FROM THE RED SEA TO THE NILE 



255 



Wide, westerly slopes of this character stretch away in arid mo- 

 notony to the Nile, which with its fringing band of green a few hun- 

 dred yards or a very few miles in width, winds away to the north- 

 ward (Fig. 8) . This green strip constitutes, practically,the whole of 

 inhabited Egj^pt. The inhabitant knows but little of the reddish- 

 brown mountains back from the Nile, and there is but little for 

 grazing animals on them. In places, the striking picture is pre- 



Fig. 9. Rocky shore of the Nile over which sand from the Libyan desert is 

 pouring into the river. 



sented of the alluvial lands being all on the eastern shore of the 

 river, at the toe of the long slopes, while on the west bank, the 

 Libyan sands pour over the rocks and down through the narrow 

 screen of shrubs at the water's edge into the muddy current (see 

 Fig. 9) ; so that one may walk from Nile mud into the driest 

 desert in a dozen places. 



