THE NILE 167 



rise of the Danube begins in summer, it is at a 

 period when the Nile still remains within its 

 ordinary limits : the heat is then only beginning, 

 and the stronger sun toward the latter part of 

 spring is softening the snows, but it has to melt 

 them before the Nile begins to rise. During the 

 remainder of the summer the Danube actually falls 

 until it reaches its winter size, from which in due 

 course it begins its rise again. 1 



II 



BUT the increase of the Nile begins in the middle of i 

 the hot season, before the rise of the dog-star, and 

 continues till after the equinox. Nature has raised 

 up this noble river before the eyes of the world, 

 and has so ordered its inundation of the land of 

 Egypt that it should occur at the very time at which 

 the ground is most parched with heat. The earth 

 thus drinks the more deeply, and imbibes sufficient 

 to counteract the drought of the whole year. In 

 the part of Egypt that stretches round Ethiopia, 

 you must bear in mind, there is either no rain at all 

 or it occurs only at long intervals, and is insufficient 

 to give much relief to a land which ordinarily knows 

 nothing of water from the clouds. It is in the 2 

 Nile, as you are aware, that Egypt reposes all its 

 hopes. According to the abundance or scantiness 

 of its overflow is the leanness or the fatness of its 

 season. None of its farmers regards the sky, are 

 the words of your own poem. And why should 

 I not crack a joke with my dear poet friend, and 



1 The meaning of the last clause is taken by some to be : and even falls 

 below it a somewhat pointless remark. 



