Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

physiognomy expressive of great feebleness of intellect. Yet, from their proximity to the great seats of civilisation, several of these races have attained a social condition far superior to that of the Bedouins, the Turks, or the Greeks. It can scarcely be doubted that the habitual exposure of the bare skull, tends, as Herodotus has remarked, to harden it exceedingly; but it may possibly, at the same time, produce an injurious effect upon the brain. Dervishes, santons, sanyāsis, yoghis, and other fanatics or vagabonds found in the East, who expose themselves in penance to the sun, if they were not lunatic at the outset, generally become so. Nature, by furnishing the head with a thick covering, suggests the propriety of protecting the brain from the effects of intense heat, and there are few points on which she can be disobeyed with impunity.

CCCLXXVII. This practice would moreover seem to be connected with an evil very common in those countries; I mean ophthalmia. Every day we observe proofs of its ravages. In the Wady Baardeh, near a farm house, a young man followed us, begging a little medicine for his father, grievously afflicted with this disease. Unfortunately we possessed none, but advised that the eyes might frequently be washed with warm water. In remedies of this kind, however, they have no faith, but require medicines of miraculous properties, which will effect an instantaneous cure; and such nostrums they seem to be thoroughly persuaded Europeans possess, could they be pre

PURITY OF THE NILE.

503

vailed upon to administer them. By banishing the turban, the best substitute for the hat, Mohammed Ali will probably greatly multiply cases of ophthalmia; for the red cap, now worn, affords the eyes no protection; and in consequence the Arabs are constantly seen with their eyes half shut, or pursed up in a way which quickly produces wrinkles at the corners, I myself, who wore this cap, observed in the Fayoom, that my eyes became greatly inflamed, while motes seemed to float before them perpetually; and this continued for several months. The dust, also, which, particularly about Cairo, constantly fills the air, must very much contribute to the prevalence of ophthalmia, in all ages one of the chief scourges of Egypt. Sesostris the Great died blind; his successor, likewise, according to Diodorus Siculus, was afflicted with an ophthalmia that for ten years entirely deprived him of sight; and among the Hermaic books, which, though forgeries, must yet have been of ancient date, we find an entire volume devoted to diseases of the eye.

CCCLXXVIII. The Nile, when we commenced our voyage, was very muddy, but is now become quite clear. Volney, who, however ingenious, was strongly addicted to paradox, speaks disparagingly of its waters, as indeed he does of the country, and nearly every thing it contains. He was probably an admirer of wine; for, had water been his usual beverage, he must quickly have perceived that no river in France, the only European country with which he was acquainted,

504

COURSE OF THE NILE.

- could be at all compared, in this point of view, with the Nile. The causes of this superiority are susceptible of an easy explanation. In many circumstances, the Nile differs from all other rivers; as, for more than one thousand five hundred miles, it maintains its course alone, without deriving any accession from tributary streams, from its junction with the Atbara to the Mediterranean. The lands also through which it flows, are liable neither to falls of snow nor hail, seldom even to rain; its waters receive no taint from the noxious qualities of earths or minerals, except in its immediate channel; the air, pure and serene, generates no unwholesome fogs; while its banks are unpolluted by the filth of any great cities, as it flows, for the most part, through rocky deserts, or over vast expanses of sand. In all this lengthened course, almost constantly exposing to the action of the sun and air a broad surface, it is gradually purified as it advances towards Egypt. During the rainy season, and towards the autumn, when it is filled by torrents from the mountains, in the lower portion of the valley, as well as in Abyssinia, its waters are muddy and unwholesome; and this is the principal unhealthy season in Egypt. Baron Larrey and others, apparently confining their views to Cairo and its environs, have supposed fevers and dysentery chiefly to prevail in the spring; but, although the stagnant waters of the Khalish, and other half-dried canals and ponds, exert a deleterious influence upon the air, in the months of March and April, the mortality is not then so great, in the country generally, as in

[blocks in formation]

October and November. But to return to the river. The world furnishes examples of many small streams which, from the peculiar nature of the countries they traverse, are, after a short course, entirely absorbed, without reaching the sea. The Nile consists of too vast a body of water to be thus lost; but it enlarges as we ascend, being broader at Siout than at Cairo, broader at Thebes than at Siout; and from Thebes to Wady Halfa, its volume, though constantly increasing, continues apparently the same. This peculiarity is accounted for, by the immense quantity turned off and exhausted in irrigation; and when the Bahr Youssouf, the Moyé Soohaj, and other great canals, were kept in good repair, the Nile must have been still more diminished towards its embouchure. The contrivance of Moris, therefore, by which, if it ever existed, the lower part of the river was replenished during six months of the year, from the vast reservoir in the Nome of Arsinoë, was by no means a work of supererogation.

CCCLXXIX. In Nubia, as well as in Egypt, the Sakias, or water-wheels, are an important source of revenue, each paying annually the sum of twenty dollars, or four pounds sterling, which the people regard as a grievous tax. Being poor, miserable, and too ignorant to discover the real causes, they attribute their sufferings to this particular impost; and have, I find, been in the habit, from the period of the Turkish conquest, of complaining of their hardships to travellers, who seem to have considered

506

RUINS OF MEHARRAKA.

the recital more vexatious than they do the grievances themselves. But when mankind are wretched, they naturally seek to excite sympathy; and those persons who do not deserve to exchange conditions with them, will patiently listen to their complaints, however tedious.

CCCLXXX. Shortly after sunset we reached the Wady Meharraka, and landing about a mile south of the temples, proceeded towards them across the sands. The light of the moon, stronger than that of the declining day, imparted to the ruins a soft and picturesque aspect. The principal building* is a small hypethral temple, walled round on three sides, with a row of six columns in front, united at the bottom by a mural skreen. The colonnade, roofed with large blocks of stone, extending round the interior, originally contained sixteen pillars, seven feet in circumference, two of which, at the eastern end, have been overthrown. Those now erect stand on a low square pedestal, and their capitals consist of a cluster of palm leaves, variously arranged. A small staircase in the north-east corner leads to the roof; but the whole is in a very dilapidated state, the temple having apparently been destroyed by an earthquake, that rent the walls, now parting and ready to fall; while the enormous slabs of the terrace in front were at the same time wrested out of their places, and thrown on their edges. There are no sculptures; but on one of

* Its dimensions are, — length, 56 feet 6 inches:- breadth, 44 feet. Its face is towards the south.

« PreviousContinue »