two of these mummies, after taking off the bandage, I found the septum medium * of the nose to have been taken away in them both; and that the skulls were somewhat thicker than ordinary t. One of these skulls is preserved among my other curiosities. There were few or none of the muscular parts preserved, except upon, the thighs; which, notwithstanding, crumbled to powder upon touching them. The like happened to that part of the bandage which more immediately enveloped the body; though fifty yards and upwards of the exterior part of it was, upon unfolding it, as strong in appearance, as if it had been just taken from the loom. Yet even this, by being exposed to the air, was, in a few days, easily rent to pieces. I found neither money in the mouths, nor idols in the breasts of these mummies, as I might have expected from the common reports that have been related of them. SEC tæda dum coquitur, cedrinus vocatur; cui tanta vis est, ut in Ægypto corpora hominum defunctorum eo perfusa servantur. Colum. de re Rustica, 1. vi. c. 32. * The septum medium of the nose is taken away, as well for the easier extraction of the brain, as for the injection of the pitch-like substance into it. Πρωτα μεν σκολίω σιδήρω δια των μυξ ωτέρων εξάγεσι τον εγκέφαλον, τα μεν αυτε έτω εξάγοντες, τα દ Фадмина xoris. Herod. Eut. $86. + Herodotus makes the Egyptians to be remarkable for the thickness of their skulls. Αι δε των Αιγυπτίων (κεφαλαι) έτω δη τέ coxugai, pogig av nida maioas diapiržas. Herod. Thal. § 12. SECTION III. Of the Nile, and the Soil of Egypt. OF such things as relate to the natural history of Egypt, the Nile, without doubt, is the most worthy of our notice, and to which we shall therefore give the first place. Now it has been already observed, that it seldom rains in the inland parts of Egypt; but that upon the coast, from Alexandria, all along to Dami-ata and Tineh, they have their former and latter rains *, as in Barbary and the Holy Land. The periodical augmentation therefore of the Nile must be owing to such rivers and torrents as discharge themselves into it, in the regions to the southward, particularly in Ethiopia; in as much as the Nile has there its sources, where the sun also, when it draws near the northern tropic, brings on their winter, and with it the rainy reason. The Portuguese missionaries † claim the honour of this discovery; See vol. i. p. 249, &c. and vol. ii. p. 137. and the journal of the weather amongst the Collectanea, Num. xi. To the immense labours of the Portuguese, mankind is indebted for the knowledge of the real cause of the inundations of the Nile, so great and regular. Their observations inform us, that Abyssinia, where the Nile rises, and waters vast tracts of land, is full of mountains, and in its natural situation much higher than Egypt; that all the winter, from June to September, no day is without rain; that the Nile receives in its course all the rivers, brooks and torrents, which fall from those mountains. These necessarily swell it above the banks, and fill the plains of Egypt discovery; though, among others, we find some of the Grecian as well as Arabian philosophers *, who have embraced the same opinion. Among the latter, Abdollaliph, in his history of Egypt, acquaints us, that an. Hej. 596, when the Nile rosé no higher than twelve cubits and eleven digits, (which occasioned a great famine in Egypt), there came an ambassador from Ethiopia, who brought letters signifying the death of their metropolitan, and requesting a successor; wherein it was mentioned that they had had but little rain in Ethiopia, and therefore the Egyptians were to expect a low Nile. It has been commonly imagined, that the Etesian or northern winds, which blow over the Mediterranean Sea, by carrying along with them great quantities of vapour, as far as these sources of the Nile, were the cause of its inundation. But these winds are not found by experience to blow constantly from the beginning to the end of the inundation, as Herodotus (Eut. p. 109.) has well observed, but are frequently interrupted with Egypt with the inundations. This comes regularly about the month of July, or three weeks after the beginning of the rainy season in Ethiopia. Vid. Monthly Library for March 1735. P. Lobo's Hist. of Abyssinia. c. 1. * Diod. Sic. 1. i. p. 26, 27. Vid. Plut. de placit. Philos. 1. iv. Incrementum Nili fit e pluviis, qui in illa regione (sc. Abyssinia) decidunt. Ebn Sina apud Abulf. Geogr. ex traduct. v. cl. J. Gagnier. Incrementum Nili oritur ex imbribus copiosis; quod quidem dignoscitur ex accessu et recessu, seu ortu et occasu siderum, et pluviarum abundantia, nubiumque consistentia. Al Khodai apud Kalkasend. de incremento Nili, ex traduct. ut supra. with winds from other quarters. And moreover, if these winds blow not directly from the north, but incline, as they generally do, more or less to the E. or W. they will diverge from the mountains of Ethiopia, where their influence is required, and direct their courses, together with the clouds and vapours that accompany them, towards the regions of Libya or Arabia. Neither do these Etesian winds always bring along with them such successions of clouds and vapours as have been related by some authors. For, in the year 1721, during the whole course of the inundation, which was as high and copious as usual, I observed very little, or nothing at all of this cloudy disposition of the atmosphere, the air being for the most part as clear and serene as at other times. And besides, if these Etesian winds were the cause of the overflow, then, as often as they continued for any considerable time, they would be succeeded by inundations. Great floods would consequently happen both in the spring and in the winter seasons, when the winds blow for a month together, in various directions, from the N. E. to the N. W. But, as these winds are not attended with any extraordinary swellings of the river at these seasons; so they may well be suspected not to contribute at all to the periodical rising in the summer. It is more probable, that such clouds and vapours as are brought along with them at these no less than at other times from the Mediterranean, may be dissipated, dried up, or converted into rain, a long long time before they arrive at the fountains of the Nile. Yet how wonderful soever this large conflux of water may have been accounted in all ages, the great quantity of mud that from time to time has been brought down along with it, will appear to be no less strange and surprising. Surely the soil of Ethiopia, (provided the Nile reaches no further) must be of an extraordinary depth, in having not only bestowed upon Egypt so many thousand annual stratą, but in having laid the foundation likewise of future additions to it in the sea, to the distance of twenty leagues; so far at least, by sounding and examining the bottom of it with a plummet, the mud is found to extend. The soil or mud that is thus conveyed, buoyed up with the stream, is of an exceedingly light nature, and feels to the touch like what we commonly call an impalpable powder. Plutarch* tells us, that the colour of it is black; such a black, says he, as is that of the eye; though, in another placet, he makes every thing black where water is concerned. The appellations also of MEAAZ and it, are supposed to have been given to it, either upon the same account, or from the muddiness VOL. II. * Plut. de Iside, p. 364. 2 E + Plut. ut supra. a sc. niger fuit. So Jer. ii. 18. What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink or the black or muddy waters? Nilus, Græcis sλas, niger, ob turbidas the waters of Sihor, Sichor, fluvius Ægypti limo aquas: Latinis Schind. Lex. || Advenit Ægypto lutum nigrum viscosum, cui inest multum pinguedinis |