If However After I Have Found Fault With The Opinions Proposed, I Am
Bound To Declare An Opinion Of My Own About The Matters Which Are In
Doubt, I Will Tell What To My Mind Is The Reason Why The Nile
Increases In The Summer.
In the winter season the Sun, being driven
away from his former path through the heaven by the stormy winds,
comes to the upper parts of Libya.
If one would set forth the matter
in the shortest way, all has now been said; for whatever region this
god approaches most and stands directly above, this it may reasonably
be supposed is most in want of water, and its native streams of rivers
are dried up most. However, to set it forth at greater length, thus it
is: - the Sun passing in his course by the upper parts of Libya, does
thus, that is to say, since at all times the air in those parts is
clear and the country is warm, because there are no cold winds, in
passing through it the Sun does just as he was wont to do in the
summer, when going through the midst of the heaven, that is he draws
to himself the water, and having drawn it he drives it away to the
upper parts of the country, and the winds take it up and scattering it
abroad melt it into rain; so it is natural that the winds which blow
from this region, namely the South and South-west Winds, should be
much the most rainy of all the winds. I think however that the Sun
does not send away from himself all the water of the Nile of each
year, but that also he lets some remain behind with himself. Then when
the winter becomes milder, the Sun returns back again to the midst of
the heaven, and from that time onwards he draws equally from all
rivers; but in the meantime they flow in large volume, since water of
rain mingles with them in great quantity, because their country
receives rain then and is filled with torrent streams. In summer
however they are weak, since not only the showers of rain fail them,
but also they are drawn by the Sun. The Nile however, alone of all
rivers, not having rain and being drawn by the Sun, naturally flows
during this time of winter in much less than its proper volume, that
is much less than in summer; for then it is drawn equally with all the
other waters, but in winter it bears the burden alone. Thus I suppose
the Sun to be the cause of these things. He also is the cause in my
opinion that the air in these parts is dry, since he makes it so by
scorching up his path through the heaven: thus summer prevails always
in the upper parts of Libya. If however the station of the seasons had
been changed, and where now in the heaven are placed the North Wind
and winter, there was the station of the South Wind and of the midday,
and where now is placed the South Wind, there was the North, if this
had been so, the Sun being driven from the midst of the heaven by the
winter and the North Wind would go to the upper parts of Europe, just
as now he comes to the upper parts of Libya, and passing in his course
throughout the whole of Europe I suppose he would do to the Ister that
which he now works upon the Nile. As to the breeze, why none blows
from the river, my opinion is that from very hot places it is not
natural that anything should blow, and that a breeze is wont to blow
from something cold.
Let these matters then be as they are and as they were at the first:
but as to the sources of the Nile, not one either of the Egyptians or
of the Libyans or of the Hellenes, who came to speech with me,
professed to know anything, except the scribe of the sacred treasury
of Athene at the city of Sais in Egypt. To me however this man seemed
not to be speaking seriously when he said that he had certain
knowledge of it; and he said as follows, namely that there were two
mountains of which the tops ran up to a sharp point, situated between
the city of Syene, which is in the district of Thebes, and
Elephantine, and the names of the mountains were, of the one Crophi
and of the other Mophi. From the middle between these mountains flowed
(he said) the sources of the Nile, which were fathomless in depth, and
half of the water flowed to Egypt and towards the North Wind, the
other half to Ethiopia and the South Wind. As for the fathomless depth
of the source, he said that Psammetichos king of Egypt came to a trial
of this matter; for he had a rope twisted of many thousand fathoms and
let it down in this place, and it found no bottom. By this the scribe
(if this which he told was really as he said) gave me to understand
that there were certain strong eddies there and a backward flow, and
that since the water dashed against the mountains, therefore the
sounding-line could not come to any bottom when it was let down. From
no other person was I able to learn anything about this matter; but
for the rest I learnt so much as here follows by the most diligent
inquiry; for I went myself as an eye-witness as far as the city of
Elephantine and from that point onwards I gathered knowledge by
report. From the city of Elephantine as one goes up the river there is
country which slopes steeply; so that here one must attach ropes to
the vessel on both sides, as one fastens an ox, and so make one's way
onward; and if the rope break, the vessel is gone at once, carried
away by the violence of the stream.
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