AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN HOMES. 47 



dense, this use of human muscle is more apparent. In Egypt, 

 for instance, I watched on one occasion a swarm of human 

 beings, there could not have been less than two or three tliou- 

 sand, repairing a piece of road which had been washed out by 

 an inundation of the Nile. They were men, women and chil- 

 dren, half or wholly naked. All the machinery they had were 

 some rude shovels and baskets. With the shovel the basket was 

 filled with earth, then carried upon the head a fourth of a mile 

 or so, and dumped into the hole it was designed to fill. These 

 people, employed by the government, received five or six cents, 

 the men ten cents a day, for their enforced labor, continued un- 

 remittingly under the eyes of severe taskmasters day by day, 

 until the work was completed. There was no Sabbath-day rest, 

 there was not even the welcome prospects of a rainy day to sus- 

 pend their dreary round of toil and suffering, for in that coun- 

 try it never rains. You may calculate with unerring certainty 

 upon 365 days in the year of unclouded sunshine. 



In England, a common laborer upon the farm would receive 

 about twenty-five dollars a year and his board In Germany it 

 would be a little less. Women in Germany receive about six- 

 teen dollars a year and board. There is very little chance for 

 labor-saving machines where labor is so cheap. Except in Eng- 

 land, agricultural tools were very clumsy and rude, such as no 

 New England farmer would use for a single day. They are the 

 same patterns that have been used for centuries. 



Farming throughout Europe is gardening rather than farm- 

 ing. The fields are small, but there is the utmost economy of 

 room. Every spot is occupied, and shows the utmost care. In 

 Italy a great deal of wheat is raised. But it is never sown 

 broadcast. It is always carefully planted in drills, and care- 

 fully hoed and weeded. The absence of weeds and all foul stuff 

 in the midst of growing crops, cannot fail to attract the atten- 

 tion of the traveller accustomed to our more slovenly husbandry. 

 In Germany the eye is never weary with looking upon the neat 

 and beautiful fields, variegated with growing crops of all kinds. 

 The fields are small, but not a fence of any kind is to be seen, 

 not even by the side of the road. They often reminded me of 

 the Deerfield meadow. Of course no cattle were allowed to 

 roam unattended. They are usually stall-fed. 



In England, on the other hand, fences abound. The fields 



