Book 17
1.4
The mountains on each side (of the Nile), which descend from the parts about Syene to the Egyptian Sea,The Mediterranean. give this shape to the river tract of which I am speaking, and to the country. For in proportion as these mountains extend along that tract, or recede from each other, in the same degree is the river contracted or expanded, and they impart to the habitable country its variety of shape. But the country beyond the mountains is in a great measure uninhabited.
