Now, though it was known that the whole farm was 12,000 feet, yet, till it was measured, no one could say how much of that would be overflowed by the Nile alone, and so manured without expence; how much was to be watered by labour, and so pay half rent; and how much was to be incapable of any such cultivation, and for that year equally useless to landlord and tenant. I speak not of a fact that happened in antiquity, but one that is necessary and in practice at this very hour; and though a man, by this mensuration, attains to the knowledge of what his farm produces this same year, this is no general rule, as his cultivated land next year may be doubled, or perhaps reduced to one-fourth; and his neighbour, on the other side of the Nile, may in his farm make up the correspondent deficiency, or excess; and the average quantity produced by them both being the same, the degree of the Nilometer will be the same likewise.
From this it is obvious to infer, that there are two points of great advantage to the tenant: The one is, when it is just high enough not to pay the meery[149], for then he has all the harvest to himself, and pays nothing, though he has very near the same quantity as if he was subject to the tax. The other is, when near the whole of these 12,000 feet is overflowed by the Nile, but before the water is in contact with the current of the river; for then, though he is liable to pay the meery, he has sown the greatest part of his land possible, without additional labour or expence; more than this is loss, for then the water of the inundation is put likewise in motion, and all the floating pulverised earth that has been trode into an impalpable powder, during March, April, and May, is swept away by the current into the sea, and nothing left but a bare, cold, hard till, which produces little, and is not easily pulverised by the poor instruments of husbandry there in use, when neither farmer nor landholder pays any thing, because, indeed, there is not any receipt.
However, from this uncertainty one thing arises which does not seem to have been understood; for the tenant, not knowing precisely the quantity of seed that he may want, comes to his farm unprovided, and, being uncertain of its produce, takes his land only from year to year; the landlord furnishes him with seed[150], and even with all labouring utensils.
And here I am to explain what I have before advanced, what to some will seem a paradox, That the substituting false measures in the Nilometer by the sovereign is absolutely impracticable. Supposing the height of the Nilometer, when at 8 cubits, shewed that there was just corn enough to maintain the inhabitants, and that the tenant knew, by the quantity of land measured, that he had barely what was to pay his rent and support his family; this he must know before he sowed, because he measured immediately after the inundation; and this he must know likewise by the corn he borrows for seed from his landlord, who, as I have said, furnishes his tenant both with seed and labouring utensils. If, then, he finds he can barely maintain himself, and not pay his rent, upon the proclamation at the Nilometer, he deserts his farm, and neither plows nor sows[151], but flies to Palestine to the Arabs, or into the cities, and brings famine along with him. The next year there is a plague, and sweeps all those poor wretches, in a bad state of health by living upon bad food, into their graves, so that the introduction, of a supposed false measure, directly advanced by Dr Shaw[152], and often alluded to by others, but always without possibility of foundation, is one of the many errors he has fallen into.
He knew nothing but of the Delta, never was in Upper, and no considerable time even in Lower Egypt, but when the Nile had overflowed it, and I suppose never conversed with a fellah, or Egyptian peasant, in his life. All his wonders are in the land of Zoan[153], and his observations should have reached no further, because they are not fact, but fanciful imaginations of his own; not from any bad intention, but because he never was in the way of being better informed, but determined not to abandon a system he had once formed.
Herodotus[154] mentions, that in the time of Mæris, when, the minimum came to be 8 Samian cubits, all Egypt below Memphis was overflowed, but that in his days it took 16 cubits, or at least 15, to put the same land in like condition for cultivation; or, in other words, the minimum, when they paid their meery, was 16, or at least 15 cubits in his time; and the uncertainty of these two terms shews, that there were unaccountable inequalities, even in his days, as we shall find there have been ever since. But I must here beg leave to ask, why we should believe Herodotus knew the management of the Nilometer more than travellers have done since, as he tells us constantly throughout this part of his history, that when he inquired of the priests concerning the Nile, they would tell him nothing about it[155]?
In Mæris’s time there were great lakes dug, as Herodotus says[156], to carry off the superfluous water, to what place is not said, but surely into the desert for the use of the Arabs. Now, unless we knew what time these lakes were opened to receive the stream, we do not know whether it was the evacuation by the lake, or scarcity of the water that impeded the rise of the Nile upon the Nilometer. We have no account of these transactions, and we shall be less inclined to rely upon them, when I shall shew, that the Nilometer could be of no use in solving this question at all, either in Herodotus’s days, or any time since, without a previous knowledge of several other circumstances never yet taken into the calculation, and of which Herodotus must have been ignorant.
But let us grant that the Nile in Mæris’s time rose only 8 cubits, and in the days of Herodotus to 16, let us see if, at certain periods afterwards, it kept to any thing like that proportion. Above 400 years after Herodotus, Strabo travelled in Egypt; he went through the whole country from Alexandria to beyond Syene and the first cataract; and as he is an historian whose character is established, both for veracity and sagacity, we may receive what he says as unexceptionable evidence, especially as he travelled in such company as it is not probable the priests could have refused him any thing. Now Strabo[157] says, that, in his days, 8 cubits were a minimum, or the Wafaa Ullah of the Nile’s increase; therefore, from Mæris’s time to Strabo there is not an inch difference in the minimum, and this includes the space of 1400 years.
It may be said, indeed, that the passage in Strabo[158] imports, that, in the time of Petronius, by a particular care of the banks and calishes, the Nile at 8 peeks (or cubits) enabled the Egyptians to pay their meery without hardship; but this was by particular industry, more than what had been in common use, and this, too, I conceive to be Strabo’s meaning. But let us compute from Herodotus, who says that 16, or at least 15, were necessary in his time, whilst Strabo informs us, that, before Petronius exerted himself as to the banks and calishes just mentioned, the extreme abundance must then have been at 12, and the minimum at 10. Now, by this passage, beyond all exception, it is clear that there could have been no increase indicated by the Nilometer; for 10 cubits watered the whole land of Egypt sufficiently in Strabo’s time, whereas 16 and 15 were necessary in the days of Herodotus: and I must likewise observe, that if we should suppose the same industry and attention used in Mæris’s time that was in Petronius’s, (and there is every reason to induce us to think there was) then the proof is positive, that there was no difference in the soil of Egypt indicated by the Nilometer for the first 1400 years.
From this let us descend to Hadrian, about 100 years afterwards. We know from Pliny[159], and from an inscription upon a medal of great brass of Hadrian’s, who was himself in Egypt, that 16 cubits were then the fiscal term or rise of the Nile, by which the Egyptians paid their rent; and this is precisely what Herodotus says, in his time, was no more than sufficient.