Damiette in the Late Eighteenth Century

Abstract

Egypt's strategic position astride major world trade routes is well known.1 Blessed by location and an agricultural abundance, Egypt was able to play a major role in the trade of the eastern Mediterranean despite lacking secure and deep water ports. Her Red Sea ports of Qusayr and Suez were small villages without even a secure fresh water supply, and caravans carrying goods unloaded in these ports were frequently subject to bedouin predation. Her Mediterranean ports also had serious disadvantages, but nevertheless served as important points of exchange with Europe and the other Ottoman provinces. Alexandria, the most important Egyptian port, also had a precarious water supply and could not offer a secure shelter to ships lashed by severe northerly winds and high seas, yet it remained Egypt's major link to the European and Ottoman worlds. Rosette (Rashid) and Damiette (Dumyat) were protected from the sea by their positions slightly inland on the western and eastern branches of the Nile, respectively, but they had the disadvantage of being cut off from the sea at times by the sand bars which accumulated at the mouths of the Nile branches.