ROSETTA. 
384 
weary of production, furnishes the whole year a succession 
of harvests, of vegetables, of flowers, and of fruits; various 
species of cucumbers and delicious melons, the fig, the orange, 
the banana, the pomegranate, of the most exquisite flavour. 
To the north of the town are gardens, where lemon and 
orange trees, date trees, and sycamore trees, are planted at 
random ; by their foliage affording an arch impenetrable to 
the rays of the sun, and by their flowers rendering the shade 
of these groves delightful. The houses of Rosetta, says Son- 
nini, are much better built, in general, than those of Cairo; 
its situation upon the banks of the river; the view of the 
Delta, which presents, as Savary describes it, the delightful 
prospect of the most beautiful culture, the perfumed groves 
in its neighbourhood, and its pure and wholesome air, have 
most deservedly procured for it the name of the “ Garden of 
Egypt.” Commerce constitutes the principal wealth of the 
inhabitants of Rosetta. The importation of foreign mer¬ 
chandize to Cairo, and of the productions of Egypt into the 
port of Alexandria, employs a great number of mariners. 
The bar of the Nile is totally shut during two months of the 
year, and the commerce of Alexandria is interrupted. But if 
all the ships in Egypt were to perish, the Ottoman govern¬ 
ment, says Savary, would not remove one inch of ground of 
the canal of Faoue to render it navigable. It suffers every 
thing to go to ruin, and repairs nothing. 
In the town of Rosetta a profound silence reigns, uninter¬ 
rupted by the noise of any carriage. The inhabitants move 
with gravity through the streets, clad in long robes which 
hang down to their heels. Their heads are covered with 
heavy turbans, or bound round with a schale or shawl, which 
is a long piece of stuff" made of silk or wool. The girdle is 
made use of by both sexes. The citizen is armed with a knife, 
the soldier with a sabre, and a pair of pistols. The women 
of the lower class, whose dress consists of a large blue shift, 
and a long pair of drawers, have their faces covered with a 
piece of linen, with holes opposite to the eyes. The rich 
wear a large white veil, with a cloak of black silk, that wraps 
up their whole body. But though thus masked, they are 
not scrupulous in making signs, nor in ogling. 
The most ordinary pastime here is smoking and drinking 
coffee. From morning to night the inhabitants have their 
pipes in their mouths; at home, in each other’s houses, in 
the streets, on horseback, they keep their pipe lighted, and 
the tobacco-bag is hung at their waist. If the inhabitants of 
Rosetta be less barbarous, says Sonnini, than those of the 
other parts of Egypt, they are not less ignorant, less super¬ 
stitious, nor less intolerant. We find among them, although 
with shades more softened down, the same roughness of cha¬ 
racter, the same implacable aversion towards the nations of 
Europe, and disposition to insult both Christians and Jews, 
the same revengeful disposition—in a word, the same 
treachery ; and they are addicted to the same shameful vices, 
some of which we cannot name. 
The country round Rosetta is an immense surface, with¬ 
out a mountain or hill, intersected by innumerable canals, 
covered with harvest and a variety of trees, which winter 
never strips of their leaves. The soil is a black mould, the 
fertility of which is inexhaustible. The chief article of 
cultivation is rice, called in the vicinity of Rosetta “ sultani,” 
which is sown from the month of March to that of May, 
transplanted on the banks of the Nile, and on the borders 
of the canals at the end of July, and cut in November. 
Rice forms a principal article of exportation, which they dry 
by spreading upon the terraces of the houses and in the public 
squares; and to this operation is attributed the multitude of 
gnats, with which the town and the inside of the houses are 
filled at the time when it is performed. 
Rosetta, besides being the great emporium of the trade that 
is carried on between Cairo and Alexandria, has some 
branches of commerce peculiar to itself; such as spun-cotton, 
dyed red, which is drawn from the adjacent districts ; dressed 
flax, linen cloths, silk dyes for the eastern dresses, &c. The 
flax of the country, which is long, soft, and silky, would 
make beautiful linen, if they knew how to employ it; but 
the spinsters are very inexpert, and the thread they make is 
clumsy, hard, and uneven. The linens they bleach serve for 
the table; the rest, dyed blue, is employed for the clothing 
of the people. In Rosetta there are store-houses of natron, 
and manufactories where it is used. Most of the merchants 
of this town are Turks or Syrians, and some from Barbary. 
The Copts are numerous, together with some Arabs. The 
command of the town is vested in an officer of the Mam- 
louks, who bears the title of Aga. About a league from the 
sea, northward of Rosetta, are two castles, one on the western 
bank of the Nile, and the other on the opposite bank of the 
river, constructed to defend the entrance of the river. 
The fonner, which is ascribed to St. Lewis in the time 
of the crusades, is almost entirely demolished; and the 
few cannon which remain in it are unfit for service. These 
two forts, though inconsiderable, and in a ruinous state, 
would be sufficient to stop vessels from entering the river, if 
the Turks knew how to make use of the cannon; but here they 
have no occasion for it; as nature has guarded the mouth of 
the Nile, by raising a dangerous bar, called the Boghass or 
Bogaz, which is the terror of mariners. About half a league 
to the south of Rosetta is a tower, called the tower of Cano¬ 
pus, from the erroneous supposition that Rosetta is on the 
scite of the ancient Canopus. This tower has been built, in 
modern times, upon a hillock of sand, which at this place 
forms the west bank of the Nile. It is square and partly de¬ 
molished. In the lower part the inhabitants of this district 
shew the opening of a subterraneous passage, which, as they 
say, led to Alexandria. Near the top of the same is presented 
a general view of the country, having no bounds except 
those which nature has prescribed; and near its foot, close to 
the edge of the Nile, stands a mosque, consecrated to a holy 
Mussulman, called “ Abou-Mandour,” which signifies father 
of the light. This saint, if he be the father of the light, is 
also the terror of the sands, as, but for him, they would long 
ago have overwhelmed Rosetta, and added it to their dreary 
domain. Opposite to this mosque, upon the east bank of 
the Nile, are two or three houses, called Maadee, because 
they stand at the place facing the usual passage to the Delta. 
On the west bank, at a short distance above Abou-Mandour, 
is Dgeddie, a considerable village, in the environs of which 
a great number of vine-plants grow in the sand; from hence 
Rosetta and Alexandria are supplied with grapes. 
At the foot of the tower above-mentioued, a large semi¬ 
circular basin announces a port, which has been choaked up 
by the sand. In digging at the bottom of this hillock, 
twenty beautiful marble pillars were discovered by a Turkish 
merchant, who was stripped of his fortune by the Beys, from 
an imagination that he had carried off a treasure from this 
place. M. d’Anville suspects that the ancient Bolbitina 
must have been at a very small distance from the spot on 
which Rosetta now stands. The ruins now mentioned seem 
to confirm his conjecture ; as they are at the extremity of a 
town, and can only belong to the Bolbitina spoken of by 
Steph. Byz. and which gives its name to one of the branches 
of the Nile. This place is very picturesque; the tower, falling 
into ruins, is surrounded by tombs, and to the westward is a 
desart plain, whose burning extent the eye cannot look over 
without horror 5 but on the east the contrast is very striking, 
presenting a majestic river, and the Delta, uniting most pro¬ 
fusely the graces of the spring, the beauty of the summer, 
and the rich luxuriance of the autumn. 
Sir R. Wilson has given us a picture of Rosetta, very dif¬ 
ferent from that which we have above exhibited. He says, 
it is built of a dingy red brick, and that a great part of the 
town is in ruins, many of the houses having been pulled 
down by the French for fuel. The streets are not more than 
two yards wide, and full of wretches, which the pride of civi¬ 
lization revolts at acknowledging to be human. The num- 
ber of blind persons is prodigious; nearly every fifth inhabi¬ 
tant having either lost, or having some humour in, his eye. 
The erysipelas, the dropsy, the leprosy, the elephantiasis, and 
lusi naturae, constantly offend the sight Filth, musquitos 
of the most dreadful sort, vermin of every kind, women so 
ugly, that, fortunately for Europeans, their faces are concealed 
by a black cloth veil, in which are cut two eye-holes; stench 
intolerable j 
