On looking into Mr Norden’s voyage, I was struck at first sight with this paragraph[106]: “We saw this day abundance of camels, but they did not come near enough for us to shoot them.”--I thought with myself, to _shoot_ camels in Egypt would be very little better than to _shoot_ men, and that it was very lucky for him the camels did not come near, if that was the only thing that prevented him. Upon looking at the note, I see it is a small mistake of the translator[107], who says, “that in the original it is Chameaux d’eau, _water-camels_; but whether they are a particular species of camels, or a different kind of animal, he does not know.” But this is no species of camel, it is a bird called a Pelican, and the proper name in Arabic, is Jimmel el Bahar, the Camel of the River. The other bird like a partridge, which Mr Norden’s people shot, and did not know its name, and which was better than a pigeon, is called Gooto, very common in all the desert parts of Africa. I have drawn them of many different colours. That of the Deserts of Tripoli, and Cyrenaicum, is very beautiful; that of Egypt is spotted white like the Guinea-fowl, but upon a brown ground, not a blue one, as that latter bird is. However, they are all very bad to eat, but they are not of the same kind with the partridge. Its legs and feet are all covered with feathers, and it has but two toes before. The Arabs imagine it feeds on stones, but its food is insects. After Comadreedy, the Nile is again divided by another fragment of the island, and inclines a little to the westward. On the east is the village Sidi Ali el Courani. It has only two palm-trees belonging to it, and on that account hath a deserted appearance; but the wheat upon the banks was five inches high, and more advanced than any we had seen. The mountains on the east-side come down to the banks of the Nile, are bare, white, and sandy, and there is on this side no appearance of villages. The river here is about a quarter of a mile broad, or something more. It should seem it was the Angyrorum Civitas of Ptolemy, but neither night nor day could I get an instant for observation, on account of thin white clouds, which confused (for they scarce can be said to cover) the heavens continually. We passed now a convent of cophts, with a small plantation of palms. It is a miserable building, with a dome like to a saint’s or marabout’s, and stands quite alone.