Note 3521 — BOOK V. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED.
John Bostock translation
And it is generally supposed that they are so up to the present day. The ethnographer Jablonski is of opinion that this river derives its name from the Coptish word tneialei “to rise at stated times.” Servius, the commentator on Virgil, says that it is derived from the two Greek words νέα ἰλὺς “fresh mud,” in allusion to the fresh mud or slime which it leaves after each inundation. Singularly enough, Champollion prefers this silly etymology to that suggested by Jablonski.