bation to the river-god from the embankment which
he had made at Memphis; but though this uniformity is great, and
remarkable, and astonishing, it is not absolute. There are occasions,
once in two or three centuries, when the rainfall in Abyssinia is
excessive. The Blue Nile and the Atbara pour into the deep and steady
stream of the White Nile torrents of turbid water for months together.
The windows of heaven seem to have been opened, and the rain pours down
as if it would never cease. Then the river of the Egyptians assumes a
threatening character; faster and faster it rises, and higher and
higher; and further and further it spreads, until it begins to creep up
the sides of the two ranges of hills. Calamitous results ensue. The
mounds erected to protect the cities, the villages, and the pasture
lands, are surmounted, or undermined, or washed away; the houses, built
often of mud, and seldom of any better material than crude brick,
collapse; cattle are drowned by hundreds; human life is itself
imperilled; the population has to betake itself to boats, and to fly to
the desert regions which enclose the Nile valley to the east and west,
regions of frightful sterility, which with difficulty support the few
wandering tribes that are their normal inhabitants. If the excessive
rise continues long, thousands or millions starve; if it passes off
rapidly, then the inhabitants return to find their homes desolated,
their cattle drowned, their household goods washed away, and themselves
dependent on the few rich men who may have stored their corn in stone
granaries which the waters have not been able to penetrate. Disasters of
this kind are, however, exceedingly rare, though, when they occur, their
results are terrible to contemplate.

The more usual form of calamity is of the opposite kind. Once or twice
in a century the Abyssinian rainfall is deficient. The rise of the Nile
is deferred beyond the proper date. Anxious eyes gaze daily on the
sluggish stream, or consult the "Nilometers" which kings and princes
have constructed along its course to measure the increase of the waters.
Hopes and fears alternate as good or bad news reaches the inhabitants of
the lower valley from those who dwell higher up the stream. Each little
rise is expected to herald a greater one, and the agony of suspense is
prolonged until the "hundred days," traditionally assigned to the
increase, have gone by, and there is no longer a doubt that the river
has be