[Illustration: A NILE VILLAGE.]

From the outside the village often has the appearance of some rude
fortification, the houses practically joining each other and their
mud-walls having few openings. Within, narrow and tortuous lanes form
the only thoroughfares, which terminate in massive wooden doors, which
are closed at night and guarded by the village watchman. The huts--for
they are nothing else--which compose the village are seldom of more
than one storey, while in many cases their small doorway forms their
only means of ventilation. Their roofs are covered with a pile of
cotton-stalks and other litter, through which the pungent smoke of
their dung fires slowly percolates, while fowls and goats, and the
inevitable pariah dog roam about them at will.

Windows, when they do occur, are merely slits in the mud wall, without
glass or shutter, but often ornamented by a lattice of split
palm-leaves. Light and ventilation practically do not exist, while a
few mats, water-pots, and cooking utensils comprise the only
furniture; yet the people are well-conditioned and content, for their
life is in the fields, and their poor dwellings are little used except
at meal-times or at night.

The guest-house is little better than the huts, except that one side
is entirely open to the air; here at least the visitor may _breathe_,
even though his slumbers may be disturbed by the sheep and cattle
which wander in the lanes. At night a fire of corn-cobs is lit, and
while its smoke serves to drive away the swarms of mosquitoes and
flies with which the village is usually infested, its warmth is
grateful, for the nights are cold, and by its light, aided by a few