Heracleopolites[3513] is a Nome on an island[3513] of the Nile, fifty miles in length, upon which there is a city, called the ‘City of Hercules.’ There are two places called Arsinoïtes[3514]: these and Memphites[3515] extend to the apex[3516] of the Delta; adjoining to which, on the side of Africa, are the two Nomes of Oasites[3517]. Some writers vary in some of these names and substitute for them other Nomes, such as Heroöpolites[3518] and Crocodilopolites[3519]. Between Arsinoïtes and Memphites, a lake[3520], 250 miles, or, according to what Mucianus says, 450 miles in circumference and fifty paces deep, has been formed by artificial means: after the king by whose orders it was made, it is called by the name of Mœris. The distance from thence to Memphis is nearly sixty-two miles, a place which was formerly the citadel of the kings of Egypt; from thence to the oracle of Hammon it is twelve days’ journey. Memphis is fifteen miles from the spot where the river Nile divides into the different channels which we have mentioned as forming the Delta. CHAP. 10.—THE RIVER NILE. The sources of the Nile[3521] are unascertained, and, travelling as it does for an immense distance through deserts and burning sands, it is only known to us by common report, having neither experienced the vicissitudes of warfare, nor been visited by those arms which have so effectually explored all other regions. It rises, so far indeed as King Juba was enabled to ascertain, in a mountain[3522] of Lower Mauritania, not far from the ocean; immediately after which it forms a lake of standing water, which bears the name of Nilides[3523]. In this lake are found the several kinds of fish known by the names of alabeta[3524], coracinus, and silurus; a crocodile also was brought thence as a proof that this really is the Nile, and was consecrated by Juba himself in the temple of Isis at Cæsarea[3525], where it may be seen at the present day. In addition to these facts, it has been observed that the waters of the Nile rise in the same proportion in which the snows and rains of Mauritania increase. Pouring forth from this lake, the river disdains to flow through arid and sandy deserts, and for a distance of several days’ journey conceals itself; after which it bursts forth at another lake of greater magnitude in the country of the Massæsyli[3526], a people of Mauritania Cæsariensis, and thence casts a glance around, as it were, upon the communities of men in its vicinity, giving proofs of its identity in the same peculiarities of the animals which it produces. It then buries itself once again in the sands of the desert, and remains concealed for a distance of twenty days’ journey, till it has reached the confines of Æthiopia. Here, when it has once more become sensible of the presence of man, it again emerges, at the same source, in all probability, to which writers have given the name of Niger, or Black. After this,