lERIGATION— INDUSTRIES. 439 



Irrigation. 



For the future of Egyptian agriculture the most important question is that 

 connected with the efficient irrigation of the land. It is naturally felt by many 

 economists that the Nile waters, which might be so largely utilised in converting 

 desert spaces into arable tracts, should no longer be allowed to run waste in the 

 Mediterranean. Since the beginning of the present century much has been done 

 to attain this result. The network of canals has been extended in all directions ; 

 the so-called " nili " channels, formerly flooded from the main stream only during 

 the periodical inundations, have been transformed to " sefi " canals, which dispense 

 the fecundating fluid uninterruptedly throughout the whole year ; the primitive 

 and somewhat rude methods of drawing water have been supplemented, if not 

 altogether replaced, by powerful steam-engines, by which the irrigating streams 

 are raised to a higher level.* 



The works carried out at the Sadieh barrage have unfortunately not proved 

 entirely satisfactory, and some alarm has even been caused by the suggestion of 

 further operations intended to retain the waters above the Silsileh gorge. If 

 executed such an undertaking might, it is feared, utterly ruin the cultivated tracts 

 situated in higher reaches between that point and the neighbourhood of Assuan. 

 The fertilising alluvia now carried down to the plains of the delta might also be 

 arrested above the gorge, while the waters lodged in the derived canals might 

 become gradually more brackish, as has, in fact, already happened in the lateral 

 branches of the Ramadi and Ibrahimieh districts, where some formerly productive 

 lands have had to be abandoned in consequence of the increased salinity of the 

 irrigating streams. For the same reason the sugar plantations of Upper Egypt 

 and the Fayum are no longer cultivated, it being found impossible to get rid of the 

 salt with which they have become superabundantly charged. 



Industries. 



In the agricultural districts we frequently see the ancient methods of tillage 

 handed down from the time of the Pharaohs still practised without modification 

 side by side with the modern processes introduced from Western Europe. In the 

 same way, by the side of the industrial methods inherited from the ancient 

 Egyptians and maintained in the spirit of routine resulting from long *usage, 

 the native industries also present processes of more recent date introduced by the 

 Arab and Syrian conquerors of the land. Many factories on a large scale have 

 also in still more recent times been established and conducted by European 

 capitalists and engineers. 



The contrast is thus everywhere presented between an Egypt of the Pharaohs, 



* Nili Canals in 1880 8,000 miles. 



Sefi „ ,, 2,000 „ 



Steam Pumps in 1880 500 



Sakiehs in ISSO 30,000 



iShadufs „ 70,000 



