122 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
the Nile, in this part of the country laves the foot of the 
mountains which are near to Afliut, and having furrounded that 
city, and the villages adjacent, defcends again into the river. 
The water, however, is not admitted into it but at a certain pe- 
riod of its increafe, and then it overflows all the furrounding 
lands, and Afliut only communicates with the Nile, by a road, 
artificially raifed above the common level, which leads down to 
the point where the boats refort, and are laden and difcharged ; 
and by two bridges, the one leading to this road, and the other 
towards the mountains. 
It has become much more populous within a few years by 
the good government of Solyman Bey, who has alfo adorned it 
by planting many trees. Afliut was formerly known to the 
Arabic writers by the name of haut-es-Sultan^ the king's fifli, 
or fifli-pond, for fignifies both. It would be curious to 
inquire from what circumftance ; whether from having been 
appointed to fupply the king's table with fifli, or what other 
reafon ? The mountains above Afliut abound with caverns which 
have probably originally anfwered the purpofe of fepulture, and 
then, in the Chrifl;ian age, may have been the refort of perfons 
who fought religious retirement. There are fome hieroglyphic 
infcriptions, but nothing very remarkable, and they have been 
already defcribed by former travellers, fo that it is not neceflary 
to give a detailed account of them here. The principal anti- 
quities between Kahira and Afliut, are at Shech Abade *, the 
* This place takes its name from the tomb of a Chriftian ecclefiaftic, called 
/hnmoii- el-abed, or the devout ; its other name is Enfene^ evidently from that of 
Ar.timus, 
antient 
