Lady Hester’s stay at Rosetta was no longer than was sufficient to prepare the boats necessary for conveying us up to Cairo. The Nile was at this time at its lowest ebb. Two barges of a large size were hired, one for Lady Hester and her maids, and one for Mr. B., Mr. Pearce, and myself. They are called, in Arabic, mashes, and are very commodious; they have sometimes a single lateen sail, sometimes two or three. The portion of the vessel towards the stern is covered in, like a London pleasure-barge, and the mouldings and doors are neatly carved and gilded. They have two cabins of about eight feet square; small indeed, but sufficiently large to contain a bed, to eat in, and for whatever purposes a cabin can be wanted. The sail is used when the wind is fair, and, from the windings of the river, it happens that no one wind is always unfair: if the sail will not serve, then towing is resorted to; and the sailors show no little skill in keeping the head of the barge to the stream, and in forcing her onwards. There is a fireplace in the forecastle, and every village on the banks of the river supplies eggs, milk, and poultry: so that nothing can exceed the convenience of such a conveyance.
Having taken leave of Captain Hope, who returned to Alexandria, we left Rosetta, on the 9th of March: and, proceeding up the Nile, we sailed in company for two days, generally landing once or twice a day to walk by the river-side, keeping pace with the boats, which often ran aground, owing to the sand-banks that abound, when the water is low. Not far up the river, in conformity with a promise I had made the Mufti of Rosetta to visit his brother, shaykh of a place named Debby, abreast of which we now were, and which is about a mile from the waterside, I landed; and, accompanied by Mr. B. and Mr. Pearce, was conducted to the house of the shaykh, who was labouring under ophthalmia: I gave him a collyrium, and we took our leave. As a mark of his gratitude for this little service, he sent on board three live lambs, one hundred eggs, and a gallon of milk, having previously overwhelmed us with thanks. We re-embarked: the stream was gentle, and the motion scarcely perceptible. Celebrated as the Nile has been in all ages, it has nothing to recommend it in point of beauty, and the water is the most turbid that can be seen. The third day, our barge ran aground so firmly, that, during the time that was spent in getting her off, Lady Hester’s barge got so much the start of us as to reach Cairo one day before us: and when we arrived, on the 14th of March, the sixth day from our departure, she was already settled in the house prepared for her.
During the season of the ebb of the river, the banks are so high that nothing whatever can be seen from the boat; it is necessary, therefore, to land to get a view of the country. When landed, the eye roves over an endless plain, the sameness of which is broken by groves of date-trees, and, in the midst of them, on low eminences, generally stand villages and towns. The spectator feels a kind of loneliness, and is forced to recall to his mind the productiveneness of the land—to balance the useful with the agreeable—before he can bring himself to admit that Egypt in reality equals its renown. When, however, he walks inland a few furlongs, when he beholds the richness of vegetation, the variety of grain, the indescribable fatness of the soil—the whole together, if he reflects, must forcibly strike him as an example of fertility, well worthy of all the praises that poets and historians have bestowed upon it. The miserable villages of the peasants were an assemblage of hovels, made of mud, or of mud bricks baked in the sun. As they are fearful of Bedouins, or robbers of other kinds, the village is generally shut in by a mud wall, more often rudely quadrangular than otherwise, of a height sufficient to prevent a man’s getting over. To this there is one gate. On entering, a street somewhat wide generally leads from it, and here will be found the villagers squatted on their haunches, eyeing with suspicious looks every stranger that enters, lest he should be some government officer, some soldier, or one of those from whom they are accustomed to experience harm or loss. If the stranger, led by the curiosity natural to a European, should endeavour to penetrate farther into the village, he finds himself, at every instant, opposed by a blind alley; or he winds through a lane which, perhaps, brings him out just where he entered: and, in some villages, we found mazes more intricate than the Cretan labyrinth is reported to have been. Then the alarm of the women running to hide themselves, and of the children scampering after them, the jealousy of the husbands, and sometimes the barking of dogs, make it altogether difficult for a European to do more than to seat himself in some open space, and limit his curiosity to the sight of what comes before him.
As a strong wind generally prevails during the heat of the day, the dust raised by it is sometimes borne in such volumes as almost to blind a person: and it is this that serves (not to generate, but once generated) to keep up the ophthalmia so common in Egypt. Eyes that have once become sore are seldom entirely cured in this country; and the soreness either terminates in blear eyes or blindness.
We were within ten or fifteen miles of Cairo, and at dinner, when we were informed that the Pyramids were in sight; we naturally rose from table, and hastened to behold these wonderful monuments: but at this distance they excited no astonishment, for the size of their bases is so large as to render their height much less striking than it otherwise would be.
In the night of the fifth day from our departure, we arrived at Bulák, where are the warehouses and quays of Cairo. We had retired to rest, and, on waking in the morning, the crowd and bustle on the shore marked the vicinity of a metropolis. The mode of conveyance all through Egypt is on asses for short distances, and on camels for longer ones. The asses are trained to go at an amble so expeditiously and pleasantly that Indolence could not invent anything more agreeable. Their saddles were not made of leather, but of a sort of web, and stuffed, with a high pummel and low croup, to a considerable thickness. The stirrups were of bronze, and of the shape of those worn by the hussar cavalry. The bridle reins were made of silk and worsted, with gay tassels. The whole furniture of a gentleman’s ass would cost not less than from five to ten pounds. Each ass had its driver, who ran behind with a small goad, and warned the passengers to clear the road; and, as the passengers were many, and the roads generally narrow, his lungs were never at rest for a moment.
Being all mounted, and the luggage-asses loaded, we set off about nine o’clock in the morning for Cairo, which is (as far as I recollect) about a mile from the river. In entering the city from this quarter, the road passed through a large meadow in the suburbs, called the Usbekéah, on one side of which was the palace of the pasha. He happened to be returning from a ride at the moment we were passing; and, just in the centre of the meadow, where the two main roads cut each other at right angles, he came up one as we came up the other. He was on a mule, accompanied by a numerous suite, more splendidly mounted and dressed than any retinue I had ever seen in Turkey, except in the imperial procession at Constantinople. Our ass-drivers immediately told us to get down until the pasha had passed by, which, being unaccustomed to such orders, we did not comply with. The pasha cast his eyes upon us, and naturally concluded we were strangers. His suite looked indignantly upon us, as if they waited for the word to make us dismount by force; for the liberties which the Franks think themselves entitled to in Turkish countries are always beheld with an eye of jealousy. The pasha passed on to his palace, and we entered the streets of Cairo.
As the Frank quarter is close to the Usbekéah, we soon came to it, and were shown to Lady Hester’s house through some streets hardly ten feet broad, and where the bow windows on the first floor almost touched: it was insufficient to contain all the party, and Mr. Pearce and myself had to look out lodgings for ourselves. He chose the Franciscan monastery, and I the house of a merchant, built in the flourishing times of Egypt. In some respects, it exceeded any house I afterwards saw. Every room, for the sake of coolness, was floored with marbles, variegated in mosaic work, and wooden blinds, of curious workmanship not unlike the backs of old-fashioned cane chairs, admitted a dim light into the room, and excluded the glaring rays of the sun. The inmates of the house were the merchant himself and a black slave, his mistress—a gentleman who was said to be an apostate Jew, and who had at different times been commissary in the English army, a merchant, and I know not what—an Italian merchant who had become bankrupt, and who was in lodgings until he had retrieved his affairs; and a young clerk. In Turkish towns, where Franks are established, it is not uncommon to meet with adventurers of every kind; and those quiet persons who live by honest and plain dealing would fall into poverty in this country, where chicanery is considered as admissible in all transactions.
Lady Hester’s first care was to equip herself with proper clothes to appear in before the pasha. She chose (among the costumes of Mahometans) that of the people of Barbary, I believe of the Tunisians, and purchased a sumptuous dress, beautifully embroidered, of purple velvet and gold.[18] I dressed myself in the common costume of a gentleman or an effendi.
In four or five days everything was ready for this important visit, no doubt very interesting to the pasha, as he had never seen an Englishwoman of rank before. Indeed her Ladyship’s arrival in Cairo had created a wonderful curiosity in all ranks both of Turks and Christians, and everybody was ambitious of her acquaintance. The pasha sent five horses, richly caparisoned after the Mameluke fashion, on which we mounted, and were conducted to the Usbekéah palace. Much honour was shown her on the occasion: as in the number of silver sticks that walked before her; in the privilege of dismounting at the inner gate; and in other such trifles, which are, however, the scale by which the spectators measure the consequence of a person.