Darwin- Wallace Celebration. ] 15 



level of the means of subsistence ; and, were its power ten 

 times greater than it really is, it could do no more. 



The remains of ancient works, the vast lakes, canals, 

 and large conduits for water destined to keep the Nile 

 under control, serving as reservoirs to supply a dry year, 

 and as drains and outlets to prevent the superabundance 

 of water in wet years, sufficiently indicate to us that the 

 former inhabitants of Egypt by art and industry contrived 

 to fertilize a much greater quantity of land from the over- 

 flowings of their river, than is done at present ; and to 

 prevent, in some measure, the distresses which are now so 

 frequently experienced from a redundant or insufficient 

 inundation *. 



It is said of the governor Petronius, that, effecting by 

 art what was denied by nature, he caused abundance to 

 prevail in Egypt under disadvantages of such a deficient 

 inundation, as had always before been accompanied by 

 dearth f. A flood too great is as fatal to the husbandman 

 as one that is deficient; and the ancients had, in consequence, 

 drains and outlets to spread the superfluous waters over 

 the thirsty sands of Lybia, and render even the desert 

 habitable. These works are now all out of repair, and by 

 ill management often produce mischief instead of good. 

 The causes of this neglect, and consequently of the diminished 

 means of subsistence, are obviously to be traced to the 

 extreme ignorance and brutality of the government, and 

 the wretched state of the people. The Mamelukes, 'in 

 whom the principal power resides, think only of enriching 

 themselves, and employ for this purpose what appears to 

 them to be the simplest method, that of seizing wealth 

 wherever it may be found, of wresting it by violence from 

 the possessor, and of continually imposing new and arbitrary 

 contributions |. Their ignorance and brutality, and the 

 constant state of alarm in which they live, prevent them 

 from having any views of enriching the country, the better 

 to prepare it for their plunder. No public works therefore 

 are to be expected from the government, and no individual 

 proprietor dares to undertake any improvement which might 

 imply the possession of capital, as it would probably be the 

 immediate signal of his destruction. Under such circum- 

 stances we cannot be surprised that the ancient works 



* Bruce, vol. iii. c. xvii. p. 710. 



t Voyage de Volney, torn. i. c. iii. p. 33, 8vo. 



J Voyage de Volney, torn. i. c. xii. p. 170. 



