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Now, however, nine out of every ten people in Egypt are Mohammedans and, instead of building pyramids, they build beautiful mosques.
Close by these big pyramids is the Sphinx, a huge stone figure with the body of a lion and the head of one of the Egyptian kings. In Greece a sphinx was supposed to be an animal with a woman’s head that sat by the road and asked passers-by this riddle: “What is it that goes on four feet in the morning, two at midday, andthree at night?” If the traveler couldn’t tell the answer the sphinx devoured him. At last some one answered, “Man, because he crawls on all fours in the morning of his life, then walks on two feet, and finally ontwo feet and a cane.” The Greek sphinx was a “she”. But the Egyptian sphinx is a “he.” He has a man’s head and he asked no riddles. He was a god of the sun.
The Sphinx and pyramids are on the bank of the one and only great river of Egypt, called the Nile. Have you ever heard of crocodile tears? The crocodile is a big alligator-like animal that lives in the Nile, and people used to say that he would catch little Egyptian boys and while he was eating them he would weep as if hisheart would break. That’s why when you cry, though you don’t really mean it, we say you are shedding “crocodile tears”! The Nile splits into several branches before it empties into the Mediterranean Sea, and the land between the branches is called a delta, because it is shaped like the Greek letter “D,” which was called delta and shaped like a triangle.You see, people of long ago also called places after common things which they thought had the same shape.
Hardly any rain falls in northern Egypt, but in southern Egypt there are heavy rains in the summer. Then theNile overflows its banks and floods the country and leaves great quantities of mud.

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但是现在，十个埃及人中就有九个是伊斯兰教徒，他们不再建造金字塔，而是建造漂亮的清真寺。
在这些大金字塔近旁有一座斯芬克斯卧像——一座巨大的石头雕像，身体是狮子，而头则是一位埃及国王。在希腊，斯芬克斯被认为是一只长着女人头的动物，坐在路边，让路过的人猜一个谜语，“今有一物，早晨四足，中午两足，夜晚三足，此为何物？”如果路过的人猜不出，斯芬克斯就把他吞食了。最后，有一个人终于答对了，“人。人在婴儿时期匍匐爬行，长大后两脚步行，年迈时拄杖行走”。希腊的斯芬克斯是“女的”，而埃及的斯芬克斯是“男的”。他长着男人的头，他不会让人猜谜，他是一位太阳神。
斯芬克斯雕像和金字塔都坐落在一条河的河岸上，这条河是埃及唯一的一条大河，叫做尼罗河。你听说过“鳄鱼的眼泪”吗？鳄鱼是生活在尼罗河的一种长得像短吻鳄的大型动物。埃及人过去常说，鳄鱼总是抓埃及小男孩，吃小男孩的时候就要流眼泪，好像很伤心。这就是为什么当你虚情假意哭的时候，我们就会说你在流“鳄鱼的眼泪”。尼罗河在流入地中海之前，分为几条支流，这些支流之间的地带叫做“三角洲”，在英文中叫做“德尔塔”，因为它的形状像希腊字母“△”，“△”读作“德尔塔”，而且形状像个三角形。你看，很久以前的人们也用常见的事物给地区命名，因为他们认为两者具有相同的形状。
埃及北方几乎不下雨，然而南方每到夏季就下起大雨。于是，尼罗河河水溢出堤岸，淹没了大片的土地，留下了大量的泥土。