64 VOYAGE UP THE NILE, 
the inhabitants of the country is prepared from 
a mixture of camels' dung, mud, and straw: 
these ingredients, being made into a paste, are 
collected in the form of balls, which are after- 
wards flattened upon the walls of their huts for 
drying in the sun, and thus formed into circular 
cakes. From the ashes, after burning these 
cakes, the Ammonia is obtained, which is after- 
wards sent to Europe. The process is briefly 
and perspicuously described by Shaw, in the 
Appendix to his Travels'. About four miles to 
the south of Sindion, the Nile had overflowed its 
banks, and was making rapid progress over the 
adjoining fields. It began to rise upon the 
seventeenth day of June. The canal of Co/iro was 
cut upon the eighth of August, the day of our 
arrival in Rosetta from the Holy Land ; with the 
usual observance of public festivity; the Nile 
having then attained its proper height. After 
this, all the banks were cut, and the dykes 
opened, to receive the inundation, from CaJiro to 
the sea-. Our course here was e.n. e. towards 
(1) Collectanea, No. X. p. 480. ^/mw's Travels, Land. }~57. 
(2) The Reader may perhaps be curious to know what the symptoms 
are in the Nile (when at the lowest ebb) denoting the incipient flood. 
We were in Rosetta at the precise period for making the observation. 
This happened upon the sixteenth of May. For several days before, the 
v)v^ter in the river wjjs yery shallow, and seemed to stagnate. The 
smell 
