* 4 2 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



The wind failing, we were obliged to flop in a very poor, 

 defolate, and dangerous part of the Nile, called Jibbel el Sil- 

 felly, where a boom, or chain, was drawn acrofs the river, 

 to hinder, as is fuppofed, the Nubian boats from committing 

 piratical practices in Egypt lower down the flream. The 

 flones on both fides, to which the chain was fixed, are very 

 vifible ; but I imagine that it was for fifcal rather than for 

 warlike purpofes, for Syene being garrifoned, there is no 

 poffibility of boats paffing from Nubia by that city into 

 Egypt. There is indeed another purpofe to which it might 

 be defigned ; to prevent war upon the Nile between any 

 two ftates. 



We know from Juvenal*, who lived fome time at Syene, 

 that there was a tribe in that neighbourhood called Ombi, 

 who had violent contentions with the people of Dendera 

 about the crocodile ; it is remarkable thefe two parties were 

 Anthropophagi fo late as Juvenal's time, yet no hiflorian 

 fpeaks of this extraordinary fad, which cannot be called 

 in quefhion, as he was an eye-witnefs and refided at Syene. 



Now thefe two nations who were at war had a- 

 bove a hundred miles of neutral territory between 

 them, and therefore they could never meet except on the 

 Nile. But either one or the other poffenlng this chain, 

 could hinder his adverfary from coming nearer him. As 

 the chain is in the hermonthic nome, as well as the capital 

 .of the Ombi, I fuppofe this chain to be the barrier of this 



laft 



* Juven. Sat. 15. ver. 76, 



