AND LOWER EGYPT. 211 



alone dared to violate this asylum : i have some- 

 times seen him, regardless of the murmurs of the 

 natives, making it a pastime to scatter terror and 

 death among a winged generation of lovers ; bar- 

 barous amusement, for which the pretext of dis- 

 playing address as a marksman, or the slight mo- 

 tive of utility, could plead no excuse, as those 

 birds, habituated to the haunts of man, never shun 

 the presence of the stranger, and as, on the other 

 hand, their flesh furnishes but a sorry repast. 



If the eye is carried to the other side of the 

 river, a plain expands to view which has no boun- 

 dary but the horizon : this is the Delta *. Issuing 

 out of the bosom of the waters, it preserves the 

 freshness of its origin : to the golden tints of exu- 



DC 



berant autumn succeeds, the very same year, the 

 verdure of the meadows. Orchards, similar to 

 those in the vicinity of Rossetta, groups of trees, 

 green all the year round, others scattered about at 

 random, flocks of every kind diversify the points 

 of view, and enliven this rich and verdant portion 

 of Egypt. Numerous towns and villages enhance 



* I am well aware that the ancients took the base of the Delta 

 from the Canopic branch of the Nile (Strabo, bookxvii.); but 

 this Canopic branch being lost," and the land contained between 

 it and Rossetta being sandy, bteril, and uninhabited, the Delta, 

 which is associated with the idea of fertility, ought no longer to 

 be taken but from the Holbitic branch, that of Rossetta. 



p 2 the 



