RIVER PHOTOS: Amazing rivers of the World

SATELLITE RIVER PHOTOS. The great rivers of the world have attracted populations, seen sprawling civilizations rising and falling, and provided food, transportation and a ground for economies to prosper. The rivers, often neglected and polluted, are the lifelines, the veins of blood, in our culture.

Leaving Saigon for the Mekong Delta cruise.

And how beautiful they are! I’ve traveled the Mekong delta, walked across the mighty Yangtze River of China, and floated leisurely down the Mississippi on paddle steamer Natchez. These are some of the great rivers that we give glimpses of here.

But however wonderful they may look from the eye of a satellite, traveling on them might not always be that pleasant. Late sailing adventurer Tristan Jones once attempted to navigate the Amazon of Brazil, upstream from the Atlantic. He describes the hellish undertaking in “The Incredible Voyage: A Personal Odyssey“, where snakes, fast currents, heat and lack of food and water finally got the better of him, and he had to turn back.

Steamer Natchez cruising in the Mississippi, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Twain.

In popular fiction, too, rivers have sometimes played vital parts. Those old enough might remember a TV seriers called “All the Rivers Run” from the 1980s, portraying the romantic life on the Mississippi.

More grim were the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, on and around the Mississippi, beautifully sketched by writer Mark Twain to become one of the history’s best accounts yet on this era of the South long gone. But the river itself is still there – silent, luring, and very beautiful to look at from above.