he women grinding
at the handmill, or grouped about the village well, all recall
incidents in the lives of Isaac and Rebekah, and episodes of
patriarchal times. Their salutations and modes of speech are also
Biblical, and lend a touch of poetry to their lives. "Turn in, my
lord, turn in to me," was Jael's greeting to flying Sisera, and
straight-way she prepared for him "butter in a lordly dish." So to-day
hospitality is one of their cardinal virtues, and I have myself been
chased by a horseman who rebuked me for having passed his home without
refreshment.

Steam-pumps, cotton-mills, and railways may have slightly altered the
aspect of the country, but to all intents and purposes, in habit of
thought and speech, in costume and customs, the people remain to-day
much as they were in those remote times pictured in the Book of
Genesis.

Fresh fruit or coffee is frequently proffered to the traveller on
his way, while his welcome at a village or the house of some landed
proprietor is always sure. On approaching a village, which is often
surrounded by dense groves of date-palms, the traveller will be met by
the head men, who, with many salaams, conduct him to the village
"mandareh," or rest-house, and it is only as such a guest, resident in
a village, that one can form any idea of the home-life of the people.

[Illustration: A NILE VILLAGE.]

From the outside the village often has the appearance of some rude
fortification, the houses practically joining each other and their
mud-walls having few openings. Within, narrow and tortuous lanes form
the only thoroughfares, which terminate in massive wooden doors, which
are closed at night and guarded by the village watchman. The huts--for
they are nothing else--which compose the village are seldom of more
than one storey, while in many cases their small doorway forms their
only means of ventilation. Their roofs are covered with a pile of
cotton-stalks and other litter, through which the pungent smoke of
their dung fires slowly percolates, while fowls and goats, and the
inevitable pariah dog roam about them at will.

Windows, when they do occur, are merely slits in the mud wall, without
glass or shutter, but often ornamented by a lattice of split
palm-leaves. Light and ventilation practically do not exist, while a
few mats, water-pots, and cooking utensils comprise the only
furniture; yet the people are well-conditioned and content, for their
life is in the fields, and their poo