A Syce
A stranger is impressed during his first days in Cairo with the spectacle of runners in front of carriages to warn people to get out of the way. These fellows have a picturesque dress and muscular legs, and their duty is to clear the way, by keeping a few yards in advance and warning people that a carriage is coming. An appendage of this sort is called a syce, and formerly it was necessary that he should be a native born Egyptian, but at present a Nubian may aspire to the position, and it is not unusual to see syces of the complexion of charcoal in front of elegant carriages.
Egyptian 'Sakiyeh'
Another machine used for the same purpose [irrigation] is the sakiyeh, or draw-wheel. It consists of a horizontal axle, with a wheel at each end. One of these wheels overhangs the water of a river, a canal, or a well, and over it there passes a long, hanging loop of cords, to which a number of earthen pots are fastened. As the axle and the wheel go round, the pots on the cords are drawn over the wheel, and made to move in a circle like the buckets of a dredging-machine. The lower end of the loop of pots dips in the water, and each pot, as it passes through the water, is filled. It is then slowly drawn up by the turning wheel, and as it passes over the wheel, and is tilted over, it empties the water into a tank, or spout, and passes on downwards, empty, to the river again to take up a new supply.
Egyptian 'Shadoof'
The commonest of these machines is the shadoof. It is a sort of balance, with a weight at one end and a cord and bucket at the other. The arm of the balance rests upon a bar of wood, which is supported by two wooden posts, the whole resembling the horizontal bar of a gymnasium. The posts are about five feet high and two or three feet apart, and they are set up on the top of a bank, close to the edge, so that the end of the arm which bears the bucket may project over the water. This arm is made out of a slender branch of a tree, and is fastened to the horizontal bar by loops of cord. Its thicker end is loaded with a large, round ball of mud, while the other carries a long cord, or even a slender stick, at the end of which is the bucket, or bowl, in which the water is raised.
Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand de Lesseps