The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-09-25

Copyright, 1910, by Frank G. Carpenter)
 Zagazig.
 0oME with me this bright Sunday \ morning for look at the old land O of Goshen, where the Israelites
 settled when they first came into Egypt.
 I am writing this in the center of 1t not
 far from the road down which Joseph
 was carried by the caravan of Ishmael-
 ites, or Bedouins who had bought him
 of his brothers and were on their way to
 sell him to Potiphar. It was over that
 same road that the 10 sons of Jacob, Ben
 jamin having been left at home, came
 down here to get corn and it must have
 been about here that they had their deal
 ings with Joseph, who was then the chief
 officer of Pharaoh and the premier, as IL
 were of his administration. You all
 know how he came into Egypt and grew
 to be the greatest man of the country.
 He was so influential that he was able to
 give Goshen to Jacob and his family; and
 1t was at his advice that they all moved
 here and settled. That was the be- ginning of the Israelites in Egpyt, ana they remained here in Goshen for genera tions before they were finally enslaved
 and forced to make bricks by the Pha- raohs.
 The Land of Goshen
 The land of Goshen is today one of the finest parts of the Nile valley. came here from Cairo and my whole way was
 through rich crops of cotton, sugar. cane
 and clover There was green to be seen sIz
 20 miles more to the eastward before
 reaching the desert. The railroad from
 Cairo to the Suez canal goes directly through Goshen. It strikes the canal at Ismalia and then branches off north and
 south, running along the line of the canal to Suez on the Red sea, and to Port
 Said on the Mediterranean. The first sec- ton is over the road which led from
 Arabia to Memphis and Heliopolis, which cities shave>since been replaced by Cairo.
 the capital and metropolis of Egypt. This
 town of Zagazig, where I am stopping, is one of the chief cities In the delta. It is on the fresh water canal, and on a big irrigation canal which leads to the Nile. It is famous as a cotton port and today camels are coming into the town with bales OH their backs, and long train loads are starting out for Alexandria and
 Port Said, from whence the cotton will be shipped off to Europe.
 The cotton is feature of the landscape which was absent in the days of the Pharaohs. When Joseph came down into | Egypt the only cloth that the people | had was made of flax and wool The I cotton plant was not known to exist, and | 1t was as late as the middle ages, when the people gave credit to story that cotton of India came from a. sheep which grew on the end of bush, and which now and then bent down to eat the grass which grew all around. That cotton plant was supposed to thrive in Hindustan, | and it was not until centuries later that | the real cotton seeds were planted in | Egypt Today Goshen is covered with cotton. There are many plantations near | Zagazig, and I have seen thousands of acres of this crop throughout different parts .of the Egyptian delta. It is the chief money crop of the country, and | it will bring in upward of $100, 900 this year. Fs... ~Htf
 | A Great Stock Country
 | This land of Goshen is a fine stock country. Camels, buffaloes and donkeys
 are staked out in the fields, and flocks of sheep and goats feed there, watched by | shepherds. There are also droves of camels grazing or lying on the ground, chewing their cuds. All have their herds- men, There are no fences in Egypt, and the fields are bounded by imaginary lines. Sometimes the limits may be told by the
 ditches, or the little entertainments made for irrigation.
 It was as stock raisers that the Is-
 raelites came into Egypt. They were
 pastoral people, and 1t may have been for that reason that Joseph had Pharaoh give them this land of Goshen, the east ern part of which Is fringed by the desert, with places of scanty vegetation, where the stock could graze.
 Today the land is well cultivated. Most of the fields are kept like gardens, and see half-naked men bending over and
 digging the soil with great mattocks. Here the farmers are blowing, using the same ne-handed blow of the days Of the scriptures. Some of them have donkeys | and buffaloes hitched together, and now and then one sees blow dragged along | by a COW and camel There is much artificial irrigation, and the water is lifted | from level to level by men with buckets | and baskets to which ropes are slung. | In other places the water Is raised by the | sakiyeh, a rude wheel which Is turned | by the cogs of another wheel, set at right angles to 1t. On the perpendicular wheel
  through the water these fill, and turning, empty themselves into the troughs which | lead to the little canals and the fields The motive power in this case is blind | folded camel, bullock or donkey, the ani- l nal going around like horse in an old fashioned back mill Many of the fields | are now under water and the silvery streams shine out through the emerald green of the crops.
 The Villages of Goshen
 l When the Israelites first came to | Goshen they probably lived in tents such as the Bedouins use today. These are made of sheep's wool or goats hair.
 rudely woven by hand. They are up
 held by ropes and poles and are so
 low that the people must crawl into lthera. We know that Abraham lived
 in tent and it Is probable that this
 was the ease with Isaac and Jasob. After coming to Goshen the Israelites probably copied the houses of the I Egyptians and built villages of mud huts not unlike those I now see. These houses are rude to an extreme. Many of them are not over 20 feet square; l they, have flat roofs and are often so How that one can look over them. They
 face the street and are huddled to-
 gether without regard to beauty or
 comfort. .
 The roofs form the woodward of the people below. The only fuel used is cornstalks, straw or the bushes from which the cotton has been picked This stuff is tied up in bundles and laid away on the roofs until used.
 There are but few trees to be seen.