6. _The Canals of the Nile and Spiral Pumps._—Divine Providence, in giving so beneficent a river to Egypt, did not thereby intend that the inhabitants of it should be idle, and enjoy so great a blessing without taking any pains. One may naturally suppose, that as the Nile could not of itself cover the whole country, great labour was to be used to facilitate the overflowing of the lands; and numberless canals cut, in order to convey the waters to all parts. The villages, which stand very thick on the banks of the Nile on eminences, have each their canals, which are opened at proper times, to let the water into the country. The more distant villages have theirs also, even to the extremities of the kingdom. Thus the waters are successively conveyed to the most remote places. Persons are not permitted to cut the trenches to receive the waters, till the river is at a certain height; nor to open them all at once; because otherwise some lands would be too much overflowed, and others not covered enough. They begin with opening them in Upper, and afterwards in Lower Egypt, according to the rules prescribed in a roll or book, in which all the measures are exactly set down. By this means the water is husbanded with such care, that it spreads itself over all the lands. The countries overflowed by the Nile are so extensive, and lie so low, and the number of canals so great, that of all the waters which flow into Egypt during the months of June, July, and August, it is believed that not a tenth part of them reaches the sea. But as, notwithstanding all these canals, there are still abundance of high lands which cannot receive the benefit of the Nile’s overflowing; this want is supplied by spiral pumps, which are turned by oxen, in order to bring the water into pipes, which convey it to these lands. Diodorus speaks of a similar engine invented by Archimedes in his travels into Egypt, which is called _Cochlea Ægyptia_.(295) 7. _The Fertility caused by the Nile._—There is no country in the world where the soil is more fruitful than in Egypt; which is owing entirely to the Nile. For whereas other rivers, when they overflow lands, wash away and exhaust their vivific moisture; the Nile, on the contrary, by the excellent slime it brings along with it, fattens and enriches them in such a manner, as sufficiently compensates for what the foregoing harvest had impaired.(296) The husbandman, in this country, never tires himself with holding the plough, or breaking the clods of earth. As soon as the Nile retires, he has nothing to do but to turn up the earth, and temper it with a little sand, in order to lessen its rankness; after which he sows it with great ease, and with little or no expense. Two months after, it is covered with all sorts of corn and pulse. The Egyptians generally sow in October and November, according as the waters draw off; and their harvest is in March and April.