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CHAP.

I.

Rosetta.

We were detained with the fleet until the ninth. Upon the morning of that day, the Braakel's cutter being ordered to Rosetta, we again set out for this place; sailing in company with the Dorothea frigate, until she came off the mouth of the Nile. The surf on the bar being low, we were able to pass over it, and therefore entered the Rosetta branch of the river. Of the seven mouths this river formerly possessed, only two now remain; those of Damiata and Rosetta. Soon after passing the bar in the embouchure of the Rosetta branch, an island ̧. divides the stream into two broad channels; and just beyond the point where these again, unite, upon the western side of the river, Rosetta is situate; appearing equally beautiful, whether approached by land or by water... This small island is covered with clover and.. date-trees it was then appropriated to the use of the French and Maltese prisoners, taken at Damiata, and other places upon the Niletowards Cairo.

We remained at Rosetta until the twentieth, visiting, occasionally, the Delta, and the environs of the town. The description already given by Sonnini of this place is ample and accurate. Chameleons are very common in the gardens, and upon the island in the midst of

the river, where we procured two that lived with us until we finally left Egypt. They were large of their kind, and of a most vivid green colour when first taken. Afterwards, their common appearance was that of the brown lizard; and we found as they became unhealthy that their power of changing colour diminished. Indeed, this effect is seldom rapid or instantaneous; it seems always the result of sudden apprehension or surprise, when the poor defenceless animal, having no means of resistance, gradually assumes the colour of some substance over which it passes; being thus provided by Nature with the means of concealment. Frogs and toads appear to possess this property in a certain degree, although it may have escaped the observation of naturalists: after these reptiles have remained a certain time upon a recently-turned border of earth, their colour so much resembles that of the soil, that they are not easily perceived; and sometimes among grass, when alarmed by the sudden approach of any other animal, they assume a greenish hue. The inclosures for gardens near Rosetta are formed by hedges made of palm-branches, or of the Cactus Ficus Indica, Prickly Pear: we often collected the fine yellow blossoms of this plant: they are faithfully represented in the account published of Lord Macartney's Voyage

CHAP.

I.

CHAP. to China.

1.

to China. Apricots of a small size, the produce of standard-trees, together with the fruit of the banana', sugar-canes, pumpkins, lettuces, and cucumbers, are common in the markets of Rosetta, at this season of the year.

To a traveller in Egypt there is nothing more remarkable than the scarcity of those antiquities which appear to be so common in all the Museums of Europe. From Rosetta, the French had removed almost every thing of this kind; but their acquisitions were by no means so remarkable as might have been expected. We found only a few granite pillars remaining: these might be seen in the streets, and they were

the only antiquities of the city. The famous Trilinguar Trilinguar Inscription, preserved upon a mass of Inscription Syenite, perhaps improperly called the Rosetta

Stone, which afterwards became a subject of contention between General Menou and our Commander-in-chief, during the capitulation of Alexandria, was not found in Rosetta. Its discovery was first officially announced by an article in the "Courier d'Egypte," or Caïro Gazette: it is there described as the result of an excavation made in digging for the fortifications

(1) Musa Sapientum.

(2) Dated" Rosette, le 2 Fructidor, An 7.”

of Fort Julien, situate upon the western side of the Rosetta branch of the Nile, between that city and the embouchure of the river, at three thousand toises, or fathoms, distance from the latter'. The peculiar cast of countenance which

(3) The following is the bulletin of the event; remarkable for the ignorance betrayed by the French Savans employed by Menou in translating the Greek inscription upon the stone. By this also it appears, that an officer of the name of Bouchard made the discovery.

"Parmi les travaux de fortification que le Citoyen D'Hautpoul, chef de bataillon du Génie, a fait faire à l'ancien Fort du Raschid, nommé aujourd'hui Fort Julien, situé sur la rive gauche du Nil, à trois mille toises du Boghaz de la branche de Rosette, il a été trouvé, dans des fouilles, une pierre d'un très-beau granit noir, d'un grain très-fin, très-dure au marteau. Les dimensions sont de 36 pouces de hauteur, de 28 pouces de largeur, et de 9 à 10 pouces d'épaisseur. Une seule face bien polie offre trois inscriptions distinctes et separées en trois bandes parallèles. La première et supérieure est écrite en caractères hieroglyphiques; on y trouve quatorze lignes de caractères, mais dont une partie est perdue par une cassure de la pierre. La seconde et intermédiaire est en caractères que l'on croit être Syriaques; on y compte trente-deux lignes. La troisième et la dernière est écrite en Grec; on y compte cinquante-quatre lignes de caractères très-fins, très-bien sculptés, et qui, comme ceux des deux autres inscriptions supérieures, sont très-bien conservés.

"Le Général Menou a fait faire traduire en partie l'inscription Grèque. Elle porte en substance que Ptolemie Philopater fit rouvrir tous les canaux de l'Egypte, et que ce prince employa ces immenses travaux un nombre très-considérable d'ouvriers, des sommes immenses et huit années de son règne. Cette pierre offre un grand intérêt pour l'étude des caractères hiéroglyphiques; peut-être même en donnerat-elle enfin la clef.

"Le Citoyen BOUCHARD, officier du corps de Génie, qui sous les ordres du Citoyen D'Hautpoul, conduisoit les travaux du Fort du Raschid, a bien voulu se charger de faire transporter cette pierre au Kaire. Elle est maintenant à Boulag." Courier de l'Egypte, No. 37, p. 3. Au Kaire, de l'Imprimerie Nationale.

CHAP.
I.

CHAP.

I.

Pilularius.

may be noticed upon the statues of Isis is yet recognised in the features of the Egyptian women, and particularly in those of Rosetta, when they can be prevailed upon to lay aside their veils. Upon the sands around the city we saw the Scarabeus Scarabæus Pilularius, or Rolling Beetle, as it is sculptured upon the obelisks and other monuments of the country, moving before it a ball of dung, in which it deposits an egg. Among the Egyptian antiquities preserved in the British Museum, there is a most colossal figure of this insect it is placed upon an altar, before which a priest is represented kneeling. The beetle served as food for the ibis; its remains are sometimes discovered in the earthenware repositories of those embalmed birds which are found at Saccára and Thebes. With the Antients it was a type of the Sun. We often find it among the characters used in hieroglyphic writing. As this insect appears in that season of the year which immediately precedes the inundation of the Nile, it may have been so represented as a symbol of the spring, or of fecundity, or of the Egyptian month anterior to the rising of the water'. The antient super

(1) There are other reasons for believing it to be the sign of an epocha, or date; and among these may be particularly stated the manner of its occasional introduction in the apices of Egyptian obelisks, beginning their

inscriptions

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