river, descending from a very warm to a much colder climate, be possibly composed of melted snow? There are many other reasons concurring to satisfy any person of good understanding, that this opinion is contrary to fact. The first and the strongest argument may be drawn from the winds, which are in these regions invariably hot: it may also be observed, that rain and ice are here entirely unknown". Now if in five days 4° after a fall of snow it must necessarily rain, which is indisputably the case, it follows, that if there were snow in those countries, there would certainly be rain. The third proof is taken from the colour of the natives, who from excessive heat are universally black; moreover, the kites and the swallows are never known to migrate from 39 Rain and ice are here entirely unknown.]-Nonnus reports, in the history of his embassy, that during the period when the Nile inundates Egypt, there are very violent storms in the different parts of Ethiopia. The atmosphere is exceedingly cloudy, and the rains fall in such torrents as to inundate the country. The Portuguese missionaries inform us, that from June to September there does not pass a day in Abyssinia without rain, and that the Nile receives all the rivers, streams, and torrents, which fall from the mountains.-Larcher. 40 If in five days.]-Herodotus had probably remarked, that at Halicarnassus or at Thurium, where he lived, snow was in the space of a few days succeeded by rain.-Wesseling. 41 Never known to migrate.]-The kites and swallows of those regions through which the Nile flows continue there throughout the year without injury: differing in this respect from those of our climate, it may be reasonably concluded that those regions are of a warm temperature.-Reiske, from this country: the cranes also, flying from the severity of a Scythian winter, pass that cold season here. If therefore it snowed although but little in those places through which the Nile passes, or in those where it takes its rise, reason demonstrates that none of the above-mentioned circumstances could possibly happen. XXIII. The argument which attributes to the ocean42 these phænomena of the Nile, seems rather to partake of fable, than of truth or sense. For my own part, I know no river of the name of Oceanus; and am inclined to believe that Homer, or some other poet of former times, first invented and afterwards introduced it in his compositions. XXIV. But as I have mentioned the preceding opinions only to censure and confute them, I may be expected perhaps to give my own sentiments on this subject.-It is my opinion that the Nile 42 Ocean.]-Larcher refers to the circumstance of Homer's mentioning the rising and setting of the sun in the ocean, as a proof of his excelling Herodotus in the science of geography. Wood is of a very different opinion: "Upon further consideration," says Mr. Wood, "I was induced to think that Homer's account of the ocean, upon which so much of his geographical science is founded, will, if rightly understood, rather convince us of his ignorance on that head, and that the ocean in his time had a very different meaning from that which it now convey; nor am I surprized that so much later, Herodotus should treat this idea of an ocean where the sun rises, as a poetical fiction." Sea Wood farther on this subject, p. 48, 50, &c.—T, Nile overflows 43 in the summer season, because in the winter the sun, driven by the storms from his 43 Nile overflows.]-This explanation of the overflowing of the Nile in the summer, which seemed probable to Herodotus, is not only obscure but absurd, not to say false. This is sufficiently proved by Aristides, in his oration on the causes of the increase of the Nile.-Reiske. This hypothesis of Herodotus is completely refuted by Diodorus Siculus, Book ii. 19, 20, 24.-The more ancient Ægyptians superstitiously believed that the overflowing of the Nile was occasioned by the sacrifice which they annually paid to the supposed divinity of the river. Every year, on the twelfth of their month Baoni, corresponding with our June, they threw a young woman superbly ornamented into the river. The relation of the following anecdote may be excused: Amru, having conquered Egypt, abolished this detestable custom; but in the year when he published this edict, the Nile did not overflow, and the people in alarm prepared to abandon their country. Amru wrote to the Caliph of Mahomet for advice. The Caliph sent him in return a letter addresssed to the Nile, written in his own hard, which he was desired first to read, and then throw into the stream. Amru did this on the fourteenth of September, the last day of the rise of the Nile. That very night the river rose sufficiently to inundate the country, and the people were satisfied. Hornemann, the last traveller from Egypt into the interior of Africa, tells us that the above-mentioned custom of throwing a girl richly dressed into the Niger, was observed at Bornou. "Not long ago, the same custom was observed at Bornou as in ancient times at Cairo, a girl very richly dressed was thrown into the river Niger." It appears a reasonable subject of speculation why the same custom should be observed for the same purpose in places very remote, and among people between whom there could be so very little communication. his usual course, ascends into the higher regions of the air above Libya. My reason may be explained without difficulty; for it may be easily supposed, that to whatever region this power more nearly approaches, the rivers and streams of that country will be proportionably dried up and diminished. XXV. If I were to go more at length into the argument, I should say that the whole is occasioned by the sun's passage through the higher parts of Libya. For as the air is invariably serene, and the heat always tempered by cooling breezes, the sun acts there as it does in the summer season, when his place is in the centre of the heavens. The solar rays absorb the aqueous particles, which their influence forcibly elevates into the higher regions, here they are received, separated, and dispersed by the winds. And it may be observed, that the south and south-west, which are the most common winds in this quarter, are of all others most frequently attended with rain: it does not however appear to me, that the sun remits all the water which he every year absorbs from the Nile, some is probably withheld. As winter disappears, he returns to the middle place of the heavens, and again by evaporation draws to him the waters of the rivers, all of which are then found considerably encreased by the rains, and rising to their extreme heights. But in summer, from from the want of rain, and from the attractive power of the sun, they are again reduced: but the Nile is differently circumstanced, it never has the benefit of rains, whilst it is constantly acted upon by the sun; a sufficient reason why it should in the winter season be proportionably lower than in summer. In winter the Nile alone is diminished by the influence of the sun, which in summer attracts the water of the rivers indiscriminately; I impute therefore to the sun the remarkable properties of the Nile*. XXVI. To the same cause is to be ascribed, as I suppose, the state of the air in that country, which from the effect of the sun is always extremely rarefied, so that in the higher parts of Libya there prevails an eternal summer. If it were possible to produce a change in the seasons, and to place the regions of the north in those 44 Nile alone.]-If the sun attracted moisture from the Nile during the winter season, it would do the same with respect to the other rivers of Libya, and in like manner diminish the force of their currents. As this is not the fact, the reasoning of this author falls to the ground. The rivers of Greece are increased during the winter, not on account of their distance from the sun, but from the frequency of the rains. Diodorus Siculus. * Bruce also attributes the remarkable properties of the Nile to the sun, though he affects to laugh at the "Dreamers of Antiquity." Bruce also agrees with Herodotus in the highly rarefied state of the air. |