¶1] VI. The places for figures which I said in my prologue that I would leave vacant, I, having found the figures, have filled up according to Plinius Secundus. But whoever finds a better copy, let him not be slow, please, to correct them.
¶2] Plinius Secundus makes these statements about the Nile in his fifth book: Egypt is situated next to Africa, extending inwards towards the south to where Ethiopia stretches out behind it. The Nile, dividing into a right-hand and left-hand channel, embraces and forms the bounds of its more low-lying part, the Canopic mouth lying towards Africa, the Pelusiac towards Asia, at an interval of two hundred and seventy miles. Hence some authors have regarded Egypt as an island, this division of the Nile giving the country the shape of a triangle; and therefore many people have called Egypt Delta by the name of the Greek letter.
¶3] The distance from the point where the unified river first divides into its side-channels down to the Canopic mouth is one hundred and sixty-six miles, and to the Pelusiac one hundred and sixty-six miles. The uplands bordering on Ethiopia are called the Thebaid.
¶4] The Nile begins to rise from the time of the new moon which follows the summer solstice. The rise is gradual and moderate while the sun is moving through the Crab, and strongest as it passes through the Lion, and while in the Virgin it subsides at the same rate as that at which it rose. It withdraws, however, entirely within its banks, as Herodotus states, on the hundredth day, when the sun is in the Scales.
¶5] It is regarded as a religious offence for kings or for those in authority to sail on the Nile while it is rising. The rising is observed by means of wells which have measuring-marks. The regular rise is one of sixteen cubits. A less amount of water does not irrigate the whole area, while a larger amount recedes more slowly and so delays operations; the latter takes up the time for sowing because the soil remains wet, the former does not allow sufficient time since the soil is parched; both of these things are carefully reckoned by the province. With a rise of twelve
¶6] Iulius Solinus states the following about the Nile in his Collectanea: Egypt extends inwards towards the south to where Ethiopia touches it at the rear. Its lower part is washed by the Nile, which divides at the place called the Delta and surrounds the area between its channels as though it were an island, and is said to flow down from a nearly unknown source, as I shall relate.
¶7] It rises in a mountain in lower Mauretania, near the ocean. This is asserted by Carthaginian sources, this, we are told, was stated by King Iuba. At its beginning then it forms a lake, which they call the Lake of the Nile. They presume that it is already the Nile for the reason that this lake produces herbs, fish, and animals just as we see in the Nile.
¶8] When Mauretania, where the river rises, is irrigated by deeper snow or more copious rains, this causes increased flooding in Egypt. But the river as it flows forth from this lake is absorbed by the sands and vanishes in secret channels.
¶9] Then bursting forth from the earth in greater volume in (Mauretania) Caesariensis it displays the same characteristics as we noted at its source, then once more goes underground and does not appear again until it reaches Ethiopia after a lengthy journey, where it appears aboveground and forms the Black river, which I have mentioned above as the frontier of Africa. The tribes there call it the Astapus, which means water flowing forth out of darkness.
¶10] It encircles many large islands, of which most are so scattered and huge in size that the current scarcely passes them in five days although it flows rapidly there. The best-known of these is Meroe, about which the river divides, the right-hand bed being called the Astisapes, the left-hand the Astabores. Then once more it passes over great distances and when first its waters are ruffled by opposing rocks, its massed volume is reared so high amid the hindering crags that it is thought
¶11] This is the name which the Egyptians give to its barriers. Leaving this further name behind it, the name Gyris (Whirlpool), it soon flows unhindered. It flows into the sea by seven mouths, and its northwardflowing volume is received by the Egyptian sea.
¶12] Although we read in no authority that a branch of the Nile flows into the Red Sea, yet brother Fidelis asserted this and related it, in my presence, to my teacher Suibne (to whom, under God, I owe any progress that I may have made), saying that, for purposes of worship, in the city of Jerusalem, both clerics and laymen .. . sailed in a . . . as far as the Nile.
¶13] Then, after a long sail on the Nile, they saw, like mountains, and admired from a distance, the seven barns built by holy Joseph, according to the number of the years of abundance, four in one place, and three in another.
¶14] From here they went to the three barns to admire them and found beside them a lion and eight people, men and women, lying dead. The lion had killed them in his strength, and they had killed him with spears and swords; both places in which the seven barns are built are desert.
¶15] After this he carefully examined the three barns and again was filled with amazement that they were entirely made of stone from their very base to the summit. The barns were square at the base, but rounded at the top; at the very apex they have, as it were, a slender point.
¶16] Then the brother whom I have mentioned measured one side of one barn, from corner to corner, as four hundred feet.
¶17] Next, embarking on their boats, they sailed along the Nile as far as the entrance of the Red Sea. From this harbour it is a small distance eastwards to the passage of Moses across the Red Sea. He who measured the side of the barn wished to go as far as the harbour where Moses with his people entered the sea, not only to enter the harbour, but in order to see in it the tracks of the chariots and the ruts of Pharaoh's wheels; but the sailors would not oblige. The width of the sea at that place seemed to him to be about six miles.
¶18] From thence they made a fast voyage in the western part of the Red Sea, that is, in the gulf which extends far towards the north. That is the sea which prevented the people of Israel, when murmuring in the desert, from being able to return to the land of Egypt.
¶19] It is not surprising that one river should be divided into various branches, whose width, particularly in Egypt, is compared to a great sea, as Priscian in his thirteenth book has it, making the comparison: As though, when looking at the sea, we were to say that the Nile is like that.
¶20] Today, in the Cosmography which was made in the consulate of Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius, I have found a branch of the Nile described as flowing into the Red Sea beside the town Oliva and the camp of Moses.
¶21] He who would know the length of the Nile must first know how many miles are reckoned from the western part of Africa as far as the eastern side of Egypt, and from there again as far as the mouth by which its branch flows into the Red Sea near the camp of Moses and the town called Oliva: or, if he wishes a greater length, as far as the Pelusiac mouth, by which a second branch enters the Tyrrhenian sea, or, if he reckons it nearly to the end of its full length, he will stop at the Canopic mouth, but it is farther to the Pelusiac mouth. I have been unable to find out how many miles wide this river is.
¶22] Iulius Solinus in the same volume aforesaid states this of the Euphrates: The Euphrates rises in greater Armenia. It rises above Zima in the foothills of the mountain which the inhabitants call Catotes, near Scythia. Receiving into itself several tributaries it grows strong, and swollen with a concourse of waters it struggles against the barrier of Mount Taurus, which it cuts through at Elegea, although the mountain holds it back for a distance of twelve miles. Indeed eight hundred and sixty-two . . . .
¶23] Plinius Secundus on the same Euphrates states in his fifth book: The Euphrates also rises like the Nile on fixed days with little variation, and inundates Mesopotamia when the sun is in the twentieth degree of the Crab. It begins to diminish when the sun has passed from the Lion into the Virgin. It returns entirely to its channel when the sun is in the twenty-ninth degree of the Virgin.
¶24] Iulius again in the same book states: It is right that I should speak here also of the Tigris. It rises in Armenia in wonderfully shining waters from a remarkable spring at a lofty point called Egelos, but does not attain its full volume at the beginning. At first it flows slothfully under another name, but when it reaches the borders of Media it is immediately called the Tigris: this is the Median name for arrow.
¶25] It flows into lake Arethusa, which can bear any weight. Its fish never approach the bed of the Tigris, and the river fish never pass into lake Arethusa through which the river runs very different in colour and at a swift pace.
¶26] Soon at the Taurus barrier it sinks into a deep cave, and flowing
¶27] But Plinius Secundus gives another name to the lake mentioned, which I now forget, and says that its waters are bitter, while those of the river are sweet; this being the reason why the river fish avoid entering the lake, even as the lake fish avoid entering the river.
¶28] Iulius again, at a much later point in his work, states this: The largest rivers in India are the Ganges and the Indus. Some authors maintain that the sources of the Ganges are unknown and that it inundates after the manner of the Nile, while others state that it rises in the mountains of Scythia. There is also the Hypasis (Vyasa), a very noble river, which was the farthest point of the expedition of Alexander the Great, as the altars placed on its bank indicate. The least width of the Ganges is eight miles, and the greatest width twenty. Its length is four hundred and fifty-three miles, and its depth, at the shallowest part, swallows up a hundred-foot measure.
¶29] The same author says shortly afterwards: In the Ganges there is a most populous island, containing a most numerous tribe, whose king has under arms fifty thousand infantry and fifty-four thousand cavalry. Indeed all those who possess kingly power carry out their military exercises with large numbers of elephants, cavalry and infantry.
¶30] The same author says shortly afterwards: The Ganges produces eels up to thirty feet long. And Statius Sebosus says that among its chief wonders is an abundance of worms, cerulean in name and in colour. They have two arms not less than six cubits long, of such great strength that when elephants come to drink they grip them with a snapping hand and drag them off into the depths.
¶31] In India there are also cattle with one horn; but the most terrible is the unicorn, a monster who bellows dreadfully, with the body of a horse, the feet of an elephant, a pig's tail, and the head of a deer. The horn projects from the middle of its forehead, shines beautifully, and is four feet in length; it is so sharp that whatever it attacks is easily bored through by the stroke. It does not come alive into the power of man, and may be killed but cannot be captured.
¶32] There is a rhinoceros in Ethiopia of this or another similar kind, of which Iulius Solinus in a much earlier passage says this: The Roman
¶33] There is another animal in Cyrenaic Africa, which we do not read of as found elsewhere. Of it the same author in a much earlier passage writes: Africa produces the hyena also, whose neck and spine form a rigid continuous unit: he can turn only by moving all his body around. Many strange things are told of it: first that it follows the abodes of shepherds and by listening continually it learns their names so as to be able to express an imitation of the human voice, so that it can savage by night men who have been lured out (of doors) by its cunning. It also imitates human vomiting and by pretending to belch it devours dogs who are attracted in this way. If perchance dogs, when hunting, touch its shadow in their pursuit, they lose their voice and are unable to bark.
¶34] The hyena also roots up grave-mounds searching for buried bodies. Moreover it is easier to catch the male; the females have a greater inborn cunning. There is great variety in their eyes and many changes of colour. In their pupils is found a stone, called hyena-stone, possessing such a power that if it is placed beneath a man's tongue he can foretell the future. Indeed any animal which the hyena circles three times cannot move; therefore people have maintained that it possesses a knowledge of magic.
¶35] In part of Ethiopia it breeds with the lioness and from their union is born a monster called the corocotta. This animal also imitates human voices. It never restrains its sharpness of glance, but maintains its gaze without winking. It has no gums in its mouth, but a single and continuous tooth, which is covered over naturally, like a capsule, so that it may never be blunted.
¶36] The same author in a much earlier passage states of the river Danube: The Hister rises in the mountains of Germany, flowing from the mountain which overlooks the Rauraci in Gaul. It receives the waters of sixty rivers, nearly all of them navigable. It flows into the Black Sea by seven mouths: of which the first is Peuce (Pine-mouth), the second the Naracus-mouth, the third Fair-mouth, the fourth False-mouth; North-mouth, and then Smooth-mouth move their waters more slowly than the others, while the seventh, being slothful and like a marsh, has nothing to liken to a river. The first four rivers are so large
¶37] I have brought together the above information on the five rivers already mentioned. I shall make shorter excerpts on the following rivers from the Cosmography just mentioned, which has recently come into my hands.
¶38] The river Jordan rises under the Lebanon, and circling around it turns towards Lake Tiberias, and on leaving it flows towards Scythopolis (Beisan), and cutting through the centre of the town and leaving it flows into the Dead Sea. Its length is seven hundred and twenty-two miles.
¶39] The Hermus (Gediz Cay) rises in the plains of Asia, and flows into the sea of the Cyclades. Its length is six hundred and nine miles.
¶40] The Maeander (Menderes) rises in two branches in the Asiatic plains, and runs, as it were, in a circle, joining itself into one. It flows into the sea of the Cyclades. Its length is eight hundred and ninetyseven miles.
¶41] The river Eurotas rises in the plains of Phrygia. It flows into the Tyrrhenian sea. Its length is eight hundred and twenty-five miles.
¶42] The river Don rises in mount Ripheus of the Hyperboreans, and flows through the Maeotic marshes (the sea of Azov) into the Black Sea. Its length is six hundred and fifty-three miles.
¶43] The river Dnieper rises in the Hyperborean mountain and flows into the Black Sea. Its length is two hundred and ten miles.
¶44] The Spercheius rises in the mountain of Macedonia and flows into the Aegaean Sea. Its length is six hundred and two miles.
¶45] The Alpheus rises in the plains of Achaea and flows into the Tyrrhenian sea. Its length is four hundred and seventy miles.
¶46] The Achelous rises in the plains of Epirus and flows into the Ionian sea. Its length is seven hundred and fifteen miles.
¶47] The Tiber rises in the Apennines and falls into the Tyrrhenian sea. Its length is four hundred and ninety-five miles.
¶48] The Rhine rises in the Apennine Alps and falls into the western ocean. Its length is five hundred and fifty-two miles.
¶49] The Rhône rises in the Cottian Alps and flows into the Tyrrhenian sea. Its length is . . . miles.
¶50] The Garonne rises in the plains of Aquitania and flows into the western ocean. Its length is two hundred and nine miles.
¶51] The Guadalquivir rises in the plains of Spain, and falls into the western ocean. Its length is four hundred and ten miles.
¶52] The Tajo rises in the plains of Spain and falls into the western ocean. Its length is three hundred and two miles.
¶53] The Minho rises beside the Pyrenees. It flows round in a circle so as to enclose the town of Corunna on the sea and then directs itself towards the western ocean. Its length is three hundred and ten miles.
¶54] The Ebro rises in the foothills of the Pyrenees and traverses the near-by parts of Spain. It flows into the sea near Tarragona. Its length is two hundred and four miles. All my statements on the length of these rivers I have taken from the Cosmography.