EGYPT. I5f 



spectacle is not very magnificent. When the banks are cut, the water 

 is led into what they call the khalige, or grand canal, which runs 

 through Cairo, from whence it is distributed into cuts, for supplying 

 their iields and gardens. This being done, and the waters beginning 

 to retire, such is the fertility of the soil, that the labour of the hus- 

 bandman is next to nothing. He throws his wheat and barley into the 

 ground in October and May. He turns his cattle out to graze in No- 

 r, and, in about six weeks, nothing can be more charming than 

 the piospect which the face of the country presents, in rising corn, 

 vegetables, and verdure of every sort. Oranges, lemons, and fruits 

 perfume the air. The culture of pulse, melons, sugar-canes, and other 

 plants which require moisture, is supplied by small but regular cuts 

 from cisterns and reservoirs. Dates, plantains, grapes, figs, and palrn^ 

 tree ; „ limn which wine is made, are here plentiful. March and April 

 ai e the harvest months, and they produce three crops ; one of lettuces 

 and one of cucumbers (the latter being the chief food of the inhabi- 

 tanis) one of corn and one of melons. The Egyptian pasturage is 

 equally prolific, most of the quadrupeds producing two at a time, and 

 the sheep lour lambs a year. 



Among the plants of Egypt should also be mentioned the papyrus, 

 of which the ancients made their paper, though their mode of prepar- 

 ing it is now unknown ; and the lotus, a kind of water-lily, abounding 

 in the Nile. The pith of the papyrus is said to be a nourishing food. 



The Egyptian mode of hatching chickens in ovens is very curious, 

 and has been practised in Europe with success. Not less extraordi- 

 nary and ingenious is the manner of raising and managing bees in that 

 country. When the verdure and flowers fail in one part of Egypt, 

 the proprietors of bees put their hives on board of large boats, each 

 marking his own hive. The boatman then proceeds with them gently 

 up the river, and stops with them wherever he perceives flowery 

 meadows. The bees swarm from their cells at break of day, and col- 

 lect honey, returning several times loaded with what they have ob- 

 tained, and in the evening re-enter their hives, without ever mistaking 

 their abode. 



Animals. ...Egypt abounds in black cattle ; and it is said, that the 

 inhabitants employ everyday 200,000 oxen in raising water for their 

 grounds. They have a fine large breed of asses, upon which the Chris- - 

 tians ride, those people n6t being suffered by the Turks to ride on any 

 other beast. The Egyptian horses are very fine ; they never trot, but 

 walk well, and gallop with great speed, turn short, stop in a moment, 

 and are extremely tractable. The hippopotamus, or river-horse, an 

 amphibious animal, resembling an ox in its hinder parts, with the head 

 like ahorse, is found in Upper Egypt. Tigers, hyaenas, camels, an- 

 telopes, apes, with the head like a dog, and the rat called ichneumon, 

 are natives of Egypt. The cameleon, a little animal something re- 

 sembling a lizard, which occasionally changes colour, especially when 

 irritated, is found here, as well as in other countries. The crocodile, 

 was formerly thought peculiar to this country ; but there does not 

 seem to be any material difference between it and the alligators of 

 India and America. They are both amphibious animals, in the form 

 of a lizard, and grow till they are about twenty feet in length, and have 

 four short legs, with large feet armed with claws, and their backs are 

 covered with a kind of impenetrable scales, like armour. The croco- 

 dile waits for his prey in the sedge, and other cover, on the sides of 

 rivers; and, pretty much resembling the trunk cf an old tree, some- 



