The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1906-02-09

pierced with small poX and had Doth
eyes bunged out. I gave all my hand
baggage to one labeled dragoman No
| 1 and he ran off with 1t. Phen the
| trunk followed, and l told Myra to
take one farewell look at 1t. We
| followed in a buss and we asked to
be taken to a restaurant for lunch.
| This same awful looking fellow took
us uptown to good French restaur-
ant, where we were elegantly served.
We then FASTENED to the depot,
where baggage was weighed and
checked for Cairo. "All right" said
l and we were off to Cairo over one
of the smothest road beds and on one
of the fastest trains in the world.
Now came wonderfully strange
scenes We traversed the delta of the
Nile. The land seemed low and
swampy, badly watersoaked; yet the
flood of inundation was at its height
in July and August. The soil, so
famously fertile, did not look so to
me, but the land above Cairo is as
black as the prairie soil of Illinois.
The delta soil has brown look, like
the soil of jamestown, Va. Water
Buffalo, camels, and donkeys were
everywhere to be seen in the fields
and on the highways.
The natives are too stupid to learn
anything and the operations in the
fields, as they plowed the land with
crooked stick before my eyes, was
ayoctlv tha CANA 70 II hod haaD cinca
the time of Moses. Instead of letting
the buffalo wander over the land,
they tether them, so that they NOW
a swath as though it had been done
by hand. Our own Indian corn, of
the white dent variety, cotton and
sugar cane are the crops of the Nile
delta.
If there is a hard way to do a
thing, that is the way chosen to do it.
| noticed the same proclivity in
Naples. There, men, barefooted and
bareheaded, carried stone in baskets
on their backs while a common road
was being constituted; not by horses
and scrapers, but mud was carried on
the backs of men and dumped in the
road. Little tents were pitched all
along the made road by wandering
Arabs, and water, brown with mud,
was being raised out of the bitches
by means of the screw of Archimedes.
Camels, heavily laden with bags Of
cotton, in groups of from three to six,
were seen everywhere. The only OBJ
jects that / thought seemed happy
were the water buffalos. They are a
mud animal and when the weather
gets too hot, they get into the mud
and wallow like hog.
Villages made from mud bricks
were seen all along the route, and
groups of people seemed more like
animals than like human beings. The
entire delta region, which is about
sixty miles wide and extends clear
to Cairo, is very density populated.
The scenes never grew tiresome,
for to me they were very novel. AS
we approached Cairo, conditions
greatly improved. The land was
higher and dryer and consequently
more fertile. At $3.50 we weere in
Cairo, and quickly drove to our hotel.
We handed our checks to the pro-
prietor who sent two wild blacks, one
wearing an old coffee sack, for our
trunk. Instead of smashing it down,
like the baggage ''smasher" of Amer
lea, he kneeled down gently, like a
camel, and placed it right side up
on the floor and removed it.
The next day, his Majesty the
Khedive held grand review of the
entire Egyptian army out on the des-
ert, and we were there to see. The
streets were gaily decorated with
flags of all nations, the star and cres-
cent being predominant. The day
Torrance was ridiculous from our
standpoint. 1t must be borne in
mind there is no fuel in this country
except coal brought from England.
1t is very expensive, SO electric lights
are not numerous and the use of
them is charged for in every hotel
bill. Two bright star and crescents
were all / saw in the principal
streets. The other Examinations were
made with candles. Esbekieh gar
dens were illuminated with about
three thousand lanterns of the pat
ems used by farmers forty years
ago. The entire event was given in
honor of the anniversary of the ac-
cession of the Khedive to his pupet
throne.
The real power here is the English.
Even the chief of police in Cairo is
a colonel of the English army. The
police force itself is made up of nat
ives, neatly dressed and well armed.
The English are great civilizers, but
they interfere with no mans religion.
They do, however, protect, within GER
tain reasonable limits, the Christians
in every country. There is here an
American mission with branches all
over Egypt. If a Mohomedan alb
pures his religion, his people dare not
kill or prosecute him as they do in
Turkey These missionaries are not
allowed to preach in the open air.
They must do their work in their own
buildings. Today I went to church
and heard Turkish sermon, while
sermon in Arabic was being