Before the Pentateuch was written, before the Law was given on Mount Sinai, there stood on the banks of the Nile cities, temples, and tombs, which in vastness and
magnificence, have never yet been surpassed. How different is the Egypt of today from the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemys!

In ascending the river, one is struck with the richness and vast capabilities of the soil. The valley is but a few miles in width, bounded by the Lybian desert on the west, and the Arabian on the east, the barren sands, or rocky, desolate bluffs, often approaching quite near to the river Mary in; while again, the fertile plain, covered with luxuriant crops, extends back for a considerable distance. No soil can be more productive. It needs no artificial enriching. The annual overflow of the river, somewhere from August to October, spreads over it a deposit more valuable than gold. How wonderful is this arrangement of Providence, in a country where rain is never or rarely known.

If a year passes without the overflowing, great scarcity or a famine is the result.

The scenery along the Nile is peculiar; the low ranges of hills, and bordering deserts, without a solitary tree or spire of grass, contrasts strongly with the profuse luxuriance and grateful verdose of the valley, with its occasional clusters of stately and grateful palm trees which sometimes, also for a long distance stand in beautiful lines along the river’s bank. Flowers of various kinds may be gathered, and the cotton and castor oil plants are often preserved. I have often observed under the clean skies and still atmosphere, a profound silence brooding over all the landscape. My “busy bum of men,”
no rustling of leaves, no solemn music of forest, no cascade’s song, not a sloping field of heat moving in the breeze, not a cottage or a fence of unrest the long infinity fusion, or break the deep spell of universal stillness.