is no better built than any other town or village that we had passed, yet it interests by its extent; it is the most considerable place we had yet seen since our leaving Cairo. It has a cacheff and a mosque, with three large steeples, and is a market-town.
The country all around is well cultivated, and seems to be of the utmost fertility; the inhabitants are better cloathed, and seemingly less miserable, and oppressed, than those we had left behind in the places nearer Cairo.
The Nile is very shallow at Beni Suef, and the current strong. We touched several times in the middle of the stream, and came to an anchor at Baha, about a quarter of a mile above Beni Suef, where we passed the night.
We were told to keep good watch here all night, that there were troops of robbers on the east-side of the water, who had lately plundered some boats, and that the cacheff either dared not, or would not give them any assistance. We did indeed keep strict watch, but saw no robbers, and were no other way molested.
The 18th we had fine weather and a fair wind. Still I thought the villages were beggarly, and the constant groves of palm-trees so perfectly verdant, did not compensate for the penury of sown land, the narrowness of the valley, and barrenness of the mountains.
We passed Mansura, Gadami, Magaga, Malatiah, and other small villages, some of them not consisting of fifteen houses. Then follow Gundiah and Kerm on the west-side of theriver,
