The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-06 00:00:00

&r,z,e4y4,D

t

Ki!

EGYPT,

We have been favoured with the following ox.
tract from a letter dated Cairo, April 19 :—" This
has been a remarkable year in Egypt, counting from
autumn last, when the murrain was at its height.
It has not perfectly subsided to this day. The num-
ber of animals carried off is not precisely and pro.
bably never will be exactly known. The Govern-
ment gave out 900,000, then 600,000, and I fancy
they cannot have been less than 400,000. What-
ever the exact number, the result has been great
scarcity of beef, which, causing the mutton to come
more into demand, soon so diminished the supply of
it that none was to be had on several occasions—fei—
three days together. It was discovered at the same
time, that is, towards the latter end of the winter,
that the stock of grain was very low. The price
quickly rose to 250 piastres the ardeb (170—X1),
at which price it is now, and this by the econo•
mist prices of the 26th March in Mark-lane is
just 64 piastres per ardeb dearer than there. Then -
the vegetables are scanty, cotton having supplanted
everything. Wo had also a very cold winter, the
thermometer having marked for some mornings in
the latter part of January 10 degrees below freez-
ing point, and the canals had n good half inch
thick of ice on them. This killed nearly ail the
burseem, which greatly told on the horses. For a
month or two, off and on, we had an excess of
Khamseen, though for the last few days it has
been cold enough. All these causes combined have
developed typhus and smallpox to an extent that
the deaths in Cairo, which should not exceed at
this season 3t or 40, were five days ago reported
to be 120 a day, and the villages are likewise in-
fected.
" The Suez Canal Company have opened
station at Shaloof, 14 kilometres north of Suez.
Thither are we taken in a small dhahabeih,
partly sailing and partly towed by camels, in two
hours on the Sweet Water Canal, which terminates
at about three-quarters of a mile from Suez with
a sluice-gate, of which the sail is 13 centimetres
above the quay of the hotel, reckoned to be 1-1 mtrs.
above the main level of the sea. They are obliged
to run off a considerable quantity of water from
the sluice, or it would accumulate in the canal and
overflow the banks. Indeed, in many places it
percolates through the banks and forms large pools
along the inner base. But these banks will con-
solidate in time. The fresh water canal is on a
mean of 2 metres deep, and 26 metres wide at
the water line, with slopes of two horizontal to
one perpendicular for the banks inside and out,
and must be pronounced a complete success. The
effect on Suez is already visible. The population,
hich some years ago was not more than
2,000, is stated to be now 14,000. The walls of
the town have disappeared, and long streets aro
laid out and partly built long. Good ground near
the hotel is worth one Napoleon the square
pike of metre. The French Messageries Company
have run off a branch railway from the main line at
a point, say half a mile, before it enters the old level
of the town, and carried the branch along the back
of the town, then along an embankment on the east
side of the sandy spit, which embankment is made
for about 2,000 metres towards the side on which
the dock is being excavated, which, we were told,
was 4,500 metres from the beach behind Suez. Of
the dock had excavated a hole 50 inches in diame-
ter and seven metres deep, from which the sea was
kept out by the embankment joined by the stuff
out of the hole. The soil was for 20 feet clay and
sand, then gravel, and at 27 feet they were on a
concreted bed, but expected clay again under it.
The dock will be 110 metres long, 25 wide, and
have a direction W. 23 degs. S. when completed.
Quays are to be added at either side of the
expanse (towards the port), which will enable
ships to come np and load and unload along.
side. Around the site of the dock are spaces al•
lotted to the Messageries, Peninsular and Oriental,
and Mejidich Companies, for erecting warehouses,
and I fancy that a large number of buildings will
accumulate about the dock and along the sea em-
bankment. The Messageries have laid their plans
very well. Their workshops by the side of the
branch railway at the back of the town are on
rather a large scale, with at present only one steam
hammer, but with many other machines, and room
for additional ones. This is where the railway
station should have been, and where our people and
the Foreign Office who for 23 years could not get a
ship even at Suez, the Messageries are no sooner
introduced into the Red Sea than they are allowed
to construct a dock after their own idea at a cost
to the Viceroy of £280,000, and have lately got an-
other £70,000 as a compensation for the Egyptian
that
andnot ruinhing
labour they give upon the work. Until the
Egyptian Office gives np its idea of influencing the
Egyptian Viceroy through moral powers, commer-
cial interests, &c., we shall be nowhere in EgYPt•
Let them read the spirit of the East, as given ill
Bible. Take Solomon to wit—qind theyknow
that all Eastern government and peetra:
and in the patriarchal spirit, and is
to be got without asking for and taking it will
It is impossible to
want of system that pre-
vails." The railway has fallen into Pt:elk:as: of
disorganisation as to its management, as
to its state and material.
de-
scribe the confusion and
platform
from one end to the other crowded With hajjis and
One day at the station found the
he had been
had been there 10 days-10 days
three days. Another
onth baggage.
theire
platform--be
latf 0 r asked
mnl_th;e
esplatforma
ioned
owf
One Monday about 300 hajjis got into
Itlnegstation, under
aaentsuwaellryedlitvhinagt hoe
s for Suez. The train was drawn out
on
tthhee
wroaogf.g
' to allow the Alexandria arrival train to come in,
and then shunted back into a middle line of rails,
and forgotten till Thursday, the people being all this
time in the train ; and another train was actually
five days in the eame plight. People are sometimes
13 hours getting to Suez or Alexandria from Cairo.
As to goods, they are stolen and pitched here and
there, and nobody can ever get any information
about them. . . . Accidents are beginning to crop
up, not to mention the number of unfortunate
fellows who are run over without anybody hearing
of it.

The iron-clad evidence commission is here.
Ismael Pasha won't give evidence on oath, and his
Minister, Sherif -Pasha, pretends that he cannot on
his conscience swear either, which is rather a new
Mussulrnan idea. I think, however, that the latter
will be brought round•"

[ADVERTISEMENT.]—Holloway's Pills—Nervous Debi-
lity.—No part of the human machine requires more watch-
ing than the nervous system ; upon it depend health and life
itself. These pills are the best regulators and strengtheners
of the nerves, and the safest general purifiers. Nausea, head•
ache,giddiness,numbness, and mental apathyyield to them.
They despatch in a summary manner those distressing dys-
peptic symptoms, stomachic pains, fullness at the pit of the
stomach, abdominal distension, and overcome bath capri-
cious appetite and confined bowels, the commonly accom-
panying signs of defective or deranged power. Holloway's
Pills are particularly recommended to persons of studious
and sedentary habits, who gradually sink into a nervous
and debilitated state unless some resiorAtiVe, such as his
pills, be occasionally taken,

;(

1

• •
numbers. The nuth-western counties exparene,2,
a high rate of mortality ; and the deaths were 11,978
in a population of 1,833,714 in 1861. The west
tnidiand counties suff:red variously ; Staffordshire
aud Shropahiro less proportionately from cold than
the neighbouring counties. The north midland
counties experienced a medium rate of mortality ;
the deaths were 7,073 in the winter quarter of 1862,
and 1468 in that of 1861. The annual rate in the last
win ter was 25.84 per 1,000. The rate of the north-
western coo nties, Cheshire and Lancashire,was 30 97
per 1,000. The mortality et the counties which ai e
now buffering from the cotton crisis has always been
nigher than the mortality of the rest of the kingdom,
owing chiefly to the sanitary defects of the town.
It appears in the last report of the Central Executive
Committee for relief of the distressed districts,
that the number of persons employed in the reills
fall
time has increased from 210,739 in Jan. last to
232,307 in March, The report adds, that a large
nutuber returned as out of work, are in fast earning
considerable though irregular wages on out-door
labour. There are some places in which the relief
committees have suspended their operations without
risk to the health of the population; and out of 172
districts reported on there are only 101 in which
voluntary funds are now distributed, Still there
are many unions in which the distress of the unem-
ployed has been bat very slightly mitigated.