394 MODERN EGYPT. 



receive money for the merchants who employ them, and become 

 responsible for it ; and this is necessary, on account of the variety 

 of coins in circulation, some of which may be coimterfeit or light. 

 These money changers are in general Mahometans, all of whom must 

 be supposed descendants of the prophet ; on which account they are 

 believed to be more upright than any other class of their countrymen. 

 The Arabs carry on the common trades of civilized life, such as 

 carpenters and smiths, but in a very unskilful and imperfect manner. 

 The saw with which they used to cut a large piece of ship-timber in 

 two, was very light and small, yet they employed it in the manner 

 practised by our sawyers, who would in half an hour have cut through 

 what occupied them for a long time They have a few manufactories ; 

 the principal one is the cotton cloth, which is chain-woven, and very 

 strong ; a great part of it is dyed blue, and serves for almost general 

 use both for men and women. There is a coarse silk manufacture, of 

 a thin open texture, with a wide border of various colours, but gene- 

 rally dark, which the better sort of women and indeed men sometimes 

 wear instead of what we call call linen ; but that commonly worn by 

 superior ranks of people is a manufacture somewhat resembling white 

 crape, but a little thicker, with a silk border. It soon acquires a 

 yellow colour by washing. 



There are no jewellers' shops in Rosetta or Alexandria ; this busi- 

 ness is therefore carried on privately. The practitioners in medicine 

 are the barbers, who are of course numerous in a country where every 

 man's head is shaved ; but their knowledge of physic is extremely 

 confined. They perform a few surgical operations, and are acquainted 

 Avith the virtues of mercury, and some standard medicines. The 

 general i-emedy in cases of fever and other kinds of ilhiess is a sufi 

 from a priest, which consists of some sentence from the Koran, written 

 on a small piece of paper, and tied round the patient's neck. This, if 

 the patient recovers, he carefully preserves by keeping it constantly 

 between his skull-caps, of which he generally wears two or three. 

 My old interpreter, Mohammed, had a dozen of them. They are 



