Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/459

 TOPOORAPUY— MAllATTA— PniL^. 87» with the Canal. Article 13 provides for the Sultan's rights, and, finally, the con- cluding article is to the effect that the Powers will communicate the treaty to those States which have not signed it, and will invite them to endorse it." Topography. "NMiile new towns are springing up in £g}i)t, the ancient cities are crumbling to dust. Most of the larger centres of population stand at some distance from the ruins marking the sites of former copitals. But these ruins, fur more interesting than most of the modern towns, still relate the history of Egyptian culture. In many places the hovels of the fellahin, small cubical blocks of brick or mud covered with a reed roof or a terrace of beaten earth, are almost lost in the shade of mighty gateways and peristyles of temples. Since the scientific exploration of Egypt has been actively begun, fine monuments hove been rescued from the sands in which they hud long been buried ; but many others have disappeared for ever. The salt- petre with which the sands and alluvial dusts are impregnated gradually corrodes the hardest stones of these buildings ; treasure- seekers demolish their walls ; while still greater destruction is caused by the peasantry, who make the sihak/i, an excellent composition, by mixing the dust of the ruins with earth. The limekilns have consumed layer after layer of the temples built with limestone, so that the monuments of sandstone, which can scarcely be utilised for modern structures, have suffered least from these destructive processes. The Egyptian villages bear the most diverse names, according to the origin of their inhabitants, or the tenure of the soil. Thus occur such names as Nahieh, Kafr^ Ezhehy Nag, Abadie/i, Menshat, and Nazleh, this last term, which means "settlement " or " colony," being applied to villages built by Anib nomads who have become culti- vators. The villages also frequently shift their sites, owing to the inundations, or the opening of some fresh canal. In the same way their names often become changed, according to the social status of the proprietors by whom they are pur- chased. Yet in these villages are still to be read the records of ancient Egj'pt. The country has been compared to a palimpsest or media)val parchment, on which the Bible has been written above Herodotus, and the Koran above the Bible. In the towns the Koran is the most legible, while in the rural districts Herodotus reappears.* Mah ATTA — Phi L-E. Classical Egypt begins at the First Cataract, at the spot where the Nile craft from Nubia still land their cargoes of gums, ivory, and ebony, in the shade of the palms and sycamores fringing the Mnhattn beach. At Mahatta, which stands on the right bank, the river is still smooth as a lake ; but towards the north we already perceive the black reefs, amid which wind the foaming currents of the rapids. But before plunging into this labyrinth of falls, the sluggish waters wash the shores of a cluster of verdant isles, one of which is the famous PhiUe, the llak of the • Lucy Duff Gunloa, " LoUen from £gjrpt."