ALONG THE NILE, THROUGH EGYPT AND THE SUDAN 



393 



prisoners captured during Allenby's two 

 campaigns ; in a single prison hospital at 

 Cairo there were 12,000 beds. 



To-day Alexandria is rich. During the 

 war she was the base where all supplies 

 for the Saloniki, Mesopotamian, and 

 Egyptian expeditions, as well as for the 

 operations against German East Africa, 

 were stored. 



For his Jerusalem campaign, in 191 7, 

 Allenby had a force of 260,000 British 

 and Indian troops. In 1918, when the in- 

 vasion of Syria began, the strength of the 

 Egyptian force, including whites and In- 

 dians, was about half a million men and 

 260,000 animals. 



It cost $200,000 a day to feed this army 

 and much of the supplies came from 

 Egypt. Large sums were spent also in 

 wages paid to Egyptian tradesmen, car- 

 penters, blacksmiths, and the like. Cash 

 was paid, too, for the 30,000 camels which 

 were in use. 



Thus wealth poured into Egypt, which 

 seems to have suffered less from the 

 shock of war than any other country then 

 under British control. 



Many of us know Egypt as tourists 

 know any other country. You will all re- 

 call the old fakir at the "Continental," in 

 Port Said, who rolls an egg between his 

 palms till it turns to a live chick, while his 

 assistant inhales a tired snake or plucks 

 a fat toad from the beard of a scandalized 

 Scotchman. 



Some of you, too, have bought "real 

 Egyptian antiques" and "scarabs" made 

 in Naples ; and you have marveled over 

 mummies 3,000 years old (fitted with 

 teeth, for verisimilitude, bought from an 

 advertising dentist in London). And 

 every year enough ancient coins are 

 "found" to meet all demands! 



In other words, we know superficial 

 Egypt — the donkey boys, the beggars 

 whining for bakshish, the smirking guides ; 

 we have seen the tawdry cafe chantant, 

 and Shepheard's, and we have been photo- 

 graphed astride a blase, flea-bitten old 

 camel standing on the sands before the 

 Sphinx. 



But we Westerners, what do any of us 

 really know of the Egyptian? 



I remember a night at Kantara. Stand- 

 ing where the pontoon bridge now is, and 

 where the ancient caravan route from 



Egypt crosses the Suez on its way to 

 Syria, in the red blaze of desert dusk, I 

 saw a woman, an erect, slim-limbed woman 

 of the Nile, barefooted, in all the uncon- 

 scious dignity of ancient race. On her 

 head she carried a water- jar — gracefully 

 and easily, like Rebekah on her way to the 

 well. About her lithe form flowed the 

 black folds of the loose, primitive robe 

 that marks the Moslem woman. 



Casually, without interest, from over the 

 rim of her yashmak she glanced at us ; but 

 with what eyes ! Lustrous, long-lashed, 

 unlike the eyes of any other women any- 

 where — eyes set under heavy, straight 

 brows, the odd eyebrows of old Egypt. 



"A woman of the pyramids," whispered 

 my companion, "young and a good looker, 

 yet 6,000 years old in face and form !" 

 Handsome she was, indeed ; yet astonish- 

 ingly like the crude pictures of the women 

 of ancient times, as we see them carved 

 on the temple walls. 



"the: inarticulate fellah" 



These strange people, isolated here for 

 ages, have developed and maintained cer- 

 tain distinct physical and racial character- 

 istics. When you see the modern fellah 

 at work with mallet and chisel, or scratch- 

 ing the sun-baked plain with his crude 

 hoe, or dipping his clumsy fish-net into 

 the Nile, he is, in face and physique, 

 startlingly like the pictured Egyptians of 

 the Pharaohs' times. 



Since prehistoric days this race, a vast 

 farming colony, has lived along the Nile 

 and in that great delta which ages of 

 floods have built out into the Mediterra- 

 nean. Though the Persian conquest, 

 about 521 B. C, ended the period of na- 

 tive rule, the mental and physical aspects 

 of the modern fellah are, so far as we can 

 judge, exactly like those of his early an- 

 cestor who sweated under the Pharaohs — 

 and this notwithstanding centuries of sub- 

 mission to Persian, Macedonian, Roman, 

 Arab, Mameluke, Turk, and Briton. 



Four-fifths of all Egypt's population, 

 or something near nine millions, belong 

 to this ancient race. 



Culturally, the fellah has been Arab- 

 ized; he speaks a form of Arabic and 

 turns to Mecca in his prayers. Other- 

 wise he is the same silent, melancholy, 



