The sunlight fell perpendicularly upon its smooth waters, and made them flash and sparkle until the eye was weary; in other places, the gray waters lay stagnant amid the gray sands, or else were of the dead white of tin. It would have been easy to believe one's self in the Holland Polders, travelling along one of the sleepy inland seas. The heavens were as colourless as Van der Velde's skies, and the travellers, who, trusting to painters, had dreamed of a blaze of colour, gazed with amazement upon the vast extent of absolutely flat, grayish toned land, which in no wise recalled Egypt, at least such as one imagines it to be. On the side opposite Lake Mareotis rose, in the midst of luxuriant gardens, the country homes of the rich merchants of the city, of the government officials and of the consuls, painted in bright colours, sky-blue, rose or yellow, picked out with white, and here and there the great sails of boats, bound to Foueh or to Rosetta through the Mahmoudieh Canal, showed above the vegetation and seemed to be travelling on dry land. This curious effect, which always causes surprise, is often met with in the neighbourhood of Leyden, Dordrecht, and Haarlem, and in swampy countries where the water lies level with the ground, and sometimes even, kept in by dikes, is higher than the level of the country by several yards. Where the salt water ends, the aspect of the country changes, not gradually, but suddenly; on the one hand absolute barrenness, on the other exuberant vegetation; and wherever irrigation brings a drop of water, plants spring up, and the sterile dust becomes fertile soil. The contrast is most striking. We had passed Lake Mareotis, and on either side of the railroad stretched fields of _doora_ or maize, of cotton plants in various stages of growth, some opening their pretty yellow flowers, others shedding the white silk from their pods. Gutters full of muddy water rayed the black ground with lines that shone here and there in the light. These were fed by broader canals connected with the Nile. Small dikes of earth, easily opened with a blow of a pickaxe, dammed up the waters until watering-time. The rough wheels of the sakiehs, turned by buffaloes, oxen, camels, or asses, raised the water to higher levels. Sometimes, even, two robust fellahs, perfectly naked, tawny and shining like Florentine bronzes, standing on the edge of a canal and balancing like a swing a basket of waterproof esparto suspended from two ropes of which they held the ends, skimmed the surface of the water and dashed it into the neighbouring field with amazing dexterity. Fellahs in short blue tunics were ploughing, holding the handle of a primitive plough drawn by a camel and a humpbacked Soudanese ox; others gathered cotton and maize; others dug ditches; others again dragged branches of trees by way of a harrow over the furrows which the inundation had scarce left. Everywhere was seen an activity not much in accord with the traditional Oriental idleness.