Parti. Travels into the h EVAN T. 145 
CHAP. XII. 
Of the Burying-flace where the Dead rife. 
IT is 'ftrange to fee the Superftitions that reign among People, and there 
is no Country that can pretend to be free from them -, only fome have 
more, and fome lefs ; but the ftrangefl thing of all is that they will not be 
undeceived, and if any man offer to lay open the Cheat, he is prefently taken 
for an Atheiil and wicked Perfon. No People that I know are certainly 
more Superftitious than the f^gyptiam, as I lhall hereafter make it out ; 
but at prefent it (hall be enough to give one inftance of it. Upon the River- 
fide near to old Caire^ there is a great Burying-place, where many dead Bodies 
are Interred: AU the Inhabitants oi Caire, not only Cophtes and Gm^j, but 
alfo Turks and Moors are'fuUy perfwaded that on Holy Wedmfday, Thurfday, An imagl- 
and Friday, (according to their account, who follow the old Calendar) the 
dead rife there; not that the dead People walk up and down the Church- JieacUn^^lff 
yard ; but that during thefe three days, their Bones come out of the *" 
Ground, and then when they are over, return to their Graves again. 
I went to that Burying-place on the Holy Friday of the Greeks and other 
Chriftians, who follow the old Calendar, that 1 might fee what Ground 
they had for this ftupid Belief ; and I was afloniftied to find as many 
People there as if it had been at a Fair, for all both fmall and great in 
Caire flock thither, and the Turks go in procelfion with all their Ban- 
ners, becaufe they have a Scbeikh Interred there, whofe Bones (as they fay ) 
come out every year, and take the Air with the reltj and there they fay 
their Prayers with great Devotion. When I came to the place I faw here 
and there fome Sculls and Bones ; and every one told me that they were 
juft come out of the Earth j which they fo firmly beleive, that it is impof- 
iible to make them think otherwife; for I fpoketo fome (who one would 
think ought to have more fenfe than the reft) and they affured me it was 
a truth ; and that when you are in a place where the Ground is very even, 
while you are looking to one fide, Bones will come up on the other fide, 
within two fteps of you. I who would willingly have feen them come up 
before my Face, not doubting but the Bones vv^hich were to be feen, had 
been fecretly fcattered by fome Santos, fell a jeering the Men ; but finding Anna >' 
that they were in the fame errour with the reft, I durft not fay all I onoftheblef- 
thought, for fear of meeting with fome abufe. In the mean time I think ftxl virgin in 
that that folly may be put in the fame rank with the Well that is in the ^ ^^"""ery of 
Nunnery of the Cophtes, in the quarter of the Greeks, where they fay the '^'^^ ^"^^'"^ 
BlelTed Virgin appears on a certain day of the year ; as alfo v^^ith the AnT^mvkl. 
Church called Gemane, that is to fay the two Churches, which is three on of Saints 
days journey from C^jVe,yv^here the Cophtes imagine that they fee Saints among tiie 
appear in the Dome, and therefore they have it in great Veneration. d^htes. ■ 
U 
CHAP, 
