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28 . Basin irrigation.— Considering the times of flood and low 
supply, the climate of Egypt, the turbidity of the Nile flood, and the 
deltaic formation of the Nile valley, no better system than basin 
irrigation as practiced in Egypt could possibly have been devised. If 
the flood had come in April and May and been followed by a burning 
summer, or if the actual autumn floods had been followed by the frozen 
winters of Europe or the warm winters of the Sudan, basin irrigation 
would have been a failure or a very moderate success ; but, given the 
Egyptian climate, basin irrigation has stood without a rival for 
7000 years. 
Basin irrigation, as it has been practised in Egypt for thousands of 
years, is the most efficacious method of utilising existing means of 
irrigation which the world has witnessed. It can be started by the 
sparsest of populations. It will support in wealth a multitude of 
people. King Menes made his first dyke when the Egyptian nation 
was in its infancy. Egypt, in Roman times, supported a population 
twice as dense as that of to-day. The direct labour of cultivation is 
reduced to an absolute minimum. 
Shakespeare’s genius has crystallised the system for all time : — 
“They take the flow o’ the Nile 
By certain scales in the Pyramid ; they know, 
By the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth 
Or foizon follow : the higher Nilus swells, 
The more it promises : as it ebbs, the seedsman 
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain, 
And shortly comes to harvest.” 
If we cast back our view to the dawn of Egyptian history, we can 
picture the Nile Valley as consisting of arid plains, sand dunes, and 
marshy jungles, with reclaimed enclosures on all the highest lands. 
Every eight or ten years the valley was swept by a mighty inundation. 
The seeds of future success lay in the resolve of King Menes’ engineers 
to confine their attention to one bank of the river alone. It was the 
left bank of the river which history tells us was first reclaimed. A 
longitudinal dyke was run parallel to the stream, and cross dykes tied 
it to the Lybian hills. Into these basins or compartments the turbid 
waters of the flood were led by natural water-courses and artificial 
canals and allowed to deposit their rich mud and thoroughly saturate 
the soil ; and meantime the whole of the right bank and the trough of 
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