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FROM THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS OF A TRAVELLER IN THE EAST: BY J. S. BUCKINGHAM.

NUMBER THREE.

The narrow

ENTRY INTO CULTIVATED EGYPT. - FEBRUARY 25. strip of land by which we again entered Egypt, imperfect as its state of cultivation was, possessed a thousand charms, after the dreary solitudes of the deserts we had been traversing, when passing through the villages of Fishkel, Ertabi, Toll, Sheick-AbouNashaba, Toll-Kebeer, and Toll-Souheer-none of which are marked in the latest and fullest maps · we halted at Gouraim, to refresh, and were, as usual, soon surrounded by the villagers.

These people formed a link of union between the Bedouins and Fellahs, being neither absolutely wanderers or cultivators, though occasionally participating in the habits of both. Their villages or camps, for they might be called either, with the same propriety, were merely enclosures of dourra canes, without roofs, and afforded even less shelter from the sun and wind than the goat's hair tent of the inhabitants of the desert, their possessors being no longer stationary than during the season of cultivation, and changing their places of abode with the mode of their employment.

The Nile reaches this narrow valley during the height of the inundation only, and for the remainder of the year, their supplies of water are obtained from wells; the water, however, is of an inferior quality, for the purposes of agriculture, to the fertilizing waters of

the river, and as it often fails altogether during the heats of summer, they have only a single harvest in the year. Their implements of husbandry are of the most simple kind; ploughs are not in use among them, and the ground is both opened for seed by a rudelyformed hoe, and harrowed by the same instrument, when the seed is sown. Poor as those villagers are, however, they pay to the pacha's agents about eight-tenths of their gain; and suffer, in addition, the tyrannizing extortion of the soldiery who are sent among them to collect it.

During the frugal meal which we made before the openings of their cane huts, a number of diseased children were brought to us covered with scrofulous eruptions, as our guide and companions now made no scruple of saying that we were strangers and learned men; and as I had invariably found it on all similar occasions, it was so impossible to persuade these people of our not being physicians, that a recommendation of some simple remedy was necessary, to release ourselves from their importunity.

On resuming our journey, we passed through villages to which no other name was attached than that of the Sheick who presided over each, and which consequently changed its appellation with every successive head, or ruling elder. In several of them were corn-pits for the laying up their harvests of grain, the poverty of the people not enabling them to build either barns or sheds; and along our whole route, the very ground, now covered with huts of misery, was strewed with granite fragments of those days of magnificence when opulent cities held the place of villages; when splendid temples were more abundant than well-built dwellings in the present day.

It was nearly sunset when we reached the village of El Abassa, and as it was the residence of a Turkish commandant, we repaired thither, and were well received. This soldier, being himself an invalid, from the diseases of dissipation, was assisted in the exercise of his professional extorting duties, by a more active companion; and, happily for themselves, no two brethren in arms could be better matched in disposition, if their expressed sentiments and opinions could be admitted as a fair criterion.

EL ABASSA To Balbeis.-FEBRUARY 26. -It was with great difficulty we could obtain a release from the pressing solicitations of those brother soldiers to remain with them another night, and nothing but the most determined perseverance, with many grave reasons to prove the importance of our proceeding on, would have succeeded in carrying our point. We breakfasted with them, however, after morning prayers and ablutions, and, accompanied by one of them on horseback, we made together the circuit of the village.

As the site of the ancient Thaubastus, it possesses no remains of its former greatness, excepting a few scattered shafts of marble columns, some blocks of granite, and heaps of loose rubbish. The Nile extends itself here during the height of the inundation only, and the grounds are watered during the other portion of the year from wells, which yield a pure and limpid water, little inferior to that

of the river itself. The population of the village exceeded five thousand, and the sole employment of all classes was husbandry.

Ou departing from El Abassa, we entered on a fine road running through palm-groves and gardens, and enclosed on each side by a mud wall, opening occasionally into beautiful and extensive views of the country, which were delightful in themselves, independent of the additional charm they derived from the contrast with the scenery of our desert route. Among the novelties were brick-kilns, said to have been formerly worked, but now in ruins, being deserted for the want of fuel, and from finding the unburnt earth formed into bricks and dried in the sun, to answer all the purposes of building, as well as possessing a durability equal to the life of the builder, beyond which there are few encouragements to provide. Fields and gardens were also here enclosed, contrary to the general practice throughout Egypt, on account of the portions of sand which are here, on the edge of the desert, interspersed over the face of the ground, and which, if not shut out by walls, would cover the cultivated surface, and destroy the verdure, upon the slightest agitation of the wind.

Among the villages lying in our road, and not enumerated in Arrowsmith's latest and best map, were El-Khirbi-Hassenat, ElKarachisa, and El-Mishat. We passed, also, over the spot marked by that geographer as the site of Heroöpolis, on the very edge of the plain, which, it is true, displays all the usual characteristics of an ancient settlement in ruins, but, from a variety of considerations, there appears greater reason to fix on the remains of the city at Abou-Keshabe, in the midst of the desert, as those of Heroöpolis, because it agrees more consistently with the situation assigned to it by Strabo and Ptolemy, and renders the history of the Israelites' departure from Egypt, and journey to the Red Sea, more reconcilable in the material facts of time and distance, as well as corresponding with the local situation mentioned as the point of their departure, by the writer of that history himself, Moses. The whole of the country through which our road lay, offered a succession of agreeable prospects, and soon after noon, having ridden at a quickened pace, we reached Balbeis.

The reputation of this town, as the provincial capital of the Sharkieh, or eastern province of Lower Egypt, and the station of the Syrian caravans, was sufficient to induce the expectation of a large and populous settlement, containing public accommodations for such passengers as business or pleasure might induce to halt within its walls. I had entered it with such an impression, and our disappointment was consequently the greater, in finding not even a single okella, though we traversed the bazaars, leading our camels by hand, and inquiring at every little bench along the range. Phanoose, though an old caravan-driver between Cairo and Mount Sinai, had never before been at Balbeis, and was loudly indignant at the seeming indifference of those we occasionally questioned, whose duty he thought it was to have voluntarily directed us to some house of accommodation.

As I possessed letters, however, from Hassan Aga at Suez, to Mahommed Bey, the commandant of the district, as well as to his Hasnadar, or Treasurer, who becomes his representative in his ab

sence, we no longer delayed to present them to the Aga of the town, from whom we learnt that both Mahommed Bey and all his officers were at Cairo. The Aga being an Arab by birth, was somewhat more free from the haughty tone of office than the Turks who generally fill those situations; though it must be acknowledged, that to a pride of petty superiority above his fellows, was added, if possible, a grosser ignorance. We remained some time in waiting, before the letters could be read, when a dealer in the bazaars explained their contents, and our reception was as favorable as we could wish.

A small room of about eight feet square was given us for our accommodation, and though there was nothing beyond the bare mud walls and floor, not even a window, or a mat, yet its being covered with a loose flat roof was a luxury, after the burning days and chilling nights of the desert, and rendered it a comfortable lodging. The door of this apartment opening into the court of public justice, when we had got through the task of supplying the necessary provisions to our camels, and stretched ourselves along upon the floor to repose, I indulged myself in observing the divan, or place of audience, on the outside, and watching the bustling changes of its crowded assembly.

The Aga, seated like a king amid his courtiers, was distinguished from the others by the length of his beard, the whiteness of his turban, his red benishe, and gay-colored carpet. On each side of him were ranged the officers who assisted in the duties of the day, apparently traders belonging to the town. And in front were two Arabs, with long staves, for bringing the culprits before him, and for preserving the peace of the court. A number of cases were examined and gone through, with an extraordinary rapidity. There could be no complaint of legal delay; the matter in dispute was simply stated by the accusing party, and the witnesses called, when the prisoner was heard in his defence, and sentence given on the spot, the Aga being himself the sole judge, and that according to the dictates of his own discretion, without allusion or reference either to the opinion of others, to the written law, or even to common usage.

In exchanging civilities with a grave old father, who sat before our door to sun himself, being blind of opthalmia, I ventured to remark to him the temptation to injustice which such a system of unlimited authority was calculated to offer; when he replied, that as, since his blindness, he lived by the benevolence of the charitable, and was without occupation, it formed one of his most agreeable pleasures to attend the Aga's court, in order to hear the causes, and the decisions given on them. The experience he had thus obtained, he said, induced him to accord with me; for though in matters of importance, a show of equity was necessary to be observed, yet the bribes paid for favorable judgment in petty cases, afforded to the Aga himself a handsome revenue, beside leaving a large residue which he paid to the Pasha yearly, for the free exercise of those privileges of extortion and injustice which are attached to his office by purchase.

The last affair, before the sittings of the court closed, was the ex

amination of a young lad, who had been surprised in acts of improper familiarity with a still younger one than himself, and who was brought before the judge with crying and lamentation. It was to me a matter of some surprise, to find a custom cognizable by public justice, which I had so universally been given to understand was in common practice among the Egyptians; yet nothing could exceed the general feeling of repugnance to such a vice evinced by all the auditors. The culprit was threatened with much severity by the judge, pointed at as an object of scorn by the crowd, and being saved from heavier punishment in consideration only of his extreme youth was condemned to receive the bastinado, on the soles of his feet, which was given him on the spot, without delay or abatement, for the brawny arm of the executioner strained every nerve to give his strokes their proper weight. In a conversation resulting from this circumstance, the Aga undeceived me in the opinion I had previously entertained, by an assurance that the practice alluded to was purely a Turkish or Osmanlian vice, and was unknown to the mass of the Arab people. He added, also, that it was despised even by the greatest libertines among them, and was seldom ever mentioned but with execration and disgust.

As evening drew near, a large party had assembled around our door, and the most respectable among them entering to partake of our evening meal, we were scarcely left breathing-room for ourselves. The setting sun soon afterward summoning the most pious to prayers, we listened to the mingled tones of eleven worshippers at once. Having performed their ablutions, from a bowl handed round among them, the Aga preceded, in his station, and the others were ranged in triple rows behind him, all however making their prostrations with a regularity that seemed the effect of drilling, and uttering their 'Salams' and 'Allahs' with uniform solemnity. We sat up until long past midnight, engaged in conversation as curious as it was new, and which I deeply regretted my want of time and opportunity to transcribe, as it embraced subjects of such extensive variety, and was to me so full of interest.

Our old Bedouin guide, Phanoose, having now ended his engagement with us, by conducting us safely through the desert, and bringing us again into the cultivated land of Egypt, proposed departing for Cairo before day-light in the morning, and we exchanged turbans as a memento of regard, a favor I could not refuse him, it was urged by him with such importunity, though there was no great difference in their actual or relative value. I should depart from the invariable candor which influences the recording of my feelings, were I not to say, that I parted from this old man with that sort of regret which is the offspring of complete satisfaction. I had been happy in reposing perfect faith in his integrity, and in placing my life in bis hands; and the result had proved him worthy of my confidence. In speculating upon the probable diversity of routes we should both be pursuing in future life, just as we had risen to join our hands at parting, the old man absolutely wept, exclaiming at the same moment in Arabic: Phanoose! to-day he is here; to-morrow he will be gone! - but, oh! to-morrow where will be his friend

Mustapha ?

VOL. XI.

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