362 NOETH-EAST AFEICA. 



corvée, wallowing in the beds of the canals, be allowed to suffer hunger or be deci- 

 mated by epidemics, or be made to writhe under the lash of the cruel kurbash. 

 The very monuments of Egypt have recorded for six thousand years the sad fate 

 of the fellah, bent beneath his load of mud while the overseer stands flourishing the 

 scourge above his head. The names may change, but this ancient form of slavery 

 still survives. As Amru said to the Caliph Omar, the Egyptian people " seem des- 

 tined to toil only for others, without themselves deriving any benefit from their 

 labour." 



Conservatism and Progress. 



There are few other countries where the old usages, adapting themselves with 

 difficulty to modern time's, contrast more strikingly with the methods introduced by 

 Western civilisation. While the ancient method of cultivation remains unchanged, 

 and while the peasantry, regulating their work according to the yearly inundations, 

 sow and reap always at the same period, make use of the same implements, gather 

 the same cei-eal crops, eat the same bread, modern agriculture draws the water by 

 means of steam-engines directly from the river, cultivates the exotic plants of India 

 and the New World, employs improved ploughs, reaping, threshing, and sifting 

 machines. To manure their fields the peasantry still rely on the most precarious 

 refuse from their farms and pigeon-houses, while the scientific cultivators import 

 from Europe and America chemically analysed phosphates and guanos. Railways 

 run close to the old mud hovels ; skilfully constructed iron or steel bridges span the 

 canals and the great branches of the Mle, while elsewhere the fellah must swim or 

 wade through the stream, his tunic gathered like a turban round his head, or else 

 crosses over seated on a mat of palm-leaves floated on inflated skins or calabashes, 

 or on a string of tufted foliage, which he propels by converting his shirt into a 

 sail. And, again, on the very sands and marshes skirting the wilderness, lighthouses 

 with electric burners, the " suns of the Christians," as the natives call them, light 

 up between the Mediterranean and Red Sea the great navigable highway which, 

 even in these days of colossal undertakings, stands out as one of the most stupen- 

 dous works of human industry. 



But amid all these strange contrasts between the old conservatism and the new 

 ideas, the clearest signs of material and intellectual progress are everywhere 

 conspicuous. "Nothing," remarks the distinguished traveller, Charles Beke, 

 " surprised me more in my present journey, though I have visited Egypt frequently 

 since 1840, than the many changes for the better that were observable in the whole 

 country. When one has passed the Mareotis Lake, and the barren district west of 

 the Rosetta arm of the Nile, the land presents most distinct evidences of higher 

 and more extended culture. 



" I was told that in this part of Egypt, where in 1850 only 100,000 acres of 

 land were under cultivation, now double that extent is planted. The cotton harvest 

 is now just over, and the fields are being ploughed. Once I saw what I have- 

 never seen before, a camel drawing the plough. Far and wide there waves a green 

 sea of cornfields or of rich pasture-land, on which cattle, asses, sheep, and goats 



