I’ve been dipping into a 1698 travelogue of the Near East. It was written by a Dutchman, Cornelis de Bruyn, and thankfully translated more or less immediately into French, and then into English in 1702. The author was a draughtsman, and made numerous drawings of everything he saw.
I’ve been looking at the chapters on Egypt. The author seems to have gone no further than Cairo. His travels in the region were all under armed guard, as bandits were everywhere, and the country was unsafe. Nor were the guards always to be relied on.
Unfortunately the volume is larded with extracts from books that he read, and has otherwise limited interest.
Here are a couple of extracts. Page 152:
Next to Khalits, which is the longest street in the city, is the Bazar Street. where market is kept every Monday and Thursday, and where one meets with so many People, especially on market-days, that one has much ado to get through the crowd. ’Tis a fine street, very long and broad; at one end of which is a Bezistan, or Market-Hall, which is full of as fine shops as are at Constantinople; and at the other end is the market for slaves, viz. white slaves, of whom they sell of all sorts, men, women , and children, &c. There is likewise another market where they sell black slaves of both sexes.
As to the number of its inhabitants, I never saw a city so populous; and a man has much ado in the markets and other places of concourse to thrust through the crowd, besides he must take care of his pocket, for the Arabians are the greatest filchers in the world, and have a good knack at it.
The rest of the inhabitants, as in almost all parts of Egypt, consist of Turks, Moors (some of which are very black) ,Jews and Christians, viz. Coptes and Greeks: As for Europeans there are but few of them, and those that I saw there in my time were most of them French, who had their consul. As for the English and Dutch, I did not meet with one of them. This multitude of people is the cause that in the time of the Plague a prodigious number of them die, a thousand or fifteen hundred in a day is very common; and tho’ during the whole course of the contagion two hundred thousand have been swept away, yet there is hardly any miss of them. At some times six or seven hundred thousand have died of the Plague. Add to this, that there are no women, or at least but very few, to be seen in the streets, because in the Levant they have not the same liberty as elsewhere.
After leaving Cairo he returned to Alexandria. (chapter 43, p.171):
A day or two after I took the draught of a prospect within the city, which represents an avenue that leads into Alexandria on one side through a breach in the wall with some towers that are fallen down, as is to be seen N. 97. From thence is to be seen the open sea with the two castles, that guard the passage one on the right, the other on the left hand, as they are marked with the letters A B. These two castles are placed so exactly opposite to one another, that, as they told me, when they fire off together, the bullets sometimes meet and dash one another to pieces.
On this side is likewise to be seen the remains of Cleopatra’s Palace which was on the sea-shore. By the stately chambers and apartments, the ruins of which still remain, ’tis but reasonable to suppose that it was a very proud and magnificent Building, ’tis marked at the letter C.
Zooming in a bit:
Hard by this Palace there is an obelisk full of hieroglyphic characters; ’tis to be seen N. 98. on that side which I took the pains to design with all its figures, just as they appeared upon the obelisk. There are but only two or three of them which are not well done, doubtless it is because they are worn by the long process of time. Let this be as it will, I have represented them just as I found them. For not understanding what those Characters meant, I was not willing to alter any thing in this, no more than in any of the rest, and I have left the explication to those who understand it, provided they will admit of any explication. …
Plate 99 is another and larger view of the ruins of “Cleopatra’s Palace”, much of which he says is fallen into the sea. Adjacent to this building, although not depicted, was a round tower of the 9th century, part of the Tulunid walls, and known as the “Tower of the Romans” and this survived to the beginning of the 20th century. Photographs from 1870 exist.
