PICNIC OCCASION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1940, Page 8

PICNIC OCCASION

NEW ZEALANDERS IN EGYPT. REPAYING RESIDENT'S KINDNESS. (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) EGYPT. August 19. In a day’s picnic outing on the waters of the Nile, two young New Zealand soldiers discovered an ingenious way of repaying kindness extended to them by an English family living near the camp of the First Contingent at Maadi. The soldiers, who are brothers, hired for the occasion a quaint, high-masted sailing craft typical of those which for centuries have made their unhurried way up and down the river. For the mother and the two young children of the family, the New Zealanders provided a pleasant, lazy day on ihe water, spent in zigzagging at leisure from point to point, watching the untiring spectacle of life along the river, and even fishing however vainly, for the carp and catfish that play below its brown surface.

The outing began when the native boatman pushed his cruft out from a landing on the river bank and unfurled the claw-shaped sail —so much repaired that it seemed all patches—from the curved boom. Because of his lifetime of experience in river navigation, the boatman was a necessary addition to the party, but for all. the interest he showed in the presence of the others he might never have been there. He set the boat moving in a slow tack from one bank to the other, making downstream between the fields of corn, vegetables and green feed which crowd each side of the river.

In spite of modern roads and railways. the Nile today remains an important commercial waterway. Graceful dahabeahs and feluccas, stacked high with goods and produce of every kind, maintain a constant flow of trade between Upper and Lower Egypt. They know no split second schedules, for their progress depends on the amount of wind their high sails can catch. A brisk following breeze gives them the speed of a river steamboat, but often they must tack with painful slowness and at times be hauled by tow ropes from the banks. The spectacle of this ceaseless traffic fascinated the picnic party, whose craft was passed by sailing vessels laden with grain, fruit, earthen pots, building stone and golden hay. There was a moment of contrast as a modern motor yacht sped by. giving a glimpse of passengers relaxing under coloured awnings. The river banks themselves were full of life —brown-skinned children bathing in the muddy water, cattle passively submitting to a washing, women scrubbing clothes, and age-old irrigation contrivances raising water for the fields. The picnic craft passed between these scenes to the outskirts of the city of Cairo, where a forest of masts indicated a busy landing stage. Then it faced upstream to seek out a sheltered lunching spot, and in the late afternoon returned to its mooring place, completing a seven hours’ cruise which the two New Zealanders will long remember. |