that intermiffion is not fo great that any man can approach near and place himself against that force. Apuleius likewife retains the Greek word, and calls the mouths or apertures by which flames, fmoke, ftones, coals of fire, &c. belch out of this mountain," crateres :" "Ex Ætnæ cervicibus quondam effufis crateribus per declivia, incendio divino, torrentis vice, flammarum flumina concurrerunt." Apul. lib. de Mundo, page 73. Now what Lucretius fays, in these two verfes, is, that the wind enters into the caverns, not only at the apertures in the foot of the mountain, but is generated in the mouths and breathing holes on the top of it. Nor, indeed, is this in the least improbable, since nothing is more certain than that air rushes on all fides to flame, and that wind is thence generated. Thus Creech himself upon this paffage.

Ver. 702. In these thirteen verses, the poet makes an excuse for his having affigned fo many caufes but, fays he, this is the fafest way of proceeding in doubtful things; and among them all, fome one may, perhaps, fatisfy the reader: and, laftly, he confirms this method by a fimilitude. We may obferve, that Lucretius takes no notice of the fnows that are continually lying on the top of this mountain. It is, nevertheless, very extraordinary, that fnow and fire fhould inhabit fo near each other; and many of the ancients mention it as fuch; particularly Pindar, Od. i. Pyth. Solinus, cap. xi. and Claudian, who, in 1. Rapt. Proferp. fays,

Sed quamvis nimio fervens exuberet æftu,
Scit nivibus fervare fidem; pariterque favillis
Durefcit glacies, tanti fecura vaporis,
Arcano defenfa gelu, fumoque fideli
Lambit contiguas innoxia flamma pruinas.

Thus too Silius Italicus, lib. 14.

Sunimo cana jugo cohibet, mirabile dicu,
Vicinam flammis glaciem, æternoque rigore
Ardentes horrent fcopuli; ftat vertice celfi
Collis hyems, callidaque nivem tegit atra favilla.
And this defcription of the neighbourhood of fire
and fnow upon Mount Etna, Cowley has imi-
tated from thofe poets, in his Pindaric Ode to
Hobbes.

So contraries on Ana's top conspire;
Here hoary frofts, and by them breaks out fire:
A fecure peace the faithful neighbours keep :
Th' embolden'd fnow next to the flame does fleep.

Tacitus fays the fame of Mount Libanus, and ufes the like expreflion. "Præcipuum," fays he, "montium Libanum, mirum dictu, tantos inter ardores opacum, fidumque nivibus;" fhady in the midst of fuch great heats, and faithful to the fnow: but thefe expreffions are too poetical for profe, and become the poets better than the historian. See likewife Seneca, Epift. 79.

Ver. 715. From the fummer folftice to the autumnal equinox, the river Nile then fwells to fuch a degree, that it overflows the country of Egypt,

ter.

and, covering the fields with a flimy mud, m nures and renders them fruitful, though with it they would be barren and produce nothing. manifeft and wonderful monument of Divine Providence! " Ægypti incolæ aquarum beneficia je cipientes, aquarum colunt," fays Julius Firmic de Err. Prof. Rel. The Egyptians, perceiving i great benefits of this inundation, worship the w Lucretius, according to his cuftom, afiges natural caufes for the overflowing of this river and first, in ten verfes, fays, that the Ete winds, which blow from the north, repel and drive back the stream of the river, that comes from th fouth, and are the cause that it fills up its char nel, and overflows its banks. Now if it fact. be objected, that the Etefian wind, for winds ar light bodies, is 100 weak to stop so great a weig of waters, he adds, in five verfes, that the fac which the fea, being agitated by those winds, ca into the mouths of the Nile, choke them up thus caufe the inundation. To these he adds t other causes: the rains that fall at the four the river, in three verfes, and the melting fnows, in two verfes. For all these caules e fpiring, will make the Nile, or any other re overflow.

Thales Milefius held the first of these to be true caufe of the overflowing of the Nile does Philo the Jew, lib. 1. de vit. Mol. nor Pr lib. 5. cap. 9. difapprove of his opinion. E menes, likewife in Seneca, 1. 4. Nat. Quzi.c afcribes the cause of the overflowing of this to the Etefian winds; for he believes that Nile increases by means of the waters of the lantic Sea, which the Etefias drive into the c nel of the river. These are his words: [from the Atlantic Sea] enim Nilus fiuit quamdiu Etefiæ tempus obfervant; t ejicitur mare obftantibus ventis: cum r pelagus conquiefcit, minorque difcedenti a Nilo eft; Cæterum dulcis mari fapor eft, ei les Nilotica belluæ." But this reafon is good nothing. For fometimes the Nile increas fore the Etefias blow, and decreases even w they are yet blowing: nay, though they blow c actly contrary to the ftream, the Nile neverti runs into the fea. Befides, why does not the s happen to other rivers that run against the fian winds? But the truth is, thofe winds are ble to keep back, much less to repel the current

of that river.

In fummer.] For the Nile never begins to t till after the fun has entered into Cancer: wa is about the eleventh of June. Thus Man lib. i. ver. 630.

Nilufque tumefcit in arva, Hic rerum ftatus eft, Cancri cum fidere Phaba Solftitium facit, et fummo verfatur Olympo.

The reason of which we will give by and by. The Nile o'erflows, when with exalted ray, In fummer folftice Phœbus bears the day Through Cancer's fign, and drives the highe

way.

baroufly) Oceames: then Aëtos, or Aquila, and Melas, from its depth or profundity, because all deep waters fecm black; or from Melas, the fon of Neptune afterwards Ægyptus, either from Egyptus, the fon of Belus, or of Vulcan and Leucippes, who threw himself into it; or wagà rò aigns wiźvey, from fattening of goats; from whence likewife the whole country of Egypt feems to be fo named. The Hebrews call it Gehon, and Schior, the laft of which fignifies black, or troublous, and from hence perhaps came its Æthiopian name, Siris. It was alfo called Ng;; or Nas, and Triton; and laft of all Nilus, either from what we faid before, or from Nilus, the fon of Cyclops, or Nileus, or Nilefius, Egyptian princes: or laftly, and rather than all the other, waga To viv av yer, from bringing new mud or flime. By the Latins it was particulary called Melo, as is evident from the teftimonies of Ennius, Feftus, Servius, and Aufonius.

Ver. 723. He means Ethiopia, in the fouth parts of which country the Nile arifes. Manil. lib. i. ver. 44.

-Gentes, in quas et Nilus inundat. Qua mundus redit, et nigras fuperevolat urbes. Ver. 725. This reafon is mentioned likewife by Pomponius Mela; and that too with a feeming approbation of it.

Ver. 730. There were three parties who favoured this opinion. I. Democritus; who held that exhalations arife from the melted fnows in the northern climates, and being driven by the Etefian winds into Ethiopia, they dash against the mountains, where they flop and thicken into rain. This opinion Lucretius here aprroves. II. The philofophers of Memphis, now called Grand Cairo, who, as Diodorus witneffes, held that the Nile flows out of the temperate fouthern zone; and that, fince it is winter in thofe countries when it is fummer with us, that river fwells by reafon of the frequent rains that fall near its fountain, during the winter of thofe fouthern regions. III. Agatharchides, who, as the fame Diodorus reports, held that the Nile is increafed by the great rains that are continually falling all the fummer long in the mountains of Ethiopia. And to trengthen the probability of this opinion, he urges, that during the whole fummer, it rains about the river Hydafpes, fnows on Mount Caucafus, and hails in many parts of India.

Ver. 733. This opinion is afcribed to Anaxagoras, who believed that the Nile fwells by means of the fnows that are melted during the fummer in the mountains of Ethiopia. But that this belief is erroneous, Herodotus gives these reasons: becaufe thofe countries are very warm, and exempt from fnows; nay, even the very air is always hot; befides, the fun is very remote from those regions, when the fnows must be melted to fwell that river.

Ethiopian.] Ethiopia is a vaft region of Africa, that borders upon Egypt: the country of the Abyfines. It lies beneath the torrid zone, extended from the Tropic of Cancer to beyond the

Equator. The river Nile cuts its way almost through the middle of it, as it does through Egypt.

OF THE ANNUAL INUNDATION OF THE RIVER NILE.

al

THE Conftant and annual increafe of the Ne has long and much employed the thoughts of the ftudious; and that too not without reafon; for many things occurred that defervedly claimed their admiration. Among others, not the leaf is this, that it conftantly overflows about the middle of June, or rather a day or two after; fome pofitively fix it to the time of fun-rifing on the 17th of that month; befides, it gives beforehand fuch certain tokens, to what height the flood will rife, that they, whose bufinefs it is to discover it, are never deceived in their conjec tures, whether they weigh the fand in a balance, or measure the future inundation by a rule, which they call a Nilofcope. The event is certain, the caufe doubtful: For it is controverted, whether the fwelling is occafioned by its mouths being ftopped and choked up, or by the rains that fa in Ethiopia, and by the melted snows of the mountains of that country; or, laftly, by the wa ter of the fea, driven into the channel of the r ver by the Etefian winds: And here we may not omit an Egyptian erudition, which we find in Horus Apollo, touching the fymbols of the Nile: "Tres porro Hydrias, nec plures, nec pauciores pingunt, quod triplex ex eorum fententia fit inun dationis caufa effectrix: unam quidem Ægyptiz terræ afcribunt, quæ ex fefe aquam producit: teram oceano, ex quo, inundationis tempore, aqua in Egyptum exæftuat: tertiam imbribus, qui perid tempus, quo intumefcit Nilus, ad auftrinas Ethio piæ partes contingunt." The Egyptians, fayi he, make three water pots, neither more nor leis, be cause in their opinion there are three efficiens caufes of the inundation: one of them they afcribe to the land of Egypt, which produces wa ter out of itself; another to the ocean, out of which, at the time of the flood, the water furges into Egypt; the third to the rains, which, at the time when the Nile fwells, happen in the fouthern parts of Ethiopia: As to the first of the reafons, it is evidently falfe; for the parched and thirsty foil of Egypt gapes indeed for moisture; but in no part of the country does the land cort out water: Nor can we judge more favourably o the second, when we confider the difference be tween the fea water, and that of the river Nile: And as for the rain, which they affign for the third caufe, we will fpeak of that by and by Meanwhile we will obferve, that thofe mounds of fand, with which they dam up the river, ar foon borne down, and washed away by the never ceafing courfe of the stream; and, what is chief to be confidered, if any let or oppofition whate ever were the caufe, that the Nile, by retrogref fion, overflowed its banks, the waters of that ri ver would be observed to rife firft in the lowe

part of the country, that is to fay, from the Mediterranean to Cairo, rather than on the contrary, in the more inland parts of it; but that it does fo, is allowed by the unanimous confent of all. We muft therefore travel out of Egypt, for the cause of this inundation. No doubt but a plenteous acceffion of waters fwells the river, before it washes the land of Egypt: And this it was that perfuaded fome to believe (fee the note on ver. 733.) that the Nile increafes by means of the fnows that melt in Ethiopia. And indeed they are certainly miftaken, who hold with Herodotus, that it never fnows in that country: For they go contrary to experience and obfervation: Neither are thofe others to be credited, who affert, that at the feafon when the Nile inundates the land of Egypt, it is the depth of winter in Ethiopia. For who can believe that the fnow, which was congealed by cold, can be diffolved by cold likewife? This would be repugnant to the laws of nature, who has ordained, that things congealed by cold fhall be melted by heat. The third caufe is affigned to rain, (fee the note on ver. 730.) and to this adhere the authors of greateft note, though it has been long and ftrenuously oppofed by fome of no mean reputation: They who call it in question, object the great heat of the country, and the fcarcity of vapours; but there are feveral things, of which thefe perfons ought not to be ignorant: The firft is, that in thofe countries there are two winters, and as many fummers, in the year; though of unlike effect indeed, if compared with ours. The winter is more fevere with us; but not fe mild with the Ethiopians, as not to produce fnows in the mountains, together with conftant rains, that continue for 40 days, as is affirmed by the natives, as well as by travellers into thofe parts. This truth Democritus has learned in his travels, and, as by tradition, delivered it down to pofterity, till at length it became known in Italy, by the care of our Lucretius. Befides, in fummer, the fun is nearer to Ethiopia, than it is to us; and his rays, though troublefome to the inhabitants, yet fuffer themselves to be overcast by a very thick mift, that hangs over a certain mountain, which mariners call Serra Leone, perhaps from the noise it makes; for it generally roars, and from the dusky mist almost continually darts out lightning, together with dreadful thunder, that is heard 40 miles around. And a master of a fhip, as he was failing to the ifland St. Thomas, obferved, that all this happened when the fun ftruck perpendicularly on Ethiopia. Let fuch then, as object the heat of the country, make the most of that weak argument; nor will they fare better, who deny vapours to that region. For they ought to reflect on the lakes and rivers that Africa contains; and to have fome regard to the ocean that washes its coafts: all which may furnish an immenfe quantity of matter for future rain; and then especially, when the fun, retiring, permits the inferior elements to extend their own bounds: The Mediterranean too conduces fomething to increase the store, by gratefully fending into Ethiopia a vast quantity of clouds, which the

winds, that arife in Greece, bear thither: This Profper Alpinus, who was himfelf an eye witness of it, relates in these words: "Cayri, in toto fere augmenti fluminis tempore, Etefiæ, perflantes fingulis fere diebus ab orto fole, ufque ad meridiem, multas nubes nigras, craffas, pluviofas in altiffimos ufque Libya, Ethiopiæque montes, propellunt atque afportant: in quibus montibus hæc concrefcentes, in pluvias vertuntur, quæ, ab his in Nilum cadentes, funt caufæ ipfius augumenti. Obfervatur quotidie Cayri, dum flumen hoc augetur, qua die multæ nubes fupra Ægyptum verfus meridiem à feptentrionalibus iis ventis afportatæ tranfierint, multùm flumen augeri; atque ex contrario, clara apparente die, nullifque nubibus in eo cœlo apparentibus, parùm crefcere: Et hæc eos nunquam fallit obfervatio," Lib. 1. de Medic. Egypt. At Cairo, fays he, during almoft the whole time of the fwelling of the river, the Etefias blow almost every day, from fun-rising till noon, and bring, and drive before them, many black, thick, and rainy clouds into the high mountains of Libya and Ethiopia: In which mountains, these clouds gathering together, are turned into rains; which, falling from thence into the Nile, are the cause of its increase: It is obferved every day at Cairo, that fo long as this river is increasing, on what day foever many clouds are brought by thofe northern winds, and carried over Egypt towards the fouth, the river that day fwells very much; and, on the contrary, that in a clear day, when no clouds appear in the fky, it increafes but little. And this obfervation never fails them. It is credible enough, that when the clouds are come into Africa, they are refolved into rain, not that, as Lucretius thought, it is squeezed out of them, as water out of a fponge, but because, by reafon of the cold of the place, the included fire of the clouds flies away, or is extinguished; and then the vapours grow thick, and return into their former nature. But on what day the rains begin to fall, and how much time the waters take up in their courfe, while they are flowing into the Nile, has not been inquired into, or at leaft is doubtful But this in our age we know for certain, that these things happen in the kingdom of Guyoma, which is fubject to the emperor of the Abyffines. Hence the great hofpitality of the Egyptians to the Abyffines, that come to fojourn among them; not fe much out of gratitude, as for fear of a famine and general inundation: For the monarch of Ethiopia, whom we commonly call Prefter John, commands the cataracts of the Nile; for which reafon the emperor of the Turks pays him a yearly tribute, on condition, that he do not divert the waters of the Nile, nor fuffer them to come in too great a quantity, either of which would be the deftruction of Egypt. Hence in the laft age fprung up a cruel war, as Natalis Comes relates. In the year 1570, fays he, Selim emperor of Conftantinople, who was then at war with the Venetians, received an unfortunate piece of news; for David, the great king of Ethiopia, whofe empire extends from the equinoctial, almost to either tropic, fince many kings are fubject to