armies follow the Nile for months together, as they pursued the tribes
who dwelt upon its banks, only to find it as wide, as full, as
irresistible in its progress as ever. It was a fresh-water sea--_iauma,
ioma_ was the name by which they called it. The Egyptians, therefore,
never sought its source. It was said to be of supernatural origin, to
rise in Paradise, to traverse burning regions inaccessible to man, and
afterwards to fall into a sea whence it made its way to Egypt.

The sea mentioned in all the tales is, perhaps, a less extravagant
invention than we are at first inclined to think. A lake, nearly as
large as the Victoria Nyanza, once covered the marshy plain where the
Bahr-el-Abiad unites with the Sobat and with the Bahr-el-Ghazal.
Alluvial deposits have filled up all but its deepest depression, which
is known as Birket Nu; but in ages preceding our era it must still have
been vast enough to suggest to Egyptian soldiers and boatmen the idea of
an actual sea opening into the Indian Ocean.

Everything is dependent upon the river--the soil, the produce of the
soil, the species of animals it bears, the birds which it feeds--and
hence it was the Egyptians placed the river among their gods. They
personified it as a man with regular features, and a vigorous but portly
body, such as befits the rich of high lineage. Sometimes water springs
from his breast; sometimes he presents a frog, or libation of vases, or
bears a tray full of offerings of flowers, corn, fish, or geese. The
inscriptions call him "Hapi, father of the gods, lord of sustenance, who
maketh food to be, and covereth the two lands of Egypt with his
products; who giveth life, banisheth want, and filleth the granaries to
overflowing."

He is evolved into two personages, one being sometimes coloured red, the