From Hence The Road Turns S.E. Over
A Slightly Descending Plain.
At ten hours and a half is the well called
Bir Suez, a
SUEZ
[p.465] copious spring enclosed by a massive building, from whence the
water is drawn up by wheels turned by oxen, and emptied into a large
stone tank on the outside of the building. The men who take care of the
wheels and the oxen remain constantly shut up in the building for fear
of the Bedouins. The water is brackish, but it serves for drinking, and
the Arabs and Egyptian peasants travelling between Cairo and Suez, who
do not choose to pay a higher price for the sweet water of the latter
place, are in the habit of filling their water skins here, as do the
people of Suez for their cooking provision. From an inscription on the
building, it appears that it was erected in the year of the Hedjra 1018.
We reached Suez about sunset, at the end of eleven hours and a half. I
alighted with the Bedouins upon an open place between the western wall
of the town, and its houses.
April 24th. In the time of Niebuhr Suez was not enclosed; there is now a
wall on the west and south-west, which is rapidly falling to decay. The
town is in a ruinous state; and neither merchants nor artisans live in
it. Its population consists only of about a dozen agents, who receive
goods from the ports of the Red sea, and forward them to their
correspondents at Cairo, together with some shop-keepers who deal
chiefly in provisions.
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