THE 1RRLGA TIOX A GE. 381 



results. With what success'? In winter a heavy, sullen, groaning 

 revolution, turning at the will of the capricious currents, and at a 

 time when water, in the form of rain, is showered down, thus reduc- 

 ing their value as an irrigating machine in summer, when the heats 

 were come, the dried earth cracked and crying, they would stand 

 mockingly motionless in their sluggish currents, seeming to ridicule 

 the puny efforts of primitive man. 



Yet this, in its primordial state, was incomparably superior to the 

 systems used on lands where no running water was to be had. Here 

 the water had to be drawn by hand, or else a horse or an ox would be 

 harnessed to a rope and by its weight and the declivity of the ground 

 painfully draw up an insufficient supply of water, which seemed rather 

 to irritate than saturate the ground. Or the "garaffe,' the wooden 

 noria, that perpetual circle of a beast condemned to tread its round 

 from day to day rotten planks, rotten cords, loss of time, loss of 

 energy. This state of things might have boasted of its results in 

 times gone by, but it must abandon the field to the march of progress 

 and science. 



His Excellency first gave his consideration to the most urgent 

 wants: the lands which no streams water as they pass. 



Here new and modern appliances were called into requisition, the 

 air at least was at command, and must be utilized. And then a sudden 

 transformation seemed to break through the silent sleep of ages. On 

 all sides steel windmills rose towering in the horizon, new patent 

 waterlif ts replaced the old wooden ' 'norias, " chain and centrifugal 

 pumps were called to lend their aid to cultivate the lands. Simplicity 

 combined with efficiency began to call the farmer from his apathy 

 and dullness. It is now being proved that the farmer may become in 

 a great measure independent of the caprices of drought and heat. 

 And he is waking to a sense of the possibilities of his state. For the 

 rivers the bucket pumps, the steel water-wheels, the link belting 

 water- raisers, the wind power irrigating pumps are crowding to the 

 held, and ere long these erstwhile dreary stretches will be transformed 

 to smiling, fruitful gardens: the summer heat and winter drought will 

 both have lost their despotic power, and famine will no longer hover 

 in the air ready to attack and desolate the fairest, finest lands that 

 form the globe. 



It is principally to America, the home of giant progress and rapid 

 go-ahead, that His Excellency looks for aid to second his endeavors 

 for introducing on a large scale ameliorations for the most practical 

 means of irrigation with the simplest machinery and the least cost. 

 It is to America the Governor General calls for assistance by having 

 capable agents on the spot in the great undertaking of once again 

 converting the barren plains and desert lands of Northern Syria into 

 a smiling centre of blooming prosperity. 



RAGHIB RAIF. 



