104 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

the yegetablcs and fruits of nearly every climate. The wheat, which, in November, we found young and green, would in March be ripe for the sickle, and the people were cutting and threshing fields of dourra, which they had planted towards the end of summer. Except where the broad meadows are first reclaimed from the rank, tufted grass which has taken possession of them, the wheat is sowed upon the ground, and then ploughed in by a sort of crooked wooden beam, shod with iron, and drawn by two camels or buffaloes. I saw no instance in which the soil was manured. The yearly deposit made by the bountiful river seems to be sufficient. The natives, it is true, possess immense numbers of pigeons, and every village is adorned with towers, rising above the mud huts like the pylons of temples, and inhabited by these birds. The manure collected from them is said to be used, but probably only in the culture of melons, cucumbers, and other like vegetables with which the gardens are stocked.

The fields of sugar-cane about Farshoot were the richest I saw in Egypt. Near the village, which is three miles from the Nile, there is a steam sugar-refinery, established by Ibrahim Pasha, who seems to have devoted much attention to the culture of cane, with a view to his own profit. There are several of these manufactories along the Nile, and the most of them were in full operation, as we passed. At Kadamoon, between Minyeh and Siout, there is a large manufactory, where the common coarse sugar made in the Fellah villages is refined and sent to Cairo. We made use of this sugar in our household, and found it to be of excellent quality, though coarser than that of the American manufactories. The culture of cotton has not been so successful. The large and handsome manufao-