Identifier: upnilehomeagainh00fair (find matches)
Title: Up the Nile, and home again. A handbook for travellers and a travel-book for the library.
Year: 1862 (1860s)
Authors: Fairholt, F. W. (Frederick William), 1814-1866
Subjects:
Publisher: London, Chapman and Hall
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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whereMoses contrasts the promised land with the landof Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thousowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot,as a garden of herbs/ This machine was not anciently known in Egypt,and appears to have originated in Persia. It iscommon in western Asia, and is known as thePersian wheel. Some portion of the water islost in being awkwardly discharged into the trough ;the construction of the machine, too, is generallyof the clumsiest order; hence you may alwaysknow when you are near one of them, by thegroaning and shrieking of the dry ill-fitting portionsof the woodwork, as well as by the continual splashand fall of water. Light sleepers or invalids willconsequently do well to avoid having their boatsanchored near one of them, for with the earliest BOULAK TO MINIEH. 101 dawn the cattle are yoked to the wheel, and theirmonotonous course for the day commences. The other mode of raising water is by the shadoof,or pole and bucket; this is done by manual labour,
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and merely raising the water to a series of levelsuntil the high land is reached. One man only maythus be seen labouring when the land is not farabove the water; but generally two work together;and frequently a series of these machines, one abovethe other, are each actively engaged by a pair oflabourers, as shown in our cut. The supports forthe cross-bar on which the pole hangs, are either 102 UP THE NILE. formed from the stump of a palm-tree, or madeby a pyramidal lieap of clay. From the cross-barhangs the pole by bands of palm-fibres: at oneend is a heavy lump of clay, at the other is secured,by a thong of fibres, a suspended central-stalk ofthe palm-branch; to this the basket is hung, anddipped into the water by pulling the palm-branchdownward—the weight of the clay lifting it at oncewhen the man pleases, who seizes the basket bythe handle above, and the loop below it, and emptiesit into a small reservoir behind him, which hasbeen dug in the earth for its reception. Fromthis stag

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