THE EFFECT OF RAISING THE ASSOUAN DAM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 30 July 1907, Page 4

THE EFFECT OF RAISING THE ASSOUAN DAM.

One of the greatest of the many great engineering achievement which stands to the credit of the late Sir Benjamin Baker was the construction of the Assouan dam. Shortly before Sir Benjamin's regretted death came the news that the dam is to be raised. Another twentythree feet is to be added to that great wall across the Kile at the First Cataract. The temples of Fbilae, now still showing their beautiful Lotoa capitals above the flood, are to be entirely submerged. The Nubian shores are to be flooded for another fifty miles, and every tewple between Assouan and Wady Haifa is to be placed under water. Perhaps it must be so; but what a price to pay for the prosperity of Egypt! At present, in spite of the flooding, there it still a great charm about Philae. Of course, it is not the Phllae of old, the Phi'.ae you see In faded photographs, the Philae ef Lady Duff Gordon's dithyrambs, the* gem of perfect islands, the wonder of the world. But though the island is beneath the water, several of the temples' stiil emerge, and you can still see those marvellous Ptoemaic capitate—the first fruits of the marriage between Greek and Egyptian art. The eolo ri» still fresh on the roofs and colosuu, and there is still a tranquil delight in approaching the Temples by water—in gliding np to those ancient walk, and noting the sculptures Pharoses half emerging from the Nile, in rowing softly parallel with the capitals, peering into the carved petals and flowen, shaped by the Greek artists, brooding over the forms of the Egyptian lotusflower, Abovs all, the Temple of It's, the central shrine of the Egyptian religion, perhaps the ultimate origin of Christianity itself, is still high and dry, and you can land and wander through the lofty interior, or mount' to the roof and gate across the flood to the groves of half-drowned palm trees, or the golden sands flowing down from the desert.

You can journey, indeed, the whole way by boat from Assouan, and see Phflae, If yon like, without leaving your pleasant oaft. The cheerful Arab sailon, untouched by Pan-Islamism, gaily singing their rythmical chants, will take yon skilfuly through the famed water* of the First Cataract. "Cataract," forsooth! That ia the tale that has been told. The First Cataract is no moreshe, too, has been sacrificed to the prosperity of Egypt. , Girdled and tamed and checked, her voices are almost dumb. Here where you sail up calm channels, tacking safely under the heady north wind—the wonderful wind that wafted Herodotus—that famous cataract once tossed her crests of white foam between islands of granite, worn smooth and black by the aeoniaa attrition of the waters, and engraved with the crests of • dozen proud Pharoahs. Here her torrents roared and her whirlpools swirled with constant tumult of waters, as the Nile hurried down from gaunt Nubia to the green meadows of Egypt. Just here, too, where you pass easily down one deep channel between shallow waters, the boats came down with a rush and a leap, running a race with death. That wild, savage beauty has vanished as completely as the crocodiles. The Nile has been tamed, and her daily current is appointed a regularly as the outflow from a reservoir of the London Water Board.

You approach the Dam—the cause of all this change—through three gigantic locks, opened by a wonderful hydraulic machinery which subdues their mighty gates to the touch of a chad's hand. The rising water lifts your boat by these three stages up to the 15011 to the summit of the granite wall, whence you gain your first glimpse of Nubia. The Dam forms a great barrier between the countries. Eastward, it stretches far away across the river, a great solid wall with a mighty lake above, and below a mere network of scattered streams. The Nile is stayed. Down to that point she hows in splendid freedom, straight from the Mountains of the Moon. From lofty Rnweniori—her real source—the glacier streams fall and roar into the great lakes; thence In one wild leap they flow on to form the White Nile. As they go they are joined by the great waters flowing from the Abyssinian hills, small in winter full in summer, and fed by that rich red mud which made Egypt. So the Nile flows, with pomp of waters, "brimming and large and full," down to the First Cataract. And thence, suddenly, is U held up abruptly by the hand of ■an. After that, only such waters can go through as the Anglo-Egyptian Government permits. Of course the Nile ia never entirely stayed, llalt'-way up that 150 ft granite wall you will notice a line of Iron shutters stretching ih unbroken sequence from bank to bank. It is the closing and opening of these shutters that regulates the flow of the Nile. The; can be opened and doted by the touch of a button. The man who "shuts or opes a main"— the St. Peter of those iron gates—lives in a large white house on the eastern bank. ThaE solitary English engineer—who is, to speak Irishly, of course, a .Scotsmanholds the Nile in fee. His word is law. Every morning a little clicking talk takes place on the telegraph between Asouan and Cairo: "How much water do you want?" "We want so much or less" —and a gate is accordingly shut or opened. Ten days later the Nile flows a little more or less swifty Beneath the iron bridge at Cairo, and the peasantry for 1600 miles have a little more or a little less water to irrigate their holdings. Thus the whole agriculture of a country—for untold thousands of years at the mercy of one capricious river—ia low regulated by the turn of a handle. It Is early March, at the time of our visit, and away towards the eastern shore the water-gates are already open. The March Nile of Egypt is rushing through with tumult of many waters. But a great is held back for a needier time. As the days go by, the Nils will run steadily smaller from the Croat lakes, and the sand-banks will emerge higher and broader above water in every stretch of river from Cairo to Assouan. The cry for water throughout those 1000 miles will grow steadily louder, and every day the telegraph from Cairo will a»k for more. With each demand another gate will be opened, and more water will flow through, until in .Tune and early July—ln the hot weather when the tourist has gone home—the whole Nile will go free. That great lake above the dam will shrink and dwindle. The palm-trees, now unhappily amphibious will rise free for the water. PhDae will once more emerge, entire and beautiful, Aphrodlte-liko, fresh-washed, from her long winter bath. But we, not being Salamanders, shall never, after the Dam has been raised, tet Philae more. She will shine during those hat months in her modest beauty, visible only to natives and engineers. It is useless To blame anyone. The world is the world of the living and what are ancient monuments beside the needs of living flesh and blood ? Perhaps not to be considered. And yet—even in this granite age,' there may be no harm in recalling the cost, and reminding man how, beneath his plled-up riches, he ia burying tome things that are more precious than gold.—Harold Spender, in the I/Hidon Daily Chronicle.