THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. ;x 



the raft with them to Cairo, they untie, fell them at the mar- 

 ket, and carry the produce home in money, or in neceffaries 

 upon their back. A very poor ceconomical trade, but fuf- 

 ficent, as they faid, from the carriage of crude materials, the 

 moulding, making, and fending them to market, to Cairo 

 and to different places in the Delta, to afford occupation to 

 two thoufand men ; this is nearly four times the number 

 of people employed in the largefl iron foundery in Eng- 

 land. But the reader will not underfland, that I warrant 

 this fact from any authority but what I have given him.. 



About two o'clock in the afternoon, we came to the point 

 of an iiland ; there were feveral villages with dute trees on 

 both fides of us ; the ground is overflowed by the Nile, and 

 cultivated. The current is very ftrong here. We paffed a 

 village called Regnagie, and another named Zaragara, one 

 the eaft fide of the Nile. We then came to Caphar el Hay- 

 at, or the Toll of the Tailor; a village with great plantations, 

 of dates, and the largefl we had yet feen. 



We paffed the night on the .S. W. point of the ifland be- 

 tween Caphar el Hayat, and Gizier Azali,, the wind failing 

 us about four o'clock. This place is the beginning of the 

 Heracleotic nsme, and its fituation a fufficient evidence that 

 Metrahenn/ was Memphis ; its name is Halouan. 



Thj« ifland is now divided into a number of fmall' ones, 

 by caljihes being cut through and through it, and, under 

 different Arabic names, they flill reach very far up the flream. 

 Handed to fee if there were remains of the olive tree which 



Strabo 



