Evening Star Newspaper, January 25, 1931, Page 77

s New Egypt Clings THE In the Modern Port of Alexandria, Ancient Gateway to the Nile Country, There Is Plenty to Remind the Traveler of Long Centuries Gone By. EDITOR’S NOTE—In the course of a recent voyage to the Mediter- ranean, Gideon A. Lyon, associate editor of The Star, visited Egypt, spending about a fortnight in that country. He has written several ar- ticles reflecting his observalions con- cerning the ancient land of the Pharaohs and the foliowing article is the first of the series. . BY GIDEON A. LYON. HE enirance to Egypt at Alexandria is not immediately suggestive of the East. The port is modern in eguip- ment, and the crift first met in the outer harbor are not especially char- sacteristic,. although later the incomer sees plenty of “local color” in the native shipping. As the steamer docks, however, the Egypt of tradition appears in the crowd of long-robed feliahcen on the pier, waiting fir porterage employment and for the odd jobs of helping a ship come to rest. A few moments of observation of these watchful waiters, garbed in their garabeahs of every hue, though mostly a dirty white, sug- gests a lazy people. How can fclks who wear nightgowns of ancient style for everyday garb manage to do any work in them? How can they move about with sufficient alacrity to hold any sort of job or discharge any sort of task? et they do move quickly, and when a group of them gets into action there is a greit flut- tering of skirts, with a show of brown legs beneath, and somehow these modern sons of the Pharaohs manage to hit and to keep a lively pace. Elsewhere, in the fields, they seem never to be in a hurry, save when per- haps a donkey trots off and has to be chased, or a camel gets going faster than its usual woent and requires guidance. A waggish passenger on our ship, watching this swarm of natives on the dcck, remarked that there ought to be a profitable field for the manufacture of nighitgowns in Egypt. But he was told by anoiher, who had spent some years in that land, that tke néatives do not wear their gowns cut fast enough to warrant such an enierprise. Clise inspeclion proves that mast of these rcbes de jour—and probe- ably they aiso serve as robos de nuit as weil— are of very stout materinl and very ancient lineage. They are patched like Joseph's coat, though not in many colors, 'O see a fellah at work in the fields, wading around in the soft s-il of the delta planta- tions, suggests that the Eg ans have devel- oped a special sense of bzlance. Try to do a bit of agricuitural work in a bath robe and ‘see _how awkward life may become in special circumstances. The men and boys who work the shidufs, or “well sweep” water liflers, are not bothered by g-wns. They go to their tasks clad with extreme simplicity, with a mere loin cloth. Here and there one sees them similarly rigged when engeged in other o-cupations, so that it would appear that the long garabeah is not maintiined as a national native costume from motives of modesiy. For a few minutes in the first vision of the Egyptian nightgown brigade on the pier at Alexandria one gets the sence of a nation of somnzmbulists. For this is a silent crew. It seems as if perhaps something will happen suddenly to waken them and to restore them to normal activity. It does, in fact, so happen when the passengers and the lugzege go ashore and the guides, real and would-be, get busy and the stevedores start to work on the cargo. Then the illusion passes. Over on the other siCe of the ship one may glimpse now the felucca life of Egypt, as the clumsy l:oking craft drift about in the harbor, their odd-chaped sails most effective in catch- ing slight breezes and their crew astcnishingly spry despite the garment handicap. Later. cn the d2y of our departure from Alexandria, I saw a man, evidently master of a small tug that was handiing half a dozen feluccas—they would be called sampans in Chini—g2tting them out of a seemingly imextri-able tangle, perform a bit of legerdemain with his clothing that commanded high admiration. Something happened to check the progress of the little ciilla. There was a sudden outburst of voices. The masters of all six of the feluccas and he of the tug talked loudly at the same time. All at once the tugman began to strip off his garmen's. First came the garibeah, then a coat, then a pair of trousers—for he wore a compesite, infernaticnal combination — and finally four shirts, cne after another. At last, stripped to his brown skin, he was ready for the emergency. He went overside at the stern of his little steamer and worked away under the water until he bad freed the tow rope from his propeller, in which it had fouled during a period of slackness. Then he climbed back on board, re-robed himself and resumed his job. It all happened in the space of three or four minutes. For a Westerner merely to take off so many clothes would have consumed as much time. Down at the dock in Alexandria few men wear the tarboush—it is improper to call it a SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 25, 193t 7% to Old Tradition$ The twin minarets of the Muaiyad Mosque, Cairo, which rise over the Bab Zuweileh. or social status. It is merely the habitual pop- ular headgear of the Fgypiiens, who strongly deplore the innovation of Kemel Pasha in Turkey in prohibiting the yimless red hat. One sees. the tarboush worn by cbvious non- Egyptians. It is regarded 2s a comfortable, convenient and inconspicuous form of hat, though personally it strikes me as a very poor substitute for the rimmed hat in a land of brilliant and hot sunshine. Most of ths middle- class Egyptians, engaged in business, wear Western clothing, but stick to the tarboush. King Fuad arrives in Cairo from his Summer palace at Alexandria. fez in Egypt—in the first stage of the steamer’s arrival. The felleheen wear turbans, white cloths wrapped about felt or woolen skullcaps. The tarboush appears later, when the officials and the gentry begin to come upon the szene, the guides-to-b=, with the famous Spud Murphy at their head. Spud, whose real! name is something like Ibrahim Ibn Mahomet, finds it good business to adopt a title that is easier for the visitor to remember. That is the beginning of a red-hatled panorama that lasts throughout the sojourn in Egypt. The tarboush is not a token of religious faith, The modern Nileometer, at Roda, Cairo. ONE of the liveliest of local trades is that of the “tarbousherie,” where these felt trun- cated cones are sold or cleaned, reshaped, re- dyed and pressed. These shops, with their brilliantly polished brass equipment and their great brass-bound presses standing on the side- walk, are a picturesque feature of Cairo. The brand-new tarboush comes wrapped in a thin tissue of colored paper, lavender or pink or blue. So a well stocked tarbousherie is a very gay place to the eye. The railroad journey from Alexandria to Cairo takes about three hours by fast express. It is well, in the Autumn, to start at about 4 o'clock, so that one may get the benefit of a Nile sunset just before reaching Cairo. Al the way up the line pictures of Egypt at work are presented. As soon as the city is cleared and the Nile is glimpsed, the first-time traveler gets his introductory sight of the tall masts and slanting yards of the feluecas, appearing across the level land against the clear light-blue sky, the traditional picture of Egypt. Whenever that picture appears one knows that the Nile is close at hand. Here, as it would seem everywhere in the world where people . avel, the railroad is lined with advertising : 's. They are unlovely things, blatant and inariistic, a jumble of ad- refreshment and entertainment, plays to see, The visitor wonders whether there will be ad- vertising signs at the Pyramids, a question that is later answered in the affirmative. The fenceless fields stretch out for limitless distances on either side of the line. Crop patches are marked out by slight divisions. The cotton has been picked and the stalks of the plant remain, bare and brewn, with perhaps here and there a herd of goats driven in to of ancient model. There is the “shaduf,” or weil sweep apparatus, a long pole pivoted upon an upright, one end bearing a bucket, the other counter-weighted with a great ball of mud. There is the “sakiyeh,” or large wheel turned by caitle or water buffaloes, sometimes . by camels. Or perhaps the smaller, lighter wheel called the “tabui” is used, worked by man or animal power. Even the ‘“nattal,™ or basket or bucket slung on a rope and worked by two men, appears. Water distribution is the chief problem of life in the Delta. But the government's agri- cultural authorities have a care beyond that of water alone. The Nile is no longer fertilizing the soil of Lower Egypt as it once did, when it annually overflowed its banks and spread its coating of mud over the land. The of the river at Assuan has permitted a better distribution of the flood, but has robbed the lower part of the country of this enriching de- posit, with the consequence that the farmers are using fertilizers and the salts are pow saturating the soil. and causing the depletion of the ciops. ALONG the canal banks pass the fellaheen, afcot, on donkeys, on camels, in small carts. Men, women and children pass to and fre, going probebly, at this hour, to their homes after their day's work in the fields. They do not live far from their farm plats, as ‘a rule, for the little villages are thickly strewn about. The Fgyptian is gregarious and likes to live in a hudd'e. Even the nomadic tribes main- tain their groups and “lowns” of tents in the desert. After ceeing some of this traffic alongside the tracks the newcomer is prone to wonder whether there is an established ratio of don~ key's weight to donkey's burden. These little creatures carry towering loads and massive personages. Yet they trot along unconcernedly, never varying their geait, never hurrying, how- ever the fellah may shout, and only perhaps taking a couple cf quick steps after a thwack of rcd or hand or kick of the rider's bare foot. It is said that every tourist who reaches Egypt has an early desire to buy a donkey and take it home as a souvenir of his visit. A fair donkey can be had for $5, while for $10 one may get the pick of the breed. Donkeys, camels, water buffaloes constitute the major part of Egypt’'s power plant. are a few tractors in the larger sized planta- tions, but as a rule the Egyptian fellah prefers animals to motors. He makes strange combina~ tions with them, with no regard for propors tions. Thus the tallest camel may be hare nessed to a plow alongside the tiniest donkey. It is nct uncommon to see a man or evem & woman hitched as plow-mate to a donkey or a camiel. The camel, of course, attracts and interest of the first comer, though he may have seen this queer creature often elsewhere. tian camels are of two sorts, in the main, that work the land and tourists. The land workers are or dolled beyond the'bare needs of and efficiency. The tourist workers are gaily caparisoned, sleekly cwrried and brushed are quite the aristocrats of cameldom. Going up the Nile by rail and watching trafiic alongside, the thought occurs the old gunnysacks in the world are sent Egypt to serve as harness cloths for the cam- els. There 1s a certain fitness about this mate-