Map of the Roman Empire -
Nile River
Nile River
O-11 on the Map
Ancient Nile River the great river flowing through on which her life has always depended.
The word Nile does not occur in the Bible but it is spoken of under the names of
Sihor and the "river of Egypt."
Gen. 41:1 ff. - And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river.
Exod. 7:17 ff. - Thus saith the LORD, In this thou shalt know that I [am] the LORD: behold, I will smite with the rod that [is] in mine hand upon the waters which [are] in the river, and they shall be turned to blood.
Isa. 19:5 ff. - And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.
Isa. 23:10 - Pass through thy land as a river, O daughter of Tarshish: [there is] no more strength.
Jer. 46:7 f. - Who [is] this [that] cometh up as a flood, whose waters are moved as the rivers?
Ezek. 29:3 - Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I [am] against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river [is] mine own, and I have made [it] for myself.
Nah. 3:8 - Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, [that had] the waters round about it, whose rampart [was] the sea, [and] her wall [was] from the sea?
Nile River (blue, dark), the great river of Egypt. The word Nile
nowhere occurs in the Authorized Version but it is spoken of under the names of
Sihor [SIHOR] and the "river of Egypt." Ge 15:18 We cannot as yet determine the
length of the Nile, although recent discoveries have narrowed the question.
There is scarcely a doubt that its largest confluent is fed by the great lakes
on and south of the equator. It has been traced upward for about 2700 miles,
measured by its course, not in a direct line, and its extent is probably over
1000 miles more. (The course of the river has been traced for 3300 miles. For
the first 1800 miles (McClintock and Strong say 2300) from its mouth it receives
no tributary; but at Kartoom, the capital of Nubia, is the junction of the two
great branches, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, so called from the color of
the clay which tinges their waters. The Blue Nile rises in the mountains of
Abyssinia and is the chief source of the deposit which the Nile brings to Egypt.
The White Nile is the larger branch. Late travellers have found its source in
Lake Victoria Nyanza, three degrees south of the equator. From this lake to the
mouth of the Nile the distance is 2300 miles in a straight line --one eleventh
the circumference of the globe. From the First Cataract, at Syene, the river
flows smoothly at the rate of two or three miles an hour with a width of half a
mile. to Cairo. A little north of Cairo it divides into two branches, one
flowing to Rosetta and the other to Damietta, from which place the mouths are
named. See Bartlett's "Egypt and Israel," 1879. The great peculiarity of the
river is its annual overflow, caused by the periodical tropical rains. "With
wonderful clock-like regularity the river begins to swell about the end of June,
rises 24 feet at Cairo between the 20th and 30th of September and falls as much
by the middle of May. Six feet higher than this is devastation; six feet lower
is destitution." --Bartlett. So that the Nile increases one hundred days and
decreases one hundred days, and the culmination scarcely varies three days from
September 25 the autumnal equinox. Thus "Egypt is the gift of the Nile." As to
the cause of the years of plenty and of famine in the time of Joseph, Mr. Osburn,
in his "Monumental History of Egypt," thinks that the cause of the seven years
of plenty was the bursting of the barriers (and gradually wearing them away) of
"the great lake of Ethiopia," which once existed on the upper Nile, thus
bringing more water and more sediment to lower Egypt for those years. And he
shows how this same destruction of this immense sea would cause the absorption
of the waters of the Nile over its dry bed for several years after thus causing
the famine. There is another instance of a seven-years famine-A.D.
1064-1071.--ED.) The great difference between the Nile of Egypt in the present
day and in ancient times is caused by the failure of some of its branches and
the ceasing of some of its chief vegetable products; and the chief change in the
aspect of the cultivable land, as dependent on the Nile, is the result of the
ruin of the fish-pools and their conduits and the consequent decline of the
fisheries. The river was famous for its seven branches, and under the Roman
dominion eleven were counted, of which, however, there were but seven principal
ones. The monuments and the narratives of ancient writers show us in the Nile of
Egypt in old times a stream bordered By flags and reeds, the covert of abundant
wild fowl, and bearing on its waters the fragrant flowers of the various-colored
lotus. Now in Egypt scarcely any reeds or waterplants --the famous papyrus being
nearly, if not quite extinct, and the lotus almost unknown--are to he seen,
excepting in the marshes near the Mediterranean. Of old the great river must
have shown a more fair and busy scene than now. Boats of many kinds were ever
passing along it, by the painted walls of temples and the gardens that extended
around the light summer pavilions, from the pleasure valley, with one great
square sail in pattern and many oars, to the little papyrus skiff dancing on the
water and carrying the seekers of pleasure where they could shoot with arrows or
knock down with the throw-stick the wild fowl that abounded among the reeds, or
engage in the dangerous chase of the hippopotamus or the crocodile. The Nile is
constantly before us in the history of Israel in Egypt. - Smith's Bible
Dictionary
Nilus The Nile, a great river of Egypt. The name is probably cognate
with the Semitic Nahar or Nahal, “river.” Homer calls it ????pt?? ( Od. iv.
477); and the name ?e???? occurs first in Hesiod (Theog. 338) and Hecataeus (Frag.
279). The Jews called it Nahal-Misraim, “River of Egypt.” The Nile takes its
rise in the two lakes Victoria Nyanza and Albert Nyanza, which are themselves
fed by various streams. For three hundred miles after leaving the former, it
flows with a swift current in rapids and cataracts and between high walls of
rock. It leaves the northern end of Lake Albert Nyanza, where it is known as the
Bahr-el-Jebel, and flows in a northerly course towards the Mediterranean Sea.
The first six score miles are through a level country, then for another equal
distance is contracted into a narrow stream (in places not more than a quarter
of a mile in width), and then, being forced over the Yarbovah Rapids, it enters
the plains and flows in a sluggish stream to Khartoum, distant some 800 miles.
In 7¡ 30' north latitude it divides into two streams, the so-called White Nile
(Bahr-el-Abiad) and the Bahrel-Jebel. In 9¡ 30' north latitude the latter
receives the Bahr-el-Ghazal from the west. At Khartoum (15¡ 37' north latitude)
the White Nile and the Blue Nile (Bahr-el-Azrak) unite, and the great stream
then flows on, taking up the Black Nile (Bahr-elAswad), whose black sediment
makes the Delta so remarkable for its fertility. The point of junction is the
apex of the island Meroë, where the river has a breadth of two miles. Thence it
flows through Nubia in a rocky valley, falling over six cataracts, the
northernmost being known as the First Cataract, and marking now, as in
antiquity, the southern boundary of Egypt. See Aegyptus.
The Nile emptied into the Mediterranean by three channels, parted into seven, of
which, according to Herodotus, two were artificial and five natural. From these
seven channels come the names applied to it by Moschus, Catullus (septemgeminus),
and Ovid (septemplex). Most of the seven mouths had names derived from their
cities (i. e. the Canopic, Bolbitic, Sebennytic, Pathmetic or Bucolic, Mendesian,
Tanitic or Saïtic, and Pelusiac). At the present time there are only two
principal mouths, known as the Rosetta on the west and the Damiat on the east.
From the dark sediment deposited by the river came the native name of Egypt—Chemi
or Kemi, “the black land.” A great artificial canal (Bahr-Yussouf, i. e.
“Joseph's Canal”) runs parallel to the river, at the distance of about six
miles, from Diospolis Parva in the Thebais to a point on the west mouth of the
river about half-way between Memphis and the sea. Many smaller canals were cut
to regulate the irrigation of the country A canal from the east mouth of the
Nile to the head of the Red Sea was commenced under the native kings, and
finished by Darius, son of Hystaspes. There were several lakes in the country,
respecting which see Buto, Mareotis, Moeris, Sirbonis, and Tanis. For the use of
the Nile in irrigation, see Aegyptus, p. 24. The ancients knew little of the
Nile beyond the First Cataract at Meroë. It was generally believed that the
great river originated in Mauretania and flowed for a long distance underground
until it came to the southern part of Aethiopia, whence it flowed northward as
the Astapas. The emperor Nero undertook to discover its sources, and sent out
two expeditions for that purpose, which succeeded only in reaching the
confluence of the Sobat and the White Nile, some thirty miles beyond the
junction of the White Nile with the Bahr-el-Zereb. Ptolemy, however, speaks of
the river as issuing from two great lakes six and seven degrees respectively
south of the equator, and fed by the melting snows of the Mountains of the Moon,
lately identified by Stanley with Gordon Bennett, Ruwenzovi, and adjacent peaks.
This is about as much as any one had learned until the present century, when the
discoveries of Speke (1858 and 1862), Baker (1864), Schweinfurth (1868-71), and
Stanley (1875 and 1889) solved bit by bit the mystery of the ages. The Nile was
deified by the Egyptians and worshipped as a god. A famous statue in the Vatican
at Rome represents the river deity as a reclining figure pillowed on a sphinx
and holding a cornucopia (typical of the fertility caused by the river's
overflow), while sixteen children, representing the affluents of the Nile, play
about. The work belongs to the Graeco-Egyptian period. See Herod. ii. 19-26;
Pliny , Pliny H. N. v. 51Pliny H. N., 58; viii. 77; Dio Cass. lxxv. 13; Solin.
35; and on the deification of the river by the Egyptians, Herod.ii. 101; Diod.i.
6-26. - Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary
of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.
Nile River NILUS
NILUS, the river Nile in Egypt. Of all the more important rivers of the globe
known to the Greek and Roman writers, the Nile was that which from the remotest
periods arrested their liveliest curiosity and attention. It ranked with them as
next in magnitude to the Ganges and the Indus, and as surpassing the Danube in
the length of its course and the volume of its waters. (Strab. xv. p.702.) Its
physical phenomena and the peculiar civilisation of the races inhabiting its
banks attracted alike the historian, the mathematician, the satirist, and the
romance-writer: Herodotus and Diodorus, Eratosthenes and Strabo, Lucian and
Heliodorus, expatiate on its marvels; and as Aegypt was the resort of the
scientific men of Greece in general, the Nile was more accurately surveyed and
described than any other river of the earth.
The word Nilus, if it were not indigenous, was of Semitic origin, and probably
transmitted to the Greeks by the Phoenicians. Its epithets in various
languages--e. g. the Hebrew Sihhor (Isaiah, 23.3; Jerem. 2.18), the Aegyptian
Chemi, and the Greek µ??a? (Servius, ad Virgil. Georg. 4.291)--point to the same
peculiarity of its waters, the hue imparted by their dark slime. The Hebrews
entitled the Nile Nahal-Misraim, or river of Aegypt; but the natives called it
simply p-iero (whence probably the Nubian kier) or the river (i. e. of rivers).
Lydus (de Mensibus, 100.8) says that it was some-times termed Ilas or dark; and
Pliny (5.9. s. 9; comp. Dionys. Perieg. 5.213) observes, somewhat vaguely, that
in Aethiopia the river was called Siris, and did not acquire the appellation of
Nilus before it reached Syene. With few exceptions, however, the Greeks
recognised the name of Nilus as far south as Meroe; and above that mesopotamian
region they merely doubted to which of its tributaries they should assign the
principal name. Homer, indeed (Od. 3.300, 4.477, &c.), calls the river Aegyptus,
from the appellation of the land which it intersects. But Hesiod (Hes. Th. 338)
and Hecataeus (Fragm. 279--280), and succeeding poets and historians uniformly
designate the river of Aegypt as the Nile.
It is unnecessary to dwell on a theory at one time received, but generally
discredited by the ablest of the ancient geographers--that the Nile rose in
Lower Mauretania, not far from the Western Ocean (Juba, ap. Plin. Nat. 5.9. s.
10; D. C. 75.13; Solin. 100.35); that it flowed in an easterly direction; was
engulphed by the sands of the Sahara; re-appeared as the Nigir; again sunk in
the earth, and came to light once more near the Great Lake of Debâya as the
proper Nile.
Historically, the Nile derives its principal importance from the civilisation,
to which it contributed so materially, of the races inhabiting its shores, from
the S. of Meroe northwards to the Mediterranean. But for geographical purposes
it is necessary to examine its course, in the first instance, through less known
regions, and to ascertain, if possible, which of its feeders above Meroe was
regarded by the ancients as the true Nile. The course of the stream may be
divided into three heads:--(1) the river S. of Meroe; (2) between Meroe and
Syene; and (3) between Syene, or Philae, and the Mediterranean.
(1.) The Nile above Meroe.--The ancients briefly described the Nile as springing
from marshes (Nili Paludes) at the foot of the Mountains of the Moon. But as all
the rivers which flow northward from the Abyssinian highlands rise from lagoons,
and generally expand themselves into broad marshes, this description is too
vague. Neither is it clear whether they regarded the White River, or the Blue,
or the Astaboras (Tacazzé), as the channel of the true Nile. The names of rivers
are often given capriciously: it by no means follows that they are imposed upon
the principal arm or tributary; and hence we can assign neither to the Astapus
nor to the White River, usually considered as the main stream, the distinction
of being absolutely the “true Nile.”
The Nile, as Strabo sagaciously remarks (xi. p. 493), was well known because it
was the channel of active commerce; and his observation, if applied to its
southern portions, may lead us to the channel which was really regarded as the
principal river even in remotest ages. The stream most frequented and accessible
to navigation, and whose banks were the most thickly peopled, was doubtless the
one which earliest attracted attention, and this we believe to have been the
Astapus (Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue River).
As the sources both of the Blue River and of the Bahr-el-Abiad or the White
River are uncertain, it will be proper to examine these streams above their
point of junction near the modern military station at Khartûm, lat. 15° 37' N.,
long. 33° E. The Astaboras (Tacazzé) may for the present be dismissed, both as
an inferior tributary, and as below the meeting of the two main streams.
The White River, which has been often designated as “the true Nile,” has at no
period been either a road for traffic nor favourable to the settlement of man on
its banks. It is rather an immense lagoon than a river, is often from 5 to 7
miles in breadth, and its sides are in general so low as to be covered at times
with alluvial deposit to a distance of from 2 to. 3 miles beyond the stream. On
its shores there is neither any town, nor any tradition of there having ever
been one; nor indeed, for many leagues up the stream, do there occur any spots
suited either to the habitation of men, to pasture, or to tillage. On the
contrary, it is represented by travellers much in the same terms in which Seneca
(Natur. Quaest. 6.8) speaks of the Nili Paludes, as seen by Nero's surveyors.
The latter are described by the Roman philosopher as “immensas paludes, quarum
exitus nec incolae noverant, nec sperare quisquam potest, ita implicitae aquis
herbae sunt,” &c.: the former by recent explorers as “an interminable sea of
grass,” “a fetid stagnant marsh,” &c. As the White River indeed approaches the
higher table-land of the S., its banks become less depressed, and are inhabited
; but the weedy lagoons extend nearly 100 miles SW. of Khartûm.
But if we trace upwards the channel of the Blue River, a totally different
spectacle presents itself. [2.431] The river nearly resembles in its natural
features and the cultivation of its banks the acknowledged Nile below the
junction lower down. The current is swift and regular: the banks are firm and
well defined: populous villages stand in the midst of clumps of date-trees or
fields of millet (dhourra), and both the land and the water attest the activity
of human enterprise.
A difference corresponding to these features is observable also in the
respective currents of these rivers. The White River moves sluggishly along,
without rapids or cataracts: the Blue River runs strongly at all seasons, and
after the periodical rains with the force and speed of a torrent. The diversity
is seen also on the arrival of their waters at the point of junction. Although
the White River is fed by early rains near the equator, its floods ordinarily
reach Khartúm three weeks later than those of the Blue River. And at their place
of meeting the superior strength of the latter is apparent. For while the
stronger flood discharges itself through a broad channel, free from bars and
shoals, the White River is contracted at its mouth, and the more rapid current
of its rival has thrown up a line of sand across its influx. Actual measurement,
too, has proved the breadth of the Blue River at the point of junction to be 768
yards, while that of the White is only 483, and the body of water poured down by
the former is double of that discharged by the latter. From all these
circumstances it is probable that to the Bahr-el-Azrek rather than to the
Bahr-el-Abiad belongs the name of the “true Nile;” and this supposition accords
with an ancient tradition among the people of Sennaar who hold the Blue River in
peculiar veneration as the “Father of the Waters that run into the Great Sea.”
The knowledge possessed by the ancients of the upper portions and tributaries of
the Nile was not altogether in a direct proportion to the date of their
intercourse with those regions. Indeed, the earlier track of commerce was more
favourable to acquaintance with the interior than were its later channels. The
overland route declined after the Ptolemies transferred the trade from the
rivers and the roads across the desert to Axume, Adulis, Berenice, and the ports
of the Red Sea. Eratosthenes and other geographers, who wrote while Aethiopia
still flourished, had thus better means of information than their successors in
Roman times, Strabo, Ptolemy, &c. Diodorus (1.30), for example, says that a
voyage up the Nile to Meroe was a costly and hazardous under-taking; and Nero's
explorers (Plin. Nat. 5.9. s. 10; Senec. N. Q. 6.8) seem to have found in that
once populous and fertile kingdom only solitude and decay. At the close of the
third century A.D. the Romans abandoned every station on the Nile above Philae,
as not worth the cost and care of defence,--a proof that the river-traffic,
beyond Aegypt, must have dwindled away. As the trade with Arabia and Taprobane
(Ceylon) by sea developed itself, that with Libya would become of less
importance; and in proportion as the Red Sea was better known, the branches and
sources of the Nile were obscured.
(2.) The Nile below the point of junction.--The two streams flow in a common bed
for several miles N. of Khartûm, without, however, blending their waters. The
Bahr-Abiad retains its white soapy hue, both in the dry season and during the
inundations, while the Bahr-Azrek is distinguished by its dark colour. For 12 or
15 miles below the point of junction the Nile traverses a narrow and gloomy
defile, until it emerges among the immense plains of herbage in the mesopotamian
district of Meroe. Beyond Meroe, already described [MEROE], the Nile receives
its last considerable affluent, the Astaboras or Tacazzé; the only other
accessions to its stream in its course northward being the torrents or wadys
that, in the rainy season, descend from the Arabian hills. From the N. of Meroe
to Syene, a distance of about 700 miles, the river enters upon the region of
Cataracts, concerning which the ancients invented or credited so many marvels. (Cic.
Somn. Scip. (in Rep.) 5; Senec. N. Q. 4.2.)
These rapids are seven in number, and are simply dams or weirs of granite or
porphyry rising through the sandstone, and, being little affected by the
attrition of the water, resist its action, divide its stream, and render its
fall per mile double of the average fall below Philae. So far, however, from the
river descending lofty precipices with a deafening noise, even the steepest of
the rapids may be shot, though not without some danger, at high water; and at
the great Cataract the entire descent in a space of 5 miles is only 80 feet.
[PHILAE] Increased by the stream of the Astaboras, the Nile, from lat. 17° 45'
N., flows in a northerly direction for 120 miles, through the land of the
Berbers. Then comes its great SW. elbow or bend, commencing at the rocky island
of Mogreb (lat. 19° N.), and continuing nearly to the most northern point of
Meroe. During this lateral deflection the Nile is bounded W. by the desert of
Bahiouda, the region of the ancient Nubae, and E. by the Arabian Desert,
inhabited, or rather traversed, by the nomade Blemmyes and Megabari. [MACROBII]
Throughout this portion of its course the navigation of the river is greatly
impeded by rapids, so that the caravans leave its banks, and regain them by a
road crossing the eastern desert at Derr or Syene, between the first and second
Cataracts. No monuments connect this region with either Meroe or Aegypt. It must
always, indeed, have been thinly peopled, since the only cultivable soil
consists of strips or patches of land extending about 2 miles at furthest beyond
either bank of the Nile.
While skirting or intersecting the kingdom of Meroe, the river flowed by city
and necropolis, which, according to some writers, imparted their forms and
civilisation to Aegypt, according to others derived both art and polity from it.
The desert of Bahiouda severs the chain of monuments, which, however, is resumed
below the fourth Cataract at Nouri, Gebel-el-Birkel, and Merawe. (Lat. 20° N.)
Of thirty-five pyramids at Nouri, on the left bank of the river, about half are
in good preservation; but the purpose which they served is uncertain, since no
ruins of any cities point to them as a necropolis, and they are without
sculptures or hieroglyphics. On the western side of Gebel-el-Birkel, about 8
miles lower down, and on the right bank, are found not only pyramids, but also
the remains of several temples and the vestiges of a city, probably Napata, the
capital of Candace, the Aethiopian queen. [NAPATA] (Cailliaud, l'Isle de Meroe,
vol. iii. p. 197; Hoskins, Travels, p. 136--141.) About the 18th degree of N.
latitude the Nile resumes its northerly direction, which it observes generally
until it approaches the second Cataract. In resuming its direct course to N., it
enters the kingdom of Dongola, and most; of the features which marked its
channel through the [2.432] desert now disappear. The rocky banks sink down; the
inundation fertilises the borders to a considerable distance ; and for patches
of arable soil fine pastures abound, whence both Arabia and Aegypt imported a
breed of excellent horses. (Russegger, Karte von Nubien.) But after quitting
Napata (?) no remains of antiquity are found before we arrive at the Gagaudes
Insula of Pliny (6.29. s. 35), lat. 19°35', the modern Argo, a little above the
third Cataract. The quarries of this island, which is about 12 miles in length,
and causes a considerable eddy in the river, were worked both by Aethiopians and
Aegyptians. A little to N. of this island, and below the third Cataract, the
Nile makes a considerable bend to the E., passing on its right bank the ruins of
Seghi, or Seschè. On its left bank are found the remains of the temple of Soleb,
equally remarkable for the beauty of its architecture, and for its picturesque
site upon the verge of the rich land, “the river's gift,” and an illimitable
plain of sand stretching to the horizon. (Cailliaud, l'Isle de Meroe, vol. i. p.
375; Hoskins, Travels, p. 245.) The Nile is once again divided by an island
called Sais, and a little lower down is contracted by a wall of granite on
either side, so that it is hardly a stone's-throw across. At this point, and for
a space of several miles, navigation is practicable only at the season of the
highest floods.
Below Sais are found the ruins of the small temple of Amara, and at Semneh those
of two temples which, from their opposite eminences on the right and left banks
of the river, probably served as fortresses also at this narrow pass of the
Nile. That a city of great strength once existed here is the more probable,
because at or near Semneh was the frontier between Aethiopia and Aegypt. We have
now arrived at the termination of the porphyry and granite rocks: henceforward,
from about lat. 21° N., the river-banks are composed of sandstone, and acquire a
less rugged aspect. The next remarkable feature is the Cataract of Wadi-Halfa,
the Great Cataract of the ancient geographers. (Strab. xvii. p.786.)
In remote ante-historic periods a bar of primitive rock, piercing the sandstone,
probably spanned the Nile at this point (lat. 22° N.) from shore to shore. But
the original barrier has been broken by some natural agency, and a series of
islands now divides the stream which rushes and chafes between them. It is
indeed less a single fall or shoot of water than a succession of rapids, and may
be ascended, as Belzoni did, during the inundation. (Travels in Nubia, p. 85.)
The roar of the waters may be heard at the distance of half a league, and the
depth of the fall is greater than that of the first Cataract at Syene. On the
left bank of the river a city once stood in the immediate neighbourhood of the
rapids ; and three temples, exhibiting on their walls the names of Sesortasen,
Thothmes III., and Amenophis II., have been partially surveyed here. Indeed,
with the second Cataract, we may be said to enter the propylaea of Aegypt
itself. For thenceforward to Syene--a distance of 220 miles--either bank of the
Nile presents a succession of temples, either excavated in the sandstone or
separate structures, of various eras and styles of architecture. Of these the
most remarkable and the most thoroughly explored is that of Aboosimbel or
Ipsambul, the ancient Ibsciah, on the left bank, and two days' journey below the
Cataract. This temple was first cleared of the incumbent sand by Belzoni
(Researches, vol. i. p. 316), and afterwards more completely explored, and
identified with the reign of Rameses III., by Champollion and Rosellini. Primis
(Ibrim) is one day's journey down the stream; and below it the sandstone hills
compress the river for about 2 miles within a mural escarpment, so that the
current seems to force itself rather than to flow through this barrier.
(3.) The Nile below Syene.--At Syene (As. sonan), 24° 5' 23? N. lat., the Nile
enters Aegypt Proper; and from this point, with occasional curvatures to the E.
or NW., preserves generally a due northerly direction as far as its bifurcation
at the apex of the Delta. Its bed presents but a slight declivity, the fall
being only from 500 to 600 feet from Syene to the Mediterranean. The width of
the valley, however, through which it flows varies considerably, and the
geological character of its banks undergoes several changes. At a short distance
below Syene begins a range of sandstone rocks, which pass into limestone below
Latopolis, lat. 25° 30' N.; and this formation continues without any resumption
of the sandstone, until both the Libyan and the Arabian hills diverge finally at
Cercasorum. The river thus flows beneath the principal quarries out of which the
great structures of the Nile valley were built, and was the high-road by which
the blocks were conveyed to Thebes and Apollinopolis, to Sais and Bubastis, to
the Great Labyrinth in the Arsinoite nome, to the Pyramids and Memphis, and,
finally, to the Greek and Roman architects of Alexandreia and Antinoopolis.
Again, from Syene to Latopolis, the shores of the river are sterile and dreary,
since the inundation is checked by the rock-walls E. and W. of the stream. But
at Apollinopolis Magna, lat. 25°, and at Latopolis, 25° 30', the rocks leave a
broader verge for the fertilising deposit, and the Nile flows through richly
cultivated tracts. At Thebes, for the first time, the banks expand into a broad
plain, which is again closed in at the N. end by the hills at Gourmah. Here the
river is divided by small islands, and is a mile and a quarter in breadth. It
has hitherto followed a northerly direction ; but at Coptos, where a road
connected the stream with the ports of the Red Sea [BERENICE], it bends to the
NW., and follows this inclination for some distance. At Panopolis, however, it
resumes its general N. bearing, and retains it to the fork of the Delta.
Near Diospolis Parva (How), on the left bank, and opposite Chenoboscium, on the
right, begins the canal, or, perhaps, an ancient branch of the Nile, called the
Canal of Joseph (Bahr-Jusuf). This lateral stream flows in a direction nearly
parallel to the main one, through the Arsinoite nome (El-Fyoum). From this point
the Nile itself presents no remarkable feature until it reaches Speos-Artemidos,
or the grottos of Benihassan, where the eastern hills, approaching close to the
river, limit its inundation, and consequently also the cultivable land. In lat.
29° N. the Libyan hills, for a space, recede, and curving at first NW., but soon
resuming a SE. direction, embrace the Arsinoite nome. Lastly, a little below
Memphis, and after passing the hills of Gebel-el-Mokattam, both the eastern and
western chains of rocks finally diverge, and the river expands upon the great
alluvial plain of the Delta.
At Cercasorum, where the bifurcation of the river begins, or, perhaps, at a
remoter period, still nearer Memphis, the Nile probably met the Mediterranean,
or at least an estuary, which its annual deposits of [2.433] slime have, in the
course of ages, converted into Lower Aegypt. In all historical periods, however,
the river has discharged itself into the sea by two main arms, forming the sides
of an isosceles triangle, the boundaries of the Delta proper, and by a number of
branches, some of which ran down to the sea, while others discharged their
waters into the principal arms of the main stream. The Delta is, indeed, a
net-work of rivers, primary and secondary; and is further intersected by
numerous canals. The primary channels were usually accounted by the ancients
seven in number (Hdt. 2.17; Scylax, p. 43; Strab. xvii. p.801, seq.; Diod. 1.33;
Ptol. 4.5.10; Plin. Nat. 5.10. s. 11; Mela, 1.9.9; Ammianus, 22.15, 16;
Wilkinson, M. & C., Mod. Egypt and Thebes, $c.), and may be taken in the order
following. They are denominated from some principal city seated on their banks,
and are enumerated from E. to W.
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Geography (1854) William Smith, LLD, Ed.