DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5295#0113
84 TRAVELS IN EGYPT, NUBIA,
the skin into wrinkles as he advanced, mumbling a prayer,
spitting on the ground, and lastly on the part affected. This
continued for about a quarter of an hour, and the patient
got up, thoroughly convinced he should soon be well.
This style of cure seems to be a common superstition
of the Egyptians; for at Erment, the ancient Hermontis,
an old woman applied to me for medicine for a disease in
her eyes, and on my giving her some directions she did not
seem to like, requested me to spit in her e}res, which I did ;
and she went away, blessed me, and was Avell satisfied of the
certainty of her cure*.
The appearance of the aga pleased me: he told me his
toM'n extended for three miles; that the government was
divided between himself and another, independent of the
Cashief of Deir, by a firman from the Pasha of Egypt; that
it had suffered from the flight of the Mamelouks, and pursuit
of the Turks. The whole town lies amongst palm-trees, is
built without regularity, and bears marks of the ravages of
war. The houses, often pyramidal, are built in squares of
mud, of one story high, the roofs of palm branches laid flat.
On passing through it the night before, I found the inha-
* See note to preface of Walpole's Memoirs relative to European and
Asiatic Turkey, Part I. See also Mark, chap. vii. 33. viii. 23.
the skin into wrinkles as he advanced, mumbling a prayer,
spitting on the ground, and lastly on the part affected. This
continued for about a quarter of an hour, and the patient
got up, thoroughly convinced he should soon be well.
This style of cure seems to be a common superstition
of the Egyptians; for at Erment, the ancient Hermontis,
an old woman applied to me for medicine for a disease in
her eyes, and on my giving her some directions she did not
seem to like, requested me to spit in her e}res, which I did ;
and she went away, blessed me, and was Avell satisfied of the
certainty of her cure*.
The appearance of the aga pleased me: he told me his
toM'n extended for three miles; that the government was
divided between himself and another, independent of the
Cashief of Deir, by a firman from the Pasha of Egypt; that
it had suffered from the flight of the Mamelouks, and pursuit
of the Turks. The whole town lies amongst palm-trees, is
built without regularity, and bears marks of the ravages of
war. The houses, often pyramidal, are built in squares of
mud, of one story high, the roofs of palm branches laid flat.
On passing through it the night before, I found the inha-
* See note to preface of Walpole's Memoirs relative to European and
Asiatic Turkey, Part I. See also Mark, chap. vii. 33. viii. 23.