CHAP. IV.
Reading edition
TERANÉ TO THE NATRÔN LAKES.
Government of Terané — Carlo Rossetti — The Trade in Natrôn — Manners — Journey to the Lakes — Observations there — Remarks on Natrôn — Coptic Convents and MSS. — Proceed to Kahira.
Terané is a town situated on the left of the most western mouth of the Nile, at a very small distance from the river. Its latitude is 30° 24′. The buildings are chiefly unburned brick, but there are also some of stone. The town and district, containing several villages, belong to Murad Bey, who usually entrusts its government and the collection of its revenue to one of his Cashefs. But the person who now holds it, May 1792, is Carlo Rossetti, a Venetian merchant, recently appointed consul-general of the Emperor of Germany, and well known to those who have visited the country. Observing, as he thought, the demands for natrôn increasing in Europe, he supposed that by obtaining an exclusive right to collect and export it, he should secure to himself an immense and increasing revenue. Till now, indeed, this article had never been productive of any advantage to the Beys. The officers who successively obtained the government there, exacting, without any settled rule, whatever they thought themselves entitled to expect from the people, who brought the commodity from the lakes to the river: and the European merchants obtained it by their agents at the cheapest rate they were able from the natives. The quantity supplied, the prime cost, and the contingent charges, were therefore variable and uncertain. It had never before, as I understood, been farmed by an European. Sre Rossetti wished for a clear and exclusive property in the produce of the lakes, on paying regularly an annual sum, to be determined by the quantity sold. He has attained, from long experience, a considerable local knowlege, and had, at that time, from various causes, great interest with Murad Bey. Pecuniary prospects singularly influence those regents, whose office being precarious, and at most for life, totally omit to reflect on any remote consequences, for the sake of an immediate advantage. The proposal was accepted, and Rossetti obtained over the district of Terané an authority almost equal to that exercised in former times by the Cashefs.
At that time the consumption was augmenting at Marseilles, Venice, and Leghorn, and the article had been tried with some success in Great Britain. Rossetti sent his nephew to reside at Terané as his deputy. But the young man, preferring the repose of his sofa to the Mamlûk exercises of arms, was little adapted to the government of a people accustomed to be ruled only by fear. He had a few Sclavonian soldiers, who could not prevent injuries being done to the little parties employed to fetch the natrôn. About three months after I left Terané the young man died, not without suspicions of poison; and Sre Rossetti has since sold a large share in the grant, which he now retains to little purpose.
During the year of the most extensive export, the duty to government amounted, as was said, to 32,000 patackes, which, at twelve piatres the pound sterling, may be estimated at 6000l. Hence the quantity must have been from 3500 to 4000 tons, of which the greater part was shipped for Marseilles. The present war exceedingly reduced the quantity exported.
On my arrival at Terané, my application to Sre Ferrari, nephew of Rossetti, for whom recommendations had been given me, was attended with assurances from that gentleman of his co-operation in all I might wish to undertake, and an invitation to reside with him. I passed a day in wandering over the adjacent ground, particularly that part of the Delta which is opposite the town, where are many columns and other considerable remains, which indicate the site of antient structures. I could, however, find no inscriptions, nor, indeed, any thing that was worth the search.
Sre Rossetti had made a very neat garden near his house, in which was cultivated a number of fruit-trees and useful plants. He had also attempted many other improvements, by planting trees, &c. in the suburbs; but in this laudable design he was far from being seconded by the natives, who refused even to water the trees he had been at the trouble of planting, and seemed to judge their forbearance remarkable in abstaining from their destruction. A striking lesson to those who would force refinement on any people, to which they must ever be stimulated by their necessities, or led by their personal conviction. Yet, perhaps, they had suspicions which are unexplained, or discontents at the appearance of novelty, concerning the sources of which we are ignorant. I have ever observed the Egyptians, as all the Orientals, passionately fond of trees and water; and if in this instance they preferred being without them, it might possibly be from distrust of bringing on themselves some real evil, by the pursuit of an imaginary advantage.
The ensuing night, when the Arabs were to go to the lake for a lading of natrôn, Sre F. appointed his company of five Sclavonians to attend me, and I set off at nine in the evening on horseback. We continued our march, chiefly in a western direction, till seven the following morning, at which time we came to a spring of fresh water, that rises among some rushes near the lake, which, though it afford no very copious supply of water, was yet a seasonable refreshment, as the heat of the sun was already inconvenient. The latitude at the eastern extremity of the most western lake I found 30°, 31′, north; but this is not decided by a single observation. The difference of time between Terané and the Convents of St. George, gave a distance, as nearly as I could compute it, of thirty-five miles.
The road from Terané is level, with very small exception, and generally firm and good, though with intervals of loose and deep sand.
The country we passed through, however, is destitute of water, and consequently barren, as is all that which borders on the lakes. The only buildings in the neighbourhood are three convents, inhabited by a few religious of the Coptic church; two of which are about a mile and half, the third about six miles from the eastern lake. There are some vestiges of other buildings, which also seem to have been convents that have long since ceased to exist. The antelope and the ostrich are seen rarely here, and they appear to be the only wild animals that frequent that part of the country. No vegetation appears, except reeds on the margin of the lake, which is very irregular in its form; so that it is not very easy to say what may be the quantity of ground covered with water, nor to discern the extremities. It is higher in winter than in summer; and, at this period, I could no where observe that the breadth of it exceeded a mile: its length may be nearly four.
The Arabs told me, that the water during the last winter had been remarkably low. There seem to be marks of its having occasionally risen about four feet higher than at present; which must greatly change the appearance of the whole. Towards the end of the summer, it is said, these lakes are almost dry; and the space that the water has retired from is then occupied by a thick deposition of salt. Not far removed from the eastern extremity, a spring rises with some force, which much agitates the rest of the water. Close to that spring the depth was far greater than my height, in other parts it was observable that it did not generally exceed three feet. The thermometer near this spring stood at 76, while in the open air it was 87. The more western lake differs not materially from the eastern in size, form, or productions. The colour of the water in both is an imperfect red, and where the bottom is visible, it appears almost as if covered with blood. Salt, to the thickness of five or six inches, lies constantly in the more shallow parts.
The surface of the earth, near the lake, partakes more or less generally of the character of natrôn, and, in the parts farthest removed, offers to the foot the slight resistance of ploughed ground after a slight frost. The soil is coarse sand. The water of the lake, on the slightest evaporation, immediately deposits salt. There is a mountain not far from the lakes, where natrôn is found in insulated bodies, near the surface, of a much lighter colour than that produced in the lake, and containing a greater portion of alkali. This kind more resembles the natrôn of Barbary, and what I have since observed in the road to Soudân.
How thick the substance of natrôn commonly is in the lake, I did not accurately determine, but those employed to collect it report that it never exceeds a cubit, or common pike; but it appears to be regenerated as it is carried away. The Arabs report that the natrôn country extends twenty days journey; and indeed I had remarked something resembling that substance near Siwa. I understood it was delivered at Terané for about a piaster the cantâr. But there are, probably, some other expenses attending it. Notwithstanding Sre R.’s exclusive right, the Arabs carry off some of the commodity, which they sell wherever they can find a market. The quantity exported to Venice was much decreasing in 1792, as it had been found on trial inapplicable to many purposes to which it was supposed it might be converted. I know not how far correct their experiments might have been; but if ever it should be brought to supersede the use of barilla, the quantity obtainable seems likely to answer every possible demand.
I detected much alkali in all the specimens which came into my possession; but not equal in all. And circumstances did not permit me to make an analysis so complete as to merit insertion here.
During my stay near the lakes, I visited two of the Coptic convents, that called the Syrian, and that of St. George; where I could observe no traces of any European traveller, but Baron Thunis, whom the Empress of Russia had sent, some years before, to negotiate a defection on the part of the Beys; but who having exhibited less prudence than courage, in the promotion of the designs of his mistress, had been privately put to death in Kahira, by order of the Beys, to avoid delivering him to the Porte, as had been required of them. These convents contain each of them several religious, who retain all the simplicity of the primitive ages.—They drink water, and eat coarse bread and vegetables; very seldom touching meat, wine, or coffee. They are ignorant indeed, but strangers to vice; and though their time is employed to no useful purpose, so neither is the application of it prejudicial to any.
They have each a small garden, which supplies common vegetables, and a breed of tame fowls, together with a well of water, within the walls; the rest of the necessaries of life are provided them by the voluntary contributions of the Christians of their own persuasion; and as the business of artificers and menials is all performed by the monastics themselves, their expenses are not very extended. The entrance to each is by a small trap-door, against which two great mill-stones are rolled within. The buildings appear to have lasted several centuries, and the walls are still firm and substantial. No praise is to be given to the religious for cleanliness; but as the list of their furniture and apparel is very small, they cannot be frequently renewed; human beings more ignorant of mankind and their transactions than some of those whom I conversed with, are scarcely any where to be seen. But the superiors in both were in a certain degree intelligent. One of them, when I was admitted, was mending his shoes, and seemed to think little of theological controversies. The other attempted to prove to me the Eutychian tenet of monothelism, and on my expressing myself persuaded by his arguments, he seemed highly gratified. Indeed I met with on their part every mark of hospitality.
I inquired for MSS. and saw in one of the convents several books in the Coptic, Syriac, and Arabic languages. Among these were an Arabo-Coptic Lexicon. The works of St. Gregory, and the Old and New Testament in Arabic. The superior told me they had near eight hundred volumes; but positively refused to part with any of them, nor could I see any more. The monks are strangers to all idioms but the vulgar Arabic.
Having thus spent two days and part of a third in the vicinity of the lakes, my attendants grew impatient, and I was obliged to return. After a short interval, having re-embarked for Kahira, I arrived there on the 16th May 1792[8].