Leave Siwah. — Rude Sepulchres. — A Camel’s last stage. —
Sand Storm. — Find an Arab Cousin. — Corn hard to get at. —
Adieu to the Desert. — The Desert. The Oasis. — Arrive at Cairo.
Good Friday.—_March 25th._—It was eleven o’clock the next
day before everything was ready. The camels were loaded and sent
on, and then, with loud beating of the little saddle-drums, the
horsemen forming a long line, their colours in the middle, followed
by Hassan Aga and myself, we rode slowly out of Siwah. The officers
cantered along the line as it advanced, first one and then another,
in no regular order, and with no other apparent object than that of
making a sort of fantasia, as the Arabs call everything which they
think amusing or gay. A wedding festivity, a gaily-decked horse,
or an embroidered jacket, are all equally fantasia. My servants
and the slaves of the officers, Sheikh Yusuf and his friends, who
in considerable numbers accompanied him, for some hours brought
up the rear. The well-disposed part of the population had come
out to see the show, and to bid me adieu; among them the Mufti and
his brother, but none of my late prisoners appeared in the crowd,
to the great indignation of Hassan Aga.
An hour out of the town the standard was furled, and then the
line was broken, and every one went as his fancy led him, excepting
myself, who soon found that I was considered either too suspicious or
too precious a personage to be allowed to stir a step without Hassan
Aga at my side. If I hung back, he did so too; if I rode to one side,
he not only followed me, but with him the little tin-kettle drummers,
and the nucleus of his army. As for dismounting to gather a fossil,
or to chip a rock, it was the signal for a general halt; and I was
therefore condemned to stick to my saddle and follow my leader.
In three hours and a half we reached a Hattyeh called Wushky
Tamoushty, وشكي طموشتي, where we halted for some little
time to allow the camels to come up. Ponds of bitter water, palm
bushes and mimosas, dot this plain, which is infested by myriads
of small, gray, singularly venomous musquitoes. Two and a half
hours further on, we came to some hills called Gebel Melhiors,
ملهيوص, of the same tertiary limestone as those around Siwah,
and here the soldiers amused themselves by discharging their guns
and pistols to enjoy the repeated echoes of one of the rocks. It was
half-past nine, when, after passing Hattyeh el Kuttef, الكثف, we
reached Omm Hoemem هوُِهَم, a line of low sand-hills covered
with trees; these supplied materials for making huge bonfires,
round which the soldiers lay themselves to sleep in parties of three
and four. The next day we were fourteen hours on horseback, riding
through a country presenting nothing remarkable; I give, therefore,
a mere catalogue of names. After passing a hill, Ingah Omm Hoemem,
we came to a table-land called Es-sutah, السُوطه, from which,
on the right, rises a rock called Er-Rocheia, الرحيه. The
view was bounded towards the east by low white hills, destitute
of any appearance of vegetation, called, from their colour,
El-abiadh. Here we halted for the night; the soldiers were in
great discomfort, as the place affords no means of making fires,
and the night was extremely chilly. Skirting El-abiadh we reached
in three hours a darker-coloured range, called El Achmar, and from
this it took us three hours to arrive at the palm-groves and wells
of brackish water, which lie on this side of the small oasis of El
Gara, as it is usually called, though also known as Omm-es-soghaigh,
ام السغير.
This is a miniature Siwah, presenting the same abundance of water
(which is here all bitter), and a proportionate number of date
trees. The town, now almost in ruins, resembles Agharmy in its
situation on a table-rock, and is approached by a very steep path,
which passes under a gateway. Everything betokens the poverty and
misery of the inhabitants, who only number twelve grown men. There
is a tradition, that the population of the place can never exceed
forty; and whenever, by immigration (which they do not therefore
encourage) or by births, this limit is passed, some one is sure to
die. The male population seemed very well-disposed, coming at once
on our arrival to pay their court to Hassan Aga and Sheikh Yusuf,
and showing readiness to make themselves as useful as they could. I
never met with twelve such ugly specimens of humanity collected
in one place; and their virtues do not atone for their bad looks,
as they are said to be drunkards and lazy, taking no other care of
their date trees, about 21,000 in number, than drawing _lagby_ and
gathering the fruit from them. They make no attempt at manuring them,
and do not even trim them, so that their produce is very inferior
to the dates of Siwah. The interior of the town is even more ruinous
than the promise of its external appearance; a circular market-place,
surrounded by fallen cabins, occupies its centre, and it has near
the entrance a well of drinkable water, 70 feet deep.
The brother of one of the two sheikhs who govern this important
territory acted as my guide to see the curiosities of the place,
and thinking, perhaps, that he had not sufficiently earned
his bachshish, he insisted, as we came out, on showing the town
gate. He closed the massive door, formed of palm trunks, and, after
drawing some ponderous bolts, linked on an iron cable chain of the
largest dimensions, to show me how secure it was. I could not help
smiling at the precautions taken to close a place which contained
nothing of the smallest value, which drew from him a grave shake
of the head and the triumphant rejoinder, that a strong door and
a big chain are good things. In the rock on which the town is
built are four rudely-excavated sepulchres, and I saw many more
in different parts of the small oasis, but the rudeness of their
fashion leads me to conjecture that even in its most flourishing
times this dependency on the Ammonium never reached any high degree
of prosperity. Either this, or the lake of El Arachish, to the
north-west of Siwah, must have been the place where Alexander left
his escort in entering on the sacred territory of Ammon. We spent
a day and a half here, notwithstanding the badness of the water,
from which some of the horses had suffered in coming to Siwah,
as the Aga had forgotten or neglected to have bread baked for the
soldiers before starting. Leaving El Gara, we took almost a due
northerly direction, and made long days, as there is no water to be
found for four days. The horses of my escort had the bad habit of
drinking daily, which a thorough desert horse does not require, and,
when possible, the draught is given to them about midday. Immediately
after drinking, their riders mount them and give them a short gallop,
which I can only suppose is for the purpose of winding them.
The first landmark we reached was Gar-el-lebna, the milk hill,
thirteen hours off, the next six hours further on, Gar-ed-dih, the
cock’s hill. Many of the horses fell, as if struck with apoplexy,
on the second day, and on this day and the two following ones we
lost eleven. I ascribe the casualty to the water of the Gara, which,
stopping digestion, blew them up like a well-inflated foot-ball,
and after a few hours in this state, if injections, fomentations,
and bleeding had no effect, they dropped as if shot, with all
the appearance of a _coup de sang_. As ten of his horses had died
with the same symptoms on arriving in Siwah, I suggested to Hassan
Aga that as short a route might be found leaving the Gara to the
east, which would, perhaps, avoid any risk there might be from a
recurrence of illness among the horses. He made no account of this;
and now that one would have thought his eyes must be opened to the
results of his stupidity, he and Sheikh Yusuf agreed in ascribing
the misfortune to the Evil Eye, while Yusuf looked grave, and said no
soldiers had ever approached Siwah without being struck by the Eye in
leaving it. Of course there was no veterinary with the detachment;
but what was stranger, not one of the party seemed to have an idea
of what to do; they had no physic, nor even a fleam. The horses
which recovered, as well as, I acknowledge, some of those which
died, were doctored by my servant and myself, their owners seeming
to have no resource but to sit down and thank God that the Eye was
on the horses, not on the men.
We had made thirteen hours this day, but on the next, the
Commandant being anxious to arrive at water, as the skins were
rapidly decreasing under the charge of the Arabs, the camels made
seventeen hours’ journey, and the next day, in three hours, we
reached a well called Caldeh; it, however, contained so small a
supply that we literally drank it dry. From Omm Es-soghair to this
well the distance is forty-six hours. Though every day their loads,
principally water and corn, were growing lighter, a great many of
the camels were so exhausted that they dropped down, unable to
proceed. When no application of the stick would induce the poor
beasts to rise, their loads were distributed to others, and they
sometimes were able to continue the journey. But if they had been
driven too far before falling this was useless, and after a few
steps they would again lie down, when the camel drivers would at
once despatch them, and then stripping off the hide, they cut all
the flesh from the bones to make a feast in the evening, so that
within half an hour a pool of blood and a skeleton were all that
remained of their long-suffering companion. I was unlucky enough
to come up just as one large white camel fell. It lay motionless,
while its brutal master, with heavy blows, endeavoured to force
it to rise. In vain. The escort stopped to look on, and I was so
fascinated with the expression of the dying beast’s head, that,
though anxious to turn away, I was an involuntary witness of its
death. As all efforts to make it rise were unavailing, a man threw it
over on its side and slowly cut through its long neck, from which an
immense stream of blood flowed, while he pronounced the words, “In
the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate.” The camel made
no resistance; but, turning its head towards its butcher, uttered two
or three loud, heart-rending moans, which sounded in my ears for the
remainder of the day. I have seldom witnessed a more pitiable sight.
Five hours beyond Caldeh is another and very remarkable well,
being a subterranean chamber hollowed in the rock, 72 feet square,
in the floor of which are nine wells, one in each corner, in the
centre of each side, and in the middle. Two are now sanded up, but
the others afford an abundance of water. The chamber is eight feet
high, and presents every appearance of great antiquity; but there
are no ruins apparent in the vicinity, nor any town named in the
ancient geographies which could have occupied this place; perhaps,
in its origin, it served, as at the present day, as a reservoir
for the caravans from the south and west. We encamped here for
the night, as a strong wind, which had been blowing all day, had
increased to such violence that it was impossible to proceed. The
air was filled with sand of a dark orange colour, while the sun,
an hour and a half before setting, was of a pale blue, and could be
gazed at with the naked eye. Had we been in July instead of April,
this wind, which blew from the south-west, might have been attended
with serious consequences. In the night a great deal of rain fell,
which moderated its violence, and the next morning it had entirely
ceased. We were now leaving the region of sand, the ground being
dotted with a spare vegetation, which, in three hours from Bu Battah,
gave the country a general green tone, till on approaching the sea
this was succeeded by a strong, healthy growth of herbs and grass,
affording excellent pasturage. In eight hours we reached the edge of
the great platform we had been traversing, and by a steep descent,
of not more than 120 feet in perpendicular, we reached the level
of the sea, encamping, at the end of the ninth hour, in a meadow of
rank grass, separated from the sea by a ridge of sand. A point to the
west forms here a small bay, and Baretoun, the ancient Panetorium,
lies a little beyond this. The name given to the place we encamped
in is Berbetat-el-mudar. We here passed the following day to rest
the horses, and to endeavour to obtain some supplies from the Arabs
who are usually stationed here, but who now, at the instigation, I
believe, of one of the sheikhs who were with us, had run away. They
were probably within a few miles of our encampment, but so well
concealed that every effort to discover their retreat was useless;
and thus the visions of sheep and milk in which we had all been
indulging were rendered illusory. From this place our course turned
to the east, riding over a plain raised above the sea, of which we
frequently caught a sight. Four hours eastwards is a place called,
by the Arabs, Fuhah; and half an hour further on we came to the
ruins of a small town whose walls are still to be traced. Nothing
that remains indicates the name by which it may have been designated
by Ptolemy, whose nomenclature is here, though so near Alexandria,
singularly defective. In six hours more we encamped in a valley,
surrounded by low hills, called Bu Jerabeh, containing several
wells of bitter water, one only of which was drinkable. Here we
found Sonagrah Arabs, whom their sheikh, Haj Chalil, prevented from
running away, so that we were well supplied with fresh butter, sour
and sweet milk, and sheep, paying, of course, for all that we took.
I ought already to have presented the Haj Chalil to my reader,
as he was the best of the Aoulad Ali whom I saw, and I exchanged
with him on the road many a friendly joke. A day or two after my
escort’s arrival in Siwah, a tall, stout man, of some fifty years,
entered my room, with a certain mysteriously solemn and consequential
air. When he had taken his place, he said to me, in a low voice,
that he had something very secret to communicate to me. Of course,
after learning that he was Sheikh Haj Chalil, I ordered that no one
should be admitted during the conference. He told me, as if it had
been a matter of life and death, that he was my cousin, there being
only seven grandfathers between him and me. The relationship, thus
precisely defined, tickled my fancy, and though I supposed he must
refer to descent from Spanish Moors, I begged he would enlighten me
on his pedigree. It seems that his ancestor, whom he called Songor
(hence the name of the Sonagra Arabs), was a Frank boy, who had
been washed on shore from a wreck near Sallum. He was seized by
the Bedawin, made the property of the Sheikh of Aoulad Hharsuf,
and in the end married his daughter, and became the patriarch of a
new tribe. The Arabs have no idea that one Christian is not cousin
to another; hence the claim of relationship, which I acknowledged
ever afterwards, calling him son of my uncle. It was not, however,
only to have the pleasure of claiming relationship with me that
he came so mysteriously; it was to beg that, in consideration of
this, I would speak well of him to the Viceroy, so as to obtain
his nomination as Great Sheikh of the Aoulad Ali, under which name
are comprised the three tribes, Hharsuf, Sonagra, and Sinnĭna. I
could not promise to interfere in a matter in which I could have
no right to interest myself, and no power to be useful if I had
done so; but when the occasion afterwards presented itself, in
the course of conversation, I was not forgetful of my uncle’s
son, though my good offices were unavailing, as his Highness had
already decided on naming a sheikh from the Aoulad Hharsuf. And a
lucky escape it was, too, for Haj Chalil, as the possessor of the
coveted honour, within three months followed his predecessor on
the road to Fazoughla—a sort of penal hell upon earth—where,
if he have good luck, he will arrive, instead of being murdered,
as the other is said to have been, at Girgeh; for, I suppose,
one must call murder the condemning a man to one punishment, and
secretly inflicting upon him a heavier one—the loss of his head.
From Bu Jerabah we travelled over a slightly-undulating country,
covered with a short, wiry grass, called by the Arabs wild barley,
which affords excellent pasture for horses, till we reached Turbiat,
in five hours and a half. This was again a short day, as the camels
and horses were too tired to proceed. Here, after much scolding and
threatening of the Courbadj, we obtained a small supply of corn for
the horses—a necessity which was not agreeable to Hassan Aga, as
he had to pay here for what he required, while the corn he took in
Siwah was levied as a contribution on the town. The Siwy persuaded
the Arabs, who were glad to save their camels the extra weight,
to assure the Commandant that corn was to be had in any quantity
after the eighth day; but these same Arabs now took care to send
on before us during the night, to warn all their fellows out of
our way. As everything taken from the Arabs was fairly paid for, it
seemed mere spite on the part of the sheikhs who were with us thus
to increase the inconveniences of the journey, and I acknowledge I
was not sorry to hear that one of the most troublesome among them
had received from the Commandant’s own hands a rather severe
drubbing. Twenty-five hours were employed the two following days in
reaching the wells called El Hammam. We had now left the coast line,
but the next day, an hour and a half after starting, having the
Arabs’ Tower, or Abou Sir, the old Taposiris, in sight, we passed
through extensive ruins, marking, perhaps, the site of Antiphræ,
so famous for its wine—it was so bad. At a considerable distance to
the right rise the flat hills of Hoshm el’Aish, which may be said
to bound the district of Mariout. We only made nine hours this day,
stopping at Caraya, where are five wells of ancient construction,
the largest built with very solid masonry, having an orifice of
twelve feet by three. The old Lake Mareotis is now an extensive
plain, covered with dark shrubs, and dotted with low, yellow mounds.
Two thousand female dromedaries belonging to the Viceroy were
stationed here for the pasturage, the best camel-browsing ground in
Egypt. I wondered to what purpose these were applied, and admired
his Highness’s tender solicitude for his stud of Arab horses, when
I learned that, immediately after the mares foal, the dromedaries
are sent up the country to supply them with milk. His horses are
decidedly the best lodged, best fed, and best cared for of the
present Pacha’s subjects. After passing two Marābut chapels,
Abu Hadidj and Sheikh Masa’udi, which lay to the right, we came
to the first village in Egypt, Gheitá, and stopped, eight hours
from Caraya, at El Hamra. The next day was the last of our weary
journey: in two hours we came to El Hhosh (Hhosh Ebro ’Isa),
which is celebrated for its breed of falcons; and in six hours more
we pitched our tents outside the flourishing town of Damanhour.
Here ended my desert journey, and it was not without feelings
of pleasure that I found myself once more within the circuit of
Eastern civilisation. But it must not be supposed that I left the
desert without some feelings of regret. A prolonged sojourn in
those vast plains of sand,—condemned to a perpetual sterility—a
voyage over those waterless seas, is less devoid of interest than
at first sight one might be led to expect. They offer, indeed,
little variety, and they promise less; but this very monotony
renders the traveller more attentive to the varied aspects which
Nature even here presents, and awakens his attention to many an
object which in more-favoured climes he would pass unobserved. The
only variety of general feature is the passing from loose sand to
more compact gravel, or from boundless plains, which the wearied
eye ranges over without meeting an object on which to fix the gaze,
to equally desert hills, whose sandy solitudes are undisturbed even
by an echo. Sometimes, more awful still, one comes upon vast tracts
covered with small, dark, loose fragments, giving a chocolate colour
to the ground, which there seems to absorb the rays of the mid-day
sun, but without reposing the eye from its glare. The camel here
leaves no traces of his path, so that the solitary traveller must
strain his sight to keep in view the distant caravan; the dry tramp
of his horse alone disturbs the mournful silence; the sun is darting
on him his most burning rays; and, from the colour of the ground,
he seems to have lost even the companionship of his own shadow.
But this very silence, this monotonous absence of animation, are
of themselves impressive, and soon acquire a peculiar charm for
the imagination. The earth seems boundless as the ocean, not less
cheerlessly uniform than a sea becalmed, and not less dangerously
wild than it when roused by the strife of elements. The sky is
pale in the glare of mid-day, but glows with the brightest tints
as evening closes in; after sunset, it is again illuminated by the
zodiacal light, which fades to disclose a surface of the deepest
purple, spangled with thousands of stars, whose twinkling brightness
surpasses anything that our northern climates can show. The desert,
where no howling of wild beasts alarms the ear, no watch-fire
proclaims the vicinity of fellow-men, affects one less with a sense
of solitude than of vastness, and, like the sea, awakens feelings
rather of the moral greatness with which man is endowed, than of
the physical weakness which is his lot. Man, alone, can traverse
the broad desert; I have been days without meeting the trace of a
quadruped, or seeing a bird in the air; the wind-worn rocks bear
no nourishment for the former, the restless sandwaves afford no
prey to the latter.
When, in this sea of sand, one approaches the rare islands with
which it is dotted, the eye is first attracted to the tracks worn by
the jackals and gazelles, which, making their abodes during the day
among the shrubless rocks, often twenty or thirty miles from water,
at night go to drink and feed in the oasis. Then the sand is dotted
with clumps of the zumaran, and other thick-leaved plants, whose
roots, stretching along the surface, draw sufficient moisture for
their existence from the air; round these may be marked the tiny
footprints left by the nightly gambols of the gerboa. A clump of
palm-trees, or a few mimosas, are at last seen on the horizon,
and welcomed with joy by the thirsty caravan; the camels now
increase their pace, the Arab’s step becomes more elastic, though
it will be hours before the wished-for spring is reached. Round
this are the blackened fire-places of former travellers, the deep
claw-marks of the vultures, the tracks of the fox, the jackal,
and the gazelle, the trail of the land tortoise, even the black,
rough-backed beetle, patiently rolling its load towards its hole,
each and all are welcome, as telling of the living world from which
the traveller has been separated.
Desert travel has its pleasures as well as its tribulations. Of
the former I have said but little in the preceding narrative, for
hours of contemplation find no place in a note-book; of the latter
I have said, perhaps, more than enough, for annoyances which in
the retrospect are insignificant, seem proportionally great while
one is suffering from them.
The time of actual travelling from Siwah to Damanhour was 155 hours,
a fair journey of thirteen days, which is the time the caravans
usually employ, while Alexandria is a day nearer. There is another
road which is easier for the camels, following the coast line (in
going _to_ Siwah) from Berbetat el Mudar to Kasr Adjubah, one day
and a half. Thence to Jarjub, the same distance; to Esh-Shamar,
half a day; to Sallum, three days. Thence, turning northwards, to
Bir el Hhamza, two days, and thence to Siwah, three days. The direct
road to Siwah from Cairo is by Tervaneh and the Natron lakes, but by
this route of eleven days there are four without water. From Siwah
to Derna is a journey of fifteen days, and to Benghazi twenty days.
I will not detain the reader by an account of my adventures after
reaching Damanhour. How the Turkish colonel of the Bashbuzuks came
to meet me, and then was inclined to treat me somewhat cavalierly;
how I recalled him to his senses, and how it ended in our kissing and
being friends; and my then spending a night with him at Rachmania,
from which place I embarked for Cairo.
This narration of a nine months’ journey, in countries little
known, however uninterestingly told, is at least faithful. I believe,
indeed, that the traveller who simply records what he sees with his
eyes and hears with his ears, and indulges in none of the pleasures
of the imagination, rarely meets with those stirring scenes which,
beheld by the fancy and treated with the pen of an artist, so
frequently charm the reader. My tale is true, and it relates to
what may still be called unknown countries; and this is my reason
for offering it to the public.
I am bound to express my obligations for the ready aid afforded
me by Her Majesty’s Consul in Cairo, during the absence or
leave of the accomplished Consul-General, whose departure, a few
weeks after my arrival, was a subject of regret both to Turk and
Frank. It would be unjust also to omit stating, that the Viceroy,
within twenty-four hours of the arrival of my letter, despatched
orders for the march of 150 soldiers to my relief; and, after my
presentation to him in Cairo, ordered another party of 200 to be
sent to disarm the town, and to bring forty-nine of the Siwy to
Cairo to answer for their conduct.
Sheikh Yusuf is reinstated, in more than his former authority,
with a garrison of twenty soldiers under his orders; so I flatter
myself that my prophecy to the Shiekhs of Siwah, that I should be
the last European they would ill-treat, is now fulfilled. I can
now have the satisfaction of feeling, that my successors in the
exploration of the antiquities of that country will meet with no
obstacles to their researches.
FINIS.
* * * * *
Woodfall and Kinder, Printers, Angel Court, Skinner Street,
London.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In the morning it emits a perfume, which is delicious in
the open air, but in a closed space I should think stupifying, like
the Circean enchantments; it is said to be that with which
Circe fumigated her grotto.]
[Footnote 2: At all the wells many Arabs were to be seen; and
occasionally horsemen were met with, but generally two or three
together; for though the country is now peaceful enough, the
associations of other days seemed to deter them from venturing out
singly. In no part of the road did we see a trace of an encampment,
and the whole country seemed deserted excepting in the neighbourhood
of the wells. On my remarking this to my guide, he said that
the country was filled with inhabitants, but that they pitch their
tents in the places least likely to be visited by passers by, to
avoid too frequent calls on their hospitality. The Arabs here
have a great reputation for this virtue, but it appears that
they are not ambitious of exercising it.]
[Footnote 3: When at Derna I was unable to obtain information
concerning the origin of the American battery which seemed here so
strangely out of place. I am indebted to Edwin De Leon, Esq.,
Consul-General for the U.S. in Egypt, for the following account
of it. Achmed, Pasha of Tripoli, having been deposed by his brother
Yusuf in 1801, took refuge in Tunis. Before long the new pasha found
himself embroiled with the U.S., through capturing some vessels
bearing their flag. Determined to punish him, they offered the
ex-pasha the means of recovering his throne, but after long
negotiations he left Malta without effecting anything, and retired
to Egypt. His American allies had not, however, lost sight of him,
and they induced him, by a grant of supplies and the nomination of
an officer in their service, General Eaton, who took the command
of his forces, to march upon Derna. Of this place he easily got
possession, and it was then that this battery was erected. After a
few months, being deserted by his allies, who made a treaty with
Yusuf Pasha, in which his interests seem to have been little cared
for, he retired to Malta, and thence to Syracuse, where he lived,
partly supported by occasional sums granted by the Government of
the U.S., partly by a small pension which their representative
obtained for him from his brother. After various vicissitudes,
he returned to Egypt, where, as the guest of Mohammed Ali, he
enjoyed a liberal income. On his death a part of this was transferred
to his only son, but was suppressed by Abbas Pasha. I found the son,
now an old man, bedridden with palsy, in a state of frightful
destitution, dependent for his support on the charity of servants.
Mr. De Leon applied to the present Viceroy to obtain a restoration
of the pension the son had so long enjoyed, and by his recommendation
induced the Minister of the U.S. at Constantinople to ask the Porte
to restore a small property in Tripoli, once belonging to his father,
and of which he had enjoyed the revenue during the late Pasha’s
reign, but which the Ottoman Government seized for its own benefit
after his deposition. Hussein Bey Caramanly, the surviving son of
Achmed Pasha, is, as his father was before him, an American protégé,
up to the present time a very useless title, but from which he is
now, thanks to Mr. De Leon’s energy, likely to obtain some
advantage. His father’s story, in all its details, is told
in the Acts of Congress, 1807-8.]
[Footnote 4: Johan. von Müller.]
[Footnote 5: Since writing this I have learned that a
recent decree gives to the evidence of Christians the same
force as that of a Moslem.]
[Footnote 6: Since these lines were written (in 1853), a decree
is said to have been published, abolishing the trade in slaves
throughout the Ottoman Empire. In Cairo, in Alexandria, it is
at this moment as active as ever.—Cairo, 15th July, 1855.]
[Footnote 7: On referring to Beechey’s Narrative, since these pages
were written, I find that he speaks of Ras Sem as a name unknown
to the Arabs to designate the promontory marked thus in our maps.
The coast, from a few miles west of Apollonia, has a very gradual
inclination southwards, but so slight that it is impossible to
designate even the place from which it begins to turn as a headland.
Shaw and Bruce’s account of the well five or six days south of
Benghazi agrees perfectly with the place called by the Arabs R’sam;
and although the very bitter well is eight hours further on, there
can be no doubt it is to this place that they allude. The petrified
city, with its inhabitants, does not exist; its magnificent castle
is only the Saracenic building, now called Sheikh Es-saby; but the
ground is to some distance strewed with petrified wood. The dream of
the city where “men are conspicuous in different attitudes, some of
them exercising their trades and occupations, and women giving suck
to their children,” is due, of course, to Arab imagination,
and not to those truthful travellers.]
[Footnote 8: A description of Waday has been published in French,
translated from a MS. of the Shiekh Mohammed El Tounsy,
who was there about 1814, and who still lives in Cairo
attached to one of the mosques.]
[Footnote 9:
HOW TO MAKE THE DJIN DESCEND.
Write in the right palm of a boy or girl, below the age of puberty,
the seal which is here given, and fumigate with coriander seed, which
among the Djin are counted apples, and conjure them with the Surah
“and the Sun” to the end, until they come down. Then ask them what
you desire to know, and they will answer you with the permission
of God (be he exalted!); and this is what you write on
the forehead of the child:—
فكشفنا عنك عطاك
فبصرك اليوم صحچ
And then you write the seal, and in the midst of it make a spot of
ink; and when you wish to dismiss the kings, conjure them with the
verse of the throne, and they will depart by permission of God. This
is the seal as you see it here, and there is no power and
no strength but in God.
[Illustration]
]
[Footnote 10: I am inclined to suppose that after the dead had
undergone the process of mummifying, and had been wrapped in their
casements, they were covered with a coating of stucco: I have a piece
of fine white plaster which I picked in one of the tombs, one-third
of an inch thick, in which are the impression of a limb
and fragments of cloth.]
[Footnote 11: The taxes in Siwah are levied on the date and olive
trees, at the rate of 2½ piastres on each tree, yielding an annual
revenue of 10,000 dollars. From this tax the waddy date-trees, whose
fruit is used for feeding the cattle, and which amount
to 90,000, are excepted.]
Transcriber's note:
pg 117 Changed: which lead to to it to: which lead to it
pg 152 Changed: Bon Jera’a to: Bou Jera’a
pg 204 Changed: Ijherri, إِجهّري to: إِجهرّي
pg 298 Changed: Cailland to: Caillaud
pg 303 Changed: Er-Rocheia, الرحيه, to: Er-Rocheia, الرحيه.
All instances of Angila changed to: Augila
Added some periods in the table of contents and chapter summaries.
Other spelling and formatting inconsistencies have been left unchanged.