ILLUSTRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
295 
its soil, a dark loam, is cultivated without the artificial irrigation 
that is necessary in the lowlands. The greatest part of the exten¬ 
sive district of Khalcal is cultivated in the same way, and thence pro¬ 
ceed the abundant harvests which it yields. The Persians make 
a strong distinction between lands that are watered by rain and 
other natural causes, and those watered by dikes and canals. The 
former, called deyim, are of course, considerably more prized than the 
latter. Perhaps, such was the land alluded to by Moses, when he said 
unto the Israelites, For the land whither thou goest in to possess it, 
is not as the land of Egypt, f'om whence ye came out, xndiere thou sowest 
thy seed and wateredst it with thy foot as a garden of herbs. But 
the land whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, 
and drinketh water of the rain of heaven. Dent. xi. 10, 11. The 
distinction that is here made between the plain and the highlands, will 
be very strongly felt by those who have travelled in the East, where any 
elevation produces an agreeable change of climate, and where the hills 
are a comparative paradise, to the oppressive heat of the low countries. 
The xmtering with the foot, has been in some degree explained by Shawf; 
who states, that an Egyptian gardener conducts the water from one rill 
to another, and is always ready as occasion requires, to stop and divert 
the. torrent by turning the earth against it with his foot, and opening at 
the same time with his mattock a new trench to receive it. This is 
the same in Persia as well as in Turkey, but it may also be explained by 
the labour that is necessary to watch the progress of the water through 
the channels, in order to give it a proper course.* 
On the 1st November, we reached Chigeen, having explored a naked 
and uninteresting country, covered with the tents of the great tribe of 
Shekahgee, that is spread throughout all parts of this district; and a few 
miles before we descended into the vale in which our camp was pitched, 
fVol. ii. p. 267 . 
* Egypt was as fertile, and indeed far more so than Canaan, but the employment of the 
waters of the Nile, called for great attention to make it so, particularly in years when the rise 
of the river was not considerable. 
