450 IRRIGATION IN PALESTINE. 
sides. Pasture and meadow, indeed, may be irrigated even 
when the surface is both steep and irregular, as may be observed 
abundantly on the Swiss as well as on the Piedmontese slope of 
the Alps; but in dry climates, ploughland and gardens on hilly 
grounds require terracing, both for supporting the soil and for 
administering water by irrigation, and it should be remembered 
that terracing, of itself, even without special arrangements for 
controlling the distribution of water, prevents or at least checks 
the flow of rain-water, and gives it time to sink into the ground 
instead of running off over the surface. 
The summers in Egypt, in Syria, and in Asia Minor and even 
Rumelia, are almost rainless. In such climates, the necessity 
of irrigation is obvious, and the loss of the ancient means of 
furnishing it helps to explain the diminished fertility of most of 
the countries in question.* The surface of Palestine, for exam- 
ple, is composed, in a great measure, of rounded limestone hills, 
once, no doubt, covered with forests. These were partially re- 
moved before the Jewish conquest.t When the soil began to 
* In Egypt, evaporation and absorption by the earth are so rapid, that all 
annual crops require irrigation during the whole period of their growth. As 
fast as the water retires by the subsidence of the annual inundation, the seed 
issown upon the still moist, uncovered soil, and irrigation beginsat once. Upon 
the Nile, you hear the creaking of the water-wheels, and sometimes the move- 
ment of steam-pumps, through the whole night, while the poorer cultivators 
unceasingly ply the simple shadoof, or bucket-and-sweep, laboriously raising 
the water from trough to trough by as many as six or seven stages when the 
river islow. The bucket is of flexible leather, with a stiff rim, and is emp- 
tied into the trough, not by inverting it like a wooden bucket, but by putting 
the hand beneath and pushing the bottom up till the water all runs out over 
the brim, or, in other words, by turning the vessel inside out. 
The quantity of water thus withdrawn from the Nile is enormous. Most of 
this is evaporated directly from the surface or the superficial strata, but some 
moisture percolates down and oozes through the banks into the river again, 
while a larger quantity sinks till it joins the slow current of infiltration by 
which the Nile water pervades the earth of the valley to the distance, at some 
points, of not less than fifty miles. 
+ ‘‘ Forests,’’ ‘‘ woods,” and ‘‘ groves,” are frequently mentioned in the Old 
Testament as existing at particular places, and they are often referred to by 
way of illustration, as familiar objects. ‘‘ Wood” is twice spoken of asa 
material in the New Testament, but otherwise—at least according to Cruden— 
