EGYPT, AND SYRIA. 353 
On the 5th of the fame month I arrived at Damiatt. This 
noted port prefents an agreeable afped: on the firft approach 
from the South, the town being built fomewhat in the form 
of a crefcent on a gentle bend of the river, and being fur- 
rounded with cultivated lands, which extend to the large lake 
called Manzale. The diftance from the fea is about fix miles, 
and there is a bar acrofs the Nile, fo that vefTels are obliged to 
have part of their cargo fent after them in fmall boats, and put 
on board after they have paft the bar. 
Damiatt is blelTed with a foil almoft unrivalled, and ex- 
uberant in orange and lemon trees, and other rich vegetation 
of the Eaft, which would prefent an appearance very ftriking 
to a traveller accuftomed to an Englifh winter. Nor were my 
emotions unpleafant at here beholding, for the firft time, the 
celebrated Papyrus^ pufliing its green fpikes through the mud 
of the adjacent ditches *. 
This plant formerly abounded fo much in the vicinity of 
Damiatt, that it was profaned, fo to fpeak, in the fabrication 
of fleeping mats, which were tranfported to different parts of 
Lower Egypt. But of late years, by the facred ignorance 
and fupine negled of the Mamluks, who regard themfelves as 
merely tenants for life, and delapidate at will this noble domain, 
the channel of the Nile, which ought to flow to Damiatt, pur- 
* In the neighbourhood of Damiatt the Papyrus is termed el-Berdi. An- 
other name is alfo given it, evidently derived from the term in ufe among us, 
El-Babir. 
z fuing 
