PERSIAN WATER- WHEEL, USED FOR IRRIGATION IN NUBIA.

 

 

THIS clumsy apparatus is supposed to have been introduced into Egypt after the Persian invasion by the followers of Cambyses. The ignorance of the Egyptians under the Pharaohs of any aid to irrigation more effective or less laborious than the shadoof, is not more remarkable than the continuance of the latter means to the present time, except in Nubia, and on its borders.

    The Persian water-wheel consists of a long endless rope or chain to which jars are attached, which, passing over a wheel, are inverted and made to discharge the water with which the ascending jars are filled into a trough, at as great an elevation as the cultivator requires or can obtain. Motion is given to this wheel by bullocks; it has not yet occurred to the Nubians to use the waters of the Nile as the motive power for raising their supply, which is so often done in the European rivers. Such apparatus, however, as that used in Upper Egypt and Nubia is still used in Spain, and called a norria; it was introduced probably from the East.

    When the Nile is low, says Wilkinson, the land is irrigated by water-wheels which are the pride of the Nubian peasant; even the endless and melancholy creaking of these clumsy machines is a delight to him, which no grease is ever permitted to diminish. The wealth of an individual is estimated by the number of these machines. In a hot climate like Nubia they prefer to employ oxen in the arduous duty of raising water, instead of using the pole and bucket of the shadoof: but for these water-wheels the poor Nubian is heavily taxed by the Government. He has few wants, but every effort to supply these is taxed, and such claims  are enforced on his date-trees as food, and his water-wheels as a means of cultivation, that he is often driven from the soil to seek service in a menial station at Cairo.