Aegyptus sine nube ferax imbresque serenos 5 sola tenet; secura poli, non indiga venti gaudet aquis, quas ipsa vehit, Niloque redundat: qui rapido tractu mediis elatus ab Austris, flammiferae patiens zonae cancrique calentis, fluctibus ignotis nostrum procurrit in orbem 10 secreto de fonte cadens, qui semper inani quaerendus ratione latet, nec contigit ulli hoc vidisse caput: fertur sine teste creatus flumina profundens alieni conscia caeli. inde vago lapsu Libyam dispersus in omnem 15 Aethiopum per mille ruit nigrantia regna et loca continuo solis damnata vapore inrorat populisque salus sitientibus errat per Meroën Blemyasque feros atramque Syenem. hunc bibit infrenis Garamas domitorque ferarum 20 Gyrraeus, qui vasta colit sub rupibus antra, qui ramos ebeni, dentes qui vellit eburnos, et gens compositis crinem velata sagittis. Nec vero similes causas crescentibus undis aut tempus meruit. glacie non ille soluta 25 nec circumfuso scopulis exuberat imbre. nam cum tristis hiems alias produxerit undas, tunc Nilum retinent ripae; cum languida cessant flumina, tunc Nilus mutato iure tumescit. quippe quod ex omni fluvio spoliaverit aestas, 30 hoc Nilo natura refert, totumque per orbem collectae partes unum revocantur in amnem; * * * * * Page 233 Fertile is Egypt without clouds; here alone is sunshine and yet rain. She regards not the sky, needs not the wind; enough for her the water she herself contains, Nile’s overflow. This swiftly-flowing river rises in the mountainous country of the south where it suffers the heats of the torrid zone and of the scorching Crab and issues forth from regions unknown into our world. Whence it comes none knows, for vain has ever been the search after its springing nor has any ever seen that source. ’Tis said that, fashioned without witness, it pours forth waters that have known a clime other than ours. Thence with errant stream it stretches through all Libya, and through Ethiopia’s thousand dusky kingdoms where it waters lands condemned to the sun’s unceasing fires, saviour of thirsting peoples, and threads its course across Meroë and black Syene and through the country of the wild Blemyae. The unconquered Garamantes and the Gyrraei who can tame wild animals drink of its waters, as do those tribes who dwell in huge rocky caverns, gathering the wood of ebony-trees and robbing the elephant of his tusks of ivory, and the folk who wear arrows in their hair.