150 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



strike the eye as growing in any numbers are the spiky 

 Glasswort (Salieornia) ,* and a row of Palm-trees following 

 the course of the canal as far as the eye can reach. 



But instead of following the canal like the Palm-trees 

 (for nothing could be so dull as the country we should pass 

 through before we reached the Nile at Atfe), we will leave 

 the beaten track, and proceed by a different route, to Eosetta. 

 Here the African sand ends, and we first observe the black 

 rich loam which is the characteristic soil of Egypt, and, 

 from the contrast which it presents to the adjacent part of 

 Africa, is supposed to be a deposit which has been brought 

 down by the Me from the heart of Abyssinia. The effects 

 of the fertilizing Nile are here everywhere to be seen ; in 

 the forests of Palm-trees on each bank of the river, and in 

 the orchards watered by its streams ; in the Lemon-trees and 

 Orange-groves ; the Bananas, Peach-trees, and others ; all 

 bestowing a peculiar charm on Eosetta by their perpetual 

 verdure : within the Delta too we recognize the Sugar- cane. 



As we sail up the river to Cairo, the shores on either side 

 are low and marshy, stretching out into a boundless flat, 



* This plant, which the Arabs call El-Kali, is an important article of com- 

 merce, and produces the salt called alkali, so extensively used in the manu- 

 facture of soap and glass. 



