Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 3, no. 18, November, 1851Harper, Various (magazine)
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 3, no. 18, November, 1851
Harper, Various (magazine)
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
It would require the pen of an inspired writer to describe in adequate
colors this garden of Eden. Mulberry, lemon, and orange-trees form an
uninterrupted succession of gardens, surrounding picturesque little
cottages, each one eclipsing the other in neatness and beauty of
situation. The peasants themselves are hale, robust, and sturdy-looking
men; the children are rosy and healthy; and the women beautiful,
innocent, and happy. Each stops, as a stranger passes, to make a bashful
salute, and bid him welcome to their country. This is what I never met
elsewhere; and it was very pleasing to find uncivilized and untaught
Arabs so polite and courteous. There is, in fact, nothing that a native
of Suedia will not do to render a sojourn among them agreeable and
pleasant. They are a simple people, and as simple in their habits as in
their character. The sun teaches them when to rise, and darkness when to
seek their beds. They labor for subsistence; they sleep for refreshment;
they laugh with the merry, and weep with the afflicted. Their simple old
pastor, in their venerable rustic church, has pointed out to them from
childhood how heinous is sin--how amiable virtue; and they are taught
ever to remember that an all-seeing Eye will detect and punish sins
hidden to men, as surely as public offenses will entail flagellation
from the pasha and governors of the district. Thus they live happy in
their innocence, and in each other, and almost void of offense toward
God and man; a meet people to inhabit a country like that they dwell in.
To this quiet retreat, Mr. Barker, after zealously serving his king and
country for a long period of years, retired, on quitting Egypt, to enjoy
in seclusion the pension awarded him by the government, and devote the
remainder of his days to the peaceful pursuit of agriculture. Few men
could better appreciate the rich gifts Nature had lavished on this spot.
A perfect botanist, and skilled in agriculture, his time and income
during a period of nearly twenty years, were spent in promoting every
improvement in the cultivation of the soil; and many have grown rich,
directly or indirectly, from the methods of tillage introduced into the
country by Mr. Barker.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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