Upon our return to the fleet, Captain Larmour accompanied Colonel Capper to the Admiral's ship; and we revisited the Ceres, where we found our valuable friend Captain Russel, to the great grief of his officers and crew, and all who had the happiness of knowing him, in such a state of indisposition as put an end to every hope of his recovery. We had much difficulty in obtaining a passage to Rosetta on board one of the djerms, or boats belonging to the Nile; but, at length, permission was granted us to sail in one of these vessels, from the Eurus, Captain Guion, who treated us with that politeness we had so often experienced from the officers of the British Navy. We left the Bay of Aboukir, August the eighth, about ten o'clock A. M. As we drew near to the Rosetta mouth of

the Nile, we observed that the signal-boat was not out. So many lives had been lost upon the bar by not attending to this circumstance*,

CHAP.

I.

Dangerous Passage of the Bar at

the Mouth

of the Nile.

(3) During the Egyptian Expedition, a boat with a signal-flag was always anchored on the outside of the mouth of the Nile, when the surf upon the bar was passable.

(4) Scarcely a day elapsed, during our first visit to Rosetta, in which some lives were not sacrificed, owing to the inattention paid to the signal. It was even asserted, that the loss of men at the mouth of the Nile, including those both of the army and navy, who were here sacrificed, was greater than the total of our loss in all the engagements that took place with the French troops in Egypt.

I.

CHAP. and such positive injunctions issued by the Commander-in-chief against attempting to pass when the signal was removed, that we supposed the Arabs belonging to the djerm would take us back to the fleet. The wind was, however, against our return; and the crew of the boat persisted in saying that a passage was practicable. It was accordingly attempted; but the surf soon drove us back, and we narrowly escaped being overwhelmed by it. A second attempt was then made, nearer to the eastern side of the river's mouth. We prevailed upon some English sailors, who were on board, to let the Arabs have their own way, and not interfere with the management of the djerm, however contrary it might seem to their usual maxims. Never was there a more fearful sight, nor a scene of greater confusion, than ensued when we reached the middle of the tremendous surf a second time. The yells of the Arabs, the oaths of the sailors, the roaring of the waters, the yawning gulphs occasionally disclosing to us the bare sand upon the bar, while we were tossed upon the boiling surf, and, to complete the whole, the spectacle afforded by another djerm swamped and wrecked before our eyes, as we passed with the velocity of lightning, unable to render the least assistance, can never

I.

be forgotten. We had often read accounts of CHAP. dangerous surf, in books of voyages, but entertained no notion in any degree adequate to the horrors which mariners encounter in such a situation; nor is there any instance known of a more frightful surf than this river sometimes exhibits, by its junction with the Mediterranean. No sooner had we gained a certain point, or tongue of land, advancing from the eastern shore of the river towards the north-west, than a general shout from the Arabs announced that every danger was over:-presently we sailed as serenely along as upon the calmest surface of any lake. The distance of the mouth of the Nile from the station of the British armament is considerable; but while we remained at anchor in the Bay of Aboukir, we could perceive the ships stationed near to the Boccaz; and in like manner we here observed the masts of the fleet in the bay.

As we entered the Nile, we were amused by seeing an Arab fishing with the sort of net called in England a casting-net: this, without any difference either in shape, size, or materials, he was throwing exactly after our manner, which may be urged to prove the antiquity of this mode of fishing. Pelicans appeared in great

CHAP.

I.

Fort St. Julian.

number at the mouth of the river; also that kind of porpoise which is called dolphin in the Levant; this may be seen sporting in the Nile, as high up as the town of Rosetta. The first object, after entering the Rosetta branch, is the Castle, or Fort St. Julian. In digging for the fortifications of this place, the French discovered the famous Triple Inscription, now in the British Museum': this will be ever valuable, even if the only information obtained from it were confined to a solitary fact; namely, that the hieroglyphic characters do exhibit THE WRITING OF THE PRIESTS of Egypt. This truth will now no longer be disputed; therefore the proper appellation for inscriptions in these characters, ought rather to be Hierograms, than Hieroglyphs. A surprising number of Turkish gun-boats were stationed opposite to Fort St. Julian at the time we passed; and when the beautiful prospect of Rosetta opened to our view, the whole surface of the river, in front of the town, appeared also covered with gun-boats and with djerms.

Upon our arrival, at five o'clock P. M. we

(1) See pp. 6, 7. Chap. I. of Volume IV. 8vo. edit.

(2) See the words of the Greek inscription upon that stone, TOIČ ΤΕ ΙΕΡΟΙΣ ΓΡΑΜΜΑΣΙΝ.

I.

State of

Affairs

in Rosetta.

found an amusing proof of the effect of war an- CHAP. nihilating all civil distinctions. The house we had formerly occupied was full of sailors, soldiers, and other tenants; our apartments had been converted into Charems, and were filled with Georgian, Circassian, and Egyptian girls; these we found sitting unveiled upon the floor; some working embroidery, others chattering and laughing. One of them, a beautiful female, taken from a tribe of Bedouin Arabs, exhibited a fine countenance disfigured with those blue scars which were described in the account of Bethlehem. They were marks, as she pretended, which entitled her to a very high consideration among the Arabs of the Desert. These women had been presented by the French prisoners to the officers and men of our army and navy. They appeared to be as much at home, and as tranquil, in the protection of their new masters, as if they had been thus settled for life. The most lamentable part of the story is, that when our people were compelled to abandon them, they were put to death by the Moslems. A woman who has admitted the embraces of a Christian is never afterwards pardoned. It is lawful, and deemed laudable, for the first Turk or Arab who meets with her, to deprive her instantly of life. In this scene of confusion we