AND LOWER EG7PT. 25 



covered with rags, and animatingbimself with sing- 

 ing mournful and rustic songs, passes whole days 

 in moving one of these levers, and in pouring the 

 water into troughs or furrows, which convey it to 

 the plantations. Very often, four or five of these 

 machines are necessary, among which there are 

 some double, that is, the same cross-bar supports 

 two levers, in order to raise the water to the level 

 of the ground to be watered. The eastern shore 

 is elevated and perpendicular ; the western has an 

 imperceptible declivity; but it requires still greater 

 labours, on account of the necessary length of the 

 water-conduits, in order to diffuse the water to ad- 

 vantage. 



The clumsiness of these hydraulic inventions, 

 the nakedness of the misery, which renders hideous 

 those unindustrious and half-savage creatures who 

 employ them; habitations, the walls of which, 

 hardly raised above the ground, are built with no 

 other materials than mud, are objects which in- 

 spire disgust and melancholy, when on looking 

 back in imagination to former times, we compare 

 the ancient situation of the very same country with 

 that which disgraces it in the present day. 



Two numerous flights of wild ducks made their 

 appearance in the course of this day; and on the 

 shore, white herons, goelands, and wild geese, 



were 



