Nile

NILE, a River of Egypt, which has its Fountain in the upper Ethiopia. ‘Tis said it proceeds from two Springs, or from two Eyes, which are distant from each other about twenty Paces, and each of the Bigness of a Cart-wheel. The largest of them is worship’d by the Inhabitants of the Country, who are Idolaters. Its Depth is something more than five and twenty Palms, and the other Spring is about sixteen Palms deep. At something above three Days Journey from the Fountain-Head, the River is wide, and deep enough to carry Vessels. Having received another River called Jama; the Nile pursues its Course westward, for above five and twenty or thirty Leagues from its Head, where it winds about to the East, and falls into a great Lake, which probably is that of Zaire. At its coming out of this Lake, it makes several Windings towards the South. It waters the Country of Alata, from whence it precipitates itself between Rocks of fourteen Fathom high, with a terrible Noise, and with such thick Vapours, that at a Distance they may be taken for real Clouds. After having water’d several Kingdoms to the East, it continues its Course so far into the Kingdom of Goiam, that it comes within a Day’s Journey of its Source. Thence it takes a Tour round about, and runs towards Phezolo and Ombarea. Then it winds about again, and from the East to the North, having cross’d several Kingdoms and Provinces, it falls into Egypt at the Cataracts, which are Waterfalls made by meeting with steep Rocks, of the Height of two hundred Feet. The Water of the Nile falling from these Rocks, causes a dismal Noise, which may be heard three Leagues off. It falls with so much Violence, that it makes a kind of Arch, under which it leaves a broad Way, where Travellers may pass without being wet.

At the bottom of these Rocks the Nile returns to its usual gentle Pace, with which it flows through the Plains of Egypt. Its Channel, according to Villamont, is about a League broad. Being come below Memphis, at eighty Miles from Grand Cairo, it is divided into two Arms, which make a kind of Triangle, whose Base is at the Mediterranean Sea, and which the Greeks call the Delta, because of its Figure Δ. These two Arms are again divided into others, which discharge themselves into the Mediterranean, whose Distance from the top of the Delta is about twenty Leagues. As to the Number of the Branches of the Nile, the Ancients have commonly reckon’d them seven. Septemplicis ostia Nili. Ptolemy makes them nine, others but four, others eleven, and others again fourteen. Lastly, others maintain, that there are no more than the Mouths of Damietta of Bozell, and of the two Canals, one of which passes by Alexandria, and the other is very small.

Several have thought that the Nile was the Gibon, one of the four Rivers mention’d by Moses, as flowing by the Terrestrial Paradise. But this Opinion is not to be supported, since the Euphrates and the Tigris, which are certainly two of the four Rivers, are too far from the Nile ever to have a common Source with it. Yet the Inhabitants of the Kingdom of Goiam call this River Gihon even to this Day. The Abissins call it Ab Euchi, or the Father of Rivers. The Negroes give it the Name of Tami. Homer, Diodorus Siculus, and Xenophon testify, that its ancient Name was Egyptus, and Homer¹ mentions it by no other Name. Diodorus² says, that it took the Name of Nilus only since the Time of a King of Egypt call’d by that Name. Pliny³ relates the Opinion of King Juba, who affirm’d that the Nile had its Source in Mauritania, that it appear’d and disappear’d in different Places, first hiding itself under Ground, and then shewing it self again; that in this Country it was call’d Nigir, and in Æthiopia it had the Name Astapus; that about Meroe it was divided into two Arms, of which the right was called Astusapes, and the left Astaborus; and lastly, that it obtained the Name of Nile only below Meroe.

The same Pliny⁴, Plutarch⁵, Dionysius the Geographer⁶, and some others testify, that it had also the Name of Siris. Dionysius says, that the Ethiopians call it Siris, and that after it comes to Siena, it has the Name of Nilus. ‘Tis probable, that the Name Siris comes from the Hebrew Word Sibor, which signifies Trouble; and that Nilus comes from the Hebrew, Nahal, which signifies River or Torrent. In Scripture the Nile has seldom any other Name but the River of Egypt. Joshua⁷ and Jeremiah⁸ express it by the Name Sihor, or the River of troubled Water. What hast thou to do in the Way of Egypt, to drink the Water of Sihor? says Jeremiah. The Greeks give it the Name of Melas, which also signifies black, or troubled. And indeed Travellers inform us, that the Water of this River is generally something muddy, but it is easily fined by throwing into it some Almonds or skinn’d Beans. Servius explaining that Verse of Virgil⁹, where speaking of the Nile he says:

observes that the Ancients called the Nile Melo: Nam antea Nilus Melo dicebatur. Melo in Hebrew signifies full, which may well agree with the Nile, because of its great Floods, which continue for about six Weeks, and during this Time overflow all Egypt in the greatest Heat of the Summer.

Diodorus Siculus¹⁰ observes, that the most ancient Name by which the Grecians have known the Nile, is Oceanus. It had also the Name of Aigle, afterwards of Ægyptus, and lastly of Nilus, from King Nileus. The Ægyptians paid divine Honour to the Nile, and called it Jupiter Nilus¹¹: Te propter nullos tua tellus postulat imbres, Arida nec fluvio supplicat herba Jovi.

Isai. xi. 15. Ez. xxix. 3, 4, &c.‘Tis perhaps for this, that in the Prophets the Lord sometimes threatens to smite the River of Egypt, to dry it up and kill its Fishes; as it were to shew the Egyptians the Vanity of their Worship, and the Impotence of their pretended Deity.

2 Chron. vii. 8. Isai. xxvii. 12.When the Scripture points out the Limits of the Land of Promise, it often puts the River or the Stream of Egypt for its more southerly Limits. From the entering in of Hamath, unto the River of Egypt. Or, from the Channel of the River (Euphrates) unto the Stream of Egypt. Some Interpreters¹² not being convinced that the Country of the Israelites could extend to the Nile, have imagin’d that the Stream of Egypt was a Stream that fell into the Mediterranean Sea, between Rhinocorura and Gaza, which is called in Scripture the River of the Wilderness.Amos vi. 14. But it is certain, that the Land of Promise was to reach as far as the Nile. Joshua shews it plainly, Josh. xiii. 3. and xv. 4. compared with 1 Chron. xiii. 5. And this is what we have endeavoured to prove in our Commentary upon Josh. xiii. 3. We find the Name Nilus but once in the Latin Version of the Scripture, Isai. xxiii. 3. In aquis multis semen Nili; in the Hebrew, semen Sihor.

The Eastern Writers speak of the Fountains and Course of the Nile in something a different Manner from what we have described above. The Reader perhaps may not be unwilling to find here what they say of it¹³. There are two Rivers in Africa that bear the Name of Nile, and which have the same Source, in sixteen Degrees of South Latitude in Ethiopia, or in the Country of the Abyssins. There at the Foot of the Mountain called the Mountain of the Moon, are found ten Fountains, five of which make a great Lake, and the other five another Lake. Each of these two Lakes produce three Rivers, which being united together, form a very great Lake, out of which issue the two Niles we spoke of before. The City of Thomi is situate on the Banks of this great Lake, just under the Equinoctial Line, where there is an Idol or Image called Mesnah. Soiouti has given us the Figure of this Source in his Book called Caukeb-al-Raoudhah.

The first of these two Rivers is called Nil -Mesr, that is to say; the Nile of Egypt, and the second Nil-Soudan, or the Nile of the Negroes. This runs westward, and discharges itself into the Dark Sea; for so the Arabians call the Atlantick or Western Ocean. This Nile of the Negroes is the River which at this Day we call the Niger, or the Senega. It empties itself over-against the Island which the Arabians call Ulil, and is not distant from it above a Day’s Sailing. All the Habitations of the Negroes are ranged along this great River.

As to the Nile of Egypt, the Arabian Geographer whom we follow here allows it but four Arms, which divide themselves in lower Egypt, and of which three disembogue themselves into the Sea of Syria, or the Mediterranean. The fourth is lost in a Lake of Salt Water, which the Greeks call Maris, otherwise Maria or Mareotis, distinct from the Lake Mæris, with which the Nile has no other Communication, but by an artificial Canal. The three Arms mentioned by this Geographer are evidently the Canopick, which is the nearest Alexandria; the Sebenetick, or Heracleotick, as yet but little known; and the Pelusiack, upon which is built the City Pelusium, or Damietta. The other Arms of the Nile which the ancient Greek and Latin Writers take notice of, are at present so obliterated, that it is almost impossible to distinguish them.

The Arabians and other Orientals often give the Nile the Name of a Sea, and the Surname or Epithet of Faidh, which is in common also to the Euphrates, because these two Rivers by their overflowing increase the Fertility of the Countries they pass through. They also give it the Name of Mobarek, as well because of the Fruitfulness it occasions to the Land, as that Fecundity it is thought to procure to the Women.

When the Nile overflows only to the perpendicular Height of twelve Cubits, a Famine necessarily follows in Egypt; nor is the Famine less certain, if it should exceed sixteen Cubits, as Pliny says¹⁴; so that the just Height of the Inundation is between twelve and sixteen Cubits. The Arabian Author of a Book, which gives an Account of the Nilometry, or Measures of the Nile, from the first Year of the Hegira, till the 875th, that is, from the Year of Christ 622 to 1497, says in like manner, that when the Depth of the Channel of the Nile is fourteen Fathom, an Harvest may be expected that will amount to one Year’s Provision; but if it increases to sixteen, the Corn will be sufficient for two Years; less than fourteen makes a Scarcity, and more than eighteen make a Famine.

The Nilometer is a Pillar erected in the middle of the Nile,upon which are mark’d the Degrees of the Ascent of the Water. There were several of these in different Places of the Nile. At this Day there is one in the Island, where the Nile is divided into two Arms, one of which passes to Cairo, and the other to Gizah. Mr. d’Herbelot takes notice of several others, built or repaired by several Kailifs. The Antients have preserved the Memory of the Nilometer in their Monuments. See Antiquity explain’d, Tom. III. p. 185. Heretofore they kept the Measure of the swelling of the Nile in the Temple of Serapis, like a sacred Relick; and the Emperor Constantine had it transported to the Church of Alexandria. The Pagans then affirmed, that the Nile would not overflow any more, and that Serapis being provoked, would be revenged of Egypt, and would cause a Sterility there. But however the Nile overflowed, and ascended to its usual Height the Years following.

The Nile overflows regularly every Year in the Month of August, in the higher and middle Egypt, where this overflowing is necessary, because it hardly ever rains there. But in the lower Egypt the Flood is less sensible and less necessary, because it frequently rains there, and the Country is sufficiently water’d. It is less sensible, because they make fewer Dikes there, or Receptacles for the Water, and the Inundation spreading it self equally through all the Country, does not rise higher than a Cubit through the whole Delta. Whereas in higher and middle Egypt, where it rains very seldom, they have made high Banks at a League distance, in the midst of which there are deep Canals, to receive the Waters of the River. They make a breach in these Dikes by the Authority of the Bacha, and when a Country is sufficiently water’d, the Dike is stopt up there, and open’d in another Place; and thus the whole Land of Egypt is successively water’d, as it were a Garden. The Egyptians have often Contentions among one another, Village against Village, to strive which shall have the first Distribution of the Waters; and when the Overflowing comes as they desire, they celebrate a great Festival all over the Country.

There have been great variety of Opinions, concerning the Cause of the Overflowing of the Nile. Some have imputed it to the Nitre with which this River is impregnated, and which Causes its Overflowings, by the vehement Fermentations, during the violent Heat of the Summer. This is the Notion of Mr. De la Chambre, who has wrote purposely on this Subject. But at present it is but little doubted, that it is occasion’d by the great Rains, which fall in Ethiopia in the Months of June, July, and August, which are the Winter-Months in that Country. And Father Jerome Lobo pretends, that no one can doubt of it, who has dwelt in Ethiopia as he has done. The Soil there is extremely dry and spungy, and soaks up the Rain for a long Time: But when it is glutted, it disgorges the Waters on all Sides; and these Waters added to those which fall from Heaven, supply the Nile with all that quantity of Water, which it distributes through all the Land of Egypt. These Waters carry along with them much Mudd and Sullidge, which very much contributes to fatten and enrich the Land.

Isai. xviii. 1. 2.When the Waters are withdrawn, the Culture of the Land is very easy. The Seed is cast upon the dry Mudd, and with very little Tillage, it produces in great Plenty. Herodotus says¹⁵, that the Egyptians turn their Hoggs into their Fields, and that these Animals treading the Seed into the Ground with their Feet, exempt the Husbandman from the Trouble of his Labour. By this may be explain’d what Isaiah says, concerning the Nile and Egypt. Woe to the Land shadowing with Wings, which is beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia. That sendeth Ambassadors by the Sea, even in Vessels of Bulrushes upon the Waters, saying; Go ye swift Messengers to a Nation scattered and pealed, to a People terrible from their Beginning hitherto, a Nation meted out and trodden down, whose Land the Rivers have spoiled. The Mudd which the Nile brings is Earth which it tears up from the Banks in its Course; which same Mudd covering the Landmarks and furrows of the Fields, obliges the Proprietors to have recourse to the Line and the Measuring-Rod, to measure out their Lands and Inheritances every Year anew. The Soil of Egypt being very light and sandy, it is impossible but that the Waters must take away a great quantity of it along with them.

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