ave each their canals, which are
opened at proper times, to let the water into the country. The more
distant villages have theirs also, even to the extremities of the kingdom.
Thus the waters are successively conveyed to the most remote places.
Persons are not permitted to cut the trenches to receive the waters, till
the river is at a certain height; nor to open them all at once; because
otherwise some lands would be too much overflowed, and others not covered
enough. They begin with opening them in Upper, and afterwards in Lower
Egypt, according to the rules prescribed in a roll or book, in which all
the measures are exactly set down. By this means the water is husbanded
with such care, that it spreads itself over all the lands. The countries
overflowed by the Nile are so extensive, and lie so low, and the number of
canals so great, that of all the waters which flow into Egypt during the
months of June, July, and August, it is believed that not a tenth part of
them reaches the sea.

But as, notwithstanding all these canals, there are still abundance of
high lands which cannot receive the benefit of the Nile's overflowing;
this want is supplied by spiral pumps, which are turned by oxen, in order
to bring the water into pipes, which convey it to these lands. Diodorus
speaks of a similar engine invented by Archimedes in his travels into
Egypt, which is called _Cochlea AEgyptia_.(295)

7. _The Fertility caused by the Nile._--There is no country in the world
where the soil is more fruitful than in Egypt; which is owing entirely to
the Nile. For whereas other rivers, when they overflow lands, wash away
and exhaust their vivific moisture; the Nile, on the contrary, by the
excellent slime it brings along with it, fattens and enriches them in such
a manner, as sufficiently compensates for what the foregoing harvest had
impaired.(296) The husbandman, in this country, never tires himself with
holding the plough, or breaking the clods of earth. As soon as the Nile
retires, he has nothing to do but to turn up the earth, and temper it with
a little sand, in order to lessen its rankness; after which he sows it
with great ease, and with little or no expense. Two months after, it is
covered with all sorts of corn and pulse. The Egyptians generally sow in
October and November, according as the waters draw off; and their harvest
is in March and April.

The same land bears, in one year, three or four different kinds of crops.
Lettuces a