Among the Agow, a barbarous and idolatrous nation, it is called Gzeir, Geesa[134], Seir; the first of these names signifying God; it is also called Abba, or Ab, Father; and by many other terms which I cannot write in the language of that nation, whilst, with a fervent and unfeigned devotion, under these, or such-like appellations, they pray to the Nile, or spirit residing in that river. The next name it receives is when descended into Gojam, where it is called Abay. Foreigners, of all denominations, not acquainted with the language of the country, have, from hearing it was stiled Ab, Father, by the Agows, or Abai, imagined its name Abawi, a case of that noun, which, in their ignorance, they have made to signify, the Father.
Ludolf, the only one in the age he lived that had any real knowledge of either the Geez or Amharic, was the first to perceive this: he found in neither of these languages Abawi could be a nominative, and consequently could not be applied to any thing; and next he as truly found it could not be of the singular number, and, if so, could not signify one river. He stopped, however, as it were, in the very brink of discovery, for he knew there was no writing or letters in Amharic, which were therefore necessarily borrowed from the old and written language Geez, so that all that could be done was, first, attentively to hear the pronunciation of the word in Amharic, and then to write it in Geez characters as nearly conformable to the sound as possible. Now, the name of the river in Amharic is Abay, pronouncing the y open, or like two (i), and the sense of that word so wrote in Geez, as well as Amharic, is, “the river that suddenly swells, or overflows, periodically with rain;” than which a more apposite name could never have been invented.
By the Gongas, on the south of the mountains Dyre and Tegla, who are indigenæ, the river is called Dahli, and, on the north of these mountains, where the great cataracts are by the Guba, Nuba, and Shangalla, it is stiled Kowass, both which names signify a watching dog, the latrator anubis, or, the dog-star. In the plain country, between Fazuclo and Sennaar, it is called Nil, which signifies blue; and the Arabs interpret it by the word Azergue, which it keeps as far as Halfaia, or near it, where it joins the White River.
The next name by which the Nile went was Siris: Pliny tells us it was called Siris both before and after it came into Beja. “Nec ante Nilus, quam se totum aquis concordibus rursus junxit. Sic quoque etiamnum Siris, ut ante nominatus per aliquot millia, et in totum Homero Egyptus, aliisque Triton[135].” This name the Greeks thought was given to it, because of its black colour during the inundation, which mistake presently produced confusion; and we find, according to this idea, the compiler of the Old Testament, (I should suppose Esdras, after the captivity) has translated Siris, the black river, by the Hebrew, Shihor; but nobody ever saw the Nile black when it overflowed; and it would be a very strong figure to call it so in Egypt, where it is always white during the whole of the inundation. Had Esdras, or whoever it was that followed the Greek interpretation of Siris, viz. black, inquired in Beja what was the origin of this name, they would have there learned it imported the River of the Dog-star, on whose vertical appearance this Nile, or Siris, overflows; and this idolatrous worship, paid to the Nile, was probably part of the reason of the question the prophet Jeremiah asks[136], “And what hast thou to do in Egypt, to drink the water of Seir? or the water profaned by idolatrous rites?”
As for the first, it is only the translation of the word Bahar, applied to the Nile. The inhabitants of the Barabra, to this day, call it Bahar el Nil, or, the Sea of the Nile, in contradistinction to the Red Sea, which they know by no other name but Bahar el Melech, the Salt Sea. The junction of the three great rivers; the Nile, flowing on the west of Meroë; the Tacazzé, which washes the east side, and joins the Nile at Maggiran, in lat. 17°; and the Mareb, which falls into this last, something above this junction—gives the name of Triton to the Nile.
More doubt has been raised as to the third name, Ægyptus, which it obtains in Homer, and which, I apprehend, was a very ancient name given it even in Ethiopia. The generality, nay, all interpreters, I may say, imagine, as in that of Siris, that this name was given it in relation to its colour, viz. black; but with this I cannot agree; Egypt, in the Ethiopic, is called y Gipt, Agar; and, an inhabitant of the country, Gypt, for precisely so it is pronounced, which means the country of ditches, or canals, drawn from the Nile on both sides at right angles with the river; nothing, surely is more obvious than to write y Gipt, so pronouncing Egypt, and, with its termination, us, or os, Egyptus. The Nile is also called Kronides, Jupiter; as also several other names; but these are rather the epithets of poets, relative and transitory, not the permanent appellation of the river.
I would pass over another name, that of Geon, which some of the fathers of the church have fondly given it, pretending it was one of the rivers that came from the terrestrial paradise, and encompassed the whole land of Cush, whilst, for this purpose, they bring it two thousand miles by a series of miracles, as it were, under the earth and under the sea: To do what? to surround the whole land of Cush. And does it surround it, or does it surround any land whatever? This, and some similar wonders told by St Augustine, have been eagerly catched at, and quoted by unbelieving sceptics; meaning to insinuate, that no better, in other respects, was the authority of these fathers when they explain and defend the truths of Christianity. For my own part, though perfectly a friend to free and temperate inquiry, these injudicious arguments which I need not quote, have little weight with me. St Augustine, when explaining those truths, was undoubtedly under the direction of that spirit which could not lie, and was promised to the priesthood while occupied in their master’s commission the propagation of Christian knowledge; but when, from vanity and human frailty, he attempted to establish things he had nothing to do with, speaking no longer by commandment, he reasoned like a mere man, misled by vanity and too great confidence in his own understanding.
We come now to investigate the reason of the inundation of the Nile, which, being once explained, I cannot help thinking that all further inquiries concerning this subject are superfluous.
It is an observation that holds good through all the works of Providence, That although God, in the beginning, gave an instance of his almighty power, by creating the world with one single fiat, yet, in the laws he has laid down for the maintaining order and regularity in the details of his creation, he has invariably produced all these effects by the least degree of power possible, and by those means that seem most obvious to human conception. But it seemed, however, not according to the tenor of his ways and wisdom, to create a country like Egypt, without springs, or even dews, and subject it to a nearly vertical sun, that he might save it by so extraordinary an intervention as was the annual inundation, and make it the most fertile spot of the universe.
This violent effort seemed to be too great, above all proportion, for the end for which it was intended, and the cause was therefore thought to merit the application of the sublimest philosophy; and accordingly, as Diodorus Siculus[137] tells us, it became the study of the most learned men of the first ages, the principal of whom, with their opinions, he quotes, and at the same time alledges the reason why they were not universally received. The first is Thales of Miletum, one of the seven sages, who assigns for the cause the Etesian winds, which blowing, all the hot season, from the Mediterranean, in contrary direction to the stream of the river, force the Nile to accumulate, by obstructing its flowing to the sea, occasion it to rise above its banks, and consequently to overflow the country.