Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/173

Rh rice and sugar-cane, sure of the tax in hand when the collector comes round, sure, above all, that so long as the English redcoats are at Cairo once paying it will be enough, and that, come what may, the soles of those muddy feet of his have nothing to fear from the bamboo.

But this, after all, is no aquatic industry in the ordinary sense of the word. The Nile is to him but a huge reservoir which once a year beneficially bursts and provides him with soil for the planting of his crops, but from which afterwards he must pump long and patiently ere he can raise and gather them. As a river or a waterway for navigation his concern with it ceases, and he does not attempt to eke out his livelihood by the practice of any art upon its stream. Nor, indeed, do any of the riparian population lower down than Assouan—or not now at least since the enterprising inmates of the Coptic monastery at Gebel-el-Tayr have discontinued their peculiar method of seeking