The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1880-02-05
GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF
EGYPT AN ID THE NILE.

is GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF
~ EGYPT AN ID THE NILE.
ft4
IS Egypt is the most singular of cour
tries. Herodotus rightly called it 9TH
gift" of the Nile. The destiny of tn
land and the nation was immens
n course aboye the Atbara continent,
t flows on for thirteen hundred and fift
:. miles without one branch-phenome
] non unmatched.
About midway of this branchlesl
t course it enters Egypt at the romantic
, island of PhilB, just north of the tor
rid zone. For few miles it struggles
through series of winding, rocky
rapids, called the First Cataract, eigh.
ty-ffve feet in five miles, and reaches
Assuan, the old Syene, whence comes
"Syenite"-the name and the thing
With an average current of between
two and three miles an hour, and an
average width of about half mile, il
runs smoothly six hundred miles, in
Guiding windings, to Cairo. A little
north of Cairo it divides and enters
the Mediterranean through two chan
nels, formerly FIVE or seven.
From Phi!e to Cairo its course-all
of which saw by daylight--is, through
a narrow belt of fertile land, the Nile
valley, almost never more than ten
| miles wide, sometimes mere strip,
and averaging only from 6 to Z miles.
Two barricades of mountains, or high
hills, hem in this little belt, and saye
it from the ravages of the desert sands.
The stream now creeps under the shad-
ow Of one aud now the other, oftener
the eastern. These hills stretch along
in horizontal layers, here and there
scooped down and broken. Not q
tree Or blade of grass diversifies their
sides or summits, and all beyond them
is just as bleak and dead.
The view from almost any point OF
the river is singularly uniform. You
look forward or backward along q
smooth stream, with two selvages of
green plain, enclosed by two high,
yellowish-brown rock berriers.-
Against the background an OCCASION
al palm grove lifts its high feathery
branches, mingled with accacias and
smaller trees. An Arab village hud-
dies among them. Green crops cover
the intermediate plain, intersected by
innumberable little channels, like q
cheese board. Struggling mud houses
on the swelling grounds can scarcely
be distinguished from the soil on
which they stand. An OK and cam
ell, an OK and donkey, or, once in a
while, even wee donkey and huge
camel, may be seen yoked together.
A group of loaded camels heaves in
sight, moving solemnly along, or
big turbaned man, seated far back on
the smallest of donkeys, with his flow
ing robes nearly hiding the animal,
a dwarf centaur. On the edge of the
river a cluster of women may, per-
haps, be seen washing clothes and
filling their water jars at the same
spot. At various points, naked or
quite naked, men are filling the trench
es with baskets or with shadoofs. A
flock of ducks float on the water, just
beyond gun-shot range. In the shall
lows, here and there, stand group of
cranes, turning their heads sideways
with an air of penetration, and back
of them a row of pelicans of infinite
gravity. Formerly bands of croco
diles were met with on the'mud- banks.
Steamboats, and gun-powder haye dis.
Phile. saw but two. One lay like
a dog near the waters edge, beneath
an inaccessible chill and when bull
let struck the surface just below him,
he rolled clumsily off and disappear
ed.
Such is the scene which with little
variation, meets the eye day after day |
up the Nile. 1t is little glaring when |
the sun is high in these absolutely |
cloudless heavens. But when he goes |
down, and the western horizon glows
with his mellow light, the whole scene
seems like dreamland, q view in
some other planet. ~ 'H
This is the Nile valley from Phile
to Cairo. But at Cairo the Mountains
recede and swing off almost at right
angles, leaving what is called the Del
ia of Egypt. Twelve miles north of
Cairo is the division of the Nile in its
Daminetta and Rosetta mouths.
These empty eighty miles apart, and
the whole plain spreads TO the breadth
Of one hundred and fifty miles along
the Mediterranean. A narrow quasi
valley if the wady Tumllat, stretching
eastward q mile or q mile aud half
w,de. from Zagazag to near Ismailia
Add to this fertile region called the
Fayoon, southwest of Cairo "a tract
about twenty-three miles by twenty
eighty and you have the whole of
Egypt. 1t was q small country. The
famous old lands, Greece. Palestine,
were not large. The whole
of Egypt thus described contained but
from eleven to seventeen thousand
square miles. Massachusetts, contains