The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-22 00:00:00

THE RAILWA

RED SEA

Y FROM.

'AIR° TO TIJM

ALEXANDRIA, Sept. 11.—The periodic rise of the
Nile, to which this country owes its fertility, is
always watched withanxious eyes by its inhabitants
during this month, towards the middle of which it
usually attains its greatest height. The public crier
in Cairo proclaims aloud each day the number of
cubits to which the river Las risen, as indicate 1 by
the Nilometer in the Island of Rhoda. During
the last few days it has been found to remain nearly
stationary, at about the height of 21 cubit, this
being a very slow rise at this date ; and as it ape . -
pears to be already receding, instead of rising two •
to three cubits above that height, it has already
caused some anxiety for the next year's crops of
grain and cotton, which depend on the extent and •
continuance of the inundation of the land by
the Nile at this season ; for according to its abuse'
dance or deficiency will the productiveness of the
land be increased or diminished—a. greatly defi-
cient rise of the river causing a great scarcity of
duce,
prs and, es has occurred at srated periods,
bringing a famine on the " Land cf Egypt." The
Viceroy has aln ady manifested some anxiety on this
head, and has intimated the poss,bility, at an e
period of the present year, of his being obliged to
prohibit the export of grain, as a precautionary
measure, to obviate the consequences of a scarcity
during the next year. There appears to be, how-
ever,
no positive grounds as yet for such a precLed-
ing.
The constructiou of the railway from Cairo to
Suez to complete the line from the Mediterranean
to the Red Sea is advancing very slowly, only about
50 miles having been made since it was begun nearly
two years ago. It were to be wished that a certain
rowerful and friendly influence had been used with
the Viceroy, Said Pasha, to hasten the completion
of this work of real and pracdcal utility to Egypt,
instead of wasting his resources by the enormous
expenses he has been incurring in forwarding M.
Lesseps' utopian project of the Suez Ship Cam],
from which Egypt can never derive any benefit
whatever, but on the contrary, will be greatly in-
jured immediately, by the way iu which it is pro-
posed to carry it out, in hiving fully one:third of_
her already too scanty agricultural labourers talsen
away into the Suez desert to workat'this monstrous
project, and remotely, if it ever should bee finish:id,
by its directing the present transit trade to Egypt.—
which passes through and benefits! the country—
into the Suez desert, removed so many miles from
its habitable confines. It is however, pretty well
known now here that Said Pasha has altered his
views as regards this famous project of M. Lesseps;
and reports says that he is thoroughly disgusted
with it, both on account of the heavy expense it
entails ;upon him, and the complications it has
given rise to with the British Minister, whose op-
position to it he was never led to anticipate !
Said Pasha cert duly deserves credit from over-
laud passengers for having, of his own free will,
very shortly after his accession to the Viceroyalty,
ordered that this railway from Cairo to Suez should
be made forthwith, and from his owa resource=,
which at time were very limited. Had the making
of it been committed to Mr. Stephenson, and
carried in the direction he pointed out, continuing
the Alexandria line direct from near Bench through
the Tumalah to Suez, being nearly a perfect
level, it would have been finished long since, and at
considetably less expense than the present line,
which it is feared will eventually have to be aban-
doned on account of its running through shifting
sands in some parts, and chiefly from the want of
having a supply of water at any part of the line.
Said Pasha, with his own ingertieur-em-chef
(Mougelet Bey), would make a railroad. and would
mese it in their own selected direction, and there
it is (surely enough 0, on the Suez desert, half
finished, dragging "its long length slowly along"
towards Suez.
But it is not, I presume generally known in Eng-
land that in making this railway to Suez -he had
a political object in view ; nor would it be sup-
posed that in taking up M. Lesseps' project, the
most persuasive arguments used with him were
political. It was perhaps the instinct of self-pre-
servation at the time to place himself in-a suffi-
ciently independent position to be able to resist the
cabals or conspiracies, as he imagined, formed
against him at Constantinople ; and so Egypt WAS '
to be isolated from the Turkish territories by the
broad and deep ship canal across the Isthmus of
Suez, and the Hedggas (Aralaias),.resonquered for -
the Sultan by his father, Mohamed Ali, was to be
placed within his grasp by a railway to Suez, and
by a fleet of screw steamers in the Red Sea, for
which he had formed a nominally trading company
with his own paid directors, and for which M.
Lesseps got an order to purchase three or four of
t hose large screw steamers built for a French Atlantic
company at Havre. There is no doubt that such ideas
were put into his head by parties here who sur-
rounded him from interested motives, flattering
his ambition of becoming, like his father, a Eure-
pe in celebrity by his great Andertakingss This -
had been leading him into enormous expenditure
in maintaining and equipping in the most
expensive way a large standing army, and •in •
various other ways by yielding to the impor-
tunities of projectors proposing schemes in which
they are interested, or soliciting orders for the pur-
chase of various articles, on the execution of which
they make enormous profits. And in this way
some favoured few have made, and others. are ex-
pecting to make, fortunes in this country. But
unfortunately for the latter, and perhaps fortu-
nately for the Viceroy, his finances appear to be at
present at a very low ebb. , It is a notorious fact
here th the pay of nearly all the Government
officials, and even of the officers of high rank in the
army, is five or six months, some eight or nine
months, in arrears. Said Pasha himself has been
borrowing money from some of the banks at an ex-
orbi ant rate of interest, and still he continues this
recaless expenditure as above indicated in a way
that fir exceeds the means which the revenue of
this country (though larger for its extent than that
of any of the smaller States of Europe) places at his
disposal. But Egypt is a coun ry of wonderful
resource s, and S tid Pasha is a noble minded, en-
lightened, and gent:rous Prince ! So says M. Les-
gees, who has had, no doubt, good reasons for
asserting it, as he had "thy honour-of approaching
and appreciating. his Highness."
TLe yearly increasing trade of this country with
Gre it Britain, both in its exports of the staple arti-
cles of c rt•on and grain and in its imports of cotton
manufactures, Sec., is so great, and the political im-
portance of preserving Egypt as a dependence of the
Ottoman Empire—tiereby ensuring the overland
route via Su -z to India from being interrupted—is
so evident, that it is really a matter of surprise to
some that the active influence of England, through
her representative here, has been so little felt, merely
because seldom or never exercised on the councils of
the Viceroy, while he has been left wholly to the
guidance of other more energetic European func-
tionaries. This is the more to be regretted, whether
it arises from indifference or a laisser faire principle
on the part of the British Government, er the apa-
thy of its representative here, because the present
Viceroy, it is well known, would readily lend his ear
and be easily led to act on the disinterested advice
which would be given him from that, quarter, and
which, it is said, a more thoughtful review of late
events and of his present position has made him
latterly better able and more disposed to appreciate
than ever.
However, the transit of the overland mails and
homewards through
Egypt, in which the British .pub
passengers both outwards and
most interested, is really effected very efficiently
lio are,' at presenttl,
under the administration of this Government ;
though one of your London contemporaries cam-
plains very fairly regarding it, particularly rbeeinrg-
ofofrocetmhasethe largeness .of was
oprevious
delay mails—thecomplainedfa.
of the mails and.
rutthatnineagvgotoroine
unavoidable
number
tet
unexpectedly arriving at Suez at the same
of passengers, Indian and Aus-
tralian,
time. The difficulty of finding.camels sufficient at
a day's notice, when an extraordinary number are
required for the transit across some 90 miles of
desert, can be easily appreciated ; but the active
agent here of the Peninsular and Oriental' Com-
pany had some time ago suggested to the- Egyp-
tian administration the advantages that would be
derived from making use of the portion of the rail-
road already made, towhich they at once assented-;
yet, strange to say, some reu'ine official objections
were - made to using it for the mails ,until. the
wholei line of railway from Suez to Cairo wag
opened ! This appears incredible, but is wily on a
par with what has just taken place here-regarding
the forwarding of the Bombay mails this time,
which were sent by a slow French steamer leaving
here for Marseilles, instead of sending them by her
Majesty's despatch steamer earache() (lying in this
harbour, together with her Majesty's steam corvette
the Desperate, awaiting the arrival of the Siamese
Ambassador), by which the
intelligence from India,
by this mail, so anxiously expected, would have
arrived fully two days sooner y
than bF h.
steamer; An
this renc
d yet we complain of an.accidental
delv of a few hours across the desert on the part
of the Egyptian transit administration ! Cann rte
then, the Admiralty really spare a despatch.
steamer, while so many are cruising about the
Mediterranean accompanying Lord Lyons' fleet, to
await the arrival of the Indian mails here, and.
obviate such delay in their transiniseion. to Eng-
land as must occasionally occur from accident or
irregularity of arrival hero of the mail steamer,
on so long and dangerous a sea voyage as thatfroni
India, to Suez - -