Read Ebook: Excursions to Cairo Jerusalem Damascus and Balbec From the United States Ship Delaware During Her Recent Cruise With an Attempt to Discriminate Between Truth and Error in Regard to the Sacred Places of the Holy City by Jones George

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Mohammed Ali had left as his representative, Boghaz Bey, an Armenian of talent and energy, who enjoys his highest confidence; and while preparations were making for our journey, the Commodore, with Capt. Nicolson and Mr. Gliddon, went to pay him a visit of ceremony. On application being made to him for passports to Cairo, he replied, that they would be unnecessary; that he would consider Com. Patterson as the guest of the Pasha, and, as soon as we should start, would forward orders by telegraph to the river, to have boats provided, and to Cairo to have the party treated with every attention.

On the 16th we transferred ourselves, together with conveniences for cooking and sleeping, to the decks of the schooner, and were landed towards evening near the mouth of the great canal of Mahmoudieh. This canal was the first of the many proofs which our journey led us to witness of the wonderful enterprize and energy of Mohammed Ali, whom the reader, when he has followed us further, will, I think, agree with us in considering one of the greatest sovereigns of the age. In some respects we must also allow his government to be marked by singular short-sightedness and weakness; but on this point it is only fair to let him speak for himself, which we shall presently allow him to do.

The traveller through Egypt is constantly struck with two things: one, the high state of improvement in all public institutions, and the energy with which they are conducted; and the other, the vassalage, the extremely abject state of the people. No subjects in the world are in such a wretched condition as those of the Egyptian Pasha. They have the appearance of freedom, but throughout the whole country every man is a slave to the royal master. They till the land and may call the produce theirs; but when it is gathered in, he compels them to carry it to his store-houses, and there he purchases it at his own prices, which are just sufficient to keep them from a miserable death. The stores thus accumulated he sells all over Europe, wherever a good market can be procured; the money is laid out chiefly in the support of his army and navy, and thus the avails of their labor are returned to the poor wretches in the shape of the "nezzam," or soldiers to keep them in subjection. Of course they hate both the Pasha and all his armed forces most cordially; but for this he cares nought, and thus we have the spectacle of a nation apparently prosperous, but in reality extremely miserable. He is so severe in his exactions, that if a cultivator wishes to plant a tree, he must provide an equivalent for the ground it may occupy, and in one village up the Nile, where we stopped to get vegetables, they informed us that they had none for themselves. The last season their grounds, they said, had not yielded the quantity of grain required, and this year they had been compelled to convert their gardens into wheat fields, in order to make up the deficiency.

The annual revenue of the Pasha from all these sources amounts in ordinary seasons to twenty-five, and in very fruitful years to thirty millions of dollars. In his own personal expenses he may be considered very moderate; and nearly the whole of this immense income is expended in public improvements, and in the pay and equipment of his army and navy. The former consists of 80,000 men, well disciplined, and efficient, and strongly attached to their duties and to the Pasha; the navy at present consists of 11 one hundred gun ships and as many frigates, afloat, and is to be increased to 40 vessels, chiefly of the largest class. The public improvements throughout the country evince an enlargement of mind and an energy of character that in an eastern sovereign is wonderful, especially when we consider that in most of his operations the Pasha has no one to second him, but devises and executes by the force of his own individual energy; and very often has to give a personal superintendence to his operations. With regard to the abject state of his subjects, he says it is a necessary one, and is lamented by himself as much as by any other person. His power is unstable; he has lately gained a kind of slippery independence, is closely watched by his former master, the Sultan, and, without a large army and navy, his throne would soon slide from under him. His improvements, too, he says, must be carried on with untiring assiduity, or they will result in little good. His own life will probably not be continued much longer, and if they are not well advanced towards completion before his death, they will all be an abortion, and the country will retrograde to its late state of inferiority, and be again behind the character of the age. And in this he is correct; for his step-son, Ibrahim Pasha, who will doubtless be his successor, is altogether devoted to military affairs, and cares little for manufactories, unless they be of arms and munitions of war. "Therefore," argues the Pasha, "therefore I must drive matters with the utmost speed, and to do this I must have a large revenue, and to obtain this I must lay heavy burdens on my subjects." He says, however, that as soon as the cause of these exactions is removed, and his power secured, and his improvements sufficiently advanced to fear no relapse, he will make his people comfortable; and that in the interval, by means of schools and his own example, he is endeavoring to inform them, and to stimulate them to higher views of things than they have hitherto had, and greatly to increase the resources of the country. Thus speaks the new monarch of Egypt, and I have thought it best to give the reader at once an insight into his views, in order that he may be able the better to judge of them as we proceed through the country.

We now return to the canal of Mahmoudieh. Fifteen years ago there was a scarcity of grain in Europe, but a great abundance in Egypt, and the merchant-sovereign had an opportunity of realizing an extremely handsome profit on the products of his soil; but the Nile happened at that season to be unusually low, and vessels found it so difficult to load at the mouth of the river, that his harvest of gain was in a great measure lost. He then conceived the idea of a canal to unite the river with the secure and excellent harbor of Alexandria. With him there is but a short interval between planning and executing. He sent his soldiers into the country with requisitions on the various governors for men, according to the size of their villages or districts. The poor natives were hunted up, and being fastened to long poles by iron collars around the neck, forty to a pole, were thus driven down to the line marked out by his engineer, and there set to work. Mr. Gliddon, who saw the work in progress, informed me that there were 150,000 men employed upon it at one time. In six months the canal was completed, with the exception of a little masonry, and was opened for use. It is sixty miles in length, ninety feet wide, and eighteen in depth, including six feet of water. The workmen had no tools, except a few hoes to break the hard upper crust: when this had been done, they scraped the earth together with their fingers, formed it into balls, and passed them by hand to the sides of the canal, a large portion of the wet mass often escaping between their hands while on the way. Exposed to the sun, and without shelter at night, and probably without sufficient food, disease crept in among them; and I was credibly informed that during the digging, 30,000 of the workmen perished: their bodies, as soon as life was extinct, were tossed upon the growing heaps of earth at the side, and this was their burial. The canal follows the line of that dug by Alexander the Great, till near Damanhour, when it unaccountably makes a great bend to the south. The engineer has made another blunder in the grading, in consequence of which it is too shallow to be navigable during the two months when the river is at the lowest.

Mr. Gliddon, whose kindness on this and other occasions has placed us under many obligations, had secured boats for us, and towards sunset our arrangements for the inland voyage were completed. We then hoisted the American ensign at the peaks of our little flotilla, and dropping the large sails to a fresh and favorable breeze, the city and its shipping soon glided from our sight. After passing near the elevated ground on which stands Pompey's Pillar, and then by a few country-seats of the nobles of Alexandria, we entered upon an open, dreary waste, and night began soon after to sink around us, and upon the still and melancholy scene; for, except our rushing boats, not a sight nor a sound met the senses, which soon became actually oppressed by the solitude. A dim moon threw a flickering and uncertain light upon the banks, and it required but little effort of the imagination, as we watched them flitting by, to make out shadowy forms, and cover the place with the phantoms of the many poor victims sacrificed and buried there.

But had they actually risen up, the whole 30,000, and pointed their bony fingers and gibbered at us as we passed, they would scarcely have exceeded in numbers or terror the blood-thirsty tormentors that soon after this assailed us in the little cabins in our boats. We had extinguished our lights and laid down for repose, but repose there was none for us. The reader must excuse me if I draw such a nauseous picture; it is not fair that he should travel without sharing some of the pains of travelling, nor can he otherwise get a correct idea of the country. We soon found ourselves literally covered with vermin, whose bite, though dreadfully annoying, left us uncertain whether they were the animal that sometimes chooses our beds for their residence, or those that constituted the third plague of Egypt; and during the long night, while stung almost to madness, we were left to weigh the evidence in this agreeable query. The latter insects are, at certain seasons, common in every part of Egypt; and Sir Sidney Smith, having removed his tent to the desert, in order to escape from them, found them even among its sands. It was really quite a relief to us, when morning came, to find that our clothes were thickly sprinkled over with only the former less terrible insect. It was a long and wearisome night. I climbed the mast once or twice to cool my blood and seek for relief by gazing around; but only a flat, and utterly deserted country met the sight, and the ear could not detect a single sound; the hooting of an owl would have been a pleasant relief.

Morning did come at last; and as the sun began to throw its welcome beams over the landscape, if landscape it may be called, the banks of mud bordering the canal grew higher, and receded on either side, until presently we found ourselves in a kind of basin, and soon after amid a multitude of boats. We had arrived at its termination. Casting our eyes on the left bank, where there seemed to be something in motion, we were able, by and by, to detect a village stuck into its side; the houses, or rather the single small chamber forming each house, being made partly by digging into the bank, and partly by building up a low wall of mud, with an opening in its front for a door. They were covered with reeds, and these again with mud. Creeping in and out, were a swarm of natives, in soiled habiliments, as dark looking as the houses themselves. This, together with some store-houses of the Pasha at the gate of the canal, and a few more decent dwellings on the banks of the river, form the village of Atf. On the right bank of the canal was a well paved quay, lined with boats, and covered with heaps of grain.

We ascended the steep, high banks on the right of this quay,--and had before us the Nile.

While some of the party were looking down on the river in high admiration of its modern beauties, or lost in meditations on its ancient fame, old Catalina, the Mahonese woman who attended on the Commodore's family, approached. Catalina had never seen any thing larger than the rivulet which flows near her native city, and is much frequented by the Mahonese washerwomen. The company watched her in order to enjoy her surprise. She was, indeed, surprised. When she had a little recovered from her astonishment, one of the party said to her, "Well, Catalina, what do you think of the Nile?" "Oh," she replied, with sincerity and earnestness, "it is very grand--if it was only at Mahon, what a fine place it would be to wash clothes in!"

FOOTNOTE:

They were too sanguine. Soon after our visit the plague broke out at Alexandria, and raged with a violence that has scarcely ever had a parallel. In the town of Atfour on the Nile, which, when we passed it, had 40,000 inhabitants, in the course of a few months only 1500 remained. Some had fled, but far the greater part had been carried off by the disease. It swept quite through the land from the sea-coast to the interior, sparing neither city nor village, and was every where unusually fatal.

EGYPT.

Boats on the Nile. Our enjoyments on the river. Water of the Nile. Villages. Ovens for hatching chickens. Egyptian bricks and case of the Israelites. Singular costume of the females. Thievish boatmen. First view of the Pyramids. Stupendous undertaking of Mohammed Ali at the Barage. Approach to Cairo. Moonlight scene.

The boats of the canal are confined exclusively to its waters, and we here found it necessary to look out for other conveyances, a necessity to which our last night's experience made us very gladly submit; nor had we at any time occasion to find fault with the comfort or cleanliness of the boats on the Nile. Those which we engaged had about three fourths of the length of one of our canal boats, and about twice the breadth, and drew from three to four feet water; near the stern were a forward and an after cabin, the former of sufficient height to allow us to stand upright. In front of it we spread awnings above, and at the sides, so as to make a cool verandah or vestibule for eating and sitting during the day; and, with the aid of curtains, a pleasant sleeping apartment for the night. Towards the bow the deck ceased, and gave place to an open area filled with sand, where our excellent cook erected his throne, and chopped off as many heads as might have satisfied even Mohammed Ali himself.

We were all a happy party on that river. Our steward had laid in abundantly, and provisions along the Nile were plentiful and cheap; we had books and musical instruments, and chessmen and society. We changed back and forward among the boats, and sometimes gave tea-parties; and often landed for a stroll along the river banks, or among the palm-groves of the villages. The officers unanimously voted that it was far preferable to keeping watch on shipboard. Nor must I forget another source of real and actual pleasure, in drinking the Nile water. It is a delicious fluid, and the natives have a saying handed down from father to son, "that if Mahomet had ever tasted the waters of the Nile, he would have placed his Paradise along its banks." An earthern vessel, that would hold twenty or twenty-five gallons, was lashed at the stern of our boat, and kept filled, so as to allow the sediment to subside. The river, when we were ascending, was about one fourth advanced in the yearly flood, and the waters were of a light yellow color; on being allowed to rest in the jar, they took the color of lemonade, and were the most agreeable we had ever tasted. We drank prodigious quantities, but without having our health at all affected by them. The wind at this season blows constantly up stream during the day, but subsides a little after sunset, when we were obliged to come to and secure ourselves to the shore for the night. Descending boats take advantage of this interval of calm to drop down with the current.

We stopped first at Atfour, the city noticed above, where we found that what had seemed to us a palace was a large manufactory of Egyptian caps belonging to the Pasha. Thence we glided up the stream, the American ensign at the peak of each of our high lateen yards, fluttering, and seeming to rejoice as much as we at being on the Egyptian river. The banks, villages, islands, and groves, slipped along by our sides, presenting views sometimes highly picturesque, and always of a strikingly oriental character. The country, however, is generally at this season of the year tame and monotonous. The crops had been gathered in, and the open plains were burnt to a cinder by the fierce raging sun; the earth was gaping, and seemed to pant under its fury; and, except the neighborhood of the villages, and now and then a garden watered by artificial means, there was not a speck of verdure to be seen. The villages also, when we came to inspect them, we found to be miserable in the extreme. They consist of one or two hundred houses, made of bricks hardened in the sun and covered with domes of the same material. The bricks retain the original color of the muddy deposite, and the villages have a dull, gloomy appearance. Whitewash is never used within; but on the outside a mottled appearance is sometimes given to the houses by the custom of sticking cakes of camels' ordure against their front and sides to dry; this being the only fuel used in the country. It is said to burn very well, and when thus prepared, to have no disagreeable odour. If the reader will imagine a collection of houses thus daubed on the outside, with earthern floors and bare walls of mud, a small hole for a window, excessively filthy within, and abounding in vermin; he will have an idea of an Egyptian village. He must add also now and then a large, well-filled granary of the Pasha in the neighborhood of the villages; and in the villages themselves a number of dwellings in ruins; for the bricks often yield to the operation of the weather, and the badly constructed domes tumble in. As we sailed along, our attention was very often drawn to the houses for hatching chickens, one or more of which may be seen in each of their villages. They are formed by taking a number of pots, of the capacity of about a gallon, contracted at the neck, which is turned towards the exterior. About fifty or sixty of these are built up with bricks and mud into an edifice like an elongated bee-hive, twelve or fifteen feet in height. The eggs are small and the fowls diminutive, but of a very pleasant flavor.

I examined the Egyptian bricks with reference to the complaint of the Hebrews, that straw was not allowed them in the manufacture. A few here have straw mixed up with them, and it will doubtless check the process of disintegration to which they are exposed, but it does not seem at present to be considered a necessary ingredient. But it is universally employed in the process of manufacturing, or rather in drying the bricks. They are in size like our bricks, and are cut with a spade from the earth when moistened by the yearly floods. Fine straw is then scattered on the adjoining grounds, and the bricks are spread over this to dry; and were this precaution not used, the bricks in drying would adhere to the earth and be spoiled. I conclude, then, that here was occasioned the dilemma in which the Israelites soon found themselves; they could make the tale of bricks, but when they came to remove them at the close of their labors, they found them attached to the soil and their labors lost. I frequently saw bricks exposed for drying, but never without a layer of fine straw beneath.

At one of the villages, called Negila, we saw some of the dancing girls of the country. They were dressed in the national costume, but were decked off with beads and a great variety of tawdry ornaments, and were disgusting objects. Here is a large granary belonging to the Pasha, with vast stores of every kind; in our way to and from it we were beset with beggars, whose appearance exhibited the utmost wretchedness.

The breeze was fresh and our boats were comfortable, and the banks and the hours glided swiftly along. We had music, we played chess, we read, we chatted, we dozed when we preferred doing so. When meal-time came we slipped the leather trunks together for a table, and brought good appetites to the repast. Cleopatra herself had not a more cheerful party than ours.

Our boatmen often amused us by their agility. The sand banks at the bends of the river are planted with water-melons, and as the flood was beginning to reach the fruit, the inhabitants were busy gathering it in, though it was not yet fully ripe. The Arabs of our boat would often make a dash at these melons, and would have just time to select the best when the owners would rush with cries to the scene of plunder. Down they would all go together into the river, flouncing and tugging; the one for revenge, the other, amid so many witnesses of his exploit, struggling for fame as well as for the water-melon, and pushing it before him with all his might. Sometimes they would grapple, and in the consequent struggle of fierce passions the melon would escape from both, and glide quietly down the river: but generally the boatman succeeded in depositing it safely under the wing of the Cavass.

Towards evening of the 17th we came to a range of sand hills stretching along on our right; they are the commencement of the chain that higher up assists in forming the valley of the Nile. Up to this point our view on either side took in an unbroken level as far as the eye could reach.

About noon we found ourselves approaching a spot, in which, from the representations of our Cavass, we had become highly interested. We were near the head of the Delta, a place which Mohammed Ali has selected for a work, which, if successful, will place him far above the constructors of the Pyramids, and make him one of the greatest benefactors that Egypt has ever known. The place opened upon us at length, but on looking up our first impression was one of deep and unqualified disgust. Before us was a busy scene. On the high bank at our left men were appearing in great numbers, with baskets of earth in their hands, and after discharging it down the bank, were retiring to give place for others; but as they stood out in strong relief against the sky, we could see others with whips, which they were using freely upon the poor wretches, whose writhings and accelerated movements gave proof of the smart.

The traveller along the Nile is everywhere struck with the great value of irrigation to these lands. Water is frequently raised from the river by wheels turned by oxen or camels, and sometimes by buckets swung at the end of a pole and worked by men; and wherever this is done, we found, even at midsummer, gardens of the most intense verdure and of extreme luxuriance. It may be doubted, indeed, whether the annual floods do not benefit the country quite as much by the irrigation as by their muddy deposites. The object of the Pasha is, by means of dams, to raise the waters of the river to the surface of the adjoining country, and enable the cultivators to carry it by canals to any part, and to irrigate the whole region freely, wherever they may choose, and the place we were now at is the one which he has selected for this great undertaking. The idea of this is not quite a novel one, but was first grasped by the capacious mind of Buonaparte, between whose character and that of the Egyptian monarch, there is, by the way, quite a strong resemblance.

The reader will remember, that of the seven mouths by which the Nile formerly discharged itself, only two remain; one, the eastern, passing into the sea at Damietta; while the other, or western, discharges itself in a similar way near Rosetta. The Delta, lying between them, is of extreme fertility. Should he succeed, not only will the productions of this be greatly increased, but, by leading the waters off east and west of it, he will be able to redeem from the encroaching deserts an immense extent of country now quite abandoned. But difficulties of an alarming kind present themselves. The bottom of the river is loose and unstable; and the shores are so friable, that if an attempt is made to build a dam across it at once, the water will, in the mean time, be working out for itself new channels along the sides. Minds like that of Mohammed Ali, however, are only stimulated, not discouraged, by serious obstacles. He has employed M. Lenon, a French gentleman, and self-taught, but an engineer of superior abilities; and trusting the whole matter to him, has given him, as a nominal superior, Mahmoud Bey, the late governor of Cairo, one of the most wealthy men of the country, and apparently an agreeable coadjutor in this great undertaking. The subjoined plan is copied from one drawn for us by M. Lenon, and the measurements were also furnished by him.

This is a great undertaking, whether we consider the advantages which it promises or the startling boldness of the design; for in our country we can scarcely form an idea of the difficulties that beset it on every side. Every thing, even the most trifling kind of tool necessary in the operation, has first to be made. Mons. Lenon informed us that he could not have found things less prepared for his hands, if he had commenced operations in the midst of the African deserts. And, in addition, both he and the sovereign have to encounter the ignorance and the prejudices of the jealous officers of the court. They came once to Mohammed Ali, complaining that the engineer was going to needless expense in importing wood for piles when they had trees enough at home, which, if spliced, would answer just as well. "Say you so," replied the Pasha, "the experiment shall be made forthwith;" and looking out into his garden, he ordered trees at once to be cut down, and sent the complainants to see them spliced and arranged to their own satisfaction. This was done; the pile-driver was applied to them, and at the first stroke they flew into shivers. Since that time they have been more cautious in making complaints.

We found 10,000 men at work digging the canals; 6,000 on the Rosetta side and the balance on the Darietta branch. Mons. Lenon says, that if he can get men enough, he will finish it in three years: but at the present mode of working, it will require six or seven. They broke ground three months previous to our visit. One hundred great dredging machines are to be employed, thirty of which are already on the ground. These, as well as most of the tools, have to be imported from Europe. In the latter they are yet very badly provided. The ground is broken by hoes, and worked into baskets with shovels or fingers, as the case may be: these are carried on the head to the side of the river, and there emptied down its banks. The men are divided into companies of from thirty to fifty each, with one or two drivers, who hasten their operations by a free use of whips.

This inhumanity must not be laid to the charge of the engineer, who has in several ways endeavored to soften the hardships of their condition. We found him erecting hospitals, and conveniences for grinding corn and cooking; and he has prevailed on the Pasha to allow them wages, a thing heretofore quite unknown. They receive each thirty-six paras, or four and a half cents per day, from which six paras are deducted for their board. This in Egypt may be considered pretty handsome wages.

At our second visit we stopped at the tent of Mahmoud Bey, whom we found to be a fine specimen of the Turkish gentleman. He is a venerable looking man, with a splendid white beard falling over his breast. The tent was of mammoth dimensions, carpeted, and ornamented within with stripes of cotton or silken stuffs of gay colors, producing a rich and pleasing effect. His attendants brought fruits, coffee, and pipes with mouth-pieces set in diamonds. At Mons. Lenon's tent we found the chief of the St. Simonians, who had lately been banished from France, and had taken refuge in this country.

Before dismissing the Barage, I should add a fact mentioned to us by Mons. Lenon, that in digging here they have come to bricks at the depth of sixty feet from the present surface of the ground.

But our boat is once more out upon the stream, and we are gazing upward, expecting each moment to see Cairo open to our view. Instead of the city however, came a hurricane, sweeping across from the western desert, and filling the air with a blood-red color and our eyes with sand. We took refuge under one of the high banks, and hugged the shore closely till it had passed. Again a little after sunset we gained the channel, and by the light of a dim moon glided onward towards the city. On our left soon appeared a mass of white houses, forming the Pasha's summer palace of Shubra: it is surrounded by a garden forming a perfect fairy scene, and is connected with Cairo, three miles distant, by an avenue of noble trees. Of all this on the present occasion we got but an imperfect view; soon after several other large white edifices came in sight, and our imaginations, excited by the glimpses of splendor which we had caught, by the time, and the country, worked each into a scene of eastern enchantment, and we pictured in each of them fair captives from other countries, gazing through the lattice, and sighing for their distant native hills. The boat glided on, and presently our sympathies were interrupted by the glancing lights of the busy little town of Boulac, the port of Cairo. This city, as the reader is perhaps aware, is not situated on the river, but about a mile and a half from it on the west, and has at Boulac a landing-place and store-houses for all goods coming from the north; Old Cairo, a few miles higher up, answering a similar purpose for all vessels coming from up the river.

As it was too late to proceed to the city, we ran our boats across to the shore opposite Boulac, and made fast for the night near a summer palace and gardens. After tea we climbed the high bank over our boats to get once more a view of the Pyramids, now about eight miles distant on the west, but in the moonlight quite distinct.

There was something pleasing in being made to get our first impressions of this ancient region by moonlight. We were now amid the scenes of the earliest grandeur of Egypt. On one side of us, and but a few miles distant, had once stood the great city of Heliopolis; and on the other Memphis. Dim land of shadows and mystery, the pall of death hath been laid upon thee; but instead of concealing, it only makes thy features more solemn and more awful.

What a scene of life and bustle was once upon this now silent plain.

Ye buried ages, whose monuments stand yonder in the glimmering light, I have received the wizard's spell, by which the entombed are brought to life once more; and lo, I spread it over you. Arise!

Ha, this is Memphis! And see how it stretches across, and covers all the plain. Towering aloft, is many a grave but magnificent temple; there stretches the deep shadowed and interminable colonade; here frowns the massive tower for defence; and there lies concealed the luxurious bower of the gay. Dwellings of the simple and the astute, the noble and the lowly serf stretch around, far as the eye can reach, and countless multitudes flock along thy streets; while here, closer to us, in the city of mummies, lie an equally countless number in the searments of the grave. City of many centuries and of stately grandeur, we yield thee the reverence--but what noise is that? the buzz of the multitude has suddenly changed, and now comes the sound of wailing on the ear; and mark, how it increases in intensity, and spreads; and now all the land is filled with woe. The cause--I have it now--their god Apis is dead. A white bull, fed solemnly and reverently in their temples, and to which all the land bowed down in worship, has suddenly expired, and the houses are all filled with alarm and woe.--And here comes a long procession, sweeping onward from one of the gates; these, too, are mourners, and they seem to be touched with even deeper grief. They are carrying a dozen singed cats to the place for solemn embalming, previous to interment, with sacred rites. These animals had been their peculiar household gods, and were kept in a sacred edifice, well fed and carefully tended; but the building took fire, on which the alarmed worshippers rushed into the flames, regardless of themselves, and desirous only of extricating their gods. But the bewildered animals in their fright escaped back to the fire, and numbers were burnt to death; and the procession is now carrying their bodies to be embalmed. And there is another procession passing onward along the streets; they carry in solemn state a dog, their god, now dead, and which they are transporting to the place for sacred washing, preparatory to its removal in state to the city of Busiris for interment. Here, from out the water gate, comes another crowd in the habiliments of woe, and with sounds of grief. They are transporting, perhaps, a great benefactor to their city, some one whose bounties have flowed largely upon the poor, for such the mourners seem to be? No--these are two companies, one carrying a dead shrew-mouse, and the other a dead hawk, to the place of sacred burial. But see, here comes a couple of hogs, hooted at and bewildered; and mark the alarm of the mourners as the animals become entangled among their ranks; and see how they rush to the river, and with their clothes on, plunge in to cleanse their souls from the pollution caused by the swinish contact.

Ancient Memphis! our spell has been too potent, and wrought too effectually for the safety of our enthusiasm; and so we bid thee good night. Thou art well where thou art--laid low in the dust and almost forgotten.

FOOTNOTE:

That this is not an overdrawn picture of Egyptian superstitions, see the proof in Herodotus, Euterpe.

Cross to Boulac. Splendid hospitality of the government. Our cavalcade. Kindness of Mr. Gliddon. Description of his house. The Baldac.

On the morning of the 20th, the U. S. Consul at Cairo, Mr. Gliddon, Jun., came over, and our boats were soon after removed to the opposite side of the river. And here commenced a series of hospitable attentions on the part of the government, which contributed most materially to our comfort during the time that we remained at Cairo. On the bank we found waiting a European-built carriage, with four white horses, for the ladies; and for each of the officers a superb horse, with saddles of purple or black silk velvet, richly embroidered in gold, and with housings to correspond. Each horse had a groom, who kept constantly in attendance. These were all furnished from the Pasha's stables in obedience to orders from Alexandria, and each morning, during our stay in the city, were brought to our house, and also during the day whenever we required them. The Commodore's horse was a spirited charger from Tyre, the saddle and housings of purple velvet embroidered in gold, and stirrups of massive silver. About thirty of these were paraded on the bank at our landing; we looked at their flashing eyes and their powerful frame as they pawed the earth, with certain misgivings with regard to ourselves; but concealing these as well as we could, with the help of the grooms we soon found ourselves in the saddles; and then, having for a while measured with our eyes the distance between us and the ground, we turned to look at our cavalcade. It was a very pretty sight; and as we rode on, the natives stopped to gaze at us with that look of wonder and admiration which is so agreeable to a good horseman. The horses, after all, though spirited, were easily managed; and, except a bad habit of using their hinder legs against their neighbor's legs or bodies, were generally peaceable enough. They are taught a singular gait when in rapid motion, which to the natives may seem admirable, but to us was any thing but agreeable; it is as if the animal were to leap up with the whole four feet at once.

Preceded by a Master of Horse, and accompanied by two Chaouishes and five Cavasses, with the grooms, each in the fanciful eastern costume, we wound onward through the streets of Boulac, and, on looking around, felt pleased each with himself, with his horse, and with the world. The suburbs of Boulac and Cairo straggle off so near to each other as to leave but a short interval between; but there is little of note on the way, except the garden where Kleber was basely assassinated. It is elevated above, and faces an open area or parade ground, which we crossed just before entering the gates of the city.

After winding through a great labyrinth of streets, we drew up at length before the house of Mr. Gliddon, Jun. How greatly are we all indebted to the hospitality and the very kind attentions of this gentleman. As soon as he had learnt we were coming, he sent down his large boat for the Commodore and family, and it had reached Atf only an hour after our departure: he now had broken up his bachelor establishment, and threw open his house to us. He planned our visits so that each day brought with it some object of pleasing and useful curiosity; and when our excursions were distant, took upon himself all the trouble of preparation for them. We thanked him warmly at parting, but our hearts continue to thank him more warmly than words can do.

We entered his mansion, and freely took possession of what had been so freely and kindly offered, and then prevailed on Mr. Gliddon to become our guest.

While resting here, I will briefly describe the mansion, as it is a good specimen of the better kind of houses in Cairo. Entering from the street, we found ourselves in a passage with seats on either side, a stopping-place for attendants, porter, or servants, who may come on business. This opened into one angle of a court, enclosed on three sides by the house; and on the fourth by a wall separating it from an outer yard or garden. Turning here to the left, we came presently to a stairway leading to the second story of the edifice. The lower part is occupied by servants, and as store rooms or for similar purposes. At the head of the stairs on the right was a chamber opening into the kitchen and its offices, and on the left a vestibule conducting to the dining-room, a lofty and very airy apartment. The walls and ceiling were ornamented with a variety of carved work in wood, and for windows were lattices in a great variety of handsome patterns: at one side of the room were two large recesses, adjoining projecting lattices; the floors in these were raised about two feet, and furnished with carpets and cushions. And here, after dinner, our company retired to enjoy their Turkish pipes. Ascending to the third story, and turning to the end of the building opposite the dining-room, we came first to a vestibule, the most striking object in which is several mammoth jars of earthenware, filled with Nile water. Through this vestibule we are admitted into the principal apartment of the house. It is about fifty feet in length, and airy and lofty; and raising our eyes to the ceiling, we have here explained to us an object which is apt to puzzle a traveller on his first approach to an Egyptian city. He sees on each of the flat roofs of the town before him something like a low shed, closed at the sides but open in front, and with a very long slanting roof. Here we discover its use, for the elevated ceiling of this room, instead of being flat throughout, towards one end begins to ascend, and rising high above the roof of the house, a large opening is thus made for the admission of air from above. This opening is covered with fanciful lattice-work. Its utility must be evident in a city where the houses are three or four stories high, and the streets usually not more than four feet in width. Entering this long room, the visitor finds each end of it occupied by a platform about a foot in height, covered with Turkey carpets, and lined with broad, luxurious ottomans. These platforms are separated at the centre of the room by a strip of marble pavement about twelve feet wide; at one end of which, opposite to us as we enter, is a recess with marble shelves for confectionary, pipes, and for supporting the priceless and most tempting Baldac. The Baldac, the reader, after this encomium, will be surprised to hear is only an earthen drinking vessel, in shape of a Florence flask, though about three times as large; it is unglazed, and the water oozing through its thin sides, evaporates, and produces a delicious coolness. I do not know any piece of furniture that, if taken from the inhabitants, would be so much regretted as the Baldac. Each one, as he needs, drinks at once from the Baldac, five or six of them being always kept ready for use. Water for the whole city is brought from the Nile on the backs of camels or mules.

We return to our description of the house, which, however, is nearly completed. The remainder of the third tier is appropriated to sleeping apartments, and a fourth range over them is devoted to a similar purpose. The roof is flat, but irregular. Nearly all the windows in this building look into the court: but in most of the buildings there are latticed windows looking into the narrow streets; sometimes they project a little, so as to give the fair inmates an opportunity of seeing all that is passing below, without being seen themselves. Occasionally we catch a glimpse of a dark eye or a jewelled hand, through the openings of the fanciful but jealous lattice.

Visit to the Governor of Cairo. Court of the Mamelukes. Their massacre. Schools in the Citadel. Court of Justice. Palace of the Pasha. View from it. The "City of Tombs." A human monster. Plain of Memphis. Heliopolis. Mosque of the bloody baptism. Joseph's Well. Mint. Manufactory of Arms. The Citadel. "The Lions."

Early in the morning of the 21st we found the grooms with our horses in the court below, and after breakfast mounted for a visit of ceremony to the Abdi Effendi, the governor of the city. The carriage was waiting in an adjoining bazaar, where it had been compelled to stop by the narrowness of the streets; and here our cavalcade was formed in the following order: 1. Two Cavasses; 2. The carriage; 3. Eight Cavasses; 4. Two Chaouishes; 5. A Master of the Horse; 6. Dragoman; next the Commodore and Consul, and after them the remaining officers of the party. Having traversed the whole length of the city, we began, near its southern outskirts, to ascend, and presently found ourselves before the frowning walls of the citadel of Cairo. Here, in this strong eyrie, well guarded both by nature and art, the Pasha of Egypt has built his palace, and gathered his treasures, and formed his arsenal for arms. The citadel stands on a spur from the range of Kebel Mokattam, the mountains that, stretching along on the East, help to form the valley of the Nile. Here they make a bend and stretch off far to the eastward; and at the angle, on an irregular platform thrown off from it, the citadel was built, or at least enlarged to its present dimensions, in the 12th century, by the famous Saladin. It is a place of great strength, and may be considered as the key of all the upper parts of Egypt. On passing the heavy exterior gateway, we found ourselves in the court, where, twenty-five years ago, by order of Mohammed Ali, was perpetrated the bloody massacre of the Mamelukes. It is of irregular shape, with high walls on one side, and on the others steep ascents or precipices, surmounted by ramparts, above which again are heavy buildings, and among them the ruins of Saladin's palace. It was a place well chosen for such a butchery, and the whole plan of operations was strikingly characteristic of the man.

It will, perhaps, be recollected by the reader that the Mamelukes, as a distinct body, owed their origin to Saladin, who, distrusting his native troops, formed a body-guard of slaves, procured by purchase or capture from the countries bordering on the Caspian. They rose gradually under successive sultans, and all the fortresses at length being trusted to them, they concluded to turn the power to their own use, and through their Beys became the governors of Egypt. Various, after this, were their changes of fortune; the hardy soldiers, being generally successful in the field, but circumvented by their cunning adversaries in the council-room. The French found in them most obstinate and determined opposers; and when, at the close of this war, the British arms were triumphant, Lord Hutchinson demanded of the Sultan of Constantinople, to whom the country was yielded, the restitution of the Mamelukes to their former privileges. He promised compliance, but had determined on the extinction of this race of dangerous subjects. The Turkish admiral, who was sent for this purpose, first enticed a great number of them to a pleasure excursion in boats off Aboukir, and his ships opening fire upon them, the greater portion were destroyed. War with their race being thus declared, Mohammed Ali, then first rising into notice, was sent with a force against them, but was defeated and compelled to retreat. This was the origin of the inveteracy of Mohammed Ali towards the Mamelukes.

On the invasion of Egypt by the English in 1807, the Beys united with the rising Pasha; but it was only a momentary truce; and the defeat of the English, giving him secure possession of Egypt, sealed at the same time the fate of his too trustful allies. He immediately formed a plan for the total destruction of the Mamelukes. His son Tousson was about this time preparing to lead an army against the Wahabees, and as this was a religious war, it was determined to invest him with the command under circumstances of unusual splendor. The Mameluke Beys were invited to the ceremony, which was to commence in the citadel. They came, led by their chief, Chahyn Bey; and a more splendid cavalcade never filed in through the portals of this fortress. They amounted to 470 men, on horseback, together with about an equal number of attendants of the same race on foot. Their reception was flattering. The Pasha addressed them individually, and with a bland aspect and smiles, welcomed them to the festivities. At length it was necessary to form a procession, and the Mamelukes were honored by being put in a body near the head of it: they filed down and entered this rocky court; but when their whole body had gained it, the gates were suddenly shut both in front and rear, and they found themselves cruelly entrapped. The heights above were in a moment covered with the Pasha's soldiers, and a deadly fire was poured down on them. Rage and execration were in vain: they were coolly shot down till not an individual remained alive. One of the Beys escaped by spurring his horse up the steep outer wall; in the descent the animal was dashed to pieces, but the rider was unhurt.

Our horses, on reaching this bloody court, seemed themselves to be seized with the very spirit of violence; for pricking their ears, they rushed up the steep ascent with headlong speed, and, whirling through Saladin's court, and then through a larger one, brought us up at length in front of the governor's palace. It is a long building and spacious, but is otherwise by no means remarkable. Abdi Effendi has been in England and France, and speaks the language of the latter country fluently. He received us with great politeness, and entertained us with the usual eastern hospitalities. His questions with regard to our own country were pertinent, and evinced a good knowledge of its laws and institutions. He spoke in terms of high admiration of his own sovereign; and indeed Mohammed Ali seems to have the faculty of creating a strong attachment for himself in all his officers. The governor said that if the Pasha could live twenty years longer, he would make Egypt more civilized and more prosperous than it has ever yet been; but added, that he stood all alone, and greatly needed some one who could be a second self to him.

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