Kitap 22
15.13
However, too great a rise of the Nile is as harmful to the crops as too small a one is unfruitful. For if it soaks the land for too long a time with an excess of water, it delays the cultivation of the fields; but if the rise is too small, it threatens a bad harvest. No landowner has ever wished for a higher rise than sixteen cubits. But if there is a more moderate rise, seeds sown on a place where the soil is very rich sometimes return an increase of nearly seventy-fold. And it is the only river that does not raise a breeze.The meaning is not clear; it may mean because it flows so slowly in the lower part of its course, or because it is spread over the plains by canals.
15.14
Egypt abounds also in many animals, some of which are terrestrial, some aquatic; and there are others which live both on land and in the water, and hence are called amphibious. And on the dry plains roebucks feed and antelopes and spinturnicia,A kind of monkey. laughable for their utter ugliness, and other monsters, which it is not worth while to enumerate.
15.15
Now among aquatic animals crocodiles abound everywhere in that region, a destructive four-footed monster, a curse to the land, accustomed to both elements. It has no tongue, and moves only its upper jaw; its teeth are arranged like those of a comb, and whatever it meets it persistently attacks with destructive bites. It produces its young from eggs resembling those of geese.
