CONVENT OF EKHMİM. 277 mensions, are still seen fragments of the winged globe, and several mythological figures, in intaglio relevato, but nothing which could certainly determine to what deity the vast structure had been originally dedicated. Of the temple buried, all but the roof, mentioned by Denon, we could find no trace; though it may still lie overwhelmed beneath those enormous mounds of rubbish which are found among the palm groves east of the town. The same disappointment attended our inquiries respecting the mountain lake, surrounded by acacia trees, described to Belzoni by the monks of the Latin convent. No person in the city, as far as we could discover, had ever heard of it; but that I might omit no means of obtaining information respecting this lake (respecting which, to confess the truth, I was much more curious than about the temple), I visited the Latin convent, in order to question the monks upon the subject. But this step, also, was useless; the only monk remaining of the fraternity which had once existed at Ekhmim being absent at Girgeh; and his Coptic servant, who seemed to occupy the whole edifice, was unable to give me any information. The convent is tolerably well built of sun-dried bricks; and contains a chapel, decorated, or rather deformed, by a number of wretched tawdry prints. A few Arabic and Coptic MSS. thrown carelessly in a heap at the foot of the reading-desk, together with a copy of the funeral service in Latin, constituted the whole of the conventual library. There appeared to be several women in the house. It was a woman who answered us when we 278 POPULATION OF EKHMİM. knocked at the door; and, in passing along the cloisters, we saw another, with her face more carefully concealed than a Mohammedan woman would have thought necessary, crouching in a corner, as if to conceal herself. The Copt said she had come to pray; but, I suspect, she formed part of the establishment. Inquiring of this man how many Christians there might be in the town, I was told, "About fifty." Mr. Jowett, a few years ago, was assured there were two or three hundred, with six priests. In the Coptic convent, there was not, at this time, a single monk; and the building itself was falling to ruin. CXCIX. In the principal mosque, which we could view but hastily, I observed about forty low slender columns, apparently of granite, with capitals of various kinds; unquestionably taken from some ancient edifice, perhaps the chapel of Perseus and Danaë. Dr. Richardson roughly estimates the population of Ekhmim at ten thousand: from the same data, that is, from the size and appearance of the town, the bazār, &c., I should consider three thousand an exaggeration. Bruce thought that the people looked sickly. But the air, since his time, must have improved; as they now appear not only better clothed and better fed, but more robust and hale than the generality of Arabs; and the young women, in particular, are smart, good-looking, and healthy. Indeed, I observed in this town and the villages of the neighbourhood a number of LORD ABERDEEN AND THE PASHA. 279 people not in rags; which was something novel, as it may, in general, be said for the Pasha, that he has indisputably the most ragged subjects in the world. Of this fact, however, he does not seem to be conscious; for it is related that, during the Greek war, when his Highness was informed, through Lord Aberdeen, that he would not be permitted to carry into execution the design, which he was supposed to entertain, of transporting the Christian inhabitants of Candia into Egypt, and supplying their place with Arabs, his reply was: "Is Lord Aberdeen such a fool (I use his Highness's own words) as to suppose I would exchange my good Arabs for his lousy Greeks?" How the latter are furnished, in this respect, I know not; but they must certainly be most richly supplied if they outstrip the Pasha's Arabs. But, about Ekhmim, they are, as I have already observed, better clothed, and apparently cleaner, than usual. The country, too, in the neighbourhood, is finely cultivated, and produces wheat, lentils, sugarcane, onions, &c. Yet the bazār was but poorly supplied; there being no butter, and little bread. But it was not market-day. Provisions, however, are here extraordinarily cheap: four live pigeons for a piastre ; fifty-eight eggs for the same price, that is, twenty for a penny*; forty-one fine onions for little more than a farthing; nearly a quart of fine fresh milk for the same price; meat, bread, and other necessaries of life, in proportion. This is the place for economists; where no * The piastre being little more than two-pence halfpenny in value. 280 WHEAT-THE DOUM PALM. fuel, except for the kitchen, is ever wanted, and where the finest beverage in the world may be had for nothing. CC. In walking from Ekhmim to Essawieh, we found the peasants watering the young wheat in the plain, exactly in the manner described in Deuteronomy. Inquiring of one of the men whom we saw at work, how long the wheat, now about six inches high, had been sown, he replied, fifty-four days; and in how many more days it would be reaped, he answered, other fifty-four days: that is, one hundred and eight days between sowing-time and harvest. The fields had already been twice irrigated, and the operation would again require to be twice repeated. The wheat, therefore, is sown early in November, immediately after the retiring of the river, and reaped about the middle of February. The lentil requires about the same period. The sugarcane is propagated by slips. In this plain, a little to the south of Ekhmim, we saw the first doum tree, or Palma Thebaica. When left to nature, its trunk is covered with a series of flat branches; which, winding round it obliquely, and lapping alternately over each other, appear like the squares of a tesselated pavement. These branches, however, being cut off, as they generally are, the doum has a smooth annulated trunk, which divides itself into several boughs, terminating in a large circular head of waving leaves. It is smaller and much less beautiful than the date palm. The leaves are disposed upon the point of a ASPECT OF MINSHIEH. 281 prickly stem, in the shape of a fan, like those of the jugara, so plentiful on the uncultivated hills in the neighbourhood of Agrigentum.* CCI. There being no wind, we proceeded all day by tracking, and, consequently, advanced but a few miles. A little to the north of Minshieh (the ancient Ptolemais Hermii), we landed in search of the remains of a quay, said to exist there; but could discover nothing, save a small ruined brick arch, part, perhaps, of the substruction of some ancient edifice. In approaching the town, from the north, you traverse "a smooth, close-shaven green," not common in Egypt, and pass through a walled garden thickly planted with orange and other evergreen trees. Lofty square pigeon-houses, resembling the towers in prints of ancient fortifications, common both here and at Ekhmim, give the place, when viewed from afar, an air of grandeur which vanishes as we approach it. The only mosque in the town possesses a fine lofty minaret. The bazār was crowded with Turks and Bedouins. The former so strongly resembling Europeans in features and complexion, that I frequently mistake them for such in fact, they are fairer and * The jugara, when I saw it, was growing in the midst of aloes of gigantic size, which recalled to my mind Mrs. Howit's beautiful allusion to the vegetation of the Spice Islands, in her "Little Mariner:". "He knew the Spice Isles every one, |