360 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. 



sefi and nili lands. The latter, as indicated by the name itself, comprise all thoso 

 tracts that would be flooded by the annual inundation but for the retaining dykes, 

 as well as those reached through infiltration by the deep waters derived either from 

 the main stream or from natural or artificial channels excavated at a slight depth 

 below the surface of the ground. The lowest dykes derive their waters at a depth 

 of about 13 feet below the cultivated lands, and are flushed only during the 

 period of the inundations, remaining dry for the rest of the year. During the last 

 century the whole of Egypt was watered exclusively by means of basins disposed 

 at different elevations along both banks of the river, and receiving their supplies 

 through the nili canals, and over three-fourths of the cultivated tracts in Upper 

 Egypt are subject to the same method of irrigation. 



The sefi, that is, " summer " canals, all of recent origin, are excavated below 

 the mean low- water level from 26 to 30 feet below the surface, so that they are 

 reached by the stream even at the very height of the dry season. In Upper Egypt 

 they are disposed parallel with the river and at a very slight incline, so as to bring 

 them at once to the level of the lands to be irrigated. But in Lower Egypt, from 

 which the system of irrigating basins has entirely disappeared, the sefi canals 

 remain everywhere at a lower level than the fields, to which the water must be 

 raised by means of steam-engines, sakiehs, or shadufs. One of these sefi canals is 

 the famous Mahmudieh channel, which derives its water from the Nile in order to 

 irrigate the tracts skirting the desert as far as the city of Alexandria, and which 

 serves at the same time as a great navigable highway. But having become partly 

 choked by the mud, it is no longer deep enough to admit a regular current, hence 

 has to be partly filled by means of steam-engines established at Atfeh, on the 

 Rosetta branch of the Nile. The Damietta branch also feeds numerous summer 

 canals, thanks to its relatively high elevation above the plains of the delta. 



The sefi system was first introduced under Mohammed Ali, when the cultivation 

 of Jumel cotton was begun. By this method are still almost exclusively raised the 

 larger and more important crops, such as sesame, sugar, and cotton, which are thus 

 watered for three months continuously before the period of the ordinary inundation. 

 So it happens that the small holdings have no share in the benefits reserved for the 

 large estates irrigated during the period of low water. The high State functionaries 

 and rich money-lenders alone derive any advantage from growing these larger 

 industrial crops. Yet they are not the only contributors to the maintenance of 

 the works, the cost of which is enormous, owing to the mud constantly acciraiu- 

 lating in the ditches and gradually filling them up in many places. A single year 

 would suflice to convert a sefi canal into a simple nili channel but for the numerous 

 gangs of fellahin employed for weeks and months together on the work of 

 excavation. The sefi canals taken collectively represent a quantity of deposits 

 about half as much again as that of the Suez Canal, and every year the amount of 

 mud and earth required to be again displaced to keep open the dykes is not less 

 than one-third of the original deposits. 



