Sonnini de Manoncourt, Charles Nicolas Sigisbert: Travels in upper and lower Egypt (Band 1) (London, 1807)

and lower egypt. 243

cient times that of feasant did with us, to
which it corresponds, when the intention is to ex-
press rude vulgarity and gross ignorance. The
chief command was intrusted to an officer of the
Mamelucs, to whom they gave the title of Aga.

The most ordinary pastime here, as well as all
over Turkey, is to smoke and drink coffee. The
pipe is never from the mouth from morning to
night: at home, in the houses of others, in the
streets, on horseback, the lighted pipe is still in
hand, and the tobacco-pouch hangs always at the
girdle. These constitute two great objects of lux-
ury ; the purses which serve to contain the provi-
sion, are of silken stuffs richly embroidered, and the
tubes of the pipes, of an excessive length, are of the
rarest, and, for the most part, of the sweetest scent-
ed wood. I brought home one made of the jas-
mine-tree, which is more than six feet long : it
may convey an idea of the beauty of the jasmines
of those countries, seeing they push out branches
of that length, straight, and sufficiently large to
admit of being bored. The pipes of more com-
mon wood are covered with a robe of silk tied with
threads of gold. The poor, with whom the smoke
of tobacco is a necessary of first-rate importance,
make use of simple tubes of reed. The top of the
pipe is garnished with a species of mock alabaster,
and white as milk : it is frequently enriched with

r 2 precious