Five years were allowed for the accomplishment of this great task, but by diligence and promptness, John Aird & Co. were ready to pack up their tools and come away a whole year sooner than was expected. His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught went to Assuan, in December, 1902, and declared the great dam fit to begin its important duties.
The Nile Dam at Assuan.
And this is how those duties are performed. Early in July each year, every sluice is opened to its widest, the iron doors being lifted as high as they will go. The Nile at that time is seen to be rapidly rising, and nothing must obstruct its passage. For five whole months it is allowed to rush in growing volume on its course. By that time, the rich deposit, of which we have spoken, has all passed through the sluices, and the time has arrived for checking the clearer and less turbulent water by which it is followed. The first gates are lowered early in December, being of course those in the lowest part of the dam. These are followed by fifty more on a higher level; and so on until all the sluices are carefully closed, with the exception of some which are left open for surplus water to pass through. The reservoir is not full until the end of February, and thus takes three months to collect its waters. But so vast is its extent, that the stoppage is said to affect the river one hundred and forty miles farther south. The water thus held back is not allowed to escape until May, when it is most wanted in the fields below the dam; and it is, of course, all gone by the beginning of July, when the sluices are gaping wide again to let the new floods pass. It need hardly be said that the order just described varies a great deal according to the moods of the river. The dam must be regulated to those changing moods, or the benefits it gives could not be relied upon. Thus from the fickle stream a constant blessing is drawn, and year after year, with the shifting seasons, those stately gates will rise and fall; the river channel will always have its water, so long as the gates last, and there will be corn in Egypt.
"What a feast I had!"