THE

GENTLEMAN'S

MAGAZINE.

The Modern History and Condition of Egypt, &c. By W. H. Yates, M.D. 2 vols.

"This is a Turkish, not an English court,

An Amurath an Amurath succeeds,

Not Harry Harry."

A declaration that is not unimportant to keep in mind when we enter on the narrative contained in Dr. Yates's volumes, and are admitted into the society of a whole nation, whose object of daily solicitude is to keep their beards and their wives equally in good order and regularity; who bear a rooted abhorrence to black hats and tight pantaloons;* who eviscerate the Bibles sent to them from Exeter Hall and Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, and use the covers for account-books; who sit all day long on their haunches eating water-melons and smoking chibonques; who anoint their skin with butter, and stain their beards with indigo; who ride on dromedaries and donkeys; who consider all Christians as an infidel race, born to drudge for them; and Jews as the accursed children of Shaitan, the prince of darkness. But, in truth, with all these strange natural eccentricities, a volume of Eastern travels has always been attractive from its subject, and some have been ranked as works of permanent amusement and instruction. There is something connected with the East that has a surpassing effect on our imagination. "The gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone;" in fact we surround it, from the earliest dawn of history, with all the accumulated riches our fancy can suggest. We associate with it a climate of delicious temperature, skies of unclouded lustre, and days and nights of surpassing beauty. We wander in imagination amidst cool valleys and groves of bright verdure, watered by refreshing streams, while aromatic gales are wafted from trees worthy of Paradise itself; our eyes wander over meadows carpeted with flowers of the rarest odour, and variegated with the brightest colours; we inhale the odorous breath of jasmin and roses; we eat the costliest and rarest fruits preserved in snow; we see the most graceful and elegant forms of youthful beauty and feminine elegance gliding before us and courting our

* When the author entered Damascus, being a Giaour, he was compelled to take off his turban, dismount, and lead his horse through the streets. In times of political excitement this rancorous feeling breaks out into open violence: a traveller of the name of Ross was quietly riding through one of the bazars of Constantinople, during the period of the Greek revolution. One of the Turks thought proper to order him to dismount, and called him a Christian dog. Seeing that he was disposed to be very troublesome, Mr. Ross applied to him the epithet always most annoying to a Turk, viz. pezawink (pimp). This so offended his dignity that he drew forth his yatagan and struck him. Fortunately for Mr. Ross it fell on his leg, which happened to be a cork-leg. "Ab! ba!" said he, holding out the member in defiance, "vour la ! vour la ! pezawink! strike it, strike it, you pimp." His wrath was kindled, and he did strike it again. "That's right, dog (kelb,) do it again, will you?" He did it again. "Once more,

if you please, why do you hesitate? Oh! you Kaffer !" The astonished Moslem hastily put up his knife and slunk off.

admiration; our eyes are dazzled with the lustre of the diamonds and emeralds that blaze before us, till the wearer's form is lost in the intensity of light around him. Then we recall to our minds the wonderful narratives of our olden travellers, from Mandeville downwards, and their wild and romantic adventures in these unknown lands: we have the graphic and living pictures of the Arabian Nights as fresh before us as when they first kindled our youthful blood with delight and wonder; sultans and sultanesses, magic lamps, and enchanted rings; wicked Fakirs and holy Santons and Dervishes; barbers and bastinadoes; genii of gigantic stature and terrific appearance; palaces raised by unearthly powers; halls resounding with the perpetual laugh of happiness, and ages gliding on uninterrupted by sorrow or care. Then, who is not familiar with the happy valley of Rasselas, and who has not acknowledged the power of the necromancer as he descended to the halls of Eblis, in the powerful pages of Vathek?* But shutting up the gates of fancy, and taking a more sober and thoughtful mood, we must allow that there is much to instruct as well as amuse in the narratives of those who have recorded their adventures, and the result of their experience amidst Eastern nations. The naturalist will be interested in the pictures of countries so different from his own, in the foreign plants and scenery, in the geological formations, in the varieties of climate, and in the races of the various tribes that inhabit the land. To the moralist and statesman the character of the Asiatic people and their governments offers a subject of extreme curiosity; while to all, the wonderful penance of mistaken religious faith, of despotic and unjust laws, and of defective institutions, offers a problem of somewhat difficult solution. For all that we know, Pekin may have been contemporary with Memphis or Thebes. Presents of attar of roses † or edible birds'-nests may have been exchanged between Kien-Long or Hong-Fo, and Ameno. phis or Osymandyas; and the caravans from China may have yearly visited the remote valleys of the Nile. In Egypt, however, added to what is of general interest in Eastern countries, as Persia, Turkey, &c., we have also the still greater interest of the mighty and singular race that preceded them. In the palace of Mohamed Ali was once the throne of Sesostris; the living and the dead are alike still in the land, and Memnon still reigns in his gigantic temples on the shores of the Nile, even in their shattered and ruined splendour, inspiring wonder and awe. Here the antiquary can unroll the authentic archives which the scribes of Rameses had sealed up, open tombs which had been closed since the days of Moses, and eat the very wheat which had been hoarded in the granaries of Pharaoh. Egypt, too, in later days, was the country of Cæsar and Pompey, and, in still later, of Saladin and the Saracens. Yet our knowledge of its antiquities may be said to be of no long standing; it began with the researches of the French savans; for, before that, we possessed

* We have heard strange rumours of additional chapters and so forth, which have been read to friends, of this invaluable work of taste and imagination; but it is sufficient praise to say, that an Eastern tale of fiction, written by an European, has far surpassed, in rareness of invention, in truth and brilliancy of colouring, and grandeur of effect, all that the imagination of native writers has ever produced. There is no story in the Arabian Nights to be compared to Vathek.

It is well known that a small porcelain bottle, of China manufacture, was found in one of the oldest tombs of Thebes. We believe Mr. Davis decyphered its inscription; it was supposed to have been filled with aromatic odour, or used as a scent. bottle.

only the comparatively meagre and hurried gleanings of Shaw, Pocock, and Norden; but the field being once laid open, there has been no lack of labourers, whose activity, learning, and zeal have effected so much, that we are equally at home in the house of an ancient Egyptian as in our own; we have grown familiar with Theban chairs and tables, and have seen the auction-rooms of the Strand filled with mummies of cats that flourished under the earlier dynasties, and ibises that were in their prime before the second Amenophis was born. But we have, in previous reviews of the learned works of Mr. Wilkinson and others, recurred to the history and times of ancient Egypt, and though our present author is not without information on this head, especially in his second volume, having visited Thebes* and the other venerable cities and temples, whose mouldering columns are still mirrored in the ancient waters of the Nile; yet the proper and immediate purpose of his book is rather intended to give a view of the modern country, and to convey the impressions of an intelligent and experienced traveller, as he took his survey of a land that has once more risen to importance, and the fortunes of which seem, at present, firmly linked to that of the imperious ruler, who, seizing its throne, took with it the richest jewel from the Sultan's crown.† It is only by the repeated observations of different persons, that anything like an useful or accurate knowledge of distant countries is to be obtained, especially of those where a difference of faith alone is sufficient to bar the avenues of confidence and knowledge. Our acquaintance with ancient Thebes is more copious and correct than of modern Cairo. We interrogate the dead, and their answer is truth, we converse with the living, and we are cheated with a lie. We enter into the halls of the old city, but we cannot penetrate the saloons of the modern. Our knowledge of the Pacha, the great object of curiosity, extends little further than that he has been a lucky soldier, a bold, intriguing, successful rogue, an unprincipled and reckless statesman, a maker of canals and railroads, a dishonest dealer in cotton, and a great monopolist of corn; that he is called by the African kings Melek Gebir, and that he is annually complimented by the East India Company on his virtues and well-acquired power; that he considers all fat and florid persons as fit objects for the bastinado; and who dismisses, by

* Dr. Yates was attacked with ophthalmia when on the Nile; he went to Thebes, cleared out a chamber among the tombs, tied a bandage over his eyes, lived in the dark for a week, and got well.

"The present Sultan is a young man of intelligence and some promise. He has, on several occasions, evinced a desire for the promotion of the well-being of his subjects; and he seems quite open to good advice, though an effort is making to prejudice him against all Christians. Kretschmer, the Prussian painter, to whom he sate for his portrait, thus describes him :- The Sultan wore a blue coat with a red collar, not unlike the uniform of the Prussian cavalry officers. On his breast was displayed the "Nishan," that distinguished Ottoman order, composed of sparkling brilliants. The embroidery on his outer garment glittered with gold and precious stones. He fixed his eye on mine. I had abundant opportunity of studying the interesting physiognomy of this youthful sovereign. It is less handsome than intelligent. The small pox has left deep ravages on his countenance; his complexion is pale. He looks more like a man of twenty-five than a youth of eighteen. His beard is tolerably strong at the chin, but his moustachios are scanty. Amiability and goodness of disposition are perceptible in his features. They even breathe from the tones of his voice, which are at once soft and sonorous, and his conversation is interesting. He said, 'Doubtless your family knows that I have directed you to take my portrait; that will be flattering to you, but I pray you do not flatter me.' The Sultan gave the young artist six sittings in all; and the portrait was pronounced to be a perfect likeness."

a prepared lozenge, or a silken cord, those who offend him, to the joys of paradise and the company of the prophet. Every successive traveller, however, has been able to add something to the preceding picture, so that we are becoming more truly acquainted with the resources and revenues of the country, the institutions and government, the condition of the people, and the nature of the despotism. We know more of the character of the ruler, his present policy, and his future views; we are introduced also to a nearer acquaintance with his successor to the throne; and we at length see the painted mask dropping off which we had so long admired, and behold the strange and mingled features of the fair countenance and appalling skeleton that appears behind it. We see the splendour of the despot's character tarnished by the baseness and treachery of the means employed, and the cruelty and wickedness of the ends proposed. Even the brilliancy of his military achievements is the brilliancy of a vapour, that vanishes away, and we once again in him find the lesson of truth repeated, that when power is acquired and held by intrigue, by ambition, by deceit, and violence, a little appearance of change, a turn of fortune, the smallest failure of success, is sufficient to shake and overthrow it. Dr. Yates, in his amusing volumes, shews a more than common acquaintance and familiarity with the usages and society of the East, and his remarks and observations are brought before us in a clear and satisfactory manner. He travelled as a hakkiin, or physician, a name at the sound of which all doors fly at once open, and all jealousy is disarmed. He was permitted to see the noses of the females under their yashmaks, being the only kiaffer who could do so without eating a double share of dirt. He set out from Malta with a lancet, a bottle of soda, and a dark lanthorn, and with these he made a successful survey of Egypt and Syria. The subject of his works may be divided into separate and distinct portions, as the antiquities of ancient Egypt, the temples, obelisks, pyramids, Theban tombs. Secondly, her natural history, (though on that head there is but little or no information,) the climate, soil plants, productions, irrigation, &c. Lastly, the view of the social condition of the people, and the characters of the governors and persons in authority. It is from this latter portion that we have chiefly made our extracts; for, as Louis XIV. said of France, “La France c'est moi," so with more justice may it be said of Egypt by Mohamed Ali, and it still is in his power, though bearing the weight of more than threescore years and ten, to make it either a paradise to enjoy or a desert to eschew; the home of an industrious and contented people to admire, or the abode of untutored and squalid beings, the colony of slaves and robbers, to abhor.*

Let us signify our arrival in the country by accompanying our author in his interview with its ruler, let us mark the eye of the crafty diplomatist, and view the form of the enterprising soldier of fortune.

Αλλ ὁ μὲν ἄρ μύθοισιν, ὁ δ ̓ ἔγχεϊ πολλὸν ἐνίκα.

Dr. Yates was introduced by the English consul to Mohamed Ali, "the two-edged sword of Egypt." In a corner of a large room, seated on a divan, he beheld a venerable old man with a white turban and long white beard; he was attended by a few state officers, negroes, &c. His whole

* Dr. Yates, at p. 467 of his first volume, has given us an epitaph which he placed over the remains of his friend Mr. Bradford, who died at Jerusalem. We should advise him to correct the Latinity, and, as there is a Latin convent at the place, the new inscription need not be sent from England, but manufactured on the spot.

form was enveloped in a loose blue robe, lined with sable, and heheld in his hand a very long pipe, with a magnificent amber mouth-piece, studded with diamonds. Dr. Yates says,

* A correct portrait was painted about four years ago of him by Mr. Say, and he sate to Sir D. Wilkie only a short time before that artist's death; but the best likeness is said to be that given as a frontispiece to Mr. Maddox's work on Egypt, published about ten years since.

+ The famous massacre of the Mamelukes took place in 1811. The Pacha then set about organising a regular army; and a French officer, Colonel Selves (Sulyman Bey), introduced European discipline in 1815, which at first caused a revolt. The Mamelukes were originally military slaves imported from Georgia and Circassia.