Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/185

Rh passed now a convent of cophts, with a small plantation of palms. It is a miserable building, with a dome like to a saint's or marabout's, and stands quite alone.

four miles from this is the village of Nizelet el Arab, consisting of miserable huts. Here begin large plantations of sugar canes, the first we had yet seen; they were then loading boats with these to carry them to Cairo. I procured from them as many as I desired. The canes are about an inch and a quarter in diameter, they are cut in round pieces about three inches long, and, after having been slit, they are steeped in a wooden bowl of water. They give a very agreeable taste and flavour to it, and make it the most refreshing drink in the world, whilst by imbibing the water, the canes become more juicy, and lose a part of their heavy clammy sweetness, which would occasion thirst. I was surprized at finding this plant in such a state of perfection so far to the northward. We were now scarcely arrived in lat. 29°, and nothing could be more beautiful and perfect than the canes were.

they were originally a plant of the old continent, and transported to the new, upon its first discovery, because here in Egypt they grow from seed. I do not know if they do so in Brazil, but they have been in all times the produce of Egypt. Whether they have been found elsewhere, I have not had an opportunity of being informed, but it is time that some skilful person, versed in the history of plants, should separate some of the capital productions of the old, and new continent, from the adventitious, before, from length of time, that which we now know of their history be lost.