The Cufic characters seem to be all written in capitals, which one might learn to read much more easily than the modern Arabic, and they more resemble the Samaritan. We read there--Abdullah el Hejazi el Ansari--Mahomet Abdel Shems el Taiefy el Ansari. The first of these, Abdullah el Hejazi, is Abdullah born in Arabia Petrea. The other is, Mahomet the slave of the sun, born in Taief. Now, both of these are called _Ansari_, which many writers, upon Arabian history, think, means, _born in Medina_; because, when Mahomet fled from Mecca, the night of the hegira, the people of Medina received him willingly, and thenceforward got the name of [141]Ansari, or Helpers. But this honourable name was extended afterwards to all those who fought under Mahomet in his wars, and after, even to those who had been born in his lifetime. These of whose tombs we are now speaking, were of the army of Haled Ibn el Waalid, whom Mahomet named, Saif Ullah, the ‘Sword of God,’ and who, in the califat of Omar, took and destroyed Syene, after losing great part of his army before it. It was afterwards rebuilt by the _Shepherds_ of Beja, then Christians, and again taken in the time of Salidan, and, with the rest of Egypt, _ever since_ hath belonged to Cairo. It was conquered by, or rather surrendered to, Selim Emperor of the Turks, in 1516, who planted two advanced posts (Deir and Ibrim) beyond the cataract in Nubia, with small garrisons of janissaries likewise, where they continue to this day. Their pay is issued from Cairo; sometimes they marry each others daughters, rarely marry the women of the country, and the son, or nephew, or nearest relation of each deceased, succeeds as janissary in room of his father. They have lost their native language, and have indeed nothing of the Turk in them, but a propensity to violence, rapine, and injustice; to which they have joined the perfidy of the Arab, which, as I have said, they sometimes inherit from their mother. An Aga commands these troops in the castle. They have about two hundred horsemen armed with firelocks; with which, by the help of the Ababdé, encamped at Shekh Ammer, they keep the Bishareen, and all these numerous tribes of Arabs, that inhabit the Desert of Sennaar, in tolerable order. The inhabitants, merchants, and common people of the town, are commanded by a cacheff. There is neither butter nor milk at Syene (the latter comes from Lower Egypt) the same may be said of fowls. Dates do not ripen at Syene, those that are sold at Cairo come from Ibrim and Dongola. There are good fish in the Nile, and they are easily caught, especially at the cataract, or in broken water; there are only two kinds of large ones which I have happened to see, the binny and the boulti. The binny I have described in its proper place.