140 
DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT. 
departure of St Louis, the Arabs being menaced 
with a new invasion, apprehensive that the city was 
fated to be the constant scene of war, razed it 
to the ground. A new city arose at some dis- 
tance, and was at first termed Manchie, but af- 
terwards acquired the ancient appellation. The 
mouth of this branch of the Nile is rendered dan- 
gerous to mariners by sand-banks or bars, which 
are denominated bo gas. The Phatmetic mouth 
of the Nile is distant from the Sebennitic about 
thirty-two G. miles. 
The province of Sharkie, adjacent to the Nile of 
Damietta, is rich and fertile, but not so uniform in 
the quality of its soil as the district of Garbie. To- 
wards the shore, the consolidation of the alluvial 
territory appears to be incomplete, and the surface 
consists of a series of ridges, intersected .with 
marshes and lagoons, The great lake Menzala, 
the Tanis of the ancients, extends about sixty 
miles, between Damietta and Pelusium, either as 
a continued surface of water, or as a morass, inter- 
sected with banks and ridges. The water of the 
lake is fresh at the period of the overflowing of 
the Nile, but during the rest of the year is ren- 
dered salt or brackish by its communication with 
the sea. * It contains various islands, which still 
exhibit the ruins of towns and cities, and Edrisi 
* Geographia Nubiensis Eclrisii, Paris, I619> p. 103. 
