sand are suspended in the undercurrents and serve
to raise the bed of the river, or are carried out to sea and form the
sandbanks which are slowly rising at the Damietta and Rosetta mouths of
the Nile. The mud and finer particles rise towards the surface, and are
deposited upon the land after the opening of the dykes. Soil which is
entirely dependent on the deposit of a river, and periodically invaded
by it, necessarily maintains but a scanty flora; and though it is well
known that, as a general rule, a flora is rich in proportion to its
distance from the poles and its approach to the equator, it is also
admitted that Egypt offers an exception to this rule. At the most, she
has not more than a thousand species, while, with equal area, England,
for instance, possesses more than fifteen hundred; and of this thousand,
the greater number are not indigenous. Many of them have been brought
From Central Africa by the river: birds and winds have continued
the work, and man himself has contributed his part in making it more
complete. From Asia he has at different times brought wheat barley
the olive, the apple, the white or pink almond, and some twenty
other species now acclimatized on the banks of the Nile. Marsh plants
predominate in the Delta; but the papyrus, and the three varieties of
blue, white, and pink lotus which once flourished there, being no longer
cultivated, have now almost entirely disappeared, and reverted to their
original habitats.

[Illustration: 036.jpg ENTRANCE OF THE MUDIRIYEH OF ASYUT.]

The sycamore and the date-palm, both importations from Central Africa,
have better adapted themselves to their exile, and are now fully
naturalized on Egyptian soil.

[Illustration: 037.jpg FOREST OF DATE PALMS]

The sycamore grows in sand on the edge of the desert as vigorously as
in the midst of a well-watered country. Its roots go deep in search of
water, which infiltrates as far as the gorges of the hills, and they
absorb it freely, even where drought seems to reign supreme. The heavy,
squat, gnarled trunk occasionally attains to colossal dimensions,
without ever growing very high. Its rounded masses of compact foliage
are so wide-spreading that a single tree in the distance may give the
impression of several grouped together; and its shade is dense,
and impenetrable to the sun. A striking contrast to the sycamore
is presented by the date-palm. Its round and slender stem rises
uninterruptedly to a height of thirt