The Nile—Inundation—Raising Water—Watering with the Foot—Rob Roy the Robber—Catching the Canoe—Livingstone—The Delta— The Seven Streams—Delight of the Natives—Fog—Pigeons—Potters —Pumpkin Raft—Fiddle and Drum.

Artificial irrigation has to be employed during the five or six months of the crops growing, and when the Nile has sunk far the labour of raising water is considerable. A small proportion of this watering is done by shadoof. This is leathern basin, slung from a long pole, which is mounted on pivots, and balanced by a stone or counterpoise of clay at the other end. The irrigation of wider tracts of land, requiring a copious stream of water, is effected by hydraulic engines of more or less simplicity. One of these, the sakieh, was used, as now, in most ancient times, and consists of a wheel turning on a horizontal axis, and carrying on an endless rope of hemp or withs earthen pots, or with wooden buckets so placed as to dip into the lower water, and to be carried up as the wheel revolves until they empty themselves successively into a shallow trough at the higher level.