From the beginning of the British occupation, the English have been engaged in persevering efforts at reform in every branch of the administration. The reforms which they instituted in the different departments of the army, finance, public works, and the police system were not at first popular. The native officials found out that they could not use methods of extortion; the upper classes, the pashas, and the wealthy landowners also discovered that they were not at liberty to do as they pleased, and that the English inspectors of irrigation strictly regulated the water-supply. It has since been fully demonstrated that the curtailing of their privilege to make use of the water when and how they chose is more than compensated by improved conditions.
During the fifteen years previous to 1898, the population of Egypt had increased by about three million, or forty-three per cent. It was then ten million; it is now nearly eleven million. Within the boundaries of the irrigated land Egypt has always been a very populous country. By the effort to expand this area of irrigation, the way was prepared for a considerable increase in the total population. There are sections of this land where the density of the population averages from seven to eight hundred or even a thousand persons to the square mile. In early times, the population was still greater, as the irrigation area was increased by the great reservoir of Lake Mceris. When Omar made a census (A.D. 640), there were to be found six million Kopts, exclusive of the aged, the young, and the women, and three hundred thousand Greeks: this would imply, even at that decadent period, a total population of fifteen million.
The increased prosperity shown by the railroads is most satisfactory. Two hundred and twelve miles of new railroad have been constructed, and an enormous development of the railroad and telegraph business has resulted. Since the year 1897 railroad development has been very rapid, and, with the line to the Sudan, amounted in 1904 to some two thousand miles. From the Sudan railway it is intended ultimately to extend a railroad system through the heart of Africa, from Cairo to Capetown.
Great progress has been made in all departments of public works. Hundreds of agricultural roads have been built, and the mileage of canals and drains has been largely increased to the very great benefit of the Egyptian peasant.
The quantity of salt sold was doubled between 1881 and 1897, while the price has been reduced nearly forty per cent. The tonnage of the port of Alexandria increased from 1,250,000 pounds to 2,549,739 between 1881 and 1901. This increase was paralleled by a like increase in Alexandria’s great rival, Port Said.
Sir Evelyn Baring (Viscount Cromer) was appointed consul-general and financial adviser to Egypt in January, 1884, succeeding in this position Sir Edward Malet. Sir Evelyn was nominally the financial adviser, but practically the master of Egypt. The khédive never ventured to oppose the carrying out of his wishes, since the British army of occupation was ever at his beck and call to lend its weight to the commands which he issued to the government under the appearance of friendly advice.
The most serious obstacle to the progress of Egypt has been the authority of the mixed administrations, the chief of which is the Caisse de la Dette. The main object of these administrations is to secure for European bondholders payment of the debts incurred by Egypt chiefly under the incredibly profligate government of Ismail Pasha. The Caisse de la Dette has commissions from six of the Powers. It receives from the tax-gatherer all the taxes apportioned to the payment of the interest for foreign indebtedness. Its influence, however, extends much farther, and the Caisse exercises the right of prohibiting expenditure on the part of the Egyptian government until its own demands for current interest have been complied with. It further has the right to veto any loan which the Egyptian government might be willing to raise, however urgent the necessity might be, unless it can be demonstrated that there is not the least likelihood that payment of the shareholders whom the Caisse represents will be in the least degree affected. If all that the Caisse claimed as belonging to its jurisdiction were really allowed to it by the Anglo-Egyptian government, the Caisse or International Court might exercise an arbitrary control over Egyptian affairs. It has many times seriously attempted to block the progress of Egypt with the sole aim of considering the pockets of the foreign shareholders, and in entire disregard to the welfare of the people.
Added to this tribunal is the Railway Board and the Commissions of the Daira and Domains. The Railway Board administers the railroads, telegraphs, and the port of Alexandria. The Daira and Domains Commissions administer the large estates, mortgaged to the holders of the loans raised by Ismail Pasha under these two respective names. The Daira Estate yielded a surplus over and above the amount of interest on the debt paid, for the first time, in 1890. The Domain Estate had to face a deficit until the year 1900. Until these respective dates the Egyptian government itself was obliged to pay the deficit due to the bondholders.
In the year 1884, the Convention of London was signed by the European Powers, which was, however, for the most part, oppressive and unjust to the Egyptians. The amount of money raised by taxation, which was allowed to be spent in one year, was limited to the definite sum of $25,927,890. Fortunately for Egypt, the London Convention had one clause by which $44,760,000 could be utilised for the development of the country. With this sum the indemnities of Alexandria were paid, defects in the payment of interest were made good, and a small sum was left wherewith to increase irrigation and other useful works. The criminal folly of the former lavish expenditure was now demonstrated by a brilliant object-lesson. This small sum, when kept out of the hands of the rapacious bondholders, and applied to the development of the rich soil of Egypt, was found to work wonders. From the moment when the finances of Egypt were for the first time used to develop what is naturally the richest soil in the world, progress towards betterment grew rapidly into the remarkable prosperity of to-day. For a time, however, the government was obliged to use extreme parsimony in order to keep the country from further falling under the control of the irresponsible bondholders. Finally, in the year 1888, Sir Evelyn Baring wrote to the home government that the situation was so far improved that in his judgment “it would take a series of untoward events seriously to endanger the stability of Egyptian finance and the solvency of the Egyptian government.” The corner had been turned, and progressive financial relief was at length afforded the long-suffering Egyptian people in the year 1890. After several years of financial betterment, it was decided to devote future surpluses to remunerative objects, such as works of irrigation, railway extension, the construction of hospitals, prisons, and other public buildings, and in the improvement of the system of education. Great difficulty was experienced in making use of this surplus, on account of technical hindrances which were persistently placed in the way of the Egyptian government by the Caisse de la Dette. These difficulties are now almost entirely removed.
In 1896 it was decided, as has been narrated, to be for the interest of Egypt to start a campaign against the dervishes. Appeal was made to the Caisse de la Dette to raise additional funds for the necessary expenses of the projected campaign. The Caisse, following its universal precedent, immediately vetoed the project. England then made special grants-in-aid to Egypt, which both aided the Egyptian government and greatly strengthened her hold upon Egypt. By means of this timely assistance, Egypt was enabled successfully to pass through the period of increased expenditure incurred by the reconquest of the Sudan.
During the lifetime of Khedive Tewfik, who owed his throne to the British occupation, there had been little or no disagreement between the British and Egyptian authorities. In the year 1887 Sir Henry Drummond Wolff prepared a convention, in accordance with which England promised to leave Egypt within three years from that date. At the last moment the sultan, urged by France and Russia, refused to sign it, and the occupation which these two Powers would not agree to legalise even for a period of three years was now less likely than ever to terminate. The following year Tewfik dismissed Nubar Pasha, who had, by the advice of the foreign Powers, stood in the way of reforms planned by the English officials.
Tewfik died in 1892, and was succeeded by Abbas Hilmi Pasha, called officially Abbas II. He was born in 1874, and was barely of age according to Turkish law, which fixes magistracy at eighteen years of age in the case of the succession to the throne. He came directly from the college at Vienna to Cairo, where his accession was celebrated with great pomp; and the firman, confirming him in all the powers, privileges, and territorial rights which his father had enjoyed, was read from the steps of the palace in Abdin Square. For some time the new khédive did not cooperate with cordiality with Great Britain. He was young and eager to exercise his power. His throne had not been saved for him by the British, as his father’s had been, and he was surrounded by intriguers, who were scheming always for their own advantage. He at first appeared almost as unprogressive as his great-uncle, Abbas I., but he later learned to understand the importance of British counsels. During his visit to England in 1899 he frankly acknowledged the great good which England had done in Egypt, and declared himself ready to cooperate with the officials administering British affairs. This friendliness was a great change from the disposition which he had shown in previous years, during the long-drawn-out dispute between himself and Sir Evelyn Baring regarding the appointment of Egyptian officials. The controversy at one time indicated a grave crisis, and it is reported that on one occasion the British agent ordered the army to make a demonstration before the palace, and pointed out to the young ruler the folly of forcing events which would inevitably lead to his dethronement. The tension was gradually relaxed, and compromises brought about which resulted in harmony between the khédive and the British policy of administration, and no one rejoiced more than Abbas Hilmi over the victory of Omdurman.
Agricultural interests are dearer to the heart of the khédive than statecraft. He rides well, drives well, rises early, and is of abstemious habits. Turkish is his mother tongue, but he talks Arabic with fluency and speaks English, French, and German very well.
An agreement between England and Egypt had been entered upon January 19, 1899, in regard to the administration of the Sudan. According to this agreement, the British and Egyptian flags were to be used together, and the supreme military and civil command was vested in the governor-general, who is appointed by the khédive on the recommendation of the British government, and who cannot be removed without the latter’s consent. This has proved so successful that the governor-general, Sir Reginald Wingate, reported in 1901:
“I record my appreciation of the manner in which the officers, non-commissioned officers, soldiers, and officials,—British, Egyptian, and Sudanese,—without distinction, have laboured during the past year to push on the work of regenerating the country. Nor can I pass over without mention the loyal and valuable assistance I have received from many of the loyal ulemas, sheiks, and notables, who have displayed a most genuine desire to see their country once more advancing in the path of progress, material success, and novel development.”
In 1898 there were in all about 10,000 schools, with 17,000 teachers and 228,000 pupils. Seven-eighths of these schools were elementary, the education being confined to reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic. The government has under its immediate direction eighty-seven schools of the lowest grade, called kuttabs, and thirty-five of the higher grades, three secondary, two girls’ schools, and ten schools for higher or professional education,—the school of law, the school of medicine, with its pharmaceutical school and its school for nursing and obstetrics, polytechnic schools for civil engineers, two training-schools for schoolmasters, a school of agriculture, two technical schools, one training-school for female teachers, and the military school. In addition to the schools belonging to the Ministry of Public Instruction, there were under the inspection of that department in 1901 twenty-three primary schools of the higher grade, with an attendance of 3,585, and 845 schools of the lowest grade, with 1,364 teachers and an attendance of 26,831 pupils. There are 187 schools attached to various Protestant and Catholic missions, and forty-three European private schools.
The Koptic community supports one thousand schools for elementary education, twenty-seven primary boys’ and girls’ schools, and one college. The teaching of the Koptic language in the schools is now compulsory; the subjects taught, and the methods of teaching them, are the same as in vogue in other countries. Fifty per cent, of the Koptic male population can read and write well. The indigenous tribunals of the country are called Mehkemmehs, and are presided over by cadis. At the present time they retain jurisdiction in matters of personal law relating to marriage succession, guardianship, etc. Beyond this sphere they also fulfil certain functions connected with the registration of title of land. In matters of personal law, however, the native Christians are subject to their own patriarchs or other religious leaders.
In other matters, natives are justiciable before the so-called native tribunals, established during the period of the British occupation. These consist of forty-six summary tribunals, each presided over by a single judge, who is empowered to exercise jurisdiction in matters up to $500 in value, and criminal jurisdiction in offences punishable by fine or by imprisonment of three years or less. Associated with these are seven central tribunals, each chamber consisting of three judges. There is also a court of appeal in Cairo, one-half of its members being Europeans. In criminal matters there is always a right to appeal, sometimes to the court of appeal, sometimes to a central tribunal. In civil matters an appeal lies from a summary tribunal to a central tribunal in matters exceeding $500 in value, and from the judgment of a central tribunal in the first instance to the court of appeal in all cases. The prosecution in criminal matters is entrusted to the parquet, which is directed by a procurer-general; the investigation of crime is ordinarily conducted by the parquet, or by the police under its direction. Offences against irrigation laws, which were once of such frequent occurrence and the occasion of injustice and lawlessness, are now tried by special and summary administration tribunals.
The capitulations or agreements concerning justice entered into by all the Great Powers of Europe and the Ottoman Empire, relative to the trial and judgment of Europeans, include Egypt as an integral part of the Turkish Empire. Foreigners for this reason have the privilege of being tried by European courts. But if one party in a case is European and another Egyptian, there are special mixed tribunals, established in 1876, consisting partly of native and partly of foreign judges. These tribunals settle civil and also some criminal cases between Egyptians and Europeans, and in 1900 penal jurisdiction was conferred upon them in connection with offences against the bankruptcy laws.
There are three mixed tribunals of the first class, with a court of appeal, sitting at Alexandria. Civil cases between foreigners of the same nationality are tried before their own consular courts, which also try criminal cases not within the jurisdiction of the mixed tribunals, in which the accused are foreigners. By this well organised administration of justice, crime has steadily decreased throughout Egypt, and the people have learned to enjoy the benefit of receiving impartial justice, from which they had been shut off for many centuries.
About sixty per cent, of the inhabitants of modern Egypt belong to the agricultural class—the fellaheen. The peasantry are primitive and thrifty in their habits, and hold tenaciously to their ancient traditions. They are a healthy race, good-tempered and tractable, and fairly intelligent, but, like all Southern nations breathing a balmy atmosphere, they are unprogressive. Centuries of oppression have not, however, crushed their cheerfulness. There is none of that abject misery of poverty among the Egyptians which is to be seen in cold countries. There is no starvation amongst them. Food is cheap, and a peasant can live well on a piastre (five cents) a day. A single cotton garment is enough for clothing, and the merest hut affords sufficient protection. The wants of the Egyptians are few. Their condition, now freed from forced labour, called the “Courbash,” as also from injustice, crushing taxation, and usury, which characterised former administrations, compares favourably with the peasantry of many countries in Europe, and is equal, if not superior, to that of the peasantry of England itself.
Under the British protection there has been a renewal of the Koptic Christian race. They are easily to be distinguished from their Muhammedan countrymen, being lighter in colour, and resembling the portraits on the ancient monuments. They are a strong community in Upper Egypt, whither they fled from the Arab invaders, and they there hold a large portion of the land. They live mostly in the towns, are better educated than other Egyptians, and are employed frequently in the government service as clerks and accountants.
Koptic is still studied for church purposes by the Kopts, who both by their physiognomy and by their retention of the old Egyptian institution of monasticism are the only true descendants having the social and physical heredity of the ancient Egyptians. Four of the oldest monasteries in the world still survive in the Natron Valley.
In spite of their distinguished social ancestry, the Kopts are by no means a superior class morally to the fellaheen, who are in part the descendants of those ancient Egyptians who renounced the Christian religion, the language and institutions of the Egyptian Christians, and accepted Muhammedanism and the Arabic language and institutions.
The creed of the Kopts is Jacobite. They have three metropolitans and twelve bishops in Egypt, one metropolitan and two bishops in Abyssinia, and one bishop in Khartum. There are also arch-priests, priests, deacons, and monks. Priests must be married before ordination, but celibacy is imposed upon monks and high dignitaries. The Abyssinian Church is ruled by a metropolitan, and bishops are chosen from amongst the Egyptian-Koptic ecclesiastics, nor can the coronation of the King of Abyssinia take place until he has been anointed by the metropolitan, and this only after the authorisation by the Patriarch of Alexandria.
The White and Blue Niles: The Barrage: Clearing the Sudd: The Suez Canal: Ancient and modern irrigation: The Dam at Aswan: The modern exploration of the Nile.
Between the Sudan and the Mediterranean the only perennial stream is the Nile, a word probably derived from the Semitic root nahal, meaning a valley or a river-valley, and subsequently a “river,” in a pre-eminent and exclusive sense. The ancient Egyptians called it the Ar or Aur (Koptic, Iaro), or “black”; hence the Greek word [...] allusion to the colour, not of the water, but of the sediment which it precipitated during the floods. In contrast to the yellow sands of the surrounding desert, the Nile mud is black enough to have given the land itself its oldest name, Kem, or Kemi, which has the same meaning of “black.” At Khartum, where the White Nile joins the Blue Nile, the main branch has a fall from its upper level in the region of the tropical lakes, four thousand feet above the sea, to twelve hundred feet, while traversing a distance of twenty-three hundred miles. From Khartum to the sea the distance through which the waters of the Nile wend their way is about eighteen hundred and forty miles. During the greater part of this course the flow is level, the average descent being about eight inches per mile. If it were not, therefore, for the obstruction met with in the Nubian section, the course of the Nile would be everywhere navigable. Although no perennial affluents enter the main stream lower down than Khartum, the volume of the Nile remains with little diminution throughout the entire distance to the Mediterranean. During the period of low water the amount of water in different localities is still uniform, notwithstanding all the irrigation, infiltration, and evaporation constantly taking place. The only explanation which has been given to this phenomenon is that there are hidden wells in the bed of the Nile, and from their flow the waste is ever renewed.
As the earth revolves from west to east, the waters of the Nile tend to be driven upon the right bank on the west, where the current is constantly eating away the sandstone and limestone cliffs. For this reason the left side of the river is far more fertile and well cultivated than the right bank. Below Ombos the valley is narrowly constructed, being but thirteen hundred yards in width, the cliffs overhanging the river on either side, but at Thebes it broadens out to nine or ten miles, and farther up, in the Keneh district, the valley is twelve or fifteen miles in width. The river here approaches within sixty miles of the Red Sea, and it is believed that a branch of the Nile once flowed out into the sea in this direction.
Seventy miles below Keneh the Nile throws from its left bank the Bahr Yusef branch, a small current of 350 feet in breadth, which flows for hundreds of miles through the broader strip of alluvial land between the main stream and the Libyan escarpments. In the Beni-Suef district this stream again bifurcates, the chief branch continuing to wind along the Nile Valley to a point above the Delta, where it joins the main stream. The left branch penetrates westward through a gap in the Libyan escarpments into the Fayum depression, ramifying into a thousand irrigating rills, and pouring its overflow into the Birket-el-Qarum, or “Lake of Horns,” which still floods the lowest cavity and is a remnant of the famous ancient Lake Moris. The Fayum, which is the territory reclaimed from the former lake, is now an exceedingly productive district, a sort of inland delta, fed like the marine delta by the fertilising flood-waters of the Nile.
The traveller Junker wrote of this district in 1875: “I found myself surrounded by a garden tract of unsurpassed fertility, where there was scarcely room for a path amid the exuberant growths; where pedestrians, riders, and animals had to move about along the embankments of countless canals. Now a land of roses, of the vine, olive, sugar-cane, and cotton, where the orange and lemon plants attain the size of our apple-trees, it was in primeval times an arid depression of the stony and sandy Libyan waste.”
North of the Fayum the Nile flows on to Cairo, where the narrow water way allowed to its course by the two lines of cliffs widens, and the cliffs recede to the right and left. There is thus space for the waters to spread and ramify over the alluvial plain. Nearly all this portion of Egypt has been covered by the sediment of the Nile, and from the earliest times there have been numerous distinct branches or channels of the river running out by separate openings into the sea. As several of these branches have been tapped to a great extent for irrigation, all except two have ceased to be true outlets of the Nile. In the Greek period there were seven mouths and several [...Greek...], or “false mouths.” The two remaining mouths are those of Rosetta and Damietta, and these were always the most important of the number. They branched off formerly close to the present spot where Cairo stands, a little below Memphis; but during two thousand years the fork has gradually shifted to about thirteen miles lower down.
The triangular space enclosed by these two branches and the sea-coast was called by the Greeks the delta, on account of the likeness in shape to the Greek letter of that name A. At the head, or apex, of the triangle stands the famous barrage, or dam, begun in 1847 by Mehemet Ali, for the twofold purpose of reclaiming many thousand acres of waste land, and of regulating the discharge and the navigation through the Delta. The idea was originated by a Frenchman in his service named Linant Bey. This engineer desired to alter the course of the river and build a weir at a point farther to the north, where the contour of land seemed to favour the design more than that of the present locality. Mehemet Ali thought his plans too costly, and accepted in preference those of Mougel Bey. Unexpected difficulties were encountered from the very beginning. Mehemet was exceedingly anxious to hurry the work, and Mougel Bey had only made a beginning, when an exceptionally high Nile carried away all the lime in the concrete base. Mehemet Ali did not live to see the completion of this work. The object, could it have been realised, was to hold up the waters of the Nile during the eight months of the ebb, and thus keep them on a level with the soil, and at the same time to supply Lower Egypt with an amount of water equal to that which came down during flood-time. It was hoped to cover the very large expenditure by the additional land which it was expected would come under irrigation, and by doing away with the primitive shadoofs and setting free for productive enterprise the numerous army of the agricultural labourers who spent the greater part of their time in slowly raising up buckets of water from the Nile and pouring them into the irrigating channels.
The barrage is a double bridge, or weir, the eastern part spanning the Damietta branch of the Nile, the western part the Rosetta branch. The appearance of the structure is so light and graceful that the spectator finds it hard to conceive of the difficulty and the greatness of the work itself. Architecturally, the barrage is very beautiful, with a noble front and a grand effect, produced by a line of castellated turrets, which mark the site of the sluice gates. There are two lofty crenellated towers, corresponding with the towers over the gateway of a mediaeval baronial castle. The sluices are formed of double cones of hollow iron, in a semicircular form, worked on a radii of rods fixed to a central axis at each side of the sluice-gate. They are slowly raised or let down by the labour of two men, the gates being inflected as they descend in the direction of the bed of that part of the river whose waters are retained. The working of the barrage was never what it was intended to be. After the year 1867 it ceased to be of any practical utility, and was merely an impediment to navigation. Between the years 1885—90, however, during the British occupation, Sir Colon Scott-Moncrieff successfully completed the barrage at a cost of $2,500,000, and now the desired depth of eight feet of water on the lower part of the Nile can always be maintained.
It proved to be of the greatest advantage in saving labour worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and in the irrigation and navigation facilities that had been contemplated as among the benefits which would naturally accrue from its successful completion.
Compared with the advance of the land seaward at the estuary of the Mississippi and the Ganges, the advance of the Nile seaward is very slow. This is accounted for by the geological theory that the Delta of the Nile is gradually sinking. If this is so, the tendency of the periodical deposit to raise the level of the Delta will be counteracted by the annual subsidence. These phenomena account for the gradual burial of Egyptian monuments under the sand, although the actual level of the sea above what it formerly was is quite unappreciable.
The periodical rise in the Nile, recurring as regularly as the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, necessarily remained an unsolved mystery to the ancients, for until the discovery of the tropical regions, with their mountainous lakes and deluging rains, it was impossible to learn the occasion of this increase. It is now known that the Blue Nile, flowing out of the mountainous parts of Abyssinia, is the sole cause of the periodic overflow of the Nile. Without the tropical rains of the Ethiopian tablelands, there would be no great rise nor any fertilising deposits. Without the White Nile, which runs steadily from the perennial reservoirs of the great Central African lakes, the Lower Nile would assume the character of an intermittent wady, such as the neighbouring Khor Baraka, periodically flushed by the discharge of the torrential downpours from Abyssinia. Though there is a periodical increase in the flow of the upper waters of the White Nile, yet the effect of this, lower down, is minimised by the dense quantities of vegetable drift, which, combining with the forest of aquatic growth, forms those vast barriers, known by the name of sudd, which not only arrest navigation but are able to dam up large bodies of water.
The sudd, it is supposed, stopped the advance of the Roman centurions who were sent up the Nile in the days of Nero. Sir Samuel Baker was the one who first pointed out the great disadvantage of allowing the vegetable matter to accumulate, both to merchants and to those who were employed to suppress the slave-trade. In the year 1863 the two branches of the White Nile were blocked above their junction at Lake No. Once blocked, the accumulation rapidly increased from the stoppage of outlet, forming the innumerable floating islands which at this part of the Nile customarily float down-stream. A marsh of vast extent had been formed, and to all appearance, as Baker narrates, the White Nile had disappeared. Baker cut through fifty miles of the sudd, and urged the khédive to reopen the Nile. The work was successfully undertaken by Ishmail Ayub Pasha, and the White Nile became clear for large vessels when Gordon reached Khartum in 1874. It is practically impossible to keep the central provinces of the Nile open to civilisation unless the course of the Nile is free. Yet in 1878 the obstruction had been renewed, and during the occupation of these provinces by the rebel dervishes under the Mahdi and the califa the Nile was completely blocked, as formerly, at Lake No. The alarming failure of the Nile flood in 1899—1900 was generally attributed to this blockade, and in 1899 fifty thousand dollars was placed at the disposal of the governor-general for reopening the White Nile by removing the vast accumulation of sudd which blocked the Bahr-el-Jebel from Lake No almost as far as Shambeh. The work was started under the direction of Sir William Garstin in 1899. In 1900 the greater part of the sudd had been removed by the strenuous labours of Major Peake, and the Nile again became navigable from Khartum to Rejaf. The sudd was found to be piled up and of almost as close a structure as peat. It was sawn out in blocks ten feet square and carried away by gunboats. In the years 1901—02 further progress was made, and twenty thousand dollars appropriated for the work; and by means of constant patrolling the sudd is now practically absent from the whole course of the White Nile.
The discharge of the flood waters from the Upper Nile begins to make itself felt in Lower Nubia and Egypt in the month of June, at first slightly, and after the middle of July much more rapidly, the river continuing to rise steadily till the first week in October, when it reaches high-water mark, nearly fifty-four or fifty-five feet at the Egyptian frontier, and twenty-five or twenty-six feet at Cairo. A subsidence then sets in, and continues till low-water level is again reached, usually about the end of May. The floods are then much higher and confined to a narrower space in the Nubian section of the Nile, while they gradually die out in the region of the Delta, where the excess seawards is discharged by the Rosetta and Damietta branches. In place of the old Nilometers, the amount of the rise of the Nile is now reported by telegraph from meteorological stations.
It is popularly supposed that at every rise the plains of the Delta are inundated, but this is not the case. The actual overflow of the banks of the river and canals is the exception, and when it happens is most disastrous. The irrigation of fields and plantations is effected by slow infiltration through the retaining dykes, which are prevented from bursting by the process of slow absorption. The first lands to be affected are not those which are nearest to the dyke, but those which are of the lowest level, because the waters, in percolating through under the ground, reach the surface of these parts first. In Manitoba during a dry season sometimes the roots of the wheat strike down deep enough to reach the reservoir of moisture under ground. In Egypt this underground moisture is what is counted upon, but it is fed by a special and prepared system, and is thus brought to the roots of the plants artificially.
An analysis of the Nile alluvium, which has accumulated in the course of ages to a thickness of from three to four feet above the old river-bed, shows that it contains a considerable percentage of such fertilising substances as carbonate of lime and magnesia, silicates of aluminum, carbon, and several oxides. Where the water has to be raised to higher levels, two processes are used. The primitive shadoof of native origin figured on a monument as far back as 3,300 years ago, and the more modern sakieh was apparently introduced in later times from Syria and Persia. The shadoof is used on small farms, and the sakieh is more often used for larger farms and plantations. These contrivances line the whole course of the Nile from Lower Egypt to above Khartum. The shadoof will raise six hundred gallons ten feet in an hour, and consists of a pole weighted at one end, with a bucket at the other; when the water is raised the weight counterbalances the weight of the full bucket. The sakieh, which will raise twelve hundred gallons twenty or twenty-four feet in an hour, is a modified form of a Persian wheel, made to revolve by a beast of burden; it draws an endless series of buckets up from the water, and automatically empties them into a trough or other receptacle. In former times these appliances were heavily taxed and made the instruments of oppression, but these abuses have been reformed since Egypt came under a more humane form of government.
Another interesting feature of the water ways of Egypt is the intermittent watercourses. The largest of these is the Khor Baraka (Barka), which flows out towards Tapan, south of Suakin. It presents some analogy to the Nile, and in part was undoubtedly a perennial stream 250 miles long, and draining seven or eight thousand square miles. At present its flat sandy bed, winding between well-wooded banks, is dry for a great part of the year. This route is extensively used for the caravan trade between Suakin and Kassala. During September the water begins to flow, but is spasmodic. After the first flood the natives plant their crops, but sometimes the second flow, being too great, cannot be confined to the limits prepared for it, and the crops are carried away and the sowing must of necessity be started again.
The canals of Egypt are of great aid in extending the beneficial influence of the inundations of the Nile. In Lower Egypt is the Mahmudiyeh Canal, connecting Alexandria with the Rosetta branch, and following the same direction as an ancient canal which preceded it.
Mehemet Ali constructed this canal, which is about fifty miles long and one hundred feet broad. It is believed that twelve thousand labourers perished during its construction. Between the Rosetta and the Damietta branches of the Nile there are other canals, such as the Manuf, which connects the two branches of the river at a point not far from the Delta. East of the Damietta branch are other canals, occupying the ancient river-beds of the Tanitic and Pelusiac branches of the Nile. One of these is called the canal of the El-Muiz, from the first Fatimite caliph who ruled in Egypt, and who ordered it to be constructed. Another is named the canal of Abul-Munegga, from the name of the Jew who executed this work under the caliph El-’Amir, in order to bring water into the province of Sharkiyah. This last canal is connected with the remains of the one which in ancient times joined the Nile with the Red Sea. After falling into neglect it has again in part been restored and much increased in length as the Sweet Water Canal.
Further mention may also be made of the great canal called the Bahr-Yusef, or River Joseph, which is important enough to be classed as a ramification of the Nile itself. As has been mentioned, this water way runs parallel with the Nile on the west side below Cairo for about 350 miles to Farshut, and is the most important irrigation canal in Egypt. It is a series of canals rather than one canal. Tradition states that this canal was repaired by the celebrated Saladin. Another tradition, relating that the canal existed in the time of the Pharaohs, has recently been proved to be correct.
Egypt possesses not only the greatest natural water way in the world, but also the greatest artificial water way—the Suez Canal. Before the opening of this canal there were in the past other canals which afforded communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. These ancient canals differed in one respect from the Suez Canal, since they were all fed by the fresh waters of the Nile. One of these still remains in use, and is called the Fresh Water Canal. According to Aristotle, Strabo, and Pliny, Sesostris was the first to conceive and carry out the idea of a water connection between the two seas, by means of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile from Avaris to Bubastis, and by rendering navigable the irrigation canal which already existed between Bubastis and Heroopolis. It is believed by some that the fragment bearing the oval of Ramses II. found near the course of the present canal affords confirmation of this assertion.
The first authentic account of the carrying out of the conception of an inter-sea water way is to be found in the time of Pharaoh Necho II., about the year 610 B.C. Herodotus records of Necho that he was “the first to attempt the construction of the canal to the Red Sea.” This canal tapped the Nile at Bubastis, near Zagazig, and followed closely the line of modern Wady Canal to Heroopolis, the site of which lies in the neighbourhood of Toussun and Serapeum, between the Bitter Lakes and Lake Tinseh. At that date the Red Sea reached much farther inland than it does now, and was called in the upper portion the Heroopolite Gulf. The expanse of brackish water, now known as the Bitter Lakes, was then, in all probability, directly connected with the Red Sea. The length of this canal, according to Pliny, was sixty-two miles, or about fifty-seven English miles. This length, allowing for the sinuosity of the valley traversed, agrees with the distance between the site of old Bubastis and the present head of the Bitter Lakes. The length given by Herodotus of more than one thousand stadia (114 miles) must be understood to include the whole distance between the two seas, both by the Nile and by the canal. Herodotus relates that it cost the lives of 120,000 men to cut the canal. He says that the undertaking was abandoned because of a warning from an oracle that the barbarians alone, meaning the Persians, would benefit by the success of the enterprise.
The true reason for relinquishing the plan probably was that the Egyptians believed the Red Sea to have been higher in altitude than the Nile. They feared that if the canal were opened between the Nile and the Red Sea the salt water would flow in and make the waters of the Nile brackish. This explanation would indicate a lack of knowledge of locks and sluices on the part of the Egyptians.
The work of Necho was continued by Darius, the son of Hystaspes (520 B.C.). The natural channel of communication between the Heroopolite Gulf and the Red Sea had begun to fill up with silt even in the time of Necho, and a hundred years later, in the time of Darius, was completely blocked, so that it had to be entirely cleaned out to render it navigable. The traces of this canal can still be plainly seen in the neighbourhood of Shaluf, near the south end of the Bitter Lakes. The present fresh-water canal was also made to follow its course for some distance between that point and Suez. Persian monuments have been found by Lepsius in the neighbourhood, commemorating the work of Darius. On one of these the name of Darius is written in the Persian cuneiform characters, and on a cartouche in the Egyptian form. Until this date it therefore appears that ships sailed up the Pelusiac branch of the Nile to Bubastis, and thence along the canal to Heroopolis, where the cargoes were transhipped to the Red Sea. This inconvenient transfer of cargoes was remedied by the next Egyptian sovereign, who bestowed much care on the water connection between the two seas.
Ptolemy Philadelphus (285 B.C.), in addition to cleaning out and thoroughly restoring the two canals, joined the fresh-water canal with the Heroopolite Gulf by means of a lock and sluices, which permitted the passage of vessels, and were effective in preventing the salt water from mingling with the fresh water. At the point where the canal joined the Heroopolite Gulf to the Red Sea, Ptolemy founded the town of Arsinoë, a little to the north of the modern Suez.
The line of communication between the two seas was impassable during the reign of Cleopatra (31 b.c.). It is believed by some that it was restored during the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan (98-117). During this period the Pelusiac branch of the Nile was very low, the water having almost completely deserted this formerly well-filled course. If Trajan, therefore, undertook to reopen the water way, he must have tapped the Nile much higher up, in order to reach a plentiful supply of water. The old canal near Cairo, which elsewhere joined the line of the former canal on the way to the Bitter Lakes, was once called “Amnis Trajanus,” and from this it has been inferred that Trajan was really the builder, and that during his reign this canal was cleaned and rendered navigable. As there is no further evidence than the name to prove that Trajan undertook so important an enterprise, the “Amnis Trajanus” was probably constructed during the Arabic period.
When Amr had conquered Egypt, according to another account, the caliph Omar ordered him to ship rich supplies of grain to Mecca and Medina, because during the pilgrimages these cities and often the whole of Hedjaz suffered severely from famine. As it was extremely difficult to send large quantities of provisions across the desert on the backs of camels, it is supposed that to facilitate this transportation Omar ordered the construction of the canal from a point near Cairo to the head of the Red Sea. On account of his forethought in thus providing for the pilgrims to the Hedjaz, Omar received the title of “Prince of the Faithful” (Emir el-Momenéen), which thenceforth was adopted by his successors in the caliphate. One hundred and thirty-four years after this time, El-Mansur, the second caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, is said to have closed the canal to prevent supplies from being shipped to one of the descendants of Ali who had revolted at Medina. Since that time it is probable that it has never been reopened, although there is a report that the Sultan Hakim rendered it available for the passage of boats in the year A.D. 1000, after which it was neglected and became choked with sand. While not thereafter used for navigation, there were parts which during the time of the annual inundation of the Nile were filled with water, until Mehemet Ali prevented this. The parts filled during the inundation extended as far as Sheykh Hanaydik, near Toussun and the Bitter Lakes.
The old canal which left the Nile at Cairo had long ceased to flow beyond the outskirts of the city, and the still more ancient canal from the neighbourhood of Bubastis, now known as the Wady Canal, extended only a few miles in the direction of the isthmus as far as Kassassin. During the construction of the Suez Canal the need of supplying the labourers with fresh water was imperative. The company, therefore, determined in 1861 to prolong the canal from Kassassin to the centre of the isthmus, and in the year 1863 they brought the fresh-water canal as far as Suez. In one or two places the bed of the old canal was cleared out and made to serve the new canal. The level of the fresh-water canal is about twenty feet above that of the Suez Canal, which it joins at Ismailia by means of two locks. The difference of level between it and the Red Sea is remedied by four locks constructed between Nefeesh and its terminus at Suez. Its average depth of water at high Nile is six feet, and at low Nile three feet.
A canal from Bulak, near Cairo, passing by Heliopolis and Belbeys, and joining the Wady Canal a few miles east of Zagazig, restores the line of water communication between the Nile and the Red Sea as it existed perhaps in the time of Trajan, and certainly as it was in the time of the Caliph Omar. The improvement of this canal as a means of transit is local and external only.
Napoleon Bonaparte was the first in modern times to take up the subject of a water connection between the two seas. In 1798 he examined the traces of the old canal of Necho and his successors, and ordered Monsieur Lepère to survey the isthmus and prepare a project for uniting the two seas by a direct canal. The result of this French engineer’s labours was to discover a supposed difference of thirty feet between the Red Sea at high tide and the Mediterranean at low tide. As this inequality of level seemed to preclude the idea of a direct maritime canal, a compromise was recommended.
Owing to the exertions of Lieutenant Waghorn, the route through Egypt for the transmission of the mails between England and India was determined upon in 1839. The Peninsular and Oriental Company established a service of steamers between England and Alexandria, and between Suez and India. In spite of this endeavour nothing was actually accomplished with regard to a canal until 1846, when a mixed commission was appointed to enquire into the subject. This commission entirely exploded the error into which Lepère had fallen in reporting a difference of level between the two seas.
A plan was projected in 1855 by M. Linant Bey and M. Mougel Bey, under the superintendence of M. de Les-seps, who had already received a firman of concession from Said Pasha. This plan recommended a direct canal between Suez and Pelusium, which should pass through the Bitter Lakes, Lake Tinseh, Ballah, and Menzaleh, and connecting with the sea at each end by means of a lock. A fresh-water canal from Bulak to the centre of the isthmus and thence through Suez, with a conduit for conveying water to Pelusium, was also proposed. This project was in 1856 submitted to an international commission company composed of representatives from England, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Prussia, and Spain, and the following modification was suggested: that the line of the canal to the north should be slightly altered and brought to a point seventeen and a half miles west of Pelusium, this change being determined upon from the fact that the water at this point was from twenty-five to thirty feet deep at a distance of two miles from the coast, whereas at Pelusium this depth of water was only to be found at a distance of five miles from the coast. It was suggested that the plan for locks be abolished, and the length of the jetties at Suez and Port Said be diminished. Various other details of a minor character were determined, and this project was finally accepted and carried through by the Suez Canal Company.