CHAPTER I. 



WAE. 



The land of Egypt is six hundred miles long, and is 

 bounded by two ranges of naked limestone bills wbicb 

 sometimes approach, and sometimes retire from eacb 

 otber, leaving between them an average breadth of 

 seven miles. On the north they widen and disappear, 

 giving place to a marshy meadow plain which extends 

 to the Mediterranean Coast. On the south they are 

 no longer of limestone, but of granite ; they narrow to 

 a point ; they close in till they almost touch ; and 

 through the mountain gate thus formed, the river Nile 

 leaps with a roar into the valley, and runs due north 

 towards the sea. 



In the winter and spring it rolls a languid stream 

 through a dry and dusty plain. But in the summer 

 an extraordinary thing happens. The river grows 

 troubled and swift; it turns red as blood, and then 

 green ; it rises, it swells, till at length overflowing its 

 banks, it covers the adjoining lands to the base of the 

 hills on either side. The whole valley becomes a lake 

 from which the villages rise like islands, for they are 

 built on artificial mounds. 



This catastrophe was welcomed by the Egyptians 

 with religious gratitude and noisy mirth. When their 

 fields had entirely disappeared they thanked the gods 

 and kept their harvest-home. The tax-gatherers 

 measured the water as if it were grain, and announced 



A 



