CHAPTER XX
RIVERS AND LIFE
A river is but a larger brook. And yet by virtue of its volume, it
manifests features which are peculiarly its own, and exerts
influences which have not alone affected individual moods and
imaginings, but often profoundly modified and moulded the
destinies of peoples and civilisations. The two outstanding
instances are the Nile and the Ganges.
The Nile has attracted to itself, from the dawn of history to the
present day, a peculiar share of wonder and renown. It is the
longest river of its continent--possibly of the world; and the
exploration of its sources is only just completed. It flows
through a limestone country over which, save for its beneficent
action, would drive the parched sands of the Libyan desert. Its
periodic inundations, with their rich deposits of alluvial soil,
repel the encroaching wastes, and solve the problem of the food
supply. Egypt has with good reason been called "the gift of the
Nile."
This river therefore possesses in a marked degree all the mystic
influences of moving water, and emphasises them by physical
and historical features of exceptional import. What wonder that
it has had so direct a bearing on the spiritual development of the
people on its banks, and that it entered into the very texture of
their lives! It was, for the Egyptian, pre-eminently the sacred
river--deemed to be one of the primitive essences--ranked with
those highest deities who were not visible objects of adoration.
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