Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/729

705 QROX.OGY.] EGYPT 705 the constant deposit of the Nile, and the corresponding elevation of the southern part of the isthmus of Suez. The consequence of this change of level has been the ruin of places on the shore of the Mediterranean, the extension of the salt-marshes, and the drying up of a considerable part of the northernmost portion of the Gulf of Suez. The bed of the Red Sea may be traced for several miles north of Suez, which now stands at the head of the western gulf ; and places far north of that town were on the coast in historic times. The form of the plain and valley inclosed by the deserts is remarkably regular. In Lower Egypt the cultivable land little exceeds the limits of the ancient Delta, but greatly exceeds those of the space between the two remain- inn 1 branches of the Nile. The northern coast is pro tected by shoals and a low range of sand-hills. To the south of these are extensive salt marshes and lakes, or waste tracts, and beyond, the cultivated land. The deserts on either side are of low elevation. To the east of the ancient Delta, a valley, the Wadee-et-Tumeylat, is in course of being reclaimed by the Sweet-Water Canal. The form of the valley, or Upper Egypt, may be best seen on the map ; its leading peculiarities may here be noticed. Its course is nearly north and south until just within the border of the Theba is, when it takes a south easterly direction as far as the town of Girga, and then turns due east as far as Kine, from which, town it resumes ts former direction. The mountains and desert on the western side throughout Upper Egypt, that is, above Cairo, are generally further from the river than those on the eastern side, which frequently reach to the water s edge. The difference is most remarkable as far as the town of Farshoot, by the course of the river about 350 miles above Cairo, and about 70 miles below Thebes. Near Farshoot begins a con tinuous series of canals, which flow parallel to the Nile, and near the Libyan chain, until they terminate in Lower Egypt, not far north of Cairo. Above Farshoot, the eastern mountains recede as far as a little above Thebes, and the western mountains gradually approach the Nile. Halfway between Thebes and the First Cataract, the cultiv able soil is equally narrow on each bank. The greatest breadth of the cultivable land, all of which is not now cultivated, on the western bank seldom exceeds about 8 or 10 miles, and on the eastern bank, about 3 miles, but it is usually much narrower. There is in Upper Egypt one striking deviation from the uniform character of the country. About 70 miles above Cairo, by the course of the Nile, an opening in the Libyan range leads to a kind of oasis, the Feiyoom, a fertile tract, lying in a hollow of the desert, and having at its further extremity a great lake of brackish water. The Nile. The chief natural feature of Egypt is the Nile, and the great phenomenon of the country the yearly inundation. With the ancient inhabitants the river had, according to their usage with such names, its two appellations, sacred and common. The sacred name was Hapi, the same as that of one of the four genii of Amenti (Hades) and of the bull Apis. The probable meaning is &quot; the concealed &quot; (Brugsch, Geogr. Tnschr., i. 77). The pro fane name was Atur, or Aur, usually with the epithet aii, the great. The two forms, of which the first appears to be the elder, the second the younger, mean &quot; river,&quot; as is equally the case with the demotic and Coptic forms of Aur (Id. p. 78). There are at least three names of the Nile in the Bible, Yeor (&quot;fM, ^), the same as the Egyptian name last mentioned, and probably of Egyptian derivation ; Shichor pirr^, -tins?, -lh?), the black ; &quot; and &quot; the river of Egypt, Dnyp in?. The &quot;torrent,&quot; or &quot;brook of Egypt&quot; (Dnyip ?n3), spoken of as the western limit of Palestine, and so the eastern limit of Egypt, is either a desert stream at Rliinocorura, now El- Areesh, or the Pelusiac or eastern most branch of the Nile. 1 The Greek and lloman name NeiAo?, Nilus, is certainly not traceable to either of the Egyptian names of the river, nor does it seem to be philologically connected with the Hebrew ones. It may be, like Shichor, indicative of the colour of the river, for we find in Sanskrit, Nila, &quot; blue,&quot; probably especially &quot;dark blue,&quot; also even black, as Nilapan ka, &quot;black mud.&quot; The two great confluents of the Nile are now called the Bahr-el-Abyad, or &quot; White Paver,&quot; ani the Bahr-el-Azrak, or &quot; Blue River,&quot; and the latter most -nearly resembles the Nile in Egypt. As already noticed, Atyvrrros, in the Odyssey, is the name of the Nile (masc.) as well as of the country (fern.). The Arabs preserved the classical name of the Nile in the H O proper name En-Neel J^ili, or Neel-Misr^xa^ J.AJ, the Nile of Misr (Egypt). The same word signifies indigo. 2 The modern Egyptians commonly call the river El-Bahr, &quot; the sea,&quot; a term also applied to the largest rivers, and the inundation &quot; the Nile,&quot; En-Neel ; and the modern Arabs call the river Bahr-en-Neel, &quot; the river Nile.&quot; The course of the Nile has already been noticed in speak ing of the form of the Nile valley. In ancient times the Delta was watered by seven branches ; now there are but two, the other ancient branches being canals not always navigable. The ancient branches were, beginning at the west, the Canobic, Bolbitine, Sebennytic, Pathmitic, Mendesian, Tanitic, and Pelusiac, of which the modern Rosetta and Damietta branches represent the Bolbitine and Pathmitic. The mean breadth of the river in Upper Egypt may be put at from half a mile to three-quarters, except where large islands increase the distance. In the Delta the branches are generally narrower. A remarkable change has been ascertained to have occurred in the level of the Nile above Gebel-es-Silsileh, (near the ancient Silsilis. more than 80 miles south of Thebes), and throughout part of Nubia. Indications of this change were first observed by Professor Lepsius, who dis covered hieroglyphic inscriptions on rocks at the Cataract of Semneh, not far above the Second Cataract, showing that the river attained a much higher level in the time of Dynasties XII. and XIII. before B.C. 2000. He gives the difference of the mean water-level at Semneh as 7 30 metres, or 23 94 feet English. He observes that the whole level of Upper Nubia was anciently greater, and similarly that of Lower Nubia between the First and Second Cataracts, but that in this second tract the present level was attained since the time of Thothmes III. of Dynasty XVIII. (Auszug aus einen Schreiben des Urn. Lepsius an Hrn. Ehrenberg, Phila?, lOthSept. 1844.) Sir Gardner Wilkinson pursued the inquiry in a paper in which he argued that the cause of the change of level which he traced in the Upper Theba is was the breaking of a rocky barrier at Gebel-es-Silsileh, where the low mountains on either side confine the river to a narrow channel (Trans. E. Soc. Lit., n.s., iv.). The water of the Nile differs considerably in appearance and purity at various seasons of the year. A little after midsummer it becomes very turbid, and not long afterwards 1 The manner in which this term is used (Num. xxxiv. 5 ; Josh. xv. 4, 47 ; 1 K. viii. 65 ; 2 K. xxiv. 7 ; Is. xxvii. 12), to designate the boundary of Egypt and Palestine, precisely as Shichor is employed (Josh. xiii. 3 ; 1 Chr. xiii. 5), would be conclusive as to their identity, were it not that the country between the Pelusiac branch and Rhino- corura is a waste region, which may have been wholly considered as boundary. 2 &quot; En-Ned is the river (lit. the inundation) of Egypt : Es-Saghanee says But as to the ncd [indigo] with which one dyes, it is an Indian word AraLicuod &quot; (The Misl&h of El-Feiyoomee).