Date palms and Nile flood. 19th-century stereograph image of the overflow of the Nile at Cairo, Egypt, in the 1890s. People are swimming in the water, standing on a wall, and climbing the date trees (Phoenix dactylifera) to harvest dates from them. The regular flooding of the Nile sustains a fertile area of farmland along its banks. This albumen print was produced in March 1898 by US photographer Benjamin West Kilburn (1827-1909).