Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/522

 the entrance to the harbour is dangerous, and shipping is sometimes prevented by the rough seas for days together from entering the river. The great mosque of Damietta, built by Amru, and remarkable especially for the richness and variety of its marbles, is indebted for the exceptional celebrity it enjoys to its "miraculous" column still covered with clotted blood and dry foam. According to the local tradition, all invalids who come with sufficient faith and lick the stone till their tongue bleeds are sure to recover. Nevertheless, the recent history of Damietta has

made it sufficiently evident that a far more efficacious way of getting rid of epidemics would be to sweep the streets clean of the filth encumbering them at every turn.

In an often inundated plain which stretches south-west of the city in the direction of Lake Burlos, there is another holy place, where miracles continue to be wrought, not, however, by Mussulman hajis, but by a female Christian saint. This is the Coptic convent of Setti-Damiana, or "Our Lady Damian."

in the part of the delta comprised between the two branches of Damietta and Rosetta, a few commercial towns are scattered in the midst of the canals and irrigation works. Such are Menuf, which gives its name to the large Menufieh Raya, or canal, where have been found the fragments of a trilingual stone, Shibin-el-Kour,