Where the DESERTS BLOOM

Cue (NZERS), Issue 32, 30 September 1945, Page 36

Where the DESERTS BLOOM

THERE are few scenes in Egypt jf which impress the Rew Zealander more than the amazing contrast between the desert waste and the lush green splendour of the irrigated land. And it is probable, too, that it gives him a much greater appreciation of water than he had before. But for the water of the Nile there would be nothing to differentiate Egypt from other parts of the Sahara. Sometimes green, sometimes a muddy brown, never inviting, there is no more valuable river in the world.

The chief industry of Egypt is agriculture, and the fertility and prosperity of the country are entirely dependent on the irrigation of the land by the fertilizing waters of the Nile. At its annual overflow the river deposits rich sediment brought from the Abyssinian highlands and has created the Delta and the fertile strip in upper Egypt. The height of the flood has been recorded annually as the chief event of the year, since at least 3600 B.C.

On £he island of Elephantine, at Assuan, is the famous Nilometer which dates from ancient times. It is a stairway in the river quay-wall, built of hewn stone, and is marked with scales to record the level of the river. The remains of other old Nilometers exist at Philae, Edfu, and Esna. On a quay-wall of the temple of Karnak, near Luxor, inscriptions have been discovered which record about forty ’’high Niles” of the twenty—dynasty.

In ancient times, as now, Egypt’s staple industry was agriculture. She early became a granary for the surrounding world and her corn was exported to the Aegean and to Syria, and later to Rome. Ancient pictures of the fellaheen at work in the fields show scenes which are much the same as those seen on the Delta lands today. By the time the Pyramids were built the flood was already being regulated by sluices and basins; in principle, by the same methods as have been used up to very recent times.

The irregularity of watering caused by the degree of variation in the height of each annual Nile flood prevented the Egyptian from cultivating some areas regularly, and he quickly saw that he could assist nature by taking water out of the river at a point higher upstream than immediately opposite his field and so take advantage of the fall between the two points. He also • realised early the advantage of storing water against times of shortage. The Pharaohs of 4,000 years ago* created a large reservoir in the Fayoum depression by building the Josephs Canal from the Nile.

Ancient as irrigation is in Egypt,. it was not practised on a really scientific system until the British occupation. The khedive, Mohammed Ali, was advised to deepen the canals of Lower Egypt to draw water at the lowest stage of the river. It proved a futile task. The deep channels became filled

with silt during the succeeding flood and the excavation had to be repeated year after year. Occasionally the canals ran dry in the mid-summer and large areas, which 1 had been sown, irrigated and nurtured for perhaps three months, perished, while the precious water flowed down the Nile to the sea.

It was decided in 1861 to construct barrages across each branch of the Nile at the apex of the Delta, to control the water and heighten the levels at which it flowed so that it could pass into canals taken from upstream of the barrage. Under the direction of French engineers the barrages were built, but the irrigation system got badly out of order, due mainly to the inefficiency of Egyptian administration at the time, and the whole scheme was declared a failure. One of the first problems for the British authorities in Egypt was to Repair the barrages and get the water system operating satisfactorily. In 1884, the English* engineer, Sir Colin Scott-Moncrieff, took charge, and the French barrage was strengthened and improved. To provide further areas of cultivable land in the provinces of Assiut, Minah, Beni Su-ef and Fayoum, a dam was built at Assuan on a design similar to the Delta Barrage. The work was completed in 1902.

In a few years the need for an immediate further increase in the volume of water available for summer irrigation became (pressing. The dam was raised about twenty-three feet, and the storage capacity of the reservoir increased from 1,000 million tons to 2,400 million tons of water. The scheme was commenced in 1907, and completed in 1912. Subsidiary barrages were also built at Assiut and Esna. The Assiut barrage regulates the irrigation of Middle. Egypt and acts both as a reservoir and a distributor, but the one at Esna further up the river is used only during the inundation times and raises the level

of the water just enough to flood the Upper Egypt basins which lie between Esna and Assiut. The 1913 flood was estimated to be the lowest for 150 years, and had it not been for the Assuan dam and the various barrages, Egypt would have been faced with famine and financial disaster.

The Assuan dam is a mile and a quarter long and 130 feet high. It has 180 sluices, arranged at four different levels, which are opened and closed by electricity. At the beginning of duly when the Nile begins to rise, all the sluices are opened. In late November when the mud-charged water ceases to run and the water becomes clearer, the sluices are closed in a certain order and the reservoir gradually fills until February. Between April and July the reservoir discharges the water necessary to replenish the lower river to meet the needs of cultivators.

There are two main forms of irrigation. In the more ancient system the area to be served is surrounded by embankments and is known as a basin. Water is led into it along a shallow canal during the August flood and is run off again in October, and the area sown with crops. The basins in Egypt vary from GOO acres to 50,000 acres.

Land under basin irrigation grows only one crop a -year.

From time immemorial the irrigation canals have been an outstanding feature in the agricultural life of Egypt, and they have become increasingly important with the steady substitution of systematic perennial irrigation for the wasteful basin system. In the perennial system, branch canals lead off from the main canals and lesser branches from the main branches and so on until as a last branch the smallest runlet is reached. There are about 12,000 miles of irrigation canals in Egypt. Drainage is an essential concomitant of both canals and basins to prevent waterlogging, and over 4,000 miles of drainage courses are in operation.

Though the modern irrigation system has brought many more acres of Egypt under cultivation, the . work of the fellaheen has changed- little with the passing of the centuries. Irrigation, channels have to be dug in the fields and kept clear with the same rough tools but with greater care. If • one man alters the elevation of his land by just a few inches he may dry up an adjacent field. The engineer with his spirit level must be obeyed. While the great dams guarantee that there is always a .sufficient supply of water in the canals it is another matter to get it on to the fields. Today, as in the time of the Pharaohs, the fellaheen uses two appliances, the sakia, and the shaduf. The former consists of a vertical wheel with albeit of buckets fastened to its rim. As the wheel turns, the buckets one by. one dip into the canal. When the top of the bank is reached the buckets tilt over and empty in to a prepared channel leading to the fields. The vertical wheel is operated by cogs attached to a horizontal beam. Oxen or camels- are yoked to the outer end of the beam and travel in a circular path. The groaning of the sakias is one of the most familiar sounds of the Egyptian fields.

The shaduf is the more antique and picturesque device. It is also more laborious and uneconomical. Two upright posts (or pillars of mud, and canes) are erected about three feet apart. At a height of about five or six feet they are connected by a crossbeam, and to this is slung a long tapering pole with a bucket attached to- the thin end of the rope. A mass of clay or other weight is attached to the thick end to counter-balance the bucket when full of water. The fellaheen pulls on the rope until the bucket dips into the river or canal; when it is full he gives it a jerk upwards and the weight at the other end of the lever pulls it high enough to empty into a hole between the pillars from which it flows into a field channel.

At the time of the French occupation of Egypt/ in 1798, there were about three and a~half million acres of land under cultivation. Under improved conditions the area has increased to nearly six million acres, and it is estimated that it is possible to cultivate eight million acres. Although much has been achieved, the conservation and distribution of the Nile water still 'offers problems of extraordinary interest. The Egyptian Government is now directing studies to determine how the available flow’ of water in the (various tributaries can be advantageously and economically protected from dissipation and wastage in the swamps of the upper Nile. It is realised that the control of the Nile waters is not wholly an Egyptian question, but concerns also the countries higher up the river.

Egypt’s population has increased by three million in the' past eight years an increase of nearly twenty per cent. Unless further land can . be brought under cultivation, the plight erf the already underfed masses will become extremely serious.