II. Vestibule of the University Library at Cambridge. CHAP. Colonel Holloway kindly permitted us to remove this to England. We placed it in the prow of our djerm; thereby giving to the vessel the appearance of a gun-boat, to awe the pirates upon the river, during our subsequent voyage, in returning to Rosetta. There were also in this court certain fragments of Egyptian sculpture, formed of the substance commonly called Antient basaltes; which is a variety of trap, exceedingly compact, and susceptible of a very high polish. But the most remarkable relique of the whole collection, since unaccountably neglected, (for it is, in all probability, still lying where we left it,) was a very large slab, covered with an inscription, in the Hieroglyphic, the Egyptian, and the Greek characters; exactly similar to the famous trilinguar stone now in the British Museum1. (1) Its being left in Egypt is a circumstance wholly unaccountable. It was once Colonel Holloway's intention to have allowed us also the privilege of conveying this interesting piece of antiquity to our own country. We did not afterwards discover the reason which prevented the fulfilment of this liberal design; and we were too much indebted to his politeness and hospitality to attribute it to any other cause than a desire to ensure its safe transportation, by entrusting it to men better provided with means for its removal. But, as it still remains in Cairo, some notice should be taken of it, that measures may be adopted to prevent its being finally lost. It should also be added, that the inscriptions upon this stone are much effaced. The Greek characters CHAP. Jewel Upon the following day, Thursday, August the thirteenth, we again visited the Reis Effendi; who promised us an escort to the Pyramids, and said that a day should be appointed for our presentation to the Vizir, at this time in Cairo. Afterward, we visited the bazars, expecting to obtain from the jewellers' shops of this city some of the precious minerals of the EAST, at a reasonable rate. Not even a single specimen, worth notice, could be procured. The French had bought up almost every thing; and perhaps the frequent disturbances, in the city, had caused the concealment of every valuable.commodity. Among the goldsmiths we found only two antique intaglio gems; and a few medals of very little value; such as large copper coins of the Ptolemies. The cotton shawls manufactured in England would find a ready sale in this place. They asked two hundred piastres even for old turbans which had been mended. In the fruitmarket we saw fresh dates, some very fine grapes, and peaches. Sausages were dressed, and sold hot in the streets, as in London: but characters are so little legible, that the author could not succeed in copying them. But there is a manifest difference between an opportunity offered for this purpose, when exposed to the heat of an open court at Cairo in the middle of August, and such an examination of the surface of the stone as might take place in a milder climate, with leisure for the undertaking. * CHAP. Interior of whether the ingredients were of pork, or of any .II. other meat, we did not inquire. To describe the interior of the city, would be only to repeat Cairo. what has been often 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 appear like a series of narrow dusty lanes, between gloomy walls. Europeans were formerly compelled to walk or to ride upon asses, through these streets; nor had the practice been wholly abandoned when we arrived: although some of our officers appeared occasionally on horseback, many of them ambled about, in their uniforms, upon the donkies let for hire by the Arabs. To ride Horses were not easily procured. these, it was first necessary to buy them. And even when riding upon asses, if a favourable opportunity offered, when our military were not in sight, the attendants of the rich Turks, running on foot before their horses to clear the way, made every Christian descend and walk, We Jugglers. until the bearded grandee had passed. noticed several jugglers, exhibiting their craft in the streets of Cairo; bearing in their hands a II. CHAP. kind of toy, common in England, consisting of a number of pieces of wood, in the shape of playingcards, strung together, and revolving from top to bottom; such as are called, by children, trick-track, and are often painted to display the Cries of London. These toys seemed to delight the Arabs; who considered them as put together by magic. For the rest of the exhibition, it much resembled the shows of our mountebanks; each party having its Merry Andrew, who endured hard kicks and cuffs for the amusement of the populace. Trees. By means of the canal which intersects the city, and was now filled with its muddy water, we visited a great part of Caïro in a boat. The prodigious number of gardens give to it so pleasing an appearance, and the trees growing in those gardens are so new to the eyes of a European, that, for a moment, he forgets the înnumerable abominations of the dirtiest city, in the whole world. Many of the most conspicuous of these trees have been often described; but not all of them. The most beautiful among them, the Mimosa Lebbeck, has not even been mentioned in any account yet published of Caïro; which is the more extraordinary, as it grows upon the banks of the canal; and its It II. long weeping branches, pendent to the surface of CHAP. the water, could not escape notice. We brought the seeds of it to the Garden of Natural History at Cambridge, where' it has since flourished. This plant has been hitherto so little known in Europe, that although cultivated in some botanic gardens for more than half a century, it has never been properly recognised. About thirty years ago, Professor Jacquin, who received some seeds of it from the East Indies, described it as a new species, under the name of Mimosa speciosa; and by this name it is still distinguished in the English catalogues. grows promiscuously with the Gum Arabic Acacia, or Mimosa Nilotica: both of these, and also the Mimosa Senegal, are seen adorning the sides of the canal. Hasselquist says, that he saw the two last growing wild in the sandy desert, near the antient sepulchres of the Egyptians'. The Mimosa Nilotica, or Acacia vera, produces Incense. the frankincense. It is gathered in vast quantities, from trees growing near to the most northern bay of the Red Sea, at the foot of Mount Sinaï; and it is called Thus, the dealers in EGYPT, from Thur and Thor, which is the name of a harbour in that bay; thereby (1) Travels to the East, p. 250. Lond. 1776. |