present, unless the river rises to sixteen 25, or at least fifteen cubits, its waters do not reach those lands.

If the ground should continue to elevate itself as it has hitherto done, by the river's receding from it, the Egyptians below the lake Moris, and those who inhabit the Delta, will be reduced to the same perplexity which they themselves affirm, menaces the Greeks. For as they understand that Greece is fertilized and refreshed by rain, and not by rivers like their own, they predict that the inhabitants, trusting to their usual supplies, will probably suffer the miseries of famine; meaning, that as they have no resource, and only such water as the clouds supply, they must inevitably perish if disappointed of rain at the proper seasons.

26

25 To sixteen.]-See remarks on chapter 5th.-T.

26 Probably suffer.]-It follows, therefore, that the Ægyptians had no knowledge of those seven years of famine which afflicted their country during the administration of Joseph. These, however, were the more remarkable, as occasioning an entire change in the constitution of the state. The people at first gave their gold and their silver to the prince in exchange for corn: they afterwards resigned to him their flocks and their herds, and ultimately became his slaves.Larcher.

I am rather surprised to find this note left in the 2d edition of Larcher, particularly after the manly and honest profession of his preface; where he says, "Intiniement convaincu de toutes les verites qu'enseigne la Religion Chretienne j'ai retranché ou reformé toutes les notes qui pouvoient la blesser.

XIV. Such being the just sentiments of the Ægyptians with respect to Greece, let us enquire how they themselves are circumstanced. If, as I before remarked, the country below Memphis, which is that where the water has receded, should progressively, from the same cause, continue to extend itself, the Ægyptians who inhabit it, might have still juster apprehensions of suffering from famine. For in that case, their lands, which are never fertilized by rain 27, could not receive benefit

from

27 By rain.]-In Upper Ægypt they have sometimes a little rain; and I was told that in eight years it had been known to rain but twice very hard for about half an hour.— Pococke.

Maillet quotes Pliny, as affirming there were no rains in Egypt; he however affirms that he had seen it rain there several times. Pitts, an eye-witness, confirms Maillet's account of the rain of Ægypt, assuring us that when he was at Cairo it rained to that degree, that having no kennels in the streets to carry off the water, it was ancle deep, and in some places half way up the leg. When the sacred writer therefore says (Zech. xiv. 11) that Ægypt has no rain, he must be understood in a mollified sense.-Observations on Passages of Scripture.

It rains but seldom in Ægypt, the natural cause of which in the inland parts, is, I imagine, the dryness of the sands, which do not afford a sufficient moisture for forming clouds, and descending in rains.-Norden.

Rain is more frequent at Alexandria and Rosetta, than at Cairo, and at Cairo than at Mineah, and is almost a prodigy at Djirda.

When rain falls fn Egypt, there is a general joy amongst the people. They assemble together in the streets, they sing, are all in motion, and shout, Ya Allah, Ya Mobarek -Oh God, Oh Blessed.-Volney.

The

from the overflowings of the river. The people who possess that district, of all mankind, and even

of

The earth burnt up with the violent fervour, never refreshed with rain, which here falls rarely, and then only in the winter. Sandys. On the subject of rain in Ægypt M. Niebuhr observes, that in Lower Egypt it rains very often, and at Alexandria almost every day in November and December. Rain is not so uncommon at Cairo as some pretend to have remarked. I had been assured, it sometimes does not fall there for two years together, but during my stay in that city, from November 1761 to August 1762, it fell very often, and in the first of these months so heavy, that, as the streets are not paved, it was impossible to cross them without boats.

It seldom rains in the inland parts of Egypt, but upon the coast from Alexandria, all along to Damietta and Pineh, they have their former and their later rains, as in Barbary and the Holy Land.

The following is from Vansleb, a French traveller of credit. The event which he describes happened a little above Cairo: Le Samedy une pluye ayant commencé de grand matin ella dura jusqu'a midy sans discontinuer et en si grand quantité que notre barque coula presque a fonds; et j'aurois souhaité pour lors que. quelqu'un de ceux qui disent qu'il ne pleut point en Egypte y eut esté, car il auroit esté convaincu du contraire. Cette pluye fut suivie de vents froids et impetueux.

"La nuit suivante il fit encore une pluye aussi grande que cette du matin et continua jusqu'a trois heures apres le lever du soleil. Lors que cet astre eut dissipé les nuages il s'eleva un bon vent," &c.-p. 355.

The same author in another place:

"Le temps ordinaire des pluyes et des vents qu'en pourroit comparer avec nostre automne commence au mois de Decembre et dure les mois de Janvier et Fevrier quoy qu'a Alexandrie et a Rosette il pleuve encore hors de cette saison a cause du voisinage de la mer. Il pleuvoit fort a Rosette

la

i

of all the Ægyptians, enjoy the fruits of the earth with the smallest labour. They have no occasion for the process nor the instruments of agriculture, which are usual and necessary in other countries. As soon as the river has spread itself over their lands, and returned to its bed, each man scatters the

seed over his ground, and waits patiently for the harvest, without any other care than that of turning some swine 28 into the fields, to tread down

the

la veille de la Pentecoste de l'annee 1762, et le lendemain il tomba un brouillard tres epais. Le 24 de Novembre de la meme annee il plut legerement au Caire, les jours estoient obscurs et venteux, il fit aussi des pluyes impetueuses les 10, 11, 14 et 15 du meme mois. Ce qui fait voir qu'il est faux ce qu'un dit ordinairement qu'il ne pleut pas en Ægypte."p. 37.

28 Swine.]-Plutarch, Eudoxus, and Pliny relate the same fact. Valcnaer does not hesitate to consider it a fable invented by Herodotus; and the sagacious Wesseling seems to be of the same opinion, though he has not rejected the expression. Gale, not thinking swine adapted to tread down the grain, has substituted oxen, because in Hesychius and Phavorinus, the word us seems to sixnify an ox. They are at present made use of in some of our provinces, to find out trouffles, with a kind of muzzle to prevent their devouring them. My own opinion on this matter is, that Herodotus is mistaken only with regard to the time when they were admitted into the fields. It was probably before the corn was sown, that they might eat the roots of the aquatic plants, which might prove of injury to the grain.-See Diodorus Siculus.

It has been objected, that the Ægyptians considered swine as unclean animals, and that therefore probably they had not a sufficient number of them for the purposes here specified.

3

the grain. These are at the proper season again let loose, to shake the corn from the ear, which is then gathered.

XV. If

cified. To this I reply, that as they sacrificed them at the time of every full moon to the Moon and to Bacchus, they had probably a great abundance of these animals.-Larcher.

I dare assert, by what I have seen, that there is scarce a country where the land has greater need of culture, than in Ægypt. I must own that in the Delta, which is more frequented and more cultivated, the mechanical contrivances are more plain and simple than what you will find higher up in the country.-Norden.

They spread out the corn when reaped, and an ox draws a machine about on it, which, together with the treading of the ox, separates the grain from the straw, and cuts the straw. Pococke. And here we may take notice of the wonderful providence of God, which not only sends at a certain time rains in Ethiopia to moisten Egypt, where it hardly rains at all, but which moreover affords to its mud a fatness which so far meliorates the lean and sandy soil of this country, which is the driest in the whole world, that the husbandmen are obliged before they sow, to cast sand upon the earth to correct the excessive fatness of the mud which the water in running off has left behind. The rest of Ægypt, which is not overflowed with the waters of the Nile, is altogether sandy and barren.—Le Bruyn.

The fertility of the mud of the Nile is thus described by Spenser:

As when old father Nilus 'gins to swell

With timely pride above th' Ægyptian vale;

His fatty waves do fertile slime outwell,

And overflow each plain and lowly dale;

But when his latter ebb 'gins to avail,

Huge heaps of mud he leaves, wherein then breed

Ten thousand kinds of creatures, partly male

And partly female, of his fruitful seed,