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

The ori

as. divans

of which the lower parts are petticoats,

It is situated at the bottom of the
called by the natives Makatam,

on which one is rather
on which one is at ease, and

with magnificent cushions : these divans com-
monly occupy the three sides of the room. The
windows, where there are any, never open ;
and the light which they admit is dimned by
coloured glass, within very closely reticulated
grates : the principal light usually enters from
a dome in the center of'the ceiling,
pntals, strangers to the use we make of light,
care very little for procuring it. Generally
speaking, every thing they admire is favourable
to repose ;
laid than seated
from which it is troublesome to move : gar
meats
by which the legs are confined ; large sleeves
which fall eight inches below the fingers’ ends ;
a turban with which it is impossible to bow the
head ; a continual habit of holding in one hand
a pipe, the vapour of which intoxicates the
brain ; and in the other a rosary of beads, which
they play with or pass through their fingers.
These habits destroy every other degree of acti-
vity, the imagination is damped, they seem to
think without an object; do the same thing
every day without a relish for life, and at length
die without an effort to vary the monotony of
their existence.
The city of Cairo, the natives call it Masr,
it stands about one mile from the river Nile,
to the East, and extends from North to South,
about four miles and a half, and three from East
to West,
mountain
having on the East a castle, built upon a rock.