e last named being extensively used for
horse-fodder. The sugar-growing industry is protected by the heavy yield
and the cheap fellahin labor. The raw sugar is sent to the refineries
along the Mediterranean. Onions are exported to the United States.

The cotton-crop is an important factor, and in spite of its own crop the
United States is a heavy purchaser of the long-staple Egyptian cotton,
which is used in the manufacture of thread and hosiery. The cultivation
of tobacco is forbidden by law, but Egyptian cigarettes are an item of
considerable importance. They are made of imported Turkish tobacco by
foreign workmen. There is a heavy export duty on native tobacco
exported, and the ban on the inferior native-grown article is intended
to prevent its admixture with the high-grade product from Turkey, and
thereby to keep up the standard of the cigarettes.

Egypt is nominally a vassal of Turkey, paying to the Sultan a yearly
tribute of $3,600,000. Great Britain's is the real controlling hand,
because the Suez Canal is Great Britain's gateway to India. By a
purchase of the stock held by a former Khedive, Great Britain secured
financial control of the canal, a necessary step from the fact that more
than half the trade carried through the canal is British commerce.

The country is deficient in the resources that make most nations
powerful. There is neither coal, iron, nor timber available, and these
must be imported. Great Britain supplies the first, and Norway the last.
Some traffic is carried on the Nile, but railways have been built
through the crop-lands. One of these threads the Nile Valley and will
become a part of the "Cape to Cairo" route.

_Alexandria_ is the port at which most of the Egyptian commerce lands.
_Cairo_, the largest city of Africa, derives its importance from its
position at the head of the Nile delta. It is a favorite winter-resort.
_Port Said_ and _Suez_ are the terminal ports of the Suez Canal; their
commerce is mainly the transit trade of the canal.

=Other Independent States.=--Most of the independent states of Africa are
in a condition of barbarism and have but little importance to the rest
of the world. Abyssinia has the natural advantages of gold, iron,
pasture-lands, and forestry, and the possibilities of cotton
cultivation. Valuable mining concessions have been granted to foreign
companies. Ivory, coffee, and gold are shipped to India in exchange for
textiles. A railway from the coast is und