EGYPT TO COLOMBO.
Coaling in Port Said—The Suez Canal—England the Main
Support—Donkey-drivers—The Electric Light—Ismailia—Suez—Aden—The Red Sea.
UNDER a vermilion sky, as the sun sinks down into the west, we approach
the land of Egypt—a barren land, kindly to neither man nor beast,
fruitful only in sand, and hospitable only to the camel, who seems here
to be a friend in need, patiently following his turbaned leader over the
pathless desert. We have a little sand near Southport, we have more
still on the Lincolnshire coast at Skegness, we have most of all on the
Dutch coast, from Flushing to Scheveningen, that gay resort of the
Dutchmen and the Germans; but they fail to give you an idea of the dreary
and boundless waste of sand through which that wonderful old man, M. de
Lesseps, cut his grand canal, which ought to have been done by
Englishmen, and which perhaps would have been, had not Lord Palmerston
declared in season and out of season that it could not be done, and that
if it were done it could never pay. When we stopped at Port Said,
looking as if only artificially raised out of the sea, I landed: partly
to say I had planted the sole of my foot in Egypt—the land of the
Pharaohs, of Joseph and his brothers, of Antony and Cleopatra, of Origen
and Hypatia and early Christian hermits, of grand philosophies and
theologies, which stir the pulses even of to-day—and partly that I might
have an evening stroll in a place not at one time the safest for a white
man to land, but which now is quite as free from danger as any London
neighbourhood—the happy hunting-ground of the burglar and the thief. The
fact was that at Port Said we had to coal; and as we landed after dinner,
it was a new sensation to be rowed ashore by turbaned sailors, who were
clothed in what seemed to me in the twilight very much like petticoats.
It was rather risky, as the boat was crammed down to the water’s edge.
Nor was I much reassured as, after running up against the ropes and being
nearly capsized, the man at the prow called out in broken English, ‘Never
mind,’ to which I was obliged to reply that I did mind, and that I
ventured to hope he would take care of our precious carcases. Apparently
the advice was not thrown away, for after a few minutes’ row, and after
an attempt had been made to collect the fare, which we all firmly
resisted till on _terra firma_, we landed where a couple of old women
apparently, in reality sailors, were standing with lanterns ready to
receive us. As the fare was only sixpence each way, I can’t say that the
Egyptian watermen were quite so exorbitant as some I wot of nearer home.
There was not much to see at Port Said; but it was better to be there
than on board ship while the process of coaling was going on. While at
dinner there was a sound all round as if a million of monkeys were
screaming and jabbering underneath. They were the coalheavers, on board
the big barges laden with coal that surrounded us on all sides directly
we had come to anchor. Each barge had two lights of burning coals, by
the glare of which we could see the porters in strings of fifty at a time
climbing up a ladder that led to the ship’s inside, with coal-sacks on
their shoulders, and streaming back again, all the while screaming, as
seems to be the manner of the Arab tribe all the world over. They all
scream. They screamed at us as we stood on the deck; they screamed at us
as they rowed us ashore; they screamed at us as we walked the streets—or,
rather, the one long street which forms the town till it is lost in the
sand of the surrounding waste. On one side lies the market, and a mile
or two beyond is the old Arabian town. Men of all nationalities are well
represented in Port Said; but the Greeks have the best shops, where a
fine trade is done in cigarettes, photographs, and richly-worked napkins,
and helmets to keep off the sun in the Red Sea, and the other products to
be met with in Turkish bazaars. In the street it was difficult to tell
the men from the women, so weird and unearthly seemed their make-up in
the evening gloom. Two of the dark bundles approaching me were, I
concluded, women, as the faces were concealed—all but the dark, round
eyes, from the dangerous glances of which, happily, my age protected me.
The great attraction of the place was a large _café chantant_, which,
however, I fancy, did duty as a gambling-house as well. On the bank,
just as you land, is a large building calling itself the Hotel
Continental; but as it was shut up, apparently it has not been a
commercial success. The houses, or, rather, the shops—for there were
nothing but shops to be seen—were all of wood and painted. On my return
to the ship, which was covered with coal-dust, I found we had an Egyptian
conjurer, who went through a performance such as we see any day in
England. But I must not say a word against a gentleman who was so kind
as to intimate that I was ‘a big masher.’
For a real Lotus-land, where it is always afternoon, commend me to the
Suez Canal. It is a busy spot. No spot is busier. Steamers, especially
English ones, are always passing up and down. It is an expensive spot.
You are fortunate if your steamer has not to pay a thousand or two for
the trip. The _Orizaba_ has to pay £1,700 for going through; but that
does not concern you, if you have taken your passage to Ismailia or
Colombo, or one or other of the great Australian ports. All that you
have to do is to sit still and enjoy yourself. There the good sailor and
the bad one are equal. There you fear no north or south simoom, no seas
mountains high (I have never yet seen them, and begin to believe in them
only as I do in stories of mermaids and mermen, or in legends of the
sea-serpent ever turning up at unexpected times and in unexpected
quarters), no rough blasts of the winter winds, no equinoctial gales.
The captain comes down from his bridge, the officers take it easy, and
you really need not to drive dull care away. On that calm water, under
that bright sky, you have no thought of time. All around you is still
life—the boundless sands, the distant hills, the camels, and the Arabs
encamped far away. All is repose, in the heavens above, as well as in
the earth beneath. It is true the beggars here and there on the banks
are a nuisance, but where are they not, either in the Old World or the
New? For eighteen or twenty hours you are at peace—to read the last
novel, to flirt with the last fancy of the hour; to dream, if you like,
in the broad daylight of other days and other times. The big ship moves,
but so slowly that you can scarce tell that you are moving at all. The
stewards bring your meals as usual; your sleep is undisturbed. There is
your morning bath, your accustomed cigar, your game of chess, or your
rubber of whist. Ah, you are much to be envied! The pity of it is that
the trip is so soon over; that the dream is soon dispelled; that the
curtain so soon falls on the scene; that you have to get back again to
the cares, and troubles, and struggles of real life.
In the matter of the Suez Canal, Englishmen are paying rather dearly for
their faith in Lord Palmerston. It is to the credit of M. de Lesseps
that he conceived the idea, got together the money, and carried it out,
and by that means, as a patriotic Frenchman, secured for France an
influence in Egypt which, not to put too fine a point on it, has not
worked for the advantage of either Egypt or ourselves. The officials of
the Canal are French, the official language is French, the neat little
stations, with their painted wooden houses, protected here and there by a
palm tree struggling for life, are pre-eminently French. Fortunately,
Lord Beaconsfield bought some shares for the nation, which gives us a
_locus standi_. But the Canal, you feel, ought to have been designed by
British engineers and paid for by British gold. It is emphatically
England that keeps it going. The stream of steamers ever sailing up and
down by day or by night are chiefly English steamers built in British
shipyards, sailed by British captains and officers, and filled with
British goods. It is true France subsidizes her steamers to struggle
with England in all parts of the world. It is equally true that Germany
does the same, but they cannot beat the British merchant and shipowner,
who will not yield without a fierce struggle the supremacy it has taken
them centuries to build up and sustain, and if the Canal manages to pay a
dividend, it is because of the constant passage of British ships. As we
were steaming along the Canal in one of the finest steamers of the Orient
line, and of any line, we met a French steamer on her homeward trip.
Mounseer looked politely at our crowded deck—his own seemed deserted,
though they do tell me that the accommodation on board the French ships
is remarkably good, and then our steerage commenced singing with heart
and soul ‘Rule, Britannia.’ They ought not to have done it, I know. It
was a breach of good manners; but if anywhere we may be pardoned for
singing ‘Rule, Britannia,’ it is in the Suez Canal.
On leaving Port Said, in a few minutes you are in the Canal, which has
been here protected from the shifting sand by a breakwater a mile and a
half long. On Lake Menzaleh, to the westward, are to be seen wonderful
flights and flocks of birds, including pelicans and flamingoes, to detect
which, however, requires an uncommonly strong glass. Ships are piloted
on the block system, under the control of the head official at Port Said,
who telegraphs the movements of each ship as it slowly makes its way. At
each of the stations, or ‘gares,’ there are signal-posts, and a ball
above a flag says ‘Go into the siding,’ while a flag above a ball says
‘Go into the Canal.’ You see a good deal of the country, an utter,
miserable desert at first, but soon hidden by the sand-banks. As you get
nearer to Suez, wandering Arabs and droves of camels may be seen making
their way along the burning waste, under the burning sun. All day and
all night the heavens are wonderful. Now and then you meet a ship, and
there is not much room to spare; now and then one is run aground, and it
is often weary waiting, as it is inexpedient to go on shore and take a
donkey-ride, in compliance with the request of the donkey-drivers, who
seem to scent a stoppage from afar, and come to the bank, clamouring
vociferously all the while. As you proceed you find the boys and girls
on each side keeping you company, in hopes of the copper the kind-hearted
visitor may feel inclined to throw them. It is needless to add that they
are loosely clad, and are brown and sunburnt to look at. By night the
electric light on the sandy bank has a singularly strange effect, which
is more particularly apparent as another ship approaches, making the sand
where it catches the light seem as if there were drifts of snow all
round. As you enter the lakes the waters widen, and the speed is
greater; the scenery is also a little more attractive. Away on your
right is the land of Goshen, and Ismailia clusters prettily around the
summer palace of the Khedive. Here you drop the passengers for Cairo,
who are increasing in number every year—that part of Egypt becoming
increasingly a winter resort, essential to the comfort and well-being of
those who do not care for English cold and fog and rain. It is a
wonderful change and a great relief for the asthmatic to spend a winter
in Egypt. It is a pity that more cannot do so, but, alas! few of us can
spare the time, and many of us have not the cash, and so a man must live
where his bread is buttered, though to do so prolongs his pains at the
same time that it shortens his life. As you look at Ismailia it seems a
charming spot; however, the condition of the place is by no means
sanitary, and danger lurks there under those green trees, beside those
still waters. It has, however, been the scene of high life, as when the
Canal was opened in 1869, when the Empress Eugenie, the Crown Prince of
Prussia and the Empress of Austria took part in the ceremony. At a later
date there was also exciting work in Ismailia when it became the basis of
‘our only general’s’ brilliant campaign. The Canal and lakes were filled
with transports and men-of-war, and to the town an army of 20,000 men
looked for supplies. It was from thence they marched to fight the battle
of Tel-el-Kebir, and to send poor Arabia prisoner for life to Ceylon,
where, perhaps, after all, he is better off than he would have been had
he stopped at home. His life would have been sacrificed had he remained.
Little of life is to be seen anywhere, but a few men are engaged in
cutting away the sand, while camels bear it far away. They are ugly
beasts, and never seem happy. They are, however, docile, and kneel down
while the men fill the panniers with sand, when they rise up and walk
away; or we come to a ferry where they are waiting to cross, and display
the same patient, forbearing, half-starved look. The Egyptian donkey
seems to me a far livelier animal. Now and then a dog displays itself on
the bank, but he is rarely a favourable specimen of his race. Small
steamers and barges, occupied in connection with the improvement of the
canal, are also met, but the crew take little note of the white man, who,
however, after all, has got such a hold on the land that it is
questionable, whatever statesmen say at Westminster, whether it can ever
be removed. It seems as if Egypt could never be let alone. True, it was
a great country once, but that was long ago.
Again, we leave the Timseh, or the Crocodile Lake, behind, and make our
way to the Bitter Lakes, through many miles of Canal. The lakes, history
tells us, are the remains of a dried-up arm of the sea, where once
flourished the ancient port of Arsinoe. Here we meet the slight tides of
the Red Sea—that awful sea, whose waters at some seasons range to a
temperature of a hundred. It was hot as we entered Port Said, it is
hotter as we leave the Canal at Suez—the new port of which, with its
modernized hotel, its rows of trees, and its modern warehouses, looks
pretty from the water. Old Suez, a mile and a half from the new town, is
visible long before we reach the fort. It is almost a pity that the
steamers do not stay here a day or two. The old town is the most
characteristic of old Egypt, and the rail will run you up there in a few
minutes. It was the centre of the highway between Asia and Africa. All
around is the desert, while mountains famed in history for ages are to be
seen from afar. Egyptians tell me that Suez is preferable to Cairo as a
health resort. One gentleman whom I met with told me that he wintered
there every year. As we picked him up on my return, I was obliged to
tell him that he did not look so well as when he went ashore a few months
previously. In excuse he owned that he had suffered from a severe attack
of rheumatic fever. It may be that Suez had nothing to do with that.
Perhaps at Cairo they would have told me Suez was not a good place to go
to. The water, however, is good, as we took a good many tons of it on
board. It was well that we did so. At Aden, our next stopping-place, we
found there had been no rain for nearly three years.
We stop a few hours at Suez, and early in the morning commence steaming
down the Gulf of Suez, ere we float proudly over the waters of the Red
Sea. At length it seems to me that we realize all that the poets have
sung and painters have drawn of the Bay of Naples—unclouded skies and a
sea of brilliant blue. All day long we are in sight of a romantic coast
crowned with towering mountains, with diversified peaks that in the sun
seem to glow with light and heat. As we approach they are brown or white
or red, and then, behind, they seem dark and stern as they rise out of
the sleeping waters. On our left are the Arabian mountains—Mount Sinai
among them—more or less connected with the religion dear to all men of
Anglo-Saxon race and tongue; the religion that has made modern history
what it is—the religion which they tell us in the pulpit is yet to reign
supreme. At dark—and it soon gets very dark in these regions, in spite
of the grand stars which shine lustrously on us in a way of which no
untravelled Englishman can form any adequate idea—we are on the Red Sea,
having just passed the wreck of a steamer, as if to remind us that even
in these days of science there are accidents arising from fogs and
currents and hidden rocks and shoals which it is hard for any human
ingenuity to guard against. Just now a good deal of interest attaches to
the Red Sea. On our right are Suakim and Massowah, though too far off to
be visible. Small as the Red Sea looks on the map, it is 1,200 miles
long. Coral reefs and islands are so numerous that navigation is
difficult and dangerous. The coast on either side seems deserted, and
only now and then a lighthouse is to be seen, or the black hull of some
small Arabian trader, with the well-known enormous sail from the
yard-arm. However, there are one or two ports of importance on either
side. The chief of all is Jeddah—with a population of 40,000—which is
the port of the Mecca pilgrims, and which beside is the chief market for
pearls and the black coffee and aromatic spices from Araby the Blest.
Not far off is Mocha, a name familiar to British ears, though the place
itself has fallen into decay.
So far as we have travelled the Red Sea has behaved uncommonly well. On
the last voyage the heat was so intense that three times the ship had to
be turned in order that the passengers might have a breath of cool air.
As it is, no one finds the heat overpowering, and to me it yields the
same amount of enjoyment one feels in a Turkish bath after the sweating
process has got into full swing. We have little walking now except in
the early morning, or after dark, and no gymnastic exercise of any kind.
The little ones have already lost their rosy cheeks. Sunday is well
observed; one way or another there is a good deal of preaching going on.
The bishop takes in hand the first-class passengers, while in the evening
volunteer preachers look after the souls of the second class. There was
a special service also in the steerage in the afternoon, when the singing
was at any rate very hearty.
Of course we gaze with no little pleasure at the island of Perim,
standing in the deep water a few miles before we reach Aden. The French
would have had it, the story goes, had not the Governor of Aden, who had
his suspicions aroused as the French commander, who was sent to plant
there the French flag, sat drinking champagne at his hospitable board,
sent two notes, one to the harbour-master ordering him to delay the
coaling, and another to the commander of a gunboat to sail at once with
some artillerymen for Perim. Such is the story as told by Sir Charles
Dilke and other clever men; but the real fact is that it had been long
before taken possession of by the old East India Company. At any rate,
it is of no use to our French neighbours, now that they have lost Egypt,
and that the control of the Canal has passed into English hands. Now the
French have no Eastern Question. How we must all envy them!
In a little while we are out of the Red Sea, which at this time of year
is really agreeable. All day long we have had a strong head wind, which
has rendered the sultry atmosphere quite cool and genial. Provided an
invalid is a good sailor, I should say, as far as we have gone, it would
be impossible for him to have a more agreeable trip, or one more likely
to return him to his native land of fog and frost and rain a better man.
Everyone tells me that I am looking wonderfully better for my voyage. I
am glad to hear it, as what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the
gander, and I write in the hope that those who can afford it will follow
in my steps. I have offered myself as an experiment for the sake of my
asthmatic and elderly friends. So far as I have gone the experiment has
succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations.
We made rather a long stay at Aden, where most of the party went ashore;
I did not, for of two evils a wise man chooses the least, and it seemed
to me a greater evil to be rowed ashore and landed on a sunburnt rock
where no water is than to fight with the coal-dust on board and to listen
to the perpetual chattering of the natives. We have to be thankful that
we are safe out of the Red Sea, which is certainly, with its sunken coral
reefs and ragged rocks rising straight out of the water, as difficult a
piece of navigation as any of which I ever heard. A captain had need be
careful. The sights of Aden are few—a low building or two on the rocks,
a native town a few miles off (not worth seeing), and water-tanks more
useful than picturesque. Before we had anchored the Somali boys rowed
round us in their little cockleshell boats, ready to dive for any coin
thrown into the water. Then came the barges, black with coal, with long,
dark, lightly-dressed natives, to convey the desirable mineral on board.
Their woolly heads seem impervious to the sun’s rays, and if they have
dark skins, it but enhances the effect of their glistening teeth. The
costume I like best is that of the native policeman, which consists of
what looks to me like a nightgown, a turban, and a black necklace. A
couple of gentlemen come on board: they wear blue jackets and
rich-coloured silk skirts. Their hair is done up in a knot behind, and
is kept in good order in front by a tortoise-shell comb. A few salesmen,
with ostrich-feathers or wicker baskets, come to do a little business,
but overboard the battle rages all day long, as the boys clamour for
coins and imploringly stretch their skinny arms to the upper deck. A
coin is tossed into the water: in a second they turn heels over head and
disappear, in another second they have found it and are ready for
another. The boats which take the passengers on shore are large, and
manned by four or five men dressed in blue cotton. The charge is a
shilling each way. The landing is easy enough, but in this hot climate I
question whether a visit repays the trouble. Most of the passengers,
however, seem to be of a contrary opinion; nor is that to be wondered at
when I state that many of them are ladies—or in other words, true
daughters of Eve. They drive out to the tanks, and come back with
headache and ears aching as well. In the meanwhile the row on board is
incessant, as the wild Arabs of the sea scream for coins and perform all
sorts of wonderful tricks in the way of diving. From the deck the scene
is interesting and animated. Aden, with its brown rocks, is on our
right: and ahead and on the other side of the bay runs the yellow sand,
terminating—as everything does, apparently, on this rugged coast—in a
peak of rocks. It is only the rock that belongs to us, and what we see
are the offices of the company and the residence of the officials. The
town is a terrible place to live in. On your way to the old town you
meet endless strings of camels with the produce of the country, as in
Aden itself not a blade of grass grows. The harbour is alive with ships,
and steam-tugs towing the barges laden with coal, and native boats. Over
the water seagulls and a bigger bird, apparently a kind of hawk, fly
ceaselessly in search of their prey, and beneath sharks abound, as a
white man would soon find to his cost were he to attempt a swim.
Apparently the shark prefers the white man to the black, and there I and
the shark agree. Away from Aden, which looks charming in the warm light
of the setting sun, we pass out to the Indian Ocean, and the transition
is a relief, as we leave behind the perpetual jabber of the natives of
that fortunate district—I write fortunate advisedly, for the English
spend a mint of money there, and the natives, to their credit be it
written, know how to charge. In one particular case which came under my
knowledge £2 was asked for an article for which ultimately the seller was
content with 2s. We were to have had an addition to our live cargo in
the shape of a smart little lad, whom an Australian had engaged to
accompany him. The father was willing, but the brother, a fine-looking
darkey, objected, and the boy was taken off again, apparently much
against his will. I am told that many of these lads are taken away—they
are apprenticed to the white man for a term of three years, the white
employer agreeing to pay £12 a year in the shape of wages. As boys, they
seem as active as monkeys. Whilst I was watching, one of them had his
boat filled with water. In a moment he was out, and, rocking the boat
till it was free from water, he paddled away with his one oar as if an
upset in the water was an everyday occurrence; and the men seemed as
agile as the boys—tall and muscular, with long arms and legs, and without
an ounce of spare flesh. I fear by the side of them our Thames watermen
would have but a poor chance.
Our captain tells me he can take a holiday now for the next few days.
Out on the broad expanse of the Indian Ocean we are away from sunken
rocks and coral reefs. According to Mr. Froude, when he made his way to
Australia, he seems to have got through a good deal of Greek and Latin.
In this delicious climate study of any kind seems quite out of place; but
the sea air makes one hungry and indolent. We live well, and we have a
library, which yields me a novel a day—of course I skip the descriptive
parts and the sentimental—and as we rush over the blue sea, a cooling
breeze meets us, and it is enough to live. I feel as if I were Ulysses
and Christopher Columbus and Captain Cook rolled into one. We see no
land, no ships, no birds in the heavens above, no fish in the water
beneath. Night comes with its clear stars and its dark waves, and our
pace is still the same. It is very wonderful, and none the less so that
it is a wonder of everyday occurrence. Over the ship, in all parts, we
have a perfect blaze of light—nine miles of electric wire! and outside
all is darkness and mystery—a darkness and a mystery man has learned to
master. Science has done that much for him. Will science unveil the
darkness and mystery of being in a similar manner? I fear not. Happily
there is a Judge
Who ends the strife
Where wit and reason fail.