THE PLAINS CHANNEL OF THE NILE. 513 



Now and then, he has prevailed for a season " "but he has 

 once more been driven back, and Nilus has risen up again, 

 to do what we see him doing in the sculptures bind up 

 his water plants about the throne of Egypt." * 



The plains channel of the Nile is sunk to a consider- 

 able depth below the general level of the country, 

 throughout almost its entire course. For long distances, 

 in Nubia, the great river flows enclosed between high 

 walls of rock on either side, and the desert comes 

 up to the very edge of the banks; lower down how- 

 ever, during its course through Egypt, it winds 

 through alluvial flats, but is still almost always 

 bounded by high banks of earth, rising from 15 

 to 20 feet or more above the water during low 

 Nile. The whole way from the forks of the Nile at 

 Khartum the river flows, as we have said, through 

 what is practically a rainless region; until it reaches 

 the delta, when it enters the region of winter rains. 

 It is therefore evident that except by a heavy rise in 

 the river, or else by means of artificial irrigation, very 

 little of the plain can be irrigated. Irrigation is 

 effected first by engineering works, such as canals, 

 by which water is conveyed long distances from higher 

 levels to the surface of the land; some of these are 

 of very ancient date, going back according to Aristotle, 

 Pliny and Strabo, as far as the time of Amenemhat 

 III. (about B.C. 2300), and Sesostris, or Ramses the 

 Great (began to reign about B.C. 1333). Irrigation 

 is still however mainly carried on, probably as it was 

 then, by the " Sakiyeh" or waterwheel, worked by 

 oxen, and the still more primitive " Shdduf" or pole 

 and bucket, worked by manual labour of the peasantry. 



* Eastern Life, Past dr 8 Present, by Miss Harriet Martineau, 1847. 



VOL. II. 33 



