PREFATORY NOTE.

During the last nine years it has fallen to the honourable lot of a small band of English engineers, most of them trained in India, to effect a revolution in the irrigation system of old Egypt, and thereby materially to improve the wealth and agricultural prosperity of the country. This is not the place, nor would it be becoming on my part to tell what has been effected. We had the happy fortune to find things at their lowest ebb. We could hardly make a change without making an improvement. In all these improvements Major Robert Hanbury Brown, R.E., has from the first occupied a conspicuous place. Few Englishmen have gone through so many summer seasons as he has, in the blazing heat of Upper Egypt. For that has been his field of labour, and of that field the fertile, abnormal, neglected, quaint old Province of the Fayûm forms a part. Truly, an old world province! whose historical roll carries us back to very early days, before that venerable Sheikh Abraham had made his emigration from Assyrian Haran—a province abundantly watered, and therefore rich, and highly prized by Pharaoh and Ptolemy, Cæsar and Arab Khalif, until Mameluke misrule and Turkish brutish ignorance let it fall into decay.

It has fallen to Major Brown to help to restore the Fayûm, and he has thus obtained a very intimate knowledge of it. He is not the first author on this subject. Learned Germans and brilliant Frenchmen have already written on the Fayûm. Major Brown pretends neither to the learning of the one, nor to the brilliancy of the other, but he has, what neither one nor the other ever had, an accurate knowledge of the levels of the country. This information is quite indispensable to the hydraulic engineer, and it is strange that that distinguished Frenchman M. Linant de Bellefonds, who devoted so many years to the physical improvement of Egypt, should have been evidently without it.

Of course Major Brown could not write of the Fayûm without introducing the mystic Lake Mœris. Herodotus does not lie when he tells of the things he has actually seen, and he says he saw Lake Mœris. So it must have existed. But where was it? That is the question that has been asked from one generation to another.

In the following pages Major Brown, in simple, straightforward language, gives his opinion, and the reader may be sure that he does not talk of what he does not know. Whether his conclusions are correct or not, this account of the Fayûm is an important addition to our knowledge of the subject.

London, September 1st, 1892.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF PLATES.

THE FAYÛM
AND LAKE MŒRIS.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

The Fayûm Depression.—The Fayûm Province has the shape of a leaf, (see Plate XIX.) of which the Bahr Yûsuf, from its entrance at Lahûn to its end at Medineh, forms the stalk, and the different canals, branching from Medineh, the veins. The province is generally described as being formed of three plateaux, but this description can only properly be applied to that part of the Fayûm, most rich in Nile deposit, which lies between the main south drain (Wadi Nezlah) and the main north-east drain (the Bahr Bilamâ or Wadi Tamîyah).

The lower section given on Plate XI., which is typical of this part of the Fayûm, shows the three plateaux, and gives the different surface inclinations. The contoured diagram, Plate XIX., also shows the conformation of the Fayûm Province.

The two strips of land outside the main drainage lines have a different character, and considerably less Nile deposit (see Map).

Medineh, the chief town of the Fayûm, from which most of its canals and roads radiate, stands on ground (R.L. 22·50) three to four metres lower than the land of the Nile Valley in the neighbourhood of Lahûn, where the Bahr Yûsuf turns westward to enter the Fayûm.

From Medineh for 8 kilometres the country surface slope is 1 in 1400, for the next 4 kilometres 1 in 666, and then 1 in 150, till the Birket-el-Qurûn (Lake of the Horns) is reached. This lake occupies the lowest part of the Fayûm, and at the beginning of 1892 its water surface level was 43·30 metres below mean sea; while the bed of the lake is 5 metres lower at least.[1]

The Fayûm and Wadi Raiân together are everywhere encircled by a continuous range of hills, except where the Bahr Yûsuf enters through the gap in the Libyan Hills, and also towards the north of the Fayûm, where the height of the hills becomes less, but where there is probably no gap lower than R.L. 30, though this has not been actually established by levelling.

The Birket-el-Qurûn and Evaporation.—Such being the physical features of the Fayûm, it is evident that there is no outflow for the drainage of the province. All the drainage (except that of the Gharaq Basin) finds its way into the Birket-el-Qurûn and there evaporates. The present surface area of the lake is not accurately known, but being about 40 kilometres long by 5 broad, the area is about 200 square kilometres (78 square miles).

Notwithstanding the considerable quantity of water that drains into the lake during the twelve months of the year, its level has fallen steadily of late years. The following table gives the measure of the fall from the first of March of one year to the first of March of the next.

Level on 1st March.

There are no records of the level of the lake previous to 1885. Linant Pasha states in his ‘Mémoires’ that Vansleb, who was in the Fayûm in 1673, said that one embarked at Sanhûr to pass to the other side of the lake. Dead tamarisk bushes standing in the water seem to prove that the lake has in the past been lower by a metre or more than it is at present, for these tamarisks grow along the margin of the lake above the water edge, but not in it.

The fall of the lake is not continuous throughout the year, but generally takes place from the 1st March to the 31st October; the level rises from the 1st November to the end of January, and remains stationary during February.

If the area of the lake were more accurately determined, there are several problems of interest connected with evaporation and the “duty” of water which might be calculated out from the facts known about the fall of this lake, the level of which is recorded daily. The discharge entering the Fayûm throughout the year is known, as also approximately the areas under crop; but while the area of the lake remains so vaguely guessed at, the results of the calculation would be of little value, as the figure representing the lake area is an important factor in the calculations.

But the following figures give a measure of what the daily evaporation is in June and July, at least approximately:—

In 1889 and 1890, when there were exceptionally short summer supplies, and the drainage into Lake Qurûn must have been as little as it ever is, the lake levels were as follow:—

The evaporation, then, could not have been less than ·0093 of a metre per diem in June 1890; or less than ·008 per diem in June and July 1889 and July 1890.

Allowing for a slight amount of drainage finding its way into the lake, an estimate of 1 centimetre a day for evaporation during the three hottest months of the summer would seem to be nearly correct.

We have also the following figures:—

As, for half this period, the flow of water into the lake must have been considerable, the average fall per diem due to evaporation for these six months must have been certainly over 6 millimetres.

Observations on evaporation made in the Abassieh Observatory in Cairo give the following figures as the measure of the average evaporation for each month of the year:—

The average per diem for the three hottest months of the year, according to these observations, is ·0107, as against ·01 deduced from observations of the levels of Lake Qurûn. The figure given for July in the above list is higher than I should have expected, as the evaporation of that month I should estimate to be very slightly in excess of that of June or August; that is, about 1 centimetre a day.

The Bahr Yûsuf outside the Fayûm.—The Bahr Yûsuf (Canal of Joseph) is the watercourse that carries the Fayûm supply. It is not an artificial canal, but a naturally formed sinuous channel, resulting from the Nile flood water draining off the lands and following the line of least resistance along the low-lying part of the Nile Valley on the side of the Libyan Desert. Plate I. shows where the Bahr Yûsuf touches the desert and forms a line of separation between the fertile land of the Nile Valley with its grateful shade of trees and the barren desert sands under a scorching sun.

As is usual in the case of rivers which periodically overflow their banks, the land is highest alongside the Nile, and slopes away from it to the hills on either side. The high margins of the Nile are known in Egypt as the “Sahel.” As the Bahr Yûsuf has for a great many years been given an artificial connection with the Nile, and been used as a channel to carry flood water to inundate the lands along its course on both sides, it has imitated the Nile in its action on its borders, and raised a “Sahel” of its own on a smaller scale. The cross-section of the Nile Valley is thus roughly represented in the following diagram.

A former artificial connection of the Bahr Yûsuf with the Nile is plainly visible at Derût, 200 kilometres farther up the Nile Valley than Lahûn, the point at which the Bahr Yûsuf turns westward into the Fayûm. The artificial part is easily distinguished from the natural channel, as the former is straight with high spoil banks, resulting from the earth excavated to form the channel, whereas the latter is sinuous without any signs of spoil banks. The length of the channel from Derût to Lahûn, measured along its windings, is 270 kilometres, as against 200 kilometres measured as the crow flies.

A second artificial connection with the Nile farther south was made at Manfalût by the excavation of a channel 30 kilometres in length. The part of this that remains now is called the “Manfalûtîyah” or “old Bahr Yûsuf.” About twenty years ago a large canal, called the Ibrahimîyah, was made for the irrigation of the Khedive Ismail Pasha’s large sugar-cane plantations. It was made to take off from the Nile at Asyût, 30 kilometres above Manfalût and 61 kilometres above Derût. It absorbed part of the Manfalûtîyah Canal from Beni Qora to Derût. At Derût, regulators of a fine description were constructed for the distribution of the water, and a regulator of five openings of three metres’ span, with a lock 8·50 metres wide, was made as the head work of the Bahr Yûsuf, which under the new nomenclature became a branch of the Ibrahimîyah Canal. When the Ibrahimîyah Canal was first opened, it appears from the Mémoires on Public Works, published by Linant de Bellefonds Bey in 1872-73, that its discharge was small compared with its present discharge, and the Fayûm summer irrigation must have been limited. M. Linant states that the bed width of the main Ibrahimîyah was 35 metres, and its reputed depth in summer 1·50 metres; but, in consequence of the inefficient means of dredging, a depth of one metre at most was all that could be obtained at the lowest level of the Nile; and he calculates that the minimum discharge, which theoretically should have reached Derût, was 666,840 cubic metres per 24 hours (273 cubic feet a second), but, in consequence of the inefficient dredging, no more than 369,624 cubic metres per 24 hours (151 cubic feet a second) were delivered. Under present conditions in the worst years the minimum has never fallen below two million cubic metres per 24 hours (818 cubic feet a second) since, at any rate, 1883.

Of the Bahr Yûsuf before the Ibrahimîyah Canal was made, M. Linant remarks in the same Mémoires, that “it is the only canal in Egypt which, without receiving water from the river during the summer, nevertheless has enough to serve for the irrigation of the Fayûm from the springs in its bed.” These springs still supplement the summer supply of the Fayûm by adding to the discharge, which is apportioned to the Bahr Yûsuf at Derût, about a quarter of a million cubic metres a day (102 cubic feet a second).

During the summer and winter the water of the Bahr Yûsuf is (with the exception of an insignificant quantity lifted for the irrigation of small areas at different points along its course) reserved for the Fayûm, but during the flood season its channel is used to carry water for the inundation of the lands on both sides of it, and later it is made use of as the channel of discharge for the basins which it has filled, or helped to fill.

At Lahûn, where the Bahr Yûsuf turns into the Fayûm, the quantity of water admitted is controlled by two regulators. The lower bridge is a very ancient one (frontispiece), of what date is unknown. Its floor in Linant Pasha’s time had already partly given way, but from his description it would seem to be now in the same state in which it was more than twenty years ago. The upstream half has evidently been added to the downstream half, as there is a clean line of separation in the middle of the length of the present archway. This is only to be seen by entering the passage below the arches, as the junction is not visible from above.

In 1838 Linant Pasha caused the second regulator of three openings (two of three metres’ and one of four metres’ span) to be constructed as a precaution 80 metres above the old one, and it was a very wise precaution to take. The head of water is now divided between the two bridges so that the action is less severe than it was before the second bridge was constructed.

The present discharges passed by these regulators into the Fayûm are:—

During the flood season 6½ to 7 million cubic metres per day (2658 to 2863 cubic feet per second).

During the winter season 3 million cubic metres per day (1227 cubic feet per second).

During the summer season 1½ to 1 million cubic metres per day (713 to 409 cubic feet per second).

The ordinary and maximum and minimum levels of the Bahr Yûsuf are given in the list below:—

The Bahr Yûsuf inside the Fayûm.—At the end of the Bahr Yûsuf at Medineh the water-level is now kept constantly at R.L. 21·70 to 21·80. In Nile time any increase on this tail level is forbidden by the effect of the heading-up caused by the obstructions met with by the large flood discharge in its passage through the town between the houses which line its edges. The Bahr Yûsuf is bridged in this length twice, first by a three-arched bridge, Plate II., which carries the main street and bazaar of Medineh; and again by a two-tubed tunnel, over which the mosque of Kait Bey is built, Plate III.

In passing through the bazaar with shops on either side the Bahr Yûsuf is crossed without its being noticed, and a stranger to the town is presently surprised to find himself on the other side of the canal to which he imagined himself to be.