Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/680

 65(5 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

the Guba, Nuba, and Shangalla, it is filled ICc ' feotfe which names fignify a watching dog, the latrator anubis, or, the dog-far. In the plain country, between Fazuclo and Sennaar, it is called Nil, which fignities blue; and the Arabs interpret it by the word Azergue, which it keeps as far as Halfaia, or near it, where it joins the White River.

The next name by which the Nile went was Siris : Pliny tells us it was called Siris both before and after it came into Beja. " Nee ante Nilus, qtiamfe tot urn aquis concor dibus rurfus junxit. " Sic quoque etiamnum Siris, ut ante nomhmtus per aliquot millia, et in thought was given to it, becaufe of its black colour during the inundation, which miftake prefently produced confu- fion ; and we find, according to this idea, the compiler of the Old Teftament, (I mould fuppofe Efdras, after the capti- vity) has tranflated Siris, the black river, by the Hebrew, Shihor; but nobody ever faw the Nile black when it overflowed ; and it would be a very ftrong figure to call it fo in Egypt, where it is always white during the whole of the inun- dation. Had Efdras, or whoever it was that followed the Greek interpretation of Siris, viz. black, inquired in Beja what was the origin of this name, they would have there learn- ed it imported the River of the Dog-ftar, on whofe vertical appearance this Nile, or Siris, overflows ; and this idolatrous worfhip, paid to the Nile, was probably part of the reafon. of the queftion the prophet Jeremiah afks f, " And what haft " thou to do in Egypt, to drink the water of Seir? or the " water profaned by idolatrous rites ?"
 * ' totum Homcro Egyptus, aliifque TritoTi*" This name the Greeks

As


 * Plin. Nat, Kift. lib. t. cap. 9. f Jerem. chap. ii. ver. xviii.