Travels in Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, and across the desert into Egypt ...

2 86 TRAVELS IN ASIATIC TURKEY,
I copied the following inscription placed
Mekias:
over the door of the
L'an 9 de la Republique Francaise, et 1215 de l'Egire,
30 mois
apres V /Egypte conquise par Bonaparte, Menou, general en chef,
a repart; le Mekias.
Le Nil repondoit, dans les basses eaux, a 3 coudees 10 doigts
de la colonne le lOme. jour apres le solstice de l'an 8.
II a commence a croxtre au Caire le 16me. jour apres le raeme
solstice.
11 s'etoit eleve de 2 coudees 3 doigts au dessus eu fut de
la colonne le 107me. jour apres ce solstice.
II a commence a decroitre le 1 15me. jour apres ce solstice.
Toutes les terres ont ete inondees. Cette criie extraordinaire de
14 coudees 17 doigts fait esperer une annee tres-abondante. Lefut
de la colonne est de 16 coudees.
La coudee est de 54 centimetres.
Elle est divisee en vingt quatre doigts.
TRANSLATION.
In the ninth year of the French Republic, and of the Hegira
1215, at the expiration of thirty months after the conquest of
Egypt by Bonaparte, the Mekias was repaired by Menou, commander
in chief.
When the waters were at the lowest, on the 10th day after the
solstice of the year 8, (commencement of July 1800),
stood on the column at the height of three cubits, ten digits.
the Nile
It began to rise at Cairo on the 16th day after the above solstice.
On the 107th day after the solstice it had risen two cubits, three
digits above the shaft of the column. On the 1 15th solstice it began to decrease.
after day the
All the lands were inundated. This extraordinary rise of four-
teen cubits, seventeen digits, gives every reason to conjecture that
the year will be very abundant. The shaft of the column is in
height
sixteen cubits.
N. B. A French cubit (coudee) is nearly 22 inches and one-sixth
of an inch English.
A digit (doigt),
the
twenty-fourth part of a cubit,
is about
eleven-twelfths of an inch English, that is, 13 digits make about
one foot English.
It is said that the Delta in the space of 32S4 years has risen 14
cubits.
Savary observes that the standard of abundance, in the rise
of the Nile, is 18 cubits.