io6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



in the collection of hieroglyphics,. I wonder that, being, 

 in die neighbourhood, as we are, of Lycopolis, we never fee a 

 wolf as an hieroglyphic ; and nothing, indeed, but what 

 has fome affinity to water ; yet the wolf is upon all the med- 

 als, from which I apprehend that the worfhip of the wolf, 

 was but a modern fuperftition. 



Dender a Hands on the edge of a fmall, but fruitful plain ; : 

 the wheat was thirteen inches high, now at Chriftmas ; 

 their harveft is in the end of March.. The valley is not above 

 five miles wide, from mountain to mountain. Here we 

 firfl faw the Doom-tree in great profufion growing among. 

 the palms, from which it fcarcely is diftinguifhable at a dif- 

 tance. It is the * Talma Thebaica Cuciofera. Its ftone is, 

 like that of a peach covered with a black bitter pulp, whichi 

 refembles a walnut over ripe. 



A little before we came to Dendcra we faw the firil 

 crocodile, and afterwards hundreds, lying upon every ifland,. 

 like large flocks of cattle, yet the inhabitants of Dendera. 

 drive their beafts of every kind into the river, and they 

 ftand there for hours. The girls and women too, that come 

 to fetch water in jars, Hand up to their knees in the water 

 for a confiderable time ; and if we guefs by what happens, 

 their danger is full as little as their fear, for none of them, ? 

 that ever I heard of, had been bit by a crocodile. However,., 

 if the Denderites were as keen and expert hunters of Cro- 

 codiles, as fome f hiftorians tell us they were formerly, 

 there is furely no part in the Nile where they would have 

 better fport than here, immediately before their own city.. 



Having. 



* Thepphraft. Hift. Plan. lib. iii. cap. 8— lib. iv. cap. 2» fStrabo lib. vii. p. 941*. 



