Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/710

 <586 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

account of thefe tranfactions, and we lhall be lefs inclined to rely upon them, when I fhall mew, that the Nilometer could be of no ufe in folving this queilion at all, either in Herodotus's days, or any time fince, without a previous knowledge of feveral other circumftances never yet taken into the calculation, and of which Herodotus muil have been ignorant.

But let us grant that the Nile in Mseris's time rofe only 8 cubits, and in the days of Herodotus to 16, let us fee if, at certain periods afterwards, it kept to any thing like that proportion. Above 400 years after Herodotus, Strabo tra- velled in Egypt ; he went through the whole country from Alexandria to beyond Syene and the firfl cataract ; and as he is an hiftorian whofe character is eflablifhed, both for ve- racity and fagacity, we may receive what he fays as un- exceptionable evidence, efpecially as he travelled in fuch company as it is not probable the priefls could have refilled him any thing. Now Strabo J fays, that, in his days, 8 cu- bits were a minimum, or the Wafaa Ullab of the Nile's increafe ; therefore, from Mceris's time to Strabo there is not an inch difference in the minimum, and this includes the fpace of 1400 years.

It may be faid, indeed, that the pafTage in Strabof imports, that, in the time of Petronius, by a particular care of the banks and califhes, the Nile at 8 peeks (or cubits) enabled the Egyptians to pay their meery without hardllup ; but this was by particular induflry, more than what had been

in


 * Strabo, lib. xiii. p. 945. 1' Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 91J.