described in Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s most valuable Work on Modern Egypt and 
Thebes. 
The desolate scene represented by Mr. Roberts enables the observer to trace the 
order of the successive parts of this once splendid structure, in the above account 
drawn from Wilkinson’s Work. A connexion, there cannot be a doubt, once existed 
between the figures seen on the left, the vocal Menmon and his companion, and the 
present ruins of the Memnonium-Ramseion, or tomb of Osymandyas, by whichever 
name it is acknowledged. Vast masses have disappeared altogether between Damy 
and Shainy and the ruined propylon. 
The drawing shows the whole range of country to the base of the Libyan chain. 
Wilkinson’s Egypt and Thebes. 
PERSIAN WATER-WHEEL, USED FOR IRRIGATION IN 
NUBIA. 
This clumsy apparatus is supposed to have been introduced into Egypt after the 
Persian invasion by the followers of Cambyses. The ignorance of the Egyptians under 
the Pharaohs of any aid to irrigation more effective or less laborious than the shadoof, 
is not more remarkable than the continuance of the latter means to the present time, 
except in Nubia, and on its borders. 
The Persian water-wheel consists of a long endless rope or chain to which jars 
are attached, which, passing over a wheel, are inverted and made to discharge the 
water with which the ascending jars are filled into a trough, at as great an elevation 
as the cultivator requires or can obtain. Motion is given to this wheel by bullocks; 
it has not yet occurred to the Nubians to use the waters of the Nile as the motive 
power for raising their supply, which is so often done in the European rivers. Such 
apparatus, however, as that used in Upper Egypt and Nubia is still used in Spain, 
and called a norria; it was introduced probably from the East. 
When the Nile is low, says Wilkinson, the land is irrigated by water-wheels which 
are the pride of the Nubian peasant; even the endless and melancholy creaking of 
these clumsy machines is a delight to him which no grease is ever permitted to 
diminish. The wealth of an individual is estimated by the number of these machines. 
In a hot climate like Nubia they prefer to employ oxen in the arduous duty of raising 
water, instead of using the pole and bucket of the shadoof: but for these water-wheels 
the poor Nubian is heavily taxed, by the Government. He has few wants, but every 
effort to supply these is taxed and such claims are enforced on his date-trees as food, 
■and his water-wheels as a mean of cultivation, that he is often driven from the soil 
to seek service in a menial station at Cairo. 
