10th of Rebi. The river and the wind still obliged us to proceed slowly
by the cordel. The country we passed to-day was fine, and had been
cultivated with great care, but deserted. The face of the fields was
almost covered with the household furniture of the villagers. Straw
mats, equal to any sold at Cairo, were abandoned by hundreds on the
spots where they had been employed for the night by the troops, when on
the pursuit after the brigands who had fled from the last battle. Many
of the largest of these mats the soldiers had formed into square huts
for the different guards. The abandoned harvests waved solitary in
the wind, and the numerous water-wheels were all motionless. We
passed several large castles, not many days back garrisoned by fierce
marauders, who claimed all around them, or within the reach of their
horses' feet, as theirs; and many well built villages, whose inhabitants
were the slaves of their will. In one of these deserted castles, we
found fragments of vessels of porcelain, basins of marble, chests of
polished Indian wood, the pillage probably of some caravan, and a small
brass cannon. The walls of the apartments were hung with large and
colored straw mats, of fine workmanship, and showed many indications of
the pains taken to make them comfortable and convenient. An hour after
noon, we met great numbers of men, women, and children, accompanied by
their herds and flocks, who were returning to this abandoned country,
by the encouragement and under the protection of the Pasha. It was
an affecting sight to see almost every one of these unfortunate women
carrying her naked and forlorn children either upon her shoulders or
in her arms, or leading them by the hand. The pleasure I felt at seeing
these proofs of the humanity of the Pasha Ismael was diminished by
seeing his safe-conduct disregarded by some of the Mogrebin soldiers,
and particularly by the Greek and Frank domestics of the Proto Medico
Bosari, who seized from the hands of these miserable creatures as many
sheep and goats as they thought they had occasion for. About an hour