EGYPT, AND SYRIA. 213 
fliould bring with them a prefent of greater or lefs value, ac- 
cording to the nature of the bufinefs in hand. It is no lefs ufual 
before leaving the royal refidence, to afk permiflion of the Sul- 
tan for that purpofe. With this latter form, which was to me 
unpleafant, I fometimes complied, but more frequently omitted 
it. But on this occafion, having been long refident there, I 
thought fit to make a laft effort to promote my defign. The 
day preceding that which I had fixed for my return happened 
to be a great public audience. I found the monarch feated on 
iiis throne {curfi)^ under a lofty canopy, compofed not of one 
.material, but of various fluffs of Syrian and even of Indian fa- 
bric, hung loofely on a light frame of wood, no two pieces of the 
fame pattern. The place he fat in was fpread with fmall Turkey 
carpets. The Meleks were feated at fome diflance on the right 
and left, and behind them a line of guards, with caps, orna- 
mented in front with a fmall piece of copper and a black 
oftrich feather. Each bore a fpear in his hand, and a target 
of the hide of the hippopotamus on the oppofite arm. Their 
drefs confifted only of a cotton fhirt, of the manufacture 
of the country. Behind the throne were fourteen or fifteen 
eunuchs, clothed indeed fplendidly in habiliments of cloth or 
filk, but clumfily adjufled, without any regard to fize or colour. 
The fpace in front was filled with fuitors and fpedators, to the 
number of more than fifteen hundred. A kind of hired enco- 
miafl flood on the monarch's left hand, crying out, a plehn 
gorge, during the whole ceremony, " See the buffaloe (ij^^^U.), 
the offspring of a buffaloe, a bull of bulls, the elephant of fu- 
perior flrength, the powerful Sultan Abd-el-rachman-el-rafhid ! 
May 
