ABSTRACT
A modern scholar, Gaston Maspero, has given in his great work, The Dawn of Civilisation: Egypt and Chaldea, a precise description of the different aspects of the Nile. Across the great desert regions of North-Eastern Africa the Nile forms a giant oasis, exceedingly elongated, which can be divided into two principal parts: the triangular estuary, called the Delta, and the course of the stream, which stretches far away towards the interior of Africa. In Lower Egypt the plain stretches away to infinity. Rich in harvests most abundant, but wearying to the eye, fields follow on fields, enlivened by groups of palm-trees and now and then by a wood. Towards Lower Egypt the desert is flat and monotonous, rolling away in sand-dunes for mile after mile. Towards Upper Egypt the desert rises often into gentle slopes up to the point where it reaches the mountains, and then it rises quite steeply, often in terraces.
