DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11637#0080
66 TRAVELS IN UPPER
Of quadrupeds, the cat, ichneumon, thaleb, &c.; of
birds, the ibis, stork, vulture, and different species
of the rapacious order, are in the habit of hunting
them for food. Man, too, is their enemy on the
same principle; for there are several villages in
the neighbourhood of Rossetta, the inhabitants of
which catch rats to eat them, as soon as the waters
of the Nile have retired from the plains.
The inundation of the river destroys a still
greater number; but their fecundity is so prodi-
gious, that in spite of so many instruments of de-
struction, they are still so abundant, as to appear
to breed in full liberty, or spring even from the
very obstacles that oppose their excessive increase.
As soon as the Nile, after having enriched the
land, leaves it free for cultivation, innumerable
multitudes of rats and mice are seen to issue in
succession from the moistened soil. Hence the
Egyptians have been led to believe that they were
produced by the earth itself. Some of them, who
had the reputation of being more sensible than
the rest, asserted, and, notwithstanding all I could
say to them, maintained with the utmost effron-
tery, that they themselves had seen mice at the
very instant of their pretended formation, which
had one half of their bodies only flesh, the other
half still of mud. This absurdity is not con-
fined
Of quadrupeds, the cat, ichneumon, thaleb, &c.; of
birds, the ibis, stork, vulture, and different species
of the rapacious order, are in the habit of hunting
them for food. Man, too, is their enemy on the
same principle; for there are several villages in
the neighbourhood of Rossetta, the inhabitants of
which catch rats to eat them, as soon as the waters
of the Nile have retired from the plains.
The inundation of the river destroys a still
greater number; but their fecundity is so prodi-
gious, that in spite of so many instruments of de-
struction, they are still so abundant, as to appear
to breed in full liberty, or spring even from the
very obstacles that oppose their excessive increase.
As soon as the Nile, after having enriched the
land, leaves it free for cultivation, innumerable
multitudes of rats and mice are seen to issue in
succession from the moistened soil. Hence the
Egyptians have been led to believe that they were
produced by the earth itself. Some of them, who
had the reputation of being more sensible than
the rest, asserted, and, notwithstanding all I could
say to them, maintained with the utmost effron-
tery, that they themselves had seen mice at the
very instant of their pretended formation, which
had one half of their bodies only flesh, the other
half still of mud. This absurdity is not con-
fined