m ml J mam \ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID M ' ill i ' ! E , N D F E '■ P f THE NILE BOAT GLIMPSES OF THE LAND OF EGYPT. BY W. II. BART LETT U'thor op FORTY DAYS IN THE DESERT. sjranii fiiitinn. LONDON : ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE, AND CO., 25, PATERNOSTER ROW. Mnrccr.. S3 SO PREFACE. To add another book on Egypt to the number that have already appeared, may almost appear like a piece of presumption. But it should be remarked, that besides the army of erudite ' savans' who have enlisted themselves in the study of its antiquities, there has always been a flying corps of light-armed skirmishers, who, going lightly over the ground, busy themselves chiefly with its picturesque aspect ; who aim at giving lively impressions of actual sights, and at thus cre- ating an interest which may lead the reader to a further investigation of the subject. This class of writers can, of course, even when suc- cessful in their object, claim but a very humble rank. The modicum of historical and archaeological lore with which they are accustomed to season their narratives must, naturally, be borrowed from others ; all the merit that falls to them being the faithful description of what they have themselves beheld. Of such slight texture is the composi- tion of the present volume. The author had, indeed, entirely re- nounced the idea of preparing one, and was only encouraged to do so by the kind reception of a recent production of the same stamp, which aimed at producing distinctness of impressions by the combination of the pencil and the pen. While disclaiming for the text of his book any pretensions to originality, the writer is anxious to say that this is not the case with the illustrations, of which the whole were drawn upon the spot, many of them with the Camera Lucida. He has endeavoured to present, within small compass, as much variety as possible, displaying the principal monuments of the earlier or Pharaonic monuments, as at Thebes ; the later Ptolemaic style, as at Edfou and Phihe ; with some of the most beautiful specimens of the Arabian, at Cairo. The sites of Alexandria and Thebes, with their principal ruins, are, it is hoped, M313346 rendered distinct and intelligible. Something, tuo, is attempted of the characteristic scenery of the river, and something of modern man- ners and customs. The figures were all put in from actual sketches, often exactly as they stand. In short, the book, though far from giving an adequate idea of Egyptian scenery and monuments, which is indeed impossible on the scale, so far as it goes, may claim to be a correct one, at least in intention and endeavour. The authorities quoted are generally named, but the author cannot omit to acknowledge his especial obligations to the kindness of Mr. Samuel Sharpe, the historian of Egypt. The interest taken by that gentleman in every attempt to popularise the favourite subject of his studies, has led him, not only to present the writer with a brief in- troduction, but also to allow the literal quotation of such portions of his volume as happened to bear upon the subject described, giving thereby a permanent utility and value to what would otherwise be trivial and fugitive. Thus, the entire historical sketch of Thebes, prefixed to the account of its ruins, is extracted in full from Ins valuable " History of Egypt." Finally, should any one, by glancing over these pages, be tempted to think of visiting the country they describe, let him not suppose it is intended to usurp the functions of a guide book, beyond pointing out the prominent objects of interest. For the manners and customs of Ancient Egypt, and a detailed description of the existing monu- ments, the works of Sir Gardner Wilkinson are indispensable ; as are those of Lane for the modern state of Egypt. These are not the hasty sketches of a passing tourist, but the result of years of patient and learned investigation ; and no one should think of going to Egypt without them; nor, we must say in addition, without the history already referred to. More compact and portable editions than the present of these invaluable volumes would, however, be a boon to the traveller, by whom, more than any one else, "a great book" is felt to be " a urreat evil." ILLUSTRATIONS. ENGRAVINGS. Engravers. To fact page Frontispiece. Karnak— Grand Hall . A. Willmore Title-page. Departure of the Kangia from Old Cairo .... C. Cousen Map of Egypt . W. Hughes 11 Panorama of Alexandria G. F. Storm 24 Street in Cairo . C. Cousen 51 55 The Bazaar . View from the Citadel E. Brandard GU Mosque of Sultan Hassan A. Willmore 64 Mosque of El Azhar .... J. C. Bentley GO Tombs of the Memlook Sultans A. Willmore 70 72 Tomb of Sultan Kaitbay Interior of a House at Cairo . E. Challis 74 Ferry at Ghizeh .... C. Cousen 92 The Sphynx .... J. C. Bentley 94 The Pyramids . A. Willmore 100 The Slaye-boat .... J. C. Bentley 132 The Shadoof . 13G Map of Thebes .... W. Hughes 161 Valley of the Tombs of the Kings . J. C. Bentley 162 Hall of Beauty .... C. Cousen 164 Plain of Thebes . . . . . J. Cousen 109 Medeenet Habou .... E. Brandard 172 175 Colossal Statue— Memnonium The Colossi . A. Willmore 179 Luxor from the Water . J. C. Ben t ley 186 Propylon of Luxor E. Challis 1S7 Approach to Thebes . . E. Brandard 189 190 Karnak— 1st Court Retrospective View of the Gi and Hall . A. Willmore 195 199 Temple ofEdfou . Frontier of Egypt . . J. Cousen '205 Approach to Philjb A. Willmore 209 Pharaoh's Bed— Phil.h . C. Cousen 210 VlE"SV FROM PhILvK .... J. Cousen 212 Temple of Abusimbal . E. Brandard 215 ILLUSTRATIONS. WOOD CUTS. Engrain,. Page Landing in Egypt ..... . G. Measom 18 Noon in a Nile Boat .... G. Dodd 31 Water-wheel on the Lower Nile . G. Measom 40 MoSQf'E of Tooloon 63 G8 Bab Zooayleh ...... . G. Dodd Heliopolis ...... G. Measom 90 Section of the Pyramid .... Whimper 103 Dancing-girls ..... G. Measom 113 Tomb of Beni Hassan 120 138 Crocodile ...... Whimper Temple of Dendera ..... . G. Measom 110 Tablet at Beirout .... G. Dodd 152 Doctrine of the Judgment .... — 165 Plan of the Memnonium 17G Hall of ditto ...... 17G Battle-scene in ditto .... 178 Hagar Silsilis ...... . G. Measom '201 CONTENTS. Preface ......••• Historical Introduction ...-•■ Chat. I. Departure from Marseilles. — the india mail. — a ship run DOWN. A GLANCE AT MALTA. ALEXANDRIA. ANCIENT AND MODERN CHARACTERISTICS.— PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE CITY.— ITS TOrOGRAPHY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS ...•■• Chap. II. Departure from Alexandria.— the canal.— first impres- sions OF THE NILE VALLEY. — ITS AGRICULTURE AND ANIMALS. — ANTI- QUITY OF EGYrT. — SAIS AND NAUCRATIS. — FIRST SIGHT OF THE PYRA- MIDS. — ARRIVAL AT CAIRO ...... Chap. III. Cairo. — situation. — characteristics. — streets. — bazaars.— ARABIAN MONUMENTS.— MOSQUES.— GATES, TOMBS, AND PRIVATE DWELL INGS ........ Chap. IV. Departure for thebes.— dancing-girls.— slave-boat.— the RAMADAN. — DENDERA. — KENEH .... Chap. V. Thebes.— its history. — Libyan suburb.— tombs of the kings — MEDEENET HABOU. — MEMNONIUM. — LUXOR AND KARNAK 30 46 Ids Chap. VI. Thebes to esneh and edfou. — Assouan. — the catakacts.- rmi.E. — abusimbal. — meroe . IMS HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. SAMUEL SHARPE, ESQ. The Egyptians are the earliest people known to us as a nation. When Abraham entered the Delta from Canaan, they had already been long enjoying all the advantages of a settled government and established laws. While Abraham and his countrymen were moving about in tents and wag- gons, the Egyptians were living in cities. They had al- ready cultivated agriculture, and parcelled out their valley into farms : they reverenced a landmark as a god, while their neighbours knew of no property but herds and moveables. They had invented hieroglyphics, and im- proved them into syllabic writing, and almost into an alphabet. They had invented records, and wrote their kings' names and actions on the massive temples which they raised. Of course we have no means of counting the ages during which civilization was slowly making these steps of improvement. Overlooking, therefore, those years when the gods were said to have reigned upon earth, and Menes the fabulous founder of the monarchy, history be- gins with the earliest remaining records. These are, the HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. temple at Karnak, and the obelisk at Heliopolis, both raised by Osirtesen I. of Thebes, and the great pyramids built by Suphis and Sensuphis, kings of Memphis, with the tablets in the copper mines near Sinai, which record the conquest of that country by Suphis, and prove that those mines had been already worked by the Egyptians. Such was the state of Egypt in the time of Abraham. It was divided into several little kingdoms, whose boundaries can- not now be exactly known. In the valley to the south of Silsilis was the kingdom of Elephantine. Next was the kingdom of Thebes, which perhaps included all the valley to the east of the river. It had a port at iEnum on the Red Sea, and thus traded with Arabia. Next was the kingdom of This, or Abydos, on the west of the river, which had a little trade with the Great Oasis ; and then the king- dom of Heracleopolis also on the western bank. Next was the kingdom of Memphis, embracing the western half of the Delta, which in the reign of Suphis had been strong enough to conquer Thebes and the peninsula of Sinai. In the east of the Delta were the kingdoms of Bubastis and Tanis. It was in the time of these little monarchies that the Chaldeans and Phenician herdsmen were moving west- ward, and settling quietly in the Delta. But after a few generations, as their numbers increased, they took possession of some of the cities, and levied a tribute from the Egyp- tians. Their sovereigns were called the Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, who dwelt at Abaris, probably the city afterwards called Heliopolis, and they held their ground in HISTORICAL INTKnJH ( JI<>\. Eo-ypt for about six reigns. The tyranny, however, of the Hyksos at length led the states of Egypt to unite against them ; and Amasis, king of Thebes, making common cause with the kings of the other parts of Egypt, defeated these hateful but warlike Phenicians, and drove them out of the country. This may have taken place about fourteen hundred and fifty years before our era, and about two hundred years after the reign of Osirtesen I. With Amasis and the expulsion of the Shepherds began the reigns of those great Theban kings, whose temples, and statues, and obelisks, and tombs, have for more than three thousand years made the valley of the Nile a place of such interest to travellers. The kings of the other parts of Egypt sunk to the rank of sovereign priests. Amunothph I. gained Ethiopia by marriage. Thothmosis II., by his marriage with Queen Nitocris, the builder of the third pyramid, added Memphis to his dominions. Thothmosis IV. perhaps carved the great sphinx. Amunothph III. set up his two gigantic statues in the plain of Thebes, one of which uttered its musical notes every morning at sunrise. Oimenepthah I. added to the temples of Thebes and of Abydos. Rameses II. covered Egypt, and Ethiopia, and the coasts of the Red Sea, with his temples, and obelisks, and statues. He fought successfully against the neighbour- ing Arabs, and marched through Palestine to the shores of the Black Sea. Rameses III. still further ornamented Thebes with his architecture. It was at the beginning of this period, before Memphis was united to Thebes, that the Israelites settled in the HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. Delta, and Joseph, as prime minister of the king of Mem- phis, changed the laws of Lower Egypt. And it was after Thebes and Memphis were united, when Joseph's services had been forgotten, that Moses led his countrymen out of Egypt to escape the tyranny of their masters. The Egyptian religion at this time was the worship of a crowd of gods, of which some were stone statues, and others living animals ; and it was against these and other Egyptian superstitions that many of the laws of Moses are pointedly directed. The tombs of these kings are large rooms quarried into the Libyan hills opposite to Thebes, with walls covered with paintings still fresh, and with hieroglyphics which we are attempting to read. The columns which upheld their temples are the models from which the Greeks afterwards copied. Their statues, though not graceful, are grand and simple, free from false ornament, and often colossal. Their wealth was proverbial with the neighbouring nations ; and the remaining monuments of their magnificence prove that Egypt was at this time a highly civilized country, to which its neighbours looked up with wonder. The Jew- ish nation was weak and struggling with difficulties before the reign of David ; the history of Greece begins with the Trojan war ; but before the time of David and the Trojan war, the power and glory of Thebes had already passed away. Upper Egypt sunk under the rising power of the Delta. Theban prosperity had lasted for about five hun- dred years. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. B. C. 990. On the fall of Thebes, Shishank of Bubastis, the con- queror of Rehoboam, governed all Egypt, and recorded on the walls of the great Theban temple his victories over the Jews. But after his death Egypt was torn to pieces by civil wars. Zerah, king of Ethiopia, was able to march through the whole length of the land. For a few reigns the kingdom was governed by kings of Tanis. Then the kings of Ethiopia reigned in Thebes, and led the armies of Egypt to help the Israelites against their Assyrian masters. This unsettled state of affairs lasted nearly three hundred years, (luring which, as the prophet Isaiah had foretold, Egyptians fought against Egyptians, every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour, city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. It was put an end to by the city of Sais rising to the mastery, helped by the number of Greeks that had settled there, and by the greater skill in arms of the Greek mercenaries whom the kings of Sais took into their pay. Under the kings of Sais Egypt again enjoyed a high de- gree of prosperity. They were more despotic than the kings of Thebes. They hired Greek mercenaries, and struggled with the Babylonians for the dominion of Judea. Psammetichus conquered Ethiopia. Necho began the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. His sailors circum- navigated Africa. He conquered Jerusalem ; and when the Chaldees afterwards drove back the Egyptian army, the remnant of Judah, with the prophet Jeremiah, retreated 6 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. into Egypt to seek a refuge with king Hophra. The colony of Greeks at Naucratis, a little below Sais, now became more important. The Greek philosophers, Thales and Solon, visited the country, brought there by trade and the wish for knowledge. Hecataeus of Miletus went up as high as Thebes, and Pythagoras dwelt many years among the priests. But Egyptian greatness now rested on a weak foundation. Jealousy increased between the native soldiers and the more favoured Greek mercenaries. The armies in Asia met with a more powerful enemy than formerly. Nebuchadnezzar defeated them on the banks of the Eu- phrates. Cyrus reconquered the island of Cyprus ; and lastly, Cambyses overran Egypt, and reduced it to the rank of a Persian province. B. C. 523. For two hundred years Egypt suffered severely under its Persian rulers, or else from its own struggles for free- dom, when the Persian armies were called off by warfare in another quarter. Cambyses plundered the tombs and temples, broke the statues, and scourged the priests. Darius governed more mildly by native satraps ; but after his defeat at Marathon, the Egyptians rose and made them- selves independent for two or three years. Afterwards, when Bactria rebelled against Artaxerxes, they again rose and made Inarus and Amyrtaeus kings. Then for a few years Hellanicus, and Herodotus, and other inquiring Greeks, were able to enter the Nile, and study the customs of this remarkable people. When the Egyptians were HISTORICAL INTEOD1 CTION. < again conquered, Darius Nothus attempted to alter the re- ligion of the country. But when the civil war broke out between Artaxerxes Mncmon and the younger Cyrus, the Egyptians rebelled a third time against the Persians, and with the help of the Greeks were again an independent monarchy. Plato and Eudoxus then visited the country. The fourth conquest by the Persians was the last, and Egypt was governed by a Persian satrap, till by the union among the Greek states, their mercenaries were withdrawn from the barbarian armies, and Persia was conquered by Alexander the Great. B. C. 332. The Greeks had before settled in Lower Egypt in such numbers, that as soon as Alexander's army occupied Mem- phis, they found themselves the ruling class. Egypt be- came in a moment a Greek kingdom ; and Alexander showed his wisdom in the regulations by which he guarded the prejudices and religion of the Egyptians, who were henceforth to be treated as inferiors, and forbidden to carry arms. He founded Alexandria as the Greek capital. On his death, his lieutenant Ptolemy made himself king of Egypt, and was the first of a race of monarchs who governed for three hundred years, and made it a second time the chief kingdom in the world, till it sunk under its own luxuries and vices and the rising power of Rome. The Ptolemies founded a large public library, and a museum of learned men. Under their patronage Theocri- tus, Callimachus, Lycophron, and Apollonius Rhodius 8 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. wrote their poems ; Euclid wrote his Elements of Geome- try ; Apollonius of Perga invented Conic Sections ; Hip- parchus made a catalogue of the stars ; Eratosthenes measured the size of the earth ; the Bible was translated into Greek ; several of the Apocryphal books were written ; Homer was edited ; anatomy was studied. But poetry soon sunk under the despotism, and the writers were then contented to clothe science in verse. Aratus wrote an astronomical poem ; Manetho, an astrological poem ; Ni- cander, a medical poem ; and afterwards Dionysius, a geographical poem. Under these Alexandrian kings the native Egyptians continued building their grand and massive temples nearly in the style of those built by the kings of Thebes and Sais. The temples in the island of Philae, in the Great Oasis, at Latopolis, at Ombos, at Dendera, and at Thebes, prove that the Ptolemies had not wholly crushed the zeal and energy of the Egyptians. An Egyptian phalanx had been formed, armed and disciplined like the Greeks. These soldiers rebelled against the weakness of Epiphanes, but without success ; and then Thebes rebelled against Soter II., but was so crushed and punished, that it never again held rank among cities. But while the Alexandrians were keeping down the Egyptians, they were themselves sinking under the Ro- mans. Epiphanes asked for Roman help ; his two sons appealed to the senate to settle their quarrels and guard the kingdom from Syrian invasion ; Alexander II. was placed on the throne by the Romans ; and Auletes went to HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, Rome to ask for help against his subjects. Lastly, the beautiful Cleopatra, the disgrace of her country and the firebrand of the Republic, maintained her power by sur- rendering her person first to Julius Caesar, and then to Mark Antony. B. C. 30. On the defeat of Mark Antony by Augustus, Egypt became a province of Rome, and was governed by the emperors with suspicious jealousy. It was still a Greek state, and Alexandria was the chief seat of Greek learning and science. Its library, which had been burnt by Caesar's soldiers, had been replaced by that from Pergamus. The Egyptians yet continued building temples, and covering them with hieroglyphics as of old. But on the spread of Christianity, the old superstitions went out of use ; the animals were no longer worshipped ; and we find few hieroglyphical inscriptions after the reign of Commodus. Now rose in Alexandria the Christian Catechetical school, which produced Clemens and Origen. The sects of Gnostics united astrology and magic with religion. The school of Alexandrian Platonists produced Plotinus and Proclus. Monasteries were built all over Egypt ; Chris- tian monks took the place of the pagan hermits, and the Bible was translated into Coptic. A. D. 337. On the division of the Roman empire, Egypt fell to the lot of Constantinople. On the rise of the Arian con- 10 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. troversy, the Egyptians belonged to the Athanasian party, while the Greeks of Alexandria were chiefly Arians. Hence a new cause of weakness to the government. Under Theodosius, Paganism and Arianism were for- bidden by law, the library was burnt by the Athanasians, and the last traces of science retreated from Alexandria before ignorance and bigotry. The country fell off every year in civilization, in population, and in strength ; and when the Arabs, animated by religion, and with all the youth and vigour of a new people, burst forth upon their neighbours, Egypt was conquered by the followers of Mahomet, a. d. 640, six hundred and seventy years after it had been conquered by the Romans. CHAPTER I. DEPARTURE PROM MARSEILLES. — THE INDIA MAIL.— A SHIP RUN DOWN. — A GLANCE AT MALTA.— ALEXANDRIA. — ANCIENT AND MODERN CHARACTERISTICS.— PANO- RAMIC VIEW OF THE CITY.— ITS TOPOGRAPHY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS. On a bright day in the month of June, 1845, I found myself safely berthed on board the government steamer, and sur- rounded by the busy panorama of Marseilles and its crowded harbour. The time for our departure had expired, but something had detained the courier with the India mail, and re were becoming impatient, when boats were rapidly pushing through the crowded shipping. In one moment they were recognised as bringing the object of our anxious expecta- tion, in the next all hands were active in hoisting it on board, and in almost the next, the captain's " Go on " an- nounced that we were ofF. Few persons at home have any idea of the mass of correspondence thus conveyed : upwards of a hundred square boxes, carefully sealed and marked " India Mail outward," were consigned to the hold as we rapidly cleared the harbour and lost sight of the city. The impression of the vast importance of our distant empire thus made, was deepened by the character of the passengers on board : officers returning after leave of absence, others going out for the first time, veterans proceeding to distant governments, heads of com- mercial houses and junior clerks, correspondents of news- papers and restless tourists, together with an elegant Indian prince, who, tempted by the facility of intercourse, had visited England, and was now returning, and a young widow of Bom- . 12 A SHIP RUN DOWN. bay, whose weeds looked too becoming to allow the anticipation that they would be either renewed or over-worn, made up the company, all disposed, at this distance from home, to dispense with introductions, and to amalgamate cordially into one temporary family. The weather was at first beautiful, but on the second day be- came squally. We passed the rude wild mountains of Sardinia ; the wind sunk, but left a heavy swell, which kept me awake to a late hour in the night: suddenly I was alarmed by a loud noise on deck, much stamping, and cries of " Back her : " evi- dently some disastrous event was momentarily expected ; but whether we were about to run down a fishing boat, or were ourselves on the point of being crushed into the ocean depths by the keel of some monster ship of the line, was all uncertain. I leaped from my berth, and was groping across the cabin when the crash took place. It seemed trifling, as though we had but grazed another vessel, and I hastened up the gangway, quite relieved of my alarm. On the deck, however, all was confu- sion and clamour ; but in the midst of it the men were engaged in hastily letting down a boat : it was a dusky night ; our ship was rolling in the heavy sea, the wind was aft, and the smoke driven forward involved the look-out in obscurity, but I could see, although with difficulty, a brig pitching laboriously at a short distance. Shouts were heard on board her ; our boat put off, and was soon lost to sight among the rolling billows : all was sus- pense, when the cry burst out forward, that the brig was sink- ing. I strained my eyes through the gloom, and beyond the swelling ridges of water that successively traced their dark out- lines" - against the sky, distinctly saw the masts, but only for a moment ; in the next they had disappeared, and almost at the same time, a boat, deeply laden, was seen emerging from be- tween two gulfy waves, and making for us : this wild scene passed as rapidly and confusedly as a dream. The crowded boat was soon alongside, tossing dangerously in the swell : A GLANCE AT MALTA. 13 whom happily all had been saved, were hauled up to the deck. The first that came up was a hoy of only twelve or thirteen, alheit looking, in his blue woollen shirt and sailor's trousers, one of the finest little fellows I ever saw. Asleep in his rude cot, he had been hastily snatched from destruction, and stood scarcely awake, and quite confounded at his novel situation. We had struck the vessel amidships, and slight as the shock seemed to me, had completely torn open her side : the crew had barely time to throw themselves into the boat, and get clear of her, ere she filled and went down. The darkness, our blinding smoke, and the accidental going out of their lamp, which occasioned some mistake in their steering, were the causes of this misfortune, which cast its gloom over the rest of our short voyage to Malta. The next day the swell had subsided, a gentle breeze kept us steadily before the wind, the sky had resumed its deep cerulean, and after a glorious sunset, with the freshening wind, we cut swiftly through the seething billows, sparkling with phosphoric light, while the horizon flashed Avith the vivid summer light- ning. Indescribably beautiful arc such evenings in the Mediterranean; and as you approach the island of Malta, brilliantly arise from the dark blue sea the white Moresco- looking walls and domes of its capital, Valetta, bristling with fortifications ancient and modern, backed by a sky already nearly African, warm, lustrous, and soft, and without a particle of smoke to prevent the minutest and most distant objects from being relieved with the utmost clearness. One feels sensibly approaching the golden climate of the East. A few hours in this stronghold of the ancient knights of St. John of Jerusalem, is a delightful relief to the sameness of even a brief voyage. To any one coming for the first time from Northern Europe, the whole scene is singularly foreign. The white and yellow houses of the city arc piled picturesquely one above another, with their flat roofs, and large projecting green verandahs, surmounted by towers and domes of every variety of unaccustomed form, 14 A GLANCE AT MALTA. and with little vegetation, but that little consisting of orange trees, broad-leaved bananas, and patches of brilliant scarlet ge- raniums. On the quays, swarms of babbling lazzaroni mingling with sturdy seamen, on the cool flat roofs, groups of ladies wrapped from head to foot in their black silk mantillas, the noble harbour studded with men of war and steamers, the crowd of white-sailed feluccas, and gaily painted and draperied boats — present altogether a spectacle as novel and peculiar as it is brilliant. Strange and foreign looking, however, as the place appears at first, you have but to land to seem half at home. English soldiers in their familiar costume and erect disciplined bearing, and shops set out on the English model, might make you forget your distance from it ; but images of saints, and shrines, and priestly processions, followed by a crowd of bare-footed lazza- roni, soon restore the original impression, — while amid the " thunder of ten thousand tuneless bells," you ascend, jostled by a throng of importunate beggars, " those cursed streets of stairs," as Byron calls them, which lead up into the prin- cipal street, and to the famous church of St. John. The twenty-four hours allowed for our brief sojourn had however expired, and from the commanding height of the terraced promenade above Valetta I cast a parting look over the splendid panorama. There was our well-appointed vessel, getting up her steam, surrounded by a crowd of others, attracted to this central point, where the different lines of steamers employed in the transmission of correspondence do meet and congregate. Far different was the scene in this respect when I last traced the same route : instead of the prompt, rapid, and almost luxuri- ous conveyance which these afford, whatever be the port de- sired, I had then to wait three tedious weeks for the privilege of sailing in an old dirty Maltese brig. Fifteen days of suffering were then passed in the voyage to Egypt; the vessel was un- speakably filthy, swarming with rats, cock-roaches, and other vermin, and when after a prostration of several days by sickness AI.IA WD1UA. 15 I awoke to a sense of ravening hunger, musty biscuits, Sardines, and olives, and salt fish, all too dear even at the low price of sixpence per day, were the only viands to be obtained ; for in confiding ignorance of the state of the ship's stores, I had neg- lected to lay in any stock of provisions. And now again we were safe on board, and gliding out of the harbour. Domes and terraces, ramparts and quays, flew by. The fort of St. Angelo with its solitary ccntinel, and the meteor •flag of England waving from its battlements, succeeded, and then again the open sea, all sparkling and quivering with the warm reflected light. As we stretched away, the walls and towers massed into a glorious picture, bathed in that same rosy haze, now dying away, until all faded into indistinctness, and nothing met the eye but the stars sleeping in the pale azure, and the long track of phosphoric splendour, in which the glow- worms of the deep lay telling of the vagrant keel that had dis- turbed their slumbers. Our voyage through this summer sea was brief and prosperous. The sky grew warmer and warmer as we neared the coast of Africa, tinged, as it were, with a reflec- tion of the Libyan desert ; a soft purple hue, rather than the deep blue of Italy. On the fourth day appeared a long, low, yellow line of sand, scarcely visible above the azure sea, with a few distant palm trees, like black specks, and camels pacing slowly along the shore, announcing that we were on the threshold of those lands of which we have so often dreamed ; the hope of visiting which was perhaps, at one time, too ex- travagant for a moment's indulgence. Yet the first view of Alexandria, full as it is of historical reminiscences, is, in all other respects, more unimposing than that of any other city on the Mediterranean. A long line of windmills on a sandy ridge, the new light-house and palace built by the present pasha, and the tall column of Dioclcsian, the only visible wreck of the ancient city— such are the few prominent objects which rise above the dead level of the sea. The entrance to the harbour is difficult, but its spacious area is 16 ALEXANDRIA. thronged with ships of war, steamers, merchantmen, and all the smaller craft incident to extended traffic. For under the government of Mehemet Ali, this city, which is his principal residence, and the scene of his most important improvements, has experienced an immense development, and is likely to re- gain a large proportion of its ancient consequence. Of this Campbell, in a few graphic sentences, sets before us a striking picture. " Alexandria was the greatest of all the cities founded by a conqueror who built even more than he destroyed. He meant to revive in Alexandria the glory of Tyre, which he had ruined ; and though he lived not to finish its noblest works, he was their real projector. Alexander in person traced the plan of the new city, and his architect, Dinarchus, directed its execu- tion. He designed the shape of the whole after that of a Macedonian cloak, and his soldiers strewed meal to mark the line where its walls were to rise. These, when finished, en- closed a compass of eighty furlongs filled with comfortable abodes, and interspersed with palaces, temples, and obelisks of marble porphyry, that fatigued the eye with admiration. The main streets crossed each other at right angles, from wall to wall with beautiful breadth, and to the length, if it may be credited, of nearly nine miles. At their extremities the gates looked out on the gilded barges of the Nile, of fleets at sea under full sail, on a harbour that sheltered navies, and a light- house that was the mariner's star, and the wonder of the world. " The first inhabitants brought together into this capital of the West, were a heterogeneous mass that seemed hardly to promise its becoming the future asylum of letters and science. Egyptians, impressed with ancient manners and maxims, that had no sociality with the rest of the world — Jews, degraded by dependency, yet still regarding themselves as the only children of God — Macedonians, whose ruling passion was military pride — proper Greeks, who despised all the rest of mankind — and fugitive Asiatics, that were the sweepings of other conquests." l-ol'l NATION OF AI.KX \M)KIA. " There was nothing of the old Egyptian gravity and stability of character, says Sharpe, amidst the Alexandrian populace. Cor- rupted by wealth, and destitute of freedom, they seemed eager after nothing but food and horse races, those never-failing bribes for which the idle of every country will sell all that a man should hold most dear. A scurrilous song or a horse race would so rouse them into a quarrel, they could not hear for their own noise. They made but second-rate soldiers, while as singing-boys at the supper tables of the wealthy Romans they were much sought after, and all the world acknowledged that there were no fighting cocks equal to those reared by the Alexandrians." The splendour thus described has left scarce a wreck be- hind ; science and the muses have long since advanced west- ward; but in the character of the population, at least, there remains a strong resemblance to the ancient city of the Ptole- mies. Sullen repulsive-looking Copts replace the exclusive old Egyptians, their reputed ancestors ; Greeks and Jews too swarm as before, both, possibly, changed a little for the worse ; nor would it perhaps be any great injustice to the mass of Levantines, or, with of course honourable exceptions, to the Franks, who make up the sum of the population, even now to designate them as the " sweepings " of their respective coun- tries. The streets swarm with Turks in splendid many- coloured robes, half naked brown-skinned Arabs, glossy Negroes in loose white dresses and vermilion turbans, sordid shabby-looking Israelites in greasy black, smart, jaunty, rakish Greeks, staid heavy-browed Armenians, unkempt, unwashed Maltese ragamuffins, and Europeans of every shade of respect- ability, from lordly consuls down to refugee quacks and swind- lers, and criminals who here get whitewashed and established anew. Here a Frank lady in the last Parisian bonnet ; there Turkish women enveloped to the eyes in shapeless black wrap- pers ; while dirty Christian monks, sallow Moslem dervishes, sore-eyed beggars, naked children covered with flics, and troops c 18 ALEXANDRIA LANDING. of wandering, half savage dogs, with, all the ordinary spectacles of Wapping and Portsmouth, present a singular and ever- shifting kaleidoscope of the most undignified phases of East- ern and Western existence, a perpetual carnival of the motley. To land in the midst of all this is some trial of the temper ; though one hardly knows whether to be more amused or pro- voked at the indefatigable donkey boys ; who, before you have well set foot on the soil of this historic land, rush upon you simultaneously with their animals, and threaten to force you back again into the element you have just escaped, almost pulling you to pieces in the scuffle of which you are the object ; assailing you the while in a deafening chorus of invitations and oaths in ludicrous variety, in a mingled Eastern and Western dialect. Jumping on the nearest beast you can contrive to mount, no easy matter among the crowd of furious competitors, and opening a passage through the rest by the free use of any instrument at command, preferring, if attainable, a stout corbash made of bull-hide, that being the only convincing argument with an Alexandrian ass-boy — you advance at a full trot of the lively little animal, followed by the clamorous imp of a driver, ALEXANDRIA — HOTELS. 1!) whose thundering blows upon its crupper, make you some- what uneasy for the safety of your own ribs. Through unpaved streets, of half Oriental, half European aspect, in the lowest stylo of both countries, and which have been evidently run up in haste among the mud hovels of the poorer Arabs and the ruins of former buildings, you fly past shops kept bv Greeks, Maltese, Italians, French, and sometimes, though rarely, by English ; who appear, in keeping with the town, dressed in a half European, half Asiatic style, very dirty and very gro- tesque, till, finally, you emerge into the great square, an open, unpaved expanse, where are situated the different consulates, hotels, and cafes, and the comptoirs of the most wealthy mer- chants. This is of course the modern part of the city, and its appearance is striking. The buildings are all in the French and Italian style, spacious and handsome. The Greek and French consulates, in particular, have extensive facades, but the principal ornament will undoubtedly be found in a new and beautiful church, of original and happy design, about to be built for the English Protestants, and which is intended to occupy a conspicuous part of the square. Some years ago there was no tolerable hotel at Alexandria : the two now established are large, rambling, and comfortless places, though, all things considered, surprisingly good for Egypt. The passage of Indian travellers has given rise to them, and is of course their chief support ; and a singular- scene of bustle and confusion occurs, when tide meets tide, and comers and goers mingle for a few brief hours, in this half-way house between London and Calcutta; where fresh rosy faces from the one, full of eager curiosity and anticipation, are seen side by side with the languid, exhausted, apathetic exiles, re- turning from the other. Shortly after I took up my abode at " Ray's," the mail ar- rived from Bombay, and as it was high noon, and very hot, and a great scramble for rooms was going on, I had locked myself quietly into my chamber " au second," to read. One ~0 SCENE IN THE SQUARE. after another rushed up-stairs, and tried the handle of the door in quest of a dormitory for himself, but to no purpose. When the hubbub had subsided, I got up to depart, but on turning the door handle, found that some one had fastened me in. How to get out was the question — bells there were none — and I went to the window to watch for somebody, who, peradven- ture, would come up to release me. Meanwhile a most amus- ing scene was going on in the square below. Some twenty or thirty donkey-boys had wedged in the hotel door to pounce upon the new comers as they emerged, all dressed and ready to start on a ramble to the lions of Alexandria. As they suc- cessively came forth, both ladies and gentlemen, a general rush was made upon them, their toes were trodden on, and their coats and gowns nearly torn off their backs in the scramble lor their possession ; one or two ladies being pulled down by rival boys from the asses upon which they had mounted, to the no small detriment of their dress and delicacy. The battle now raged — the clamour was deafening — the Englishmen's blood was up ; they struck out fiercely with fists and sticks, but when menaced with a knock-down blow, the Alexandrian boy has a knack of thrusting up the head of his donkey to receive the shock, while he dodges behind, which is rather discouraging to an assailant. As one was driven back another filled his place. My tears were running down with laughter at the hopeless predicament of the travellers, and I was wonder- ing how they woidd ever contrive to get out, when I was startled by an apparition which instantly changed the state of affairs. A tall gaunt figure, more than six feet high, leaped from a side shop, with a tremendous yell, into the midst of the belligerents. He was armed with a leathern thong, (which, by the way, every Egyptian traveller should procure,) very thick, and even longer than his own long body — this he grasped firmly by the middle, and plied right and left with such amazing address and vigour, that neither boy nor beast could stand it for a moment. The rout was instantaneous, and AN OLD FHIENI) FOUND. Jl the discomfiture complete. There was a general scatter of the ass- boys all over the square, the Anglo-Indians were free, and their great deliverer, with a grave bow to them, which might have befitted the knight of La Mancha himself, turned round to re-enter his abode. In doing so his features were revealed, I instantly recognised him, and seizing a slipper, directed it with unerring precision upon the top of his hat, at the same time shouting his name at the highest pitch of my lungs. He looked upwards to my whereabout with a countenance inflamed with wrath, which gave place to a grim smile as he recognised the features of an old acquaintance. I bawled forth my predica- ment, whereupon, hurrying into the hotel, he ran up-stairs and released me from my durance. In what strange ways does a traveller frequently fall in with those with whom he was long since intimate ! Here was a friend I had sailed with some years before in the Archipelago, and in whose society I had per- formed quarantine in the old Lazaret of Syra, a barrack swarm- ing with rats, and almost pestilential with filth. Many an ad- venture we had together, and many a good story he told me, though this is not the place to dwell upon either. Suffice it to say, that after being battered about from place to place in the Levant, he had at length contrived to find a quiet haven in the city of Alexandria. From the balconies of these hotels, the view over the great square is amusing, still presenting the same mixed and semi- oriental character. The elegant equipages of the consuls, and the plain attire of the well-mounted Frank gentlemen, and their numerous compatriots of lower degree on donkeys or on foot, contrast boldly with the costume of the natives. The ' Fellahs,' or Egyptian Arabs, (who are supposed by some to be, rather than the Copts, the real descendants of the ancient Egyptians, of course with some modification,) although they fulfil the offices of labourers, porters, water-carriers, 'sais' or grooms, and donkey drivers, interest the spectator at once as a fine race ; and there is something very graceful and antique in the ap- 22 THE ' FELLAHS AND THEIR HOVELS. pearance at a little distance, for they -will rarely bear close inspection, of the lower class of the females; untrammelled by tight garments of any sort, their costume consisting of a long loose blue robe, their hands and feet being uncovered, the wrists and ancles adorned with bracelets, their gait is easy and noble, and the necessity of bearing their water jars on their heads, or their naked children on their shoulders, causes them to assume an erect position, and gives them their full stature. Their mud-built hovels, which the first storm destroys, in the midst of heaps of filth and offal, are the favourite resort of troops of those half-savage and masterless curs, that fiercely assail any one who attempts to penetrate into their quarter. Childhood, which, among the poorer class in other countries, often flour- ishes in the midst of poverty and squalor, in its happy buoy- ancy, here seems the most wretched period of existence ; the meagre listless infants, covered with dirt and flies, which form a black ring around their apparently weak diseased eyes, present a distressing spectacle. Yet, with all the hardships and oppression they suffer, the Arabs, even of the lowest class, are a most immeasurably noisy, lively, mercurial people. Their woes sit more lightly on them than on our own overworked and degraded poor, whom nothing but the gin shop can arouse ; for one can hardly go out into the open spaces of the suburbs without falling in with groups, assembled round some musician or story-teller, filling their imaginations with all the wonders of oriental romance, into which they can retreat from the wretchedness of their real present condition. Passing through these mingled currents of Eastern and "Western life, I had an excellent view of the remarkable man, at whose bidding they have poured into Alexandria, and given to her a phcenix-like prosperity. He rode slowly by on horse- back ; I was struck with his bearing, and with the searching glance of his quick grey eyes. His appearance is dignified, and very different from that of the late Ibrahim, his son, whose traits were wholly coarse and unrefined. ANCIENT ALEXANDRIA. 2:5 Leaving the noise and bustle of the great square, a few minutes' walk brings us among the towering mounds which entomb the ancient city ; white villas with gardens of waving palms start up at intervals, among the desolations of ages ; new roads and avenues pierce through the accumulated sand and rubbish, and disclose sculptured fragments and yawning found- ations, sometimes bringing forth even treasures of art; and as these changes are still further carried on, much light will doubtless be thrown upon many obscure points in the topo- graphy. To obtain an idea of the comparative site of the ancient and modern cities, it is well to ascend to the height of Fort Cretin, but a few minutes' ride from the great square. The view hence over the Mediterranean, the two harbours, the lake Mareotis, and the entire area of splendid and populous Alexandria, is so complete, that it requires little stretch of imagination to recall vividly the many illustrious actors on this memorable theatre, and the scenes in which they have figured, from its foundation even to our day. This will appear from the detailed description which accompanies the careful pano- ramic sketch taken from this point. The island of Pharos had long been used as a shelter for vessels, and a small town called Rhacotis existed there, but, as already stated, it was to Alexander that the idea first occurred of taking full advantage of the site for the establishment of a great commercial city. In the panoramic sketch, the position of the island is seen extending from the point on which stands the new light-house to that occupied by the old castle — the site of the celebrated Pharos, erected by the architect' Sostratus of Cnidus, by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, which was counted one of the wonders of the world. The island was united to the main-land by a causeway called the Hepta- stadium, through which there was a communication from one harbour to the other ; this, in the course of ages, has become, like that of Tyre, broad enough to serve as the site of the greater part of the modern city. Of the double harbour formed 24 ANCIENT ALEXANDRIA. by this causeway, the eastern, now called the old harbour, was originally the most important ; and around it, on the land which, as appears in the sketch, is now nearly clear of build- ings, stood formerly the quarter called Bruchion, contain- ing the palace, the museum, with the library, theatre, &c, all remains of which have utterly perished. The site of the Cresarium, or temple of Csesar, is marked by the two obelisks, one of which is now prostrate, called Cleopatra's needles ; and beyond the projecting rock, mid- way between these monuments and Lochias point, stood, at the end of a mole, the Timonium, so called because built by Antony, for his desponding retire- ment after the battle of Actium. This, it is hardly necessary to say, was the principal quarter of Alexandria, that to which its historical interest principally belongs. On the other side of Cleopatra's needles, were the market and the docks, occupy- ing, as Wilkinson supposes, the site of the great square, and extending to the Heptastadium. There was an island called the Antirhodus, now destroyed — it is supposed by the action of the sea, and within its shelter a closed port belonging to the palace. No details of the western harbour are given by Strabo, the only point noticed being the artificial basin of Rhacotis, whence a canal went off to the lake Mareotis, as at present. This harbour, anciently called Eunostus, is now the principal one ; and on the shore are the palace of the pasha and the arsenal. The modern city chiefly occupies, as will be seen, the intervening space between the two harbours, but it is extending gradually inland. The whole of the space between the sea and the lake Mareotis, was covered by the ancient city. Two great streets, a hundred feet wide, inter- sected it at right angles, the general direction of which may still be traced; one of these passed from the lake Mareotis, below Pompey's pillar, to the great harbour, so that the ship- ping was visible at each extremity. It will be seen that but a very small part of the immense site of the ancient city is now built upon ; an irregular wall encloses about half of it, but ILLAR OF DIOCLE1 o s NEW PORT ==0=3... . .. 11 it fi -'^l—. St ' "'^0^^ ' :\ -t^g~zS-- P /€ I S \ 1 24 ANCIENT ALEXANDRIA. by this causeway, the eastern, now called the old harbour, was originally the most important ; and around it, on the land which, as appears in the sketch, is now nearly clear of build- ings, stood formerly the quarter called Bruchion, contain- ing the palace, the museum, with the library, theatre, &c, all remains of which have utterly perished. The site of the Cassarium, or temple of Caesar, is marked by the two obelisks, one of which is now prostrate, called Cleopatra's needles ; and beyond the projecting rock, mid- way between these monuments and Lochias point, stood, at the end of a mole, the Timonium, so called because built by Antony, for his desponding retire- ment after the battle of Actium. This, it is hardly necessary to say, was the principal quarter of Alexandria, that to which its historical interest principally belongs. On the other side of Cleopatra's needles, were the market and the docks, occupy- ing, as Wilkinson supposes, the site of the great square, and extending to the Heptastadium. There was an island called the Antirhodus, now destroyed — it is supposed by the action of the sea, and within its shelter a closed port belonging to the palace. No details of the western harbour are given by Strabo, the only point noticed being the artificial basin of Rhacotis, whence a canal went off to the lake Mareotis, as at present. This harbour, anciently called Eunostus, is now the principal one ; and on the shore are the palace of the pasha and the arsenal. The modern city chiefly occupies, as will be seen, the intervening space between the two harbours, but it is extending gradually inland. The whole of the space between the sea and the lake Mareotis, was covered by the ancient city. Two great streets, a hundred feet wide, inter- sected it at right angles, the general direction of which may still be traced; one of these passed from the lake Mareotis, below Pompey's pillar, to the great harbour, so that the ship- ping was visible at each extremity. It will be seen that but a very small part of the immense site of the ancient city is now built upon ; an irregular wall encloses about half of it, but MODERN ALEXANDRIA EUNOSTUS OLD PO R' S L A N D OF EL W P O R. ^:v ,jU i f oiil^^SP^: ^^jHH g - - - ~~ :" - " ■ :■:.'■ ...■••■ ANCIKNT AI.K\AM)i;i \. even this space is barely dotted here and there with modern villas, mosques, and convents, enclosed in extensive gardens of date-palms, thinly scattered among the immense mounds which cover in the ruins of this once so magnificent city. Of its numerous public and private monuments, the only standing are the so called ' needles of Cleopatra,' and ' Pompey's pillar.' One of the former obelisks, more ancient than the foundation of the city, still remains, erect among its ruinous heaps. It is supposed to have been brought from Iicliopolis, the seat of all the wisdom of the Egyptians, until this became transferred to Alexandria ; it bears the name of Thotmes III., and its lateral hieroglyphics that of the great Eameses. Pom- pey's pillar, as it is commonly called, stands on the lonely mounds overlooking the lake Mareotis and the modern city. It is a noble column ; the shaft, a single block of red granite, about seventy feet high ; the total height being ninety-five feet ; its substructions were once under the level of the ground, and formed part of a paved area. Mr. Sharpe, indeed, supposes this to have been the site of the Serapion, and from the Arab histori- ans cited by Mr. Lane, it appears that in the days of Anier, the Arab conqueror of Egypt, it belonged to a magnificent building, containing the library which was burnt by order of the caliph Omar. No less than four hundred columns are described as having surrounded it, which were thrown into the sea. An in- scription on the column shows it to have been erected, some contend only dedicated anew, by Publius, prefect of Egypt to the emperor Diocletian. The monks of the Coptic convent, seen in the view, claim still to possess the relics of St. Mark, who suffered martyrdom at Alexandria, and whose remains were said to have been transported to Venice. Beyond these isolated monuments there is little else which might seem even to point out the site of other famous struc- tures ; though there can be no doubt that, if the city increases, as excavation prevails, further discoveries will be made, some objects of great value having been already dug up. The cata- c 26 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ALEXANDRIA. combs, to the west of the city, would alone testify to its former extent, though only one of the monuments merits particular notice, an elegant excavation with a Greek fagade of great purity of style. In the panorama the site of Caesar's camp is also indicated, the scene of the engagement where fell the gallant Aber- crombie ; and a few miles farther, in the same direction, is the memorable bay of Aboukir. An Englishman is in little danger of forgetting that, in addition to the common stock of historical associations connected with Alexandria, he has many peculiar to himself. If Shakspeare, by his magical creations, could make of Venice " a fairy city of the heart ; " the same potent enchanter has cast his spells over the desolate shore of the Bruchion — the scene of the luxury and despair of the Egyptian queen and her Roman lover. And the valour of England, no less than her genius, has hallowed the surrounding land and sea with a host of imperishable recollections. The ancient and modern history of Alexandria alone would fill a volume, and one, too, of the most stirring interest. But this is altogether beyond our province, and we can but allude to its principal vicissitudes. Its rapid growth and the splendour it ultimately attained fully justified the anticipations of the Mace- donian conqueror. Gradually withdrawing from other chan- nels, the commerce of Arabia and India with the West flowed through Egypt, by way of the ports of the Red Sea, the Nile, and the ancient canal leading to this unrivalled emporium, and continued thus, both under the Ptolemies and the Romans, until the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. Science also, fostered by the munificence of the Ptole- mies, retired from her ancient scat at Heliopolis to this city. " The sages of the Museum, who lodged in that part of the palace of the Lagides, might there be said to live as the priests of the muses, taking the word in a wide sense, as the patronesses of knowledge. They had gardens, and alleys, and galleries, where they walked and conversed ; a common hall, where they lM'.STKrri'ION OF TIIK LIBRARY. 27 made their repasts ; and public rooms, where they gave instruc- tion to the youth who crowded from all parts of the world to hear their lectures. This museum, a unique establishment in literary history, was founded by Ptolemy Soter. And with regard to medicine, mathematics, mechanics, and astronomy, the shades of the greatest modern reformers of Europe would surely inform xis that science cannot look back too gratefully to the memory of Alexandria."* The celebrated library of the Ptolemies' collection, ultimately amounted to seven hundred thousand volumes ; four hundred thousand Avcre contained in the library of this museum, the remaining three hundred thousand in that attached to the temple of Serapis.f The former was accidentally destroyed in the war of Julius Csesar with the Alexandrians ; and the remaining collection, after various losses and transmutations, till it is supposed ultimately to have largely consisted rather of works of theological con- troversy than of literature and science, met its fate at the hands of the fanatic caliph Omar, at the time of the Mohammedan conquest, who ordered its destruction, on the ground that if the contents of the books were agreeable to the word of God, i. e. the Koran, there could be no need of them, and if the contrary, they ought not to exist ; and they were accordingly used for heating the four thousand baths of the great city of the West, as it is styled by Omar in his letter to the caliph, which then contained, besides four thousand palaces, four hundred theatres or places of amusement, twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetables, and forty thousand tributary Jews. Eapidly, indeed, must the trade and wealth of Alexandria have declined under the combined and ruinous disadvantages of the Moslem rule, and the new course of the Indian trade, until just before the time of Mehemet Ali, when it was a miserable place of a few thousand inhabitants, cut off from the valley of the Nile by the ruin of the ancient canal. Under his Campbell's Lectures. f Wilkinson. 28 IMPROVEMENTS BY MEHEMET ALL government it has greatly revived both in political and com- mercial importance, and the re-opening of the canal has re- stored to its harbour all the trade of Egypt. While the overland communication with India, if it has not brought back the whole of this branch of commerce into its old channel, seems to open up prospects of increasing interest on this ground also. To the traveller, anxious for the moment which shall disclose to him the wonders of the land of the Pharaohs, Alexandria is but a dull place, though in the way of society there are more resources than elsewhere. But he is here on the threshold of Egypt, which he is impatient to overleap and proceed onward. " Though the rest of Egypt was governed by Egyptian laws and judges," says Mr. Sharpe, " the city of Alexandria was under Macedonian law. It did not form part of the nome of Hermo- polites, in which it was built. It scarcely formed a part of Egypt, but was a Greek state in its neighbourhood, holding the Egyptians in a state of slavery. In that city, no Egyptian could live without feeling himself of a conquered race : he was not admitted except by an especial favour to the privileges of Macedonian citizenship, while they were at once granted to every Greek and to every Jew who would settle there. Hence, although the city was crowded with Egyptians who kept the shops and filled the lower ranks, and though the Greeks must often have married Egyptian wives, yet here these mixed races were never melted down into Egyptians. Whenever, during the reigns of the Ptolemies, the citizens of the capital of Egypt met in public assembly in the Gymnasium, they were addressed, " Ye men of Macedonia." We shall not pause here to speak of the modern improve- ments by Mehemet Ali, which have justly excited the astonish- ment of travellers. The new palace, the arsenal, the numerous ships of war, vying in appearance at least with the proudest of European navies, the extension of the fortifications, &c, may well demand our admiration as the creation of one man ; they have but these trifling drawbacks, that they are utterly dispro- IMPROVEMENTS BY MEHEMET ALL 29 portionate to the wants and means of Egypt, hastily got up by foreign rather than native energy, at the expense of the heart's blood of the country, which, has been rapidly depopulat- ing, and utterly draining of its vital resources, till the unhappy population have sunk to the lowest depth of misery. To the superficial observer, Egypt may indeed appear to be about to arise from her long depression, and to assume again a rank among the nations ; but the spasmodic effort can only result in a profound exhaustion, unless, indeed, a far different and humaner system were pursued. Perhaps Mehemet Ali may be said rather to have destroyed than built up — destroyed, that is, what remained of the old Mohammedan system, and, by his numerous innovations, prepared the way for the con- struction of a new. Tottering, as he is, on the verge of the grave, he may die, perhaps, while these sheets are going through the press ;* and then what is to be the issue of all his ambitious schemes, and what is to be the fate of Egypt ? These are questions of which it may be imprudent to hazard just now the solution. * The event has justified this anticipation— he died on the 2nd of August, 1819. CHAPTER II. DEPARTURE FROM ALEXANDRIA. — THE CANAL.— FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NILE VALLEY. — ITS AGRICULTURE AND ANIMALS. — ANTIQUITY OF EGYPT. — SALS AND NAUCRATIS. — FIRST SIGHT OF THE Pl'RA.MIDS. — ARRIVAL AT CAIRO. On a former visit to Egypt, before the introduction of steamers between Alexandria and Cairo, I was compelled to begin my troubles at the former city, i. e. to provide myself with a servant, hire a boat, procure carpet, mattress and bedding, lay in a store of provisions, and a " batterie de cuisine," with a variety of minor articles, which would fill a page or two to enumerate. But now, as opportunities occur by the steamer every few days, and as a comfortable hotel awaits the traveller's arrival at Cairo, he needs not to encumber him- self with such matters beforehand, unless, indeed, he is desirous of hiring a house or lodgings at the metropolis. There is so little to see between Alexandria and Cairo, that the saving of time and discomfort by steaming is very great. I have a feeling remembrance of the weary hours passed, during a former journey on the canal, in a huge slow-moving Djerm, with a crowded company of the lower class of Egyptians, and of the horrid consequences of unavoidable proximity with their filthy persons and populous garments. Now a clean and comfortable barge, towed by a small steamer, in a third of the time, brings you to Atfeh, where you are transferred to another snug steamboat waiting for you on the Nile, and in about twelve hours reach Cairo. This canal, seventy miles in length, which connects the port of Alexandria with the Rosctta THF. CANAL MISI'.KY OK TIIK 1' KOIT.K. :;i branch of the Nile, was cut in 1819, by Mehcmct Ali, and is a fair sample at once of the important improvements intro- duced by him, at the suggestion, it is said, of Mr. Briggs ; and of the reckless, despotic haste, bungling mismanagement, and even cruel indifference to the claims and sufferings of his sub- jects, with which they arc effected. A levy was ordered, and action ; but, owing to the want of a proper supply of provisions, or even tools, they were compelled to labour with their hands. The excavations were lower than the level of the sea, often deep in the mud, and thus, without adequate food or shelter from the deleterious atmosphere, and hurried on with barbarous indifference to life, thirty thousand are said to have perished in the course of the seven months in which the work was completed. The canal, dull as it is, is somewhat animated by the constant passage of boats laden with the rich produce of the Valley of the Nile ; rice, corn, and cotton, for shipment at Alexandria — to enrich alone the grasping ruler and a few merchants, without leaving a trace of prosperity or comfort among the unhappy people from whose confiscated lands it is reaped, and by whose ill-paid labours it is produced. There is little to see on its banks beyond a distant glimpse of Aboukir Bay. One is weary, even before reaching the Nile, at the characteristics of wretchedness which every where meet the eye, — at the universal presence of the squalid mud dwelling or hovel of the Fellah, the naked filthy children basking among hosts of yelping dogs, and the clamorous, greasy, blear- eyed population, whose tattered garments seem alive with vermin, — at the disgusting anomaly of men, who, when engaged in boating, often divest themselves of every rag, while the women, veiled to the eyes, are striving to hide their ugly faces, — with many other indescribable spectacles, which indicate too plainly the absence of ordinary decency in a degraded people. In vain you look for the presence of any middle order ; with few exceptions, all appear alike, there is but one 32 FIRST lMl'KKSSlONS OF TH K NILE. class, and that sunk in a wide-spreading dead uniformity of misery, — all indicates the existence of a race of slaves, who owe to kind nature, to the lightsome temperament induced by the serenity of the climate, and the few wants it occasions, the only mitigation of their unhappy condition, of which misgovern- ment and tyranny are unable to deprive them. Notwithstanding the very great conveniences enjoyed in travelling by a steamer, I shall always rejoice that my first impressions on the Nile were received in another kind of craft. I arrived at Atfeh, where the canal joins the river, in the evening, and found a small boat belonging to the then existing Transit Company, newly painted and fitted. A servant was on board to provide for and attend the hirer. Though it could not be deemed an economical conveyance, it was, for the size, exceedingly comfortable, and fitted with every requisite save bedding, which I had with me. It had, moreover, the honourable distinction of being the fastest sailer on the river, as I soon perceived, to my great satisfaction, by leaving every thing behind. Happily, I had not yet learned the trifling drawback to this advantage which afterwards came to light, that from its sharp build and the heavy press of sail that it carried, it had been more than once capsized. I hastened on board ; the sun had sunk and given place to a rosy twilight, and the moon peeped up above the rich level of the Delta. And here I must notice, that what reconciles the traveller to this land of plagues — of flies and beggars, of dogs and dust and vermin, is not alone the monumental wonders on the banks of the Nile, but the beauty of the climate, the lightness of the air, inspiring a genial luxury of sensation, the glorious unfailing sun-set and serene twilight, reflected in the noble river, and casting over the hoary remains of antiquity a glow and gorgcousness of hue which heightens their melan- choly grandeur, and gilding over a mud village until even its filth and misery are forgotten. I mounted the roof of the little cabin as the broad latine sail swelled smoothly under the A DEAD CALM. 33 pressure of the Etesian wind, which, at this season of the inundation, by a wonderful provision of nature, blows steadily from the north, thus alone enabling vessels to stem the powerful current of the rising Nile. I had embarked on that ancient and sacred river, renewing before my eyes its majestic current, diffusing the same blessings to its rich valley as it had done in the days when Egypt was a mighty kingdom, when Thebes and Memphis and the pyramids arose upon its borders. The rich fans of the plume-like palms on the banks were painted on the warm glow of the westward horizon, the level valley with its wealth of production spread away in dusky haze, but the breeze brought off from the shore its odorous musky fragrance, lamps twinkled in the cottages, and cast their reflections into the glassy stream — the noise and babble of the Fellahs, and sounds of the Darrabuka, or Egyptian drum, came off and died away as we sailed past the villages on the bank. The boat, with her broad sails and her long wake whitening in the moon, and her Arab crew, lying upon deck, chanting their peculiar and plaintive songs, flew rapidly along through those historic waters. I sat up to a late hour, so delightful was my first impression of the patriarch of rivers. But on the following morning the scene was wholly changed. On awaking, we were close to the alluvial chocolate-coloured bank, the rich deposit of countless inundations, and the crew on shore were engaged in the toilsome task of tracking or hauling the boat, (a process represented on the ancient sculp- tures,) to the music of a monotonous chant, which they seemed scarce able to utter. There was not a breath of air, and the warm, soft, cloudless sky was reflected back from the glassy surface of the broad yellow river. The heat was close and overpowering. Hours like these, of which the traveller on the Nile must make up his mind to not a few, are indeed awfully wearisome. It is too hot to go on shore and walk through the deep dust of the unsheltered bank, and cooped up and panting for breath in the narrow cabin of your boat, you seem doomed, 34 MOSQUITOES AND FLIES. ere the ardours of noon abate, to be roasted alive, like a crab in its own shell. Every thing inspires listless, restless, irritable ennui, only to be alleviated, if haply at all, by the fumes of the consoling pipe. It is well if, when thus becalmed and panting in a Nile boat, you are exempt (as from the recent painting and cleansing of mine was happily my case) from the company of bugs, fleas, cockroaches, and other creatures more minute and " familiar to man." But to the incursions of flies and mosqui- toes you lie helplessly exposed. The former, stingless though they be, may fairly take the lead as the principal of Egypt's plagues, and at the bare recollection of past sufferings one cannot help being animated with a feeling of vengeance. Their name is legion. You can neither eat nor drink without the risk of swallowing them, nor doze, or read, or draw, without a constant trial of temper from their incessant trailing over your eyes and ears and nostrils. The natives, being used to it, contrive to drop off into an uneasy slumber, but for a new comer this is a hopeless attempt. You sit all day with a fly-switch in your hand, and though a dozen times you rise in murderous mood, and clear the walls of the THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. S5 cabin with wholesale slaughter, a few moments afterwards they blacken its panels as before, and you piteously invoke the breeze which would perhaps disperse the buzzing swarm of your mud-born tormentors, or, peradventure, waft you beyond their reach. In the fat slime of the Delta they are particularly numerous and active. I was told by a friend, who one evening pitched his tent on this rich level, that in addi- tion to these plagues, he was visited by a numerous company of toads, which he kicked out of his tent without much ceremony. One, however, was accidentally left behind; upon which, recumbent on his carpet in the midst of a tormenting swarm of flies and mosquitoes, the traveller's eye mechanically rested. The creature, ' perdu ' in his nook, was deeply intent on snap- ping up fly after fly as they darted past his open maw ; upon which sight my friend immediately arose, and drove in again the whole company of the toads, in the hope of some trifling diminution, through their exertions, of the number of his petty tormentors. In addition to these, equally to be dreaded ashore or afloat, many and sore are the land plagues peculiar to Egypt, and no one who has been accustomed to a northern climate and a civilized country, can form any adequate idea of the annoyance they occasion. The troops of clamorous beggars, their eternal chorus for ' beckshish,' which every where encount- ers the traveller, — the alarming results of contact with the tattered garments and filthy persons of the claimants, — the eternal howling of dogs by which he is every where beset, some of which are savage and dangerous, — the whirlwinds of hot suffocating dust amidst which he must grope his way to tomb and temple, irritate alike his eyes, lungs, and temper, and too often convert his enthusiasm to fury. There is much that is at first amusing even on the lower Nile, though the scenery is, on the whole, somewhat monoton- ous. The villages of mud huts, embowered in palm groves that line the bank, with their pretty white minarets, and their noisy babbling crowd of Fellahs, — the glimpses of the vivid 36 SCENE UPON THE RIVER, t. green valley and its yellow desert boundary, like life and death in startling juxtaposition and contrast, — the sandy shoals covered with pelicans or ibises of brilliant white plumage, large flights of wild fowls and of pigeons from the villages, — the picturesque boats with their gay-coloured passengers, — the men paddling along on rafts of water melons or pottery, — the little thronged cafes under the deep shade of a grove of syca- more and palms, — the creaking ' Sakias,' or water-wheels used for the purpose of irrigation, all form a sort of slow, moving panorama, which, seen under a brilliant sky, by their lively novelty, serve to amuse for a while the tedium of our noonday progress. Though the characteristics of the scene have never materially changed, the river must have been infinitely more lively in former times, and the boats innumerable, from the state vessels of the kings and principal personages, with their high prows, hieroglyphic inscriptions, banks of oars, and brilliantly painted and richly ornamented sails, down to the ordinary pass- age boat for the humbler classes. These sails, unlike the present triangular ones, were square, and more safe and manageable. The crowd upon the banks must have been incessant, with chariots and horsemen. Each village then was grouped around its elegant temple amidst groves of palm. The extensive villas of the richer inhabitants, in a style half gay, half grave, with gardens and vineyards — now unknown to Egypt, studded the plain, which was, besides, in a far higher state of cultivation than at the present day. Then there were the costumes of the different castes, and their infinite variety of avocations, to add to the life and beauty of the picture in the Pharaonic ages. A light uncertain breeze sometimes relieved the boatmen from their laborious tracking, but it was not till afternoon that some real stormy puffs indicated the approach of the favouring Etesian breeze. The coming on of the sudden gusts on the Nile is at first very startling and alarming ; no action of driving clouds accompanies the squall, the sky above is perfectly serene, but, looking across the desert in the direction of the wind, you see ANTIQUITY OF EGYPT. 37 tall columns of clust and sand, sometimes six or seven hundred feet in height, whirling sublimely across the desert, rapidly crossing the alluvial valley, and nearing the river, till the whole cloud, sweeping oft' the bank, involves the rufHed surface of the stream in temporary obscurity, and half buries the boat on the leeward side. Without the utmost attention, indeed, there is great danger of suddenly capsizing, as indeed often happens, when the boatmen are too negligent to keep the rope, by which the huge sails are attached to the side, loose in their hand, so as to let it fly if the gust is dangerously violent. With the afternoon the breeze set in, and we sailed merrily along, passing one or two downward-bound boats, crammed almost to suffocation with a noisy motley crowd, in bright coloured costumes, proceeding to the neighbouring festival at Tanta, in commemoration of the birth of the Seyd Ahmad El-Bedawee, a celebrated Moslem saint ; a scene of licence greatly resembling the ancient Egyptian Saturnalia ; for the extremes of fanaticism and sensual indulgence are wont to be combined in both ancient and modern instances. Soon after arriving in Cairo, I heard of the loss of one of these very boats in a squall, having, as the rumour went, some two or three hun- dred persons on board, of whom the greater part went down. But such occurrences, though by no means unfrequent, occa- sion small concern in a land where the penny a line trade in 1 moving accidents ' has no existence, and where coroner's inquests are unknown. One soon seems to breathe the air of profound antiquity on the banks of the Nile. We were now sailing near the sites of Naucratis and Sais, important settlements of Greek traders, who, from the earliest ages, carried on the chief part of the Egyptian trade in the Mediterranean. For the Egyptians, says Mr. Sharpe, "like the Hindoos, looked upon the sea and voyages by sea with religious dread, and they held seafaring persons in dislike as impious." These Greeks lived under their own laws and customs, and obtained many privileges of the dO SAIS AND NAUCRATIS. Egyptian kings. The inhabitants of Naucratis were allowed to build temples for their own religion, which were erected at the expense of their countrymen in Greece. The overthrow of this little state probably took place in the reign of Amunmai Anemnib, and the chiefs driven out of Egypt carried with them to Greece so much that was valuable of Egyptian science and civilization, that many of the Grecian cities dated their founda- tion from their arrival. They gave to Greece its alphabet and its mythology, and so willing were the Greeks at all times to look back to Lower Egypt as the birth-place of their civiliza- tion, that instead of seeing that a handful of Greeks had in old times settled in the Delta, they thought Athens itself a colony from Sais. Thus at this period of Egyptian history, when we have traced the chronology of Theban kings for perhaps six hundred years, we are only entering on the fabulous ages of Greece. About four generations before the Trojan war, Sais became the seat of government instead of Thebes, under the last of the Ethiopian kings who conquered Egypt. It was in the decline of her greatness, when her own valour was sunk, and the Egyptian monarchs sought for the aid of Greek mercenaries. The kings of Sais were in fact as much Greek as Egyptian. Under their protection the sages of Greece visited Egypt in search of knowledge. Of these, Thales was the first. Solon soon afterwards came to Naucratis as a merchant, bring- ing the olive oil of Athens to exchange for the corn of Egypt and the luxuries of India ; and while thus engaged, studied the manners and customs of the country. After selling his cargo, he visited Sais, and conversed with Egyptian priests. They called the Greeks mere children of yesterday, and professed to have a knowledge of the last nine thousand years. Solon re- turned to Athens with his mind enriched, and the Athenians were then establishing their democratic form of government, and Solon became their great philosophical lawgiver. Neith, the Egyptian Minerva, was principally worshipped at Sais, and it was celebrated for its splendid festival " of the Sacred Lamps." ASPECT OF TIIK NILE V \\.\.\A . 39 The general characteristics of this wonderful Nile valley are so well known, that it is hardly necessary to dwell at much length on them. From ' far Syene' and the rocky outposts of Nubia to the rich level of the Delta, the river preserves much the same breadth, of half a mile to three quarters, unless where its course is interrupted by islands, or contracted by rocks. On either hand is a green stripe of verdure, extending to the limit of the waters ; beyond is the illimitable desert. At this season the swollen stream comes down with great rapidity, and, at the angles of the banks, the current is so powerful as to require the efforts of all the crew to tow the boat against it. With the north wind a complete sea gets up. The cultivated land is adorned principally by groves of palm — the great beauty of Egypt — sometimes of considerable extent, at others thinly scattered ; here and there too is a dark cluster of sycamores, or a grove of fragrant acacia, haunted by thousands of birds. The great thoroughfare all up the river is along its bank, raised above the level of the inundation, and throwing off here and there a branch communicating with the villages remote from the river. There is a melancholy sameness in these wretched mud villages and small towns, built amid raised mounds of rubbish and filth which the wind scatters in clouds into every cranny of the place — a prominent Egyptian plague, as there is also in the abject population who inhabit them ; the women, in particular, beautiful for a brief year or two of girlhood, become tanned by the heat, and dried up by the climate and the hard toils to which they are subjected, till they become unspeakably hideous crones, whose aspect inspires a shudder of disgust. At evening, when the breeze lulled for a while, I went ashore in a grove of palms, and looked over the verdant level glowing in the slanting beams of the declining sun. The rich brown soil in the dry season, and when the river is low, requires irrigation to maintain its constant fertility. The method adopted in Lower Egypt is, as represented in the cut, to sink a pit in the bank, into which the water flows, and it is 40 THE INUNDATION. y \ then raised, for this purpose, to the surface above by means of a broad wheel turned by a buffalo ; round the wheel is a band with numerous jars attached to it, which, as the wheel revolves, dip into and bring up the water, emptying it into a channel, from which it is distributed in trenches about the thirsty level. Thus irrigated, it will yield annually three crops ; being first sown with wheat or barley ; a second time, after the vernal equinox, with indigo, cotton, millet, or some similar produce ; and again, about the summer solstice, with millet or maize. These, and the numerous fruits and vegetables which succeed one another in similar succession, render the rich valley of the Nile a carpet of perpetual verdure, except during the period of the inundation, and justify the description of it given by Amer, its Arabian conqueror, that " according to the change of seasons, it is adorned with a silver wave, a verdant emerald, and the deep yellow of a golden harvest ! " The river begins to rise about the end of June, and attains its greatest height towards the end of September ; its waters are retained, as the inundation subsides, in numerous canals, for the highest rise of the Nile ever known would scarcely be sufficient, if the waters were not then artificially re- DEIFICATION OF THE NILE. ii tained.* When the river has attained its maximum, very singular is the appearance of the whole country. On the high-raised bank you stand, as it were, between two seas, be- holding on one side the swollen turbid flood, hurrying down rapidly in its irresistible might, and on the other, the inundated expanse, extending to the desert boundary of the valley; the isolated villages in their groves are scattered about like float- ing islands, the palm-trees half-buried, and, except in a few places, the Gise, or dyke, affords the sole circuitous communi- cation from one place to another. As it begins to fall, the sower, wading into the mud, literally " casts his bread upon the waters " which cover the recent and still liquid deposit ; when the water drains off from particular places, a carpet of the most vivid green immediately follows in its train, and the face of the land glows with a new-created beauty. The level of the alluvial land, as well as the bed of the river, are gradu- ally raised, so that the constant aggression of the sandy desert on the fertile valley, from which some have anticipated the ultimate destruction of the latter, is, though triumphant at some points, continually counteracted in the main, by the eternally-vivifying influence of the waters. The river to whose beneficent agency the ancient Egyptians owed their greatness, was, with their characteristic reverence of spirit, regarded by them as peculiarly sacred. " The god Nilus," says Wilkinson, " is frequently represented with water-plants growing from his head, and binding up stalks or flowers indicative of the inunda- tion. Sometimes he bears fruits and flowers, emblematic of its fertilizing influence. In all the cities on the banks of the river certain priests were exclusively appointed to the service of this deity ; and if a corpse were found upon the sacred shore, the nearest town was obliged to embalm and bury it with every mark of honour." The water of the Nile, turbid and muddy, seems little at first to merit the praises lavished on it ; its ap- pearance is disgusting, and its taste at first insipid, the temper- * Mrs. Poole. 1) 4 42 ANIMALS OF EGYPT. ature being rather warm, but by degrees one comes to relish it beyond any other, and to drink more of it than is prudent. The ordinary mode of cooling it is in jars of porous clay called ' Goollehs,' the best of which are made at Keneh in Upper Egypt. Among the brackish springs of the desert, Esau, had he but once tasted of the Nile, would far rather have bartered his birthright for a draught of its delicious beverage than for his mess of lentile pottage. The animals chiefly seen on the river's banks, are the camel, ass, and buffalo. The camel, which in the level valley of the Nile attains unusual size and stoutness of limb, is now the common beast of burden, both for agricultural and other pur- poses. It is singular, says Gliddon, that the introduction of this animal should have been comparatively recent. But it must doubtless have always existed in the interior of Asia, it figured upon the sculptures of Nineveh, although not represent- ed on any Egyptian monuments of the pyramidal period. The horse, though not common on the monuments, appears in use with chariots after the twelfth dynasty. The Egyptian buffalo is of uncouth, unwieldy appearance, dingy black in colour, the neck set lower than the back, and the head furnished with large flat horns thrown back like those of goats or sheep. Their aspect is sullen and ferocious, but, unless startled, they are perfectly gentle. You see them advancing along the bank with a small boy perched on their hump. They yield a considerable quantity of milk, and subsist on the coarse rushy grass which covers the dry bank of the river. Wilkinson observes, that he has met with no representation of the buffalo among the monu- ments, but from its being indigenous in Abyssinia and com- mon in the country, he infers that it was not unknown to the ancient Egyptians. Whole herds of these animals are seen, as before stated, in the heat of noon, so immersed in the river, that little but their noses and the tops of their heads are visible ; sometimes they slide fairly into it, and have to be rescued by the owner, who, plunging in, directs their heads against the THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 43 rapid current, until they regain a footing. The ass, which in Egypt is far superior in size and spirit to the neglected breed in Europe, is used for riding by the lower orders of the natives, as well as by all Europeans who are not in the employ of government. "W 'hile we thus find on the banks of the Nile animals not represented in the ancient sculptures, we find, on the other hand, that some plants conspicuous there have disappeared. Such is the rose-coloured lotus, the beautiful form of which suggested the elegant shafts and capitals of the columnar archi- tecture ; and the invaluable papyrus, the paper of the ancient Egyptians. This disappearance has led to the belief that these and other plants found even now in Egypt, were not in- digenous in the lower Nile valley, but brought down the Nile from above Ethiopia, or elsewhere, by the former inhabitants of the country. Whence indeed came the ancient Egyptians themselves, and who are their descendants ? are questions which, have led to much discussion, and are by no means settled at the present day. The results of an examination of one hundred Egyptian crania, collected from different parts of Egypt, furnished by Mr. G. Gliddon to Dr. S. G. Morton of Philadelphia, seemed to establish that the predominant race was Caucasian in origin : out of fifty-five skulls, the Pelasgic, or purest type, being ten ; the Egyptian, which differs from the former in having a narrower and more receding forehead, and the facial angle more prominent, thirty ; and the remainder of a mixed and Negroid type of African derivation. This view of the Asiatic origin of the great race who settled in Egypt, might seem to be confirmed by the apparent progress of civilization from north to south, up the valley of the Nile, and by the fact that the most ancient monuments are found in Lower Egypt. Mr. Morton is said, however, to have altered his views, and to lean to the theory of an indigenous African race in the Nile valley, though in the course of ages a certain degree of modifica- £- 44 ARRIVAL AT CAIRO. tion would take place by fusion with the different races who con- quered Egypt — the Ethiopians, the Greeks and Romans, and the Arabians. This view is after all perhaps the most probable, for in all the sculptures there is more or less of a decidedly African type. The Copts are generally considered to be the most direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians ; while others, Dr. Morton, for instance, regard the present Fellahs as more justly entitled to this distinction. The opinion of an Ethiopian and not an Asiatic origin for the Egyptians and their civiliza- tion, has been maintained by many scholars ; and in accordance with this belief the pyramids of Meroe have been cited as earlier than those of Memphis, but recent examination has rectified this erroneous impression. After passing the fork of the Delta, where the Damietta branch of the Nile joins that of Rosetta, and the spot where the works of the ' barrage,' or plan for damming up the waters of the Nile, so as more effectually to irrigate the Delta, are now in operation, we first caught sight of the mighty pyramids. How familiar and yet how strange they appeared — hovering afar in dusky grandeur upon the edge of the yellow Libyan desert — overlooking the green valley of the Nile ! Like the first far-off glimpse of the Alps, it is a sensation there is no describing nor forgetting. And soon after, ages apart as it were from these memorials of the early Egyptian kings, the fantastic minarets of Cairo, built by the Arab conquerors of their fallen empire, peeped forth, on the other side of the river, from amidst a luxuriant mass of palm-groves and gardens, answering in every respect to our conceptions of a perfect oriental city, a few new factories built by Mehemet Ali being the only signs of modern innovation. Passing the pasha's villa at Shoubra, connected with the capital by a fine avenue of trees, we soon reached the busy quays of Boulak, the port of Cairo. The shore was lined with kiosques and coffee-houses full of indolent smokers, and crowds of camels and asses with most vociferous drivers. Vast heaps of corn, the wealth of the ._l ARKIVAL AT CAIRO. 45 Nile valley, lay upheaped ready for shipment, warehousing being unnecessary in this dry soil and clime. An immense number of barks, from the heavy Djerms, or cargo boats, to the light and graceful Kangias for passengers, lined the alluvial bank, or flitted up and down the river. Into the midst of these we thrust our pointed prow, got out our chattels, and, after much angry uproar, got them loaded upon a camel ; which business being at length happily over, I mounted a donkey, and galloped through the suburbs to Cairo. CHAPTER III. CAIRO.— SITUATION.— CHARACTERISTICS. — STREETS.— BAZAARS. — ARABIAN MONUMENTS. — MOSQUES. — GATES, TOMBS, AND PRIVATE DWELLINGS. Here then Ave are in " the Great Al Cairo," as Milton calls it, the city of Saladin and of the Arabian Nights, crea- tions which, once so fanciful and visionary, seem to kindle into life and reality as we gaze upon every object that sur- rounds us. The apartment we sit in is decorated with mysteri- ous arabesque lattices instead of glass windows ; ample luxuri- ous divans heaped with cushions, replace our stiff chairs and sofas ; instead of the roll of coaches and the sound of bells, we hear but the solemn and mournful invocation to prayer from the balcony of some minaret, or the wild, shrill, guttural cries of the Arabian women accompanying a marriage or a funeral. Every sight and every sound reminds us that we are in the midst of a different race and different manners — associated with our earliest and most romantic impressions. The characteristic difference, as it seems to me, between Eastern and Western life, is the comparatively unalterable nature of the former. The population of our own land are constantly modified by the changes of a flexible and advancing civilization. We look back two hundred years like antiquaries, to wonder at our picturesque ancestors. But the civilization and customs of the East, and the religion of the Koran, admit- ting no light from the growth of liberty or the diffusion of science, seem comparatively unsusceptible of change or modifi- cation ; and having once attained a fixed type, remain until the HISTORY OF CAIRO. 47 force of outward events brings about their inevitable downfal. Thus, though there may be a diminution of wealth, Cairo is, in all substantial respects, what it was at the first, and we seem to be looking back into the ages of Arabian power and splendour. What we noAv see of European life in this city, is rather, in truth, an accidental excrescence imposed from without, than any intrinsic alteration in the habits and manners of the people themselves. That Cairo is essentially an Arabian city, will appear from a few brief notices abridged from Wilkinson, of its history, and con- sequently that of Egypt itself, under the Saracens and their suc- cessors. Egypt, as stated in the Historical Introduction, was conquered from the Byzantine emperors by Amer, in 638, a. d. After taking the Roman Babylon, he founded near it a city and mosque, of which the arches are round, at Fostat or Old Cairo, on the banks of the Nile. Under the sway of the Ommiade and Abasside caliphs, the history of the province of Egypt pre- sents no facts of striking interest. In 868, Tooloon, governor of Egypt under the caliph, having thrown off his allegiance, and made himself master of the country, built eastward of Fostat a palace and mosque, which may be called the original nucleus of Cairo, and, with the surrounding quarter, is now enclosed within its walls. This mosque is distinguished as being among the earliest specimens of the pointed arch, and as presenting the characteristics of early Arabian architecture. Tooloon's dynasty was but of short duration. El Moez, leader of the Fatimites, who had established a dynasty on the coast of Africa, despatched his general, Goher, to invade Egypt, upon succeeding in which attempt he founded, in 923, the present city of Cairo, still fur- ther eastward of the mosque and quarter of Tooloon. Here- upon Moez established his residence at the new capital, which he delighted to beautify, and to him is due the original founda- tion of the venerable college of El Azhar. Passing over a long list of Egyptian Fatimitc governors and their intrigues, avc come at length to the era of the crusades and of Saladin, the 48 HISTORY OF CAIRO. only great name connected with the annals of Cairo. He was the nephew of Shirkook, who, urging Noor-e-din, the Abasside caliph, to wrest Egypt from the Fatimites, eventually, through his assistance, obtained virtual possession of the country for himself. Hereupon Noor-e-din sought in every way to dis- possess him and his nephew, who, after the death of Shirkook, had succeeded to the post of vizir. This caliph, however, dying shortly after, Saladin openly threw off the yoke, and rendered himself the independent sovereign of Egypt and Syria. We need not dwell upon his well-known and glorious career ; suffice it to say, that he added largely to the city of Cairo, which, to insure against attack, he also surrounded with a stronger wall, enclosing the rocky spur of Mount Mokattam as a citadel. The city then assumed its present shape, although greatly beautified by the erections of subsequent rulers. Melek Adel, brother of Saladin, and hardly less valiant, to whom Richard Cocur de Lion proposed to give his sister in marriage, deposed his infant grandson, and seized upon the sovereignty, but died in a few ye^rs, on account, it is supposed, of the suc- cesses of the Christians, who had landed in Egypt and in- vaded Damietta. That place being at length taken, the crusaders advanced upon Cairo, but were cut off from supplies and obliged to capitulate. Still more disastrous was the issue of the sixth crusade, when Louis IX. was taken prisoner. Cairo ( the victorious ' was never destined to fall into the hands of the crusaders. The Aioobite dynasty, that of the family of Saladin, was at length supplanted by the Baharite Memlooks, a valiant race of foreign and military slaves, who rose against their masters. " A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised," says Gibbon, " than that which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. The most illustrious sultans of the Baharite (Tartar) and Borgite (Circassian) dynasties were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian bands ; and the four and twenty beys, or military chiefs, have HISTORY OF CAIRO. 49 ever been succeeded not by their sons, but by their servants. With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two dynasties are marked as a period of rapine and bloodshed, but their throne, however shaken, reposed on the two pillars of discipline and valour ; their sway extended over Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Syria, their Mamelukes were multiplied from eight hundred to twenty-five thousand horse, and their numbers were increased by a provincial militia of one hundred and seven thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-six thousand Arabs." This powerful dynasty has now passed away, leaving but a great name in history, and a group of beautiful tombs fast falling into irretrievable ruin. The Baharite sultans, Baybers and Kalaoon, played a glorious part in the history of the crusades, the taking of Acre under the son of the latter resulting in a final abandonment of Syria by the Christian knights. Meanwhile Saracenic architecture appears to have gradually attained its highest degree of perfection, for to this period belongs the beautiful mosque of Sultan Hassan, and the tombs of the Circassian Memlooks. This dynasty sup- planted the Baharite in 1382. The first of them, Sultan Berkook, was distinguished for his valour. El Ashraf Kaitbay in his turn made head against the growing power of the Turks, and obliged Sultan Bajazet to conclude a peace. The rule of the Circassian Memlooks was brought at length to a close by the defeat of Ghoreeh, and his successor, Toman Bey, by the Turkish sultan Selim, who, though he abolished the sovereignty, left, however, the Memlook aristocracy in con- ditional possession of Egypt. With the fall of the Memlook sultans terminates the historical interest of Cairo ; for the in- trigues of their successors, until extirpated by Mehcmet Ali, would be both tedious and unprofitable in a work of this light texture. Such is a brief sketch of the long period during which Arabian architecture grew up from extreme simplicity to the highest state of enrichment, while the Gothic was making- similar progress in our own country and throughout Europe. 50 CAIRO GENERAL DESCRIPTION. Cairo has been well described as occupying the natural centre of Egypt. Heliopolis was only five miles below, and the site of Memphis not more than ten miles above the pre- sent capital. The 'position commands the approaches to Upper Egypt, and is upon the direct and natural thoroughfare be- tween the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. It is at present nearly three miles from the Nile, a branch of which however formerly flowed much nearer to it, and about twelve miles south of the upper or southern termination of the Delta. There the river is divided into two channels, through which its waters flow into the Mediterranean, one diverging to the north- west, the other to the north-east, thus giving a triangular form to the alluvial region below. Cairo is chiefly built upon the alluvial plain of the Nile, but the eastern part of the city rests upon the lower declivity of Mount Makattam, a part of the long range which separates Egypt from the Desert of the Red Sea. Thus while from its northern and western gates you issue forth at once into the luxuriant verdure of the Delta, from its southern and eastern you plunge as suddenly into an arid wilderness. Thus much for the general situation. The city itself is the most completely Arabian one existing, having never received any foreign additions, unless by the Turks, though modern innovations are daily robbing it more and more of that cha- racter. It is walled round and defended by a citadel on the towering crags of Mount Mokattam. "Within, though here and there is an open square, it is one maze of narrow tortuous lanes ; the widest, with few exceptions, being barely sufficient to allow two laden camels to pass abreast — the narrowest scarcely one. Some quarters are almost forsaken. The mosques are thickly sown, and minarets in almost countless number spring up lustrously into the cloudless sky. The crowd is incessant, and the variety of costumes and character very curious. The bulk of the population are Moslem Arabians, with a handful of Turks, and a considerable number of Christian Copts, vX, A STREET IN CAIRO STREETS OF CAIRO. 51 a few Jews, and, as at Alexandria, a mixture of Eu- ropeans. We enter Cairo from Boulak by the great irregular square of the Esbequeeh, surrounded by houses and gardens. On one side extends the Copt quarter, gloomy and forbidding in its exterior as the people whom it harbours : on the other is that of the Franks ; here the most conspicuous object is the great ' Oriental Hotel,' called into existence by the require- ments of the overland passengers. Hence we follow a winding way into the heart of the city. On the right, at a short distance, is a new mad-house ; which, thanks to European in- fluences upon the naturally humane feelings of Mehemet Ali, has replaced the old ' Morostan,' with its horrors, which was so long a standing subject for description with Egyptian tourists. Here the streets get narrower and narrower, till we reach the penetralia of the city. Our illustration will convey a very fair idea of a Cairo street and of the throng that pours through it. As usual, in these narrow lanes, the lower part is in shadow. From a private garden a palm-tree, as is often the case, overhangs the narrow passage. The style of the houses, like that of our own old cities in the middle ages, consists of successive stories of latticed windows, overlying one another to the topmost story, till in the gloomy Jewish quarter they actually meet and interclasp one another. These lattices are so contrived as to admit a free view of the passengers, while those within are concealed from their most prying scrutiny. Over the door is generally some inscription of a reli character. On the left side of the view is one of the smaller ' Sibcels,' or public fountains, very numerous in oriental cities, and often origin- ating in the private benevolence of the Mussulmcn. A peripatetic beggar, blind of one eye, is regaling himself with a glass of the pure element, and several girls are bearing jars for a supply. This group was sketched exactly as it stand-, and is a fair sample of those that continually throng the 'Sibcel;' for in a thirsty clime, like that of Egypt, water is the greatest 52 CAIREEX LADIES. of all luxuries. Whoever pleases, says Olin, ascends the two or three steps from the street, takes a metal cup through an aperture in the gilt iron work, and drinks his fill ; the cup, however, being fastened by a chain just long enough to allow the Arab to quench his thirst, without indulging another of his propensities quite as strong, and hardly less general. In the centre of the view is an Arabian lady " riding the high ass," as Mrs. Poole calls it; she is seated after the manner of men upon a lofty upbuilt saddle covered with the richest carpets. The ass which she bestrides is one of the largest size, very carefully groomed, and full of spirit and vivacity, with an eye like a gazelle's, quite realizing the " Sprightly " of the Arabian Nights. It is gaily adorned with tassels and trappings, and conducted through the press of the throng by a stout well- dressed servant. The lady herself is enveloped in a wrapper of rich black silk, which disguises her whole person, leaving only the face, which is half covered by a white muslin veil, conceal- ing all but the lustrous dark eyes, which seem to thrill through you in the dusky obscurity of the street. Sometimes you en- counter a whole harem thus mysteriously equipped, when the passengers studiously avert their looks, and carefully stand against the side walls to make way for them. Behind the lady advances a huge camel, laden with enormous burdens, which fairly clears the causeway. An encounter with one of these animals is indeed anything but agreeable. Sometimes he is laden with water skins, wet and dripping upon the earth, sometimes with baskets of large square stones, and what is worst of all, with long dangling beams of timber which droop down and scrape the walls on either side. Heedless of all ob- struction, on he stalks with his slow, rolling, not unmajestic gait, leaving it to the rest of the passengers to accommodate themselves to his gyrations as they are best able, — not to be effected without much dexterity, and withal an occasional tumble. In addition to the aristocratic lady seen in the view, are some of the lower ranks on foot. Their gait and general BLIND BEGGARS. 58 appearance is majestic, but they will not bear close inspection. Their early beauty soon gives place to positive ugliness. Moreover, they tattoo their hands, arms, faces, and bosoms, and blacken, as indeed do all the women, their eye-lashes with ' kohl.' Their dress is a long simple wrapper of blue, or a species of plaid, very loosely hanging about them, and open at the bosom. It is often ludicrous enough, says Olin, to observe the studied care with which a girl covers her face with a frag- ment of a veil, or the corners of her tattered robe, while with the other she raises her drapery in the freest possible manner. Nothing seems to be regarded as a breach of modesty if the face be covered. To display that is regarded as an open proof of the abandonment of virtue. Our blind beggar is but a type of a class unhappily very numerous in Egypt. I have remarked that this class of men in the East have often a nobleness and resignation stamped upon their features which is quite touching ; the closing of the visual organs with which they commune with the external world, appear, as it were, to quicken their spiritual sense, and they seem as though they felt nearer to God, and more imme- diately dependent on his providence, than others. They are, if totally blind, generally led about by some poor boy, and in Constantinople they are always seated at the gates of the mosques. They are treated with great respect by the Mussul- men, who, with that reverent spirit that runs through ail then- actions, regard every visitation of providence as entitling its object to their peculiar sympathy. Throughout Egypt the number of blind or half blind persons is positively startling. Various causes have been adduced for this ; the continual glare of the sun, the subtle impalpable dust, which we have already enumerated as one of the prominent plagues of Egypt, and, as others think, the transition from the dry air to the moist vapours of the Nile. To these causes may be added the total want of precaution or common cleanliness. And as if the number of the blind from natural causes were insufficient, the 54 THE BAZAARS. iron rule of Mehemet Ali has tended to increase it. In the hope of escaping the ruthless conscription by which the pasha recruited his armies, parents were led to deprive their children of one of their eyes. The pasha, however, was not to be balked of his prey, and, at the suggestion, it is said, of one of those Frank advisers, who sharpen by the Machiavelian ex- pedients of European intellect the lawless cruelty of oriental despotism, these unfortunate wretches, with a refinement of cruel irony, were organized into a one-eyed corps ! Through a labyrinth of these narrow streets we advance into the Bazaars. These, in an oriental city, are the great gathering place of the population, the centre of traffic, the seat of flying rumours, and the lurking place of secret conspiracies. They consist of one main avenue running through the centre of the city, with endless and intricate branches, generally covered, and some of them sunk into a twilight obscurity. The crowd that pours through them is incessant. Each trade has its separate ' sook ' or quarter, and there are numerous ' Wekalehs ' or Khans, for the reception of merchandise, large courts opening from the bazaars, surrounded with buildings, and defended by strong gates, which are kept closed at night. The whole scene is marvellously original ; every turn presents us with a fresh picture of oriental life and manners. Indeed, to wander at random about these bazaars is one of the most delightful things I am acquainted with. Charles Lamb remarks, that in his dreams he used to ramble through all the cities of the East, to mingle with their strange and turbaned crowds, with a sense of vivid delight quite indescribable. Something of this singular intoxication is experienced by him who for the first time visits the streets of Cairo. I have selected for representation a group sketched on the spot, at the door of a coffee-house. At a well-frequented corner sits a Jewish money-changer, whose sordid dress, black turban, and reddish hair, mark him out as one of that despised but still most influential race, who often, in Eastern as in Western i-..- THE COFFEE-SHOP. 55 lands, have moved in unsuspected obscurity the vital springs of the social and political machine. To ply his money-getting functions for the day he has issued from his quarter, the most horrible in Cairo, the narrowest, foulest, and most confined, and bearing in its ponderous and strong barred gates, evidence of the painful insecurity of its detested yet envied inhabitants. He is engaged in transactions with a Turk, in which he will probably come off somewhat the gainer. The coffee-shop where he has planted himself is a fair sample of the very numerous ones which are found in every corner of the capital. They are small and without decoration, but the coffee, as pre- pared at the best of them, has, to the genuine amateur, an aroma not excelled, if equalled, in the first of Parisian cafes. Coffee and pipes are at once the universal stimuli as well as sedatives of the Orientals. Nothing can be got through without their influence. Besides what is consumed at the cafe, the negro servants may be seen all day long carrying to and fro small cups to the shopkeepers of the bazaars. A raised seat serves for the coffee customers ; here they sit and smoke, and here is often seen assembled a group listening to the tale of a musician, who chants to them some ancient fragment of Arabian romance. The style of smoking is generally with the long straight cherry-stick pipe, which is very elegantly adorned with silk and tassels ; but some, like the figure in the sketch, prefer the more recherche Narghileh, consisting of a long flexible tube, inserted in a glass vase of water, somewhat soften- ing the narcotic inhalation. The back-ground displays one of the gates enclosing a particular part of the bazaar, through which and across the main avenue is a perspective into one of the aforesaid Wekalehs or Khans, with its interior courts, and a flitting phantasmagoria of caftaned and turbancd mer- chants. It was while standing to draw this coffee-shop, that I Avas struck by the appearance of a stranger, who alighted from his horse for a few moments on some matter of business with a 56 SULEYMAN AGHA. neighbouring shopkeeper. He answered remarkably well to FalstafFs description of himself — " a good portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage, and, as I think, his age some fifty, or by 'r Lady, inclining to threescore." But it was his costume which pecu- liarly distinguished him from the surrounding throng. It was, in fact, the old costume of the murdered Mamelukes, the heavy turban, and voluminous inexpressibles, the cloth of which alone would have furnished forth a suit for any ordinary European. The materials were costly, and the entire effect strikingly picturesque, and even gorgeous. His mien and garb bespoke him no ordinary personage, and I gazed on him with curiosity and interest, but it was not for some time afterwards that I ascertained who he really was. His name I found was Suley- man Agha, and he may well be called the " last of the Mame- lukes," at least of those who formerly held possession of Cairo. His story is very curious. He was, it seems, a personal friend of Mehemet Ali, at the time when the latter had secretly re- solved upon the extermination of his Mamelukes, who, as he knew, were planning to cut him off. The manner of their de- struction is probably known to the reader. The ceremony of the investiture of Toossoon Pasha with the command of an army served as the pretext for drawing them within the walls of the citadel, whence it was determined that they should never return alive. The snare was laid, the agents of destruction ready. The principal Mamelukes repaired for the last time in all their splendour to the fortress, and paid their congratulations to the pasha; then turned to take their leave. But the gates had been closed, and from every corner of the building a fire of musketry was opened upon them, till man and horse lay heaped in one promiscuous carnage. One indeed, and one only escaped, by leaping his horse over the wall at a spot where he had remarked a mound of rubbish ; the horse was killed, but his rider succeeded in making his way out of the city. Mean- while such of the Mamelukes who remained below Avcre put to SULEYMAN AGHA. 57 death, and their houses sacked. When all was over, the pasha, who had not dared to intrust his favourite with the dangerous secret of his designs, deeply concerned at the loss of his Mame- luke friend, was lamenting his supposed death, when, to his surprise and joy, he suddenly appeared before him. Scarcely could Mehemet Ali believe his eyes, or sufficiently express his satisfaction, and he hastily inquired by what means Suleyman Agha had effected his escape from that terrible scene of carnage. The Mameluke told him that he had disguised him- self as a woman; but this was too much for his Highness's belief ; the portly frame and manly countenance of the Agha seemed to render such a metamorphosis impossible, and he frankly expressed his incredulity. Of this at the time the Mameluke took no notice, but several days afterwards there appeared before his Highness a woman, clothed in the usual blue robe of the lower class of Arab females, with the long white veil concealing all but the eyes. She came to make a complaint against her husband, upon whose wrongs towards her she entered with all the volubility of a Caireen female. The case was clear, the judgment given in her favour, and a pun- ishment ordered for the delinquent husband ; when the sup- posed sufferer, throwing up her veil, inquired of the pasha if he was at length satisfied. It was no other than his old friend Suleyman. Great merriment ensued upon this eclaircissement, and the sole survivor of his slaughtered brethren has ever since been on the most cordial terms both with the pasha and the principal personages of Cairo. In the foreground of this view is seen a donkey-driver with his beast ; being, in fact, a portrait of the little familiar who habitually conveyed me about the city and its environs, and served me too in the office of a Cicerone. I have spoken of the admirable qualities of the Egyptian ass, of its strength, and spirit; the difficulty, at least in the crowded streets of Cairo, being rather to restrain its rapid movements, which often bring one into peril of collision with a veiled lady or a loaded E * 58 THE DONKEY-BOY. camel. The Caireen donkey-boy is quite a character, and mine in particular was a perfect original. He was small and spare of frame, his rich brown face relieved by the whitest of teeth and the most brilliant black eyes ; and his face beamed with a merry yet roguish expression, like that of the Spanish or rather Moorish boy in Murillo's well-known master-piece, with whom he was probably of cognate blood. Living in the streets from infancy, and familiar with all the chances of out-door life, and with every description of character ; waiting at the door of a mosque or a caftj, or crouching in a corner of the bazaar, he had acquired a thorough acquaintance with Caireen life ; and his intellect, and I fear his vices, had become somewhat pre- maturely developed. But the finishing touch to his education was undoubtedly given by the European travellers whom he had served, and of whom he had, with the imitativeness of his age, picked up a variety of little accomplishments, particularly the oaths of different languages. His audacity had thus become consummate, and I have heard him send his fellows to as coolly and in as good English as any prototype of our own metropolis. His Mussulman prejudices sat very loosely upon him, and in the midst of religious observances he grew up indifferent and prayerless. With this inevitable laxity of faith and morals, contracted by his early vagabondage, he at least acquired an emancipation from prejudice, and displayed a craving after miscellaneous information, to which his Eu- ropean masters were often tasked to contribute. Thrown almost in childhood upon their own resources, the energy and persever- ance of these boys is remarkable. My little lad had, for instance, been up the country with some English travellers, in whose service he had saved four or five hundred piastres, (£4 or £5,) with which he bought the animal which I bestrode, on whose sprightliness and good qualities he was never tired of expatiating, and with the proceeds of whose labour he supported his mother and himself. He had but one habitual subject of discontent, the heavy tax imposed upon his donkey by Mehemet Ali, upon THE CAIKKEN SHOPMAN. 59 whom he invoked the curse of God, a curse, it is to be feared, uttered not loud but deep by all classes save the employes of government. His wind and endurance were surprising; he would trot after his donkey by the hour together, urging and prodding it along with a pointed stick, as readily in the burn- ing sandy environs, and under the noon-day sun, as in the cool and shady alleys of the crowded capital ; running, dodging, striking, and shouting with all the strength of his lungs through the midst of its labyrinthine obstructions. The water-carrier (to the left of the donkey-boy) is an old familiar figure, met with at every corner in Cairo. Notwith- standing the supply at the fountains, the purer element from the Nile is brought upon camels and asses into the city, and retailed in the manner here represented. The Caireen shopman is utterly unlike the same character in a western metropolis. He does but little business, and is in no sort of hurry over it ; he has, indeed, some difficulty to kill the time, even with the aid of pipe and prayers. Here is no fear of " tremendous competition," and no danger of an " early closing movement." Every thing jogs on in its old appointed way. The shopman takes his seat on his little carpet in the front of his open shop, fills his pipe, and smokes on steadily. Does a customer approach ? another pipe is presented and filled, and at intervals between the puffs, the negociation is gradually carried forward. The vender begins by asking too much, and the purchaser by offering too little, and by the time the pipe is ended the difference is adjusted, and the bargain concluded "in the name of God." When the sonorous and somewhat mournful cry of the Muezzin thrills from the gallery of some neighbouring minaret through the dusky recesses of the bazaars, the shopkeeper arises, and unconscious of, or at all events indifferent to observation, goes reverentially through the appointed round of prayer and praise. At intervals, per- haps, having no newspaper to keep him alive, he retails with his neighbour, or with a casual passenger, the rumours of the 60 VIEW FROM THE CITADEL. passing hour ; or, overcome with drowsiness, takes a quiet nap upon his shophoard. A dish of ' kabobs,' pieces of mutton seasoned with herbs, cut small, and cooked on a spit, a glass of water from the itinerant vender, or a cup of coffee from the nearest shop, constitute his daily repast. And thus he con- trives to wear away the listless hours till sun-down. From the bazaars, by many a dim and winding street, there is a gradual ascent to the citadel, which stands on a bold spur of the bare sandstone mountain, through which indeed the road is partly cut. The walls are solid, and in some places from fifty to one hundred feet high. Passing through its entrance court, we come upon a terrace commanding one of the grandest prospects in the world. Cairo, with its countless number of carved domes and fantastic minarets, is taken in at a glance. To the eastward, in a secluded valley separated from the city, the long range of the tombs of the Memlook sultans stretches into the distant desert towards Suez. On the south extends the dense verdure of the Delta, a dark green streak which comes up abruptly to the edge of the yellow sands. There stood Heliopolis, the most learned city of Egypt, and there yet stands its obelisk, upon which Abraham, may have gazed with curiosity as he entered that wonderful land. But it is to the westward that the chief glories of the scene expand ; the long range of the dusky pyramids, from the nearer ones of Ghizeh to those of Sakhara and Dashoor, standing in sublime serenity above the site of vanished Memphis, sole but most glorious relics of the pride and power of the early Egyptian kings of Lower Egypt ; pointing backward from an antiquity already hoary, through a long and dim vista of unknown monarchs, towards the unknown origin of civilization. They stand on the rocky edge of the boundless Libyan desert, over- looking the verdant valley of the Nile, with its variegated crops and scattered palm-groves and villages. Advancing nearer to the city, on the banks of the river peep up the minarets of Fostat or Old Cairo, marking the advent of another . VIEW FBOM THE CITADEL. 61 race, founded by the Arabs who conquered Egypt from the Byzantine emperors. The solid wall of the Roman fort which so long resisted their efforts, is confounded with the surround- ing buildings and groves. The luxuriant island of Rhoda is half made out, and nearer at hand those portions of the city, which were successively added by later Arabian dynasties, as it gradually receded from the river, and took up its final position under the shelter of the Mokattam crags. Conspicuous in this now half-ruinous quarter is seen a large square court with a dome and minaret of singular formation, fast falling into decay. This is the mosque of Tooloon, the founder of a separate dynasty, it is remarkable as one of the earliest specimens of the pointed arch ; and, to close this description, which is run- ning too much into diffuse detail, immediately below is the noblest mosque in the city, built some centuries later, when Arabian architecture had attained its highest degree of enrichment, by Hassan, a sultan of the Baharite Memlook dynasty. It is a landscape not only indescribably splendid to the eye, especially when the sun is sinking behind the pyra- mids, and flinging long rays of ruby lustre aslant the Nile valley, to rest for a brief half hour on the craggy crest of the citadel, and the arabesque fretwork of the lofty minarets ; but its soil is the strand of ages, upon which successive races, from Sesostris to Saladin, like wave chasing wave, have left the monu- mental traces of their passage ; monuments too the more im- perishable as they recede further into the night of antiquity. To the traveller not merely anxious to despatch the " sights " of a city, under the guidance of a loquacious Cicerone ; to the lover of art in all its variety of characteristic invention, in which the sense of the beautiful is developed in accordance with the peculiar religion or social system of a people ; Cairo will present a peculiar attraction from its containing, with a few exceptions, the finest specimens of the Arabian architecture in its mosques, tombs, gates, and private houses, to be met with in anv oriental citv. Cv2 THE POINTED ARCH. It is not easy at present to trace the origin and progress of this original and exquisite style. Like the Christian Gothic, which in some important particulars seems to resemble it, it might itself have been founded on the style of the Lower Empire ; indeed its earliest specimens, such as the mosque of Amer at Old Cairo, exhibit the round arch and detail without any original character ; bearing marks of the adaptation of an older architecture to a different purpose. It seems certain that the first specimens of the pointed arch are met with in Eastern buildings, and it is probable that the idea was transmitted to Europe by the crusaders. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in a recent paper, expresses his belief that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted with the pointed arch, not constructed, however, on the true principle, but horizontally. We have heard the same opinion expressed by Mr. Catherwood. The first-mentioned learned writer also considers that the Christians were the first in more modern times to adopt the pointed arch, and that the Moslems copied from them. Be this as it may, these early and perhaps imitative attempts of Arabian architecture, gradu- ally gave place to a style which may justly rank among the most original ever invented. Its different stages may be traced in Cairo, from the plain arches and grave simplicity of the mosque of Tooloon, up to the surpassing elegance of the tombs of the sultans and other monuments. There is one con- sideration which invests them with peculiar interest, namely, that the most beautiful of them are going rapiclly to decay ; while a modern and corrupt imitation, entirely without merit, is supplanting the genuine one, retaining merely its leading arrangements, while all the peculiar distinguishing beauties are replaced by the most vapid and tasteless mixture of styles. In a remote part of the town, formerly without the walls, is the mosque of Tooloon, the most ancient in the city, (already alluded to in the description of the view from the citadel, in which it appears,) at present in a very dilapidated and neglected state. It stands in an extensive open square, surrounded by MOSQUE OF TOOLOON. 63 cloisters on three sides, consisting of two rows of columns, but on the eastern of five, as appears in the accompanying illustra- v f HI tion. On entering from without we are struck by the grave and noble simplicity, and even elegance of effect; the square piers and flat rooms being relieved by the tasteful arches with their broad decorated border, which does not much resemble the later style called arabesque. It will be observed that the arch partakes of the horse-shoe form, inclining slightly inward. Wilkinson gives the date of this building 879, a. d., observing, that if not remarkable for beauty, it is a monument of the highest interest in the history of architecture, as it proves the existence of the pointed arch about three hundred years before its introduction into England, where that style of building was not in common use until the beginning of the 13th century, and was unknown before the year 1170. The singular twisted form of the minaret on the other side of the court will be remarked ; it has a spiral staircase outside leading to the gallery above. It is said that this originated in G4 MOSQUE OF THE SULTAN HASSAN. the founder's wish to have it built in the shape of a piece of paper he happened to be twisting. The dome over the fountain in the centre of the area is of later date than the arcades.* Near the citadel, at the corner of the open square of the Roomaylee, is the mosque of the sultan Hassan, conspicuous on the approach to the city, in some respects certainly the finest in Cairo, though the design is somewhat unequal and incongruous, and neither the dome nor minaret are at all equal in beauty to many smaller specimens; the former somewhat resembling the clumsy style of those of Constantinople, built up with unsightly buttresses, instead of springing up gracefully from its foundation. Of the side next the square, a very good idea may be formed by referring to the view from the citadel in the foreground of which it appears. What is unique, and indeed unequalled, is the magnificent porch and the cornice above it ; which, as the spectator comes up through the narrow crowded street, called the Sook e Zullut, ' or arm bazaar,' strikes him with marvellous effect, towering to an amazing height, and displaying in its honeycomb tracery a noble breadth of design, with intricacy and richness of detail, which surpasses every other in the city, fine as some of them are. It is quite impossible to do justice to such a specimen in a small drawing ; and besides, the street is so narrow that only a side view can be obtained, yet the accompanying view will in some measure bear out these remarks. A peculiar effect, which cannot be imitated in the engraving, is produced by the black and red marbles with which portions are inlaid. This view also exhibits a very good specimen of the exterior of the houses of the old style, with their open galleries, and the elaborately fretted wood- work of their projecting windows and coverings, which produce a very picturesque effect, with the cafe below, overshaded, as is commonly the case, by an awning. The gateway leads * See Wilkinson for further details of this mosque. A MARRIAGE PROCESSION. 65 into a Khan. This is the main thoroughfare in the city, vet by taking one of the cane seats of a small cafe, I was en- abled to complete my sketch without the slightest interruption. In the foreground is to be seen one of the sights which the stranger is sure to encounter, however short his stay ; a ' zeffeh,' or preliminary marriage procession. The bride, whose dress and person are entirely concealed by a shawl, accompanied by one or two of her relations, advances beneath a gay-coloured canopy of silk, borne by four men ; in front is a procession of her female friends, married and unmarried, the latter being distinguished by their white wrappers from the black silk ones worn by the former. The whole is preceded by a party of musicians playing on hautboys and drums, and in the case of the lower orders, accompanied by a peculiar cry of the women, called 'zughareet,' or rolling of the voice, expressive, with trifling modulation, either of joy or sorrow. The bride then repairs to the bath, other ceremonies, some of which are ex- tremely singular,* precede the union, which does not take place until the following night. The interior of the mosque of Sultan Hassan does not, at least to many, altogether fulfil the promise of the noble portal. A vestibule conducts into an open court, with a fountain, and four recesses covered by as many arches, which attract atten- tion from their unusual size and fine proportion. The recess on the east side as usual is deeper, and is surmounted by the lofty dome. The general aspect is one of severe and somewhat gloomy grandeur. Many are the legends connected with it. A curious contrast to the lofty entrance of the mosque of Hassan, the type of the greater number in the city, is presented by the gateway to the mosque of the Azhar, which will re- mind one, in many respects, of the Gothic portals of western Europe, though the detail is very dissimilar. There is another one at the opposite extremity of this extensive enclosure, which is almost entirely surrounded by houses, through which are * See Lane. K 66 THE EL AZHAR. narrow passages leading into the interior of the building, peep- ing through which, (for all entrance is, under ordinary circum- stances, interdicted to Frank travellers,) a view is obtained into the pillared avenues within, where in cool shadow are seen, lounging or flitting about, such a collection of Mussulmen from all parts of the East, in their varied costume, as strongly, although hopelessly, tempted my curiosity. I longed to mingle with so strange a congregation of gownsmen. This is considered the principal college of the East, and to receive the instructions of its professors in Arabian literature, students repair from all quarters, who are gratuitously supported. The funds of this establishment having been, like all the property belonging to the mosques, seized by the pasha, are so much reduced that the professors have no longer any salary, and thus a heavy blow and great discouragement to the influence of the old Mussul- man system of education, necessarily fettered by the dogmas of the Koran, has been dealt, the effect of which will probably be heightened by the introduction of European languages and ideas into the pasha's own schools. Indeed, the pious old Mussulman justly regards these as the ' last days ' of Islam. To this college is attached an establishment for blind men, mostly students, who are described as peculiarly fanatical. Before the reduction of the revenues of this establishment, its charities were very great, and its walls afforded shelter to a vast multi- tude of poor. Mahommedan institutions are on the wane ; priests and professors, pillaged of their revenues, are sunk into sordid indigence, and zeal alarmingly on the decrease. The scene within the enclosure of this singular maze of buildings must be very striking. In going the round of the interior, says one who was privileged to explore it, " we found ourselves in the company of the people of Mecca or Medina, then in the midst of Syrians, in another minute among Muslims of Central Africa, next amidst Moggrebyns or natives of North- ern Africa west of Egypt, then with European and Asiatic Turks, and quitting these we were introduced to Persians and BAB ZOO \N I I II- 67 Muslims of India. We were much affected by seeing many of the blind paupers who are supported at the mosque, bent double by age, slowly walking through the avenues of columns, knowing from habit every turn and every passage, and looking like the patriarchs of the assembled multitude." It is said that no less than forty thousand individuals par- took of the bounties of this establishment, and that on every alternate day three thousand eight hundred pounds of bread, and a quantity of oil for the lamps, were distributed. Outside, at the door of the mosque, is represented a group of donkeys with the « Seis,' or groom, awaiting the return of some Arabian ladies from performing their devotions. A little boy is seen with his school-board, an old pilgrim is emerging from the sacred courts, and groups of students are lounging or reading the Koran within the shady retirement of the cloisters. The gates of Cairo, no less than the mosques and tombs, are among its noble specimens of Arabian architecture, and each has a peculiar aspect and physiognomy of its own. The Bab Zooayleh is now in the interior of the city, which, after the time of Saladin, was extended up to the citadel, so as to embrace the Kalat el Kebsh, or palace of Sultan Tooloon, near the ancient mosque already described. At present this gate stands in the most bustling and crowded part of the bazaar, at the intersection of the main avenue with another principal street, and with the adjacent mosque, whose elegant minarets rest upon it as a basement, and are among the most striking ornaments of this very picturesque portion of the city. The gateway itself bears so remarkable a resemblance to the Gothic portals of castles and towns in our own country, especially at York, that it might be supposed that the one had originated the other. Mr. Lane gives a curious account of a superstition con- nected with this gate, which is said to be one of the spots haunted by the Kutb, or most holy of the Welees, or saints of such high sanctity, that although not disembodied, and of the humblest appearance and garb, they are invested with certain super- 68 BAB ZOOAYLEH. natural powers, though undiscernible save to some chosen few. " One leaf of its great wooden door, which is never shut, turned back against the eastern side of the interior of the gateway, conceals a small vacant space, which is said to be the place of the Kutb. Many persons, on passing by it, recite the Fathah, and some give alms to a beggar who is generally seated there, and who is regarded by the vulgar as one of the servants of the Kutb. Numbers of persons afflicted with head-ache drive a nail into the door, to charm away the pain, and many sufferers from the tooth-ache extract a tooth, and insert it in a crevice of the door, or fix it in some other way, to insure their not being attacked again by the same malady. Some curious individuals often try to peep behind the door, in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of the Kutb, should he happen to be BAB E NUSTt AND BAB E l'OOTOOR. 69 there, and not at the moment invisible." The turrets over this gate also serve the same purpose to which the similar portion of our own were formerly devoted, that of exhibiting the gory- heads of criminals ; those of the slaughtered Mamelukes having been the last affixed upon it. In a totally different style, not in the least resembling the Western Gothic, are the Bab e Nusr and Bab e Footoor, near to each other, on the eastern side of the city. The former is remarkable for its chasteness of decoration and design ; it consists of two square towers and a round-headed gate. The latter is not perhaps equal to it in this respect, but is more strikingly grand. The two bold, advanced, half-circular towers, in front of the broad portal, with its singular border of elaborate ornament, combines massive and imposing grandeur with richness and elegance ; the masonry too is particularly fine. It is through the Bab e Nusr that the great caravan leaves the city on its departure for Mecca. This departure of the pilgrims is the principal spectacle of the metrojjolis, and still forms a scene of rude fantastic splendour, but far in- ferior to what it once was, when the Memlooks themselves in their splendid costume, so ill replaced by the more modern but convenient dress, accompanied it forth w r ith barbaric pomp and high solemnity. In the course of my subsequent wanderings, I was fortunate enough to meet with it on its march in the midst of the desert, where it is of course a far more impressive spectacle. Among the four hundred mosques in the city, many of which are in a state of decay, other beautiful specimens may be met with, but perhaps the utmost perfection and variety of this style of architecture seems to have been reached in the tombs, which are scattered without the walls on the south and east. Emerging from the crowded city by the Bab e Nusr, or Gate of Victory, the desert stretches from the very walls into the trembling haze of distance, and its dead and silent expanse receives an additional mournfulness of aspect from the ceme- 70 TOM15S OF THE CIRCASSIAN MEMLOOKS. teries which glitter and whiten in the burning sun, unshadowed by shrub or tree ; some with their gilt and gaily turbaned head-stones of yesterday's erection ; others broken and half filled up with sand. Here the Bedouin, who love not the con- finement of walls nor the society of civilized man, establish themselves on their flying visits to the capital, crouching in the shade of the ruinous monuments, and raising their tempor- ary camp on the surrounding sands, in the midst of their recumbent camels. As you advance, the hum of the city, faintly ascending above its walls, dies away upon the ear ; high mounds of rubbish conceal the tops of its minarets, and, without enclosure of any kind, backed by hills of an aspect wildly desolate, these beautiful structures " rise like an exhalation" from the blanching waste. None, even the most indifferent, could behold without astonishment such erections in the bare and open wilderness, yet this adds not a little to the funereal impressiveness of the sight ; but when we ap- proach, and find how fast oblivion is gathering upon these mouldering memorials of former greatness, and forgotten ge- nius, we might almost weep that such a fate must, at no great distance of time, befall monuments, which, in lands more en- lightened, would be preserved as precious creations of art, that in their peculiar style have never been surpassed. The tombs extend for a considerable distance, and but a portion of them can be seen in the annexed illustration ; the most remote, quite isolated from the rest, is that of Melek Adel. The distant plains, expanding to the left of this monument, witnessed the final downfal of the Circassian Memlook dynasty, and the conquest of Egypt by the Turks. In the centre of the view is one of the numerous tombs erected to the memory of Sultan El Ghoree, the last but one of this race of military princes. He perished in Syria, in battle against the Ottoman sultan, Selim, who marched immediately upon Egypt. Mean- while Toman Bey had been elected to fill the place of the unfortunate Ghoree, and prepared to meet the Turks, who, *$fc! <*EH> J EL ASIIKAF KAITBAY. passing liis advanced guards, marched directly upon Cairo by the plain of Heliopolis. Here the final encounter took place, the Mcmlooks, so often victorious, were routed, and their fugitive leader was overtaken and brought back to Cairo, where he was hanged like a common malefactor upon the Bab Zooayleh. Henceforth the Memlook aristocracy subsisted only as dependants upon the Porte, but they still maintained their hereditary prowess, till the strength of their brilliant cavalry was broken against the French squares at the battle of the Pyramids. Finally extinguished by Mehemet Ali, they have left but a romantic name in history, and these beautiful tombs fast mouldering to irretrievable ruin. Among the largest and most beautiful is that of El Ashraf Aboo-1-Nusr Kaitbay e Zaheree, the nineteenth sultan of the dynasty of the Circassian Memlook kings, who died and was buried there in 1496, a. d.* To this, as to the other tombs, a mosque has been attached, with various appendages, but these establishments are, I believe, ruined, and abandoned to poor Arab families and a solitary Sheik or two, who hover like ghosts about these splendid and mouldering foundations ; and the whole neighbourhood seems a resort of wandering Arabs, and of a rude and half savage class of the population, who quarrel fiercely for the few piastres of the occasional visitor. The style of all the tombs is much the same, consist- ing of a square building, pierced with slender windows, and surmounted by domes, a peculiarity wanting to our Gothic architecture. Xothing can exceed the exquisite proportion of many of these, and the whole wealth of invention seems lavished on the fanciful net-work of arabesque tracery with which they are covered, of which each tomb displays a different pattern. The extraordinary variety of geometrical combination in Saracenic architecture, is one of its peculiar characteristics. Less sombre and imposing than the Gothic, it surpasses it in symmetry and grace. The finest tomb is perhaps this of Sultan * Wilkinson. 72 SULTAN BERKOOK. Kaitbay. The lofty minaret, with its successive stages, taper- ing gracefully to the summit, and encircled by galleries, is a beautiful specimen of this unique invention of Mahommedan art in its highest enrichment, and the dome is perhaps un- equalled for its graceful proportion and its delicate detail, the whole producing an effect at once grave, elegant, and fanciful ; an original combination which no one at all affected by art, nor even one of ruder stamp, can possibly behold without a feeling of exquisite delight. E. 'Zaher Berkook, whose ashes repose within another fine mausoleum, was the first of the dynasty of Circassian Mem- looks, raised, as Gibbon informs us, by the favour of his military comrades from slavery and imprisonment to the throne of Egypt. He was a conspicuous actor at a stirring and momentous period. The redoubtable Timour had already overran Persia, Tartary, and India, when he was called back from his distant career of conquest by the informa- tion he received of the revolt of the Christians of Georgia, and the ambitious designs of the Turkish sultan, Bajazet, whose submission, and that of his Egyptian allies, he required in a tone of haughty and contemptuous menace. Bajazet returned scorn with scorn, while Berkook " braved the menaces, cor- responded with the enemies, and detained the ambassadors of the Mogul. The first engagement at Aleppo was favourable to the arms of Timour, who advanced with his destroying army as far as Damascus, where he was rudely encountered and almost overthrown by the armies of Egypt. A retrograde motion was imputed to his distress and despair : one of his nephews de- serted to the enemy, and Syria rejoiced in the tale of his defeat, when the sultan was driven by the revolt of the Mamelukes to escape with precipitation and shame to his palace at Cairo. The check thus received by Timour rolled back awhile from Syria and Egypt the devastating tide of conquest, although the fatal battle of Angora, fought two years afterwards, delivered the Turkish sultan into the hands of the insulting victor; lU MTBAY HOUSES OF CAIKO. Astracan, Carizmc, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Smyrna, and a thousand other cities were sacked or burnt, or utterly destroyed, but the timely submission of the Egyptian sultan, together with Timour's experience of the military prowess of the Memlooks and their leader, averted from Cairo the fearful visitation which had befallen so many other famous cities." To complete this brief sketch of the architecture of Cairo, I proceed to give a general description of the style of building adopted in private dwellings. Coolness, together with that seclusion required by the domestic habits of the Orientals, are the principal points which have been studied in all their arrange- ments. The foundation-walls are of stone, and the super- structure of brick ; the lower windows in those facing the streets are above the line of vision, even of persons on horse- back ; the windows of the upper stories project into the street, and are carried out and cased externally by wooden lattice work, sufficiently open to admit the air and light, which comes thus softly veiled into the interior, enabling those within to obtain a view into the street without, while they are themselves entirely concealed from the closest scrutiny of passengers, or even opposite neighbours. In addition, these windows are generally shaded by a projecting cornice of carved wood- work, casting deep shadows over the front, of graceful and ornamental patterns, as may be seen in the different views. In the narrower streets these nearly or quite met, but in new houses they are being gradually lessened, while the rich and raised carving is giving place to glass and lattice of a simpler character, so that by degrees the picturesque aspect of the streets will be much impaired. A winding passage usually leads through the ornamented doorway into a court, into which the apartments look, with doors conducting to the harem — the upper apart- ments, exclusively occupied by the women and children, with the master. In the' court is generally " a well of slightly brackish water, which filters through the soil from the Nile ; and 74 INTERIOR OF A HOUSE. on its most shaded side are commonly two water jars, which are daily replenished with Nile water, brought from the river in skins."* There is sometimes also a palm tree. The principal apartment on the ground-floor is called a Man- darah, and in the older style of houses is often very splendid. I have selected for representation one of unusual size and rich- ness of decoration, in a house formerly occupied, I believe, by one of the murdered Mamelukes, and now abandoned to decay, — not far from the Frank bazaar. It was melancholy to behold its fountains dry, its marble pavement broken up, rich inlayed cabinets and mazy arabesques — such as are not to be met with in these degenerate days, falling to pieces with neglect ; the stained glass of its windows broken, the wild herbs of the garden straggling into the apartment, and its unfurnished di- vans heaped with rubbish ; while the spider wrought its web undisturbed among the fantastic intricacies of the tracery. Some dismal story seemed to be connected with it, — one might have fancied it the chosen abode of the Jinns and Efrits of Arabian romance. The entrance, on the right hand, is by the door covered with minute and elaborate carving. The middle part of the room is lower than the rest, and is called a durka'ah, which, with the fountain in the centre, is paved and inlayed with marble of different colours. To the right of this, on the wall, is also a sloping marble slab with stair-like edges, over which the water pours and trickles, thence passing by pipes into the basin of the fountain. This is a common Saracenic device, and I remember to have seen it in Palermo, but is not in use in modern Egyptian houses, at least it is not mentioned by Lane. The raised part of the room is called a " leewan,"f paved with common stone, and covered with mats in summer and carpets in winter ; this is unusually extensive in the apartment before us : it is surrounded by a divan, or low seat continued round the walls, covered like a sofa, and with long cushions resting against the wall for the entire length, sometimes with * Lane. t Lane. m INTERIOR OF A HOUSE. 15 others in the angles : these are all covered with materials in richly ornamental patterns more or less expensive. The roof- ing of the " leewan," as will be observed, is supported by- carved beams, which with the intervening flat space are decor- ated and gilt in the richest manner. Of the windows, some are glazed, and are richly ornamented with stained glass, represent- ing flowers, fruits, and fanciful objects ; others, looking into the verdure of the garden, have simply open lattice or iron work. A remarkable and picturesque peculiarity is the decorated lantern above the fountain, made to open and shut at pleasure by means of a string, serving for the admission of air. A common device for this object is a sloping shed of boards above an opening seen on the roofs of the houses, serving to direct the current of wind into the apartments below. A similar plan for the same purpose was adopted by the ancient Egyptians. In the lateral recesses of this extensive room are different cupboards, or rather cabinets, fancifully inlaid with pearl, and having small panels of delicate and intricate carving ; while the flat spaces of the wall above are painted in the grotesque style resembling the devices on old tapestry, with representa- tions of kiosques and other objects, very badly executed. It is in the Mandarah that the master receives his guests, who, slipping off their outer shoes of red on the floor of the leewan, step up in their yellow slippers without soles which are worn under them to the apartment above, and take their seats on the divan : whereupon pipes and coffee are always brought for their refreshment. The arrangements of the harem or upper apartments of the family are minutely described in the work of Mr. Lane. In the larger houses it always comprises the luxury of a bath. Haunted houses are not uncommon in Cairo ; the Jinn or Genii, who figure in the Arabian Nights, being the most dread- ed visitants. During the month of Ramad'han, these Jinn, Mr. Lane tells us, are supposed to be confined in prison ; and hence, on the eve of the festival which follows that month, some of the 76 EGYPTIAN SUPERSTITION. women of Egypt, with the view of preventing these objects from entering their houses, sprinkle salt upon the floors of the apartments, saying as they do it, " In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." A curious relic of ancient Egyptian superstition may here be mentioned. It is believed that each quarter in Cairo has its peculiar guardian genius, or Agathodeemon, which has the form of a serpent. The ancient tombs of Egypt, and the dark recesses of the temples, are commonly believed by the people of this country to be inhabited by Efrits. The term Efrit is commonly applied rather to an evil Jinneh than any other being ; but the ghosts of dead persons are also called by this name ; and many absurd stories are related of them ; and great are the fears which they inspire. One of these stories is really so remarkable that we shall venture to quote a short account of it from the excellent work of Mrs. Poole, the sister of Mr. Lane, the well-known Arabic scholar, with whom she was then residing. " After having searched for a habitation during a month in vain, we were delighted with the offer of an exceedingly good one, which appeared in every respect eligible, and in which we are now residing. But our domestic comfort in this new abode has been disturbed by a singular trouble, which has obliged us to arrange as soon as possible for a removal. The house is an admirable one, being nearly new, though on the old con- struction. " "VVe were much surprised, after passing a few days here, to find that our servants were unable to procure any rest during the night; being disturbed by a constant knocking, and by the appearance of what they believe to be an Efrit. The man- ner of the servants' complaint was very characteristic. Having been much annoyed one morning by a noisy quarrel under our windows, my brother called one of our servants to ascertain how it had arisen, when he replied, ' It is a matter of no importance, O Efendi ; but the subject which perplexes us MllS. POOLE S STORY. 77 is, that there is a devil in the bath.' My brother being aware of their superstitious prejudices, replied, ' Well, is there a bath in the world that you do not believe to be a resort of evil spirits, according to the well-known tradition on that subject?' ' True, O my master,' rejoined the man, ' the case is so ; this devil has long been the resident of the house, and he will never permit any other tenant to retain its quiet possession for many years ; no one has remained more than a month within these walls, excepting the last person who lived here, and he, though he had soldiers and slaves, could not stay more than about nine months ; for the devil disturbed his family all night.' I must here tell you that during our short stay in the house, the maids have left us, one after another, without giving us any idea of their intentions, and have never returned ; and the cause of their sudden disappearance was now explained by the men, their fellow-servants. " It appeared, on inquiry, that the man to whom this house formerly belonged, and who is now dead, had, during his residence in it, murdered a poor tradesman who entered the court with his merchandise and two slaves : one of these (a black girl) was destroyed in the bath, and you will easily under- stand how far such a story as this, and a true one too, sheds its influence on the minds of a people who are superstitious to a proverb. " Ramad'han arrived, and we were for a time freed from his visitation ; but when it ended, the comparative quiet of our nights ended also. To describe all the various noises by which we have been disturbed is impossible. Very frequently the door of the room in which we were sitting late in the evening, within two or three hours of midnight, was violently knocked at many short intervals : at other times it seemed as if some- thing very heavy fell upon the pavement close under one of the windows of the same room, or of one adjoining ; and as these rooms were on the top of the house, we imagined at first that some stones or other things had been thrown by a neighbour, 78 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. but we could find nothing outside after the noise I have mentioned. The usual sounds continued during the greater part of the night, and were generally like a heavy trampling, like the walking of a person in large clogs, varied by knocking at the doors of many of the apartments, and at the large water jars, which are placed in recesses in the galleries. Our maids have come and gone like shadows ever since our residence here, excepting during Ramad'han ; and sauve qui peut seems to have been their maxim, for they believe that one touch of an Efrit would render them demoniacs. "A few days since, our door-keeper, a new servant, com- plained that he not only could not sleep, but that he never had slept since his arrival more than a few minutes at a time, and that he never could sleep consistently with his duty, unless the Efrit could be destroyed. He added, that he came every night into the upper gallery, leading to our sleeping-room, and there he found the figure I have mentioned, walking round and round, and concluded with an anxious request that his master would consent to his firing at the phantom, saying that devils have always been destroyed by the discharge of fire-arms. We consented to the proposal, provided he used neither ball nor small shot. Two days and nights passed, and we found on the third that the door-keeper was waiting to ascertain whether the spectre were a saint or a devil, and had therefore resolved to question him on the ensuing night before he fired. " The night came, and it was one of unusual darkness. We had really forgotten our recent intentions, although we were talking over the subject of the disturbances until near midnight, and speculating upon the cause in the room where my children were happily sleeping, when we were startled by a tremendous discharge of fire-arms, which was succeeded by the deep hoarse voice of the door-keeper exclaiming, * There he lies, the ac- cursed ! ' and a sound as of a creature struggling and gasping for breath. In the next moment the man called loudly to his THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 7!) fellow-servants, crying, ' Come up, the accursed is struck down before me ! ' and this was followed by such mysterious sounds, that we believed either a man had been shot, and was in his last agony, or that our man had accidentally shot himself. " My brother went round the gallery, while I and my sister- in-law stood, like children, trembling hand in hand, and my boys mercifully slept (as young ones do sleep) sweetly and soundly through all the confusion and distress. It appeared that the man used not only ball cartridges, but put two charges of powder, with balls, into his pistol. I will describe the event, however, in his own words : — ' The Efrit passed me in the gallery and repassed me, when I thus addressed it, ' Shall we quit this house, or will you do so ? ' ' You shall quit it,' he answered ; and, passing me again, he threw dirt into my right eye. This proved he was a devil,' continued the man, 'and I wrapped my cloak around me and watched the spectre as it receded. It stopped in that corner, and I observed its appear- ance attentively. It was tall and perfectly white. I stooped, and before I moved again discharged my pistol, which I had before concealed, and the accursed was struck down before me, and here are the remains.' So saying, he picked up a small burnt mass, which my brother showed us afterwards, resembling more the sole of a shoe than anything else, but perforated by fire in several places, and literally burnt to a cinder. This the man asserted was always the relic when a devil was destroyed, and it lay on the ground under a part of the wall where the bullets had entered. The noise which succeeded the report, and which filled me with horror, is and must ever remain a mystery. On the following morning we closely examined the spot, and found nothing that could throw light on the subject. The burnt remains do not help us to a conclusion ; one thing, however, I cannot but believe, that some one who had person- ated the spirit suffered some injury, and that the darkness favoured his escape." This story so remarkably resembles one told by the different 80 ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. members of the Wesley family, that it might almost be taken for an oriental version of it, with the sole difference of the catastrophe in the latter. And what is curious in both in- stances, the cause of the mysterious noises appears to have eluded all research. We should observe, that Mr. Lane was at length compelled to leave the haunted house, and the next comer was even more tormented. We have had some very lively descriptions of the interior of the harem, and of the habits of its fair inmates, from English ladies who have been admitted, but particularly from Mrs. Poole. But I never met in Cairo with any parallel to the following curious adventure which befell me some years since at Damascus, and which is not without interest here, as it is an infraction of Mahommedan custom in both cities, of which I never re- member to have heard another instance. It should be observed that the inhabitants of Damascus have always enjoyed the distinction, so honourable to the more orthodox Moslem, of being, after those of Mecca, the most special haters of the Giaour ; and this pious and proper aver- sion has been increased and kept alive by the annual passage of the great Mecca caravan. Every body knows the Turkish proverb — " If thy neighbour has been once to Mecca, have a care of him ; if twice, deal not with him ; but if three times, avoid him as thou wouldest the plague of Allah ! " The native Christian inhabitants were always under the harrow, and but one single and obscure European agent had ever been able, hitherto, to naturalize himself. The visits of travellers, although made in the most rigorous oriental garb, were always attended with risk. Erankland, though he travestied himself in robe and turban, could not disguise his clog, a wiry little English terrier, which was assaulted by the Damascene curs, and, but that his master seized and rolled him up in his garments, and rode off with him to the Latin convent, followed by a host of howling enemies, would have led to his detection and insult. Even so late as the time of Lamartine, " the Frank AN ADVENTURE AT DAMASC1 8. 81 Emir," with his imposing cortege, the same precautions were needful ; and thus it may be supposed that it was not without some twinging apprehensions that I prepared to make my solitary entry in the obnoxious European costume. My visit however "had fallen" on good and not on "evil times," upon an era of change indeed remarkable and moment- ous, not only for its immediate but for its far stretching con- sequences, and distinguished for the first insertion into the old Mussulman fabric of the wedge of European civilization. The Turkish power was broken; the Egyptian flag waved upon the walls of Damascus, planted there, too, far less by the brute valour of the troops of Mehemet Ali, than by the tactics of those French generals (an ominous circumstance, and well deserving the closest attention of our statesmen) who had originally trained and who in reality commanded them. "When the rapid victories of Ibrahim Pasha had made him master of Syria, and given him the sudden possession of Damascus, and when he came to establish there his impartial system of administration, by which the Christians could no more (as by immemorial usage had been their lot) be trampled upon by the haughty Mussulmen, it was deemed a fit season to establish, if possible, an English consulate in so important a station. After much opposition, Mr. Farren at length entered upon this post with every mark of honour from the local authorities, and by his conciliatory manners soon contrived to render himself extremely popular among the higher classes. Still, the state of Syria was uncertain and convulsed ; a reverse of the pasha's success would bring back into fierce reaction all the Mussulman intolerance ; and sudden reprisals on the Chris- tians were apprehended, in whose fate Europeans would natur- ally be involved. They were thus in a constant state of jeopardy ; and although the consul had a town house, he lived in the suburb of Salaheyih, whence in case of a popular outbreak he might easily make good his escape to the mountains. The day after my arrival we visited the city. As our horses clattered G OZ AN ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. through the narrow streets, the crowd sullenly made way for us, and curses, not loud, but deep, were no doubt muttered in the choicest Arabic. Many a filthy dervish, pale with suppressed hate, looked daggers as we passed him by. While such was the sullen fanaticism of the populace, only restrained by the arms of Ibrahim, another spirit was gaming ground among certain of the higher classes. The notorious indifference of the pasha himself to the Moslem in- stitutes, and the liberalism of his European officers, which had infected also the native ones, began to influence certain of the Mussidman aristocracy ; and, as extremes commonly meet, while the populace were ready to tear to pieces the Giaours who dared to insult their streets in the odious hat and European dress, some of the higher illuminati took a secret pleasure in showing their emancipation from the prejudices of their fore- fathers. Of this class, principally, were the visitors to the consul's house. I was on one occasion engaged in drawing the costume of a native female servant, when a man of some dis- tinction entered, a Moollah of high descent, claiming as his ancestor no less a personage than the father of Ayesha, the favourite wife of the prophet himself. His demeanour was exceedingly grave and dignified, and, as I afterwards remarked, he was saluted in the streets with singular respect. His amuse- ment was extremely great as he saw the girl's figure rapidly transferred to paper ; he smiled from time to time, as if oc- cupied with some pleasant idea, of which at length he delivered himself, expressing his wish, to our infinite surprise, that I should come to his house in company with the consul, and take a drawing of his favourite wife. It may be supposed that so singular an invitation, one so opposed to every Mussulman preju- dice, and even established custom, much amused and excited us. At the appointed hour we repaired to the old Moollah's abode. Externally, unlike the houses of Cairo, it presented nothing but a long dark wall upon the side of a narrow dusty lane ; within, however, every thing bore testimony to the wealth and luxury AN ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. s:{ of its owner. The saloon into which we were ushered was spacious and splendid, marble-paved, with a bubbling fountain in the midst, and a roof supported on wooden beams highly enriched and gilt in the arabesque fashion. A large door, across which was slung a heavy leathern curtain which could be unclosed and shut at pleasure, similar to those adopted in Catholic churches in Italy, opened on the court, from which another communicated with the mysterious apartments of the harem. We seated ourselves on the divan, — our host shortly entered, smiling at his own thoughts as before ; he doffed his turban and pelisse, retaining only his red cap and silk jacket ; he rubbed his hands continually, his eyes twinkled, and be- seemed to abandon himself entirely to the merry humour of the moment. A few words had hardly passed before the curtain was gently pushed aside ; the lady, like a timid fawn, peeped in, then, closing the curtain, advanced a few steps into the room, watching the eye of her husband ; who, without rising, half laughing, yet half commanding, beckoned her to a seat on the divan, while we, our hands on our bosoms in the oriental fashion, bent respectfully as she came forward and placed herself between the old Moollah and Mr. Farren. Speaking Arabic well, the latter was enabled to commence a conversation, in which, after some slight hesitation at this first introduction to mixed society, the lady appeared to bear her part with much ease and vivacity. This delighted her husband, who could hardly help expressing his satisfaction by laughing outright, so proud was he of the talents of his wife, and so tickled with the novelty of the whole affair. While this was going forward, I observed that the curtain of the door was drawn aside by a white hand, but so gently as not at first to attract the attention of the Moollah, (who sat with his back towards it,) and a very lovely face, with all the excitement of trembling curiosity in its laugh- ing black eyes, peered into the apartment, then another, and another, till some half dozen were looking over one another's shoulders, furtively glancing at the Giaours, in the most earnest 84 AN ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. silence, and peeping edgeway at the old fellow, to see if they were noticed ; but he either was or affected to be unconscious of their presence, while the consul and myself maintained the severest gravity of aspect. Emboldened by this impunity, and provoked by the ludicrous seriousness of our visages, they be- gan to criticise the Giaours freely, tittering, whispering, and comparing notes so loudly that the noise attracted the attention of the old man, who turned round his head, when the curtain instantly popped to, and all again was silent. But ere long, these lively children of a larger growth, impelled by irresistible curiosity, returned again to their station — their remarks were now hardly restrained within a whisper, and they chattered and laughed with a total defiance of decorum. The favourite bit her lips, and looked every inch a Sultana at this intolerable presumption ; whereupon the old man gravely arose and drove them back into the harem, as some old pedagogue would a bevy of noisy romps. Delivered from this interruption, the lady, at a sign from her liege lord, proceeded to assume the pose re- quired for the drawing. She had assumed for this occasion her richest adornments ; her oval head-dress was of mingled flowers and pearls, her long closely fitting robe, open at the sleeves and half way down the figure, was of striped silk, a splendid shawl was wreathed gracefully around the loins, and a rich short jacket was thrown over the rest of her attire; her feet were thrust into embroidered slippers, but the elegance of her gait was impaired by her walking on a sort of large ornamented pattens some inches from the ground. It may be supposed I did not keep the lady standing longer than was absolutely necessary. When I had finished, our host, with a smile of peculiar significance, directed her attention to a small carved cupboard, or cabinet, ornamented with pearl, from which she proceeded to draw forth — mirabile dictu ! — a glass vessel con- taining that particular liquor forbidden to the faithful; and pouring it out in glasses, handed it to us all, then, at her hus- band's suggestion, helped herself, and, as we pledged one AN ADVENTURE AT DAMASCUS. 85 another, the exhilaration of our pious Mussulman entertainer seemed to know no hounds. At the loud clapping of hands, a female slave had entered with a large tray covered with the choicest delicacies of Arab cookery — chopped meat rolled up in the leaves of vegetables, and other and more recherche dishes, of exquisite piquancy of flavour ; this was placed before us on a small stool, together with spoons for our especial use. To complete our entertainment, we were favoured with a specimen of the talents of an Almeh, or singing woman, confounded by so many travellers with the Ghawazee, or dancing girls. In long low strains she began to chant a lugubrious romance, probably some tale of hapless love and woe ; her monotonous cadences would have driven Hotspur mad, worse than " To hear a brazen can'stick turn'd, Or a dry wheel grate on an axletree ; " but as the story proceeded, the lady appeared rapt, the tears filled her eyes, and she exhibited every sign of the deepest emotion ; so different are the modes by which the same universal feelings may be affected. Shortly after, we took our leave. On my way home, I could not but remark to Mr. Farren, that the favourite wife of our host was by no means equal in point of beauty to some of her less privileged inmates of the harem. He replied that he had also noticed this, and mentioned it to the old Moollah, who had frankly explained the reasons of his preference. She alone, he said, could devise amusements for him, converse with him, and lighten the monotony of his vacant hours. Perhaps too she was no less skilled in those peculiar arts which form the study of oriental women ; for, however some may delight to paint the life of the harem ' en beau,' we suspect it is but a sad mixture of mere ennui and sensuality. There are numerous interesting excursions to be made from Cairo. The plcasantcst arc to Shoubra, Rhoda, Heliopolis, 86 SHOTTBRA AND RHODA. and the pyramids, which I shall notice in their turn. In this burning climate, and dusty soil, it is no wonder that the imagination of an Arab paints tranquil repose in a latticed kiosque, by the side of trickling waters, and under the shade of scented gardens, with perhaps the addition of an Houri or two, as the greatest of all earthly delights. It is difficult to form an idea of the absolute craving of a northern traveller for a wholesome bit of green sward, with a bubbling runnel of water, a common field, with hedge-row elm and hillock green, to relieve the eternal drought, and dust, and sultriness. But these things are impossible in Egypt. In the hope of some- thing in the shape of grass, I mounted my donkey and galloped one day to the pasha's kiosque and gardens at Shoubra, beneath a fine avenue of trees completely overshadowing the road which runs pleasantly near the Nile. The gardens are extensive, and well kept, consisting of long green avenues paved with pebbles, and bordered with rows of exotics, which exhale the most delicious odours ; here and there are foun- tains prettily ornamented, and overhung with trees, refreshing enough after coming from Cairo. There is a very extensive bath, and a kiosque overlooking the garden, which is a favourite re- treat of the late pasha's. It is pleasant enough to while away an hour or two here, but a far prettier place is Rhoda, an island in the Nile, opposite Old Cairo, where, under the direction of Mr. Trail, an English master gardener, who has a pretty bower himself among these shades of his own creation, gardens of great beauty have been realized. The situation is happy, the Nile adding much to the landsc-ape, and one wanders half enchanted among irregular shady bosquets of the most delicious fragrant trees, and shrubs, and brilliant flowers, through which peeps are obtained upon the river, with its flitting white sails, and the distant pyramids. Nor are the decorations of art want- ing ; for there is also a very pretty building, with a shell-paved grotto, and a small piece of water. I repeatedly visited this place, and took the greatest delight in its verdant alleys ; yet MOSQUE OF AMR. KASR ES SIIEMA. 87 something I thought was deficient, my ideas of a perfect oriental garden were not realized. I wanted to sec a wilderness of rustling shades, overarched by the immense green leaves of the banana, and the tall rustling palm, with dense thickets of other trees, intermingled with an infinite variety of those delicious exotics, covered with brilliant flowers, which makes the sense ache with their voluptuous fragrance ; a perfect paradisaical bower, such as might be created from the rich elements of east- ern vegetation, with kiosqucs of the genuine Arabian architec- ture, and fountains which might maintain perpetual coolness. Of such I have often dreamed among the alleys of Rlioda. These beautiful gardens were formed at the expense of the late Ibrahim Pasha, whose palace and harem are on the opposite or Cairo bank of the channel, buried in trees and gardens, which extend all the way to Cairo, in place of the old dust heaps which formerly stood near, and which were removed by his orders. These are indeed noble improvements. Between Rhoda and Cairo is a dreary half-desert region, where however there are various objects of interest which may be glanced at on the way back. There is the mosque of Amr, to which allusion has been made, the oldest in Cairo and its environs, and which displays small round-headed arches, ap- parently copied from the Byzantine, before the introduction of the pointed arch ; the Kasr es Shema, the strong-hold of the Byzantine power, from which the Saracen conqueror wrested Egypt. It presents extremely high and apparently impregnable walls, with gates admitting to the maze of Coptic buildings within, some of which are elevated on the rampart itself. It contains several churches and a convent, in which is a grotto traditionally the retreat of the holy family when in Egypt. It is indeed a curious nest. And besides this the Copts have other convents in the neighbourhood. It is impossible for the most ordinary physiognomist not to be struck with the heavy, sullen, and somewhat sinister look of this singular people, so different from either the Turkish or Arab race. Perhaps some- 88 THE JEWISH CEMETERY. thing of this may be derived from their former degraded posi- tion, yet not altogether so ; and from all that has been said of them, their moral characteristics are answerable to this forbid- ding exterior ; with the worst oriental vices, they are without its redeeming virtues and high qualities, and they may be compared to the Levantine Greeks for subtlety and intrigue, without possessing any of their mercurial liveliness and genius. In this vicinity was also the Egyptian Babylon, on an eminence, and the site of the Arab cities which were finally supplanted by Cairo. And there is a spot which I also visited once with Mr. Lieder, between this neighbourhood and the sterile crags of Mokattam — the burial-ground of the Jews. This is a dreary place beyond the Arab cemetery to the west of the citadel, quite in the open desert, and from its humble slabs is a wide view over the Nile and the site of Memphis, with the whole range of pyramids from Sakhara to Ghizeh, the quarries of Toura, and the mouth of that wild valley which conducts to the shores of the Red Sea near Suez. Among the many theories respecting the Israelites, is that which supposes that they laboured on the pyramids, and there is an inscription among the quarries at Toura, in the Sinaitic character, which, as it has been averred, records their hard bondage under their Egyptian taskmasters; while some also, supposing that Mem- phis, and not Zoan, was the seat of the Pharaoh alluded to in Scripture, make the Israelites to have retreated from this vicinity by the valley in question to the shores of the Red Sea. This appears no less probable, than the generally received opinion that their departure took place from the lower Delta ; and so deeply interesting is the whole subject, that it casts an influence over the mind when visiting this desolate desert cemetery of this wonderful people. Still nearer to the city are some exquisitely beautiful Saracenic tombs, like slender towers, quite unique in design, which are well worthy of attention. Here too is the tomb of Mehemet Ali and his family, externally among the most humble of these endless and beautiful nionu- KXCl'KSION TO lll.MOI-Ol.IS. 89 ments, but within described as particularly " snug and comfort- able lying." It is a pleasant ride of two hours from Cairo to the site of Heliopolis. Passing through the Bab e Nusr, and a long suburb, the road keeps between avenues of acacias, along near the edge of the cultivated land, which is watered by channels from the Nile, communicating with the canal which traverses the city, and presenting many pretty rural scenes. In the desert on the right are one or two of the ruinous tombs straggling afar from the cemetery of Kaitbay. One of these appertains to the celebrated Melek Adcl, the brother of Saladin. Before reaching the mounds of Heliopolis is a well of fine water, on the border of a garden of citrons and palms ; in the midst of these is a venerable old sycamore with hollow trunk, under which the holy family reposed, according to tradition, on the flight into Egypt, and drank of the well. It is in truth a very pretty spot ; the citron thickets resound with the music of birds, and large vultures rock to and fro on the trembling branches of the palms ; the knotted hollow trunk bears, like the old olives in the garden of Gethsemane, marks of the knives of in- numerable pilgrims. The balsam tree, according to Pococke, was brought here by Cleopatra from the celebrated gardens of Jericho, but it is no longer met with in either place. A little beyond the village of Matareeh we enter the area of Heliopolis, between the mounds which indicate the walls of crude brick which surrounded it. The city was small, about half a mile square ; it was merely a collection of colleges and temples, but of the greatest celebrity, as the chief seat of Egyptian learning. Strabo was shown the extensive dwellings of the learned priests, and the houses where Eudoxus and Plato remained thirteen years under their tuition. The traveller Avho approaches the site along a dead level, is surprised to find that Heliopolis stood formerly on an artificial elevation, overlooking lakes which were fed by canals communicating with the Nile. Nothing whatever remains of the splendid edifices of this 90 HELIOPOLIS. city but one solitary obelisk, about sixty-two feet high, seen from afar rising above a grove of date and acacia trees. It bears the name of Osirtesen I., with whom Joseph is supposed to have been contemporary ; and it is thus one of the most ancient monuments in Egypt. The base is buried several feet in the earth that has gradually accumulated after the inundation, which now enters the area, described as formerly overlooking the surrounding level. Osirtesen I. is the first great name in Theban history ; he reigned over Upper and Lower Egypt. He was the builder of the older and smaller part of the great temple of Karnak. It was most probably at Heliopolis that Moses acquired the wisdom of the Egyp- tians, and where he planned the liberation of his countrymen. Here too, or in the vicinity, Jeremiah wrote his Lamentations for their downfal. Erom the learned priests of Heliopolis Plato, who studied here several years, is believed to have derived the doctrine of the immortalitv of the soul, and of a •i