RUINS OF SAIS. 313 
Athenians to the faith, by using for his purpose chap. 
a Heathen altar, which he found with an inscrip- ^ »y- .,/ 
tion "To THE UNKNOlVN GoD." 
Having also purchased this Torso, and con- 
veyed it on board the vessel, as the day was 
now far advanced, we prepared for our de- 
parture from Sais; much gratified by a view 
of the place, and by the acquisitions we had 
made in so short a space of time. The 
Arabs expressed equal satisfaction ; for the 
whole village assembled to accompany us as 
far as the river ; the women dancing, singing, 
and clapping their hands ; and the men playing 
upon reed pipes, called here Ziimana\ Many 
of these women wore large bracelets of ivory ; 
and exhibited the same indecent gestures 
which we had noticed among the dancing-girls 
in our visit to Saccdra. They remained dancing 
upon the shore until we lost sight both of them 
and of Se'l Hajar. The Nile was truly bois- 
terous, and the rapidity of our descent rendered 
our loss of time of less consequence: it was 
like a passage of the rapids in some of the rivers 
that fall into the Gulph of Bothnia; and, towards 
(5) It is the same instrument which we noticed at Saccara, under 
the name Zabitna. 
