The two branches of the Nile one rising in the highlands of Ethiopia, the other in Lake Victoria, unite at Khartoum. Flowing north through the deserts of Nubia and punctuated by the rocky Cataracts, the river enters Egypt at the Second Cataract. Aswan itself stands on the First Cataract, the final great bands of granite to break the river\'s northward course. The Cataract created many rapids and islands which until the end of the last century made travel dangerous.

Egypt has a landscape which is surprisingly varide, but all of the terrain derives from a combination of water and sky, cultivation and desert. North of Aswan the river flows on without further interruption to navigation through the orange sandstone hills of Nubia, were the cultivation in many places is confined to a narrow strip by the water\'s edge. The forked trunk of the dom-palm and the misty foliage of the tamarisk relieve the barrenness. After the fertile open plain at Kom Ombo the sandstone hills close in, forcing the river through the gorge of Silsila before giving way to the limestone cliffs which will form the valley as for as the Delta. Broad but shallow, the river meanders between these cliffs, sometimes in the centre of the valley, sometimes hugging the cliff close to one side. Throughout Upper and Middle Egypt the floodplain is broad, and the cultivation rich: there are fields of wheat and sugar cane, and groves of palm trees everywhere. In the Faiyum the lushness increases.