There Was A Strong Guard, And Altogether
We Had About Six Hundred Camels.
We travelled the whole night without
interruption, and on the morning of
June 22nd alighted at the place called El Hamra, the Hadj station
between Cairo and Adjeroud. The ladies of the Pasha had brought two
carriages with them from the Hedjaz, in which they had travelled all the
way from Tor to Suez, the road being every where of easy passage. Two
more carriages were sent for them from Cairo to Suez, one of which, an
elegant English barouche, was drawn by four horses: they got into these
at Suez, and quitted them occasionally for splendid litters or
palanquins, carried by mules. We started again in the evening, and,
travelling the whole night, reached Birket el Hadj on the morning of the
23rd, having thus made the whole journey from Tor in six days; a forced
march which, from the heat of the season, had fatigued me extremely. At
the Birket El Hadj the caravan was met by many grandees from Cairo: the
ladies of the Pasha intended to encamp there for a few days among the
date-groves. Being unable myself, from weakness, to proceed on the same
day, (although Cairo is but four hours distant,) I slept here, and
entered the city on the morning of the 24th of June, after an absence
from thence of nearly two years and a half. I found that two letters,
which I sent
[p.441]here from Medina, had not been received, and my acquaintances had
supposed me lost. The plague had nearly subsided; some of the
Christians had already re-opened their houses; but great gloom seemed to
have overspread the town from the mortality that had taken place.
The joy I felt at my safe return to Cairo was considerably increased by
flattering and encouraging letters from England; but my state of health
was too low to admit of fully indulging in the pleasures of success. The
physicians of Cairo are of the same set of European quacks so frequently
found in other parts of the Levant: they made me swallow pounds of bark,
and thus rendered my disease worse; and it was not till two months after
that I regained my perfect health at Alexandria, whither I had gone to
pay a visit to Colonel Missett, the British resident in Egypt, who had
already laid me under so many obligations, and to whose kind attentions,
added to regular exercise on horseback, more than to any thing else, I
was indebted for my recovery. A delightful journey, in the winter
months, through Lower Egypt, and by the Lake Menzaleh, restored me to my
wonted strength, which I am happy to say has never since experienced any
abatement.
[p.443] APPENDIX.
[p.445] APPENDIX.
No. I.
Stations of the Pilgrim Caravan, called the "Hadj el Kebsy," through the
mountainous country between Mekka and Sanaa in Yemen.
MEKKA.
1st day. Shedad; some coffee-huts.
2. Kura, a small village on the summit of the mountain so called.
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