Birds and Nature, Vol. 08, No. 1, June 1900 / In Natural Colors

by Various

Find out something about the pyramids. Look up pictures of the ruins of the Temple of Karnak; and that great stone image, carved out of a hill, higher than a five-story building, with a head so large that if a man stood on the top of one ear he could hardly reach the top of the head with his outstretched hand. The Greeks called this great stone image, with the body of a lion and the head of a man, a sphinx; but the Egyptians called it the "Hor-em-khoo," the "Horus-on-the-horizon;" and Horus was the god-child they most loved, the child of Osiris, the great sun-divinity, and of Isis, the beautiful mother of heaven. All this civilization along the Nile would have been impossible had it not been for the Nile. The great stones that went into the pyramids were floated down the river. Soldiers and workingmen were transported on the river. The fields were made fertile by the river, and the leisure and the wealth that were made possible by the fertile fields on the river's bank gave men time to think and to feel, to invent the beautiful picture writings, to cut out the great tomb temples, and to think the great thoughts of religion, God-thoughts, love-thoughts, and duty-thoughts.

Now, what happened along the banks of the Nile happened to a certain degree along the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris. Mesopotamia means "the land between the rivers," the mid-river country. Away back five or six thousand years ago there were people who built great cities, erected high tower-temples of burned brick. They invented a curious kind of arrow-headed alphabet (the cuneiform), which they stamped into clay tablets, brick reading books. On the banks of these rivers, in that far-off time, astronomers watched the stars, and found out a good deal about the planets and eclipses. They measured time by the year of three hundred and sixty-five days, and twelve months, which means that they had watched the moon and measured the length of the days.

Then there are other rivers, The Ganges, that runs through the heart of India, on the banks of which there grew up the great religions and the curious customs of the Hindus and the Buddhists; and the Jordan, which, you will remember, flows through our Bible. Around it clusters the great stories of the prophets, of Jesus and his disciples. When we turn to Europe, we will find much about the Germans, by finding out all we can about the Rhine. If you can find out much about the Rhone and the Seine, you will understand the story of France and the French people. The Thames is older than London; and along the banks of the Danube grew up nation after nation. Down that stream have floated war vessels for different peoples for thousands and thousands of years. Would you not like to see a collection of boats that would reach from the boats made of the raw hides of animals by the earlier pagan people along the Danube, up to the latest and best steamer that now plies up and down that great river?

None the less interesting are the rivers of the Western continent, the Hudson, the Mississippi, and the Missouri; the Ohio and the Amazon are the pathways over which the first explorers traveled. Along their banks did the first settlers make their homes, and on their bosom did the men in the wild woods first send their traffics. Who was it that started the first steamboat up the Hudson? You remember how Abraham Lincoln when a boy helped build a flat-boat, and how he steered that flat-boat all the way from Illinois to New Orleans, selling there the truck the early settlers raised, exchanging it for molasses, and sugar, and the calico that they needed in Illinois.

When we remember the great service that the rivers have rendered man, the beautiful stories that cluster around them, the beautiful life that has sported in their waters, floated upon their surface, and gathered on their banks, is it not a pity that they are being so despoiled by thoughtless and reckless men, who wantonly cut down the forests, waste the trees that grow upon their banks? And then, in our cities, instead of beautifying the banks and profiting by the scenery, foolish men turn the back doors of their houses upon the rivers, build barns upon their banks, make of them the dumping-places into which they throw their rubbish, street sweepings, and old tin cans, everything that will soil the water and spoil the scenery.

Do you not think that some day we will again come back to the old love of the river, even if we do not need it so much as a highway now? for railroads go faster. We will keep them clean and beautiful, for the pleasure and the health they yield. You have heard of what a dirty thing the Chicago river is, how unpleasant it is both to the sense of sight and to the sense of smell. It is very much the same with many of the other rivers that flow through our great cities, and even smaller towns. Some day the children of our public schools, who are now studying these things, will grow up, and they will find out how to purify our streams. They will restore their beauty. They will love the fish in the water so much that they will prefer seeing them alive to eating them when dead. They will give back the rivers to the birds, that will sing unmolested upon their banks, and raise their little ones undisturbed in their nests, built low among the sedges, or swinging loftily in the poplar boughs above.

So you see, my children, to know the river is to know much of the geology of the world, much of the plant and animal life of the world, very much of the history of man, and very much of the higher hopes and aspirations, the poetry, the morality, and the religion of the human soul. The rivers were here before man was. They invited man. They nursed him. They fed him. They marked the places for his settlements. They helped the organization of the state.

By the way, as a closing lesson, suppose you find out how many of the states of our Union were named after rivers, and see how many of the river names you can discover the meaning of; for the rivers were on the earth before they were named. The names are of men, and some of them are very suggestive. The rivers are of God. They belong to nature, and they show forth the laws of nature, which are always the laws of God.