DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14563#0150
A VILLAGE COFFEE-HOUSE. 119
from Thotlimcs to Trajan. Here was a powerful seat of
Christianity, and a refuge of the witnesses for the faith.
Now hardly a vestige remains of its ancient grandeur. The
town has shrunk to the dimensions of a moderate village,
that one could compass in a quarter of an hour. Its walls
are of common mud brick; its houses are low and untidy ;
its streets are narrow and crooked alleys; and its bazaar
* displays only an indifferent assortment of the commonest
goods. The mosque and the large khan opposite, are the
only structures that make any pretence to solidity or beauty;
and whatever these have is due to the working in of frag-
ments of buildings that have long since perished. Here
and there you see jutting from the mud wall of a hovel the
fragment of a pillar or a block of red granite, with some
Greek, Roman,' or hieroglyphic inscription ; or a vender of
antiques offers you indiscriminately the coins of ancient
Rome and of modern British India.
The common people look wretchedly. Shabby women
and sore-eyed children, blind men and beggars, meet you
at every turn. Outside the walls a long embankment pro-
tects the town, and the adjacent fields, from the yearly
overflow of the river, while artificial canals conduct the
waters where they are needed for irrigation. Here a
large field of poppies of various colors, in full bloom, gave
a rich and diversified aspect to the scene,— and the palms,
as ever, waved aloft in aerial beauty. Thus, continually, in
Egypt, do you pass from the grandeur of the past to the
degradation of the present, and again from the dreary facts
of human life to the dreamy poetry of nature.
As I have frequently alluded to the coffee-house as a
characteristic feature in every village on the Nile, the
following sketch of one and its incidents, may complete the
picture in the eye of the reader.
This being the birthday of one of our party, it was pro-
from Thotlimcs to Trajan. Here was a powerful seat of
Christianity, and a refuge of the witnesses for the faith.
Now hardly a vestige remains of its ancient grandeur. The
town has shrunk to the dimensions of a moderate village,
that one could compass in a quarter of an hour. Its walls
are of common mud brick; its houses are low and untidy ;
its streets are narrow and crooked alleys; and its bazaar
* displays only an indifferent assortment of the commonest
goods. The mosque and the large khan opposite, are the
only structures that make any pretence to solidity or beauty;
and whatever these have is due to the working in of frag-
ments of buildings that have long since perished. Here
and there you see jutting from the mud wall of a hovel the
fragment of a pillar or a block of red granite, with some
Greek, Roman,' or hieroglyphic inscription ; or a vender of
antiques offers you indiscriminately the coins of ancient
Rome and of modern British India.
The common people look wretchedly. Shabby women
and sore-eyed children, blind men and beggars, meet you
at every turn. Outside the walls a long embankment pro-
tects the town, and the adjacent fields, from the yearly
overflow of the river, while artificial canals conduct the
waters where they are needed for irrigation. Here a
large field of poppies of various colors, in full bloom, gave
a rich and diversified aspect to the scene,— and the palms,
as ever, waved aloft in aerial beauty. Thus, continually, in
Egypt, do you pass from the grandeur of the past to the
degradation of the present, and again from the dreary facts
of human life to the dreamy poetry of nature.
As I have frequently alluded to the coffee-house as a
characteristic feature in every village on the Nile, the
following sketch of one and its incidents, may complete the
picture in the eye of the reader.
This being the birthday of one of our party, it was pro-