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WONDERS OF NATURE
River Nile. Nature miracle
The great water artery of our planet - the Nile - begins south of the equator and carries its waters north through half of Africa to the Mediterranean Sea. For many thousands of years, this river has excited the imagination of people, striking them with beauty and power and baffling with its mystery. For a long time, the Nile was considered the longest river in the world. Its length is almost six thousand seven hundred kilometers. Only a recent expedition to the origins of the Amazon, which established that its length exceeds seven thousand kilometers, moved the African giant to second place. But the Nile cannot boast of an abundance of water throughout the year. In terms of average annual water consumption, it is outstripped by many rivers of the world, even relatively small ones, like the Amu Darya. Our Volga is half as long as the Nile, but carries three times as much water. For a long time, the origin of the Nile has remained a mystery to geographers. No one knew where its sources were, no one could explain the reason for its annual floods. It was only in the last century that it was finally possible to establish that the largest river in Africa is formed by the confluence of two rivers that are completely different in character. The longest source of the Nile is the White Nile. It begins in the mountains of Burundi in Equatorial Africa at an altitude of two and a half kilometers and then rushes in a stormy stream to the huge Lake Victoria. From this inland lake-sea of Africa, he runs, boiling on rapids and breaking down from waterfalls, through the humid impenetrable jungle of Uganda, in order to calm down, slowly enter the semi-desert plains of Sudan. Here, crocodiles still live in its waters and mighty hippos roam in the coastal reeds. For six hundred kilometers, the Nile with difficulty makes its way further and further north, through the endless swamps overgrown with papyrus, and then, finally calming down, slowly continues its journey through the savannah and desert.
Another source of the Nile - the Blue Nile - is distinguished by a truly unbridled temper. From the rocky uplands of Ethiopia, it flies down to Lake Tana, breaks out of it in a high waterfall sparkling with rainbows, after which, with a roar and roar, it makes its way through a wild and gloomy seven hundred-kilometer gorge to the expanses of Sudan.
In the desert, the Blue Nile becomes wider and calmer. The sandy waves of the dunes approach both banks, but behind them the cotton fields darken, cut by the threads of canals, bringing the life-giving moisture of the river to them. In the very center of Khartoum - the capital of Sudan - both sources merge, finally forming the Nile itself. From here he rolls his waters to the distant sea, to which there are still more than three thousand kilometers. Slowly and importantly, the Nile flows through the deserted and dull regions of the Sahara, where the rains do not fall for years. Having overcome a series of rocky rapids, it enters the borders of Egypt and flows into the spacious bowl of the Nasser reservoir. This gigantic reservoir stretching for five hundred kilometers is the largest artificial lake on our planet. Having escaped from the locks of the Aswan Dam, the Nile parted with wildlife right up to the very mouth. On the banks of the river stretch endless wheat and cotton fields, palm groves and dense thickets of sugar cane. And over the water, slowly flapping their wings, flocks of cranes, storks, flamingos and pelicans fly by. And here, looking at the majestic and smooth course of the Nile, you involuntarily think about its second riddle. For thousands of kilometers, the river rolls along the waterless plains, where the temperature reaches fifty degrees. The sky above it is almost always cloudless, and rains have to wait for years. Among the gloomy, lifeless sands and rocky hills, the fertile Nile valley stretches in a narrow winding ribbon - the largest oasis of earthly deserts. But as soon as the traveler moves away from the green strip that borders the Nile, he risks dying from heat and thirst in the waterless plains approaching the valley. Along the caravan roads crossing the Libyan and Arabian deserts - the outskirts of the hot Sahara, the bones of animals and people turn white everywhere, reminiscent of past tragedies. The evaporation of moisture is so great that the earth here is completely dried up, cracked and swept up by hot sand. It would seem that the Nile, sandwiched on both sides by deserts, would have to dry up completely during the hot summer, or at least become very shallow, as happens with most rivers in desert regions. But, oddly enough, everything happens the other way around! At the very height of summer, by the end of August, when the heat reaches its limit, the level of the river begins to rise, the Nile overflows its banks, floods the valley for miles and turns from muddy green to blood red. In September, the water sometimes rises to ten meters. The whole valley then turns into one long lake for several weeks. Then the water begins to subside, the river enters the banks, leaving a layer of fertile silt on the fields. This is just what the Egyptians are waiting for. Sowing begins immediately, and the coastal plains are covered with a carpet of fresh greenery. This has been the case since time immemorial. The land fertilized with silt gave good harvests from year to year, providing food for millions of inhabitants of the Nile valley. The ancient Egyptians deified the Nile - after all, the life and well-being of their country depended on it. They offered sacrifices to him and sang sacred hymns in honor of him. An ancient Egyptian legend said that far, far away, at the farthest thresholds, in impregnable rocks, there is a huge cave. The mighty god of the Nile - Hapi lives in it. The cave is guarded by a formidable serpent, and on the rocks towering above it sit an eagle and a hawk, vigilantly watching the whole area. The Nile flows out of the cave, and the serpent, squeezing it with its rings, can release more or less water from the cave. The priests urged the people not to be stingy with sacrifices to the god Hapi - then the Nile would be more full-flowing. The flood of the Nile was a public holiday among the Egyptians. In honor of the divine Hapi, magnificent festivities were held. And Already in those days, people were wondering where the Nile begins and what its floods are connected with. But neither the priests of Ancient Egypt, nor the Greek and Roman scientists, nor the medieval thinkers managed to reveal its secrets. Since the XNUMXnd century AD, when the great geographer Ptolemy suggested that the Nile begins from the confluence of two rivers flowing from lakes in the Lunar Mountains, science accepted this legend as true, and only at the end of the XNUMXth century the sources of the Nile were finally discovered. Moreover, the main source of the Nile was discovered twice. First, in 1858, the Englishman Speke proved that the Nile flows out of Lake Victoria. And in 1875, the American traveler Stanley discovered the Kageru River flowing into this reservoir, and the geographers of the world recognized it as the source of the White Nile. A century earlier, the Scotsman Bruce penetrated to the sources of the Blue Nile and established its connection with the great river of Egypt. He also found that the periods of rains in the upper reaches of the Blue Nile coincide with the Nile floods. The White Nile, flowing from under the equator, is fed by rains evenly throughout the year, so that the Ethiopian stream should be considered the cause of the floods that bring fertility to the fields of the inhabitants of Egypt. The amount of water in the Blue Nile in August-September increases forty times, as a result of which the volume of water in the Nile itself near Aswan increases an average of fifteen times. The flood lasts about three months. Then, over the course of eight months, the water gradually subsides, and by the beginning of June the Nile dries up so much that its width is reduced by half of its usual. (This description belongs to an eyewitness who observed the Nile before the construction of the Aswan Dam.) At this time, it seems that the river does not flow at all, but stands still. Clay flats and masses of dried black mud stretch along both banks. The trees are covered with a thick layer of dust: after all, the khamsin, the wind that brought sand from the Sahara from the south for fifty days in a row, has just finished blowing. Finally, the first sign of the end of the hot period appears: the strongest north wind begins to blow, which does not stop for a whole month. One day the trees are cleared of dust, and again the valley is covered with greenery. At first, the water rises a little, only five centimeters. At this time, it acquires a green color and an unpleasant odor. Fortunately, the "Green Nile" period lasts only three or four days, and local residents can make do with pre-stocked clean water during this time. Then the water begins to rise strongly, and after ten or twelve days another transformation takes place with it. The traveler, who went out on the deck of the ship in the morning, suddenly and with horror discovers that the rays of dawn opened his eyes ... red, like blood, water. Sailing down the bloody river is not for the faint of heart! And only by bending down to the river and taking its water into a glass, the traveler is convinced that he is not a victim of optical illusion. The period of the "Red Nile" has just come. The water stream at this time carries so much red silt that it changes both color and consistency, resembling jelly in density. This silt gradually settles on the banks, as the Nile spills over the entire twenty-kilometer width of the valley, and only very slowly then recedes into its banks. Only by the end of September the river returns to its former course. In Upper Egypt, the width of the Nile reaches a kilometer. It flows past the ancient temples of Luxor, feeding with its waters a narrow strip of fields and vegetable gardens that stretches along both banks. But it suddenly ends abruptly, and immediately after the last bed, the sand dunes of the desert begin. Such is the strength and power of the Nile waters. To the north, in Central Egypt, the valley expands to twenty-five kilometers, and all of it is buried in the greenery of palm groves, fields and gardens. Every bit of the valley has been cultivated: of the sixty million inhabitants of the country, only three percent live far from the Nile. At six and a half thousand kilometers from the source of the river lies the crowded and noisy Cairo - the largest city in Africa. Spilling here for one and a half kilometers, the Nile carries its waters under six huge bridges, past the domes and minarets of numerous mosques, adobe old quarters and modern hotels. Escaped from the bustle of the big city, the Nile scatters into thousands of channels, forming one of the world's greatest river deltas. Half of all Egyptians live in this fertile and abundant water triangle, two hundred and forty kilometers wide. They harvest two crops a year here thanks to the generous Nile. And ahead is the Mediterranean Sea. With two wide navigable arms, the Nile ends its long journey from the equator here. Such is this amazing river that came to us after thousands of years and thousands of kilometers and survived two great civilizations that grew up on its banks. It is impossible to examine it all at once - the length of the Nile is so great, so many borders - both political and geographical - split it into separate parts. And it is difficult to say what is more interesting, what I would like to see first of all: the ancient temples and pyramids of Egypt, waterfalls, gorges and mountain lakes of Ethiopia, or the vast expanse of Lake Victoria. The Nile has a thousand faces, and they are all beautiful, all worthy of the admiring attention of the traveler. Author: B.Wagner
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