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the thick palms or sycamores afford them shade, and are the con-
stant resort of the rich after their dinner and afternoon's sleep.

The canal by which, the town and gardens are supplied with
water is opened about the middle of August, that is, when it is
known by the Mekkias that the Nile has risen to the height of
sixteen cubits; the public crier having proclaimed the gradual
rise of the flood every day since the inundation had begun. The
stream continues to flow till the middle of September, and is then
in most places twenty feet wide, and the mid-channel about six
feet deep.

The ceremony of breaking down the embankment is generally
attended with feasts and carousals throughout the town and
suburbs : and small pieces of money are thrown into the new
canal to stimulate the expert swimmers and divers to show their
skill in recovering them. This year little took place besides the
public appearance of the Vezir, and the principal officers of the
Turkish army. The greater part of the natives had not suffi-
ciently recovered from their alarms on their late change of mas-
ters, to enter with spirit into the amusements usual on this occa-
sion; and the indiscriminate use which the Turkish soldiery made
of their guns, firing them off in all directions without any pre-
caution, rendered it exceedingly dangerous to be abroad.

The canal enters the town along a deep foss, both banks of
which are lined with old ill-built houses, with latticed windows,
whose melancholy ruins had now scarcely any other inhabitants
than owls and hawks.

The castle which is to the East of the town is a very large and
irregular building, consisting of several courts and mansions,
upon an elevated rock. From the town you ascend to it by a
steep paved road. The few Mussulman anticruities which it con-
tains