Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/446

 430 NILUrOLIS. ■with Seneca's description of the Nili Paludes as '' iminensas quaratn exitus nee incolae noverant nee sperare quisquain potest." [NiLUS.] [W. B. D.] NILU'POLIS (NsiAouTToAis, Ptol. V. 5. § 57 ; Steph. B. s.v. : NeiA.07roA.iTr;s), was a city of Middle Aegypt, built upon an island of the Nile, in the Heracleopolite nome, and about eight miles NE. of Heracleopolis Magna. Nilupolis is sometimes called simply Nilus, and appears to be the town mentioned under the latter name by Hecataeus ( Fragment. 277). It was existing as late as the 5th century A. D., since it is mentioned in the Acts of the Coun- cil of Ephesus, A. D. 430. [W. B. D.j NILUS (6 NaAos), the river Nile in Egypt. Of all the more important rivers of the globe known to the Greek and Roman writers, the Nile was that which from the remotest periods arrested their live- liest curiosity and attention. It ranked with them as next in magnitude to the Ganges and the Indus, and as surpassing the Danube in the length of its course and the volume of its waters. (Strab. xv. p. 702.) Its physical phenomena and the peculiar civilisation of the races inhabiting its banks attracted alike the historian, the mathematician, the satirist, and the romance-writer: Herodotus and Diodorus, Eratosthenes and Strabo, Lucian and Heliodorus. expatiate on its marvels; and as Aegypt was the resort of the scientitic men of Greece in general, the Nile was more accurately surveyed and described than any other river of the earth. The word Nilus, if it were not indigenous, was of Semitic origin, and probably transmitted to the Greeks by the Phoenicians. Its epithets in various languages — e. g. the Hebrew Sihhor (Jsaiah, xxiii. 3; Jerem. ii. 18), the Aegyptian Chemi, and the Greek /iis'Aas (Servius, «<^ Virgil. Geor^r. iv. 291) — point to the same peculiarity of its waters, the hue imparted by their dark slime. The Hebrews en- titled the Nile Nahal-Misraim, or river of Aegypt ; but the natives called it simply p-iero (whence pro- bably the Nubian hie)-) or the river (i. e. of rivers). Lyilus (c/e Menslbus, c. 8) says that it was some- times termed Has or dark; and Pliny (v. 9. s. 9 ; comp. Dionys. Perieg. v. 213) observes, somewhat vaguely, that in Aethiopia the river was called Siris, and did not acquire the appellation of Nilus before it reached Syenc. With few exceptions, however, the Greeks recognised the name of Nilus as far south as Meroe; and above that mesopotamian region they merely doubted to which of its tributaries they should assign the principal name. Homer, indeed (Od iii. 300, iv. 477, &c.), calls the river Aegyptus, from the appellation of the land which it intersects. But Hesiod {Theog. 338) and Hecataeus {Fragm. 279 — i280), and succeeding poets and historians uniformly designate the river of Aegypt as the Nile. It is unnecessaiy to dwell on a theory at one time received, but generally discredited by the ablest of the ancient geographers — that the Nile rose in Lower JIauretania, not far from the Western Ocean (Juba, ap. Plin. v. 9. s. 10; Dion Cass. Ixxv. 13; Solin. c. 35) ; that it flowed in an easterly direction ; was engulphed by the sands of the Sahara; re- appeared as the Nigir : again sunk in the earth, and came to light once more near the Great Lake of Dehaya as the proper Nile. Historically, the Nile derives its principal import- ance from the civilisation, to which it contributed so materially, of the races inhabiting its shores, from tiie S. of Meroe northwards to the Mediterranean. But for geographical purposes it is necessary to ex- NILUS. amine its course, in the first instance, through less known regions, and to ascertain, if possible, which of its feeders above Meroe was regarded by the an- cients as the true Nile. The course of the stream maybe divided into three heads: — (1) the river S. of Meroe ; (2) between Jleroe and Syene ; and (3) between Syene, or Philae, and the Mediter- ranean. (1.) The Nile above Meroe. — The ancients briefly described the Nile as springing from marshes (Nili Paludes) at the foot of the Mountains of the Moon. But as all the rivers which flow northward from the Abyssinian highlands rise from lagoons, and generally expand themselves into broad marshes, this description is too vague. Neither is it clear whether they regarded the White River, or the Blue, or the Astaboras (Tacazze), as the channel of the true Nile. The names of rivers are often given ca- priciously : it by no means follows that they are imposed upon the principal arm or tributary ; and hence we can assign neither to the Astapus nor to the White River, usually considered as the main stream, the distinction of being absolutely the " true Nile." The Nile, as Strabo sagaciously remarks (xi. p. 493), was well known because it was the channel of active commerce; and his observation, if applied to its southern portions, may lead us to the channel which was really regarded as the principal river even in remotest ages. The stream most frequented and accessible to navigation, and whose banks were the most thickly peopled, was doubtless the one which earliest attracted attention, and this we believe to have been the Astapus (Jiahr-el-Azreh, or Blue River^. As the sources both of the Blue River and of the Bahr-el-Abiad or t& White River are uncertain, it will be proper to examine these streams above their point of junction near the modern militaiy station at Khartum, lat. 15° 37' N., long. 33° E. The Astaboras (Tacazze) may for the present be dis- missed, both as an inferior tributary, and as below the meeting of the two main streams. The White River, which has been often desig- nated as " the true Nile," has at no period been either a road for traffic nor favourable to the settlement of man on its banks. It is rather an immense lagoon than a river, is often from 5 to 7 miles in breadth, and its sides are in general so low as to be covered at times with alluvial deposit to a distance of from 2 to 3 miles beyond the stream. On its shores there is neither any town, nor any tradition of there liaving ever been one ; nor indeed, for many leagues up the stream, do there occur any spots suited either to the habitation of men, to pas- ture, or to tillage. On the contrary, it is repi-esented by travellers much in the same terms in which Se- neca (J^atur. Quaest. vi. 8) speaks of the Nili Paludes, as seen by Nero's surveyors. The latter are described by the Roman philosopher as " im- mensas paludes, quarum exitus nee incolae nove- rant, nee sperare quisquam potest, ita implicitae aquis herbae sunt," &c. : the former by recent ex- plorers as " an interminable sea of grass," " a fetid stagnant marsh," &c. As the White River indeed approaches the higher table-land of the S., its banks become less depressed, and are inhabited ; but the weedy lagoons extend nearly 100 miles SW. of Khartum. But if we trace upwards the channel of the Blue River, a totally different spectacle presents itself.