FROM JAFFA TO ALEXANDRIA
[From the Providor’s Log-book.]
Bill of Fare, October 12th.
Mulligatawny Soup. Salt Fish and Egg Sauce. Roast Haunch of Mutton.
Boiled Shoulder and Onion Sauce. Boiled Beef. Roast Fowls. Pillau
ditto. Ham. Haricot Mutton. Curry and Rice.
Cabbage. French Beans. Boiled Potatoes. Baked ditto. Damson Tart. Rice
Puddings. Currant ditto. Currant Fritters.
We were just at the port’s mouth—and could see the towers and buildings
of Alexandria rising purple against the sunset, when the report of a
gun came booming over the calm golden water; and we heard, with much
mortification, that we had no chance of getting pratique that night.
Already the ungrateful passengers had begun to tire of the ship,—though
in our absence in Syria it had been carefully cleansed and purified;
though it was cleared of the swarming Jews who had infested the decks
all the way from Constantinople; and though we had been feasting and
carousing in the manner described above.
But very early next morning we bore into the harbour, busy with a great
quantity of craft. We passed huge black hulks of mouldering men-of-war,
from the sterns of which trailed the dirty red flag, with the star and
crescent; boats, manned with red-capped seamen, and captains and
steersmen in beards and tarbooshes, passed continually among these old
hulks, the rowers bending to their oars, so that at each stroke they
disappeared bodily in the boat. Besides these, there was a large fleet
of country ships, and stars and stripes, and tricolours, and Union
Jacks; and many active steamers, of the French and English companies,
shooting in and out of the harbour, or moored in the briny waters. The
ship of our company, the “Oriental,” lay there—a palace upon the brine,
and some of the Pasha’s steam-vessels likewise, looking very like
Christian boats; but it was queer to look at some unintelligible
Turkish flourish painted on the stern, and the long-tailed Arabian
hieroglyphics gilt on the paddle-boxes. Our dear friend and comrade of
Beyrout (if we may be permitted to call her so), H.M.S. “Trump,” was in
the harbour; and the captain of that gallant ship, coming to greet us,
drove some of us on shore in his gig.
I had been preparing myself overnight, by the help of a cigar and a
moonlight contemplation on deck, for sensations on landing in Egypt. I
was ready to yield myself up with solemnity to the mystic grandeur of
the scene of initiation. Pompey’s Pillar must stand like a mountain, in
a yellow plain, surrounded by a grove of obelisks as tall as
palm-trees. Placid sphinxes brooding o’er the Nile—mighty Memnonian
countenances calm—had revealed Egypt to me in a sonnet of Tennyson’s,
and I was ready to gaze on it with pyramidal wonder and hieroglyphic
awe.
The landing quay at Alexandria is like the dockyard quay at Portsmouth:
with a few score of brown faces scattered among the population. There
are slop-sellers, dealers in marine-stores, bottled-porter shops,
seamen lolling about; flys and cabs are plying for hire; and a yelling
chorus of donkey-boys, shrieking, “Ride, sir!—Donkey, sir!—I say, sir!”
in excellent English, dispel all romantic notions. The placid sphinxes
brooding o’er the Nile disappeared with that shriek of the donkey-boys.
You might be as well impressed with Wapping as with your first step on
Egyptian soil.
The riding of a donkey is, after all, not a dignified occupation. A man
resists the offer at first, somehow, as an indignity. How is that poor
little, red-saddled, long-eared creature to carry you? Is there to be
one for you, and another for your legs? Natives and Europeans, of all
sizes, pass by, it is true, mounted upon the same contrivance. I waited
until I got into a very private spot, where nobody could see me, and
then ascended—why not say descended, at once?—on the poor little
animal. Instead of being crushed at once, as perhaps the rider
expected, it darted forward, quite briskly and cheerfully, at six or
seven miles an hour; requiring no spur or admonitive to haste, except
the shrieking of the little Egyptian gamin, who ran along by asinus’s
side.
The character of the houses by which you pass is scarcely Eastern at
all. The streets are busy with a motley population of Jews and
Armenians, slave-driving-looking Europeans, large-breeched Greeks, and
well-shaven buxom merchants, looking as trim and fat as those on the
Bourse or on ’Change; only, among the natives, the stranger can’t fail
to remark (as the Caliph did of the Calenders in the “Arabian Nights”)
that so many of them HAVE ONLY ONE EYE. It is the horrid ophthalmia
which has played such frightful ravages with them. You see children
sitting in the doorways, their eyes completely closed up with the green
sickening sore, and the flies feeding on them. Five or six minutes of
the donkey-ride brings you to the Frank quarter, and the handsome broad
street (like a street of Marseilles) where the principal hotels and
merchants’ houses are to be found, and where the consuls have their
houses, and hoist their flags. The palace of the French Consul-General
makes the grandest show in the street, and presents a great contrast to
the humble abode of the English representative, who protects his
fellow-countrymen from a second floor.
But that Alexandrian two-pair-front of a Consulate was more welcome and
cheering than a palace to most of us. For there lay certain letters,
with post-marks of HOME upon them; and kindly tidings, the first heard
for two months:- though we had seen so many men and cities since, that
Cornhill seemed to be a year off, at least, with certain persons
dwelling (more or less) in that vicinity. I saw a young Oxford man
seize his despatches, and slink off with several letters, written in a
tight neat hand, and sedulously crossed; which any man could see,
without looking farther, were the handiwork of Mary Ann, to whom he is
attached. The lawyer received a bundle from his chambers, in which his
clerk eased his soul regarding the state of Snooks v. Rodgers, Smith
ats Tomkins, &c. The statesman had a packet of thick envelopes,
decorated with that profusion of sealing-wax in which official
recklessness lavishes the resources of the country: and your humble
servant got just one little modest letter, containing another, written
in pencil characters, varying in size between one and two inches; but
how much pleasanter to read than my Lord’s despatch, or the clerk’s
account of Smith ats Tomkins,—yes, even than the Mary Ann
correspondence! . . . Yes, my dear madam, you will understand me, when
I say that it was from little Polly at home, with some confidential
news about a cat, and the last report of her new doll.
It is worth while to have made the journey for this pleasure: to have
walked the deck on long nights, and have thought of home. You have no
leisure to do so in the city. You don’t see the heavens shine above you
so purely there, or the stars so clearly. How, after the perusal of the
above documents, we enjoyed a file of the admirable Galignani; and what
O’Connell was doing; and the twelve last new victories of the French in
Algeria; and, above all, six or seven numbers of Punch! There might
have been an avenue of Pompey’s Pillars within reach, and a live sphinx
sporting on the banks of the Mahmoodieh Canal, and we would not have
stirred to see them, until Punch had had his interview and Galignani
was dismissed.
The curiosities of Alexandria are few, and easily seen. We went into
the bazaars, which have a much more Eastern look than the European
quarter, with its Anglo-Gallic-Italian inhabitants, and Babel-like
civilisation. Here and there a large hotel, clumsy and whitewashed,
with Oriental trellised windows, and a couple of slouching sentinels at
the doors, in the ugliest composite uniform that ever was seen, was
pointed out as the residence of some great officer of the Pasha’s
Court, or of one of the numerous children of the Egyptian Solomon. His
Highness was in his own palace, and was consequently not visible. He
was in deep grief, and strict retirement. It was at this time that the
European newspapers announced that he was about to resign his empire;
but the quidnuncs of Alexandria hinted that a love-affair, in which the
old potentate had engaged with senile extravagance, and the effects of
a potion of hachisch, or some deleterious drug, with which he was in
the habit of intoxicating himself, had brought on that languor and
desperate weariness of life and governing, into which the venerable
Prince was plunged. Before three days were over, however, the fit had
left him, and he determined to live and reign a little longer. A very
few days afterwards several of our party were presented to him at
Cairo, and found the great Egyptian ruler perfectly convalescent.
This, and the Opera, and the quarrels of the two prime donne, and the
beauty of one of them, formed the chief subjects of conversation; and I
had this important news in the shop of a certain barber in the town,
who conveyed it in a language composed of French, Spanish, and Italian,
and with a volubility quite worthy of a barber of “Gil Blas.”
Then we went to see the famous obelisk presented by Mehemet Ali to the
British Government, who have not shown a particular alacrity to accept
this ponderous present. The huge shaft lies on the ground, prostrate,
and desecrated by all sorts of abominations. Children were sprawling
about, attracted by the dirt there. Arabs, negroes, and donkey-boys
were passing, quite indifferent, by the fallen monster of a stone—as
indifferent as the British Government, who don’t care for recording the
glorious termination of their Egyptian campaign of 1801. If our country
takes the compliment so coolly, surely it would be disloyal upon our
parts to be more enthusiastic. I wish they would offer the Trafalgar
Square Pillar to the Egyptians; and that both of the huge ugly monsters
were lying in the dirt there side by side.
Pompey’s Pillar is by no means so big as the Charing Cross trophy. This
venerable column has not escaped ill-treatment either. Numberless
ships’ companies, travelling cockneys, &c., have affixed their rude
marks upon it. Some daring ruffian even painted the name of “Warren’s
blacking” upon it, effacing other inscriptions,— one, Wilkinson says,
of “the second Psammetichus.” I regret deeply, my dear friend, that I
cannot give you this document respecting a lamented monarch, in whose
history I know you take such an interest.
The best sight I saw in Alexandria was a negro holiday; which was
celebrated outside of the town by a sort of negro village of huts,
swarming with old, lean, fat, ugly, infantine, happy faces, that nature
had smeared with a preparation even more black and durable than that
with which Psammetichus’s base has been polished. Every one of these
jolly faces was on the broad grin, from the dusky mother to the
india-rubber child sprawling upon her back, and the venerable jetty
senior whose wool was as white as that of a sheep in Florian’s
pastorals.
To these dancers a couple of fellows were playing on a drum and a
little banjo. They were singing a chorus, which was not only singular,
and perfectly marked in the rhythm, but exceeding sweet in the tune.
They danced in a circle; and performers came trooping from all
quarters, who fell into the round, and began waggling their heads, and
waving their left hands, and tossing up and down the little thin rods
which they each carried, and all singing to the very best of their
power.
I saw the chief eunuch of the Grand Turk at Constantinople pass by-
-(here is an accurate likeness of his beautiful features {2})—but with
what a different expression! Though he is one of the greatest of the
great in the Turkish Empire (ranking with a Cabinet Minister or Lord
Chamberlain here), his fine countenance was clouded with care, and
savage with ennui.
Here his black brethren were ragged, starving, and happy; and I need
not tell such a fine moralist as you are, how it is the case, in the
white as well as the black world, that happiness (republican leveller,
who does not care a fig for the fashion) often disdains the turrets of
kings, to pay a visit to the “tabernas pauperum.”
We went the round of the coffee-houses in the evening, both the polite
European places of resort, where you get ices and the French papers,
and those in the town, where Greeks, Turks, and general company resort,
to sit upon uncomfortable chairs, and drink wretched muddy coffee, and
to listen to two or three miserable musicians, who keep up a variation
of howling for hours together. But the pretty song of the niggers had
spoiled me for that abominable music.