crimes. Everywhere on the banks of the ancient river we behold
cities, once famous for power and luxury, a desolation, and dry like a
wilderness; and temples once famous, and colossal idols once feared, now
prostrate and confounded with the dust of their worshippers. "The flocks
lie down in the midst thereof: the cormorant and bittern lodge in the
temples and palaces. Their voice sings in the windows, and desolation is
in the thresholds."

The peoples who now occupy the territories of nations extinct or
exterminated have profited neither by their history nor their fate. What
was once a land occupied by nations superstitious and sensual is now
inhabited by robbers and slaves. The robbers have been expelled or
slain, and the oppressed peasant is emancipated by the arms of the
nation who avenged the cause of Heaven upon the degenerate Greeks, but
who nevertheless have derived neither instruction nor warning from their
downfall and subjugation. The Nile meantime, which has seen so many
nations and generations rise and disappear, still flows and overflows,
to distribute its fertilizing waters to the countries on its borders:
like the Good Providence, which seems unwearied in trying to overcome
the ingratitude of Man by the favors of Heaven.

On my arrival at the camp, I was informed of the particulars of the
progress of the victorious son of the distinguished Meheromet Ali from
Wady Haifa to Meroe. Before his march every thing had submitted or
fallen. All attempts to arrest his progress had proved as unavailing as
the obstacles opposed by the savage rocks of the Cataracts of the Nile
to the powerful course of that beneficent and fertilizing river.

His Excellence, as said before, set out from Wady Haifa on the 26th of
Zilhadge last. In ten days of forced march he arrived at New Dongola. A