sulphurous smell is at such times perceived. It is even asserted that the hot air 
is heavier than the atmosphere: this may account for the Arab mode of avoiding 
the danger to which they are often exposed; instead of placing their mouths near the 
ground, they generally cover them with the kefieh, or kerchief, which they bear 
on their heads. 
Bruce’s Travels. 
THE NILOMETER ON THE ISLAND OF RHODA, CAIRO. 
The Nilometer is a graduated upright pillar, placed in a well within a walled inclosure, 
built on the island, into which the waters of the Nile are admitted by concealed 
channels. 
The amount of tax levied upon the land is guided by the fertility which is expected 
to be consequent upon the maximum of the rise which the pillar indicates; but it is 
said that the height of the Nile is as often suited by the government to the state of 
the exchequer, as the tax is guided by the rise of the Nile. 
That the building is of comparatively modern date, is shown by the arabesque 
ornaments on the gate by which the water passes, and by the Kufic inscriptions on the 
walls, to be not more than nine hundred years old; but it is highly probable that its 
site was appropriated to the same purpose at a remoter period. The large building 
which now incloses the whole is used as a powder-magazine, and all access is denied 
to strangers. Mr. Roberts got access to it by climbing over the wall, and made a 
hurried sketch, but at the risk of being drowned in the well of the Nilometer, or shot 
by the sentinel. 
Roberts’s Journal. 
