THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 701
1 will not perplex the reader more with the different meafnres of thefe peeks, between the Hafamean and great peek of Kalkafendas, which is 18 inches, and the black peek, a model of which Dr Bernard* has given us from an Arabic MS. at Oxford, the difference is 10 inches. The firft being 18 inches equal to the Samian peek, the other 284- inches, and from this difference we may judge, joined to the un- certainties of the height and divifions of the Mikeas, how impoffible it is for us to determine the increafe of 12 inches in a hundred years..
As the generality of writers have fixed upon the Con- ftantinople, or Stambouline p =ek, for the meafure of the Mi- keas, in which choice they have erred, we will next feek what is the meafure of the Stambouline peek, and whether they have in this article been better informed.
M. de Maillet, French conful at Cairo, fays, that this peek is equal to 2 French feet, or very nearly 26 inches of our meafure : and, to add to this another miftake, he ftates, that by this peek the Mikeas is meafured ; and, for the completing of the confufion, he adds, that the Nile muft rife 48 French feet before it covers all their lands. What he means by all their lands is to very little purpofe to inquire, for he would probably have been drowned in his clofet in which he made thefe computations, long before he had feen the Nile at that height, or near it.
Without, then, wandering longer in this extraordinary confufion, which I have only ftated to fhew that a traveller
4 may
- Defcript. de l'Egypte, p. 60.
