At the date of the English occupation the Delta Barrage was generally thought to be like the whole fabric of Egyptian Government, rotten to the core. And so indeed it seemed. No one had ever dared to use, or apparently even to think of using, the Barrage on the Damietta or right-hand branch at all. The history of the Barrage on the Rosetta branch was hardly less inglorious. In 1863 its gates were closed for the first time, but about ten of its arches began to settle, and ominous cracks showed. Eventually the threatened part was surrounded by a coffer-dam, and from 1872 to 1883 it managed to hold up about 1 metre. But even that was precarious. Commission after Commission had condemned the structure; it was felt that at any moment it might give way, especially if called upon to bear a greater strain, and it was actually the settled policy of the Government to rely on huge and costly pumping-stations instead. It was a paltry result after the expenditure of £4,000,000 and so much labour.

Then, not for the first or last time, the Anglo-Indians came to the rescue of Africa. Sir Evelyn Baring himself (now Lord Cromer) during his service as Financial Member of the Council in India, must have been impressed by the enormous importance of irrigation. It would not be difficult to find many points of resemblance between his character and that of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the rulers of India, Lord Lawrence, different as were their spheres of work; but certainly they were alike in this. As Lord Lawrence supported Arthur Cotton in his engineering work, so Lord Cromer supported Colin Scott-Moncrieff and the band of trusty lieutenants—Willcocks, Garstin, Ross, Brown, Foster, Western, and Reid—who came with him. Fortunately for Egypt, these men, trained in the best school of irrigation in the world, possessed not only the highest scientific skill and knowledge, but were also animated by the best spirit of the empire-building Englishman. Deep in them lay the earnest wish and determination, far stronger even than their enthusiasm and love for their profession, to alleviate the lot of the unhappy peasantry of Egypt. It was this heartfelt sympathy for the wrongs of the fellaheen, ground down by the intolerable burden of the corvée, that sustained them in their ceaseless labours and enabled them to pass successfully through those dark days, when the air was full of forebodings of failure and disaster, whose fulfilment would have pleased so many.

The Barrage is situated, as has been said, a little way back from the point of the Delta. It is really two Barrages, one on the left or Rosetta branch of the Nile, with sixty-one arches, 465 metres in length, and the other on the Damietta branch with seventy-one arches, 535 metres in length. Between the two runs a revetment wall across the intervening tongue of land, 1,000 metres in length. From a distance it resembles a bridge of rather fanciful design, with the arches set unusually close together, and, indeed, for a great part of its career the functions of a bridge were the only ones it performed. The tongue of land between has been converted into beautiful gardens, planted with shady trees and many shrubs and flowers, and even a greensward resembling grass. Altogether, it is one of the most delightful and beautiful spots in Egypt, besides being one of the most useful. Here is the starting-point of the great feeder canals which irrigate the Delta provinces. On the left, facing north, is the Rayah Behera, which supplies the province of Behera, to the left of the Rosetta branch. Between the two Barrages is the head of the Rayah Menoufia, the canal which feeds the two provinces of Menoufia and Gharbia, lying between the two arms of the river; while on the right is the Rayah Tewfiki, which, with its supplementary canals, Ismailia, Sharkia, and Basusia, supplies the three eastern provinces of the Delta, Kalyubia, Sharkia, and Dakalia. All these canals are navigable, as well as the branches of the river, and provided with locks for that purpose. These great waterways are free to all, and few of the results of British occupation are more appreciated in Egypt. Formerly all craft upon the Nile had to pay toll on passing under a bridge, which did nothing but hinder their progress, while those for whose convenience it was made passed without charge overhead.

A Barrage, as its name implies, is designed to completely bar the bed of the river, so as to enable it to feed the canals at a higher level than would otherwise be the case, and also to allow the flood to pass through it easily. It needs, therefore, a very solid foundation from bank to bank, on which the arches which hold the movable sluice-gates can be securely planted. Its construction is, therefore, a very different and much more difficult matter than merely throwing a bridge over the stream, even a bridge with several spans. The difficulty is all the greater when, as here, the bed of the river offers nothing more substantial than shifting sands to build upon. It was for this reason that Linant wished to build the Barrages at leisure in the dry, and then divert the river from its old channels, and lead it through when they were completed. But Mougel chose to build his in the existing bed of the river, thereby increasing the difficulties of actual construction, though from other points of view there was much to be said for this plan. At the site of the Rosetta Barrage the bed of the river was not of uniform depth; he therefore filled up the deepest part of the channel, which lay on the right, with loose stones, so as to bring it up to the level of the bottom on the left-hand side. No cement was used in laying down this barrier, but the Nile mud filled the interstices and made it water-tight; when finished, this barrier was 60 metres wide and 10 deep at the deepest part. On this and on the natural sand he built a platform 46 metres in width and 3·5 metres thick, composed of concrete overlaid with brick and stonework. On the platform he raised his arches and piers, all built of brick. Each of the openings for the sluice-gates, sixty-one in number, was 5 metres wide. Like an iceberg, that part of the Barrage which is visible above water is much less than the invisible part below. To further strengthen the structure and keep it in its place, a mass of rubble pitching or loose stones was thrown into the river on the downstream side. This talus was 3 to 16 metres in depth, and at one part extended 50 metres downstream in a kind of tongue, narrowing down to 2 metres. The Damietta Barrage was built on a similar plan, but its downstream talus was not so large. Unfortunately, the concrete used for the platform was inferior, chiefly owing to the fact that Mehemet Ali, growing impatient at the slow progress of the work, ordered a certain amount of material to be laid down every day, and laid down it had to be in defiance of all engineering requirements. The consequence was that, as soon as the Rosetta Barrage was subjected to strain, ten of the arches on the left-hand side, where the platform was laid down on sand only, settled and cracked. It was patched up by surrounding the injured arches with a coffer-dam; but the Damietta Barrage never even had its gates put in.

Such was the structure with which the English engineers had to deal. Even as it stands to-day, it cannot, of course, compare in magnitude with many works upon the Indian rivers; but as regards the difficulties to be overcome, it can compare with almost any in the world. It would have been far easier to rebuild the whole thing from the beginning, but at the time the necessary funds were not forthcoming. They had to take the old structure, with all its imperfections, and screw it up to work as it was. The country could not afford to cut off the summer water-supply of the Delta while the repairs were in progress. The cotton-crop had always to be thought of. And the period of the year during which the summer canals required to be supplied was the only period during which work could be done, for once the flood came down all operations were at an end. It is the glory of the English engineers that, working under these conditions and with untrained workmen, they succeeded in their task.

The Government was already paying many thousands a year to a company for pumping water out of the Rosetta branch into the canals during the summer, and the first thing Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff had to do on his arrival was to decide upon a scheme which had been prepared for erecting new pumping-stations at an initial expense of about three-quarters of a million, and involving an annual expenditure of at least another quarter of a million. So hopeless were the prospects of the Barrage assumed to be, that even this expenditure, with a doubtful result, was thought preferable to repairing it. Sir Colin’s arrival was only in the nick of time. He determined to see what could be done with the resources at hand. The new pumping-station scheme was set aside, and Mr. Willcocks was put in charge of the Barrage.

There was much literature on the subject. During the last sixteen years nothing had been done, but much had been written, and more said. Commissions, expert and inexpert, had issued voluminous and condemnatory reports, and had even prepared expensive schemes of repair. Mr. Willcocks (now Sir William) is an indefatigable reader, and could hardly have been encouraged thereby, till an examination of the structure itself showed that all the later reports had been drawn up without reference to facts. It had been observed that whenever the gates were let down there was very severe action of the water on the downstream side. The authors of the reports concluded that the foundations were honeycombed. It is characteristic of the Looking-glass days of Ismail that no one ever thought of trying to find out by actual observation whether there might not be some other cause. But Mr. Willcocks, looking for himself, found that this action of the water was caused, not by honeycombed foundations, but by open gratings which intervened between the bottom of the sluice-gates and the platform. They had been put down originally to keep the silt away from the bottom of the gates. Someone had fixed them so as to prevent the gates from being lowered to their full extent and then they had actually been forgotten. Measures were at once taken to close these gratings, and eventually to remove them altogether. 20,000 cubic metres of rubble pitching were added to the talus. The Damietta Barrage was likewise strengthened with various ingenious expedients, improvised to meet the demands of the moment. Sluice-gates were put in for the first time and gradually closed. Part of it was closed by a temporary stone dam. Eventually in the summer of 1884 2·2 metres of water were held up on the Rosetta branch, and 1 metre on the Damietta. Next year the same nursing process was continued. The coffer-dam round the weak arches was strengthened, the talus of rubble pitching below each Barrage was completed, and this year 3 metres were held up on the Rosetta branch and 1·6 on the Damietta. The effect was extraordinary. The acreage under summer cultivation was doubled, rising from 600,000 to 1,200,000 acres. Not only was the supply of water in the Delta canals greatly increased throughout the summer, but, as it was delivered at a higher level, there was a great saving of expense in lifting it on to the land. For the first time the Egyptians thoroughly realized that a new power had come amongst them.

The experiment had been successful, but temporary expedients could not last for ever. The more water held up, and the greater the area of the summer cultivation, the more necessary it became to insure the stability of the structure. A thorough repair would cost money. Fortunately, this was now forthcoming. Mr. Willcocks’ success had settled the claim of the Barrage to a share in the famous Irrigation Million borrowed in 1885.

At the end of 1886 the work was begun, under the charge of Colonel Western and Mr. Reid, sent specially from India for the purpose. The operations were spread over four years. In the first year the left half of the Rosetta Barrage was taken in hand and finished before the flood, next year the right half. In 1889 and 1890 the Damietta Barrage was similarly taken in hand and finished. Each year the part to be repaired was enclosed by earthen dams, and the water pumped out so as to lay the foundations dry. The whole of the existing floor was raised, both on the upstream and downstream side, and it was also considerably lengthened. It was, in fact, enclosed in a new and reliable suit of armour. The dangers and anxieties of the work were incessant. The protecting dams were always liable to be breached. Spring after spring burst out through the treacherous bed of the river, and threatened the destruction of the year’s work; and again and again each of them was successively stopped by a number of ingenious devices. There is no enemy so persistent and so insidious in its attacks as running water. It is always feeling for and finding out the weak spots. It never sleeps or slackens by day or by night. It can only be met successfully by a corresponding activity. While work was possible, it was carried on unceasingly by night as well as by day. Sometimes as many as 1,600 men worked through the night. The upper brickwork was generally sound, but new iron sluice-gates moving in special grooves were fitted throughout. The whole of the repairs cost £465,000. It was money well laid out. Not only was the safety of the Barrage assured, but it was found possible to hold up yet another metre of water. The area of summer crops matured rose once more from 1,200,000 to 1,520,000.

It might have been thought that the work was now complete. Both in 1891 and 1892 (a year of specially low summer supply) all the water in the Nile was held up, and diverted into the canals. Not a drop reached the sea during the summer without having done duty. But the engineers were now looking forward to a time when the supply would be greatly increased. The idea of a reservoir had become an affair of practical politics. It was necessary to make assurance doubly sure. Accordingly, in 1896 a new experiment was tried—namely, stock-ramming with clay.

Certain arches in the Damietta Barrage were selected, and in them five-inch holes were bored right down through pier and platform alike. When the bore-holes were complete, they were lined with iron tubes. Clay was then forced through the tube by means of an iron rammer, and as much as could be made to spread out at the bottom of the hole was put in and rammed. As far as the clay went, the experiment was not an entire success; but the boring brought to light a condition of things in the very vitals of the Barrage which demanded drastic treatment, for the bore-holes proved the existence of large cavities in the original platform, and in some places there was free water communication between one bore-hole and another. Some piers in the Rosetta Barrage were therefore chosen for a similar experiment, but this time liquid Portland cement was used instead of clay, and the results were entirely satisfactory. Few discoveries have been of more signal service than the invention of Portland cement. It is not too much to say that it has revolutionized hydraulic engineering by the facilities it affords for constructing solid works in water. Its strength and resisting power is enormous, but its greatest quality is that it hardens and solidifies under the action of water, and, so far as is known, only goes on getting harder and harder with time. The borings in the Rosetta Barrage having revealed similar deficiencies to those in the Damietta, it was decided to apply to both a thorough dose of this invaluable and invigorating medicine.

In 1897 five holes were bored in each pier of the Rosetta Barrage (their united length amounted to very nearly 6 kilometres), and into each was poured a quantity of liquid cement. The necessity for the treatment was proved by the fact that in some cases the cement travelled right through from the bore-hole in one pier and rose through the bore-hole in an adjoining pier till it reached the top. One pier actually swallowed 439 barrels of cement, while its neighbour took a lesser but still gigantic draught of 327 barrels. There was no doubt that the cement thoroughly explored and filled all the cavities existing in the foundations under the bridge. In all, 3,254 barrels were used in the Rosetta Barrage alone. In 1898 the grouting process, as it is called, was applied with equal success to the Damietta Barrage.

To use Sir Hanbury Brown’s homely but expressive image, the process applied to the Barrage was exactly that followed by a cook who wishes to finish off a cold pie with its proper complement of jelly. The jelly is introduced into the pie in the form of warm gravy, which penetrates into and fills every recess of the succulent interior, and then solidifies as it cools.

And still the engineers were not satisfied. So treacherous is the river’s bed that no possible safeguards seemed superfluous. It speaks volumes for the courage and skill of those who in 1885 held up 3 metres of water with the old unreformed Barrage, that in 1897, after the successful execution of such great and costly repairs, it was still thought advisable to undertake completely new works to assist in the task of holding up 4, or at the most 5, metres.

It is a principle in hydraulics, not easily understood at first by the layman, that the pressure upon a weir or barrage in a river depends entirely upon the difference in level between the water on the upstream and on the downstream side, and not on the mere volume of water in the river behind it. In December, 1897, the Caisse de la Dette voted £530,000 for the construction of two subsidiary downstream weirs, with the object of relieving the pressure on the Barrage by raising the level of the water on the downstream side, thus dividing the head of water to be held up into two—in other words, by making two steps instead of one. Each weir was to consist of a core of rubble masonry set in cement, sunk well below the bed of the river, and protected up and down stream by a long slope of rough stone blocks or pitching. To make the masonry core thoroughly watertight, a mass of clay puddle was to be put on either side of it. The weirs were thus to be a solid dam, blocking the course of the stream up to such a height that the head of water on the Barrage, at that time amounting to 4 metres, would be reduced to 2·5 metres. The flood would pass freely over the top of the weirs. At the same time the sluice-gates of the existing Barrage were to be heightened, so as to permit the upstream level to be raised 1 metre more in June and July, so as to take full advantage of the rising flood and facilitate the early sowing of maize, a great point with the Egyptian cultivator.

By the summer of 1900 this programme had been completed. The building of the weir on the Rosetta branch was an especially fine performance, for which great credit was due to Sir Hanbury Brown and Mr. Brooke, who were in charge of it. Five hundred metres in length, it was begun at the end of December, 1899, and actually finished before the flood began to come down in July. The same Portland cement played a great part in its construction. It may now fairly be said that the Barrage is complete at last, and fully equal to every strain that it can be called upon to bear.

The weirs were constructed not a moment too soon. It so happened that the summer supply of 1900 was lower than in any previous year of which records have been kept. In 1889 the river sank to a level of ·60 metre below zero on the Assouan gauge. In 1878 it fell to ·71 metre below zero, and this was the lowest known before the summer of 1900. But on three days in that year, May 15, 16, and 26, the river fell to a level of ·91 metre below zero. The position was aggravated by the extension of summer cultivation. The total extent of summer crops had risen still further to over 1,700,000 acres.

To save the valuable cotton crop was the earnest preoccupation of the Irrigation Department. They were able by the most strenuous efforts, not merely to save the crop, but so to treat it that it gave a yield which, only a few years before, would have been considered perfectly impossible even in a good year. But all their efforts would have been in vain had it not been possible, thanks to the new weirs, to raise the level of the water upstream of the Barrage to an extent which would have been exceedingly dangerous without their assistance, and so to take full advantage of the rising flood. The mere enumeration of the special measures which were put into force gives a very good idea of the difficult duties which devolve on those who control the water in Egypt:

1. Earthen dams were constructed in both branches of the river to prevent the inrush of salt water from the sea.

2. Special programmes were laid down for ‘rotations’ on the canals.

The system of rotations, which was introduced from India, is that the land-owners are only allowed to pump water on to their lands at certain intervals. There are several advantages in this. The water is economized, and as it can thereby be kept at a lower level in the canals, there is less danger of the soil becoming deteriorated by excessive saturation. The pumps are allowed to work for a certain period, according to the district, and then an interval is prescribed, until the expiration of which they are not allowed to work again. In 1900 the pumps were allowed to work for a period of six days at a time, and at first twelve days was the interval until the next pumping. But as the summer wore on, and the river continued to fall, the interval was gradually extended to twenty-two days—a very severe measure indeed.

3. All land-owners were warned not to sow rice.

4. They were also forbidden to sow maize until a date should be announced.

5. Special pumping arrangements were made.

6. There was more than usually careful regulation at the heads of the canals above the Barrage, so as to insure a proper distribution of the water available to all the provinces.

7. A special staff was appointed to see that all these regulations were carried out.

From time immemorial the peasantry of Egypt have been liable to the corvée in some form or other. In a country depending for its existence upon the proper maintenance of its dykes, it was only natural that the whole population should turn out to perform the necessary work. But a useful custom very easily degenerated into a galling slavery under Oriental despotism. Rulers with absolute power of life and death over their subjects, who regarded the land they ruled as their own personal property, could not be expected to make much distinction between works carried out for the general good and those designed merely for their own convenience and aggrandisement. The Pyramids and others of the mighty remains of ancient Egypt stand as monuments of the greatness of the Pharaohs, but no less of the miseries of countless generations under the system of forced labour, which is known in our time as the corvée, a term applied sometimes to the forced labour itself, and sometimes to those who perform it.

In the early chapters of the Book of Exodus there is a brief but pregnant description of the sufferings of the Israelites when subjected to the burden.

Doubtless the amount of forced labour varied from time to time, according to the ambition or the caprice of the rulers of the country. But the annual necessity for watching the dykes during the flood, and repairing them when it was over, never permitted the custom to fall into disuse, and the knowledge that this great instrument was always ready to hand must have been a powerful incentive to any King or Caliph who wished to send his name down to history as the author of a mighty work. No wonder that after so many centuries of practice the Egyptians are the most patient and efficient spade-workers in the world. The wretched peasantry of Egypt must have blessed the accession of the undistinguished Sovereigns who had no desire to add to their fame either by building at home or by conquest abroad. To them the glories of a Rameses or an Amenemhat must have been small compensation for their ‘anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.’

So long as basin irrigation continued to be universal, there was much to be said on behalf of the corvée, if the system was justly and impartially administered. During the months of the flood, and those preceding it, when the land was lying dry and baked, there was little or nothing for the agricultural population to do except to clear the shallow flood canals, repair the dykes, and protect the river-banks. If the labour was compulsory, it was, at any rate, everybody’s interest to perform it. The work lay at their own door; they were not dragged away to a distant province. There must always have been abuses in practice. The humbler folk did more than their share, and so on, but in theory it was not bad.

All this was changed with the introduction of perennial irrigation and the digging of the summer canals. Owing to their depth, and sometimes, also, to their faulty construction, the silt deposits in them were very great, and the whole corvée was called out to clear them, though very few were interested in them. More than that, a man’s own home was no longer the scene of his labours. The labourers of one province were called in to work in another. Each year the corvée worked from January 15 to July 15, clearing the canals and repairing the banks. From August 1 to November 1 they guarded the Nile banks in the flood. Every year an extensive programme of work was sketched out, but before it was finished they had to hurry off to flood-protection duty. Not only unpaid, they had to find their own tools, and provide their own commissariat, a double hardship on men out of their own neighbourhood. During the flood, when they lived in booths built for themselves on the Nile banks, they had to find their own lanterns, and even, like the Israelites of old, their own straw and brushwood, to save the dykes from the action of the waves. New works were carried out in the same fashion.

Nor was this the sum of their grievances. The increase of summer irrigation made the months immediately preceding the flood a very busy instead of a very slack time of year. The value of the cotton crop made everyone most anxious to secure it, so the larger proprietors kept their tenants at home for that purpose. The numbers of the corvée decreased, and the burden of it fell more and more upon the poor fellaheen. Ministers and high officials from the Khedive downwards employed the corvée to work on their own private estates. Other persons, influential by station or by bribery, secured the like advantage, and robbed their humble neighbours of their labour, their last remaining possession. Under Said Pasha the corvée dug the Suez Canal. Under Ismail they dug the Ibrahimiyah Canal, the sole object of which was to benefit his private estates in Upper Egypt. Even the splendid carriage-road that runs from Cairo to the Pyramids of Gizeh was raised on the same foundations that the Empress Eugénie might travel there in comfort after the opening of the Suez Canal.

Only a nation inured to slavery could have endured it. Many, indeed, labouring under the burning sun, unpaid, unfed, and unclothed, succumbed. But what did that matter when other human beasts of burden were there to take their place? The activity of the survivors was kept up by the whip, the traditional motive-power in Egypt. Nominally, all between the ages of fifteen and fifty were liable to serve, but there were a multitude of exceptions, including teachers, holy men, students, certain classes of tradesmen, and others. The law of 1881 laid down that anyone might exempt himself by providing a substitute or by paying a cash ransom. But as there was no penalty imposed for not paying, every man of any position freed himself from the obligation without paying the tax, and the whole burden of the corvée fell more than ever on the poorer classes. The régime of the kurbash, or whip, and the grosser abuses of the system, vanished immediately upon the English occupation, but all the earthwork maintenance was still performed by this unpaid labour.

It was, as I have said, the spectacle of the dumb misery of the fellaheen that particularly stimulated the English engineers in their task of repairing the Barrage. The first relief came in 1884, when the Nile was held up to a higher level at the Barrage. This had a twofold effect, for the canals did not require to be cleared to so great depth; and the higher level of the water enabled them to be laid on a better slope, which diminished the deposit of silt. In fact, the partial use of the Barrage in 1884 reduced the amount of silt deposit by 26 per cent. In 1885 the first step was also taken in a new direction: £30,000 were advanced towards the experiment of clearing some canals in the provinces of Menoufia and Gharbiah by contract. As usual, the gloomiest forebodings were uttered on every side. It was said the fellaheen would not work voluntarily. The whip alone was the only stimulus to which they were sensible. The experiment was bound to fail.

Once more the croakers were wrong. The fellah justified the confidence of Mr. Willcocks and his colleagues, that he was not unlike other men, and would work gladly for a wage. And so the struggle for emancipation went on with increased vigour. In 1886 £250,000 were provided by the Caisse for the reduction of the corvée, so that while in 1883 107,000 men had been called out in the Delta alone, in 1887 the number had been reduced to 27,500. Finally, December, 1889, saw the last of the system, and the performance of earthwork maintenance by the corvée was finally abolished. The Government supplemented the £250,000 a year received from the Caisse by another £150,000. In former days the labour required to clear the canals was estimated in the Delta alone at £530,000. For the sum of £400,000 Egypt got rid of the burden throughout the whole country. It was a bargain well worth making at a far higher cost. No greater boon could have been conferred upon the fellaheen. No longer are their lives made ‘bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field.’ That ‘evil case’ is ended. They labour indeed, but it is voluntary labour, without ‘groaning and anguish of spirit.’

The Government, of course, retains the right to call out the corvée in case of any grave national emergency, and every year, too, it is called out to guard the banks in flood-time. But the flood-corvée is cheerfully borne. It entails no hardship on the people. Its incidence, too, has been very much diminished, as the following figures show (the period of service is 150 days):

The figures tell their own tale. Experience and good organization have enormously decreased the number of men called out, so that it is now but a very slight burden upon the people. The date of calling out has also been altered to August 15 instead of August 1. The possession of the Soudan, and an accurate record of the state of the gauges in those regions, will also assist in making more accurate forecasts of the nature of the flood. In 1900 more men were called out than were required, because the flood came down early and promised to be a high one, but failed to fulfil expectations. The levels in the Soudan were known, but, there being no previous experience to judge them by, no inferences could be drawn from them. But the Soudan readings will be more and more useful as time goes on.

But even apart from this, there is great hope of a steady diminution in the numbers called out, and even that, except in years of high flood, the corvée may not be required at all. The record of the year 1901 is of remarkable promise in this respect. North of Cairo no corvée was called out at all, for the first time in the history of Egypt. The flood was low, but not exceptionally low. In any year Upper Egypt is responsible for far the greater number, and this is largely due to the extent of the basin banks which have to be guarded. It is remarkable that the two districts in which the greatest number were called out were in charge of native Egyptian inspectors, who were no doubt influenced by the old tradition that vast numbers of men should be employed. At any rate, as perennial irrigation increases in Upper Egypt, fewer men will be required, concurrently with the disuse of the basin dykes. And it seems likely that in years to come the whole task will be performed by contract labour; though the power of calling out the corvée will always be held in reserve in case of any specially dangerous flood. But in such a case the difficulty will be rather to prevent the work from being hindered by excessive numbers. There will be no doubt of the willingness to serve of practically the whole population.

In dealing with the history of the Barrage I have somewhat anticipated the order of events. It was the prospect of the coming Reservoir and an increased water-supply in summer that urged on the engineers to make assurance doubly sure by placing the strength of that structure beyond all doubt. It is time to pass from the Delta to Assouan.

No country in the world tells its story more readily to the traveller than Upper Egypt. As he passes up the broad waterway of the Nile, he may survey the whole life of the land without stirring from the deck of his steamer. If he has been in Egypt before, he cannot fail to be struck by the growth of its prosperity; it forces itself upon him in the bearing of the people, and in the number of their flocks and herds, now as ever the outward and visible sign of material well-being. Even the squalid clusters of mud huts, often roofless, or covered only by a few loose canes, dirty and miserable as they seem to Western eyes, with nothing substantial among them except the tomb of some sheikh or the inevitable pigeon-houses, are only proofs of the genial climate, which makes a roof overhead, and clothing as well, among the least of the necessities of life. The people themselves, hard workers as they are, have a happy and prosperous aspect, and the crowds of naked children, brown as the waters by whose edge they play, look as cheerful and contented as the vast colonies of pigeons, which live under very similar conditions to their owners.

On each side of the river-valley, here and there, especially on the eastern side, coming right to the water’s edge, rise the hills of the desert. Where the domain of the water ceases a man may stand with one foot in the bare and barren sand and the other in the most fertile soil in the world. Everywhere along the bank, hour after hour, day after day, the traveller may see the peasants lifting the water with the primitive shadoofs, tier upon tier, up to the level of the fields, or the oxen turning the sakieh. A hundred times a day he will have borne in upon him the fact that all he sees, from the kid upon the dykes to those obelisks of modern Egypt, the tall chimneys of the sugar factories, owes its existence absolutely to the water. Close behind the teeming villages and the luxuriant crops, the palm-trees and the acacias, the sugar-canes and the maize-fields, rise the gaunt limestone rocks and the sandy desert, fit emblems of the famine that is ever ready to swoop down should the water fail.

Even as late as December, steaming up the 550 miles of river, often half a mile or more across, between Cairo and Assouan, against the strong current, watching the majestic sweep of those wide waters pouring irresistibly towards the sea, it is hard to realize the anxiety of later months. But May or June has a very different tale to tell. To take and store the precious water, which now during the flood and winter rushes down in untold volume, to be lost and squandered in the sea, and use it to feed the lean summer months, is almost absurdly obvious. No wonder that since Mehemet Ali gave so great a stimulus to the cultivation of cotton and sugar the idea of the Reservoir has been constantly in the minds of the rulers of Egypt. The strange thing is that so many hundreds, even thousands, of years should have elapsed without any attempt of the kind being made. Perhaps it was due partly to the reverence felt for the mighty and inscrutable power of the great river, partly to the passive fatalism innate in the Oriental mind. A few years ago Sir Benjamin Baker asked a prominent and representative land-owner in Egypt, a Pasha, and a descendant of the Prophet, what he thought of the prospects of a Nile Reservoir. With a shrug of his shoulders, he replied that ‘if it had been possible it would have been done 4,000 years ago.’

He reasoned wiser than he knew. At the second cataract above Wadi Halfa there are marks upon the rocks and other indications which go to show that a Dam once existed at that point, used to regulate the flow of the Nile. Swept away by some unrecorded disaster, no other direct knowledge of it remains. But it is far from unlikely that Herodotus, in his account of Lake Mœris in the Fayoum, has mixed up some tradition of this ancient work in Nubia. At any rate, whatever be the truth about Lake Mœris, his account proves beyond all question that the idea of a Reservoir was familiar to the ancient Egyptians.

The tradition of a Reservoir somewhere on the upper waters of the Nile lingered long in Egypt. There is a curious reference to it in a book of travel by F. Vansleb, a Dutchman who visited Egypt about the year 1670. The fertility of the Nile flood is caused, he says, by a fall of dew, which usually takes place on June 17, just after the appearance of the ‘green’ water. This dew purifies the foul water, and makes it swell by fermentation. ‘Some of the country,’ however, he proceeds, ‘that are ignorant of the true causes of this increase, imagine that it proceeds from a large pond in Ethiopia in the river itself, which the Abyssins begin to open about June 12, and let the water out by degrees, more and more till September 14, by which time they begin to shut it again. But this is a foolish fancy of the Copties.’

We have seen how the tradition of Lake Mœris fascinated Mehemet Ali; but the methods of Haroun-al-Raschid were not suited to solid engineering works, as the history of the Barrage too plainly shows. None of his descendants, with the exception of the Khedive Ismail, had the wit to conceive or the ability to execute such an undertaking, and Ismail’s fantastic imagination was fully occupied in other directions. Fortunately for Egypt, the project had to wait until the success of the Barrage made the time ripe for its execution, and until skilful brains and strong hands were ready to plan and carry it out in the most efficient manner possible.

There were three problems to be faced: first, Where could such a Reservoir be erected? second, What arrangements could be devised to avoid the danger of large silt deposits, which would soon seriously diminish the capacity of the Reservoir, and, if allowed to accumulate, render it in no long time entirely useless? third, Supposing that the difficulties of site and design could be overcome, where was the money to be found? During the first years of the British occupation, while Egypt was still painfully struggling upwards from the abyss of bankruptcy into which she had been cast by the mad whirlwind of extravagance in Ismail’s reign, it was no time for the inception of original works on a grand scale. But in 1890 the matter became an affair of practical politics, and was at last seriously taken in hand. Meantime discussion had been raging as to the best locality for the Reservoir. An American gentleman, Mr. Cope Whitehouse, took up the case of the Wadi Rayan, a depression in the desert to the south-west of the Fayoum. This, he maintained, was the real site of the ancient Lake Mœris, and here the Reservoir ought to be. He had no professional knowledge, and he was utterly wrong in his ideas; but his vehement method of controversy kept the subject thoroughly alive. The whole land was filled with his clamour, and every expert was forced to give his own views in self-defence. The debate served a useful purpose. Gradually it came to be recognised that the river-bed itself was the proper place for storing the water by means of a Dam. Authorities differ as to whom belongs the credit of first making this suggestion, or, rather, of first reviving the tradition of the past; but it seems pretty clear that Sir Samuel Baker suggested the construction of a Dam at the first cataract at Assouan as far back as 1867.

However that may be, in 1890 the Government took the matter up, and charged Mr. W. Willcocks with the task of examining the river north of Wadi Halfa, reporting upon the best available site for the Dam, and preparing a design for it. After a careful survey, his plans were completed in 1894, and his design for a Reservoir at Assouan was then submitted to an International Committee of Engineers, consisting of Sir Benjamin Baker, M. Boulé, and Signor Torricelli. Mr. Willcocks’ plans were, with some modifications, accepted by a majority of the Commission, and to him belongs the honour of having designed the Dam. The selection of the Assouan site solved the first of the three difficulties. There is at this point an extensive outcrop of granite clean across the valley of the Nile, which it was thought would give sound rock everywhere at a very convenient level for the foundations of the Dam. Moreover, the trough of the river above the cataract and a long way south of it is exceptionally deep, and this makes it possible for a greater amount of water to be stored up behind the Dam. But the prime necessity was for a solid foundation. Elsewhere in Egypt the bed of the Nile is composed of shifting sands, on which it would have been impossible to build a Dam capable of holding up so great a head of water.

Mr. Willcocks’ design solved the second difficulty, the problem of constructing a Dam strong enough for the purpose, and yet of avoiding the danger of filling up the Reservoir by too great accumulations of silt. The other great Dams in the world, as, for instance, that built by Sir Arthur Cotton on the Godavery River, in India, are solid throughout. They are planned so that the rising flood shall pass freely over the top of them. But the Assouan Dam is of a type previously unknown, and its success ought to stimulate perennial irrigation in many parts of the world where such projects have hitherto proved failures. Its principle is that even the highest flood shall pass, not over it, but through it. To this end it is pierced with 180 openings, which are like tunnels in the great mass of masonry. The openings are controlled by powerful sliding-gates worked from above. During the months of the flood every gate will be up, and the ‘red’ water, carrying all its heavy burden of silt, will pass through without impediment. Later in the year, about the end of November, when the flood has subsided and very much less matter is carried in suspension, the sluice-gates begin to be gradually closed, and by the end of February the Reservoir is full, without having affected the normal discharge of the river in any appreciable degree. From April to July the water thus stored up is let out by degrees for employment, according to the state of the river and the requirement of the crops. By the time the next flood begins to come down all the stored water will have passed out, and every sluice will be once more open to give free passage to the rising stream. Although the Nile in December and January carries an insignificant amount of sediment compared to that brought down in August and September, it yet brings down a very considerable quantity, far greater than most other rivers at any time, and quite enough to go a long way towards silting up the bed of the Reservoir, if it was allowed to remain. But for this the river provides its own remedy: every year the force of the flood will act like a gigantic broom, sweeping the floor of the Reservoir. The sluices, arranged in sets of five, are distributed at different levels, according to the formation of the river-bed on the upstream side, so as to facilitate this process to the utmost. During the months of the inundation the Nile at Assouan pours down for weeks together a volume of 10,000 tons of water per second, and sometimes as much as 14,000 or 15,000 tons per second. The rush of this stupendous mass is sufficient to assure us that there will be no silting up of the Reservoir.

Two of the difficulties had been thus overcome, when, from a new and unexpected quarter, a storm sprang up, which very nearly brought to a standstill the rising fabric of Egyptian prosperity. The project of the Reservoir would have raised the level of the water, and held up the river above the Dam to a head of 100 feet; this would have involved the temporary submersion every year of the island of Philæ, with its famous Temple of Isis, Pharaoh’s Bed, and other monuments. A terrific hubbub arose. Archæological and antiquarian societies, which until then had sometimes belittled the monuments of Philæ as belonging to an inferior period, poured in their protests. People who had never heard of Philæ before, but who were none the less influential for that, joined in the outcry. Diplomatists, whose one desire was to embarrass our progress in Egypt, took up the cause of Art with a will. These champions of humanity at large forgot the poor fellaheen, to whom the extra water means all the difference between misery and happiness; nothing would satisfy them but the complete abandonment of the project. The engineers fought stoutly in the interests of Egypt; they offered to raise the whole of the monuments bodily, or to transport them to the neighbouring island of Bigeh; but, though they saved the Dam, the original design was lost, and the Dam to-day is 33 feet lower than it ought to have been. The foundations of Philæ have been underpinned and strengthened, the island will only be partially submerged, and the injury to Egypt can only be faintly estimated.

Was the sacrifice worth it? The value of Philæ lies in its beauty more than in its antiquarian interest. No one who has witnessed night after night the glorious sunsets on the Nile, the mysterious charm of the changing waters, the dark belt of palms reflected in the river below and standing out in strong contrast against the sky, the limestone cliffs of the desert clear-cut in the dry air, and flushing pink in the radiance of the indescribable after-glow, no one who has seen the Temples of Karnak, could hesitate to make so small a sacrifice, in comparison, for the sake of the river-side people. Moreover, Egypt is rich in treasures of the past, as yet undiscovered, and wanting only money for their development, which the Reservoir would in time supply. And how few people visit Philæ at all! Surely, even in a country a thousand times poorer than Egypt in artistic and archæological interests, the well-being of the living and of the unborn should have prevailed.

If all those who joined to swell the uproar had been really disinterested lovers of the beautiful, there would have been small reason to complain of their insistence. Enthusiasts can hardly be expected to listen to the voice of reason, and Philæ has charms to soften the heart of the most savage utilitarian. Its fate is a mournful necessity, but it is a necessity, for the question of the Reservoir had come to be a question of existence for Egypt. Even the advantage gained by the opposition in lowering the height of the Dam is only a delay. On the pylon of the Temple of Isis at Philæ is carved a huge representation of the Pharaoh of the day, one of the most degenerate of the Ptolemies, catching his defeated enemies by the hair of their heads with one hand, an uplifted sword in the other. The whole is a copy of the work of his warlike ancestors, and even as a copy it is a delusion and a sham; for he won no victories, defeated no enemies, and, indeed, scarcely ventured outside the walls of his harem. The apparent victory of these lovers of Philæ, to call them by their more honourable title, was not less delusive. Philæ is doomed. Between half drowned and wholly drowned there is not much difference in the case of an island, certainly not a difference worth fighting for, and the Dam will be raised to its full height, perhaps as soon as Egypt is ready for the extra water.

The financial difficulty remained. In spite of the prosperity of Egypt, she is, as everyone acquainted with her history is aware, bound hand and foot by international fetters in matters financial. The Caisse de la Dette, founded to protect Egyptian creditors against the dangers of bad administration, has remained to be an obstacle to any improvements that must benefit these interests. The practical outcome of the system is that, if the Caisse be hostile—and hostile it has often been—no public work like the Nile Reservoir can be carried out without the imposition of extra taxation to the amount of double the annual expenditure required.

Time passed, the need became more pressing, but the prospects of the Reservoir seemed further off than ever. Besides the regulation of her water-supply, Egypt had on her hands the question of the Soudan. From every point of view the reconquest of that province and the upper waters of the Nile was a prime necessity; no one could tell how long the war might last, or how great the expense might be. It seemed impossible that she could bear the cost of two such enterprises simultaneously, and under such circumstances her credit would not have been sufficient to raise the capital sum required on anything like reasonable terms. Not only so, but by the peculiar constitution of Egyptian finance it was illegal for her to raise a loan without the consent of the Caisse, a consent which it was impossible to obtain.

But, fortunately for Egypt, there were a few men with clearer vision and more faith in the future, and chief among these was Lord Cromer. The statesman who had controlled the tangled destinies of Egypt through so many dark years, and baffled so many tortuous intriguers, as well as more open foes, was not the man to despair in such a situation. In 1897 the first negotiations were quietly opened with Sir E. Cassel. Then came the vote of the majority of the Caisse to grant £500,000 towards the Soudan Railway, and the successful action taken in the Courts against that vote. Everyone knows how this seeming defeat was turned to overwhelming victory by the decision of the English Government to grant £750,000 for the railway on certain conditions. The enemies of England in Egypt received a staggering blow.

But the story was not yet complete. In April, 1898, Sir E. Cassel arrived at Cairo; in one day the details of the arrangements to finance the Dam were settled; all that night the lawyers drafted the necessary documents; a Council of Ministers was hastily called in the morning, and the contracts were signed. Sir E. Cassel was to provide the necessary funds for the execution of the work, £2,000,000; repayment by the Egyptian Government was to be deferred altogether for five years, and then to be spread over a period of thirty years. The first payment of about £78,000 is included in the Budget for 1903.

Looking back now after five years of prosperity, when Egyptian securities have actually increased in value, while Consols themselves have so greatly declined, it is easy to see that the statesman and the financier were justified in their faith. But in those days it needed a clear vision and a stout heart to calculate thirty years ahead—nay, even five—in a country so much the sport of international politics. The Soudan Campaign was not yet ended; behind the dervishes there loomed vague possibilities of worse complications. The Egyptian Government made a good bargain then, though it would doubtless make a better now. But it was then, and not now, that the business had to be settled.

Once the financial difficulty was settled, no time was lost in setting to work. As soon as the flood of 1898 began to subside, Messrs. Aird and Co., the contractors, were busy with the foundations of the Dam. Five years was the period allowed by the contract, but a succession of low Niles gave unusual facilities for the work, and everything was completed before the flood of 1902, a year before the specified time.

From its vast proportions, the Dam is infinitely more impressive to the imagination than any other of the irrigation works in Egypt. But from an engineering point of view its construction was a plain, straightforward business compared with the difficulties of building a Barrage, where the river-bed offered no more solid foundation than shifting sands. Still, there was a moment, on the first uncovering of the river-bed, when its fate seemed to hang in the balance. The Assouan site had been selected principally because the outcrop of granite, there running clean across the valley, would give, it was thought, solid foundation at a convenient level. It was found that in some places the rock was rotten to a depth of 40 feet. It was an anxious moment, both from an engineering and a financial point of view. Every foot of rotten rock meant a considerable addition to the calculated expense, besides modifying the building plan. Once more Lord Cromer’s strong will saved the situation. On the financial side he stood on firm ground, and he proved as good an engineer as he had been a financier. Solid rock was reached, and the work went steadily forward. Ten thousand men was the usual sum of those employed, and of these 800 were Italian stone-cutters specially brought over to deal with the tough granite of which the Dam is built. Granite and Portland cement are the two great materials used for welding the fetters of the Nile.

The Dam is about one mile and a quarter in length, and at its deepest point it is 126 feet high. Sixty-five feet of water can be held up when the reservoir is full, and it is capable of storing about 1,200,000,000 cubic metres of water—that is to say, about the same amount of water as passes through Assouan in a single day when the flood is at its height. The face of the wall is a slope on the downstream side, and its width at the bottom corresponds approximately to its height. Seven hundred and eighty thousand cubic yards of masonry have been used. On the western side a ladder of four locks gives passage to boat and steamer traffic at all seasons.

All parts of Egypt are to benefit in a greater or less degree from the extra summer supply. The original calculation assumed an amount to be distributed of 1,065,000,000 cubic metres. It was allotted as follows:

This division meant that 52,000 acres could be reclaimed to cultivation in the Fayoum, and 120,000 acres in the Delta. Further, south of Assiout 200,000 acres could be converted to perennial irrigation by means of pumps upon the Nile banks. In Middle Egypt 458,000 acres could be converted to perennial irrigation, and in Gizeh Province 106,000.

A low Nile on the average comes about once in five years, but assuming that it happened every year, these results may be expressed in terms of money on the basis that conversion to perennial irrigation increases the yield per acre by £2 annually, and that reclaimed land produces a yield valued at £5 annually. This gives an increase of value in the annual yield:

while the direct annual gain to the State Exchequer in rental and taxation would amount to £E378,400.

This does not exhaust the full extent of the benefits of the Reservoir on which a money value can be placed. For some time Egypt had been living beyond her real resources in the matter of water. Encouraged by a series of good years, the acreage of cotton had been greatly extended. The cotton-plant is very hardy, and can retain its vitality for a certain period on a very scanty and irregular supply of water. Cultivators, especially in the Delta, had taken advantage of this quality up to the very hilt, and the annual crop had reached an amount of 6,000,000 kantars.

Taking the not very high price of 175 piastres per kantar (1 kantar = nearly 100 pounds), the annual value reached £10,000,000. A season like that of 1889, when the summer supply was very low, and not the lowest on record, would mean the loss of at least one-tenth of this amount, and even more, in spite of the most successful working of the Barrage, and the most careful system of rotations. Against such a loss the Reservoir is a complete insurance, and, as a low year cannot safely be reckoned as occurring less than once in five years, the annual value of such insurance must be set down as £200,000. The figures give some idea of the value of the new supply. The estimate does not err on the side of exaggeration. It was framed in the most cautious and conservative manner possible, and, in fact, it would be by no means rash to put the total annual value a good deal higher.

According to the financial arrangement, the first payment towards defraying the cost of the works was included in the budget for 1903, but no fresh taxation for the purpose was to be imposed till 1904, and even then the full amount of direct benefit to the Exchequer will not be realized till 1910. Time is thus given for the full effects of the change to be felt, and the Reservoir will be paid for out of its own profits. The alteration of the basin lands to the new system must take some time, and their cultivators will thus be given full opportunity to familiarize themselves with the new methods of agriculture which they will have to employ.

The scheme of distribution allotted nearly 50 per cent. of the Reservoir supply to the Fayoum and the province between Assiout and Cairo. Just south of Assiout is the head of the great Ibrahimiyah Canal, which not only supplies these provinces, but also feeds the Bahr Yusuf, which waters the Fayoum. It was necessary, in view of the increased discharge, to widen the upper reaches of this canal, and to provide it with a new regulating head. But more than this was required to insure its receiving the proper proportion of water whenever the sluice-gates of the Dam were opened. Accordingly, at the same time that the foundations of the Dam at Assouan were laid, a new Barrage was begun at Assiout just downstream of the head of the Ibrahimiyah Canal.

In principle the Assiout Barrage is exactly the same as that at the point of the Delta, and the difficulties of construction were also exactly similar, for in both cases the foundations had to be laid on the same shifting sands, and as each section of the work was undertaken a portion of the river had to be diverted from its course by means of temporary earthen dams. The shifting nature of the river-bed, the almost personal malignity of the water, constantly bursting through in countless springs, each of which had to be separately dealt with and suppressed, called forth the highest exercise of engineering skill. But the experience gained in the long struggle with the imperfections of the earlier Barrage infallibly told its tale. Every difficulty was successfully encountered, and the Assiout Barrage was completed by the summer of 1902, and was able to hold up the 10 feet of water required of it, without any failure, at the first attempt.

The visible part of this Barrage, which is just over half a mile in length, consists of a viaduct or bridge with 111 archways, each 16 feet 5 inches in width, closed by strong iron gates, working in grooves made in the supporting piers, and raised or lowered from above. In contrast to the Delta Barrage, it is built throughout of stone, and not of brick. At the western end is a lock, the largest in Egypt, through which the largest of the boats that ply upon the Nile can easily pass. Below the water lies the strength of the structure. The viaduct rests upon a solid platform of granite and cement, 10 feet deep and 87 feet wide, set at a suitable depth below the bed of the river. As a further precaution against the action of the water, there are also below the platform two continuous lines of iron sheet-piles, with hermetically sealed joints. With such a series of obstacles to encounter, the danger of the water forcing its way through underneath the Barrage is small indeed. The whole amount of masonry used in this Barrage is 220,000 cubic yards.

The prosecution of these great works in Upper Egypt by no means exhausted the activity of the Irrigation Department; indeed, it would almost seem that the building of Barrages has become part of its ordinary routine, for a third remains to be chronicled. This is the Zifta Barrage on the Damietta branch of the Nile, halfway between the point of the Delta and the sea. Because it lies in a district unvisited by tourists, though very important commercially, its construction has not been heralded by any blowing of trumpets. Yet it is a work of the very first class, and deserves to be reckoned among the greatest of the triumphs of the department. Built on the same plan as the Assiout Barrage, and, like it, capable of holding up 10 feet of water, it is designed to secure a better distribution of the supply north of the Delta Barrage. As the area of the cultivated land extended gradually northward, it became apparent that the canal system taking off from above the original Barrage was becoming too long to admit of the water in times of pressure reaching the northernmost parts of the country. There were some who held that a second Barrage, with a new system of canals taking off from it, should have been erected on the Damietta branch, even in preference to the new stone weirs, which have increased the strength and distributing power of the old one. The dispute has been happily settled by the adoption of both projects, and with the Zifta Barrage completed in time for the summer of 1903, and the new supply from Assouan, the reclamation of the northern lands will go steadily forward.

It has been already pointed out that it is almost as important to get the water off the land as to get it on, and the proper drainage of the Delta lands has been the necessary complement of all the new schemes. Though eclipsed by the splendour of the Reservoir and other creations more taking to the eye, the performance of the engineers in this direction during the last few years has been sufficient to make them very memorable in irrigation annals. Since 1896 about 1,000 kilometres of new drains have been dug, and nearly as great a length of existing drains remodelled. It has cost the Egyptian Government close upon a million of money, but that this expenditure has not been thrown away is proved by the great rise in the value of all the lands affected.

The Zifta Barrage cost about £500,000, the Assouan Dam and the Assiout Barrage £3,200,000. Apart from the ordinary expenditure on maintenance and the suppression of the corvée, the twenty years ended 1902 have seen an expenditure of £9,000,000 devoted to irrigation and drainage. There could be no greater proof of the wisdom of those who have directed Egyptian policy during that period. However pressed they have been at different times by demands for immediate expenditure on other objects when resources were low, they have always adhered steadily to a policy of liberality towards public works likely to be of a remunerative character. In no other country do economic laws work out their results with greater directness and certainty. Reproductive expenditure is really worthy of its name, and brings its visible and tangible fruit almost without a moment’s delay. As they have sown, so have they reaped. There can be no comparison between this expenditure and the benefits it has conferred upon Egypt. Three salient examples may be given to point the force of these remarks.

First, the works undertaken by Colonel Ross to improve the system of basin irrigation in Upper Egypt. 1877 was a year of very low flood, and nearly 1,000,000 acres were sharaki—that is, entirely exempted from taxation owing to absence of irrigation. In 1899, a worse year—in fact, the lowest flood of the century—the sharaki lands were no more than 250,000 acres, a result mainly due to the successful reforms carried out by Colonel Ross in 1888-89. 1902 was a year very similar to 1899, and the sharaki acreage was no more than 140,000 acres.

Second, the case of the Assiout Barrage. The work was finished a year before the time named in the contract. On August 15, 1902, the usual date of filling the basins, the flood was exceptionally low, and it was decided to lower the gates of the Barrage. By so doing the water-level of the canals was raised by 1½ metres, an increase which was more than sufficient to avert the threatened disaster. The money value of the crops thus secured to the land-owners of the Fayoum and Middle Egypt is estimated at not less than £600,000. The cost of the new works at Assiout, including the new regulator on the Ibrahimiyah Canal, was about £875,000. Thus, in the first year of their existence they nearly repaid their whole cost, and that, too, as it were, by a sidewind; for the Barrage’s real function is to hold up the river in the low summer season, and not in the flood.

Third, the case of the Assouan Reservoir itself. The summer supply in 1903 has been the lowest on record; the discharge at Assouan has fallen to 200 cubic metres per second. By means of the Reservoir this supply has been actually doubled. Had the flood been late in coming down, it would have been impossible to distribute the water at so liberal a rate. The Soudan gauges gave warning that an early flood was to be expected, and thus the authorities were able to calculate with certainty, and open the sluice-gates with much greater freedom. But the calculation would have been a useless exercise unless there had been a store to draw upon. At the lowest computation the loss avoided may be reckoned at a couple of millions.

The administrators of Egypt have had many difficulties and obstacles in their path, but to be able to point to such results is a great compensation; their efforts need no formal monument.