In The Year 1813, Mr. Legh, A Member Of The House Of Commons, Performed A
Journey In This Country, And Beyond The Cataracts.
Above the cataracts he
entered Nubia, and proceeded to Dehr, its capital.
These travels are,
however, chiefly interesting and instructive for that which indeed must
give the chief interest to all travels in Egypt and Nubia - the description
of antiquities.
The second cataract continued the limit of the attempts of European
travellers, till it was reached and passed, first by Mr. Burckhardt, and
afterwards by Mr. Banks. No modern traveller has excelled Mr. Burckhardt in
the importance of his travels; and-few, in any age, have equalled him in
zeal, perseverance, fortitude, and success.
He was employed by the African Association to explore the interior of
Africa. Having perfected himself in the knowledge of the religion, manners,
and language of the Mahomedan Arabs, by frequent and long residences among
the Bedouins, he proceeded to Cairo. Here, finding that the opportunity of
a caravan to Fezzan or Darfur was not soon likely to occur, he resolved to
explore Egypt and the country above the cataracts. He accordingly
"performed two very arduous and interesting journies into the ancient
Ethiopia; one of them along the banks of the Nile from Assouan to Dar al
Mahas on the frontiers of Dongola, in the months of February and March,
1813, during which he discovered many remains of ancient Egyptian and
Nubian architecture, with Greek inscriptions; the other between March and
July in the following year, through Nubia to Souakun. The details of this
journey contain the best notices ever received in Europe of the actual
state of society, trade, manufactures, and government, in what was once the
cradle of all the knowledge of the Egyptians."
Although it will carry us a little out of our regular and stated course, to
notice the other travels of this enterprising man in the place, yet we
prefer doing it, in order that our readers, by having at once before them a
brief abstract of all he performed for geography, may the better be enabled
to appreciate his merits.
Soon after his second return to Cairo, he resolved to penetrate into
Arabia, and to visit Mecca and Medina. In order to secure his own safety,
and at the same time gain such information as could alone be obtained in
the character of a Mahomedan, he assumed the dress, and he was enabled to
personate the religion, manners, and language of the native Hadje, or
pilgrims. Thus secure and privileged, he resided between four and five
months in Mecca. Here he gained some authentic and curious information
respecting the rise, history, and tenets of the Wahabees, a Mahomedan sect.
These travels have not yet been published.
The last excursion of Mr. Burckhardt was from Cairo to Mount Sinai and the
eastern head of the Red Sea. This journey was published in 1822, along with
the travels in Syria and the Holy Land; the latter of which he accomplished
while he was preparing himself at Aleppo for his proposed journey into the
interior of Africa. These travels, therefore, are prior in date to those in
Nubia, though they were published afterwards.
He spent nearly three, years in Syria: his most important geographical
discoveries in this country relate to the nature of the district between
the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Elana; the extent, conformation, and detailed
topography of the Haouran; the situation of Apanea on the river Orontes,
which was one of the most important cities of Syria under the Macedonian
Greeks; the site of Petreea; and the general structure of the peninsula of
Mount Sinai. Perhaps the most original and important of these illustrations
of ancient geography is that which relates to the Elanitic Gulph: its
extent and form were previously so little known, that it was either
entirely omitted, or very erroneously laid down in maps. From what he
observed here, there is good reason to believe that the Jordan once
discharged itself into the Red Sea; thus confirming the truth of that
convulsion mentioned and described in the nineteenth chapter of Genesis,
which interrupted the coarse of this river; converted the plain in which
Sodom and Gomorrah stood into a lake, and changed the valley to the
southward of this district into a sandy desert.
But Mr. Burckhardt, considering all these excursions, and their consequent
numerous and important accessions to geographical knowledge, as only
preludes to the grand expedition for which he had expressly come to the
East, still looked forward to the interior of Africa. This, however, he was
not destined to reach; for while at Cairo, waiting for a caravan, which was
to proceed by Mourzouck, - a. route which he had long decided on as the most
likely to answer his purpose, - he was suddenly seized with a dysentery, on
the 5th of October, 1817, and died on the 15th.
Travellers in. Egypt and Nubia have been numerous since the time of Mr.
Burckhardt; but as they chiefly directed their investigations and inquiries
to the antiquities of the country, they do not come within our proper
notice; we shall therefore merely mention the names of Belzoni, (whose
antiquarian discoveries have been so numerous and splendid,) Mr. Salt, Mr.
Bankes, &c. To this latter gentleman, however, geography is also indebted
for important additions to its limits; or, rather, for having illustrated
ancient geography. He penetrated, as we have already mentioned, as far as
the second cataract: he visited some of the most celebrated scenes in
Arabia, and made an excursion to Waadi Mooza, or the Valley of Moses. He
also visited Carrac; but the most important discovery of this gentleman
relates to the site of the ancient Petraea, which was also visited by
Burckhardt. Onr readers will recollect that this city has been particularly
noticed in our digression on the early commerce of the Arabians, as the
common centre for the caravans in all ages; and that we traced its ancient
history as far down as there were any notices of it.
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