When the crops, having resisted many enemies, appeared above ground,
they were attacked by the mole crickets in formidable numbers. These
destructive insects lived beneath the small solid clods of earth, and
issuing forth at night, they bit the young shoot clean off close to the
parent grain at the point of extreme sweetness. The garden suffered
terribly from these insects, which destroyed whole rows of cucumber
plants.
I had brought ploughs from Cairo. These were the native implements that
are used throughout Egypt. There is always a difficulty in the first
commencement of agricultural enterprise in a wild country, and much
patience is required.
Some of my Egyptian soldiers were good ploughmen, to which employment
they had been formerly accustomed; but the bullocks of the country were
pigheaded creatures that for a long time resisted all attempts at
conversion to the civilized labour of Egyptian cattle. They steadily
refused to draw the ploughs, and they determined upon an "agricultural
strike." They had not considered that we could strike also, and
tolerably hard, with the hippopotamus hide whips, which were a more
forcible appeal to their feelings than a "lock-out." However, this
contest ended in the bullocks lying down, and thus offering a passive
resistance that could not be overcome. There is nothing like arbitration
to obtain pure justice, and as I was the arbitrator, I ordered all
refractory bullocks to be eaten as rations by the troops. A few animals
at length became fairly tractable; and we had a couple of ploughs at
work, but the result was a series of zigzag furrows that more resembled
the indiscriminate ploughings of a herd of wild boar than the effect of
an agricultural implement. Nothing will ever go straight at the
commencement, therefore the ploughs naturally went crooked; but the
whole affair forcibly reminded me of my first agricultural enterprise on
the mountains of Ceylon twenty-five years earlier. [*]
[*Footnote: See "Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon," published by
Longman & Co.]
The mean temperature at the station of Tewfikeeyah had been:
In the month of May, at 6 a.m. 73 degrees Fahrenheit
" at Noon 92 degrees "
" June, at 6 a.m. 72 degrees "
" at Noon 86 degrees "
" July, at 6 a.m. 71 degrees "
" at Noon 81 degrees "
During May we had heavy rain during 3 days.
" " light " " 4 " 7 days.
During June we had heavy rain during 5 days.
" " light " " 6 " 11 days
" July heavy " " 10 "
" " light " " 4 " 14 days
Sickness increased proportionately with the increase of rain, owing to
the sudden chills occasioned by the heavy showers. The thermometer would
sometimes fall rapidly to 68 degrees Fahr. during a storm of rain,
accompanied by a cold rush of air from the cloud. Fortunately I had
provided the troops with blankets, which had not been included in their
kit by the authorities at Khartoum.
