12 TEE SOUDAN. the station, and though the trees and flowers have only been planted a very short time, yet their extraordinary growth proves how fertile the so-called desert is when it is watered even a little. It is curious to observe how defined the line is between the rich green cultivation and the barren yellow desert. The only kind of trees of any size are the graceful date palms, which have no foliage to hide this boundary. Signs of the rise of the Nile strike one every where ; the canals are all full, and the water is being let into the fields in that careful and methodical manner for which the Egyptian fellah has always been famed. He works with the same instru ment as his forefathers, the same old wheel at the well turned by the patient buffalo ; he has the same way of raising water by lever and weight, or else by men standing on either side of a small water-hole, lifting up the water with a wretched old palm-leaf basket. Nothing seems changed from what one remembers to have seen drawn in the sketches of their oldest monuments. There is, however, a very great want of cattle, owing to the disease and the exigencies of the late war. Camels and donkeys or camels and buffaloes are constantly seen harnessed together, the wretched camel looking intensely miser able, and as if he would like much to make them understand that his business was to carry, and not to draw. We soon had to give up observing the country, and shut up the windows tight, as the dust got so troublesome ; and we amused ourselves in the best way we could until we got to Zagazig, where
