When these two unequally yoked animals move across
the field, agriculture in the Orient is seen at its best. Unlike the
Japanese, the Egyptian women do not work in the fields. Their labors
seem to be limited to carrying water in large jars on their heads and to
washing clothes in the dirty Nile water. The most common sight along the
river is that of two women, with their single cotton garment gathered up
above their knees, filling the water jars or rinsing out clothes in
water that is thick and yellow with dirt.

The steamer Amenartas started down the river at two in the afternoon.
The current was strong and the little steamer easily made fifteen miles
an hour. Now began a series of exquisite views of river life, which
changed every minute and saved the voyage from monotony. The first thing
that impresses the stranger who is new to Egypt is the number and
variety of the shadoufs for bringing the Nile water to the fields.
These consist of three platforms, each equipped with two upright posts
of date palm trunks, with a crossbar. From this crossbar depends a well
sweep, with a heavy weight at one end and a tin or wooden bucket at the
other. One man at the level of the river scoops up a bucket of water and
lifts it to the height or his head, pouring it into a small basin of
earth. The second man fills his bucket from this basin and in turn
delivers it to the third man, who is about six feet above him. The third
man raises the water to the height of his head and pours it into a ditch
which carries it upon the land. The heavy weights on the shadouf help to
raise the water, but the labor of lifting this water all day is
strenuous. The shadouf men work with only small loin cloths, and
occasionally one of these fellows in a sheltered hole toils stark naked.

Despite the fact that their work is as heavy as any done in Egypt, they
receive the wretched pittance of two piasters or ten cents a day, out of
which they must spend two and one-half cents a day for food. The shadouf
is as old as history, and the methods in use for raising this Nile water
are the same to-day that they were in the earliest dawn of recorded
history.

As in India, there is a great dearth of farmhouses in these rich lands.
The peasants are herded in squalid villages, the mud huts jammed close
together, and the whole place overrun with goats, donkeys, pigs,
chickens and pigeons. The houses are the crudest huts, with no window
and no roof.

Life in these vi