other, driven by a child who ought to be at school. The Khedive spent a great deal of money in putting up large pumping-engines; but they have turned out useless, partly because of the non-existence of fuel, partly because the smaller parts wear out, and cannot be replaced by native workmen. There was lately some talk of cutting a canal and floating wood down from the Upper Nile. M. Lesseps has lately been over the ground, but bondholders have by this time become chary of their help. Meanwhile the old labour-wasting methods must be retained. New canals might be multiplied indefinitely, always with splendid results, but, under the present system of forced labour, they can only be cut at the cost of the lives of many bread-winners. The Fellah, drafted away from his home, hard worked, ill-fed, harshly treated, dies of the slightest illness. It used to be said that, when a new canal was begun, the Khedive secured the land nearest to it, his officers what came next, and the Fellah who made it got little or no benefit. He is obliged still to stand at his bucket, and, with only a rag round his loins, work the water up to his little tenement, while the intense sun blazes down on his bare back and shaven head. It is unlikely that any private enterprise can spring up amongst the people to improve the cultivation of their farms. They are too poor, and have not time to learn about new inventions. The fine climate prevents them from being braced to exertion and

rebellion, as would be the case in a more northerly country. But they do feel very sore to see the land slipping into the hands of large proprietors who take all the finest ground for sugar-canes.

The name of Fellaheen is properly only applied to the inhabitants of the Delta. The true Fellah is a very different person from the proud Arab of the Howara.

Constant ill-usage has made him a coward and a liar, but he has courage and endurance when suffering is inevitable. You may see a man at work in heavy irons, yet he wears a cheerful countenance, and greets an old acquaintance with a pleasant laugh. He has committed no crime, and everybody knows it; but a crime had been committed, and somebody had to be punished. "Khismet" willed that he should be charged, and, having no money to bribe the judge, he is condemned. So, too, the old story is still true that rather than pay an increased tax, he I will submit to the bastinado, and may be heard to boast of the number of blows he can bear, and the weeks during which he was unable to put his feet to the ground. He looks upon the Government as his natural enemy, and with good cause regards taxation as a Border farmer must have regarded black mail. To him the Khedive is the lineal successor of the Bedouin freebooter who robbed his forefathers. He has no remedy against an overcharge, and no voice in the assessment of the tax. If there were a printed

form setting forth his liabilities, it would be useless, for he could not read it. By nature he is gay, sober, and saving, yet he can be lavish on occasions, and does not grudge money spent in hospitality cr charity.

His own wants are few, but among them is music. Nothing can be done without singing. He sings at work, at play, in the field, at the wedding, at the funeral, as he rows his boat, as he rides his camel, in fact everywhere. Sometimes, as when he works the shadoof, there is a great beauty in the oft-repeated cadence; but generally the European ear can find no melody in his music. The scale differs so much from ours that it cannot be played on any of our keyed instruments; and the principles on which it is founded are so involved that it is hardly possible even for a trained musician to unravel it. There is probably a mixture of the Greek and Asiatic scales; possibly there is a remnant of old Egyptian harmony. The scientific musician finds much to interest him in following a song on the violin, but to the vulgar musical ear it is distracting. It may be roundly asserted that the attempts made by Lane and by others to write Arab melodies in our notation are ludicrous failures. The native performers sometimes show great skill in manipulating an instrument with two strings, and some Egyptian Paganini may blush unheard and waste his sweetness among dusky sailors on the Nile. At Cairo a leaning towards the

European scale is sometimes very perceptible, owing to the opera companies which go there every year; and the military bands practise a kind of compromise which is most distressing to hear: but a concert of expert native performers in the Esbekeeyeh Gardens is well worth hearing. In the country, singers extemporise to a tune, but have special airs appropriate to all possible occasions. No other art is practised, and life goes on under the most simple conditions.

The Fellah wears but one garment, and suffers from cold in winter, for he has no fire and no bedclothes, except perhaps a kind of quilt. He lives on unleavened bread, sour milk, raw vegetables, but sometimes for weeks together has nothing but dried dates. In towns the food is sold ready cooked, and consists of different kinds of haricots and lentils. His house is roofless, except for a few canes laid across the low mud walls. It contains no furniture; but in Upper Egypt there is generally a mat at the door and a sort of raised divan made of mud. He can afford but one wife, who, like himself, has but one garment and a hood or veil, while his children go naked. In this respect, indeed, travellers remark greater poverty year by year. There is immense mortality among the children, partly, no doubt, from the dirt in which they are kept, as they are never washed before they are seven years old, but partly also from the absence of medical aid and the universal ignorance of the causes of disease. The women

are in every respect inferior to the men. They are too poor to have employment; they have no stockings to darn, no house linen to mend, no furniture or cooking implements to clean. They wash their one garment in the river, cleaning it with a piece of mud which acts like soap and pumice combined. They wear their bracelets and necklaces in the field where they pull corn or herd the cattle. They carry all the

FELLAH WOMEN.

water required in their houses from the river in heavy jars, and sit long on the bank gossiping and catching fleas. Their highest idea of life consists in doing nothing. The daughters of a family are kept at home as long as possible, as it is a mark of respectability to retain them at least till they reach fifteen ; but this advanced age is only attained in comparatively wealthy homes.