derful powers awakened their veneration and
awe, and its boundless beneficence their gratitude.

[Illustration: PHERON DEFYING THE NILE.]

Among the ancient Egyptian legends, there is one relating to a certain
King Pheron which strikingly illustrates this feeling. It seems that
during one of the inundations, while he was standing with his courtiers
and watching the flow of the water, the commotion in the stream was much
greater than usual on account of a strong wind which was blowing at
that time, and which greatly increased the violence of the whirlpools,
and the force and swell of the boiling eddies. There was given, in fact,
to the appearance of the river an expression of anger, and Pheron, who
was of a proud and haughty character, like most of the Egyptian kings,
threw his javelin into one of the wildest of the whirlpools, as a token
of his defiance of its rage. He was instantly struck blind!

The sequel of the story is curious, though it has no connection with the
personality of the Nile. Pheron remained blind for ten years. At the end
of that time it was announced to him, by some supernatural
communication, that the period of his punishment had expired, and that
his sight might be brought back to him by the employment of a certain
designated means of restoration, which was the bathing of his eyes by a
strictly virtuous woman. Pheron undertook compliance with the
requisition, without any idea that the finding of a virtuous woman would
be a difficult task. He first tried his own wife, but her bathing
produced no effect. He then tried, one after another, various ladies of
his court, and afterward others of different rank and station, selecting
those who were most distinguished for the excellence of their
characters. He was disappointed, however, in them all. The blindness
continued unchanged. At last, however, he found the wife of a peasant,
whose bathing produced the effect. The monarch's sight was suddenly
restored. The king rewarded the peasant woman, whose virtuous character
was established by this indisputable test, with the highest honors. The
others he collected together, and then shut them up in one of his towns.
When they were all thus safely imprisoned, he set the town on fire, and
burned them all up together.

To return to the Nile. Certain columns were erected in different parts
of the valley, on which cubits and the subdivisions of cubits were
marked and numbered, for the purpose of ascertaining preci