Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-04-29
THE NILES OVERFLOW.
A Description of "One of the Most Exhila
rating Sights in Nature"

From Nature.
Then at last comes the inundation. 'sPer-
haps there is not in nature q more exhilarating
sight. or one more strongly exciting to conf
dence in God. than the rise of the
Nile. Day by day and night by night its tur-
bid tide sweeps onward majestically over the
Parched sands of the waste, bowling wilderness.
Almost hourly, as we slowly assembled it before
the Etesian wind, we heard the laundering fall
of some mud bank. and saw by the rush of all
animated nature to the spot that the Nile had
overleapt another obstruction and that
its bounding waters were diffusing
life and JOY through another desert.
There are few impressions l ever re-
celved upon the remembrance of which
| dwell with more pleasure than that of seeing
the first burst of the Nile into one of the great
| channels of its annual overflow. All nature
shouts for joy. The men. the children, the
| buffaloes, gambol in its refreshing waters the
| broad waves sparkle with shoals of fish, and
| fowl OF every wing fiutter over them in clouds.
Nor is this jubilee of nature confined to the
| higher orders of creation. The moment the
sand becomes mcistened by the approach of the
fertilizing waters it is literally alive with in
sects innumerable. 1t is impossible to stand
by the side of one Of these noble streams to see
1t every moment weeping away some obstruc-
ton to Its majestic course and widening as il
| flows. without feeling the heart to expand with
love and JOY and confidence III the great Author
| OF this annual miracle OF mercy"
| The effects of the lnundation as Osburn
| shows in another place, exhibit themselves in
a scene of fertility and beauty such as will
| scarcely be found in another country at any
| season OF the year. The vivid green Of the
| springing corn. the groves of pomegranate
trees ablaze with the rich scarlet of their bios
SONS. the fresh breeze laden with the perfumes
of gardens of roses and orange thickets, every
| tree and every shrub covered with sweet
| scented flowers. These are a few of the natural
| beauties that welcome the stranger to the land
| Of Ham. There is considerable sameness in
them. 1t is true, for he would observe little va
riety in the trees and plants. whether he first
entered Egypt by the gardens Of Alexandria or
| the plain of Assouan. Yet it is the same every
where only because it would be impossible to make
| any addition to the sweetness of the odors, the
brilliancy Of the colors. or the exquisite beauty
of the many forms of vegetable life, in the
| midst of which he wanders 1t is monotonous
but it is the monotony Of Paradise. The flood
| reaches Cairo on a day closely approximating
| to that of the summer solstice. 1t attains its
| greatest height and begins to decline near the
autumnal equinox. BY the winter solstice the
Nile has again subsidized within its banks and re-
sumed its blue color. Seed time has occurred
in this interval. The year in Egypt divides
| itself into three seasons-four months of SOW
ing and growth. corresponding nearly with our
| November, December. January and February:
| four months of harvest, from March TO June,
the four months OF the inundation completing
| the cycle"