Notes from Egypt

Dear E

We are still detained here close prisoners by the gale, which continues to rage furiously day and night, but is most violent at the latter time; we are assured that it will last over to-morrow, after which we may confidently look for our release from this windy quarantine. Our situation is very unpleasant, as there is no stirring; out without beino- blinded and half suffocated by the fine sand which fills the air like a mist; the temperature has fallen so suddenly that it is felt by us all; this morning at eight the thermometer was only 72°, now (ten a.m.) 76°, when it has always at this hour been at, or near 99°; an agreeable change enough, had it been but gradual. This morning I awoke so cold, that I was glad to draw my blanket over me, which has not been in request for weeks, I might almost say, months past. Mr. P, is far from well, and our native servants have suffered much from headache and painful indigestion for some days, affections consequent upon the unsettled atmosphere. Sir Gr. Wilkinson states that the present month is the most disagreeable of the whole year in Egypt, and the residents confirm his account: the heat, although less than in the succeeding three months, is said to be more oppressive, probably from a degree of moisture in the northerly winds from the Mediterranean, and the low marshy Delta over which they come hither.

A certain degree of precaution is advisable to escape opthalmia, that terrible scourge of Egypt, and which is particularly prevalent in spring and autumn, or at low and high Nile, when the air is moister than in summer, and the variations of temperature more frequent and sudden. Weak and sore eyes are of lamentable frequency from Alexandria to Assouan; half the population at the very least, having those organs more or less affected; but as to the Arabs of the desert, although living in an intense glare, and breathing an atmosphere filled with floating sand, I do not remember to have once seen their black sparkling eyes dimmed by the least weakness or disease. This immunity from eye complaints is no doubt justly ascribed to the marvellously invigorating or tonic influence of the desert atmosphere, absolutely void of every particle of sensible humidity; a property of which we had ample and most satisfactory experience.

The height of last year's inundation was below the wholesome average for the prosperity of the crops, I cannot add for that of the cultivators, who, whatever the season may be, reap no benefit from their labours: hence the Nile is this year unusually low, a deficiency which, the early setting-in of the heat this summer, and its protracted duration last autumn materially aggravated. This very low state of the river helps to make our downward voyage more tedious from the shoals and sand-banks we are ever getting aground upon; indeed our good friends at the sugar factories of Ernout, Rhoda, and Mini eh, thought we must have passed them long since in the night, as the waters of the Nile have been cleared of English, and other European tourist-boats for many a week past. A steamer arrived here yesterday with a pasha on board, commissioned to proceed upwards and enquire into the amount of land which was left uncovered by last year's inundation, in order that such land may be exempt wholly, or in part from the annual taxes and other imposts usually levied; a piece of justice rather forced on government by the absolute impossibility of collecting any revenue from the lands left unwatered, than by the desire of doing right by the poor fellahs who toil only for the benefit of their rulers.

Minieh, May 27th. No prospect of stirring yet: the uicczb LuiiLiiiuco do litibn cife ever, oiowmg a gaie ai night; the weather still extremely cool, the thermometer to-day at noon, only 78°. Mr. Pengelly continues very unwell: but in this large garrison town, the third in importance of all those above Cairo, no medicine of any kind is to be obtained, and nothing eatable in the way of animal food. A chicken for stewing, that has only this very moment succumbed to the sacrificing knife of our cook, is all we have to look to for appeasing our appetite three hours hence, a portion of this unhappy biped being reserved to make a cup full of broth for my sick friend. I do not expect to be able to touch the remainder, having hitherto seldom achieved the mastication of Egyptian fowls. As to attempting the meat any more, that is out of the question; pigeons (always wretchedly lean) are not to be had here, though they literally swarm in myriads at most Egyptian towns, and the wild doves, that so unceasingly befriended us on our upward voyage, are at this season very rare and shy. The fact we find to be, that it is only during the cc season " for tourists going up, and coming down the river, or from October to March inclusive, that the markets of Egyptian provincial towns are decently supplied with the common necessaries of life: after that season is over, nothing eatable is to be hoped for. Fine fat turkeys at fifteen to seventeen piastres the pair (two shillings and fourpence to three shillings) are procurable at Kenneh and other places above Cairo at that time. Now they are not only very scarce, but very poor and dear: we bought two of these miserable scare-crows a little above this place a few days since, which we fed with barley or dhourrah into something like tolerable condition. I fancy that neither poultry nor cattle will fatten here during the intense heat of summer, but the ill condition of both is doubtless mainly due to the apathy and extreme poverty of the people, who scarcely themselves touch animal food, and cannot, unless there is a demand for fowls in the market, afford to give them grain, whilst at this season the always scanty pasturage for the flocks and herds, is scantier still.

In Nubia and Ethiopia goats almost wholly take the place of sheep; our chief fare there was kid, and goat's milk: but the former was always very lean and tasteless, and the latter, had not the richness, or even quite the taste of cow's milk. In the upper countries just named, the cattle are of a peculiar, probably distinct, species of ox, very much like our own, but with a hump on the back, and the females are, as milch cows, good for nothing, being always nearly dry; so that we could scarcely ever procure cows' milk even when meeting with large herds of them, much as we should have preferred it to that of goats. Our common breed or species is also seen in Nubia, &c. but more rarely. In most parts of Egypt, but especially in the lower provinces* the common and hump-backed cattle are in a great degree supplanted by the Water Buffalo (Bos Bubalus) a huge, grotesque, ungainly, but apparently harmless and stupid animal, to which we were indebted for some of the milk obtained in Egypt, and all the abominable mass of indigestible fibres sold for beef. The Water Buffalo has not made its way very far beyond the second cataract, or into Nubia: but it is well known, I am told in India. Its name is derived from its habit of laying a great part of its time immersed in the water of pools and rivers, and it is an excellent swimmer. Thousands may be seen on the tanks and shallows of the Nile during the heat of the day luxuriously reposing, with only their heads, or even the tips of their hippopotamus-like noses visible above the stream that is continually passing over them, brings constantly renewed coolness with it: at times one envies them their position. Yet in the intensely hot climate of Eastern Africa, I seldom or never see other cattle avail themselves of the river either for coolness, or as a refuge from the various flies that torment them. Shade is a rarity in Egypt, and in the country to the south of it, and deep shade is unknown, from the absence of all broad leaved umbrageous trees in regions where they would seem to be most required. Under these circumstances the domesticated animals appear to be endowed with, or to have acquired by long habit, an extraordinary power of bearing heat. One sees the flocks and herds quietly reposing or chewing the cud on the hard burnt-up pasture ground, broiling in the rays of a mid -day's sun that I imagine would infallibly and quickly affect an English ox, cow, sheep, goat, horse, or donkey, with coup de soleil. As to the camel, he seems to bear almost an antipathy to water, and in Egypt I am told it is customary to thrash the poor donkeys when they want them to drink, a proceeding quite as original in its way as that of administering a dram to a turkey when about to be killed for the table.

Minieh, May 28th. The breeze continues to keep us close prisoners, and a weary time we have of it, for the country around is very uninteresting, and our anxiety to reach Cairo increases daily. A government steamer is reported to be hourly expected from Siout, when we hope to succeed in inducing the Captain to tow us up to the capital, or at least to within a few miles of Cairo, since, if Mr. Pengelly should feel equal to the task, we propose stopping opposite the pyramids of Dashoor, Abousheer, and Lake Karah, which we have not visited. His indisposition, and our untoward detention will oblige me to give up my plan of turning aside for a couple of days into the curious district of the Fayoum, in which is situated what remains of the once extensive Lake Moeris.

We have succeeded in procuring a couple of tame rabbits to vary our scanty bill of fare, which has not received a single addition to its items since we left Assouan, notwithstanding the assurances of our cook Saad that the fat of the land of Egypt would be ours to enjoy, as soon as we reached Siout, close to which is the said Saad's native village* Our worthy cuisinier was piqued for the honour of his native land, and during our journey into Nubia, never failed to speak in terms of unmeasured contempt and disparagement of that country and its inhabitants, besides indulging in lamentations without end at having no materials on which to exercise his professional skill; he vows never to accompany any English travellers who may engage his services, beyond the second cataract at Wady Halfeh; and counsels all tourists not to advance beyond the first cataract just above Assouan, which is the boundary of Egypt, unless they wish to be starved outright. For our own parts, we have found Egypt, at this season, hardly a shade superior to Nubia in point of gastronomic advantages, having lived as luxuriously at Khartoun and Berber, as at Siout, or this town. Fish, there is none to be had, for the reason I have before stated. Of fruit, there is no variety, and what there is, is bad, either in its own nature through the climate, or from want of proper culture. A good melon, or water-melon, may now and then be procured, but is too often gathered before being sufficiently ripe, when the fruit is dangerous to indulge in. Apples and apricots are in the market, but the apples are miserably small, stunted, and greenish, being gathered before maturity, lest I imagine, they should drop off themselves from the trees or rather bushes, that produce them, for the climate of even Lower Egypt, is too warm and dry for the fruits of the temperate zone. We tried some the other day stewed, but taste and briskness they had none. The apricots are very poor, not larger than damsons, hard, and flavourless; I have no doubt the trees are all raised from stones, and am quite certain, that no pains whatever are bestowed on their cultivation. Grapes are not yet ripe, nor does the vine appear to be much cultivated in Egypt, except in the gardens of the richer inhabitants. We saw vines in several gardens at Khartoun, in full bearing in March; the clusters were numerous enough, but the grapes in each bunch that did come to maturity, were small, and mawkishly sweet; the rest fell off, or ceased to enlarge. Sycomore figs ( the fruit of the tree Sycomore of Scripture, Ficus Sycomorus ) are now in season, which with the date, the produce of the date palm, (Phoenix Dactylifera) are the only native or truly indigenous fruits deserving of the name, that the soil of Egypt and Nubia produces; unless we include the common fig (Ficus Carica) which I have not met with wild, but believe to grow spontaneously in the northern deserts. The fig prospers and is abundantly grown in these countries, where the fruit is excellent, but not yet in season here: although at Khartoun, when we left that place on the 20th of March, figs were just coming to maturity. The Sycomore is the largest of Egyptain trees, and affords a deeper shade than any of the few native ones. The figs grow dispersed over the trunk and large widely spreading branches, in clusters as it were, each on a short stalk, springing directly from the old wood. The fruit, called Gimmays, much resembles the common fig in shape, but is smaller, the flavour too is very similar, — pleasant, but much inferior to the latter, and it is chiefly eaten by the lower classes, being hawked about the streets of Cairo for their behoof. The Gimmays is very dissimilar in growth to the common fig-tree, and has somewhat the aspect of our alder, the leaves being about the same size, and at a distance not unlike those of that tree. I have some doubts whether even the Sycomore has a just claim to insertion into the scanty dendrological flora of Egypt. I have never remarked it beyond the strip of cultivation that marks the limits of the annual inundation: it is far more frequently seen in an obviously planted state about houses, as in court-yards and avenues; and when in situations apparently more natural, as in the open fields of grain, &c, it is commonly as a solitary specimen; nor have I ever remarked it intermixed with the groves of Acacias, Dates, or Doum-trees that adorn at intervals the valley of the Nile to its junction with the Blue and White rivers, and where, if really indigenous, one might expect to find it flourishing. It must however, if not an aboriginal, have been introduced into Egypt from time immemorial, as the mummy cases were chiefly made of Sycomore wood; and the fruit was well known to, and described by ancient authors who have written upon Egypt. If an introduced tree, its great utility as timber, and the eatable nature of its fruit, may have saved it from the fate of the Lotus flower, and the Papyrus, both of which have wholly disappeared from the rivers and marshes of Egypt: the rumour of the Papyrus still lingering in the vicinity of the Lake Menzaleh, proving, it seems, a mistake; another species having been confounded with the true Papyrus of antiquity, which is Papyrus antiquorum, Cyperus Papyrus Linn. Poor Egypt ! how has she been shorn of all her boasted splendours, even to her very garlands of Lotus flowers; and how literally have the words of the prophet been fulfilled in the single and apparently unimportant, as in so many more remarkable and weighty instances — "the reeds and flags shall wither; the paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks shall wither, be driven away, and be no more." Isaiah, xix. 6, 7. In like manner the Lotus once so celebrated, and so constantly represented in Egyptian paintings, and popular as an architectural ornament, has quite disappeared from the Nile; and it is remarkable that in every part of this interminable river that I have traversed from Alexandria to Khartoun, a distance of 2000 miles, I have not found half a dozen truly aquatic plants. Perhaps along the Eosetta and Damietta branches, and about the Lake Menzaleh, I may pick up a few water-plants on my way into Syria, as the Delta is intersected by smaller branches of the river and canals, and rice is there cultivated, which of course implies marsh land. In the Fayoum too, a few water-plants doubtless occur, but that I shall not now have an opportunity of visiting. The prophecy has received the most striking fulfilment in every part of the Nile, above the bifurcation of the stream forming the southern point or apex of the Delta, or that at which the Barrage is situated; for not a brook now wends its course to the river, whose banks are hemmed in by high cliffs and sandy deserts; and every plant that may have once flourished, on its then reedy sides has u withered, has been driven away, and is no more." Were it only to view the u desolation of Egypt, " a visit to this extraordinary country would be amply repaid in the historical associations, and the attestations to the truth of Prophecy which every day's scenery recalls to the traveller's remembrance.

What a fearful destruction must that have been, which could have displaced the colossal architraves of the great hall of Karnak, or overthrown the yet more colossal statue of Rameses II. at the Theban Memnonium; the raising of which, ( if it ever really stood erect) appears to me an operation more deserving of our wonder than the building of a hundred pyramids like those of Gheezeh.

With kind regards to all our friends, Ever your affectionate Brother, William Arnold Beomfield.