l6 TRAVELS IN Uri'Ell 



extremely liard ; but when boiled with salt, they 

 are very much to the taste of the Egyptians. You 

 hardly see any one in the streets but peojDle clean- 

 ing tenness. The Christians of the East, little am- 

 bitious of imitating their tyrants in an abstinence 

 from strong liquors, eat lupins, to excite in them 

 a desire to drink brandy, which they often do to 

 excess. They make also a flour from it, which 

 they use in the same manner as that of farinaceous 

 plants. It is, in particular, very good for cleaning 

 the hands and softening the skin. The stalks of 

 the lupin reduced to cinders, serve in preference to 

 other coals in the preparation of gunpowder : thus 

 this plant combines in its parts several kinds of 

 utility. 



The south wind having subsided, we departed 

 from Boulac the 21st of March 1778, at eight 

 o'clock in the morning. Our voyage was not of 

 long duration. The reis having pretended that 

 some repairs were necessary to the boat, we stopt at 

 Old Cairo, the Masr el At'ih of the Arabs, about half 

 a league from Boulac. This city, which marks the 

 situation of the Babylon of Egypt, is the port of 

 those boats which descend from Said, as Boulac is 

 that of the Delta. In the middle of the Maho- 

 metan mosques, the Jev^^s have a synagogue, and 

 the Catholics a convent and a church ; but the 

 Cophts, as being on their own territories, have re- 

 served 



