512 CONTEST OF THE NILE WITH THE DESERT. 



which the sun shines obscurely (often appearing of a 

 deep red colour) " and gradually becomes quite con- 

 cealed." * During the prevalence of the simoom such 

 is its peculiar dryness, that even the skin " becomes 

 quite dry and shrunk, and sometimes a prickly sen- 

 sation is felt all over the body." f 



Such is the region through which the Nile flows for 

 this immense distance, variously stated at from 1800 

 to 2000 miles, in which vegetation is confined to the 

 immediate vicinity of its waters, or else to alluvial flats 

 irrigated by artificial canals. In some places the " land 

 of Egypt" does not extend more than ten or twenty 

 yards beyond the water's edge the rest is desert. The 

 tourist from Assouan to Wadi Haifa will see many 

 such places: but below this point, 



" Egypt consists properly of a single valley, upon an average 

 eight miles in breadth, extending from Assouan to Cairo, a little 

 below which the country assumes the shape of an equilateral 

 triangle (the Delta) the base of which rests upon the sea." 



" Egypt' (says Monsieur Mangin) is in fact the Nile : the 

 Nile makes, preserves, and fecundates Egypt; which without this 

 grand and ever famous river would immediately cease to be." ** 



"The world (says Miss Martineau) has seen many struggles; 

 but no other so pertinacious, so perdurable, and so sublime, 

 as the conflict of these two great powers " (the Nile and the 

 Desert). The river " appears to the inexperienced eye to 

 have no chance, with its stripling force, against the great old 

 Goliah, the desert; whose might has never been relaxed, from 

 the earliest days till now : but the giant has not conquered. 



* Murray's Handbook for Egypt^ 8th Edit., 1891, p. 9. (remarks on 

 Climate etc.) 



f Ibid. 



Egypt & Nubia, by J. A. St. John, 1845, p. 49. 



** The Desert World, by Arthur Mangin, p. 118 (translated from 

 the French), 1869. 



