Rosetto has this good reputation, that the people are milder, more tractable, and less avaricious, than those of the two last-mentioned capitals; but I must say, that, in my time, I could not discern much difference.
The merchants, who trade at all hours of the day with Christians, are indeed more civilized, and less insolent, than the soldiery and the rest of the common people, which is the case every where, as it is for their own interest; but their priests, and moullahs, their soldiers, and people living in the country, are, in point of manners, just as bad as the others.
Rosetto is in lat. 31° 24´ 15´´ N.; it is the place where we embark for Cairo, which we accordingly did on June the 30th.
There is a wonderful deal of talk at Alexandria of the danger of passing over the desert to Rosetto. The same conversation is held here. After you embark on the Nile in your way to Cairo, you hear of pilots, and masters of vessels, who land you among robbers to share your plunder, and twenty such like stories, all of them of old date, and which perhaps happened long ago, or never happened at all.
But provided the government of Cairo is settled, and you do not land at villages in strife with each other, (in which circumstances no person of any nation is safe) you must be very unfortunate indeed, if any great accident befal you between Alexandria and Cairo.
For, from the constant intercourse between these two cities, and the valuable charge confided to these masters of vessels, they are all as well known, and at the least as much under authority, as the boatmen on the river Thames; and, if they should have either killed, or robbed any person, it must be with a view to leave the country immediately; else either at Cairo, Rosetto, Fuè, or Alexandria, wherever they were first caught, they would infallibly be hanged.
CHAP. II.
Author’s Reception at Cairo—Procures Letters from the Bey and the Greek Patriarch—Visits the Pyramids—Observations on their Construction.
It was in the beginning of July we arrived at Cairo, recommended to the very hospitable house of Julian and Bertran, to whom I imparted my resolution of pursuing my journey into Abyssinia.