STRABO

...so that some people even use earthenware ferry-boats. The perimeter of the whole island is about three thousand stadia. They also call it, along with the opposite river-lands of the Delta, "Lower Egypt." During the rise of the Nile, the entire country is covered and resembles a sea, except for the settlements. These are situated on natural hills or artificial mounds, and contain significant cities and villages that, when viewed from a distance, look like islands. The water remains for more than forty days in the summer and then begins to subside gradually, just as it rose. In sixty days, the plain is completely cleared and dries out. The faster it dries, the sooner the plowing and sowing can begin; and it dries faster in places where the heat is more intense. The parts above the Delta are watered in the same way, except that the river flows in a straight course for about four thousand stadia through a single channel, unless an island intervenes—the most noteworthy being the one containing the Heracleotic Nome—or if the river is diverted by a canal into a large lake or an area it can irrigate, such as the canal that waters the Arsinoite Nome, Lake Moeris, and those that flow into Lake Mareotis. In short, Egypt consists only of the river-land, the narrow strip on either side of the Nile, which rarely...

C 789