Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1886-07-17
ALONG THE NILE.
A VIVID DESCRIPTION By AN
AMERICAN OFFICIAL.
What United States Minister Cor
Saw on an Excursion-Pic-
turesque Views OF Oriental
Life and Character.


States Minister to Turkey, writes about
an excursion in Egypt made by him re.
Gently. Wequote from his letter:
We had been in Egypt before, but
never beyond Cairo or the Pyramids Of
Ghiza, so that the scenes on the railroad
travel were novel, diverting aud inter
esting. Having an apartment or carriage
to ourselves, we placed our portmanteaus
on the seat and mounted thereon as q
vantage situation, and for eight hours,
from Q A. NJ. till evening, we gazed out
of the windows at the strangeness of the
panorama, with its constantly shifting
colors and forms. Remember, it is win.
ter-mid- February. The grain harvest
is nearly ripe. The cotton is picked;
only few hollis remain in the fields. The
sugar cane is being cut and carried on
donkeys, camels and cars to the sugai
factories. The long stalks are seen every
where. The little Arab boys, in utter
nakedness, are grinding the succuleni
saccharine stalks between their glisten-
ing upper and neither teeth. Everyone
on the route has long sugar cane, carry
ing ono end in the mouth. The flies
are settling thick around the juicy ori.
ices. The sugar factories are at work.
The fumes not only add their fragrance,
but the long iron .chimneys give then
peculiar business look to the landscape.
There were other peculiarities fol-
which the car was point of observation.
Not the costumes of the people, for they
seemed uniformly dark or blue
bournous. The sexes are hardly dis.
tinguishable from each other, except by
the mustache, beard or turban. After
an eager glance toward the pyramids Of
Sakarrah, near old Memphis, the null
titudinous mud huts and villages appear.
Palms in abundance everywhere plume
themselves in their stately beauty. The
soil is being ploughed in places for the
new crop. The people are said to be in
dustrious, but everywhere we see them
sitting under walls, in the shade, and
covered with fiies-eyes, ears, face, hands,
feet covered with flies. The animal life
seems to move as slowly as if it had
ages to do lifetime of work. The buf,
falo is very unlike our almost obsolete
big-headed species. 1t is seen in the
fields ploughing with the old one handled
plough of the time of Sets, or turning
the water-wheel. At a distance, and
especially when cooling in the water, ii
looks like pachyderm. In fact its
brown-black tough hide, ungainly form
and hideous face, to which the horn
gives sinister expression, make him an
object of curious interest. Here and
there we observe shepherds, gen.
orally children, with shepherd dogs
Some are Bedouins, with tents OF
camel-hair, black and dirty. They
have focks of sheep and goats,
and often mixed flocks. There
are generally donkey and a yellow
dog and plenty of naked children. Vel
low and white flowers are already be
decking the meadows. At various times
on the railroad we obtained glimpses o.
the white and yellow sands; and the
peculiar masts of the dahabiehs at an cd;
angle, with their still more quaint sails
Ridges and plains of sand soon give way
to villages, which are the sign and sit,
of palm groves. On both sides of tn,
valley of the Nile lone. arid and tawnI
mountains appear. They are picturei
not unlike the Desert of Moab-out OF
whose wilderness the Baptist came. They
are the shaggy barriers of the fruitfu
valley. For such fences as are needed
to separate the fields, the cane, inter.
woven, makes a tolerable pretext OF
protection. It would not ''turn" a reso
lutte rabbit. Everywhere are seen stakes,
indicating metes and bounds and propri-
etorship, which have to be renewed when
| the Nile flood disappears. Old well
sweeps are seen, such as were common in
Ohio in my boyhood. They lift the water
out of the soft soil to the surface. Tit
bottom of the well is, of course, on leve
with the river; aud, as I said, the river
is everything in Egypt. 1t is now quit,
low; still, the fields have ponds in them,
but the pond water does not seem stag
nant. Indeed the people use the waite
for every purpose-coOking, washing,
bathing, &c.
After the buffalo, for number ano
utility, come the donkey and camel. ]
had no idea that the donkey was such &
"daisy" in Egypt. Bridleless and sad
dleless, he will amble gayly with a family
on his vertebre. He is as patient and a
meek as if his burden were nothing.
Sometimes you do not see his legs and
only parts of his ears when he is loaded
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