241 



dens and orchards; a practice in constant use in our garden at 

 Baroche, which generally employed three men and a boy eight hours 

 every day. This custom seems to illustrate a passage in scripture 

 respecting the gardens of Egypt, which were probably watered by 

 small streams, conducted from a reservoir filled at the annual 

 overflowing of the Nile. "The land whither thou goest to possess 

 it, is not as the land of Egypt; where thou sowedst thy seed, and 

 wateredst it with thy foot (or by an instrument worked by the foot) 

 as a garden of herbs; but it is a land of hills and valleys, and 

 drinketh water of the rain of heaven." Two under gardeners raise 

 the water from the well to the reservoir by a yoke of oxen, work- 

 ing on an inclined plane, extended according to the depth of the 

 well; the head man attended by a boy conducts it from thence, 

 by artificial channels, to each bed of herbs, and every favourite 

 flower. These little conduits being made in the mould, near the bor- 

 ders, require constant attention to remove obstructions, and give 

 a free circulation to the rill, which seldom exceeds a few inches in 

 breadth. This the gardeners sometimes do in a stooping posture with 

 their hands, oftener in an upright position with their feet, and by 

 practice become very expert. 



My favourite seat was under a tamarind tree, near the well 

 just mentioned; the adjoining shrubberies were generally enlivened 

 by squirrels, parrots, and bulbuls; vines and creeping plants were 

 trained to conceal two pillars of rude construction, that supported 

 the beam over the well, to which the large water bucket was sus- 

 pended: one of these I entirely covered with the lively ipomea, 



and every variety of clematis; the other I modernized a little in 

 vol. ir. 2 i 



