THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 259, 9 November 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

A study of Sir William Garston's recent report as to irrigation projects on the Upper Nile affords, says "Engineering," ample explanation of the many centuries during which this river maintained inviolate the secret of its sources. When Herodotus, some 450 8.C., inquired into the matter, he received two stories. In the one he shrewdly suspects that his informant is endeavouring to gull him, as he was told that the river had its rise in bottomless springs; whilst according to the second stoiy, a party of young men set out to discover the source of the river, and after months of wandering through the desert, arrived amongst the pigmies, and found a stream •which, as it contained crocodiles, they conjectured was a portion of the Nile. Sir William Garston's report shows clearly that it would have been practically impossible for boats at that date to have ascended the river to its source. In its lower portion are to be found the cataracts, at the first of which the-great Assouan dam is now being erected. These cataracts are, however, only the smallest of the difficulties met witi;. For 610 miles 'south of Khartoum the river is a shallow sluggish stream, averaging one mile in width. The shores are swampy, low-lying , and most unhealthy; and finally at Lake No the whole river divides up into several branches, obstructed by sudd and bordered by enormous swamps which extend along the banks up to Gondokoro, which is 1100 miles south of Khartoum. A little south of Gondokoro another series of rapids commence, rendering the channel xinnavignble for a distance of 100 miles; after which, however, the river brondens out into a fine stream.

MANNA

Manna is in its very nature one of the most remarkable phenomena in the vegetable world. It is found over great tracks of south-west Asia, near Constantinople, in the Crimea, the deserts of Arabia, in the Sahara, and the deserts of Algeria. It is easy to pass it by unnoticed, for it is greyishyellow in colour and grows in grey limestone rocks and fragments of rock in the form of a wrinkled crust, which seems to a casual observer part of the Very rock itself, and needs special care to distinguish it. Cut through it is white like corn within, dry and powdery; it is moreover extremely light in weight. By degrees, as it grows older it becomes loosened or even detached from the rocks, and when the sudden whirlwinds and violent storms, which affect many of these regions, blow, the feather-weight pieces are torn up and blown into the air at the mercy of the wind and carried hither and thither, it may be for immense distances. In August, 1890, in the neighbourhood of Diarberkir. in Turkey, in Asia, there was a sudden local rain and an abundant shower of manna, which fell over an area of about half a mile in circumference. The manna waß in small spherules, yellowish on the outside and white within, and was eagerly gathered by the natives, who regarded is as food rained down from heaven. They ate it raw, or ground it into meal, which gave <& palatable and easily-digested bread. Some of this manna was sent by the director of the Central Dispensary at Bagdad to French scientists for examination, when it was found to be the licnen already described. So abundant is the manna in some of these showers that it has been known to cover the ground to the depth of several inches, and it is easy to tmderstand 7itb what awe some, wandering tribe in a sterile land would regard such a miraculous appearance of edible matter, the like of which they have either never seen or passed over unnoticed. Among the inhabitants of the high steppes of Asia, however, manna is an acknowIpdged stand-by in times of fccareitv. When corn fails the lichen is gathered^ ground down, and mixed with the meal to eke it out. It contains a considerable quantity of starch, hence it is uourishingto a certain exter^; but it also contains a large amount of oxalate of lime which renders it injurious to eat in too great quantities.