74 GODFREY SYKES 



and barriers, and the watching and guarding of the banks of the 

 river during the periods of high water, have all to be attended to 

 in addition to actually bringing the water on to the land. Under 

 a despotism this means forced labor, and so it has always befallen 

 along the Nile. The peasantry were drafted by the ruler for the 

 time being, to build, to dig or to watch, and so the greater works 

 were rendered possible. 



Modern sentiment however, is against such a practice and under 

 the present regime the "corvee''^ has been abolished and the upkeep 

 of all necessary structures by means of hired labor, made a charge 

 upon the national exchequer. 



The modern engineering works inaugurated and carried to com- 

 pletion under British rule have been planned as parts of one 

 comprehensive scheme for the conservation, control and perennial 

 use of the Nile water, and this scheme embodies four major 

 projects in different parts of the valley. These comprise firstly 

 the great Asuan dam, which is primarily for the purpose of form- 

 ing a storage reservoir. The barrages of Esna and Asiut, which 

 were designed mainly to raise the water level during years of low 

 Nile sufficiently high to fill the canals and insure adequate flood- 

 ings of the basins, and lastly the great double barrage across the 

 heads of the Damietta and Rosetta mouths, which controls the 

 flow of water over the delta. Several great canals such as the 

 Ibrahimiyah, the Suhakiyah, the Bahr Yusuf, and the Girga, are 

 also incorporated in the system and supply water to different por- 

 tions of the valley, and provide for the domestic needs of the scat- 

 tered farming communities. A land of irrigation and intensive 

 cultivation must always tend to become a land of ^-illages, and so 

 it has been in Egypt. The mass of the population has always 

 dwelt in the fields in spite of such adventitious local attractions 

 as the great centers of river commerce or royal and ecclesiastical 

 magnificence which have existed from time to time along the 

 banks of the Nile. 



The typical \'illage of the fellahin is built upon a small mound, 

 the remains of numberless former villages upon the same site. It 

 is thus raised well above the level of the waters during the season 

 of flood. The component parts of such a village are dried mud, 



