664 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
that.it contributed to the health of the people and the fer- tility of the land. It puts me in mind of an aftertion of M. de Maillet, almoft as abfurd as de la Chambre's treatife, that the Nile, which in Egypt is the only fountain of plea- fure, of health, and plenty, has a mixture of one tenth of rnud during the time of the inundation: pleafant and wholefome flream, truly, to which Fleetditch would be Hip- pocrene.
But whatever were the conjectures of the dreamers of antiquity, modern travellers and philofophers, defcribing without fyftem or prejudice what their eyes faw have found that the inundation of Egypt has been efTecfted by natural means, perfectly confonant with the ordinary rules of Providence, and the laws given for the government of the reft of the univerfe. They have found that the plenti- ful fall of the tropical rains produced every year at the fame time, by the action of a violent fun, has been uniform- ly, without miracle, the caufe of Egypt being regularly over- flowed.
The fun being nearly ftationary for fome days in the tropic of Capricorn, the air there becomes fo much rarified, that the heavier winds, charged with watery particles, rum in upon it from the Atlantic on the weft, and from the In- dian Ocean on the eaft. The fouth wind, moreover, loaded with heavy vapour, condenfed in that high ridge of moun- tains not far fouth of the Line, which forms a fpine to the peninfula of Africa, and, running northward with the o- ther two, furnifh wherewithal to reftore the equilibrium.
The
