686 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER <~ 
account of thefe tranfactions, and we {hall be lefs inclined 
to rely upon them, when I fhall fhew, that the Nilometer 
could be of no ufe in folving this queftion at all, either in 
Herodotus’s days, or any time fince, without a previous - 
knowledge of feveral other circumftances never yet taken 
into the calculation, and of which Herodotus muft have- 
been ignorant. | tho att | 
WEG ee ahd cea 
Bur let us grant that the Nile in Meris’s time rofe only 
8 cubits, and in the days of Herodotus to 16, let us fee if) 
at certain periods afterwards, it kept to any thing like that. 
proportion. Above 400 years after Herodotus, ‘Strabo tra-~ 
velled in Egypt; he went through the whole country from 
Alexandria to. beyond Syene and _ the firft-cataract ; and as he 
is an hiftorian whofe character is eftablifhed, both for ve- 
racity and fagacity, we may receive what he fays as un- 
exceptionable evidence, efpecially as he travelled in fuch 
company as it is not probable the priefts could have refufed 
him any thing. Now Strabo t fays, that, in his days, 8 cu- 
bits were a minimum, or the Wafaa Ullah of the Nile’s increafe ; 
therefore, from Meris’s time to Strabo there is not an inch 
difference in the minimum, and this includes the {pace of 1400 
years. ch 
Ir may be faid, indeed, that the paflage in Strabof imports, 
that, in the time of Petronius, by a particular care of the 
banks and califhes, the Nile at 8 péeks (or cubits) enabled 
the Egyptians to pay their meery without ‘hardfhip; but’ 
this was by particular induftry, more than what had been 
see in 
~ 
* Strabo, lib. xiii. p. 945. + Strabo, lib. xvii. p. x5. 
