THE PEOPLE


Beyond everything else Egypt is an agricultural country, and the
"fellahīn," or "soil-cutters," as the word means, its dominant
type, and in order to form any idea of their character or mode of
life, we must leave the towns behind and wander through the farm-lands
of the Delta.

Trains are few, and hotels do not exist, and anyone wishing to see the
people as they are must travel on horseback, and be content with such
accommodation as the villages afford. The roads are the canal-banks,
or little paths which wind among the fields; but, as we have already
seen, the country has many beauties, and the people are so genuine in
their simple hospitality that the traveller has many compensations for
the incidental hardships he may undergo.

What will perhaps first strike the traveller is the industry of the
people. The luxuriant crops give evidence of their labour, and the
fields are everywhere alive. From dawn to dark everyone is busily
employed, from the youngest child who watches the tethered cattle or
brings water from the well, to the old man so soon to find his last
resting-place in the picturesque "gabana"[9] without the village.
Seed-time and harvest go side by side in Egypt, and one may often
witness every operation of the farm, from ploughing to threshing,
going on simultaneously. The people seem contented as they work, for
whereas formerly the fellahīn were cruelly oppressed by their
rulers, to-day, under British guidance, they have become independent
and prosperous, and secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of their
labour.