EASTERN THEBAID. 
179 
of naked rocks and burning sand, we search in 
vain for the ruins of temples, ancient monuments, 
and superb edifices like those which cover the val- 
ley of Egypt ; we discover no remains of a city^ 
no remains of a village ; but if a solitary fountain 
have fertilized a small circle of sand in the desert, 
if a lonely tree have extended its shade ovei* the 
path of the traveller, he seems to have given it a 
name, as if it had been a city^ This region exhi- 
bits the form of a triangle, the apex of which is 
placed at Suez, while the two sides are formed by 
the Red Sea and the Nile. In the parallel of 
Cairo, the Nile is scarcely three days' journey 
distant from the sea ; at Keft the distance is con- 
siderably increased ; in a higher parallel it be- 
comes nine days' journey, while at Syene it is 
computed to be about seventeen.* This district, 
which, from its eastern situation, is denominated 
Sharkin, a word Latinized Saracene, is, by the 
ancients, frequently termed Arabia, from the si- 
milarity both of the country and of the inhabi- 
tants. It is also termed Asiatic Egypt. The 
chain of mountainous ridges which confine the 
eastern bank of the Nile is so steep and precipi- 
tous, that it frequently exhibits the aspect of an 
artificial wall, interrupted at intervals by deep and 
rugged ravines. But as if this natural defence 
* Maillet's Descr. de I'Egypte, p. 318^ 
