By the walls of Thebes--the old city of a hundred gates--the Nile
spreads to a broad river; the heights, which follow the stream on both
sides, here take a more decided outline; solitary, almost cone-shaped
peaks stand out sharply from the level background of the many-colored.
limestone hills, on which no palm-tree flourishes and in which no humble
desert-plant can strike root. Rocky crevasses and gorges cut more or
less deeply into the mountain range, and up to its ridge extends the
desert, destructive of all life, with sand and stones, with rocky cliffs
and reef-like, desert hills.
Behind the eastern range the desert spreads to the Red Sea; behind the
western it stretches without limit, into infinity. In the belief of the
Egyptians beyond it lay the region of the dead.
Between these two ranges of hills, which serve as walls or ramparts to
keep back the desert-sand, flows the fresh and bounteous Nile, bestowing
blessing and abundance; at once the father and the cradle of millions of
beings. On each shore spreads the wide plain of black and fruitful soil,
and in the depths many-shaped creatures, in coats of mail or scales,
swarm and find subsistence.
The lotos floats on the mirror of the waters, and among the papyrus
reeds by the shore water-fowl innumerable build their nests. Between the
river and the mountain-range lie fields, which after the seed-time are
of a shining blue-green, and towards the time of harvest glow like gold.
Near the brooks and water-wheels here and there stands a shady sycamore;
and date-palms, carefully tended, group themselves in groves. The
fruitful plain, watered and manured every year by the inundation, lies
at the foot of the sandy desert-hills behind it, and stands out like a
garden flower-bed from the gravel-path.
spreads to a broad river; the heights, which follow the stream on both
sides, here take a more decided outline; solitary, almost cone-shaped
peaks stand out sharply from the level background of the many-colored.
limestone hills, on which no palm-tree flourishes and in which no humble
desert-plant can strike root. Rocky crevasses and gorges cut more or
less deeply into the mountain range, and up to its ridge extends the
desert, destructive of all life, with sand and stones, with rocky cliffs
and reef-like, desert hills.
Behind the eastern range the desert spreads to the Red Sea; behind the
western it stretches without limit, into infinity. In the belief of the
Egyptians beyond it lay the region of the dead.
Between these two ranges of hills, which serve as walls or ramparts to
keep back the desert-sand, flows the fresh and bounteous Nile, bestowing
blessing and abundance; at once the father and the cradle of millions of
beings. On each shore spreads the wide plain of black and fruitful soil,
and in the depths many-shaped creatures, in coats of mail or scales,
swarm and find subsistence.
The lotos floats on the mirror of the waters, and among the papyrus
reeds by the shore water-fowl innumerable build their nests. Between the
river and the mountain-range lie fields, which after the seed-time are
of a shining blue-green, and towards the time of harvest glow like gold.
Near the brooks and water-wheels here and there stands a shady sycamore;
and date-palms, carefully tended, group themselves in groves. The
fruitful plain, watered and manured every year by the inundation, lies
at the foot of the sandy desert-hills behind it, and stands out like a
garden flower-bed from the gravel-path.
