or such villages as hold a weekly market, the banks are very animated,
and for many miles are thronged with people from the surrounding
district, some walking, others riding on camels, donkeys, or
buffaloes, pressing towards the market to enjoy the show, or sell the
many articles of produce with which they are laden.

At the water's edge herds of buffaloes wallow in the river, tended by
a little boy who stares stolidly at your steamer as it passes or, in
great excitement, chases your vessel and vainly cries for
"backshish."[5] At frequent intervals are the water-wheels and
"shadūfs," which raise the water to the level of the fields, and
these are such important adjuncts of the farm that I must describe
them. The "shadūf" is one of the oldest and one of the simplest
methods of raising water in existence. A long pole is balanced on a
short beam supported by two columns of mud, about 4 or 5 feet high,
erected at the end of the water channel to be supplied; 6 feet or more
below it is the pool or basin cut in the river-bank, and which is kept
supplied with water by a little channel from the river. One end of the
pole is weighted by a big lump of mud; from the other a leather bucket
is suspended by means of a rope of straw, or a second and lighter
pole. In order to raise the water, the shadūf worker, bending his
weight upon the rope, lowers the bucket into the basin below, which,
when filled, is easily raised by the balancing weight, and is emptied
into the channel above. As the river falls the basin can no longer be
fed by the river, so a second "shadūf" is erected in order to keep
the first supplied, and in low Nile it is quite a common sight to see
four of these "shadūfs," one above the other, employed in raising
the water from the river-level to the high bank above. This work is,
perhaps, the most arduous of any farm labour, and the workers are
almost entirely naked as they toil in the sun, while a screen of