232 EXTRACTS FROM 
so fast that we had but a fleeting glimpse of many interest- 
ing scenes. 
At first the line runs along a low ridge of land between 
the great marshy lakes of Mareotis on the right and of 
Aboukir on the left. These broad sheets of water are 
covered with all sorts of wild fowl, while on the yellow 
sand-hills stand melancholy herons with long outstretched 
necks. 
After a time the marshes and lakes of the northern delta 
disappear and are replaced by highly cultivated land. Every- 
where is tillage, with the broad fiélds of green corn, perfect 
forests of cotton-plants, deep canals, high embankments, 
occasional clumps of slender palms, shady gardens, and brown 
ruinous-looking mud-built villages with high minarets, which 
form the typical features of cultivated Lower Egypt. 
There is plenty of life in the fields and along the embank- 
ments, which also serve as roads. Labourers working and 
ploughing, and half-nude figures busy at the water-wheels. 
Women in narrow blue garments leading naked children, and 
brown fellaheen walking beside the caravans of stately camels. 
Troops of Bedouin—that proud, independent, and isolated 
little race—passing from desert to desert across the cultivated 
land, the women on camels, the men both on horseback and 
afoot. Pure Arabs with their white burnouses, fine horses, 
long guns, and curved sabres. Turbans and common tar- 
booshes, long-eared goats, and wolfish dogs, the grey stunted 
donkeys of the peasants, and the well-cared-for white or black 
riding asses of the rich, with trains of well-to-do people, 
the men riding in gay attire, the women on camels in 
tower-like receptacles which hide them from the eyes of the 
unbelievers The fields swarm with Buff-backed Herons fol- 
lowing the nusvandman as he ploughs, and with active Spur- 
winged Plovers. Ruddy-coloured Palm-Doves coo among 
.the bushes by the banks, over which hover long-billed Pied 
