I thanked him for this friendly offer, which I am persuaded I might have accepted very safely, but I contented myself with desiring, that one of the Moor servants in the boat should go to Cairo to fetch Mahomet Abou Cuffi's son's cloaths, and agreed that I should give five patakas additional hire for the boat, on condition that Mahomet should go with us in place of the Moor servant, and that Abou Cuffi, the father and saint (that never drank fermented liquors) should be allowed to sleep himself sober, till his servant the Moor returned from Cairo with his son's cloaths.
In the mean time, I bargained with the Shekh of the Howadat to furnish me with horses to go to Metrahenny or Mohannan, where once he said Mimf had stood, a large city, the capital of all Egypt.
All this was executed with great success. Early in the morning the Shekh of the Howadat had passed at Miniel, where there is a ferry, the Nile being very deep, and attended me with five horsemen and a spare horse for myself, at Metrahenny, south of Miniel, where there is a great plantation of palm-trees.
The 13th, in the morning about eight o'clock, we let out our vast sails, and passed a very considerable village called Turra, on the east side of the river, and Shekh Atman, a small village, consisting of about thirty houses, on the west.
The mountains which run from the castle to the eastward of south-east, till they are about five miles distant from the Nile east and by north of this station, approach again the banks of the river, running in a direction south and bywest,
