WATER 



Xile gently overflowed its banks two or 

 more times a year, leaving after each 

 freshet a soft layer of fertile mud on 

 either side, primitive man began to plant 

 his seed in this field plowed by a river, 

 and to raise his millet, and peas, and 

 beans, and some kind of wheat and corn. 

 He was able to feed his cattle, and to raise 

 chickens and geese along the banks of 

 this river, which was only a green rib 

 bon, from six to ten miles wide, four or 

 five hundred miles long. On this green 

 ribbon a great civilization, so great and 

 so wonderful that only very learned men 

 can understand how wonderful and how 

 great it was, grew up. 



Find out something about the pyra 

 mids. Look up pictures of the ruins of 

 the Temple of Karnak; and that great 

 stone image, carved out of a hill, higher 

 than a five-story building, with a head so 

 large that if a man stood on the top of 

 one ear he could hardly reach the top of 

 the head with his outstretched hand. The 

 Greeks called this great stone image, with 

 the body of a lion and the head of a man, 

 a sphinx ; but the Egyptians called it the 

 "Hor-em-khoo," the "Horus-on-the- 

 horizon ;" and Horus was the god-child 

 they most loved, the child of Osiris, the 

 great sun-divinity, and of Isis, the beauti 

 ful mother of heaven. All this civiliza 

 tion along the Nile would have been im 

 possible had it not been for the Nile. The 

 great stones that went into the pyramids 

 were floated down the river. Soldiers 

 and workingmen were transported on the 

 river. The fields were made fertile by 

 the river, and the leisure and the wealth 

 that were made possible by the fertile 

 fields on the river's bank gave men time 

 to think and to feel, to invent the beauti 

 ful picture writings, to cut out the great 

 tomb temples, and to think the great 

 thoughts of religion, God-thoughts, love- 

 thoughts, and duty-thoughts. 



Now, what happened along the banks 

 of the Nile happened to a certain degree 

 along the banks of the Euphrates and 

 the Tigris. Mesopotamia means "the 

 land between the rivers," the mid-river 

 country. Away back five or six thousand 

 years ago there were people who built 

 great cities, erected high tower-temples 

 of burned brick. They invented a curi 

 ous kind of arrow-headed alphabet (the 

 cuneiform), which they stamped into clay 



tablets, brick reading books. On 

 banks of these rivers, in that far-off time, 

 astronomers watched the stars, and found 

 out a good deal about the planets and 

 eclipses. They measured time by the 

 year of three hundred and sixty-five days, 

 and twelve months, which means that 

 they had watched the moon and measured 

 the length of the days. 



Then tkere are other rivers, The 

 Ganges, that runs through the heart of 

 India, on the banks of which there grew 

 up the great religions and the curious 

 customs of the Hindus and the Bud 

 dhists; and the Jordan, which, you will 

 remember, flows through our Bible. 

 Around it clusters the great stories of the 

 prophets, of Jesus and his disciples. 

 When we turn to Europe, we will find 

 much about the Germans, by finding out 

 all we can about the Rhine. If you can 

 find out much about the Rhone and the 

 Seine, you will understand the story of 

 France and the French people. The 

 Thames is older than London ; and along 

 the banks of the Danube grew up nation 

 after nation. Down that stream have 

 floated war vessels for different peoples 

 for thousands and thousands of years. 

 Would you not like to see a collection of 

 boats that would reach from the boats 

 made of the raw hides of animals by the 

 earlier pagan people along the Danube, 

 up to the latest and best steamer that now 

 plies up and down that great river? 



None the less interesting are the rivers 

 of the Western continent, the Hudson, 

 the Mississippi, and the Missouri ; the 

 Ohio and the Amazon are the pathways 

 over which the first explorers traveled. 

 Along their banks did the first settlers 

 make their homes, and on their bosom did 

 the men in the wild woods first send their 

 traffics. Who was it that started the first 

 steamboat up the Hudson ? You remem 

 ber how Abraham Lincoln when a boy 

 helped build a flat-boat, and how he 

 steered that flat-boat all the way from 

 Illinois to New Orleans, selling there the 

 truck the early settlers raised, exchang 

 ing it for molasses, and sugar, and the 

 calico that they needed in Illinois. 



When we remember the great service 

 that the rivers have rendered man, the 

 beautiful stories that cluster around them, 

 the beautiful life that has sported in their 

 waters, floated upon their surface, and 



