THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 59 



out into the sea, a creature of that wonder of wonders, 

 the great Nile. At so remote a period that history cannot even 

 approximate, Egypt came into existence, washed down from hills 

 and mountains, lagoons and lakes, to take her rank as mother of 

 the civilized world. 



' Egypt," as Sir Samuel Baker says, " was not only created 

 by the Nile, but the very existence of its inhabitants depended 

 upon the annual inundation of the river. Thus all that related 

 to the Nile was of vital importance to the people ; it was the 

 hand that fed them. 



" Egypt, depending so entirely upon the river, it was natural 

 that the origin of those mysterious waters should have absorbed 

 the attention of thinking men. It was unlike all other rivers. 

 In July and August, when streams in all portions of the world 

 are at their lowest, by reason of the summer heat, the Nile is at 

 its flood ! In Egypt there is no rainfall not even a drop of dew 

 in those parched deserts through which, for 860 miles of latitude, 

 the glorious river flowed without a tributary. Licked up by the 

 burning sun, and gulped by the exhausting sand of Nubian 

 deserts, supporting all losses by evaporation and absorption, the 

 noble flood shed its annual blessings upon Egypt. An anomaly 

 among rivers ; flooding in the driest season ; everlasting in sandy 

 deserts ; where was its hidden origin? where were the sources of 

 the Nile? This was, from the earliest period, the great geo- 

 graphical question to be solved." 



MODERN TRAVELS THROUGH AFRICA. 



STRANGE as it appears, it is none the less true, that one of the 

 most accurate maps of Africa ever published, was printed in 

 Ogilby's book over two hundred years ago, not only showing the 

 true source of the Nile, just as Stanley found it, but generally all 

 the waterways and topography of the entire country are faithfully 

 exhibited. Vasquez de Gamma, who figures so conspicuously in 

 the discoveries of North America, was the first explorer we have 

 any authentic history of who circumnavigated Africa, and incited 

 a national desire to effect a thorough exploration of its interior, 

 though it was twenty years after his death before an expedition 



