is relatively great. They inhabit conical domes of mud, like large bee-hives, which are grouped upon towers and upon narrow oblong constructions, built expressly for them-eight or ten upon each tower, and sometimes as many as thirty upon one roof. In these mud-cones earthenware vessels are embedded, opening inwards; while a row of holes admits the bird into the interior of the structure, where, as well as on the outside, numerous perches are arranged. The advantage of this contrivance is, that whenever a pigeon is wanted, the owner goes at night into the house while the birds are in their nests, and abstracts as many as he chooses without disturbing the others. The swarms of pigeons which are thus reared serve the double purpose of furnishing food and manure; but I doubt whether, on the whole, they do not do more harm to the young crops than good to the land.

We now emerge from the desert, and the road gradually ascends for a few miles to a summit-level of about a hundred and forty feet above the level of the sea-as great an altitude, probably, as that attained by any railway in the country. On our left is a

range of sand-hills, and beyond it we can distinctly observe the depression which was once filled by the waters of Lake Moris, and a portion of which is now a sandy desert; its southern extremity is marked by the Pyramid of Illahoon, also clearly visible. A little further on we cross the Bahr Bela Ma-a broad wady with precipitous sides, down the centre of which winds a narrow sluggish stream; and near it we observe the remains of some of the old embankments of the lake. In a few minutes more we are cheered by the sight of a grove of date-trees, and our short traject of fifteen miles of desert is at an end. We are at El Edwa, the first village of the Fayoum; and a run of five miles more through richly cultivated country, lands us at Medinet el Fayoum, the capital of the province, and practically the terminus of the railway, so far as ordinary travel is concerned.

Although the kindness of the Government had provided us with lodgings (for hotels are unknown in the Fayoum), our first night, owing to the late hour of our arrival, was spent in a tent; and I was lulled to sleep by the wailing and sighing of the numerous water-wheels or

sakkyas, which are a special characteristic of the Fayoum. They differ from those of other parts of Egypt, inasmuch as the motive power does not consist of oxen or buffaloes, but of the water itself, the natural incline of the country giving the canals a sufficient current to enable them to turn these huge undershot wheels, which are made of date-fibre, and on which are fixed alternately earthen jars and wooden paddles; as they revolve, they groan and strain under the pressure, as though some mortal injury was being inflicted upon them. It is not the harsh creaking of wood, but the plaintive moan of over-stretched fibre; and as the whole province resounds with their lamentations, one almost feels inclined to pity it as the victim of some serious nervous disorder. There was something very weird in the sound that first night, as with mournful cadence it rose and fell in the still air, now sinking almost to a sigh, now rising to a harsh scream; and my first impulse in the morning was to go and inspect the primitive mechanism which thus fertilises the whole country with its neverending day and night rotation. As Medinet el Fayoum is the great centre of water distri

bution for the province, there are probably a greater number of these water-wheels collected here than elsewhere, and the place is surrounded by a network of canals and rivulets which encompass it at all seasons with a setting of the richest verdure, and have made its orchards and gardens the theme of the traveller and historian from the earliest times. All this is due to the Bahr Youssef, or "river of Joseph," which is, in fact, a branch of the Nile, diverted from that river at Siout, and which, after a tortuous course of upwards of two hundred miles along the base of the Libyan hills and parallel with the Nile, takes advantage of a depression in the chain, and is conducted by sluices at Illahoon into the province-flowing through the town of Medinet in a broad deep stream until it reaches its northern end, when it is dammed across and diverted into seven different channels and ceases to be navigable. Before this occurs, however, numerous minor canals and sakkyas keep robbing it of its water; and just outside our place of abode, which was at the entry to the town, three considerable streams, all turning water-wheels, diverged from it into the

country. Many traditions connect Joseph in the popular mind with this river and city; but nothing definite upon the subject has been discovered. A Copt told me that the Fayoum was the creation of Joseph when Pharaoh gave him pleins pouvoirs to deal with the famine. That he then conceived the idea of diverting the waters of the Nile into this natural depression, and turned what had formerly been a marsh into a most fertile province; and a further tradition exists to the effect that he was buried here, and that it was from this neighbourhood that his body was removed by the Jews at the time of the exodus. Unfortunately for the Copt's story, evidence of the strongest kind exists to show that the Fayoum was a flourishing province many hundred years before Joseph's time, to which I shall presently allude. It does not, however, follow that Joseph had nothing to do with perfecting the irrigation works connected with the river which is called after him. There is generally some foundation for names and traditions of this sort; and it is probable that the Israelites - who were not slow to discover the most available spots for