But there were mills where the pestles were raised by men’s feet; one man pressing alternately, with his two feet, first on one lever and then on the other.[21]
Some of the oxen employed in the rice-mills were of a prodigious size. I measured the largest of Mr. Surur’s, and found it to be eight feet long from between the horns to the edge of the os ischyi, near the tail, and six feet one inch high from the ground to the withers: but they were not so fat as in England.
The environs of Damietta were, like those of Rosetta, covered with orchards, rice grounds, and corn fields. Towards the sea were some extensive salt tanks, from which Egypt and Syria are supplied with that useful condiment, and salt consequently formed an important article of export: they were about a league and a half from the town, in a north-east direction. On arriving at the spot, a vast number of shallow pits were observable, with a trench leading to each. At a certain time the sea water is let into them; and, when of a proper depth, they are left to evaporate for a sufficient number of months, until the evaporation is completed, when the salt is scraped up, and carried to the quays of the river on asses.
Close to these salt-pits, we were told, grew the papyrus. M. Basil Fackhr, the French agent, was obliging enough to send a man, with another gentleman and myself, who were curious to see this plant, to the pool of water where it grew. I found it to resemble the bulrush, with a cylindrical velvety head on a long stalk, and thought it to be such a rush as I had frequently seen in England. I brought away with me two or three.[22]
There were some literary men in Damietta. Travellers are too hasty in forming their opinions of Levantines and the other subjects of the Turkish empire, when they fancy them to be grossly ignorant of book-learning. It will surprise many persons to know that, at Damietta, there was a small society of Christian merchants, at the head of which was M. Basilius Fakhr, who met for the purpose of reading and translating into Arabic such European works as they judged to be wanted in that language. They had already made versions of fifteen volumes upon different subjects; among which I recollect Lalande’s work on Astronomy, Tissot’s Avis au peuple, Volney’s Ruines de l’ancien monde; but the others have escaped my memory. Their meetings were held at each other’s houses in the evening. One of the members was a learned monk, named Saba, whom a ten years’ residence in the Società de Propaganda Fide, at Rome, had made perfect master of the Italian language. He had been called by his clerical duties into Syria, where he was chosen superior-general of the monasteries of the schismatic Greeks, to whom he belonged. It was to his scientific acquirements that the little society was chiefly indebted for the treatise on Astronomy by Lalande: and his loss was severely felt by it.
The day after my arrival, Lady Hester, Mr. B. and Mr. Pearce, reached Damietta. Great additions had been made to the retinue and baggage. There were six green marquees, ornamented with flowers. Several light coffers had been purchased, for the purpose of mule carriage, of the peculiar manufacture of Egypt; being made of a slender frame of date-tree laths, as tough almost as metal, and yet light and spongy.[23] Nothing that could serve to render travelling in Syria agreeable had been neglected.
My servant, Mohammed, had been guilty of some trifling peculations, and I was under the necessity of dismissing him. The other servants, who had been hired at Alexandria, gave little satisfaction; but the country afforded no better. It will be seen hereafter that they were only making a convenience of their mistress, in order to get a passage to Syria and a sight of Jerusalem.
The first and most urgent business after Lady Hester’s arrival was to visit two or three vessels on the river, and to examine how far they were fit for our passage to Syria. Our misfortune at Rhodes had made us timorous; and, although the gales of wind, customary in the winter season, had ceased to blow, our fears were yet awake to the risk of embarking in Levantine ships. A three-masted polacca was at last hired.
Our stay at Damietta was not long: for the fleas, musquitoes, and flies, engendered by the neighbourhood of the rice-marshes, rendered the place, during the spring of the year, insupportable as a residence. Some altercation had likewise taken place with our host, Maalem Ayrût, and this rather served to hasten our departure. On the 11th of May, therefore, we embarked on board the polacca, and sailed down as far as the bar of the river. Here all our luggage was transferred from the ship to flat-bottomed barges, and, the tents being pitched on the sands, we passed the night in them.
In descending from Damietta to the mouth of the river there are several villages, hamlets, and single cottages to be seen on its banks. The last place is El Usby, on the east bank, where the Christian merchants often go to recover their health when labouring under chronic maladies. It has the benefit of being near the sea; otherwise, it is a town just like the other towns of Egypt. Variety from hill or valley, wood or lawn, is looked for in vain in a country where the soil is one uniform level, subject to one uniform culture, and with productions which differ very little from province to province.