Modern Sons of the Pharaohs
A Study Of The Manners And Customs Of The Copts Of Egypt
SIMON HENRY LEEDER
Modern Sons of the Pharaohs, S. H. Leeder
Jazzybee Verlag Jrgen Beck
86450 Altenmnster, Loschberg 9
Deutschland
ISBN: 9783849650254
www.jazzybee-verlag.de
admin@jazzybee-verlag.de
Availability: Publicly available via the Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA) through the following Creative Commons attribution license: "You are free: to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work; to make derivative works; to make commercial use of the work. Under the following conditions: By Attribution. You must give the original author credit. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above." (Status: unknown)
CONTENTS:
Preface
IT was the intention of the publishers that this book should appear in the autumn of the year 1914, and the author completed the MS. by the very last day of July, the day that seems to us now to have been fated to mark the close of a world epoch. In the uncertainty of the upheaval a postponement of publication was agreed upon ; " till the end of the war," was at that time a phrase fresh and hopeful. Three years have more than passed ; the war goes on, and after what perhaps has been a surfeit, readers are seeking for books unconnected with translations of the doctrines of Hunnish savagery and German philosophy, or even of the allied politics and the history of the war itself. Moreover, Egypt and its native people (although the exigencies of war have sealed the country to the mere tourist) have become the centre of new interest through a realisation of its vital importance to the very existence of our Empire, and by reason of the great armies which have assembled there from every part of the Empire to assert and protect our rights. And so the publication of this study of the Coptic people of Egypt has been decided on for the early days of 1918.
The writer has not been in Egypt during the period of the war, though the pleasure of correspondence with many native friends thereMoslem and Coptichas happily not been interrupted. When he left the valley of the Nile, after the last of several prolonged visits, the " Coptic question," to which he refers in the last chapter, was in an acute stage provoking much controversy. The advent of war put an end, of course, to all agitation of that nature. As the days of strain and trial to our Empire multiplied, the disposition increased on the part of the Coptic people to assist the Government in every possible wayin the realm of politics as well as philanthropy.
The author has thought it would best serve the Coptic people and the responsible Government of Egypt to leave his work exactly as the beginning of the war found it. After the long truce, which will end with the war, it may be useful to be able to turn to a clear and unbiased record of the things these ancient dwellers in the land of Pharaoh have regarded as necessary for reform, and to have the original statement of their reasons and arguments for a different treatment, side by side with the official answer to their claims. It is not unlikely that in the light of the revelation which may come from the tremendous experiences of the world war the mistakes of both sides may stand out plain and clearthe suppliant may see that he has asked too much, and the governing power that it has been willing to accede too little.
There is promise of a new era for Egypt when the days of normal government are resumed. A corrupt Court has been scattered, and the firm authority of Britain has been established in the place of counsels feebly divided with Turkey. The thousand social and administrative scandals arising from the Capitulations have been removed. Mosque and Church alike have been freed from the chance of internal corruption and bribery through the exercise of national control over their considerable revenues. In view of all the hopes which will herald the new day, is it too much to trust that a way will be found to satisfy the Coptic aspirations, which I would ask those in authority in Egypt to believe whatever may be said of their political valueare as honest and sincere as they are heartfelt?
BOOK I
CHAPTER I. A Visit to the Village of a Coptic Squire
TO me the village life of Egypt has an irresistible fascination. I have had the privilege of staying in several of the out-of-the-way hamlets, and the more I have seen of the fellaheen, the more I have appreciated the charm of their simple courtesies, their unaffected hospitality, and a certain native grace, even in the common people, which shines through all the ways of a life so primitive as to belong to the days little removed from those when man was driven out of the Garden to eat bread by the sweat of his brow all the days of his life.
In recent years this primitive life has been tempered in some villages by the increase of wealth on the part of the landed classes, and by the return of much of the land into the hands of the people from whom it was confiscated by a succession of tyrant rulers, ending with the earlier Khedives, who had declared themselves the owners of the whole country. Much of this wealth is in the hands of the Copts, who have prospered exceedingly under the security of British rule.
There is on the part of some few of the wealthy Copts a genuine desire in increasing and improving their estates, to rule their domains in such a way as to gain the esteem and affection of their many dependants.
Nothing could make for the lasting good of Egypt so surely as the enthusiasm for skilled farming these men are showing. They are encouraging the study of scientific agriculture, by which means the productivity of their country is being enormously increased; and at the same time, by the introduction of every sort of modern appliance, they are rapidly bringing into fuller cultivation vast areas which have until now been dependent on the annual flooding of the Nile for a single crop, but which is now made by artificial irrigation to yield a succession of crops throughout the year.
In the Deltaespecially by great systems of levelling of the soilthese landowners are rescuing immense tracts of pure desert and brine-logged earth, and making it to smile under the waving corn which, as by magic, springs up where once the sea reigned or the hot dry sand refused to yield a single green blade.
Lower Egypt, in a very true sense, is the gift of the Nile. There was a time when the Delta was a bay of the Mediterranean Sea, and before the Nile deposits filled it up, the limestone ridge of the famous Mokattam Hills, behind Cairo, was washed by the sea.
In addition to the wide tracts that have been recovered, there are still in the Delta a million and a half acres of land lying waste, waiting to be freed from the salt which has impregnated it and rendered it sterile for ages. Experience shows that it can be brought into cultivation, and will then grow not only rice but cotton.
Speaking broadly, from the deductions of the geologist, it may be said that the mighty river, since modern time began, made itself the generous servant of mankind by its never-ceasing task of pushing back with its rich deposits the Mediterranean Sea; in early times the gift grew in magnitude as the population increased to receive it; and at the present day history is repeating itself.
