Some of these, in undertaking this peril ous journey, had in view merely their own spiritual advantage; others were proxies for their friends or masters, to whom they would carry back a passport for eternal life in return for a competence in this; that they have a king or sultan, whose name is Abderrachman, and who resides in the capital, which is called Tendeldé, and which they describe as being so large, that to go round it on foot is a journey of six days. Drawing on the sand a kind of map of their country, which they described as a plain surrounded on all sides by very high mountains, they placed to the west of the capital, Maasy, Souron, and Teyer, to the south Kioné and Towala-to the east, Zamiel and Koodi,the north, Kincoma, Abouhouman, and Kob

The principal caravan which passes through their country comes from KubKubbé, and proceeds as far as Koodi: their slaves come from Darfour and the westward. The chief productions of the soil are Durra and Doehl, the latter the most abundant. The sun they call Doulé, and the moon Doual. Their arms consist of a long lance pointed with iron, a bow and arrows, and an iron crow, with a hook. They wear an iron coat of mail, and their horses are armed in war with a complete covering of coarse woolen cloth, to protect them from the arrows of the enemy, and which is also put upon their feet, to prevent their being heard at night. They have a few date and domm trees, and a plant called delib, which they use as tobacco for smoking. Buffalo flesh is their common food, which they dress by laying it on a stone, and lighting a fire over it. They are very black, but not of the darkest hue, and have much of the Guinea negro countenance; their hair short and curly, but not wooly.

"When we made our second visit to Elfy Bey, we found him encamped about a league above his first position at Schiment Elwah, in a district called Debodé. This name is given to a narrow slip of cultivable land on each side of the Desert, varying from 50 to 500 yards in breadth. The doura we found just ripe; barley had been sown about ten days, for which the soil had been divided into small squares, for the convenience of watering from the channels which surrounded them. We found that the river, at this distance above the cataracts, had already fallen six-and-thirty feet, though at Assouan the fall was not yet of more than 15 feet. The

river was about a quarter of a mile broad, with a current "deep, majestic, smooth, and strong," uninterrupted by rocks, and forming a striking contrast with the turbulence below. In the few villages we passed, the people were civil, offered us youurt*, and saluted us cordially with the Salam aleikoum-Health be to you! As all the male inhabitants were at work in the fields, the women would rush from their cottages, built of mud bricks, or loose stones, to stare at us: these were unveiled, but had a kind of hood which they could draw over their faces at pleasure The right nostril was pierced with a brass ring, and they were laden with necklaces, and bracelets of beads, shells, and small bones. Their hair dressed in front and at the sides in small short ringlets, plastered with butter and other grease.

"We found the bey sitting on the ground at the door of his tent, giving directions to three or or four of the Bichâre Arabs, who were attendant on his camp, and whom he used as scouts and spies. He seemed to treat them with much condescension, and it was evident that he considered himself as very dependent on them for his safety and subsistence. They wore a long straight sword, which they held in both hands behind their backs: some had for shoes a piece of thick leas ther tied under the sole of their feet; but they were in general bare-footed, and their only clothing a plain coarse linen shirt, which reached to the knees. With this light apparel it was natural that the first remark they made on us, the first Europeans they had ever seen, should be on our superfluous dress, our gold buttons, our hats, and other parts of our clothing, so strange to them. In return, however, we were surprised to find the dress of their hair, the original of what appears such, a very extraordinary projection on both sides of the head of the great sphinx near the pyramids of Gizeh; this is more or less common among all the original inhabitants immediately south of the ca taracts, and is simply the side hair frizzed out very thick, and stiffened with grease. They are, like all other Arabs, extremely greedy of money, the end of their activity, ingenuity, parsimony, and cunning-qualities they chiefly excel in. While we were talking with them, they were in the at titude of darting from us, as if to run for a wager; and as soon as they had receiv ed a small present, they disappeared in

an instant, to advance three or four days journey in the Desert, and bring the bey news of the arrival of the summer caravan. The prospect of imposing on it a heavy contribution for the grant of a free passage, being his principal consolation for being driven so far to the south away, from the resources and wealth of Egypt."

"Our conversations with the bey were carried on by the assistance of a Greek, high in his confidence and service, known there by the name of Ibrahim Kiachef: he was one of three brothers, natives of Zante, brasiers by trade, who came to Egypt as adventurers; and being naturally endowed with the quickness and spirit of Zantiotes, they soon gained the confidence of Murat Bey, to whose family they attached themselves. One of them, now known by the name of Hussein Bey, attain. ed the highest honours in the Mamaluke aristocracy, though he has never been invested with the pelisse by the pasha of Egypt, a necessary ceremony for the establishment of his rank. Ibrahim, being probably the best brasier of the three, became chief engineer, and master of the ordnance to Murat Bey. The third brother, more enterprising than the others,having attached to his person a considerable number of dependents, amassed some wealth, and made a powerful party among the beys,-took advantage of a moment of confusion and revolution in the kingdom of Darfour, and marched thither with some thousand armed horsemen, and with the means of levying a large body of the natives: by the assistance of the Greek artisans and mechanics he took with him, he founded four pieces of cannon, and waged a successful war for some time against the king of Darfour. At the time of the French invasion, Murat Bey was on the point of sending him a thousand chosen Mamalukes, who would have enabled him to strike a decisive blow, and would have seated him on the throne. But this event deprived him of a reinforcement he was in need of; and his troops gradually wasting away, he retreated to a defile among the mountains; where, being left unmolested by the king, he in a short time succeeded in conciliating, by affable manners and good offices, the wandering tribes in the neighbourhood. He built them a mosque as a place of worship, without incurring any suspicion; but, as soon as he had completed the building, he converted it into a fortress, mounted his guns, again set at defiance the power of Darfour, and made every preparation for a renewal of the contest, whenever a more favourable turn of affairs in

Egypt should enable him to take the field with recruited strength.

By main

"As one principal object we had in view was to penetrate as far as we could into the country above the cataracts, we wished, if possible, to pass them with the smallest of our boats. For this purpose we embarked in it at Es Souan the 22d of November; and having a strong northerly breeze in our favour, we soon passed the limits of the ancient town. We had not, however, proceeded above half a mile further, when we found ourselves in the midst of rocky islands, which it was in many places extremely difficult to avoid, and where we were frequently in imminent danger of being dashed against the rocks; the falls of water were rapid, and in adverse directions, and the channels very narrow; the meeting of contrary currents formed eddies which would have swamped a smaller boat, and which placed us in the most critical situation. strength of oars, and with all sails set, we continued to advance, and were able to pass several of these rapids; when at last the current became so much too powerful for the boat, that though it blew hard, and we had six oars out, we scarcely made any way. In this situation, as there were no hope of success, and every chance of being driven against a rock, we judged it most prudent to return: this was a difficult manœuvre; fortunately our reis and crew were good, and we had need of all their activity and skill. We were however soon landed in safety on a sandy beach on the eastern shore, whence we explored a dry and rocky bed, in which the Nile flows during the inundation, and which is the course that the boats take, which then ascend the river with comparative facility; the granite islets are then a considerable depth below the surface of the water, and the north wind is in that season stronger and less variable. From the upper extremity of this channel we had a view of the celebrated cataracts of Syene, which are formed by a great number of granite rocks crossing the bed of the river, here nearly a mile and a half broad: these rocks do not appear when the water is at the highest, and then there is no fall, only a very rapid current. When the river is quite low, they will of course form as many falls, or cascades, as there are channels between the rocks, which occasion a constant clash or din to be heard at the distance of several leagues. Cicero says, the inhabitants in the neighbourhood were deafened by the noise; and several persons with whom we conversed assured us of this fact-We cer

tainly observed that they were particularly dull of hearing. On rejoining our boat we returned by an eastern passage, by which we avoided the islands, but which is impracticable in going up, as, in the few difficult passes, the high mountains to the north and west frequently occasion dangerous and critical calms.

"Passing with our boat to the west of Elephantine, we landed on the west bank of the river, and walked a mile over the sands up to an old Coptic monastery called Dhir el Garbié, which appears to have been once well inhabited and endowed. It is defended by a handsome outer wall of hewn stone; but has long been entirely deserted. We found among the ruins the fragment of a Greek inscription with the name of Diocletian.

"Foiled in this attempt to cross the cataracts with our boat, we had endeavoured, when on our second visit to Elfy Bey, to dispose him to assist us on our journey onward by land. He called a native of Derdé, one of the most considerable towns on this side of Ibrim, and questioned him as to the practicability of the undertaking. We were concerned to receive from him every kind of discouraging information, from the difficulty of the roads, and the inhospitality of the inhabitants. A shekh of the Abaddé repeated the same thing, and described the several narrow passes of the Nile, where the mountains approaching eaclr other from the east and west, place every boat that attempts the passage at the mercy of the inhabitants; some of whom at these spots are armed with muskets. The bey also added, that, as yet, the people higher up are extremely disinclined to the introduction of any foreigners whatever among them, and assured us, that about eight years ago, Hassan Bey Gedaoui, then in Upper Egypt; and called from Cairo by Murat and Ibrahim, had sent 40 of his Mamalukes among them, who were all put to the sword. Many other alarming stories of this kind were added, and tremendous descriptions of the danger of the rocks, the cataracts, and the people; most of them probably unfounded, but all tending equally to show that none whom we had consulted intended to let us ad

vance any further. One added, that had it not been for the bey's presence, they should not even have allowed us to penetrate thus far. Some of these difficulties we owed to our escort of English soldiers which as its first movements alarmed Elfi, and drove him beyond the cataracts, had now spread the alarm over the whole of the Upper county. The inhabitants had declared, that as they have not for a long time submitted to the Turks, have never acknowledged the sovereignty of the Mamalukes *, and were never visited by the French, so they are determined to prevent all approaches of the English :and at last the man who gave us this account, in answer to our further instances, said, 'If they will go, let them go-but they must take their chance, and be an swerable for their own safety f." P. 31.

At p. 81 there occurs a testimony in favour of Bruce as far as his excursion over the Desert from Sep. naar to Egypt is concerned. Of this indeed, and of his having visited most of the places which he describes, little doubt, it is to be presumed, can now remain. But whoever peruses Mr. Salt's Narrative of his Travels in Abyssinia, and examines lord Valentia's excellent Chart of the Red Sea, will not with much confidence undertake to vindicate his general accuracy. In his various descriptions of the antiquities which were the object of examination, the present author demonstrates himself to be very familiarly acquainted with all the ancient writers on these subjects, and with the Egyptian customs and manners at the remotest periods; and this portion of his work will consequently be found to be enlivened with various classical anecdotes and allusions. This appears nowhere more conspicuous than in his description of Eleuthias, p. 90; and as it seems just to exhibit him also in his character of an accomplished

56

scholar, we subjoin one more speci

men:

The incursion of the Blemmyes into Upper Egypt, in the reign of Probus, is an event which has received very little illustration from history. This people, about whom such fabulous circumstances are related, were natives of the interior of Africa, and by some were confounded with the Troglodyte. They seem to have taken possession of the districts of Coptos and Ptolemais about the middle of the third century, whence they were expelled by the emperor, a short time after he had restored peace to the provinces of Isauria and Pamphylia.

The state of religion and manners which prevailed in Egypt during the se cond and third centuries may be tolerably well collected from a cotemporary writer, Vopiscus the Syracusan. In his Life of Saturninus he tells us, that when Aurelian gave him the command of the eastern frontier, he prohibited him from entering Egypt. The experience of the emperor had taught him to be cautious how he afforded to a native of Gaul an opportunity of exciting a revolt: he was aware that the Egyptians were naturally inconstant, passionate, insolent, and a vain-glorious people; that they were ever ready to assert their pretended liberties, eager for innovations, which formed the subject of their songs and ballads; that their talents for poetry, epigram and wit, were ever turned against their magistrates; and that they were all smatterers in abstruse science, in prophecy, and in medicine. They were chiefly Christians and Samaritans; and as such the Pagan historian affects to describe them as of course dissatisfied with the present times.

In support of this character of the inhabitants of Egypt, Vopiscus cites what he calls a letter from the emperor Adrian to the consul Servian, extracted from the works of Phlegon, his freedman; but which from its style and character would appear to be of a later date and by a meaner hand. It conveys a very exagge rated account of the seditious and turbulent disposition of the Egyptians of that time and, contrary to many better au thenticated narratives of the moral practices of the Christians of that era, it represents those of Egypt in very odious colours.

It is possible, indeed, that an op pressive government, the imposition of burthensome and continually increasing taxes, may have debased the character of the nation, and that some individuals may have sought their worldly interests in an attempt to unite the old worship of the gods of Greece and of Rome with the new doctrines, which were rapidly mak ing their way over the Roman world: but the doctrines of the Christian religion were still the same as were promulgated by Christ and by his apostles; and we have the most satisfactory testimony of the good conduct and submissive temper of the earlier professors of Christianity, in Pliny's celebrated letter to the empe ror Trajan.

That, however, which is attributed to Adrian is a curious document, as illus trative of the manners and prejudices of the times, of the vices which more or less had their sway under the corrupt go vernments of imperial Rome, and of the opinions professed by some pagans of those manners and vices peculiar to Egypt. It may be considered, likewise, as containing sentiments which a pagan writer might naturally indulge, against a country wherein a belief in the divine source of the Christian revelation had made a more rapid progress than in most other parts of the empire.

In the following translation of this epistle, I have adhered as closely to the letter of the original as is compatible with the bad taste and affected language in which it is written:

"Adrian Augustus to the Consul Servian, greeting :—I am convinced, my friend Servian, that all the inhabitants of Egypt, of whom you made honourable mention to me, are trifling, wavering, and changing at every change of public ru mour: the worshippers of Serapis are Christians; and those who call themselves followers of Christ pay their devotions to Serapis. Every chief of a Jewish synagogue, every Samaritan, each Christian priest, the mathematicians, soothsayers, and physicians in the Gymnasia, all ac knowledge Serapis *. himself, whenever he goes into Egypt, is obliged by some to worship Serapis, by others, Christ. The people are of all others the most inclined to sedition, vain, and insolent. Alexandria is opulent, wealthy, populous; without an idle inhabi

The patriarch

tant. Some are glass-blowers; others manufacturers of paper; others again of linen cloth. Here is to be seen and hired every description of artisan. Even the blind, and the gouty in hand or foot, may be employed. They have one God, (Sera pis,) whom the Christians, and Jews, and Gentiles worship. I could wish that the city practised a purer morality, and show ed itself worthy of its pre-eminence in size and dignity over the whole of Egypt. I have conceded to it every point; I have restored its ancient privileges; and have conferred upon it so many more, that when I was there I received the thanks of the inhabitants, and immediately on my departure they complimented my son Verus. You have heard, too, what they said about Antoninus :-I wish them no other curse*, than that they may be fed with their own chickens, which are hatched in a way I am ashamed to relate. I have forwarded to you three drinking cupst, which have the property of chang ing their colour. The high-priest of the temple gave them to me, and I have bestowed them on you and my sister: I beg you will use them at your table on festi vals. Take care, however, that our friend Africanus does not indulge with them too freely."

em

Trebellius Pollio, in treating of the life of Æmilianus, one of the thirty ty rants who distracted the Roman empire while the emperor Valerianus was ployed in making war against the Persi ans, and his partner Gallienas was im mersed in luxury and dissipation, gives the following character of the Egyptians of his day

• Such is the impetuous and headlong disposition of this people, that on the most trifling occasions they may be enticed to actions of the most dangerous tendency to the republic. Frequently, on account of an omission of civilities, the refusal of the place of honour at a bath, the sequestration of a ballad or a cabbage, a slave's shoe, or other objects of like importance, they have shown such dangerous symptoms of sedition, as to require the interference of an armed force. So general, indeed, was this tumultuous disposition, that when the slave of the then governour of Alexandria happened to be beaten by a soldier, for telling him that

his shoes were better than the soldier's, a multitude immediately collected before the house of Æmilianus, the commanding officer, armed with every seditious wea pon, and using furious threats. He was wounded by stones; javelins and swords were pointed at and thrown at him, Emilianus, when he saw his danger so nigh, felt he had no other alternative than to assume the imperial purple. The Egyptian troops consented, chiefly from the hatred they bore to Gallienus : nor was he deficient in a vigorous govern ment. He travelled through the whole of the Thebaid; he reduced to his sovereignty many barbarous tribes; and obtained for his eminent qualities the title of Alexander or Alexandrinus.

To those who are inclined to trace the similarity of events under similar circumstances after a long period of years, the present state of Egypt will afford more than one opportunity of pourtraying the same characteristics with those I have above alluded to, in the revolutions which it has experiened during the eighteenth century. The disposition of the people; the rapid rise of the principal chieftains from the lowest to the highest stations; and the facility with which su perior talent acquired pre-eminence, form very remarkable instances of coincidence in the pictures of the two ages.' P. 221.

It would be very agreeable to us to accompany Mr. Hamilton yet further, and to expatiate on the nume have been both instructed and amurous parts of his work in which we sed. The whole volume does him the highest honour, and may be considered as a valuable accession to literature. We do not find that any subject has been passed over which has hitherto been thought important in the history of this extraordinary region. The writer's attention has extended not only to the antiquities of Egypt, its ancient as well as modern geography, but to its agriculture, trade, manners, climate, and general condition. He seems, indeed, almost to have filled up every chasm, by de