364 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



Delta. This landscape was taken at the foot of 

 the tower of Canopus. 



Ten or twelve years before my arrival at Ros- 

 setta, a Turk, who lived there, had dug the gtound 

 in the environs of this tower. He found here some 

 beautiful pillars of granite, which he caused to be 

 conveyed to Rossetta, in the view of employing 

 them in the construction of a building. Ali Bey, 

 advertised of this discovery, imagined, or pretended 

 to believe, that the Turk had found gold there. 

 He condemned him to pay a considerable sum, 

 which totally deprived him of the means of build- 

 ing, and gave him ever afterwards a disgust for 

 making researches. A part of these pillars were 

 still on the shores of the Nile, opposite to the 

 house of the French, and tie others had been 

 broken for different purposes ; they belonged, ac- 

 cording to appearance, to the ancient city of Me- 

 telis, of which the tower of Canopus marks the site. 



Opposite to the mosque of Abou-Mandour^ upon 

 the eastern shore of the Nile, are two or three 

 houses. They are called Maadie , because they are 

 at the spot of the usual passage of the Delta. 

 Above Maadie is Boussouralh, a village formerly 

 very much dreaded from the great number of thieves 

 who inhabited it, and who pillaged the boats. A 

 Bey, Mehemet, has exterminated them. A little 

 above Boussourath is Hashbet, another village. 



On 



