Land and People: Two - The Fellahin of Egypt

whole: the eight images occupy the majority, with five images held within narrow black borders. The title is separate and positioned in the upper left, in black, partially held within a brown inset. The text is separate and placed in the lower three-quarters, in black. All set against a white background. image: six photographs of Egyptian peasant life - depicting mud-brick housing; men engaged in various agricultural activities, such as raising water from the Nile, ploughing, digging irrigation channels and fishing; and a woman, carrying a water jug on her head and holding a baby. The upper left image is a shoulder-length depiction of an Egyptian male, wearing a cap. The centre right image is an Ancient Egyptian tomb painting, illustrating peasants at work. text: LAND AND PEOPLE: 2 THE FELLAHIN OF EGYPT THE FELLAH DWELLING in the foreground is typical of a million others: Built of sun-baked bricks of Nile mud and roofed with brush-wood it houses in its single dusty room both family and beasts. THE FELLAH is to-day as he has been since Pharonic times the backbone of Egypt. The real wealth of a community lies not solely in its material resources but more truly in its number of people who actually produce. Egypt's wealth is in that strip of land watered by the flood waters of the Nile and tilled by the Fellah. Consider the man! In body and mind he has been shaped by his environment: In body hardened by unremitting labour on the soil; in mind superstitious and naive, full of fears of the unknown typified by the desert that lies all around him and which is only too soon in creeping back to reclaim the fields so hardly wrested yard by yard. His is a life of vigilance and ceaseless activity. (LEFT) A photograph of the Fellah using the same sort of primitive plough as that used by the peasant of Ancient Egypt. (RIGHT) The detail is from the Tomb of Nekht at Thebes. The daily round was the same for the peasant yesterday as it is today. THE SHADUF is the most primitive method of raising water. At the height of the season the Fellah must raise by hand as much as twenty tons of water a day to less than the acre. Pictorial Review No. 72 JULY 6, 1946 Crown Copyright reserved Army Education, M.E.F. FISHERMAN of the Nile. There is no branch of Fellah industry unconnected with the Nile. Crowded together on a strip of land more densely peopled than any other in the world his ceaseless activities offer small reward. Too poor to purchase more than the most meagre tools for his work he must rely on himself. IRRIGATION occupies most of the Fellah's working day. Although the Nile never fails to provide, yet every drop of water must be carefully conducted along the countless little channels to the crops that must be harvested four times a year. The life of the Fellah is shaped out of the elements of land, sun and water. Printed by The Printing and Stationery Services, M.E.F.-7-46

Pictorial Review No. 72. Produced as part of the 'Land and People' series of posters (see PST 16931, PST 16943, PST 16948, PST 16949 and PST 16952).