Cairo is comparatively a modern city, being 1,200 years the junior of Alexandria, and possesses few traces of antiquity. A fragment of an obelisk helps to pave one of its entrance-gates—alas! to what base uses fallen!—probably a work of Usertesen, of Thothmes, or of Rameses. But if we turn our back upon the Delta, the land of prolific produce, the battle-field of many centuries, and the grave of innumerable ancient cities, and gaze towards the south, we see before us that wonderful river, which, rising in the bosom of Africa, and bursting through the granite rocks of Syené—the As-souan, or gate of Egypt—precipitates itself, a foaming cataract,[14] into the valley of Egypt, and pursues its meandering course, without tributary and without bridge, for more than 600 miles in a straight line from Syené to Cairo. It is a river of poetry and of fertility; for nine months of the year the northern breeze (the Etesian wind) blows against its stream from early morning until night, to waft the travellers, in the sylph-like Nile-boat, called Dahabeeyah, through their journey of health and recreation. At night the boat is moored for its rest; the wind is lost in sleep, but wakens to its duties in the early morn; while rain is a thing almost unknown. In the month of June the Nile rises at Syené; and during August, September, and October, the low flat land of the Delta is converted into a sheet of water, which diffuses richness and fruitfulness throughout the grimy soil. [14] The fall of the Nile at Syené, or As-souan, is termed the first cataract, in consideration of its being the first of seven similar falls which occur in the course of that river. It is in reality the only fall in Egypt, the second being in Nubia, 200 miles higher up. Strictly speaking, it is not a cataract, but a succession of rapids three miles in length, and studded with rocks. The ascent of the Dahabeeyah is made without danger between these rocks and through the more practicable channels; but the descent brings to view dangerous cataracts of considerable force and volume, demanding much experience and ability on the part of the captain to shoot them with safety, and a well-built boat to bear the shock. Hence a prime care of the traveller, before starting from Cairo, is to secure a vessel capable of encountering the risks of the cataract. The second cataract, from its greater extent and more numerous rocks, is practically impassable. The abundance of the rocks in its bed has suggested for it the Arab expression of “the belly of stone.”