DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11610#0196
TEN YEARS* DIGGING IN EGYPT
village should press him to stay for a meal or for the
night with them : he would set us down as shame-
lessly mercenary, and without any sense of propriety
or generosity.
It is certain that the perceptions of an Egyptian are
far less keen than ours. Their feeling of pain is hardly
comparable with our own : with bad injuries, such
as torn or crushed fingers, they do not seem at all
distressed ; and a boy said to me that it was no
wonder I healed quickly, as I did not disturb a wound,
'whereas an Arab would pull a cut open to look at it
inside.' With pain, so with the senses in health. They
cannot distinguish one person from another by the
footstep ; they do not easily distinguish a voice; they
seldom respond or seem to perceive any words when
called from a distance, unless the attention is aroused
by loudly calling the person's name ; they never notice
slight or distant sounds, and seem to suppose that you
will never perceive a whisper from one to another.
That the sense of smell is not much developed is only
too evident from the fearfully filthy condition of the
village surroundings, which are sometimes poisonous
to an European.
Unfortunately the result of education is rather to
spoil than to develop natural ability. Of the very
few peasants I have met with who had been taught to
write two were fools in other matters, all common
sense and ability appearing to have been crushed out
of them. Nor is this at all surprising, when we know
that the cardinal part of Muslim education is the
learning of the pointless prolixities of the Koran by
heart, as a pure matter of rote, without the use of the
village should press him to stay for a meal or for the
night with them : he would set us down as shame-
lessly mercenary, and without any sense of propriety
or generosity.
It is certain that the perceptions of an Egyptian are
far less keen than ours. Their feeling of pain is hardly
comparable with our own : with bad injuries, such
as torn or crushed fingers, they do not seem at all
distressed ; and a boy said to me that it was no
wonder I healed quickly, as I did not disturb a wound,
'whereas an Arab would pull a cut open to look at it
inside.' With pain, so with the senses in health. They
cannot distinguish one person from another by the
footstep ; they do not easily distinguish a voice; they
seldom respond or seem to perceive any words when
called from a distance, unless the attention is aroused
by loudly calling the person's name ; they never notice
slight or distant sounds, and seem to suppose that you
will never perceive a whisper from one to another.
That the sense of smell is not much developed is only
too evident from the fearfully filthy condition of the
village surroundings, which are sometimes poisonous
to an European.
Unfortunately the result of education is rather to
spoil than to develop natural ability. Of the very
few peasants I have met with who had been taught to
write two were fools in other matters, all common
sense and ability appearing to have been crushed out
of them. Nor is this at all surprising, when we know
that the cardinal part of Muslim education is the
learning of the pointless prolixities of the Koran by
heart, as a pure matter of rote, without the use of the