From Medea, or the Passage, our road lay through very dry sand; to avoid which, and seek firmer footing, we were obliged to ride up to the bellies of our horses in the sea. If the wind blows this quantity of dust or sand into the Mediterranean, it is no wonder the mouths of the branches of the Nile are choked up.
All Egypt is like to this part of it, full of deep dust and sand, from the beginning of March till the first of the inundation. It is this fine powder and sand, raised and loosened by the heat of the sun, and want of dew, and not being tied fast, as it were, by any root or vegetation, which the Nile carries off with it, and buries in the sea, and which many ignorantly suppose comes from Abyssinia, where every river runs in a bed of rock.
When you leave the sea, you strike off nearly at right angles, and pursue your journey to the eastward of north. Here heaps of stone and trunks of pillars, are set up to guide you in your road, through moving sands, which stand in hillocks in proper directions, and which conduct you safely to Rosetto, surrounded on one side by these hills of sand, which seem ready to cover it.
Rosetto is upon that branch of the Nile which was called the Bolbuttic Branch, and is about four miles from the sea. It probably obtained its present name from the Venetians, or Genoese, who monopolized the trade of this country, before the Cape of Good Hope was discovered; for it is known to the natives by the name of Rashid, by which is meant the Orthodox.
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