From the summit of the great towers of Bubastis and Saïs the glistening sinuosities of its branches might be discerned for many miles. There was no thirst in the Delta. Nowhere did the capillary, the irrigation canal, fail to reach, even now in the season of desolation and loss. Half-green stubble, hail-mown and locust-eaten, showed where a wheat-field had been.