220 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



Some others have thought that it was the site of 

 Canopus : but this is a mistake. The Canopic 

 branch is the salt-marsh of Maadie, and the ruins 

 of Canopus are at Abouhir. Rossetta presents no 

 one trace of antiquity ; it is, nevertheless, certain 

 that it cannot be far distant from the spot where 

 the ancient Metelis, or Metihs, stood, of which 

 Slrabo and Ptolemy make mention, and which was 

 on the western shore, and near the discharge of 

 the Bolbitic branch of the Nile *, 



It is, beyond contradiction, the most agreeable 

 city in Egypt, and would be so any where else. Its 

 houses much better built, in general, than those of 

 Cairo, its position on the bank of the river, the 



and fertility of the gardens with which the city is surrounded; 

 but, where proper names are concerned, it is custom which must 

 give the law, and custom pronounces the first syllable hard, 

 Rosset'.a, derived from the still harsher Arabic name, RaschU. 

 This is assuredly a very frivolous observation, and I would not 

 forgive myself for having made it, unless, on my publishing, in 

 the Journal (I e Physique, some observations on the hippopotamus, 

 a certain Traveller, in a note which he annexed to them, had given 

 me a grave rebuke, for having written the Arabic word baar 

 with only a single r. Oh ! when a man has undergone criticism 

 for an r too little, he is equally exposed to it for an s too much. 

 What is singularly pleasant, this Traveller, instead of an r put \r\ 

 his correction az; so that it became necessary, the month fol- 

 lowing, by a second erratum to correct the first. 



* The Romans named the mouth of this branch of the Nile, 

 Belbitlnum ostium. 



prospect 



