19 March: The Nile

Sir Richard Francis Burton, explorer, who searched for the source of the Nile, was born on this date in 1821. Here are 10 facts about the Nile.

1. The River Nile is 6,653km/4258 miles long. Whether it's the longest river in the world is disputed. Brazil claims that the Amazon is.
2. The Nile passes through eleven countries: Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt, before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea.
3. Where it begins is less obvious. It has two major tributaries - the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The White Nile begins at Lake Victoria, but there are many other rivers feeding into it, so it can't be said to be the true source of the Nile. Lake Victoria's longest feeder river is the Kagera, but that too has tributaries and experts can't agree which is the longest, and therefore whether the source of the Nile is in Burundi or Rwanda. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia - experts do seem to agree on that one. The two Niles meet near Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.
4. How the river got its name is uncertain. The Ancients Egyptians referred to it using words which simply meant "the river", or "valley" or "Black" (referring to the mud). The English name could derive from Nilus, a Greek river god, the Sanskrit word for an indigo dye or a sacred lily.
5. Since there isn't much rain in Egypt, the Nile was the major source of Water for the Ancient Egyptians. The annual flooding of the river between June and September was very important to them, too. The flood happened because many miles away the Snow would melt in the mountains in Ethiopia in the spring and early summer, and there would be heavy rain further upstream creating lots of extra water which would flood the deserts in Egypt. It wasn't only the water that was important. The river also carried silt and mud from Ethiopia, which would be left behind by the flood and created rich, fertile soil for crops.
6. There isn't an annual flood now, because it is regulated by the Aswan Dam, and modern day farmers have proper irrigation systems rather than needing to rely on a flood which could sometimes be too large and flood nearby villages as well. There's still a celebration called Wafaa El-Nil every August to celebrate the Nile flooding but it's mainly for the tourists these days. All the same, "May you always drink from the Nile" is a common Egyptian blessing used to this day.
7. There's an ongoing political dispute between the countries the river passes through about who has the rights to the water resources. Countries further upstream resent Egypt getting most of the benefit and want to build dams to harness some of the power. The Nile Basin Initiative has been set up to promote a peaceful solution to the disputes.
8. The Ancient Egyptians believed the flooding was caused by the tears of the goddess Isis as she grieved for her dead husband Osiris. The god most associated with the river, however, was Hapi, an androgynous deity depicted with a pot belly, pendulous breasts and a beard.
9. Richard Burton was just one of many who went looking for the source of the Nile in the 19th century. Burton was accompanied by another explorer called John Hanning Speke. They couldn't agree on where the actual source of the Nile was, however, and fell out, very publicly, over that as well as some other disputes on things like the funding of the expedition. They were to hold a debate on the Source of the Nile at the British Association for the Advancement of Science but Speke died the day before it in an apparent hunting accident.
10. The Nile isn't just important to people - there's a lot of wildlife living around it, too - Hippos, Rhinos and Nile crocodiles, not to mention many species of fish, birds and reptiles.

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny.