THESOURCEOFTHENILE. 707
The rains, that ceafc in Abyffmia about the S'th of Sep- tember, leave generally a fickly feafon in the low country; but other rains begin towards the end of October, in the Ia.il days of the Ethiopic month Tekemt, which continue moderately about three weeks, and end the 8th of Novem- ber, or the 1 2th of the Ethiopic month Hedar. All ficknefs and epidemical difeafes then difappear, and the 8th of that month is the feaft of St Michael, the day the king marches, and his army begins their campaign ; but the effect of thefe fecond rains feldom make any, or a very fhort appearance in Egypt, all the canals being open. But thefe are the rains upon which depend their latter crops, and for which the Agows, at the fource of the Nile, pray to the river, or to the genius rending in the river. We had plentiful mowers both in going and coming to that province, efpccially in our journey out. Whenever thefe rains prove exceffive, as in fome particular years it feems they do, though but very rarely, the land-floods, and thofe from the marfhes, falling upon the ground, already much hardened and broken into chafms, by two months intenfe heat of the fun, run vio- lently into the Nile without finking into the earth. The confequence is this temporary fifing of the Nile in Decem- ber, which is as unconnected with the good and bad crops of Egypt, as it is on thofe of Paleftine or Syria.
The quantity of rain that falls in Ethiopia varies great- ly from year to year, as do the months in which it falls. The quantity that fell, during 1770,111 Gondar, between the vernal equinox and the 8th of September, through a funnel of one foot Englifh in diameter; was 35.55$ inches ; and, in
4U2 1771,
