350 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



ciently spacious, and would have afforded very 

 commodious apartments, if they had been cleaned. 

 Travellers are obliged to provide themselves with 

 bread ; you can find none to purchase at Abou- 

 kir. This excepted, you could procure there, very 

 easily, fish, sea urchins, oysters, and other shell- 

 fish ; and you might depend upon the attentions 

 of the drogman and his son for the purchase of 

 such provisions. They kept ia their house a pair 

 of red partridges *. They told us that these birds 

 frequently visited Aboukir, and that it was not 

 difficult to take them, even alive. As soon as we 

 had finished our frugal repast, prepared by the 

 wife of our host, we remounted our mules to visit 

 the ruins which are in the environs. 



These vestiges of an ancient city occupy a vast 

 extent of ground. All is overthrown, all is de- 

 stroyed. The soil is strewed with ruins, which still 

 present wonderful beauties, and what remains on 

 the surface gives you an idea of what might be 

 discovered, if you had the liberty of digging 

 there; but researches of this nature are positively 

 interdicted among an ignorant and superstitious 

 people, who not knowing any other riches than 

 gold, imagine that travellers journeyed over their 

 countries only with the intention of carrying off 



* Bartavelle, ou perdrix grecque. Buffori, Hist. Nat des 



Ois. et pi, cnlum. No. 231.— ZV/rao nz/W. Lin. 



their 



