DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0065
and lower egypt. 39
i have just now said, had nothing formidable, is
semicircular. The city, the suburbs, and the walks
which surround them, present an amphitheatre
equally agreeable and variegated. A chain of
lofty mountains, bare and uncultivated, rise behind
the city, and render its position more picturesque.
It is shut in by four beautiful gates ; two streets,
which terminate in them, form3 crossing each other
nearly at the centre, an open place, of no great ex-
tent, which they call the Ottangoh, and from which
you can see the four gates. These streets run in a
straight line ; they are broad, well built, and paved
with great stones. In the evening, a multitude of
shops and coffeehouses lighted up, the great num-
ber of carriages rolling along, illuminated by flam-
beaux, the crowds of people on foot pressing by each
other, through the longest and the most respect-
able of these streets, resemble the splendour and
the hurlyburly of that of Saint-Honore, at Paris.
The Sicilians, who are not of the laborious class of
mankind, never go abroad but in a coach: it would
be deemed indecent for a man in affluent circum-
stances to make use of his legs. The number of
carriages is accordingly very great; a stranger may
hire a very decent one at the rate of six or seven
shillings a day. Every body there wears a sword:
the cobler, with his leathern apron and greasv
jacket; the hair-dresser, in his jerkin and his pow-
der-bag on his arm ; in a word, the artisan of every
d 4 descrip-
i have just now said, had nothing formidable, is
semicircular. The city, the suburbs, and the walks
which surround them, present an amphitheatre
equally agreeable and variegated. A chain of
lofty mountains, bare and uncultivated, rise behind
the city, and render its position more picturesque.
It is shut in by four beautiful gates ; two streets,
which terminate in them, form3 crossing each other
nearly at the centre, an open place, of no great ex-
tent, which they call the Ottangoh, and from which
you can see the four gates. These streets run in a
straight line ; they are broad, well built, and paved
with great stones. In the evening, a multitude of
shops and coffeehouses lighted up, the great num-
ber of carriages rolling along, illuminated by flam-
beaux, the crowds of people on foot pressing by each
other, through the longest and the most respect-
able of these streets, resemble the splendour and
the hurlyburly of that of Saint-Honore, at Paris.
The Sicilians, who are not of the laborious class of
mankind, never go abroad but in a coach: it would
be deemed indecent for a man in affluent circum-
stances to make use of his legs. The number of
carriages is accordingly very great; a stranger may
hire a very decent one at the rate of six or seven
shillings a day. Every body there wears a sword:
the cobler, with his leathern apron and greasv
jacket; the hair-dresser, in his jerkin and his pow-
der-bag on his arm ; in a word, the artisan of every
d 4 descrip-