I Cannot Help Suspending My Narration
To Reflect A Little On The Ridiculous Speculations Of Those Swelling
Philosophers, Whose Arrogance Would Prescribe Laws To Nature, And
Subject Those Astonishing Effects, Which We Behold Daily, To Their
Idle Reasonings And Chimerical Rules.
Presumptuous imagination!
that has given being to such numbers of books, and patrons to so
many various opinions about the overflows of the Nile.
Some of
these theorists have been pleased to declare it as their favourite
notion that this inundation is caused by high winds which stop the
current, and so force the water to rise above its banks, and spread
over all Egypt. Others pretend a subterraneous communication
between the ocean and the Nile, and that the sea being violently
agitated swells the river. Many have imagined themselves blessed
with the discovery when they have told us that this mighty flood
proceeds from the melting of snow on the mountains of Aethiopia,
without reflecting that this opinion is contrary to the received
notion of all the ancients, who believed that the heat was so
excessive between the tropics that no inhabitant could live there.
So much snow and so great heat are never met with in the same
region; and indeed I never saw snow in Abyssinia, except on Mount
Semen in the kingdom of Tigre, very remote from the Nile, and on
Namera, which is indeed not far distant, but where there never falls
snow sufficient to wet the foot of the mountain when it is melted.
To the immense labours and fatigues of the Portuguese mankind is
indebted for the knowledge of the real cause of these inundations so
great and so regular. Their observations inform us that Abyssinia,
where the Nile rises and waters vast tracts of land, is full of
mountains, and in its natural situation much higher than Egypt; that
all the winter, from June to September, no day is without rain; that
the Nile receives in its course all the rivers, brooks, and torrents
which fall from those mountains; these necessarily swell it above
the banks, and fill the plains of Egypt with the inundation. This
comes regularly about the month of July, or three weeks after the
beginning of a rainy season in Aethiopia. The different degrees of
this flood are such certain indications of the fruitfulness or
sterility of the ensuing year, that it is publicly proclaimed in
Cairo how much the water hath gained each night. This is all I have
to inform the reader of concerning the Nile, which the Egyptians
adored as the deity, in whose choice it was to bless them with
abundance, or deprive them of the necessaries of life.
Chapter XI
The author discovers a passage over the Nile. Is sent into the
province of Ligonus, which he gives a description of. His success
in his mission. The stratagem of the monks to encourage the
soldiers. The author narrowly escapes being burned.
When I was to cross this river at Boad, I durst not venture myself
on the floats I have already spoken of, but went up higher in hopes
of finding a more commodious passage.
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