The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-01-19

|
vest 1t was Il time of great rejoicing
and resembled considerably our 4th of
July. Now, also, it is a great event with
the Turks, who make it a kind of holiday
season in rejoicings and festive doings.
If the rise is not regular, the Mohamme-
dan governor issues orders all over
| Egypt for the people, whatever may be
their religion, to pray to their gods for
the rise. The Mohamn edan theory of
the Niles rising is that an angel drops a
| drop into it and then it begins to rise.
The Nile is revered as a god by many of
the people of Egypt and many are the
representations of it carved in stone. As
the Nile is almost the only drain of those
great lakes, the rise must accordingly be
very great, the normal one in Upper
| Egypt being about twenty-five feet and
in Lower Egypt about six feet. Now
the banks of the Nile are not, as you
might suppose, several feet thick with
loan, but are nothing but sand. except
the top dressing, deposited by the river,
and this dressing is only about a twelfth
of an inch thick Yet this land is the
richest and most productive on the face
of the earth. The Nile continues to rise
through July and August, two and a
half months. and then it begins to fall.
| again the news is sent over the land to
the people who rejoice again for its reg
ular fall as too much of an inundation
makes havoc. The cities are built up
enough, either artfcially or naturally. to
be safe from the regular rise.
In November, by which time the Nile
has subsidized by being drunk up by the
desert and running into the Mediterrane-
an, the people plant their wheat and in
the middle of January harvest it. In the
meantime the poorer classes plant their
vegetables, which grow as they do no
where else in the world. There is kind
of lettuce which attains the height of a
foot in a few days. 1t is a common sight
to see a small boy walking around with
a bunch Of it under his arm and chewing
away at it as contentedly as any boy
here with his candy. There should he
occasional irrigation after the annual in
undaton. The old cmperors before the
time of Joseph saw this and so they con-
structed great basins for entrapping the
water and long canals for conveying it
through the land. Very exaggerated
statements of these basins are handed
down to us by historians. For instance,
Heredotus tells us of one four hundred
miles in circumference and three hun
dred feet deep. but when we consider
that this is about equivalent to digging
out the whole of Addison County it is
seen to be decidedly big hyperbole. BY
recent researches it is thought to be
about ten miles by two and one hundred
feet deep, which would be no small hole
to dig. Many of these were scattered
over Egypt. Then, after all the water
was got out that could be by draining,
|
were great bumpers and had about as
many different styles of pumps as we
have. They also used these reservoirs
j for fish-ponds and they had that knacB
of cultivating fish and stocking theil
waters with them which no other nation
ever had. And along with this come.
their skill in incubating eggs without
hens, so that instead of hen producing
a couple of broods of chickens in yea
they would have them produce abou
two hundred. The wonderful works o
the Egyptians in stone never have ha(
and probably never will have their equal
The one great feature OF their buildin!
is the solidity of it. There really seems
to be a kind of religion about it. Every
thing has very broad base and slope
towards the center. 1t has been salt
that a perpendicular line cannot b
found in Egypt. Even the posts to tn
. door-ways slanted so that the doors wer
! broader at the top than at the base
, While we look upon man as well pro
portioned when he is straight and hi
, weight well distributed they looked up
! on man as well formed when he ha
big feet for foundation and was rathe
. small in his upper parts. Another re
i markable thing in their building wa
@ the very great size and weight of tn
stone which they used-such stone
3 could no more be moved at this date thai
il a mountain. Yet they moved hundred
of thousands of them. 1t was a conlmo
thing to move blocks of granite fort
feet long by six feet square, and the
moved those that were twice as large
Many conjectures are made as to hoy
they did it, but they are very unsatisfat
/. tory. But they did it, for there the
/ stand as monuments of the old Egyptia
engineering skill.
e A great object of interest also in Egypt al
the receptacles of the old dead Egyptian!
# the catacombs, and the dead themselves
?. All the dead, except a few, were tian!
n ported to the other side of the Nile an
S deposited in these catacombs. Here.
|, they were common people. they wei
s piled up like so many sticks of wood, bl
3 the wealthy might have been inclosed
d a sarcophagus and laid away with MOI
l. care. 1t has been estimated that thel
If were about twenty millions of old dea
e Egyptians here.
It Before they were brought here the
It were carefully embalmed, no matter no
t. poor they might be, for'the governmel
n had embalmers for the poor peopl
n This process consisted of filling the boo
full with certain spices and then thoroug
le ly binding them with bandages of sut
K fabric rs the person was wealthy enous
If to have. The very rich ones even HI
I'd the bandages pictured and covered wi
ID descriptions and history of themselv
20 and then again these were inscribed
le the coffin. The air and climate of Egy
es seem to be specially adapted to keepil
in these bodies. as they are in a very p,
ps feet condition. In places where they
,e not keep we'll they emit an otfensi
rs odor, which is Illustrated by the folio
n ing anecdote: Rev. DR.. - visited
he museum in Holland where there we
O. some of these mumimes on exhibition, n