AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN HOMES. 49 



with mud, which it deposits everywhere to the average depth of 

 a twentieth part of an inch every year, sufficient to enrich the 

 soil abundantly. The water is let into canals prepared for that 

 purpose, and when the canal is full at high water, the opening 

 into the river is closed, and the water is retained for future use. 

 Every depression into which the water settles is surrounded* 

 with mud walls, making a pond for the precious fluid when the 

 deluge runs off or is soaked into the ground. These immense 

 reservoirs of water are made to last through all the season. 

 The great business of the Egyptian farmer is to coax the water 

 of the river on to his land, and to make a pond of water near at 

 hand for future use. As soon as the water is sufficiently sub- 

 sided and dried, the land is ploughed with a rude plough of the 

 same pattern as that used in the time of Moses. The seed is 

 sown, and then the chief labor is to keep the field sufficiently 

 irrigated. The skill, patience and labor displayed in this rude 

 industry are most interesting to behold. The result is the most 

 abundant harvests — three in succession, in a year, from the same 

 spot of land, of wheat, beans, barley and cotton. Where the land 

 is overflowed and watered, it is the most fertile you can imagine ; 

 but a rod beyond where the water reaches, the desert begins ; 

 from a fertile, fruitful garden, you step at once to the dry, bar- 

 ren sand, as destitute of vegetation as the floor of this platform. 



The water is raised in buckets, by men, with the rudest ma- 

 chinery, and poured upon the upper level. Thousands are thus 

 employed. No manuring is needed, no ploughing and hoeing of 

 crops. To plant, to water, to reap, is the endless round of labor. 



One is often asked about the dwelling-houses of the Old World 

 as compared with the dwellings here. Of course they are very 

 different, and a comparison would be altogether in favor of our 

 own country, as far as comfort and convenience are concerned. I 

 do not speak of the elegant and costly palaces of the nobility ; I 

 speak of the dwellings of the great mass of the people. They 

 are built almost invariably of stone or brick, chiefly of stone, in 

 country as well as city. A wooden house one never sees, except 

 in Switzerland. The houses are old, very old, for the most 

 part ; they look old, and weather-stained and dingy. As con- 

 trasted with houses with us, the windows are very few and very 

 small. The floors and stair-cases are chiefly of stone, the roofs 

 are of slate, or eartlien tiles, or straw thatch. Very little wood 



