We Are
Left Sad And Sorrowful In The Dark, Until The Stars Light Up And Remind
Us That There Is Always Something Beyond.
In a land whose beauty is the beauty of a moment, whose face is
desolate, and whose character is strangely stern, the curse of war was
hardly needed to produce a melancholy effect.
Why should there be
caustic plants where everything is hot and burning? In deserts where
thirst is enthroned, and where the rocks and sand appeal to a pitiless
sky for moisture, it was a savage trick to add the mockery of mirage.
The area multiplies the desolation. There is life only by the Nile.
If a man were to leave the river, he might journey westward and find no
human habitation, nor the smoke of a cooking fire, except the lonely tent
of a Kabbabish Arab or the encampment of a trader's caravan, till he
reached the coast-line of America. Or he might go east and find nothing
but sand and sea and sun until Bombay rose above the horizon. The thread
of fresh water is itself solitary in regions where all living things
lack company.
In the account of the River War the Nile is naturally supreme. It is
the great melody that recurs throughout the whole opera. The general
purposing military operations, the statesman who would decide upon grave
policies, and the reader desirous of studying the course and results of
either, must think of the Nile. It is the life of the lands through
which it flows. It is the cause of the war: the means by which we fight;
the end at which we aim. Imagination should paint the river through every
page in the story. It glitters between the palm-trees during the actions.
It is the explanation of nearly every military movement. By its banks
the armies camp at night. Backed or flanked on its unfordable stream they
offer or accept battle by day. To its brink, morning and evening, long
lines of camels, horses, mules, and slaughter cattle hurry eagerly. Emir
and Dervish, officer and soldier, friend and foe, kneel alike to this god
of ancient Egypt and draw each day their daily water in goatskin or
canteen. Without the river none would have started. Without it none might
have continued. Without it none could ever have returned.
All who journey on the Nile, whether in commerce or war, will pay their
tribute of respect and gratitude; for the great river has befriended all
races and every age. Through all the centuries it has performed the annual
miracle of its flood. Every year when the rains fall and the mountain
snows of Central Africa begin to melt, the head-streams become torrents
and the great lakes are filled to the brim. A vast expanse of low, swampy
lands, crossed by secondary channels and flooded for many miles, regulates
the flow, and by a sponge-like action prevents the excess of one year
from causing the deficiency of the next.
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