沿尼罗河而上（节选）

                       原作：[美]罗伯特·卡普托

                            翻译：郑建荣

        希腊历史学家赫卡泰俄斯把埃及描绘成尼罗河的礼物。没有一个国家像埃及这样完全依赖唯一的水源，尼罗河是埃及的命脉。埃及的每一寸土壤都是尼罗河每年的洪水造就的。洪水带来的软泥生养万物，使埃及成为古代世界的粮仓。埃塞俄比亚高原的雨水和月山山系的雪水源源不断地涌入尼罗河。……

                Egypt, wrote the Greek historian Hecataeus , is the gift of the Nile . No other country is so dependent on a single lifeline . 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 Ethiopian highlands and snows melted in the Mountains of the Moon , the river was everlastingly renewed .