l8o TRAVELS IN UPPER 



numerous at the time of my voyage : but there was 

 not a village of the least sigiiificance, whose com- 

 mandant did not possess two or three field- pieces, 

 which were discharged from no motive whatever 

 several times every day ; and these villages are, 

 it is known, on the brink of rivers and of canals. 

 Armies, or rather bands of Mamelucs, were al- 

 most constantly in the field ; the river was often 

 covered with flotillas of their armed boats ; and 

 they took with them, upon every occasion, a small 

 train of artillery, which would have been alto- 

 gether useless, had they not perpetually played it 

 off for the sole pleasure of making a noise. Such 

 a disturbance, from these frequent explosions, 

 would have been sulficient to frighten away ani. 

 mals vv^lii -h travellers agree in representing, gene- 

 rally speakin-', as very timid, and to banish them 

 into Abyssinia, where these roaring machines were 

 not known. Flappy would the Egyptians have 

 been, had they not had greater ravages to endure 

 from those who freed them from noxious ani- 

 mals, than they had even cause to apprehend 

 frcm the multiplication of such animals. 



It has been said that the hippopotamus could 

 not live long out of the water* ; that he lived at 

 the bottom of rivers, v/here he walked at his 



* Aristotle, Pliny, Mathiolus, &c. 



ease; 



