The Author sails from Sidon—Touches at Cyprus—Arrives at Alexandria—Sets out for Rosetto—Embarks on the Nile—and arrives at Cairo.
It was on Saturday the 15th of June, 1768, I sailed in a French vessel from Sidon, once the richest and most powerful city in the world, though now there is not remaining a shadow of its ancient grandeur. We were bound for the island of Cyprus; the weather clear and exceedingly hot, the wind favourable.
This island is not in our course for Alexandria, but lies to the northward of it; nor had I, for my own part, any curiosity to see it. My mind was intent upon more uncommon, more distant, and more painful voyages. But the master of the vessel had business of his own which led him thither; with this I the more readily complied, as we had not yet got certain advice that the plague had ceased in Egypt, and it still wanted some days to the Festival of St John, which is supposed to put a period to that cruel distemper49.
We observed a number of thin, white clouds, moving with great rapidity from south to north, in direct opposition to the course of the Etesian winds; these were immensely high. It was evident they came from the mountains of Abyssinia, where, having discharged their weight of rain, and being pressed by the lower current of heavier air from the northward, they had mounted to possess the vacuum, and returned to restore the equilibrium to the northward, whence they were to come back, loaded with vapour from Mount Taurus, to occasion the overflowing of the Nile, by breaking against the high and rugged mountains of the south.
Nothing could be more agreeable to me than that sight, and the reasoning upon it. I already, with pleasure, anticipated the time in which I should be a spectator first, afterwards historian, of this phænomenon, hitherto a mystery through all ages. I exulted in the measures I had taken, which I flattered myself, from having been digested with greater confederation than those adopted by others, would secure me from the melancholy catastrophes that had terminated these hitherto-unsuccessful attempts.
On the 16th, at dawn of day, I saw a high hill, which, from its particular form, described by Strabo50, I took for Mount Olympus51. Soon after, the rest of the island, which seemed low, appeared in view. We scarce saw Lernica till we anchored before it. It is built of white clay, of the same colour as the ground, precisely as is the case with Damascus, so that you cannot, till close to it, distinguish the houses from the earth they stand upon.
It is very remarkable that Cyprus was so long undiscovered52; ships had been used in the Mediterranean 1700 years before Christ; yet, though only a day’s sailing from the continent of Asia on the north and east, and little more from that of Africa on the south, it was not known at the building of Tyre, a little before the Trojan war, that is 500 years after ships had been passing to and fro in the seas around it.
It was, at its discovery, thick covered with wood; and what leads me to believe it was not well known, even so late as the building of Solomon’s Temple, is, that we do not find that Hiram king of Tyre, just in its neighbourhood, ever had recourse to it for wood, though surely the carriage would have been easier than to have brought it down from the top of Mount Libanus.
That there was great abundance in it, we know from Eratosthenes53, who tells us it was so overgrown that it could not be tilled; so that they first cut down the timber to be used in the furnaces for melting silver and copper; that after this they built fleets with it, and when they could not even destroy it this way, they gave liberty to all strangers to cut it down for whatever use they pleased; and not only so, but they gave them the property of the ground they cleared.
Things are sadly changed now. Wood is one of the wants of most parts of the island, which has not become more healthy by being cleared, as is ordinarily the case.
At 54Cacamo (Acamas) on the west side of the island, the wood remains thick and impervious as at the first discovery. Large stags, and wild boars of a monstrous size, shelter themselves unmolested in these their native woods; and it depended only upon the portion of credulity that I was endowed with, that I did not believe that an elephant had, not many years ago, been seen alive there. Several families of Greeks declared it to me upon oath; nor were there wanting persons of that nation at Alexandria, who laboured to confirm the assertion. Had skeletons of that animal been there, I should have thought them antediluvian ones. I know none could have been at Cyprus, unless in the time of Darius Ochus, and I do not remember that there were elephants, even with him.
In passing, I would fain have gone ashore to see if there were any remains of the celebrated temple of Paphos; but a voyage, such as I was then embarked on, stood in need of vows to Hercules rather than to Venus, and the master, fearing to lose his passage, determined to proceed.
Many medals (scarce any of them good) are dug up in Cyprus; silver ones, of very excellent workmanship, are found near Paphos, of little value in the eyes of antiquarians, being chiefly of towns of the size of those found at Crete and Rhodes, and all the islands of the Archipelago. Intaglios there are some few, part in very excellent Greek style, and generally upon better stones than usual in the islands. I have seen some heads of Jupiter, remarkable for bushy hair and beard, that were of the most exquisite workmanship, worthy of any price. All the inhabitants of the island are subject to fevers, but more especially those in the neighbourhood of Paphos.
We left Lernica the 17th of June, about four o’clock in the afternoon. The day had been very cloudy, with a wind at N. E. which freshened as we got under weigh. Our master, a seaman of experience upon that coast, ran before it to the westward with all the sails he could set. Trusting to a sign that he saw, which he called a bank, resembling a dark cloud in the horizon, he guessed the wind was to be from that quarter the next day.
Accordingly, on the 18th, a little before twelve o’clock, a very fresh and favourable breeze came from the N. W. and we pointed our prow directly, as we thought, upon Alexandria.
The coast of Egypt is exceedingly low, and, if the weather is not clear, you often are close in with the land before you discover it.
A strong current sets constantly to the eastward; and the way the masters of vessels pretend to know their approach to the coast is by a black mud, which they find upon the plummet55 at the end of their sounding-line, about seven leagues distant from land.
Our master pretended at midnight he had found that black sand, and therefore, although the wind was very fair, he chose to lie to, till morning, as thinking himself near the coast; although his reckoning, as he said, did not agree with what he inferred from his soundings.
As I was exceedingly vexed at being so disappointed of making the best of our favourable wind, I rectified my quadrant, and found by the passages of two stars over the meridian, that we were in lat. 32° 1´ 45´´, or seventeen leagues distant from Alexandria, instead of seven, and that by difference of our latitude only.
From this I inferred that part of the assertion, that it is the mud of the Nile which is supposed to shew seamen their approach to Egypt, is mere imagination; seeing that the point where we then were was really part of the sea opposite to the desert of Barca, and had no communication whatever with the Nile.
On the contrary, the Etesian winds blowing all Summer upon that coast, from the westward of north, and a current setting constantly to the eastward, it is impossible that any part of the mud of the Nile can go so high to the windward of any of the mouths of that river.
It is well known, that the action of these winds, and the constancy of that current, has thrown a great quantity of mud, gravel, and sand, into all the ports on the coast of Syria.
All vestiges of old Tyre are defaced; the ports of Sidon, 56Berout, Tripoli, and 57Latikea, are all filled up by the accretion of sand; and, not many days before my leaving Sidon, Mr de Clerambaut, consul of France, shewed me the pavements of the old city of Sidon, 7½ feet lower than the ground upon which the present city stands, and considerably farther back in the gardens nearer to Mount Libanus.
This every one in the country knows is the effect of that easterly current setting upon the coast, which, as it acts perpendicularly to the course of the Nile when discharging itself, at all or any of its mouths, into the Mediterranean, must hurry what it is charged with on towards the coast of Syria, and hinder it from settling opposite to, or making those additions to the land of Egypt, which 58Herodotus has vainly supposed.
The 20th of June, early in the morning, we had a distant prospect of Alexandria rising from the sea. Was not the state of that city perfectly known, a traveller in search of antiquities in architecture would think here was a field for long study and employment.
It is in this point of view the town appears most to the advantage. The mixture of old monuments, such as the Column of Pompey, with the high moorish towers and steeples, raise our expectations of the consequence of the ruins we are to find.
But the moment we are in the port the illusion ends, and we distinguish the immense Herculean works of ancient times, now few in number, from the ill-imagined, ill-constructed, and imperfect buildings, of the several barbarous masters of Alexandria in later ages.
There are two ports, the Old and the New. The entrance into the latter is both difficult and dangerous, having a bar before it; it is the least of the two, though it is what is called the Great Port, by 59Strabo.
Here only the European ships can lie; and, even when here, they are not in safety; as numbers of vessels are constantly lost, though at anchor.
Above forty were cast a-shore and dashed to pieces in March 1773, when I was on my return home, mostly belonging to Ragusa, and the small ports in Provence, while little harm was done to ships of any nation accustomed to the ocean.
It was curious to observe the different procedure of these different nations upon the same accident. As soon as the squall began to become violent, the masters of the Ragusan vessels, and the French caravaneurs, or vessels trading in the Mediterranean, after having put out every anchor and cable they had, took to their boats and fled to the nearest shore, leaving the vessels to their chance in the storm. They knew the furniture of their ships to be too flimsy to trust their lives to it.
Many of their cables being made of a kind of grass called Spartum, could not bear the stress of the vessels or agitation of the waves, but parted with the anchors, and the ships perished.
On the other hand, the British, Danish, Swedish, and Dutch navigators of the ocean, no sooner saw the storm beginning, than they left their houses, took to their boats, and went all hands on board. These knew the sufficiency of their tackle, and provided they were present, to obviate unforeseen accidents, they had no apprehension from the weather. They knew that their cables were made of good hemp, that their anchors were heavy and strong. Some pointed their yards to the wind, and others lowered them upon deck. Afterwards they walked to and fro on their quarter-deck with perfect composure, and bade defiance to the storm. Not one man of these stirred from the ships, till calm weather, on the morrow, called upon them to assist their feeble and more unfortunate brethren, whose ships were wrecked and lay scattered on the shore.
The other port is the 60Eunostus of the ancients, and is to the westward of the Pharos. It was called also the Port of Africa; is much larger than the former, and lies immediately under part of the town of Alexandria. It has much deeper water, though a multitude of ships have every day, for ages, been throwing a quantity of ballast into it; and there is no doubt, but in time it will be filled up, and joined to the continent by this means. And posterity may, probably, following the system of Herodotus (if it should be still fashionable) call this as they have done the rest of Egypt, the Gift of the Nile.
Christian vessels are not suffered to enter this port; the only reason is, least the Moorish women should be seen taking the air in the evening at open windows; and this has been thought to be of weight enough for Christian powers to submit to it, and to over-balance the constant loss of ships, property, and men.
61Alexander, returning to Egypt from the Libyan side, was struck with the beauty and situation of these two ports. 62Dinochares, an architect who accompanied him, traced out the plan, and Ptolemy I. built the city.
The healthy, though desolate and bare country round it, part of the Desert of Libya, was another inducement to prefer this situation to the unwholesome black mud of Egypt; but it had no water; this Ptolemy was obliged to bring far above from the Nile, by a calish, or canal, vulgarly called the Canal of Cleopatra, though it was certainly coeval with the foundation of the city; it has no other name at this day.
This circumstance, however, remedied in the beginning, was fatal to the city’s magnificence ever after, and the cause of its being in the state it is at this day.
The importance of its situation to trade and commerce, made it a principal object of attention to each party in every war. It was easily taken, because it had no water; and, as it could not be kept, it was destroyed by the conqueror, that the temporary possession of it might not turn to be a source of advantage to an enemy.
We are not, however, to suppose, that the country all around it was as bare in the days of prosperity as it is now. Population, we see, produces a swerd of grass round ancient cities in the most desert parts of Africa, which keeps the sand immoveable till the place is no longer inhabited.
I apprehend the numerous lakes in Egypt were all contrived as reservoirs to lay up a store of water for supplying gardens and plantations in the months of the Nile’s decrease. The great effects of a very little water are seen along the calish, or canal, in a number of bushes that it produces, and thick plantations of date-trees, all in a very luxuriant state; and this, no doubt, in the days of the Ptolemies, was extended further, more attended to, and better understood.
Pompey’s pillar, the obelisks, and subterraneous cisterns, are all the antiquities we find now in Alexandria; these have been described frequently, ably, and minutely.
The foliage and capital of the pillar are what seem generally to displease; the fust is thought to have merited more attention than has been bestowed upon the capital.
The whole of the pillar is granite, but the capital is of another stone; and I should suspect those rudiments of leaves were only intended to support firmly leaves of metal63 of better workmanship; for the capital itself is near nine feet high, and the work, in proportionable leaves of stone, would be not only very large, but, after being finished, liable to injuries.
This magnificent monument appears, in taste, to be the work of that period, between Hadrian and Severus; but, though the former erected several large buildings in the east, it is observed of him he never put inscriptions upon them.
This has had a Greek inscription, and I think may very probably be attributed to the time of the latter, as a monument of the gratitude of the city of Alexandria for the benefits he conferred on them, especially since no ancient history mentions its existence at an earlier period.
I apprehend it to have been brought in a block from the Thebais in Upper Egypt, by the Nile; though some have imagined it was an old obelisk, hewn to that round form. It is nine feet diameter; and were it but 80 feet high, it would require a prodigious obelisk indeed, that could admit to be hewn to this circumference for such a length, so as perfectly to efface the hieroglyphics that must have been very deeply cut in the four faces of it.
The tomb of Alexander has been talked of as one of the antiquities of this city. Marmol64 says he saw it in the year 1546. It was, according to him, a small house, in form of a chapel, in the middle of the city, near the church of St Mark, and was called Escander.
The thing itself is not probable, for all those that made themselves masters of Alexandria, in the earliest times, had too much respect for Alexander, to have reduced his tomb to so obscure a state. It would have been spared even by the Saracens; for Mahomet speaks of Alexander with great respect, both as a king and a prophet. The body was preserved in a glass coffin, in 65Strabo’s time, having been robbed of the golden one in which it was first deposited.
The Greeks, for the most part, are better instructed in the history of these places than the Cophts, Turks, or Christians; and, after the Greeks, the Jews.
As I was perfectly disguised, having for many years worn the dress of the Arabs, I was under no constraint, but walked through the town in all directions, accompanied by any of those different nations I could induce to walk with me; and, as I constantly spoke Arabic, was taken for a 66Bedowé by all sorts of people; but, notwithstanding the advantage this freedom gave me, and of which I daily availed myself, I never could hear a word of this monument from either Greek, Jew, Moor, or Christian.
Alexandria has been often taken since the time of Cæsar. It was at last destroyed by the Venetians and Cypriots, upon, or rather after the release of St Lewis, and we may say of it as of Carthage, Periêre ruinæ, its very ruins appear no longer.
The building of the present gates and walls, which some have thought to be antique, does not seem earlier than the last restoration in the 13th century. Some parts of the gate and walls may be of older date; (and probably were those of the last Caliphs before Salidan) but, except these, and the pieces of columns which lie horizontally in different parts of the wall, every thing else is apparently of very late times, and the work has been huddled together in great haste.
It is in vain then to expect a plan of the city, or try to trace here the Macedonian mantle of Dinochares; the very vestiges of ancient ruins are covered, many yards deep, by rubbish, the remnant of the devastations of later times. Cleopatra, were she to return to life again, would scarcely know where her palace was situated, in this her own capital.
There is nothing beautiful or pleasant in the present Alexandria, but a handsome street of modern houses, where a very active and intelligent number of merchants live upon the miserable remnants of that trade, which made its glory in the first times.
It is thinly inhabited, and there is a tradition among the natives, that, more than once, it has been in agitation to abandon it all together, and retire to Rosetto, or Cairo, but that they have been withheld by the opinion of divers saints from Arabia, who have allured them, that Mecca being destroyed, (as it must be as they think by the Russians) Alexandria is then to become the holy place, and that Mahomet’s body is to be transported thither; when that city is destroyed, the sanctified reliques are to be transported to Cairouan, in the kingdom of Tunis: lastly, from Cairouan they are to come to Rosetto, and there to remain till the consummation of all things, which is not then to be at a great distance.
Ptolemy places his Alexandria in lat 30° 31´ and in round numbers in his almagest, lat. 31° north.
Our Professor, Mr Greaves, one of whose errands into Egypt was to ascertain the latitude of this place, seems yet, from some cause or other, to have failed in it, for though he had a brass sextant of five feet radius, he makes the latitude of Alexandria, from a mean of many observations, to be lat 31° 4´ N. whereas the French astronomers from the Academy of Sciences have settled it at 31° 11´ 20´´, so between Mr Greaves and the French there is a difference of 7´ 20´´, which is too much. There is not any thing, in point of situation, that can account for this variance, as in the case of Ptolemy; for the new town of Alexandria is built from east to west; and as all christian travellers necessarily make their observations now on the same line, there cannot possibly be any difference from situation.
Mr Niebuhr, whether from one or more observations he does not say, makes the latitude to be 31° 12´. From a mean of thirty-three observations, taken by the three-feet quadrant I have spoken of, I found it to be 31° 11´ 16´´: So that, taking a medium of these three results, you will have the latitude of Alexandria 31° 11´ 32´´, or, in round number, 31° 11´ 30´´, nor do I think there possibly can be 5´´ difference.
By an eclipse, moreover, of the first satellite of Jupiter, observed on the 23d day of June 1769, I found its longitude to be 30° 17´ 30´´ east, from the meridian of Greenwich.
We arrived at Alexandria the 20th of June, and found that the plague had raged in that city and neighbourhood from the beginning of March, and that two days only before our arrival people had begun to open their houses and communicate with each other; but it was no matter, St John’s day was past, the miraculous nucta, or dew, had fallen, and every body went about their ordinary business in safety, and without fear.
With very great pleasure I had received my instruments at Alexandria. I examined them, and, by the perfect state in which they arrived, knew the obligations I was under to my correspondents and friends. Prepared now for any enterprise, I left with eagerness the thread-bare inquiries into the meagre remains, of this once-famous capital of Egypt.
The journey to Rosetto is always performed by land, as the mouth of the branch of the Nile leading to Rosetto, called the Bogaz67, is very shallow and dangerous to pass, and often tedious; besides, nobody wishes to be a partner for any time in a voyage with Egyptian sailors, if he can possibly avoid it.
The journey by land is also reputed dangerous, and people travel burdened with arms, which they are determined never to use.
For my part, I placed my safety, in my disguise, and my behaviour. We had all of us pistols at our girdles, against an extremity; but our fire-arms of a larger sort, of which we had great store, were sent with our baggage, and other instruments, by the Bogaz to Rosetto. I had a small lance, called a Jerid, in my hand, my servants were without any visible arms.
We left Alexandria in the afternoon, and about three miles before arriving at Aboukeer, we met a man, in appearance of some consequence, going to Alexandria.
As we had no fear of him or his party, we neither courted nor avoided them. We passed near enough, however, to give them the usual salute, Salam Alicum; to which the leader of the troop gave no answer, but said to one of his servants, as in contempt, Bedowé! they are peasants, or country Arabs. I was much better pleased with this token that we had deceived them, than if they had returned the salute twenty times.
Some inconsiderable ruins are at Aboukeer, and seem to denote, that it was the former situation of an ancient city. There is here also an inlet of the sea; and the distance, something less than four leagues from Alexandria, warrants us to say that it is Canopus, one of the most ancient cities in the world; its ruins, notwithstanding the neighbourhood of the branch of the Nile, which goes by that name, have not yet been covered by the increase of the land of Egypt.
At Medea, which we suppose, by its distance of near seven leagues, to be the ancient Heraclium, is the passage or ferry which terminates the fear of danger from the Arabs of Libya; and it is here 68supposed the Delta, or Egypt, begins.
Dr Shaw69 is obliged to confess, that between Alexandria and the Canopic branch of the Nile, few or no vestiges are seen of the increase of the land by the inundation of the river; indeed it would have been a wonder if there had.
Alexandria, and its environs, are part of the desert of Barca, too high to have ever been overflowed by the Nile, from any part of its lower branches; or else there would have been no necessity for going so high up as above Rosetto, to get level enough, to bring water down to Alexandria by the canal.
Dr Shaw adds, that the ground hereabout may have been an island; and so it may, and so may almost any other place in the world; but there is no sort of indication that it was so, nor viable means by which it was formed.
We saw no vegetable from Alexandria to Medea, excepting some scattered roots of Absinthium; nor were these luxuriant, or promising to thrive, but though they had not a very strong smell, they were abundantly bitter; and their leaves seemed to have imbibed a quantity of saline particles, with which the soil of the whole desert of Barca is strongly impregnated.
We saw two or three gazels, or antelopes, walking one by one, at several times, in nothing differing from the species of that animal, in the desert of Barca and Cyrenaicum; and the 70jerboa, another inhabitant of these deserts; but from the multitude of holes in the ground, which we saw at the root of almost every plant of Absinthium, we were very certain its companion, the 71Cerastes, or horned viper, was an inhabitant of that country also.
From Medea, or the Passage, our road lay through very dry sand; to avoid which, and seek firmer footing, we were obliged to ride up to the bellies of our horses in the sea. If the wind blows this quantity of dust or sand into the Mediterranean, it is no wonder the mouths of the branches of the Nile are choked up.
All Egypt is like to this part of it, full of deep dust and sand, from the beginning of March till the first of the inundation. It is this fine powder and sand, raised and loosened by the heat of the sun, and want of dew, and not being tied fast, as it were, by any root or vegetation, which the Nile carries off with it, and buries in the sea, and which many ignorantly suppose comes from Abyssinia, where every river runs in a bed of rock.
When you leave the sea, you strike off nearly at right angles, and pursue your journey to the eastward of north. Here heaps of stone and trunks of pillars, are set up to guide you in your road, through moving sands, which stand in hillocks in proper directions, and which conduct you safely to Rosetto, surrounded on one side by these hills of sand, which seem ready to cover it.
Rosetto is upon that branch of the Nile which was called the Bolbuttic Branch, and is about four miles from the sea. It probably obtained its present name from the Venetians, or Genoese, who monopolized the trade of this country, before the Cape of Good Hope was discovered; for it is known to the natives by the name of Rashid, by which is meant the Orthodox.
The reason of this I have already explained, it is some time or other to be a substitute to Mecca, and to be blessed with all that holiness, that the possession of the reliques, of their prophet can give it.
Dr Shaw72 having always in his mind the strengthening of Herodotus’s hypothesis, that Egypt is created by the Nile, says, that perhaps this was once a Cape, because Rashid has that meaning. But as Dr Shaw understood Arabic perfectly well, he must therefore have known, that Rashid has no such signification in any of the Oriental Languages. Ras, indeed, is a head land, or cape; but Rassit has no such signification, and Rashid a very different one, as I have already mentioned.
Rashid then, or Rosetto, is a large, clean, neat town, or village, upon the eastern side of the Nile. It is about three miles long, much frequented by studious and religious Mahometans; among these too are a considerable number of merchants, it being the entrepot between Cairo and Alexandria, and vice versa; here too the merchants have their factors, who superintend and watch over the merchandise which passes the Bogaz to and from Cairo.
There are many gardens, and much verdure, about Rosetto; the ground is low, and retains long the moisture it imbibes from the overflowing of the Nile. Here also are many curious plants and flowers, brought from different countries, by Fakirs, and merchants. Without this, Egypt, subject to such long inundation, however it may abound in necessaries, could not boast of many beautiful productions of its own gardens, though flowers, trees, and plants, were very much in vogue in this neighbourhood, two hundred years ago, as we find by the observations of Prosper Alpinus.
The study and search after every thing useful or beautiful, which for some time had been declining gradually, fell at last into total contempt and oblivion, under the brutal reign of these last slaves73, the most infamous reproach to the name of Sovereign.
Rosetto is a favourite halting-place of the Christian travellers entering Egypt, and merchants established there. There they draw their breaths, in an imaginary increase of freedom, between the two great sinks of tyranny, oppression, and injustice, Alexandria and Cairo.
Rosetto has this good reputation, that the people are milder, more tractable, and less avaricious, than those of the two last-mentioned capitals; but I must say, that, in my time, I could not discern much difference.
The merchants, who trade at all hours of the day with Christians, are indeed more civilized, and less insolent, than the soldiery and the rest of the common people, which is the case every where, as it is for their own interest; but their priests, and moullahs, their soldiers, and people living in the country, are, in point of manners, just as bad as the others.
Rosetto is in lat. 31° 24´ 15´´ N.; it is the place where we embark for Cairo, which we accordingly did on June the 30th.
There is a wonderful deal of talk at Alexandria of the danger of passing over the desert to Rosetto. The same conversation is held here. After you embark on the Nile in your way to Cairo, you hear of pilots, and masters of vessels, who land you among robbers to share your plunder, and twenty such like stories, all of them of old date, and which perhaps happened long ago, or never happened at all.
But provided the government of Cairo is settled, and you do not land at villages in strife with each other, (in which circumstances no person of any nation is safe) you must be very unfortunate indeed, if any great accident befal you between Alexandria and Cairo.
For, from the constant intercourse between these two cities, and the valuable charge confided to these masters of vessels, they are all as well known, and at the least as much under authority, as the boatmen on the river Thames; and, if they should have either killed, or robbed any person, it must be with a view to leave the country immediately; else either at Cairo, Rosetto, Fuè, or Alexandria, wherever they were first caught, they would infallibly be hanged.
Author’s Reception at Cairo—Procures Letters from the Bey and the Greek Patriarch—Visits the Pyramids—Observations on their Construction.
It was in the beginning of July we arrived at Cairo, recommended to the very hospitable house of Julian and Bertran, to whom I imparted my resolution of pursuing my journey into Abyssinia.
The wildness of the intention seemed to strike them greatly, on which account they endeavoured all they could to persuade me against it, but, upon seeing me resolved, offered kindly their most effectual services.
As the government of Cairo hath always been jealous of this enterprise I had undertaken, and a regular prohibition had been often made by the Porte, among indifferent people, I pretended that my destination was to India, and no one conceived any thing wrong in that.
This intention was not long kept secret, (nothing can be concealed at Cairo:) All nations, Jews, Turks, Moors, Cophts, and Franks, are constantly upon the inquiry, as much after things that concern other people’s business as their own.
The plan I adopted was to appear in public as seldom as possible, unless disguised; and I soon was considered as a Fakir, or Dervich, moderately skilled in magic, and who cared for nothing but study and books.
This reputation opened me, privately, a channel for purchasing many Arabic manuscripts, which the knowledge of the language enabled me to chuse, free from the load of trash that is generally imposed upon Christian purchasers.
The part of Cairo where the French are settled is exceedingly commodious, and fit for retirement. It consists of one long street, where all the merchants of that nation live together. It is shut at one end, by large gates, where there is a guard, and these are kept constantly close in the time of the plague.
At the other end is a large garden tolerably kept, in which there are several pleasant walks, and seats; all the enjoyment that Christians can hope for, among this vile people, reduces itself to peace, and quiet; nobody seeks for more. There are, however, wicked emissaries who are constantly employed, by threats, lies, and extravagant demands, to torment them, and keep them from enjoying that repose, which would content them instead of freedom, and more solid happiness, in their own country.
I have always considered the French at Cairo, as a number of honest, polished, and industrious men, by some fatality condemned to the gallies; and I must own, never did a set of people bear their continual vexations with more fortitude and manliness.
Their own affairs they keep to themselves, and, notwithstanding the bad prospect always before them, they never fail to put on a chearful face to a stranger, and protect and help him to the utmost of their power; as if his little concerns, often ridiculous, always very troublesome ones, were the only charge they had in hand.
But a more brutal, unjust, tyrannical, oppressive, avaricious set of infernal miscreants, there is not on earth, than are the members of the government of Cairo.
There is also at Cairo a Venetian consul, and a house of that nation called Pini, all excellent people.
The government of Cairo is much praised by some. It may perhaps have merit when explained, but I never could understand it, and therefore cannot explain it.
It is said to consist of twenty-four Beys; yet its admirers could never fix upon one year in which there was that number. There were but seven when I was at Cairo, and one who commanded the whole.
The Beys are understood to be veiled with the sovereign power of the country; yet sometimes a Kaya commands absolutely, and, though of an inferior rank, he makes his servants, Beys or Sovereigns.
At a time of peace, when Beys are contented to be on an equality, and no ambitious one attempts to govern the whole, there is a number of inferior officers depending upon each of the Beys, such as Kayas, Schourbatchies, and the like, who are but subjects in respect to the Beys, yet exercise unlimited jurisdiction over the people in the city, and appoint others to do the same over villages in the country.
There are perhaps four hundred inhabitants in Cairo, who have absolute power, and administer what they call justice, in their own way, and according to their own views.
Fortunately in my time this many-headed monster was no more, there was but one Ali Bey, and there was neither inferior nor superior jurisdiction exercised, but by his officers only. This happy state did not last long. In order to be a Bey, the person must have been a slave, and bought for money, at a market. Every Bey has a great number of servants, slaves to him, as he was to others before; these are his guards, and these he promotes to places in his household, according as they are qualified.
The first of these domestic charges is that of hasnadar, or treasurer, who governs his whole household; and whenever his master the Bey dies, whatever number of children he may have, they never succeed him; but this man marries his wife, and inherits his dignity and fortune.
The Bey is old, the wife is young, so is the hasnadar, upon whom she depends for every thing, and whom she must look upon as the presumptive husband; and those people who conceal, or confine their women, and are jealous, upon the most remote occasion, never feel any jealousy for the probable consequences of this passion, from the existence of such connection.
It is very extraordinary, to find a race of men in power, all agree to leave their succession to strangers, in preference to their own children, for a number of ages; and that no one should ever have attempted to make his son succeed him, either in dignity or estate, in preference to a slave, whom he has bought for money like a beast.
The Beys themselves have seldom children, and those they have, seldom live. I have heard it as a common observation, that Cairo is very unwholesome for young children in general; the prostitution of the Beys from early youth probably give their progeny a worse chance than those of others.
The instant that I arrived at Cairo was perhaps the only one in which I ever could have been allowed, single and unprotected as I was, to have made my intended journey.
Ali Bey, lately known in Europe by various narratives of the last transactions of his life, after having undergone many changes of fortune, and been banished by his rivals from his capital, at last had enjoyed the satisfaction of a return, and of making himself absolute in Cairo.
The Port had constantly been adverse to him, and he cherished the strongest resentment in his heart. He wished nothing so much as to contribute his part to rend the Ottoman empire to pieces.
A favourable opportunity presented itself in the Russian war, and Ali Bey was prepared to go all lengths in support of that power. But never was there an expedition so successful and so distant, where the officers were less instructed from the cabinet, more ignorant of the countries, more given to useless parade, or more intoxicated with pleasure, than the Russians on the Mediterranean then were.
After the defeat, and burning of the Turkish squadron, upon the coast of Asia Minor, there was not a sail appeared that did not do them homage. They were properly and advantageously situated at Paros, or rather, I mean, a squadron of ships of one half their number, would have been properly placed there.
The number of Bashas and Governors in Caramania, very seldom in their allegiance to the Port, were then in actual rebellion; great part of Syria was in the same situation, down to Tripoli and Sidon; and thence Shekh Daher, from Acre to the plains of Esdraelon, and to the very frontiers of Egypt.
With circumstances so favourable, and a force so triumphant, Egypt and Syria would probably have fallen dismembered from the Ottoman empire. But it was very plain, that the Russian commanders were not provided with instructions, and had no idea how far their victory might have carried them, or how to manage those they had conquered.
They had no confidential correspondence with Ali Bey, though they might have safely trusted him as he would have trusted them; but neither of them were provided with proper negotiators, nor did they ever understand one another till it was too late, and till their enemies, taking advantage of their tardiness, had rendered the first and great scheme impossible.
Carlo Rozetti, a Venetian merchant, a young man of capacity and intrigue, had for some years governed the Bey absolutely. Had such a man been on board the fleet with a commission, after receiving instructions from Petersburgh, the Ottoman empire in Egypt was at an end.
The Bey, with all his good sense and understanding, was still a mamaluke, and had the principles of a slave. Three men of different religions possessed his confidence and governed his councils all at a time. The one was a Greek, the other a Jew, and the third an Egyptian Copht, his secretary. It would have required a great deal of discernment and penetration to have determined which of these was the most worthless, or most likely to betray him.
The secretary, whose name was Risk, had the address to supplant the other two at the time they thought themselves at the pinnacle of their glory; over-awing every Turk, and robbing every Christian, the Greek was banished from Egypt, and the Jew bastinadoed to death. Such is the tenure of Egyptian ministers.
Risk professed astrology, and the Bey, like all other Turks, believed in it implicitly, and to this folly he sacrificed his own good understanding; and Risk, probably in pay to Constantinople, led him from one wild scheme to another, till he undid him—by the stars.
The apparatus of instruments that were opened at the custom-house of Alexandria, prepossessed Risk in favour of my superior knowledge in astrology.
The Jew, who was master of the custom-house, was not only ordered to refrain from touching or taking them out of their places (a great mortification to a Turkish custom-house, where every thing is handed about and shewn) but an order from the Bey also arrived that they should be sent to me without duty or fees, because they were not merchandise.
I was very thankful for that favour, not for the sake of saving the dues at the custom-house, but because I was excused from having them taken out of their cases by rough and violent hands, which certainly would have broken something.
Risk waited upon me the next day, and let me know from whom the favour came; on which we all thought this was a hint for a present; and accordingly, as I had other business with the Bey, I had prepared a very handsome one.
But I was exceedingly astonished when desiring to know the time when it was to be offered; it was not only refused, but some few trifles were sent as a present from the secretary with this message: “That, when I had reposed, he would visit me, desire to see me make use of these instruments; and, in the mean time, that I might rest confident, that nobody durst any way molest me while in Cairo, for I was under the immediate protection of the Bey.” He added also, “That if I wanted any thing I should send my Armenian servant, Arab Keer, to him, without troubling myself to communicate my necessities to the French, or trust my concerns to their Dragomen.”
Although I had lived for many years in friendship and in constant good understanding with both Turks and Moors, there was something more polite and considerate in this than I could account for.
I had not seen the Bey, it was not therefore any particular address, or any prepossession in my favour, with which these people are very apt to be taken at first sight, that could account for this; I was an absolute stranger; I therefore opened myself entirely to my landlord, Mr Bertran.
I told him my apprehension of too much fair weather in the beginning, which, in these climates, generally leads to a storm in the end; on which account, I suspected some design; Mr Bertran kindly promised to sound Risk for me.
At the same time, he cautioned me equally against offending him, or trusting myself in his hands, as being a man capable of the blackest designs, and merciless in the execution of them.
It was not long before Risk’s curiosity gave him a fair opportunity. He inquired of Bertran as to my knowledge of the stars; and my friend, who then saw perfectly the drift of all his conduct, so prepossessed him in favour of my superior science, that he communicated to him in the instant the great expectations he had formed, to be enabled by me, to foresee the destiny of the Bey; the success of the war; and, in particular, whether or not he should make himself master of Mecca; to conquer which place, he was about to dispatch his slave and son-in-law, Mahomet Bey Abou Dahab, at the head of an army conducting the pilgrims.
Bertran communicated this to me with great tokens of joy: for my own part, I did not greatly like the profession of fortune-telling, where bastinado or impaling might be the reward of being mistaken.
But I was told I had most credulous people to deal with, and that there was nothing for it but escaping as long as possible, before the issue of any of my prophecies arrived, and as soon as I had done my own business.
This was my own idea likewise; I never saw a place I liked worse, or which afforded less pleasure or instruction than Cairo, or antiquities which less answered their descriptions.
In a few days I received a letter from Risk, desiring me to go out to the Convent of St George, about three miles from Cairo, where the Greek patriarch had ordered an apartment for me; that I should pretend to the French merchants that it was for the sake of health, and that there I should receive the Bey’s orders.
Providence seemed to teach me the way I was to go. I went accordingly to St George, a very solitary mansion, but large and quiet, very proper for study, and still more for executing a plan which I thought most necessary for my undertaking.
During my stay at Algiers, the Rev. Mr Tonyn, the king’s chaplain to that factory, was absent upon leave. The bigotted catholic priests there neither marry, baptize, nor bury the dead of those that are Protestants.
There was a Greek priest,74Father Christopher, who constantly had offered gratuitously to perform these functions. The civility, humanity, and good character of the man, led me to take him to reside at my country house, where I lived the greatest part of the year; besides that he was of a chearful disposition, I had practised much with him both in speaking and reading Greek with the accent, not in use in our schools, but without which that language, in the mouth of a stranger, is perfectly unintelligible all over the Archipelago.
Upon my leaving Algiers to go on my voyage to Barbary, being tired of the place, he embarked on board a vessel, and landed at Alexandria, from which soon after he was called to Cairo by the Greek patriarch Mark, and made Archimandrites, which is the second dignity in the Greek church under the patriarch. He too was well acquainted in the house of Ali Bey, where all were Georgian and Greek slaves; and it was at his solicitation that Risk had desired the patriarch to furnish me with an apartment in the Convent of St George.
The next day after my arrival I was surprised by the visit of my old friend Father Christopher; and, not to detain the reader with useless circumstances, the intelligence of many visits, which I shall comprehend in one, was, that there were many Greeks then in Abyssinia, all of them in great power, and some of them in the first places of the empire; that they corresponded with the patriarch when occasion offered, and, at all times, held him in such respect, that his will, when signified to them, was of the greatest authority, and that obedience was paid to it as to holy writ.
Father Christopher took upon him, with the greatest readiness, to manage the letters, and we digested the plan of them; three copies were made to send separate ways, and an admonitory letter to the whole of the Greeks then in Abyssinia, in form of a bull.
By this the patriarch enjoined them as a penance, upon which a kind of jubilee was to follow, that, laying aside their pride and vanity, great sins with which he knew them much infected and, instead of pretending to put themselves on a footing with me when I should arrive at the court of Abyssinia, they should concur, heart and hand, in serving me; and that, before it could be supposed they had received instructions from me, they should make a declaration before the king, that they were not in condition equal to me, that I was a free citizen of a powerful nation, and servant of a great king; that they were born slaves of the Turk, and, at best, ranked but as would my servants; and that, in fact, one of their countrymen was in that station then with me.
After having made that declaration publicly, and bona fide, in presence of their priest, he thereupon declared to them, that all their past sins were forgiven.
All this the patriarch most willingly and chearfully performed. I saw him frequently when I was in Cairo; and we had already commenced a great friendship and intimacy.
In the mean while, Risk sent to me, one night about nine o’clock, to come to the Bey. I saw him then for the first time. He was a much younger man than I conceived him to be; he was sitting upon a large sofa, covered with crimson-cloth of gold; his turban, his girdle, and the head of his dagger, all thick covered with fine brilliants; one in his turban, that served to support a sprig of brilliants also, was among the largest I had ever seen.
He entered abruptly into discourse upon the war between Russia and the Turk, and asked me if I had calculated what would be the consequence of that war? I said, the Turks would be beaten by sea and land wherever they presented themselves.
Again, Whether Constantinople would be burned or taken?—I said, Neither; but peace would be made, after much bloodshed, with little advantage to either party.
He clapped his hands together, and swore an oath in Turkish, then turned to Risk, who stood before him, and said, That will be sad indeed! but truth is truth, and God is merciful.
He offered me coffee and sweatmeats, promised me his protection, bade me fear nothing, but, if any body wronged me, to acquaint him by Risk.
Two or three nights afterwards the Bey sent for me again. It was near eleven o’clock before I got admittance to him.
I met the janissary Aga going out from him, and a number of soldiers at the door. As I did not know him, I passed him without ceremony, which is not usual for any person to do. Whenever he mounts on horseback, as he was then just going to do, he has absolute power of life and death, without appeal, all over Cairo and its neighbourhood.
He stopt me just at the threshold, and asked one of the Bey’s people who I was? and was answered, “It is Hakim Englese,” the English philosopher, or physician.
He asked me in Turkish, in a very polite manner, if I would come and see him, for he was not well? I answered him in Arabic, “Yes, whenever he pleased, but could not then stay, as I had received a message that the Bey was waiting.” He replied in Arabic, “No, no; go, for God’s sake go; any time will do for me.”
The Bey was sitting, leaning forward, with a wax taper in one hand, and reading a small slip of paper, which he held close to his face. He seemed to have little light, or weak eyes; nobody was near him; his people had been all dismissed, or were following the janissary Aga out.
He did not seem to observe me till I was close upon him, and started when I said, “Salam.” I told him I came upon his message. He said, I thank you, did I send for you? and without giving me leave to reply, went on, “O true, I did so,” and fell to reading his paper again.
After this was over, he complained that he had been ill, that he vomited immediately after dinner, though he eat moderately; that his stomach was not yet settled, and was afraid something had been given him to do him mischief.
I felt his pulse, which was low, and weak; but very little feverish. I desired he would order his people to look if his meat was dressed in copper properly tinned; I assured him he was in no danger, and insinuated that I thought he had been guilty of some excess before dinner; at which he smiled, and said to Risk, who was standing by, “Afrite! Afrite”! he is a devil! he is a devil! I said, If your stomach is really uneasy from what you may have ate, warm some water, and, if you please, put a little green tea into it, and drink it till it makes you vomit gently, and that will give you ease; after which you may take a dish of strong coffee, and go to bed, or a glass of spirits, if you have any that are good.
He looked surprised at this proposal, and said very calmly, “Spirits! do you know I am a Mussulman?” But I, Sir, said I, am none. I tell you what is good for your body, and have nothing to do with your religion, or your soul. He seemed vastly diverted, and pleased with my frankness, and only said, “He speaks like a man.” There was no word of the war, nor of the Russians that night. I went home desperately tired, and peevish at being dragged out, on so foolish an errand.
Next morning, his secretary Risk came to me to the convent. The Bey was not yet well; and the idea still remained that he had been poisoned. Risk told me the Bey had great confidence in me. I asked him how the water had operated? He said he had not yet taken any of it, that he did not know how to make it, therefore he was come at the desire of the Bey, to see how it was made.
I immediately shewed him this, by infusing some green tea in some warm water. But this was not all, he modestly insinuated that I was to drink it, and so vomit myself, in order to shew him how to do with the Bey.
I excused myself from being patient and physician at the same time, and told him, I would vomit him, which would answer the same purpose of instruction; neither was this proposal accepted.
The old Greek priest, Father Christopher, coming at the same time, we both agreed to vomit the Father, who would not consent, but produced a Caloyeros, or young monk, and we forced him to take the water whether he would or not.
As my favour with the Bey was now established by my midnight interviews, I thought of leaving my solitary mansion at the convent. I desired Mr Risk to procure me peremptory letters of recommendation to Shekh Haman, to the governor of Syene, Ibrim, and Deir, in Upper Egypt. I procured also the same from the janissaries, to these three last places, as their garrisons are from that body at Cairo, which they call their Port. I had also letters from Ali Bey, to the Bey of Suez, to the Sherriffe of Mecca, to the Naybe (so they call the Sovereign) of Masuah, and to the king of Sennaar, and his minister for the time being.
Having obtained all my letters and dispatches, as well from the patriarch as from the Bey, I set about preparing for my journey.
Cairo is supposed to be the ancient Babylon75, at least part of it. It is in lat. 30° 21´ 30´´ north, and in long. 31° 16´ east, from Greenwich. I cannot assent to what is said of it, that it is built in form of a crescent. You ride round it, gardens and all, in three hours and a quarter, upon an ass, at an ordinary pace, which will be above three miles an hour.
The Calish76, or Amnis Trajanus, passes through the length of it, and fills the lake called Birket el Hadje, the first supply of water the pilgrims get in their tiresome journey to Mecca.
On the other side of the Nile, from Cairo, is Geeza, so called, as some Arabian authors say, from there having been a bridge there; Geeza signifies the Passage.
About eleven miles beyond this are the Pyramids, called the Pyramids of Geeza, the description of which is in every body’s hands. Engravings of them had been published in England, with plans of them upon a large scale, two years before I came into Egypt, and were shewn me by Mr Davidson consul of Nice, whose drawings they were.
He it was too that discovered the small chamber above the landing-place, after you ascend through the long gallery of the great Pyramid on your left hand, and he left the ladder by which he ascended, for the satisfaction of other travellers. But there is nothing in the chamber further worthy of notice, than its having escaped discovery so many ages.
I think it more extraordinary still, that, for such a time as these Pyramids have been known, travellers were content rather to follow the report of the ancients, than to make use of their own eyes.
Yet it has been a constant belief, that the stones composing these Pyramids have been brought from the 77Libyan mountains, though any one who will take the pains to remove the sand on the south side, will find the solid rock there hewn into steps.
And in the roof of the large chamber, where the Sarcophagus stands, as also in the top of the roof of the gallery, as you go up into that chamber, you see large fragments of the rock, affording an unanswerable proof, that those Pyramids were once huge rocks, standing where they now are; that some of them, the most proper from their form, were chosen for the body of the Pyramid, and the others hewn into steps, to serve for the superstructure, and the exterior parts of them.