Before I give you this account, I presume you will not be displeased to receive some little history of the particulars of my voyage, in which I perhaps may have to speak of " Antres vast and deserts idle," but as little as possible of "the Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders."
I set out from Cairo with a French gentleman, Monsieur Chantpie, who expressed a desire to accompany me, only a few hours before we started. I hired a kangea with two cabins, and a crew of six Arabs, including the Captain or Reis, for the monthly sum of four pounds ten shillings, out of which the Arabs had to maintain themselves, and to pay no inconsiderable portion of the nolo, or freight, to the government. Of the antiquities along the Nile, from Cairo to Thebes, I do not presume to offer you any description: Hamilton, on this subject, has left nothing to be desired.
The distances of the principal towns from Cairo, and their present and former names, I shall only notice; for as there is no sort of itinerary of Egypt, any account of these, however brief, must spare the traveller a great deal of research.