The Cataracts — Fogs — Keneh — A gang of convicts — Nile thieves — Domestic merchants — Shadoofs — Taxation — Ossioot — The Conscription — Female relations — Coffee shops.

Arrived at Korosko, we at once made our crew aware that they must make every exertion to reach Cairo as speedily as possible, and that if they really worked hard, they would receive much higher pay for the journey down; and we began by offering them five dollars to reach Assuan in thirty hours. This they accomplished. At nine o’clock, February 1st, we anchored at Philæ.

It was a beautiful calm morning, as we left Philæ on our way down to the Cataracts. Not a ripple ruffled the waters, as we glided slowly down from our moorings to the little village of Mahatta, where the cataract authorities were to be taken on board. We turned round to take a last look at the beautiful temples on the “romantic isle,” and the grotesque rocks surrounding it. It was an enchanting scene, though we viewed it with different feelings from those we had experienced on that most pleasant Sunday when we were last there. The sun was just rising behind the mountains, while a haze rose from the still waters almost hiding the beauteous prospect.

The Reis and the pilot came on board just above the Cataracts, and we were struck by the respect and the sympathy in our misfortune which they expressed.

These men immediately took possession of the oars, leaving our own crew at liberty to take care of the boat with their long poles. After rowing most vigorously to the rapids, pulling till they were actually in the falls, they dropt their oars. The kitchen and whole head of the boat were immediately hidden by the surge, which rose like two waves on each side of us, pouring into the boat, and wetting everybody and everything. The prow of the boat rose again and again, pitched, and then giving a swerve, clashed up against the rocks, breaking several oars on that side, and overturning all the men who were at them. In less time than it takes to tell it, all was over, and we were lying quietly against the bank of lupins and beans, where we were detained on our way up, and all the men were employed in baling out the water.

In a few hours we arrived at Assuan, where we only stayed to get our letters, and then set off again. Our voyage was as pleasant as it could become under the melancholy circumstances that had preceded it, though for some days our progress was but slow. On the 3rd of February we passed the Temple of Komombo, which we beheld from the river in all the glory of its numerous pylons and columns.

We found the temperature cool—rather too much so at night. Sometimes the voyage was enlivened by our passing other diabeheehs, containing parties of our countrymen, some bound for one place, some for another, and all apparently intent on enjoying life in the East in the most approved Oriental fashion.

After passing the temples of Edfo, the grottoes of Eilethya, and the quarries of Gebel Silsilis, we arrived, at rather a late hour, at Esneh. Here I rested for a short time in one of the large cafés, indulging in a narghileh and a cup of thick coffee, whilst Mahomet entertained the company, who were pouring in from the different mosques, with an account of our tour.

At about eight o’clock we left Esneh; but scarcely had we started, when our crew became clamorous to return, and refused to go on, demanding a rest of four and twenty hours. This was not in the bond, and we would not hear of it. We knew that it was merely a scheme to extort money, and therefore were very decided in our proceedings, threatening the men, if they returned, to confiscate the bread, of which we had brought for them a liberal supply, and complain to the proper authorities of their breach of contract.

This menace staggered them, and in a few hours it was evident that they preferred bread to stick, for they resumed their oars, and worked with an energy I had never seen them display. The consequence was, that we were at Thebes by nine o’clock, where we rested for the night.

Before sunrise the next morning we arrived opposite where Carnac was; but we could see nothing of it, owing to the height of the banks. The morning was cold, rainy, misty, and in every way most disagreeable. Luxor, or rather as much of it as we could see for the fog, looked dirty and uninviting. Thebes, Memnonia, Medeenet Haboo, and the sphinxes were concealed by the thick stream that rose from the calm waters. How very different was all this from the aspect under which we had before beheld the same scene!

At a late hour, and in hard rain, we arrived at Keneh, where I paid a visit to five Americans, who had been wrecked the day before on a neighbouring sand-bank, in the middle of the night, and were glad to escape with their lives—and their nightgowns.

Keneh is the great Goolah manufactory, and our servants supplied themselves with about two hundred and fifty, between them. The small branch of the river by which we had previously approached this village was then almost dry.

While inspecting the town, I came upon twelve men, who were fastened together not only by their legs, but also by a chain passing through a ring attached to an iron collar round their necks; in addition to which they carried a log of wood, their hands being in the stocks.

Daireh assured me that they were conscripts, so secured to prevent escape; but this seemed so incredible that I made inquiries from a source in which I could place confidence, and found that they were convicts in course of transit, by order of government, to Khartoum, or rather to Fazokl.

With our dragoman and my sister, we next visited the market-place, where half a dozen field-pieces were being manœuvred by about fifty soldiers, who were presided over by two or three wretchedly-dressed officers sitting in arm-chairs.

While at the Consul’s, waiting for letters, my sister was invited to visit the hareem. A respectable-looking old gentlewoman—probably sister to Garf Hossein—received her, and she was conducted to a spacious, uncomfortable, and badly-furnished room, where there were several women, badly-dressed, possessed of scarcely any personal recommendation, except fine eyes. Presently other ladies joined the circle, making about a dozen in all. They could not understand a word that was said to them; they were, however, very respectful, and produced coffee, pipes, and an inferior kind of sherbet. This was her fourth visit of a similar nature; but this hareem was but a humble affair compared to the others.

We resumed our voyage, and began to make considerable progress. The men, tired with rowing all night, stopped, at five o’clock in the morning, near some mountains overhanging the river. They dared not have halted there during the night, for fear of the thieves that are said to lurk among the rocks.

Our Reis related marvellous anecdotes of such gentry coming by hundreds in boats, and boarding the diabeheehs that were sailing unsuspiciously along, or had anchored for the night. The latest date of any outrage of this nature, was in Mehemet Ali’s reign, when a boat was plundered, and the robbers gave their names and cards, with a receipt of the stolen grain, lest the boatmen might be accused of the theft.

We continued to make much progress, as Daireh had found out a new moving power, which, though not likely to supersede steam, proved a good substitute for it. This was the exhibition of a bottle of brandy; it had the most extraordinary effect upon our rowers, and we arrived at Ekmire on the afternoon of the next day.

Our Reis took two men from each boat, and went in the jolly-boat to purchase some indigo-stained cloth for dresses. All our men, by the way, are merchants, and make investments in every town they come to, in the produce for which it happens to be famed. At Assuan, charcoal, baskets, &c.; at Eilethya, henna; at Esneh, coffee, baskets, henna, butter, and eggs; at Keneh, goolahs and the best tombac for narghilehs; at Girgeh, turkeys, fowls, and butter particularly cheap and good; at Ossioot, the best native linen shirtings; and the best blue dresses at Ekmire.

The shadoofs are much more numerous here than I have observed them anywhere, as many as twenty-five being visible in half a mile, many of them double, and four between the water and the land, employing eight men.

I have often wondered why they do not dig a hole of considerable depth, which would make one shadoof last several months. Now as the river is constantly going down, every other shadoof is already useless, and its fellahs are obliged to exert themselves to fabricate another, which, in its turn, will be left high and dry the week after next, while at its neighbour, the men are bucketting up the last few skinfulls with all possible expedition, knowing that they must pass to-morrow in building a tier below.

An English peasant, with the smallest intelligence, would construct one of the necessary depth, and lengthen the rope as the river fell, but the Egyptian makes one that will last a week, and next week will make another to last another week. The difference, however, between these two men lies in the certainty with which one can point to his position next week, and the uncertainty of the other on the same subject.

Indeed, it is not at all improbable that the Egyptian, after drawing water all day, instead of returning to his wife and family at night, is sent to play at soldiers at the Kaisoon palace at Cairo, or is marched till he finds himself standing in a shower of wooden clubs, weighed with iron, and native spears of peculiar sharpness, waiting for orders to charge the Shellook, above Fazokl, or he may be hurried off till he finds himself shivering with cold and sea-sickness on board the Pasha’s fleet, or suffocated by the smell of oil, and terrified by the flying machinery, in the Pasha’s cotton factory.

The Englishman knows that no power can force him against his will to become a soldier, sailor, cotton-manufacturer, or anything else.

This is one of the smallest of the evils of despotic government. The sense of insecurity, however, pervades all classes. The Cairenes spend more on their persons than a Parisian exquisite; the Fellah hardly cares to gather his only crop; the Nubian is quite as indifferent to plant date-trees that he knows are to be taxed; and the Bedouin will with difficulty be persuaded to convey you through the desert, though you pay him one third more than the tariff, because his appearance at the town from which you start, or the one at which you arrive, is sure to produce some misunderstanding about taxing.

The aspect of the river varies very little; the banks are some ten feet higher, and the opposite shore more sandy than usual, but this is all the change since we were there, three months ago. The weather, too, seems rarely to alter; the breezes from the south being so frequent as to suggest the idea of their being unalterable.

We got a-ground about four times a-day, and then the crew of the other boat came to help to get us off, or vice-versâ, the men dashing into the water to assist more effectually. On one occasion, one fellow, it appears, could not make up his mind to immerse his limbs in so cold an element, and he got abused by his more hardy associates. Words soon led to blows, and in a short time there was a fight, and it took the Reis and six men to part the combatants. The former laid about him lustily with a rope, which fell on the naked shoulders of one of the belligerents with startling effect. In about five minutes afterwards, the men were all saying their prayers on the top of our cabin, as calmly as if nothing had happened.

On arriving at Ossioot we proceeded to pay a visit to the Governor, renowned for his knowledge of geography. The road had improved since I last had seen it, a few months ago; instead of running as a kind of mud embankment, or viaduct through sheets of water and banks of mud, it now runs between two fields of corn, about two feet high, as far as the eye can reach, with groves of mimosas, acacias, and palm-trees, making a pleasant shade for hundreds of camels, buffaloes, and goats which tethered by the leg to a stake, only eat the clover assigned to them. The trees have not shared in this improvement, owing to the dust and sun; and they contrast conspicuously with the green of the wheat-sprouts.

Ossioot might put forward claims to the picturesque, visible in the glaring white of the Governor’s offices, hareem, and palace, set off by the large mimosas and gum-trees, which by their fragrance are extremely suggestive of an English green-house. Eleven minarets rose from the dark verdure, and the river ran through the bridge, which was covered with soldiers, government officers, Coptic clerks, with their ink-bottles in their girdles, and wearing black turbans on their heads; and Arab merchants in their magnificent black cloth mantles, with richly caparisoned horses or asses, waiting till their owners had transacted their business in this eastern Rialto.

An hour afterwards I repassed the bridge, and it had become a veritable Bridge of Sighs. The conscription, that curse of despotic governments, was in full career in Egypt, and Ossioot being the head-quarters of the recruits, they were arming in vast numbers. We counted eight batches of twenty-five at one time, fastened together by ropes, attached to iron or wooden handcuffs. They seemed indifferent, or stupid; and were between twelve and forty years of age—at least two-thirds were under eighteen. They were accompanied by a dozen janissaries, with loaded muskets, and were followed by hundreds of women, in whose faces might be traced every shade of feeling.

There was rage, venting itself in imprecations from the feeble grandmother, now deprived of her only protection, and left a beggar in the streets. There was the wailing sorrow of mothers mourning the deprivation of their eldest sons or of the youngest and most beloved Benjamin. There was the tender grief of the newly-wedded bride, and the frantic despair of the young mother, at one blow robbed of the father of her children and the support of their existence.

And lastly there was the cool indifference of the passers-by; who remember how they had to endure the loss of father, husband, son, or brother, and no one pitied them. We must, however, add that there was the intense indignation of two Englishmen: who, while pitying the fate of these poor victims of despotism, felt a sensible satisfaction in remembering the blessings of the liberal Government, that made their home the envy of surrounding nations.

But the procession moves on, till the poor fellows arrive at the Government offices. Then comes a long halt, for every man must be examined; and those will escape who have put out the right eye, or cut off the fore-finger of the right hand. In three hours the procession resumes its march—minus about seventy, rejected—the women accompanying them, and shouting, kissing, yelling and sobbing, till the well-laden diabeheeh turns slowly down the stream in the direction of Cairo; then they return, and as they retrace their steps on the shady road to their native town, they besmear their faces and clothes with mud to denote their desolate state.

The Pasha of Egypt is said to have issued orders for recruiting, to the extent of twenty thousand men: of these Ossioot must provide one hundred, and the neighbourhood three hundred more. Ismael Pasha whom I found as affable as handsome, and as learned as ever, told me that he had been perfectly disgusted at the daily scenes in which he was obliged to be an actor, in the exercise of his disagreeable duties. On the first day he let off an only son, and a young man just married—since when, if the Arabs are to be credited, no second son or unmarried man has been taken. He said: you will be surprised to learn that in six months these identical boys will return to this place, to escort with loaded muskets, their brothers, cousins, and friends—and that they are, at this very moment, in the enjoyment of the best supper they have ever eaten, rapidly forgetting all that they have left behind them.

Every picture, however dark, has a bright side; it is so in this instance. The grief of a Moslem mother may be as acute as that of a Christian, but she will never suffer in her circumstances for the deprivation of her children; for by Moslem, as well as by Egyptian rule, she must be supported by her family. As long as one man remains in it, he is obliged to provide for the whole of his helpless female relatives. Daireh assured me, that in this way he had to provide for fifteen women.

No Moslem can ever starve; no Moslem will let a beggar pass him without giving five paras for “the God’s sake.” I noticed a woman with a child taking alms fifteen times in one bazaar, while I was buying some pipes; the sum thus obtained would keep her comfortably for a fortnight. What prevents professional begging I cannot say, but except the Dervishes, no one begs unless forced to do so, and then not a day longer than is absolutely necessary.

I visited the city at night, and found it the most beautiful sight I had ever beheld, except the Nubian sunsets. All the streets were completely deserted, but the native bazaar, which was so full of life that it reminded me of the lower streets in some of our largest towns. Crowds of women were selling eggs, butter, and fowls; there were stalls where hot cutlets, and “biftecs” were frizzling, with a savoury odour that made one’s mouth water; and there were coffee-rooms, the clubs of Egypt, filled with narghileh and chibouque smokers, who ought to have been at home, according to their wives.

I went into one of these coffee-shops which are also used as hotels, and discovered a very large apartment in the rear with a mud divan all round, in which some twenty men were reposing, wrapt in their capotes.

With the assistance of my servant, I entered into conversation with some of them, and soon learnt as a reason for their being here, that one man had quarrelled with his wife, another was a widower, this one was unmarried, that was about to become a father when the house is invariably surrendered to the female relations, and another was alone at home, his wife having gone to her home for a few nights. They came in one by one, smoked a pipe, drank a cup of coffee, fell asleep, and snored in almost as short a time as is taken by the description. They pay about five paras for a narghileh, the same for a cup of coffee, and the same for the couch—total fifteen paras, not quite one penny.

As I rode back, there was an exquisite sense of stillness over everything; sheep, camels, buffaloes, and even dogs seemed asleep, a thick haze rose from the well-watered meadows all around: and the death-like silence that pervaded the scene was preserved till I reached the river, when I easily distinguished sounds of music and dancing proceeding from our crew who were making merry in a coffee house of the lowest order.

Tombs at Benihassan — Boat aground — Cairo — The Esbekya — Abbas Pasha and the Porte — The Census — Cairene ladies — Their evening parties — Palaces of the Pasha — The Overland Route — An American — Mehemet Ali’s Palace.

At sun-rise we made a start, and so did a stiff breeze from the north, which presently brought us on a bank, where there were already two or three rafts from Keneh, laden with pottery. These are constructed of palm branches resting upon hundreds of large jars fastened together; on them are placed a similar layer of jars—above which a kind of canopy is raised to shelter the men. The voyage takes ninety days from Keneh to Cairo.

We had passed Manfaloot with its numerous fields of sugar cane during the night, and at three o’clock a large factory, where sugar is refined. For miles round, sugar canes grow in extraordinary profusion, the land being beautifully irrigated by a waterpump worked by steam, twenty miles up the stream.

At half-past seven we arrived at Benihassan. The sepulchre is situated at the base of a mountain, formed of regular steps or strata. There are, I believe, thirty tombs; but we satisfied ourselves with an inspection of the three most important ones. They are very similar, consisting of a portico of two fluted columns, and a large square room in the interior, with four or six columns of an extremely simple and elegant character, supporting an arched roof, painted red and white, chess-board fashion. The walls are coloured and covered with wonderful paintings, having such subjects as a galley sailing on the Nile, in the transparent water of which fishes are swimming, and a hippopotamus disporting—a series of wrestlers, in fifty different postures—then came flax-dressers and cloth manufacturers, glass-blowers and ironmongers—a barber operating on a young man, apparently for the first time, for the indications of a beard are very faint—a doctor bleeding an unfortunate wretch who appears to have drank too much nectar over night—men and women being bastinadoed—dwarfs in the trains of noble Egyptians: an example of that patronage of littleness which became fashionable in Europe two thousand years later—sportsmen catching ibex with a noose, and gazelles just caught by grey-hounds—herds tended by cripples, having but one leg or one arm, or exhibiting a withered and useless limb, reminding one of the verse in Genesis that describes every shepherd as an abomination to the Egyptians.

Our brilliant torch illumined these scenes splendidly; indeed, we beheld them to much greater advantage than we could have done by day: the door then giving the only light by which they can be seen. As we returned into the bright moonlight, the sand looked so much like snow, that the night air could scarcely dispel the illusion.

We passed Minieh in the night, and then a breeze sprung up, that shortly turned to a gale, which so alarmed our Reis, that he wanted to stop at Colosaneh, which we were closely approaching. This village being famous for lentils, we were suspicious that he thought more of soup than of wind, and were for proceeding, when the gusts came on sharper, and therefore we agreed to anchor. Unfortunately we were not quite quick enough, a gust drove us on a bank in the very middle of the stream, and the boat swung round in the wind. The crew soon got us off, and we were presently moored to the bank where we were glad enough to find ourselves in safety: not the less satisfied were we when we beheld a boat fill in the same place, a few minutes later, and in less than half an hour another capsize.

Some hours subsequently, we again made sail; but the wind just allowed us to get into the middle of the stream, when we received another taste of its quality, which sent us within a yard and a half only of some dangerous rocks. By all the men pulling lustily on one side, and having the sail hauled as tight as possible, we managed to escape. Once more we anchored, and did not again attempt to sail till the atmosphere had become cleared from the clouds of dust and sand that prevented our seeing a hundred yards before us, and it was nearly calm. Subsequently we passed a complete fleet of small boats that had been detained by the wind. With their large sails half-filled by the breeze, they came out beautifully from the background of the setting sun.

We continued to make good progress, sometimes with our sail, and then with our oars, till we had passed the false pyramid and the real ones of Dashour, and came in sight of the well-known Mokattam range of hills, and of the great pyramids of Gizah. At two o’clock, on the 18th of February, we anchored at Rhoda Island: the next day were at Cairo.

We had accomplished the voyage from Korosko to Cairo in seventeen days; considering the strong north winds we had encountered, a most unheard-of feat.

The bazaars were more crowded by Europeans than they had been before, and had a much gayer appearance, with winter-scarves, handkerchiefs and furs. There had been an order from the Pasha, that within six months the Mussulman ladies should dress entirely in white, to distinguish them from the Christian ladies, which had created no slight sensation in the hareems; and many having already obeyed the very despotic order, the clean white dresses made a most agreeable contrast to the gay amber and pink in which the less compliant ladies were habited.

The streets were more difficult of passage than ever, from the caravans of donkeys that were galloping about loaded with flour, sand, and water; they were abundantly watered, and unusually sure-footed was the long-eared beast that did not land its rider once at least in the mud.

The Esbekya, or place of the Franks, was in an unusually lively state from the droves of groaning camels, and eccentric Englishmen that favoured this locality—the latter dressed in that original style which is patronized by every true and enlightened Briton, whenever he happens to have placed the channel between himself and the only public for whose opinion he cares a rush.

Here a party are starting for Syria, and every description of box is being heaped on angry camels, whose rough and filthy coats contrast as strikingly with the appearance of our old friends, their relations from the South, as the delicate white turbans and flowing robes of their masters do with the manly bearing and state of semi-nudity of the camel-drivers of Berber.

Here an ingenious youth, clad in a suit of grey, is thrashing an impertinent donkey-boy for making an overcharge of five piastres for going to the pyramids; whilst at the next hotel there is a spectacle of a totally different character, in a young girl, of extraordinary beauty, setting forth on a ride, whose cough and hectic colour declare that she has only been brought here to die.

The lovely sky, the splendid sunset, and the numerous picturesque scenes of Cairo, are certainly well worth a visit; but in her position “the old familiar faces” of home, I should have thought, would have been preferable for the light of the fading eye to rest upon. Possibly she does not know her danger, or her friends are sanguine as to the effect of a change of climate; but it is melancholy to think that a creature so brilliant should be brought to a place so foreign in all its features, to wander a few days among its scenes of rainbow-tinted life, and then be hurried into an obscure nook among its gloomy dead.

I paid many visits, but had nothing to boast of in my reception at the hands of Mustapha Bey, son-in-law of Latiffe Pasha. There was reason for this: Latiffe is in disgrace here, Monsieur V—— having brought from Khartoum some startling accounts of his proceedings, which had their effect upon a government already sufficiently prejudiced against him, and it is said that he has received an impressive communication from Abbas Pasha.

I found Ekekyan Bey a great deal more cordial. He seemed anxious to learn the opinions we had heard of Latiffe Pasha on our route, especially among the inhabitants of his villages, and spoke highly of the Viceroy, who, from his statements, is evidently a man of both feeling and judgment. For the recruiting, which has brought so much odium on his name, he assured us that he is less liable to censure than the European Consuls, who urged him to the measure as soon as the Porte manifested hostile feelings to his government, and put forward pretensions to control his movements, to which it is impossible that he can submit without a surrender of those powers that have been guaranteed to him by treaties to which the English Government was one of the contracting parties.

Under these circumstances, he has been advised to raise his army from three thousand five hundred, to which low point he had suffered it to fall, to thirty thousand the maximum of the regular force he is permitted to maintain.

The number of the inhabitants of Egypt, so I was assured by Her Majesty’s Consul, according to the census of 1848, was four million five hundred thousand. As this is nearly double Sir Gardiner Wilkinson’s estimate, I will state the data on which it is founded.

Every Egyptian, as I have already stated, has the greatest possible horror of having his name put down in any list, which in his idea is merely introductory to taxation or conscription; he, therefore, does all he can to avoid so suspicious a distinction. Nevertheless there is an entry of four millions and a half of names on the register. Many Fellahs contrived to escape being included in the census, by presenting the Sheiks with money.

Near the house of a friend of ours, in the country, there is a small village, which he always thought contained from two hundred and fifty to three hundred inhabitants. When the census was published, he was surprised to find them estimated at five hundred. The Government was not satisfied. In the middle of the night a regiment surrounded the village, and at sunrise counted the people as easily as if they had been a flock of sheep; they amounted to seven hundred and twenty.

That the country has increased in population at least one-third since the death of Mehemet Ali, no one who knows Egypt, is disposed to deny. In his reign, the drain upon it was very serious; for in the war in Syria there perished hundreds of thousands, and in the construction of the Mahmoudieh Canal thirty thousand died in a few months, as has been stated before.

If the country is less gloriously, it is more wisely, governed; the taxes have decreased thirty per cent.; and though there remains room for much improvement, and a necessity for many wise laws, I do not despair that in due time a race, unused to regular or very productive labour, may rise to become a great commercial and agricultural community.

While calling upon Ekekyan Bey, I saw two or three Armenian ladies, from an hareem, who were visiting there, and according to custom had left their veils below stairs. They were at first disposed to hide their pretty faces from the Frank, but afterwards became social and very merry, and we had some pleasant conversation together.

It seems curious to our notions that the Eastern ladies should never be allowed to call on, or see any of the male sex; but perhaps it may be thought more so, that they do not wish it. No doubt they find sufficient social gratification in visiting among themselves, on which occasions they frequently have réunions and supper parties, that are apparently quite as agreeable as those in which the two sexes associate in Europe.

Some of their evening parties are managed in a peculiar manner. An Egyptian gentleman gives a rout, at which two hundred of his male acquaintances attend; pipes, coffee, iced-sherbet and brandy-and-water are the only refreshments. An exhibition of dancing girls, tumblers, jugglers, or something of the kind, is sure to be provided. The ladies entertain, at the same time, a large party of their own sex, who witness the performances from a gallery, having contrivances closely resembling the nuns’ grating in Catholic churches. Here they can see perfectly, and hear also; but from what I have heard of such performances, I do not think they would be greatly edified.

A young man who is about to be engaged to some unknown beauty, can at these entertainments display all his mental and personal recommendations to the lady of his mother’s choice, who, silent and veiled, has an opportunity of judging of their extent.

No one can leave Cairo at night without a pass; which, however, Mr. Walne easily procures for his compatriots. I wanted to visit a friend at his boat, at Rhoda Island, and was sent the pass for the night, which was the word “Arish.” I met with no difficulty in reaching my destination with the assistance of this little word; and then found my way back with the same facility.

The Pasha’s masonmania continues. Since we saw him at the Kaisoon Palace, he has completed the Abbasia, the Suez Palace, and is now commencing a similar structure opposite Rhoda Island. He has now about nine palaces in ten square miles, and uses each rather more than one month every year, having a complete establishment in all.

He is said to have already expended £2,000,000, and the Porte wants to limit him to £400,000 a-year, as he is economical in every branch of the public service, except the palace and hareem items. The Abbasia is a magnificent range of building, about a mile out of Cairo, on the Suez side. It is painted green, red, yellow and white, with a very showy effect, though not exactly gaudy.

Abbas Pasha has encouraged all his grandees to follow his example; and already the Suez Road is becoming a street of Beys and Pashalic palaces. Then, half way to Suez, forty miles from any drinkable water, is the Desert Palace, every stone of which had to be carried there on camels from Cairo, and every drop of water for the mortar or cement. Had he the lamp of Aladdin he could scarcely have conquered greater difficulties.

Palaces, however, form but a small portion of his improvements. The Suez Road, now more than half completed, is a fine broad macadamized turnpike road, with trees on each side for the first few miles. This is undeniably a great work, as every Indian traveller who has been tossed about in the bathing machine vans will readily testify.

As regards the overland route, we were told that the Government had last year lost £4,300 by the transit. This seems incredible, when we recollect that each traveller pays £16: besides, the horses are used for the Pasha’s travelling carriages, and the steamers for the excursions of his friends. It should be remembered that Egyptian book-keeping is in its infancy—and I have heard, that as long as cash is forthcoming the employés will not trouble themselves about keeping correct accounts. The charge to the traveller may be high—but then it ought not to be forgotten, that water for four hundred horses has to be carried on the backs of camels from Cairo to every station.

We met several intelligent travellers at the table-d’hôte—among others a Russian Prince, an American gentleman, and an Englishman—all of whom had visited different parts of the world; and their conversation was equally interesting and instructive. The latter had come from England by Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Syria, had been up to Assouan and back, and was about to return to England by the Lower Pyrenees and Spain. He considers the voyage down the Volga as extremely interesting.

Colonel W——, an American, who sat at the bottom of the table, a fine old man, with a magnificent white beard, was singularly characteristic in his conversation.

“Here now,” said he exultingly, drawing a frame about the size of a farthing from his pocket, “here is a greater wonder than anything you ever saw—beats the Pyramids hollow. It is the Lord’s Prayer written in the smallest hand that ever anything was written in—and I wrote it: with the finest crow-quill that ever was made—and I made it: from a crow, the smallest that ever was killed—and I killed it: with the best gun that ever was shot with—and I shot with it: the pen made with the sharpest knife that ever was bought—and I bought it.”

Everything he had, or had anything to do with, was the best and the fastest that could be found throughout the world. His boat passed everything on the Nile—and he had the fastest horse that ever was created. We could not test the qualities of his steed—because it remained in the States: but the boat, though it had had four days start, was subsequently passed by a friend of ours at Keneh.

The Greek merchant, a little dirtier than we had found him six months ago, and a lady and gentleman from India, whose politeness and conversation appeared to have been dried up by the climate they had left, made up our party.

The old Pasha’s palace in the citadel is a pretty country house, surrounded by about a hundred yards of English garden. It is built on a rock overhanging the city, just where the last Mameluke leaped his horse—preferring the small chance of life in the abyss below, to the certainty of death from Mehemet Ali’s Janissaries above. It is well known that his horse was killed under him, and that he escaped unhurt—this must appear “a hair-breadth ’scape” indeed, to any one who takes the trouble to examine the awful leap.

The palace is gorgeously fitted up, and is one of the prettiest places of the kind I have ever seen. The rooms are well shaped and admirably furnished—though it appears as if a housemaid formed no part of the establishment.

The large divan is fitted up completely with magnificent Cachmere shawling; though I quite as much admired the private sitting-room in red and gold damask silk. The Turkey carpets are the largest I have met with. The floors were as usual of polished alabaster, the bath most elegantly furnished, and the sculpture from Rome in the best possible taste. Ship pictures in panelling are in all the apartments—and in one there was a portrait of the Sultan, carefully covered with silk hangings, which might be thought good enough for the sign-post of a village alehouse.

Abbas has never been in this palace, though it exceeds in splendour any of his own which he is now furnishing. We had frequent opportunities of observing his acquisitions in this way, for we met loads of the costliest gilt cornices, beautiful statues, rich glass lamps, and other choice drawing-room decorations piled in bullock-carts, without springs, merely covered with silver-paper; and from their frequent collisions their route might be traced by the fragments of gilding they left in every street through which they passed.

Barrage — Cotton-boats on the Nile — The bazaars at Atfeh — Interior of a coffee shop — Villages on the banks of the Mahmoudieh Canal — Nile locomotion — Illuminations — An Eastern scene — A striking contrast.

Having settled everything to the satisfaction of all parties most concerned, and bade adieus to all friends, we embarked on board the ‘Eagle’ for Alexandria early on the 28th of February. The next morning we arrived at one of Mehemet Ali’s great works, which unlike most of them has been continued by his successors; and like all of them is vehemently disliked by the people.

This is the Barrage. It was commenced by a French engineer, and its object is to dam up the Nile by means of half a mile of arches, with a sluice in each; this will make the river, it is thought, rise considerably above this place, and enable the Government to keep all the canals and water-wheels full when the Nile is low. But there are persons who assert that the scheme cannot succeed; that experiments made with such large rivers have never answered, and that in the mean time the navigation is impeded and rendered dangerous.

There seems some foundation for the last objection, for the eight middle arches not having been completed, a kind of cataract has been formed, which boats going down are obliged to be cautious how they shoot, and others coming up must be towed through with a great deal of difficulty, unless the wind be directly north, and very powerful.

It is undoubtedly a handsome piece of work, consisting of about forty red-brick arches, corniced with stones, with large piers on both sides for some distance. It is supposed to be of sufficient strength to resist the strongest and most sudden inundations. We observed three or four steam-engines at work, planting and pumping.

Favoured by a strong breeze from the south we made considerable progress. We had a simoom loaded with dust, and the air was so oppressively hot as at times to create a difficulty of breathing. Village succeeded village, and the river was alive with cotton-boats, laden almost up to the masts with well-packed “Egyptians,” whilst crowds of men, women, and children lay here and there among the bales, their gay blue robes and red tarboushes creating an effect that artists would gladly have seized upon.

At Atfeh I landed and visited another bazaar. They are always amusing, and always in some degree different. Here you meet with a shop full of goods from Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Staffordshire, Lyons, and Nantz. The owner sits in the midst of them; a man generally about fifty, with a long white beard, smoking a long pipe with an amber mouth-piece. Very few persons enter, but when they do he gains much money, as he sells at about fifty per cent. profit. Besides he possesses the only scales in the village, and is considered an authority on matters of exchange, the value of money, &c., and as a natural consequence is often money-changer and banker. When he goes away, a donkey richly housed is brought to him, his eldest son lifts him on the saddle, his second shuts up the shop and takes charge of the money; and then the old fellow rides gravely home.

The next shop is a baker’s—his floor and a projecting stall in the street are covered with small round loaves, like an English tea-cake in shape and appearance; but if you buy one, which you can do for five paras, and taste it, you will find that it is like with a difference, as the flavour is very bitter, and it is made without salt. A crowd stands round bargaining and disputing with the owner, who smokes a glass-mouth-pieced chibouque and looks as if he did not care whether customers came or not. The fact is, he knows that he is the only baker in the place, and that Arabs must eat.

The next shop is probably kept by an old woman, whose blue veil is hung with nine piastre pieces, and from whose ears are suspended plenty of the same ornaments. She sells rice, cotton, corn, durra, wheat, and rye; her stock is small, in fact, it is all contained in little canvass bags, not unlike the sample-bags used in the Corn Exchange in London.

Afterwards, you arrive at a shop where a kind of date preserve is sold in large slices, which smells a great deal better than it tastes. A still more seductive smell attracts you to the next shop, which is smoking fiercely. On the counter, gridirons are ranged over charcoal fires, upon which a quantity of little rolls of beef and mutton are grilling; and several Arabs, having passed by the baker’s, are here regaling themselves with bread and kabobs.

But who approaches with the cry of “Moira,” which causes every one to rush eagerly towards him? It is a man carrying a large tin vessel on his shoulders, with a spout under his arm, and a little tin pot in his hand. He is the waterman. He drives a singular kind of trade. Every one rushes to have a drink, but his thirst gratified, appears oblivious of the obligation of payment. At first, I thought he was employed by Government—though it is rarely so thoughtful of the wants of the populace—but on closer examination, I saw that a rich man invariably paid, and then the waterman’s poorest customers are justified in demanding a drink for nothing. I now could understand the anxiety which I had observed in the faces of the thirsty throng whenever the man politely invited me to drink.

A little further on, we came to the coffee-shop, where every one, having had his breakfast, lingers till prayer-time. This man seems rich—he calls for a narghileh and coffee; that man must be poor—he modestly asks for a light, and then fills his own pipe from his own bag. One only calls for coffee, another only for a pipe, while a third calls for nothing, and is thankful if the end of a pipe is offered him by a charitable stranger. All are welcome, whether they order much, little, or nothing; from which fact some English shopkeepers might take a hint.

We voyaged quietly down the Mahmoudieh Canal, now and then enlivened by a collision with heavily-laden corn-boats coming down, or coal-boats going up, and occassionally tossed about by some steamer running between Alexandria and Cairo. There are numerous villages on the banks of the canal, but they are the most wretched I have beheld in Egypt, and can always be scented at a distance, in consequence of their using a fuel of dung, straw and mud, in little round cakes, which they plaster on the walls, that they may dry in the sun—producing a very curious and a very disagreeable effect.

On approaching Alexandria, the canal assumed much the appearance of a river, after we had passed where two walls separate it from Lake Mariotis on one side, and the sea on the other. It was thronged with boats. There was a constant succession of country houses, where gay English nursery-maids, with fine healthy English children, were seen playing in the gardens in front of which lay richly ornamented boats with Union Jacks, or Crescent and Star flags flying aloft.

Every species of Nile locomotion appeared to have been reserved for us: we had sailed with our large flowing sails, we had rowed with our shouting Arabs, and we had been towed along in that drowsy state which Nile tracking alone can produce in perfection. But Alexandria is at last in sight, and its innumerable towers and solitary Pompey’s Pillar, assure us that all our travelling miseries are at an end.

On landing at the end of the canal, the first spectacle that satisfied us that we were within the influence of European civilization was, I am somewhat ashamed to say, two English sailors perfectly drunk. This reminded me of the old story of the shipwrecked mariner, who, on crawling up a rocky bank from the raging waves, hailed with inexpressible delight that emblem of Christian enlightenment—a gallows.

I went from our hotel in the evening, accompanied by numerous Americans, to see the grand illuminations, got up to commemorate the abolition of the poll-tax by the Pasha. The Arab and Turkish bazaars were very well lighted: in the latter I counted fifty-seven glass chandeliers, averaging twenty-seven lights each.

The shops were handsomely decorated; costly mats and rich Turkey carpets hung around as arras, covering both the goods and the floor, while silk and gold lace cushions surrounded a little table bearing a fine silver narghileh. There were pipes, coffee, and negus in each shop, with servants in waiting; and prominent above all, the master receiving his friends.

I made acquaintance with one of these merchants, and while smoking a pysche in the seat of honour, watched the passers-by. Independently of the usual noble-looking Arabs, well-dressed merchants, Turkish officers, and veiled beauties, there were numbers of Maltese masqueraders—pantaloons, clowns, ballet girls, drunken sailors—acted as well as real. In one khan a body of zealous Mussulmen were performing the dervish dances; in the next, a group of pleasure-loving Arabs were encoring a dance by the Almi dancing girls. A few yards further on, a barrel organ was giving forth Jeannette and Jeannot, and on the opposite side a pretty girl, with a melodious voice, was reciting the touching loves of Bour ad Esseen and the daughter of the Great Wezeer, from the Arabian Nights.

Solos, male and female, varied the scene here and there; and, as a contrast, an old merchant might be observed reading the Koran to a select circle of smoking friends.

As I passed along, the streets were brilliantly illuminated; but suddenly I found myself on the shore of the deep blue sea, and nothing was heard but the waves breaking on the beach, and dashing over the bar, reminding me of the exclamation of Napoleon: “Alexandrie doit être la capitale du monde.” All was dark, save where the moonbeam falling on the rough water, cast a trembling light on the dancing boats half drawn up on the shore. Not a human being was visible, except in one direction, where a young Arab girl was silently weeping over a child that had just expired.

The contrast was exceedingly striking: from the brilliance of art to the calm beauty of nature, and from the busy hum of life to the solemn sorrow of death.

Sale by auction — Dinner and ball — Ride from Alexandria — Rain-water lakes — Effects of distance — Ancient house — A wonderful Englishwoman — A midnight serenade — A parting scene — Farewell to Egypt.

While visiting the Minister of Commerce, there took place a sale by auction of wheat and other grains. About one hundred gentlemen, chiefly Greeks, made their appearance and sat round on the divan; a little man of rather curious appearance then entered and, in Italian, announced a lot of one thousand ardebs of wheat, proposing forty piastres as a just price. This he shouted out for about ten minutes, when the gentleman who sat next me cried “Quaranta un quarto,” and after a good deal of shouting the lot was finally knocked down to him, no one making any bid either for that lot or any other.

These sales are to dispose of the produce of the land belonging to Government, and that which comes into its possession in the way of taxes. The news from England happened to be unsatisfactory, or the bidding would have been more exciting.

In the evening we joined an English dinner-party; and after our six months’ experience of boats, deserts and mud houses, as may be readily imagined, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves over an excellent English dinner, served in a capital English dining-room, followed by capital tea, and then “Kathleen Mavourneen,” sung by English ladies in one of the most elegant drawing-rooms I had ever entered.

We heard that there was also to be a ball—not exactly the entertainment so familiar to us in England. In Alexandria the company commence dancing at nine o’clock in the evening, the gentleman of the house locking every one in at twelve. We heard that five hundred persons had been present, among whom were Said Pasha and Achmet Bey, the two next heirs to the vice-regal throne. The supper was furnished by the hotel,—a door having been broken through the wall of the next house, to assist in effecting the necessary arrangements.

I left Alexandria the next morning with my dragoman. The road we followed after crossing the town and adjacent sand-hills led along the shore of Lake Mariotis, in the mud of which we trotted for three or four hours, when we came upon the shore of the sea, which is only separated from the lake by a sea-wall of great size and strength, defended about every two miles by a martello tower and ten guns, that did not look more martial than the soldier attached to each looked able to serve the said guns, had there been a sufficiency of ammunition, of which I did not see any trace.

About half way there is a ferry across the sea, which in that place makes an inland lake. Here we rested in a stable. The flies were ten times more numerous than I had ever seen them in any part of the world, as they covered every mouthful of fowl in its transit from my plate to my mouth.

After an animated conflict between us and our horses, which evinced a most decided objection to being lifted into the ferry-boat, we put off, and in a few minutes were landed on the opposite bank, and continued our ride along the shore of the sea. Our horse, being of Arab blood, seemed to improve every minute; indeed mine put forth decided pretensions to excellence, which was a good deal at variance with my first impressions of him, founded on the facility with which he stumbled and fell during the first few miles of our acquaintance.

We rode on about twelve miles, the south wind blowing like the draft of a furnace, till we were within eight miles of Rosetta. We went into the desert guided by black columns every half mile, through deep mud. The rain has formed a kind of lake in the desert, through which we had to walk our horses for the last six miles, the water covering at least twelve square miles of sand.

Rosetta has a picturesque appearance, viewed from a distance, with its cupola and innumerable minarets peering from among the sand-hills, covered with palms; but you soon find that—