Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/734

 7 o8 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

1 77 1, the quantity that fell in the fame circumference was 41.355 inches in the fame fpace *.

In 1770, Auguft was the rainy month; in 1771 July. Both thefe years the people paid the meery, and the Wafaa Ullah was in Auguft. When July is the rainy month, the rains generally ceafe for fome days in the beginning of Auguft, and then a prodigious deal falls in the latter end of that month and the firft week of September. In other years, July and Auguft are the violent rainy months, whilft June is fair. And laftly, in others, May, June, July, Auguft and the firft .week of September. Now we mall fuppofe (which is the moft common cafe of all) that every month from June doubles its rain. The Wafaa Ullah generally takes place a- bout the 9th of Auguft, the tribute being then due, and all attention to the Mikeas is abandoned at 14 real peeks, the Caliih is then cut, and the water let down to the Delta..

Now thefe 14 peeks are not a proof how much water there is to overflow the land ; for fuppofing nine days for its paffage from Ethiopia, then the 9th of Auguft receives at Cairo no later rains than thofe that have fallen the ift of Auguft in Ethiopia, and from that date till the 17th of September, the Nile increafes one third of its whole inunda- tion, which is never fufFered to appear on the Mikeas, but is turned down to the lakes in the Delta, as I fuppofe it al- ways has been ; fo that the quantity of water which falls in Ethiopia hath never yet been afcertained, and never can be by the Mikeas, nor can it ever be known what quantity

of

£ee. Table, or Regifter of Rain, that fell in thefe years, inferted at the end of this 7?lum«.