At a certain time in the year it came down in a great flood and inundated, that is to say, flowed over, all the low land lying on either side of its course. This happened just about the season that the star which we call Sirius, or the Dog-Star, but which they called Sothis, or the star of their god Seth, showed itself above the horizon at the moment of sunrise; and they dated the beginning of their year from this rising with the sun of this exceedingly bright and large star. This occurred in middle summer, so that the beginning of their year, their "New Year's Day," was very different from ours. It came nearly at the season of our Midsummer's Day. But they had a very good reason for counting the beginning of their year from it, because it was such a very important date for them. {13} It really did begin a new year for them, for it was this inundation, or overflow of the river, which gave their seeds, when they put them into the ground, a chance of growing and giving them good crops. After a time, during which the water had lain out over the low land, it fell back again into the usual channel of the river and left all the land which it had covered with a deposit, or layer, of rich dark mud, better than any manure they could have given it. We know now what it was that caused, and that still every year causes, this overflow; it is the excessively heavy rainfall which occurs annually in the interior of the country, where the sources of the river are. But they did not know the reason, and made many curious guesses to account for it. Although there were these deserts around them, it seems certain that the country quite close about the river had more trees and bushes on it than it has now. For one thing, as the people settled in the country and their numbers grew, they would be likely to clear off patches of the woodland for their crops, and in the second place a great eating down of the vegetation must have happened when they began, as we know they did begin, to keep goats and, later, camels.