'Collections of travels through Turky into Persia, and the East Indies. Giving an account of the present state of those countries, as also a full relation of the five years wars, between Aureng-Zebe and his brothers in their father's life time, about the succession. And a voyage made by the Great Mogul (Aureng-Zebe) with his Army from Dehli to Lahor, from Lahor to Bember, and from thence to the Kingdom of Kachemire, by the Mogols, call'd, the Paradise of the Indies. Together with a relation of the Kingdom of Japan and Tunkin, and of their particular manners and trade. To which is added a new description of the Grand Seignior's Seraglio, and also of all the Kingdoms that encompass the Euxine and Caspian Seas, being the travels of Monsieur TavernierBernier, and other great men.' [‎144] (815/1024)

144 A Voyage to Kaehemire,
Egypt. They faid further, that they knew very well, it was the Rain of JEtbiopU
which fwelled the Nile, overflowed and fertdixed the ground of it by the flime
it carried upon it ^ and that it was even therefore, that the Kings of Ethiopia pretend
ed a Tribute to be due to them out of Egypt, and that, when the Mahumetans made
themfelves Matters of it, ill treating theChriftians of the Country, they had a mind to
turn the Courfe of the Nile another way, viz. into the Red-Sea, thereby to mine
Egypt and to render it infertile ; but that this deiign mifcarri'ed by reafon of the great
difficulties in effeddng the thing.
All thefe particulars, which I had already learned, when I patted over to Mopa, from
a dozen Merchants, that come there every year in the name of the King of Ethiopia to
attend the Indian trading Veffels, are coniiderable to make us judg, that theM/e increa-
feth not but by the Rains which fall without Egypt towards the Source of that River:
But the particular Obfervations, I have made upon two Increafes of this River, make
them yet more'fo*, for, in reference to all thofe Stories, that are made of it, as, %<n
5 tis on a determin’d day it begins toincreafe that on the ttrtt day of itsincreafe , there
falls a certain Dew, which maketh the Plague ceafe, fo.thatno body dieth anymore
of it after that hath once fallen j and that there are peculiar and hidden caufes of the
overflowing of the Nile: In reference, I fay, to thefe flories, I have found during the
faid two Inundations, that they are but tales fancied and amplified by the people df
Egypt, naturally inclin’d to fuperttition, and amazed to fee a River fwell in fummer in
a Country where it rains not: And I have found, that’tis no otherwife with the Nik
than ’tis with other Rivers, that fwell and overflow by plentiful Rains, without any
fuch fermentations of the nitrous foyl of Egypt, which fome havefnggetted as the caufe
thereof.
I have feen it fwelled above a foot, and very turbid, near a whole rhonth before that
pretended determined day of its Increafe. I have obferved during its increafe, and
before the Channels were open’d, that when it had grown for fome days a footer two,
it afterwards decreafed little by little, and then began to increafd a new, and fo went
on to increafe and decreafe without any other meafure but that of the Rains that fall
nigh the Source, and, as is often feen in our River Loire, according to the fall of
more or lefs Rain in the Mountains whence it flows, and the days or half days of fair
weather there.
In my return from Jerufalem, going up from Damietta to Cairo, I chanced to be
upon the Nile abbut a month before the pretended day of the Derp-fall, and in the morning
we were all wet of the Dew fallen in the night.
I have been in Kofette at fupper with Monjteur de Bermon, Vice-Conful of our Nation, ' <
eight or ten days after this day of the Vetv-iaU, when three perfons were ttruck with the
Plague, of whom their died two within eight days, and the third, which was M. de
Bermon himfelf, had perhaps not efcaped, if I had not pierc’d his Plague-fore j which
prefently infedfed my felf like others j fo that, if l had not forthwith taken fome Butter
of Antimony, I might have been as wella& they, an Example of the little certainty there
is in the Plague after the Dew, but this Emetic Medicine in the beginning of the Evil
i wonders, and I kept but three or four days wkhin doors > during which, I remem*
er, my Bedouin that ferv d me made no fcruple fo drink, in my prefenee, the remain
der of my broth, to encourage me, and from his principle of Predettination, to laugh
at the fear we have of the Plague. Yet Experience (hews, that after the day of the
Dew the Plague is commonly not fo dangerous as before, but the Dew contributes
nothing to that j tis only in my opinion, that then there is a greater opening of the
th^b^d'*^*^ ^ VCS a VCnt *° ^ ie ma hgn and pettiferous fpirits, that were fhutup in
Moreover, I have carefully enquired of fome Matters of Boats, that had gone up as
far as the end of the Plains of Egypt, that is, to the very Rocks and Cataradlsj who
attured me, that when the M/e did overflow in the Plains of Egypt, where that pre
tended fermenting Nitrous Earth is, ’tis at the fame time much fwelled between thofe
fountains of the Cataracts, where, in all appearance there is no fuch Nitrous Earth*
Befides, I have made diligent enquiry of thofe Negro's of Sonnars, that come to ferve
, _ at Cam, and whofe Country, being tributary to the King of Ethiopia, as 1 havefaki,
iyes upon the Nile between the Mountains above Egypt j and they have attured me, that
at the fame time when the Nile is high and overflowing in Egypt, ’tis fo alfo with them