The Osceola times., 1882-11-18
IN EGYPT LAND.
The Garden of Africa-The Sources of the
NiIe-Causes and Effects Of Its Inunda-

Niie-Causes and Effects Of Its Inunda-
! tion.
The land of Egypt is 800 miles long,
writes Winwood Reade, and is bounded
by two ranges of naked limestone hills,
which sometimes approach and some
times retire from each other, leaving be-
tween them an average breadth of seven
miles. On the north they widen and
disappear, giving place to marshy mea-
dow plain which extends to the Mediter-
ranean coast. On the south they are no
longer of limestone but of granite; they
narrow to a point; they close in till they
almost touch, and through the mountain
gate thus formed the river Nile leaps with
a roar into the valley and runs due north
toward the sea.
In the winter and spring it rolls, Ian
c,Iid stream, through dry and dusty
plain. But in the summer an extraordi-
nary thing happens. The river grows
troubled and swift; ii turns as red as
blood, and then green; it rises, it swells,
till at length, overfowing its banks, 1t
covers the adjoining lands to the base of
the hills on either side. The whole val
lev becomes lake, from which the villa
ges rise like islands, for they are built on
artificial mounds.
This catastrophe was welcomed by the
Egyptians with religious gratitude and
noisy mirth. When their fields had en-
irely disappeared, they thanked the
gods and kept their harvest home. The
tax-gathcrers measured the water as If it
were grain, and announced what the
crops and the budget of the next year
would be.
II was then also that the white-robed
priests, bearing the image of god and
singing hymns, marched with solemn
procession to the water side and cast in
a sacrifice of gold For the water which
had thus risen was their life. Egypt is
bv nature q rainless desert, which the
Nile, and the Nile only converts into a
garden every year.
Far, far away in the distant regions of
the south, in the deep heart of Africa, lie
two inland seas. These are the head
waters of the Nile; its sources are in the
: sky. For the clouds, laden with waters
collected out of many seas, sail TO the
) African equator, and there pour down a
ten months rain. This ocean of falling
water is received on a region sloping to-
ward the north, and is conveyed by n
thousand channels TO the vast rocky els
, terms which form the Spoke and Baker
lakes. They, filled and bursting, cast
forth the Nile and drive it from them
through a terrible and thirsty land. The
hot air hes on the stream and laps it up
as it flows. The parched soil swallows it
: with open pores; but ton after ton of wa
ter is supplied from the gigantic reser-
voils behind, and SO it is enabled to cross
: that vast desert, which spreads from the
latitude of Lake Tched TO the borders of
the Mediterranean sea.
The existence Of the Nile is due to the
Nyanza lakes alone, but the inundation
of the river has distinct and seperate
, cause In that phenomenon the lakes
are not concerned.
Between the Nile and the mouth ofthe
Arabian gulf are situated the highlands
of Abyssinia, rising many thousand feet
above the level of the sea, and intercept
ing the clouds of the Indian ocean in
their flight toward the north. From these
mountains, as soon as the rainy season
has set in, two great rivers come thun-
dering down their dried-up beds and rush
into the Nile. The main stream is now
forced impetuously along. In the Nubi-
7 an desert its swelling waters are held in
between walls of rock. As soon as il
reaches the low-lying lands of Egypt il
naturally overflows. The Abyssinian
tributaries do even more than this. The
waters of the White Nile are transparent
and pue but the Atbara and Blue Nile
bring down from their native land q
black silt, which the flood strews over
the whole valley as kind of top-dress
( ing or manure. On that rich and unc
tious mud as soon as the waters have re-
, tired, the natives cast their seed. Then
their labors are completed; no changes o.
weather need afterwards be feared, ne
anxious looks are turned towards the
sky; sunshine only is required to fulfil
the crop, and in Egypt the sun is nevei
covered by cloud.
4 Thus, were il not for the White Nile
{ Abyssnian rivers would be drank up by
the desert; and were it not for the Abys
sinian rivers the White Nile would be {
! barren stream. The river is created by
the rains of the equator; the land by tht
tropical rains condensed in one spot by
the Abyssilian mountain pile. In tha
far Egyptian valley, fattened by n foreigr
soil, frightened by eternal sunshine, wat
! cred by terrestrial rain, the natives wer,
! able TO obtain years food in return fol
few days toll, and were provided witt
c that wealth of time which is essentia
r for a nations growth.
u