EGYPT, AND SYRIA. jr 
has the additional advantage of being entire, and little if at all 
injured by time. It is faid, that one of thofe who farmed the 
cuftoms fome years fince, on retiring from Egypt, had nego- 
ciated for the removal of this precious monument of antiquity, 
on board of an European veflel, with the intention of carrying 
it as a prefent to the Emperor of Germany. On the night 
when it was to be embarked, however, the fecret being difclofed, 
the citizens clamoroufly infilled that the property of the mofque 
was inviolable. The projected removal was accordingly relin- 
quifhed, and the cheft has ever fmce been watched with un- 
common vigilance, fo that it is now difficult for an European 
even to obtain a fight of it ; which muft be my excufe for not 
having been more minute in my defcription of a monument 
that feems not to have been particularly obferved by former 
travellers. 
The population confifts of Mohammedans of various nations ; 
Greeks in confiderable number, who have a church and con- 
vent, containing only three or four religious, but agreeably 
fituated on the higheft ground among the gardens ; Armenians, 
who have alfo a church j and a few Jews, who have their fyna- 
gogue. The whole, perhaps, may not amount to lefs than 
twenty thoufand fouls *; which, however, the length of my re- 
fidence there did not enable me to decide. The Francifcans of 
Terra Santa have a church and monaftery, in which refide three 
or four of their order. The habitations of the European con- 
* There happened a plague in 1796, which it is faid carried ofF one half of 
the inhabitants. This eftlmate is poffibly exaggerated ; but no doubt it thinned 
them much ; fo that at prefent they cannot be near fo numerous, 
fuls 
