Lake Menzaleh is not of great antiquity: Macrisi speaks of it as having been made to prevent the recurrence of invasions on the side of the Syrian desert. The ruins which are still to be found in and about it have rendered it an object of curiosity. In my first visit to Damietta, in company with Lady Hester, I was prevented from indulging the wish I entertained to see it, owing to the shortness of our stay, and to the hurry which our preparations for the voyage to Syria occasioned.
Mâlem Surûr made such arrangements as he thought would render us comfortable, in furnishing us with a basket of provisions, and sending his janissary as our guard. Just before sunset, on Sunday evening, the 30th of September, we traversed the beautiful environs of the city, for about two miles, down to the edge of the lake at the place of embarkation, called Mehúb, where we found a small barge, of the kind common to these waters, waiting for us. It had a temporary awning made of rush mats. The solid construction of the boat itself rendered it so far from crank that we could walk or sit in it anywhere without rendering it lapsided. Our boatmen were three brothers: two men, Ahmed and Segáwy, and Metwelly, a lad. Shaykh Ibrahim had with him his black slave, Fadl allah and Shâaty, a servant he had hired at Damietta, and I had Giovanni. The crew were furnished with poles, to push the boat over the shallows, and to force her onwards when there was no wind. In this operation, the poles are rested against the shoulder; and, considering the great force occasionally used, it is wonderful that no injury ensues. The servant, with the provisions, not having yet arrived, we amused ourselves in observing Mâlem Surûr, who, mounted on a Mameluke saddle, exhibited more skill in horsemanship than Christians in these countries are generally possessed of. His youth, he not being more than nineteen years of age, gave him every disposition to enjoy the privileges attached to his situation.
At nightfall, Mâlem Surûr took his leave. We embarked, and had not got far from the shore when the shaykh recollected that he had brought away certain letters, prepared for Alexandria, which he had forgotten to leave. We therefore put about, and returned to Mehúb, the place of embarkation. At each place of embarkation, of which there are many on the borders of the lake, a soldier is generally stationed to levy the customs, which he farms from the chief officer at Damietta. It is not necessary to ascertain what his claim was on our boat; but no sooner had Ahmed, accompanied by his brother, stepped on shore to find a boy to carry the letters to Damietta, than he was seized by the soldier, and desired to pay the dues. It was now quite dark. Ahmed assured the soldier he had no money, as he had yet received nothing from his passengers; but, not being believed, he was forcibly thrust into the guard-house, where the soldier began to beat him most unmercifully. His cries induced his brother to beseech Shaykh Ibrahim (who was on shore delivering his instructions to the messenger about the letters) to go to Ahmed’s assistance. The shaykh went; and with great promptitude broke open the door, and rescued him from the grasp of his enraged assailant, who had, in addition to a beating, drawn his yatagan, and was threatening his life. The soldier was promised a bastinadoing on our return to Damietta.
It was some time before Ahmed could now be made to hold his tongue, when he found he could vociferate without fear of reprisals; at last quiet was restored, and finally we re-embarked. We supped, and lay down to rest in our clothes, under our rush tent, and at three in the morning were disturbed by the boatmen, who told us we had arrived at Mataryah. We had passed during the night two islands, el Usbeh and el Luskeh; but at what distances, and in what direction of the compass, we had not observed.
When day dawned, we found Mataryah to be a large fishing village. Of the houses which faced the lake, some were of brick, and others mud; but, as it is customary in Egypt, the buildings seemed rather decaying than improving. The shaykh’s name was Hassan el Fâal. The water-side exhibited, as usual, a scene of women filling their water-jars, men washing themselves for prayers or other causes, and naked children paddling about. We endeavoured to purchase a little milk; and, having waited until Ahmed, whose family lived here, had gone to his house and returned, at seven o’clock on the first of October, we loosened our sail, and stood south and by east.
Continuing in this direction for one hour, about nine we entered the canal, called Toret el Möez, and the mouth itself was named, by the räis, Ahmed, Halc el Naby. Mataryah bore from this point north-east and by north. As the current ran out very strong, and there was no wind, we made the boat fast to a pole thrust into the mud, and breakfasted. Close to us was a fisherman’s seat, in which he sat to watch his nets; many more of which we saw up the canal. These were made of layers of rushes, pressed down between four stakes, and formed the apex of two converging sets of stakes. The net was placed between them; and the current, as it brought down the fish, drove them into the enclosed part, where they were entrapped. The mouth of the canal was single; but, immediately within it, the course of the canal itself was no longer distinguishable to a person unacquainted with its navigation, as various streams were seen coming in different directions to the same point; which was occasioned by the retiring of the Nile waters, now just on the decrease.
About half an hour before noon the breeze freshened; and we, fancying that our räis was only gaining time in order to make money, since his agreement was at a certain rate per day, obliged him to cast off. In about two hours, we arrived at Melikeen, a square mud hamlet on the east bank of the canal. This hamlet now stood insulated; for in front of it was the canal, and round it were meadows overflowed; so that the children were seen dabbling in the water like amphibious creatures, and men were going from hamlet to hamlet wading up to their waists, either with their clothes pulled up or entirely naked.
The inhabitants of Melikeen, our räis told us, ranked themselves in the class of dervises, and assumed the name of fakírs. They were known, when they wandered from their native town, by a bit of white rag, going under the chin and over the head, and tied down by the turban. They carried a cruise of water by their sides, to give to drink to whosoever asked them; this was their principal vow. They were bound, if beaten, to make no resistance, not to steal, and to some other observances which I now forget.
About three we arrived at another hamlet, similar to the first, but on the opposite bank of the canal, called Melikeen el fokany, or Upper Melekeen, in contradistinction to that below it. The banks hitherto had been lined with reeds and rushes; nor could we distinguish what was behind them, excepting here and there through openings which discovered an almost entire inundation. Here we found the monotony of the scene a little relieved by tamarisk bushes (turfy) growing in hedges. The banks hereabouts emerged from the waters, and might be about fifty yards apart, as far as we could judge by the eye. Our räis had pretended that the depth of the canal was greater than the length of the pole which he held in his hands—perhaps twenty feet long; and upon his assertion we had already noted it; but, wishing to assure myself farther, I sounded, and found only nine feet water.
In the afternoon we arrived at a third hamlet, called Weled Ali, much the same in appearance as the others. Indeed the square walls of mud in which they were enclosed concealed the interior from us; but it is sufficient to be familiar with one of them to know them all. Our course soon changed to South West. The canal here divided, and we kept the left branch: but we observed the two branches again to join, having thus formed a small island. From Melikeen upwards, we had remarked, besides the hamlets, certain little pounds, or pens, made of mud walls about four or five feet high, upon knolls of ground, which remained dry here and there on the banks: these, we were told, were the retreats of the buffaloes and herdsmen at night; for, the moment the retiring waters leave the grass and rushes visible above the surface, these meadows are resorted to by the peasantry, who pasture their buffaloes on them while yet swampy; such swamps, it would seem, being best suited to the nature of those beasts. To protect them by night, they are penned in these enclosures of a few yards’ breadth; and man and beast here live more together certainly than we had ever yet witnessed in brute and reasonable animals.