[56]In the little room, in one of the tombs of the kings at Thebes, where articles of furniture are represented on the walls, I observed a heap of similarly shaped blocks of wood, a proof that it was made use of in the manufacture of the choicest articles of furniture.
[57]In countries where camels are bred in great numbers, land-carriage is almost as cheap as that by water. The carriage for a camel-load of goods, weighing from six to seven hundred pounds English, from Bagdad to Aleppo, a distance of six hundred miles, is £4. What is the freight by sea of seven quintals, from London to Hull?
[59]Near the western avenue of sphinxes at Karnac a monolith temple lies on the ground, resembling the one at Gaou, but smaller.
[60]One para is the usual fare of a ferry-boat in Egypt.
[61]The secretary of Hassan Kashef at Derr, told me that there were details on the history of Nubia, in the history of the city of Béhnese (Oxyrinchus), which work is among the Arabic manuscripts sent by me to England from Aleppo. The best Arabian historian of Nubia is Ibn Selym el Assouany (ابن سليم الاصواني في اخبار النوبة); but I never saw his book either in Syria or Egypt.
[62]The greater part of the Egyptian peasants north of Benisouef have the same origin: they are the descendants either of Moggrebyn or Arabian tribes. In Egypt I have even met with the descendants of Syrian Bedouins.
[64]When the Turkish troops, under Ibrahim Beg, after driving the Mamelouks into the eastern mountains, occupied Nubia as far as Wady Halfa, the three princes retired with their followers into Dóngola, and remained there till the Turks withdrew towards Assouan, when they returned to Derr.
[65]In November 1813, Mohammed Kashef arrived at Esne, in his way to Siout, for the purpose of visiting Ibrahim Pasha, the governor of Upper Egypt, who, it was well known, entertained hostile designs against Nubia. Being anxious to conciliate the Pasha, he had brought with him presents of slaves, dromedaries, and Dóngola horses; but the chief object of the Kashef’s journey was to complain against Hosseyn, his eldest brother, who had lately invested his two eldest sons, Daoud and Khalil, with a share of the government of Nubia, and had obliged his two brothers to divide the revenue equally, with their nephews, thus creating five governors of the country. At Esne, Mohammed met a troop of about one hundred soldiers, who had been dispatched by Ibrahim Pasha, against Nubia; deeming it useless, therefore, to proceed farther, he returned towards his home with the Turks, at whose approach his two brothers fled to the island of Okme, beyond the second cataract at Wady Halfa, notwithstanding every promise of safety. The Turks pursued their march as far as Wady Halfa, collecting from every Sakie in the name of Ibrahim Pasha, the land-tax, of which they allowed Mohammed Kashef about one-twelfth of the whole amount, for his own subsistence. It was evidently the object of this expedition to seize the persons of all the governors; but in this it failed. After staying nearly a year in the country, in the course of which they collected the land-tax, from the summer seed also, the Turks returned to Upper Egypt. In 1815, the Turks again visited Nubia, and compelled the peasants to furnish the amount of the imposts in camels, instead of grain; as soon as they withdrew, the Kashefs returned to Derr, and, in their turn also exacted the land-tax from their subjects, who are now exposed both to the rapacity of the Turks and to that of their own governors, all equally merciless, owing to the uncertain duration of their respective powers.