) The modern
Egyptians
call the river Bahr-Nil,
or simply Bahr; in Nubia it is known by various
names; in Sennaar the central branch, or Blue Riv-
er, is called Adit; and in Abyssinia, Abawi.
or simply Bahr; in Nubia it is known by various
names; in Sennaar the central branch, or Blue Riv-
er, is called Adit; and in Abyssinia, Abawi.
Charles - 1867 - Classical Dictionary
21, p.
722.
)
This city was much frequented by the Romans, and
by Europeans generally, as it lay directly on the route
trom Constantinople to the more eastern provinces,
and contained, in its fine position, its handsome build-
ings, and its numerous warm baths and mineral waters,
very strong attractions for travellers. Under the Ro-
io>>,. s. Nicomedea became one of the chief cities of the
? mpir6 pausanias speaks of it as the principal city
in Bilhynia (6, 12, 5); but under Dioclesian, who
chiefly resided here, it increased greatly in extent and
populousness, and became inferior only to Home, Al-
exandreu, and Antioch. (Lilian. , Oral. , H, p. 203. --
Latum. , dc morte persec, c. 17. ) Nicomedea, how-
ever, suffered severely from earthquakes. Five of
these dreadful visitations fell to its lot, and it was al-
most destroyed by one in particular in the reign of
Julian; but it was again rebuilt with great splendour
and magnificence, and recovered nearly its former
freatnesa. (,4mm. Marccll, 17, 6. --Id. , 22, 13. --
laiala. 1. 13. )--The modern Is-Mid occupies the
site of the ancient city, and is still a place of consid-
erable importance and much trade. The modern name
is given by D'Anville and others as ls-Nikmid. (Man-
ner! , Geogr. , vol. 6, pt. 3, p. 682. )
Nicopolis ("City of Victory," vUri and irofuc), I.
a city of Palestine, to the northwest of Jerusalem, the
same with Emmaus. It received the name of Nicop-
olis in the third century from the Emperor Heliogaba-
ius, who restored and beautified the place. (Citron.
Patch. Ann. , 223. ) Josephus often calls the city
Ammaus. (Bell. Jud. , 1, 9. --Ibid. , 2, 3. ) It must
not be confounded with the Emmaus of the New
Testament (Luc, 24, 13), which was only eight miles
from Jerusalem. (Mannert, Geogr. , vol. 6, pt. 1, p.
233. )--II. A city of Cilicia, placed by Ptolemy in the
northeastern corner of Cilicia, where the range of
Taurus joins that of Amanus. D'Anville puts it too
low down on his map. --HI. A city of Armenia Minor,
'. '? i the river Lycua, near the borders of Pontus. It
>>as built by Pompey in commemoration of a victory
gained here over Mithradates. (Appian, Bell. Mith-
rad, 101, 105. -- Strabo, 555. --Pliny, 6, 9. ) The
modern Devrigni is supposed to occupy its site, the
Tephrice of the Byzantine historians probably. (Man-
nert, Geogr. , vol. 6, pt. 2, p. 318. )--IV. A city in
Mcesia Inferior, on the river Iatrus, one of the tribu-
taries of the Danube. It was founded by Trajan in
commemoration of a victory over the Dacians, and was
generally called, for distinction' sake, Nicopolis ad
Islrum or ad Danubiv. m. The modern name ia given
as Nicopoli. (Atnm. Marccll. , 24, 4. --Vii. , 31, 6. )--
V. A city of Mossia Inferior, southeast of the prece-
ding, at the foot of Mount Haemus, and near the
sources cf tho Istrus. It was called, for distinction'
sake, Nicopolis ad Hamum, and is now Nikub. --VI.
A city of Egypt, to the northeast, and in the immedi-
ate vicinity, of Alexandria. Strabo gives the inter-
vening space as 30 stadia. (Sirab. , 794. ) It was
founded by Augustus in commemoration of a victory
gained here over Antony, and is now Kars or Kiasse-
ra. (Dio Coat. , 61, 18--Joseph. , Bell. Jud. , 4, 14. )
--VII. A city of Tbrace, on the river Nessus, not far
from its mouth, foundtj by Trajan. It is now Nicop-
oi'i. The later name was Christopolis. (Plot. --
Hierocl. , p. 635. -- Wesseling, ad Hierocl. , I. c. )--
? ? VIII. A city of Epirus, on the upper coast of the Am-
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? NIGEF
NIGER.
sing in a southern direction the inhabited region, and
next to it the country of the wild beasts, they crossed
the great sandy desert in a western direction for many
days, until thry arrived at a country inhabited by men
of low stature, who conducted them through extensive
marshes to a city built on a great river, which con-
tained crocodiles, and flowed towards the rising sun.
This information Herodotus derived from the Greeks
of Cyrene, who had it from Etearchus, king of the
rlmmonii, who said that the river in question was a
'rm:''li of the Egyptian Nile, an opinion in which the
historian acquiesced. (Vid. Nasamoncs, and Africa. )
--Strabo seems to have known little of the interior of
Africa and its rivers: he cites the opposite testimo-
nies of Poiidonius and Artemidorus, thu former of
whom said that the rivers of Libya were few anil
small, while the latter stated that they were large and
numerous. --Pliny (5, 1) gives an account of the ex-
pedition into Mauritania of the Roman commander
Suetonius Paulinus, who (A. D. 41) led a Roman army
across the Alias, and, after passing a desert of black
sand and burned rocks, arrived at a river called Ger, in
some MSS. Niger, near which lived the Oanarii, next
to whom were the Perorsi, an Ethiopian tribe; and
farthc inland were the Pharusii, as I'lmysstates above
in the same chapter. ThoCanarii inhabited the country
now called Sus, in the southern part of the empire of
Marocco. near Cape Nun, and opposite to the Fortu-
nate or Cinary Islands; and the Perorsi dwell to the
south of ihem along the seacnast. The Ger or Niger
of Suetonius Paulinus, which he met after crossing the
Atlas, must have been one of the streams which flow
from the southern side of the great Atlas, through the
country of Tafileli, and which lose themselves in the
southern desert. One of these streams is still called
Ghir, and runs through Scgclmessa; and this, in all
probability, is the Ger or Niger of the Roman com-
mander. Ger or Gir seems, in fact, to be an old gen-
eric African appellation for "river. " As for the des-
ert which Suetonius crossed before he arrived at the
Ger, it could evidently not be the great desert, which
spread far to the south of the Canarii, but one of the
desert tracts which lay immediately south of the Atlas.
Caillie describes the inhabited parts of Draha, Tafitell,
and Segelmcssa as consisting of valleys and small
plains, enclosed by steril and rocky tracts of desert
country. --But, besides the Ger or Niger of Suetonius,
Pliny in several places (5, 8. sea. ; 8, 21) speaks of
another apparently distinct river, the Nigris of . -Ethi-
opia, which he compares with the Nile, " swelling at
the same seasons, having similar animals living in its
waters, and, like the Nile, producing the calamus and
papyrus. " In his extremely confused account, which
he derived from the authority of Juba II. , king of Mau-
ritania, he mixes up the Nigris and the Nile together
with other rivers, as if all the waters of Central Africa
formed but one water-course, which seems to have been
a very prevalent notion of old. He says (5, 9) that the
Nile had its origin in a mountain of Lower Mauritania,
not far from the ocean; that it flowed through sandy
deserts, in which it was concealed for several days;
that it reappeared in a great lake in Mauritania Caesa-
riensis, was again hidden for twenty days in deserts,
and then rose agair. in the sources of the Nigris, which
river, separating Africa (meaning Northern Africa) from
^Ethiopia, flowed through the middle of . /Ethiopia, and
became the branch of the Nile called Astapus. The
? ? same story, though without any mention of the Nigris,
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? NlUER.
NIG
cwnl times) with the actual direction of the course of
the Jcliba and that of the river of Sakkatoo, supposing
that river to form a communication with Lake Tschadd,
as Ptolemy says that the Nigeir has a divergent to the
lake Libye, which he places in 16? 30' N. lat. and
35? E. long . , and the words of the text seem to ex-
press that the water ran into the lake; so that the
course of the Nig. . r, according to Ptolemy, as well as
his predecessors, was easterly, as the Joliba or Quorra
actually runs for a great part of its course. "The
lake Libye," observes a distinguished geographer, '? to
which there wbs an easterly divergent, I strongly sus-
pect to have been the Hke Tschadd, notwithstanding
that the position of Libye falls 300 geographical miles
northwestward of this lake; for the name of Libye
favours the presumption that it was the principal lake
in the interior of Libya; it was very natural that Ptol-
emy, like many of the moderns, should have been
misinformed as to the communication of the river with
that lake, and that he should have mistaken two riv-
ers flowing from the same ridge in opposite directions,
one to the Quorra and the other to the Tschadd (I
allude to the Sakkatoo and the Ycu rivers), for a
? ingle communication from the Quorra to the lake. "
(Leake's paper " On the Quorra and Niger," in the
second volume of the Journal of the Royal Geograph-
ical Society of London, 1832. )--But Ptolemy, after
all. may not have been so much misinformed with re-
spect to a communication existing between the lake
and his Nigeir, if, as is now strongly suspected, the
communication really exists, though in an inverse di-
rection from that which Ptolemy appears to have un-
derstood. It is surmised that the river Tschadda,
which, at its junction with the Quorra, just above the
beginning of the delta, is larger than the Quorra itself,
receives an outlet from the lake somewhere about the
town of Jaeobah. (Captain W. Allen, R. N. , On a
new construction of a Map of a Portion of Western
Africa, &c. --Journal of the Royal Geogr. Soc. of
London, vol. 8, 1838. ) If this surmise prove true,
it would explain Ihe statement of the Arabian geogra-
phers of the middle ages, Edrisi, Abulfeda, and Leo
Africanns, who state that the Nil-cl-Ahid, or river of
the negroes, flowed from east to west. The Tschad-
da then would be the river of the Arabian, and the
Joliba or Upper Quorra that of the Greek and Roman,
geographers. Both were ignorant of the real termi-
nation of their respective streams. "It is neverthe-
less remarkable, that the distance laid by Ptolemy
between his source of the river and the western coast
is the same as that given by modern observations;
that Thamondocana, one of the towns on the Nigeir,
is exactly coincident with Tombuctoo, as recently laid
down by M. Jomard from the itinerary of M. Cail-
\\6; that the length of the course resulting from Ptole-
my's positions is nearly equal to that of the Quorra,
as far as the mountains of Kong, with the addition of
the Tschadda or Shary of Funda; and that his po-
sition of Mount Thala, at the southeastern extremity
of the Nigeir, is very near that in which we may sup-
pose the Tschadda to have its origin; so that it would
seem as if Ptolemy, like Sultan Bello and other mod-
em Africans, had considered the Tschadda as a con-
tinuation of the main river, though he knew the Egyp-
tian Nile too well to fall into the modern error of sup-
posing the Nigeir to be a branch of the Nile. The
mountains of Kong, and the passage of the river
? ? through them at right angles to their direction, form-
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? N 11
NILUS.
Molts; another On Wind; a very large work On the
Gods; V:', above all, a System of Astrology, or a
theory of (he art of divination. Macrobius and Au-
las Gellms, in citing these works, have preserved for
us aome few fragments of them. An extract On
Thunder, from one of his productions, exists in Greek,
having been translated into that tongue by Lydus,
and inserted in his treatise on Prodigies. (Scholl,
Hist. Lit. Rom. , vol. 2, p. 187. )
NiLi's, the name of the great river of Eastern Afri-
ca, the various branches of which have their rise in the
high lands north of the equator, and, flowing through
Abyssinia and other regions to the westward of it,
meet in the country of Sennaar. The united stream
flows northward through Nubta and Egypt, and, after
a course of more than 1800 miles from the farthest
explored point of its principal branch, enters the Med-
iterranean by several mouths, which form the delta of
Egypt. The word Nil seems to be an old indigenous
appellation, meaning " river," like that of Gir in Sou-
dan and other countries south of the Atlas. (Vid. Ni-
ger.
) The modern Egyptians call the river Bahr-Nil,
or simply Bahr; in Nubia it is known by various
names; in Sennaar the central branch, or Blue Riv-
er, is called Adit; and in Abyssinia, Abawi. The
three principal branches of the Nile are: 1. The
Bahr el Abiad. or White River, to the west, which is
now ascertained to be the largest and longest. 2.
The Bahr el Azrek, or Blue River, in the centre. 3.
The Taeazze, or Atbara, which is the eastern branch.
These three branches were known to Ptolemy, who
Kcina to have considered the western as the true
Nile, and to have called the Bahr el Azrek by the
name of Astapus, and the Taeazze by the appellation
of Astaboras. He fixed the sources of the western
river in numerous lakes at the foot of the Mountains
cf the Moon, which he placed in 10? S. lat. Strabo
(821) speaks of the island of Meroe as bounded on
the south by the confluence of the Astaboras, Astapus,
and Astasobas. In another place (786) he says, that
the Nile receives the Astaboras and Astapus; which
latter "some call the Astasobas, and say that the As-
tapus is another river, which flows from some lakes in
the south, and makes pretty nearly the direct course
of the Nile, and is swollen by summer-rains. " While
these passages certainly prove that the ancient geog-
raphers knew there were three main streams, they
also prove that their notions about them were extreme-
ly confused. --The Nile, as if it were doomed for ever
to share the obscurity which covers the ancient history
of the land to which it ministers, still conceals its true
sources from the eager curiosity of modern science.
The question which was agitated in the age of the
Ptolemies has not yet been solved; and, although
2000 years have elapsed since Eratosthenes published
his conjectures as to the origin of the principal branch,
we possess not more satisfactory knowledge on that
parlicular point than was enjoyed in his days by the
philosophers of Alexandrea. The repeated failures
which had already attended the various attempts to
discover its fountains, convinced the geographers of
Greece and Rome that success was impossible, and
that it was the will of the gods to conceal from all
generations this great secret of nature. Homer, in
language sufficiently ambiguous, describes it as a
stream descending from heaven. Herodotus made in-
quiry in regard to its commencement, but soon saw
? ? reason to relinquish the attempt as altogether fruitless.
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? NILUS.
NILUS.
branch, which, detaching itself from the Nile higher
up than the Damictta branch, flowed to Pelusium, at
the eastern extremity of Lake Mcnzaleh. This branch
la now in a great measure choked up, though it still
serves partly for the purpose of irrigation. During
our winter months, which are the spring of Egypt, the
Delta, as well as the valley of the Nile, looks like a
delightful garden, smiling with verdure, and enamel-
'? d with the blossoms of trees and plants. Later in
the year the soil becomes parched and dusty; and
in May the suffocating khamseen begins to blow fre-
quently from the south, sweeping along the fine sand,
and CLUsing various diseases, until the rising of the
beneficent river comes again to refresh the land. --For
some remarks on the fertility of Egypt, and of the
Delta in particular, conault the article Egypt, Y 1, page
36, col. 1.
*. Mouths of the Nile, and Inundation of the River.
The ancients were acquainted with, and mention,
seven mouths of the Nile, with respect to the changes
in which, the following are the most established re-
sults. 1. The Canopic mouth, now partly confound-
ed with the canal of Alexandres, and partly lost in
Lake Elko. 2. The Bolbitine mouth at Roxe. tta. 3.
The Sebennytic mouth, probably the opening into the
present Lake Burton. 4. The Phatnitic or Bucolic
at Damietta. 5. The Mendosian, which is lost in the
Lake Menzalch, the mouth of which is represented by
that of Dibeh. 6. The Tanitic or Sa'itic. which cor-
responds to the Macs canal. 7. The Pelusiac mouth
seems to be represented by what is now the most
easterly mouth of Lake Mcnzaleh, where the ruins of
Pelusium are still visible. --The rise of tho Nile, in
xraunon with that of all the rivers of the torrid zone,
a caused by the heavy periodical rains which drench
te table-land of Abyssinia and the mountainous coun-
try that stretches from it towards the aouth and west.
This phenomenon is well explained by Bruce. "The
air," he observes, "is so much rarefied by the sun du-
ring the time he remains almost stationary over the
tropic of Capricorn, that the winds, loaded with va-
pours, rush in upon the land from the Atlantic on the
west, the Indian Ocean on the east, and the cold
Southern Ocean beyond the Cape. Thus a great quan-
tity of vapour is gathered, as it were, into a focus;
and, as the same causes continue to operate during
the progress of the sun northward, a vaat train of
clouds proceed from south to north, which arc some-
times extended much farther than at other periods.
In April all the rivers in the south of Abyssinia begin
to swell; in the beginning of June they are all full,
and continue so while the sun remains stationary in
the tropic of Cancer. "--The rise of the Nile begins
in June, about the summer solstice, and it continues
to increase till September, overflowing the lowlands
along its course The Delta then looks like an im-
mense marsh, interspersed with numerous islands,
with villages, towns, and plantations of trees, just
above the water. Should the Nile rise a few feet
above its ordinary elevation, the inundation sweeps
away the mud-built cottages of the Arabs, drowns
(heir cattle, and involves the whole population in ruin.
Again, should it fall short of the customary height,
bad crops and dearth are the consequences. The in-
undation, after having remained stationary for a few
days, begins to subside, and about the end of Novem-
ber most of the fields are left dry, and covered with
? ? a fresh layer of rich brown slime: this is the time
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? NILUS
NILUS.
Brans were admitted to How into the Arabian Gulf,
it would, in the course of 20,000 years, convey into it
such a quantity of earth as would raise its bed to the
level of the surrounding coast. I am of opinion, he
subjoins, that this might take place even within 10,000
vears; why then might not a bay still more spacious
than this be choked up with mud, in the time which
passed before our age, by a stream so great and pow-
erful as the Nile! (2, 11. )--The men of science who
accompanied the French expedition into Egypt under-
took to measure the depth of alluvial matter which has
been actually deposited by the river. By sinking pits
at different intervals, both on the banks of the current
and on the outer edge of the stratum, they ascertained
satisfactorily, first, that the surface of the soil de-
clines from the margin of the stream towards the foot
of the hills; secondly, that the thickness of the dc-
positc is generally about ten feet near the river, and
decreases gradually as it recedes from it; and, thirdly,
that beneath the mud there is a bed of sand analogous
to the substance which has at all times been brought
iown by the flood of the Nile. This convex form as-
lumed by the surface of the valley is not peculiar to
Egypt, being common to the banks of all great rivers,
where the quantity of soil transported by tire current
is greater than that which is washed down by rain
from the neighbouring mountains. The plains which
skirt the Mississippi and the Ganges present in many
parts an example of the same phenomenon. --An at-
tempt has likewise been made to ascertain the rale of
the annual deposition of alluvial substance, and there-
by to measure the elevation which has been conferred
upon the valley of Egypt by the action of its river.
But on no point are travellers less agreed than in re-
gard to the change of level and the increase of land
on the seacoast. Dr. Shaw and M. Savary take their
Kii-nd on the one side, and are resolutely opposed by
lit ice and Volney on the other. Herodotus informs
us, that in the reign of Moeris, if the Nile rose to the
height of eight cubits, all the lands of Egypt were suf-
ficiently watered; but that in his own lime--not quite
W)0 years afterward--the country was not covered
? vilh less than fifteen or sixteen cubits of water. The
addition of soil, therefore, was equal to seven cubits
at the least, or 126 inches in the course of 900 years.
"But at present," says Dr. Shaw, "the river must
rise to the height of twenty cubits--and it usually
rises to 24 cubits--before the whole country is over-
flowed. Since the lime, therefore, of Herodotus,
Egypt has gained new soil to the depth of 230 inches.
And if we look back from the reign of Mceris to the
time of the Deluge, and reckon that interval by the
same proportion, we shall find that the whole perpen-
dicular accession of the soil, from the Deluge to A. D.
1721, must be 500 inches; that is, the land of Egypt has
gained 41 feet 8 inches of soil in 4072 years. Thus,
in process of time, the country may be raised to such
a height that the river will not be able to overflow its
banks; and Egypt, consequently, from being the most
fertile, will, for want of the annual inundation, become
one of the most barren parts of the universe. " (Shaw's
Travels, vol. 2, p. 235. )--We shall see presently that
this fear on the part of the learned traveller is entirely
without foundation. Were it possible to determine
the mean rate of accumulation, a species of chronome-
ter would be thereby obtained for measuring the lapse
of time which has passed since any monument, or oth-
? ? er work of art in the neighbourhood of the river, was
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? NILUS.
NIN
that the mud of Ethiopia has been detected by sound-
ings at the distance of not less than twenty leagues
from the coast of the Delta. Nor yet is there any sub-
stantial ground for apprehending, with the author just
named, that, in process of time, the whole country
may be raised to such a height that the river will not
be able to overflow its banks; and, consequently, that
Egypt, from being the most fertile, will, for want of
the annual inundation, become one of the most barren
parts of the universe. "According to an approximate
calculation," observes Wilkinson, " the land about the
first or lowest cataract has been raised nine feet in
1700 years, at Thebes about seven feet, and at Cairo
about five feet ten inches; while at Rosetta and the
mouths of the Nile, where the perpendicular thickness
of the depnsitc is much less than in the valley of Cen-
tral and Upper Egypt, owing to the great extent, east
and west, over which the inundation spreads, the rise
of the soil has been comparatively imperceptible. " As
the bed of the Nile always keeps pace with the eleva-
tion of the soil, and the proportion of water brought
down by the river continues to be the same, it follows
that the Nile now overflows a greater extent of land,
both east and west, than in former times; and that the
superficies of cultivable land in the plains of Thebes
and of Central Egypt continues to increase. All fears,
therefore, about the stoppage of the overflowing of the
Nile are unfounded. (Russell's Egypt, p. 37, scqq. --
Encycl. Us. Knoicl. , vol. 16, p. 234. )
4. Change in the course of the ATi/c.
The Nile is said by Hcrodutus (2, 99) to have flow-
ed, previously to the time of Menes, on the side of
Libya. This prince, by constructing a mound at the
distance of 100 stadia from Memphis, towards tho
south, diverted its course. The ancient course is not
unknown at present, and may be traced across the
desert, passing west of the Natron Lakes. It is call-
ed by the Arabs Bahr-bela-Match, "Tho river with-
out water," and presents itself to the view in a valley
which runs parallel to that containing the lakes just
mentioned. In the sand with which its channel is ev-
erywhere covered, trunks of trees have been found in
a state of complete petrifaction, and also the vertebral
bone of a large fish. Jasper, quartz, and petrosilex
hare likewise been observed scattered over the sur-
face. "That the Nile originally flowed through the
'alley of the Dry River," observes Russell (Egypt, p.
102. scqq. ), "is admitted by the most intelligent among
modem travellers. M. Denon, for example, regards
as proofs of this fact the physical conformation of the
adjoining country; the existence of the bed of a river
eitending to the sea, but now dry ; its depositions and
incrustations ; its extent; its bearing towards the north
on a chain of hills which run east and west, and turn
off towards the northwest, sloping down to follow the
coarse of the valley of the dry channel, and likewise
the Natron Lakes. And, more than all the other proofs,
the form of the chain of mountains at the north of the
Pyramid, which shuts the entrance of the valley, and
appears to be cut perpendicularly, like almost all the
mountains at the foot of which the Nile flows at the
present day; all these offer to the view a channel left
dry. and its several remains. (Denon, vol. 1, p. 163 )
The opinion that the river of Egypt penetrated into
the Libyan desert, even to the westward of Fayoum,
is rendered probable by some observations recorded in
the second volume of Belzoni's Researches. In his
? ? journey to the Oasis of Ammon, he reached, one even-
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? NINUS.
by Assur, or, if we adopt the marginal translation, by
Nimrod. (ViA. Assyria. ) Possibly Nimrod and Ni-
nus were the same. --Nineveh was the residence of
the Assyrian monarchs (2 Kings, 19, 36. --Isa(ah,
37, 37. --Compare Strabo, 84, 737), and it is men-
tioned as a place of great commercial importance;
whence Nahum speaks of its merchants as more than
the stars of heaven (3, 16). But, as in the ease of
most large and wealthy cities, the greatest corruption
and licentiousness prevailed, on account of which Na-
hum and Zephaniah foretold its destruction. --Nineveh,
which for 1450 years had been mistress of the East,
to whom even Babylon itself was subject, was first
taken in the reign of Sardanapalus, B. C. 747, by the
Medes and Babylonians, who had revolted under thpir
governors Arbaces and Belesis. This event put an
end to the first Assyrian empire, and divided its im-
mense territory into two lesser kingdoms, those of
Assyria and Babylon. But Nineveh itself suffered
little change from this event; it was still a great city;
and, soon after, in the reign of Esarhaddon, who took
Babylon, it became again the capital of both empires,
which continued 54 years; when Nabopolassar, a gen-
eral in the Assyrian army, and father of the famous
Nebuchadnezzar, seized on Babylon and proclaimed
himself king: after which Nineveh was no more the
seat of government of both kingdoms. It was, in fact,
now on the decline, and was soon to yield to the rising
power of its great rival. The Mcdes had again revolt-
ed, and in the year 633 B. C. , their king, Cyaxarcs,
having defeated the Assyrians in a great battle, laid
siege to Nineveh; but its time was not yet come, and
it was delivered on this occasion by an invasion of
Media by the Scythians, which obliged Cyaxares to
withdraw his army to repel them. But in the year
612, having formed an alliance with Nabopolassar, king
of Babylon, he returned, accompanied by that monarch,
to the siege of Nineveh, and finally took the city.
The prophecy made by Zephaniah, of its utter destruc-
tion, must refer to this latter event. Strabo says that
it fell into decay immediately after the dissolution of
the Assyrian monarchy; and this account is confirmed
by the fact, that, in the history of A lexander the Great,
the place is not mentioned, although in his march
along the Tigris, previous to the battle of Arbela, he
must have been very near the spot where it is supposed
to have stood. Under the Roman emperors, however,
we read of a city named Ninus (Tacit. , Ann. , 12, 13)
or Ninivc (Amm. Marccll. , 18, 7); and Abulpharagi,
in the 13th century, mentions a castle called Niniri.
--Little doubt can arise that Nineveh was situate
near the Tigris, and yet the exact site of that once
mighty city has never been clearly ascertained. On
the eastern bank of the Tigris, opposite the town of
Mosul, and partly on the site of the modern village of
Nunia or Ncbtri Yumts, arc some considerable ruins,
which have been described at different periods by
Benjamin of Tudcla, Thcvenot, Tavernier, &c. , as
those of ancient Nineveh. But it is thought by others,
from the dimensions of the ruins, that these travellers
must have been mistaken; and that the remains de-
? scribcd by them were those of some city of much
smaller extent and more recent date than the Scripture
Nineveh. Mr. Kinneir, who visited this spot in the
year 1808, says, that " On the opposite bank of the
Tigris {that is, over against Mosul), and about three
quarters of a mile from that stream, the village of Nu-
nia and sepulchre of the prophet Jonas seem to point
? ? out the position of Nineveh. "--" A city being after-
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? NIOBE.
N1S
numerous offspring was so great, that she is said to
have insulted Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana,
by refusing to offer at the altars raised in her honour,
declaring that she herself had a better claim to worship
and sacrifices than one who was the mother of only
two children. Latona, indignant at this insolence and
presumption, called upon her children for revenge.
Apollo and Diana heard her prayer, and obeyed the
entreaty of their outraged parent. All the sons of
Niobe fell by the arrows of Apollo, while the daugh-
ters, in like manner, met their death from the hands
of Diana. Clitoris alone escaped the common fate.
She was the wife of Ncleus, king of Pylos. This ter-
rible judgment of the gods so affected the now heart-
stricken and humiliated Niobe, that she was changed
by her excessive grief into a stone on Mount Sipyius,
in Lydia. Amphion also, in attempting, in retalki-
tion, to destroy the temple of Apollo, perished by the
shafts of that deity. (Ovid, Met. , 6, 146, seqq--Hy-
gm. , fab.
This city was much frequented by the Romans, and
by Europeans generally, as it lay directly on the route
trom Constantinople to the more eastern provinces,
and contained, in its fine position, its handsome build-
ings, and its numerous warm baths and mineral waters,
very strong attractions for travellers. Under the Ro-
io>>,. s. Nicomedea became one of the chief cities of the
? mpir6 pausanias speaks of it as the principal city
in Bilhynia (6, 12, 5); but under Dioclesian, who
chiefly resided here, it increased greatly in extent and
populousness, and became inferior only to Home, Al-
exandreu, and Antioch. (Lilian. , Oral. , H, p. 203. --
Latum. , dc morte persec, c. 17. ) Nicomedea, how-
ever, suffered severely from earthquakes. Five of
these dreadful visitations fell to its lot, and it was al-
most destroyed by one in particular in the reign of
Julian; but it was again rebuilt with great splendour
and magnificence, and recovered nearly its former
freatnesa. (,4mm. Marccll, 17, 6. --Id. , 22, 13. --
laiala. 1. 13. )--The modern Is-Mid occupies the
site of the ancient city, and is still a place of consid-
erable importance and much trade. The modern name
is given by D'Anville and others as ls-Nikmid. (Man-
ner! , Geogr. , vol. 6, pt. 3, p. 682. )
Nicopolis ("City of Victory," vUri and irofuc), I.
a city of Palestine, to the northwest of Jerusalem, the
same with Emmaus. It received the name of Nicop-
olis in the third century from the Emperor Heliogaba-
ius, who restored and beautified the place. (Citron.
Patch. Ann. , 223. ) Josephus often calls the city
Ammaus. (Bell. Jud. , 1, 9. --Ibid. , 2, 3. ) It must
not be confounded with the Emmaus of the New
Testament (Luc, 24, 13), which was only eight miles
from Jerusalem. (Mannert, Geogr. , vol. 6, pt. 1, p.
233. )--II. A city of Cilicia, placed by Ptolemy in the
northeastern corner of Cilicia, where the range of
Taurus joins that of Amanus. D'Anville puts it too
low down on his map. --HI. A city of Armenia Minor,
'. '? i the river Lycua, near the borders of Pontus. It
>>as built by Pompey in commemoration of a victory
gained here over Mithradates. (Appian, Bell. Mith-
rad, 101, 105. -- Strabo, 555. --Pliny, 6, 9. ) The
modern Devrigni is supposed to occupy its site, the
Tephrice of the Byzantine historians probably. (Man-
nert, Geogr. , vol. 6, pt. 2, p. 318. )--IV. A city in
Mcesia Inferior, on the river Iatrus, one of the tribu-
taries of the Danube. It was founded by Trajan in
commemoration of a victory over the Dacians, and was
generally called, for distinction' sake, Nicopolis ad
Islrum or ad Danubiv. m. The modern name ia given
as Nicopoli. (Atnm. Marccll. , 24, 4. --Vii. , 31, 6. )--
V. A city of Mossia Inferior, southeast of the prece-
ding, at the foot of Mount Haemus, and near the
sources cf tho Istrus. It was called, for distinction'
sake, Nicopolis ad Hamum, and is now Nikub. --VI.
A city of Egypt, to the northeast, and in the immedi-
ate vicinity, of Alexandria. Strabo gives the inter-
vening space as 30 stadia. (Sirab. , 794. ) It was
founded by Augustus in commemoration of a victory
gained here over Antony, and is now Kars or Kiasse-
ra. (Dio Coat. , 61, 18--Joseph. , Bell. Jud. , 4, 14. )
--VII. A city of Tbrace, on the river Nessus, not far
from its mouth, foundtj by Trajan. It is now Nicop-
oi'i. The later name was Christopolis. (Plot. --
Hierocl. , p. 635. -- Wesseling, ad Hierocl. , I. c. )--
? ? VIII. A city of Epirus, on the upper coast of the Am-
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? NIGEF
NIGER.
sing in a southern direction the inhabited region, and
next to it the country of the wild beasts, they crossed
the great sandy desert in a western direction for many
days, until thry arrived at a country inhabited by men
of low stature, who conducted them through extensive
marshes to a city built on a great river, which con-
tained crocodiles, and flowed towards the rising sun.
This information Herodotus derived from the Greeks
of Cyrene, who had it from Etearchus, king of the
rlmmonii, who said that the river in question was a
'rm:''li of the Egyptian Nile, an opinion in which the
historian acquiesced. (Vid. Nasamoncs, and Africa. )
--Strabo seems to have known little of the interior of
Africa and its rivers: he cites the opposite testimo-
nies of Poiidonius and Artemidorus, thu former of
whom said that the rivers of Libya were few anil
small, while the latter stated that they were large and
numerous. --Pliny (5, 1) gives an account of the ex-
pedition into Mauritania of the Roman commander
Suetonius Paulinus, who (A. D. 41) led a Roman army
across the Alias, and, after passing a desert of black
sand and burned rocks, arrived at a river called Ger, in
some MSS. Niger, near which lived the Oanarii, next
to whom were the Perorsi, an Ethiopian tribe; and
farthc inland were the Pharusii, as I'lmysstates above
in the same chapter. ThoCanarii inhabited the country
now called Sus, in the southern part of the empire of
Marocco. near Cape Nun, and opposite to the Fortu-
nate or Cinary Islands; and the Perorsi dwell to the
south of ihem along the seacnast. The Ger or Niger
of Suetonius Paulinus, which he met after crossing the
Atlas, must have been one of the streams which flow
from the southern side of the great Atlas, through the
country of Tafileli, and which lose themselves in the
southern desert. One of these streams is still called
Ghir, and runs through Scgclmessa; and this, in all
probability, is the Ger or Niger of the Roman com-
mander. Ger or Gir seems, in fact, to be an old gen-
eric African appellation for "river. " As for the des-
ert which Suetonius crossed before he arrived at the
Ger, it could evidently not be the great desert, which
spread far to the south of the Canarii, but one of the
desert tracts which lay immediately south of the Atlas.
Caillie describes the inhabited parts of Draha, Tafitell,
and Segelmcssa as consisting of valleys and small
plains, enclosed by steril and rocky tracts of desert
country. --But, besides the Ger or Niger of Suetonius,
Pliny in several places (5, 8. sea. ; 8, 21) speaks of
another apparently distinct river, the Nigris of . -Ethi-
opia, which he compares with the Nile, " swelling at
the same seasons, having similar animals living in its
waters, and, like the Nile, producing the calamus and
papyrus. " In his extremely confused account, which
he derived from the authority of Juba II. , king of Mau-
ritania, he mixes up the Nigris and the Nile together
with other rivers, as if all the waters of Central Africa
formed but one water-course, which seems to have been
a very prevalent notion of old. He says (5, 9) that the
Nile had its origin in a mountain of Lower Mauritania,
not far from the ocean; that it flowed through sandy
deserts, in which it was concealed for several days;
that it reappeared in a great lake in Mauritania Caesa-
riensis, was again hidden for twenty days in deserts,
and then rose agair. in the sources of the Nigris, which
river, separating Africa (meaning Northern Africa) from
^Ethiopia, flowed through the middle of . /Ethiopia, and
became the branch of the Nile called Astapus. The
? ? same story, though without any mention of the Nigris,
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? NlUER.
NIG
cwnl times) with the actual direction of the course of
the Jcliba and that of the river of Sakkatoo, supposing
that river to form a communication with Lake Tschadd,
as Ptolemy says that the Nigeir has a divergent to the
lake Libye, which he places in 16? 30' N. lat. and
35? E. long . , and the words of the text seem to ex-
press that the water ran into the lake; so that the
course of the Nig. . r, according to Ptolemy, as well as
his predecessors, was easterly, as the Joliba or Quorra
actually runs for a great part of its course. "The
lake Libye," observes a distinguished geographer, '? to
which there wbs an easterly divergent, I strongly sus-
pect to have been the Hke Tschadd, notwithstanding
that the position of Libye falls 300 geographical miles
northwestward of this lake; for the name of Libye
favours the presumption that it was the principal lake
in the interior of Libya; it was very natural that Ptol-
emy, like many of the moderns, should have been
misinformed as to the communication of the river with
that lake, and that he should have mistaken two riv-
ers flowing from the same ridge in opposite directions,
one to the Quorra and the other to the Tschadd (I
allude to the Sakkatoo and the Ycu rivers), for a
? ingle communication from the Quorra to the lake. "
(Leake's paper " On the Quorra and Niger," in the
second volume of the Journal of the Royal Geograph-
ical Society of London, 1832. )--But Ptolemy, after
all. may not have been so much misinformed with re-
spect to a communication existing between the lake
and his Nigeir, if, as is now strongly suspected, the
communication really exists, though in an inverse di-
rection from that which Ptolemy appears to have un-
derstood. It is surmised that the river Tschadda,
which, at its junction with the Quorra, just above the
beginning of the delta, is larger than the Quorra itself,
receives an outlet from the lake somewhere about the
town of Jaeobah. (Captain W. Allen, R. N. , On a
new construction of a Map of a Portion of Western
Africa, &c. --Journal of the Royal Geogr. Soc. of
London, vol. 8, 1838. ) If this surmise prove true,
it would explain Ihe statement of the Arabian geogra-
phers of the middle ages, Edrisi, Abulfeda, and Leo
Africanns, who state that the Nil-cl-Ahid, or river of
the negroes, flowed from east to west. The Tschad-
da then would be the river of the Arabian, and the
Joliba or Upper Quorra that of the Greek and Roman,
geographers. Both were ignorant of the real termi-
nation of their respective streams. "It is neverthe-
less remarkable, that the distance laid by Ptolemy
between his source of the river and the western coast
is the same as that given by modern observations;
that Thamondocana, one of the towns on the Nigeir,
is exactly coincident with Tombuctoo, as recently laid
down by M. Jomard from the itinerary of M. Cail-
\\6; that the length of the course resulting from Ptole-
my's positions is nearly equal to that of the Quorra,
as far as the mountains of Kong, with the addition of
the Tschadda or Shary of Funda; and that his po-
sition of Mount Thala, at the southeastern extremity
of the Nigeir, is very near that in which we may sup-
pose the Tschadda to have its origin; so that it would
seem as if Ptolemy, like Sultan Bello and other mod-
em Africans, had considered the Tschadda as a con-
tinuation of the main river, though he knew the Egyp-
tian Nile too well to fall into the modern error of sup-
posing the Nigeir to be a branch of the Nile. The
mountains of Kong, and the passage of the river
? ? through them at right angles to their direction, form-
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? N 11
NILUS.
Molts; another On Wind; a very large work On the
Gods; V:', above all, a System of Astrology, or a
theory of (he art of divination. Macrobius and Au-
las Gellms, in citing these works, have preserved for
us aome few fragments of them. An extract On
Thunder, from one of his productions, exists in Greek,
having been translated into that tongue by Lydus,
and inserted in his treatise on Prodigies. (Scholl,
Hist. Lit. Rom. , vol. 2, p. 187. )
NiLi's, the name of the great river of Eastern Afri-
ca, the various branches of which have their rise in the
high lands north of the equator, and, flowing through
Abyssinia and other regions to the westward of it,
meet in the country of Sennaar. The united stream
flows northward through Nubta and Egypt, and, after
a course of more than 1800 miles from the farthest
explored point of its principal branch, enters the Med-
iterranean by several mouths, which form the delta of
Egypt. The word Nil seems to be an old indigenous
appellation, meaning " river," like that of Gir in Sou-
dan and other countries south of the Atlas. (Vid. Ni-
ger.
) The modern Egyptians call the river Bahr-Nil,
or simply Bahr; in Nubia it is known by various
names; in Sennaar the central branch, or Blue Riv-
er, is called Adit; and in Abyssinia, Abawi. The
three principal branches of the Nile are: 1. The
Bahr el Abiad. or White River, to the west, which is
now ascertained to be the largest and longest. 2.
The Bahr el Azrek, or Blue River, in the centre. 3.
The Taeazze, or Atbara, which is the eastern branch.
These three branches were known to Ptolemy, who
Kcina to have considered the western as the true
Nile, and to have called the Bahr el Azrek by the
name of Astapus, and the Taeazze by the appellation
of Astaboras. He fixed the sources of the western
river in numerous lakes at the foot of the Mountains
cf the Moon, which he placed in 10? S. lat. Strabo
(821) speaks of the island of Meroe as bounded on
the south by the confluence of the Astaboras, Astapus,
and Astasobas. In another place (786) he says, that
the Nile receives the Astaboras and Astapus; which
latter "some call the Astasobas, and say that the As-
tapus is another river, which flows from some lakes in
the south, and makes pretty nearly the direct course
of the Nile, and is swollen by summer-rains. " While
these passages certainly prove that the ancient geog-
raphers knew there were three main streams, they
also prove that their notions about them were extreme-
ly confused. --The Nile, as if it were doomed for ever
to share the obscurity which covers the ancient history
of the land to which it ministers, still conceals its true
sources from the eager curiosity of modern science.
The question which was agitated in the age of the
Ptolemies has not yet been solved; and, although
2000 years have elapsed since Eratosthenes published
his conjectures as to the origin of the principal branch,
we possess not more satisfactory knowledge on that
parlicular point than was enjoyed in his days by the
philosophers of Alexandrea. The repeated failures
which had already attended the various attempts to
discover its fountains, convinced the geographers of
Greece and Rome that success was impossible, and
that it was the will of the gods to conceal from all
generations this great secret of nature. Homer, in
language sufficiently ambiguous, describes it as a
stream descending from heaven. Herodotus made in-
quiry in regard to its commencement, but soon saw
? ? reason to relinquish the attempt as altogether fruitless.
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? NILUS.
NILUS.
branch, which, detaching itself from the Nile higher
up than the Damictta branch, flowed to Pelusium, at
the eastern extremity of Lake Mcnzaleh. This branch
la now in a great measure choked up, though it still
serves partly for the purpose of irrigation. During
our winter months, which are the spring of Egypt, the
Delta, as well as the valley of the Nile, looks like a
delightful garden, smiling with verdure, and enamel-
'? d with the blossoms of trees and plants. Later in
the year the soil becomes parched and dusty; and
in May the suffocating khamseen begins to blow fre-
quently from the south, sweeping along the fine sand,
and CLUsing various diseases, until the rising of the
beneficent river comes again to refresh the land. --For
some remarks on the fertility of Egypt, and of the
Delta in particular, conault the article Egypt, Y 1, page
36, col. 1.
*. Mouths of the Nile, and Inundation of the River.
The ancients were acquainted with, and mention,
seven mouths of the Nile, with respect to the changes
in which, the following are the most established re-
sults. 1. The Canopic mouth, now partly confound-
ed with the canal of Alexandres, and partly lost in
Lake Elko. 2. The Bolbitine mouth at Roxe. tta. 3.
The Sebennytic mouth, probably the opening into the
present Lake Burton. 4. The Phatnitic or Bucolic
at Damietta. 5. The Mendosian, which is lost in the
Lake Menzalch, the mouth of which is represented by
that of Dibeh. 6. The Tanitic or Sa'itic. which cor-
responds to the Macs canal. 7. The Pelusiac mouth
seems to be represented by what is now the most
easterly mouth of Lake Mcnzaleh, where the ruins of
Pelusium are still visible. --The rise of tho Nile, in
xraunon with that of all the rivers of the torrid zone,
a caused by the heavy periodical rains which drench
te table-land of Abyssinia and the mountainous coun-
try that stretches from it towards the aouth and west.
This phenomenon is well explained by Bruce. "The
air," he observes, "is so much rarefied by the sun du-
ring the time he remains almost stationary over the
tropic of Capricorn, that the winds, loaded with va-
pours, rush in upon the land from the Atlantic on the
west, the Indian Ocean on the east, and the cold
Southern Ocean beyond the Cape. Thus a great quan-
tity of vapour is gathered, as it were, into a focus;
and, as the same causes continue to operate during
the progress of the sun northward, a vaat train of
clouds proceed from south to north, which arc some-
times extended much farther than at other periods.
In April all the rivers in the south of Abyssinia begin
to swell; in the beginning of June they are all full,
and continue so while the sun remains stationary in
the tropic of Cancer. "--The rise of the Nile begins
in June, about the summer solstice, and it continues
to increase till September, overflowing the lowlands
along its course The Delta then looks like an im-
mense marsh, interspersed with numerous islands,
with villages, towns, and plantations of trees, just
above the water. Should the Nile rise a few feet
above its ordinary elevation, the inundation sweeps
away the mud-built cottages of the Arabs, drowns
(heir cattle, and involves the whole population in ruin.
Again, should it fall short of the customary height,
bad crops and dearth are the consequences. The in-
undation, after having remained stationary for a few
days, begins to subside, and about the end of Novem-
ber most of the fields are left dry, and covered with
? ? a fresh layer of rich brown slime: this is the time
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? NILUS
NILUS.
Brans were admitted to How into the Arabian Gulf,
it would, in the course of 20,000 years, convey into it
such a quantity of earth as would raise its bed to the
level of the surrounding coast. I am of opinion, he
subjoins, that this might take place even within 10,000
vears; why then might not a bay still more spacious
than this be choked up with mud, in the time which
passed before our age, by a stream so great and pow-
erful as the Nile! (2, 11. )--The men of science who
accompanied the French expedition into Egypt under-
took to measure the depth of alluvial matter which has
been actually deposited by the river. By sinking pits
at different intervals, both on the banks of the current
and on the outer edge of the stratum, they ascertained
satisfactorily, first, that the surface of the soil de-
clines from the margin of the stream towards the foot
of the hills; secondly, that the thickness of the dc-
positc is generally about ten feet near the river, and
decreases gradually as it recedes from it; and, thirdly,
that beneath the mud there is a bed of sand analogous
to the substance which has at all times been brought
iown by the flood of the Nile. This convex form as-
lumed by the surface of the valley is not peculiar to
Egypt, being common to the banks of all great rivers,
where the quantity of soil transported by tire current
is greater than that which is washed down by rain
from the neighbouring mountains. The plains which
skirt the Mississippi and the Ganges present in many
parts an example of the same phenomenon. --An at-
tempt has likewise been made to ascertain the rale of
the annual deposition of alluvial substance, and there-
by to measure the elevation which has been conferred
upon the valley of Egypt by the action of its river.
But on no point are travellers less agreed than in re-
gard to the change of level and the increase of land
on the seacoast. Dr. Shaw and M. Savary take their
Kii-nd on the one side, and are resolutely opposed by
lit ice and Volney on the other. Herodotus informs
us, that in the reign of Moeris, if the Nile rose to the
height of eight cubits, all the lands of Egypt were suf-
ficiently watered; but that in his own lime--not quite
W)0 years afterward--the country was not covered
? vilh less than fifteen or sixteen cubits of water. The
addition of soil, therefore, was equal to seven cubits
at the least, or 126 inches in the course of 900 years.
"But at present," says Dr. Shaw, "the river must
rise to the height of twenty cubits--and it usually
rises to 24 cubits--before the whole country is over-
flowed. Since the lime, therefore, of Herodotus,
Egypt has gained new soil to the depth of 230 inches.
And if we look back from the reign of Mceris to the
time of the Deluge, and reckon that interval by the
same proportion, we shall find that the whole perpen-
dicular accession of the soil, from the Deluge to A. D.
1721, must be 500 inches; that is, the land of Egypt has
gained 41 feet 8 inches of soil in 4072 years. Thus,
in process of time, the country may be raised to such
a height that the river will not be able to overflow its
banks; and Egypt, consequently, from being the most
fertile, will, for want of the annual inundation, become
one of the most barren parts of the universe. " (Shaw's
Travels, vol. 2, p. 235. )--We shall see presently that
this fear on the part of the learned traveller is entirely
without foundation. Were it possible to determine
the mean rate of accumulation, a species of chronome-
ter would be thereby obtained for measuring the lapse
of time which has passed since any monument, or oth-
? ? er work of art in the neighbourhood of the river, was
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? NILUS.
NIN
that the mud of Ethiopia has been detected by sound-
ings at the distance of not less than twenty leagues
from the coast of the Delta. Nor yet is there any sub-
stantial ground for apprehending, with the author just
named, that, in process of time, the whole country
may be raised to such a height that the river will not
be able to overflow its banks; and, consequently, that
Egypt, from being the most fertile, will, for want of
the annual inundation, become one of the most barren
parts of the universe. "According to an approximate
calculation," observes Wilkinson, " the land about the
first or lowest cataract has been raised nine feet in
1700 years, at Thebes about seven feet, and at Cairo
about five feet ten inches; while at Rosetta and the
mouths of the Nile, where the perpendicular thickness
of the depnsitc is much less than in the valley of Cen-
tral and Upper Egypt, owing to the great extent, east
and west, over which the inundation spreads, the rise
of the soil has been comparatively imperceptible. " As
the bed of the Nile always keeps pace with the eleva-
tion of the soil, and the proportion of water brought
down by the river continues to be the same, it follows
that the Nile now overflows a greater extent of land,
both east and west, than in former times; and that the
superficies of cultivable land in the plains of Thebes
and of Central Egypt continues to increase. All fears,
therefore, about the stoppage of the overflowing of the
Nile are unfounded. (Russell's Egypt, p. 37, scqq. --
Encycl. Us. Knoicl. , vol. 16, p. 234. )
4. Change in the course of the ATi/c.
The Nile is said by Hcrodutus (2, 99) to have flow-
ed, previously to the time of Menes, on the side of
Libya. This prince, by constructing a mound at the
distance of 100 stadia from Memphis, towards tho
south, diverted its course. The ancient course is not
unknown at present, and may be traced across the
desert, passing west of the Natron Lakes. It is call-
ed by the Arabs Bahr-bela-Match, "Tho river with-
out water," and presents itself to the view in a valley
which runs parallel to that containing the lakes just
mentioned. In the sand with which its channel is ev-
erywhere covered, trunks of trees have been found in
a state of complete petrifaction, and also the vertebral
bone of a large fish. Jasper, quartz, and petrosilex
hare likewise been observed scattered over the sur-
face. "That the Nile originally flowed through the
'alley of the Dry River," observes Russell (Egypt, p.
102. scqq. ), "is admitted by the most intelligent among
modem travellers. M. Denon, for example, regards
as proofs of this fact the physical conformation of the
adjoining country; the existence of the bed of a river
eitending to the sea, but now dry ; its depositions and
incrustations ; its extent; its bearing towards the north
on a chain of hills which run east and west, and turn
off towards the northwest, sloping down to follow the
coarse of the valley of the dry channel, and likewise
the Natron Lakes. And, more than all the other proofs,
the form of the chain of mountains at the north of the
Pyramid, which shuts the entrance of the valley, and
appears to be cut perpendicularly, like almost all the
mountains at the foot of which the Nile flows at the
present day; all these offer to the view a channel left
dry. and its several remains. (Denon, vol. 1, p. 163 )
The opinion that the river of Egypt penetrated into
the Libyan desert, even to the westward of Fayoum,
is rendered probable by some observations recorded in
the second volume of Belzoni's Researches. In his
? ? journey to the Oasis of Ammon, he reached, one even-
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? NINUS.
by Assur, or, if we adopt the marginal translation, by
Nimrod. (ViA. Assyria. ) Possibly Nimrod and Ni-
nus were the same. --Nineveh was the residence of
the Assyrian monarchs (2 Kings, 19, 36. --Isa(ah,
37, 37. --Compare Strabo, 84, 737), and it is men-
tioned as a place of great commercial importance;
whence Nahum speaks of its merchants as more than
the stars of heaven (3, 16). But, as in the ease of
most large and wealthy cities, the greatest corruption
and licentiousness prevailed, on account of which Na-
hum and Zephaniah foretold its destruction. --Nineveh,
which for 1450 years had been mistress of the East,
to whom even Babylon itself was subject, was first
taken in the reign of Sardanapalus, B. C. 747, by the
Medes and Babylonians, who had revolted under thpir
governors Arbaces and Belesis. This event put an
end to the first Assyrian empire, and divided its im-
mense territory into two lesser kingdoms, those of
Assyria and Babylon. But Nineveh itself suffered
little change from this event; it was still a great city;
and, soon after, in the reign of Esarhaddon, who took
Babylon, it became again the capital of both empires,
which continued 54 years; when Nabopolassar, a gen-
eral in the Assyrian army, and father of the famous
Nebuchadnezzar, seized on Babylon and proclaimed
himself king: after which Nineveh was no more the
seat of government of both kingdoms. It was, in fact,
now on the decline, and was soon to yield to the rising
power of its great rival. The Mcdes had again revolt-
ed, and in the year 633 B. C. , their king, Cyaxarcs,
having defeated the Assyrians in a great battle, laid
siege to Nineveh; but its time was not yet come, and
it was delivered on this occasion by an invasion of
Media by the Scythians, which obliged Cyaxares to
withdraw his army to repel them. But in the year
612, having formed an alliance with Nabopolassar, king
of Babylon, he returned, accompanied by that monarch,
to the siege of Nineveh, and finally took the city.
The prophecy made by Zephaniah, of its utter destruc-
tion, must refer to this latter event. Strabo says that
it fell into decay immediately after the dissolution of
the Assyrian monarchy; and this account is confirmed
by the fact, that, in the history of A lexander the Great,
the place is not mentioned, although in his march
along the Tigris, previous to the battle of Arbela, he
must have been very near the spot where it is supposed
to have stood. Under the Roman emperors, however,
we read of a city named Ninus (Tacit. , Ann. , 12, 13)
or Ninivc (Amm. Marccll. , 18, 7); and Abulpharagi,
in the 13th century, mentions a castle called Niniri.
--Little doubt can arise that Nineveh was situate
near the Tigris, and yet the exact site of that once
mighty city has never been clearly ascertained. On
the eastern bank of the Tigris, opposite the town of
Mosul, and partly on the site of the modern village of
Nunia or Ncbtri Yumts, arc some considerable ruins,
which have been described at different periods by
Benjamin of Tudcla, Thcvenot, Tavernier, &c. , as
those of ancient Nineveh. But it is thought by others,
from the dimensions of the ruins, that these travellers
must have been mistaken; and that the remains de-
? scribcd by them were those of some city of much
smaller extent and more recent date than the Scripture
Nineveh. Mr. Kinneir, who visited this spot in the
year 1808, says, that " On the opposite bank of the
Tigris {that is, over against Mosul), and about three
quarters of a mile from that stream, the village of Nu-
nia and sepulchre of the prophet Jonas seem to point
? ? out the position of Nineveh. "--" A city being after-
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? NIOBE.
N1S
numerous offspring was so great, that she is said to
have insulted Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana,
by refusing to offer at the altars raised in her honour,
declaring that she herself had a better claim to worship
and sacrifices than one who was the mother of only
two children. Latona, indignant at this insolence and
presumption, called upon her children for revenge.
Apollo and Diana heard her prayer, and obeyed the
entreaty of their outraged parent. All the sons of
Niobe fell by the arrows of Apollo, while the daugh-
ters, in like manner, met their death from the hands
of Diana. Clitoris alone escaped the common fate.
She was the wife of Ncleus, king of Pylos. This ter-
rible judgment of the gods so affected the now heart-
stricken and humiliated Niobe, that she was changed
by her excessive grief into a stone on Mount Sipyius,
in Lydia. Amphion also, in attempting, in retalki-
tion, to destroy the temple of Apollo, perished by the
shafts of that deity. (Ovid, Met. , 6, 146, seqq--Hy-
gm. , fab.
