Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1880-12-15
Egypt
CAIRO, October,

Otfi NtfN "ll'i AAOl 1httlh iOuilh IL oOs W ufh
famine drove him from the limestone hills
of South Palestine to the low muck lands
of Egypt.
We arrived while the Nile is at its food,
having reached its hight for the season the
week before. 1t is verV gradually dimin-
ishing, perhaps not over one foot per
week. which is slower decline from
flood than any river we know of. Long
and deep canals are everywhere filled wit
the water, and retained for the purposes OF
irrigation; and lands all over the country,
leaving only high, narrow strips for travel,
are covered at varying depths, not except
ing the land where crops have started
forth from the ground. One is reminded
in travelling for miles and miles of the
narrow strip Of roadway connecting Mil
ton and Grand Isle, only there is not II
shrub TO divert the cy5 from land and
water.
There is a vast population always dur
ing the day, anl some part of the night, in
motion, on foot, on donkeys and on drom-
edares. You cannot tell where they
come from or whittier going. They are
conveying goods, or have been somewhere
to a feast, or are watching the opportunity
to gather harvests of dates, corn or cotton,
and to SOW seed for another harvest before
the water is gone. They sleep upon the
ground beside their beasts of burden, cook
and eat beside the road, watch day and
night their fields, seem to have little,
think of little, care for little, and are as
low in the scale of being as thousands of
years agone.
There are large crops of corn in the
Nile valley now in the milk, and roasted
by the natives for eating; but the ears are
short and the corn does not look Mt all
equal to ours. 1t is planted so thick ii
cannot be hoed. A better planting might
produce larger corn. But the fodder is
valued for the beasts of burden.
The date palm is the only palm of Egypt.
Large groves of these grow everywhere
The harvest of sweet fruit is being gath
cred. Men enter the forest naked to
gather the fruit, as the Nile water is up to
their necks about the trees. One man re.
marked, with smile, You of America
have the money, but we have the dates.
This is true, and they are AS satisfied with
the abundant growing date as we are with
plenty Of money.
Beside the corn and the date. beans are
an excellent and large product of Egypt.
The cotton harvest was also being gather.
ed This is large and valuable. We
were surprised to come upon in the desert
at Zgzag in European city of 10000,
with cotton mills stretching mile OF
more away, the center of the cotton busi-
ness of Egypt. 1t is under the control OF
| Englishmen, as almost all the practica
offices are, as the postol1ice telegraphs
etc, aud made Il wonderful progress dur.
ing our war, so that cotton nearly des-
troyed the existence of other crops, "A lust
equilibrium having only recently been
restored. At this place four railroads
center-to Cairo, to Alexandria, to Suez
to I5nalia. 1t is opposite an ancient city
of brick runs perhaps the brick are
some of those the Israeites made. 1t is
SO hot here we should think we were in
Virginia in August.
Egypt is historically unsurpassed. The
twelfth of Genesis shows Abraham aud
Sarah travelling here. Jacob and his de-
scendants We're here in Goshen, ovel
which we travel thinking of their past il
contrast with this present. Moses was
educated here and Joseph took his bride
from On. These places are identified by
impershable monuments. There is no
power here to move or destroy them. An
cient Memphis, over the desert from
Cairo, making us journey of round
forty miles, was visited. God has burlc|
it us He said He would do Under thc
desert, we walked in the halls of the Ser
apeum and of the temple of Thplie. The
latter WAS visited by Herodotus, and wa
ancient then. To-day the halls and thei
writings are as fresh us of yesterday, pre-
served through the ages in this dry sand
no rain, no damp ever touching them.
We thankfully leave the burning sand
for steamboat ride of fifty miles on tn
Suez canal. By-the'by, this canal is no
straight. from sea to sea. The distanc
from the Mediterranean to the Red sea
only about seventy eight miles, while tn
canal is ninety-eight. The upper part G
the Rel sea, as of old. is too shallow 70
the large ships that pass, so the cana
winds round the shadows and enters tn
Red sea toward the side where sufficien
depth of water is found to float the larges
steam vessels. What do you suppose
, the toll of such vessel? One passed re
Gently for S6l0000 toll. believe for
+ days time. however, is saved, and in
mense expense of coal and labor, so 20
t hear no grumbling over the costly tolls
The canal is constantly used. We say
eight or ten steamers using or ready
; use it, at Port Said, the steamboat and tel
4 egraph center of the world.
!. The canal company are proprietors {
= three -fourths of an acre strip of land o.
: both sides of the canal, in Asia and Africa
| So such places as Port Said are free citie
} no taxes whatever, except custom due'
, If any body does not want to pay take
| there is chance for them, plenty of de-
i ert each side of the canal not built upol
3 Egypt, as a whole, under the last khet
/. i've, shows progress under modern idea
l. Alexandria bears marks of it. Cairo
a especially interesting in its change
n streets and buildings. Many blocks {
buildings, six stories, taking place {
moslem one story with plaster domi
= Several stores are arcaded as on Rivoli
/. Paris. But there is filth enough, poverI
1t enough, disease enough, ignorance enoug
= and wrong enough for generations to e.
s. pend their efforts upon to remove for I'll
d benefit of humanity. Every worker in