DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0099
BEDRESUA YN TO MINTEH. 81
exaggeration to say that at least every twentieth person, down
to little toddling children of three and four year's of age,
was blind of an eye. Not being a particularly well-favored
race, this defect added the last touch of repulsiveness to
faces already sullen, ignorant and unfriendly. A more
unprepossessing population I would never wish to see—the
men half stealthy, half insolent; the women bold and
fierce ; the children filthy, sickly, stunted and stolid.
Nothing in provincial Egypt is so painful to witness as the
neglected condition of very young children. Those be-
longing to even the better class are for the most part shab-
bily clothed and of more than doubtful cleanliness; while
the offspring of the very poor are simply incrusted with
dirt and sores and swarming with vermin. It is at first
hard to believe that the parents of these unfortunate babies
err, not from cruelty, but through sheer ignorance and
superstition. Yet so it is; and the time when these people
can be brought to comprehend the most elementary prin-
ciples of sanitary reform is yet far distant. To wash young
children is injurious to health, therefore the mothers suf-
fer them to fall into a state of personal uncleanliness,
which is alone enough to engender disease. To brush
away the flies that besot their eyes is impious; hence oph-
thalmia and various kinds of blindness. I have seen in-
fants lying in their mothers' arms with six or eiirht flies in
each eye. I have seen the little helpless hands put down
reprovingly if they approached the seat of annoyance. I
have seen children of four and five years old with the surface
of one or both eyes eaten away; and others with a large,
fleshy lump growing out where the pupil had been de-
stroyed. Taking these things into account, the wonder is,
after all, not that three children should die in Egypt out of
every five—not that each twentieth person in certain dis-
tricts should be blind, or partially blind; but that so many
as forty per cent of the whole infant population should
actually live to grow up, and that ninety-five r>er
cent should enjoy the blessing of sight. For my own part
I had not been many weeks on the Nile before I began sys-
tematically to avoid going about the native towns when-
ever it was practicable to do so. That I may so have lost
an opportunity of now and then seeing more of the street-
life of the people is very probable; but such outside
glimpses are of little real value, and I at all events escaped
exaggeration to say that at least every twentieth person, down
to little toddling children of three and four year's of age,
was blind of an eye. Not being a particularly well-favored
race, this defect added the last touch of repulsiveness to
faces already sullen, ignorant and unfriendly. A more
unprepossessing population I would never wish to see—the
men half stealthy, half insolent; the women bold and
fierce ; the children filthy, sickly, stunted and stolid.
Nothing in provincial Egypt is so painful to witness as the
neglected condition of very young children. Those be-
longing to even the better class are for the most part shab-
bily clothed and of more than doubtful cleanliness; while
the offspring of the very poor are simply incrusted with
dirt and sores and swarming with vermin. It is at first
hard to believe that the parents of these unfortunate babies
err, not from cruelty, but through sheer ignorance and
superstition. Yet so it is; and the time when these people
can be brought to comprehend the most elementary prin-
ciples of sanitary reform is yet far distant. To wash young
children is injurious to health, therefore the mothers suf-
fer them to fall into a state of personal uncleanliness,
which is alone enough to engender disease. To brush
away the flies that besot their eyes is impious; hence oph-
thalmia and various kinds of blindness. I have seen in-
fants lying in their mothers' arms with six or eiirht flies in
each eye. I have seen the little helpless hands put down
reprovingly if they approached the seat of annoyance. I
have seen children of four and five years old with the surface
of one or both eyes eaten away; and others with a large,
fleshy lump growing out where the pupil had been de-
stroyed. Taking these things into account, the wonder is,
after all, not that three children should die in Egypt out of
every five—not that each twentieth person in certain dis-
tricts should be blind, or partially blind; but that so many
as forty per cent of the whole infant population should
actually live to grow up, and that ninety-five r>er
cent should enjoy the blessing of sight. For my own part
I had not been many weeks on the Nile before I began sys-
tematically to avoid going about the native towns when-
ever it was practicable to do so. That I may so have lost
an opportunity of now and then seeing more of the street-
life of the people is very probable; but such outside
glimpses are of little real value, and I at all events escaped