Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/727

CLIMATE.] EGYPT 703 northern coast, where there are extensive salt-marshes. Upper Egypt is healthier than Lower Egypt. The least healthy time of the year is the latter part of autumn, when the inundated soil is drying. In the desert, at a very- short distance from the cultivable land, the climate is uni formly dry and unvaryingly healthy. Egypt, however, is unsuitable as a permanent residence to Europeans who do not greatly modify their mode of life; 1 and it is almost impossible to rear European children there ; but if they arrive after the age of ten or a little more they do not usually feel its ill effects. 2 As a resort for invalids Egypt cannot be recommended without caution. Persons suffering from asthma and bronchitis are likely to gain benefit from a Nile- voyage, unless the season is unusually cold. The climate of the desert does not in all casessuit them, the small particles of sand which are inhaled increasing the irritation. The desert air is undoubtedly good for consumption, and a wise plan is to encamp near Cairo, or still better to find some kind of house within the limits of the desert ; and there are ancient sepulchral grottoes at Thebes and other sites which afford excellent quarters for any one who will take the pains to build a court and a few rooms in front of them. A Nile-voyage cannot be so safely recommended. The climate on the river itself is more changeable than else where, and often in winter far colder than is good for delicacy of the lungs. No one should visit Egypt in the winter without heavy as well as light clothing. The atmosphere is remarkably dry and clear, except on the sea-coast ; and even the humidity which is the conse quence of the spreading of the inundation is scarcely felt but by its rendering the heat more oppressive. Sometimes a white fog, very dense and cold, rises from the river in the morning, but it is of rare occurrence and short duration. The heat is extreme during a great part of the year, but it is chiefly felt when accompanied by the hot winds of spring and the sultry calm of the season of the inundation. The winter is often comparatively severe in its cold, especially as the domestic architecture is intended to protect rather from heat than cold. " The general height of the thermometer in the depth of winter in Lower Egypt, in the afternoon and in the shade is from 50 to 60; in the hottest season it is from 90 to 100, and about 10 higher in the southern parts of Upper Egypt" (Mod. Eg., Introd.) On the coast of the Mediterranean rain is frequent, but in other parts of Egypt very unusual. At Cairo there _is generally one heavy storm in the winter, and a shower or two besides, the frequency of rain having increased since the growth of Ibrahim Pasha s plantations between the city and the river. At Thebes a storm occurs but once in about four years, and light rain almost as rarely. The wind most frequently blows from the N.W., N., or N.E., but particularly from the first direction. The propor tionate prevalence of these winds to those from all the other quarters, in the year, is about 8 to 3 ; but to those from the S., S.E., and S.W., about 6 to 1. (Clot-Bey, Aperfu General sur VEgypte, i. p. 30.) The northerly winds are the famous Etesian winds of Herodotus (ii. 20), which enable boats constantly to ascend the Nile against its strong and rapid current, whereas in descending the river they depend on the force of the stream, the main-yard being lowered, These winds also cool the temperature during the summer months. The southerly winds are often very violent, and in the spring and summer, especially in April and May, hot sand-winds sometimes blow from the south, greatly raising the temperature, and causing especial suffering to Europeans. The famous Simoom, properly 1 Beer, wine, and all alcohol should be very sparingly used, and little meat eaten in the hot season. 2 One resident at Alexandria adopted with success the method of eending her children to sea as soon as any weakness showed itself. called Samoom, 3 is a much more violent hot sand-wind, which is more usual in the desert than in the cultivated tracts, but in either occurring only at long intervals. It is a kind of hurricane, most painful to experience, and in jurious in its effects. (Englishwoman in Egypt, i. 96, 97.) The z6ba ah is a common but remarkable phenomenon. It is a very lofty whirlwind of sand resembling a pillar, which moves with great velocity. Mr Lane measured some with a sextant, and found them to be between 500 and 700 feet in height, and one to have an altitude of 750 feet. When crossing the Nile a z6ba ah frequently capsizes any boat which may be in its way, and of which the main-sheet is tied by the carelessness of the boatmen instead of being held. (Id., loc. cit,; Modern Egyptians, chap, x.) It may be mentioned that a sudden gust of wind from a valley in the mountains is equally dangerous when the sheet is tied, and a third danger is the attempt to move during a southerly gale, when the long shallow Nile-boat is easily caught broadside and capsized. One of the most interesting phenomena of Egypt is the mirage, which is frequently seen both in the desert and in the waste tracts of uncultivated land near the Mediterra nean ; and it is often so truthful in its appearance that one finds it difficult to admit the illusion. Diseases. Notwithstanding the fineness of the climate, the stranger who visits Egypt is struck by the signs which he sees everywhere of the prevalence of many serious diseases, and in the first half of this century he might have witnessed the effects of a great epidemic of the plague or the cholera. Yet he should remember the poverty of the great mass of the inhabitants and the insufficiency of their food (both due to the selfish rapacity of the Government), the insufficient training of the native medical practitioners, the false system of many of the foreigners established in the country, and the reluctance of the natives to take medical advice. Ophthalmia when neglected is frequently followed by blindness, and dysentery in the same circumstances is very often fatal. The plague has been the greatest scourge of Egypt. We cannot tell whether the pestilences mentioned by Manetho as having occurred in the reign of one of the most ancient kings were the same as the modern plague ; it seems, however, to be alluded to in the Bible as peculiarly Egyptian (Zech. xiv. 18). In 1835 there was an epidemic of plague of extreme severity, during which there died in Cairo a number of the inhabitants equal to the whole adult male population (Modern Egyptians, Intro duction). The last occurrence of the disease was in 1843, when the mortality was comparatively insignificant. The immunity which Egypt has enjoyed for more than thirty years, in which interval there would ordinarily have been several plagues, has been attributed to the sanitary measures of the Egyptian Government, and no doubt these may have somewhat contributed to this result. It should, however, be remembered that the plague is always imported into Egypt, and that there have been no severe epidemics of undoubted plague elsewhere in the period. This disease has usually first appeared in the east and south coasts of the Mediterranean, and part of the north coast, and when epidemic seems to pursue a similar cour-e to the cholera in advancing steadily from place to place. In Egypt it usually appears first at Alexandria in the winter 3 Of the term samoom Mr Lane writes, " In the present day it is commonly applied to a violent and intensely-hot wind, generally occurring in the spring or summer, in Egypt and the Egyptian deserts usually proceeding from the south-east or south-south-east, gradually darkening the air to a deep purple hue, whether or not (according to the nature of the tract over which it blows) accompanied by clouds of dust or sand, and at length entirely concealing the sun; but seldom lasting more than about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.

Arabic Lexicon, s.v., pt. iv. 1420.