In one of the entrenchments my friend found a leaf torn from the New Testament, while only a yard or two away was a leaf from the Koran, and hard by he picked up a letter written in Arabic, addressed to a soldier on the field, requesting him to authorise the writer to collect his rents in Cairo.
On reaching the station of Tel-el-Kebir we found a number of tourists who had come up from Cairo to gather curiosities from the battle-field, but since my friend’s visit in the autumn everything had been cleared off, and the new comers were gathering pebbles (!) as mementoes of the famous engagement.
The little grave-yard in which the British troops are buried is situated near to the station, and appeared to be kept in excellent order.
In Cairo, as in Suez, the absence of the feverish excitement, latent insolence, and spirit of unrest, so apparent during our last visit, was very noticeable. There, too, backsheesh was rarely demanded, and most of the people seemed to have something to do.
It was curious to see the English soldiers lounging about the town in all directions. They seemed to be quite at home. One of them informed me he had gone through the Transvaal campaign, but very much preferred the land of Goshen!
While we were in Cairo we often expressed our wonder that the city was ever free from cholera or some other deadly epidemic. The sanitary condition of the streets and public places was shocking in the extreme.
Fronting the Opera House and the great hotels and Government offices are the extensive Ezbekiyeh public gardens, enclosed with iron railings. Around the outside is a very handsome paved footpath, which, although in the very heart of the city, is in many places utterly impassable because of the unspeakable horrors accumulated upon it. If the English occupation of Egypt does nothing more than cause the towns of that country to be properly cleansed, it will be the means of saving as many lives every few years as were lost in the late campaign.
There are two classes of people who undoubtedly view the British occupation of Egypt with great and well-founded dislike—the military party and the pachas. These classes have always played into each other’s hands, and always at the expense of the down-trodden and patient fellaheen—the backbone and mainstay of the country. For the latter class the presence of the British army is an almost unmixed blessing.
From time immemorial the desirability of connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas by a canal has been fully recognised; but the work does not appear to have been attempted before the reign of Pharaoh Necho, who undertook to construct a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea. In carrying out this work 120,000 Egyptians perished, and before it was completed the King abandoned it, having been informed by the Oracle that the foreigners alone would profit by the work. Eventually the canal was completed under the rule of Darius the Persian, and of the Ptolemies.
The canal was carried through the lakes Balah and Menzaleh, another branch being constructed to the Bitter Lakes, into which the fresh water canal—watering the land of Goshen—emptied itself; but owing to the constant state of war it fell into decay, and was abandoned.