46 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
The city Kahira is fituated on the Eaft of the Nile, 
which devolves its majeftic flood at fome little diftance. The fub- 
urbs, however, Mifr el attike, and Bulak, or the port, form two 
points of contact with the river. To the South-Eaft and Eaft 
is a ridge of the extenfive chain which runs along the courfe 
of the Nile to Upper Egypt, fometimes receding, and leaving 
a plain of about a league broad, at other places oppofing its 
barrier to the ftream. To the North a plain extends to the 
Delta, which it refembles in foil and produdions. Immedi- 
ately under the mountain is the caftle, now incapable of de- 
fence, though efteemed of great ftrength, before the invention 
of artillery. 
To an eye accuflomed to the cities of Europe, their wide 
ftreets, and general uniformity, the view of the capital of 
Egypt might appear mean and difgufting. Yet it is termed by 
the natives " Mifr without an equal, Mifr the mother of the 
world." Convenience is comparative, and ideas of it muft vary 
with manners and cuftoms. The narrownefs of the ftreets 
appears even neceflary to a native, to protect him from the 
fierce effulgence of the meridian fun : a flight canopy, extended 
from houfe to houfe, aflbrds him more pleafure than any 
architectural profped could convey. 
For about the fpace of three hundred years Egypt had been go- 
verned by the military ariftocracy of the Mamluks, when it was 
fubdued by Sultan Selim, in the year 15 1 7. Senfible of the dif- 
tance, defended fituation, and refractory fpirit of the province, 
he thought it poUtic to enter into a compromife with its former 
government 
