(i. e. the Delta,) a broad flat. Aegypt, south of 2 AFRICA. broad and flat, without water' and yet a swamp. CHAP. II. The distance was 1500 stadia, or fifteen stadia less than the road from the altar of the twelve gods at Athens to the temple of the Olympian Zeus at Pisa. Southward of Heliopolis and the Delta, Aegypt became contracted into a narrow valley. On the eastern side the Arabian mountains, containing tween the the stone quarries which were cut for the pyramids and Libyan at Memphis, extended to the Erythraean. On the mountains. western side, bordering on Libya, another long Heliopolis, a narrow valley be Arabian Extent of the voyage. Herodotus's ber of sta dia. chain, covered with sand, stretched in the same southerly direction. This contraction of the Aegyptian territory extended only for four days' voyage (or 800 stadia) up the Nile. The country was level, and at the narrowest part was only 200 stadia broad, but beyond that point it widened. By a reference to the modern map, the narrow part of the Nile valley, to which Herodotus here appears to refer, extends from Cairo southwards to Fayoum; above this point the valley increases a little in width. 4 From Heliopolis up the river to Thebes was Error in a nine days' voyage, or 4860 stadia, which amount calculation to 81 schoeni-an evident error; and by adding of the num- these 4860 stadia to the 1500 stadia between Heliopolis and the coast, Herodotus found that the whole distance from the coast of the Mediterranean to Thebes was 6120 stadia; which is another mistake as unaccountable as the former, for the real sum total would be 6360 stadia. From Thebes to the city called Elephantine, the southern boundary of Aegypt was 1800 stadia." 1 Probably this only refers to the want of springs. 2 ii. 7. 3 ii. 9. According to this estimate a vessel would go 540 stadia per day against the stream; and according to the ordinary stadium this would be at the rate of 67 English miles per day, which is impossible. It so happens that the estimate of nine days' voyage up the river from Heliopolis to Thebes is not incorrect, whilst the number of stadia exceeds the truth by about one half; and therefore some commentators have supposed that Herodotus here used a short stadium. It seems however much more natural to suppose that he over-estimated the distance; and in many other parts, either his copyists or himself have much to answer for in the way of arithmetical errors. See Appendix II. 5 ii. 9. 2 Herodotus's knowledge Elephan but little ferent the Greeks overflow. was occa To this point of the Nile, namely, to the city of AFRICA. Elephantine, Herodotus carried his researches, and CHAP. II. he is therefore enabled to describe the country thus far from personal observation. Some Aegyptians personal however occupied part of the Aethiopian island bounded on called Tachompso, which lay southward of Ele- the south by phantine; and in describing this island and the voy- tine. age to it, he is compelled to speak from hearsay.' Concerning the river Nile Herodotus was able to could learn little information, either from the priests concerning obtain very or from any one else. In the summer it swelled and the Nile. overflowed for a hundred days, and then retired and continued low all the winter. Respecting the Three dif causes of this swelling, three different views pre- causes asvailed amongst the Greeks. First, some said that signed by it was the Etesian winds blowing against the river, for its pewhich prevented it from discharging itself into the riodical sea; but this theory was exploded by the fact that 1st, That it the Nile had overflowed when these winds had not sioned by blown, and many rivers also in Syria and Libya, winds. with smaller and weaker currents, flowed opposite the same winds without overflowing their banks." Secondly, others said that the inundation took place 2nd, That it because the Nile flowed from the river Ocean, which was caused surrounded the earth; but this opinion was laughed Ocean. at by Herodotus, for no such river existed at all, excepting in the brains of poets. A third explanation 3rd, That it was by far the most specious in his opinion, but at duced by the same time the most untrue. According to that, the snows of the Nile flowed from a region of snow, which was necessarily melted during the summer months. But Herodotus could not understand the existence of snow in the hot regions of the south. His own Theory of theory was as follows. During the summer the sun the Nile stands in the middle of the heavens, and sucks up draineddaring the winthe waters from all rivers alike. In the winter he ter by the is driven by the storms of Boreas into the southern is driven regions, and there sucks up the water from the Nile southward 1 For Herodotus's account of the upper course of the Nile, see the chapter on Aethiopia. 2 ii. 19. 3 ii. 20. 1 ii. 21, 23. the Etesian by the river was pro Aethiopia. Herodotus sun, which by Boreas; but over flowing in summer when the sun returns to the centre of the heavens. AFRICA. only. Consequently, during the winter the Nile CHAP. II. was partly dried up by its peculiar proximity to the sun god, and being fed by no rain or tributary streams, it flowed in a weak and shallow stream; whilst other rivers, increased by the rain and snow of the northern regions, were swollen with waters. On the other hand, during the summer, the Nile alone flowed on in its natural, but mighty, flood; whilst the other rivers, no longer supplied with rain and partially dried by the sun, became weak and shallow.' Herodotus also adds, that no breezes blow from the Nile, because of the heat of the countries through which it flows.2 Origin of the three previous theories. That of the Etesian winds, Thales. Such were the extraordinary theories brought forward to account for the inundation of the Nile. The first, which ascribed the phenomena to the blowing of the Etesian winds, was taught by Thales, taught by and was a real cause, though not sufficient to explain That of the the whole effect. The second, which supposed that river Ocean, it was occasioned by the connexion between the Nile and the river Ocean seems to have been haps in part taught by Hecataeus, whose theory concerning the river Ocean has already been noticed. It is howAcgyptian ever very likely that Herodotus may also have heard the revolu- of the Aegyptian tradition concerning the diurnal by Heca taeus; though per derived from the tradition of tion of the sun. revolution of the sun as connected with the river. 1 1 ii. 24, 25; iv. 50. 2 ii. 27. 3 Diod. i. 38-40. 1 the picture of the bark of the first hour of the night, AFRICA. which gives us the geography of the Meh-moou. CHAP. II. It is thus translated by Mr. Osburn. "This water, which the sun is now navigating, is the pool of Natron, which is joined with the pool of the field of the great hall of judgment." "Moreover, the waters of the great hall of judgment are joined with the waters of Abydos, and they together are called the way along which Father Athom travels when he approaches the mountains of his rising."' 3 melted ras. of the inun the dation first Ae- ascertained are critus and thenes, viz. by Demo Callis the very season in Aethiopia. The third theory, which attributed the inunda- That of the tions to the melting of the snows of Aethiopia, was snows, brought forward by Anaxagoras, who is also fol- taught by Anaxagolowed by Euripides and Aeschylus.2 Democritus and Callisthenes seem to have been Real cause the first to ascertain the true cause, namely, extraordinary character of the rainy season of thiopia. During the summer, the north winds perpetually blowing from the Mediterranean towards the hot regions of Central Africa. These heavy rainy currents of air deposit none of their moisture in their passage over the heated and level soil of Aegypt, and Herodotus himself tells us that no rain falls in this country; but when they reach the lofty mountains of Abyssinia, the cold condenses their vapours into heavy torrents of rain, and the immense mass of waters drains off the western side of the Abyssinian highlands, and is thus poured into the channel of the Nile. In the last days of Period of June, or the beginning of July, the rise begins to dation. be visible in Aegypt. About the middle of August it reaches half its extra height, and from the 20th to the 30th of September it attains its maximum. It then remains stationary for fourteen days; sinks about the 10th of November to the same height as it was in the middle of August, and continues to decrease slowly till the 20th of May in the following year, when it reaches its minimum. The height to which it rises at Cairo is from between 1 Osburn, Ancient Egypt, chap. i. 3 Ibid. ii. 89. 2 Athenaeus, Epit. ii. 88. the inun AFRICA. eighteen to twenty-four feet, and this agrees pretty CHAP. II. well with the statement of Herodotus, that in his time, fifteen or sixteen cubits was the height of a good Nile.' Singular theory of phers of As a further illustration of the various theories the philoso- afloat in ancient times concerning the overflowing of the Nile and physical geography of the universe, we might notice the opinion of the philosophers of Memphis mentioned by Diodorus. Memphis as rus. These philosophers divided the earth into three parts, viz.: 1. The inhabited region, by which, of course, they meant the northern hemisphere. 2. An unknown region, where the seasons were exactly opposite to those in the inhabited region, summer being in one whilst winter was in the other; and by this they plainly understood the southern hemisphere. 3. The hot region between the two, which they described as uninhabitable by reason of the extreme heat, and by which they seem to allude to the equator. Having thus developed this system of the universe, which we can see was to a considerable extent based upon actual truth, they began to draw from it certain hypotheses which are startling from their ingenuity. They said, if the Nile rises 1 ii. 13. For a further account see Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, vol. i. chap. iv. Mr. Kenrick and Heeren, however, both say that Agatharchides of Cnidus, in the second century before Christ, was the first who assigned the true cause for the overflowing of the Nile. This seems to be too sweeping an assertion. Diodorus (i. 41) only says that Agatharchides comes the nearest to the true cause, for he ascribed the inundation to the heavy rains in the mountainous parts of Aethiopia, which fell between the summer solstice and autumnal equinox. It is plain, from Diodorus himself, that Democritus of Abdera, as early as the fifth century, B. C., considered that the Etesian gales carried with them, in their course toward the south, the thick vapours which rose from the melted snow and ice in the cold regions of the north; which vapours were not changed into rain until they reached the mountains of Aethiopia, when they fell in mighty torrents, and poured down the highlands into the channel of the Nile. This theory is substantially correct, though Diodorus thinks otherwise. Again, we learn from Athenaeus (Epit. ii. 89) that Callisthenes, the pupil of Aristotle, declared it to be his opinion that the Nile rose in consequence of the heavy rains which fell in Aethiopia, between the rising of the Dog-star and the rising of Arcturus; which rains were produced by the clouds brought by the Etesian gales coming in contact with the Aethiopian mountains. The true cause of the overflowing of the Nile must therefore have been known even in the time of Herodotus, and some centuries earlier than Agatharchides. |