PLANTS.
Though my residence in Dar-Fûr was so much protracted, I feel myself able to furnish only a very imperfect catalogue of its vegetable productions. These are to be sought chiefly in the districts to the South, where water abounds, and where the extreme restraint under which I found myself prevented me from seeking them.
During seven or eight months in the year the whole surface of the earth to the North is dried up by the sun, and the minute plants which spring and flourish during the Harîf[45], are mingled in the general marcescence, as soon as that season is passed. Even the trees, whose fibres pierce more deeply into the substance of their parent soil, lose the distinctive marks of their proper foliage, and exhibit to the distant observer only the sharp outline of their grosser ramifications.
Of the trees which shade our forests or adorn our gardens in Europe, very few exist in Dar-Fûr. The characteristic marks of those species which most abound there, are their sharp thorns, and the solid and unperishable quality of their substance. 1. The Tamarind is not very common in the quarter I frequented; but those which were visible to me were of great height and bulk, and bore a copious supply of fruit.
2. The Plane, platanus Orientalis, Deleib, is found, but seems rather to have been brought from Egypt, than indigenous.
3. Sycamore of Egypt, Ficus Sycomorus, Gimmeiz, a few near Cobbé; said to be much more common to the southward. I did not observe that it produced any fruit.
4. Nebbek Ar. Paliurus Athenæi. Of this there are two species in Dar-Fûr. They term the largest Nebbek-el-arab. There is a difference in their fruit, as well as in their external appearance. The one is a bush, with leaves of dark green, not very different from those of the ivy, but much thinner. It appeared to be the same I had seen in the gardens of Alexandria. The other a tree, growing to considerable size, but having both the leaves and fruit smaller, and the fruit of darker colour, and somewhat different flavour. Both of them equally thorny. The natives eat the fruit fresh or dry; for it dries on the tree, and so remains great part of the winter months. In that state it is formed into a paste of not unpleasant flavour, and is a portable provision on journies.
5. Heglîg or Hejlij, Ar. This tree is about the same size as the one last mentioned, and is said to be a native of Arabia, though I have seen it only in Fûr.—The leaf is small, and the fruit it bears is of an oblong form, about the size of a date. Colour brown, tinctured with orange; dry, and of a viscous quality. The nucleus is large in proportion to the fruit, which adheres to it with great tenacity. This is also formed into a paste, but of no agreeable flavour. It is however eaten by the Arabs, and by some esteemed efficacious as a remedy for certain diseases. It seems a slight diuretic. The wood is hard, and of a yellowish colour; it grows in great abundance, and is very thorny. This, together with the Nebbek, chiefly furnish thorns for the fences.
6. Enneb, a small tree, to the fruit of which they have given the name of grapes. It bears leaves of light green hue, and the fruit, which is of a purple colour, is attached, not in bunches, but singly to the smaller branches, and interspersed among the leaves. The internal structure of the fruit is not very unlike the grape, which it also resembles in size. But the pulp is of a red hue, and the taste is strongly astringent.
7. Shaw, Ar. a shrub about the size of the Arbutus, having, like it, a leaf of strong texture, of oval form, pale green, wider at the lower, and narrower at the upper extremity than the arbutus.—The leaf has the pungency and very much the taste of mustard. This shrub I saw chiefly in Wadi Shaw, a place we passed in going and returning, between Sweini and Bîr-el-malha. The natives cut off the smaller branches, which they use to rub their teeth, alleging that the acrid juice of this plant has the property of whitening them.
From an exact correspondence as to the place of its growth, viz. near the salt springs, the camels not eating it, and some other circumstances, I take this to be the Rack of Bruce, vol. v. p. 44. though unable to recognize it in the figure there given.
8. Ceratonia Siliqua, Charôb.
9. Solanum sanctum, nightshade, Beidinjan, or Melingân, brought originally from Egypt, and used for food.
10. El Henne, from Egypt, growing into use.
11. Sophar, Ar. Cassia sophera, wild senna, native, and grows in plenty after the rains.
12. Sûnt, Mimosa Nilotica, in great quantity.—It is from this tree, which is also called Seiâl, that the gum, brought to Egypt by the caravans, is chiefly gathered. There are also found the trees called by Bruce Ergett Dimmo, and Ergett-el-Kurûn, and the Farek, Bauhinia Acuminata of the same writer.
13. A kind of legumen called Fûl, bean. It is not much used for food, but as an ornament by the women, being strung in the form of beads, when quite dry, at which time it is very hard. It is also used as a weight of four or five grains.
14. A beautiful legumen, of a scarlet colour, with a black spot at the point of attachment to its cyst. It is called in Dar-Fûr Shûsh; is about the size of a small pea, hard and polished; grows on a plant resembling tares; is strung and used as an ornament by the women.
15. The common onion, Allium cepe, Bassal, Ar. is abundantly supplied in Dar-Fûr, but inferior in size, taste, and colour, to that of Egypt.
16. Garlick, Allium sativum, Tûm Ar. cultivated and used for food.
17. Water-melon, Cucurbita citrullus, Butteik Ar. This grows wild over almost all the cultivable lands, and ripens as the corn is removed. In this state it does not attain a large size. The inside is of a pale hue, and has little flavour. As it ripens, the camels, asses, &c. are turned to feed on it, and it is said to fatten them. The seeds, as they grow blackish, are collected to make a kind of tar, Kutrân. Those plants of the melon which receive artificial culture grow to a large size, and are of exquisite flavour.
18. Common melon, Cucumis melo, Kawûn Ar. is occasionally cultivated, but rarely brought to perfection.
19. Cucumbers, Cucumis sativus, Cheiar Ar. of which the Jelabs have introduced the culture, as well as of the preceding.
20. Gourd, Cucurbita Lagenaria, Karra Ar. This serves for drinking-vessels and other purposes. It is found in abundance. When fresh, it is used for food, and being properly dressed with meat, is very palatable. Grows to a large size.
21. Cœlocynthis, Handal Ar. very common.
22. Momordica Elaterium, Adjûr Ar. also very common.
23. Ushar. This plant abounds so much as to cover whole plains. No other use is made of it than to spread its branches and leaves under mats and goods, which it is said guards them from the Termis or white ant.
24. Nightshade, Solanum foliis hirsutis, Enneb-el-dîb.
25. Hemp, Cannabis vulgaris, Hashîsh, Ar. is now become an article of regular culture, being used in various ways as an aphrodisiac, and in different proportion as a narcotic. Hashîsh is a general name for green herbs, but chiefly appropriated to this: it is chewed in its crude state, inhaled by means of a pipe, or formed, with other ingredients, into an electuary, maijun. In Egypt the consumption of this article is much greater than in Dar-Fûr, but the best is that of Antioch in Syria.
26. Rice, Oryza, Oruzz Ar. is brought in small quantities by the wandering Arabs, who find it growing wild in the places they frequent. It is little used or esteemed, and indeed has no quality to recommend it.
27. Cayenne pepper, chetti or Tchetti, in the language of the country, is extremely common in one district, whence it is dispersed over the country and used with food.
28. Kidney-bean, Lubi Ar.
29. Meluchia.
30. Bamêa, in great abundance.
31. A plant of the same size with the Meluchia, of very dark green, strong smell and taste. It grows in great quantity, and with the natives forms a principal article of food. They call it Cowel.
32. Sesamum, Simsim, Ar. From this an oil is extracted. It is also bruised in a mortar, and mixed with the food. It is even used by the great to fatten their horses.
33. Mahreik, and Dokn, the holcus dochna, of Forskal, as has been already mentioned, are the basis of their provision, but chiefly the latter.
34. Tobacco is produced in abundance in Fertît and Dar Fungaro. It seems to be unquestionably of native growth.
CHAP. XIX.
DAR-FÛR.
Government — History — Agriculture, &c. — Population — Building — Manners and customs — Revenue — Articles of commerce, &c.
Government.
The magistracy of one, which seems tacitly, if it be not expressly favoured by the dispensation of Mohammed, as in most other countries professing that religion, prevails in Dar-Fûr. The monarch indeed can do nothing contrary to the Korân, but he may do more than the laws established thereon will authorise: and as there is no council to control or even to assist him, his power may well be termed despotic. He speaks in public of the soil and its productions as his personal property, and of the people as little else than his slaves.
When manifest injustice appears in his decisions, the Fukkara, or ecclesiastics, express their sentiments with some boldness, but their opposition is without any appropriate object, and consequently its effects are inconsiderable. All the monarch fears is a general alienation of the minds of the troops, who may at their will raise another, as enterprising and unprincipled as himself, to the same envied superiority.
His power in the provinces is delegated to officers who possess an authority equally arbitrary. In those districts, which have always or for a long time formed an integral part of the empire, these officers are generally called Meleks. In such as have been lately conquered, or perhaps, more properly, have been annexed to the dominion of the Sultan, under certain stipulations, the chief is suffered to retain the title of Sultan, yet is tributary to and receives his appointment from the Sultan of Fûr.
In this country, on the death of the monarch, the title descends of right to the oldest of his sons; and in default of heirs male, as well as during the minority of those heirs, to his brother. But under various pretences this received rule of succession is frequently infringed. The son is said to be too young, or the late monarch to have obtained the government by unjust means; and, at length, the pretensions of those who have any apparent claim to the regal authority are to be decided by war, and become the prize of the strongest.
It was in this manner that the present Sultan gained possession of the Imperial dignity. A preceding monarch, named Bokar, had three sons, Mohammed, surnamed Teraub, el-Chalîfe, and Abd-el-rachmân. Teraub the eldest (which cognomen was acquired by the habit of rolling in the dust when a child) first obtained the government. He is said to have ruled thirty-two lunar years, one of the longest reigns remembered in the history of the country. The sons he left at his death being all young, the second brother, under pretence that none of them was old enough to reign, which was far from being the fact, and in some degree favoured by the troops for the generosity by which he was eminently distinguished, under the title of Chalîfe, vicegerent of the realm, assumed the reins of government. His reign was of short duration, and characterised by nothing but violence and rapine. He had been only a short time seated on the throne, when a discontented party joining with the people of Kordofân, in a war with whom his brother Teraub had perished, found employment for him in that quarter. Abd-el-rachmân, who, during the life of his brother, had assumed the title of Faquîr, and apparently devoted himself to religion, was then in Kordofân. He took advantage of the situation of the Chalîfe, and the increasing discontent of the soldiery, to get himself appointed their leader. Returning towards Fûr, he met his brother in the field, and they came to an engagement, which, whether by the prowess of Abd-el-rachmân, or the perfidy of the other’s adherents, is unknown, was decided in favour of the former. The Chalîfe was wounded; and while one of his sons parried the blows that were aimed at his life, they perished together covered with wounds. The children of Teraub, the rightful heirs, were in the mean time forgotten, and are now wandering about, scraping a miserable subsistence from the parsimonious alms of their usurping uncle. Abd-el-rachmân thought fit to sacrifice but one of them, who being of mature age, and, according to general report, endowed with talents greater than the rest, was the chief object of his suspicion and his fears.
The usurper, after the victory, found himself in peaceable possession of the throne; yet judging it right to maintain for a time the shew of moderation and self-denial, he employed that dissimulation for which his countrymen are famous, in persuading them that his affections were fixed on the blessings of futurity, and that he was indifferent to the splendour of empire. He refused even to see the treasures of his deceased brother, in gold, slaves, &c. and as he entered the interior of the palace drew the folds of his turban over his eyes, saying the temptation was too great for him, and invocating the Supreme Being to preserve him from its effects. For a certain time too he confined himself to the possession of four wives (free women) allowed by the law of the Prophet. At length, finding his claim unquestioned, and his authority firmly established, the veil of sanctity, now no longer necessary, was thrown aside, and ambition and avarice appeared without disguise. He now wastes whole days in misanthropic solitude, gazing in stupid admiration on heaps of costly apparel, and an endless train of slaves and camels, and revels in the submissive charms of near two hundred free women. Abd-el-rachmân assumed the Imperial dignity in the year of the Hejira 1202, of the Christian æra 1787. The discontent of the people however, and particularly of the soldiery in consequence of the severity of his regulations, and his personal avarice, were (1795) very much increasing, which made me imagine his reign would not be long.
History.
Mohammed Teraub, already mentioned, was preceded by a king named Abd-el-Casim; Abd-el-Casim by Bokar; Bokar by Omar. Some of the earlier kings are yet spoken of under the names of Solyman, Mohammed, &c. But as the people of the country possess no written documents, I found those of whom I inquired often at variance both with regard to the genealogy and the succession of their monarchs. In all countries these are points of small import; but especially in one of which so few particulars are known to us. It may yet be remarked, that they commonly mention the reign of Solyman, as the epocha when Islamism began to prevail in the country. Describing this Sultan, at the same time, as of the Dageou race, which swayed the sceptre long before that of Fûr became powerful. Circumstances have inclined me to believe, that the reign of this prince must have been from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty years ago.
On what the natives relate of their early history, little dependence can be placed: but it seems that the Dageou race came originally from the North, having been expelled from that part of Africa now, nominally at least, under the dominion of Tunis[46].
Harvest, food, &c.
In that part of the country where I resided are found neither lakes, rivers, marshes, nor any other appearance of water but the wells which are dug for domestic consumption, except during the rainy season. At that period torrents, of greater or less dimensions, intersect the country in all directions. The rainy season lasts from before the middle of June to the middle or end of September. This season is called Harîf[47].
I have observed that the rain, which is generally very heavy and accompanied with lightning, falls most frequently from 3 P.M. till midnight.
The changes of the wind are not periodical but instantaneous. It is with a southerly wind that the greatest heat prevails; and with a South-East that the greatest quantity of rain falls. When the breeze is from the North or North-west it is most refreshing, but does not generally continue long in that quarter. The hot and oppressive winds which fill the air with thick dust blow constantly from the South.
One day, while I was sitting in the market-place at Cobbé, I observed a singular appearance in the air, which soon discovered itself to be a column of sand, raised from the desert by a whirlwind. It was apparently about a mile and a half distant, and continued about eight minutes; this phenomenon had nothing of the tremendous appearance of the columns of sand described by Bruce as rising between Assuân and Chendi, being merely a light cloud of sand.
The harvest is conducted in a very simple manner. The women and slaves of the proprietor are employed to break off the ears with their hands, leaving the straw standing, which is afterwards applied to buildings and various other useful purposes. They then accumulate them in baskets, and carry them away on their heads. When threshed, which is awkwardly and incompletely performed, they expose the grain to the sun till it become quite dry; after this an hole in the earth is prepared, the bottom and sides of which are covered with chaff to exclude the vermin. This cavity or magazine is filled with grain, which is then covered with chaff, and afterwards with earth. In this way the maize is preserved tolerably well. In using it for food, they grind it, and boil it in the form of polenta, which is eaten either with fresh or sour milk, or still more frequently with a sauce made of dried meat pounded in a mortar, and boiled with onions, &c. The Furians use little butter; with the Egyptians and Arabs it is an article in great request. There is also another sauce which the poorer people use and highly relish, it is composed of an herb called Cowel or Cawel, of a taste in part acescent and in part bitter, and generally disagreeable to strangers.
As a substitute for bread, cakes of the same material are also baked on a smooth substance prepared for the purpose, which are extremely thin, and if dexterously prepared not unpalatable. These are called kissery (fragments or sections); they are also eaten with the sauce above mentioned, or with milk, or simply water; and in whatever form the grain be used, the rich cause it to be fermented before it be reduced to flour, which gives it a very agreeable taste. They also make no hesitation in eating the dokn raw, but moistened with water, without either grinding or the operation of fire.
The Sultan here does not seem wholly inattentive to that important object, agriculture. Nevertheless, it may be esteemed rather a blind compliance with antient custom, than individual public spirit, in which has originated a practice adopted by him, in itself sufficiently laudable, since other of his regulations by no means conduce to the same end.
At the beginning of the Harîf, or wet season, which is also the moment for sowing the corn, the King goes out with his Meleks and the rest of his train, and while the people are employed in turning up the ground and sowing the seed, he also makes several holes with his own hand. The same custom, it is said, obtains in Bornou, and other countries in this part of Africa. It calls to the mind a practice of the Egyptian kings, mentioned by Herodotus. Whether this usage be antecedent to the introduction of Mohammedism into the country, I know not; but as it is attended with no superstitious observance, it would rather seem to belong to that creed.
Population.
The number of inhabitants in a country in so rude a state as this is at present, it must necessarily be extremely difficult to compute with precision. Possibly the levies for war may furnish some criterion. The Sultan, for about two years, had been engaged in a very serious war with the usurper of Kordofân. The original levies for this war I have understood consisted of about two thousand men. Continual reinforcements have been sent, which may be supposed to amount to more than half that number. At present the army does not contain more than two thousand, great numbers of them having been taken off by the small-pox, and other causes. Even this number is very much missed, and the army is still spoken of as a very large one. It seems to me from this and other considerations, that the number of souls within the empire cannot much exceed two hundred thousand. Cobbé is one of their most populous towns; yet from the best computation I have been able to make, knowing the number of inhabitants in the greater part of the houses, I cannot persuade myself that the total amount of both sexes, including slaves, much exceeds six thousand. Of these the greater proportion are slaves.
Map of Darfur to Accompany Travels in Africa &c. from the Year 1792 to 1798.
by W. G. Browne.
to face page 284.
London, Published by Messrs. Cadell and Davies Strand 4 June 1799.
([Large-size], [Largest size])
![[Large-size]](#6950759026171291306_map2_medium.jpg.id-4555794788753437294.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
![[Largest size]](#6950759026171291306_map2_large.jpg.id-5376520182777989293.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
The houses are separated from each other by wide intervals, as each man chooses for building the spot nearest to the ground he cultivates; so that in an extent of about two miles on a line, not much more than one hundred distinct inclosures properly to be termed houses are visible. The number of villages is considerable; but a few hundred souls form the sum of the largest. There are only eight or ten towns of great population.
The people of Dar-Fûr are divided into those from the river, of whom I have already spoken, some few from the West, who are either Fukkara, or come for the purposes of trade. Arabs, who are very numerous, and some of whom are established in the country, and cannot quit it; they are of many different tribes, but the greater number are those who lead a wandering kind of life on the frontiers, and breed camels, oxen, and horses. Yet they are not, for the most part, in such a state of dependence as always to contribute effectually to the strength of the monarch in war, or to his supplies in peace. These are Mahmîd, the Mahréa, the beni-Fesâra, the beni-Gerâr, and several others whose names I do not recollect. After the Arabs come the people of Zeghawa, which once formed a distinct kingdom, whose chief went to the field with a thousand horsemen, as it is said, from among his own subjects. The Zeghawa speak a different dialect from the people of Fûr. We must then enumerate the people of Bégo or Dageou, who are now subject to the crown of Fûr, but are a distinct tribe, which formerly ruled the country. Kordofân, which is now subject to Fûr, and a number of other smaller kingdoms, as Dar Bérti, &c. Dar Rugna has a king, who is however dependent, but more on Bergoo than on Fûr. What are the numbers of each is very difficult to say, as there are few or no data whence any thing satisfactory can be deduced.
Sketch of a Plan of the Residence of the Sultan of Fûr.
to face page 286.
| Brown del. | Lowry Sculp. |
For the Description of this Plate, to which the References are made, see the [End of the Appendix.]
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Building.
This art, in which more refined nations display so much ingenuity, and consume so much of their property, is here limited by the necessity that produced it. A light roof shelters the Fûrian from the sun and rain, and he fears not to be crushed by the mass which he has raised for his security. The conflagration may desolate his abode, but his soul is not appalled, for he has raised no monument of vanity to become its prey. The walls, wherever that material is to be procured, are built of clay; and the people of higher rank cover them with a kind of plaster, and colour them white, red, and black. The apartments are of three kinds, one is called a Donga, which is a cube commonly formed in the proportion of twenty feet by twelve. The four walls are covered with a flat roof consisting of light beams laid horizontally from side to side; over this is spread a stratum of ushar, or some other light wood, or, by those who can afford the expense, course mats; a quantity of dried horse’s or camel’s dung is laid over this; and the whole is finished with a strong and smooth coating of clay. They contrive to give the roof a slight obliquity, making spouts to carry off the water. The roof thus constructed is a tolerable protection from the rain, and the whole building is in a certain degree secure from robbers, and the other inconveniences which are there to be expected. The Donga is provided with a door, consisting of a single plank, hewn with the axe, as the plane and saw are equally unknown. It is secured by a padlock, and thus constitutes the repository of all their property. The next is called a Kournak, which is usually somewhat larger than the Donga, differing from it in being without a door, and having no other roof than thatch, shelving like that of our barns, composed of Kassob, the straw of the maize, and supported by light rafters. This however is cooler in summer than the more closely covered buildings, and is appropriated to receiving company, and sleeping. The women are commonly lodged, and dress their food in another apartment of the same kind as the last, but round, and from fifteen to twenty feet in diameter: this is called Sukteia. The walls of the Donga are often about twelve or fifteen feet high; those of the other buildings seldom exceed seven or eight, but this depends on the taste of the owner. The floor of each, by persons who are attentive to neatness, is covered with clean sand, which is changed as occasion requires. An house in which there are two Dongas, two Kournaks, and two Sukteias, is considered as a large and commodious one, fitted to the use of merchants of the first order. A Rukkûba (shed) is frequently added, which is no more than a place sheltered from the sun, where a company sit and converse in the open air. The interior fence of the house is commonly a wall of clay. The exterior universally a thick hedge, consisting of dried branches of acacia and other thorny trees, which secures the cattle, and prevents the slaves from escaping; but which, as it takes no root, is never green, and has rather a gloomy aspect. The materials of the village houses require no particular description; they are commonly of the form of the Sukteia, when they rise above the appellation of hut, but the substance is the straw of the maize, or some other equally coarse and insecure. Tents are not used, except by the Meleks and great men, and these are ill-constructed. In time of war materials to construct huts are found by the soldiers, and applied without great difficulty; and the Sarcina belli of each man is a light mat adapted to the size of his body.
Manners.
The troops of the country are not famed for skill, courage, or perseverance. In their campaigns much reliance is placed on the Arabs who accompany them, and who are properly tributaries rather than subjects of the Sultan. One energy of barbarism they indeed possess, in common with other savages, that of being able to endure hunger and thirst; but in this particular they have no advantage over their neighbours. On the journey, a man whom I had observed travelling on foot with the caravan, but unconnected with any person, asked me for bread—“How long have you been without it?” said I.—“Two days,” was the reply.—“And how long without water?”—“I drank water last night.”—This was at sun-set, after we had been marching all day in the heat of the sun, and we had yet six hours to reach the well. In their persons the Fûrians are not remarkable for cleanliness. Though observing as Mohammedans all the superstitious formalities of prayer, their hair is rarely combed, or their bodies completely washed. The hair of the pubes and axillæ it is usual to exterminate; but they know not the use of soap; so that with them polishing the skin with unguents holds the place of perfect ablutions and real purity. A kind of farinaceous paste is however prepared, which being applied with butter to the skin, and rubbed continually till it become dry, not only improves its appearance, but removes from it accidental sordes, and still more the effect of continued transpiration, which, as there are no baths in the country, is a consideration of some importance. The female slaves are dexterous in the application of it, and to undergo this operation is one of the refinements of African sensuality. Their intervals of labour and rest are fixed by no established rule, but governed by inclination or personal convenience. Their fatigues are often renewed under the oppressive influence of the meridian sun, and in some districts their nightly slumbers are interrupted by the dread of robbers, in others by the musquitoes and other inconveniences of the climate.
An inveterate animosity seems to exist between the natives of Fûr and those of Kordofân. From conversations with both parties I have understood that there have been almost continual wars between the two countries as far as the memory of individuals extends. One of the causes of this hostility appears to be their relative position; the latter lying in the road between Dar-Fûr and Sennaar, which is considered as the most practicable, though not the direct communication between the former and Mekka. Nor can caravans pass from Suakem to Fûr, as appears, but by the permission of the governors of Kordofân. The jealousy of trade therefore is in part the origin of their unvaried and implacable animosity.
Nothing resembling current coin is found in Soudân, unless it be certain small tin rings, the value of which is in some degree arbitrary, and which alone obtains at El Fasher. In that place they serve as the medium of exchange for small articles, for which in others are received beads, salt, &c. These rings are made of so many various sizes, that I have known sometimes twelve, sometimes one hundred and forty of them, pass for a given quantity and quality of cotton cloth. The Austrian dollars, and other silver coins, brought from Egypt, are all sold for ornaments for the women, and some little profit attends the sale of them, but the use of them in dress is far from general.
Gold not being found within the limits of Fûr, is seldom seen in the market; when it appears there, it is in the form of rings of about one-fourth of an ounce weight each, in which state it comes from Sennaar. The Egyptian mahbûb, or other stamped money, none will receive but the people of that country. The other articles chiefly current, are such as belong to their dress, as cotton cloths, beads, amber, kohhel, rhéa, and on the other hand, oxen, camels, and slaves.
The disposition of the people of Fûr has appeared to me more cheerful than that of the Egyptians; and that gravity and reserve which the precepts of Mohammedism inspire, and the practice of the greater number of its professors countenances and even requires, seems by no means as yet to sit easy on them. A government perfectly despotic, and at this time not ill administered, as far as relates to the manners of the people, yet forms no adequate restraint to their violent passions[48]. Prone to inebriation, but unprovided with materials or ingenuity to prepare any other fermented liquor than bûza, with this alone their convivial excesses are committed. But though the Sultan hath just published an ordinance (March 1795) forbidding the use of that liquor under pain of death, the plurality, though less publicly than before, still indulge themselves in it. A company often sits from sun-rise to sun-set drinking and conversing, till a single man sometimes carries off near two gallons of that liquor. The bûza has however a diuretic and diaphoretic tendency, which precludes any danger from these excesses.
In this country dancing is practised by the men as well as the women, and they often dance promiscuously. Each tribe seems to have its appropriate dance: that of Fûr is called Secondari, that of Bukkara Bendala. Some are grave, others lascivious, but consisting rather of violent efforts than of graceful motions. Such is their fondness for this amusement, that the slaves dance in fetters to the music of a little drum; and, what I have rarely seen in Africa or the East, the time is marked by means of a long stick held by two, while others beat the cadence with short batons.
They use the games of Tab-u-duk and Drîs-wa-talaité, described by Niebuhr, which however appear not indigenous, but to have been borrowed of the Arabs.
The vices of thieving, lying, and cheating in bargains, with all others nearly or remotely allied to them, as often happen among a people under the same circumstances, are here almost universal. No property, whether considerable or trifling, is safe out of the sight of the owner, nor indeed scarcely in it, unless he be stronger than the thief. In buying and selling the parent glories in deceiving the son, and the son the parent; and God and the Prophet are hourly invocated, to give colour to the most palpable frauds and falsehoods.
The privilege of polygamy, which, as is well known, belongs to their religion, the people of Soudân push to the extreme. At this circumstance the Musselmans of Egypt, with whom I have conversed on the subject, affect to be much scandalized: for whereas, by their law they are allowed four free women, and as many slaves as they can conveniently maintain, the Fûrians take both free women and slaves without any limitation. The Sultan has more than an hundred free women, and many of the Meleks have from twenty to thirty. Teraub, a late king, contented himself with about five hundred females as a light travelling equipage in his wars in Kordofân, and left as many more in his palace. This may seem ridiculous, but when it is recollected that they had corn to grind, water to fetch, food to dress, and all menial offices to perform for several hundred individuals, and that these females (excepting those who are reputed Serrari, concubines of the monarch) travel on foot, and even carry utensils, &c. on their heads, employment for this immense retinue may be imagined, without attributing to the Sultan more libidinous propensities than belong to others of the same rank and station.
This people exceeds in indulgences with women, and pays little regard to restraint or decency. The form of the houses already described secures no great secrecy to what is carried on within them, yet even the concealment which is thus offered, is not always sought. The shade of a tree, or long grass, is the sole temple required for the sacrifices to the primæval deity. In the course of licentious indulgence father and daughter, son and mother are sometimes mingled. The relations of brother and sister are exchanged for closer intercourse; and in the adjoining state, (Bergoo,) the example of the monarch countenances the infraction of a positive precept, as well of Islamism, as of the other rules of faith, which have taken their tincture from the Mosaic dispensation.
But however unbridled their appetites in other respects may be, pæderasty, so common in Asia and the North of Africa, is in Soudân little known or practised. The situation, character, and treatment of women is not exactly similar, either to that which marks the manners of Asia, and other parts of Africa, or to that which is established in Europe. In contradistinction to the women of Egypt, in Soudân, when a stranger enters the house, one of the more modest indeed retires, but she is contented to retire to a small distance, and passes and repasses executing the business of the house in the presence of the men. In Egypt, a veil is invariably the guardian of real or affected modesty. In Dar-Fûr none attempt to conceal their faces but the wives of the great, whose rank demands some affectation of decency—who from satiety of indulgence become coquets, or whose vanity induces them to expect that concealment will ensnare the inexperienced with the hope of youth which has ceased to recommend them, or beauty by which they could never boast to be adorned. The middle and inferior rank are always contented with the slight covering of a cotton cloth, wrapped round the waist, and occasionally another of the same form, materials, and size, and equally loose, artlessly thrown over the shoulders. They never eat with the men, but shew no hesitation at being present when the men eat and drink. The most modest of them will enter the house, not only of a man and a stranger, but of the traders of Egypt, and make their bargains at leisure. On such occasions, any indelicate freedom on the part of the merchant is treated with peculiar indulgence. The husband is by no means remarkable for jealousy, and provided he have reason to suppose that his complaisance will be attended with any solid advantage, will readily yield his place to a stranger. Nothing can shock the feelings of an Egyptian more than to see his wife in conversation with another man in public. For similar conduct, individuals of that nation have been known to inflict the last punishment. A liberty of this kind has no such effect on a Fûrian.
Defendit numerus, junctæque in umbone phalanges.
The universality of the practice prevents its being esteemed either criminal or shameful.
Some of the most laborious domestic offices in this country are executed by women. They not only prepare the soil and sow the corn, but assist in gathering it. They alone too are engaged in the business of grinding and converting it into bread. They not only prepare the food, in which (contrary to the practice of the Arabs) it is esteemed disgraceful for a man to occupy himself, but fetch water, wash the apparel, and cleanse the apartments. Even the clay buildings, which have been mentioned, are constructed chiefly by women. It is not uncommon to see a man on a journey, mounted idly on an ass, while his wife is pacing many a weary step on foot behind him, and moreover, perhaps, carrying a supply of provisions or culinary utensils. Yet it is not to be supposed that the man is despotic in his house: the voice of the female has its full weight. No question of domestic œconomy is decided without her concurrence, and, far from being wearied with the corporeal exertions of the day, by the time the sun declines, her memory of real or imaginary injuries affords matter for querulous upbraiding and aculeate sarcasms.
Whoever, impelled by vanity, (for no profit attends it,) receives to his bed the daughter of a King or powerful Melek, (women of this rank are called Mîram,) finds her sole moderatrix of his family, and himself reduced to a cipher. Of his real or reputed offspring he has no voice in the disposal, government, or instruction. The princess, who has honoured him with the limited right over her person, becomes not the partner, but the sole proprietor, of all that he possessed; and her most extravagant caprices must not be thwarted, least her displeasure should be succeeded by that of the monarch.
The man cannot take another wife with the same ceremonies or dowry; and if any dispute arise concerning inheritance, the right is always decided in favour of the Mîram. Finally, he is almost a prisoner in the country, which he cannot leave, however distressed, and however he may be inclined to retrieve his fortune by trade, without special permission from the Sultan, and the immediate and unqualified forfeiture not only of the dowry he gave, but of all the valuables he received in consequence of the honourable alliance.
Previously to the establishment of Islamism[49] and kingship, the people of Fûr seem to have formed wandering tribes, in which state many of the neighbouring nations to this day remain. In their persons they differ from the negroes of the coast of Guinea. Their hair is generally short and woolly, though some are seen with it of the length of eight or ten inches, which they esteem a beauty. Their complexion is for the most part perfectly black. The Arabs, who are numerous within the empire, retain their distinction of feature, colour, and language. They most commonly intermarry with each other. The slaves, which are brought from the country they call Fertît, (land of idolaters,) perfectly resemble those of Guinea, and their language is peculiar to themselves.
In most of the towns, except Cobbé, which is the chief residence of foreign merchants, and even at court, the vernacular idiom is in more frequent use than the Arabic; yet the latter is pretty generally understood. The judicial proceedings, which are held in the monarch’s presence, are conducted in both languages, all that is spoken in the one being immediately translated into the other by an interpreter (Tergimân).
After those who fill the offices of government, the Faquî, or learned man, i.e. priest, holds the highest rank. Some few of these Faquîs have been educated at Kahira, but the majority of them in schools of the country. They are ignorant of every thing except the Korân. The nation, like most of the North of Africa, except Egypt, is of the sect of the Imâm Malek, which however differs not materially from that of Shafei.
Revenues of Dar-Fûr.
1. On all merchandize imported the king has a duty, which in many instances amounts to near a tenth; as for instance, on every camel’s load of cotton goods brought from Egypt, and which commonly consists of two hundred pieces, the duty paid to the king by the merchants of Egypt is twenty pieces: the Arabs who are under his government and the natives pay more; some articles however do not pay so much.
2. In addition to this, when they are about to leave Dar-Fûr on their return to Egypt, another tax is demanded on the slaves exported, under pretence of a voluntary douceur, to be exempt from having their slaves scrutinised. This, on our caravan, which comprised about five thousand slaves, amounted to 3000 mahbubs, between 6 and 700l. to be paid to the Chabîr on their arrival in Egypt.
3. All forfeitures for misdemeanors are due to the king; and this is a considerable article; for in case of a dispute in which blood is shed, as often happens, he makes a demand of just what proportion he thinks right of the property of the village in which the offence was committed, of the whole, of an half, of a third, of every species of possession, and this most rigorously estimated.
4. In addition to this, every one who is concerned in a judicial proceeding before him, must bring a present according to his rank and property: this is another considerable source of revenue.
5. Of all the merchandise, but especially slaves, which are brought from the roads, as they call it, that is, from all quarters except Egypt, the king is entitled to a tenth; and in case of a Selatéa, that is, an expedition to procure slaves by force, the tenth he is entitled to becomes a fifth, for the merchants are obliged to wait six weeks or two months before they can sell any of their slaves, and then are obliged to pay in kind one tenth of the number originally taken, one half of which is by that time generally dead.
6. At the time of leathering the kettle-drum, which happens every year on the 27th of the month Rabia-el-awil, all the principal people of every town and village, nay, as I have understood, every housekeeper, is obliged to appear at El Fasher, with a present in his hands, according to his rank and ability. This is another considerable source of revenue. The present of the Melek of the Jelabs on one of these occasions, I have known to be valued at 900 mahbûbs, or about 200l. sterling. At this solemn festival, all the troops, not in actual service, are obliged to be present, and as it may be called, reviewed; that is, every man who has or can procure an horse, mounts and shews him in the public meeting.
7. A number of presents are daily and hourly received from all the great people of the country, as well as from the merchants who come on business, and those who solicit offices. The merchants generally present some kind of manufacture for clothing, such as light woollen cloth, carpets, arms, &c. and the people of the country, camels, slaves male and female, tokéas, oxen, sheep, &c.
8. But one of the most considerable articles of revenue is the tribute of the Arabs who breed oxen, horses, camels, sheep. Those who breed horses should bring to the monarch all the males which are yearly produced by their mares; but this I am told they often contrive to avoid. The customary tribute of the Arabs who breed oxen, or Bukkara, as they are called, is one tenth[50]. But when I was there, they having neglected paying it for two years, the Sultan sent a body of troops, who seized all they could lay hands on, to the number of twelve thousand oxen. If the tribute were regularly paid, it might amount to four thousand oxen per annum: but these Arabs live in tents, and consequently change their habitations frequently, and when they feel themselves united, are not much inclined to pay tribute. Those who breed camels should also pay a tenth of their property yearly; and I have understood that they acquit themselves of the obligation with more regularity than the former. These also however are sometimes rebellious, and then nothing is received from them. Two tribes, Mahría and Mahmîd, were at war during my residence in Fûr, and a battle took place between them, in which many fell on both sides: the monarch, to punish them for their contumacious behaviour, sent a Melek with a detachment of about sixty horsemen, who seized on one half of the camels of every Arab, and where they found five took three, as the fifth could not be divided. The owners of sheep and goats pay a tenth.
9. Every village is obliged to pay annually a certain sum in corn, Dokn, which is collected by the king’s slaves. The monarch has also lands of his own, which are cultivated by his slaves, and which serve to supply his houshold; for, though a merchant, he does not sell corn. The whole of the district of Gebel Marra, to the West, is entirely appropriated to his use, and the wheat, wild honey, &c. which are abundantly produced there are all reserved for his table.
10. The king is chief merchant in the country, and not only dispatches with every caravan to Egypt a great quantity of his own merchandise, but also employs his slaves and dependents to trade with the goods of Egypt, on his own account, in the countries adjacent to Soudan.
Articles of Commerce.
Gold rings are sometimes worn in the nose by women of distinction. Sea-shells (Cowries) are among other female ornaments, but not very current. The red legumen, called Shûsh, is much worn in the hair.
Commodities brought by the Jelabs from Egypt are:
| 1. | Amber beads. |
| 2. | Tin, in small bars. |
| 3. | Coral beads. |
| 4. | Cornelian ditto. |
| 5. | False Cornelian ditto. |
| 6. | Beads of Venice. |
| 7. | Agate. |
| 8. | Rings, silver and brass, for the ancles and wrists. |
| 9. | Carpets, small. |
| 10. | Blue cotton cloths of Egyptian fabric. |
| 11. | White cotton ditto. |
| 12. | Indian muslins and cottons. |
| 13. | Blue and white cloths of Egypt called Melayés. |
| 14. | Sword blades, strait, (German,) from Kahira. |
| 15. | Small looking-glasses. |
| 16. | Copper face-pieces, or defensive armour for the horses’ heads. |
| 17. | Fire arms. |
| 18. | Kohhel for the eyes. |
| 19. | Rhéa, a kind of moss from European Turkey, for food, and a scent. |
| 20. | Shé, a species of absynthium, for its odour, and as a remedy: both the last sell to advantage. |
| 21. | Coffee. |
| 22. | Mahleb, Krumphille, Symbille, Sandal, Nutmegs. |
| 23. | Dufr, the shell of a kind of fish in the Red Sea, used for a perfume. |
| 24. | Silk unwrought. |
| 25. | Wire, brass and iron. |
| 26. | Coarse glass beads, made at Jerusalem, called Hersh and Munjûr. |
| 27. | Copper culinary utensils, for which the demand is small. |
| 28. | Old copper for melting and re-working. |
| 29. | Small red caps of Barbary. |
| 30. | Thread linens of Egypt—small consumption. |
| 31. | Light French cloths, made into Benîshes. |
| 32. | Silks of Scio, made up. |
| 33. | Silk and cotton pieces of Aleppo, Damascus, &c. |
| 34. | Shoes of red leather. |
| 35. | Black pepper. |
| 36. | Writing paper, (papier des trois lunes,) a considerable article. |
| 37. | Soap of Syria. |
Transported to Egypt:
| 1. | Slaves, male and female. |
| 2. | Camels. |
| 3. | Ivory. |
| 4. | Horns of the rhinoceros. |
| 5. | Teeth of the hippopotamus. |
| 6. | Ostrich feathers. |
| 7. | Whips of the hippopotamus’s hide. |
| 8. | Gum. |
| 9. | Pimento. |
| 10. | Tamarinds, made into round cakes. |
| 11. | Leather sacks for water (ray) and dry articles (geraub). |
| 12. | Peroquets in abundance, and some monkeys and Guinea fowl. |
| 13. | Copper, white, in small quantity. |
CHAP. XX.
Miscellaneous observations on Dar-Fûr, and some of the adjacent countries.
The preceding chapters concerning Dar-Fûr, contain mostly facts of which I was an eye-witness, or received from undoubted authority. But as every information, however minute, may either conduce to facilitate farther progress in this part of Africa, or may perhaps interest the curious reader, as relating to regions little known, I shall now proceed to some matters, related to me on the spot, but the accuracy of which I cannot pretend to vouch.
The people of Fûr are represented as using many superstitious ceremonies at the leathering of the kettle-drum, a ceremony before mentioned. Among others, it is said, they put to death, in the form of a sacrifice, a young boy and girl. Even to this day, many idols are worshipped by the women of the Sultan’s Harem. The mountaineers offer a kind of sacrifice to the deity of the mountains, when they are in want of rain.
Several superstitious notions prevail among the slaves. One of them having died suddenly, it was imagined that he had been possessed by the devil, and none of them would wash the body. It was with difficulty that they could be prevailed on even to carry it to the place of interment.
The people of Dageou, a country on the West, represented as not far from Bergoo, it is said, conquered the country now called Fûr, and retained it till they were exhausted by mutual contentions: upon which the present race of kings succeeded, but from what origin I have not been able to discover. Probably, Moors driven from the North by the Arabs. The race of Dageou is said to have come from the vicinity of Tunis. It is reported, that they had a custom of lighting a fire on the inauguration of their king, which was carefully kept burning till his death. At present there is a custom in Fûr, of spreading the carpets on which the several deceased Sultans used to sit, before the new prince, and from the one he prefers, it is judged his character will be analogous to that of its former possessor.
The Sultan Omar, one of the predecessors of Teraub, carried on a long and destructive war with the neighbouring country of Bergoo, in which he exhausted his treasures and people, and at the same time greatly weakened the adverse country.
The families between which the pretensions to authority now lie, are those of Abd-el-Casim, Teraub, and Chalifé, his brother. Each of them has a number of warm partizans among the soldiery, who would never be faithful to any of the other families. The competitors are so numerous that much confusion is expected to follow the death of the present Sultan; and it is inferred that the kingdom will be divided.
I shall now proceed to state some relations that were made to me concerning Kordofân and other adjacent countries.
A king, of the name of Abli-calik, is the idol of the people of Kordofân, where he reigned about fourteen years ago, and is renowned for probity and justice. The kings of Kordofân had been deputed by the Mecque of Sennaar, till after the death of the son of Abli-Calik, when it was usurped by Fûr, in consequence of the weakness and dissensions of the government at Sennaar.
The people of Kordofân are reported to be not only indifferent to the amours of their daughters and sisters, but even attached to their seducers. The father or brother will even draw the sword against him who offends the Refîk, or companion of his daughter or sister. Very different is the mode of thinking in Sennaar, where immodesty is only permitted among the female slaves. The chief merchants have companies of these slaves, and derive great profit from their prostitution.
Afnou, a country beyond Bornou to the Westward, is said to produce such abundance of silver, that the natives construct defensive armour of that metal. The coats of mail are jointed, and represented as very beautiful. Of the same material, it is reported, are made pieces to protect the head and breast of their horses, the former having the chaffron, or horn, known in our days of chivalry.
Among the Southern countries, whither the Jelabs of Bergoo and Fûr sometimes journey to procure slaves, is Dar Kulla. The chief article they carry to Kulla is salt, twelve pounds of which are estimated as the price of a male slave, sedasé, about twelve or fourteen years of age. A female brings three pounds more, whimsically computed by the natives, as, a pound for the girl’s eyes, another for her nose, and a third for her ears. If copper be the medium, two rotals are esteemed equal to four of salt. Hoddûr, a large sort of Venetian glass beads, and tin, are in great esteem. Of the latter they make rings and other ornaments.
The natives of Kulla are represented as partly negroes, partly of a red or copper colour. Their language is nasal, but very simple and easy. It is said they worship idols. They are very cleanly, to which the abundance of water in their country contributes: and they are remarkable for honesty, and even punctilious in their transactions with the Jelabs.
They have ferry-boats on the river, which are impelled partly by poles, partly by a double oar, like our canoes. Slaves are obtained in Dar Kulla either by violence, Selatéa, or by the following method. In that country the smallest trespass on the property of another, is punished by enslaving the children or young relations of the trespasser. If even a man’s footstep be observed among the corn of another, the circumstance is attended by calling witnesses, and application to a magistrate, and the certain consequence of proof is the forfeiture of his son, daughter, nephew, or niece, to the person trespassed on. These accidents are continually happening, and produce a great number of slaves. A commission to purchase any thing in a distant market, not exactly fulfilled, is attended with a like forfeiture. But above all, if a person of note die, the family have no idea of death as a necessary event, but say that it is effected by witchcraft. To discover the perpetrator, the poorer natives, far and near, are obliged to undergo expurgation by drinking a liquor which is called in Dar-Fûr Kilingi, or something that resembles it; and the person on whom the supposed signs of guilt appear, may either be put to death, or sold as a slave.
The people of Kulla are strangers to venereal complaints, but are subject to the small-pox. In that part of the country which is visited by the Jelabs there is a king; the rest is occupied by small tribes, each of which is ruled by the chief who happens to have most influence at the time. The Kumba, or Pimento tree, is found there in such plenty, that a rotal or pound of salt will purchase four or five mid, each mid about a peck.
The trees are so large, from the quantity of water and deep clay, that canoes are hollowed out of them sufficiently capacious to contain ten persons.
It was related to me by Jelabs who have visited that country, that the inhabitants of Dar Bergoo make war by sudden incursions, traversing and laying waste a large space in a short time. They leave their women behind, and are thus better adapted to military operations than the Fûrians, who follow an opposite practice, never marching without a host of attendant females. The people of Bergoo seldom make Selatéa.
Some of the idolatrous nations, dependent on Bergoo, are represented as making war in a very formidable manner. The combatants never retreat; and the women behind light a fire, in which they heat the heads of the spears, and exchange them for such as are cooled in the combat. They also use poisoned weapons.
There is a remote part of the pagan country, from which slaves are brought, which the Arabs distinguish by the term Gnum Gnum, (a sobriquet,) whose inhabitants eat the flesh of the prisoners they take in war. I have conversed with slaves who came thence, and they admit the fact. These people are also in the habit of stripping off the skin of the hands and faces of their slaughtered foes, which afterwards undergo some preparation, and are worn as a mark of triumph. Their arms, a spear or javelin, are of iron, wrought by themselves. After having heated them to redness, they stick the point into the trunk of a particular tree, and there leave the weapon till the juice has dried on. In this manner it acquires, as is reported, a most deadly poison.
A few of the more common vocabula in the language of Dar-Run̄ga.
| Water | Tta. |
| As eide (a pudding) | Gnung. |
| Come and eat | Gagra. |
| Quickly | Undelak nonnerâ. |
| Bring the bowl | Kiddeki, Kiddeki. |
| A mat | Kubbenâng. |
| Cloths | Lemba. |
| Shoes | Bŏrŏ. |
| Sun | Agn̄ing. |
| It is hot | Agn̄ing betrân. |
| Moon | Medding. |
| A wooden mortar | Bedding. |
| Ass | Gussendĕ. |
| Horse | Filah. |
| Dog | Ming. |
| House | Ttong. |
| Kingdom | Kussé. |
| Wood of any kind | Unjŭm. |
| Fire | Nissiek. |
| Woman | Mmi. |
| Man | Kameré. |
| Is it I? | Ammé? |
| Reprimanding | Ggó! |
| Grain | Assé. |
| Maize | Dimbiti. |
| Millet | Gurwendi. |
| Fowl | Kidi. |
| Winged ant | Agn̄emâ. |
| Spear | Sûbbûk. |
| Knife | Dangala. |
| Foot | Itar. |
| Eye | Khasso. |
| Ear | Nesso. |
| Hand | Tusso. |
| Light blue | Endréng. |
| Dung | Abûrr. |
| Urine | Nissich. |
| Copper | Simméri. |
| Tin | Fueddah. |
| Beads | Arrû. |
| Loins (of the human body) also | Arrû. |
| One | Kadenda. |
| Two | Embirr. |
| Three | Attik. |
| Four | Mendih. |
| Six | Subotîkeda. |
| Seven | Ow. |
| Eight | Sebatéis. |
| Nine | Atih. |
| Ten | Bûff. |
| Rain | Kin̄ga. |
| God, also | Kin̄ga. |
| By God, an adjuration | Kin̄ga go! |
| Honey | Tuggi. |
| Fish | Kogn̄ong. |
| Meat | Missich. |
| Gruel | Ba-birré. |
| Stone | Dissi. |
| A star | Beité. |
| The stars collectively | Beité-jûk. |
| Slave of either sex | Guiah. |
| Male slave | Guiah méré. |
| Female slave | Guiah Mmi. |
| Mountain | Ddéta. |
| Wind | Wwi. |
| Cinders | Firgi. |
CHAP. XXI.
MEDICAL REMARKS.
Psorophthalmia — Plague — Small-pox — Guinea worm — Scrophula — Syphilis — Bile — Tenia — Hernia — Hydrocele — Hemorrhoides and Fistula — Apoplexy — Umbilical ruptures — Accouchemens — Hydrophobia — Phlebotomy — Remedies — Remarks — Circumcision — Excision.
From the following detached remarks, the result chiefly of personal observation, if the physiologist can derive any amusement, or the traveller the smallest mitigation of his personal sufferings, the purpose of committing them to paper is answered.
If any medical professor should chance to advert to them, the writer is too conscious of the superficiality of his own knowlege not to perceive, that little satisfaction will be derived. But persuaded, that the art of healing, even at this day, abounds little less in experiments than in the age of one of its brightest ornaments, who makes the confession, he is induced to believe, scarcely any fact relative to it, or any experiment, faithfully narrated, can be wholly destitute of its use.
Psorophthalmia.
It is remarked that in Egypt, but particularly in Kahira, the blind, and those who have defective vision, bear a large proportion to the number of the inhabitants. The fact observed, which cannot be disputed, has been explained in various ways. It has by some been considered as proceeding from the habitual use of rice. By others, as the effect of the subtle dust which floats in the air. Even the water of the Nile has been supposed to co-operate at least, if not to be the sole agent, in producing this remarkable disease.
To explore the origin of this or any other malady, all its appearances must first be accurately noted. The ophthalmia of Egypt leads us through a diversity of symptoms, from slight inflammation and defluxion, to the total and irrecoverable blindness occasioned by opacity of the Cornea. To enumerate them all correctly, and compare them in a variety of cases, must be the task of an oculist long resident on the spot, and accustomed to numerous patients. A transient observer, however diligent in his inquiries, may more easily prove the falsehood of the assigned causes, than trace the real one.
The Nile water, it may be supposed, when taken into the stomach, can have no effect on the eyes, but by first altering the state of the fluids, into which it, as well as other aliments, is gradually converted. Whether from mineral or vegetable impregnations, it could never operate solely on the eyes, without affecting any other part of the animal economy. The effect of opium is seen on the blood and muscular fibres; of mercury on the glands and lymphatics; of cantharides on the nerves: and too great a portion of these, taken into the body, may have a pernicious effect on the eyes, but always through the medium of other parts. The whole materia medica, perhaps, furnishes no drug or mineral that is known, when taken into the stomach, to have a local and partial effect on the eyes. Such an effect is even irreconcileable with the general and constantly observed operation of all remedies applied to the human body.
Besides, if the injury were solely or even in part to arise from the use of the Nile water, all those who drink it must be equally affected, allowing for the different degree of firmness in the stamina of each. But certain orders of men are rarely attacked by this disease, and they too who are continually using the river water both internally and externally.
Rice is one of the most nutritive and salubrious of the farinaceous aliments, and certainly does not operate to render the humours acrid, and thereby to inflame the eyes. It is used as a main article of food by the natives of a large portion of Asia, and forms no inconsiderable part of the consumption in other countries, without being observed to produce any such effect as is here attributed to it; and may therefore fairly be denied to have any such power.
Something more plausible indeed offers itself as to the injurious operation of an external cause. Nothing can be more subtle than the dust into which the vegetable soil of Egypt resolves itself when it becomes dry. This, during a certain portion of the year, is in a manner suspended in the air, from a cause which exists in few other countries, I mean the want of rain. It also contains a large portion of nitre, which is copiously produced in Egypt. This circumstance, however, is common to many other places. This light dust, doubtless of a very irritating quality, not only floats in the streets, but pervades the apartments of every dwelling, insinuating itself into the most artfully constructed inclosures: by it therefore the eyes may and must be in some degree affected. But Nature has not ordained that a part so much exposed should be destitute of its appropriate protection. The secretions of the lachrymal glands are, in general, abundantly sufficient to counteract the injury sustained by the action of corrosive or irritating substances on the external fabric of the eye, being always produced exactly in proportion to the circumstances that demand them, as daily experience confirms: yet it cannot be denied, that the continually repeated operation of an offending cause, when no remedy is applied, may be more than commensurate with the efforts of Nature to restore herself.
Such is precisely the condition of the Kahirines. The accommodating the quality of diet to the symptoms of derangement in the economy is a precaution unknown to them: and of their remedies, many are so prepared, or so administered, as to augment rather than to annihilate disease. No idea offers itself to them, but of topical applications to remove a local complaint. If any thing be applied in these flussioni (dysophthalmia) it is generally kôhhel (calx of tin mixed with sheep’s fat) or tûtti, a still more powerful astringent, applied in coarse powder, and naturally tending to increase rather than to allay the irritation.
When thus incommoded, the Egyptians of the lower class esteem water pernicious, and therefore rarely wash their eyes; but as the collected dust begins to cause an uneasy sensation, apply their fingers or a coarse cotton cloth to remove it. The higher orders, who are neat in their persons, and regular in their ablutions, are rarely observed to be greatly harassed by this complaint. And the progress of the disorder, when in its nascent state, has several times been stopped, under my observation, by the use of rose-water, solution of sacchar. saturn. &c. as in other places.
But as no single one of these causes, nor even all of them together, appear sufficient to account for all the phenomena, another, more powerful, is to be sought; and none suggests itself more opportunely than that alleged by Savary, who imagines that the defect of vision is principally brought about by the habit of being exposed to the nocturnal air during the summer, at which season a heavy dew falls, and a great transition happens from the heats of the day. In fact, if the face of those who sleep exposed be not completely covered, an itching and unpleasant sensation is always felt in the eyes at rising.
It is ordinarily experienced in the city, where, from being confined in the day, people feel most disposed to seek for coolness and refreshment on their terraces at night.
The Mamlûks, and higher order of Arabs, that is, Mohammedan merchants, and the superior rank of Copts and Franks, are least affected, as being cleanly, not exposing themselves to the night air without necessity, and being well covered. The Arabs of the desert are as free from blindness as any people. They never sleep with the face exposed, and have moreover the advantage of being devoid of the dust and other supposed causes of psorophthalmia in the city. The disorder appears no where so much as in Kahira, because no where are all the causes so much combined: yet it is seen in Alexandria, Damiatt, and in Upper Egypt, which shews that the cause is not confined to Kahira. Among the poorer class of all countries prevails a kind of insouciance. That of Kahira is particularly exposed to the changes of temperature and the nocturnal dew, and is ill clothed. Hence the disorder is mostly found among the populace. A disposition to inflammation often appears in the eyes of children, but yields to proper remedies. Hence it may be imagined, that with attention the Egyptians would not suffer more than other nations.
Some travellers have thought that the ophthalmic disease in Kahira was occasioned by the fetid exhalations of the Chalige, and the drains; and have even observed, that those who are most severely affected in winter, recover as soon as the water has filled the Chalige and the pools. This is also a common idea with the natives. “The stink blinds me,” is a frequent expression on coming into a place of fetid odour; and it may be remarked, that the ordinary maxims of indigenæ are rarely to be entirely disregarded. Whatever miasms however may issue from the canal, they cannot be equally dispersed over the city, as blindness is; and the Franks, Greeks, and other strangers who reside nearest this depôt of impurity, would be most affected if that were the cause. It may yet be one cause. Another I take to be the subtile dust above mentioned; but the most powerful, indiscreet exposure to the nocturnal air and dews. The collective influence of these is strengthened by the cloudless splendour of a vertical sun, reflected from the sterile expanse of sand, which offers no sombrous object on which the eye may repose itself.
These considerations, it may be acknowleged, do not carry conviction; but too many local diseases are yet unexplained, to leave any wonder if the cause of this should yet remain problematical.
Plague.
All the improvements in the art of healing which modern Europe can boast as its own, are the result of more frequent experiment, and more patient and minute investigation, than existed in the antient.
To conjecture ingeniously is a matter of small effort, and in treating of what is properly the object of experiment, it is not only of no value, but often of dangerous result. But it is suited to the indolence of the human mind, and flattering to personal vanity, which delights to perform much by a single energy. Hence, an hypothesis supported by some insulated fact, perhaps only by specious error, is often advanced with warmth, and the most important considerations militating against it, are forgotten, or warped to serve the purpose of the inventor. Thus the increase of the Nile was once confidently attributed to the Etesian winds; and the malady which has so often almost depopulated Kahira, is still by some imagined to proceed from the putrid deposition of its waters.
We have at length disposed ourselves to the habit of tracing the cause of disease, by combining a number of minute, and often varying, symptoms. A practice which, if correct in its detail, can never but be accurate in its deductions. Relative to the Plague, however, whose very name distracts the timid, and appals even the courageous, our reasonings and our deductions are quite of a different description. Respecting its cause, all is conjecture. No experienced or well-informed practitioner has watched the bed of the sick; none has accurately examined the different appearances which the disease assumes in different persons, nor even in its different stages, in the same person. Scarcely any, it is believed, has been tranquil enough to hear patiently from the mouth of the sufferer an account of his sensations, which, recounted by a third person, never fail to vary.
Where this malady appears, the physician and the priest, the pride of science and the security of faith, confident and boastful when the patient alone is threatened, are both equally alert in their efforts to escape. The ignorant and unreflecting Muslim, indeed, awe-struck, and resigned to the unalterable decree of Fate, hangs over the couch of his expiring relative. But the report, guided by prejudice, is likely to mislead, and the observation can be of little value when the sole sentiment is stupor.
Thus the Plague remains almost destitute of a local habitation, though it have a name in nosology.
Who can at this day determine, whether the pestilence mentioned by Thucydides be the same as that of Modern Egypt and Turkey? Or whether the epidemical diseases, which have for several centuries, at intervals ravaged different parts of the Turkish empire, have been all specifically the same? The Europeans frequenting the Levant, have written profound treatises on the plague, simply from having seen a quantity of dead bodies carried past the doors of their houses, which the double optics of fear have occasionally magnified from 500 to 10,000.
The facts that appear chiefly to be ascertained relative to the plague, are, 1st, That the infection is not received but by actual contact. In this particular, it would seem less formidable than several other disorders. 2. That it is communicated by certain substances, by others not, as by a woollen cloth, or rope of hemp, but not by a piece of ivory, wood, or a rope made of the date tree; nor by any thing that has been completely immersed in water. It would appear from the report of the Kahirines, that no animal but man is affected with this disorder; though, it is said, a cat passing from an infected house, has carried the contagion. 3. That persons have often remained together in the same house, and entirely under the same circumstances, of whom one has been attacked, and died; and the others never felt the smallest inconvenience. 4. That a person may be affected any number of times. 5. That it is more fatal to the young than the old. 6. That no climate appears to be exempt from it; yet, 7. that the extremes of heat and cold both appear to be adverse to it. In Constantinople it is often, but far from being always terminated by the cold of winter, and in Kahira by the heat of summer; both circumstances being, as may be conjectured, the effect of indisposition for absorption in the skin, unless it be supposed that in the latter case, it may be attributed to the change the air undergoes from the increase of the Nile.
The first symptoms are said to be thirst; 2. cephalalgia; 3. a stiff and uneasy sensation, with redness and tumour about the eyes; 4. watering of the eyes; 5. white pustules on the tongue. The more advanced symptoms of buboes, fœtor of the breath, &c. &c. are well known; and I have nothing authentic to add to them. Not uncommonly, all these have successively shewn themselves, yet the patient has recovered; in which case, where suppuration has had place, the skin always remains discoloured, commonly of a purple hue.—Many who have been bleeded in an early stage of the disorder, have recovered without any fatal symptoms; but whether from that or any other cause, does not appear certain. The same operation is reported to have been commonly fatal in a late stage. It is said that embrocating the buboes continually with oil has sometimes wrought a cure; but this remedy is so difficult and dangerous for the operator, that it would appear experiments must yet be very defective. The natives of Kahira are too supine to seek for any remedy, and too bigoted to avoid the danger.
The plague which happened in Egypt so early as the year 1348, when Constantinople was yet subject to the Greek emperor, and Egypt in possession of Mohammedans, may be supposed to have originated in the latter. But not to mention that there were many other places from which it might be brought, this single instance, not given in detail, is insufficient to overthrow the testimony of the modern inhabitants, who with one consent affirm, whether Mohammedans or Christians, that the plague is not endemial in Egypt, but that all the instances of it which they are able to trace are proved to have been derived from abroad.
The learned Dr. Mead has brought the plague from Ethiopia, where famine and the small-pox indeed carry off numbers; but where the plague was never known to exist. It is not remembered to have penetrated far into the Upper Egypt, except in some few instances, when it was known to have been carried thither by the boats from Kahira. No more is required to account for its introduction into Egypt at this day, than the admission, that it is never completely extinct at Constantinople, which, it seems, has scarcely been denied.
The imagination of one of our poets has drawn the pestilence from the filth of Kahira, and the mud of the Nile. But, not to mention that there is less disposition to fermentation and putrefaction in the atmosphere of Egypt, than in almost any other that I have heard described, Kahira is very far from being impure. No offensive substance remains in the streets twenty-four hours; and even what is left to annoy passengers in London and Paris for months, is there carried away and preserved for burning.
The mud of the Nile becomes dry in a very short space of time after the water has left it, except in the canal (Chalige) which is indeed not very odoriferous; but so far from emitting pestilential exhalations, that the Franks who especially dwell close to it, are never infected with the plague, and are in general among the most healthy of the inhabitants of that metropolis.
Small-pox.
The small-pox is a disease much dreaded by the people of Soudân, whether Moors or Negroes, and little less by the Bedouins of Egypt. The Christians of Kahira are many of them in the habit of inoculating. A few of the Mohammedans use the same practice. It is however almost impossible to persuade them to adopt our mode of treatment.
Independently of the general ill consequence of improper management of the patient, the chief reason of the extraordinary fatality of this complaint among the negroes, appears to be the thickness of the skin, which resisting the effort of nature to protrude the morbid matter to the surface, tends to throw it back into the circulation. A proprietor of slaves, who was rather anxious for the conservation of his property, than scrupulous in his attachment to religious prejudice, desired me to inoculate five of them. A strong dose of senna was administered as preparative, and they were afterwards restrained as to diet. Three of them had not in the whole forty pustules, and soon recovered. The other two suffered much; and the eruption, though not confluent, proved fatal to one of them. Whether he had caught it before, been improperly treated, or whether it was the effect of habit of body, was not clear. These were of the true negro cast, called, Fertît. They were all under twelve years of age.
Guinea Worm.
The Mohammedans of Fûr, and the Arabs, call the idolaters in their neighbourhood Fertît, (فرتيت à فرت improbus fuit). The disease called the Guinea Worm is known among them by the same name. It is extremely common, and very troublesome to the slaves, and sometimes to free persons. It is by some esteemed contagious, which however is rather surmised than certified. It consists of a whitish tumour, at first hard and painful. Often shews itself about the knee, in the fleshy part of the thigh, and in the foot, just below the instep. As it is matured, a small white worm appears, which is to be wound off by degrees, and in coming out is followed by the discharge of purulent matter. If broken in the extraction, it is sometimes very inconvenient, and often lasts four or even six months. There is no certain cure for this disease, which most frequently shews itself in the beginning of winter, after the rains; but generally disappears at the commencement of the hot season. It seems to originate in the water, which is replete with animalcules, and which no care is used to purify.
They find by the termination of the tumour the extremity of the worm, which they call wullad-el-Fertît, and in that spot, puncture the skin with a red-hot iron, which they conceive forces it out; but which always appeared to me a painful operation, without any kind of effect. There is observed in some individuals a greater disposition to this disease than in others, but it is not confined to age, sex, or colour.
Scrophula.
The scurvy is very uncommon in Egypt and Syria. In the former I saw no instance of it. In Dar-Fûr I have observed it in the gums, but never any general dissemination of scrophulous humour appearing in the blood. As the transpiration is seldom interrupted, and generally copious, it must doubtless carry off much of the acrid humours, and prevent their accretion. Salt provisions, which generate the scurvy in the North of Europe, are almost unknown; and much of the diet of the people consists of vegetables. All these circumstances have their influence, but none of them perhaps so much as the Nile-water, which is a perfect solvent; and by the change of its component parts during the increase, has a particular tendency to throw off impurities from the blood.
Syphilis.
The disease which attacks the principle of generation, and destroys, in its source, one among the few solaces with which human life is sparingly diversified, which the heroism and the philanthropy, or the ambition and the avarice, of Europeans have propagated wherever the malign destiny of other nations has ordained that their dominion should be established, does not appear in Egypt with all the terrors that mark its course in other countries.
The temperature, the air, the mode of living, perhaps simply the first, which maintains continued transpiration, render it much milder in its effects than with us, or even in the islands of the Archipelago.
The institutes of the Prophet, indeed, have tended to diminish promiscuous concubinage, yet there is no such deficiency as to impede the propagation of the disease, if it were as virulent as in other places.
Ulcers of long duration, noseless faces, and all the disgusting consequences of this malady are indeed occasionally visible. But they are in very small number, and notoriously the result of extreme negligence, and of repeated infection, where no means have been employed to exterminate it.
It may truly be esteemed fortunate that this disease prevails with no violence in Egypt, for its only certain remedy, mercury, is there found much less efficacious than in the more temperate latitudes. Administered even in smaller doses than in Europe, it is said ptyalism is either produced very early, or it passes off with the fæces, without any visible effect.
A Frank practitioner of Kahira, accustomed to the climate, ordered two drams of Mercury in thirty pills, with Gum Arabic and Syrup of Cichory, to be taken one a day. In this case, he declared, that the pills having been administered during the first seven days, and then, with the intermission of three days, two having been given each day for five days more, had produced no visible effect on the disease, but passed off by stool. In other cases he had known much smaller doses, in the space of two days, had caused inflammation of the salivary glands, and he was obliged to abandon the use of it, and have recourse to other means of cure.
The natives, who are unacquainted with the use of mercury, and indeed of minerals in general as employed internally, are yet provided, as they say, with efficacious remedies for the venereal disease. They use flax oil, fresh, as it is expressed, from the seed. A Greek, who was in the service of Murad Bey as a mariner, (galeongi,) and who was known to me in Kahira, had been infected, and on applying to a Frank physician, was told that it would be necessary immediately to use mercurials. The man was not inclined to confinement or to regimen, and went to a Copt at Jizé, who professed to relieve the sick. This man ordered him to take two coffee-cups of flax oil every morning fasting, and directed no regimen, but that of keeping himself warm. The Greek observed none, for he continued freely the use of aqua vitæ, and even sacrificed to Venus, (for persons who have been once infected and fully cured, are, it is said, in no fear of reinfection,) and was often in the heat of the sun. He had continued this method for two months, when a general eruption took place over his body, but chiefly about the head and glands of the throat. In this condition I saw him. His Esculapius ordered him to cover the pustules of his face with a kind of red earth, found in some parts of Egypt. They gradually became dry, and came off without leaving any mark. At the end of the third month from the time he had applied to the Copt, and one month after the appearance of the eruption, the man was in perfect health, and the skin had completely recovered its tone and polish.
In the cure of the simple gonorrhea, a decoction of mallows is commonly used, and they seem to place their chief confidence in diuretics. I never heard of an injection, but from those who were acquainted with European practice. Certain herbs and roots macerated, are applied locally in case of inflammation and tension (chordee).
Shankers, &c. externally, are repeatedly washed with soap and water, and then kept covered with the red earth above mentioned. I never saw the effect, but the cure is said to be rapid.
In Dar-Fûr I have not observed the venereal disease more formidable than in Egypt. I saw a few individuals who were mutilated in the organs of generation by its effects.
The old women, who are physicians in ordinary, use a decoction of certain roots, of which I never came at the knowlege, infused in bouza, which appear to operate successfully. Gleets are frequent; and continued indulgence produces early debility and impotence.
The great advantages of the étuves, or warm baths, is evident in very many instances in Kahira. But it is difficult to admit Savary’s assertion (vol. i. p. 108) in its full extent, viz. that they operate as a radical cure of the venereal disease. They doubtless assuage many of its graver symptoms.
In no country are pulmonary diseases more rare than in Egypt, which could not happen if the baths had any tendency to cause them.
Leprosy.
The leprosy is more frequent in Syria than in Egypt. It exists however in the latter country, with all its concomitants of swelled and distorted joints, a livid, spotted, parched, and cracked skin, &c.
I have seen it under all its forms of Borras, Jiddâm, &c. In Kahira there is no provision for the unhappy sufferers, who are allowed to beg about the streets, but forbidden by their religion from the contact of others, and excluded from society by an inefficient police. I have heard of a cure of the leprosy in its worst stage, by the use of corrosive sublimate in small doses. The natives seem not to know any specific.
In Dar-Fûr, the Borras, which is not uncommon, gives to the blacks the appearance of being pyebald, changing to white both the skin and hair. A case of, what I was convinced was Jiddâm, beginning in the hands, was cured under my observation by a slave, a native of the kingdom called Baghermi, but the means he had used he could not be prevailed on to disclose.
Bile.
Complaints proceeding from too copious secretion of bile are extremely common both in Egypt and Dar-Fûr. Murâr, the bile, or gall, is the generic name for all diseases of this kind, at least in their nascent state; for they are not solicitous in the choice of names, till distinct appearances teach them to seek a more characteristic appellation. There seems to be no efficacious remedy for these maladies, and therefore they take their course; and all the inconveniences consequent upon them are common, and increased by general inattention to diet.
The tuhhâl, or tehhâl, deriving its name from the spleen, morbus spleneticus, is very frequent. One of its outward symptoms is a tumor hard to the touch, but subject to increase and diminution, in the neighbourhood of the spleen, and general inflation in the supra-umbilical region.
In Egypt Christians and the less scrupulous Mohammedans use aqua vitæ to remove the present sensation. It operates as an anodyne, which is all they seek. In Dar-Fûr the leaves of senna pulverised, and, by admixture with honey, formed into balls, (the common cathartic,) is the only medicine administered with any salutary effect. I found James’s powder of great service to those with whom it operated as an emetic. The distention of the spleen prevents the stomach from receiving a proper quantity of food, yet the inclination for food is undiminished.
The liver being rendered incapable of its functions, by repeated extravasations of bile, the blood, which at all times circulates slowly from the spleen through that gland, now much retarded, occasions schirrosities of the spleen, and at length perfectly stagnant in and distending it, it becomes corrupted by the fæces contained in the colon near it, and begins to putrify. In this state the disease frequently terminates in death. But these schirrosities sometimes remain for years, without producing any very dangerous symptoms.
The passage of the bile into the intestines being intercepted, having passed from the gall bladder to the liver, it at length returns to the blood, which occasions the jaundice, another disease not uncommon among the Fûrians, termed by them Saffafîr, and, among the blacks, first visible in the eyes.
To alleviate the effects of any unusual increase of the cystic bile, the natrôn of the country is very efficacious.
Tenia.
From the nature of their diet, which consists in a great degree of vegetables and fruits, with a large portion of sugar, honey, &c. the inhabitants of Egypt, of all denominations, are particularly subject to the Tenia or tape-worm (Dûd Ar.) I have seen pieces of vast length preserved by the European physicians, who yet appear to have found no specific for it. The natives mistake the symptoms of this disease, ascarides, &c. for distinct maladies, and treat them accordingly. The commonalty, Jews, and devout Christians, who unremittingly use insalubrious food during their fasts, are most affected with it, though none are exempt. In those who are thus incommoded, a tumor commonly appears about the navel, and discoloration of the skin next the eyes.
Bruce seems to be of opinion, that the great prevalence of worms, with which the Abyssins are much afflicted, proceeds from the common use of raw meat. Not to mention that it is not yet proved that the habitual use of raw meat generates worms in the human intestines, that complaint cannot well be more common than among the people of Egypt, who never use meat but when fully prepared by fire.
Hernia.
Ruptures are common in Egypt, chiefly among the lower orders, particularly the boatmen, few of whom are seen without a greater or less degree of this dangerous accident, and to many of whom it is fatal. Their life is almost amphibious, and it may in some measure be the effect of the pendent situation of the parts; but it seems chiefly to arise from the exertions they are obliged to make in lading and unlading their boats, and propelling them, as frequently happens, by applying their shoulders. In the people of this city, who carry heavy loads on their backs, and raise great weights, it is also common. Clumsy and ineffectual trusses are made in Kahira, which rather distress and embarrass than relieve or secure the patient. The scrotum is sometimes cauterized, and with effect, if the intestines be not incarcerated. In Dar-Fûr this disease is uncommon; yet it is sometimes seen there.
Hydrocele.
The hydrocele is remarkably frequent in Syria, and, above all, in the town of Beirût. It is also frequent in Egypt, but most among the Christians of both countries. Some attribute it to the Nile water; others to the air; others to the use, or rather abuse of aqua vitæ; others to food of a particular kind: none of which seems to be the real cause. The natives of both countries have a method of inciding securely, which discharges the water, and of course produces temporary relief: but the malady is rapidly regenerated. The only radical cure is the actual cautery, which, though unskilfully, is yet successfully applied to such patients as are bold enough to encounter the danger.
Hæmorrhoides and Fistula in ano.
The hæmorrhoides (bowasîr) are very common both in Egypt and Dar-Fûr. In the latter, they cure them by the cautery. The Fistula in ano is also seen there, and is cured by a topical application, but without incision.
Apoplexy.
I have known two instances in Dar-Fûr of what appeared to me to be apoplexy. The one was of a male slave, about sixteen years of age, the other of a man about forty; both of them of plethoric habit. The boy dropped down senseless, after having been standing near a large fire in cool weather. Pulsation ceased, and a great hæmorrhage took place from the nostrils. After one hour and a half he expired. Bleeding was recommended to the proprietor, but the by-standers would not consent, saying it was Sheitân, the devil had possessed him. The man was dead before I saw him; much extravasated blood appeared about him. He had been at work in the sun. The coup-de-soleil, properly so called, does not often occur. When much exposed in walking or at work, they protect their head from the ill effect of the rays descending perpendicularly, by winding their shirt round it, and leaving the trunk uncovered.
Umbilical ruptures.
Among the slaves, and even free persons in Dar-Fûr, prominencies of the navel, and umbilical ruptures, of greater or less magnitude, are very common. Though the chord be remarked to be larger in the negroes than with us, this circumstance must probably be occasioned by ignorance, carelesness, or some mismanagement at the birth. It does not appear to be attended with positive inconvenience. The chord, when divided, is here cauterized as in Egypt.
Accouchemens.
The accouchemens of the Arabian females are remarkably easy. There are stories of the Bedouîn women sitting down near a water and delivering themselves. Certain it is, that both the Mohammedan and Coptic females in the cities and towns are equally averse from the attendance of a man on these occasions; and however unskilful the accoucheuses may be imagined, few accidents have place.
The women of Fûr, in like manner, are assisted by their own sex, and are seldom long confined: yet nature seems to render child-bearing more difficult to them than to the Egyptians, and their care after delivery is not always such as to prevent both the mother and the child from suffering. I have known several instances where cold caught after the accident has proved of serious consequences to the mother.
Hydrophobia.
The rabies canina, or hydrophobia, is either very unusual or entirely unknown both in Egypt and Fûr. I never heard of an instance of it in either country, which appears not entirely unworthy of remark, not only as multitudes of dogs are found in each, which in many instances can have no access to water, to the want of which was once vulgarly attributed that dreadful malady, but as one fact more in the series which must finally conduct us to its cause.
Idea of Orientals respecting remedies.
Among the inhabitants of Egypt and Africa the classification of remedies is remarkably simple. They have only two grand divisions, مبردات refrigerants, and حمه heating medicines. They esteem all the former beneficial, and the latter generally pernicious: so that if the most skilful physician were to prescribe for his patient what the latter supposed to possess an heating quality, it would be impossible to persuade him to use it.
Phlebotomy.
Scarification, or superficial incision of the skin, is commonly recurred to for various diseases, and at all ages, from two years till sixty. The head, breast, loins, legs, are all subjected to this simple and apparently little efficacious treatment. Sometimes, however, violent and obstinate pains in the head, proceeding from extraordinary exertion, and other causes, are removed by superficially inciding the skin, near the coronal suture, which occasions a sufficient discharge of blood.
The other mode of bleeding is by horns, prepared for that purpose, which operate on the same principle as our cupping glasses. These are applied in a very simple manner, and without occasioning any pain, remove such quantity of blood, as the operator judges necessary. Adhesion is produced by applying the mouth to the smaller aperture of the horn, which, when this is accomplished, is stopped. The incision is commonly made with a razor.
Bruises.
The bitumen found in the mummy pits is dissolved with butter by the Egyptians, and not only applied externally, but taken inwardly, in large doses, for bruises and wounds; it is said to have a surprising effect.
Petroleum.
Petroleum, which is brought from the western shore of the Arabian gulf, near to Suez, is taken inwardly as well as outwardly applied, and is much esteemed.
Bezoar.
The Orientals have still great confidence in the bezoar, or benzoar. For a small one they are, not unfrequently, contented to pay a sum equal to seven guineas. Even the European physicians administer it in some cases pulverised, as an alterative, and, as they say, with success.
Sal ammoniac.
Perhaps none of the drugs of Egypt is more extensively useful than sal ammoniac. That medicine seems, as it were, a specific, carefully provided, for the prevailing diseases of the country. Acting mildly, both as a carminative and diuretic, nothing is more effectual to remove the cephalalgia and lassitude often experienced during the great heat, which precedes the Nile’s augmentation, than a few drops of this spirit taken in water. Pulmonary complaints, occasioned by bad air, the suffocating heat of the southerly winds at certain seasons, and the ill effect of sudden transition from the burning heat of the sun to the chilling nocturnal dew, are often relieved by it. It might even be suggested, that as regular and continued transpiration seems very adverse to pestilential infection, a proper use of sp. sal. ammon. might not be wholly contemptible as an antidote to its infection.
Aphrodisiacs.
No part of the materia medica is so much in requisition as those which stimulate to animal pleasure. The lacerta scincus, in powder, and a thousand other articles of the same kind, are in continual demand. For this chiefly fields are sown with hashîsh, the bang of the East Indies. It is used in a variety of forms, but in none, it is supposed, more efficaciously than what is in Arabic called Maijûn, a kind of electuary, in which both men and women indulge to excess. The impotence of age, and the languor of satiety or disease, ponder in vain the oracles of the descendant of Ismaîl, for the invigorating influence of the benign deity of Canopus.
Characteristics of the negroes.
A great and striking difference as to the firmness and density of the skin, between the negro and the white, whether it may or may not be called specific, as far as relates to the animal, is the cause of several peculiarities, as well when they are in health as under the power of disease. In all cutaneous maladies, or such as ultimately relieve themselves by suppuration, the sufferings of the blacks are excessive. Blows of the whip, which in a white subject would become encysted tumors, discharge, dry up, heal, and disappear in a few weeks, often remain in a negro more than a year.
The bright red colour of the muscular fibres, an apparently stronger power of contraction, and the whiteness, solidity, and weight of the bones, constitute other peculiarities. The eyes have generally very distinct vision. There are few instances of myopes, and blindness is very uncommon. The teeth are white and firm; they rarely complain of odontalgia, and retain their teeth to old age. Both the Fûrians and neighbouring negroes are attentive to preserve them clean, which is done by rubbing them with the small fibrous branches of the tree called Shaw.
Natrôn.
Natrôn is much used as a veterinary medicine.
As often as the camels, horses, asses, sheep, &c. drink, a large piece of it is put into the trough of water. The natives conceive that it renders them more eager of their food, and thus tends to fatten them. Some camels refuse it, but in general they acquire a preference for that water which is most strongly impregnated. When they refuse it, the natrôn is pulverized, formed into balls, with the flour of maize, and forced down their throats before they drink.
For the human race natrôn is used to remove the head-achs, intermittent and remittent fevers, &c. which prevail during the rainy season. Two or three ounces of crude natrôn are dissolved in water, and taken fasting. It operates as a drastic purge, and with some as an emetic. With robust and plethoric habits, there seems to be no inconvenience from the use of it, but I experienced from it an unfavourable rather than beneficial effect.
Tamarinds.
The tamarind, Thummara Hindi[51] one of the most useful as well as valuable of the productions of the country, supplies the want of many others. In defect of lemons and other acids, this fruit, mixed with water, constitutes an agreeable and refreshing drink. When dried by beating in a mortar, it is formed into cakes, each of 2 or 300 drams in weight. The decoction of it is a mild cathartic, and also operates as a diaphoretic; and the natives attribute to it superior virtue as an antidote against certain poisons.
Lactation.
Savary remarks, that in Egypt each mother affords nourishment to her own infant, even in compliance with a command of the Prophet, and that this prevents many diseases. No doubt can exist that the milk of the mother, long secreted and reserved for the child, is the proper nourishment at the birth, and by its acrid quality tends to facilitate the evacuation of the fæces, accumulated during the period of gestation, much better than any thing that can be substituted in its room. But when this effect is once produced, in many cases the milk of any other woman may be better than that of the mother; nay, that of the mother may be insalubrious à principio; and it is as yet far from being proved, that the milk of the mother is in all cases the best possible milk for the child.
If the mother abstain not from the male embrace, and become gravid, the milk becomes, as is well known, poison to the offspring.—The Arabic language has even a single word to express, quæ lactans consuescit viro, which they conceive extremely injurious.
Opium (Ar. Aphiûm).
The use of opium, as is well known, is carried to excess in Constantinople. Some persons have so long accustomed themselves to that powerful drug, that a dose of two drams, or more, will have no effect in exhilarating them, or producing that agreeable stupor which they seek. In such cases, they will swallow, in a convenient vehicle, several grains, to the amount, it is said, of ten, of corrosive sublimate of mercury, as a stimulus.
This effect of opium, as an antidote to one of the strongest mineral poisons, appears incredible, and would scarcely have been related, but on authority the least questionable. A reflection has in consequence forced itself on me, which I offer as a query. Mithridates, king of Pontus, is said to have so fortified himself with antidotes, that when misfortune obliged him to have recourse to poison to terminate his existence, though repeatedly administered to him, under different forms, it had no effect. Pontus, at that time no less than at present, furnished the best opium. Could Mithridates have used any antidote so powerful? And was not this effect of that drug more likely to be known in its native country than any where else? It may possibly be replied, that mineral poisons were not then in use, and that to the small number of vegetable ones then known, many other antidotes, capable of producing the same effect, might have been found. It is not however enquired, whether single antidotes might not have been found to obviate the influence of distinct poisons, but what could produce so complete a change in the human body, as that no poison should have any effect on it?
Circumcision.
The practice of circumcision may be traced to such remote antiquity, that its origin baffles all research: yet apparently its history has not received all the illustration of which it is capable from a diligent collection of facts. It has been ascribed to the structure of the organs, in certain countries, which it is said impede coition, or facilitate the appearance of morbid symptoms. But what may have been perfectly true of individuals, it may perhaps not be permitted to assume with regard to a whole nation, much less with relation to the inhabitants of an extensive region.
Among the Fûrians circumcision appears to be no other than a religious ceremony, performed in compliance with an express command of the author of their faith; and it is very doubtful whether it was ever practised among them before their conversion to Mohammedism. It is now often neglected till the male have attained the age of eighteen or more years, and this omission seems to be considered by them as a matter of indifference; nor are there persons who habitually and regularly exercise that art, as in Egypt and other Mohammedan countries.
Excision.
The excision of females is a peculiarity with which the Northern nations are less familiar: yet it would appear, that this usage is more evidently founded on physical causes, and is more clearly a matter of convenience, than the circumcision of males, as it seems not to have been ordained by the precept of any inspired legislator. A practice so widely diffused, it may be said, was hardly invented but to remedy some inconvenience commensurate in its extent. But, if so, how happens it that one race of idolatrous negroes, near Fûr, has a habit of extracting two or more of the front teeth of children before puberty? That it is customary with another race, in the same quarter, to file the teeth to a point[52]? that other nations cut open a second mouth? and innumerable other singularities which prevail among savages, and are as little to be reduced to any principle of convenience or utility.
This excision is termed in Arabic Chafadh خفض, and the person who performs it خافضة. It consists in cutting off the clitoris a little before the period of puberty, or at about the age of eight or nine years[53].
Strabo is apparently the first who mentions this custom, which is nevertheless undoubtedly very antient. Lib. xvii.
—και τα παιδια περιτεμνειν, και τα θηλεα εκτεμνειν, &c.
By the terms very well marking the distinction between this operation and the circumcision of males.
The Mohammedans of Egypt conceive it to have no connexion with their religious creed. Similar are said to be the sentiments of the Christians of Habbesh. In Dar-Fûr many women, particularly among the Arabs, never undergo excision: yet it has not been my fate to see or hear of any of those κλειτοριδες μεγαλαι which are supposed to have brought it into vogue.
Thirteen or fourteen young females underwent خفض in an house where I was. It was performed by a woman, and some of them complained much of the pain, both at and after it. They were prevented from locomotion, but permitted to eat meat. The parts were washed every twelve hours with warm water, which profuse suppuration rendered necessary. At the end of eight days the greater part were in a condition to walk, and liberated from their confinement. Three or four of them remained under restraint till the thirteenth day.
It often happens that another operation accompanies that of excision, which is not, like the latter, practised in Egypt, viz. producing an artificial impediment to the vagina, with a view to prevent coition. This happens most frequently in the case of slaves, whose value would be diminished by impregnation, or even by the necessary result of coition, though unaccompanied by conception. But it is also adopted towards girls who are free; the impulse being too strong to be counteracted by any less firm impediment. This operation, like the former, is performed at all ages from eight to sixteen, but commonly from eleven to twelve; nor are they who undergo it always virgins. In some the parts are more easily formed to cohere than in others. There are cases in which the barrier becomes so firm, that the embrace cannot be received but by the previous application of a sharp instrument[54].
Among some tribes of blacks, there exists a practice of piercing the skin in certain forms by way of ornament.—Each of the punctures leaves an indelible scar, as distinctive as colour, which is not used. This practice, which is of the same description as that of some of the South-sea islands, is used on the face, breast, loins, &c.
The blacks who are castrated for the use of Kahira or Constantinople, undergo that operation in the Upper Egypt, before their arrival at the former; some families, there resident, having the hereditary exercise of this antient practice.
The numbers which undergo it are not very considerable, and it is fatal only to a very small proportion of them.
Those slaves which are emasculated for the exclusive use of the Fûrian monarch suffer within his palace.
CHAP. XXII.
FINAL DEPARTURE FROM KAHIRA, AND JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
Voyage down the Nile to Damiatt — Vegetation — Papyrus — Commerce — Cruelty of the Mamlûk government — Voyage to Yaffé — Description of Yaffé — Rama — Jerusalem — Mendicants — Tombs of the kings — Bethlehem — Agriculture — Naplosa — Samaria — Mount Tabor.
Having engaged a canjia, or small boat, to sail down the Nile from Kahira to Damiatt, I departed on Friday the 2d of December 1796. No occurrences worthy of particular commemoration happened during this little voyage, but we passed several towns of considerable note, among which may be mentioned Mansûra, remarkable for the defeat of St. Louis; a circumstance preserved in the name which denotes, The place of victory. Its condition is flourishing, owing to its being a station on the road between Kahira and Damiatt; and it was then governed by a Cashef deputed by Ibrahim Bey. The mosques amount to seven, which is the only circumstance I can offer relative to its population, my stay there having been only for a few hours.
Sifté and Miet Ghrammer are on the same route, about half way between Kahira and Mansûra, and situated on opposite banks of the Nile. Both are towns of the second order, and abounding with people, chiefly Mohammedans, very few Copts residing there. The river is here narrow but deep, not exceeding three hundred yards in breadth; and it may not be improper to remark in general concerning that celebrated stream, that its greatest breadth, when free from inundation, may be estimated at seven hundred yards, or something more than one third of a mile. Where narrowest, the distance between the banks may be one hundred yards. The depth from three to twenty-four feet.
That channel of the Nile which extends from Kahira to Damiatt is in general free from windings, and is interspersed with a few small islands.
There are several populous towns in the Delta, of which Mehallé-el-Kebîr is the chief. In point of population it is said to be equal to Damiatt. The next in consideration are probably Semmenûd and Menûf.
To form a general idea of the Delta, the reader may conceive a vast plain, intersected in all directions, by minute channels, (the canal of Menûf being almost the only important stream,) by which and by pumps the interstices are watered, and brought to the utmost fertility. As to real inundation on the rise of the Nile, that must be regarded as confined to a small space bordering on the sea.
On the 5th of the same month I arrived at Damiatt. This noted port presents an agreeable aspect on the first approach from the South, the town being built somewhat in the form of a crescent on a gentle bend of the river, and being surrounded with cultivated lands, which extend to the large lake called Manzalé. The distance from the sea is about six miles, and there is a bar across the Nile, so that vessels are obliged to have part of their cargo sent after them in small boats, and put on board after they have past the bar.
Damiatt is blessed with a soil almost unrivalled, and exuberant in orange and lemon trees, and other rich vegetation of the East, which would present an appearance very striking to a traveller accustomed to an English winter. Nor were my emotions unpleasant at here beholding, for the first time, the celebrated Papyrus, pushing its green spikes through the mud of the adjacent ditches[55].
This plant formerly abounded so much in the vicinity of Damiatt, that it was profaned, so to speak, in the fabrication of sleeping mats, which were transported to different parts of Lower Egypt. But of late years, by the sacred ignorance and supine neglect of the Mamlûks, who regard themselves as merely tenants for life, and delapidate at will this noble domain, the channel of the Nile, which ought to flow to Damiatt, pursuing the straiter course offered to it by the canal of Menûf, deserted its bed, and left access to the sea-water. Hence the plants of papyrus, as well as the other vegetables, were deprived of the prolific influence of the Nile, and expired in the noxious effluvia of a marine marsh. I was told by an European there, who had resided between thirty and forty years, that the papyrus used to attain the height of eight, nine, or more feet. The stem was about an inch or more in diameter; and of such substance as to serve my informer and his son for walking-sticks.
The gardens of Damiatt contain some mulberry trees and plantains. The Tethymalus, wart-weed, is found there in great quantity. Scammony is not uncommon. The East side of the river, from Damiatt to the North extremity of the coast, consists of sand hills, and most part of the way is lined with reeds.
Among the crops of Lower Egypt in particular must not be forgotten the Lucerne, Birsîm, which grows with surprising luxuriance.
Damiatt is vivified by a considerable trade, being the depôt between Egypt and Syria, and the mart of all the productions of the Delta; exporting particularly rice and flax to Syria, and importing cotton in return, which is manufactured there and in other parts of Egypt. Its European commerce is very inconsiderable: some Venetian and Ragusan vessels bring small cargoes of cochineal, and other commodities. Formerly there were several French merchants, but their usual misconduct with regard to the sex occasioned their expulsion.
Of an antient round building, called the Tower of St. Louis, which was standing in Niebuhr’s time, and which till of late existed at Damiatt, nothing now remains but a piece of brick wall, which was on the outside of the foss, and of which the mortar is no less hard than the brick. The remainder of the materials were applied by Mohammed Bey Abu-dhahab to the structure, which his fear of the Russians induced him to erect at a great expense, at the extremity of the shore. It was not sufficient to build this fort on the firm ground, nearest the mouth of the river; he chose to lay the foundation in the sand and mud, at the extreme point of land on the eastern side; and though now from the strength of the foundation a part remains, much has fallen, and the rest is surrounded by, and under water.
There are two mounts of ruins near the Eastern extremity of the town, on the most Northern of which is a piece of brick wall remarkably strong, which is reported to have been part of an ancient castle. From this elevation is seen the field of battle between the Christians and Saracens, in which St. Louis was, according to the Arabs, taken prisoner. It is called the field of blood, as the conflict is represented as having been so obstinate, that the earth and water were stained with blood for a considerable time after.
There is nothing farther worthy of remark in this town, except two mosques. One of them is a rich foundation of the same nature as the Jama-el-Azher, which it is said maintains five or six hundred poor shechs, many of whom are blind or paralytic. The other is an old and famous mosque, which has been raised, as is said, on the ruins of a Christian church, part of which is reported to exist under the building. Even the mosque itself is now deserted, and in a great measure fallen to ruin; the door which leads to the passage below is bricked up, so that I could make no observations on that part. The mosque is spacious, and contains a great number of marble columns. I observed, however, only one of porphyry, and one of red granite. The rest are of common blue and white, and yellow and white marble; one of the latter is reported to have the virtue of curing the jaundice; and for this purpose the poor people affected with this disorder scrape it and drink the powder, which is in such repute that a considerable cavity may be observed in the column. Another fine porphyry column I was told was lately carried away by a Mokaddem of the Bey, employed in collecting his rents here, for the purpose of forming a tomb for himself. The population of Damiatt may be partly conceived from the number of its mosques, which are supposed to be fourteen. There is also a Greek convent, in which strangers are lodged, there being no caravanserai in the place.
The lake Manzalé is of very considerable extent, being somewhat more than thirty miles in length, and is navigated by a number of small vessels employed in fishing, and in carrying the people to and from the islands. The fish called Bûri, a kind of mullet, particularly abounds; it is salted and dried at Damiatt, whence it is conveyed through the Lower Egypt and Syria, and even to Cyprus. It affords an insipid and insalubrious meal; yet is much used by the common people, especially by the Christians in their frequent fasts. The desert islands interspersed in the lake are haunted by numbers of aquatic birds, which migrate thither in autumn and winter: they are ensnared in nets, and furnish a livelihood to many of the lower class of the people, who sell them in the markets. The water of this lake is brackish, but not very salt. Where the most easterly branch of the Nile fell into it, still remain some ruins of the antient city of Tanis, which I had not an opportunity of visiting.
A circumstance had recently occurred, tending to paint the character of the people under the Mamlûk government. A Cashef, but not of the highest order, under Murad Bey, who had been disgraced a short time before, retired to Damiatt to avoid his master’s anger. He had not long resided there, when, having heard more favourable tidings, he made an inquiry for some person, capable of exchanging for him a sum in Turkish money, for the like in that of Europe current in the country. Accordingly three Jews were found who promised to supply him according to his desire. They went round the city, and borrowed much in addition to what they already possessed, and at length carried to the Cashef to the amount of between five and six thousand patackes. He was no sooner furnished with the money, than he directed the Jews to be murdered, and his boats being ready, caused their bodies to be packed in baskets, and put into a small boat of his train. He then set off for Kahira. On arriving at a village a little way up the river, the baskets were disembarked, and he ordered them to be safely lodged till further directions should be given. It was some time before the villagers took notice of the packages, or dared to open them in the absence of the owner. But at length having observed a quantity of blood near one of them, and entertaining suspicions, they opened the three, and news were immediately carried to Damiatt that the three Jews had been found in this condition. Those under whose cognizance such accidents are, made a memorial of the whole affair to Murad Bey. He replied only by loud laughter, saying, “Are they not three dogs? There is an end of them.”
It must not be omitted that at Damiatt there is a considerable manufactory of cotton and linen clothes, for the use of the baths and other domestic purposes.
On the 19th of January 1797, I embarked on board a little merchant vessel, trading to the coast of Syria, and commanded by an Arab. Owing to the stormy weather, and the unskilfulness of the mariners, no small danger was incurred in the voyage, and we were constrained to throw overboard a part of the cargo, which consisted in rice and raw hides. Another vessel, which sailed in company, was lost that same night.
After a navigation of five days, I arrived at Yaffé. The first land we had discovered was the mountain of Ghaza.
Yaffé presents an object rather extraordinary in the Levant, a good wharf. The situation of the town is so unequal, that the streets are paved in steps. The air, formerly deemed insalubrious, has, by the draining of some adjacent marshes, been rendered perfectly healthy; but, on the other hand, the extensive groves of orange and lemon trees, which adorned the vicinity, have been destroyed in the sieges undertaken by Ali Bey and his successor Mohammed Abu-dhahab, the latter of which was particularly destructive; the Mamlûks having used these trees for firing. The government is now mild, and the population, gradually increasing, may be estimated at six or seven thousand souls. It is walled, and has two principal gates and a smaller one; the latter and one of the former yet remain; the other is shut up. Yaffé is commanded by an eminence on the North, within musket-shot, where Ali Bey pitched his camp. Though there be a small river in the proximity, water is scarce, being carried by the women: one of the governors engaged to remedy the inconvenience, but was strangled by order of Jezzâr, Pasha of Damascus, before he could accomplish his purpose.
Ships cannot come up to the wharf, and there is no port, nor even secure place of anchorage. The commerce is inconsiderable, being solely with Egypt, and with a few pilgrims who pass to and from Jerusalem. Yaffé is governed by an officer appointed by the Porte.
There are three small convents of Christians, Armenian, Greek, and Roman-catholic, and a few Jews. When the French, about 1790, were banished by Jezzâr Pasha from his government, several retired to Jaffé, where their consul died the winter before I arrived.
It shall be only farther remarked, that the houses in Jaffé are neatly built with stone, and that considerable quantities of coral are found in the adjacent sea.
Having hired two mules for myself and a Cypriote servant, I proceeded to Rama, distant about three hours. I had previously taken care to get permission from the agent of the convent at Yaffé to travel to Jerusalem, a precaution here necessary to prevent any disturbance from the Arabs.
At Rama there is a spacious and strongly built convent of the Franciscan order, a commodious edifice, and kept in excellent repair. The town is pleasantly situated, and in a good soil. In its vicinity I observed some antient groves of olive trees. Between Yaffé and Rama seven villages appear in sight.
Having left Rama early in the morning of the ensuing day, we entered the gate of Jerusalem about sun-set. The ground between Rama and Jerusalem is rugged, mountainous, and barren. My servant having loitered behind, was seized by some Arabs, thrown from his mule, and pillaged.
I must confess the first aspect of Jerusalem did not gratify my expectation. On ascending a hill distant about three miles, this celebrated city arose to view, seated on an eminence, but surrounded by others of greater height; and its walls, which remain tolerably perfect, form the chief object in the approach. They are constructed of a reddish stone. As the day was extremely cold, and snow began to fall, the prospect was not so interesting as it might have proved at a more favourable season.
It is unnecessary to dwell on the description of a city trivial in innumerable books of travels, but a few miscellaneous remarks shall be made as they happen to arise.
Mendicants perfectly swarm in the place, allured by the hope of alms from the piety of the pilgrims. The religious of Terra Santa retain great power, and there is one manufacture that flourishes in the utmost vigour, namely that of reliques, crucifixes inlaid with mother of pearl, chaplets, and the like. Yet the church of the holy sepulchre is so much neglected, that the snow fell into the middle; the beams, said to be cedar, are falling, and the whole roof is in a ruinous state.
The Armenian convent is elegant, and so extensive as to present accommodation for no less than a thousand pilgrims.
During twelve or thirteen days a very deep snow lay upon the ground. The catholic convent has a large subterraneous cistern, into which the snow, melting from the roof and other parts, is conveyed, and supplies the monks with water for a great portion of the year.
The best view of Jerusalem is from the Mount of Olives, on the East of the city. In front is the chief mosque, which contains, according to the tradition of the Mohammedans, the body of Solomon. From the same mount may be discovered, in a clear day, the Dead sea, nearly South-east, reflecting a whitish gleam. The intervening region appears very rocky.
The tombs of the kings, so denominated, are worthy of remark, being of Grecian sculpture on a hard rock. There are several ornaments on the sarcophagi of foliage and flowers, and each apartment is secured with a massive panneled door of stone. Great ravages have been made here in search of treasure. These tombs have probably been constructed in the time of Herod and his successors kings of Judea.
A very considerable part of the inhabitants is Christian, between whom and the Muslims there exists all that infernal hatred which two divinely revealed religions can alone inspire.
At about the distance of two hours, or six miles, stands Bethlehem, in a country happy in soil, air, and water. The latter is conveyed in a low aqueduct or stone channel, which formerly passed to Jerusalem. The fons signatus is an exuberant spring: it is received successively by three large cisterns, one of which is well preserved. In coming from the cisterns, and at a small distance is seen what is termed the deliciæ Solomonis, a beautiful rivulet which flows murmuring down the valley, and waters in its course some gardens of excellent soil. The brinks of this brook are adorned with a variety of herbage. Olives, vines, and fig trees flourish abundantly in the neighbourhood. The olive trees are daily decreasing in number, as they are sacrificed to the personal enmities of the inhabitants, who meanly seek revenge by sawing down in the night those that belong to their adversaries. As this tree is of slow growth, it is seldom replaced. Such is the charity of Christians in the cradle of Christianity. A more pleasing object arises in the convent here, which contains under one roof the different tenets of Latins, Armenians, and Greeks.
About the same distance from Jerusalem, towards the wilderness, is the convent of St. John, situated in the midst of a romantic country, studded with vines and olive trees. In the village of St. John and its district the Mohammedans form the greater part of the population.
The mode of agriculture here pursued may be worthy of observation. As the country abounds in abrupt inequalities, little walls are erected, which support the soil, and form narrow terraces. Small ploughs are used drawn by oxen; and it requires no slight dexterity in the driver to turn his plough, and avoid damaging the walls. The soil thus secured is extremely favourable to cultivation. The breed of black cattle is in general diminutive. Horses are few in number, and asses resembling the European are chiefly used for travelling.
We may safely estimate the present population of Jerusalem at from eighteen to twenty thousand. It is governed by an Aga, appointed by the Pasha of Damascus; but he is allowed so few troops, that all Palestine may be regarded as in the power of the Arabs. The Christian women, who abound in Jerusalem, wear white veils, as a distinction from the Mohammedan, who wear other colours. Arabic is the general language, except among the Armenians and Greeks.
I left Jerusalem in the commencement of Ramadan, 2d of March 1797. After an uncommonly severe winter, the spring was now begun. Having rode about three hours, we arrived at Beruth, where we passed the night; and the following day, about three in the afternoon, reached Naplosa or Nablûs. This capital of the district called Samaria is populous. The site is remarkable and picturesque, being between two hills, upon one of which is the castle.
The adjacent country in general is fertile in vines and mulberry trees, though rather mountainous. Naplosa has several mosques, and carries on a considerable traffic with Damascus and the coast: there is also a cotton manufacture. Jews abound of the Samaritan heresy; but the inhabitants are very hostile to Christians, who have no establishments here. The town is in fact governed by the chief inhabitants, though a nominal deputy be appointed by the Pasha of Damascus.
On my journey from Naplosa to Nazareth, during the first part of the route, which was rocky and mountainous, I observed only three villages in the space of as many hours; but the vales are full of olives, fig trees, and vines, and even the rocks are shaded with a variety of verdure. Having passed the mountains of Naplosa, (Ebal and Gerizim,) we came to an extensive plain of excellent land, which however after rain is almost inundated. Near its northern extremity is seated a small fortress, which repulsed Jezzar Pasha at the head of five thousand men, and some pieces of artillery: it displays seven or eight small round towers, and has two gates. The peasants of Samaria are hardy and warlike, and generally go well armed.
Sebasté or Samaria is now a miserable deserted village. Ginæa is a decent town, half way between Naplosa and Nazareth. The latter is a pleasant village, seated on an easy slope, with a respectable convent: most of the inhabitants are Christians. While I was there, the Samaritans had made an inroad, and carried off some cattle: the Nazareens armed themselves, and made reprisals of seventeen oxen. In the neighbourhood is Mount Tabor, whence there is a delightful prospect, and which is noted for the absurd doctrines it gave name to in the ecclesiastical disputes of the Greek empire.
CHAP. XXIII.
GALILEE — ACCA.
Improvements by Jezzar — Trade — Taxes — White promontory, and river Leontes — Tyre — Seide — Earthquake — Kesrawan — Syrian wines — Beirût — Anchorage — Provisions — River Adonis — Antûra — Harrîsé — Tripoli — Ladakia — Journey to Aleppo or Haleb.
Galilee is here divided from Samaria by a ridge of hills. Six hours were employed in passing from Nazareth to Acré, by the Arabs more properly termed Acca. At a village on the route observed a sarcophage, now used for watering cattle, and some scattered fragments of columns. But few villages appear between Nazareth and Acré, though the land be fertile.
Acré is fortified with a wall of very moderate strength, having only one gate. It is a pretty large town, but many of the houses are empty: yet the population may be estimated between fifteen and twenty thousand. There remains part of a double fosse, which extended round the town, but is daily dilapidated for modern erections. There is no castle nor other relique of antiquity.
The whole face of the city has been changed, being enlarged and adorned with the improvements of the celebrated Achmet Pasha, who has built an elegant mosque and baths, two markets, a palace, and reservoirs for water. There are three Khans, or places for receiving goods, answering the purpose at once of a warehouse and inn. There are also five or six mosques, a small establishment of the Franciscans, and a Greek and Armenian church. In one of the Khans the Europeans lodge.
A mean tomb has been erected by the Pasha, to the memory of the celebrated Shech Daher, close to the sea, and at a little distance from the northern extremity of the wall.
Acré stands on a promontory, near a small gulph, and has no haven. Vessels anchor in favourable weather near the shore, but the European ships anchor opposite Haifa, a small place at the foot of Mount Carmel, where the water is generally smooth. The trade of Acré is pretty considerable; the Europeans bring broad cloth, lead, tin, and a variety of other articles, and export cotton in return. From Egypt there are large imports of rice. The soil of Egypt is not very proper for cotton, which is a staple commodity of Syria.
The long reign of Achmet Pasha el Jezzâr[56], accompanied with immense influence and great wealth, might naturally lead to conceive, that, blending his interests with those of his subjects, he would have exerted his authority in promoting their happiness. On the contrary, the large plain near Acré is left almost a marsh, and marks of idle magnificence have been substituted for the useful cares of agriculture. A striking contrast arises between his conduct and that of the Shech Daher, his predecessor, who raised Acré from a village to a large town, and doubled the population of the district.
Jezzâr was the first governor in the empire who laid a tax on articles of consumption, as wine, grain, and the like. Even meat and fish are materials of impost. He has erected granaries, a laudable design, but deficient in the execution; for the grain being ill preserved, and the oldest served out first, it is not only disagreeable as food, but unprolific when distributed for seed to the peasants. These imposts form the peculiar revenue of the Pasha; the other resources arising as usual from the tax on land, which amounts to about a twentieth of the rent, the capitation tax on Christians, and the customs; which last in this government are arbitrary, and neither regulated by the rules of the Porte, nor the capitulations entered into by Europeans. Nevertheless, the chief source of the riches of Jezzâr is the Pashalik of Damascus, which, by means of the usual largesses at the Porte, he contrived to add to his former government, a precedent very unusual in the Othman empire. His military force was once computed at twelve thousand; but, at the time of my visiting Acré, did not exceed four or five thousand.
Till the year 1791 the French had factories at Acré, Seidé, and Beirût. At that period they were all expelled from the territory of Jezzâr by a sudden mandate, which allowed them only three days to abandon their respective habitations, under pain of death.
Passing over the common, but just rule of supposing, that in a quarrel of this magnitude neither party was perfectly free from error, it may be fit to inquire what motives induced this ignominious expulsion, when a simple dismission, to be signified by various other means, would have answered the same purpose.
To this it can only be answered, that the character of Jezzâr is impetuous, and even capricious, on all occasions. Sometimes a warm friend, and then suddenly a bitter enemy, equally, to all appearance, without any adequate reason. As to the conduct of the French, themselves and the other nations in the Levant accord so ill, that I have never obtained a very accurate statement of it. It seems to have originated in the behaviour of a drogueman of the nation, who having in some way offended the Pasha, was by his order summarily strangled or hanged. The French remonstrated, and threatened him with an application to the Porte, which he did not greatly fear, and he punished, as he termed it, their insolence, (in asserting their undoubted right, according to the capitulations between them and the Porte,) in this concise manner. Many complaints were made, subsequent to this period, by the ministers of the Republic at the Porte, but to no purpose: that court in fact was otherwise engaged, and it may be doubted whether it could have punished the Pasha. The events that followed suspended the prosecution of those claims, which, as the merchants thus suddenly banished had lost much, it appeared they had a right to prefer: but at length Aubert du Bayet sent a young officer of the name of Bailli to the Pasha to demand redress in a tone perhaps rather too high.
This gentleman, on arriving at Acré, April 1797, wrote a letter in French to the Pasha, which he had the bizarre idea of finding some Levantine drogueman to translate, verbatim, in the presence of that personage. The terms, it seems, in which this letter was conceived were so bold, that none could be found to present it, and the Pasha, under one pretence or other, refused to see the agent. On this Bailli retired to Yaffé. The answer Jezzâr sent to the claim of the Republic was, that private merchants were at liberty to settle under his government on the footing of any other nation, but that he would acknowlege no consul, nor consent to offer them any indemnification for the losses of the late factory.
Jezzâr had early conceived an enmity against that nation, which was probably increased by those who rivalled them in commerce.
On the 2d of April 1797 I set out from Acré to Seidé. The road runs near the sea-side, through a track overgrown with thorns and thistles. The shore is abrupt, and, as usual, accompanied with deep water. Some remains of antiquity present themselves, but so much injured, and so scattered, that it is impossible to guess their destination. I slept in the house of the Shech in a small village on the South of the White Promontory. The villages between Acré and Seidé are thinly scattered, and the population apparently small. We met several parties of the Pasha’s troops, both infantry and cavalry, which seemed in excellent order.
On the following morning we passed the White Promontory, a sublime and picturesque mountain. The road is occasionally cut through the rock of calcareous stone, as white as chalk. On the right the rock is covered with bushes: the left is a perpendicular precipice to the sea, which was calm when I passed; but when it rages the scene must be tremendous. The tradition of the natives ascribes this road to Alexander the Great.
We passed the Leontes, now an inconsiderable stream, and easily fordable: but after rain it swells to a rapid torrent, as is the case with most of the rivers that fall from the Syrian mountains to the sea. After crossing four small clear streams, running over their beds of pure gravel, and the dry courses of some rivulets, we arrived at Tyre, enchanted with the beautiful, verdure and varied scenery of the adjacent country.
The magnificent city of Tyre, now corruptly called Sûr, is reduced to a few miserable huts inhabited by fishermen, situated in the northern extremity of the isle. The isthmus, which joins it to the continent, is about three quarters of an English mile in length; the isle itself is of an irregular form, at the broadest part not exceeding half a mile, and the circumference of the antient city could not exceed a mile and a half. Except three fragments of granite columns nothing of antiquity appeared. The isle is now desert and rocky, destitute even of shrubs and grass. It appears that the port which is on the North of the isthmus might be restored, though a back water be wanting. The few peasants or fishermen who frequent the spot seemed quite unconscious of the classic ground on which they trod.
On the land-side, a little to the South of the isthmus, observed remains of an aqueduct, which formerly conveyed water to Tyre. Under its low arches was a considerable quantity of stalactites grown to a large size. There is also a cistern, somewhat resembling those of the fons signatus above mentioned, but smaller. The fountain rises with such force as to turn a mill a little lower down. Here are a few fruit trees, and a place where coffee is sold.
From the White Promontory to Seidé, antiently Sidon, extends a narrow plain by the sea-shore. North-east by East appear the summits of the mountains of Kesrawân, covered with snow. Arrived at Seidé near sun-set.
Seidé is a larger town than Acré. The situation is good and the air salubrious. There are many Christians and some Jews. The sea here encroaches on the land. The castle, built by the noted Fakr-el-dîn, is surrounded by the water. There was formerly a small, but convenient port, formed by a ridge of rocks, which was filled up by order of that Emîr, to prevent the Turkish vessels from entering, he being at war with that power. The castle, styled of St. Louis, which from an adjacent height on the South commands the city, still remains, as does a part of the city walls. There is but one gate of the latter; it fronts North-east. The magnificent palace, built by Fakr-el-dîn, in the Italian manner, is now ruinous.
An earthquake which destroyed Ladakia in 1796 was felt here, but not so violently as that which happened in the year 1785, in which many persons perished, and which was succeeded by a plague which almost depopulated the place.
A large tessellated pavement of variegated marbles, representing a horse, festoons, &c. and in some places tolerably perfect for ten feet in length, remains, close to the sea, on the northern extremity of the city; a proof of marine encroachment. Many antient granite columns are worked into the walls, and some stand as posts on the bridge leading to the fort. Near the gate of the city is a small square building, which contains the tombs of such of the Emîrs of the Druses as died when Seidé was in their possession.
Seidé is surrounded with gardens, in which grow a number of mulberry trees, silk being the chief commodity. The rent of houses and the mode of living are cheaper than at Acré, and the government more mild and regular; so that strangers are not liable to insult. Formerly, there was a considerable commerce carried on with Marseilles, but since Jezzâr banished the French it has ceased.
On the 6th of April 1797 I left Seidé to visit the district of Kesrawân, where we arrived in four hours, on horseback, after travelling through a rugged road, continually ascending, till we reached the convent of Mochaulus, delightfully situated half way up the mountain, in a romantic country. On passing a bridge over Nahr-el-aweli, observed several fine falls of the stream. In Kesrawân is also Mush-Mushé, a convent of Maronites, which we reached next morning, after three hours riding. The mountains in the neighbourhood are covered with fir trees, some of them of large growth. The vales, and part of the mountains, are planted with vines, producing excellent wine, white and red. There are also many mulberry trees, which furnish plenty of good silk, but the natives have not the common skill to form it into thread. Corn and lentils also abound.
The botanist and florist may find in this part of the mountain full employment, as it is covered with innumerable herbs and shrubs, many of them odoriferous, and adorned with flowers of various tints. Myrtle and lavender grow wild in great quantities on the mountain, and the rose of Jericho embellishes the vales and banks of the rivulets. From this convent are seen Seidé, the sea and the adjacent coast.
As Kesrawân and Mount Libanus produce the best wines of Syria, it may not be improper to offer a few remarks on that topic. The white wine made at Jerusalem has a sulphureous taste, and is very strong; the red somewhat resembles Tent, and is comparatively mild in its effects. The wines of Syria are most of them prepared by boiling, immediately after they are expressed from the grape, till they be considerably reduced in quantity, when they are put into jars or large glass bottles, (damesjans,) and preserved for use.
There is reason to believe, that this mode of boiling their wines was in general practice among the antients. It is still retained in some parts of Provence, where it is called vîn cuite, or cooked wine; but there the method is to lodge the wine in a large room, receiving all the smoke arising from several fires on the ground-floors; an operation more slow, but answering the same purpose. The Spanish Vino Tinto, or Tent, is prepared in the same way.
The wines thus managed, are sometimes thickened so much as to lose their transparency, and acquire a sweetish taste. Numerous are the kinds made in Syria; but the chief is the Vino d’Oro, or golden wine of Mount Libanus. This is not boiled, but left to purify itself by keeping; the quantity produced is small. It is, as the name implies, of a bright golden colour, and is highly prized even on the spot.
There is little reason to doubt, that if the wines of Syria were properly managed, they would equal any that France or Spain produces.
In Kesrawân the Christians are so much more indulged than in other places, that they can here enjoy their favourite amusement of deafening each other with bells. The monks of Mush-Mushé serve themselves in every thing, and are of course not idle, however fanatically inclined; they are cooks, bakers, butchers, carpenters, taylors, gardeners, husbandmen, each having his distinct province. I met here Hassan Jumbelati, who is of one of the most powerful families among the Druses, and at this time holds an office under the Emîr Beshîr. He is a great drinker, but appears not unintelligent. He was very inquisitive as to the motives and history of the French Revolution, and the present religious creed of that nation; on hearing the detail of which, he however made no interesting remarks.
From Kesrawân we returned to Seidé. On the 9th of April set out for Beirût, the antient Berytus. The route was through a deep sand, and after passing two rivers, the Nahr el aweli (before mentioned,) and the Damer or antient Tamyras, we arrived at Beirût, the approach to which is, even now, grander than that of any other town on the Syrian coast, though the fine groves have been neglected since the death of Fakr-el-Dîn, Emîr of the Druses, its munificent improver. A grove of pines, planted by his orders, is now reduced to half its former bounds. No trace is found of the statues, which his residence in Italy had enabled him to collect; nor of the gardens and apartments which he had formed on the European taste.
Beirût is a small place, and was not even walled till the Russians bombarded it; and Jezzâr, on getting possession, built the walls to give it a more formidable appearance. There are several towers, but the walls are thin and of no strength; the flatness of the situation is also a disadvantage. There is, however, a commodious wharf.
The suburbs are almost as large as the city itself, consisting of gardens, with a house for the owner in each; and these interspersed among the numerous fruit-trees, (especially olives and figs,) which this fertile soil supports, give the whole a picturesque and beautiful appearance.
Most of these gardens belonged to Christians, till the Pasha, by his exorbitant demands, obliged them to sell their possessions. Here it may be observed, that Christians may hold land in this place, which is not permitted at Acré. The streets of the city, like the others in this part of the world, are narrow and irregular.
The high tower, which Maundrel mentions as standing North-east of the city, was first destroyed by Jezzâr, as he thought an enemy might use it in offence; but he afterwards rebuilt it, with smaller stones and in a less substantial manner, as a place-d’armes for his own soldiers.
European vessels, in the summer, anchor near a small point of land which runs into the sea before the city, and is called Beirût Point; but in the winter, they cast anchor to the North, in a kind of gulf, which is sheltered from the North and East wind by the mountain, and is said to be very secure. The staple commodity of the country is raw silk, which is carried to Kahira, Damascus, and Aleppo, and part of it to Europe. They also fabricate a kind of jars and jugs in earthen ware, which, from the peculiar nature of the clay in the adjacent country, are highly esteemed, and carried to all parts of the coast.
Provisions are generally dear; the fish is more valued than that of Seidé, as the sea has here a rocky bottom, while at Seidé it is sand or mud. The red wine of Libanus which is brought here, is palatable, but cannot be transported from the mountain without a licence from the custom-house, so that it is dearer than formerly; yet the present price is only forty piasters the cantar, or about four pounds sterling the hundred weight.
From Beirût, on the 22d April, I went to Antûra on Mount Libanus, distant about four hours. In the way passed the Nahr Beirût, and after the Nahr el Kelb, the largest stream in this part of the country. The former is the noted river of Adonis, famous for vines, so exquisitely described by Milton.
Antûra is a pleasant village, surrounded with mulberry trees, but presenting nothing remarkable. Not far from this place is a convent of nuns, where Mr. Wortley Montague lodged his wife[57]. The dress of the Christians in this quarter seems unrestrained; they wear turbans adorned with various colours, even green; and they are freely indulged in the exercise of their religion: so natural is despotism to this clime, that those who live under their own Christian shechs or governors, are almost equally oppressed with those subject to Turks. The shechs fleece the poor people, and Jezzâr fleeces the shechs.
I afterwards visited Harrîsé. Here the Maronite patriarch resides, who exercises an authority almost regal over the Christians of that rite. From Harrîsé returned to Beirût.
As in consequence of a dispute between Jezzâr and the Pasha of Tripoli it was become unsafe to travel there, I joined a party of disbanded soldiers, and proceeded to Tripoli in their company. Our journey being quick, I had few opportunities for observation on the road.
This part of the country is noted for producing the best tobacco in Syria. That plant is cultivated in several districts, particularly in the neighbourhood of Tripoli, Gebeilé, and Ladakia.
On the third day arrived at Tripoli, about ten o’clock in the morning, having slept as usual in the open air.
Tripoli is a city of some extent, situated about a mile and an half from the sea. Vessels moor near the shore, and are sheltered by a ridge of rocks, but the situation is not extremely secure.
The air is rendered unwholesome by much stagnant water. The town is placed on a slight elevation, the length considerably exceeding the breadth. On the highest ground, to the South, is the castle, formerly possessed by the Earls of Tripoli; it is large and strong. Hence is visible a part of Mount Libanus, the summit of which is covered with snow. The gardens in the vicinity are rich in mulberry and other fruit trees. The city is well built, and most of the streets are paved.
It is the seat of a Pasha, who at present is the son of Abdallah, Pasha of Damascus.
Here is found a number of Mohammedan merchants, some of the richest and most respectable in the empire. Silk is the chief article of commerce. Five or six French merchants escaped hither from Acré[58].
Antiquities I observed none. The history of Tripoli during the crusades must be known to every reader. The present population I should be inclined to estimate at about sixteen thousand.
The miri, or fixed public revenue paid by Tripoli to Constantinople, is only about a thousand pounds sterling, twenty purses, a-year. Syria at present contains only four Pashaliks, Damascus, Aleppo, Acré, and Tripoli; the last of which is the smallest in territory and power.
On the 30th of April proceeded towards Ladakia, the antient Laodicea, built by Seleucus Nicanor in honour of his mother. We arrived on the third day at night. The first appearance of this city was most melancholy, as presenting all the ravages of the earthquake, which in the preceding year (1796) had laid a great part of it in ruins, and destroyed numbers of the inhabitants. Ladakia has a convenient but very small port, across the mouth of which is a bar of sand. The place is situated in a plain, extending on the North and South as far as the eye can reach; but bounded by hills towards the East. It has no walls, and only a part is paved; but the streets are clean, the air is salubrious, and refreshed by the fragrance of surrounding gardens. Water is scarce. The snow-capt summits of Libanus now vanish from the eye.
In the town are eight mosques. It is governed by a deputy of the Pasha of Tripoli.
On the 5th of May departed for Aleppo, in a small caravan, consisting only of Citoyen Chauderlos, the French consul-general, two Turks, and myself. On the second day passed through one of the most picturesque countries which I had ever seen. Lofty rocks and precipices, shaded with luxuriant foliage, of various form and character, but of the most lively verdure, and flowers of the most diversified hues and the strongest odours, alleviated the task of climbing by rugged and difficult paths the steep ascent of the mountain, and torrents wandering through the valleys in their stoney channels, or dashed from the rocks in sheets of foam, filled the ear with their soothing murmurs, the eye with their untaught meanders, and the imagination with some of the most agreeable images that delight in the works of the poet.
The third day was occupied in traversing a country romantic like the former, and we passed the night in the open air, at Shawr, where the river Orontes winds majestically through the plain. The town of Shawr is populous, and has a good caravanserai; but we preferred the open air, to avoid the vermin which lodge in such places. Adjacent is a good stone bridge of seven arches. These conveniences have been originally provided for the caravan, which rests here in its route from Constantinople to Mecca.
On the fifth day arrived at Keftîn, a village remarkable for its pigeon-houses, which supply the adjacent country, even to Aleppo. The neighbouring lands abound in wheat and barley, sown in ridges; the soil is rich, and requires no farrow. The women here go unveiled, and at Martrawân, which is not far removed, are by their friends presented to strangers.
The people are termed Ansarîé in Arabic, a sect of pretended Mohammedans, who are said to worship the pudendum muliebre. With Christians they affect to be of their faith. The women are fair, have black eyes, and tolerable features. The strange practice above commemorated, seems a relique of the antient dissolute manners of Antioch and Daphne.
Thence to Aleppo is a journey of eight hours; for two hours through corn lands, the rest passes a barren country. That city is visible at the distance of two hours, and as you approach displays a most magnificent appearance.
CHAP. XXIV.
OBSERVATIONS AT ALEPPO.
Sherîfs and Janizaries — Manufactures and commerce — Quarries — Price of provisions — New sect — Journey to Antioch — Description of antient Seleucia — Return to Aleppo.
The country adjacent to Aleppo is broken with many inequalities, and even the city stands partly on high and partly on low ground. A small river, called Coik, descends from Aintab, and, after passing through the city, is lost in a marsh on the West.
So many descriptions of this famous capital having appeared, I shall only offer a few remarks on such objects as struck me during my residence there.
The site is rocky, and the few gardens chiefly produce pistachios. The city is well built, and paved with stone. The tall cyprus trees, contrasted with the white minarets of numerous mosques, give it a most picturesque appearance. The population and buildings seem to be on the increase; but this affords no proof of public felicity; for, in proportion as the capital swells, the adjacent villages are deserted. The houses are clean, airy, substantial, and commodious. The people in general are distinguished by an air of affected polish, hardly to be observed in the other towns of Syria. Their dialect too has its characteristic marks. The Arabic prevails, though many speak the Turkish language.
A new Pasha had been lately appointed at the time I arrived, but was prevented from entering the city, by the feuds which had prevailed between the Sherîfs and the Janizaries, and induced the latter to suspect that the Pasha had a design of punishing them. This officer was a young man, the son of the Pasha of Adene; his title El Sherîf Mohammed Pasha; of an unblemished character, but unequal, in point of talents and personal weight, to compose the violence of these factions, which, after he had resided a short time in the city, obliged him to retire. The Sherîfs, or descendants of Mohammed, here form a considerable faction; a circumstance also observable at Bagdad, but not in so remarkable a degree. In Aleppo they form a body of near sixty thousand. The Janizaries do not exceed one-fourth of that number. The Sherîfs consist of all ranks, from the highest Imâm to the lowest peasant, and are far from excelling in courage: the Janizaries are of superior valour, though little acquainted with the use of arms or aspect of battle. Hence the force of the factions is merely balanced, and continual disputes arise for offices of profit or power, which generally terminate in bloodshed. In the course of this summer, 1797, several of these took place; in one of them it is supposed near three hundred persons perished. This imperfect exercise of authority may be estimated among the symptoms of decline in the Turkish empire.
The manufactures are in a flourishing state, being carried on with great spirit both by Christians and Mohammedans: silk and cotton form the chief articles. Large caravans frequently arrive from Bagdad and Bassora, charged with coffee, which is carried round to the Persian gulf from Moccha, with the tobacco and cherry-tree pipes from Persia, and muslins, shawls, and other products of India.
Besides the manufactures of Aleppo, and the productions of the surrounding country, which are sent to Europe by sea, three or four caravans, laden with merchandize, proceed annually through Anatolia to Constantinople. Pistachio nuts form no mean article of trade, being the chief produce of the adjacent territory, in the soil of which that tree particularly delights. Aleppo also maintains a commercial intercourse with Damascus, Antioch, Tripoli, Ladakia, and the towns on the East towards the Euphrates.
The last pestilence is supposed to have destroyed sixty thousand of the inhabitants.
The women of Aleppo are rather masculine, of brown complexions, and remarkable for indulging in the Sapphic affection.
The quarries which supplied the stone for the construction of the city, are not far removed from the Antioch gate. They are every way worthy remark. On both sides of a road, cut through the solid rock, are seen the openings of caverns, capable of giving shelter to a vast number of persons. From these again, which are tolerably light, open a number of other passages, in all directions, from the principal apartments. These I had neither time nor instruments to investigate; but the people of the place pretend that one of these passages goes to the castle, another to Antioch, &c. Traditions similar to which abound in every country, which presents any caverns natural or artificial.
The material is a soft stone or tufa, replete with petrified shells. It would appear that the artificers designed those quarries for some useful purpose, as they have not only left rough columns, and cut perpendicular shafts, which admit some portion of light, but the walls are hewn to a much greater degree of smoothness than is usually seen in quarries. It is certain they have afterwards been occupied, as marks of fire, mangers for horses, and even burial places, may be observed. In latter times, disbanded dellîs, not being admitted into the city, have here fixed their abode, and become dangerous to passengers, whom they have robbed, and sometimes murdered.
There is a large burying-place without the city. Here I observed the tomb of an Englishman, dated 1613.
The dress of the people of Aleppo resembles that of Constantinople more than that of Egypt and southern Syria: both men and women, in rainy weather, wear a kind of wooden patten, which has no agreeable effect either on the eye or the ear.
The hire of a camel from Aleppo to Ladakia or Scanderoon, about sixty miles, was a century ago four piasters, thirty years ago eight piasters, and is at this time nineteen. The price of commodities is much changed in the course of not many years. But since the year 1716 it has increased in a tenfold proportion. I saw an authentic document, that the ardeb of rice at that time sold for eleven piasters; it now fetches one hundred and eighteen piasters. They at that time sold 185 rolls of bread, of a particular kind, for a piaster; they now only sell forty of the same kind for that sum. Meat is good and in plenty; it is sold for fifty paras the rotal, 720 drams, or about 4½d. a pound. There are no fish, save a few small eels, found in the Coik. Wine is very dear, none being produced in the neighbourhood. On the other articles of provision nothing remarkable occurs.
At Aleppo I first observed the practice of illuminating the mosques on Thursday night, to usher in the Mohammedan Sabbath; this is unknown at Kahira, and other cities of the South.
About this time, the beginning of June 1797, intelligence arrived, that the Pasha of Bagdad had sent a strong detachment of troops, to be joined by the Arabs friendly to the Porte, in repressing the incursions of Abd-el-aziz ibn Messoûd el Wahhâhbé, a rebel against the government, who by the rapid success of his arms, and his increasing followers, had lately grown formidable. This man, a native of Nedjed, respected among the Arabs for his age and wisdom, had two years before first made public his determination to resist the authority of the Porte. He has since collected a considerable body of men, but it is said they are only furnished with spears and swords. He pretends to a divine mission, and gives no quarter to those who oppose him. To invite Christians and Jews to his party, he only requires an annual capitation tax of three piasters and a half. Of the people under his jurisdiction, every owner of a house is obliged to serve in person or find a substitute; and, to encourage them, he divides the spoil into five parts; taking one himself, he gives two to the substitute and two to the principal, or if the latter serve he has four parts. It was supposed his views pointed to Mecca, which he had threatened to attack. His confession of faith is only—“There is no God but God;” inferring, that a prophet, when dead, deserves no homage, and that of course to mention him in a creed, or in prayers, is absurd. He enjoins the absolute necessity of prayer, under the open canopy of heaven, and destroys all the mosques he can seize. Of the five dogmata of Mohammed, he admits alms, fasting, prayer, and ablution, but rejects pilgrimage. He denies the divine origin of the Korân, but prohibits the use of all liquors but water. Being advanced in age, he had taken care to secure the attachment of his followers to his son, who was generally his substitute in the field[59].
On the 11th of June set out from Aleppo for Antioch, where I arrived on the 14th. Part of the route is mountainous. We passed the Orontes at a ferry. Country cultivated with Hashîsh, a kind of flax.
Entered Antioch, now called Antáki, by Bab-Bolûs, the gate of St. Paul. The walls are extensive, but the houses are chiefly confined to one corner. Numerous towers flank the walls, which are strong and lofty, and run from the river Orontes, the southern boundary of the city, up to the summit of the mountain. There is a substantial bridge over the river, which winds through a fertile vale. A large castle on the mountain, now ruinous, commands an extensive prospect.
Antioch is governed by a Mohassel, who derives his appointment from Constantinople. He received me with great politeness, and desired me to make what researches I pleased.
The barley harvest was begun. The length of the plain of Antioch is about three leagues and a half, the width two leagues. The language is here generally Turkish.
It must be remarked with regard to Aleppo and Antioch, that the latter has by far the most convenient situation. The former has no navigable river, the land is little productive, and it is placed at a great distance from the sea. Antioch possesses every opposite advantage, except that of a navigable river, which however far exceeds the diminutive Coik; the air is superior to that of Aleppo, and it is within five hours of the sea. The mountain produces wine, which is sold cheap, and there is plenty of sea-fish. The mouth of the river forms a haven for small vessels, with very deep water.
Between Antioch and the sea, the ridge abounds in mulberry trees, which furnish a copious supply of silk, though not of the best kind.
From Antioch I set out for Suadéa, the antient Seleucia, and port of Antioch, and only about four hours removed from it. It presents to the mind the idea of the immense labour used by its former possessors to render it convenient for traffic, which is now rendered useless, by the negligence of its present masters. The road from Antioch is pleasingly diversified by mountain and plain; yet to appearance the country is but thinly inhabited, though filled with all kinds of flowering and odoriferous plants, particularly myrtles, oleanders, and cyclamens. Having crossed four rapid and translucid streams, which descend into the Orontes, I passed the night with a hospitable native, in a garden of mulberries, which afforded support to his numerous family.
A large gate of Seleucia yet remains entire; it approaches to the Doric order. The rock near it has been excavated into various apartments. A part exists of the thick and substantial wall which defended Seleucia toward the sea. The port must have been commodious and secure, though but small, being formed by a mole of very large stones. Though the port be at present dry, the sand in the bottom appears not higher than the surface of the sea. A little to the North is a remarkable passage, cut in the rock, leading by a gentle descent, from the summit of the mountain towards the water. It is above six hundred common paces long, from thirty to fifty feet high, and about twenty broad. In the middle of it is a covered way, arched through the rock, but both the ends are open. A channel for water runs along the side, conveying the pure element down from the mountain to Seleucia. The whole rock above is full of artificial cavities, for what purpose does not appear. There is a Greek inscription on the South side of the cavern, comprising, I believe, five lines. Having no glass, and the inscription being lofty, I could only discover the letters ΤΕΤΑΡ, which form a part of the last line but one.
Returning towards the sea, I observed some catacombs. One of the chambers contains thirty niches for the dead, another fourteen. These catacombs are ornamented with pilasters, cornices, and mouldings.
Returned to Antioch, and on the following day set off for Aleppo. The Kûrds occasionally attack the caravans going between these two cities. The Turcomâns form another tribe of rovers; they generally pass the winter in the plains near Antioch, returning in the summer to Anatolia.
CHAP. XXV.
JOURNEY TO DAMASCUS.
Entrance of the Hadjîs — Topography of Damascus — Trade and manufactures — Population — Observations on the depopulation of the East — Government and manners of Damascus — Charitable foundations — Anecdotes of recent history — Taxes — Price of provisions — Sacred caravan.
After waiting some time in Aleppo for the departure of the caravan, I at length left that city on the 23d of July for Damascus. The heat was great, but nothing equal to that of Africa. The beasts of burden, employed in this caravan, were only mules and geldings.
The route from Aleppo to Damascus has been often described. On Wednesday the 8th of August entered Damascus at day-break. The approach is remarkable, being ornamented for many miles with numerous gardens, and then by a paved way, extending for a great length.
On the day after my arrival, was entertained with the entrance of the grand caravan from Mecca. The street was lined for some miles, for such is its length, with innumerable spectators, all impressed with curiosity, some with anxiety to see their friends and relations, many with reverence for the sacred procession. Some of the more opulent Hadjîs, or pilgrims, were carried in litters, (tattarawân,) but the greater number in a kind of panniers, two and two, placed on the back of camels. They did not appear much fatigued, though it was said they had suffered from the want of water.
On the Saturday following, was the entrance of the Pasha of Damascus, who is constantly the Emîr-el-Hadje, or chief of the caravan by office. First appeared three hundred dellîs, or cavalry, mounted on Arabian horses, variously armed and clothed, but on the whole forming no mean display. These were succeeded by fifteen men on dromedaries, with musquetoons, or large carbines, placed before them, and turning on a swivel in every direction. This destructive instrument of war is said to have passed from the Persians to the Syrians. Some of the great officers of the city followed, well mounted, and decently attired. Then came part of the Pasha of Tripoli’s Janizaries, well clothed and armed; that Pasha himself, with his officers, and the remainder of his guard. Next was the tattarawân belonging to the Pasha of Damascus, another body of four hundred dellîs, a company of thirty musquetooners, a hundred and fifty Albanians, in uniform, and marching two and two, like our troops. Before the latter was borne the standard of the Prophet, Senjiak Sherîfi, of green silk, with sentences of the Korân embroidered in gold, and the magnificent canopy brought from Mecca, guarded by a strong body of Muggrebîns, or western Arabs, on foot. Then passed the Pasha’s three tails, (generally of white horses,) borne by three men on horseback; twelve horses, (a Pasha of two tails has only six,) richly caparisoned, and each bearing a silver target and a sabre; six led dromedaries, in beautiful housings; numbers of the chief persons of the city followed, among whom were the Aga of the Janizaries, the governor of the castle, and the Mohassel. Last came the Pasha himself, in a habit of green cloth adorned with fur of the black fox, preceded by his two sons, the eldest about fourteen, all mounted on the most spirited steeds of Arabia, and followed by his household troops, to the number of four hundred, well armed and mounted. More than a hundred camels had preceded the rest, bearing the tents and baggage of the Pasha. The whole was conducted without any noise or tumult, to the great credit of the Damascene mob, who had been waiting several hours without their usual repast.
Damascus has been often described; but a residence of about two months may enable me to suggest some particulars worthy of notice. The walls are of a circular form, suburbs large and irregular. The situation is in an extensive plain, filled with gardens, to the length of more than three leagues, and the breadth of more than a league and a half. At no great distance to the East, rises a ridge of Anti-Libanus. The river Baradé is above the city divided into many streams, which are distributed through the gardens; so that there is a supply for all. The air is excellent, the soil exuberant in fertility. Fruits more abundant than I have ever seen, particularly the grapes and apricots, which are of excellent flavour.
Near the mountain are some Saracenic remains of a mosque and palace, with many inscriptions in Cuphic characters. These are vestiges of the destructive warfare conducted by Timûr Leng, the hero, the robber, the warrior, the scourge. The walls are antient, not very lofty, but strong. Gates nine. The city is divided into twenty-three districts, each under its distinct magistrate.
That beautiful tree, the Lombardy poplar, abounds all over the plain. It is a native of Syria. When old it becomes ragged and uncouth, as usual in other regions, a monument of fugitive beauty.
Damascus is the seat of a considerable trade; and its manufactures afford a support to a great number of Mohammedans and Christians: they consist of silk and cotton, mixed or separate, but chiefly mingled together, in the form of what they call Cottonî or Alléja[60]. Much soap is also fabricated[61], which is carried to different parts of Syria and to Egypt. Such of the European articles as are used by the Orientals, are drawn from Seidé, Beirût, and Tripoli, to and from all which places, there are regular caravans, iron, lead, tin, cochineal, broad-cloth. From Persia and the East the caravans of Bagdad convey shawls, muslins, and the rich fabrics of Surat, a part of which is consumed in the city, and a part passes on to other places in Syria and to European Turkey. To maritime commerce the Damascenes were formerly very adverse, and it is only within these few years that they could be prevailed on to send goods by sea to Constantinople.
Timûr Leng, on his conquest of Syria, about the beginning of the fourteenth century, conveyed all the celebrated manufactures of steel from Damascus into Persia. Since that period, its works in steel have been little memorable. They were formerly of the highest reputation in Europe and the East. The famous sabres appear to have been constructed, by a method now lost, of alternate layers, about two or three lines thick, of iron and steel: they never broke, though bent in the most violent manner, and yet retained the utmost power of edge; so that common iron, or even steel, would divide under their force.
So far as my researches have enabled me to ascertain the population of Damascus, I should not be inclined to compute it at less than two hundred thousand souls. That of Aleppo may be estimated at two hundred and eighty thousand.
Some modern travellers appear to me to have mistaken the nature of the gradual depopulation of the East. The villages in general are so much deserted, that, in the neighbourhood of Aleppo for instance, where within the present century stood three hundred villages, there now remain no more than ten or twelve. Yet, this depopulation of the villages swells the cities and towns, not indeed in the same proportion, but still with a rising tide. The causes seem to be, 1. In the cities the modes of gaining a livelihood are more multifarious, and small or no capital is required, whereas in agriculture it is indispensable. 2. In the cities the property is not tangible, so to speak; it is veiled from the eye of government, so as to be safe from the excessive exactions imposed on the peasants, whose property is of the most unwieldy and self-apparent description. The peasantry, both in Syria and Egypt, are not Villani, but as free as any class of men; and it happens unfortunately, that even a good governor cannot sufficiently protect them, for he must either resign, or pay the usual tributes at the Porte. Money he must have, and the modern ministerial arts, of diving into the most secret recesses of property, being there unknown, he of course taxes that which is most apparent, and the most difficult to remove.
Yet the distinction between a good and a bad governor is, even here, sufficiently felt; the population and commerce of Damascus being on the increase, by the justice and equity of the present Pasha; whereas, both had been materially injured by the violence of Jezzar.
At this moment the shops in the extensive bazars, much larger than those of Aleppo, are all opened, and furnished with every species of commodity, and each caravan brings a supply of persons who, shunning oppression elsewhere, come here for temporary profit or fixed residence. The rent of houses, though still low, is sensibly increasing, and the suburbs spreading by new buildings.
The Pashalîk is the first in Asia. The present Pasha is Abdallah, a man of about fifty years of age, tall and personable, and of noble extract, his ancestors having been invested with Pashalîks in the last century. It is hardly necessary to mention, that every Pasha has absolute power of life or death, there being no appeal from his jurisdiction.
The inhabitants of Damascus were formerly noted for their maltreatment of the Franks, but at present I found the pride of their ignorance somewhat abated, and observed no difference between them and other Oriental citizens. It is deeply to be regretted, that religion, intended to conciliate mankind, should be the chief cause of their ferocity against each other, and should, in an equal proportion, have mingled poisons and antidotes. The Mohammedan himself a god, all the rest of mankind dogs! can any benefit recompense the pride, the fury, the eternal enmity, destruction, and slaughter, inwoven into the very soul by such misanthropic dogmata?
A striking contrast exists between the inhabitants of Damascus and those of Aleppo. The Aleppîns are vain and seditious; the Damascenes, on the contrary, sober, industrious, and unostentatious. The females and children have commonly regular features and a fair complexion: the dress of the women nearly the same as at Constantinople, white muslin veils, except the prostitutes, who, as usual all over the East, expose their faces. To paint the face is an improvement unknown among the Oriental fair, save the Greeks alone.
The charitable establishments in Damascus are numerous, among which may be noted that constructed by Sultan Selim, for the reception of strangers; though his munificence have been since diverted into other channels. The building consists of a vast quadrangle, lined with a colonade. It is entirely roofed in small domes, covered with lead. The mosque is grand. The entrance supported by four large columns of red granite. It is covered with a cupola, and has two minarets. A handsome garden lies adjacent. The apartments are numerous, and the kitchen or mutbach, on the side opposite to the mosque, is suited to the grandeur of the establishment.
The celebrated Asad Pasha, mentioned by Niebuhr and Volney, left an only daughter, of whom, on her marriage with Mohammed Pasha Adm, sprang the present Pasha Abdallah. Mohammed Pasha Adm was preceded by Osmân, and succeeded by two of his own brothers successively, the last of whom, named Derwîsh, was expelled by the intrigues of Jezzâr, who gained his office, and married the daughter of Mohammed Pasha Adm. This marriage of ambition, not of affection, terminated in a divorce a year after. Among other instances his bad treatment of this lady, it is recorded that Jezzâr, meeting her one day in the house, where she happened to have cab-cab, or Arabian pattens on her feet, pulled a pistol from his cincture, and fired it at her, saying, “Art thou the wife of an Arabian peasant? dost thou forget that thou art the wife of a Pasha?”
Jezzâr retained his ill-won pashalîk of Damascus only a few years; his government was a continual scene of oppression and cruelty, and he is supposed to have extorted from the people not less than twenty-five thousand purses, or about a million and two hundred thousand pounds sterling; and to have put to death near four hundred individuals, most of them innocent. His own misconduct and suspicious designs, when leading the caravan to Mecca, conspired with the machinations of his enemies at the Porte to deprive him of his office: but living monuments of his cruelty remain, in the noseless faces and earless heads of many of the Damascenes. Thus driven from Damascus, he returned to his former pashalîk of Acré and Seidé, where he remains. This government, which he held along with that of Damascus, he has retained upwards of twenty-seven years.
Jezzâr was succeeded by the present Pasha Abdallah, whose administration, though eminent as before observed for equity, is yet liable to the charge of mismanagement of the public revenue, and of an indecorous timidity. Under the energetic sway of Jezzâr, the sacred caravan had met with no obstructions on its route; but that of the present year, not only found the reservoirs for water destroyed or damaged, so that many camels perished for want of that indispensable article, but even the pilgrims were insulted by the Arabs, probably incited by the arts and malicious revenge of Jezzâr. By dint of bribes, however, at the Porte, Abdallah prevented his expected deprivation.
In the province of Damascus there are no taxes upon commodities of any kind, so far as I could discover. The land-tax, and the capitation-tax on Christians, constitute the only resource, except contingencies; as fines, and avanias, or arbitrary exactions. The miri, or public revenue, may amount to ten thousand purses, or half a million sterling.
Meat is at present sold for thirty-six paras the rotal, or four-pence sterling the pound Avoirdupois. A quantity of bread, sufficient for a meal for four persons, might be purchased for a para. It is very white and good, and remarked to be best when the Janizary Aga, who has a censorial power over the bakers, is not in the city. Grapes, of the finest flavour, the rotal three or four paras. Fish, from the river, is to be had at a moderate price, but not remarkably good. Milk, cheese, and butter, very cheap. Wild-fowl abounds on Mount Libanus, and partridges, in the season, are sold for five paras the brace. Tame fowls for four or five paras each, pigeons, a pair for the same sum.
The air or water of Damascus, or both, are supposed to operate powerfully against that loathsome disease the leprosy (borras). The inquiries I had occasion to make tended to prove, that if the disease were not too far advanced, it was always stopped in its progress, while the patient remained there.
The whole expense of the sacred caravan from Damascus to Mecca used formerly to amount to four thousand five hundred purses, and an increase has since taken place. The Pasha carries with him, exclusively of this, one thousand purses for his own use. Jezzâr was accustomed to take two thousand for the purpose of buying coffee, which he resold to vast advantage. The 4500 purses are deducted from the imperial treasury (chosné), and the Pasha is rendered accountable for the safety of the caravan. He receives the Senjiak Sherîfî, or Ensign of the Prophet, from the governor of the castle, giving an acknowlegement in writing, before witnesses, in which he solemnly pledges himself to bring it back. Similar forms are observed on restoring it to its place. As soon as the Pasha arrives near the city on his return, a messenger is dispatched to Constantinople, who is obliged to perform the journey in twenty-five days. He carries water from the famous well Zem-zem, near Mecca, and some dates from Mediné, which are presented to the Emperor on his visit to the mosque. After this, the Wizîr presents a list of the Pashas for the ensuing year; the Sultan reads it, and if he object to any name, affixes to it a mark, after which the firmâns are made out in due form.
CHAP. XXVI.
Journey from Damascus to Balbec — Syriac language — Balbec — Recent discoveries — Zahhlé — Printing-office — Houses of Damascus — Return to Aleppo.
On Thursday the sixteenth of August 1797, set out from Damascus for Balbec or Heliopolis, attended only by the owner of the mule I rode on. Arrived at the convent of Seidnaia, which commands a fair view of the city of Damascus, and the plain. Vines and fig-trees adorn the country through which I travelled. The wine has less flavour and body than that of Kasrawân, but is esteemed more grateful to the stomach.
From Seidnaia I proceeded to Malûla, a village situated in the mountain, where is a convent, said to be of the time of Justinian. Thence went to Yebrûd, the antient Jabruda, a place higher up the mountain, in a romantic situation; the inhabitants are chiefly Mohammedans. I met there a Greek bishop, who was going to a place near Balbec, an intelligent and curious man. We proceeded in company till we came to Balbec.
Soon after arrived at Mara, a small town on the North of the road. It is remarked that at this town and at Malûla alone the Syriac still continues to be a living language; descending from father to son, without the use of books. Two of the muleteers I observed to converse together more willingly in that language, than in the Arabic, which in sound it nearly resembles.
On the 19th passed under Dahr-el-chûr, supposed to be the highest summit of the Anti-Libanian chain of mountains. The following day having set out four and a half hours before day-break, the muleteers lost the road, and we were obliged to wait for sunrise, chilled with the intense cold of these high mountains, which we felt severely in our hands and feet. Arrived at Balbec about noon the same day, after descending for nearly three hours through a ravine, or deep glen in the mountain, a rugged and, in some places, a steep road.
From the high grounds we had a perfect view of Balbec, and went to seek our lodging under some walnut-trees, on the North of the castle. Some precaution was necessary against the Metaweli, Mohammedans of the sect of Ali, who once formed a powerful and ferocious tribe; even now, though crushed in a great degree by the exertions of Jezzâr, they continue to persecute strangers, who have often suffered from their predatory disposition.
The antiquities of Balbec have been often described, and I did not observe any thing particular to add on that topic. Proceeded to Zahhlé, a pleasant town among the mountains. Observed the Lombardy poplar in abundance. At Zahhlé met with a young man, a Druse, who informed me, that near Balbec, two or three years ago, in digging, the body of a man was found, interred in a kind of vault, having a piece of unstamped gold in his mouth; near him was a number of leaden plates, marked with characters to them unknown; they were sold and melted. In another place was discovered a small statue, very perfect, but I could not learn where it had been deposited. Zahhlé is a large town, chiefly, if not solely inhabited by Christians; it sends forth seven hundred men fit for war. The town is divided into five districts, each having its separate Shech, who pays tribute to the Emîr of the Druses; they complain of oppression; and the state of the place, and the adjacent country, shews that their complaints are not void of foundation. The town is sheltered by mountains, but the locusts are very destructive. Tobacco is one of the chief articles of cultivation. A rivulet rolling from the rocks turns the mills and waters the grounds; air salubrious and never tainted with excessive heat.
Near Zahhlé saw what is called the tomb of Noah, a long structure, seemingly part of an aqueduct. It extends about sixty feet, the stature of Noah according to Oriental tradition. The pilgrims who came formerly to worship in the mosque near it were very numerous; and the religious revenue is said to amount to three hundred purses annually.
Among the mountains the people have an air of health not observable in the cities. Magic is still credited, and several are accused before the bishop for incantations, producing love or enmity. The pious antipathy between the Greeks and Catholics reigns here in all its fury.
After a journey of two days, through a rugged route along the ridge of the mountain, arrived at the convent of St. John, where the printing-office is. Paper being dear, and no demand for books, the press is stopped. Arabic books alone were edited.
On my return by Zibdané observed there a gate of Grecian architecture. Passed through a rich vale, watered by the Baradé, formerly the Chrysorrhoas, to Damascus.
So numerous are the fruit-trees in the vicinity of this city, that those which die and are cut down, supply it with abundant fire-wood. They are also used for building, together with the walnut-tree and Lombardy poplar. The houses in Damascus are remarkably large and commodious, and well supplied with water; of many the furniture is worth from one to five hundred purses, or from five thousand to twenty-five thousand pounds, in divans or large sophas, of the richest silk, embroidered with pearl, Persian carpets, mirrors, &c.
The melingana, a species of the solanum, is consumed here in such quantities as a common vegetable, that fifty hundred weight is estimated the daily supply of the city.
Returned from Damascus to Aleppo, 7th October 1797, a journey of twelve days. Almost every town or village on the route has its market, so that there is no occasion to prepare provisions; the caravanserais are in a ruinous situation.
On visiting the castle of Aleppo, observed a remarkable fact considering the populousness of the city. There were only eighteen prisoners, eight of whom were confined for debt, and the remainder on account of the riot between the Janizaries and Sherîfs. The debtor is not permitted, in the whole Turkish empire, to be confined above one month; during which term, according to the Mohammedan doctors, his property must appear, if he have any, and if none, they consider it unjust to detain him. But this mild regulation is sometimes frustrated; for if a claim lie for four thousand piasters, for example, the creditor may first proceed against him for five hundred, and bring a fresh charge at the end of every month till the whole be paid, or till the debtor have remained in prison one month on every distinct process.
CHAP. XXVII.
Journey from Aleppo towards Constantinople — Route — Aintâb — Mount Taurus — Bostan — Inhabitants, their manners and dress — Kaisarîa — Angora — Walls and antiquities — Angora goats — Manufactures — Topography — Journey to Ismît — Topography — General remarks concerning Anatolia or Asia Minor.
On the 21st of October 1797, set out from Aleppo on my journey through Anatolia to Constantinople. I had a horse for myself, and another for an Armenian servant; seventy mules carried the merchandize of the caravan.
The direct road lies by Beilan and Adene, Konia, Kutahia, and Bursa, but Kutchûk Ali, the Pasha of Beilan, being in a state of rebellion, we were constrained to turn to the North-east by an unusual route, through the cities of Aintab, Kaisarîa, and Angora.
Between Aleppo and Aintab the country is well watered, and, though somewhat stony, capable of being cultivated in a threefold degree.
On the 30th arrived at Aintab, a large town or city, inhabited by Mohammedans and Christians, both Armenian and Greek. It has a fortress and a garrison of Janizaries. Here the Turkish language first becomes general. The chief commerce is leather and raw hides; skins of goats are dyed red and yellow, into what is called Turkey leather. The houses are built of stone, which is very cheap; there are five principal mosques; through some of the streets devolve streams of water, and the air is salubrious. On the South side is a large burying ground, which at a distance seems an extensive suburb. On the North is the castle, apparently coëval with that of Aleppo, built on an artificial elevation. The city however is entirely commanded from the adjacent hills. It is governed by a Mitsellim, appointed by the executive power at Constantinople. The Janizaries and Sherîfs are here as riotous as at Aleppo. Staple commodities are, the leather above mentioned, cottons for their own use, and various-coloured woollens, of which jackets are made, and sent to other parts. It also produces dips, a confection made of the grounds of wine and almonds.
After travelling for several days, ascended Mount Taurus, now called Kurûn. The ascent and descent occupied three days. This is a chain of high rocky mountains, running from East to West, the inhabitants are chiefly Kûrds; and the Turcomans retire here in the summer from the plain of Antioch, as before mentioned. Many thousand acres abound with cedars of great size and age; savines and junipers cover some of the brows. The cedars throw around a delicious odour. Some of our company, when they wished to warm themselves, the air being cold to excess, would set fire to the dead trees by kindling a little dry grass, which would instantly seize the branches, and soon consumed the whole tree. The bases of the mountains generally consist of tufa. Most of the hills are divided by rapid rivulets of the purest water.
On commencing the ascent of Mount Taurus, observed several roads leading to the right; one of them conducts to the copper mines of Tokat, which are very rich, and yield a considerable revenue to the emperor.
After descending Mount Taurus, arrived in the extensive plain of Bostân, which consists of fertile soil, is watered by the river formerly called Sarus, and surrounded with mountains.
Bostân is a town rather of small size, and presenting nothing memorable. Here I first observed little two-wheeled carts, drawn by two oxen. The wheels are solid, and the axle turns with them, so that their progress is sufficiently vociferous. Market poor. The inhabitants, like those of Anatolia in general, form a striking contrast to the more polished natives of Syria. They inspected us with stupid curiosity, and without the usual tokens of salutation practised by the Arabs. The common dress a short jacket and fringed turban. The women here are of fair florid complexion, and wear on their heads broad flat pieces of metal, to shelter their faces from the sun and rain. These resemble common eating plates, and are fastened with strings under the chin; the rich have them of silver, others are copper. Their persons and motions are uncouth and destitute of the lascivious mincing, the motus Ionici, of the Egyptian and Syrian women.
From Bostân to Kaisarîa the country is plain, but ill cultivated and thinly inhabited. Near the city there are however several productive fields, and watered by the river Yermok. This river we had passed a day’s journey from Kaisarîa, running to the South. Near that city the Lombardy poplar again appears in abundance.
Kaisarîa is distinguished at a distance by two remarkable hills, one of them lofty, and at this time covered with snow. This is West of the town. The other, which is to the South, is round and isolated, but not so high. The town is on the south side of a fertile plain, well watered by the Yermok and some rills, and contains a good number of inhabitants. They are now ploughing. In entering the town I observed numbers of the shaggy, strong, and large camels, which are bred by the Turcomans. The black buffaloe, like that of Egypt, is very common here. Kaisarîa is governed by a Mitsellim, who is appointed from Constantinople. The city belongs to the Reis Effendi. It is surrounded by walls, now in bad repair. Great quantities of timber are brought here from the mountains, and transported to various quarters.
Angora is eight days’ journey nearly North-west from Kaisarîa. On the fourth day passed a plain, watered or rather inundated by the river Tumm. On the eighth day passed a bridge, over a rapid but apparently shallow river, one of the branches of the Halys, at a spot where it makes its appearance from betwixt abrupt rocks. Route variegated with hills, but on the whole rather plain.
Reached Angora on the 22d of November, two hours before sun-set. This city is visible at some distance, being in a lofty situation. It has a striking and agreeable appearance. It is situated on a small river. The castle is very antient, and in former times may have appeared impregnable, being raised on a high perpendicular rock. There is a chain of outworks to a considerable extent, occupying all the high ground.
The city has been surrounded by a substantial wall, in some places apparently double. Marks of a ditch also are visible. I passed three gates, and was told there were three or four more. Fragments of Greek inscriptions may be observed on two of the gates. On the North-west are said to be remains of an amphitheatre, which circumstances prevented me from visiting.
In the city are the ruins of a magnificent Curia, erected in the time of Augustus. The architecture is Corinthian, and parts of the inscriptions are well preserved, complimentary to that emperor.
The stones which form the walls are durable, and of an excellent quality. The city must have been strong, being commanded by no adjacent height. Market well supplied, especially with honey and excellent bread. The people are the most polished I have yet seen in Anatolia.
The trade is chiefly in yarn, of which our shalloons are made, and their own manufacture of Angora stuffs. Of the latter I am told they make yearly from fifteen to twenty thousand pieces, of thirty Stambûl pikes each, or nearly twenty-two yards. The breed of goats they say is on the decline. There is however a great extent of country which is capable of supplying food to their flocks; so that the number might be easily augmented. Each goat produces on an average from two to three hundred drams annually. The hair is taken from the whole body, and not the belly alone. They are shorn once a year, the sheep twice. The wool of the latter is particularly fine and long. Of the goats’ hair they have, it is reported, made shawls here, equal in quality to the Kashmirian, and as wide. They cost the maker one hundred piasters a-piece; but the manufacturers were unable to work flowers in them. They have also made good cloth; but the fabric was abandoned for want of encouragement. A special regulation constrains them to work the shalloons with double thread, otherwise they might be made much finer. The best of the Angora stuffs, worked by the piece, stands the manufacturer in about seventy paras the pike, or two thousand (= 3l. 10s. or 3l. 15s.) the piece. I should observe that in the manufacture of camlets no wool is used. Wax is exported, and in this part of Anatolia are cultivated large quantities of opium.
The Angora cats are confined to the same district with the goats. The soil is a fine red marl; but there is no peculiarity so striking in the site, soil, or air, as to offer any probable induction concerning the origin of those two remarkable breeds of animals, so dissimilar from those of other regions of the East.
Angora is one of the neatest cities I have yet visited. The streets are paved with large granite, but without foot-paths. Wax is produced in the neighbourhood, to the value of two thousand piasters a year; one fourth of which quantity is generally consumed in the city itself. It is surrounded by mountains, but there are numerous gardens near it, producing much fruit, especially excellent pears, which are sent for presents to Constantinople. The esculent plants barely suffice for the city, and the corn is brought from other places, the land being employed most profitably in the pasturage of the goats.
On the 16th of November 1797 proceeded towards Ismît or Nikmid, the antient Nicomedia, a maritime town, distant ten days. On the first day of our route saw the river of Angora running north through the plain. Two days after met fifty camels laden with fuller’s earth for the manufacturers of Angora. The 30th of November observed in the side of a hill a most beautiful appearance of strata, to the number of nine or ten in the breadth of eight feet, the widest of them grey chalky stone, then a wide one of red earth, or marl, then narrow ones of red earth and chalk alternately, each about four inches wide; surface gravel.
December 7th, set out from Kostabec three hours before sun-rise, and did not reach Tourbali till about one in the afternoon. The general face of the country is a rocky forest of pines and oaks. We kept mostly in the valley, till half past nine in the evening, when we ascended a very high mountain, which we also in part descended before we reached Tourbali. Several small streams descend both to the North and the South; one in particular, forming the river that runs by Angora. This part of Mount Olympus must in course be very high.
I found grapes in almost all the towns, after leaving Angora, but those of Teracli were the best I had seen since leaving Damascus; they are white, and of a fine flavour, and some of them of very large size.
December 5th, after passing Yeywa, came to a long well-built bridge over the considerable and rapid river, which disembogues into the Black sea, called Sakaria: a long bridge leads over the marshy lands to Ismît, a large town, extended in length, built on the side of a hill to the east of the plain. The mountains near it are lofty, and become visible long before one arrives there. Ismît is paved, but dirty, and built of wood. Most of the houses have a garden attached to them. The khan is neat, but not very large—Few remains of antiquity. A great number of Greeks resides here.
On the 7th left Ismît, and after passing along the shore to Scutari, where we arrived in the morning of the 9th, proceeded immediately to Constantinople.
Some general remarks arise concerning Anatolia, formerly Asia Minor. The parts through which we passed have more of the wild and romantic[62] than of the cultivated aspect; soil very various, but a deep clay is the most prevailing. Wheat and barley, and the yellow durra, Holcus Arundinaceus, form the chief, if not only products of agriculture. The whole is pervaded by hordes of Kurds and Turcomans. Numerous mendicants. The little security there is arises from the superior ferocity of a few Pashas, which allows of no robbery save their own. The depopulation is gradual, constant, and infallible, and indubitably arises from the extreme badness of the government, than which nothing more wretched can well be conceived.
CHAP. XXVIII.
Observations at Constantinople — Paswân Oglo — Character of the present Sultan — State of learning — Public libraries — Turkish taste — Coals — Greek printing-house — Navy — Return to England.
When I arrived at Constantinople there was a considerable alarm raised by the progress of the arms of Paswân Oglo, Pasha of Wîddîn. Originally Aga of that city, that is, chief of the Janizaries and commandant, he formed a powerful opposition to the Pasha, consisting of many rich and eminent inhabitants, who were dissatisfied with the Pasha’s conduct. By numerous intrigues and disputes the latter was gradually deprived of his authority, and Paswân Oglo usurped his place. After the last Russian war, the Porte being much in want of money, had recourse to new and unpopular measures of finance. Taxes were for the first time imposed on articles of consumption, as grain and wine. Paswân availed himself of the discontents occasioned by these impositions, and as his power increased boasted that he would correct such abuses.
The Porte, following its usual policy of rewarding where it cannot punish, of decorating the head which it wishes to strike off, confirmed Paswân in the Pashalik. His military force at first did not exceed four or five thousand, but, by the influx of the discontented, was now swelled to fifteen thousand or more, of enthusiastic and determined followers. Most of them consisted of the Janizaries on that side of Romélia, who were extremely dissatisfied at having passed unrewarded after the brilliant actions they had performed against the Austrian arms, and at the encouragement given to the recently established corps of Fusileers, an innovation which stung their ancient prejudices.
The Aga of the Janizaries at Constantinople, being consulted on the suppression of the rebellion, gave his opinion, that there was danger lest the Janizaries should go over to their brethren. The Diwân assembled in great perplexity, all were irresolute, till the Capitan-pasha, Hussein, said, “Nothing can be more easy than to crush this rebel.” The members instantly retorted, that if it were so easy, why not undertake that duty himself. Hussein exclaimed, “Only give me the means, and I pledge myself to conduct them!” He was in consequence appointed, and abundant supplies of men and money were assigned. Instead of Janizaries, the Timariots or feudal troops of Asia were summoned. Before I left Turkey a slight skirmish had taken place. The troops which marched against Wîddîn were computed at one hundred and fifty thousand. Paswân Oglo, unable to meet such a multitude in the field, was contented to defend Wîddîn. His success and further progress are sufficiently known.
A new institution had been recently ordained by the reigning Sultan. Perceiving that his troops had been unable to oppose those of Russia, he had, with the assistance of the French, who supplied non-commissioned officers to instruct them, founded a regular corps of infantry, consisting of about one thousand. They were clothed in a tighter dress, and their arms[63] supplied by government. The French have also assisted the Turks in casting a great number of brass field-pieces and battering cannon; nor are they without some flying artillery.
The present Sultan is not deficient in discernment, or warm wishes to promote the happiness of his people; but through the usual imperfection of his education, he is the slave of his own impetuosity, and a stranger to the recesses of the human heart. His motives are generally right, but the means, opposed by popular prejudices, are often ineffectual.
Sultan Selim, after correcting the police of the capital, turned his beneficent views to the encouragement of learning among his subjects. He has revived the mathematical school, in which, however, small progress had been made; his ignorance of the world leading him to think that his orders can form minds, and that a pension confers capacity. He has restored the printing office, and a new Arabic type was casting by an ingenious Armenian. But whether the improvement of the type may contribute to the diffusion of solid knowlege among the Turks, may fairly be questioned. The first book ordered to be printed was a Persian dictionary. An engraver on copper is also settled here, the subjects are the armillary sphere, some plans of fortification, the box-compass, and the like.
The Turks are remarkable for half-measures. In the mathematical and marine school, a substantial and commodious building, they are furnished with every thing—except instruments and books; the class small or none; but the end of the institution is considered as completely answered, as there are professors who meet and smoke their pipes together.
There are several Kuttub-chans, or public libraries, among which the principal are those of St. Sophia and the Solimanié Jamasy; but none so elegant as that built by Raghib Pasha, formerly Grand Wizîr. The magnificent institutions of this great man being envied by the Sultan of the day, his head was the forfeit of his virtues. This library is an insulated building, in the middle of a square court, consisting entirely of marble, and very neat and convenient. A large tomb, decorated with gilt brass, in which Raghib Pasha is buried, forms the centre of the library. Around are numerous books, on all subjects, chiefly as usual theology; convenient seats and elegant carpets and cushions for the readers. A librarian constantly attends. The light is well disposed, and the place perfectly quiet; so that I have no where seen a building or institution more complete of the kind. The apartment is raised above the ground by seven or eight easy steps. Fronting the street there is a school, founded by the same Pasha. It is a convenient room, of thirty-five feet long and proportionate width, where about an hundred boys are taught to read and write, and the more simple part of their theology. There is only one class, which attends every day for two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon.
I met with a Mohammedan, a native of Balk, who understood the first six books of Euclid. A young Englishman, who has embraced Islamism, and is lately established at Constantinople, had translated Euclid into Turkish, and published an astronomical ephemeris. Having received some encouragement, he was proceeding to read lectures on mathematical subjects. Many scribes are found here who write elegantly and correctly.
The national taste does not seem rapidly to improve. One of the Sultanas, sisters of the monarch, has not long since built a villa on the Bosphorus, half in the European style, half in the Chinese.
There is a considerable market for books, containing many shops, well supplied.
Strata of coals are found at about four hours distance on the European side. An officer in the service of the Porte informed me that he had at first obtained the exclusive right of working them. He sent them to the Crimea. Since that time better coals having been found in that country, and the right of working them having been soon afterwards taken from him, the mine was neglected, and then discontinued. It was difficult to work on account of the sandy soil which fell in. He said he could sell them at Constantinople for a para the oke.
Went to a Greek printing-house conducted by an Armenian. They were printing a small exhortation in the Greek language, written by Anthimus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, against the prevailing tenets of Deism and Atheism. They throw off about a thousand sheets a day.
The navy has of late been greatly improved by Le Brun and other French ship-builders. On the 2d of April 1798 there were eight ships of war at anchor in the Bosphorus; three seventy-fours, four fifties, one forty. The whole navy amounts to fifteen ships, fit for service, and of considerable force.
The Turkish women, in fine weather, ape the European custom of taking the air in their carriages, in a great square; but they are concealed in small latticed waggons, and veiled. They thus lose the best part of the display, “the mighty pleasure of being seen.”
I shall close my remarks on Constantinople with observing, that the country between it and Adrianople is completely plain, and that the capital is, on the land side, incapable of any defence against a victorious army. The uncertainty of the winds and channels join with the forts to defend the other side from any sudden assault.
Proceeding through Wallachia to Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Leipsic, Potsdam, Berlin, and Hamburg, I arrived in London on the 16th of September, 1798, after an absence of nearly seven years.
CHAP. XXIX.
Comparative view of life and happiness in the East and in Europe.
—Et qui plus est, il me semble que je n’ay rencontré guere de manieres, qui ne vaillent les nostres. Montaigne.
The great contrast which is observable between the manners and personal character of the Orientals and Europeans, insensibly leads to a comparison of its result in society. The character of every nation merits the attention of the philosopher; and the less that nation resembles ourselves, the more its distinguishing features require our investigation.
While vanity instigates us to claim an undisputed superiority, experience often compels us to doubt the validity of the sentence on which we insist. We are fearful of being reduced to acknowlege, that the labour, the thought, the agitation which have place among us, often augment not the happiness of the individual, and are of doubtful utility to the collective body. It is not however designed to insist on any such concession; and only a few considerations shall be offered in the order that they arise.
—Animo satis hæc vestigia parva sagaci
Sunt, per quæ possis cognoscere cætera tutè.
Lucretius.
Impatience, activity, and sanguine hope, are habits of an European. By education his imagination is exalted and his ideas are multiplied. By reading, and frequent intercourse with foreigners, he is enabled to present to himself the state of distant times and remote nations. Their knowlege, their arts, their pleasures become familiar to him; and, from a fixed principle of the human mind, the lively idea of all these advantages generates the hope of appropriating them. His first attempt is haply crowned with success, and he is thus stimulated to farther effort: but as the bounds fixed to his attainments are removed the farther he advances, and improvement is infinite, his ultimate disappointment is inevitable, and it is felt with a poignancy proportioned to the confidence of his first hopes.
The habits of the Oriental, on the contrary, are indolence, gravity, patience. His ideas are few in number; and his sentiments in course equally rare. They are, however, generally correct, springing from the objects around him, and for the most part limited to those objects.
A chief cause of this contrast, must be the mode of education in each community. Education should be the art of forming man on the principles of nature; by due attention to her unerring progress, no advantage of life can remain unimproved, and no duty can be misunderstood. But in no nation with whose history we are acquainted, has such a system been established. Almost every one forms its disciples on the narrow views of that community, and nature is distorted and paralised by authority.
The leading fault of education in the various parts of the Turkish empire, originates in the prevailing superstition. Wherever this does not operate, the practice is sufficiently rational.
The children of the Arabs early attain the character of manhood. A grave demeanour, fortitude in suffering, respect for age, filial affection, contempt for frivolous amusements, frugality, temperance, hospitality, are taught in the easiest and most effectual manner—by example; and where there is least probability of counter-instruction—in the house of the father.
They are early taken out of the hands of women, and sent to study the Korân; an employment which indeed has only the negative advantage of saving a portion of their time from positive idleness. As they advance towards maturity, little coercion is employed, but no incitement is administered to error. The father gradually accustoms himself to treat his son on the footing of an equal; who, on the other hand, seldom forgets the respect which is not imperiously exacted.
The dress of children is free from ligatures, their diet simple, and they are accustomed to variations of season, and enured to fatigue. These are a part of the advantages of Oriental education. Among its more serious inconveniences may be enumerated, an excessive credulity, the offspring of profound ignorance, and a keenness bordering on dishonesty and falshood. It is not easy to gain knowlege which is not sought. The boy respects his father, and the summit of his ambition is to imitate his sire. The parent is guided chiefly by the reflection, how far he may extend his pursuit of gain with impunity; of course a very refined morality is not to be expected from the son. Happiness once confined to the small circle of a family, little anxiety remains for the world at large. Hence the faintness of the conception of a community, and the duties arising from it.
In Europe, education is the art of moulding the soul to the times; and the preceptor is commonly successful in conveying the instruction, of which experience has taught him the advantage, and which he is no stranger to the mode of applying. Advancement is the object; and to obtain it activity is required. This end is gained; but in the art of directing the powers of his mind to the attainment of his own happiness, or to the public utility, or of preserving his body sane and vigorous, the man remains still a child; and thus the true object of education is frustrated. We have on this head then, it would seem, no great reason to boast our superiority.
The distinctive character of a nation is not to be sought in great cities. The manners of these reciprocally approximate. In that part of Egypt where the character of women is unsophisticated by mixture, however strong their passions, they are not unchaste. This perhaps proceeds more from the influence of public opinion, than the sanctions of municipal law.
Among the people, as they are to take part in domestic duties, their education is bounded by the useful. Among the opulent it extends to the ornamental, and many females in Kahira are taught to read and write. Instead of complaining of their seclusion as an injury, they may sometimes be observed tenacious of it as a mark of respect. That seclusion, though originating in the real or supposed licentiousness of the sex, is, at this time, far from being the effect of individual jealousy, but by long adoption, become a part of bien-séance. “I consented to become your wife,” said a woman to her husband, in my hearing, “that I might be veiled or private, masturê, and remain tranquil in my family; not to be sent to the market, to meet the eyes of chalk-illah, all the world.”
This seclusion of women has an important effect in society; and the Orientals are accordingly, as has often been remarked, in a great degree strangers to the passion of love. It is thought indecent in company to speak much of women, and no man would venture to declare, that he had a preference for a particular woman, or intended to marry her.
Social intercourse is thus rendered less vivacious and amusing, but numberless inquietudes are avoided. They who affirm, however, that nothing is sought from women, among the people of the East, but sensual gratification, seem to err. Why should a man, by having several women, necessarily become insensible to what is amiable or estimable in any individual among them? Or is individual character rendered absolutely indistinct by their being associated together?
They are equally in error who assert, that women in the East are slaves. Perhaps it might correctly be said that they are treated as children; but, supposing this to be true, do not tenderness and affection operate towards children?
They hold not the same rank as in Europe; and if they did, the intrigues carried on in the harem, would render their husbands and themselves miserable. In their present state, accidents of this kind are not without ill effects, but, in general, serve rather to minister a cause of diversion, than to produce any very serious evil. Of course they give much less disturbance than in Europe.
The spirit of Chivalry, fostered by the Crusades, changed, in the heated imagination of the youthful hero, the lovely object of his desires, into a deity that was to be adored. The visible nature of the divinity fanned the flame of devotion. Whether the fair benignly smiled, or scornfully averted her countenance from the humble votary, her perfections were equally the subject of his eulogies, and her will of his propitiation. But all his services were sublimely disinterested, and were to remain without hope of remuneration, till giants should be immolated to her perfections, and widows and orphans chaunt forth in her presence the praises of their generous deliverer.
These chaste amours, in which all was elevated, and all exquisitely unnatural, according to modern ideas, were yet the foundation of the rank women hold in modern Europe. This system, forced and contrary to nature, could not long have place, and perhaps the sex itself grew satiated with the frigid adulation of distant votaries, however flattering to its vanity. A more licentious gallantry then took place, and the charm was quickly dissolved. The intercourse between the sexes being at length reduced to the simple gratification of the sensual desire, society was almost in the same state in the West, as in the East, at the period when the seclusion of females first took place.
But the Europeans adopted a different plan. They either despised the security of bolts and bars as ineffectual, or too much of their former respect yet remained to allow the attempt. The sex at length wearied, but not satiated with simple sensuality, was governed in the choice of its indulgences by caprice; and the men were studiously employed to attract the æillades of their mistresses, and to chain this fickle sentiment, by varied foppery and grimace. Hence the romantic tales of our novels, hence the inconsequential conduct of their heroes, and hence the agitations of our societies, at which the Orientals would smile.
It is not said, that the miseries and violent dissensions which exist in families, result from the rank females hold in European society. Eternal litigations, and all the confusion of severe laws and loose morals are not attributed to that cause. It is only hinted that these evils are coëtaneous with that state of society, and that the pure institution of matrimony may be enforced by the commanding voice of religion, and sanctioned by municipal law, yet those evils may remain without a remedy.
The young of each sex are, in Europe, brought together, and taught to attach themselves to each other: but interdicted from uniting, unless equal in rank, fortune, &c. Passion however is strongest at an early age, when the reason which should guide it is weakest. But the public institutions eternize the punishment of a momentary folly. Parental authority, at other times, interferes, and pretending only solicitude for the child’s happiness, renders both the parent and the offspring miserable.
The husband is vain of exhibiting in public his admired bride. From familiarities with a variety of men which, by being public, are authorized, she is induced to try them in private. The man becomes unhappy and ridiculous, the wife disgraced, and the lover impoverished. Little or nothing of this is known in the East.
Another striking dissimilitude between the Europeans and Orientals is observable in the number and quality of their respective laws, and the administration of public justice. Though a multitude of commentaries has been written on the simple maxims contained in the Korân, applying them to the particular cases which occur in society, the whole falls far short, in point of extent, of the most simple systems of jurisprudence with which we are acquainted. The single circumstance of each man being advocate in his own cause, contracts all judicial proceedings to a small compass, and, whether justly or unjustly, all legal disputes are speedily terminated. So that no man can bequeath to his family the inheritance of judicial ruin.
It will no doubt be thought, that the corrupt character of judges, and the sale of their decrees, are evils for which no advantages can compensate; and here, at least, it may be urged, that in Europe the administration of justice is more equal, and the right is not generally to be shaken by a bribe.
On the other hand, whatever may be the integrity of the judges in their decisions, the length and delay of the proceedings is sufficient to re-produce all the evils which are thought to be obviated by the absence of judicial corruption. If one of the parties be poor and the other rich, the latter commonly has the option of ruining the former by throwing impediments in the way of a decision; and it is of little importance to a man to know that he is ultimately victorious, when his property is already consumed, ere the cause draw near its termination.
But independently of the immense expense of a process in most countries of Europe, the anxiety and suspense while it is depending, tend to lessen the happiness of society, and are, by their frequency, serious evils.
Domestic manners furnish a more minute, but not unimportant contrast. In receiving strangers at his house and when they leave it, the Oriental testifies no great emotion. The visitor is welcomed rather by actions than words. An Arab or Turk having once accorded protection, which he does with a kind of distance and hauteur, never afterwards withdraws it, and his word may be relied on. In visiting, as is well known, the common but absurd practice, which obtains among ourselves, of urging those to stay longer, of whose company one is already tired, is obviated by the simple use of a little scented wood in a censer.
In their communications every thing tends rather to tranquillize the mind, than to excite the passions. The quarrels of the mere mob, indeed, evaporate in idle vociferation; but among persons of any breeding, the voice is scarcely ever raised above its ordinary tone.
The greatest number of menials in a family (and in the East they are very numerous) occasions no confusion. All is conducted in silence and order. All such directions as are in the common routine of affairs, are given by signs, and are instantly understood; not from pride, or as implying the vast distance between master and servant, but principally to avoid all equivoque, when persons of various descriptions are present, and, by making secresy a uniform habit, to avoid all suspicion from the adoption of mystery in giving orders before company, when any thing is to be said which it is not intended that company should hear.
The ingenuity of man in contriving his own unhappiness, is in no part of the world more conspicuous than in Europe. Our mutual intercourse is so beset with forms, that it becomes doubtful whether it be a good or an evil; and the individual, not unfrequently, leaves a company dissatisfied that he ever entered into it. Hence a continued desire of changing place and forming new acquaintance.
Whenever a number of persons meet together, eating and drinking seem to be a necessary bond of union; and they often do not separate without that kind of festivity which impairs the health of each, and creates dissensions, as it were, by its mechanical operation. The sole benefit which results from the social meals of the Arabs, is to us entirely unknown.—No man thinks himself incapacitated from injuring his neighbour, in consequence of having divided with him a loaf of bread, and a little salt, at the convivial board.
In the East social intercourse is less artificial, and less hampered with rules. It is maintained with more complacency, and relinquished, not without hope of renewal. We too have now indeed abandoned a part of its more inconvenient formalities; but some of its oppressive and despotic laws continue unaltered. The exterior may be changed; but the substance is identical.
In the East, they who are guilty of excess in drinking bury their inebriation in the gloom of their closet. By this, present disturbance, and future ill example are equally obviated, whatever may be the ill consequence to the wretched victim of intemperance. Of excess in eating there are few examples; for their longest meals, even when a series of dishes is presented, as at the tables of a Pasha or a Bey, are terminated in a few minutes. The moderation and temperance of diet indeed throughout the East are matters of high praise; and, whether virtues of climate, habit, or reflection, merit imitation among ourselves. The reward is present, uninterrupted health and tranquillity of mind.
If the multitude of wants constitute human inquietude, it must be remembered how much of what to us is indispensable is, to them, as if it had never been.
With them society is rendered tranquil and easy by mutual forbearance; with us it is vexed with the necessity of mutual adulation.—In the one region each man sets a fashion to himself, in the other all the constituent parts are wearied with serving an idol that the collective body alone has set up. Each stands bareheaded from respect to the other, when both might remain covered without inconvenience to either.
Politeness is, with the one, an easy compliance, with which all are satisfied; with the other, it is a difficult effort, from the practice and the experience of which the parties mutually retire discontented.
The fashions to which we are slaves, are indeed many of them so little founded in reason, that one is sometimes disposed to consider them as imagined by the indolent and restless, to occupy the thoughts and time of those who have no better employment; or invented, like certain dogmas, to shew the merit of implicit credence. A certain dress is to be worn, a certain establishment kept up, under pain of indelible ignominy; and the man whose circumstances disable him from complying with this terrific mandate, with timid irresolution hides his head.
See the European in conversation, even among his equals, he is not so solicitous to express such thoughts as rise in his mind, as to find some employment for his tongue. It is not to give utterance to what naturally occurs, but that conversation may be kept up, that all are anxious. Garrulities, and misconceptions are civilly uttered for arguments; and the abortions of fancy and caprice, hold the place of the sane offspring of judgment and reflection. Yet we laugh at them for using short and few phrases, (phrases courtes et rares, as Volney describes them,) when they have nothing to say!
It is with them however neither ridiculous nor irksome to be silent. They go into company to be diverted, not to labour, and they esteem effort in conversation a vain toil. The raillery and repartee of the Occidentals is, among them, supplied (it must be allowed very inadequately) by the Meddahs, story-tellers, and professed jokers.
Human life in the East is exposed to a variety of casualties. Pestilence, famine, tyranny, all conspire to diminish its security. It is natural to set a smaller value on any advantage, in proportion to the facility of privation. Hence the Orientals are not much disturbed at the thoughts of death, but resign life without a sigh. The mind is tortured when the blossoms of hope are suddenly torn from it; but their gradual decay is not incompatible with a kind of tranquillity.
The European, more dissatisfied with the present, and only supported by the hope of what is to come, attached beyond measure to the advantages which his anxieties have been prolonged to acquire, has already, even at an early age, fixed to himself a period, short of which he thinks it hard and unjust to be deprived of life.
Concerning past events the fatalist is consoled by reflecting, that nothing he could have done would have altered the immutable order of things, and that his efforts before would have been as vain as his regret now is. This idea, indeed, is perhaps not destitute of ill effects, but it surely produces some good. If, by persuading them that the evils which they suffer are unavoidable, it prevent them from endeavouring to avoid them, it also prevents their repining at what must at all events be endured as the immutable law of the universe.
The European attributing more power to volition, ascribes to his own want of judgment or energy the result of whatever terminates unfavourably. Thus a part of his life is occupied by self-accusation, which, however, ensures no amelioration for the future.
In the East, if age be respected, it is respected, in part at least, from the decorous behaviour of the aged. In Europe, if it be rendered ridiculous, it is so too often, by a vain effort to perpetuate the character and manners of youth.
The commanding influence of a system so flattering to the pride of its professors, and operating so powerfully on their hopes and fears as Mohammedism, aided by the dread of present suffering, has so far counteracted the strong impulse of avarice, that gaming is in a great degree banished from society in the East. All the evils and inconveniences therefore of that practice, so severely felt throughout Europe, are almost unknown in the Turkish empire.
If activity and a careful provision for the future, and that each should contribute his efforts to the good of the whole, be necessary to constitute the happiness of a people, how happens it that the Orientals, among whom these requisites are wanting, should yet be happy?
The system of morals contained in the writings of the Orientals, is at once sublime without being impracticable, and levelled to the use of mankind, without being loose or low. Yet it is usual with us to talk of their brutal stupidity! But this system is not practised among them—and is the Christian system of morals practised among Christian nations?
The Arabian and Persian histories and romances abound with traits of magnanimity, of generosity, justice, and courage, no way inferior to, but in some instances exceeding those of other nations. The Greeks and ourselves have indeed stigmatised them with the name of barbarians; but impartial inquiry proves that they are susceptible of all that is admired in a polished people; that crimes are treated among them as among other nations, and that though their passions may be expressed in a different way, they have always the same source and the same object.
No man who reflects on his past enjoyments and sufferings can doubt but that the latter, by their intenseness, duration, and frequency, have been decidedly predominant.
To render them more equal, that is, to be less miserable, or to make life tolerable, either the number of pleasures must be augmented, according to the system of the Epicureans, or that of pains must be diminished, according to that of the Stoics. The Orientals strive to attain the one object like ourselves, by sensuality; and here it is not to be conceived that they are happier than we are; but the other they gain in a much more complete degree than ourselves, and are much more exercised in the stoical system, which seems the most effectual to the purpose.
The passions, indeed, it is said, are to the mind what motion is to the body; and the absence of either causes and marks, in each respectively, symptoms that may be termed morbid.
A perfect absence of passion is certainly preternatural, if it may not be called impossible; but as our passions are more likely to be called into action by painful than by pleasurable sensations, it seems little doubtful, that the mind, on which they operate most feebly, will remain in the most tranquil state. This tranquillity, this absence of pain, (for joy, however poignant, is but a transient gleam, a coruscation, which passing, renders the obscurity which succeeds it more sensible,) is the single species of happiness of which mankind is allowed to partake.
A man of great sensibility has his feelings hourly wounded by minute accidents, at which one of less lively sensations would smile.
Such a one is transported with love, and, if that love be successful, his gratification is exquisite. He is suddenly moved by compassion,—how refined his feeling in offering relief to distress! He ardently desires fame,—how is he elated with the slightest praises! But how often is his warm affection requited with neglect, or its gratification found impossible? How often will his compassion be excited, without the means of affording relief? And how much more is mankind disposed to obloquy than to eulogy?
But this is not all; the same mind which is strongly acted on by these passions will also have its peace disturbed by pride, ambition, anger, jealousy, and resentment. The subjects of all these tormenting emotions crowd on it too closely to allow its complacency to be permanent. The sunshine of the morning will inevitably, ere night, be succeeded by a tempest.
Some slight omission of ceremonial will offend its pride, some sordid repulse will check its ambition; it will flame with anger at the breaking of a jar, or pine with jealousy at the like frailty in a mistress.
Something of the same kind has place with regard to taste. A man of delicate taste feels refined enjoyment from the contemplation of a beautiful landscape or a fine picture, or the perusal of an elegant poem; and is equally disgusted at the sight of any thing deformed, disproportioned, or unnatural in either. But, it may be said, he has the option of contemplating a disagreeable object, but not of feeling an unpleasing sensation. And is it indeed so easy, in being perpetually conversant among mankind, to avoid observing their works? or does not the man who reads unavoidably fall on absurdities which disgust him? Social man has been too long employed in counteracting nature, not to have moulded all to his dwarfish intellect; and the abortive efforts of imagination are numberless both in the arts and in letters.
Then it will be said, human happiness is reduced to apathy; and the lively taste and ardent passions, which have established the superiority of Europeans, only serve to diminish their sum of felicity! This would be pushing the argument too far; but each will draw his own conclusions.
The chief points of contrast between the Europeans and Orientals being thus marked, it will be seen how far it may be doubted on which side lies the greater degree of happiness.