The country is very flat and highly cultivated. In all directions, as
far as the eye can see, broad stretches of corn wave in the gentle
breeze, while brilliant patches of clover or the quieter-coloured
onion crops vary the green of the landscape. The scent of flowering
bean-fields fills the air, and the hum of wild bees is heard above the
other sounds of the fields. Palm groves lift their feathery plumes
towards the sky, and mulberry-trees and dark-toned tamarisks shade the
water-wheels, which, with incessant groanings, are continually turned
by blindfolded bullocks. Villages and little farmsteads are frequent,
and everywhere are the people, men, women, and children, working on
the land which so richly rewards their labour.

The soil is very rich, and, given an ample water-supply, produces two
or three crops a year, while the whole surface is so completely under
cultivation that there is no room left for grass or wild flowers to
grow. Many crops are raised besides those I have already mentioned,
such as maize, barley, rice, and flax, and in the neighbourhood of
towns and villages radishes, cucumbers, melons, and tomatoes are
plentifully grown. Formerly wheat was Egypt's principal crop, but
since its introduction by Mohammed Ali in A.D. 1820, _cotton_
has taken first place amongst its products, and is of so fine a
quality that it is the dearest in the world, and is used almost
entirely for mixing with silk or the manufacture of sateen. Cotton,
however, is very exhausting to the soil, and where it is grown the
land must have its intervals of rest.

No sooner is one crop gathered than yokes of oxen, drawing strangely
shaped wooden ploughs, prepare the land for another; and the newly
turned soil looks black against the vivid clover fields, in which