Equally wide of the truth is what Herodotos has to tell us about the First Cataract. Like other travellers to Egypt before and since he was anxious to learn something about the sources of the Nile. But neither “the Egyptians nor the Libyans nor the Greeks” whom he met could give him any information. Perhaps had he sailed as far as Assuan some of the Ethiopians who lived there might have been more communicative. At last, however, he was introduced to one of the sacred scribes in the temple of Neit at Sais—the only Egyptian priest, in fact, of higher rank, whom he seems to have conversed with—and the scribe humoured the curiosity of the traveller to the utmost of his desires, though even Herodotos suspected that he was being made fun of. However, as in duty bound, he gravely writes down what he was told. “Two mountains are there with pointed tops, between Syênê, a city of the Thebais, and Elephantinê, which are called Krôphi and Môphi. Out of the heart of these mountains flow the sources of the Nile, which are bottomless, half the water running towards Egypt and the north, while the other half goes to Ethiopia and the south. That the sources are bottomless was proved by Psammetikhos, the king of Egypt, for after letting down into them a rope several hundred thousand fathoms in length, he did not find the bottom.” Herodotos adds that this was probably because there were violent eddies in the water which carried the rope away. Egyptian priests did not, as a rule, know Greek, and they avoided any kind of intercourse with the “unclean” foreigner. Even to have conversed with him would have caused pollution. Consequently “the priests” to whom Herodotos so frequently alludes were merely the “beadles” of the day, who took the tourist over the temples and showed him the principal objects of interest. The sacred scribe of Sais was an exception to the general rule. Since the days of Psammetikhos, Sais had been accustomed to Greek visitors, and the prejudices against them were less strong there than in other Egyptian towns. It is quite possible, therefore, that the scribe whom Herodotos met was acquainted with the Greek language, and that no dragoman was required to interpret his words.