vegetation and seemed to be
travelling on dry land. This curious effect, which always causes
surprise, is often met with in the neighbourhood of Leyden, Dordrecht,
and Haarlem, and in swampy countries where the water lies level with the
ground, and sometimes even, kept in by dikes, is higher than the level
of the country by several yards.

Where the salt water ends, the aspect of the country changes, not
gradually, but suddenly; on the one hand absolute barrenness, on the
other exuberant vegetation; and wherever irrigation brings a drop of
water, plants spring up, and the sterile dust becomes fertile soil. The
contrast is most striking. We had passed Lake Mareotis, and on either
side of the railroad stretched fields of _doora_ or maize, of cotton
plants in various stages of growth, some opening their pretty yellow
flowers, others shedding the white silk from their pods. Gutters full of
muddy water rayed the black ground with lines that shone here and there
in the light. These were fed by broader canals connected with the Nile.
Small dikes of earth, easily opened with a blow of a pickaxe, dammed up
the waters until watering-time. The rough wheels of the sakiehs, turned
by buffaloes, oxen, camels, or asses, raised the water to higher levels.
Sometimes, even, two robust fellahs, perfectly naked, tawny and shining
like Florentine bronzes, standing on the edge of a canal and balancing
like a swing a basket of waterproof esparto suspended from two ropes of
which they held the ends, skimmed the surface of the water and dashed it
into the neighbouring field with amazing dexterity. Fellahs in short
blue tunics were ploughing, holding the handle of a primitive plough
drawn by a camel and a humpbacked Soudanese ox; others gathered cotton
and maize; others dug ditches; others again dragged branches of trees by
way of a harrow over the furrows which the inundation had scarce left.
Everywhere was seen an activity not much in accord with the traditional
Oriental idleness.

The first fellahin villages seen on the right and left of the road
impress one curiously. They are collections of huts of unbaked brick
cemented with mud, with flat roofs occasionally topped with a sort of
whitewashed turret for pigeons, the sloping walls of which faintly
recall the outline of a truncated Egyptian pylon. A door as low as that
of a tomb, and two or three holes pierced in the wall are the only
openings in these huts, which look more like the work of