We left Alexandria on Thursday about noon, and sailed with a fair wind
along the Mahmoudieh Canal. My little boat flies like a bird, and my men
are a capital set of fellows, bold and careful sailors. I have only
seven in all, but they work well, and at a pinch Omar leaves the pots and
pans and handles a rope or a pole manfully. We sailed all night and
passed the locks at Atleh at four o'clock yesterday, and were greeted by
old Nile tearing down like a torrent. The river is magnificent, 'seven
men's height,' my Reis says, above its usual pitch; it has gone down five
or six feet and left a sad scene of havoc on either side. However what
the Nile takes he repays with threefold interest, they say. The women
are at work rebuilding their mud huts, and the men repairing the dykes.
A Frenchman told me he was on board a Pasha's steamer under M. de
Lesseps' command, and they passed a flooded village where two hundred or
so people stood on their roofs crying for help. Would you, could you,
believe it that they passed on and left them to drown? None but an
eyewitness could have made me believe such villainy.
All to-day we sailed in such heavenly weather--a sky like nothing but its
most beautiful self. At the bend of the river just now we had a grand
struggle to get round, and got entangled with a big timber boat. My crew
got so vehement that I had to come out with an imperious request to
everyone to bless the Prophet. Then the boat nearly pulled the men into
the stream, and they pulled and hauled and struggled up to their waists
in mud and water, and Omar brandished his pole and shouted 'Islam el
Islam!' which gave a fresh spirit to the poor fellows, and round we came
with a dash and caught the breeze again. Now we have put up for the
night, and shall pass the railway-bridge to-morrow. The railway is all
under water from here up to Tantah--eight miles--and in many places
higher up.