distinguished from the desert around, and that the predictions of the prophets have thus received a literal fulfilment (see especially Isa. xix, 5-10), yet this has '■ not been by any irresistible aggression of nature, but j because Egypt, smitten and accursed, has lost all ; strength and energy. The population is not large enough for the cultivation of the land now fit for cul- ture, and long oppression has taken from it tiie power and the will to advance.
Egypt is naturallj' an agricultural countrj'. As far back as the daj's of Abraham, we find that when the produce failed in Palestine, Egypt was the natural re- source. In the time of Joseph it was evidently the granary — at least during famines — of the nations around (Gen. xii, 10 ; comp. Exod. xvi, 3 ; Josephus, Ant. XV, 9, 2). The inundation, as taking the place of rain, has always rendered the system of agriculture peculiar ; and the artificial irrigation during the time of low Nile is necessarily on the same principle. We read of the Land of Promise that it is " not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sow- edst thy seed, and wateredst [it] with thy foot, as a garden of herbs : but the land whither tliou goest in to possess it, [is] a land of hills and valleys, [and] drinkelh water of the rain of heaven" (Deut. xi,»10, 11). Watering with the foot may refer to some mode of irrigation bv a machine, but we are inclined to think that it is an idiomatic expression imphdng a laborious work. The monuments do not afford a representation of the supposed machine. That now called the shii- duf, which is a pole having a weight at one end and a bucket at the other, so hung that the laborer is aided bj' the weight in raising the full bucket, is depicted, and seems to have been the common means of artifi- cial irrigation (q. v.). There are detailed pictures of ijreaking up the earth, or ploughing, sowing, harvest, threshing, and storing the wheat in granaries. See Agriculture. The threshing was simply treading out bj' oxen or cows, unmuzzled (comp. Deut. xxv, 4). The processes of agriculture l>egan as soon as the wa- ter of the inundation had sunk into the soil, about a month after the autumnal equinox (Exod. ix, 31, 32) Vines were extensiveh' cultivated, and there were several different kinds of wine, one of which, the Jla- reotic, was famous among the Romans. Of other fruit-trees, the date-palm was the most common and valuable. The gardens resembled the fields, being watered in the same manner l)y irrigation. See Gar- den ; Vineyard. On the tenure of land much light is thrown by the history of Joseph. Before the fam- ine each city and large village — for ^^V must be held to have a wider signification than our "cit}'" — had its field (Gen. xli, 48) ; but Joseph gained for Pharaoh all the land, except that of the priests, in exchange for food, and required for the right thus obtained a fifth of the produce, which became a law (xlvii, 20-26). The evidence of the monuments, though not very ex- plicit, seems to show that this law was ever afterwards in force under the Pharaohs. There does not seem to have been any hereditary aristocracy, except perhajis at an earlier time, and it is not impossible that these lands may have been held during tenure of office or for life. The temples had lands which of course were inalienable. Diodorus Siculus states that all the lands belonged to the crown except those of the priests and the soldiers (i, 73). It is probable that the latter, when not employed on active service, received no pay, but were supported by the crown lands, and occupied them for the time as their own. See Land.
The great lakes in the north of Egypt were ancient- ly of high inii)ortance, especially for their fisheries and the growth of the papyrus. Lake Menzeleh, the most eastern of the exiting lakes, has still large fish- eries, wliicli support the people who live on its islands and shore, the rude successors of the iudependcnt Egj-ptians of the Bucolia. Lake Moeris, anciently so
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celebrated, was an artificial lake between Beni-Suweif and Medinet el-Feyum. It was of use to irrigate the neighboring country, and its fisheries yielded a great revenue. See Angling. It is now entirel}' dried up. The canals are now far less numerous than of old, and many of them are choked and comparatively useless. The Bahr Yusuf, or "river of Joseph" — not the patriarch, hut the famous sultan Yusuf Salah-ed- deen, who repaired it — is a long series of canals, near the desert on the west side of the river, extending northward from Farshut for about 350 miles to a little below Memphis. This was probably a work of verj' ancient times. There can be no doubt of the high an- tiquity of the canal of the lied Sea, upon which the Land of Goshen mainly depended for its fertility. It does not follow, however, that it originally connected the Nile and the Red Sea.
VIII. Botany. — The cultivable land of Egypt con- sists almost wholly of fields, in which are verj' few trees. There are no forests and few groves, except of date-palms, and in Lower Egypt a few of orange and lemon trees. There are also sycamores, mulberrj'- trees, and acacias, either planted on the sides of roads or standing singly in the fields. The Theban palm grows in the Thebafs, generally in clumps. All these, except, perhaps, the mulberry-tree, were anciently common in the countr3% The two kinds of palm are represented- on the monuments, and sj'camorc and aca- cia-wood are the materials of various objects made by the ancient inhabitants. The chief fruits are the date, grape, fig, sycamore-fig, pomegranate, banana, manj' kinds of melons, and the olive ; and there are many others less common or important. These were also of old produced in tlie country. Anciently gardens seem to have received great attention, to have been elabo- rately planned, and well filled with trees and shrubs. Now horticulture is neglected, although the modern inhabitants are as fond of flowers as were their prede- cessors. Tlie vegetables are of many kinds and ex- cellent, and form the chief food of the common people. Ancientl}^ cattle seem to have been more numerous, and their meat, therefore, more usually eaten, but never as much so as in colder climates. The Israel- ites in the desert, though they looked back to the time when they " sat by the flesh-pots" (Exod. xvi, 3), seem as much to have regretted the vegetables and fruits, as the flesh and fish of Egypt. "Who shall give us flesh to eat ? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic" (Num. xi, 4, 5). The chief vegetables now are beans, peas, lentils, of which an excellent thick pottage is made (Gen. XXV, 34), leeks, onions, garlic, radishes, carrots, cab- bages, gourds, cucumbers, the tomato, and the egg- fruit. There are many besides these. The most im- portant field-produce in ancient times was wheat ; af- ter it must be placed barley, millet, flax, and, among the vegetables, lentils, peas, and beans. At the pres- ent day the same is the case ; but maize, rice, oats, clover, the sugar-cane, roses, the tobacco-plant, hemp, and cotton, must be added, some of which are not in- digenous. In the account of the plague of hail four kinds of field-produce are mentioned — flax, barley, wheat, and niSSS (Exod. ix, 31, 32), which is various- ly rendered in the A.V. " rj-e" (1. c), "spelt" (Isa. xxviii, 25), and " fitches" (Isa. xxviii, 27). It is doubt- ed whether the last be a cereal or a leguminous prod- uct: we incline to the former opinion. See Rye.