Wilkinson, John Gardner: Topographie of Thebes, and general view of Egypt: being a short account of the principal objects worthy of notice in the valley of the Nile, to the second cataracte and Wadi Samneh, with the Fyoom, Oases and eastern desert, from Sooez to Bertenice (London, 1835)

APPENDIX, C.

ON THE COMMUNICATION WITH INDIA THROUGH EGYPT.

The steam communication with India, by Egypt and the
Euphrates, has become a question of considerable interest,
and is justly looked upon as an object of primary im-
portance with reference to our possessions in the East. The
number of months required for a passage round the Cape,
and the great dangers to which ships are exposed during so
long a journey,—the tediousness of the voyage,—the great
inconvenience of so long a detention at sea,—and, above all,
the loss of time, and consequently of profit, in all mercantile
transactions with India, have always been serious objections
to the present route; but circumstances have till lately
prevented our adopting the more expeditious passage
through Egypt and the Red Sea.

The Venetians, profiting by the indulgence of the Moslem
Princes of Egypt, formerly enjoyed the advantages of Indian
commerce through this channel, and greatly enriched them-
selves by that lucrative trade. The Red Sea afforded an
easy intercourse with the continent and islands of India,
and the goods no sooner arrived at the Egyptian coast than
they were transported on camels to the Nile, and forwarded
in boats, by that river and the canal, to the city of Alexan-
dria. But the losses sustained by the sudden storms, so
common in this narrow gulf, (whose rocky shores, reefs, and
shoals, still alarm the pilgrims to the temple of Mekkeh, and
frequently present the wrecks* of their ill-fated barks) were

* While making my survey of the coast from Sooez to Berenice,
we made our fires principally from the wrecks of boats cast on the
Egyptian shore.