238 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



when a man does not observe for himself, when he 

 throws together materials supplied by a variety of 

 hands, and when he credulously admits the rela- 

 tions, almost always unfounded, of the people of 

 the country, to avoid falling into a multiplicity of 

 errors. 



The oxen, in Egypt, are employed in a very 

 easy husbandry. The industry of the inhabitants 

 not having acquired the art of availing themselves 

 of the assistance of water and wind to put in mo- 

 tion their mills and their numerous hydraulic ma- 

 chines, apply to them likewise the strength of the 

 ox. Each of the rice-mills, which I lately men- 

 tioned, requires forty or fifty of those animals, and 

 this kind of machinery being considerably multi- 

 plied at Rossetta and at Damietta, beasts of this 

 sort could not but fetch a very high price : they 

 usually sold for two hundred and fifty francs each 

 (near ten guinea:), an exorbitant valuation in a 

 country where pasture is so abundant ; dismal 

 effect of a horrible despotism ; but few calves are 

 reared, little thought is exercised about to-morrow, 

 where it is uncertain whether fortune, whether 

 existence itself, shall exist another day. 



Oxen in the yoke have their head at liberty : 

 the yoke or the lever, fixed by a leathern strap, 

 rests on the last vertebrae of the neck, so that the 



strain 



