The charge of opening or shutting them amounted to fifty talents, that is, fifty thousand French crowns.(284) The fishing of this lake brought the monarch immense sums; but its chief utility related to the overflowing of the Nile. When it rose too high, and was like to be attended with fatal consequences, the sluices were opened; and the waters, having a free passage into the lake, covered the lands no longer than was necessary to enrich them. On the contrary, when the inundation was too low, and threatened a famine, a sufficient quantity of water, by the help of drains, was let out of the lake, to water the lands. In this manner the irregularities of the Nile were corrected; and Strabo remarks, that, in his time, under Petronius, a governor of Egypt, when the inundation of the Nile was twelve cubits, a very great plenty ensued; and even when it rose but to eight cubits, the dearth was scarce felt in the country; doubtless because the waters of the lake made up for those of the inundation, by the help of canals and drains. SECT. V. THE INUNDATIONS OF THE NILE.—The Nile is the greatest wonder of Egypt. As it seldom rains there, this river, which waters the whole country by its regular inundations, supplies that defect, by bringing, as a yearly tribute, the rains of other countries; which made a poet say ingeniously, “the Egyptian pastures, how great soever the drought may be, never implore Jupiter for rain:” Te propter nullos tellus tua postulat imbres, Arida nec pluvio supplicat herba Jovi.(285) To multiply so beneficent a river, Egypt was cut into numberless canals, of a length and breadth proportioned to the different situations and wants of the lands. The Nile brought fertility every where with its salutary streams; united cities one with another, and the Mediterranean with the Red-Sea; maintained trade at home and abroad, and fortified the kingdom against the enemy; so that it was at once the nourisher and protector of Egypt. The fields were delivered up to it; but the cities that were raised with immense labour, and stood like islands in the midst of the waters, looked down with joy on the plains which were overflowed, and at the same time enriched, by the Nile. This is a general idea of the nature and effects of this river, so famous among the ancients. But a wonder so astonishing in itself, and which has been the object of the curiosity and admiration of the learned in all ages, seems to require a more particular description, in which I shall be as concise as possible.