Along the Nile

Between the arid wastes of the Arabian Desert and Libyan Desert runs the silver-green ribbon of the River Nile. Each year it overflows its banks, watering the surrounding land and enriching it with the river mud. It was here in the fertile Nile Valley that the civilization of ancient Egypt took shape, and pharaohs raised the great pyramids that still stand today. Egyptian civilization was based on successful agriculture, and the Nile Valley is still an important agricultural area, growing wheat, cotton, vegetables, sugar cane and tobacco. Here and there new methods and new machines have been introduced, but in the patchwork of fields criss-crossed with irrigation camals, white-robed farmers can be ssen working, sometimes alone, sometimes helped by oxen, donkeys or camels; white-sailed ships still glide along the river.
Southward from the Nile Delta, the valley gradually becomes narrower and less fertile, and the vegetation scarcer. Yet it is in less favoured lands far to the south of Egypt that the Nile has its sources, and is fed by many mountain streams and outflows from lakes.