The 17th of September I embarked on board the steamer La Seyne, destined for Alexandria in Egypt. The warm, Italian noonday sun poured down its dazzling rays; we were surrounded on all sides by ships and steamers carrying the flags of all nations; hundreds of fishing crafts were sailing out of the harbor, and in the distance the mighty volcano Vesuvius towered in imposing majesty above the vine-clad hills. There was a life and a traffic which it is difficult to describe. While La Seyne was lying at anchor for several hours out in the bay, Italian singers in their boats swarmed around the ship and entertained the passengers with music. Other boats contained three or four men each, who begged the passengers to throw coins into the water. As soon as a coin was thrown, down dived one of the men to the bottom, and invariably returned with the coin in his mouth although the water was very deep, perhaps from seventy-five to one hundred feet. The voyage across the Mediterranean was very pleasant, especially in the vicinity of the island of Sicily. The deep blue sky, the orange groves and vineyards on the island, and the neat, white cottages,—all gave an impression of indescribable tranquility and happiness.
On this voyage, which lasted three days, I became acquainted with several interesting persons, among others with a Professor Santamaria, professor in an university in Egypt, and his family, and with a Jesuit priest, Miechen by name. By birth a French nobleman of a very old and rich family, he had been educated for a military life, and had served in the army with distinction, and in the late Franco-German war he had been advanced to the rank of major, although he was only thirty years of age. But suddenly he had been seized with religious enthusiasm, and had given up his illustrious family name, renounced his fortune, his honors, and the brilliant military career which lay open to him, in order to become a priest. After two years of theological studies he was ordained a priest, and admitted into the Jesuit order.
He had now been ordered to supply himself with a full set of certain scientific instruments, and with them to repair to Cairo, Egypt, where he would receive further orders. I talked a great deal with this man. He spoke English fluently, and was equally familiar with nearly all the other European languages. He was no fanatic or religious crank, but a polished, cultured gentleman, who had seen and learned to know the world, reaped its honors and tasted its allurements, and he was evidently as liberal and tolerant as myself. And this man went to a field of action of which he had no knowledge whatsoever. Probably an honorable position as professor in a university was awaiting him, or perhaps he would have to go to some isolated mountain to observe a phenomenon of nature in the interest of science, or penetrate a malarious wilderness as missionary among savages, where he would be debarred from all intercourse with civilized people, and deprived of all the comforts and conveniences to which he had been used during his previous life. Still he went willingly and joyfully to his work, completely indifferent as to his fate, thoroughly convinced that he was on the path of duty—to accomplish what God intended he should do. I was on my way to a great country and a court as the representative of one of the greatest nations on earth, but when I walked the deck arm in arm with this humble priest, I felt my inferiority compared with him, and I actually considered his position enviable. On the same voyage I became acquainted with a Danish traveler,—A. d’Irgens-Bergh,—who afterward met me in India, where we visited many places of interest together, and established a friendship which afforded both of us much pleasure.
On the morning of September 21st the coast of Egypt appeared in sight. There is Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great, and formerly renowned for its commerce, and as the centre of learning and culture of the then known world. Even now this city is grand and beautiful, although its beauty and style are different from anything else that I have seen. We often form conceptions of things which we have not seen, but which are interesting to us, and when we afterward find that those conceptions are wrong we feel disappointed. Thus I had always thought of Egypt as a country of a dark tone of color, probably on account of the fertility of the soil of the valley of the Nile, since we Northerners find that fertile soil is dark and poor soil of a lighter color. Therefore I could hardly believe my own eyes when everything I saw on the shore looked white. Not only the houses, palaces, and huts, but even the roads and the fields, all had a white color.
As we neared the harbor, and even before the pilot came on board, we noticed that all the flags were at half-mast. As soon as I landed and had shown my passport to the customs officer an elegant equipage was placed at my disposal under the charge of a dragoman, and we drove to the office of the American consulate, where also the flag was at half-mast. The sad occasion for this soon became apparent. President Garfield had died during my voyage across the Mediterranean, and the whole civilized world was in mourning.
[ CHAPTER XV.]
Alexandria and its Monuments—The Egyptian “Fellahs”—The Mohammedans and Their Religion—The Voyage Through the Suez Canal—The Red Sea—The Indian Ocean—The Arrival at Calcutta.
I was now in Africa and Egypt, among the remnants of ancient glory of which I had read so much, and which I so often had longed to see, in the wonder-land of Egypt, with which every Christian child is made acquainted through the first lessons in Bible history, the country to which Joseph was carried as a slave, and whose actual ruler he finally became by dint of his wisdom and virtue. I was in the Nile valley where Pharaoh built his magazines and stored up grain for the seven years of famine, and whence Moses conducted the children of Israel by means of “a pillar of a cloud and a pillar of fire.” In the land of the pyramids everything seemed strange and wonderful, and different from anything I had seen before. The streets crowded with people, the bazaars, the oriental costumes, the Babylonian confusion of all the tongues of the earth,—all this combined made on me an overwhelming impression. Cleopatra’s needle; Pompey’s pillar; the caravans of camels on their way into the desert; the old graves and catacombs; the palm groves, the oxen turning the old-fashioned water-wheels which carry the water from the Nile for irrigating the fields, just as in the days of Moses,—all this was reproduced in actual, living pictures before my wondering eyes. Side by side with these remains of the past we meet with the great European improvements of our days,—the large ships in the harbor, the churches, the schools, the universities, the modern markets for trade and commerce, the splendid hotels and exchanges.
ALEXANDRIA.