Having passed about fourteen days in Assiût, waiting for a boat to go forward, which, in this season, when the corn is transported into the magazines, it is rather difficult to find, at length was able to hire one, of a moderate size, and entirely devoted to ourselves. We left Assiût on the 4th of October, and passed the night before a village called Mehâla. It has been built by a certain Osman Bey, within twenty years; and however destitute of any spirit of improvement persons of this description may be thought in Europe, this village is an evidence of some attention thereto; for the four streets of which it consists are at right angles with each other, built in right lines, and four times as wide as what is generally seen in places of the same kind. It is true, the materials are mean, and the number of houses inconsiderable. The villagers of the Upper Egypt are at little expense for building. Clay and unburned bricks, the chief materials used in fabricating houses, are to be had for the labour of collecting or forming them. The same may be said of the thatch; and the date tree, though perishable, furnishes the timber required. If a carpenter be employed, his time is not occupied in preparing useless ornaments. In the towns however, as Ghenné, Assiût, Girgi, &c. the habitations are constructed of better materials, with much more art, and are some of them sumptuous. Many considerable islands exist in the course of the Nile, but they are too frequently changing place, in consequence of new depositions of mud, to admit of their being marked with permanent accuracy. The number of towns and villages which I distinguished on the Eastern side between Kahira and Assuân, amounted to about one hundred and sixty. On the Western, where the cultivable lands are more extended, two hundred and twenty-eight. Yet they cannot be enumerated very accurately in passing on the stream; for there are many within the limits of the arable land on both sides, but principally on the West, which are not visible from the river, and the names and numbers of which the circumstances then existing did not permit me to learn from those to whom I could have recourse for information. The more populous of the towns seem to be those which follow: _East of the Nile._ _West of the Nile._ 1. Achmîm. 1. Benesoef. 2. Ghenné. 2. Mînié; city. 3. Kous. 3. Melawi. 4. Assuân. 4. Monfalût; city. 5. Assiût; city. 6. Tachta. 7. Girgi; city. 8. Bardîs. 9. Bagjúra. 10. Nakade. 11. Erment. 12. Isna; city.