When I was grown pretty tall, and beginning to keep company with the world, I happened one Friday to be at noon prayers with my father and my uncles, in the great mosque at Moussol; and after prayers were over, the rest of the company going away, my father and my uncles continued sitting upon the best tapestry in the mosque, and I sat down by them.  They discoursed of several things, but they fell insensibly, I do not know how, upon the subject of voyages.  They extolled the beauties and peculiar rarities of some kingdoms, and of their principal cities.  But one of my uncles said, that, according to the uniform report of an infinite number of voyagers, there was not in the world a pleasanter country than Egypt, nor river than the Nile; and the account he gave of them infused into me such a charming idea of them, that, from that very moment, I had a desire to travel.  Whatever my other uncles said, by way of preference to Bagdad and the Tigris, in calling Bagdad the true residence of the Mussulman religion, and the metropolis of all the cities in the earth, all this made no impression upon me.  My father joined in his opinion with those who had spoken on the behalf of Egypt, which gave me a great deal of joy.  Say what you will, said he, he that has not seen Egypt, has not seen the greatest rarity in the world.  All the land there is golden, I mean, it is so fertile that it enriches its inhabitants:  all the women of that country are charming, either in their beauty or in their agreeable carriage.  If you speak of the Nile, pray where is there a more admirable river?  What water was ever lighter or more delicious?  The very slime it carries along in its overflowing fattens a thousand times more than other countries that are cultivated with great labour.  Do but mind what a poet said of the Egyptians when lie was obliged to depart Egypt:  ’Your Nile loads you with good offices every day; it is for you only that it travels so far.  Alas! in removing from you, my tears are going to run as abundantly as its water; you are to continue in the enjoyment of its sweetness, while I am condemned to rob myself of it against my will.’  If you look, added he, towards the island that is formed by the two great branches of the Nile, what variety of verdure have you there?  What enamel of all sorts of flowers?  What a prodigious number of cities, villages, canals, and a thousand other agreeable objects?  If you cast your eyes on the other side, steering up towards Ethiopia, how many other objects of admiration?  I cannot compare the verdure of so many plains, watered with the different canals of the island, better than to sparkling emeralds set in silver.  Is not Grand Cairo the largest, the most populous, and the richest city in the universe?  What a prodigious number of magnificent edifices, both public and private!  If you view the pyramids, you will be seized with astonishment:  you will turn stiff and immoveable at the sight of these masses of stone of an extravagant