Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/177

Rh for here, and the nome of that name, all to the eastward of it.

wind still freshening, we passed by several villages on each side, all surrounded with palm-trees, verdant and pleasant, but conveying an idea of sameness and want of variety, such as every traveller must have felt who has sailed in the placid, muddy, green-banked rivers in Holland.

Nile, however, is here fully a mile broad, the water deep, and the current strong. The wind seemed to be exasperated by the resistance of the stream, and blew fresh and steadily, as indeed it generally does where the current is violent.

passed Nizelet Embarak, which means the Blessed Landing-place. Mr Norden calls it Giesiret Barrakaed, which he says is the watering-place of the cross. Was this even the proper name here given it, it should be translated the Blessed Island; but, without understanding the language, it is in vain to keep a register of names.

boatmen, living either in the Delta, Cairo, or one of the great towns in Upper Egypt, and coming constantly loaded with merchandise, or strangers from these great places, make swift passages by the villages, either down the river with a rapid current, or up with a strong, fair, and steady wind: And, when the season of the Nile's inundation is over, and the wind turns southward, they repair all to the Delta,