DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0377
AND LOWER EGYPT. 347
We alighted at the house of a Jew, the agent by-
patent of the consul-general of France in Egypt.
His ancestors had constantly exercised the same
functions with honour and fidelity. He had a
great degree of affection for the French; indeed
he looked on himself as one of them. He was a
man gentle, ublig.iig, in a word, the most worthy
man of a Jew that I ever was acquainted with.
His salary was six parats, or medinas, or from three-
pence halfpenny to a groat a day. It was impos-
sible to give a more sorry payment for the services
he had rendered to the French vessels which came
to an anchor off Aboukir, and which could not
dispense with his assistance in an isolated spot,
where there was not a single European. Formerly
only a salary of four medinas was given, as I saw
in the regulation made in 1706, by M. de Galines,
comptroller of the navy, and joint commissary for
the general inspection of the sea-ports of the Le-
vant. The article which concerned the settlement
of a drogman of Aboukir, and which I transcribe,
because it has a relation to the poit of Alexan-
dria, and the navigation of the coast of Egypt, is
couched in the following terms : " As several
" French vessels have taken in their lading for
*' some years at the roads of Bequiers, and because
« it is of advantage to keep up this custom, which
" extends the liberty of lading, and may, in the
" end, be of service to the nation, if it is under
" the necessity of quitting Alexandria, the port of
" which
We alighted at the house of a Jew, the agent by-
patent of the consul-general of France in Egypt.
His ancestors had constantly exercised the same
functions with honour and fidelity. He had a
great degree of affection for the French; indeed
he looked on himself as one of them. He was a
man gentle, ublig.iig, in a word, the most worthy
man of a Jew that I ever was acquainted with.
His salary was six parats, or medinas, or from three-
pence halfpenny to a groat a day. It was impos-
sible to give a more sorry payment for the services
he had rendered to the French vessels which came
to an anchor off Aboukir, and which could not
dispense with his assistance in an isolated spot,
where there was not a single European. Formerly
only a salary of four medinas was given, as I saw
in the regulation made in 1706, by M. de Galines,
comptroller of the navy, and joint commissary for
the general inspection of the sea-ports of the Le-
vant. The article which concerned the settlement
of a drogman of Aboukir, and which I transcribe,
because it has a relation to the poit of Alexan-
dria, and the navigation of the coast of Egypt, is
couched in the following terms : " As several
" French vessels have taken in their lading for
*' some years at the roads of Bequiers, and because
« it is of advantage to keep up this custom, which
" extends the liberty of lading, and may, in the
" end, be of service to the nation, if it is under
" the necessity of quitting Alexandria, the port of
" which