It Was Intended To Act As A
Dam, Raising The Waters Of The Nile And Conducting Them To Suez, The
Salt Lakes, And A Variety Of Other Places, Through A Number Of Canals,
Which, However, Have Not Yet Been Opened.
Meanwhile, it acts upon the
river's trunk as did the sea of old upon its embouchures, blocking it
up
And converting the land around it to the condition of a swamp.
Moreover, it would have cleaned out the bed by means of sluice gates,
forming an artificial increase of current to draw off the deposit; but
the gates are wanting, so the piers, serving only to raise the soil by
increasing the deposit of silt, collect and detain suspended matter,
which otherwise would not settle. Briefly, by a trifling expenditure
the Barrage might be made a blessing to Egypt; in its present state it
is a calamity, an "enormous, cruel wonder," more crushing to the people
than were the pyramids and sphinxes of old.
[FN#4] Those skilled in simples, Eastern as well as Western, praise
garlic highly, declaring that it "strengthens the body, prepares the
constitution for fatigue, brightens the sight, and, by increasing the
digestive power, obviates the ill-effects arising from sudden change of
air and water." The traveller inserts it into his dietary in some
pleasant form, as "Provence-butter," because he observes that, wherever
fever and ague abound, the people, ignorant of cause but observant of
effect, make it a common article of food. The old Egyptians highly
esteemed this vegetable, which, with onions and leeks, enters into the
list of articles so much regretted by the Hebrews (Numbers, xi. 5;
Koran, chap. 2). The modern people of the Nile, like the Spaniards,
delight in onions, which, as they contain between 25 and 30 per cent.
of gluten, are highly nutritive. In Arabia, however, the stranger must
use this vegetable sparingly. The city people despise it as the food of
a Fellah-a boor. The Wahhabis have a prejudice against onions, leeks,
and garlic, because the Prophet disliked their strong smell, and all
strict Moslems refuse to eat them immediately before visiting the
mosque, or meeting for public prayer.
[FN#5] A policeman; see Chap. I.
[FN#6] The stricter sort of Moslems, such as the Arabs, will not wear
gold ornaments, which are forbidden by their law.
[FN#7] See "The Gold Mines of Midian," and "The Land of Midian
(Revisited)," by Sir R. F. Burton.
[FN#8] The projecting latticed window, made of wood richly carved, for
which Cairo was once so famous. But they are growing out of fashion
with young Egypt, disappearing before heating glass and unsightly green
blinds.
[FN#9] Caste in India arises from the peculiarly sociable nature of the
native mind, for which reason "it is found existing among sects whose
creeds are as different and as opposite as those of the Hindu and the
Christian." (B. A. Irving's Prize Essay on the Theory and Practice of
Caste.) Hence, nothing can be more terrible to a man than expulsion
from caste; the excommunication of our feudal times was not a more
dreadful form of living death.
[FN#10] With us every man's house is his castle.
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