172 PHYSICAL SCIENCE BK. iv 



larger animals ; but the lower part is soft and 

 tender. The dolphins dived in the fight and 

 wounded the belly of the crocodiles with the pro 

 jecting spikes they carry on their back ; then driv 

 ing home the stroke, they fairly cut up the enemy. 



14 When a number of the crocodiles had been opened 

 out in this fashion, the remainder, to adopt military 

 language, wheeled their line and retreated. The 

 battle was not to the strong, the fleeing creature 

 successfully resisted the daring, the most daring fled 

 before the timid ! Nor is it by any peculiar virtue 

 of stock or blood that the islanders from Tentyra 

 beat the crocodiles, but merely through pluck and 

 contempt of them. They take the offensive against 

 them, and as the crocodiles try to escape they lasso 

 them and drag them ashore. At the same time 

 many of the hunters lose their lives through lack of 

 nerve in the chase. 



Theophrastus assures us that the Nile has at 



15 times brought down sea water. It is a well- 

 established fact that for two successive years, the 

 tenth and eleventh of the reign of Cleopatra, 

 there was no rise in the river. People say that 

 this was an intimation of the impending fall of 

 its two rulers. For as a matter of fact, the rule 

 of Antony and Cleopatra did fall. At an earlier 

 period the Nile did not rise for nine whole years, 

 according to the statement of Callimachus. 



16 But I must now go on to inquire into the ex 

 planations of the occurrence of the rise of the Nile 

 in summer ; and I will begin with the most ancient 

 of them. Anaxagoras asserts that the snow melting 

 on the peaks of Ethiopia is constantly running 

 down to the Nile. All antiquity shared the same 

 view, which is recorded by Aeschylus, Sophocles, 



