The plain appears to pant in the pitiless
sunshine, bare, dusty, ash-coloured, cracked and seamed as far as
the eye can see with a network of fissures. From the middle of April
till the middle of June the land of Egypt is but half alive, waiting
for the new Nile.
For countless ages this cycle of natural events has determined the
annual labours of the Egyptian husbandman. The first work of the
agricultural year is the cutting of the dams which have hitherto
prevented the swollen river from flooding the canals and the fields.
This is done, and the pent-up waters released on their beneficent
mission, in the first half of August. In November, when the
inundation has subsided, wheat, barley, and sorghum are sown. The
time of harvest varies with the district, falling about a month
later in the north than in the south. In Upper or Southern Egypt
barley is reaped at the beginning of March, wheat at the beginning
of April, and sorghum about the end of that month.
It is natural to suppose that the various events of the agricultural
year were celebrated by the Egyptian farmer with some simple
religious rites designed to secure the blessing of the gods upon his
labours.
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