The ecclesiastics all read, and many of them write. All merchants of any consequence read, and many write. Often their female offspring are taught to read. The Copts most of them read and write. Who then regards the arts of reading and writing with admiration? The soldiers, the peasants, and the laborious part of the populace are ignorant enough of reading and writing, but by no means wonder or are astonished at what they see daily practised.
Berthier’s Letter, 2 Fructidor.
P. 536. All Egypt, according to this writer, is in submission to the French troops; but it appears the farthest post the latter have occupied is at four leagues from Cairo, where there is an entrenched camp; then there remain 130 leagues yet to subdue.
P. 599. It seems to me impossible that the old port could contain half the number of vessels here mentioned, viz. 300.
—. This place, whose name is so murdered, is spelled Jibbrîsh.
P. 603. In Julien’s letter, I know not how the flag could be placed on the walls of the celebrated city Thebes, when all that remains of that city is the ruins of public buildings, that formed a part of its interior.—Often join, &c. There is one annual feast dedicated to the Prophet, called Mewlet-en-Nebbi, which lasts one day; and one feast also annual in honour of cutting the Chalige, which also lasts one day. How did the soldiers then often celebrate them?
604. The canal of Alexandria wanted nothing more than to be cleared of the sand which had accumulated in it, and to be defended by a dike against the incroachments of the sea, which the citizens of Alexandria refused to do for themselves, lest the repair of all other public works should be expected from them, and the Beys would not do it for them.
Dolomieu’s Letter.
Vol. 20. p. 50. He says the Alexandria of the Greeks was situated on a tongue of land, formed by earth lately accumulated, when the city was founded.—He means, I suppose, that the sea had left it but lately. This is possible. The natural soil round the city is rock intermixed with sand. The vegetable mold appears to have been extraneous. If he suppose that district, like the Delta, to have been a deposition of the river, this seems utterly improbable; all the circumstances are at variance, which in such a case should be common to both. The land which divided the lake from the sea is a rocky ridge, which seems to have undergone no variation for a great length of time. The remark as to the column of Pompey is not new; but I cannot agree that the capital and base are of bad taste. The sharp relief of the foliage and mouldings is worn off by time, and it never was perhaps possible to exhibit on granite marble the finer strokes of the chissel, but the proportions, though not those of the later Corinthian, are strictly conformable to those of the purest age of architecture. What may have been discovered relatively to the obelisk by digging is uncertain; but from a comparison of this with the circumstances attending the obelisks at Thebes, it cannot be deduced that much is lost of its height. It must have been erected in the most flourishing state of the city, and while it remained in that state, it seems scarcely probable that such multitudes of ruins should have existed as to raise other buildings on them. I am satisfied, from the position of the one that remains entire, and the broken one near it, they never underwent a second arrangement, but remain in their relative position, as at the gate of some public building. The obelisk is in a very low part of the city, (which indeed is all very low,) and very little above the level of the sea—how does this accord with the ruins of other buildings being yet found under it? Perhaps in this part a firm foundation was not found very near the surface, and the builders have formed an artificial one. The French antiquary may have mistaken this for the ruins of buildings.
P. 59. My measurement of the height of the pyramid was a few feet short of this, but does not very materially differ from the one here given.