DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0316
300
tions and spirit of enterprise the world has already owed so much
instruction and amusement on the subject of Egypt, (although
in one part of his work he says he visited the place where the
Bathen, or antient Maeris, joins the lake of Faium near Illahon,
where are the remains of a pyramid built of stones mixed with
bricks baked in the sun,) yet confesses in the following chapter
that the third time he crossed the Heptanomide from the Nile to
the Bahhr Jousouf, he did not observe that straight canal (mean-
ing the Bathen of D'Anville) as it is marked in all the charts.
Now had it existed at all in the shape of a canal, he must have
observed and have crossed it. Indeed I have no doubt that what
he saw at Illahon, and took to be the Bathen, was the entrance
of the Bahhr Jousouf into the Faium lake;—the chart of the
country most familiar to him had misled his judgement.
There are few modern towns in Egypt which present such a
picture of poverty, desolation and ruin, as Behennese. Some
acres of doura, and some date-trees on the banks of the canab
afford but a scanty maintenance to the inhabitants; and this at
all times exposed to the plunder of the Arabs. It borders on
the Desert, which is rapidly encroaching on the village : the tops
only of several houses and churches, which once adorned the ca-
pital of a nome, are now visible; the rest arc buried in the sands.
This is the case with the greater part of the towns on the skirts
of the Western Desert, and is attributed to the prevalence of the
winds from that quarter and the North-west. The proprietor
of the revenues of this district scarcely gets any profit from their
receipt; and it is one of the very few parts of Egypt whose po-
verty exempted it from the contributions levied by the French.
These were only known here when in pursuit of the Mamalukes
along the Desert.
Behennese, however, is not uninteresting to the antiquary. It
has
tions and spirit of enterprise the world has already owed so much
instruction and amusement on the subject of Egypt, (although
in one part of his work he says he visited the place where the
Bathen, or antient Maeris, joins the lake of Faium near Illahon,
where are the remains of a pyramid built of stones mixed with
bricks baked in the sun,) yet confesses in the following chapter
that the third time he crossed the Heptanomide from the Nile to
the Bahhr Jousouf, he did not observe that straight canal (mean-
ing the Bathen of D'Anville) as it is marked in all the charts.
Now had it existed at all in the shape of a canal, he must have
observed and have crossed it. Indeed I have no doubt that what
he saw at Illahon, and took to be the Bathen, was the entrance
of the Bahhr Jousouf into the Faium lake;—the chart of the
country most familiar to him had misled his judgement.
There are few modern towns in Egypt which present such a
picture of poverty, desolation and ruin, as Behennese. Some
acres of doura, and some date-trees on the banks of the canab
afford but a scanty maintenance to the inhabitants; and this at
all times exposed to the plunder of the Arabs. It borders on
the Desert, which is rapidly encroaching on the village : the tops
only of several houses and churches, which once adorned the ca-
pital of a nome, are now visible; the rest arc buried in the sands.
This is the case with the greater part of the towns on the skirts
of the Western Desert, and is attributed to the prevalence of the
winds from that quarter and the North-west. The proprietor
of the revenues of this district scarcely gets any profit from their
receipt; and it is one of the very few parts of Egypt whose po-
verty exempted it from the contributions levied by the French.
These were only known here when in pursuit of the Mamalukes
along the Desert.
Behennese, however, is not uninteresting to the antiquary. It
has