HAVING AVING satisfied my curiosity with respect to Alexandria, where, I own, I observed ruins, spectacles of misery, and human degradation, I made the necessary preparations for proceeding to Rosetta, in order to embark for Grand Cairo. For this place I departed, with my servant and guide, upon mules, on the 10th of December, carrying with us beds and every culinary article, and properly armed for our personal safety. In this journey, I passed over the scenes which mark the memorable contests between the British and French armies during the late war. The spot was pointed out to the left, among some hills of sand, where the brave Sir Ralph Abercromby fell," a name dear to every British soldier, whose memory will be embalmed in the recollection of a grateful posterity." On viewing the Bay of Aboukir, I could not fail to recollect that it was here the brave Nelson, (the bare mention of whose name struck terror into our enemies,) expected every man would do his duty; a hope which he afterwards saw fully realized, and induced him to proclaim to the world at large, "that Almighty God had been pleased to bless his Majesty's arms with a great victory over the French fleet,"-an action unparalleled in naval history. * Lord Hutchinson's dispatches. The remains of this venerable warrior are deposited in one of the bastions of the fortifications at La Valette, in Malta. At sun-set, we halted for the night at a small Caffane, in the desert, on the Bay. This place, of all the scenes of misery and filth, exceeded any thing I ever beheld in any country through which I had travelled. It was a loathsome hut, rudely formed of reeds and straw. Both inside and without there were swarms of Arabs, in all the horrors of poverty and nakedness, and literally covered with vermin. Many of them, during the night-time, rushed into the hut with the impetuosity of a torrent. The servants who accompanied them, slept on the ground on the outside of the place, a practice that appears to have been anciently followed in the East. At Alexandria, I also remarked, that many of the Arab servants slept on the outside of the door of the Consuls houses.* A cloud of smoke from their pipes completely enveloped the place, which was only lighted by a solitary cruse of oil, and became almost suffocating. In such a spot, it is unnecessary to say, that sleep, nature's soft nurse, was frightened away; in fact, to use the words of our Bard, it might be said to be murdered, by the swarms of vermin which made so formidable an attack. Language is perfectly inadequate to describe the dreadful suffering I experienced during this memorable night. I was compelled to have recourse to this receptacle of wretchedness for shelter, from the great dews which fall in Egypt after sun set, which are so destructive to health. A thousand times was I forcibly reminded of the torment which the Egyptians must have endured from the third plague. † The whole operation I was engaged in during the night, was, attempting by every expedient in my power to ward off the vermin, but in vain. Although I am perfectly aware that the reader is wearied with perusing a narrative so disagreeable, yet I can assure him, that I felt much more tired in going through one scene of this sort after another. My object, in short, in relating the circumstance, is to excite in him thankfulness to God, and submission to just and benevolent rulers, to move his compassion towards these countries, and rouse him to prayer and exertion, where it is at all practicable, to send the salvation of God among such a people, that it ⚫ may raise them from the dunghill, and rectify what is evil among them. Never will that deplorable spectacle, which the group within and without this spot presented, be effaced from my memory. I repeatedly had occasion to contrast it with the accommodation afforded even to the most common animal in Britain. Before leaving this part of the subject, I consider it proper to remark, that the prodigious swarms of vermin, which infest the huts or cabins of the Egyptians, appear to come forth particularly during the night, and spring as it were out of the dust of the earth. I am led to think, they are of the same kind as Moses has described, and are a species of sand insect. * In an expedition of King Richard the First, of England, to the Holy Land, alluding to the march of his army of Crusaders, it is observed, that each night certain vermin, commonly called torrentes, distressed them: they crept upon the ground, and occasioned a very burning heat, making painful punctures. They hurt no person in the day-time, but when night came on they annoyed them extremely, being armed with stings, conveying a poison, which quickly occasioned the wound to swell, and produced the most acute pain. What these torrentes were, I do not pretend to know, though I am sure that on this occasion they often made an impression on me by their envenomed stings; but as they are described as worms or vermin that crowded on the ground, I apprehend it to be more probable, that these were insects of the species of which Moses speaks, rather than gnats bred in the water, as some commentators suppose; or lice, which have in common no connection with the dust of the ground. This land, indeed, appears to be most strikingly afflicted with other calamities denounced against it during the time of Pharaoh. The Mosaic ac * Exod. viii. 20 to 24. count represents these insects, as first appearing on the earth, and from thence making their way to man and beast. A stranger, on arriving in Egypt, appears to be a particular object of attack from vermin, and suffers severely. When I was at Alexandria, I was fastened upon almost immediately on my arrival, and was some time confined to my room, my face being greatly swelled, and my eyes almost closed. Such a formidable attack, may, I conceive, arise from the blood of a stranger being more pure than that of a native of the country. I had not so much occasion to complain of this attack during the day, when I observed the vermin closely attached to the walls of the room, and as if asleep, but chiefly during the night, since the moment the shades of it appear, the whole are busy, and in motion like an army. At four o'clock next morning I got up, rejoicing at the light of day, which put an end to my sufferings; and on changing my clothes, I found the linen marked with blood, like a handkerchief with red spots. At this time the motley group in the caffane rushed out with great rapidity, each taking his own rout, and I proceeded on my journey after paying one shilling and sixpence for the miserable accommodation of this night. We reached the Caravanserai, near the lake Utko, where we embarked, were ferried across, and proceeded along the desert of sand. We stopped at Marabout, where there is a solitary mosque, and received a draught of water, for which money was demanded by the Arabs. About three o'clock I perceived the turrets and sycamore trees of Rosetta, at which time I found myself greatly exhausted, from oppressive heat and fatigue; and, like other travellers, was deceived by the mist or apparitional lake*, so celebrated under the name of the Mirage or Serab, which even at a very short distance had the most perfect resemblance to a great sheet of water, with trees to our great Maker praise, Ye mists and exhalations that now arise. MILTON. planted in it at certain distances, reflecting every surrounding object as a mirror. This was conceived to be an insurmountable barrier to our reaching Rosetta, and that our guide had mistaken the proper tract through the desert; but as we advanced, the supposed lake and its objects vanished, so powerful was the optical deception. The prospect, at first sight, is cheering, but ultimately most delusive to the traveller. He quickens his steps to reach the place where he hopes to quench his thirst, and feels the cruelty of disappointment. Swallows in great. numbers skim over these imaginary pools. This singular, and I may add, tantalizing phenomenon, is in all probality that which is alluded to by the prophets.* About four o'clock in the afternoon, we reached the town, and alighted at a poor inn, kept by an Italian. With the exception of a draught of water, we had not tasted any refreshment in the course of a most toilsome and exhausting journey across the parching sands of this desert, and under a burning sun. Previous, however, to attempting a description of Rosetta, or Raschid, as it is called by the natives, it is necessary that I should advert to several objects. which passed under observation, as peculiarities in the course of the journey across the desert. In the first place, it appeared to me from the trackless nature of the sand, that it would have been almost impossible to find a way, but for heaps of stones which have been piled up at particular distances, from time immemorial, as land-marks. These have been often remarked by travellers, and it is no doubt in reference to them that some expressions occur in the sacred volume. † The prophet Isaiah alludes to the return of the Israelites from the Babylonish captivity. It is unnecessary to observe, that between Jerusalem and Babylon there are many extensive deserts, the paths across which are marked out * Isaiah, xxxv. 7. Job, xxiv. 2. Jeremiah, xv. 18. "As to unbelievers, their works are like a vapour in a plain, which the thirsty traveller thinketh to be water, until when he cometh thereto, he findeth it to be nothing." Koran, c. xxiv. + Genesis, xxxi. 46. Isaiah, Ixii. 10. Prov. xxii. 28. |