THE SOURCE OF THE NILE, 407 
Tue rains, that ceafe in Abyflinia about the 8th of Sep- 
tember, leave generally a fickly feafon in the low country; 
but other rains begin towards the end of October, in the 
laft days of the Ethiopic month Tekemt, which continue 
moderately about three weeks, and end the 8th of Novem. 
ber, or the r2th of the Ethiopic month Hedar. All ficknefs 
and epidemical difeafes then difappear, and the 8th of that 
month is the feaft of St Michael, the day the king marches, 
and his army begins their campaign ; but the effect of thefe 
fecond rains feldom make any, or a very fhort appearance 
in Egypt, all the canals being open. But thefe are the rains. 
upon which depend their latter crops, and for which the 
Agows, at the fource of the Nile, pray to the river, or to the 
genius refiding in the river. We had plentiful fhowers both 
in going and coming to that province, efpecially in our 
journey out. Whenever thefe rains prove exceffive, as in. 
fome particular years it feems they do, though but very 
rarely, the land-floods, and thofe from the marthes, falling 
upon the ground, already much hardened and broken into 
chafms, by two months intenfe heat of the fun, run vio- 
lently into the Nile without finking into the earth. The 
confequence is this temporary rifing of the Nile in Decem- 
ber, which is as unconnected with the good and bad crops 
of Egypt, as it is on thofe of Paleftine or Syria. 
THE quantity of rain that falls in Ethiopia varies great- 
ly from year to year, as do the months in which it falls. 
The quantity that fell, during 1770, in Gondar, between the 
vernal equinox and the 8th of September, through a funnel 
of one foot Englifh in diameter, was 35.555 inches ; and, in 
AU2 177 \4 
