and Horticulture in Egypt. 647 



invaded and mastered the soil. In the neighbourhood of Abouzabel, in the 

 district of Essiout, and some other parts of Egypt, the desert has been van- 

 quished by cultivation. In fact, were there hands to plough, and water to 

 irrigate, it is not easy to calculate what an immense tract of territory might be 

 rescued from waste. Still, to counterbalance, as it were, the productive 

 powers of the soil, other difficulties peculiar to eastern regions present them- 

 selves in Egypt. 



" The Kliamsine, or hot Winds. — The hot winds of the desert often destroy 

 the hopes of the husbandman ; their intensity and duration become objects 

 to him of the greatest anxiety, for there are seasons in which the khamsine 

 (which takes its name from its ordinary duration of fifty days) dries up whole 

 districts, even after irrigation. Added to this, the prospect of large and pro- 

 ductive harvests is sometimes suddenly cut off by the visitations of Locusts, 

 which appear in clouds of myriads, destroying everything before them. I 

 have seen dense masses of this all-destroying plague, followed by multitudes 

 of hawks and other birds, filling the atmosphere for a vast space, and then 

 descending on the fields of corn, which they completely devastate, and then 

 wing their way to another spot, to be devastated in its turn," 



The Inundations qfthe Nile form a subject which surely cannot 

 be uninteresting to any gardener who has read his Bible. 



" All countries," Dr. Bowring observes, " are subjected more or less to the 

 action of the seasons on their agricultural productions, which are increased or 

 diminished according to the circumstances more or less favourable to seed- 

 time, growth, and harvest. But in Egypt one necessity absorbs all others ; 

 the sunshine to ripen, the fair weather for gathering the fruits of the earth, 

 may always be reckoned on, but, unless the inundations of the Nile irrigate 

 the lands, in vain through immense districts is the seed sown, in vain the 

 husbandman goes forth to harvest. The inundations are very various in their 

 character and consequences : when favourable to the upper regions, the}' are 

 excessive in the lower ; and when they suit the lower districts, they some- 

 times leave the higher country almost dry." 



We omit great part of the subject to notice the curious and 

 melancholy fact contained in the following sentence : — ■ 



" It may be doubted if the farmed land is less than it was a generation ago ; 

 in some districts it is undoubtedly greater; but the hands which cultivate are 

 diminished in number, and their efficiency has been considerably interfered 

 with by the habit of mutilation to which they have recourse as a means of 

 escaping the military life, to which the Egyptian Arabs have a singular re- 

 pugnance, not only from the dangers they are exposed to, but from that 

 passionate love of the valley of Egypt which is the universal characteristic 

 of the race." 



Cidtivation by Surface Irrigation is practised in all warm 

 countries, even in the South of France ; and perhaps the time 

 will arrive when the importance of watering, as an element of 

 high artificial culture, will be better understood in England than 

 it is at present. How we can think it reasonable to supply 

 every other element in our fields and gardens, and yet withhold 

 that which is the life and soul of growth in plants, is not easily 

 to be accounted for ; but this is not the time to enter on the 

 subject. Dr. Bowring informs us that there are in Lower 

 Egypt 50,000 water-wheels for cultivation by irrigation, each 



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