Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-06-06
PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON EGYPT.

1t has often been said, and with perfect
truth, that Egypt is land by itself, I'M
like any other part of the world. On ap-
preaching Alexandria from the sea, moth
ing can be less attractive than the fiat
shore which stretches east and west as far
as the eye can reach, without an elevation
of more Importance than bare and barren
sand dunes to break its even line. This
monotonous coast extends for two hundred
miles between the most extreme Of the
ancient arms OF the Nile, from the Canapic
in the west to the Pelusiac in the east, and
forms the northwardly turned base line of
the triangular area of Lower Egypt, the
shape of which led the Greeks to call it the
delta. In the journey from Alexandria
southwark to Cairo, the traveller finds him.
self in a boundless plain, as fat as the
--LATEST part of Lincolnshire or of Holland.
At first, rising only here and there above
the level of the Mediterranean, it is full
of increases and stagnant lakes of great
extent, the waters of which vary from salt
to fresh and from fresh to salt, according
as the Nile or the Mediterranean ia the
predominant contributor to their contents.
Beyond this region the wide expanse of
black slluvial soil, intersected by innumer-
able water courses, departs from absolute
horizontality, rising some three or four
inches in the mile. Here and there low
mounds bearing groups of da.o-palms, or
thickets of sycamores and acacias, indicate
the deserted site of an ancient city, or
preserve from the periodic foods the as
semblage of novels which constitutes
modern Egyptian village. In autumn the
soil, save these mounds and their connect
ing dykes, disappears under the overflow
of the flooded Nile; in early spring the
exuberant vegetation of the young crops
no less completely hides it under carpet
of the brightest imaginable green. For
more than hundred miles, as the crow
flies, this is the general character of the
country between Alexandra and Cairo.
But long before the latter city is reached,
the PLAIN begins to be limited by distant
nights which spring up on either hand.
First, ridge of low hills makes it's ap-
pearance on the western, or Libyan, side,
and then range OF more distant but holder
and loftier nights shows itself, far away,
on the eastern or Arabian horizon. With
every advance southwark the plain dimin-
ishes in extent, while it's Libyan and Ara
bian boundaries approach, until at Cairo
they are not more than six or seven miles
apart. Nothing can be more sharply con-
trasted than the aspect of the plain and
that Of its limitary nights. For the low
rounded ridges On the west and the higher
plateau with its steep and cliffy face on the
east are utterly waterless-mere wastes OF
bare rock or sand-without bush or a
patch of soil on which It could grow, to
veil their savage nakedness. Under our
own pale and family lighted sky, such bare
hills and rugged cliffs SIS those which bound
the prospect here and every where in
Upper Egypt would fifty represent the
abomination of desolstion. But, framed
as they are in an atmosphere of liquid pu-
rity, with lights and shades and tints end
lessly varying in shape and hue from hour
to hour, and almost from minute to min
ute, az the sun runs his course, they have
strange and unique beauty. Moreover.
in early spring the edges of the greenery
Of the plain lie as sharply defined against
the yellow sands and gray-brown stones of
the waste as if it were so much water.
When l was in Cairo ten years ago, l de-
lighted in wandering about the nights OF
the Mokattam range, which rise for some
four or five hundred feet Immediately to
the east of the city. The Sahara itself
cannot better deserve the name of desert
than do these stony solitudes Looking
westward at sunset, the vultures, dimin-
ished to mere crows, wheeled about the
face of the cliffs far below. Beneath and
beyond them the green expanse stretched
northwsrd until it became lost in the hori-
zon, while, toward the west, its even line
followed the contour of the Libyan shore,
as if it were the veritable sea water of the
gulf of Herodotus. And sharply defined
against the western sky the great pyramid,
which even in its present mutilate6 state
reared its summit to the level of my eye,
threw it's long shadow eastward like the
gnomon of an appropriately gigantic dial
plate. IL Macmillsn's Magazine.