THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 6 



j 



of which their veffel is not capable) their canja mould over- 

 fet, and then they mufl all perifh. 



If Memphis was Metrahcnny, I believe moil people who 

 had leifure would have tried the voyage from Naucratis by 

 the plain. They would have been carried ftraight from north 

 to fouth. But Dr Shaw is exceedingly miftaken, if he thinks 

 there is any way fo expeditious as going up the current of 

 the river. As far as I can guefs, from ten to four o'clock* 

 we feldom went lefs than eight miles in the hour, againft 

 a current that furely ran more than fix. This current 

 kept our veffel ftiff, whilft the monftrous fail forced us 

 through with a facility not to be imagined. 



Dr Shaw, to put Geeza and Memphis perfectly upon a 

 footing, fays*, that there were no traces of the city now to 

 be found, from which he imagines it began to decay foon 

 after the building of Alexandria, that the mounds and ram- 

 parts which kept the river from it were in procefs of time 

 neglected, and that Memphis, which he fuppofes was in the. 

 old bed of the river about the time of the Ptolemies, was 

 fo far abandoned, that the Nile at laft got in upon it, and 

 overflowing its old ruins, great part of the bed of which had 

 been carried firft to build the city of Alexandria, that the 

 mud covered the reft, fo that no body knew what was its 

 true fituation. This is the opinion of Dr Pococke, and 

 1'kewife of M. de Maillet. 



The opinion of thefe two lafl-ftientionctl authors, that 

 die ruins and fituation of Memphis arc now become obfeure, 



is 



Shaw's Travels, cap. 4. 



