2 THE WATER HARVEST. 



■what the crops and the budget of the next year 

 would be. Gay barges with painted sails conveyed 

 the merry husbandmen from village to village, and 

 from fair to fair. It was then that they had their 

 bull fights, their boat tournaments, their wrestling 

 matches, their bouts at single-stick and other athletic 

 sports. It was then that the thimble-riggers and jack- 

 puddings, the blind harpers and nigger minstrels from 

 Central Africa amused the holiday-hearted crowd. 

 It was then that the old people sat over draughts 

 and dice-box in the cosy shade, while the boys played 

 at mora, or pitch and toss, and the girls at a game of 

 ball, with forfeits for the one who missed a catch. It 

 was then that the house-father bought new dolls for 

 the children, and amulets, or gold ear-rings, or neck- 

 laces of porcelain bugles for the wife. It was then 

 that the market stalls abounded with joints of 

 beef and venison, and with geese hanging down in 

 long rows, and with chickens hatched by thousands 

 under heaps of dung. Salted quails, smoked fish, 

 date sweetmeats, doora cakes and cheese ; leeks, garlic, 

 cucumber and onions ; lotus seeds mashed in milk, 

 roasted stalks of papyrus, jars of barley beer and palm 

 wine, with many other kinds of food were sold in 

 unusual plenty at that festive time. 



It was then also that the white robed priests, bear- 

 ing the image of a god, and singing hymns, marched 

 with solemn procession to the water side, and cast in 

 a sacrifice of gold. For the water which had thus 

 risen was their life. Egypt is by nature a rainless 

 desert, which the Nile, and the Nile only, converts 

 into a garden every year. 



Far far away in the distant regions of the south, in 

 the deep heart of Africa, lie two inland seas. These 



