FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48  
49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   >>   >|  
ere were many people, including women, in Western dress, but there were also many women in cloaks, and men in the traditional Arab _bornoss_, the enveloping robe called a burnoose in English. For the first time, the boys saw several men in blue gowns, and Rick asked Hassan what they were. "_Fellahin_," Hassan replied. "How you say? Farmers. From country. Man tell me that is where your word 'fella' come from." Rick looked with new interest. He had heard of the _fellahin_, the farmer-peasants of Egypt. Many of them lived and worked as their ancestors had centuries ago, plowing with wooden plows, living in mud-and-wattle houses. They represented the past of Egypt, as installations like the atomic energy plant at En-Shass, or Inchass as it was sometimes called, represented the future. There were soldiers along the route, too, dressed in British-style brown uniforms. Some carried Sten guns, vicious little submachine guns originally of English manufacture. "Why the soldiers?" Scotty asked. "Camp near," Hassan replied. And then, abruptly, the boys lost interest in people, because looming ahead, like something from a travel movie, was a pyramid! Hassan rounded a corner and another pyramid came into view. They were enormous, Rick thought. He hadn't expected anything so huge. "Are we at Giza already?" he asked. "This Giza," Hassan agreed. He pronounced it more like _Gize'h_. "I always thought the pyramids were out in the desert," Scotty objected. "Is true," Hassan said. "You will see." They did, within minutes. The terrain changed from the green, fertile, Nile Valley to the bleak Sahara as though cut by a giant knife. For the first time, Rick understood the phrase "Egypt, gift of the Nile." Where the yearly Nile overflow brought fertile silt and moisture, there was lush green land. Where the overflow stopped, the desert began. No intermediate ground lay between. Egypt consisted of the Nile Valley and the desert, with nothing in between. The road crossed the dividing line and they were in the Sahara Desert. Hassan drove between houses of faded red clay and tan stucco, unlike the modern apartments a few hundred yards back. It was as though they had driven into a different country. Children, goats, chickens, and Arab adults scattered before the car. It was a typical desert-country scene, and right at the edge of modern Cairo! Hassan turned a sharp corner and Giza lay before them, up a gradual, rising slo
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48  
49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Hassan

 

desert

 
country
 

fertile

 

interest

 

people

 

Valley

 

overflow

 

represented

 

Sahara


soldiers
 

houses

 

English

 

modern

 

Scotty

 

thought

 

replied

 

called

 

corner

 

pyramid


changed

 

rising

 

objected

 

pyramids

 

pronounced

 

agreed

 

minutes

 

terrain

 

unlike

 
stucco

apartments

 
hundred
 

typical

 

chickens

 

adults

 

scattered

 

driven

 

Children

 

Desert

 

moisture


stopped

 

brought

 

phrase

 

yearly

 

gradual

 

intermediate

 

crossed

 
dividing
 

turned

 

ground