Ancient Egypt ..

Egypt presents the visitor with many
striking contrasts, particularly in its landscape and in the ancient, Christian
and Islamic elements of its heritage. Signs of Westernization and tradition are
sometimes found in startlingly incongruous juxtaposition, bur more usually the
new is adapted to blend harmoniously with the old. The country itself is united
by the great river which flows down its entire length, and which indeed the
creator of the country.

Without the Nile Egypt would not exist.
Along its banks the majority of the people live and cultivate the land as their
ancestors have done for thousands of year. This narrow, fertile valley is
flanked by the desert- a desert which is always threatening to take over the
cultivation. Today controlled by dams and barrages, the Nile no longer floods
the country every year. The building of the High Dam at Aswan flooded the whole
of the Nile valley between Aswan and the frontier with Sudan, creating Lake
Nasser. Preserved from the threat of devastating floods, Egypt is now protected
from the dangers of famine by the regulation of the water.

The two branches of the Nile, one rising
in the highlands of Ethiopia, the other in Lake Vectoria, unite at Khartoum.
Flowing north through the deserts of Nubia and punctuated by the rocky
Cataracts, the river enters Egypt at the Second Cataract. Aswan itself stands on
the First Cataract, the final great bands of granite to break the river's
northward course. The Cataract created many rapids and islands which, until the
end of the last century, made travel dangerous.

Egypt has a landscape which is
surprisingly varide, but all of the terrain derives from a combination of water
and sky, cultivation and desert. North of Aswan the river flows on without
further interruption to navigation through the orange sandstone hills of Nubia,
were the cultivation in many places is confined to a narrow strip by the water's
edge. The forked trunk of the dom-palm and the misty foliage of the tamarisk
relieve the barrenness. After the fertile open plain at Kom Ombo the sandstone
hills close in, forcing the river through the gorge of Silsila before giving way
to the limestone cliffs which will form the valley as for as the Delta. Broad
but shallow, the river meanders between these cliffs, sometimes in the centre of
the valley, sometimes hugging the cliff close to one side. Throughout Upper and
Middle Egypt the floodplain is broad, and the cultivation rich: there are fields
of wheat and sugar cane, and groves of palm trees everywhere. In the Faiyum the
lushness increases. Roads run between orchards which are enclosed by high
mud-brick walls crowned with dried palm fronds. Within the orchards, a dappled
light filters through the palm trees, shady walkways are canopied with vines and
roses, and flanked by orange and lemon trees, mango and banana. The quiet is
disturbed only by the cooing of turtle doves and pigeons, perhaps the iridescent
green flash of a bee-eater, or the call of the hoopoe.