The inhabitants of Achmim are of a very yellow, unhealthy appearance, probably owing to the bad air, occasioned by a very dirty calish that passes through the town. There are, likewise, a great many trees, bushes, and gardens, about the stagnated water, all which increase the bad quality of the air.
There is here what is called a Hospice, or Convent of religious Franciscans, for the entertainment of the converts, or persecuted Christians in Nubia, when they can find them. This institution I speak of at large in the sequel. One of the last princes of the house of Medicis, all patrons of learning, proposed to furnish them with a compleat observatory, with the most perfect and expensive instruments; but they refused them, from a scruple least it would give umbrage to the natives. The fear that it should expose their own ignorance and idleness, I must think, entered a little into the consideration.
They received us civilly, and that was just all. I think I never knew a number of priests met together, who differed so little in capacity and knowledge, having barely a routine of scholastic disputation, on every other subject inconceivably ignorant. But I understood afterwards, that they were low men, all Italians; some of them had been barbers, and some of them tailors at Milan; they affected to be all Anti-Copernicans, upon scripture principles, for they knew no other astronomy.
These priests lived in great ease and safety, were much protected and favoured by this Arab prince Hamam; and their acting as physicians reconciled them to the people. They told me there were about eight hundred catholics in the town, but I believe the fifth part of that number would never have been found, even such catholics as they are. The rest of them were Cophts, and Moors, but a very few of the latter, so that the missionaries live perfectly unmolested.
There was a manufactory of coarse cotton cloth in the town, to considerable extent; and great quantity of poultry, esteemed the best in Egypt, was bred here, and sent down to Cairo. The reason is plain, the great export from Achmim is wheat; all the country about it is sown with that grain, and the crops are superior to any in Egypt. Thirty-two grains pulled from the ear was equal to forty-nine of the best Barbary wheat gathered in the same season; a prodigious disproportion, if it holds throughout. The wheat, however, was not much more forward in Upper Egypt, than that lower down the country, or farther northward. It was little more than four inches high, and sown down to the very edge of the water.
The people here wisely pursuing agriculture, so as to produce wheat in the greatest quantity, have dates only about their houses, and a few plantations of sugar cane near their gardens. As soon as they have reaped their wheat, they sow for another crop, before the sun has drained the moisture from the ground. Great plenty of excellent fish is caught here at Achmim, particularly a large one called the Binny, a figure of which I have given in the Appendix. I have seen them about four feet long, and one foot and a half broad.
The people seemed to be very peaceable, and well disposed, but of little curiosity. They expressed not the least surprise at seeing my large quadrant and telescopes mounted. We passed the night in our tent upon the river side, without any sort of molestation, though the men are reproached with being very great thieves. But seeing, I suppose, by our lights, that we were awake, they were afraid.
The women seldom marry after sixteen; we saw several with child, who they said were not eleven years old. Yet I did not observe that the men were less in size, less vigorous and active in body, than in other places. This, one would not imagine from the appearance these young wives make. They are little better coloured than a corpse, and look older at sixteen, than many English women at sixty, so that you are to look for beauty here in childhood only.
Achmim appears to be the Panopolis of the ancients, not only by its latitude, but also by an inscription of a very large triumphal arch, a few hundred yards south of the convent. It is built with marble by the Emperor Nero, and is dedicated in a Greek inscription, ΠΑΝΙ ΘΕΩ. The columns that were in its front are broken and thrown away; the arch itself is either sunk into the ground, or overturned on the side, with little separation of the several pieces.
The 24th of December we left Achmim, and came to the village Shekh Ali on the west, two miles and a quarter distant. We then passed Hamdi, about the same distance farther south; Aboudarac and Salladi on the east; then Salladi Garbieh, and Salladi Shergieh on the east and west, as the names import; and a number of villages, almost opposite, on each side of the river.