EGY

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EGY

February the sun is intolerable to an European at nine o’clock inthe morning. During the whole of this season, the air seems to beinflamed, the sky sparkles, and every one sweats profusely, evenwithout the least exercise, and when covered with the lightestdress. This heat is tempered by the inundation of the Nile , thefall of the night dew s, and the subsequent evaporation ; so thatsome of the European merchants, as well as the natives, complainof the cold in w inter. The dew does not fall regularly throughoutthe summer , as with us; the parched state of the country notaffording a sufficient quantity of vapour for this purpose. It isfirst observed about June '.'4th when the river has begun to swell,and consequently a great quantity of water is raised from it by theheat of the sun, which being soon condensed by the cold of thenight air, falls down in copious dews, By reason of the great drv-ness of the air, Egypt is exempted from the phtrnomena of rain,hail, snow, thunder, and lightning. Earthquakes are also seldomheard of in this country ; though sometimes they hare been veryfatal and destructive, particularly one in 1112. In the Delta , itnever rains in summer, and very seldom at any other time. InI7(il, however, such a quantity of rain unexpectedly fell, that agreat number of bouses, built with mud-walls, tumbled entirelydown by being soaked with the water, to which they were un-accustomed. In the Higher Egypt the rain is still less frequent;but the pecple, sensible of the advantages which accrue from it,always rejoice when any falls, however insufficient to answer thepurpose. 'I'his deficiency of rain is supplied by the inundationand dews. The latter proceed, partly from the waters ofthe inundation, and partly from the sea. At Alexandria, after sun-set, in April, the clothes exposed to the air on the terracesare soaked with them as if it had rained. These dews aremore or less copious according to the direction of the wind. Theyare produced in the greatest quantity bv the W. and N. \V. whichblow from the sea; but the 8. and S. E. winds/blowing over thedeserts of Africa and Arabia, produce none. According to M.Volnev, who gives a very particular description of the fane of thecountry, the entrance into Egypt at Rosetta presents a most de-lightful prospect, by the perpetual verdure of the palm-trees oneach side, the orchards watered by the river, with orange, lemon,and other fruit-trees, which grow there in vast abundance: and thesame beautiful appearance is continued all the way to Cairo . Aswe proceed farther up the river, he says, that nothing can more re-semble the appearance of the country than the marshes of the lowerLoire, or the plains of Flanders: instead, however, of the nu-merous trees and country houses of the latter, we must imaginesome thin woods of palms and sycamores, with a few villages ofmud-walled cottages, built on artificial mounds. All this part ofEgypt is very low and fiat, the declivity of the river being sogentle, that its waters do not flow at a greater rate than one leaguem an hour. Throughout the country nothing is to he seen butpalm-trees, single or in clumps, which become more rare as youadvance; with wretched villages composed of huts with mud walls,and a boundless plain, which at different seasons is an ocean offresh water, a miry morass, a verdant field, or a finely desert; andon every side an extensive and foggv horizon, where the eve iswearied and disgusted. At length towards the junction of the twobranches of tlie river, the mountains of Cairo are discovered onthe If.; and to the S. W. three detached masses appear, whichfrom their triangular form are known to be the Pyramids. Wenow enter a valley which turns to the S. between two chains ofparallel eminences. That to the E. which extends to the RedSea , merits the name of a mountain from its steep.ness and height,as well as that of a desart from its naked and savage appearance.Its name in the Arabic language is Mokattam, or the hewn moun-tain . The western is nothing but a ridge of rocks covered withsand, which has been very properly termed a natural mound orcauseway. In short, that the reader may at once form an idea ofthis country, let him imagine on one side a narrow sea and rocks;on the other, immense plains of sand; and in the middle, a river,flowing through a valley of 150 leagues in length, and from threeto seven wide, which at the distance ot 30 leagues from the seaseparates into two arms: the branches of which wander over a soilalmost free from obstacles, and void of declivity. This country isstill divided Into two principal parts, called the Higher, or Upper,and Lower Eg\pi. It is subdivided into HO provinces.

Egypt , Higher, nr Tppv.r, says' M. Savary, is only alongnairow valley beginning at Sienna, and terminating at Cairo . Jt is5

.bounded by two chains of tiiotin ains running from N. to S. andtaking their rise from the last cataract of the Nile . On reachingthe latitude of Cairo they separate to the right and left j the on?taking the direction of mount. Colzoum, the other terminating insome sand-banks near Alexandria; the former being composed ofhigh and steep rocks, the latter of sandy hillocks over a bed ofcalcareous stone, beyond these mountains arc deserts hounded bythe Fed !Sea on the east, and on the west by other parts of Africa ;having in the middle that long plain which, even where widest, isnot more than nine leagues over. Here the Nile is confined in itscourse betwixt these insuperable barriers, and during the time ofits inundation overt lows the country all the way to the foot ot themountains; and Mr. Rruce observes, that there is a gradual slopefrom the bed of the river to those mountains oil both sides. '1 liebaron de Toll says, that the mountains four leagues from the Nile ,and facing Cairo , “ are only a ridge of rocks above 40 or 50 feethigh, which divide Egypt from the plains of Lib) a; which ridge accom-panies the course of the river, at a greater or less distance, ami seemsas if only intended to serve as a bank to the general inundation.”

Egypt , Lower, according to M. Savary, comprehends all thecountry belwen Cairo , the. Mediterranean, the Ltlimns of Suez,and Libya . “This immense plain Guvs he) presents on the bor-ders of its parching sands a stripe of lands, cultivated along thecanals of the river, and in the middle a triangular island tn whichthe Greeks gave the name ot Delta ; at the top of tin'angle ofwhich, the Baron de Tott informs us, the rocks of Libya and thecoasts of Arabia open and recede from each oilier, towards the E.and W. parallel to the Mediterranean. This great extent of coun-try, from Barca to Gaza, is either overflowed by the river, or ca-pable of being so ; w liicli thus fertilizes in a high degree a tract ofcountry, seemingly devoted to perpetual barrenness, on accountof the want of rain and the heat of the climate. According to thetestimonies of both Mr. Bruce and M. Voiney, the coast ot Egvptis so extremely low, that it cannot lie discovered at sea till the ma-riners come within a few leagues of it. in ancient times the sailorspretended to know when they approached this country, by a kind ofblack mud brought up by their sounding lines from the bottom ofthe sea ; but this notion, though as old as the days of Herodotus ,lias been discovered to lie a mistake by Mr. Bruce; who foundtlie mud to arise w hile the vessel was opposite to the deserts of Baf-ca. All along the coast of Eg) pta strong current sets to tlie eastward.The river Nile , when swelled by the rains which fall in Abyssinia,begins to rise in Egypt about the month ot May ; but tlie increaseis inconsiderable till towards the end of June, when it is proclaim-ed by a public crier through tlie streets of Cairo . About this timeit has usually risen five or six cubits; and when it has risen to six-tecn, great rejoicings are made, and tlie people cry out WaffahAllah, ?. e. God has given abundance. 'I bis commonly takesplace about the end of July, or before the 20th of August; and thesooner it takes place, so much the greater are the hopes of a goodcrop. Sometimes, though rarely, the necessary increase does nottake place till later, in 1705, it did not swell to sixteen cubits tilt'.lie ]J-ltli of September, the consequence of which was, that tliecountry was depopulated by famine and pestilence. We mayeasily imagine, tiiat tlie Nile cannot overflow the whole countryof itself, in such a manner as to render it fertile. There are there-fore, innumerable canals cut from it across tlie country, by wliichthe watpr is conveyed to distant places, and almost every townand village lias one of these canals, in those parts of the country,wliich the inundation does not reach, and where more water is re-quired titan it can furnish, as for the watering of gardens, No. theyhave recourse to artificial means for raising it from the river. For-merly they made use of Archimedes’s Screw, (see 11yurosta-tics ;) but now in place of it they have the Persian wheel. ’I hisis a large wheel turned by oxen, having a rope hung with severalbuckets which til! as it goes round, and empty into a ci-tern at lifetop. Where the hanks of the river are high, they frequently makea bason in the side of them, near which they fix an upright pole,and another with an axle across the top of that, at one end ofwhich they hang a great stone, aud at the other a leathern bucket;this bucket being drawn down into the river by two men, is raisedby the descent of the stone, and emptied into a cistern placed at aproper height. This kind of machine is used chiefly in the upperparts of the country, where the raising of water is more difficultthan in places near tlie sea. When any of their gardens or planta-| tions want water, it is conveyed from the cisterns into little

trenches.