448 OBSERVATIONS ON THE DELTA. 
now well prepared to resent. We rowed all night, and at four in 
the morning reached Rosetta. 
May 18. — As soon as I arrived, I communicated the transactions 
at Foua to Mr. Petrucci, and through him to the Governor, whom 
I called upon to secure the delinquents on the arrival of the boat, 
that they might be sent to the Pacha to answer for their conduct. 
The Governor promised that this should be done, and soon after- 
wards sent to say that the chief criminal had quitted the jerm 
above the town, but that the other two were well known, and should 
abide his Highness's pleasure. The poor Frosh was his own ser- 
vant ; I had therefore no reason to doubt his wish to punish the 
people who had so wantonly injured him. 
After having passed through the Delta; after having examined 
its whole line of sea coast, and viewed both the great mouths 
of the Nile, I confess that I cannot discover a single argument in 
favour of the idea, that this fertile district has been formed by the 
mud of the river. For if, in ancient times, this had actually been 
the case, how happens it that, in these days, the same cause does not 
produce the same effect ^ Yet it is evident that the volume of water 
brought down is as great as ever, by its covering the whole plain 
of Egypt ; and many of the ancient canals being closed, the quantity 
discharged into the sea at Rosetta and Damietta is still greater than 
formerly. Instead, however, of the land continuing to extend to the 
northward, and a mound of black loam being deposited at the 
mouths of the river, the bar, which at all times renders the entrance 
shallow, and which after a gale from the north becomes so consider- 
able as to be impassible till the stream has formed a new passage, con- 
sists ofan arid sand alone, uncovered by anymore fertile deposition. 
