SKMXLCHKES OIF ARABIAN S AINTS.NE AM. RO SET TA,
in mortar. A little way within these columns a wall is carried up
to support the floor. This mode of building is not peculiar to
Rosetta, though more common there, than it is in most other
parts of Egypt.
The europeans settled here consist only of a few factors, and
a viceconsul or two, subordinate to the consuls at Cairo. Goods
are brought from Cairo to this place, and conveyed hence to
Cairo, in the vessels of the country: and the commercial intercourse
between this place and Alexandria is carried on in the same
manner, for no foreign ships are allowed to come hither. Indeed
the passage of the Bogaz, or mouth of the Nile, is obstructed by
a dangerous bar; on which the sea breaks heavily, if the wind
blow at all fresh, particularly to the northward; and which is
continually shifting, so that the pilots are obliged to be almost
always sounding, to find the channel. I t is also too shallow to
admit any vessel that draws much water, though this is the deepest
of the branches of the Nile, that communicate with the Mediterranean.
Beside the commodities it receives from Cairo, it transmits to
Alexandria others of it’s own. Striped and coarse linens are manufactured
here in considerable quantity; and abundance of rice
of excellent quality is produced in the neighbourhood, much of
which is exported.
The castle of Rosetto, about two miles north of the town, is
scarcely worth mentioning as a fortress. It was a square building
of brick cased with stone, with round towers at the corners of
it, and portholes near the bottom; but is now nearly demolished.