Kitap 2
149.4
The water of the lake is not natural (for the country here is exceedingly arid) but brought by a channel from the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), Africa Nile ; six months it flows into the lake, and six back into the river.
149.5
For the six months that it flows out of the lake, the daily take of fish brings a silver talent into the royal treasury, and twenty minae for each day of the flow into the lake.
150.1
Furthermore, the natives said that this lake drains underground into the Golfe de Gabes [10.417,34.000] (gulf), Tunis, Africa Libyan Syrtis , and extends under the mountains that are above Mit Rahina [31.25,29.85] (inhabited place), Giza, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa Memphis , having the inland country on its west.
150.2
When I could not see anywhere the earth taken from the digging of this lake, since this was curious to me, I asked those who live nearest the lake where the stuff was that had been dug out. They told me where it had been carried, and I readily believed them, for I had heard of a similar thing happening in the Assyrian city of Nineveh (deserted settlement), Ninawa, Iraq, Asia Ninus .
150.3
Sardanapallus king of Nineveh (deserted settlement), Ninawa, Iraq, Asia Ninus had great wealth, which he kept in an underground treasury. Some thieves plotted to carry it off; they surveyed their course and dug an underground way from their own house to the palace, carrying the earth taken out of the passage dug by night to the Tigris [47.416,31] (river), Asia Tigris , which runs past Nineveh (deserted settlement), Ninawa, Iraq, Asia Ninus , until at last they accomplished their end.
150.4
This, I was told, had happened when the Egyptian lake was dug, except that the work went on not by night but by day. The Egyptians bore the earth dug out by them to the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), Africa Nile , to be caught and scattered (as was to be expected) by the river. Thus is this lake said to have been dug.
