16 SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



Then ocean, haply, by th' undevious breeze 

 Blown up the channel, 'heaves with every wave 

 Heaps of high sand, and dams its wonted course ; 

 Whence narrower, too, its exit to the main, 

 And with less force the tardv stream descends. 



V 



Or, towards its fountain, ampler ruins, perchance, 

 Fall, as th' ETESIAN fans, now wide.unfurl'd, 

 Ply the big clouds perpetual from the north 

 Full o'er the red equator ; where condens'd 

 Pond'rous and low, against the hills they strike, 

 And shed their treasures o'er the rising flood. 

 Or, from the ETHiop-mountains, the bright sun 

 Now full-matur'd, with deep-dissolving ray 

 May melt th' agglomerate snows, and down the plains' 

 Drive them, augmenting hence, th' incipient stream. 



GOOD. 



These ingenious conjectures of llie cause of the periodical exun- 

 dations of the Nile, have been in a considerable degree verified by 

 modern observations: but the poet is mistaken in conceiving that the 

 Nile is the only river that periodically overflows its banks : we have 

 already noticed a similar phenomenon in the Ganges ; and it is the 

 same with all the rivers which have either their rise or course . 

 within the tropics ; they annually break their bounds, and cover 

 the lands for many miles before they reach the sea. They likewise 

 leave a prolific mud, which, like that of the Nile, fertilizes the 

 and ; and, though the waters of these rivers are also very thick 

 yet when they have stood for some time, they are neither unpalat- 

 able nor unwholesome. The north winds, moreover, which begin 

 to blow about the latter end of May, drive in the waters from the 

 sea, and keep back that of the river, in such a manner as to con- 

 siderably assist the swell. 



The Egyptians, and especially the Cophts, are persuaded that the 

 Nile always begins to. rise on the same day of the year; and, in- 

 deed, it generally commences on the 18th or Ipth of June. From 

 accounts of its rise for three years, Dr. Pococke observes, that 

 he found it ascend the first five days from five to ten inches ; 

 and it thus continued rising till it had attained the height of six 



