The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-01 00:00:00

[PRICE 5D.,

STE'Aill-YACHT for the PASHA of EGYPT.
The attention of the numerous visitors to the Clyde
at tbis season has been attracted by a steam-yacht
lying i❑ the dock of Messrs. Tod and Macgregor, the
well-known steam-ship builders. The embellishments
of this vessel, which will bs ready for sea in a week,
are of such a gorgeous character as to lead to the be-
lief that in this case the power of wealth and the in-

genuity of man could go no further. This steam-
yacht is intended for the use of his Highness Abbas
Pasha, the Viceroy of Egypt, during his excursions
upon the Nile, and as the "Faid R4bani," or "Di-
vine Favour," as she is named, is beyond all doubt
the most brilliant steam-vessel ever fitted up, some
short description of her may not be out of place before
she leaves our shores for her ultimate destination.
The Nile, in bygone times, has been associated with
all that is magnificent in the materiel anitotnstruc-
tion of her princely barges ; for speaktnk .of the
aquatic progresSes of the beauteous 01,NDpatre,
the historians tell us " that the whole poop of
her ship :flamed with gold ; the sails were purple,
and the oars inlaid. with silver, which kept time to
the softest music. , A pavilion of cloth of gold was
raised upon duck, under 'which appeared the Queen,
robed like Venus, and surrevnded by the most beau-
tiful virgins of her Court,' nf whom some represented
the Nereids and others the Graces. Perfumes burnt
on the deck,
n:y.
epe
tycoveredrof tthe
e whichciet snbp
ainfinitude
r t oho dfi
to
huerrs t, o
people,
Thewg rhe
oabmt dis-
tances
upon the river on each side of its banks, which
ne
om
he

01,110,Aile is in destined to bear be most spleniid
vessel which'the world has seen, propelled by steam-
power, and excelling in beauty and costliness the
barge of the renowned Queen of Egypt as far as
modern art and science excel those of the ancients.
To afford the usual statistics, we have to state that
the Faid Raban6 is a most exquisitely modelled little
steamer of the following dimensions, viz.:—
Keel and fore-rake 180 feet.
Breadth of beam... ... • . 90 ~
Depth of hold .. ••• 9
~
Draught of water
• • • • 3 If
Power of engines ••• ... 150 horses.
The ship is furnished with oscillating engines, has
feathering paddles, and performs thirteen knots an
hour without the slightest perceptible vibration.

These engines are bright with brass and steel work,
and are altogether finished with the same taste and
care which a superior workman would use in turning
out a gold watch. Although the vessel has an ordi-
nary escape pipe, it will not be used, for the steam
will be blown into the water from the sides of the
yacht ; and his Highness and Court will escape those
drenchings of condensed vapour which occasisnally
make such havoc of ladies' dresses. She has three
safety-valves, and a beautiful small brass donkey en-
gine, quite independent of the others, which is used
for supplying the boilers with water when the large
engines are still.
The principal features of this ship, however, are her
interior furnishings and decorations, which, when
completed, will realise all that has ever been dreamt
of in connexion with Oriental splendour. Some no-
tion of the extent and magnificence of these fittings
may be learnt from the fact that 500 men in Glas-
gow and elsewhere have been employed upon them for
some time past, and are still working night and day.
Here is all that is beautiful in the carver's and painter's
art, and all that is gorgeous from the looms of
Lyons and Spitalfields. There are, in short, no
fewer than 450 pictures, of separate subjects, set in
frames, almost any one of which would adorn the
dra wing-room of a prince. To notice these decora-
tions, however, more in detail, we may state that
from the main-deck the visitor enters his Highness's
reception-room, which is in the poop—an apartment
of unrivalled beauty, fitted up with the richest rose-
wood bulkheads, doors, &c , the panels of which are
filled with those beautiful pictorial designs, on papier
mache, to which we have referred, and set in the
most elaborately carved and gilt frames. The di-
vans, which extend round the saloon, are covered.
with costly cloth of gold, from the front of which is
suspended gold embroidered needlework, and mas-
sive gold bullion fringe ten inches in depth. Between
the windows are a series of beautiful pictures of fruit
and flowers, birds, &c., and vases enriched with pre-
cious stones, executed by the new patent gem-ena-
melling process. These are set in frames, carved in
black walnut, and gilt in mat and burnished gold.
The ceiling between the beams (which are of maho-
gany, French polished) is filled with designs of fruit
and flowers on papier mache panels, enriched with
gold border mouldings. Round each door are richly
carved and gilt architraves and pilasters, all of diffe
rent designs, and representing various lovely floral
combinations.
Entering off the saloon, on the starboard side, is his
Highness's bed-room, which is fitted up in a corre-
sponding style of elegance and grandeur. On the lar-
board side is his Highness's dressing-room, similarly
adorned ; and adjoining these is the bath-room, the
floor and sides of which are lined with marble. Round
the windows are curtains of gold damask, edged with
gold lace and fringes, surmounted by carved and gilt
cornices, and valances of crimson silk velvet, em-
broidered with needlework of gold, with fuchsias,
fringe, tassels, &c., all of the rarest gold manufacture.
Enclosing every door are also gold damask curtains
of adifferent design, and all .edged with gold lace,
fringes, &c. The mirrors, of which there are five,
are enclosed by curtains of similar material ; for it
seems to be the custom of the Orientals to cover their
mirrors, except when in actual use. In the centre of
the floor of
rosewood table, this
gritsupreceptd on dolp on-ball stands a rich circular
bins,
covered with a
splendid table-cloth,
presenting
beautiful fruit and
floral designs, and edged with massive gold lace,
fringe, and tassels.
if possible, decked out in a
The lower cabins are,
style of still greater costliness and magnificence.
The descent to them is by a spacious staircase, en-
closed with mahogany, and adorned with stained
glass windows and papier mache panels, got up in the
highest style of the art. The steps of the stairs are
laid with very thick plate glass, painted with gold
borders, and representing precious stones in mosaic
work. At top and bottom of this unique flight of
steps are four large silver-plated columns of fine
chased work, between which are fixed the handrails,
and filled in with pleasing designs in carved fretwork
of rosewood. At the bottom of these stairs is a spa-
cious lobby, fitted up with polished bird's-eye maple
and elegant panels, from which branch off the wait-
ing-rooms for the Pacha's suite, with baths, Sm. Pro-
ceeding inward, we enter the dining saloon, which is
a fine apartment, about 20 feet square, fitted up also
in maple, with papier mache panels, and adorned with
a most brilliant cluster of paintings, representing
animals of the farm-yard, the forest, and the desert.
Some of the latter are painted in the act of killing
their prey, and others, especially of the bear and
monkey tribes, are thrown off in very comical atti-
tudes. It is worth while to notice that the human
figure is not in any part introduced, as being con-
trary to the religious notions of the Orientals. On
each side of the dining -room are placed large divans
of richly carved rosewood, covered with and
crimson
gold damask, with gold embroidery and fringes in
character similar to the adornments in the saloon
above. In the centre is a rosewood table like that
already noticed. In this hall are various other most
exquisite furnishings, which it would be tedious to
enumerate in detail.
At the end of the dining saloon, and toward° the
stern, are two large mirrors, between whichanscree
pair of folding doors, and through them an
-thenvtrery rich
obtained into another lobby, fitted LIP wifinely deco-
satinwood bulkheads, the whole P
rated. On each side of this space placed cabi-
lobby
nets, with carved fretwork plate-and_t
Ysil lass doors, for
rrom this lobby
the reception of gold or silversela ies Highness is ap-
the private retiring salooas t
artment corresponds in
proached. This beautiful a
isPordinary steamer. It is
and surrounded with
position with the cabin of
fitted up with rich satinwood,
ith
nflowers and gold damask on a
divans, covered w
ren
dfe.stooned with embroidered
rich white satin Sand massive gold bullion fringe 15
gold needlework,
front Round the windows doors, &c.,
inches deep io
g
cornices, in y
Old damask curtains, with gold'
are white
satndle similar to the upper
end of this apartment are placed a richly carved and
gilt table and mirror, and in the centre a beautiful
n two chairs, inlaid withearl
papiadorneder Inache
wi tath ble
deigns of birds and flow rs. ,
The
ceilings of this and the rest of the lower cabins are
covered with gold damask, worked according to ori-
ginal designs, with flowers, &c., and bearing his
Highness's crest in the centre, each panel forming a
complete design of itself.
The floors of these cabins, as well as that of the
poop saloon are covered with gorgeous carpets, which
for beauty of design and workmanship and richness of
texture far exceed any of the famed productions of
Brussels which we have seen, and we have pride in
stating that they are of Glasgow manufacture. We
may add that each carpet is worked in a single
piece. All the doors of the different apartments,
both in the upper and lower saloons, are surmounted
with richly-carved and gilt architraves and pilasters,
enclosed with curtains. The locks, hinges, and ban-
' dies of the doors are richly plated on German silver,
and they, as well as the finger-plates, ate exquisitely
chased.
The fore cabin contains twelve separate apartments
for tho tioooluulodrAion of the ritsba's officers and

spite. We need not enterinto a description of these,
.but may state our impressionthat the furnishing of
her Majesty's Victoria and Albert has nothing finer.
There are deck cabins for the attendants ,upon his
Highness and suite, and there is also an apartment
for the. Pasha's pipe and smoking apparatus', and • the
cooking range, the operations in which will be grin-
eiPitllY done with charcoal. A magnificent awning
covers the main deck, and 'poop. It is of rich silk
'damask, worked to an original 'design,- with deep silk
;fringe and hangers, It is' covered with fire-proof
cloth, to guard against any. damage . by sparks from
the funnel. • The quarter-deck and poop are covered
with oilcloth.
In point of decoration the outside of the yacht is
worthy of the interior. It is adorned in the highest
style of art, agreeably to the taste of the country 'for
which this little floating temple of 'costliness and
beauty is intended. Round all the windows, from
item to stern, are carved and gilt architraves, and the
bulwarks are ornamented with carved fretwork, re.
lieved with gold. The paddle-boxes are also highly
ornamented, and on a shield in the centre is the ves-
sel's name in Arabic—viz., the "Faid Raban4." The
figure-head is composed of his Highness's crest,
supported by two lions riChly gilt. The: hull is
painted a rich green colour, and is literally,one blaze
of gold from stem to stern.' . .
The Aid Rabani will proceed to sea abbut the Ist
of September, under the charge 'of Captain' Brown
and a trustworthy crew and able engineers. -She will
carry 'sails'on-jhry-masts, as auicitit!t7 to her steam-
poser,lure Us se will be remoied' on her arrival in
of ibtiriebe permanently
Eongythpet.thel4ril-esr aniodn, fromwiL Iher light, draught of water,
she will be able' to' sail up the "tither of .Rivers"
from the Delta till within twenty miles of the first
catarect—in all, a distance of about 800 miles. We
may add'tbat these external gorgeous fitting will all
be.removed from the yacht before she sets sail, and
that her hull, down to the water-line, will be covered
to protect her from injury by the sea. Once out,
however, a couple of days will serve to refit her as she
is destined to remain.
'Messrs. Tod 414 Macgregor, a Glasgow, bee
,baeLsoksated-42:41udezaaka_ahe -4;
building and fitting up this gorgeous
pleasure ship,
which they have effected by securing the services of
the most eminent artists in Great Britain and France.
We have no doubt that these gentlemen could have
sent out two magnificent ocean steamers with less
trouble to themselves. But " sweet is pleasure after
pain ;" their past anxieties will be consoled by the
fact that they are the builders of the most splendid
steam-yacht in the world. All the operations have
been personally superintended on the part of his
Highness Abbas Pasha, by Senan Effendi—a gentle-
man highly qualified for the task. He was one of 20
Egyptian youths sent to England in 1829 by the late
Viceroy, Mehemet Ali, to acquire the English lan-
guage and the art of shipbuilding, which he did,
partly in Portsmouth and partly in Sheerness dock-
yards, during a residence of nine years in the country.
He returned to Alexandria in 1838, and filled an
important office in the public dockyards there until
dispatched, in September of last year, to superintend
the construction of the Faid Raban6.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
DAILY NEWS.—Our readers
remarked the continual appearance i
piece of intelligence that might be nt our co
du
cannot falil
mtonshoafvea
stereotyped. " The
Cambridge University Commission
yes-
terday." The portion of our which contains
meeting
this
paper
reiterated announcement would be incomplete con
wtain!th out
it, and the number of yesterdays chronicledandi
to be
chronicled threatens to be such as to promise to the
Commission an age equal to that of a Chancery suit
under the venerable Eldon. Now, with all due respect
to the Commissioners, they are losing their time. The
evidence they will have in
.their power to bring forward
will be, as the French have it, like mustard after dinner.
The Oxford Commission has exhausted the subject. No
one after Mr. Stanley's able report need be at any loss
for materials upon which a judgment may be founded
on the University question.
i That report, and the evi-
dence which accompanied t, showed most clearly that
the present University government and administration
is an undoubted usurpation, and in opposition to all the
principles which presided at the foundation,
not only of the University, but of the Colleges.
It showed that the University of Oxford was
originally like all the other universities of
western Europe, an association of teachers united only
by mutual interest—that it chose its own lerslative
body and executive officers, its constitution being essen-
tially democratic. The report further showed, that
when the University had acquired such distinction, as a
place of education, as to make the participation in its
advantages a matter of great desire, benevolent persons
founded " houses of charity" where poor persons might
reside while studying at the University town. That the
lodgers in these " houses of charity" were bound by
statutes, which their successors still swear to observe,;to
a life of poverty and study, and to the performance of
religious ceremonies which cannot now be performed.
That a rigid rule of life was laid down. Further it was
Alown, that the value of the property left to these
" houses of charity" increasing, the influence of the
tenants for the time being increased also, and to such
a degree that they were enabled to exclude all other
teachers but themselves—in fact to absorb the Univer-
sity. The poor " houses of charity" have become rich
colleges, sharing amongst them about 150,000/ a year
derived from real property, and an enormous sum de-
rived from students' tees. They allow no one to come
to the University unless as a zirro!)er of a college, and
thus convert a great national institution into a private
establishment, managed for the benefit of a clique. Of
course similar evidence will be brought forward against
Cambridge. That University also will be proved to have
fallen into the bands of the tenants of the ancient
" houses of charity." It will be shown that democra-
ticsl institutions have been revolutionised into oligar-
chical,—that large funds have been grossly misapplied,—
and,,in short, that Cambridge has not been far behind
Oxford in the work of destruction. All this evidence,
it is clear, we might well spare; and the same might be
said of the inferences to be founded on them, as Mr.
Stanley's report contains nearly all that can be said
upon the subject. In the meantime there is something
left for the Commissioners to do which might well make
their labours as valuable to the nation as those of the
Oxford Commissi▪
on. Although a little is said in the
report of the latter body about the extension of the
studies of the University, the question could not be gone
into fully. Now—reform everything else in the
Universities and leave the curriculum of studies
alone, and you will have done but little to-
wards nationali▪
s.ng the institutions. The nation
will never be brought into sympathy with the
Universities until the education there becomes national.
The great learned men in England at the present day
are not those who have edited Greek plays, or written
Latin verse; they are those whose studies have resulted
in flinging tubular bridges over straits, in bringing one
portion of the island into closer connexion with another
part by means of railways—in transmitting messages
with the speed of lightning—in multiplying our resources
to an incalculable extent by means of machinery. Ask
any of the foremost men in the country wlte -9
d English
in the necessary education of a dis.tiegtp:
you a long
man of the present day, and be will
will require deep
list of subjects any one of which. weirve,
not ona of
study and toil to master.
. Bat
Oxfordob or Cambridge
these will the Universities of
recognise. Out of the vast ocean of human knowledge
our Universities
as it is known at the Presoene: ra two bays and inlets,
are content with survey Lie
the labours of the daring
smiling coutemptuously
lai_
d open to us the road to
navigators who have The Universities do not ea
immeasurable trf asus2..ed.
They have confined them•
pand with the national
recognition of excellence in two or three
branches of
.studY,
selves to the Bed treat the rest of the large map
of human as
if it were non-existent. Now, we
right to more from a university than this.
have ° iustitution, it should recognise excel-
If it is a ustleil_
d artment in which intellectual eminence
every eP
lemma .fed itself. The honours and rewards of the
can manifest
as national institutions, should be bestowed
University:,
oss
who are re-eminent in intellectual
upon ell
.h
any of those divisions of scieece which
hievetneu.s
BCmodern discoveries have brought to light, and upon
which the prosperity and the civilisation of the world
depend. There is no reason why, up to a certain point, tie
Universities should not be prepared 'o instruct the) oath e f
the country in the whole encyclopaedia of science, ab.
street and industrial. If this were the case, the students
and professors of all branches of learning, scientific and
practical, would be brought into close communion. The
result would be something like an intellectual tepnblic.
There would be no aristocracy of the professors of one
or two branches of learning. The spinner of Latin
verses would be forcedin
achieve-
mentsto recognise that his achieve-
ments were neither kind nor degree superior to those
of the man who had thoroughly mastered the know-
ledge of the principles of mechanical science. The
skilful analyst would no longer arrogate to himself a
university degree, to the exclusion of the disoovs rer of a
new motive power. The possessors of intellectual
might would be all brought closer together, however
their pursuits might diverge, and the Universities
would be
i elevated into the position they ought to o_o-
cnpy as interpreters, and in some sense directors, of the
national mind.

THE FEROZEPORE EMIGRANT SHIP.—Among the
passengers who left this country for Australia in the Feroze-
pore, which sailed from the Downs on the 2d of July last,
was a brother of a tradesman of Southampton. Ile took
out with him two nephews, youths about fourteen and six-
teen years of age, to seek their fortune in the golden country.
Letters were received in Southampton, by way of Havre,
from each of these three individuals on Saturday last. The
following is an extract from one of them: " Lat. 12.30 N.,
lon. 26.30 W. The Ferozepore, July 23, 1852. All well
on board ; no sickness whatever. We have passed several
vessels from London and Liverpool, which left a week and a
fortnight before us. We have ninety-eight passengers on
board. Amongst them are Messrs. Moyle and Edwards, for-
merly officers in the West India
.Company's service, also Mr.
a party of miners. We
have had a remarkably fine run, and have every prospect of
Wilkinson, of Southampton, with
In the Bay of Biscay we ran
atwmelvoest erompiroesspanhuosa voyage..ln the
bay
also a man was discovered
concealed on board. He is now working his way out. We
have seen plenty of sharks. We are about six hundred
miles north of the line A
, an, have got apparently into a
rainy quarter. We shall call at Brazil. The captain is
going to try a new route. We have bread instead of bis-
cuit. Good French rolls are made on board every morning.
Several passengers have filterers on board. There are two,
however, belonging to thb ship. We fare exceedingly well.
The captain in the afternoon comes and plays with us with
1 the ropes; SO do many of the passengers!'