The Lives of Celebrated Travellers, Vol. 2 (of 3)

by James Augustus St. John

Born 1692—Died 1751.

This curious and learned traveller was the son of Mr. Gabriel Shaw, of Kendal, in Westmoreland, where he was born in the year 1692. The first rudiments of his education, which appears to have been carefully conducted, he received at the grammar-school of his native town, from whence, in 1711, he removed to Queen’s College, Oxford. Here he took the degree of B.A. in 1716, and that of M.A. three years after. In the course of the same year he went into orders, and was appointed chaplain to the English factory at Algiers. As he has left no account of the mode in which he reached the point of destination, it is uncertain whether he proceeded to Africa wholly by sea, or performed a portion of the journey by land; but as it is certain that he was in Italy, where, among other places, he visited Rome, it is probable that it was upon this occasion that he traversed the continent of Europe, taking ship at some port of Italy for Algiers, where he arrived about the end of 1719, or early in the beginning of the year following. This city, which has long been an object of considerable curiosity to Europeans, I have already described, at least as it existed in the sixteenth century, in the life of Leo Africanus; and therefore shall merely observe upon the present occasion, that at the period of Shaw’s residence it was a small though populous city, not exceeding a mile and a half in circumference, but computed to contain little less than one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants. Of antiquities, the peculiar objects of our traveller’s researches, it could boast but few specimens, though his practised eye discerned upon the tower of the great mosque several broken inscriptions, the letters of which, however, were either so inverted or filled up with lime and whitewash, that nothing could be made of them.

The environs are remarkable for their beauty, consisting of a rapid succession of hills and valleys, sprinkled with gardens and villas, to which the more wealthy among the citizens retire during the heats of summer. From these little white houses, perched in picturesque situations among evergreen woods and groves of fruit-trees, the inhabitants enjoy a gay and delightful prospect of the sea; while to those who sail along the shore these woods, villas, and gardens present a no less cheerful and animated scene. The springs which rise in these hills, and confer beauty and fertility upon the whole landscape, likewise furnish the city with an abundance of excellent water, which is conveyed to the public fountains through a long course of pipes and conduits.

Having remained about a year at Algiers, in the exercise of his professional duties, he was enabled, I know not how, to quit his post for a time, in order to satisfy the desire he felt of visiting Egypt and Syria. His voyage to Egypt, however, was ill-timed, for he arrived in the midst of summer, when, for the most part, the heat is excessive, the sands heated like the ashes of an oven, and the whole vegetation of the country exceedingly parched and withered. In approaching the low and level coast, no part of which could be seen from any considerable distance at sea, the mariners, he observes, conjectured how far they were from land by the depth of the water, the number of fathoms usually answering to the same number of leagues. The portion of the shore lying between Tineh, the ancient Pelusium, and Damietta, was so exceedingly low and full of lakes and morasses, that, in his opinion, it answered exactly to the etymology of its names; Tineh, from tin (Heb. טִין), clay or mud, and Pelusium (Gr. πηλούσιον), from pelus πηλός [^TN]), a word of the same signification! With etymological conjectures such as these our curious traveller amused himself on drawing near the shores of Egypt. At length, however, he arrived at Alexandria, where, regarding every thing modern as so many vain dreams unworthy the attention of a learned traveller, he discovered nothing striking or curious but the shattered walls, the cisterns, and other splendid vestiges of antiquity.

From Alexandria he sailed up the Nile to Cairo, and found travelling upon this “moving road,” as Pascal beautifully terms a navigable river, an extremely agreeable diversion. At every winding of the stream, says he, such a variety of villages, gardens, and plantations present themselves to our view, that from Rosetta to Cairo, and from thence all the way down by the other branch, to Damietta, we see nothing but crowds of people, or continued scenes of plenty and abundance. The many turnings of the river make the distance from Cairo to each of those cities near two hundred miles, though in a direct road it will scarce amount to half that number.

Grand Cairo, notwithstanding the magnificence of its name, he found much inferior in extent to several European capitals, though as the inhabitants lived in a close and crowded manner, it was exceedingly populous. Its principal curiosities, in his estimation, were contained within the castle situated on Mount Mocattem, and consisted of a spacious hall, adorned with a double row of vast Thebaic columns, and a wall about two hundred and sixty feet in depth, with a winding staircase descending to the bottom, hewn out in the solid rock; both of which works are attributed by the Mohammedans to the patriarch Joseph. At the village of Ghizah, directly opposite Cairo, on the Libyan or western bank of the Nile, he supposed himself to have discovered the site of ancient Memphis, which Dr. Pococke, Bruce, and others place at Metraheny, several miles farther southward. From the discussion of this point, in which, whether right or wrong, our author displays a profusion of learning and very considerable ingenuity, he proceeds, through a series of equally learned dissertations, to the origin and destination of the pyramids. The magnitude, structure, and aspect of these prodigious edifices, which have withstood the united attacks of barbarism and the elements through a period of unknown duration, have frequently been described with picturesque and nervous eloquence, though it is probable that the impression which the actual contemplation of them produces upon the imagination is not susceptible of being represented by language. Satirical or calculating writers have stood at the foot of these ancient temples, for such, I think, they should be considered, and laughed at the ambition or folly, as they term it, which prompted their founders to rear them, because their names and purposes are now become an enigma. Yet it is probable, that from the day on which they were erected until the present, few persons have beheld them towering above the plain of the desert, reflecting back the burning sun of noon, or throwing their morning or evening shadows over the sand, without being smitten with a sense of the sublime, and experiencing in their hearts a secret pride at the boldness and elevation of their founders’ conception. And this feeling will be heightened into something of a religious character, if, rejecting, the vulgar notion of their being nothing but royal tombs, we suppose, what might, I think, be all but demonstrated, that they were originally temples dedicated to the passive generative power of nature, the Bhavani of the Hindoos, the Athor-Isis of the Egyptians, and the Aphrodite and Venus of the Greeks and Romans. To Dr. Shaw, however, this theory did not present itself. He was contented with the old idea, suggested by the etymology of the word, that they might, perhaps, have been fire-temples; but he observes that the mouth of the pyramids, as well as the end of the mystic chest in the interior, points to the north, the original Kiblah, or “praying-point,” of the whole human race. Other sacred edifices of Egypt, as Herodotus observes, had their doors on the northern side; the table of shew-bread was placed in the same situation in the tabernacle; and in Hindostan the piety or the superstition of the people points in the same direction.

Of the animals of Egypt which, from the frequent mention made of them in classical literature, are regarded as curiosities, the most remarkable, as the hippopotamus, the crocodile, and the ibis, are now exceedingly rare. Indeed, though the crocodile is sometimes found above the cataracts, it is totally unknown to those who live lower down the river, and the hippopotamus and the ibis, the latter of which was once so plentiful, may be regarded as extinct in Egypt. To make some amends for these losses, there is a great abundance of storks, which, as they are every winter supposed to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, are, according to Lady Montague, regarded as so many hajjîs by the Turks. When about to migrate from the country, it is observed that they constantly assemble together from the circumjacent regions in a vast plain, where, in the opinion of the inhabitants, they daily hold a divan, or council, for about a fortnight before their departure; after which they rise at once upon the wing, marshal themselves into close compact bodies of prodigious dimensions, and then, putting themselves in motion, float away like dusky clouds of many miles in length upon the wind. The aspic, one of which opened the voluptuous Cleopatra a way to the court of Proserpine, is still very numerous in the sandy and mountainous districts on both sides of the Nile. This reptile, now called the cerastes, is capable of existing for an incredible length of time without food; at least if we can rely upon the veracity of Gabrieli, an Italian gentleman, who showed our traveller a couple of these vipers, which he had kept, he said, five years in a large crystal vessel, without any visible sustenance. “They were usually coiled up,” says the doctor, “in some fine sand, which was placed in the bottom of the vessel; and when I saw them they had just cast their skins, and were as brisk and lively as if newly taken. The horns of this viper are white and shining, in shape like to half a grain of barley, though scarce of that bigness.” The warral, a gentle and docile species of lizard, which appeared to be inspired with violent emotions of delight by the sounds of music, he beheld keeping exact time and motion with the dervishes in their rotatory dances, running over their heads and arms, turning when they turned, and stopping when they stopped. These timid practitioners, however, who thus charm or tame this small and apparently innoxious creature, are mere children compared with those daring adepts of Hindostan who, by the force of spells or skill, compel the cobra di capello, the most deadly and terrible of reptiles, to rear himself in spiry volumes, and dance, or rather wriggle, like a Nautch girl, for the amusement of the crowd. But the Egyptian charmers did something better with serpents and other reptiles than teaching them to dance; they converted them into articles of food; and Dr. Shaw was assured that in Cairo and its neighbourhood there were not less than forty thousand persons who subsisted entirely upon serpents and lizards. Locusts are a delicacy in Barbary; crickets, fried in sesamum oil, in Siam; and a dish of human brains is an Apician morsel in New-Zealand. Nay, we are told that certain Roman epicures, who were very far from regarding themselves as cannibals, were in the habit of drowning slaves in their fish-ponds, that by feeding upon their bodies the fish might acquire a superior flavour and richness. The Abyssinians, who cut beefsteaks from a living cow, belong to this family of gourmands; and those rebel janizaries of Tunis who cut their bey into kabobs, and ate him for a relish, as Dr. Shaw relates, may be said to have pushed this strange, irregular appetite nearly as far as it can be carried. However, the serpent-eaters of Cairo, besides the gratification of their preposterous fancy, have a religious motive, as the being addicted to this curious diet entitles them, among other religious privileges, to the honour of attending more immediately upon the hanging of black silk which is annually sent to the temple of Mecca.

In reiterated endeavours to discern through the mists of three thousand years the ancient condition of Egypt, physical and moral, our traveller consumed the time between July and September, in which month he departed from Cairo on his visit to Mount Sinai and the Red Sea. All travellers who have journeyed through this wilderness speak with terror of the dreary desolation and barrenness of the scene. Vegetation is here dead. Even the dews and showers of heaven fall in vain. They drench the sands without fertilizing them, and, sinking down into the earth, disappear, leaving no trace behind. On the skirts of the desert, and upon a few widely-scattered points, two or three hardy plants, stunted by the drought, scorched during the day by the intense heat of the sun, and shrivelled up with piercing cold by night, look like a few miserable stragglers found in a country depopulated by war and famine. Upon quitting the valley of the Nile, which is nowhere very broad, the caravan with which Shaw travelled proceeded directly east through the desert towards Suez, the atmosphere being perfectly clear and serene; a fortunate circumstance, as the heavens were every night their only covering, a carpet spread on the sand their bed, and a bundle of clothes their pillow. In this situation they were nightly wet to the skin by the copious dew, though, such is the salubrity of the climate, their health was not in the least impaired by it. When they had arrived at their halting-place, and were about to lie down to sleep, the camels were caused to kneel down in a circle about their resting-place, with their faces pointing outwards, and their load and saddle piled up behind them, and being naturally so wakeful as to be roused from sleep by the least noise, they served their masters instead of a guard.

As in so wild and steril a country the purchasing of provisions as they might be wanted on the way was of course out of the question, they were obliged to furnish themselves in Egypt with a stock sufficient for their consumption during the whole journey. In most countries nature supplies man wherewith to quench his thirst, without his experiencing the necessity of exercising his foresight or taxing his ingenuity, by lavishly scattering about her refreshing springs over the earth, or by suspending, as in the forests of Brazil, diminutive vegetable reservoirs in the thicket, where he may always calculate upon finding the requisite quantity of cool pure water. But in Arabia this rule does not hold. Our traveller, therefore, upon commencing his journey, took care to provide himself with a sufficient number of goat-skins, which were replenished every four or five days, or oftener, if wells were met with. Wine, likewise, and brandy, together with wheatflour, rice, biscuit, honey, oil, vinegar, olives, lentils, potted flesh, and such other articles of food as would keep sweet and wholesome during two months, were laid in; as well as barley, with a few beans intermixed, which, with balls made of the flour of the one or both of them, and a little water, constituted the whole sustenance of the camels. Their kitchen furniture consisted of a copper pot and wooden bowl, in the former of which they cooked, and from the latter ate their food, or kneaded therein their unleavened cakes. When the caravan halted for the purpose of cooking their breakfast or dinner, the dung left by the camels of preceding travellers was carefully gathered up, there being no wood; and this, when it had been a few days exposed to the sun, took fire quickly, and burned like charcoal. Their food being prepared, whether it was potted flesh boiled with rice, a lentil-soup, or unleavened cakes, served up with oil or honey, one of the Arabs belonging to the party, not, as the Scripture says, “to eat his morsel alone,” placing himself upon the highest spot of ground in the neighbourhood, called out thrice, with a loud voice to all his brethren, “the Sons of the Faithful,” to come and partake of it; though none of them, says the traveller, were in view or perhaps within a hundred miles of them. The custom, however, is maintained as a mark of benevolence, and, when an opportunity occurs, of their hospitality.

Upon arriving at the fountain of Elim, two leagues to the west of Suez, they found it brackish, and though there were several large troughs for the convenience of watering cattle, it was not considered wholesome, and the people of the neighbourhood preferred the waters of the Ain el Mousa, or “Fountain of Moses,” two leagues east of the city, which are lukewarm and sulphureous, and spout up like an artificial fountain from the earth,—a circumstance which Dr. Shaw thinks is no other way to be accounted for than by deducing their origin from the “great abyss!” The distance between Cairo and Suez is about ninety Roman miles, which the Israelites, according to Josephus, though the Scriptures are silent on the subject, traversed in three days, which, considering that they were encumbered with aged persons and children, Dr. Shaw thinks exceedingly improbable. The time employed in his own traject he does not mention; but observes that upon every little eminence on the road, as well as in the mountains of Libya near Egypt, great quantities of echini, as well as of bivalve and turbinated shells, were to be found, most of which corresponded exactly with their respective families still preserved in the Red Sea. The old walls of Suez, as well as the ruins of the village of Ain el Mousa, are full of fossil shells, which, as Xenophon remarks in the Anabasis, was the case with the walls of certain castles on the confines of Curdistan.