Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1884-07-31
The Egyptian Peasant.

Such of the "fellahs," or peasants, as
have received some little culture know
that the waters of the Nile come from
the 'land of dark men"-from the noun
tains of Abyssinia, In the year 1874, at
the the time of the war with Abyssinia,
it happened that the Nile was slow to
rise, and have often heard, here and
there in the villages, the opinion ex-
pressed that mo doubt the King of Da-
beseh was revenging himself on the
Egyptians by preventing the waters of
the Nile from flowing down to Them" or
that an ancient threat of Ethiopian KINGS,
i. e., to lead off the Nile before its en-
trance into Egypt, through canal into
the Red Sea, was being carried out.
But the inhabitants of the more iso-
lated inland villages have not even such
lights as these, and should you chance to
come across such a fellah crouching at
the door of his mud hut, holding his kef
(siesta), and quietly content, with as lit
tie mental exertion as possible, smoking
his water-pipe, and should you ask him
as to his opinion of the Nile and it's orr
gin, you would in most cases find that,
instead of entering upon geographical
questions and hypothesis, he would, with
a grateful glance toward heaven, answer
simply, min Allah % i. e., from God, or
from heaven; and he would no doubt on
his side turn questioner, and ask you
"Have you in your country also Nile?'
And great would be his establishment
and surprise on hearing that our vegeta-
ton, our crops and our orchards are
nourished by water which falls from the
clouds. To him who hardly ever sees
rain, and then only in rare and passing
shower, this seems a very precariou6
form of agriculture.
Nothing is more natural than that the
Egyptian peasant, who has never been
beyond his own village, and whose con-
captions of the world, of men and things
are of the most limited, should, consider
ing that the Nile gives him all ne has
and all he needs, look upon it as a direct
gift of God.
Whether it be that his land is so favor
ably situated that the Nile flows over it
at the time of inundation, or that the
water reaches 1T through artifca al irriga
ton by means of a water wheel worked
by the camel or the oxen of the peasant,
or if he be very poor, owning neither
camel nor oxen, and obliged to pull up
the water in shallow buckets made of
reeds, and with his own hand distribute
it over his fields, this much is certain,
that only in so far as the Nile has blessed
his land will his corn or his cotton grow,
and the harvest will be in exact proper
ton to the amount of moisture which
the land has received.
And more than this, the Nile gives
him so much besides. His hut is built
of Nile mud, and matched with reeds
that grow in the canals: out of Nile clay
is the beloved pipe, and also the water
jar out of which he drinks land he drinks
incalculable quantities Of water); and
even for the ''tarabooka," the peculiar
kind of kettle-drnm with which he ac-
companies all his monotonous songs and
religious observances, does the Nile give
him the clay. I have just said that the
fellah is great water-drinker, and I may
add so are all foreigners in Egypt, for no
where else that 1 know of is the water
so clear and delicious. This is, no doubt,
owing to the constant flowing over a bed
of finest sand and loan. Filtered or cool
ed in large urn of clay, it becomes per-
fectly cold and is very refreshing.