Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-13
TWENTIETH CENTURY EGYPT
XIV-An African Health Resort
BY Frederic J. Haskin

matte health seeker a suitable knead
ing and doubtless form a good part
of the beneficial effect to other per-
sons.
Egypt is not subject to wide and vio-
lent variations of temperature. There
is an occasional sand storm of a mild
variety called the "khamsin," which
brings impalapable dust into the most
tightly closed room but the "khamsin'
comes but three or four times in a sea-
son, blurring the landscape so that
Cairo seems wrapped in yellow Lon
don fog. 1t gives the visitor an OPP
portunity to see a sand storm without
imposing upon him the discomforts of
a real sirocco. Nearly everyone en-
Joys a "khamsin" as an experience.
There are sufferers from catarrhal af-
fections who insist that it is beneficial.
The mean temperature in Cairo in
winter is 81 degrees Fahrenheit, as
warm as the Madeira islands. Be
cause of the trees in Cairo 1t rains two
or three times a year. Along the Upper
Nile the slightest shower causes a SEN
sation among the natives. A tempera-
ture of 80 degrees has been recorded in
Cairo, but it is very rare. By early
forenoon on the coolest days the sun
always lifts the mercury many degrees
1t Is IlluCU warmer III Upper bSYpls
If the traveller is not content with a
temperature in which an overcoat must
be worn after sunset he may take a
slow but comfortable boat for the Up
per Nile, or. a somewhat less low and
much less comfortable train. In day
by land or a few days by water he
reaches a climate where summer cloth
ing may be worn in January without
discomfort. The system of hotels from
the Mediterranean southwark to the
cataracts of the Nile is gradually ex-
panding and improving. Every effort
of Europeans in Egypt who are inter-
ested in the volume of tourist travel is
bent toward convincing the traveller of
the folly of seeking sun and health on
the Riviera while the nodding palms
that fringe the Nile beckon the way
farer to rest and recuperation where
frost is unknown and where rain rarely
falls.
The American visitor proud of the
fact that his government came and saw
and overcame the mosquito in Havana
and the Canal zone, is amazed to find
a peculiarly large and ferocious type of
man-eating mosquito in one of the
driest countries in the world. Every
bed in Cairo has its mosquito bar. 1t
is used the year round. In the absence
of fly scvrens it is a necessity. The
mosquitoes breed upon the pools
formed by irrigation bitches and infest
the whole country.
Within convenient distance from
Cairo ther are several health resorts.
Helouan, a bijou oasis with it's famous
baths and it's horse races, claims the
attention of persons who are weary of
pyramid climbing, golf, polo and dane
ing in Cairo, or whose state of health
does not permit them to dissipate while
recuperating. This town, with it's sui
phur springs, that were Valued~by the
Romans, is in the desert. 1t affords a
view of the Nile, a sky line against
which pyramids are etched and a dis
tant view of the Mokattam hills be-
hind Cairo. 1t is within a half-hour
of the social gayety of the capital.
AT Luxor in Upper Egypt the health
seeker who has eliminated a part of his
rheumatism by bathing at Helouan or
climbing Cheops, finds warmer, drler
climate and more monuments to ex-
plore. He takes his tonic while explor-
ing Thebes or musing upon the gran
deur of the past before the temple Of
Karnak at Assouan. He may take his
sun in a sailboat upon a lake. above
the Assouan dam, two or three times
as large as Lake Geneva, and see the
ruins of ancient Philae. insulated by
irrigation. If he is master of the art
of travelling by easy stages and en-
joys travel sufficiently not to insist
upon the shortest schedule between
two points he may spend month or
two exploring the Nile in a 'dahabeah,"
a sailboat sufficiently archaic con-
stantly to remind him that he is in the
land of the Pharaohs.
Those who insist that the expansion
of agriculture, due to British methods
of irrigation, has reduced the violence
and Frequency of sand storms in Cairo,
cannot be taken seriously when the
size of ~the adjacent desert is con-
sidered. But John Bull may justly
claim that, while he has made Egypt
habitable to Occidentals and therefore
a health resort he has also improved
the condition of the natives. The pre-
valence of ophthalmia, due to the SUI
perstitious belief of Egyptians that to
drive insects from the faces of children
subjects them to the influence of the
evil eye, is still plainly and pa
thetically in evidence. But ophthalmic
hospitals are doing much toward aid
ing the afflicted and medical science
is gradually overcoming opposition.
Although British occupation has
brought to bear upon the public
health of the country modern medical
methods a certain amount of sanitation.
and preventive measures against
plague, much remains to be done.
Progress is necessarily slow In land
where direst poverty, dense ignorance
and intense superstition and suspicion
of Christians exist to degre impossi-
BILE to be appreciated by western peo-
pie unfamiliar with Oriental conditions
and manner of thought
Copyright, 1902 by Frederic j. Haskin')