Egypt, wrote the Greek historian Hecataeus, is the gift of the Nile. No other country is so dependent on a single life line. Egypt’s very soil was born in the Nile’s annual flood; with the flood came the life giving mud that made Egypt the granary of

Egypt, wrote the Greek historian Hecataeus, is the gift of the Nile. No other country is so dependent on a single life line. Egypt’s very soil was born in the Nile’s annual flood; with the flood came the life giving mud that made Egypt the granary of the ancient world. And as rain fell in the Egytian highlands and the snow smelted in the Mountains of the Moon, the river was everlastingly renewed. The delta and the narrow Nile Valley to the south make up only 3 percent of Egypt’s land but are home to 96 percent of her population. Here nearly 48 million people live in an area only slightly larger than Maryland.

希腊历史学家赫卡奥泰斯写道：埃及是尼罗河送来的礼物。任何别的国家都不像埃及这样依赖着唯一的一条生命线。就连埃及的土地也是尼罗河每年泛滥而带来的。河水泛滥带来了泥沙，万物得以生长，埃及就这样成了古代世界的粮仓。埃塞俄比亚高原上的雨水和月亮山上融化的积雪，为尼罗河提供了无穷无尽的水源。三角洲和南边狭窄的尼罗河谷只占埃及土地的百分之三，却有百分之九十六的人口住在这里。将近四千八百万人生活的这块地方只比马里兰州略大一点。