them. It has been twice ascended in the present century, once by a party of English sailors, and once by an enterprising woman. In each instance a string was stretched over the capital by means of a kite; the string was then used to draw up a stout cord, the cord to draw up a rope, and the rope to draw up a ladder. By the ladder the ascent is easy enough, but it requires a cool head and a sure grasp.
A paragraph with the heading “Ancient Alexandria” might be about as brief as the famous chapter on the snakes of Ireland. Of the capital that contained a population of half a million, a library of I don’t know how many thousand volumes, temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, there are little more than vestiges remaining. Here and there may be found a few relics; walls and foundations of buildings may be traced in a few localities, and there are some mutilated statues and other fragments that have survived the touch of Decay’s Effacing Fingers.
From ancient times Alexandria steadily declined, so that at the end of the last century it had a population of six thousand; during the French and English occupations it began to improve, but it made its greatest progress under Mohammed Ali. The successors of that prince have continued to foster it, and at the present day it is a busy, bustling city of nearly a quarter of a million inhabitants, of whom one-fourth are Europeans.
There is an air of commerce everywhere, and when one arrives at the railway station and drives through the streets, he realizes that he is in a seaport long before he has caught sight of the sea, or of the forest of masts that rise in the harbor.
Near the Great Square you can visit the bazaars or shops, where you will see a reproduction of the sights and scenes of Cairo.
The Great Square is a sort of public park, filled with shade-trees and seats, and having in the centre an equestrian statue of Mohammed Ali. At each end there is a fountain, and around the square are buildings of a very substantial character, quite worthy of any great city of modern times. Everything is modern. There is nothing to remind you of antiquity, and even the Arabs that cluster around the fountains are nearly all boys, and seem more modernized than their brethren at Cairo. As soon as we were quartered at the hotel, we went to the steamship office to engage our passage, and having paid for our tickets, concluded it would be well to visit the ship and examine our quarters. We hired donkeys for a ride to the Marine, or landing-place, and away we cantered through the streets of the Arab quarter. There was a crowd of boatmen that wrangled a long time to secure us, and with such effect that we found a boat to take us to the ship and back again for sixpence each.
The boatmen were mostly Arabs and Maltese, strong, active fellows, whose rowing abilities are much better than their manners. There are no docks or wharves to the harbor; the ships must lie out and discharge their cargoes by means of lighters, and passengers must land and embark in small boats. The harbor is good without being excellent; the entrance is difficult and tortuous, and the sea frequently rolls in very uncomfortably. There is an outside harbor, where most of the foreign ships lie, as the inner one is rather shallow for them. The outer one is subject to winds and a heavy sea, but will be greatly improved when the new breakwater, now constructing, is finished. Hitherto the government has not cared to improve the entrance of the harbor, as a bad entrance is easier defended than a good one, but a better sentiment prevails at present, and the harbor is to be made as good as possible with a fair outlay of money.
When we came back to the landing, we had a fair instance of the swindling tendencies of the Arab donkey-drivers. We had left our beasts there, and as we had not paid for them, we felt that there was no danger that the owners would take them away. The instant we touched the steps an urchin appeared, and behind him was another, each holding a donkey.
“Your donkeys is gone,” said the foremost, “and you is to ride back on this donkeys.”