ring its
whole course it was seen on the surface, having great breadth and depth,
notwithstanding of what we read in the fifth book of the Natural
History of Pliny. I made many inquiries respecting the causes of
increase and overflowings of this river, which has been so much disputed
by all the ancient philosophers, and received the most satisfactory
solution of this question never before determined. Thus almost
jestingly, and by means of very simple questions, I came to learn that
which the greatest philosophers of antiquity were ignorant of.

[Footnote 280: That is Ethiopia _below_ Egypt, or more properly to the
_south_ of Egypt. The expression _below_ seems ridiculous, as Abyssinia
or Ethiopia containing the sources of the Nile must be _higher_ than
Egypt at its mouth. But among Greek and Roman geographers, _above_ and
_below_ meant respectively to the north and to the south.--E.]

The principal lords of Abyssinia informed me, that in their country the
winter began in May, and lasted all June and July and part of August, in
which latter month the weather becomes mild and pleasant. In June and
July it is a great wonder if the sun ever make his appearance; and in
these two months so great and continual are the rains that the fields
and low grounds are entirely overflown, so that the people cannot go
from one place to another. That this prodigious quantity of water hath
no other issue or gathering-place excepting the Nile; as towards the Red
Sea the country is entirely skirted by very high mountains. Hence that
river must necessarily swell prodigiously and go beyond its ordinary
bounds, as unable to contain such vast quantities of water, and
overflows therefore both in Egypt and the other lands through which it
passes. And as the territories of Egypt are the most plain of these, of
necessity the overflowing there must be the more copious, as the river
has there more scope and freedom to spread out its waters than in the
high and mountainous lands of Abyssinia. Now, it is manifest that the
inundations of the Nile in Egypt always begin when the sun is in the
summer solstice, which is in June, while in July the river increases in
greater abundance, and in August, when the rains diminish in Abyssinia,
the river decreases by similar degrees to its former increase. Hence the
manifest cause of the increase of the Nile is from the great and
continual rains that fall in Abyssinia during the months of June and
July. I was myself