Book 2
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Thales the Milesian, one of the seven wise that the overflowing of the Nile arises from the Etestian for that they blow up the river, and that the mouths of the river lie exactly opposite to the point from which they blow; and accordingly that the wind blowing in the opposite direc- tion hinders the flow of the waters; and the waves of the sea, dashing against the mouth of the river, and coming on with a fair wind in the same direction, beat back the river, and in this manner the Nile becomes full to overflowing. But Anaxagoras the natural philosopher says that the fullness of the Nile arises from the snow melting; and so, too, says Euripides, and some others of the tragic poets. And Anaxagoras says that this is the sole origin of all that fulness; but Euripides goes further, and describes the exact place where this melting of the snow takes place; for in his play called Archelaus he speaks thus:— Danaus, the noble sire of fifty daughters, Leaving the Nile, the fairest stream on earth, Fill'd by the summer of the Aethiop land, The negro's home, when the deep snow does melt, And o'er the land the Sun his chariot drives. And in the Helen he says something similar:— These are the beauticous virgin streams of Nile, Which in the place of rain bedew the plain Of Egypt when the white snow melts on th' hills. And Aeschylus says—
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I know its history, and love to praise
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The race of the Aethiop land, where mighty Nile
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Rolls down his seven streams the country through,
