STATE OF THE COUNTRY 
475 
How long the present system can be carried on, it is difficult to 
conjecture; poverty has already reduced thousands to the necessity 
of emigrating into the desert, and sacrificing every remnant of pro- 
perty for the chance of saving life itself. The Copts are earnestly 
looking forward in the hope of England's assistance, to liberate 
them from as dreadful an oppression as the children of Israel 
groaned under, in the same country ; and even the Mussulmauns, 
of high rank, join them in their wishes, in defiance of the arts em- 
ployed by Bonaparte, during his command in the country, to 
persuade them that he was the favourer of their religion, and the 
instrument of destiny, to liberate them from all their oppressions. * 
Schech Soolimaun el Faiume, a descendant of Mohammed, a 
priest of one of the mosques of Cairo, and who, before the arrival 
of the French, had a revenue of above one hundred thousand 
pounds sterling per annum, arrived at Alexandria in the end of May, 
and requested I would call on him, which I immediately did. He 
represented to me, in the strongest terms, the sufferings of Egypt, 
and conjured me, by those feelings of compassion, which the view 
of oppression must have excited in my breast, to state what I had 
seen on my return to England. His feelings so far overcame his 
prejudices, that he obliged me to dine with him; and on taking 
leave he embraced me, and with tears in his eyes, again besought 
me to recommend him and his unfortunate country to the protec- 
tion of the English. 
The most powerful Schechs of the Desert, the chief of whom is 
Chedid, are closely attached to the English nation, and avow their 
* As a proof of this, I have given in the Appendix, two interesting extracts from 
the Courier de I'Egypte. 
