70 SCHOOLS-DEPARTURE FROM DAMIETTA. fessedly Christian, but most of these belong to the Greek church. In one of the streets we were attracted, by the sound of bawling voices, to a native school. Eight children were seated on the floor, with their books placed before them, not on a desk, but on a sort of hurdle. The children kept up an incessant rocking motion of the body backward and forward at every word they repeated, and all seemed to speak at once at the pitch of their voices. At the corner of another street we were attracted by a similar sound to a school up a stair, attended by about thirty children, with two teachers. They sat in regular rows on the floor, with their books, which were all Arabic, in their hands; their shoes had been left in a heap at the door. Three repeated their lesson at once, rocking to and fro. Quickness and loudness of utterance seemed to be aimed at as the chief excellence of the scholars. We visited the Consul once more, to thank him for all his kindness and bid him adieu. The common salutation at meeting and parting is to put the hand first on the breast and then on the lips, as if to intimate that what the lips utter the heart feels.* But no custom of the East struck us more than their manner of squandering away time: drinking coffee, smoking, and sitting indolently on a couch, seem to occupy many hours of the day. In the forenoon, our arrangements for traversing the desert being completed, we set out for the lake Menzaleh, about a mile from Damietta. Many of the people whom we passed on the way were preparing chopped straw and camel's dung mixed with earth for fuel. Many of the children were absolutely naked. Reaching the lake, we embarked in a large open boat, spread our carpets on the floor, and formed an awning with our mats. A large sail was raised, and a gentle breath of wind carried us slowly along; the sail and ropes were well patched, and would have fared ill in a gale. Lake Menzaleh is the ancient Mendes, and is in general four or five feet deep. The bottom appeared to be a very rich alluvial soil, and were the lake drained would form a splendid plain. The banks are all cultivated for rice. In the middle of the deck of our boat stood a large earthen jar with water, of which the sailors drank from time to time. The Bedouin sheikh, Haggi Mater, sat beside us. He was an * See Job xxxi. 27, "My mouth hath kissed my hand." LAKE MENZALEH-BEDOUIN SHEIKH-VILLAGES. 71 elderly man, of a very mild and pleasant countenance, and yet it was easy to trace beneath the numerous folds of his turban the cunning of his nation. He was in great good humour when we gave him dates and other fruit, and still more in the evening when we offered him tea and sugar. The thermometer was 74° under our awning, and the vessel moved very slowly, so that we found it pleasant to bathe in the lake. We sailed past two villages that lie close to each other, Ugbieh or Menzaleh, and Maturich. The former is on the neck of land, and both had a lively appearance, presenting the aspect of more industry than any Egyptian town or village we had yet seen. There were many boats at the quay; some carrying lime, others rice, others fish. The Mosque, rising over the houses and palm-trees, and seen against the deep blue sky, gave a truly picturesque effect to this quiet but busy spot. Towards evening, we observed the shore covered with immense reeds, from ten to twenty feet high; the water-fowl, and the fish leaping out of the water, seemed to be innumerable. The unbroken stillness of the evening scene was strangely solemnizing, and after singing the 23d and 121st Psalms, we committed ourselves to repose in the bottom of the boat. (May 23.) We were roused before sunrise. Our boat had reached during the night a narrow embankment, which divides this part of the lake from the next. The part we had sailed over was anciently the Mendesian branch of the Nile: and the part we were now to enter upon was the Tanitic or Saitic branch, now called Moes. The place was called Sid, perhaps a remnant of the ancient Sais. While the men were transporting the luggage over the slender isthmus, we wandered along the shore. It was a beautiful morning, and the air was soft and balmy, -just such an atmosphere Joseph used to breathe when he was governor over the land of Egypt. We came upon two Arabs sitting by a smouldering fire of camel's dung. The quern or hand-mill, made of two granite 72 MODE OF DRAWING WATER-ZOAN. stones, was lying by a large cruise of water, and a round iron plate for baking. As we sailed on, the banks on either hand presented fields of very large onions watered by human labour. A half-naked Egyptian stood by a well, into which he dipped a bucket, which was attached to a transverse pole. By means of a weight at the other end of the pole, the bucket was easily raised and emptied into the ditch, which conveyed it over the field. There were also many "sluices and ponds for fish," similar without doubt to those referred to by Isaiah,+ which were once numerous on all the branches of the Nile. About ten o'clock A. M. we landed at the village of San, anciently called Tanis, and in Scripture Zoan, one of the most ancient cities in the world. The fine alluvial plain around was no doubt "the field of Zoan," where God did marvellous things in the days of Moses; and it is by no means an unlikely opinion, that the wellknown Goshen|| was in this region. We pitched our tents upon the bank to shelter ourselves from the rays of an almost vertical sun, while the wild Arabs came round, some to gaze upon the strangers, and some to offer old coins and small images for sale. In the cool of the day we wandered forth for solitary meditation, and Mr. Bonar, passing over some heaps of rubbish a few minutes' walk from the Some such custom is alluded to in Deut. xi. 10: "Not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot as a garden of herbs." † Isa. xix. 10. Ps. lxxviii. 12, 43. t Numb. xiii. 22 village, started a fox from his lair. Following after it, he found himself among low hills of loose alluvial matter, full of fragments of pottery, while beyond these lay seve 74 ZOAN-FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. ral heaps of large stones, which on a nearer inspection he found to be broken obelisks and ruins of what may have been ancient temples-the relics of a glory that is departed. But darkness came on, and obliged him to return to the tent. It was a lovely moonlight night, and very pleasant it was to unite in prayer and in singing psalms amid the wild Arabs, in the very region where God had wrought so many wonders long ago. We read over Isaiah xix, "The burden of Egypt," in our tent, and when we looked out on the paltry mud village of San, with its wretched inhabitants, we saw God's word fulfilled before our eyes. "Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish:""Where are they? where are thy wise "The princes of Zoan are become fools"* The people of the modern village are extremely filthy and ignorant, famous for pilfering, and not to be trusted. Our sheikh and servants were a little afraid of them, and insisted on making one or two discharges of fire-arms, to instil a salutary awe into the villagers. They also kept watch round our tents the whole night, (one of them with a naked sabre, which lay by his side gleaming in the moonlight,) keeping one another awake by a low Arab chant. men ?" (May 24, Friday.) At sunrise we took a full survey of all that now remains of ancient Zoan. We found that the large mounds of alluvial matter which cover the ruins of brick and pottery, extend about two miles from east to west, and one mile and a half from north to south. The whole country round appeared to be covered not with sand, but with soil which might be cultivated to the utmost if there was water. The most remarkable relics of this ancient city lie at the western extremity. We came upon immense blocks of red granite lying in a heap. All had been hewn, some were carved, and some were still lying regularly placed one above another. Here probably stood the greatest temple of Zoan; and there seems to have been an open square round it. Possibly also a stream flowed through the very midst of the city, for at present there is the dry channel of a torrent. Further to the north, we found ten or twelve obelisks, fallen and prostrate, and two sphinxes, broken and half sunk into the ground. The finest of the obelisks was thirty feet long, the culmen unbroken, and the carving unimpaired. All were covered with hieroglyphics. Seve *Isa. xix. 11-13. |