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• 1 2021-06-20T11:19:58-07:00 Nile River 5 plain 2024-01-02T21:42:56-08:00 Part of the European fascination with the Nile River comes from its reputation as one of the four biblical rivers mentioned in Genesis. Along with the Euphrates, Hiddekel (Tigris), P(h)ison (Ganges), there was the Gehon, which due its biblical association with Ethiopia (Genesis 2:13), came to be understood as the Nile (Hamilton, p. 239). 

  And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that compasseth all the land of Ethiopia.
  (Douay-Rheims)

  Over the medieval period, the Nile gathered a nearly mythical reputation. It's headwaters were located at the so-called Mountains of the Moon.
  And, of course, there was the notion that the Ethiopian negus, often associated with Prester John, could control the flow of the river, with the implied or explicit threat of diverting water from Egypt or flooding the country. 
  
  
  According to Adam Knobler, the association of the Ethiopian negus with the ability to control the Nile River dates back to the reign of the Fatimid sultan al-Mustansir Billah (r. 1036-1094). As Knobler notes (p. 204),

  when a flood in Ethiopia failed to have any effect on the Nile. The sultan, in desperation, sent Patriarch Michael of Alexandria to Ethiopia to request a restoration of the river’s flow which, following the breaking of a mound, they did. From this point onward, the Ethiopians often claimed power over the Nile’s flow.

  See the list of texts below that comment on Prester John's ability to control the flow of the Nile.