Grainger County news. (Rutledge, Tenn.) 1917-current, 1922-05-24
EGYPT OF TODAY
is LITTLE KNOWN
World at Large More Familiar
With Civilization of the Days
of The Pharaohs.
people IRE MUCH THE SAME
Peasant of Today Might Have Stepped
From Ancient carvina-Now
Has First King Since the
Ptolemaic Regime.

Washington, ID. C.-King Fuad sue
ceeds Cleopatra.
when Great Britain abandoned its
prOtectOrate over Egypt, and the Sui
tan of the Nile country changed his
title to king, he became the first king
Of Egypt since the Ptolemaic regime"
says bulletin issued from the Wash
ington, d. c., headquarters of the
National Geographic society.
'"rhe old Egypt Of millenniums ago
is In many ways more familiar to the
world at large than the Egypt of to-
day. continues the bulletin. Pictures
OF its great pyramids and sphlnxes, its
columned temples and rock-hewn
tombs fill histories and encyclopedias !;
and inevitably the readers attention
is conferred, not on the problems of
today, but rather on the evidences OF
a dead civilization.
But aside from the fact that mum
my hunting was for many years one
of the leading private industries of
the country; and that now conyicts.
instead of building roads, eXcayate
tombs and temples for the govern
ment, the old monuments are merely
a background for a life hard enough
! 10 center local thoughts mostly on
daily bread-winnlng.
"Superhcially Egypt seems large
country. The eye sees its color spread
over considerable part of the north
eastern quarter of the map of Africa,
and statistics credit it with an area
Of more than 100000 square miles. But
the real Fgvpt--thc habitable parts
like a cord with frayed end tue mar
row. valley and tlaring delta of the
Me Except a few scattered GASES,
most of the rest of the nominal Egypt
is parched desert sand, gravel and
rocky hills. Of its more than n third
Of million square miles Of territory
about 10000 are estimated to be ca
pable of cultivation, and considerable
part % this has not yet been titled
Peasant Like Figure From Carvings.
In comparing The Egypt of today
Will liluI VI tlit NttlNi VI HlNlpiG 'lAI
is divided between wonder at the
marked changes on the surface and
the lack of change in some funda-
mentals. The Egyptian of today does
not speak his old tongue, but instead,
Arabic; his old gods are forgotten,
and he haS-wlth the exception Of a
small minorlty-adopted the religion
of Mohammed.' But in spite Of numer-
Gus nvasions, the blood of the great
majority of the population has been
altered hardly at all. Practically the
fellaheen, or peasants. might have
stepped from the ancient carvings 4:
they are but fresh generation Of
the men who dragged the great blocks
of stone into place to build the arti-
fetal mountains of the Pharaohs.
"Egypt's resources are almost wholly
agricultural, and in the agricultural
scheme the millions of fellaheen are
the ultimate. units. They work long
hours scratching the soil with crude
implements, or tedlously raising water
In skin buckets attached to pivoted
poles that the thin stream may save
their plants from parchlng. Taxes
are heavy, and it is the lowly fella-
heen who keep the treasury supplied.
"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 in which
man lived an ordered life and left
records of his activities.
"After the long reign Of the Phar-
aohs Egypt had Its Grecian and
Roman regimes which brought but few
changes. Then in Sal A. d. came the
invasion OF the Saracens. from which
time began Egypt's Mohammedsu
history. For a time the country was
a province of the Arabian Caliphs
later 1t was Independent. though still