he months of October and November; after which it
returns to its channel, and resumes its wonted course.(289) This account
agrees very nearly with the relations of all the moderns, and is founded
in reality on the natural cause of the inundation, _viz._ the rains which
fall in Ethiopia. Now, according to the constant testimony of those who
have been on the spot, these rains begin to fall in the month of April,
and continue, during five months, till the end of August and beginning of
September. The Nile's increase in Egypt must, consequently, begin three
weeks or a month after the rains have begun to fall in Abyssinia; and
accordingly travellers observe, that the Nile begins to rise in the month
of May, but so slowly at the first, that it probably does not yet overflow
its banks. The inundation happens not till about the end of June, and
lasts the three following months, according to Herodotus.

I must point out to such as consult the originals, a contradiction in this
place between Herodotus and Diodorus on one side; and between Strabo,
Pliny, and Solinus, on the other. These last shorten very much the
continuance of the inundation; and suppose the Nile to draw off from the
lands in three months or a hundred days. And what adds to the difficulty,
is, that Pliny seems to ground his opinion on the testimony of Herodotus:
_In totum autem revocatur Nilus intra ripas in Libra, ut tradit Herodotus,
centesimo die._ I leave to the learned the reconciling of this
contradiction.

5. _The Height of the Inundations._--The just height of the inundation,
according to Pliny, is sixteen cubits.(290) When it rises but to twelve or
thirteen, a famine is threatened; and when it exceeds sixteen, there is
danger. It must be remembered, that a cubit is a foot and a half. The
emperor Julian takes notice, in a letter to Ecdicius, prefect of
Egypt,(291) that the height of the Nile's overflowing was fifteen cubits,
the 20th of September, in 362. The ancients do not agree entirely with one
another, nor with the moderns, with regard to the height of the
inundation; but the difference is not very considerable, and may proceed,
1. from the disparity between the ancient and modern measures, which it is
hard to estimate on a fixed and certain foot; 2. from the carelessness of
the observers and historians; 3. from the real difference of the Nile's
increase, which was not so great the nearer it approached the sea.

As the riches of Egypt depended on th