lls of a woman whom she often visited, who had never
been outside of her house since her marriage, forty years before, and
who begged her to tell her something about the flowers, saying, "Ah, you
are happy women, free to go here and there and enjoy life!"

Many people who know only the outside of Egyptian life, when they hear
that the women have jewelry and beautiful dresses and servants to look
after every want, say they are happy and contented in their seclusion,
but those who visit them in their homes and talk with them in their own
language know how they writhe under it, how they weary of the idleness
and monotony forced upon them. One little woman, forced to spend her
life behind closed shutters, would feign illness so as to get an
opportunity to call in her friend, the lady missionary doctor, and, when
rebuked, would laughingly say, "What am I to do! I must see somebody to
pass away the time and I like to have you come to see me, but you won't
come unless I send you word I am ill."

It seems part of the nature of the Egyptian to distrust his womenfolk
and to believe them capable of any misdemeanor. Therefore they must be
carefully watched and kept in check. This distrust reacts upon the
nature and character of the women, often making them truly unworthy of
trust, but many of them are very sensitive on the subject and feel
keenly this unfair position into which they are thrown.

What has been said about the strict seclusion of Egyptian women refers
chiefly to the middle and upper classes, for the poorest women, those of
the peasant class, have the greatest freedom. They go about unveiled and
manifest a character of marked independence and self-reliance, but they
are ignorant beyond description, such a thing as books and schoolroom
being unknown quantities to them, and their lot is a life of drudgery.

Many of the village women labor in the fields from early morning to late
at night, especially during the cotton season, seven or eight months of
the year.

During the cotton-ginning season many women and girls work from 4
o'clock A.M. to 9 o'clock P.M. in the cotton-ginning mills. Those in the
vicinities of larger towns are vendors of fruit, vegetables, milk,
cheese, and butter. On market days great troops of village women can be
seen on the country roads, their wares in big baskets on their heads,
their babies perched astride their shoulders, wending their way to town.
Those who live in the larger towns are often