3-003-906 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Inundation of the Nile: view of villages and encampment on the bank of the Nile, 1861. 'Egypt owes its existence as a productive and habitable region to the Nile, the periodic overflowings of which more than answer the purpose of rain...The rise of the Nile begins in June...overflowing the low lands along its course. The Delta then looks like an immense marsh, interspersed with numerous islands, with villages, towns, and plantations of trees just above the water. Should the Nile rise a few feet above its customary elevation the inundation sweeps away the mud-built cottages of the Arabs, drowns their cattle, and involves the whole population in ruin...The banks in many places form as it were islands, on which the inhabitants, being driven from their mud villages, encamp, along with their camels, horses, sheep, and cattle, waiting patiently for the going down of the Nile...The Nile has risen this year seven feet and a half higher than the customary floods...in one village, sixty persons are believed to have perished. Some districts have lost the whole of their stores of grain, and it seems certain that a portion of the population will have to be supplied by Government both with food and with seed for the ensuing winter crops'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.