LETTER XXXIII.

TO THE REV. D. M'PHERSON.

MY DEAR SIR,

Damietta, June 22, 1827.

AFTER a journey to Suez, and along the shores of the Red Sea to the valley of Amara, I arrived here in safety a few days ago. The route from Damietta to Suez is so little known to travellers, that the good people here did every thing in their power to prevent me from encountering the perils which are supposed to beset it. The brother of the Consul, Francis Surur, had resolved to accompany me; but on the morning of my departure his friends flocked about him, supplicating him, with tears in their eyes, not to expose himself to the dangers of such a journey, and finally persuaded him to let me start alone. In their arguments with me on this subject, they said over and over, "You will find, hakkim, when it is too late, that

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a man is not a watermelon, and that when he is once planted in the ground, he will never sprout again."

But although I was not a watermelon, I determined to proceed from Damietta to the Red Sea, because I conceived this to be the route of the Israelites, and not that by Cairo to Suez. My reason for so thinking I shall make you acquainted with presently. When a day's journey from Damietta, I sent for the Sheik of the Bedouins, contracted with him for three camels, at the rate of three dollars a camel, and, on paying a further sum of three dollars, he guaranteed my safety to the town of Suez; he recommended me, however, to doff my fine Turkish clothes, to take as little baggage as possible, to be well armed, and to keep on good terms with my Bedouin guides.

My whole baggage consisted of a carpet for a bed, a large umbrella for my tent, four skins of water, and a small sack of flour; a leathern bag, containing a coffee-pot and a saucepan, a little keg of date brandy, three pounds of coffee, five pounds of tobacco, and a small basket of rice; a Bedouin blanket and a coarse linen shirt replaced my dashing Mameluke attire.

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In this state the plunderers of the Desert had little to gain by attacking me; and, unaccompanied as I was by guards or caravan, this precaution proved highly necessary. My two Bedouin guides were to meet me with the camels at San, the ancient Tanis, which is fifty miles from Damietta. This part of the journey it would have been unnecessarily fatiguing to have gone by land. The Lake Menzalè is only five miles distant from Damietta, and the voyage to San is commonly accomplished in two days.

The Consul and several Levantine merchants accompanied me to the Lake; and, after crowding my boat with several baskets of provisions and sweetmeats, which their kind ladies were good enough to prepare for me, I bid adieu to the Consul and his friends with feelings of regret, for I had experienced nothing but kindness and courtesy at their hands during my long stay in Damietta. I took with me a Levantine servant, who was only possessed of two ideas; one was, that a Greek Christian was worse than a Mahometan; the other, that clean linen was a European prejudice. He was a filthy fanatic.

The ancient geography of Menzalè, and its

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vicinity in the Delta, is of so much importance in determining the site of the canal, from Suez to the Nile, and more especially the spot where Zoar stood, that it may not be amiss to mention the modern canals and outlets which mark the seven ancient branches of the Nile.

The Canal of Kelioub marks the Pelusiac Branch The Canal of Moes the Tanitic Do. The Canal of Ashmoum ... the Mendesian Do. The Canal of Bebek Bourlos. the Sebennytic Do. The Bogaz of Damietta ... the Phatnitic Do. the Bolbitine Do.

The Bogaz of Rosetta

The old Canal of Aboukir.. the Canopic Do.

Of these, two only of the original mouths are now remaining,-the Damietta and Rosetta branches. The French found the extreme length of the lake to be forty-three thousand fathoms, and its extreme width twelve thousand. But from my own observation of the time required to traverse it, I should judge it to be sixty-five miles long and fifteen broad.

No sea or lake in the world can, perhaps, boast of the same quantity of fish in a given space as

the Lake of Menzalè. My boatmen were in the habit of throwing a net over the side of the boat, then making a noise to attract the fish, by striking two pieces of wood, and by this simple process have I seen forty or fifty pounds weight of fish hauled up at once.

Opposite Metarièh, several fish, as large as haddock, in jumping out of the water, fell upon the deck. The men had only to tramp on the deck, and the fish were by our side; if I held a piece of bread on a level with the water, they followed the boat for miles; and, on one occasion, the Reis caught one with his hands, which could not have weighed less than twelve pounds.

Vast quantities of fish are salted and sent to Cairo; and in Damietta it is so cheap, that I have purchased eight ochas (upwards of twenty pounds weight) for three piastres (twelvepence).

The principal sorts of fish caught here are the perca Luth, or Lot's perch; another species, called kescher; the charamoot, or silurus anguillaris, the fin is said to be poisonous; the burra, or red mullet; the kelp el bahr, or sea dog; the casheff, or mormyrus anguilloides of Linnæus, this I have seen weighing thirty pounds. The