MANNERS AND CHARACTER.

63

shower of rain or a storm, which has more than once caused him very serious illness. His movements are sudden and unexpected: he appears in Cairo or at Alexandria when least looked for, which maintains a certain degree of vigilance among the agents of government; though something of all this may, perhaps, be set down to caprice or affectation. In the gardens of Shoubra there is a small alcove, where the Pasha, during his brief visits to that palace, will frequently sit, about eleven or twelve o'clock at night, and, dismissing from about him all his courtiers and attendants, remain for an hour or two. From this alcove, two long vistas, between cypress, orange, and citron trees, diverge, and extend the whole length of the grounds; and in the calm bright nights of the East, by moon or star light, when the air is perfumed by the faint odours of the most delicate flowers, a more delicious or romantic station could hardly be found. In the affairs of the heart, Mohammed Ali is not altogether without delicacy: during the whole lifetime of his wife, an energetic and superior woman, he invariably treated her with the most profound respect, and she always retained a great influence over him. Even since her death he has never married another woman; though he has not refrained from keeping a number of female slaves in his harem. She lies buried, by her son Toussoun, in a sumptuous tomb near Cairo; and, when I visited the place, some friendly hand had recently been strewing sweet flowers over their graves.

64

MODES OF TRAVELLING TO CAIRO.

CHAPTER IV.

MODES OF TRAVELLING TO CAIRO DEPARTURE FROM ALEXANDRIA

-

THE MIRAGE — SITE OF CANOPUS — BAY OF ABOUKIR— MOUTH OF THE CANOPIC BRANCH OF THE NILE THE FERRY THE CARAVANSERAI ROUTE ACROSS THE DESERT — DATE GROVESAPPROACH TO ROSETTA — FIRST VIEW OF THE NILE BEAUTIFUL GARDENS OF ROSETTA CONVENT OF ABOU-MANDOOR MAGNIFICENT VIEW OF THE DELTA FAMINE OF MDCCCXXIX — DEPARTURE FROM ROSETTA — VEGETATION OF THE DESERT— DESERTED MOSQUE DIMINUTIVE LAKES PASS OVER INTO THE DELTA IMMODEST COSTUME OF THE ARAB WOMEN GREAT FERTILITY OF THE DELTA-ABUNDANCE OF WILD BIRDS-FOUAHTARBOOSH MANUFACTORY CURIOUS ARTICLE OF FEMALE DRESS PICTURESQUE APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY TOMBS OF MUSULMAN SAINTS - - DESOOG, A PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE - SITE OF SAIS INSCRIPTION ON THE STATUE OF NEITH SAIS PROBABLY FOUNDED BY THE ATHENIANS — COARSENESS OF MANNERSROADS AND BRIDGES THE SHEIKH EL BELED WINE SHIBINEL-KOM- TATTOOING CANAL OF TANTA BERSHAUM DAMIATTA BRANCH OF THE NILE LAND OF GOSHEN KELIOUB FIRST VIEW OF THE PYRAMIDS SHOUBRA— CAIRO.

Thursday, Nov. 22. near Lake Edko. XXX. THERE are three modes of travelling from Alexandria to Cairo: by the Mahmoodiyah and the Nile, in boats; across the desert, on camels; or by the way of Rosetta and the Delta, on asses. The first of these ways is the easiest; the last is the most fatiguing and expensive, and by far the longest; but it is also, without comparison, the most interesting. Several gentlemen, desirous of proceeding to Cairo, agreed to accompany me by this route; and, having

DEPARTURE FROM ALEXANDRIA.

65

sent forward our heavy baggage by water, we this day, about one o'clock, left Alexandria, our friends, Captain Cotton, of the Indian army, and Mr. Bartholomew, a missionary, kindly bearing us company for several miles; mounted, like ourselves, on a couple of those swift and sturdy donkeys which constitute the ordinary saddle-animal of both Turks and Christians in Egypt. The character of this route had been represented to me in very false colours. I was told that it would frequently be necessary to dismount, undress, and swim over very broad canals; that we should be impeded in our progress by vast morasses and swamps, in which our animals would sink up to their bellies; that we must often sleep in the open air; and that, in many villages, no kind of food was to be procured for money. As I happened to be labouring at the time under a sharp attack of fever, my selecting this route was characterised as an act of extreme imprudence; as it would undoubtedly have been, had the stories which were related to me been true: but as the narrators of these marvels, who had themselves performed the journey, did not appear to me extremely capable of enduring privations or fatigue, I attributed all their wonderful stories to a desire to enhance their own hardihood, which I afterwards found to be the case.

XXXI. We quitted Alexandria by the Rosetta or Canopic Gate; our road, at first, lying between high mounds of sand and ruins; which, as we advanced, became smaller and fewer, and at length wholly dis

In

appeared. We then entered upon the desert, and, for a time, lost sight of every trace of vegetation; although, in the course of the afternoon, our eyes were once or twice refreshed by the prospect of a few small clusters of date palms; near which, upon the sand, we saw two or three poor Bedouin tents, whose owners appeared to be absent with their flocks. the midst of one of these little groves we observed a Mohammedan cenotaph, or headstone, consisting of a low slender pillar of white marble, surmounted by a neatly sculptured turban, beneath which, in very legible characters, was a long Turkish or Arabic inscription. In the sandy waste, close to this spot, where our friends took their leave of us, I for the first time beheld the phenomenon of the mirage, or "false waters of the desert;" which, to many travellers, has appeared to wear the exact semblance of a lake, with a surface unruffled by the slightest breeze. It certainly presented, at a distance, the appearance of water, so as to deceive the eye, and a light delicate vapour seemed to float over its bosom before the wind; but, when carefully scrutinised, the whole appeared to melt away, and dissolve "into thin air." The illusion, however, must have been much less complete than that which has been sometimes beheld in the East; and, indeed, I afterwards, near Dakke, in Nubia, witnessed a much more perfect phenomenon of this kind.

XXXII. Pursuing our way through the desert, in which the drifting sand was in some places blown

CAMPUS

ABOUKIR.

67

up into heaps; in others spread out into vast beds, where our animals often sunk a foot deep; and in others, again, covered with water and reduced to soft mud; we a little before nightfall arrived opposite the ruins, or rather site, of Canopus. The remains of this dissolute city, erected gradually, according to tradition, around the rude tomb of the pilot of Menelaus*, have long been covered by the waves, which, in this part of the coast, appear to be gaining on the land, against which they are driven with great and continual violence by the north wind. We next passed the village of Aboukir, and shortly afterwards came close up to the edge of the bay, where, in 1798, was fought the famous battle of the Nile. Through the bottom of this bay the sea was turned by the English into Lake Mareotis, when it is said that forty-four villages, with their fields and gardens, were overwhelmed beneath the water, which is now again excluded by a wall, or stone embankment, erected by the Pasha. Latterly, however, the old works were found to be insufficient to resist the fury of the waves, and workmen were now employed in erecting a new line of wall, immediately within the old one. The wind, which blew from the north, was very high, and the sea came roaring and dashing in a tremendous manner on the shore, frequently breaking over the old wall, along the top of which the road now lay. For several miles our course con

"Condidere id Spartani ob sepultum illic rectorem navis Canopum; qua tempestate Menelaus Græciam repetens, diversum ad mare terramque Libyam dejectus."-Tacit. Annal. ii. 60.