58 jrOTT" / KILLED THE TIG Kit. 



water-courses are led in the manner noticed in 

 Proverbs xxi. i, where it is said : " The King's 

 heart is in the hand of the Lord : as the rivers 

 of water (rather as a water- course) He turneth it 

 whithersoever He will," an allusion to the practice 

 of the eastern farmer in irrigating his fields, 

 turning it with his foot or hand in all directions, 

 so that every part of the field may be watered, 

 and a good crop insured. Noah's descendants in 

 the line of Ham, who took possession of Egypt, 

 applied themselves to the tilling of the ground, 

 and with so much ingenuity, industry, and success, 

 that, owing to the inundations of the Nile, and 

 the consequent fertility of the soil, Egypt was 

 enabled in the time of Abraham, and still more 

 so in the time of Joseph, to supply its neigh- 

 bours with corn during a period of famine. Nor 

 were the inhabitants backward in assisting the 

 liberality of Nature ; they busied themselves in 

 banking, irrigation, and draining, in order to 

 derive all the benefits which the benignant river 

 was capable of affording them. These works are 

 said to have been carried on with particular spirit 

 under the auspices of Sesostris, one thousand 

 eight hundred years before the Christian era. 

 So sensible were the Egyptians of the blessings 

 which agriculture afforded, that in the blindness 

 of their zeal they ascribed the invention of the 



