The Amazon is bigger, the Mississippi busier. But neither is lovelier. In beauty the Nile stands apart.
From the African highlands where it begins, to the Egyptian Delta where it oozes into the Mediterranean, the Nile flows through jungles, deserts and swamps, through steep gorges and shallow canals, under bridges, over dams and past huts, houses and the tall apartments of Cairo that house the 38 millions of people whose lives are lived within range of the mighty river.
For photographer Tor Eigeland the immense variety of such places was a constant challenge—one that led him up, down and by the banks of the great river from Juba in the southern Sudan to the great delta that reaches from the outskirts of Cairo to the Mediterranean coast. On steamers and sailboats, sometimes by car, even on foot, he recorded not only the faces of those who live by the Nile (Aramco World Magazine , January-February, 1968) but the face of the river itself. The results are evident: an unforgettable portrait of this most majestic of rivers.
