Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798Browne, William George
History
Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798
Browne, William George
Egypt -- Description and travel; Sudan -- Description and travel; Syria -- Description and travel
The manufactures at Kahira are not numerous. The sugar cane
being cultivated with ease in Egypt, it was manufactured in great
quantities at Kahira, so as to supply Constantinople. But a capital
being requisite, Government made demands on it which crushed the
trade. The sugar, though of less strength than that of the West
Indies, was nevertheless well refined, of a close texture, pure and
of a light white. It is now extremely bad, and so scarce as to sell
for fourteen pence the pound, retail.
The sal ammoniac made at Kahira is of a very good quality. Glass
lamps, saltpetre, and gun-powder, red and yellow leather, for
home-consumption. There is a great manufacture of linen cloth made
of the fine Egyptian flax.
The mode almost peculiar to Kahira, of hatching eggs without incubation,
has been very minutely described by former travellers.—The practice is
said by the Egyptians to proceed from the experience that, at a certain
season, the eggs fostered only by the hens are commonly unprolific. Of
those hatched in the ovens, on the contrary, not quite one third is
lost.—The ovens where these eggs are placed are of the most simple
construction, consisting only of a low arched apartment of clay. Two
rows of shelves are formed, and the eggs placed on each in such a manner
as not to touch each other. They are slightly moved five or six times in
twenty-four hours, and the whole time they are in the oven does not
exceed twenty-two days, when the chickens free themselves from the
shell. All possible care is taken to diffuse the heat equally
throughout, and there is but one small aperture, large enough to admit
a man stooping. During the first eight days the heat is rendered great,
and, during the last eight is gradually diminished; till at length, when
the young brood is ready to come forth, it is reduced almost to the
state of the natural atmosphere. At the end of the first eight days, it
is known which eggs will not be productive. Those who have eggs to be
hatched, bring them to the master of the oven, and contract to pay so
much a hundred; and when the chickens appear, he receives his money
on delivering them. Those which have not succeeded, are required to
be produced. The oven is public property.
Kahira is the only mint for Egypt, where they strike in gold mahbûbs
and half mahbûbs; the first about five shillings in value. In copper
washed with silver the small coins worth about a halfpenny, and
called in Turkish _paras_, in Arabic _diwani_, _fuddha_, or _maidi_:
by European writers, _aspers_, and _medines_. On one side is the
name of the reigning Sultan, on the reverse, _Misr_, and the date.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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