26 VOYAGE FROM 8YRIA 
room, to dine tlicrc with his officers, according 
to his weekly custom. As we were beginning 
our dinner, the voice of a sailor employed in 
heaving the lead was suddenly heard calling 
^' half f oar r The Captain, starting up, reached 
the deck in an instant; and almost as quickly 
putting the ship in stays, she went about. 
Every seaman on board thought she would be 
stranded ; as she came about, all the surface of 
the water exhibiting a thick black mud ; and this 
extended so widely, that the appearance resem- 
bled an island. At the same time, no land was 
really visible, not even from the mast-head, nor 
was there any notice of such a shallow in any 
chart on board. The fact is, as we learned 
afterwards, that a stratum of mud, extending 
for many leagues off the mouths of the Nile, 
exists in a moveable deposit near the coast of 
Egypt, and, when recently shifted by currents, 
it sometimes reaches quite to the surface, so as 
to alarm mariners with sudden shallows, where 
the charts of the Mediterranean promise a consi- 
derable depth of water. These shallows, how- 
ever, are not in the slightest degree dangerous; 
vessels no sooner touch them, than they are 
dispersed ; and a frigate may ride secure, where 
the soundings would induce an inexperienced 
pilot to believe her nearly aground. In the 
