7*0 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



Dr Shaw, indeed % fays, that there feems to be a defcent 

 from the banks to the foot 6f the mountains, but this he 

 confiders as an optic fallacy; I with he had told us upon 

 what principle of optics ; but if it was really fo, how comes 

 it that the banks are every year dry, when the foot of the 

 mountains is at fame time under inundation ; or, in other 

 words, what is the reafon of that undifputed fact, that the 

 foot of the mountains is laid under water in the begin- 

 ning of the rivers riling, while the ground which they cul- 

 tivate by labour near the banks, cannot fupply itfelf from 

 the river by machines, till near the height of the inunda- 

 tion ? thefe facts will not be contravened by any traveller, 

 who has ever been in Upper Egypt ; but if this had been ad- 

 mitted as truth inftead of an optic fallacy, this queftion 

 would have immediately followed. If the land of Egypt 

 at the foot of the mountains, is the loweft, the firft over- 

 flowed, and the longeff. covered with water, and often the 

 only part overflowed at all, whence can it arife that it is 

 not upon a level with the banks of the river if it is true 

 that the land of Egypt receives additional height every 

 year by the mud from Abyflinia depoflted by the flream ? 

 and this queftion would not have been fo eafily anfwer- 

 ed. 



The Nile for thefe thirty years has but once fo failed as 

 to occafion dearth, but never in that period fo as to produce 

 famine in Egypt. The redundance of the water fweeping 

 every thing before it, has thrice been the caufe, not of 

 dearth, but of famine and emigration ; but careleflhefs, I 

 4 believe, 



* Shaw's Travels, [t£t. 4. p. 401. 



