[Illustration]
THE EXPLANATION OF THE COVER-PLATE.
I have been given to understand that the cover-plate of this volume needs
some explanation: if so, it can now only be inserted on an additional
fly-leaf.
At the top is the familiar, winged, serpent-supported globe of the old
Egyptians. This, as every body knows, is generally found over the main
entrances of the temples, and on the heads of mummy cases. In speaking
on such subjects we must not press words too far. But I believe it may
be taken for what we may almost call a pantheistic emblem, compounded
of symbols of three of the attributes of Deity, as then imagined. The
central globe, the sun, represents the source of light and warmth, and,
therefore, of life. The serpents represent maternity. The wings, beneath
which the hen gathers her chickens, represent protection. This is one
interpretation.
There might have been, and doubtless were, contained in the emblem other
ideas, irrecoverable now by the aid of the ideas that exist in our
minds. At all events, theological emblems, like theological terms, must
vary in their import from time to time, in accordance with the varying
knowledge of those who use them: for they can be read only by the light
of what is in the mind of the reader. This emblem, therefore, may not
always have stood to the minds of the old Egyptians for precisely the
same conceptions. The above interpretation, however, probably contained
for them, for some millenniums, its main and most obvious suggestions;
suggestions which were for those early days a profound, though easily
read, exposition of the relations of nature to man, and which are very
far from being devoid of, at all events, historical interest to the
modern traveller in Egypt.
For the lower division of the plate, the author of the volume is
responsible. It is meant to illustrate the statement on page 15, that
the agricultural wealth of Egypt that is to say its history, results in
a great measure from the fact of its having a winter as well as a summer
harvest. The sun is represented on the right, at its winter altitude,
maturing the wheat crop, which stands for the varied produce of the
temperate zone; on the left, at its summer altitude, maturing the cotton
crop, which stands for the varied produce of the tropical, or almost
tropical, zone. Both have been grown beneath the same Palm tree, which
symbolizes the region itself. The unusually erect Palm tree in the plate,
was cut from a photographic portrait of one which we may trust is still
yielding fruit, and casting on the rock-strewn ground the shade of its
lofty tuft of wavy leaves, in the Wady Feiran, to the north-east of
Mount Sinai. The black diagonal line gives the equator of the sky at the
latitude of Cairo, which is taken, for the purposes of the illustration,
as the mean latitude of Egypt. This is also indicated by the Pyramid.
The pathway of the sun is given as it is represented on one of the
finest and most precious monuments of old Egypt in its proudest days—the
wonderfully instructive monolithic alabaster sarcophagus of the great
Sethos, Joseph’s Pharaoh, at all events the grandfather of the Pharaoh
of the Exodus. It is now in Sir John Soane’s Museum in Lincoln’s Inn
Fields (page 138). This firmamental road way of the great luminary (the
contemporary explanation of the “firmament,” in our English version, of
the first chapter of the Pentateuch, the “stereõma” of the Septuagint)
is so sculptured on the sarcophagus, originally it was also so coloured,
as to indicate granite. The granite—this I regret—cannot be brought out
distinctly on the plate.
The beneficent action of the mysterious river, which made, and maintains
Egypt, is suggested by the three wavy lines, the old hieroglyphic for
water.
The star-sown azure, which suggests the supernal expanse, the most
glorious, and the most instructive scene the eye and the mind of man are
permitted to contemplate, is taken from the vaulted ceiling of the temple
of Sethos and Rameses at primæval This (page 100).
How deep is the interest with which these facts and thoughts affect the
mind!
EGYPT OF THE PHARAOHS AND OF THE KHEDIVÉ
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
_The Duty and Discipline of Extemporary Preaching._
Second Edition.
C. SCRIBNER & CO., New York.
_A Winter in the United States_:
Being Table-talk collected during a Tour through the late Southern
Confederation, the Far West, the Rocky Mountains, &c.
JOHN MURRAY, London.
_A Month in Switzerland._
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., London.
EGYPT OF THE PHARAOHS
AND OF
THE KHEDIVÉ
BY
F. BARHAM ZINCKE
VICAR OF WHERSTEAD AND CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO THE QUEEN
HUMANI NIHIL ALIENUM
_SECOND EDITION, MUCH ENLARGED,
WITH A MAP_
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1873
_All rights reserved_
_DEDICATION_
TO MY STEPSON, FRANCIS SEYMOUR STEVENSON
I Dedicate this Book
IN THE HOPE THAT ITS PERUSAL MAY SOME DAY CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS DISPOSING
HIM TO THE STUDY OF NATURE AND OF MAN SINGLY FOR TRUTH’S SAKE
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The best return in my power for the favourable reception the reading
public, and many writers in the periodical press, have accorded to this
book, is to take care that the Edition I am now about to issue shall be
as little unworthy as I can make it of the continuance of their favour;
though, indeed, this, which they have a right to expect, is no more than
I ought to be glad to do for my own sake.
I have, therefore, carefully revised the whole volume. In this revision I
have, without omitting, or modifying, a single statement of fact, or of
opinion, introduced as much new matter as nearly equals in bulk a fourth
of the old. These additions include a few reminiscences of my Egyptian
tour, which had not recurred to me while engaged on the original work;
but, in the main, they consist of fuller developments of some of its more
important investigations and views.
As I find that several copies of the first edition were taken off in the
autumn, and early winter, by persons who were about to proceed to Egypt,
I have, for the convenience of any, who, for the future, may be disposed
to use the work as a travelling companion in the land of the Pharaohs and
of the Khedivé, added a map of the country and an index: the former, I
trust, will be found a good example of the accuracy of Messrs. Johnston’s
cartography.
WHERSTEAD VICARAGE: _January 16, 1873_.
INTRODUCTION
Those particulars of the History of Egypt, and of its present condition,
in which it differs from other countries, are factors of the idea this
famous name stands for, which must be brought prominently into view in
any honest and useful construction of the idea. Something of this kind is
what the author of the following work has been desirous of attempting,
and so was unable, as he was also unwilling, to pass by any point, or
question, which fell within the requirements of his design. His aim,
throughout, has been to aid those who have not studied the subject much,
or perhaps at all, in understanding what it is in the past, and in the
present, that gives to Egypt a claim on their attention. The pictures of
things, and the thoughts about them, which he offers to his readers, are
the materials with which the idea of Egypt has been built up in his own
mind: they will judge how far with, or without, reason.
The work had its origin in a tour the author made through the country in
the early months of this year. It consists, indeed, of the thoughts that
actually occurred to him at the time, and while the objects that called
them forth were still before him; with, of course, some pruning, and,
here and there, some expansion or addition. They are presented to the
reader with somewhat more of methodical arrangement than would have been
possible had the hap-hazard sequence, in which the objects and places
that suggested them were visited, been adhered to.
As he started for Egypt at a few hours’ notice, it did not occur to
him to take any books with him. This temporary absence of the means of
reference, and verification, will, in some measure, account for the
disposition manifested throughout to follow up the trains of thought
Egyptian objects quicken in the beholder’s mind. These _excursus_,
however, as they will appear to those who take little interest in the
internal, and ask only for the external, incidents of travel, have been
retained, not merely because they were necessary for what came to be the
design of the work, but also because, had they been excluded, the work
would have ceased to be something real; for then it would not have been
what it professes to be, that is, a transcript of the thoughts which the
sights of Egypt actually gave rise to in the authors mind.
WHERSTEAD VICARAGE: _May 13, 1871_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. EGYPT AND THE NILE 1
II. HOW IN EGYPT NATURE AFFECTED MAN 12
III. WHO WERE THE EGYPTIANS? 25
IV. EGYPT THE JAPAN OF THE OLD WORLD 42
V. BACKSHEESH.—THE GIRL OF BETHANY 45
VI. ANTIQUITY AND CHARACTER OF THE PYRAMID CIVILIZATION 52
VII. LABOUR WAS SQUANDERED ON THE PYRAMIDS BECAUSE IT COULD
NOT BE BOTTLED UP 57
VIII. THE GREAT PYRAMID LOOKS DOWN ON THE CATARACT OF PHILÆ 70
IX. THE WOODEN STATUE IN THE BOULAK MUSEUM 72
X. DATE OF BUILDING WITH STONE 75
XI. GOING TO THE TOP OF THE GREAT PYRAMID 85
XII. LUNCHEON AT THE PYRAMIDS. KÊF 92
XIII. ABYDOS 97
XIV. THE FAIOUM 105
XV. HELIOPOLIS 117
XVI. THEBES—LUXOR AND KARNAK 124
XVII. THEBES—THE NECROPOLIS 133
XVIII. THEBES—THE TEMPLE-PALACES 144
XIX. RAMESES THE GREAT GOES FORTH FROM EGYPT 154
XX. GERMANICUS AT THEBES 164
XXI. MOSES’S WIFE 168
XXII. EGYPTIAN DONKEY-BOYS 170
XXIII. SCARABS 177
XXIV. EGYPTIAN BELIEF IN A FUTURE LIFE 182
XXV. WHY THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES IGNORE THE FUTURE LIFE 193
XXVI. THE EFFECT OF EASTERN TRAVEL ON BELIEF 244
XXVII. THE HISTORICAL METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 257
XXVIII. THE DELTA—DISAPPEARANCE OF ITS MONUMENTS 266
XXIX. POST-PHARAOHNIC TEMPLES IN UPPER EGYPT 285
XXX. THE RATIONALE OF THE MONUMENTS 290
XXXI. THE WISDOM OF EGYPT, AND ITS FALL 299
XXXII. EGYPTIAN LANDLORDISM 328
XXXIII. CASTE 332
XXXIV. PERSISTENCY OF CUSTOM IN THE EAST 337
XXXV. ARE ALL ORIENTALS MAD? 341
XXXVI. THE KORAN 345
XXXVII. ORIENTAL PRAYER 349
XXXVIII. PILGRIMAGE 355
XXXIX. ARAB SUPERSTITIONS.—THE EVIL EYE 359
XL. ORIENTAL CLEANLINESS 365
XLI. WHY ORIENTALS ARE NOT REPUBLICANS 370
XLII. POLYGAMY—ITS CAUSE 374
XLIII. HOURIISM 381
XLIV. CAN ANYTHING BE DONE FOR THE EAST? 389
XLV. ACHMED TRIED IN THE BALANCE WITH HODGE 396
XLVI. WATER-JARS AND WATER-CARRIERS 402
XLVII. WANT OF WOOD IN EGYPT, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 405
XLVIII. TREES IN EGYPT 410
XLIX. GARDENING IN EGYPT 414
L. ANIMAL LIFE IN EGYPT.—THE CAMEL 417
LI. THE ASS.—THE HORSE 424
LII. THE DOG.—THE UNCLEAN ANIMAL.—THE BUFFALO.—THE OX.—THE
GOAT AND THE SHEEP.—FERÆ NATURÆ 428
LIII. BIRDS IN EGYPT 436
LIV. THE EGYPTIAN TURTLE 441
LV. INSECT PLAGUES 443
LVI. THE SHADOOF 445
LVII. ALEXANDRIA 448
LVIII. CAIRO 458
LIX. THE CANALIZATION OF THE ISTHMUS 472
LX. CONCLUSION 494
[Illustration: EGYPT]
EGYPT OF THE PHARAOHS, AND OF THE KHEDIVÉ.
CHAPTER I.
EGYPT AND THE NILE.
Quodque fuit campus, vallem decursus aquarum
Fecit.—OVID.
The history of the land of Egypt takes precedence, at all events
chronologically, of that of its people.
The Nile, unlike any other river on our globe, for more than the last
thousand miles of its course, the whole of which is through sandy
wastes—the valley of Egypt being, in fact, only the river channel—is
not joined by a single affluent. Nor, in this long reach through the
desert, does it receive any considerable accessions from storm-water.
From the beginning of its history—that is to say, for more than five
thousand years, for so far back extend the contemporary records of its
monuments—Egypt has been wondering, and, from the dawn of intelligent
inquiry in Europe, all who heard of Egypt and of the Nile have been
desiring to know what, and where, were the hidden sources of the strange
and mighty river, which alone had made Egypt a country, and rendered it
habitable.
Nowhere, in modern times, has so much interest been felt about this
earliest, and latest, problem of physical geography as in England; and no
people have contributed so much to its solution as Englishmen. At this
moment the whole of the civilised world is concerned at the uncertainty
which involves the fate of one of our countrymen, the greatest on the
long roll of our African explorers, who has, now for some years, been
lost to sight in the perplexing interior of this fantastic continent,
while engaged in the investigation of its great and well-kept secret; but
who, we are all hoping, may soon be restored to us, bringing with him, as
the fruit of his long and difficult enterprise, its final and complete
solution.[1] Thoughts of this kind do not stand only at the threshold of
a tour in Egypt, as it were, inviting one to undertake it, but accompany
one throughout it, deepening the varied interest there is so much
everywhere in Egyptian objects to awaken.
* * * * *
One of the first questions to force itself on the attention of the
traveller in Egypt is—How was the valley he is passing through formed?
This is a question that cannot be avoided. It was put to Herodotus,
more than two thousand years ago, by the peculiarities of the scene. He
answered it after his fashion, which was that of his time. It was, he
said, originally an arm of the sea, corresponding to the Arabian Gulf,
the Red Sea; and had been filled up with the mud of the Nile. Those
were days when, as was done for many a day afterwards, the answers to
physical questions were sought in metaphysical ideas. The one to which
the simple-minded, incomparable, old Chronicler had recourse on this
occasion was that of a supposed symmetrical fitness in nature. There is
the Red Sea, a long narrow gulf, a very marked figure in the geography of
the world, trending in from the south, on the east side of the Arabian
Hills. There ought therefore to be on the west side of this range a
corresponding gulf trending in from the north: otherwise the Arabian Gulf
would be unbalanced. That compensatory gulf had been where Egypt now is.
The demonstration was complete. Egypt must have been an arm of the sea,
which had been gradually expelled by the deposit from the river. This
argument, however, is not unassailable, even from the fitness-of-things
point of view. Had the fitness-of-things been in this matter, and in
this fashion, a real agent in nature, it should have made the valley of
Egypt somewhat more like the Red Sea in width; and it should also have
interdicted its being filled up with mud. It should have had the same
reasons and power for maintaining it, which it had originally for making
it. In this way, however, did men when they first began to look upon the
marvels of Nature with inquiring interest, suppose that metaphysical
conceptions, creatures of the brain, were entities in Nature, and would
supply the keys that were to unlock her secrets.
‘Egypt is the gift of the Nile.’ But I believe that it is the gift of
the Nile in a much larger sense than Herodotus had in his mind when he
wrote these words. It is the gift of the Nile in a double sense. The Nile
both cut out the valley, and also filled it up with alluvium. The valley
filled with alluvium is Egypt. The excavation of the valley was the
greater part of the work. That it was formed in this way was suggested
to me by its resemblance to the valley of the Platte above Julesburg,
as it may be seen even from a car of the Pacific Railway. You there
have a wide valley, like Egypt, perfectly flat, bounded on either side
by limestone bluffs, sometimes inclined at so precipitous an angle that
nothing can grow upon them, excepting, here and there, a conifer or two;
and sometimes at so obtuse an angle that the slopes are covered with
grass. These varying inclinations reproduce themselves in the bounding
ranges of the valley of Egypt. The Platte writhes, like a snake, from
side to side of its flat valley, cutting away in one place the alluvium,
all of which it had itself deposited, and transporting it to another. It
is continually silting up its channel, first in one place, and then in
another, with bars and banks, which oblige the stream to find itself a
new channel to the right or left. The bluffs, though now generally at a
considerable distance from the river, must have been formed by it, when
it was working sometimes against one, and sometimes against the other
side of the valley; and sometimes also for long periods leaving both, and
running in a midway channel. Why should not the Nile have done the same?
This supposition is supported by the fact that when you have a soft
cretaceous limestone, and rocks that may be easily worn away, the valley
of Egypt is wide. When, as you ascend the stream, you pass at Silsiléh
into the region of compact siliceous sandstone, the valley immediately
narrows. And when you enter the granite region at Assouan, there ceases
to be any valley at all. The river has not been able, in all the ages
of its existence, to do more than cut itself an insufficient channel
in this intractable rock. All this is just what you would expect on the
supposition that it was the river that had cut out the valley.
We are sure, at all events, of one step in this process. For there is
incontrovertible evidence that, in the historical period, the river
flowed at a level twenty-seven feet higher than it does at present, as
far down as Silsiléh. In several places, down to that point, may be found
the Nile alluvium, deposited on the contiguous high ground at that height
above the highest level the river now reaches in its annual inundations.
There is, besides, the old deserted channel from a little below Philæ
to Assouan, into which the river cannot now rise. Here, then, is the
evidence of Nature.
We have also the testimony of man to the same fact, contemporary
testimony inscribed on the granite. Herodotus tells us, that from the
time of Mœris, the Egyptians had preserved an uninterrupted register of
the annual risings of the Nile. This Mœris of the Greeks was Amenemha
III., one of the last kings of the primæval monarchy, before the invasion
of the Hyksos. This register was preserved both in a written record, in
which the height of the inundation was given in figures for each year,
(this is what Herodotus mentions,) and also in engraved markings on
suitable river-side rocks. Of these markings, we, fortunately, have a
series at Semnéh, in Nubia. Sesortesen II., the father of Amenemha III.,
had conquered Nubia. This event took place between two and three thousand
years before our era. To secure his conquest, he built at Semnéh a strong
castle on one of the perpendicular granite cliffs, between which the Nile
had cut its channel. His son, not content with instituting the written
register Herodotus mentions, ordered that the height of the inundation
should, each year, be inscribed on the granite cliffs of Semnéh, which
had been fortified by his father, and where an Egyptian garrison was
kept. This castle, little injured by time, is still standing. Here was
the most appropriate place for such a register. It was the actual bank of
the river; it was perpendicular; it was indestructible; it measured all
the water that came into Egypt. Amenemha must have been familiar with the
place, for it was the custom of the princes to accompany the king in war.
Now, there are thirteen of Amenemha’s inscriptions at this day on this
cliff. Each gives a deeply-incised line for the height of the rising,
and under it is an hieroglyphic inscription, informing us that that line
indicates the height to which the river rose in such and such a year of
Amenemha’s reign. In every instance the date is given. In the reign of
Amenemha’s successor, the invasion of the Hyksos took place, terminated
the old monarchy, and for four hundred years threw everything into
confusion. But, what we are concerned with, is the fact that in the reign
of this king and his successor, the Nile rose, on an average, twenty-four
feet above the level to which it rises now.
Here, then, are two witnesses, Nature and Man. The coincidence of
their testimony is as clear and complete as it is undesigned. It may,
therefore, be accepted as an undoubted fact, that the Nile is now flowing
from Semnéh to Silsiléh at a level lower by at least twenty-four feet
than it did at the date of the inscriptions. Nature says there was a
time when it rose at least twenty-seven feet higher than at present, for
at that height it deposited alluvium. There is no discrepancy in these
three additional feet, though there would have been something like a
discrepancy had Nature indicated three feet less than the markings.
The only question for us to consider is, how this was brought about. It
could have been brought about only in one way, and that was by the river
deepening its channel. As far down as Silsiléh it had been flowing at a
higher level. Here there must have been a cataract, or an actual cascade.
Whatever the form of the obstruction, the stream carried it away. And
so, again and again, working backwards, it ate out for itself a deeper
channel all the way up to Semnéh. This is just how the Niagara river is
dealing with its channel. It has undertaken the big job of deepening it,
from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, down to the level of Ontario. The stone
it has to work in is very hard and compact. It has now done about half
the work, and every one sees that it will eventually complete it. All
that is required is time. The River Colorado, we are told, runs for six
hundred miles of its course in a canon, a mile in perpendicular depth,
all cut through rock, and some of it granitic.
This is what the Nile did in the historic period for at least two hundred
miles of its course. It planed down this part of its channel to a lower
level, to what may be called the level of Egypt. Why should it not have
done precisely the same work in the prehistoric period for, in round
numbers, the four hundred miles from Silsiléh to Cairo, that is to say,
for the whole valley of Egypt? That is just what I believe it did. Of
course, there were aboriginal facilities which decided it upon taking
that course. There may also have been greater depressions in some places
than in others. There was harder work here, and lighter work there. The
planing was carried on rapidly in one district, and slowly in another.
But I believe that, after making whatever deductions may be thought
proper for aboriginal depressions, it is safe to conclude that the valley
of Egypt was, in the main, cut out by the Nile. It did not begin to
obtain its abrading power after the reign of Amenemha III.
There may have been a cataract once at Cairo. When this was carried away,
another must have been developed somewhere above its site, and so on
backwards all the way to Silsiléh, where we are sure that there was once
something of the kind. In a still remoter past the river may not have
come as far north as Cairo, but may have passed through the Faioum, or
by the Natron Lakes, into the desert. This is a question which, to some
degree, admits of investigation.
The river would not always be bearing on the same side of the valley. A
little change in any part of the channel, and which might result from
any one of a variety of causes, would deflect its course. It is so
with all rivers. These causes are always everywhere at work. The river
would thus be always shifting from one side of the valley to the other;
and, impinging in turn on the opposite bounding hills, would always be
widening the valley.
The number of side canals, especially the Bahr Jusuf, which, throughout
almost the whole length of the valley, is a second Nile, running parallel
to the original river, must, during the historical period, by lessening
the volume of water in the main channel, have very much lessened its
power of shifting its course. But every one who voyages on the Nile will
become aware that this power is still very great. He will often hear, and
see, large portions of the incoherent bank falling into the water. In
many places he will observe the fresh face of recent landslips. On the
summit of these slips he will occasionally have presented to him interior
sections of some of the houses of a village which is being carried away
by the stream.
On the fresh faces of recent slips I often observed that the
stratification was unconformable, and irregular. This indicated that the
sand and mud out of which the alluvium had been formed, had not been
deposited at the bottom of a quiet lake-like inundation, but must have
been formed at the bottom of a running stream, precisely in the same way
as the sand-banks and mud-banks of the existing channel are always at the
present time being formed. This irregular stratification is just what we
might expect to find in the alluvium of a valley through which runs a
mighty river, always restlessly shifting its channel to the right, or to
the left.
To experts in geology there will be but little, or nothing, new in the
above given account of the process, by which the Nile formed Egypt. All
river valleys have been formed, more or less, by the action of running
water. It is, however, interesting both to those who are familiar, and
to those who are not, with such investigations, to trace out the steps
of the process, in such a manner as to be able to construct a connected
view of as many of its details as can be recovered. In any case this
would be interesting; but here it has an exceptional, and quite peculiar,
interest, for it enables us to picture to the mind’s eye how the whole
of the most historical country in the world was formed by the most
historical river in the world—a physical operation, on which much that
man has achieved, and, indeed, on which what man is himself at this day,
very largely depended. Pictures of this kind are only one among the many
helpful contributions, which science can now make to history.
I was not in Egypt during the time of the inundation; I can, therefore,
only repeat on the authority of others, that for the first few days it
has a green tint. This is supposed to be caused by the first rush of the
descending torrents sweeping off a great deal of stagnant water from the
distant interior of Darfour. This green Nile is held to be unwholesome,
and the natives prepare themselves for it by storing up, in anticipation,
what water they will require for these few days. The green is succeeded
by a red tint. This is caused by the surface washing of districts where
the soil is red. The red water, though heavily charged with soil, is not
unwholesome. With respect to the amount of red in the colour of the water
of the inundation, I found it stated in a work which is sometimes quoted
as an authority on Egyptian subjects, that it is so great that the water
might be mistaken for blood. This I do not understand, as the soil this
water leaves behind has in its colour no trace of red. By the time the
water of the inundation reaches the Delta, it has got rid of the greater
part of its impurities. This causes the rise of the land in the Delta
to be far slower than in Upper Egypt. In winter, when the inundation
has completely subsided, the water, though still charged with mud, in
which, however, there is no trace of red, is pleasant to drink, and quite
innocuous. The old Egyptians represented in their wall-paintings these
three conditions of the river by green, red, and blue water.
For myriads of years this mighty river has been bringing down from the
highlands of Abyssinia and Central Africa its freight of fertile soil,
the sole means of life, and of all that embellished life, to those who
invented letters, and built Karnak. It is still as bountiful as ever it
was of old to the people who now dwell upon its banks; but to what poor
account do they turn its bounty! How great is the contrast between the
wretchedness this bounty now maintains, and the splendour, the wealth,
the arts, the intellectual and moral life it maintained four and five
thousand years ago!
The Egyptians have a saying, with which, I think, most of those who have
travelled in Egypt will agree, that he who has once drunk the water of
the Nile will wish to drink it again.