The process of cleaning out wells and boring fresh ones in Baharia is done with a very simple apparatus, an iron jumper about 1½ metres in length, 5 centimetres diameter, worked by a rope passing through an eye at one end, being the only boring-tool used. Cleaning out wells is carried on by this tool in conjunction with the “fass” (a sort of blunt adze used universally for digging operations in Egypt) and a rude basket-apparatus for the removal of sand and sludge. The upper part of the hole having been excavated by the “fass,” the jumper is worked by hand, no tripod or other frame being erected; the sludge is raised by a small basket of plaited grass, fitted on to the lower end of the jumper, lowered into the hole by a rope, the sand settling in the basket after jumping the iron tool, with the basket attached, within the well. The hole is generally made 75 centimetres diameter, and sinking is said to go on at the rate of ⅓ metre per hour, ten men being employed, who relieve each other. It does not appear, however, that this apparatus is capable of sinking new wells, being only used for cleaning out old ones; most of the water used is derived from ancient Roman adits. The water from a single spring often supplies several land-owners; the usual method of distribution is by means of a wooden weir, in the upper edge of which rectangular notches are cut, each individual being entitled to the water which flows through a certain number of notches. As a rule, the springs are banked up at night, so that the water accumulates in a large pool near, and is allowed to run on to the fields in the daytime. Taxation in Baharia and Farafra is based on the land cultivated and not, as in Kharga and Dakhla, on the water. Date-palms, are taxed 15 milliemes per annum. The numbers of trees at the 1897 assessment were, apricots, 4,863; olives, 5,370; palms, 93,000, or about fifteen of the latter per inhabitant.[34] The great article of produce in the oasis is therefore dates, and at the date-gathering season the inhabitants are busily employed in gathering, drying and packing the fruit for export to the Nile Valley. Three-fourths of the whole date production are exported. The dates are of excellent quality, and find a ready sale, the villages of the oasis being crowded with camels and traders from the valley each November. A camel-load of dates, packed in two plaited-grass bags, is bought in the oasis for 500 milliemes, and is said to be sold in the Nile Valley for four times that sum, so that the Beduin, to whom the trading is almost wholly confined, even allowing for difficulties of transport, make a good profit.