Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/742

 7i(5 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

Much has been wrote about a miraculous drop, or dew, called Gotta, or Nucla, which falls in Egypt precifely on St John's day, and is believed to be the peculiar gift of that faint; it flops the plague, caufes dough to leaven, or ferment, and announces a fpeedy and plentiful inunda- tion.

I hope my reader will not expecT: that I mould enter into the difcuflion of the part St John is thought to have in this event, my bufmefs is only with natural caufes.

Memphis and Alexandria, and all the ancient cities of Lo- wer Egypt, ftand upon cifterns, into which the Nile, upon its overflowing, was admitted, and there remained till it had depofited all its fediment, and became fit for drinking. Thefe cifterns are now full of filth; though in difrepair, the water,. when the Nile is high infinuates itfelf into them through the broken conduits.

In February and March the fun is on its approach to the zenith of one extremity of Egypt, and of courfe has a very confiderable influence upon the other. The Nile being now fallen low, the water in the cifterns putrifies, and the river itfelf has loft all its volatile and finer parts by the continued aclion of a vertical fun ; fo that, inftcad of being fu-bject to evaporation, it becomes daily more and more inclined to putrefaction. About St John's day * it receives a plentiful mixture of the frefh and fallen rain from Ethiopia, which dilutes and refreshes the almoft corrupted river, and the fun

near


 * la Abyffima, the 24th June.