CAIRO. hiftory, and the principles of the Mahometan religion. There is another mofque, contiguous to which is an hofpital, with very plentiful endowments for two thousand blind men, which number is always complete, there being above half the inhabitants of Ægypt who have fome natural or acquired defect in their fight. The ftructure of these mosques is very different from those of Conftantinople, the minarets being in quite another taste, and seem to have nothing near the fine effect of thofe made ufe of in the metropolis, which, at a distance, make the city appear as if it was full of obelisks and fingle pillars. There is in Grand Cairo one large fquare, called. Rumeli Meidani, or the fquare of Romelia, which is between the great mofque and the caftle, but it is without any kind of ornament, and is rather a disadvantage to the city than an embellishment. The inhabitants of this vaft capital are innumerable, and notwithstanding the frequent plagues and fickneffes, which infest the country, it undoubtedly maintains itself one of the best peopled cities in the world. The inhabitants are compofed of Truks, Arabs, Jews, and Christians, the greatest part of which are coptes, who are reckoned to amount to the number of thirty thousand. The city is built on a plain overlooked by an eminence, on which stands the castle, or citadel, imagined to have been first founded by the Babylonians, who were established in these parts by Semiramis, in order to keep the city of Memphis in fubjection. It is, however, a place of very little defence, being commanded by a hill fituate to the eastward, whence an enemy could in a very few hours oblige it to furrender. It is garrifoned by two bodies of militia, the janiffaries and the afaps; who are lodged in different quarters, and have their feparate magazines of armour and ammunition. These afaps are upon a different establishment from those in other Turkish provinces, being in Ægypt a very confiderable body of infantry, whereas in other parts they are but few in number, and ferve on horfeback. In this castle the pacha, commiffioned by the Grand Signor to act as fupreme governor over all Ægypt, makes his refidence. His palace, though it is but of ordinary structure, is fpacious, and the inner apartments magnificent; it has alfo joining to it a very large hall, ferving as a divan, or fenate-house, in which the pacha fits prefident. But what is most remarkable in the citadel is the well, commonly called Jofeph's Well. It is uncertain who was the -author of this grand work, but I am inclined to believe it is not of fo great antiquity as is commonly imagined. The form of it is a fquare of twenty-fix feet, and the whole deph two hundred and eighty-five: it is cut entirely out of the folid rock, through which, by an easy winding, without the extent of the fquare, you descend for the space of one hundred and twenty-fix perpendicular feet, after which you come to a fquare platform of the fame dimensions as the mouth of the well, upon which there are constantly nine or ten oxen at work in turning round a wheel, which conveys the water from out of the fecond well one hundred and fifty-nine feet deep, into a large ciftern placed upon the platform, whence it is drawn up to the top by an equal number of oxen labouring at another wheel without the mouth of the well. As before the invention of guns this citadel muft undoubtedly have been a very ftrong place, fome monarch resolved to render it almost impregnable by removing the only difficulty which rendered it incapable of maintaining a long fiege, the want of water. With this view he contrived this well, which when he had with the utmoft labour and expence finished, he to his great disappointment found the water brackish and unwholesome. This did not, however, difcourage CAIRO. CAIRO. him from pursuing his defign, in a manner different indeed but not less expensive, which was to bring in the water of the Nile by an aqueduct, as it is furnished at this day; the water of Joseph's Well being employed in other ufes, to which its difagreeable tafte is no objection. Near the fouthern wall of the castle is a large fquare building, the roof of which is fupported by feveral vast granite pillars. It is called by the inhabitants the Divan of Jofeph, to whom they attribute every thing, which is in the least extraordinary; though it is easy to discover it to be Turkish workmanship, by the gilding and ornaments of the roof, and by the cornices, filled with infcriptions in Arabic characters. Hence one has a very fine view of the whole city of Cairo, which at this distance affords a moft noble and magnificent profpect. The caftle is of an irregular figure, and the fortifications not only very indifferent, but kept in fo bad repair, that they are scarce of ftrength sufficient to defend the pacha from the infults of the populace. After a stay of three or four days in the city of Grand Cairo, I embarked on board a canzabafs, in order to go to the English conful's country-house at Old Cairo, which is no more than a mile distant from the capital, with which it has a communication by a canal, called by the people of the country Ghaliz, the fame with Ptolomy's Amnis Trajanus. It is in moft places about twenty feet in breadth, and divides Grand Cairo almost in the middle, discharging itself into a lake about four miles diftant from the city, called Birque El Hadge, or the Lake of the Pilgrims, because the caravan affembles in this place before it departs for Mecca. In the wintertime the Ghaliz is wholly deftitute of water, owing its streams entirely to the inundation of the Nile, whose waters, by opening a dam, are let in at a prefixed time. Old Cairo is a village of very great |