Chapter II

Mr. Ledyard’s Arrival at Cairo. — His Remarks on the Inhabitants, &c. — His Death and Character.

Mr. Ledyard took his departure from London on the 30th of June, 1788; and after a journey of six and thirty days, seven of which were consumed at Paris, and two at Marseilles, arrived in the city of Alexandria.

His Letters of Recommendation to the British Consul secured him from the embarrassments that the want of inns would otherwise have occasioned; and procured for him the necessary instructions for assuming the dress, and adopting the manners that are requisite for an Egyptian Traveller.

Forcibly impressed by the objects which he saw, and naturally led to compare them with those which other Regions of the Globe had presented to his view, he describes with the energy of an original Observer, and exhibits in his Narrative the varied effect of similarity and contrast: but as the travellers who preceded him, have obtained and transmitted to Europe whatever knowledge, either ancient or modern, the Lower Egypt affords, and as the examination of that country was no part of the business which was given him in charge, his descriptions, generally speaking, would add but little to the instruction which other Narratives convey.

The following Extracts from different parts of his Journal are given in his own words.

“A traveller, who should, by just comparisons between things here and in Europe, tell his tale; who, by a mind unbewitched by antecedent descriptions, too strong, too bold, too determined, too honest, to be capable of lying, should speak just as he thought, would, no doubt, be esteemed an arrant fool, and a stupid coxcomb.—For example, an Englishman who had never seen Egypt, would ask me what sort of a woman an Egyptian woman was? If I meant to do the question as much justice by the answer, as I could in my way, I should ask him to take notice of the first company of Gypsies he saw behind a hedge in Essex; and I suppose he would be fool enough to think me a fool.

“August 14th. I left Alexandria at midnight, with a pleasant breeze North; and was, at sun-rise next morning, at the mouth of the Nile, which has a bar of sand across it, and soundings as irregular as the sea, which is raised upon it by the contentions of counter currents and winds.

“The view in sailing up the Nile is very confined, unless from the top of the mast, or some other eminence, and then it is an unbounded plain of excellent land, miserably cultivated, and yet interspersed with a great number of villages, both on its banks and as far along the meadows as one can see in any direction: the river is also filled with boats passing and repassing—boats all of one kind, and navigated in one manner; nearly also of one size, the largest carrying ten or fifteen tons. On board of these boats are seen onions, water-melons, dates, sometimes a horse, a camel, (which lies down in the boat) and sheep and goats, dogs, men and women.—Towards evening and morning they have music.

“Whenever we stopped at a village, I used to walk into it with my Conductor, who, being a Musselman, and a descendant from Mahommed, wore a green turban, and was therefore respected, and I was sure of safety:—but in truth, dressed as I was in a common Turkish habit, I believe I should have walked as safely without him. I saw no propensity among the inhabitants to incivility. The villages are most miserable assemblages of poor little mud huts, flung very close together without any kind of order, full of dust, lice, fleas, bed-bugs, flies, and all the curses of Moses: people poorly clad, the youths naked; in such respects, they rank infinitely below any Savages I ever saw.

“The common people wear nothing but a shirt and drawers, and they are always blue. Green is the royal or holy colour; none but the descendants of Mahommed, if I am rightly informed, being permitted to wear it.

“August 19th. From the little town where we landed, the distance to Cairo is about a mile and a half, which we rode on asses; for the ass in this country is the Christian’s horse, as he is allowed no other animal to ride upon. Indeed I find the situation of a Christian, or what they more commonly call here a Frank, to be very, very humiliating, ignominious, and distressing: no one, by a combination of any causes, can reason down to such effects as experience teaches us do exist here: it being impossible to conceive, that the enmity I have alluded to could exist between men;—or, in fact, that the same species of beings, from any causes whatever, should ever think and act so differently as the Egyptians and the English do.

“I arrived at Cairo early in the morning, on the 19th of August, and went to the house of the Venetian Consul, Mr. Rosetti, Chargé d’Affaires for the English Consul here.

“After dinner, not being able to find any other lodging, and receiving no very pressing invitation from Mr. Rosetti, to lodge with him, I went to a convent. This convent consists of Missionaries sent by the Pope to propagate the Christian Faith, or at least to give shelter to Christians. The Christians here are principally from Damascus: the convent is governed by the Order of Recollets: a number of English, as well as other European travellers, have lodged there.

“August 21st. It is now about the hottest season of the year here; but I think I have felt it warmer in the City of Philadelphia, in the same month.

“August 26th. This day I was introduced by Rosetti to the Aga Mahommed, the confidential Minister of Ismael, the most powerful of the four ruling Beys: he gave me his hand to kiss, and with it the promise of letters, protection, and support, through Turkish Nubia, and also to some Chiefs far inland. In a subsequent conversation, he told me I should see in my travels a people who had power to transmutate themselves into the forms of different animals. He asked me what I thought of the affair? I did not like to render the ignorance, simplicity, and credulity of the Turk apparent. I told him, that it formed a part of the character of all Savages to be great Necromancers; but that I had never before heard of any so great as those which he had done me the honour to describe; that it had rendered me more anxious to be on my voyage, and if I passed among them, I would, in the letter I promised to write to him, give him a more particular account of them than he had hitherto had.—He asked me how I could travel without the language of the people where I should pass? I told him, with vocabularies:—I might as well have read to him a page of Newton’s Principia. He returned to his fables again. Is it not curious, that the Egyptians (for I speak of the natives of the country as well as of him, when I make the observation) are still such dupes to the arts of sorcery? Was it the same people who built the Pyramids?

“I can’t understand that the Turks have a better opinion of our mental powers than we have of theirs; but they say of us, that we are “a people who carry our minds on our fingers ends:” meaning, that we put them in exercise constantly, and render them subservient to all manner of purposes, and with celerity, dispatch, and ease, do what we do.

“I suspect the Copts to have been the origin of the Negro race: the nose and lips correspond with those of the Negro. The hair, whenever I can see it among the people here, (the Copts) is curled;—not close like the Negros, but like the Mulattoes. I observe a greater variety of colour among the human species here than in any other country; and a greater variety of feature than in any other country not possessing a greater degree of civilization.

“I have seen an Abyssinian woman and a Bengal man—the colour is the same in both; so are their features and persons.

“I have seen a small mummy;—it has what I call wampum work on it. It appears as common here as among the Tartars. Tatowing is as prevalent among the Arabs of this place as among the South Sea Islanders. It is a little curious, that the women here are more generally than in any other part of the world tatowed on the chin, with perpendicular lines descending from the under lip to the chin, like the women on the North West Coast of America. It is also a custom here to stain the nails red, like the Cochin Chinese, and the Northern Tartars. The mask or veil that the women here wear, resembles exactly that worn by the Priests at Otaheite, and those seen at Sandwich Islands.

“I have not yet seen the Arabs make use of a tool like our axe or hatchet; but what they use for such purposes as we do our hatchet and axe, is in the form of an adze, and is a form we found most agreeable to the South Sea Islanders. I see no instance of a tool formed designedly for the use of the right or left hand particularly, as the cotogon is among the Yorkertic Tartars.

“There is certainly a very remarkable affinity between the Russian and Greek dress. The fillet round the temples of the Greek and Russian women, is a circumstance in dress that perhaps would strike nobody as it does me; and so of the wampum work too, which is also found among them both.

“They spin here with the distaff and spindle only, like the French peasantry and others in Europe; and the common Arab loom is upon our principle, though rude.

“I saw to-day (August 10th) an Arab woman white, like the White Indians in the South Sea Islands, Isthmus of Darien, &c. These kind of people all look alike.

“Among the Greek women here, I find the identical Archangel head-dress.

“Their music is instrumental, consisting of a drum and pipe, both which resemble those two instruments in the South Seas: the drum is exactly like the Otaheite drum; the pipe is made of cane, and consists of a long and short tube joined: the music resembles very much the bagpipe, and is pleasant.—All their music is concluded, if not accompanied, by the clapping of hands. I think it singular, that the women here make a noise with their mouths like frogs, and that this frog-music is always made at weddings; and I believe on all other occasions of merriment where there are women.

“It is remarkable, that the dogs here are of just the same species found among the Otaheiteans.

“It is also remarkable, that in one village I saw exactly the same machines used for diversion as in Russia.—I forget the Russian name for it. It is a large kind of wheel, on the extremities of which there are suspended seats, in which people are whirled round over and under each other.

“The women dress their hair behind exactly in the same manner in which the women of the Calmuc Tartars dress theirs.

“In the History of the Kingdom of Benin in Guinea, the Chiefs are called Aree Roee, or Street Kings. Among the Islands in the South Sea, Otaheite, &c. they call the Chiefs Arees, and the great Chiefs Aree le Hoi. I think this curious; and so I do that it is a custom of the Arabs to spread a blanket when they would invite any one to eat or rest with them.—American Indians spread the beaver skins on such occasions.

“The Arabs of the Deserts, like the Tartars, have an invincible attachment to Liberty: no arts will reconcile them to any other life, or form of government, however modified. This is a character given me here of the Arabs.

“It is singular that the Arab Language has no word for Liberty, although it has for Slaves.

“The Arabs, like the New Zealanders, engage with a long strong spear.

“I have made the best inquiries I have been able, since I have been here, of the nature of the country before me; of Sennar, Darfoor, Wangara, of Nubia, Abyssinia, of those named, or unknown by name. I should have been happy to have sent you better information of those places than I am yet able to do. It will appear very singular to you in England, that we in Egypt are so ignorant of countries which we annually visit: the Egyptians know as little of Geography as the generality of the French; and like them, sing, dance, and traffic without it.

“I have the best assurances of a certain and safe conduct by the return of the caravan that is arrived from Sennar; and Mr. Rosetti tells me that the letters I shall have from the Aga here, will insure me of being conveyed, from hand to hand, to my journey’s end.

“The Mahometans in Africa are what the Russians are in Siberia, a trading, enterprizing, superstitious, warlike set of vagabonds, and wherever they are set upon going, they will and do go; but they neither can nor do make voyages merely commercial, or merely religious, across Africa; and where we do not find them in commerce, we find them not at all. They cannot (however vehemently pushed on by religion) afford to cross the Continent without trading by the way.

“October 14th. I went to-day to the market-place, where they vend the Black slaves that come from towards the interior parts of Africa:—there were 200 of them together, dressed and ornamented as in their country. The appearance of a Savage in every region is almost the same!—There were very few men among them: this indicates that they are prisoners of war. They have a great many beads and other ornaments about them that are from the East. I was told by one of them that they came from the West of Sennar, fifty-five days journey, which may be about four or five hundred miles. A Negro Chief said, the Nile had its source in his country. In general they had their hair plaited in a great number of small detached plaits, none exceeding in length six or eight inches—the hair was filled with grease, and dirt purposely daubed on.

“October 16th. I have renewed my visit to-day, and passed it more agreeably than yesterday; for yesterday I was rudely treated. The Franks are prohibited to purchase slaves, and therefore the Turks do not like to see them in the market. Mr. Rosetti favoured me with one of his running Chargé d’Affaires to accompany me: but having observed yesterday among the ornaments of the Negros a variety of beads, and wanting to know from what country they came, I requested Mr. Rosetti, previously to my second visit, to shew me from his store samples of Venetian beads.—He shewed me samples of fifteen hundred different kinds: after this I set out.

“The name of the country these Savages come from is Darfoor, and is well known on account of the Slave Trade, as well as of that in Gum and Elephants teeth.

“The appearance of these Negros declares them to be a people in as savage a state as any people can; but not of so savage a temper, or of that species of countenance that indicates savage intelligence. They appear a harmless, wild people; but they are mostly young women.

“The beads they are ornamented with are Venetian; and they have some Venetian brass medals which the Venetians make for trade. The beads are worked wampum-wise. I know not where they got the marine shells they worked among their beads, nor how they could have seen white men. I asked them if they would use me well in their country, if I should visit it? They said, “Yes:”—and added, that they should make a King of me, and treat me with all the delicacies of their country. Like the Egyptian women, and like most other Savages, they stick on ornaments wherever they can, and wear, like them, a great ring in the nose, either from the cartilage, or from the side: they also rub on some black kind of paint round the eyes, like the Egyptian women. They are a sizeable well-formed people, quite black, with what, I believe, we call the true Guinea face, and with curled short hair; but not more curled or shorter than I have seen it among the Egyptians; but in general these Savages plait it in tassels plaistered with clay or paint. Among some of them the hair is a foot long, and curled, resembling exactly one of our mops. The prevailing colour, where it can be seen, is a black and red mixed. I think it would make any hair curl, even Uncle Toby’s wig, to be plaited and plaistered as this is. This caravan, which I call the Darfoor caravan, is not very rich.—The Sennar is the rich caravan.

“October 19th. I went yesterday to see if more of the Darfoor caravan had arrived; but they were not. I wonder why travellers to Cairo have not visited these slave markets, and conversed with the Jelabs or travelling Merchants of these caravans: both are certainly sources of great information.—The eighth part of the money expended on other accounts, might here answer some good solid purpose. For my part, I have not expended a crown, and I have a better idea of the people of Africa, of its trade, of the position of places, the nature of the country, manner of travelling, &c. than ever I had by any other means; and, I believe, better than any other means would afford me.

“October 25th. I have been again to the slave market; but neither the Jelabs (a name which in this country is given to all travelling Merchants) nor the slaves are yet arrived in town—they will be here to-morrow. I met two or three in the street, and one with a shield and spear.

“I have understood to-day, that the King of Sennar is himself a Merchant, and concerned in the Sennar caravans. The Merchant here who contracts to convey me to Sennar, is Procurer at Cairo to the King of Sennar: this is a good circumstance, and one I knew not of till to-day. Mr. Rosetti informed me of it. He informed me also, that this year the importation of Negro Slaves into Egypt will amount to 20,000.—The caravans from the interior countries of Africa do not arrive here uniformly every year—they are sometimes absent two or three years.

“Among a dozen of Sennar slaves, I saw three personable men, of a good bright olive colour, of vivacious and intelligent countenances; but they had all three (which fist attracted my notice) heads uncommonly formed: the forehead was the narrowest, the longest, and most protuberant I ever saw. Many of these slaves speak a few words of the Arab language; but whether they learned them before or since their captivity I cannot tell.

“A caravan goes from here (Cairo) to Fezzan, which they call a journey of fifty days; and from Fezzan to Tombuctou, which they call a journey of ninety days. The caravans travel about twenty miles a day, which makes the distance on the road from here to Fezzan, one thousand miles; and from Fezzan to Tombuctou, one thousand eight hundred miles. From here to Sennar is reckoned six hundred miles.

“I have been waiting several days to have an interview with the Jelabs who go from hence to Sennar. I am told that they carry, in general, trinkets; but among other things, soap, antimony, red linen, razors, scissars, mirrors, beads; and, as far as I can yet learn, they bring from Sennar elephants teeth, the gum called here gum Sennar, camels, ostrich feathers, and slaves.

“Wangara is talked of here as a place producing much gold, and as a kingdom: all accounts, and there are many, agree in this. The King of Wangara (whom I hope to see in about three months after leaving this) is said to dispose of just what quantity he pleases of his gold—sometimes a great deal, and sometimes little or none; and this, it is said, he does to prevent strangers knowing how rich he is, and that he may live in peace.”

Such are the most material of those remarks on the people of Africa, which Mr. Ledyard was enabled, by his residence at Cairo, to send to the Committee.—The views which they opened were interesting and instructive; but they derived their principal importance from the proofs which they afforded of the ardent spirit of inquiry, the unwearied attention, the persevering research, and the laborious, indefatigable, anxious zeal with which their Author pursued the object of his Mission.

Already informed that his next dispatch would be dated from Sennar; that letters of earnest recommendation had been given him by the Aga; that the terms of his passage had been settled; and that the day of his departure was appointed—the Committee expected with impatience the description of his journey. Great was therefore their concern, and severe their disappointment, when letters from Egypt announced to them the melancholy tidings of his death. A bilious complaint, the consequence of vexatious delays in the promised departure of the caravan, had induced him to try the effect of too powerful a dose of the acid of vitriol; and the sudden uneasiness and burning pain which followed the incautious draught, impelled him to seek relief from the violent action of the strongest Tartar emetic. A continued discharge of blood discovered the danger of his situation, and summoned to his aid the generous friendship of the Venetian Consul, and the ineffectual skill of the most approved physicians of Cairo.

He was decently interred in the neighbourhood of such of the English as had ended their days in the capital of Egypt.

The bilious complaint with which he was seized has been attributed to the frowardness of a childish impatience—Much more natural is the conjecture, that his unexpected detention, week after week, and month after month, at Cairo, (a detention which consumed his finances, which therefore exposed to additional hazard the success of his favourite enterprize, and which consequently tended to bring into question his honour to the Society) had troubled his spirits, had preyed upon his peace, and subjected him at last to the disease that proved in its consequences the means of dragging him to his grave.

Of his attachment to the Society, and of his zeal for their service, the following Extracts from his Letters are remarkably expressive:

“Money! it is a vile slave!—I have at present an œconomy of a more exalted kind to observe. I have the eyes of some of the first men of the first kingdom on earth turned upon me. I am engaged by those very men, in the most important object that any private individual can be engaged in: I have their approbation to acquire, or to lose; and their esteem also, which I prize beyond every thing, except the independent idea of serving mankind. Should rashness or desperation carry me through, whatever fame the vain and injudicious might bestow, I should not accept of it;—it is the good and great I look to: fame from them bestowed is altogether different, and is closely allied to a well-done from God: but rashness will not be likely to carry me through any more than timid caution. To find the necessary medium of conduct, to vary and apply it to contingencies, is the œconomy I allude to; and if I succeed by such means, men of sense in any succeeding epoch will not blush to follow me, and perfect those Discoveries I have only abilities to trace out roughly, or, a disposition to attempt.

“A Turkish sopha has no charms for me: if it had, I could soon obtain one here. I could to-morrow take the command of the best armament of Ishmael Bey.—I should be sure of success, and its consequential honours. Believe me, a single well-done from your Association has more worth in it to me, than all the trappings of the East; and what is still more precious, is, the pleasure I have in the justification of my own conduct at the tribunal of my own heart.”

To those who have never seen Mr. Ledyard, it may not, perhaps, be uninteresting to know, that his person, though scarcely exceeding the middle size, was remarkably expressive of activity and strength; and that his manners, though unpolished, were neither uncivil nor unpleasing. Little attentive to difference of rank, he seemed to consider all men as his equals, and as such he respected them. His genius, though uncultivated and irregular, was original and comprehensive. Ardent in his wishes, yet calm in his deliberations; daring in his purposes, but guarded in his measures; impatient of controul, yet capable of strong endurance; adventurous beyond the conception of ordinary men, yet wary and considerate, and attentive to all precautions, he appeared to be formed by Nature for atchievements of hardihood and peril.

They who compare the extent of his pilgrimage through the vast regions of Tartary with the scantiness of his funds, will naturally ask, by what means he obtained a subsistence on the road? All that I have ever learned from him on the subject, was, that his sufferings were excessive, and that more than once he owed his life to the compassionate temper of the women. This last remark is strongly confirmed by the following Extract from his account of his Siberian Tour:

“I have always remarked, that women, in all countries, are civil, obliging, tender, and humane; that they are ever inclined to be gay and chearful, timorous and modest; and that they do not hesitate, like men, to perform a generous action.—Not haughty, not arrogant, not supercilious, they are full of courtesy, and fond of society: more liable, in general, to err than man; but in general, also, more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise.

“In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue, (so worthy the appellation of benevolence) these actions have been performed in so free, and so kind a manner, that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry, I eat the coarse morsel with a double relish.”

But though the native benevolence, which even among Savages distinguishes and adorns the female character, might sometimes soften the severity of his sufferings, yet at others he seems to have endured the utmost pressure of distress.

“I am accustomed—(said he, in our last conversation—’twas on the morning of his departure for Africa)—I am accustomed to hardships. I have known both hunger and nakedness to the utmost extremity of human suffering. I have known what it is to have food given me as charity to a madman; and I have at times been obliged to shelter myself under the miseries of that character to avoid a heavier calamity. My distresses have been greater than I have ever owned, or ever will own to any man. Such evils are terrible to bear; but they never yet had power to turn me from my purpose. If I live, I will faithfully perform, in its utmost extent, my engagement to the Society; and if I perish in the attempt, my honour will still be safe, for death cancels all bonds.”