DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11715#0021
ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO.
Arabs cannot compare with them. In broken English they vaunt the praises of their
animals: "Take my donkey; him berry good donkey; him name Billy Barlow." If
the traveler be presumably an American, the sobriquet is changed to " Yankee Doodle."
One ingenious youth, whose only garment was a ragged cotton shirt, through which
his tawny skin showed conspicuously, having tried
" Billy Barlow, Champagne Charley," and half-a-dozen
names beside, made a final appeal, by exclaiming,
"Him name Rosher Tishburne; him speak English;
him say, 'How you do, sar?'" It was impossible
either to lose one's temper or retain one's gravity amid
this merry clamorous crowd. At length we extricated
ourselves from them and made our way to the hotel.
Anywhere, except in Egypt, Alexandria would be
regarded as a very ancient city. Its history goes back
more than two thousand years, to the time of its foun-
der, Alexander the Great, b.c. 333. But here, this ven-
erable antiquity seems quite modern. It is a mere
parvenue, which sprang up when the kingdom of the
Pharaohs had run its course and reached its close. It
is now a busy thriving port in which the east and west
meet in strange confusion. Nubians, Arabs, Berbers,
Greeks, Italians, French, English, Circassian pilgrims,
Lascar sailors, Chinese coolies, jostle one another in
the crowded streets. A string of camels pass with
their burdens into the railway station. A Bedouin m Egyptian deagoman.
sheikh takes a ticket for Cairo, or wrangles over
the price of a piece of Manchester goods. Hadjis from Mecca are waiting to go on
board the steamer bound for Constantinople or Beirout. Sailors from the harbor, or sol-
diers en route for India, shoulder their way through the bazaars. Go into a bank or
counting-house, and you might fancy yourself to be in the heart of London. Step out
into the street, and you see a devout Mus-
sulman spreading his prayer-carpet in the
roadway, and performing his devotions, as
little disturbed by the bustle around him as
though he were alone in the desert.
The northern coast-line of Egypt is a
sterile waste, consisting of little else than
salt swamps, lakes of brakish water, and
barren sand. The importance and prosper-
ity of Alexandria are therefore due, not to
the surrounding district, but to the fact that
it is the port for the only African river
which flows into the Mediterranean. Re-
gions of boundless fertility stretch south-
ward to the equator, through which the Nile flows and forms their sole means of com-
munication with the sea. To the ancient world, Alexandria, which lay near the mouths
17
donkey-boys at alexandria.
Arabs cannot compare with them. In broken English they vaunt the praises of their
animals: "Take my donkey; him berry good donkey; him name Billy Barlow." If
the traveler be presumably an American, the sobriquet is changed to " Yankee Doodle."
One ingenious youth, whose only garment was a ragged cotton shirt, through which
his tawny skin showed conspicuously, having tried
" Billy Barlow, Champagne Charley," and half-a-dozen
names beside, made a final appeal, by exclaiming,
"Him name Rosher Tishburne; him speak English;
him say, 'How you do, sar?'" It was impossible
either to lose one's temper or retain one's gravity amid
this merry clamorous crowd. At length we extricated
ourselves from them and made our way to the hotel.
Anywhere, except in Egypt, Alexandria would be
regarded as a very ancient city. Its history goes back
more than two thousand years, to the time of its foun-
der, Alexander the Great, b.c. 333. But here, this ven-
erable antiquity seems quite modern. It is a mere
parvenue, which sprang up when the kingdom of the
Pharaohs had run its course and reached its close. It
is now a busy thriving port in which the east and west
meet in strange confusion. Nubians, Arabs, Berbers,
Greeks, Italians, French, English, Circassian pilgrims,
Lascar sailors, Chinese coolies, jostle one another in
the crowded streets. A string of camels pass with
their burdens into the railway station. A Bedouin m Egyptian deagoman.
sheikh takes a ticket for Cairo, or wrangles over
the price of a piece of Manchester goods. Hadjis from Mecca are waiting to go on
board the steamer bound for Constantinople or Beirout. Sailors from the harbor, or sol-
diers en route for India, shoulder their way through the bazaars. Go into a bank or
counting-house, and you might fancy yourself to be in the heart of London. Step out
into the street, and you see a devout Mus-
sulman spreading his prayer-carpet in the
roadway, and performing his devotions, as
little disturbed by the bustle around him as
though he were alone in the desert.
The northern coast-line of Egypt is a
sterile waste, consisting of little else than
salt swamps, lakes of brakish water, and
barren sand. The importance and prosper-
ity of Alexandria are therefore due, not to
the surrounding district, but to the fact that
it is the port for the only African river
which flows into the Mediterranean. Re-
gions of boundless fertility stretch south-
ward to the equator, through which the Nile flows and forms their sole means of com-
munication with the sea. To the ancient world, Alexandria, which lay near the mouths
17
donkey-boys at alexandria.