People of Africa | Page 5

the fields is very hard, as the ground has to be made fertile by digging
canals and ditches all over it to bring the water from the Nile, because,
you remember, there is no rain in Egypt. When the Nile begins to fall,
the water has to be raised in baskets fastened to a wheel or pole, and
thrown on the ground. In order to get enough money, the people plant
another kind of seed as soon as one harvest is gathered; first, perhaps,
planting wheat, then millet, or cotton, then maize. So the
country-people in Egypt are always working hard from sunrise to
sunset all the year in their fields, and their little children have to learn
to mind sheep, goats, or cattle, and to help in other ways as soon as
they can walk alone.
Other men work on the Nile, carrying people or goods up and down the
river in boats from place to place. This, again, is hard work, but the
boatmen seem very happy and often sing as they pass along. People in

the country villages are ignorant, and very few can read or write.
Sometimes when the harvest has been bad and food is dear and scarce,
the people get deeply into debt. There is a great deal of illness and
disease, but there are very few doctors and nurses to help people to get
well. So the life of an Egyptian peasant is a hard one--a great deal of
work and very little time to rest, or play, or learn. But everyone has
something to make him happy, and, unless there is famine or pestilence,
these people have their wives and children and home, just as people
have in England and other countries. The only person who need be
unhappy is the one who has no one to love.
So we have learnt a little about that part of Africa called Egypt--the
land of the Nile--and about the people who live in it. We must
remember that all the other people who live on the North Coast of
Africa, in Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco, are something like the
Egyptians, also speaking Arabic, and different from the dark-skinned
people who live farther south where it is very hot.
III ----------- THE SAHARA, THE GREAT SANDY DESERT
1. What the Desert is Like
In the last chapter we were reading about Egypt, and we said that on the
West of Egypt lay the Great Desert. Now a desert is a place where for
some reason no food will grow. In some deserts the soil is too bad; in
some the ground is covered with salt; in others, like the Sahara, there
are no rivers. In some places in the Sahara there is water coming up
through a crack in the rocks. This water is called a "spring," and
wherever one is found, trees and grass and food will grow. Such a place
is called an "oasis." In the big oases there are villages and towns. But
the sun is so hot that before the water from the spring has flowed very
far it is dried up, and beyond that nothing will grow. So when we think
of the Sahara we have to try and picture to ourselves a very big country,
full of hills and valleys, but with no rivers or lakes. It is a journey of
many months to cross the Sahara, and day after day there is nothing to
see but sand--sand, not flat, but in ridges of hills like great waves of the
sea. When people are travelling across this desert, they get very tired of
looking at nothing but sand all day. Then, at last, as the sun sets, they

reach an oasis where there is water and bananas and date-trees, and
perhaps houses and people. Sometimes great winds blow in the desert
and bring a sandstorm. Then the sand beats hard against everything. If
travellers meet a sandstorm, they have to throw themselves face
downwards on the ground to keep the sand out of their eyes and mouth.
Very often people who live in the desert have bad eyes, and many are
blind because of the sandstorms.
2. How the Desert Came
Long, long ago, the Sahara was not quite so dry as it is now. There
were rivers then, which have dried up since. When there was water,
food would grow, and people could keep sheep and cattle. In those days
there were several large cities there. But when the water began to dry
up, the ground became sandy and nothing would grow. Then, whenever
the wind blew, the sand was carried along and began to cover up the
houses and temples. The people had moved away because their food
would not grow, and soon the sand completely covered the old