As the generality of writers have fixed upon the Constantinople, or Stambouline peek, for the measure of the Mikeas, in which choice they have erred, we will next seek what is the measure of the Stambouline peek, and whether they have in this article been better informed.
M. de Maillet, French consul at Cairo, says, that this peek is equal to 2 French feet, or very nearly 26 inches of our measure: and, to add to this another mistake, he states, that by this peek the Mikeas is measured; and, for the completing of the confusion, he adds, that the Nile must rise 48 French feet before it covers all their lands. What he means by all their lands is to very little purpose to inquire, for he would probably have been drowned in his closet in which he made these computations, long before he had seen the Nile at that height, or near it.
Without, then, wandering longer in this extraordinary confusion, which I have only stated to shew that a traveller may differ from Dr Shaw, and yet be right, and that this writer, however learned he may be, cannot, for want of information, be competent to solve this question which he so much insists upon, I shall now, with great submission to the judgment of my reader, endeavour to explain, in as few words as possible, how the real state of the matter stands, and he will then apply it as he pleases.
There was a very ingenious gentleman whom I met with at Cairo, M. Antes, a German by birth, and of the Moravian persuasion, who, both to open to himself more freely the opportunities of propagating his religious tenets, and to gratify his own mechanical turn, rather than from a view of gain, to which all his society are (as he was) perfectly indifferent, exercised the trade of watch-maker at Cairo. This very worthy and sagacious young man was often my unwearied and useful partner in many inquiries and trials, as to the manner of executing some instruments in the most compendious form for experiments proposed to be made in my travels. By his assistance, I formed a rod of brass, of half an inch square, and of a thickness which did not easily warp, and would not alter its dimensions unless with a violent heat. Upon the three faces of this brasen rod we traced, with good glasses and dividers, the measure of three different peeks, then the only three known in Cairo, the exact length of which was taken from the standard model furnished me by the Cadi. The first was the Stambouline, or Constantinople peek, exactly 23⅗ inches; the second, the Hendaizy, of 24-7/10 inches; and the third the peek El Belledy, of 22 inches, all English measure.
It was natural to suppose, that, after knowing as we do, that no alteration has been made in the Mikeas since the 245th year of the Hegira, that the peek of Constantinople, a foreign measure, was probably then not known, nor introduced into Egypt; nor, till after the conquest of Sultan Selim, in the year 1516, was it likely to be the peek with which the Mikeas was measured. It did not, as I conceive, exist in the 245th of the Hegira, though, even if it had, its dimensions may have been widely different from those fixed upon by the number of writers whose authority we have quoted, but who do not agree. It was not likely to be the Hendaizy peek either, for this, too, was a foreign measure, originally from the island of Meroë, and well known to the Egyptians in Upper Egypt, but not at all to the Saracens their present masters. The peek, El Belledy, the measure in common use, and known to all the Egyptians, was the proper cubit to be employed in an operation which concerned a whole nation, and was, therefore, the measure made use of in the division of the Mikeas, for that column, as I have said, is divided equally into peeks, or draas, called Draa El Belledy, consisting of 22 inches; and each of these peeks is again divided into 24 digits.
A very ingenious author, who treats of the particular circumstances of those times, in his MS. called Han el Mohaderat, says, that the inhabitants of Seide counted 24 peeks on their Nilometer, when there were 18 peeks marked as the rise of the water upon the Mikeas at Rhoda; and this shews perfectly two things: First, That they knew the whole secret of counting there both by the marked and unmarked part of the column; for the peek of the Mikeas being 22 inches English, it was, by consequence, four inches larger each peek than the Samian peek; so that if, to 20 peeks of Seide, you add twenty times four inches, which is 80, the difference of the two peeks, when divided by 18, gives four, which, added to the 20 peeks on the column, make 24 peeks, the number sought. Secondly, That this observation in the Han el Mohaderat sufficiently confirms what I have said both of the length of the column and length of the peek; that the former is 20 peeks in height, and that the measure, by which this is ascertained, is the peek El Belledy of 22 inches, as it appears on the brass rod, four inches longer than the Samian peek, and consequently is not the peek of Stambouline, nor any foreign measure whatever.
A traveller thinks he has attained to a great deal of precision, when, observing 18 peeks on the highest division of the column from its base, or bottom of the well, he finds it 37 feet; he divides this by 18, and the quotient is 24 inches; when he should divide it by 20, and the answer would be 22 and a fraction, the true content of the peek El Belledy, or peek of the Mikeas. This erroneous division of his he calls the peek of the Mikeas; and comparing it with what authors, less informed than himself, have said, he names the Stambouline peek, and then the black peek, when it really is his own peek, the creature of his own error or inadvertence; but, as he does not know this, it is handed down from traveller to traveller, till unfortunately it is adopted by some man of reputation, and it then becomes, as in this case, a sort of literary crime to any man, from the authority of his own eyes and hands, to dispute it.
Mr Pococke makes two very curious and sensible remarks in point of fact, but of which he does not know the reason. “The Nile, he says, in the beginning, turns red, and sometimes green; then the waters are unwholesome. He supposes that the source of the Nile beginning to flow plentifully, the waters at first bring away that green or red filth which may be about the lakes at its rise, or at the rise of these small rivers that flow into it, near its principal source; for, though there is so little water in the Nile, when at lowest, that there is hardly any current in many parts of it, yet it cannot be supposed that the water should stagnate in the bed of the Nile, so as to become green. Afterwards the water becomes very red and still more turbid, and then it begins to be wholesome[171].”
The true reason of this appearance is from those immense marshes spread over the country about Narea and Caffa, where there is little level, and where the water accumulates, and is stagnant, before it overflows into the river Abiad, which rises there. The overflowing of these immense marshes carry first that discoloured water into Egypt, then follows, in Abyssinia, the overflowing of the great lake Tzana, through which the Nile passes, which, having been stagnated and without rain for six months, under a scorching sun, joins its putrid waters with the first. There are, moreover, very few rivers in Abyssinia that run after November, as they stand in prodigious pools below, in the country of the Shangalla, and afford drink for the elephant, and habitation and food for the hippopotamus. These pools likewise throw off their stagnant water into the Nile on receiving the first rains; at last the rivers, marshes, and lakes, being refreshed by showers, (the rain becoming constant) and passing through the kingdom of Sennaar, the soil of which is a red bole; This mixture, and the moving sands of the deserts, fall into the current, and precipitate all the viscous and putrid substances, which cohere and float in the river; and thence (as Pococke has well observed) the sign of the Nile being wholesome, is not when it is clear and green, but when mingled with fresh water, and after precipitation it becomes red and turbid, and stains the water of the Mediterranean.
The next remark of Mr Pococke[172] is equally true. It has been observed, says he, that after the rainy season is over, the Nile fallen, and the whole country drained from inundation, it has begun again to rise; and he gives an instance of that in December 1737, when it had a sudden increase, which alarmed all Egypt, where the received opinion was that it presaged calamities. This also is said to have happened in the time of Cleopatra, when their government was subverted, their ancient race of kings extinguished in the person of that princess, and Egypt became a province to the Romans.