EGYPT. (Daily Telegraph.)

North Otago Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2095, 20 January 1879, Page 3

EGYPT. (Daily Telegraph.)

Egypt is a rainless country, and yet, paradoxical as it may seem, the proverbial Buying that " it never rains but it pours" may be used by an Egyptian with a keenness of personal interest quite equal to that experienced by the native of regions where the umbrella is a national institution, and where the contents of the passing clouds are discharged with every degree of copiousness, from the pelting deluge of a thunder shower to the insinuating drizzle of a Scotch mist. For Egypt depends upon the Nile. The Nile is fed by equatorial rains, and if these are excessive, so is the volurre of water which the mighty but no longer mysterious liver pours downwards through thristing lands to the far Mediterranean. In that case the stream ceiises to be beneficent, and, if left uncontrolled, may become a dangerous master instead of a useful slave. Generally speaking, the rising of the Nile is, one year with another, very regular. The flood begins at a well-asceitained period, attains a certain height in September, and then subsides with equal deliberation. But it is not free from eccentric neglect of well-known rules. It may be scanty one year and over-plenti-ful the-next. Last season was a low Nile one, and the productiveness of the country Buffered in consequence. This year the river rose more rapidly, but the equatorial rains once commenced seem to have gone on to pour, and the fellah may tremble at the risk of an over-deluge now, as he lamented the other extreme 12 months since. Recent advices from Alexandria mention that the Nile has continued to rise at Ivhartoum, and that the excessive eupply threatens not merely an overflow, biifclin inundation a little later, against which safeguards must b§ taken in time. Fortunately, the danger has been minimised by artificial woiks of great magnitude, costing several millions sterling, ■which confine the flood to a certain height, and then allow a gradual escape of the pent-up waters ; and there is no reason to think that these will prove inadequate this year any more than they have been in the past. The chance of an excessive Nile suffices, however, to recall the very peculiar conditions on which not the prosperity merely but the actual existence of I'gypt depends. The country is a vast farm kept productive by careful irrigation , in 'vhich the skill of man has to ■upplement the deficiencies or correct the excesses of nature ; and if artificial aicTs ate ignored, the whole land must sufl'er. The elaborate system of barrages which the present Viceroy has been mainly instrumental in creating, may not be all it should be, but it is so far indispensable, and should rather be perfected than neglected. It is therefore to be hoped that, whatever economies may be enforced in the Egyptian Administration under the new regime to be soon inaugurated, the care of these great public works may not be neglected. The news from Khartoum shows their importance. Finance is much, and fiscal reform greatly necessary, but what are these when set in the bolance against an unmanageable Nile V