Page:The Martyrdom of Man 1910.djvu/63

 WAK. THE land of Egypt is six hundred miles long, and is bounded by two ranges of naked limestone hills which sometimes approach, and sometimes retire from each other, leaving between them an average breadth of seven miles. On the north they widen and disappear, giving place to a marshy meadow plain which extends to the Mediterranean Coast. On the south they are no longer of limestone, but of granite ; they narrow to a point ; they close in till they almost touch ; and through the mountain gate thus formed, the river Nile leaps with a roar into the valley, and runs due north towards the sea. In the winter and spring it rolls a languid stream through a dry and dusty plain. But in the summer an extraordinary thing happens. The river grows troubled and swift; it turns red as blood, and then green ; it rises, it swells, till at length overflowing its banks, it covers the adjoining lands to the base of the hills on either side. The whole valley becomes a lake from which the .villages rise like islands, for they are built on artificial mounds. This catastrophe was welcomed by the Egyptians with religious gratitude and noisy mirth. When their fields had entirely disappeared they thanked the gods and kept their harvest-home. The tax-gatherers measured the water as if it were grain, and announced A