514 THE INUNDATIONS OF THE NILE. 



To raise the water to the surface, very often from 

 three to four or even five separate lifts must be made 

 in this way, by different parties of men, each " Shdduf" 

 being worked by one, or sometimes by two men, 

 standing on platforms one above the other a man 

 being able thus to throw up water to a height of 

 about eight feet. The water then runs along a gutter 

 and is distributed over the garden by a series of 

 furrows, which are opened and closed as occasion 

 requires. The process is however a very laborious 

 one and were it not for the inundations and the 

 fertilizing mud which they bring down to manure the 

 ground, Egypt would quickly relapse to its original 

 condition of a desert. 



The peculiarity of the inundation of the Nile is, that 

 it comes about without a drop of rain having fallen 

 perhaps for months previously, and under a cloudless 

 sky of the deepest azure; the river is at its lowest, 

 when without any apparent cause, it suddenly begins 

 to rise. This event which is of such vast importance 

 to the welfare of Egypt, has from the earliest times 

 been waited and watched for with intense anxiety by 

 the whole population. Its progress may be described 

 somewhat as follows: 



The river generally begins to rise in April, on the 

 Blue Nile, owing to the rains which are then pouring 

 in the equatorial regions, where they are drained by 

 the great lakes; and in May the rise of the river reaches 

 the forks of the Nile at Khartum. The monsoonal 

 rains in their progress northwards begin here in June, 

 when the White Nile also commences to rise; and 

 judging from Sir Samuel Baker's account the Arabs 

 seem to expect the coming of the Atbara (the third 



