108 DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT. 
occur in the historians of Greece and Rome. 
Since the days of Herodotus, till that period when 
the philosophers of France, under the auspices of 
a great and daring military chief, surveyed its 
plains and sandy wastes, Egypt has been describ- 
ed by numerous historians and travellers with 
every diversity of colouring and style. If the 
portrait, therefore, is dissimilar to the original, it 
is not because the lines are feebly marked, but 
because the diversity of tints obscures the delinea- 
tion. In order to acquire a general idea of this 
singular country, " a stranger in the place of its 
" situation," w^e must represent to ourselves an 
immense valley, six hundred miles long, descend- 
ing from the heights of Syene, between two grey 
ridges of sandy mountains, that frequently ap- 
proach within five miles of each other, till towards 
the sea it terminates in a vast plain, the extent of 
which is above three hundred miles. Through this 
valley flows the majestic Nile ; — now calm and 
tranquil, it retires within its ancient banks ; now 
reddened with the sands of Ethiopia, it overflows 
the plain, and sweeps the base of the mountains. 
From this periodical inundation, the country as- 
sumes in succession the appearances of an ocean 
of fresh water, of a miry morass, of a green level 
plain, and of a parched desert of sand and dust. 
Along the Mediterranean the shore is flat and low, 
nor is it till the mariner has approached within 
