Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798

Preface

. -.-■ A Journey of the kind here described furnishes but few personal gratifications ; and if agreeable sensations are sometimes excited in its course, they at least are not profusely scattered nor of daily occurrence. The simple narrative of such a journey will, in like manner, scarcely be expected to delight the reader with the elegancies of composition. It is perhaps indeed no legitimate basis for that species of reputation. The elevated and laboured style of history, which treats chiefly of great events and their causes, would ill suit with this minor species of narration, which is valuable in proportion as it is minute. A new fact (if any such there be) will possibly be thought, by the candid and judicious reader, to reward him for some pains ema ■» P R E F A CE. II ployed in stumbling over expressions either rugged, foreign, or uncouth.

The several dialects with which the writer was versant, and the total disuse of his vernacular idiom, will have tinged the whole with an air of incorrectness and negligence, which they best will know how to excuse, who have experienced how soon the facility of speaking and writing a language with classical correctness and eleganee is lost by disuse. Some slight alteration of terms unauthorized has been made in this edition. The remainder will receive no change. Literary fame was not the writer's chief object for submitting to the public the following sheets : had it been so, not even self-love would have con cealed from him that he had failed of attaining it. The retrospect on the events of his life which are briefly mentioned in the ensuing pages, offers him a mixed sensation. The hopes with which he under took the voyage, even without being very sanguine, contrasted with the disappointment with which he now sits down to relate its occurrences, allow him lit tle satisfaction from what has been executed. He feels, however, some confidence of not experiencing severe censure when his design shall be understood. The

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. III work is not offered as elaborate or perfect. The account of Dar-Fur fills up a vacancy in the geography of Africa ; and of a country so little known, the information obtained should not be estimated by its quantity, but by its authenticity. Sitting in a chamber in Kahira or Tripoli, it is easy to give a plausible account of Northern Africa, from Sennaar and Gondar to Tombuctoo and Fez. It would not be difficult even to sanction it by the authority of the Jelabs. These people are never at a loss whatever question is asked them, and if they know not the name of the place inquired for, they recollect some other place of a name a little resembling it in sound, and describe what they never heard of by what they know. With regard to manners they are as little to be relied on. Ask but a leading question, and all the miracles of antiquity, of dogheaded nations, and men with tails, will be de scribed, with their situation, habits, and pastimes.

But their descriptions, when given without the smallest appearance of interested views, if verified on the spot, are constantly found defective or erroneous. a

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. IV The writer is ,aware, that when the length of the time he passed in Dar-Fur is considered, the short account here given will appear, to persons accustomed to the busy scenes of Europe, but very imperfectly to fill up the void. Confiding, however, that those of more reflection and experience in travelling, will be better pleased with a short and clear narrative of what really happened, than by frivolous anecdotes or re marks, inserted merely to swell the size of the volume, he has contented himself with extracting from his journal the principal occurrences during his residence there, and giving them the connection required; at the same time omitting nothing that could any way contribute to throw light on the state of the country, or character of the inhabitants. A more creative imagination would have drawn more animated pictures; a mind more disposed to observation would have collected more facts and inci dents ; and a more vigorous intellect would have con verted those facts and incidents into materials of more interesting and more striking investigation. The de scriptions would have been more impressive, and the deductions more profound.

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V The present work has the merit of being com posed from observations made in the places and on the subjects described. But the praise of fidelity, the only one to which the writer lays claim, cannot be received till another shall have traced his foot steps. With respect to Egypt a greater number of persons may be found who are qualified to decide, and there is not the same reason for suspension of judgment. Without pretending to any extraordinary sources of information, the writer hopes, that what is here said will afford some little satisfaction to those who wish for the latest information concerning that country. He arrogates not to himself the praise of augmenting greatly the sum of knowlege already to be found in books; but very widely dispersed, and within the reach of comparatively few persons.

Innumerable books have been written on Egypt, but none of them, in our language, can pretend to a popular plan. Those of Pococke and Norden are most known to ourselves — valuable works for all that

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. VI •concerns the antiquities, and they are by no means superseded. The form and price, however, at this time keep them out o_f the hands of the greater number. * Niebuhr's writings require not an additional testi mony of their value ; but the professed object of his voyage was Arabia ; and the account of Egypt is only incidental. Volney and Savary are in the public hands, and no attempt shall be made to influence its judgment of their works. The talents of the former are well known; but he saw the East with no favourable eye ; and his manner in speaking of Egypt will be found materially different from that here adopted. Of Syria the Author could expect to say little that is new, after the numberless descriptions which have already been published, and he has accordingly used great rapidity in his narrative.

In Kahira, the sources of information are few and scanty. A traveller may remain there many months, PREFACE, VII without finding his ideas of the country, or its inhabitants, much more clear or precise. The Europeans, there immured as prisoners, may be reasonably excused for hastening their commercial advantages, and, whenever unengaged by that object, for amusing themselves in* trying to forget the place in which their ill fortune has obliged them to reside. Those who are found there, with, every disposition to accommodate strangers, and receiving them always with complacency and kindness, are yet, with few exceptions, not of the order of men most able to ge neralize their ideas, and avail themselves to the utmost of the information which accident throws in their way. The Greeks, whose inquisitive turn* and more intimate connection with the people at large and. with the government, make them more familiar with characters and occurrences, rarely represent things as they really are, but as they feel them, or would have them to be.

Where their report is not entirely imaginary, their por traits are like those of Lely, all adorned with* nicely combed locks and a fringed neckcloth. They mark

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. VIII no character, but as it appears to their prejudices; give no history that is not interlarded with their own fables ; and describe no place but in the vague and superficial manner that satisfies their own ignorance. The Copts who, it might be supposed, would be accurately informed of all that relates to the government and history of the country, have no sentiment of antient glory, and are wholly immersed in gain or pleasure. Settled in the composure of, ignorance, they can not conceive the motive of minute inquiries ; and timid and reserved, they fear to discover even what they know. The more liberal among the Mohammedan ecclesiastics, may be safely consulted for what concerns literature and the laws, and some few of them are communicative ; but in general they despise strangers, and do not readily answer questions not of the most ordinary occurrence. On the whole, the most intelligent and communicative among the people of Kahira are the Mohammedan merchants, of a certain rank,

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. IX ■who have visited various parts of the empire, and who have learned to think that all wisdom is not confined to one country or one race of men ; and who having been led to mix, first by necessity and then by choice, with various nations, preserve their attachment to their own perstiasion, without thinking all the rest of man kind dogs and accursed. The general design of the Writer, as will be seen in the sequel, was of such a nature, that, without being extremely sanguine, he might have hoped to ex ecute a considerable part of it. His prospects the first year were darkened by an unexpected disappointment on his arrival at Assuan ; concerning which he may say, without any disposition to complaint, that he felt it severely. Another winter furnished him with a little more information and more experience : but still, as he afterwards unfortunately discovered, by no means all that was necessary to his purpose.

He might have appeared in Dar-Fur as a -Moham medan, if he had known that the character was necessary to his personal security, or to his unrestrained passage : but, from the accounts he received in Kahira, b

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X among the people of Soudan no violent animosity was: exhibited against Christians. The character of the converts to Mohammedism, among the black nations, was, according to the general voice of the Egyptians who travelled among them, mild and tolerant. A disposition so generally acknowledged, that the more zealous among the latter are little scrupulous in honour ing them with the appellation of Caffre. His surprise therefore was not inconsiderable at finding, on his arrival, that an unbeliever in the infallibility of the Koran was more openly persecuted, and more frequently in sulted than in Kahira itself. The information received, previously to his de parture in 1793, taught the writer to expect, from having chosen the route of what is called the Soudan Caravan, the choice of a free passage to Sennaar, which would, without much doubt, have secured him an entrance into Habbesh, under the conduct of the Fungni, who trade there : for the Furian monarch, had his favour not been withdrawn in consequence of false insinuations, would readily have accorded a safe conduct through Kordofan, which was all that circumstances required. The being removed a few weeks

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XI journey too far to the westward, was no objection, when he reflected on the confusion then reigning at Sennaar, and that in proportion as the road he took was indirect, the less suspicion would be entertained of him as a Frank, the greater experience he must ac quire among the people of the interior, and the more easily he might be suffered to pass as a mere trader. He had been taught, that the expeditions in quest of slaves, undertaken by the people of Fur and its neighbourhood, extended often forty or more days to the southward. This, at the lowest computation, gave a distance of five degrees on a meridian, and the single hope of penetrating so much farther southward than any preceding traveller, was worth an effort to realize. He owns, he did not then foresee all the in conveniences of being exposed, on the one hand, to the band of plunderers whom he was to accompany, and on the other, to the just resentment of the wretched victims whom they were to enthral.

Perhaps those very evils were magnified greatly beyond their real value by the Furians to whom he applied, and who were predetermined not to allow him to pass. b

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. XII Another inducement to this route was, that part of it was represented to lie along the banks of the Bahr-el-abiad, which he had always conceived to be the true Nile, and which apparently no European had ever seen, excepting perhaps at the place where it joins the Bahr el azrek, near to Halfeia. To have traced it to its source was rather to be wished than expected ; but he promised himself to reach a part of it near enough to that source, to enable him to determine in what latitude and direction it was likely to exist. It is unnecessary to observe, that, had either of these objects been realized, much interesting matter must have occurred in the course of the route. He could not in the sequel discover that, the armed expeditions of the Furians extend to any high reaches of the Bahr el-abiad.

Another object, perhaps in the eyes of some the most important of the three, was to pass to one or more of the extended and populous empires to the westward. Africa, to the north of the Niger, as is certified from the late discoveries, is almost universally Mohammedan ; and to have been well received among one of the nations of that description, would

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. XIII have been a strong presumption in favour of future efforts. He expected in that road to have seen part of the Niger, and even though he had been strictly re strained to the direct road from Dar-Fur through Bernou and thence to Fezzan and Tripoli, an oppor tunity must have offered of verifying several import ant geographical positions, and observing many facts worthy remembrance relative, to commerce and general manners ; or, if those designs had entirely failed, at least of marking a rough outline of the route, and facilitating the progress of some future traveller. So fixed was his intention of executing some one of these plans, that near three years of suffering were un--1 able to abate his resolution ; and the pain j he endured at being ultimately compelled to relinquish them, had induced him to neglect the only opportunity that was likely to offer of personal deliverance, till the destitu tion of the means of living roused him from his lethargy ; and the ridicule of his Mohammedan friends, who, fatalists as they are, yield to circumstances, in structed him that to despair was weakness and not for titude ; and that the frail offspring of hope, nursed by

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XIV credulity, and not by prudence, marks the morbid temperament of the mind that conceived it. The following papers would perhaps have been something less imperfect, if what was originally com mitted to writing had been altogether within the reach of the writer, when he began to prepare them for pub lication. Two accidents, however, both equally un foreseen, rendered abortive his hope of compensating, in some measure, for the general failure in his design, by greater exactness and detail as to the particulars of what he had actually seen. The losses he had sustained in Soudan, were not very important, comprising only some specimens of minerals, vegetables, and other cumbrous materials, which he designed^ to have brought with him. On his arrival in Kahira, he thought it would be an im pediment, in his journey through Syria, to transport all he possessed thither, and therefore caused the greater part of his baggage to be sent to Alexandria ; among which were copies of such papers as he thought least unfit for the use of a third person. In the num-

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. XV ber he regrets a register of the caravans which had arrived in Kahira from Fur since the year of Hejira 1 150, containing an account of their numbers, and many other curious particulars ; copied from a book belonging to the shech of the slave-market in Kahira. A kind of general itinerary, in the hand-writing of a Jelab of his acquaintance, containing the roads of Eastern Africa. A vocabulary of the Furian language, compiled by himself. Some remarks on natural history. List of names of places both in Egypt and Fur, written by an Arab. The detail of particulars relating to the time and manner of his observations in Astronomy, with other remarks tending to illustrate the geography of his route. To return to a few considerations on the present intercourse between Egypt and Abyssinia. PREFACE- XVI To wards the close of the year 1796, the author was told by the Coptic patriarch, that for the preced ing nine years dr more, no communication had taken place between Egypt and Abyssinia.

Two men pre tending to be priests of that country, came, in 1793, to Kahira, but it was afterwards discovered that they were either not Abyssins, or fugitives, and without authority or commission. The interception of their intercourse by land might be caused by the unsettled state of Sennaar and Nubia. Slaves from Abyssinia are usually brought by the Red Sea from Masuah to Jidda, and many of them are sold in Mecca, though but few reach Kahira by way of Cossir and Suez. Gold sometimes comes to market by the same route, and the Abyssins are thence supplied with such foreign commodities as they stand in need of. To the slaves of Habbesh no very marked pre ference is shewn in Egypt. They are more beautiful than those of Soudan ; but the price of the two kinds, cœteris paribus, is nearly the same. A priest of the Propaganda, a native of Egypt, and consequently possessing every advantage of Ian-

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. XVII > guage and local knowlege, during the writer's absence to the southward, had endeavoured to penetrate into Abyssinia. Flaving reached Sennaar, he was dissuaded by the people of that city from attempting to proceed. Unmindful of their representations he pro secuted his journey, but was assassinated between Sennaar and Teawa. The Propagandists had a single missionary, a native of Habbesh, at Gondar, and styled BisJwp of Adel, but concealing himself under the exterior of a physician. In 1796, the order at Kahira de clared that they had received no authentic intelligence concerning him during several years preceding. At Suez, March i793> the author met an Armenian merchant, who had formerly traded so Abyssinia, and seemed a man of (intelligence. He mentioned that he had been at Gondar while Bruce was there, and that Yakub was universally talked of with praise.

This merchant narrated of his own accord the story of shooting a wax-candle through seven shields ; but on being asked whether Bruce had been at the Abysc

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. XVIII sinian source of the Nile, he affirmed that he never was there. He observed that Bruce had been appointed governor of Ras-el-Fil, a province in which Arabic is spoken. This person added, that the Abys sins were a gross ignorant people, and often ate raw flesh. In Dar-Fur a merchant of the kingdom called Ber goo, named Hadji Hamad, who had long resided in Sennaar, and was in Bruce's party from Gondar to Sennaar, said that Yakub had been highly favoured in the Abyssinian court, and lived splendidly. He was often observing the stars, &c. Both these persons agreed that he had been governor of Ras-el-Fil ; and both, that he had never visited the Abyssinian source of the Nile, esteemed the real one in that ignorant country. An Englishman, under the name of Robarts, came to Alexandria in 1788, and after a short stay pro ceeded to Kahira. His intention was, it is said, to have penetrated into Abyssinia by way of Massuah. While at Kahira he applied repeatedly to the Coptic

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. XIX Patriarch for a letter from him tothe head of the Abyssin church ; with which the latter, under various pretences, constantly refused to furnish him. He con tinued at Kahira several months, and afterwards found his way to MoccJm. Repeated attempts were made by him to execute his projected voyage to the opposite territory, but all without success. The persons who communicated this information, and who, as would seem, derived it from his own authority, asserted that he had encountered almost insurmountable obstacles, and been obliged to submit even to personal indignities. They allowed too that this gentleman was far from being unqualified for the enterprize, in judgment, experience, or physical force. The same persons related that he had afterwards advanced to the Mogul peninsula, and had accompanied the British troops, during two campaigns, against the usurper of Mysore, in various parts of the peninsula.

He even returned to Alexandria after the treaty of Seringapatam ; and, at that place, being attacked by an acute disease, breathed his last in the Franciscan convent there esta blished. More authentic and interesting materials respecting this traveller, may possibly have reached c

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XX this country. Yet it seemed not improper to men tion these few particulars, which may tend to illustrate the nature of a voyage to Abyssinia. The errors in African geography are numerous, and proceed from various causes. Among those causes, however, are particularly to be enumerated, That the same province has often one name in the language of that province, and another in Arabic. Of the places called indiscriminately Fertit by the Arabs, each little district has an appropriate name. Again, the name of a small province is occasionally taken for a large one, and vice versa. Bahr is applied to a great lake, as well as to a river. Dar is a kingdom, and is sometimes applied to a village, and often to a district. Fur seems to be an Arabic name, signifying in that tongue a Deer ; and, it may be conjectured, has been applied to that people in the same sense as Towshdn,

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. XXI a hare, is by the Turks to the natives of the Greek islands — from the rapidity of their flight before the Mohammedan conquerors. Nothing can well be more vague than the use of the word Soudan or Sudan. Among the Egyptians and Arabs Ber-es-Soudan is the place where the cara vans arrive, when they reach the first habitable part of Dar-Fur : but that country seems its eastern ex tremity ; for it is never applied to Kordofan or Sennaar. It is used equally in Dar-Fur to express the country to the west ; but on the whole seems ordinarily applied to signify that part of the land of the blacks nearest Egypt.. An innovation as to the orthography of some proper names, it is supposed, will not appear affected or improper, when the reason is explained ; as Kahira, Damiatt, Rashid, for Cairo, Damietta, Rosetto.

It is of some use in appellatives to approximate to the pronunciation of the natives, and there can be as little reason for receiving Arabic names through the medium of the Italian, as for adopting the French way of writing Greek ones, as Denys for Dionysius,

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XXII and Tite-Lvoe for Titus Livius. Kahira and Rashid have each of them their proper meaning in Arabic. — In Italian they have no meaning. The only rule observed has been, to -bring back proper names to the original pronunciation, as far as might be done without obscuritv. WThere a circumflex has been put over a vowel it is to denote its length, or something exotic in the enun ciation. An approach to systematic regularity would have been attempted in expressing Arabic words by Roman letters, but the author freely owns that no rule, at once general in its use and simple and easy enough to be remembered, has yet occurred to him. He has therefore added the original word, wherever it could in any degree tend to illustration and precision. The word Turk is never applied to signify a pro fessor of Mohammedism, an indefinite mode of desig nation, that occasions perpetual confusion in speaking of the affairs of the East.

The design was, to confine that term to the natives of Europe and Asia Minor. Arab is applied equally to the inhabitants of Svria, Egypt, and the coast of Barbary, as well as to those of

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. XXIII Arabia Proper, whether villagers or wanderers. The wandering tribes are however more frequently marked by the terms Bedouin and Muggrebin. The orthography of the word Calif conveys no idea of the strong guttural letter with which it commences ;. it is therefore here written Chalif, or more properly Chalif e. He is no stranger to the Turkish word Bek or Beg ; but as those whose enunciation of that lan guage is esteemed most correct, but faintly articulate the consonant which terminates it, he has retained the common orthography Bey. In general, the original language is esteemed the criterion of spelling ; and if the same word be occasionally spelled in two different ways, it is only because they are both equally near to that original. XXlV Weights and Measures. One oke, written in Arabic, *£>, , is equal to four hundred drams, or dirhems, each of 48 grains.

The elementary weight or grain, being as usual estimated from the mean weight of a grain of barley. One rotal, yhj, - one hundred and forty-four drams. M. Girard determines the weight of the ordinary Egyptian rotal to be 14 ounces, 4 gros, 27 grains = 4 hectog. -^Vt*- One rotal silk of Syria = 229f drams ; and the rotal varies very considerably in different parts of the Turkish dominions in Asia. The Cant&r, JLxs, is also a variable weight., In Kahira a cant&r of sugar is equal to 102 rotals ; iron and coffee, 105 ; senna, charcoal, and flax, 110; oils 122§ ; cotton 124; gum arabic, 150 ; dry dates, 250 ; pitch, 275. Measures of capacity. The Mid, a well known Arabian measure for e:rain. should contain 16 ounces, and each ounce lr of our pints. The Weibeh contains 22 mids. The Jrdeb, of Kahira, says M. Costaz, which is divided into 24 rpubs, or rubbh, is equal to 14 bushels and • See Meir. sur l'Egypte, torn. iii. pp. 33— 334-340— 344; and tom.i. p. 354. ) one-sixth, Paris measure ; or 1.849 hectolitre, which is very nearly equal to 11,288 English cubic inches.

It is to be remarked, however, that the measures, particularly those of capacity, differ materially between Damiatt, Feiume, Kahira, and the Upper Egypt. The ardeb of Damiatt is = 225 okes, or 528 -rV-slivres. That of Feiume exceeds that of Kahira by about f. Jewels, Gold, and Silver. One Kir&t, h\jS, - . = 4 grains. One Dram or Dirhem = 16 kir&ts. One Mithkal One Wekie = 24 kir&ts. = 8| drams. Measures of length. The pike of Constantinople, called Draa Stambuli, Ar. Hindazi, Turk, is used for selling cloth and silk. It is nearly 27 English inches. The pike of Kahira, gfi,, used for other articles, = 18 English inches. According to the valuation of M. Costaz, however, this last should be 22.717067 English inches ; but great impositions are daily practised in commerce regarding the length; and of many which I bave measured I never found two corresponding.

The Shibr of palm, is = 18 centimetres, or 7-08678 English inches, according to M. Girard. d ) Superficial measures. The Feddan, according to Girard, is a measure of 5724 superficial metres, or about one arpent -^ Paris measure. The arpent is 36,720 English square feet, or nearly 4- of an English acre. The Feddan is divided into 24 parts, called kircits. In the province of Damiatt the Fedd&n is equal to 6877 metres, and 48 centimetres square; or 2 arpents and t-J-tt Paris measure. CONTENTS CHAP. I, ALEXANDRIA. AlisrixNT Walls and Ruins — The two Ports — Reservoirs — Vegetation — Antiquities — Population — Government — Commerce — Manufactures — Anecdote of recent History .... Page x chap. n. JOURNEY TO SIWA. Attempt to penetrate to the Temple of Jupiter Ammon — Route and Provisions- Animals of the Desert — Occurrences on the Road — Description of Siwa— Ancient Edifice — Intercourse with other Countries — Produce and Manners — Attempt to penetrate farther into the Desert — Return - 14 CHAP. in.

FROM ALEXANDRIA TO RASHID. Abu-kir — Fertility ofthe Country — Description of Rashid — Journey to Terani- — Fue, Deirut, and Demenhur - - — 32 d CONTENTS. XXVIII CHAP. IV. TERANE TO THE NATRON LAKES. Government of Terane — Carlo Rossetti — The Trade in Natron — Manners — Journey to the Lakes — Observations there — Remarks on Natron — Coptic Convents and MSS.— -Proceed to Kahira - Page 38 CHAP. V. OBSERVATIONS AT kAHIRA. Topography — Government of Kahira and of Egypt — Pasha and Beys — Mamluks — Birth, Education, Dress, Arms, Pay — Estimate of their military Skill — Power and Revenue of -the Beys — The Chalige — The NILE — Mosques, Baths, and Okals — Houses — Manners and Customs — Classes of People — Accounts the Copts - - 50 CHAP. VI. OBSERVATIONS AT KAHIRA. Commerce — Manufactures — Mint — Castle and Well — Mhr Attike — Antient Mosque — Antient Babylon — Fostat — Bulak — Jize — Tomb of Shafei — Pleasure-boats — Charmers of Serpents — Magic — Dancing Girls — Coffee-houses — Price of Provisions-— Resent History of Egypt — Account of the present Beys - - - - __ 80 CHAP. vn.

Abstract of the History of Africa in general, and Egypt in particular, under the Domination of the Arabs - - - - CONTENTS. XXIX CHAP. VIII. UPPER EGYPT. Design to penetrate into Habbesh or Abyssinia — Voyage on the Nile — Description of Assiut — General Course of the Nile — Islands and Villages — Caverns — Kaw — Acbmim — Painted Caverns — Girgi — Dendera — Antient Temple — Kous — Topography of Upper Egypt — El-wah-el-Ghurbi — Situation of the Oasis parva ... ., Page 129 CHAP. IX. UPPER EGYPT. fhebes — Site and Antiquities — Painted Caverns — Their Discovery and Plan Manners of the People at Thebes — Isna — Fugitive Beys — Antiquities — Rain — Assuan or Syene — Obstacles to farther Progress — Return to Gbenhe • - - *43 CHAP. X. JOURNEY TO COSSIR ON THE RED SEA. Inducements and Danger — Route — Account of Cossir — Commerce — Return by another Route — Granite Rocks and antient Road — Marble Sfuarries— Pretended Canal — Earthen Ware of Ghenne — Murder of two Greeks, and subsequent Report of the Writer's Death - - 1.53 CHAP. XI.