Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt | Page 4

and we begin to enter Egypt.
On the right the quiet waters of Lake Menzala, fringed with tall reeds and eucalyptus trees, stretches to the far horizon, where quaintly shaped fishing-boats disappear with their cargoes towards distant Damietta. Thousands of wild birds, duck of all kinds, ibis and pelican, fish in the shallows, or with the sea-gulls wheel in dense masses in the air, for this is a reservation as a breeding-green for wild-fowl, where they are seldom, if ever, disturbed.
On the left is the Suez Canal, the world's highway to the Far East, and ships of all nations pass within a stone's throw of your train. Between, and in strange contrast with the blueness of the canal, runs a little watercourse, reed fringed, and turbid in its rapid flow. This is the "sweet-water" canal, and gives its name to one of our engagements with Arabi's army, and which, from the far-distant Nile, brings fresh water to supply Port Said and the many stations on its route.
To the south and east stretches the mournful desert in which the Israelites began their forty years of wandering, and which thousands of Moslems annually traverse on their weary pilgrimage to Mecca; while in all directions is mirage, so perfect in its deception as to mislead the most experienced of travellers at times.
Roaming over the desert which hems in the delta, solitary shepherds, strangely clad and wild-looking, herd their flocks of sheep and goats which browse upon the scrub. These are the descendants of those same Ishmaelites who sold Joseph into Egypt, and the occasional encampment of some Bedouin tribe shows us something of the life which the patriarchs might have led.
In contrast with the desert, the delta appears very green and fertile, for we are quickly in the land of Goshen, most beautiful, perhaps, of all the delta provinces.
The country is very flat and highly cultivated. In all directions, as far as the eye can see, broad stretches of corn wave in the gentle breeze, while brilliant patches of clover or the quieter-coloured onion crops vary the green of the landscape. The scent of flowering bean-fields fills the air, and the hum of wild bees is heard above the other sounds of the fields. Palm groves lift their feathery plumes towards the sky, and mulberry-trees and dark-toned tamarisks shade the water-wheels, which, with incessant groanings, are continually turned by blindfolded bullocks. Villages and little farmsteads are frequent, and everywhere are the people, men, women, and children, working on the land which so richly rewards their labour.
The soil is very rich, and, given an ample water-supply, produces two or three crops a year, while the whole surface is so completely under cultivation that there is no room left for grass or wild flowers to grow. Many crops are raised besides those I have already mentioned, such as maize, barley, rice, and flax, and in the neighbourhood of towns and villages radishes, cucumbers, melons, and tomatoes are plentifully grown. Formerly wheat was Egypt's principal crop, but since its introduction by Mohammed Ali in A.D. 1820, cotton has taken first place amongst its products, and is of so fine a quality that it is the dearest in the world, and is used almost entirely for mixing with silk or the manufacture of sateen. Cotton, however, is very exhausting to the soil, and where it is grown the land must have its intervals of rest.
No sooner is one crop gathered than yokes of oxen, drawing strangely shaped wooden ploughs, prepare the land for another; and the newly turned soil looks black against the vivid clover fields, in which tethered cattle graze; while large flocks of sheep of many colours, in which brown predominates, follow the ploughs and feed upon the stubble, for the native is as economical as he is industrious.
Peopled by a race of born farmers, and in soil and climate provided by Nature with all that could be desired for crop-raising, only rain is lacking to bring the fields to fruition, and from the earliest times a great system of irrigation has existed in Egypt. It is curious to see in many directions the white lateen sails of boats which appear to be sailing over the fields. In reality they are sailing on the canals which intersect the country in all directions, and by means of thousands of water-wheels and pumps supply the land with water. Though the Nile overflows its banks, its inundation does not cover the whole land; so great arterial canals which are filled at high Nile have been constructed throughout the country. From these, smaller canals branch right and left, carrying the water to the furthest corners of the land, while such boundary marks as exist to separate different estates or farms usually take the form of a watercourse.
These canal banks form