AND LOWER EGYPT. 223 



It is alleged that to this operation is to be ascribed 

 the multitude of gnats * with which the city and 

 the interior of the houses were at that season filled. 

 In truth, there are not such swarms of them at 

 other times. After the rice is reaped, they issue in 

 crowds innumerable from the inundated fields in 

 which the preceding generation had deposited 

 their eggs. They come to torment men ; and to 

 suck their blood, to dart stings more pungent 

 than those of the musquitos, so well known, of 

 South America -j-. 



Rice is sown, in Lower Egypt, from the month 

 of March till May. During the inundation of the 

 Nile, the fields are covered by its waters ; and, in 

 order to retain them as long as possible, they raise 

 around each field little dikes, a kind of mound to 

 prevent their running off. Aqueducts serve to 

 supply them with additional moisture; for it is 

 necessary to the plant's thriving, that the root be 

 constantly soaked in water. The earth is so com- 

 pletely drenched with this process, that in some 

 places you sink into it up to the middle. Rice is 

 about six months in the ground before it attains 

 full maturity; and is generally cut down about the 

 middle of November. The use of the flail is not 



* Culex antennis pilis vertici/afis ; rosiro cinerto, apice nigro, 

 crassiuiculo ; dorso fusco, fasciis sex pal/u/is. Formal, Descrip. 

 Animal. Oriental. 



■f- Culex hcemorrhoidalii. Lin. 



known 



