96 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XI. 



herds in sheds accords with the scriptural account 

 of the preservation of the cattle, which had been 

 ** brought home " from the field ; and explains the 

 apparent contradiction of the destruction of ''^ all 

 the cattle of Egypt " by the murrain, and the 

 subsequent destruction of the cattle by the hail*; 

 those which *' were in the field " alone having suf- 

 fered from the previous plague, and those in the 

 stalls or ''houses" having been preserved. 



An instance of stall-fed oxen from the sculptures 

 has been given in my account of the farmyard t 

 and villas of the Egyptians. 



The first crop of wiieat having been gatliered, 

 they prepared the land for whatever produce they 

 next intended to rear ; the field was ploughed, and 

 sowed, and, if necessary, the whole was inundated 

 by artificial means, as often as the quality of the 

 crop or other circumstances required, t The same 

 was repeated after the second and third harvest, 

 for which, as I have already observed, the peasant 

 was indebted to his own labours in raisino; water 

 from the Nile, — an arduous task, and one from 

 which no showers relieved him throughout the 

 whole season. For in Upper Egypt rain may be 

 said never to fall, five or six slight show ers, that 

 annually fill there, scarcely deserving that name ; 

 and in no country is artificial irrigation so indis- 

 pensable, as in the valley of the Nile. 



In many instances, instead of corn they reared 



* Exod. ix. 6. and 19. et seq. f Vol. II. p. 134. 



J Pliny says, " In ^gypto omni serunt mense, et ubicunque inibres 

 aestivinoii sunt, ut in India et ^Ethiopia." Lib. xvii. 18. 



