380 THE IRRIGA TIOX A GE. 



unsurmountable obstacle to their general introduction, without having 

 at least skilled agents on the spot. If a part of his apparatus breaks 

 down, a little screw or spring is lost or missing from whom may he 

 take advice? And even supposing him to repair to town, to whom 

 must he apply, of whom ask the piece without which his machine would be 

 a dead weight? There is one fact not to be sufficiently insisted upon, 

 and which American houses would do well to consider with much at- 

 tention, that for the firms who wish to pioneer the irrigation age in 

 this country, it is a matter of prime importance to have experienced 

 capable agents on the spot, men who know their machines and have at 

 their command all the necessary parts to replace and make good any 

 accidents; for such firms it is no exaggeration to say that fortunes are 

 in reserve for them. For in a country like this and especially con- 

 sidering the class of people with whom we have to deal the farm la- 

 borer and the peasant persons who, as every where else in the uni- 

 verse, think twice before acting, wary and doubtful of all innovations, 

 who never invest a cent before being perfectly convinced that their 

 outlay is not thrown away, they do not require newspaper advertise- 

 ments nor gaudily colored placards but palpable proofs, machines on 

 the spot, with able representatives of the makers to introduce them 

 and explain their advantages as well as their simplicity of mechanism. 



No, till now the laborer resolutely sets his face against compli- 

 cated contrivances which are beyond his capacity to understand, and 

 rests in the depths of apathy, seeing his grounds a black burnt patch 

 in summer, a feeble producer in winter and spring; never secure, for 

 a long drought or a sustained heat may rob, him of his promised crops 

 and leave him in most precarious circumstances. He is withal con- 

 tent to live as did his fathers before him, receiving with gratitude the 

 gifts of providence when plentiful, suffering with uncomplaining res- 

 ignation when the fruits of the earth are too scanty to meet his wants. 

 Had the movement for progress been left to the initiative of the 

 peasant and tiller, things might so have remained till doomsday. 



About three years ago His Excellency Raif Pasha, who had 

 recently taken over the government of this province, determined that 

 an effort should be made to rescue these vast semi-arid regions from 

 the grip of unproductive and sterile neglect. Throughout the who,le 

 of the district he saw that water was, and freely, found. It was then 

 not the water itself which was wanting, but rather the means of em- 

 ploying it in a manner as economical as simple and at the same time 

 efficient, for it is a matter of strict necessity to the farmer and culti- 

 vator, in a country where food supplies cost very little, that they 

 should not exact too large investments for irrigation of the soil. 



From the dawn of human ingenuity, for centuries unnumbered, 

 wooden water-wheels of fearful form and cumbrous weight, huge 

 monsters which gave grudgingly, were used along the river banks, 

 requiring high dams and constant repairs, much attention for meagre 



