DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11638#0035
AND LOWER EGYPT.
21
rent. We stopped towards night, about eight
leagues distance from ancient Cairo, opposite to
Scheick Itmann, a little village of which the houses
or huts are of mud. Its appearance is not the less
pleasing. Groves of date-trees surround it; their
verdant summits, which bear long and shooting
stalks, whilst others are bent downwards by the
winds, seem to cross each other in order to form a
shade to the roofs of the houses, enliven the gray
and obscure tints of the village, render it beauti-
fully picturesque, and form a most interesting
landscape. Several white herons came to pass the
night upon these date-trees, and composed there
a charming bouquet of a beautiful green and a
dazzling white.
From ancient Cairo the eastern shore of the Nile
is bordered by that chain of mountains which begin
at Cairo itself. You see in them great cavities
formed by the extraction of the stones which have
been quarried there. The opposite side of that
mountain which overlooks the Nile, has been dug
up over almost all its surface. It is probable, that
from thence, in ancient times, those stones were
extracted which they employed in the construction
of the city of Memphis, and of the pyramids. The
masses of which these lafjt monuments have been
built, are absolutely of the same grain with the
calcareous rock of the mountain : and this circum-
c 3 stance
21
rent. We stopped towards night, about eight
leagues distance from ancient Cairo, opposite to
Scheick Itmann, a little village of which the houses
or huts are of mud. Its appearance is not the less
pleasing. Groves of date-trees surround it; their
verdant summits, which bear long and shooting
stalks, whilst others are bent downwards by the
winds, seem to cross each other in order to form a
shade to the roofs of the houses, enliven the gray
and obscure tints of the village, render it beauti-
fully picturesque, and form a most interesting
landscape. Several white herons came to pass the
night upon these date-trees, and composed there
a charming bouquet of a beautiful green and a
dazzling white.
From ancient Cairo the eastern shore of the Nile
is bordered by that chain of mountains which begin
at Cairo itself. You see in them great cavities
formed by the extraction of the stones which have
been quarried there. The opposite side of that
mountain which overlooks the Nile, has been dug
up over almost all its surface. It is probable, that
from thence, in ancient times, those stones were
extracted which they employed in the construction
of the city of Memphis, and of the pyramids. The
masses of which these lafjt monuments have been
built, are absolutely of the same grain with the
calcareous rock of the mountain : and this circum-
c 3 stance