76 
A TRIP TO EGYPT. 
Lake Mareotis is seen on the right, and at the time we saw it it 
was of vast extent, its waters reaching the horizon like a sea, and 
we were told that in the summer, through its being so very shallow, 
a large expanse of it becomes an unhealthy swamp. Thousands of 
birds find their subsistence on its shores. We noticed the cotton 
factories as we passed the large town of Damanhoor. Some of the 
houses were respectable, the poorer part of the town being built of 
bricks of mud dried in the sun, holes in the walls serving for doors, 
and minus windows altogether. After passing Tel-el-Baroot, the 
Rosetta branch of the Nile is crossed, and at Benha the train 
crosses the Damietta branch. This district was once noted for its 
honey, and heaps of rubbish show the site of Greek, Roman, and 
early Egyptian cities. In ancient times seven branches of the Nile 
crossed the Delta, but at present the whole of its waters pass 
through these two branches. 
The land of the Delta is marvellously fertile, and cotton planta¬ 
tions, sugar fields, and grain of every kind abound. The soil is the 
rich mud deposited by the Nile to a depth of over thirty feet; and 
the divisions of the land are not, as in most places, made by hedges 
or walls, but by innumerable little canals running like a network of 
silver threads over the vast plain. The few palm trees, with their 
graceful foliage generally waving over the mud villages, relieve the 
monotony of the landscape, which is otherwise only marked by the 
irrigation works, which are scattered over the whole plain. The 
land is most carefully cultivated by the fellaheen, the agriculturists 
of Egypt, and watering the land is one of their chief employments, 
and this they perform here, as through the whole of the Nile valley, 
by the most old-fashioned of appliances, 
The Shadoof. 
It consists of a long pole made heavy at one end, and resting 
on a pivot; at the other end a bucket or large water-tight basket, 
which is lowered to the water to be filled, and, as the heavy end of 
the pole goes down, turns out its contents into a little gutter, 
whence it is worked by the foot into the appointed channels. 
Sometimes this is superseded by 
April, 1893. 
