408 Sir Colin Scott- Moncrieff [Jan. 25, 



of power, the Nile is great, but not so much so as many other rivers. 

 Its unique position is due to the benefit it confers on Egypt in turning 

 it from being a desert into being the richest of agricultural lands, 

 supporting with ease a population of about six hundred to the square 

 mile. Herodotus truly said Egypt is the gift of the Nile. It more 

 than supplies the absence of rain, and this it does, first, by the 

 extraordinary regularity with which it rises and falls ; and secondly, 

 by the fertilising matter which the waters carry in suspension, and 

 bestow upon the land. Imagine what it would be to the English 

 farmer if he knew exactly when it would rain and when it would be 

 sunshine. When the Irrigation Department of Egypt is properly 

 administered, the Egyptian farmer possesses this certainty, and he 

 has this further advantage, that it is not merely water that is poured 

 over his lands, but, during nearly half the year, water charged with 

 the finest manure. 



According to the early legend, the rise of the Nile is due to the 

 tears shed by Isis over the tomb of Osiris, and the texts on the 

 Pyramids allude to the night every year on which these tear-drops 

 fall. The worship of Isis and Osiris has long passed away, but to 

 this day every native of Egypt knows the Lailet en Nuktah, the night 

 in w T hich a miraculous drop falls into the river, and causes it to rise. 

 It is the night of June 17. Herodotus makes no allusion to this 

 legend of Osiris. In his time, he says, the Greeks gave three reasons 

 for the river's rise. He believed in none of them, but considered as 

 the most ridiculous of all that which ascribed the floods to the melting 

 of snows, as if there could possibly be snows in such a hot region. 

 It was many centuries after Herodotus' time when the snowy 

 mountains of Central Africa were discovered. 



The heavy rains commence in the basin of the White Nile during 

 April, and first slowly drive down upon Egypt the green stagnant 

 waters of that marshy region. These appear at Cairo about June 15. 

 About a fortnight later the real flood begins, for the rains have set in 

 in Abyssinia by May 15, and the Blue Nile brings down from the 

 mountains its supply of the richest muddy water. It is something of 

 the colour and nearly of the consistency of chocolate, and the rise is 

 very rapid, as much sometimes as 3 feet per diem, for the Atbara 

 torrent, having saturated its great sandy bed, is now in full flood also. 

 The maximum flood is reached at Assouan about September 1, and it 

 would reach Cairo some four days later, were it not that during 

 August and September the water is being diverted onto the land, and 

 the whole Nile valley becomes a great lake. For this reason the 

 maximum arrives at Cairo about the beginning of October. The 

 rains cease in Abyssinia about the middle of September, and the 

 floods of the Blue Nile and Atbara rapidly decrease ; but in the 

 meantime the great lakes and marshes are replenished in the upper 

 regions, and slowly give off their supplies, on which the river subsists, 

 until the following June. Yearly this phenomenon presents itself in 

 Egypt, and with the most marvellous regularity. A late rise is not 



