136

TOUSSOUN PASHA.

with flourishes, and various fanciful devices, produce a very pleasing effect. Some of our party, however, considered the whole to be in bad taste, and preferred many of the tombs in Père la Chaise. But I know of no monument in that cemetery, excepting that of Eloisa and Abelard, - - which, I admit, interests the heart more strongly, though for reasons totally independent of the architecture, and that of the Countess Demidoff, which could be at all compared with these. The tomb of Toussoun Pasha, an ardent young man, who is said to have resembled Raphael in the manner of his death, was covered with withered flowers. That of his mother occupied, not many paces distant, the most distinguished place; and those of the other members of the family lay ranged around elegant, tasteful, melancholy, in the midst of their golden ornaments. The effect of the whole,

at least upon my mind, was highly solemn. Hither, on the anniversary of the death of each inmate, their female relations repair to pray and weep; and as often as they are seized with melancholy they do the same thing. Various stone basements are erected in the neighbourhood of these tombs, ready to receive the sarcophagi of such other members of the family as death shall strike out of the lists of the living.

SANTONS.

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CHAPTER VI.

MANNERS OF THE SANTONS

THE NIGHTS NARROWNESS OF THE STREETS — CLEANLINESS OF THE ARABS OF CAIRO MOUNDS OF RUBBISH -VISIT TO THE PYRAMIDS OLD CAIRO BEAUTIFUL PROSPECT ON THE RIVER RICHNESS AND MAGNIFICENCE OF THE PLAIN OF MEMPHIS LOVELY PALM GROVES-SUBLIMITY OF THE PYRAMIDS -THE BEDOUIN GUIDES — THE SPHYNX TEMPLES OF VENUS ANCIENT TRAVELLERS -ASCENT OF THE GREAT PYRAMID VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT-DEATH OF MAZE-DESCEND INTO THE INTERIOR-THE KING'S CHAMBER-THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER -PYRAMID OF CEPHRENES

RETURN TO CAIRO.

Sunday, Dec. 2.

LXXVIII. LOCKE, discoursing, if I remember rightly, concerning our notions of modesty, in his book on Innate Ideas, adduces, as an argument against the popular opinion, the example of the Mohammedan Santons of Egypt, seen by Baumgarten sitting naked among the sands.* Whatever our judgment respect

* Many of the tales related in Egypt of these Santons, which appear to be well authenticated, will not bear to be repeated in a modern language. Baumgarten, who wrote in a dialect familiar with such things, describes as follows their character and manners, which to this day remain the same:-"Mos est Mahometistis, ut eos qui amentes et sine ratione sunt, pro sanctis colant et venerentur. Insuper et eos, qui cum diu vitam egerint inquinatissimam, voluntariam demùm pœnitentiam et paupertatem, sanctitate venerandos deputant. Ejusmodi verò genus hominum libertatem quandam effrenam habent: domos quas volunt intrandi, edendi, bibendi, et, quod majus est, concumbendi: ex quo concubitu, si proles secula fuerit, sancta similiter habetur. His ergo hominibus dum vivunt, magnos exhibent honores: mortuis verò

138

EGYPTIAN SWALLOW.

ing the philosophical theory may be, the example is still exhibited daily at Cairo. On the very evening of my arrival, I saw, jostling through crowds of men and women, a Santon, wholly naked, except that a piece of ragged blanketing was thrown over the shoulders. Covered with filth, squalid, haggard, emaciated, with eyes flashing forth the fires of insanity, he had in all respects the look of a wild beast. No doubt many of these vagabonds adopt, through mere sloth, this easy mode of living; but when the Pasha shall set himself in earnest about the civilisation of Egypt, he must begin by sending the whole of this race to the madhouse or the galleys, together with that still more nefarious crew, with perfumed tresses and effeminate costume, who now offend the eye, and disgrace, in the streets of Cairo, the very name of man.

LXXIX. The breast of the common swallow, in Egypt, as Sir Frederic Henniker has already observed, is quite red, and not white, as with us. Does this bird form a peculiar species, not migratory? Denon found in this country a kind of swallow of a grey colour, which was not, he conjectured, a bird of passage; though, even so far back as the time of Anacreon, the swallow was supposed to forsake Greece with the summer, to spend the cold months about Memphis

vel templa vel monumenta extruunt amplissima, eosque contingere ac sepelire maximæ fortunæ ducant loco."— Peregrinatio, &c. p. 73. And such, in general, are the Sheikhs, whose tombs, in all Mohammedan countries, are visited as holy places.

NARROW STREETS.

139

and the Nile.* Yet the winter nights, as most travellers have observed, are exceedingly cold in Lower Egypt; and indeed, when you reflect upon the great heat of the days, the keenness of the air, all the while that the sun is below the horizon, is almost incredible. Yesterday the sun was as hot as in July in Burgundy: towards evening a cloak was quite necessary; as was also an additional covering on the bed at night. Every where in the shade it is cold even by day, and there is a strong breeze constantly stirring, which increases the sharpness of the atmosphere, and which, even in the sunshine, renders it prudent to go warmly clothed. To the neglect of this precaution may be attributed many of those dangerous attacks of fever and dysentery which travellers frequently experience in Egypt. In building their cities, the Orientals generally, but particularly the Egyptians, have been greatly influenced by the above peculiarity in their climate. Their streets are winding and narrow, as in such countries they must be, to render the cities habitable; for by this contrivance they are protected by night from the extreme cold, and from the intolerable heat by day. For the same reason it is an advantage that the houses are lofty, and almost meet at the top. We observe, moreover, that in the bazārs and streets of business, where the inhabitants chiefly assemble, mats are extended from house to house, wholly to exclude the sun, which in summer

* Χειμῶνι δ' εἷς ἄφαντος

Η Νεῖλον ἢ ἐπὶ Μέμφιν,

Ode xxxiii.

is not to be endured from eight o'clock in the morning until five in the afternoon. By these means, however, there is always, in the streets of Cairo, a fine cool air stirring at least at this season of the year; and when you enter its gates from the desert, where the wind sometimes is like the blast of a furnace, your whole frame is instantaneously refreshed, and you bless the architect who invented narrow streets.

Monday, Dec. 3.

LXXX. I have not been many days in Cairo, and yet I discover that many changes have taken place in its appearance even since the descriptions of the very latest travellers were written. The streets, formerly disgustingly filthy, are now remarkable in general for their cleanliness, being all swept three times a day. Ibrahim Pasha, a few years ago, issued an order commanding every householder to cause the space before his own house to be swept as above. The dust is collected into heaps, and four hundred carts, drawn by bullocks, are employed in conveying it out of the city. All the dust thus collected is passed through a kind of sieve, and the straw, leaves of vegetables, and every sort of combustible matter, are used for fuel. The remainder, when carried out of the city, is not thrown, as formerly, into heaps, but is employed in filling up the pits, hollows, and inequalities which are found in the environs. In the meanwhile all the old mounds of rubbish are clearing away at a