BOOK I.

THE AUTHOR’S TRAVELS IN EGYPT--VOYAGE IN THE RED SEA, TILL HIS ARRIVAL

AT MASUAH.

CHAP. I.

_The Author sails from Sidon--Touches at Cyprus--Arrives at

Alexandria--Sets out for Rosetto--Embarks on the Nile--and

arrives at Cairo._

It was on Saturday the 15th of June, 1768, I sailed in a French vessel

from Sidon, once the richest and most powerful city in the world,

though now there is not remaining a shadow of its ancient grandeur. We

were bound for the island of Cyprus; the weather clear and exceedingly

hot, the wind favourable.

This island is not in our course for Alexandria, but lies to the

northward of it; nor had I, for my own part, any curiosity to see it.

My mind was intent upon more uncommon, more distant, and more painful

voyages. But the master of the vessel had business of his own which led

him thither; with this I the more readily complied, as we had not yet

got certain advice that the plague had ceased in Egypt, and it still

wanted some days to the Festival of St John, which is supposed to put a

period to that cruel distemper[49].

We observed a number of thin, white clouds, moving with great rapidity

from south to north, in direct opposition to the course of the Etesian

winds; these were immensely high. It was evident they came from the

mountains of Abyssinia, where, having discharged their weight of

rain, and being pressed by the lower current of heavier air from the

northward, they had mounted to possess the vacuum, and returned to

restore the equilibrium to the northward, whence they were to come

back, loaded with vapour from Mount Taurus, to occasion the overflowing

of the Nile, by breaking against the high and rugged mountains of the

south.

Nothing could be more agreeable to me than that sight, and the

reasoning upon it. I already, with pleasure, anticipated the time in

which I should be a spectator first, afterwards historian, of this

phænomenon, hitherto a mystery through all ages. I exulted in the

measures I had taken, which I flattered myself, from having been

digested with greater confederation than those adopted by others,

would secure me from the melancholy catastrophes that had terminated

these hitherto-unsuccessful attempts.

On the 16th, at dawn of day, I saw a high hill, which, from its

particular form, described by Strabo[50], I took for Mount Olympus[51].

Soon after, the rest of the island, which seemed low, appeared in view.

We scarce saw Lernica till we anchored before it. It is built of white

clay, of the same colour as the ground, precisely as is the case with

Damascus, so that you cannot, till close to it, distinguish the houses

from the earth they stand upon.

It is very remarkable that Cyprus was so long undiscovered[52]; ships

had been used in the Mediterranean 1700 years before Christ; yet,

though only a day’s sailing from the continent of Asia on the north

and east, and little more from that of Africa on the south, it was not

known at the building of Tyre, a little before the Trojan war, that is

500 years after ships had been passing to and fro in the seas around it.

It was, at its discovery, thick covered with wood; and what leads me

to believe it was not well known, even so late as the building of

Solomon’s Temple, is, that we do not find that Hiram king of Tyre, just

in its neighbourhood, ever had recourse to it for wood, though surely

the carriage would have been easier than to have brought it down from

the top of Mount Libanus.

That there was great abundance in it, we know from Eratosthenes[53],

who tells us it was so overgrown that it could not be tilled; so that

they first cut down the timber to be used in the furnaces for melting

silver and copper; that after this they built fleets with it, and when

they could not even destroy it this way, they gave liberty to all

strangers to cut it down for whatever use they pleased; and not only

so, but they gave them the property of the ground they cleared.

Things are sadly changed now. Wood is one of the wants of most parts of

the island, which has not become more healthy by being cleared, as is

ordinarily the case.

At [54]Cacamo (Acamas) on the west side of the island, the wood remains

thick and impervious as at the first discovery. Large stags, and wild

boars of a monstrous size, shelter themselves unmolested in these their

native woods; and it depended only upon the portion of credulity that I

was endowed with, that I did not believe that an elephant had, not many

years ago, been seen alive there. Several families of Greeks declared

it to me upon oath; nor were there wanting persons of that nation at

Alexandria, who laboured to confirm the assertion. Had skeletons of

that animal been there, I should have thought them antediluvian ones.

I know none could have been at Cyprus, unless in the time of Darius

Ochus, and I do not remember that there were elephants, even with him.

In passing, I would fain have gone ashore to see if there were any

remains of the celebrated temple of Paphos; but a voyage, such as I

was then embarked on, stood in need of vows to Hercules rather than

to Venus, and the master, fearing to lose his passage, determined to

proceed.

Many medals (scarce any of them good) are dug up in Cyprus; silver

ones, of very excellent workmanship, are found near Paphos, of little

value in the eyes of antiquarians, being chiefly of towns of the

size of those found at Crete and Rhodes, and all the islands of the

Archipelago. Intaglios there are some few, part in very excellent Greek

style, and generally upon better stones than usual in the islands. I

have seen some heads of Jupiter, remarkable for bushy hair and beard,

that were of the most exquisite workmanship, worthy of any price.

All the inhabitants of the island are subject to fevers, but more

especially those in the neighbourhood of Paphos.

We left Lernica the 17th of June, about four o’clock in the afternoon.

The day had been very cloudy, with a wind at N. E. which freshened as

we got under weigh. Our master, a seaman of experience upon that coast,

ran before it to the westward with all the sails he could set. Trusting

to a sign that he saw, which he called a bank, resembling a dark cloud

in the horizon, he guessed the wind was to be from that quarter the

next day.

Accordingly, on the 18th, a little before twelve o’clock, a very fresh

and favourable breeze came from the N. W. and we pointed our prow

directly, as we thought, upon Alexandria.

The coast of Egypt is exceedingly low, and, if the weather is not

clear, you often are close in with the land before you discover it.

A strong current sets constantly to the eastward; and the way the

masters of vessels pretend to know their approach to the coast is by

a black mud, which they find upon the plummet[55] at the end of their

sounding-line, about seven leagues distant from land.

Our master pretended at midnight he had found that black sand, and

therefore, although the wind was very fair, he chose to lie to, till

morning, as thinking himself near the coast; although his reckoning, as

he said, did not agree with what he inferred from his soundings.

As I was exceedingly vexed at being so disappointed of making the best

of our favourable wind, I rectified my quadrant, and found by the

passages of two stars over the meridian, that we were in lat. 32° 1´

45´´, or seventeen leagues distant from Alexandria, instead of seven,

and that by difference of our latitude only.

From this I inferred that part of the assertion, that it is the mud

of the Nile which is supposed to shew seamen their approach to Egypt,

is mere imagination; seeing that the point where we then were was

really part of the sea opposite to the desert of Barca, and had no

communication whatever with the Nile.

On the contrary, the Etesian winds blowing all Summer upon that coast,

from the westward of north, and a current setting constantly to the

eastward, it is impossible that any part of the mud of the Nile can go

so high to the windward of any of the mouths of that river.

It is well known, that the action of these winds, and the constancy of

that current, has thrown a great quantity of mud, gravel, and sand,

into all the ports on the coast of Syria.

All vestiges of old Tyre are defaced; the ports of Sidon, [56]Berout,

Tripoli, and [57]Latikea, are all filled up by the accretion of sand;

and, not many days before my leaving Sidon, Mr de Clerambaut, consul of

France, shewed me the pavements of the old city of Sidon, 7½ feet lower

than the ground upon which the present city stands, and considerably

farther back in the gardens nearer to Mount Libanus.

This every one in the country knows is the effect of that easterly

current setting upon the coast, which, as it acts perpendicularly to

the course of the Nile when discharging itself, at all or any of its

mouths, into the Mediterranean, must hurry what it is charged with on

towards the coast of Syria, and hinder it from settling opposite to, or

making those additions to the land of Egypt, which [58]Herodotus has

vainly supposed.

The 20th of June, early in the morning, we had a distant prospect

of Alexandria rising from the sea. Was not the state of that city

perfectly known, a traveller in search of antiquities in architecture

would think here was a field for long study and employment.

It is in this point of view the town appears most to the advantage. The

mixture of old monuments, such as the Column of Pompey, with the high

moorish towers and steeples, raise our expectations of the consequence

of the ruins we are to find.

But the moment we are in the port the illusion ends, and we distinguish

the immense Herculean works of ancient times, now few in number, from

the ill-imagined, ill-constructed, and imperfect buildings, of the

several barbarous masters of Alexandria in later ages.

There are two ports, the Old and the New. The entrance into the latter

is both difficult and dangerous, having a bar before it; it is the

least of the two, though it is what is called the Great Port, by

[59]Strabo.

Here only the European ships can lie; and, even when here, they are not

in safety; as numbers of vessels are constantly lost, though at anchor.

Above forty were cast a-shore and dashed to pieces in March 1773, when

I was on my return home, mostly belonging to Ragusa, and the small

ports in Provence, while little harm was done to ships of any nation

accustomed to the ocean.

It was curious to observe the different procedure of these different

nations upon the same accident. As soon as the squall began to

become violent, the masters of the Ragusan vessels, and the French

caravaneurs, or vessels trading in the _Mediterranean_, after having

put out every anchor and cable they had, took to their boats and fled

to the nearest shore, leaving the vessels to their chance in the storm.

They knew _the furniture_ of their ships to be too flimsy to trust

their lives to it.

Many of their cables being made of a kind of grass called Spartum,

could not bear the stress of the vessels or agitation of the waves, but

parted with the anchors, and the ships perished.

On the other hand, the British, Danish, Swedish, and Dutch navigators

of the _ocean_, no sooner saw the storm beginning, than they left

their houses, took to their boats, and went all hands on board. These

knew the sufficiency of their tackle, and provided they were present,

to obviate unforeseen accidents, they had no apprehension from the

weather. They knew that their cables were made of good hemp, that their

anchors were heavy and strong. Some pointed their yards to the wind,

and others lowered them upon deck. Afterwards they walked to and fro

on their quarter-deck with perfect composure, and bade defiance to the

storm. Not one man of these stirred from the ships, till calm weather,

on the morrow, called upon them to assist their feeble and more

unfortunate brethren, whose ships were wrecked and lay scattered on the

shore.

The other port is the [60]Eunostus of the ancients, and is to the

westward of the Pharos. It was called also the Port of Africa; is much

larger than the former, and lies immediately under part of the town of

Alexandria. It has much deeper water, though a multitude of ships have

every day, for ages, been throwing a quantity of ballast into it; and

there is no doubt, but in time it will be filled up, and joined to the

continent by this means. And posterity may, probably, following the

system of Herodotus (if it should be still fashionable) call this as

they have done the rest of Egypt, _the Gift of the Nile_.

Christian vessels are not suffered to enter this port; the only reason

is, least the _Moorish women_ should be seen taking the air in the

evening at open windows; and this has been thought to be of weight

enough for Christian powers to submit to it, and to over-balance the

constant loss of ships, property, and men.

[61]Alexander, returning to Egypt from the Libyan side, was struck

with the beauty and situation of these two ports. [62]Dinochares, an

architect who accompanied him, traced out the plan, and Ptolemy I.

built the city.

The healthy, though desolate and bare country round it, part of the

Desert of Libya, was another inducement to prefer this situation to

the unwholesome black mud of Egypt; but it had no water; this Ptolemy

was obliged to bring far above from the Nile, by a calish, or canal,

vulgarly called the Canal of Cleopatra, though it was certainly coeval

with the foundation of the city; it has no other name at this day.

This circumstance, however, remedied in the beginning, was fatal to the

city’s magnificence ever after, and the cause of its being in the state

it is at this day.

The importance of its situation to trade and commerce, made it a

principal object of attention to each party in every war. It was easily

taken, because it had no water; and, as it could not be kept, it was

destroyed by the conqueror, that the temporary possession of it might

not turn to be a source of advantage to an enemy.

We are not, however, to suppose, that the country all around it was

as bare in the days of prosperity as it is now. Population, we see,

produces a swerd of grass round ancient cities in the most desert parts

of Africa, which keeps the sand immoveable till the place is no longer

inhabited.

I apprehend the numerous lakes in Egypt were all contrived as

reservoirs to lay up a store of water for supplying gardens and

plantations in the months of the Nile’s decrease. The great effects of

a very little water are seen along the calish, or canal, in a number of

bushes that it produces, and thick plantations of date-trees, all in a

very luxuriant state; and this, no doubt, in the days of the Ptolemies,

was extended further, more attended to, and better understood.

Pompey’s pillar, the obelisks, and subterraneous cisterns, are all

the antiquities we find now in Alexandria; these have been described

frequently, ably, and minutely.

The foliage and capital of the pillar are what seem generally to

displease; the fust is thought to have merited more attention than has

been bestowed upon the capital.

The whole of the pillar is granite, but the capital is of another

stone; and I should suspect those rudiments of leaves were only

intended to support firmly leaves of metal[63] of better workmanship;

for the capital itself is near nine feet high, and the work, in

proportionable leaves of stone, would be not only very large, but,

after being finished, liable to injuries.

This magnificent monument appears, in taste, to be the work of that

period, between Hadrian and Severus; but, though the former erected

several large buildings in the east, it is observed of him he never put

inscriptions upon them.

This has had a Greek inscription, and I think may very probably be

attributed to the time of the latter, as a monument of the gratitude

of the city of Alexandria for the benefits he conferred on them,

especially since no ancient history mentions its existence at an

earlier period.

I apprehend it to have been brought in a block from the Thebais in

Upper Egypt, by the Nile; though some have imagined it was an old

obelisk, hewn to that round form. It is nine feet diameter; and were it

but 80 feet high, it would require a prodigious obelisk indeed, that

could admit to be hewn to this circumference for such a length, so as

perfectly to efface the hieroglyphics that must have been very deeply

cut in the four faces of it.

The tomb of Alexander has been talked of as one of the antiquities

of this city. Marmol[64] says he saw it in the year 1546. It was,

according to him, a small house, in form of a chapel, in the middle of

the city, near the church of St Mark, and was called Escander.

The thing itself is not probable, for all those that made themselves

masters of Alexandria, in the earliest times, had too much respect for

Alexander, to have reduced his tomb to so obscure a state. It would

have been spared even by the Saracens; for Mahomet speaks of Alexander

with great respect, both as a king and a prophet. The body was

preserved in a glass coffin, in [65]Strabo’s time, having been robbed

of the golden one in which it was first deposited.

The Greeks, for the most part, are better instructed in the history

of these places than the Cophts, Turks, or Christians; and, after the

Greeks, the Jews.

As I was perfectly disguised, having for many years worn the dress of

the Arabs, I was under no constraint, but walked through the town in

all directions, accompanied by any of those different nations I could

induce to walk with me; and, as I constantly spoke Arabic, was taken

for a [66]Bedowé by all sorts of people; but, notwithstanding the

advantage this freedom gave me, and of which I daily availed myself, I

never could hear a word of this monument from either Greek, Jew, Moor,

or Christian.

Alexandria has been often taken since the time of Cæsar. It was at

last destroyed by the Venetians and Cypriots, upon, or rather after

the release of St Lewis, and we may say of it as of Carthage, _Periêre

ruinæ_, its very ruins appear no longer.

The building of the present gates and walls, which some have thought to

be antique, does not seem earlier than the last restoration in the 13th

century. Some parts of the gate and walls may be of older date; (and

probably were those of the last Caliphs before Salidan) but, except

these, and the pieces of columns which lie horizontally in different

parts of the wall, every thing else is apparently of very late times,

and the work has been huddled together in great haste.

It is in vain then to expect a plan of the city, or try to trace here

the Macedonian mantle of Dinochares; the very vestiges of ancient

ruins are covered, many yards deep, by rubbish, the remnant of the

devastations of later times. Cleopatra, were she to return to life

again, would scarcely know where her palace was situated, in this her

own capital.

There is nothing beautiful or pleasant in the present Alexandria, but a

handsome street of modern houses, where a very active and intelligent

number of merchants live upon the miserable remnants of that trade,

which made its glory in the first times.

It is thinly inhabited, and there is a tradition among the natives,

that, more than once, it has been in agitation to abandon it all

together, and retire to Rosetto, or Cairo, but that they have been

withheld by the opinion of divers saints from Arabia, who have allured

them, that Mecca being destroyed, (as it must be as they think by

the Russians) Alexandria is then to become _the holy place_, and

that Mahomet’s body is to be transported thither; when that city is

destroyed, the sanctified reliques are to be transported to Cairouan,

in the kingdom of Tunis: lastly, from Cairouan they are to come to

Rosetto, and there to remain till the consummation of all things, which

is not then to be at a great distance.

Ptolemy places his Alexandria in lat 30° 31´ and in round numbers in

his almagest, lat. 31° north.

Our Professor, Mr Greaves, one of whose errands into Egypt was to

ascertain the latitude of this place, seems yet, from some cause or

other, to have failed in it, for though he had a brass sextant of five

feet radius, he makes the latitude of Alexandria, from a mean of many

observations, to be lat 31° 4´ N. whereas the French astronomers from

the Academy of Sciences have settled it at 31° 11´ 20´´, so between Mr

Greaves and the French there is a difference of 7´ 20´´, which is too

much. There is not any thing, in point of situation, that can account

for this variance, as in the case of Ptolemy; for the new town of

Alexandria is built from east to west; and as all christian travellers

necessarily make their observations now on the same line, there cannot

possibly be any difference from situation.

Mr Niebuhr, whether from one or more observations he does not say,

makes the latitude to be 31° 12´. From a mean of thirty-three

observations, taken by the three-feet quadrant I have spoken of, I

found it to be 31° 11´ 16´´: So that, taking a medium of these three

results, you will have the latitude of Alexandria 31° 11´ 32´´, or, in

round number, 31° 11´ 30´´, nor do I think there possibly can be 5´´

difference.

By an eclipse, moreover, of the first satellite of Jupiter, observed

on the 23d day of June 1769, I found its longitude to be 30° 17´ 30´´

east, from the meridian of Greenwich.

We arrived at Alexandria the 20th of June, and found that the plague

had raged in that city and neighbourhood from the beginning of March,

and that two days only before our arrival people had begun to open

their houses and communicate with each other; but it was no matter, St

John’s day was _past_, the miraculous nucta, or dew, had fallen, and

every body went about their ordinary business in safety, and without

fear.

With very great pleasure I had received my instruments at Alexandria.

I examined them, and, by the perfect state in which they arrived, knew

the obligations I was under to my correspondents and friends. Prepared

now for any enterprise, I left with eagerness the thread-bare inquiries

into the meagre remains, of this once-famous capital of Egypt.

The journey to Rosetto is always performed by land, as the mouth of

the branch of the Nile leading to Rosetto, called the Bogaz[67], is

very shallow and dangerous to pass, and often tedious; besides, nobody

wishes to be a partner for any time in a voyage with Egyptian sailors,

if he can possibly avoid it.

The journey by land is also reputed dangerous, and people travel

burdened with arms, which they are determined never to use.

For my part, I placed my safety, in my disguise, and my behaviour. We

had all of us pistols at our girdles, against an extremity; but our

fire-arms of a larger sort, of which we had great store, were sent with

our baggage, and other instruments, by the Bogaz to Rosetto. I had a

small lance, called a Jerid, in my hand, my servants were without any

visible arms.

We left Alexandria in the afternoon, and about three miles before

arriving at Aboukeer, we met a man, in appearance of some consequence,

going to Alexandria.

As we had no fear of him or his party, we neither courted nor avoided

them. We passed near enough, however, to give them the usual salute,

_Salam Alicum_; to which the leader of the troop gave no answer, but

said to one of his servants, as in contempt, Bedowé! they are peasants,

or country Arabs. I was much better pleased with this token that we had

deceived them, than if they had returned the salute twenty times.

Some inconsiderable ruins are at Aboukeer, and seem to denote, that

it was the former situation of an ancient city. There is here also an

inlet of the sea; and the distance, something less than four leagues

from Alexandria, warrants us to say that it is Canopus, one of the

most ancient cities in the world; its ruins, notwithstanding the

neighbourhood of the branch of the Nile, which goes by that name, have

not yet been covered by the increase of the land of Egypt.

At Medea, which we suppose, by its distance of near seven leagues, to

be the ancient Heraclium, is the passage or ferry which terminates the

fear of danger from the Arabs of Libya; and it is here [68]supposed the

Delta, or Egypt, begins.

Dr Shaw[69] is obliged to confess, that between Alexandria and the

Canopic branch of the Nile, few or no _vestiges_ are seen of the

increase of the land by the inundation of the river; indeed it would

have been a wonder if there had.

Alexandria, and its environs, are part of the desert of Barca, too

high to have ever been overflowed by the Nile, from any part of its

lower branches; or else there would have been no necessity for going so

high up as above Rosetto, to get level enough, to bring water down to

Alexandria by the canal.

Dr Shaw adds, that the ground hereabout may have been an island; and so

it may, and so may almost any other place in the world; but there is

no sort of indication that it was so, nor viable means by which it was

formed.

We saw no vegetable from Alexandria to Medea, excepting some scattered

roots of Absinthium; nor were these luxuriant, or promising to thrive,

but though they had not a very strong smell, they were abundantly

bitter; and their leaves seemed to have imbibed a quantity of saline

particles, with which the soil of the whole desert of Barca is strongly

impregnated.

We saw two or three gazels, or antelopes, walking one by one, at

several times, in nothing differing from the species of that animal,

in the desert of Barca and Cyrenaicum; and the [70]jerboa, another

inhabitant of these deserts; but from the multitude of holes in the

ground, which we saw at the root of almost every plant of Absinthium,

we were very certain its companion, the [71]Cerastes, or horned viper,

was an inhabitant of that country also.

From Medea, or the Passage, our road lay through very dry sand; to

avoid which, and seek firmer footing, we were obliged to ride up to the

bellies of our horses in the sea. If the wind blows this quantity of

dust or sand into the Mediterranean, it is no wonder the mouths of the

branches of the Nile are choked up.

All Egypt is like to this part of it, full of deep dust and sand, from

the beginning of March till the first of the inundation. It is this

fine powder and sand, raised and loosened by the heat of the sun,

and want of dew, and not being tied fast, as it were, by any root or

vegetation, which the Nile carries off with it, and buries in the sea,

and which many ignorantly suppose comes from Abyssinia, where every

river runs in a bed of rock.

When you leave the sea, you strike off nearly at right angles, and

pursue your journey to the eastward of north. Here heaps of stone and

trunks of pillars, are set up to guide you in your road, through moving

sands, which stand in hillocks in proper directions, and which conduct

you safely to Rosetto, surrounded on one side by these hills of sand,

which seem ready to cover it.

Rosetto is upon that branch of the Nile which was called the Bolbuttic

Branch, and is about four miles from the sea. It probably obtained its

present name from the Venetians, or Genoese, who monopolized the trade

of this country, before the Cape of Good Hope was discovered; for it

is known to the natives by the name of Rashid, by which is meant the

Orthodox.

The reason of this I have already explained, it is some time or other

to be a substitute to Mecca, and to be blessed with all that holiness,

that the possession of the reliques, of their prophet can give it.

Dr Shaw[72] having always in his mind the strengthening of Herodotus’s

hypothesis, _that Egypt is created by the Nile_, says, that perhaps

this was once a Cape, because Rashid has that meaning. But as Dr Shaw

understood Arabic perfectly well, he must therefore have known, that

Rashid has no such signification in any of the Oriental Languages. Ras,

indeed, is a head land, or cape; but Rassit has no such signification,

and Rashid a very different one, as I have already mentioned.

Rashid then, or Rosetto, is a large, clean, neat town, or village,

upon the eastern side of the Nile. It is about three miles long, much

frequented by studious and religious Mahometans; among these too are a

considerable number of merchants, it being the entrepot between Cairo

and Alexandria, and _vice versa_; here too the merchants have their

factors, who superintend and watch over the merchandise which passes

the Bogaz to and from Cairo.

There are many gardens, and much verdure, about Rosetto; the ground is

low, and retains long the moisture it imbibes from the overflowing of

the Nile. Here also are many curious plants and flowers, brought from

different countries, by _Fakirs_, and merchants. Without this, Egypt,

subject to such long inundation, however it may abound in necessaries,

could not boast of many beautiful productions of its own gardens,

though flowers, trees, and plants, were very much in vogue in this

neighbourhood, two hundred years ago, as we find by the observations of

Prosper Alpinus.

The study and search after every thing useful or beautiful, which

for some time had been declining gradually, fell at last into total

contempt and oblivion, under the brutal reign of these last slaves[73],

the most infamous reproach to the name of Sovereign.

Rosetto is a favourite halting-place of the Christian travellers

entering Egypt, and merchants established there. There they draw their

breaths, in an imaginary increase of freedom, between the two great

sinks of tyranny, oppression, and injustice, Alexandria and Cairo.

Rosetto has this good reputation, that the people are milder, more

tractable, and less avaricious, than those of the two last-mentioned

capitals; but I must say, that, in my time, I could not discern much

difference.

The merchants, who trade at all hours of the day with Christians, are

indeed more civilized, and less insolent, than the soldiery and the

rest of the common people, which is the case every where, as it is for

their own interest; but their priests, and moullahs, their soldiers,

and people living in the country, are, in point of manners, just as bad

as the others.

Rosetto is in lat. 31° 24´ 15´´ N.; it is the place where we embark for

Cairo, which we accordingly did on June the 30th.

There is a wonderful deal of talk at Alexandria of the danger of

passing over the desert to Rosetto. The same conversation is held here.

After you embark on the Nile in your way to Cairo, you hear of pilots,

and masters of vessels, who land you among robbers to share your

plunder, and twenty such like stories, all of them of old date, and

which perhaps happened long ago, or never happened at all.

But provided the government of Cairo is settled, and you do not land at

villages in strife with each other, (in which circumstances no person

of any nation is safe) you must be very unfortunate indeed, if any

great accident befal you between Alexandria and Cairo.

For, from the constant intercourse between these two cities, and the

valuable charge confided to these masters of vessels, they are all as

well known, and at the least as much under authority, as the boatmen on

the river Thames; and, if they should have either killed, or robbed any

person, it must be with a view to leave the country immediately; else

either at Cairo, Rosetto, Fuè, or Alexandria, wherever they were first

caught, they would infallibly be hanged.

CHAP. II.

_Author’s Reception at Cairo--Procures Letters from the Bey and

the Greek Patriarch--Visits the Pyramids--Observations on their

Construction._

It was in the beginning of July we arrived at Cairo, recommended to

the very hospitable house of Julian and Bertran, to whom I imparted my

resolution of pursuing my journey into Abyssinia.

The wildness of the intention seemed to strike them greatly, on which

account they endeavoured all they could to persuade me against it, but,

upon seeing me resolved, offered kindly their most effectual services.

As the government of Cairo hath always been jealous of this enterprise

I had undertaken, and a regular prohibition had been often made by the

Porte, among indifferent people, I pretended that my destination was to

India, and no one conceived any thing wrong in that.

This intention was not long kept secret, (nothing can be concealed

at Cairo:) All nations, Jews, Turks, Moors, Cophts, and Franks, are

constantly upon the inquiry, as much after things that concern other

people’s business as their own.

The plan I adopted was to appear in public as seldom as possible,

unless disguised; and I soon was considered as a _Fakir_, or

_Dervich_, moderately skilled in magic, and who cared for nothing but

study and books.

This reputation opened me, privately, a channel for purchasing many

Arabic manuscripts, which the knowledge of the language enabled me

to chuse, free from the load of trash that is generally imposed upon

Christian purchasers.

The part of Cairo where the French are settled is exceedingly

commodious, and fit for retirement. It consists of one long street,

where all the merchants of that nation live together. It is shut at

one end, by large gates, where there is a guard, and these are kept

constantly close in the time of the plague.

At the other end is a large garden tolerably kept, in which there are

several pleasant walks, and seats; all the enjoyment that Christians

can hope for, among this vile people, reduces itself to peace, and

quiet; nobody seeks for more. There are, however, wicked emissaries who

are constantly employed, by threats, lies, and extravagant demands,

to torment them, and keep them from enjoying that repose, which would

content them instead of freedom, and more solid happiness, in their own

country.

I have always considered the French at Cairo, as a number of honest,

polished, and industrious men, by some fatality condemned to the

gallies; and I must own, never did a set of people bear their continual

vexations with more fortitude and manliness.

Their own affairs they keep to themselves, and, notwithstanding the bad

prospect always before them, they never fail to put on a chearful face

to a stranger, and protect and help him to the utmost of their power;

as if his little concerns, often ridiculous, always very troublesome

ones, were the only charge they had in hand.

But a more brutal, unjust, tyrannical, oppressive, avaricious set of

infernal miscreants, there is not on earth, than are the members of the

government of Cairo.

There is also at Cairo a Venetian consul, and a house of that nation

called _Pini_, all excellent people.

The government of Cairo is much praised by some. It may perhaps have

merit when explained, but I never could understand it, and therefore

cannot explain it.

It is said to consist of twenty-four Beys; yet its admirers could never

fix upon one year in which there was that number. There were but seven

when I was at Cairo, and one who commanded the whole.

The Beys are understood to be veiled with the sovereign power of the

country; yet sometimes a Kaya commands absolutely, and, though of an

inferior rank, he makes his servants, Beys or Sovereigns.

At a time of peace, when Beys are contented to be on an equality,

and no ambitious one attempts to govern the whole, there is a number

of inferior officers depending upon each of the Beys, such as Kayas,

Schourbatchies, and the like, who are but subjects in respect to the

Beys, yet exercise unlimited jurisdiction over the people in the city,

and appoint others to do the same over villages in the country.

There are perhaps four hundred inhabitants in Cairo, who have absolute

power, and administer what they call justice, in their own way, and

according to their own views.

Fortunately in my time this many-headed monster was no more, there

was but one Ali Bey, and there was neither inferior nor superior

jurisdiction exercised, but by his officers only. This happy state

did not last long. In order to be a Bey, the person must have been a

slave, and bought for money, at a market. Every Bey has a great number

of servants, slaves to him, as he was to others before; these are his

guards, and these he promotes to places in his household, according as

they are qualified.

The first of these domestic charges is that of hasnadar, or treasurer,

who governs his whole household; and whenever his master the Bey dies,

whatever number of children he may have, they never succeed him; but

this man marries his wife, and inherits his dignity and fortune.

The Bey is old, the wife is young, so is the hasnadar, upon whom she

depends for every thing, and whom she must look upon as the presumptive

husband; and those people who conceal, or confine their women, and are

jealous, upon the most remote occasion, never feel any jealousy for

the probable consequences of this passion, from the existence of such

connection.

It is very extraordinary, to find a race of men in power, all agree

to leave their succession to strangers, in preference to their own

children, for a number of ages; and that no one should ever have

attempted to make his son succeed him, either in dignity or estate, in

preference to a slave, whom he has bought for money like a beast.

The Beys themselves have seldom children, and those they have, seldom

live. I have heard it as a common observation, that Cairo is very

unwholesome for young children in general; the prostitution of the Beys

from early youth probably give their progeny a worse chance than those

of others.

The instant that I arrived at Cairo was perhaps the only one in which I

ever could have been allowed, single and unprotected as I was, to have

made my intended journey.

Ali Bey, lately known in Europe by various narratives of the last

transactions of his life, after having undergone many changes of

fortune, and been banished by his rivals from his capital, at last had

enjoyed the satisfaction of a return, and of making himself absolute in

Cairo.

The Port had constantly been adverse to him, and he cherished the

strongest resentment in his heart. He wished nothing so much as to

contribute his part to rend the Ottoman empire to pieces.

A favourable opportunity presented itself in the Russian war, and

Ali Bey was prepared to go all lengths in support of that power. But

never was there an expedition so successful and so distant, where

the officers were less instructed from the cabinet, more ignorant of

the countries, more given to useless parade, or more intoxicated with

pleasure, than the Russians on the Mediterranean then were.

After the defeat, and burning of the Turkish squadron, upon the coast

of Asia Minor, there was not a sail appeared that did not do them

homage. They were properly and advantageously situated at Paros, or

rather, I mean, a squadron of ships of one half their number, would

have been properly placed there.

The number of Bashas and Governors in Caramania, very seldom in their

allegiance to the Port, were then in actual rebellion; great part of

Syria was in the same situation, down to Tripoli and Sidon; and thence

Shekh Daher, from Acre to the plains of Esdraelon, and to the very

frontiers of Egypt.

With circumstances so favourable, and a force so triumphant, Egypt and

Syria would probably have fallen dismembered from the Ottoman empire.

But it was very plain, that the Russian commanders were not provided

with instructions, and had no idea how far their victory might have

carried them, or how to manage those they had conquered.

They had no confidential correspondence with Ali Bey, though they might

have safely trusted him as he would have trusted them; but neither

of them were provided with proper negotiators, nor did they ever

understand one another till it was too late, and till their enemies,

taking advantage of their tardiness, had rendered the first and great

scheme impossible.

Carlo Rozetti, a Venetian merchant, a young man of capacity and

intrigue, had for some years governed the Bey absolutely. Had such

a man been on board the fleet with a commission, after receiving

instructions from Petersburgh, the Ottoman empire in Egypt was at an

end.

The Bey, with all his good sense and understanding, was still a

mamaluke, and had the principles of a slave. Three men of different

religions possessed his confidence and governed his councils all

at a time. The one was a Greek, the other a Jew, and the third an

Egyptian Copht, his secretary. It would have required a great deal of

discernment and penetration to have determined which of these was the

most worthless, or most likely to betray him.

The secretary, whose name was Risk, had the address to supplant the

other two at the time they thought themselves at the pinnacle of their

glory; over-awing every Turk, and robbing every Christian, the Greek

was banished from Egypt, and the Jew bastinadoed to death. Such is the

tenure of Egyptian ministers.

Risk professed astrology, and the Bey, like all other Turks, believed

in it implicitly, and to this folly he sacrificed his own good

understanding; and Risk, probably in pay to Constantinople, led him

from one wild scheme to another, till he undid him--by the stars.

The apparatus of instruments that were opened at the custom-house of

Alexandria, prepossessed Risk in favour of my superior knowledge in

astrology.

The Jew, who was master of the custom-house, was not only ordered to

refrain from touching or taking them out of their places (a great

mortification to a Turkish custom-house, where every thing is handed

about and shewn) but an order from the Bey also arrived that they

should be sent to me without duty or fees, because they were not

merchandise.

I was very thankful for that favour, not for the sake of saving the

dues at the custom-house, but because I was excused from having them

taken out of their cases by rough and violent hands, which certainly

would have broken something.

Risk waited upon me the next day, and let me know from whom the favour

came; on which we all thought this was a hint for a present; and

accordingly, as I had other business with the Bey, I had prepared a

very handsome one.

But I was exceedingly astonished when desiring to know the time when it

was to be offered; it was not only refused, but some few trifles were

sent as a present from the secretary with this message: “That, when

I had reposed, he would visit me, desire to see me make use of these

instruments; and, in the mean time, that I might rest confident, that

nobody durst any way molest me while in Cairo, for I was under the

immediate protection of the Bey.” He added also, “That if I wanted any

thing I should send my Armenian servant, Arab Keer, to him, without

troubling myself to communicate my necessities to the French, or trust

my concerns to their Dragomen.”

Although I had lived for many years in friendship and in constant good

understanding with both Turks and Moors, there was something more

polite and considerate in this than I could account for.

I had not seen the Bey, it was not therefore any particular address, or

any prepossession in my favour, with which these people are very apt to

be taken at first sight, that could account for this; I was an absolute

stranger; I therefore opened myself entirely to my landlord, Mr Bertran.

I told him my apprehension of too much fair weather in the beginning,

which, in these climates, generally leads to a storm in the end; on

which account, I suspected some design; Mr Bertran kindly promised to

sound Risk for me.

At the same time, he cautioned me equally against offending him, or

trusting myself in his hands, as being a man capable of the blackest

designs, and merciless in the execution of them.

It was not long before Risk’s curiosity gave him a fair opportunity.

He inquired of Bertran as to my knowledge of the stars; and my friend,

who then saw perfectly the drift of all his conduct, so prepossessed

him in favour of my superior science, that he communicated to him in

the instant the great expectations he had formed, to be enabled by

me, to foresee the destiny of the Bey; the success of the war; and, in

particular, whether or not he should make himself master of Mecca; to

conquer which place, he was about to dispatch his slave and son-in-law,

Mahomet Bey Abou Dahab, at the head of an army conducting the pilgrims.

Bertran communicated this to me with great tokens of joy: for my own

part, I did not greatly like the profession of fortune-telling, where

bastinado or impaling might be the reward of being mistaken.

But I was told I had most credulous people to deal with, and that there

was nothing for it but escaping as long as possible, before the issue

of any of my prophecies arrived, and as soon as I had done my own

business.

This was my own idea likewise; I never saw a place I liked worse, or

which afforded less pleasure or instruction than Cairo, or antiquities

which less answered their descriptions.

In a few days I received a letter from Risk, desiring me to go out to

the Convent of St George, about three miles from Cairo, where the Greek

patriarch had ordered an apartment for me; that I should pretend to the

French merchants that it was for the sake of health, and that there I

should receive the Bey’s orders.

Providence seemed to teach me the way I was to go. I went accordingly

to St George, a very solitary mansion, but large and quiet, very proper

for study, and still more for executing a plan which I thought most

necessary for my undertaking.

During my stay at Algiers, the Rev. Mr Tonyn, the king’s chaplain to

that factory, was absent upon leave. The bigotted catholic priests

there neither marry, baptize, nor bury the dead of those that are

Protestants.

There was a Greek priest,[74]Father Christopher, who constantly

had offered gratuitously to perform these functions. The civility,

humanity, and good character of the man, led me to take him to reside

at my country house, where I lived the greatest part of the year;

besides that he was of a chearful disposition, I had practised much

with him both in speaking and reading Greek with the accent, not in

use in our schools, but without which that language, in the mouth of a

stranger, is perfectly unintelligible all over the Archipelago.

Upon my leaving Algiers to go on my voyage to Barbary, being tired of

the place, he embarked on board a vessel, and landed at Alexandria,

from which soon after he was called to Cairo by the Greek patriarch

Mark, and made _Archimandrites_, which is the second dignity in the

Greek church under the patriarch. He too was well acquainted in the

house of Ali Bey, where all were Georgian and Greek slaves; and it was

at his solicitation that Risk had desired the patriarch to furnish me

with an apartment in the Convent of St George.

The next day after my arrival I was surprised by the visit of my

old friend Father Christopher; and, not to detain the reader with

useless circumstances, the intelligence of many visits, which I shall

comprehend in one, was, that there were many Greeks then in Abyssinia,

all of them in great power, and some of them in the first places of

the empire; that they corresponded with the patriarch when occasion

offered, and, at all times, held him in such respect, that his will,

when signified to them, was of the greatest authority, and that

obedience was paid to it as to holy writ.

Father Christopher took upon him, with the greatest readiness, to

manage the letters, and we digested the plan of them; three copies were

made to send separate ways, and an admonitory letter to the whole of

the Greeks then in Abyssinia, in form of a bull.

By this the patriarch enjoined them as a penance, upon which a kind of

jubilee was to follow, that, laying aside their pride and vanity, great

sins with which he knew them much _infected_ and, instead of pretending

to put themselves on a footing with me when I should arrive at the

court of Abyssinia, they should concur, heart and hand, in serving me;

and that, before it could be supposed they had received instructions

from _me_, they should make a declaration before the king, that they

were not in condition equal to me, that I was a free citizen of a

_powerful nation_, and servant of a great king; that _they_ were born

slaves of the Turk, and, at best, ranked but as would my servants; and

that, in fact, one of their countrymen was in that station then with

me.

After having made that declaration publicly, and _bona fide_, in

presence of their priest, he thereupon declared to them, that all their

past sins were forgiven.

All this the patriarch most willingly and chearfully performed. I saw

him frequently when I was in Cairo; and we had already commenced a

great friendship and intimacy.

In the mean while, Risk sent to me, one night about nine o’clock, to

come to the Bey. I saw him then for the first time. He was a much

younger man than I conceived him to be; he was sitting upon a large

sofa, covered with crimson-cloth of gold; his turban, his girdle, and

the head of his dagger, all thick covered with fine brilliants; one

in his turban, that served to support a sprig of brilliants also, was

among the largest I had ever seen.

He entered abruptly into discourse upon the war between Russia and the

Turk, and asked me if I had calculated what would be the consequence of

that war? I said, the Turks would be beaten by sea and land wherever

they presented themselves.

Again, Whether Constantinople would be burned or taken?--I said,

Neither; but peace would be made, after much bloodshed, with little

advantage to either party.

He clapped his hands together, and swore an oath in Turkish, then

turned to Risk, who stood before him, and said, That will be sad

indeed! but truth is truth, and God is merciful.

He offered me coffee and sweatmeats, promised me his protection, bade

me fear nothing, but, if any body wronged me, to acquaint him by Risk.

Two or three nights afterwards the Bey sent for me again. It was near

eleven o’clock before I got admittance to him.

I met the janissary Aga going out from him, and a number of soldiers at

the door. As I did not know him, I passed him without ceremony, which

is not usual for any person to do. Whenever he mounts on horseback, as

he was then just going to do, he has absolute power of life and death,

without appeal, all over Cairo and its neighbourhood.

He stopt me just at the threshold, and asked one of the Bey’s people

who I was? and was answered, “It is Hakim Englese,” the English

philosopher, or physician.

He asked me in Turkish, in a very polite manner, if I would come and

see him, for he was not well? I answered him in Arabic, “Yes, whenever

he pleased, but could not then stay, as I had received a message that

the Bey was waiting.” He replied in Arabic, “No, no; go, for God’s sake

go; any time will do for me.”

The Bey was sitting, leaning forward, with a wax taper in one hand,

and reading a small slip of paper, which he held close to his face. He

seemed to have little light, or weak eyes; nobody was near him; his

people had been all dismissed, or were following the janissary Aga out.

He did not seem to observe me till I was close upon him, and started

when I said, “_Salam_.” I told him I came upon his message. He said, I

thank you, did I send for you? and without giving me leave to reply,

went on, “O true, I did so,” and fell to reading his paper again.

After this was over, he complained that he had been ill, that he

vomited immediately after dinner, though he eat moderately; that his

stomach was not yet settled, and was afraid something had been given

him to do him mischief.

I felt his pulse, which was low, and weak; but very little feverish.

I desired he would order his people to look if his meat was dressed

in copper properly tinned; I assured him he was in no danger, and

insinuated that I thought he had been guilty of some excess before

dinner; at which he smiled, and said to Risk, who was standing by,

“Afrite! Afrite”! he is a devil! he is a devil! I said, If your stomach

is really uneasy from what you may have ate, warm some water, and, if

you please, put a little green tea into it, and drink it till it makes

you vomit gently, and that will give you ease; after which you may take

a dish of strong coffee, and go to bed, or a glass of spirits, if you

have any that are good.

He looked surprised at this proposal, and said very calmly, “Spirits!

do you know I am a Mussulman?” But I, Sir, said I, am none. I tell you

what is good for your body, and have nothing to do with your religion,

or your soul. He seemed vastly diverted, and pleased with my frankness,

and only said, “He speaks like a man.” There was no word of the war,

nor of the Russians that night. I went home desperately tired, and

peevish at being dragged out, on so foolish an errand.

Next morning, his secretary Risk came to me to the convent. The Bey was

not yet well; and the idea still remained that he had been poisoned.

Risk told me the Bey had great confidence in me. I asked him how the

water had operated? He said he had not yet taken any of it, that he did

not know how to make it, therefore he was come at the desire of the

Bey, to see how it was made.

I immediately shewed him this, by infusing some green tea in some warm

water. But this was not all, he modestly insinuated that I was to drink

it, and so vomit myself, in order to shew him how to do with the Bey.

I excused myself from being patient and physician at the same time, and

told him, I would vomit _him_, which would answer the same purpose of

instruction; neither was this proposal accepted.

The old Greek priest, Father Christopher, coming at the same time, we

both agreed to vomit the Father, who would not consent, but produced a

Caloyeros, or young monk, and we forced _him_ to take the water whether

he would or not.

As my favour with the Bey was now established by my midnight

interviews, I thought of leaving my solitary mansion at the convent.

I desired Mr Risk to procure me peremptory letters of recommendation

to Shekh Haman, to the governor of Syene, Ibrim, and Deir, in Upper

Egypt. I procured also the same from the janissaries, to these three

last places, as their garrisons are from that body at Cairo, which they

call their Port. I had also letters from Ali Bey, to the Bey of Suez,

to the Sherriffe of Mecca, to the Naybe (so they call the Sovereign) of

Masuah, and to the king of Sennaar, and his minister for the time being.

Having obtained all my letters and dispatches, as well from the

patriarch as from the Bey, I set about preparing for my journey.

Cairo is supposed to be the ancient Babylon[75], at least part of it.

It is in lat. 30° 21´ 30´´ north, and in long. 31° 16´ east, from

Greenwich. I cannot assent to what is said of it, that it is built in

form of a crescent. You ride round it, gardens and all, in three hours

and a quarter, upon an ass, at an ordinary pace, which will be above

three miles an hour.

The Calish[76], or Amnis Trajanus, passes through the length of it, and

fills the lake called Birket el Hadje, the first supply of water the

pilgrims get in their tiresome journey to Mecca.

On the other side of the Nile, from Cairo, is Geeza, so called, as

some Arabian authors say, from there having been a bridge there; Geeza

signifies the Passage.

About eleven miles beyond this are the Pyramids, called the Pyramids of

Geeza, the description of which is in every body’s hands. Engravings

of them had been published in England, with plans of them upon a large

scale, two years before I came into Egypt, and were shewn me by Mr

Davidson consul of Nice, whose drawings they were.

He it was too that discovered the small chamber above the

landing-place, after you ascend through the long gallery of the great

Pyramid on your left hand, and he left the ladder by which he ascended,

for the satisfaction of other travellers. But there is nothing in the

chamber further worthy of notice, than its having escaped discovery so

many ages.

I think it more extraordinary still, that, for such a time as these

Pyramids have been known, travellers were content rather to follow the

report of the ancients, than to make use of their own eyes.

Yet it has been a constant belief, that the stones composing these

Pyramids have been brought from the [77]Libyan mountains, though any

one who will take the pains to remove the sand on the south side, will

find the solid rock there hewn into steps.

And in the roof of the large chamber, where the Sarcophagus stands,

as also in the top of the roof of the gallery, as you go up into

that chamber, you see large fragments of the rock, affording an

unanswerable proof, that those Pyramids were once huge rocks, standing

where they now are; that some of them, the most proper from their

form, were chosen for the body of the Pyramid, and the others hewn

into steps, to serve for the superstructure, and the exterior parts of

them.

[Illustration: _Canja under Sail._

_London Publish’d Dec^r. 1^{st}. 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]

CHAP. III.

_Leaves Cairo--Embarks on the Nile for Upper Egypt--Visits

Metrahenny and Mohannan--Reasons for supposing this the

situation of Memphis._

Having now provided every thing necessary, and taken a rather

melancholy leave of our very indulgent friends, who had great

apprehensions that we should never return; and fearing that our stay

till the very excessive heats were past, might involve us in another

difficulty, that of missing the Etesian winds, we secured a boat to

carry us to Furshout, the residence of Hamam, the Shekh of Upper Egypt.

This sort of vessel is called a Canja, and is one of the most

commodious used on any river, being safe, and expeditious at the same

time, though at first sight it has a strong appearance of danger.

That on which we embarked was about 100 feet from stern to stem, with

two masts, main and foremast, and two monstrous _Latine_ sails; the

main-sail yard being about 200 feet in length.

The structure of this vessel is easily conceived, from the draught,

plan, and section. It is about 30 feet in the beam, and about 90 feet

in keel.

The keel is not straight, but a portion of a parabola whose curve is

almost insensible to the eye. But it has this good effect in sailing,

that whereas the bed of the Nile, when the water grows low, is full of

sand banks under water, the keel under the stem, where the curve is

greatest, first strikes upon these banks, and is fast, but the rest

of the ship is afloat; so that by the help of oars, and assistance of

the stream, furling the sails, you get easily off; whereas, was the

keel straight, and the vessel going with the pressure of that immense

main-sail, you would be so fast upon the bank as to lie there like a

wreck for ever.

This yard and sail is never lowered. The sailors climb and furl it as

it stands. When they shift the sail, they do it with a thick stick like

a quarter staff, which they call a _noboot_, put between the lashing of

the yard and the sail; they then twist this stick round till the sail

and yard turn over to the side required.

When I say the yard and sail are never lowered, I mean while we are

getting up the stream, before the wind; for, otherwise, when the vessel

returns, they take out the mast, lay down the yards, and put by their

sails, so that the boat descends like a wreck broadside forwards;

otherwise, being so heavy a-loft, were she to touch with her stem

going down the stream, she could not fail to carry away her masts, and

perhaps be staved to pieces.

The cabin has a very decent and agreeable dining-room, about twenty

feet square, with windows that have close and latticed shutters, so

that you may open them at will in the day-time, and enjoy the freshness

of the air; but great care must be taken to keep these shut at night.

[Illustration: _Section of the Canja._

_A. Planks sewed together without nailing._

_London publish’d Dec^r 1^{st}. 1789 by G. Robinson & Co._]

A certain kind of robber, peculiar to the Nile, is constantly on the

watch to rob boats, in which they suppose the crew are off their guard.

They generally approach the boat when it is calm, either swimming under

water, or when it is dark, upon goats skins; after which, they mount

with the utmost silence, and take away whatever they can lay their

hands on.

They are not very fond, I am told, of meddling with vessels whereon

they see Franks, or Europeans, because by them some have been wounded

with fire-arms.

The attempts are generally made when you are at anchor, or under weigh,

at night, in very moderate weather; but oftenest when you are falling

down the stream without masts; for it requires, strength, vigour, and

skill, to get aboard a vessel going before a brisk wind; though indeed

they are abundantly provided with all these requisites.

Behind the dining-room (that is, nearer the stern,) you have a

bed-chamber ten feet long, and a place for putting your books and arms.

With the latter we were plentifully supplied, both with those of the

useful kind, and those (such as large blunderbusses,) meant to strike

terror. We had great abundance of ammunition, likewise, both for our

defence and sport.

With books we were less furnished, yet our library was _chosen_, and

a very _dear_ one; for, finding how much my baggage was increased by

the accession of the large quadrant and its foot, and Dolland’s large

achromatic telescope, I began to think it folly to load myself more

with things to be carried on mens shoulders through a country full of

mountains, which it was very doubtful whether I should get liberty to

enter, much more be able to induce savages to carry these incumbrances

for me.

To reduce the bulk as much as possible, after considering in my mind

what were likeliest to be of service to me in the countries through

which I was passing, and the several inquiries I was to make, I fell,

with some remorse, upon garbling my library, tore out all the leaves

which I had marked for my purpose, destroyed some editions of very rare

books, rolling up the needful, and tying them by themselves. I thus

reduced my library to a more compact form.

It was December 12th when I embarked on the Nile at Bulac, on board

the Canja already mentioned, the remaining part of which needs no

description, but will be understood immediately upon inspection.

At first we had the precaution to apply to our friend Risk concerning

our captain Hagi Hassan Abou Cuffi, and we obliged him to give his son

Mahomet in security for his behaviour towards us. Our hire to Furshout

was twenty-seven patakas, or about L.6:15:0 Sterling.

There was nothing so much we desired as to be at some distance from

Cairo on our voyage. Bad affairs and extortions always overtake you in

this detestable country, at the very time when you are about to leave

it.

The wind was contrary, so we were obliged to advance against the

stream, by having the boat drawn with a rope.

We were surprised to see the alacrity with which two young Moors

bestirred themselves in the boat, they supplied the place of masters,

companions, pilots, and seamen to us.

Our Rais had not appeared, and I did not augur much good, from the

alacrity of these Moors, so willing to proceed without him.

However, as it was conformable to our own wishes, we encouraged and

cajoled them all we could. We advanced a few miles to two convents of

Cophts, called Deireteen[78].

Here we stopped to pass the night, having had a fine view of the

Pyramids of Geeza and Saccara, and being then in sight of a prodigious

number of others built of white clay, and stretching far into the

desert to the south-west.

Two of these seemed full as large as those that are called the Pyramids

of Geeza. One of them was of a very extraordinary form, it seemed as

if it had been intended at first to be a very large one, but that the

builder’s heart or means had failed him, and that he had brought it to

a very mis-shapen disproportioned head at last.

We were not a little displeased to find, that, in the first promise

of punctuality our Rais had made, he had disappointed us by absenting

himself from the boat. The fear of a complaint, if we remained near

the town, was the reason why his servants had hurried us away; but

being now out of reach, as they thought, their behaviour was entirely

changed; they scarce deigned to speak to us, but smoked their pipes,

and kept up a conversation bordering upon ridicule and insolence.

On the side of the Nile, opposite to our boat, a little farther to the

south, was a tribe of Arabs encamped.

These are subject to Cairo, or were then at peace with its government.

They are called Howadat, being a part of the Atouni, a large tribe that

possesses the Isthmus of Suez, and from that go up between the Red Sea

and the mountains that bound the east part of the Valley of Egypt. They

reach to the length of Cosseir, where they border upon another large

tribe called Ababdé, which extends from thence up into Nubia.

Both these are what were anciently called _Shepherds_, and are now

constantly at war with each other.

The Howadat are the same that fell in with Mr Irvine[79] in these

very mountains, and conducted him so generously and safely to Cairo.

Though little acquainted with the manners, and totally ignorant of the

language of his conductors, he imagined them to be, and calls them by

no other name, than “_the Thieves_.”

One or two of these straggled down to my boat to seek tobacco and

coffee, when I told them, if a few decent men among them would come on

board, I should make them partakers of the coffee and tobacco I had.

Two of them accepted the invitation, and we presently became great

friends.

I remembered, when in Barbary, living with the tribes of Noile and

Wargumma (two numerous and powerful clans of Arabs in the kingdom of

Tunis) that the Howadat, or Atouni, the Arabs of the Isthmus of Suez,

were of the same family and race with one of them.

I even had marked this down in my memorandum-book, but it happened

not to be at hand; and I did not really remember whether it was to

the Noile or Wargumma they were friends, for these two are rivals,

and enemies, so in a mistake there was danger. I, however, cast about

a little to discover this if possible; and soon, from discourse and

circumstances that came into my mind, I found it was the Noile to

whom these people belonged; so we soon were familiar, and as our

conversation tallied so that we found we were _true men_, they got up

and insisted on fetching one of their Shekhs.

I told them they might do so if they pleased; but they were first

bound to perform me a piece of service, to which they willingly and

readily offered themselves. I desired, that, early next morning, they

would have a boy and horse ready to carry a letter to Risk, Ali Bey’s

secretary, and I would give him a piaster upon bringing back the answer.

This they instantly engaged to perform, but no sooner were they gone

a-shore, than, after a short council held together, one of our

laughing boat-companions stole off on foot, and, before day, I was

awakened by the arrival of our Rais Abou Cuffi, and his son Mahomet.

Abou Cuffi was _drunk_, though a _Sherriffe_, a _Hagi_, and half a

_Saint_ besides, who never tasted _fermented_ liquor, as he told me

when I hired him.--The son was terrified out of his wits. He said he

should have been impaled, had the messenger arrived; and, seeing that

I fell upon means to keep open a correspondence with Cairo, he told

me he would not run the risk of being surety, and of going back to

Cairo to answer for his father’s faults, least, one day or another,

upon some complaint of that kind, he might be taken out of his bed and

bastinadoed to death, without knowing what his offence was.

An altercation ensued; the father declined staying upon pretty much the

same reasons, and I was very happy to find that Risk had dealt roundly

with them, and that I was master of the string upon which I could touch

their fears.

They then both agreed to go the voyage, for none of them thought it

very safe to stay; and I was glad to get men of some substance along

with me, rather than trust to hired vagabond servants, which I esteemed

the two Moors to be.

As the Shekh of the Howadat and I had vowed friendship, he offered

to carry me to Cosseir by land, without any expence, and in perfect

safety, thinking me diffident of my boatmen, from what had passed.

I thanked him for this friendly offer, which I am persuaded I might

have accepted very safely, but I contented myself with desiring, that

one of the Moor servants in the boat should go to Cairo to fetch

Mahomet Abou Cuffi’s son’s cloaths, and agreed that I should give five

patakas additional hire for the boat, on condition that Mahomet should

go with us in place of the Moor servant, and that Abou Cuffi, the

father and saint (that never drank fermented liquors) should be allowed

to sleep himself sober, till his servant the Moor returned from Cairo

with his son’s cloaths.

In the mean time, I bargained with the Shekh of the Howadat to furnish

me with horses to go to Metrahenny or Mohannan, where once he said Mimf

had stood, a large city, the capital of all Egypt.

All this was executed with great success. Early in the morning the

Shekh of the Howadat had passed at Miniel, where there is a ferry, the

Nile being very deep, and attended me with five horsemen and a spare

horse for myself, at Metrahenny, south of Miniel, where there is a

great plantation of palm-trees.

The 13th, in the morning about eight o’clock, we let out our vast

sails, and passed a very considerable village called Turra, on the east

side of the river, and Shekh Atman, a small village, consisting of

about thirty houses, on the west.

The mountains which run from the castle to the eastward of south-east,

till they are about five miles distant from the Nile east and by north

of this station, approach again the banks of the river, running in a

direction south and by west, till they end close on the banks of the

Nile about Turra.

The Nile here is about a quarter of a mile broad; and there cannot

be the smallest doubt, in any person disposed to be convinced, that

this is by very far [80]the narrowest part of Egypt yet seen. For it

certainly wants of half-a-mile between the foot of the mountain and

the Libyan shore, which cannot be said of any other part of Egypt

we had yet come to; and it cannot be better described than it is by

[81]Herodotus; and “again, _opposite_ to the Arabian side, is another

stony mountain of Egypt towards Libya, covered with sand, where are the

Pyramids.”

As this, and many other circumstances to be repeated in the sequel,

must naturally awaken the attention of the traveller to look for

the ancient city of Memphis here, I left our boat at Shekh Atman,

accompanied by the Arabs, pointing nearly south. We entered a large and

thick wood of palm-trees, whose greatest extension seemed to be south

by east. We continued in this course till we came to one, and then to

several large villages, all built among the plantation of date-trees,

so as scarce to be seen from the shore.

These villages are called Metrahenny, a word from the etymology of

which I can derive no information, and leaving the river, we continued

due west to the plantation that is called Mohannan, which, as far as I

know, has no signification either.

All to the south, in this desert, are vast numbers of Pyramids; as far

as I could discern, all of clay, some so distant as to appear just in

the horizon.

Having gained the western edge of the palm-trees at Mohannan, we have a

fair view of the Pyramids at Geeza, which lie in a direction nearly S.

W. As far as I can compute the distance, I think about nine miles, and

as near as it was possible to judge by sight, Metrahenny, Geeza, and

the center of the three Pyramids, made an Isosceles triangle, or nearly

so.

I asked the Arab what he thought of the distance? whether it was

farthest to Geeza, or the Pyramids? He said, they were _sowah, sowah_,

just alike, he believed; from Metrahenny to the Pyramids perhaps might

be farthest, but he would much sooner go it, than along the coast to

Geeza, because he should be interrupted by meeting with water.

All to the west and south of Mohannan, we saw great mounds and heaps of

rubbish, and calishes that were not of any length, but were lined with

stone, covered and choked up in many places with earth.

We saw three large granite pillars S. W. of Mohannan, and a piece of

a broken chest or cistern of granite; but no obelisks, or stones with

hieroglyphics, and we thought the greatest part of the ruins seemed to

point that way, or more southerly.

These, our conductor said, were the ruins of Mimf, the ancient seat of

the Pharaohs kings of Egypt, that there was another Mimf, far down

in the Delta, by which he meant Menouf, below Terrane and Batn el

Baccara[82].

Perceiving now that I could get no further intelligence, I returned

with my kind guide, whom I gratified for his pains, and we parted

content with each other.

In the sands I saw a number of hares. He said, if I would go with him

to a place near Faioume, I should kill half a boat-load of them in a

day, and antelopes likewise, for he knew where to get dogs; mean-while

he invited me to shoot at them there, which I did not choose; for,

passing very quietly among the date-trees, I wished not to invite

further curiosity.

All the people in the date villages seemed to be of a yellower and

more sick-like colour, than any I had ever seen; besides, they had an

inanimate, dejected, grave countenance, and seemed rather to avoid,

than wish any conversation.

It was near four o’clock in the afternoon when we returned to our

boatmen. By the way we met one of our Moors, who told us they had

drawn up the boat opposite to the northern point of the palm-trees of

Metrahenny.

My Arab insisted to attend me thither, and, upon his arrival, I made

him some trifling presents, and then took my leave.

In the evening I received a present of dry dates, and some sugar cane,

which does not grow here, but had been brought to the Shekh by some of

his friends, from some of the villages up the river.

The learned Dr Pococke, as far as I know, is the first European

traveller that ventured to go out of the beaten path, and look for

Memphis, at Metrahenny and Mohannan.

Dr Shaw, who in judgment, learning, and candour, is equal to Dr

Pococke, or any of those that have travelled into Egypt, contends

warmly for placing it at Geeza.

Mr Niebuhr, the Danish traveller, agrees with Dr Pococke. I believe

neither Shaw nor Niebuhr were ever at Metrahenny, which Dr Pococke and

myself visited; though all of us have been often enough at Geeza, and

I must confess, strongly as Dr Shaw has urged his arguments, I cannot

consider any of the reasons for placing Memphis at Geeza as convincing,

and very few of them that do not go to prove just the contrary in

favour of Metrahenny.

Before I enter into the argument, I must premise, that Ptolemy, if he

is good for any thing, if he merits the hundredth part of the pains

that have been taken with him by his commentators, must surely be

received as a competent authority in this case.

The inquiry is into the position of the old capital of Egypt, not

fourscore miles from the place where he was writing, and immediately in

dependence upon it. And therefore, in dubious cases, I shall have no

doubt to refer to him as deserving the greatest credit.

Dr Pococke[83] says, that the situation of Memphis was at Mohannan, or

Metrahenny, because Pliny says the [84]Pyramids were between Memphis

and the Delta, as they certainly are, if Dr Pococke is right as to the

situation of Memphis.

Dr Shaw does not undertake to answer this direct evidence, but thinks

to avoid its force by alledging a contrary sentiment of the same Pliny,

“that the Pyramids[85] lay between Memphis and the Arsinoite nome,

and consequently, as Dr Shaw thinks, they must be to the westward of

Memphis.”

Memphis, if situated at Metrahenny, was in the middle of the Pyramids,

three of them to the N. W. and above threescore of them to the south.

When Pliny said that the Pyramids were between Memphis and the Delta,

he meant the three large Pyramids, commonly called the Pyramids of

Geeza.

But in the last instance, when he spoke of the Pyramids of Saccara, or

that great multitude of Pyramids southward, he said they were between

Memphis and the Arsinoite nome; and so they are, placing Memphis at

Metrahenny.

For Ptolemy gives Memphis 29° 50´ in latitude, and the Arsinoite nome

29° 30´ and there is 8´ of longitude betwixt them. Therefore the

Arsinoite nome cannot be to the west, either of Geeza or Metrahenny;

the Memphitic nome extends to the westward, to that part of Libya

called the Scythian Region; and south of the Memphitic nome is the

Arsinoite nome, which is bounded on the westward by the same part of

Libya.

To prove that the latter opinion of Pliny should outweigh the former

one, Dr Shaw cites [86]Diodorus Siculus, who says Memphis was most

commodiously situated in the very key, or inlet of the country, where

the river begins to divide itself into several branches, and forms the

Delta.

I cannot conceive a greater proof of a man being blinded by attachment

to his own opinion, than this quotation. For Memphis was in lat. 29°

50´, and the point of the Delta was in 30°, and this being the latitude

of Geeza, it cannot be that of Memphis. That city must be sought for

ten or eleven miles farther south.

If, as Dr Shaw supposes, it was nineteen miles round, and that it was

five or six miles in breadth, its greatest breadth would probably be

to the river. Then 10 and 6 make 16, which will be the latitude of

Metrahenny, according to [87]Dr Shaw’s method of computation.

But then it cannot be said that Geeza is either in the key or inlet of

the country; all to the westward of Geeza is plain, and desert, and no

mountain nearer it on the other side than the castle of Cairo.

Dr Shaw[88] thinks that this is further confirmed by Pliny’s saying

that Memphis was within fifteen miles of the Delta. Now if this was

really the case, he suggests a plain reason, if he relies on ancient

measures, why Geeza, that is only ten miles, cannot be Memphis.

If a person, arguing from measures, thinks he is intitled to throw away

or add, the third part of the quantity that he is contending for, he

will not be at a great stress to place these ancient cities in what

situation he pleases.

Nor is it fair for Dr Shaw to suppose quantities that never did exist;

for Metrahenny, instead of [89]forty, is not quite twenty-seven miles

from the Delta; such liberties would confound any question.

The Doctor proceeds by saying, that heaps of ruins [90]alone are not

proof of any particular place; but the agreeing of the distances

between Memphis and the Delta, which is a fixed and standing boundary,

lying at a determinate distance from Memphis, must be a proof beyond

all exception[91].

If I could have attempted to advise Dr Shaw, or have had an opportunity

of doing it, I would have suggested to him, as one who has maintained

that all Egypt is the gift of the Nile, not to say that the point of

the Delta is a standing and determined boundary that cannot alter. The

inconsistency is apparent, and I am of a very contrary opinion.

Babylon, or Cairo, as it is now called, is fixed by the Calish or Amnis

Trajanus passing through it. Ptolemy[92] says so, and Dr Shaw says that

Geeza was opposite to Cairo, or in a line east and west from it, and is

the ancient Memphis.

Now, if Babylon is lat. 30°, and so is Geeza, they may be opposite to

one another in a line of east and west. But if the latitude of Memphis

is 29° 50´ it cannot be at Geeza, which is opposite to Babylon, but ten

miles farther south, in which case it cannot be opposite to Babylon or

Cairo. Again, if the point of the Delta be in lat. 30°, Babylon, or

Cairo, 30°, and Geeza be 30°, then the point of the Delta cannot be ten

miles from Cairo or Babylon, or ten miles from Geeza.

It is ten miles from Geeza, and ten miles from Babylon, or Cairo,

and therefore the distances do not agree as Dr Shaw says they do;

nor can the point of the Delta, as he says, be a permanent boundary

consistently with his own figures and those of Ptolemy, but it must

have been washed away, or gone 10´ northward; for Babylon, as he says,

is a certain boundary fixed by the Amnis Trajanus, and, supposing the

Delta had been a fixed boundary, and in lat. 30°, then the distance of

fifteen miles would just have made up the space that Pliny says was

between that point and Memphis, if we suppose that great city was at

Metrahenny.

I shall say nothing as to his next argument in relation to the distance

of Geeza from the Pyramids; because, making the same suppositions, it

is just as much in favour of one as of the other.

His next argument is from [93]Herodotus, who says, that Memphis lay

under the sandy mountain of Libya, and that this mountain is a stony

mountain covered with sand, and is opposite to the Arabian mountain.

Now this surely cannot be called Geeza; for Geeza is under no mountain,

and the Arabian mountain spoken of here is that which comes close to

the shore at Turra.

Diodorus says, it was placed in the straits or narrowest part of Egypt;

and this Geeza cannot be so placed, for, by Dr Shaw’s own confession,

it is at least twelve miles from Geeza to the sandy mountain where the

Pyramids stand on the Libyan side; and, on the Arabian side, there is

no mountain but that on which the castle of Cairo stands, which chain

begins there, and runs a considerable way into the desert, afterwards

pointing south-west, till they come so near to the eastern shore as to

leave no room but for the river at Turra; so that, if the cause is to

be tried by this point only, I am very confident that Dr Shaw’s candour

and love of truth would have made him give up his opinion if he had

visited Turra.

The last authority I shall examine as quoted by Dr Shaw, is to me so

decisive of the point in question, that, were I writing to those only

who are acquainted with Egypt, and the navigation of the Nile, I would

not rely upon another.

Herodotus[94] says, “At the time of the inundation, the Egyptians do

not sail from Naucratis to Memphis by the common channel of the river,

that is Cercasora, and the point of the Delta, but over the plain

country, along the very side of the Pyramids.”

Naucratis was on the west side of the Nile, about lat. 30° 30´, let us

say about Terrane in my map. They then sailed along the plain, out of

the course of the river, upon the inundation, close by the Pyramids,

whatever side they pleased, till they came to Metrahenny, the ancient

Memphis.

The Etesian wind, fair as it could blow, forwarded their course whilst

in this line. They went directly before the wind, and, if we may

suppose, accomplished the navigation in a very few hours; having been

provided with those barks, or canjas, with their powerful sails, which

I have already described, and, by means of which, they shortened their

passage greatly, as well as added pleasure to it.

But very different was the case if the canja was going to Geeza.

They had nothing to do with the Pyramids, nor to come within three

leagues of the Pyramids; and nothing can be more contrary, both to fact

and experience, than that they would shorten their voyage by sailing

along the side of them; for the wind being at north and north-west as

fair as possible for Geeza, they had nothing to do but to keep as

direct upon it as they could lie. But if, as Dr Shaw thinks, they made

the Pyramids first, I would wish to know in what manner they conducted

their navigation to come down upon Geeza.

Their vessels go only before the wind, and they had a strong steady

gale almost directly in their teeth.

They had no current to help them; for they were in still water; and

if they did not take down their large yards and sails, they were so

top-heavy, the wind had so much purchase upon them above, that there

was no alternative, but, either with sails or without, they must make

for Upper Egypt; and there, entering into the first practicable calish

that was full, get into the main stream.

But their dangers were not still over, for, going down with a violent

current, and with their standing rigging up, the moment they touched

the banks, their masts and yards would go overboard, and, perhaps, the

vessel stave to pieces.

Nothing would then remain, but for safety’s sake to strike their masts

and yards, as they always do when they go down the river; they must

lie broadside foremost, the strong wind blowing perpendicular on one

side of the vessel, and the violent current pushing it in a contrary

direction on the other; while a man, with a long oar, balances the

advantage the wind has of the stream, by the hold it has of the cabin

and upper works.

This would most infallibly be the case of the voyage from Naucratis,

unless in striving to sail by tacking, (a manœuvre of which their

vessel is not capable) their canja should overset, and then they must

all perish.

If Memphis was Metrahenny, I believe most people who had leisure would

have tried the voyage from Naucratis by the plain. They would have

been carried straight from north to south. But Dr Shaw is exceedingly

mistaken, if he thinks there is any way so expeditious as going up the

current of the river. As far as I can guess, from ten to four o’clock,

we seldom went less than eight miles in the hour, against a current

that surely ran more than six. This current kept our vessel stiff,

whilst the monstrous sail forced us through with a facility not to be

imagined.

Dr Shaw, to put Geeza and Memphis perfectly upon a footing, says[95],

that there were no traces of the city now to be found, from which he

imagines it began to decay soon after the building of Alexandria, that

the mounds and ramparts which kept the river from it were in process

of time neglected, and that Memphis, which he supposes was in the old

bed of the river about the time of the Ptolemies, was so far abandoned,

that the Nile at last got in upon it, and overflowing its old ruins,

great part of the best of which had been carried first to build the

city of Alexandria, that the mud covered the rest, so that no body knew

what was its true situation. This is the opinion of Dr Pococke, and

likewise of M. de Maillet.

The opinion of these two last-mentioned authors, that the ruins and

situation of Memphis are now become obscure, is certainly true; the

foregoing dispute is a sufficient evidence of this.

But I will not suffer it to be said, that, soon after the building

of Alexandria, or in the time of the Ptolemies, this was the case,

because Strabo[96] says, that when he was in Egypt, Memphis, next to

Alexandria, was the most magnificent city in Egypt.

It was called the Capital[97] of Egypt, and there was entire a temple

of Osiris; the Apis (or sacred ox) was kept and worshipped there. There

was likewise an apartment for the mother of that ox still standing, a

temple of Vulcan of great magnificence, a large [98]circus, or space

for fighting bulls; and a great colossus in the front of the city

thrown down: there was also a temple of Venus, and a serapium, in a

very sandy place, where the wind heaps up hills of moving sand very

dangerous to travellers, and a number of [99]sphinxes, (of some only

their heads being visible) the others covered up to the middle of their

body.

In the [100]front of the city were a number of palaces then in ruins,

and likewise lakes. These buildings, he says, stood formerly upon an

eminence; they lay along the side of the hill, stretching down to

the lakes and the groves, and forty stadia from the city; there was

a mountainous height, that had many Pyramids standing upon it, the

sepulchres of the kings, among which there are three remarkable, and

two the wonders of the world.

This is the account of an eye-witness, an historian of the first

credit, who mentions Memphis, and this state of it, so late as the

reign of Nero; and therefore I shall conclude this argument with three

observations, which, I am very sorry to say, could never have escaped a

man of Dr Shaw’s learning and penetration.

1_st_, That by this description of Strabo, who was in it, it is plain

that the city was not deserted in the time of the Ptolemies.

2_dly_, That no time, between the building of Alexandria and the

time of the Ptolemies, could it be swallowed up by the river, or its

situation unknown.

3_dly_, That great part of it having been built upon an eminence on the

side of a hill, especially the large and magnificent edifices I have

spoken of, it could not be situated, as he says, low in the bed of the

river; for, upon the giving way of the Memphitic rampart, it would be

swallowed up by it.

If it was swallowed up by the river, it was not Geeza; and this

accident must have been since Strabo’s time, which Dr Shaw will not

aver; and it is by much too loose arguing to say, first, that the place

was destroyed by the violent overflowing of the river, and then pretend

its situation to be Geeza, where a river never came.

The descent of the hill to where the Pyramids were, and the number of

Pyramids that were there around it, of which three are remarkable; the

very sandy situation, and the quantity of loose flying hillocks that

were there (dangerous in windy weather to travellers) are very strong

pictures of the Saccara, the neighbourhood of Metrahenny and Mohannan,

but they have not the smallest or most distant resemblance to any part

in the neighbourhood of Geeza.

It will be asked, Where are all those temples, the Serapium, the

Temple of Vulcan, the Circus, and Temple of Venus? Are they found near

Metrahenny?

To this I answer, Are they found at Geeza? No, but had they been at

Geeza, they would have still been visible, as they are at Thebes,

Diospolis, and Syene, because they are surrounded with black earth not

moveable by the wind. Vast quantities of these ruins, however, are in

every street of Cairo: every wall, every Bey’s stable, every cistern

for horses to drink at, preserve part of the magnificent remains that

have been brought from Memphis or Metrahenny.--The rest are covered

with the moving sands of the Saccara; as the sphinxes and buildings

that had been deserted were in Strabo’s time for want of grass and

roots, which always spread and keep the soil firm in populous inhabited

places, the sands of the deserts are let loose upon them, and have

covered them _probably for ever_.

A man’s heart fails him in looking to the south and south-west of

Metrahenny. He is lost in the immense expanse of desert, which he sees

full of Pyramids before him. Struck with terror from the unusual scene

of vastness opened all at once upon leaving the palm-trees, he becomes

dispirited from the effects of sultry climates.

From habits of idleness contracted at Cairo, from the stories he has

heard of the bad government and ferocity of the people, from want of

language and want of plan, he shrinks from the attempting any discovery

in the moving sands of the Saccara, embraces in safety and in quiet the

reports of others, whom he thinks have been more inquisitive and more

adventurous than himself.

Thus, although he has created no new error of his own, he is accessary

to the having corroborated and confirmed the ancient errors of others;

and, though people travel in the same numbers as ever, physics and

geography continue at a stand.

In the morning of the 14th of December, after having made our peace

with Abou Cuffi, and received a multitude of apologies and vows

of amendment and fidelity for the future, we were drinking coffee

preparatory to our leaving Metrahenny, and beginning our voyage in

earnest, when an Arab arrived from my friend the Howadat, with a

letter, and a few dates, not amounting to a hundred.

The Arab was one of his people that had been sick, and wanted to go to

Kenné in Upper Egypt. The Shekh expressed his desire that I would take

him with me this trifle of about two hundred and fifty miles, that I

would give him medicines, cure his disease, and maintain him all the

way.

On these occasions there is nothing like ready compliance. He had

offered to carry me the same journey with all my people and baggage

without hire; he conducted me with safety and great politeness to the

Saccara; I therefore answered instantly, “You shall be very welcome,

upon my head be it.” Upon this the miserable wretch, half naked, laid

down a dirty clout containing about ten dates, and the Shekh’s servant

that had attended him returned in triumph.

I mention this trifling circumstance, to shew how essential to humane

and civil intercourse presents are considered to be in the east;

whether it be dates, or whether it be diamonds, they are so much a part

of their manners, that, without them an inferior will never be at peace

in his own mind, or think that he has a hold of his superior for his

favour or protection.

CHAP. IV.

_Leave Metrahenny--Come to the Island Halouan--False

Pyramid--These buildings end--Sugar Canes--Ruins of

Antinopolis--Reception there._

Our wind was fair and fresh, rather a little on our beam; when, in

great spirits, we hoisted our main and fore-sails, leaving the point

of Metrahenny, where our reader may think we have too long detained

him. We saw the Pyramids of Saccara still S. W. of us; several

villages on both sides of the river, but very poor and miserable;

part of the ground on the east side had been overflowed, yet was not

sown; a proof of the oppression and distress the husbandman suffers

in the neighbourhood of Cairo, by the avarice and disagreement of the

different officers of that motely incomprehensible government.

After sailing about two miles, we saw three men fishing in a very

extraordinary manner and situation. They were on a raft of palm

branches, supported on a float of clay jars, made fast together. The

form was like an Isosceles triangle, or face of a Pyramid; two men,

each provided with a casting net, stood at the two corners, and threw

their net into the stream together; the third stood at the apex of

the triangle, or third corner, which was foremost, and threw his net

the moment the other two drew theirs out of the water. And this they

repeated, in perfect time, and with surprising regularity. Our Rais

thought we wanted to buy fish; and letting go his main-sail, ordered

them on board with a great tone of superiority.

They were in a moment alongside of us; and one of them came on board,

lashing his miserable raft to a rope at our stern. In recompence for

their trouble, we gave them some large pieces of tobacco, and this

transported them so much, that they brought us a basket, of several

different kinds of fish, all small; excepting one laid on the top of

the basket, which was a clear salmon-coloured fish, silvered upon its

sides, with a shade of blue upon its back[101]. It weighed about 10

lib. and was most excellent, being perfectly firm and white like a

perch. There are some of this kind 70 lib. weight. I examined their

nets, they were rather of a smaller circumference than our casting

nets in England; the weight, as far as I could guess, rather heavier

in proportion than ours, the thread that composed them being smaller.

I could not sufficiently admire their success, in a violent stream of

deep water, such as the Nile; for the river was at least twelve feet

deep where they were fishing, and the current very strong.

These fishers offered willingly to take me upon the raft to teach me;

but I cannot say my curiosity went so far. They said their fishing was

merely accidental, and in course of their trade, which was selling

these potter earthen jars, which they got near Ashmounein; and after

having carried the raft with them to Cairo, they untie, sell them at

the market, and carry the produce home in money, or in necessaries

upon their back. A very poor œconomical trade, but sufficient as they

said, from the carriage of crude materials, the moulding, making, and

sending them to market, to Cairo and to different places in the Delta,

to afford occupation to two thousand men; this is nearly four times

the number of people employed in the largest iron foundery in England.

But the reader will not understand, that I warrant this fact from any

authority but what I have given him.

About two o’clock in the afternoon, we came to the point of an island;

there were several villages with date trees on both sides of us; the

ground is overflowed by the Nile, and cultivated. The current is very

strong here. We passed a village called Regnagie, and another named

Zaragara, on the east side of the Nile. We then came to Caphar el

Hayat, or the Toll of the Tailor; a village with great plantations of

dates, and the largest we had yet seen.

We passed the night on the S. W. point of the island between Caphar el

Hayat, and Gizier Azali, the wind failing us about four o’clock. This

place is the beginning of the Heracleotic nome, and its situation a

sufficient evidence that Metrahenny was Memphis; its name is Halouan.

This island is now divided into a number of small ones, by calishes

being cut through and through it, and, under different Arabic names,

they still reach very far up the stream. I landed to see if there

were remains of the olive tree which Strabo[102] says grew here, but

without success. We may imagine, however, that there was some such like

thing; because opposite to one of the divisions into which this large

island is broken, there is a village called Zeitoon, or the Olive Tree.

On the 15th of December, the weather being nearly calm, we left the

north end of the island, or Heracleotic nome; our course was due south,

the line of the river; and three miles farther we passed Woodan, and a

collection of villages, all going by that name, upon the east: to the

west, or right, were small islands, part of the ancient nome of which I

have already spoken.

The ground is all cultivated about this village, to the foot of the

mountains, which is not above four miles; but it is full eight on

the west, all overflowed and sown. The Nile is here but shallow, and

narrow, not exceeding a quarter of a mile broad, and three feet deep;

owing, I suppose, to the resistance made by the island in the middle of

the current, and by a bend it makes, thus intercepting the sand brought

down by the stream.