Water,
Like Fire, Should Be The Slave Of Man, To Whom It Is The First
Necessity; Therefore His First Effort In His Struggle With The Elements
Should Reduce This Power To Vassalage.
There must be no question of
supremacy; water must serve mankind.
Many years ago I published, in the Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, my
ideas for the control of the Nile and the submersion of the cataracts by
a series of weirs, with water-gates for the facility of navigation;
which with certain modifications will some day assuredly be carried out,
and will render Egypt the most favoured country of the world, as
absolute mistress of the river which is now at the same time a tyrant
and a slave. The Pedias of Cyprus may during some terrific rainfall
assume proportions that would convey a most erroneous impression to the
mind of a stranger, who, upon regarding the boiling torrent
overspreading a valley of some miles in width in its impetuous course
towards ancient Salamis, might conclude that it was a river of the first
importance. The fact is that no RIVER exists in Cyprus: what should be
rivers are mere channels, watercourses, brooks, torrents, or any of the
multifarious names for stream-beds that may be discovered in an English
dictionary. At the same time that the natural channels are dry during
the summer months, through the want of power in the water-head to
overcome the absorption of the porous soil throughout its course, it
must not be forgotten that a certain supply exists at the fountain head,
within practicable distance, which might be stored and led from the
mountains to the lower lands for the purposes of irrigation.
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