INLAND NAVIGATION.

7

opening this canal. They call her the Aroojfa or the Bride; andthe name and ceremonies of this sanguinary festival are still preserved,though the Caliph Omar has rendered it more humane by substituting apillar of earth, -which represents the victim, and is thrown into the Nile.The principal inhabitants of Cairo appear at this ceremony in their gon-dolas, richly ornamented; and it is always succeeded by entertainmentsand fireworks. A great number of other canals, only taken care of bythose who derive advantage from them, issue from that arm of the Nilewhich runs to Damietta, and fertilize the province of Sharkia, which,making part of the Isthmus of Suez, is the most considerable of Egypt,and the most capable of a great increase of cultivation. The plains ofGaza, which lie beyond and are possessed by the Arabs, would not be lessfertile, if the spirit of devastation did not destroy even the spontaneousproductions. A number of other canals run through the island ofDelta, many of which are navigable ; and that of Manoof, or Meneuf,communicates with the two branches of the Nile, ten leagues below theangular point called the Belly of the Cow. 1 his canal begins at Nadir,and not at Gueseid, where D’Anville has placed the mouth of it, andcrosses the province of Manusia, the culture of which may be comparedto a well-managed kitchen garden.

“ The vestiges of the canals which watered the provinces westward andeastward of the Delta, prove them to have been the best cultivated of anypart of ancient Egypt: we may also presume, from the extent of theruins of Alexandria, the construction of the canal, and the natural levelof the lands which encompass the lake Mareotis, and .extend themselveswestward to the kingdom of Barca, that this country, at present givenup to the Arabs, and almost a desert, was once sufficiently rich in pro-ductions of every kind to furnish the city of Alexandria with its wholesubsistence.”

CHAP.