PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3148, 15 July 1914, Page 71

PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

WHAT IS EGYPT? Last week I promised a chat upon a book “Asia in Europe,” but I think I shall give one on “ The Man of ic.gypt ” (Hodder and Stoughton) instead, and follow with “Asia in Europe.” Both deal with the other man’s point of view. Unfortunately most of us look at any and every question from a personal point of view. W& don’t want to view the question from another’s standpoint, and so create differences and widen ruptures instead of trying to minimise them and bridge them over. “It is the misfortune of the Chinese Government and people to be weighed in the balance which they have never accepted, and to have their shortcomings, so ascertained, made the basis of reclamation of varying degrees of gratitude,” writes Mr Alexander Michie, after a long residence in China. The same applies to all nations. “ Asia and Europe” and “The Coming Man” are two books showing this. , EGYPT IS THE NILE. Most look at a map of Egypt, but do not consider that by far the greater part of Egypt is uninhabited and uninhabitable. Leigh Hunt says that the Nile Plows through old, hushed Egypt and its sands Like some great mighty thought threading a dream; Herodotus said centuries ago that Egypt was the great gift of the Nile; and an Arab proverb runs: “ If you have once drunk of the waters of the Nile, you will perforce return to drink of them again. Well, the Nile is Egypt. Get away from it, and there is little or no wealth, for there are no other rivers, and the country is rainless. What capital geographical and historical lessons such books as “ Asia in Europe and “The Man of Egypt” can give! The Otago inspectors in their last annual report advise teachers to read newspapers for geography (political and commercial), history, general information, and so on. Just let me digress a moment and refer to last week’s Witness. Take the illustrations first. On the first page there is a picture of Abbotsford, the baronial home of Sir Walter Scott, the Wizard of

the North —perhaps I’ll give a Chat upon him one of these days, for his life was a remarkable one. The second page contains a photograph of the late Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain and of the launching of the Shamrock IV. The third page by its illustrations tells us of our Island dependencies. Then we have the fourth and fifth pages containing pictures extending across both. Just look at those logs and that water power! Two miles of the Hudson River covered with logs to make paper with —just such paper as the Times and the Witness are printed on. At 'the bottom of the two pages is the panorama picture of the PanamaPacific —there’s alliteration for you — Exposition, which marks an epoch in the history of the world. Page 6 illustrates a melancholy dynastic event, and in showing the burial place of the late Duke of Argyll pictures a custom seldom seen here —the burying of the dead around a church. Page 7 shows the Suffragette movement—sad pictures to me, because i think they ilustrate not so much the madness of Suffragettes as the injustice of withholding votes to women by a nation willing to be governed by a woman in the shape of a Queen. ‘Other pictures illustrate social or commercial life. Now, a teacher who is fairly well read can take these pictures and give good lessons from them. And the same applies to the letterpress. Indeed, a good geography and history syllabus could be compiled from the Witness, one of much more practical value than those compiled in the usual way—that is, if the Witness were intelligently handled by a well-informed teacher.

Now to return. Inspectors might well« recommend teachers to read books as well as papers. Read what “ The Man ot Egypt” says about Egypt and the Nile; “ Egypt, to speak concretely, is a strip of wondrous fertility stretching over 750 miles from the Mediterranean to the Soudan, rarely exceeding 10 miles in width, except in the Delta, where it measures 200 miles between Port Said and Alexandria. The habitable area of Egypt, 8,000,000 acres in extent, is bounded on the west by the Libyan Desert, ending in the limitless Sahara, while on the East lies Arabia and the Red Sea. To the south stretch the vast provinces of the Soudan, with 2,000,000 square miles of territory, tragic with the memories of Gordon and the tardy English Parliament; while through the midst of all this fruitful land flows the great river, the life blood of the country (the country which, without it, would De part of the lifeless desert), between banks of sand, alluvial mud, and wonderfully cultivated fields, 4000 miles from the Equator to the sea.”

In the long narrow agricultural strip through which the Nile runs there are over 11,000,000 of people, 92 per cent, of whom are Mohammedans. For these 11,000,000 the inundation of the Nile, first by the fertilising waters from Abyssinia, and second by the clear irrigating waters from the Equatorial Lakes, is absolutely vital. “It is the promise of all that life means in these rainless lands. . . . The rise of the water from

the rainy season in Abyssinia begins in June [in' process of rising now] and it is at its height in September. . . . It is not strange that the Egyptians revere the River Nile, and watch with keenest suspicion any measure which affects even slightly this source of their life. As one historian has pointed out, the native of Egypt must watch the Nile in order to keep from being drowned by flood or starved by drought. But the Egyptian really loves this old river ; it is the joy of Egypt as the Yellow River is the sorrow of China.

“No one has heard without a kind of respectful awe the keeper of the Nilometer, who goes through the streets of Old Cairo when the Nile is at its flood, crying, ‘Water en Nil! Water en Nil!’ which announcement is followed by fetes and special rejoicings. It is at such times that one hears the children of the Egyptians repeating the legends of the Great River; how Hoppi, the Nile God, came forth from a cavern near the first cataract at the time of the inundation; or, as Strobo has narrated, how the river rises in the Mountains of the Moon ; or, again, the popular story of how the Nile is formed by the tears of Isis, weeping for Osiris at Philae, which legend, quoted by Pausanius, is found in hieroglyphics on the pyramid at Unas.”

As the book is very recent, the reference to “starved by drought” could have been omitted, for the immense amount of water storage —to be very much increased —now makes a drought almost impossible, for the Abyssinian waters are allowed to pass through the flood-gates of the Assouan dam, and then the gates are_ closed down to impound the waters coming from the Great Lakes. It was only the other day that I read that recently the irrigating waters stored up in the various dams had in one season paid for the cost of the Assouan dam. HOW IS EGYPT GOVERNEDT Has not Kipling said that East is East and West is West? Meaning that each is inscrutable to the other. Egypt is approximately 4000 years old, but the mind of Egypt is still impenetrated. Here is what "Lord Balling, one of our Ambassdanrs to Constantinople, has said of the impenetrable mask of the Egyptian official mind: —“When you wish to know what a Turkish official is likely to do, first consider what it would be to his interest to do, next what any other man would do under similar circumstances, and thirdly, what every man expects him to do. When you have ascertained these, yon are so far advanced in your road that you may bo perfectly certain that he will not adopt any of these courses.” Such books as the two I have mentioned are full of bits that would help to make school life interesting and more profitable. Why are they not used more, then? The direct benefit is not sufficiently apparent, and the future cannot get sufficient consideration.