CHAP. IV.
TERANÉ TO THE NATRÔN LAKES.
Government of Terané — Carlo Rossetti — The Trade in Natrôn — Manners — Journey to the Lakes — Observations there — Remarks on Natrôn — Coptic Convents and MSS. — Proceed to Kahira.
Terané is a town situated on the left of the most western mouth of the Nile, at a very small distance from the river. Its latitude is 30° 24′. The buildings are chiefly unburned brick, but there are also some of stone. The town and district, containing several villages, belong to Murad Bey, who usually entrusts its government and the collection of its revenue to one of his Cashefs. But the person who now holds it, May 1792, is Carlo Rossetti, a Venetian merchant, recently appointed consul-general of the Emperor of Germany, and well known to those who have visited the country. Observing, as he thought, the demands for natrôn increasing in Europe, he supposed that by obtaining an exclusive right to collect and export it, he should secure to himself an immense and increasing revenue. Till now, indeed, this article had never been productive of any advantage to the Beys. The officers who successively obtained the government there, exacting, without any settled rule, whatever they thought themselves entitled to expect from the people, who brought the commodity from the lakes to the river: and the European merchants obtained it by their agents at the cheapest rate they were able from the natives. The quantity supplied, the prime cost, and the contingent charges, were therefore variable and uncertain. It had never before, as I understood, been farmed by an European. Sre Rossetti wished for a clear and exclusive property in the produce of the lakes, on paying regularly an annual sum, to be determined by the quantity sold. He has attained, from long experience, a considerable local knowlege, and had, at that time, from various causes, great interest with Murad Bey. Pecuniary prospects singularly influence those regents, whose office being precarious, and at most for life, totally omit to reflect on any remote consequences, for the sake of an immediate advantage. The proposal was accepted, and Rossetti obtained over the district of Terané an authority almost equal to that exercised in former times by the Cashefs.
At that time the consumption was augmenting at Marseilles, Venice, and Leghorn, and the article had been tried with some success in Great Britain. Rossetti sent his nephew to reside at Terané as his deputy. But the young man, preferring the repose of his sofa to the Mamlûk exercises of arms, was little adapted to the government of a people accustomed to be ruled only by fear. He had a few Sclavonian soldiers, who could not prevent injuries being done to the little parties employed to fetch the natrôn. About three months after I left Terané the young man died, not without suspicions of poison; and Sre Rossetti has since sold a large share in the grant, which he now retains to little purpose.
During the year of the most extensive export, the duty to government amounted, as was said, to 32,000 patackes, which, at twelve piatres the pound sterling, may be estimated at 6000l. Hence the quantity must have been from 3500 to 4000 tons, of which the greater part was shipped for Marseilles. The present war exceedingly reduced the quantity exported.
On my arrival at Terané, my application to Sre Ferrari, nephew of Rossetti, for whom recommendations had been given me, was attended with assurances from that gentleman of his co-operation in all I might wish to undertake, and an invitation to reside with him. I passed a day in wandering over the adjacent ground, particularly that part of the Delta which is opposite the town, where are many columns and other considerable remains, which indicate the site of antient structures. I could, however, find no inscriptions, nor, indeed, any thing that was worth the search.
Sre Rossetti had made a very neat garden near his house, in which was cultivated a number of fruit-trees and useful plants. He had also attempted many other improvements, by planting trees, &c. in the suburbs; but in this laudable design he was far from being seconded by the natives, who refused even to water the trees he had been at the trouble of planting, and seemed to judge their forbearance remarkable in abstaining from their destruction. A striking lesson to those who would force refinement on any people, to which they must ever be stimulated by their necessities, or led by their personal conviction. Yet, perhaps, they had suspicions which are unexplained, or discontents at the appearance of novelty, concerning the sources of which we are ignorant. I have ever observed the Egyptians, as all the Orientals, passionately fond of trees and water; and if in this instance they preferred being without them, it might possibly be from distrust of bringing on themselves some real evil, by the pursuit of an imaginary advantage.
The ensuing night, when the Arabs were to go to the lake for a lading of natrôn, Sre F. appointed his company of five Sclavonians to attend me, and I set off at nine in the evening on horseback. We continued our march, chiefly in a western direction, till seven the following morning, at which time we came to a spring of fresh water, that rises among some rushes near the lake, which, though it afford no very copious supply of water, was yet a seasonable refreshment, as the heat of the sun was already inconvenient. The latitude at the eastern extremity of the most western lake I found 30°, 31′, north; but this is not decided by a single observation. The difference of time between Terané and the Convents of St. George, gave a distance, as nearly as I could compute it, of thirty-five miles.