Pompey's Pillar and Cleopatra's Needle are composed. Just beyond the mosque is the palace and harem of the pasha—a neat, plain building, more richly than tastefully fitted up and furnished within, but quite worthy of examination. The Mint is beyond this; and near by is Joseph's Well, an excavation two hundred and sixty feet in depth, a winding staircase leading to the bottom. The reader must be reminded that the Joseph here referred to is not the Hebrew patriarch, though commonly imagined to be such, but the famous Sultan Saladin, by whom the works were constructed.
From the palace garden may be seen the spot where Emir Bey leaped his horse over the wall, to escape the massacre which awaited his brother Mamelukes on the 1st of March 1811. Mohammed Ali had prepared an expedition into Arabia, to chastise the Wahabees, who had robbed and murdered the pilgrims on their way to Mecca. The Mamelukes, impatient of his curtailment of their power, resolved to avenge and liberate themselves by the overthrow of his government. Their secret was badly kept, and the pasha was informed of the plot hatching against him. He pretended to disbelieve it altogether, and treated it as a slander against the Mamelukes. His preparations being completed, he invited all his courtiers and chiefs to the Citadel, to be present at the investiture of his son with authority to be exercised during his absence. The beys of the Mamelukes were received with the usual courtesy; but on their retirement, found the gates shut against them, while volleys of musketry were poured in on them from every side. Horses and riders fell in heaps. It is said that four hundred and forty were slaughtered in the court, Emir Bey alone escaping. He remembered that a heap of rubbish thrown over the wall, had accumulated to a considerable height near its base. He leaped his horse over: the animal was dashed to pieces, but the rider escaped. He found shelter in the tents of some soldiers near, and succeeded in making his way to Constantinople. He survived till within these few years. The beautiful aqueduct seen from the Citadel was originally built by Saladin the Magnificent in 1171, for the purpose of bringing water from the Nile to supply the garrison: it was renewed and enlarged in 1518.
Before requesting the reader to accompany me on the route eastward to Suez, I shall pause to describe some things which I visited and felt interested in on the occasion of my previous visit to Cairo.
The Nile—Pyramids. Egypt, as is well known, consists of the
fertile valley of the Nile, and a strip of desert on each side. The Nile,
formed by streams coming out of Abyssinia on the south, is about 1500
miles in length; at certain places it forms rapids, or sloping cataracts, and
at other points encloses islands, interesting for their beauty or the ruins
which remain upon them. The remarkable phenomenon connected with
the Nile, is its annual overflow of the banks which border it—an event
looked for with as much certainty as the daily rising of the sun. These
inundations of the Nile are owing to the periodical rains which fall between
the tropics. They begin in March, but have no effect upon the river until
three months later. Towards the end of June it begins to rise, and continues
rising at the rate of about four inches a-day, until the end of September,
when it falls for about the same period of time. The towns are
generally built in such a situation and manner as not to be overflowed by
the inundation, and in some parts of the country there are long raised
