On the eastern horn of Aboukir Bay, on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, and about five miles from its mouth, lies the picturesque town of Rosetta. Its Arabic name is Rashid, an etymological coincidence which has induced some writers to jump to the conclusion that it is the birthplace of Haroun Al Rashid. To some persons no doubt the town would be shorn of much of its interest if dissociated from our old friend of "The Thousand and One Nights;" but the indisputable fact remains that Haroun Al Rashid died some seventy years before the foundation of the town in A. D. 870. Rosetta was a port of some commercial importance until the opening of the Mahmoudiyeh Canal in 1819 diverted most of its trade to Alexandria. The town is not devoid of architectural interest, and many fragments of ruins may be met with in the half-deserted streets, and marble pillars, which bear signs of considerable antiquity, may be noticed built into the doorways of the comparatively modern houses. One of the most interesting architectural features of Rosetta is the North Gate, flanked with massive towers of a form unusual in Egypt, each tower being crowned with a conical-shaped roof. Visitors will probably have noticed the curious gabled roofs and huge projecting windows of most of the houses. It was from these projecting doorways and latticed windows that such fearful execution was done to the British troops at the time of the ill-fated English expedition to Egypt in 1807. General Wauchope had been sent by General Fraser, who was in command of the troops, with an absurdly inadequate force of 1,200 men to take the strongly-garrisoned town. Mehemet Ali's Albanian troops had purposely left the gates open in order to draw the English force into the narrow and winding streets. Their commander, without any previous examination, rushed blindly into the town with all his men. The Albanian soldiery waited till the English were confined in this infernal labyrinth of narrow, crooked streets, and then from every window and housetop rained down on them a perfect hail of musket-shot and rifle-ball. Before the officers could extricate their men from this terrible death-trap a third of the troops had fallen. Such was the result of this rash and futile expedition, which dimmed the lustre of their arms in Egypt, and contributed a good deal to the loss of their military prestige. That this crushing defeat should have taken place so near the scene of the most glorious achievement of their arms but a few years before, was naturally thought a peculiar aggravation of the failure of this ill-advised expedition.