EGYPT. J 61 



pith water to wash, and help him at the table. The Copts are an acute 

 and ingenious people ; they are generally excellent accomptants, and 

 many of them live by teaching the other natives to read and write. 

 Their exercises and diversions are much the same as those usual in 

 Persia and other Asiatic countries. All Egypt is overrun with jug- 

 glers, fortune-tellers, mountebanks, and travelling sleight-of-hand men. 

 Cities, chief towns, EoiFicES ...Among the cities of Egypt, 

 Alexandria, as one of the most ancient, commercial, and best known 

 to Europeans, may justly claim to be first mentioned. It is situate 

 on the Mediterranean, in the most westerly part of Egypt, and was 

 once the emporium of the world ; and by means of the Red Sea, fur- 

 nished Europe, and great part of Asia, with the riches of India. It 

 owes its name to its founder, Alexander the Great. It stands forty 

 miles west from the Nile, and a hundred and twenty north-west of 

 Cairo. It rose upon the ruins of Tyre and Carthage, and is famous 

 for the light-house erected on the opposite island of Pharos, for the 

 direction of mariners, deservedly esteemed one of the wonders of the 

 world. All the other parts of the city were magnificent in proportion, 

 as appears from their ruins, particularly the cisterns and aqueducts. 

 Many of the materials of the old city, however, have been employed 

 in building New Alexandria, which at present is a very ordinary sea- 

 port, known by the name of Scanderoon. Notwithstanding the poverty, 

 ignorance, and indolence of the inhabitants, their mosques, bagnios, 

 and the like buildings, erected within these ruins, preserve an inex- 

 pressible air of majesty. Some think that Old Alexandria was built 

 from the materials of the ancient Memphis. 



Rosetta, or Raschid, stands twenty-five miles to the north-west of 

 Alexandria, and is recommended for its beautiful situation, and de- 

 lightful prospects, which command the fine country, or island of Delta, 

 formed by the Nile, near its mouth. It is likewise a place of great 

 trade. 



Cairo, Kahira, or, as it is called by the Arabs, Masr, the present 

 capital of Egypt, is a large and populous, but a disagreeable residence, 

 on account of its pestilential air and narrow streets. It cannot, ac- 

 cording to Mr. Browne, be estimated to contain less than 300,000 in- 

 habitants. It is divided into two towns, the Old and the New, and 

 defended by an old castle, the works of which are said to be three 

 miles in circumference. This castle is said to have been built by 

 Saladin : at the west end are the remains of very noble apartments, 

 some of which are covered with domes, and adorned with pictures in 

 mosaic work ; but these apartments are now only used for weaving 

 embroidery, and preparing the hangings and coverings annually sent 

 to Mecca. The well, called Joseph's well, is a curious piece of me- 

 chanism, about 300 feet deep. The memory of that patriarch is still 

 revered in Egypt, where they show granaries, and many other works 

 of public utility, that go under his name. They are certainly of vast 

 antiquity ; but it is very questionable whether they were erected by 

 him. One of his granaries is shewn in Old Cairo ; but Norden sus- 

 pects it to be a Saracen work ; nor does he give us any idea of the 

 buildings of the city itself. On the banks of the Nile, facing Cairo, 

 lies the village of Giza, which is thought to be the ancient Memphis. 

 Two miles west is Bulac, called the port of Cairo. The Christians of 

 Cairo practise a holy cheat, during the Easter holidays, by pretending 

 that the limbs and bodies of the dead arise from their graves, to which 

 they return peaceably. The streets of Cairo are pestered with the 

 Vol. II. Y 



