Previous to sailing, Bruce had taken the precaution of applying to his useful friend, Mr. Secretary Risk, concerning the captain of the canja, Haji Hassan Abou Cuffi, who was obliged to deliver up his son Mohammed as security for his own good behaviour. The wind being contrary, the canja was towed against the stream by a rope, and in this way it advanced but a few miles to two convents of Copts, called Deireteen. Here Bruce passed the night, having had a fine view of the pyramids of Geeza and Saccara, and being still in sight of a prodigious number of other pyramids, which, like beings of another world, seemed everywhere to be haunting the desert. On the opposite bank of the Nile, an animated and picturesque scene was displayed in the encampment of a large party of the Howadat Arabs. On the morning of the 13th the canja unfurled her enormous sails, and slowly passed a considerable village called Turra, on the east side of the river; and Sheikh Atman, a small village of about thirty houses, on the west. The Nile is here about a quarter of a mile broad, the distance between the foot of the mountain and the Libyan shore being about half a mile; and Bruce agrees with Herodotus in thinking this the narrowest part of the valley termed Egypt. In order to search for the ancient city of Memphis, Bruce left his boat at Sheikh Atman, and, entering an extensive and thick wood of palm-trees, continued this course until he came to several large villages called Metrahenni, all built among date-trees, so as scarcely to be seen from the shore. The people in these villages were of a yellow, sickly colour, with dejected, inanimate countenances. Towards the south, in the desert, as far as the eye can reach, there are vast numbers of pyramids, some appearing, like vessels at sea, just above the horizon. "A man's heart," says Bruce, "fails him in looking to the south and southwest of Metrahenni; he is lost in the immense expanse of desert which he sees full of pyramids before him. Struck with terror from the unusual scene of vastness opened all at once upon leaving the palm-trees, he becomes dispirited from the effect of the sultry climate. From habits of idleness contracted at Cairo; from the stories he has heard of the bad government and ferocity of the people; from want of language and want of plan, he shrinks from attempting any discovery in the moving sands of Saccara, and embraces in safety and in quiet the reports of others, who, he thinks, have been more inquisitive and more adventurous than himself."