34 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
that time becoming a confiderable article of export; and I felt 
ibme ciiriofity to obferve the produdion in its nafcent ftate. 
Terane is the place neareft the lakes, and therefore I chofe it as 
a point of departure. We proceeded as far as the canal of 
Menuf with a fair wind. Beyond this a loaded boat of any 
fize cannot pafs, except by that canal ; the water having left 
the main channel, and now flowing through the canal, which 
is more in a line with the courfe of the river above the Delta. 
No want of population appears in the villages of this quarter, 
which are very numerous; and the land adjoining them is clean 
and well cultivated. An unbounded plain on both fides ftrikes 
the view, but on the Weft there is no great extent of arable land. 
The peafants wear the appearance of poverty, which, indeed, 
imder the prefent abufe of government, is necelTary to their 
perfonal fecurity ; but they have abundance of cattle, and the 
■frequent return of pafiengers in the boats is to them a fource of 
much gain. 
In many of the villages are women for the convenience of 
ftrangers, a part of whofe profits is paid to the government 
which tolerates them. I did not obferve, however, that the 
nature of their calling created any external levity or indecency 
of behaviour. Having taken a fmall boat from Menuf, in fix 
hours, the wind being either S. E. or calm, we arrived at 
Terane. I counted more than an hundred diftin£t villages and 
towns between Rafhid and Terane, as well on the Weft as the 
Eaft of the Nile. Among the moft confiderable of thofe on the 
Eaft is Fue, a place formerly more eminent in commerce than 
Rafhid ; but the latter has now in a great degree fuperfeded it, 
and 
