DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11637#0187
AND LOWER EGYPT. 17*
the drop falls in Egypt, another reverie, the pre-
tended harbinger of the commencement of the rise
of the Nile, and that the next day there are no
traces of it to be seen. This monkish imposture,
like all others, turned to the profit of those by
whom it was propagated: for, if the monks of
Za'idi el Baramous were the only persons who col-
lected this sal gem, they were likewise the only
ones who sold it; and this gloss of the marvellous,
which they contrived to throw over it, occasioned
it to be much in request. Its properties, too, are
said to be almost miraculous: but that which
will not admit of the least doubt, because it is at-
tested by the monks, is its virtue of rendering
women fruitful, and infallibly removing sterility.
I have been told also, that the goldsmiths of the
country make use of it in their work.
Beside these different species of salt, the lakes
of the deserts of Nitria produce likewise a large
quantity of reeds, which form a considerable ar-
ticle of trade. The Egyptians gather them to
make mats with their leaves, and pipe-stems with
their stalks.
The monastery which I was now visiting, was
not the only one in this desolate country. Some
others, built in the same valley, but at a distance
from this, marked the site of the ancient retreats
of
the drop falls in Egypt, another reverie, the pre-
tended harbinger of the commencement of the rise
of the Nile, and that the next day there are no
traces of it to be seen. This monkish imposture,
like all others, turned to the profit of those by
whom it was propagated: for, if the monks of
Za'idi el Baramous were the only persons who col-
lected this sal gem, they were likewise the only
ones who sold it; and this gloss of the marvellous,
which they contrived to throw over it, occasioned
it to be much in request. Its properties, too, are
said to be almost miraculous: but that which
will not admit of the least doubt, because it is at-
tested by the monks, is its virtue of rendering
women fruitful, and infallibly removing sterility.
I have been told also, that the goldsmiths of the
country make use of it in their work.
Beside these different species of salt, the lakes
of the deserts of Nitria produce likewise a large
quantity of reeds, which form a considerable ar-
ticle of trade. The Egyptians gather them to
make mats with their leaves, and pipe-stems with
their stalks.
The monastery which I was now visiting, was
not the only one in this desolate country. Some
others, built in the same valley, but at a distance
from this, marked the site of the ancient retreats
of