OBSERVATIONS ON THE DELTA. 449 
It cannot be argued that, in early times, the sea shore may have 
been sand though higher up, and that it has been covered by the 
mud of the Nile ; for throughout the Delta the same rich soil is dis- 
coverable in the deepest pits, without any strata of sand between, 
while the whole sea coast is now like other flat coasts, unoccupied 
by rocks, a sand so mixed with marine salt, as scarcely to produce 
any vegetation. 
The present sea shore of the Delta has, to me, so little the appear- 
ance of having been formed since the deluge, that I must have 
better authority than Mr. Savary, or the traditions of the Egyptian 
priests, for believing that it was so. The former is a wild romancer, 
whose descriptions I have already been obliged to controvert at 
Damietta, and to whom I can give no additional credit, when he as- 
serts, that the narrow strip of land below Lesbe has been the gift of 
the Nile since the days of St. Louis ; an assertion completely dis- 
proved, by its being of the same arid sand as the rest of the sea 
coast, and not of the rich soil of the Delta ; and it is only necessary 
to look at the map of Egypt to be convinced, that unless the Lake 
Menzale had been united to the sea, it is impossible but that the 
land must then have extended as far as it now does, for it is scarcely 
of a sufficient width to keep their waters asunder. To the traditions 
of the Egyptian priests, I am inclined to give as little credit. They 
were celebrated for their anxiety to exalt their country, by giving 
it a remote antiquity; and what fable could be better adapted for 
the purpose than this ? Slow and imperceptible as was the increase 
of the land at that time, how many ages must have confessedly 
passed away, before eighty miles of sea could have been filled up 
by the depositions of the river ! ^ 
VOL. Ill, 3 m 
