176 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
ftiowery weather will prevail for a week together ; and I have 
fometimes feen rain at Kahira. In Upper Egypt even fhowers 
are very rare, and only one fell while I was in that country. 
After a heavy progrefs of five days reached Suez. The town 
is fmall, and built of unburned brick. It contains twelve mofques, 
of which fome are ftone, but the moft are mean buildings. The 
fea near the town is very fhallow, yet there is a fmall yard for 
fhip-building. Population, Mohammedans, with a very few 
Greeks. Suez is very modern, probably built within thefe laft 
three hundred years ; being unknown to travellers of a more 
antient date. 
There are here at prefent four three-mafted vefTels, and ten 
others, fome with two, fome with one. Two building, one of 
which is pierced for twelve guns ; and ten large boats, without 
mafts. The largeft of thefe fhips was intended for the Indian 
trade, the reft for traffic to Jidda ; one or two of them had been 
built in Yemen. 
The Arab mode of fhip-building is fmgular. They have no 
art to bend the timbers ; none of them are crooked except na- 
turally fo. They are very flender, and where the upper and 
lower ribs join, do not pafs one over the other, but by the fide 
of each other. 
At Suez coffee forms the chief article of trade. It is a place 
of no ftrength, and has only eight old cannon, feemingly unfit 
for fervice ; the others were removed to Jize by Ifmail Bey. 
The 
