ; from one of which I counted twenty individuals coming out 
 — a ragged, miserable-looking set of men, women, and infants. Seeing an 
 old servant of mine among the party, I spoke to him, asking why they 
 stopt there, and why they did not go higher up into the mountains, where 
 there were many larger caves ? He replied that they were driven thither 
 by fear of the soldiers, from whom they considered themselves safe, for 
 should they fire into the tombs, they would not be able to injure them, 
 the excavations extending, with many turnings, so far into the rock. It 
 struck me, however, that they might all be easily suffocated by burning 
 straw at the entrance, though I did not say so, thinking they were suffi- 
 ciently alarmed already. 
 
 Meanwhile, Ahmed Pasha was approaching, and his chief opponent.
 
 381 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 the Prophet, had retired for a time into the Desert. Even now, however, 
 he had not completely given up his cause as lost. Relying on the deep- 
 seated hatred of the Arabs to the government which oppressed them, he 
 once more exerted himself to bring together a force; and the people of 
 Girgeh began, it was reported, to bestir themselves, massacring every 
 soldier they found alone, and loudly expressing their detestation of Moham- 
 med Ali, than whom, they said, they would rather have Sheitan himself 
 for governor. It was evident that the young Pasha thought it prudent 
 not to advance upon the Plain of Thebes immediately after the victory ; 
 especially when a sheikh, whom he sent to read a firman at Beirat, was 
 seized and bastinadoed by the people. 
 
 At length, however, having left a strong garrison at Gheneh, Ahmed 
 moved with two thousand six hundred Turkish cavalry upon the Plain of 
 Luxor ; whilst the Essouan infantry came up on one side of the river in 
 their boats, twenty-six in number, their large white sails little affected by 
 the wind. Of the horsemen whom we saw scouring furiously along on 
 the opposite bank, one thousand were Moors from Tunis and Tripoli, in 
 general a powerful and ferocious set of men, cherishing a particular enmity 
 to the Arabs. My host, Janni, was in alarm the whole day, which he 
 spent looking through his telescope, imagining that the Arabs were return- 
 ing in greater force, and fancying the bushes on the opposite mountains 
 were horsemen. Towards evening, a courier arrived on a camel from 
 Luxor, bringing a firman, beautifully written by Ahmed's Coptic secretary, 
 and bearing the usual stamp of his seal or ring. It was read to the Arabs, 
 who stood round to listen, spear in hand. When they had heard the 
 promises it contained of pardon if they remained quiet in their villages, 
 and the threats of utter destruction if they disobeyed, a murmur ran round 
 this strange assembly, some inclining to submission, others to resistance. 
 Leaving them to resolve how they might, the courier passed on towards 
 Beirat, there to read the same firman to the people whom he might find 
 hovering about the ruins. But these were not the only means to which 
 the Pasha resorted to restore tranquillity ; for, during his stay at Luxor, 
 he offered two or three dollars for the life of every Arab who did not quietly 
 return to his village ; and the Bedouins in his service scoured the moun- 
 tains, with considerable success, in search of victims, whose heads were 
 brought down and sold according to the tariff established by the youthful 
 Ahmed. 
 
 From Luxor the Pasha marched with his force towards Esneh, in order 
 by his presence, and by other effectual means, to overawe the turbulent 
 people. This excursion occupied five days, at the end of which, in the 
 morning, the news was brought that the soldiers were returning on our 
 side of the river. Upon this tlie greatest excitement prevailed, and many 
 proposed to fly to the tombs, whilst others advised to stay and trust to the 
 clemency of the Pasha. By eleven o'clock the whole pathway on the plain 
 was covered with cavalry ; these were soon followed by Ahmed himself, 
 who arrived in his kandjia, and, landing at the usual place, caused his 
 tent to be set up on the bank, where he passed the night. Next day I got 
 on board my boat once more, and made preparations for continuing my
 
 VICTIMS OF THE REBELLION. 385 
 
 journey ; but, on the following morning, it appeared that the rebellion had 
 not been completely quelled ; for the Propliet was again heard of at a 
 village just beyond Luxor, having with him three hundred Arabs, and 
 thirty-five disciplined infantry, deserters from Essonan, The Pasha went 
 after them with his cavalry before sunrise. I was present when a number 
 of deserters were brought in, fastened together by a chain round their 
 necks, passing through a loop. A party of peasants also were seated on 
 the ground, tied one to the other, and with their arms secured behind their 
 backs. The young Pasha — about twenty years of age — was seated in his 
 tent, with his khaznadar near him, on the ground ; an attendant was 
 fanning him to keep away the flies ; others were standing round ; all wore 
 an air of the greatest indifference, which was not the least conspicuously 
 exhibited by the prisoners themselves. These knew very well the fate 
 that awaited most of them, and patiently submitted to the decrees of Pro- 
 vidence. Next day, some of them were blown from the cannon's mouth, 
 and their scattered limbs cast into the Nile. One Arab was bastinadoed 
 nearly to death, and then flung down the bank, where a Turkish soldier, 
 seeing he was not quite dead, slipped a cord round his neck, set his foot on 
 riis head, and, pulling the noose tight, strangled him, and then threw him 
 into the river. Similar executions were more than once repeated ; but the 
 most horrible scene I witnessed occurred two or three days subsequently. 
 Early one morning, a number of Arabs were brought in from the villages 
 and mountains on the other side of the i-iver. There were ninety-five of 
 them in all, generally speaking well-made and fine-looking fellows, with 
 scarcely any dress on except round the middle. When I saw them they 
 were sitting very quietly on the ground, tied together by a rope passed round 
 the arms and back of each. After contemplating their resignation for a 
 moment with respect and wonder, I walked away along the banks of the 
 Nile, but had not gone far when I was overtaken, and accosted by a 
 Piedmontese ofiicer. He told me that Ahmed Pasha had just stepped 
 out of his tent to the place where the Arabs were huddled together, and 
 that, after just looking at them, he had given orders for them all 
 to be shot, eti masse ! I cannot describe the unmixed horror with 
 which this announcement at first inspired me, nor the various emo- 
 tions that immediately afterwards crowded tumultuously to my breast. 
 Among these, two conflicting impulses soon manifested their workings. 
 By one I was urged to return and beliold the massacre, whilst the other 
 prompted me to fly as far as possible from tlie scene of blood. I stood for 
 a while irresolute, and then, disgust predominating in my mind, staggered 
 a few paces away ; but the irresistible influence of curiosity soon manifested 
 itself, and I retraced my steps, drawn by a kind of fascination, to witness 
 this dreadful butchery. 
 
 The unhap})y victims were sitting upon the ground, most of them with 
 folded arms, and appearing the least concerned of all present ; a battalion 
 of the newly-raised Arab infantry advanced towards them and fired, though 
 without much effect ; they fired again, both times at the word of command ; 
 and, finally closing in, again discharged their muskets. The Turkish 
 soldiers, who were looking on, now drew their sabres and stabbed such as
 
 386 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 struggled ! I was astonished at the conduct of the unhappy prisoners — 
 they took the whole thing so quietly ! As volley after volley was poured 
 in upon them, their heads drooped on their shoulders, and they lay down 
 composedly to die ; scarcely a cry was raised ; from the colour of their skin, 
 moreover, the blood could not be seen as it flowed forth ; so that the scene, 
 upon the whole, was not so horrible as might have been expected. 
 Besides, my attention was to a certain extent diverted, by the only 
 instance of resistance to what most seemed to regard as the inevitable 
 decree of destiny that occurred. Two of the Arabs, breaking loose at the 
 first fire, dashed into the Nile, and endeavoured to swim over to the other 
 side ; but the current proved too strong for them, propelling them back 
 towards the side they sought to avoid, and carrying them slowly down the 
 stream. I hoped, but in vain, that this desperate attempt would be over- 
 looked. The swimmers were soon perceived ; and, whilst the massacre 
 continued on the bank, several shots were fired at them, and many of the 
 Turks, who seemed to consider the afiair very fine sport, took deliberate 
 aim. The poor fellows kept constantly diving to avoid the balls, and 
 struggling furiously towards the opposite shore. A boat now put olf, 
 and soon came up with one of them, who, though wounded, was a good 
 swimmer ; but, seemingly much exhausted, he caught hold of the boat ; a 
 soldier forthwith cleaved his skull with a sabre, and he immediately sunk : 
 the other, after diving, came up again close by the boat, and was instantly 
 shot through the head. 
 
 Thus terminated this bloody affair. Soon after sunset the bodies of the 
 whole party were dragged down the bank, and thrown into the Nile. 
 The Piedmontese officer and his friend the doctor, together with the Sar- 
 dinian who commanded the battalion which shot these unfortunate Arabs, 
 came and smoked and took coffee with us as if nothing had happened. I 
 shall not enter into any further detail respecting the executions that 
 followed the insurrection I have described ; it will be sufficient to say that 
 many hundreds were put to death, more for the sake of example than for 
 punishment, since no pains were taken to identify the actual offenders. 
 What became of the Sheikh who gave rise to the insurrection, I do not 
 know. He probably escaped into the Desert, and put himself under the 
 protection of some tribe of Bedouins. For myself it was with very melan- 
 choly feelings that I prepared to quit the site of the great capital of 
 ancient Egypt.* 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 VoYAOE TO EsNEH YlSIT TO THE OaSIS. 
 
 The wind which had tempted our departure from Thebes proved weak 
 and variable, and about sunset died totally away, constraining us to moor 
 for the night a little to the south of Hermontis, where, according to the 
 Arabs, the Sultan e' Timsah, or " king of the crocodiles " resides. These 
 
 * Mad ox.
 
 TEMPLE OP CLEOPATRA. 
 
 387 
 
 animals, which chiefly abound in the portion of the Nile extending south- 
 ward from Manfaloot, here attain an enormous magnitude ; but afterwards, 
 except, perhaps, in the immediate neighbourhood of Koom Ombos, gradu- 
 ally become smaller and more rare as you ascend the Nile. 
 
 At Hermontis, wliich formed the head-quarters of the patriotic Prophet 
 whose exploits we have above commemorated, are the remains of a temple 
 founded by Cleopatra, who in the inscriptions appears associated with 
 CsBsarion, her son by Julius Ceesar. A grove of palms, files of elegant 
 detached columns, and half-fallen architraves, group into one of the most 
 picturesque ruin scenes in Egypt. The original plan seems to have been 
 a naos surrounded with a peristyle, approached through a kind of court, 
 formed of columns united by screens or dwarf walls. The elongated pjro- 
 portion of the columns shows the influence of foreign art.* 
 
 The scantiness of the w'ind compelled us to have recourse for some time 
 to tracking. Here we saw a phenomenon in Egypt — two isolated moun- 
 tains springing up from the plain, on the African bank, the one close to the 
 
 The Jebelein or Twin Rocks. 
 
 river, the other running parallel with it at a short distance to the west- 
 ward. I observed the peasants busily employed in raising water for irriga- 
 tion, with the lever and basket, a rude hydraulic apparatus, consisting of 
 two uprights and a cross-beam, placed like a door-way over a narrow 
 canal, with a pole traversing the beam, and having at one end an osier 
 bucket, and at the other a large lump of hardened earth. As the Nile in this 
 part never overflows, the canals are very numerous, and a])pear abundantly 
 sufficient for the purposes of irrigation, the whole plain being covered 
 
 * WatLcn.
 
 3f8 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 with luxuriant verdure. In several places we saw plantations of the 
 castor-oil plant ; a very beautiful shrub. The oil is used by the Nubian 
 women to soften their hair, and for many other purposes. 
 
 Soon after nightfall, as we lay- to for a short time, close to the low 
 bank of the river, six Arabs, led by a santon, to whom they paid the 
 greatest deference, attempted to perform the dance of the howling der- 
 wishes ; a scene which had something so awfully terrific about it, that I 
 shall never forget it. The atmosphere was dense and sultry ; hollow gusts 
 of wind moaned around us, and whirling clouds of dust rose up on all sides, 
 scarcely permitting the pale light of a few stars to penetrate the strange 
 obscurity. The dark jagged banks of the Nile near which our boats were 
 anchored, appeared in an obscure and undefined outline. Close to the 
 edge, six figures, enveloped in black clothes, flitted like shadows to and 
 fro in the indistinct twilight. Soon they formed a circle round the naked 
 santon, who sung in a plaintive agonising tone of voice, various deeply 
 melancholy, but by no means unmelodious strains. The shadowy circle 
 incessantly leaped up and then bowed down to the earth, in regular 
 cadence, and in a hoarse, half uttered, half suppressed and indescribable 
 tone, which resembled the howling of an infernal monster, pronounced the 
 word " Ajuhm," with systematically increasing rapidity, till at length one 
 after the other sunk down exhausted, and the sound died away in a death- 
 like swoon. Many of these infatuated wretches are said often to expire in 
 an apoplectic fit ; but as this dance is considered one of exalted piety, the 
 man who loses his life in it is regarded as a happy martyr. The ceremony, 
 however, appeared to me like a desperate conjuration of evil spirits, or 
 an infernal dance of demons. The awful hellishness of this scene even 
 confounded my Greek attendant ; this brave fellow, sans peur et sans 
 reproche, took refuge, at the very onset of this fiendish scene, in a corner of 
 the vessel, and fixing his eyes upon the dancers, incessantly accompanied 
 their fearful "Ajuhm" to its very close, with an almost equally frightful 
 howl in his own language.* 
 
 Egypt is always singular and interesting ; but under an autumnal 
 sunset it is beautiful. The sun sinks behind a grove of palms in a golden 
 sky, upon which their most delicate featherings are distinctly described. 
 A rich amber light glows over the landscape, and makes the meanest and 
 most uncouth objects beautiful : soon the feeblest star has lighted its lamp, 
 and the black vault of heaven seems thickly studded with brilliants. Such 
 is the purity of the atmosphere, that you may watch a setting star till it 
 touches the low bank of the river. Profound tranquillity reigns through 
 the universe ; or is only broken at intervals by the mellowed murmur of a 
 distant water-wheel. The moonlight streams upon the bosom of the ancient 
 river. A beautiful meteoric phenomenon heightens the interest of the 
 scene. Ever and anon a bright star seems to shoot away from amongst 
 its fixed companions — glances horizontally across the heavens, throwing 
 off a long luminous trail, then, bursting like a rocket, leaves all nature 
 intensely tranquil as before. 
 
 * Puckler Muskau.
 
 MODE OP ADMINISTERING JUSTICE. 369 
 
 •• But wherefore all night long shine these ? for whom 
 This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes ?" 
 
 ***** 
 
 ** Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
 Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep, 
 Celestial voices to the midnight air, 
 Sole, or responsive each to other's note, 
 Hymning tlieir great Creator ! "* 
 
 We arrived at Esneh about two hours after sunset. Here I heard an 
 anecdote, illustrative of the manner in which justice is administered in 
 this country. The boat's crew of two English travellers being engaged 
 in a quarrel with the crew of another kandjia, were beaten by the owners, 
 three Turkish soldiers in the service of the Pasha. To obtain redress for 
 this insult, the travellers made application to the governor of the next 
 town, who, for their satisfaction, immediately ordered the koorbash to be 
 administered — not to the soldiers, who had been guilty of the outrages, 
 but to the reis of tlie boat, who had been nowise implicated in the aft'air. 
 He then inquired if the complainants were satisfied, which he must have 
 done in mockery; and they, fearing that the reis might be again beaten as 
 the proxy of the Turks, very coolly replied in the afiirmative. A represen- 
 tation of the affair to Mohammed Ali could have procured the petty 
 governor's recal. 
 
 Latopolis, the original name of Esneh, has been by some derived from 
 that of a species of fish at present unknown, which, they say, was 
 
 anciently worshipped 
 in this city. But it 
 would rather seem to 
 signify " the city of 
 Latona," -|- the Bouto 
 of the Egyptians, a 
 goddess of great im- 
 port in their mytho- 
 logy, who, it is said, 
 possessed in Egypt an 
 oracular shrine, cele- 
 brated for the truth of 
 its responses, delivered 
 probably from the 
 
 Temple near Latopolis. identical temple the 
 
 portico of which still 
 exists. This magnificent ruin, which has perhaps obtained from travellers 
 less notice than it deserves, must unquestionably have belonged to one of 
 the most elegant structures in Egypt. Yet the portico, on the ceiling of 
 which the famous Zodiac is painted, however ancient it may be, is less so 
 than the cella, the front of which projects into the pronaos subsequently 
 erected about it, so as to leave a small aperture between the original edifice 
 and the more modern addition. Government having converted the portico 
 into a warehouse, it is in some measure protected from wanton dilapidation ; 
 
 * Wathen. 
 
 L L 2 
 
 f AtjTOVS TToAiS.
 
 390 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 but as the exterior intercolumniations, originally encumbered with a mural 
 screen, have now been built up to the architrave, the whole interior is buried 
 in almost total darkness, and must be examined with tapers, like a hypo- 
 geum. Immense blocks of stone, resting on rafters of the same material, and 
 extendinof from the facade to the cella, constitute the roof of the pronaos. 
 The vast columns, twenty-four in number, are disposed in six rows, three 
 on either side of the entrance. A profusion of sculpture adorns the shafts, 
 and the capitals are exceedingly beautiful ; the foliage, which in some cases 
 represents that of the palm-tree, projecting in a series of curves, leaf behind 
 leaf, scarcely yielding in richness to that of the Corinthian order ; while 
 others consist of a cluster of lotus leaves, sculptured with equal delicacy, 
 and no less beautifully arranged. But although each column, viewed 
 separately, excites our admiration, the effect of the whole is highly incon- 
 gruous. This defect in Egyptian architecture appears susceptible of 
 explanation. In a forest, the beauty of the oak seems to be enhanced by 
 the neighbourhood of the ash or the elm, which perhaps misled the 
 Eo-yptians, who thought, if the beauty of a forest consists in the variety 
 of its trees, a portico would for the same reason be more beautiful in 
 proportion to the dissimilarity of the columns of which it is composed. 
 But the comparison is incorrect ; for a tree is a whole, a column is not ; 
 it is but as a branch ; and, until we shall desire to see the sycamore, the 
 chesnut, the ash, and the lime, engrafted upon the oak, a portico consist- 
 ing of a monstrous combination of several orders of architecture, can never 
 be considered other than a splendid toy. 
 
 Sir Frederic Henniker comes to the same conchision. " The capitals," 
 he says, " display the taste of the Egyptians in their regular irregularity, 
 like the roses of a Roman arch- way ; variations of the same subject, with 
 a family likeness throughout the whole. There is not one of them that I 
 would wish to be absent, and yet the want of uniformity destroys the 
 effect of all — like a dozen of various, though good wnnes, mixed together. 
 
 " The portico has, by some travellers, been considered more pleasing than 
 that of Denderah, though the figures, they confess, are not so exquisitely 
 finished. Isis has a bewitching half modesty in her face. Her general 
 figure is spare and delicate, and pleases me, notwithstanding Winkelmann's 
 observation, that the Egyptians did not sacrifice to the graces." * 
 
 It being market day, the bazar, to which we proceeded on quitting the 
 temple, was crowded with buyers, sellers, barbers, &c. We found provisions 
 extremely cheap ; beef about three-farthings per pound ; butter, or rather 
 ffkee — a government monopoly — dearer, the price being as much as three- 
 pence halfpenny per pound ; bread and onions very cheap ; good tobacco 
 about eightpence per pound ; Mokka coffee, another government monopoly, 
 very dear, at least one shilling and ninepence per pound. A dancing-girl 
 in the bazar, who took a liking to my gloves, was extremely desirous of 
 obtaining them as a present ; but I told her the sun of Esneh was too 
 warm to allow of my walking about with naked hands. Upon hers it 
 had already done its worst, for they were nearly black. She had never 
 seen gloves before, and took mine at first to be the natural skin of my 
 
 * Henniker.
 
 EGYPTIAN BARBER. 
 
 391 
 
 liands. "When I drew one of tliem oflF for the purpose of taking some 
 money out of my purse, she started back in extreme terror, imagining I 
 had begun the process of flaying myself before her. The market-people 
 
 Egyptian Barber. 
 
 who stood round laughed heartily at her fright, though they were not 
 a jot more familiar than she was with the use of the admired article of 
 dress. Here I saw a very pretty genteel Arab girl, about twelve years 
 old, nearly as fair as an European, buying little cheeses, like those of 
 Neufchatel. She was extremely well dressed, and followed by a female 
 slave. The market was abundantly supplied. Heaps of corn, dates, 
 peas, lentils, onions, and vegetables of all kinds, literally encumbered the 
 streets ; and the peasant girls, here the principal merchants, were fat, 
 good-looking, and merry. Having had some dealing with his Highness's 
 representatives in this town, it was necessary to follow the malllm or waiter 
 to the fort, where two or three small pieces of ordnance overawe the 
 navigators on the Nile. They would produce great alarm, and might do 
 serious mischief to a fleet of Arab boats daring enough to plot rebellion 
 against the Pasha ; and it is pretty certain that a single discharge would 
 bring down this crazy fortress about the ears of its defenders.* Here we 
 found the Coptic scribes seated at dinner on the floor, round two or three 
 trays extremely well covered, and were invited to join them. The principal 
 course consisted of fish, fried in oil, and of an exceedingly good quality ; 
 and their bread also was excellent. The costume of the Copts consists of 
 long black robes, and black turbans ; and this, with their coarse angular 
 features and sallow complexions, gives them a funereal appearance. 
 
 The ancient Memlooks, during their intestine dissensions, and their wars 
 with the Porte, and the viceroys of Egypt, frequently took refuge in 
 
 • Olin.
 
 392 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 this town, wliich, by its favourable position, and its distance from Cairo, 
 secured their independence. They had embellished with a garden the 
 place of their voluntary exile : we went there to enjoy the coolness of the 
 evenino^, and found the grapes of exquisite flavour. We but rarely meet 
 with this fruit in Egypt, which, to judge from the pictures in the cata- 
 combs representing vintage scenes, must have been formerly cultivated 
 there. Islamism, without doubt, first checked the culture of the vine, yet 
 I do not think that, in general, the soil of Egypt is favourable to it ; 
 inundation and drought are equally fatal. Still the wines of Egypt 
 enjoyed a good reputation in ancient times, particularly those of JMareotis 
 and Coptos. It is at Esneh that we find the best camels, which are bred 
 by the Arabs of the tribe of Ababde, and by them brought here for 
 sale.* 
 
 Esneh, which probably contains about 5000 inhabitants, has the usual 
 characteristics of an Egyptian town — mountains of rubbish outside, and 
 abundance of filth within, animated and vocal, with a half naked indolent 
 crowd, and a host of yelping dogs.f 
 
 When the French were in Egypt, the remains of a small temple existed 
 north of the town, and another ruin on the opposite bank of the Nile ; 
 but Mohammed Ali's regeneration of Egypt has proved the destruction of 
 these, and many other monuments of her ancient glory. Their materials 
 have been worked up into factories; and tall white chimneys, rivalling 
 those of Leeds and Manchester, rise from among dingy huts of c]ay.:J: 
 
 As we have now reached that part of the valley of the Nile from which 
 travellers, who desire to visit the Great Oasis, usually strike off, I shall 
 here introduce the account of the journey of Sir Frederic Henniker, to 
 that dependency of it called Bseris, premising some remarks on the general 
 system of Oases, existing in the western desert. They have been long 
 happily compared to fertile islands rising from the bosom of immense seas 
 of sand. There are five in the Libyan desert: the first, beginning with 
 the most southerly, is that of Karghe, on tlie same parallel with Thebes ; 
 it is separated from Egypt by a tract of desert, about a hundred miles in 
 breadth, and stretches north and south above sixty miles. The ancients 
 called it Oasis Magna. Fifty miles to the west lies the Oasis of Dahkel, 
 in length about thirty miles, in breadth fifteen. Descending towards 
 the Mediterranean, we meet with the little Oasis of Farafreh, about a 
 hundred and sixty miles from the river ; that of Beryeh (Oasis Parva) 
 distant some eighty or ninety miles from Lower Egypt ; and, lastly, that 
 of Siwah, celebrated in antiquity by the name of the Oasis of Jupiter 
 Ammon, and by the pilgrimage undertaken by Alexander to the temple 
 of this deity. Situated in about the same latitude as the Fayoum, 
 it is separated from it by a distance of two hundred and fifty miles ; it is 
 fifteen miles in length by ten in breadth. These Oases contain in general 
 very fertile land, producing sugar, coffee, and madder, but principally 
 indio-o. No similar spots are supposed to be found in the eastern desert ; 
 yet it appears to me highly probable, that many such exist there, though of 
 
 * Baroness Von Minutoli. f 01'°' + Wathen.
 
 OASES OF LIBYA. 393 
 
 inferior dimensions. At all events, there are several low valleys gifted 
 with a certain degree of fertility, and covered more or less thickly with 
 acacia and other trees. How many of these there may be, has not yet 
 been ascertained, but the traveller who should undertake to examine and 
 describe them, would probably make many discoveries to reward his toil- 
 some adventure. Properly, the Oases of Libya make no part of Egypt, 
 but as they are, and always have been, dependent on it, I thought it would 
 not be desirable to omit all notice of them. 
 
 Having been provided, says Henniker, with five camels, a certain stock 
 of rice, biscuits and coffee, with four goat-skins for water, I prepared to 
 start. The animal that was to carry me was so obliging as to kneel down, 
 without which complaisance, or a ladder, I should never have been able to 
 get upon his back ; but the moment he felt a foot over him, he sprang up, 
 and left me on the ground. The Arabs laughed, and told me that that 
 was the usual commencement. 
 
 Our road lay alongside the river as far as Jebelein, twelve miles north 
 of Esneh, and at this place we suffered our first stoppage. "We were 
 detained four hours, for no visible reason, till supper came : this consisted 
 of bread, soup, rice, roast chickens, and vegetables, all mixed together in 
 a large wooden bowl. I offered backsheish to my host, but he declared 
 that it would be shameful to receive pay ; at the same moment my hand 
 opened, and the sum of three shillings became visible, and my friend 
 accepted the money in opposition to his conscience — it is the value of a 
 sheep. 
 
 At length the water-skins were filled, I was safely mounted, and we 
 made a second start. Our route lay west, across a flat sandy plain, on 
 which, after three hours' march, we halted for the niglit. Here the 
 Arabs performed vespers; and there being no water to spare for their ablu- 
 tions, they went through that part of the ceremony with sand. The sand 
 is very soft, the sky bright, and I slept very comfortably sub dio. Within 
 three hours after midnight we resumed our journey, and continuing our 
 route west, ascended the Libyan chain at about twenty-four miles' distance 
 from the river. At mid-day we halted for an hour, and in tlie course of 
 the afternoon came to a quantity of broken pottery, such as generally 
 indicates an ancient site ; it was distant about fifteen hours from the Nile, 
 and I should imagine it to have been a "station." About seven o'clock 
 we finished our day's work ; the camels having performed double march 
 without having tasted water, and having nothing to eat but dry chopped 
 straw, witli a little barley in it. The motion of a camel is very disagree- 
 able : he goes whizzing through the air, though he does not advance three 
 miles per hour ; at every step he throws his rider backwards and for- 
 wards, and causes nearly the same sensation as a rocking boat. 
 
 There was no variation next day. I was already land-sick, and calcu- 
 lated that in each journey of fifteen hours I was bumped, like a school- 
 boy, fifty-eight thousand times. Nothing is so tedious, indeed, as the 
 first day's camel riding, except a continuation of it ; and nothing so 
 wearying as a camel's walking pace, except a camel's trot. During the 
 fifty-two hours that I was on the back of the sulky animal, I had been
 
 394 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 unwillino-ly endeavouring to make him mend his pace ; but, equally indif- 
 ferent to threats or caresses, he refused to go beyond a walk : at length he 
 set off voluntarily in a trot, and, in spite of my utmost exertions to 
 restrain him, he brought me to a spring, and there he deposited me, almost 
 shaken to pieces, like an overboiled fowl. We had performed, in three 
 days, a journey that usually employs a week ; and, during this, the camel 
 did not taste water — a draught in three days being quite sufficient for a 
 camel — my guide told me, in three weeks, or even three months, provided 
 he can o-et green food. By the wayside we found many skeletons of 
 camels; the animal on which I rode became exceedingly offensive as to 
 his breath, and when he came within three or four hours of water, I found 
 it impossible to retard him. 
 
 The track from Esneh to the Oasis Basris, is marked with piles of 
 stones; but the bones of animals, and the setting sun, form as sure a 
 guide. There is one spot in particular abounding in bones, and amongst 
 them old Hassan pointed out those of a camel that he had often accom- 
 panied through tlie desert ; and near them the grave of its master — the 
 camel had died of thirst, and its owner had killed himself by its side. 
 Such anecdotes are not very uncommon. A camel, or a horse, is generally 
 the life, or the means of living, to a man and his family. The thoughts 
 and fancies suggested by passing the night in such a situation, surrounded 
 by the mouldering remains of men and animals, have been wrought up 
 with singular felicity into a poem by Freiligrath ; and because of the force 
 and truth of its delineations, I shall introduce it here, in the admirable 
 version which appeared in a late number of the Foreign Quarterly Revieic. 
 
 THE GHOST-CARAVAN. 
 
 'Twas in the desert's depths we took our night-rest on the ground, 
 Our steeds unbridled, and by each a Bedouin sleeping sound ; 
 Afar the moonbeams gleamed upon the long low hills of Nile, 
 Round us white bones of camels strewed the sands for many a mile. 
 
 I slept not : for a pillow my liglit saddle propped my head ; 
 A wallet, with my store of dates, served in a bolster's stead ; 
 My caftan was my coverlet; and ready to my hand 
 My naked sword, my lance and gun, lay by my couch of sand. 
 
 All silent, save the flickering flame, or crack of thorn in burning ; 
 Save the hoarse croak of some vulture to his eyrie late returning ; 
 Save the fitful stamp of hoofs in sleep among our tethered ciittle ; 
 Save the hasty clutching of a lance by one who dreams of battle. 
 
 At once the earth is rocking, ghastly vapours wrap the sky, 
 
 Across the waste, in frantic haste, affrighted wild beasts fly ; 
 
 The horses snort and plunge ; our sheikh grasps the banner — like a man 
 
 Unnerved, he drops it, muttering, " Lord, the ghostly-caravan ! " 
 
 It comes. The phantom drivers lead the camels with their freight 
 Of lovely women, all unveiled, throned in voluptuous state. 
 Next after them walk maidens bearing pitchers, like Rebecca 
 At the fountain ; horsemen follow, and they gallop on for Mecca. 
 
 Still others, still, past coimting; ever endless seems the train. 
 Look ! look! the bones around us strewn are camels once again; 
 And whirling up in dusky wreaths, fast changes the brown sand 
 To men, that seize the camel's rein each in his dusky hand.
 
 THE GHOST CARAVAN. 395 
 
 For this the night, when all o'er M'hom the saml-nood ever iieaved. 
 Whose wind-tossed dust this day, bclil<e, unto our tongues hath cleaved, 
 Whose crumbling skulls our coursers' hoofs beat flat upon the plain, 
 Arise and march, to kneel and pray at Mecca's holy fane. 
 
 Still others, still ; the hindmost of the train not yet have past, 
 And back, even now, with slackened rein, come the forcmos' trooping fast. 
 O'er Afric's breadth, from Cape do Verd to the shores of tiie Red Sea, 
 They've galloped, ere my struggling horse from the fool-rope could get free. 
 
 The horses, ho ! — they're breaking loose : — quick, each man to his own ! 
 
 For shame ! like sheep, by lions scared, why quake ye so and groan ? 
 
 Though they press you close, though their floating robes your very beards are brushing, 
 
 Shout, Allah 1 Allah ! and away the spectre host goes rushing. 
 
 Stand fast, till in the morning breeze your turban feathers stream : 
 Glad cheer will come with morning's breath, with morning's ruddy gleam. 
 One beam of day, and dust are they, these pilgrims of the night, — 
 And sec, it dawns! with joyous neigli my courser greets the light. 
 
 We descended the Libyan chain early on the morning of the fourth day, 
 and at sunset dismounted at the first verdure of the Oasis. Bseris is the 
 name of this "island of the Desert," which consists of a few springs rising 
 at various distances, in an extent of many miles, and each enabling a few 
 outcasts of the world to cultivate a little corn and dates. As to antiquities, 
 there is a small temple, paltry and unfinished, to see which I endured 
 fifty hours' bumping, besides returning, and the whole in a perpetual 
 state of fusion ; the water in the goat-skins had been churned rancid ; the 
 mirage was doubly tantalising ; and all the springs of the Oasis tasted of 
 the nether world. The fountain by which we first reposed was warm 
 and sulphurish, but irrigated half an acre of land. There was a house 
 upon the estate, but it was deserted in consequence of a ruffian having 
 carried off the owner's daughter ; a sentinel was in attendance every even- 
 ing to protect the crop from the gazelles : the man on duty informed me 
 that Siout was five days distant, that he had once been there, but should 
 never go again, as the people were not human, having demanded payment 
 for bread. 
 
 Next day, as soon as it was light, we descried a hill surmounted by 
 cottages and palm-trees, distant about three hours. In our way thither, 
 two men with matchlocks came out to meet us, and finding that we did 
 not come to collect taxes, or with other hostile intentions, saluted us Avith 
 a/gw dejoie. The report spread through the village, and, on our approach, 
 •we found all the inhabitants assembled on the tops of their houses. The 
 heads of the females were ornamented with shells, in the same manner as 
 tliose of the Egyptians are with money ; and these shells, I believe, are 
 similar to those that do pass for money. 
 
 We desired to be conducted to the Sheikh, and alighted at a house which 
 was not so bad as any of the others ; part of the interior was white- 
 washed, and on this was scrawled, in red paint, a verse of the Koran. 
 This is the coronet of a hajji — the lord of the village had suffered the 
 martyrdom of a pilgrimage to Mecca, and considered himself amply 
 rewarded by being called a saint, and being allowed, as is in general use 
 throughout Switzerland, to write a relioious sentenceonhishouse. The Sheikh 
 received us very hospitably, and spread a mat for us on a mud divan,
 
 396 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 raised within the portal or hall of strangers ; but he could not allow us to 
 step beyond the second threshold, as that part of the house was the 
 sanctum sanctorum — it contained the saint's harem. The first subject of 
 conversation was taxes : even Bseris, divided from the world, has not 
 escaped the care of the Pasha ; the people are compelled to pay a yearly 
 rent of some dollars ; and they requested me, being an Engilitz^ to have it 
 mitigated. I was asked twenty times if I was an Englishman, and having 
 sworn to it, a man brought a soldier's musket, and pointing to the number 
 of the regiment, exclaimed, " Engilitz ! Engilitz ! " seven or eight times, 
 raising his voice to a pitch of pride and self-congratulation. A number 
 of medals were brought to me, but none of any consequence: under pretence 
 of examining them, I put on a pair of green spectacles, and was immediately 
 supposed to be a conjuror — it was a foolish joke. I lost my spectacles. 
 
 In the evening I was visited by the greater part of the village, and 
 among the crowd came a man to whom all gave place. He had no sooner 
 got pretty close to my ear, than he commenced making a great noise, at 
 which everybody, except myself, was highly delighted. The man, to my 
 astonishment, was grunting out a song, and expecting backshiesh. I gave 
 him money immediately, on condition that he would not sing any more. 
 The company were surprised at my want of taste, but part consoled them- 
 selves by laughing at the enraged musician. 
 
 On the following morning,! requested a guide to conduct meto the temple. 
 Two were given me ; when, seeing that I carried my fowling-piece, they 
 desired me to wait till they had put on their guns, which they showed me 
 were loaded with ball. We walked about ten miles south-east across the 
 sand, and here we caine to a spring, a few huts, and a little verdure. 
 Near this was a temple almost buried in sand, though its- defects were not 
 hidden. This fabric differs in many respects from the temples on the Nile. 
 It is a small building, composed of petty blocks of stone. The pillars are 
 only two feet six inches in diameter, and even these, instead of being 
 formed of one solid block, are constructed of millstones. The sacred writ- 
 ing is scarcely begun, but the vanity of the founder has taken care to 
 see that a long inscription, with his name upon it, was completed. 
 
 How can we expect a temple of consequence in the middle of a desert, 
 where water is as scarce as it is necessary ; where the population never 
 could have been great, where great works never could have been achieved, 
 or ever required ? My incredulity as to Meroe and Jupiter Ammon gains 
 strength. The surface of tlie earth in the vicinity of the temple is very 
 remarkable. It is covered with a lamina of salt and sand mixed, and has 
 the same appearance as if a ploughed field had been flooded over, then frozen, 
 and the water drawn off from under the ice. 
 
 Encamped near one of the springs was a caravan of Jelabi, or slave- 
 pedlars, who are in the habit of trafficking between Darfour and Cairo. 
 The company consisted of about thirty men, and as many four-footed 
 beasts, besides a few women, who were considered fine specimens. They 
 had been bought themselves, in the first instance, as slaves, but having 
 gained the affection of their masters, they accompanied them in their 
 journeys, and were used as decoys.
 
 PEOPLE OF BTERIS, 397 
 
 From these slave-pedlars I purchased a pair of sandals — the inconve- 
 nience of boots and shoes in travelling over sand is obvious. It always 
 compelled me to go barefooted. These sole-preservers are very ingeniously 
 formed of one piece, excepting a thong not two inches in length. The 
 leather is cut to the shape of the foot, but so much larger as to allow straps 
 to be pared at the sole, and with this are contrived fastenings similar to 
 those of a skate. I procured also some tamarind cakes, which might be 
 called portable sherbet, for they x'ender even brackish water cool and 
 agreeable. 
 
 I should imagine the people of Bteris to have been, until lately, the 
 poorest and the happiest in the world ; he that has no land shares equally 
 the labour and the produce of him that has. All are content, except with 
 taxes ; taxes beget industry, industry begets money, and money begets 
 evil : luxury, pride, and envy will soon grow up amongst them. The 
 stamped leather of Charles would, not long since, have been sufficient for 
 them, but now that they trade with foreign towns, they would rather have 
 a piece of dirty Turkish copper than a quartern loaf; and their knives are 
 always ready to take a slice off a Spanish dollar, for when they cannot 
 give change, they cut the piece into halves and quarters. They have not, 
 however, got so much money as to have no charity ; for when I called for 
 my bill, and the Sheikh enumerated the chickens, dates, sheep, and brandy, 
 he omitted bread ; and when I reminded him that we had had seven 
 days' rations for seven people, he told me that it was " not the custom to 
 receive money for supplying a traveller with the staff' of life." 
 
 During my stay, I had used my utmost endeavours to purchase a head- 
 dress of shells, but could not obtain either the object of my desire, or the 
 reason why ; at length, on the point of going away, when all the village 
 were collected round me, I threw some half-farthings amongst them for a 
 scramble. This act of generosity had such an effect upon them, that a man 
 told me he would gladly let me have his daughter's coiffure^ but he knew 
 that whenever I should look upon it in England, and should wish for his 
 daughter, that she would immediately go flying through the air to me. 
 
 Besides the temple above-mentioned, my guide informed me that tliere 
 was a smaller one about two days' south, and that the great Oasis Karghe is 
 four days distant ; but I had already determined to retrace my steps rather 
 than trust to evils that I knew not of. However, previous to leaving the 
 Oasis, I took a few hours' ramble with my gun, and found a snipe, an owl, 
 two Royston crows, and some partridges. 
 
 From Bjeris I made my way back to Jebulein, during which journey 
 nothing particular occurred, except the bumping ; and nothing interesting 
 or amusing, excepting a feu d'artifice of electricity, and a fight between 
 two of the camel-drivers. One night, preparatory to repose, I was about 
 to spread a sheet of common white linen upon the sand, and shaking it 
 rather violently for that purpose, observed that it threw forth a flash of fire. 
 This I repeated several times, and found such amusement as is to be found 
 in the gardens of Tivoli, or in the heavens on a summer evening. The 
 Arabs imagined it to be produced by the rays of the sun collected during 
 the day. As we drew towards the end of our journey, the two elder of the
 
 398 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 camel-drivers quarrelled. From words tliey proceeded to blows ; and were 
 in the act of pulling beards, when I desired my dragoman to horsewhip 
 them both, and ascertain the cause of their dispute. It appeared, that as we 
 were on tlie point of separating, it was necessary that I should be pre- 
 sented with a supper, and that the Arabs in question were contending for the 
 honour of furnishing the entertainment. Now, as I would not suspect them 
 capable of fighting for the bare lucre of three shillings, I desired that each 
 of them should bring me supper sufficient for the whole party, six ; this 
 they did, and shared the " honour'^ between them. 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 From Esneh to Es-Souan. 
 
 The wind springing up early, we departed before day ; tlie kandjia 
 proceeding with an unwonted degree of rapidity, and the ruins on both 
 sides of the river — Eileithyias on the east, Edfou on the west, and, farther 
 on, the famous quarries of Hajjar Silsilis — strongly invited us to land. 
 
 My visit to Eileithyias, now El-Higgs, though made on my return, 
 may be introduced here. From Edfou we descended the river to El-Higgs, 
 the ancient Eileithyias. The north-wind blowing impetuously nearly all day, 
 rendered rowing almost impracticable ; we reached the site of the ancient 
 city late in the afternoon. It is enclosed by a prodigious brick wall, thirty 
 feet in thickness. On our way to the grottoes we traversed the enclosed 
 space ; where all traces of dwellings have long disappeared, and the ground 
 is covered with a plant called by the Arabs Bellye-hah, somewhat resem- 
 bling senna, but so bitter that even the camel refuses to feed on it. The 
 temples, in one of which human victims were immolated to Boubasta, 
 have now been reduced to shapeless heaps of stones ; not a column being 
 left standing. The sepulchral grottoes, the only objects at Eileithyias 
 which the traveller need pause to examine, we found in the southern face 
 of the mountain about two miles north-east of the city, and are extremely 
 immerous, though three only deserve particular attention. And indeed 
 when I had beheld the private tombs of Gournou, even these so much 
 vaunted by travellers, appeared to lose much of their importance. Being 
 insignificant in dimensions their only merit consists in the scenes represented 
 on the walls, which, however contemptible as works of art, are not without 
 interest regarded as illustrations of Egyptian manners. 
 
 The paintings, now much mutilated, are various, and were, perhaps, as 
 Hamilton conjectures, intended to describe, in a pictorial narrative, the 
 series of events, or rather occupations, of which the history of the inmate 
 consisted : all of a rural nature, reaping, winnowing, pulling and unrolling 
 flax, fishing, fowling, and the merry labours of the vintage. The third of 
 the greater tombs, reckoning from the river, appears to have chiefly 
 interested Hamilton ; the only fault of whose elaborate and masterly
 
 THE HARVEST HOME. 399 
 
 description is, that it gives a far too favourable idea of these grottoes. I 
 chiefly confine myself to the first hypogeum, in wliich beginning, with the 
 artist, at the exterior extremity of the left hand wall, we find, in the 
 second compartment, a carriage drawn by two horses, apparently waiting 
 for the owner ; with a groom on foot holding the reins and repressing the 
 ardour of his steeds. Next occurs a company of reapers, with sickles in 
 their hands, in a field ; where, to dispel any ideas of pastoral simplicity 
 and rural happiness, to wliich our ignorant admiration of remote ages and 
 their patriarchal manners might give birth, we discover, close behind, the 
 overseer, brandishing a whip, like a negro-driver ; the wisdom of the 
 Egyptians having been able to discover no other excitement to labour than 
 flogging. The corn having been thrashed and winnowed in the field, as is 
 the present practice of the Arabs, it is conveyed to the granary in large 
 baskets, slung upon poles, and carried between two men. Women, like 
 Ruth in the field of Boaz, are next seen gleaning up the scattered ears into 
 small baskets. Then follows a large chasm in the wall. 
 
 We must now suppose the corn to be safely housed, and preparations 
 making for the harvest-home. Tiie President Goguet's commiseration 
 is excited at finding no mention of game or ragouts among the descriptions 
 of patriarchal feasts in the sacred writings,, and, from this circumstance, 
 infers that such viands were unknown in those early ages. But the natives 
 of Eileithyias were not quite so simple in their taste ; for we see the 
 sportsman returning from the chase, with his bow and quiver in his hand, 
 and a well filled game-bag slung across his shoulder. Next comes the 
 feast. Women, according to some historians, had in ancient Egypt, as at 
 Sparta, the most complete ascendancy over their husbands, whose houses 
 and fortune they governed despotically. Here both sexes, though not 
 seated together, appear to be on terms of perfect equality ; the male guests, 
 sixteen in number, being ranged on chairs, on one side of the apartment, 
 while the women, likewise sixteen, occupy the other. The master of the 
 house, who mingles not witli the guests, occupies a throne in one end of 
 the apartment, and beside him, on the same seat, is his wife, witli her right 
 arm about his neck. Before them are several domestics waiting their 
 orders, among whom are two female musicians ; one seated on the ground, 
 playing on a harp of seven strings, which rests upon her knees ; while the 
 other touches a four-chorded crescent-shaped instrument, held awkwardly 
 on the shoulder. In the middle of the banqueting-room, on a large table 
 piled with provisions, we observed a bull's head, cooked with the horns 
 on ; and beside it a whole quarter of the same animal : from which it is 
 quite clear that the Egyptians ate the relations of their god Apis, though 
 they might not choose to devour the divinity himself. Piles of fruit of 
 various kinds are on the table for the dessert. The men, attended upon by 
 two female-slaves, have each a lotus in their hand, and appear exceedingly 
 grave ; but their more vivacious moieties, who are honoured with ten 
 attendants, seem, in many instances, to have cast their lotuses on the 
 ground, and are laughing, and clapping their hands, delighted with the 
 music or the song. The hair of the master and the other men is twisted 
 into small ringlets, in the modern Nubian fashion ; but that of the ladies
 
 400 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 is either arranged smooth, or covered by their head-dress. As the mistress 
 of the feast is placed on her lord's left hand, the other ladies, arranged in 
 front of her, are necessarily seated on the right of theirs. In the lower 
 compartment, now extremely mutilated and imperfect, are the figures of 
 cows and other animals ; and on the sides of the niche, where was formerly 
 a sitting statue, now broken, are various figures, some kneeling, others 
 playing upon musical instruments before the master of the tomb and 
 his wife. 
 
 But at length Thoth Psychopompos knocks at the rich man's door to 
 conduct his spirit to Amenti. His domus et placens uxor are resigned ; the 
 soul, according to its deeds, migrates into a cat, a hog, a vulture, or an ibis, 
 to accomplish, in successive transmigrations, the revolution of the Great 
 Year ; while the body, that it may be entire at its owner's return, is 
 delivered over to tlie embalmers. We see the mummies swathed, ban- 
 daged, and stretched upon a couch, with various female mourners — hired 
 ones, perhaps — weeping round it on their knees. The yellow chest, in 
 which it is to be borne to it? long home, being brought in procession move 
 placed in it, is laid on a lion-shaped bier ; the funeral and the mummy 
 along. In a small sledge drawn by men, a seated figure, the heei, perhaps, 
 of the deceased, precedes the mummy-chest; they arrive at the sacred 
 river ; the coffin, the mourners, the attendants, embark in boats, drawn 
 along the shore by a cow — the cord being fastened to her horns — several 
 men assisting. In a compartment adjoining, a man, with a globe on his 
 head, is seated on an urn, and two figures, probably of priests, are pouring 
 libations over him. Near them, towards the left, another person is 
 delineated cutting up an animal, possibly for the funeral feast ; for the 
 old Egyptians, like the Irish, invariably made merry at a wake. Pro- 
 ceeding into the third tomb, we observe, in the niche, a man sitting between 
 two women, who have been supposed to be his wives : but did the old 
 Egyptians allow of polygamy ? The scenes here represented exactly re- 
 semble those above described ; excepting that, in addition to the musicians, 
 there are ghawazee, who perform in light pantaloons, or without any, in a 
 style of the utmost indecency, while ladies look on seeming to enjoy the 
 exhibition. [Manners, therefore, were nearly the same in the days of the 
 Pharaohs as in those of Mohammed Ali : female dancers still perform at 
 feasts in Egypt, and ladies not only regard their performance, but learn to 
 perform in the same style. Among the musicians, who are all females, 
 several are observed playing on the sistrum. 
 
 The lofty propylon of Apollinopolis Magna is visible from the river, 
 looking more like a fortress than the appendage to a place of worship. A 
 little above Esneh the sacred valley is greatly narrowed, the desert, in 
 many places, reaching almost to the water's edge ; until at length, at 
 Hajjah Silsilis, or the " rock of the chain," the mountains on either side 
 approach the stream, leaving no room for vegetation, and the Nile, strait- 
 ened in its bed, roars and hurries along with prodigious velocity; so that, 
 though aided by a strong wind, it was witli difficulty Ave could stem the 
 current. Black barren rocks, hewn in many places into catacombs, over- 
 hang the stream, which eternally foams and roars around their bases.
 
 ARRIVAL AT FARES. 
 
 401 
 
 Here the hills are greatly diversified in aspect, rising into numerous peaks, 
 divided from each other by hiteral valleys, extending far into the desert. 
 
 Temple of EJfou from the North. 
 
 All this day the atmosphere was filled with fine sand, which, driven along 
 by the wind, had, at a distance, the appearance of mist ; while numerous 
 flights of wild geese, and large snow-white storks, crowded the sandy isles. 
 
 :3rm^^ 
 
 Kuins of Edfou from the South. 
 
 We arrived at Fares soon after dark, having made upwards of fourteen 
 leagues, — the longest day's sailing since we had been on the river.
 
 402 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 I shall liere introduce an account of my visit to the quarries of Hajjah 
 Silsilis, which I examined on my voyage down the Nile, We landed 
 at the foot of the eastern mountains, and found the most extensive 
 and extraordinary quarries in Egypt, perhaps in the world. Though 
 the excavations begin not immediately, marks of the tool are every- 
 where visible, and we therefore examined carefully each rent and opening 
 in the mountain. No monuments existing above ground convey so 
 grand an idea of the labours of the Egyptians as these quarries, the 
 most remarkable of all their works. Passages wide as streets cut in the 
 rock, rising perpendicularly to the height of fifty or sixty feet on either 
 side, sometimes straight, at other times winding, extend from the brink of 
 the river into the very bowels of the mountain, where the rock has been 
 cut away and spaces cleared equal in dimensions to the greatest squares in 
 London. Towards the north are seen innumerable chambers, like the 
 dwelling-places of the Titans, and prodigious colonnades, extending round 
 the base of the mountains. The rough-hewn irregular roof is supported by 
 huge square or polygonal columns, of solid rock, in many cases eighty or a 
 hundred feet in circumference. On the slope of the mountain, overlooking 
 the river, I found the sphinx described by Hamilton, but its head has been 
 broken off. The crio-sphinxes I could nowhere discover. Enormous 
 blocks of stone, completely severed from the mountain, are placed upon 
 smaller ones, ready to be removed ; and others, still more vast, had been 
 cut and carried away, the places whence they were taken exceeding forty 
 feet in length. The Arab who accompanied me, astonished at the extent 
 and depth of the quarries, which would have furnished materials for all the 
 cities of the East, exclaimed, " Wallah (by God) ! if those kafirs had 
 existed up to the present time, they would have cut away every vestige 
 of the mountain !" 
 
 I remained several hours among these solitary rocks, admiring the deep 
 narrow passages, resembling the streets of a great city — the endless exca- 
 vations — the prodigious mounds thrown forth from the quarries — the tablets 
 — the antique inscriptions — the huge blocks of stone. In the ravines on 
 the eastern side of the mountain I for some time lost my attendant, 
 despatched in search of a particular avenue loosely indicated by a former 
 traveller, while I myself continued my researches in another direction. 
 Sometime after I found him among the rocks, staring, pale, a ludicrous 
 personification of terror ; and on inquiring the reason, he replied, that in a 
 small cavity of the hill he had suddenly encountered a lion. Fear chained 
 him to the spot. His eyes grew dim (perhaps he closed them) ; but find- 
 inff the monster make no attempt to devour him, he ventured to regard it 
 more narrowly, and discovered it to be a camel, lying down and eating 
 straw among the rocks ! 
 
 The day drawing towards its close, we crossed to the western bank, 
 where numerous quarries and small rock temples likewise exist, apparently 
 the more ancient works. Here, near the northern extremity of the strait, 
 we observed, in one of the rude hypogea, a few remarkable groups and 
 figures. The temple, consisting of two chambers, a greater and a less, is 
 entered by five doorways, in the spaces between which deep niches contain
 
 QUARRIES OF SILSILIS. 403 
 
 a number of figures in alto rilievo, too much mutilated to allow of our 
 determining whether they were gods or mortals. In the adytum, as in 
 the Nubian rock temples, is a large niche containing seven figures, repre- 
 
 Toinbs in the Quairies of SilsiUs. 
 
 sented standing on a stone bench, originally executed coarsely, and now 
 wantonly mutilated. On the northern wall I observed Isis, Osiris, Bouto, 
 Athor, and other deities, moving in the train of Anubis. On the side of 
 one of the doorways is a human figure, and what seemed to be a horse's 
 head, greatly defaced. In another part Isis and Osiris, to whom a votary 
 is making an offering of three lotuses and a child's head, with a tuft of hair 
 on the crown as worn at present. On the opposite side a figure presents 
 to the same divinities the symbol of the double-sexed god ; from all which 
 it would appear that these rock temples were dedicated to the worship of 
 divinities analogous in character to Kal and Kali, whose horrid altars have 
 always been smeared in India with human blood. 
 
 Next morning the wind still continuing, the Arabs were stirring before 
 dawn ; I also followed their example, and having dressed and breakfasted 
 by lamp-light, was walking on a low sand bank in the river when the sun 
 rose. These islands are the usual haunts of the crocodiles ; but as tliey 
 love to bask in the heat, and have an aversion to cold, there is little danger 
 of encountering them early in the luorning, or when the wind blows. In 
 fact, they never seem to rise out of the water but when the surface of the 
 Nile resembles that of a pond, and the whole sandy shore is glittering in the 
 sun, when you see them lying in troops along the edge of the stream. 
 Upon the whole, they would appear to be neither very voracious nor 
 destructive, or familiarity dissipates the dread which their appearance is 
 calculated to inspire ; for both women and children fearlessly approach the
 
 404 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 places where they lie, while various kinds of water- fowl settle in large 
 flights close by their side. The weather for some time has been wonder- 
 fully beautiful. Day after day the sun rises and sets in unclouded 
 brilliance ; or, if a few light vapours appear, they only serve, by contrast, 
 to display more strikingly the rich deep blue of the firmament ; and the 
 nights seem still more lovely than the days. Descending through an 
 atmosphere which constantly becomes clearer in proportion as we are more 
 closely hemmed in by the desert, the moon's light resembles a pale sun- 
 shine; and when the moon disappears, the brilliance and lustre of the stars, 
 many of which are not visible in Europe, scarcely permit us to regret her 
 absence. I know not to what degree of purity tlie atmosphere in high 
 latitudes may be brought by the intense frosts of winter ; Niebuhr was of 
 opinion that the stars shone more brightly in Norway than in the Arabian 
 Desert ; but though the cold nights of the north may also have their 
 charms, it is certain that in no European country, with which I am 
 acquainted, has the firmament ever appeared so thickly strewed with glit- 
 tering fires as in these almost tropical regions, where perhaps the air is no 
 less purified by the elaboration of dew than by frosts in the precincts of the 
 arctic circle. All the stars and planets appeared to be of greater magnitude, 
 but particularly Venus, the loveliest and brightest amongst the " host of 
 heaven," whose liquid brilliance and beauty might almost excuse the 
 adoration of the idolaters of old. As the peasantry retire very early to 
 rest, the night, even in the neighbourhood of the villages, is surprisingly 
 tranquil ; though if you ascend any eminence soon after dusk, numerous 
 small clusters of lights are beheld twinkling afar, like bogfires on the plain, 
 marking the sites of the diflFerent villages. But these soon disappear, one 
 after the other ; and nothing then remains to remind you of being in an 
 inhabited country, save the occasional barking of a dog in some neighbour- 
 ing hamlet or sheep-cote. 
 
 The Arab boatmen, like the Hindus on the Ganges, love to cook and 
 eat their meals on shore, even at night. Last evening, while sailing 
 between the dark rocks of Gebel Silsilis, we observed one solitary kandjia, 
 moored close to the land, whose crew, having kindled a large fire high 
 up in a ravine, where they were sheltered from the wind, were seen 
 moving to and fro before the flames, while their supper was preparing, 
 half naked, like so many savages. The tradition which explains why 
 these wild hills have been denominated the " Rock of the Chain," is most 
 probably founded in truth. Formerly, according to the Arabs, during the 
 times when Egypt was a prey to anarchy, a tribe of fierce banditti, 
 inhabiting the catacombs, caverns, and quarries, so abundantly found here, 
 extended a large iron chain across the Nile, by means of which they could 
 intercept, when they pleased, any vessel sailing up and down. The Arabs 
 are an inventive and poetical people. They know, after their fashion, how 
 to explain everything. Even the cry of the curlew, which they call 
 " karawan," has, they say, a solemn meaning, when translated into human 
 language. Impressed with a due sense of the power and majesty of the 
 Creator, this bird, in its solitary flight among the rocks, thus addresses the 
 Deity: " Lak, lak, lak, la shouak, kalak, fi '1 mulk;" that is, "To thee.
 
 ARRIVAL AT SYENE. 
 
 405 
 
 to thee, to tliee belongs the sovereignty of the world, without partner or 
 companion." 
 
 The wind, which yesterday blew with so much violence that the Nile 
 was covered with large waves, in which the kandjia rolled and pitched as 
 in a stormy sea, has to-day forsaken us, so that there is scarcely a breath 
 stirring, or the slightest ripple on the water. Were the navigation of the 
 Nile in the hands of more observing men, it might perhaps be found, that, 
 owing to the direction of the rocky chains of the desert, or some other 
 cause at present unknown, particular parts of the river are liable to frequent 
 and strong winds, while in others calms very commonly prevail. Near 
 Edfou, for example, where we were driven along by a violent gale from 
 the north-west, I was assured by Suleiman, who had been ten times up 
 the country, that he had never failed to encounter a similar wind ; and 
 accordingly, on our return, we found it still blowing. The same thing 
 happens near Wady Halfii, in Nubia. A diligent survey of the structure 
 of the surrounding country might throw some light on the causes of these 
 phenomena, unless we suppose them to have been accidental. Unluckily for 
 our Arabs, no breeze aided us in reaching Es- Souan. They were compelled to 
 have recourse to their old method of tracking, to which I observed they 
 returned more reluctantly after the prevalence of a day or two's fair wind, 
 than when constantly engaged in it from morning till night. Darkness 
 overtook us a few miles below the town, where, pretending to fear the 
 rocks in the channel of the river, they were desirous of mooring for the 
 night ; but by promising them a present, and a long rest on the limits of 
 Egypt, I urged them forward, and about ten o^clock arrived at Syene. 
 
 Here then we were at the " far Syene," so renowned for its granite 
 quarries, and the well into which the sun was said to shine without a 
 shadow, though the town is in fact north of the tropic. It stands imme- 
 diately below the Cataract, and opposite the Isle of Elephantine. 
 
 The quarries are at the base of the mountains behind the town, from 
 
 which they are sepa- 
 rated by a sandy tract, 
 strewed with frag- 
 ments of granite. — 
 Here are seen the beds 
 of the magnificent 
 obelisks which were 
 transported hence to 
 the most distant parts 
 of the Delta, and many 
 of which grace the 
 capitals of Europe. 
 Emperors and Popes 
 have thought the mere 
 removal and re-erec- 
 tion of one of these 
 masses of granite an 
 achievement worthy of honourable record; but the old Pharaohs have the 
 
 Ruined Temple at Syene.
 
 406 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 honour of having first hewn them from the mountains, and elaborately sculp- 
 tured their surfaces of adamantine hardness. The chisel marks are still sharp : 
 in one place is seen one obelisk half-severed from the rock, but broken and 
 abandoned. We know but little of the state of art and artists under their 
 great patrons the Pharaohs ; but an incident recorded by Pliny strikingly 
 ilhistrates the great interest they took in the progress of their architectural 
 works. An obelisk having been hewn and brought to its destination, was 
 about to be erected. So anxious was the monarch that it should meet with 
 no accident in this difficult operation, that to oblige his engineers to exert 
 all their prudence and skill, he bound Ms own son to the apex* 
 
 Early in the morning we passed over in a small boat to the Island of 
 Elephantine, enjoying, while rowing across the river, a view of the tombs 
 and ruined convents on the neighbouring rocks, the modern village and 
 the remains of the ancient city of Syene perched high upon the hills. Es- 
 Souan has very justly been denominated the most romantic spot in Egypt. 
 It is so ; for, independently of the excited imagination of the traveller, 
 now arrived at the borders of Ethiopia, the scene about the cataracts is 
 strange and new. But the town itself may be put almost altogether out 
 of the question, as it has not even the advantage of being situated, like 
 other Egyptian towns, among palm-trees, being thrown, in a straggling 
 irregular shape, on the slope of a barren hill. The view which it commands 
 is everything — the Nile having here the appearance of a narrow lake, sur- 
 rounded on all sides by arid but picturesque rocks, at the foot of which 
 is seen a belt of bright verdure interspersed with scattered groves. 
 
 As the boat darted rapidly over the water, the prospect changed every 
 moment, one rocky height after another seeming to glide away, or mingle 
 with the distant mountains; while the eastern hills, intercepting the morn- 
 ing sun, threw their long shadows over the stream. We landed on the 
 island near a small ruined staircase, leading apparently to the lowest level 
 of the river, from which it may be entered by a doorway. This has been 
 called a Nilometer ; but I should rather suppose it to have been merely 
 intended for a landing-place, like those numerous Ghats constructed by 
 pious individuals on the banks of the Ganges. It is now, however, in 
 ruins, and the staircase partly filled with loose stones and mud. Nothing 
 could be plainer than the style in which it was built ; and being contained 
 in a wall, erected for the purpose of breaking the force of the river, and pre- 
 venting it from wearing away the soil, it may formerly have led to the 
 grounds and dwelling of some wealthy inhabitant of the island. 
 
 It has, however, been supposed that the rise of the river was measured 
 by a scale on one of the side walls, t This opinion I can neither confirm 
 nor contradict ; because, though I searched in vain for such a scale, it may 
 probably have escaped me, and be still to be found there. 
 
 A little further to the south are many immense rocks of granite, rising 
 considerably above the surface of the Nile, in one of which is observed a 
 round opening, about four feet in diameter, formerly, perhaps, a deep well, 
 whose rocky sides have now been broken or worn away nearly to a level 
 with the water. Not many yards beyond are the remains of a lofty 
 * Walhen. t Ibid.
 
 ISLE OF ELEPHANTINE. 
 
 407 
 
 massive wall, raised upon the granite rocTjs here forming the banks of the 
 stream, and exhibiting in two or three places perpendicular bands of hiero- 
 glyphics, which Belzoni supposed to have been a Nilometer ; mistakenly, 
 no doubt, as they are buried, during the inundation, far beneath the water. 
 The ruined edifice, of which the above wall forms a part, may possibly 
 contain tlie real Nilometer described by Strabo ; but the whole of the 
 interior is now so entirely filled up with rubbish, that, without laborious 
 excavations, nothing respecting it can be ascertained. 
 
 Proceeding still farther towards the south, we come to a ruined wall, 
 containing two windows looking out upon the river, which would appear 
 to have been of Roman construction ; but, in reality, there are no remains 
 worthy of the slightest notice, not even the fragment of the granite pro- 
 pylon mentioned by former travellers ; for, whatever it may once have been, 
 it is nothing now. 
 
 From the edge of the river, we ascended over high mounds of ruins 
 covered with fragments of tiles and pottery, towards the centre of the 
 island, from whence we enjoyed a magnificent prospect. The Nile, closely 
 hemmed in on both sides, appears, south of Elephantine, to force its way 
 with extreme difficulty through vast cliffs and terraces of granite ; its 
 whole channel, in this direction, as far as the eye can reach, being broken 
 by a thousand islands ; some consisting of a cluster of rugged pinnacles of 
 different heights, black and bare ; others appeai'ing like a pyramid of loose 
 masses piled on each other by the Titans ; while here and there, among 
 this ruinous scene, other islands of softer aspect appear, adorned with 
 beautiful verdure, reeds, and grasses and tamarisks, which, occupying every 
 nook and fissure, run along feathering the slopes and lofty terraces of the 
 rocks, and waving like so many hanging gardens over the stream below. 
 
 The gaps and hollows 
 of the Libyan chain 
 
 -j;;;==__ are filled with yellow 
 
 '^'^^rS/ir^^^^^ sand, bi'ought thither 
 
 _ _ ^ — 1^'~- from the Desert by 
 
 the winds, through 
 whose agency it is 
 disposed in smooth, 
 beautiful slopes, reach - 
 ing down like beds 
 of drifted snow to the 
 very base of the 
 mountains, where 
 commence the dimi- 
 nutive fields of allu- 
 vial soil, covered, small 
 as they are, with luxu- 
 riant vegetation. On the east are the gray rocks and shingly slopes, 
 among which the eye detects the scanty remains of the Roman and Saracen 
 towns. 
 
 The southern extremity only of Elephantine is rocky, lofty, and barren. 
 
 A Tejuple and Modern Houses at Elephantine.
 
 408 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Towards the north, the surface of the island sinks gradually into a plain, 
 covered with rich corn-fields, groups of cattle, date- groves, pastures, and 
 villages. From the summit, where there is nothing but rubbish, we 
 descended towards the granite colossal statue of Osiris, standing on the 
 slope of the hill, among heaps of broken jars, &c. The god is represented 
 in a sitting posture, with the arms crossed upon the breast, bearing a 
 crosier in one hand and a sceptre in the other ; the features are nearly 
 obliterated ; in other respects, the statue is in good preservation. Several 
 of the natives now crowded about us with a few miserable antiquities, 
 broken scarabsei, small idols of pottery, and coins half-eaten with rust, 
 which they had picked up among the ruins. They were all ugly, squalid, 
 and half-starved. Yet Sir Frederic Henniker and Dr. Richardson thought 
 the women of Elephantine beautiful. On my second visit, while in search 
 of the neat baskets of different colours which are made there, I saw nearly 
 all the inhabitants of the island, but I regret that I could discover 
 nothing in the features of the natives to justify my joining in the compli- 
 ment. The race, however, may have degenerated. Many of the early 
 navigators saw beauty, we know, in the women of the South Sea Islands ; 
 but they had been a long time at sea, and our more fastidious contempo- 
 raries call their judgment in question. Abstracting all consideration of 
 colour — for Memnon, whom Ulysses pronounced the handsomest man, 
 Achilles, perhaps, excepted, on the plains of Troy, was black, — I have 
 never seen, among either Arabs or Nubians, one woman who could be 
 pronounced strictly beautiful. And if, as is exceedingly probable, the 
 same thing held true of the ancient Egyptians before the Macedonian con- 
 quest, when the mixture of Greek blood may have improved the race, we 
 can easily comprehend why their sculptures never represented beauty; 
 though, in the countenance of Isis, there is often a placid matronly tender- 
 ness, inferior to, but not unlike, that of the Virgin, by Sasso Ferrato ; and 
 the resemblance is increased by her being generally represented with the 
 Infant Huors on her lap. 
 
 The complexion of the natives here, at the southern extremity of Egypt, 
 after having passed through all the gradations of colour, is of a sooty, or 
 chocolate hue. No coimtry, perhaps, in the world furnishes so striking a 
 proof as Egypt of the effect of climate upon colour. On the shores of the 
 Mediterranean, the natives are nearly as white as Europeans. In advanc- 
 ing southwards, they constantly become more and more swarthy ; until, 
 by a series of imperceptible transitions, their tint deepens into black. This 
 fact, for fact it unquestionably is, some have attempted to account for by 
 observing that it is the proximity of the black countries of the interior, 
 and not the effect of heat, that produces the change I have noticed. But 
 to this it may be answered, that the intermingling of races takes place 
 more generally in Lower than in Upper Egypt, since the means of pur- 
 chasing slaves are more abundant near the seat of government. I only 
 throw out this remark, however, by the way, the discussion of questions 
 connected with the physical history of mankind not lying within the 
 scope of the present work. 
 
 Returning to our boat, we rowed round the southern point of the island,
 
 DISTANT VIEW OF THE NUBIAN DESERT. 
 
 409 
 
 s' rs'-'f ^ 
 
 Remains of a Gate at Elephantineh. 
 
 whose extremity is protected from the violence of the river by prodigious 
 blocks of granite, which in many places bear the marks of tools. The 
 main stream of the Nile is here so narrow as to excite our pity for its 
 
 fallen grandeur, being not more 
 than two stones-throw across ; but, 
 when we entered into the various 
 currents which branch off, and 
 rush with extreme impetuosity be- 
 tween the rocks, we quickly found 
 that the old dragon had not lost 
 the power. To go with the stream, 
 however, was easy ; but when we 
 put about, and endeavoured to row 
 up against the current, it was a 
 different matter : and in turninor 
 
 _ . o 
 
 the point of a small island, the boat 
 struck upon a rock, and we had 
 a narrow escape from being preci- 
 pitated into the river. Fortunately, 
 however, the boat righted ; and we 
 crossed over, amid foam and eddies, 
 to the eastern shore. Landing 
 here, we climbed the mountains of 
 granite and sandstone to the south 
 of the city, which command an extensive view of the cataracts, and the 
 islands and rapids which constitute the principal beauty of the scene, 
 together with tlie rugged chain of mountains forming the boundary of the 
 desert towards the west. From the summit of an eminence, at a short 
 distance to the east, we obtained a magnificent prospect of the commence- 
 ment of the Nubian 
 desert, rocky, dreary, 
 desolate, and cursed 
 with eternal barren- 
 ness. Yet the aspect 
 of its arid surface was 
 considerably diversi- 
 fied. Here j^ou ob- 
 served long ridges of 
 gray sand, everlast- 
 ingly whirled about 
 by the winds and 
 heated by the sun ; 
 farther on, granite 
 rocks, of a dirty black 
 colour, like masses of 
 
 dried mud, resembling, in the midst of the sandy plain, so many islands in 
 the ocean ; and this alternation of dusky mounds with beds of light shifting 
 sand, formed by the agency of the wind into valleys, circular hollows, vast 
 
 The Cataracts.
 
 410 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 wavy slopes, crested ridges, and ominous heaps like graves, continued as 
 far as the eye could reach. In returning to the town we passed by a 
 sheikh"'s tomb, most picturesquely situated on the sharp point of a mountain, 
 round which the wind, now very powerful, roared and blew tremendously. 
 
 On returning to our boats we found the Reis of the Cataracts' deputy 
 waiting for us, together with a camel-driver, called Mohammed, well 
 known to travellers, who was very earnest in persuading us to proceed to 
 Wady Haifa on dromedaries, this being, he said, by far the most expedi- 
 tious way, since, instead of three weeks or more, which we must inevitably 
 consume in the kandjias, we could, on dromedaries, perform the whole 
 journey in ten days. Mohammed was a keen, shrewd fellow, who in his 
 way had been a great traveller, having frequently made the perilous 
 traject of the Nubian desert, east of the Nile, by the track pursued by 
 Bruce on his return from Abyssinia, visited many of the black countries 
 with slave caravans, and even penetrated as far as Suakin on the Red Sea, 
 through the country of the Bisharein Arabs. He had, moreover, con- 
 trived, Heaven knows how, to pick up a little Italian in his journeyings, 
 sufficient to make himself understood. Besides his business of camel- 
 driving, he likewise exercised the professions of a merchant, of a guide, 
 and of a dealer in curiosities and antiquities ; and had spears, fellalat bows, 
 poisoned arrows in quivers of crocodile or fish-skin, ostrich eggs, feathers, 
 &c., for sale. His prices were not exorbitant, and I purchased of him 
 several remarkable curiosities for less than one-twelfth what wouldt be 
 demanded for them in Cairo ; among the articles which he exhibited to us 
 was a spear with a rosewood-coloured handle, belonging to a native of 
 Darfour, and said by its owner to have been taken in battle from a black 
 king. It was curiously ornamented with brass wire, and had, no doubt, 
 been the weapon of some wealthy chief, as the spears of the common 
 Africans are very plain and rude. Nearly all the Nubians whom we saw 
 here wore upon their arms, above the elbows, amulets, carefully sewn up 
 in square red leather cases, and fastened to the arm by a broad thong of 
 the same colour. Their nature was unknown to the wearers ; and their 
 virtue, it was said, would depart from them the moment they should be 
 opened and inspected. Some would not part at any price with these 
 preservatives against evil ; and others, whom the miri sacra fames over- 
 came, asked so extravagant a price for them, that we declined the purchase 
 altogether. 
 
 An American traveller here witnessed a little scene, which deserves to 
 be commemorated. I should observe, however, that he everywhere appears 
 to be prejudiced against the Arabs, and seldom misses an opportunity to 
 represent them in an unfavourable light. " We were accustomed," he says, 
 " to leave everything in tlie charge of our Coptic dragoman, John ; and so 
 little reason have we liad for distrust, that we have seldom turned a key 
 — cloths, books, and even money, being left with no other security than 
 such as they may find in his fidelity. Our Arab crew we have the best 
 possible reason to believe false and dishonest. To-day John met with a 
 tempter in the servant of a baker, with whom he had been negotiating 
 supplies for our voyage. Grateful for his patronage, or under the influ-
 
 LUDICROUS SCENE. 411 
 
 ence of some baser sentiment, this man had contrived to make our faithful 
 servant drunk. We found him barely able to stand, and quite bereft of 
 all capacity to perform his usual duties. A drunken man is a rare spec- 
 tacle in Egypt. Intoxicating drink is prohibited to Mussulmen ; and 
 whatever may be the fate of other precepts of the Koran, this, among the 
 common people at least, seems to be pretty well observed. The climate, 
 too, favours temperance, and our Christian dragoman is the only man I 
 have seen intoxicated in this country. Of course this was an event of 
 some moment, and tlie rumour soon brought a crowd from the town, less 
 than half a mile distant, to witness the disgrace of the hated Nazarene. 
 Some were evidently drawn to the spot by more selfish motives ; and we 
 found that John had been buying of their merchandise pretty freely, with- 
 out discretion or economy. The venders of all sorts of trifles were crowded 
 about the boat. Baskets, mats, Nubian shields, barbed spears, chickens, 
 koorbashes, articles of Nubian dress, knives, ostrich eggs, antiques, &c., 
 had been transferred from the bazars to find vent in the expanded libera- 
 lity of our unfortunate servant. The crowd, on our arrival, may have 
 consisted of one or two hundred persons. Hard words and angry feelings 
 had arisen. We found John hot with wrath at some insult, and he leaped 
 from the boat to inflict chastisement on the real or supposed ofiender. 
 The crowd shrunk back at our approach, and he pitched headlong into the 
 sand. The sailors brought him on board, and with much difiiculty we got 
 him into the hold ; but he soon sprung out again, incessantly declaring 
 that he would be avenged. The Arabs fell to fighting among themselves. 
 One woman wept, declaring that John had bought her trinkets without 
 paying for them, and a dozen more volunteered to aid her in making good 
 her claim. In the meantime several were engaged in stealing the bread, 
 which, to increase our difficulties, was just then brought to us by the baker. 
 I detected one woman with at least a peck of biscuits in her skirt, and 
 another succeeded in carrying away a basketful before our eyes. Every 
 one seemed intent upon increasing the confusion, and profiting by it. We 
 several times drove them away from the boat by violence, but they imme- 
 diately returned. The Captain of the port, one of the Pasha's oflicers, 
 occasionally interfered, with his long Nubian spear, under pretence of 
 restoring order, but in efi"ect to increase the uproar.* 
 
 While at this place I saw one of a class — who appeared to be the legiti- 
 mate successors of the old magicians of the Pharaohs — the serpent 
 charmers. The man held the reptile fearlessly in his hand, now caressing 
 it, now chafing it. The serpent writhed his body into wavy folds, pro- 
 truded his narrow angular head, slid his slippery length through his 
 master's fingers, and hung loosely to his liand, but never off"ercd to 
 retaliate. f 
 
 About two miles and a half from Es-Souan commences that extensive 
 Mohammedan cemetery, containing, according to Makrizi, the remains of 
 twenty-one thousand persons, who, about the year 80(3 of the Hejira, 
 perished of the plague. The ancient Saracenic town, whose extent can still 
 be traced, was never, I imagine, sufficiently peopled to furnish the plague 
 * Dr. Oliu. t Wathen,
 
 412 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 with so many victims, even had it swept off the whole of the inhabitants ; 
 and a large proportion must have survived to erect so many grave stones. 
 The popular tradition appropriates these monuments to sixty thousand 
 prophets, or holy men, who flourished in former ages at Es-Souan. They 
 are about two feet in height, by sixteen inches in breadth, and the inscrip- 
 tions, in neatly engraved characters, are of considerable length. JMany 
 have been trampled down, or broken ; but fortunately there exists among 
 the natives a superstitious belief, that whoever violates the sanctity of 
 these graves, will be stricken with immediate death ; in proof of which 
 tliey relate a story of a drunken Turk, who, to show his contempt for the 
 saints, fired his pistol at one of the tombs, staggered forward a few paces, 
 and dropped down dead. I saw the marks of the ball, which seemed to 
 be quite recent ; but for the fate of the Moslem I cannot vouch. Among 
 the humbler monuments are many more sumptuous mausolea, consisting 
 of a neat dome resting on four arches, or on a square basis. 
 
 Now for the cataracts. — Bidding adieu to Elephantine, the breeze 
 carried us gently along between the granite islets mentioned above, of the 
 most singular forms, many of them sculptured with hieroglyphics — their 
 polished edges glittering in the sun, a scene strangely beautiful, almost too 
 wild for beauty. A hawk, nature's sculpture in the living rock, springing 
 up propitiously on the left, from the brow of the eastern crags, seemed to 
 invite us to the sacred isle of Philte, and augur a prosperous passage of 
 the intermediate cataracts. The wind freshened, and ere long, the lovely 
 
 IffiSBtej^ 
 
 Island 01 Phils. 
 
 isle of Shehayl stole into sight, and flitted past like a dream, its palm- 
 trees waving in the breeze, and children sporting under them, naked as the
 
 ISLAND OF PIIIL^. 413 
 
 day they were born ; an Isle of the Blest it seemed — one of those happy 
 islands where poets tell us the shades of heroes of old wander, under whis- 
 pering groves, in sweet converse, placid and at rest, after the turmoils of 
 life — aptly figured by the black rocks that, hemming in the noble river, 
 gave so awful a character to the surrounding scenery. And yet, this 
 little isle had still more exalted inhabitants : Sati and Anuki, the Juno 
 and Vesta of Egyptian mythology, and Kneph, the spirit of the universe, 
 delighted in its bowers and honoured it with their protection ; and 
 hieroglyphical tablets, anterior to the birth of Cecrops, attest its early 
 sanctity. The whole valley, indeed, of the Nile, between Elephantine 
 and Philae, was holy ground to the Egyptians and Ethiopians.* 
 
 Experience, however, soon dispels these pleasing visions from the mind 
 of the traveller, for if, arresting the course of his boat, he happens to land 
 on this seeming Isle of the Blest, he immediately finds its inhabitants 
 rushing down to the beach, sword or bludgeon in hand, to prosecute their 
 feud with the good folks of Es-Souan, some of whom the stranger has 
 probably brought along with him. These people have carried on the feud 
 for generations, and even though Egypt and Nubia are now under one 
 governor, they are still, in this instance, the borderers of hostile king- 
 doms.t 
 
 The scenery now exchanged its character of mingled beauty and terror 
 for that of unmingled grandeur ; not that the rocks are particularly lofty, 
 but Salvator never dreamed of such strange unnatural combinations — 
 sometimes shooting into craggy pinnacles, often piled one on another, regu- 
 larly and methodically, as if in mockery of human architecture, or wildly 
 and confusedly heaped, like the fall of a volcanic shower — all gloom relieved 
 only by the yellow sands that lie drifted, like snow-wreaths, on the face of 
 the western shore ; if that can be called relief which carries the imagina- 
 tion, beyond the narrow bounds of visible desolation, to the illimitable 
 waste of the desert, where even fancy's wing must sink exhausted. The 
 sun glowing in a cloudless sky reminded us of our approach to the tropics, 
 while Father Nile, flowing swifter and swifter as we drew near each suc- 
 cessive rapid, dashing and foaming over the islets, and often the most 
 turbulent where w^e were to force our passage, seemed to bar all further 
 progress towards his undiscoverable source. But his opposition, like that 
 of the visionary waters of fairy legends, vanished before the steady breeze 
 of resolution ; he offered a more formidable barrier in ancient times, if we 
 may believe tlie fictions of the poets. 
 
 The Arabs who met us by appointment at the first rapid were of 
 little use, the breeze carried us up steadily and beautifully, and we 
 sailed on again for a while in smooth water ; but the river recovered 
 its velocity as we approached the second and more formidable rapid, 
 winding our way between the little glittering islets, constantly expecting 
 to fall foul of them, but escaping always by an inch or two — thanks to the 
 counter eddies! — shifting our broad lateen sail every moment, as we changed 
 our position with regai-d to the wind ; the white-bearded reis, meanwhile, 
 conspicuous from afar in his brilliant robes of red and blue, with variegated 
 * Lindsay. f Henniker. 
 
 N N 2
 
 414 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 turban and cane of office, gesticulating and shouting from the rocks ; the 
 sons of Sheni, Ham, and Japhet, yelling the languages of Europe, Asia, 
 and Africa around us ; our last detachment of Arabs and Nubians watch- 
 ing us from the opposite shore, or a clinging to a log of wood, flinging 
 themselves fearlessly into the very jaws of the cataract, swept down like 
 lightning, soon to re-appear at our vessel's side, like mahogany and ebony 
 statues, with a request for a backsheish, viz., a guerdon of their intre- 
 pidity ; altogether it was a strange, a savage scene, worth coming all the 
 way from England to witness. 
 
 Here, at the second rapid, the Nile appears completely closed in by the 
 rocks ; it was at first sight difficult to conceive the possibility of threading 
 our way between, or penetrating beyond them. After one fruitless 
 attempt, we succeeded in crossing to the opposite rocks, where, the natives 
 attaching a large and strong rope of twisted palm fibres, we commenced 
 our ascent, with the chorussed song of " Hayleesa !" " God help !" By 
 dint of pulling and poling, in which we all lent a hand, we got up 
 famously — to our wonder, looking back — for the rapid we had surmounted 
 is by far the most difficult of ascent, owing to the narrowness of the 
 channel, where alone it is practicable. Then we had smooth sailing for a 
 while, the reis in his ample robes heading our corieije on the eastern shore, 
 at least seventy or eighty men and boys, efficient and inefficient, following 
 in his rear, laughing and skipping, pelting each other with sand, and 
 flourishing their long dirks, half-earnest, half-play, till we arrived at the 
 third and principal rapid, where the Nile, collecting all his waters, rushes 
 down in one broad sheet, smooth as a mirror, and fleet as an arrow ; but 
 we mounted it with little difficulty, there being no rocks to defile through ; 
 pull, pull, pull, steady and unrelaxing, and the cataracts were passed. 
 
 We detached the rope, unfurled the sail (it had been useless since our 
 
 Island ut Fhilse. 
 
 arrival at the second rapid), and glided gently over the calm waters till, 
 the rocks opening, the sacred island of Philaj and its noble temple stood
 
 A DANCING PARTY. 415 
 
 forth to greet us, like the castle of some ancient Dive among the rocks of 
 Ginnestan.* 
 
 As in ascending the river I only glanced over the ruins of Philse, I shall 
 here describe my approach to it from the south, when I explored its 
 ancient treasures luider the most striking circumstances. Shortly after 
 dark we arrived opposite a large island on the African side of the river, 
 separated, however, from the main land only during the inundation. As 
 the kandjia approached the shore, we heard the sound of the Nubian tam- 
 bourine, accompanied at intervals by a shrill whistling noise, and loud 
 bursts of merriment. Concluding, therefore, that all the rank and fashion 
 of the neighbourhood must be assembled under some tree, or round a fire, 
 we were desirous of witnessing, before our departure, the saltatorial per- 
 formances of the Nubian beauties. But as our appearance would certainly 
 put them all to flight, our herald, Bakhid, was sent forward with the olive 
 branch to propose a truce, and, at his intercession, they consented to our 
 beholding their revelry. We found the party congregated on a small 
 open space between the rocks, at the foot of the mountains, partly shaded 
 by tall trees ; the moon supplying the place of lamps and tapers. The 
 performers consisted of a youthful bride and her sister, whose relations and 
 neighbours were met to celebrate with dances and songs the approaching 
 marriage ; the bride was about fourteen years old, her sister about twelve ; 
 and, contrary to what we had observed at Korti, both were clothed from 
 head to foot. Nothing could be more different from the audacious move- 
 ments of the Ghavvazee, than their modest and not ungraceful manner 
 of dancing; the slow step and easy turns of which somewhat resembled those 
 of a quadrille. The rest of the company, ranged in a circle round the 
 dancers, saluted and made room for us on our approach. They consisted 
 of men and women ; some of the latter of extraordinary stature, and half- 
 naked, with children at the breast. Their only music was a tambourine, 
 but the whole circle, clapping their hands and bending their knees, kept 
 time with the instrument ; while the women at intervals uttered a strange 
 tremulous shriek, called by the Arabs zagharit, somewhat resembling the 
 sharp notes of the fife, but so loud that it seemed to pierce the brain. 
 In producing this extraordinary noise, the tongue is rolled in the mouth, 
 while the voice is raised to a higher pitch than I had previously conceived 
 possible ; and when a number of persons join together in this infernal 
 concert, the yell is most terrific. Our Arabs, never backward when 
 mirth and laughter were on foot, immediately fell into the circle, shouting, 
 clapping hands, and bending the knee with the rest ; and the revellers, 
 thus reinforced, proceeded with redoubled vigour. Song after song was 
 sung, the musician thumped the tambourine, the dancers quickened their 
 pace, while shouts, jesting, and laughter mingled with the clapping, the 
 singing, and the drumming ; so that a stranger, coming imawares upon 
 the scene, would have taken us for a group of infernal spirits, performing 
 their gambols in the wilderness. The moon, then near the full, shed a 
 brilliant light, silvering the surface of the river, and casting a flood of 
 splendour over the rocks and sands. But the beauties of the scene were 
 
 * Lindsay.
 
 416 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Scene on the Nile. 
 
 nothing, viewed apart from the swarthy assembly, who, whatever cares 
 and troubles they might have known, had now cast them to the winds. 
 Joy presided over the moment, nor did they seem, like the duller Egyptians 
 of old, to require the sight of a mimic corpse, to enforce the wisdom of 
 enjoying the present hour. This spectacle detained us longer than we had 
 anticipated ; but at length it became necessary to depart, though not with- 
 out adding a few piastres to the fortune of the bride. 
 
 On returning to the boat we threw open our windows to enjoy the 
 
 scenery. Never did 
 the Nile appear so 
 beautiful. Glitter- 
 ing like molten silver 
 beneath the moon, it 
 seemed to stretch 
 away interminably 
 towards the west, 
 among numerous 
 islands and steep 
 pyramidal rocks, 
 which, rising to a 
 great height, threw 
 their mingling sha- 
 dows over its calm 
 surface, concealing 
 its extent, and creating the appearance of a vast lake. Nothing in all 
 Switzerland, on which at the moment my thoughts were dwelling, 
 could exceed in grandeur or beauty this magnificent reach of the Nile ; 
 which seemed to realise all that poetry has feigned of fairy land, — a 
 paradise of rocks and waters, sprinkled with the splendid vegetation of the 
 tropics, wrapped in unbroken silence, and lighted up by a moon and stars 
 of inexpressible brightness. I lost sight with regret of its unrivalled 
 beauties escaping one after another from the eye, as the boat glided rapidly 
 down the stream through the same splendid scenery, all the way to Philse, 
 where we arrived late in the night. 
 
 Mooring close under Pharaoh's Bed, we immediately landed to enjoy 
 the beauties of the island. Travelling is certainly attended by many 
 pleasures, but among the calmest and purest it can furnish I would 
 enumerate the prospect of Philae by moonlight. The same objects that 
 wear the appearance of monotony in description, maintain an untiring 
 interest in the arrangement of Nature — so superior is the cunning of her 
 hand ! Here were the same rocks, the same river, the same moon and 
 sky, which an hour before had so strongly affected our imagination : but 
 what a novel aspect they now wore, and what numerous accessaries had 
 crept in, to give a new character and additional splendour to the landscape ! 
 Art had here laboured, and not in vain, to render nature itself more pictur- 
 esque. Propyla^a, obelisks, long colonnades, innumerable figures of gods, 
 reflected from the surrounding waters, and touched with soft light by the 
 moon, divided our admiration with the ciant crafjs and distant desert,
 
 PHIL^ BY MOONLIGHT. 
 
 4i; 
 
 encompassing a large portion of the scene like a cloud ; while the only 
 sound heard was the sullen monotonous roar of the distant cataract. 
 Standing on the summit of the great temple, whence the prospect is replete 
 with grandeur, I suffered my imagination to wander back to past ages ; 
 when the roof now under my feet had echoed to the yells of pagan orgies, 
 while the whole island and sacred stream were covered with priestly 
 worshippers, engaged in sanguinary and mysterious rites, suggested by 
 irregular passions, unmindful or ignorant of tlie true God and the pure 
 worship which he requires. This was the most holy spot in the dominions 
 of Egypt, where their mythological legends placed the tomb of Osiris ; and 
 when they desired to give peculiar emphasis and solemnity to an oath, 
 they swore by him who slept in Philte. 
 
 Directing our view over the elevated quay at the southern extremity 
 of the islands, and following the windings of the Nile among the rugged 
 promontories towards the distant regions of Ethiopia, the mind naturally 
 recurs to the splendour of the past — the contrasted barbarism of the present 
 — the rise, the reign, the fall of civilisation and art. The Ethiopian traveller, 
 as he caught the first view" of Pliila3 from the Nile, must have formed no 
 mean estimate of Egyptian magnificence. Temples and porticoes, based 
 
 upon grand substruc- 
 tions and combining 
 with the green palms, 
 the pyramidal pro- 
 pylon towering high 
 above all; the whole 
 mirrored in the river 
 and backed by the 
 mountain or shore — 
 what a picture Philas 
 presented then ! But 
 Ethiopia, the parent 
 probably of Egyptian 
 art, is now the abode 
 of rude tribes, and 
 Philae abandoned tobi- 
 lence and desolation.* 
 Among the sculptures on the walls oi this temple, by far too numerous 
 to be here described, there is one group which deserves to be particularly 
 noticed. In the chamber, where the birth of Horus is delineated, is a 
 curious sketch of a bird encircled by the flowers of the Lotus, having on 
 the one side a serpent, and on the other two priests in the act of worship- 
 ping a serpent suspended upon a cross, which has a great resemblance to 
 the usual representation of the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness, t 
 
 Let us descend into the vaults of the temple. Kindling a taper and 
 casting a hurried glance over the sekos, we proceeded to explore those 
 tomb-like recesses and subterranean passages, the intention and use ot 
 
 Point of I'bilae. 
 
 * WiUlieu. 
 
 f Col. Howard Vjse.
 
 418 ^ EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 •which defeat conjecture. The most remarkable of these cells we dis- 
 covered in the thickness of the eastern wall. Its mouth resembles that of 
 a mummy pit ; but the depth being not too great, we descended one after 
 another ; and proceeding in a northerly direction, arrived in a short time 
 at the termination of the passage, where our progress appeared to be 
 stopped. On more narrowly examining the appearance of the place, how- 
 ever, I perceived in the ceiling a small aperture, through which a man 
 might ascend by standing on another's shoulders. In this way I mounted, 
 pulling after me the tall Arab, who had served as a ladder. At the 
 southern extremity of this passage, a similar aperture conducted to the 
 next story ; and, ascending thus through a succession of passages, I at 
 length reached the termination, where I found the whole apparently led to 
 nothing. But this I cannot suppose to be the case. So secret and curious 
 an arrangement must, doubtless, have had an object, and may probably lead 
 to some concealed chamber or cell, in which the tomb of Osiris — at least 
 what was so denominated by the Egyptian priests — may still exist. These 
 narrow corridors, which receive light through small loopholes, contain 
 several deep niches, but no hieroglyphics or sculpture of any kind. 
 
 The only inhabitant of the island at the time of our visit, was Selyma, 
 an old woman, jocularly denominated by the Arabs, " the Queen of 
 Philse," who, upon the strength of this title, demands from travellers a 
 small present ; and as she possesses a cow, her right to furnish them with 
 milk at her own price is seldom disputed. 
 
 In the afternoon we passed over to the neighbouring Island of Bigge, 
 where there also exist a few small and insignificant remains of antiquity. 
 A Nubian family, of which the Queen of Philae appears to be a member, 
 inhabits this island, where they lead a life of great seclusion and poverty. 
 It was among them, however, that I saw the prettiest and cleanest Nubian 
 woman I noticed during my travels. She was the wife of the master of 
 the island, and had an infant in her arras ; a large healthy child, with fine 
 eyes, and a lighter complexion than usual. Poverty did not seem to 
 interfere with their happiness, their looks and whole manner exhibiting 
 an air of afi'ection, not to be put on for show even by greater adepts in civi- 
 lisation than they could be supposed to be ; and their scanty domains were 
 carefully cultivated. 
 
 The Island of Bigge is singularly composed of high mountains of granite, 
 interspersed with fields of dhourra, and with the huts of a few inhabitants, 
 built amongst foundations, mounds of rubbish, and ruined walls, in such a 
 manner that no building of consequence can be exammed without pre- 
 viously destroying them. I saw the remains of a Roman arch, and a block 
 in one of the huts, inscribed with hieroglyphics, and no doubt many ancient 
 memorials have in like manner been consigned to temporary or perpetual 
 oblivion. It was a romantic, and, in many respects, interesting place, 
 from the strong contrast of the fantastic masses of barren stone, with the 
 luxuriant vegetation around them, and from the perfect seclusion and still- 
 ness of the scene, interrupted only by the indistinct noise of the water- 
 wheels, which sounded, particularly as it happened to be Sunday, like the 
 distant harmony of church-bells, whilst some yellow stones on the fertile
 
 CROSSING THE NTLE— ANCIENT TUNNEL. 419 
 
 bank, reflected in the water, had tlie appearance of primroses — a resem- 
 blance not a little heightened by the warmth and serenity of the air ; but 
 at present neither the incense of praise nor the fragrance of spring exist 
 in this plain.* 
 
 Selyma, who seemed to regard us as her subjects, no sooner saw our 
 kandjia turn the northern point of Philje, and make for Bigge, than she 
 threw herself into the Nile, and swam across, to observe our movements. 
 This is their ordinary mode of passing to and fro. AYhen they have any- 
 thing to carry, a palm branch is placed under the breast, as a kind of 
 float, which, from their extraordinary mode of swimming, is easily kept in 
 its position, and does not seem to hurt even the women. 
 
 In performing this traject the ancient Egyptians were not compelled to 
 make use of boat or palm-branch. They had constructed a shaft under 
 the channel of the Nile, which conducted them from the great temple to 
 one of the sacred edifices on the smaller island. The entrance to this 
 extraordinary work is said to have been discovered by Mr. Jlay, of Lin- 
 plum. f This fact really excites our admiration of the genius and enter- 
 prise of that strange people, who, two or three thousand years ago, 
 originated the idea of sub-fluvial tunnels. 
 
 In their cottage there is a kind of altar, or cippus, which they use as a 
 stand for their culinary utensils. Returning to Philje, we found in the 
 ruins a number of soldiers and young negresses, who appeared to feel a 
 much deeper interest in what they saw, than the monks whom Belzoni 
 met at Thebes. Departing at length, however, they left us in peaceable 
 possession of the island for the remainder of the evening. 
 
 From PhiljB we continued our voyage up the river. The fertile land on 
 either side is exceedingly narrow ; but every portion of it is brought into 
 cultivation. The mountains, consisting of mere masses of naked granite, 
 in many places approach the water's edge ; while in other situations there 
 are about three or four yards of cultivable soil, formed by the deposit of 
 the river. Half a day's sail from Phihe conducted us to the finishing of 
 the granite rocks, which now gave place to those of calcareous stone, 
 though on the river side, in most instances, their exterior still retains a 
 black colour and a polish. The vein of red granite, which begins below 
 Es-Souan, and extends beyond Philse, is supposed to continue in an easterly 
 direction till it joins the shores of the Red Sea, keeping nearly throughout 
 the same breadth ; the observations which we made in the trips into the 
 desert from Es-Souan, tended to confirm this opinion. :j: 
 
 To enlarge the extent of their fields, the industrious inhabitants con- 
 struct long walls, or jetties, of large stones, running out at right angles 
 with the banks to a considerable distance into the stream, narrowing its 
 course, and allowing the mud, that quickly accumulates behind them, to 
 harden into solid land, which is immediately brought into cultivation. I 
 have observed a similar practice, on a smaller scale, upon the banks of the 
 Rhone, in the Upper Valais, where, in fact, much land might thus be 
 gained, had the Valaisans half the industry and energy of the Nubians. 
 The skill, neatness, and enterprise of these people, who, having for ages 
 
 * Colonel Howard Vvse. t Idem. t Irby and Mangles.
 
 420 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 enjoyed more freedom, are superior in vigour and hardihood to the Fellahs, 
 excited our admiration. The ground in this part of the valley was every- 
 where laid out and cultivated with superior art and industry, though 
 exactly on the same plan, as in Egypt ; and I also observed that the little 
 canals, conducting the water from the Sakias to the fields, were often raised 
 upon small embankments of earth, about three feet in height, very neatly 
 formed, and carefully kept in repair. The principal crops are wheat, 
 barley, lupines, and a sort of kidney-bean, now covered with beautiful 
 pale purple flowers. In general, however, the corn seemed more backward 
 than in Egypt, though we passed one field of barley already in the ear. 
 In the sands about Parembole, were numbers of young palm-trees recently 
 planted, protected from the wind, the cattle, &c., by a circular wall of 
 
 loose stones or mud, 
 raised to the height 
 of two or three feet 
 about the trees. The 
 palm in fact seems 
 here, as in Egypt, to 
 constitute the princi- 
 pal riches of the pea- 
 sant ; immense quan- 
 tities of dates are 
 annually exported 
 down the Nile ; and 
 in passing the fron- 
 tier at Birbe, we 
 observed prodigious 
 heaps exposed to the 
 sun, and surrounded by an enclosure of mat- work, to be shipped or 
 transported on camels to Es-Souan. 
 
 The evenings on the Nile are the most splendid I have witnessed ; from 
 these I, of course, exclude the storms which, in these regions, seem to take 
 the place of our northern snow-diifts. It is extremely hot during the da)', 
 and the scorching rays of the sun are reflected with much intensity from the 
 surface of the water, the limestone rocks, and the sand of the desert. The 
 sun sinks behind the Libyan mountains, which lie enamelled in the darkest 
 blue, while the rays of light play, as on a prism, upon tiie opposite chain 
 of the Arabian mountains, tinging them with the brightest hues of gems, and 
 flowers, and butterflies ; the large detached masses resembling flaming 
 roses, while the long drawn chains look like bandeaux of amethyst in golden 
 settings ; and the calm waters give back the reflected radiance, shrouded 
 in a veil of transparent mist. The air is redolent with all the perfumes 
 of spring; the fields of rape seed, beans, lupines, vetch, and cotton, are in 
 full bloom, the wheat and the barley bow before the breeze ; acacia and 
 other trees, with parasite plants, bearing rich bine and lilac blossoms, 
 grow around the water-wheels, called Sakias, which are continually at 
 Avork to irrigate the fields ; or you find them flourishing naturally along 
 the uncultivated parts of the bank. 
 
 i)aie-Palm Fruit.
 
 EVENINGS ON THE NILE. 
 
 421 
 
 This sweet balsamic fragrance reminds me of the delicious scents which 
 our own woods <ind fields send forth in tlie finest of our seasons, the month 
 of June. The wild pigeons rock themselves on the long palm branches, or 
 coo in playful mood, like sportive children, among the bushes : shoals of 
 water-fowl, some white as alabaster, others dark as ravens, are congregated 
 in large flocks, chirping their monotonous evening hymn, which they 
 seem to have caught from the uniform ripple of the water which they 
 
 inhabit. Sometimes a large heron flies across the whole breadth of the 
 river, or a pelican, with its heavy wing, dives in pursuit of a fish. When 
 the sun has set and the twilight has faded away, the south is often 
 re-illumined by a dark and less brilliant twilight, which once more tinges 
 the fading mountains with its rosy hue. Meantime, the first stars begin 
 to appear; Venus, as an evening star, more glorious than any other planet 
 in the firmament. The bold hunter, Orion, ascends slowly over the moun- 
 tains of Arabia ; and still later, in the far south-east, the constellation of 
 Canopus, which, I believe, is never visible in Europe. 
 
 We seem to sail between two firmaments. The silver band of the 
 Nile is changed into a deep blue heaven, spangled with soft and trembling 
 stars, while those above look calm and grand, like benign spirits, very 
 different to the cold and shivering brilliancy of our clear frosty nights. 
 They need not frieze here, for our nights in July can hardly be warmer 
 than those in the month of January in Upper Egypt and Nubia. The 
 banks continue animated to a late hour. The fires burn brightly on the 
 village hearths, which occupy the place in front of the door : the bleating 
 flocks of sheep and goats are driven homeward amid a mingled din of 
 human voices, the barking of dogs, the incessant creaking of the Sakias. 
 The men who work the Shaduf sing to a regular measure, while throwing 
 their buckets into the Nile and emptying them into the channels, which
 
 422 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 convey the waters in further districts : the song of the Arab as he returns 
 homewards from the fields, the loud bailings and the conversation of the 
 men from their boats, re-echo on all sides. The Arabs talk incessantly ; 
 they speak to each other from boat to boat, from the shore to vessels on 
 the river, and, I verily believe, from village to village ; at all events, as far 
 as the voice can reach, and that, too, always in a tone which sounds like 
 noisy threatening. From a solitary bark you may hear the dull notes of 
 the Darabukah, which reminds me of the Spanish guitar, although these 
 instruments have not the sliorhtest resemblance. At lenoth all the sounds 
 die away. The night grows chilly, and we are glad to return to the cabin 
 and take our tea. 
 
 When the wind blows keenly from the north-west — a quarter to which 
 it often adheres, with scarcely one day's exception, for whole months 
 together in Egypt, and which is as favourable to our ascent of the Nile as 
 it retards our downward voyage — then, indeed, our evening enjoyments 
 are sadly blighted, and we have to submit to the uncomfortable feeling of 
 being half frozen, though muffled up in all our wrappers.* 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIT. 
 
 (From the Gates of Kalabshi to the Second Cataract). 
 
 A little to the south of Taphis, we approached what are called the 
 " Gates of Kalabshi." The mountains on both sides, fluctuating in their 
 course, bend inward, and impend in vast cliffs over the Nile, which is here 
 greatly narrowed, and, during the inundation, roughened with slight 
 
 rapids. Finding, on 
 our return from the 
 ruins, that there was 
 no wind, while the 
 rocks prevented all 
 attempts at tracking, 
 we strolled forth into 
 the fields, which, 
 hovv-ever small, are 
 exceedingly well cul- 
 tivated. Separating 
 from my companions, 
 who remained near 
 the village, I wan- 
 dered away among 
 the rocks, and began 
 climbing one of the loftiest and most pointed summits of the Libyan 
 mountains. The ascent was exceedingly difficult, and not without 
 
 * Countess Haha-Hahn. 
 
 1 
 
 Cataract of Kalab^
 
 STONY MOUNTAINS. 423 
 
 clanger, being obstructed at every ten paces by enormous blocks of 
 granite and rosso antico, resting upon a bed of loose stones, which a 
 touch would have put in motion, and sent thundering down into the 
 river below. Among these tottering masses, therefore, I made my 
 way with the greatest caution, as in many places they impended over 
 my head ; and, on looking down, could perceive far below fragments of 
 similar rocks, vv^hich, accidentally put in motion, possibly by the wind, 
 had been dashed to splinters in their fall. Here and there small pieces of 
 calcareous spar and rose-coloured granite sparkled in the sun, that poured 
 down his fiery rays into the rocky hollows, whence they were reflected 
 with renewed violence. Being encumbered with the heavy cloak, worn on 
 all occasions in these coimtries, it was some time before I succeeded in 
 reaching the summit, which, it is probable, no European ever before 
 ascended ; but, when there, enjoyed, what I had long desired, a boundless 
 prospect over the western desert, which, though sombre and monotonous, 
 was singularly grand. The mountains, lofty near the river, gradually, as they 
 recede from it, decrease in height, until far in the distance they seem to 
 dwindle into mere undulations, scarcely roughening the surface of the waste. 
 These innumerable pinnacles, black, rugged, bare, and partly involved in 
 shadow, impart to the landscape an air of gloomy sublimity, the constant 
 concomitant of great desolation and barrenness, which awaken an idea of 
 death. But, perhaps, it is to the immensity of tlie wilderness, of which 
 they form the outskirts, that they in a great measure owe the effect they 
 produce on the imagination. 
 
 Everywhere I could observe traces of the fury of the tropical rains, 
 which deluge all these mountains in summer, and hurl down the wild 
 ravine rocks of prodigious magnitude. Towards the east, the prospect is 
 nearly the same, except that the dusky rocks rise, like so many isles, amid 
 boundless expanses of fine yellow sand, drifted by the action of the wind 
 into small beautiful waves, like those upon the sea-shore. Through this 
 scene of utter sterility, the eye pursues with pleasure the course of the 
 Nile from the point where, far to the south, it emerges as if springing out 
 of the earth from between two rocky ridges, to the equally distant point on 
 tlie way to Egypt, where it is again hidden from the view by similar hills, 
 while its noble stream is edged throughout with two narrow borders of 
 bright green, over which the hamlets and palm-groves of the Noubahs are 
 thinly scattered. From one of these lofty pinnacles, towering far above 
 everything around, I sought to obtain a glimpse of the temples of Kalab- 
 shi ; but either they were masked by some other object, or their colour, 
 resembling that of the sands, prevented my distinguishing them. In the 
 narrow cliannel of the river beneath, were two or three small islets, partly 
 covered with vegetation. 
 
 Being quite alone, my thoughts had perhaps wandered homeward, and 
 time was slipping by unperceived. I was at length roused by the sound 
 of my companion's voice among the rocks ^below, calling aloud to me to 
 descend, as the wind had freshened, and we might possibly reach Kalabshi 
 in the course of the day. The breeze, however, was slight, scarcely suflfi- 
 cient to carry us through the " Gates," where the black perpendicular
 
 424 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 cliffs, viewed from tlie river, seemed doubly grand, more especially wlien, 
 by the illusion arising from the shifting of the point of view, as the kandjia 
 advanced before the wind, they were put into apparent motion, and seemed 
 to be following each other in solemn procession down the stream. Beyond 
 this strait the valley widens, and cultivation again commences. In a short 
 time we once more found ourselves becalmed on a smooth sandy promontory 
 on the eastern bank, where the Arabs, playful and thoughtless as children, 
 immediately poured forth upon the beach, and began to amuse themselves 
 with their usual sports. We also landed, and, in default of better employ- 
 ment, reclined upon the sand, watching the ripple of the waves, and the 
 motions of the birds upon their surface. 
 
 " At my feet a river flows, 
 
 And its broad face richly glows 
 With the glory of the sun, 
 Whose proud race is nearly run. 
 Ne'er before did sea or stream 
 Kindle thus beneath his beam. 
 Ne'er did miser's eye behold 
 Such a glittering mass of gold ! 
 'Gainst the gorgeous radiance float. 
 Darkly, many a sloop and boat, 
 AVhile in each the figures seem 
 Like the sljadows of a dream ; 
 Swift, yet passively, they glide 
 As sliders on a frozen tide."* 
 
 The mind, on such occasions as this, seems to derive pleasure out of nothing. 
 There was no new or remarkable feature in the scene. It was not the first 
 time we had lain down upon the sand, or gazed idly at the river, or enjoyed 
 the delightful warmth of the sun; yet that small level promontory, the pipes 
 we smoked, and the coffee we drank there, with the lovely serenity of the 
 blue stream, the glittering plumage of the birds, and the splendour of the 
 sky, took a much deeper hold upon my memory than objects far more 
 striking. 
 
 The calm was not of long continuance, a light breeze soon springing 
 up, by the aid of which we were enabled in a few hours to reach 
 Kalabshi. 
 
 In the evening we passed two crocodiles ; they were on a shoal in the 
 middle of the Nile, and retired before we got near them ; they were the 
 first we had seen since we had left Philse : indeed they are never met with 
 near that island. f 
 
 As we approach it, the eastern mountains present, for a considerable 
 distance, the appearance of a vast Cyclopean wall, consisting of huge loose 
 masses, piled irregularly upon each other. On arriving at Kalabshi, we 
 immediately landed, and walked between copses of mimosa, and over fields 
 of lupines, to the great temple formerly approached from the river by a 
 fliffht of steps, now destroyed or buried in mud, though the parapets 
 remain. Having ascended these, we proceeded over a paved area to a 
 second flight of steps, leading to the summit of a broad causeway, one 
 hundred and forty feet in length, extending to the foot of the magnificent 
 * D. li. Richardson. t Irby and Mangles.
 
 HUMAN SACRIFICE. 425 
 
 terrace on which the rixins stand. On either side of the causeway runs a 
 low wall, along the centre of which a broad band of brass, or some other 
 metal, formerly extended ; the groove into which it was received still 
 existing uninjured. A third flight of steps ascends to the broad terrace, 
 which stretches along the whole front of the propylon. 
 
 This propylon, one hundred and twelve feet in length, sixty in height, 
 and twenty in tliickness, having never been completed, has the appearance 
 of a naked wall ; and from the poverty and meanness of the effect it pro- 
 duces, we may discover the taste and judgment of the Egyptians in cover- 
 ing the exterior of their edifice with bas-reliefs. The doorway, both 
 within and without, is ornamented with frieze, moulding and cornice, on 
 which the usual figures are sculptured. Passing under this lofty gateway, 
 we enter the dromos, now so completely encumbered with fragments of 
 broken columns, cornices, entablatures, and vast blocks of loose stones, 
 that it is extremely difiicult to traverse. It was formerly surrounded by a 
 peristyle, of wliich one column only is now standing. The pronaos is 
 adorned with twelve columns, and the intercolumniations, as usual, are 
 closed in front by a mural skreen, reaching half-way up the shaft. The 
 foliage of the capitals consists, in some cases, of a series or cluster of the 
 fan-like leaves of the doum-tree, elegantly arranged ; in others, of vine- 
 leaves, surrounded by tendrils and bunches of grapes. 
 
 On entering the pronaos, we observed the fa9ade of the ancient fane, 
 surrounded with a fine bold moulding, inclosed in a frame-work of modern 
 masonry, and forming the cella of the present edifice. The space inclosed 
 within this moulding is covered with sculptured figures ; among which the 
 most remarkable is the representation of a human sacrifice, where the 
 victim, whose whole clothing consists of a scanty waist-cloth, is on his 
 knees, with his hands tied behind his back. Behind liim stands a priest 
 with lofty mitre, who, with one hand, holds him by his long hair, while 
 in the other he brandishes a small axe, ready to strike off his head. Tiiis 
 horrid scene takes place in the presence of Osiris Hicrax, who is seated on 
 liis throne, enjoining and enjoying the spectacle. 
 
 Among the painted sculptures adorning the interior, we discovered a 
 group unlike anything elsewhere observed ; apparently representing a 
 company of female Psylli, exhibiting the power of charms and music over 
 the serpent race. The first maiden bears upon her head a small flat 
 basket, about six inches in diameter, from the centre of which arise three 
 full-blown lotuses, the middle one upright, the others bending outward. 
 Below these on either side is the same flower in the bud, with the stem 
 broken, and the lotus drooping over the edge of the basket. Her next 
 companion, standing a little in advance, carries in her hand three small 
 cones, resembling cypress- trees, with a flower depending from the centre 
 one, and from the stems of the others a cord with tiny bells ; while the 
 third, the principal enchantress, is engaged in shaking a serpent out of a 
 phial upon a kind of altar piled with fruit ; and beside it, on the ground, 
 is a diminutive vase, out of which another serpent appears to be issuing at 
 the " voice of the charmer." Soon after our arrival a party of Nubian 
 women and girls collected together on the sunny terrace, in front of the 
 
 o o 2
 
 426 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 propylon, some of them wishing to sell us the little apron of thongs, con- 
 stituting their only covering ; others their brazen armlets and neck-laces 
 of beads. Both women and girls 
 behaved with that modest simplicity 
 which, in all countries, is the attri- 
 bute of unsophisticated woman. 
 Their dress and ornaments were in 
 the most primitive style of savage 
 costume : broad armlets of buffalo's 
 horn or brass, or metallic beads, 
 connected together with intertwisted 
 thongs. A scanty apron of thongs, 
 about nine inches long in front, and 
 shorter at the left side, suspended 
 on a narrow belt passing round the ^ 
 loins, and ornamented with beauti- 
 ful white shells intermingled with Modem NuWaa ciri 
 red and blue beads : this was the 
 only garment of young unmarried girls. 
 
 I saw in one of the neighbouring villages a little child, apparently the 
 daughter of a Sheikh, and evidently proud of her appearance, carrying 
 milk in an inlaid basin, and adorned with a profusion of bracelets, ear- 
 rings, neck-laces, &c., and with her hair dressed with coloured stones, but 
 without any clothing, excepting a leathern girdle round her waist, orna- 
 mented with silver in various devices.* 
 
 The remainder of the body among the females of Kalabshi, which is of 
 a dark copper colour, with a tinge of red, seemed to be well oiled, and 
 looked smooth and soft. Their hair, often adorned with fetiches, and 
 ornaments composed of shells and beads, was twisted into innumerable 
 small straight tresses, matted together with mutton suet or castor oil, 
 which, melting in the sun, dripped down upon their shoulders and bosom, 
 exhaling so foetid an odour, that it was with difficulty we could stand 
 near them. Prior, describing in his usual lively way another African race, 
 observes, with no less truth than wit, that — 
 
 " Before you see, you smell your toast, 
 And sweetest she, who stinks tlie most." 
 
 Slany of them wore large necklaces of brown wood or ebony beads, or 
 cowrie shells, intermingled with others of red or blue glass. From their 
 ears, and various parts of their hair, heavy metallic ornaments were sus- 
 pended ; and one woman wore the nose-ring so much affected by the 
 females of Hindustan. 
 
 My fellow-traveller wishing to take a specimen of Nubian costume to 
 Europe, endeavoured at Tafa to purchase one of their thong- aprons. A 
 modest little girl, understanding his wish, slipped behind a wall ; but as, 
 for some reason or other, it was not purchased, she quickly reappeared 
 with it among her companions. A woman, who happened to be present, 
 
 * Col. Howard Vyse.
 
 THE NUBIANS. 427 
 
 sold her daughter's apron, and giving her a small cloth to replace it, com- 
 manded her to withdraw and undress ; but the poor girl, loth to part with 
 the only article of finery she possessed in the world, retired sorrowfully, 
 and sitting down at a little distance on a stone, sobbed aloud ; not reflect- 
 ing that with the piastres her mother had received for it, a dozen new 
 ones might perhaps be bought. This apron had been so saturated with 
 fat and oil, tliat it was found impossible to suffer it to remain in the cabin, 
 and it was consequently suspended on the mast, to be purified, like the 
 unclean Ghosts in Virgil, by the wind. In general, the armlets worn by the 
 Nubian women would seem to be put on while tliey were very young, so 
 that, when grown up, it is sometimes impossible to take them off, though 
 their arms and hands are delicately small. Indeed it was necessary to cut 
 through with a pen-knife the one I here purchased, consisting of thong 
 and metal. The brass armlets are open at the side, and resemble, when 
 off the arm, the thin crescent of the new moon. The married women wear 
 a sort of loose garment, which, like that of the Hindus, leave one shoulder 
 bare, and descends below the knee. Sometimes, in very hot weather, a 
 corner of this garment is thrown over the head, as a defence against the 
 sun, though the face is always left uncovered. Nearly all were desirous 
 of selling some portion of their dress or ornaments, requiring what was 
 considered a good price. The boys, who, being stark nuked, had no per- 
 sonal ornaments to dispose of, brought vis some small antiquities, such as 
 broken idols, coins of copper and bronze, or fragments of sculpture. 
 
 The country round has a pleasing aspect, owing to the groups of palm- 
 trees, and their contrast with the barren rocks everywhere else ; but the 
 cultivated grounds are very scanty. Behind the mountains are valleys 
 with some acacia trees, of which the natives make charcoal : when the 
 Nile is at its height, they make rafts of the same wood ; and the charcoal 
 being put into sacks, fabricated of palm-leaves, or of a kind of rush, is 
 conveyed in them to Cairo for sale ; dhourra, salt, and tobacco, being 
 brought back in return.* 
 
 The Nubians are tributary to the Pasha, and formerly paid for each 
 sakia two slaves ; they procured them by sending parties into Dongola 
 and the adjacent countries, who, concealing themselves near the river, 
 seized the people when they came for water : at present, however, two 
 hundred and twenty-five piastres (about forty-five shillings) are paid by 
 half-yearly instalments for each machine. In addition to this tax, duties 
 of one piastre for every palm-tree, of ten per cent, upon dates, and of 
 sixty-five piastres on every slave exported from Es-Souan to Cairo, are 
 also demanded. The Nubians seem proud of their country. They are a 
 handsome people, excepting that the lower part of their faces often project 
 like those of negroes; they have, like the Arabs, very fine teeth and eyes: 
 their hair, generally woolly, is cut short, excepting one tuft on the top of 
 the head, according to the Mohammedan custom. Their clothing is com- 
 posed of white cotton, and consists of a shirt, short trousers, and a long 
 folded scarf passing over the left shoulder, and confined round the waist by 
 a narrow girdle, with long ends. They wear a white cotton cap, and a 
 
 * Bi'izoni.
 
 428 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 knife or dagger fastened in a case to the inner part of the left arm above 
 the elbow. They have generally ear-rings, carry spears and large daggers, 
 long straight swords, and invariably nabouts four or five feet long.* 
 
 In all these villages there is no bread to be obtained. Milk and butter, 
 however, are generally found ; but these, together with eggs, when they 
 can be procured, are considerably dearer than in Egypt. The extraordi- 
 nary inquisitiveness and curiosity remarked by Burckhardt among the 
 Nubians, seem to have been the effect of the peculiar circumstances of 
 those times, when the appearance of a Memlook, or Turkish army, was 
 daily apprehended, rather than as forming any part of their national 
 character ; for I could discover in them no traces of those qualities. They 
 appear, at present, to entertain few hopes of a political change, though the 
 slightest reverses occurring to Mohammed Ali, would again, I make no 
 doubt, awaken their ancient love of anarchical independence. If we assert 
 with Burckhardt, that the villages of the Nubians are built of stone, a 
 Avrong idea of them will certainly be conveyed, yet I scarcely know what 
 other terms to employ. The huts of which they consist, are, in many 
 cases, merely so many circular walls of small loose stones, piled rudely 
 upon each other, and covered above with dhourra stalks ; they are so frail 
 that the slightest force would be sufficient to destroy them. Twelve or 
 thirteen of these huts, often fewer, huddled together among heaps of 
 ancient ruins, or on the shingly slope of the mountains, constitute a village 
 or hamlet, which might be easily passed without notice, particularly in 
 the dawn or twilight, being exactly of the same hue as the surrounding 
 rocks. 
 
 We here saw a camel swimming across the river ; one man swam before 
 with a halter in his mouth, leading the animal, another followed behind, t 
 
 The narrow belt of cultivation continues on both sides ; but the scanti- 
 ness of fertile land, wliich could never in this part of the valley have been 
 much more extensive than at present, tends to prove that the numerous 
 temples found in Nubia could at no period have been needed by the inha- 
 bitants. They were therefore constructed on the conquest of the country 
 by the Egyptians, whose priests, like the Brahmins in the Dekkan, sought 
 to conciliate or subdue the minds of the people by the voluptuous allure- 
 ments or terrors of their religion. Another idea is suggested by an 
 examination of the Nubian portion of the valley of the Nile. Egypt, we 
 know, was subdued and governed during many years by a Nubian chief. 
 The whole population of this kingdom, from Ef-Souan to Matrass— an 
 extent of five hundred miles — has, with apparent fairness, been estimated 
 at a hundred thousand souls : suppose that in antiquity they amounted to 
 double or treble this number; and then reflect upon the military power of 
 a kincrdom which could be conquered and held in subjection by such a 
 handful of men, and finally owe its deliverance to the artifices of the 
 priesthood. Much of the prejudice which still possesses us respecting the 
 political and military greatness of the ancient Egyptians, miglit perhaps be 
 removed by an attentive examination of their history ; an inquiry foreign, 
 however, to the nature of the present work, which merely professes to 
 
 « Colonel Howard Vyse. t lil^.v and JNI angles.
 
 IRRIGATION. 
 
 420 
 
 recount wliat. I saw, -with the reflections thereby suggested. Returning 
 from the consideration of antiquity, which perhaps occupies too much the 
 attention of travellers, we every day saw fresh proofs of the industrious 
 character of the present inhabitants. The perseverance they exiiibit in 
 watering their fields, when prevented by poverty from erecting a sakia, is 
 exemplary. The height of the bank above the level of the Nile — in some 
 places not less than thirty-five feet — rendering it impossible to raise water 
 in the ordinary way, by the lever and basket, they construct in the sloping 
 bank five small reservoirs, y)laced one above another, in whicli the water 
 is successively raised by an equal number of rude hydraulic machines. 
 
 Each of these levers 
 is worked by a man; 
 and the water, when 
 it has reached the 
 summit, is distributed 
 over the land by small 
 canals of the neatest 
 construction. On a 
 field west of the river 
 we observed a greater 
 number than usual of 
 trees, among which 
 the Egyptian syca- 
 more, the doum and 
 date-palms, were the 
 most numerous. The 
 moles thrown out in the river for the purpose of gaining soil, are injurious 
 to navigation ; for, being often on both sides, they too greatly narrow the 
 channel, creating dangerous currents and eddies. On the west bank we 
 saw, in the afternoon, a fine white eagle perched upon a rock. The ham- 
 lets here are very numerous, standing, as in Egypt, in small palm-groves, 
 while single date-trees are scattered over the fields. A sheikh's tomb, of 
 a shining white appearance, crested the summit of a neighbouring eminence. 
 The channel of the river is diversified by islands ; shortly after passing 
 which, we arrived at Dandoor. 
 
 The temple, to visit which the traveller pauses at this place, stands on 
 the western bank, near the foot of a rocky hill, at a short distance from 
 the river, and is surrounded by extensive heaps of hewn stone, showing 
 tliat other buildings formerly existed there. In front of the propylon are 
 the remains of a large court wall, round which — from its appearance at 
 the top, where the stones were formerly connected by clamps of metal — I 
 conjecture a peristyle, or colonnade, originally extended, afix)rding to the 
 priests an agreeable shady walk. There being no opening towards the 
 river, it must have been entered by side-doors. The propylon is lofty and 
 narrow, but was certainly not connected laterally with the great court 
 wall. It has the ordinary ornaments ; indeed there is nothing remarkable 
 in the fa9ade of the temple. The architrave of the pronaos is supported by 
 two columns, with lotus capitals and small plinths, rudely adorned with 
 
 JL.Ucru Sl.adooi.
 
 430 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 sculpture ; and tlie intercolumniations are built up lialf way. Two small 
 side-doors lead into the pronaos, one on the north, close to the columns ; 
 another on the south, close to the cella. 
 
 From these ruins we continued our walk along the shore, where we saw 
 the peasants watering their wheat-fields with the sakia ; a much less 
 laborious contrivance than the one mentioned above. The whole breadth 
 of the cultivated country does not, in this part, exceed seventy or eighty 
 yards, beyond which the rocks and sands commence. Here we observed 
 numerous specimens of the Asheyr, or " silk-tree," bearing a large fruit like 
 a love-apple, with a rind very thin and easily broken ; the interior of 
 which, in its unripe state, is filled with a juice white and thick as buffalo's 
 milk, but, when ripe, with a fine soft substance, white and shining, like 
 flos silk. These beautiful filaments, when perfectly dry, the Nubians use 
 as tinder, and the Bedouins twist into matches. In the hands of an inge- 
 nious people they might, perhaps, be woven into fabrics more lustrous 
 and delicate than the spoils of the silk- worm ; and, for the purpose of 
 making the experiment, I collected a small quantity to be carried with 
 me to Europe. Nothing can be more beautiful than the fruit of this tree : 
 in size exceeding an orange, and of a soft green colour, tinged on the sunny 
 side with a ruddy blush, and covered with a hoary down and a bloom 
 resembling that of a peach, it hangs among the pale foliage, tempting the 
 eye from afar. Yet frequently, while all its external loveliness remain^, 
 it is found, when broken, to contain nothing but dust and ashes. May 
 not this, therefore, since the tree abounds in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, 
 be the celebrated " apple of Sodom ?" 
 
 We observed, also, on various parts of the narrow plain, scattered tufts 
 of the senna plant, with its light green leaf, and small delicate yellow 
 flowers. The cucumis colocynthis, which produces the coloquintida, or bit- 
 ter apple, likewise grew plentifully along the paths. It is a handsome 
 prickly creeper, of the gourd kind, not unlike the cucumber-plant, and, 
 having nothing to climb upon, spreads itself over the fields. Its fruit is 
 about the size of an orange, but round and green ; and, when ripe, full of 
 brown seeds. The Arabs have discovered its medicinal virtues ; but their 
 mode of using it is singular : taking the fruit, while unripe, and scooping 
 out the pulp and seeds, they fill the rind with milk, which is allowed to 
 remain in it all night. In the morning they swallow this potion, which 
 they say operates as a powerful apepient. 
 
 During our walk we observed, while proceeding through a thicket near 
 the river, that the air was impregnated with a faint but exquisite perfume, 
 the cause of which we in vain sought to discover. There was a small 
 myrtle-leafed tree, growing in the midst of several other unknown shrubs, 
 from which we at firj^t supposed it to proceed ; but the leaves, on being 
 pressed, yielded no perceptible scent. Perhaps the date-palm here already 
 begins to feel the influence of spring, and diffuses its genial perfume through 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of this thicket we were joined by one of the 
 Pasha's soldiers, an Arab from Egypt, who, being here in a kind of exile, 
 seemed to regard us with some degree of pleasure, as awakening associa-
 
 OYRSIIE AND GHERF HUSSEIN. 431 
 
 tions of home. His brother, while engaged in impressing men for the 
 jirmya little higher up the river, had seized on a peasant, who immediately 
 afterwards succeeded in effecting his escape. Not content, however, with 
 this, he for several hours followed the soldier at a distance, and, coming up 
 with him soon after night-fall, wounded him deeply in several places, par- 
 ticularly in the breast ; where, according to our informant's description, one 
 of the gashes was as long as the palm of the hand. The Nubian peasantry, 
 it should be remarked, all wear a short crooked dagger, suspended in a red 
 leather sheath on the left arm above the elbow, where it is concealed by 
 their garment. In sudden brawls, to revenge a recent insult, or long- 
 remembered injury, these are the weapons employed ; but in public feuds, 
 when village rises against village, and tribe against tribe, they make use 
 of a broad straight sword, or spear, with round or oblong bucklers, manu- 
 factured from the crocodile''s skin or the hide of the hippopotamus. The 
 Arab followed us to our boat, begging a plaister for his brother's wound ; 
 but, while I was preparing it, entered a neighbouring field, to plunder a 
 poor woman of her half-ripe lupines. At our desire he immediately 
 desisted ; but such are, perhaps, the causes of much of the ill blood which 
 exists in Nubia between the soldiers and the natives. The fields in this 
 part of the valley are covered with barley in full ear, in many places fast 
 turning yellow ; so that the first harvest, I imagine, will commence in a 
 few weeks. 
 
 The natives of Gyrshe, a village a little farther southwards, are rather 
 rough in their manners, but were easily satisfied with a piece of soap, a 
 pipe of tobacco, and a few paras. Here we bought some karkadan, a 
 grain of the size of a small shot, which the Nubians use as coflFce. It is 
 a good sixbstitute where no coffee is to be had, and is much cheaper. A 
 little above this place is a dangerous passage of the Nile, a chain of rocks 
 running across the river, and making it very alarming when the waters 
 are low ; but as they were now high, we passed without danger.* 
 
 Landing near Gherf Hussein, on the western bank, we for some time 
 proceeded close along the edge of the water, where the whole breadth of 
 the cultivated land could not have exceeded three or four yards. The 
 bank consists of a series of narrow terraces, rising behind each other ; and 
 all these were now covered with lupines in flower, or with a sort of French 
 bean, which, creeping over a hedge of stunted mimosas, forming the line 
 of separation betv^-een the sands and the valley, enlivened the whole shore 
 with its beautiful purple blossom. 
 
 On the opposite side of the river is Sabagoora, a large ruined village, 
 where a battle had been fought between a Nubian chief and Ishmael 
 Pasha. Gherf Hussein, formerly Thosh, greatly resembles Ethaush, which 
 signifies Ethiopia. Kush, the old Egyptian name for this country, is 
 retained in the Nubian appellation of Gherf Hussein, which is now called 
 Kish. The remains of two ancient watch-towers are to be seen towards 
 the north, and the ruins of the temple are finely situated above the modern 
 village. I sometimes fancied that in this country the evenings were 
 accompanied by a longer twilight than in Italy.t 
 
 * Belzoni. f Colonel Howard Vyse.
 
 432 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Travelling slowly along, admiring the richness of this narrow slip of 
 veo-etation, we were struck by a curious appearance, perfectly new to us 
 both : the sun shining in tropical brightness, our shadows fell beside us, 
 strongly defined upon tlie ground ; but far aloft upon the mimosa hedge, 
 not less than thirty feet above the river, were two other shadows, faint 
 but distinct, moving as we moved, though they seemed to proceed from 
 some invisible bodies over our heads. For a moment the cause did not 
 present itself ; but on turning round and regarding the Nile, we discovered 
 that the image of the sun, brightly reflected from its glassy surface, and 
 shining upon our bodies like a second sun, produced the double shadows 
 which had at first puzzled us. 
 
 Through a break in the mimosa hedge we climbed up the bank, and 
 emerged into the desert, where the view which presented itself exhibited 
 peculiar beauty. The elements of the picturesque may elsewhere be more 
 strikingly combined, producing more softness, more variety, more grandeur; 
 yet I have seldom beheld a more poetical or delightful landscape. Perhaps, 
 if rigidly investigated, the reason of this might be discovered in causes inde- 
 pendent of the combination of the physical objects around. It was the 
 nearest approach I had hitherto beheld to a land wholly uninhabited, to 
 which we involuntarily attach ideas of perfect freedom, tranquillity, and 
 imsophisticated enjoyment. Nothing, we imagine, is there found to inter- 
 lupt the current of our will. Nature herself, upon whose mysterious bosom 
 we sport and flutter like moths, appearing to be subjected to our dominion; 
 and the calm and sunshine generally prevailing in those latitudes delude 
 us into the persuasion that in such scenes our passions would also be still, 
 and permit us serenely to taste the unraingled sweets which complete 
 retirement and solitude appear to ofi"er. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of this fanciful hypothesis, the scene that 
 occasioned the recollection of it was worthy of admiration. But in its 
 simplicity consisted, perhaps, its principal charm, everything being pre- 
 sented to the eye in vast unbroken masses. On one hand the interminable 
 surface of the desert, covered with golden sands, swelling in soft undulations 
 at the foot, or on the steep slope of lofty pink or rose-coloured rocks, or 
 expanding into vast level plains, smooth as untrodden snow ; on the other, 
 the placid blue river, meandering between dark rocks and glittering sands, 
 and bordered with narrow green fields, copses, or tufted groves, marking 
 the site of distant hamlets, and extended over all a tropic sky, glowing in 
 fiery brightness. But the charm of the landscape is not translateable into 
 words. How, indeed, can we represent, with the pale colours of language, 
 the rich harmony, the majesty, the art, the splendour, and, if we may 
 dare so to say, the taste, with which Nature has thrown together its various 
 elements, and taught them, as it were, to express at once, by the vast 
 desert and fertilising river, the power and bounty of the Creator ? In 
 fact, I felt that there was a religious beauty in the scene, a loveliness 
 which, elevating the mind, directed it towards the Fountain of all beauty 
 and all perfection ; and this efi'ect, imperceptibly, perhaps, to ourselves, 
 may be the source of the enthusiastic delight inspired by the contemplation 
 of external nature.
 
 THE NUBIAN DESERT. 433 
 
 In the Iieavy sands, through which we toiled with difficulty, we observed 
 the foot-marks and dung of several animals, such as camels and gazelles ; 
 and, proceeding some distance along the river, at length turned aside towards 
 the right, and ascended the rocky ridge, in this part of the valley running 
 parallel with the course of the stream. Travellers in Nubia rarely quit 
 their boats, except for the purpose of visiting the several ruins, or, if they 
 perform any portion of the journey by land, never deviate from tlie camel- 
 tract, generally found close to the Nile ; which accounts for no mention 
 having yet been made of the numerous conical black mountains we now 
 discovered in the western desert, pi'esenting from a distance the appearance 
 of so many volcanoes, which had burned long, and been gradually extin- 
 guished. Many were low and inconsiderable, but the peaks of the prin- 
 cipal ones seemed to fall very little short of those of Vesuvius in their eleva- 
 tion above the level of the sea. 
 
 The broad plain lying between us and the mountains, though roughened 
 by many inequalities, appeared at a distance level as the sea. It is sup- 
 posed to have been formerly cultivated ; and, in fact, a rich vegetable 
 mould is found at the depth of about three feet beneath the sand,* 
 
 About half a mile from the river the heavy sands terminated, the 
 remainder being hard, firm, stony, and capable of supporting the weight 
 of artillery. From time to time we traversed, in our progress, large 
 patches of ground thickly strewed with varigated pebbles, beautiful agates, 
 and pale cornelians, such as were found by Bell of Anterraony on the 
 plains of Mongolia : and observed the sand marked in various directions 
 by the tracts of the gazelle, accompanied, in some instances, by those of 
 some much larger animal, that seemed to have been in pursuit of it. On 
 drawing nearer the mountains, we perceived, moving slowly, a single 
 antelope, which, on seeing us, immediately took to flight, and disappeared. 
 Our estimation of the distance of the moimtains proved to be erroneous. 
 We had been, in fact, deceived by the even surface of the waste, for having 
 proceeded mile after mile, we seemed to be no nearer our journey ""s end, 
 while tlie sun poured down its burning rays, tempered, however, by a 
 pleasant breeze from the west, constantly blowing, and maintaining an 
 agreeable freshness in the air. 
 
 The plain, as we advanced, was covered for miles round with fragments 
 of lava, red, black, and grey, and increasing in magnitude and abundance 
 as the distance between us and the mountains diminished. The features 
 of the cones presented so strikingly volcanic an aspect, that, those of 
 Vesuvius itself, viewed from the Bay of Naples, seemed less so. A few 
 hundred yards to the right of our track, in a small hollow near the foot of 
 the hills, we saw^ a mirage more perfect than the one I had witnessed 
 near Canopus, yet evidently falling far short of the description of other 
 travellers. 
 
 Reaching the mountains in about three hours, we found the whole 
 surface of the plain around, the ravines, valleys, and narrow gorges 
 dividing the innumerable cones from each other, encumbered with showers of 
 cinders and lava, which seemed to have been poured forth from various craters, 
 
 * Belzoni. 
 p p
 
 434 EGYPT AND NUBIA." 
 
 and to have run in many directions over the sand, in small black bubbling 
 rivulets, cooling and hardening as they ran. The loftiest of the nearer cones, 
 towerino- six or seven hundred feet above the table land of Nubia, appear- 
 incr from below to present evident traces of a crater, we resolved to ascend it, 
 though the day was already far spent j and, in making towards it, passed over 
 one of the smaller hills, resembling in form an oblong barrow, and divided 
 from the neighbouring mountain by a deep torrent bed, now dry; while 
 the vast cone by which it might be said to be overshadowed, distinguished 
 by features gloomy and dismal beyond conception, covered on all sides with 
 black rocks, scoriae, and ashes, torn up by rain torrents, scorched and pul- 
 verised by the sun, appeared like an infernal mount on the banks of the 
 Cocylus. The ascent to its summit was difficult and laborious. To say 
 nothing of the heat, which was such as is seldom experienced in Europe, 
 our movements were impeded by the nature of the ground, the scoriae and 
 cinders slippino' every moment from beneath our feet, and causing us fre- 
 quently to climb twice or three times over the same space. Many parts 
 which seemed practicable at a distance, were now found to be nearly per- 
 pendicular. Our long walk over the sand had wearied us, and we often 
 paused to compare what we had achieved with what was yet to be accom- 
 plished. But, persevering in our undertaking, we at length reached the 
 summit. 
 
 The prospect commanded from this lofty pinnacle is, I am convinced, 
 unlike anything elsewhere met with in the world, the whole surface of 
 the Desert to the west and south, being covered farther than the eye could 
 reach with enormous black cones, in some places springing up in isolated 
 masses, and elsewhere united by a curtain of rocks into immeasurable 
 ridfres, rising in endless succession beyond each other. Ten thousand volcanic 
 peaks here, perhaps, come under the eye at once ; yet these appear to be 
 but the bet^inning of a series of similar mountains, extending to an unknown 
 distance towards the heart of Africa. The crater found upon the summit 
 of the mountain we had ascended, was now shallow, as if it had been 
 filled up by time; and we observed several bones, probably of camels, among 
 the cinders. When war prevails among the desert tribes, scouts, perhaps, 
 may be stationed on these heights to watch the movements of the enemy ; 
 for we saw on one of the peaks a small rude breastwork of stone, pro- 
 bably intended to cover them. On returning towards Dakke, where the 
 great propylon served as a pharas to direct our course, we passed, 
 near the village, a narrow beautifully green oasis, about three-quarters 
 of a mile in length, and running nearly parallel with the banks of 
 the river. It is indebted for its fine verdure to a fountain, situated 
 near its northern extremity, whence sufficient water is raised for the 
 irrigation of the whole. Night had already commenced when we reached 
 the Nile. 
 
 Near this place we observed, immediately opposite Dakke, two lads 
 crossing the river, which is here tolerably wide, and pushing and towing 
 a laden reed raft.* 
 
 The Temple of Dakke is unquestionably the most remarkable piece of 
 
 * Irby and Mangles.
 
 DAKKE. 
 
 435 
 
 architectural patchwork I have anywhere seen, exhibiting three distinct 
 styles of construction. The nucleus of the whole was originally a small square 
 chapel, of elegant proportions, with a diminutive propylon in front. An 
 apartment was then added to the soutliern end, and a wall built round the 
 whole, about three feet and a half outside of the chapel. Between the new 
 
 ^\fs-- 
 
 Temple of Dakke, Nubia. 
 
 and old walls, we found, towards the east, a narrow chamber, con- 
 taining a deep sepulchre, at the southern end of which are seen the figures 
 of three lions, cleverly executed, two seated facing each other, with the 
 yoni-lingam, and two large feathers between them ; the third, in another 
 compartment above, walking towards the east, while a Cynocephalus 
 appears to be worshipping before him with uplifted hands. Over one of 
 the chapel doors, four of these animals, with very long tails, are approaching 
 in procession a winged scarabceus, the symbol of the sun. On the eastern 
 wall is Isis, seated on a throne, with Harpocrates standing behind her, 
 enjoining silence in the usual significant manner. In the modern chamber 
 are two figures presenting a sphinx and a wreath of flowers to one of the 
 principal divinities. 
 
 In design and execution there is but little difference between the bas- 
 reliefs on the ancient chapel, and those in the southern apartment, or the 
 small sepulchral chamber^ which are comparatively modern additions ; but 
 all are extremely superior to the sculptures usually found on the walls of 
 Egyptian temples, and seem, in the richness of the contour, to betray the 
 handiwork of a Grecian chisel, thougli the attitudes and positions are stiff 
 and imgainly by hereditary riglit. 
 
 About noon we passed, on the eastern bank, the house of the chief of 
 the Ababde, settled in this part of Nubia — a small square neat building, 
 with two windows towards the river, and an entrance from tlie south. 
 Behind it was an extensive garden, surrounded with a good brick wall, 
 and thickly planted with trees ; the beautiful foliage of which appeared 
 above the inclosure. Near this house, towards the south, were several 
 tower-like buildings, containing wheels for raising water, conveyed from
 
 436 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 thence by neat aqueducts to the upper part of the valley. Tlie tamarisk 
 is here plentiful, covering the western bank with verdure ; and the land, 
 on all sides, admirably cultivated, bearing strong evidence of the active 
 industry of the Ababde, who, forsaking the wandering life led by their 
 forefathers, have settled and become cultivators. 
 
 In search of the ruins of Korti, we landed by mistake two or three 
 miles to the north of them. The village, though long and straggling, is, 
 perhaps, one of the largest in Nubia. According to custom, the natives 
 were making merry. In a court-yard, squatting on their hams, smoking 
 and gossiping, we found a number of men, three of vvdiom undertook to be 
 our guides. Numerous parties of young women were assembled in front 
 of their huts, dancing naked round large fires, by the light of the moon, 
 encircled by their neighbours, men, women, and children, seated on their 
 heels, clapping their hands, singing and laughing at their performances. 
 On our near approach, however, the greater number took to flight, but, 
 after the first alarm was over, many returned, relinquishing their amuse- 
 ments to follow us ; so that, by the time we reached the ruin, the party 
 resembled a small caravan. The chapel, chiefly remarkable as having, 
 during so many centuries, escaped being overwhelmed, is extremely small 
 and insignificant, consisting of only two chambers, entirely destitute of 
 ornament, with the exception of the winged globe over the doorway. The 
 Nubians were exceedingly amused at seeing us examine the interior and 
 the ornaments of the frieze by candle-light; and formed, no doubt, a very 
 extraordinary opinion of our pursuits. On returning, they accompanied 
 us a considerable distance. Having ceased to be apprehensive of these 
 people, none of us carried any arms ; though, in JMiddle Egypt, particularly 
 about the Bird Mountains, to venture unarmed a hundred yards from the 
 boat, even by day, would be unsafe. 
 
 Near the village of Bardeh, the mountains on both sides approach the 
 river, but those on the eastern bank are by far the more elevated. Though 
 apparently of volcanic formation, they do not, like those to the west of 
 Dakke, rise in isolated cones, but in chains or ridges, thrown irregularly 
 between each other, and divided by deep gorges of the most dismal appear- 
 ance. In many places, the naked rocks project in ragged strata from 
 among the superincumbent masses of lava or cinders, and the tops of the 
 mountains are pointed or conical. The narrow belt of cultivated land, 
 running along the foot of these hills, was now covered with bright green 
 corn, the wheat, exceedingly strong and clean, about two feet high, form- 
 ing an agreeable contrast with tlie black rocks behind. In this part of the 
 valley there are numerous silk trees. Many of the fields, now in stubble, 
 had been cultivated with dliourra. 
 
 Our crew here killed a snake that was basking on the river side ; it 
 was grey with two black marks below its head. It was curious to seethe 
 precaution they used before they would surjirise this reptile, which they 
 represented as poisonous, though I did not believe it was so. We had this 
 morning a regular wild-goose chase after an old one and four young ones ; 
 the crew jumped over-board, and caught them all, though with some 
 difficulty. I mention this merely to give some idea how expert these.
 
 NUBIAN HAMLETS. 437 
 
 people are in the water ; they may almost be said to be amphibious. 
 Passing through this part of the valley in the month of June, we saw the 
 calibasli growing wild on creepers up the accacia trees on the river side : 
 our crew got three very good ones : the boys also found a sort of wild 
 currant growing close to the water side ; we tasted some, and thought 
 them not unlike the blue-berry ; though not shaped like them, being 
 round ; in size and colour they are alike.* 
 
 The village of Bardeh stands on the eastern bank, near the river, in a 
 small grove of date trees. On the opposite shore the cultivated land is 
 very narrow, the sands coming down almost to the water's edge. Here, 
 on the summit of a rocky hill, are the ruins of an ancient town, which 
 appears to have been considerable, many of the houses having been built 
 of stone ; and these, together with such as are constructed with sun-dried 
 bricks, might easily be rendered habitable; but the Nubians appear to 
 prefer their dhourra thatched huts. 
 
 As we were pursuing our voyage, a man hailed us and asked, " if we 
 would buy a spy-glass ;" he said he was a native of Sennaar : we thought 
 it must be the property of some European who had been robbed, and 
 therefore said we would see it first ; in consequence he came into the boat, 
 to be carried to the village, where it was (about four hours sail above) ; 
 however, on arriving there, he walked off, and we never heard again 
 either of him or his glass ; the fact is, he wanted a passage, and you, I am 
 sure, will give him credit for so cunning a method of getting one. It is 
 by these little traits that one can judge of the character of people of this 
 description. f 
 
 On one of the loftiest peaks of the eastern mountains, we observed a 
 number of large stones placed upright ; the antique idols, perhaps, of the 
 aborigines, who, like the Persians, may have delighted to worship on 
 high places. Thick rows of tamarisk and mimosa trees form the boundary 
 between the desert and the cultivated land. Upon the eastern bank, near 
 one of the wildest valleys I ever beheld, filled with a chaos of black rocks, 
 rendered still more dismal by the shadows of the overhanging cliffs, we 
 saw a Nubian hamlet, the smallest, the rudest, and most primitive that 
 can be conceived, consisting of a cluster of eight or nine circular huts, 
 covered with dhourra stalks, in comparison with which, pig-styes are well 
 built and comfortable. 
 
 " A low-roof 'd cottage, first of all, 
 
 Rose up before my eyes : 
 Not such as dreaming poets shew, 
 
 Nor such as oft arise 
 Out of the quiclv Promethean touch 
 
 Of Painting's artifice. 
 
 No bowering ivy round it clung, 
 
 Flecking the bricl^s with green ; 
 No flowers against the windows spread 
 
 A many-coloured skrcen; 
 Nor was one plant or herb within 
 
 The little garden seen. 
 
 * Irby and Mangles. t Ir^y "■^^ Mangles.
 
 438 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 No swallows trill'd from out the eaves 
 
 Thdr plain, primeval lay ; 
 No wreathed smoke came dancing up 
 
 In giddy, elf-like play ; 
 No cock, fresh-proyned, stalk'd heneath 
 
 The garish solar ray. 
 
 No elm-tree hung its drowsy dome 
 
 High up above the thatch ; 
 No faithful dog about the door 
 
 Kept its unwinking watch, 
 Or lay asleep where sunbeams made 
 
 A little rippling patch." * 
 
 God assuredly tempers the wind to the shorn lamb; as, but for the 
 mildness of the chmate, men would certainly perish in such wretched 
 dwellings. 
 
 About four o'clock iu the afternoon we arrived in the Wady Medyk, 
 where, in some places, the sandstone mountains approach each other so 
 closely, that they barely leave space for the passage of the stream ; the 
 eastern range being still by far the loftier, though the opposite mountains 
 project their rugged bases farthest into the river. Half an hour to the 
 south, the rocks on the west assume a new aspect, rising perpendicularly 
 from the plain, leaving a narrow belt for cultivation, now covered with 
 wheat, backed by a long beautiful grove of date trees. The appearance 
 of these rocks is very remarkable, being disposed, not in horizontal strata, 
 but in perpendicular columns or masses, like basalt. In sailing up the 
 Wady Medyk, we were overtaken by sunset, which painted the salient 
 masses and airy pinnacles of the eastern chain with the most brilliant 
 colours, more especially one vast cone that, from its dark purple hue, 
 seemed to be covered with heather in blossom. On the shore we could 
 hear the songs of the Nubian peasants, returning from the fields with a 
 light heart, to the lowly huts above described. An old raven was croak- 
 ing alone upon the rocks — our vessel glided rapidly along through the 
 rippling waves — the Arabs lay listlessly upon the deck — the cooks were 
 busily preparing dinner. Presently the sunshine rested only on the peaks 
 of the mountains ; and then twilight succeeded. Continuing our voyage 
 by starlight, we moored at a late hour below the temple of Seboua. 
 
 We landed on the Arabian side of the river ; walking, during these 
 beautiful evenings, being exceedingly agreeable. The barley, in this part 
 of the valley, already yellow, and nearly fit for the sickle, has a thick and 
 long beard, and the grains are ranged in two rows of three deep. Conse- 
 quently, the ear, which, with us, presents the same breadth on all sides, is 
 here flattish. Wheat and barley are evidently of secondary consideration 
 in Nubia, being merely allowed to occupy the narrow terraces on the 
 sloping banks of the river, while the more extensive plain above is appro- 
 priated to the cultivation of dhourra. It was the same among the ancient 
 Egyptians, who despised wheaten bread, and habitually lived upon that 
 which was made of spelt. Slimosas and silk trees grow in great abun- 
 dance upon the margin of the river. 
 
 * Edmund Oilier, a young poet of the highest promise, who has already given to the public 
 things of remarkable merit and originality.
 
 THE LION'S VALLEY. 439 
 
 The neighbourhood is very thinly inhabited, having few hamlets, and no 
 scattered houses. On the African aide there are more marks of cultiva- 
 tion, and inhabitants, who, like the North American savages, collect 
 together after dark, and, kindling a large fire, dance half naked about the 
 flames. This evening, in proceeding along the foot of the cliffs, we 
 observed, high up in the mountains, a large bright fire, no doubt lighted 
 for this purpose. At a distance from the hamlets few persons are ever 
 encountered after dark. During our long walk we met but one solitary 
 Nubian, — driving an ass, and hastening with all speed towards his home, — 
 who saluted us respectfully, in Kensy or Noubah. Shortly afterwards we 
 passed a ruined house, now roofless, but more spacious and solid than the 
 common dwellings of the peasants, and having attached to it a low covered 
 gateway, containing a large jar filled with water, for the use of the tra- 
 veller. Many small huts are here constructed for the purpose of watchin'T' 
 the gazelles, which descending at night in great numbers from the moun- 
 tains, to feed on the young corn, and drink at the river, the Nubians, 
 with the characteristic patience of savages, lie concealed in these huts, and 
 shoot them as they pass. Hycenas are said to be numerous among the 
 rocky valleys in the neighbourhood. We are again entering the land of 
 crocodiles, and the siksak has reappeared with his patrons. 
 
 Curiosity seems never, in some natures, to be abated by experience. 
 The novelty which each successive day presented, frequently caused the 
 approach of morning to appear tardy, and led us forth before we could clearly 
 distinguish objects. Our first business to-day was the examination of the 
 temple of Seboua, celebrated for its long avenue of androsphinxes, which 
 has communicated to the whole district the appellation of the " Lion's 
 Wady." The ruin stands about five hundred yards from the river, in the 
 midst of a large plain, probably once fertile, but now overwhelmed with 
 sand ; and the propylon, constructed in a plain style, looks imposing at a 
 distance. Traversing a short interval, we arrive at a flight of steps, adorned 
 on either side with a statue, ten feet four inclies high, leading to the 
 summit of a broad and lofty causeway of hewn stone, one hundred and 
 eighty feet in length, over which we advance, between two rows of sphinxes, 
 to the principal gateway. The original height of this causeway cannot 
 now be ascertained, from the accumulation of soil about its foundation ; 
 but it would appear to have been adorned on all sides with sculpture, for 
 the facade, where alone a small portion of the basement is visible, exhibits 
 the figures of men, women, and cynocephali, executed in a rude style. 
 
 The approach to this temple, through long avenues of androsphinxes, 
 with mitred heads, before time, barbarism, and drifting sands had defaced 
 or concealed its ornaments, must doubtless have been magnificent. 
 
 From the temple of Seboua, we proceeded along the mountains of 
 rock running parallel with the course of the river, where we observed 
 numerous deep stony valleys, partly filled up by the sands, which are 
 driven in torrents from the desert by the impetuous west wind, and unless 
 resisted by the efforts of government, which alone, in these countries, 
 possesses the power of erecting great public works, will shortly swallow up 
 all the arable land of Nubia, A proof that cultivation formerly extended
 
 440 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 much further westward than at present was discovered on this plain ; at a 
 considerable distance from the river a peasant was observed sinking a large 
 pit, where, at the depth of about two feet and a half, he found a rich mould, 
 which he carefully removed to his garden. There can be no doubt that a 
 considerable number of these small flats might yet be reclaimed, by raising 
 the water of the Nile to their level by means of powerful machinery. In 
 fact, I this morning observed several extensive fields of light sand, divided 
 into square compartments, which, having been well irrigated, were partly 
 covered with fine young wheat, partly with the stubble of the last year's 
 dhourra. 
 
 In a small hamlet, about two miles south of Seboua, was a large house 
 of very showy appearance ; the front being covered with white stucco, 
 ornamented with several fanciful devices, painted in bright red colours. 
 The other houses in the hamlet consisted partly of stone, partly of mats 
 fixed against upright poles, the roofs formed with dhourra stalks : the 
 whole having an air of neatness and cleanliness, seldom seen in these 
 countries. After walking about a league through heavy sands, beneath 
 a tropical sun, we overtook our boats. 
 
 One of our Berbers this morning sung a song to cheer up the crew ; 
 this is their constant custom when working ; the words are as follow : — 
 
 " Oh Nubia, my country, thou smellest hke a rose ; when I sleep I 
 dream of thee, and thou appearest a garden full of flowers." You may 
 easily imagine that our ideas of Nubia, " where a flowering shrub is scarcely 
 ever seen," were not in unison with those of our neighbour. We, however, 
 found this a new proof of that happy disposition which nature implants 
 in the breast of every man, to be partial to his native soil, be it what 
 it may. 
 
 " The naked negro panting at the line, 
 Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine : 
 Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, 
 And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. 
 Such is the patriot's boast where'er we roam, 
 His first, best country, ever is, at home." * 
 
 This was the first day of the Ramadan, and my worthy dragoman, in a 
 fit of piety, had, in the morning, resolved rigidly to observe the prescribed 
 fast, and accordingly came without his breakfast; but as we were 
 returning through the heat, he approached me, and with a very rueful 
 countenance remarked that it was impossible for persons in the service of 
 Europeans to fulfil tlie injunctions of the jMohamraedan religion, since, 
 instead of sitting still, or sleeping, as the Turks do nearly all day during 
 the Ramadan, it was necessary to be in constant motion ; and that, for this 
 reason, as soon as we reached the boat, he should, with all due respect to 
 the prophet, take the liberty to eat his breakfast, with a most solemn 
 determination to make no more attempts at fasting. 
 
 Shortly after, we passed, on the eastern bank, a large plantation of date 
 trees, surrounded by a wall, the first we had observed since our departure 
 from Cairo. The fertile land, on this side the river, is in some places 
 about two hundred and fifty yards in width ; but, on the opposite shore, 
 
 * Irby and Mangles.
 
 LOVELY PROSPECT. 441 
 
 the slope of the bank only is cultivated. For several days the wind has 
 been extremely uncertain, sometimes blowing in strong gusts, then suddenly 
 dying away ; during these calms the heat is excessive. Even the nights 
 have lost that freshness observable in Egypt. At El-Malkeh the moun- 
 tains, which, a little to the north, had approached the river, recede towards 
 the east, leaving a small plain for cultivation, now covered with green corn, 
 and many scattered date trees. West of the river are cotton plantations, 
 intermingled with date groves. Near this village we saw a crocodile 
 basking on a sandy island in the midst of the stream. 
 
 Between El-Malkeh and Korosko we enjoyed one of those prospects 
 which are supposed to belong to Fairy Land. Nowhere in Sicily or Italy, 
 not even on the Lago JMaggiorc, or in the narrow valleys of the Apennines, 
 have I beheld anything so soft, so bright, so poetically beautiful. The 
 Nile, here of a considerable breadth, makes a sudden bend, and, to those 
 sailing up the stream, appears to lose itself among the distant mountains. 
 The light breeze that impelled us along left the surface of the water 
 unruffled. A series of small isles, some high and rocky, others consisting 
 of a smooth expanse of yellow sand, others green and fertile, rose in 
 succession in the centre of the stream. One of these, called Shemt-el-Melook, 
 resembles a little Paradise, being fringed all round with tufted green rushes, 
 behind which the smooth untrodden sand rises in a series of narrow steps 
 to the summit, where small irregular masses of dark rock appear at 
 intervals between copses and shady bowers of acacia, mimosa, and tamarisk 
 trees. On one side, mountains more than a thousand feet in height pre- 
 sent their vast frowning cliffs ; and, on the other, lofty trees, springing from 
 an impenetrable jungle, overhang the stream ; before us, towards the south, 
 numerous hills, of diiFerent form and elevation, rose confusedly behind each 
 other, while a thin silvery haze, impregnated with light, floated through 
 every hollow, break, and chasm, rendering the outline of each craggy peak, 
 hanging cliff, and truncated pyramid, strikingly distinct. Between the rocks 
 on the one hand, and the high woody bank on the other, the sight appeared 
 to be carried along, as between two immense dusky walls, to a point 
 where the country, expanding and assuming softer features, was glowing 
 in sunshine and beauty ; while the light, streaming in our faces from 
 behind the mountains, through the lofty rows of date trees which extend 
 along the shore, and the sun's image, too brilliant to be looked upon, was 
 reflected from the smooth marble surface of the river. 
 
 Here we shot a wild goose : its plumage was beautiful, and its taste 
 exceedingly good, though we had not the means of cooking it in a very 
 savoury manner.* 
 
 At the approach of twilight we landed on the western bank, where the 
 desert is divided from the river only by a narrow strip of jungle. The sand 
 is covered with patches of a fine sort of sedge, on which we found three 
 cows browsing, and, a little farther, observed a party of Nubians approach- 
 ing from the south. On mooring, soon after dark, we saw, directly 
 opposite, a large fire among the rocks, and could distinguish numerous 
 voices, proceeding, according to our Nubian pilot, from a slave vessel from 
 
 * Iiby and Mangles.
 
 442 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 the Black Countries. In these calm evenings the whole face of the Nile 
 is bespangled with stars, which I never observed more brilliant. But this 
 sight the Arabs consider as unpropitious to the traveller, indicating the 
 total absence of wind, and menacing him with unwelcome delay. To 
 defend the individuals employed about the sakias from the heat of the sun, 
 they erect over the wheel a slight shed. 
 
 Late in the afternoon we arrived at Korosko, which being the place 
 where the Berber and Sennaar caravans make a halt on entering the culti- 
 vated country, we landed to make inquiries among the inhabitants for ostrich 
 plumes, native arms, and other articles from the interior of Africa, frequently 
 to be met with at this village. Close to the river, a Turkish governor, 
 returning from Sennaar to Cairo, was encamped on the plain, with a great 
 number of attendants and followers, all preparing to bivouac sub dio^ with 
 their baggage, horses, and camels. Their carpets, saddles, water-sacks, 
 culinary utensils, pipes, and African curiosities, lay scattered upon the 
 ground. At a short distance was a small space surrounded with a white 
 linen inclosure about five feet high, in passing which we observed a number 
 of young black female faces, adorned with crisp curls, peeping over the 
 canvas, their thick lips distended with a smile, and their laughing eyes 
 wantonly rolling ; and as soon as we had turned the corner, the whole 
 bevy burst out into peals of laughter. They were no doubt rejoicing at 
 the prospect of entering into the harems of white men. From all I have 
 seen or heard of these negresses, I believe that, were the case fairly put 
 before them, ninety-nine out of every hundred in all Africa would prefer 
 the easy life they lead in the harems of the north, to the estate of toil and 
 poverty in which they grovel in their own country — I mean before they 
 become mothers ; for when women have borne children, there are compara- 
 tively few who would not, for their sakes, submit to the greatest toil and 
 privations. But this view of the matter has nothing to do with the question 
 of slavery, which remains the same, in whatever light it may be considered 
 by wantonness and ignorance. 
 
 The village of Korosko consists of a few scattered low huts, constructed 
 with small loose stones, or clay, roofed with dhourra stalks and palm 
 branches. Several Ababde and Bisharein Arabs, entirely bareheaded, with 
 their black elf-locks hanging loosely over their shoulders, were strolling 
 over the plain. They are generally fine tall men, who, though their 
 features are haggard and savage, have long necks, and gracefully-formed 
 shoulders ; while the Fellahs and Nubians are distinguished by high 
 shoulders and short bull-necks. One fine Ababde youth I observed 
 walking with the air of an English gentleman from the camp towards the 
 village, who, notwithstanding his swarthy complexion, was handsome, his 
 features being very regular, and his large black eyes lighted up with much 
 intelligence. Here we saw a specimen of the Nubian or African shield, 
 quite round, with two small notches opposite each other in the edge, and 
 a high boss in the centre. The wooden frame-work, strong but light, is 
 covered with the skin of some wild beast, dressed like parchment ; but the 
 owner could not be tempted to sell it. The villagers possessed a few 
 ostrich feathers, but of an inferior description, grey and short, consequently 
 of little or no value.
 
 NUBIAN HOUSEHOLDS. 443 
 
 Farther up the valley we afterwards, during the hot months, saw the 
 Dongola caravan pass ; it was preceded by about fifty camels, carrying 
 the provisions, &c. The conductors were armed with a sword, dagger, 
 and spear each ; they wore sandals to preserve the soles of their feet from 
 the burning sand, which we now feel most sensibly, being obliged to stop 
 every now and then to pour it out of our shoes. These sandals are much 
 like those worn by the ancient Egyptians, and which are often found on 
 the feet of the mummies at this day.* 
 
 A little to the south of Korosko we landed on the eastern bank, which 
 must here have exceeded thirty feet in height. The plain above was 
 thickly planted with palm-trees, among which we walked for some time, 
 amused by the cooing of the doves, and the songs of several other birds, 
 the notes of one of which greatly resembled those of the thrush. Accord- 
 ing to a regulation of the Pasha, when any boat in the public service 
 ascends the river, the reis is authorised to call on euch Nubians as may 
 be working at the sakias between Korosko and Derr, to assist in tracking ; 
 because the course of the stream in this part being from west to east, a 
 fair wind is scarcely to be expected, as it generally blows either from the 
 north or south. Taking advantage of the Pasha's ordonnance, the crews 
 of travellers also seize upon the peasantry, and compel them to aid in 
 tracking ; and our pilot, pretending to be in the service of government, 
 began to avail himself of this privilege ; but when the men had been taken 
 from one or two wheels, the alarm being spread, all the sakias were aban- 
 doned. The inhabitants of the villages likewise escaped into the mountains, 
 so that when I passed through they appeared to be deserted, except that 
 once or twice a sheep was heard to bleat, or a dog to bark among the 
 heaps of rubbish. In all these villages the houses, roofed with palm 
 branches, are built of mud in the form of square towers, large at the base, 
 and gradually decreasing towards the summit, exactly like an Egyptian 
 propylon, each dwelling possessing a spacious court, surrounded by high 
 walls, in which, so long as there is shade, the women are accustomed to 
 perform their household work. By the side, or in front of the greater 
 number, is a platform of clay, about eighteen inches high and eight or ten 
 feet square,' surrounded by a neat parapet. On these platforms they 
 spread mats and sleep during the summer. Here we observed several 
 sheds, consisting of two walls and a roof, containing, for the use of travel- 
 lers, jars filled with water, which are closed with a round mat, and have a 
 small brown cup placed beside them. The water, exposed to a free 
 current of air, is kept cool as in the Nile. Near the same villages I 
 remarked several square shallow pits sunk in the ground, coated with 
 white plaster, in wliicli they deposit their newly-threshed corn until per- 
 fectly dry ; and while in the granaries the grain is covered with straw. 
 What is wanted for immediate use they preserve in large jars, which — 
 such is the honesty of these barbarians — they commonly place on the out- 
 side of their doors. Dates, also, are thus kept.f 
 
 • Irby and Mangles. 
 
 ■\- All savage nations appear to possess granaries of this description. The KafFers, in southern 
 Africa, hollow out in the earth wells about six or seven feel iu depth, nicely plastered over,
 
 444 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Here, on the edge of the stony desert, we were overtaken by three 
 derwishes, travelling towards the south, each bearing on his shoulder a 
 thick pole, with a large round knob at the bottom, and about twelve feet 
 in length, bound from end to end with a small coarse cord, so as entirely to 
 conceal the wood. To the top was attached a number of long strips 
 of cotton of different colours, which, as they walked, fluttered in the 
 wind ; and on the other extremity was suspended a basket containing their 
 provisions. They were decently dressed for men of their caste ; and he 
 who appeared to be the chief, wore on his shoulders a quilted shawl, the 
 colours of which had once been brilliant. We walked slowly to allow of 
 their overtaking us. Saluting iis with the " Salam aleykum," they 
 requested something for the love of God, and I gave them a few piastres, 
 for which they appeared exceedingly thankful. Proceeding on with us, they 
 related their history — one describing himself as a native of Siout, another 
 of Fouah, and the third of some other small town in Egypt ; and they had 
 all now travelled from the cell of a great Moslem saint, at Tanta in the 
 Delta, to visit another holy man of much celebrity, four days' journey 
 beyond the second cataract. They were young men, under forty, and two 
 of them had pleasing countenances. The tliird, who wore his black hair, 
 like an Ababde Arab, possessed a set of wild and rather savage-looking 
 features, and went bare-headed in the sun, reminding me strongly of the 
 faces of old Christian ascetics of the early ages of the Church. I purchased 
 of the principal derwish his chaplet of wooden beads, with which he seemed 
 somewhat imwilling to part, though, as he said, he did so to oblige a 
 stranger. Their heavy poles not permitting them to keep pace with us, 
 we quitted them and continued our ramble. 
 
 The plain, whose surface is at least forty feet above the river, is here of 
 considerable breadth, and was now covered with luxuriant crops of wheat, 
 lentils, kidney-beans, peas, and onions, among which many fine cotton 
 plantations were interspersed. A sakia occurs at almost every hundred 
 yards. Having walked about six miles, we reached the ruins of an ancient 
 town, situated on the brow of a hill, where portions of several stone build- 
 ings of spacious dimensions are yet standing, in one of which I observed a 
 small Sai'acen arch of brick. From the style in which the greater number 
 of the houses had been erected, and the space now covered by the ruins, 
 this had evidently been formerly a considerable place. Near the top of 
 the hill we saw a Nubian digging among the broken walls, but when we 
 drew near to make some inquiries, he ran away towards the mountains, 
 though we repeatedly requested him to stop. While sitting on a stone, 
 farther down, four or five women passed by, two of whom appeared very old 
 and wretched ; the others, who wore long loose trousers, and were 
 otherwise well dressed, covered the lower part of their faces as they passed. 
 They were tall large women, with light complexions, and bright black 
 eyes, probably Arabs or natives of Derr. 
 
 For some time the banks of the river have been covered with acacias 
 
 small at the mouth, and gradually enlarging to the hottoni, in which they preserve their grain. 
 A similar practice prevails, likewise, among the rude tribes of Tartary, and in various other' 
 parts of Asia.
 
 ARRIVAL AT DERR. 445 
 
 and thorny slirubs, from wliicli we collected a small quantity of gum- 
 arabic ; and the reis of the boat'cauglit some chameleons, which we intended 
 to keep alive. Tliey feed on flies and boiled rice, and drink water, but 
 they do not agree together in confinement, for they bit off the tails and 
 legs of eacli other. If put into water, they swell like bladders, and swim 
 faster tluin they can crawl. They generally live on palm-trees, and 
 descend in the evening to drink. We cauglit about thirty, but they all 
 gradually died. I saw a female full of eggs, of the size of large peas, 
 eighteen in number, all attached to the matrix.* 
 
 The inhabitants of Derr are supposed to be the descendants of a number 
 of Bosnian soldiers, established in Nubia by Sultan Selim ; and still in a 
 great measure preserve their comparatively fair complexion and European 
 features, though, in many instances it is clear, from their physiognomy 
 they have intermarried with blacks. 
 
 While we lay moored before the town, a number of women, in the 
 primitive style, were engaged in washing their garments on the bank of 
 the river ; they use no soap, but dipping the linen into the water, throw it 
 dripping on the mud, where they beat it with the soles of the feet, as the 
 women in France do with their batting-staffs. They were all exceedingly 
 ugly, several having negro features ; and in order to improve these charms, 
 their hair, twisted into small ringlets, had been saturated with castor oil, 
 which, melting in the sun, ran down in yellow streams over their faces. 
 They had each a small hole in the cartilage of the right nostril, in which 
 a little peg of wood was inserted, in the hope of one day supplying 
 its place with a ring. Among their children there was one fair as a 
 European, but ill-favoured as the rest. Observing us, they brought down 
 eggs and fowls for sale ; and dire was the clamour arising out of their 
 bargaining with the Arabs. One woman in particular lifted up her hands, 
 and shrieked so loudly, that we imagined some person must have been 
 offering her violence, and immediately inquired into the cause of her rage. 
 An Arab, she replied, had taken from her five eggs, and refused payment. 
 As she seemed perfectly in earnest, we demanded and paid her the price : 
 but this was what she calculated on ; and now finding that screaming 
 brought in money, she immediately began again shrieking more loudly 
 than before, beating her breast in the most violent manner. However, her 
 stratagem did not in this instance succeed, though she continued bawling 
 and vociferating in her own language as long as we remained. They were 
 all ornamented with necklaces of coloured glass beads, but went bare- 
 headed, and, contrary to what we had observed on our first visit, their 
 clothes were ragged and dirty. 
 
 In the morning several decently-dressed lads passed by our boat on their 
 way to school, carrying in their hands the wooden tablets on which they 
 are taught to write. These have a small open handle at one end, and are 
 finely polished with a sort of chalk-stone from the mountains ; with which, 
 also, and with water, each lesson, when finished, is rubbed out. Having 
 no reeds, they write with the stalk of the dhourra, which appears to make 
 a good pen, as the characters, I observed, were well formed. One of these 
 
 Belzoni. 
 Q Q
 
 446 EGYPT AND NUBIA, 
 
 little fellows, about twelve years old, accompanied by several of liis com- 
 panions, conducted us to the bypogeum of Derr, excavated in the face of 
 the rocky mountain behind the town. 
 
 The town of Derr, to which we now descended, seemed by far the most 
 agreeable place I had seen in the valley of the Nile ; the houses being 
 exceedingly well built of clay or sun-dried bricks, placed alternately in 
 horizontal or oblique layers, giving the whole wall a pretty fanciful appear- 
 ance. Herodotus observes that, to escape the mosquitoes, the ancient 
 Egyptians were accustomed, at certain seasons of the year, to sleep on the 
 tops of high towers; and the people of Derr may, perhaps, be actuated by 
 the same motive in the erection of their dwellings, which, like the pigeon- 
 houses of the Thebaid, are constructed in the form of square towers, with a 
 large court in front, surrounded by high walls. The streets are wide and 
 scrupulously clean. Even in the environs are none of those heaps of 
 rubbish and filth that disfigure the Egyptian villages ; but, instead, neat 
 walled gardens, filled with orange, date, and acacia trees. Standing in the 
 centre of spacious squares, are two magnificent sycamores, with a neat 
 platform constructed round their trunks, where the inhabitants spread 
 their carpets and smoke in the shade. These trees, with their massive 
 foliage, aff"ord a complete shelter from the sun's rays throughout the day, 
 and the surrounding space being cleanly swept, when the labours of the 
 day are over, the natives assemble here to enjoy their pipe and hear the 
 news, or the wonderful narratives of the story-teller. There was no appear- 
 ance of poverty ; neither beggars, ragged women, or naked squalid children. 
 The boys in the street wore neat caps, and their clothes, of unbleached 
 white, looked remarkably clean and substantial. The women, likewise, 
 whom we saw sitting in their shady courts, were well dressed, and wore 
 large necklaces of various-coloured beads. Their hair was arranged in 
 small straight ringlets, as among their neighbours the Nubians. 
 
 Not many years ago these ladies, if they desired to contemplate the 
 reflection of their own charms, must have followed the example of Poly- 
 phemus, and had recourse to the smooth mirror of the Nile. By the aid 
 of an European traveller, they were delivered from this state of ignorance. 
 Their lords and masters first began the innovation of peering into a 
 looking-glass, so that here, at least, it was the men who led the way in the 
 vanities of the toilet. Having made a present of an article of this descrip- 
 tion to the governor of the place, the traveller proceeds to describe the 
 effects produced by it. " Many of the people," he says, " not having 
 visited Es Souan, had never seen a looking-glass before, and it astonished 
 them greatly. The KasheiT was never tired of admiring his bear-like 
 face ; and all his attendants behind him strove to get a peep at their own 
 chocolate beauty, laughing and much pleased with it. The Kashefi^ gave 
 it, not without fear, to one of them, with a strict charge to be careful not 
 to break it."* 
 
 The valley immediately south of Derr is fertile and beautiful, and 
 covered, for the most part, with palm-trees, which, being planted in 
 straight lines, with the branches meeting above, form stately avenues 
 
 * Belzoni.
 
 THE WADY IBRIM. 447 
 
 extending from tlie river to the mountains. Fields of wheat and tobacco, 
 and extensive cotton phantations, alternate with each other to the extren)ity 
 of tlie Wady. Near the rocks dividing the territories of Derr from those 
 of Ibrim, we found at the foot of the hills a considerable village, around 
 which the fields seemed to be cultivated like a pleasure-garden. A sakia 
 occurred at every hundred yards. Along the pathway were numbers of 
 young sycamore trees, planted within a circular clay inclosure, four feet 
 high and as many in diameter ; and at intervals, among the palms, 
 luxuriant lemon and orange trees, now bare of fruit, inclosed by similar 
 walls. In one of the date gardens the whole surface of tlie ground was 
 covered with the purple flowers of the small kidney-bean peculiar to 
 Nubia. 
 
 Having passed the rocks in the boat, we again landed in the Wady Ibrim, 
 where the fields seemed to be still more carefully cultivated. Our course 
 lay over narrow neat pathways, shaded at intervals by the khartcah, or 
 castor-oil shrub, and the cotton-tree, which here attains the height of twelve 
 feet, and was now partly covered with fine large yellow flowers, and partly 
 with the bursting fruit, hanging upon the branches like immense flakes of 
 snow. Below, the paths were bordered with large solanums, bearing 
 flowers like those of the potato, and apples yellow as gold ; and the 
 kerkadan^ from the berries of which the Nubians prepare a sort of coff'ee. 
 Among these, and yielding to none in beauty, grew the silk-tree, witli its 
 singular fruit and flowers, purple and white, rising in large clusters among 
 the light green laniginous foliage. The water-wheels, here exceedingly 
 numerous, are worked by one or two cows, urged forward with goads by 
 children, in many cases not more than five or six years old, who, being 
 placed m a secure seat behind the animals, are carried round with the wheel. 
 Every inch of the plain appeared to be cultivated so carefully, that not a 
 weed was anywhere to be seen ; and its general aspect, contrasted with the 
 barren surrounding rocks, seemed doubly verdant and beautiful. Mooring 
 late on a sandy point of the shore, the serene beauty of the night invited 
 us to land ; the evening star shining most brightly, and throwing a glitter- 
 ing wake over the river, like the moon. 
 
 During the night it blew a gale, which, dying away before morning, left 
 the river covered with a slight fog. The air was keen and cold. Landing 
 early, we continued our walk among the palm groves, in the midst of 
 which is situated the new village, or rather hamlet, of Ibrim, built after 
 the destruction of the hill town, during the retreat of the Memlooks 
 towards Dongola. The cleanliness of the natives is deserving of much 
 praise ; their houses being neat and comfortable, and the open spaces before 
 the doors cleanly swept, and free from every kind of filth. This may 
 partly arise from their comparative opulence, derived from their fertile soil, 
 and excellent dates, the best, perhaps, in the world ; but something must 
 also be attributed to their taste for cleanliness ; for the Egj^ptian Arabs, 
 even when more wealthy, are, in this respect, much behind them. Being 
 entirely independent of the governors and kashefi*s, who, thanks to 
 Mohammed Ali, dared not ofi'er us the slightest molestation, we never 
 visited them, unless when their aid was necessary in procuring provisions.
 
 448 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 or arranging an affair with a guide or camel-driver. But the neatness and 
 air of comfort observable in the kasheff of Ibrim's dwelling, induced us to 
 step into his audience chamber, where he administers justice, and receives 
 visitors. The apartment, spacious and lofty, was furnished with nicely 
 matted divans, and had three unglazed windows, looking out upon the 
 river, with handsome mat blinds on rollers. 
 
 In the grove near this hamlet we observed a species of gourd, which 
 having climbed the stems of two or three lofty date trees, its green and 
 white fruit hung suspended from between the branches, while the tendrils 
 and large verdant leaves formed a kind of net- work or sheath of foliage 
 round the trunk, like the vines trailed upon barked oaks and elms in Savoy. 
 Throughout the Wady numbers of small watch-towers are erected at 
 intervals in the fields, on the top of which, as the corn ripens, a man is 
 placed with a sling and stones, as in Rajpootana, to frighten away the 
 birds. To a building of this kind the Scripture alludes, where it says, 
 " and he shall be left desolate, like a watch-tower in a garden ;" and, at 
 this time of the year, nothing can possibly look more desolate than one of 
 these gray turrets, standing alone in the midst of the plain. Here I 
 observed a striking example of the ingenuity of these rude people, who, in 
 the harvest time, when reaping their dhourra, had left the stalks about two 
 feet high, that they might serve as sticks to the crop of kidney-beans sown 
 immediately on the removal of the corn. 
 
 About eleven o'clock, we reached the foot of the lofty hill, rising in one 
 vast cliff perpendicularly from the water's edge, upon which are situated 
 the ruined castle and tower of Ibrim — the Premnis of Strabo. 
 
 Not far to the northward is an extensive burial ground, held in great 
 estimation by the natives, probably on accoimt of some ancient tradition. 
 It contains, among other tombs, those of the Memlooks, who fell some 
 years ago in a great battle with the Pasha. The eastern bank of the river 
 is fertile ; but on the western there are no signs of cultivation. Several 
 ancient tombs have been discovered near the mountains of Toske, at some 
 distance inland.* 
 
 Landing at the mouth of the rocky ravine, north of the castle, we 
 climbed between loose stones and heaps of rubbish to the top, which com- 
 mands a magnificent and boundless view over the Desert ; the numberless 
 rocky valleys intervening, the meanderings of the river, the bold crags, 
 surmounted by the tombs of Mohammedan saints, presenting themselves 
 at once to the eye. The ruins, extending over the whole summit of the 
 height, possess no architectural importance, though a great portion of the 
 castle walls is evidently of ancient date. Two or three edifices, one of 
 which had been used as a mosque by the Turks, contain several sand- 
 stone and granite shafts and capitals, which are also ancient. The capitals 
 are of a peculiar form, square above, with a ram's head at each of the 
 four corners, and between the heads a rose or rosette, alternating with an 
 ornament, sometimes denominated the Maltese Cross. Two or three of 
 these buildings have the appearance of places of Christian worship, and 
 the high wind moaning through the ruins, recalled the day I once passed 
 
 * Col. Howard Vjse.
 
 PYRAMIDAL ROCKS. 449 
 
 in the church of our Lady of Guibray. In descending from the castle 
 towards the south, several square towers present themselves, built with 
 small stones on the remains of the ancient wall, which would seem to be 
 of Roman construction. Viewed on this side from the depth of the 
 ravine, the castle, standing on scarped and inaccessible clifts, exhibits a 
 highly imposing appearance, and, during the prevalence of the ancient 
 system of warfare, must have been impregnable ; but artillery might easily 
 be brought to bear upon it from the neighbouring heiglits. In the face of 
 the precipice, about fifty feet above the river, are numerous small Egyptian 
 grottoes, adorned with hieroglyphics and rude sculpture ; but to reach 
 them it is necessary to creep along the face of the rock, over a narrow 
 ledge, in some places not exceeding two or three inches in breadth. We 
 entered two of them, where we found in a niche the figures of Isis, Osiris, 
 and Horus, arranged as in the large rock-temples of Nubia. 
 
 Near the village of Anke, on the eastern bank, about three leagues 
 south of I brim, are two insulated masses of rock, of very remarkable 
 appearance, the northernmost resembling a vast marquee, whose rugged 
 sides have been torn by the tropical rains into deep gorges, between which 
 the mountain projects its roots, like enormous buttresses, into the plain. 
 Viewed from the north, the second seems to be the commencement of a 
 chain. About four o'clock we passed the village of Toske, embosomed in 
 date and mimosa groves. 
 
 From this place we saw several rocks in the plain towards the east, 
 which resembled so many pyramids of various sizes ; and I should not 
 wonder if these suggested to the Egyptians the first idea of this form. 
 Some of them appear to be about two hundred feet high.* 
 
 The upper part of the sakias, in some places not forty yards apart, was 
 here surrounded by a sort of skreen of clean dhourra stalks, which looked 
 like neat yellow cane- work ; and the cultivation depending on them was 
 carefully conducted down to the water's edge. In the midst of the dwellings 
 of the peasantry we observed a large building, something like the moiety 
 of a propylon, about thirty-five or forty feet in height (furnished with 
 loop-holes for musketry, like the village fortresses of Greece and Ilindils- 
 tan), to which the villagers probably retired, or transferred their most 
 valuable property, during the incursions of the Bedouins. The aspect of 
 the eastern bank is here eminently interesting ; water-wheels, high garden 
 walls, numerous scattered houses, and the pointed rocky pinnacles of lofty 
 mountains, presenting themselves in succession as the traveller ascends the 
 stream. Beyond Toske the date-trees disappear, but the mimosas and 
 tamarisks continue ; and here a chain of low hills approaches the river. 
 
 A little to the south is an island upon which are the ruins of an 
 ancient tower, which must have commanded the whole Nile, as the river 
 is very narrow here, and the island is situated in the centre of it. 
 The blocks of stone are not so large as those in the temples of Egypt, but 
 they are well connected together.* 
 
 Passing Wady Ermyne about dusk, we shortly afterwards entered 
 Wady Foorgundy, where the night air was exceedingly keen. 
 
 * Bclzoui. 
 
 Q Q 2
 
 450 
 
 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 Some of the Nubian boatmen, who work on this part of the river, are 
 at once celebrated for their industrious habits and for their unceremonious 
 
 Ruined Ttmple. 
 
 appetites. According to the Arabs, they would eat the devil himself if he 
 were well cooked. Without answering for the correctness of this opinion, 
 it may with truth be said, that they live hardly, and eat anything in the 
 world. They chew the rock-salt, or natron mixed with tobacco, putting 
 the mixture between the front teeth and lower lip. The natron is found 
 in several parts of Egypt, and is one of their articles of trade. The Lap- 
 landers are said to be very filthy in their food, and I am sure these people 
 are not unlike them in that respect. When we killed a sheep, I had 
 sometimes the y)leasure of seeing the entrails opened, pieces of which, 
 dipped once in the water, were eaten by them raw. The head and feet, 
 with the skin, wool, hoofs, and all, were put into a pot, which is never 
 washed, to be half-boiled, when they drank the brotli, and devoured the 
 rest. Their bread, however, is not so much amiss, and the manner in 
 which it is baked may be worth describing. It is placed on a flat stone, 
 eighteen inches square, raised from the ground by a small stone at each 
 corner, so as to admit a fire under it ; and when it is at a certain degree of 
 heat, the paste is laid out, which, being quite soft, or nearly liquid, spreads 
 in a sheet all over the stone, and in one minute is firm enough to be turned, 
 which is done with great dexterity, without breaking it. As soon as one 
 is baked another is placed on the stone ; and they are pretty good if eaten 
 while hot, but when cold they are quite sour and disagreeable. They are 
 generally eaten with sour milk ; but if allowed to get cold, they are 
 broken to pieces, put into a bowl, and boiled lentils poured on them. 
 Tliis forms the general food of the country.* 
 
 Leaving our moorings soon after day-break, we found our hands and 
 feet tingling with cold, as on a frosty morning in England. The course of 
 
 * Bclzoni.
 
 APPROACH TO ABOOSAMBAL. 
 
 451 
 
 tlie rivor, in ascending, is here W.N.W. In this part of the Wady the 
 sands, on the Libyan bank, descend to the edge of the stream, leaving 
 barely sufficient space for a row of tamarisk and acacia trees. The oppo- 
 site shore displays a belt of cultivation, fluctuating in breadth, until we 
 arrive at the point where the low hills project into the river, and form the 
 line of separation between the Wady Foorgundy and the Wady Farrek, 
 where the sand hills on the west are partially covered with copses of 
 tamarisks. 
 
 Manner of Crossing the Nile. 
 
 Here I saw a man paddle himself across the river on a bundle of rushes; 
 and I was informed that two or three people often pass over together in 
 this way.* 
 
 Beyond this point the course of the river is a little to the south of west. 
 The north wind blowing almost a gale, we sailed at an extraordinary 
 rapid rate, and about eleven o'clock arrived at Aboosambal, where, 
 directly opposite the temples, there is a large cultivated island, not marked 
 in the maps ; to the east of which, in all probability, the Nile anciently 
 flowed, leaving at the foot of the western mountains a considerable plain. 
 
 The banks of the river between Ibrim and Aboosambal are beautifully 
 strewed with the yellow and purple acacia, forming thick hedges, which 
 have a very pleasing efi'ect ; a species of the tamarisk is also common here. 
 The acacia is famous for producing the gum-arabic, which is brought in 
 great quantities from the interior of Africa, in the vicinity of Darfour ; 
 the seeds of the acacia also serve for a lucrative branch of trade, being sent 
 in the first instance to Cairo, and then shipped for Europe, where they 
 sei've as a good article for tanning. f 
 
 The two temples of Aboosambal are excavated in the face of the pre- 
 cipice, the lesser about thirty-five, and the greater about fifty feet above 
 the level of the river at low Nile. At present, the ascent from the water 
 is difficult, the steep sandy bank being thickly covered with sedge and 
 prickly mimosas. We landed under the smaller temple, where there is no 
 terrace ; and the pathway, skirting the rock, is much too narrow to afford 
 a view of the fa9ade, or the colossal figures that adorn it. But, from 
 
 * Colonel Howard Vyse. 
 
 f Irby aud Mangles.
 
 452 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 whatever point belield, the eflFect is exceedingly grand. On either side of 
 the entrance are three colossal statues of gods, standing, with one foot 
 advanced, in an equal number of recesses, flanked by huge sloping but- 
 tresses, covered with hieroglyphics, which appear to descend from the 
 summit of the mountain. The first of these figures, commencing from the 
 north, represents Horus, the second Isis, the third Osiris. The goddess is 
 distinguished by her usual mitre — the cow's horns, with the full moon 
 between them. South of the entrance, the order in which they are placed 
 is reversed. Burckhardt erroneously represents Isis holding the infant 
 Horus in her arms ; for the right hand hangs idly by her side, while the left, 
 containing the handle of a sistrum now broken, is pressed upon her bosom. 
 Her countenance, both here and elsewhere, is soft and pleasing, but pos- 
 sesses nothing like grandeur; and the features of the male deities are 
 chubby and undignified. To render the spectator sensible of the gigantic 
 proportions of these statues, the artist has placed by their sides female 
 figures of the natural size, some dressed, and others naked ; an example of 
 bad taste, of which even Phidias was guilty when he represented his 
 colossal Minerva bearing a diminutive figure of Victory in the hand. 
 
 The first objects which arrest attention on entering the cella, are the six 
 massive square columns without capitals, that appear to support the roof. 
 They are disposed in two rows, one on either side, and exhibit a kind of 
 terminal head of Athor, surmounted by an ornament like a temple or 
 square tower, supposed to be emblematic of the universe, of which she was 
 the mother. Over the forehead runs a kind of full turban, which, passing 
 behind the ears, and falling upon the neck on both sides, terminates in an 
 involution, like the point of a ram's horn. Among the paintings on the 
 walls the most prominent is the customary representation of a human 
 sacrifice, executed with considerable spirit. The victim is kneeling on one 
 knee, while his right hand rests on the other, as if in the act of raising 
 himself; and his face, in the fierce agony of despair, or in deprecating en- 
 treaty, is turned towards the sacrificer, who, bearing at his back a quiver 
 filled with arrows, appears from his lofty mitre, with the tircBus in front, 
 to be a royal personage. The hand also that grasps tlie kneeling man by 
 the hair, contains something resembling a sceptre ; while in the other he 
 wields a sickle-like faulchion, with which he is about to cut his throat. 
 Behind the royal executioner, Isis advances to save the captive, bearing a 
 full blown lotus in one hand, while the other is extended towards the king, 
 to stay him from his purpose ; but her benevolent design is frustrated by 
 Osiris, who suddenly presents himself, and by stretching forth a sacrificial 
 instrument, commands the completion of the horrid rites. Some panto- 
 mime of this kind may probably have been enacted by the priests, when 
 the blood of a human being was offered up to the manes of Osiris before 
 
 his tomb. 
 
 Passino- on to the southern wall, we find the usual representations of the 
 popular gods, but with some variety in their attitudes and employment. 
 The first group consists of a goddess, playing on a kind of musical instru- 
 ment before Osiris ; while a strange bird-headed divinity stands behind 
 her in wonder, and is succeeded by Horus and Aroeris. Isis follows next,
 
 THE SMALLER TEMPLE. 
 
 453 
 
 with a new and not ungraceful addition to her mitre — a pair of wings 
 descending behind the cars to the shoulders. Her head-dress is black, and 
 
 Temples of Aboosambal. 
 
 richly ornamented. In the right hand she bears a small frame containing 
 a scarabaeus ; and in the left three lotuses springing from one stem, which 
 she is extending towards a goddess, with a mitre in the form of a corn- 
 measure, probably tlie Ceres of the Egyptians. To this group succeeds a 
 priest, presenting the small figui-e of a deity squatting on his hams to 
 Osiris, seated on his throne, with the bird-headed sceptre, the emblem of 
 power, in his hand. On the back or western wall, left from the doorway, 
 we find a young priestess, who, having borrowed from her patron goddess 
 her horns, moon and mitre, approaclies the throne of Isis, bearing an offer- 
 ing cousistincj of a full-blown lotus, and a small frame containino; a head of 
 Athor, surmounted by a doorway with a vine tendril on either side. 
 Difi^erent versions of the same groups occur on the other walls of the cham- 
 ber. It should be remarked that, in all these painted sculptures, the 
 drapery of the female figures is so transparent, that the whole contour of 
 the limbs and body is exhibited as if naked ; which is not effected in the 
 Greek manner, by imitating the folds of a robe soaked in water, the ex- 
 istence of a garment being merely indicated by a tippet above, and a rich 
 border below ; the reniainder being, to borrow a bold figure from Petro- 
 nius, a kind of " woven wind," much too fine to be visible. Among the 
 sculptures on the northern wall, there is one which may deserve notice ; an 
 unniitred divinity on a throne, probably Phthah, grasping in both hands 
 the crosier, flagellum, and bird-headed graduated staff, with an altar before 
 him, piled with the limbs of various victims, (none, I believe, of men) ;
 
 454 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 and on the opposite side a priest, extending a large sacrificial instrument 
 over the reeking members. A small niche in the adytum contains a moon- 
 mitred statue of Isis, with female-headed columns on either side. Here, 
 according to Biirckhardt, there exists a deep sepulchral excavation ; but, 
 after a careful search, we could discover no trace of it, the rock being every- 
 where visible on thrusting aside the loose stones. 
 
 From this hypogeum we proceeded to the greater, through what was 
 once a rocky ravine, now filled up by the winds of the desert with a torrent 
 of sand, constantly increasing, like an enormous glacier, which must shortly 
 not only once more cover every trace of the excavation, but raise the valley 
 to a level with the mountains on both sides. 
 
 This sand is of so fine a description that every particle would go through 
 an hourglass. It is curious to observe in the morning, on its smooth sur- 
 face, drifted by the night-breeze, the tracks of the snakes, lizards, and 
 other reptiles, which had come down to the water's edge during the 
 night to drink ; and we could plainly discern the traces of their return 
 to their solitary haunts in the desert. Sometimes their track indicated the 
 presence of reptiles of considerable size ; and with these proofs of their noc- 
 turnal movements, we easily accounted for tlie dread our guides expressed 
 of walking near the water's side the night we returned from the second 
 cataract.* 
 
 Having traversed the glen, we discover the front of the temple hewn in 
 the face of the mountain, with the vast colossal figures, which, like the 
 giants in the Arabian Nights, sit before it to guard the entrance. Their 
 aspect at the first view is sublime ; enormous bulk in representations of 
 animated beings invariably producing this effect upon the mind, which, in 
 the confusion of the moment, pauses not to examine the sources of its emo- 
 tions. Of these gigantic statues there were originally four ; but the third, 
 reckoning from the north, having been shattered by a rocky avalanche 
 descending from the mountain above, has now a large portion of his head 
 in his lap. The three that remain entire are male figures ; but whom they 
 were intended to represent, it is not very easy to determine : perhaps 
 Osiris, the greatest of the gods of Egypt, in whose honour the temple would 
 appear to have been excavated. The expression of the countenance is mild 
 and placid, but possesses little dignity, and by no means corresponds with 
 our ideas, or resembles Athasna ; nor can I conjecture what could possibly 
 liave suggested tlie idea to Burckhardt. The faces of the smaller colossi in the 
 interior, which he did not see, may perhaps exhibit something more of the 
 Pallas features ; though the resemblance will not be found to hold upon exa- 
 mination, there being nothing of that vestal severity of aspect, that intrepid 
 self-possession, that more than mortal pride and intellectual grandeur 
 engrafted on surpassing loveliness, which enter into our conceptions, and exist 
 in the genuine statues of the Athenian goddess. It is difficult, perhaps 
 impossible, to explain — except in one way — how it happened that the 
 Egyptians never succeeded in expressing either the beauty or the austere 
 dignity of the human form. You stand in the presence of their mightiest 
 works of arts without a particle of awe. It never enters into your imagi- 
 
 * Irby and Mangles.
 
 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 455 
 
 nation that those huge blocks could ever be gifted with volition, and rise 
 from their stony seats to do you injury ; some secret and obscure persua- 
 sion of which must, nevertheless, always present itself in glimpses to the 
 mind, when it experiences that uneasy delight suggested by all objects 
 awakening the idea of overwhelming power. To each we may ajiply what 
 the poet has said of Theseus in hell, — 
 
 *' Scdet, seternumque sedebit ! " 
 
 The traveller may, perhaps, be astonished at their size, and astonish 
 others also, by stating the enormous length of their beards, the breadth of 
 their shoulders, or the more than ]Midas-like dimensions of their ears; but, 
 if the contemplation of works of art has ever been numbered among his 
 pleasures, he can never be powerfully aflFectcd by such uncouth imitations 
 of humanity. Such, at least, after reviewing them carefully, without 
 system or prejudice, are my impressions ; which I state that others, more 
 deeply versed in the theory and practice of the arts, may hereafter be led 
 upon the spot to investigate the subject. The importance of the inquiry 
 is not trifling ; it is intimately connected with the question, not yet 
 definitively decided, whether the knowledge of the principles of art were 
 transmitted from Egypt into Greece ; in properly considering which, more 
 stress should be laid on the characteristic features, the essential difference 
 — in one word, the souls which animated the two styles of art respectively 
 prevailing in Egypt and Greece, — than on the vague and unweighed hints 
 of historians and travellers. 
 
 The features of all these colossal statues display something of the 
 square Mongol cast, with high cheek-bones ; but these distinguishing traits 
 disappear in prints and drawings ; the passion for producing effect being 
 commonly more powerful than the love of truth. They are furnished 
 with the usual square beard, and wear upon their heads a mitre, like that 
 sometimes attributed to Isis, from which long flaps descend over the 
 shoulders half way down the breast. In front, above the forehead, the 
 ursDus, or cobra di capello, rears itself with inflated neck. Between the legs, 
 and on either side of the colossi, are female figures of the natural size, 
 coarsely executed, and with African features. These remarks apply to 
 the two figui'es on the south ; the others being knee-deep in sand, nothing 
 can be predicated of their accessaries ; but in all probability they exhibit 
 no variety. 
 
 The fa9ade of the temple, smoothed perpendicularly in the face of the 
 rock, is one hundred and twenty feet in length, and about ninety in height ; 
 the whole of the space included within these dimensions being surrounded 
 with a moulding, and adorned with a cornice and sculptured frieze. In a 
 niche, over the entrance, is a hawk-headed god ; but the metamorphoses, 
 in which the Egyptian deities delight, and their habit of borrowing each 
 other's ornaments and costume, render it impossible to decide whether it 
 should be taken for Aroeris or Osiris. He bears, however, the globe and 
 serpent on his head, and on either side of him, on the surface of the rock 
 beside the niche, is a female votary, presenting as an offering the crouching 
 image of some inferior divinity, with the symbol of eternal life on its
 
 456 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 knees. On the frieze, sui-rounding the doorway, are mitred hawks, dogs, 
 cows, serpents, with naked figures of Chemniis and Isis, and other gods, 
 crowned with flowers ; and the sides of the entrance are covered with 
 similar representations. 
 
 Proceeding into the interior, we find ourselves in a vast hall, adorned on 
 either hand by a row of massive square pillars, each with a gigantic 
 statue attached to it in front. Between these lies the approach to the 
 sanctuary and the smaller chambers within. The faces of these colossi are 
 very fine, except the nose, which is slightly curved, too blunt at the point, 
 and exhibiting the cartilage between the nostrils. The pupils of the eye, 
 and the edges of the eyelids, are painted black ; and the mitred helmet, 
 descending almost to the eyebrows, conceals the whole forehead. The 
 arms are crossed on the breast. In the left hand is tlie flagellum, in the 
 right the crosier. All have nearly the same features ; but the first and 
 fourth in the southern row make the nearest approach to masculine beauty. 
 They wear short garments, like aprons, with a row of six cobra di capellos on 
 the lower edge. Their dimensions have been greatly exaggerated ; for, 
 exclusive of pedestal and mitre, their height does not exceed eighteen feet ; 
 including both, it may be about twenty-two. It is erroneous to describe 
 their turbans as reaching to the ceiling, since they have no turbans, but 
 a mitre, which does not rise above the columns, and is separated from the 
 ceiling by the whole depth of the enormous stone beams, which, passing 
 from the front to the back of the apartment, appear to support the roof. 
 The effect they produce must depend upon the imagination of the, 
 traveller. 
 
 The designs upon the walls of this hall would seem, from a circum- 
 stance which shall presently be mentioned, to represent the wars of that 
 Memnon, or Osymandyas, the magnificent ruins of whose palace we had 
 seen at Abydos. They are conceived with much boldness and fire, and, 
 although the material embodying corresponds but ill with the original 
 idea, the narrative is conducted with ability ; the rapid succession of 
 events which compose this sanguinary drama being most distinctly 
 unfolded. The action commences about the centre of the northern wall, 
 where Memnon, seated on his throne, is represented in the act of giving 
 those commands in which all this warlike movement originates. Before 
 him are his principal satraps and great military ofiicers, each receiving the 
 orders and learning the part he is to perform in the coming struggle. A 
 chariot w%aits in readiness for the hero of the campaign ; and the grooms 
 standing by the horses' necks have their faces turned towards the palace, 
 as if every moment expecting to behold the warlike king issuing forth. 
 The charioteer, likewise, in the same expectation, holds the long reins in 
 one hand, and looks back, fearing or hoping for the sudden appearance 
 of the monarch. Memnon, surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance 
 of barbaric grandeur, grasps the lotus-headed sceptre in one hand, while 
 the other is extended as in the act of speaking, but, with the pride of an 
 oriental despot, he harangues sitting ; while the great men of the kingdom 
 who compose his auditory, stand humbly to catch the import of his royal 
 eloquence. Behind the throne are two sumptuously attired attendants,
 
 ABOOSAMBAL. 457 
 
 one of whom bears a sort of fan of feathers, mounted on a handle as long 
 as the staff of a spear, and somewhat resembling the sikra, or royal 
 fan, of the Rajpoot sovereigns of Me war. The other, who holds the 
 monarch's bow in his hands, seems to be seated in a chair, from which he 
 may be supposed to be a person of some consequence. 
 
 The next scene represents the army already in the field, and the com- 
 mencement of the first battle. In these wars little account appears to 
 have been made of infantry. Chariots, with several riders in each, drawn 
 up in long crowded lines, seem to cover a vast space of ground, wheeling 
 about and scouring the field in all directions. The charioteer is always 
 depicted with a large shield, apparently of wicker-work, which he extends 
 before the combatants, whose principal arms are the bow and arrow, and 
 the light javelin. Some of these chariots are seen falling over the edges 
 of high cliffs, down which their riders, with the shields and arms, have 
 been already precipitated, and are beheld tumbling among the rocks. 
 Others, with the arrows in their hearts, are reeling in death, and falling 
 under their own chariot wheels ; while a third party, defeated and flying, 
 drive at full speed over the plain, looking fearfully behind them, or draw- 
 ing an unavailing bow at their pursuers. A little farther we behold a 
 pause in the work of death. A parley takes place. Two personages of 
 high rank, with circular bucklers, and round crests upon their helmets, 
 attended by a number of followers with long tabular shields, meet in front 
 of their respective armies. On one side an empty chariot stands behind 
 in waiting ; which, from the royal canopy., adorned with tlie sacred vulture 
 with outspread wings, and the magnificent plume on the horses' heads, we 
 know to be that of Osymandyas. 
 
 From the scenes following next in succession, we discover that the 
 results of the parley were not pacific. On this portion of the wall, indeed, 
 " the whole war comes out and meets the eye ;" soldiers spearing men 
 upon their knees — killing suppliants — giving no quarter ; others engaged 
 in deadly strife, or falling wounded from their chariots, or lying, the 
 struggle ended, dead upon the ground. On a distant part of the field we 
 observe rows of captives on their knees, while others, with their arms 
 bound, are led away to servitude or to execution ; for such were the 
 barbarous practices of the times. Close to these wretched groups, in 
 whom the passion for glory has been satiated, the battle in all its fury 
 continues. Here chariot urges on chariot, and horse, horse. They throng, 
 push, struggle, conquer, perish. Death, the true hero of the field, strides 
 from rank to rank, and urges them with shouts and laughter to the 
 combat. The warriors, in some chariots, cover their bodies with long 
 shields, in others with round. Farther off, we find the infantry marching 
 forward to battle, in serried ranks, armed with long spears, and large 
 bucklers covering the whole body. 
 
 There is an epic variety in these representations of carnage, the eye, 
 as it wanders along the walls, beholding at each shifting, as it were, of 
 the scene, new images of death, new actors, surrounded with increasing 
 terrors, paving with more sanguinary energy the way to the final catas- 
 trophe. The artist, with adulatory skill, has contrived to crowd and
 
 458 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 multiply around tlie king images of confusion and slaughter. Wherever 
 he moves, rout and perdition attend him ; and, in proceeding into his 
 presence, we pass by a soldier, apparently his armour-bearer, who is 
 grasping an enemy by the arm, and driving a spear into his breast, while 
 he tramples under his feet the dead body of a fallen foe. Close at hand 
 is the king in his chariot, urging forward his fiery steed ; dealing destruc- 
 tion with his vast arrows, driving over the wounded and the dying, his 
 flying wheels, dyed with brains and gore, crushing out their souls. He 
 is represented in the act of drawing his bow ; the arrow, not yet sped, is 
 richly ornamented near the barb, exactly resembling in form a small copper 
 arrow-head which I bought at Elephantine. The artist committed some 
 blunder in forming this royal bow ; and, having been compelled to correct 
 his error, the yew appears double in the upper part. Here, as elsewhere, 
 the horses of the hero's chariot are adorned with waving plumes, and the 
 figure of a globe seems to be suspended over their necks. 
 
 The enemy, unable to resist the prowess of Memnon, retreat, and take 
 refuge within the walls of their capital, whither the monarch, ambitious 
 and implacable, still pursues them ; and, the tediousness of a siege not 
 suiting the purpose of the artist, the place is stormed. In their appearance 
 and architecture, the fortifications exactly resemble the clay forts found at 
 this day in Nubia ; where the events commemorated most probably took 
 place. Sculpture, like poetry, knows how to cast the mantle of grandeur 
 over small things, so as to make them appear great, and the reduction of a 
 few Nubian villages, which an enthusiastic bard would denominate " the 
 conquest of Ethiopia," seems, in this dumb epopoea, to rival the siege of 
 Troy. The sack of the capital is accompanied by several affecting and well- 
 imagined circumstances. We behold on the walls soldiers who, having just 
 cast their spears at the assailants, seem as If they had no more left. Others, 
 who have received their death- wound, are falling back among their com- 
 rades. There are two lines of fortification, the one above the other. Just 
 as all is lost, a woman, perhaps the Queen of Nubia, appears above 
 upon the battlements, holding up a naked child with long streaming 
 hair, as if to invoke the compassion of the conqueror ; and near her a 
 man, probably her husband, lifts towards heaven his supplicating hands 
 in despair. But nothing can arrest their fate. The Egyptians burst into 
 the castle, and we behold its gallant defenders hurled down headlong over 
 the w^alls. 
 
 Victory having crowned his arms, the hero is next discovered returning 
 in triumph to his country. He moves along in his chariot, holding the 
 reins together, with his bow in the left hand, while in the right he bears a 
 quiver and a crooked faulchion. Two crossed quivers adorn the side of his 
 triumphal car. Diodorus Siculus, in describing the achievements of 
 Memnon-Osymandyas, relates — that this hero was accompanied during 
 his wars by a tame lion, which, running beside his horses, terrified the foe. 
 This circumstance, whether fabulous or not, is characteristic of a barbarian, 
 combating among rude enemies, and enables us, by a very probable conjec- 
 ture, to attribute to that prince the victories here commemorated ; since we 
 observe a lion of great size running beside the horses of the conqueror.
 
 ABOOSAMBAL. 459 
 
 We next find ]iim in his own capital, in a humble attitude, on foot, 
 leading a long procession of captives, of whom a great number are negroes, 
 into the presence of Isis, Osiris-Ammon, and Ilorus. Here, we may pre- 
 sume, in gratitude for their supposed protection and favour, he vows to 
 sacrifice a certain number of human victims on their altars ; and, anon, he 
 is discovered with sceptre and bow in hand, performing his vow before a 
 statue of Osiris, grasping eleven captives by the hair, and brandishing the 
 weapon over their heads with which he is about to shed their blood. Such 
 are the principal bas-reliefs which adorn this great hall. My description, 
 long as it may seem, has touched but the principal circumstances of the 
 war ; for, should I descend to minute particulars, and aim at a full account, 
 the compass of a volume would be required. 
 
 The sides of the square pillars exhibit the sweet modest face of Isis, with 
 the moon and horns upon her head. Into a particular description of the 
 fourteen chambers, of which this vast hypogeum consists, it is unnecessary to 
 enter, as they, perhaps, contain no figures or groups not met with elsewhere. 
 A niche in the adytum contains the figures of four gods ; the first, begin- 
 ning on the right hand, is hawk-headed, probably Aroeris ; the second, 
 having no beard, may, perhaps, be meant for Isis ; the third seems to ])e 
 Osiris ; and the fourth Phthah ; who being, like the Grecian Vulcan, 
 remarkable for a rude and unpromising exterior, though containing within 
 the soul that gave birth to the arts, seems to have been often mistaken for 
 Typhon. On the mitres worn by these divinities very curious observations 
 have been made. The second figure, we are told, " has a casque some- 
 what resembling that of Minerva." But I have nowhere seen Atlieena with 
 a helmet bearing the slightest likeness to this mitre, which, with little or 
 no variation, is found on the head of Osiris-Serapis, as judge of Amenti, in 
 the sculptures of Thebes. Again, " the third is bearded, and has a tall 
 head-dress, resembling the tutulus." Now, according to Yarro, the tutulus 
 was " the top of the hair, wound with a purple lace on the crown of the 
 head, used only by the high priest's wife, to distinguish her from other 
 women." The word Mas likewise employed, says the same author, to 
 signify " the peak, or tuft, of a priest's cap." But the head-dress here 
 worn by Osiris is merely the lofty mitre with tvvo parallel compartments, 
 commonly found on the head of Chemmis or Priapus, which in form some- 
 what resembles the TABLES of the LAW, represented in the hands of 
 Moses in our old Bible engravings. The fourth statue has at present no 
 head, which has fallen off, and is placed upon the altar in the centre of the 
 adytum, ready for the next antiquarian spoliator who shall pass this way. 
 In all the interior chambers the heat is intense, and accompanied, moreover, 
 by a heavy nauseous smell, like that of a charnel-house. From the 
 entrance to the extremity of the adytum, the whole length of the temple 
 is about one hundred and fifty feet. 
 
 Before bidding adieu to Aboosambal, it may be worth while to give 
 Mr. Belzoni's account of the manner in which he prevailed with the native 
 chiefs to give him their permission to open it. Up to that time they had 
 not learned the use of money, which the European traveller undertook to 
 teach them. As he desired to obtain the co-operation of many of the
 
 400 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 peasants, he made use of the usual means, and said " he would pay money 
 to those who worked. '"What money do you mean?' inquired the 
 Kasheff ; ' money from Mohammed Ali, Pasha of Cairo ? what can we do 
 witli it ? we cannot buy anything here, or at Dongola.' I said, the money 
 might be sent to Es-Souan, and there dhourra could be purchased with it. 
 ' But,' replied Daoud, ' if we do so, they keep the money, and send us no 
 dhourra,' I could scarcely believe that they had so little faith, or notion 
 of commerce : but the fact is, that what produce they carry to Cairo, Siout, 
 or Esneh, they exchange for other articles, which they send to the southern 
 country of Nubia, and never receive any money for it. 
 
 " I produced a piastre, and showed it to some of the people, who by this 
 time had increased in numbers all roimd, seated themselves in form of a 
 crescent before us, and were staring me in the face, observing all my motions. 
 I went on endeavouring to persuade them of the advantages they would 
 derive from such money, if they introduced it into their country. The 
 Kasheff, however, seemed convinced that it would do no good ; for then, 
 he observed, the people who were not contented to stay in Nubia, could sell 
 their cows and goats, and go and live in Egypt. I believe he was right 
 in this point ; but it was certainly impolitic in him to make such a remark 
 before his subjects. One of them took the piastre from my hand, and, 
 after looking at it for some time, asked me who would give anything for 
 that small piece of metal ? ' Any one,' I answered, ' will give you a 
 measure of dhourra for it, quite enough for a man to eat in three days.' 
 ' Tiiat may be so in your country,' replied he, ' but here I am sure no 
 one will give us six grains of dhourra for so small a bit of iron.' I told 
 liim, if he went on board our boat, and presented it to any one there, he 
 would get fur it dhourra enough to suffice him for the time I had mentioned. 
 Off he ran like a deer, and in a few minutes returned with the dhourra 
 folded in a rag fastened to his waist." 
 
 Another characteristic trait, connected with the history of the same 
 operation, may be worth introducing here. " Shortly after I had dined, 
 and performed my ablutions, the Kasheff approached, and signified his 
 wish to speak to me in secret. We retired, and his principal interpreter 
 was called to us. The great mystery was this : on the night before, as he 
 stood on the bank close to our boat, he saw me drinking a coffee-cup of 
 red liquor that I poured out of a bottle ; and, having inquired what it 
 was, was told it was nebet (wine). Now he had heard that the wine of 
 the English was much better than what they made in their own country 
 with dates ; he wished, therefore, to have some to drink also, but in a 
 secret way. Fortunately I had a few bottles left from our stock in Cairo, 
 whicli we preserved for extraordinary occasions ; and I sent my interpreter 
 down to the boat to fetch one. When the wine was first poured out into 
 a cup, and presented to the Kasheff, he sternly looked at the interpreter, 
 and told him to drink first. The interpreter, who was a Copt, and had 
 been in the French army for several years, did not want much persuasion 
 to make a libation to Bacchus ; so with a smile he soon convinced the 
 Kasheff of the purity of the contents of the bottle, and the chief did not 
 hesitate to drink the next cup. At the first taste it did not appear to him
 
 DESERTED TOWN AND CASTLE. 
 
 461 
 
 so strong as lie had supposed ; but at last lie found it so good, that in three 
 days my scanty stock was nearly finished." 
 
 When this temple was opened by Mr. Belzoni and his companions, after 
 having been closed up with sand, probably for a period of two thousand 
 years, a toad crept out of the great entrance.* Had he been meditating 
 there all that time on the mysteries of Egyptian theology ? or was he, like 
 the Jinneh in the Arabian Nights, who had been shut up in a bottle in 
 the sea fur almost an equal length of time, thinking all the while how 
 he should get out ? 
 
 From Aboosambal we crossed to the eastern shore, to examine the forma- 
 tion of the conical hills scattered in various directions over the plain : 
 the wind blowing very high, and the Nile running and breaking in great 
 ■waves like the sea. A little to the north are the deserted town and castle 
 
 of Kalat-Adde, stand- 
 ing on an eminence 
 inferior in elevation 
 to that of Ibrim, but 
 not commanded by 
 any neighbouring 
 height. Both the 
 fortifications and 
 
 houses seem to be 
 still in good preser- 
 vation, and to require 
 but little to render 
 them habitable. Be- 
 hind the castle, in a 
 low valley towards 
 the east, is a great 
 number of pointed clay-built tombs, the necropolis of Kalat-Adde ; and 
 about a mile to the south rises a small sugar-loafed eminence, in the 
 smooth face of which, toward the Nile, we found two small Egyptian 
 chapels, or niches, the larger containing a statue, now bi"oken. On the 
 wall is a finely- formed female figure, sitting on the ground with her 
 feet towards the spectator, like Baillie's Eve at the Fountain ; with 
 several other bas-reliefs, and numerous hieroglyphics, but all much 
 defaced, apparently by time. Descending from this chapel, and turning 
 the foot of the rocky hill, we pursued the camel-track leading over 
 the stony desert towards the south, where the moxintains on the left 
 present the most extraordinary appearance, in some places towering aloft 
 in pyramidal masses, pointed or flattened above, in others assuming the 
 form of ridges, terminating abruptly at both ends in precipices ; their 
 colour, alternate patches of red and black, like a heap of recent ashes. 
 The surface of the desert, which here extends to the water's edge, is broken 
 up by numerous torrent beds, which have torn themselves a way to the 
 Nile through rugged sti-ata of pebbles, sand, and rocks. 
 
 Continuing our route towards the south, we reached in about an hour the 
 
 * Iiby and Mangles. 
 "u R 2 
 
 View on the Nile.
 
 462 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 bed of a stream of lava, about balf a mile in breadth, ^Yl^ch in some places 
 has bubbled up in semi-globular masses like pitch, and cooled in thatform; 
 in others it has spread itself over the sandstone in a thin crust, which, 
 •when struck, sounds like a metallic plate. Beyond this we found a yawn- 
 ing chasm extending from the roots of the mountains to the river. It was 
 about fifty or sixty feet in depth, with perpendicular sides ; and, in breadth, 
 varying from about eight or nine to fourteen feet. The bottom is covered 
 with sand. This vast rent was probably produced by the earthquakes 
 attending the eruptions of the neighbouring volcanoes, which have covered 
 the slopes of the heights and the whole surface of the desert with showers 
 of calcined stones and black lava. Being desirous of examining the termi- 
 nation of this singular opening, we followed its course inward, but were 
 frequently compelled to diverge from the direct route by deep lateral 
 chasms, branching off from the main fissure like boughs from the trunk of 
 a tree. On arriving at the point where the aperture enters the gorges of 
 the moimtains, and becomes shallower, we found, near its brink, a petrified 
 tree, which had been overthrown ages ago. The knots and fibres of the 
 wood are so admirably preserved, that to the eye many of the pieces have no 
 appearance of a petrifaction ; less so even than those specimens of agatised 
 trunks and branches found in the Valley of the Wanderings. Near this was 
 a mass of carbonated chips, imbedded in sandstone, and completely petrified. 
 Of both we took away specimens ; but enough remains for future travellers. 
 A geologist would find ample scope for his researches in this spot, one of 
 the most extraordinary in Nubia, which for its solitary position, and deso- 
 late infernal aspect, we denominated Wadi/ Gehenna, or the " Valley of 
 Hell." In many parts of the chasm, the rocks have been rent asunder in 
 so violent a manner, that portions of them are left standing in the midst, 
 divided all the way down from both precipices, and seemingly trembling on 
 their bases. Night now approaching, we descended through a lateral 
 fissure into the main opening, and climbing the rocks on the opposite side, 
 regained the level plain, and hastened to our boat. There, sitting at the 
 cabin door, we continued to observe the aspect of the country, and, just as 
 the shadows were thickening into darkness, discovered what we had landed 
 in search of,— a number of artificial mounds, like the tumuli or barrows on 
 the plains of Troy. They are all perfectly conical, smooth, and well 
 formed ; and, from the summit of the largest, about thirty feet in height, I 
 counted, on a subsequent visit, twenty-eight, of different dimensions, none 
 of them very distant from the river. They probably contain bones, vases 
 of silver or gold, arms and other articles usually interred with the dead in 
 remote ages ;^' for this spot was doubtless the scene of some great battle, 
 and these barrows the mausolea raised by the survivors over their fallen 
 chiefs, whose actions they probably commemorated in sculpture and hiero- 
 glyphics on the walls of Aboosambal, promising them an eternity of glory, 
 not doubting that the sacred symbols would for ever remain familiar and 
 intelligible to the eye of learning. 
 
 The sandy plain in which they stand, disposed ne arly in straight lines, 
 
 * I opened one of them across tlie centre to the foundation, and found it to be composed 
 pf sand and stones, without any indication of artificial construction. — Col. Howard Vjse.
 
 THE TORPEDO— FARAS, 463 
 
 is bounded to the eastward and northward by barren mountains, and isolated 
 conical rocks, between which passes the road from Kosko to Ferraj.* The 
 bases of the tumuli, and the whole surface of the surrounding desert, are 
 strewed with small agates, and pebbles of various colours. 
 
 In the evening, while towing the boat, our sailors found a torpedo on 
 the very brink of the river, apparently asleep ; it was curious to observe 
 their caution and timidity in approaching it ; they, however, succeeded in 
 sticking one of their daggers in his head, and by that means hauled it on 
 shore ; our Egyptian crew had done the same near Beni Hassan. We got 
 the fish on board, and, though nearly dead, it sensibly affected my arm in 
 laying hold of it ; I felt a double shock up the arm near the elbow. It was 
 about two feet long ; had very small eyes ; the belly and top of the back 
 white ; one dorsal fin ; and the sides were coloured dark brown with black 
 spots ; it had no scales. Our sailors in Egypt ate the one they caught, but 
 tlie present crew would not touch this, even when dead, and consequently 
 harmless, much more eat it. They all said we avoided the shock by utter- 
 ino- a charm, or using some magic influence. This day one of the boys of 
 our crew brought on board a chamelion ; he caught it in an acacia (called in 
 Nubia, the sant,) tree, which they affect more than the date, or any other 
 tree in this country. On coming on board, it hissed and showed symptoms 
 of anger, evincing at the same time a great desire to make its escape. It 
 was then of a dirty green colour, with dark spots, and whenever it was 
 approached it turned to a dusky brown, inflating itself at the same time. 
 I conclude that one hue is the effect of fear, and the other of indifference. 
 We had subsequently eight of these animals on board ; some of them became 
 so tame, that when the flies annoyed us much, we had only to take one of 
 the chamelions in our hands, and place it near the flies, and it would catch 
 them with its long tongue in great numbers. One of our crew brought us 
 some fine pieces of gum-arabic which he picked off the acacia ; several of 
 the specimens were remarkably clear and large. t 
 
 It was dark when we reached Faras ; but having learned that in the 
 neighbourhood there exists a tomb, or temple, not hitherto described, we 
 proceeded to the village in search of a guide, accompanied by Suleiman and 
 Bakhid. Faras is situated on a lofty bank of the river, in the midst of 
 a strafi-o-lino- orove of palm-trees, interspersed with patches of dhourra and 
 lupines, and sandy mounds, which possibly conceal the remains of an ancient 
 town. They were partly overgrown with bushes, and abounded with the 
 recent tracks of leopards, lynxes, wolves, gazelles, &c. ; | its high-walled 
 houses, and clay-built battlements, presenting by moonlight a bold and 
 striking appearance. Here only, in Lower Nubia, the hippopotamus is 
 still found. By day he never emerges from the Nile; but when the 
 husbandmen are retired to rest, and a general silence prevails, he 
 rears his huge bulk out of the water, and ascending the banks, feeds 
 until morning among the corn-fields.§ The villagers seemed to have been 
 
 * Col. Howard Vyse. + Irby and Mangles. t Col. Howard Vysc. 
 
 § For a correct delineation of this animal, as he is found in the wilder regions of Southern 
 Africa, 1 must refer the reader to Sir William Harrib's " Portraits of Game and wild Animals," 
 Plate XII. In that work, one of the most magnificent ever produced in this country, the writer 
 gives a highly amusing and graphic account of the habits and haunts of the hippopotamus. As
 
 464 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 long asleep, for there was no sound in the streets, or a light in any window ; 
 and we walked about for some time, knocking in vain at several doors ; 
 suspicion of our intentions, or rather motives, restraining them from 
 answering to our call. At length, however, the pilot, apparently well 
 known in every village from Wady Haifa to Es-Souan, found some one 
 who recognised his voice ; and in a few minutes four men came forth, 
 offering to be our guides to the ruins. 
 
 Though the temple, hypogeum, or sepulchre, we were in quest of, is 
 situated in the western desert, at a considerable distance from the village, 
 our guides, having been acquainted with the neighbourhood from childhood, 
 could have found their way to the spot blindfold. The appearance of the 
 
 the book is unfortunately too expensive ever to get into gcDcral circulation, I am tempted to 
 extract, for the reader's entertainmenf, a capital passage, describing at once the scene of the 
 chase, and the wnld and grotesque habits of the native liunters : — " No scenery could surpass in 
 beauty that of the wood-clothed borders of the large rivers that form, towards the Tropic, the 
 chief haunts of the hippopotami. An unbroken tier of weeping willows, clad in a soothing 
 robe of vernal freshness, lean their fragile and trembling forms over the placid stream, as it 
 rolls majestically along, and dipping their slender pendant branches into the water, are reflected 
 back from the limpid mirror. Here the wreck of some stately tree rears its dilapidated head — 
 a mouldering monument to the resistless violence of the flood, by which, during some vast 
 inundation, it has been uptorn from its rock of ages. Beyond, clumps of airy acacias, with a 
 countless multitude of stems, form vistas and mazes, overshadowing grassy banks, which, 
 under a fervid and cloudless sky, are doubly refreshing to the eye. Gay flowers deck the path 
 of the hunter as he wanders down the shady labyrinth of these delightful groves — greeted at one 
 moment by tlie noisy cackling of a troop of loquacious Guinea fowls — at tiie next by the recent 
 foot-prints of the lion, the rhinoceros, or the stately water-buck. Winding on amongst the grass- 
 grown ravines, his progress is presently obstructed by a chain of yawning sepulchres, especially 
 constructed for the empalement of the mighty river horse, and surrounded, perhaps, by the 
 bleaching bones of some unwary victim that has recently been entrapped and eater. That 
 shapeless skull, despoiled of its ivory ornament, resembles a huge mass of rock — and those 
 picked thigh-bones are like the trunks of trees newly stripped of their bark. Emerging with 
 a snort and a splash from beneath yon belt of Babylonian willows that fringe the opposite shore, 
 behold Behemoth suddenly cast his unwieldy circumference into the flood. Next see him warily 
 lifting out bis visual organs to steal a glance at the intruder — and then, crack ! he is treated to 
 two ounces of hard lead through his attic story. Blowing and floundering, down he pops liis 
 tiny ears again, sending a thousand bubbling circlets eddying round the spot where his fungy 
 
 snout has disappeared while the outposts and head-quarters of an encampment of clamorous 
 
 baboons, are heard to challenge all down their line, as the vibrations of the echo prolong the 
 report of the rifle along that cliain of mountains which flank the river. A few seconds more, 
 and bursting bubbles, dyed with a crimson tide, rising rapidly to the surface of the stream, attest 
 the accuracy of the aim, and tell of the giaut's death-struggles. They are presently followed 
 by the enormously fat carcas:, slimy and cylindrical, which, having been towed and floated to 
 the bank, and hauled ashore with considerable diflSculty, appears perfectly black — the colour 
 gradually waxing fainter as it becomes dry. Now the cutting up has commenced — every knife and 
 assagai is at woik ; and the barely flexible hide, fully an inch and a half in thickness, is being dragged 
 in long stripes from off the ribs, like the planks from a ship's side. Beneath them appears a 
 deep layer of fat, known to the epicures in the colony by the appellation of zeekoe spec (sea- 
 cow's pork), and esteemed so great a rarity, that, to obtain it, the utmost influence is exerted 
 with the traders and border-colonists. As this delicacy would at once be turned to oil by 
 exposure to the sun, it can only be preserved by salticg ; for which purpose, a vat having been 
 formed of the immoderately thick hide, the choicest morsels are laid in pickle ; a number of 
 self-invited guests, by whom the death of such a beast is esteemed the greatest of jubilees, then 
 proceeding to help themselves liberally from the mountain of fat and lean Like a flesh market, 
 banks and bushes are presently garnished with flaps and fids of meat, nor is anything to be seen 
 but hacking, carving, slicing, and gnawing — whole herds of indigent and starving wanderers 
 removing their domicile to the shambles, in order to admit of their feasting more entirely at 
 leisure. Resembling the finest pork in flavour, the flesh is so surpassingly delicious, that none 
 who have once partaken of a steak, can fail to unite with Burchell in recommending the English 
 lovers of good eating not to rest until they have caused ' fine lively hippopotami ' to be an 
 article of regular importation."
 
 MOONLIGHT SCENE. 465 
 
 desert — always interesting, always new — seemed, on this occasion, more 
 magnificent than ever. On all sides, to the very verge of the horizon, 
 shining sand-hills, partly covered with tamarisks and acacias, roughened 
 the waste, whose interminable surface appeared, in the bright light of a 
 tropical moon, to be covered with a deep fall of snow ; and our footsteps 
 falling noiselessly on the ground, likewise favoured the illusion. 
 
 " Calm and pale— 
 A phantom of the sky — the full-oih'd moon 
 Hath glided into sight. Tlie gliminering stars 
 Now pierce the soft obscurity of heaven, 
 In golden swarms, numeious and bright 
 As insect-myriads in the sunset air." * 
 
 The splendour also of the stars and moon was indescribably beautiful, 
 recalling to mind the matchless description in the Iliad, where the poet 
 compares with the lights of the firmament the innumerable watch-fires 
 flashing on the Trojan plain. 
 
 " As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind, 
 
 And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams high prospects, and the brows 
 
 Of all steep hills, and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows. 
 
 And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight ; — 
 
 When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light, 
 
 And all the signs in heaven .ire seen that glad the shepherd's heart.f 
 
 The dusky hollows, the narrow ravines, the white peaks of the sand- 
 hills glittering in the distance, the boundless expanse of the wilderness, 
 the beauty and absolute stillness of the night, unbroken even by the bark 
 of a JHckal, were circumstances in strict accordance with the magnificent 
 picture of Homer. 
 
 Our guides, wrapped like Moggrebyns in white burnooses, tripped lightly 
 before us, laughing and talking in a language of which not even my interpreter 
 could comprehend a single syllable. The hour appeared to be a long one : 
 valley, ravine, and plain were successively traversed ; we were already far 
 out in the Desert, and no ruin appeared. When questioned by the pilot, 
 the Nubians replied that we had still some distance to travel. It was 
 late : the suspicion crossed our minds that they had lost their way, m 
 which case we might wander all night in the wilderness in the vain search 
 of so small an object as a temple. They seemed, however, to be perfectly 
 confident in their knowledge, never looking about them, orappearing a jot 
 more at a loss than if they had been travelling over an English highway. 
 
 At length, after a walk of several hours, we reached a narrow sandy 
 valley, between two low hills ; and here, our guides informed us, was the 
 temple we were in search of. On carefully scrutinising the appearance of 
 the place, however, we could perceive neither wall nor column. It was 
 clear, therefore, that if any structure existed, it must be subterranean ; and 
 accordingly, after a short search, we discovered in the face of the rocks, 
 evidently smoothed by art, a small triangular opening, leading into the 
 interior of the hill. A light was quickly struck, and while the Nubians, 
 who had no curiosity to gratify, sat down near the entrance, we crept in, 
 and found ourselves in the chambers of a tomb. The form and arrange- 
 ments of the apartments were Egyptian, but neither hieroglyphics nor 
 
 * D. L. Richardson. + Chapman's Iliad,
 
 466 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 sculptures wgre anywhere visible. In the third chamber a square deep 
 well, of which the bottom was invisible, seemed to lead to a lower suite of 
 apartments; but here, for a moment, our progress was stopped by a 
 singular obstacle. Ten thousand bats, which had been sleeping quietly on 
 the walls, roused and terrified by our lights, disengaged themselves in 
 clouds, and flying about in all directions, struck against our face, breast, 
 head, and hands, thi'eatening to extinguish the tapers. On looking 
 upwards, we saw them clinging by myriads to the roof, all in convulsive 
 motion, with glittering eyes, open mouths, and hideous trembling wings, 
 seeming in their fear to be hanging one to the other, tier below tier. Had 
 they remained there, it had been well ; but when we approached the 
 mouth of the excavation, they swept so thickly through the air, ascending 
 and descending this grave-like opening, that it was with the greatest 
 difficvilty we prevented them from striking the lights out of our hands. 
 
 In spite of their numbers, however, we contrived to lower ourselves into 
 the well, which we found less deep than we had expected ; and proceeding 
 along the narrow passage, arrived in a sepulchral chamber, from which four 
 passages diverged. Here we halted, being unable to determine which to 
 select, partly because we apprehended losing ourselves in these subterraneous 
 galleries, of unknown number and extent, and partly from the prodigious 
 multitude of bats assailing us on every side, flapping their cold wings in 
 our faces, or against the back of our necks. At this moment Suleiman, 
 who was still in the chamber above, exclaimed that they had knocked out 
 his light, and at the same time a cloud of them sweeping by us, extinguished 
 ours also, leaving us all in total darkness in the midst of the tomb. But 
 this by no means quieted our persecutors, who continued flitting about like 
 swarms of bees ; and not being able to direct our footsteps, we moved into 
 the midst of the vermin, which clung and crawled over us with the most 
 disgusting familiarity. Fortunately the attendants had brought flint and 
 steel, so that in a short time the tapers were rekindled, and we continued 
 our examination of the remaining chambers. The walls, roof, and doorway 
 of one small cell towards the north was literally coated with bats, witli 
 their mouths open, their wings moving, and their bright little eyes glit- 
 tei'ing in the light of the candle. 
 
 Through a hole in the wall, about three feet from the floor, in a corner 
 of this cell, but much too small to afford a passage, we discovered another 
 suite of sepulchral chambers ; and in one of the apartments was a mummy- 
 pit, into which we possessed no means of descending. Having explored 
 every other part of the sepulchre, without finding either sculpture or 
 hieroglyphics, we returned by the way we had entered ; and in the face 
 of the hill, at a short distance towards the north, discovered the entrance 
 into the neighbouring tomb, still more obstructed with sand than the 
 former, though the apartments are, perhaps, of larger dimensions ; several 
 mummy-pits of great depth lead to other suites of subterraneous chambers, 
 inaccessible without the aid of long ropes. The heat in all these apart- 
 ments seemed greater than at Aboosambal, and we therefore returned with 
 considerable pleasure, into the fresh air. Upon the face of the rock, near 
 the entrance to the first tomb, cut in deep large letters, are the names of 
 two Englishmen.
 
 VEGETATION OP THE DESERT. 467 
 
 To the south of Faras there wei-e remains of unburnt brick-walls, and 
 several fragments of small columns of granite ; also, some figures roughly- 
 sculptured, and others painted upon plaster, evidently of Christian work- 
 manship, and placed there to conceal the decorations of an ancient Egyptian 
 building. The northern side of the village did not afford anything worthy 
 of notice ; but in the adjacent heights were several ruins, apparently of 
 churches— proofs of the former prevalence of Christianity in this country. 
 The rocks and the tops of the neighbouring mountains bore so close a 
 resemblance to pyramids, that I should have stopped to examine them, 
 had I not been assured by Ignowe (an intelligent Arab who had accom- 
 panied M. Champollion in this country), that it was their natural shape.* 
 
 This morning, a calm having succeeded to the high wind of yesterday, 
 we landed on the western bank, and rambled into the desert, which pre- 
 sents a very picturesque and original appearance. Here and there, over 
 the whole surface of the plain, the sand has been raised by the wind into 
 small hillocks, varying in shape and height ; overgrown in many places with 
 the tamarisk and silk-tree, whose entire foliage had now, by the peculiar 
 nature of the atmosphere, been encrusted with a nitrous efflorescence, which 
 hung upon the leaves and branches in tiny white beads, like the pearls of 
 hoar-frost. Far in the desert we found a number of gray sandy hills, 
 which probably owe their origin to the winds, and the growth of small 
 creepino- grasses, with whose roots their whole surface is netted. Few spots, 
 however arid and barren, are so unvisited by the vivifying influence of 
 warmth and moisture, as not to produce some diminutive plant, some fine 
 moss or lichen, whose curious structure enables it to imbibe nourishment 
 from the slightest dew. The desert has many such. In several places, 
 indeed, it is gemmed witli wild flowers, which, though small, pale, and 
 delicate, are not without beauty. And in these sands, where the eye is 
 not satiated with the luxuriance and splendour of a tropical flora, such 
 imobtrusive objects please more, perhaps, for the modesty of their preten- 
 sions, and because, like ascetic virtue, the flower in the wilderness, than for 
 their intrinsic charms. 
 
 Returning towards the river, we once more entered among the small 
 wooded hillocks above mentioned, where we observed several ruined 
 villages, whose destruction may probably be attributed to the incursions of 
 the Moggrebyns. Their appearance is exceedingly desolate. The drifting 
 sands have gradually filled up the houses, which, in a few years, they will 
 entirely overwhelm. Separate dwellings were also seen, some inhabited, 
 others in ruins; and there is a large village still thickly peopled, at the 
 southern extremity of which we saw a clay-built fortress, with battlements 
 and square towers, exactly resembling the castle stormed by the Egyptians 
 in the bas-reliefs of Aboosambal. Our path lay over the yellow sand, 
 where we sometimes sunk up to the ankle. Here ascending and descend- 
 ing among the hillocks, and emerging at intervals to the edge of the high 
 precipitous bank of the Nile, we traversed several circular basins, sur- 
 rounded by arenacious hills, which exhibit a singularly romantic aspect. 
 Thickly covered with tamarisks, interspersed with silk-trees, doum palms, 
 and copses of low bushes with beautiful foliage, and carpeted with grass 
 * Colonel Howard Vyse.
 
 468 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 and fragrant wild flowers, they are precisely the spots the Bedouins would 
 choose to encamp in, affording both shelter from the winds and browsing for 
 their camels ; and here, in an atmosphere perfumed by nature, enjoying 
 the cool shade, silence, and the most perfect tranquillity, the traveller may 
 for the moment taste the sweetness of a desert life, free from the sordid 
 views and degrading sentiments which, in those who habitually lead it, 
 too frequently, it is to be feared, place them upon a level with the least 
 estimable portion of civiHsed society. Among the tamarisks in these 
 beautiful hollows was a small tree of unknown species, strongly resembling 
 them, which, when frosted with nitre, presented a perfectly blue 
 appearance, as if it had been steeped in a solution of indigo. Here 
 and there were the marks of recent fires, and around them heaps of the 
 half-roasted fruit of the doum tree, which in Nubia attains a magnifi- 
 cent height ; and being covered all the way down to the earth with leaves 
 and branches, exhibits a rich and picturesque aspect. Several goatherds — 
 the kindlers, no doubt, of the fires — with flocks as black as themselves, 
 were wandering in Arcadian idleness among these woody eminences and 
 undulating valleys ; but if the exterior be an index to the contents of the 
 inner man, their passions and schemes of life would have furnished few 
 materials for pastoral poetry. 
 
 The channel of the Nile is in this part divided by numerous small 
 islands, or rather sand-banks, on one of which we saw an enormous croco- 
 dile, — not less, I should imagine, than thirty feet in length, — basking in 
 the sun. In a field covered with dhourra stubble, near one of the inha- 
 bited villages, we observed a large covey of that peculiar species of par- 
 tridge mentioned by Burckhardt, which often made, he says, a welcome 
 addition to his supper. "VVe were less fortunate, for they all escaped. 
 Here we passed several of the rude rope-walks of the natives, where 
 cordage, generally of a large size, is manufactured from the leaf of the 
 date-palm ; the one end being fastened to a tree, and the other, when 
 the workman quits his task, secured from untwisting by a strong wooden 
 peg driven into the ground ; but we were unable closely to examine the 
 process, for whenever the ropemakers beheld us advancing towards them, 
 they escaped across the fields, fearing, no doubt, we intended to kidnap 
 them for the " victorious armies " of the Pasha. Both the mimosa and 
 tamarisk flourish luxuriantly in these sands, and we noticed about the 
 villages many which had attained an enormous size ; though, the winds 
 having half uncovered their roots, it is probable the first tempest will lay 
 them level with the earth. There was here very little cultivation, and 
 that little occurring in patches at intervals, on the banks of the river. 
 
 The wind at length springing up, we recommenced our voyage, soon 
 after which it blew almost a hurricane, covering the river with vast waves, 
 while the sands were whirled aloft many miles into the air. We, however, 
 ascended the stream with extraordinary rapidity ; but the force of the 
 wind continuing to increase, the Arabs, after many narrow escapes, were 
 compelled to lower the mainsail, and even with the small one the boat was 
 more than once nearly capsizing ; but no accident happened ; and early 
 in the afternoon we arrived at Wady Haifa. 
 
 The Arabs of Egypt, familiar with the tricks of camel-drivers, have
 
 ARAB DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE. 469 
 
 invented, and frequently act, a kind of farce, in which their arts and 
 extortions are exposed to ridicule. It generally follows the panto- 
 mimic dances, which have already been described in speaking of the 
 Ghawazee, The subject represented is frequently a Hajji, who, being 
 desirous to visit Mekka, applies to a camel- driver to procure a beast for 
 him. The driver imposes on him by not letting him see the seller of the 
 camel, and putting a higher price on it than is really asked, giving so 
 much less to the seller than he received from the purchaser. A camel is 
 produced at last, made up by two men covered with a cloth, as if ready to 
 depart for Mekka. The Hajji mounts on the camel, but finds it so bad, 
 that he refuses to take it, and demands his money back again. A scuffle 
 takes place, when, by chance, the seller of the camel appears, and finds 
 that the camel in question is not that which he sold to the driver for the 
 Ilajji. Thus it turns out, that the driver was not satisfied with imposing 
 both on the buyer and seller in the price, but had also kept the good 
 camel for himself, and produced a bad one to the Hajji, In consequence 
 he receives a good drubbing, and runs off. Simple as this story appears, 
 yet it was so intei'esting to the audience, that it seemed as if nothing could 
 please them better, as it taught them to be on their guard against dealers 
 in camels, &c. This was the play ; and the afterpiece represented a 
 European traveller, who served as a sort of clown. He is in the dress of 
 a Frank, and, on his travels, comes to the house of an Arab, who, though 
 poor, wishes to have the appearance of being rich. Accordingly he gives 
 orders to his wife to kill a sheep immediately. She pretends to obey ; 
 but returns in a few minutes, saying that the flock has strayed away, and 
 it would be the loss of too much time to fetch one. The host then orders 
 four fowls to be killed ; but these cannot be caught. A third time he 
 sends his wife for pigeons ; but the pigeons are all out of their holes ; and 
 at last the traveller is treated only with sour milk and dhourra bread, the 
 only provision in the house. This finishes the play.* 
 
 In the evening we crossed over to the island of Mainenty, where we 
 arrived at dusk. We saw fires and people at a distance ; but when we 
 arrived we could not find any one. Their huts were left wnth all they 
 had, which consisted only of dry dates, and a kind of paste made of the 
 same, which they kept in large vases of clay baked in the sun, and covered 
 with baskets made of palm-leaves. A baking-stove, and a mat to sleep on, 
 were the whole of their furniture. They had pots and leathern bags to 
 bring water from the Nile for their lands. Their settlement consisted of 
 four men and seven women, with two or three children. They have no 
 comnuxnication with the main land, except when the w-ater is low, for at 
 any other time the current, being immediately under the cataracts, is so 
 rapid, as to render it impossible to ford it ; and boats never go to these 
 islands, seldom passing farther than Wady Haifa. They are poor, but 
 happy, knowing nothing of the enticing luxuries of the world, and resting 
 content with what Providence supplies as a reward of their industry. 
 There are a few sheep and goats, which furnish them with milk all the 
 year round ; and the few spots of land they have are well cultivated, 
 
 * Belzoni. 
 s s
 
 470 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 producing a little dhonrra, which forms their yearly stock of provision. 
 The wool they spin into yarn, wind the threads round little stones, and 
 thus suspend them to a long stick fixed in a horizontal position between 
 two trees, to form a warp, and, by passing another thread alternately 
 between these, fabricate a kind of coarse cloth, with which they cover the 
 lower part of their bodies. 
 
 I visited, along with the Reis, the whole of the rock, wliich is about an 
 eighth of a mile in length, and half as much in breadth. It was quite 
 late when we found this poor but truly happy people. They had lighted 
 a fire to make their bread, and it was this which directed us to that 
 quarter. They were all hidden in a hole under some ruins of an old 
 castle, which stands on the south side of the island ; and when we ap- 
 proached them, the women set up a loud scream through fear. Our Reis, 
 who was a native of the lower part of Nubia, could talk their language, 
 and pacified them ; yet, notwithstanding this, we could not entice more 
 than one man out of the place. Their fear Avas owing to some depreda- 
 tions committed by the robbers of "Wady Haifa a few years before, who, 
 at low water, forded over to the island, and did all the injury that could 
 be done to such people. We assiired them that we were not like the 
 robbers of Wady Haifa, but came only to get some one to show us the way 
 to the cataract. At this they were more afraid than ever ; and said that 
 it never appeared that boats passed higher than Wady Haifa, which is at 
 the beginning of the cataract, it being impossible to proceed farther, owing 
 to the quantity of rocky islands. The Reis himself opposed my wish to 
 ascend higher, fearing more for his boat than for our lives. At last it was 
 concluded that the Reis should leave his son on the island as a hostage for 
 the two men, while they came on board to show us the way up. They 
 knew their way to the islands, for at low water they fi-equent them, to 
 collect some of the earth, from which they extract a sort of saltpetre, which 
 they use in their food. I had reasons for not remaining at night with the boat 
 fastened to the mainland, and consequently preferred staying where we were. 
 There are several small islands in this part of the Nile. They are 
 inhabited by a race of people who may be looked on as living in the most 
 primitive state, for no one ever goes to them, nor do they ever quit their 
 island. They are very few in number — in some of the islands not more 
 than five or six ; and they live on the produce of the few spots of groimd 
 they find on them, which they continually irrigate with the common 
 machine, consisting only of a piece of sheep-skin and two sticks, by which they 
 draw up the water. They have also a few sheep ; and fabricate a cloth from 
 cotton produced in the islands, in the same manner as they make that of 
 wool.* 
 
 Landing next morning at the foot of the rocks, near the tomb of Sheikh 
 Abdulgadir, a celebrated Mohammedan saint, we directed our course 
 towards the south, over an alternately sandy and stony tract, along the 
 declivity of the low chain of hills which here borders the stream. 
 
 The strata composing these hills present a very peculiar aspect, being 
 nearly as white as chalk, and containing innumerable crystals of shining 
 
 * Belzoni.
 
 THE SECOND CATARACT. 
 
 471 
 
 spar. The sand, disposed in beautiful slopes, extending to tlie Nile, is of 
 a rich deep yellow colour, glittering like gold. In our way we saw several 
 gazelles, that, having been drinking at the river, or feeding near its banks, 
 were scared at our approach, and bounded with prodigious rapidity 
 towards the desert, appearing but for a moment, before they were lost 
 among the hollows. 
 
 We had not proceeded far before the sound of the cataract vvas distinctly 
 audible, which, in the silence of night, must be heard at a great distance. 
 The wind blowing fiercely, and raising aloft, like mist, the fine sands of 
 the desert, drifted them across the river, far into the eastern plain, where 
 other sandy clouds were rolling rapidly along : but they were thin and 
 ill-defined — nothing 
 like those huge pil- 
 lars, raised by the 
 whirlwinds, and be- 
 held by Bruce, driven 
 in endless files over 
 that self-same wilder- 
 ness ; the hope of be- 
 holding which had 
 chiefly tempted me 
 into Nubia. But they 
 seldom appear, ex- 
 cept, perhaps, in one 
 particular portion of 
 the waste ; though, 
 from what I have 
 
 myself witnessed, I am led to yield the fullest belief to the traveller's 
 sublime description. 
 
 In about two hours we arrived at Abotisir, an isolated hill about two 
 hundred feet in height,t beetling over the cataract. It is itself a striking 
 object, and from its summit the view comprehends the whole extent of 
 the falls. Looking towards the south, we behold the Nile, its channel 
 being about a mile in breadth, emerging from among a chaos of rocks, as 
 if it here sprung in all its grandeur from the earth. Flowing northward, 
 between innumerable islands of green porphyry piled in the most fantastic 
 forms, it at length reaches the point where the water precipitates itself, 
 with prodigious noise and velocity, over an abrupt descent in its bed, 
 observing no certain direction, dashed now towards one side, now towards 
 the other, by opposing crags, vexed with whirlpools, and broken into 
 eddies. In many parts it seems to be bursting through some enormous 
 sluice, while fall beyond fall, covered with foam, and hurling aloft clouds 
 of spray, present themselves in magnificent succession to the eye. Almost 
 in the midst of these, protected by some jutting promontory, we discover 
 smooth expanses of water, unrufiled as a summer lake, affording a beauti- 
 ful contrast with the savage uproar of the cataracts. Meanwhile, the roar 
 of the dashing water is so loud, that the whole region around appears to 
 
 Abjasir.— SecouJ Cataract. 
 
 « Col. Howard Vyse. 
 
 f Irby aud Maugles.
 
 472 EGYPT AND NUBIA. 
 
 be shaken by continual thunder. But the principal charm of the land- 
 scape consists neither in the savage rocks, nor in the eternal uproar and 
 dashing of the waters ; but in that utter solitude, sterility, desolation, 
 which everywhere prevail, and suggest the idea, that in all that vast 
 region you alone breathe the breath of life. This, at least, was the 
 thought which rushed upon my mind. I looked towards the north and 
 towards the south, towards the east and towards the west, and beheld no 
 living thing, no habitation or trace of mankind ; and heard no sound but 
 the voice of the river roaring incessantly. I have seldom experienced, in 
 the presence of mere brute matter, emotions more powerful. Towards the 
 south, beyond the vast extent of the barren desert, were the kingdoms of 
 Do'ngola, and Sennaar, and Abyssinia, and the sources of the White River, 
 upon which, circumstances compelled me to turn my back. 
 
 We wandered about for several hours among the rocks of the cataract, 
 proceeding southward along the edge of the stream. The scene was truly 
 wild and extraordinary ; piles of dark-green or black rocks, smooth, shin- 
 ing, and slippery, over which it was exceedingly toilsome to climb, alter- 
 nating with small hollows or smooth patches of sand, invisible at a distance, 
 where a few bushes were nourished by a scanty supply of moisture which 
 ran here and there in long jetties into the river. One of these leads out to 
 the brink of the principal fall, and from its extremity, where we sat, we 
 could have put our feet into the whirlpools. In the little hollows above 
 described, we everywhere observed tlie fresh tracks of the gazelles, which 
 would seem to come in troops, unscared by the noise of the cataract, to 
 drink, and crop the few green herbs found growing there. Here our little 
 party separated, each wandering as his fancy led him. I continued to 
 advance towards the south, ascending and descending over the broken crags 
 close to the Nile, admiring the black and green islands tufted with 
 tamarisks, or veined with sparkling sand, and, in the midst of the troubled 
 and rapid waters, extending north and south as far as the eye could reach. 
 From the top of one of these eminences, I discerned on the extreme verge 
 of the horizon, towards the south-east, the conical summit of a vast isolated 
 mountain, and, at a considerable distance westward, another solitary cone. 
 
 I had now reached the most southern point I was to attain. I could no 
 farther pursue the course of that mighty river, which I had followed with 
 increasing interest for uiore than a thousand miles. Comparatively, a few 
 weeks more would have carried me to its source, and those simny regions 
 where the rigours of winter are entirely unknown. I, however, curbed the 
 vain longing that would have canned me, with the White River, into 
 unknown countries, reserved for the discovery of others more fortunate. 
 Next moment the recollection of Europe, with those whom it contained, 
 diverted my thoughts into a different channel, and reconciled me to the 
 descent of the Nile. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : BRADBURY AN'D BVANS, PRINTERS, WKITEFRIARS.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 798 669