200 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



scenes which were passing around us. We had 

 taken care to range our mules apart, and could 

 resume them at pleasure. A complete hour was 

 wasted in rectifying a disorder which might easily 

 have been prevented ; and this observation is not 

 foreign to the purpose : it proves that in travel- 

 ling, as in military expeditions, order and atten- 

 tion are equally indispensable, and that by neglect- 

 ing them, inconveniences are sometimes incurred 

 s.tillgrcater than even that of the loss of precious time- 



We arrived at Rossetta at six o'clock in the 

 morning, and slept till dinner-time, without mind- 

 ing the preparations going forward under the direc- 

 tion of a capuchin almoner, for celebrating a solemn 

 mass, which was to be followed by a Te Deum. In 

 the afternoon we set off for Cairo with the same 

 rapidity; remained almost continually close shut 

 up in that city for a month, and returned to 

 Rossetta with the same speed that we left it. This 

 is what our gentlemen of bon ton call travelling. 

 They return afterwards to Europe, to reason with 

 assurance on every subject, and sometimes to write 

 of, and to describe, objects which they never saw. 



It is, moreover, the custom to travel between 

 Alexandria and Rossetta in the night-time, in order 

 to escape the sultry heat of a burning sun. But 

 devoted, for a lon^ series of )ears, to pursue my 



travcle 



