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Updated: May 10, 2025
The man who was working by the shadûf cried out no more. No more did Mrs. Armine see, at the end of the long and narrow alley, behind the fretwork of shining, pointed leaves, the lateen sails go by. And the withdrawal of the crying voices and of the gliding sails seemed to leave this orange-garden at the very end of the world.
Whoever has journeyed in a dahabiya up the old river will remember this song of the water-drawers, with its accompaniment, in slow cadence, of creakings of wet wood. It is the song of the "shaduf," and the "shaduf" is a primitive rigging, which has remained unchanged since times beyond all reckoning.
As they went down the steps the loud voice of a shadûf man came to them from some distant place by the Nile, reminding her of the great river which seemed ever to be flowing through her Egyptian life, reminding her of the narrowness of Upper Egypt, a corridor between the mountains of Libya and of the Arabian desert. She stood still at the bottom of the steps to listen. There was a pause.
The olden style of irrigation was going on by means of the shaduf, worked by hand, the same as was done in the East four thousand years ago; while the very plow, rude and inefficient, which is used upon these plains to-day, is after the fashion belonging to the same period.
As the river falls the basin can no longer be fed by the river, so a second "shadūf" is erected in order to keep the first supplied, and in low Nile it is quite a common sight to see four of these "shadūfs," one above the other, employed in raising the water from the river-level to the high bank above.
And so he rested on deck, while the sun climbed the pellucid sky, and he watched the men at the shadûf. The sunlight struck the falling water and made it an instant's marvel. And the marvel recurred, for the toil never ceased. The naked bodies bent and straightened. The muscles stood out, then seemed to flow away, like the flowing water, on the arms under the bronze-coloured skin.
It's a folly to care too much." She spoke with a sincerity there was no mistaking, for she was thinking about Baroudi. "Only sometimes. Only when one cares for the weak, or the insincere. We needn't count the cost, and hesitate." She let him close her lips, which were opening for a reply, and while he kissed her she listened to the voices of the shadûf men ever calling on the banks of the river.
And for a moment it seemed to her that the hidden Egyptian who was working the shadûf was calling to them from a stage, that this garden of oranges was only a wonderful décor. But the illusion was too perfect for the stage.
On the dahabeeyah, which began to look as if it were a long way off and were receding from her, shone a red and a blue light. Still the vehement voices of the brown fellahîn at work by the shadûf rose unwearied along the Nile. During the last days Mrs.
There is hardly a shaduf to be seen and very little cultivation, it is either desert or stony hills on each side. Grand beyond thought is it when seen in the flaming light of the afterglow! At Assouan we have time for a glimpse at the great dam, extending for over a mile in length and built of masonry eighty-two feet thick at the bottom.
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