82 GRAND CAIRO. 
CHAP, of powerful princes than of private men. The 
^ ■ tents of its subalterns were superior to the 
marquees of general-officers in the English army, 
where the Commander-in-chief lived as the 
poorest soldier, and wretchedness and privation 
were the standing orders of the day'. Every 
morning, at sun-rise, as in Lord Hutchinson's 
army, a gun was fired, and the whole line of the 
troops from India were under arms, amounting 
to 3000 men. At this hour, we often resorted 
to the Isle of Rhonda, to view the magnificent 
parade^. An immense grove of the most enor- 
(1) The luxury and pomp of the Indian army may be conceived, by 
simply stating the fact, that glass lustres, manufactured in London, 
exported to India, and thence conveyed, after a voyage up the Red 
Sea, upon the backs of camels across the desert from Cosseir to the 
NUe, were suspended in the audience-pavilion of the Commander-iu- 
cbief. Breakfasting with a lieutenant of the sixty-first regiment, we 
were regaled with white bread, and fresh butter, made upon the spot 
for the occasion, (which perhaps had never been seen before in Egypt,) 
fruit, cream, tea, coffee, and chocolate. The impression made by 
external splendor, upon men characterized as are the inhabitants of 
the Turkish empire, is more effectual for the advancement of our po- 
litical interests in the East, than the operations of war. An ignorant 
Moslem attaches higher ideas of power to the appearance of wealth, 
than to any effect of military strength. 
(2) The author may here notice the visit he made, upon one of these 
occasions, to the Jllikias, or Nilometcr, upon this | Isle, in company 
with Mr. Hammer, As the interior of this building was long con- 
cealed from the observation of Europeans, it may be proper to men- 
tion, that the roof is supported by pointed arches erected early in the 
ninth century. Air. Hammer copied some Cuphic inscriptions upon 
the 
