A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

216 DERR.
injr custom which mio-ht well serve as an ex-
ample to wealthier and more polished nations.
The poverty of the Nubians does not admit of
tombstones, and their graves are marked out either
by an outline of pebbles, or by a rude fragment of
stone placed at the head and the foot ; yet at
every grave I noticed a bowl of w^ater and an
earthen pipkin filled with roasted dhourra (Indian
corn), and on asking Mohammed the meaning of
such accessories to such a spot, he told me that
it was the custom of the people here to place
food for the poor every Friday on the graves of
their friends and relations ; thus conferring upon
them, as it w^ere, the prerogative of posthumous
charity, and enabling the starving poor to go
and obtain a meal from the hands of the dead.
Nubia, before it became tributary to Egypt,
was governed by its native princes ; but JSIo-
hammed Ali, after his conquest of the country,
deemed it good policy to leave the shadow of
power to its Sovereigns He therefore invested
them with a certain local authority as his Lieu-
tenants, and thus propitiated their good services,
which were valuable to him in the way of ob-
taining taxes from the conquered people, with
whom their influence was of course paramount to
his own. The native Sovereign actually holding