184 
clarke’s travels. 
seldom rapid or instantaneous. It seems always the result of 
sudden apprehension or surprise, when the poor defenceless 
animal, having no means of resistance, gradually assumes the 
colour of some substance over which it passes, being thus pro¬ 
vided by nature with the means of concealment. Frogs and 
toads appear to possess this property in a certain degree, al¬ 
though, it may have escaped the observation of naturalists. 
After these reptiles have remained a certain time upon a re¬ 
cently turned border of earth, their colour so much resembles 
that of the soil, that they are not easily perceived; and some¬ 
times among grass, when alarmed by the sudden approach of 
any other animal, they assume a greenish hue. The incio- 
sures for gardens ne*r Rosetta are formed by hedges made of 
palm branches, or of the cactus ficus indica , prickly pear. 
We had often the pleasure of collecting its fine yellow blos¬ 
soms : these are faithfully represented by an engraving pub¬ 
lished in the account of Lord Macartney’s voyage to China. 
Apricots of a small size, the produce of standard trees, together 
with the fruit of the banana,'* sugar canes, pumpkins, lettuces, 
and cucumbers, are common in the markets of Rosetta, at this 
season of the year. 
In viewing Egypt, there is nothing more remarkable than 
the scarcity of those antiquities which appear so common in all 
the museums of Europe. From Rosetta, the French had remov¬ 
ed almost every thing of this description ; but their acquisi¬ 
tions were by no means so remarkable as might have been ex¬ 
pected. We found only some granite columns remaining : these. 
Indeed, w 7 ere frequent in the streets of the place, and they were 
the only antiquities of the city. The famous trilingular in¬ 
scription, preserved upon a mass of syenite, commonly called 
the Rosetta stone , afterward a subject of contention between 
General Meiiou and our commander in chief, during the capitu¬ 
lation of Alexandria, was not founds in Rosetta. Its discovery 
w as first officially announced by an article in the “ Courier 
d'Egypte” or Cairo Gazette :f it is there described as the 
result of an excavation made in digging for the fortifications 
of Fort Julien, situated upon the western side of the Rosetta 
branch of the Nile, between that city and the embouchure of 
the river, at three thousand toises , or fathoms, distance from (he 
latter.;); The peculiar form of countenance discernible upon 
-k Musa sapientvm. 
| Dated “ B.osette , le 2 Fructidor, Anl 
% The following is the bulletin of the event; remarkable for the ignorance betrayed 
bj the French savans employed'by Menou in translating the Greek inscription upon 
