152 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



and summer-palaces, iron-foundries and cotton-mills, calico 

 printing establishments and arsenals, that we might as well 

 think of botanizing on the Thames near London. 



Perhaps it requires a great deal of learning as to the con- 

 struction of the Pyramids to wonder at them as we ought, 

 but we cannot help thinking that in any other landscape 

 their hard outline would be unendurable; and, as far as 

 usefulness is concerned, that triumph of modern engineering 

 called the ' ' barrage/' is far more to be admired, by which 

 the Nile is dammed up near the head of the Delta, and 

 carried three canals in three different directions, so as to 

 render a larger proportion of land capable of cultivation. 



We are doing very little all this time in the botanical de- 

 partment, and are likely to do still less on our journey across 

 the desert to Suez ; for not only is the method of travelling 

 either swinging along on a camel, or being shaken to 

 pieces on a dromedary highly unfavourable to such pur- 

 suits, but the almost entire absence of vegetation makes our 

 idleness a necessity. The only plant we see is now and 

 then a graceful Tamarisk, which we look at with additional 

 interest when we remember that it was " a familiar object 

 to the children of Israel" in their journeyings, growing as 

 it also does on " the desolate coast of the Eed Sea, and in 

 the wilderness of Sinai." 



