CHAP. Holloway and Major Hope. He welcomed these V. officers as if they had been his brothers. He had lost an eye when he was young, in playing the game of Djirit. He regaled us in the usual Oriental style; and conversed cheerfully upon the subject of his marches with our countrymen in the Desert; also of his own exploits in battle. He was magnificently dressed, in robes of rich silk; and wore, instead of a turban, a high purple cap; such as the Grand Signior puts on upon public occasions. The pipe which he used for smoking was valued at seven thousand piastres; and his poignard was ornamented with the largest emerald we had ever seen, being equal in size to a walnut. He resided in a new and magnificent palace, the windows of which were ornamented with beautifully stained glass. His couch consisted of ebony, inlaid with mother of pearl; and a magnificent mirror, covered with a gauze net, decorated his apartment. His attendants were more numerous than is usual with other Pashas; but, in his manners, there was neither the pride, the stateliness, nor the affected pomp, which we had remarked in the Viceroys of Cyprus, of Jerusalem, and of other places. In the evening, at six o'clock, we again set V. Succára. Festivities out in our djerm, upon an excursion to the Pyra- CHAP. mids of Saccára, accompanied by Mr. Hammer and Dr. Whittman'. We arrived, about ten Voyage to o'clock, in the village of Sheik Atman; and were much gratified, upon our landing, by a fine moonlight scene, in which two beautiful Arab girls Nocturnal were performing a dance called Rack, beneath of an Arab a grove of palm-trees, to the music of a tambour, and a pipe made of two reeds which the Arabs call Zumana. A party of Arabs was seated in a circle round them, as spectators. The rest of the inhabitants were sleeping, either in the open air beneath the trees, or collected in tents, pellmell, among asses, mules, and dogs. Some of down the their children were running up and Village. (1) This gentleman has since published an Account of his Travels in Turkey. V. CHAP. almost naked: they wore coral necklaces, and large ivory bracelets. An Arab joined the dance, which we had never seen any of the men do before he began by exhibiting a variety of attitudes with his drawn sabre; and then proceeded to express the tenderness of his passion for the female dancer in a very ludicrous manner, squeaking, and howling like some wild animal. One of the Sheiks who had received us upon our arrival went to a neighbouring village, to procure some additional horses for the next morning. The music and the dancing continued during the whole of the night. Our boat was anchored opposite to the farthest pyramid, towards the south; Cairo being still in sight. Appearance of the Country to the South In the morning of August the twenty-eighth, at five o'clock, as the sun was rising in great of Cairo splendour behind the mountainous ridge of Mokatam, we went round the village, which consisted entirely of mud huts. Near to these were several gardens, in which we gathered radishes for our breakfast. We noticed also some dwarf varieties of the Palm', which we had not before observed, growing in clusters among the taller trees, and bearing abundance of fruit, but (1) Phoenix dactylifera. V. hanging so low that it might be reached by the CHAP. hand. One variety was called Balack Mahaát: the average height of this did not exceed ten or twelve feet. Another bore the name of Balack Seawee, which grew somewhat taller. A female of uncommon beauty made her appearance out of one of the huts, without any veil; and, to add to the rarity of such a sight, her complexion. was fair, much more resembling that of a Circassian than of an Egyptian woman. The quantity of pigeons hovering about these villages is quite astonishing. We also saw flights of larks of a very large size. All the country, as far as the eye extended, was so covered with water, that no particular course of the Nile could be perceived it was more like a sea than a river. The Pyramids of Saccára appeared in the distant view, beyond a country rich in plantations and full of villages: they are less regular in their structure than those of Djiza. The Arabian side of the Nile is not so fertile as the Libyan. Towards Mokatam, the country below the heights seemed to be quite a desert. Mount Mokatam is itself variously perforated by cavernous excavations these were either the habitations or the sepulchres of the earliest settlers upon the eastern side of the Nile. At a neighbouring village, called Etterfile, two gun-boats, and one CHAP. smaller vessel, were now building. Near this V. village grew a great quantity of INDIGOFERA, Indigofera. which the Arabs call Nilé. Under a similar appellation it was mentioned, at the close of the sixteenth century, as an object of inquiry, by Richard Hakluyt'; for at that time it was not known in England what plant produced the Indigo2. Instructions were therefore given, "to know if Anile, that coloureth blew, be a natural commodity; and, if it be compounded of an herbe, to send the seed or root, with the order of sowing." It is remarkable that Nil, or Anil, is the American name of the Indigo plant. The Portuguese have adopted their Anil, or Anileira, from the American. In Chinese it is called Tien Laam, which signifies sky blue. The Arabs, in Egypt, sow the seed of this plant only once in seven years; and they obtain two crops from it in each year. They cut it green, when about two feet in height: (they were cutting some at this time:) it is then put into boiling water, and left in jars for several days: after this it acquires the blue colour.. The French had taught them to boil the plant, and use the scum for a dye. (1) A. D. 1582. (2) See Martyn's edition of Miller's Dictionary. Art. Indigofera. |