On Monday the 5th of November, the day after my arrival at Geesh, the

weather perfectly clear, cloudless, and nearly calm, in all respects

well adapted to observation, being extremely anxious to ascertain,

beyond the power of controversy, the precise spot on the globe that

this fountain had so long occupied unknown, I pitched my tent on the

north edge of the cliff, immediately above the priest’s house, having

verified the instrument with all the care possible, both at the

zenith and horizon. With a brass quadrant of three feet radius, by one

meridian altitude of the sun’s upper limb, all necessary æquations

and deductions considered, I determined the latitude of the place of

observation to be 10° 59´ 11´´; and by another observation of the

same kind made on the 6th, 10° 59´ 8´´; after which, by a medium of

thirty-three observations of stars, the largest and nearest, the

first vertical, I found the latitude to be 10° 59´ 10´´; a mean of

which being 10° 59´ 9½´´, say 10° 59´ 10´´; and if we should be so

unnecessarily scrupulous as to add 15´´ for the measured distance the

place of the tent was south of the altar, then we shall have 10° 59´

25´´ in round numbers, for the exact latitude of the principal fountain

of the Nile, though the Jesuits have supposed it, 12° N. by a random

guess; but this being nearly the latitude of Gondar, the capital from

which they set out, shews plainly they knew not the precise latitude of

either of these places.

On the 7th of November I was fortunate enough to be in time for the

observation of an immersion of the first satellite of Jupiter, the

last visible here before that planet’s conjunction with the sun. My

situation was very unfavourable, my view of the heavens being every

way interrupted by a thick grove of bamboo canes, with high and shady

trees growing upon the head of the precipice. Jupiter was low, and the

prodigious mass of that beautiful mountain of Geesh, bade fair to hide

him before our business was done; I was therefore obliged to remove my

telescope up to the edge of the cliff, after which, the weather being

perfectly favourable, I had as fair and distinct a view of the planet

as I could desire, and from that observation I did conclude unalterably

the longitude of the chief fountain of the Nile to be 36° 55´ 30´´

east of the meridian of Greenwich.

The night of the 4th, that very night of my arrival, melancholy

reflections upon my present state, the doubtfulness of my return in

safety, were I permitted to make the attempt, and the fears that even

this would be refused, according to the rule observed in Abyssinia with

all travellers who have once entered the kingdom; the consciousness

of the pain that I was then occasioning to many worthy individuals,

expecting daily that information concerning my situation which it was

not in my power to give them; some other thoughts, perhaps, still

nearer the heart than those, crowded upon my mind, and forbade all

approach of sleep.

I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had, for many years,

been the principal object of my ambition and wishes: indifference,

which from the usual infirmity of human nature follows, at least for

a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The marsh, and the

fountains, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became

now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene

in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan rise in

one hill; three rivers, as I now thought, not inferior to the Nile in

beauty, preferable to it in the cultivation of those countries through

which they flow; superior, vastly superior to it in the virtues and

qualities of the inhabitants, and in the beauty of its flocks; crowding

its pastures in peace, without fear of violence from man or beast. I

had seen the rise of the Rhine and Rhone, and the more magnificent

sources of the Soane; I began, in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry

about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered

fancy:--

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her?--

Grief or despondency now rolling upon me like a torrent; relaxed, not

refreshed, by unquiet and imperfect sleep, I started from my bed in the

utmost agony; I went to the door of my tent; every thing was still;

the Nile, at whose head I stood, was not capable either to promote or

to interrupt my slumbers, but the coolness and serenity of the night

braced my nerves, and chased away those phantoms that, while in bed,

had oppressed and tormented me.

It was true, that numerous dangers, hardships, and sorrows had beset

me through this half of my excursion; but it was still as true,

that another Guide, more powerful than my own courage, health, or

understanding, if any of these can be called man’s own, had uniformly

protected me in all that tedious half; I found my confidence not

abated, that still the same Guide was able to conduct me to my now

wished-for home: I immediately resumed my former fortitude, considered

the Nile indeed as no more than rising from springs, as all other

rivers do, but widely different in this, that it was the palm for three

thousand years held out to all the nations in the world as a _detur

dignissimo_, which, in my cool hours, I had thought was worth the

attempting at the risk of my life, which I had long either resolved

to lose, or lay this discovery, a trophy in which I could have no

competitor, for the honour of my country, at the feet of my sovereign,

whose servant I was.

I had procured from the English ships, while at Jidda, some

quick-silver, perfectly pure, and heavier than the common sort;

warming therefore the tube gently at the fire, I filled it with

this quick-silver, and, to my great surprise, found that it stood

at the height of 22 English inches: suspecting that some air might

have insinuated itself into the tube, I laid it by in a warm part of

the tent, covered till morning, and returning to bed, slept there

profoundly till six, when, satisfied the whole was in perfect order, I

found it to stand at 22 English inches; neither did it vary sensibly

from that height any of the following days I staid at Geesh and thence

I inferred, that, at the sources of the Nile, I was then more than two

miles above the level of the sea; a prodigious height, to enjoy a sky

perpetually clear, as also a hot sun never over-cast for a moment with

clouds from rising to setting.

On the 6th of November, at a quarter past five in the morning,

Fahrenheit’s thermometer stood at 44°, at noon 96°, and at sun-set 46°.

It was, as to sense, cold at night, and still more so an hour before

sun-rise.

The Nile, keeping nearly in the middle of the marsh, runs east for

thirty yards, with a very little increase of stream, but perfectly

visible, till met by the grassy brink of the land declining from

Sacala. This turns it round gradually to the N. E. and then due north;

and, in the two miles it flows in that direction, the river receives

many small contributions from springs that rise in the banks on each

side of it: there are two, particularly one on the hill at the back of

St Michael Geesh, the other a little lower than it on the other side,

on the ground declining from Sacala, These last-mentioned springs

are more than double its quantity; and being arrived under the hill

whereon stands the church of Saint Michael Sacala, about two miles from

its source, it there becomes a stream that would turn a common mill,

shallow, clear, and running over a rocky bottom about three yards wide:

this must be understood to be variable according to the season; and the

present observations are applicable to the 5th of November, when the

rains had ceased for several weeks. There is the ford which we passed

going to Geesh, and we crossed it the day of our arrival, in the time

of my conversation with Woldo about the sash.

Nothing can be more beautiful than this spot; the small rising hills

about us were all thick-covered with verdure, especially with clover,

the largest and finest I ever saw; the tops of the heights crowned with

trees of a prodigious size; the stream, at the banks of which we were

sitting, was limpid and pure as the finest crystal; the ford, covered

thick with a bushy kind of tree that seemed to affect to grow to no

height, but thick with foliage and young blanches, rather to court

the surface of the water, whilst it bore, in prodigious quantities, a

beautiful yellow flower, not unlike a single wild rose of that colour,

but without thorns; and, indeed, upon examination, we found that it was

not a species of the rose, but of hypericum.

From the source to this beautiful ford, below the church of St Michael

Geesh, I enjoyed my second victory over this coy river, after the first

obtained at the fountains themselves. What might still be said of the

world in general no longer applied to me:--

----_Nec contigit ulli

Hoc vidisse caput;_

And again,

_Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre._

Here, at the ford, after having stepped over it fifty times, I observed

it no larger than a common mill stream. The Nile, from this ford, turns

to the westward, and, after running over loose stones occasionally,

in that direction, about four miles farther, the angle of inclination

increasing greatly, broken water, and a fall commences of about six

feet, and thus it gets rid of the mountainous place of its nativity,

and issues into the plain of Goutto, where is its first cataract; for,

as I have said before, I don’t account the broken water, or little

falls, cataracts, which are not at all visible in the height of the

rains.

Arrived in the plain of Goutto, the river seems to have lost all its

violence, and scarcely is seen to flow, but, at the same time, it there

makes so many sharp, unnatural windings, that it differs from any

other river I ever saw, making above twenty sharp angular peninsulas

in the course of five miles, through a bare, marshy plain of clay,

quite destitute of trees, and exceedingly inconvenient and unpleasant

to travel. After passing this plain, it turns due north, receives the

tribute of many small streams, the Gometti, the Googueri, and the

Kebezza, which descend from the mountains of Aformasha; and, united,

fall into the Nile about twenty miles below its source; it begins here

to run rapidly, and again receives a number of beautiful rivulets,

which have their rise in the heights of Litchambara, the semi-circular

range of mountains that pass behind, and seem to inclose Aformasha:

These are the Caccino, the Carnachiuli, the Googueri, the Iworra, the

Jeddeli, and the Minch, all which, running into the Davola, join the

Nile something less than a mile west of the church of Abbo.

It is now become a considerable stream; its banks high and broken,

covered with old timber trees for the space of about three miles; it

inclines to the north-east, and winds exceedingly, and is then joined

by the small river Diwa from the east. It then makes a semi-circle, and

receives Dee-ohha, turns sharply to the east, and falls down its second

cataract at Kerr. About three miles below this cataract, the large,

pleasant, and limpid Jemma pays its tribute to the Nile. Though its

course is now mostly north, through Maitsha on the east, and Aroossi

and Sankraber on the west, it still is inclining toward the lake Tzana,

and, after receiving the rivers Boha and Amlac Ohha, small streams

from the west, and the Assar, Aroossi, and Kelti, large rivers from

the east, it crosses the south end of the lake Tzana for about seven

leagues, preserving the colour of its stream distinct from that of

the lake, till it issues out at the west side of it in the territory

of Dara, where there is a ford, though very deep and dangerous,

immediately where it first resumes the appearance of a river.

The deep stream is here exceedingly rapid; the banks in the course of

a few miles become very high, and are covered with a verdure, abundant

and varied beyond all description: passing afterwards below Dara, it

bounds that narrow stripe of flat country which is called Foggora,

confined between the lake and the mountains of Begemder, till it

arrives at its third cataract of Alata, a small village of Mahometans,

on the east side of the river, and there exhibits a scene that requires

more fancy, and the description of a more poetical pen than mine,

although the impression the sight of it made upon me will certainly

never be removed but with life.

The course of the river is now S. E.; in that direction it washes

the western part of Begemder and Amhara on the right; the river then

incloses the province of Gojam, so that, in the circle that it makes in

returning towards its source, that province remains always on the right.

From both sides, the Nile receives a number of tributary streams,

the Muga, Gammala, Abea, Aswari, and Mashillo, from the mountains of

Gojam; and the Bashilo, Boha, and Geeshem from those of Begemder and

Amhara; it then passes below Walaka. The river now has a course near

the southward, passes Upper and Lower Shoa. From these countries, on

the east of the Nile, come the great rivers Samba, Jemma, Roma, with

some others, and the Temsi, Gult, and Tzul from the high country of

the Agows, and Amid Amid to the northward. From Shoa the Nile winds

to the S. W. to the W. N. W. nearly inclosing all the south of Gojam.

Immediately adjoining to it, turning still more northerly, is the

province of Bizamo, bordering on the river Yabous, which, coming from

the southward, and terminating this province, falls into the Nile.

The Nile, now turned almost due north, approaches its source so as

to be distant from it only about 62 miles; it is here very deep and

rapid, and is only fordable at certain seasons of the year. The Galla,

however, when they invade Abyssinia, cross it at all times without

difficulty, either by swimming, or on goats skins blown up like

bladders: other means of passing are in small rafts, placed upon two

skins filled with wind; or, twisting their hands round the horse’s

tail, they are drawn over by them; this last is the way that the women,

who follow the armies of Abyssinia, cross unfordable rivers, a case

that always occurs in late campaigns. Crocodiles abound exceedingly in

this part of the Nile; but the people, who live on the banks of the

river, have or pretend to have charms which defend them from the most

voracious of these animals.

Adjoining to the Gongas, and bounding them on the north, arises a vast

chain of very high mountains; the south side of this is inhabited

by tribes of Gongas and others, but on the north-east side, nearest

Abyssinia, is a nation of perfect blacks, called Guba. The Nile seems

to have forced its way through a gap in this prodigious barrier, and

falls down a cataract of about 280 feet. This is immediately followed

by two others in the same ridge of mountains, both very considerable,

if not compared with the first. This high ridge runs west far into the

continent of Africa, where it is called Dyre and Tegla; the east end

(that is east of the Nile) joins the mountainous country of Kuara, and

is there called the Mountains of Pazuclo. These mountains, as far as I

could learn, are all very fully inhabited throughout by many powerful

clans, or nations, mostly Pagans. It is, however, a country the least

known of any in Africa, but a very large quantity of gold is brought

from thence, as well as many slaves; the gold is washed down by the

torrents in the time of the tropical rains, and, upon these ceasing,

they search after that metal found in small pellets entangled among

roots, branches, tufts of grass, hollows, or in any thing that can

imprison and detain it. This is the fine gold of Sennaar, called Tibbar.

The Nile now runs close by Sennaar, in a direction nearly north and

south; it then turns sharply toward the east, is brim-full and vastly

pleasant in the fair season, being indeed the only ornament of this

bare and flat, though cultivated country. From Sennaar it passes many

large towns inhabited by Arabs, all of them white people. The Nile then

passes Gerri, and runs N. E. to join the Tacazzè, passing in its way a

large and populous town called Chendi, probably the ancient metropolis

of _Candace_[130].

If we are not to reject entirely the authority of ancient history, the

island of Meroë, so famous in the first ages, must be found somewhere

between the source of the Nile and this point, where the two rivers

unite; for of the Nile we are certain, and it seems very clear that

the Atbara is the Astaboras of the ancients. Pliny[131] says, it is

the stream which incloses the left side of Meroë as the Nile does

the right; and we must consider him to be looking southward from

Alexandria, when he uses the otherwise equivocal terms of right and

left, and, after this junction of these two rivers, the Nile receives

or unites itself with no other till it falls into the sea at Alexandria.

Much inquiry has been made about this island, once a most distinguished

spot on our globe, the cradle of science and philosophy, which

spread itself from this to enlighten other nations, we are now full

of uncertainty, searching in a desert for the place of its existence;

such is the miserable instability of all human excellence. Nothing but

confusion has followed this inquiry, because they who were engaged in

it rather substituted vain systematical prejudices of their own, than

set themselves to consider those lights which were immediately before

them.

The Jesuits, and a French writer, who is a constant champion of

their errors, have fixed the peninsula of Gojam to be the Meroë of

the ancients. M. le Grande (the compiler alluded to) having in vain

endeavoured to answer the objections against Gojam being Meroë, at last

declares, in a kind of literary passion, that the ancients have spoken

so differently about Meroë, that Gojam is as likely to be the place as

any other.

I have a proper esteem for the merit of M. le Grande, where he

forms his conjectures from his own opinion, and I have also a due

deference to that learned Order the Jesuits; it is to their labours,

that learning in general, and geography in particular, has been more

indebted than to those of any other set of men whatever. Yet still I

can never believe, either that Gojam is Meroë, or that there is any

difficulty in finding its true situation, or that the ancients have

written confusedly about it. On the contrary, I find it described

by its latitude, its distance from places known, the produce of its

soil, colour of its inhabitants, and several other circumstances which

peculiarly belong to it, with greater accuracy and precision than many

other disputed situations.

I shall begin by giving my reasons why Gojam is not Meroë: and, first,

Diodorus[132] tells us, this island had its name from a sister of

Cambyses, king of Persia, who died there in the expedition that prince

had undertaken against Ethiopia. Now, Cambyses’s army perished in

the desert immediately to the southward, after he had passed Meroë,

consequently he never was in Gojam, nor within 200 miles of it; his

mother, therefore, could not have died there, nor would his army have

perished with hunger if he had arrived in Gojam, or near it, for he

would then have been in one of the most plentiful countries in the

world.

The next reason to prove that Gojam is not Meroë, is, that that

island was inclosed between the Astaboras and the Nile, but Gojam is

surrounded entirely by the Nile; there is no other river than it that

can, or ever did, pass for the Astaboras, whose situation was distant,

and which, retaining its ancient name, cannot be mistaken, for it is at

this day called Atbara. Again, as the ancients knew Meroë, if Gojam had

been Meroë, they must have known the fountains of the Nile; and this we

are sure they did not.

On the other hand, Pliny says, Meroë, the most considerable of all

the islands of the Nile, is called Astaboras, from the name of its

left channel--“_Circa clarissimam earum Meroën, Astabores lævo

alveo dictus_;[133]” which, cannot describe any other place than

the confluence of those two rivers, the Nile and Atbara. The same

author says farther, that the sun is vertical twice a year, once when

proceeding northward he enters into the 18th degree, Taurus, and after

returning southward into the 14th degree of the Lion.----Lucan says the

same:--

----_Latè tibi gurgite rupto

Ambitur nigris Meroë fæcunda colonis,

Læta comis hebeni; quæ quamvis arbore multâ

Frondeat, æstatem nullâ sibi mitigat umbrâ:

Linea tam rectum mundi ferit illa Leonem._

Now Gojam, being in lat. 10°, could never answer this description.

But there are in these lines two circumstances which are peculiar to

the peninsula of Atbara, or Meroë, and described as such by the poet.

The first is, the inhabitants of Meroë were black, such were the

Gymnosophists, the first philosophers and inhabitants of this island,

and such they have ever been down to the Saracen conquest. On the other

hand, nobody will pretend to say that the people of Gojam are black;

they are long-haired, and of as fair a complexion as other Abyssinians;

nor was it ever supposed that they had philosophers or science among

them before the Jesuits arrived in the country.

The next circumstance, peculiar to Meroë, is, that the ebony-tree

grew there, which is spread all over the peninsula of Atbara, and out

of it this tree is not found, (as far as I know) unless a few trees

in the province of Kuara, in the low and northernmost part of it; a

country, for its intolerable heat, not inferior to that of Atbara, and

contiguous to it; but in Gojam, a country deluged with six months

rain, this tree would not grow; though so much farther south it is near

two English miles higher than Atbara, and is therefore too cold. Such

are my reasons for believing that Gojam cannot be Meroë. In my return

through the desert I shall confirm this, by proving that Atbara is

Meroë, and that we are to look for it about lat. 16° 29´, near the end

of the tropical rains.

The Nile, now united with the Astaboras, takes its course straight

north for more than two degrees of the meridian; it then makes a

very unexpected turn W. by S. considerably more than that space in

longitude, winding very little till it arrives at Korti, the first town

in the Barabra, or kingdom of Dongola. The river by this time, with

three sides, inclosed the great deserts of Bahiouda the road through

this from Dereira to Korti (before it was cut off by the Arabs, as it

now continues to be) made the fourth side of the square which bound

this desert; by this route it was that Poncet and the unfortunate M. du

Roule went to Abyssinia.

From Korti the Nile runs almost S. W. where it passes Dongola, a

country of the Shepherds, called also Beja, the capital of Barabra,

and comes to Moscho, a considerable town, and welcome place of

refreshment to the weary traveller, when the caravans were suffered

to pass from Egypt into Ethiopia, who, after traversing the dreary

desert of Selima for near 500 miles, found himself at Moscho, in

repose, in the enjoyment of plenty of fresh water, long ago become to

him an indulgence more delicious than ever he had before conceived.

From Moscho the Nile turns gradually to the N. E. and in lat. 22°

15´ it meets with a chain of mountains, and throws itself over them

down a cataract called Jan Adel, which is its seventh cataract; and,

continuing still N. E. it passes Ibrim and Deir, two small garrisons

belonging to Egypt. The fall of the Nile in the country of Kennouss,

which forms the 8th cataract, and its course through Egypt, are already

described in my voyage up the river.

CHAP. XVI

_Various Names of this River--Ancient Opinion concerning the Cause

of its Inundation--Real Manner by_ which it is effected--Remarkable

Disposition of the Peninsula of Africa.

It is not to be wondered, that, in the long course the Nile makes from

its source to the sea, it should have acquired a different name in

every territory, where a different language was spoken; but there is

one thing remarkable, that though the name in sound and in letters is

really different, yet the signification is the same, and has an obvious

reference to the dog-star.

Among the Agow, a barbarous and idolatrous nation, it is called Gzeir,

Geesa[134], Seir; the first of these names signifying _God_; it is

also called Abba, or Ab, _Father_; and by many other terms which I

cannot write in the language of that nation, whilst, with a fervent

and unfeigned devotion, under these, or such-like appellations, they

pray to the Nile, or spirit residing in that river. The next name

it receives is when descended into Gojam, where it is called Abay.

Foreigners, of all denominations, not acquainted with the language of

the country, have, from hearing it was stiled Ab, _Father_, by the

Agows, or Abai, imagined its name Abawi, a case of that noun, which, in

their ignorance, they have made to signify, the Father.

Ludolf, the only one in the age he lived that had any real knowledge

of either the Geez or Amharic, was the first to perceive this: he

found in neither of these languages Abawi could be a nominative, and

consequently could not be applied to any thing; and next he as truly

found it could not be of the singular number, and, if so, could not

signify one river. He stopped, however, as it were, in the very brink

of discovery, for he knew there was no writing or letters in Amharic,

which were therefore necessarily borrowed from the old and written

language Geez, so that all that could be done was, first, attentively

to hear the pronunciation of the word in Amharic, and then to write

it in Geez characters as nearly conformable to the sound as possible.

Now, the name of the river in Amharic is Abay, pronouncing the y open,

or like two (i), and the sense of that word so wrote in Geez, as

well as Amharic, is, “the river that suddenly swells, or overflows,

periodically with rain;” than which a more apposite name could never

have been invented.

By the Gongas, on the south of the mountains Dyre and Tegla, who

are indigenæ, the river is called Dahli, and, on the north of these

mountains, where the great cataracts are by the Guba, Nuba, and

Shangalla, it is stiled Kowass, both which names signify a _watching

dog_, the latrator anubis, or, the _dog-star_. In the plain country,

between Fazuclo and Sennaar, it is called Nil, which signifies _blue_;

and the Arabs interpret it by the word Azergue, which it keeps as far

as Halfaia, or near it, where it joins the White River.

The next name by which the Nile went was Siris: Pliny tells us it was

called Siris both before and after it came into Beja. “_Nec ante Nilus,

quam se totum aquis concordibus rursus junxit. Sic quoque etiamnum

Siris, ut ante nominatus per aliquot millia, et in totum Homero

Egyptus, aliisque Triton_[135].” This name the Greeks thought was given

to it, because of its black colour during the inundation, which mistake

presently produced confusion; and we find, according to this idea, the

compiler of the Old Testament, (I should suppose Esdras, after the

captivity) has translated Siris, _the black river_, by the Hebrew,

Shihor; but nobody ever saw the Nile black when it overflowed; and

it would be a very strong figure to call it so in Egypt, where it is

always white during the whole of the inundation. Had Esdras, or whoever

it was that followed the Greek interpretation of Siris, viz. _black_,

inquired in Beja what was the origin of this name, they would have

there learned it imported the River of the Dog-star, on whose vertical

appearance this Nile, or Siris, overflows; and this idolatrous worship,

paid to the Nile, was probably part of the reason of the question the

prophet Jeremiah asks[136], “And what hast thou to do in Egypt, to

drink the water of Seir? or the water profaned by idolatrous rites?”

As for the first, it is only the translation of the word Bahar, applied

to the Nile. The inhabitants of the Barabra, to this day, call it Bahar

el Nil, or, _the Sea of the Nile_, in contradistinction to the Red Sea,

which they know by no other name but Bahar el Melech, the _Salt Sea_.

The junction of the three great rivers; the Nile, flowing on the west

of Meroë; the Tacazzé, which washes the east side, and joins the Nile

at Maggiran, in lat. 17°; and the Mareb, which falls into this last,

something above this junction--gives the name of Triton to the Nile.

More doubt has been raised as to the third name, Ægyptus, which it

obtains in Homer, and which, I apprehend, was a very ancient name given

it even in Ethiopia. The generality, nay, all interpreters, I may say,

imagine, as in that of Siris, that this name was given it in relation

to its colour, viz. _black_; but with this I cannot agree; Egypt, in

the Ethiopic, is called _y Gipt_, Agar; and, an inhabitant of the

country, _Gypt_, for precisely so it is pronounced, which means the

country of ditches, or canals, drawn from the Nile on both sides at

right angles with the river; nothing, surely is more obvious than to

write y Gipt, so pronouncing Egypt, and, with its termination, _us_,

or _os_, Egyptus. The Nile is also called _Kronides_, Jupiter; as

also several other names; but these are rather the epithets of poets,

relative and transitory, not the permanent appellation of the river.

I would pass over another name, that of Geon, which some of the fathers

of the church have fondly given it, pretending it was one of the rivers

that came from the terrestrial paradise, and encompassed the whole land

of Cush, whilst, for this purpose, they bring it two thousand miles by

a series of miracles, as it were, under the earth and under the sea: To

do what? to surround the whole land of Cush. And does it surround it,

or does it surround any land whatever? This, and some similar wonders

told by St Augustine, have been eagerly catched at, and quoted by

unbelieving sceptics; meaning to insinuate, that no better, in other

respects, was the authority of these fathers when they explain and

defend the truths of Christianity. For my own part, though perfectly

a friend to free and temperate inquiry, these injudicious arguments

which I need not quote, have little weight with me. St Augustine, when

explaining those truths, was undoubtedly under the direction of that

spirit which could not lie, and was promised to the priesthood while

occupied in their master’s commission the propagation of Christian

knowledge; but when, from vanity and human frailty, he attempted to

establish things he had nothing to do with, speaking no longer by

commandment, he reasoned like a mere man, misled by vanity and too

great confidence in his own understanding.

We come now to investigate the reason of the inundation of the Nile,

which, being once explained, I cannot help thinking that all further

inquiries concerning this subject are superfluous.

It is an observation that holds good through all the works of

Providence, That although God, in the beginning, gave an instance of

his almighty power, by creating the world with one single _fiat_, yet,

in the laws he has laid down for the maintaining order and regularity

in the details of his creation, he has invariably produced all these

effects by the least degree of power possible, and by those means that

seem most obvious to human conception. But it seemed, however, not

according to the tenor of his ways and wisdom, to create a country

like Egypt, without springs, or even dews, and subject it to a nearly

vertical sun, that he might save it by so extraordinary an intervention

as was the annual inundation, and make it the most fertile spot of the

universe.

This violent effort seemed to be too great, above all proportion,

for the end for which it was intended, and the cause was therefore

thought to merit the application of the sublimest philosophy; and

accordingly, as Diodorus Siculus[137] tells us, it became the study of

the most learned men of the first ages, the principal of whom, with

their opinions, he quotes, and at the same time alledges the reason why

they were not universally received. The first is Thales of Miletum,

one of the seven sages, who assigns for the cause the Etesian winds,

which blowing, all the hot season, from the Mediterranean, in contrary

direction to the stream of the river, force the Nile to accumulate,

by obstructing its flowing to the sea, occasion it to rise above its

banks, and consequently to overflow the country.

But to this it was answered, That, were this the cause, all rivers

running in a northern direction, to the sea, would be subject to

the same accident; and this it was known they were not. And we may

further add, that were this really the cause, the inundation of the

Nile would be very irregular; for the winds at this season often blow

from the south-west for two or three days together, and then the

inundation would be interrupted. To this it must be added, that a very

considerable part of Egypt, and that the most fertile, the Delta, is

under the dominion of variable winds, which last long, from one point,

at no time.

I shall trespass upon my reader’s patience, on this head, by no more

than one additional observation. If the Etesian winds, by opposing the

stream, occasioned the inundation, they could effect this no longer

than they continued to blow. Now, it was an observation we made when

on the Nile, and it was almost without exception, that as often as

the Etesian winds blew throughout the day, the night was either calm,

or the wind blew gently from the south or east, so that it is morally

impossible the river could have overflowed at all, without a much more

powerful and constant agent than the Etesian winds:--

----_Zephyros quoque vana vetustas

His adscripsit aquis_,----

LUCAN.

Vain, indeed! A philosopher of the present age would be thought mad

who should rely on a system so contrary to experiment and observation;

though Thales, the propagator of this now mentioned, was so highly

esteemed for his knowledge.

The next opinion quoted is that of Anaxagoras, who attributes the

inundation of the Nile to snow melting in Ethiopia; and this Diodorus

contradicts, for a very substantial reason, that there is no snow in

Ethiopia to melt. But supposing all the mountainous part of Ethiopia

north of the Line, that is all Abyssinia, were covered with snow,

then the inundation must happen in other months, as it must begin in

January, for the sun being then within few degrees of being vertical,

it must have been the very height of flood when the sun passed over

that country in April; whereas its increase is not discerned till about

June, when the sun has left the zenith of all Abyssinia, having then

passed over Nubia, and is standing vertical to Syene, or as far to the

northward as it can proceed.

It is not my meaning to maintain that there never was snow in

Abyssinia, as climates have wonderfully changed. In Cæsar’s time,

the greatest rivers in the Gaul almost every year were frozen over

for months, so that armed nations, with their families, cattle, and

incumbrances, passed regularly over them upon the ice without fear; an

event that happens not now once in a century. In Prussia[138] also were

found white bears, an animal now confined to the severest snowy regions

of the north; and, what comes still nearer to the present subject, in

the inscription found in Abyssinia by Cosmas Indoplaustes, Ptolomæus

Evergetes, speaking there, in the first person, of his own conquests

in Ethiopia, says, that he had passed the river Siris, and had entered

the kingdom of Samen, a country intolerable on account of cold and deep

snow.

This account I think almost incredible. Ptolemy parted from Egypt, his

fleet coasting along the Red Sea, opposite to his army, and carrying

provisions for it; we know, moreover, the time his ships sailed, the

beginning of June, when the Nile was overflowed, and consequently of

great utility to his army on the first part of his expedition, while

he was in Egypt and part of Nubia. Now supposing him to pass the

desert as quickly as possible, and come to Axum, it must have been then

Summer, or near it; and as it was necessary his fleet should return by

the monsoon in October, so it must have then rained continually, and

the sun been perpendicular to the country when he found the deep snows

in Samen, which is not very probable. The river Tacazzé, moreover,

which Ptolemy crossed, was really not passable at that time, and no

Abyssinian army did ever attempt it during a flood, though, without,

scruple at all seasons they cross the Nile when most deep and rapid.

I remember that when I first ascended Lamalmon, the highest mountain of

that ridge, running the whole length of the province of Samen, it was

in the depth of winter; the thermometer stood at 32°, wind N. W. clear

and cold, but attended with only hoar frost, though at that height, and

at that season; the grass scarcely was discoloured, and only felt crisp

below my feet, with this small degree of freezing; but this vanished

into dew after a quarter of an hour’s sun, nor did I ever see any sign

of congelation upon the water, however shaded and stagnant, upon the

top of that, or any other hill. I have seen hail indeed lie for three

hours in the forenoon upon the mountains of Amid Amid.

The opinion of Democritus was, that the overflowing of the Nile was

owing to the sun’s attraction of snowy vapour from the frozen mountains

of the north, which being carried by the wind southward, and thawed by

warmer climates, fell down upon Ethiopia in deluges of rain: and the

same is advanced by Agatharcides of Cnidus in his Periplus of the Red

Sea. This opinion of Democritus, Diodorus attempts to refute, but we

shall not join him in his refutation, because we are now perfectly

certain, from observation, that Democritus and Agatharcides both of

them had fallen upon the true causes of the inundation.

I shall now mention a treatise of a modern philosopher, wrote expressly

upon this subject, I mean a discourse on the causes of the inundation

of the Nile, by M. de la Chambre, printed at Paris in quarto, 1665,

where, in a long dedication, he modestly assures the king, he is

persuaded that his majesty will consider, as one of the glories of his

reign, the discovery of the true cause of the Nile’s inundation, which

he had then made, after it had baffled the inquiry of all philosophers

for the space of 2000 years; and, indeed, the cause and the discovery

would have been both very remarkable, had they been attended with the

least degree of possibility. M. de la Chambre says, that the nitre

with which the ground in Egypt is impregnated, ferments like a kind of

paste, occasioning the Nile to ferment likewise, and thus increases the

mass of water so much, that it spreads over the whole land of Egypt.

Far be it from me to bear hard upon those attempts with which the

ancients endeavoured to solve those phænomena, when, for want of a

sufficient progress in experimental philosophy and observation, they

were generally destitute of the proper means; but there is no excuse

for a man’s either believing or writing, that earth, impregnated with

so small a quantity of any mixture as not to be discernible to the

eye, smell, or taste, could periodically swell the waters of a river,

then almost dry, to such an immensity, as to cover the whole plains

of Egypt, and discharge millions of tons every day into the sea, at

the same time that it contributed to the health of the people and the

fertility of the land. It puts me in mind of an assertion of M. de

Maillet, almost as absurd as de la Chambre’s treatise, that the Nile,

which in Egypt is the only fountain of pleasure, of health, and plenty,

has a mixture of one tenth of mud during the time of the inundation:

pleasant and wholesome stream, truly, to which Fleetditch would be

Hippocrene.

But whatever were the conjectures of the dreamers of antiquity, modern

travellers and philosophers, describing without system or prejudice

what their eyes saw have found that the inundation of Egypt has been

effected by natural means, perfectly consonant with the ordinary rules

of Providence, and the laws given for the government of the rest of the

universe. They have found that the plentiful fall of the tropical rains

produced every year at the same time, by the action of a violent sun,

has been uniformly, without miracle, the cause of Egypt being regularly

overflowed.

The sun being nearly stationary for some days in the tropic of

Capricorn, the air there becomes so much rarified, that the heavier

winds, charged with watery particles, rush in upon it from the Atlantic

on the west, and from the Indian Ocean on the east. The south wind,

moreover, loaded with heavy vapour, condensed in that high ridge

of mountains not far south of the Line, which forms a spine to the

peninsula of Africa, and, running northward with the other two, furnish

wherewithal to restore the equilibrium.

The sun, having thus gathered such a quantity of vapours as it were

to a focus, now puts them in motion, and drawing them after it in

its rapid progress northward, on the 7th of January, for two years

together, seemed to have extended its power to the atmosphere of

Gondar, when, for the first time, there appeared in the sky white,

dappled, thin clouds, the sun being then distant 34° from the zenith,

without any one cloudy or dark speck having been seen for several

months before. Advancing to the Line with increased velocity, and

describing larger spirals, the sun brings on a few drops of rain at

Gondar the 1st of March, being then distant 5° from the zenith; these

are greedily absorbed by the thirsty soil, and this seems to be the

farthest extent of the sun’s influence, capable of causing rain, which

then only falls in large drops, and lasts but a few minutes: the rainy

season, however, begins most seriously upon its arrival at the zenith

of every place, and these rains continue constant and increasing after

he has passed it, in his progress northward. Before this, green boughs

and leaves appear floating in the Bahar el Abiad, and shew that, in the

latitude where it rises, the rains are already abundant. The Galla,

who inhabit, or have passed that river, give account of its situation,

which lies, as far as I could ever calculate, about 5° from the Line.

In April, all the rivers in Amhara, Begemder, and Lasta, first

discoloured, and then beginning to swell, join the Nile in the several

parts of its course nearest them; the river then, from the height of

its angle of inclination, forces itself through the stagnant lake

without mixing with it. In the beginning of May, hundreds of streams

pour themselves from Gojam, Damot, Maitsha, and Dembea, into the lake

Tzana, which had become low by intense evaporation, but now begins to

fill insensibly, and contributes a large quantity of water to the Nile,

before it falls down the cataract of Alata. In the beginning of June,

the sun having now passed all Abyssinia, the rivers there are all full,

and then is the time of the greatest rains in Abyssinia, while it is

for some days, as it were, stationary in the tropic of Cancer.

These rains are collected by the four great rivers in Abyssinia; the

Mareb, the Bowiha, Tacazzé, and the Nile. All these principal, and

their tributary streams, would, however, be absorbed, nor be able to

pass the burning deserts, or find their way into Egypt, were it not for

the White River, which, rising in a country of almost perpetual rain,

joins to it a never-failing stream, equal to the Nile itself.

In the first days of May, the sun, in his way to the northern tropic,

is vertical over the small village of Gerri, the limit of the tropical

rains. Not all the influence of the sun, which has already past its

zenith, and for many days has been as it were stationary within a few

degrees of it over Syene, in the tropic of Cancer, can bring them

one inch farther to the northward, neither do any dews fall there as

might be reasonably expected from the quantity of fresh and exhalable

water that is then running in the Nile, though it passes close by that

village, and after, through that wild and dreary desert. The fact is

certain, and surely curious; the cause perhaps unknown, although it may

be guessed at.

I conceive, that mountains are necessary to occasion either rain or

dew, by arresting and stopping the great quantity of vapour which is

here driven southward before the Etesian winds. Now, all that country

between Gerri and Syene is flat and desert, so that this interruption

is wanting; and it is owing to the same cause, that the bounds of the

tropical rains do stop farther to the southward as you travel westward,

and in place of lat. 16°, which is their limits at Gerri, they are

confined within lat. 14° in that part of the kingdom of Sennaar which

lies south and west of that capital, where all is free from mountains

till you come to those of Kuara and Fazuclo.

Yet although the sun’s influence when at its greatest, is not strong

enough to draw the boundaries of the summer’s rain farther north than

Gerri, all the time that it is in the tropic of Cancer at its greatest

distance, these rains are then at their heaviest throughout all

Abyssinia; and Egypt, and all its labours, would soon be swept into the

Mediterranean did not the sun now begin to change its sphere of action

by hastening its progress southward.

From Syene the sun passes over the desert, and arrives at Gerri;

here he reverses the effects his influence had when on his passage

northward; for whereas, in his whole course of declination northward,

from the Line to Gerri, he brought on the rains at every place where he

became vertical, so now he cuts off those rains the instant he returns

to the zenith of each of those places passing over Abyssinia in his

journey southward, till arrived at the Line, in the autumnal equinox,

his influence ceases on the side of Abyssinia, and goes to extend

itself to the southern hemisphere. And so precisely is this stupendous

operation calculated, that, on the 25th of September, only three days

after the equinox, the Nile is generally found at Cairo to be at its

highest, and begins to diminish every day after.

Thus far as to the cause and progress of the Nile’s inundation in our

northern hemisphere; but so much light and confirmation is to be drawn

from our consideration of the remainder of the sun’s journey southward,

that I am persuaded my following him thither will require no apology to

my philosophic or inquisitive reader.

Immediately after the sun has passed the Line he begins the rainy

season to the southward, still as he approaches the zenith of each

place; but the situation and necessities of this country being varied,

the manner of promoting the inundation is changed. A high chain of

mountains run from about 6° south all along the middle of the continent

towards the Cape of Good Hope, and intersects the southern part of

the peninsula nearly in the same manner that the river Nile does the

northern. A strong wind from the south, stopping the progress of the

condensed vapours, dashes them against the cold summits of this ridge

of mountains, and forms many rivers which escape in the direction

either east or west, as the level presents itself. If this is towards

the west, they fall down the sides of the mountains into the Atlantic,

and if on the east, into the Indian Ocean. Now all these would be

useless to man, were the Etesian winds to reign, as one would think

must be the case, analogous to what passes in Egypt; nay, if any

one wind prevailed, these rivers, swelled with rains, would not be

navigable, but another wise and providential disposition has remedied

this.

The clouds, drawn by the violent action of the sun, are condensed, then

broken, and fall as rain on the top of this high ridge, and swell every

river, while a wind from the ocean on the east blows like a monsoon up

each of these streams in a direction contrary to their current, during

the whole time of the inundation, and this enables boats to ascend into

the western parts of Sofala, and the interior country to the mountains,

where lies the gold. The same effect, from the same cause, is produced

on the western side towards the Atlantic; the high ridge of mountains

being placed between the different countries west and east, is at once

the source of their riches, and of those rivers which conduct to the

treasures which would be otherwise inaccessible in the eastern parts of

the kingdoms of Benin, Congo, and Angola.

There are three remarkable appearances attending the inundation of

the Nile; every morning in Abyssinia is clear, and the sun shines.

About nine, a small cloud, not above four feet broad, appears in the

east, whirling violently round as if upon an axis, but, arrived near

the zenith, it first abates its motion, then loses its form, and

extends itself greatly, and seems to call up vapours from all opposite

quarters. These clouds having attained nearly the same height, rush

against each other with great violence, and put me always in mind of

Elisha foretelling rain on Mount Carmel[139]. The air, impelled before

the heaviest mass, or swiftest mover, makes an impression of its own

form in the collection of clouds opposite, and the moment it has taken

possession of the space made to receive it, the most violent thunder

possible to be conceived instantly follows, with rain; after some

hours, the sky again clears, with a wind at north, and it is always

disagreeably cold when the thermometer is below 63°.

The second thing remarkable is the variation of the thermometer; when

the sun is in the southern tropic, 36° distant from the zenith of

Gondar, it is seldom lower than 72°; but it falls to 60° and 59° when

the sun is immediately vertical; so happily does the approach of rain

compensate the heat of a too-scorching sun.

The third is, that remarkable stop in the extent of the rains

northward, when the sun, that has conducted the vapours from the Line,

and should seem, now more than ever, to be in possession of them, is

here over-ruled suddenly, till, on its return to the zenith of Gerri,

again it resumes the absolute command over the rain, and reconducts it

to the Line to furnish distant deluges to the southward.

I cannot omit observing here the particular disposition of this

peninsula of Africa; supposing a meridian line, drawn through the

Cape of Good Hope, till it meets the Mediterranean where it bounds

Egypt, and that this meridian has a portion of latitude that will

comprehend all Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt below it, this section of

the continent, from south to north, contains 64° divided equally by the

equator, so that, from the Line to the southmost point of Africa, is

32°; and northward, to the edge of the Mediterranean, is 32° also: now,

if on each side we set off 2°, these are the limits of the variable

winds, and we have then 30° south, and 30° north, within which space,

on both sides, the trade-winds are confined; set off again 16° from

the 32°, that is, half the distance between the Cape of Good Hope

and the Line, and 16° between the Line and the Mediterranean, and

you have the limits of the tropical rains, 16° on each side of the

equator: again, take half of 16°, which is 8°, and add it to the limit

of the tropical rains, that is to 16°, and you have 24°, which is the

situation of the tropics.--There is something very remarkable in this

disposition.

CHAP. XVI.

_Egypt not the Gift of the Nile--Ancient Opinion refuted--Modern

Opinion contrary to Proof and Experience._

It is here we shall discuss a question often agitated, whether Egypt

owed its existence to the Nile, and whether it was formerly an arm of

the sea, but in process of time, being filled up by the quantity of mud

which the Nile deposited in its inundation, it at length became firm

land, above the surface of the waters? I believe this is the general

opinion, as well of the books, as of the greatest part of travellers of

the present age; it therefore merits examination, whether it is founded

in fact and observation, or whether it is to be ranked among the old

and ill supported traditions fancifully now again brought into fashion.

Egypt is a valley bounded on the right and left by very rugged

mountains; it must, therefore, occur to any one that the Nile, being

a torrent falling from very high ground in Ethiopia, were this valley

concave, the violent rapidity, or motion, would be much likelier

to carry away mud and soil, than to leave it behind in a state to

accumulate.

The land of Egypt slopes gently from the middle of the valley to the

foot of the mountains on each side, so that the center is really

the highest part of the valley, and in the middle of this runs the

Nile[140]. At right angles with the stream large trenches are cut

to the foot of the mountains, in which canals the water enters, and

insensibly flows down to the end of these trenches, where it diffuses

itself over the level ground.

As the river swells, these canals fill with water, which goes seeking

a level to the foot of the mountains; so that now the flood, which

begins to restagnate towards the bank of the river, acquires no motion,

as the calishes are formed at right angles to the stream. Sometimes,

indeed, the river is so high, when the rains in Ethiopia are excessive,

that the back-water joins the current of the Nile, when immediately

it communicates its motion to the stagnant water, and sweeps away

every thing that is planted into the sea. It is a mistake then to

assert,--the fuller the Nile, the better for Egypt.

It has been said by various authors, that it was necessary Egypt should

be measured every year, on account of the quantity of mud which the

Nile brought down by its inundation, which so covered the land-marks,

that no proprietor knew or could discover the limits of his own farm,

and that this annual necessity first gave rise to the science of

Geometry[141]. How or when Geometry was first known and practised, is

not my business in this place to inquire, though I think the origin

here given is a very probable one. The land of Egypt was certainly

measured annually: it is as certainly so at this very time; and if so,

the present reason for this is probably the very one which first gave

rise to it; but that this is not owing to the mud of the Nile, will

appear on the slightest consideration; for if Egypt increase a foot

in a hundred years, one year’s increase of soil could be but the one

hundredth part of a foot, which could hide no land-mark whatever; and

we see to this day those in Egypt were huge blocks of granite often

with gigantic heads at the end of them; which the Nile, at the rate

Herodotus fixes, of a foot in 100 years, as being added to the soil,

would not cover in several thousand years.

It is absurd to suppose that the Nile is to bring down an equal

quantity of soil every year from the mountains of Abyssinia; whatever

was the case at first when this river began to flow, we are sure

now, that almost every river and brook in Abyssinia runs in a bed of

hard stone, the earth having been long removed; and the rivers now

cannot furnish from their rocky beds what they first did from their

earthy bottoms, when Egypt was supposed, according to Herodotus, to

have its foundation laid in the floods; and therefore, on the first

consideration, this annual and equal increase must be impossible.

At Basboch, before the Nile enters Sennaar, I made several hundred

trials upon its sediment, as it then came down from the cultivated

country of Abyssinia; I thereby found this sediment surprisingly small,

being a mixture of fat earth, and a small quantity of sand. At the

junction of the Nile and Astaboras I did the same, taking up the water

from the middle of the stream, and, having evaporated it afterwards,

I found little more sediment than at Sennaar; the water was indeed

whiter, and the greatest part of the sediment was sand. I repeated

this experiment at Syené with the utmost attention, where the Nile

leaves Nubia, and enters Egypt, and I found the quantity of sediment

fully nine times increased from what it was at Sennaar, and in it only

a trifle of black earth, all the rest being sand. The experiment at

Rosetto was not so often repeated as the others; but the result was,

that, in the strength of the inundation, the sediment consisted mostly

of sand, and, towards the end, was much the greater part of earth. I

think these experiments conclusive, as neither the Nile coming fresh

from Abyssinia, nor the Atbara, though joined by the Mareb, likewise

from the same country, brought any great quantity of soil from thence.

It was at Syené that the water should have been most charged with

mud, for all the accession it was to bring to Egypt was then in its

stream; but there the chief part of the sediment was sand, fanned and

ventilated with perpetual hot winds, and spread on the surface of the

burning desert, never refreshed with the dew of heaven. In that dreary

desert, between Gooz and Syene, we saw huge pillars of this light

sand; their base in the earth, and heads in the clouds, crossing the

wide expanse in various directions, and, upon its becoming calm in the

evening, falling to pieces, and burying themselves in the Nile, with

whose stream they mixed like an impalpable powder, and were hurried

down the river, to compose the many sandy islands we see in the course

of it.

It seems to be an established fact, that water of every sort, fresh

and salt, that of rivers, and what is stagnant, has from early times

sensibly diminished through the whole world; if then the land of Egypt

has been continually rising every year, while the quantity of water

that was to cover it has become less, or at least not increased, dearth

in these latter years must have been frequent in Egypt, for want of the

Nile’s rising to a proper height; but this is so far from being the

case, that, in these last 34 years[142], there has not been one season

of scarcity from the lowness of the Nile, although the rise having

been too great, and the waters too abundant, have thrice in that time

occasioned famine by carrying away the millet.

If the land of Egypt increased (as Herodotus says) one foot in 100

years, this addition must have appeared in the most ancient public

monuments: now, the very base of all the obelisks in Upper Egypt, are

bare and visible, and even the paved plane, laid visibly on purpose to

receive the Gnomonical shade, is not covered, nor scarcely out of its

level, and these small deviations are apparently owing to the falling

of neighbouring buildings. There are in the plain, immediately before

Thebes, two Colossal statues[143], obviously designed for Nilometers,

covered with hieroglyphics, as well as more modern inscriptions; these

statues are uncovered to the lowest part of their base; whereas we

should have now been walking on ground nearly equal in height to their

heads. The same may be said of every public monument, if there had been

any truth in the surface of Egypt increasing a foot in a hundred years.

It appears, at least as far as Hadrian’s time, that if the _pecus_ of

the Greeks be the peek of the present Egyptians, the same quantity of

water overflowed Egypt as now.

The advocates for the supposed increase of the land of Egypt on a

foot in 100 years, pressed by this observation, which they cannot

contradict, have chose to evade it, by supposing, without foundation,

that a smaller measure of the Nile’s increase had been introduced by

the Saracens to obviate the Nile’s scantiness, and this has landed them

in a palpable absurdity; for, while the Nile failed, the introduction

of a lesser measure would not have increased the crop; and, if the

quantity of grain had been exacted when it was not produced, this would

have only doubled the distress, and made it more apparent; this would

never have occasioned the joyful cry, _Wafaa Ullah_, God has given us

our desire, _men Jibbel, alla Jibbel_, the Nile has overflowed, from

the mountains on one side of the valley to the mountains on the other.

Besides, there is no country in the world, perhaps, but where this

trick may be played with impunity, except in Egypt, for a reason that I

am about to explain.

The extension of the land of Egypt northward, the distance between

it and Cyprus, and the situation of Canopus, all shew, that no or

very little alteration has been made these 3000 years. Dr Shaw, and

the other writers, who are advocates for what has been advanced by

Herodotus[144], that Egypt hath been produced by the Nile, have

deserted this ground of maintaining their hypothesis, and have recourse

to the Nilometer to prove, that the soil has increased in height, and

that a greater quantity of water is necessary now to overflow the land

of Egypt than was required in the days of Homer.

If the first part of their assertion can be proved, I shall make no

sort of difficulty of giving up the other. But I rather conceive, that

none of those who have written upon this subject hitherto, whatever

degree of learning and information they may have possessed, have

possessed sufficient _data_ to explain this subject intelligibly. It

seems, indeed, to have remained with _the source of the river_, a

secret reserved for latter times.

It will be necessary for us first to consider what the use of a

Nilometer was, for what cause it was made, and by whom.

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that, in every state or society,

the product or revenue should be known, as well as what will be wanted

for the supply of the necessities of the people. Now, it was only

the ground overflowed by the Nile that could produce grain for the

subsistence of the inhabitants and revenue of the state.

The first consideration, then, was, to know how much of the land of

Egypt was overflowed in a given term of years, and how much grain

was produced upon that average. This could only be ascertained by

measuring, and they, therefore, settled with precision the land that

was overflowed from the earliest times, and do so to this day. These

actual measurements gave them a _maximum_ and a _minimum_, which

furnished them with a mean, and thus they were in possession of all the

principles necessary for making a Nilometer, by dividing a pillar into

corresponding cubits, and divisions of cubits called digits, placing

it also firm and perpendicular, so as to be liable to no alteration or

injury, though in the middle of the stream.

The first stated measure was certainly that mentioned in scripture,

the cubit, _secundum cubitum virilis manus_, measuring from the center

of the round bone in the elbow to the point of the middle finger[145].

This is still the measure of all unpolished nations, but no medium

or term, expressive of its exact contents, having been applied,

writers have differed as to the length of this cubit, and no standard

existing to which it might be referred, a great deal of confusion has

thereupon followed. Dr Arbuthnot[146] says, that there are two cubits

in scripture, the one, 1 foot 9 inches, and 888/1000 parts of an inch,

according to our measure, being the 4th part of a fathom, twice the

span, and six times the palm. The other is equal to 1 foot 824/1000

parts of a foot, or the 400dth part of a stadium. I shall not inquire

into the grounds he goes on; I believe, however, that neither are

precisely the ancient cubit of the east, but both are too large; at

least the Egyptian I found to be very exactly 1 foot 5⅗ inches, which

is 2 inches more than father Mersenne[147] has made his Hebrew cubit.

But this is of less consequence to us now, because Herodotus[148]

informs us, that in his time, and probably at the first institution of

a Nilometer, the measure was the Samian cubit, which is about 18 inches

English, or half an inch less than the ancient cubit.

The reader will then consider, that the divisions of this Nilometer

were a representation of certain facts: That the Nile’s reaching to

such a division corresponded to a certain quantity of corn that was

sown, a proportion of the produce of which was to be paid to the king,

the rest to go to the landlord and the labourer.

The Nilometer then ascertained the contract between king and people

on these terms, That, in the event of so much corn being produced

by the land of Egypt, such a tribute was to be paid: But, in case a

certain quantity of ground, less than that, was overflowed, or, which

is the same thing, a lesser quantity of grain was produced, then the

king was not to exact his tribute, because it was understood such a

quantity only was produced as was sufficient for the maintenance of

the landholder and labourer. This was referred to the Nilometer, whose

division shewed to what height the Nile had risen. Men appointed by

the sovereign were to superintend this Nilometer, and to publish the

height of the Nile, whilst the reason why the king was to have the

direction of the Nilometer, and not his subjects, was very obvious,

though it has not yet been understood, because the king could not gain

by substituting false measures, whereas the people might.

The Nile, though in an average of years it brought down nearly the same

quantity of water, yet, in particular ones, it varied sometimes more

and sometimes less. It is likewise observed, like most other rivers, to

run more on one side of the valley for some years than to the other.

The consequence of this varying and deviation was, that though, upon

the whole, the quantity indicated by the Nilometer was the same, yet

nobody knew his _quota_, or what proportion of the whole was drawn

from the property of each individual; as for this they were obliged to

apply to actual mensuration. Supposing a man’s property was a section

of the land of Egypt, of 12,000 feet from the brink of the river to

the mountain, and of any given breadth, 4000 feet of this perhaps were

overflowed, whilst the other 8000 remained dry, and above the level of

the water. The tenant, after having measured, did not till then know

what his farm of 12,000 feet would give him for that year, only 4000 of

which had been overflowed by the water, and was then fit for sowing;

for this he paid his landlord the highest rent laid upon cultivated

land. But the 8000 feet that still remained were not equally useless,

though not overflowed by the inundation; for 4000 of the 8000, which

lay by the bank of the river, could be overflowed by machines, and by

the labour of man, when, for a certain time, the river was high enough

to be within reach of machinery; so that the value of this 4000 feet to

the farmer was equal to the first, _minus_ the expence and trouble it

cost him for watering it by labour; for this, then, he paid one half of

the rent only to the landlord.

Now, though it was known that the whole farm was 12,000 feet, yet, till

it was measured, no one could say how much of that would be overflowed

by the Nile alone, and so manured without expence; how much was to

be watered by labour, and so pay half rent; and how much was to be

incapable of any such cultivation, and for that year equally useless to

landlord and tenant. I speak not of a fact that happened in antiquity,

but one that is necessary and in practice at this very hour; and though

a man, by this mensuration, attains to the knowledge of what his farm

produces this same year, this is no general rule, as his cultivated

land next year may be doubled, or perhaps reduced to one-fourth; and

his neighbour, on the other side of the Nile, may in his farm make

up the correspondent deficiency, or excess; and the average quantity

produced by them both being the same, the degree of the Nilometer will

be the same likewise.

From this it is obvious to infer, that there are two points of great

advantage to the tenant: The one is, when it is just high enough not

to pay the meery[149], for then he has all the harvest to himself, and

pays nothing, though he has very near the same quantity as if he was

subject to the tax. The other is, when near the whole of these 12,000

feet is overflowed by the Nile, but before the water is in contact

with the current of the river; for then, though he is liable to pay

the meery, he has sown the greatest part of his land possible, without

additional labour or expence; more than this is loss, for then the

water of the inundation is put likewise in motion, and all the floating

pulverised earth that has been trode into an impalpable powder, during

March, April, and May, is swept away by the current into the sea, and

nothing left but a bare, cold, hard till, which produces little, and

is not easily pulverised by the poor instruments of husbandry there

in use, when neither farmer nor landholder pays any thing, because,

indeed, there is not any receipt.

However, from this uncertainty one thing arises which does not seem

to have been understood; for the tenant, not knowing precisely the

quantity of seed that he may want, comes to his farm unprovided, and,

being uncertain of its produce, takes his land only from year to year;

the landlord furnishes him with seed[150], and even with all labouring

utensils.

And here I am to explain what I have before advanced, what to some

will seem a paradox, That the substituting false measures in the

Nilometer by the sovereign is absolutely impracticable. Supposing the

height of the Nilometer, when at 8 cubits, shewed that there was just

corn enough to maintain the inhabitants, and that the tenant knew,

by the quantity of land measured, that he had barely what was to pay

his rent and support his family; this he must know before he sowed,

because he measured immediately after the inundation; and this he must

know likewise by the corn he borrows for seed from his landlord, who,

as I have said, furnishes his tenant both with seed and labouring

utensils. If, then, he finds he can barely maintain himself, and not

pay his rent, upon the proclamation at the Nilometer, he deserts his

farm, and neither plows nor sows[151], but flies to Palestine to the

Arabs, or into the cities, and brings famine along with him. The next

year there is a plague, and sweeps all those poor wretches, in a bad

state of health by living upon bad food, into their graves, so that

the introduction, of a supposed false measure, directly advanced by

Dr Shaw[152], and often alluded to by others, but always without

possibility of foundation, is one of the many errors he has fallen into.

He knew nothing but of the Delta, never was in Upper, and no

considerable time even in Lower Egypt, but when the Nile had overflowed

it, and I suppose never conversed with a fellah, or Egyptian peasant,

in his life. All his _wonders_ are in the land of _Zoan_[153], and

his observations should have reached no further, because they are not

fact, but fanciful imaginations of his own; not from any bad intention,

but because he never was in the way of being better informed, but

determined not to abandon a system he had once formed.

Herodotus[154] mentions, that in the time of Mæris, when, the minimum

came to be 8 Samian cubits, all Egypt below Memphis was overflowed,

but that in his days it took 16 cubits, or at least 15, to put the

same land in like condition for cultivation; or, in other words, the

minimum, when they paid their meery, was 16, or at least 15 cubits in

his time; and the uncertainty of these two terms shews, that there

were unaccountable inequalities, even in his days, as we shall find

there have been ever since. But I must here beg leave to ask, why we

should believe Herodotus knew the management of the Nilometer more than

travellers have done since, as he tells us constantly throughout this

part of his history, that when he inquired of the priests concerning

the Nile, they would tell him nothing about it[155]?

In Mæris’s time there were great lakes dug, as Herodotus says[156], to

carry off the superfluous water, to what place is not said, but surely

into the desert for the use of the Arabs. Now, unless we knew what time

these lakes were opened to receive the stream, we do not know whether

it was the evacuation by the lake, or scarcity of the water that

impeded the rise of the Nile upon the Nilometer. We have no account of

these transactions, and we shall be less inclined to rely upon them,

when I shall shew, that the Nilometer could be of no use in solving

this question at all, either in Herodotus’s days, or any time since,

without a previous knowledge of several other circumstances never yet

taken into the calculation, and of which Herodotus must have been

ignorant.

But let us grant that the Nile in Mæris’s time rose only 8 cubits,

and in the days of Herodotus to 16, let us see if, at certain periods

afterwards, it kept to any thing like that proportion. Above 400 years

after Herodotus, Strabo travelled in Egypt; he went through the whole

country from Alexandria to beyond Syene and the first cataract; and as

he is an historian whose character is established, both for veracity

and sagacity, we may receive what he says as unexceptionable evidence,

especially as he travelled in such company as it is not probable the

priests could have refused him any thing. Now Strabo[157] says, that,

in his days, 8 cubits were a _minimum_, or the _Wafaa Ullah_ of the

Nile’s increase; therefore, from Mæris’s time to Strabo there is not an

inch difference in the _minimum_, and this includes the space of 1400

years.

It may be said, indeed, that the passage in Strabo[158] imports,

that, in the time of Petronius, by a particular care of the banks and

calishes, the Nile at 8 peeks (or cubits) enabled the Egyptians to pay

their meery without hardship; but this was by particular industry,

more than what had been in common use, and this, too, I conceive to

be Strabo’s meaning. But let us compute from Herodotus, who says that

16, or at least 15, were necessary in his time, whilst Strabo informs

us, that, before Petronius exerted himself as to the banks and calishes

just mentioned, the extreme abundance must then have been at 12, and

the _minimum_ at 10. Now, by this passage, beyond all exception, it

is clear that there could have been no increase indicated by the

Nilometer; for 10 cubits watered the whole land of Egypt sufficiently

in Strabo’s time, whereas 16 and 15 were necessary in the days of

Herodotus: and I must likewise observe, that if we should suppose

the same industry and attention used in Mæris’s time that was in

Petronius’s, (and there is every reason to induce us to think there

was) then the proof is positive, that there was no difference in the

soil of Egypt indicated by the Nilometer for the first 1400 years.

From this let us descend to Hadrian, about 100 years afterwards. We

know from Pliny[159], and from an inscription upon a medal of great

brass of Hadrian’s, who was himself in Egypt, that 16 cubits were then

the fiscal term or rise of the Nile, by which the Egyptians paid their

rent; and this is precisely what Herodotus says, in his time, was no

more than sufficient.

About the beginning of the 4th century, in the emperor Julian’s

reign[160], 15 cubits were a sufficient minimum to incur the payment of

the tribute, and this is one of the terms that Herodotus fixes upon,

as being sufficient to oblige the payment in his days; and the other is

16, or a cubit more; so that if the Nilometer proves any thing at all,

it is this, that presumptively the Nile has never increased from Mæris

to Petronius’s, or in 1400 years, and certainly that, if it has not

diminished, it has not increased for 700 years from Herodotus to the

emperor Julian.

Procopius, in his first book, I think, says, that 18 peeks was too full

a Nile, and occasioned dearth by its quantity. But, in the middle of

the 6th century, he tells[161] us it required 18 cubits for a minimum,

by which Egypt was to pay the meery; so that in 100 years from Julian

to Justinian, the minimum had increased three cubits, which was 4½

feet; not one foot in 100 years as the proposition bears; and this

would prove too much, if it was true, but it is impossible.

Thus far, then, we are at liberty to say, that, as long as Egypt was

a Greek kingdom, no visible alteration or increase of the soil can be

fairly established from history or inspection.

CHAP. XVII.

_The same Subject continued--Nilometer what. How divided and measured._

In the 7th century a revolution happened that stops our Grecian

account from proceeding farther, Egypt was conquered by an ignorant

and barbarous enemy, the Saracen, and Amru Ibn el Aas was governor of

Egypt for Omar, the second Caliph after Mahomet. Omar was a foreigner,

conqueror, bigot and a tyrant; he destroyed the Grecian Nilometer

from motives of religion, the same which had before moved him to burn

the library of Alexandria; and after, with the same degree of _sound

judgment_, determined to establish his empire at Medina, in the middle

of the peninsula of Arabia, a country without water, and surrounded

on all sides with barren sands; but he was nevertheless desirous of

feeding his famished Saracens with the wheat of Egypt, a province he

had subdued; for this purpose he ordered Amru to begin a canal from

the Nile to the Red Sea, to carry the wheat to the Arabian Gulf, and

thence to Yambo, the port of Medina on that gulf.

The traitor Greeks, who had delivered the country to the Saracens, had

probably informed him of the great plenty which constantly reigned

in Egypt, and which every body had an opportunity of knowing by the

cheapness of grain at the market.

Omar thought that a larger tribute was due to put the conquerors

a little more upon a footing with the conquered; for Egypt, which

had once 20,000 cities, had not then the tenth part of them. Having

therefore a larger extent to cultivate, with the same quantity of

water, it produced more grain, and at the same time having fewer

people to eat it, nothing was less oppressive than that a part of the

surplus of the produce should go in augmentation of the tribute. For

this purpose, following the very weak lights of his own judgment, he

introduced a different measure on the Nilometer, and the consequence

of that measure, imposed by a conqueror, affected the people (not

reflecting upon their decrease in population) so much, that they

prepared to fly the country; from which it immediately would have

followed, that all Egypt would have lain desolate and uncultivated, and

all Arabia been starved.

[Illustration: _Mikeas._

_London Published Dec^r. 1^{st}. 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]

They were perfectly acquainted with their ancient measure, and it is

probable that Omar made an excessive addition by the new Nilometers

which he had erected; so that faith being thereby broken between the

government and people, the Egyptians set about watching the Nile

upon the Nilometer with its new measure, as the only way of being

informed when poverty or famine was to overtake them. This being

told to Omar, he ordered the new Nilometer to be demolished; but as

it had been part of the complaint to him, that their counting the

divisions of the Mikeas[162] was the reason why the people were kept

in continual terror, he shut up the access to Christians, and that

prohibition continues in Cairo to this day; and, instead of permitting

ocular inspection, he ordered the daily increase to be proclaimed,

but in a manner so unintelligible, that the Egyptians in general no

longer understood it, nor do they understand it now; for, beginning

at a given point, which was not the bottom of the Nilometer, he went

on, telling the increase by subtracting from the upper division; so

that as nobody knew the lower point from which he began, although they

might comprehend how much it had risen since the crier proclaimed its

increase, yet they never could know the height of the water that was in

the Nilometer when the proclamation began, nor what the division was to

which it had ascended on the pillar.

To understand this, let us premise, that, on the point of the island

Rhoda, between Geeza and Cairo, near the middle of the river, but

nearer to Geeza, is a round tower, and in that an apartment, in the

middle of which is a very neat well, or cistern, lined with marble,

to which the Nile has free access, through a large opening like an

embrasure, the bottom of the well being on the same level with the

bottom of the river. In the middle of this well rises a thin column, as

far as I can remember, of eight faces of blue and white marble, to the

foot of which, if you are permitted to descend, you are then on the

same plane with the foot of the column and bottom of the river. This

pillar is divided into 20 peeks, called Draa El Belledy, of 22 inches

each[163].

The two lowermost peeks are not divided at all, but are left absolutely

without mark, to stand for the quantity of sludge the water deposits

there, and which occupies the place of water. Two peeks are then

divided on the right hand into 24 digits each; then, on the left, four

peeks are divided each into 24 digits; then, on the right, four; and,

on the left, another four: again, four on the right, which complete the

number of 18 peeks from the first division marked on the pillar each

of 22 inches. The whole, marked and unmarked, amounts to 36-8/12 feet

English.

On the night of St John, when the Nucta has fallen, that is, when they

see the rain-water from Ethiopia is so mixed with the Nile that at

Cairo it is become exhalable, and falls down in dews upon the earth,

which till that time it never does, they then begin to cry, having

five peeks of water marked on the Mikeas, and two unmarked for the

sludge; of which they take no notice in the proclamation. Their first

proclamation, suppose the Nile hath risen 12 digits, is 12 from six,

or it wants 12 digits to be six peeks. When it rises three more, it is

nine from six, or, _Tissa am Sitte_, and so it goes on, subtracting the

digits from the upper number, without giving you any information what

that six is, or that they began to count from five, which I suppose is

the assumed depth of the Nile before it begins to increase.

When the river has risen on the Mikeas eight peeks and 23 digits,

they then call _Wahad am erba Tush_, i. e. one from 14, five peeks of

water being left marked in the Mikeas, but only eight of augmentation

that has risen upon the column, according to the divisions, which

make in all 13 peeks and 23 digits, which wants one from being nine

of augmentation, and that being added, they cry _Wafaa Ullah_, which

obliges the country to the payment of the meery. Again, suppose 17

peeks, or cubits, and 23 digits to stand on the column, the cry

is _Wahad am temen Tush_, i. e. one from 18, and, upon this being

filled, and the divisions complete by a certain day in August, the

next is _Ashareen_, 20, or, _men Jibbel, alla Jibbel_, from mountain

to mountain, that is, 18 peeks marked on the pillar, and two unmarked

at the foot of it, supposed to be covered with mud. All the land of

Egypt is then fitted for cultivation; the great canal at Mansoura, and

several others, are opened, which convey the water into the desert,

and hinder any further stagnation on the fields, though there is still

a great part of the water to come from Ethiopia, but which would not

drain soon enough to fit the land for tillage, were the inundation

suffered to go on.

Now, from these 16 peeks the _Wafaa Ullah_ if we deduce 5, which were

in the well, and marked on the column when the crier began, there will

have been but 11 peeks of rise as a minimum, which still made the meery

due, or 15, deducing 5 from 20, the maximum, _men Jibbel, alla Jibbel_,

the increase that fits all Egypt for cultivation, after which is loss

and danger. Therefore, suppose the 16 peeks on the medal of Hadrian

to have been the minimum or fiscal term, we must infer, that the same

quantity of inundation produced the _Wafaa Ullah_ or payment of the

meery, in Hadrian’s time, that it does at this day, and consequently

the land of Egypt has not increased since his time, that is, in the

last 1600 years.

As a summary of the whole relating to this periodical inundation of the

Nile, I shall here deliver my opinion, which I think, as it is founded

upon ancient history, consonant to that of intermediate times, and,

invincibly established by modern observation, can never be overturned

by any argument whatever. And this I shall do as shortly as possible,

lest, having anticipated it in part by reflections explanatory of the

narrative, it may at first sight have the appearance of repetition.

It is agreed on all hands, that Egypt, in early ages, had water enough

to overflow the ground that composed it. It was then a narrow valley

as it is now; having been early the seat of the arts, crowded with a

multitude of people, enriched by the most flourishing and profitable

trade, and its numbers supplied and recruited when needful by the

immense nations to the southward of it, having grain and all the

necessaries and luxuries of life (oil excepted) for the great multitude

which it fed, Egypt was averse to any communication with strangers till

after the foundation of Alexandria.

The first princes, after the building of Memphis, finding the land turn

broader towards the Delta, whereas before it had been a narrow stripe

confined between mountains; observing also that they had great command

of water for fitting their land for cultivation, nay, that great part

of it ran to waste without profit, which must have been the case,

since it is so at this day: observing likewise, that the superabundance

of water in the Nile did harm, and that the neighbouring sandy plains

of Libya needed nothing but a judicious distribution of that water,

to make it equal to the land of Egypt in fertility, and surpass it

in the variety of natural productions, applied themselves very early

to digging large lakes[164], that, preserving a degree of level

sufficient, all the year long watered the dry deserts of Libya like so

many fruitful showers. Geometry, architecture, and all the mechanic

arts of those times, were employed to accomplish those designs. These

canals and vast works communicated one with another to imprison the

water, and set it again at liberty at proper times.

We may be satisfied this was observed attentively all the time of the

dynasties, or reigns of the Egyptian princes. After the accession of

the Ptolemies, who were strangers, the multitude of inhabitants had

greatly decreased. There was no occasion for works to water lands that

were not peopled; so far as they were necessary for cities, gardens,

and pleasure-grounds, they were always kept up. The larger and more

extensive conduits, dykes, and sluices, though they were not used, were

protected by their own solidity and strength from sudden ruin. Egypt,

now confined within its ancient narrow valley, had water enough to keep

it in culture, and make it still the granary of the inhabited world.

When the ancient race of the Ptolemies ended, a scene of war and

confusion, and bad government at home, was succeeded by a worse under

foreigners abroad. The number of its inhabitants was still greatly

decreased, and the valley had yet a quantity of water enough to fit it

for annual culture.

In the reign of the second emperor after the Roman conquest, Petronius

Arbiter, a man well known for taste and learning, was governor of

Egypt. He saw with regret the decay of the magnificent works of

the ancient native Egyptian princes. His sagacity penetrated the

usefulness and propriety of those works. He saw they had once made

Egypt populous and flourishing. Like a good citizen and subject of the

state he served, and from a humane and rational attachment to that

which he governed, he hoped to make it again as flourishing under the

new government as it had been under the old. Like a man of sense, and

master of his subject, he laughed at the dastardly spirit of the modern

Egyptians, anxious and trembling lest the Nile should not overflow land

enough to give them bread, when they had the power in their hands to

procure plenty in abundance for six times the number of the people then

in Egypt. To shew them this, he repaired their ancient works, raised

their banks, refitted their sluices, and by thus imprisoning, as I may

say, the inundation at a proper time in the beginning, he overflowed

all Egypt with 8 peeks of water, as fully, and as effectually, as to

the purposes of agriculture, as before and since it hath been with 16;

and did not open the sluices to allow the water to run and waste in the

desert (where there was now no longer any inhabitants), till the land

of the valley of Egypt had been so well watered as only to need that

the inundation should retire in time to leave the farmer the ground

firm enough for plowing and sowing.

Let any one read what I have already quoted from Strabo; it is just

what I have here repeated, but in fewer words. Let him consider how

fair an experiment this of Petronius was, that by re-establishing

the works of Mæris, and putting the inundation to the same profit

that Mæris did, he found the same quantity of water overflow the same

quantity of ground, and consequently, that the land of Egypt had not

been raised an inch from Mæris’s time to that of Petronius, above 1400

years.

Now the second part of the question comes, what difference of measure

was made by the Saracens, and how does it now stand, after that period,

as to the supposed rise of a foot in a hundred years? It is now above

1100 years since the[165] first of the Hegira, and near 900 years since

the erection of the present Mikeas, which being equal to the period

between Mæris and Herodotus, and again to that between Herodotus and

Julian, we should begin to be certain if any such increase in the

land has ever, from Mæris to the present time, been indicated by the

Nilometer.

The reader will perhaps be surprised, at what I am going to advance,

That those writers, as well as their supporters who have pronounced

so positively on this subject, have not furnished themselves with the

_data_ which are absolutely necessary to solve this question. Quantity

is only to be ascertained by measure, yet none of them have settled

that only medium of judging. The Mikeas, or pillar, is the subject to

be measured, and they are not yet agreed within 20 feet of its extreme

height, nor about the division of any part of it. As this accusation

appears to be a strong one, I shall set down the proof for the reader’s

consideration, that it may not be supposed I mean to criticise

improperly, or to do any author injustice.

And first of the Mikeas. Mr Thomas Humes, a gentleman quoted by[166] Dr

Shaw, who had been a great many years a factor at Cairo, says, that the

Mikeas is 58 feet English in height. Now, there is really no reason why

such an enormous pillar should have been built, as the Nile would drown

all Cairo before it was to rise to this height; accordingly, as we have

seen, its height is not so much by near 22 feet. Dr Perry[167] next,

who has wrote largely upon the subject, says, the Mikeas, or column, is

divided into 24 peeks, and each peek or cubit is 24 inches nearly. Dr

Pococke[168], who travelled at the same time, agrees in the division

of 24 peeks, but says that these peeks are unequal. The 16 lower he

supposes are 21 inches, the 4 next, 24 inches, and the uppermost, 22.

So that one of these gentlemen makes the Mikeas 43 feet, which is above

six feet more than the truth, and the other 48, which is above 11;

besides the second error which Dr Pococke has committed, by saying the

divisions are of three different dimensions, when they really are not

any one of them what he conceives, nor is the Mikeas divided unequally.

As for Mr Humes, who had lived long at Cairo, I would by no means be

thought to insinuate a doubt of his veracity: There may, in change of

times, be occasions when Christians may be admitted to the Mikeas, and

be allowed to measure exactly. This, however, must be with a long rod,

divided and brought on purpose, with a high stool or scaffold, and

this sort of preparation would be attended with much danger if seen in

the hand of a Christian without, and much more if he was to attempt to

apply it to the column within. At Cairo a man may see or hear any thing

he desires, by the ordinary means of gold, which no Turk can withstand

or refuse; but often one villain is paid for being your guide, and

another villain, his brother, pays himself, by informing against

you; the end is mischief to yourself, which, if you are a stranger,

generally involves also your friends. You are asked, What did you at

the Mikeas when you know it is forbidden? and your silence after that

question is an acknowledgement of guilt; sentence immediately follows,

whatever it may be, and execution upon it. I rather am inclined to

think, that though several Christians have obtained admission to the

Mikeas, very few have had the means or instruments, and fewer still the

courage, to measure this column exactly; which leads me to believe, as

Dr Shaw says, he procured the number of feet in a letter from Mr Humes,

that the Doctor has mistaken 58 for 38, which, in a foreign hand, is

very easily done; it would then be 38, instead of 58 English feet, and

to that number it might approach near enough, and the difference be

accounted for, from an aukward manner of measuring with a trembling

hand, there being then only a little more than one foot of error.

From what I have just now mentioned, I hope it is sufficiently plain to

the reader, that the length and division of the column in the Mikeas,

by which the quantity of water, and consequently the increase of the

soil, was to be determined, was utterly unknown to those travellers who

had undertaken this mode of determining it.

I shall now inquire, whether they were better instructed in the length

of that measure, which, after the Saracen conquest, was introduced

into the Nilometer, of Geeza, where it has remained unaltered since

the year 245? Dr Shaw introduces the consideration of this subject by

an enumeration of many different peeks, seven of which he quotes from

Arabian authors, as being then in use. First, the Homaræus 1-2/9 digit

of the common cubit. 2. The Hasamean, or greater peek, of 24 digits.

3. The Belalæan, less than the Hasamean. 4. The black cubit less than

the Belalean 2⅔ digits. 5. The Jossippæan ⅔ of a digit less than the

black cubit. 6. The Chord, or Asaba, 1⅔ digit less than the black peek.

7. The Maharanius, 2⅔ digits less than the black cubit[169]. Now, I

will appeal to any one to what all this information amounts, when I am

not told the length of the common peek to which he refers the rest, as

being 1½ digit, or 2 digits more or less. He himself thinks that the

measuring peek is the Stambouline peek, but then, for computation’s

sake, he takes a peek of his own invention, being a medium of 4 or 5

guesses, and fixes it at 25 inches, for which he has no authority but

his own imagination.

I will not perplex the reader more with the different measures of these

peeks, between the Hasamean and great peek of Kalkasendas, which is

18 inches, and the black peek, a model of which Dr Bernard[170] has

given us from an Arabic MS. at Oxford, the difference is 10 inches. The

first being 18 inches equal to the Samian peek, the other 28½ inches,

and from this difference we may judge, joined to the uncertainties of

the height and divisions of the Mikeas, how impossible it is for us to

determine the increase of 12 inches in a hundred years.

As the generality of writers have fixed upon the Constantinople, or

Stambouline peek, for the measure of the Mikeas, in which choice they

have erred, we will next seek what is the measure of the Stambouline

peek, and whether they have in this article been better informed.

M. de Maillet, French consul at Cairo, says, that this peek is equal

to 2 French feet, or very nearly 26 inches of our measure: and, to

add to this another mistake, he states, that by this peek the Mikeas

is measured; and, for the completing of the confusion, he adds, that

the Nile must rise 48 French feet before it covers _all their lands_.

What he means by all their lands is to very little purpose to inquire,

for he would probably have been drowned in his closet in which he made

these computations, long before he had seen the Nile at that height, or

near it.

Without, then, wandering longer in this extraordinary confusion, which

I have only stated to shew that a traveller may differ from Dr Shaw,

and yet be right, and that this writer, however learned he may be,

cannot, for want of information, be competent to solve this question

which he so much insists upon, I shall now, with great submission to

the judgment of my reader, endeavour to explain, in as few words as

possible, how the real state of the matter stands, and he will then

apply it as he pleases.

There was a very ingenious gentleman whom I met with at Cairo, M.

Antes, a German by birth, and of the Moravian persuasion, who, both

to open to himself more freely the opportunities of propagating his

religious tenets, and to gratify his own mechanical turn, rather than

from a view of gain, to which all his society are (as he was) perfectly

indifferent, exercised the trade of watch-maker at Cairo. This very

worthy and sagacious young man was often my unwearied and useful

partner in many inquiries and trials, as to the manner of executing

some instruments in the most compendious form for experiments proposed

to be made in my travels. By his assistance, I formed a rod of brass,

of half an inch square, and of a thickness which did not easily warp,

and would not alter its dimensions unless with a violent heat. Upon

the three faces of this brasen rod we traced, with good glasses and

dividers, the measure of three different peeks, then the only three

known in Cairo, the exact length of which was taken from the standard

model furnished me by the Cadi. The first was the Stambouline, or

Constantinople peek, exactly 23⅗ inches; the second, the Hendaizy, of

24-7/10 inches; and the third the peek El Belledy, of 22 inches, all

English measure.

It was natural to suppose, that, after knowing as we do, that no

alteration has been made in the Mikeas since the 245th year of the

Hegira, that the peek of Constantinople, a foreign measure, was

probably then not known, nor introduced into Egypt; nor, till after

the conquest of Sultan Selim, in the year 1516, was it likely to

be the peek with which the Mikeas was measured. It did not, as I

conceive, exist in the 245th of the Hegira, though, even if it had,

its dimensions may have been widely different from those fixed upon by

the number of writers whose authority we have quoted, but who do not

agree. It was not likely to be the Hendaizy peek either, for this, too,

was a foreign measure, originally from the island of Meroë, and well

known to the Egyptians in Upper Egypt, but not at all to the Saracens

their present masters. The peek, El Belledy, the measure in common use,

and known to all the Egyptians, was the proper cubit to be employed in

an operation which concerned a whole nation, and was, therefore, the

measure made use of in the division of the Mikeas, for that column, as

I have said, is divided equally into peeks, or draas, called _Draa El

Belledy_, consisting of 22 inches; and each of these peeks is again

divided into 24 digits.

A very ingenious author, who treats of the particular circumstances

of those times, in his MS. called _Han el Mohaderat_, says, that the

inhabitants of Seide counted 24 peeks on their Nilometer, when there

were 18 peeks marked as the rise of the water upon the Mikeas at Rhoda;

and this shews perfectly two things: First, That they knew the whole

secret of counting there both by the marked and unmarked part of the

column; for the peek of the Mikeas being 22 inches English, it was,

by consequence, four inches larger each peek than the Samian peek;

so that if, to 20 peeks of Seide, you add twenty times four inches,

which is 80, the difference of the two peeks, when divided by 18, gives

four, which, added to the 20 peeks on the column, make 24 peeks, the

number sought. Secondly, That this observation in the Han el Mohaderat

sufficiently confirms what I have said both of the length of the column

and length of the peek; that the former is 20 peeks in height, and that

the measure, by which this is ascertained, is the peek El Belledy of

22 inches, as it appears on the brass rod, four inches longer than the

Samian peek, and consequently is not the peek of Stambouline, nor any

foreign measure whatever.

A traveller thinks he has attained to a great deal of precision, when,

observing 18 peeks on the highest division of the column from its

base, or bottom of the well, he finds it 37 feet; he divides this by

18, and the quotient is 24 inches; when he should divide it by 20,

and the answer would be 22 and a fraction, the true content of the

peek El Belledy, or peek of the Mikeas. This erroneous division of his

he calls the peek of the Mikeas; and comparing it with what authors,

less informed than himself, have said, he names the Stambouline peek,

and then the black peek, when it really is his own peek, the creature

of his own error or inadvertence; but, as he does not know this, it

is handed down from traveller to traveller, till unfortunately it is

adopted by some man of reputation, and it then becomes, as in this

case, a sort of literary crime to any man, from the authority of his

own eyes and hands, to dispute it.

Mr Pococke makes two very curious and sensible remarks in point of

fact, but of which he does not know the reason. “The Nile, he says,

in the beginning, turns red, and sometimes green; then the waters are

unwholesome. He supposes that the source of the Nile beginning to flow

plentifully, the waters at first bring away that green or red filth

which may be about the lakes at its rise, or at the rise of these small

rivers that flow into it, near its principal source; for, though there

is so little water in the Nile, when at lowest, that there is hardly

any current in many parts of it, yet it cannot be supposed that the

water should stagnate in the bed of the Nile, so as to become green.

Afterwards the water becomes very red and still more turbid, and then

it begins to be wholesome[171].”

The true reason of this appearance is from those immense marshes spread

over the country about Narea and Caffa, where there is little level,

and where the water accumulates, and is stagnant, before it overflows

into the river Abiad, which rises there. The overflowing of these

immense marshes carry first that discoloured water into Egypt, then

follows, in Abyssinia, the overflowing of the great lake Tzana, through

which the Nile passes, which, having been stagnated and without rain

for six months, under a scorching sun, joins its putrid waters with

the first. There are, moreover, very few rivers in Abyssinia that run

after November, as they stand in prodigious pools below, in the country

of the Shangalla, and afford drink for the elephant, and habitation

and food for the hippopotamus. These pools likewise throw off their

stagnant water into the Nile on receiving the first rains; at last

the rivers, marshes, and lakes, being refreshed by showers, (the rain

becoming constant) and passing through the kingdom of Sennaar, the

soil of which is a red bole; This mixture, and the moving sands of the

deserts, fall into the current, and precipitate all the viscous and

putrid substances, which cohere and float in the river; and thence (as

Pococke has well observed) the sign of the Nile being wholesome, is

not when it is clear and green, but when mingled with fresh water, and

after precipitation it becomes red and turbid, and stains the water of

the Mediterranean.

The next remark of Mr Pococke[172] is equally true. It has been

observed, says he, that after the rainy season is over, the Nile

fallen, and the whole country drained from inundation, it has begun

again to rise; and he gives an instance of that in December 1737,

when it had a sudden increase, which alarmed all Egypt, where the

received opinion was that it presaged calamities. This also is said

to have happened in the time of Cleopatra, when their government was

subverted, their ancient race of kings extinguished in the person of

that princess, and Egypt became a province to the Romans.

The reader will not expect, in these enlightened times, that I should

use arguments to convince him, that this rising of the Nile had nothing

to do with the extinction of the race of the Ptolemies, though popular

preachers and prophets have always made use of these fortuitous events

to confirm the vulgar in their prejudices.

The rains, that cease in Abyssinia about the 8th of September, leave

generally a sickly season in the low country; but other rains begin

towards the end of October, in the last days of the Ethiopic month

Tekemt, which continue moderately about three weeks, and end the 8th

of November, or the 12th of the Ethiopic month Hedar. All sickness and

epidemical diseases then disappear, and the 8th of that month is the

feast of St Michael, the day the king marches, and his army begins

their campaign; but the effect of these second rains seldom make any,

or a very short appearance in Egypt, all the canals being open. But

these are the rains upon which depend their latter crops, and for which

the Agows, at the source of the Nile, pray to the river, or to the

genius residing in the river. We had plentiful showers both in going

and coming to that province, especially in our journey out. Whenever

these rains prove excessive, as in some particular years it seems

they do, though but very rarely, the land-floods, and those from the

marshes, falling upon the ground, already much hardened and broken into

chasms, by two months intense heat of the sun, run violently into the

Nile without sinking into the earth. The consequence is this temporary

rising of the Nile in December, which is as unconnected with the good

and bad crops of Egypt, as it is on those of Palestine or Syria.

The quantity of rain that falls in Ethiopia varies greatly from year

to year, as do the months in which it falls. The quantity that fell,

during 1770, in Gondar, between the vernal equinox and the 8th of

September, through a funnel of one foot English in diameter, was 35.555

inches; and, in 1771, the quantity that fell in the same circumference

was 41.355 inches in the same space[173].

In 1770, August was the rainy month; in 1771 July. Both these years

the people paid the meery, and the _Wafaa Ullah_ was in August. When

July is the rainy month, the rains generally cease for some days in the

beginning of August, and then a prodigious deal falls in the latter end

of that month and the first week of September. In other years, July and

August are the violent rainy months, whilst June is fair. And lastly,

in others, May, June, July, August and the first week of September.

Now we shall suppose (which is the most common case of all) that every

month from June doubles its rain. The _Wafaa Ullah_ generally takes

place about the 9th of August, the tribute being then due, and all

attention to the Mikeas is abandoned at 14 real peeks, the Calish is

then cut, and the water let down to the Delta.

Now these 14 peeks are not a proof how much water there is to overflow

the land; for supposing nine days for its passage from Ethiopia, then

the 9th of August receives at Cairo no later rains than those that have

fallen the 1st of August in Ethiopia, and from that date till the 17th

of September, the Nile increases one third of its whole inundation,

which is never suffered to appear on the Mikeas, but is turned down

to the lakes in the Delta, as I suppose it always has been; so that

the quantity of water which falls in Ethiopia hath never yet been

ascertained, and never can be by the Mikeas, nor can it ever be known

what quantity of water comes in to Egypt, or what quantity of ground

it is sufficient to overflow, unless the dykes were to be kept close

till the Nile attained its extreme height,which would be about the 25th

of September, long before which it would be over the banks and mounds,

if they held in till then, or have swept Cairo and all the Delta into

the Mediterranean, and if it should not do that, it would retire so

late from the fields as to leave the ground in no condition to be sown

that year.

I do not comprehend what idea other travellers have formed of the

beginning of the inundation of the Nile, as they seem to admit that

the banks are not overflowed; and this is certainly the case; because

the cities and villages are built there as securely as on the highest

part of Egypt, and even when the Nile has risen to its greatest height

they still are obliged to water those spots with machines. In another

part of the work it is explained how the calishes carry the water

upon the lands, approaching always to the banks as the river rises in

proportion, and these calishes being derived from the Nile at right

angles with the stream, and carrying the water by the inclination of

the ground, in a direction different from the course of the river, the

water is perfectly stagnated at the foot of the hills, till accumulated

as the stream rises, it moves in a contrary direction backwards again,

and approaches its banks. But when the inundation is so great that the

back-water comes in contact with the current of the Nile, by known laws

it must partake the same motion with it, and so all Egypt become one

torrent.