As we had no fear of him or his party, we neither courted nor avoided them. We passed near enough, however, to give them the usual salute, Salam Alicum; to which the leader of the troop gave no answer, but said to one of his servants, as in contempt, Bedowé! they are peasants, or country Arabs. I was much better pleased with this token that we had deceived them, than if they had returned the salute twenty times.
Some inconsiderable ruins are at Aboukeer, and seem to denote, that it was the former situation of an ancient city. There is here also an inlet of the sea; and the distance, something less than four leagues from Alexandria, warrants us to say that it is Canopus, one of the most ancient cities in the world; its ruins, notwithstanding the neighbourhood of the branch of the Nile, which goes by that name, have not yet been covered by the increase of the land of Egypt.
At Medea, which we suppose, by its distance of near seven leagues, to be the ancient Heraclium, is the passage or ferry which terminates the fear of danger from the Arabs of Libya; and it is here [1] supposed the Delta, or Egypt, begins.
Dr Shaw[2] is obliged to confess, that between Alexandria and the Canopic branch of the Nile, few or no vestiges are seen of the increase of the land by the inundation of the river; indeed it would have been a wonder if there had.
