The spot was not an attractive one, nothing but a strip of sand without vegetation, and without a drop of fresh water. As the works of the canal progressed, the town grew and presented a scene of great activity. It was said to be at one time the largest workshop in the world. It has lost this character since the canal was completed, but is still a city of eight or ten thousand inhabitants, regularly laid out in streets and squares, and boasting a pretty and luxuriant garden.
There is considerable activity in the streets, and the numerous shops, stores, churches, hotels, mosques, and the like give it a permanent and not unpleasing appearance. The business is all more or less connected with the canal, and will doubtless increase as the business of the great water-way increases.
It does not take long to make a tourist’s survey of a modern town in the land of antiquities, where nothing is considered old that does not date further back than the Christian era. Where you count centuries by the score, you will not pay much attention to a decade, and grow enthusiastic over works where the mortar has scarcely settled, and paint, if there be any, is still wet.
Our first effort in Port Said was to ascertain when we could leave it, and we found that this could not be done before midnight. We could go on a small steamer as far as Ismailia and thence by rail to Cairo, and if we wished to take a detour to Suez, there was no law to prevent our going there.
We sauntered around the city; some of our party had their hair cut, some ate pastry in a café, some resorted to a beer garden in front of the hotel, and one, (myself,) took a seat by the side of a cobbler, whose stall was in the open air, while he mended one of my boots. Half a dozen Arabs stood around to look at me, as I crossed the bootless leg over the booted one and endeavored to appear pleased.
The cobbler had about half finished the job, when he suddenly remembered that he must go to dinner. To this I objected until my boot was done. I had no wish to sit there while he dined, and possibly took an after-dinner nap of an hour or so, and after a slight wrangle I succeeded in convincing him that he had better finish the job before doing anything else.
The Arab portion of Port Said is quite distinct from the Frank quarter, and is separated from it by a marsh, that can be crossed over a rickety bridge or circumambulated by following the sea shore.
We took a stroll there in the latter part of the afternoon, and found crowds of natives surrounding a few jugglers and mountebanks, whose tricks were by no means extraordinary. I had a lot of Turkish coppers, which I had brought from Syria, and found altogether uncurrent here. To get rid of the coins I threw some to the jugglers and to a few beggars. None of them appeared to be pleased to receive this money, and evidently they had been served the same trick by previous travellers.
There was a part of the market where fish and vegetables were offered for sale, the venders having little stands about the size of dressing-tables, and not particularly clean or attractive. There were two or three restaurants where fried fish was waiting to be devoured, the restaurant,—cuisine and all,—occupying a space not more than eight feet square. Many of the natives were suffering from ophthalmia, and on the eyes of some of the children there were masses of flies eating away the oozing matter and forming a disgusting spectacle I should say that one in twenty of those I saw there were blind of an eye, and one in fifty was altogether bereft of sight.
We dined at the hotel and then slept until nearly eleven o’clock, as we knew there would be no sleeping accommodations on the boat. It was New Year’s Eve, and some of the party proposed to celebrate the New Year, which would come in as we left Port Said, so we took a couple of bottles of champagne and some glasses to the steamer.