587. Egypt—the world's greatest oasis.— In Egypt (population 13,000,000) there are more people than can be found in all other oases and all the nomad camps combined. The Nile, called by the natives " Father Nile", rises in the rainy parts of Africa and carries water across the entire width of the desert. This river alone makes the great oasis called Egypt. Once each year the waters of the Nile rise and overflow its banks. (Sec. 763.) The water spreads over the plain along the lower courses of the river and in the delta. When the flood beginsto go down, the natives of Egypt walk out into the pools of water to sow the seeds of wheat and barley and a native grain called durra, which is much like Kafir corn (Sec. 108). The seeds fall into the water, settle in the mud beneath, and when the water has gone, thq plants, fed by the moisture of the soaked earth, grow rapidly, and ripen their harvest in the blazing desert sun. For thousands of years grain has thus been grown in the Nile Valley.
In twenty-five years the Nile builds up its plain only about one inch, but that is enough to keep it yielding one fine crop after another, thus feeding millions of big, strong, good natured black people, called fellahs, or fellaheen (Fig. 454).
588. The native natives have been ruled first by one foreign con queror, then byanother. No matter who ruled them, the fellaheen have for centuries lived much as they do to-day. Thousands of years before Christ, lordly tribesmen from the North took possession of the Nile Valley. Those ancient conquerors wanted to erect tombs for their kings, so they built the huge pyramids. For this great work they used thousands of slaves and thousands of camels, but just how they managed to put the great blocks of stone in place is not known.
Enormous pillared temples built by these ancient Egyptians still amaze us, as do their writings in stone and on the sheets of papy rus, the pith of a reed that grew by the Nile.
589. Native life and native farming in Egypt.—To-day, as for several thousand years, the traveler sees flood-plain and delta dark green with heavy crops. Here and there a few tall palm trees stand on little mounds of earth a few feet above the flat plain. On the mound is a village of brown mud huts. The simple house has walls of sun-dried brick, set in mud. The roof is only a few rafters covered with straw, or palm leaves, and plastered on top with mud. There is an opening that serves as a door, but there are no windows at all. Inside are a few sleeping mats, a few earthen vessels, a hand mill to grind grain for bread, and a few yards of cotton cloth from Manchester. Such is the home of the man who plows the fertile plain with a crooked stick drawn by oxen. His methods have not changed from
those his ancestors used before the time of the Pharaohs.
590. Modernizing late years, under the rule of the English, even Egypt has begun to change. The age of machinery and engineering has begun in Egypt. Rail roads and telegraphs have been built. Egypt has become prosperous because the people can now grow a crop and sell it and get the money for themselves, instead of having it taken by a robbing tax-gatherer. Never before did Egypt produce so much wheat, corn, rice, durra, and sugar cane. Her swarming people eat most of these products, but they export some early vegetables.
There are fields of clover for the donkeys and camels, and there is cotton to sell. It has been found that Egyptian cotton is the best cotton of all. Its threads are longer and stronger than those of other cotton, so we use much of it for automobile tires. During the World War the price of cotton was very high, and Egyptian cotton growers made so much money that they bought automobiles as American farmers do.
After all, Egypt is a very small place in comparison with our own Cotton Belt. Her cotton yield per acre is greater than ours, but her total crop is only about one-eleventh as large as that of the United States.
591. Cairo and Alexandria.—The Egyp tian capital, Cairo, is the metropolis of the oasis world and the largest city of Africa. It is at a crossroads. Here the Nile Valley reaches the Mediterranean, the Isthmus of Suez makes a bridge to Asia, and the Suez Canal (Sec. 610) provides the great shipway from Europe to the Far East.
Cairo has more people than St. Louis or Boston. It has become a great cen ter for European and Amer ican tourists who want to make a winter trip in search of health and recreation. Here the traveler sees a real Mohammedan city, full of men of many nations. Near by are the ruins of many ages; in museums are col lections of Egyptian curi osities and works of art.
Alexandria, the Nile port, has more people than New Orleans.
592. The Assuan dam.— Because Egypt has over a thousand people to the square mile, more land is needed. The English are turning desert into farmland by making new irrigation works. At Assuan on the Nile they have built a great storage dam. It holds back some of the flood waters so that the water may be carried in canals to lands which natural floods do not reach. Thus Eng land is increasing the area of Egypt's fields, but the yield is not so good as that of the lower plains, because this water, unlike that of the floods, does not carry the rich mud.