LETTERS. 451 
fea at fun-fet, and runs on the fhore •, and why the 
Dolphins and Flying-fijh , at the fame time, lift them-* 
felves above the furface of the fea ? It is probable, 
that each of them has fome urgent reafon, which, 
at prefent, we do not comprehend. As I was 
travelling from Tyre to Sidon, I followed the 
fea-fhore for two hours about fun-fet, and had 
conftantly the pleafure to fee this little crab run by 
hundreds to and from the fea. I caught feveral, 
in order to fee whether I could find any thing 
about them to carry food, but found nothing. 
No creature can run fo fall, in proportion, as 
this. The moment one fees it two or three yards 
from the fea, you obferve it to turn back and re- 
turn into it. 
You were pleafed to afk, how do the plants fub- 
fift in Egypt half a year without rain ? This feems 
very odd to us in Europe, where we are ufed more 
to wet than dry weather; bur what fhall one 
think, when I fay, that there are plants in Egypt, 
which have lived 600 years, and perhaps have not 
got 6 ounces of rain, in all that time, for nourifh- 
ment ; this may with reafon be faid of the old Sy- 
camores round Cairo and in Upper Egypt, where 
perhaps, every fecond or third year, fall ten drops 
of rain. But if the Egyptian plants want rain, 
they do not therefore want water. The Nile, 
the wonderful Nile, fingular in its kind, affords 
that, which heaven denied them. The coun- 
try of Egypt is a river from the beginning of Au- 
guft to the latter end of October. A traveller com- 
ing to Egypt at this time, and being unacquainted 
with the true reafon for the overflowing of the 
water, would immediately confidcr it as a mira- 
cle in Nature. He would imagine he beheld a fea ; 
producing vegetables very different from Sar- 
gazo, 
