232 bernier’s voyage to the east indies.

Moreover, I have carefully enquired of fome mailers of boats, that had gone up asfar as the ends of the plains of Egypt , that is, to the very rocks and cataracts ; who-afl'ured me, that when the Nile did overflow in the plains of Egypt , where that pre-tended fermenting nitrous earth is, ’tis at the fame time much fwelled between tholemountains of the cataracts, where, in all appearance, there is no fuch nitrous earth.

Befxdes, I have made diligent inquiry of thofe negroes of Sonnars, that come toferve at Cairo, and whofe country, being tributary to the King of Ethiopia as I havefaid, lies upon the Nile between the mountains above Egypt ; and they have affuredme, that at the fame time when the Nile is high and overflowing in Egypt , ’tis fo alfowith them by reafon of the rains then falling in their mountains, and higher up in thecountry of Idabeche or Ethiopia .

The obfervations I have made in the Indies concerning the regular rains that fell atthe fame time when the Nile fwells in Egypt , are alfo very confiderable in this matter,and may make you imagine, that the Indus, Ganges , and all the other rivers of thofeparts are fo many Niles, and the land, that is near their fall into the fea, fo manyEgypts. This was my thought of it in Bengal , and what follows are the very words Ifet down about it.

That great number of ifles which are found in the gulf of Bengala at the mouth ofthe river Ganges , and which by lapfe of time are joined to one another, and at lengthwith the continent, put me in mind of the mouths of the Nile , where I have obfervedalmoft the fame thing ; fo that as ’tis faid, after Ariftotle, that Egypt is the workman-fliip of the Nile, fo it may be faid, that Bengal is the work of the Ganges , only withthis difference, that as the Ganges is incomparably bigger than the Nile , fo he carriethwith him towards the fea a far greater quantity of earth ; and fo forms greater andmore iflands than the Nile; and that the iflands of the Nile are deftitute of trees,whereas thofe of Ganges are all covered with them, becaufe of thofe four months ofconflant and plentiful rains that fall in the heart of the fummer, and render it needlefsto cut channels in Bengal, to water and enrich the earth, as they do in Egypt . It isjuft fo with Ganges and the other rivers of Indoftan, as with the Nile ; this and thofeincreafe in fummer by the means of rain, which ordinarily fall at that time ; exceptthat then, and almoft never, there are no rains in Egypt ; but a little towards the fea,and that it rains not about the fource of the Nile ; whereas in the Indies it rains inall the countries, through which any rivers pafs ; except the kingdom of Scymdi to-wards the Perfian gulf, where is the mouth of the river Indus ; it happening that infome years it doth not rain there at all, though for all that the Indus fwells there, andthe fields are watered by the means of cut channels, juft as in Egypt .

For the reft, concerning the defire of M. Thevenot, to impart to you my adven-tures of the Red Sea , of Suez, of Tor, of mount Sinai, of Gidda (that pretended holyland of Mahomet, half a day’s journey diftant from Mecca ), as alfo of the ifle of Ca-marane and Louhaya, and of whatever I could learn at Moka of the kingdom of Ethio-pia , and of the molt commodious way to enter into it; thefe particulars, I fay, I lhallin time draw fair out of my manufcripts if God permit.