The Nile is the world's longest river. It extends 4,180 miles in East Africa. The direction of the current is north. The prevailing winds move toward the south. This made navigation of the Nile very difficult. The people who lived along the Nile thousands of years ago discovered how to use the wind to move their boats up and down the river. It involved navigating by tacking, a maneuver used in sailing to change the direction of a sailboat when sailing upwind or at an angle to the wind. It is a technique for changing the side of the boat that faces into the wind in order to make progress towards a desired destination.
Anthropologists believe that the Nile Valley is where the first sailboats were used. This photo shows a 4000-year Egyptian ship plank.
These ropes were used by Egyptian sailors in the time of Abraham (2100 BC).
The Father of all Rivers
As the longest river on earth, the Nile is the father of all rivers. It flows through and has tributaries in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Three principal water ways form the Nile. They are the Blue Nile, the Atbara, and the White Nile. The Blue Nile flows south from Lake Tana and then west across Ethiopia and northwest into Sudan.
The Atbara flows from the Ethiopian Highlands. The White Nile receives its flow from Lake Victoria and Lake Albert.
There are two main rivers that flow into the Nile: the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, and the Nyabarongo, which flows from Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda. These two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border.
The oldest human settlements were along the Nile and at the sources of the Nile in Uganda and the Ethiopian Highlands. The Eden of Genesis extended between the sources of the Nile - the Gihon and the Pishon - to the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia. In the time of the historical Adm and Eve (5000-4800 BC) biblical Eden was a vast well-watered region. The term Eden derives from the Akkadian term edinu, which refers to a fertile plain or a well-watered region. Akkadian is the oldest known Semitic language. It was the language of commerce long before Hebrew emerged.
There are two main rivers that flow into the Nile: the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, and the Nyabarongo, which flows from Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda. These two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border.
The oldest human settlements were along the Nile and at the sources of the Nile in Uganda and the Ethiopian Highlands. The Eden of Genesis extended between the sources of the Nile - the Gihon and the Pishon - to the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia. In the time of the historical Adm and Eve (5000-4800 BC) biblical Eden was a vast well-watered region. The term Eden derives from the Akkadian term edinu, which refers to a fertile plain or a well-watered region. Akkadian is the oldest known Semitic language. It was the language of commerce long before Hebrew emerged.
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