Histories

And as to why no breeze blows from the river, this is my opinion: it is not natural that any breeze blow from very hot places; breezes always come from that which is very cold.

Let this be, then, as it is and as it was in the beginning. But as to the sources of the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), AfricaNile, no one that conversed with me, Egyptian, Libyan, or Greek, professed to know them, except the recorder of the sacred treasures of Athena in the Egyptian city of Saïs.

I thought he was joking when he said that he had exact knowledge, but this was his story. Between the city of Aswan [32.933,24.83] (inhabited place), Aswan, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Syene in the Thebaid (region (general)), Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Thebaid and Elephantine, there are two hills with sharp peaks, one called Crophi and the other Mophi.

The springs of the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), AfricaNile, which are bottomless, rise between these hills; half the water flows north towards Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt, and the other half south towards Ethiopia [39,8] (nation), AfricaEthiopia.

He said that Psammetichus king of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt had put to the test whether the springs are bottomless: for he had a rope of many thousand fathoms' length woven and let down into the spring, but he could not reach to the bottom.