136 
DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT. 
slender turrets of cities are discerned. The num- 
ber of inhabitants in this fertile district bears no 
proportion to its ancient population. j 
The vestiges, however, of ruined cities in the 
Garbie, are neither so numerous nor important as 
in some other provinces of Egypt. The difficulty 
of procuring materials for building has induced the 
natives to deface their ancient monuments ; many 
of them are concealed by the accumulation of sand 
and mud, and others are destroyed by the supersti- 
tion of the inhabitants. * 
From the mouth of the Nile to Cape Brulos, or 
Berelos, the extreme point of the Delta, the soil is 
sandy and barren, and it preserves the same cha- 
racter in that low and narrow ridge which separates 
the lake Butos, or Brulos, from the sea. This ex- 
tensive lake, near the extremity of the Delta, en- 
closed within the main land by a long narrow ridge 
of sand, marks the imperfect consolidation of that 
alluvial district. Between this lake and the Cano- 
pic branch of the Nile, the Milesian wall was drawn 
by the Ionian Greeks, who had been permitted to 
settle at Naucratis. In the city of Butos was an 
* According to Volney, the ruins of cities and temples are 
not the only monuments which suffer by the barbarism of 
the Egyptians. It is only about twenty years since above 
one hundred volumes, written in an unknown language, were 
discovered near Damietta, and immediately burned by the 
command of the Sheiks of Cairo. 
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