10 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XI. 



to which they were indebted for so great a blesshig : 

 and a plentiful supply of water was supposed to 

 be the result of the favour of the Gods, as a defi- 

 ciency was attributed to their displeasure, punishing 

 the sins of an offending people. 



On the inundation depended all the hopes of 

 the peasant ; it affected the rev^enue of the go- 

 vernment, both by its influence on the scale of 

 taxation, and by the greater or less profits on the 

 exportation of grain and other produce; and it in- 

 volved the comfort of all classes. For in Upper 

 Egypt no rain fell to irrigate the land; it was a 

 country, as ancient * writers state, which did not 

 look for showers to advance its crops ; and if, as Pro- 

 clus t says, these fell in Lower Egypt, they were con- 

 fined to that district, and heavy rain was a prodigy 

 in the Thebaid. There is, however, evidence that 

 heavy rain did occasionally fall in the vicinity of 

 Thebes, from the appearance of the deep ravines 

 worn by water in the hills, about the tombs of the 

 Kings, though probably, as now, after intervals of 

 fifteen or twenty years ; and it may be said from 

 modern experience, that slight showers fall there 

 about five or six times a year, in Lower Egypt 

 much more frequently, and at Alexandria almost 

 as often as in the South of Europe. 



The result of a favourable inundation was not 

 confined to tangible benefits ; it had the greatest 

 effect on the mind of every Egyptian by long anti- 

 cipation ; the happiness arising from it, as the regrets 



* Mela, i. c. 9. calls Egypt " terra expers imbrium." 

 f Proclus in Tim. lib. i. 



