ix.] IRRIGATION NECESSITATES DRAINAGE 289 



from one of Major Hanbury Brown's reports on 

 Egyptian Irrigation : 



" It has been ascertained that the blessing of 

 improved water supply which has resulted from the 

 barrage having been made to do its duty, has been 

 attended in some localities with the evils due to 

 infiltration and want of drains. The remedy, as pointed 

 out in last year's Report, is to remove the want of 

 drains by digging them, and to provide the means of 

 washing out the salt brought to the surface, by infiltra- 

 tion in the shape of a liberal supply of water, by 

 which the salt would be carried away in solution along 

 the drains, or be forced down below the surface of the soil 

 to a depth at which it would be harmless. The liberal 

 water supply is not to be obtained except by the con- 

 struction of a storage reservoir at Aswan or elsewhere." 

 It was the neglect of drainage, when irrigation 

 canals were introduced, that led to so widespread a 

 deterioration of land in Egypt. To quote from Lord 

 Milner's England in Egypt : 



" But perhaps the worst feature of all was the 

 neglect of drainage, which was steadily ruining large 

 tracts of country. Even where drains existed, they 

 were frequently used also as irrigation channels, than 

 which it is impossible to conceive a worse sin against 

 a sound principle of agriculture. In some cases these 

 channels would be flowing brimful for purposes of 

 irrigation, just when they should have been empty 

 to receive the drainage water. Elsewhere the salt- 

 impregnated drainage water was actually pumped back 

 upon the land. 



" It was the want of drainage which completed the 

 ruin of the Birriya, that broad belt of land which 

 occupies the northern and lowest portion of the Delta, 

 adjoining the great lakes. There are upwards of 



u 



