706 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
at laft the rivers, marfhes, and lakes, being refrefhed by 
fhowers, (the rain becoming conftant) and paffing through 
the kingdom of Sennaar, the foil of which is a red bole; 
This mixture, and the moving fands of the deferts, fall in- 
_to the current, and precipitate all the vifcous and putrid — 
fubftances, which cohere and float in the river; and thence 
(as Pococke has well obferved) the fign of the Nile being 
wholefome, is not when it is clear and green, but when 
-iningled with frefh water, and after precipitation it be- 
comes red and turbid, and ftains the water of the Mediter- 
ranean. 
Tue mext remark of Mr Pococke* is equally true. It 
has been obferved, fays he, that after the rainy feafon is 
over, the Nile fallen, and the whole country drained from 
inundation, it has begun again to rife; and he gives an 
inftance of that in December 1737, when it had a fudden in- 
creafe, which alarmed all Egypt, where the received opinion 
was that it prefaged calamities. This alfo is faid to have 
happened in the time of Cleopatra, when their government 
was fubverted, their ancient race of kings extinguifhed 
in the perfon of that prin¢gefs, and Egypt became a province 
to the Romans. . 
Tue reader will not expedt, in thefe enlightened times, 
that I fhould ufe arguments to convince him, that this ri- 
fing of the Nile had nothing to do with the extinction of — 
the race of the Ptolemies, though popular preachers and 
Frophets have always made ufe of thefe fortuitous events 
to confirm the vulgar in their prejudices. 
THE 
* Pococke, vol. i, p. 203. 
