falling into the arms of the spectators as if swooning; the women all the while rending the air with their lamenta tions."

This singular power over so dangerous an animal is claimed only by one tribe, who, on account of some signal act of piety performed by their ancestors, are understood to be protected by the Prophet from any injury that might befall them. These persons, however, lo not always escape; for the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus asks, Who will pity a charmer that is bitten by a serpent? Forskal says, that the leaves of the aristolochia sempervirens was used during forty days by those who wished to be rendered invulnerable; and we observe in the examination which an Abyssinian ecclesiastic underwent at the instance of some British travellers who wanted to ascertain the accuracy of Bruce, it is stated that the plant must be used at the moment the charm is performed.

At Pella, too, if we may believe Lucian, the serpents were rendered so tame and familiar that they were fed by the women, and slept with the children. Dr. Hume relates, that when he lived at Alexandria a nest of snakes was discovered in his house. Following the advice of his interpreter he sent for one of the gifted family, who was an old man, and by trade a carpenter. He prayed fervently at the door a quarter of an hour, and at length, pale and trembling, he ventured into the room; while an English sailor, who was employed as a servant, cleared away the rubbish in which they were concealed, and killed them with a shovel.

We conclude this chapter with a remark truly characteristic of the manners of modern Egypt, and of the feelings which were ingrafted upon the minds of the higher class by the long-continued sway of the Mamlouks. Before the reign of the present viceroy, it was customary, even among a people rigidly attached to the distinctions of hereditary rank, to reserve their highest respect for the purchased slave whose relations were unknown, and whose bravery or other personal qualities had raised him to the first honours in the country. General Reynier mentions that he has heard even Turkish officers say of persons who occupied great posts, "He is a man of the best connexions, he was bought."*

* Reynier, L'Egypte, p. 68, quoted by M. Malte Brun, vol. iv. p 107.

CHAPTER XI.

The Natural History of Egypt.

GEOLOGY-Valley of the Nile--Alluvial Formation-Primitive RocksSerpentine-Of Upper Egypt-Limestone Strata-Sandstone and Trap -Puddingstone--Verde Antico-Natron Rocks-Minerals-Precious Stones-Ores-ZOOLOGY-Camelus Dromedarius-Giraffe-Civet Cat -Ichneumon-Sorex, or Shrew-Jerboa-Hippopotamus-Crocodile'; cherished by Ancients-Monitor of the Nile-Hyena-Capra Aigros -Ovis Tragelaphus-Locust -BIRDS-Chenelopex-Ostrich-Ibis Ardea; Ibis Religiosa-Vulture; Mistake of Bruce-Oriental Dotter ell-Charadrius Himantopus-Corvus Ægyptiacus-Alcedo Egyp tiacus-Anas Nilotica-Sterna Nilotica-The Pelican-The Quail, or Tetrao Coturnix-FISHES-Echencis Neucrates-Sparus NiloticusLabrus Niloticus-The Perch-Silurus Clarias-Salmo Niloticus-Tetraodon-Mugil Cephalus and Clupea Alosa-PLANTS-Papyrus; Uses-Persea-Lotus-Rose-lily-Rhamnus Lotus-Phoenix Dactylifera-Ficus Sycomorus-Plantain-tree-Cucumis Chate-Cucurbita Lagenaria-Colocasium-Carthamus Tinctorius-Acacia: Gum; Frankincense-Henna-The Aloe-ZoorHYTES-Corallines--Red Coral-Sponges-Polypes-Madrepores, Millepores, Gorgonia or Sea-fan.

SECTION 1.-GEOLOGY.

THE valley of the Nile, which taken by itself is strictly an alluvial formation, presents, nevertheless, a variety of features highly deserving the notice of the geologist. It is bounded by two chains of hills, which, after gradually passing from the primitive order of rocks into the secondary and flotz-trap, terminate in deposites belonging to the most recent description of stratified minerals.

The district between Philoe and Es Souan, on the left bank of the river, is occupied by the northern extremity of that granitic range which stretches into Nubia; containing a particular species of stone to which, from the mixture of a small portion of hornblende, the name of syenite is usually given. It is in this neighbourhood that those quarries are still seen from which the ancients hewed the stupendous masses required for their colossal statues and obelisks. The granite is occasionally diversified by alternations of gneiss, porphyry, clay-slate, quartz, and serpentine, which contain, as imbedded minerals, a great variety of carnelions

and jaspers. Serpentine likewise occurs on the Arabian side, along with beds of clay-slate and compact felspar, and has been erroneously described by some authors as a greencoloured marble. There has also been observed in Upper Egypt a true marble, or granular foliated limestone, exhibiting the various hues of white, gray, yellow, blue, and red; and which, when combined with serpentine, forms the well-known rock called verde antico.

This section of the geological domain is succeeded towards the north by an argillaceous sandstone alternating with the carbonate of lime; while the corresponding chain on the Arabian side continues to display serpentine and granite. At Esneh the rocks become more decidedly calcareous, retaining the same character till they sink into the plain which bounds the lower division of Egypt. The steep perpendicular cliffs which characterize this limestone formation give a monotonous and rather dreary aspect to the country, contrasting unfavourably with the bolder and more picturesque mountains of the south, which offer new views in rapid succession, and confer upon the landscape an agreeable variety of beauty and magnificence.

This limestone has a splintery or conchoidal fracture; its colour is gray or variegated; and it contains numerous petrifactions of shells, corals, and fishes. It extends from Syené to the Mediterranean; and, in Lower Egypt, reaches from Alexandria to the Red Sea in the vicinity of Suez. A similar rock is discovered in the mountain-district which leads to Cosseir, and in the same country there are hills of limestone associated with gypsum or sulphate of lime. In the valleys which intersect that elevated ground, the sand is partly calcareous and partly quartose, indicating the quality of the strata from the waste of which it is formed. It is said that the ridge in question consists of three kinds of rock; the first of which is a small-grained granite; the second is a breccia, or puddingstone of a particular sort, known by the name of breccia de verde; and to this succeeds, for a space of thirty miles, a schistose deposite, which seems to be of a contemporaneous formation with the breccias, since they are connected by gradual transitions, and contain rounded masses of the same substance.

At the wells of El-Aoosh-Lambazeh there occurs a singular chain of slaty mountains, presenting, in their compo

sition, rock-crystal and steatitic rocks; but at the distance of eight miles from Cosseir they suddenly change their character, the greater part of them appearing in the form of limestone or alaster, in strata lying nearly north and south. Here are...und the remains of the astrea diluviana; and among the hills, considered by geologists as of later formation, are observed specimens of a schistose structure, together with porphyries not distinetly characterized. The bottom of the valley, covered with immense rocky fragments, presents a numberless variety of minerals,-clayslate, gneiss, porphyry, granite, and certain compound rocks, -in which are actynolite, and a particular kind of steatite containing nodules of schistose spar. There is besides a new and peculiar substance, found also in several spots of the Desert of Sinai, and resembling the green shorl of Dauphiné. It has not been discovered in a separate state, but forms part of the granites, the porphyries, and other rocks.*

.

Greenstone, or the very common rock which is composed of hornblende and felspar, occurs in beds in Upper Egypt. It is sometimes porphyritic, forming a green-coloured basis, in which pale green crystals of felspar are imbedded, and constituting a beautiful stone, recognised among mineralogists as green porphyry. It is not unfrequently mistaken for the verde antico, which, as we have already described, is a compound of serpentine and granular limestone without either hornblende or felspar.

But the most remarkable geological formation in Egypt is that composed of the carbonate of soda, which skirts the valley of the Natron Lakes. The hills which divide the basin, now named from that of the Waterless River, consist in a great measure of this chymical compound mixed with a muriate of the same substance. In the valley of the Wilderness the latter salt is found in thin compact layers supported by strata of gypsum; and also in the other deserts it occurs very frequently in a state of crystallization, sometimes under the sand, but more frequently on the surface.

It is to be regretted that our travellers, generally speak ing, have not bestowed that degree of attention upon the geological structure of Eastern Africa which it unquestion

Mém sur l'Egypte, vol. iii. p. 255; Malte Brun, vol. iv. p. 29

ably deserves. Hitherto no extensive series of observations have been made in regard to the general direction and dip of the mountains in that part of the world, and hence the relative positions of the great rock-formations remain very imperfectly known. We can perceive in their narratives some traces of the usual distinctions of mineral bodies into primitive, secondary, floetz, and alluvial, and are thereby led to conclude that there are in Egypt the same successions and affinities which mark the geological relations of these substances in all other portions of the globe that have been minutely examined. But there is still a complete want of systematic views in all the descriptions and details with which we have been hitherto supplied; and thus are we compelled to rest satisfied with conjecture when we are most desirous to attain the means of establishing a philosophical principle.*

Of the more precious minerals found in Egypt the following are the best known, and the most interesting to the common reader.

The topaz may still be seen in an island of the Red Sea, called Zemorget, or the Island of Topazes, and is said to have been collected by some of the ancient kings.

The emerald, it has been already mentioned, was understood to be procured in the ridge of mountains situated on the western shores of the Arabian Gulf, and to have been made an article of considerable commerce by the Romans. Bruce speaks of an island in the same sea called the Island of Emeralds, but which, upon being minutely examined, was found to produce nothing more valuable than greencoloured fluor spar.

Chrysoberyl is likewise enumerated among the mineral productions of Upper Egypt. The rarest varieties of quartz, too, met with in any part of Africa are the Egyptian avanturine and the rock crystal of the northern shores. Calcedony also, as well as carnelion, have been picked up on either bank of the Nile, both in the Upper and Lower provinces. Agate belongs to the rocks which diversify the desert eastward of Cairo; while jasper occurs in veins of considerable thickness in the clay-slate which bounds the western valley between Esneh and Siout.

There is a finer jasper, however, for which Egypt is cele

*Murray's Discoveries in Africa, vol.