AND LOWER EGYPT. I9I 



fore, and bad begun to rise. The inhabitants were 

 in hopes that the inundation would this year be 

 considerable ; they grounded this expectation on 

 the great number of water-spinners* which as- 

 sembled above the surface of the earth, experience 

 liavin"- taught them, that the more abundant these 



or? •* 



insects are, the more abundant will be the waters 

 of the river. Whole swarms, or, to speak more 

 properly, clouds of water-spinners were seen so 

 thick, that the air, to a certain height, was (illcd 

 with them, and you might, if I may so express 

 myself, have cut them with a knife. 



The day after my arrival a Cophtish Catholic of 

 Koiis engaged me to meet the Superior whom he 

 had just invited to dinner. On the 28th we passed 

 the Nile, and found, on landing, horses in readi- 

 ness to convey us to Kous., which the inhabitants of 

 the Siiid pronounce Gous. It is a town in which a 

 Kiaschef rc&'idicdi^ and which is situated at some dis- 

 tance from the eastern bank of the Nile, opposite to 

 Neguade, but about half a league more to the north- 

 ward : according to Danville, it now fills the place 

 of the ancient city of ApoUlnh-parva, which An- 

 thony, in his Itinerary, simply styles v'lcus Apoll'ims, 

 or the village of Apollo. The only monument of 

 antiquity to be seen there, v/as the front of a small 

 temple dedicated to the sun, half buried. Its plan 



* Tipula cuUczformU. 



is 



