The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1851-05-23
A Railroad through the African Desert

Our telegraphic dispatches OF Tuesday morn
ing containing an outline of the news by the Arc
TIC advise us that the Viceroy of Egypt has sane
toned the project of railroad from Alexandria by
way of Cairo, to the lshmus of Suez, and that the
work will be commenced without delay. With
the most skfu European engineers at his COM
mand, and able at any time to summon one hun
dred thousand Arabs and Copts to the labor, the
energetic and enterprising lbrahim Pasha will not
allow long time to elapse before the whistle OF
the locomotive will wake the solitudes of Petra
and Mount Sinai, scare the marauding Bedouin out
Of his wits. and render the journey from Alexan-
dria to the Holy Land easy and as rapid as the
passage from Buffalo to New York. The traveller
will start from the base of Ceopatras Needle,
reach Cairo in six hours refresh himself at mann
moth depot in the midst of the waste bowling
wilderness" and stand upon the ancient shores OF
the Red Sea in two days after leaving the Delta oil
the Nile,
A railroad through the scene of lsraePs flight
and Pharaoh's keen pursuit through regions,
where the silence of death has reigned ever since,
amid thunderings and loud elemental strife, the
law was given from Mount Horeb-now for the
first tune in thousands of years, to be disturbed by
the clankng and roar of modern machinery Here
Job drove his numerous hocks to the great marts
OF the South. Over this hallowed ground his con-
temporary Moses led the murmuring and mutinous
Hebrews to the Land of Promise. In this now
drear solitude the hand of cultivated architectural
rock, and bid sumptuous mansions and temples
and mighty cities rise at its mandate.
This was the path Of the multitudinous hosts o
Amru, the successor of Mahomet when he led hi,
ianatical and victorious thousands from Syria t.
Cairo and Alexandria, poured his dense darl
masses upon Southern Europe, and aimed to sub
ject the Cross to the Crescent. These vast an,
arid deserts, over which the bald and rocky Sina
frowns in stern grandeur, long afterwards tremhet
beneath the tread of armed millions, whirling lik
some horrible tempest through the scene of Israel
trial and punishment. He VINO, from the position
of an humble subaltern, reached the throne of tn
Bourbons, by series of usurpations the most won
deriul on record, would rival the fame and miracle
of the Hebrew lawgiver. He eyes the same water
that closed over the enguifed charols and horseme
of Pharaoh, and exhibits the temerity of attempt
ing TO pass dry shod through the stormy waters {
the Arabian sea. But what was this Dissertation
in comparison with the painting and coughing
the iron horse within view of the spot where tn
burning bssh exhibited its mysterious sign 10 tn
trembling Moses, where the tables of the law wer
broken into fragments, and over which the pa
of cloud by day, and of fire by night, hovered an
guided the people OF Israel TO the lovely region
the Philistnes and the Canaaniies.
The tour of the Holy Land, which, in the day
of the Crusaders, was pilgrimage of immner
peril, and accompanied by prvations and suffering
little short Of marryrdom, will soon be accompshe
by party from NewYork ST Louis, within II
limit of single season. The tomb of Aaron tt
site OF Calvary, the Mount Of Olives, and the shoT
of the beautiful sea of Gtllilee, will soon be
cessibl- as the Tower of London or the Lake
Como now; and all the scenes of Scriptu
history become familiar to the eye, and commo
places in the mind of almost every transatlant
tourist [S Louis unioo, l4th inst.