CHAPTER X
AN AQUATIC INDUSTRY
Every great river begets its own peculiar industries which may vary indefinitely in dignity and emolument, as, for instance, from the occupation of the boat-builders who let steam-launches on the Upper Thames, to that of the mudlarks who scramble for coppers in the ooze at Greenwich. The Nile itself is not without its children of this description, though the simple life of the dwellers on its banks does much, of course, to restrict their number. There is no brisk demand for pleasure-boats among the fellahs of the Nile Valley, and even ferries do not seem much in demand, as one might have expected. For countless generations, in fact, the toiling cultivator can have known little or
