Upper Egypt: its people and its products [Translated from the German.] ... With a prefatory notice by Dr. G. Schweinfurth

Front matter

Drawn by Percival Skelton. From a Sketch by Dr. Klnnsinger. K08EIK, LOUKING OVER THE MARKET PLACE. UPPER EGYPT: ITS PEOPLE AND ITS PEODUCTS A DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, SUPERSTITIONS, AND OCCUPATIONS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NILE VALLEY, THE DESERT, AND THE RED SEA COAST WITH SKETCHES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY AND GEOLOGY. BY C. B. KLUNZINGER, M.D., Formerly Egyptian Sanitary Physician at Koseir, on the Bed Sea ; Member of the Gesellschaf t fUr Erdkunde zu Berlin, &c. &c. WITH A PREFATORY NOTICE BY DR. GEORG SCHWEINFTJRTH, Author of " The Heart of Africa." LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS; GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH. 1878. [All rights reserved.] GLASGOW : W. G. BLACKIE AND CO., PRINTERS, V1LLAFIEI.D. AUTHOR'S

Preface

. Mighty is the stream of literature which since ancient times, but especially in modern times, has flowed over the wonderful land of the sacred Nile, but we are still far from being able to boast of possessing a complete knowledge of even Egypt proper. For the truth and accuracy of his descriptions of its modern inhabitants Lane still remains unequalled, but he has almost exclusively confined himself to the people of the capital; on the subject of country life, and especially on Upper Egypt, we possess merely the reports of travellers. In the whole of Upper Egypt only a few Europeans have hitherto settled, and these are almost exclusively Greek tradex-s, who are not in a position to utilize their experiences by giving them to the world; still less is this to be expected of the natives themselves.

Accurate observations and judgments cannot be attained by a bird's-eye view, but only by living on terms of intimacy with the people as one of them selves (like Lane), gradually getting acquainted with their manners, customs, and religious observances, and especially their language, and for this a fixed abode and much time, study, and self-denial are necessary. When in 1863 I left Europe with the special object of making zoological investigations and collections on the Red Sea, I resolved not to confine my observations to animals, but to become acquainted with my whole surroundings, for, author's preface. IV as Humboldt says, one can only enjoy what one understands. Since that time, from 1863 to 1869, and, with a break of a few years spent in Europe, from 1872 to 1875, I lived at the little Upper Egyptian seaport of Koseir on the Red Sea, as sanitary or quarantine doctor, appointed by the Egyptian government, but was also much occupied both on private and official business in the neighbouring portion of the Nile valley, corresponding to the ancient Thebaid, and the present mudiriyeh of Keneh.

As an inhabitant for many years of a small town, where, so to speak, I formed one of a family, as a doctor and government official, and as a naturalist, I had ample opportunities for thoroughly studying the language, and for becoming acquainted with the country and the people, while Europeans who dwell in the capital find it very difficult to pass beyond their own circles and enter those of the native inhabitants. My lengthened experiences and observations I have now set forth in this book, and have attempted to clothe them in a dress that will have some attractions for the public. I have not adopted the plan of giving a descriptive account of my travels, since the personality of the writer always obtrudes itself in that form of composition, but have taken the inquirer by the hand, and thus we pass together from scene to scene.

The comparison of the modern Egyptians with the ancient appears to me specially interesting, the more so as the inhabitants of Upper Egypt have preserved the ancient type and many customs with remarkable purity. The reader, therefore, may always have Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians at his hand. Portions of the present work were originally published in periodicals, such as "Ausland," Westermann's "Monats- NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS. V hefte," and the " Zeitschrift fur Erdkunde," but these por tions have been revised and greatly enlarged by observations made during my second stay in Egypt; other chapters are entirely new. C. B. KLUNZINGER. Berlin, November, 1876. NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS. This translation of Dr. Klunziger's Work has been prepared by arrangement with the author, and with his active co-operation and assistance.

It is illustrated by additional engrav ings after his own sketches, which do not appear in the German edition. The Work has met with a very cordial reception in Germany, where the press has bestowed upon it the warmest encomiums. Glasgow, October, 1S77. PEE FAC E BY DR. GEORG SCHWEINFTJRTH. Kindred intellectual tendencies and alike interestjin science brought myself and the author of this work together in Cairo thirteen years ago, and in a short time united us by the bonds of a lasting friendship. When we first met in the city of the Caliphs, I, a novice on African soil, had still to make my primary studies, while the German physician and naturalist, whom I hunted up in an out-of-the-way Arabic quarter, was already far advanced in the language and in the knowledge of the manners and customs of the people.

While others who had come to appropriate one thing or another from the foreign world, unwilling to resign the home comforts of hotel-life, allowed this world to pass before their eyes as if on the stage of a theatre, and left chance to determine whither and how far their intellectual feelers should extend, Dr. Klunzinger, as formerly Burkhard, "the son of the Lutheran," and Lane of blessed memory, lived entirely among the believing heirs of paradise. In modern times the life of Europeans in the East has generally assumed such a form, that one may have lived his twenty years in Egypt without knowing much more about the country and the people than may be found set down in any one of a hundred books in which chamber students describe to us things they have never seen. To this class of people my friend did not belong.

When I found him as above mentioned, in his house of unburned bricks, diligently practising among the poor, surrounded by blind and lame from whose lips issued many a blessing on the self-sacrificing and disinterested friend of man, while from the hands of others he received as his fee zoological materials for his studies, I found a companion to look up to, a model on whom to gaze with admiration. Some months after my first meeting with the author, when I had begun those travels which were to lead me in the course of years from regions little known to others altogether un explored, I arrived at that secluded seaport where my friend had meantime settled as sanitary physician. On three dif ferent occasions I was hospitably received in his house, and passed many weeks by his side, introduced by an incom parable teacher into the Arabic world, and at the same time made acquainted with the secrets of that subterranean wonder-world, the corals.

For many years after that did my friend labour devotedly in this remote corner of the globe on behalf of science and for the good of suffering humanity. The inhabitants of Koseir still preserve towards him the most grateful remembrance, and a brilliant testimony to the love and respect which he was able to gain among them was given by the elders of this town, when in a special petition they prayed the supreme sanitary authorities to renominate him as physician on his return as a private individual after a few years' absence in Europe. Solitary and without companionship in his researches, but by no means turning his back with self-sufficiency upon what society he could avail himself of, mean although the garb might be in which it showed itself, and far from puffing him self up with the pride of being "the only living man among shades," he lived here a man among men.

Among fishermen and mariners, among pilgrims and camel-drivers, amono petty dealers and lowly scribes, our friend of humanity has sacrificed the best years of his life. The man of learnino the naturalist above all, whose ideal everywhere is nature, can never degenerate in the wilderness. If some of us view with disgust the life of the upper and highest classes among the modern Egyptians, the cause is not far to seek. All their thoughts and actions centre on the vile greed of money and shameless bondage to Mammon; things which cannot find an equivalent in hard cash are beyond the pale of their understanding. Here we see men without character, without national feeling, without con science, from cowardice as incapable of crime as from mean spiritedness they are incapable of any noble action. But we should be guilty of manifest injustice in judging of the character of the people were we to allow our disgust for a class to set us against the whole.

If the poor appear covet ous, the oppressed cowardly, that by no means proves that in the totality of their good qualities they might not be placed far above us Europeans, who under a less favourable sky enjoy immensely more favourable social conditions. But in order to hold the balance quite true we must always, in forming our judgments, keep in mind to compare like with like; and in this most observers fail, for it is as a rule the fortunate lot of our middle classes that they have before their eyes when they venture to describe the manners and customs of the common people of Egypt. Such writers have often indeed no thorough knowledge of our own working classes. In fact, however, the Fellahin are only to be compared with the dregs of our lowest social sti'ata, and looked at from this point of view, they cannot but appear to us worthy of ad miration.

Deprived of almost all means of self-cultivation, and without any pattern of morality above them worthy of being imitated, they grow up quite like savages; nevertheless, we see them excelling in several virtues which only the wisest among us practise, and that only with an effort. Their life is the most regular and orderly possible, and they are the most courteous and mannerly people in the world. Apart from his intimacy with a large number of people belonging to the middle and lower classes in various parts of Egypt, the author naturally enjoyed also special privileges X as government physician. It is part of the diagnostic pene tration of a doctor to be able to sound the depths of the human heart. Such knowledge and experience as may be thus obtained ought not to remain the property of one man.

As early as my first visit I recommended my friend to cul tivate the field of Egyptian manners and customs so long lying fallow, advising him to take Lane as his model, and produce an appendix to the Bædeker of the future. My wishes have been fulfilled. Egypt, too, has now got its Bædeker, a guide through the ancient land of wonders that puts all previous guide-books quite in the shade, and Klunzinger's descriptions will in future be an indispensable addition to the library of every Nile tourist, however small it may be. More than forty years have elapsed since Edward Lane gave his Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians to the world. His descriptions are unsurpassed; they have acquired indeed in the course of years a certain reputation of classicality, and the best proof of the impossibility of superseding them is the circumstance that no author has ventured to follow his footsteps by an independent path.

Great, however, is the number of works which have ap peared within the period mentioned, having for their subject the land of Egypt and its people. Whole ranges of volumes have been entirely filled with court histories and palace intrigues of the time of Mehemed Ali, narrated often by people who themselves had come to ruin in the empty show and bustle of the world of the great. Then came fantastically tricked out romances and gossipy anecdotes dished up in the hotels of Cairo, these productions appearing as " Secrets of Egypt/' and running through the world as cheap railway reading. A flood of cursory Recollections of Travel, in which experiences during a three months' voyage by dahabiyeh were related — or even less than this — alternated with works on special subjects written by hands possessed both of knowledge and skill.

The German literature of travel has no reason to be ashamed so far as concerns the latter class, and works such as those of a Von Kremer, a Liitke, or a Stephan have enjoyed a favourable reception in the widest circles; yet, in the study of popular customs, none of these could pretend to rival the descriptions of a man who, like Dr. Klunzinger, has devoted so much time and industry to this subject, and whose knowledge of the Arabic language of every-day life has rarely been equalled in Egypt itself.1 The present work, which, even in its external form and its arrangement of matter, is throughout new and peculiar, is indeed to be recommended as a gift to the inquiring public, and as filling up a still remaining blank in our knowledge of modern Egypt. Lane, however trustworthy and complete his descriptions may be, concerned himself in the main with such conditions of life as exist in a large town only.

A weak point in his work is its insufficient description of the Egyp tian Christians. His field of observation was the old and splendid city of the Caliphs, with the innumerable festivals and the pleasure-loving populace of an absolute monarch's capital. Ægypto-Arabic manners and customs are in Klun zinger's sketches clothed in a slighter garb, but the pictures appear all the more plain and natural. It is not the author's way to obtrude himself upon his readers as a censor of morals, to draw judgments and con clusions from the relations he describes where the actual facts enable any one to form a judgment for himself. And he has done well in avoiding this dangerous rock, seeing the ideas of men are as multiform as their heads. At least he escapes in this way the scornful remark ofthe stay-at-home wiseacre who would tell him that there is no reason for cen sure, if one who has spent the best years of his life among 1 Dr. Klunzinger is preparing fur immediate publication an extensive work im the common Arabic idiom employed in Egypt.

PREFACE.

BY DR. SCHWEINFURTH. people at such a stage of civilization shows himself but little practised in logical thinking. The author's chief endeavour was that the facts should speak. A soul overflowing with poetry will perhaps miss the descriptions of nature which are usually employed as the setting for a picture of manners, and if so also the idyllic atmosphere with which our writers, often infected with the "world-pain," or some other superstition, think they enliven their descriptions. In the matter-of-fact eyes of an investigator, such as a physician or zoologist, the All has no permanence; as his scalpel separates the fibres of the most mysterious tissues in which the unconscious life pulses, so his microscope throws light on a world of riddles of which the common eye has no idea. I congratulate my friend that he has not fallen into the mistake of his contemporaries, namely, of ascribing to his characters too refined, and per haps altogether imaginary feelings, such as in their lowly sphere of life, and in the fight and struggle for a subsistence, they could not find time to have. Let others copy him — and how easy will it now be to patch up a novel with Egyp tian local colouring by copying such a model. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Four Days In

A COUNTRY TOWN. First Day. — General Survey, 1. Entrance into a Town — The Houses, 3. Street Traffic— Donkey boys, 5. The Great Man, S. The Bazar, 9. Industrial Survey, 11. Survey of the People, 16. Dress, 17. Types of the Market, 20. A Street Quarrel, 23. The Market and the Women, 23. A Coffee-house, 24. Greek Tavern, 27. Native Beer-shops, 28. Dancing Girls, 30. Night and its Accompaniments, 32. Second Day.— Weekly Market, 33. A Slave Market.— Slavery, 34. Chance Meeting with Women, 40. Visit to the Interior of a House, 42. (The Courtyard, 42. The Kitchen, 43. Rooms on the Courtyard, 44. The Reception-room, 45. Taking Coffee, 47. The Terrace, 48. The Harem, 48.) Ancient Egyptian Dwelling-house, 49. Summons to a Sick Woman, 49. Revelations, 50. A Dinner, 54. Bill of Fare, 59. After Dinner, 60.

Third Day.— A Public Office, 61. Coptic Scribes, 62. Officials of the Provinces, 64. Taxes and other Burdens, 67. Official Procedure, 71. The Country Judge, 75. The Hakim Pasha, 80. A Coptic Meal during a Fast, 83. Fourth Day.— The Coptic Church and the Copts, 85. The Bath, 91. The Dogs, 94. Boys and Girls at Play, 95. School, 97. A Mosque, 98. A Saint's Mausoleum, 103. A Burial-place, 105.

Chapter II. Travelling By Land And River

Preparations, 107. The Embarkation, 108. A Voyage on the Nile, 111. Eating and Drinking on Board, 116. A Journey by Land, 117. An Inn, 118. A Village, 120. The Country in the Circle of the Year, 125. The Overflow of the Nile, 125. After the Inundation, 129. The Egyptian Calendar, 130. The Time of the Small and of the Great Sun, 133. Chamasin and Early Summer, 133. Summer Culture, 134. Water-Raising Apparatus, 135. A Water-wheel, 136. Harvest, 138. A Palm Grove, 139. A Garden, 140. Field and Garden Plants, 142. The Gardens and Cultivated Plants of the Ancients, 143. The Wild Plants, 144. The Animal World, 145. Monuments of Antiquity, 155.

Chapter III. Working Days And Holidays, Days Of Jubilee And Days Of

MOURNING. Working-day Life of the Common People, 158. Life of the Women, 161. The Family, 166. Friday, 171. Ramadan, 171. The Great and the Little CONTENTS. Feast, 176. Feast of the Saints, 178. Easter Week, 182. The Night of the Drop, 184. The Nerus Day, 184. Birth-day Ceremonies, 185. Ceremonies Preliminary to Family Festivals, 187. Religious Entertainments, 191. Entertainments of the Women, 193. Circumcision, 194. Marriage, 195. Funeral Ceremonies, 199.

Chapter IV. The Desert

1. Ride Through the Desert.— Point of Departure, 204. The Camel, 205. Provender, 208. Loading and Saddling, 209. Mounting, 212. Caravan Donkeys, 214. On the March, 215. Camping at Night, 218. The Morning Camp, 220. Day March, 221. Marching at Night, 225. The Littoral Slope of the Mountains, 228. 2. The Nature of the Desert. — Configuration of the Mountains, 229. Pain and Rain-water Streams, 230. Geological Constitution, 233. Springs, 235. Vegetation, 237. The Animals of the Desert, 240. The Naturalist in the Desert, 246. 3. Inhabitants of the Desert. — History of the Desert, 248. The Ababdeh, 250. Dress of the Ababdeh, 252. Of the Ababdeh in General, 254. Dwellings and Household Matters, 256. A Life of Hunger, 258. Employments, 259. Intellectual Qualities and Capacities, 262. Language, 263. Religion, 264. Family Life, 265. Wedding Festivities, 266. Funerals, 267.

Chapter V. On The Red Sea

The Red Sea, 268. The Desert Shore, 269. Ancient Settlements and Sea-port Towns, 270. History of the Sea-port of Koseir, 271. The Town, 277. Population, 277. The Markets, 278. The Water, 281. Industry, 282. The " Courts" and the Trade, 283. Custom-house, 285. The Government Grain-store, 286. The Port, 288. The Mole, 289. Arrival and Departure of Vessels, 290. The Vessels of the Red Sea, 292. The Ship's Company, 295. Navigation, 298. Use of the Compass and Stars, 300. Mariner's Calendar, 301. Traffic, 303. Fishermen, 303. Preparation of the Fish, 307. Other Marine Animals Made Use of, 308. The Pearl Fishery, 310. The Coast Bedouins, 315. The Pilgrimage to Meccah, 318. Quarantine, 328.

Chapter VI. The Natural Treasures Of The Red Sea

The Tropical Sea — Ebb and Flow, 334. On the Shore, 335. Preparing for a Visit to the Reef, 340. The Reef, 341. Outer Shore Zone, 342. The Inner Shore or Sea-grass Zone, 345. The Division into Zones, 348. Stylophora or Coralline Zone, 348. Joys and Sorrows of the Naturalist, 349. The Inhabitants of the Stylophora Zone, 352. Life in the Pools, 353. A Nocturnal Visit to the Reef, 356. A Block of Stone, 356. Reef Pools, 358. Fish of the Pools, 360. Fauna of the Stylophora Bushes, 361. Transition or Præcoral Region, 362. Coral Zone Proper, or Surf Zone, 363. Fauna of the Surf Zone, 364. The Inhabitants of the Corals, 306. The Coral Slope, 367. The Corals, 370. The Fishes, 373. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XV

Chapter VII. Popular Beliefs And Superstitions

The Ginn, 382. The Man of Science and the Magicians, 383. The Magic-books, 385. The Compact with Iron and Lead, 385. Receipt for Summoning Spirits, 386. A Love-charm, 387. The Magic Mirror, 387. Other Magical Rites, 388. Fear of Spirits, 389. Talismans, 390. The Envious Eye, 391. The People of Blessing. The Saints, 392. States of Ecstasy, 394. The Sar, 395. Popular Medicine, 397. The Animals in Popular Belief, 400. Alchemy, 403. Religio -astronomical Fantasies, 404. Astrology, 405. Geomantists and Gypsies, 406. The Future, 406. The Day of Judgment, 407. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Koseir, looking over tbe Market-place, .... Frontispiece. The Caravanserai of Bir Amber, ........ 204 Koseir from the Sea, .......... 276 Travelling Dervishes and Free Negro of Darfur, ..... 326 ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT.

Manfalut, on the Nile, xvi Shop of a Retail Dealer, 10 A Borer of Pipe Stems, .......... 12 Woman and Child of Upper Egypt, 53 Coptic Scribe 63 Mausoleum of a Saint, .......... 104 Pigeon-houses, . . . . . . . . ■ ■ .120 Dancing-girl, . . . . . . . • ■ ■ 189 Camel's Saddle, 210 An Ababdeh Man, 251 Ababdeh Boys, 252 Ababdeh Woman, ........... 253 Ababdeh Tent, 257 Ababdeh Tobacco Pipes, 267 Mariner's Lute, ........... 297 Black Fisherman making Thread with the Spindle, .... 305 Native Fisherman spinning Twine, 305 Vessel used in the Pearl-fishery, 310 Tent of Coast-Bedouins 316 Fellah Pilgrims at Koseir Manfalut, on the Nile.

Chapter I. Four Days In

A COUNTRY TOWN. FIRST DAY. We are standing upon a mound of rubbish entirely destitute of vegetation, above us the deep blue cloudless vault of heaven ; a gentle north wind guards us from being scorched by the glowing rays of a vertical sun; so dry and transparent is the atmosphere that the eye can wander unimpeded to the distant horizon, and take in every detail of the surrounding landscape. Verdant crops, interspersed at intervals by groves of palm-trees, clothe the level valley that stretches away to wards the north ; and through it a large river pursues its wind inocourse, lending moisture and fertilization to the arid soil. Eastwards and westwards the green valley is bounded — the line of separation being sharply defined — by the bare, yellowish-gray desert, which sometimes loses itself in gently rising plateaus over which the eye cannot reach, sometimes termin ates suddenly in precipitous rocky hills.

At our feet lies a confused and labyrinthine collection' of houses forming a considerable town. The houses, built of crude unburnt bricks, are mostly one story high, flat-roofed pierced with few apertures for light, and often growing nar rower towards the top in the antique style. Amidst these rise a number of tall minarets, large cupolas with their vaulted roofs, and neat quadrangular battlemented towers, the last having their walls pierced with numerous holes in which the pigeons carry on their busy traffic, while the grayish clay-colour of the houses is richly relieved by the perennial green of the palms and other trees interspersed among them. Most of the buildings show signs of decay, and a considerable portion of the town is in ruins. With difficulty we make out streets and thoroughfares in tins laby rinth, the houses, standing apart from each other, and being arranged in rows; and here and there larger areas are left free from buildings.

In these open spaces we next observe the throno-inoand movement of human traffic like the globules in the capillary blood-vessels. In the general murmur arising from this mass of human dwellings the ear can distinguish the harsh barking of numerous dogs, the trumpet-like and painful bray of asses, the angry roar of stubborn camels, the shouts and calls of street-boys at play, and the warnings of the scampering donkey-boys ; while from the markets rise the ceaseless cries of the brokers and petty dealers, from the battlements of the towers the clear voice of the muezzin calling to prayer, and now and again we catch also the quavering strains of some love-sick youth, or the feast-enlivening notes of a pipe with an accompaniment of drums and clapping of hands. No rumble of carriages is heard as in the busy North ; tall chimneys have not yet gained the victory over the towers of palaces, temples, and pigeon-houses; the voices of men and animals are not yet drowned by the buzz of machinery, or the knocking and hammering of manufacturing industry.

In a shady grove in front of the town a man with a full beard and expressive features is seriously and quietly spreading a carpet on the ground; his head is covered witli a large roll of linen, the turban ; his body, bronzed of a deep brown colour, is enveloped in a full toga with wide sleeves, reaching down to his feet; he takes off his red slippers, steps devoutly and composedly on the carpet, turns his face towards the south-east according to an invariable rule, and prostrates himself before the Almighty. In another spot sits or squats a son of the country, who in contemplative mood imbibes from a long pipe and a tiny cup the permitted luxuries of tobacco and coffee. Round the walls of the house before us ENTRANCE INTO THE CITY. a ghost-like being steals, the whole figure from the crown of the head to the feet — which are alone visible — carefully enveloped in a wide mantle, which falls in numerous folds; we are told that it is one of the fair sex.

We have seen enough, even though we had been carried away by a genie in the darkness of night and set down here on this mound of de"bris, to let us know that we are standing before a town in the Mohammedan East, far away from Cen tral Europe, much farther even for the imagination to reach than the land of the West beyond tbe Atlantic. We are on the classic soil of the primeval Nile, far up in the south of Egypt, where the Mercury of the nineteenth century has indeed begun already to stretch out bis wire feelers, where lie goes and comes occasionally with his steam-pinioned sandals on road and liquid highway, leading after him the narrow trousered bearers of civilization, but where he does not yet feel himself at home, and where tbe people rejoice in their aboriginal state of existence. ENTRANCE INTO A TOWN — THE HOUSES We descend and make our way* towards the confused mass of houses.

No rampart surrounds tbe town, but the outermost houses form a close barrier, in which here a regular archway, there an open street, there again a narrow doorway affords an entrance, or a ruinous building forms a breach which no one thinks of building up. The best way is to follow the raised causeway*, which winds along towards the town, and during the time when the river is high and the country around covered with water, conducts the passenger without danger into the midst of the houses. The street into which we enter is not much broader than the causeway, which barely allows two riders to pass. It leads us gradually onwards, widening and narrowing, twisting and turning, sinking and rising. The walls of the houses display little of geometrical accuracy ; the line of direction is often broken and bent, though each individual house has an approxi mately rectangular type.

In such a provincial town the houses are seldom of more than one story; nothing meets the gaze but a bare gray wall of clay, seldom plastered, and often common to a whole stretch of houses. Very different are the houses here from those of Cairo, with their numerous projecting windows; here we see little externally but a few small air-holes, and even these are mostly closed by a wooden lattice. In this way the inte rior is shut off and secluded from the outer world. Air and light enter the rooms from the court-y*ard, which is entirely surrounded by the house. The wall is constructed of rough un burned bricks of a longish rectangular form, such as those used by the ancient Egyptians for their private dwellings, and then always stamped with tbe government mark. These bricks, still called by their ancient name tub, are a material suited only for rainless districts such as this ; a heavy rain of some duration would soon convert a town so built into a ruinous heap, a convincing proof that the climate of Upper Egypt in ancient times wasquite as dry as at the present.

Two things, however, arrest attention — the gateway of the bouse and tbe pigeon-tower, which adjoins or surmounts so many of the buildings. The sides and top of the gateway* must possess a certain amount of solidity*, which is secured by tbe use of squared stones, burned bricks, and cross-beams, and ad vantage is taken of these to produce at the same time some thing of architectural ornament, bythe interchange of colours and a kind of mosaic arrangemeiit. Less success is attained when attempts at painting or sculpture are made, the Arabic artist only succeeding in producing hideous childish cari catures. Tbe Hadj, that is, one who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca, is fond of distinguishing his house by* such bizarre gate-paintings. Among the ancient Egyptians also the pilgrimage to a temple was an exploit that was painted on the houses.

To neutralize the glance ofthe envious it is common to put quotations from the Koran over the entrance to the house; and to turn aside the evil-ey-e, a stuffed 'monster, such as a crocodile, or it may be an aloe plant, is often fixed above the entrance. The ancient Egyptians were likewise in the habit of putting inscriptions and symbols of good PIGEON-TOWERS, STREET TRAFFIC. 5 omen in the same place. In the middle of the large gate, which is only opened to admit objects of large size, there is usually* a small door through which persons and the smaller animals pass out and in. The pigeon-towers, which are either placed in groups on the tops of the houses, or rise singly by themselves, now in the shape of cubes, now narrowing tow-ards the top, after the style of the ancient temples, form a large — often indeed tbe largest — portion of the buildings.