March 7, 1895J 



NATURE 



447 



of desert it had become very much filled up wiih sand. The 

 Eastern canal was dug some five miles, and then stopped. Of 

 course the lUrrage without these canals was useless. However, 

 they began to experiment with it, closing the gates on the Rosetta 

 side. It was intended to liold up 4i metres, or 14 feet 9 inches 

 of water. It never held up 5 feet, till in 1867, it cracked across 

 from top to bottom, on the Western side. An immense coflfer- 

 ilam was built round the cracked portion, and the water was 

 never held up again more than about 3i feet, while the work was 

 looked on as a deplorable failure. In 18S3, all hope of making 

 anything out of the liarrage was abandoned, and the Government 

 were on the point of concluding a contract with a company to 

 supply LoA'er Egypt with irrigation by means of an immense 

 system o( steam pumps, to cost ^^700,000 to begin with, and 

 .^250,000 a year afterwards. 



That year there was a wretched serf army of 85,000 men 

 working at canal clearances for 160 days, unfed, unpaid. The 

 burden was nearly intolerable. The irrigation was all by fits 

 and starts. There was no drainage ; every hollow became sour 

 and water-logged. With waterways everywhere, there was no 

 navigation. In Upper Egypt things were better, as the system 

 was a simpler one. But when we came to look into them too, we 

 found great abuse, and on an average about 40,000 acres never 

 succeeded in obtaining water, though in the midst of abundance. 



The Fayum had long been a much-neglected province, 

 though a most picturesque and attractive one. Frnm carelessly 

 allowing Nile water to How into the lake during the floods, it 

 had risen enough to swamp 10,000 acres of valuable land, and 

 this mischief we found still increasing. 



Throughout the whole country drainage had been absolutely 

 neglected. And here I would point out that irrigation without 

 •drainage means the sure deterioration of the land sooner or 

 later. Considerable pains had been taken in Egypt to get the 

 water on to the land. No sr)rt of efifort had been made to get it 

 off. In a properly irrigated tract, between every two canals of 

 t^upply, there should flow a drainage channel ; the former 

 should follow as far as possible the highest lands, the latter 

 should follow the lowest. The canal gets smaller, till at last 

 it is exhausted, giving itself out in innumerable branches. The 

 drain, like a river, gets larger as it proceeds, being constantly 

 joined by branches. But if there be no drains, and if the canals 

 are laid out to flow into one another, so as to divide the country 

 into, as it were, a cluster of islands, you can understand how 

 the drainage water has no means of flowing off" into the sea, 

 and settles in unwholesome swamps. These we found prevail- 

 ing to an alarming extent in the rich provinces of the delta. 

 Such was the wretched state of Egyptian agriculture — the one 

 single source of the country's wealth — when Lord Dufferin laid 

 down the lines of the Entjiish administration, which have been 

 amplified and pursued ever since. 



It was in May, 18S3, that I took charge of the irrigation 

 department in Egypt, having before then had some twenty 

 years' experience of similar work in India ; and I soon had the 

 inestimable advantage of being joined by a band of the most 

 indefatigable, energetic and able engineers, also from India, 

 with whom it was my great privilege and happiness to be 

 associated for the next nine years. I cannot talk too highly of 

 these my colleagues — men who knew their work and did it, who 

 kept constantly moving about in the provinces, badly lodged, 

 badly fed, denied domestic comforts, constantly absent from 

 their wives and families (they were all married men). 



My friends, happy is the reformer who finds things so bad 

 that he cannot make a movement without making an improve- 

 ment. Happy the reformer who has as colleagues a stafl^ of 

 thoroughly loyal, duty-doing and cipable men. Happy the 

 reformer who is not ]iestered on all sides by the oflicious advice 

 of the ignorant. H.ippy the reformer who has behind him a 

 strong fjrave chief, as honest and truthful as he is strong. Such 

 rare happiness fell to me in Egypt with my noble colleagues, 

 and with Lord Cromer as our chief. 



It is not my intention to enter into any details to-night of what 

 our work was in Egypt. I have lately spoken about that else- 

 where, and there would be no time to do so now. I must just 

 describe it generally. 



On first arrival, I was pressed, both by English and French 

 men, to gi inio the question of the storage of the flood waters 

 ot the river on a large scale. I declined to do so, consider- 

 ing it would be time enough to think of increasing the quantity 

 of water at our disposal when we had profitably used all that 

 we already had, and while mighty volumes were daily flowing 



NO. 1323, VOL. 51] 



out to the sea, it could not be said that we were doing that. 

 The first great work to be studied was the Barrage. We were 

 warned on all sides to have nothing to say to it, as it was 

 thoroughly unsound ; but we felt sure we must either make it 

 sound or build an entirely new one, and we resolved on the 

 former. The work had failed because it was faulty in design, 

 the floorings and foundations not being sufficiently mas>ive, 

 and faulty in execution from the dishonest use of bad materials 

 and from bad woikmanship. The bed of the river consists of 

 nothing more stable than sand and alluvial mud for at least 

 200 feet deep. It was out of the question to think of getting 

 down to solid rock. It was not, as we thought, very safe to 

 excavate very deeply close to the existing works, so we decided 

 not to try it, but merely to strengthen and consolidate the 

 foundations, built as they were on sand. I have said that the 

 work consisted of two great bridges over the two branches of 

 the river. We could not shut up either branch entirely ; but 

 we decided to strengthen and complete one-half of each bridge 

 each season, which meant four seasons' work. While the river 

 was still in considerable flood each November, we began to 

 throw out great embankments of earth about 200 feet from the 

 bridge; one up stream, the other down-stream of it, beginning 

 at the shore end, and ultimately enclosing one half of the river 

 as in a pond. This used to take three months' hard work. Then 

 we pumped the water out of this enclosure, and laid bare the 

 very bed of the river. Then we laid a massive stone flooring, 

 5.\ feet thick, extending 100 feet up-stream, and as much 

 down-stream, of the bridge. This was very difficult and hard 

 work, it was kept going day and night, without intermission, 

 from March till the end of June. Then we cut great holes in 

 our embankments, cleared out our machinery, and prepared 

 for the arrival of the flood at the beginning of July. Each 

 year one-half of one bridge was finished, and the whole was 

 completed at the end of June 1S90. 



In connection with the Barrage were completed the three 

 great canals to carry off all the river supply from above it. So 

 that practically now the Low Nile is emptied every season at 

 the Barrage and diverted into these canals, and no water at all 

 escapes to the sea. The natives wade everywhere across the 

 river north of this point. Since it was completed the Barrage 

 has given no trouble. It holds up every year 4 metres, or 

 13 feet of water. The three trunk canals were all supplied 

 with locks 160 feet by 28 feet, and adapted for navigation. The 

 whole of these works cost about ;^8oo,ooo. The annual in- 

 crease of the cotton crop, compared to what it was before 1S84, 

 is never less than two and a half millions sterling, which has not 

 been a bad investment for Egypt. 



Turning to Upper Egypt, my colleague. Colonel Ross, 

 directed his attention very closely to the adjustment of canals 

 overlapping one another, passing under and p.assing over one 

 another ; so tnat in future I trust that with the feeblest Nile 

 flood it will be possible to pour water over every acre of the 

 land. 



The question of drainage was very thoroughly taken up. 

 Twelve years ago it may be said that there were no drainage 

 channels in Egypt. Two years ago there were about 1000 

 miles of such channels, some with beds .as wide as 60 feet and 

 flowing deep enough to carry cargo boats, others with beds 

 only 3 or 4 feet wide. I am glad to say by these means large 

 tracts in Lower Egypt which had been abandoned as totally 

 ruined have now been restored to cultivation. The level of the 

 lake in the Fayum was reduced by 13 feet between 1885 arid 

 1893, ^"fl maA of the inundated lands around it have been again 

 dried. 



I have already mentioned the cruel hardship of the corvee, 

 the serf army of 85,000 men who were employed in the canal 

 clearances from January to July, nearly half the year. I believe 

 this institution was as old as the Pharaohs, and it was not easy 

 to abolish it. Hut of course it went sorely against our British 

 grain. Little by little we got money to enable us to p.ay 

 our labour. By an annual outlay of ;f400,ooo this spring 

 corvee has entirely ceased since 18S9, and now the Egyptian 

 labourer carries out these clearances in as free a manner as his 

 brother in Middlesex, and gets paid for his work. 



Having thus, to the be>t ot our powers, utilised the water in 

 the river flowing past us, we turned our attention to thestot.age 

 of the surplus waters. Withiout some such storage it is impos- 

 sible to increase the cultivation during the Low Nile. All the 

 water is used up. During High Nile there is always a grea 

 vole me escaping useless to the sea. 



