AND LOWER EGYPTi 29 



It was equally impossible, on the 24th, to make 

 use of sails, and we were obliged to continue the 

 tedious and fatiguing method of working the boat 

 with a rope. I walked along the side of the Nile, 

 and killed several wild pigeons, whose hard and 

 dry flesh had nothing in it to gratify the appetite. 

 I saw also several armed plovers, and of those 

 which have been mentioned formerly. 



Our sailors rested themselves, at the end of a 

 league, at Kontrige, a town to the westward of the 

 river. There are here several mosques, the indica- 

 tion of an extensive population. We took our 

 departure again, in the afternoon, v/ith the wind 

 still against us, and we moored Tor the night at 

 Schnent el Arab, a village built on the same side 

 with Komtige, The houses in this place, like all 

 those of Upper Egypt, are of a square form, and 

 pigeon-houses are raised over their roofs, which 

 have, from a distance, the appearance of orna- 

 ments of architecture : these give to the villages a 

 pleasing look before you reach them, but, on your 

 arrival, you perceive only mud walls, and the 

 livery of wretchedness. 



During this complete day we had not advanced 

 quite so much as three leagues. The whole length 

 of this space of the eastern shore of the river is one 

 steril and uninhabited plain of sand. That of 



the 



