1 INTRODUCTION. 



curious and lefs known. Engraving in England has advan- 

 ced rapidly towards perfection, and the prices, as we may 

 fuppofe, have kept proportion with the improvement. My 

 fmall fortune, already impaired with the expence of the 

 journey, will not, without doing injuftice to my family, bear 

 the additional one, of publifhing thefe numerous articles, 

 which, however defireable it might be, would amount to 

 a fum which in me it would not be thought prudent to 

 venture. 



If Egypt had been a new, late, and extraordinary crea- 

 tion, the gift of the Nile in thefe latter times, as fome mo- 

 dern philofophers have pretended, the leaft thing we could 

 have expected would have been to find fome new and ex- 

 traordinary plants accompany it, very different in figure 

 and parts from thofe of ancient times, made by the old un- 

 phllofophical way, xhzjiat of the Creator of the univerfe. But 

 juft the contrary has happened. Egypt hath no trees, fhrubs, 

 or plants peculiar to it. All are brought thither from Sy- 

 ria, Arabia, Africa, and India; and thefe are fo far from being 

 the gift of the Nile, as fcarcely to accuftom themfelves to 

 fuffer the quantity of water that for five months covers the 

 land of Egypt by the inundation of that river, 



Even many of thofe that the necefliries of particular 

 times have brought thither to fupply wants with which 

 they could not difpenfe, and thofe which curious hands 

 have brought from foreign countries are not planted at 

 random ; for they would not grow in Vgypt, but in chofen 

 places formerly artificially raifed above level, for gardens, 

 and pleafure ground, where they are at this day watered 

 by machinery ; or upon banks above the calilhes, which 



though 



