I was then with my servants in Badjoura, in great quiet and tranquillity, under the protection, and very much in the confidence of Ismael; but hearing the hooping, and noise in the streets, I had barricadoed my outer-doors. A high wall surrounded the house and court-yard, and there I kept quiet, satisfied with being in perfect safety.
In the interim, I heard it was a quarrel about the keeping of Ramadan, and, as I had provisions, water, and employment enough in the house, I resolved to stay at home till they fought it out; being very little interested which of them should be victorious.—About noon, I was sent for to Ismael’s house, and found his uncle Hamam with him.
He told me, there were several wounded in a quarrel about the Ramadan, and recommended them to my care. “About Ramadan, said I! what, your principal fast! have you not settled that yet?”—Without answering me as to this, he asked, “When does the moon change?” As I knew nothing of friar Christopher’s operations, I answered, in hours, minutes, and seconds, as I found them in the ephemerides.
“Look you there, says Hamam, this is fine work!” and, directing his discourse to me, “When shall we see it?” Sir, said I, that is impossible for me to tell, as it depends on the state of the heavens; but, if the sky is clear, you must see her to-night; if you had looked for her, probably you would have seen her last night low in the horizon, thin like a thread; she is now three days old.—He started at this, then told me friar Christopher’s operation, and the consequences of it.
Ismael was ashamed, cursed him, and threatened revenge. It was too late to retract, the moon appeared, and spoke for herself; and the unfortunate friar was disgraced, and banished from Badjoura. Luckily the pleuretic stitch came again, and I was called to bleed him, which I did with a lancet; but he was so terrified at its brightness, at the ceremony of the towel and the bason, and at my preparation, that it did not please him, and therefore he was obliged to be reconciled to Christopher and his tabange.—Badjoura is in lat. 26° 3´ 16´´; and is situated on the western shore of the Nile, as Furshout is likewise.
We left Furshout the 7th of January 1769, early in the morning. We had not hired our boat farther than Furshout; but the good terms which subsisted between me and the saint, my Rais, made an accommodation very easy to carry us farther. He now agreed for L. 4 to carry us to Syene and down again; but, if he behaved well, he expected a trifling premium. “And, if you behave ill, Hassan, said I, what do you think you deserve?”—“To be hanged, said he, I deserve, and desire no better.”
Our wind at first was but scant. The Rais said, that he thought his boat did not go as it used to do, and that it was growing into a tree. The wind, however, freshened up towards noon, and eased him of his fears. We passed a large town called How, on the west side of the Nile. About four o’clock in the afternoon we arrived at El Gourni, a small village, a quarter of a mile distant from the Nile. It has in it a temple of old Egyptian architecture. I think that this, and the two adjoining heaps of ruins, which are at the same distance from the Nile, probably might have been part of the ancient Thebes.
Shaamy and Taamy are two colossal statues in a sitting posture covered with hieroglyphics. The southmost is of one stone, and perfectly entire. The northmost is a good deal more mutilated. It was probably broken by Cambyses; and they have since endeavoured to repair it. The other has a very remarkable head-dress, which can be compared to nothing but a tye-wig, such as worn in the present day. These two, situated in a very fertile spot belonging to Thebes, were apparently the Nilometers of that town, as the marks which the water has left upon the bases sufficiently shew. The bases of both of them are bare, and uncovered, to the bottom of the plinth, or lowest member of their pedestal; so that there is not the eighth of an inch of the lowest part of them covered with mud, though they stand in the middle of a plain, and have stood there certainly above 3000 years; since which time, if the fanciful rise of the land of Egypt by the Nile had been true, the earth should have been raised so as fully to conceal half of them both.
These statues are covered with inscriptions of Greek and Latin; the import of which seems to be, that there were certain travellers, or particular people, who heard Memnon’s statue utter the sound it was said to do, upon being struck with the rays of the sun.
It may be very reasonably expected, that I should here say something of the building and fall of the first Thebes; but as this would carry me to very early ages, and interrupt for a long time my voyage upon the Nile; as this is, besides, connected with the history of several nations which I am about to describe, and more proper for the work of an historian, than the cursory descriptions of a traveller, I shall defer saying any thing upon the subject, till I come to treat of it in the first of these characters, and more especially till I shall speak of the origin of the Shepherds, and the calamities brought upon Egypt by that powerful nation, a people often mentioned by different writers, but whose history hitherto has been but imperfectly known.