about the middle of October it reaches its height; then it begins as gradually to fall, till it reaches its lowest point in the following June. It rises from nineteen to twenty-three feet, and from this it rarely varies. The higher the water reaches, the more land is covered, and the contrary. Some idea of the richness of the mud deposited on the land may be formed from the statement of SaintHilaire, who says that four crops of maize are gathered off it in a year.

Unlike all other rivers in the world, in its annual inundations, the Nile resembles but few in the small amount of mischief its floods perpetrate. The floods of all other rivers more or less devastate the banks, in spite of all the efforts of man; but the Nile is always, or nearly so, gentle as the summer breeze, never rising into fury nor washing away the property on its banks. It seems only to come to man as a token and a perpetual pledge of God's ever-enduring beneficence. The mud it deposits has been subjected to the tests of modern chemistry, and is found to consist of 42 per cent. of silica, 24 per cent. of alumina, 13 per cent. of peroxide of iron, 2-8 tenths of organic matter, and the rest, excepting nearly 10 per cent. of water, of carbonate of lime and magnesia. Its appearance is that of a kind of brown earth, of very fine grain, and it is of the consistence of hardish clay. Though very soft to the touch, it becomes very hard when dried in the sun, and appears nearly as close and compact as metal.* Herodotus was the first to relate that this mud is gradually raising the valley of the Nile. Modern science states that this is going on at the rate of five inches in a century.

The water of the Nile is said to be exquisite to the taste, and as healthy to the constitution. The daughters of the Ptolemies, who settled in Syria, had these waters brought to them for use, and so had some of the Sultans of Constantinople. Herodotus relates many stories of its excellences, and the Egyptians are said, by artificial means, to make themselves thirsty, in order to enjoy the luxury of drinking it. No wonder the ancient Egyptians worshipped their wonderful river.

The whole country is full of canals and embankments, especially Lower Egypt, where they may be found ramifying and intersecting each other, like an hydraulic network, in all directions, besides the innumerable drains and watercourses which every private cultivator provides for himself, in order to take advantage of the overflowing and receding waters, as circumstances may require. In remote times, the king who cut most canals was considered the greatest benefactor, because he was putting into every man's hands the means of securing a better livelihood. Formerly the Nile entered the Mediterranean by a great number of mouths, but now, mostly through these canals, they are reduced to two. Herodotus, and others since his time, have feared that the constant deposits of mud will so far upraise the land that, in time, the river will be unable to flow into the sea, and thus will turn Egypt into a vast lake or bay, or will force for itself a new channel. And the uprising is certainly and constantly going on.

* See " Egypt and the Great Suez Canal," by J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, pp. 146-152. 1857.

The deposits of mud on the banks are, in many places, from thirty to forty feet deep, the depth decreasing as you recede from the river, until, at the extremity of the inundations, it is found to be only a few inches. The father of historians says that, in the time of Moris, to overflow all the soil, it was only necessary that the river should rise eight cubits; but in Herodotus' time, scarcely 900 years later, the same result was not accomplished without a rise of fifteen or sixteen cubits. At the present day the rising must not be less than from nineteen to twenty-three cubits, or the land would be only partially flooded. Reckoning at the same rate from the time of the Deluge, the deposits of mud must have risen, according to Dr. Shaw, the celebrated traveller, to over forty-one feet, and this is verified by recent researches. There can be no doubt that many of the finest ancient cities of Egypt are at present under these accumulations of mud. Heliopolis, with other places, according to Strabo, was originally built on elevated ground, but at present the land is so far raised around it that it appears to stand in a plain, which is flooded every year to the depth of six or eight feet. The calculations of the celebrated French commission, authorized by Napoleon I. to ascertain, amongst other things, the depth of the alluvial soil, pretty nearly agree, or agree within six or seven hundred years, with the commonly received chronology, and completely agree with the chronology of the Septuagint version of the Bible, which carries back the Deluge to the year 3716 before Christ. Thus the testimony of the alluvial deposits, according to these Frenchmen, completely settles the question as to the extravagant chronology set up by some authorities, and establishes, in the main, the truth of the Scripture accounts of the antiquity of this interesting country.

The crops in Egypt grow rapidly to maturity. Where the water has prepared the land, not more than from six to eight weeks, according to the kind of grain, are required from seed time to harvest; and where the waters fail to reach the lands, or only partially inundate them, an equal fruitfulness is secured by means of small reservoirs and watercourses, by which the unwatered ground is irrigated.

In Egypt, December brings two months of what may be called winter. Spring begins early in February; summer in June, and continues till the end of September; and autumn lasts from about the middle of October till December. During the summer months the heat is intense; but there is a beautifully refreshing and healthy atmosphere during the months of spring. In summer, while the sun remains above the horizon, the sky is cloudless and sparkling, and the heat excites profuse perspiration. Sunset brings a cooler atmosphere, and the vapour suspended in the air during the day falls in the shape of a copious dew. In Egypt there is no rain-or, at least, very rarely; and when, by some extraordinary chance, rain does fall, it only continues for a few minutes. In the Delta rain falls very occasionally, but is scarcely ever seen above Cairo. Thunder and lightning are still more rare, and when they do occur they have none of those qualities which startle the peoples of most other countries. Hail and ice are quite as unusual, and are utterly unknown to the bulk of the inhabitants. Northerly winds prevail for nearly nine months in the year. There are very few westerly winds, the easterly

and the southerly prevailing after the northerly. The most unhealthy winds are from the south, which often blow from February to April, being charged with all the noxious exhalations of the African deserts. At these times a black, heavy sky succeeds these winds, the sun looks dim, a warm breeze follows, which gradually increases to nearly ovenheat. There are no vapours, but the air becomes so grey and thick with clouds of impalpable sand, that sometimes candles are lit at noonday. Wood warps and cracks, vegetation withers, and every green leaf is shrivelled. The south winds are very destructive to animal life; breathing becomes rapid and difficult, the skin ceases to perform its functions, and a feverish habit is induced. Sometimes

sudden deaths occur through sudden and violent squalls. The Nile waters become warm, and cease to refresh those who suffer from a sense of intolerable oppression, and the streets are silent as death, for the people take to their houses to escape the direful showers of dust.. These hot winds of the desert are called by the Arabs simoon. Strange to say, however, though they are so hot in the spring, in the winter they are noted for their intense cold; the rays of the sun falling more obliquely on the African desert in the winter, and the air-currents passing over the lofty and snowy mountains of Abyssinia, are supposed to produce this winter coldness in Egypt.

The

Within the territory of Egypt, in the Libyan Desert, as well as in sandy districts to the east, are certain fertile spots known as Oases. These are large tracts of land, verdant as a paradise, situated generally in valleys, and surrounded on all sides by an ocean of sand. Greeks termed them the "Islands of the Blessed." Some of them are of considerable extent, being many miles long and broad, and on them are numerous villages peopled by Bedouins-a barbarous race. These strange and fertile islands, amid seas of sand, are sometimes found in clusters, with the principal one in the centre. They have long been known to history, and the ancient Greeks and Romans sometimes made them places of banishment. Many of the early Christians, and many state malefactors, were compelled to finish their days in these solitudes of the Libyan Desert. In these districts there are three principal ones, the "Great Oasis," the "Little Oasis," and the "Northern Oasis," sometimes called Siwah. There is another, called the Western Oasis, and there are numerous smaller ones. The Great Oasis, the most southerly one, including a number of these green sites (between each of which is a considerable sandy waste), extends to the distance of a hundred miles. Amongst these green spots are found numerous ruins of temples and other buildings of ancient date and large dimensions, in some parts bearing numerous hieroglyphics, in others symbols of Christian worship, and often, in the neighbourhood, are found catacombs filled, or partially filled, with mummies. There is no doubt that many of these structures are of Egyptian origin, and that at a later period the villages were peopled by Christians. Many of the temples are ornamented with colossal figures of the gods and of birds, in the Egyptian style, and the northern one, called Siwah, is supposed to have been the spot where Jupiter Ammon stood, about which Herodotus says so much. Some of the stones used are of great dimensions, over thirty feet by twenty, and there are columns of five or six feet in diameter.

Of the natural history of Egypt, a very brief outline must suffice. The camel is not a native there, but it has been the means of great good to the people, and has been the cause, in Africa, of vast tracts being made habitable. Its patience, its capability of crossing immense sandy deserts, and of enduring thirst and fatigue, have well earned its name—“the ship of the desert." The giraffe is sometimes seen on the borders in the south-a gentle, long-necked creature, sometimes growing to the height of eighteen feet, but of no use as a domestic animal. The civet cat was known to the ancient inhabitants, but the ichneumon, which answered very much the purposes of our domestic cat, was held in religious adoration by them. Amongst their animals, this is one of the most celebrated and useful. It destroys the young of many disgusting reptiles, but its favourite food is the eggs of the crocodile. In early times, it was said to be capable of attacking and conquering a full-grown crocodile, and divine honours were awarded to it by a superstitious people. It is still domesticated in Egypt, and keeps to its dwelling-place with an instinct resembling that of the

cat.

The ichneumon carries its food to an unobserved corner, and growls angrily if disturbed while eating. It dwells much on rivers' banks, and captures and sucks the blood of every creature it can overcome. In colour it is of a greyish brown, and its body is about eighteen inches long, exclusive of the tail, which is of about an equal length. Two species of the sorex, or shrew, are natives of Egypt, but only one of these is now found there, though both have often been found embalmed in the catacombs of Sakhara. The jerboa, of the marmot tribe, an animal which burrows in the ground, is found in the country. The Nile, on this side of the cataracts, could formerly boast of the hippopotamus, but in modern times it has seldom been seen so far north. It is found carved on some of the more ancient sculptures, and in those districts where the crocodile was held an abomination the hippopotamus was held sacred.

No animal in Egypt is more intimately connected with the national superstitions than the crocodile. Its shape and appearance are well known. The coat of a full-grown one will repel a musketball. The female carefully deposits her eggs, from eighty to one hundred, in the sand, where they are hatched by the sun's heat. As soon as they escape from the eggs, the young run into the water. They have then many enemies, the vultures destroying them by millions. The ancient Egyptians, about Thebes and Lake Moris, held the crocodile in religious veneration. They used to tame these creatures, place gold ornaments in their ears, and even valuable precious stones. Their fore-feet were secured by a chain, the flesh of the sacred victim, with other food, was given them to eat, and, when they died, their bodies were embalmed and placed in consecrated chests. Herodotus tells strange tales about the crocodile. He declares it had been seen in the Nile fifty feet long. Below Cairo it is never seen, and but rarely below Thebes. There is a kind of lizard, known as the monitor of the Nile, which the ancient Egyptians much venerated This devours the crocodile's eggs; and there is a sort of land monitor, in the deserts, which Herodotus calls the "terrestrial crocodile." The chameleon is an Egyptian animal, and the hyena visits the banks of the Nile, haunts the suburbs, and sometimes the

streets of towns, feeding on offal or dead carcases. The dog, the sheep, the ape, the buffalo, and other animals, need not be described, as they are common to other countries.

Amongst birds, the Egyptian swan has nothing very remarkable about it, except that the ancients paid it divine honours. The ostrich is a well-known bird, of which the fabulous writers have said much that was very wonderful and very false. It does not visit the valley of the Nile, but is seen occasionally in the great desert districts on the shores of the Red Sea. It is the swiftest-running animal known. The egg of the ostrich weighs about three pounds, and is mostly hatched in the hot sands. There are several species of the ibis, but the one most celebrated is known as the ibis religiosa. It is over two feet high, and, including the tail, about two feet six inches long. Its head and neck are black, and, for six inches, featherless, and its prevailing colour is dirty or yellowish white, with purplish-black plumes on each side of the tail. There is another ibis, in Egypt, about the size of a female raven. This is of great service in devouring the insects and frogs, which would otherwise, every year, infest the land to a disgusting extent. But the ibis religiosa was most valued by the ancient Egyptians. To kill this bird, or even to insult it, was a crime sure to bring down the vengeance of Heaven on the daring offender. The Egyptian vulture, which exists in thousands, is described as a powerful but filthy and disgusting creature; and yet it is of incalculable service in devouring all kinds of dead carcases, and is said to follow the caravans to Mecca that it may prey on the offal of slaughtered beasts, and feast on the camels which die on the way. There is a bird called the Oriental dotterel, about the size of an English crow, which lives chiefly on rats and mice, and which will live several months without water; and another, about the size of a

lark, which is called the Egyptian crow. The Nile duck is common, and may sometimes be seen domesticated; and the Egyptian seaswallow, which is found on the Nile and in the canals about Cairo, is a very beautiful bird. The pelican is migratory, and visits Egypt about the middle of September. The quail, too, is a bird of passage, and is found in immense numbers in March, when the wheat is ripening. The natives take quails, with nets, in large numbers. If the Israelites ate quails, they would find them a savoury dish, and they still abound in the track of those travellers of the wilderness. In the galleries, excavated caverns, and old buildings, thousands of bats congregate.

Amongst the plants found in Egypt, and known to the ancients, may be mentioned the papyrus, which now grows to the height of about ten feet, though Pliny speaks of it as reaching fifteen feet in his time. The ancient inhabitants made boats of this plant, but it is more celebrated as the plant from which they made paper. The inner portion of the stalk was cut in pieces like ribands, joined together with a kind of gum, and then dried in the sun. Bruce suggests that a gummy matter, which the papyrus yields, was made use of to join the pieces. The persea, a beautiful fruit-tree, was found in ancient Egypt, but has now disappeared; but the "lotus," a species of water-lily, is still found spreading most gracefully its broad round leaves, and beautiful blue and white flowers, over all the canals and