424 



NOETH-EAST AFRICA. 



the entrance to the harbour is dangerous, and shipping is sometimes prevented by 

 the rough seas for days together from entering the river. The great mosque of 

 Damietta, built by Amru, and remarkable especially for the richness and variety of 

 its marbles, is indebted for the exceptional celebrity it enjoys to its " miraculous " 

 column still covered with clotted blood and dry foam. According to the local 

 tradition, all invalids who come with sufficient faith and lick the stone till their 

 tongue bleeds are sure to recover. Nevertheless, the recent history of Damietta has 



Fig. 132.— Damietta. 

 Scale 1 . 100,000. 



3,300 Yards. 



made it sufficiently evident that a far more efficacious way of getting rid of epidemics 

 would be to sweep the streets clean of the filth encumbering them at every turn. 



In an often inundated plain which stretches south-west of the city in the 

 direction of Lake Burlos, there is another holy place, where miracles continue to be 

 wrought, not, however, by Mussulman hajis, but by a female Christian saint. This 

 is the Coptic convent of Setti-Bamiana, or " Our Lady Damian." 



Menuf, Tantah. 



In the part of the delta comprised between the two branches of Damietta and 

 Rosetta, a few commercial towns are scattered in the midst of the canals and irriga- 

 tion works. Such are Menuf, which gives its name to the large Menufieh Hay a, or 

 canal, where have been found the fragments of a trilingual stone, Shibin-el-Kour, 



