THE SOURCES OF THE NILE. 6 



are the head waters of the Nile ; its sources are in the 

 sky. For the clouds, laden with waters collected out 

 of many seas, sail to the African equator, and there 

 pour down a ten months' rain. This ocean of falling 

 water is received on a region sloping towards the north, 

 and is conveyed by a thousand channels to the vast 

 rocky cisterns which form the Speke and Baker Lakes. 

 They, filled and bursting, cast forth the Nile, and 

 drive it from them through a terrible and thirsty 

 land. The hot air lies on the stream and laps it as it 

 flows. The parched soil swallows it with open pores ; 

 but ton after ton of water is supplied from the gigantic 

 reservoirs behind, and so it is enabled to cross that 

 vast desert, which spreads from the latitude of Lake 

 Tchad to the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. 



The existence of the Nile is due to the Nyanza 

 Lakes alone, but the inundation of the river has a 

 distinct and separate cause. In that phenomenon the 

 lakes are not concerned. 



Between the Nile and the mouth of the Arabian 

 Gulf are situated the Highlands of Abyssinia, rising 

 many thousand feet above the level of the sea, and 

 intercepting the clouds of the Indian Ocean in their 

 flight towards the north. From these mountains, as 

 soon as the rainy season has set in, two great rivers 

 come thundering down their dried up beds, and rush 

 into the Nile. The main stream is now forced im- 

 petuously along ; in the Nubian desert its swelling 

 waters are held in between walls of rock ; as soon as 

 it reaches the low-lying lands of Egypt it naturally 

 overflows. 



The Abyssinian tributaries do even more than 

 this. The waters of the White Nile are transparent 

 and pure ; but the Atbara and Blue Nile bring down 



