Of old the great river must have shown a more fair and busy scene than now. Boats of many kinds were ever passing along it, by the painted walls of temples, and the gardens that extended around the light sum- mer pavilions, from the pleasure-galley, with one great square sail, white or with variegated pattern, and many oars, to the little papyrus skiff", dancing on the water, and carrying the seekers of pleasure where they could shoot with arrows, or knock down with the throw-stick the wild-fowl that abounded among the reeds, or en- gage in the dangerous chase of the hippopotamus or the crocodile. In the Bible the papyrus-boats are men- tioned ; and they are shown to have been used for their swiftness to carry tidings to Ethiopia (Isa. xviii, 2).
2. The most remarkable and distinctive peculiarity of the Nile is its annual overflow, which is the great source of Egj'pt's fertility, and the failure of which necessarily causes famine : for Egypt may be truly termed " a land without rain," as was noted by Zech- ariah (xiv, 17. 18), though occasional showers are known to fall in Lower Egypt. The country is therefore de- void of the constant changes which make the husband- men of other lands look always for the providential care of God. " For the land, whither thou goest in to pos- sess it, [is] not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and watoredst [it] with thy foot, as a garden of herbs : but the land, whither ye go to possess it, [is] a land of hills and val- leys, [and] drinketh water of the rain of heaven ; a land which the Lord thy God careth for : the eyes of the Lord thy God [are] always upon it, from the beginning of the j-ear even unto the end of the year" (Dent, xi, 10-12). The cause of the inundation was the occasion of great perplexity to the ancients; but it is now ascer- tained beyond all dispute to be the periodical rain of the tropics, the same cause which produces the inun- dations of the Indus and the Ganges. According to Herodotus (ii, 19), the Nile begins to increase about the summer solstice, and continues to rise for a hundred daj's, and then decreases for the same time, and con- tinues low all the winter until the return of the summer solstice. This is confirmed by the reports of modern travellers. According to Pococke, the Nile began to rise at Cairo, A.D. 1714, June 30; A.D. 1715, Jidy 1 ; A.D. 1738, June 20. "So precisely is the stupendous operation of its inundation calculated," says Bruce, " that on the 25th of September, only three days after the autumnal equinox, the Nile is generally found at Cairo to be at its highest, and begins to diminish every day after." At the Cataracts, however, the first rise is perceived somewhat earlier, about the end of IMa}' or the beginning of June, which led Seneca to say that " the first increase of the Nile was observable about the islands of Phila>." In proportion as we get farther south, we find the inundation commences earlier, so that at Khartum, according to some, it is said to begin
" early in April." In the beginning of the inundation the waters of the Nile acquire a green, slimy appear- ance, occasioned by the vast lakes of stagnant water left by the annual overflow on the broad sand-flats of Nubia. These, having stagnated in the tropical sun for more than six months, are carried forward by the new inundation, and once more forced into the river. The continuance of this state seldom exceeds three or four days. The sufferings of those who are compelled to drink the water in this stage are verj' severe. Ten or twelve days elapse before the development of the last and most extraordinary change in the waters of the Nile, when it assumes the perfect appearance of a river of blood, which the Arabs call the l^ed Kile, It is not, however, like the green mixture, at all dele- terious, as the Nile water is never more wholesome or refreshing than during this period of the inundation. "Perhaps," saj's a modern traveller, from whom we have already quoted, " there is not in nature a more exhilarating sight, or one more strongly exciting to confidence in God, than the rise of the Nile. Day by day and night by night its turbid tide sweeps on- ward majestically over the parched sands of the waste, howling wilderness. There are few impressions I ever received, upon the remembrance of which I dwell with more pleasure, than that of seeing the first burst of the Nile into one of the great channels of its annual over- flow. All nature shouts for joy. The men, the chil- dren, the buffaloes, gambol in its refreshing waters, the broad waves sparkle with shoals of fish, and fowl of every wing flutter over them in clouds. Nor is this jubilee of nature confined to the higher orders of crea- tion. The moment the sand becomes moistened by the approach of the fertilizing waters, it is literally alive with insects innumerable. It is impossible to stand by the side of one of these noble streams, to see it every moment sweeping away some obstruction to its majestic course, and widening as it flows, without feeling the heart expand with love, joy. and confidence in the great Author of this miracle of mercy."