mild, and

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fourth as wide. No remarkable fquare is seen here; no street perfectly straight; but the houfes, built with terraces, standing afunder, and kept in good repair, have a pleafing air of neatnefs and elegance. Within, they contain vaft apartments, where the air has free circulation through a great number of windows, kept always open: the lattices and transparent blinds break the fun's rays, and thus render the light temper the excess of the heat. The only remarkable public edifices are the mosques, the lofty minarets of which are built in a light, bold, ftile, and produce a picturesque effect, in a town where the roofs are all flat, by throwing variety into the picture. Most of the houses have a prospect of the Nile and the Delta; a truly magnificent one! Veffels and boats, fome rowing, some under fail, continually cover the river; while the tumult of the port, the mirth of the mariners, and their noify mufic, prefent a scene ever moving, ever alive. The Delta, that immenfe garden, where the exhaustlefs earth is never weary of producing, affords an eternal view of harvests, vegetables, flowers, and fruits, in fucceffion; the abundant

variety

variety of which, at once, gladdens the eyes and the heart. Various fpecies of cucumbers, delicious melons, the fig, the orange, the banana, the pomegranate, all grow here, all have here an exquifite flavour. Yet how much might culture increase their excellence, did the Egyptians understand engrafting.

North of the city are gardens, where citron, orange, date, and fycamore-trees are promiscuously planted; though this diforder is negligent, the mingling of the trees, and the arbours they form, impenetrable to the fun's rays, together with the flowers fcattered among them, render thefe groves most enchanting.

When the atmosphere is all on fire, when the big moisture courfes down every member, when gafping man pants after cool air, as the fick after health, with what ecstacy does he go and refpire under these bowers, and befide the rivulet by which they are watered! There the Turk, with his long jasmin pipe wrought with amber, imagines himself transported into the garden of delight which Mahomet promifed: thoughtless, in tranquil apathy, he fmokes the fun down, void of defire, void of ambition; his calm paffions. never caft one curious look towards futurity:

that restless activity by which we are tormented, and which is the foul of all our knowledge, of all our works, is to him unknown; content with what he poffeffes, he neither invents nor brings the inventions of others to perfection his life, to us, feems a long flumber; ours, to him, one continual ftate of intoxication; but, while we are ever purfuing happiness which ever eludes our grafp, he peaceably enjoys the good that nature gives, and each day brings, without troubling himself concerning the morrow.

Here, in these gardens, the young Geor-. gians, fold into flavery by barbarous parents, quit, with the veil which covers them, that decency they obferve in public. Freed here from all constraint, they cause lascivious dances to be performed in their prefence, fing tender fongs, and relate tales, and romances, which present an undifguifed picture of their manners, and pleasures. Born in a temperate climate, they receive from nature a foul of energy, and tumultuous paffions; brought afterwards into Egypt, the fire of the atmosphere, the perfume of the orange flower, and the emanations of aromatic plants, voluptuously invade every fenfe: then does

one

one fole care employ, one fole defire torment, them; one only predominant want is felt; the violence of which is encreased by the restraint under which they are kept.

The principal wealth of Rofetta flows from commerce. The transportation of foreign merchandize to Cairo, and of the productions of Egypt to the port of Alexandria, gives employment to a great number of mariners, their veffels are called fcherms; (p) a light kind of boats, with lateen-fails, and which, having no deck, are very hazardous; a gust of wind, coming unexpectedly, turns them on their fide, and they founder. The Bogaz, (q) for fo they call the bar at the mouth of the Nile, is a dangerous fhoal for them ; the waters here drive and ftruggle to find paffage into the fea, and, when the wind freshens, the waves run mountainhigh, forming whirlpools, which engulph veffels. The Bogaz is fhallow, and, in the extent of a league, there is feldom more than

(p) Scherm, expreffes the swiftnefs with which thefe fmall veffels fkim the waves; the failors of Provence call them, by corruption, germe.

(9) The word, Bogaz, is descriptive of the agitation of the waves.

a paffage of fome few fathoms for the veffels, which is continually changing: a boatman, or pilot, keeps founding, night and day, to direct the mariners what course they must fleer, who often are incapable, with all their art, to cope with the winds and waves; they miss the paffage, get on a fand bank, and, in a few minutes, all is fwallowed up in a vortex of water and mud. Numerous Thipwrecks happen every year; there have been feveral fince I have been here. A large boat, richly laden, perished yesterday, on the bogaz; the paffengers leapt into the water; an old and feeble man clung to the maft, and disappeared with it; three young girls, after long ftruggling with the waves and current, were swallowed up; two robust failors got afhore; a woman of thirty, who had tied a child fhe fuckled round her with her fafh, fwam vigorously; the defire of faving her infant gave her fortitude; yet, after an hour's contention, against the violence of the fea, this affectionate mother was on the point of perishing, the victim of maternal love; the boatmen, however, perceived her, plunged into the Nile and haftened to her affistance; spent with fatigue, the scarcely

could