I.

The moment came, however, which was to CHAP. create a pause in all this mirth. The Braakel got under weigh; and a stiff gale causing more motion than suited either the club-d'armes or the comédie, every Frenchman was indisposed. Nothing was then heard but groans and curses. All the instruments were out of tune; and the deck was soon abandoned to the active sailors belonging to the ship's crew. It had been Captain Clarke's intention, in tacking out of Aboukir Roads, to put us on board the Sultan Selim, commanded by the Capudan Pasha, with whom we were acquainted; but this proved to be impracticable. To our very great consternation, we found ourselves, upon the morning of the seventh of August, so far advanced in the voyage to France, that we were already out of sight of the fleet. The Captain told us there was only this alternative; either to go with him to Author Marseilles, or to accept of a small boat, which he escapes would willingly give us, and, in this, run before veyed to the wind to the Mouth of the Nile. The turbulent appearance of the sea did not at all tempt us to try so hazardous an experiment as the last for if we had so done, and had escaped the consequences of our own ignorance among mountainous waves, we should inevitably have perished in the surf upon the coast. We therefore

;

narrowly

being con

France.

Here

CHAP. could only lament the loss of our intended I. journey in Egypt, and retire into the cabin with General La Grange, to whom we made known our very embarrassing situation. While we were thus ruminating upon the unexpected change in all our plans, a cry upon deck announced that a sail was in sight, standing towards Aboukir. This proved to be the Diadem, of 64-guns, Captain Larmour, from Cyprus, with wood and water, which presently drew near to us, and was hailed from the Braakel. We requested a passage to the fleet: this was granted, and with some difficulty we got on board. we found Colonel Capper, the bearer of overland despatches from India to the British army in Egypt. He gave us an account of his very arduous expedition; and communicated some interesting particulars, concerning the existence of ancient Worship of Pagan superstitions in Mount Libanus, particularly those of Venus or Astaroth. These were Libanus. alluded to in the preceding Volume'; and as a renewal of the subject here might be deemed irrelevant, the author has reserved his observations upon Colonel Capper's discovery for the Appendix it relates to a very interesting relique of the ancient mythology of SYRIA.

Astaroth

upon Mount

(1) See Vol. IV. p. 204. Note 1.

(2) See the Appendix to this Volume, No. I.

I.

Upon our return to the fleet, Captain Larmour CHAP. 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 eight, about ten o'clock A. M. As we drew near to the Rosetta mouth of Dangerous Passage of the Nile, we observed that the signal-boat was the Bar at not out3. So many lives had been lost upon of the Nile. the bar by not attending to this circumstance*,

the Mouth

(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 clapsed, during our first visit to Rosetta, in which some lives were not sacrificed, owing to the inattention paid to the signal. It was even as-erted, 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.

CHAP. and such positive injunctions issued by the

I.

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