-6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



The coaft of Egypt is exceedingly low, and, if the wea- 

 ther is not clear, you often are clofe in with the land before 

 you difcover it. 



A strong current fets conftantly to the eaftward; and the 

 way the mailers of veffels pretend to know their approach 

 to the coaft is by a black mud, which they find upon the 

 plummet* at the end of their founding-line, about feven 

 leagues diftant from land. 



Our mafter pretended at midnight he had found that 

 black fand, and therefore, although the wind was very fair, 

 he chofe to lie to, till morning, as thinking himfelf near the 

 coaft; although his reckoning, as he faid, did not agree with 

 what he inferred from his foundings. 



As I was exceedingly vexed at being fo difappointed of 

 making the beft of our favourable wind, 1 rectified my qua- 

 drant, and found by the paffages of two ftars over the meri- 

 dian, that we were in lat. 32 i' 45", or feventeen leagues 

 diftant from Alexandria, inftead of feven, and that by dif- 

 ference of our latitude only. 



From this I inferred that part of the affertion, that it is 

 the mud of the Nile which is fuppofed to fhew feamen their 

 approach to Egypt, is mere imagination ; feeing that the 

 point where we then were was really part of the fea oppo- 

 fite to the defert of Barca, and had no communication what- 

 ever with the Nile. 



a On 



This is an old jrejuJice. See Herodotus, lib. ii. p. 90. fett. 5. 



