MATERIA MEDIC A. 305 
*s a kind of trefoil or clover : for when they are 
obliged to feed their cattle on hay, and their 
camels on bruifed date kernels, their excrements 
are not fit for this purpofe ; but when they feed 
on grafs, the poor people of Egypt are very care- 
ful in collecting the dung quite frefh, and for 
that purpofe follow the cattle all day long ; if it 
is too moift, they mix it with chaff, ftubble, fhort 
ftraw, or duft, and make it up in the form of cakes; 
then they lay it on a wall to dry, till it is fit to be 
burnt. 
For want of wood, which none but the rich in 
Egypt can afford to buy, they burn this dung 
through the whole country, and fell a vaft quan- 
tity of foot to the falt-makers. If the country 
wanted this dung for manure, it would be bad 
ceconomy ; but as nature has provided Egypt with 
rnanure of a quite different nature, viz. the mud 
depofited by the Nile when it overflows the coun- 
try, the inhabitants are much to be commended 
for applying the dung to another ufe. 
The excrements of the camel are not found at 
all preferable to any other, and its urine is never 
ufed for this purpofe, although generally reported 
fo by authors. 
The fait workers pretend, that the human ex- 
crements, and thofe of goats and fheep, are pre- 
ferable to any other. In the months of March 
and April only they make the fait. 
The village Giza , which is fituated at a finall 
diftance from Cairo, is the only place near that 
city where they make this fait. There is no ma- 
nufadfory of it in Cairo but there are numbers 
In the ifland Delta. 
A person who poffeffes a village, in which there 
ls a fait manufactory, lets his peafants work it, 
X for 
