ugh together to freight a large craft--for it would not pay
to work upon a small scale--accompanies them up the river, and feeds
them regularly with little balls made of moistened flour, just in the
same way that they do at the establishments in Upper Egypt, where they
raise fowl and stuff them for the markets. If the boat is a large one,
and is taking up forty or fifty thousand fowl, of course he takes two
or three boys to help him, for it is no light matter to feed such a
number, and each must have a little water as well as the meal. It
seems strange to us here, where fowl are so abundant, that people
should raise and feed them just as if they were bullocks. But I
suppose it is true."

"It is quite true," Chebron replied. "Amuba and I went to one of the
great breeding-farms two or three months ago. There are two sorts--one
where they hatch, the other where they fat them. The one we went to
embraced both branches, but this is unusual. From the hatching-places
collectors go round to all the people who keep fowls for miles round
and bring in eggs, and beside these they buy them from others at a
greater distance. The eggs are placed on sand laid on the floor of
a low chamber, and this is heated by means of flues from a fire
underneath. It requires great care to keep the temperature exactly
right; but of course men who pass their lives at this work can
regulate it exactly, and know by the feel just what is the heat at
which the eggs should be kept.

"There are eight or ten such chambers in the place we visited, so that
every two or three days one or other of them hatches out and is ready
for fresh eggs to be put down. The people who send the eggs come in at
the proper time and receive each a number of chickens in proportion to
the eggs they have sent, one chicken being given for each two eggs.
Some hatchers give more, some less; what remain over are payment
for their work; so you see they have to be very careful about the
hatching. If they can hatch ninety chickens out of every hundred eggs,
it pays them very well; but if, owing to the heat being too great or
too little, only twenty or thirty out of every hundred are raised,
they have to make good the loss. Of course they always put in a great
many of the eggs they have themselves bought. They are thus able to
give the right number to their customers even if the eggs have not
turned out well.

"Those that remain after the proper number has been given to the
farmers the