Histories

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.

This recorder, then, if he spoke the truth, showed, I think, that there are strong eddies and an upward flow of water, such that with the stream rushing against the hills the sounding-line when let down cannot reach bottom.