Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-06-09

Ismail Pasha learned how to borrow
money in Europe, upon his country's
Il. o. u that collapse resulted and
the people found themselves under a
debt which their descendants must pay.
But for 1000 years before Ismails reign,
bad government had always made the
farmers the bearers of the financial
burdens of Egypt and slaves to a sys-
tenn of graft, beginning with the head
men of the villages and extending to
the throne Today the English point
with pride to the fact that the fellah
approaches the dawning of a better
day.
Formerly the Egyptian farmer was
logged with the "courbash" when he
protested against paying ruinous taxes,
part of which the tax collector stole
and the rest of which went to the khe-
dive. Even so recent ruler as Ismail
used the courbash whenever he needed
money. The farmer was also driven by
the whip to labor upon public works or
till crown lands. or the land of court
faVorites, without pay. Nowadays taxes
are levied as they are in European
countries, and the system of graft is
obsolete. All that is left of the corvee,
the system Of enforced labor, is that the
fellaheen must guard their dykes dur
ing the season of inundation. The in
PRODUCTION of perennial irrigation has
greatly reduced the need for labor on
the dykes. IL Is DelleNeQ lIldL Nllnln d
few years il will not be necessary to
call out the corvees except in seasons
of exceptionally high Nile. In 1901, for
the first time in the history of the
country. no corvee was called out north
of Cairo.
But up to the present time the bene-
fits that have accrued to the Egyptians
lave not vislbly affected the nature of
farming operations. While there are
exceptions to the rule, the Egyptian
farmers methods are the same today
that they were during the first dynas-
ty. Looking upon the remarkably pre-
served features of a Rameses or a Seti
in the national museum at Cairo, it is
difficult to realize that thousands of
years have passed since the mummies
of these kings were wrapped. Looking
from a car window at the Nile valley
farmer growing his crops. it is more
difficult to realize that this is the twen-
tieth century and that he is cultivating
land that grows from two to four crops
a year.
Along the canals that convey water
from the Nile to the farms there are
seen the same devices for lifting water
that were in use when the earliest mon
uments of Egypt were builded. The
shadoof is a contrivance consisting of
a pole which rests upon pivot, with
bucket at one end and a weight at the
other. The man at the shadoof dips
water from the canal. bucketful by
bucketful, tipping the bucket above
smaller canal fifteen feet above the
level of the larger one. He works for
10 cents a day two piasters in Egyptian
money, and never goes ON strike for
higher wages. He seldom misses
days work and rarely proves unreliable
in any way. From countless genera
lions of oppressed ancestors he inherits
patience, humbleness and habits of
hard labor He lifts some 1900 tons of
water during the dry season. When
the weather is warm he wears nothing
more than a loin cloth, and his ward
robe is not expensive at any season.
He and his family live upon what the
average American workingman would
spend for tobacco.
Another apparatus for lifting water
to the fields is the screw of Archimedes.
The name suggests its ancient origin.
Tt is a wooden tube with a spiral fiange
inside Turned with a crank, il brings
a stream Of water to level about two
feet higher than its lower end. The
more prosperous farmers employ wa
ter wheels The patient water buffalo,
turning the water wheel without being
driven, is as dependable, and almost
as poorly fed, as the fellah who works