The Swedish General Consul D’Anastasi, who manages the Prussian Consulate for our absent Consul Von Wagner, and who interests himself zealously in our behalf, presented us to-day to the Viceroy, and we have just returned from the audience. The Pasha expressed great pleasure at the vases which I had brought him in the name of His Majesty. Still more did he feel himself honoured by the letter of the King, of which he immediately had a translation prepared, reading it very attentively through in our presence. He signified to me his intention of giving us the reply when we again left the country. He received and dismissed us standing, had coffee presented, and showed us other attentions, which were afterwards carefully explained to me by D’Anastasi. Boghos Bey, his confidential minister, was the only person present, nor did he seat himself. Mohammed Ali showed himself brisk and youthful in his motions and conversation; no weakness was to be seen in the countenance and flashing eye of the old man of three-and-seventy springs. He spoke with interest of his Nile expeditions, and assured us that he should continue them until he had discovered the sources of the White River. To my question concerning his museum in Cairo, he replied that it was not yet very considerable; that many unjust requisitions were made of him in Europe, in desiring rapid progress in his undertakings, for which he had first to create the foundation, that had been prepared long since with us in Europe. I touched but slightly on our excavations, and took his permission for granted in conversation, expecting it to be soon given me in due form.[2]
LETTER III.
Cairo.
October 16, 1842.
We were detained nearly fourteen days in Alexandria. The whole time went in preparations for our journey; the Pasha I saw several times more, and I found him ever favourably disposed towards our expedition. Our scientific researches were inconsiderable. We visited the Pompeian pillar, which, however, stands in no relation to Pompey, but, as the Greek inscription on the base informs us, was erected to the Emperor Diocletian by the Præfect Publius. The blocks of the foundation are partly formed of the fragments of older buildings; on one of them the throne-cartouche of the second Psammetichus was yet distinguishable.
The two obelisks, of which the one still standing is named Cleopatra’s Needle, are much disintegrated on the weather side, and in parts have become quite illegible.[4] They were erected by Tuthmosis III. in the sixteenth century A.C.; at a later period, Ramses Miamun has inscribed himself; and still later, on the outermost edges, another King, who was found to be one, till now, totally unknown, and who was therefore greeted by me with great joy. I must yet mention an interesting collection of ethnographical articles and specimens of natural history of every kind which have been collected by a native Prussian, Werne,[5] on the second Nile expedition of the Pasha to the White River, in countries hitherto quite unknown, and have been transported to Alexandria but a few months ago. It appeared to me to be so important and so unique of its kind that I have purchased it for our museum. While we were yet there it was packed up for transport. I think it will be welcome in Berlin.
At length the bujurldis (passports) of the Pasha were ready, and now we made haste to quit Alexandria. We embarked the same day that I received them (on the 30th of September), on the Mahmoudîeh canal. Darkness surprised us ere we could finish our preparations. At 9 o’clock we left our hotel, in the spacious and beautiful Frank’s Place, in M. D’Anastasi’s two carriages; before us were the customary runners with torches. The gate was opened at the word that was given us; our packages had been transported to the bark several hours before upon camels, so that we could soon depart in the roomy vessel which I had hired in the morning. The Nile, into which we ran at Atfeh, rolled somewhat considerable waves, as there was a violent and unfavourable wind. Sailing is not without danger here, particularly in the dark, as the two customary pointed sails, like the wings of a bee, are easily blown down at every gust; therefore I advised the sailors to stop, which they did every night when it was stormy.
Next day, the 2nd of October, we landed at Sâ el Hager to visit the remains of ancient Saïs, that city of the Psammetiche so celebrated for its temple to Minerva. Scarcely anything exists of it but the walls, built of bricks of Nile earth, and the desolate ruins of the houses: there are no remains of any stone buildings with inscriptions. We paced the circumference of the city and took a simple plan of the locality. In the northwestern portion of the city her Acropolis once stood, which is still to be distinguished by higher mounds of rubbish. We stopped the night at Nekleh. I have the great charts of the Description de l’Egypte with me, on which we could follow almost every step of our trips. We found them, till now, very faithful everywhere.
On the 3rd we landed on the western bank, in order to see the remains of the ancient canal of Rosetta, and afterward spent nearly the whole of the afternoon in examining the ruins of an old city near Naharîeh; no walls are now visible, only rubbish-mounds remain; but we found in the houses of the new town, several stones bearing inscriptions, and mostly used for thresholds, originally belonging to a temple of King Psammetichus I. and Apries (Hophre). Next night, we stopped on the western shore near Teirîeh, and landed there the next morning, to seek for some ruins situated at about an hour’s distance, but from which we obtained nothing. The Libyan desert approaches quite close to the Nile here, for the first time, and gave us a novel, well-to-be-remembered prospect.
On the following morning we first perceived the great pyramids of Memphis rising up above the horizon: I could not turn my eyes away from them for a long time. We were still on the Rosetta branch; at noon we came to the so-called Cow’s Belly, where the Nile divides into its two principal arms. Now, for the first time, could we overlook the stately, wonderful river, resembling no other in its utmost grandeur, which rules the lives and manners of the inhabitants of its shores by its fertile and well-tasting waters. Toward the beginning of October it attains its greatest height. But this year there is an inundation like none that has been known for generations. People begin to be afraid of the dykes bursting, which would be the second plague brought upon Egypt in this year, after the great cattle murrain, which down to last week had carried off forty thousand head of cattle.
About five o’clock in the evening we arrived at Bulaq, the port of Cairo; we rode immediately from the harbour to the city, and prepared for a longer residence in this place. By-the-by, that we should say Cairo, and the French le Caire, is a manifest error. The town is now never called by any name but Mas’r by the Arabs, and so also the country; it is the ancient Semetic, more euphonious for us in the dual Mis’raim. First, at the foundation of the present city in the tenth century, New Mas’r was distinguished from the ancient Mas’r el Atîgeh, the present Old Cairo, by the addition of El Qâhireh, i. e. “the Victorious.” The Italians omitted the h, unpronounceable in their language, took the Arabic article el for their masculine il, and so considered the whole word, by its ending too, a masculine.