AND LOWER EGYPT. 317 



these Bedouins belonged to the tribe of Hussein, 

 the very one which had conducted me with so 

 much good faith through the desert of Nitria, and 

 defended me with such valour airainst the attacks 

 of another tribe. The precaution which they took 

 of tying a bandage across the eyes of the consul's 

 servant, who had accompanied me in my journey 

 over the desert, was a presumption of some weight, 

 and which perfectly coincides with what I have 

 mentioned respecting the customs of this wander- 

 ing and extraordinary nation, with whom virtue is 

 allied to plunder, and who pillage and protect 

 alternately, according to circumstances. 



It was the season for the passage of those birds 

 which at the approach of the frosts quit our icy 

 countries, during a part of the year when nature 

 is in a state of torpor or of death, in search of cli- 

 mates less severe, and of a plentiful supply of nou- 

 rishment. From the month of August, they catch 

 near the coasts of Egypt, and particularly in the 

 neighbourhoodof Alexandria, an immense quantity 

 of fig- peckers *. The passage of these little birds 



* Becfigue, Biiffon, Hist. Nat. des Ois. et pi. enlum. No. 

 668. fig. i.—Motac'dla ficedula. Lin. It is not to be supposed 

 that all the birds which are taken in large quantiiies on their 

 arrival at Egypt, are real fig-peckers; there are to be found 

 among them several little birds of different species, such as the 

 fauvette^ which is frequently mistaken for the fig-pecker. 



lasts 



