Book L AGRICULTURE OF ANTIQUITY. 7 



of it, lower it into the Nile, and then swing it between them, till it acquires a velocity 

 sufficient to enable them to throw the water over a bank into a canal. They work stark 

 naked, or, if in summer, only with a slight blue cotton shirt or belt." (Clarke's Travels.) 

 12. .Of these immense embankments, some of which served to keep in the river, and 

 others to oppose the torrents of sand which occasionally were blown from the Great De ert, 

 and which threatened to cover the country as effectually as the waters of the Nile, the 

 ruins still remain. But, in spite of these remains, the sand is accumulating, and the 

 limits of cultivated Egypt have been annually decreasing for the last 1200 years ; the 

 barbarous nations, to which the banks of the Nile have been subject during this period, 

 having paid no attention to cultivation, or to the preservation of these noble works of 

 antiquity. 



13. Landed property, in ancient Egypt, it would appear, was the absolute right of the 

 owners, till by the procurement of Joseph, in the eighteenth century B.C., the paramount 

 or allodial property of the whole was transferred to the government. The king, however, 

 made no other use' of that right, than to place the former occupiers in the situation of 

 tenants in capita ; bound to pay a rent or land-tax of one fifth of the produce. This, 

 Moses says, continued to be the law of Egypt down to his time ; and the same thing is 

 confirmed by the testimony of Herodotus and Strabo. 



14. The soil of Egypt is compared by Pliny to that of the Leon tines, formerly regarded 

 as the most fertile in Sicily. There, he says, corn yields a hundred for one ; but Cicero, 

 as Gouguet observes, has proved this to be an exaggeration, and that the ordinary increase 

 in that part of Sicily is eight for one. Granger (ltelat. du Voy. fait, en Egypte, 1730.), 

 who paid much attention to this subject, says that the lands nearest to the Nile, which 

 during the inundation were covered with water forty days, did not, in the most favourable 

 seasons, yield more than ten for one ; and that those lands which the water covered only 

 five days', seldom gave more than four for one. This, however, is probably owing to 

 their present neglected state. 



15. Of the animal or vegetable products of Egyptian agriculture very little is known. 

 The ox seems to have been the chief animal of labour from the earliest period ; and rice 

 at all times the principal grain in cultivation. By a painting 

 discovered in the ancient Elethia (Jig. 6.), it would appear that 

 the operation of reaping was performed much in the same way 

 as at present, the ears being cropped by a hook, and the prin- 

 cipal part of the straw left as stubble. Herodotus mentions 

 that, in his time, wheat was not cultivated, and that the bread 

 made from it was despised, and reckoned not fit to be eaten ; 

 beans were also held in abhorrence by the ancient inhabitants : 

 but it is highly probable, that in latter times, when they began 

 to have commerce with other nations, they laid aside these and 

 other prejudices, and cultivated what they found best suited to 

 the foreign market. 



16. Agriculture was, no doubt, the chief occupation of the Egyptians : and though they 

 are said to have held the profession of shepherd in abhorrence, yet it appears that Pharaoh 

 not onlv had considerable flocks and herds in his own possession, but was desirous of 

 introducing any improvement which might be made in their management ; for when Jacob, 

 in answer to his questions, told him that he and his family had been brought up to the 

 care of live stock from their youth, he expressed a wish to Joseph to have a Jewish 

 bailiff for the superintendence of his grazing farm : " If thou knowest any men of activity 

 among them, then make them rulers over my cattle." (Gen., xlvii. 6.) 



Sect. II. Of the Agriculture of the Jews, and oilier Nations of Antiquity. 



17. Of the agriculture of the nations contemporary with the Egyptians and Greeks nothing 

 is distinctly known ; but, assuming it as most probable that agriculture was first brought 

 into notice in Egypt, it may be concluded that most other countries, as well as Greece, 

 would begin by imitating the practices of that country. 



18. On the agriculture of the Jews, we find there are various incidental remarks in the 

 books of the Old Testament. On the conquest of Canaan, it appears that the different 

 tribes had their territory assigned them by lot ; that it was equally divided among the 

 heads of families, and by them and their posterity held by absolute right and impartial 

 succession. Thus every family had originally the same extent of territory ; but, as it 

 became customary afterwards to borrow money on its security, and as some families 

 became indolent and were obliged to sell, and others extinct by death without issue, 

 landed estates soon varied in point of extent. In the time of Nehemiah a famine 

 occurred, on which account many had " mortgaged their lands, their vineyards, and 

 houses, that they might buy corn for their sons and daughters ; and to enable them to 

 pay the king's tribute." (Xchcm., v. 2.) Some were unable to redeem their lands other- 

 wise than by selling tin ir children as slaves, and thereby " bringing the sens and daugh- 



B 4 



