Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1869-03-19
Letter from Egypt.
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Letter from Egypt.
We are kindly permitted to publish the
following very interesting and instructive
letter from a North Carolinian travelling i'll
the East, to gentleman in this city. We
are sure it will be highly relished by our
readers :
CAIRO, EGYPT, Feb. "a, 1862
Ny Dear COLONEL Il have to thank you for
your letter of the I'd of January, which reached
me here I do not propose to write You of ancient
Egypt with its Pyramids, its Obeisks and it's
Sphinx, for that you find in the books, bett than
can express it, though seeing IL is very diff rent
| from reading it, of this the most Oriental
City in the world and l could not describe it il
would for il is the Arabian Nights " in reality,
| though not brilliant. The donkey aud the
donkey boy. the long trains of camels and their
| loads and drivers constant source of amuse-
ment to ue. The population dressed in the Or-
| entail costume, pass under the general name OF
Arabs, but to our eyes are negroes, for they are
from the lightest shade CT nulatto to the purest
Ethiopian.
have inquired with regard to the cultivation
| of cotton i'll Egypt. The cultivation com
| reached to about six hundred and fifty thousan nd
bales. TIE land and climate seem sple.drly
adapted to it, and The weed as see it, seems
markedly fine and they state their Prodnct to be
irrigated, it never rains here. The irrigatl N
is done by the old Egyptian wheel turned by
horse, buffalo Or camel, but on the larger places
now they are using English steam engines, driven
with English coal. The pump used is the rotary
pump. The irrigation Is not only for
moisture, but it is all the manure the
land gets, for the manure IN this country is mixed
up with mud and made into round nat and
dried in the sun and used for fuel. The ploughs
are very rude, composed almost entirely of wood
of the same pattern as was used thousands Of
years ago, though some Of the larger farmers
al uH ng steam ploughs. The animal used to
draw the plough is very ugly ill-shaped buffalo.
But they have two great advantages over in
the cultivation of cotton one Is, they get cent
and half in gold for a pound of their cotton
seed at the gin; the other they plant white clover
all over the cotton fields in the month Of August
and now they have crop of white clover eight
| inches high ard very luxuriant. 1t is not only
| sufficient to feed their animals but all the
| animals of the country, including those OF thu
cities. They also sell all the weed III the winter
for fuel. SO that they sell from the crop besides
! the cotton what would seem TO me to be the
penses of the crop.
Their camels are the means Of transportation;
| his load is about twelve hundred pounds; he
| kneeIs down to be loaded and unloaded; one man
manages six of them. have thus seen with six
camels man coming to the depot bringing
tWenty-four two hundred pound bales. He trans
ports all the clover to market and all the cotton
weed The camel requires no wagon and nothing
but foot path for road and lives on the clover.
Able bodied hands In this country are worth
about twenty cents day, and in habits, and every
other respect very much such laborers as
your negroes now are. lie requires
amounts to turban and shirt. He requires
less food and keeps no Sunday. The cotton seed
are all sent to HULL in England, to be made into
oil but think they are making as much cotton
as the extent OF land will admit of, fortunate
thing for the cotton planters Of America.
1t is astonishing to see what the varieties of
You see tobacco, cotton, corn, sugar cane. cab
bages, csulifower, grapes, figs, wheat. dates
in fact, everything almost, that man wants to
grow. E#
rrha v;coroy 20 n,;l3;r, yory, av,o,e;,,, .o . i,
raj roads aud canals, constructed with conscript
labor. His railroads are well baliasted his cross
ties are of iron there is bar connecting two
iron pots about sixteen inches across and four
inches deep, convex surface being turned down.
wards There is a cIoss-groove on top that is at
right angles to the rail to receive the bar, and
that parallel with the rail acts as the chair.
l shall now stop this letter until get to Port
Said, place hundred miles to the East of
Alexandria. where 1 shall pass Sunday, and on
Monday take steamer for Jatfa. I shall reach
this place in small steamer on the Sucz Canal
and shall write You what think about that
great French work.
Isl f.".sa t PoRT SAID, February 9TH.
On Friday we came by rail via Zizzg to Ishmael-
la point half way the great canal. Along this rail-
road is fresh water canal from the Nile, and near
the salt canal to SueZ and the water is conducted
by iron pipes to this place tifty-ive miles This
fresh water canal will be ultimately very much
enlarged and will be used to convert the adjein-
ing dessert into rich fields. The great canal ia |
nearly in a straight line from sea to seq, and is
about 3 hundred and ten miles long. When
finished it will be 533 feet wide and ~ feet deep
I think it will be open for small boats next Win
ter, bat probably year more for sea-going |
steamers.
There are many points along the line where
there are sunken places. some of them now lakes
or bods of old lakes and contain the bitter:water
mentioned by the IsraehJes. These they use to
deposit their extra sand. The first operation is
to open a small channel by hand; this ia done
principally by Arab labor. After that they let
in the water and use their steam dredging ma.
chine. OF these they have a hundred and twenty.
six, the largest ever saw; these are worked by |
labor and are in operation every day,
and barges attendant on these dredges-all these
are are made of iron, The mechanical skill ex-
hibited in this machinery is very wonderful. l |
cannot give any dassied seconnt OF it now, nor |.
Wlul you lind it in any English publication. feb /