260 DR. HOOKER’S MISSION TO INDIA. 
observed many palaces, belonging to wealthy merchants and 
princes, gardens, groves, and plantations, near the river; the 
School of Languages, and the Sugar-mills belonging to the Pacha; 
Tbrahim’s Palace, named Rhoda, and a half-finished (apparently 
never to be completed) aqueduct of five arches, destined to 
convey water from the Nile to the citadel. 
The spot where we crossed the Nile is highly picturesque, 
opposite the upper end of a long island, where the famous Nilo- 
meter is placed. The banks on both sides were crowded with 
latteen-sailed boats, and green with Date-Palms, Acacias, Syca- 
mores, and Sugar-cane plantations. The river was a magnificent 
stream, as broad as the Thames at London Bridge, or thereabouts, 
shining in the sun, and flowing with a current of between two 
and three miles an hour, studded with boats, and evidently re- 
joicing in its course. We beheld the Pyramids six miles off, in a 
straight line; they rose above the Palm-trees, and looked grand 
in the distance; altogether different from anything that can be 
seen elsewhere. But they are so infinitely more curious than hand- 
some, that it is impossible to help feeling that in many other 
shapes these wondrous masses would have appeared bigger, and 
in any other, more attractive. In themselves, they do not invite, 
as most remarkable objects would do, a closer inspection ; it is the 
force of association which compels you to approach, together with 
your previously acquired information respecting the empty wonders 
they enclose. | 
The island, on which the Nilometer is situated, is walled from 
the water far above the level of the soil ; its houses and green trees, 
however, peep over the wall, the latter (the trees) Dates, Oranges 
Acacia, and Banana, being of highly varied heights and hues, 
and giving the whole a very pleasing appearance. The upper 
extremity of the island is occupied by the building, in which the 
height of the Nile is registered: there is nothing to be seen in it, m 
yet it is an interesting object, for, if I remember aright, the 
former, (and I dare say the present,) rulers of Egypt have a mode a 
of regulating the corn-market, by suiting the official report of " + 
state of the river to that of their granaries. erating the — 
