Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/171

Rh the highest degree. It is the childhood of Labour appealing for assistance to the infancy of Mechanics. On one side the mighty volume of moving water; on the other the far-stretching belt of tilth and verdure, and between them these two or three patient adscripts of the glebe emptying spoonfuls of the one upon acres of the other.

For a full hour I have stood watching the toiler on the lowest shelf of that shadûf. It is past noon and he has stood there, like enough, since sunrise. Three or four times in every minute he draws down one end of the lever till the bucket is immersed, fills it, steadies the full vessel as, with the descent of the weighted lever, it ascends to the level of the tank at his shoulder, empties it with his disengaged hand and stoops again for another bucketful. His movements repeat themselves with the regularity of a machine; but there is the perfect ease and living grace of strong, untiring manhood in every stoop and recovery of his supple frame. He is in