torians (unless the work about the Egyptian country is by another person, and not by Hecataeus) in like manner call Egypt a gift of the river[1]; and Herodotus has shown by no uncertain proofs that such is the case[2]; so that even the country itself perhaps received its name from the river. For that the river which both the Egyptians and men outside Egypt now name the Nile, was in ancient times called Aegyptus, Homer is sufficient to prove; since he says that Menelaus stationed his ships at the outlet of the river Aegyptus.[3] If therefore single rivers by themselves, and those not large ones, are sufficient to form an extensive tract of country, while flowing forward into the sea, since they carry down slime and mud from the higher districts whence they derive their sources, surely it is unbecoming to exhibit incredulity about India, how it has come to pass that most of it is a plain, which has been formed by the alluvial deposits of its rivers. For if the Hermus, the Cayster, the Caicus, the Maeander, and all the other[4] rivers of Asia which discharge their waters into the midland sea were all put together, they would not be worthy of comparison for volume of water with one of the Indian rivers. Not only do I mean the Ganges, which is the largest, and with which neither the water of the Egyptian Nile nor the Ister flowing through Europe is worthy to compare; but if all those rivers were mingled together they would not even then become equal to the river Indus, which is a large river as soon as it issues from its springs, and after receiving fifteen rivers,[5] all larger than those in the province of Asia, discharges its water
- ↑ See Herodotus, ii. 5.
- ↑ See Herodotus, ii. 10-34.
- ↑ See Homer's Odyssey, iv. 477, 581. In Hebrew the name for Egypt is Mitsraim (dark-red). In form the word is dual, evidently in reference to the division of the country by the Nile. The native name was Chem, meaning black, probably on account of the blackness of the alluvial soil
- ↑ αλλοι is Abicht's reading instead of πολλοί.
- ↑ Arrian, in his Indica, chap. 4, gives the names of these rivers.
