they are all, both boys and girls, till they are twelve or fourteen
years of age, sits on one of the mother’s shoulders, and preserves
it’s seat by grasping it’s parent’s head. Thus the woman takes it
constantly about with her, on whatever she may be employed.
Even when washing her clothes at the river’s O side7, as7, kneelinog on
a stone, she bends over the water in which both her hands are
busily rubbing them, the child clings to her head like a little ape;
having nothing to secure it from falling into the stream, if it
should let go it’s hold.
Where the best means of accomplishing our purposes are
wanting, frequently simple yet ingenious methods suggest themselves
to the uncultivated mind. By night the arab, like Shak-
speare’s waggoner, reads the hours in the position of the stars; but
in the day he measures the length of his shadow, making proper
allowances for the season of the year. Thus, at the summer solstice,
when his shadow extends the length of one of his feet from
the vertical point, it is noon; and when eight feet, it is midway
between noon and sunset or sunrise: but in the winter the shadow
at noon extends nine feet, and so in proportion.
For navigating or crossing the Nile boats of various sizes are
used, but these are not always at command. Different expedients
are then employed. Two men will place themselves on a truss
of straw: the foremost holds in one hand the tail of a cow swimming,
before it, and guides the animal by a rope fastened to her
horns, while the other steers this temporary boat with an oar. But
perhaps neither cow nor straw is at hand: a large log of wood then
answers the purpose, on which they get astride, after tying their