Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/43

 The Story of Egypt 19 a vast, deep trench as it winds its way northward from in- ner Africa. This trench, or valley, is seldom more than thirty miles wide, while the strip of soil on each side of the river rarely exceeds ten miles in width. On either edge of the soil strip, one steps out of the green fields into the sand of the desert, which has drifted into the trench ; or if one climbs the cliffs form- ing the walls of the trench, he stands look- ing out over a vast waste of rocky hills and stretches of sand trembling in the heat of the blazing sun- shine, which flames far across the desert. Then one realizes that Egypt is simply a low, narrow, winding line of green (see map, p. 56), watered by the Nile, in the midst of a rainless desert Fig. 10. View across the Nile Val- ley FROM THE Top of the Great Pyramid Our point of view is from an elevation on the plateau of the western (Sahara) desert, looking eastward to the corresponding cliffs, or heights (p. 19), which limit the great trench of the Nile valley on the other (east) side. At the left (north) expands the vast plain of the Delta (p. 18). We can see the irrigation canals below, and nearer, just along the margin of the desert, once stretched the royal city of the kings buried in the pyramids of Gizeh (Plate I) plateau which looks down upon it from either side. As we journey on let us realize also that this valley can tell an unbroken story of human progress such as we can find nowhere else. The earliest chapter of the story must be sought in the oldest cemeteries in the world. We look out upon the sandy