I32 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



cisterns, the arches of which supported the whole 

 extent of the ancient city, and which the whole 

 world is agreed in considering as one of the most 

 beautiful monuments on the face of the globe*. 

 The mouth of this aqueduct was walled up, but 

 when the water of the canal had attained, by the 

 swelling of the river, a certain height, the chiefs of 

 the city went in great ceremony to break down the 

 dike. When the cisterns were filled, it was built 

 up again, and the waters in the canal continued to 

 flow into the sea at the old harbour. It was by 

 means of a communication so easy, that, in former 

 times, the transportation of merchandise was con- 

 ducted all over Egypt. The dangerous passage of 

 the mouths of the Nile, and the hazards of the 

 sea, were thereby avoided. When I was at Alexan- 

 dria in 1788, it was not much under a hundred 

 years since it had been navigable by boats ; but this 

 canal, whose benefits are inestimable, was neglect- 

 ed by barbarians indifferent to their real interests. 

 The walls which supported its borders were going 

 to ruin every day ; the pavement of the bottom 

 was covered with successive layers of mud ; there 

 was no longer water sufficient to float a boat ; a 

 yellowish and ill-tasted water could hardly force its 

 way so far as to the cisterns, which were themselves 

 half destroyed ; the inhabitants were, of course, in 

 danger of a total failure of that necessary fluid, and 



* It was not in my power to see them. 



modem 



