This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 Excerpt: ...me on my delightful passage up the Nile. The hills, which had withdrawn from the river both on the eastern and western sides, forming a circle round the wide green plain, which here stretches on each side the Nile to an unusual extent, begin now to close in again, and the valley gradually becomes once more only a ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 Excerpt: ...me on my delightful passage up the Nile. The hills, which had withdrawn from the river both on the eastern and western sides, forming a circle round the wide green plain, which here stretches on each side the Nile to an unusual extent, begin now to close in again, and the valley gradually becomes once more only a narrow strip of cultivated land. Indeed, this is the character of the scenery all along the upper valley of the Nile. A brown mountain background, a scanty patch of vegetation, a bank sloping greenly down to the water's edge, and in the background a group of palms. The Dom palm, which is not found south of the Thebaid, is now frequently seen, and, as a tree, is not so beautiful as its congener, the date palm. The latter tree is not only a picturesque object in the landscape, but every part of it can be made serviceable. Its leaves are used for mats and baskets, the fibre for ropes, the trunk for beams, and the fruit for food. The Dom palm is an eccentric-looking tree. The trunk divides at some four or five feet from the ground; each branch separates into two others, and these again bifurcate; and so the pairs are multiplied till the extreme ends are terminated in radiating groups of fan-like leaves. It bears hard, brown-coloured nuts, which hang in clusters, and the kernel is used as vegetable ivory, and from it buttons and ornaments are made. On account of the meagre vegetation of the Nile some miles above Thebes, the population is scanty; few villages meet the eye, and the banks are lonely and silent, save where at times a shadoof is at work, and its harsh and melancholy sound falls on the ear. For some time, however, after we leave Luxor, the valley is fertile and well-peopled. There are green fields and prosperous towns, and we pass THE TEMPLE ...
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