Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/446

 862 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. corvee, wallowing in the beds of the canals, be allowed to suffer hunger or be deci- mated by epidemics, or be made to writhe under the lasl*. of the cruel kurbash. The very monuments of Egypt have recorded for six thousand years the sad fate of the fellah, bent beneath his load of mud while the overseer stands flourishing the scourge above his head. The names may change, but this ancient form of slavery still survives. As Amru said to the Caliph Omar, the Egyptian people " seem des- tined to toil only for others, without themselves deriving any benefit from their labour." Conservatism and Progress. There are few other countries where the old usages, adapting themselves with difficulty to modern times, contrast more strikingly with the methods introduced by Western civilisation. While the ancient method of cultivation remains unchanged, and while the peasantry, regulating their work according to the yearly inimdations, sow and reap always at the same period, make use of the same implements, gather the same cereal crops, eat the same bread, modern agriculture draws the water by means of steam-engines directly from the river, cultivates the exotic plants of India and the New World, employs improved ploughs, reaping, threshing, and sifting machines. To manure their fields the peasantry still rely on the most precarious refuse from their farms and pigeon-houses, while the scientific cultivators import from Europe and America chemically analysed phosphates and guanos. Railways run close to the old mud hovels ; skilfully constructed iron or steel bridges span the canals and the great branches of the Nile, while elsewhere the fellah must swim or wade through the stream, his tunic gathered like a turban round his head, or else crosses over seated on a mat of palm-leaves floated on inflated skins or calabashes, or on a string of tufted foliage, which he propels by converting his shirt into a sail. And, again, on the very sands and marshes skirting the wilderness, lighthouses with electric burners, the " suns of the Christians," as the natives call them, light up between the Mediterranean and Red Sea the great navigable highway which, even in these days of colossal undertakings, stands out as one of the most stupen- dous works of human industry. But amid all these strange contrasts between the old conservatism and the new ideas, the clearest signs of material and intellectual progress are everywhere conspicuous. "Nothing," remarks the distinguished traveller, Charles Beke, " surprised me more in my present journey, though I have visited Egypt frequently since 1840, than the many changes for the better that were observable in the whole country. When one has passed the Mareotis Lake, and the barren district west of the Rosetta arm of the Nile, the land presents most distinct evidences of higher and more extended culture. " I was told that in this part of Egypt, where in 1850 only 100,000 acres of land were under cultivation, now double that extent is planted. The cottpn harvest is now just over, and the fields are being ploughed. Once I saw what I have never seen before, a camel drawing the plough. Far and wide there waves a green sea of cornfields or of rich pasture-land, on which cattle, asses, sheep, and goats