30 THEORIES OF THE GREEKS. Book II. all other streams, nor why, unlike every other river, it gives forth no breezes from its surface. 20. Some of the Greeks, however, wishing to get a reputation for cleverness, have offered explanations of the phenomena and this is probably the reason why the source of the Abyssinian branch has been so often looked upon as the real "fountain of the Nile." The names (Bahr el) Abiad and Azrek appear to signify the "white" and "black" rather than the "white" and "blue" (river). For though Aswed is commonly put in opposition to Abiad (as "black" and "white"), Azrek, which is properly "blue," is also used for what we call "jet black;" and Hossán Azrek is a "dark black," not a "blue horse." It is true that "blue" is applied to rivers, as Nil ab, "blue water" (or "river") to the Indus, and the Sutlej is still the "blue river;" but the name Azrek seems to be given to the Abyssinian branch to distinguish it from the Western or White Nile. Neel, or Nil, itself signifies "blue," and indigo is therefore "Neeleh;" but the word is Indian, not Arabic, Nila in Sanscrit being "blue." Though the Greeks called the river "Nile," as the Arabs do, that name is not found in the hieroglyphics, where the God Nilus and the river are both called " Нарі." That god, however, is coloured blue. The Hindoo Puranas also call the Nile "Nila;" but it was not an old Egyptian name, and those writings are of late date. It is called in Coptic iaro, "river," or iom, sea" (cp. 'Qкeavós), analogous to the modern Arabic name bahr, "river," properly sea (see note 1 on ch. 111). Nahum (iii. 3) speaks of "populous No (Thebes) whose rampart was the sea." The resemblance of the name Hapi, "Nilus," and the bull-god Hapi or Apis (see ch. 28, B. iii.) recalls the Greek representation 66 of a river under the form of a bull, like the Acheloüs and others (see Elian, Var. Hist. ii. 33). Nilus is not taken from Nahr or Nahl, "river;" but Nahr, "river," is applied to the Euphrates, and Nahl to a ravine or torrent-bed, as (in 2 Kings xxiv. 7) to the "torrens Egypti." Nahl is not a "river," but, like Nullah, a "ravine,', in India. Cp. Nahr, Nar, Naro, and other names of rivers, the Nereïds, &c. (See n. 2 on ch. 50.) For black applied to water, ep. μέλαν ὕδωρ οι Homer. The Nile was said to have received its name from King Nilus; but this is doubtless a fable; and Homer calls it Ægyptus. The sources of the White Nile are still (1862) unknown; and recent discoveries seem to assign a different position from that conjectured by the explorers sent by Mohammed Ali, who brought it from the eastward, at the back or S. of the Galla mountains; as did a very intelligent native of the Jimma country I met at Cairo, who affirmed that he had crossed the White river in going from his native land to Adderay or Hurrur and the Somáuli district, on his way to the port of Berbera. Seneca's description of the Upper Nile, "magnas solitudines pervagatus, et in paludes diffusus, gentibus sparsus" might suit the character of the White Nile, though he is wrong in supposing it only assumed a new one by forming a single stream "about Philæ." See Nat. Quæst. b. iv. s. 2; cp. Plin. vi. 30.-[G. W.] If this signifies that breezes are not generated by, and do not rise from, the Nile, it is true; but not if it means that a current of air does not blow up the valley. Diodorus (i. 38) is wrong in stating that "the Nile has no clouds about it, does not engender cold winds, and has no fogs." The fogs are often very thick, though they disappear before midday.-[G. W.] CHAP. 19-22. ETESIAN WINDS. 31 of the river, for which they have accounted in three different ways. Two of these I do not think it worth while to speak of, further than simply to mention what they are. One pretends that the Etesian winds1 cause the rise of the river by preventing the Nile-water from running off into the sea. But in the first place it has often happened, when the Etesian winds did not blow, that the Nile has risen according to its usual wont; and further, if the Etesian winds produced the effect, the other rivers which flow in a direction opposite to those winds ought to present the same phenomena as the Nile, and the more so as they are all smaller streams, and have a weaker current. But these rivers, of which there are many both in Syria and Libya, are entirely unlike the Nile in this respect. 21. The second opinion is even more unscientific than the one just mentioned, and also, if I may so say, more marvellous. It is that the Nile acts so strangely, because it flows from the ocean, and that the ocean flows all round the earth. 22. The third explanation, which is very much more plausible than either of the others, is positively the furthest from the truth; for there is really nothing in what it says, any more than in the other theories. It is, that the inundation 1 The annual N.W. winds blow from the Mediterranean during the inundation; but they are not the cause of the rise of the Nile, though they help in a small degree to impede its course northwards. For the navigation of the river they are invaluable, as well as for the health of the inhabitants; and a very large boat could scarcely ascend the river during the inundation unless aided by them. Nor can they be said to cause the inundation by driving the clouds to Abyssinia, as the rise of the Nile begins before they set in, though they may add to the water by later showers.-[G. W.] 2 It is possible to justify this statement, which at first sight seems untrue, by considering that the direction of the Etesian winds was northwesterly rather than north. Meteor. ii. 6; Diod. Sic. i. 39.) (Arist. was natural, as they are caused by the rush of the air from the Mediterranean and Egean, to fill up the vacuum caused by the rarefaction of the atmosphere over the desert lands in the neighbourhood of the sea, which desert lands lie as much in Syria and Arabia on the east, as in Africa on the south. Though Syria therefore has only a torrent-bed generally dry (the Wady el Arish, or River of Egypt) which faces the north, it has many rivers which the Etesian winds might affect, all those, namely, which face the west. 3 That the Nile flowed from the ocean, and that the ocean flowed all round the earth, were certainly opinions of Hecatæus (Fr. 278). It is probable, therefore, that his account of the inundation is here intended. 32 MELTED SNOW. BOOK II. of the Nile is caused by the melting of snows. Now, as the Nile flows out of Libya,5 through Ethiopia, into Egypt, how is it possible that it can be formed of melted snow, running, as it does, from the hottest regions of the world into cooler countries? Many are the proofs whereby any one capable of reasoning on the subject may be convinced that it is most unlikely this should be the case. The first and strongest argument is furnished by the winds, which always blow hot from these regions. The second is, that rain and frost are unknown there. Now, whenever snow falls, it must of necessity rain 4 This was the opinion of Anaxagoras, as well as of his pupil Euripides and others. (Diodor. i. 38; Euripid. Helena, begs.; Seneca, Nat. Quæst. iv. 2; Ptol. Geog. iv. 9.) Herodotus and Diodorus are wrong in supposing snow could not be found on mountains in the hot climate of Africa; perpetual snow is not confined to certain latitudes; and ancient and modern discoveries prove that it is found in the ranges S. of Abyssinia. Nor is the heat always there what Herodotus imagines; and the cold of winter is often sensibly felt in the plains of Ethiopia about Gebel Berkel, far distant from high moun tains, though the thermometer does not range below freezing. "The lower limit of perpetual snow is not a mere function of geographical latitude, or of mean annual temperature; nor is it at the equator, or within the tropics, that the snow-line reaches its greatest elevation above the level of the sea." (Humboldt, Cosmos, i. p. 328.) At the equator, on the Andes of Quito, the limit is at 15,790 feet above the sea; on the southern declivity of the Himalaya it lies at 12,982 feet, and on the northern declivity at 16,630; and the volcano of Aconcagua in lat. 32° 30′, which was found "to be more than 1400 ft. higher than Chimborazo, was once seen free from snow." (p. 329.) See also Lyell's Pr. of Geology, c. vii.— [G. W.] even 5 That is from Central Africa, which was and still is the opinion of some geographers. There appears more reason to place the source of the "White Nile" to the S. of the Abyssinian ranges, between lat. 7° and 8° N.; though a branch does come from the W., called Adda or Jengeh, which seem to be two names of the same stream.-[G. W.] 6 Herodotus was not aware of the rainy season in Sennár and the S.S.W. of Abyssinia, nor did he know of the Abyssinian snow. This is mentioned in the inscription of Ptolemy Philadelphus at Adulis, on the mountains beyond the Nile, " to the depth of a man's knee." (See Plin. vi. 34, and Vincent's Periplus.) The tropical rains do not extend as far N. as the Dar Shegéëh (Shaikéëh) and the great bend of the Nile, where showers and storms only occur occasionally, generally about the beginning of the inundation, and where a whole year sometimes passes without rain. The tropical rains begin about the end of March or beginning of April on the White Nile in lat. 4° N., and both the White and Blue Niles begin to rise at Khartoóm the first week in May. The climate there is then very unhealthy, even for the natives. The rain falls for many hours, but with intervals of clear weather and a strong sun, raising a vapour that causes a bad fever. The vegetation is very rapid and luxurious. That part of the valley immediately to the N. of the range of the rains is then infested with clouds of flies-a CHAP. 22, 23. NO SNOW IN CENTRAL LIBYA. 7 33 within five days; so that, if there were snow, there must be rain also in those parts. Thirdly, it is certain that the natives of the country are black with the heat, that the kites. and the swallows remain there the whole year, and that the cranes, when they fly from the rigours of a Scythian winter flock thither to pass the cold season. If then, in the country whence the Nile has its source, or in that through which it flows, there fell ever so little snow, it is absolutely impossible that any of these circumstances could take place. 23. As for the writer who attributes the phenomenon to the perfect plague-but they do not extend into the desert. Philostratus (Vit. Apoll. Tyan. ii. 9) says he does "not mean to gainsay the snows of the Ethiopians, or the hills of the Catadupi;" but he evidently disbelieves the accounts given of them. The cause of the two branches rising at the same time at Khartoom is the rain that falls at no great distance from that spot. The effect of the more southerly rains is felt after. wards. Callisthenes, the pupil of Aristotle, and afterwards Agathar: cides and Strabo, attributed the inundation to the rainy season in Ethiopia; and correctly, for it is caused by this, and not by the melting of snow. Athenæus, Epit. ii. 89; Diod. i. 41; Strabo, xvii. p. 1121.-[G. W.] See 7 I have found nothing in any writer, ancient or modern, to confirm, or so much as to explain, this assertion. Aulus Gellius seems to have noticed it as an instance of "over rapid generalization." (Epitom. lib. viii. c. 3); but his remarks on the subject are lost. It does not appear that at present, either in Asia Minor or in Southern Italy, rain necessarily follows snow within a certain number of days. But the meteorology of the countries bordering on the Mediter. ranean has no doubt undergone great changes since the time of Herodotus. In some parts of England there is a saying, that "three days of white frost are sure to bring rain." $ Cranes and other wading birds are VOL. II. found in the winter in Upper Egypt, but far more in Ethiopia, and in spring immense flights of storks (Ciconia alba) collect together, which after soaring round in circles at a great height, return for the summer to the North. From the migration of cranes to Ethiopia arose the fable of the Cranes and Pygmies. The Arden cinerea and garzetta, the platalea or spoonbill, the pelican, and some others remain the whole year in Egypt. The Grus cinerea (crane) winters in Ethiopia about Gebel Berkel. This last has been strangely mistaken for an ostrich at Beni Hassan, and is probably the Grus undetermined by Pickering (p. 169). The Ibis is rarely seen except near the Lake Menzaleh, where ducks, coots, and numerous water-fowl abound. The avocet was a native of Egypt as early as the 12th dynasty. The Numidian demoiselle (Anthropoïdes Virgo) is found, but not common, in Upper Egypt. Kites remain all the winter, and swallows also, though in small numbers, even at Thebes. The swallow was always the harbinger of spring, as in Greece and the rest of Europe; and the subject is represented on Greek vases, where a youth exclaims "Behold the swallow!" and another answers "Then it is now spring." (See Panofka's Bilder ant. Lebens, pl. xvii. fig. 6.) Boys (as Mr. Cumby observes) went about in Rhodes to collect gifts on the return of the swallow, as for the "grotto" at the beginning of our Ꭰ 34 TRUE REASON OF THE NILE'S SWELLING. BOOK II. ocean, his account is involved in such obscurity, that it is impossible to disprove it by argument. For my part I know of no river called Ocean, and I think that Homer, or one of the earlier poets, invented the name, and introduced it into his poetry. 24. Perhaps, after censuring all the opinions that have been put forward on this obscure subject, one ought to propose some theory of one's own. I will therefore proceed to explain what I think to be the reason of the Nile's swelling in the summer time. During the winter, the sun is driven out of his usual course by the storms, and removes to the upper parts of Libya. This is the whole secret in the fewest possible words; for it stands to reason that the country to which the Sun-god approaches the nearest, and which he passes most directly over, will be scantest of water, and that there the streams which feed the rivers will shrink the most. 25. To explain, however, more at length, the case is this. The sun, in his passage across the upper parts of Libya, affects them in the following way. As the air in those regions is constantly clear, and the country warm through the absence oyster season, though with greater pretensions, as Athenæus, quoting Theognis, shows (viii. p. 360), since they sometimes threatened to carry off what was not granted to their request:-"We will go away if you give us something; if not, we will never let you alone. We will either carry off the door, or the lintel, or the woman who sits within; she is small, and we can easily lift her. If you give any gift, let it be large. Open, open the door to the swallow, for we are not old men, but boys."-[G. W.] 9 The person to whom Herodotus alludes is Hecatæus. He mentions it also as an opinion of the Greeks of Pontus, that the ocean flowed round the whole earth (B. iv. ch. 8). That the Nile flowed from the Ocean was maintained by Hecatæus, and by Euthymenes of Marseilles (Plut. de Pl. Phil. iv. 1), who related that, The "having sailed round Africa, he |