Identifier: dawnofcivilizati01masp (find matches)
Title: The dawn of civilization: Egypt and Chaldaea
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Maspero, G. (Gaston), 1846-1916
Subjects: Civilization
Publisher: London : S.P.C.K.
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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ablished,and there big boats, hugging the shore, are hauled up by means of ropes,or easily drift down with the current.2 All kinds of granite are foundtogether in this corner of Africa. There are the pink and red Syenites,porphyritic granite, yellow granite, grey granite, both black granite andwhite, and granites veined with black and veined with white.3 As soon asthese disappear behind us, various sandstones begin to crop up, allied to thecoarsest calcaire grossier. The hills bristle with small split blocks, withpeaks half overturned, with rough and denuded mounds. League beyond 1 View taken from the southern point of the island of Philœ. From a photograph by EmitBrugsch-Bey. 2 For a detailed description of the first cataract, see Josiard, Description de Syène et des cataractes,in the Description de lÉgypte, vol. i. pp. 144-154. 3 De Bozière has scheduled and analyzed the Syene granites (De la Constitution physique delÉgypte, in the Description de lÉgypte, vol. xxi. pp. 59-93).
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14 TEE NILE AND EGYPT. league, they stretch in low ignoble outline. Here and there a valley openssharply into the desert, revealing an infinite perspective of summits andescarpments in echelon one behind another to the furthest plane of thehorizon, like motionless caravans. The now confined river rushes on witha low, deep murmur, accompanied night and day by the croaking of frogsand the rhythmic creak of the sâkîeh.1 Jetties of rough stone-work, madein unknown times by an unknown people, run out like breakwaters into mid- LEAGUE BEYOND LEAGUE, THE HILLS STRETCH ON IN LOW IGNOBLE OUTLINE.2 stream.5 From time to time waves of sand are borne over, and drown thenarrow fields of durra and of barley. Scraps of close, aromatic pasturage,acacias, date-palms, and dôm-palms, together with a few shrivelled sycamores,are scattered along both banks. The ruins of a crumbling pylon mark thesite of some ancient city, and, overhanging the water, is a vertical wall ofrock honeycombed with tombs. Ami

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