Wilson, Robert Thomas: The British expedition to Egypt: carefully abridged in two parts (London, 1803)

our utmost power, until peace is re-established,
without any cost or expense to the republic.
Given and signed by our clemency to the
republic of Egypt.
This grant of privileges was dated in the year
of our Lord, 1517, and in the *887th year of
the Mahometan Hegira, in which year Sultan
Selim conquered Egypt from the Mamelukes.
OF GRAND CAIRO, OR KAIRA ITS CUS-
TOMS, MANNERS, &c.
Though some Europeans have spoken with a
degree of contempt upon the epithets that the
Mahometans have bestowed upon Cairo, as the
superb town, the holy city, the delight of the
imagination, greatest among the great, whose
splendour and opulence made the prophet
smile ; confined to the East, these epithets may
be admitted as having some foundation in truth.
The narrowness of the principal streets have
been before excused, in a former part of this
work ; and though the diminutive scale of the
habitations in general, are made to appear still
less, from the contrast with the cumbrous pa-
laces, or rather the apparent prisons of the Beys
and Mamelukes, and sadden the appearance of
the whole ; yet, when once the observer enters
these fortresses, as they are called, he finds
some conveniencies, and even a refinement of
luxury; fine marble baths; voluptuous stoves;
mosaic chambers, in the midst of which
are basons of water and fountains; mat-
tresses covered with rich stuffs, and surrounded