14 
FOREST AND STREAM 
January, 192f 
DOCTOR HENSHALL ON THE 1NILE 
THE DISTINGUISHED ANGLER VISITS CAIRO AND TELLS OF AN 
OLD SPECIES 
T HE present city of Cairo, Egypt, 
is built on the sites and remains 
of four ancient cities, portions of 
which may still be seen in something 
of their former picturesqueness in their 
narrow streets and bazaars. The 
quarter bounded by the Gate of Victory 
and the Citadel is still quite oriental in 
appearance, and where are still to be 
found the ancient mosques, latticed 
houses, gardens and fountains in the 
characteristic Saracenic art. 
The modern city has boulevards and 
broad avenues lined with shade trees, 
and a fine public square, about which 
are located the hotels, theaters, public 
buildings and European shops; there 
are also libraries, schools and muse- 
ums. Its population of nearly half a 
million is composed mostly of Arabs, 
Egyptians and half breeds, Copts, 
Turks and Jews, with a considerable 
quota of Greeks, Italians, Germans, 
French and English. 
The view from the Citadel, the most 
prominent and important feature cf the 
city, is grand, picturesque and wonder- 
ful. Hundreds of mosques, including 
the famous and splendid mosques of 
Sultan Hassan and Mahomet Ali are 
to be seen, as well as the Pasha’s Pal- 
ace and many other and noble edifices, 
while to the eastward may be seen the 
Obelisk of Heliopolis and the tombs of 
the Mamelukes. To the south is the 
Nile, the river of mystery, its banks 
with a margin of living green, stretch- 
ing away in the distance, a silver rib- 
bon with borders of vivid green (Nile 
green according to the Skipper). Turn- 
ing toward the southwest is seen the 
town of Ghizeh amid groves of palm, 
fig and plane trees, and more remote 
the wonderful Pyramids of Ghizeh, and 
about and around and beyond all the 
great Libyan Desert. To the north- 
ward appear the green plains of the 
Delta, interspersed with white palaces, 
while to the northeast is the great city 
of Cairo with its four hundred mosques 
whose gilded domes gleam and glisten 
in the noon-day sun, and borne on the 
quivering air can be heard the distant 
voice of the muezzin, from his balcony 
on a tall minaret, calling the faithful 
to prayer. 
At the distance of six miles the Pyra- 
mids loom as large as at a single one; 
so one who cares more for the sublime 
and beautiful in art, and the enchant- 
ment that distance lends, should view 
the great Pyramids from the Citadel 
just before sunrise, or from sunset un- 
til the gloaming, when the misty glamor 
of the great desert envelops and en- 
compasses the silent and mysterious 
wastes of its golden sands, and forms 
a fitting setting for the awe-inspiring 
proportions of Old Cheops and his les- 
ser brethren, and the weird and mystic 
Sphynx. 
OF FISH TO WHICH IS GIVEN 
TWENTY-FIRST PAPER 
the Pyramids, they can be reached by a 
fine road of six miles, bordered with 
shade trees, with a canal of water 
alongside. The road is kept well 
sprinkled by bottles in the hands of na- 
tive fellahs. The bottles, however, are 
made of the entire skin of a goat, the 
tail being left on for a handle, and be- 
ing swung over the shoulders the water 
is poured out from the neck. The end 
justifies the means, for water, bottles 
and fellahs are plentiful. 
When the Pyramids are reached 
after a pleasant drive, the beholder can 
view the overwhelming structures amid 
a mass of ruins. He can admire at his 
leisure the immense blocks of stone 
A Greek soldier, 1887 
piled heavenward, and if so-minded can 
clamber, with the help of another fel- 
lah, to the top of Old Cheops, or can 
slide down the narrow and smooth 
tunnel to the interior, and by the aid of 
smoking torches can admire the King’s 
chamber, and likewise the Queen’s, and 
by that time his inclination and curi- 
osity being satisfied, he can smile in re- 
turn at the grinning Sphynx, and then 
enjoy the delightful drive back again, 
glad to escape the importunate demands 
of the sheiks for backsheesh. 
O NE of the wonders of Egypt, if not 
of the world, is the sacred river 
Nile. From its sources in the 
mountains of South Africa it flows over 
rocky walls, rapids and cataracts four 
thousand miles to the Mediterranean, 
being augmented during its course by 
the White Nile, the Blue Nile and the 
Black Nile. To the black sediment of 
the latter river, deposited annually, is 
A NEW NAME 
O PPOSITE to Cairo is the Nilome- 
ter, a graduated marble pillar 
forty feet high, by which the an- 
nual overflow is measured. The usual 
inundation reaches a height of about 
thirty feet, and while forty feet is con- 
sidered desirable, a few feet more would 
prove disastrous. It is believed that 
since the erection of the Obelisk of 
Heliopolis, more than three thousand 
years ago, the annual inundation 
of the Nile has raised the surface of 
its banks to a height of twenty-five feet 
above the base of the Obelisk, which is 
seventy feet high, and is supposed to 
have been built on an eminence. 
As there is never any rainfall in the 
lower Nile region irrigation becomes a 
matter of necessity. The cultivated 
area on the river banks being many 
feet above the river or canals, the wa- 
ter is raised by various appliances, 
some of which were very primitive. I 
have seen two fellahs, on opposite sides 
and above a ditch, operate a flat, water- 
tight basket by means of long ropes. 
Lowering the basket below the surface 
of the water, it was raised by quickly 
pulling the ropes taut and throwing 
the contents into a ditch on the bank 
above, from whence it flowed to the 
fields. Another method I have seen 
was by a large wooden wheel with 
earthen jugs affixed to its circumfer- 
ence, which were emptied in turn as the 
top of the bank was reached. The 
wheel was operated by a motor power 
consisting of a single water-buffalo, at 
other times by a buffalo and a donkey 
as a team, or perhaps by a camel or 
two. Rude pumps were also utilized, 
but all were operated by animal power. 
At the present- day, however, and 
especially since the cultivation of cot- 
ton has been introduced by the English, 
the pumping of the water for irriga- 
tion is carried on by more improved 
and more effective methods, and on. a 
much more extensive scale, by the use 
of gasoline engines. And, moreover, 
owing to the high price of cotton, the 
fellahin now reside in comfortable 
houses- instead of mud huts, and in- 
stead of riding on. camels they drive 
through the streets of Cairo in their 
automobiles 
Although Cairo is situated amid gar- 
dens and groves of mimosa and palm, 
the streets present a busy and animated 
scene of traffic, in which the Oriental 
vies with the occidental in character- 
istic manners and customs. Camels 
and donkeys throng the streets with 
carriages .and other vehicles. Camel 
drivers and donkey boys, clad in long, 
white gowns and turbans, flourish their 
sticks and belabor their animals and 
each other to their heart’s content, but 
none seems to be better or worse for 
the diversion and exercise. Dragomen 
and outrunners are gay in flowing f 
robes of various hues and embroidered 
