Then, not for the first or last time, the Anglo-Indians came to the rescue of Africa. Sir Evelyn Baring himself (now Lord Cromer) during his service as Financial Member of the Council in India, must have been impressed by the enormous importance of irrigation. It would not be difficult to find many points of resemblance between his character and that of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the rulers of India, Lord Lawrence, different as were their spheres of work; but certainly they were alike in this. As Lord Lawrence supported Arthur Cotton in his engineering work, so Lord Cromer supported Colin Scott-Moncrieff and the band of trusty lieutenants—Willcocks, Garstin, Ross, Brown, Foster, Western, and Reid—who came with him. Fortunately for Egypt, these men, trained in the best school of irrigation in the world, possessed not only the highest scientific skill and knowledge, but were also animated by the best spirit of the empire-building Englishman. Deep in them lay the earnest wish and determination, far stronger even than their enthusiasm and love for their profession, to alleviate the lot of the unhappy peasantry of Egypt. It was this heartfelt sympathy for the wrongs of the fellaheen, ground down by the intolerable burden of the corvée, that sustained them in their ceaseless labours and enabled them to pass successfully through those dark days, when the air was full of forebodings of failure and disaster, whose fulfilment would have pleased so many. The Barrage is situated, as has been said, a little way back from the point of the Delta. It is really two Barrages, one on the left or Rosetta branch of the Nile, with sixty-one arches, 465 metres in length, and the other on the Damietta branch with seventy-one arches, 535 metres in length. Between the two runs a revetment wall across the intervening tongue of land, 1,000 metres in length. From a distance it resembles a bridge of rather fanciful design, with the arches set unusually close together, and, indeed, for a great part of its career the functions of a bridge were the only ones it performed. The tongue of land between has been converted into beautiful gardens, planted with shady trees and many shrubs and flowers, and even a greensward resembling grass. Altogether, it is one of the most delightful and beautiful spots in Egypt, besides being one of the most useful. Here is the starting-point of the great feeder canals which irrigate the Delta provinces. On the left, facing north, is the Rayah Behera, which supplies the province of Behera, to the left of the Rosetta branch. Between the two Barrages is the head of the Rayah Menoufia, the canal which feeds the two provinces of Menoufia and Gharbia, lying between the two arms of the river; while on the right is the Rayah Tewfiki, which, with its supplementary canals, Ismailia, Sharkia, and Basusia, supplies the three eastern provinces of the Delta, Kalyubia, Sharkia, and Dakalia. All these canals are navigable,