CURRENT LITERAT URE.
Egyptian Irrigation. By W. Willcocks, C.M. G. (E. and F. N. Spon, 125 Strand.)—Though the work before ns is called a second edition, it is almost a new book, for the first edition was published ten years ago. Many things have happened since then in the waters of Egypt, and as all these are carefully recorded, a great part of the work is entirely new. Take, for example, all that relates to the Barrages at Assouan and Assiout, now in course of construction. It is a commonplace in Egypt to say that what Mr. Willcocks does not know about the Nile and the canals is not worth knowing. But, in truth, a knowledge of what fills a canal full, what keeps it so, what ruins basins and lays embankments flat, is by no means the limit of Mr. Willcocks's knowledge. Probably there is no man alive who knows " the land and the people " of Egypt better than he. If per agleam, per terram were chosen by him as a motto, it must have added to it something to denote his intimate and peculiar ac- quaintance with the man behind the Shadoof. That knowledge cannot, of course, emerge in so technical a work as the present, but it is there none the less, and we trust that some day Mr. Will- cocks will write an account of rural Egypt and its inhabitants. Meantime, we welcome this second edition of his book with sin- cere pleasure. It is a book worthy both of Mr. Willcocks_and of the " English occupation."
Previous page
