Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 24.7

24.7

I have seen it rise more than a foot, and become very turbid, nearly a month before the pretended determinate day of the increase. I have remarked, in the time of its increase, and before the opening of the irrigation channels, that after the water had swollen during some days a foot or two, it decreased little by little, and then began to increase anew; and in this manner the river augmented or lessened, just according as the rains did or did not fall near its source. The same thing is observable in our Loire; it increases or diminishes in proportion to the rains on the mountains whence that river flows. Once, on my return from Jerusalem, I ascended the Nile from Damietta to Cairo, about a month before the day on which it is said that the Goute falls; and in the morning our clothes were soaked in consequence of the dew that had fallen during the night.