Their Houses and Cities.

Of Dress and Manners in Northern Africa.

385

The most simple dress of the men, consists of a long shirt, with wide sleeves, tied round the middle. The common people wear over this a brown woollen shirt, but those of better condition a long cloth coat covered with a blue shirt, hanging down to the middle of the leg. On festivals, and extraordinary occasions, the upper shirt is white. They wear about their necks a blue cloth, with which they defend their heads from the weather. It is a general custom among the merchants, to wear a large blanket, either whise or brown in winter: and in summer, a blue and white cotton sheet thrown over the left shoulder. The dress of the women is not much unlike that of the men, only most of their garments are of silk. It being reckoned improper for a woman to shew the whole face, they generally cover the mouth and one eye.

The Mahometans salute each other by kissing the hand, putting it to the head, and wishing peace. The salutation of the Arabs is by shaking hands, and bowing the head. Among the Copts, a son will not sit down in the presence of his father, especially in public, without being desired several times; and in no place of the world do people pay a greater regard to their superiors.

On a journey, the Egyptians set out early in the morning, walk their horses gently, and often stop to refresh under a shade. If they do not travel in state, they carry a leathern bottle of water tied to the saddle; but a person of higher rank has an attending camel laden with water. At night they have large lantherns, stretched upon wires, carried before them. They seldom make use of tents, but lie in the open air.

Men of quality ride on a saddled camel, and their attendants on camels loaded with carpets, beds, and other necessaries, if their journey be long. They commonly carry in their hands a double crook to direct the beast, and to recover the bridle, if it chance to drop. Some of the women, whose circumstances admit of it, travel in litters, carried by camels; another method of conveyance is by means of a round basket, with a cover, slung on each side of a camel.

Their Houses and Cities.

The best houses in Egypt, especially at Cairo, are built upon a quadrangular structure. The saloon is built in the shape of a Greek cross, with a cupola in the middle. It is wainscotted ten feet high, and the pannels shine with mother of pearl, blue smalt, fine marble, and elegant pieces of mosaic workmanship. Above the wainscotting are inscriptions in Arabic, all round the apartment, and the whole is crowned with arches of mosaic and mother of pearl. The room is surrounded with a sofa, furnished with rich velvet cushions, and the floor is covered with carpets.

To describe the interior of Cairo, would be only to repeat what may be said of all Turkish towns; with this difference, that there is not perhaps upon earth a more dirty metropolis. Every place is covered with dust; and its particles are so minute, that it rises into all the courts and chambers of the city. The streets are destitute of any kind of pavement; they exhibit, therefore, a series of narrow, dusty lanes, between gloomy walls. It is well known that Europeans were formerly compelled to walk, or to ride upon asses, through these streets; nor had the practice been wholly abandoned when we arrived, says a French author; for, although some of our officers

appeared occasionally on horseback, many of them ambled about, in their uniforms, upon the jack-asses let for hire by the Arabs. Horses were not easily procured. To ride these, it was necessary to buy them. And even when riding upon asses, if a favourable opportunity offered, when our military was not in sight, ti e attendants of the rich Turks, running on foot before their horses to clear the way, made every Christian descend and walk, until the bearded grandee had passed.

Among all the sights which this country presents to an European traveller, there is nothing more novel than the view of objects beheld from the citadel of Cairo. A very considerable district, whether the spectator regard the east or the south, is distin; uished by one uniform buff colour. Towards the north, this colour is opposed by the most vivid green that imagination can conceive, covering all the Delta. Upon the west are seen the pyramids, reflecting the sun's beams, and appearing as white as snow.

Cairo.

Cairo, the capital of Egypt, which the natives denominate Misr, the Mistress of the World, and Misr without an equal, is situated on the eastern side of the Nile, which it touches by its suburbs Fostat and Bulac. Though the extent of Cairo, its vast population, and the diversity of dress, language, manners, and features which its inhabitants exhibit, cannot fail to produce a powerful impression upon the mind of an European; yet this impression cannot be compared with the idea of its ancient glory, when it was the metropolis of Africa, the second capital of the east, the scene of the wonders of Arabian romance, and of the real incidents of Arabian history, scarcely more credible than those of Oriental fiction.

The city is surrounded by a multitude of tombs; it is without a pavement, and without walls; and the rubbish which has accumulated during a series of ages, rises in hillocks around it. The lofty minarets of the numerous mosques, are the only objects which interrupt the uniformity of the flat and terraced roofs. The houses, which consist of two or three stories, are for the most part composed of earth or brick, though, in some instances, a soft species of stone of a fine grain, is employed. As they receive no light from the streets, while the windows, even of the inner courts, are of small size, and few in number, they arc, for the most part, dark and gloomy as prisons. The castle of Cairo, situated upon a steep and inaccessible rock, is about a quarter of a league in circumference, surrounded by strong walls, but commanded by the adjacent mountain The two great suburbs of Cairo, which may with propriety be reckoned detached towns, are Bulac and Fostat, which is likewise denominated Misr Elattike, the Ancient Misr, or Old Cairo. Bulac, the port of Cairo, is a long irregular town, half a mile west of Cairo, on the Nile. Fostat, or old Cairo, is the port of Upper Egypt, and situated on the eastern bank of the Nile, above Bulac.

But the most remarkable animal appearance may be noticed by merely dipping a ladle or bucket into the midst of the torrent, which is every where dark with mud, and observing the swarms of animalculæ it contains. Among these, tadpoles and young frogs, are so numerous, that, rapid as the current flows, there is no part of the Nile where the water does not contain them.

The ruins of the great Thebes, the ancient capital of Egypt, the city of Jove, the city of the hundred gates, from each of which issued two hundred warriors, with their horses and chariots, overwhelm the mind with astonishment by their magnitude and magnificence, while they at the some time, exhibit the most melancholy picture of the instability of human greatness. When the Scythians invited Darius to follow them to the tombs of their ancestors, we accompany their drea ry route through the desert, and contemplate the solemn visit of the pastoral tribes to the venerable graves of their fathers. It is with feeling such as these that travellers should tread on the ruins of Thebes, and contemplate the cradle of the human race. If ever a nation aimed at immortality of fame, and sought to astonish and eclipse succeeding generations by the monuments of their grandeur, it was the nation which built Egyptian Thebes; yet their antiquity is buried in the obscurity of ages; their history, their manners, and their laws, are forgotten, and their name has hardly survived the revolutions of centuries. The grandeur and beauty conspicuous in the venerable ruins of this ancient city, the enormous dimensions, and the gigantic proportions of its architecture, reduce into comparative insignificance the most boasted monuments of other nations. The ruins which occupy both sides of the Nile, extend for three leagues along the river; on the east and west, they reach to the mountains, and describe a circuit of twenty-seven miles, covered with prostrate columns of immense magnitude, collossal statues, lofty colonnades, avenues formed by rows of obelisks and sphinxes, and remains of porticos of prodigious elevation. Kourna and Medinet-Abu, on the western bank of the river, Luxor and Carnac on the eastern, mark the extent of the ruins, the greater proportion of which exist on the eastern bank of the Nile. The river is, at this place, about three hundred yards broad. At Kourna are the ruins of an Egyptian temple, constructed on a different plan from that of the edifices at Thebes. The roofs are vaulted in a peculiar manner, and the hieroglyphics accurately engraved.

Ruins of Dendera.

Dendera, the ancient Tentyra, lies on the western banks of the river, near the extremity of a fertile plain, bounded by an extensive forest of palms and dates which furnishes the greater part of Egypt with charcoal. The ruins of ancient Tentyra, which lie a little to the west of the modern town, are of considerable extent. The remains of three temples, the largest of which is in a high state of preservation, still exist. Two of these, one of which is the largest of the three, are dedicated to Isis; the third seems to have been consecrated to Typhon. The execution of the sculptures in these temples exhibits a degree of purity and delicacy, which the Egyptians seldom attained. The principal subjects represented in the porticos are of an astronomical nature.

The Pharos.

To the eastward of Mariout lies the bay of Alexandria, about three leagues in breadth, and separated into two ports by the island, Pharos, which is now connected with the continent. The country between the Plinthine bay and Alexandria has relapsed into its primitive sterility, and in various places exhibits the ruins of ancient cities, partially overed with sand, among which Taposiris, the Bosiri of Marmol,

was, in the time of that author, distinguished by the superior grandeur of its remains. The geographical position of the Pharos, as deterinined by Quenot, is N. L. 31° 13′ 5′′. From the encroachments of the sea on this island, the site of the modern tower does not indicate the situation of the ancient structure, which was supported on pillars of marble, the successive stories of which rose to an elevation of 400 feet. The ruins of this magnificent pile, the origin of which is enveJoped in the same profound darkness that involves the monuments of the Thebaid, and which was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world, may be seen when the sea is calm, immersed in the waters. The Pharos has been repeatedly destroyed and repaired, and its restorers have often aspired to the glory of the original founders. In the year 1320, it was overturned by an earthquake, and its place has been supplied by a square tower, equally devoid of ornament and elegance.

Alexandria.

This city exhibits no vestiges of its former magnificence, except the ruins which surround it. An extensive plain, furrowed with trenches, pierced with wells, and divided by mouldering walls, is entirely covered with ancient columns, mutilated statues and capitals, and fragments of decayed battlements, which lie strewed amid modern tombs, and shaded by scattered nopals and palms. These ruins, which probably occupy a much greater space than the city of Alexandria at any particular period of its most flourishing state, are of very remote antiquity, and greatly anterior to Alexander, as the hieroglyphics, with which they are covered, demonstrate.

The magnificence of Alexandria under the Grecian dynasty, was worthy of the fame of the hero from whom it derived its name. Built in the form of a long square, or as it is termed by Strabo, a mantle or toga, it occupied a space of four leagues in circuit. As the long sides of the square were protected from the sea and the lake Mareotis, it presented such a narrow front on the sides accessible by land, that it formed a position of great strength. The buildings were grand and stately, their arrangement was strictly regular, and the great streets, which intersected each other at the central square of the city, were the most magnificent in the world. Under the Arabian dynasty, its splendour gradually declined with its commerce, to which the genius of fanaticism is always hostile. Though its population rapidly diminished, though its ancient walls were demolished, and contracted to half their original dimensions, it still preserved a part of its superb clifices and monuments; its streets were still arranged in the form of a chequer, and its former opulence was evinced by the slowness of its decay. At the period of the late French invasion, the walls of Alexan Iria were of Arabic structure, formed of the ruins of the anrient city; they exhibited fragments of monuments, and concreted stony masses consisting chiefly of fossil and sparry shells, irregularly united by a common cement. From the neglect of the canals, and the cucroachments of the sand, the city is now insulated in a desert, and exhibits few vestiges of those delightful gardens and cultivated fields, which continued even to the time of the Arabian conquest, and are described with such enthusiasm by Abulfeda.

Rosetta.

Ro etia, according to Niebuhr, situated in north latitude 31° 24', is of Arabic origin, oblong and irregular, without walls or fortress. It