THE EGYPTIANS


=The Land of Egypt.=--Egypt is only the valley of the Nile, a narrow
strip of fertile soil stretching along both banks of the stream and
shut in by mountains on either side, somewhat over 700[6] miles in
length and 15 in width. Where the hills fall away, the Delta begins, a
vast plain cut by the arms of the Nile and by canals. As Herodotus
says, Egypt is wholly the gift of the Nile.

=The Nile.=--Every year at the summer solstice the Nile, swollen by
the melted snows of Abyssinia, overflows the parched soil of Egypt. It
rises to a height of twenty-six or twenty-seven feet, sometimes even
to thirty-three feet.[7] The whole country becomes a lake from which
the villages, built on eminences, emerge like little islands. The
water recedes in September; by December it has returned to its proper
channel. Everywhere has been left a fertile, alluvial bed which serves
the purpose of fertilization. On the softened earth the peasant sows
his crop with almost no labor. The Nile, then, brings both water and
soil to Egypt; if the river should fail, Egypt would revert, like the
land on either side of it, to a desert of sterile sand where the rain
never falls. The Egyptians are conscious of their debt to their
stream. A song in its honor runs as follows: "Greeting to thee, O
Nile, who hast revealed thyself throughout the land, who comest in
peace to give life to Egypt. Does it rise? The land is filled with
joy, every heart exults, every being receives its food, every mouth is
full. It brings bounties that are full of delight, it creates all good
things, it makes the grass to spring up for the beasts."

=Fertility of the Country.=--Egypt is truly an oasis in the midst of