Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 24.5

24.5

We inquired further of them when it rained in Ethiopia, and whether the rains were periodical in that country as in the Indies. They answered that it seldom or never rained along the coast of the Red Sea, from Suaken, Arkiko, and the island of Masouwa, to Bab-el-mandel, any more than at Moka, in Arabia Felix, on the opposite shore of that sea. In the interior of the country, however, in the province of the Agaus, in Dumbia, and the circumjacent provinces, the rains were very heavy during the two hottest months of summer, those months when it also rains in the Indies, and exactly the time when, according to my computation, the increase of the Nile in Egypt takes place. They were quite aware, the ambassadors added, that the swelling of that river and the inundations of Egypt were caused by the rains of Ethiopia; and that the former country owed its fecundity to the slime conveyed and deposited thither by the Nile. It was from these circumstances, they observed, that the Kings of Ethiopia derived the right of exacting tribute from Egypt; and when that kingdom was subdued by the Mahometans, and its Christian population became oppressed and exposed to every indignity, the Ethiopian Monarch had thoughts of turning the course of the river toward the Red Sea, a measure which would have destroyed the fertility of Egypt, and consequently proved ruinous to the country: but the project appeared so gigantic, if not impracticable, that the attempt was never made to carry it into execution.