NUBIA AND THE NUBIANS.

Bruce Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 1623, 27 February 1885, Page 5

NUBIA AND THE NUBIANS.

The banks of the JN übian Nile vary with every mile, and beautiful are they in diversity of colour and combination, though that beauty partakes of a sterner quality than the landscapes of Egypt. .Nowhere con be seen the rich fields, which stretched on either shore away to the feet of the Lybian hills. They have disappeared, and in their stead riaj from the water's depths tall cliffs in broken precipice and crag, or the river owning freer bondi flows majestically on beneath rival streams ot bordering sands, that have the gorges of the desert hills for channel^ and the wind, which ever silently drUts them whither it will, for current. Poverty is 1 written on the face of this sunscorched country, and such lew stripe&of fertile laud oi the Nile reaches in its flood are tilled with zealous care by the scanty population which they support, it is curious to note with what religious care the villages and temples have been placed upon the shelving rock or desert land, where none but the lizards could begrudge their presence. Every inch of land that can be cultivated id coaxed to yield its burden of doura or beaus, and of spare land whereon to place their villages, good sooth, there is enough. Poor though the Nubian is, his wants are few, and his thrifty ways make poverty a light burden to him. Travel where he will ior hire or trade, he leaves hia heart in his wild home of Nubia, and returns thither when fortune allows. No music has for him so great a charm as the melaucholy creation of the water-wheels, the constant plaint of whioh grease is never permitted to diminish, all that he can get buiug devoted to the shaggy locks of hid own unturbaned head. Nature, who refuses him to dream of uughc but lean kme when lie thinks of doura lioldd, has given to his land t.u. abundance ol date-palms, and ou their fruit he virtually subsists. Little cares the lbremee palm for the deaert's envy, but spreading its feathery leaves above the sand or rock gives to its planter the much prized lruit which enables him to ek© out tiie slender harvests of the fields^