Dr. Clarke sailed up the Nile on the 10th of August, 1801, when the river was beginning to overflow the country. The following extract corroborates all that I had heard related by my comrades, after they had returned from Cairo, and is so interesting, that it will gratify such readers as have not access to his work. After passing Rachmanie, he says, "Villages in an almost uninterrupted succession, denoted a much greater population than we had imagined this country to contain. Upon each side of the river, as far as the eye could reach, we saw fields of corn and rice, with such beautiful groves, seeming to rise out of the watery plains, and to shade innumerable settlements in the _Delta_, amidst never-ending plantations of melons, and all kinds of garden vegetables, that, from the abundance of its harvests, Egypt might be deemed the richest country in the world. Such is the picture exhibited to the native inhabitants, who are seasoned to withstand the disorders of the country, and can bear with indifference the attacks of myriads of all sorts of noxious animals; to whom mud and mosquitoes, or dust and vermin, are alike indifferent; who, having never experienced one comfortable feeling in the midst of their highest enjoyments, nor a single antidote to sorrow in the depths of their wretchedness, vegetate, like the _bananas_ and _sycamores_ around them. But strangers, and especially the inhabitants of _Northern_ countries, where wholesome air and cleanliness are among the necessaries of life, must consider Egypt as the most detestable region upon earth. Upon the retiring of the Nile, the country is one vast swamp. The atmosphere is impregnated with every putrid and offensive exhalation, then stagnates, like the filthy pools over which it broods. Then, too, the plague regularly begins; nor ceases, until the waters return again.[25] Throughout the spring, intermitting fevers universally prevail. About the beginning of May, certain winds cover even the sands of the desert with the most disgusting vermin.[26] The latest descendants of Pharaoh are not yet delivered from the evils which fell upon the land, when it was smitten by the hands of Moses and Aaron; the 'plague of frogs,' the 'plague of lice,' the 'plague of flies,' the 'murrain, boils, and blains,' prevail so, that the whole country is 'corrupted,' and '_the dust of the earth becomes lice, upon man and upon beast, throughout the land of Egypt_.' This application of the words of sacred Scripture affords a literal statement of existing evils, such an one as the statistics of the country do now warrant. In its justification, an appeal may be made to the testimony of all those who have resided in the country during the very opposite seasons of its prosperity and privation; during the inundation, and when the flood has retired, or before it takes place, in the beginning of the year. At the period of the overflow, persons who drink the water become subject to a disorder called '_prickly heat_:'