The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1922-05-19

ter, pulling cigarettes and talking.
Toward noon they disappear for their
s~iestas, but again at four or five
o'clock they are out In force and re-
main far into the night. Among them
circulates a stream Of %peddlers Offer
ing for sale almost every conceivable
ware from sweetmeats to mouse
traps and underwear.
The dweller In Cairo who has not
his servan or his group Of servants
is low indeed In the economic scale.
These serving men carry tiny bundles
for their employers or masters. They
III ahead of carriages to clear the
way they fan away the flies and one
after another they come in troops
into the presence Of the prosperous
to bring smoking materials or TO offer
a ~bewildering succession of drinks
and foods. Life is hard and a few
cents a day satisfies them. Even the
porters who carry heavy bundles and
the boatmen who laboriouSly pole the
Nile craft against the current work
II or 10 hours for little more than as
many cents.
In Cairo Is the Oxford of the
MOhammedan world, the University Of
El-AZhar. 1t seems a queer "univer-
sity" to those familiar with the higher
institutions of learning of the West.
Its classrOOmS are the halls and
inches of Il mosque. It's professors
receive no salaries but are primarily
ul::A,. An.-.,l, -.
ployeeS. lawyers and the like who
teach in addition to performing their
regular duties. The pupils, who ut
times number more than 5000, squat
on mats while their instructors lee
ture. This premier college Of the
for $50 years and hundreds Of thou
sands Of students have passed
through its doors. 1t has been the
center Of the nationalist propaganda
which has sought entire freedom for
Egypt. More, il is the hOtbed of Pan
Islamism, which, like its companion
movement in the past-Pan-German-
ism-would combine its own culture
with m~ilitarism to dominate the world.
But Pan-Islamism would go further,
and would bring the world, as well,
under the religion Of Mohammed.
Glimpse at Egypt's Past.
The Egypt that energies now again
as a kingdom has had a checkered
history, but that is reasonable enough
when one recalls that it had one of
the earliest of starts. Here is one or
the first places in which man lived
an ordered life and left records of
his activities. Some anthrOpOlogists,
in fact, look upon central Africa as
the place of origin of man, and upon
Egypt as one of the first way-stations
in his diffusion over the other con
tinents.
After the long reign Of the Pharaohs
Egypt had its Grecian and Roman
regimes which brought but few
changes. Then in 641 A. ID. came the
invasion of the Saracens, from which
time began Egypt's Mohammedan
history. For q time the country was
a province Of the Arabian caliphS;
later it was independent, though still
MOhammedan, under the Mamelukes;
and finally, in 1916, it became a prov
ince Of Turkey, which controlled ii
first through a governor and later
through 9 sort of hereditary v~icerOy
or kiedive.
For the third time Europe took a
hand In the affairs OF Egypt In 1893
when Napoleon won his battle Of the
Pyramids. The British drove the
French out I'm 1901 and turned the
country back to Turkey. In 1869 came
the building Of the Suez canal by De
Lesseps, which has given Europe an
ever-grOwing interest In Egyptian af-
fairs. To protect European bond
holders France and Great Britain
made a joint Intervention In 1879 and
for a while controlled finances. The
uprising in 1882 against the khedive
was suppressed by the British alone,
and after that they controlled finances
without assistance. The government
vas in effect Egyptian with British
assistance and with the nominal
suzerainty Of Turkey acknowledged.
When the World war began Great
Britain established a p"~otectorate,
abolished Turkeys suZerainty, deposed
the ~Germanophile khedive, and ap-
pointed another prince of the family
TO be sultan. The British protectorate
is now being withdrawn, but instead
Of the former Turkish interest being
restored, Egypt IS set UP as an indie
pendent kingdom.