AND LOWER EGYPT. 299 



writings of a traveller ofless reputation than Dr. 

 Shaw : this will he a proof, in addition to many 

 others, of the distrust and the discernment neces- 

 sary when you visit foreign countries, on every oc- 

 casion, when not having it in your power to make 

 your own observations, you believe that you may 

 give credit to information too frequently defective. 

 " The Egyptians," says Mr. Shaw, " are so little 

 " acquainted with the real crocodile, which they 

 " call timsah, and which it is so unusual to find be- 

 (t low the cataracts of the Nile, that the Egyptians 

 " are not less curious to see one than the Euro- 

 " peans *.*' Dr. Shaw, who was no further than 

 Cairo, has adopted too easily an assertion contrary 

 to truth, as well as to the testimonies of the tra- 

 vellers who preceded him. If he had received more 

 accurate information, he would have learnt that 

 Upper Egypt, below the cataracts, is infested with 

 crocodiles as real as they are multiplied. 



The antipathy to the crocodile, improperly at- 

 tributed to the mangouste, is really an innate in- 

 stinct in an animal of a totally different species; in 

 this has happened what may have frequently passed 

 before our eyes, in more than one instance ; whilst 

 they were giving to the mangouste the credit of 

 maintaining a continual and desperate war against 

 the crocodiles, a species of tortoise of the Nile was 



* Truncation of the Travels of Dr. Shaw, vol. ii. page 167; 



levelling 



