2o TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



From Medea, or the Paffage, our road lay through very dry 

 fand ; to avoid which, and feek firmer footing, we were 

 obliged to ride up to the bellies of our horfes in the fea. 

 If the wind blows this quantity of dull or fand into the Me- 

 diterranean, it is no wonder the mouths of the branches of 

 the Nile are choked up. 



All Egypt is like to this part of it, full of deep duft and 

 fand, from the beginning of March till the firit of the in- 

 undation. It is this fine powder and fand, railed and loofen- 

 ed by the heat of the fun, and want of dew, and not being 

 tied fait, as it were, by any root or vegetation, which the 

 Nile carries off with it, and buries in the fea, and which 

 many ignorantly fuppofe comes from AbylTmia, where every 

 river runs in a bed of rock. 



When you leave the fea, you flrike off nearly at right 

 angles, and purfue your journey to the eaftward of north. 

 Here heaps of flone and trunks of pillars, are fet up to 

 guide you in your road, through moving lands, which 

 Hand in hillocks in proper direit ions, and which conduct 

 you fafely to Rofetto, 1 unrounded on one lide by thefe hills 

 of fand, which feem ready to cover it. 



Rosetto is upon that branch of the Nile which was call- 

 ed the Bolbuttic Branch, and is about four miles from the 

 fea. It probably obtained its prefent name from the Vene- 

 tians, or Gcnoefe, who monopolized the trade of this coun- 

 try, before the Cape of Good Hope was difcovered; for it 

 is known to the natives by the name of Rafhid, by which 

 is meant the Orthodox. 



The 



