328 



NOETH-EAST AERICA. 



ducts of their own gardens, so that all their supplies have to be brought from 

 Egypt. However, the spirit of abnegation has nowadays little to do with the 

 peopling of these monasteries of the wilderness, most of their inmates being in fact 

 exiles condemned to a lingering death. 



No remains of ancient monuments are found in these solitudes, with perhaps 

 the single exception of the traces of a glass manufactory, which may be recognised 

 by the ruins of some brick furnaces and the fragments of scorise and vitrified 

 sands strewn about. Before the recent events, which have brought about the 

 British occupation of Egypt, it was proposed to survey the region west of the 

 Nile, for the purpose of ascertaining whether it might not be possible to construct 

 a canal from the main stream, or from the Bahr-Yusef to the Bahr-Belâ-mâ 

 depressions, and thus bring 500,000 acres under cultivation. 



General Features of the "Western Oases. 



The level of the oases does not present a regular slope from the frontiers of 

 Nubia to the Mediterranean seaboard. Cailliaud's barometric measurements had 

 already shown that the region of the depressions falls from the Dakhel oasis to 

 that of Farafreh, again rising towards that of Bakharieh, beyond which it sinks 

 in the Siwah district below the level of the sea. The operations executed by 

 Jordan in 1873 and 1874 with more care and with better instruments have con- 

 firmed this general conclusion, while slightly modifying the figures given by the 

 French explorer. There is now no longer any doubt that the palm-groves of 

 Siwah stand at a lower level than the Mediterranean, while the oasis of Araj would 

 appear to be even some 150 feet still lower.* 



Farther on the chain of oases, which was perhaps a marine inlet during a 

 former geological epoch, is continued south of the plateau of Cyrenaica through the 

 Faredgha, Jalo, and Aujila oases. The whole series seems to be also below the 

 level of the sea, a barrier of reefs and sand dunes alone preventing the marine 

 waters from penetrating into the depression. Its mean level seems to be about 

 100 feet below the Mediterranean. After having determined this geographical 

 fact engineers began to discuss the project of converting the whole of Cyrenaica 

 into a large island by introducing the sea into the region of the oases. In the 

 same way it has been proposed to create a vast " inland sea " farther west beyond 

 the Syrtes. 



The term oasis at once suggests the idea of an earthly Eden, diversified with 

 running waters and verdant plains. By the ancients, the Egyptian oases were 

 called " Isles of the Blest," as if a residence in these palm-groves in the midst of 



