Frenchmen among them.—Where are Frenchmen sold? It is probable
no Frenchman would be found among them, unless perhaps two or three
individuals who might have embraced Mohammedism, but who certainly
never were sold. In an engagement, I believe, no one has more than
a single piéton with him; for those inconsiderable officers, who
are attended on ordinary occasions by numerous followers, when in
the field, avoid as much as possible any shew of preeminence, which
would only expose their persons to greater danger.
P. 476. A Mamlûk has rarely more than one fusil, which he
discharges once, and then gives to his piéton, to reload if he
find opportunity.—One pair of pistols is attached to the body, and
the second pair is carried in holsters, never about the body.—Of
the arrows in a quiver I have no knowlege; occasionally in engaging
the Bedouins the Mamlûks use a light spear, about six feet long,
or a _misdrâk_, which is often ten or twelve feet.—The former is
thrown, the latter never discharged from the hand. But these are
by no means part of their common arms.—One sabre is used most
adroitly and with extraordinary effect, by every expert horseman,
but never two.—This part of the officer’s account seems taken
from the mouth of some Egyptian peasant, who, as usual, exaggerated.
P. 476. From Alexandria to the mouth of the Nile is not twenty
leagues, but from twelve to fifteen.—The anecdote of the shech in
the same page appears authentic.
P. 479. The Mohammedans in general, and the Egyptians in particular,
of whatever order, are very far from being regardless of the
children.—On the contrary, they are extremely anxious for their
welfare. Perhaps their domestic government may in some degree
afford an example of the happy medium between weak indulgence and
unnecessary severity; and parents daily experience the benefit of
this their moderation. Very few instances of ingratitude are seen in
their children. Women offering to sell their children, it remained
for Boyer to discover. If reduced to desperation they might have
desired rather to see their offspring in slavery than pierced with
bayonets; but not the most wretched of Egyptian mothers would ever
have consented at any price to sell her child, even to Murad Bey. I
rather imagine the writer mistaken as to this fact.
_A moitié nuds._ Would not men go half naked in Great Britain
if the climate permitted it?—_La peau dégoûtante._ In the
populace of no nation are fewer cutaneous diseases found, or the
skin more smooth and healthy, than in the Egyptians. _Fouillant dans
des ruisseaux_, &c. Are hedgers and ditchers in any country very
polished and delicate?—None are found raking the muddy channels
but those whose business it is to keep them clean. The houses of the
Alexandrines are neat, and _comfortable_ according to their ideas,
though perhaps they would appear gloomy to a French or English man.
P. 480. This is not quite correct. On the West of the W. branch of the
Nile, the arable lands are very narrow, but to the East they extend
along the road to Bilbeis and Salehich. The villages indeed are ill
built; yet a house is here of little use but as a shelter from the
sun. One of our neat, snug, brick houses, covered with red tiles,
would be absolutely intolerable in Egypt. They are poor because
the government is oppressive, not because they are uninclined to
labour. The muddy appearance of the Nile water is no motive for any
Egyptian to abstain from drinking it; nor is any other circumstance
attending it, except its being polluted. Water, according to their
law, is not polluted by a camel, a horse, or an ox drinking of it;
but it is by a dog’s drinking, or a man washing his hands in it.
481. Boyer seems to have been too hasty in numbering the
inhabitants—400,000 seems to me about one-fourth too much.
Ibid. The streets of Kahira are narrow, but inconveniences would
attend their being wider. The houses are by no means without order:
two long streets, as is seen in Niebuhr’s plan, bisect the city
longitudinally and parallel with the river. The streets are often
rectilinear, though they are by no means rectangular.
The ecclesiastics all read, and many of them write. All merchants of
any consequence read, and many write. Often their female offspring
are taught to read. The Copts most of them read and write. Who
then regards the arts of reading and writing with admiration? The
soldiers, the peasants, and the laborious part of the populace are
ignorant enough of reading and writing, but by no means wonder or
are astonished at what they see daily practised.
_Berthier’s Letter, 2 Fructidor._
P. 536. All Egypt, according to this writer, is in submission to
the French troops; but it appears the farthest post the latter have
occupied is at four leagues from Cairo, where there is an entrenched
camp; then there remain 130 leagues yet to subdue.
P. 599. It seems to me impossible that the old port could contain
half the number of vessels here mentioned, viz. 300.
—. This place, whose name is so murdered, is spelled Jibbrîsh.
P. 603. In Julien’s letter, I know not how the flag could be placed
on the walls of _the celebrated city Thebes_, when all that remains
of that city is the ruins of public buildings, that formed a part of
its interior.—_Often join, &c._ There is one annual feast dedicated
to the Prophet, called _Mewlet-en-Nebbi_, which lasts one day; and
one feast also annual in honour of cutting the _Chalige_, which also
lasts one day. How did the soldiers then often celebrate them?
604. The canal of Alexandria wanted nothing more than to be cleared
of the sand which had accumulated in it, and to be defended by a
dike against the incroachments of the sea, which the citizens of
Alexandria refused to do for themselves, lest the repair of all
other public works should be expected from them, and the Beys would
not do it for them.
_Dolomieu’s Letter._
Vol. 20. p. 50. He says the Alexandria of the Greeks was situated
on a tongue of land, formed by earth lately accumulated, when the
city was founded.—He means, I suppose, that the sea had left it
but lately. This is possible. The natural soil round the city is
rock intermixed with sand. The vegetable mold appears to have been
extraneous. If he suppose that district, like the Delta, to have
been a deposition of the river, this seems utterly improbable; all
the circumstances are at variance, which in such a case should be
common to both. The land which divided the lake from the sea is a
rocky ridge, which seems to have undergone no variation for a great
length of time. The remark as to the column of Pompey is not new;
but I cannot agree that the capital and base are of bad taste. The
sharp relief of the foliage and mouldings is worn off by time, and
it never was perhaps possible to exhibit on granite marble the finer
strokes of the chissel, but the proportions, though not those of the
later Corinthian, are strictly conformable to those of the purest
age of architecture. What may have been discovered relatively to the
obelisk by digging is uncertain; but from a comparison of this with
the circumstances attending the obelisks at Thebes, it cannot be
deduced that much is lost of its height. It must have been erected
in the most flourishing state of the city, and while it remained
in that state, it seems scarcely probable that such multitudes of
ruins should have existed as to raise other buildings on them. I
am satisfied, from the position of the one that remains entire, and
the broken one near it, they never underwent a second arrangement,
but remain in their relative position, as at the gate of some public
building. The obelisk is in a very low part of the city, (which indeed
is all very low,) and very little above the level of the sea—how
does this accord with the ruins of other buildings being yet found
under it? Perhaps in this part a firm foundation was not found very
near the surface, and the builders have formed an artificial one. The
French antiquary may have mistaken this for the ruins of buildings.
P. 59. My measurement of the height of the pyramid was a few feet
short of this, but does not very materially differ from the one
here given.
P. 95. _El Maraboot_ is a kind of fort, and the tomb of a saint,
situated on a high ground in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of the
Arabs, a good view of which it commands.
=No. VI.=
_Explanation of the Plate facing page 286._
1. The principal inclosure, consisting of apartments exclusively
appropriated to the use of the monarch.
2. Principal rukkûba, or place of public audience.
3. The large court where public audiences are given.
4. Two gates, the one of the interior, the other of the great court;
at both stand slaves, to refuse admittance when the Monarch is not
in the humour to do justice; and the chief of them, to strike the
greater awe, is the public executioner.
5. Exterior court in which the public officers leave their horses,
and thence walk barefoot to the presence of their master.
6. External entrance, fronting the market-place.
7. A court with some apartments in it for faquirs, guards, and slaves.
8. A wide court where are some horses tied.
9. Rukkûba at the other entrance, where the Sultan gives audience,
principally in winter, and where he would be less public.
10. Small court surrounding that rukkûba or shed.
11. Outer court where a mob assembles, and horses and slaves are
in waiting.
12. Outer gate, called _Bab-el-burrâni_, as the great one is called
_Bab-el-Gebeia_.
13. A multitude of small apartments reaching almost the whole length
of the palace, where slaves are kept in confinement, as a punishment
for misdemeanors; they are chained and fettered, and kept to hard
labour, as dressing and tanning leather, making spear heads, &c.
14. A large court of irregular form filled with a multitude of small
apartments for the women; they pass through the two gates marked
_w_ to fetch water, but have no other outlet. Each of the principal
women has a large apartment, surrounded by a number of smaller ones
for her slaves; there are also apartments for cooking.
15. Granary, which is builded on a frame of timber, to prevent the
accession of the _Termis_ or white ant.
16. Gate by which the women enter the Sultan’s apartment where
that sex performs all offices.
17. Stable or court where the best horses are kept tied, and sheltered
from the sun.
The Eunuchs live in the interior, to be always near the Sultan;
male slaves, wherever they can find a place.
18. Are the slaves’ apartments who guard the entrance.
19. A place where the faquirs read.
The officers immediately attached to the court live in small
inclosures on the outside of the fence, as that marked 20.
The houses of the Meleks resemble this in miniature; those of
inferior persons only of smaller size without divisions, and having
fewer apartments.
The exterior is an hedge of dry thorns, about ten feet thick, and
as many high.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Volney has considered the walls of Alexandria as of
antient structure. But D’Anville had before rejected that idea,
and the fragments of columns, &c. worked into the masonry, shew that
he is right.]
[Footnote 2: Now supposed to have been erected in honour of Severus.]
[Footnote 3: There happened a plague in 1796, which it is said
carried off one half of the inhabitants. This estimate is possibly
exaggerated; but no doubt it thinned them much; so that at present
they cannot be near so numerous.]
[Footnote 4: Hirtius, Bell. Alex. prope init.]
[Footnote 5: The miles spoken of are always geographical.]
[Footnote 6: See Major Rennel’s map.]
[Footnote 7: D’Anville with equal probability supposes Siwa to
be Mareotis.]
[Footnote 8: The water in the river between Terané and Kahira was so
shallow, that with a very small boat (Canjia) we had great difficulty
in passing.]
[Footnote 9: The condition of slave is so very distinct in Egypt from
what it is in other countries, that they who defend the practice of
trading in human flesh by its antiquity, and the general consent
of nations, should be well aware how they adduce the example of
Egypt.—In Kahira, when a slave is legally purchased in the market,
if after any length of time he feel discontented with his master,
has only to say, “Carry me to the market,” (Sûk-es Sultân,)
and the master is legally compellable to offer him for sale.
It can never be believed, that where a power so absolute as that of
the proprietor over his slave, is supported by the sanctions of law,
that no abuses of it should exist; but this single privilege greatly
softens its asperity.
The child of a female slave, begotten by her master, is ipso
facto free, and a slave may authorize a free person to purchase
his emancipation.]
[Footnote 10: The Mamlûks suffer not the beard to grow till they
be emancipated, and hold some office, as Cashef, &c.—A similar
practice obtains among the Osmanli. The Ytch oghlans, though free in
their persons, yet exercising a kind of servitude, shave the beard:
so that though it be not absolutely the mark of a slave, the want of
a beard seems to denote a dependent situation. Among the Osmanli,
(European Turks) the beard is allowed to grow rather in conformity
to the precept and practice of the Prophet, than as a national
fashion. The Tatars wear no beard; and the Arabs alone shew great
respect to that ornament.]
[Footnote 11: The two last offices are annual.]
[Footnote 12: The patacke may be rated at from three shillings to
three and four-pence. The foddân is a given measure, taking its
name from the quantity that a yoke of oxen can plough in a day,
roughly taken, equivalent to an acre.]
[Footnote 13: English edit. p. 188.]
[Footnote 14: The length may be estimated at about three thousand
five hundred yards.]
[Footnote 15: The city is still infested with the usual herds of
dogs, and the kites still shriek wildly over the canal; while the
turtle-doves, unmolested by men or children, breed in the houses,
building their nests under the projecting beams.]
[Footnote 16: Histoire de l’Afrique, et de l’Espagne sous la
domination des Arabes; composée sur differens Manuscrits Arabes
de la Bibliotheque du Roi, par M. Cardonne, &c. Paris 1765, 3 tomes
12mo. It is to be regretted that the learned author did not divide
his work into epochs and chapters, and particularly separate the
history of Africa from that of Spain.]
[Footnote 17: Vol. ix. p. 448-466, 8vo.]
[Footnote 18: Their authority did not extend over the ancient
Mauritania. The Edrissite dynasty ruled Ceuta, Fez, Tangier, &c. Fez
was built by them in 788.]
[Footnote 19: The power of the Chalîfs, successors of Mohammed, had
fallen about the middle of the eleventh century. The Turks, a Tataric
nation, seized Iconium, and most of Asia Minor, about 1074. Twenty
years after, Aleppo and Damascus became separate sovereignties under
the grandsons of Elf Arslân; the former city had been long subject
to the Chalîfs of Egypt.]
[Footnote 20: This expedition remains in considerable obscurity,
though it may be regarded as the last dying spark of the crusades,
as the adventurers seem to have been of several nations. Fordun,
_Scotichr._ vol. ii. p. 488, mentions Norman Lesley, his countryman,
as a prime actor. There was an old Scottish poem on the feats of
Sir Walter, his brother, Duke of Leygaroch in France. _Ibid._ and
Maitland’s Poems.]
[Footnote 21: This place takes its name from the tomb of a Christian
ecclesiastic, called _Ammon-el-abed_, or the devout; its other name
is _Ensené_, evidently from that of _Antinous_.]
[Footnote 22: The remainder might be easily copied, but circumstances
did not then permit me to give the time necessary for that purpose.]
[Footnote 23: That custom is still retained at Damiatt, notwithstanding
the purer precepts of Islamism.]
[Footnote 24: They sell the males, and themselves generally mount
mares in their warlike expeditions.]
[Footnote 25: Now _Geziret-es-Sag_, Claustra Imperii Romani. TAC.]
[Footnote 26: A place where the troops are exercised, and rencontres
between opposing parties frequently have had place.]
[Footnote 27: Populorum Africæ vocabula plerumque ineffabilia,
præterquam ipsorum linguis. PLINY.]
[Footnote 28: The best idea of the Sphinx seems to be that of Maillet,
who supposes it an emblem of the increase of the Nile under the
signs of _Leo_ and _Virgo_.]
[Footnote 29: Pococke, vol. i. p. 56. conceives this place to have
received its name from the Greek word Ταμιέια, there having
been a kind of lock there to restrain or let loose the water in the
canal which passes by it.]
[Footnote 30: Parallel to this is a narrow cut, called Bahr Yussuf,
which runs into the Birket-Kerûn.]
[Footnote 31: Τὸν Μῖνα πρῶτον βασιλέυσαντα Ἀιγύπτου, ὁι ἱερέες ἔλεγον
τοῦτον μὲν ἀπογεφυρῶσαι καὶ τὴν Μέμφιν. HERODOT.
Of the fact of Memphis having been surrounded by water, some evidences
appear even at this day. Parts of the banks of the canal yet are
visible toward the mountains, and at the extremities of the ground,
where ruins are distinguishable.]
[Footnote 32: Soudân in Arabic corresponds to our Nigritia, merely
general words for the _country of the blacks_.]
[Footnote 33: In passing the desert, partly from want of water,
partly from being overloaded, (these animals being then scarce and
dear in Egypt,) so many camels died, that several merchants of the
caravan were obliged to bury their goods in the sand near Selimé,
whither they afterwards sent for them.]
[Footnote 34: The _Mahréa_ Arabs have the art of making wicker
baskets, of so close a texture, that they carry in them milk, water,
bouza. Much of the earthen ware made by the people of Dar-Fûr is
glazed, I know not with what composition.]
[Footnote 35: A fermented liquor, called _Bûza_ or _Merîsi_.]
[Footnote 36: By the law of the Prophet, any illicit connexion with
the female slave of another makes the person guilty responsible for
her value to the owner. Thus the personal injury is expiated. The
public offence of _Zinna_, whoredom, incurs a punishment varying
according to the character and circumstances of the offender; but
the positive testimony of four witnesses is necessary to establish
this fact.]
[Footnote 37: A female slave.]
[Footnote 38: It is not usual with Mohammedans to eat meat in such
a state. It is reported in Soudan, I know not how truly, that the
Leopard, after he has seized his prey, leaves it till it become
putrid before he eats of it.]
[Footnote 39: Here is one among many instances of tacit submission
to the authority of the head of a tribe, though unfurnished with
any express deputation from the government.]
[Footnote 40: Sultan Teraub used always to reside at Rîl, but the
present monarch, or usurper, is induced by his fears to wander from
place to place. The first place I saw him at was _Heglig_; the next
was _Tini_; the third was _Tendelti_, where he passed about a year.]
[Footnote 41: The Fûrians, it may be remarked, distinguish the
South part of their empire by this term, as well as the Egyptians.]
[Footnote 42: On the East of Fûr there is a particular tribe of
Arabs, who curl their hair, as it were, in a bushy wig, resembling
that of the antient figures in the ruins of Persepolis. It is probable
that many fragments of antient nations may be found in the interior of
Africa. Carthaginians expelled by the Romans, Vandals by Belisarius,
&c. &c.]
[Footnote 43: In the market held at Cobbé, there are slaughtered
ordinarily from ten to fifteen oxen, and from forty to sixty sheep;
but all the villages, six or eight miles round, are thence supplied.
It is usual for the people of the town to lay in their annual
stock of grain when cheapest, which is commonly about the month of
December. At that time two, sometimes three _mids_ (pecks) of millet
(_Dokn_) may be had for a string of beads, worth about one penny
sterling in Kahira.]
[Footnote 44: Fruit of India.]
[Footnote 45: Season of the rains.]
[Footnote 46: I remember to have borrowed, while at Damascus, a
small quarto volume, written in easy Arabic, without either title or
conclusion, which contained a kind of history of the progress of the
(_ashab_) early propagators of Mohammedism, and which enumerated, if
I mistake not, a tribe under the denomination of Fûr فور among
their adversaries, after the taking of _Bahnesé_ in Middle Egypt,
and their consequent invasion of the more Southern provinces.]
[Footnote 47: If but a small quantity of rain fall, the agricultors
are reduced to great distress; and it happened, about seven years
before my arrival, that many people were obliged to eat the young
branches of trees pounded in a mortar.]
[Footnote 48: The inhabitants of a village called _Bernoo_, having
quarrelled with those of another hamlet, and some having been killed
on both sides, all the property of both villages was forfeited to
the king, the inhabitants being abandoned to poverty.]
[Footnote 49: About a century and a half ago.]
[Footnote 50: A great tribute is also paid in butter.]
[Footnote 51: _Thummara Hindi_ means simply _Fruit of India_,
not _date_, as insinuated by the learned author of the _Botanical
Observations_, in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. iv. p. 250.]
[Footnote 52: This is observable in many of the slaves. They seem
to esteem it a beauty. In filing the teeth, they also force the gums
from them, to make them appear longer: the teeth in this case suffer
discoloration, but do not appear to undergo a consequent decay.]
[Footnote 53: Qui Africæ aut Asiæ plagis peragratis, primi hunc
exsecandi morem Occidentalibus narravere auctores, ab ore incolarum
re acceptâ, et novitate ejus perculsi, de modo excisionis toto
cælo errare solent, nymphas exsecari perhibentes: prorsus ineptè
quidem, sed septâ pudicitiâ vitam agentibus, nunquam illis nudam
vel è longinquo vidisse, multo minùs muliebria attrectavisse,
uti manifestum, contigerat.]
[Footnote 54: Quoties autem confibulatio fortior meatûs etiam
urinarii aditum claudere minetur, plumâ vel osseâ quâdam tubulâ
adhibitâ, illam in ore urethræ inserunt, ibidemque tenent, usque
dum canalis majoris aditui amplius invigilare non sit opus.]
[Footnote 55: In the neighbourhood of Damiatt the Papyrus is termed
_el-Berdî_. Another name is also given it, evidently derived from
the term in use among us, _El-Babîr_.]
[Footnote 56: The butcher.]
[Footnote 57: He brought her thither during the process, instituted
at Rome, relatively to her first marriage, and before that marriage
was set aside. A long history attends this part of the life of this
remarkable man. Montague having persuaded the first husband, who was
captain of a merchant-man in the service of persons at Marseilles,
to leave his wife, whom he had brought with him to Egypt, under M.’s
protection at Rashîd, the latter took advantage of his absence on a
voyage home, to persuade the woman that her husband was no more. He
then made an offer of himself, which was accepted. On a disclosure
of the affair, Montague had interest and address enough to set aside
the first marriage, which had been solemnized before either of the
parties were of age. The religious were persuaded that Montague was
a zealous convert to the Catholic faith.]
[Footnote 58: The _Santons_, or Mohammedan saints, are still permitted
to continue their excesses. I was informed that one of them, very
vigorous in transitory amours, met the wife of a rich Mohammedan
merchant, newly married. The female attendant who was with her fled,
and he accomplished his purpose in the open street. The merchant,
complaining to the Pasha, only received this answer, “You ought to
esteem yourself very happy, for your wife will probably be brought
to bed of a _wellî_,” that is, a saint.]
[Footnote 59: This sect, represented to me by the Arabs, and
others in Syria, as having only at a late period originated, is
precisely mentioned by Niebuhr, Description d’Arabie, ed. Paris,
p. 208. with a little variation as to the tenets of its founder. He
dates its rise in the year 1760, which is very possible, considering
that the later accounts all agree that _Abd-el-azîz el Wahhâbé_
is a man of very advanced age.]