There are no water works in the ordinary country village. If the locality is close to the Nile the drinking and washing water is brought from there to the huts by the women, and if not it comes from the village well. It is not difficult to get water by digging down a few feet anywhere in the Nile valley; and every town has its well, which is usually shaded by palm trees. It is there that the men gather about and gossip at night, and there the women come to draw water and carry it home upon their heads. The farmers’ houses have no gardens about them, and no flowers or other ornamental decoration. The surroundings of the towns are squalid and mean, for the peasants have no comforts in our sense of the word. They have but little furniture inside their houses. Many of them sleep on the ground or on mats, and many wear the same clothing at night that they wear in the daytime. Out in the country shoes, stockings, and underclothes are comparatively unknown. Only upon dress-up occasions does a man or woman put on slippers. The cooking and housekeeping are done entirely by the women. The chief food is a coarse bread made of corn or millet baked in thick cakes. This is broken up and dipped into a kind of a bean stew seasoned with salt, pepper, and onions. The ordinary peasant seldom has meat, for it is only the rich who can afford mutton or beef. At a big feast on the occasion of a wedding, a farming nabob sometimes brings in a sheep which has been cooked whole. It is eaten without forks, and is torn limb from limb, pieces being cut out by the guests with their knives. [Illustration: Next to the market where sugar cane is sold is the “Superb Mosque,” built by Sultan Hassan nearly 600 years ago. Besides being a centre for religious activities, it is also a gathering place for popular demonstrations and political agitation.] [Illustration: Cairo is the largest city on the African continent, and one of the capitals of the Mohammedan world. Its flat-roofed buildings are a yellowish-white, with the towers and domes of hundreds of mosques rising above them.] Of late Egypt has begun to raise vegetables for Europe. The fast boats from Alexandria to Italy carry green stuff, especially onions, of which the Nile valley is now exporting several million dollars’ worth per annum. Some of these are sent to England, and others to Austria and Germany. As for tobacco, Egypt is both an exporter and importer. “Egyptian” cigarettes are sold all over the world, but Egypt does not raise the tobacco of which they are made. Its cultivation has been forbidden for many years, and all that is used is imported from Turkey, Greece, and Bosnia. About four fifths of it comes from Turkey.