The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-29
THELAND OF THE PHARAOHS
The River Nile-Its Wonderful History
and its Wonderful Work for Egypt.
The Suez Canal and It's Traffic-Where the
Infant Jesus Crossed into Egypt in His
Flight from HerOd.

Said has improved since / first saw it, ten
years ago, when it reminded me of Aspinwall, as
I saw that delectable place in 1854. before the
Panama railroad was finished But was one of
200 passengers who were heartily glad to enter
the quiet waters of the narrow, aqueous link
that joins the waters of the Mediterranean and
Red seas. From Naples we encountered fear
full storm of wind after passing through the
straits of Messina. When we passed Crete the
modern Candia it had become so cold that the
mountains of that isle, favored by the gods of
old, were perfectly white When looked upon
Mount Ida, pushing its lofty summit thousands
of fee. heavenward-a summit as white as.snow
could make i'll could understand it's modern
appelation "Candia" (whitenessl, but I could
not comprehend how Diana, with few clothes,
Mercury with less, and Venus with none at all,
could stand upon that frozen peak, where we
moderns would want all the listers and seal
skins that we could pile onto us.
1 suppose that the Greeks would make it out
that their GODS whose moral character as a gen.
eral thing was worse than ''the wickedest man in
New York. needed cold weather to cool the
ardor of their constitutions.
On the evening of the fourth day after leaving
Naples, we saw the tall lighthouse of Dametta
standing apparently from mid-ocean, and after
two more hours steaming we could see the low
Egyptian coast, with groves of palm trees lighted
up by the setting sun. At s o'clock we entered
the gas lighted quadranguar stretch of land
locked water of Port Said. But didn't forget
what the lighthouse of Damietta suggested. At
Damietta is great mouth of the Nile; at
Rosettais the other. Damietta goes back to
old Roman times, as one of the inscriptions on
the hardest stone records that the Emperor
Domitian had once, at least, visited this en-
bouchure Of the great river Old Damietta
stood sieges during the crusade, and here the
gallant Saladin long sustained a siege against
the combined armies Of Christendom, and after
wards his work was carried on by the vigilant
FL Kamil When Damietta did fall, the Sara
cen army was not all captured-but the city was
.giyenup to pilage. and the surviving citizens were
sold as slaves. This was Christian warfare
in those days The crusaders gave up Damietta
by treaty in 1921 but in 1249 Louis TX, the King
Of France, who went on his il-starred expedition
to Africa, again took possession of the town. after
the inhabitants destroyed it by fire. But
Louis IL was taken prisoner next year at Man
sura and he and mis- barons were only released
by paying heavy ransom. or by surrendering
Damietta. There is still extant a letter
of Louis TX telling of his misfor-
tunes which he attributed to ''our sins, !"
instead of remembering that he went on
rash expedition into an almost unknown coun-
try without a sufficiently numerous army or
without a good commissariat. He made cam
paign in a foreign land, much of which was a
desert land, but land very thickly inhabited
by hostile people where it was tillable. He as
saulted the great fortress of Mansura in vain.
Battle after battle decimated his men, and pes
thence broke out which did him more damage
than by fighting. In great humility did the |
King write that letter to which have referred |
and which, in one or two sentences, tells the sad
fate of the army that went out so proudly and
with such high hopes from France, viz: '"The
Saracens, with their whole army and increasing
numbers, fell upon the Christian army during
our retreat, and thus it happened that by divine
permission, and our sins merited, we fell into
the hands of the enemy. We, ourselves, our
brothers, the Counts Alphonso of Poitiers and
Charles of Aujou and all who were retreating
With us by land, fell into captivity, though not /
without many losses by death and much she'd |
ding Of Christian blood, and not escaped
Charles of Anjou afterwards became the con-
querer of Naples and Sicily.
But it was not merely history that was called |
up.by the sight of the distant lighthouse of
Damietta l remembered, as sad that here
was one of the two principal mouths of that Won
derful river, the Nile. Formerly there were
seven mouths, but ali but those of Rosetta aud
Damietta have become useless from their being
filed up with the deposits from upper Egypt, or
by the strong waves OF the Mediterranean
which have beaten the sands of the sea into the
entrance of the river. Herodotus, more than
y cad hat was no off of
the Nile. And So it is; for with
out its waters and the fertilizing
substance washed down by them, the
whole of Egypt would be like l. yban desert
Day by day look with amaZement at this great
stream and its many artificial children as they
all 60 either seaward flow through the tillable
land to make it give the three crops which Egypt
yields every year. DR.. Schweinfurth, who has
spent so much of his life on the Nile and in the
country of its headwaters said, in 1879, that
''next to the Amazon, which is 1000 miles in
length the Nile is the longest river in the world
About 3. 800 miles of its course are already
known, and when its true sources are discovered
the total length will probably be found to sur
pass that of its American rival. Though it is
greatly surpassed by the Amazon in volume,
neither the latter nor any other river in the
world vie in historical and chronological inter-
est with the father of rivers" Within six
years DR.. Schweinfurth's prophecies have come
true.
The Nile in Egypt becomes one great river at
hhartoufl. /, SUI miles away from Dametta and
Rosetta. Onethird of this course have l ira
versed, and can testify to the fact that nowhere
else have | seen the power of water as fertil
izei For l,S00 miles, as Schweinfurth says, it
traverses an absolutely barren country and re
ceives tributary only, the Atabara, on the
east side, about $50 miles below Khartoum.
DR.. S. means that without the Nile it would be
IAN absolutely barren country" In 500 miles
it falls l,240 feet, or something like nine inches
each mile. But no blessing is considered so
great by fellaheen THE common people who COM
pose fourffths of the five and half millions of
Egyptansl. and no wonder, for here inclosed
between wall of mountains, which at their
highest are Loco feet, is river in its widest
part 1880 feet, which fertilizes ribbon of land
from Assoran to Cairo, that is altogether only
one-third of the size of Indiana--to speak exact
ly, ii ,342 square miles-but from its peculiar
circumstances yields greater agricultural re-
turn than all Indiana. Wheat, cotton, sugar
Indian IL ma i'll !