Truly history confers a deep interest on this spot, once the chief seat of Egyptian learning, the theatre of many wars and bloody tragedies, the scene of the martyrdom of St. Mark, the birth-place and residence of many of the most eminent fathers of the church, and the hot-bed of schisms and heresies. But it is only in retrospect we find that on which our minds can rest, and which can give rise to reflections which may be pursued to advantage.
LETTER III.
Cairo, July, 1842.
My dear Friend,
To-day we have arrived with thankful hearts at Cairo, our voyages by sea and by river completed for a time.
On leaving Alexandria, we engaged an iron track-boat, used chiefly for the conveyance of travellers on their way to India from Alexandria, by the canal called the Mahmoodeeyeh, to the Nile. The boat was very large, containing two large cabins, the foremost of which was furnished with benches and tables, and apparently clean; and being drawn by four horses, passed so rapidly along, that we enjoyed, from the current of air, a feeling of freshness, which led us at nightfall into a grievous mistake; for we laid down, and expected rest without arranging our musquito-curtains. Those who had fitted up the boat had covered the wide benches with carpet. Imagine such a couch in such a latitude! we were positively covered by fleas, and swarmed by black beetles, and the latter of such a growth as are never seen in England. Too late we repented of our error, and I should strongly recommend any person travelling in Egypt to sleep under musquito-curtains winter and summer. There is certainly a consciousness of heat and want of air, for perhaps a quarter of an hour after the curtain is closely tucked in, but what is that compared to the constant attacks of vermin of an extraordinary variety, to which the traveller in the East is subject? Our first night in the track-boat, without musquito-curtains, will not be easily forgotten.[[5]]
[5]. Since I wrote the above, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company have, I believe, undertaken the conveyance of travellers from Alexandria to Suez. Be this as it may, it is due to the Company to say, that our voyage from England to Egypt was rendered as pleasant as a splendid vessel, excellent attendance, and every desirable accommodation could make it; and the manner in which travellers are brought through Egypt, on their way to India, is now, I am told, as comfortable as any reasonable person could desire.
On the following morning we arrived at the point where the canal enters the Nile, and found that the boat which we expected would be ready for our voyage to Cairo, had conveyed a party towards the scene of a festival, and might not return for some days. Here our situation was one of severe suffering. We were stationed between two high ridges, composed of mud thrown up in forming the bed of the canal, very dry of course, and exceedingly dusty, and covered with mud huts. The intense heat, the clouds of dust, and the smell of this place, where we were hemmed in by boats and barges for two days and nights, without being able to improve our situation (because it was necessary in order to be ready for the Nile-boat to continue near the entrance of the canal), was infinitely worse than sea-sickness, or any thing else in the way of inconvenience we had hitherto experienced. Indeed the sea-sickness was welcome to me, for it confined me to my bed, and spared me the pain of seeing my own dear country, which holds so many and so much we love, fade from my sight. However long or however short may be the time proposed by any person for the purpose of visiting other countries, however pleasurable their expectations, however full of hope their prospects, there are regrets—there is a pang—on quitting England, which must be felt by the wayfarer, but can never be described, and is never fully anticipated. But I must not wander from my proper subject. Where the canal runs along the narrow neck of land between the salt marsh of Mareotis and that of Aboo-Keer, the sides are formed by solid masses of stone, to prevent, in some degree the filtration of salt water into the Mahmoodeeyeh, as it supplies the cisterns of Alexandria. In scarcely any part does this canal occupy the bed of the ancient canal of Alexandria, which it crosses in several places. More than three hundred thousand men were employed to dig it; and about twelve thousand of these are said to have died in the course of ten months; many of them in consequence of ill-treatment, excessive labour, and the want of wholesome nourishment and good water. Their only implements in this work were the hoes which are commonly used in Egyptian agriculture; and where the soil was moist they scraped it up with their hands, and then removed it in baskets. The whole length of the canal is nearly fifty British miles, and its breadth about eighty or ninety feet. It was commenced and completed in the year 1819. The name of Mahmoodeeyeh was given to it in honour of Mahmoud, the reigning sultán.
In two days our promised boat arrived, and we joyfully left the Mahmoodeeyeh, and its gloomy prospect, where the peasants appeared to be suffering from abject poverty, and where the mud huts, rising one above another, many of them being built in a circular form, bore the appearance by moonlight of the ruined towers of castles, with here and there a gleam of red light issuing from the apertures.