Identifier: holylandwithglim00phel (find matches)
Title: Holy Land, with glimpes of Europe and Egypt
Year: 1872 (1870s)
Authors: Phelps, S(ylvanus) D(ryden), 1816-1895. (from old catalog)
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Publisher: (8th ed.) New Haven, C. C. Chatfield & co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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parchments, or writtenlanguages were known. Much of that history issealed; some of it is shadowed forth in the curioushieroglyphics that cover those magnificent ruins andmonuments that are the wonder of the world. If theNile could tell us all it has witnessed—if it could singof the deeds of old, the triumph of arts and armshere—how thrilling would be the story, how sublimethe epic ! Before the Pentateuch wras written, beforethe Law was given on Mount Sinai, there stood on thebanks of the Nile cities, temples and tombs, which, invastness and magnificence, have never yet been sur-passed. How different is the Egypt of to-day fromthe Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemys! In ascending the river, one is struck with the rich-ness and vast capabilities of the soil. The vale is buta few miles in width, bounded by the Lybian deserton the west, and the Arabian on the east, the barrensands, or rocky, desolate bluffs, often approachingquite near to the river margin ; while again, the fertile
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PRODUCTIONS—IRRIGATION. 175 plain, covered with luxuriant crops, extends back fora considerable distance. No soil can be more produc-tive ; it needs no artificial enriching ; the annual over-flow of the river, somewhere from August to October,spreads over it a deposit more valuable than gold.How wonderful this airangement of Providence, in acountry where rain is never or rarely known. If ayear pass without this overflowing, great scarcity or afamine is the result. It is a beautiful sight to look on these extensivefields of wheat, of a deep green color, and a luxuriantgrowth, the grain, even in mid-winter, two feet high.Large fields, also, of beans, peas, onions, mustard andtobacco, meet the eye, some of them rejoicing in theircrowns of bloom. Doura, or Indian corn, is raised inabundance, its tall stalks serving for firewood andbuilding materials. One of the more common sights attracting the eyeof the traveler on the Nile, is the process of irrigation,or methods by which the water of

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