CUSTOMS AND MANNERS. 



391 



batteries had been erected at this point against the castle. The 

 ground upon which this village stands, is rather more elevated than 

 the adjacent country ; the houses are poor hovels, several of them 

 being built in the form of bee-hives. The fields around are cultivated 

 with care, and after the inundation of the Nile, and the river is 

 confined to its proper channel, they are watered by the Persian wheel 

 from cisterns. Where the country is in any degree shaded, not a 

 foot of it is allowed to be waste, for even under the date trees, the 

 cucumber and other garden fruits are seen growing ; but where 

 no shade intervenes to weaken the intense heat of the sun, the 

 ground is hard and uncultivated, and bears nothing but thickets 

 of brush-wood. 



We found the inhabitants of the village cheerful in the midst of 

 their poverty. The men are tall and lank ; swarthy and withered. 

 Their dress in the village is a cotton gown, like that worn by the 

 inhabitants of Rosetta; but the few we met with in the fields were 

 almost naked, having nothing but a cloth wrapped round their 

 middle, and a skull-cap on their heads. The women of Rosetta, and 

 some of those whom I saw at the village wore veils, covering every 

 part of their face but the eyes. These were affected by a disease*, 

 to which the inhabitants of Egypt are very subject. 



The lower orders of Egyptian Arabs, appeared to me to be a 

 quiet inoffensive people with many good qualities. They are in 

 general tall, and well made, possessing much muscular strength ; yet 

 of a thin spare habit. Their complexion is very dark, their eyes 

 black and sparkling, and their teeth good. Upon the whole they 

 are a fine race of men in their persons ; they are more active in 

 agricultural employments than we should be led to imagine from 

 seeing the better sort of them in towns smoking and passing their 



* Les maladies des yeux sont tres-frequentes en Egypte, et difficiles a guerir. — Granger. 

 The ophthalmia in Syria attacks children and young persons, and is ascribed to sleeping in 

 the open air, and being exposed to the night dews. — Russell, ii. 299. The Egyptians are 

 subject to psorophthalmia as well as ophthalmia. — Hasselquist. 389. 



