Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "NILOS River EGYPT".
Total results on 30/3/2001: 745 for Nile, 50 for Nilus.
(Neilos). The Nile, a great river of Egypt. The name is probably
cognate with the Semitic Nahar or Nahal, "river." Homer calls it Aiguptos;
and the name Neilos occurs first in Hesiod and Hecataeus. The Jews called it Nahal-Misraim,
"River of Egypt." The Nile takes its rise in the two lakes Victoria
Nyanza and Albert Nyanza, which are themselves fed by various streams. For three
hundred miles after leaving the former, it flows with a swift current in rapids
and cataracts and between high walls of rock. It leaves the northern end of Lake
Albert Nyanza, where it is known as the Bahr-el-Jebel, and flows in a northerly
course towards the Mediterranean Sea. The first six score miles are through a
level country, then for another equal distance is contracted into a narrow stream
(in places not more than a quarter of a mile in width), and then, being forced
over the Yarbovah Rapids, it enters the plains and flows in a sluggish stream
to Khartoum, distant some 800 miles. In 7? 30' north latitude it divides into
two streams, the so-called White Nile (Bahr-el-Abiad) and the Bahrel-Jebel. In
9? 30' north latitude the latter receives the Bahr-el-Ghazal from the west. At
Khartoum (15? 37' north latitude) the White Nile and the Blue Nile (Bahr-el-Azrak)
unite, and the great stream then flows on, taking up the Black Nile (Bahr-elAswad),
whose black sediment makes the Delta so remarkable for its fertility. The point
of junction is the apex of the island Meroe, where the river has a breadth of
two miles. Thence it flows through Nubia in a rocky valley, falling over six cataracts,
the northernmost being known as the First Cataract, and marking now, as in antiquity,
the southern boundary of Egypt.
The Nile emptied into the Mediterranean by three channels,
parted into seven, of which, according to Herodotus, two were artificial and five
natural. From these seven channels come the names applied to it by Moschus (heptaporos),
Catullus (septemgeminus), and Ovid (septemplex). Most of the seven mouths had
names derived from their cities (i. e. the Canopic, Bolbitic, Sebennytic, Pathmetic
or Bucolic, Mendesian, Tanitic or Saitic, and Pelusiac). At the present time there
are only two principal mouths, known as the Rosetta on the west and the Damiat
on the east. From the dark sediment deposited by the river came the native name
of Egypt--Chemi or Kemi, "the black land." A great artificial canal
(Bahr-Yussouf, i. e. "Joseph's Canal") runs parallel to the river, at
the distance of about six miles, from Diospolis Parva in the Thebais to a point
on the west mouth of the river about half-way between Memphis and the sea. Many
smaller canals were cut to regulate the irrigation of the country. A canal from
the east mouth of the Nile to the head of the Red Sea was commenced under the
native kings, and finished by Darius, son of Hystaspes. There were several lakes
in the country, respecting which see Buto, Mareotis, Moeris, Sirbonis, and Tanis.
The ancients knew little of the Nile beyond the First Cataract
at Meroe. It was generally believed that the great river originated in Mauretania
and flowed for a long distance underground until it came to the southern part
of Aethiopia, whence it flowed northward as the Astapas. The emperor Nero undertook
to discover its sources, and sent out two expeditions for that purpose, which
succeeded only in reaching the confluence of the Sobat and the White Nile, some
thirty miles beyond the junction of the White Nile with the Bahr-el-Zereb. Ptolemy,
however, speaks of the river as issuing from two great lakes six and seven degrees
respectively south of the equator, and fed by the melting snows of the Mountains
of the Moon, lately identified by Stanley with Gordon Bennett, Ruwenzovi, and
adjacent peaks. This is about as much as any one had learned until the present
century, when the discoveries of Speke (1858 and 1862), Baker (1864), Schweinfurth
(1868-71), and Stanley (1875 and 1889) solved bit by bit the mystery of the ages.
The Nile was deified by the Egyptians and worshipped as a god.
A famous statue in the Vatican at Rome represents the river deity as a reclining
figure pillowed on a sphinx and holding a cornucopia (typical of the fertility
caused by the river's overflow), while sixteen children, representing the affluents
of the Nile, play about. The work belongs to the Graeco-Egyptian period.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
