"It is said to be generally believed in official quarters that the whole of the troops forming the army of occupation in Egypt will have been withdrawn by the end of the financial year (Daily Papers).
"'Many will consider the following statement sensational and exaggerated, while it is distinctly, confessedly realistic. There is no second opinion upon the subject amongst foreigners in Egypt, whatever Egyptians may say, not think. When the last English soldier leaves Alexandria, the last European had better embark with him. Shortly after the final eclipse of our Redcoats and our Bluejackets the Nile Valley will witness a human hurricane which its lively annals have not yet chronicled. As we are here so here we must perforce rest. It is our second conquest of the glorious land which—all know—was offered in gift to England some years before its final fall. We honestly declined the "Protectorate," or whatever it may be called. Now, the tyranny of circumstance forces—nay! has forced—it upon us.'
"These lines were written in early 1883, and time has brought with it no change. Our occupation of Egypt is compulsory as ever. We only have made matters worse by those 'extra-parliamentary utterances,' those pledges for withdrawal which have kept the Nile Valley in a state of chronic excitement. As for our newly raised 'Army' and Police force, these men would be the first to turn upon Europeans and to rend them.
"A few words concerning the voyage.
"Nothing can be pleasanter, if aught of the kind can please, than a steamer-trip from Trieste to Alexandria. This, too, despite the visages patibulaires of a First Class which should travel Second Class, of a Second which ever intrudes into the domains and dominions of a First Class, and despite the terrible infantry which makes an irritable Italian exclaim aloud, 'Sancte Herode ora pro nobis!' The weather is sometimes perfect even in gloomy November, boisterous December, and roaring January. The scene-shifting of the five days, which may be six, is ever various and ever picturesque. The first, which begins at noon, is the Trieste-Dalmatian, showing the many-featured and historic shores of Trieste, vice-queen of the Adriatic and the Istrian coasts, which want only a secret something to make them thoroughly classical and Italian. It ends as morning rises splendid over the snowy crest and the bold seafront of the Dinarian Alps; and forenoon and afternoon are spent in gazing at the grey archipelago sharply thrown out from the Mediterranean blue; the rock-stuck Pomo; 'piscous' Sant' Andrea; romantic Lissa, whose Egypto-Greek art-remains make the fortune of the Spalato Museum; Cazza, the 'spoon' with bulging handle and bowl; broken Lagosta; the Sabbion cello Promontory, tossed and towering in azure air; and Pelagosa, the last remnant of a volcanic rim where lightning is deadly and where wind-storms are unknown.
"No. 2, the Albanian-Corfu day, opens with a near prospect of the grand and grandly named Akrokeraunian (Cimariot) Rocks. Whatever gales, Tramontana or Scirocco, may roar outside, the basin of Korkyra, forty-eight hours from Trieste and seventy-two from Alexandria, is a haven of rest tranquil as a dry dock. We have time to land and to note that transfer from England to Greece has by no means ruined the city, and to hear Mr. Gladstone roundly abused for what was done by Lord Palmerston.
"At Corfu we shipped for Egypt 245 Arnauts, the sweepings of the Albanian hills. These men, who were popularly described as 'Bathmen (Hammámjís) in Stambul and Pharaohs in Cairo,' are now returning to Nile-land, whence they were expelled by Said Pasha. We know them a mile off by their broad brows and long straight uncombed locks; their cats' moustachios and peaky chins; their felt caps and 'shaggy capotes;' their foul fustanella-skirts, girt with leather-belts for the nonce void of weapons; their archaic leggings (knemides) and their barbarous hide-sandals, the Slav upanke. These savages would doubtless train to good light infantry; but they are engaged as police. Set a thief to catch a thief may be true, but when the latter is caught how does the former occupy himself?
"Six hours beyond Corfu we draw inshore, but not too near on account of a lately found shoal, the deposit of a supposed submarine volcano. Hard by us to port a tall white precipice, Leucatos, in inverted bow-window-shape, breaks the seaward front of Leukadia Island, alias Sta. Maura; and a long red streak shows 'Sappho's Leap.' Like Abel, whose slaughter-place is near Damascus, the poetess must have contained more 'curious juice' than a school of whales. A narrow strait separates Leukadia from Theaki (Ithaca), and we see distinctly the cause why Ulysses could not rest from travel. A double lump of grey-red limestone patched with dwarf evergreens, a few olives, and fewer cypresses; here and there a slip of field-slope no larger than a courtyard; sundry windmills on the hill-tops and rude tenements on the lower levels; a road gashed on the scaur-side leading to a 'port,' that consists of a covelet and one house and the general look of a place fit only for convicts, could have offered few charms to the crafty one who had seen the manners of many men and their cities. Cefalonia, the opposite feature, shows more fertility, because we see her landward face, and her tall cones Georgio and Elato, which make sunset about three p.m., condense the vapours and water her with 'Scotch mist.'
"Then comes the Zante-Morea day, the fair island fronted by the Skopo block with its white-walled monastery. Its huge old citadel overhanging the town, which stretches herself lazily upon the sunny slope, is still desert; not so the inner valley, 'O Kampos,' bounded by a hill-range which Zantiotes compare with the Jura line. On the fronting mainland south of grey Cape Glarenza (Clarence?) rises the once doughty pile Kastro Tornesi. Leaving the Zante-Channel we run near enough to distinguish the features of Pylus Bay, now Navarino ('of the Avars'), with its natural breakwater, Sphacteria, hodie Sphagia, Island, where the Spartans were made captives. Then Methone (Modon) Port and Town, sister of Pylus,[1] whence the Mekhitaris Fathers spread through Upper Italy and Lower Austria; Cervera Islet, with its lighthouse; and Matapan, where Southern Europe ends. A very bad name has this terminal point, Tænorum, the Matapan (forehead) amongst Moderns as amongst Ancients, despite the good auspices of Poseidon, Herakles, and Orion. A western in-draught through the Sicilian and Gibraltar Straits or the return current of the same blows up high side-seas. The Corinth cut is intended for a cure, but will it ever be cut? Dim in haze beyond Matapan we see the long outlines of Malta or St. Angelo Promontory, distinguished only by a hermitage which is never vacant.
"Despite frequent disillusions we open our eyes at the sight of Cerigo and Cerigotto. What dull, commonplace, miserable lumps of limestone to represent poetic Cythera! Did Greek fancy go mad when it chose such a home for lovely Cytheræa? During the night we run by Candia, Crete, a huge front of calcareous wall, with green-flecked sides and copings snow-powdered and mist-feathered. The last land we shall see (thirty-six hours from Corfu) is the Gavdo or Gozzo Islet, distinguished only by its French lighthouse. And now patience after Gavdo day (No. 4); we shall have nothing in view but air and water, and look forward to Alexandria on the morrow.