In parts of Upper Egypt, but nearly everywhere in Lower Egypt, the Nile on curves is protected by stone spurs. These spurs contain each from 4,000 to 250 cubic metres. They are very effective where the Nile bank has been well thrown back below them to a distance of some 50 metres on a length of at least 100 metres. This allows the waters of the flood to swirl harmlessly in whirlpools below the spurs while the banks are far removed from their action.
When we first came to Egypt, we found that the policy was to spread the flood into as many channels as possible and protect the whole of them with tens of thousands of corvée, in addition to the corvée on the Nile banks. We changed that and concentrated our energies on the Rosetta and Damietta branches.
In 1861, 1863, 1866, 1869, 1874, and 1878 the Damietta branch was badly breached, There has been only one serious breach on the Rosetta branch, and that was in 1863. The great breach of 1878 on the Damietta branch was attended with serious loss of life; but far more serious was the breach of 1863 on the Rosetta branch not far from its head. The whole western half of the Delta proper was swept by the river, and as the canals there have not got good high banks, the people had no place of shelter to flee to and were drowned in very great numbers. The same thing would happen again if a breach were to occur now, only the damage would be far more serious. The country is covered with villas and rich plantations and the low lands to the very edges of Lake Borrilos are being reclaimed and inhabited. The loss of life which would occur nowadays would be truly appalling. A breach anywhere within 100 kilometres of the Barrage on the east bank of the Rosetta branch or the west bank of the Damietta branch during a very high flood would be a national disaster.
The terror reigning over the whole country during a very high flood is very striking. The Nile banks are covered with booths at intervals of 50 metres. Each booth has two watchmen, and lamps are kept burning all night. Every dangerous spot has a gang of 50 or 100 special men. The Nile is covered with steamers and boats carrying sacks, stakes, and stone; while the banks along nearly their entire length are protected by stakes supporting cotton and Indian corn stalks, keeping the waves off the loose earth of the banks. In a settlement of a culvert in the Nile bank north of Mansourah in 1887 I witnessed a scene which must have once been more common than it is to-day. The news that the bank had breached spread fast through the village. The villagers rushed out on to the banks with their children, their cattle, and everything they possessed. The confusion was indescribable. A narrow bank covered with buffaloes, children, poultry, and household furniture. The women assembled round the local saint’s tomb, beating their breasts, kissing the tomb, and uttering loud cries, and every five minutes a gang of men running into the crowd and carrying off the first thing they could lay hands on wherewith to close the breach. The fellaheen meanwhile, in a steady, business-like manner, plunged into the breach, stood shoulder to shoulder across the escaping water, and with the aid of torn-off doors and windows and Indian corn stalks, closed the breach. They were only just in time. This is the way the fellaheen faced a breach. And this is how the old Governors of Egypt faced them. During the flood of 1887 I complimented an official on the Nile bank, whose activity was quite disproportionate to his apparent age. He told me that he was a comparatively young man, but he had had charge of the Nile bank at Mit Badr when the great breach occurred in 1878, and that Ismail Pasha had telegraphed orders to throw him and the engineer into the breach. He was given 12 hours’ grace by the local chief, and during that interval his hair had become white; subsequently he was pardoned. These were the senseless orders which used to petrify officials into stupidity.
The following estimate was made by me of the cost of protecting the Delta proper between the two branches of the Nile during the high flood of 1887:—
Cost of protection for 432 kilometres of bank or 1,200,000 acres of cultivation:—
| Materials paid for | - | Sand bags | 60,000 | @ | £ | ·03 | = | £ | 1,800 | |
| Stone | 5,000 | @ | „ | ·50 | = | „ | 2,500 | |||
| Stakes | 55,000 | @ | „ | ·06 | = | „ | 3,300 | |||
| £ | 7,600 | |||||||||
| Materials not paid for | - | Camel loads of stalk for 42 kilometres, 14,000 @ £ ·15 | = | £ | 2,100 | |||||
| Total materials | £ | 9,700 | ||||||||
| 15 engineers @ £80 | = | £ | 1,200 | |||||||
| Unpaid corvee, 1,374,079 men @ £·03 | = | „ | 41,222 | |||||||
| Total labour | £ | 42,422 | ||||||||
| Total materials and labour | £ | 52,122 | ||||||||
This works out to £120 per kilometre of bank, or £·045 per acre of land protected. It is a very cheap insurance.