[p.441]here from Medina, had not been received, and my acquaintances had supposed me lost. The plague had nearly subsided; some of the Christians had already re-opened their houses; but great gloom seemed to have overspread the town from the mortality that had taken place.
The joy I felt at my safe return to Cairo was considerably increased by flattering and encouraging letters from England; but my state of health was too low to admit of fully indulging in the pleasures of success. The physicians of Cairo are of the same set of European quacks so frequently found in other parts of the Levant: they made me swallow pounds of bark, and thus rendered my disease worse; and it was not till two months after that I regained my perfect health at Alexandria, whither I had gone to pay a visit to Colonel Missett, the British resident in Egypt, who had already laid me under so many obligations, and to whose kind attentions, added to regular exercise on horseback, more than to any thing else, I was indebted for my recovery. A delightful journey, in the winter months, through Lower Egypt, and by the Lake Menzaleh, restored me to my wonted strength, which I am happy to say has never since experienced any abatement.
[p.443] APPENDIX.
[p.445] APPENDIX.
No. I.
Stations of the Pilgrim Caravan, called the Hadj el Kebsy, through the mountainous country between Mekka and Sanaa in Yemen.
MEKKA.
1st day. Shedád; some coffee-huts.
2. Kura, a small village on the summit of the mountain so called.
3. Tayf.