DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4995#0072
TjUGTUEE ON EGYPT. 45
grant the successful termination of the Soudan Eailway,
whose honour and merit are due to His Highness the
Khedive, who has inherited greatness, and nobility of race.
May he, as well as his sons, live surrounded with earthly
blessings. 0 God, hear our prayers, and grant the com-
pletion of the railway, whose practical usefulness is the hope
of this great nation.
The railways of Egypt have done much for the The Nile,
country, and the extension of the Soudan Eailway
to Equatorial Africa will doubtless promote trade
and prosperity, and extend civilisation, but after all it
is the Nile which is essential to Egypt, and the irri-_
gation water which it supplies is the life-blood of all
the cultivated land in Egypt and in Nubia.
If there were no rain in Gloucestershire, the only
cultivated lands would be those subject to Severn
floods, and such other patches of ground as could be irri-
gated by pumping water from the Severn. It is thus in
Egypt; for, in the words of Herodotus, ' Egypt is the
gift of the Nile,' and except for the fertilizing mud in
the waters of the Nile, the whole country from the
junction of the White and Blue Niles at Khartoum to
the sea would be one vast desert without a single green
cultivated spot. The amount of mud brought down by
the Nile each year, according to my investigations, is
about 150 million tons, or more than the whole exca-
vations of the Suez Canal.
So much for the mud, now for the water.
The discharge of the Severn, at Diglis Weir, during
grant the successful termination of the Soudan Eailway,
whose honour and merit are due to His Highness the
Khedive, who has inherited greatness, and nobility of race.
May he, as well as his sons, live surrounded with earthly
blessings. 0 God, hear our prayers, and grant the com-
pletion of the railway, whose practical usefulness is the hope
of this great nation.
The railways of Egypt have done much for the The Nile,
country, and the extension of the Soudan Eailway
to Equatorial Africa will doubtless promote trade
and prosperity, and extend civilisation, but after all it
is the Nile which is essential to Egypt, and the irri-_
gation water which it supplies is the life-blood of all
the cultivated land in Egypt and in Nubia.
If there were no rain in Gloucestershire, the only
cultivated lands would be those subject to Severn
floods, and such other patches of ground as could be irri-
gated by pumping water from the Severn. It is thus in
Egypt; for, in the words of Herodotus, ' Egypt is the
gift of the Nile,' and except for the fertilizing mud in
the waters of the Nile, the whole country from the
junction of the White and Blue Niles at Khartoum to
the sea would be one vast desert without a single green
cultivated spot. The amount of mud brought down by
the Nile each year, according to my investigations, is
about 150 million tons, or more than the whole exca-
vations of the Suez Canal.
So much for the mud, now for the water.
The discharge of the Severn, at Diglis Weir, during