ON THE BANKS OF OLD NILE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 92, 9 July 1927, Page 24

ON THE BANKS OF OLD NILE

Hie Waters of the Great Dam Flow through the Temple of Isis

(Written for THE SUN by E. S. HARSTON.)

ASSUAN Is the most delightful spot in Egypt. The hotel there overlooks the First Cataract, which is about a mile wide, strewn with granite boulders and small islets, and backed by golden hills, each with its dome-shaped tomb or half-ruined watch-tower. The luxuriance of Kitchener’s Island, and the historic ruins on Elephantine are part of a view which incredible sunsets complete.

It has the indefinable feel of a frontier town, though the SudanEgyptian border is now near Wadi Haifa, 200 miles further south. In the old days Assuan, together with Elephantine Island, was the key to the long strip, Egypt; and Jews, Nnbians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all held it strongly at some time or other. Old blockhouses on the surrounding hills recall the Arabs.

Rifle butts, deserted, half-ruined barracks, the old fort of the Camel Corps, recall the base camp of the first Kitchener's Army, now a golf links. And there is a small Christian cemetery in a land which seems to be little else but a huge Mahommedan graveyard containing the bones of a oundred centuries. Kitchener’s Island recalls the memorv of the great leader most keenly,’ aDd with its luxuriant gard.en, provides the most pleasant excursion in the neighbourhood. He bought this one barren spot irrigated it, and filled it with trees and plants brought from home, from Syria, and other lands w-here he had been. The native lessee will show you the foundation tree planted by kitchener himself, and the creepercovered summer-house where he sometimes lunched with his staff, and where, by its very contrast with the blazing bareness around him, he kept at bay the nostalgia brought on by 'long years of campaigning far from homo.

The natives preserve a sert of adoration for Kitchener. Many of them lirmly believe that he will come back. Like Grenfell and the other leaders we have sent there, he treated the Nubians with great justice and kindness.

The Germans, of whom there were many at Assuan, showed a great interest in this garden island. We eyed each other curiously as we passed. There are many antiquities to be studied, especially rock inscriptions and relics of the workers who came for granite for the tombs, pyramids and temples further down the Nile. Half-cut slabs, rows of slots showing the line to be cut, are everywhere. Into these slots they hammered pieces of wood, which some say were Irenched with water till they swelled and rent the rock, and which others say were ignited, thus heating the line at the intended fracture which was completed by dashing water on the place, the sudden contraction caused by the cold making it split. The labour involved is incredible. All cutting, polishing, and engraving was done by hand with a stone tool resembling a mere. A huge granite obelisk, cut and polished on three sides, but abandoned because of a

flaw, still remains. When once the work of separating it from its base had been completed it would have been taken off by a canal dug to the quarry from the Nile. Alabaster, too, came from Assuan, and splendid potters' clay. The pottery made in this district was once the best in Egypt, but nowadays very little is made. . „ , . , The town is the usual Oriental jumble of mud-built houses with only a few that are more ambitious. Some drops of rain fell while we were there and the natives were terrified because a good downpour would melt their primitive homes. The suk or bazaar is the most romantic in Egypt—a narrow winding lane, straggling uphill, filled with booths and toiling craftsmen and roofed in patches with screens of

reeds. At dusk, when the candles and oil-lamps are gleaming dimly, the endless procession of robed figures, an occasional donkey with fat rider perched near its tail, the cheerful laughing crowd and the smells and sounds of the East make its charm very memorable

The great scenic and historical attraction near Assuan used to he Fhilae. This island, the Holy of Holies in Upper Egypt, bearing most graceful buildings and fascinating sculptures, now lies half-covered liy the waters held back by the dam. Only the top shows and wild-looking boatmen row one out in their ornate ciaft to the music of rhythmic chants. It is a novel experience—no dust, flies, donkeys, or pestering pedlars, and no sound except the lapping of the waters against the pillars. It is a sad little place with fascination all its own. The engineers responsible for its in-

undation are hailed as vandals. Antiquarians and Egyptologists are still indignant, and even tourists sigh for the days when this graceful “sanctium sanctiorum,” as the guide insisted on calling it, lay unspoiled. One can easily understand their distress because even when the waters have subsided the ugly mark remains.

The temple was dedicated to the worship of Osiris, the deified dead ancestor and the god of Life, and to Isis his wife, the goddess of fecundity. A sort of miracle play used to take place here representing the death and mutilation of Osiris by Set, the counterpart of Satan, and the long and devoted search by Isis for his scattered limbs. She reconstituted his body and revivified it by the use of the sacred words taught her by Thoth. When the sluice gates of the terrible dam are opened life-giving water rushes on its 600-mile journey to the sea, overflowing its banks and leaving behind it a coating of rich black mud, soon to turn green with crops. Over a million and a quarter acres, which otherwise were useless, are brought into cultivation. The rented value of these lands increased by £2,600,000, and the sales value by £26,000,000. As the expenditure was only about six and a-half millions the results are remarkable. We drove to Shellal, the little settlement by the dam, in a resplendent Chevrolet. Desert roads have this advantage that when they become bumpy one moves to one side or the other and uses another piece of desert, which in this valley, for a wonder, is fiat. All round us the hills were extraordinarily rocky, desolate and forbidding, shimmering in the tropical heat. Nothing less like the golden sands of fiction could yery well be imagined.

On trolleys pushed by barefooted Nubians we left the green oasis by the dam and crossed the two thousand yards of the dam itself with its 180 sluice gates. They can deliver the water at a rate of 353,000 cubic feet per second (as against 22,000 cubic feet at Arapuni). December 1 dees the commencement of the closing of the gates. This is continued until the end of February, when the reservoir is holding up a head of 66 feet of water or 37,612 million cubic feet. Discharge commences in May; and about July 5 all the gates are open, because the Nile, fed by the rains of Central Africa, is rising rapidly. By July 7 the reservoir is empty and the great majestic river grows in volume daily till in September it reaches its maximum. Then there is a delay until the waters fall and the river is free from silt, that is to say, until December, when the process begins again. The man who financed the dam was Sir Ernest Cassell. The engineer was Sir William Willcocks, and the contractors also were a British firm. The engineers who control the dam to-day are Scotch.

One of these Scotchmen, who can turn his hand to anything, bought from an Indian regiment stationed at Assuan during the war a couple of sheep they had as mascots. He crossed these with the dark-woolled Sudan sheep and obtained a Shetland

coloured wool which the native women spun for him on their primitive spinets and which a Scotch firm wove into sturdy tweed with natural colours free from any dye. There are one or two overcoats and suits at Assuan whose proud owners declare they will never wear out. Assuan, Egypt.