2ot> EGYPTIAN 



Levelling. When the gattas are flooded with water it 

 is at once apparent that the land is not absolutely level. 

 This has to be remedied. If any land shows above the 

 water it will not sw-eeten, for it is only by getting the 

 \vater above the soil and allowing it to filter through that 

 the salt can be removed. Canal banks of fifteen years' 

 standing are, in the centre, as salt as when originally 

 made. Cultivation also demands perfect levelling. If a 

 gatta is ten centimetres lower in one part than in another 

 young rice would be swamped out and so would young 

 berseem. The greatest difference of level in a field of 

 either of those two crops must not exceed five centimetres. 

 As levelling must be done, the sooner it is taken in hand 

 the better, for high land does not wash. When ultimately 

 it is levelled down to the lower parts, such soil, being- 

 lightly deposited, washes very quickly but the part which 

 has been laid bare exposes crude unaerated soil and crops 

 on that will be inferior for several seasons. In one case, 

 where a metre depth of old cultivated soil was removed 

 to fill up a hollow, the crops on the bared land w^ere 

 inferior for five years. This had nothing to do with salt 

 but was purely a question of crude unaerated soil. 



If the inequality of surface does not exceed ten centi- 

 metres the levelling is done with the lowatah, (Fig. 30) a 

 board four metres long by thirty centimetres deep with a 

 strip of iron along its lower edge, and held upright by a 

 handle. It is dragged over the flooded surface and the 

 board pushes the accumulated earth or mud before it till 

 a depression is reached, where the load can be gradually 

 distributed by slightly raising the InKird. When the 



