"Egypt is the gift of the Nile." This epigram of Hecataeus, quoted first by Herodotus and frequently since, expresses with admirable brevity and appropriateness the character of the Egyptian country. In the vast almost waterless expanse of the desert plateau which occupies the entire two branches from the extensive lake region of equatorial Africa and from the snow-clad mountains of Abyssinia, has painfully through endless ages excavated out of the sandstone and limestone a deep valley the lower end of which - the land of Egypt - it has by its regular annual deposits of alluvium transformed into one of the most fruitful lands on earth. When at length a people settled in this valley in order to pasture its herds and to cultivate the soil, the Nile by strict necessity impelled it to civilization and culture.