ioo TRAVELS TO THE EAST, 
the fields of Egypt, carrying its head high and 
tail love. 
The entrenchments of Selim’s camp, who took 
Egypt from the Mahometans, were yet plainly to 
be feen. They were built of brick, dried in the 
fun, made of clay and draw, in the manner the 
Ifraelitcs were obliged to make them during their 
fiavery in Egypt- w the time of Pharaoh; of thefe 
bricks, the remains are to be feen to this day in a 
Pyramid at Sacchara, which was built of them. 
The Egyptian peafant now continues plowing and 
fowing the field, which he has begun with the month. 
Their utenfils are of the mod fimple kind, but they 
are fufficient for tilling the lighted ground under 
the fun. Their principal inftrument is a plow, 
which confids of a long handle, two uprights to 
which the reins arc fadened, with a fmall ill-made 
{hare. Theyufe oxen for their works of hufbandry; 
their’indruments are indifferent, when they cad up 
clods too large to be left entire, they break them 
with a kind of hoe, which they alio ufe in pre- 
paring the beds in a garden, and to clean the fmall 
partitions in the fields, before 1 left Mataree, I 
defired to fee the Sycamore, which, as they relate, 
afforded our Saviour {hade when he fled into Egypt. 
I regarded this tree as a lover of nature. It is only 
four fathoms thick, fo that it is not fo large as others 
I have feen in Egypt. It was a little hurt on the 
Eadern fide, and lei's in that part. By comparing 
it with young trees of this kind, whofe age I knew'. 
1 imagine this, and the other trees of its iize, to be 
about 3 three hundred years old ; an age that will not 
warrant us in regarding it as a relique. 
The Janiffaries gate is on the left hand of the 
entrance to the palace of Cairo, where they have a 
guard room for officers and common foldiers. 1° 
