The climate of Upper Egypt is more healthy, though hotter, than that of Lower Egypt. The plague seldom ascends far above Cairo, the metropolis; and is most common in the marshy parts of the country, near the Mediterranean. During the last ten years, the country having been better drained, and quarantine regulations adopted to prevent or guard against the introduction of this disease from other countries, very few plague cases have occurred, excepting in the parts above mentioned, and in those parts the pestilence has not been severe.[14] Ophthalmia is also more common in Lower Egypt than in the southern parts. It generally arises from checked perspiration, but is aggravated by the dust and many other causes. When remedies are promptly employed, this disease is seldom alarming in its progress; but vast numbers of the natives of Egypt, not knowing how to treat it, or obstinately resigning themselves to fate, are deprived of the sight of one or both of their eyes. 205589771 When questioned respecting the salubrity of Egypt, I have often been asked whether many aged persons are seen among the inhabitants: few, certainly, attain a great age in this country; but how few do, in our own land, without more than once suffering from an illness that would prove fatal without medical aid, which is obtained by a very small number in Egypt! The heat of the summer months is sufficiently oppressive to occasion considerable lassitude, while, at the same time, it excites the Egyptian to intemperance in sensual enjoyments; and the exuberant fertility of the soil engenders indolence, little nourishment sufficing for the natives, and the sufficiency being procurable without much exertion. The modern Egyptian metropolis, to the inhabitants of which most of the contents of the following pages relate, is now called “Masr”;[15] more properly, “Misr”; but was formerly named “El-Káhireh”; whence Europeans have formed the name of _Cairo_. It is situated at the entrance of the valley of Upper Egypt, midway between the Nile and the eastern mountain range of Mukattam. Between it and the river there intervenes a tract of land, for the most part cultivated, which, in the northern parts (where the port of Boolák is situated), is more than a mile in width, and, at the southern part, less than half a mile wide. The metropolis occupies a space equal to about three square miles; and its population is about two hundred and forty thousand. It is surrounded by a wall, the gates of which are shut at night, and is commanded by a large citadel, situated at an angle of the town, near a point of the mountain. The streets are unpaved, and most of them are narrow and irregular: they might more properly be called lanes.