horses. It was necessary to make these preliminary remarks upon asses before we could venture to exhibit our physician parading the streets of Alexandria on such a charger, exposed to the smiles of those Nilotic nymphs whose notes of rejoicing he afterward in revenge compared to the croaking of the frogs in the Rosetta canal.
From Alexandria he ascended along the canal to Rosetta. The fields, then under water, had been sown about a week previously with rice, but it was already three inches high; the frogs, which lay in myriads at the bottom of the canal, croaked most hideously; the mosquitoes stung; the buffaloes, offended at his red garments, attempted to gore him. However, by the aid of patience and a janizary, he at length reached Rosetta, from whence he proceeded up the Nile to Cairo. Here, at the house of Mr. Burton, the English consul, he saw a tamarind-tree, the leaves of which closed up in the evening at sunset, and expanded again with the dawn. Among the curious practices of Egypt he noticed, in this city, one of the most extraordinary: that is, that the women sometimes hatch eggs by keeping them perpetually under their armpits, until the desired effect is produced.
Though there are nations whose incivility is proof against the most courteous behaviour, a traveller may almost always conjecture from the character of his own manners the sort of reception he shall meet with in whatever country he may visit. Hasselquist's manners were gentle and inoffensive, and accordingly he found even the Turks polite. Shortly after his arrival at Cairo he was taken by the English consul to witness a grand feast given by a Turkish gentleman on the occasion of his son's circumcision. It had already lasted thirty days, during all which time he had kept open house, and accompanied his repasts by fireworks, illuminations, concerts, and dances. The fireworks, though inferior
