_Some Observations on the account of Egypt given in the works of Savary and Volney._ Vol. i. p. 27. Savary says, Alexandria is only a village, containing scarcely six thousand inhabitants. The fall of Alexandria from its antient splendour has already been remarked; and how vague all computations of number must necessarily be, by persons who reside there only for a few weeks or months. But Alexandria alone furnished to the Imperial army and navy, in the war with the Russians, four thousand men able to bear arms. This, with other circumstances, might serve to prove that the population must greatly exceed the number mentioned. He computes the people of Damiatt at eighty thousand, which appears no less extravagant on the other side, and is certainly at least double the real number. Vol. i. p. 220. Savary’s description of the topography of Memphis is characterized by an apparent error. He speaks of the small bourg _Menf_, antiently Memphis, a little to the South of the Pyramids. It is somewhat singular, that no one writer before him should have found a spot so remarkably coinciding in name with the antient capital. The writer of this inquired repeatedly for such a village, but always without effect; and _Olivier_ and _Brugniere_, in the employ of the French Republic, who passed several months in Egypt, nearly at the same epoch, were equally unsuccessful in their researches. So that it would seem fair to pronounce that no such place exists. The only town in Egypt which bears even a distant resemblance to the name of Memphis, is _Menúf_, which is many leagues to the North, and within the Delta. P. 275. The story of Murad Bey discovering his father, it is somewhat surprising should have escaped all the merchants residing in Egypt, some of them almost half a century, and always eager for anecdotes of this kind. The inventive talent of the Greek servants is indeed often put in activity to amuse strangers with such tales, but Savary, who was so experienced in Egypt, should have had more discrimination than to blend _des contes de ma mere l’oye_ with historic narration. The facts are wholly discordant.—The man is a labourer of the environs of Damascus, Murad Bey a native of Georgia.—To go from Damascus to Kahira he embarks at Alexandretta, seventeen days journey N.W. of Damascus, when he might have gone to Beirût, Seidé, Akka, or Yaffa, each of them four days. This labourer travels with the eccentricity of a comet; and even the French philosopher is lost in calculating his course. But Savary was writing on Egypt, and is not obliged to know the geography of Syria. P. 288. J’ai tué plusieurs _Ibis_ dans les marais près de _Rossette_. Ils ont les pattes longues, le corps mince, alternativement blanc et noir, et le col allongé. Ils vivent de poissons, de grenouilles et de reptiles.