The country-people of Egypt are very poor, and have to work very hard
all the year round in their fields. Their houses are built of bricks
dried in the sun, plastered together with mud, and the roof is made of
plaited palm leaf. Inside there is only one room, which has a big
oven made of mud with a flat top on which the father and mother sleep.
The work in 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
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THE SAHARA, THE GREAT SANDY DESERT