RESERVOIR PRELIMINARIES
In dealing with the history of the Barrage I have somewhat anticipated
the order of events. It was the prospect of the coming Reservoir and
an increased water-supply in summer that urged on the engineers to
make assurance doubly sure by placing the strength of that structure
beyond all doubt. It is time to pass from the Delta to Assouan.
No country in the world tells its story more readily to the traveller
than Upper Egypt. As he passes up the broad waterway of the Nile,
he may survey the whole life of the land without stirring from the
deck of his steamer. If he has been in Egypt before, he cannot fail
to be struck by the growth of its prosperity; it forces itself upon
him in the bearing of the people, and in the number of their flocks
and herds, now as ever the outward and visible sign of material
well-being. Even the squalid clusters of mud huts, often roofless, or
covered only by a few loose canes, dirty and miserable as they seem to
Western eyes, with nothing substantial among them except the tomb of
some sheikh or the inevitable pigeon-houses, are only proofs of the
genial climate, which makes a roof overhead, and clothing as well,
among the least of the necessities of life. The people themselves,
hard workers as they are, have a happy and prosperous aspect, and
the crowds of naked children, brown as the waters by whose edge they
play, look as cheerful and contented as the vast colonies of pigeons,
which live under very similar conditions to their owners.
On each side of the river-valley, here and there, especially on the
eastern side, coming right to the water’s edge, rise the hills
of the desert. Where the domain of the water ceases a man may stand
with one foot in the bare and barren sand and the other in the most
fertile soil in the world. Everywhere along the bank, hour after
hour, day after day, the traveller may see the peasants lifting the
water with the primitive shadoofs, tier upon tier, up to the level
of the fields, or the oxen turning the sakieh. A hundred times a
day he will have borne in upon him the fact that all he sees, from
the kid upon the dykes to those obelisks of modern Egypt, the tall
chimneys of the sugar factories, owes its existence absolutely to
the water. Close behind the teeming villages and the luxuriant crops,
the palm-trees and the acacias, the sugar-canes and the maize-fields,
rise the gaunt limestone rocks and the sandy desert, fit emblems of
the famine that is ever ready to swoop down should the water fail.
Even as late as December, steaming up the 550 miles of river, often
half a mile or more across, between Cairo and Assouan, against the
strong current, watching the majestic sweep of those wide waters
pouring irresistibly towards the sea, it is hard to realize the
anxiety of later months. But May or June has a very different tale
to tell. To take and store the precious water, which now during
the flood and winter rushes down in untold volume, to be lost and
squandered in the sea, and use it to feed the lean summer months,
is almost absurdly obvious. No wonder that since Mehemet Ali gave
so great a stimulus to the cultivation of cotton and sugar the idea
of the Reservoir has been constantly in the minds of the rulers of
Egypt. The strange thing is that so many hundreds, even thousands,
of years should have elapsed without any attempt of the kind
being made. Perhaps it was due partly to the reverence felt for
the mighty and inscrutable power of the great river, partly to the
passive fatalism innate in the Oriental mind. A few years ago Sir
Benjamin Baker asked a prominent and representative land-owner in
Egypt, a Pasha, and a descendant of the Prophet, what he thought of
the prospects of a Nile Reservoir. With a shrug of his shoulders,
he replied that ‘if it had been possible it would have been done
4,000 years ago.’
He reasoned wiser than he knew. At the second cataract above Wadi
Halfa there are marks upon the rocks and other indications which go
to show that a Dam once existed at that point, used to regulate the
flow of the Nile. Swept away by some unrecorded disaster, no other
direct knowledge of it remains. But it is far from unlikely that
Herodotus, in his account of Lake Mœris in the Fayoum, has mixed up
some tradition of this ancient work in Nubia. At any rate, whatever
be the truth about Lake Mœris, his account proves beyond all question
that the idea of a Reservoir was familiar to the ancient Egyptians.
The tradition of a Reservoir somewhere on the upper waters of the
Nile lingered long in Egypt. There is a curious reference to it in
a book of travel by F. Vansleb, a Dutchman who visited Egypt about
the year 1670. The fertility of the Nile flood is caused, he says,
by a fall of dew, which usually takes place on June 17, just after
the appearance of the ‘green’ water. This dew purifies the foul
water, and makes it swell by fermentation. ‘Some of the country,’
however, he proceeds, ‘that are ignorant of the true causes of this
increase, imagine that it proceeds from a large pond in Ethiopia _in
the river itself_, which the Abyssins begin to open about June 12,
and let the water out by degrees, more and more till September 14,
by which time they begin to shut it again. But this is a foolish
fancy of the Copties.’
We have seen how the tradition of Lake Mœris fascinated Mehemet
Ali; but the methods of Haroun-al-Raschid were not suited to
solid engineering works, as the history of the Barrage too plainly
shows. None of his descendants, with the exception of the Khedive
Ismail, had the wit to conceive or the ability to execute such an
undertaking, and Ismail’s fantastic imagination was fully occupied
in other directions. Fortunately for Egypt, the project had to
wait until the success of the Barrage made the time ripe for its
execution, and until skilful brains and strong hands were ready to
plan and carry it out in the most efficient manner possible.
There were three problems to be faced: first, Where could such a
Reservoir be erected? second, What arrangements could be devised to
avoid the danger of large silt deposits, which would soon seriously
diminish the capacity of the Reservoir, and, if allowed to accumulate,
render it in no long time entirely useless? third, Supposing that
the difficulties of site and design could be overcome, where was the
money to be found? During the first years of the British occupation,
while Egypt was still painfully struggling upwards from the abyss
of bankruptcy into which she had been cast by the mad whirlwind of
extravagance in Ismail’s reign, it was no time for the inception
of original works on a grand scale. But in 1890 the matter became
an affair of practical politics, and was at last seriously taken in
hand. Meantime discussion had been raging as to the best locality
for the Reservoir. An American gentleman, Mr. Cope Whitehouse,
took up the case of the Wadi Rayan, a depression in the desert to
the south-west of the Fayoum. This, he maintained, was the real
site of the ancient Lake Mœris, and here the Reservoir ought to
be. He had no professional knowledge, and he was utterly wrong in
his ideas; but his vehement method of controversy kept the subject
thoroughly alive. The whole land was filled with his clamour, and
every expert was forced to give his own views in self-defence. The
debate served a useful purpose. Gradually it came to be recognised
that the river-bed itself was the proper place for storing the water
by means of a Dam. Authorities differ as to whom belongs the credit
of first making this suggestion, or, rather, of first reviving the
tradition of the past; but it seems pretty clear that Sir Samuel
Baker suggested the construction of a Dam at the first cataract at
Assouan as far back as 1867.
However that may be, in 1890 the Government took the matter up,
and charged Mr. W. Willcocks with the task of examining the river
north of Wadi Halfa, reporting upon the best available site for
the Dam, and preparing a design for it. After a careful survey,
his plans were completed in 1894, and his design for a Reservoir
at Assouan was then submitted to an International Committee of
Engineers, consisting of Sir Benjamin Baker, M. Boulé, and Signor
Torricelli. Mr. Willcocks’ plans were, with some modifications,
accepted by a majority of the Commission, and to him belongs the
honour of having designed the Dam. The selection of the Assouan
site solved the first of the three difficulties. There is at this
point an extensive outcrop of granite clean across the valley of
the Nile, which it was thought would give sound rock everywhere at a
very convenient level for the foundations of the Dam. Moreover, the
trough of the river above the cataract and a long way south of it is
exceptionally deep, and this makes it possible for a greater amount
of water to be stored up behind the Dam. But the prime necessity was
for a solid foundation. Elsewhere in Egypt the bed of the Nile is
composed of shifting sands, on which it would have been impossible
to build a Dam capable of holding up so great a head of water.
Mr. Willcocks’ design solved the second difficulty, the problem of
constructing a Dam strong enough for the purpose, and yet of avoiding
the danger of filling up the Reservoir by too great accumulations
of silt. The other great Dams in the world, as, for instance, that
built by Sir Arthur Cotton on the Godavery River, in India, are
solid throughout. They are planned so that the rising flood shall
pass freely over the top of them. But the Assouan Dam is of a type
previously unknown, and its success ought to stimulate perennial
irrigation in many parts of the world where such projects have
hitherto proved failures. Its principle is that even the highest
flood shall pass, not over it, but through it. To this end it is
pierced with 180 openings, which are like tunnels in the great mass
of masonry. The openings are controlled by powerful sliding-gates
worked from above. During the months of the flood every gate will
be up, and the ‘red’ water, carrying all its heavy burden
of silt, will pass through without impediment. Later in the year,
about the end of November, when the flood has subsided and very much
less matter is carried in suspension, the sluice-gates begin to be
gradually closed, and by the end of February the Reservoir is full,
without having affected the normal discharge of the river in any
appreciable degree. From April to July the water thus stored up is
let out by degrees for employment, according to the state of the
river and the requirement of the crops. By the time the next flood
begins to come down all the stored water will have passed out, and
every sluice will be once more open to give free passage to the
rising stream. Although the Nile in December and January carries
an insignificant amount of sediment compared to that brought down
in August and September, it yet brings down a very considerable
quantity, far greater than most other rivers at any time, and quite
enough to go a long way towards silting up the bed of the Reservoir,
if it was allowed to remain. But for this the river provides its own
remedy: every year the force of the flood will act like a gigantic
broom, sweeping the floor of the Reservoir. The sluices, arranged in
sets of five, are distributed at different levels, according to the
formation of the river-bed on the upstream side, so as to facilitate
this process to the utmost. During the months of the inundation the
Nile at Assouan pours down for weeks together a volume of 10,000
tons of water per second, and sometimes as much as 14,000 or 15,000
tons per second. The rush of this stupendous mass is sufficient to
assure us that there will be no silting up of the Reservoir.
Two of the difficulties had been thus overcome, when, from a new and
unexpected quarter, a storm sprang up, which very nearly brought
to a standstill the rising fabric of Egyptian prosperity. The
project of the Reservoir would have raised the level of the water,
and held up the river above the Dam to a head of 100 feet; this
would have involved the temporary submersion every year of the
island of Philæ, with its famous Temple of Isis, Pharaoh’s Bed,
and other monuments. A terrific hubbub arose. Archæological and
antiquarian societies, which until then had sometimes belittled
the monuments of Philæ as belonging to an inferior period, poured
in their protests. People who had never heard of Philæ before,
but who were none the less influential for that, joined in the
outcry. Diplomatists, whose one desire was to embarrass our progress
in Egypt, took up the cause of Art with a will. These champions
of humanity at large forgot the poor fellaheen, to whom the extra
water means all the difference between misery and happiness; nothing
would satisfy them but the complete abandonment of the project. The
engineers fought stoutly in the interests of Egypt; they offered to
raise the whole of the monuments bodily, or to transport them to
the neighbouring island of Bigeh; but, though they saved the Dam,
the original design was lost, and the Dam to-day is 33 feet lower
than it ought to have been. The foundations of Philæ have been
underpinned and strengthened, the island will only be partially
submerged, and the injury to Egypt can only be faintly estimated.
Was the sacrifice worth it? The value of Philæ lies in its beauty
more than in its antiquarian interest. No one who has witnessed
night after night the glorious sunsets on the Nile, the mysterious
charm of the changing waters, the dark belt of palms reflected in
the river below and standing out in strong contrast against the
sky, the limestone cliffs of the desert clear-cut in the dry air,
and flushing pink in the radiance of the indescribable after-glow,
no one who has seen the Temples of Karnak, could hesitate to make
so small a sacrifice, in comparison, for the sake of the river-side
people. Moreover, Egypt is rich in treasures of the past, as yet
undiscovered, and wanting only money for their development, which the
Reservoir would in time supply. And how few people visit Philæ at
all! Surely, even in a country a thousand times poorer than Egypt in
artistic and archæological interests, the well-being of the living
and of the unborn should have prevailed.
If all those who joined to swell the uproar had been really
disinterested lovers of the beautiful, there would have been small
reason to complain of their insistence. Enthusiasts can hardly be
expected to listen to the voice of reason, and Philæ has charms
to soften the heart of the most savage utilitarian. Its fate is a
mournful necessity, but it is a necessity, for the question of the
Reservoir had come to be a question of existence for Egypt. Even the
advantage gained by the opposition in lowering the height of the
Dam is only a delay. On the pylon of the Temple of Isis at Philæ
is carved a huge representation of the Pharaoh of the day, one of
the most degenerate of the Ptolemies, catching his defeated enemies
by the hair of their heads with one hand, an uplifted sword in the
other. The whole is a copy of the work of his warlike ancestors, and
even as a copy it is a delusion and a sham; for he won no victories,
defeated no enemies, and, indeed, scarcely ventured outside the walls
of his harem. The apparent victory of these lovers of Philæ, to call
them by their more honourable title, was not less delusive. Philæ
is doomed. Between half drowned and wholly drowned there is not
much difference in the case of an island, certainly not a difference
worth fighting for, and the Dam will be raised to its full height,
perhaps as soon as Egypt is ready for the extra water.
The financial difficulty remained. In spite of the prosperity of
Egypt, she is, as everyone acquainted with her history is aware,
bound hand and foot by international fetters in matters financial. The
Caisse de la Dette, founded to protect Egyptian creditors against
the dangers of bad administration, has remained to be an obstacle
to any improvements that must benefit these interests. The practical
outcome of the system is that, if the Caisse be hostile—and hostile
it has often been—no public work like the Nile Reservoir can be
carried out without the imposition of extra taxation to the amount
of double the annual expenditure required.
Time passed, the need became more pressing, but the prospects of the
Reservoir seemed further off than ever. Besides the regulation of her
water-supply, Egypt had on her hands the question of the Soudan. From
every point of view the reconquest of that province and the upper
waters of the Nile was a prime necessity; no one could tell how long
the war might last, or how great the expense might be. It seemed
impossible that she could bear the cost of two such enterprises
simultaneously, and under such circumstances her credit would not
have been sufficient to raise the capital sum required on anything
like reasonable terms. Not only so, but by the peculiar constitution
of Egyptian finance it was illegal for her to raise a loan without the
consent of the Caisse, a consent which it was impossible to obtain.
But, fortunately for Egypt, there were a few men with clearer
vision and more faith in the future, and chief among these was
Lord Cromer. The statesman who had controlled the tangled destinies
of Egypt through so many dark years, and baffled so many tortuous
intriguers, as well as more open foes, was not the man to despair
in such a situation. In 1897 the first negotiations were quietly
opened with Sir E. Cassel. Then came the vote of the majority of
the Caisse to grant £500,000 towards the Soudan Railway, and the
successful action taken in the Courts against that vote. Everyone
knows how this seeming defeat was turned to overwhelming victory
by the decision of the English Government to grant £750,000 for
the railway on certain conditions. The enemies of England in Egypt
received a staggering blow.
But the story was not yet complete. In April, 1898, Sir E. Cassel
arrived at Cairo; in one day the details of the arrangements to
finance the Dam were settled; all that night the lawyers drafted the
necessary documents; a Council of Ministers was hastily called in the
morning, and the contracts were signed. Sir E. Cassel was to provide
the necessary funds for the execution of the work, £2,000,000;
repayment by the Egyptian Government was to be deferred altogether for
five years, and then to be spread over a period of thirty years. The
first payment of about £78,000 is included in the Budget for 1903.
Looking back now after five years of prosperity, when Egyptian
securities have actually increased in value, while Consols themselves
have so greatly declined, it is easy to see that the statesman and
the financier were justified in their faith. But in those days
it needed a clear vision and a stout heart to calculate thirty
years ahead—nay, even five—in a country so much the sport of
international politics. The Soudan Campaign was not yet ended;
behind the dervishes there loomed vague possibilities of worse
complications. The Egyptian Government made a good bargain then,
though it would doubtless make a better now. But it was then, and
not now, that the business had to be settled.