7i(5 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



Much has been wrote about a miraculous drop, or dew, 

 called Gotta, or Nucla, which falls in Egypt precifely on 

 St John's day, and is believed to be the peculiar gift of 

 that faint; it flops the plague, caufes dough to leaven, 

 or ferment, and announces a fpeedy and plentiful inunda- 

 tion. 



I hope my reader will not expecT: that I mould enter into 

 the difcuflion of the part St John is thought to have in this 

 event, my bufmefs is only with natural caufes. 



Memphis and Alexandria, and all the ancient cities of Lo- 

 wer Egypt, ftand upon cifterns, into which the Nile, upon its 

 overflowing, was admitted, and there remained till it had 

 depofited all its fediment, and became fit for drinking. Thefe 

 cifterns are now full of filth; though in difrepair, the water, . 

 when the Nile is high infinuates itfelf into them through 

 the broken conduits. 



In February and March the fun is on its approach to the 

 zenith of one extremity of Egypt, and of courfe has a very 

 confiderable influence upon the other. The Nile being now 

 fallen low, the water in the cifterns putrifies, and the river 

 itfelf has loft all its volatile and finer parts by the continued 

 aclion of a vertical fun ; fo that, inftcad of being fu-bject to 

 evaporation, it becomes daily more and more inclined to 

 putrefaction. About St John's day * it receives a plentiful 

 mixture of the frefh and fallen rain from Ethiopia, which 

 dilutes and refreshes the almoft corrupted river, and the fun 



near 



* la Abyffima, the 24th June. 



