eir preparations. The harvests were all gathered from the fields, and
the vast stores of fruit and corn which they yielded were piled in
roofless granaries, built on every elevated spot of ground, where they
would be safe from the approaching inundation. The rise of the water was
very gradual and slow. Streams began to flow in all directions over the
land. Ponds and lakes, growing every day more and more extended, spread
mysteriously over the surface of the meadows; and all the time while
this deluge of water was rising to submerge the land, the air continued
dry, the sun was sultry, and the sky was without a cloud.

As the flood continued to rise, the proportion of land and water, and
the conformation of the irregular and temporary shores which separated
them, were changed continually, from day to day. The inhabitants
assembled in their villages, which were built on rising grounds, some
natural, others artificially formed. The waters rose more and more,
until only these crowded islands appeared above its surface--when, at
length, the valley presented to the view the spectacle of a vast expanse
of water, calm as a summer's sea, brilliant with the reflected rays of a
tropical sun, and canopied by a sky, which, displaying its spotless blue
by day and its countless stars at night, was always cloudless and
serene.

The inundation was at its height in October. After that period the
waters gradually subsided, leaving a slimy and very fertilizing deposit
all over the lands which they had covered. Though the inhabitants
themselves, who had been accustomed to this overflow from infancy, felt
no wonder or curiosity about its cause, the philosophers of the day, and
travelers from other countries who visited Egypt, made many attempts to
seek an explanation of the phenomenon. They had three theories on the
subject, which Herodotus mentions and discusses.

The first explanation was, that the rising of the river was occasioned
by the prevalence of northerly winds on the Mediterranean at that time
of the year, which drove back the waters at the mouth of the river, and
so caused the accumulation of the water in the upper parts of the
valley. Herodotus thought that this was not a satisfactory explanation;
for sometimes, as he said, these northerly winds did not blow, and yet
the rising of the river took place none the less when the appointed
season came. Besides, there were other rivers similarly situated in
respect to the influence of