Page:The Pharaohs and their people; scenes of old Egyptian life and history (IA pharaohstheirpeo00berkiala).pdf/92

70 its people called it from the dark colour of its rich soil, which rewarded the husbandman's toil with two or three crops a year—crops of a luxuriance difficult for us to realise. The name of Egypt was a synonym for rich fertility: 'Well watered everywhere,' we read in Genesis, 'like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.'

In the days when the twelfth dynasty ruled, i.e. probably more than 2000, the average rise of the Nile was more than twenty feet higher than it is at the present day. At the point where Usertesen had erected his frontier fortress, the height attained by the river during many successive inundations is recorded. His successor, Amenemhat, not only carefully noted the annual rise, but turned his attention to the great work of controlling the overflow, for the country was liable to suffer severely in case either of an excess or a deficiency.

Westward from the Nile, behind the Libyan hills, lies the valley of Fayoum, about 60 miles distant from Cairo. There the king ordered the excavation of that immense basin or artificial sea known to us as Lake Mœris, and