Unlike the British farmer, the agriculturist in Egypt has at hand an abundant supply of labour. Housed in the mud huts or sun-dried brick houses adjoining the estates, the labourer is at all hours ready to respond to the demand. He receives one or two acres of land let at a reduced rental; he is a day labourer only, and can absent himself at pleasure to attend to his craft. His wage varies from sixpence to tenpence per day of ten hours in summer and eight hours in winter. He provides his own food.
In disposition this peasant is contented, good-natured, not resentful, and of good physique. He is also very untruthful, unreliable at his work, lazy, cunning, and unconscionable as to the quality and quantity of the task he is put to--in short, a thorough eye-servant. He requires constant supervision, when he will do good work under a trying sun. He promises fair, but performs badly. If he commits a fault and is questioned as to how it happened, one can invariably depend upon his telling an untruth. When working on his own plot he is most diligent, but his methods are not always the best, and he does not get the full benefit from the soil, owing to want of intelligence as to the rules of good husbandry. On a large estate, should extra hands be wanted for a special occasion, a hundred to two hundred men can be had on one night's notice being given--a delightful state of affairs in cases of emergency, though here the farmer does not often suffer from his hay or corn crops being unharvested through the redundance of rain.
A large percentage of the fellaheen are perfectly illiterate, which accounts for their want of readiness to take up the initiative. They have no thirst for knowledge and love in agricultural matters to keep running in the old rut. Exactness, tidiness, and pride in his work are qualities very rarely found in a fellah. Slovenliness in the performance of duties is characteristic of the paid day labourer, and to a lesser degree when working on his own account. In Britain, for instance, where do we find the breeder of stock who excels his neighbours except in the shrewd farmer who, at great trouble and study, and by patient experimenting, attains to success? Not only so, but he is like the leaven which leaveneth the whole lump by raising the standard of a district. The apathy of the fellah is shown in the lack of breeding in horses, cattle, and sheep in Egypt, which is due to want of selecting suitable sires, care in rearing, and the like.