ness.

66

side told her that the piper was near. I cupboard and made certain that there A shyness came upon her like a shiver, was brandy there. Her father was and she drew her cloak close up to her suoring up-stairs as she stole to her eyes, as if that might hide her. Be- room and ransacked her work-basket fore she could make out the gaunt, and presses for linen for bandages. wizened old man, with coal-black face When she stole down-stairs again, and and hands, she knew whom to expect. listened at the door, there was a sound “ Rab Cuick :

of voices in the yard. 6. Mistress Hay!"

From the noise he made, it was eviHer alert nature threw off its shy-dent that Rab Cuick thought that Tar

She motioned him to kneel at pow household slept deep. When the other side of her from Broomie- Julia opened the door, Broomielaws' laws, discovering the wound mean- foreman was very terse in describing while.

what had happened, and led the way to Il's Broomielaws' tatties you're the spare bedroom with his load ; but after, Rab,” she said sternly.

Rab, who followed, was loudly apolo“I'm lying o' nights at the pithead getic about wakening up Julia at such tire,” he grumbled ; " but I'm hungry, an untimely hour. He followed the and not so supple as I used to be, and ploughman down again, after a short Broomielaws' tatties

interview with Julia in the bend of the He was fumbling with an excuse, staircase. and with a chamois-leather case for his " There's a receipt, Miss Jooley," he flute, as black as his hands. She felt had said, as he pocketed the halfin her pocket. Two half-crowns lay in crowns; and handed her her own it, - her only dowry to Leslie, - and handkerchief, smeared with blood and she held them up between Rab's eyes coal-dust. and the moon.

It was very honorable of Rab, of "Go to Broomielaws,” she said. course ; but Julia got hot with chagrin “Send one of the bothy-boys to Torrie at the act. Town for the doctor, and then rouse Broomielaws was laid upon the bed the others and bring them on here. until the arrival of the doctor. When You found him here, Rab ; and you'll he came, Julia left him and stepped

; carry him to Tarpow, and waken me across the passage into her father's up. You understand?"

room. Once or twice she was called Rab's face was as stolid as the pal- to minister to the wants of the case, ing-stab when he held out his hand for but she did not linger. At length she the half-crowns,

heard Tarpow and the doctor descend, " When you bring this — to Tar- and by and by her father came up to pow,” she said, slipping the coins into her. her pocket again.

“You can put them off,” he girned. Rab Cuick had been gone some

66 What ? Put what off ?" she twenty minutes, when the faint sound asked. of voices from Broomielaws came to ". The blinkers," he said, with Julia's ear. As the sound drew near, snap. she could make out that Rab was That meant death, and her woman's bellowing unnecessary directions. A tears came instinctively ; yet a smile, break in the clouls discovered him and half amused, half scornful, fought with his following making straight for her ; them for a place in her eyes and on and drawing her cloak round her, she her face. To ide their conflict, she slipped through the hedge, and ran for turned to the window and pulled aside Tarpow.

the blind. The moon lay ou the bay, When she let herself in everything and on the waters beyond it, and with was quiet. She raked together the red almost spiteful emphasis lit up a little cinders in the fireplace, and set the speck of white sail well over to the kettle on them. She looked into the other side. Evidently Leslie had not

a

lingered at their tryst a minute behind If a foreigner were to lecture to his the hour.

countrymen about the river Thames, At the stab to her pride that the and were to begin by informing them discovery gave, the blind dropped from that he had never been above Greenher haud. The next instant she had wich, he might be looked upon as an plucked it aside, as if to scourge her impostor ; and perhaps I am not much mature sense with the sight of her raw better, for I have never been higher humors. “So that is the end of that,” up the river than Philæ, six hundred she thought, as she watched the wbite and ten miles above Cairo. For inforsail mount to the opposite shore. She mation regarding anything higher up, would never marry Broomielaws; that I must go, like you, to the works of had been settled for her. Whether Speke, Baker, Stanley, and our other she ever could have married him was great explorers. I shall not, then, debeyond consideration now; yet it tain you to-night with any elaborate seemed to her that it was as likely she account of this upper portion of the should have married him as that she river, but will only remind you briefly should marry this lauldie, who was even of that great inland sea, the Victoria now landing on the other side of the Nyanza, in extent only a little less Forth. She was a girl when the boy than the American Lake Superior, came to her that morning, with the traversed by the equator, and fed by first touch of spring, the harbinger of many rivers, some of them taking their her womanhood. The boy had sailed rise as far as 5° S. lat. These rivers away from a woman, years older than form the true source of the Nile, the himself in knowledge, and ripe in the mystery only solved in the present gen-, consciousness of what the world held eration. in store for her. No; she would never The outlet of this great lake is on its marry Teildy.

north shore, where the river rushies And, indeed, be did not ask her over the Ripon Falls, estimated by again.

Speke at only four hundred or five hunD. STORRAR MELDRUM. dred feet wide, and with a drop of

twelve feet. Thence the river's course is in a north-west direction for two

hundred and seventy miles, to where it From Nature. thunders over the Murchison Falls, a THE NILE.1

cliff of one hundred and twenty feet I AM to speak to you to-night of the bigh. Soon after that it joins the Nile, and I think I may fairly say it is northern end of Baker's Lake, the Althe most famous river in all the world ; bert Nyanza, but only to leave it again, famous through all the ages, for the and to pursue its course through a civilization that has existed on its great marshy land for more than six banks ; famous for its mystic, fabulous hundred miles, to where the Bahr Garise, about which so many sages and zelle joins it from the west; a little philosophers have pondered ; famous further down the great Saubat tributary for its length, traversing one-fifth the comes in on the east. This is the distance from pole to pole ; famous, region in which the river is obstructed and apparently destined to be famous, by islands of floating vegetation, which, for the political combinations that ever if checked in their course, at last block centre around it. But I feel I must up its whole width, and form solid obbegin by an apology, for now that structions known as sadds, substantial Egypt has come so completely within enough to be used as bridges, and obthe tourist's range, probably many of stacles, of course, to navigation, until my bearers have seen more of the Nile they are cleared away. The waters of than I have.

the Saubat are of very light color, and 1 A lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, tinge the whole river, which, above its on January 25, by Sir Colin Scott-Moncrieff. junction, is green and unwholesome,

from the long chain of marshes which be easy to derive any clear impression it traverses. Hence it is called the from this bare recital of mileage. Let White Nile. Six hundred miles fur-me try to convey to you in some other ther brings us to Khartoum, where the ways the idea of the length of the Blue Nile from the Abyssinian moun- Nile. Standing on the bridge at Cairo, tains joins it, and at two hundred miles I used to reflect that I was just about still further to the north it is joined by half-way between the source of the the Albara River, also from Abyssinia, Nile and the White Sea. Or lo put it a torrent rather than a river.

another way: if we could suppose a Baker gives a graphic account of how river crossing our English Channel, he was encamped by the dry bed of and that the Thames should find ils the Atbara on June 22, 1861. The outlet in the Euphrates and the Persian heat was intense, the country was Gulf, that river would be about as long parched with drought. During the as the Nile. night the cry went forth that the floods In this short sketch of the course of were coming, and in the morning he the Nile, I must not forget to mention found himself on the banks of a river, one interesting feature. About forty he says, five hundred yards wide and miles south of Cairo, the low Libyan from fifteen to twenty feet deep. All chain of hills which bouuds the Nile nature had sprung into life. A little valley on the west is broken by a gap, north of the junction of the Atbara is through which the waters of the river Berber, whence you will remember is can flow, and beyond this gap lies a the short cut to Suakin in the Red Sea, saucer-shaped depression called the which so many thought would have Fayúm, of about four hundred square been the true route for our army to miles in area, sloping down to a lake of take in relieving Gordon. From Khar- considerable size, the surface of whose toum to Assouan is a distance of eleven waters stands about one hundred and hundred miles of river, during wh thirty feet below that of the sea. This makes two immense curves, for on a lake is known as the Birket el Kurún. straight line the distance is not half so From the time of the earliest Egypmuch, and it is in this part of its course tian records, this province of the that it passes over the six great cata- Fayúm was famed for its fertility, and racts or rapids which block all ordinary to the Egyptian taste for its delightful navigation. The first or furthest north climate. Many of the most precious cataract is just above Assouan, a dis- monuments of antiquity have been tance of seven hundred and fisty miles found in the Fayúm. The famous from the Mediterranean, through the Labyrinth is supposed to have stood country known as Egypt. From the just at its entrance ; and what has exjunction of the Atbara to its mouth in cited most interest for the engineer in the Mediterranean, a distance of six- all times, it is here that Herodotus teen hundred and eighty miles, the places that wonderful Lake Mæris, Nile receives no tributary. On the which receiving for half the year the contrary, during every mile of its surplus supply of the Nile, rendered course its waters are diminished by it back again in irrigation to Lower evaporation, by absorption, and by irri- Egypt during the other half. Where gation. The river gets less and less as this lake actually was, has excited disit flows through this rainless land, and cussion since any attention has been its maximum volume is to be found paid to ancient Egyptiau history. It during the floods at the junction of the seems pretty clear that in earlier days Atbara, and at other seasons at Khar- the Birket el Kurúu was of much toum, eighteen hundred and seventy- greater proportions than it is now, but five miles from the Mediterranean. how it ever could have been large

The whole distance by river from the enough to allow of its waters flowing Victoria Nyanza to the sea is about back into the Nile valley when the thirty-five hundred miles. It may not! river was low, without at the same

a

time drowning the whole Fayúm, is to Egypt from its chain of barren calanot very clear.

racts ? Now, wbat are the functions of a As a drainage outlet to a continent, great river, what are the offices which as a long highway, as a source of it renders to man ? And first of all, at power, the Nile is great ; but not so least in this latitude, we would mention much so as many other rivers. Its the carrying off to the ocean of the unique position is due to the benefit it surplus water that descends from the confers on Egypt iu turning it from skies. Nobly does the Nile fulfil this being a desert into being the richest of duty; but will this enormous qualifica- agricultural lands, supporting with ease lion, that it transports the water from a population of about six hundred to tracts where there is too much, and the square mile. Herodotus truly said cirries it all free of cost, not to waste Egypt is the gift of the Nile. It more it in the sea, but to bestow it on tracts, than supplies the absence of rain, and where it is of priceless value, more this it does, first, by the extraordinary than taking the place of rain in water- regularity with which it rises and falls ; ing the fields.

and secondly, by the fertilizing matter The next function of a river is to which the waters carry iu suspension, form a highway through the land, and and bestow upon the land. Imagine for most of its course the Nile fulfils what it would be to the English farmer this duty well too. Gordon considered if he knew exactly when it would rain it possible for steamers to ascend the and when it would be sunshine. When Nile during the floods from its mouth the Irrigation Department of Egypt is to the Fola rapids, a distance of about properly administered, the Egyptian three thousand and forty miles; but at farmer possesses this certainty, and he other seasons, the six cataracts cannot has this further advantage - that it is be passed. Leaving out the eleven not merely water that is poured over hundred miles which they occupy, there his lands, but, during nearly half the is an unbroken seven hundred and fifty year, water charged with the finest miles in the lower, and nearly twelve manure. hundred miles in the upper river. I According to the early legend, the cannot look on it as probable that it rise of the Nile is due to the tears shed will ever pay to make navigable canals by Isis over the tomb of Osiris, and and locks round these cataracts, as it the texts on the Pyramids allude to the would entail so much hard rock-cut- night every year on which these tearting.

drops fall. The worship of Isis and Another function of a river is to pro-Osiris has long passed away, but to this mote industry by the employment of day every native of Egypt knows the its water-power. We know how valu- Lailet en Nuktah, the night in which a able is this power even in England, and miraculous drop falls into the river, how much more in countries like Switz- and causes it to rise. It is the night of erland, where it abounds, and on the June 17. Herodotus makes no allusion great rivers of America. Excepting a to this legend of Osiris. In his time, few very rude wooden wheels in the he says, the Greeks gave three reasons Fayúm, I do not know, through all the for the river's rise. He believed in annals of the past, of a single water- none of them, but considered, as the wheel ever turned by the power of the most ridiculous of all, that which asVile. But that power exists to an cribed the floods to the melting of almost unlimited extent. And may we snows, as if there could possibly be not prophesy that some day in the fu- snows in such a lot region. It was tare, when that long stretch of Nubian many centuries after Herodotus's time cataracts has fallen into civilized hands, when the snowy mountains of central and when we know how to transmit Africa were discovered. electric energy with economy, that The heavy rains commence in the then our descendants will draw wealth basin of the White Nile durivg April,

and first slowly drive down upon Egypt | teen thousand cubic feet per second at the

green, stagnant waters of that Cairo, but some years there is not marshy region. These appear at Cairo more than ten thousand cubic feet per about June 15. About a fortnight later second passing Cairo in June, and the real food begins, for the rains bave within three months after this may set in in Abyssinia by May 15, and the have increased forty-fold. Blue Nile brings clown from the moun- Until this century, the irrigation of tains its supply of the richest muddy Egypt only employed the food waters water. It is something of the color of the river, and it was this that made and nearly of the consistency of choc- it the granary of the world. No doubi, olate, and the rise is very rapid, as ruile machines for raising Nile water much sometimes as three feet per diem, were used at all seasons and from all for the Atbara torrent having saturated times. But by these it was not possiits great sandy berl, is vow in full Anod ble lo irrigate on a large scale, and in also. The maximum food is reached reality they were only employed for at Assouan about September 1, and it irrigating vegetables or gardens, or would reach Cairo some four days later, other small patches of land. It must were it not that during August and not be thought that the water of the September the water is being diverted flooded river is ever allowed to flow on to the laud, and the whole Nile val- where it lists over the lands. The genley becomes a great lake. For this eral slope of the valley ou each side is reason the maximum arrives at Cairo away from the river, a feature which about the beginning of October. The the Nile shares with all Deltaic streams. rains cease in Abyssinia about the mid- Along each edge of the river, and foldle of September, and the floods of the lowing its course, is an earthen emBlue Nile and Albara rapidly decrease ; bankment, high enough not to be but in the mean time the great lakes topped by the highest flood. In Upper and marshes are replenished in the Egypt, the valley of which seldom exupper regions, and slowly give off their ceeds six miles in width, a series of supplies, on which the river subsists, embankments have been thrown up, until the following June. Yearly this abutting on their inuer ends against phenomenon presents itself iu Egypt, those along the river's edge, and on and with the most marvellous regular- their outer ends on the ascending sides ity. A late rise is not more than about of the valley. The whole country is three weeks later than an early rise. thus divided into a series of oblongs, In average years the height of the flood surrounded by embankments on three at Assouan is about twenty-five and sides, and by the slope of the desert one-lialf feet abore the minimum sup- hills on the fourth. In Lower Eyypt, ply. If it rises twenty-nine feet above where in ancient days there were sevthis minimum, it means peril to the eral branches of the river, this system whole of Egypt, and the irrigation was somewhat modified, but was in engineer has a hard time of it for two principle the

These oblong months. If the river only rises twenty areas vary in extent from sixty thoufeet above the minimum, it means that sand to three thousand or four thouwhole tracts of the valley will never be sand acres, and the slope being away submerged. Such a poor flood has from the river, it is easy to cul short, happened only once in modern times, vleep canals in the banks, which hill as in 1877, and the result was more serious the flood rises, and carry the precious than the devastation caused by the muil-charged water into these great most violent excess.

Hats, or, as tliey are termed, basins of The mean flood discharge at Cairo is irrigation. There the water remains about two hundred and eighty thou- for a month or more, some three or sand cubic feet per second, the maxi-four feet deep, depositing its mud, and mum about four hundred thousand. then at the end of the flood it may The mean lowest Nile is about four-' either be run off direct into the reced

same.