The Author returns to Alexandria, in company with Mr. Wynne and
Mr. McNamara--Proceeds to Rosetta--Coast of the Delta--Deserted
hamlet--Brackish water--Misery of the Peasantry--Mouth of Lake
Brulos--Dews of Egypt pernicious--Brulos--Melons--Egyptian
encampment--Quail-snares--Arrival at Damietta--Honours
paid by the Pasha at Cairo to Lady Hester--Description of
Damietta--Rice mills--Large oxen--Salt tanks--Papyrus--Literary
Society--Abûna Saba--Lady Hester arrives at Damietta--Tents
and baggage--Servants--Fleas, &c.--Departure from Damietta--El
Usby--Sameness of scenery in Egypt--Naked children--Increase of
the Delta denied--Martello towers--Iachimo hired--We sail for
Syria--List of the party--French Mamelukes--Wages of servants in
the Levant--Arrival at Jaffa--Customs in seaports--Costume of
Egyptian women.
I had not been long at Cairo when the alarming indisposition of an
English lady at Alexandria was the cause of my returning thither. She
was a bride, and on the day of her marriage had fallen so ill as to
induce her husband to send off to Cairo for a physician. Of those who
were applied to, none chose to go without an exorbitant remuneration:
and Lady Hester, feeling for the situation of the patient, asked me
to take the journey. Mr. Wynne was on the point of his departure for
Alexandria on his way to England; and the next morning I embarked with
him on the Nile in his _kanje_, which is a pleasure barge, covered
in with a pent roof like the others, but of a more light and elegant
construction, and calculated for expedition. Mr. Wynne had likewise
invited to be of his party Mr. McNamara, an English gentleman who had
made a short excursion into Egypt from Malta to satisfy a rambling
disposition. The passage down the Nile was very rapid; and the time
passed agreeably. It was on the third day that we reached Rosetta,
where we found lodgings with an Italian, named Dannese, whose house had
been converted into an inn for the accommodation of travellers: but in
a few hours we departed for Alexandria by the same route that I have
described on a former occasion.
On arriving there, I had the happiness to place the sick lady out of
all immediate danger: and having, by the end of the month, restored her
to convalescence, and learning from Cairo that Lady Hester was on the
point of quitting that city for Damietta to be there by the beginning
of May, I lost no time, but quitted Alexandria for Rosetta, where I
hired beasts of burden to proceed to Damietta, by land, across the foot
of the Delta.
I had with me a Turkish servant named Mohammed, by birth an Egyptian,
who had quitted his country with the French army, in which he had
served several years as a drummer. He was deformed, drunken, and of
a bad character. Accompanied by Mohammed and a guide, I prepared to
depart the following day for Damietta, when, early in the morning, I
was informed that the pasha had passed through Rosetta in the night,
and that one of my horses had been pressed for his service, although,
as he was expected, they had been by precaution ferried over to the
opposite bank of the Nile the preceding night. This created some delay;
for Mr. Lenzi, the English agent, was some time before he could find
another to replace it, as almost all the cattle of the town had gone
off with the suite of the pasha. It was, therefore, about ten o’clock
before I left Rosetta.
Having crossed the Nile, we gained the sea-side immediately, and
continued along the sands until about four in the afternoon, having
on our right, between us and the interior of the Delta, a slip of
waste ground in sand hillocks, within which I could figure to myself
the fertile fields and meads of the Delta, although I could not see
them. The date-trees grew down to the seashore. About four o’clock in
the afternoon, we took a path that inclined inland, and passed for an
hour through sand hillocks, barren and unsightly, among which grew
scattered date-trees. It was evident, after a time, that my guide had
lost his way. At last we beheld some cabins, of a sugar-loaf shape,
to the number of ten or twelve, built of sunbaked bricks. We naturally
expected to find in them inhabitants, and with them water, of which
we and our animals were much in want: but, on coming up close, we
discovered that they had been recently deserted.
It was now sunset, and there was no prospect of bettering ourselves:
so my servant spread my mat, and arranged my bed as well as he could
on the sand; for I objected to sleeping inside the huts through fear
of vermin. In the mean time, I observed the guide scraping with both
his hands, like a rabbit in the sand; and in a few minutes he called to
Mohammed to bring him a cup, or whatever he had, to lade out water. On
approaching the place, I found that he had made a hole of not more than
five feet in depth, at the bottom of which water oozed out plentifully
enough for us to water the horses with it, and to drink ourselves;
but so brackish was it, that nothing but great thirst could induce a
person to swallow it, and not even that could render it palatable.
Thinking that its nauseous taste might be disguised by coffee, I boiled
some; but, so far from benefiting by the change, it seemed as if all
the saline particles were set afloat in it, and it was not possible
to drink it. With bread, therefore, and such few provisions as we had
brought in our knapsacks, I made a poor supper, and slept through the
night. The dew was heavy, and by morning our coverings were as if
dipped in water.
This hamlet (as the guide told me) had been deserted to avoid the
extortions of the proprietor of the land: for it is not uncommon in
Turkey to fly from the oppression of a master as the only means left
of resisting his encroachments; since, if he does not wish his fields
to lie waste, he is necessitated to lower his demands and recall the
peasantry. These emigrations from spot to spot are easy in such a
climate; and a very little provocation drives them to it, where the
whole household furniture of a family is only the load of a camel or an
ass.
We proceeded early next morning on our journey; and my guide, as if
apprehensive of losing his road a second time, regained the seashore
as soon as possible. The sameness of the prospect rendered it a very
dull day; and, after twelve hours’ continued march, we arrived, after
sunset, at the mouth of Lake Brulos, on the opposite side of which we
observed many lights as of a village or a town. But the ferrymen, who
are accustomed to ply there, were already retired to their homes; and
we were obliged, after bawling a long time in vain, to look about for a
place where we might pass the night. On the edge of the lake we found
a fisherman’s hut, large enough to hold one or two persons: this was
given up to me. There was, fortunately, in it a large jar of water,
which was looked on as a treasure. The provisions were dried up by
the sun, and I again made as bad a meal as I had done the preceding
evening: for then, if the provisions were good, the water was
brackish, and now the change in the water was counterbalanced by the
bad state of the provisions.
However hot the days may be in Egypt, the nights never fail to be
cool; and the dews are exceedingly pernicious, whenever the body,
heated by the sun or by exercise, is too suddenly exposed to a check
of perspiration. In the morning, when I awoke, I was surprised to
see myself near the foot of a fortress built of brick; it served, or
perhaps its time was gone by and it had served, to defend the entrance
of the lake, which is narrow and deep. Some ferrymen came soon to carry
us over, which, from the smallness of their boat, was a work of some
time and difficulty.
Brulos stands close to the sea and the mouth of the lake: it shows
marks of having been a much larger town than at present; it has a
pretty look at a distance, from two or three white cupolas of mosques,
and as many minarets. The old town, or what remained of it, was brick;
the bricks of Egypt are of a deep red cast approaching to black. The
modern houses were sugarloaf-shaped, of sun-dried bricks. Brulos is
celebrated for its melons.
We made no stay there, having a long day’s journey to accomplish.
Although the soil was mostly sandy, uncultivated, and barren, still
the road was more pleasing than that by the seashore. We saw, soon
afterwards, the ruins of a large village. Towards noon, at a turning in
the road, a most agreeable and novel sight presented itself; which was
no other than a small encampment, probably of some lord of a village
come to levy contributions. These lords were formerly the Mameluke
beys, and, under the present pasha, some of his officers. The chief’s
tent was conspicuous from its treble compartments, connected with each
other by small corridors: it was of green, ornamented with stars and
flowers. The other tents, though smaller, were coloured. In front of
the encampment were tethered the horses, all stallions, whose neighings
very pleasingly broke the stillness of mid-day, sometimes as profound
in hot climates as that of midnight. None of the horsemen were out;
but some were seen lying at full length in the tents, taking their
afternoon’s nap.
We proceeded onward; and nothing occurred, excepting that we passed
occasionally among ploughed fields. Towards evening, we came upon a
large sandy plain, two or three leagues over, where we observed strait
rows of reeds, planted on a broad circular base, and narrowing to a
point where they were tied. Some of these rows seemed to run for a mile
or two, each bundle at ten or fifteen yards’ distance, I was informed
that within them there were snares; and that, whenever a cloud passed
over the sun, the quails, which at certain seasons of the year frequent
the plain, immediately run to hide themselves in these places, where
they are caught. I had no time to examine them, that I might ascertain
the truth of this story. At sunset we reached the banks of the
Damietta branch of the Nile, and were immediately ferried over. I was
received very courteously by a native gentleman named Airût, who was
already apprized of Lady Hester’s intention of coming to Damietta, and
had vacated his house for her reception.
During my absence from Cairo, it appeared that the pasha, anxious to
do honour to Lady Hester Stanhope, had reviewed his troops before her,
and had presented her with a charger magnificently caparisoned. This
horse was afterwards sent to his R.H. the D. of York. Abdhu Bey, who
was the flower of the pasha’s court, and was said to be a very aspiring
nobleman, likewise gave her a fine horse, which was, at the same time
with the other, sent to the Viscount Ebrington. Mr. B. received a
handsome sabre from the Pasha, and a fine cashmere shawl from Abdhu Bey.
Damietta is a large town, on an elbow of the Nile, on the eastern bank,
about seven or eight miles from the sea. The houses are principally of
brick: those upon the river enjoy an agreeable coolness, and command
the most amusing prospect of any city in Lower Egypt; since the passage
of large vessels over the bar of the river up to the wharfs affords
a change of scene not observable elsewhere. The Christian quarter is
at the south end of the city, and has the peculiarity, observable at
Alexandria, of okels or quadrangular buildings for the Franks. The
Franks, however, were few in number at Damietta at the time I speak
of; consisting only of a medical practitioner and a dragoman attached
to the English consul; although there were several other persons who
were denominated agents for different European nations, and, as such,
were entitled to many of the privileges of Franks.
Rice mills are the main source of wealth to this city as well as
to Rosetta. These mills were formerly the property, and under the
direction, of individuals, who enriched themselves greatly by them;
but, as the pasha of Egypt meddled with everything whereby money was to
be gained, he had also recently monopolized the mills, allowing none
but his own to work, by which means he sold the rice at what price
he pleased. We must except that of Mr. Surur, the English agent at
Damietta, who obtained a licence for one year (as I had heard) by a
present of fifteen purses, equal to nearly £400 sterling.
A rice-mill is generally a spacious brick building, divided into a
stable for the oxen, granaries for the rice, a room for the mill-wheel,
and, lastly, rooms where the hammers beat the husk off the rice. Rice,
when brought from the fields, somewhat resembles barley; but the grain
is pale and smaller: it may be called an aquatic plant; since, from the
moment it is sown until it is harvested, it remains almost continually
under water, every irrigation covering the soil to the depth of six
inches.
The whole machinery of the rice-mill seemed rough and simple. A pair
of oxen turn a wheel, the beam or axis of which passed through a hole
in the wall into another room, where it had, at two, three, or four
intervals, strong wooden cogs projecting from it, but not in the same
line. These cogs, as the beam went round, pressed, one after the other,
upon the ends of wooden levers, which were from ten to fifteen feet
long, and suspended, not in the middle, but at a third part of their
length from where the pressure was made; so that, when that pressure
was taken off, they, by their own weight, fell down with great force.
To this heavy end, in the manner a hammer is fixed to its handle,
were fixed the rice-huskers, which were hollow cylinders of iron with
sharpened edges, two and a half or three inches in diameter, much the
same in form as a saddler’s punch. Where the hammers fell there were
small bins, holding about a bushel of rice; and with the rice was
mixed a proportion of salt. Every two hammers, with their bins, were
generally so near that a man could sit between them, and, with either
hand, reach one and the other.
The cogs then, pressing alternately on the ends of the hammer handles,
bore them down, and consequently raised into the air the end to which
the cylindrical pestle was attached. At this moment, the man seated by
the bin gave the rice a rake with his hand, so as to heap it up just
where the pestle would strike, which, losing its pressure at the short
end, fell down with great violence on the rice. The second hammer was
now up, and the man’s second hand performed the same office for the
second bin; and so, alternately, for one and the other. No one, on
entering a rice dairy (for so the mills are called in Arabic), could
view the situation of the man who plied at the bins without horror. A
moment’s forgetfulness, either to remove his hand in time or to hold
himself in an upright posture, subjected him to have his arm crushed
to atoms; and the noise of the pestles was worse than the din of any
engine I ever heard.
But there were mills where the pestles were raised by men’s feet; one
man pressing alternately, with his two feet, first on one lever and
then on the other.[21]
Some of the oxen employed in the rice-mills were of a prodigious size.
I measured the largest of Mr. Surur’s, and found it to be eight feet
long from between the horns to the edge of the os ischyi, near the
tail, and six feet one inch high from the ground to the withers: but
they were not so fat as in England.
The environs of Damietta were, like those of Rosetta, covered with
orchards, rice grounds, and corn fields. Towards the sea were some
extensive salt tanks, from which Egypt and Syria are supplied with that
useful condiment, and salt consequently formed an important article
of export: they were about a league and a half from the town, in a
north-east direction. On arriving at the spot, a vast number of shallow
pits were observable, with a trench leading to each. At a certain time
the sea water is let into them; and, when of a proper depth, they
are left to evaporate for a sufficient number of months, until the
evaporation is completed, when the salt is scraped up, and carried to
the quays of the river on asses.
Close to these salt-pits, we were told, grew the papyrus. M. Basil
Fackhr, the French agent, was obliging enough to send a man, with
another gentleman and myself, who were curious to see this plant, to
the pool of water where it grew. I found it to resemble the bulrush,
with a cylindrical velvety head on a long stalk, and thought it to be
such a rush as I had frequently seen in England. I brought away with me
two or three.[22]
There were some literary men in Damietta. Travellers are too hasty
in forming their opinions of Levantines and the other subjects of
the Turkish empire, when they fancy them to be grossly ignorant of
book-learning. It will surprise many persons to know that, at Damietta,
there was a small society of Christian merchants, at the head of
which was M. Basilius Fakhr, who met for the purpose of reading and
translating into Arabic such European works as they judged to be wanted
in that language. They had already made versions of fifteen volumes
upon different subjects; among which I recollect Lalande’s work on
Astronomy, Tissot’s Avis au peuple, Volney’s Ruines de l’ancien monde;
but the others have escaped my memory. Their meetings were held at each
other’s houses in the evening. One of the members was a learned monk,
named Saba, whom a ten years’ residence in the Società de Propaganda
Fide, at Rome, had made perfect master of the Italian language. He had
been called by his clerical duties into Syria, where he was chosen
superior-general of the monasteries of the schismatic Greeks, to whom
he belonged. It was to his scientific acquirements that the little
society was chiefly indebted for the treatise on Astronomy by Lalande:
and his loss was severely felt by it.
The day after my arrival, Lady Hester, Mr. B. and Mr. Pearce, reached
Damietta. Great additions had been made to the retinue and baggage.
There were six green marquees, ornamented with flowers. Several light
coffers had been purchased, for the purpose of mule carriage, of
the peculiar manufacture of Egypt; being made of a slender frame
of date-tree laths, as tough almost as metal, and yet light and
spongy.[23] Nothing that could serve to render travelling in Syria
agreeable had been neglected.
My servant, Mohammed, had been guilty of some trifling peculations,
and I was under the necessity of dismissing him. The other servants,
who had been hired at Alexandria, gave little satisfaction; but the
country afforded no better. It will be seen hereafter that they were
only making a convenience of their mistress, in order to get a passage
to Syria and a sight of Jerusalem.
The first and most urgent business after Lady Hester’s arrival was to
visit two or three vessels on the river, and to examine how far they
were fit for our passage to Syria. Our misfortune at Rhodes had made
us timorous; and, although the gales of wind, customary in the winter
season, had ceased to blow, our fears were yet awake to the risk of
embarking in Levantine ships. A three-masted polacca was at last hired.
Our stay at Damietta was not long: for the fleas, musquitoes, and
flies, engendered by the neighbourhood of the rice-marshes, rendered
the place, during the spring of the year, insupportable as a residence.
Some altercation had likewise taken place with our host, Maalem Ayrût,
and this rather served to hasten our departure. On the 11th of May,
therefore, we embarked on board the polacca, and sailed down as far
as the bar of the river. Here all our luggage was transferred from
the ship to flat-bottomed barges, and, the tents being pitched on the
sands, we passed the night in them.
In descending from Damietta to the mouth of the river there are several
villages, hamlets, and single cottages to be seen on its banks. The
last place is El Usby, on the east bank, where the Christian merchants
often go to recover their health when labouring under chronic maladies.
It has the benefit of being near the sea; otherwise, it is a town just
like the other towns of Egypt. Variety from hill or valley, wood or
lawn, is looked for in vain in a country where the soil is one uniform
level, subject to one uniform culture, and with productions which
differ very little from province to province.
Naked children, both girls and boys, were seen running along the edge
of the river, begging for biscuit from the ships that were entering
and going out; but they generally know that ships from long voyages
have little to give away, and they rather follow those which, coming
from Syria, may have laid in provisions for five days, and perhaps have
run their passage with a fair wind in two. El Usby had a fortress with
large cannon upon it, and, we were told, barracks for a great number of
men.
The river, when it has reached the sea, turns suddenly to the east,
so that vessels were obliged to keep close to the shore for nearly a
mile before they were properly clear of the bar. Just at this turn are
the foundations of a fortress at a small distance in the sea, which
once guarded the entrance. I know not of what age this fortress may
be, but certainly its present position is no proof of the inroads that
the land is said to make on the sea, for I question whether it would
be possible, at the present day, to lay the foundations of a structure
farther in the water than where this one stood, and hence we may
presume that the sea has rather gained on the land, since the architect
would not have exposed his work to the effects of water when he could
have lost no advantage of defence by placing it a few yards more inland.
When crossing the Delta, I was remarkably struck by the nature of the
sea-coast about Brulos, and likewise both before arriving at it and
after having passed it. Immediately at the back of Brulos there was a
sand hill of a conical shape close to the sea: it was, if I rightly
recollect, bare not only of trees, but of shrubs also. To the east of
it were others, and they continued to some distance. Similar eminences
existed elsewhere along the coast of the Delta. Such were Mutro, a high
land between Rosetta and Brulos, and Ras el Kebryt, between the latter
place and Damietta. Now if the soil of the Delta is to be considered
as a gradual deposition, from the earliest times, of the alluvions of
the Nile, the phenomena would, most likely, every year, or every score
of years, or every century, be the same; we therefore should expect
to see that these lofty sand hills would be but one of many other
similar chains that had succeeded each other in the course of ages.
But, although I have never seen the interior of the Delta, yet, as far
as I learned by general inquiries, its surface is a perfect level. It
would therefore be more reasonable to suppose that the elevations were
once the sites of buildings, and (if we do not allow them a more solid
basis, in giving a natural instead of an adventitious one) that they
are heaps of ancient ruins, which, forming a nucleus for the sand, have
since swollen to their present magnitude. If, then, they are heaps of
ruins, and of an unknown date, it is evident that the soil has not
gained on the sea, for the sea touches the foot of them; and if the
soil has made no advance in twenty years, allowing its encroachments to
be gradual, why should it in a hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand?
At the mouth of the Damietta branch of the Nile the French constructed
two martello towers, or circular fortresses of brick, which command
it entirely, one on either side. We passed a very agreeable afternoon
in our little encampment. The arrangement of the tents, which now
were pitched on service for the first time, was an amusement of an
hour or two. To this succeeded the games of some Greek sailors, whose
vessels lay near ours, and who danced, played at hop-step-and-jump,
and wrestled in front of the tents, in expectation of a present from
Lady Hester. Their games brought to our notice a young Ragusan, named
Iachimo, who was about to sail in one of the Greek vessels for I know
not where, but, hearing that we wanted a servant, came and offered
himself. He was the voucher for his own character, and was immediately
engaged at twenty-five piasters per month, and, as he had been a sailor
the greatest part of his life, we were certain in him of a helper that
would not be sick on board, a matter not always sure when all the
servants are landsmen.[24]
The next morning, the ship, now light, crossed the bar, and the moment
she was well over and anchored, we followed her in sailing barges,
together with our luggage. The land wind, opposed to the current of
the river, caused some roughness in the sea, and much reciprocal
bumping was exchanged between the ship and the lighters. We sailed that
evening.[25] We were accompanied by two of the corps of the French
Mamelukes, of whom mention was made in the last chapter, who, with
the approbation of the viceroy and of the French consul, had engaged
themselves to Lady Hester as guards.[26] Their names were Selim and
Yusuf; such, at least, were their Turkish appellations, and each had
with him his groom, or, as they are called in Arabic, _säys_. We
were in all thirteen persons, of which six were men servants.
In England, where servants work well, and one pair of hands does a
great deal, six men servants would be considered a numerous retinue,
and their cost would be considerable; but in Turkey it is not so,
for wages were generally not more than ten shillings and sixpence a
month for grown persons, and for boys or lads a meal a day and a few
rags to clothe them in was as ample a recompense for their services
as they could claim. Hence, in the house of a common merchant, it is
not unusual to see six or seven men and boys who are his servants, or
porters, or errand boys; and his wife will have as many maids to her
share.
Our voyage to Syria lasted five days, and was not disturbed by any
accident. The captain and his crew were obliging and civil, which was
all that was to be expected from them. The ship had no pump, but only
a well, from which the water, in case of a leak, was drawn up by a
bucket; and this is generally the practice throughout the Levant.
It was about four in the afternoon that we approached Jaffa, and in an
hour’s time we anchored close to the port. Boats immediately came off.
Before we dismiss the subject of Egypt, a few words may be said on the
costume of the common people. The poorer sort of women in Egypt were
dressed in a blue shift made something like a smock frock, the sleeves
being very large. These shifts have at the sides two slits in the place
of pocket-holes, so long that it not unfrequently happened in bending
themselves forward that their naked skin was seen. Over their faces was
a slip of black cotton or silk (according to the means of the wearer)
tied round the head by a fillet or tape. From the centre of this, in
a perpendicular line, pieces of silver or gold, or sometimes pearls,
were hung. Over the head passed a long blue or black veil, one end of
which had its two corners stitched together for about three inches,
and, the corner so stitched being put under the chin, the face came
out as through an oval opening in it. The sleeves of the shift, which
tapered down to a point, were often, when the women were employed,
tied by the points behind the back. The arms, thus left bare up to the
shoulders, showed sometimes as much symmetry of form as would enchant
a statuary or a painter. Their feet were very well formed: their skins
were of a deep brown, and sometimes of a light polish: their eyes were
universally of a dark colour.