Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1922-04-13
THE EGYPT OF 1922 A. d.

and the sultan of the Nile coun-
try changed his title to king, he
became the first king Of Egypt
since the Ptolemaic regime, says
bulletin of the National Geo
graphic society.
The old Egypt of millenniums
ago is in many ways more famil-
lar TO the world at large than the
Egypt of today continues the
bulletin. Pictures of it's great
pyramids and sphinxes, it's col
umned temples and rock-hewn
tombs fill histories and encyclO-
pedias. and inevitably the read
er' attention is centered, not OIL
the problems of today, but rather
on the evidences of ii dead civili-
Zation.
But aside from the fact that
mummy hunting was for many
years one of the leading private
industries of the country, and
that convictS today, instead of
building roads, eXcavate tombs
and temples for the government,
the old monuments are merely
background for life hard enough
to center local thoughts mostly
on daily bread-winning.
"SupcrtlciaIly, Egypt seems
large country. The eye sees it's
color spread over considerable
part OF the northeastern quarter
OF the map of Africa. and stats
ties credit it with an area of more
than 100000 square miles. But
the real Egypt-the part that is
habilablc-ls like Il cord with
iraycd end: the narrow valley
and iIaring delta of the Nile. EX-
ccpt IL few scattered cases, most
OF the rest of the nominal Egypt
is parchcd desert sand, gravel and
rocky hills. OF its more than
third of IL million square miles of
territory, about $4,000 are esti-
mated to be capable of cultiva-
ton, and considerable part of
this has not yet been actually
titled.
In comparing the Egypt of
today with that of the dawn of
history one is divided between
wonder at the marked changes OH
the surface and the lack of change
IN some fundamentals. The Egyp-
@tian of today does not speak his
old tongue, but instead, Arabic
his oId gods are forgotten, and he
has. with the exception of Il small
minority, adopted the religion of
Mohammed. But in spite of nu-
mcrous invasions. the blood of the
great majority of the population
has been altered hardly at all.
Practically, the fallaheen, or peas.
amt, might have stepped from the
ancient carvings: they are but a
fresh generation of the men who
dragged the great blocks of stone
INTO place to build the artificial
mountains of the Pharaohs. or
who dropped seeds into the mud
OF the rcccding Nile thousands of
years ago, even as they are drop
ped today.
Egypt s resources are almost
wholly agricultural, and in the
agricultural scheme the fellaheen
are the ultimate units. They work
long hours scratching the soil
with crude implements or tedious
~ raising water in skin buckets
attached TO pivoted poles that the
tim stream may save their plants
from parching. Taxes are heavy,
and il is the lowly fallaheen who
keeps the treasury supplied. Liv-
ing conditions are very poor; and
mud hutS house most OF Egypt S
/" millions. In the fiehls they
wear little more than loin cloth,
and the younger children of the
villages go naked. When the fel-
lah Is dressed up he wears
rough shirt and loose trousers.
There is little cause to marvel
at Egypt S checkered history. A
simple reason is that she began
early. Here is one of the earliest
places III which man lived an or
dcred life and left records of his
activities. Some anthropologists,
Ill fact, look upon central Africa
as the place of origin of man, and
upon Egypt as one of the first
way stations III his diffusion over
the other continents.
After the long reign of the
Pharaohs, Egypt had its Grecian
and Roman regimes. bringing but