e consists of
bread or ship-biscuit in the morning, with sometimes a raw cucumber,
a piece of cheese, or a handful of dates in addition. For dinner
they have the same diet, and for supper they have a dish of warm
beans, or a kind of broth or pilau. Roast mutton is a rare delicacy
with them, and their drink is nothing but the Nile water.

During the period of the inundation, the river is twice as full of
vessels as at other times. When the river is swollen, the only
method of communication is by boats.

On the last day of this expedition a most beauteous spectacle
awaited me--the Delta! Here the mighty Nile, which irrigates the
whole country with the hundreds of canals cut from its banks through
every region, divides itself into two principal branches, one of
which falls into the sea at Rosetta, and the other at Damietta. If
the separate aims of the river could be compared to seas, how much
more does its united vastness merit the appellation!

When I was thus carried away by the beauty and grandeur of nature,
when I thus saw myself placed in the midst of new and interesting
scenes, it would appear to me incredible how people can exist,
possessing in abundance the gifts of riches, health, and leisure
time, and yet without a taste for travelling. The petty comforts of
life and enjoyments of luxury are indeed worth more in the eyes of
some than the opportunity of contemplating the exalted beauties of
nature or the monuments of history, and of gaining information
concerning the manners and customs of foreign nations. Although I
was at times very badly situated, and had to encounter more
hardships and disagreeables than fall to the lot of many a man, I
would be thankful that I had had resolution given me to continue my
wanderings whenever one of these grand spectacles opened itself
before me. What, indeed, are the entertainments of a large town
compared to the Delta of the Nile, and many similar scenes? The
pure and perfect enjoyment afforded by the contemplation of the
beauty of nature is not for a moment to be found in the ball-room or
the theatre; and all the ease and luxury in the world should not buy
from me my recollections of this journey.

Not far from the Delta we can behold the Libyan Desert, of which we
afterwards never entirely lose sight, though we sometimes approach
and sometimes recede from it. I became conscious of certain dark
objects in the far distance; they developed themselves more and
mor