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

EGYPT,

, We have been favoured with the following ex-
, 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 for
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 (170-1:1),
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. We 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 a 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
Khanaseen, 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 39 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 a
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/ 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 21 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,
which 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 are
laid out and partly built long. Good ground near
the hotel is worth one Napoleon the square
pike of metre. The French Menageries 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 up 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,
a:.d I fancy that a large number of buildings will
_ _

accumulate about the dock and along the sea em-
.

bankment. Tho Menageries have laid their plans
very well. Their workshops by the aide 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 25 years could not get a
ship even at Suez, the Messageries are no sooner
introduced into the Red Sea than they are allowed

:o 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
labour they give upon the work. Until the

Egyptian Office gives up 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—and they will know
that all Eastern government and policy is personal,
and in the patriarchal spirit, and that nothing 16

to be got without asking for and taking it.
" The railway has fallen into the last stage of
disorganisation as to its management, and ruin fts
to its state and material. It is impossible to de.

system that pre-
vails.' found the platform
scribe the confusion and want of
One day at the station
from one end to the other crowded with hajjis and
three a
their baggage. I asked ono 110 W long he had been
on the platform—he said -ays. Another
answered that he
platform of the station, under
the actually
roof. living
One o n h
the ad been there 10 days-10 days
Monday about 300 hajjis got into
the waggons for Suez. The train was drawn out
to allow
the Alexandria arrival train to come in,
end then shunted back itito 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 same plight. People are sometimes
13 hours getting to Suez or Alexandria from Cairo.

As to goods, tney are stolen and pitches here and
there, and nobody can ever get any information
about them. . . . Accidents aro beginning to crop

up, not to mention the number of unfortunate

'c'llows who are run over without anybody hearing

of ii

" 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
Mussulman idea. I think, however, that the latter
will be brought round."

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