My Winter on the Nile / Eighteenth Edition

by Charles Dudley Warner

WE left Suez at eight in the morning by rail, and reached Ismailia in four hours, the fare—to do justice to the conductor already named—being fourteen francs. A part of the way the Bitter Lakes are visible, and we can see where the canal channel is staked out through them. Next we encountered the Fresh-Water Canal, and came in view of Lake Timsah, through which the Suez canal also flows. This was no doubt once a fresh-water lake, fed by water taken from the Nile at Bubastis.

Ismailia is a surprise, no matter how much you have heard of it. True, it has something the appearance of a rectangular streeted town dropped, ready-made, at a railway station on a western prairie; but Ismailia was dropped by people of good taste. In 1860 there was nothing here but desert sand, not a drop of water, not a spear of vegetation. To-day you walk into a pretty village, of three or four thousand inhabitants, smiling with verdure. Trees grow along the walks; little gardens bloom by every cottage. Fronting the quay Mohammed Ali, which extends along the broad Fresh-Water Canal, are the best residences, and many of them have better gardens than you can find elsewhere, with few exceptions, in Egypt.

The first house we were shown was that which had most interest for us—the Swiss-like châlet of M. de Lesseps; a summerish, cheerful box, furnished simply, but adorned with many Oriental curiosities. The garden which surrounds it is rich in native and exotic plants, flowers and fruits. On this quay are two or three barn-like, unfurnished palaces built hastily and cheaply by the Khedive for the entertainment of guests. The finest garden, however, and as interesting as any we saw in the East, is that belonging to M. Pierre, who has charge of the waterworks. In this garden can be found almost all varieties of European and Egyptian flowers; strawberries were just ripening. We made inquiry here, as we had done throughout Egypt, for the lotus, the favorite flower of the old Egyptians, the sacred symbol, the mythic plant, the feeding upon which lulls the conscience, destroys ambition, dulls the memory of all unpleasant things, enervates the will, and soothes one in a sensuous enjoyment of the day to which there is no tomorrow. It seems to have disappeared from Egypt with the papyrus.

The lotus of the poets I fear never existed, not even in Egypt. The lotus represented so frequently in the sculptures, is a water-plant, the Nymphaea lutea, and is I suppose the plant that was once common. The poor used its bulb for food in times of scarcity. The Indian lotus, or Nelumbium, is not seen in the sculptures, though Latin writers say it existed in Egypt. It may have been this that had the lethean properties; although the modern eaters and smokers of Indian hemp appear to be the legitimate descendants of the lotus-eaters of the poets. However, the lotus whose stalks and buds gave character to a distinct architectural style, we enquired for in vain on the Nile. If it still grows there it would scarcely be visible above water in the winter. But M. Pierre has what he supposes to be the ancient lotus-plant; and his wife gave us seeds of it in the seed-vessel—a large flat-topped funnel-shaped receptacle, exactly the shape of the sprinkler of a watering-pot. Perhaps this is the plant that Herodotus calls a lily like a rose, the fruit of which is contained in a separate pod, that springs up from the root in form very like a wasp's nest; in this are many berries fit to be eaten.

The garden adjoins the water-works, in which two powerful pumping-engines raise the sweet water into a stand-pipe, and send it forward in iron pipes fifty miles along the Suez Canal to Port Said, at which port there is a reservoir that will hold three days' supply. This stream of fresh water is the sole dependence of Port Said and all the intervening country.

We rode out over the desert on an excellent road, lined with sickly acacias growing in the watered ditches, to station No 6 on the canal. The way lies along Lake Timsah. Upon a considerable elevation, called the Heights of El Guisr, is built a château for the Khedive; and from this you get an extensive view of the desert, of Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes. Below us was the deep cutting of the Canal. El Guisr is the highest point in the Isthmus, an elevated plateau six miles across and some sixty-five feet above the level of the sea. The famous gardens that flourished here during the progress of the excavation have entirely disappeared with the cessation of the water from Ismailia. While we were there an East India bound steamboat moved slowly up the canal, creating, of course, waves along the banks, but washing them very little, for the speed is limited to five miles an hour.

Although the back streets of Ismailia are crude and unpicturesque, the whole effect of the town is pleasing; and it enjoys a climate that must commend it to invalids. It is dry, free from dust, and even in summer not too warm, for there is a breeze from the lakes by day, and the nights are always cooled by the desert air. Sea-bathing can be enjoyed there the year round. It ought to be a wholesome spot, for there is nothing in sight around it but sand and salt-water. The invalid who should go there would probably die shortly of ennui, but he would escape the death expected from his disease. But Ismailia is well worth seeing. The miracle wrought here by a slender stream of water from the distant Nile, is worthy the consideration of those who have the solution of the problem of making fertile our western sand-deserts.

We ate at Suez and Ismailia what we had not tasted for several months—excellent fish. The fish of the Nile are nearly as good as a New-England sucker, grown in a muddy mill-pond. I saw fishermen angling in the salt canal at Ismailia, and the fish are good the whole length of it; they are of excellent quality even in the Bitter Lakes, which are much salter than the Mediterranean—in fact the bottom of these lakes is encrusted with salt.

We took passage towards evening on the daily Egyptian pocket-boat for Port Said—a puffing little cigar-box of a vessel, hardly fifty feet long. The only accommodation for passengers was in the forward cabin, which is about the size of an omnibus, and into it were crammed twenty passengers, Greeks, Jews, Koorlanders, English clergymen, and American travelers, and the surly Egyptian mail-agent, who occupied a great deal of room, and insisted on having the windows closed. Some of us tried perching on the scrap of a deck, hanging our legs over the side; but it was bitterly cold and a strong wind drove us below. In the cabin the air was utterly vile; and when we succeeded in opening the hatchway for a moment, the draught chilled us to the bones.

I do not mean to complain of all this; but I want it to appear that sailing on the Suez Canal, especially at night, is not a pleasure-excursion. It might be more endurable by day; but I do not know. In the hours we had of daylight, I became excessively weary of looking at the steep sand-slopes between which we sailed, and of hoping that every turn would bring us to a spot where we could see over the bank.